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Comics Catch-Up 069: Silver Surfer (2016)
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We finish up the Dan Slott/Mike Allred/Laura Allred run on Silver Surfer on this episode, and we finally rank the whole thing! Where does it end up?
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Introduction to Comics Catch-Up Show
00:00:28
Speaker
Oh, my dad is coming. I think he's a fossil. Whoa. This is Comics Catch-Up. Hey, twerk. You better not be mine.
00:00:40
Speaker
Come on. Come on.
00:00:51
Speaker
Where we read comics suggested by you, the listeners of War Rocket Apex, that we have missed. Oh, hi.
00:01:03
Speaker
Hello. i didn I didn't see you there. Let's catch up. This is Comics Catch Up.
Review of 2016 Silver Surfer Volume
00:01:11
Speaker
The show where I, Matt Wilson, and Chris Sims, we read the comics that we didn't get to read the first time around.
00:01:21
Speaker
And this is a part of a comics catch-up. Last time, we read the 2014 volume of Silver Surfer.
00:01:32
Speaker
And this time, we're reading the 2016 volume of Silver Surfer. It is essentially one run by Dan Slott and Mike Allred and Laura Allred.
00:01:44
Speaker
But it was broken up by Secret Wars. And so...
Comparing Silver Surfer Series Halves
00:01:50
Speaker
It was in two separate volumes.
00:01:55
Speaker
Second half, going to go ahead and say second half, just about as good as the first. Yeah, I think we can rank this as ah as a piece. you didn't You didn't introduce me, though, Matt.
00:02:07
Speaker
I said your name. Did you? I'm sorry, I spaced out a little bit. And I guess you said my name while that was happening. Yes, i I said, Chris Sims and Matt Wilson, we read the comics that we didn't read the first time around.
00:02:22
Speaker
I was going to do a whole bit, but now i now it's the time has passed.
00:02:30
Speaker
And I shan't do it. But yes ah the one pretty complete run. I mean, like this definitely picks up post-Secret Wars.
00:02:44
Speaker
As as you like right from the pre-Secret Wars series. Yeah, I would say...
00:02:54
Speaker
in if I'm being very critical in comparisons between the first half and the second half of the song of the series... That I think I liked the first half a little bit more.
00:03:09
Speaker
Only because... That first half is so packed with good ideas. So packed with good new ideas that are extremely clever and like they keep coming.
Aliens Stealing Ideas Storyline
00:03:25
Speaker
This half has some good ideas. The first issue in particular, I think, has a really cool notion of... Like an alien race that steals ah planet other planets' ideas, like their art and culture.
00:03:45
Speaker
And thus, to fight, they become the like fictional characters from that planet. That ah whole sequence is wild.
00:03:56
Speaker
Yeah. And the foot like it's especially wild because... All of these aliens become, like, alien versions of characters with whom you are familiar.
00:04:10
Speaker
But none of them become Superman.
00:04:17
Speaker
Let's see. I'm looking at the page where, like, they're all wearing the different costumes of the various characters. Uh-huh. And there's a bride from Kill Bill.
00:04:28
Speaker
Yes. There's a Tom Baker Doctor Who. Uh-huh. There is, I believe that's meant to be John McClane. Which one? In the white, there's like a person in a white t-shirt with like bandoliers.
00:04:45
Speaker
Okay. I thought that might be a Ripley. Because that's a, that, maybe she's she's a lady. Yeah. There's a Leon. From the professional.
00:04:56
Speaker
From the professional. There's that stupid wizard that we won't talk about. Right. There's a Tron. There's a Tron. There's a warrior from the Warriors. There's a Terminator.
00:05:07
Speaker
And there's a ah there's a snake Plissken. And the funny thing about that is these are aliens with four eyes. So right the snake Plissken has two eye patches.
00:05:18
Speaker
Yes. That's pretty good. Very funny. There's a Marty McFly, a Spock, a Tintin. There's a guy from Clockwork Orange.
00:05:30
Speaker
Alex will Clockwork Orange. There's a Matrix character. Either Neo or Trinity. It could be Trinity. It's hard to say. It's hard to say.
00:05:42
Speaker
ah
Aliens as Pop Culture Characters
00:05:43
Speaker
There's somebody in what looks like a ninja costume that I can't quite tell who that's meant to be. I think there's what appears to be a James Bond.
00:05:55
Speaker
There's a Willy Wonka. Willy Wonka. liy wonka
00:06:00
Speaker
There's a samurai of some kind. There's a Robocop. There is a Robocop. There's an Axel Foley. Yes. Which is, that, of all of it, might be the wildest one.
00:06:14
Speaker
Who's the person in the blue sweater? That's Tintin. That's Tintin. Okay, okay, okay, okay. like It's hard to tell who Tintin is because of there's not there's not the hair.
00:06:25
Speaker
Yeah, there's a Barbarella and a Leludalis. From the Fifth Element. There's a Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, and Scarecrow.
00:06:38
Speaker
Yeah, because they because the the story starts with them watching Wizard of Oz. Right. ah There's a Ghostbuster and a Zorro. There's a Zorro. Is that supposed to be Madman?
00:06:52
Speaker
Madman is in this book. Madman is in this book. think that's actually Flash Gordon. Oh, there's a ah Robin Hood. there's oh There's a Luchador. There's like so many.
00:07:04
Speaker
there's like so There's so much to get through here. yeah It's very good. There's a Little Mermaid. There's a Sherlock Holmes. there's There's an Ariel, which is very funny. But yeah, there ain't no Superman Batman, which is interesting.
00:07:17
Speaker
yeah yeah Not trying to get those Warner Brothers lawyers on their case, I
Conflict on Planet Zin-La
00:07:23
Speaker
suppose. but um I like that story a lot. It feeds right into the next story, which involves the planet Zin-La coming back to mad Nora and Rad for at norronrad for ah taking away their culture, so they're going to steal Earth's culture, which is also very good.
00:07:51
Speaker
But that does – that gets me to my point, which is that this second half is far more about closing the loop than just creating a new idea.
00:08:10
Speaker
So there's a lot of revisiting of previous ideas. Or revisiting like Silver Surfer's character history.
00:08:21
Speaker
So that Zin-La story is all about Shalabal returning as like the empress of Norrin and her home planet, Zin-La, and sort of like getting revenge on Silver Surfer.
00:08:40
Speaker
Yeah, you find out that Zin-La... Because they had a like perfect utopian society, that their whole deal was oh was that they would go to other planets and basically overwrite their culture yeah and all of their art and fiction with their culture.
00:09:01
Speaker
Which is, weirdly, both kind of John Byrne's Krypton... And also the Warren Ellis Shi'ar Empire from that from that Imperial Guard.
00:09:18
Speaker
Shi'ar Imperial Guard miniseries from, like, 1999. ah with the with ah About Shara and Kithri, the married gods. ah Which... Kind of a wild pull.
00:09:32
Speaker
Interesting to see those ideas kind of echoed here in what is... And I want to stress that I mean this in the nicest way possible. But I feel like it is inevitably going to sound like
00:09:49
Speaker
like damning by comparison. But this whole story of like aliens showing up, you know the first group showing up to preserve culture by stealing it. right And then the second group showing up to overwrite culture.
00:10:04
Speaker
and then the... The kind of solution to that story being that the Silver Surfer has to wipe out everyone's knowledge of Zenlavian culture
Dan Slott's Writing Style
00:10:20
Speaker
is... it is a It is a Grant Morrison story written by Dan Slott. It very much is. I mean, I feel like that is
00:10:30
Speaker
pretty true of this run as a whole. Like... Slott toying around with kind of Morrisonian ideas.
