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Fourth World Book Club #5 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:00
Tad Eggleston: Recording in progress.
0:02
Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to 22 panels and the 4th World Book Club, where where I try not to embarrass myself while talking about Jack Kirby with Mark Pratt and Sean Harper Road.
0:16
Mark Pracht: There is no embarrassment.
0:18
Tad Eggleston: I mean. Thank you.
0:24
Mark Pracht: I mean I you know, as I do with all my friends, and Shawn will tell you. This is like, you know. I I will always beat a joke to death. So you know.
0:34
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Unfortunately, I promised that I was done with my my joke at your expense at the end of last episode, so I will not bring it back up.
0:45
Tad Eggleston: But you know, if Sean wanted to.
0:51
Mark Pracht: Sean.
0:53
Tad Eggleston: The man, this is
0:57
Mark Pracht: So. Yes, here we are.
1:01
Mark Pracht: What is it? Issue?
1:02
Sean Harklerode: The 4th World.
1:03
Tad Eggleston: Before.
1:04
Mark Pracht: In.
1:04
Tad Eggleston: Our our our 5, th our 5th month in the 4th World.
1:14
Sean Harklerode: So that's.
1:14
Tad Eggleston: Issues, 4 of most things.
1:17
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:18
Mark Pracht: And issue.
1:21
Mark Pracht: What is it of Jimmy Olsen? One.
1:24
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:25
Mark Pracht: 1, 39 where you know like. And I'm going to tell you this is the month where
1:33
Mark Pracht: we meet
1:34
Mark Pracht: the greatest Jack Kirby solo creation. Well, you can't say it's solo, I guess, but greatest Jack Kirby creation of all time, and I think we all know that I'm talking about.
1:51
Mark Pracht: I can't do it. I can't do this, Jim.
1:54
Tad Eggleston: No, I was about to say, if you're trying to sell anything other.
1:56
Mark Pracht: Goody Rickles. Goody Rickles.
2:02
Mark Pracht: this this is this is this moment where you're just like, Oh, DC. Editorial.
2:09
Sean Harklerode: Although Goody Rickles does have great dialogue.
2:13
Mark Pracht: Yeah, he does. I mean, like, clearly.
2:17
Sean Harklerode: Rickles, dialogue.
2:18
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, not quite, not quite as biting as your Don Rickles.
2:26
Sean Harklerode: No.
2:29
Mark Pracht: But I mean he didn't refer to anybody as a hockey. Puck, which I thought was
2:34
Mark Pracht: kind of a missed opportunity.
2:35
Sean Harklerode: Right.
2:36
Mark Pracht: But man, the like. This is this is the height of just like
2:44
Mark Pracht: like, I think there's nothing more indicative of of
2:48
Mark Pracht: what the moment in which these books came out
2:52
Mark Pracht: than this character and this issue, because, like it's, it's like right.
2:59
Mark Pracht: And I may talked about this before. You know how
3:02
Mark Pracht: I think that Jack operated in sort of a much more
3:08
Mark Pracht: innocent sort of viewpoint than what comics was evolving into as the Bronze Age started right
3:14
Mark Pracht: so. And this is just like like this Goody Rickles thing. And we're going to put Don Rickles in a comic book. And you know we did, Bob hope we did, Jerry Lewis. Comics, let's, you know, maybe do a Don Rickles comic. And
3:29
Mark Pracht: it's just this moment where this Silver Age nonsense kind of crashes into the bronze age, and it makes
3:40
Mark Pracht: to me it makes 0 sense. Really.
3:44
Mark Pracht: I mean.
3:45
Mark Pracht: it's I mean, like I, the story wise. It makes some sense. Okay, all right, Morgan Edge wants
3:51
Mark Pracht: Don Rickles on a show. But I was like.
3:54
Mark Pracht: if this this doppelganger of of Don Rickles shows up and you're just like what.
4:05
Tad Eggleston: He works for galaxy some manner.
4:08
Mark Pracht: Yeah. Well, you know, it's just like, I mean.
4:12
Mark Pracht: like the idea that they were like, Okay, well, we can't have Don Rickles put on a superhero suit. Run around and I'm like
4:22
Mark Pracht: you couldn't.
4:26
Mark Pracht: It's just it's it cracks me up. The whole thing cracks me up.
4:32
Sean Harklerode: Well, I I will say this episode, this issue of Jimmy Olsen
4:38
Sean Harklerode: I really enjoyed, and it felt to me like I was reading a triangle Era Superman story, you know, as I love.
4:48
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
4:48
Sean Harklerode: So
4:51
Tad Eggleston: That is my favorite superman era, as well.
4:54
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
4:55
Mark Pracht: I mean, look, I'm making fun of it. I like it's because it's just sort of a a nutso idea right
5:03
Mark Pracht: like. And I can't you? You have to wonder.
5:09
Mark Pracht: You have to wonder what Jack thought, I mean, and I think there's nothing more indicative of the fact that that
5:15
Mark Pracht: of these books right, that Jimmy Olsen is just sort of the book that he's doing
5:23
Mark Pracht: for DC, right? He's putting elements of the 4th world into it. But you know.
5:30
Mark Pracht: you can tell that this was the one where they were like. Well, we'd really like you to be on one of our flagship characters.
5:37
Mark Pracht: and you know, he was like, which Superman book doesn't have a set team.
5:44
Mark Pracht: you know. But then you also get this stuff like, hey? We made a deal with Don Rickles to do comics, can you? Just
5:50
Mark Pracht: what Don Rickles in there.
5:51
Tad Eggleston: Here. Here is my question. Though Jack was in La, and they were still in New York at the time, so did they make the deal, or did he make the deal.
6:01
Mark Pracht: I don't think that Jack Kirby would have been making that deal.
6:05
Tad Eggleston: I mean, not even in the book, that he didn't want to be drawing.
6:09
Mark Pracht: I look, and I wouldn't say that he
6:11
Mark Pracht: I wouldn't say that he didn't want to be drawing. I mean, like I think Jack was wanting to do whatever, however much work that he could to feed his family. I mean, that was, that was the deal right? But it is. It's just.
6:27
Mark Pracht: I don't think that you would have seen
6:30
Mark Pracht: Goody Rickles or Don Rickles show up in miracle, man or or
6:39
Mark Pracht: new gods, or forever. People right?
6:42
Mark Pracht: I think those were his books, and I think that
6:46
Mark Pracht: this smacks of a it smacks of a corporate deal it smacks of of.
6:51
Mark Pracht: you know. You know. DC. Had the Jerry Lewis comic. It had the Bob Hope comic. It smacks of them saying, Oh, could we?
7:00
Mark Pracht: Could we do a Don Rickles comic, you know.
7:04
Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
7:06
Mark Pracht: You know, and the other thing is is like, this was like what 71, 72 like.
7:13
Mark Pracht: If you were looking for a comedian to do a comic book about.
7:19
Mark Pracht: It. Seems like there'd be people a little more.
7:23
Tad Eggleston: Well, and that, and then.
7:24
Mark Pracht: Don Rickles, may I? Maybe I've got.
7:26
Tad Eggleston: Actually that that was actually like part of my Jack theory is the possibility that they could have just like met.
7:35
Tad Eggleston: And then it wasn't actually like
7:40
Tad Eggleston: totally a a a for hire thing as much as a you know.
7:47
Mark Pracht: I don't know.
7:48
Mark Pracht: I don't. I don. Don bought dinner last night and made everybody laugh. And well.
7:57
Mark Pracht: yeah, okay, I mean, like, I could be completely wrong, I could be completely.
8:02
Tad Eggleston: I have no idea. I am literally just riffing Jack. Maybe.
8:06
Mark Pracht: Jack met, met Don Rickles and said, Hey, I could put you in one of my comics, and Don went. That'd be great
8:12
Mark Pracht: right hockey puck
8:16
Mark Pracht: I can't do Don Rickles, but I can say hockey puck a lot.
8:21
Tad Eggleston: But
8:27
Mark Pracht: But
8:29
Mark Pracht: I don't know. It just strikes me as so strange.
8:32
Tad Eggleston: It is. It is incredibly strange which is why I want a stranger story behind it than just
8:40
Tad Eggleston: DC. Decided to. I mean, yes, that's the most likely.
8:45
Tad Eggleston: but it feels like it deserves a stranger story.
8:50
Tad Eggleston: I'm just.
8:50
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
8:51
Tad Eggleston: I'm tired, Mark. I I'm in. I'm an autistic, weird burnout land so like feel free to just tell me to shut up and move on.
9:00
Mark Pracht: No, no, I.
9:02
Sean Harklerode: You know the the fact that inner gang has a giant Mobile Home Headquarters news.
9:17
Mark Pracht: I'm sorry breeding a vulture story about this, and.
9:22
Tad Eggleston: Oh, so there is an answer.
9:26
Mark Pracht: The rickles pitch began, not with Kirby, but with his young assistants, Mark Evenier and Steve Sherman.
9:32
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
9:34
Mark Pracht: Even here recalled the backstory at a 1997 panel at the San Diego Comic. Con. Steve and I at the time were enormous fans of Don Rickles. Like many people at time who are our age, we all went around doing Don Rickles insulting each other. Rickles used to say. I never picked on a little guy. Only pick on big guys. Somehow. This gave us the idea that we should have Don Rickles make a cameo appearance in Jimmy Olsen to insult Superman.
9:58
Mark Pracht: It was going to be like a 3 panel thing. So we wrote out a couple of pages of Don Rickles insults. One of them was, Hey, big boy, where are you from? And Superman says I'm from the planet Krypton, and Rickles says I got jokes for 8 million nationalities. I got to run a hockey, and I got to run into a hockey puck from Krypton.
10:14
Mark Pracht: so we took these out to Jack. Jack was a big fan of rickles, and he says that's great. That's terrific, and of course he's used none of it.
