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Episode 708 - Jurgies Into Mystery #13: Start of Spiral
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We're back on the Dan Jurgens run on Thor this week, and Thor's getting involved in international conflicts! Iron Man, Jake Olson and everyone else seems to think this is wrong.
Covering Thor (1998) #57-62.
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
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00:00:28
Speaker
Right as I'm bored. What plaything can you offer me today?
00:00:53
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome to War Rocket Ajax. This is the Internet's most explosive comic book and pop culture podcast, and we are your hosts. My name is Chris Sims, and I have picked an epitaph for my co-host, Matt Wilson. Matt, would you like to pick an epitaph for me?
00:01:15
Speaker
I think your epitaph should just say, he was invincible. demonstrably false by the nature of what it is. He was invincible parentheses super blog. Hey Matt, if if that is my epitaph, you're gonna find out whether ghosts are real.
00:01:38
Speaker
I actually texted ah thea the the group chat, the the the sword brothers. group chat that that's Yumi and Benito Serino about this and you did not take the bait to ask what it was. No, I was in the middle of something while that conversation was going on and so I could not reply. And by the time I was able to reply, the conversation had moved on to something else.
00:02:08
Speaker
As though any of us, any of the three of us are not always imagining the inevitable. Sure. Yes, of course. But yes, I was curious what it was. You said you do what mine was. I think you should take this under advisement. All right. I don't know what your burial plans are for yourself or your funeral plans for yourself. I have some for you.
00:02:32
Speaker
Okay. What? Yes, you do. What I've always said would be my epitaph. What would be on my gravestone was just, he was pretty okay. I think that is both appropriate, but also underselling it. Matt, I think you're better than pretty okay. I mean, that's the joke. that like i I love understatement. I always will. that's That's true. I do often say that about you. Yeah. Please, please. I'm all ears to hear your your suggestion.
00:03:00
Speaker
I think yours should be, even the sun goes down. I'm not immediately catching the reference. Even the sun goes down, heroes eventually die. Horoscopes often lie. Oh, it's it's outcast. Yeah. Right, right, right, right. It's him and I, Aquimini. Yeah. ah I think that should, that's gonna have to be like a husband-wife buried next to each other thing. Where like, I have half the lyrics to the hook to equipment eye and Marlene has the other half because she and I are equipment eye. Yes, I know. You suggested that we get equipment eye tattoos, which boy, I'm thinking about it actually. That's a great suggestion. It was a great suggestion. Yeah, the the outcast playing card deck that I got you has a really good equipment eye symbol on it.
00:03:54
Speaker
If we're talking song lyrics for epitaphs, I think yours should be what's on your tattoo. That's a good one. That's a good one to go out there with. Yeah. the the The bit from For an Object by the Mountain Goats. Yeah. Here's what's good is if I just get the part that I have on my tattoo, then it's a tombstone that says if you can't beat them.
00:04:17
Speaker
Which does imply that i I will die fighting the dead.
David Lynch Tribute
00:04:24
Speaker
Folks, we got a great show for you. It's been a hell of a year already. Already. Already. We're recording this on a day where I just sat at my desk and cried for part of my workday. so you You know where I'm at. <unk> We expecting this to be a have a weird vibe in this episode, Matt? It might. That would be one way of honoring David Lynch, who passed away the day we recorded this. But we're going to try to have a very good show for you that's not that doesn't have a weird vibe in that way. We are going to read some Dan Jurgens' Issues of Thor, although one of them is not written by Dan Jurgens.
00:05:07
Speaker
it It is, ah in fact, ah the probably the only creator to do a fill-in in both the Walt Simonson run and the ah the Dan Jurgens run of Thor. It's a Christopher Priest issue set in the far off year of 2026. That's right. And we will talk briefly about that issue. It's not really a continuation of any of the story going on in the Dan Jurgens run, but ah we will we will talk about it all when we get to that.
00:05:37
Speaker
But Chris, before we get into Jurgys, we do have some business to take care of, starting with thanking our newest supporters over on Patreon.
The Value of Patreon
00:05:48
Speaker
That's right, Matt. Now, these are the people who they know that I am ah ah currently fun employed. They know that this is my only job. They go all the way down to 708 Gimmick Street. And you know what's there. The last time we talked about what was on Gimmick Street, we were talking about the Anarchist bookstore.
00:06:07
Speaker
yeah ah poar poja We had a couple that we didn't talk about because it's it was the annual instances of Mount Premise and the Flash Gordon Memorial Auditorium. It is weird that Giving Street is kind of a five-dimensional spiral like that. yeah yeah That's the way Giving Street is constructed. But obviously, because the Flash Gordon Memorial Auditorium is right there,
00:06:37
Speaker
Across the street is the In-N-Out where all the winners go after they win awards. Man, I i i wish i wish there was a street that had Red Bridge's BBQ and an In-N-Out on it and a boja multiple Bojangles. A Bojangles, a Hardee's, I don't know what other food establishments. A porn store. There is a porn store. And there's an adult toy store, parentheses, non-sexual, I know. Right, yeah.
00:07:07
Speaker
Just a lot of ah lot of varied businesses. Local businesses on gimmick street, every everybody. ah But that's right. If you go down to 708 gimmick street, you know what else is there? There's a mailbox. And in in olden days, you used to have to get a check or a money order, drop it in there, send it to us. that because it's actually easier to mail it from there than to drive down to 316 gimmick street where we record. But nowadays, you don't have to go through all that trouble. You can just go to patreon dot.com slash war rocket Ajax, where you can kick in as little as a dollar to help support the show in the year 2025. And help me and Matt pay those gimmicks they keep sending the mail called bills. Yeah, that's never gonna stop. They're never gonna stop sending those. They I've asked them politely.
00:07:56
Speaker
They won't. Now, Chris, we've done specials and award shows, and I sincerely don't know where we left off in terms of thanking patreon new Patreon supporters. So I'm going to just start at the start of December of 2024 and thank all our new supporters since then. Sounds like a great idea, Matt. ah So first up is Don.
00:08:26
Speaker
Thank you, Don. Also, Wednesday Sofia. Thank you, Wednesday Sofia. And that's it, I think. ah We did have some people add or raise their memberships and that we are greatly appreciative of. Thank you for doing that. But ah those are the only two new Patreon supporters I think we've gotten since the start of December 2024. As we have mentioned in the past, and the offer still stands, as soon as we get to 420 paid Patreon patrons, and we're currently at 400 patrons, we will take an edible
00:09:17
Speaker
of some kind, both of us, and record Boko. But we can only do that if we have 420 paid patrons. We have 400 paid and 538 total patrons. So if 20 of those 138 people become paid patrons you will get that boko if you're at the boko level. So I think that makes it well worth it to go to patreon dot.com slash where rocket age access Chris said and kick in as little as a dollar a month to support this show every week to support every story ever specials monthly to support movie fighters and snack situation. Marlene and I are going to record a snack situation this weekend, I believe.
00:10:01
Speaker
and and Comics Ketchup, which was just last week, brand new. We can only go up from here on Comics Ketchups in 2025. So all of that stuff is supported if you help us out on Patreon. And as a patron, you get every single one of those shows that I just listed off totally ad-free. You get your own special feed of ad-free episodes of all that we do here at Cletus Media. And I think that is well worth it. So ah if you were interested in that, go sign up even at the $1 level. At other levels, you get other cool stuff. At $5, you get bonus content, all the but bonus content we've ever done, which at this point is quite a bit.
00:10:47
Speaker
At $10, you get line stepping privileges for our segments, which right now is the only ones you can submit to. The only one you can submit to is Every Story Ever because submissions are closed for Thursday Night Raw, but we'll be starting something new but within the next few months. And at $20, you're at the t-shirt level. um If you should be getting a t-shirt but i haven't gotten one of last year's t-shirts,
00:11:17
Speaker
just contact me on Patreon or by email and I will make sure you get one. If you are able to, unable to help us monetarily, ah you can help us out in other ways. You can leave us a five star review on the podcasting app that you use that would help us out considerably. I have noticed that there haven't been any new written reviews on Apple podcasts in a while. So if you leave us five stars and write a review, that's extra great.
00:11:47
Speaker
And you can also just spread the word about the show. Tell people you know to listen ah to a podcast. You really enjoy this one and get them to join the Patreon and cash in a little bit to help us out. And that would be greatly appreciated as well. Chris, with that, it's time for some checks and recs. Let's kick it off with 2025's first checks and recs.
Celebrating 20 Years of Blogging
00:12:15
Speaker
Chris, it's been a while since we checked in. What do you have to check in with? Matt, the year was 2005. People were cracking up to meet the Fockers at the box office taste and thrilling to the sounds of the Joel Schumacher-directed Phantom of the Opera. Oh, yeah. After listening to the voice of Gerard Butler, they would Get in the car, turn on the radio, and crank up Lose My Breath by Destiny's Child. Yes. What a time. What a time. A young man named Dave Batista was getting ready to enter and win the Royal Rumble. Under controversial circumstances. Under controversial circumstances, correct. um And an even younger man named Chris Sims was launching his comics blog.
00:13:15
Speaker
That's right, Matt, it was 20 years ago on January 6th that I started ah my my website, first on the Blogspot platform and then later at its own website in 2007. I started my comics blog at the age of 22. That milestone, maybe that's why I was thinking about Epitaphs.
00:13:42
Speaker
Maybe. but yeah like i I had made a New Year's resolution to get back to writing more. i had ah my My friend Phil had convinced me that I should i should try ah my hand at ah blogging because he was getting really into it at the time. And then that decision led to up both my career over the next 20 years and to this show and to you and me being friends. True. True in all regards. Yeah. And in a slightly less direct way, my marriage. By way of social media. By way of social media. Yeah. Do you think she would have married me if I didn't have my own website? Matt, come on.
