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Spider-Man Clone Saga: Power and Responsibility
48 Plays2 years ago
Derek and Corinne sit down to discuss the ins and outs of The Clone Saga's first major story arc: Power and Responsibility!
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Comically Pedantic' Podcast
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 again on this episode, as always, is the wonderful Corinne Levy.
00:00:25
Speaker
is to me, I had my volume up a little too loud. So then you were like, hello and welcome. And my brain just like turned to gook for a second, but I'm okay now. I'm here. I am present. So I guess before we get started on this episode, I should ask what your bright spot for this week is.
00:00:45
Speaker
Oh, I don't know. I feel like I've been so busy.
Corinne's Weekly Highlights
00:00:49
Speaker
Um, I like hanging out with my cat as usual. I got a haircut. That's always fun. My head feels like five pounds lighter. I like the look. Thanks. It's fun. I got bangs since this is an audio only.
00:01:04
Speaker
medium. I used to not have bangs and now I have them. So that's been fun. I like that. Oh, I found okay. This is like my my very on brand bright spot. So we went to Books a Million. And I have been looking for Curse of the White Knight for like a while.
00:01:31
Speaker
because I was was a dummy. And I just wanted to read the Harley Quinn spinoff. And then I tried to read the first issue like years ago. And I was like, I have no clue what's going on. So then I finally found just the White Knight. I was like, this is great. Let me. Let me do this. And then I was like, now I can read it.
00:01:54
Speaker
And I went to go read the first issue again and I was like, why do I still not know what's going on? I needed the curse of the white knight. So then for like a month, maybe two months, it might be more than two months, but I won't keep counting. I've now finally found it like last weekend. And so once I finished like the two things that I want to read novel wise,
00:02:19
Speaker
I'm gonna read it. And then I can finally do the Harley Quinn spinoff. But holy crap, it took so long to get there. This has been an adventure for you. It really has. It's been like, I like the storyline so much. So it's like, I'm willing to go through the shenanigans to get there. But like, my God, what a pain.
00:02:43
Speaker
And I thought that it was like a popular like a popular book. So maybe it would be like more places would have them. It's like, no. Well, it's interesting, too, because it's it's a pop. I mean, it's a popular character.
Comic Book Popularity and Availability
00:02:58
Speaker
It's Sean Murphy, a popular artist slash writer. You would think that it would it would be something it's funny. I mean, I haven't even I haven't read it. I'm aware of it. But tangentially, I know it exists, but I don't know much about it.
00:03:14
Speaker
I think like maybe I just think it's popular because I found a book that I wanted to read that was based off of it. Maybe that's what it is. And because I didn't know a lot about John Murphy, but I'm also still a newbie to this. I think it's because it challenges the fact that Batman
00:03:39
Speaker
isn't some like, fat god, like we talked about before, which is often the case, which I love. And I think that's fun. But this is a character to me that I'm okay with people like challenge and stuff, like character wise, and I think some people don't like that when their heroes get like, kind of like a bit of a moral dilemma.
00:04:02
Speaker
Like, oh, but like they're supposed to be the best and like the best person. Like, well, maybe he's not. That's okay. Maybe he's got flaws. I looked it up and apparently it was when it came out, one of the most popular Batman comics at the time. So it's interesting that it kind of is harder to find. Maybe just because some new stuff is like come up, you know?
00:04:32
Speaker
And I don't know if you know this, but they did a second sequel. There's another one after Curse of the White Knight. You've got to be kidding. I don't know how it ties to the Harley Quinn one, but it's called Beyond the White Knight. I would assume Beyond, I'm sure it's about Terry McGinnis or just that version of the White Knight. So, I mean, there's a chance... I don't know.
00:05:02
Speaker
I know it's a Black Label publication, which I'm iffy on. I've read a handful of Black Label books from DC, and I
X-Men vs. Spider-Man: Storytelling Quality
00:05:15
Speaker
usually think they're fine. They're not great. I usually think they're fine. But those are also ones that are a little bit weirder. They did the three jokers, and I thought the first issue of that was great. Yeah.
00:05:30
Speaker
I thought the first issue was great. And from there, I did not give a shit. I quickly stopped caring. I think the doomsday clock was a black label, but that one I really liked. So I mean, it's a hit or miss.
00:05:47
Speaker
Yeah, I like this one. I think it's really cool. Like, again, I'm not sad that I have to read more of it. I just it's sometimes it's like the journey to find it can either be really exhilarating like it was thrilling when I found it. I was like, oh, my God. But it's the like, I'll go to ask people like in the comic store, I'll be like, do you know if you happen to have this? And then they'll look at me and they'll be like,
00:06:14
Speaker
What? And I'm like, oh, no. I find if there's something that I've spent a long time looking for, or just keeping an eye open for, and then I get it, I appreciate that thing that much more. Yeah. I'm trying to pull one out of my brain right now, but nothing's coming to me. But I do have examples somewhere.
00:06:43
Speaker
Well, because it's tied to like, oh, how much effort I went to finding this thing. It's like, you know, it just makes it all worth it to see it, you know, see it through. That kind of ties into something that I was going to bring up as like a kind of weird
00:07:04
Speaker
Almost a bright spot for me. Yeah, do tell. As always is the case with me, it kind of starts from a more negative spot than an actual positive spot. So I've been doing a lot of research for this particular episode and for the next couple of episodes. I have
00:07:26
Speaker
I did a lot of reading before I came back to do any of my notes just so that I had a little bit more context for things and I could make a better judgment on what makes sense and what doesn't make sense to keep in. Which I'm glad I did because there's stuff I would have cut that
00:07:44
Speaker
Makes a lot more sense later. But in doing that, I've read a lot of these books and it's they're very of their time and very of this style of making comic books where you have four different writers writing one story. It's very difficult to make it cohesive.
00:08:08
Speaker
And it's hard for me, I'm reading it and going, it's fine. It's not great, it's not terrible. I've not gotten to a point where I think it's God awful, it's fine. I have, but for a different reason that we'll talk about in a different episode. We'll talk about it in the next episode. I think it's a little more relevant then. I went through a journey.
00:08:35
Speaker
So I got to this point, and last night, Austin, my fiance, was sick, is sick, but was sick last night as well, and was having trouble breathing while she was asleep. And I was having trouble sleeping. I was uncomfortable. It was loud. It was just having issues. So I was doing a lot of reading to try to put myself to sleep.
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah. And I didn't want to read any more of Spider-Man because I don't want to get too far ahead and then feel like I'm doubling back to try to write my notes. I just wanted to get like a little bit ahead so I have some content. So I took a break from Spider-Man and I thought this is a perfect opportunity for me to catch back up with modern day X-Men. And holy shit, am I so fucking happy that I did. It's because I started with X-Men number one from 2021 and
00:09:30
Speaker
I then went back and picked up Way of X. And oh my God, it is mind boggling how good these books are, especially in comparison to what I have been reading. I feel like everything else we're going to read.
00:09:54
Speaker
aside, like, well, we're obviously going to complete this. But I'm not going to just solely read Spider-Man in this journey. I would die. But like everything is going to be such as like a breath of fresh air. Everything's going to be like a little after dinner mint after I read like one of these issues. And it's really funny. Well, and it's wild, too, because it's not just like these books are not just good in terms of being compared to Spider-Man.
00:10:26
Speaker
I've read some really good Spider-Man stories. I want to make that clear. I believe that there are good spiders out there. And I believe that we're going to find some gems in this. Yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
The start is a start. I will say if we do need to take a break, I can think of at least two issues that I am positive you would at least mildly enjoy. I'm like fine right now. I want to be clear everybody that Derek hasn't killed me yet. Nothing's breaking my stride so far.