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah. and i would have never I would have never thought of Slott as you know a Morrison guy in the way that I think of Hickman and Steve Orlando and Al Ewing as like very clearly Morrison guys. I don't i don't know if Slott is it or considers himself a Morrison guy.
00:11:05
Speaker
But this is definitely like...
00:11:09
Speaker
it's it's not it's like It's not just these playing with Morrisonian ideas. It gave me the feeling of like when you read Superman Adventures and you're like, oh, this is a Grant Morrison comic written by Mark Miller.
00:11:21
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, it's not in a Grant Morrison style, really. no but it is it is um It's a very Dan Slott comic, which, as we discussed last time, I tend to like a lot.
00:11:35
Speaker
But it is what you would think of as an idea Morrison would have. a sort of like Morrison loves to turn ideas into things.
00:11:48
Speaker
Yes. to To make ideas tangible. And there's a good amount of that in this book. When I was in elementary school, Matt, and this was this was a while back, as you know, there was they used to talk to us about nouns.
00:12:10
Speaker
yeah Right. And when I was in elementary school, they would be like, oh yeah, a noun is a person, place, or thing. Right. But then by the time I was in middle school, and I don't know if this is changing ah educational standards or if this is just like, you know, as you grow up, concepts can get a little more complex.
00:12:29
Speaker
They changed that to person, place, thing, or idea. And I feel like Morrison never got that second part. ah So they're like, oh yeah, all ideas are either people, places, or things.
00:12:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:47
Speaker
Yeah, i it's
00:12:51
Speaker
it's very much – that concept is very much part of this book. And and I say this is the Zinlavians coming for revenge against Silver Surfer. I guess at first it's just them coming to overwrite Earth culture yeah with their own. And it got me thinking about how – If you're going to do that kind of story where a group of people arrive on a planet and say, oh we're going to make things better for you.
00:13:29
Speaker
We're going to heal your illnesses and so forth. But in the process, we're going to take away all your culture. like That is a far more interesting conflict than...
00:13:43
Speaker
a lot of what we saw in the Jurgies. Yeah, it's it's like us it's like a Star Trek episode plot. Again, brackets, positive. yeah Like a very speculative fiction, mid-century sci-fi.
00:13:55
Speaker
And I like that the... Not viewpoint character, because Dawn is always our viewpoint character, but like the the special guest star of that issue is Alicia Masters. She's one of them, yeah.
00:14:08
Speaker
Who, when Silver Surfer's two ex-girlfriends show up, oh And we get like a full sitcom, oh, brother, like moment.
00:14:20
Speaker
But like there's there's this really great part where Shalabal is like, oh, i you know youre you're blind. i could I could let you see again. and she's like, yeah, but at the cost of like every song I've ever heard and every piece of art I've made,
00:14:39
Speaker
hu And I think like that's a really good use of Alicia as as an artist. and you know The blind sculptress who sees the beauty in the thing.
00:14:54
Speaker
well it's you know like i was thinking about Jurgies a lot reading that issue. yeah i have and and then the And then the part where Alicia gives a speech and then ah Dawn's like, hey, yeah, I'm not mad anymore. I get it.
00:15:10
Speaker
She's great. Yeah. This is the way you do that sort of like at what cost kind of story. You know what I mean? Where it's like, okay, the Zinlavians are offering tangible benefits.
00:15:28
Speaker
They make it so that Daredevil can see, right? Like, at at one point, a bunch of the superheroes get transformed into Zinlavians and like,
00:15:41
Speaker
you know any malady that they previously had is now gone. and And we see that happening to the Earthlings too. But they're not who they are anymore.
00:15:53
Speaker
And it's not some some vague like, oh, but authoritarianism. right like That we don't actually really even see. you know like like We see the the consequences in how like that is not a trade-off you would take.
00:16:10
Speaker
ah And so i i think this has pulled off much better um in that regard. The Ben Grimm of it all is also great, because Ben is is under the spell, in the thrall of Shalabal in the first couple issues of this.
00:16:28
Speaker
And he fights Surfer at one point. And Surfer like gets him back on his side by creating one of those rings that he also gave to Dawn.
00:16:40
Speaker
that's a part of himself. And Ben realizing what he has done or that he got like pulled into the orbit of Shalabal and, and essentially, you know, used by her is um really good.
00:16:58
Speaker
Like it's a really, it's some really good Ben Grimm stuff where like he becomes, you know, guilt ridden over this and we'll do anything he can to make it better. And then,
00:17:09
Speaker
Surfer, erasing Zinlavian culture, um essentially dies in the process. He doesn't totally die, but he almost dies. And so all the heroes have to fight on his behalf and after he has it after he saves everyone, and that that's very good. Buddy, you know I love that shit. That's that that's that Morrison shit that makes me cry ah little bit. Yeah, yeah.
00:17:35
Speaker
ah I also, i i will say, I do like the the scene where he gives, ah because he gives Alicia and he gives Ben ah those rings that he makes.
00:17:48
Speaker
And there's a scene where he gives it to Alicia and he's explaining what it is. And it's the same explanation that he gives to Dawn. where he's like, this ring is part of me, so I will always be able to find you.
00:18:00
Speaker
And Dawn's like, what the fuck? yeah And then when he gives it to Ben, she's like, okay, come on, man.
00:18:11
Speaker
Dawn's a good character. Dawn's fun. Yeah, Dawn's an excellent character. ah so it's kind of a bummer...
00:18:22
Speaker
how this story ends up ending. It is, but it's also not, as we'll get to So the all the superheroes fight on Silver Surfer's behalf, and then um his punishment from Shalabal is that he is forever exiled from Zen-La, which is a nice inversion of him being exiled to Earth.
00:18:47
Speaker
right like I like that, you know, it's It's brought up so many times in this run that like that's the one thing the Silver Surfer can't stand, is like being confined. And now it's like, he can go anywhere except this one place ah where where everyone hates him now.
00:19:06
Speaker
Which I think is like it's it's a it is a strong and cool
Silver Surfer's Exile from Zin-La
00:19:11
Speaker
bit.
00:19:14
Speaker
The next issue into... gets into surfer celebrity status after saving all of Earth's culture and how every country in the world makes him a citizen, essentially.
00:19:31
Speaker
yeah But he de-silvers and ah realizes that his clothes like are just plain white now because he's gotten rid of Zinlavian culture. so hes He's feeling a certain kind of way about that.
00:19:47
Speaker
and and and And a kid shows him his old issues of Fantastic Four, where all the the depictions of Zen Law are gone now. Yeah.
00:19:58
Speaker
That's a good bit. That's pretty, like... I mean, Morrison is not even close to the only writer who's done like the comics and comics thing. but Yeah, i mean, like that's a long... so like That goes back to Lee and Kirby, in the FF's case.
00:20:15
Speaker
But um he goes and visits a guy on the moon who he doesn't know who he is, but we'll learn who that is a little bit later. well Well, we'll learn who that is in the events of Original Sin.
00:20:27
Speaker
Yeah. Circa 2016. um But that issue ends with, and as I say, this is like this last little bit of the run is a lot of like closing the loop.
00:20:41
Speaker
Yeah. He takes Dawn to meet her mom, who isn't dead, but who moved to San Francisco because she didn't want to have a family.
00:20:54
Speaker
that That didn't hit for me at all. That didn't like and wasn't like relatable for me. or or like I had no feelings about that issue ah at all, and I would like to move on.
00:21:10
Speaker
Fair enough. um This is also the the Spider-Man team-up issue. Boy, Mike already draws the hell out of Spider-Man, huh? Man, can you could you imagine that dude on a Spider-Man run?
