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Champions 5 script read: the Economy is So Bad That... · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_07]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grimoven Lane podcast.
0:10
[SPEAKER_07]: We are queer friends and allies, gathered to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
0:15
[SPEAKER_07]: We are here to do our last champion script read for 2025.
0:19
[SPEAKER_07]: We're recording this in October, releasing in December.
0:21
[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm a little sad that I don't get to see my friends for a few days after this, but we're having so much fun putting these together.
0:27
[SPEAKER_07]: And I can't wait to start doing more content like this in the doovie year.
0:30
[SPEAKER_07]: Today we're going to be reading Champion's Five, which is from April 1976.
0:34
[SPEAKER_07]: The right on this book is Tony Isabella.
0:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Now Jenny Isabella.
0:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Don Heck is the artist with John Tarkag on Inc. Jenis Cohen on Colors, John O'Stanza, and Irv, what's on it on letters, and Marf Wolfman is the editor.
0:49
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm Chad Anderson.
0:49
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll be playing your narrator today.
0:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I'm Christy Porter.
0:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I will be playing Black Widow, Woman in Orange, and Rose.
0:57
[SPEAKER_07]: That's just from over there.
0:58
[SPEAKER_07]: The woman in orange and also rose, not the woman in orange and rose.
1:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, well, I thought it was clear that those were three for people, but thank you for also clear and fine.
1:11
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm Mike Rossi, I'll be playing Angel number 13 and Manit.
1:14
[SPEAKER_11]: I'm Scott Frey and I will be playing Ice Man number 86.
1:18
[SPEAKER_11]: I am Sean Fred and I will be playing Hercules and number 73.
1:23
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm Kevin Canary and I'll be Ivan Petrovich and Amos Crawley.
1:27
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm Michael Ham and Ghostwriters taking a back seat today so I'll be playing Richard Finster, Emerson Bale and Anna.
1:36
[SPEAKER_12]: I'm Ryan Crawl and I'll be playing Ram Page.
1:38
[SPEAKER_07]: I love rampage.
1:39
[SPEAKER_07]: We're going to have a great time with this delight.
1:42
[SPEAKER_07]: He's a lot of fun.
1:43
[SPEAKER_07]: The cover on this book is Rich Buckler and Don Adkins.
1:45
[SPEAKER_07]: Hercules occupies the cover box, looking down on rampage fighting the champions.
1:49
[SPEAKER_07]: Motor is a man called rampage.
1:51
[SPEAKER_07]: It says he throws a metal stick into angel and ice man knocking them together, shrugs off a widow's bite from black widow, and smashes a metal door into hercules.
1:59
[SPEAKER_07]: He's dressed in a tech suit in red and yellow and silver and black in a truly bizarre color palette array.
2:04
[SPEAKER_07]: Stacks of cash are on the ground, windows are shattered, hard-working businessmen are scared.
2:09
[SPEAKER_07]: Hercules, Prince of Power, Black Widow, beautiful but deadly, the Ghost Rider, the most supernatural superhero of them all.
2:17
[SPEAKER_07]: The Angel and Ice Man, two former X-Men each seeking a life of his own.
2:21
[SPEAKER_07]: They're brought together to fight mankind's greatest foes, because the world still needs heroes.
2:26
[SPEAKER_07]: Stanley presents the champions in the economy is so bad that, or these days, the only way to get a dollar to go far is to toss it out of an airplane.
2:36
[SPEAKER_07]: It's the recession, folks.
2:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Here we go.
2:38
[SPEAKER_07]: Presenting the every man of supervillains.
2:40
[SPEAKER_07]: The first menace born of the recession, ran page.
2:44
[SPEAKER_07]: The cover page shows rampage, lashing out in a room full of machines like he's kicking the industrial age right over.
2:50
[SPEAKER_07]: His skull cap is yellow, his goggles red, his shirt and tights are red with yellow gloves and inlay down the legs and a gold corset at the waist.
2:57
[SPEAKER_07]: Tech pieces line the outside of his suit across the chest, down the arms and legs.
3:05
[SPEAKER_07]: scene confused.
3:06
[SPEAKER_07]: Now we open in a lawyer's office.
3:08
[SPEAKER_07]: A portly man and a blue suit sits behind a desk with a stack of papers and a lit cigarette.
3:13
[SPEAKER_07]: Angel stands before his desk wings out in full costume.
3:16
[SPEAKER_07]: A secretary in a slim-fitting black dress rushes out of the room and ice man in full icy form.
3:20
[SPEAKER_07]: sits in a green, a polstered chair, covering parts of it in frost.
3:24
[SPEAKER_07]: He's left tracks of icy footprints across the carpet, and just seems irresponsible to say that.
3:29
[SPEAKER_07]: Emerson Bale is one of the world's finest legal minds.
3:32
[SPEAKER_07]: His cases are landmarked, his comments, headlines.
3:35
[SPEAKER_07]: And Emerson Bale boasts the clientele encompassing senators, and sport stars, millionaires, and militants.
3:41
[SPEAKER_07]: And one mutant.
3:42
[SPEAKER_09]: I appreciate everything you're doing for me, Mr. Bale.
3:44
[SPEAKER_09]: We've never been involved in the family finances before this.
3:47
[SPEAKER_09]: I wouldn't know where to begin.
3:48
[SPEAKER_10]: Warren, your parents were my dearest friends.
3:51
[SPEAKER_10]: I'm not about to allow their son to be cheated out of his inheritance.
3:55
[SPEAKER_10]: Not by those human sharks, you call relatives.
3:58
[SPEAKER_10]: Their claims that your parents wouldn't have made you sold beneficiary if they had known that you or the angel are sheer poppy caught.
4:06
[SPEAKER_10]: They'll be laughed out of the court.
4:08
[SPEAKER_10]: I followed your exploits with the X-Men, my boy.
4:10
[SPEAKER_10]: I suspect the warrington fortune would be put to far better use in your hands.
4:15
[SPEAKER_07]: Warrants muting by the dead, he became public knowledge and champions number one when they had that fight at UCLA, everybody.
4:21
[SPEAKER_07]: And his parents were killed by his evil uncle, Dazzler, in a story that we covered in the interim years between the end of the X-Men and the start of giant size.
4:30
[SPEAKER_09]: You made it sound like I just inherited Fort Knox.
4:32
[SPEAKER_10]: I know my folks had money, but it's hardly a... Before you finish that sentence, maybe you should see this partial list of their holdings.
4:41
[SPEAKER_06]: Mind if I take a look Warren, after working in my parents corner store all those summers, it'd be interesting to get a gander at the world of big business.
4:48
[SPEAKER_06]: Gander away, frostbite, but I think you'll be disappointed.
4:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, Warren, that's more, that's more money than God makes.
4:54
[SPEAKER_07]: Looking at the paper is handed to him, Warren's face lights up.
4:57
[SPEAKER_07]: He tosses them into the air in a dramatic gesture.
5:00
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow, I'm rich.
5:01
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm rich.
5:02
[SPEAKER_07]: That you, I'm my boy.
5:03
[SPEAKER_07]: That you are.
5:04
[SPEAKER_07]: Uh, cut to in a nearby office, another attorney Amis Crawley is treating his client very differently dressed in a grey jacket, bow tie, and blue pinstripe pants, Crawley is furious.
5:16
[SPEAKER_07]: His client Stuart Clark, a man with jet black hair dressed in a brown jacket with green and black stripe tie, has just thrown a stock of unpaid bills in the air, having a little fit.
5:26
[SPEAKER_02]: And what do you figure the game from this childish display clock?
5:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Throwing your unpaid bills in the air won't solve your problems.
5:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Only paying them will.
5:33
[SPEAKER_02]: You owe Mr. the government.
5:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, subcontractors.
5:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Even me, you lawyer.
5:37
[SPEAKER_02]: If you could sold out two years ago, you got a bit of rich man today, but now you've got to declare bankruptcy.
5:43
[SPEAKER_12]: Declare bankruptcy.
5:44
[SPEAKER_12]: You spyingless worm.
5:46
[SPEAKER_12]: Do you know what Clark Futuristics means to me?
5:49
[SPEAKER_12]: I put my soul into this company.
5:51
[SPEAKER_12]: Crawley, how could I sell my soul to some corporation?
5:55
[SPEAKER_07]: Clerk grabs Crawley's jacket, LaPelle, slamming the attorney up against the wall, soon throwing him back to the floor.
6:01
[SPEAKER_12]: You are handling my finances, Crawley.
6:03
[SPEAKER_12]: You're to blame for this.
6:05
[SPEAKER_12]: So please, why didn't you plan for this blast and recession?
6:08
[SPEAKER_12]: It was tough enough competing with all the big outfits before these idiots.
6:13
[SPEAKER_12]: and Washington started running the economy into the ground.
6:17
[SPEAKER_12]: Why didn't you play on?
6:19
[SPEAKER_12]: I...
6:19
[SPEAKER_12]: Consider yourself fired, Crawley.
6:23
[SPEAKER_12]: I'll get in touch with you the next time I want a dream destroyed.
6:27
[SPEAKER_12]: And don't worry about my creditors.
6:28
[SPEAKER_12]: I'll find a way to pay them back.
6:30
[SPEAKER_12]: I'll find a way to pay them all back.