10:22
Mark Pracht: We said. We've got to get permission from Don rickles for this. So Steve contacted Rickles, publicist, and they gave us permission to have Don Rickles do a cameo. Then Jack tells DC. Comics, publisher carmen infantino about it, and Infantino thinks this is great. This is something promotable. It's got to be a 2 issue story arc. So instead of us writing 2 pages, it was. Now, Jack, writing 2 issues.
10:46
Mark Pracht: So okay, you guys, I mean, like, it wasn't necessarily.
10:50
Tad Eggleston: So it's like half and half.
10:53
Mark Pracht: Well, I like, apparently nobody knew Don Rickles so. But but
11:02
Mark Pracht: yeah. But DC, you know, like
11:05
Mark Pracht: they dreamed up doing a 1 1 pager thing. And then DC, was like, Oh, yeah, yeah, Carmine
11:12
Mark Pracht: carmine was like, Yeah, we'll do this anyway.
11:16
Mark Pracht: But no, I I just find I find it all so bizarre, and it's so weird. And it's so.
11:27
Mark Pracht: And it.
11:29
Mark Pracht: I read this much earlier this week. So with the other stuff I've been reading, I may have gotten, but it also felt to me like that whole rickles thing was so kind of outside the rest of the story.
11:42
Mark Pracht: like
11:44
Mark Pracht: they'd be doing the whole story with the Newsboy Legion and the and the Guardian, and all of the revelations there and then
11:52
Mark Pracht: we cut back to Rickles at at galaxy broadcasting.
11:57
Mark Pracht: And I it's just it's so strange.
12:04
Mark Pracht: And those little glasses that Goody Rickles wears are really strange, too.
12:09
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
12:12
Mark Pracht: Anyway.
12:13
Tad Eggleston: That I won't. I won't! I won't argue with.
12:16
Mark Pracht: You know, and the thing about it is is like. The other thing about it
12:20
Mark Pracht: is that Jack wasn't a half bag caricaturist, right
12:24
Mark Pracht: like it does actually look like Don Rickles.
12:31
Mark Pracht: I mean.
12:32
Sean Harklerode: And if it doesn't, it's because it's Goody Rip.
12:36
Mark Pracht: That's right.
12:37
Sean Harklerode: And look exactly.
12:40
Mark Pracht: Well, you know, and and they keep, you know they keep talking about Don Rickles coming, so I'm sure, like I can't remember now. But the next issue I'm sure we have Don meet. Goody.
12:51
Mark Pracht: What a weird name.
12:52
Tad Eggleston: Sounds about right?
12:53
Mark Pracht: Goody, Goody, Rickles.
12:56
Sean Harklerode: And you know I mean, I think there's I haven't read this, but I feel like the success of these books directly led to the creation of Cpo. Shark.
13:08
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
13:12
Sean Harklerode: Which I have the complete set on DVD. If anyone Jesus wants to buy tomorrow the complete Cpo sharky.
13:22
Sean Harklerode: I have that.
13:26
Tad Eggleston: Sounds good.
13:28
Tad Eggleston: Good.
13:29
Tad Eggleston: That's like.
13:30
Mark Pracht: Like. I don't have any idea what you're talking about.
13:33
Tad Eggleston: I'm I'm lost. Now, that's okay.
13:36
Sean Harklerode: Was Rickles Sitcom in the seventies.
13:39
Mark Pracht: Yep.
13:40
Tad Eggleston: See, this is this is gonna be tough.
13:45
Tad Eggleston: terrible, terrible. Talking to a a couple of actors who are way more versed in in historic comedy television film, blah, blah.
13:56
Mark Pracht: Well, and also it should be fair. We're both.
13:58
Sean Harklerode: Like 10 years older than you are. So okay, came on after what's happening.
14:04
Tad Eggleston: I remember what's happening. But don Rickles to me is more of a name than anything else. I didn't even know the hockey puck thing until like.
14:15
Tad Eggleston: whenever the 1st time you did it.
14:17
Mark Pracht: Well, you know the the you know. It was probably
14:24
Mark Pracht: he was the best insult comic that has ever lived right.
14:28
Tad Eggleston: And and that I'm fairly aware of. But but I mean that's the other thing is insult comic. That is like my least favorite kind of comedy.
14:37
Mark Pracht: See. But yeah.
14:38
Mark Pracht: you have to take like his whole act was that he would do these insults, and at the end he would do this really lovely
14:44
Mark Pracht: thing where he would.
14:46
Mark Pracht: you know, you'd be like, we're just here to have a good time, I you know, and that I try to. I try to
14:52
Mark Pracht: hit everyone equally, and that I love all of you, and God bless you all! And blah blah, you know, like there was never any pretense of it not being an act, you know.
15:02
Tad Eggleston: Right.
15:03
Mark Pracht: And.
15:04
Tad Eggleston: Which would probably make me like it more.
15:06
Mark Pracht: And honestly, the man's timing was impeccable
15:13
Mark Pracht: to the very end, cause I saw like very. There was a a
15:18
Mark Pracht: there. I went down a rabbit hole on rickles not long ago, and I was watching like.
15:25
Tad Eggleston: So like 4 days ago, while you were reading.
15:28
Mark Pracht: No, no, no, no, no.
15:30
Mark Pracht: no! This was weeks ago, weeks ago, long before I remembered that this was coming. But
15:38
Mark Pracht: but yeah, no, it's just just like, you know. And
15:43
Mark Pracht: Sean can probably talk about the man's timing was
15:46
Mark Pracht: impeccable. And this is what started. It is that I saw this this Mini documentary. That was about the fact that Don Rickles and Bob Newhart were best friends for life.
15:59
Mark Pracht: Yeah, like, were, you know, and that it couldn't be 2 different comedic tone, you know.
16:14
Mark Pracht: But anyway, that's that's neither here nor there, like. Honestly, I
16:21
Mark Pracht: most of the rest of this issue. I can't even really remember it.
16:27
Tad Eggleston: I almost include the rickles part to to that.
16:34
Sean Harklerode: I. So I guess I'm the
16:38
Sean Harklerode: exception. I I really enjoyed this book. I I even the Morgan Edge
16:48
Sean Harklerode: stuff, and and the the newsboys with Scrapper.
16:52
Tad Eggleston: I I mean, I did think it was kind of fun that the newsboys wound up, being left behind.
16:59
Sean Harklerode: Right.
17:00
Tad Eggleston: Oh no!
17:01
Mark Pracht: Know. I don't want to say that I hated it or anything. I'm just saying that it was a breezy read. I enjoyed it. I, even I, enjoy the the goody rickles stuff. I actually really think that the Guardian is kind of an interesting concept that now that we know he's a.
17:20
Mark Pracht: And this is what I remember now that we know he's a clone of the original
17:26
Mark Pracht: right? You know, all of that stuff is really interesting. But it also was sort of just like, Okay, I breezed right through it.
17:34
Mark Pracht: and
17:38
Mark Pracht: it didn't. It? Didn't you know it didn't strike me as much as as the the 3 other books this this this month.
17:46
Sean Harklerode: And they've got pyrogranulate.
17:53
Sean Harklerode: I sure them just waiting to catch fire. And and that's the cliffhanger.
17:58
Mark Pracht: Yep.
17:59
Sean Harklerode: After they get thrown out of the Mobile home.
18:06
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
18:07
Sean Harklerode: Then headquarters.
18:08
Mark Pracht: The the wonderful thing I really the most wonderful thing about this book really is that it's so like silver age.
18:17
Mark Pracht: you know, and on like on pretentiously. So not, you know.
18:25
Mark Pracht: you know, like a lot of time, you know. I think sometimes when Grant Morrison
18:32
Mark Pracht: goes into is like I'm going to write this like, it's the Silver Age.
18:36
Mark Pracht: Sometimes it gets a little.
18:38
Mark Pracht: Yeah, okay, all right, all right.
18:43
Mark Pracht: But
18:45
Mark Pracht: you know. And I think that this is this, this, more than anything, is probably Jack's outlet. For to really just let that be. I mean, this is, it feels like a kid's book. It feels like a book that's that anybody could pick up and read
19:00
Mark Pracht: But yeah, anyway, yeah, some 10 year old picked it up and like, who's Don Rickles, anyway?
19:13
Mark Pracht: Will the real Don Rickles? Panic.
19:19
Tad Eggleston: You know these did have
19:23
Tad Eggleston: All 4 of them had particularly wordy and fun covers
19:27
Tad Eggleston: that I will give them. I would totally give them that.
19:30
Tad Eggleston: I mean I'll give them other things, too. But but I I noticed that that was that was one of the themes this time is like
19:39
Tad Eggleston: lots. Lots of interesting things on the cover.
19:46
Mark Pracht: Well.
19:47
Sean Harklerode: Which is a Tad pet peeve or something Tad likes. I can't remember.
19:58
Tad Eggleston: it's it can go either way.
20:02
Tad Eggleston: I I don't like it when it feels like it's just there to be there.
20:12
Tad Eggleston: These actually like brought more chuckles to me.
20:20
Tad Eggleston: That then they that then then often particularly the rickles, the forever people and the
20:31
Tad Eggleston: well, no, all of them.
20:33
Mark Pracht: Well, you know, it strikes me as like. You know, the
20:36
Mark Pracht: a lot of people have talked about how
20:41
Mark Pracht: there would be mandates of like
20:44
Mark Pracht: well, Stan Lee talks about this a lot where
20:48
Mark Pracht: he would hear that DC. In the editorial board would be like, oh, you know, they put a lot of words on the covers. We should do a lot of words on the covers.
21:00
Mark Pracht: and then.
21:00
Tad Eggleston: Right.
21:01
Mark Pracht: As soon as Stan heard that he would like
21:04
Mark Pracht: take all the words off the cover. You know all the all the the captions and stuff. And you know it's funny.
21:12
Mark Pracht: All 4 of them very wordy covers.
21:17
Mark Pracht: It strikes me as that might have been somebody from editorial going like you know what you know what, Jack, let's let's put. Let's put some more
21:24
Mark Pracht: blurbage.