00:21:23
Speaker
Spider-Man is, like, slightly off-model. Well, it's it's his it's that one costume that he had in this era. That's right. It's the, it's the like, Parker Industries costume. Yeah, so it's got, like, yeah yeah like kind of a Carillion bloodstripe.
00:21:41
Speaker
Down the side. The little booties are a little bigger. They they come up a little higher. Yeah. yeah And the and the ah the the logo is different.
00:21:52
Speaker
More electric. Yeah, it's electric. That's what it is. But man, oh yeah sometimes you look at Sometimes you look at characters and you're like, I kind of feel like this guy was born to draw this character and yet that's never really happened.
00:22:12
Speaker
Yeah. And that is Michael Red drawing Spider-Man. Yeah. You ain't kidding. You ain't kidding. But the, it's just like, ah that's just like a fun um science enemies thing where it's these like little squids that can turn into anything. And so they turn into a bunch of bad guys. Yeah.
00:22:36
Speaker
They turn into stuff that you're afraid of. yeah And at at one point Silver Surfer's like, I'm not actually afraid of any of these guys. These are just guys I've fought before. Because it's like like the champion of the universe is there. Terax.
00:22:49
Speaker
Him. yeah Mephisto is there for a minute. Yeah. yeah yeah You know, Matt, the Magus runs in unusual circles.
00:23:02
Speaker
Oh, there's a little bit where... ah Mephisto, like, there's a little, like, jab at ah One More Day. It's pretty good. It's pretty good.
00:23:13
Speaker
It's pretty good, yeah. ah But Surfer just brings Dawn back home, because she gets, like, kind of hurt by the the bad guys, by the little squids.
00:23:27
Speaker
And instead of leaving her in San Francisco, she just brings her home. And... And Surfer's like, it was my place to bring you to see your mom.
00:23:40
Speaker
And Dawn is like, hey, can we get out of here? And so they just leave in the middle of dinner.
00:23:51
Speaker
yeah Oh, and we did we didn't even mention that there's a whole thing with ah Dawn's sister. What's the sister's name? Eve. Eve, that's right. Dawn and Eve.
00:24:02
Speaker
um She's pregnant. yeah ah This issue also in the letter column does have a picture of two people cosplaying as the Silver Surfer and Don. yeah um Very accurately, in it like the Don looks extremely accurate.
00:24:23
Speaker
The Surfer is just an exceptionally ripped guy in tiny shorts. and And body paint, yeah. And body paint. Which, if I was that dude, I would also dress like that all the time.
00:24:39
Speaker
Yes. Yes. my dude is like My dude is shredded. Dude is shredded. No kidding. It's not accurate because the surfer is not that buff.
00:24:53
Speaker
Dude looks good. They both look good in that photo. They both look good. I'm just saying, she looks accurate. He's far too ripped. He's vascular.
00:25:06
Speaker
He's physical. Very vascular, yes. The next issue does have a new idea, which I like, which is um first, after taking Dawn somewhere ah too dangerous, Surfer tries to take Dawn to a bunch of places that are very safe, and she gets mad about that.
00:25:29
Speaker
That's a very fun sequence, because he takes her to He takes her to like a planet that is ah trampoline. And he takes her to a planet that has ball pits.
00:25:44
Speaker
That's a daycare, essentially, yeah. Yeah. And then he also takes her to the puppy-bunny-kitten planet. Uh-huh. Where they just get to hang out in a pile of puppies and bunnies and and kitties.
00:25:56
Speaker
That are all the same animal. Yeah. Three-eyed little puppy-bunny-kitties. So... Dawn's like, take me somewhere that's more you know thats not just for babies.
00:26:09
Speaker
And so Surfer takes her to a galactic casino where he makes himself gold, which is ah pretty fantastic. Yeah, because he gets a lot more money.
00:26:23
Speaker
Well, it's it doesn't actually like really point to it all that much. He just is golden like when they get there, and I love that. yeah But they get into a game. so it's This place is run by the Grandmaster.
00:26:39
Speaker
And they get into a game with the Grandmaster where Surfer puts his board on the line, to me, on the line. And he starts to lose.
00:26:52
Speaker
And so Grandmaster takes away their ability to see the color red at one point. Yeah, they they keep betting different things that are very conceptual.
00:27:04
Speaker
And um no red appears on any page for the next, like, ten pages. Yeah, which is very noticeable because Dawn always wears red.
00:27:15
Speaker
Yeah. And her her lipstick is gone, and like the red on the cards is not there. It's really good. Yeah. it's ah It's fun. They finally end up going double or nothing, and they bet they make the Grandmaster bet his ability to ever play games again. And so he has to he just folds. he just He can't make that bet.
00:27:40
Speaker
yeah So ah they are able to leave and... and and And they're kind of like, ha ha ha, we're never gonna die.
00:27:51
Speaker
the other funny bit is that um he takes away the but silver surfer loses his ability to pronounce the letter B. Yes. And so in his ah in his word balloons, there's just a a blank space where the B should be, which I i love lettering gimmicks.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yes. I love lettering gimmicks, Matt. And that's very good. Very good. ah Who's the letterer on this? VCs Joe Sabino. Great job on that, Joe Sabino.
00:28:24
Speaker
Yeah. In the next issue, they get they essentially get eaten by a space whale. where they They meet inside the space whale, like bigger than normal um germs and antibodies.
00:28:37
Speaker
Yeah. And they do a thing that I don't know that I'm the biggest fan of always. Which is, tell a story about a friend of theirs that we just never saw.
00:28:49
Speaker
i It's hard to tell if they are just making this guy up. ah
00:28:56
Speaker
Well, so he's from a planet that we've seen before. The very first thing that happens in the very first issue is that the surfer reignites a small sun for a very small planet, right?
00:29:08
Speaker
Right. One of the inhabitants of that planet offers to go like assist Surfer and Dawn in everything that they want to do. And so he calls himself Harold, H-A-R-O-L-D.
00:29:24
Speaker
Like, he's the Surfer's Harold.
00:29:28
Speaker
And they proceed to tell a bunch of stories about like how he helped them do stuff. Like... helped Nightmare bring the world back, and helped beat Blastar, and helped them on all these adventures that we never saw before.
00:29:47
Speaker
Yeah, which again makes it in very ambiguous as to, oh, is this just some stuff that happened off-panel that we're only finding out about now, or is this bullshit that they're making up well so as to kind of Scheherazade their way out of this whale?
00:30:02
Speaker
Well, so they they finally leave the whale, and turns out that they weren't just talking to the little antibodies and stuff. The whale was listening, too. And he was like, hey, what happened to the guy? What happened to little Harold?
00:30:15
Speaker
And so they tell a story about how like he decided that there was a little ah an even smaller planet that he wanted to protect. Yeah. Which also a very like fun story.
00:30:26
Speaker
Very much, though, a filler episode. ah Yes. i just i yeah I enjoyed that, but yeah. yeah I don't think it's by any means bad.
00:30:37
Speaker
But it it did feel like, you know, it was like, oh yeah, here's a fun little idea that we can goof on for 20 pages, which is perfectly fine.
00:30:50
Speaker
And I like it when comics do that. In the next issue, the next issue has another pretty cool idea. Maybe I didn't give this half enough credit of having cool new ideas. This ends up being extremely relevant.
00:31:05
Speaker
Yes. Surfer and Dawn go to a planet. It's a full-ass Doctor Who episode. It really is. um They go to a planet that is basically the Jetsons.
00:31:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's called they go to ah a star system, and there's four ah planets that have evidence of life. And so they go to the first three, and they're all like fucked up and ruined.
00:31:30
Speaker
Right. And then they go to the fourth one, and it's the Jetsons. Right. They go to Incandesa 4, and it's the Jetsons. like they They have literal like Jetsons buildings. And...
