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Episode 700: Making Up For Lost Time
1.1k Plays2 days ago
We were gone for a little while, and a whole episode of listener questions got lost thanks to Hurricane Helene. So we're making up for it with a special episode of nothing but listener questions!
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Transcript
Introduction and Zencastr Plug
00:00:00
Speaker
This show is recorded using Zencaster. If you are a podcaster, or you want to be a podcaster, and you want to be able to record remotely, you can do so using Zencaster. They also have hosting options. And you can let them know that we sent you. Follow the link in our show notes, or in the episode description, and sign up for an account on Zencaster now to start recording your own podcast.
00:00:39
Speaker
He's got more Rocket Ajax! To bring back his body!
Celebrating 700 Episodes of War Rocket Ajax
00:00:53
Speaker
Hello, everybody, and welcome to the 700th episode of War Rocket Ajax. This is the internet's most explosive comic book and pop culture podcast, and we are your hosts. My name is Chris Sims. With me, as always, is Matt Wilson. And Matt, if I was a Star Trek alien, I would be one of the Wadi. Oh, okay. Okay.
00:01:16
Speaker
Which for those of you who might not know, they are from ah the episode of Deep Space Nine called Move Along Home. And they are the ones who show up to a gathering with an overly complicated board game. That is deeply specific, for sure.
00:01:36
Speaker
it it It is, it is both a specific episode and a specific vibe that I think I have. I would think that if I was a Star Trek alien, I would be specifically the guy who wanted to beat Data at that, uh, that Stratejima game. Korami, I believe was his name.
00:02:02
Speaker
that's That's a vegetable, I believe. Like ah the name of a Saiyan? Like the name of a Saiyan. Let's see. Kohlrabi. Cerna Kohlrabi was a male Zokdorn. So I would probably be a Zokdorn if I were a ah Star Trek alien. Nice. Nice. I love that you had that one.
00:02:28
Speaker
like in the chamber ready to go. i I thought I would, I always feel like I'm going to trip you up a little bit, but you rise to the occasion, Matt. That's those those improviser skills you have. Yes. ah That is in the next generation episode, peak performance from the second season, ah which the second season is bad
Star Trek Gaming Themes Discussion
00:02:49
Speaker
generally. That episode is fun though, because it's all about a dude who comes to the enterprise and is like, I know how to win at games. Oh, and he's got the, it's, it's the little things on his fingers, right? Yeah. Yeah. And he plays data at a game of, uh, of this, this game and beats him the first time. Data beats him the second time because data just plays defense the second time. And and that does, that episode also features Armin Shiverman as a non-Quark Ferengi. That's right.
00:03:24
Speaker
And ed it's great. I just love that that episode is about like a dude who mainly, his main thing is he's good at games. I love that that is the episode where Captain Picard says it is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life. Yeah. And he is literally talking to Data about losing a dumb video game? right There's some bigger thing at play there, I think. But yeah, that's true.
Listener Questions and Lost Episode Content
00:04:02
Speaker
Let's have episode 700 of War Rocket Ajax. And I am still totally kind of like, not fully mentally there, ah since everything that happened to me. So we are going to answer listener questions for the whole show.
00:04:23
Speaker
to make up for our last episode where we answered listener questions. Now, if you are a Patreon supporter of ours, you have heard what was left of that episode, which was most of it, unedited, which I put up on our Patreon. So if you're not at the bonus content level of our Patreon, you will never hear that episode, but that last episode is mostly available on our Patreon.
00:04:52
Speaker
but a lot of our listeners never got to hear that episode. So we're doubling up. We're doing a whole episode of answering listener questions on the show.
Favorite 700th Comic Issues
00:05:06
Speaker
Before we get to that though, Chris, I do want to ask you one question, like you asked me a question. Okay. Do you have, cause this was at one time the concept I had for Ajax 700. Okay, we were going to do every story ever or a ranking of or something to that effect of the 700th issues of comics, of which there are a select few, only a select few comics have ever gotten to a 700th issue, even in legacy numbering, right?
00:05:47
Speaker
Do you have a favorite 700th issue of a comic? I think the only one that I like that I can even bring to mind right now is ah Detective Comics 700, which is, um without even looking it up, it is a Rosalgul issue of the Greg Rooka run. Okay. Amazing Spider-Man 700 is pretty good.
00:06:17
Speaker
What happens in Amazing Spider-Man? Because 800 is go down swinging. Right. 700 is the creation of the superior Spider-Man. Okay, that's a good issue. but Yeah, it's it's it's the Peter Doc Ock body switch story. It's good. Action Comics 700 is the one where Lex Luthor ah dies and blows up ah Metropolis. ah Which is not a not a great issue, unfortunately. It is a Roger Stern butch guys issue. Fantastic Four 700 is a very recent issue that is also very good. It's a Ryan North Fantastic Four story with Dr. Doom. That's a good one. There's definitely a Flash 700, right?
00:07:13
Speaker
Yes, there is a Flash 700. I don't know what happens in it at all. Me either. There's probably a Superman 700? There must be. I'm almost certain that Superman 700 is part of Gromdib. Oh no! Flash 700 is from 2018.
00:07:37
Speaker
And it's a Joshua Williamson story, so it's probably pretty good, but I don't i don't know anything about it. Superman 700 is, it's the start of Grounded. It leads off with ah with a James Robinson story. And then ah there's ah there's a Dan Jurgen story in it. And then we get the Grounded prologue where the woman slaps Superman. That's a rough, buddy. Where someone says that Superman's lost touch. And he's like, I don't know
00:08:14
Speaker
X-Men 700 was technically X-Men 35, which I think I read and I think was okay. There is also a Captain in America 700. I'm sorry, I'm um um at the end of the
Patreon Appreciation and Benefits
00:08:30
Speaker
grounded prologue. Superman lands in Metropolis and and like in a park and starts walking away and these two little kids watch him. And one of them goes, what's he doing? Why is he just walking away? Why isn't he flying? And the other little kid goes, I don't know, but it must be important. Something two children would never say to each other. Yeah. Also that's not what he would do if it was important. He would fly. He would fly because that gets him there faster.
00:09:06
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know, it must be his day off. Yeah, it must be his day off would be the... Or maybe just maybe just doesn't want to. Maybe he's not in a hurry. Maybe that but that be kid should have said, I don't know, man, this story is going to suck until Chris Robertson comes on, that it's going to actually have some pretty good issues. This story is going to suck so bad that the guy who's writing it's going to quit halfway through. Yeah. but the guy who's The guy whose idea this entire thing was, who edit like contractually cannot be edited, ah is going to bail on this book. Yeah.
00:09:44
Speaker
And then, and then you are going to get like a couple of pretty good issues from Chris Robertson where Superman 1 million comes back. The Captain America 100 is a Mark Wade Chris-Somni issue, so I bet it's pretty good. Yeah, I bet that's pretty good.
Disaster Reflections and Community Resilience
00:10:00
Speaker
There's some other 700th issues, I think, but but not that many more. the The two most memorable ones easily are, I think, Amazing Spider-Man, and did you say Detective or Batman?
00:10:12
Speaker
Detective. Detective, yeah. There is a Batman 700. There is a Batman 700. I'm sure I've read it, but I don't remember what happens. Batman 700 is also fairly recent. It's a Morrison issue. Oh, okay. It's part of time in the Batman. Yeah, okay. So it's pretty good. It's got a Bruce Wayne story, Dick Grayson story, and a Damien Wayne story, where all three of them ah have Batman adventure. Oh, I remember this, yeah. That's from 2010, so not that recent, but but more recent than some others. Okay, one part of the format we are gonna do, because we haven't done it in a while. That shit has Batman one million in it. Batman one million, love him, love him. ah we're We're gonna do this because we haven't done it in a while, and there are names to read,
00:11:09
Speaker
Uh, and that is, uh, thank our newest supporters on Patreon, Chris. That's right, Matt. Now these are the people who they're all going down to the celebrations at 700 Gimmick Street. That's right. And you know what's there. Well, it's, it's the parade route. Well, yeah, but what does the parade go past at 700 Gimmick Street, Matt? The party city. The party city? Not, but much like the vitamin shop.
00:11:39
Speaker
It is unrelated to the well-known brand Party City.
00:11:46
Speaker
It's actually Party C-I-T-I. It's a bank. and Oh, and it's but part P-A-R-T-E-E. Yeah. It's a bank that also they sell balloons. Right, yeah. and That's what we're going to do for that bit, I think. And clown makeup. And clown makeup, yeah. Yeah, we got some we got some names to read. I don't know when where I left off because part of my life is just missing.