21:25
Tad Eggleston: And and I believe that even more because of the specific words, I think whoever was putting the words on the cover was making fun of having words on the cover, I mean, seriously, big bonus big surprise, big Barda, I mean, 1st of all, it's not a surprise if you're going to announce it. Second of all.
21:49
Tad Eggleston: if there was one thing that actually struck me as somewhat incongruous with that issue given, how? Issue 3 ended. It's that we lead off with Barda rather than leading off with Scott in peril. So I almost wonder if they literally rearrange the pages.
22:11
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, it's so hard like, look.
22:18
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it could work either way, so so that that may just be a happy accident. But but, like the text itself, the the Orion's mob and the deep 6 and and now that we've invaded inner gang, how do we get out alive? Find out the hiding place of evil gods. Orion plays the game of evil men, I mean they are so fucking with.
22:44
Mark Pracht: Okay.
22:44
Tad Eggleston: Whoever told them more text.
22:47
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, you know, like I think that it it's so.
22:53
Tad Eggleston: Alienation turns a happy place into hell.
22:58
Tad Eggleston: Kingdom of the damned.
23:00
Tad Eggleston: Be late!
23:01
Tad Eggleston: God, who knows he is and loves it.
23:07
Mark Pracht: You know, I don't know. There's there's actually wait.
23:14
Tad Eggleston: I mean hell, even the bigger and better.
23:17
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
23:19
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah.
23:20
Mark Pracht: Well, you you're talking about the bigger and better the the
23:26
Mark Pracht: the circle. I think that that was they probably took it off for the reprints that we have.
23:34
Mark Pracht: I think that that was a pricing. I think that they had actually increased.
23:40
Tad Eggleston: It's entirely possible.
23:42
Mark Pracht: And and probably pages, you know.
23:44
Tad Eggleston: Right.
23:46
Mark Pracht: But yeah, in any, in any like I think
23:54
Mark Pracht: this this is an extra like, I do think that this particular month is really extraordinary. I think that we have a lot of interesting things going on like
24:04
Mark Pracht: Goody Rickles for all. For all I'm mocking. It is a fun fun fun thing
24:12
Mark Pracht: happy land is in the grand tradition of people mocking the Disney organization, and as much as I.
24:22
Mark Pracht: I have so many mixed feelings about Disney. But I love the parks. I love the parks I always have. But, man, I also, I'm like
24:31
Mark Pracht: on point, got it totally right. The the new gods issue is is solid stuff.
24:43
Mark Pracht: I loved that after we, you know, we're introduced to the the black racer.
24:48
Mark Pracht: and now we finally get to see him doing what he's supposed to do. You know
24:54
Mark Pracht: as the Angel of Death? Essentially, we have the death of a new God, that it would be nice if we'd known who that guy was before it happened. But whatever and then, you know, Orion
25:08
Mark Pracht: sets up this whole game of having a mob thing that.
25:12
Sean Harklerode: You have to.
25:14
Mark Pracht: Like doesn't involve him at all
25:19
Mark Pracht: like it's just like he sends out his little guy, his little human human puppets to to.
25:25
Mark Pracht: And then he just comes in. And then, of course, yeah, you know, Big Barta, which is.
25:32
Mark Pracht: for all my joking, is probably the greatest creation of Jack on his own.
25:39
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
25:40
Mark Pracht: And then, you know, in that story.
25:43
Sean Harklerode: Ever decided to put her in a costume should be horse whipped.
25:50
Mark Pracht: Okay.
25:53
Sean Harklerode: In the words of Oberon.
25:55
Tad Eggleston: Right.
25:55
Sean Harklerode: Yes, yeah. I know.
25:59
Mark Pracht: You know I also love how they talk about how she's wearing the uniform of of Apocalypse.
26:07
Mark Pracht: But no one else wears that outfit.
26:10
Mark Pracht: No one else. I'm like, Okay,
26:14
Tad Eggleston: Well, nobody else is her rank.
26:16
Sean Harklerode: I mean that really to me. I don't know if you've seen. Was it Santa Cruz, University of Santa Cruz, or Santa Clara, that Jack designed the costumes for Julius Caesar.
26:29
Mark Pracht: Yes.
26:31
Sean Harklerode: That's what this reminds me of.
26:33
Mark Pracht: Yeah, absolutely
26:36
Mark Pracht: But I mean again to what you were talking about about the the Mr. Miracle book. And how like we leave off with this cliffhanger, and then we suddenly go to Barda.
26:48
Mark Pracht: You know.
26:51
Mark Pracht: and this is not a criticism of Jack. But I mean it's something that everybody has talked about is like he didn't really have
27:00
Mark Pracht: a linear mind, right?
27:03
Mark Pracht: It was just sort of whatever happened, happened, right?
27:07
Mark Pracht: So it's it seems like from the. From what I've heard from people who knew him.
27:15
Mark Pracht: it might be entirely possible that he started drawing that issue, and totally forgot how he had left Scott.
27:26
Tad Eggleston: Cool.
27:27
Sean Harklerode: No look I to me, to me this makes sense because we haven't met Big Barda yet.
27:35
Mark Pracht: Sure. No. No. No. Yeah.
27:36
Sean Harklerode: So I mean it makes sense to. Meanwhile, back at the ranch overall
27:42
Sean Harklerode: is, you know, meets this crazy woman, and oh, my God she realizes she can save Mr. Miracle. Otherwise now it could have still worked if we'd never met big Barda, and she catches him and.
27:57
Mark Pracht: Right.
27:57
Sean Harklerode: How we meet her right. But no, this. This makes sense to me that.
28:03
Mark Pracht: No, I'm not. I'm not saying.
28:04
Sean Harklerode: Her before she just comes out of you know it's a little less deus ex machina.
28:11
Mark Pracht: I I'm I'm not. I'm not saying that it doesn't work because I do think it works. I'm just saying that what we know of Jack, where he would just be like, Okay, I'm starting.
28:21
Mark Pracht: you know, that he might have been like,
28:28
Mark Pracht: just started drawing, and then got a few page into it, and maybe Mark or Steve were like, Hey Jack,
28:35
Mark Pracht: remember, you had Scott falling through the building. He's like, Oh, yeah, okay, hold on. And then.
28:42
Tad Eggleston: You know. Put it.
28:44
Mark Pracht: Put it back together, you know, in in
28:48
Mark Pracht: editing you know what I'm saying. I mean.
28:50
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
28:51
Mark Pracht: It's not. I'm not saying that it doesn't work because it does work.
28:54
Tad Eggleston: No, it does work.
28:56
Sean Harklerode: Well.
28:56
Tad Eggleston: Just I was really expecting the splash page to be.
29:00
Mark Pracht: Him falling.
29:01
Tad Eggleston: More.
29:02
Mark Pracht: Yeah, cause like the the standard way you would want to do that is, if you like.
29:07
Mark Pracht: And this, this is part of the the
29:13
Mark Pracht: I'm going to say mad genius of Jack Kirby. Right? Is that like the standard way you would want to do that is, you would do the splash page, with Scott falling.
29:24
Sean Harklerode: Which is a magnificent splash rate. By the way.
29:28
Mark Pracht: Yes, yes, and then put a meanwhile, and then go to Barda, arriving.
29:35
Tad Eggleston: Right.
29:35
Mark Pracht: Just that. You're, you know. Every comic is somebody's 1st comic. Right?
29:43
Mark Pracht: So you would want to like establish the the crisis before you, you know.
29:53
Mark Pracht: Does that make sense what I'm saying?
29:55
Tad Eggleston: I guess another reason why. I wonder if they they if it was originally that way.
30:03
Tad Eggleston: is that, like all the titles are on the other splash page.
30:08
Mark Pracht: Hmm.
30:09
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
30:09
Tad Eggleston: It's actually set up the way the normal front splash page would be.
30:14
Sean Harklerode: This is written, drawn, and edited by Jack, because what I was going to say before I caught that was that maybe you know.
30:23
Sean Harklerode: someone at editorial was like, we need to see her first.st
30:27
Sean Harklerode: Okay, these 3 pages were added.
30:30
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
30:31
Mark Pracht: Or or or you know, Jack realized that after like you said like, or Jack realized it, or
30:38
Mark Pracht: you know, it's the bigger and better thing.
30:41
Tad Eggleston: Right.
30:42
Mark Pracht: If, and I haven't been counting pages, but if they did increase the pay the size of the books for like a.
30:49
Tad Eggleston: This is 20, yeah, 22 pages. And and look.
30:57
Mark Pracht: 20. Yeah, they're the same.
31:00
Tad Eggleston: That's not,
31:02
Mark Pracht: That's just market. Speak. But I, you know, like I do think, that.
31:06
Tad Eggleston: They. They made the page itself an 8th of an inch wider.
31:14
Mark Pracht: But I mean, like, I think, that also you. It's it's also sort of like, you know, editing a movie, right? You can change things into any way you want right. But
31:28
Mark Pracht: I think that I think I think
31:33
Mark Pracht: this splash page with Barda is is classic with Oberon like I don't know. Let's just tell it. And here's this ginormous woman.
31:46
Mark Pracht: and then she smacks the shit out of it, which is great. I just love it.
31:50
Sean Harklerode: The mega run. Some are equipped with the boom tube.
31:55
Sean Harklerode: We have the mega.
31:56
Mark Pracht: Mega rod.
31:58
Sean Harklerode: I don't want to touch.
32:01
Mark Pracht: Hey? Man Jack liked big girls.
32:04
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
32:07
Mark Pracht: But yeah, no, I like everything about this is so much fun. I I you know, and the thing about it is, it's like it does
32:14
Mark Pracht: like. It's such comic book logic like you really do feel. And we've talked about this before. It's like jazz, right? Because, like.
32:24
Mark Pracht: you know, he's getting through there and then it's like, Oh,
32:28
Mark Pracht: oh, yeah. There's a movie studio in the building. Is that in this.
32:32
Sean Harklerode: Yes.
32:33
Mark Pracht: And it's like what.
32:35
Tad Eggleston: Very convenient.