00:31:42
Speaker
They eventually learned that everyone here, except for a very small number of people that keep things going, is a hologram. Because they ruined every other planet.
00:31:54
Speaker
And so, to keep this planet viable, and to keep themselves from ruining this planet, they all live as holograms. Or mostly live as holograms. Is this symbolic?
00:32:08
Speaker
Is this symbolic, King? Could be symbolic. um And unbeknownst to Dawn, she is made into a hologram. And they have her body like on the disposal unit ready to be chopped up.
00:32:25
Speaker
She's made into a hologram in what is arguably the funniest way. Something that Doctor Who could never do. Which is that she goes this planet and she's like, hey, I really have to shit, actually.
00:32:38
Speaker
yeah and everybody freaks out. And they're like, oh, you're going to like excrete waste? Okay, yeah, we'll we'll take you to the facilities. And then they take her and give her a hologram body that doesn't need to shit anymore.
00:32:51
Speaker
And yeah throw her organic body in the trash.
00:32:56
Speaker
They managed to save it just before it is destroyed, destroyed her body. and And now there's just like two Dawns. There's Hologram Dawn and there's Regular Dawn.
00:33:07
Speaker
But Hologram Dawn can't leave this planet. So they leave her behind. And Physical Dawn and Surfer go off flying away.
00:33:19
Speaker
We also encounter this guy who is wearing a like future sunglasses. who ah takes a few of the holopods from the the planet and then leaves. And he's like, nobody can see me.
00:33:36
Speaker
I can't be here right now. And he makes Dawn forget that she ever saw him too. Yeah, because Dawn recognizes him. This is someone that she knows who I did not go back and look, but I'm pretty sure did show up earlier in the run.
00:33:49
Speaker
He did. He he did. he he's He's kind of been around just kind of observing Dawn and Surfer from time to time. I like this issue and I like the the concept. And like I said, it's it's extremely just a Doctor Who episode.
00:34:03
Speaker
um Brackets generally positive. But the one way in which it's a Doctor Who episode, brackets, negative, is that like because this takes place in a single issue of this comic...
00:34:16
Speaker
Hologram Dawn comes to terms with having, like, because she's Dawn. She's Dawn Greenwood. but She's not going transfer her consciousness or anything. She's an exact duplicate with all of her memories and personality.
00:34:28
Speaker
yeah She's a real person. And she comes to terms with, oh, I guess I live on this planet now and can't go with the Silver Surfer who I'm in love with. and Or never i see my back home.
00:34:39
Speaker
My say like did yeah family again. like She comes to terms with that awful fucking quick. In a couple of pages, yeah. yeah Which, you know, like I can't knock too much because I don't actually want like you know four issues of them agonizing over this, and that's not really the point of the story.
00:34:58
Speaker
But it is kind of weird.
00:35:02
Speaker
ah The next issue is is also
Marvel Comics in 2015-2016
00:35:05
Speaker
quite good. it's a
00:35:10
Speaker
It starts off with Galactus, who is now the life bringer, the bringer of life. because This is post-Ultimates Galactus. This is because of the events of Ultimates.
00:35:21
Speaker
There's a lot of Al Ewing in this, too. like ah It's interesting how much Al Ewing took ideas from this run and ran with him. And then this run took ideas from the stuff Al Ewing was doing at the time, too.
00:35:37
Speaker
Matt, I was going to save this for the the end, but I think it's important to bring it up now because we are talking about stuff like Defenders and and the Ultimates and and this book and other stuff that was going on, like the Parker Industries stuff that was happening in Spider-Man at the time. man, 2015 to 2016 the best Marvel has ever been?
00:36:00
Speaker
Pretty fucking good,
00:36:05
Speaker
pretty fucking good huh like yeah like I mean, look, I personally did some good work at that time.
00:36:15
Speaker
I thought that Dracula story in X-Men 92 was highly underrated. ah But like Secret Wars was good. Yeah, man. Secret Wars 2015 was good. And then like if you think about the shit that came around in like Like, in the aftermath of Secret Wars and immediately leading up to Secret Wars, like that's where all the fucking 8th Cosmo stuff comes from.
00:36:45
Speaker
Like, that's where like a Squirrel Girl was going at the time. Spider-Man was good. FF was good. like shit was kind of like popping off.
00:36:59
Speaker
Like, ten years after the worst year in comics, we might have gotten one. Even at DC, like, 2016 had Rebirth, which was kind of like, you know, hey, we're going to address all of the shortcomings of the New 52.
00:37:13
Speaker
a big correction. a big course correction. and also Tom King is going to be on Batman.
00:37:20
Speaker
you We're really going to build up to that Batman-Catwoman wedding.
00:37:26
Speaker
Bane's going to have his dick out the whole time. Bane is going to have his dick out. The only reason I say like those two specific years aren't the best time is that Hox Pox comes three years later.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, but i mean like we we had going in I mean, we're going to find this out, you and I, very specifically. But going
00:37:49
Speaker
going in 2015-2016. We got Hickman on shit. Oh, we got Hickman on shit, and we're gonna we're gonna do Hickmania. Yeah.
00:38:01
Speaker
But I think... What were the X-Men doing in 2016? I know you and Chad were doing X-Men 92. Good stuff. That's the only thing that mattered. Yeah.
00:38:14
Speaker
but like What were the ah other X-Men comics of that time? Was that like Bendis on X-Men? That might have been the Bendis era. I mean, that is also, like, that you kind of have to end that with late 2016 when Secret Empire happens.
00:38:32
Speaker
Yeah. And we were in a very different world. Things shifted pretty hard. Yeah. Yeah. Let's see. All-New X-Men was 2016, and that was Bendis, right?
00:38:46
Speaker
Yeah. I'm looking at... Oh, wait. No, that was Dennis Hopeless. Yeah, I'm looking at a ah the stuff that came out in... What is this? This is Week 18, so May of 2016.
00:39:01
Speaker
Oh, it's that Wade Somney Black Widow? Isn't that? That's good. That shit was good. yeah Contest of Champions. That shit owned. That's good. that's Now that's some 8th Universe stuff. No, that's that's that is the 8th Universe stuff.
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah. ah Let's see. We got... What's this? ah The Jeff Lemire Moon Knight series. We got ah of the Becky Cloonan Punisher. ah is that a... Yeah, that's like the Marguerite Savage...
00:39:30
Speaker
ah Scarlet Witch run. mean, there was kind of some extremely good shit. ah ah Unbelievable Gwenpool.
00:39:42
Speaker
Yeah. i There was a lot of good stuff going on at Marvel at the time. but the i would say the the low point were maybe the mainline X-Men books, because I'm looking at what was going on in those right then.
00:39:58
Speaker
um That wasn't so good. Yeah. I mean, there's always look there's always bits and pieces. yeah ah X-Men wouldn't hit a peak again until
00:40:13
Speaker
Hox Pox. um But there were a lot of good Marvel comics coming out at the time. No doubt. there was a lot of There was a lot of good shit in at old at the House of Ideas yeah and the Distinguished Competition.
00:40:31
Speaker
ah and And then Secret Empire. So basically, this issue is about Lifebringer Galactus calling Surfer back to say, hey, there are these there's this object, the Alpha Omega,
00:40:53
Speaker
That split in and they're on opposite sides of the universe, and i need the i need you to go to the opposite ends of the universe to ah put these pieces there so that um the universe can be whole, because otherwise it's going to like shatter in if we don't do this.
00:41:16
Speaker
And so they do that like without even thinking. Dawn and Surfer are like, okay, we'll both go. Dawn, you take the board. Surfer will just go to the other the other end of the universe by himself.
