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Milestone Book Club #45 - Long Hot Summer Part Two · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to the Milestone Book Club on 22 Panels. I am joined by the brothers Anderson, no relation, and
• 0:13
  Tad Eggleston: We're doing some more long, hot summer.
• 0:15
  Ted: We were just trying to determine whether this is, like, the end… it's not the end point, it is, like.
• 0:19
  Tad Eggleston: No.
• 0:20
  Ted: points, because, like.
• 0:21
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 0:21
  Ted: Yeah, what happens in these issues does, like.
• 0:25
  Tad Eggleston: I think it's the middle third.
• 0:27
  Ted: Yeah, and I think the next issues for each of these series are set, like, after the riot, so…
• 0:32
  Ted: Yeah, it's the midpoint, but, like, we still have Zombie, Shadow Cabinet, something else.
• 0:38
  Ted: Tied into all this. Oh, Cobalt! Oh, God, Cobalt! Cobalt's gotta jump in on this, too. But yeah.
• 0:44
  Ted: So that's what we got. Sorry, I just totally stepped all over your intro, I'm so sorry.
• 0:49
  Tad Eggleston: I was pretty much done with it.
• 0:51
  Ted: But yeah.
• 0:53
  Tad Eggleston: We got a couple issues of static, a couple issues of hardware, and a couple issues of blood syndicate. Not quite in that order, it goes static, hardware, hardware, blood syndicate, blood syndicate, and then static again. Yeah.
• 1:06
  Ted: Yeah, it's a funky…
• 1:07
  Tad Eggleston: I can't imagine was quite how it was released, but…
• 1:11
  Ted: I was wondering that, too, because then, like, Holocaust… But I did read one.
• 1:15
  Tad Eggleston: that way.
• 1:16
  Ted: Yes, I do think this is… I mean, I think this is the best way you could have done to put it together. But also, like, I think My Name is Holocaust is coming out, let me just check my handy-dandy copy of the book right here. I think My Name is Holocaust is coming out, like, right at the same time, if not the same month.
• 1:31
  Tad Eggleston: Was it?
• 1:32
  Ted: Might have been?
• 1:34
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:34
  Ted: Let me see, August, let's see, maybe…
• 1:35
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's always hard to really make an event Fit into everybody's schedule.
• 1:41
  Ted: Yeah, so.
• 1:41
  Marcus: Do you sh…
• 1:42
  Ted: These six issues are all August, September 95, and that's the last two issues of My Name is Holocaust. So these are.
• 1:50
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 1:50
  Ted: sort of concurrent with those, even though I… I feel like…
• 1:55
  Ted: So, I mean, we'll get into it, but, like, those.
• 1:57
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, when Holocaust… pops up in here, he's very much, don't… don't call me Holocaust.
• 2:03
  Ted: Exactly, he definitely says, I'm pyre now, and that's a big thing. So, like, it's all vaguely simultaneous, but, like, look, we've all read comics, we know how, like, weird timelines.
• 2:12
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
• 2:13
  Ted: We're…
• 2:14
  Tad Eggleston: No, we're reading, Secret Wars in, our Heroes of Bronze. We're actually reading Secret Wars, and,
• 2:22
  Tad Eggleston: Crisis on Infinite Earths simultaneously.
• 2:25
  Ted: Wait, Secret War, or Secret Wars, and 1985 or 19…
• 2:29
  Marcus: Yeah, what are you talking about?
• 2:30
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. 84…
• 2:33
  Ted: Okay, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say.
• 2:35
  Marcus: Oh, man, wait, actually, pop quiz, who… Who had… who had which action figures out of there, or did you have any?
• 2:43
  Ted: I did not have any.
• 2:44
  Tad Eggleston: I had most of them.
• 2:46
  Marcus: Oh, really? I had…
• 2:48
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 2:48
  Marcus: I'm pretty sure… well, I have a…
• 2:50
  Tad Eggleston: I had Doom, and I had Spider-Man, but not the black one. I had Captain America, and I had Iron Man. And I think I had Hulk.
• 2:59
  Marcus: Okay, I had,
• 3:01
  Marcus: I think I just had Iron Man, and my brother got Doctor Doom, but I was mad.
• 3:06
  Marcus: Because, and I think… you know what's crazy? This actually,
• 3:12
  Marcus: I feel like that's… that was a summer when… when, like, I visited… visited Jamaica for the first time after… after… well, first time going back after moving here when I was little. But, so I was away, and I think my…
• 3:27
  Marcus: we got to get them, so, like, my mom got one for me, but I would have chosen Doom, but my brother got Doom, and I got Iron Man, so…
• 3:35
  Marcus: But I do have a… I got a Zoom on eBay that's sitting on my shelf right now.