00:11:05
Speaker
But when I started Way of X, I loved X-Men number one. In particular, there's a part where they talk about the history of Central Park and its relationship to
00:11:24
Speaker
the black community in New York being uprooted to to basically just give rich white people something to look at and it's Incredible that they they they're making this connection and and and digging into history and I love that Yeah way of X caught me because I have I have a deep love for spiritual things and in particular religion in the way that that interacts with
00:11:52
Speaker
how people interact with the world. And it is entirely about what do you do with religion when your questions have been answered? Oh, okay. It is so good. That's cool. In the X-Men series, they've basically conquered death. Death has no meaning. If you die, they can bring you back. Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
They have created their own culture, everything, it's wonderful. And one of the more religious X-Men characters, Nightcrawler, who is a priest, he struggles with why is something bad? If dying actually doesn't matter that much anymore, why is it bad that people don't fear death?
00:12:45
Speaker
And it's really interesting and thought-provoking in a way that these comics are fucking not. Yeah, it's quite different. But I'm excited to talk about this, because I feel like this is going to answer some questions that I had for my first thing that I read. So let's kick it.
00:13:09
Speaker
This is starting to sound like a bad comic book plot.
Introduction to the Spider-Man Clone Saga
00:13:12
Speaker
So the start of the Clone Saga begins at the end of a story arc known as The Predator and the Prey, where Spidey fights the Scorpion in the sewers of New York. The actual events of that story don't really matter, but they end up setting up a multi-year mess of a story that will take up most of my life for the next ungodly amount of weeks.
00:13:30
Speaker
The next group of issues, known as power and responsibility, start the Clone Saga proper. With such an odd beginning to what would be a dominant and driving force in the mid-90s comic book world, and Spider-Man comics in particular, it's interesting to see what elements were around from the very beginning. Now, we've already discussed what made everything behind the scenes such a mess. But with all of that out of the way, let's dig into the Clone Saga's first major story arc and see just how weird it actually gets.
00:13:59
Speaker
And I will say the Predator and the Prey, it turns out I had part one of this story. Oh, that's fun. And never had part two. And part two is where we actually pick up. And it doesn't really matter. I'm going to give you a brief overview of what happens in Predator and the Prey part two, just because the ending leads into the clone saga. But all in all, it doesn't really
00:14:27
Speaker
have anything to do with anything. Right. And so that starts with Spectacular Spider-Man, volume one, number two, 16, which is written by Tom DeFalco and Todd DeZago, penciled and inked by Sal Buscema, colored by Joe Andreani, lettered by Klim Robbins, Chris Eliopoulos. I hope I pronounced that right. I really like him. So I really don't want to fuck his name up. And Ken Lopez. And I will say, uh, this is an interesting thing with three letterers.
00:14:56
Speaker
and two writers. To me, that means that this was something that was probably either put on the back burner or rushed. You'll usually see that with, if a book has a lot of pencilers or a lot of anchors or a lot of letterers, that means that they were really trying to get this shit out quick. And I have a feeling this one was one of those.
00:15:23
Speaker
Spider-Man in this story is looking for the scorpion, but he's upset that he's not able to be with his Aunt May, who recently had been put into a hospital from a stroke. She's in a coma. That's why, okay, so Aunt May has just had a stroke of natural causes. Yes. Okay, great. Continue, question one answered.
00:15:53
Speaker
So all during this, Peter is struggling with his dual identity after two major stories in the last two years of comic books, Maximum Carnage and Life Theft. Maximum Carnage was a story involving carnage attacking the New York City with a group of supervillains. Are you aware of who Carnage is? I mean, they just made a movie. It's Red Venom, right? Yeah, basically Red Venom.
00:16:19
Speaker
That's what I know pretty much. Okay, if I remember right in a way that like Venom essentially made Carnage, like his, the Oobleck essentially spawned more Oobleck. Okay. It's complicated. And Cletus Cassidy, who is the human host for Carnage, was a serial killer before
00:16:45
Speaker
joining with this, the symbiote in Becoming Carnage. Ooh, that's rough. And Venom was just like a dude, right? He was also like a reporter or something? Yeah, Venom was just a dude. Yeah, that's what I thought. Okay. And the interesting thing about Maximum Carnage is that it was a 12-issue story arc where
00:17:04
Speaker
you would think a lot more happens, but it's really just a bunch of fight scenes. And then at the end, they shoot a gun full of positivity at the bad guys. And that's how they win. Oh, I love the positivity. That's fun. That's very YMCA camp. I dig that. It's really interesting. I actually, I liked it way more than I thought I would.
00:17:27
Speaker
But I more have a bunch of positivity for that story arc because they made a video game. And when I was younger, I had that video game and thought it was the coolest. I mean, hey, core memory. The other story arc that Peter is dealing with was life theft, which involved the chameleon. Do you know who the chameleon is? No. So we have the scorpion and the kind of.
00:17:55
Speaker
All right, Craven the Hunter is a guy who hunted people. There you go. So the Chameleon has the ability to mimic other people. He can put on masks. At one point, I believe he actually physically changed his face to be able to mimic other people just by like taking a picture of them or something like that. Oh, okay. Something really weird. He's a master of disguise. That's the biggest thing you need to know. Right. And in life theft,
00:18:22
Speaker
Chameleon created robotic copies of Peter Parker's parents in order to get them to learn more about Spider-Man. Now, this was something that over the course of a while in the comic book, Peter believed his parents were actually alive. Oh. And then learned that they were robots and then also watched them die again. Oh, that's brutal.
00:18:49
Speaker
Peter is dealing with the fallout of having to fight carnage for an extremely long period of time, dealing with watching his parents die again and his aunt, who has taken care of him for most of his life, having a stroke and being in a coma. Yeah.
00:19:07
Speaker
So due to all of this, he's been struggling quite a bit with anger and also with not really wanting to be Peter Parker anymore. He's just kind of running around as a superhero and refusing to deal with his regular life. Right.
00:19:23
Speaker
So during this, Scorpion has been trying to leave his criminal past behind. He wants to be just a regular person. He wants to try to fix things. And while visiting a friend in the hospital, he is told that his living expenses will be paid for while he tries to get things worked out. And at the same time, Peter is visiting his aunt just a few doors down. So they're both in the hospital at the same time. OK.
00:19:50
Speaker
During this, Peter's spider sense goes off and he realizes the scorpion is nearby. So when he tries to go after him, he runs into J. Jonah Jameson, who gives Peter his condolences for what has happened to May. He tells Peter that he's a good nephew, but Peter tells him he has to run and goes after scorpion. All good, all great. I think the J. Jonah Jameson stuff is just sweet because you never really get that out of him.
00:20:15
Speaker
Spider-Man follows Scorpion into the sewers, and he attacks him. During the fight, Scorpion keeps saying he's trying to change, but Spider-Man doesn't want to hear it. While fighting, Spider-Man is overrun with anger, and this attracts a slime creature. Oh, well, this slime creature doesn't have a name? I don't think so. I spent so long trying to look this up, because like I said, I had part one to this.
00:20:44
Speaker
And I have read part one and I was like, it's so intrigued because you get to see things from the slime creatures perspective, but you don't, there is no explanation in either of these stories, what this creature is, why it's, it's just there. That's so goofy. Like, cause I mean, like you have Sandman, he is a man of sand. Why can't you have slime man? Just a man of slime.
00:21:13
Speaker
I looked and from all I can find, these are the only two appearances of this creature. Iconic. So when he's attacking Scorpion, the slime creature attaches to Spidey's arm and that stops him from beating on Scorpion. This causes Spidey to realize that he is losing control and that he needs to seek help.