32:36
Sean Harklerode: Which which has my my pick for out of context panel of the week.
32:44
Sean Harklerode: The director.
32:46
Sean Harklerode: He's perfect for the part. He'll die with superb realism.
32:51
Sean Harklerode: And Mr. Miracles thought a paranoid director. And actors, how bad can things get.
32:58
Mark Pracht: That's.
33:00
Sean Harklerode: That's the panel I need.
33:02
Mark Pracht: Well, we all know that.
33:05
Mark Pracht: But yeah, no like you know it. I just
33:11
Mark Pracht: yeah. It's like, what are they in 30 Rockefeller Center or something. I.
33:15
Tad Eggleston: You know clearly.
33:17
Mark Pracht: And and all of the props are actually deadly torture devices. They're not props.
33:26
Sean Harklerode: Do you know I.
33:28
Tad Eggleston: I mean they were on a budget. It was easier to find the warehouse of real deadly torture devices than to hire a prop master.
33:42
Sean Harklerode: Sure.
33:43
Tad Eggleston: I thought you understood theater.
33:46
Sean Harklerode: Looking at this and and just going forward. The next few issues
33:53
Sean Harklerode: looks like Jack's developed a 2 splash page.
34:01
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
34:01
Sean Harklerode: Sort of convention where 3, there's a splash page, and then 2 more pages, and then another splash page, and
34:08
Sean Harklerode: that feels to me like he's aping the teaser before.
34:14
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
34:14
Sean Harklerode: Credit.
34:15
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
34:15
Sean Harklerode: Of a tower show.
34:17
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
34:17
Tad Eggleston: He's he's he's watching he's starting to watch.
34:20
Sean Harklerode: Star trek, yeah, or.
34:23
Tad Eggleston: Hmm.
34:24
Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I mean, it's like the the teaser before the episode starts.
34:30
Mark Pracht: Yeah. I mean the what the one thing we don't have here is the double page spread that
34:36
Mark Pracht: that he has been using a lot.
34:40
Mark Pracht: The prior issues.
34:43
Tad Eggleston: Give them time.
34:44
Tad Eggleston: He'll eventually realize that if he does, all 3 of those things.
34:49
Mark Pracht: Then he's got 4 pages, drawing 3 images.
34:54
Tad Eggleston: Right.
34:56
Mark Pracht: I did, you know, like
35:00
Mark Pracht: the one thing I the one thing about this book that I think really brings one of the
35:06
Mark Pracht: one of the
35:12
Mark Pracht: I think what I would call missed opportunity of Mr. Miracle right is that
35:20
Mark Pracht: he's a super escape artist got it, but
35:25
Mark Pracht: he never really seen he. He doesn't really seem to have the skills of an escape artist. He just has
35:32
Mark Pracht: this.
35:33
Tad Eggleston: A mother box.
35:35
Mark Pracht: He has a mother box or other new Apocalypse, or Apocalypse, or new Genesis
35:41
Mark Pracht: technology that allows him to just, you know.
35:46
Mark Pracht: get out of things. I mean, like the laser beam that cuts through the box and he slides out. I'm like, Okay, all right, got it.
35:53
Mark Pracht: But like the same thing is used to
35:57
Mark Pracht: break out the back of the the the
36:03
Mark Pracht: Oh, what is it?
36:05
Mark Pracht: The the hell is the name of that thing
36:19
Mark Pracht: the God! What the hell do they call that thing? My brain just stopped.
36:25
Sean Harklerode: What what thing?
36:27
Mark Pracht: The.
36:30
Tad Eggleston: The bloody Mary, the.
36:32
Mark Pracht: No, no.
36:32
Sean Harklerode: Oh, yeah.
36:34
Mark Pracht: Iron Maiden, Iron.
36:35
Tad Eggleston: Iron Maiden.
36:36
Sean Harklerode: Wow! I how you would forget the words I.
36:40
Mark Pracht: Iron Maiden.
36:41
Sean Harklerode: Is beyond me.
36:45
Mark Pracht: I was alone.
36:47
Mark Pracht: My mind was blank.
36:50
Mark Pracht: Anyway. But I mean, you know, like
36:56
Mark Pracht: he, what we see later on is like the entire back of the Iron Maiden like disintegrates. But no one seems to notice that.
37:07
Mark Pracht: I just I think
37:09
Mark Pracht: you know. And it's a comic book like this is stuff that I is. It's nitpicky, and it's it's not embracing
37:20
Mark Pracht: the tone or the nature of these books, but it's also things that I do. I sit there and I go. You know I would like to see.
37:28
Mark Pracht: It would be really, it would be super cool to have somebody like Storanco do this, who actually did these things and be like, okay, this is how you would do that.
37:39
Mark Pracht: Instead of just pulling out the mother box
37:43
Mark Pracht: and and making something happen. You know
37:46
Mark Pracht: it. I don't know if that's fair. That's not fair, but but you know.
37:56
Tad Eggleston: It's not fair, but it's true.
38:00
Sean Harklerode: It's it's intact when when Barda opens it, the Iron Maiden, when she opens it. Yeah.
38:15
Mark Pracht: But that's when we see him. How he got out of it.
38:18
Sean Harklerode: Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh! Oh!
38:20
Mark Pracht: He like disintegrated the whole back of the thing.
38:23
Sean Harklerode: Right.
38:24
Mark Pracht: And then she opens it, and it's.
38:26
Sean Harklerode: Oh, okay. Alright. Right? Yeah.
38:28
Mark Pracht: It. It's a cheat, Sean. He's cheating. Jack is cheating.
38:34
Tad Eggleston: Ever.
38:35
Mark Pracht: Anyway.
38:37
Mark Pracht: But you know, whatever it it's.
38:39
Tad Eggleston: That doesn't sound like the Kirby. I.
38:42
Mark Pracht: Well, quite honestly. Let's let's also like again, from what I've read about Jack. When he drew her opening
38:51
Mark Pracht: the Iron Maiden, he may not have known how he was. Gonna get out of it, you know.
38:58
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah, but but also Jack work facts. So let's let's let's be honest, he he!
39:09
Tad Eggleston: I don't know if I like to use the word cheat specifically. But there are definitely people who would say that he would use cheats, because.
39:17
Tad Eggleston: you know, it's easier to show him blowing the back out of it than to like, do some complicated.
39:24
Tad Eggleston: full, full page 8. Panel.
39:27
Mark Pracht: No, I mean, and it's it's 100, you know.
39:30
Mark Pracht: It's it's it's no different than
39:35
Mark Pracht: you know. The the movie serials in the the forties.
39:39
Tad Eggleston: Right.
39:39
Mark Pracht: Where you would end the the Cliffhanger would be the car going over the the cliff.
39:45
Mark Pracht: And then when you came back to next week
39:48
Mark Pracht: you the same angle. But you would see the guy get out of the car, you know, and it's like, Okay.
39:54
Mark Pracht: like, that's a cheat. But it works. Let's just go roll with it, I mean, and that's.
40:00
Tad Eggleston: Right.
40:00
Mark Pracht: That's that is a lot of what you have to do with. Jack is just roll with it.
40:06
Mark Pracht: But you know the thing about it is.
40:12
Mark Pracht: And it's funny as we're we're now 4 months.
40:16
Mark Pracht: What? 5.
40:17
Mark Pracht: Now, I guess we're 5 5
40:21
Mark Pracht: with the the multiple. You know, this is our 5.th This is our 5th episode, right?
40:27
Mark Pracht: So
40:35
Mark Pracht: part of part of what is frustrating. You know, when we started this, I always said that I thought that that other people use these characters
40:44
Mark Pracht: more interestingly than Jack did. Jack set up a lot of stuff.
40:50
Mark Pracht: But yeah, like I
40:55
Mark Pracht: reading these, I was like these. This was actually a really really good month for Jack. They were all really solid books.
41:04
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
41:04
Mark Pracht: I keep waiting for?
41:06
Mark Pracht: When are we going to move the ball down the field for this anti-life thing?
41:11
Mark Pracht: They do a little bit in forever. People, you know, but not.
41:19
Mark Pracht: There's a lot of shucking and jiving going on, you know, it's like, Okay.
41:23
Mark Pracht: yeah, right? We'll talk about this. And like, we're looking for this one person that's going to have the answer to the anti-life equation that it lives on earth. We don't know who it is. Who? What is it? And and
41:40
Mark Pracht: And you know I do. I do sit there and I go like, Okay, okay, what? What are you getting at Jack, you know, and
41:51
Mark Pracht: and certainly that is not.
41:54
Mark Pracht: That doesn't take away from them as reading experiences which I really I like. I said this month I dug all of them.
42:02
Sean Harklerode: Thought this was the best month, so far.
42:05
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, and you know, to jump around like that. The this, you know.
42:18
Mark Pracht: I don't remember when they first, st when Marvel 1st introduced murder, world, or arcade.
42:25
Mark Pracht: But you know.
42:27
Tad Eggleston: I thought we looked that up last time, and it was similar.
42:32
Mark Pracht: Might have been, cause, you know I also don't. I don't have any.
42:40
Mark Pracht: you know. I think it's very clear that there were ideas floating around that, you know.
42:47
Mark Pracht: man, thing and swamp thing were real close to each other.
42:51
Mark Pracht: I would not put it past anybody to be like they're doing some sort of swamp monster. Oh, let's do a swamp monster, you know. Oh, let's do a killer killer, you know. Amusement park?
43:09
Mark Pracht: but yeah. But to what Sean was talking about like forever. People has that same thing. There's the big.
43:16
Mark Pracht: He does have the. He has the splash. Page 2 page spread.
43:21
Sean Harklerode: Urban World 1st appeared in 77.
43:25
Mark Pracht: They stole it! It's happy land!
43:29
Mark Pracht: But you know this forever, people, we've got a splash page, a double page, splash!
43:37
Mark Pracht: Then 2 pages after that, another splash page with the title and the credits and everything.
43:44
Mark Pracht: So
43:49
Mark Pracht: yeah, I think it's very much what Sean is talking about. It's it's the teaser. And then we're into the episode, you know.
