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Fourth World Book Club #8 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody! I almost said good evening. Good morning, everybody! Welcome back to 22 Panels. I guess it might be evening when they're listening. Who knows?
• 0:11
  Mark Pracht: It's what… it's morning or evening, depending on where you are.
• 0:14
  Tad Eggleston: That's true, that's true.
• 0:16
  Sean Harklerode: Morning in America.
• 0:20
  Tad Eggleston: I mean… maybe?
• 0:23
  Sean Harklerode: Depends on how you spell it.
• 0:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right! It's like, haha!
• 0:27
  Tad Eggleston: Welcome back to the Fourth World Book Club on 22 Panels. I'm joined by…
• 0:34
  Tad Eggleston: Actor and playwright Mark Pratt, and actor Sean Harkle Road, both out of Chicago. Cool, cool guys. And, today we are going to…
• 0:43
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we are definitely gonna talk about New Gods No. 7 and Mr. Miracle number 7, and if we have time, we also read Superman's pal Jimmy Olsen, numbers 144 and 45, and Forever People No. 7. But I think any two pages of New Gods and Mr. Miracle had more to talk about than…
• 1:02
  Tad Eggleston: Those three issues combined?
• 1:05
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I think that… I think… I think that our thoughts on, Jimmy Olsen and, my thoughts on Jimmy Olson and Forever People can be summed up in two words.
• 1:16
  Mark Pracht: Killing time!
• 1:18
  Tad Eggleston: Hey, hey! I mean, cool monsters?
• 1:22
  Mark Pracht: Sure.
• 1:22
  Tad Eggleston: for Jimmy Olson.
• 1:23
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 1:24
  Sean Harklerode: And on the last page of 145, you know, Jimmy turns into the mad thinker.
• 1:32
  Tad Eggleston: B.
• 1:33
  Sean Harklerode: But…
• 1:33
  Tad Eggleston: So, I mean…
• 1:35
  Sean Harklerode: Yes.
• 1:36
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, we're done, does anybody have any words, any other words for Forever People? I don't even have any other words.
• 1:42
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, I think that… I think that there's something to be said about the fact that Jimmy Olsen is the book that he sort of… that Jack took, sort of, because they wanted him to do one of the flagship characters, and it was like…
• 1:55
  Mark Pracht: Depending on how you look… depending on what story you want to believe, either he asked for the one that had the lowest sales, or he asked for the one that didn't have a solid creative team on it, because he didn't want to put anybody out of work.
• 2:09
  Mark Pracht: Okay, fine. But I mean, like, I still think… I think that Jimmy Olsen is,
• 2:16
  Mark Pracht: you know, it's rehashing a lot of ideas that he already had done, in the Golden Age, you know? Right. And, Forever.
• 2:25
  Tad Eggleston: And sometimes with the reprints of those at the back of the… Sure. Yeah, 100%.
• 2:30
  Mark Pracht: And, even though…
• 2:32
  Tad Eggleston: Here's when I did it better 20 years ago!
• 2:35
  Mark Pracht: Well, and the thing is, is, like, you do have that element of, Like…
• 2:42
  Mark Pracht: One thing I'm sort of thankful for is that the digital reprint that I'm reading doesn't have that stuff.
• 2:49
  Tad Eggleston: So I can't…
• 2:50
  Mark Pracht: I can't sit there and go, like, well, the Newsboy Legion was better back then. But,
• 2:57
  Mark Pracht: And that I really do feel like Forever People never found
• 3:03
  Mark Pracht: what that series is about. Like, you know, the,
• 3:07
  Mark Pracht: God, it's been so long since we've seen him, I don't even remember the guy that they combine into.
• 3:14
  Sean Harklerode: Right. Union man.
• 3:15
  Mark Pracht: the Uni-Man, or whatever it is. And we haven't even seen that character for, like, 5 issues. And there's only been, like, 7 issues.
• 3:23
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, there are two things that I will say that are unequivocally positive about… one about Jimmy Olsen, one about Forever People. About Jimmy Olsen, it's that I would be very willing to bet that should we…
• 3:42
  Tad Eggleston: go back to the Jimmy Olsens immediately preceding Jack's run, these are exponentially better.
• 3:51
  Tad Eggleston: I can't guarantee it, because I haven't read them, but based on what I know of just comics of the era, and, like, what this type of title can be.
• 4:01
  Tad Eggleston: And also, I like that Jimmy Olsen is kind of what ties…
• 4:08
  Tad Eggleston: the Fourth World into the DC Universe. It's what allows for…
• 4:14
  Tad Eggleston: like the Great Darkness Saga. It's what allows for any number of things.
• 4:20
  Mark Pracht: That's, that's 100% true. I just think, like, the one thing we can say about this issue of Forever People is that, it, it takes,
• 4:32
  Mark Pracht: the, what is it, the, omega effect?
• 4:37
  Mark Pracht: and explains what the Omega effect is, but then in explaining it, almost immediately takes this… the terrifying Omega effect, and it's like, oh yeah, but you just go back in time and find… find where they went.
• 4:50
  Sean Harklerode: You know, right?
• 4:51
  Mark Pracht: big angels.
• 4:52
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, exactly.
• 4:54
  Sean Harklerode: I mean, I… First of all, Infinity Man.
• 4:59
  Sean Harklerode: That, that…
• 5:00
  Mark Pracht: Sorry. Yeah. And I should know that, I really should, but… Look.
• 5:06
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, it happens.
• 5:07
  Mark Pracht: It's been forever since we've seen that character.
• 5:10
  Tad Eggleston: It's been forever, people. Forever, people.
• 5:13
  Sean Harklerode: I would say that, you know, back to Forever People, and I know we…
• 5:19
  Sean Harklerode: just to get this, started, I think that… it felt like…
• 5:25
  Sean Harklerode: Jack just wanted to draw a bunch of different things, and there's some great visuals there, the Roman Legion there, Abraham Lincoln, it seemed fun, for Jack, anyway.
• 5:37
  Sean Harklerode: And…
• 5:39
  Tad Eggleston: That, like, leads perfectly to my other comment about the Forever People, is it's got a ton of good ideas, and since, at least for me.