6:33
[SPEAKER_07]: As Clark storms out of the building, he raises his fist since the air and screams.
6:37
[SPEAKER_07]: The woman in an orange dress sympathizes.
6:40
[SPEAKER_01]: Ah, there it goes, another one, between LA Smog and the Republicans, we're all gonna flip out before long.
6:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh well.
6:51
[SPEAKER_07]: Stuart Clark is one of the world's finest scientific minds.
6:54
[SPEAKER_07]: This morning, that mind has snapped.
6:56
[SPEAKER_07]: It is a loss that will directly affect two people we've come to know quite well, the Black Widow, and Yvonne Petrovich.
7:02
[SPEAKER_07]: On the nearby park bench, Black Widow's dressed in her superhero costume, but with an orange-plad vest and skirt over it, her father figure, Yvonne, has on a red turtleneck, his blue jacket, and brown pants, nearby a group of football players are practicing.
7:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Out with the divine, all morning you've been doubting like Harry, Cooper, and high noon, or that reference to recent for you.
7:22
[SPEAKER_02]: It's that call you got from the word and think it's, it sounds like bad news to me.
7:27
[SPEAKER_05]: Bad, what are anxiety for the champions?
7:30
[SPEAKER_02]: and that much different from the Avengers, or even your partnership with their devil, not where it counts, because every time you've ever tied up with anyone, you get burned inside, where it really hurts.
7:44
[SPEAKER_02]: What makes you think to be different this time, a little serene?
7:49
[SPEAKER_02]: What makes you think you won't get hurt again?
7:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Nothing that makes logical sense old friend, just a feeling, you know the champions are really a lot like us!
7:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Losers!
7:58
[SPEAKER_05]: No loeners!
7:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Loeners!
7:58
[SPEAKER_05]: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha
8:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll start over from the top, just kidding.
8:14
[SPEAKER_05]: Ah, sorry guys, it's pretty good for audience.
8:18
[SPEAKER_05]: It's nothing that makes logical, sensual friend, just the feeling.
8:22
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, the champions are a lot like us.
8:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Loaners, take the angel and the iceman.
8:28
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't believe you.
8:28
[SPEAKER_05]: they ever really felt comfortable as the X-Men.
8:32
[SPEAKER_05]: A group consisting solely of mutant probably didn't allow for a much individual growth.
8:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Johnny Blaze is easy to figure out.
8:40
[SPEAKER_05]: He belongs to a vest that doesn't exist anymore.
8:43
[SPEAKER_05]: And Hercules, what can it be like to belong nowhere?
8:47
[SPEAKER_05]: In Olympus, he's a man among gods, on Earth, a god, among men.
8:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Even I think it might work this time.
8:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, Keith, I'll play it your way and pray I can pick up the pieces later.
9:00
[SPEAKER_07]: Their losers just like us take Angel and Iceman for instance.
9:06
[SPEAKER_07]: Hercules nearby holding a football, approaches the playing team.
9:10
[SPEAKER_11]: In truth, young mortal, Hercules is still insurrest to the purpose of this airfield bag.
9:17
[SPEAKER_09]: Now spend two at Mr. Hercules, all run for it one more time.
9:20
[SPEAKER_09]: The idea is to carry the split or airfield bag across the goal line, but without those men trying to stop you.
9:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Get rid of boys, you're about to become the first team in UCL history to tackle a mythological God.
9:31
[SPEAKER_11]: The 11 of us will turn that guy into an Olympian.
9:34
[SPEAKER_11]: Pienki!
9:36
[SPEAKER_11]: Hercules will do a stout just request mortal, but I do not fathom the importance of reaching young gold line.
9:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Good lord, do those call it students of any inkling of what they're getting themselves into?
9:48
[SPEAKER_02]: They look like they're going to find out who we start.
9:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Right about now!
9:53
[SPEAKER_02]: See?
9:53
[SPEAKER_07]: The camera shifts back to the football players who are all lying on the ground, flattened, groaning with spinning heads.
9:59
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a touchdown for hercules.
10:02
[SPEAKER_11]: Ugh.
10:03
[SPEAKER_11]: I wonder if it's too late to try out for the debate and team.
10:07
[SPEAKER_07]: Couldst thou enlighten me further, young ones?
10:09
[SPEAKER_07]: And while the UCLA Bruins have second thoughts about their chosen field of athletic endeavor, another member of our ever-burgeoning cast is likewise contemplating his future activities.
10:19
[SPEAKER_07]: Dressed in a green suit and black tie, Richard Fenster walks down the road in shock.
10:23
[SPEAKER_07]: The editor reminds you of our adventures back in champions number one, where Richard Fenster was the guy that put the team together.
10:30
[SPEAKER_10]: Fire, they fired me as if I'm to blame for the damage Pluto's army did to the campus.
10:35
[SPEAKER_10]: That's not the half of it.
10:37
[SPEAKER_10]: I have to tell Hercules and Widow that the university has no further need of their services either.
10:41
[SPEAKER_10]: Well Richard Fenster, X-Lexor Agent, what's next?
10:45
[SPEAKER_07]: How about business manager of Champions and the angel plucks Fenster right up the ground and flies above to drop him on a slide of ice made by Iceman.
10:54
[SPEAKER_09]: The iceman will give you the details, pal.
10:56
[SPEAKER_09]: Your first job is to find a suitable headquarters.
10:58
[SPEAKER_09]: Nothing too big.
10:59
[SPEAKER_09]: 20 or 30 floors ought to do it.
11:01
[SPEAKER_09]: What's the matter, Fenster?
11:02
[SPEAKER_09]: Cold.
11:07
[SPEAKER_07]: The balance of life, one man rises on the very wings of hope, while his fellow sinks deeper in the bitter morass of despair.
11:16
[SPEAKER_07]: Walking into the offices of Clark Futuristics, Stuart Clark is in a bad place.
11:20
[SPEAKER_07]: Inside, his personal invention, a personalized suit of red and yellow armor with connectors that complete a power system once they all click into place.
11:27
[SPEAKER_12]: They stack the deck against me from the very beginning, even when I first with the product I could never supply it as economically or as rapidly as big outfits like Stark or Rockson.
11:41
[SPEAKER_12]: I had high hopes for this exoskeleton uniform.
11:45
[SPEAKER_12]: It could have been revolutionized modern police work, but when Stark's L.A. operation started working on similar project, it got the
11:57
[SPEAKER_12]: Maybe there's another way I can utilize my investment though.
12:00
[SPEAKER_07]: Maybe it had to happen eventually the law of averages demanded it.
12:05
[SPEAKER_07]: Someone would develop the same lightweight and flexible alloys that turned a young Tony Stark into Iron Man and then mastered the powerful magnetic forces necessary to join a sort of mechanical components into an invincible suit of armor.
12:16
[SPEAKER_07]: Stuart Clark is not an inherently evil man.
12:19
[SPEAKER_07]: He has been bent, twisted and finally crushed by the
12:24
[SPEAKER_07]: Even so, he takes pause before embarking on an insane plan to save his failing business.
12:29
[SPEAKER_07]: But time is money, sayeth the world of 1976, and the pause is regrettably brief.
12:35
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll do it!
12:36
[SPEAKER_07]: Minister generators charge the exoskeleton costume, boot jets flare into life, Stuart Clark smiles inwardly at this gut-level justice his scheme offers.
12:44
[SPEAKER_07]: He plans to take what he needs to revive Clark Futuristic from FDIC protected banks.
12:49
[SPEAKER_07]: By the way, the FDIC means the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.
12:53
[SPEAKER_07]: That way, or so he thinks, no real people will suffer loss.
12:57
[SPEAKER_07]: The bank's losses will be covered by the government, the very government, whose ill-conceived policies cause the recession which has put his business into such dire straits.
13:05
[SPEAKER_07]: He thinks this is poetic.
13:07
[SPEAKER_07]: In one hour, this humble poet, whom the authorities will dub, RAMPage, will become the most wanted man in Los Angeles.
13:14
[SPEAKER_07]: Elsewhere, Angel wings tucked into a blue turtleneck in a purple suit, meets with Iván and Black Widow in Hercules, whose
13:20
[SPEAKER_07]: still shirtless in his skirt in a public restaurant, and yes of course the people are staring.
13:26
[SPEAKER_11]: I haven't been able to contact the ghost writer and vice-man is so expensive, but there's no reason we... thou seekest to include burqcules, twos wifli, angel, though I have come here at the behest of the beautiest Natasha.
13:40
[SPEAKER_11]: I care not for that desire to place the lion of Olympus at the command of mere mortals.
13:48
[SPEAKER_05]: But that's not exactly what Warren had in mind by the champions becoming storefront superheroes, Hercules.
13:55
[SPEAKER_09]: You've pounced around with enough other super hero types to know most they're too involved in their own affairs.
14:01
[SPEAKER_09]: Michael, as those may be, to be of much help to the average man.
14:04
[SPEAKER_09]: I think we, the champions, can change that.
14:06
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm talking about extending a needed hand when ordinary people face out of the ordinary problems.
14:11
[SPEAKER_09]: Like those patients, Dr. Lansing, turned into monsters.
14:14
[SPEAKER_09]: We've got power, Mr. and that equals heavy responsibility in my book.
14:17
[SPEAKER_09]: Can you walk away from that?
14:18
[SPEAKER_11]: You tell him, kid, thou just speak with conviction angel.