00:12:15
Speaker
So i I'm going to start where I think I left off on Patreon backers. ah These are our newest Patreon backers who went down to 700 Gimmick Street and contributed to the show. That's right. You don't have to go into... I forgot this part of the bit, the entire point of the bit, Matt. You don't have to actually go into Party City, the ah clown makeup and balloon store slash bank, to help support the show.
00:12:43
Speaker
you can go to patreon.com slash moroccanajax like these fine people did. That's right. Matthew Voorheer Prince Schultz. I remember reading that name because of the Voorheer. That's your name. Yeah. Miguel Corti. Oh, thank you, Miguel. Elijah Siren. Thank you, Elijah. I know Miguel in real life. Thank you, Elijah.
00:13:08
Speaker
Philip Jinder or Ginder. I think I've said the name on the show before and I've never known which one is correct. Thank you, Philip. James Holloway. I i know James Holloway too. Thank you, James. Jay Fleming. Thank you, Jay. Dugan Nash. Thank you, Dugan. Jessica Slavin. Thank you, Jessica. Matthew. That's my name. That's your name.
00:13:38
Speaker
And it's just Matthew. Thank you, Matthew. ah Kate Bishop. Real name. Real name, Kate Bishop, thank you. And Luke Iperthiner. Thank you, Luke. If you would like to be like any of those folks who have helped us out over on Patreon, you can do so by going to patreon dot.com slash war rocket Ajax, as Chris said, and kicking in as little as a dollar a month to make sure that you get this show every week, that we do this show every week.
00:14:08
Speaker
that we do comics catch up, which is coming back in November. Uh, we have some, some contenders for comics, catch up that we will discuss. Uh, every story ever specials monthly movie fighters and snack situation. All of those shows are made possible by your support on Patreon. And as a patron, you get every single one of those shows totally ad free. You also get at the bonus content level, you get bonus content.
00:14:35
Speaker
which is, as I said, where you get the lost episode of War Rocket Ajax, the Ajax 699 that never was. That's that's Ajax 699.1. Yeah, I think i've I called it 699 lost or 699 never made or something like that. 699 point rebirth. Yeah, because the thing is that my power went out.
00:15:04
Speaker
as we were recording that episode. And I literally lost part of my audio track that just never got recorded. ah So ah and we recorded that show in a hurricane. It is a weird time capsule of a particular time when I could still drink the water out of my faucet. It was a real duck blur. Yeah. And e you can you can listen to that if you were at the bonus content level.
00:15:33
Speaker
of the Patreon. ah You can also get line stepping privileges for our segments which are currently Every Story Ever and Thursday Night Raw. And you can get ah physical rewards. Other stuff is over there on our Patreon, so if that sounds like something you can do and would like to do, then head over there to Patreon and help us out if you can. If you are unable to help us monetarily, which we understand that that might be the case for you at the moment. You can help us out in other ways. You can leave us a five-star review on the podcasting app that you use, or ah simply spread the word about the show. Tell your friends about the show. Let them know to listen. And if they have some cash to to help us out, they can go to our Patreon and contribute. Also, this is my place to tell you that Apple is about to start taking a huge chunk
00:16:30
Speaker
of patreon donations if you sign up for patreon on ios so don't don't do that do not sign up for patreon our patreon or anybody else's on ios do it on your desktop computer or if you have a different device from a different company or anywhere but i on on an iOS device because Apple will take a huge chunk of that money. Massive. Right into their pocket. Right into their pocket. Yeah. So ah an upsettingly huge chunk. yeah either If you already did it, you're fine. But starting like this week, they're going to take a big chunk of
00:17:21
Speaker
what people pay on Patreon if they sign up on iOS. So, wanted to let you know that. ah Please don't sign up for our Patreon
Personal Growth and Creative Evolution
00:17:30
Speaker
or anyone else's on iOS. All right, Chris, now that we've done that, it's time for listener questions. Let's take some. Let's do it.
00:17:54
Speaker
All right. We're starting with a question where we have to look deep into ourselves, Chris. Okay. It's from cats 2019 on our Discord. What an odd name for a person. Cats 2019 asks, do you feel a strong continuity of self? Are you the same person you were 20 years ago? No. That's a surprising answer from you, Chris.
00:18:25
Speaker
Really? Yes. Why is that? Because? Because I famously don't like anything new. Because you famously say that you've always been right about what to like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, mean that that's true. But I mean, Matt, I don't feel like now, ah before I go into this, could you answer the question, please? Oh, yeah. ah No, I'm not anything at all like I was when I was 21.
00:18:53
Speaker
If I've met myself when I was 21, I would tell myself so many things to do differently.
00:19:02
Speaker
like Like, learn about money. Learn about a way you could like go to a school or some training program so you could actually write successful comics or screenplays or something for a living.
00:19:22
Speaker
Do things differently. Don't just get comfortable. of All kinds of things I would tell myself when I was 21. A joke I used to say all the time was that my arch nemesis was myself from a year ago. Yeah. Yeah, no, i think I think you and I both feel that way. Because here's the thing. If it's future Chris's problem, it's not my problem. That's true.
00:19:50
Speaker
and And unfortunately, past Chris has used that logic to fuck me at every turn. yeah it's oh but no like Look, I think, generally speaking, I feel like my opinions about entertainment are are fairly defensible. There's a couple things that like you know I have been wrong about ah in the past if if we're being deadly serious.
00:20:20
Speaker
But like there is there is more to me than that. yeah you know yeah ah but i am a I am a human being. And I don't think anybody, like item I am certainly not the first the person that I was when we first started doing this show. right And like at 22, that was when I started the ISB. ah like We're coming up on the 20th anniversary of me starting but essentially my adult writing career. Yeah, I mean, I i very much was in the same boat. Like 2004, 2005 are the years that I started writing comedy online. Like I got on the Jay Pinkerton blog or message board. And well, actually before I even got on the Jay Pinkerton message board, I submitted a piece for his website, the trailer trash.
00:21:20
Speaker
where I like wrote an essay making fun of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake trailer. And I think that was the first piece of like published comedy writing I did online. And I kept just trying after that. Yeah, yeah. So I was I'm around the same timeline. Yeah, I um because of the way that I the way that I made myself write every day ah for a long time when I was in my 20s and had what you might call undiagnosed mental illness. I i mean, i I did a lot of like, I mean, I hate to say this because it sounds like like it's a notes app apology.
00:22:12
Speaker
But like I did do a lot of like learning and growing, because I was fucking 22. Oh, same, same. And you know a lot of that stuff, like a lot of the stuff that I wrote back then, I would hope that I never wrote anything purely indefensible. But I know I wrote stuff that like I wouldn't write today. Absolutely. And stuff that I regret. Yeah, I mean, I did too.
00:22:42
Speaker
There's a reason that like when I had a website error and I couldn't figure out how to fix it, that I was i was fine just fucking nuking the entire thing. Mostly because a lot of it was like comics reviews that I wrote in my 20s and who cares. But ah like a lot of the stuff that I wrote back then I think holds up. ah A lot of the stuff I think is, you know,
00:23:08
Speaker
You can see me developing a oh ah my process of reviewing, and like becoming a better writer day by day, just through practice. I will go to bat for Road Rage Venom for the rest of my life. but That's very funny. Thank you. But like that's not even writing. I will say, it is the one thing that I made sure to save.
00:23:38
Speaker
I did go in there and and I was like, okay, let me pull road rage venom dot.gif out of there. But like that's just like the public stuff. like Even beyond that, like as a human being, I've changed quite a bit and like i I hope, listener, that you have too. like yeah even if you like Even if you do feel that strong sense of continuity of self, like and I'm not saying that, you know I'm not saying everyone ah does like bad things or or regrettable things, but like we all learn that is the nature of linear time. like We all have more experience today than we did a week ago. I think all the time about that issue of Squirrel Girl, of all things, ah with a Brain Drain, the Nazi robot, yeah or the robot who was created by Nazis,
00:24:37
Speaker
who was like, yeah, I don't want to be a Nazi robot anymore. But that's how I'm programmed. And since I'm a robot, I can't change. So I came to you to literally reprogram me and change me. Because can you imagine being the same person that you were five years ago? And I think about that all the time. ah Like, I feel like people reacted to that in one of two ways where they were like, wow, this metaphor for personal growth is really speaking to me as a person who has done a lot of personal growth over the course of their life. And then there was a much smaller and much less media savvy oh a group of readers who were like, like this nazi this Nazi robot's bad.
00:25:36
Speaker
And it's like, well, yeah. yeah I, I, I don't know that anyone, everyone's done things that are bad, but everyone's done things that are regrettable. I mean, that's how you, that's how you learn, right? That's, yeah you do things you regret and then you go, Oh, um I shouldn't do that anymore. Yeah. and Or even, you know, you, again, you always know more now than you used to. Yeah. If, again, if I could go back in and tell myself in the past, anything,
00:26:07
Speaker
Like, it's not that I regret doing all that online comedy writing that I did back then.