• 5:48
  Tad Eggleston: and why we'll move on to them almost immediately, this is where New Gods and Mr. Miracle became, like, absolutely vital and vibrant, rather than…
• 6:00
  Tad Eggleston: Cool with moments.
• 6:03
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 6:03
  Tad Eggleston: Right. This is the turning point in New Gods and Mr. Miracle. You know, and it kind of felt like he was teasing it out until he got here. So I wonder if he just never got to tease forever people
• 6:18
  Tad Eggleston: Long enough for it to coalesce.
• 6:22
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I…
• 6:24
  Mark Pracht: I… I have a… I think… that Forever People was about… Trying to reach the kids.
• 6:34
  Mark Pracht: you know.
• 6:37
  Mark Pracht: And…
• 6:38
  Sean Harklerode: Speaking to what the flower people say.
• 6:43
  Mark Pracht: Like a bolt out of the blue.
• 6:48
  Mark Pracht: Sean and I both saw Spinal Tap 2, so…
• 6:51
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, it looks really good. I'm looking forward to it.
• 6:54
  Mark Pracht: You know, it's funny. I mean, like, is it as good as the original? But, to the, to the point,
• 7:01
  Mark Pracht: I think, I think… the Forever People started out as one thing, and then it never really… I think…
• 7:09
  Mark Pracht: despite everything that anybody wants to say about this, these series, I think
• 7:17
  Mark Pracht: Forever People is where you see that Jack knew
• 7:20
  Mark Pracht: That maybe the book wasn't hitting the way he wanted it to.
• 7:24
  Mark Pracht: Right?
• 7:25
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 7:26
  Mark Pracht: Because it just starts to meander.
• 7:28
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 7:30
  Mark Pracht: And… and I feel like it's been meandering for quite a while.
• 7:35
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, he introduces Sonny Sumo, like he's gonna be this incredible character, and he was! And then it's like, oh yeah, but then he was gone.
• 7:44
  Sean Harklerode: And that was what I was gonna say earlier, you know, Sonny Sumo, he rescues everyone else.
• 7:50
  Sean Harklerode: but leaves Sunny back in time for Seraphim to determine.
• 7:55
  Mark Pracht: Well, to become… I think…
• 7:58
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, well, I mean, like, it also… I think it subtly suggests that he becomes Buddha.
• 8:08
  Mark Pracht: And I'm like, okay.
• 8:14
  Mark Pracht: But that's neither here nor there. Like, they're not very interesting. They don't… I think that it undercuts a lot of the drama that it tried to lead up to, and it just is not much of anything, right?
• 8:28
  Mark Pracht: And, yeah, I think…
• 8:33
  Mark Pracht: Turning to the stuff that's really interesting is that
• 8:37
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I think that this is a big turning point for both New Gods and…
• 8:43
  Mark Pracht: Mr. Miracle, to the point where I think this book.
• 8:48
  Mark Pracht: should have been New God's number one.
• 8:52
  Mark Pracht: like.
• 8:53
  Tad Eggleston: I think it would have been a really…
• 8:55
  Mark Pracht: Number 7, everyone.
• 8:56
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Yeah, I think it would have been… I mean, this is, like, the extreme version of Matt Fraction's your third issue is your first issue.
• 9:05
  Mark Pracht: Sure. I mean, like, and I understand trying to connect people to things, but, like, all of this…
• 9:12
  Mark Pracht: I, you know, I'm… all of this stuff about, Orion…
• 9:18
  Mark Pracht: fighting for Earth, you know? Like, they keep talking about this war happening on Earth, and I don't really feel like we've seen that.
• 9:26
  Tad Eggleston: I think we've seen a lot of machinations.
• 9:29
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 9:30
  Mark Pracht: But not a… Real, solid, viable, like.
• 9:36
  Mark Pracht: Darkseid is coming to take over Earth, right?
• 9:40
  Mark Pracht: Because that.
• 9:41
  Tad Eggleston: Alright.
• 9:41
  Mark Pracht: that doesn't… that doesn't feel what it's like. That feels like… it feels like Darkseid is like, oh, look, I've made a deal with…
• 9:49
  Mark Pracht: intergang, and I've made a deal with these, you know, and I've put these people into a research facility, and it's like, okay, great, but…
• 9:59
  Mark Pracht: And… But… You know, like.
• 10:02
  Tad Eggleston: I think almost everything… almost everything we've gotten…
• 10:06
  Tad Eggleston: so far. In terms of story.
• 10:10
  Tad Eggleston: Would work much better as, like, one or two pages aside in a story that otherwise started with this issue.
• 10:18
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 10:19
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 10:19
  Mark Pracht: Because, I mean, and I think that part… one of the things that I did clock about this particular issue, which I thought was great.
• 10:27
  Mark Pracht: was… The revelations of it, We already know.
• 10:35
  Tad Eggleston: Right. Like, we already know that Orion is Darkseid's son. We already know that Scott Free…
• 10:41
  Mark Pracht: I don't know if… do we… did we know that he was high father-son? I think I just assumed that at this point, but…
• 10:46
  Tad Eggleston: I think we've been told once.
• 10:49
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. I mean, like, and it's… it's sort of like this, oh, whoa, you know, and…
• 10:56
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, I can… I can… Nitpick the pact?
• 11:01
  Mark Pracht: you know, as, like, I don't… quite understand why
• 11:09
  Mark Pracht: This trading of sons stop this massive war, you know?
• 11:15
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think…
• 11:16
  Mark Pracht: I mean, it's…
• 11:17
  Tad Eggleston: done in history, it's supposed to be you wouldn't kill your own family.
• 11:22
  Mark Pracht: Sh- well, yeah, I mean, like, it's also the same thing of, like, you could've, like…
• 11:25
  Tad Eggleston: It's like the trading of hostages.
• 11:28
  Mark Pracht: It's… I have this thing…
• 11:30
  Tad Eggleston: that means something to you. I mean, it's almost the mutual assured destruction.
• 11:35
  Mark Pracht: Sure. But I mean, and like, I mean, it's a nitpicky thing, but it's also, like, there's… there's examples of this in mythology.
• 11:45
  Mark Pracht: added.