00:21:38
Speaker
He lets Scorpion go, choosing not to trust his initial thoughts on the situation. He's like, maybe I fucked up. I don't know. And back at the hospital, a man who seems to be Peter Parker visits Aunt May, telling her that he feels so confused about who he is. While sitting with her, Spider-Man swings by the window, causing this Peter to panic and run to the rooftop.
00:22:04
Speaker
Spider-Man lands on the rooftop, but hears someone rushing by. Wondering why this did not set off his Spidey sense, he is surprised to turn around and find Peter Parker staring back at him and exclaims, it's you ending this issue. Oh, okay. All of the stuff with Scorpion has nothing to do with anything. I just really liked that there was a slime creature for no fucking reason. It's just this weird abrupt like change of pace.
00:22:30
Speaker
It's so wild and it ends with Peter coming face to face with another Peter. Yeah, and I mean, I get that because it's like he's just been avoiding himself for so long because he's burying himself into like, you know, his superhero persona and just finally it's all like crashing down into his face and then boom, he's like forced to look at like a literal physical form of himself.
00:22:56
Speaker
That's actually kind of interesting. I think that's pretty cool. I'm not mad at that. I like the way that you're looking at this because I will say I read through these just reading them and then writing my notes afterward thinking about the themes of the story. And I came out of this liking it more.
00:23:22
Speaker
because I do appreciate what they were trying to do. I just don't think it was done well. I can picture how it was done and I understand.
00:23:37
Speaker
I like what they're like trying. I like that though. I think that's like a good kind of pause and start. If it's a grant, I didn't read this, but if it was paced out right, I feel like that could be really cool.
00:23:55
Speaker
So it leads us directly into Web of Spider-Man number 117, which was written by Terry Kavanaugh, penciled by Steve Butler, inked by Randy Emberlin, colored by Kevin Tinsley, and lettered by Steve Dutrow. Terry Kavanaugh, by the way, is the person who recommended doing the clone soccer.
00:24:15
Speaker
Now, originally just kind of like a dumb idea, but it did catch on. At the beginning of this, Peter has met the clone, but refuses to believe that any of it is real since he recently dealt with Chameleon's fake versions of his parents and everything that's happened over the last however long in his life. Yes. They get into a fight and during the fight, the clone calls Peter by his name, which angers him.
00:24:43
Speaker
Parker wants to abandon his life as a civilian and live only as the spider. And if you were reading Spider-Man comics at this time, that is something that comes up over and over again. And I can tell you that as someone who has, especially while reading these for the first time, was dealing with a lot of depression and anxiety growing up,
00:25:06
Speaker
It felt interesting to read, but it is tonally inconsistent with Spider-Man the character. Right. It doesn't quite work. It seems like it's a bit too edgy for what you would think of Spider-Man as. And if you think of the initial
00:25:26
Speaker
thought about moving forward with the clone saga, they wanted to shake things up because they thought Spider-Man had gotten too depressing, too difficult for newer readers. And I think a lot of that comes down to they just kept throwing these big, dramatic things in his life. And it made sense to make it dark because of what was happening, but it doesn't work for that character.
00:25:56
Speaker
You know? Especially not in the way it sounds like it's being paced out. Yeah. It makes sense for someone to feel this way. Yes. And there is an inconsistency of Spider-Man being this way and then still going out and fighting supervillains and stuff. I think there's a way to tell this story that could work.
00:26:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think so too. Right now, probably not with them. Back at Ravencroft Institute, which if you don't know what Ravencroft Institute is, it's essentially Spiderman's version of Arkham Asylum. It popped up in the 90s and just became this place where Carnage and Shriek and all of these supervillains ended up being kept.
00:26:52
Speaker
Oh, wait, I do know that because I got mentioned. Okay, cool. Keep going. You're good. I had an epiphany. The person who runs Ravencroft Institute is Dr. Kafka. And at this time, Dr. Kafka is welcoming a famous psychologist known as a Judas Traveler into her offices. He and his associates are here to tour the facility and learn about the super powered patients.
00:27:20
Speaker
And let me tell you this, the fashion and design of all of these characters screams build a character in a video game. Like if you've ever seen a cut scene from any, where you are allowed to make your character look whatever, however you want, and then you see them next to regular people, that's what these people look like. I love it. Look up Judas Traveler, because. I will, you keep doing your thing, but I'm all about it.
00:27:49
Speaker
Keep in mind while you look at Judas Traveler, Dr. Kafka believes this person to be a famous and respected psychologist.
00:27:58
Speaker
I love it. Peter Parker and his clone continue to fight back in the middle of Manhattan, with Peter noticing that his spider sense keeps not going off when the clone attacks. But when the other Parker reveals that he is the clone from years earlier, Peter becomes enraged, believing that this clone is just another plot against him by the jackal. The clone knocks Peter out and decides to run away.
Judas Traveler's Ravencroft Takeover
00:28:24
Speaker
So another thing that is interesting here is
00:28:28
Speaker
The original Clone Saga had, up until this point, kind of been retconned. And it's never mentioned within this story. Yeah. The retcon is that the clones were not really clones. They were people with DNA overriding theirs, so they end up becoming a copy. Yeah.
00:28:58
Speaker
That's never mentioned throughout this story, which is interesting. Anyway, after Judas Traveler has toured Ravencroft, he reveals that the facility was chosen as the perfect location for his ultimate experiment. Walking through all the cells, he notices villain after villain whose motivations are almost entirely enveloped in hurting Spider-Man.
00:29:21
Speaker
During this scene, he shows some power in that he is able to separate Carnage the symbiote from his human host, Cletus Kasady. Okay. Judas then commands his students to prepare the facility and Chakra, one of his students, astral projects herself in front of Spider-Man, who had just recovered from being knocked unconscious during his fight with his clone. Okay. She tells Spider-Man they've taken over Ravencroft and will kill everyone inside if Spider-Man doesn't intervene. However,
00:29:51
Speaker
if Spider-Man defeats Traveler, he will release all of the supervillains into the general public. Now, I have two issues with this. The first one is how the fuck she knew where Spider-Man was. And like, the implications of that are pretty weird. She just is able to find him and tell him this information. Two, if Spider-Man defeats Traveler,
00:30:19
Speaker
How is he going to release the supervillains into the general public? Because he would have been defeated. It's not clear. Yeah, like, I mean, unless it was one of those like, oh, we had like a button on his vest all along, but like, it just doesn't... It's not out of the question. It's just not presented in a way that is that clear. Yeah, it seems kind of, and it also just
00:30:48
Speaker
Oh, a weird lose-lose situation that doesn't seem to be very like thought through. Yeah. Cause it's also like, and also was Judas Traveler like brought up before this? This is Judas Traveler's first appearance. And they've already made him like, he's the leader in this whole asylum now. And it's just, uh,
00:31:12
Speaker
It's just goofy. It's a little goofy. He's supposed to be this famous person who's visiting and then just... And then he's like, surprise, I'm nobody that you know. After all of this, the remaining students of Traveler take control of the facility while Traveler himself uses his vague powers to knock out the staff. I say vague powers because he does whatever the situation demands of him in this story.
00:31:40
Speaker
Great. He's just a Swiss army knife. Right. The clone then reveals that he had been hiding nearby and he doesn't believe that Peter is in the best shape to go fight a supervillain. And while he's thinking all of this, he digs out some old web shooters in a mask and he seems ready to follow Peter.
00:32:00
Speaker
But meanwhile, Mary Jane has been sitting with Aunt May until her own aunt, Aunt Anna, who's May's friend visits and questions her on where Peter could be, basically saying Peter's a bad husband. Without saying Peter's a bad husband, she just kind of does the thing of like, well, you know, a good husband would be here, you know? Yeah. And, you know, it's not wrong. Peter's not doing great right now.