• 3:39
  Ted: Is that a Doom? Does that Doom have, like, a removable mask because this is where he heals his face?
• 3:43
  Marcus: No, no, it's all… I mean, toys.
• 3:46
  Tad Eggleston: Weren't nearly that cool yet.
• 3:48
  Ted: Okay.
• 3:48
  Marcus: Yeah, fair, fair.
• 3:49
  Ted: enough.
• 3:50
  Marcus: It's, it's cool, but it's like… I think it originally had a cape. Actually, I don't know. The one I have definitely doesn't have a cape. But they had the little shields with the little… The lenticular shields.
• 4:00
  Ted: Oh, there we go, yeah. I see, I want to doom like he is in the comic, where he's, like, half vivisected.
• 4:05
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 4:06
  Ted: That would be… you know, that would be… that would be a cool action figure. Like, half of it is on an operating table.
• 4:12
  Marcus: Good.
• 4:12
  Tad Eggleston: One of the things that we talked about with that, though, is that, like, the Marvel Universe just kept going.
• 4:19
  Ted: Oh, yeah.
• 4:20
  Tad Eggleston: So, so, in the main Marvel universe, everybody had already come back.
• 4:27
  Tad Eggleston: It wasn't even they were gone. Everybody had already come back.
• 4:31
  Marcus: No, cause…
• 4:32
  Ted: Yeah.
• 4:33
  Marcus: Because that event was just its own 12 issues, like, you know, as opposed to these other ones where it just takes over all the books.
• 4:41
  Ted: Yeah, I do have to say, I mean, now that we're gonna be, like, diving into the real meat of… well, we already were, but, you know, really diving into the meat of Long Hong Summer, I like that they did this event, because it is… this is affecting every book in a way that is very…
• 4:55
  Ted: like, true to the Milestone universe. Everybody is so hyper-local to Dakota that it makes perfect sense that the books just stop, you know, running apart from that, because it's…
• 5:05
  Marcus: Yeah, I think we talked about it last time. To me, this is an event that works.
• 5:10
  Tad Eggleston: Yes.
• 5:11
  Marcus: It doesn't even, like, stop all the stories cold. Like, if you read… Oh, it doesn't. Yeah, if you read Blood Syndicate, there's still character stuff happening. Interestingly… Oh, yeah, go ahead.
• 5:22
  Ted: No, I was just gonna… I was just agreeing with you, because, yeah, like, the thing about… like, the Blood Syndicate specifically, I remember we talked with this the last time we talked about Blood Syndicate, is that Tech-9 is back.
• 5:33
  Ted: but they're not… they're playing it pretty close to their chest that I think… that it's actually Masquerade.
• 5:38
  Marcus: Yes, and there's stuff that's happening that, to me, like, shows that even more. I feel like there's just… because we, I mean, granted, we didn't spend a ton of Tech Night with Tech9 before he passed. Right.
• 5:51
  Ted: We spent enough to get what his deal was.
• 5:53
  Marcus: Yeah. I realized, like.
• 5:54
  Ted: he wouldn't be the one, like, encouraging this riot, which he kind of…
• 5:59
  Marcus: Exactly.
• 5:59
  Ted: Yeah, so we… it fits… it dovetails really nicely with the character stuff that Blood City was building on, yeah.
• 6:07
  Marcus: But you know what's… you know what's fascinating, though? Is that, like, well, I don't know, maybe we should do the… well, you mentioned… I do want to… I do want to touch on this, and then we'll… it'll… it'll seed what we end up talking about in the recap. But,
• 6:20
  Marcus: the quick version is, you know, Ted, you just touched on it, that,
• 6:24
  Marcus: Tech9 is definitely… you know, everybody's, like, operating with him as a leader again.
• 6:29
  Marcus: And I say Tech 9 as in the character who appears to be Tech Nine. Right. But part of what raises my… what's interesting is, if we are operating under the theory that we are all pretty sure that this is Masquerade coming back.
• 6:43
  Marcus: then, what's interesting about it is, you know, Masquerade had a lot of animosity for everybody.
• 6:50
  Ted: Yeah.
• 6:51
  Marcus: No.