• 11:46
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and I was about to say, mind you, I think mutual assured destruction Isn't actually a good…
• 11:52
  Tad Eggleston: a good, like… I don't think it's the deterrent that people think it is.
• 11:58
  Mark Pracht: Well, and I also think that, you know, introducing, introducing,
• 12:05
  Mark Pracht: opposite thought into your, society is, not necessarily a bad thing.
• 12:14
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, that's… yeah.
• 12:16
  Mark Pracht: Or, or, or a, A way to maintain…
• 12:25
  Mark Pracht: I want to say cohesion, but that's not the word that I'm looking for. Maintain,
• 12:31
  Mark Pracht: A monolithic train of thought, right?
• 12:34
  Mark Pracht: And I think that… In both of these cases.
• 12:41
  Mark Pracht: And, like, this… I mean, this is the crux of the story, right?
• 12:44
  Mark Pracht: Orion comes to… to New Genesis, and becomes… Its greatest hero, right?
• 12:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 12:56
  Mark Pracht: at… They, you know, they've occasionally referred to him as the god of war on a planet that
• 13:03
  Mark Pracht: has no war, right? Or doesn't…
• 13:06
  Mark Pracht: And… and then you have Scott Free, who… comes to Apocalypse, and…
• 13:14
  Mark Pracht: Clearly, Granny Goodness is infatuated with him in some way or another.
• 13:19
  Mark Pracht: I know it makes it uncomfortable when I talk about the sexuality of granny goodness with Sean, but…
• 13:27
  Sean Harklerode: Hey, man.
• 13:29
  Sean Harklerode: We all have our things.
• 13:31
  Mark Pracht: And Jack had a thing.
• 13:34
  Mark Pracht: But, I mean, like, look, I… I don't know, I think… I'll just shut up now, but I think… I think that it's a deep…
• 13:41
  Mark Pracht: you can knit, like, as with any, like, fairy tale or mythological story, you can nitpick the thing to death. But,
• 13:50
  Mark Pracht: It works, and it's powerful.
• 13:53
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I mean, I think with Granny Goodness and Scott, I think that he's good, he's High Father's son.
• 13:59
  Sean Harklerode: And… She's a sadist.
• 14:04
  Sean Harklerode: And I think she just likes torturing him.
• 14:07
  Mark Pracht: Well, and she wants to defile him.
• 14:09
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 14:10
  Mark Pracht: And I mean, I think that, like, it's subtextual. Don't… I mean, I think it's all subtextual. Like, what I'm talking about is entirely subtextual, but I think that there is an element of,
• 14:23
  Mark Pracht: sexuality that's into this whole thing. I mean, like, I… Jack's not dumb, right?
• 14:33
  Mark Pracht: Anyway.
• 14:34
  Mark Pracht: Right. Somebody else talk. I talk too much.
• 14:39
  Tad Eggleston: I like your talk.
• 14:40
  Sean Harklerode: So, I'd never read this one before, and I'd never really heard the origin of Highfather, so I thought that was,
• 14:48
  Sean Harklerode: you know, really played into the Moses, myth.
• 14:54
  Sean Harklerode: so I thought that was really interesting.
• 14:59
  Sean Harklerode: I also didn't know that Steppenwolf was… Darkseid's uncle?
• 15:06
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 15:08
  Mark Pracht: That was a little strange. Yeah.
• 15:11
  Sean Harklerode: And,
• 15:13
  Sean Harklerode: I'd say one other great… one other thing that… that got me, I think it's Steppenwolf when,
• 15:21
  Sean Harklerode: he says what I was thinking when… Darkseid has that death glove.
• 15:28
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. My friend DeSaad made this.
• 15:31
  Sean Harklerode: And he's like, I find it odd that DeSaud would create something that just kills someone outright.
• 15:38
  Sean Harklerode: Because I thought the same thing, it's like, DeSant killing someone fast? I don't… I don't understand that.
• 15:44
  Mark Pracht: That seems… that seems out of character. You know, what I did love about it, you know, when we talk about the Highfather thing, like, I… I honestly wish that Jack had spent more time with Highfather, because this makes Highfather a really interesting character. Much more interesting than he's been as the…
• 16:00
  Mark Pracht: the, you know, high priest kind of thing that he's been so far. But, I mean, like, and, and, you know.
• 16:07
  Mark Pracht: one thing that struck me as I was reading it was the, the,
• 16:20
  Mark Pracht: The uselessness of revenge as a motivation.
• 16:25
  Mark Pracht: And, I mean… I think that… that that is… So… Telling for our world.
• 16:37
  Mark Pracht: Right now.
• 16:39
  Mark Pracht: Because I think that, you know, when, when,
• 16:46
  Mark Pracht: Oh god, what was his name before he became Highfather? .
• 16:49
  Sean Harklerode: Isaiah.
• 16:50
  Mark Pracht: Isaiah, right.
• 16:52
  Mark Pracht: when Aziah is just like, I'm going to… I'm going to gain revenge, he can't.
• 16:57
  Sean Harklerode: I guess it might be pronounced Isaiah?
• 17:00
  Mark Pracht: I… it might be.
• 17:01
  Sean Harklerode: and…
• 17:02
  Mark Pracht: Isaiah.
• 17:03
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 17:04
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, I'm looking at it right now, yeah, Isaiah.
• 17:09
  Mark Pracht: And I think that that's… I think that that is a,
• 17:15
  Mark Pracht: That struck me as I was reading this book, over and over again.
• 17:24
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 17:30
  Mark Pracht: And everyone is struck silence.
• 17:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yo, I mean…
• 17:35
  Mark Pracht: Deep, deep.
• 17:36
  Tad Eggleston: Deep thoughts.
• 17:37
  Sean Harklerode: thoughts.
• 17:39
  Sean Harklerode: with Jack.
• 17:39
  Tad Eggleston: Jack Andy.
• 17:43
  Mark Pracht: I took my nephew, and I told him we were going to Disneyland, and I took him to a burned-down warehouse and said.
• 17:51
  Mark Pracht: Sorry, Disneyland burned down.
• 17:55
  Mark Pracht: I think that was a funny joke.
• 17:58
  Mark Pracht: Anyway.