43:55
Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
43:58
Mark Pracht: But yeah, look. And the one thing I will say about this forever. People
44:03
Mark Pracht: man like in a lot of ways. This thing is horrifying
44:07
Mark Pracht: like this is this, is this, this book, like the imagery, is really disturbing at times.
44:17
Mark Pracht: like that first, st that 1st flash page.
44:22
Sean Harklerode: The kingdom of the damned.
44:24
Mark Pracht: Yeah. And you're just like, Wow, you know.
44:29
Mark Pracht: And it's it's, you know. And it's so clearly modeled on on Disneyland, you know.
44:37
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
44:37
Mark Pracht: And got you gotta wonder.
44:44
Mark Pracht: Did Jack hate Walt that much?
44:50
Tad Eggleston: I mean.
44:51
Mark Pracht: But yeah, I mean, like, in the way they like
44:58
Mark Pracht: this whole thing where decides trying to kill the mother box. That's just really intense.
45:06
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
45:08
Mark Pracht: And I I love how dark side is just like
45:14
Mark Pracht: call me when you have some like. I don't care about just torturing people.
45:18
Sean Harklerode: That's right.
45:23
Sean Harklerode: Also, I there's something about dark side just walking around the park.
45:28
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
45:29
Sean Harklerode: That I there's his physicality. It's
45:34
Sean Harklerode: it just kind of cracks me up.
45:36
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
45:37
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
45:38
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
45:38
Sean Harklerode: I like it, and when he's talking to Grandpa
45:44
Sean Harklerode: Which there is a very kind of I don't know. Deep moment.
45:52
Sean Harklerode: and still the cosmic joke escapes him, for how can he cope with me
45:57
Sean Harklerode: by shunning me? His other face.
46:01
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
46:02
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
46:04
Sean Harklerode: So he's he's a shadow of humanity right?
46:07
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I think I do think that this is part, you know.
46:12
Mark Pracht: and this is part of the concept. And I do think it's really interesting is that you know they're the new gods right, and that gods by their very nature are
46:22
Mark Pracht: really when you, when you deal with a Pantheon. Right? If you're not. If you're a monotheist system, right?
46:31
Mark Pracht: Each god is a facet of humanity, right?
46:37
Mark Pracht: And like.
46:40
Mark Pracht: Of course, Darkside is the other face right?
46:45
Sean Harklerode: Right.
46:46
Mark Pracht: Every one of us have a high father and have a dark side within us. Right?
46:51
Mark Pracht: We have a Zeus, and we have a Hades. We have a you know, it's like, and
46:57
Mark Pracht: I do think, you know. And you know there's a lot of people who say that Lucas stole all of this stuff from Jack. And I'm like, Okay, all right. But
47:07
Mark Pracht: it's also just so.
47:09
Tad Eggleston: Those those people haven't read Joseph Campbell.
47:11
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, like, that's what it is.
47:13
Tad Eggleston: Or or or watched Kurosawa, or.
47:16
Mark Pracht: Right.
47:18
Mark Pracht: and the thing is is like the one thing that I can really say about Jack Kirby is that he
47:24
Mark Pracht: clearly read a lot of stuff, and you know, cause like
47:31
Mark Pracht: when he did the eternals it was all the hot rods of the god stuff. And and
47:38
Mark Pracht: you know this like this
47:41
Mark Pracht: is obviously somebody who's read Joseph Campbell, you know it's just so clear. And it's so.
47:51
Mark Pracht: It's it's messy right.
47:57
Tad Eggleston: Could be the sleep, deprivation.
47:59
Mark Pracht: Could be.
48:00
Mark Pracht: I mean, like like that is, that is a hundred percent true, like, you know, he's up all night drawing
48:08
Mark Pracht: in the dungeon they're in. They're in Los Angeles. So
48:13
Mark Pracht: he's actually working on the main floor. But you know, it's
48:22
Mark Pracht: you have somebody who has ideas, lots of ideas, and they're they're ideas that are are
48:30
Mark Pracht: emblematic. And they're very, very prime, right?
48:39
Mark Pracht: But then you also have somebody that is just erupting with energy.
48:47
Mark Pracht: and I don't think he wants to slow down
48:51
Mark Pracht: right. He wants to get to the next thing
48:55
Mark Pracht: and what it what becomes a little frustrating as a reader.
49:01
Mark Pracht: And I think is part of what
49:07
Mark Pracht: I swear to God we're going to do an episode of this thing where I don't talk about Stan, but I think it's what Stan was really good at with him, was saying, no, we need to slow down, and we need to explore this idea right
49:22
Mark Pracht: and not just go on to the next thing.
49:26
Mark Pracht: or he would do that through his his dialogue and and captions. Right?
49:36
Mark Pracht: But like, and what
49:38
Mark Pracht: Sean just pointed out like it is. It is an amazing and primal moment. I think that whole scene where he goes out into the park, and he talks to that old man and his granddaughter
49:50
Mark Pracht: is.
49:53
Mark Pracht: It's it's the sort of thing that not a lot of people working in comics at that time
50:01
Mark Pracht: would have done right to bring a character that is, that
50:12
Mark Pracht: unambiguously evil
50:14
Mark Pracht: and huge and powerful and just, has a presence like the character, has a presence. You can't, you can't deny it right? And just say, let's put him
50:24
Mark Pracht: just with normal people. And what happens.
50:31
Tad Eggleston: I mean.
50:32
Mark Pracht: And like his underlings. I don't think I don't think you could ever see any of his underlings doing this like the Saad wouldn't have done that.
50:40
Tad Eggleston: Right.
50:42
Mark Pracht: It's fascinating, I think.
50:44
Mark Pracht: You know.
50:45
Mark Pracht: That's part of me, you know.
50:49
Mark Pracht: I suggested this.
50:51
Mark Pracht: I suggested this whole process that we're going through right now
50:54
Mark Pracht: for these kind of moments, because, like I said, when I read it before, I tried to go through it really fast, and it it
51:02
Mark Pracht: blew my mind and and burned out things. But like, when you go through slowly and you see what's going on in each issue
51:11
Mark Pracht: concurrently, like, it's fascinating. And I, yeah.
51:18
Mark Pracht: But yeah.
51:26
Mark Pracht: I yeah, I think that.
51:29
Mark Pracht: And these death traps, they're not even death traps. They're just torture devices that decide puts these kids into. I'm going to call the forever people the kids, because I like that.
51:41
Mark Pracht: You know.
51:44
Mark Pracht: And I think that there's there's certain elements of society that Jack is seeing here like a beautiful dreamer
51:56
Mark Pracht: being behind that glass wall, and it's like you can win a thousand dollars if you say the right thing to wake her up. And it's like, Wow, that is that is actually saying something about
52:08
Mark Pracht: women
52:09
Mark Pracht: in society that is really fascinating, like, if you're the one that can say the right thing. Then you'll win right.
52:18
Mark Pracht: And she's just laying there helpless, right?
52:23
Mark Pracht: And and I think that that is
52:27
Mark Pracht: that is fascinating in an exploitation sort of view, and then, like the most horrifying thing to me.
52:34
Mark Pracht: is what they do to to Seraphin.
52:41
Mark Pracht: where he's got a you know, making him responsible for somebody else's life, and and you know, and
52:54
Mark Pracht: what's fascinating is when you take that cowboy hat off of him
52:57
Mark Pracht: the way Jack draws him. He looks like a child, right?
53:02
Mark Pracht: And it's like man.
53:06
Mark Pracht: It's incredible.
53:07
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
53:09
Sean Harklerode: back to beautiful dreamer, the the thing about her predicament. It looks like she sees monsters. So it looks like the machine is working 2 ways.
53:18
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
53:19
Sean Harklerode: Illusion is working both ways, which doesn't seem to be happening in the other.
53:24
Mark Pracht: Okay.
53:24
Sean Harklerode: Says so that she's terrified. I I was wondering if
53:31
Sean Harklerode: you know, is this a way to solicit the the anti-life equation? If if is that the right word? What's the right word
53:40
Sean Harklerode: to to wake her up?
53:43
Mark Pracht: Right
53:47
Mark Pracht: well, and then, you know, then we get to the last page and.
53:53
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
53:57
Mark Pracht: well, you know what. And here's the other thing. This is the 1st issue of this book where we don't see the infinity man.
54:08
Mark Pracht: They don't. They don't.
54:10
Mark Pracht: They don't do their, you know, Captain Planet stuff.
54:13
Sean Harklerode: Because they're they're separated, I guess.
54:15
Mark Pracht: They're separated, and they don't have the mother box
54:19
Mark Pracht: because it's gone off. And it's talking to Sonny Sumo, which is
54:25
Mark Pracht: it's it's product of its time.
54:28
Sean Harklerode: Yeah, but.
54:31
Mark Pracht: Although I remember that character is pretty awesome.
54:39
Mark Pracht: But yeah, no, I 100% the best issue of forever people, so far.
54:48
Mark Pracht: And I honestly, I think I think that part of the reason that it is is because of getting rid of the infinity man gimmick
54:56
Mark Pracht: right?
54:58
Mark Pracht: Because I I think that is the least interesting part of it. Right? I would rather see these kids
55:05
Mark Pracht: deal with these issues on their own, you know, rather than
55:09
Mark Pracht: right talking about deus ex machina, you know, like.
55:14
Mark Pracht: come on, kids, let's make the voltron robot, you know.
55:19
Sean Harklerode: And and interesting again to go back to beautiful dreamer, that
55:25
Sean Harklerode: the illusion makes her a blonde when she's Sleeping Beauty.
55:29
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
55:31
Sean Harklerode: I mean, there's a lot of statements in that in that predicament.
55:37
Mark Pracht: Yes.
55:38
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and I think it's also like.
55:44
Mark Pracht: I mean, we talk about, you know. The bear, you know.
55:51
Mark Pracht: you know the the thing that was on. It was an online thing for a while. Like, if women ask.
