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Spider-Man Clone Saga: Smoke and Mirrors
48 Plays1 year ago
Derek and Corinne try to piece together what is going on with Spider-Man.
I guess that Jackal is back? Also there's a little Jackal? Also there's a lot of nudity.
This comic is weird.
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Transcript
Introduction and Hosts' Anecdotes
00:00:13
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to Comically Pedantic, where we take a detailed look at the complicated concepts, characters, and history of comic book culture. I'm your host, Derek L. Chase, and joining me on this episode, as always, is the wonderful Corinne Levy. Hi! So that makes a lot more sense for, I guess, if I keep the messed up intro in. This doesn't have to make sense. When does anything I ever do make sense?
00:00:41
Speaker
For those joining us, we've been talking for over a half an hour. We have started recording and immediately screwed up. I cooked it. Derek was fine. I was the one that cooked it. It's a good time. We're having a good time. So I guess we should start with, what's your bright spot for the week? Oh, gosh. What is it? I don't know. It's been a wild week.
00:01:12
Speaker
Oh, I know my bright spot. Okay, I got to have some super delicious cincocho with some of my wonderful coworkers on one of my like last days of working because I'm moving. So I had, I unfortunately had to leave my job so that I could go to a different state. But yeah, we got to have cincocho and it's like this super awesome Puerto Rican stew
00:01:40
Speaker
It's so good. I love it so much. And we all just got to like sit together and eat. And we were like, oh, what a time. So good. I still have some of it. And I'm so excited to have yummy leftovers. And then I got to see some family. I just had to have a nice glass of wine.
00:02:05
Speaker
I can't complain. I'm hanging in
Exploring 'Letterkenny' and New Discoveries
00:02:08
Speaker
there. I'm doing fine. I'm alive. I'm awake. I'm alert. I'm enthusiastic. We're, we're killing it. What is your bright spot?
00:02:17
Speaker
That's a good question. I was actually trying to think of it. So I guess for me, I would have to go with... I'm gonna go with my dog. Because he's being a huge asshole right now and I'm going to make him feel bad. We're gonna guilt trip him. That's right. Yeah, never call.
00:02:40
Speaker
I don't know. I've been reading a lot of fun stuff and just having a good time with branching out into different things. I mean, not like incredibly out of nowhere stuff, things that I'm interested in, but like picking up in different areas. I just started watching Letterkenny, which I've
00:03:04
Speaker
I think is really funny. With Letterkenny, one of the things that I think is really fun, I love that you have to follow along from the beginning in order to really get a lot of the humor because it just builds off of
00:03:23
Speaker
mimetic language. So like I watched an episode with Austin and at the end Austin was asking me some questions like why did this person do this? Like why is this the thing that they said? And it was like it really just builds off of things that like they are
00:03:42
Speaker
encapsulating an entire feeling in a dumb catchphrase kind of. Right. But it works. I'm also really happy that like early on in that show, there's a lot of bathroom humor that I was not super into and they have they have moved away from that and I'm so happy for that. Yeah, you're not a bathroom humor kind of fan, which I've learned.
00:04:09
Speaker
There's an entire episode where they make a Facebook clone called Fartbook. And I did every minute of it. The funny aspect of it was seeing the characters react to things, but the bathroom jokes were godawful. Gotcha. It grew. That's okay.
00:04:33
Speaker
So I guess just expanding out into new things. I watch a lot of YouTube, I spend a lot of time reading and researching stuff, so it's rare that I find something new that I get really excited about. Okay. That's fair. I guess that'll be my bright spot. There you go. Dog and Ken.
Dive into Spider-Man 'Clone Saga'
00:05:00
Speaker
For anyone that is new to joining us, I feel like we should actually at the beginning of the show maybe mention what the fuck we do. Oh, yeah, we read Spider-Man. Just a lot of Spider-Man right now. We do a lot of in-depth dives into stuff. And usually, if I'm doing a deep research topic, Corinne,
00:05:21
Speaker
knows almost nothing. The bare minimum. I know the title of what it's going to be and then I don't have to do anything but listen and it's a nice break for me. This research we've decided to take on together and we are
00:05:39
Speaker
We're going through the Clone Saga piece by piece. I believe this is the seventh episode that we're doing on the Clone Saga where you and I alternate back and forth reading. And boy, is this getting a little difficult.
00:05:53
Speaker
Yeah, it's a time right now. Uh, we just had like, Dr. Octopus get killed by this guy named Kane, who's just like a blue man who might have like matching DNA or something to Peter Parker and also Ben Riley. Ben Riley is like Peter Parker's clone.
00:06:17
Speaker
What a time. Um, but yeah, Kane keeps killing off a bunch of like villains. And then both spider people are like, whoa. Punch. And then that's pretty much what's been going on. No one really knows any connections yet. Like we haven't seen Ben Riley or Peter Parker next to each other properly since like the first episode, I think, like the first section of reading.
00:06:45
Speaker
They are both aware that like each other still exists, but like they don't really do anything about it. So that is one of those things that I have actually been a little confused by and we're going to get a little bit into it in this episode because at the end of the first one, Ben, as far as Peter knows, Ben died.
00:07:11
Speaker
Cause he like jumped into an exploding car and then Peter never saw him after that. And that's the, that's like where they leave off. And then, but then Ben has been like parading around town. Yeah, he was staying in like a natural history museum for a minute. Now he like lives in a hotel, but like the hotel is treated like an apartment. It's very confusing, like Ben's
00:07:41
Speaker
Like how much Peter knows Ben is weird also. I thought that's what you were, but Ben's timeline is weird because you have like the exploding car. We don't really know where Ben was in between.
00:07:55
Speaker
the car accident. And like the first section that I read was called the exile returns. And there was only one point towards like the end of that little story section where it sounded like he was going to leave, but then he ended up not leaving cause he had a big battle with like venom. But now it sounds like he was gone for a period of time cause he had met like this guy named Dr. C word.
00:08:24
Speaker
who had done tests on him and taught him a little bit about himself, but apparently that might have been in between the exploding car or before the exploding car. I believe that is before, I believe, so he meets Dr. Seaward trainer in the five years from when he disappeared after the original clone saga and before this clone saga.
00:08:51
Speaker
The other confusing thing though is when you add Cain into it, because Cain has, we're about, like we said, this is episode seven. So that's at least like, I don't know, seven times four is 28 math. That's at least like 28 issues that we've read. And this guy, Cain, has still been given like no context.
00:09:17
Speaker
as to, like, truly where he came from. We still know, like, nothing of an origin story. The only thing we know is that he can kill people by, like, doing the whole Mark McCain thing. And he knows that Mary Jane's gonna get murdered. And he's been killing the main villains that have been alongside him. So we've had a lot of...
00:09:42
Speaker
Different things happen with Peter and Ben and a lot of things have happened in their lives. It's been very confusing. Both have been getting weird visions. Uh, both have been haunted by Cain, even though we don't know why. And both have had villains killed off by Cain.
00:10:00
Speaker
And that's what led us to the funeral for an octopus, where we spent most of the miniseries not really dealing with Doc Ock's death in any way other than having a bunch of bad guys try to steal his stuff. Because if I'm remembering right, Dr. Octopus was the first one of Spider-Man's one-on-one interactions recently that Kane had killed off. So we got Grim Hunter,
00:10:31
Speaker
Cain killed, and that was in one of the very Ben Riley heavy things. And then Electro, almost. And then Mysterio wasn't almost, but it was Robot. And that was again another like, oh, well, I guess that was maybe both of them.
Character Analysis: Ben Riley and Kane
00:10:50
Speaker
That's Spider-Man and... They're starting... Okay, Scarlet Spider and Spider-Man are starting to come closer together again, but they still have improperly like,
00:11:00
Speaker
reintroduce themselves to each other and it wasn't until I guess funeral of an octopus now that I'm realizing when they really were like the closest they've ever been in terms of like character interactions. Yeah and I think even during that it's mostly just seeing each other sort of like they're in the same place at different times. They're always like five minutes behind or ahead of each other.
00:11:22
Speaker
Leading out of Funeral for a Friend, we still have Peter now reunited with Mary Jane, finding out he's going to be a dad, and deciding that it's important that he actually have a real life to live. Because before that, he was doing the whole, I'm just the spider emo bullshit. And sort of along those lines, Ben is in the same boat. He's starting to realize that
00:11:47
Speaker
He kind of likes having a life separate from Peter and he can have friends, even though he gets a little over melodramatic and sort of tries to push them away after getting to know them. It's really weird. I don't know what's going on with like where Ben's head is. I can understand being upset, but with Ben from what I've read so far, it's very much like he doesn't want to get in Peter Parker's way of his life.
00:12:16
Speaker
And he wants to just like do his own thing. But a lot of times he steps up because of the memories that he shares. So he's like, I may not like want to have a relationship with these people or like, you know, but there is a weight to them that I already have preconceived almost.
00:12:40
Speaker
Right. So he's just very lost also in the existential crisis of like, am I actually a person or not because I'm a clone? So that's like a whole thing, but he's starting to try and get better. I don't know. Maybe you'll learn something in what you've read this week. Right. Well, so despite
00:13:02
Speaker
you know, listing off like several major deaths and bringing Peter sort of out of his funk. We haven't really had much in the way of moving forward with the Clone Saga as like a plot line or an event or anything. That really kicks into high gear in this particular story arc. We're going to go over smoke and mirrors. We're going to get a lot of movement in the Clone Saga for better and for worse. Okay.