• 18:00
  Mark Pracht: All apologies to Jack Handy for my.
• 18:02
  Sean Harklerode: Bad memory of how that joke actually goes.
• 18:07
  Tad Eggleston: Ugh.
• 18:09
  Mark Pracht: The other thing I loved about it… sorry.
• 18:12
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, please.
• 18:13
  Mark Pracht: I'm filling dead air now, is, I liked seeing a dark side that was striving
• 18:21
  Mark Pracht: For power, rather than having it.
• 18:25
  Mark Pracht: I thought that was super cool.
• 18:27
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 18:28
  Mark Pracht: I think,
• 18:33
  Mark Pracht: And… You know, I… I… I'm cont… you know, it's funny, on this reread of all of this.
• 18:42
  Mark Pracht: I'm sort of struck by… the,
• 18:49
  Mark Pracht: Darkseid sort of reminds me of the best characterizations of Victor von Doom, like…
• 18:56
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, he's a tyrant, and he's a,
• 19:01
  Mark Pracht: Overlord and total domination, but there is… like…
• 19:08
  Mark Pracht: There isn't a… like, he always seems to… to disavow cruelty.
• 19:13
  Mark Pracht: You know?
• 19:14
  Sean Harklerode: He lets it.
• 19:15
  Mark Pracht: Other people be cruel, right?
• 19:18
  Mark Pracht: It's fascinating.
• 19:22
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 19:23
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, he has…
• 19:27
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, and I know Thanos came later, so really Thanos has dark side elements where… where it…
• 19:36
  Tad Eggleston: It's not always as much about cruelty, as much as it's about some sort of balance, some sort of…
• 19:46
  Tad Eggleston: Does that make sense?
• 19:47
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, yeah, like, obviously, I think the MC.
• 19:51
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, he's looking for the anti-life equation. Right. You know, he…
• 19:57
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I've always felt that the MCU Thanos owed more to Darkseid than than really,
• 20:05
  Tad Eggleston: Then Starlin?
• 20:06
  Mark Pracht: than the Starlin one, because I always… the… the,
• 20:12
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's getting kind of… the Thanos that was out to court death, you know? It was all about love for…
• 20:19
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 20:20
  Mark Pracht: the actual…
• 20:22
  Mark Pracht: embodiment of death. I always thought that that was super interesting, in that how far was he willing to go just for
• 20:30
  Mark Pracht: his… Love, you know?
• 20:32
  Tad Eggleston: Brighton.
• 20:33
  Mark Pracht: And… and I think that… I think that this whole, like, balance thing…
• 20:39
  Mark Pracht: It seems like an intellectual exercise that was just designed to not have to
• 20:46
  Mark Pracht: Grapple with something that was hard to convey on film, you know?
• 20:51
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 20:52
  Mark Pracht: Even though, you know, I remember when… sorry, this is… this is getting off-topic, but…
• 20:57
  Tad Eggleston: We always get off topic.
• 20:58
  Mark Pracht: I remember when, ragnarok came out, and we had, Hela.
• 21:07
  Mark Pracht: show up, and they were like, oh, Hela is gonna be the stand-in for death for Thanos.
• 21:13
  Mark Pracht: And I was like, oh, that's… that's a great idea, you know? And, then they didn't do that.
• 21:20
  Mark Pracht: And Cate Blanchett went into that…
• 21:24
  Mark Pracht: Cate Blanchett in the, in the…
• 21:29
  Mark Pracht: Was like, oh, no, I'm done, thanks, thanks!
• 21:32
  Mark Pracht: I'd like to check, it was great.
• 21:36
  Mark Pracht: but… went into that great big bin of Marvel Cinematic Universe characters that we will never see again.
• 21:47
  Mark Pracht: But, no, I think, you know, I just… there's… there's so…
• 21:57
  Mark Pracht: It's really clear that this is kind of the point. Excuse me.
• 22:02
  Mark Pracht: that this book shows what the point of this whole thing is. I mean, and I don't think it's very well thought out. I think Mark Ivanier was right at that panel, that I don't think Jack had…
• 22:12
  Mark Pracht: This grand idea that was, like.
• 22:16
  Mark Pracht: worked out in steps, but I think he knew, like, this… it's… it's sort of like when I… when I talk about George Lucas and the original Star Wars trilogy, like, I think…
• 22:27
  Mark Pracht: the…
• 22:29
  Mark Pracht: the target at the end was clear, right? That it was gonna be about a father and son, and that there was gonna be some sort of…
• 22:37
  Mark Pracht: revelation about that, and that one… when you know that, you can sort of shuck and jive around to figure out
• 22:45
  Mark Pracht: how to get there, right? You can make changes on the fly or whatever, but I think that this is the whole point.
• 22:51
  Mark Pracht: As to… and we'll… we'll see as we get into the later later stuff, I don't think…
• 23:01
  Mark Pracht: He quite knew how that was gonna play out, or what it was supposed to mean.
• 23:07
  Mark Pracht: But at least he knew what it… like, this is the alpha of this whole thing, right?
• 23:16
  Mark Pracht: and… As we were saying, it should have been the first issue.
• 23:23
  Tad Eggleston: And I, I…
• 23:24
  Tad Eggleston: I actually kind of think similarly of Mr. Miracle, even though there were more good Mr. Miracles before this.
• 23:32
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 23:35
  Mark Pracht: I mean, and I think there were good New Gods issues before.
• 23:38
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 23:39
  Mark Pracht: But.
• 23:40
  Tad Eggleston: I just meant that there were more good Mr. Miracle. Mr. Miracle seems to be the one that he kind of had some grasp on relatively quickly.
• 23:48
  Tad Eggleston: Even if you didn't have them posited in the universe.
• 23:52
  Mark Pracht: I also think that Mr. Miracle sort of functioned
• 23:55
  Mark Pracht: Like, could just function as a regular superhero book, really.
• 23:59
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 24:00
  Mark Pracht: And, and, you know, and as we'll see, it does function as a regular superhero book.
• 24:06
  Mark Pracht: once everything else imploded, right? And,
• 24:13
  Mark Pracht: And in a lot of ways, that's where… Kirby's skill lies, right?