• 6:52
  Marcus: And… but he… he's actually… he's…
• 6:55
  Marcus: both Masquerade slash Tech9 is being manipulative in the sense that you said of, like, you know, literally stoking the fires, right? Of,
• 7:05
  Marcus: What gets set off there. But then, kind of giving a rousing…
• 7:11
  Marcus: speech about, like, how the people have been stepped on and everything. One thing that's really notable in these issues is we see Y's son, like, showing, like, real emotion, like, crying. Yes, yes. And, which, you know, I've always maintained. It's like, a lot of…
• 7:29
  Marcus: people that I've known in real life that are a lot like him, it's not that they don't have emotions, it's just that they, you know, they mask it, they do whatever, out of a sense of protection. But yeah, it was actually really…
• 7:44
  Ted: He ends up being kind of the core of this…
• 7:46
  Marcus: Absolutely, and that's where I was going with it, because, like, Tech 9, like, after, you know, like, lighting the match
• 7:54
  Marcus: the proverbial match. Also, when it gets to a certain fever pitch, he's like, alright, Wyze, I want you to get on the PA system and, like, you know, speak to the people, and…
• 8:06
  Ted: Give an inspiring speech, man. Give one of those inspiring speeches.
• 8:09
  Marcus: Yeah, which actually is, like, real… he kind of did some real revolutionary action, even if he was being manipulative.
• 8:16
  Ted: Yeah, it's a thing where it's like, yes, Masquerade slash Tech9 is, like, it seems like the way that I read his actions the most in the Utopia Park bit, the Long Hot Summer bit, is he's kind of just doing whatever he wants to abuse himself at, like, at the moment. So, like.
• 8:33
  Marcus: Everyone.
• 8:34
  Ted: He's like, yeah, let's just kind of mess with Utopia Park. They're taking over all of Paris Island, let's go mess with them. They don't… they sort of spark the fire, but also, something that I think is notable that I don't think is shown as much in the other books, is that the first shot fired is by, like, a security guard.
• 8:52
  Marcus: Yes.
• 8:52
  Ted: they're provoking everything, to be sure, but, like, the actual shot fired is like a guy… is like a guard with a gun, and his partner's like, no, what are you doing? And there's a shot goes off, and then that's it.
• 9:02
  Marcus: Which our… our real… real life news lately has just been full of this… of that shit, but
• 9:08
  Ted: Yeah, no, it's… I mean, yeah, it's… I mean.
• 9:11
  Marcus: I mean, always, but…
• 9:12
  Ted: Yes.
• 9:13
  Marcus: Specifically, like…
• 9:15
  Ted: The fact that they're comparing.
• 9:15
  Tad Eggleston: What do you mean?
• 9:16
  Ted: And you put…
• 9:16
  Tad Eggleston: Guns in the hands of people who are scared and chaotic situations, and things don't work out the way that you would hope?
• 9:27
  Tad Eggleston: I'm shocked!
• 9:29
  Marcus: I mean…
• 9:30
  Marcus: I… do you want me to answer that? Because what I was gonna say is, like… I mean, no, I'm talking about, like, a system of scared people that grew out of slave patrols.
• 9:45
  Marcus: You know.
• 9:46
  Marcus: that have been… that are… the police benevolent Union and other forces are telling them at every turn that whatever you do will be justified.
• 9:55
  Ted: Oh, no, it's… no, I get you.
• 9:59
  Ted: But yeah, it's… the… the Tech 9 slash Masquerade slash Tech9 is, as I read it, he's kind of just, like, doing whatever he thinks is sort of… not… he's not, like, a total agent of chaos, but he's kind of just going with what he wants to at the moment, where it's like.
• 10:15
  Ted: you know, he wants to kind of have some fun at Utopia Park. It ends up turning into a full-fledged riot, and then they have to kind of fight back against Pyre or the others for a while, and then eventually he's like, okay, things are kind of getting serious, how about we have you…
• 10:28
  Ted: Meaning, why son, go up on the PA system and tell everybody to calm down. And…
• 10:32
  Ted: you know, just because he's kind of done with everything. It… he reads to me like a…
• 10:37
  Ted: I don't want to call him an Agent of chaos, because I don't think he's, like, a joker, but it's sort of just, like, he's having what… he's having his fun in the moment, you know?
• 10:45
  Marcus: I could see that reading, definitely. I think there's maybe an error of mischief.
• 10:50
  Marcus: But I think he… I do think they… I should say they… I do think they care. Do care on some level.
• 10:57
  Marcus: Like, I don't think…
• 10:59
  Ted: Yeah.
• 10:59
  Marcus: They would be doing this if it was only just, like, oh, I'm gonna, like, play around. Like, you know, so I think it's both.
• 11:07
  Ted: That's a… yeah, that's a good way to look at it. I think… yeah, I think part of this is messing around, but also they are… they genuinely feel the same about, like, hey man, power to the people, let's get us some…
• 11:17
  Ted: Let's, let's, you know, the bit where he's marching down to the…
• 11:20
  Ted: to the Utopia ticket office with a, you know, bag full of money, but then, like, encourages people to go with them, like, as sort of a parade march, almost. Like, that… that… no, that rings true. I like that. I like that…
• 11:32
  Ted: it reads… like, knowing… and I do have to say, I'm, like, I know that it's Masquerade. Like, knowing that it's Masquerade doing this reads as, like, he's suddenly in a position where people look to him for how the situation should go.