55:58
Mark Pracht: Yeah, would you choose the to? If you're walking alone in the woods. Would you rather come across a bear or a man? And many of them choose a bear? But I mean, I think also, that goes into what we see there, where she sees the monsters outside. Everybody wants something. Everybody wants
56:18
Mark Pracht: to consume her right.
56:20
Mark Pracht: And I think that's that's awesome. I mean like, it's not all you.
56:25
Mark Pracht: The the storytelling element is awesome. Not not that people want to consume it.
56:35
Mark Pracht: Let's not take. Let's not take that out of context, Internet.
56:41
Mark Pracht: you know. And I think that you know. And and there is this, there is this L, there's this thing about Jack is that he clearly
56:50
Mark Pracht: had very strong views about.
56:54
Mark Pracht: I'm not even going to say that I think he was a progressive minded person, but I think he had very strong views about fairness, right?
57:01
Mark Pracht: And I think that that is inherent in his work.
57:10
Mark Pracht: and I think it comes across in his work in almost almost
57:22
Mark Pracht: subtextual ways, you know. Like like I don't.
57:26
Mark Pracht: I would I would. I would argue that all of this stuff that we're seeing in this moment in this scene with beautiful Dreamer.
57:34
Mark Pracht: If you ask Jack about it.
57:36
Mark Pracht: he'd probably be like, I just thought it'd be good to draw some monsters there, or something, you know, and it's like
57:41
Mark Pracht: the the deeper meaning of it
57:46
Mark Pracht: would not even have been something that he was consciously thinking about, but that that is still there
57:54
Mark Pracht: because of his inherent mindset.
57:57
Sean Harklerode: Is that? Am I talking on my ass? I usually am sorry. No, I should let.
58:01
Tad Eggleston: It may.
58:02
Mark Pracht: I need to let somebody I need to let somebody else talk. I talk way too much in this thing.
58:09
Tad Eggleston: But that means I have to have words.
58:13
Sean Harklerode: Use your words.
58:16
Tad Eggleston: Which words.
58:17
Mark Pracht: Ted, Ted, you can't. You can't set up a joke like that. You can't set up to for me to revisit the joke.
58:27
Mark Pracht: You can't. You can't
58:34
Mark Pracht: see. I am the living embodiment of what you said. The words don't matter. They just keep.
58:42
Tad Eggleston: I think the words do matter.
58:44
Mark Pracht: I I know you do, Ted. I just.
58:50
Tad Eggleston: It's not always.
58:50
Mark Pracht: I tease, I tease, cause I love.
58:54
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, just not always with Kirby. Sometimes Kirby's words are.
58:57
Mark Pracht: You know. Sometimes.
58:58
Tad Eggleston: So that's.
58:59
Mark Pracht: I think I think that a lot of times he's just putting in stuff.
59:03
Tad Eggleston: Right.
59:04
Mark Pracht: That. Yeah.
59:08
Mark Pracht: like, quite honestly, like this whole beautiful dreamer sequence. Like, if it was just the
59:15
Mark Pracht: you could remove a lot of
59:18
Mark Pracht: a lot of it. You could take out a lot.
59:20
Tad Eggleston: I wonder if there was ever a moment
59:24
Tad Eggleston: I mean because I have a feeling that he worked marvel style, even when he was going solo where he drew it all, and then filled in
59:32
Tad Eggleston: all of the dialogue and any of the exposition.
59:35
Mark Pracht: I think I think it's not even that. I think that he was writing in dialogue as he drew.
59:40
Tad Eggleston: That's possible, too.
59:43
Mark Pracht: Because so I wonder.
59:44
Tad Eggleston: If there was ever a moment where he was like
59:48
Tad Eggleston: God damn it, Stan's right. This is kind of hard, and then and then completely put that out of his head, because like to admit that out loud to anybody else.
59:58
Sean Harklerode: Cool.
59:58
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, it's not something he would ever do.
1:00:02
Mark Pracht: Yeah, no, I think that at that point he definitely couldn't do that.
1:00:05
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:00:06
Mark Pracht: But I mean and I still maintain this. I still maintain this, that a lot of this reads like somebody trying to write like, stand.
1:00:16
Mark Pracht: Yeah, the the hip, the hip, catchy dialogue, the the
1:00:24
Mark Pracht: the self promotional stuff, you know. Yeah, you know, Kirby said.
1:00:29
Tad Eggleston: I mean, and that's that's.
1:00:30
Mark Pracht: I had that kind of stuff and.
1:00:31
Tad Eggleston: And that's actually one of the things that that makes me laugh the most is that oftentimes I feel like he.
1:00:39
Tad Eggleston: the parts of Stan that he copied. The most are the parts of Stan that I like the least.
1:00:45
Tad Eggleston: It's like dude. You're not even taking the right parts.
1:00:50
Mark Pracht: Right.
1:00:56
Tad Eggleston: Oh, man!
1:00:57
Mark Pracht: I mean, okay.
1:00:59
Mark Pracht: we've talked just to keep us moving through the books. So now we've gotten to new gods.
1:01:05
Mark Pracht: which I do think has one of the greatest
1:01:10
Mark Pracht: dark side splash pages of all time, which would be page 10.
1:01:19
Mark Pracht: The lurking dark side.
1:01:20
Sean Harklerode: Yes, great page, I'm turning to it. But I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah.
1:01:27
Mark Pracht: Well, you know, and here again, here again it's splash! Page, double page. Spread
1:01:35
Mark Pracht: 4 panel page, splash page, like he's certainly got a formula now.
1:01:40
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:01:41
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:01:42
Sean Harklerode: That is Darkside's only appearance in the book.
1:01:45
Mark Pracht: Yes.
1:01:48
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, if you're only gonna have him in one page.
1:01:51
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:01:51
Mark Pracht: You might as well make it a splash page, and you might as well make it that good, you know.
1:01:55
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
1:02:00
Tad Eggleston: So, you know, I just I just noticed something like with both Darkside and Orion and Mr. Miracle.
1:02:10
Tad Eggleston: Even in making these great character designs. He! He set it up so he didn't have to draw faces.
1:02:20
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, sure.
1:02:21
Tad Eggleston: And and and and like even
1:02:25
Tad Eggleston: to to not only not draw faces, but like
1:02:31
Tad Eggleston: I mean. Obviously he could draw faces, because, like this particular. This particular dark side has
1:02:39
Tad Eggleston: some serious facial detail going on.
1:02:42
Mark Pracht: But like I think I think that.
1:02:45
Tad Eggleston: But he made them all that similar similar oval shaped.
1:02:52
Tad Eggleston: You know Mr. Miracle was a full oval, the other, the other ones are are the domed helmets like.
1:02:59
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
1:02:59
Tad Eggleston: Couple of defining details.
1:03:01
Mark Pracht: I think I think that there's so much about Kirby that you can say
1:03:07
Mark Pracht: he didn't do that because he couldn't do that.
1:03:09
Mark Pracht: He did that because he needed to get out what it.
1:03:15
Tad Eggleston: But all.
1:03:16
Mark Pracht: 88 pages of artwork in a month, you know.
1:03:18
Tad Eggleston: But but also I want to give him a mad props for like thinking about it in the character design, stage.
1:03:27
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah.
1:03:27
Tad Eggleston: He didn't get sloppy.
1:03:30
Tad Eggleston: He designed characters that he could then run quickly with.
1:03:37
Tad Eggleston: Though, as I turned the page to page 11 I also
1:03:45
Tad Eggleston: he he! Kinda he kinda misplaced the head on on
1:03:50
Tad Eggleston: one of the panels, the the close up on the guy while he's talking about scaring John Wayne makes him look like a hunchback.
1:04:01
Tad Eggleston: Right? Well, he's old Ted.
1:04:05
Mark Pracht: But he's old.
1:04:07
Tad Eggleston: Well, yeah, but he's not a hunchback in the 2 previous pages.
1:04:13
Tad Eggleston: Well, he is.
1:04:14
Mark Pracht: Sitting down.
1:04:14
Tad Eggleston: But 2, that 2 previous panels.
1:04:16
Mark Pracht: That's from the perspective of the the pi guy, looking down at him as he's sitting in a in a chair, and he's looking up like this. See? See.
1:04:28
Mark Pracht: send me my! No prize. No
1:04:33
Tad Eggleston: I think you're pushing it.
1:04:34
Tad Eggleston: It almost looks like he drew the chair behind him. And this is this is where I'll give
1:04:40
Tad Eggleston: a possibility it could be Coletta and the colorist.
1:04:47
Mark Pracht: Wait. You're saying that you're saying that Vinnie Coletta may have removed some things from the art.
1:04:52
Tad Eggleston: No, no, I don't think he removed it.
1:04:54
Mark Pracht: No, no.
1:04:55
Tad Eggleston: I think, he accidentally added, things.
1:04:59
Mark Pracht: Well, I would say
1:05:02
Sean Harklerode: What are we talking about? Where, what.
1:05:04
Mark Pracht: Page 11
1:05:07
Tad Eggleston: Page 11.
1:05:08
Mark Pracht: Second row. Ride side. The. But yeah.
1:05:13
Tad Eggleston: That's what I thought, but I.
1:05:15
Mark Pracht: That's, I think that, like it's.
1:05:20
Mark Pracht: it's 100% possible that Jack may have drawn a chair behind him. So.
1:05:28
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:05:28
Mark Pracht: What I'm saying, where he's right chair, and then.
1:05:32
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:05:32
Mark Pracht: Was like, oh, we don't need that.
1:05:34
Tad Eggleston: He is sitting in the chair in the other 2 panels. Right? So so the more I look at it the more I realize that probably what happened was Jack drew a chair.
1:05:44
Tad Eggleston: and it got turned into the guy's suit.
1:05:49
Sean Harklerode: Right? Yeah, you can see that.
1:05:53
Mark Pracht: Actually, you know what it almost does look like that. It looks like.
1:05:55
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:05:56
Mark Pracht: Because there's like a line.