00:32:30
Speaker
He's not. He's suffering a little bit. That also answers another question I had. So that's good. Wait, what was that question? I'm curious. So there's a hospital scene in the first issue that I had to read. And Mary Jane's aunt is briefly in that scene. But they just say like,
00:32:58
Speaker
Mrs. Watson or something. Yeah. And I was like, oh my God, is Peter like 85? And then is this just like Mary Jane Watson is 85. So it was very confusing for me for a minute, but we will go through that process at a later episode. You can continue. So when Peter. It's hard for me and I'm very grateful for that.
00:33:27
Speaker
When Peter arrives at Ravencroft, he realizes that the entire building has a strange magical barrier around the outside. The staff of the facility had all been teleported outside with the police. Being the police, they decide to shoot Judas the moment he makes his presence known, but the bullets just bounce off of him. Again, vague superpowers. So right now, we have can teleport other people, can knock people out.
00:33:56
Speaker
and is bulletproof. He also had the ability to remove Carnage's symbiote from Cletus. That's right, okay. I don't know what power that would be. So weird bio extraction. So after all of this and he gets shot and the bullets bounce off, all that, Spider-Man enters the building to face Traveler and that ends Web of Spider-Man number 117. Okay.
00:34:25
Speaker
It's very weird so far. This is a wild story. Just wait. Okay. Keep going. The next comic that we're covering is Amazing Spider-Man, volume one, number 394, which was written by JMD Matias, penciled by Mark Bagley, who is my favorite Spider-Man artist, by the way. Okay.
00:34:52
Speaker
absolutely love his work. Inked by Larry Malstett, colored by Bob Sharon, and lettered by Joe Rosen. Now, despite what the previous issue clearly set up, Peter's clone is still at the hospital and he refuses to leave Aunt Mayside. So, during the previous issue, he digs out his gloves and his mask and he seems like he's about to head out, but then he's just like, ah, fuck it, I'm gonna go hang out with my aunt who's in a coma.
00:35:22
Speaker
with my aunt who's not my aunt, but who is my aunt? Yeah. Dr. Kafka realizes that her assistant, Edward Wieland, is the only member of the staff who had not been transported outside of Ravencroft when everyone else was. Now, Edward Wieland is the reformed supervillain Vermin. He was transformed by Baron Zemo into a rat-like monster. That's why his name is Vermin.
00:35:50
Speaker
But he has since gained some control over his transformations and defied Zemo in order to be cured by Kafka. So he's, for the most part, cured, and he's been working with her to help cure other people. Yeah, he's like a rehabilitated villain. Right. Sure. Judas Traveler grabs ahold of Whelan and transforms him back into Vermin to prove that humanity has monsters hiding within them.
00:36:19
Speaker
Which is just fucking fascinating to me because then he immediately turns him back into a human and just transports him outside. It serves no fucking purpose other than, look at this dick move I can do. And that's also not like a good example of what you're looking for. Right. Because that wasn't his choice. Well, exactly.
00:36:45
Speaker
Judas Traveler is a shitty psychologist. I feel like this is what the theme of this issue is going to be and I feel like it's already not worth it. I'll get into my thoughts on the theme when we get to the end of this.
00:37:06
Speaker
Spider-Man makes his way through the facility, stopping at the supervillains that he passes, and he questions the point of all of it, since some of them, namely Carnage, are completely without morals. Back at the hospital, Mary Jane, having had a talk with Anna about the importance of family, decides that she has to board a flight to Pittsburgh in order to make amends with her sister and her father. When she questions if this is the right thing to do and if she should be with Peter and May, since, you know, May is in a fucking coma,
00:37:36
Speaker
Anna convinces her it's the right thing to do since Peter has essentially abandoned his family. Anna tells her that she will call if anything changes with May and basically pushes Mary Jane onto the flight to Pittsburgh. Now I don't know if you know anything about Mary Jane's family. She had a very troubled upbringing with her dad being very violent and just not a good situation for anyone. She left her family when she was
00:38:05
Speaker
like basically as soon as she was able to. And that's kind of what this is all about. Sure. So back at the hospital, the clone cries over May's body when a doctor enters the room and comforts him, telling him that he needs a friend, which is a good thing. That's what he's feeling at that moment. Yeah. And back at the Institute, Spider-Man makes his way through the halls while being stalked by someone named Scryer.
00:38:33
Speaker
Scryer looks like a pale white bald man in a black cloak. He is... Oh, this is Icelandic yogurt man, right? Right. He looks like a cult leader. There is, at this point, no explanation for who this fucking person is or why they just randomly showed up following Spider-Man. This is their first appearance ever. So Judas Traveler then attacks Spider-Man
00:39:02
Speaker
and while doing so dives into his mind. And while he's poking around inside, he starts to laugh. Spider-Man fights back, but Traveler is unaffected. He basically, it's like the bullets. Every time Spider-Man punches him, it does nothing. Traveler tells him that he is a broken man to which Peter then falls to the floor crying for those that he has loved before passing out.
00:39:26
Speaker
Scryer then approaches Traveler to ask what the next step of their plan is, and Traveler reveals that he has learned of another spider. And at that point, Chakra projects herself in front of Spider-Man's clone. She offers him a choice, stay and let Spider-Man die, meaning he can take his place or come to rescue him. And that ends this issue, which brings us into Spider-Man volume one, number 51,
00:39:54
Speaker
which was written by Howard Mackey, penciled by Tom Lyle, inked by Scott Hanna, colored by Kevin Tinsley, lettered by Richard Starkings, and Kamikraft. Okay. And this issue, you could easily just get rid of. Oh, great. The clone basically tells an unconscious May that he chose the name Ben Riley after his uncle Ben and May's maiden name as he struggles with what he's about to do.
00:40:24
Speaker
Pulling the mask and gloves from his bag for the second time in the story, Ben decides that it is time for him to go into action. When he leaves, he accidentally unplugs a monitor, and when the doctors come to check on May, they realize that nobody saw Peter leave. And this would be fun if any of this was followed up on. It's literally a scene where they're like, oh no, she's flatlining. She's fine.
00:40:49
Speaker
And then all the doctors go, hey, did anybody see Peter leave? And nobody has. But it leads to nothing. It's just a stupid thing that they wrote in that goes nowhere. It's just like, to he, no one knows that he went out the window. Right. So then Ben leaves and arrives at Ravencroft noticing the strange barrier around the building, but is surprised to see that he is allowed to pass through.
00:41:16
Speaker
When he enters, he is attacked by two followers of Traveler that were so boring, I completely forgot that they were in this part of the story until I did the review. Right. Spider-Man, meanwhile, is struggling with his own inner turmoil and Traveler's invasion of his mind. Throughout the experience, he keeps coming back to his mantra, with great power comes great responsibility. Spider-Man breaks free from his mental conditioning, but is subdued by Judas Traveler. Basically, go to sleep. Just then,
00:41:44
Speaker
Ben comes crashing into the room and the two Spider-Man decide to work together to defeat Traveler. Cool. So if you notice, this entire issue was Ben leaves, shows up at Ravencroft, and then teams up with Spider-Man. You could have done that in two pages. Absolutely.
00:42:03
Speaker
which leads us to Spectacular Spider-Man number 217, which was written by Tom DeFalco, penciled and inked by Sal Buscema, colored by Kevin Tinsley, lettered by Klim Robbins. Traveler uses his powers to render both Spider-Man unconscious and has them moved to the basement of the facility. So both of them have been knocked out and taken to the basement.
00:42:27
Speaker
Scryer then informs Traveler that they can't afford to keep the barrier up much longer since it is draining their resources. Traveler allows his underlings to release the prisoners revealing that he never wanted to kill them to begin with. When Peter wakes up, he attacks Ben, believing the clone to be just part of the conspiracy against him.