• 11:47
  Ted: And he's getting to be…
• 11:49
  Ted: sort of like the good guy revolutionary who's like, no, power to the people, let's do this. And things get a little out of control, at which point he's like, okay, let's, you know, chill out a bit, and have somebody else give the inspiring speech to make things calm down. But I do think, I mean, I think there's actual room in his heart for revolution. It is just sort of…
• 12:08
  Ted: it's a little bit secondary to immediate concerns, maybe. I don't know.
• 12:12
  Ted: But yeah, like, so that's the blood syndicate part. That's sort of the summary of the Blood Syndicate part of it, is we get to see their perspective. I mean, first of all, we have these beautiful criss-cross pages of, like, DMZ flying over the city with some groceries. There's some really gorgeous stuff in these issues.
• 12:29
  Ted: we get, some of the follow-up with Flashback, having joined Pyre's team, which is…
• 12:37
  Ted: I still don't know why, like, Pyre did that, unless he has some sort of weird crush on Flashback. I don't know if there's anything else…
• 12:43
  Marcus: No, there's history, there is history.
• 12:46
  Ted: I couldn't remember if the…
• 12:47
  Marcus: I don't remember the exact details, but it's definitely been, it has come up. Okay.
• 12:53
  Ted: That's good to know. But yeah, like, I… I was kind of curious what the… what the story was, but I… I… yeah.
• 13:00
  Marcus: I think… I think very spec… sorry, I do remember, I think it's the issues…
• 13:05
  Marcus: Where I can see it in my head. It's the one where I think they went to get
• 13:10
  Marcus: Brickhouse's hair done, because they were gonna have… you know, like, I think they had just come off of something big and crazy happening, which… I mean, they always have something big and crazy happening, but…
• 13:20
  Ted: Yeah.
• 13:21
  Marcus: There was… it was after, like, a big event or something, and they basically were gonna have, like, a girls' night out.
• 13:27
  Ted: Oh.
• 13:28
  Marcus: That's okay.
• 13:28
  Ted: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that might have been after Worlds Collide.
• 13:30
  Marcus: Yeah, and as I remember it, I feel like they…
• 13:34
  Marcus: were… partying somewhere. I may have been…
• 13:39
  Marcus: Pire Holocaust Club, or it might have been… or he might have just been there. But he definitely was, like, already, like.
• 13:48
  Marcus: You know, making power moves, or, you know, alluding to the fact that he's finally gonna have her, or be with her, or whatever.
• 13:56
  Ted: Carmen.
• 13:57
  Marcus: She wasn't… she wasn't having it. At all.
• 13:59
  Ted: Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, I remember what you're talking about now. Because, yeah, okay, it's not right after Worlds Collide.
• 14:05
  Ted: Right. Yeah, there's some kind of, like, yeah, like you mentioned, a girl's night or something, but it's also, that's when, that's, brickhouse is still part of the team, because she leaves a few issues later.
• 14:14
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:14
  Ted: Okay. I'd have to look it up too, but I know what you're talking about. Okay. But yeah, so, Flashback is with Pyre's team, they're… they've been contracted to provide security, which is…
• 14:29
  Ted: I… that's something that happens in hardware, where Pire is given the… the… security concession, I guess?
• 14:38
  Ted: Although, is that also mentioned in Holocaust… My name is Holocaust? I can't remember.
• 14:44
  Marcus: I didn't get into it, but you could tell that his… that his mom basically had plans for him, so I think…
• 14:51
  Ted: He was… he gets a seat on the… on the… the… coalition, whatever. Yes.
• 14:59
  Ted: Sorry, I'm kind of looking through, I'm trying to remember what the… what happened in those static… those shadow cabin. Blood Syndicate issues. Yeah.
• 15:08
  Ted: But yeah, it's a thing where they,
• 15:12
  Ted: Holocaust has been given the… Pyre has been given the commission to do security on the,
• 15:17
  Ted: At Utopia Park, which means that he's gonna… he, and then Flashback, of course, is on the team, so there's gonna be the great conflict there. And then we end that first issue of Shadow Cabinet… I think it's Shadow Cabinet. The Blood Syndicate issue, seeing them come up to the… to the ticket booth.
• 15:36
  Ted: and things starting to pop off, and then the guard shooting somebody first, causing everything else to go sideways.