00:13:31
Speaker
So we start with Web of Spider-Man volume one, number 122, which was written by JMD Matias and Todd D'Zago, penciled by Steven Butler, inked by Randy Emberlin, colored by Kevin Tinsley and lettered by Steve Dutrow. Todd D'Zago, Kevin Tinsley and Steve Dutrow are the only returning creatives from the previous issue. That being said, a lot of these other people have been working on the clone saga in various degrees and other issues, which is great. There's somewhat of a rotation.
00:14:00
Speaker
So we start the issue following the Scarlet Spider as he swings across the city, feeling guilty about enjoying the thrill of being a superhero again, especially since he still views this as Peter's life. I just think it's weird that he's like,
00:14:15
Speaker
being a superhero again. Cause like after all that we've been reading, unless somehow we're learning this is magically out of chronological order, which I don't think it is because there's been hints to like what you previously read in what I was reading. Like he's been a superhero the whole time. Yeah, I think it's more. So I, I get the impression that, that what we have read so far is supposed to have taken
00:14:43
Speaker
Place in a very short period of time. Okay Which kind of makes sense with you know, Peter being out sick Just like things happening back to back to back It's just that uh We've read a fucking lot Yeah, I think maybe it's just like oh my god this thing is plateaued for so long I need some sort of movement
00:15:12
Speaker
But I don't know, I think this is one of those weird Ben Riley self-doubt things again. But it's like, bitch, you've been doing this the whole time. This is just a Tuesday for you. Well, we do get some movement here because as he's swinging through the city, he gets thrown off guard through the sudden appearance of the image of the jackal appears in his mind.
00:15:39
Speaker
Like out of nowhere suddenly he's seeing the Jackal and he just falls because he's just so completely Unprepared for this and he ends up falling to the building below him Now we haven't we see I'm trying to jog my memory. We haven't seen him in what we've read so far. We've just like talked about the context of him and
00:16:04
Speaker
Right. So the Jackal has not been in, he was in the original Clone Saga and that is kind of the last time we've seen him. There have been like in the comics, there have been Jackal clones that have popped up and then it's confusing because they don't actually look like the Jackal. They look like a different thing entirely.
00:16:28
Speaker
Yeah, like I mean, I think I've seen photos like one looks like a goblin doesn't it so you might be thinking of carrion who is He is a jackal clone, but he kind of wears He's like a zombie and he kind of wears like the tattered clothes and stuff. No It was just like a goblin it was green and
00:16:53
Speaker
Well, that's the Jackal is green. I am sure at some point we'll come across something because the Jackal is kind of a big deal, even though like I would still
Jackal's Manipulations and Cloning Revelations
00:17:03
Speaker
kind of put him as like a minor villain in terms of Spider-Man story. It's just that. Especially with like pop culture too. Cause like, I never heard of him.
00:17:13
Speaker
before until we had to start talking about this stuff. And then I only knew that like, okay, he's, he does cloning stuff. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of his big thing. And it's really funny too, because like, as we, as we talk about the Jackal more and more, I think it's really important to keep in mind that, uh, he, he, his day job was he was a biology professor at a college. Okay. So.
00:17:43
Speaker
If, well, okay. I'm like the guy that turns into the lizard. I sound like a five-year-old about to be like, and then, and then this happened and then it came out of the sky. But isn't that her Spider-Man villain that turns into a lizard and he was also a professor? Yeah, his name is the lizard.
00:18:12
Speaker
I don't know if he shows up throughout this. He's a weird character in that like every time they bring him back, they kind of have to backtrack any progress they've made with him to get him to be the villain again.
00:18:28
Speaker
Like, it's sort of like a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, where at the end of every story, they're like, all right, we've cured you. You're just Dr. Jekyll now. And then the next time they come around, they're like, oh, but maybe we didn't. Okay. And I'm, and we're still talking about the lizard man. We're not talking about the Jekyll. Right. Right. No, no, no. Okay. Cool. All right. Before I confused myself any further than I potentially could,
00:18:55
Speaker
Oh, to confuse you even more, there is also a Marvel character named Mr. Hyde, who is... That's rude! It's essentially Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but it's just a guy who came up with the formula like that, and then he decided to name himself Mr. Hyde. It's so fun.
00:19:18
Speaker
Love it. Fantastic. Okay, but so, Scarlet Spider Ben Riley has a vision of the Jackal. Right. Who is a weird, cloney lad. Yes. And he falls out of the sky now. Yeah, so he falls through the building below him. Now, at the same time, Peter is getting ready for dinner with his wife when he is also struck with an image of the Jackal.
00:19:43
Speaker
When Peter tries to get over it and he goes to kiss his wife, suddenly his mind flashes to an image of Quinn Stacey. Now, that kind of throws him off a little bit because like, you know, he's with his wife. He doesn't want to be thinking of someone else while he's with his wife. And Mary Jane starts to question what's wrong. And Peter just says that he must still be shaky from when he had, what is essentially, I'm just going to call it the bird flu.
00:20:10
Speaker
bird poison when he was bird poisoned. So Mary Jane suggests, well, maybe we should just cancel our dinner. But Peter instead swoops her up and tells her that he can't wait to celebrate her pregnancy and their lives together. And this is one of the ongoing things that I'm really enjoying about Peter right now is his just absolute love for his wife and the fact that he will be a dad. It keeps coming up and I keep loving it.
00:20:39
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's kind of like the one in this run of Spider-Man. It's like the redeeming factor of Peter Parker. Because there's been a lot of things that he's decided to do that I'm just like, this is stupid. Or why are you doing this? And but every time he has like a good interaction with his wife with like Mary Jane, I'm like this. All right. This is good. This is a guy who's trying his best.
00:21:09
Speaker
And then he like puts like Dr. Octopus arms on himself thinking he's immune. And then I'm like, God damn it. But then he hugs his wife again. And I'm like, Oh, Oh, what a time. Okay, cool.
00:21:28
Speaker
So they go off to have dinner together and then we cut to the Scarlet Spider who has now left Manhattan to go to the Catskill Mountains just outside of the city. But he doesn't really know how he got there or why he got there. He just knew he had to go there. And he is then caught off guard by a short man wearing a jackal costume who insists on being called Jack. What does this guy look like?
00:21:55
Speaker
So he looks like that sort of the green furred, big eared Jackal. If you, if you've seen the Jackal in the comics, he looks like him just shorter. So Jack convinces Ben to follow him to a mysterious floating metal door. As he explains that this was all set up years ago by the Jackal and that everything behind the door is Ben's destiny.
00:22:23
Speaker
So this door literally, it goes nowhere. It's just a floating door. It's one of the weirdest things. It's not like a door built into a mountain or anything. It's just a door. It's just the door.
00:22:39
Speaker
And so he goes further, Jack does, and tells Ben that in order to get inside the door, he has to defeat its defender. And just then they are attacked by a massive creature with Peter Parker's face. But essentially this hulking monstrosity that has like really long hair and looks just like Peter.
00:23:02
Speaker
Now, this monstrous version of Peter has scarring all over its body that resembles the markings on Cain's costume. So I thought that was important to point out. It's like the weird, veiny things that are all over Cain's costume. As all of this is happening, the real Peter Parker stops at the Daily Bugle to go over his insurance coverage while he's off work,
00:23:26
Speaker
for Mary Jean's pregnancy, basically just making sure everything's in line so that when he has his kid, he's like, all right, everything's covered, we're good. And it's just like proper dad stuff, I like that. Oh my goodness, I love it. Next he's gonna go buy a car seat. Right, and as he starts to leave, Jay Jonah Jamison exits his office with Detective Jacob Raven. Now...
00:23:55
Speaker
You and I have have seen Detective Raven before. Yes, because he is trying to solve a slew of murders that started in Salt Lake, Utah. And we think Kane did it because all of the markings of on the murder victims match the mark of Kane. And now that all these bad guys are getting murdered in New York,
00:24:26
Speaker
they hired him to do it, to solve the crime. Yeah, he kind of shows up and is like, hey, I have information. Yeah. Now, Raven has Jonah swear to keep what they spoke about a secret. And then when Joe Robertson asks what all that was about, Jonah tells them that he doesn't want to know. He's just like, stay out of it, Joe.
00:24:49
Speaker
So Peter is then struck by images of himself emerging from a cloning tank and the jackal laughing in his face. Stumbling from this sudden shock, Detective Raven helps Peter back to his feet, which sets off his spider sense. But he doesn't know why. He just knows that when Detective Raven helps him up, something about that man is setting off his spider sense. Yeah.
00:25:15
Speaker
Meanwhile, Mary Jane is visiting Aunt May with continuing to be the worst Aunt Anna when Anna suggests May dying might be a way of making room for Mary Jane's unborn child, which is such a fucked up thing. That's not how things work. It's so awful to say, maybe she should die so you can have a baby. I fucking hate this point. Hold the plug. It's right there, just do it.
00:25:44
Speaker
One good thing about this though is like in this scene, May's eyes open very slightly and a single tear drops out before she goes back into her coma. So it's like that's like a really kind of weird and sweet moment. I actually haven't heard from her about her in like a long time. I haven't seen anybody like visit her like in the past couple of things I've read.
00:26:13
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, there was, uh, Peter had gone to, uh, visit her and there was like a weird moment where you saw things from her perspective. And that was interesting, but really as a character, I mean, she's been in a coma. Yeah. Back in the mountains. Ben is still fighting against the guardian of the door while Kane is watching from a distance. Also, I gotta say real quick, I just looked it up while you were talking about them in the Catskills.
00:26:44
Speaker
It is from Manhattan to the Catskills Mountains, a two hour and 25 or two hour and 26 minute drive to get there. Now, I am assuming that Ben Riley does not have a car. Yeah, I would assume that. He's the New Yorker. He's probably using public transportation and there's no trains to get you to the Catskills.