00:14:27
Speaker
ah the website was the key. oh But yeah, it's a a momentous anniversary in ah in my life. And I did celebrate ah the way that I feel like you have to celebrate a milestone like that, which is that I wrote a 5000 word article that no one paid me to write. oh This was an extensive essay about ah one of our favorite subjects to talk about here on the show.
00:14:53
Speaker
and something that you and I have bonded over, and I mentioned that we've bonded over in the in the essay, ah Star Trek. That's right. ah Two things to note, I want to note about that, Chris. One, um it was 20 years ago today. Do you have the Beatles saying about when you started your blog? Yes. So I think that's worth remembering. Two, I will be auditioning this weekend for an improvised Star Trek show.
00:15:23
Speaker
here in Asheville. So if you're local, you got to come see it. You got to come see it. I mean, I don't know if I'm going to be in it, but if I am and you're local, you got to come see it. Well, and maybe you can read the essay that I wrote and pick up some tips and tricks. My enthusiasm for Star Trek leading me to audition for that has been raised so much just from talking to you about Star Trek and reading your essay and all of that. So ah its it is greatly appreciated.
00:15:53
Speaker
Yeah, well, if you are a War Rock and Ajax listener and you haven't already, I did, I posted a link on Blue Sky, but I don't really, I don't know who follows links to things anymore.
00:16:07
Speaker
You know, like i know I know some people read it because they said nice things to me on on Blue Sky, ah but if you haven't checked it out, the-isp.com, that is my website. I say it at the end of every episode of the show, but it now has two things on it for you to read as well as some links ah for you to click on and and follow two other things that I've done. But yeah, go read about Star Trek. God, I love it. I do love it, Matt.
00:16:36
Speaker
it's it's There's a lot to love. There is a lot to love. Matt, what have you been up to?
Gaming and Entertainment Reviews
00:16:43
Speaker
Well, Chris, i've I've been doing a lot, but the thing that has been taking up a huge chunk of my time is ah that I've been playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Now, you will note that I'm so talking about this in the check section, not the rec section.
00:17:04
Speaker
Chris, have you ever played a game where you're not even sure if you like it, but you're just compelled to finish it? Yes. Constantly. Absolutely. That is how I feel about Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. There are parts of it that I enjoy, but there's also an element of that game even more than the Final Fantasy VII Remake.
00:17:33
Speaker
where it's like everything that I find distasteful about modern gaming right now. Interesting, okay. You gotta to go around the map and find towers that help you open up your map. You know it, baby. They do like it when you go and find towers. I was shocked when towers were added to Final Fantasy VII that show you more stuff on your map. There's also just like
00:18:05
Speaker
I want to call Rebirth mini-games the game. But that kind of makes it sound more fun and better than it is. That's Yakuza. Well, it's also... That's Like a Dragon. Like a Dragon is mini-games the game. But I loved Like a Dragon. Yes. Like a Dragon was one of my favorite games that I played last year.
00:18:29
Speaker
But Final Fantasy VII Rebirth I don't know, a lot of the minigames, and and also minigames the game, is Warioware. But... Well, yes. But... Minigames the game neutral is Warioware. Minigames the game positive is Yakuza. Minigames the game negative. Must be Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, because so many of the minigames just feel like homework or a chore. There's one minigame
00:19:04
Speaker
that is intended to be fun, where you have to play the piano. And the controls for playing the piano are just the two analog sticks. And it is unbelievably frustrating. Yeah, I don't know i don't know about all that. there's There are parts where you have to do it. And I don't like it. I mean, I can manage to get an A, not an S, but an A in some of those piano minigames, but the controls for it are just atrocious. um There are other minigames that are more fun. The Chocobo races are basically Mario Kart, and that's pretty fun. I do think I know what is keeping me playing, because every ah ah time I have an opportunity to do it, I do it.
00:19:59
Speaker
And that is, yes, a card game. Oh, buddy. I know you love a card game. You put a card game in a video game, and it's hard for me to turn it down. um This one is called Queen's Blood. And it takes a little while to figure it out. But once you can play it, it's pretty good. It's it's not all that different from Gwent, from the Witcher 3.
00:20:30
Speaker
But there are some key differences. And I do think it is a quite fun card game. And the more you play it, the more you kind of figure out new strategies and new ways of playing. And I swear every time, like, basically when you go to new towns and stuff, there are new players that you can face off against, play Queen's Blood against. And throughout the game, you keep building your deck and getting more cards.
00:20:59
Speaker
and i say this i think about every card game in a video game but if they just made a game that was queen's blood i would play it so did you like final fantasy 7 remake i liked final fantasy 7 remake pretty well okay and i liked the twist on the story that it had one of the disappointing things about rebirth is like i'm not going to say it totally drops the ball on the idea of changing the story of Final Fantasy 7, but it's not as bold as the ending of Final Fantasy Remake would lead you to believe. Alright, interesting. So, i was I'm going to finish it though. I i had no doubt. Yes, of course. Alright, time for some recommendations. What do you have to recommend, Chris?
00:21:55
Speaker
Matt, I mentioned this on ah the Gordies show, but I wanted to make it my first official wreck of the year because it is the thing that I have thought is the the coolest. I would love to recommend Kinfire Delve.
00:22:14
Speaker
ah k i n f i r e ah It is a spinoff of a big box, expensive campaign based board game. You can get that or you can get these two or are these three spinoffs that are smaller games ah in smaller boxes that are almost entirely card based. ah they They do have a set of dice that you have to roll and they have a D10 to keep track of your life ah in case you haven't heard of paper, I guess. But of the six characters in the main game, each of the smaller games has two of them represented as playable characters. And then it has a themed boss and a dungeon that is sort of represented by the deck of cards. I bought the first one because I was in the game store and I said, hey,
00:23:09
Speaker
is this game any good or does it just have like really great art? Because it does have really great art. And ah the person I was talking to at one of my local game stores was like, I don't know, but someone who I do know came in here last week and bought this one and then came in three days later and bought the other two. That's what I did. I love it i played it and I went back and got the other two. It is maybe my new favorite game. The Delve boxes are 20 bucks each, which for a cardboard game is pretty inexpensive. And the way they are each laid out and the way that they function, as well as the way each of the characters functions, is so smart and so fun and so thrilling. It's
00:24:04
Speaker
It's wild. I played a game with ah Ted Anderson the other day. He came over and we played it because we we've both been really excited about this game since the first time we played. And I have never been so excited to not fight the boss of the game because one of them had a win condition that we were able to meet before we got to the boss.
00:24:30
Speaker
but The way it works is there's a big deck of cards and as you progress through it, you discard from it by beating challenges and you can add to it if you fail challenges. And then when you get to the, once you're through that entire deck, then you get the boss and the boss's henchmen. And the boss has one of three forms that you pick at random at the start of the game. And you don't know what it is until then. Each of them has a different mechanic.
00:25:00
Speaker
that is still like very easy to understand once you get the basics of the game. It's not a complicated game to understand. I mentioned on the Gordy show, the first thing I did for this show was reach out to see if they wanted to be a sponsor because it's one of those things that I am more than happy to recommend. But they are not yet a sponsor, but I did enjoy it so much that I wanted to tell everybody.
00:25:25
Speaker
So ah go to kinfirechronicles.com if you want more information on that. ah You cannot buy it on the ah the the Large Bad Bookstore website, but ah you can get it there and probably at your local game store as well. ah Definitely check these out. And ah once once I... ah have done a little bit more work, perhaps I will come back and recommend the ah the larger game as well. But like, if the if the big game is as good as its three spinoffs, then I will be delighted by it, I'm sure. ah But yeah, absolutely fantastic game. Matt, what is your recommendation?
00:26:18
Speaker
Well, Chris, I spent the week of Christmas in the beautiful suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the most festive place on Earth.
00:26:35
Speaker
the The city that that threw batteries at Santa Claus? That's right. And on Christmas Day, Marlene and I actually kind of had like a lot of the day to ourselves.
00:26:48
Speaker
So but on the on Christmas Eve, we had gone to an Italian market and we'd bought a bunch of stuff and ate it on Christmas day. And then that afternoon we went to a little local theater in the town of Ambler, Pennsylvania, the Ambler Theater, like a little twin cinema. And we saw Nosferatu,
00:27:15
Speaker
the Robert Eggers version of Nosferatu. That was a great movie to go see on Christmas Day. It's still a great movie to go see now, but it was a really great movie to go see on Christmas Day. It um is just the Dracula story with some names changed and some some other slight differences. um But the way that that movie is made is just It's just really, really good. like i've seen I've now seen every film version of Nosferatu, certainly all the ones that matter. um The 1922 original, ah the Werner Herzog version from 1979, and now the 2024 version. And there are shots in that new version of Nosferatu that are just so good.
00:28:15
Speaker
There's one bit where Count Orlok, who is played by one of the scars guards, Bill, Bill scars guard, uh, who is totally unrecognizable as count Orlok. Um, but there's one bit where he like holds out his, his hand is like big pointy hand. And it starts like the shadow just floats over the city in ah in Germany, where it's Whisberg, where a lot of the movie is set. And it's just this shadow of a hand going over the city looking for Ellen, who is this movie's version of Mina Harker. It rules so much. Just that one shot rules so much. Also, there's a bit where ah Thomas Hunter, who is this movie's version of Jonathan Harker,
00:29:13
Speaker
is on his way to Count Orlok's castle after he's been told not to go and this like horse-drawn carriage comes up and it appears to have no driver and it like a step just comes out and I swear to god it is a cutscene directly from Bloodborne. Like there's a cutscene in Bloodborne that is exactly the same shot for shot almost and I was wigging out in the theater at that. Craven's in it?