• 15:45
  Ted: Yeah, it's… It's…
• 15:49
  Ted: I mean, that's… it's interesting that this… it's not that Blood Syndicate is the only, you know,
• 15:56
  Ted: the only, comic that's touching on a Utopia Park. I…
• 16:01
  Ted: I was about to say that it feels like it's the most tied to it, but it's really not, it's just…
• 16:06
  Marcus: Definitely, definitely in this particular six issues that we read, I think there was a… it leaned a little bit more into Blessing the Kid, but there was, there was static…
• 16:15
  Marcus: There was hardware… these hardware issues tied in, right?
• 16:19
  Ted: Yeah, well, and that's the thing, they also, like, not only do they tie in, they each give kind of a different perspective on what's going on, because, yeah, Blood City shows us a lot of the conflict of the security team, and also shows us hardware… er, sorry, not hardware, Pyre being…
• 16:32
  Ted: Pyro being convinced that, like, hey.
• 16:36
  Marcus: Universe.
• 16:37
  Ted: want to be part of this and, like, joining in on keeping people out or whatever. You want to be…
• 16:42
  Marcus: Right.
• 16:43
  Ted: you know, that's… that's a… that I thought, was sort of a crucial moment, and I don't know if it…
• 16:47
  Ted: I don't know. It felt weird to be reading that at the same time that My Name is Holocaust is coming out, and it's, like, kind of the exact opposite moments, because this is Pyre realizing, like, man, no, what am I doing? I'm not gonna be part of this.
• 16:59
  Ted: crime coalition thing, and then the very next issue at, like, the same time is, no, actually, I don't want to do this, and it's a very weird little combination of… of…
• 17:13
  Ted: I don't know, I, I… Yeah, I don't know what to say.
• 17:17
  Ted: I'm, I'm, I'm kind.
• 17:18
  Marcus: Well, there's a lot of moving parts, you have different writers, and the,
• 17:24
  Marcus: Because, yeah, actually, I didn't… and it is, it is tricky, I think, when you have a huge…
• 17:29
  Marcus: event, and like we said, I think they… they really handled it better…
• 17:35
  Marcus: without totally derailing the individual series is. But, I mean, I guess that is a lot to keep track of as you're going.
• 17:42
  Ted: Yeah.
• 17:43
  Marcus: In separate books being done by separate people.
• 17:46
  Ted: Yeah, that's… I mean, it is really impressive. I kind of want to go back once I've read all the… all the other parts, too, and just sort of try and line up as much as I possibly can, because I'm sure that, like, you know, hardware flies by at one point, and I think Blood Syndicate, and it's like, oh yeah, he's doing his own thing. It's like, oh yeah, yes, he is, we've just seen that.
• 18:01
  Marcus: Yeah, and that's one of the cool things, we get different views.
• 18:04
  Ted: Yeah.
• 18:05
  Marcus: Like, I think there's stuff… I think you alluded to it before… alluded to it before, but there's, like,
• 18:10
  Marcus: as far as the moment when the people bust through the gates, like, I think when we originally saw it, it seemed like…
• 18:16
  Marcus: It was this organic thing that happened while Blood Syndicate was busting in.
• 18:21
  Marcus: But then we get, like, way more context.
• 18:24
  Ted: Yes.
• 18:24
  Marcus: This time.
• 18:26
  Ted: Yeah, where we get the actual moment it happens, but also, oh, there's a guard shooting someone involved. Although it doesn't actually show what… well, whatever, I didn't really want to see him get, like, shooting somebody, but also, like…
• 18:38
  Ted: It would have been a little nice to know, I guess, I don't know. But yeah, like, what I was saying, I finally kind of collected a little bit of my thoughts, but it's, like.
• 18:46
  Ted: you know, Blood Syndicate is giving us the conflict with Pyre, it's giving us sort of the turf aspect of it, whereas Static is giving us the on-the-ground moments of people getting,
• 18:58
  Ted: you know, trapped on rides, and rick getting trapped while selling hot dogs, which is its own
• 19:05
  Ted: fun little moments. And then hardware giving us kind of the… the…
• 19:10
  Ted: the elite… the guys who actually run the show… run the show, what they think about it and how they're trying to handle it, which has its own fun twist that, like, totally shakes up what hardware is for the rest of the hardware run. Yeah. Because, yeah, so…
• 19:25
  Ted: Do we want to… we haven't really done a proper recap, and also, I'm kind of frazzled, and it's… it all kind of.
• 19:30
  Marcus: Yeah, I mean, maybe we could just kind of give…
• 19:32
  Marcus: Big picture of it, I think, you know, because I think the big picture, right, is we spoke last… anybody who listened to the last episode, which I know you did, we can go back and.
• 19:42
  Tad Eggleston: Hi, Mom.
• 19:44
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 19:44
  Ted: Tad Archives. And everybody.