14:23
[SPEAKER_11]: For the nonspriculis will join thee.
14:25
[SPEAKER_07]: The balance one decides another ponders.
14:29
[SPEAKER_07]: Outside in a white button down with purple jacket and brown pants rubber drink walks lost in thought without realizing it He's giving off a wave of cold around him.
14:38
[SPEAKER_06]: I hope Warren sells the others on this group the more manpower He's got the easier it'll be for me when I decide to split.
14:45
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm not like Warren if I go public I risk losing my secret identity What what effect would I have on the rest of the drink family two women named Anna and Rose walk by what's wrong Rose your shiver egg
14:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, I don't know, Anna.
14:58
[SPEAKER_05]: All of a sudden, the strange chill came over me.
15:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Besides, I may want to chuck this whole iceman bit someday and live a normal life.
15:07
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh-oh, I guess someday is still a ways off.
15:09
[SPEAKER_06]: Because unless this bank goes in for way out promotions, it's being robbed.
15:13
[SPEAKER_07]: And we're going to talk about it.
15:14
[SPEAKER_07]: But if you did not read this as iceman gay, then we got to talk.
15:18
[SPEAKER_07]: Drake pears into the window of the national bank and sees Stuart Clark holding the bank manager in the air by his jacket.
15:24
[SPEAKER_07]: A cop is down on the ground.
15:25
[SPEAKER_12]: Please, aye.
15:27
[SPEAKER_12]: Not clever, Mr. Time Locker, not.
15:29
[SPEAKER_12]: No bank is going to leave itself unable to open its vault during business hours.
15:34
[SPEAKER_12]: Skip it, friend.
15:35
[SPEAKER_12]: It's probably just as well.
15:36
[SPEAKER_12]: I showed this city what I can do now.
15:38
[SPEAKER_12]: Otherwise, the next time I get lied to, I might just lose my temper and hurt somebody.
15:44
[SPEAKER_07]: and Clark simply grabs the bank vault door with a crunch and rips it off with a rip and outside Robert Drake is covering himself with ice, shattering his outer layer of clothing and forming a trail of ice underneath him to slide into the bank on, while growing a big ol' ice stick to hit the bad guy with.
16:00
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, it does look like the time for the iceman to come if once again.
16:04
[SPEAKER_06]: So, hmm, I wonder if the champs will pay for all the threads of
16:07
[SPEAKER_06]: Freeze dried out of existence with this quick change number.
16:10
[SPEAKER_06]: I have to talk to wings about that.
16:12
[SPEAKER_06]: But in the proverbial meantime, Gangway folks, the Ice Man Express will stop him cold.
16:16
[SPEAKER_07]: But Ice Man is quickly humbled as Clark punches him, knocking him right through the bank window and out into the street.
16:21
[SPEAKER_12]: Well, crash!
16:22
[SPEAKER_06]: Not likely, punk.
16:24
[SPEAKER_06]: Sheesh, if my battering ram hadn't absorbed the brun of that punch, little buffy.
16:28
[SPEAKER_06]: Little Bobby Drake would've been bust into his many pieces as that window.
16:32
[SPEAKER_06]: I don't even get a breather.
16:33
[SPEAKER_06]: That Joker is charging him like a mad bull.
16:37
[SPEAKER_07]: As the villain comes flying through the window, Ice Man generates a series of ice balls and flings them.
16:44
[SPEAKER_12]: Do you think you can stop me with this ineffectual, barrage ice man?
16:48
[SPEAKER_07]: That's the general idea, Chuckles.
16:50
[SPEAKER_07]: With a wrench, Clark Rips, a full light post out of the ground and swats ice man with it.
16:55
[SPEAKER_12]: Don't waste time taking it to the pat in office, little man, because as ideas go, it isn't worth much.
17:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Uh, my head feels like a soggy Marshmallow if he connects again.
17:06
[SPEAKER_07]: But here comes the angel to the rescue grabbing ice man by the armpits and flying him into the air as the lamp posts slams into the ground.
17:13
[SPEAKER_09]: Do you hear mom and I warn you to stay away from the neighborhood village junior?
17:16
[SPEAKER_07]: Warren.
17:17
[SPEAKER_09]: Coming to you via the courtesy of the one East coming to you via the courtesy of the one Eastern and LA that plays new broadcast instead of the mousa.
17:24
[SPEAKER_07]: Uh, new news broadcast instead of mousa.
17:27
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a he's referencing a radio statement like you heard about the battle on the radio.
17:30
[SPEAKER_09]: Coming to you via the courtesy of the one Eastern L.A. that plays news broadcast instead of music.
17:35
[SPEAKER_12]: The ice vents extra weight is slowing you down angel.
17:38
[SPEAKER_12]: You're just giving me two targets for the cut rate price of one.
17:43
[SPEAKER_07]: And now Hercules is here.
17:44
[SPEAKER_07]: He grabs the light post on the other end.
17:46
[SPEAKER_07]: Clunch and the two men both push against the other.
17:49
[SPEAKER_07]: The pole buckling between them.
17:51
[SPEAKER_11]: I think not Villain, not well, Herculee's calls them comrades.
17:58
[SPEAKER_12]: I've heard that several of you super heroes had banded together, but it makes little difference to me.
18:05
[SPEAKER_12]: One, or ten, I can smash you all.
18:08
[SPEAKER_11]: Stars, though thou dust howl like a jackal, thy strength rivals, that of the golden-crested titans, strength enough to crush you, Hercules.
18:19
[SPEAKER_11]: But Hercules is the stronger man, throwing the lightpost aside.
18:22
[SPEAKER_11]: I said thy might rival, that of the titans, not that of the Prince of power.
18:29
[SPEAKER_12]: You pulled it right out of the magnetic grippers, but I'll finish you off hand to hand.
18:38
[SPEAKER_07]: Who's finishing who I'll hand to hand?
18:40
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks, Iceman.
18:40
[SPEAKER_07]: Ha ha ha ha ha.
18:43
[SPEAKER_07]: Magnetic grippers close in Clark's fists with a brach and he hits the godling with Hercules seeing stars.
18:50
[SPEAKER_07]: With a simple punch back however, the new villain is thrown into the wall, which collapses around his now unconscious body.
18:56
[SPEAKER_12]: Boom.
18:57
[SPEAKER_12]: Hardly hurt, Elise.
18:59
[SPEAKER_12]: Could a madman develop armor?
19:01
[SPEAKER_12]: Powerful enough to felt even a swaggering Olympian?
19:05
[SPEAKER_11]: Momentarily crazed one.
19:08
[SPEAKER_11]: only momentarily of all the mysteries this earth holds, I shall never understand how a mortal can gain such power, and then do so little with it.
19:20
[SPEAKER_07]: Angel Iceman, Black Widow, and Yvonne stand nearby.
19:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, don't worry about the Tasha.
19:29
[SPEAKER_02]: He's too busy congratulating himself to take offense.
19:33
[SPEAKER_11]: Harry's is the god of war, my friend.
19:36
[SPEAKER_11]: It be his nature to act as he does.
19:39
[SPEAKER_12]: Huckily!
19:40
[SPEAKER_12]: Too late, lady.
19:41
[SPEAKER_12]: You didn't figure on this rig's protective power.
19:44
[SPEAKER_07]: Clark is back up and on, Huckily, he's knocking him down and pushing his face into the sidewalk.
19:49
[SPEAKER_07]: Club smash!
19:50
[SPEAKER_07]: He is screaming hurt.
19:52
[SPEAKER_07]: Come on, wings.
19:53
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's get off.
19:54
[SPEAKER_02]: He's screaming hurt.
19:55
[SPEAKER_02]: Come on, wings.
19:55
[SPEAKER_02]: We got balls.
19:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, kids are going after that jerk.
20:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Like he was the only super villain in town.
20:02
[SPEAKER_05]: And without the battle plan, they don't stand the chance.
20:06
[SPEAKER_09]: Pilot on Bobby.
20:07
[SPEAKER_09]: He's starting the bus through that overgrown ice cube already.
20:13
[SPEAKER_06]: It's not going to work fly boy.
20:15
[SPEAKER_07]: Get out of the arc.
20:17
[SPEAKER_07]: Iceman tried forming a block of ice around Stuart Clark, but he flexes and scatters it.
20:22
[SPEAKER_07]: Crack and a nice block hits Bobby in the head.
20:24
[SPEAKER_07]: Walk, Angel swoops in and punches Clark, but the helmet hurts his hand.
20:28
[SPEAKER_07]: Clark is ready with another backhanded slap.
20:31
[SPEAKER_09]: Swat, argh, herks down, Bobby's down, and I'm only gonna get this one free shot before.
20:36
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, idiot, my helmet is made of the same invincible alloy as the rest of my armor, but judge for yourself.
20:44
[SPEAKER_12]: Oh, I'd better grab with it, whatever money I can, then get out of here.
20:49
[SPEAKER_12]: Once they've cleared the area, the cops will be getting into this, too.
20:53
[SPEAKER_07]: But before he can re-enter the bank, the black widow's ready with a stings.
20:56
[SPEAKER_07]: Sat.
21:00
[SPEAKER_12]: The black widow, I haven't come this far to be stopped by a mere woman.
21:06
[SPEAKER_02]: No, then what will you offer for her partner?