• 24:21
  Mark Pracht: But… you know, I, I…
• 24:28
  Mark Pracht: sort of shifting to Mr. Miracle, like, I… I love…
• 24:33
  Mark Pracht: It's a great book, you know? It's like, we're gonna finally take the battle back to… back to Apocalypse.
• 24:40
  Mark Pracht: you know, Barda and Scott are gonna go in there and…
• 24:47
  Mark Pracht: You know, and, I loved,
• 24:54
  Mark Pracht: What's his name?
• 24:57
  Mark Pracht: God, my brain is not working anymore.
• 25:02
  Sean Harklerode: BART is very well at Oberun?
• 25:04
  Mark Pracht: Barda's Farewell to Oberon, of course, is… classic,
• 25:12
  Mark Pracht: I'm gonna guess… I'm gonna guess that Barda's Farewell to Oberon is classic, Roz Kirby.
• 25:21
  Tad Eggleston: But it also, it's… it's the one moment…
• 25:25
  Tad Eggleston: where we get my favorite version of BARDA so far.
• 25:29
  Tad Eggleston: you know, that's the Barda that feels like the Tom King Barda, the Cecil Castellucci barda, the… the…
• 25:35
  Tad Eggleston: the Kelly Thompson Barda that is, like, this big, massive, powerful, don't-fuck-with-me.
• 25:44
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 25:44
  Tad Eggleston: Hulk of a woman.
• 25:46
  Sean Harklerode: Who still has the capability of being…
• 25:51
  Tad Eggleston: Affectionate.
• 25:53
  Mark Pracht: So, Roz Kirby.
• 25:55
  Tad Eggleston: Right, exactly, exactly.
• 25:57
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, I didn't say that you were wrong. I was putting it into a perspective for those people who haven't written a play that required them to do extensive research into Roz Kirby.
• 26:11
  Tad Eggleston: Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who is listening to this who doesn't know about Roz Kirby? But maybe have read recent…
• 26:18
  Tad Eggleston: depictions of Big Barda.
• 26:23
  Tad Eggleston: But I like… I love it, Mark. The one time I feel like I can contribute something legitimate, and you still rip me.
• 26:35
  Tad Eggleston: This is how I know we're friends.
• 26:37
  Mark Pracht: I also love the fact that the primary villain of this story is a total mercenary.
• 26:45
  Mark Pracht: I mean, we have Kanto, who is not… a acolyte of…
• 26:51
  Mark Pracht: dark side, either, you know? It's really just about the test of skills. I always love that kind of character.
• 26:59
  Mark Pracht: the… But man, they do get a lot of ground out of the power rod in this thing.
• 27:07
  Tad Eggleston: Big deal.
• 27:09
  Mark Pracht: Oh, the power rod.
• 27:12
  Sean Harklerode: There's an old Hollywood actor that Kanto looks a lot like, and I can't… Think of who it is.
• 27:20
  Sean Harklerode: I can hear his voice. I'm trying to figure out.
• 27:23
  Mark Pracht: There's a little basal raft bone there.
• 27:26
  Sean Harklerode: Little…
• 27:29
  Mark Pracht: Or Basil… Basil Rathbone. Sorry. Apologies to the Rathbone family.
• 27:38
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, no, I think, you know, there's just so much, there's so much… like, these two issues, like, it… it's really funny how this particular month.
• 27:49
  Mark Pracht: the Jimmy Olsen stuff was so…
• 27:55
  Mark Pracht: And the Forever people was like, ugh. And…
• 27:59
  Mark Pracht: these two are so good, right? And it really… I think you can really see where Jack is like, okay, this is…
• 28:07
  Mark Pracht: this is where my heart lies, and this is where I'm gonna get real… Mileage out of this…
• 28:16
  Mark Pracht: mythology that I'm… Creating, or exploiting.
• 28:21
  Mark Pracht: I don't know.
• 28:25
  Mark Pracht: I, I,
• 28:30
  Mark Pracht: Good death trap.
• 28:33
  Mark Pracht: For Scott.
• 28:37
  Sean Harklerode: We get to see Granny Goodness in her bedclothes. Oh, yeah. Taking her medicine.
• 28:42
  Mark Pracht: Taking her medicine.
• 28:49
  Mark Pracht: the lump.
• 28:50
  Mark Pracht: I have to admit, the young Scott Free stories,
• 28:56
  Mark Pracht: All of, all of the, the, the.
• 29:00
  Sean Harklerode: Wait, we didn't go into a Presence of the United States of America riff.
• 29:05
  Sean Harklerode: with the lump.
• 29:08
  Tad Eggleston: The lump, the lump.
• 29:10
  Tad Eggleston: It's in my head.
• 29:17
  Sean Harklerode: I guess we can get to that next…
• 29:20
  Mark Pracht: Next, next month.
• 29:21
  Tad Eggleston: Next issue.
• 29:22
  Sean Harklerode: Really?
• 29:23
  Mark Pracht: next… next month, make sure we'll… I'll make sure that I have the audio of that ready to go.
• 29:29
  Mark Pracht: I don't… yeah, I don't know, I mean, like, I think that,
• 29:38
  Mark Pracht: You know, the other thing that you can say about both of these issues
• 29:42
  Mark Pracht: both the best, these two really great issues. They don't stop.
• 29:47
  Mark Pracht: they don't spend a lot of time on exposition, they don't spend a lot… I mean, like, the entirety of the pact is exposition, but it's exposition through action, right?
• 29:57
  Mark Pracht: Like, shit's happening all the time, and sometimes… I mean, I will admit that at times during reading the pact, I was like,
• 30:06
  Mark Pracht: Okay, I'm not quite sure how we got from here to here, but let's just roll with it. And that is, classic, Jack Kirby.
• 30:17
  Mark Pracht: And I think there's a lot of that with Mr. Miracle, too.
• 30:24
  Mark Pracht: I always…
• 30:26
  Mark Pracht: I mean, and it's part and parcel of the series, and it's part and parcel of the concept, but I mean, like, this idea that, okay, we're just gonna put you in front of a firing squad, but we can't just shoot you. We're gonna put you on this, like, metronome thing.