• 19:46
  Marcus: else. I know you have other listeners, but, like,
• 19:49
  Tad Eggleston: One or two.
• 19:50
  Ted: Excuse me.
• 19:51
  Marcus: you're being false humble, and I don't appreciate it. But the… for everyone who listened to the last episode, or read the issues, which I also recommend, I think the big picture, right, is that this is…
• 20:05
  Marcus: just all the horrors of urban renewal and gentrification, all kind of boiled into one project of, you know, this Utopia Gardens… wait, is that Utopia Park? Utopia Park,
• 20:21
  Marcus: amusement park. And it's just displaced everybody. I think… literally…
• 20:28
  Marcus: Well, I was gonna say, no, even Virgil… I was gonna say, like, every character, if they're not affected or their family's not affected, somebody who they know is affected, and Virgil worked for Raquel's mom, for Rocket's mom, and she got displaced, she got displaced, both her home and her business.
• 20:47
  Ted: Yeah, they closed down the burger pool.
• 20:49
  Marcus: Yeah. Yeah.
• 20:50
  Ted: And… yeah, but I do love that it is affecting everybody, or at the very least, we get to see how it affects everybody. Like, I don't think hardware is specifically affected, but he is… like, he…
• 21:02
  Ted: he's… well, he's seeing Alva's side of it, which is Alva making this into, like… So, the part that I had kind of forgotten about Alva's story in all of this is that Alva says to hardware… first off, Alva uses hardware as, like, a show of muscle to the rest of the…
• 21:18
  Ted: Crime Coalition.
• 21:20
  Ted: thing.
• 21:22
  Ted: And then… and basically says, yeah, don't try to stop me, I've got hardware here, and he's really super cool, and everyone, you know, thinks he's badass. And…
• 21:31
  Ted: But then he privately says to hardware, look, this is me retiring. I am going out on top, I'm gonna become a philanthropist, no more business, I am… I don't think he's leaving the company to…
• 21:43
  Ted: to Curtis, but he is, like, I'm going out while I can still be sort of a force for good, and Utopia Park is, like, my…
• 21:53
  Ted: Swan Song, you know, starting to give everything away.
• 21:57
  Tad Eggleston: It's about repairing my legacy.
• 22:00
  Ted: Yes. And from what we can see, this seems sincere, which I think is sort of the most, like.
• 22:06
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's about as sincere as the Rockefellers or the…
• 22:10
  Ted: Carnegie.
• 22:11
  Ted: It's just…
• 22:12
  Marcus: But I think what you mean is he believes it's himself to be sincere.
• 22:16
  Ted: Exactly.
• 22:17
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, which actually, from the people's perspective, means nothing, but yeah.
• 22:21
  Ted: well, yes, he did still make his billions off of, like, you know, arms deals and horrible bullshit. So, like, yes, he's still an awful person, but this is him being like, oh, well, I opened an amusement park in the middle of, like.
• 22:32
  Tad Eggleston: Well.
• 22:33
  Ted: And gentrified a city, so…
• 22:35
  Tad Eggleston: Right, and he's not actually Trying to atone as much as…
• 22:41
  Marcus: Legacy.
• 22:42
  Tad Eggleston: his image.
• 22:43
  Marcus: No, that's what… which I… I love, that you could tell…
• 22:47
  Marcus: that, like, you know, a marginalized person, a Black person in particular, wrote this because,
• 22:54
  Marcus: Yeah, the Alvos of the world do believe… they, again, they're obsessed with their legacies, they're obsessed with how they're remembered, and then, like.
• 23:02
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, Carnegie, I destroyed the nation, er, destroyed the working class, but I built some libraries for them, now they can read stuff.
• 23:12
  Marcus: That'll have money.
• 23:13
  Tad Eggleston: afford to buy their own books, but I…
• 23:15
  Ted: I built something like that.
• 23:16
  Tad Eggleston: Some libraries. I built some opera houses.
• 23:18
  Ted: You guys like opera? Oh, you can't afford it. Well, sucked to be you. Right. Yeah. I do. I mean, now that you've said that, I kind of wish that I saw more of Curtis' reaction to all this, because I feel like he didn't actually.
• 23:29
  Marcus: Don't…
• 23:29
  Tad Eggleston: Get me wrong.
• 23:31
  Tad Eggleston: I would love it if our current crop of billionaires did a little bit more of this, rather than deciding that rocket.
• 23:38
  Marcus: Wait, of Utopia Gardens?
• 23:41
  Tad Eggleston: You don't want to be a guard. I think you meant the whiteboard.