21:09
[SPEAKER_02]: And an extremely irritated dimmy god.
21:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Get the back, Ivan.
21:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, Herk.
21:15
[SPEAKER_02]: First come first, sir.
21:18
[SPEAKER_07]: Clark sucks, I even buck, but then Hercules throws Clark into a car, whack, by then Clark picks up the car and throws it at the heroes, but Ice Man has an Ice Shield ready, and it shatters into cubes, the car strikes it.
21:30
[SPEAKER_12]: The Angel still out, but the others are re-grubbing!
21:33
[SPEAKER_12]: I've got to stop them!
21:36
[SPEAKER_11]: Well done, my young ally!
21:37
[SPEAKER_11]: The Ice Shield has protected Natasha, and they sell from harm, but now Hercules will fuck you silly!
21:46
[SPEAKER_11]: But now, Hercules will put an end to this.
21:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules, wait, don't fucking silly!
21:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Hercules, wait!
21:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Listen to the lady, Herk, that creeps got us by those short hairs.
21:58
[SPEAKER_12]: Back off, man, God, if you come one step closer.
22:02
[SPEAKER_12]: I'll smash this fist right through the angel skull.
22:06
[SPEAKER_07]: And sure enough, rampage has angel by the hair and a fist raised to be continued.
22:12
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, these are the kinds of superhero adventures we are here for, right friends?
22:16
[SPEAKER_07]: This is excellent.
22:18
[SPEAKER_07]: There's a lot of delicious content in this issue.
22:20
[SPEAKER_07]: This is where the champion starts to find it stride.
22:22
[SPEAKER_07]: Those first few issues are just kind of like, oh, there's your fun pilot cleansers, but this is where it starts to get a, it's a, it's a really fun ride from here through the end of the series.
22:31
[SPEAKER_07]: Uh, let's open with the journey of Stuart Clark Rampage.
22:35
[SPEAKER_07]: It is bizarre to see the narrator giving so much love and affection toward like look at this guy who's a violent asshole.
22:41
[SPEAKER_07]: But he's really a good guy.
22:43
[SPEAKER_07]: It's just the economy that's making him punch innocent people in the face and friends civilians, which is the crazy read.
22:49
[SPEAKER_07]: This guy's fucking hate Iron Man so much.
22:52
[SPEAKER_07]: Uh, he has a long history.
22:53
[SPEAKER_07]: We're going to be giving him a lot of attention in the new year on the show.
22:57
[SPEAKER_12]: Well, I think he's filled with anger.
22:59
[SPEAKER_12]: I think it's safe to say that.
23:01
[SPEAKER_12]: He was not likable, and so that's why I sort of turned him into a Hulk Hogan type.
23:06
[SPEAKER_12]: I just was, yeah, even when they sort of like were trying to sympathize with him, I was like, what is kind of a douche, do like this is not the right path.
23:14
[SPEAKER_07]: He has a crazy history.
23:15
[SPEAKER_05]: I actually do think it's kind of interesting to have his story presented sort of in juxtaposition to angel inheriting all this money from his parents, because during the recession, all these
23:30
[SPEAKER_05]: But then having like angel come into all this money because you know inheritance is recession proof So I think that's a fun kind of interesting comparison to draw there.
23:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, we go from I'm rich I'm rich to declare bankruptcy you spun this worm like the next page is delicious.
23:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah as a actual bankruptcy attorney in real life
23:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that's, that's what I do.
23:53
[SPEAKER_06]: And I was like, Oh, God, I've been in this situation before.
23:57
[SPEAKER_06]: You've made it super valuable.
23:58
[SPEAKER_12]: Turn into super villains after you've been.
24:01
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a couple, though.
24:02
[SPEAKER_06]: I would not put a pass to them.
24:03
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah.
24:04
[SPEAKER_07]: Kevin, is it a Snickler kicked on rampages costume?
24:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, my God.
24:08
[SPEAKER_02]: such a snick.
24:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I love everything about it.
24:10
[SPEAKER_02]: I love that you took such great pains to describe every bit of it, but people should be looking at this issue because the fashion throughout is amazing.
24:19
[SPEAKER_02]: This is full 70s, blue turtle necks, purple pants, like it's everybody is looking an excellent in this.
24:26
[SPEAKER_07]: This isn't state of directly on the page, but this is Angel in his like ketchup and mustard colors and rampages in the same colors.
24:31
[SPEAKER_07]: It's almost as though he's the inversion of the entitled Playboy, which is really interesting.
24:36
[SPEAKER_07]: But he's very the white guy who's company failed, which fucking socks I get at the American Dream failed this guy.
24:41
[SPEAKER_07]: But also Tony Stark liked beat him to the patent, and like that's just a little origin story.
24:47
[SPEAKER_10]: It's like it's a lot to consider.
24:49
[SPEAKER_10]: I get it.
24:49
[SPEAKER_10]: I think, listen, yeah, you shouldn't punch random people, but he's not, he's just punching a billionaire in a god and a twink and like the recession maybe you wanna do all those things too, I get it.
25:00
[SPEAKER_10]: It's, I sympathize, I sympathize with this man.
25:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Is that a it's a DB Cooper reference in the subtitle correct with the yes, yeah, the airplane so this this is that period of time to where you know that fantasy of like being the super spy that gets away with all the money was like kind of glorified back in the 70s because of recession was so bad so I think I get it I get what I get what rampages about and I get why the narrator sympathizes a bit because that period of time especially that was it was the Luigi of the time.
25:29
[SPEAKER_07]: It would be really interesting to interview Jenny Isabella about 1976 and why she might have been going through recession-wise.
25:34
[SPEAKER_07]: But if the government's going to steal from us, why can't we steal from the government seems to be kind of the message?
25:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, Angel has a really complicated family story.
25:42
[SPEAKER_07]: We've covered a lot of it on the show, but his uncle Dazzler, the first Dazzler, Bert Lerthington.
25:47
[SPEAKER_07]: murdered his father, who was a member of the Hellfire Club and like one of the richest men in the world and then tried to marry Angel's mother, but then poisoned her to death, and then the dazzler got arrested.
25:57
[SPEAKER_07]: There's a whole journey that Angel's been on here, so Jenny is about like kind of taking the throughlines of Angel's family story, which has been kind of behind the scenes.
26:05
[SPEAKER_07]: Once I'm Magneto kidnapped Angel's parents and tried to use their DNA to create a race of like mutant androids, that there's, if you've listened to the show for a long time, we've covered all that old Silver Age stuff.
26:15
[SPEAKER_07]: But this is angel like my parents sent me off to boarding school.
26:18
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't really know what their company is and my human relatives want to take the money because they're arguing that my parents wouldn't have given it to me if they'd known I was a mutant.
26:27
[SPEAKER_07]: So we're seeing some anti mutant hysteria show up here.
26:30
[SPEAKER_07]: But also I'm rich, I'm rich, we should be superheroes.
26:33
[SPEAKER_09]: That'll be fun, we can play with our friends forever.
26:35
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, well, coming as a lower middle class kind of guy, it was fun to imagine what it would be like if your parents secretly had all this money.
26:43
[SPEAKER_09]: I guess I'm still kind of waiting to see if my dad's got something socked away and that one day I could pretend to be super wealthy.
26:50
[SPEAKER_09]: And then I'll invite all of you to be in my super hero club.
26:54
[SPEAKER_09]: We only need 20 or 30 floors, not a big deal.
26:57
[SPEAKER_09]: Um, really easy.
26:58
[SPEAKER_09]: But no, it's surprising to me that he's so surprised about it, I guess.
27:03
[SPEAKER_09]: Like even though he doesn't know what his parents are doing, what the company's about or what not, like, I don't know.
27:09
[SPEAKER_09]: How are which people so oblivious?
27:12
[SPEAKER_09]: I just, I don't know if they're rich.
27:13
[SPEAKER_07]: I, uh, I saw Josh Johnson, if you guys follow the comedian, Josh Johnson, do a commentary a few weeks back on billionaires.
27:19
[SPEAKER_07]: You can find it on YouTube if you want to watch the clip.
27:21
[SPEAKER_07]: But he's kind of like, there's a point where if you got several million dollars, there's like four things you would do with it, right?
27:26
[SPEAKER_07]: You pay off all your debt.
27:27
[SPEAKER_07]: You'd pay off all your family and friends debt.
27:29
[SPEAKER_07]: You'd like to take some big vacations and buy some toys.
27:32
[SPEAKER_07]: Maybe you'd give some money back into charity.
27:34
[SPEAKER_07]: But what if you finish all that and you still have five billion dollars?
27:37
[SPEAKER_07]: He's like, there's a point where you don't comprehend the money anymore.
27:40
[SPEAKER_07]: And there's an interesting thing of like angels like, oh, that's by a building and be super heroes because he becomes the funding source for the X man later as well.
27:47
[SPEAKER_07]: We also have direct cannon reference that one of the reasons Xavier recruited angel was because he had a lot of family money, which is crazy to me because he's the guy that just flies and punches things right like there's
27:57
[SPEAKER_07]: There's a cool journey for him here.
27:59
[SPEAKER_07]: We also have to talk about Iceman here.
28:01
[SPEAKER_07]: Iceman's reactions to Angel and the deep commentary of his closetedness veiled under the idea of him being a mutant who can't be exposed because his family might found out.