• 30:41
  Mark Pracht: Right. It's like, okay.
• 30:44
  Mark Pracht: Why?
• 30:47
  Sean Harklerode: It's the formula, right?
• 30:49
  Mark Pracht: It's the formula, it's 100% the formula.
• 30:51
  Sean Harklerode: That's what I… I… that came to me, I was like, why don't you just…
• 30:55
  Sean Harklerode: This could all be over.
• 30:57
  Mark Pracht: Me too.
• 30:59
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, but it wouldn't be as interesting of a… drawing.
• 31:07
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 31:08
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, it's true.
• 31:09
  Tad Eggleston: Baby.
• 31:09
  Mark Pracht: I mean, like, look, man, like, all of this is… is… is about… you know, Kirby…
• 31:18
  Mark Pracht: putting as much energy into the page as possible, right? I mean, and even…
• 31:23
  Mark Pracht: even really static pages, like, I'm looking at page 12 of Mr. Miracle, number 7.
• 31:30
  Mark Pracht: Like, it's… It's… it's almost pure exposition stuff.
• 31:38
  Mark Pracht: It's, like, landscape…
• 31:43
  Sean Harklerode: Oh, yeah.
• 31:43
  Mark Pracht: Nothing much going on, but man, it just pops.
• 31:47
  Mark Pracht: It pops. There's stuff going… I mean, there's just stuff to look at.
• 31:50
  Sean Harklerode: I think the coloring on that is really interesting.
• 31:53
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 31:54
  Sean Harklerode: You know, it's so dull.
• 31:56
  Mark Pracht: Yep.
• 31:56
  Sean Harklerode: Compared to the action, even in the facing page.
• 32:03
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 32:03
  Sean Harklerode: You know, just showing the… the gloom of, apocalypse.
• 32:08
  Mark Pracht: Apocalypse.
• 32:11
  Mark Pracht: I mean, yeah, I think, okay, what was the other thing? There was a page in New Gods that I was like, oh, wow.
• 32:22
  Mark Pracht: I think it's when, they bomb the pit.
• 32:29
  Mark Pracht: And the fire pit goes out.
• 32:31
  Mark Pracht: And I'm like, wow, that's cool.
• 32:38
  Mark Pracht: Oh, and… oh, okay, I'm sorry. New Gods, page 20.
• 32:46
  Mark Pracht: when, Isaiah… Goes to the source wall.
• 32:52
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
• 32:52
  Mark Pracht: That's…
• 32:56
  Mark Pracht: Fuck. That is… that is Kirby at its best, right? Like, and you can… there's so much in that that you can see where other things he worked on, like, with the wall standing there, you're like, okay, that was… he had…
• 33:12
  Mark Pracht: He saw 2001.
• 33:14
  Sean Harklerode: You know.
• 33:16
  Mark Pracht: And.
• 33:17
  Sean Harklerode: And the Ten Commandments.
• 33:18
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, didn't he wind up drawing 2001? Yeah, he sure did. But I'm just saying that, like.
• 33:24
  Mark Pracht: the one… one of the… one of the fun things about Kirby is to see where he, like, ideas…
• 33:31
  Mark Pracht: come in, and then he changes them. You know, you know, we have at times talked about,
• 33:38
  Mark Pracht: Commandi.
• 33:42
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 33:43
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. And that…
• 33:44
  Mark Pracht: You know, that whole series… started out as a Planet of the Apes riff.
• 33:51
  Mark Pracht: And then…
• 33:51
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 33:52
  Mark Pracht: the… the rights fell through, and DC was like, can we do something else with this? And… And,
• 34:00
  Mark Pracht: And Kirby was like, well, instead of just being human apes, or, you know, apes that can talk, we'll just make it all these animals, all these different animals. And I'm like, okay, great, run with it. To the point where, you know, you have the wrecked Statue of Liberty on the cover of Commandee No. 1. I mean, like.
• 34:16
  Mark Pracht: It's not…
• 34:18
  Mark Pracht: you know. And then you have the Kirbyites who are like, oh, no one had done Talking Animals before Kirby, and then, you know, everybody's going back through all of these, like, Hugo novels and, you know, like… it's like, this has been going on since, like.
• 34:31
  Mark Pracht: Fuckin' island of Dr. Moreau, like, you know…
• 34:34
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 34:37
  Mark Pracht: Jack didn't.
• 34:38
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, I've never really understood…
• 34:40
  Sean Harklerode: Like House of A.
• 34:42
  Tad Eggleston: It is… it is a definite thing where people want to claim that, their…
• 34:53
  Tad Eggleston: what's the word I'm looking for? Creative idols, whether it's music, movies, whatnot, are completely original. They've done this thing that nobody has ever done before.
• 35:06
  Mark Pracht: Yup.
• 35:08
  Tad Eggleston: That's not true of anything since, like, fire.
• 35:11
  Mark Pracht: Well, yeah, I mean, like, absolutely. I mean.
• 35:14
  Tad Eggleston: And the thing is… And I don't know why it makes… I mean, it's clearly a thing with a lot of people, but I don't know what makes it better to be able to say that you did it first, rather than just best.
• 35:25
  Mark Pracht: It doesn't… it doesn't make it better. Like, and the thing is, is if, like, Kirby was here with us right now.
• 35:33
  Mark Pracht: He would be like, of course.
• 35:35
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 35:36
  Mark Pracht: like…
• 35:37
  Mark Pracht: Oh yeah, Source Wall? Yeah, I… look, I saw 2001, I thought that thing looked cool, so I thought I would draw that kind of in a similar way.