00:41:28
Speaker
And then they realize that they're so far apart that they can't possibly find each other again. And this gets resolved by Eternity bringing his two pointer fingers together.
00:41:44
Speaker
representing the two opposite ends of the known universe. Uh-huh. And, um boy, do I love that shit. Yeah, man. Hey, is is that symbolic?
00:41:56
Speaker
um No, but, like i like, I kid, but God Almighty, fucking love
Eternity's Symbolic Gesture
00:42:02
Speaker
that shit. Yeah. Like, because like if it if the universe is going to be a dude, then fucking make the universe a dude, man.
00:42:12
Speaker
Yeah. Like, it's such a great, like, visual depiction of the universe being a dude.
00:42:22
Speaker
Oh, and Beatable Small Girl was also coming out. It sure was. Yeah. God damn.
00:42:29
Speaker
ah But yeah, there's so much good stuff from this time period, and i maybe that's another reason why we weren't reading this book at the time, because there was so much other good stuff to read, but...
00:42:43
Speaker
We were also reading some bad stuff. Doesn't sound like us. Doesn't sound like us, yeah. But definitely definitely oh possible.
00:42:54
Speaker
But man, like, yeah. The Silver Surfer going, hey, Eternity, I've unsaved your ass so many times.
00:43:07
Speaker
Fold space and take me back to Dawn right now. That's great. And then he just brings his fingers together. Beautiful.
00:43:17
Speaker
like I think a thing that i I love about Dan Slott that I honestly think he does maybe better than maybe better than anybody except maybe like Al Ewing.
00:43:33
Speaker
But I feel like Slott's been doing it longer. And this goes back to Slott on She-Hulk and stuff.
00:43:40
Speaker
Slot thinks about the Marvel Universe and how it works a lot. And I feel like this story, like, a lot of these stories are, like, you know, it's the the classic thing that I always want to see in a shared universe, which is if this, then this.
00:43:58
Speaker
And it's like, well, yeah, the year if the if the universe is a guy, like, if Eternity is a dude, if Eternity is a person, then how can we play with that?
00:44:11
Speaker
And how you play with it is you haven't put his little fingers together. You know, I, we're talking a lot about like slot kind of showing something he's never shown before with this, but a lot of this stuff was in she Hulk.
00:44:27
Speaker
but We, I feel like I, at least I do. I think a lot about she Hulk being the funny book, like, like, The best thing about it being the humor, and that is very good.
00:44:38
Speaker
But there is a lot of, like, if this, then this Marvel Universe stuff in that comic, too. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Yeah, like ah like how all Marvel comics are admissible in court.
00:44:52
Speaker
Exactly. That shit was funny. Also, don't forget that Dan Slott is the guy who kind of brought back Squirrel Girl. And had her beat up Thanos, and had, I think, the Silver Server show up and say, very much like he says in this, like, yes, my cosmic senses confirm that this is in fact the real Thanos.
00:45:13
Speaker
ah
00:45:17
Speaker
ah So, in the next issue, Eve starts going into contractions and having her baby. And Dawn and Surfer are off doing other stuff elsewhere in the universe. They're helping like a galactic beehive fight off barbarians.
00:45:40
Speaker
Love it. Love every part of that. Yeah. and And Battle Lawn is back. Yeah. We love Battle Lawn. And as they're rushing back because Surfer senses that Eve is having her baby.
00:45:55
Speaker
No, ah Dawn senses it. Oh, she does because of her twin connection. They keep getting attacked by the former ah Warrior One, who's now Warrior Zero, who has vowed revenge on Surfer for making him lose his title.
00:46:16
Speaker
And he just keeps stopping them And trying to fight Surfer, even as he's like trying to come up with different ways to get out of the fights. Like, playing dead.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah, Surfer surfer works him. Yeah. At one point, which is pretty good. Yeah. Until finally, it's just like, Dawn just has to be like, okay, fuck okay fine, kick his ass. Yeah, fuck him up.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yeah. And then we get an amazing panel. Look, Surfer surfing the moon into that guy actually was extremely raw. Don being like, fine.
00:46:52
Speaker
Like, we've tried to not obliterate this dude. Fuck him up. And Surfer going, alright, I'm gonna hit you as hard as I can. And then hitting this dude so hard that it knocks the color out of this comic.
00:47:05
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. and And he doesn't kill him. But he goes, okay, are we done? And Warrior One goes, uh-huh.
00:47:17
Speaker
Yep.
00:47:23
Speaker
That shit's great. and And he goes, warrior i was warrior one, the finest warrior of my people. You robbed me of my rank and now you stripped me of my title.
00:47:33
Speaker
I am not fit to be a warrior. From now on, I am just zero.
00:47:41
Speaker
That's cold. That's cold. yeah it's It's animal raw is what it is. So they get home. They finally get home after having to fight Warrior Zero.
00:47:55
Speaker
And Eve has had her baby. She's back home. And then we get one of those Marvel Comics pages where it's a single panel surrounded by a thick black border. Mm-hmm.
00:48:10
Speaker
Where... Dawn is asking where her dad is. And then you realize that Eve and her husband are wearing black, all black. Yeah, I mean, like, you would think you might realize that a little sooner, considering that Eve, like Dawn, always wears the same thing.
00:48:28
Speaker
Right, is always wearing yellow and black. Like, always wears yellow and black stripes. Yeah. ah But it does take Eve a minute. It does take Eve a minute, yeah. And, uh...
00:48:40
Speaker
And this is where the book starts to be, like, sad. mean, yeah, it's sad, but it's also, like, I mean, it's good. It's good, but it's like, man, it it it does get sad here. like it's it's the part of the book where It's the part of the book where Dawn is sad instead of Surfer being sad.
00:49:00
Speaker
Because we're used to Surfer being sad. Right, yeah. That motherfucker's a sad sack. he is He is one of the saddest. um But... ah Dawn is so sad, in fact,
00:49:13
Speaker
ah that... and and it I mean, it's not anybody's fault that her dad died. No, he had a heart attack. Yeah. um But they they go back to Euphoria, the the Euphoria planet.
00:49:31
Speaker
And that way Dawn can continue to... ah see her dad sometimes. Yeah, because Dawn's big problem here is that she did, there's like no closure for her. Like she was off in space, having space adventures, and her dad died.
00:49:49
Speaker
And that's kind of like going to fuck her up for the rest of the series. Yes. And so on Euphoria, she's able, the Euphoria, the planet, is able to be her dad, you know, appear as her dad.
00:50:07
Speaker
yeah and Great callback to that. Yes. it's i mean it's It's like I said earlier, it's kind of that you know closing the loop instead of creating a new idea, but it is a great use of this i this already extant idea in the book.
00:50:24
Speaker
yeah um where where There's this very cautious attempt to do this as therapy instead of um you know just have Dawn have her dad back. Yeah.
00:50:36
Speaker
let her have her dad sometimes, then wean her off of it. Yeah. And because she doesn't have the power cosmic protecting her, she doesn't know that it's an illusion. So they are... it's i mean, it's a really cool literalization of like the grieving process, right? Where like at first it's all you think about, and then you go a couple days without thinking about it.
00:50:59
Speaker
And Surfer and the the people on Euphoria are like, Yeah, she's managed to go two days without needing to see her dad.
00:51:10
Speaker
Right. And then you think about it again, it all kind of comes back. Yeah. it's It's a really, like... It's sad, and it's a it's it is a bummer, but it is, like, it's...
Silver Surfer's Emotional Journey
00:51:23
Speaker
I do like that it's never not a sci-fi literalization of that idea.