00:29:42
Speaker
ah Seriously, the dude who plays Craven, Aaron Taylor Johnson, is in it. it ah But yeah, it's so good. ah we were Marlene and I were talking about it the whole rest of the day ah through through Christmas night. ah So if you have a chance to see Nosferatu and you haven't seen it yet, ah you absolutely should. And Willem Dafoe is a treasure and so good in it.
00:30:11
Speaker
Um, he's sorta kinda Van Helsing. but Okay. But he's got a different name because it's Nosferatu, not Dracula. Right. Um, I loved it. Absolutely fantastic. Go see it if you can. All right, Chris, those are our checks and recs, which means it's time to talk about some comics.
Comic Critiques and Praise
00:30:29
Speaker
Let's do it. I will never read this comic, but you were texting us about it, Benito and I, throughout the day.
00:30:42
Speaker
Jenny Sparks number six. Matt, you say say you're not going to read it. I'm never going to read it. You see, that's so bold. That's such a bold stance because I know that you and I have had hundreds, if not thousands of conversations about about, hey, what do you think Jenny Sparks thought about the COVID-19 pandemic?
00:31:17
Speaker
and And you're going to tell me that you don't want the answer to that question that we've all been asking for for the past five years? But what's funny, Chris, is I already know the answer, and you've because you told me the answer. ah Well, she doesn't she doesn't like wearing a mask.
00:31:33
Speaker
which is buh-nanas to me. She does stay inside and then get her vaccine in the comic. That's not a joke. We see her getting her vaccine in a page that Tom King did get his full page rate for.
00:31:56
Speaker
i just you know I'm not making any value judgment on that happening. I'm just letting everyone know that that did happen. that that ah page rate did happen. Yeah. ah Just like the opening page, which was just a um a page with two sentences of dialogue and a black background and an ashtray, because she's been smoking a lot due to the pandemic. Jeanine sparks wearing her mask wrong, like under her nose while she yells at Superman and asks why he can't fix it. Oh, boy. It's it's something. It's something special. Who needed that?
00:32:33
Speaker
I, I, we all did. Everyone wanted this. Name me one person who did not want to know, who did not want to see Ginny Sparks yelling at Superman about the pandemic and Superman reminding her that she should wear a mask. And after she strikes her mask with lightning, ah pulling one out of the cape pocket that he has where he keeps his It's where, well, it's where Silvery Superman kept his glasses and his card can't close. He would smush them down real tight and keep them in a little pocket and escape. But now I guess he keeps N95 in there. Jesus Christ. We've all wanted to know. We all wanted to know that. She's the spirit of the 20th century. ah Now, I know what you're going to say. I know what you're going to say. And it's mentioned in in this.
00:33:24
Speaker
The 1918 flu pandemic. but Yes. Yes. The 1918 influenza epidemic is mentioned. It is mentioned that she lived through it and that a lot of her relatives died. And yet she's like, fuck masks. She, yeah, she, she, she just finds them ah uncomfortable. Yeah. ah But she does stay and inside and then get, gets her vaccine. And then the scene of her getting her vaccine, she just goes, she gets a little jab and she goes, is that it?
00:33:55
Speaker
It's like, wow, how anticlimactic. Getting a little getting a little jab in your shoulder. Which wasn't my experience. My experience was elation and a feeling of immortality. And honestly, one of the few times in my life I have felt unalloyed pride in the government, because the National Guard had turned the Greensboro Coliseum into a uh, like a, a Vax, uh, center. That's the thing. I like, okay. You got me to go look at the issue. Oh buddy. She goes to a doctor's office. Nobody fucking did that. That's where no one got their shot. I had to go drive to the local community college and get my shot in my car.
00:34:41
Speaker
because nobody was going inside. So this isn't even accurate to the time. I mean, I mean, you say that, but like, I mean, clearly, Jenny Sparks did.
00:34:52
Speaker
it did Did all of this, you know, I mean you got me there. That's bad I also read ah the last issue because we it came out in one of those weeks where we were not doing the show and um That has the line of dialogue ah You know the difference between a miracle and a tragedy timing What does that mean? I don't know. I I read it as a uh, bastardization of the Mel Brooks quote about the difference between comedy and tragedy. Look, I don't want to get personal. I've, I've, to Tom King used to do, used to do the shows, used to do HeroesCon before, uh, before he made it big. I've enjoyed a lot of Tom King's work. I've not enjoyed a lot of Tom King's work. I don't want to get, I don't want to get personal it just from, from what I hear. Lovely guy to work with.
00:35:49
Speaker
I don't know anything else. That's the biggest fake deep bullshit line I've ever read in my life and I've read a lot of fucking comic books. the The difference between a miracle and a tragedy, timing, what do you mean? Explain that. Explain how that's not just something you thought sounded good.
00:36:15
Speaker
That doesn't make sense. You could say that the difference between a miracle and a tragedy is like what side you're on. Because, you know, if if like historically, to biblically, miracles, since we're talking about gods and such, ah it it has been a matter of, you know, so smiting your enemies frequently. But timing? I don't know, man. I don't know. A miracle or a tragedy do not seem like they are separated by timing.
00:36:45
Speaker
I don't know.
00:36:49
Speaker
Jenny Sparks continues to be, you're not gonna read it. I'm gonna read every single word. I know you are. I will read this till my eyes stop working. Well, let's pivot to a comic that we really liked.
00:37:11
Speaker
Let's pivot to a comic we both really liked because I told you, I so i told you, you got to read it. Yes. Uh, this was another one where like the previous issue came out when we weren't doing comic segments. So now we're on number two of the new gods, the, the rom V run on the new gods.
00:37:39
Speaker
And boy, this is this is everything I want from a New Gods comic, like i'm like a New Gods comic. it's It's about a real damn good. Yeah. like i I initially didn't know if I wanted to read it. like I saw it and I was like, I don't know if I want to jump onto this. ah And I'm glad that you texted me and and recommended it.
00:38:04
Speaker
a like if you If you want to know why this is a Good New Gods comic, it's because Scott and Barta have a baby and her name is Olivia so that her name can be lived free. That's it. That's some roll up. That shit's great. The Tom King comic we can unequivocally say we enjoy a lot is Mr. Miracle, right?
00:38:27
Speaker
Yeah, like Mr. Miracle, I've gone back and read it fairly recently. It's still mind-blowingly good. And this is a continuation of that. That is as good. It's, it's Rambi writing, Evan Kegel is doing the art and the art in this is gorgeous, like absolutely stunning. And the notion is that Darkseid is dead because Mr. Miracle killed him and Mr. Miracle And so, there's this big power vacuum on Apocalypse. Like, nobody knows who's gonna take over. And apparently, I guess, Darkseid is gonna be reborn on Earth. And so Orion has been tasked with potentially killing this kid, who may be the new Darkseid.
00:39:27
Speaker
And he doesn't want to do it. Orion's like, um I don't want to do this, but I will do this because of who I am. Yeah. Yeah. That, that bit I loved because Orion's like, look, I have an order to do this thing. I will do it. I don't want to. And so he asks his nature. Yeah. And so he asks Scott, he asked, yeah, Mr. Miracle,
00:39:56
Speaker
you have to you have to stop me somehow. you have to give You have to give me a reason to not kill this kid. Yeah, and the reason he goes to Scott is because he goes, you're the only one who will be able to escape me. Yeah. Which again, playing on the nature, love it. Absolutely, absolutely adorable. Now, Matt, is this, I don't, is this in continuity with Mr. Miracle? I don't think it is, because Orion was also dead in that book.
00:40:25
Speaker
Oh, did Orion also die? And Highfather was also dead. Well, then I guess not, but it's... I think it's a separate continuity, but yeah, like definitely... It feels... Definitely playing with ideas from it. They're definitely playing front with ideas from it, and it feels very similar. I mean, also, let's be real, Orion could have come back in a book I didn't read. Yeah, i for some reason I thought it was in continuity with...
00:40:52
Speaker
the Tom King, Mr. Miracle book, but I could be wrong. But but it is definitely, the the notion is definitely that Darkseid is dead and so everybody's figuring out what to do about it. yeah And yeah both issues so far have started with this like text piece from the Prometheus Codex where Hyman is speaking in the Prometheus Codex about the source And it feels very Kirby,
00:41:25
Speaker
but it also feels like, do gods by way of Jonathan Hickman? It feels very Kirby in spirit and very post-Kirby in execution to me, if that makes sense. If that's not just yeah me saying pretentious nonsense. Yeah, I- Where it's criticism from nonsense map timing.
00:41:48
Speaker
It's like I don't want to say Rom V is like cribbing from other writers It's it's kind of just a modern way of storytelling I guess but I feel like Hickman and like Al Ewing and writers like that have kind of Developed this storytelling style That Rom V is really picking up and running with and presenting in this like modern but Kirby-ish way in this book that I think works so well. It makes everything feel so mythic, you know? yeah And I also want to say, ah ah and just point out, ah phenomenal art from Evan Cagle, who draws these like hyper detailed, like like almost mobious looking scenes
00:42:48
Speaker
of, of the real world, but then we'll still draw the new gods in like these, you know, the bright, clean, uh, clean line primary colors, you know? Yeah. Mobius is a good comparison. Uh, yeah, there's, there's a, there's a scene in here that is like fully a fucking humanoids, you know, page, uh, that takes place in, uh, in India.