• 23:44
  Ted: Like, why…
• 23:44
  Marcus: Oh, oh, oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
• 23:47
  Marcus: Well, no, I mean, it's funny you mention, hardware's reaction, because I… alright, so this is… and I know we have more hardware to go and more character development, but I have to say,
• 24:00
  Marcus: I've spoken before about how, like, I differ
• 24:05
  Marcus: from… not all, but, you know, some of my Black peers who… just…
• 24:10
  Marcus: kind of oversimplify icon, right? And they literally are thinking about Icon in maybe the
• 24:16
  Marcus: first half of issue one. And they'll say, like, oh, Icon's a, you know, he's just a conservative, he, you know, he's not really down, blah blah blah. And it's like, no, I… we've talked about it. I've talked about it at length. I'm an Icon defender. And arguably, I bring this up, you know, not to tangent, but I bring this up because I actually…
• 24:37
  Marcus: am more frustrated…
• 24:39
  Marcus: with Curtis at this point, you know, because he… he… and it's fascinating. I don't… and I don't mean frustrated in a, like, I… I love reading the hardware issues, I… you know what I mean? I have not, like, quit hardware, but I think Curtis, the character and his choices frustrate me, because,
• 25:00
  Marcus: Icon, like, I think he's solidified as far as, like, being for the people, thinking about the greater good. He literally was part of the Underground Railroad, you know, and has done a lot of great things, but, like…
• 25:12
  Marcus: Hardware's arc, if you look at it, like, he initially was all about revenge on Alva, but specifically because Alva was his adopted…
• 25:23
  Marcus: father figure, but it was, surprise, surprise, it was BS, he was being used, and… and also, just without credit or anything, right? And so, then he has a… he has an arc where, like, you know, Baraki, who has operated as his conscience in many ways,
• 25:41
  Marcus: you know, got him to think about doing things a little different, you know, not necessarily killing everybody, and so he was, you know, he was, he was kind of moving in a certain direction. And then Alva, we've talked about this in the past,
• 25:56
  Marcus: At a certain point, like, realizes who he is, and basically makes this…
• 26:02
  Marcus: devil deal, you know, with him, like, oh, I'm gonna bring you under my wing, you'll have access to more tech than you, you know, more resources than ever before, blah blah blah. But he's essentially, like.
• 26:15
  Marcus: Alva's arms, like, you know, and and that is really hard to deal with. I almost feel like the ire that the icon gets would be more well-placed on him. Now, he differs with Alva, and, you know…
• 26:31
  Marcus: he's… and he definitely will, like, think to himself about how, you know, maybe his days as Alva's guy might be numbered, but he's doing it. He's doing the devil's work, you know? So, that's all I want to say. I feel like, you know, justice for… justice for Augustus.
• 26:48
  Ted: Yeah, he ends up walking the walk. I get what you're saying. I do… I feel like hardware…
• 26:58
  Ted: It's hard… I don't think I can say that I have been disappointed by Hardware the comic. I do think I can.
• 27:04
  Marcus: Oh, not the comic, I meant the guy, go ahead, yeah.
• 27:06
  Ted: No, that's what I'm saying. Like, I think that I could… I… I agree that I'm frustrated with the decisions of hardware, the character.
• 27:15
  Ted: In a way that's…
• 27:17
  Ted: I get why it's interesting in a comic book. I'm not as… I'm not convinced of… like, I… it's…
• 27:26
  Ted: I don't know. I get what you're saying. I think I get what you're saying, and I think I'm agreeing a lot of, like, yeah, it's frustrating that he basically agrees to work with Elva despite everything.
• 27:37
  Marcus: Which, you know what's fascinating?
• 27:38
  Ted: is… I don't know.
• 27:40
  Marcus: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. It has me thinking now, I mean, sorry, Tad, you might have been about to say what I was saying.
• 27:45
  Ted: But it has me.
• 27:46
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, you go first.
• 27:47
  Marcus: that, like, you know, hardware definitely is not at all unrelated to Dwayne McDuffie's frustrations and experiences working for the big two.
• 27:59
  Ted: Oh, yeah.
• 28:00
  Marcus: And hitting the glass ceiling in the comics world. So, it's fascinating. I wonder if, timing-wise… because he, he did…
• 28:10
  Marcus: you know, it's not like he did Milestone and he never worked with Big 2 again. I mean, he famously went on to, do incredible, like, comics and animation work with DC.
• 28:22
  Ted: Yeah.
• 28:23
  Marcus: So it almost makes me wonder, does some of this parallel.
• 28:28
  Ted: like.
• 28:28
  Marcus: Him getting other opportunities. No, no, not even justifying. Does this maybe… does this time… time-wise, maybe overlap with him doing other…
• 28:37
  Marcus: Big 2 work. I don't know if he was exclusively Milestone at this point in, like, 95, but it would make sense if, like, maybe this overlaps with him dipping his toes back in the Big 2 waters. That's really interesting. And if maybe that's where…
• 28:54
  Marcus: these… these complications in Curtis' path, you know, pop up. I don't know, this is… I don't know the answer to this.