00:27:12
Speaker
So if he didn't drive the two hour and 25 minute drive, he would have walked for one day and 15 hours, or if he's on the little slower side at one point, one day and 17 hours. So how did he get there? I'm assuming he walked, because there, this is where the time- So he blacked out for like a day and a half?
00:27:39
Speaker
Time gets a little funky here. And I can tell you that the scene where, the scene where Peter says he's going to go out with his wife, she specifically says lunch. But when they go outside, it is clearly nighttime. Maybe it's winter. Maybe it's a late lunch. Or a lint, perhaps. Have you ever had a good linner before? Oh, delightful. But I think when Ben winds up in the mountains,
00:28:07
Speaker
it is daylight. So it does seem like some time has passed, but they don't really mention it in the story. It's just sort of like, and now this like, and I'm not one who gets like, I don't like to be picky about, you know, I think I think details. However, those details are important. However, there was a point when you said the cat skills and there was a very small point where I was like, I forgot that they were in New York.
00:28:36
Speaker
There's no way they can be that close to New York City, what's happening. So I had to look it up there. And also I think ever since the whole, is it an apartment or is it a lawyer office game that I had to play last episode? I'm becoming a bit skeptical of a lot of things just because it threw me off so much.
00:28:58
Speaker
Well, I don't know if you remember it. Have you seen the, the, uh, the TMNT movies that were produced by Michael Bay? I don't remember who the director was. I don't like Michael Bay. Yeah. They're not good movies, but, um, there is in that movie, they are in a snowy mountain at like one point. And it's just like, I'm assuming the cat skills, but like,
00:29:26
Speaker
I don't know, none of it really matches up with the rest of the movie. It threw me out immediately. But anyway. There's just some things. Max was telling me about, he had watched the movie Unfriended with a friend of his when it came out. And there wasn't like, oh, I gotta add, Bubby!
00:29:56
Speaker
When you watched Unfriended with Mandy, what was the button that was missing that threw you off and took you out of there? So it's not me. This is... Okay, for anyone who doesn't know, Unfriended is a really bad... Oh, okay. Sorry. I was speaking to the mic. Unfriended is a really bad horror movie filmed entirely over a Skype call. Yes.
00:30:21
Speaker
everything that's happening to the characters you see through the perspective of a computer screen. And, uh, my friend Mandy, who I saw this with at the time was on no social media. So when things were glitching out on like Facebook and Instagram and like I message on the characters, Mac books, no impact on her. It was like not unnerving at all. But then.
00:30:44
Speaker
There's a scene where she goes to attempt to send an email, and like the send button was missing on Gmail, and Mandy grabbed my shoulder and said something's not right. It was really as if I was watching it with my 79-year-old grandmother and not my 17-year-old friend at the time of that movie.
00:31:05
Speaker
Well, cause like the send button arguably is the most important button on no agree that there was clearly something wasn't right. Yeah. Up until that point. Like I think characters had already died as well. So the stakes were already high, but they were even higher when the send button was taken. Yeah, exactly. All right. Well, thanks for letting me guess. Thank you. I'll be back. Bye. Best friend. That's my best friend.
00:31:34
Speaker
I kind of want to watch a movie with this person just because the idea of watching a horror movie where someone goes, something's not right, sounds great. I really, when we did the whole comics gate series, I had to be like laser focused.
00:31:56
Speaker
Like I was, I was trying. Cause I didn't know anything or anyone. I was focused. Um, Max would be like, Oh, do you want to drink before you like do your podcast? And I was like, I can't, I will understand anything that's going to go on. Like I'm so glad we're doing Spider-Man now. Cause I can like do whatever before.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, this, uh, I was trying, so part of doing the comics gate stuff, uh, I was trying to shorten, I was trying to pack as much information in as possible to give you like a good idea of like the things that go on and like, what is important to understand, but also not to spend forever on just talking about like, like Ethan and
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, Ethan Van Skyver. I didn't want to spend six episodes just talking about him because we could. We could spend six episodes talking just about Ethan Van Skyver. I thought what was more important was to talk about the things around him, the things that he caused and the ways that he sort of
00:33:09
Speaker
impacted. Right. But the downside of that is that it was a fuckload of information. Yes, which you can now listen to. It's all there. But anyway, back to Spiderman. So Ben is knocked unconscious. Yeah, he's knocked unconscious during the fight.
00:33:32
Speaker
And as Jack and the Guardian start to leave, Jack mentions that they need to be prepared for the other one's arrival. Now, keep in mind, because I think we kind of skipped over it real quick, Cain is watching this whole thing, which I think is really funny, because that has been his one trait. It's been like, he kills people, and he just stands in the distance and watches people. Those are the two things he does.
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah, he's good at standing and then, I think he has only successfully murdered two people out of like the five. So he's not even that good at like killing people. I mean, yeah. So just then- Like he killed two goons, but like that was just as an entrance scene. And then everything after that has been incredibly quilting. Okay, so he's been watching.
00:34:28
Speaker
Has he been listening? Yeah, he's been listening. He hasn't done anything, though. Just watching and listening. Okay. And just then, Spider-Man, back in New York City, gets a vision of the Scarlet Spider laying beaten in the snow. How he gets this vision, we don't know. But he instinctively knows where to find him, so he rushes off to help him, which ends the issue. Okay, I have to ask, did he jump in a car?
00:34:56
Speaker
Or is he just running? He just like swings off. So you can imagine somehow he like, let's, let's be charitable. And there's a helicopter going to the cat skills at that exact moment. There's been an avalanche. So he maybe he likes no patrol out latches onto the helicopter right as they're on their way out.
00:35:18
Speaker
I don't know, but that takes us to Amazing Spider-Man volume one, number 399, which is written by JMD Matias pencil by Mark Bagley, inked by Larry Mollstead, colored by Bob Sharon and lettered by Bill Oakley, which is the same creative team as the previous Amazing Spider-Man, which I love to see. I'm going to keep calling these out because I think it's important to see when there is a big changeover from issue to issue.
00:35:45
Speaker
I will call them out or I will leave screenshots of the credits that they write out in the comic books themselves. Just as a little asterisk note. Anyway, go on. Now we start this issue with Cain examining Ben's unconscious body before being confronted by Scryer who informs him that the spider is not dead.
00:36:13
Speaker
Now, when Cain tells Scryer to leave him alone, Scryer says that he has nothing to fear from him yet, and suddenly disappears. Just then, Cain realizes someone else is coming, and he hides in the shadows to see that Spider-Man has arrived. So he just kinda like scurries off. And I keep, so I will never not think it's funny that Cain is watching someone, and then someone is watching Cain.
00:36:43
Speaker
Yeah, and then just regular Spider-Man shows off and Kane's like, gotta go fast. Yeah. Cause he's had like conscious interactions with Scarlet Spider. But not with Peter. He keeps like running away from Peter Parker's Spider-Man, which has
Gwen Stacy's Clone and Lab Chaos
00:37:02
Speaker
not been explained. Now I think I made the guess that like,
00:37:09
Speaker
Like the three of them were connected genetically for some reason because there was a while ago where they all shared the same like weird, like hysterical migraine hallucination. And they've noted multiple times that their spidey senses don't work with each other. But we don't know anything. Like nothing's been actually confirmed. They've just been like, if you take those pieces of evidence, I guess you could call that hinting.
00:37:40
Speaker
but it's really just kind of like stuff that's there and you kind of have to dig for it. Yeah, it's hinting and then you kind of, I mean like, I'd say it's hinting in like the way that comic books in like the 80s and 90s do. They're like, oh, how strange. I didn't sense him coming. And I'm like, yeah, I should probably remember that. Ben then slowly starts to wake up and the two Spider-Man share notes on what brought them here before being confronted by Jack.
00:38:07
Speaker
Oh, so the two Spideys now are actually talking to each other. Yeah. They have now started an actual dialogue. Is it a pleasant thing? Are they just talking like coworkers catching up each other on what their shift work was? Or are they not happy to see each other? No, they're... Peter at one point
00:38:31
Speaker
I don't think he says it out loud, but in his thought caption boxes, he references Ben as a brother, which I think is really interesting because he also gets super annoyed with Ben. I mean, I guess that makes sense. He's just like, oh, hello, sir. How are you?
00:38:49
Speaker
Yeah. It's, it's, it's kind of nice. So, uh, Jack shows up and Jack tells them that he knows why they're here, but refuses to tell them anything. So both spider men, I know this. So I actually kind of like Jack, but he's incredibly annoying. I can see why people hate this character. Um, but I think he's kind of fun in like,
00:39:20
Speaker
A very weird way. Well, you know what? I think I get it. I get why people hate him and I get why the writers did it. Cause as of right now, it seems like they want to reveal something, but the writers don't know what they're revealing. So they're like, let's bring out this guy, this weird little goblin furry man and make him play tricks on people.
00:39:46
Speaker
to buy us time to the real reveal. And since he's so annoying, people will be distracted by his natural annoyingness that we don't have to do anything drastic yet.
00:39:59
Speaker
Yeah, and I think we'll get into this at the end, but I think that I'm willing to bet the writers had to, they either had a lot of constraints in terms of how they could position things or they had a lot of time constraints because I feel like the way this was written was not good. So anyway, both of the Spider-Man, Scarlet Spider and Spider-Man proper,
00:40:28
Speaker
chase after Jack and they arrive at the floating door again. Now, when they examine it, they find handprint scanners that cause the door to open and they see Jack on the other side. Now, I'm also going to point out they use their gloved hands to open the said door with the handprint scanner. So I don't think it's that good of a handprint scanner, but it worked and it opens. You know what I didn't think about until just now?