28:13
[SPEAKER_07]: I have not been able to interview Jenny Isabella about this, but we know Jenny, the writer of this book is a trans woman.
28:18
[SPEAKER_07]: You have to wonder how much of that's coming out and Iceman's dialogue here.
28:21
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, I've read a significant amount of ice man, including modern ice man, where he is often depicted actually having sex with men.
28:29
[SPEAKER_06]: This is possibly the gayest ice man story I have ever read.
28:34
[SPEAKER_06]: And yeah, I mean, the mutant plosited metaphor is really coming through very, very strongly here.
28:42
[SPEAKER_06]: You know, he's concerned about being outed to his parents and his beautiful roommate from boarding school just inherited billions and billions of dollars and suddenly Bobby's like, what are we going to do?
28:55
[SPEAKER_06]: Um, it's a lot.
28:57
[SPEAKER_06]: There's a lot going on here and to echo what Kevin said before, you really have to actually look at the comic because Bobby outfit here is also insane.
29:05
[SPEAKER_07]: For X-Men fans, this is a particularly delicious issue.
29:08
[SPEAKER_12]: It's funny because he's around everyone became slightly gayer.
29:12
[SPEAKER_12]: They're like, just got a hand over this, got a hand over fit.
29:16
[SPEAKER_12]: Like, let me just saw it and you're like, okay, we get it.
29:20
[SPEAKER_12]: But everyone just in his cold orbit, like, became slightly gayer.
29:24
[SPEAKER_12]: Shea appreciate it.
29:25
[SPEAKER_12]: Even the dialogue became gayer when he showed up, which I really
29:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Do they all know he's gay and he doesn't and they're all just trying to push him along, right?
29:34
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I think there's several ways to read that, but at this point we have to assume that the writers maybe were playing with some hints of identity without the direct parallel.
29:43
[SPEAKER_07]: I do not think it was Jenny's specific intent to say this character's gay, but clearly playing on the themes of closetedness, playing a different idea about secret identity and what that means.
29:52
[SPEAKER_07]: And by
29:52
[SPEAKER_07]: Bobby and Warren come from very different places, right?
29:55
[SPEAKER_07]: Bobby had loving parents who were kind of assholes, but Warren was completely estranged from his parents in boarding school.
30:00
[SPEAKER_07]: So there's some really different ways to kind of read that journey.
30:03
[SPEAKER_07]: We also have this delicious opening scene with Hercules and the football players and then Hercules fighting this guy in a tech suit later.
30:09
[SPEAKER_07]: Sean, welcome back as the delicious voice of Hercules always.
30:12
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
30:13
[SPEAKER_11]: Yeah, her Achilles is fun in this one.
30:14
[SPEAKER_11]: I like how he's kind of like studying American customs and not really getting it But just going along and everybody's trying to take him down, but he can't stop her Achilles.
30:23
[SPEAKER_07]: I love this guy all the flattened football players like oh, I should've gone into philosophy
30:32
[SPEAKER_10]: Michael, where do you think Mr. Ghost Rider was off to this issue?
30:36
[SPEAKER_10]: You're gonna have to read his newly released issues on his solo series to find out, according to this.
30:43
[SPEAKER_10]: I have no idea.
30:44
[SPEAKER_10]: I've never fully been a Ghost Rider fan.
30:46
[SPEAKER_10]: Does anyone here know where he is, what he's doing?
30:49
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, the the Ghost Rider title in the 70s is not we just can't take the time to read it on this show there's a lot of great 70s shit like in the defenders, but if you want to go back and have just a delicious 1970s journey go read Ghost Rider volume 2 from 1976 it's it's insane he has some crazy super villains from water wizard to the orb there's so many great
31:11
[SPEAKER_07]: like weird cap villains over there.
31:14
[SPEAKER_10]: I just want them to come back.
31:15
[SPEAKER_10]: I can't keep making up all these offensive accents and stuff.
31:19
[SPEAKER_10]: So I need to just go back to one.
31:21
[SPEAKER_10]: He'll be back next issue.
31:22
[SPEAKER_10]: I promise God.
31:24
[SPEAKER_07]: But thank you for playing some dueling characters.
31:26
[SPEAKER_07]: It's really fun to hear you do voice work, my friend.
31:28
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, a full.
31:29
[SPEAKER_07]: And then we go over to Christy as the Black Widow, which my word, this is delicious.
31:33
[SPEAKER_07]: So Black Widow's offering is very insightful speech about, you know, actually this could work.
31:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Like this team might work.
31:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Look at all of us.
31:39
[SPEAKER_07]: We're all losers.
31:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, there is something that is kind of sweet about this, you know, former brainwashed super spy Russian assassins, Soviet era craziness, you know, obviously defected.
31:57
[SPEAKER_05]: who's gone through multiple superhero teams at this point, always gets burned, always ends up in a bad place and worse off than where she started.
32:06
[SPEAKER_05]: And yet, here comes another superhero team.
32:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And she's like, you know what?
32:10
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe this time.
32:12
[SPEAKER_08]: Maybe this time, my girl lucky.
32:18
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, there's like a naive atte, there that I kind of appreciate, but also like, you know, Natasha can, you know, keep out some hope for humanity and her skills being useful and being on a team.
32:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And you can, I mean, it really does feel like, you know, this is kind of a found family situation for us.
32:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure the Avengers were, and so yeah, I, I really love this for her.
32:37
[SPEAKER_05]: Like, it's, it's silly.
32:38
[SPEAKER_05]: It's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it
32:42
[SPEAKER_05]: can't be it's clear is how and she kind of feels a little bit like a bag bag in this situation but like in the best way possible I think there's pretty much what she's gonna get so I love I'm not in the hurry but there will eventually be a Christy Porter Kevin Canary Chad Anderson review of the character Ivan Petrovitch on a video that will get there.
33:02
[SPEAKER_05]: Ivan's relationship is wild.
33:04
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it runs interesting because he's this like hundred-year-old like Russian man, but they kind of write him like he's like an old cowboy But Kevin your face every time you go Russian makes me smile a lot of it.
33:15
[SPEAKER_02]: It takes a lot to get that accent out like it.
33:17
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going through a lot of things in my mouth He gets a little humble median
33:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and there's something interesting about his relationship, especially in this one, you know, he's in it a little bit more than we've seen and he's kind of a hanger on to all of this and he's not really invited to this party.
33:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's like widow who's been invited to the party and he's just like, hey, I'm here too, but to Christie's point he's he's really concerned about her and that with it.
33:37
[SPEAKER_02]: What I think is a very sweet way of like you've gone through some trouble in the past let me watch out for you You're you know, you're gonna fall for this again.
33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's see make sure you're set up and safe and successful And so there's something sweet about it.
33:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I know it doesn't stay sweet, but like at least right now It's kind of lovely and I appreciate it
33:55
[SPEAKER_07]: This is a delicious journey for all of these characters.
33:57
[SPEAKER_07]: I really enjoy this run.
33:59
[SPEAKER_07]: I think it's, this is the start of where the champions get's amazing.
34:03
[SPEAKER_07]: So I'm excited to take all this ride with all of you as we get into the new year.
34:06
[SPEAKER_07]: It's been delicious putting these dynamics together with each of you on these ongoing reads.
34:10
[SPEAKER_07]: And I'm just having so much fun.
34:12
[SPEAKER_07]: So thank you all for celebrating these 70s comics with me.
34:14
[SPEAKER_07]: I follow the show at Graham Alken under score lane on Instagram, we're wrapping December up with just kind of some final script reads and all of the journeys we've been taken and the the new year will launch into some really crazy places in December We're balancing out the seriousness of the fascism conversations in November, whereas the theme on their my show in December is going to be eyeballs.
34:33
[SPEAKER_07]: So we're going to be talking all about eyeball characters.
34:35
[SPEAKER_07]: It'll be a delicious way to wrap up the year and then we're launching into night crawler in the new year.
34:41
[SPEAKER_07]: So everybody be prepared for that in 2026.
34:43
[SPEAKER_11]: So, Final Thoughts, this comic was fun.
34:46
[SPEAKER_11]: It was interesting seeing like Iceman back in the day when he, he does kind of suck.
34:50
[SPEAKER_11]: I understand now why the adults told me they didn't like Iceman when I was growing up because like he can't shatter anything yet.
34:56
[SPEAKER_11]: He's just that ice dude who says gay stuff.
34:58
[SPEAKER_11]: So.
34:59
[SPEAKER_11]: I get it.
34:59
[SPEAKER_11]: I get it older people, but you can find me on solving for X and X went to us podcast.
35:06
[SPEAKER_11]: We this year we launched our website solvingforXman.com.
35:09
[SPEAKER_11]: That'll link you to our X-Trama's to meet into Handel and a nightmare in Graham Outton Lane.
35:14
[SPEAKER_11]: And we just finished one division.
35:16
[SPEAKER_11]: We're getting into Agatha all along.
35:18
[SPEAKER_11]: Fun, fun, fun.
35:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, my takeaway and my advice to everybody is please be nice to your bankruptcy as her niece.
35:25
[UNKNOWN]: Oh,
35:25
[SPEAKER_06]: And you can find me on social media, Scott Frey, my own podcast, the Clone Conspiracy, where we discuss Ben Riley and the Clone Saga.
35:36
[SPEAKER_06]: So check it out.