00:26:16
Speaker
i don't you know it It's hard for me to judge what holds up and what doesn't, but I think so a lot of that stuff I was writing for a certain type of recognition that is very fleeting and didn't actually get me anything.
00:26:36
Speaker
And instead I should have taken like a fucking screenwriting class, you know, I should have, I should have done more constructive things with my time instead of just reaching for a type of ephemeral praise. Um, but you know, it's what I did and it got me here and I, I don't mind where I am. So, oh no, like I like.
00:27:01
Speaker
ah I would be very reluctant to change too much because like I like my life. I, I love my wife. I love my dog. I love where I live. I love the friends that I have. I love the, the audience that I have, have gotten over the years, like but generally speaking, yeah especially once I stopped writing things with comments sections, ah and that worked out great. Like I don't know, like I don't,
00:27:32
Speaker
Like, that game gets real dicey, you know? Yeah. Especially with me meeting my wife online because of my, <unk> so largely because of my public persona, you know? Yeah. All right, here's our next question. It's from Smiles2, the last thing you'll see, which was Miles Lobdell on Blue Sky.
00:27:58
Speaker
I think this is a question for me. Miles asks, do you think any comics do an especially good job of depicting living through a disaster? ah The answer is no, and I'll get to that, why that is in a second. um I did, as I mentioned on last week's show, I did read a lot of comics over the time of the power being out from Hurricane Helene and where we were kind of just stuck in our house.
00:28:27
Speaker
And in addition to reading a lot of Usagi Ojimbo, I read ah the first book of My Favorite Thing is Monsters. That book is great. And was was a book I could weirdly relate to in the situation I was in. Because it's not about going through like a natural disaster, but it is about going through stuff as a kid.
00:28:54
Speaker
where you're learning about yourself and the people around you. You're learning things that you may not want to know about yourself and the people around you, um but it's part of your world and part of your life. And you're working through stuff you don't understand or the lead character in that is Karen is working through stuff she doesn't understand. And that book is fantastic. I got the second book,
00:29:23
Speaker
this week and I'm gonna read it too because damn, good stuff. Here's why um comics and any other medium doesn't do a good job of depicting living through a disaster. When you're looking at the macro level of a disaster, it is a spectacle, right? It is something to put into a movie or a comic and to be a part of entertainment. When you get down to the micro level of an individual living through a disaster, most of it is very boring.
00:30:04
Speaker
Because I'll tell you the story. Okay. I'll tell the story of what happened on the show. I haven't done that yet. The storm came. but So we recorded on Thursday night. It had been raining for like 24 hours.
00:30:22
Speaker
But when we recorded that Thursday night, it's everything seemed pretty all right. There was some flooding in other areas of town, um but none of it was too bad yet, and it just seemed like there'd been a lot of rain, and it was gonna be windy the next day. the The power did flicker on and off, which affected our recording, but otherwise, no biggie. The next morning, Marlene and I wake up early,
00:30:50
Speaker
because we both know it's coming and we can't totally sleep. So we we get up, the power's still on, we turn on the TV, we're watching TV, we're watching the news, they're talking about the storm coming through, and we see something I have never seen before, Chris. Never in my life. The power goes out on the news in the studio, the lights go out.
00:31:17
Speaker
And they say on the news, Oh, the light, the power's going out in our studio. And like, it comes back on after a few seconds, but like seeing the power go out on TV. That's when I started to feel like, Oh, fuck something, something, this is something. So the storm comes through, there's wind outside, but like it doesn't, we don't see any trees fall over or anything all in all pretty. All right.
00:31:46
Speaker
Just windy. The power does end up going out. um but But otherwise, you know, everything seems okay. It's about 1130 and the storm has blown over. I have service on my phone for just a little while. I'm able to call my mom and talk to my mom. She's okay. Not long after that,
00:32:11
Speaker
We lose phone service. Our phones go on to SOS mode, which means you can't call anybody. You can maybe call emergency services. I have not gotten confirmation on whether you could do that or not, um but we we couldn't call anybody. And um it's just dark. There's no power. The bottom of our so the street that feeds into the street where we live which is at the bottom of a hill, is flooded so we can't leave. um There's one tree that's fallen down in our backyard, a small tree. Luckily, it didn't hit our house. We do see in our neighborhood that a tree has fallen onto some power lines a little down the street from us. And then there's another house a little further down the street where a tree actually fell on a house. um But all in all, our neighborhood pretty well intact.
00:33:08
Speaker
but we can't watch TV, we can't look at anything on our phone. um Powers out, we still have water at this point, but my point here is for the next three days, it's just boring. We're just in our house, we can't do anything. Eventually we can drive around, but since we can't make phone calls,
00:33:38
Speaker
We quickly make the decision that we shouldn't drive very much because stoplights are out. And if we get into an accident, we can't call anybody. So the only information we can get is by turning on the radio and listening to the radio, which doesn't give us a ton of information. We do end up meeting some neighbors down the street who have a generator.
00:34:01
Speaker
So we go into their house like on that Sunday and watch TV and see what they're saying on TV and find out about just how much destruction has happened around us. Like Asheville's River Arts District, Swannanoa, Black Mountain, Chimney Rock, like all these places that have just essentially washed away.
00:34:31
Speaker
And that is a lot to take in. But like the moments of excitement are few and far between. It's mostly, again, sitting around in our house, we're reading, we're playing Uno, we're doing whatever we can do by candlelight. Marlene's doing a puzzle. Like we're just using whatever we have in our house to try to keep ourselves occupied.
00:34:59
Speaker
for hours and hours and hours. I'm making food on our gas grill. I'm putting like a cast iron pan on our gas grill and cooking eggs on that. Um, yeah, we're making do with the food that's left in our fridge because no grocery stores are open or anything. And it's, it's just a lot of like the actual experience of living through disaster is just such Like you kind of don't know what's going on and it's just, you're waiting around all the time trying to occupy yourself, trying not to worry too much, trying not to have like weird thoughts about like whether martial law is going to happen and wondering when stuff's going to come back. And like it was, I think the, that Monday. So it had been 96 hours or something.
00:35:56
Speaker
that we start formulating a plan to go to my mom's house and my mom who still doesn't have power, but we're like, we're just going to go anyway. And we realize we need a cat carrier for Harrison to take him with us. So we take the chance of driving to Petco to see if they're open because a lot of stores are not open.
00:36:17
Speaker
And we drive to Petco. Thankfully they are open and accepting credit cards, which a lot of places were only taking cash because of the whole cell phone, phone service issue, which I still don't quite understand why there was no phone service for days and days. But we go to Petco, we buy cat carry for Harrison. And while we're there, Marlene gets a phone signal, which is the most exciting thing that happened. And, uh,
00:36:46
Speaker
she starts calling people she's texting like mad whoever she can and we call her boss who lives half an hour away from here who tells us that she has power and water and she's like just come stay here so we run home we pack up what we can we get our cats in the carriers and we go to her house and we stayed there for a little less than a week. So long story short, to accurately depict living through a disaster in a comic or any other form of entertainment, a lot of it would have to be like tedious and boring, which would not make it fun to read.
Humorous Symbiote and Animorphs Discussion
00:37:33
Speaker
ah Matt, you said that question was likely for you, ah which it certainly was, that makes sense, but I would like to answer it as well, if I may. okay
00:37:44
Speaker
yep ah Yeah, Amazing Spider-Man 36.
00:37:52
Speaker
Yeah, if you're Dr. Doom, you will cry. Easy answer. is the answer easy Easy answer. Blueberry on our Discord wants to know, if you both had symbiotes, what would their names be? Ooh, that's a good one. So so what what are the ones what are the names that we've got? We've got Venom Carnage.
00:38:15
Speaker
Scream. Scream. Riot. Riot. Uh, who else? All them other ones from Separation Anxiety. There's a bunch from that. ah I'm trying, I'm going to look up a little toxin. Phage. I forgot about toxin. Lasher. and Phage and Lasher in Separation Anxiety for sure, yeah. Uh, Scorn.
00:38:44
Speaker
and ah Mine would be carbo. Carbo? Yeah. As in carbo loading? As in, as in carbohydrates, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the title of that story is Separation Anxiety, but mine would be Anxiety. That's a good one. Yeah. How, where, where, remember when those dudes showed up ah in Avengers not too long ago? And it was like,
00:39:13
Speaker
My brain is only supplying me with thoughts and prayers. That was not their name. That's good, though. I like that. That's good, though. Where are depression and anxiety? Yeah. Aside from I know where they are. Two comics characters named thoughts and prayers needs to happen. That has to have been done. That needs to happen. That has to have been done. Oh, there's also a symbiote called Mania.