00:40:58
Speaker
with the Scarlet Spider's costume, I like, for a second was like, I pictured bare hands as a part of the costume and it made me physically uncomfortable. Like I was like, pale hands, oh God, no, glove hands, glove hands, like. What about that specific image, do you think is like? That's unsettling.
00:41:28
Speaker
Yeah. It's like seeing your teacher's knees. That's weird. It's a part of their body that you don't expect in that kind of environment. I guess so. Yeah.
00:41:40
Speaker
And it weirded me out, you know? Like, I don't think I've ever seen one of my male teachers in shorts. And I don't intend to ever have that happen. Like, I don't need to see like, I don't know. Miss, I can't think of a single teacher that I had at this point. Um, or, oh God. And I wouldn't want to see any of my chef's knees.
00:42:06
Speaker
Like, cause that's a food safety hazard, like goodness. Oh, if I saw like Chef Poirot's knees, I'd be like, sir, you're in the kitchen. Where are your proper pay? You know, maybe that's closer to what it's like. Cause it's like, why do you not have cover, cover them up? Yeah. Like it doesn't, your costume is, is a particular way. Why are you?
00:42:35
Speaker
Why are you not following the very rigid guidelines that we have given you? That your drawers have drawn for you. Yeah. But now I'm thinking about it and I can't picture what his hands look like. They look like hands. I'm fine. You can keep going.
00:42:59
Speaker
So the two of them go inside and as soon as they're inside, Peter's spider sense goes off and the door closes behind them. So Jack leads the two into a massive lab and I mean massive lab. This thing is gigantic. It's like a football arena just underground. And when they get in there, Jack informs them,
00:43:27
Speaker
that this is where they were all created and that the Jackal will be joining them soon. Now, if this is true, that means Professor Miles Warren, biology teacher at a university, had enough money to somehow purchase or create a lab in the Catskill Mountains that is fucking gigantic.
00:43:51
Speaker
which goes along with like the weirdness that we've seen with Dr. Seward trainer, who just has like labs across New York that he doesn't give a shit about. Yeah. But he has one that he actually uses in like Pennsylvania or something. Right. So they have to be like, scientists must be billionaire. Like they can't even really gotta be like messing with their taxes or like
00:44:17
Speaker
Grants that were given for their programs or something. They just tucked away from themselves Like so like even like with dr. Dr. Trainer. He's got it. There is something Unscrupulous go, you know, like he's not Not a good person Yeah, I mean like Miles Warren Yeah, that's that's the jackals name. I mean like if you're gonna be like a bad guy I
00:44:45
Speaker
Is stealing money really that big of a deal for you? So I guess maybe that's what they, I guess, I don't know. But to have a MetLife stadium amount of space, that's a lot of space. You can have a lot of marching bands in there. That's true. Now in Spider-Man,
00:45:09
Speaker
When Spider-Man responds to Jack, claiming the Jackal will be back soon, he says that it's impossible, since they watched the Jackal die. And Jack points out that he watched Ben die as well, and yet here Ben is. Which is a very good point, because we still have not received an explanation for how Ben's alive. Yeah, and I mean, like, I was one of those guys calling himself Jack.
00:45:38
Speaker
He's probably like at least a third of a jackal. Maybe two thirds because he took most of the title. You know, four out of the what, six letters. That's two thirds. I can do math. I've done so much math in this episode. I'm very proud of you. Four times seven. Fractions. I have a degree. He's probably some form of the jackal.
00:46:06
Speaker
So I'm sure if the Jackal was that crazy. I also feel like this is one of those names that if I say it like three times, it'll just appear like Beetlejuice. But I'm sure if he copied himself enough, there would be enough of himself to like- To make a little version of himself? Yeah, you have Big Jackal and you have Needle Jackal. And then you have Jackal that's a cowboy. I don't know, could be anything.
00:46:35
Speaker
Now just then, they are attacked by the Guardian again, but it's clear that the Guardian is actually in pain. See, he then falls to the floor and says it's happening to him like it's happened to all of the others. And Jack shows genuine concern for the Guardian. And the Guardian is the... The big hulking Peter Parker
00:46:59
Speaker
Yeah. And he dies in Jack's arms. Like he just falls over and dies. So at that point, Jack removes his mask and reveals that he is also a Peter Parker clone. Oh my God. And has the same scarring across his face.
00:47:25
Speaker
Now, he informs them that this is the fate of all of the clones because they all start to deteriorate. Oh. So that's like what was happening to the Guardian. That's what's happening to Jack. They get these scars and they start dying. Well, that's the implication here. I'm sure, because we don't know about Kane yet.
00:47:50
Speaker
We don't know shit about Kane. But I mean, like if the markings are the same, I'm going to perhaps I'll assume I'll make an ass out of, I'll make an ass out of you. So he just dies. Yeah, he dies. Apparently it's a thing that happens. Like if you're a clone, you have, I guess it's like, you're just unstable.
Critique on Comic Writing and Editorial Decisions
00:48:12
Speaker
So you have like a limited lifespan. Uh, so you just start to fall apart.
00:48:20
Speaker
Right. So just then, there's a giant pod nearby and it opens up and out walks the jackal, having genetically modified his body to look just like his costumed counterpart, including the green fur and claws. So now that's just his biology. He just looks that way. Okay.
00:48:45
Speaker
He tells them, now I also think it's funny, he walks out completely naked and there's like ooze dripping off of him and that's what covers his naughty bits. There's a lot of strategic nudity in this story. It's very weird. Okay. Uh, so, um, he tells them that Jack and the guardian were his earliest failures, but the spider men are his greatest successes.
00:49:13
Speaker
He continues to explain that the jackal that died in the explosion was actually a clone that he placed in case something went bad. And this is later revealed to be a lie like in 2016 when
00:49:30
Speaker
Uh, they bring the Jackal back for another storyline. So like way after this, they're like, Oh yeah, no, no, no, that was bullshit. That's not true. They just keep retconning and retconning and retconning things with the Jackal. And it's always clone related. And maybe I shouldn't have had wine for this episode. Cause now I feel like I have to focus again.
00:49:59
Speaker
So the Jackal comes out of the pod and he claims to be the original, but the one that died, he claims was a clone. Yes. No, that I understand. But did we discover that in this issue that you've just read or did they change it again in 2016? Or did they tell you that in 2016? He says that now, but in 2016. They change it again. They change it again. Okay.
00:50:24
Speaker
Cause that's just how comic books do. It's retcon after retcon after retcon. And you know, look, I'm here for some of it. There's a, there's a, there's a bit much, you know? Um, so now we then know for the questions, your honor, we then pan out and we see that Cain
00:50:48
Speaker
has also entered the lab, and guess what? He's watching from a distance. Oh boy. So, Jackal takes the two Spidermen to a regeneration tank and suggests that both of them are clones, but that the real Peter Parker is inside the tank. Now,
00:51:09
Speaker
Peter, Spider-Man, thinks that he's lying and he tries to attack him, but Ben tries to stop him, which then causes the two of them to start arguing, and they're just fighting like brothers, like little brothers. Yeah. Peter refuses to believe that he could be a clone, since he just got his life back on track and is having a child, which isn't really a reason why you're not a clone, it's just reasons why you don't want to be a clone.
00:51:38
Speaker
Right. And this all surprises Ben, who at up until this point, Ben did not know that Mary Jane was pregnant. So he finds out during an argument with Peter that Mary Jane is pregnant. So like, it's another thing that he feels like is taken away from him. It's like,
00:51:56
Speaker
Oh, you get to have a baby. I don't get to have a baby. So then we also, we get to see the inverse of like Peter's excitement for having a child is Ben's on we, right?
00:52:13
Speaker
So Ben then becomes furious that Peter is unable to face what he faces every day, which is knowing he's a copy. He's like, how can you not come to terms with this? I have to fucking deal with it all the time. Yeah. So when Peter says he can't take anything that Jackal has to offer, Jackal opens the chamber and instead of finding another Peter Parker, they are greeted by Gwen Stacy, which closes out the issue.
00:52:43
Speaker
Now, and this is another one of those moments of like strategic nudity. Is it like employed here where it's like instead of ooze coming off, it's like smoke or something comes out of the chamber and it's just like nipple coverings. Right. You see everything except the parts that are like.
00:53:04
Speaker
not supposed to be printed in a, at least- To keep the PG-13. Yeah. Yeah. Now that leads us all the way into Spider-Man volume one, number 56, which is going to be the last issue in this story arc. This has only been two issues so far. We've had all of this. Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
Spiderman 56 was written by Howard Mackey, penciled by Tom Lyle, inked by Scott Hanna, colored by Kevin Tinsley, lettered by Richard Starkings, and Comi-Craft. And this continues the trend of a different creative team from the previous issue. Howard Mackey, Kevin Tinsley, and Richard Starkings are the only creatives to continue into this issue from the previous issue. Which is one thing that sometimes throws me off.
00:54:00
Speaker
I like that everyone has a job and that makes me happy. But as like a reader, like when I was reading hack slash, I really liked the story and I thought the story was fun, but there were points where the art would change on me. And there was one where it was like in the middle of an issue, the art changed on me. And it really like took me out of it.
00:54:29
Speaker
um, because I would get connected to the look of something. And cause with comics, it's like, yes, the writing and the plot. Um, but it's also, yeah, the art like connects you to the story. And if it keeps changing and changing, it's hard for me personally, as a reader to like stay connected with it. Um,
00:54:57
Speaker
So like, I think that's been one of the challenges of doing this is because they keep having a cycle. And thankfully, like so far, all of the art has been fairly like similar styles to each other, but like it does kind of make it like it's noticeable the difference sometimes, you know? Yeah. And you also have to keep in mind that like the way that the story is being portrayed to you,
00:55:24
Speaker
is so heavily dependent on the artist. So the pacing changes, the way that shots are composed changes, which can change how you feel about a story. I tend to be one of the people that prefers
00:55:47
Speaker
I am fine with changing things up. I think it makes more sense to keep a creative team for a particular story. And then when you're done with that story, you can have a different creative team. Now, if it's a saga. Yeah, absolutely. Like I've read like, I don't know, like four different Batman things and none of them are the same. Like, but at least throughout the story, the art is the same.