00:42:47
Speaker
The amount of times that they get into pointless fights in this is so stupid. Yeah, it's just like, okay, this guy clearly just tried to help you. Yeah. Like, how hard did you get knocked out to forget the past like 10 minutes, you know?
00:43:04
Speaker
And during the fight, Ben correctly identifies the issues that the Spiderman titles have had at that time. He states, you've changed, Parker. You used to have a sense of humor, a flair for jokes and witticisms. What happened? Why are you so bitter and angry?
00:43:19
Speaker
And that is, it's basically them saying, uh, how did we fuck up this bad Spider-Man titles? Yeah. They're really just yelling. That's a self-insert right there. Yeah. And Spider-Man's response, by the way, is life happened. So Ben tells Peter that if life is so hard, right, he's the most crack of a stigma.
00:43:46
Speaker
Ben tells Peter that if life is so hard as Peter Parker, then he'll gladly take over, which Peter refuses and then the two decide that they need to work together again. Another pointless change in what happened just pages before. Yeah, it's very, it seems very much of like a melodrama, like, of trying to get this man to realize, like, you have to be both.
00:44:16
Speaker
because that's just like what you, that's your responsibility. That's what you have to do. It's just, it's so wishy washy doing. And then, so I need you to be prepared for this next part. I'm prepared. Okay. Okay. So one of traveler's students informs him that she has, she's done her secret mission.
00:44:41
Speaker
And she has returned with an envelope that he has requested to be postmarked for a week earlier. This is a major point in this story. Okay, so Judas Traveler sent himself a letter. Yes, from a week earlier. Yeah, and she just picked it up. Yeah, pretty much.
00:45:02
Speaker
This is very much already very William Shakespeare, like do this letter, but don't read it and don't let anybody see it until the right moment. And Traveler says that all of this is part of his deception in the game that they are playing. Okay. He then sends Scryer to shut down the force field around the facility and tells everyone to prepare to leave. And as the force field dissipates outside, I think it turns into a gas. That was my reading of the situation.
00:45:32
Speaker
And everyone that was outside of the facility is knocked unconscious from the gas spreading. Okay, sure. Mary Jane, on her flight to Pittsburgh, thinks about her husband, everything that they've gone through, and how much Peter is in pain. And then she gets up and rushes to the bathroom because she is going to get sick from all of the emotional turmoil. Right.
00:45:55
Speaker
That's it for Mary Jane in this story. The two Spider-Men make their way through Ravencroft and run into Wild Whip, an incredibly important character that Ben knows, but Peter doesn't, which has never been explained as this is the literal only appearance of the character to date. Oh, so like that's just alluding to the fact that Ben has been here for a hot minute.
00:46:20
Speaker
Right. So after defeating Wildwhip, they then run into a freed Carnage. Carnage, by the way, tells them that he has already killed a bunch of prisoners. Oh, wow. Okay. Ben tells Peter that they must save the other prisoners from Carnage, which reminds Peter of everything that he used to stand for. The two then team up and defeat Carnage. Here. Traveler leaves the letter that he got from his assistant,
00:46:49
Speaker
in Kafka's office and starts to depart. The two Spider-Men split up so that Ben can take on Traveler's students and Peter can go after the mastermind. When Ben jumps into a getaway vehicle to stop the students, the car explodes, apparently killing him.
00:47:06
Speaker
Traveler then uses his powers to knock out Spider-Man, and when he comes to, everyone is gone. This happens over and over. Every time Spider-Man gets close to Traveler, he just like waves his hand and knocks Spider-Man out. And it's fucking annoying. It's so stupid. It's the worst way to handle this situation.
00:47:25
Speaker
But when he comes to, Dr. Kafka is there and she informs him that the prisoners have all been contained again and that it was like nothing happened. Basically, nobody was actually killed. Carnage either lied or a traveler was able to bring them back from the dead. I think the implication is that Carnage lied. Okay.
00:47:49
Speaker
The staff then finds Traveler's letter, which states that he was unable to make his appearance at Ravencroft, which implies that whoever took over the facility was a fake. This, by the way, was his master plan. To send a letter stating that he couldn't make it, therefore, the person that did all the bad stuff could not have been him.
00:48:14
Speaker
That's like the dumbest form of gasoline. It was all a dream. I know this is before Google, but I'm sure there are some sort of directory somewhere where you can just find a picture. There's a newspaper somewhere. We can find a picture of Judas Traveler. He has a very distinctive look. Yeah.
00:48:43
Speaker
This makes no sense. That's so fresh. Is that how that issue ends? There's a couple more pages where basically the authorities search through the wreckage of the car and they find no bodies. So Spider-Man is confused about everything and just swings away. And as he does, Ben steps out from the shadows revealing that he had escaped the explosion and is still alive. So as far as Spider-Man knows, Ben is dead, but Ben's not dead. Right. And that's how it ends.
00:49:13
Speaker
Okay. I think the first issue that you talked about was still my favorite. Mine too, which is crazy because it really doesn't have anything to do with the clone saga other than just, oh, hey, there's that guy. Other than the ending, yeah. I feel like that was so much better done. Yeah.
00:49:44
Speaker
Peter Parker, Spider-Man terminal. Because like everything else, it was just like, it felt like a pity part. Because it would be like, oh, poor me, I'm Spider-Man. Oh, no, I got knocked out. I'm Spider-Man. That's weird. And it didn't answer as many questions as I thought it would for like, because I am basically like chapter two of this. Yeah.
00:50:12
Speaker
So I knew I was gonna not know some things, like walking into it. But damn, that's, I don't know. Okay, so what were like some things that you liked about, like what you read then for this episode? Okay, so I only have a couple. That's fine. At least there's a couple and it's not just like one thing.
00:50:38
Speaker
other than the art, which I actually, I genuinely liked all of the art, and I'm surprised because I know, so this is just things that I am aware of. Bill Sinkiewicz eventually takes over inking Sal Baschima's artwork, and Sinkiewicz has a very particular style. I love Sinkiewicz's artwork. However, when he inks other people,
00:51:04
Speaker
He, it ends up looking like his artwork. And if they are not, if they're not very well matched, it looks very dark and muddled and doesn't really, it does not fit Spider-Man. It would fit a horror book, not Spider-Man. Okay. So I loved all of the art in this. Generally speaking, it was great. Especially, like I said, Mark Bagley, he's got a very expressive style, big fan.
00:51:31
Speaker
The setup of Ben revealing that Spider-Man had strayed from his path is a really nice choice, but it's not one that really gets much airtime. It's something that they just kind of bring up every so often of like, hey, you are not doing what Spider-Man does. Maybe you should do what Spider-Man does.
00:51:52
Speaker
Peter kind of like pulls himself back, but then he falls back into this shitty behavior, which I guess is realistic, but it's repetitive as hell in this story. Yeah. And it's, I have, and I've kind of found like a similar problem where it's like they want to, it seems like based on what I've read and what you've just told me, that they want to touch on these really like,
00:52:19
Speaker
I guess like profound kind of thoughts like with mental illness or like, um, I had read like a short little bit that had a bit to do with like the Mary Jane, like married relationship. And like the concept in and of itself was really interesting, but it just like,
00:52:46
Speaker
It seemed like it was too early in the style to write about it properly, if that makes sense. Because right now, it's the early 90s of comics, and everything's very bright and poppy, especially with Spider-Man. Everybody expects it to just be snappy and fun and quick. But the things that they want to talk about or are trying to talk about
00:53:13
Speaker
I feel like need to be a slower process in general. Like, or just, you know, like snap out of a kid, like go get yourself an ice cream and park it up. Like it can't be that, but like that's how they're trying to solve it. So it's very bizarre. Cause like, and from what I've read so far, there's, you barely see Peter Parker at all.