00:39:44
Speaker
Oh yeah, media, yeah. but but But there's no anxiety yet. So, I can make that happen. I can easily make that happen. Here's our next question. Why does Venom... Does any Brock choose that name? Because it's not like Spider-Man was on Battleworld and he got it and he's like, oh, this is the Venom symbiote. No, I think Venom is the symbiote's name.
00:40:14
Speaker
I mean, it's, yeah, it's weird that people- Do you think that's its Christian name? Whatever the, the clintar equivalent of Christianity is, yeah.
00:40:29
Speaker
oh Clinter entity. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I know that at one point the symbiote lost all its memories. Because it turned out that the symbiote was actually a good guy before it started eating brains.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah. You find that out during, uh, during, uh, Agent Venom times. That's right. I think these are the symbiotes given names, but for some reason, Peter never knew that its name was Venom. Only Eddie did. Uh, all right. Crawl on our Discord wants to know if you had Animorph's powers, what are your first three animals you would turn into?
00:41:14
Speaker
Easy. Okay. Dog. Yeah. T-Rex. Alright. Blue whale. Nice. I don't know nothing about anamorphs. I don't either, but I mean, you know about animals. I know about animals. Do you not know about animals? I do know about animals. I just, I want to abide by the rules of anamorphs. I think you can just turn into an animal for a little while. You just turn into any animal you want?
00:41:42
Speaker
I mean, I get, well, okay, all right, now we have to do research, because I never read these either. Animorphs rules. I mean, look, okay, if we're just picking three animals out of nowhere. Any animal they touch, so I guess I couldn't turn into a T-Rex. Okay, okay. And the only animal that I touch on a regular basis is Biscuit, so. So dog, you were right with dog. Yeah. I think I would go.
00:42:12
Speaker
Like some kind of bird to start with. You would have to touch a bird first. I would have to touch a bird, which is dangerous because of H1N1. But I think I would start with some kind of bird. Maybe a mean it's some kind of flying bird. So I'll just say owl. I would love to be a majestic horse.
00:42:39
Speaker
Matt, what have you done? You're a pink pony girl. ah And you're anamorphone. And I think... ah You went real big on number three. ah yeah why would It's the biggest animal there is. Why would you not want to be the biggest animal there is? good Great point. Great point. Just chillin'? Just hop in the ocean and chill? that would have to be That would be tough to to touch one, though. It would be tough, but like I guess if I could turn into like
00:43:12
Speaker
but First is biscuit because that's convenient yeah and I can like test my my anamorphic powers Second I would have to touch an animal that could get close to a blue whale, right? So it fish some kind of fish Well, it's a whale. It's a mammal. It has to go up to the surface. Are there blue whales in captivity? Maybe I don't know are there blue whales in captivity? No No, I would assume not. you know They're very big. It'd be very hard to keep to build a tank big enough for one. You would need a 240 million gallon tank. Yeah, that's that's a big old tank. ah Let's see. There's a sanctuary. Okay. I'll go big for number three and do... I'll do elephant. that's Elephant's good.
00:44:13
Speaker
Elephant big.
00:44:16
Speaker
I mean, elephants are pretty big. Name a bigger land animal. Okay, well, did do you put a little qualifier on it, didn't you? Yeah, I don't want to be in the ocean. Every problem I have with the ocean would be solved by me being a blue whale.
00:44:37
Speaker
RocketWitzel on our Discord wants to know, did the bust of Shakespeare with the switch to the Batcave poll from Batman 66 ever appear in the comics? Yes. I mean, in the Batman 66 comic? Well, yeah, but it also did appear in ah Comics of the Era. and Okay. Ask her the answer. That was a factual one.
Connecting Batman Lore Across Media
00:45:00
Speaker
Yeah. We rarely get those. Usually it's like our opinion or like a springboard for a bit, but that one was just like, Hey, like you probably could have, like you probably could have Googled that one. Well, Google's useless now. So I understand. Google is useless now. That's true. Uh, Ben Gooley, the third with Gooley's go to college, our friend Ben Gully on, that's a good, that's a good name on blue sky wants to know if you were going to have to try to speed run a game, which one would it be? Uh,
00:45:30
Speaker
And I have to do well at it? I mean, ostensibly, if you were trying to speedrun it, you would be going for a record of some kind. Okay, well, there's there's no way i can there's no way I can beat a record, but I can get through Mario World in about an hour. Okay, that's pretty good. Yeah. That's pretty good. i um I'm not good speedrunning because so much of speedrunning is about like glitches and I don't like doing glitchy shit in games like people of speedrun Elden Ring by exploiting like all these glitches and and I don't want to play that way did they find a way to make it fun unbelievable unbelievable you would ask me this question I'm just asking if they found a way to make I didn't even say make it good I just said yeah fun yeah they found a way to make fun by making the game which is fun
00:46:27
Speaker
Eh. The game you would think I would want a speedrun would be Punch-Out. But I can't actually finish Punch-Out. Yeah, and also that's a game that's very much like, if you're you're playing it as intended, like that's a game that's very much about timing. Yeah. So ah there's a ah ah really good Jaden Animations video about speedrunning a rhythm game. Uh-huh.
00:46:54
Speaker
ah Which she did because just because she thought it would be funny to speed run a rhythm game And I feel like punch out very similar to that. Yeah Punch it there. I there's some good summoning salt videos about Punch out world records But I I could not even attempt to compete at that the only game that I have ever played competitively for time is Mario Kart and I don't know if specifically Mario Kart 64 I don't know if I've ever told this story on the show, but when I was a freshman in college, there was this guy on my freshman hall who graciously put his Nintendo 64 in our common room for anyone to play. He let us all know that he was very proud of his Mario Kart
00:47:42
Speaker
hi so You have told this story before, and it is one of the most Matt Wilson-ist stories there is. And one night i I sat down and beat all his records. Yeah, thankfully you were a different person than you were 20 years ago, because that's such a dick move. I know. ah He didn't know there's any of the shortcuts, so I used the shortcuts to beat some of his records by a full minute. But like that's that's the only game like that I've ever played, like, for speed.
00:48:12
Speaker
so I guess by default Mario Kart 64. I'm not, I'm not trying to take it away from anybody. Yeah. Uh, and I think that like some of the things you can do in speed running are certainly like ah cool and fun. It is not, it is not the way I enjoy interacting with video games. Me neither. I like, I truly like, I'm like, cool, but why would you want to do that?
00:48:42
Speaker
Anyone who has watched me stream games in my famous series of video game streaming videos, never been scared, knows that I want to look around every corner. I want to explore every nook and cranny of a game. Like, I'm way more interested in 100%ing a game than speedrunning it. Yeah, man. yeah During my unemployment, I put 300 hours into Assassin's Creed Valhalla.
00:49:13
Speaker
Like I, and I have famously said, like one of the things that makes me um a good ah single player, Pokemon player, and a terrible ah playing with another human being Pokemon player, I find the act of grinding to be quite relaxing as long as the game is fun. Like I do not mind sitting here grinding levels in Dragon Quest 11 or Persona or or Pokemon, like a game that I enjoy as long as it's not too terribly repetitive. Like i I like the rhythm of that and find it very relaxing. I like to take my time with things. So once you get past like a Super Mario Brothers, where it's just like levels that you can get through and and kind of like do them perfectly, I legitimately stop understanding
00:50:11
Speaker
like the desire to speedrun. I can't imagine like wanting to speedrun Resident Evil 4. That's a game where it's like fun to walk around and do stuff. Any game where there is an element of exploration, I want to do that. I want to look around and see what's in the world. you know yeah like I can't imagine wanting to speedrun Breath of the Wild.
00:50:39
Speaker
Yeah, when like that like that game is so rewarding to just exist in. Yeah, if but one of the key motivations for me to play video games is to find secrets.
Gaming Exploration and Competition
00:50:53
Speaker
You know, like, yeah, that's what gives me the the endorphins is I found a secret.
00:51:02
Speaker
All right, here is a question from Ashley Buchanan on our Discord. What would you make each other get is nut tats, and Chris can't make Matt get poop butt. Dang. I did say that I was gonna get M-A-T-T-W-L-S-N.
00:51:26
Speaker
on mine because I thought that would be so funny and never mention it to you until we were like hanging out one time and just how funny I thought that would be. And your immediate response was that you would just get T-H-A-T apostrophe S-M-E. And I'm like, fuck, that would be even better. I mean, I guess that's what we make each other get yeah is because it's too perfect.