00:56:13
Speaker
So like when I was reading White Knight, it's not art is the same, but when I was reading like Long Halloween, like the art's different there and it plays into the story and that made me like it more, even though I may like objectively like how so-and-so is drawn in one thing compared to another. But when you look at it overall as a reading experience, I have no qualms with that. I think when,
00:56:43
Speaker
I'm reading, let's say like right now I'm going to have to read after this. Um, it's what like pawns and some players and pawns is what I'm going to have to read next. So like, you know, I'm expecting a finite story somewhat, you know, it's a SQL finite story, but it's a finite story. I would like as a reader, some,
00:57:12
Speaker
togetherness to it. And if you keep changing the art drastically, when you're in one section, it makes it tough. But anyway, that's my little rant. I will also, I'm going to piggyback off of that because I will tell you one of the things that has always annoyed me as a comic book reader is this insistence on
00:57:39
Speaker
having interconnected storylines in different books. So I'm a big fan of how, I mean, I'm a big X-Men fan, as I've mentioned before. I like the way that the X-Men are for the most part being handled in modern stories where you have maybe six or seven, I think there's more, but six or seven different X-Men books.
00:58:08
Speaker
But if you're getting a particular book, it is telling you a very particular story following a very specific cast of characters. Yeah, like you don't have to worry so much about knowing what is canonically true. Right. Is that what you're saying? There's that, but there's also...
00:58:28
Speaker
This run on Spider-Man and the way the X-Men were being done at the exact same time, so in the early 90s over at Marvel, and I can tell you exactly why, it's because they thought they could get away with it. They could get more money this way. But the way that it was done was you have, I'm going to stick with X-Men because it's a little bit easier, X-Men and Uncanny X-Men. Those are two different comic books.
00:58:55
Speaker
But in order to understand the story that's being told, you need to buy both comic books. Because they will tell you part one in X-Men and part two in Uncanny X-Men. And that's how Spider-Man's being treated right now. You pick up Amazin' Spider-Man, then you pick up a Web of Spider-Man, then you pick up- Then you pick up Amazin' Spider-Man. Right. And that these are all being produced
00:59:18
Speaker
it's essentially once a week you have a different comic book to buy and at the time let's say these are two dollars that's a lot of money to be shelling out uh every month to keep picking up uh four different titles to follow one storyline yeah just make it like there is no reason to make spider-man
00:59:45
Speaker
The, uh, a Spider-Man story broken into four other than from a marketing perspective, so that you have to buy all of them when it could be, all right, the, the Peter Parker Spider-Man story is going to be, we're going to tell, uh, smoke and mirrors in amazing Spider-Man. We're going to sell players and pawns in spectacular Spider-Man. Now the downside to that is they all come out, uh, at the same time.
01:00:12
Speaker
So you can't really build off of one another. So you would have to build in, you would have to have a really good editor where you would have to build in filler to pad out what's going on. That being said, some of the time filler is the best thing for these characters because you're not constantly going from big action set piece and emotional turmoil to the next. You have a quiet issue where
01:00:40
Speaker
Peter gets to sit down and have dinner with his wife and they talk about what's been happening and you get to know the characters a little bit more. Yeah. That would, I, that would be my ideal outcome. This is with 40 years of hindsight. Yeah. And it's also the last question I will ask, and then we can get into this issue. Is it at least still, um, Bob,
01:01:08
Speaker
Budiansky as the editor in chief right now. Yeah. I'm going to be calling out, uh, when we're cycling through the, uh, editors. Um, so we have, I think Bob at this point, now you have me questioning myself. So from what I have been able to, uh,
01:01:38
Speaker
gather at the very least. Bob Budiansky, he took over as the editor of the Spiderman line. So he's the editor in chief of Spiderman titles. Uh, not necessarily the editor in chief at Marvel. Uh, and there are editors that work underneath him and he took over around the time of web of life, web web of death. Yes.
01:01:59
Speaker
Okay, so that's kind of where we are and he's going to stick around for a bit, but then there's going to be like ins and outs of different people working on different things. It's going to get all kinds of confusing editorially, but that's part of the fun of this.
01:02:17
Speaker
This issue begins with the Jackal claiming that Gwen Stacy, the one that just exited the big ass tank, is in fact the real Gwen Stacy that he helped cheat death. Now, Spider-Man is furious at this assertion and refuses to believe that she is anything but another clone to mess with his mind. He lunges at the Jackal but is stopped by Gwen who reveals that she knows he is Peter and that what the Jackal says is true.
01:02:47
Speaker
which I would argue is evidence that she is not the real Gwen Stacy because Gwen didn't know he was Peter. Yeah. It's also this like the jackal just seems like
01:03:01
Speaker
Clearly like the biggest gas lighter. He's an internet troll come to life degree Yeah, yeah. Oh campy is the name of the game. It is fucking weird He he walks around like he's the Joker in this story and that's not necessarily how he was ever portrayed before and I think they're trying to go with he's crazy and like that's the thing that is is like his new
01:03:28
Speaker
his new persona and that's what makes him dangerous, which I would say also is stigmatizing mental health and weird, but that's a, it's a common trope in fiction. So I'll give it a pass, I guess. Right. There is, um, and then I promise we could continue talking about the subject we're here to talk about, but there is a YouTube channel that recorded a bunch of like, um,
01:03:57
Speaker
character work of like these quick little comedy skits and it's all like college students.
01:04:05
Speaker
stuff. And there's one that this guy does, I can't remember his name right now, but I promise I will find it. And he does this thing and it's like Batman's weirdest villain, the Barking Glass. And it's like, it's not like mean, it's all like harmless, like goofs. And it's just like his, the thing that makes him dangerous is just that he's so freaking random.
01:04:34
Speaker
Like, is that he has no gimmick? Well, that would be a dangerous thing to Batman, because he constantly is looking for patterns. So it actually kind of makes sense. So, like, that's what made it great. But the Jackal does have a gimmick. It's cloning. And he's just weird on top of that. So he is unfortunately not the barking glass of Spider-Man.
01:05:01
Speaker
His aesthetic also, if I were to sit down and try to sell you on the brand that is The Jackal, you would ask me to leave because none of it goes together. It's a man that calls himself The Jackal who is upset that the student he was in love with died
01:05:25
Speaker
and started cloning people. All right, I'm with you so far. But he wears a jackal costume that is green for some reason and enters into like a weird life of crime where he then starts just cloning everyone and coming up with convoluted plans where he just tries to convince everyone they're either the real person or a clone.
01:05:51
Speaker
It doesn't, like none of it, you lost the thread somewhere along the line. Yeah. He's really weird. And I, I can't express that anymore. He's kind of like, um, Oh, what is the character in Sandman where they do a Midsummer Night's Dream? Puck. He's like Puck.
01:06:16
Speaker
A Midsummer Night's Dream is my favorite Shakespearean story. Yeah, he's the little hobgoblin. He also kind of looks like him. That should be the hobgoblin. And then the other villain in Spider-Man should be the jackal.
01:06:38
Speaker
I think we need to find a time machine to go back and change. Marvel, hire me. I don't have anything to do with the literature or writing field or entertainment, but hire me. I've had the hours in which I am cocky today.
01:06:59
Speaker
So then Ben grabs the villain and demands that they talk with the Jackal saying that they do need to discuss many things and Coily asks how Aunt May is doing. Which brings us back to the hospital where Mary Jane is sitting with May and begging her to come back to them. Is this where we also find out that Dr. Octopus is not the only one that tried to woo Aunt May? No, we will
01:07:26
Speaker
In an episode or two, I do have a lot of information I'm going to dump on you about Aunt May, but I'm waiting for a couple of things. She's my favorite character. So then Mary Jane is sitting with May and begging her to come back.
01:07:43
Speaker
when we actually get to see Mae's thoughts as she's able to realize that Mary Jane is pregnant and is happy for them, but she says she's just too tired to recover. She cannot bring herself to gather the strength to come out of her coma, which cuts back to then the jackal convincing Ben to watch Peter and Gwen together. And he claims that because of him,
01:08:08
Speaker
Ben could end up with Mary Jane or the resurrected Stacy. He's basically saying like, if you come with me, I can help you take whatever life you want. If you want to have Gwen Stacy back, you can have her. If you want to have Mary Jane, you can have her. I can help you. And he's saying this to Peter Parker. No, he's saying this to Ben. Oh. Yeah. Okay. He then, he tells him that he feels bad for everything he put Ben through.
01:08:38
Speaker
But while he's talking to him, they're interrupted by Jack, who starts begging for a cure to the degeneration effect. Angry at this interruption, the Jackal quickly tosses his lackey to the side before telling Ben that he is really trying to tell him the truth.
01:08:58
Speaker
And Spider-Man then begins trashing the lab as he refuses to believe anything that he's witnessing. He just starts punching computers. Which continues Peter's dumb-ass attempts at doing anything throughout the clone saga.
01:09:15
Speaker
He's one of the worst characters going on right now. It seems like he learned something from the mechanical arms. Just destroy everything. Now as this continues, Jackal tries to convince Ben that everything he said earlier was a lie and that Ben is the real Peter Parker. So he's gone back and forth over and over being like, you're both clones, actually now Peter's real, actually no Ben you're real.