• 35:44
  Mark Pracht: You know, like, Commandy, it did come out of, like, originally it was supposed to be a Planet of the Apes book, and we changed it, blah blah blah. You know, like, that doesn't make it any more… any more or less creative, it just makes it, like, everybody is influenced by everything, right? Like, everything you read
• 36:01
  Mark Pracht: Becomes part of what you create. And that… Right. That… that… like, and…
• 36:08
  Mark Pracht: But I think that there's such,
• 36:12
  Mark Pracht: I mean, and this gets kind of the heart of a lot of the… a lot of…
• 36:16
  Mark Pracht: why… what I find frustrating about fandom, especially right now, is that…
• 36:21
  Mark Pracht: you know, there is a whole group of people who are desperate to prove that Kirby did everything, and did… and he was this visionary. It's the same… it's like the Roddenberry effect, right? Like, the Gene Roddenberry… and Roddenberry's kind of…
• 36:39
  Mark Pracht: a really great example, because he got high on his own supply and started selling himself as this visionary of the future, right? And… and making the show, like, when Next Generation came, like, taking stuff that was part and parcel of the original series and saying, like, oh, that just doesn't exist in my future. And it's like…
• 36:58
  Mark Pracht: interpersonal conflict doesn't exist in your future? How do you explain Kirk and… how do you explain Spock and McCoy arguing constantly? I mean, like, it's… It… how do you… how do you explain…
• 37:10
  Mark Pracht: You know, I mean, like, all of this stuff is, like…
• 37:14
  Mark Pracht: it's… it's almost… and I al- I feel… I feel that…
• 37:20
  Mark Pracht: It all comes from a fanbase thing.
• 37:22
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. Is that they desperately want to prove that somebody is a visionary, is the original source of everything, like, okay, yeah, I understand that the mother box, like, you think that
• 37:35
  Mark Pracht: Jack Kirby invented cell phones because of the mother box, but, like, half the time, the mother box looks like a Xbox console.
• 37:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 37:46
  Mark Pracht: The, the mother box that the forba… the, the, the, the,
• 37:55
  Mark Pracht: The mother box that the, the, the, Forever people have.
• 38:01
  Mark Pracht: doesn't look anything like a cell phone. Like… it's… Anyway, it's, it's… like… ugh.
• 38:11
  Mark Pracht: I don't… like, these ideas have been floating around forever, and it's only because this is where you were exposed to these things makes… makes you think.
• 38:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and, I mean…
• 38:21
  Mark Pracht: Creator created it.
• 38:22
  Tad Eggleston: Even… even with the… the… that, like, Star Trek… precedes…
• 38:31
  Tad Eggleston: Fourth World, and doesn't a communicator also predate.
• 38:35
  Mark Pracht: tri-quarter, I mean.
• 38:37
  Tad Eggleston: Right. It's all of this stuff.
• 38:39
  Mark Pracht: I mean, just using the two… the two fandoms we're talking about right now. Yeah, I mean, like, and like, in a way, like, and I don't… I don't want to open a can of worms here, but at least George Lucas was always like, oh yeah, this is all Joseph Campbell stuff.
• 38:54
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 38:55
  Mark Pracht: I… I took…
• 38:55
  Tad Eggleston: Kurosawa stuff.
• 38:57
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, and look, this is all stuff that I saw.
• 39:00
  Tad Eggleston: Flash Gordon.
• 39:01
  Mark Pracht: Right.
• 39:02
  Sean Harklerode: Lenny Ripe install.
• 39:06
  Mark Pracht: You had to bring that up, didn't you? Jesus, man.
• 39:12
  Tad Eggleston: Wait a minute, are you calling George Lucas the N-word?
• 39:15
  Sean Harklerode: No, I'm just saying.
• 39:16
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 39:17
  Sean Harklerode: You know?
• 39:18
  Mark Pracht: there's definitely… that imagery is involved.
• 39:22
  Mark Pracht: But I had some other point that I was gonna make. Now I've lost it.
• 39:27
  Tad Eggleston: Sorry.
• 39:27
  Mark Pracht: It's okay, you know, somebody brought up the N-word, and I just…
• 39:35
  Mark Pracht: But I think that… oh, this is what I was gonna say.
• 39:38
  Sean Harklerode: third…
• 39:39
  Mark Pracht: the…
• 39:40
  Tad Eggleston: Yep, he's definitely a nerd.
• 39:42
  Sean Harklerode: That… was that…
• 39:43
  Mark Pracht: Speaking of nerds.
• 39:45
  Tad Eggleston: Me too.
• 39:46
  Mark Pracht: Yeah. Speaking of nerds, we did get the, the…
• 39:51
  Mark Pracht: I had… I thought that the… I had mistakenly said that the Forever People were based on the… the, the… the original San Diego Comic-Con crowd.
• 40:03
  Mark Pracht: Wrong. It's the San Diego Six-String Mob.
• 40:07
  Tad Eggleston: is…
• 40:08
  Sean Harklerode: Haha.
• 40:09
  Mark Pracht: That's… that's the kids that started San Diego Comic-Con.
• 40:14
  Sean Harklerode: Huh.
• 40:14
  Mark Pracht: Or that Golden State Comic Con. And…
• 40:18
  Mark Pracht: Strangely enough, Jack makes them bad guys.
• 40:23
  Mark Pracht: Huh, no.
• 40:24
  Sean Harklerode: Hmm.
• 40:25
  Tad Eggleston: We're not gonna read too much into that one.
• 40:28
  Mark Pracht: No.
• 40:28
  Sean Harklerode: We shouldn't.
• 40:30
  Mark Pracht: I think it's just a tribute, but .
• 40:32
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 40:33
  Mark Pracht: But
• 40:35
  Mark Pracht: you know, that's… that's something vaguely interesting to talk about in those, Jimmy Olson books. I mean, although I remember them being a bigger factor, they kind of just show up and then leave.
• 40:51
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, well, and…
• 40:53
  Mark Pracht: It's like, I'll put you in the book for, like, a page.
• 40:58
  Sean Harklerode: When, when, oh, who's the… The girl, the promoter, Who owns the discotheque?
• 41:06
  Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, I don't remember.
• 41:08
  Sean Harklerode: She asks, Like, yes!
• 41:11
  Sean Harklerode: I'd like… I'd like to know, too. I hired them to play in my discotheque.
• 41:17
  Sean Harklerode: And then… Superman, that's not important. I want to know what they came for!
• 41:23
  Sean Harklerode: That's funny.
• 41:24
  Sean Harklerode: Like, who were those kids? That's not important.
• 41:30
  Sean Harklerode: Well, you know… I think that Terry Dean would like.