00:53:42
Speaker
at the moment. Yeah, so I was actually going to touch on that. After this story, they took the two lowest selling titles of Spider-Man, which were Web of Spider-Man and I think it was just the regular Spider-Man. And they gave those to Ben. And then the other two titles
00:54:12
Speaker
were given to Peter. So as you read the story arcs, they're kind of split between Ben and Peter. Interesting. Okay, that is cool to know because so far it's been, on my end, it's been very Ben focused at the moment. Yeah.
00:54:34
Speaker
That's not going to last forever because nothing does in this. No, I mean like, especially if it's going to be going on for like three-ish years. Now keep in mind, everything I just read you, that's one month. That's usually one book comes out during that time. Because Spider-Man has four, they decided to use all four issues to tell one story. Yeah.
00:55:04
Speaker
difficult and especially at this time that's require one that's requiring you as a reader to spend like $20 something like yeah on on a comic book each month to get one story and Also, this is gonna be this is my what didn't work I do have one more thing and what did work, but I'm gonna skip down to what didn't work for this which is
00:55:32
Speaker
There are tons of setups and no payoffs and a meandering story. And that I think is a result of them having four different writers for each chapter of this story. Yeah. So like you have the doctor noticing that Peter isn't in the room when nobody saw him leave.
00:55:56
Speaker
Traveler keeping vermin inside only to then say never mind and throw him outside Ben revealing that he had operated as a superhero to defeat wild whip and then wild literally being just a Random fucking villain that shows up even though they played up as like oh, it's this big deal and then you also have like Ben taking out his web shooters and his gloves and his his mask and then
00:56:25
Speaker
putting them back and then the next issue doing the same thing. I don't think that they were on the same page in how they were planning to write this. Right. Also, Peter deciding he was going to work with his clone and then the next issue deciding that he's gonna fight his clone because he doesn't believe him anymore. It's just meandering bullshit. Yeah, it is an interesting start for sure.
00:56:54
Speaker
Now, you mentioned the particular time that Spider-Man was being written in.
Dark Themes in Spider-Man's Story
00:57:01
Speaker
So this is 93, I believe? Yes, I think so. Because a lot of mine... Oh, wait, hold on one second. Actually, it might not be. It might be 1990. No, it's after 1990. It's... Because... Okay, interesting. I would assume it's 93. And I don't have the dates written down because I didn't care that much about that.
00:57:24
Speaker
Now, I agree with you in that there is something to be said about the genre and the type of character that you're writing for in terms of what story you're going to tell. Spider-Man, you can tell dark stories with, but I think there's a certain way that you have to write it. Exactly. The only thing I would push back on in terms of time is if you
00:57:54
Speaker
Think about it, Sandman. It is, oh my God, it is, it's the same year. Right, around the time that you're reading Sandman, that's when this is coming out. Oh my God, I forgot, man. People are gonna come at me for being a fake Sandman fan. No, that's so crazy, you are absolutely right though. Man, so they just, it's too many cooks in the kitchen then. That's exactly what it is.
00:58:22
Speaker
And that's the thing I know for a fact continues on, and especially with editors now. I didn't talk about the editors for this. Well, here's my other question to kind of continue the slight debate. Because Sandman's DC, and I feel like we talked about it in the preview of us getting into this. DC was doing a lot of major event successes.
00:58:50
Speaker
with their stories. Now, because I don't necessarily know specifically what those ones are. Like, do they cover like any like moderately like heavy themes? And I mean. Oh, yeah, they do. Yeah. OK, so. Now, I don't think that they're not as good as Sandman. They're they're handled. Sandman is like, regardless of what you put it against. So like, I'm wondering then.
00:59:21
Speaker
if that's just the phase that the people of DC were ready to be able to produce stories like that. Because I feel like DC generally, and I could be wrong in my opinion, is generally a little darker, I feel like, usually, than Marvel. I don't know. I think I just always appreciate it. Because a lot of that, I think,
00:59:46
Speaker
comes from like the movies are a bit darker, but the comics themselves, I think are pretty comparable. There's a lot of goofiness in DC. That's actually, I had always associated DC with being kind of the goofier one. Really? I always associate Marvel with being the more like bright and goofy one. But I, so DC, they're both goofy.
01:00:20
Speaker
But DC, what I ended up getting out of them when I was growing up, I was much more of a... Okay, growing up, there were three things I cared a lot about. X-Men, Spider-Man and Batman.
01:00:37
Speaker
I didn't give a shit about anything else. Superman I thought was fine and I eventually grew to love Superman. I absolutely love Superman as an adult. But growing up I didn't care about. I thought he was dumb. The same with Captain America up until I was probably in my mid teens. I didn't care about Captain America either. Yeah.
01:01:00
Speaker
And I think it's just a, you know, I see them as boring characters. You know, Batman's dark and spooky and that's what I liked. And X-Men is just, X-Men is great. There's, you can't say anything. It's wonderful. And then Spider-Man is this fun and interesting character for the most part. And then there's a lot of dark stuff that comes with that, but
01:01:25
Speaker
That's what I was always into. And if I were to look at DC growing up, I would say, outside of Batman, you have a bunch of characters that are kind of silly. You have the Green Lantern, you have Cyborg, and Robin is running around as Nightwing with his big, you know, it all seems juicy to me. Now, if you read them, they're really well done, but like,
01:01:50
Speaker
They also exist in a world that's not really ours, you know? Yeah, like it's not New York. It's... Right. It's awesome and yeah. I get that. Okay, that's fair. Now, again, I don't think that either is goofier than the other. I think you just pick up a book and it's what it is.
01:02:13
Speaker
Now, what I will say about DC is that they had one of the best editors in all of comics, and that was Karen Berger. And she brought in so much insane talent, especially the British talent, to work on what eventually became Vertigo. That's where you get Swamp Thing,
01:02:37
Speaker
Hellblazer and Sandman. That's all because she got talented people and trusted them. Sandman came out of her having a conversation with Neil Gaiman and saying, look, I want you to do Sandman, but you have to do something else with it. Do you have any ideas? Right. And that's amazing. I can't say more good things about her. She's wonderful.
01:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes being a leader and being a head person is knowing who you can rely on and who is noticing other people's talents instead of just highlighting your own. And keep in mind, the other story arcs that were really pushing sales, the big events of the time at DC were Nightfall and Death of Superman, both of which were
01:03:34
Speaker
well thought out in advance. Yeah. They sat down and they said, all right, we're going to kill Superman. We got to have a plan. Now, I originally read Death of Superman when I was a teenager. And it's like the actual Death of Superman part is not really that interesting. Like a guy comes down to Earth and he fights Superman and they both die.
01:03:58
Speaker
Yeah. Pretty much it's an interesting setup. There's not a lot to it. What was great about that was they followed up the death of Superman with the reign of Superman, which were all the people that basically took over after Superman died. And then the return of Superman, both of which are way more interesting stories. Right. Yeah. And that was because they had this planned from the beginning.
01:04:26
Speaker
And it is very apparent that like, these are not planned. Like the- No. Just like little said that we just, we just debriefed, not well. And if they were, I do believe that at least for the first little bit of this, they had a plan. Well, that first issue, again, I think that was like a good thought out thing that they did. And then it just, it rolled down a hill.