00:51:56
Speaker
ah Hey, I have a question for you. Yeah. the the Less for you and more for the listener. Somebody let me know about this. um If I anamorph into a bird and I fly down to Chicago to the Field Museum and I go and land on Sioux, my close personal friend. The T-Rex, the the T-Rex skeleton. The T-Rex skeleton. At the Field Museum, yeah. Does that count as touching a T-Rex and then can I can I just, like, be a T-Rex whenever I want? This is a great question. Or would you be a T-Rex skeleton? Also acceptable, TBQH. Yeah. Yeah. Because what, like, you know, look, I'm not saying I would go on a destructive rampage. I'm just saying I would be a T-Rex. And if somebody shows up, like, you can you could, like, shoot a T-Rex. But a skeleton?
00:52:50
Speaker
What are they going to do? That's a different deal. What are they going to do against T-Rex Skeleton? Either one is acceptable. I would accept either. Captain Marvelous from our Discord. From Pirates and Suntigo Kiter. Okay. They have this as MFQ, which I've never seen before. Is that some kind of TikTok thing where they can't even put the K for kill?
00:53:16
Speaker
Yeah, TikTok doesn't like it when you ah put the K for kill, yeah. Weird. Okay, it's GutsGriffinSkullNight.
00:53:30
Speaker
KillGriffith? I'm thinking about it, but yeah but go ahead. Matt.
00:53:43
Speaker
I mean, yes, ideally, Kill Griffith. Yes. skill I don't know. I don't know if ah like I note look, I know that you don't fuck with TikTok for understandable reasons. Yeah, there there is a trend on various social medias, including TikTok of the hear me out cake.
00:54:00
Speaker
where people bake a cake, and then they print out pictures of their um unusual or problematic crushes. The the kind of the kind of thing that would someone would say like, okay, now hear me out.
00:54:15
Speaker
oh And I did see someone put Griffith on one.
Berserk Characters and Moral Complexity
00:54:22
Speaker
And I was like, Fuck that. Like if I'm doing a hear me out cake with with AC and she busts out like, you know, obviously everybody's going to put the Fox Robin hood on there. You don't actually need hear me out for that. That doesn' it that doesn't require hear me out. yeah that Yeah. That's understood almost. That's everybody wants to fuck Fox Robin hood. Yeah. That's just true. But do you bust out Griffith? Here's the thing. i I think a certain person
00:54:55
Speaker
who has this, a certain type of person who has the same goals as Griffith, which is power. That's the kind of person who's gonna do a Griffith, hear me out. I wish you could see the face I'm making right now. Yeah. The same goals as Griffith, huh? But it's, he's, he's just, he's gone too far. Like he's, he's irredeemable by this point.
00:55:25
Speaker
You can't. You can't. Like, I was jokingly saying like, maybe, but no. He's- No! He's a people. No. Fuck Griffith. You gotta kill Griffith. Don't fuck Griffith. Kill Griffith. Kill Griffith. Fuck Skull Knight. Okay, this is interesting because these two I had trouble with. I would like to hear your rationale for Fuck Skull Knight, Mary Guts. Okay. Mary Guts because Guts will...
00:55:56
Speaker
doggedly because he got that dog in him Mm-hmm protect you Now there was that incident where he um Left Casca and then go to the the blacksmith was like what the fuck are you doing? Yeah, like if you would like yeah, and then he went and ah fucked a demon lady and then shot her in the face with scanner arm and go to the blacksmith telling ah guts like Your priorities are fucked. One of the great moments in comics. Unbelievably good. But Guts has a loyalty that's unparalleled. He he got loyalty inside his DNA. Yeah. For sure. He only left the Band of the Hawk when he realized that Griffith didn't respect him. And so he left to earn Griffith's respect.
00:56:52
Speaker
to be his be his peer, right? Like, come on. To become his equal, which now that Griffith, after Griffith was reborn in the ah the ah false eclipse created by the pseudo apostle, the egg-shaped apostle, he is now the absolute without equal. That's right. He's got a human body, again. um Anyway, ah which means he has no friends, because he only considers his equals his friends.
00:57:21
Speaker
No, those boys he hangs out with are not his friends. No, because he sure don't think of them as his equals. Um, I do like that one dude who's like a reverse, not a reverse centaur, but like, cause reverse centaur would be like a, uh, yeah. Yeah. I guess that's not a, say that's not a Sator either. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Would be a man horse, but he's like a centaur, but like on the back.
00:57:50
Speaker
Right? Like that guy. Right, yeah. That guy's not his friend. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, the reason Skull Knight is fuck is because Skull Knight ain't gonna hang around. Skull Knight is ephemeral and fleeting. But that one knight's gonna be pretty great.
00:58:16
Speaker
Okay, interesting. Here's what I'm gonna say. Fuck Guts. Okay. Merry Skull Night. Okay. just Just because, like, Guts has a lot going on that... Guts has a lot going on. He really does, yeah. Guts is gonna need years of therapy.
00:58:45
Speaker
It's going to take a lot of emotional labor to be with guts. Yeah. It's going to take a lot of emotional labor to be with guts unless you just, uh, like your brain just doesn't work anymore. Uh, in which case you don't really have a pleasant time with guts.
00:59:00
Speaker
You might have a nice time with, uh, with, uh, a farness and cheeky though. Yeah. They seem great. Skull Knight. Okay. Yeah. Hit me with Skull Knight. It seems like he's,
00:59:13
Speaker
like Like he's, you know, that's a self-actualized man. i I suppose you could ah abide by the theory that Skull Knight is King Geyserik. Uh-huh. And as such, you would be marrying into royalty by marrying the Skull Knight. Wow, Matt, you're really interested in getting your own kingdom. Interesting, interesting. I would say Skull Knight,
00:59:41
Speaker
of all the people in this situation is the only one who is on good terms with his ex. Oh, the witch. The witch. Yeah. The witch in the woods. Yeah. Who, who is no longer with us, but yes. Yeah. But they were on good terms. They were on good terms. And that goes, that goes a long way, I think. That's a
Unique Storytelling in Batman and Wonder Woman
00:59:59
Speaker
great point. That's great. Now here's, here's what I'll say. I assume that, that you wanted to fuck Skull Knight because, you know, rules, but you gave up You gave an interesting set of reasons, Matt, but I know that you just looked at Guts and you were like, I can fix him.
01:00:21
Speaker
You got me, you got me. ah WC Witt on our Discord asked the question that I asked earlier, which is what's the best 700th issue of a comic? P Tizzle the Bizzle Dizzle on our Discord wants to know who would have thought we'd have Fist of the North Star Batman.
01:00:41
Speaker
Boy, absolute Batman, fucking good. It's pretty good. Pretty good. It's pretty good. It's good stuff. Also absolute Wonder Woman. I will say this, I texted Scott Snyder today. Yeah. Name drop, watch your toes. Watch your toes. And I said, hey,
01:01:05
Speaker
Was it your idea or Nick Dragata's idea to directly recreate the, uh, one of them hurts scene from Dark Knight Returns in this comic? Like to do the same panel layout of that entire scene. He did not text me back. Yeah. ah Perhaps he will. ah The thing that gets me about Absolute Batman's design is that wild fucking cape.
01:01:37
Speaker
that so the origami cave that looks like bat wings that looks like actual bat wings it's i mean also that he's like you know three feet wide but uh but but that uh that cape is is is nutso all men in the yard wide yeah so is uh absolute batman yes uh also absolute wonder woman Likewise ruled. So give credit where it's due on that too. Matt, did you know that like right now on Steam you can get every Castlevania game except Symphony of the Night? Yeah, because they know people will buy a Symphony of the Night on its own. Oh wait, like
01:02:33
Speaker
Symphony and I, it's the only one that's not available? Yes. I thought you meant like in a collection you could get every Castlevania game. No. I mean, I mean, there are multiple collections. There's the advanced collection. There's the Dominus collection, which I haven't gotten yet for some reason. I mean, the reason is that I don't have a job. But there's Lords of Shadow, Lords of Shadow II, Mirror of Fate. I don't think you can get like, you can't get like Castlevania 64 or, or, uh,
01:03:01
Speaker
the, the one with, uh, with, uh, Leon Belmont, but it's not good. But you can get all of them, exit like you can get all of the Igavanias except for Symphony of the Night. They're, they're trying, they're doing it to me personally. Is it some kind of Sony exclusive situation? No. Then I don't know.
01:03:32
Speaker
Because you can get it on, you I believe you can get it on the Xbox. Oh, yeah. i Then I don't know. Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Our next question, Chris, comes from Kathy Lemie. Oh, I love Kathy. Are there any comics where it feels like you're the only person who remembers them?