00:43:17
Speaker
just very hyper detailed. Like ah ah Jeff Darrow also would come to mind. Yeah. that The new gods look like the new gods should look. There's also like, I feel like some manga influence to it. But it looks so good. There's a there's a panel of a guy blowing smoke in another guy's face. That looks like from the from the coolest manga you've ever read, you know? Yeah.
00:43:41
Speaker
Definitely. I'm loving this book so far. ah And I will continue to read this run on new gods, undoubtedly. But won't read a page of any sparks. Well, another comic I may not continue to read is Ultimate Wolverine. Yeah, now I have not yet had a chance to read this one. ah But I was very curious. So when you said that you were up for talking about it, I i wanted to I really wanted to see what you thought and what it was all about. It's written by Chris Condon and has art by Alessandro Capuccio. Of all the ultimate books so far, I think it's my least favorite. And that's that's for a few reasons. One, Wolverine, he's still got, you know, claws. He's still got knives on his hands. He's still got the mask.
00:44:39
Speaker
But he's not just Wolverine anymore. At one point in this issue, they call him the Winter Soldier. Yeah, that I believe was ah that that was set up somewhere. Yeah.
00:44:53
Speaker
ah So this version of Wolverine is the Winter Soldier. He also has a mask that covers his the lower half of his face. So he never speaks. Not one line of dialogue. And the other X-Men are basically just the X-Men. Like, Colossus is just Colossus in this. Okay?
00:45:17
Speaker
Nightcrawler is a little different cause he's like a priest here, but essentially this Wolverine is sent on a mission to assassinate all of the X-Men with his like, what's your soldier programming? And so he has to, spoiler alert, he has to kill Nightcrawler and Nightcrawler kind of says like, you know, we were going to come back for you. we I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This had, this had to happen to you, Logan.
00:45:46
Speaker
So clearly, like he's got this programming after knowing the X-Men. And by the end of the issue, he's like reciting, ah the the Lord is my shepherd, I shall i shall not want, but with Psalm 23. So like he's he's gained some religiosity from Nightcrawler. So it's not like Wolverine is not an interesting character.
00:46:16
Speaker
But I don't know how interested I am in a Wolverine who does not speak.
00:46:22
Speaker
I mean, I mean, I think it maybe could be good. Cause like I like snake eyes and what is snake eyes if not a Wolverine who does not speak. That's, you know, fair enough. Um, and this issue did not wow me. I have to say ah there's some cool stuff in it. Like there's stuff where Wolverine jumps out of airplanes with no parachute.
00:46:47
Speaker
to go on his missions, so he just drops into his missions like a fucking missile. um That's pretty cool, I gotta say. But also his costume's kinda red, so he's also sorta Deadpool. I mean, like that's that has to be to distinguish him from regular Wolverine.
00:47:09
Speaker
i like because I feel like that was that was a a a problem with the Ultimate Universe, the previous version of the Ultimate Universe, is that like after a certain point, everybody just kind of like looked like exactly how they look because everybody was always getting modern costume redesigns.
00:47:29
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, Colossus in this just looks like Colossus. He's he's he's just Colossus. He's not wearing his ah like black spandex crop top that original Ultimate Colossus wore? No, he's wearing red and yellow. He has a beard. I mean, magic looks like magic. She looks exactly like magic. ah Omega Red is in this. Okay, you're gonna, he's not in it for very long though. Is he nude? No. Well, then what's the point?
00:47:56
Speaker
he He just looks like Omega Red. i i don't i just I don't really know what to make of it it. It didn't wow me. If you read issue two and think it's great, let me know. I certainly will, man. All right. ah That's going to do it for our comic segment, but we're not done talking about comics because we got to talk about some jerkies.
00:48:26
Speaker
Thor number 57 from December of 2002 is an art jam issue. Which is interesting because the new issue of Immortal 4 that came out this week is also an art jam issue that has a page drawn by Dan Jurgens himself. which Which is in fact heavily tying into the events of this run.
00:48:57
Speaker
Like, we did not know when we started this that The Raining was going to be relevant to a book we were really enjoying. But what a cold shot. I mean, The Enchantress playing a key role in Immortal 4 right now. And Scourge is back. I mean, I mean, look.
00:49:21
Speaker
If you're reading Immortal Thor, you have been spoiled on the events but of the what's going to happen in the next 40 issues of du the Jurgys. Yeah. i It's like 30 issues, but yeah. yeah ah Yeah. So this issue is called The Gardener. And what it is is Volstagg telling a story to his kids about Thor.
00:49:51
Speaker
but it's about Thor right now. It's about, yeah, it's's like the story that he is recounting takes place like 20 minutes before the events of the issue. How did Carrie Andrews have time to draw that page? What happens is aliens send a giant Ruba to earth and it lands in a big crater in the ground. That's where craters usually are.
00:50:20
Speaker
Right, and and NASA tells Thor to go go deal with it. So Thor goes to see what's going on with this robot, and it starts shooting monsters out of its body. Thor has to like figure out what what's going on here, but as he's doing that, the thing that sent it to Earth, which is on the moon, starts making the the moon explode.
00:50:49
Speaker
And then the moon does explode. Then the moon explodes. Also, Volstagg at one point goes, yeah, Thor fought this thing for two hours. And one of his kids goes, that's too long. Which I agree. Hard agree, Hildegard. The moon explodes, and Thor, who's been restricting himself from using the Odin power,
00:51:17
Speaker
because he wants to do things on his own and he doesn't want to have to use the Odin power. Finally, he has to use the Odin power to reconstruct the moon. And also he puts his robot in the middle of the moon. Gotta put the robot bit in the moon, man. And then he falls to Asgard and goes into the Odin sleep. In Volstagg's house? In Volstagg's house. And then the last panel of the issue is Thor asleep in Volstagg's bed.
00:51:46
Speaker
Yeah. Cause it really happened. And then Thor crashed down into somebody's house in Asgard. And and then he fell asleep. And his kids are like, did that really happen? Dad? And full Sag's like, it sure did. Which is wild. that Like it is literally like that day. And they're like, did that really happen?
00:52:11
Speaker
Yeah, it happened mere hours ago, not very long ago. We'll go through and talk about the individual artists' contributions in this issue. Most of the issue is like storybook pages, so it's just an art pinup with Volstagg telling the story along a sidebar. Yeah.
00:52:36
Speaker
the text of that along a sidebar. So the frame story, which is not drawn that way, which is just four pages of Volsag telling this story to his kids, is ah by Joe Bennett. It's the Joe Bennett art we've been getting in issues of this the whole time. It's fine. The first big pinup is by Philip Tannen. It sucks. I would hard agree on that.
00:53:04
Speaker
It's not good. And it's supposed to be the one that's like, hey, here's what Thor looks like now. ah but it But it ain't good. Did you ever think that you would see an unflattering Philip 10 drawing of Pope John Paul II? Because it's here. It sure is. It sure is. Did Philip 10 know that there was going to be text on this page? Because Because Heimdall is cut off in such a weird way. This has to be cropped. Weird. we're It's just half his face. Yeah. they've They've just moved over the art to fit the text on the page because it's the most text that they're putting on the page. And also Asgard looks off model. ah Yeah. Yeah. it's It's weird, man. It's weird. It's not good. The next pin up is by Kari Andrews.
00:54:03
Speaker
It's sort of like interestingly cartoonish, but I don't mind it. I think it looks kind of cool. No, I liked it. I thought it was probably the best looking page of the book. I have a different page that I think is the best looking page of the book. yes It's got its own distinct style. It looks cool and fun. It's like a version of like, it's almost like it's a very Pixar version of Thor. yeah Yeah, it's it is very kind of like animated movie. Yeah, I really like the way it looks. It was my favorite for sure. The next pin up is by Phil Jimenez. It's of the big robot. It looks pretty good. Yeah, looks good. Hey, Phil Jimenez drew a big robot. The next pin up is by Michael William Kaluta. It's of Thor like descending toward the robot in ah in a cloud of Ravens, which does kick ass.
00:54:58
Speaker
I think that pinup is is good. I like that pinup. The robot is on model with the previous Phil Jimenez drawing, which I like. Yeah, which makes me wonder, like it like, who designed this robot? Good question. Did they do these pages in order or did Dan Juergens design this robot? That's a good question.
00:55:21
Speaker
Um, the next pinup is by Kyle Hotts. It's Thor fighting a bunch of monsters and they're Kyle Hotts monsters and they look cool. They're bats with very yonic mouths yes and tentacles. And teeth good that go sideways. Really real bad dragons. Uh, the next pinup is by Brian Haberlin and it sucks shit. Yeah, this was awful. It's, if you remember the Batman issue,
00:55:50
Speaker
with, that was like all text and it had like computer-generated art in it. Talk about Nightmare on Numberland, when there was big trouble in it at 3.0? I'm talking about a different, I'm talking about the other issue. The other one that was the Harley Quinn issue. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. This looks like that. It looks like the most, like, this looks like dated computer art in 2002.
00:56:16
Speaker
Yeah, no, it looks it looks like it is it is ps1 ass graphics. Sucks. Yeah, unfortunately quite bad. The next one is my favorite page in the whole book. And it's a Dave Johnson page, where it's Thor, like a tiny, tiny little Thor.
00:56:37
Speaker
but like very detailed over the hand of the robot, which is huge. And like I love the detail on the tiny Thor. I love the size differential. I like Dave Johnson a lot to begin with, but I think that page really looks cool. like that That page should have maybe been the cover of this comic. yeah like that it's it's a real good It's a real good page. I like that Thor's hand and the robot's hand are like mirroring each other, but one is a hundred times bigger. like fair Yeah, they're doing they're both doing the Kirby hand at each other. The next one is a Bill Sinkiewicz, two page spread. Not Bill Sinkiewicz's best work, but it's fine. Not Bill Sinkiewicz's best work, it's fine. Yeah. But by anyone else, it'd be great. Yeah.