01:04:56
Speaker
For the first three or four months of this, they had a plan and they kind of stuck to it. I just don't think that they gave anyone enough time to work on making it cohesive because you have four cooks in the kitchen, which is way too many. And there's only one stove. Right. And then on top of that, you know, we're not at this point yet, but
01:05:19
Speaker
in a couple of months. They have a major shakeup and their fucking editor gets taken out and they got a new editor in charge who has a different idea for how this should go. Yeah. But anyway, I want to say one more thing that I think is good about this. Yeah, we'll end it on a positive note. Well, and then I have a couple more things that I want to bring up to you too. Oh, awesome. So one good thing I thought about the traveler
01:05:49
Speaker
who not traveler himself. Traveler makes no fucking sense. None of his crew is any interesting. They don't have any like real characterization. And so far he has five different powers that we don't know where they came from and they're very specific. His goals are interesting. He wants to study like the origins of evil and he's interested in how Spider-Man relates to all of these people. That's interesting. His plans are fucking stupid, but
01:06:16
Speaker
Traveler noticing how many of these villains are obsessed with spider-man and the role that he has played in their lives is a great way to play on responsibility and power Like that that's what this fucking thing is called right? Yeah, and Carnage is a great example of
01:06:42
Speaker
of this. He exists explicitly because of Peter's actions. Peter brought the symbiote back to Earth, which then made Venom. And even though Venom isn't really like a major bad guy right now, like he's kind of like, he's an anti hero at this point in the comics. Yeah.
01:07:05
Speaker
Carnage is a spawn of Venom. The symbiotes existing on Earth is entirely Spider-Man's fault. So he should have the most amount of responsibility, and Carnage as a character is the exact definition of someone who has power and no responsibility. They're a deadly force. Yeah, they're just whipping around, you know?
01:07:36
Speaker
I think all of that is interesting and I can see a story written with Judas Traveler about these things that could have been so much better than what we actually got. That sounds like a negative, but I think that the idea there is great. And it seems like it would have been cooler if it was, if the timeline of how they did the story was different. So he's losing his shit over
01:08:09
Speaker
over the scorpion stuff and then comes face to face with Ben Riley and then freaks out or whatever and runs away from that and then gets hung up over the Judas Traveler thing and Judas Traveler is like,
01:08:27
Speaker
See, look at all these people. Look at all these people that they're all like this and they all have something to do with you. Why do they have something to do with you? Then it's like, oh my God, I don't feel safe as Peter Parker and I don't feel safe as Spider-Man. What the heck is going on? Then you get your Ben Riley to come over and be like,
01:08:49
Speaker
Hey, what happened? Let's get you back. Let's get you back to square one. Like, I'll help you get back to square one. Like, I feel like that would have been so much more interesting, you know? Yeah. I think as I was listening to you go through this, all I can think is how much better of a story that is. And that took us what, like, an
01:09:12
Speaker
maybe an hour to come to that conclusion of like hearing all of the ideas that essentially these four people had and then just being like, oh, well, what if this happened instead? It's gonna just be us reading and rewriting the clone song. I do have two bits of trivia I want to get through now. Trivia time. Trivia time. Here it is. The records room. Serve the web. Serve the web. The first one is
01:09:41
Speaker
actually something that I learned as I was doing the notes for this because it all comes from stuff that happened after this story but technically within universe this would have happened before this story and it's fascinating that it's something that is just not not even acknowledged in the slightest in this I mean granted we know why because this didn't actually happen yet in our world but in their fictional world it should have
01:10:11
Speaker
Okay. So in doing this, I ended up looking up a brief history of Ravencroft, the Institute.
The History of Ravencroft Institute
01:10:18
Speaker
Sure. I'm just going to give you a series of events that have happened at this, or on the land where this facility is, okay? Okay, sure.
01:10:29
Speaker
The land where Ravencroft Institute was built was seen as cursed by the local indigenous tribes since before the 15th century, having been claimed as the territory of a cannibalistic cult that worshipped the dark god Knull. Now, I only think about... Someone looked at this and said, this has been historically known as a cursed land. Let's make this basically an insane asylum.
01:10:58
Speaker
Also, I love they're like, this is a cursed land that happens to also just be a small plot inside all of New York City. Like just this one square. The whole place in New York City. No, I think I can't be wrong. I'm gonna just double check right now. I think Ravencroft is in Westchester. Oh, okay. It's not made clear because they just travel
01:11:28
Speaker
It's like, hey, I'm leaving, and then they show up. Yeah, it's in Westchester, which also makes this much more, how the fuck did Spider-Man and Ben get from the middle of New York to Westchester? Wait a minute. I didn't think of that. They couldn't have web-swinged the entire way. Was Ravencroft got mentioned in one of the things I was reading?
01:11:58
Speaker
And I guess I just didn't notice that it said Westchester. I thought it said just like West, West End or something like that. Yeah, I'm pretty sure judging from Marvel, like fandom.com, it is in Westchester County, New York. So that's insane. I can't. Yeah, it doesn't make any sense. For anyone that's not from the East Coast, these are not anywhere near each other.
01:12:28
Speaker
Man, I'm kind of mad about it. So, okay, we're going to go further down this list. Sorry. The first holding facility that was built on this land was a single wooden cell constructed in 1664 to house Cortland Cassidy, ancestor of carnage and a settler who had been driven insane by the cult and became a murderous cannibal. Cortland escaped and murdered his wife, Molly Ravencroft.
01:12:57
Speaker
Now, fast forwarding a bit, Steve Rogers, ancestor to Captain America's Steve Rogers. Okay, so this is like a Steve Rogers Jr. Or senior, senior, senior, I guess. Because this is the Revolutionary War. Oh, this is still the past. Okay, so this is like, okay, I'm understood. Steve Rogers.
01:13:17
Speaker
Steve Rogers of the Revolutionary War was shot by a rogue cannonball on the land that would later become Ravencroft. Then in 1804, a cult that worshiped the extra-dimensional creature Shumagorath was formed on this land, which is a Dr. Strange villain, by the way.
01:13:40
Speaker
At the end of the century, Dr. Jonas Ravencroft, a descendant of Molly Ravencroft, founded a maximum security psychiatric facility on the spot where his ancestor had been murdered. The construction of the facility was met with protest by the locals with a fire being started on the ground. One of the workers claimed to have been told by Mephisto, who's basically Marvel's devil, to cave the Foreman's head in with a hammer, but finally the building was completed. So that's where it comes from.
01:14:10
Speaker
In 1909, they took in two doctors, Dr. Nathaniel Essex from England and Dr. Claudia Russell from Romania. Do you know either of these names? No. I would assume one, no, okay. Dr. Nathaniel Essex is also known as Mr. Sinister. He is an X-Men villain from way back. Fantastic glam rock kind of bad guy. Oh, very cool. He's obsessed with genetics.
01:14:41
Speaker
does whatever he can to mess with people and do weird experiments. Dr. Claudia Russell is a werewolf. And one of their patients was a man named Logan or Wolverine. And an orderly that worked at the facility was Victor Creed, also known as Sabertooth. So during World War II, Weapon Plus, Weapon Plus is the organization that was in charge of
01:15:10
Speaker
Weapon X, which is Wolverine's whole thing. Yeah, that's what turned them into their thing. Right. It also was in charge of making Captain America Captain America. Oh, we didn't realize those were connected. Yeah. They commandeered the Institute and conducted experiments on the inmates with the aid of Count Dracula.
01:15:33
Speaker
They turned several of them into vampiric monstrosities. When Captain America and Bucky Barnes attacked the Institute looking for a friend of theirs, Jonas Ravencroft unleashed the vampiric monsters of the Weapon Plus personnel before committing suicide. And then, toward the last quarter of the century, Louise Cassidy was sent to the Institute and given unsadaded electroshock therapy while pregnant.
01:15:59
Speaker
The apathetic doctors provided no assistance to her while she was given birth, or gave any assistance to her child Cletus, later known as Carnage, when he was born with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. This is insane. This all happened in this one place. That is all- That's so much. Yeah, and now I will tell you, most of that comes-
01:16:29
Speaker
Most of that comes from one comic that came out just a couple of years ago. That's pretty cool. They were like, let's tell the story. And they made this the darkest fucking place possible. They really did. They were like, you don't know Arkham. Arkham is Rain Weenie Hut Jr.