01:09:43
Speaker
He keeps changing his mind. And he explains that he used mind control to convince all of them of like, you know, Ben is the real, is the clone and Peter's the real one. Yeah, maybe I don't know. Like none of this really matters because there's no evidence of anything. He just keeps spouting bullshit. This seems more like if someone's lying to you that much, maybe you should just live your life. And then if you degenerate,
01:10:12
Speaker
in the way the others did, I guess you now know. He keeps offering to give Ben his old life back and we do the same thing that we've been doing over the last three issues. We pan out.
01:10:26
Speaker
And we see Cain is watching from the shadows, reminding readers that he still exists and he is still just there watching. That's all he's there to do. But this time, again, we see Scryer is behind him, silently watching him. Have we met Scryer before?
01:10:45
Speaker
Very briefly. He was in the the power and responsibility The first story arc and like Peter just runs into him and he's like kind of friends with Judas traveler That's all we know. He's like a white like a very pale dude that wears a black cloak and Pals around with Judas traveler. That's it. That's all we got Okay
01:11:12
Speaker
It's just very weird. I don't know what was causing this. I would have to try to figure it out.
01:11:22
Speaker
Uh, but I think the idea was mystery is what sells a character. So that's why you have Judas traveler who has all of these powers, but we don't know anything about him other than he's like a psychiatrist or something. And then we have Scryer who is just this, this weirdly looking, uh, person who shows up at random times, but we don't know anything about them. We have came who stands around in the shadows, watching things, maybe at some point doing something. And we don't know anything about them.
01:11:51
Speaker
You know, I think they took the term kill your darlings the wrong way. Like they had venom and a lot of people like venom, at least now. Maybe I'm thinking of this keep in mind from the 2023 perspective, but like venom is as far as I'm concerned, one of the more popular villains. You had him in for a little session and now he's just gone. He's separated.
01:12:18
Speaker
And then you have Dr. Octopus, definitely one of the most popular ones. And you kill him. Did they not recognize that those were villains that were giving them success? Well, with Venom, they actually gave him his own title. I think with Doc Ock, I think they were really trying to push into a new direction to get people on board.
01:12:47
Speaker
I don't know why they thought let's kill off Doc Ock. And then just give him the worst funeral ever. It is a weird thought process they went through, but I also think that a lot of this reminds me of like JJ Abrams style of like screenwriting where it's just
01:13:10
Speaker
you know, don't worry about what the mystery is. Just write the mystery and figure it out later. And part of that is then, you know, you end up killing off people because, oh, it's a big shocker and that'll get people's attention. But then it's a hollow story. You haven't done any, like Doc Ock kind, like the good thing about his death is that he did a good thing before he died, but it really, it also wasn't,
Continuity Challenges and Missed Opportunities
01:13:39
Speaker
I don't know, I don't think it was utilized super well. Yeah, you could have arguably had anyone else save him. You could have had Dr. Seward save Spider-Man from bird poison. Yeah, I mean, I think there is a, I am also of the opinion, I think I've mentioned this before, if you're going to kill a character, it needs to be a method of telling more stories.
01:14:07
Speaker
because a lot of people argue, oh, there need to be stakes involved. Yeah, there are always stakes involved in a story. They're artificial. You can make stakes whatever you want. I remember when the Avengers movies kept coming up, everyone was saying, oh, you have to kill one of the Avengers. Otherwise, there's no real stakes. Bullshit. You can have plenty of things going on. And I don't care about killing a character
01:14:36
Speaker
I don't think that gives any credence to a story unless you're using that death to tell a different story. Exactly. You are actually ending a character's arc and you're ending a character's story early to get shock value or to add a manufactured stakes onto a story and it doesn't make sense to you. Yeah, no, I get that.
01:15:04
Speaker
Because shock value only lasts so long. It doesn't make it re-readable. And like, you know, not to spoil Avengers Endgame, but like Iron Man's death makes sense. You end his story arc and you give stories to other characters to deal with the death of that character. Yeah.
01:15:31
Speaker
But if you go back to Age of Ultron, how many people other than like Wanda, and that's dealt with like once in all of the MCU, gave a shit that her brother died.
01:15:45
Speaker
like nobody like it was it was a thing that happened and they were like oh a character died moving on what a weird time so back back to this this mess of a story the Jackal then tries to convince Ben that he needs to kill Peter to take his life back but again he is interrupted by Jack who keeps trying to bug him for a cure
01:16:09
Speaker
Jackal realizes that this is going nowhere and decides to attack Ben, starting a fight between him and both of the Spider-Men. Everyone is just like impatient as shit in this story, and they just keep fighting for no reason. Well, and that's kind of also maybe how you can tell that it's not true, is like, oh, you just have to kill this guy. Mm-hmm. Because you're the real one. It's like, well, why would I have to kill the clone?
01:16:39
Speaker
if I'm the real one. It's a weird thing also in that all of these little tricks of trying to convince Ben that he's the real one or trying to convince both of them that they are clones. These are interesting story arcs that you can go through. These are interesting things that you can do.
01:17:02
Speaker
if you are a little more subtle about it instead of just yelling, oh, no, no, no, you're the fake one. No, no, no, no, you're the fake one. You're not convincing to anybody. It doesn't make any sense. So then- And especially to have such a unique and unhinged character, it's like you can't really believe what this character is saying.
01:17:30
Speaker
You want someone that's really cunning and manipulative in a professional sense almost to be trying to trick these people instead of just like, aha, it's you. I don't know.
01:17:51
Speaker
Going further with this, as they're fighting, the Jackal then says, I lied. Peter is the real Peter Parker. He just keeps changing his mind and keeps going back and forth on all these things. Spider-Man demands the Jackal admit that the clones were not really clones. We mentioned this a little bit in a previous episode where
01:18:17
Speaker
Spider-Man had met with the high evolutionary in a previous story arc and the high evolutionary Stated that the jackals clones were not real clones. They were people that were changed by like a virus into looking and acting like other people it was it from my understanding is they were just trying to get rid of clones and
01:18:43
Speaker
as a story concept. And that was their way of just writing that out of existence. It's kind of dumb. Jackal, his only response to this is stating that the high evolutionary was lying. So this is the first time that they've actually addressed this within the Clone Saga. So it's interesting that it's brought up and then just immediately brushed it up. Because they don't have an answer for
01:19:12
Speaker
why this was established before the clone saga started. And then now that the clone saga has started, they're like, oh, no, no, no, they're really clones this time. Is there, they're trying to have their cake and eat it too. Yeah. And it's also, again, it's back to my five year old and like analogy. It's like, you know, when a little kid is like, you're playing with a kid and they don't like what you're doing. And then they're like, well, actually like I, I'm the king of the castle.
01:19:43
Speaker
I've actually always been the king of the castle. You're not anymore. That was a lot like, yeah, that's, that's kind of the, the, the storytelling that we're going through, not just with the Jackal, but with like all of the writers that are involved in this are doing the exact same thing. Yeah. So Jackal then tries to convince Peter to kiss Gwen because he, he argues that he will immediately realize that she's the original once he kisses her.
01:20:14
Speaker
doesn't quite make sense, but okay, if you're going from like a romantic, like concept, okay, sure, whatever. But Peter refuses because he has changed so much since she died that it wouldn't really matter, which is I, again, the redeeming thing- That's the best decision he's ever made in this whole thing. The redeeming thing for Peter is his love for his wife and his unborn child.
01:20:39
Speaker
It is the one thing I can keep coming back to and going, hell yeah, man. I totally, I am on board with you. This seems like this is where it should have ended. So just then. I need like other loose ends. Just then Gwen starts to deteriorate in front of their eyes, proving in fact, she was a clone. Yeah. So.
01:21:03
Speaker
That story goes nowhere. And then we're confronted by, Jackal is confronted by the two Spider-Men and states that neither Ben nor Peter are the original. And then he disappears through like a mirror or a teleportation. It's just this thing that he walks into that they can't walk through. It like teleports him somewhere else. Again, biology professor.
01:21:32
Speaker
Yeah. So as he leaves, he also informs them that they are failed experiments and he sets his lab to self-destruct because every lab has to have a self-destruct. Everything needs a self-destruct button. We all have one.
01:21:51
Speaker
The readers then get to see Jack staring at the remains of Gwen as he is fearful of what is going to happen to him. Like he sees his own future when he sees Gwen's dead body on the floor. And he knows he's a clone. Yes. So he refuses to accept his destiny and he decides to help Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider escape the building. But he is caught by the Jackal on their way out. So he's not allowed to leave with Spider-Man and Scarlet Spider. He gets stuck with Jackal. Yeah.
01:22:22
Speaker
Once they're outside, Peter asks Ben if he believes anything that they were told and Ben responds that he is used to being sold lies and that Peter will have to get used to it. And as the two leave, we see that the whole scene is being watched by the Jackal and Jack, but then we also see that they are being watched by Cain. And then we see that Cain is being watched by Scryer because this is what is being done right now.
01:22:51
Speaker
This is too much.
01:22:52
Speaker
This sums up so much of the Clone Saga with just mysteries on top of mysteries and people dramatically watching events unfold with no understanding of why or any of like, like what the fuck is happening here? It's just that is where we are right now. So we've, we've pushed forward, but we've introduced like a ton of new weird mysteries and like this doesn't add up to anything. Now we do have one last scene that closes out the comic.