00:57:27
Speaker
um The next one is by John Paul Leon. I think this one also looks really cool and designy. Yes It's all negative space in this which is very cool. Yeah, but it's the moon exploding And like there's this like horizon where the robot is in the sky and Thor is in space I Think it looks really good. Yeah, the next one is Thor putting the robot in the moon. That's by Carlos Pacheco. It's good. It's also good. Yeah And then the last one is by P. Craig Russell. It's Thor falling to go to the own sleep and and it's beautiful as well. It's the most like, I mean, it's a P. Craig Russell page. If you're familiar with his work, it's very like fairy tale illustration in a way that like really sells the premise of the book in the way the rest of the book doesn't. Yeah. The the only thing is the moon looks like a photo.
00:58:23
Speaker
The moon is weirdly like JPEG artifacted, for sure. Yeah. i that's not the That's a little weird, but the rest of it is is very nice. And that's it. That's issue 57. Thor number 58 is part one of a three-part crossover. We're only going to talk about part one, but parts two and three were in Iron Man and Avengers.
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, I read this at the time, and you get everything you need to know from from this issue of Thor. Like, the only thing you don't get is the the Doctor Doom stuff that comes after. Well, and and in Avengers, there's basically a rift that emerges between Iron Man and Captain America and Thor. And that Avengers issue is by Jeff Johns. It sure is. Part of that run.
00:59:16
Speaker
Part of that run. How many pages of that one do you think they took out for the paperback? We'll never know. ah So this crossover is called Standoff. And the the idea here is that there is a war going on in a country called Slocovia that is overseen by a dictator. There are sects of people in Slocovia who worship Thor.
00:59:45
Speaker
And when they are caught worshiping Thor, also Alan Davis draws this issue. So it looks fucking great. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, but anyway, these, these Thor worshipers are caught in their worship service and they are killed by soldiers who work for the dictator who oversees this country. And so in their dying breaths, they like call for Thor to punish.
01:00:14
Speaker
these the the soldiers and the dictator. And Thor is told about this. And he's like, well, okay, well, then we got to overthrow this dictator. And Baldur's like, I don't know if you should do that. And Thor's like, well, that's what I'm doing. Thor's like, hey, man, what the fuck? Like, ah like, you're supposed to be my dog here, man.
01:00:36
Speaker
Come on. So, Baldur and the Warriors 3 and Sif show up in Slikovia and start just like smashing tanks. Not to be confused with Sokovia. Or the real countries of like, Slovenia. And Slovakia, yeah. And Slovakia, yeah. yeah But like, Sokovia, as we all know, had been destroyed, I think what, like two years earlier in Marvel Comics, so.
01:01:06
Speaker
Right. The Asgardians show up and start smashing tanks. And the Pentagon gets word of this, and they're like, Thor is destabilizing the region. That's our job. Slakovia is right next to Varyed. We don't know what Dr. Doom's gonna do. An Iron Man so like a dumbass goes, well, Doom loves his people. No, Tony. You know better. ah ah Tony and or Dan.
01:01:36
Speaker
goat like Mark Wade would like to speak to you. Yeah. So it it essentially what ends up happening is like ah Doom starts rattling the saber.
01:01:54
Speaker
And so Iron Man goes and confronts Thor to try to get him to to stop doing this in Slikovia. Throughout the rest of the crossover, it's just going to be Thor and Iron Man and Captain America fighting over whether Thor should be doing this in this this country that borders Liberia. Yeah, man. um Here's the thing. I've said this before.
01:02:21
Speaker
when talking about this ah storyline. And I said it to you on this very day. Thor is right. Like Thor is absolutely right. And at no point in the story is Thor himself wrong about anything.
01:02:43
Speaker
Like, cause he's right. He's like, yeah, um this guy's like fully gunning his people down in their churches, like in their secret basement churches, that's bad and I should stop it. And Iron Man's like, golly, I don't know, Thor. And it's it's like, look, if this was not happening just in a a country that we made up for this story, we would all be all over it. Here's the thing. This comic came out in 2003. Yes.
01:03:20
Speaker
And there is no way to think about it without thinking about it, I think, in the context of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Yes, no, I agree. And I think that's a really bad metaphor. Because Oh, I don't think it's a very good metaphor. But I do think the idea is that Thor is doing in this comic what the U.S. was doing in Afghanistan and Iraq at the time, which was going in and getting rid of dictators who did awful things, but leaving a power vacuum in their place, which is brought up in other previous issues as well when he's done stuff like this. Yeah, but like, I think this is a bad metaphor because like, Thor's not trying to get oil. Like, right? Like, like they're,
01:04:15
Speaker
We see- No, I do think it's, I think the thing that Thor is wrong about is he doesn't get involved until he finds out that his own worshipers were killed. Yes. But like, but yeah, like this isn't, you can't compare this to like what was going on in the real world at the time, because we know for a fact as as third person omniscient readers,
01:04:43
Speaker
that what is Thor is going there to stop is bad and exists yeah and is exactly what he's going there to stop. Like we see the enemy soldiers who are literally standing around being like, Hey, it's a shame we had to kill all the people in this village, but at least we get to steal their food while we're at it. And it's like, yeah, like you're never going to convince me that Thor is wrong for that. I don't know how much I'm being worked by this story.
01:05:12
Speaker
Cause Thor's definitely not wrong and everybody's fucking acted like he is for some reason.
01:05:19
Speaker
Uh, Thor number 59, you can tell from the cover that this is a ah different kind of story because there's a big poster that says missing. It has a picture of Thor on it. And then there are two, I guess you might call them teenagers who have Mjolnir in a wagon.
01:05:44
Speaker
And the art style is clearly different and everything because Trent Kanuga is the artist on this issue. Yeah. And it's written by Priest. So what we find at the beginning is that Thor lost his hammer at some point and we are now at the far-flung year of 2026. Hilarious. Which is weird because 2026 is a far-flung future year.
01:06:12
Speaker
that does come off exactly like 2003. Like nothing has really changed. Like a dude even mentions like, Hey, I'm missing Seinfeld. And there's like one panel of flying cars and that's it. Well, Seinfeld is still on TV to this day. So yeah, the the only thing is the only thing priests didn't predict is that you can watch Seinfeld anytime you want now. He did not predict streaming.
01:06:43
Speaker
But anyway, there's this bearded guy who's raving about basically how he's Thor. Uh, it's it like a soup kitchen. Right. And there's this young kid DJ who's also in the mission, but he leaves. He's stealing food from the mission. Yes. And he's, he's like, uh, he's like hopping on the, the elevated trains going around.
01:07:13
Speaker
He knows a ah scroll or an elf he finds. He fights, Matt, I do not blame you for kind of blanking on the events of this comic. yeah ah He's trying to get away. He falls asleep on the train. Someone steals his shoes and he wakes up ah like when the train has stopped at a station. So he gets off on the subway and he's walking down the tracks looking for an emergency exit and finds the body of what he calls an elf, which does look like a scroll.
01:07:48
Speaker
Uh, yeah. And also Thor's hammer is there. Uh, Mulder is there, which has the carving, whosoever possess this hammer, et cetera, et cetera. You know it. Um, right he takes the dead elf's shoes, which are little pointy elf shoes. Yes. Uh, because someone has stolen his and he keeps stepping on broken glass. Right. And he goes and finds his friend, Maxie, who does some research on the internet to discover that Thor was a real guy.
01:08:18
Speaker
Yeah, but not like like Thor was a real guy back around the turn of the century. but right Not like Thor was you know a mythological figure. This is a 25 years in the future of the Marvel universe. Thor was around 25 years ago, but oh, something happened and we don't really know what. Right. And so they do more research to try to find Asgard, to try to go find Asgard.
01:08:47
Speaker
And, but they can't get to it from where they are, obviously. And so they go find the old bearded guy and they tell him about the hammer and he's like, Oh, that's a build here. We got to go find it. We got to go find it immediately. they They start on their way, but then they get, they get like hounded by some thugs in the park. This is where the guy says he's missing Seinfeld. Yeah. This is the, uh, guy who runs the mission.
01:09:18
Speaker
who the the old dude thinks is Loki. And it's never really made clear whether he's Loki or not, um except for like the scene where he says, hey, I found this hammer. And this dude who's been saying stuff like, kid, I'm just trying to run this this mission, I'm gonna miss Seinfeld, ah goes, the enchanted hammer forged of Urumetal, the long lost fabled hammer of Thor the mighty, you found it? Where? Damn your eyes.
01:09:47
Speaker
And so it's like, okay, I guess maybe that guy is really Loki. Eventually, like they get away from them. They bring the old bearded guy to Mjolnir. He touches it, but then he gets shot but because Loki finds them again and with a bunch of like cops and they start to apprehend him. But this bearded guy gets his hand on Mjolnir, manages to pick it up, spin it around and throw it.
01:10:17
Speaker
and ah knock the the track changer on the subway train. And like then the the train is like bearing down on them. It stops. the He hits the hits the emergency. yeah the the it's It's not a track changer. It's a signal for the train to stop. So the train does stop. And then the guy can't lift it anymore. And then ah you find out that he isn't actually Thor. He is the guy that the the guy at the mission said he was, who's just some dude ah who was delusional.