01:16:56
Speaker
So I have another trivia thing, if you're interested in that. Sure. All right, so during this we found that Richard Starkings from ComiCraft did some of the lettering for one of the issues. Okay. Now Richard Starkings is the founder of ComiCraft and originally intended to advertise his fonts through using Marvel and DC characters. Basically he was going to put out a bunch of ads with like
01:17:20
Speaker
Wolverine and Batman and Spider-Man showing all of the different fonts that they use to advertise the type of lettering that they can do. That's cool. When he was unable to obtain authorization for this, he was forced to create an anthropomorphic animal character for his advertisements because he wasn't able to use Batman and Wolverine, he had to come up with his own. Yeah.
01:17:43
Speaker
I'm going to ask you, and I'm going to give you some examples. You have to tell me which one you think, tell me which one and give me your reasons. Oh no. Okay. Which character did he create? Okay. I'm ready. A hair butt, which is a hippopotamus detective. I love the face that you have.
01:18:10
Speaker
B, Ali Cat Abra, a cat magician. C, Hip Flask, a hippopotamus secret agent. Or D, Yankee Poodle, a dog with the ability to project a force field of stars and stripes. Oh, God. Now, I will tell you,
01:18:37
Speaker
All of these are real characters. They all exist- Oh, they're all real? They're all real characters, but which one did Richard Starkings create for his advertisements? Hairbutt is real? Hairbutt is a real character. Oh, that alone makes me happy. Oh, okay. Pardon. Which one do I think it is?
01:19:06
Speaker
If you want, I can go back through them. I don't. I don't think it's going to be hip flaps because I think that's like the most normal one. So I think I and I think I have to knock that one out. OK. Now, who did you say he had like done? Did you say he had done like lettering for like Captain America before? Yeah, he's done. So he's got a craft, a comic craft has done
01:19:36
Speaker
So as a company, and Richard Stark in some particular has done work for pretty much everyone. I mostly know them from doing X-Men stuff. Okay. But to this day, I get some of my fonts from ComiCraft.com. Okay. I don't think it's the poodle. Because, I don't know. That seems like...
01:20:07
Speaker
I don't know, it just doesn't seem right. The pun is too much there, you know? Yeah. The pun is too existing. The cat one, I want it to be that because I love cats. But I think it's hair butt because honestly, that's such a good like, fuck you for not letting me use the thing that I constantly work on, you know? Right. Is it hair butt? So it's actually hip flask.
01:20:34
Speaker
Damn it. There is interesting. So the creators of hair butt accused Richard Starkings of plagiarizing their character. So they were like, you, you're using a hippopotamus secret agent. Our hippopotamus is a detective.
01:20:55
Speaker
And you're just copying him. And now Richard Stark, Richard Starkings denies this. And he's like, I didn't even know hair butt existed until I created hip flask. So like, and nothing ever came of this, but they did publicly accuse him of plagiarizing their character. I'm looking up hair butt, but I put hippo detective in front of it. Yeah, that's probably a good idea. Cause I knew.
01:21:25
Speaker
that it would probably not go well. Hairbutt the hippo. Okay. Wow, he's gritty. Yeah, there was a weird period where the anthropomorphic characters like this were being put into some like really adult situations.
01:21:49
Speaker
Well, they were some very interesting comics, I will say. Well, are all the other like characters, are they also animals? The one in this, in that comic book or the ones that I read to you? I guess with like most of them. There's like a human being in Hairbutt.
01:22:13
Speaker
It's weird. So especially if you were to read, like I go over this in the episodes I did on Dave Simm. Dave Simm created Sarabus, which is an aardvark. And there are other like animal characters, but most of his supporting staff, or not supporting staff, supporting characters are just regular people. To the point, like he, in the comic,
01:22:41
Speaker
uh one spoiler warning and two uh sensitive content about sexual assault uh cerebus rapes a woman in his comic book wow and she's just a regular human and he's now it's it's weird because it's cartoony so it's not that
01:23:07
Speaker
It doesn't seem super out of place because they seem like they exist in the same world, but it is rape and it is interspecies. It's very strange. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, that's very odd. That reminds me a lot of that Howard Duck thing. I love Howard the Duck. They're so much fun.
01:23:35
Speaker
It's very weird. I'm too uncomfortable to like watch the movie. It's really weird. I want to look up the magician cat though. What was his name again? Ali Cat Abra. Oh, it's from DC. Oh, it's cute. It's a little, little pal. That's fun. At least not all of them are creepy. Man, what a time. That's crazy.
01:24:04
Speaker
I actually have a book here. I have to look for where I have it. But I have a lettering book put out by comic craft and it stars hip flask. He runs he runs you through how to do digital lettering. It's really it's kind of fun. I really enjoyed it. I remember getting it and being like what the hell is this?
01:24:28
Speaker
I actually got it confused with Hairbutt when I first got it. I thought it was that character because I didn't really look that well. Oh, really? Yeah, but I mean, it's... They... I fully believe that Richard Starkings had no idea that Hairbutt existed. Yeah, I mean, like, how could you? Oh, they are kind of similar. Yeah.
01:24:54
Speaker
I mean, well, it's hard not to be when you're a hippo. No offense to, not to generalize hippos out there. But the first photo that comes up is a hippo in a trench coat, and that was what Herobut wants to do. That's pretty much the character. So, I mean, this was essentially the first major story arc of the Clone Saga, power and responsibility. And I feel like... I think it was fine. I mean,
01:25:24
Speaker
I know how I would have wanted it done, but I'm not a writer. I'm also alive in 1993, so I cannot help these people. I have read the next two story arcs that I am going to be covering. Okay.
01:25:47
Speaker
They are handled wildly different, even from each other. And I have found myself liking them much more than this one. And this one is the thing that started everything.
01:26:05
Speaker
Yeah, you know what? Maybe it's one of those things where it's like there's a ton of shows that people are out there like, Oh my God. It's like a lot of times when people talk about parks and rec, they're like, Oh, love parks and rec. First season is trash, but keep going. It gets better. And like, I'm just not a person who likes, like, I hate that kind of advertising. Like, like, Oh, I have to trudge through like the first thing for it to get good. That's not something I normally like pick for myself.
01:26:36
Speaker
but we're doing it. I mean, maybe it will get better. It'll be crazy, but maybe it'll get better. Well, and I will say, so I have almost every issue from the next few story arcs. As I was going through it, I realized I've had these and I read them all while I was in high school. Oh, wow. So I remember a lot of this, but now I have much more context to them as I'm coming into them and I'm actually liking them way more.
01:27:04
Speaker
Well, that's good. So I think there is something to be taken from these. Yeah, I think so. I mean, like, I think we're gonna be fine. I am taking it very much as, like, still fresh reader for it. And, like, maybe I'll end up liking it. I don't know. We'll see. I'm excited to learn more.
01:27:27
Speaker
Well, with that, you can find more information at comicallypedantic.com. You can also follow us on Twitter and Instagram by searching at pedanticast on both platforms. New episodes come out most Sundays on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Podcast, Spotify, and at comicallypedantic.com. If you have any comments or questions, you can send them in text or audio recording to comicallypedantic at gmail.com.
01:27:48
Speaker
Please indicate if you'd like your name or your question read on the air. We will be back soon with another deep dive into the world of comics. Actually, it's going to be Corinne's first major episode on her own. Wow, wow, wow. I'm so excited. When we return for the exile returns. But until then, you can find more exciting adventures at your local comic shop.