01:23:24
Speaker
we go into the remains of the lab, which isn't like, it like exploded a little bit, you know, like, like it kind of exploded, but like it's still standing and you are in, like you were in the remains of the lab and there's an unopened pod still laying in the ruins and it's implied the real Peter Parker is inside. And that's how we end
01:23:55
Speaker
the comic. So this is, that was smoke and mirrors, which was a fucking time. I don't know if it's like the two glasses of wine I've had through this process or the story itself, but now I have a headache. I'm gonna, I'm gonna blame the story. I think it's a story too, because
01:24:20
Speaker
What a time. That was a lot. Also, like, Cain was fairly irrelevant throughout this whole story, still. And then even more so, they were like, let's add this other guy to make him even more relevant. And that's where like the Kill Your Darlings comes in. And they didn't do it. Instead, they killed Dr. Octopus.
01:24:51
Speaker
And I'm just, I'm not, my brain hurts from hearing about this. I can see how defeated you are. I'm just like, and the jackal just seems really annoying. He is incredibly annoying. This could have been where it all ended, you know? Like having the whole dilemma of like, does Peter Parker, has he actually changed, you know, with the wife and the kids?
01:25:21
Speaker
Or is he gonna do this whole Gwen Stacy thing? Or is Ben Riley gonna kill Peter Parker in this moment? Or is he gonna realize like I can still be my own individual? Like this all could have ended in this issue. But they added too much like fluff characters and
01:25:47
Speaker
wrote this jackal in the weirdest way that they didn't allow it to end. Well, and keep in mind that the original plan for the Clone Saga was that it was supposed to end with Amazing Spider-Man 400, which is you're going to cover in the next episode. Yeah. So this would have been pretty close to the end of the Clone Saga. And it just seems like we're
01:26:15
Speaker
Like this was another like weird monster of the week with two strange dudes watching overhead that have done ultimately nothing for the whole series. So it's just like, it's just weird. I also, I think if they would have ended the clone saga at issue 400 or at least closed out
01:26:39
Speaker
what they planned on with Spider-Man. Keep Ben around, keep Peter around, do whatever. But close out the weird mystery and the weird like, what the fuck is going on with all these characters with issue 400. I think it would have been like,
01:26:58
Speaker
an overlooked story arc, but it wouldn't have been an awful story arc. No, I've been having a fine time so far. Honestly, I think I had the most fun doing Web of Life. I think that was a really nice storyline and I think that might be my favorite out of the ones I've read so far.
01:27:21
Speaker
So I can, my favorite, so this is going to be really weird because in one of the next episodes that I am doing, there is, there, it's technically two stories because there's a, there's a backup story.
01:27:38
Speaker
running at the end of the comic, which is entirely separate from the main story arc, and it has nothing to do with moving the storyline forward. It is just literally a backup story. That is my favorite thing I have read so far. It does matter to the clone saga, but it doesn't push the clone saga further
01:28:07
Speaker
in a plot relevant way, it just involves more character. And I think that is what was, they were trying to have like very plot driven stories that kind of spun the wheels where they should have had very character driven stories. Right. Instead. And then I would have cared so much more. Yeah. And I think I liked Web of Life because it kind of showed
01:28:38
Speaker
the dilemma that Ben Riley is really going through. Well, I mean, before that, it was all setting up to really understanding. But then anything after that, you don't see a whole lot of Betty Bryant and the dynamic that he wanted to pursue. You just don't see any of the actual progress
01:29:03
Speaker
except for that one really jarring issue that I read with the Skyline restaurant. And the homeless man that gets murdered. And Richard. Oh my God. RAP Richard. Yeah. And I don't know, this still seems like a lot happened in what you just read.
01:29:33
Speaker
it seems like nothing went forward or backward. It all just kind of stayed put. I think, so if you were, from my perspective, it moves forward in that it introduces the jackal to this version of the clone saga. You learn a lot about, uh,
01:29:59
Speaker
what happens to clones, so you learn some of the stakes involved in being a clone. Because I will be very honest with you. I don't give a fuck who is the real Peter and who is not. It doesn't matter. I'm following your particular life. I don't give a shit if you were naturally born or born out of a test tube. It doesn't matter. Yeah, because either way, Peter Parker is married to Mary Jane and having a baby. And Ben Riley is living in a hotel
01:30:29
Speaker
and maybe has a girlfriend and is solving crime. Those are their lives right now. But now we have actual, if he is a clone, he has this thing hanging over him. He will die suddenly. And it doesn't seem like there's any sort of way to measure how that
01:30:58
Speaker
going like how long it's gonna take or anything like that so it is it is something to be fearful of that's fair that is that is what we're introduced to and we're introduced to Jackal who could at this point is the main villain behind what's going on yeah that's true
01:31:16
Speaker
So we have it intact. So it does move forward. It just doesn't really answer anything. It just throws out suggestions. Well, and I guess that's why I don't feel like it's moved a whole lot forward because we've seen a lot of villains come and go pretty quickly. And I guess maybe because the Jackal has something to do with the creation.
01:31:45
Speaker
of a bunch of the current characters. Like I guess that does move it forward a bit. Cause now we're like meeting the maker in a way. But I guess in terms of like, everybody's gonna still be doing the same thing. Yeah, that's true. Unless this is going to somehow spark some sort of like King Lear kind of insanity with Peter Parker, which it could. I mean, like, you know,
01:32:16
Speaker
So who knows? I don't know. This was just a very interesting, this was a very bizarre read. So I'm going to, I have a real quick, I have my what's good slash what worked, which we kind of went over some of this, but I'm just going to go over it real, real quick. Ben Riley is very quickly becoming my favorite spider man for this. He's still prone to the angry outbursts and melodramatic
01:32:46
Speaker
like responses. Yeah. But he seems to consistently think of others and forms a more rational outlook than Peter has been doing in the last like 20 something issues that you and I have read. I would agree. I mean, like Ben Riley was like, Hey, I'm not going to kill this guy. And Spider-Man is like punching computers. Right. So I get that.
01:33:10
Speaker
I'm also going to say Mark Bagley's art continues to be a highlight of my readings. It's, it's stylized in all of the ways that I love comic book art to be, and it's very dynamic and fun. I love Mark Bagley's artwork in this era. Big fan. Uh, I also think that a good thing was introducing the guardian as dumb as that character kind of was, but having him die from the, the degeneration effects. That is a great way to set up Gwen's reveal as a clone.
01:33:41
Speaker
and Jack's desire to break free of his destiny, as well as showing Ben what could happen if he is the clone. Yeah, I think that's fair. Like, there's probably a better way of doing that, but introducing a character to die is a smart move. Yeah, and it also, it helps develop a sense of the pattern. Right. Because if it's just when Stacy
01:34:10
Speaker
And then she turns into like a puddle. Then it's like, oh, well that was just a fluke. You can make another one. But when you have the Guardian, which is like this massive like behemoth of a Peter Parker thing, crumble, and you have the Gwen Stacy like fall apart, then yeah, I get that. It does kind of create
01:34:36
Speaker
a good pattern of, like, you should be worried, like, this is how it does actually end. It's not just a, oops. Right. Yeah. Now, what didn't work in this story was a lot, but I'm also going to just say Kane's entire existence in this entire story arc
01:34:57
Speaker
He exists to stand around and watch events while then also being watched by Scryer, two things that add absolutely nothing to the story and reveal absolutely nothing about those two characters. And Scryer's been gone for like a long time. Yeah. And it's starting to seem like with Kane, it's like either shit or get off the pot. Tell us something more about him or just kill him off because he's not,
01:35:26
Speaker
He's like a little quiet crew member. He's moving some side pieces around, but it's like, are we supposed to know you then? Or are you supposed to just be kind of hiding and moving pieces around? It's really weird. And I like his color scheme. I like the blues and I like the purples.
01:35:51
Speaker
Like we've had like two pieces of information that are very powerful from him, but then we know nothing else. And that does not balance out with the two powerful things. It's like you sprayed two spritzes of Febreze on like a dumpster fire. I also think, um, the convoluted nature of the jackals plan.
01:36:22
Speaker
and the ambiguity of whether or not he's the real Jackal or which one of Peter or Ben is a clone that like all of that's confusing enough here. But from what I know happens later, it is way worse. And this is just like emblematic of where we are with the clone saga and like what is going to happen. But like specifically, if you're thinking about the clone saga,
01:36:50
Speaker
And you're thinking about Jackal's plan in this story. Even this doesn't make sense. It's just like, what is his motive? I mean, I know he wants to fuck with Peter because he blames Peter for Gwen's death. Oh, is that the person? Is that the student that he loved?
01:37:14
Speaker
Yes. And that's all introduced in the original story arc. So it's really, it's just that I hate Peter Parker thing. But like, if you're thinking, so he creates a clone of Peter, either convinces that clone that he is the real Peter or convinces Peter that that clone died one way or the other, and then waits five years
01:37:40
Speaker
to enact this plan where he genetically modifies himself to be part Jackal or whatever and has them meet him in the Catskills Mountains for no reason other than to lie to them. There are way more interesting ways to pull off and and way more effective ways to pull off this plot. Yeah, it's just
01:38:13
Speaker
He really is just Puck. Yeah, and I'm never going to not see that. And Puck was done better in a different comic series. And before this. Yeah, and it's just like, and even in like Midsummer Night's Dream, like the original, or in like the Sandman issue, Puck wasn't like the biggest
01:38:44
Speaker
puzzle piece. No, he was just annoying. He was just a little, like, guy. And so, like, to put all your eggs in the in the puck basket is a bit silly. And if you're like, they just created, like, they just created Cain to like, it sounded like they wanted him to be the next big baddie.
01:39:12
Speaker
So why are you not properly investing time in that and putting it in puck? I don't understand. It makes no sense. Yeah, it's very weird. But I'm glad that there were some good parts to it. That's always nice. It's always good to like some parts of what you're reading.