00:51:27
Speaker
but yes Yes. ah its very Again, very consistent with the rest of the series. Yeah. um And... Dawn eventually does reach a point where she says, okay, I'm ready to go.
00:51:41
Speaker
um After Surfer gets into a fight with the planet, which is like, the the planet's like, no, no, no, I'm going to go be her dad for her. I'm going to go, shoot I'm going to do this. Yeah, she needs her dad. Look how sad she is Yeah.
00:51:53
Speaker
And Surfer's like, no, no, no, you can't do that. and And yeah, then finally Dawn decides to leave. um but We should also mention Surfer's clothes, which are so funny.
00:52:04
Speaker
Yeah, Surfer surfer gets, um since he doesn't have his Zenlavian clothes anymore, he just gets some old clothes from the 90s from Eve's brother-in-law, or Dawn's brother-in-law.
00:52:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. He gets like... Gets fucking JNCOs. Yeah, he gets like fucking JNCOs in a big sweater over a t-shirt and, you know, a knit cap.
00:52:33
Speaker
And is is real funny. It's very good. It's actually extremely good. ah Then things continue to be sad in issue 13.
00:52:48
Speaker
um
00:52:52
Speaker
Essentially, Dawn and Surfer get stuck at some point In the the distant past, right? They get sent back to the Big Bang.
00:53:07
Speaker
Dawn wants, she's like, hey, can we, I know you can travel through time. We've done it before. Can we just go back so I can say goodbye to my dad?
00:53:18
Speaker
like that's Like, that's all I want to do, is just say goodbye. right, right. And they go back way too far. Surfers are like, yeah, all right. Yeah, you know, that's that's a reason. I think he's always says, like, I can't say no to you, but like, it's a pretty reasonable request.
00:53:36
Speaker
All things considered.
00:53:40
Speaker
And they and they go back way too far. Yeah, they go back ah to the Big Bang and then they go beyond that. But they don't go back far enough to run into Galactus' hot mom.
00:53:53
Speaker
No, they go back to the previous universe and meet Galactus when he was a dude. When he was Galen of Ta. but Yeah, when he was Galen of Ta. And... ah When he was kind of hot.
00:54:08
Speaker
Honestly. You know, it it's ah it's an interesting haircut. He's got kind of like a Lawrence Fishburne thing going on, I feel like. Yeah.
00:54:20
Speaker
and Am I wrong, Matt? No, I don't think you're wrong. yeah um But essentially they're stuck in this previous universe.
00:54:32
Speaker
And they end up just deciding to live out the rest of their time here. And ah build a house. And ah go on adventures and and live ah life together where Dawn gets old.
00:54:48
Speaker
And Surfer gets old. Well, Surfer gives himself the appearance of being old. he stops using the power cos but like He actively stops using the power Cosmic, so he ages relatively normally.
00:55:01
Speaker
and then at the end, like when Dawn is dying of old age... um she's like, hey, i know I know what you've been doing. Come on, you could just be the Silver Surfer. And so he like uses the power cosmic, and he's exactly as he's always been again. Yeah. What she tells him is, no more illusions.
00:55:19
Speaker
Yeah. So, ah he goes back to being regular old Nora and Rad. and And then, and yes, he he asks her,
00:55:31
Speaker
but let's see,
00:55:35
Speaker
ah You never saw yours again, your family again. Never went home. Be honest. Do you have any regrets? And then she doesn't really get to answer. And then we just get a big two-page spread of like Surfer and Dawn and everyone they've met.
00:55:53
Speaker
yeah and oh she does She does get to answer. She does get to answer she so she says she wouldn't change anything. It's a very cool double-page spread because it's it's everybody who's been in this in this comic.
00:56:06
Speaker
Yeah. Like the the the Puppy Bunny Kitties are there. Yeah. And Spider-Man. And the new Warrior One. And Eternity and the Queen of Nevers. And Lockjaw.
00:56:22
Speaker
And that whale.
00:56:25
Speaker
Yeah. Love Lockjaw. Yeah. and And Ice Cream Maker 1 is there too. Yes. this It feels like the last issue, doesn't it? But it's not. It's very much... a well it it's It is the end of... It's Dawn's last issue.
00:56:41
Speaker
Yeah. Well, Dawn still exists as some energy. And Surfer sees that the universe is ending at this time too.
00:56:54
Speaker
So he's like, I'm going to bring... Dawn's energy into the next universe so that she can still exist in that universe.
00:57:06
Speaker
And so he does that. He goes into the threshold as the the eighth universe is beginning. tags along on Galactus' ship.
00:57:18
Speaker
Yeah. And ah he he goes into the eighth universe with Dawn's energy. And then we see that he's that guy. Yeah, he's the guy in the future showing sunglasses, Norval. His name is Norval, and he arrives at the green the Greenwood inn um years and years ago when Dawn and Eve are kids, and stays there for a while. Okay, ah this is my this is my process of reading this issue.
00:57:46
Speaker
This is me. I don't know if like that. ah Because they're kids? yeah well Yeah, because he's like hanging around when they're kids, and I'm like, He really need to do that, though.
00:57:59
Speaker
Yeah. You know? Like, he could have just hung out. He didn't need to go, like, hang out with Ridge. Hang out with Ridge and the boys.
00:58:10
Speaker
But he's, um like, i think they mentioned he's only there for, like, one day a year. Yeah, something like that. And so at this point reading the issue, I was like, I don't know if, like, i don't know if this is going to stick the landing. Because that's kind of, like, a weird...
00:58:25
Speaker
it's kind of like a weird element of the story is that like you know he he was there all along when she was a kid and everything, this other version. But I was unaware of how this was all going to pan out.
00:58:39
Speaker
So he's not just there to spend time with Dawn's family. He's there to record everything about the Greenwood Inn.
00:58:54
Speaker
On one of those hologram recorders from Incandesa 4. So he can go back there... And give Hollow Dawn her family.
00:59:09
Speaker
Yeah. He creates an immortal version, and immortal hologram version of Eve and Eve's husband and their kid and Reg, Dawn and Eve's dad, and of himself.
00:59:26
Speaker
Which is a very which is a very Doctor Who ending. Yeah. ah Because like my ah favorite slash my favorite terrible thing about Doctor Who is that the the Rose Tyler story ends with fucking... She gets a second and Doctor. Like, they make a second David Tennant.
00:59:46
Speaker
ah But he's like a regular guy now. Yeah. And so she gets like a consolation prize David Tennant. And, boy... That's one of four David Tennants that are part of Doctor Who continuity now. a lot David Tennants.
01:00:02
Speaker
I mean, i guess I guess the world could probably use some more David Tennants. Sure. But David Tennant is canonically the 10th and 14th Doctor. That's true. Yeah. And also, he goes and tells he's like, hey...
01:00:16
Speaker
ah e he's like hey Don, he tells her, hey, we lived out her natural lifespan. She was happy, but she died.
01:00:28
Speaker
and And Eve slaps him and goes, like I'm never going to see her again. And he goes, no, but a version of you could stay with her.
01:00:41
Speaker
And so he made like that's when he makes the exact duplicates of her. yeah And I was like, oh, that's pretty fun. That's like a good version of that. ah of that Doctor Who story.
01:00:53
Speaker
Like, I think that's, I think that's actually like a, a, an improvement over what it is very obviously riffing on. I mean, like this, you know, again, the first issue, like first couple issues of this had like a dedication to Russell T Davies. So it's not like it's subtle.
01:01:06
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, then this book fucking hit me with the one too. Yes. Okay. So it got me twice. Hollow Dawn. Now that she's got versions of her family that she can,
01:01:21
Speaker
be with and but and a holographic version of the surfer. Yeah. ah She says, well, what are you going to do? Like, cause your dawn is dead.