35:37
[SPEAKER_12]: I just want to say it's very fun to come on this and do some outrageous characters.
35:42
[SPEAKER_12]: So I appreciate it.
35:44
[SPEAKER_12]: It's a fun little getaway.
35:45
[SPEAKER_12]: And you really have to get in the, like, sort of the head space of these characters.
35:50
[SPEAKER_12]: But when it's 67,
35:55
[SPEAKER_12]: in the sixties and seventies, but it's such a good time.
35:57
[SPEAKER_07]: You can find you taking us from the Huntsman to Billy to rampage.
36:00
[SPEAKER_07]: It's delightful to your journey.
36:02
[SPEAKER_12]: Yeah, but you can find me in the rest of the homeless superior podcast boys at Homeless Superior podcast on Instagram.
36:08
[SPEAKER_12]: And there you can find our links for everything else by join our discord because we have a lot of chats talking about all the stupid things in the world.
36:16
[SPEAKER_12]: And then we get a little creepy over the holidays, too.
36:19
[SPEAKER_12]: So come and join us.
36:20
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, you're a little creepy every day by friend.
36:22
[SPEAKER_10]: And final thoughts
36:23
[SPEAKER_10]: are that my incredible portrayal of Anne, famous, famously Anne, looks so much like Dorothy from the Golden Girls and she calls the other character Rose and I was following along with the comics so you to get that Easter egg you got to actually go read the comic because it blew my mind when I was reading it and that's my final thought and me personally I don't really do anything but if you'd like to see the wears that I'm chilling you can find me at handy 73 on instagram.com
36:53
[SPEAKER_10]: Great to see you.
36:53
[SPEAKER_10]: You know that website Instagram.com.
36:57
[SPEAKER_09]: That's it.
36:58
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm yeah.
36:58
[SPEAKER_09]: This was a fun issue very, very timely as I think you said earlier in the show.
37:04
[SPEAKER_09]: But it was, it was a good response.
37:06
[SPEAKER_09]: And again, I will let you all know if I inherit those billions.
37:09
[SPEAKER_09]: In the meantime, you can find me on Instagram at Illustrator.myth and probably my biggest news.
37:15
[SPEAKER_09]: There's a local comic shop here in San Francisco called Silver Sprocket that started carrying my book branches and a couple of my scenes.
37:21
[SPEAKER_09]: If anyone is interested in checking those out, silver sprockets, store website is stored.silversprockets.net.
37:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So final thoughts on this.
37:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to say it's fascinating to me that we're at issue five and they're just finally starting to form the team.
37:33
[SPEAKER_02]: I love like a slow burn in a way.
37:35
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think that's something that not all teams always have when they're forced together at a tour really.
37:39
[SPEAKER_02]: So I like that they kind of play with that.
37:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Also, Ryan, your crazy eyes when you were doing rampage is a joyous thing.
37:45
[SPEAKER_02]: When you got into it, your eyes were insane in the best way.
37:48
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm Kevin Cadillari, and I am so happy and honored always to be a guest on these podcasts.
37:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't have a podcast of my own, so I just go on off of everybody else.
37:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be on an upcoming episode of Subtext Men, as well as some future script reads for Grey Malkin Lane, and then you can see me in person.
38:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be at WonderCon, and then a bunch of other conventions, including Dan Kenny, Experience, and New York Con.
38:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Next year, or this year, whenever you're listening, it's in soonally, 2026.
38:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, Kristi.
38:13
[SPEAKER_05]: Final thoughts.
38:14
[SPEAKER_05]: I think if this comment came out today, you'd probably be called in this economy, but, you know, being a millennial, you can only live through so many recessions before you're like, oh, let's see, I am at Kristi Porter on Blue Sky, and I am a producer, cosplayer, journalist, many hats.
38:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Ooh, gosh.
38:36
[SPEAKER_05]: I have a Kickstarter that while we're recording this is to be launched soon with an anthology.
38:42
[SPEAKER_05]: I got a story in it.
38:43
[SPEAKER_05]: My and my partner did together.
38:45
[SPEAKER_05]: It's called Witching Season.
38:48
[SPEAKER_05]: So many events later.
38:49
[SPEAKER_05]: Look for that.
38:50
[SPEAKER_05]: Hopefully that gets picked up as a retailer.
38:52
[SPEAKER_05]: So you'll be able to find it.
38:53
[SPEAKER_07]: wonderful to see you all.
38:55
[SPEAKER_07]: Just a joy.
38:56
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's close today by saying the best line from the script, which is a they're cream and heart.
39:01
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks for thanks for the collaboration.
39:03
[SPEAKER_07]: Take care of yourselves.
39:04
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll see you back here early next year with some more champions content in 2026.
39:09
[SPEAKER_07]: Bye and now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism as a special guest and I talked about a red skull story and its modern applications.
39:20
[SPEAKER_07]: When Italy entered World War II in June 1940, Manito Mussolini imagined himself as the heir to the Roman emperors, expanding Italy's reach across the Mediterranean.
39:29
[SPEAKER_07]: training in Africa, alongside his ideological twin, if you will, it'll fitler.
39:34
[SPEAKER_07]: These two dictators have formalized their partnership the previous year with the packed steel in 1939, looking up, pledging mutual military and political support to each other's countries, yet Italy was woefully unprepared for modern warfare.
39:47
[SPEAKER_07]: It's army lacked fuel, equipment, and effective leadership.
39:50
[SPEAKER_07]: Mussolini's ill-fated invasions of Greece and North Africa in 1941 quickly turned disastrous forcing Hitler to divert German troops to rescue his ally, first in the Balkans and then again in North Africa.
40:03
[SPEAKER_07]: This dependency quietly humiliated Mussolini and begin eroding Italy's internal confidence and fascist rules.
40:09
[SPEAKER_07]: So by 1943, the Axis position was collapsing.
40:12
[SPEAKER_07]: The Allied invasion of Sicily and Operation Husky in July 1943 marked a critical blow.
40:18
[SPEAKER_07]: As Allied forces advanced, Italian morale plummeted and fascist support evaporated.
40:23
[SPEAKER_07]: On July 25, 1943, Mussolini was deposed by his own grand council of fascism, arrested on orders of King Victor Emmanuel III, and replaced by Marshall Pietro Badoglio, had to figure out how to say this last name, Marshall Pietro Badoglio.
40:38
[SPEAKER_07]: So Badoglio publicly declared that Italy would continue fighting beside Germany, he secretly began negotiating an armistice with the Allies.
40:46
[SPEAKER_07]: On September 8th, 1943, the New Italian government announced the surrender.
40:49
[SPEAKER_07]: Germany enraged at what Hitler called a stab in the back immediately launched Operation Asha, seizing controlled Italy and disarming its former Allies troops.
40:59
[SPEAKER_07]: The betrayal's impact was profound and tragic.
41:01
[SPEAKER_07]: Hitler ordered Mussolini rescued from captivity, and a daring commando raid led by Otto Scorsany, instilling him as the puppet leader of the Italian Social Republic in Nazi occupied Northern Italy.
41:14
[SPEAKER_07]: The rest of the country descended into chaos.
41:16
[SPEAKER_07]: German forces occupied Rome and committed atrocities against
41:19
[SPEAKER_07]: Civilians, while a brutal civil war erupted between fascists and Italian partisans, Italy's defection opened the southern front for the Allies, but the campaign through the Appanines proved long and bloody.
41:29
[SPEAKER_07]: By the time Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian resistance fighters in April 1945, the dream of a fascist empire had ended in ruin, its betrayal of, and by Nazi Germany, leaving Italy deeply scarred and politically transformed for generations.
41:44
[SPEAKER_07]: Now we're jumping to our new Red Skull story, Captain America Volume 3, beginning in number 15.
41:48
[SPEAKER_07]: At last, at long last, how I have longed for the sensation to command the reality shaping power of the cosmic cube from within.
41:55
[SPEAKER_07]: Kento's the Red Skull that he's about to achieve dominance over Earth for the next few centuries.
42:01
[SPEAKER_07]: Later Captain America and Sharon Carter find the watcher waiting in their home which is always a bedside in the Marvel Universe just before the Red Skull attacks, manipulating reality around himself, Rogers caution how nice to see you again.
42:12
[SPEAKER_07]: He manipulates the floor to bend and hold them in place, warps reality to put Captain America back in his costume.
42:18
[SPEAKER_07]: He briefly twists their faces into Red Skulls.
42:21
[SPEAKER_07]: I could of course kill you where you stand, but doing so would rob me of the greater joy of watching your face collapse in horror at the sight of the world to come.
42:28
[SPEAKER_07]: A world in which every truth and I do do fight for has become nothing more than a fairytale.
42:33
[SPEAKER_07]: My world.
42:33
[SPEAKER_07]: Make the most of your final moments, they will not, they will not last.
42:37
[SPEAKER_07]: So the washer shows the heroes a version of America underneath the red skull.
42:41
[SPEAKER_07]: It's very, oh goodness, it's a wonderful life.
42:44
[SPEAKER_07]: The guardian angel showing the alternate reality, a nation populated quote by 270 million slaves and one dictator.
42:52
[SPEAKER_07]: There is no liberty anymore, there is no justice.
42:55
[SPEAKER_07]: Every freedom you or any soldier has ever championed is now meaningless.