01:10:57
Speaker
But he was able to throw the hammer one time. Yes. And at at one point, like the guy who is ambiguously Loki is like, oh yeah, it's just a replica. It's like 300 bucks at ah ah Hero World, he says, which is very funny because I love that Priest will just imagine a a hard rock cafe for superheroes and not depict it, but will mention it. Then the kid, DJ, is like, yeah, I don't really believe it.
01:11:26
Speaker
ah I think it's real. And I think that Thor is going to be coming back for it. And then he just kind of like sits down next to it in the tunnel, like the elf guy was sat at the beginning of the story who died waiting for Thor. And and the sense is that he's just going to be waiting by this hammer for Thor to show up for however long. Yes. It's a, it's a weird story. It is a weird story. Like I wish that, I wish that Priest was given more long runs and fewer weird fill-ins of Thor. Yeah. Cause it's not bad. It is kind of like, there is a little bit of of like, I don't want to say cringe cause I feel like that's, but it it is like of of the narration of DJ kind of like being an aspiring rapper. And so we get like narration in the form of of his ah lyrics that he's writing.
01:12:24
Speaker
Yeah, but it's very it's to a brother on the ledge out on the edge. It's, it's very 2003. It's very much of its time. But it's still priest, you know, it's still like, there's a baseline of talent here. Oh, yeah. and And it's, it's an interesting story. It's an interesting fill in issue that sidesteps everything that's going on in the main book. yeah Which it it's it feels like an inventory story, which I guess they still had in 2003. Yeah. To make sure you gotta hit that schedule. Thor number 60 has a cover signed by Brereton. Oh, Dan Dan Brereton. It's ah a painting of Thor with
01:13:16
Speaker
piercing blue eyes. Yeah. This, you don't usually see Dan Verritten draw or paint, I guess, like bright superhero images. yeah You know, you always see Halloween sexy girls from Dan Verritten. Yeah. But man, this kicks ass. I love this cover. This is a, this is a hunky Thor, I gotta say. Thor's a hunk, man. Yeah. Dan Verritten didn't make that up. Yeah.
01:13:44
Speaker
Uh, and the cool space background. It's a, it's a good cover. Um, this is part one of spiral, which is going to be eight parts. So we're only going to get through part three of spiral this time and then finish it out next time. Uh, well, here's, here's a summary of the events of spiral. Thor's right.
01:14:08
Speaker
Other people are kind of nebulously right or wrong. Thor's right. Uh, this is another joke in it penciled issue that starts with Jake Olson arriving on the scene at an accident where a bunch of steel girders have fallen on a van and a child is trapped inside that van. And there is no way to get him out.
01:14:40
Speaker
Jake insists besides cutting off this kid's leg. He has been like, like he has pinned underneath ah the the, like his leg has been crushed by a falling girder. And so it's pinning him down. And Jake's like, we gotta, we gotta amputate. And Jake's boss is like, okay, but you got to get parental consent to do that.
01:15:11
Speaker
And the kid's mother who is there, who is a worshipper of Thor is like, you will not cut off my son's leg because Thor's coming to save him. And so there's this conflict that keeps going on where Jake is like, I have to cut his leg off. And the mom is like, I won't allow it. And finally, Jake just has to be like, I'm doing it. I don't care what you say. Arrest me if you have to.
01:15:41
Speaker
I'm going to save this boy's life. And so he amputates the kid's leg, which I look, look, I sympathize with Jake as we are presented because Jake is trying to save a child's life. He is in the wrong.
01:16:04
Speaker
you Well, he's doing what the parent is saying not to do. yeah You are not allowed to perform medical procedures against someone's religious wishes. And unfortunately, this kid is a kid and and the real like his mother is his mother. And her religious wishes are that he not have his leg amputated by Jake Olson in the middle of New York City. So as soon as he does this, as soon as he It amputates the leg and gets the kid out of the van. Sif shows up and the mom is like, oh, save my son's leg. And Sif is like, okay, yeah, let's get Daphthas the healer to, uh, to reattach this kid's leg. Yeah. Cause for pages for like six or seven pages, like half this issue,
01:17:01
Speaker
She's saying, no, I've prayed to Thor. The gods are going to show up and save my kid. And she's not like, she doesn't. She is not living in a world where that's irrational. Right. ah So Sif leaves with the kid and the mom and then somebody else approaches Jake Olson and calls him ambulance man and gives him a CD and says, watch this and you'll really freak.
01:17:32
Speaker
The other story in this issue, the B story of this issue you might say, is Thor in his big regal armor. There's like a a splash page of Thor in like, super complicated. It's fucking total justice armor.
01:17:54
Speaker
Warhammer 40k already really is you look at this and you're like there is no way You are gonna be drawn that for more than one page Yeah, well the armor goes away on the next page immediate walks under he walks under a waterfall and the armor melts But he's not nude he's got like a little Lloyd cloth and to cover his junk, which I think is very funny. Yeah. Cause according to the narration, uh, whatever he's, he's wherever he's going, he fears a threat. Hence your useless armor. It's unnecessary for no threat exists here. So this magic waterfall strips away what's unnecessary. It is necessary that he not have his dick out. Yeah. Cause this is, this is code approved, baby. That's right. So he in this, like on this spiritual journey,
01:18:48
Speaker
He meets who appears to be Odin. And Odin tells him that he's got to expand his horizons. He's got to learn how to perceive things from a broader perspective. he's He's too focused on the kind of narrow mindset, narrow view that he's gone by before, but now he's the king.
01:19:18
Speaker
And so, ah he's gotta start using the Odin power to do more things. He says, today you have used the power to vanquish foes and reassemble a celestial body, the moon. And he says, impressive efforts, but still minimal, will compare to the power's limitless potential. yeah and So he's... Reassembling the moon from a billion pieces? That was okay. Yeah. When you can just start doing the real shit of Thor. And he's like,
01:19:47
Speaker
Look, you shouldn't be doing what Odin did either. you shouldn't Your path is not your father's, but you gotta start using the power kind of more effectively. Think about the bigger picture. And ah by the end of the issue, Thor realizes that this is not Odin, but the Odin power itself speaking to him.
01:20:12
Speaker
Yeah, pretty cool. Also, Jake Olsen watches the CD that this woman gave him. And it's that dude from a few issues ago that fucked up all the Thor's power plants. Uh-huh. Who was wrong? Who was wrong? But, uh, who was like, uh, it's the video that he was making back in that issue. Yeah. Talking about how Thor's the devil in disguise. Yeah, that guy was wrong.
01:20:42
Speaker
and Thor like try really tried to show him some some mercy and set his set his mind right. But Jake watches this CD and he's like, oh no. Like the last panel is him like solemnly looking down at the floor. Cause he's like, oh, Thor's gone all wrong.
01:21:06
Speaker
Thor number 61. It's whack. I'll say it. It's whack. Thor number 61 has another cover that's basically just like a pin-up drawing of Thor. And I assume it's by the artists of this issue who are ah Ben and Ray Lai.
01:21:27
Speaker
who I'm not really otherwise familiar with, but they do fine here. I think their art is perfectly good. I mean, it's fine. It's fine. Yeah. Yeah. I like the King Thor suit. The helmet looks like an evil guy helmet. It kind of looks like Strife. There's a lot of sharp points on it, but I like the scale and the chains and the big chunky boots. I think it's good, and I think they do a pretty decent job with it.
01:21:56
Speaker
it More than anything else, it looks like an action figure because he's kind of got his arm bent in a weird way, but it's pretty good and the art's pretty good. So this issue starts with Jake Olson at a disciplinary hearing. Yeah, because he did a thing that is incredibly illegal. And before he is even allowed to defend himself in the disciplinary hearing,
01:22:26
Speaker
It is decided that he is suspended. Yeah, correct. And his boss, who is a totally different guy now. Different guy, not the guy who was like ah Jake Olson. he's he He's a drug dealer that I'm going to fire. He's a different guy from that, but he's also a different guy from the last issue. Yes.
01:22:56
Speaker
He's like, look, I want to, I want to stick up for you, Jake. If I was in your position, I would have done the same thing you did. But now my job is worrying about the press and the lawsuits. I'm sorry. That's right, Jake. You were absolutely right.
01:23:14
Speaker
Come on. But it's, but these, these suits are keeping me down. Uh, and so, Jake looks up at Asgard, which is still floating over New York City, and he says, if the gods are here to make things better, why am I out of work? ah do I do sympathize with that. Yeah. but Hard agree. Very relatable. Yeah. ah Then we see Thor hanging out in Asgard, telling Volstagg that he needs to protect Toreen because she is headstrong and impetuous. And she's still got to usher in the new
01:23:55
Speaker
stage of human evolution. She's got Azure in the new stage of history. Yeah. And Volsak's like, okay, yeah, I'll look after Toreen. I'll do what I can. but Is that, is that, is that Soul Calibur? It's the stage of history. All I know from Soul Calibur is the soul still burns. Volsak, you need to go take care of Toreen.
01:24:22
Speaker
because the soul still burns. Welcome back to the stage of history of Soul Caliber, thank you. Zarko the Tomorrow Man is in Asgardian prison and getting like beat up by Hogan. And so we see a little bit of that. Then we see a meeting of the Council Elite, which is seven different mythological gods, except one of them is Shiva,
01:24:49
Speaker
which I think is still a god who was worshipped now. I mean, i mean v like Vishnu Brahma and Shiva are in it. And I believe those are like... That's that's an active religion. Yeah. Oh, that's right. Yeah, Vishnu Brahma and Shiva are all there. Yeah, just and it's like hanging out with Osiris and Zeus.