1:05:58
Tad Eggleston: Yep, the closer I look, the more I see it.
1:06:01
Mark Pracht: Anyway. I mean.
1:06:03
Mark Pracht: there is another weird art moment in here that I almost feel like, because you, when when we're reading Jimmy Olsen like at this point, like, it's just obvious. None of those superman heads were drawn by Kirby right
1:06:18
Mark Pracht: or the Jimmy Olsen. You know the editorial.
1:06:21
Tad Eggleston: Apparently that also happens to Alex Toth with super friends.
1:06:27
Tad Eggleston: Kurt Swan did the the superman head.
1:06:30
Mark Pracht: Page 18, let's see, is that 18.
1:06:37
Tad Eggleston: It's a 4 panel with the fishing rod.
1:06:40
Mark Pracht: Yeah, with the girl on the upper right, the 4 panel.
1:06:46
Mark Pracht: not the fishing rod, the
1:06:50
Mark Pracht: That face does not look like a Kirby face to me.
1:06:57
Tad Eggleston: So page 17.
1:07:00
Tad Eggleston: Is it only one panel across the top.
1:07:03
Mark Pracht: No, it's 4 panels. Here, hold on.
1:07:06
Tad Eggleston: Oh, 1616 16. Sorry. Yeah, I wasn't wearing my reading glasses. So
1:07:14
Mark Pracht: I mean, I can sort.
1:07:16
Sean Harklerode: Where she's driving over the steering wheel when she's touching the.
1:07:20
Mark Pracht: Touching the the.
1:07:21
Sean Harklerode: Yes.
1:07:22
Mark Pracht: Magic Mother Box, Stuff.
1:07:25
Tad Eggleston: Right, while opening the door.
1:07:27
Mark Pracht: When I was when I was reading it, I.
1:07:29
Tad Eggleston: And then she's on the other side of the car.
1:07:35
Sean Harklerode: She's getting out the passenger side.
1:07:38
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Well, the guys, when she gassed all those guys, they fell against the driver's side door, so she had to get out like a semi.
1:07:46
Tad Eggleston: Accept that, except that if you look carefully.
1:07:49
Tad Eggleston: the guy is on the driver's side, and somehow on the passenger side, in the last panel.
1:07:57
Mark Pracht: Logic. Don't know.
1:08:01
Sean Harklerode: That that base, that that's a
1:08:05
Sean Harklerode: to me. That's a that's a romance book. Base.
1:08:09
Mark Pracht: Yeah. But like, even when I look.
1:08:12
Tad Eggleston: It reminded me of some of his Sioux storms, though.
1:08:15
Mark Pracht: I I don't know. Like look
1:08:20
Mark Pracht: One thing that people have always said is that, Jack?
1:08:23
Mark Pracht: I always had a hard time drawing beautiful women right like
1:08:33
Mark Pracht: I don't know. That looks like maybe Vinnie had given gave her some eyelashes and stuff because it kind. It looks like this. It's the shape of a curvy face. But
1:08:47
Tad Eggleston: But not the makeup of a scurvy face.
1:08:49
Mark Pracht: Yeah. And like, actually, on page 17, the page across the top that that face looks awfully odd.
1:08:56
Tad Eggleston: Yes.
1:09:01
Mark Pracht: I mean, you know.
1:09:03
Tad Eggleston: But I'm still kind of.
1:09:04
Mark Pracht: Everything Kirby Drew seemed chiseled out of stone, and that's.
1:09:08
Tad Eggleston: I'm I'm I'm still caught on the the oh, wait a minute! Wait a minute. Hold on! I know how it makes sense.
1:09:15
Tad Eggleston: That is the back of the car.
1:09:24
Sean Harklerode: Oh, yeah, they are in the back of the car. They are behind.
1:09:26
Tad Eggleston: That is the back of the car. She's looking out the back window.
1:09:31
Tad Eggleston: I'm just not aware of a car that has a a grill quite like that on its trunk.
1:09:39
Tad Eggleston: which doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I don't know my cars very well.
1:09:45
Mark Pracht: And don't ask these questions.
1:09:48
Mark Pracht: Just flow, flow. It's jazz flow.
1:09:53
Tad Eggleston: I'm trying. I'm trying. That's I try so hard
1:09:57
Tad Eggleston: my plan. With this this month Mark had been to deliberately go through all of the comics without reading the words first.st
1:10:08
Tad Eggleston: And I couldn't do it. I I was drawn to the words, the the problem with the way my brain works and comics and stuff like this is like.
1:10:17
Tad Eggleston: I read the story and then start sucking in the art. So so when I start paying attention to the art, it's it starts becoming disconnected from the story. And then I start going.
1:10:29
Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute.
1:10:38
Tad Eggleston: Just just weirdness, just weirdness
1:10:43
Tad Eggleston: for for those of you listening at home. Both both Mark and Shawn are looking at me with very bemused looks on their faces right now. They're like this is this is Tad being Tad.
1:10:52
Mark Pracht: Oh, it's I'm sorry I was doing. I was trying to look something up.
1:10:57
Sean Harklerode: I mean, I have to at the top of 17, where.
1:11:00
Tad Eggleston: That too.
1:11:00
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
1:11:02
Sean Harklerode: She's looking back.
1:11:03
Mark Pracht: She's yeah. That that face looks.
1:11:06
Sean Harklerode: That looks odd, that doesn't really fit with everything.
1:11:10
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:11:11
Sean Harklerode: However, I am pleased to see at the bottom of page 21, that the super scroll has arrived
1:11:19
Sean Harklerode: with a new hat.
1:11:24
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, yeah, like, you know, I
1:11:34
Mark Pracht: well, and and look, Todd Mcfarlane spawn is coming in the next issue
1:11:40
Tad Eggleston: I mean the coolest thing ever would be if we discovered that every once in a while Kirby messed up
1:11:47
Tad Eggleston: a page, but then just set it aside because he knew he could use it later, and that that had originally been a super scroll.
1:11:57
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean.
1:11:58
Tad Eggleston: Came back and just filled in the other boxes for a different story.
1:12:02
Mark Pracht: The you know, famously. He also, often would forget the details of costumes. So
1:12:11
Mark Pracht: I don't know. Like I I this this plan I I love, I love this, this book.
1:12:19
Mark Pracht: the you know it trumpets the the Orion gang.
1:12:24
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:12:25
Mark Pracht: And so I,
1:12:27
Mark Pracht: yeah, I was like, Oh, okay. So Orion is going to go in. And they're gonna all pretend to be gangsters like, Oh, oh, Orion ain't going in.
1:12:35
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, and and don't don't forget you need to think it as oh, Ryan.
1:12:42
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:12:43
Tad Eggleston: Alright. Thank you.
1:12:44
Tad Eggleston: Very important that you think it.
1:12:48
Mark Pracht: Well, I you know at some point I have to wonder if, like somebody at editorial
1:12:58
Mark Pracht: or or somewhere kept saying Orion, or something.
1:13:03
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:13:04
Mark Pracht: And Jack was like, No, no, it's Orion
1:13:07
Mark Pracht: like like Oh, Ryan, and it's.
1:13:10
Tad Eggleston: It's not the Wgn farm reporter.
1:13:15
Mark Pracht: It's fucking weird, man. I I.
1:13:18
Tad Eggleston: Not Orion Samuelson. It's oh, Ryan, the hunter.
1:13:24
Sean Harklerode: I, you know, while we're looking at, I like the top of 13
1:13:31
Sean Harklerode: when they're using the mother box.
1:13:35
Sean Harklerode: there's just a different art style. There.
1:13:38
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, yeah, that actually, I was. I remember when I was reading through this that almost looks like a
1:13:45
Mark Pracht: that almost looks like a ditko.
1:13:48
Sean Harklerode: Yeah. Yeah.
1:13:51
Sean Harklerode: And obviously, it's it's very much done with the inking.
1:13:56
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:13:59
Tad Eggleston: You might have just stumbled on something. You know how to make more money. You've got a
1:14:03
Tad Eggleston: you gotta use your your pseudonyms so you can work for multiple companies at once. What nobody ever figured out. Mark.
1:14:11
Tad Eggleston: is Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko. Same guy.
1:14:16
Mark Pracht: That is absolutely not true, and you know it.
1:14:23
Mark Pracht: Listen, Steve. Ditko would have thought all of these people were Communists.
1:14:32
Tad Eggleston: Yes, he would have.
1:14:33
Tad Eggleston: What do you mean? Would have he certainly thought all of these. He he did.
1:14:38
Tad Eggleston: I don't know if he ever said it or wrote it, but but we know he did.
1:14:43
Mark Pracht: Odds. That's just communist propaganda.
1:14:47
Mark Pracht: Oh, man!
1:14:51
Mark Pracht: Sorry also, like it's the old.
1:14:53
Tad Eggleston: And gang, but like as soon as
1:14:57
Tad Eggleston: as he shows up as Orion like.
1:15:03
Tad Eggleston: and they've they've been to. I guess he hasn't started telling people they have to think of him as Orion, but as soon as he shows up on the dock, like, he gives away his cover.
1:15:14
Mark Pracht: Of course.
1:15:19
Tad Eggleston: Let me!
1:15:20
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, that's that's when he's private detective Orion. So I mean, look, I.
1:15:30
Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's probably why.
1:15:31
Mark Pracht: I mean.
1:15:31
Tad Eggleston: Come to.
1:15:32
Tad Eggleston: You know what's really funny about all this?
1:15:34
Tad Eggleston: Do the private detective cover.
1:15:39
Mark Pracht: I actually love this, how this issue starts, too with metron and this Esac.
1:15:48
Sean Harklerode: Yeah, very cool.
1:15:49
Mark Pracht: It's very cool, but it also has virtually nothing to do with anything that happens.
1:15:56
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:15:58
Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute. You mean.
1:15:59
Sean Harklerode: They're dinosaurs.
1:16:02
Tad Eggleston: There's supposed to be.
1:16:05
Tad Eggleston: I I.