• 41:35
  Tad Eggleston: Isn't that kind of the, move along, nothing to see here…
• 41:38
  Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
• 41:40
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, like, look, I do think… I mean, like, and this is sort of… this has sort of been,
• 41:48
  Mark Pracht: You know, it was right about the time that Jack started going to San Diego.
• 41:54
  Mark Pracht: That he became very interested in
• 41:59
  Mark Pracht: controlling his own work. And I certainly understand people want to control their own work. That makes sense, that's totally thing, but I mean, I do think that there is…
• 42:09
  Mark Pracht: An element of starting to go to that convention and meeting those kids, and having kids come to his house and be like, oh, you're the greatest thing ever, and…
• 42:18
  Mark Pracht: You know, and I think that…
• 42:23
  Mark Pracht: it made him not want to have other people work with him. And…
• 42:28
  Mark Pracht: fair… I mean, like, there's some… there's genius stuff here. Genius stuff.
• 42:33
  Mark Pracht: And certainly the art is brilliant, but I do think… that… A solid… writer or editor.
• 42:46
  Mark Pracht: Could have made all of these books a lot better.
• 42:49
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 42:51
  Mark Pracht: And I think… that,
• 42:55
  Mark Pracht: You cannot argue with the ideas.
• 42:58
  Mark Pracht: You can't, because DC has been exploiting these ideas for… 40 years, 50 years.
• 43:05
  Mark Pracht: And yeah.
• 43:11
  Mark Pracht: I mean, I don't wanna… I don't wanna get too far into it, that's sort of, like, wrap-up stuff. But,
• 43:19
  Tad Eggleston: Well, we are actually kinda at wrap-up of this episode time.
• 43:23
  Mark Pracht: Rah.
• 43:24
  Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, like, wrap-up of the series thing.
• 43:26
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, okay.
• 43:27
  Mark Pracht: like, I think.
• 43:30
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 43:31
  Mark Pracht: Sorry, I always feel like I just blather on. So… Let somebody else wrap up.
• 43:40
  Tad Eggleston: John, any parting shots?
• 43:42
  Sean Harklerode: No, I'm gonna leave that one there.
• 43:47
  Sean Harklerode: No, I'm interested to see, you know, where we go next month.
• 43:55
  Sean Harklerode: Particularly, like, say, New Gods, you know, and… and new gods, and Mr. Miracle, I think, were just…
• 44:05
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 44:05
  Tad Eggleston: Really great.
• 44:06
  Mark Pracht: I will say… I will say, the next issue of New Gods is one of my favorites.
• 44:12
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, there are a couple of things I'll toss out, which… Which is that,
• 44:18
  Tad Eggleston: Also, that I think for our purposes, we are done with Jimmy Olson.
• 44:25
  Tad Eggleston: Are we? I don't think we have any more on the list.
• 44:31
  Mark Pracht: Hold on.
• 44:32
  Sean Harklerode: I mean, there's a few more, he… he did a few more.
• 44:35
  Mark Pracht: Yeah.
• 44:36
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, okay, so, see, that's the problem. The list is weird. We're not done. There, there's… it says 145 and 147 next month. Did he do…
• 44:48
  Tad Eggleston: 146.
• 44:49
  Mark Pracht: 6 is one of his.
• 44:52
  Sean Harklerode: Yeah, 146 awards.
• 44:53
  Sean Harklerode: Heaven.
• 44:54
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, in 146, he revisited… he revisits that. Oh, I see.
• 44:58
  Mark Pracht: earned Jimmy Olsen.
• 44:59
  Tad Eggleston: I messed it up, and we had 145. So, okay, next month is our last Jimmy Olsen.
• 45:05
  Mark Pracht: I believe so, yes.
• 45:06
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 45:07
  Mark Pracht: I mean.
• 45:08
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 45:09
  Mark Pracht: there is gonna become a point… there is gonna come a point where this… this podcast will be solely about Mr. Miracle.
• 45:16
  Sean Harklerode: Right.
• 45:17
  Tad Eggleston: That'll be next February.
• 45:18
  Mark Pracht: Yep.
• 45:19
  Tad Eggleston: February and March, and then One New God Story, and then the Hunger Dogs. So, I mean, we're about at the halfway point?
• 45:28
  Mark Pracht: Yep.
• 45:30
  Tad Eggleston: Isn't that exciting?
• 45:30
  Mark Pracht: writing?
• 45:31
  Tad Eggleston: It is. It is. And I will say that, like.
• 45:36
  Tad Eggleston: This month was important to me because I was starting to lag. I've gotten to the point where I've been reading the necessary material later and later because it's almost a chore, but the new gods and the Mr. Miracle here made me go, okay.
• 45:55
  Mark Pracht: Jack… Jack has… Jack still has stuff to talk about, and it's… Right. It's coming. I think that doing Jimmy Olsen, which I… you know, it's like the stuff I talked about at the beginning. I think that Jimmy Olsen was something that he just did because the company wanted him to do it.
• 46:12
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 46:13
  Mark Pracht: And I don't feel like Forever People ever had a real…
• 46:17
  Mark Pracht: thrust to it. And I think that now he's starting to… I think he's getting his…
• 46:24
  Mark Pracht: sea legs with the core of what is happening here. And, I 100% agree with you, because, like, I know I talk about this time that I read all of these on an overnight flight, and… Right.
• 46:40
  Mark Pracht: it was right about this point that I was just like, I think…
• 46:44
  Mark Pracht: I could chew my own arm off.
• 46:47
  Mark Pracht: You know, but I was like, I'm gonna finish these before I land in London.
• 46:52
  Mark Pracht: And, by the time I did.
• 46:58
  Mark Pracht: I was happy that I had read the whole thing.
• 47:00
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 47:02
  Mark Pracht: I'm not gonna say that the last couple of things are great.
• 47:09
  Mark Pracht: But they're not… They're not this early stuff.
• 47:13
  Mark Pracht: Anyway.
• 47:14
  Mark Pracht: That's all I have to say about that.
• 47:16
  Tad Eggleston: Well…
• 47:17
  Tad Eggleston: I think that's a great, great point to stop, and it is, as always, been a pleasure. And for Mark Pratt and Sean Hoggle Road, this has been the Fourth World Book Club on 22 panels, and we will see you after the next page.