01:25:14
Speaker
And Yu Huang of the Ta-Lo, which... I do not know anything, unfortunately, about... ah I believe that is... that's not I don't think that's that's Shinto. That's the Jade Emperor from ah from Chinese culture.
01:25:36
Speaker
Yeah, the the highest of the 36 heavens of the gods. Yeah. I think Yu Huang is... similarly mythological and not necessarily still ah worshipped.
01:25:52
Speaker
But like, those Hindu gods absolutely are. It's buck wild that they're in here. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. so it Seems like, seems like, seems like I would have done that one differently. Well, okay, according to Wikipedia,
01:26:13
Speaker
roughly 2% of Chinese folk practitioners still believed in the Jade Emperor in 2005. We get similar stuff to this, like much later in like Incredible Hercules and and books like that. like ah yeah I remember the story Sacred Invasion had Amaterasu in it. But like I do feel like Vishnu, Brahma, and Shiva are like fairly active. Yeah.
01:26:42
Speaker
ah anyway going to concerns, if you will. The elite council has invited Thor to see if he can join, uh, cause Odin used to be part of this council. And so they're going to test Thor to see if he deserves to be part of this. The first test is they send him to this like snowy arena where he's attacked by a big monster.
01:27:15
Speaker
but he notices that it's not just a random attack. This this creature is defending its pups. And that is the entirety of the test. I just wanted to see if he would notice the pups. Yes, ah this is ah the test of awareness. So he doesn't just fight this six armed monster that has a, it's like a six armed Kaiju Scottish Terrier. Yeah, that's kind of what it looks like. There's a ah panel where Thor is like monkey flipping him.
01:27:45
Speaker
But it looks like he is doing a death drop. It looks like he is voguing in the ballroom. i i like You might have to put this one up because it's it's wild. it's it's It's too far after the action to really read. yeah and So yeah, it really looks like Thor is just doing like
01:28:12
Speaker
a wild dance while this thing flies through the air. ah It's a little weird. the The art on that is a little weird. I don't, I next dislike it. Yeah. The next test and the next test Thor is sent to what looks like a beach, but he quickly realizes that the grains of sand on the beach are alive, which lead him to like float up in the air and say like, Hey, sorry, I didn't mean to step on you. I didn't know that you were alive.
01:28:42
Speaker
And so he passes the second test, the test of insight.
01:28:49
Speaker
For the third test, he gets sent to a cave full of Klingons. Fully just Klingons? They're Klingons. You can color them beige all you want. Boy, those are Klingons. This is the test of bullshit. Is what this is, buddy. So they they tell Thor that they're starving.
01:29:13
Speaker
and that they need saving. And he's like, oh, you want food? Here's food. And he's like, hey, do you need a sacrifice? I'll sacrifice my daughter. And he's like, whoa, don't do that. Have some food. Yeah, he just conjures some food for them. And he is immediately brought back to the elite council. And they say, oh, you fucked up, you fucked up, you dumbass. You can't just give people food.
Thor's Influence on Humanity
01:29:41
Speaker
You got to teach them how to be self-sustaining. You got to teach them how to ah like find food on their own. Yeah, now that guy that we made up is going to kill his kids to sacrifice him to you because you gave him food. ah Well, Zeus says, now they worship you, worship the beyond reason. And Shiva's like, you're doing the same shit on Earth and we don't like it. And Thor,
01:30:12
Speaker
is, again, Thor's right. If there's people literally starving right now, then teaching them to farm is not going to help. Right, give them food right now, and then also teach them how to farm. And then also, like like if people are in immediate danger of dying, they're not gonna, like farming, I don't know if you know this, it ain't fucking Stardew Valley. It takes some time.
01:30:40
Speaker
So did they, was the i idea here that the floor would be surrounded by starving people in a cave begging for food and that he would be like, no, but here's a rake and some fucking seeds. Here's a wow. Maybe, maybe the idea is that he would be like, Hey, I I'll give you a weapon and you can go hunt or something like that. but i'd likely Fuck off. But like,
01:31:10
Speaker
The problem here is not with Thor, it's with the people who react to to being given food with, all right, now I'm gonna kill my family so we get more food. Yeah, look, this dude just wanted to kill people. This dude just wanted to sacrifice his family. That's not on Thor. Meanwhile, while that those tests are going on, Volstagg is following around Tereen and like smashing up city buses to protect her, and it's very funny.
01:31:41
Speaker
Yeah, Volstagg, who has been to Earth quite a bit, doesn't know how traffic lights work. He doesn't know what a traffic light is. He doesn't know that a bus would stop at a traffic light, which is ah hard to believe. He's been to Earth a lot. Yeah. He's been to Earth so much. So, Tereen and Volstagg, as Volstagg's eating,
01:32:09
Speaker
a fistful of seven hot dogs. ah He does say the line. He walks up to ah a hot dog cart and says, quickly, good chef, load all thy weiners into thy buns. He's very funny. see Those are the exact words on the page. Yes, that's, I read that verbatim. Load thy weiners into thy buns. So they they find Jake Olsen sitting on a stoop.
01:32:38
Speaker
And Jake Olsen's like, Thor sucks. He's making the world more dangerous. And, uh, Volstagg reacts to this by like saying like, don't talk like that. Don't talk like that about Thor. Hey, shut the fuck up. and you just Shut the fuck up, Jake. just like because you You fucked up at work.
01:33:02
Speaker
And Jake's like, look, I need to go talk to Thor. Cause this is, this is about to go really wrong. What's going on, what he's doing. And Volsak's like, why is he going to listen to you? And Jason goes, cause I'm his humanity. They got separated from him. And so finally, Tereen is like, all right, let's go. I'll take you. Let's go. So they go to Asgard.
01:33:31
Speaker
Jake talks to Thor and he's like, look man, I'm you. You should listen to me. You're taking away people's independence and they're becoming just dependent on you.
01:33:46
Speaker
And Thor's like, you're not a real person. Odin created you as a way to teach me a lesson.
01:34:00
Speaker
And I don't need to listen to anything you say. And also like, without me, people on earth kill each other and get diseases and I'm stopping all of that. Like, here look, here's the kid, you cut his leg off and now his leg's back on. And now we put his leg back on. We saved his leg. So like, I'm i'm sorry, but you were wrong. Yeah. You were wrong.
01:34:24
Speaker
that this You were gonna cut this kid's legs leg off and you had good intentions, but I put his leg back on. And finally, Thor is just like, take Jake out of here and don't bring him back.
01:34:39
Speaker
And Tereen's like, okay. And she does. And then Zarko sees Jake and Tereen flying away. And that's the end of the issue. It sure is. And Jake sees Zarko and goes, Zarko?
01:34:55
Speaker
ah Like they're old buds. Hey, is that Zarko? Is that my boy Zarko? Tomorrow man. Thor number 62 has Heimdall on the cover and it's fine. He's standing on the rainbow bridge and there are like people in the background and it's fine. The issue starts with a guy with the weirdest hair or beard combination you could imagine waking up to the Chucky Diamond Show, but Chucky is not hosting. Chucky's not hosting because we gotta save Chucky for later in the series. Chucky's such an important character that we gotta make sure he's around for the rest of the series.
01:35:45
Speaker
Well, it's it's just he's described as not being there because he's either in rehab or plastic surgery. ah But this guy with like who looks like he's 25 but he has gray hair and a gray goatee, um like wakes up and looks at at Asgard outside his window.
01:36:08
Speaker
Yeah, and then he prays to Thor. And then he goes and makes coffee in his kitchen where he has posters of the covers of the comic book Thor. Of the last like two or three issues of the comic book Thor. He's got a poster of issue 61. Which is fucking wild. So this guy is a worship's Thor. He is an Asgardian. And he is also a teacher at a local high school. Right.
01:36:38
Speaker
On Asgard, a group of people from Earth, like ah like a delegation, are being shown around by Baldr to show them like to what Asgard is like, I guess. And Baldr tells them, hey, no cameras, because Thor doesn't like that. Thor finds Midgard's technology to be crass and offensive. Which is new. That's not...
01:37:08
Speaker
like Thor has been on TV. But one of them sneaks off. She's got an earpiece in. She's getting instructions. She sneaks off, puts on some Asgardian looking clothes, carries around a basket of roses that also has a video camera in it. It starts like secretly filming in Asgard. Then we see the radio station.
01:37:35
Speaker
and the fill-in host of Chucky Diamond's show really going hard at Thor. Yeah, and talkin' fuckin' nonsense! he's He's saying that we're all hamsters, gerbils, laboratory mice running through a test maze while the controller moves the cheese. And that controller is Thor. Soon we'll be dependent on that cheese. Yeah, bud!
01:38:05
Speaker
Yeah, bud. What does this dude want? Thor was literally out here being like, hey, what's up? I'm going to use Asgardian magic to cure cancer. And everybody's like, fuck you, Thor. It's a slippery slope. What if you decide that I should be killed for liking The Bachelor? And Thor was like, yo, that's kind of not what I'm doing. like what Again, Thor has not done anything wrong and people are act like does this guy not want to have to like wear glasses either because you know optometrists they're just pulling the putting the cheese in the maze for us lab rats at one point he goes way too far and calls for a super nazi yeah like incorrect
01:39:01
Speaker
and like It's like this whole thing of like oh, he's it's this whole weird Mid-century sci-fi idea of like oh if if everything is given to you you'll never strive and achieve and it's like okay, but he just put a kid's leg back on and Like stopped a guy who like stopped like cartoon evil soldiers from shooting people So At the ESU campus, a bunch of people are like eating in the cafeteria and a guy... Is this ESU? I thought this was the high school. This is ESU. These are college students. Yeah. Yeah. um And there's a there's a student wearing a Thor t-shirt, a t-shirt with Thor's hammer on it, who overhears this guy on the radio. Then we see the high school.