42:58
[SPEAKER_07]: Forgotten like a dream burned away by the dawn's harsh sun.
43:02
[SPEAKER_07]: The people of this land are too far gone,
43:05
[SPEAKER_07]: In the future, the Skull rules America totally and completely with a tyranny that will continue unabated for centuries to come.
43:12
[SPEAKER_07]: Nazi overseers right on the backs of lizard steeds.
43:15
[SPEAKER_07]: The horros corpses have been hung on display, a golden statue of the Red Skull stands over everything, and it happened in less than a day.
43:22
[SPEAKER_07]: In 16, we see America bastardized.
43:25
[SPEAKER_07]: The photo of raising the flag on Ivajima is superimposed over a devastated landscape.
43:30
[SPEAKER_07]: The Lincoln Memorial lies in rubble, the Red Skull replaces it.
43:33
[SPEAKER_07]: But there's still time to fix it.
43:35
[SPEAKER_07]: Back in the past and his gold armor, the Red Skull forces the war to polish his boots while he tortures the Scarlet Witch.
43:41
[SPEAKER_07]: But then the Skull realizes that this reality only remains when he's able to keep his focus.
43:45
[SPEAKER_07]: The watcher teaches cap that in order to stop the skull, he'll have to kill him, that cap refuses wanting to hold to his morals.
43:51
[SPEAKER_07]: Testing as powers of the skull delivers a heat wave famine to New York, watching the civility and the people wither away in their hunger as they begin to fight each other for straps.
43:59
[SPEAKER_07]: He floods the city of Oxford, Mississippi, watching civilians cling to rooftops for survival.
44:04
[SPEAKER_07]: He blankets Los Angeles with an enduring winter, watching the civilian struggle for shelter.
44:09
[SPEAKER_07]: And in each place, cap is there to fight back.
44:11
[SPEAKER_07]: Until the skull reverts him back to his 98-pound weakling version of Steve Rogers once again.
44:16
[SPEAKER_07]: In 17th Red School with his absolute power is just the happiest person you have ever seen.
44:21
[SPEAKER_07]: He's smiling and throwing his arms around as he reigns chaos on the earth.
44:24
[SPEAKER_07]: He rides a dragon to devastate Washington, D.C. Delightful, America's capital at last and revealed for what I've always known if to be, a quagmire endangered by prehistoric ideas, what's better placed than the heart of the falling American dynasty to establish a new skull nation and rip a sunder these embarrassing monuments to fools long dead and capred towards.
44:43
[SPEAKER_07]: The strength of this country isn't in buildings of brick and steel.
44:47
[SPEAKER_07]: It's in the hearts of those who have sworn to fight for freedom against any phone no matter how great the odds.
44:52
[SPEAKER_07]: Cap is restored to full strength and there's a big, playful fist fight as the city around them burns.
44:57
[SPEAKER_07]: But then, Skull tosses him in a tar pit after summoning the ship of Galactus from across space.
45:02
[SPEAKER_07]: The Red Skull is prepared to enter it and thus achieve kind of cosmic dominance.
45:06
[SPEAKER_07]: As the Watcher warns Cap that it's now or never.
45:08
[SPEAKER_07]: So Cap stabs the Red Skull with an energy spear in the back, feeling like he has no choice but to kill him.
45:13
[SPEAKER_07]: But surprise, it wasn't the watcher at all.
45:15
[SPEAKER_07]: It was Kang the Kalker and disguise.
45:17
[SPEAKER_07]: And now Michael Corvac has the cosmic cube.
45:20
[SPEAKER_07]: We're not going to talk about Corvac today.
45:21
[SPEAKER_07]: It's an old Avengers foe who gets god powers.
45:24
[SPEAKER_07]: Finally in 18 and 19, Corvac is now able to become Galactus and take over the world.
45:29
[SPEAKER_07]: So the Red Skull was getting tricked by Kang the whole time.
45:31
[SPEAKER_07]: So now we get to see the reality where he doesn't kill the Red Skull.
45:35
[SPEAKER_07]: But then that works the plans of Kang and Corvac, but it also allows the Red Skull to get on the ship of Galactus and kill for its secrets.
45:41
[SPEAKER_07]: This is exquisite.
45:43
[SPEAKER_07]: My mind fills with the secrets of the cosmos, galactic mysteries, atomic enigma, as they unravel within me as, with crystal clarity, there's nothing I can not do.
45:52
[SPEAKER_07]: And then he visualizes his face and hands as bigger than cities, like this is his big dream.
45:57
[SPEAKER_07]: There's more fighting.
45:58
[SPEAKER_07]: He makes Sharon fight cap as they fight.
46:00
[SPEAKER_07]: Thousand skulls, yeah.
46:01
[SPEAKER_07]: Cute!
46:01
[SPEAKER_07]: But he ends up disappearing in the data stream of the galactic energy at overwells.
46:06
[SPEAKER_07]: And oh my god, is this the red skull is the genie from Aladdin?
46:09
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay.
46:09
[SPEAKER_07]: I know that was a lot of it introduction, but let me welcome my incredible friend, who Leo, odds are back to the show.
46:14
[SPEAKER_08]: I, who Leo, I hope you enjoyed that performance.
46:17
[SPEAKER_07]: I did.
46:17
[SPEAKER_08]: I enjoyed the voices, especially.
46:20
[SPEAKER_08]: Are you a voice actor?
46:22
[SPEAKER_08]: Are you a red skull fan, my friend?
46:23
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I can't say I'm a red skull fan, but I do enjoy stories where red skull is the antagonist in it.
46:29
[SPEAKER_07]: He is a terrible villain.
46:31
[SPEAKER_07]: The baseline of evil every time.
46:33
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if you've read much of his history or even seen this kind of era of Captain America books.
46:38
[SPEAKER_07]: It's pretty powerful storytelling here.
46:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, this was my first time reading this era.
46:42
[SPEAKER_03]: This is like, wait, what year is this?
46:44
[SPEAKER_03]: It's in the early 90s or... And I know, early 2000s around 2000s.
46:47
[SPEAKER_07]: At least 1000s, okay.
46:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Got it, yeah, yeah.
46:49
[SPEAKER_03]: No, it was definitely my first time reading this.
46:51
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, I enjoyed it.
46:52
[SPEAKER_03]: I thought it obviously had a lot of powerful commentary.
46:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Even if the stories are a little, but wait, it's actually king.
46:59
[SPEAKER_03]: And then this, and then that, it's very, you know,
47:01
[SPEAKER_03]: It really feels like Wade just trying to like one of himself every issue and just make it a little crazier a little twistier each side, but I enjoyed it.
47:10
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't know if you know that little monster movie, the blob, like it just as it consumes it grows and whatever it flows over it keeps growing.
47:17
[SPEAKER_07]: That's kind of the red skull in stories like this where no matter how much he takes over in devastates, he just wants to keep expanding bigger, bigger, bigger, where were you in 2003?
47:29
[SPEAKER_07]: And we're like, you know, no, no, no, no, I was 25, I was 25, I'd like.
47:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, 13, wow.
47:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
47:39
[SPEAKER_03]: So 13 was it is a really, uh, 2,000, 3 is a very like 2,000, 3,000, 4 is so pivotal in my development as the person that I am today.
47:48
[SPEAKER_03]: It's when I first really became politicized as a kid as a teenager.
47:52
[SPEAKER_03]: The Iraq war was the first time that I, I think, had my own
47:57
[SPEAKER_03]: I realized that my own beliefs were different than my family, as my communities, and the mainstream of what U.S. politics was pushing on us.
48:05
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I remember watching the day that the bombs were dropping on Baghdad, shocking a lot, and just thinking without having the language for it, but just intrinsically feeling inside of me that this is wrong, you know, that people are dying, even though, you know, I saw people celebrating it.
48:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It just felt wrong and I didn't have the political education to really understand why it was wrong but it was just something that was in me and around this time is also when you know I have started getting into music really heavily pumpkin hard for bands who are political and their orientation you know and who are writing songs and singing songs about that are anti war and I'm seeing for the first time that there are adults who have a different political perspective than the one that I've been raised under so it's really
48:46
[SPEAKER_03]: just like this hugely eye-opening theory in my life where I'm also discovering music and going to shows for the first time, like local DIY concerts where I'm meeting people who are openly queer for the first time, people who are vegan, people who are anti-war, like all these things that are so different than the world, like sort of without getting two-person, like the even
49:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, kind of an interesting that this comic came out at the same time that I'm really going through a bit of a transformation as a teenager.
49:20
[SPEAKER_07]: So there's this careful balance of power.
49:22
[SPEAKER_07]: It's interesting to me.
49:23
[SPEAKER_07]: We've been doing a lot of like fascism conversations on my show lately.
49:26
[SPEAKER_07]: Captain America.
49:27
[SPEAKER_07]: America kind of represents these old baby boomer values, you know, from a bygone time and his ability to adapt to a new America, the focal point in this story is will he kill the red skull or not and the red skull is like the Nazi work criminal responsible for millions of deaths.
49:44
[SPEAKER_07]: So that being the focal decision is like where is that line of decency is really interesting one.
49:49
[SPEAKER_07]: I mean I think you kill red skull.
49:51
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's, this is, this is easier than baby Hitler.
49:56
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, this is, I mean, with his finger on the nuke and that, of course, speaking, yes.
50:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Exactly.
50:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I laugh reading this because, you know, cap obviously really struggles with this.
50:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And he has a conversation with Peggy where she is, it's been a minute since I read them, but she's trying to like, she's surprised that he won't do it, right?
50:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it with her or with somebody else?
50:15
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, Sharon, Sharon is very willing to do.
50:17
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, Sharon, that's right.
50:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, yeah, Peggy is her aunt.
50:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so Sharon is like ready to, you know, to kill red skull cap has moral issue with that, you know, at the end of the day, it's all okay, but yeah, that's it for me super easy decision snap my fingers and he's gone, you know, and we avoid this fascist take over this, you know, everything that he stands for we have the red skull calling America's capital being revealed for what he's always known it to be a call.
50:44
[SPEAKER_07]: Quagmire endangered by prehistoric ideas, which is a crazy phraseology, but there's always been a very thin line between white supremacy and Naziism, right?
50:55
[SPEAKER_07]: Like it's not that hard.
50:56
[SPEAKER_07]: So 2025 being kind of the ultimate comparison here.
50:59
[SPEAKER_07]: How are you doing?
51:00
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a crazy friend.
51:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it's interesting because we are recording this on November 10th.
51:06
[SPEAKER_03]: We are almost a week sit from I live in New York City where we electims are on Mamdani to be mayor, which I think a lot of the country is seeing as a glimmer of hope and for us in New York who can't
51:18
[SPEAKER_03]: paying for him and canvas for him.
51:20
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been a lot of work and now, you know, we saw that work come to fruition and, you know, for the first time in a really long time, we won and we feel good about something.
51:29
[SPEAKER_03]: But at the same time, you know, there is this ever descent into fascism that we've been facing since the first Trump administration, but especially now with the second.
51:38
[SPEAKER_07]: But also the formation of our country of, you know, we compromised over slavery.
51:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, no, of course.
51:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, every single day we get another piece of bad news, but in the midst of it, you know, we get some good news.
51:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Obviously last week, we like to draw on, but today also this Supreme Court just announced that they were not going to take up the case to sort of destroy the same sex marriage case.
52:00
[SPEAKER_07]: So, you know, there were legit listeners recording this on the morning where that got announced like an hour.
52:04
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, it'll be a few weeks before this comes out, but there's always these time markers, you know.
52:08
[SPEAKER_03]: yeah so we'll see if this comes back to bite us and this bit of good news is a peeled or something you know who knows but yeah so there are glimmers of hope you know we live in a we live in a country that is that insists on capitulating to trump you know both parties you know again to you know continue to break the k-fable with
52:27
[SPEAKER_03]: data's you know last night it looks like the Democrats are capitulating to the to the fund the government without accepting the ACA being renewed.
52:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a tough situation that we find ourselves in with not many heroes on either side to sort of save us from this fascism but you know so I I take a day by day you have my orientation towards all this right now is pretty negative but you know I take the wins where we can get them.
52:54
[SPEAKER_07]: I have never lost faith in humans, in community, in intellectualism, and art, but it is hard to avoid that kind of slow erosion of exhaustion that we're all feeling I think these days.
53:06
[SPEAKER_07]: Now, I opened with this kind of historical anecdote, which I feel like we could just cut and paste into today's history, which is what this research is crazy for me.
53:14
[SPEAKER_07]: But Hitler and Mussolini, signing their pact of steel, even the fact that they named it that sounds so devoted.
53:20
[SPEAKER_07]: But then when things start falling apart for Italy, Germany comes to the rescue, there's these betrayals, Mussolini's arrested, and then Hitler takes over the north of Italy, rescues Mussolini, and then puts them in as the puppet governor in the new fascist part.
53:35
[SPEAKER_07]: This is history.
53:36
[SPEAKER_07]: I don't think we learn very often.
53:38
[SPEAKER_07]: Did you have fun?
53:38
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, no.
53:39
[SPEAKER_07]: Out of historical comparison.
53:40
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, you know, there's so many moments that I've had since I sort of became politically conscious where I start realizing that, wow, like we weren't taught this because we weren't supposed to know this, you know, these are, you know, just everything from, you know, I never learned in school obviously all of the Nazi scientists that we sort of brought into the country and, you know, sort of forgave their sins and use their knowledge to, you know,
54:06
[SPEAKER_03]: Brother our own whether it was with NASA or own just like imperialist desires.
54:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know every day I learned something new that talks me in a new way But yeah, there's so many parallels to obviously hit learn Mussolini and World War II in the moment that we're living today.
54:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I think I go back to
54:21
[SPEAKER_03]: to the point that you made earlier about community.
54:23
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what I put my faith in.
54:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I put my faith in people who are organizing around their communities who are in this moment where snap is being chopped in half and so many people are going to struggle in hungry communities that are organizing.
54:35
[SPEAKER_03]: I just watched the video of people in Atlanta who were organizing free breakfast for their community.
54:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And all these mutual aid funds.
54:43
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think it shows that the things that we do as a community is what the government should be doing to take care of us.
54:51
[SPEAKER_03]: commit genocide around the world, but we don't have money to take care of our own people here, and I think that is true with Hitler's Germany, and true with what we're living through today, and this just war, profiteering, and war-mongering is really, I think, a pretty app sign of a crumbling empire for better or for worse, you know.
55:10
[SPEAKER_07]: One of the things that I find so frustrating and jarring.
55:14
[SPEAKER_07]: I live in Salt Lake City.
55:15
[SPEAKER_07]: So you and I got to see each other at NYCC and talk about this.
55:18
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but you know, Charlie Kirk was killed 20 miles from my house.
55:20
[SPEAKER_07]: And I was at the scene about this for a week to increase this work.
55:23
[SPEAKER_07]: I have a cousin who she and her husband.
55:25
[SPEAKER_07]: were hit with tear gas and rubber bullets at a peaceful protest by the ice thing in Portland.
55:31
[SPEAKER_07]: And then just three weeks ago, I witnessed four people who were being detained by ice outside of the facility for well over an hour.
55:38
[SPEAKER_07]: And I just sat there and I couldn't do anything.
55:40
[SPEAKER_07]: There's four Hispanic people, you know, on their knees, on the ground, is like their cars being explored by cops that aren't even in the cop uniforms.
55:47
[SPEAKER_07]: You know, I like wept for days.
55:49
[SPEAKER_07]: So this
55:49
[SPEAKER_07]: The thing for me is it feels like the circle's growing smaller and I don't lose sight of the big hopeful things But it doesn't take away from that crazy stuff either.
55:57
[SPEAKER_07]: I've referenced your book a home on my show multiple times And I was thrilled to have you on the first time you came on to talk about home But boy does your book read different than it did just three years ago, you know
56:07
[SPEAKER_07]: How are you doing as a creator these days?
56:09
[SPEAKER_03]: It's tough because I got my starting comics home published in 2021 is five single issues and obviously it for those of you who are familiar it is.
56:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It takes place in the 2018 family separation crisis.
56:21
[SPEAKER_03]: So I got my starting comics as sort of a form of, I don't want to say, maybe saying therapy is making too much of it but away from me to sort of exercise my feelings of hopelessness and helplessness.
56:37
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, like to try to do something, express myself in the face of this crisis where I saw my father who came to this country news five years old, and I saw my son who was three years old at the time in the eyes of these children who were being ripped away from their parents.
56:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And, you know, the book published post the first Trump administration of publishing the Biden administration.
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[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, I think the wounds were still extremely raw, at least they were for me and for a lot of the people that reached out after they read it.
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[SPEAKER_03]: the first time.
57:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And now, you know, I am feeling like I'm in that same place again where, you know, I feel like I need to create things that respond to the moment.
57:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, since then, you know, I've been publishing for four years and I've still, all of my work has been, you know, political in some way or another.
57:24
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you know, it, um,
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[SPEAKER_03]: It definitely feels like we are in an urgent moment and as artists, we need to play a role in the urgency and in the moving the needle of getting people to open their eyes and realize that we need to take action before this continues to go to go off the cliff.
57:41
[SPEAKER_03]: So yeah, that's kind of where my mind is right now.
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[SPEAKER_03]: So a lot of the projects that I am working on now that unfortunately won't be out, you know, for a little bit all addressed the current moment that we're in in some way or another.
57:52
[SPEAKER_07]: And on those early stories, I hope that you can hear very fairly listeners that the people who rose up against Mussolini in these particular examples because there was a whole populist ready to come in and take the government back.
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[SPEAKER_07]: And people ready to help on all sides.
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[SPEAKER_07]: So I'm grateful for alliances.
58:07
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm grateful for friendships.
58:08
[SPEAKER_07]: grateful for you, my friend.
58:09
[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for being an incredible storyteller and for spending your time with me this morning.
58:12
[SPEAKER_07]: I appreciate it.
58:13
[SPEAKER_07]: Of course.
58:13
[SPEAKER_07]: Thanks for having me.
58:14
[SPEAKER_07]: All right everybody, please take care of yourselves.
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[SPEAKER_07]: Live joyfully.
58:17
[SPEAKER_07]: Be safe.
58:18
[SPEAKER_07]: We'll see you all back here next week.
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[SPEAKER_07]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
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[SPEAKER_07]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
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[SPEAKER_07]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah, with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
58:34
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58:47
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58:49
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[SPEAKER_07]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.