01:03:55
Speaker
Most most comics that I think about a lot. Yes a lot of them. Yeah. Yeah, man I mean like a lot of them I I've written about so I am no longer the only person Who knows about them? Mm-hmm, but So like say US 1 US 1 definitely. I love some US 1 love some team America and love all the weird Marvel license books, love all the weird Christian comics ah power team. Illuminator was one that ah we just covered on Apocryphal's. Yeah, I had no recollection of Illuminator existing. Yeah. As far as like, I mean, there there's I would say more recently, like there's comics that I like really, really loved.
01:04:42
Speaker
that I feel like no one talks about anymore, even if they were talking about them at the time, like ah Thor the Mighty Avenger. Sure. um got Gone too soon. RIP, like the Roger Langridge Popeye. It is still weird to me to see ah to see Chip oh becoming one of the best Batman and Spider-Man and Daredevil writers of our generation and remembering prison funnies and monster cops. Right.
01:05:13
Speaker
Uh, which I, which I loved, but very different comics. Um, one that immediately comes to mind for me is the comic, uh, scurvy dogs, which was a like pirate, uh, comedy comic. Oh yeah. Yeah. From, from, from AIT Planet Lar, a, uh, defunct publisher. Uh huh.
01:05:41
Speaker
um Also, do you have any when you were a kid that you feel like you're the only one i remember who Hmm, I don't know. I feel like a lot of the comics I had when I was a kid like that I remember remember really fondly people definitely remember they were like Like I would have said the elf comic but people remember the elf comic, you know The now comics Ghostbusters comic Maybe
01:06:13
Speaker
Everybody remembers those Nintendo comics. Those were some that were very special to me as a kid. Definitely, definitely. um I mean, this isn't from when I was a kid, and I bring it up often, but the 1997-1998 Maverick solo series.
01:06:30
Speaker
Love Maverick? Yeah. The boy loves Maverick. The boy loves Maverick. He really does. do you any Let the boy have Maverick. Any from when you were a kid?
01:06:42
Speaker
I love a lot of like C-list DC books from the late 90s. Anything that had a DC one million tie-in. Love Chase, love Hourman, the Tom Pyre Ragsmore Alice Hourman, love those. Yeah. I feel like those at least have like a cult following. Yeah. those have the And those are books that like also like we and people like us would would mention ah frequently.
01:07:11
Speaker
so Oh, yeah, man. All right, here's our next question.
Hypothetical WarGames Team Draft
01:07:19
Speaker
It is from Jeremy Whitley. Oh, love Jeremy Whitley. If you guys had to make a rival, rival war games teams out of previous guests, who would be on team Matt and who's on team Chris? Okay, so we got it. We got to draft it. We got to draft it. Here's the thing.
01:07:38
Speaker
i don't I don't want to assume that a guest would want to be on my WarGames team. Symbiota's named anxiety, huh?
01:07:51
Speaker
So, I do think it has to be a draft, yeah. ah Do you want to take the first pick? You can take the first pick. ah Okay, cool. Then I'm i'm picking Fraction.
01:08:05
Speaker
Oh, interesting. Only a mat can beat a mat beyond the mats. We're on each other's teams, or we're on our own teams. We're the fifth yeah number of our teams. So we're picking four each. Yeah, I assume I assumed that was the way it was, right? Yeah, but that makes sense. That makes sense. You know, that's, that's interesting, that, ah that you went with Matt Fraction first, because I'm going to choose a Salant. OK. All right. Hang on. Hang on. All right. Then I will pick the fallen angel Christopher Daniels, if that's the game that you want to play. All right. That's your number two pick. um I'm writing these down. um So you have you took Fraction first. And then I took a Salant. And then you took CD.
01:09:00
Speaker
ah Everybody thinks, everybody brings up the interview with Christopher Daniels as one that like... As a bad one, but I thought it was good. Not necessarily a bad one, but yeah, we had a great time talking to him. like he just He likes some comics we don't like. but That's fine. and Yeah, and we're not gonna say to him, like whatever the case, we're not gonna say to him, hey, that comic sucks. Yeah. hey Hey, Christopher Daniels.
01:09:27
Speaker
you like some some uh j michael straczynski comics that sucks yeah hey Christopher Daniels someone who whose work i enjoy who came onto our show let's argue no like we're being polite yes he was he was great he was fine the interview is was a delight yeah uh my next pick is is the asker of this question Jeremy Whitley I was gonna pick Jeremy as my next one. if If you hadn't forced me into picking Christopher Daniels, I was gonna pick Jeremy. He's a strong boy. He's a strong boy. Yeah. Teeny. Teeny Howard, great teeny howard choice. Great choice. I think then I have to go with Kelly Thompson. interest good Good choice, solid choice. ah I'll take...
01:10:20
Speaker
Is this our last one? This is our last one, yeah. Greg Rocka. Ooh, the strategist. Yeah. And legitimately, like Greg has never been anything but nice to me. I love his comics. He's such a good guy. The last time ah we went to Portland, he like took me and AC out for coffee. like I was like, hey, I'm in town. And he took us out for coffee and had like a great discussion. I genuinely love that dude. Also, one of the like maybe top three people in comics I would least want to be in a physical fight with.
01:11:07
Speaker
Just like the vibe is that I would get stomped. Love, Greg. I bet he never... I was like, nothing but love for anyone on this list. I bet he never would. Stop my ass? Stop your ass? Oh yeah, probably not. I mean, I would hope not. Like, we're generally on pretty good terms. I think it's one of those things where he's like, he's got the muscle so he doesn't have to use it. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, Carla.
01:11:44
Speaker
Carl is by number four. Wild card. Absolute wild card. Unpredictable. Carl's going to the ring and you're like, but whose side is she on?
01:11:55
Speaker
ah Yeah. Our, our, our good friend, Carlo Pacheco is my last bit. Grimace in mourning.
01:12:04
Speaker
asks, hey, Matt D. Wilson, how are you Marlene and Harrison all doing? Also, Eleanor, our second cat. um We're okay. ah we We lived not in our house for a while. um And we still can't drink the water that comes out of our sinks. But otherwise, okay, the weirdest thing that we're having to get used to is um businesses that are still here, still intact, still open, or still, you know, the buildings still exist. um They're only kind of slowly opening back up. um For quite some time, there was a curfew in Asheville um to prevent my fear of the purge from happening. So um a lot of
01:12:58
Speaker
Even the places that were open were closing early, but a lot of places weren't open at all. um Now places are reopening, but they're having restaurants in particular are having to learn how to operate without running water. So a lot of them are just selling like candened bottled sodas or just selling no drinks at all. um like fast food places, some are just not selling any drinks at all. Sit down restaurants, you can get like a can or a bottle drink or a bottle of water or something like that. um So that's taking some getting used to. And then the really hard part is like going to the places that we loved that are just not here anymore. um and And doing everything we can to help the people who
01:13:50
Speaker
whose lives have been way more affected than ours. um So that's how we're doing. um Largely okay, life is not back to normal yet, um but we're working our way there. Marlene, as of the as we're recording this episode, Marlene is in Charlotte for an improv festival. So stuff like that is happening. There was supposed to be an improv festival here in Asheville,
01:14:19
Speaker
ah the second weekend of of October that just got totally canceled and that was sad and a bummer and we were both going to be in it. But it's not going to happen. Didn't happen. And we just got to figure out what to do next. Tales to Enrage on our Discord wants to know what weapon would you take into battle against Lu Bu and how long do you think you would last? a Lu Bu from Dynasty Warriors?
01:14:50
Speaker
i I guess Lubu from Dynasty Warriors or lu Lubu, the actual historical figure, the the Chinese warlord. Gun. Gun. ah Something Lubu probably definitely would have never seen. Yeah. Lubu ah who died in the year 199 CE. Yeah. Gun. Gun. Got him. Damn. Damn. You got him.
01:15:23
Speaker
ah Yeah, ill i I'll concur with that answer. um Let's go back to Blue Sky for a question. um Mike Donahue, Barely Sushi on Blue Sky, wants to know, what are the color schemes of the sports teams on Gimmick Street? I think we've covered some of these.
01:15:41
Speaker
ah i yeah the The machine is blue and silver. yeah The good hats are the same colors as the page with the good hat on it. yeah which i think is is ah no the The good hats are ah ah red and silver.
01:16:03
Speaker
the No, sorry. The good hats are blue and gold. The machine is red and silver, because that's what the machine, it's got the the red display. And the lizards are orange, purple, and white. I thought the lizards would have green. Oh, did I say orange? I don't know why I said orange. I meant i make green, purple, green, purple, and white. Yeah. yeah ah I think the good hats
01:16:34
Speaker
should be the same color scheme as the good hat which are like gold and red and orange um the machines can also have red that's fine or the machine i just blue and gold's like my favorite uh well i mean it's good it's actually my high school colors ah Somebody on our Discord actually made a Good Hats logo that's pretty pretty rad. ah i I'll try to find who did that, because I i don't... Unfortunately, I forget who who made that, but but it was it is it is a a a tight ah Good Hats logo. good hat s logo nice So if I can find it, I'll ah tip my hat to them.