01:39:36
Speaker
Serve the web, serve the web. I'm gonna quote from Life of Riley, which is pretty much the definitive source for any information on the clone saga. Editor Glenn Greenberg seems to agree with me that this story is okay on its own, but it sets a precedent for what makes the whole thing a fucking slog.
01:39:59
Speaker
He states, smoke and mirrors was an intriguing story and I liked most of it, but it was this story that kicked off what would become an increasingly tiresome stream of clones, lies upon lies, fake outs, and convoluted twists and turns.
01:40:14
Speaker
bringing back the Jackal made sense to me. Since we were essentially doing a sequel to the original Clone Saga and the Jackal set the whole thing in motion in the first place, why not bring him back? And it was certainly beneficial to have him around so that he could explain the real deal about his clones. I mean, during the evolutionary war, Jerry Conway, who wrote the original Clone Saga and created the Jackal,
01:40:37
Speaker
came back to Marvel and went to great lengths to undo his own stories from years before, now establishing that Miles Warren had not really created clones after all. By the time Jerry was done, the high evolutionary had gotten involved and explained what Warren was really up to. It was a clone virus that turned people into genetic duplicates of other people. The whole shebang ended with the Gwen Stacy clone essentially gone from continuity, having never been a genuine clone in the first place.
01:41:06
Speaker
The Jackal remained dead, and Jerry even did a follow-up story to explain who the supervillain Carrion really was since Carrion tied into the original clone saga as well. So Carrion is a character that's kind of like a zombie that was supposed to be a clone of Jackal.
01:41:24
Speaker
Anyway, Mark Bernardo and I were really pushing the writers and editors to acknowledge and find a way around the evolutionary war stuff, which I think is interesting that you have to have people pushing to be like, hey, you're ignoring a huge hole in your story. But Mark and I felt that since evolutionary war was only a few years old at this point, it would still be pretty fresh in the memories of the readers.
01:41:47
Speaker
and it couldn't just be ignored. None of the writers really wanted to deal with it because, admittedly, it was going to take a lot of time, work, and energy to figure out a way around all of it. It would mean undoing a story that was specifically designed to undo another story. Who wants to get bogged down with all of that continuity minutia when you've got other stuff you want to write about? But those stories were in print, and Mark and I firmly believed that they had to be addressed.
01:42:14
Speaker
It ultimately fell to Howard Mackey to address the subject of this in his chapter of Smoke and Mirrors. This was unfortunate for anyone who was looking for a satisfying explanation. With no offense intended to Howard, my observation is that he simply isn't much of a continuity person. He doesn't like to get bogged down in it. As a Spider-Man writer, whenever Howard has had to address past continuity in one of his stories,
01:42:40
Speaker
His approach has been simply and grudgingly acknowledge the past event and then sweep it under the carpet as quick as possible. It happened in Smoke and Mirrors and would happen again in later stories as well. An entire annual by another writer would later have to be devoted to explaining away the evolutionary war stuff. That is another story. The return of Scryer with Judas Traveler nowhere to be seen was the first sign that there was much more to this character than met the eye.
01:43:09
Speaker
Mark Bernardo had told me that JMD Matias was planning to explore the notion that Scryer was actually the real power behind Traveler and that Traveler was so deluded and obsessed with his pursuits that even he didn't know it.
01:43:22
Speaker
Since fandom was already starting to wonder if Ben Riley could actually be the original Peter Parker, it only made sense from a dramatic standpoint to throw the readers a curveball and raise the possibility that neither Ben nor Peter was the original, that the original has actually been tucked away in a pod for all of these years. That would certainly be a tantalizing notion, wouldn't it? And it was this spirit in which smoke and mirrors was produced. And I would say that's a fucking shitty premise.
01:43:49
Speaker
if they just kept the whole evolution thing. Evolution thing. The virus thing? Yeah. It's almost like what if they just made that Ben Riley thing, trying to figure out who he once was. I like that idea too. If it was supposed to be a person who then turned into another person.
01:44:16
Speaker
that would have been so like, I mean, yeah, it's interesting to be like, oh, I'm a clone. Okay, well, who am I as an individual? Like that is still interesting. But like, I'm wondering just like, if it should have just been called the evolutionary saga. And they wouldn't have to deal with that whole issue of trying to like, erase it or change it. Like if it was just, okay, well, like Peter Parker is Peter Parker. And
01:44:44
Speaker
he's still dealing with, like, I'm just the spider, but now I'm gonna be a dad, so now I gotta focus on trying to be a dad. I'm, like, bettering myself. Well, Ben Riley is like, okay, well, like, I have the abilities now of the spider, and I have the physique and the face and some memories of the spider, but, like, what if I use all those powers and responsibilities and all that stuff to maybe try and figure out who I was?
01:45:14
Speaker
and maybe try and get back to that. Like that could have been so good. I think an interesting thing is at the end of every episode, you and I are kind of like,
01:45:26
Speaker
What if we rewrote the clip? Yeah, like there are I think way more interesting stories to to to go down and it feels like they really just kind of they they kind of wanted to do the interesting story but they it seemed like they were stuck in this rut of doing episodic uh like villain of the week like very which
01:45:52
Speaker
Again, I like breezy stories. Yeah. Like one of my favorite ones is a breezy story. Like I don't mind it, but I think I didn't mind it because they took time and had a split between like, yeah, villain of the week, but also like, you know, so-and-so is getting asked to go to lunch. Isn't that nice? Like you can have both.
01:46:21
Speaker
I think that the mix that they went with is jarring because you're not really getting one or the other, you're getting kind of half of both. Yes. And it's really weird. I think they just, I think they over complicated things for themselves, unfortunately. And I mean, like what they were doing was like the things that they were told that they have to do, like,
01:46:51
Speaker
I know I'm not a writer. So yeah, props to you. But I just wish they saw what else they could do, aside from clones. Like, okay, you made a thing. Well,
01:47:08
Speaker
How can you move from that thing now, aside from erasing it? It's kind of like a dance. You have to move from one body movement to another. You can't be in a split and then in four counts be on your head. There has to be some sort of movement with your body in order to get on your head.
01:47:37
Speaker
I just don't under like, they just, I feel like they wanted to be in a split and then end up on their head in one count. Does that make sense? Yeah. I mean, I think I followed you. I, I think that, um, I think they, they tried to, they tried to get there too quick or be too choppy and like,
01:48:03
Speaker
Stories and art and everything like you have to have a fluid motion and Like I wish they just kind of used it as a creative challenge to take the the virus and That as part of their like big event thing because they could I mean we just thought of it after reading or thinking of like eight different issues or whatever like
01:48:32
Speaker
So I think that I'm also doing this out of leisure. I'm not like a paid person who has to have things out of deadline. And this is also like in the 90s kind of the next thing I was going to mention is I'm actually kind of feeling.
01:48:50
Speaker
a bit bad for the creatives that were involved in this, because if you think about it, there's editorial mandates, there are changing leadership behind the scenes, and you're having to tell a quarter of a story that makes sense with three other people's stories. Yeah, and you don't know what issue you're gonna work on, let alone what story section you're gonna work on.
01:49:19
Speaker
So I'm imagining they're given an outline to kind of fill in. And I think that's part of why we get so many spinning wheels because they don't know, like they don't want to move things too much because then you're going to fuck it up for the next person. There's too many darlings in this project.
01:49:40
Speaker
Oh, my God. I didn't know that this was going to be my phrase of the day, but this is the phrase of the day just all around. And like I love creatives and I want them all to have jobs. But like, man, you should have put some of these people on different jobs and you should have they should have just had a smaller crew working on this whole thing. Yeah, I.
01:50:06
Speaker
You would be hard-pressed to convince Marvel to cut back at this time, because they were just printing so much. But I think what would have really helped is, pair this down to maybe two comics instead of four, and give much more creative freedom to the people that are actually writing it. Make editorial, sit back, step in when you need to, but like,
01:50:35
Speaker
don't keep mandating that it lasts longer or it ends at a specific time. Let the story dictate where it ends. Yeah. And I'm sure it would be so much better. And then it also probably would have made several stories rather than one big one, you know? Right. Anyway, that, I mean, that's, that's where we are. This is,
Future Story Arcs and Podcast Details
01:50:58
Speaker
this is, this was,
01:51:00
Speaker
three issues that took us longer to get through. I mean, we got through it.
01:51:13
Speaker
We're set up for a new story arc that you're going to be going through next time. Yes. And hopefully it makes sense and we can build off of that. I mean, this one, it's not like you have to know a lot of details. Jackal's back and he keeps fucking lying about everything. So there you go. Yeah. You catch on pretty quick.
01:51:39
Speaker
Yeah. So you can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Instagram by searching at pedantic cast. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Stitcher, Google podcasts, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com. I also, I don't really mention it that often, but I do have like a TikTok and a YouTube set up for this. Just like dumb stuff that gets put out there. But
01:52:05
Speaker
I don't, like they're, they're just really there for short bits of content. Um, or I post our episodes on YouTube so you can follow us there if you want. And we have Instagram. I don't know if you said that. It's been a long recording. It is. Our brains are broken.
01:52:25
Speaker
If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypotanticagmail.com. Please indicate if you'd like your name or question right on the air. And don't forget, we still own fuckcomicsgate.com if you'd like to send a donation to the games and online harassment hotline. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics, but until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop. Bye.
01:53:04
Speaker
Anyway, welcome to Catholicly Pretend, where we talk about movies. No, we don't. That's a, that's the weekly planet intro. I like that I know the weekly planet intro more than I know our own. Good times. I could do the book cheat one. Hi, welcome to book sheet where I read the books or you don't have to. Okay. Uh, what is time? Okay.