01:01:33
Speaker
So you're going to be alone. And surfer goes, no, no, no. Part of her is with me and all of us. Because when the universe started, I fired off the bolt of energy that was her. And it became the first light in the universe forever echoing throughout time.
01:01:49
Speaker
And I'll just read this part because it's very nice. And on every world in existence, and as endless forms of life evolved and made their way out of the dark, they all shared one thing in common. Their first sight, the break of day, they all knew to give it the same name, Dawn.
Dawn's Light as First Light
01:02:05
Speaker
ah In every alien tongue, it remains the same across the entire cosmos. Okay, I didn't quite buy that. Because there are words for Dawn that aren't Dawn. Yeah. Yes, but Matt. Earth languages.
01:02:18
Speaker
But Matt.
01:02:22
Speaker
It's, yes. yeah Is it silly and nonsense? Yes. But is it, it's emotionally true. It is emotionally true. That's true.
01:02:33
Speaker
um And then Hologram Norrin also says that when the universe was forming, Surfer made a choice. In the old universe, when they go back to the seventh universe, yeah Surfer's like, oh, we're in the seventh universe, and I can tell because the cosmo we're in the seventh cosmos – Because ah the power cosmic is different. It takes a different form.
01:03:00
Speaker
It's blue and square, so instead of having Kirby dots, it kind of looks like he's making QR codes. It kind of does, yeah. And then, like, Surfer leaves and, like, Hologram Norenrad is like, yeah, ah he didn't tell you everything, but I will.
01:03:22
Speaker
At the start of time, he chose that cosmic energy in this cosmos
01:03:32
Speaker
is going to be red with black dots. Yeah. and And that's why Kirby dots look like that.
01:03:43
Speaker
Because the Silver Surfer was in love. And that shit got me.
01:03:51
Speaker
We had a little bit of a discussion about this before we recorded, where I was like, this is this is approximating the good version of, why does Barry Allen wear a bow tie?
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah. Because there's no real need for an explanation of why Kirby Dots look the way they do. Yeah, they look like that because Jack Kirby drew them.
01:04:18
Speaker
Because that's the way drew them, yeah. Yeah. But, but, but... And, and, and, it's very clear that Dan Slott had this in mind from Jump Street.
01:04:29
Speaker
Yes. That's why he was like, okay, don Dawn is gonna dress this way. Yeah, and like, gave a, like... fun, quirky reason for her to wear red with polka dots.
01:04:44
Speaker
Yeah. Because, you know, she's she's a ladybug and her sister's a bee. Like, that's that's, like, cute on its own. And this is not something that's, like, I've been trying to figure out all day what makes it different from Barry Allen's bow tie.
01:04:58
Speaker
because i you Because you're right. It's very much like, here's an explanation for this thing that doesn't need an explanation. And I think at the end of the day, the answer is, i like this one.
01:05:12
Speaker
I mean, i my ah explanation is, this one's earned. Yeah, this one like has 30 issues of comics kind of building up to it.
01:05:24
Speaker
and and it And it has significance for one character. is... Okay, because like... because like A lot of times it's, oh, where well, okay, why does Barry Allen wear a bow tie?
01:05:42
Speaker
I don't know, for some dumb reason that we explain away in a couple of pages. Right? Yeah. This is, well, here's a love story and why that love story mattered.
01:05:57
Speaker
You know, like like, it ended, and Surfer's immortal and he's going to live on, but This is how he's commemorating that love.
01:06:08
Speaker
And that's meaningful. Right? like like You don't need to know this to be like, oh, that's why Kirby dots look like that. But it is very sweet if you do know it.
01:06:23
Speaker
And it is about like a relationship that meant something. And to me, that's the difference. Yeah. And it also... like I think a lot about the end of Unbeatable Squirrel Girl and how there's that conversation with Kraven, the hunter,
01:06:44
Speaker
in that book. you know He has lion powers. He has lion powers and no known weaknesses. But I think a lot about the conversation with Kraven where he's like, yeah, man, the next time you see me, ah I'm going to be different.
01:07:02
Speaker
like that like I'm not going to be who I am in this comic book all the time. right Because in this comic book, I'm a Ryan North, Eric Anderson character. And I feel like there's a moment like this in Gwenpool, too.
01:07:16
Speaker
ah
01:07:19
Speaker
And I feel like this is Dan Slott and Mike Allred being like, if Dawn Greenwood is never mentioned again,
01:07:33
Speaker
She's still there. we made it so that We made it so she's part of the universe. She's part of the fundamental look of the universe. right And I, like, there's level where i respect that because it is a beautiful love story in a way that you can only tell...
01:07:54
Speaker
Not just in a comic, not just in a Marvel comic, but in a Silver Surfer comic. It's so unique to this character. But also, I love the audacity.
01:08:05
Speaker
i love the audacity of being ah of going, yeah, I don't care if no one ever mentions this again. Real heads know. yeah And I feel like that's like, there is I feel like Slott does that a lot, and I'm always going to pop for it.
01:08:25
Speaker
But like the really great thing about it is there's a reason why no one else would ever know it. Because it's it's something that's so personal to Silver Surfer.
01:08:40
Speaker
Yeah. You know? Yeah, I think it's – I do think there's a lot of stuff that makes it different from – we use Barry Allen's bow tie as a shorthand, but it's also like – you know ah Thomas Wayne wore a Batman costume to a costume party one time. It's so much stuff.
01:08:59
Speaker
the The S doesn't stand for Superman. It stands for the House of L, or whatever. Various stuff that, to varying degrees of quality, I think works and doesn't work.
01:09:12
Speaker
I have unfortunately... read i've lost thee I've lost the Superman battle
01:09:22
Speaker
I lost it because because Mark Way had said so. You know? that's just That's just what people wore on Krypton. it's his It's his family logo. It just happens to look like an S. Stands for Superman, but whatever.
01:09:39
Speaker
But I feel like this, yeah, it's earned, and again, it's so specific and so representative of something that you could only do with this character, in this comic, with this universe, and have it mean what it means.
01:10:00
Speaker
I think that's like one of the most frustrating things about being someone who loves the Marvel Universe or the DC Universe, you know or or any shared universe, really, is that like there's great ideas that you can file the serial numbers off of and tell a great story.
01:10:20
Speaker
you know You can make Supreme. If you're Alan Moore and Rick Veach and Rob, I guess. oh But like, there's other things where it's like, no, this has to be in the Marvel Universe and has to be a Silver Surfer story for this to work.
01:10:41
Speaker
And it does.
Dan Slott's Masterpiece Conclusion
01:10:43
Speaker
And I think it's genuinely beautiful. Yeah. I think this... We talked about She-Hulk, and I really like She-Hulk a lot.
01:10:53
Speaker
i I'm always going to be a fan of that book. Good book. But I think this is the best thing Dan Slott ever wrote. Yeah, no, it's kind of, it like, you called it, when we were texting about it, you called it a masterpiece. it Like, Slott's masterpiece.
01:11:11
Speaker
Yeah. And we talked in our our last installment about the first half of this book. That, like, when I look back on it I'm like, yeah, I actually really, really love everything Slott has written.
01:11:26
Speaker
i think this is objectively the best. yeah Like, I don't know if it's the one that I like the most. There's some really good Batman comics in there that people don't know about.
01:11:37
Speaker
But, buddy, this one sure is objectively the best. And also, like, some of Mike Allred's best work. like We've talked so much about Slot, because i i don't want to give Allred short shrift, but it is very much a thing where it's like, well, yeah, look at it.
01:11:56
Speaker
well it's like it's so like It's beautiful. Yeah, it's there's an element of it where it's just like, well, it's Mike Allred, it's going to look great. you know like And I don't know, it might be already some of Allred's best work, but it's also like...