1:16:06
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and and the devil dinosaur makes an appearance here so.
1:16:10
Tad Eggleston: Does it? Did I miss the devil? Dinosaur.
1:16:14
Mark Pracht: It's the 1st page of this, the book.
1:16:20
Mark Pracht: There's 2. There's 2 devils.
1:16:22
Tad Eggleston: Oh, that's right. I totally forgot. I had to go all the way back to to the 1st splash page, and yes, 2 devil dinosaurs.
1:16:30
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, it's it's sort of
1:16:34
Mark Pracht: I mean, it kind of makes me go. Oh, yeah, okay. He did want to do 2,001
1:16:41
Mark Pracht: cause. Like, yeah, I I find this all very funny, and it's like it is.
1:16:54
Mark Pracht: Tell me, metron, are we truly beyond time? Are we beyond death?
1:17:00
Tad Eggleston: I mean.
1:17:01
Mark Pracht: Well, and the thing about.
1:17:02
Tad Eggleston: I don't know about beyond time, but it certainly feels beyond death.
1:17:07
Mark Pracht: My sensors.
1:17:07
Sean Harklerode: No, we're not, because one of us has fallen.
1:17:10
Mark Pracht: As one of us has fallen. Yeah, so I.
1:17:16
Mark Pracht: But that does lead to this question is that the 1st time someone has ever died from new genesis.
1:17:27
Tad Eggleston: I mean, we've essentially read all of new Genesis. So yes.
1:17:34
Sean Harklerode: Well.
1:17:35
Mark Pracht: Oh, no, we have not met all of new genesis.
1:17:37
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, I said, we've read, oh, yeah, new Genesis to this.
1:17:41
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, but I mean, but like they're.
1:17:45
Tad Eggleston: There's no off-screen deaths in this world.
1:17:49
Sean Harklerode: I mean.
1:17:50
Sean Harklerode: My father also calls metron cold one.
1:17:55
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:17:55
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:17:57
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and that's certainly part of that character. Yeah, I mean
1:18:02
Mark Pracht: You know, he's the Mr. Spock of of New Genesis. You can tell by the eyebrows.
1:18:12
Mark Pracht: I yeah, I
1:18:16
Mark Pracht: well, and apparently it's it's it's a. It's a momentous enough occasion that Highfather put on a whole new outfit.
1:18:23
Mark Pracht: Only time that happens.
1:18:28
Tad Eggleston: Unless, Jeff.
1:18:33
Tad Eggleston: But it's a it's a it's a. It's a nice outfit.
1:18:38
Mark Pracht: Oh, no, I mean, I'm not saying like, and why should anybody have to wear the same thing? But I it's actually.
1:18:43
Tad Eggleston: It's his. It's his Sunday best.
1:18:46
Mark Pracht: You know the other thing when you were talking about how he designed the characters to make them easier to draw it. I also think about that, that
1:18:55
Mark Pracht: whenever you see somebody in a hat
1:18:58
Mark Pracht: they there's inevitably a panel where they're turned to, where the hat obscures. It's almost the entire face.
1:19:07
Mark Pracht: so that all he has to draw is like a nose and a mouth.
1:19:11
Mark Pracht: Fascinating.
1:19:16
Mark Pracht: Well, sorry I just. I just skipped forward to the next issue. So apparently Metron is gonna
1:19:26
Mark Pracht: be going on a bit of a excursion now, interesting.
1:19:33
Tad Eggleston: Shadow.
1:19:34
Sean Harklerode: I want to know a little more about how the
1:19:38
Sean Harklerode: the mother box returning Seagrin to the source is the
1:19:46
Sean Harklerode: is the black rider summoned by Mother Box to take him back? Or is the mother is? Or is the black rider returning from.
1:19:57
Mark Pracht: You know. But here's a Hello!
1:19:59
Sean Harklerode: Question.
1:20:00
Sean Harklerode: I don't understand.
1:20:03
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, cause here's the other thing, right?
1:20:08
Mark Pracht: It was the last, the last issue we got introduced to the Black Rider.
1:20:12
Mark Pracht: which is basically the angel of death correct.
1:20:15
Sean Harklerode: Yes.
1:20:16
Mark Pracht: So if no one has ever died.
1:20:20
Mark Pracht: what does the black rider do? We saw him chase down Light Ray for apparently no reason.
1:20:28
Mark Pracht: If he caught him
1:20:30
Mark Pracht: and he died, I mean like, is this the black riders like existence, like he's constantly trying to chase down new gods. You can't catch him.
1:20:43
Mark Pracht: I mean, although we we see that he also also, you know, brings humans to their final
1:20:54
Mark Pracht: position. But I don't know. Like
1:20:58
Mark Pracht: again, I think the details of this mythology are, are a work in progress.
1:21:10
Tad Eggleston: Definitely feels that way it. I mean.
1:21:13
Sean Harklerode: Bye-bye.
1:21:14
Tad Eggleston: It
1:21:18
Tad Eggleston: with less whimsy and longer chapters. It reminds me a little bit of airtight garage which we know Mobius was just
1:21:32
Tad Eggleston: improvising as he went.
1:21:34
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
1:21:38
Tad Eggleston: So.
1:21:39
Mark Pracht: I was just thinking at the bottom of page 7, where we see Orion, you know, railing.
1:21:52
Mark Pracht: That would have been a moment. Where, like if I if I was Jack, I'd be like oh, I should let his real face slip out for this moment.
1:22:01
Mark Pracht: you know.
1:22:03
Mark Pracht: I think that that would be really cool.
1:22:07
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:22:10
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:22:16
Mark Pracht: the flames are not of earth. In a moment they will vanish with Seagrin.
1:22:23
Mark Pracht: who apparently makes golden wide coolers.
1:22:27
Mark Pracht: Oh, I'm sorry that.
1:22:29
Sean Harklerode: Go.
1:22:30
Mark Pracht: Cigarettes, golden wine coolers.
1:22:37
Mark Pracht: But that panel, that panel with the black rider coming out of the flames is pretty freaking, cool.
1:22:42
Sean Harklerode: Yes, very cool.
1:22:51
Mark Pracht: I don't know. Yeah, I like, yeah, I I just
1:23:00
Mark Pracht: I. I also love that intergang. Apparently you have to have your own gimmick in order to be a boss in in
1:23:07
Mark Pracht: inner gang, you know. Like, I'm just a I'm just a contra fisherman.
1:23:19
Mark Pracht: It's like I'm gonna I'm gonna shoot you in the back with this gun that I'm gonna
1:23:24
Mark Pracht: hooked with my fishing rod.
1:23:26
Mark Pracht: Oh, man, it's so good.
1:23:30
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:23:35
Mark Pracht: I also
1:23:43
Mark Pracht: there's a point where Orion refers to his Astro glider and my brain went to bad places.
1:23:55
Mark Pracht: I was like, okay, all right.
1:23:59
Mark Pracht: As I ride the Astro glider. Oh, okay.
1:24:09
Mark Pracht: Anyway.
1:24:10
Sean Harklerode: No.
1:24:11
Mark Pracht: Well, I think.
1:24:12
Sean Harklerode: The dreaded.
1:24:13
Tad Eggleston: I think we're officially.
1:24:14
Sean Harklerode: Like.
1:24:14
Tad Eggleston: Think we're officially off the rails now.
1:24:17
Sean Harklerode: I think.
1:24:18
Mark Pracht: I think we've run. I think we've run aground. I mean, like I,
1:24:22
Mark Pracht: just to. To sum up my experience, this has actually been the most consistent month
1:24:29
Mark Pracht: that I think we've seen. I think that there is lots of fun stuff here. I we didn't really even talk about the deep 6, which we'll get more of, you know, next month. But
1:24:43
Mark Pracht: that's super cool. I love, you know.
1:24:46
Mark Pracht: I it. It's almost Lovecraftian, this, you know.
1:24:51
Mark Pracht: Yeah, and that's super cool. I'm I was really. I was
1:25:02
Mark Pracht: occasionally when we've been doing this, you know, I always get to like one issue, and it's usually like, either for forever people or Jimmy Olsen, where I kind of like, okay, this is kind of a slog, but I'll get through it. But you know this this month I actually kind of happily zipped through all 4 issues. And I was really happy.
1:25:22
Mark Pracht: And I think the art like
1:25:25
Mark Pracht: it. It almost is. It's almost useless to say the art's great, because the art is great.
1:25:30
Mark Pracht: It's Jack Kirby, right? But and it.
1:25:38
Mark Pracht: you know, yeah, earlier, I said, like I thought that things were kind of running in circles, you know, as far as the overall mythology of the whole thing, but at the same time, you know, as we were talking we were talking about
1:25:49
Mark Pracht: the forever people getting trapped in in happy land and things, and I think there there is stuff
1:25:56
Mark Pracht: coming. I think that it could have been a little cleaner and more specific.
1:26:03
Mark Pracht: To use, you know, theater terms specific off.
1:26:09
Mark Pracht: But no, I really, I really it was. It was a great month. Yeah.
1:26:18
Tad Eggleston: Well, next next month.
1:26:23
Mark Pracht: Nowhere to go, but down we, we.
1:26:26
Tad Eggleston: We? We skip an issue of Jimmy Olson
1:26:31
Tad Eggleston: because it's not a Kirby. But then I I have a a
1:26:36
Tad Eggleston: yeah. I'll ask that question off air.
1:26:39
Tad Eggleston: It's not interesting enough for on air. So yeah, next next month issues 5 and and some more. Jimmy Olsen.
1:26:45
Sean Harklerode: So is that like a 2 month, Cliffhanger, if you wanted to know what was gonna happen with
1:26:51
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, it looks like they. They put a reprint issue in.
1:26:57
Mark Pracht: I mean.
1:26:58
Tad Eggleston: So so to get back to Rickles, you, you had to wait some time.
1:27:04
Tad Eggleston: and so all right, for Mark Pratt and Sean, Hargel wrote, this has been the 4th World Book Club on 22 panels, and we will see you after the next page.