01:17:25
Speaker
Your good hat. My good hat, yeah. All right. Here is our next question. It is from WednesdaySophiaDreamWarrior. What fiendish trap would you build for the other?
01:17:44
Speaker
o
01:17:47
Speaker
Probably like a like a hurricane machine. Too soon. but Sorry. Uh, no, you got me. You did. You got me. That's that. It was, would be the perfect way to get me. Um, the trap I would build for you is I would put up a sign that said meet Goku.
01:18:13
Speaker
yeah ah Exactly. I get to meet Goku. It's a sign that says meet Goku and then it like points through a door.
01:18:24
Speaker
And then you walk through that door and there's just a hole that you fall in. And then you're in a hole. Damn, you would put me in a hole? It's a trap. I build a trap, so yeah. Yeah, but like, damn, man. but The hole is usually just reserved for for the worst of the worst.
01:18:49
Speaker
I mean, it's not like a whole- You think I'm like fucking saber tooth, man? It's not like that kind of hole. but It's not like a hole that the red skull got put in. It's just a hole. It's like a it's kind of like that hole that Ryan North was stuck in. Oh, okay. It's that kind of hole. I'm glad we can agree on that. Sure.
01:19:10
Speaker
Fluffhead on our Discord was said, why the fuck is it Marvel two and one annual number seven on Marvel Unlimited? That is a great question that we don't have the answer to. Man, that's, that's weird, it should be. You're gonna have to ask the mouse on that one. Docwhiskey.beascuy.social says, my son is 10, which Jackie Chan should I start him with? He loves mythical creatures Pokemon and is constantly acting out imaginary battles, so Chan seems right up his alley. Uh, Rumble in the Bronx. Yeah, I mean that's, that was every American's intro to Jackie Chan back in 1996.
01:19:51
Speaker
And it's like a very straightforward, really good action movie. And it will teach him that ah the sometimes people are all scum.
01:20:07
Speaker
Stone Cold HCC on our Discord, an account that exists only to ask questions on War Rocket Ajax, who had to be in episode 700, had to be. says, I wish all the characters in character corner would have come back. Yeah, too bad. Uh, Stone Cold ACC asks, you ever robbed Peter to pay Paul? Yeah. Let me tell you Stone Cold, every fucking day. Stone Cold, that was kind of a depressing one. I don't want to tell you how to do your job as a War Rocket Ajax question asker, but that was kind of a rough one, bud. Oh man.
01:20:47
Speaker
we're We're all there. We're all feeling it.
Impact of Superman and Batman Arcs
01:20:51
Speaker
ah Chris Kaiser on our Discord wants to know, what kind of lasting impacts do you think Death of Superman and Nightfall had on Superman and Batman? Would those characters be any different today if those stories had never happened? ah People still think Superman is dead? Do they? They did? Okay. They did when I was working at the comic book store. Yeah.
01:21:17
Speaker
which admittedly, I was 15 years ago. ah But I can't imagine those people know more about Superman now than they did then. That's fair. I would say the major lasting ah memory is ah they gave you that memory of that guy being really upset on the home shopping channel. Yeah. Yeah. i Let's see. i
01:21:45
Speaker
Do Batman and Superman feel demonstrably different because of those two stories? I mean, Superman does, I think. like oh I think the death of Superman gave people the idea that like the ideal Superman villain was a big monster that punches him to death. Yeah.
01:22:15
Speaker
Which is bad. Yeah. And which is why, like, Darkseid shows up in the Jif Jones Justice League and goes, I am Darkseid and punches Superman.
01:22:29
Speaker
ah Right. Oh, man. um much yeah sucks That that comic does suck. I think the thing maybe it added to Superman Death of Superman is like. More, there are more characters around Superman. and it It basically gave Superman Steel and that version of Superboy. Yeah. Which is a great version of Superboy. Yeah. um And I also love Steel. it It added more to his supporting cast. I i mean i think that's like the big thing for Superman. Because because see as a character, I don't know that Superman is all that different.
01:23:10
Speaker
ah
01:23:14
Speaker
In much, I mean, but Batman.
01:23:19
Speaker
I guess Batman every once in a while has a ah story that reflects the events of nightfall. If that makes sense. Like Batman, RIP is great, but it's kind of Grant Morrison doing nightfall. You know what I mean?
01:23:41
Speaker
ah ye Yeah, kinda, yeah. But I don't know if Nightfall started that. Like tons of stories about Batman were like, maybe he's gonna die before that. So I don't know. Virtually ah every other episode of the television series. That's true. So it's hard it's hard to say. um I mean, I would say like Bane is a pretty big Contribution to the the Batman mythos, but also the idea that like the way to beat Batman is That he can't stop being Batman Yeah, like it. I've said it before knife follows a story that starts off real good and eventually gets real dumb ah Does Superman's the opposite? Yeah, it starts off real dumb and gets better as it goes gets pretty good return to Superman's actually like legit
01:24:39
Speaker
Yeah. Good comics. Yeah. um And like, yeah, Reign of the Superman is very fun. Boy, I don't, I don't know if Bill Clinton got that second term in the DC universe. If I got on TV and I was like, Hey, this is the real Superman. And it was the fucking, was it the cyborg or the eradicator? It was one of the bad ones. It was one of the bad ones. Yeah. Yeah.
01:25:08
Speaker
I think it was the eradicator. I don't think it was the cyborg because the cyborg then blew up a major American city.
01:25:20
Speaker
Along those lines, Bostog leaked dark on our discord. That's Patrick O'Dovey. Which DC character should have had a clone saga and which Marvel character should have had a nightfall? Interesting, okay. um The thing is, Reign of the Superman kinda was Superman. Is a clone saga. Yeah. And most Spider-Man stories are Nightfall. Or there have been several Spider-Man stories that are Nightfall, as like Craven's Last Hunt. Most Spider-Man stories that like where Peter's really in danger is because he can't stop being Spider-Man.
01:26:04
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, but but like, specifically, like, there's a Spider Man story where he gets buried alive. And but yeah that's, so that's what happens at Batman, RIP, not my fault. That's true. Yeah.
01:26:19
Speaker
I don't guess there's yeah been like Spider Man story where he gets like, grievously injured. I mean, kind of like, maximum cartridge is kind of like Nightfall for Spider-Man. I mean, it's it's like him one after another kind of fighting a ton of villains, right? Like, that's why it made a good oh video game. That's true. I mean, it's bad, but... but I mean, the the first appearance of the Senator Six is kind of that story, too, you know? it's Yeah, that's true. God, that that first Amazing Spider-Man annual rules so much. No, it kicks ass. God.
01:26:58
Speaker
Um, but yeah, I mean, the answers are Superman and Spider-Man, but they've also both kind of had those kinds of stories. I guess there was never any time when you thought like someone else was going to be Superman forever.
01:27:19
Speaker
I mean, people should have known that Ben Riley was not going to be Spider-Man forever too, but... Yeah, but he was in the book for a while, but then so was Jean-Paul Valli. That's true, yeah. So... I don't know, I can't think of another Marvel character that that kind of story would be that effective for. Yeah. You know, like...
01:27:47
Speaker
captain um i mean Captain America has been replaced a few times. Death of Superman is a very Marvel ah story. Like, you know, the Superman of the late eighties and up through the nineties is a very like attempts since, you know, from John Byrne up through, honestly up to now are an attempt to like Marvel up Superman a little. Yeah. I mean the, the, the triangle,
01:28:17
Speaker
era of Superman was definitely like even in the way that those books were connected to each other was a marvelization, right? Yeah. Oh, like when, uh, when there was a big emphasis on, uh, the supporting cast who worked at that newspaper.
01:28:39
Speaker
Yeah. A lot of cat grant in those, in those comics, a lot of cat grant, a lot of Ron troop, a lot of Steve Lombard. Yeah.
01:28:47
Speaker
I don't have a better answer for a Marvel character that could have had a nightfall. Because cause again, I don't think there's anybody that it would be more effective on the Spider-Man. Marvel marvel like invented the you know character dies and is replaced for a while, and then the the first guy comes back. like They did it with Iron Man and Rudy. Yeah. i mean
01:29:17
Speaker
Iron Man basically had a nightfall. Yeah, Thor. did They did it with Thor and Thunderstrike. They did it with, like, pretty much it was Spider-Man and Ben. My brother. My brother, Ben. Woo! Woo was gonna be Spider-Man! And I don't think there's a better DC character to have had a clone saga than Superman. Because, like, who's goingnna who is gonna have more of an impact of there being more of him?