01:12:15
Speaker
It's not that much better than Ecstatics or Madman or whatever other – anything else Mike Allred has drawn in the past. Yeah, that's true. and and and laura And Laura. like Mike and Laura, yeah. yeah um And yeah, that's that's true, but I still think it's some of his best work ever.
01:12:36
Speaker
Yeah. like I do think it actually – I think it is better than Ecstatics, but you know Ecstatics was already like a 10. Yeah. Right. if If Slot Spider-Man was a 7, this is a 10.
01:12:52
Speaker
You must be forgetting about the Red Goblin. If Ecstatics was a 9, this is a 10. the it's it's the It's the degree of difference that I feel like makes it ah that much...
01:13:10
Speaker
I feel like that's why we need to we have to talk about the slot of it all, because this is just a very good Mike Allred comic, like on the standard of most of Mike Allred's other artwork.
01:13:23
Speaker
This is a real step above Slott's other work, to me. i Again, I do think it is some of Allred's best work,
01:13:37
Speaker
ah but Yeah, like it's, you know, they're always good. um But yeah, it's a, like, start to finish, it's a fucking 10 out of 10, dude.
01:13:51
Speaker
It's uniquely and beautifully good comics that are never not fun comics. Like, even when it's a bummer, it's fun.
01:14:02
Speaker
So my question for you, Matt, is as much as we liked this, Is this top 100 material? I was going to ask the same question.
01:14:15
Speaker
here's like Here's the thing about it, okay? Yeah? 99. Number 99 on the list is Punisher Welcome Back Frank.
01:14:29
Speaker
Yes? So for this to crack the top 10, number 100 is Usagi Ojimbo Circles. that's good that's That's a good-ass comic.
01:14:39
Speaker
So for this to be in the top 100, it has to be better than those.
01:14:48
Speaker
This...
01:14:54
Speaker
Circles is great. Yep.
01:15:00
Speaker
Welcome Back Frank is another perfect comic in a drastically different way. Yeah, right. but But I don't think...
01:15:13
Speaker
I don't think... you know we're we're I mean, we're 25 years removed from Welcome Back Frank at this point. like I don't think Welcome Back Frank holds up as well as I think this is going to hold up. We're 10 years out from this.
01:15:28
Speaker
Yeah, i I would be willing to say this is better than Welcome Back, Frank. Yeah. i think like i I'm looking at stuff on the list. I feel like the thing I was looking at was Flintstones, which we have at 66. Yeah.
01:15:45
Speaker
And it's like, weirdly enough, I feel like those are two, they're kind of very similar books in a way. like At 67, we have No Time Like the Present, the Walt Summons and Fantastic Four issue, where Doom and Reed have a time fight oh where you can read it in you have to read it in page order and then read it again in Reed and Doom's relative chronological order.
01:16:18
Speaker
ah And that's a great comic, too. But it's all it's a great gimmicky comic, and there's great gimmicky issues of this run. Right, yeah.
01:16:31
Speaker
I don't... it's I don't know if it's as clockwork perfect as Pax Americana. And I don't know if it's as good as Hox Pox.
01:16:42
Speaker
I'll tell you exactly where I think it ought to go. if if If this is the part of the list we're looking at.
01:16:50
Speaker
Below Hox Pox...
01:16:54
Speaker
But above those two Mark Russell comics, the Snagglepuss comic and the Flintstones comic. Yeah, I think everything the top 100 is phenomenal.
01:17:07
Speaker
Yeah. But I feel like everything above a Hawksbox is like fucking bulletproof.
01:17:20
Speaker
Pretty much, yeah. i Yeah. I think Hawksbox is ah is ah more perfect unit of comics than this.
01:17:34
Speaker
Yeah. But only just. Only just. so i think this is that You look at what we've got just in the 40s on this list. Daredevil Born Again's number 40. Yeah.
01:17:46
Speaker
Yeah. Robocop vs. Terminator is number 42. That's a correct ranking. It is. It is.
01:17:57
Speaker
ah This is the new number 65. Yeah. it's it If you haven't read this, you should read it. It's really good. Yeah.
01:18:08
Speaker
I'm so glad we did.
01:18:12
Speaker
It's... it's
01:18:16
Speaker
one of the most enjoyable comic reading experiences I've had lately.
01:18:24
Speaker
Yeah. I read, like, i before I came home to record this, I was at a restaurant reading Usagi Yojimbo. I was literally reading Grass Cutter, and there was not a, there wasn't a big drop in quality on on what I came home to talk about. yeah Like, specifically, I think there was maybe like a Like a 30 spot drop in quality.
01:18:49
Speaker
Yeah.
01:18:52
Speaker
Wild stuff. ah Well, look. ah Biscuit's getting restless. Biscuit's getting... She... The dog is fine.
01:19:03
Speaker
i want everybody to know the dog is fine. um But she she is getting restless. Her meds with a spoonful of peanut butter. that's why she's That's why she's grumpy. ah But I think that means that this catch-up has to come to an end, but we did rank Silver Surfer 2014 and 2016 at number 65 on the list, which I think is pretty doggone good.
01:19:29
Speaker
and ah An excellent ranking for an excellent comic book. Yeah. ah I think ah next... Welcome to the top 100, Dan Slott. That's right.
01:19:41
Speaker
I think next, because we both said that we hadn't read it, we have to do the Robin miniseries from 1991. Yeah, alright.
01:19:55
Speaker
So, Robin 1 from 1991... from ninety ninety one About Tim Drake in Paris.
01:20:05
Speaker
That's what we're going to read on the next catch-up. Matt, matt you you know I'll read a Chuck Dixon comic. I've read so many of them. that is This is by ah Chuck Dixon and Tom Lyle, an artist I've been mean to.
01:20:23
Speaker
Why have you been mean to Tom? Tom Lyle, good, man.
01:20:28
Speaker
I was just saying Tom Lyle wasn't as good other artists. I don't know why you would even say that. I think Tom Lyle is was was a good artist. all right by the way By the way, Dan Slott, with this entry, his previous highest entry, at least as far as what I have ah notations for,
01:20:51
Speaker
was number 357. That's about right. Which is She-Hulk, which is a book that we both love. Yeah. Yeah. So, there you go.
01:21:04
Speaker
Yeah. ah All right. We'll see you in July, everybody, ah with Robin1991. In the meantime, ah thanks for listening. If you want to support this show,
01:21:16
Speaker
our comics catch-ups monthly, as well as the weekly War Rocket Ajax show, our monthly Every Story Ever specials, and Movie Fighters and Snack Situation. Go to patreon.com slash warrocketajax and kick in as little as a dollar a month to support all of that and get all of those shows ad-free on the Patreon.
01:21:38
Speaker
warrocketajax.com is our website. it has all of our episodes. warrocketajax.com is also Our Blue Sky handle, go follow us there. On Tumblr, we're warrocketpodcast.tumblr.com You can email us suggestions for catch-up or whatever else by going by emailing us at warrocketpodcast.gmail.com Join our Discord. Ask us for an invitation to our Discord and we will get you one and you can join over there.
01:22:03
Speaker
ah Just hit us up on any of those places I just mentioned. Our email, Blue Sky, Tumblr, wherever. and And ask us for a Discord invitation, and we will provide that to you.
01:22:17
Speaker
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 everybody find you? Everybody can find me by going to the-isb.com.
01:22:28
Speaker
That is my website. It has links to all the stuff that I do.
01:22:34
Speaker
And you can go there and give me money.
01:22:39
Speaker
Bye, everybody. See you next time. Hey, till then. Good catching