01:40:00
Speaker
And the guy we saw at the beginning of the issue and some other teachers at the high school go to talk to the principal and tell the principal that they are worshipers of Thor. And Thursday is Thor's day. So they're not going to work on Thursday anymore. Yeah. ah The principal is like, I cannot let you do that.
01:40:25
Speaker
Like, we gotta have school on Thursday. Yeah. He says, be reasonable, Nate. Society can't reorient itself in a day. I mean, first of all, that argument's bullshit. and nothing The world's gonna keep spinning if these dudes have Thursday off. True. The one thing I will say, the superintendent is correct, because he goes, you guys did sign a contract that said she would work.
01:40:54
Speaker
Monday to Friday. Five days a week, yeah. Yeah, like, like i i I can't give you Thursdays off. If you violate your contract, I'm gonna have to let you go. And that's what he does, he fires them. And that leads to other teachers being like, that's bullshit. We'll fight for you, we'll fight for them all.
01:41:21
Speaker
And the guy from the beginning of the issue is like, civil disobedience, a fundamental right under our government. I can't ask you to do anything. Be true to yourselves and your religion. So that's that's where that leaves off. Yeah. Which again, look, the superintendent's not wrong because they did sign their contract. This dude's also not wrong being like, yeah, it's a religious holiday. Like, it's it's it's my religion. I don't work on Thursdays. It's it's like the Sabbath. Yeah. It's our version of the Sabbath.
01:41:51
Speaker
Like, but why didn't the superintendent go like, okay, well, can you like come in on Sunday? But there's no school on Sunday. The other students, the students aren't going to be there on Sunday. He could do something. Like he could work with them for, for gosh sakes, Matt. But there's, there's no, there's nothing for a teacher to be able to do on a day when students are not there. Matt, you, do what's a teacher work day then? You know full well. That's true. But like,
01:42:18
Speaker
I very much see the super superintendents issue specifically with a teacher saying like, like any other job, okay, you can't work on Thursday, work on Sunday. But in so many other jobs, like the office would be closed on Sunday. No, I look, I agree with you. I'm saying this dude doesn't even try to work with them. That's true. And then immediately dudes are like setting gym mats on fire.
01:42:44
Speaker
Yeah. The dude we saw walking out of the cafeteria at the, yeah at ESU goes to the radio station and just shoots this radio host in cold blood. Yeah. Like rolls up into that radio station and just shoots that guy multiple times. Yes. Uh, uh, apparently murders, uh, Chucky Diamond's fill in guy.
01:43:14
Speaker
Um, also the guy who, the the shooter, the college student looks exactly like that teacher. His hair is just colored blonde instead of gray. Yeah. And he also looks exactly like Thor. ah He looks a lot like a younger Thor. Yeah. yeah Or like Jake Olson with, ah with some scruffy beard. Yeah. He's got to go to you and not a full beard like Thor. Oh, also the, the school where all that was happening is the school that Tareena tends. Right. Right. Right.
01:43:43
Speaker
The school where immediately all the students are like, they're not gonna give us Thursdays off, let's set the gym mats on fire? Yeah. So in Asgard, the the the woman from the human delegation who's sneaking around pretending to be an Asgardian woman recording, overhears an argument over a sword. There's like a blacksmith, he's trying to sell a sword to a guy, the guy who's buying it's like, ah, you're charging too much.
01:44:13
Speaker
You made it wrong. And so Thor shows up and he's like, hey, why are you giving it a hard time? He made a good sword. And so the guy's like, okay, I'll pay full price. What a fucking dictator. What a piece of shit. Look, I think people should be allowed to haggle. I think haggling is perfectly reasonable. Uh, I don't know, man, but I wouldn't, I wouldn't let some guy talk shit about my cool sword.
01:44:43
Speaker
Warnock, why did you say this sword was bad? This sword's good. Yeah. ah But Thor is like, all right, well, I took care of that. Time to go to a tavern. And he also talks to the human ladies like, how are you? And she's like, ah to good. Seeing Thor makes her freak out and she kind of like gets out of the town square. But then she sees the castle.
01:45:13
Speaker
And she's like, Oh, I gotta go in there. So she goes in there, she starts snooping around. She finds like a beaker labeled elixir of wisdom, full of this like pink bubbling liquid. And she's like, I'm drinking that. So she drinks it. Yeah. And whoever she's on the phone with is like, don't don't do that. And she's like, No, I want to be smart like a god.
01:45:40
Speaker
Yeah. Cause she apparently needs it cause she's a fucking dumb ass. And of course she immediately dies. Immediately. Like just fully straight up. Like Nefathisk is like, or Thor's like healer Nefathisk and he's like, I can't, she's dead. She dead. Thor, she dead as hell. Sorry. So the ultimate takeaway from this issue, it's like I said, last issue is that It's not necessarily that Thor is doing anything wrong. It's that people are fucking stupid. but you yeah The ultimate takeaway from this Dan Jurgen story is that people are fucking stupid. The dude goes and shoots the radio host. The people are setting the gym mats on fire because they can't get Thursday off.
01:46:31
Speaker
Like, it's not Thor that's the problem. It's people that are the problem. Yeah, so why is everybody acting like it's Thor's fault? Because it's not. Well, I guess that the idea is that people wouldn't be behaving this way if Thor didn't do what he did. Thor? Okay, if he didn't do what he did, like, saving people's lives? Yeah. Because that's all he's done. Thor has not done anything bad or wrong.
01:47:01
Speaker
Like, in a very literal sense, he has done nothing bad. And it's, this story doesn't work because Thor is just like, but like, Thor isn't even like, like a couple of issues ago, somebody was like, you know, they're, they're worshiping you. And Thor's like, I never asked anybody to worship me. You know, I told them they could worship whoever they wanted to. If he had even just been like, well, I mean, if they want to worship me,
01:47:30
Speaker
then they can, but he doesn't. He's like, yeah, I don't want anybody to worship me. I'm just like trying to do the right thing. That guy was killing people. So I stopped him from killing people. What's the fucking deal? I mean, that's ultimately why the elite council was like, Oh, we can't, we can't let you in. Yeah. Not because Thor did anything wrong per se, but because people reacted like morons.
01:47:58
Speaker
to him helping them. Yeah, which again, if if someone, if I'm dying, if if you see me and I'm on fire, don't throw a fucking book about how to put out fires at me. You know, that's not gonna help. That's not what the situation requires. If I'm starving, don't throw me a bag of inedible seeds.
01:48:28
Speaker
like triage the problem and then we can move from there. Well... Because also all Thor fucking does in a superhero comic is intervene!
01:48:47
Speaker
It's the only thing he's done since 1962! There are five more parts of Spiral. We will do all of those next time.
01:48:58
Speaker
and the prologue of the reigning.
01:49:04
Speaker
And then we would be barreling toward the end of the Jurgens' run on Thor. Yeah, very exciting. I'm i'm looking forward to to getting through, because I feel like this story does get pretty good, but right now it's just very frustrating.
01:49:22
Speaker
Well, uh, we've got, we like I said, we've got the rest of spiral, then the reigning prologue, that'll be our next episode. Then all six parts of the reigning, then gods and men, and then the run is over. Then it's disassembled after that. Uh, which is, uh, which is also really good.
01:49:44
Speaker
Yeah, we've we've said we might write read Thor disassembled. I feel like it would be weird to not read the last, what, four or five issues of this Thor? It's six. it's yeah But yeah, it's the it's the end of this volume of Thor. So yeah, I guess we'll go all the way to 85. And we are now at...
01:50:11
Speaker
Uh, number 60, we just finished number 62. So a little over 20 issues left in jerkies.
Listener Engagement and Conclusion
01:50:22
Speaker
Thanks for listening, everybody. We'll be back next week. If you want to email us, you could do it at our email address, which is war rocket podcast at gmail dot.com. We're on blue sky at war rocket, Ajax dot.com there. We're on tumblr at war rocket podcast dot tumblr dot.com.
01:50:42
Speaker
You can also join our Discord and we would love for you to do that. Ask us for an invitation to it. You have to be invited, but it's easy enough to ask us for an invitation. We'll send you one. You can join up ah and be part of that community of War Rock at Ajax listeners. Our website is warrockatajax.com and as every episode of the show we've ever done, warrockatwiki.com is the fan run repository of all the information you could want or need about the show War Rock at Ajax. It has just been updated.
01:51:11
Speaker
with this year's Gordies winners, and the Every Story Everless has been updated there to reflect recent changes, which we'll tell you more about soon. If you want to find me and my stuff, go to mattdewelson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias. Chris, where can people find you? Everybody can find me by going to the-isp dot.com. That is my website, and it's got some things that I've written. If you have not read them or you would like to read them again,
01:51:40
Speaker
Uh, you should do so. That would be fun. It's also got links to other things that I do. And it has, uh, I believe there's contact information there in case you would like to hire me to do any, uh, writing, consulting, editing, uh, general pop culture expertise. That as a War Rocket Ajax listener, you are aware that I have, which includes telling you the Thor was right. Uh, you should hire Chris.
01:52:09
Speaker
Anyone listening to this with the ability to hire, you should hire Chris. Yeah, there's also a little button there where if you can't ah hire me, you can still give me five dollars.
01:52:24
Speaker
Bye, everybody. We'll see you next week. We will see you next week. Until then, folks, do not forget Black Lives Matter. Trans rights are human rights. As are abortion rights. Drag is not a crime. And cops aren't your friends. But we love you. We love you.