01:29:47
Speaker
than Superman, right? Yeah. um But that kind of happened too. So there you go. ah This will be our last question.
Exploration of Characters with Multiple Versions
01:29:59
Speaker
It is from, ah text for what character would you like to see a, there were actually three of them reveal in the vein of three jokers.
01:30:13
Speaker
that that That did not stick, did it? It just did not stick. I mean, no, but also like, Chip, Chip tried to make it work. Chip, I think you're the only version of that that is, that could work. That's true. But you got a point there.
01:30:38
Speaker
Uh, this is, this is a good question and it is a tough one. Do you have any thoughts, Matt? a character that there are secretly there's secretly three of. Yeah. And it has to be three. It can't be the better version of it, which is Doombot, where there's an indeterminate and functionally infinite number of Doctor Doom. But there's one real Doctor Doom. And there's one real Doctor Doom, but if he ever does something you don't like, that was Doombot.
01:31:10
Speaker
but Yeah. I mean, Marvel loves that shit. Like there's Doom bots and LMDs. Yeah. It's the full of, oh, actually that was a robot. You don't like that? That was a robot. Uh, okay. So a character that there would believably be three of. I don't, I kind of like, I'm trying to think of a Marvel character that that would work for.
01:31:39
Speaker
But I kind of think it is like inherently incongruous to Marvel. I mean, I can think of some good characters that like, it'd be like, it would make a lot of sense if there were two of them. Such as? Ricochet, Prodigy, Dusk. All of us land. Hornet, I want to say. Yeah, you got him.
01:32:07
Speaker
Hornet's the one that's hardest to remember. Yeah. Every time. Uh, I, legit, if you're going to do it like for the same reasons that, uh, that we had three jokers, which is that there's not, not even really like three distinct eras, but there's kind of like, you know, different takes on a particular character that are supposed to all line up. Alfred. Yeah. There's three Alfreds. Yeah.
01:32:36
Speaker
the the the The thing that Three Jokers never addressed that I thought it should have that would make sense for Three Jokers to address is a question I ask in my my comic that I swear is being printed right now, Imposter Syndicate, which is, how do these guys keep coming back? You know? That's a big comic, by the way, Matt. Thank you. When they seemingly die,
01:33:03
Speaker
How do they keep coming back? And to me, that's the reason to have three of them, right? Like while one of them is in traction, clawing his way back to life, one of the other two is out there being Joker this time, right? So like for me, that that the the the character has to be like enigmatic enough that they're not a recognizable person, like, say, Alex Luther or ah ah Norman Osborn, where, like, if one shows up, you could easily mistake them for one of the other two. Matt, I've got a question for you. Yeah.
01:34:00
Speaker
Do you think The entire reason Three Jokers happened was because Jeff Johns saw that bit in White Knight where Sean Murphy was like, oh, there's actually two Harley's Quinn. And one is the kind of classic like Bruce Timm Harley Quinn, who is this kind of like tragic figure who who loves Joker.
01:34:33
Speaker
And the other is the kind of like post 2011 Suicide Squad movie yeah Harley Quinn, who's just like just the Joker. that's a And he was like, well, I could do that. That's an interesting theory, but it depends on Jeff Johns reading Batman White Knight, which I guarantee he didn't do.
01:35:01
Speaker
ah I, I wouldn't be so sure. Cause he was like, while that book was coming out, he was like the CCO, I think. Yeah. And it was a popular take on Batman that I think would be uniquely appealing to him. But I, based on what I know. I don't, I don't really know the guy, but JG had that, had that, or GJ had that.
01:35:25
Speaker
Three Jokers idea sitting in around for years. That's true. Three Jokers. Dating accent to Batman asking the Meditron chair. Which one? Medtron chair. ah What's the Joker's real name, right? And then being surprised by the answer because the chair told him there are three of them. ah I like that you said real name.
01:35:54
Speaker
which is actually giving it a bit more credit, because what he did say was true name, like he was a fucking wizard. And then it did he gave the Joker's true name in in Flashpoint, whatever that Flashpoint book was called, and it was boys Boy Bad. Oh man, I forgot about that and now I remember it, that's funny. Yeah, yeah. It's like, there is a celebrity named that.
01:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, man. There's a guy named Jack White. Yeah, like, like, pretty well like, like, I don't know yet. I don't think he's put on an album lately. But like, he's around. He's still around. He's around. He's certainly around. He's still around. ah You know what villain there's, you know what character there should be three of? Mysterio. Mm.
01:36:55
Speaker
Because, like, you can't identify Mysterio. He's got a big fishbowl on his head. Got a big fishbowl on his head. Like, and Quentin Beck, like, there's nothing special and specific to Quentin Beck. Wow, nothing special about Quentin Beck. I know who's gonna get murdered with a fucking hologram. he's He's a guy who knows about special effects, and there are lots of people that know about special effects.
01:37:22
Speaker
So, like, it's it's more than believable for there to be three mysterious. That's true. Like, so many other characters are, like, too singular. Like, you can't have three magnetos. You can't have three apocalypses.
01:37:39
Speaker
I mean, you could probably have three apocalypses. Eh, maybe. There were two? Sure. You can have three of anybody if they're from different timelines.
01:37:52
Speaker
That's true. Like there's a whole bunch of kangs. There's a council in fact. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting to think about though. You just wanted us to talk about three jokers for a while. I feel like, okay, I feel like we need to pick a character and then decide what alliterative alliterative names the three of them would have. If there were three mysterious, I think it would just be three.
01:38:21
Speaker
three of kind of the same mysterious, uh, the hologram, the ham and the,
01:38:35
Speaker
I gotta think of another thing with age. I mean, it could be like, uh, it could be like the Mysterio from the video game. He's a, like, he, he's a homie. Yeah. And the home is a helper.
01:38:51
Speaker
I don't like, I help her.
01:38:57
Speaker
There's gotta to be something. but who's Who's your character that there will be three of? I said Alfred. Oh, right. Okay, so what are the what are the three? Oh, easy. You'd have the bumbler, the butler, and the badass. Oh, why that's good. That is good. Damn. Damn. I like that.
01:39:21
Speaker
the Speaking of badass Alfreds, Absolute Batman Alfred? Unbelievable. Just got that beard. we will We will talk at length about ah Absolute Batman it very soon ah because it's... what a book. What a book that is. Good stuff.
01:39:47
Speaker
Maybe, maybe hostile, the hostile. Oh, that's good. Would be the third, Mysterio. Like that's when he's like Eli Roth. Oh, or maybe he's the hypnotic. The Hypno Hustler. Three of him. Let's have three of him.
Contact Information and Closing Remarks
01:40:05
Speaker
That's going to do it for this very special listener questions episode of war Rocket Ajax number 700.
01:40:12
Speaker
If you would like to send us a question, uh, for us to answer on the show, you can do that by emailing us at war rocket podcast at gmail dot.com. You can also send every story ever lists to that email address or Thursday night raw submissions, or just drop us a line about whatever you want to get in touch with us about maybe sponsoring the show. We would love for you to do that.
01:40:38
Speaker
You can also contact us on Tumblr. We're there at warrocketpodcast dot.tumblr dot.com. We're on blue sky at warrocketajax.bsky.social. You can ask us for an invitation to our Discord in any of those places. And you have to be invited to be a member of our Discord, but if you ask us kindly for an invitation, ah we will provide you one and you can join it that community where we took most of the questions for this episode from.
01:41:06
Speaker
Our website is warrockitajax.com. It has every episode of the show we've ever done. warrockitwiki.com has a picture of the good hat, ah as well as many other things that people would want to know about this podcast. So go ah check that out when you have a chance. If you want to find me and my stuff, go to mattdwilson.net to find links to my comics, my books, my other podcasts, and my social medias. Chris, where can people find you? Hey, everybody can find me by going to the-isp.com. That's my website.
01:41:37
Speaker
It's got links. You can click on them. You can click on them. We'll be back next week with a regular episode. Hey, thanks for listening. It's been 700 episodes. Thank you for listening. Thank you for oh walking down gimmick street with us and and participating in all the good bits and and the bits that only we think are funny.
01:42:06
Speaker
oh and asking interesting and fun questions to us ah in the show. Thank you for for all that.
01:42:16
Speaker
Yes, and come back for more. We'll be back for more, and we hope you return for it as well. Until then, do not forget Black Lives Matter. Trans rights are human rights. As are abortion rights. Drag is not a crime. And cops aren't your friends. But we love you.
01:42:36
Speaker
We love you. Don't vote for Republicans. And if you hear this before election day in the US and you're going to vote on a election day, please vote for Kamala Harris. Please.