• 29:01
  Ted: No, that's a really interesting question. I'm actually trying to look right now, at his… He… okay.
• 29:09
  Ted: As far as I can tell, he would have been…
• 29:12
  Ted: No, he really didn't write much of anything. Okay. Apart… I mean, okay, apart from…
• 29:19
  Ted: Milestone. He did not write much of anything during the time that.
• 29:23
  Marcus: That makes a lot of sense, because he really was, like, About Milestone during this time.
• 29:29
  Ted: He did go back and do a few more things for DC and Marvel in, like, starting, like, the 2000s. He did a bit of XO Man O' War. I didn't realize that. That's awesome. Oh, he also did some fill-ins on…
• 29:43
  Ted: No, that's other stuff. He… no, he was pretty much just doing Milestone stuff in this period. Later on in, like, the 2000s, he would go back and do a little bit of stuff for Marvel and DC, but also by that point, he was moving more into television as well, so…
• 29:58
  Marcus: Right.
• 29:58
  Ted: it's interesting that I… no, I totally get what you're saying, and I think you're… I think you're… I think there's definitely a… yeah, there's something to that. And it also is just, yeah, I… I've… it's not that I dislike Hardware the comic.
• 30:10
  Marcus: How do I have you.
• 30:11
  Ted: issues with hardware, the character.
• 30:13
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 30:13
  Ted: way that I think is… well, and it's… I don't think it's terribly well served, unfortunately, by what happens in these two issues. The other big thing, which is Alva dies.
• 30:22
  Marcus: He sacrifices his life.
• 30:23
  Ted: to save a whole bunch of people in the riots by taking up his experimental
• 30:29
  Ted: Robo Hardware 3.0 suit. I like that they're specifically making it 3.0, because there's already a hardware 2.0. And I do, I mean…
• 30:39
  Ted: The comic book nerd in me knows that, like, oh, they already set up the fact that this suit can be remote piloted.
• 30:45
  Marcus: Specific.
• 30:45
  Ted: Specifically so, if they ever wanted to, they could bring it back.
• 30:49
  Marcus: Also…
• 30:50
  Ted: they didn't, after this point. So, I mean, spoilers, but they just, you know, they don't. Yeah. And…
• 30:57
  Ted: But yeah, I mean, like, they… they choose to kill him off in this storyline in a way that I think is interesting. I mean, it is…
• 31:05
  Ted: I do like that, you know, Elva retires, specifically saying, like, hey, I'm gonna go out being, like, a cool benefactor and donating a bunch of, like, money and doing this park stuff, and then also, he gets to save, like, 200 people from a giant crashing piece of statuary, and die a hero. Like…
• 31:22
  Ted: he gets to… you wanted legacy, buddy? Here you fucking go. Like, he gets to have this incredible moment of heroism to close out his life. And that's so unfair, and, like, from a storytelling perspective, great, you know?
• 31:37
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 31:38
  Ted: But also, it does… I wanted to see hardware, like, play out the rest of his relationship with Alva, and realize, again, like, hey, it still sucks that I'm working for you, like, I… maybe I want to think it over again, because I still think you're kind of a terrible person.
• 31:56
  Tad Eggleston: So, here's what I was gonna jump in earlier with, and I think it fits even better now.
• 32:05
  Ted: Excuse me.
• 32:06
  Tad Eggleston: like… I see two major conflicts going on that are very tied together inside of Hardware Curtis.
• 32:15
  Tad Eggleston: The one is much more the hardware conflict.
• 32:21
  Tad Eggleston: Yes, he's helping out this horrible man.
• 32:25
  Tad Eggleston: Even in some criminal ways, but… but, in exchange, he's getting
• 32:32
  Tad Eggleston: the resources to do all of the other good that he wants to do.
• 32:37
  Ted: Yes.
• 32:38
  Tad Eggleston: So there's that, that, that ends mean thing. I'm not… I'm not saying I agree with his decision, I'm saying that's the conflict he has, is that he's…
• 32:48
  Marcus: Oh, yeah. No, no, no, continue. I just have some thoughts, but continue.
• 32:52
  Tad Eggleston: convincing himself that, like, the ends justify the means.
• 32:58
  Tad Eggleston: And as Curtis, I feel like there's an element of… I earned this.
• 33:06
  Marcus: Oh, 100%. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 33:09
  Tad Eggleston: You deserve to have this nice life.
• 33:12
  Marcus: Good.
• 33:12
  Tad Eggleston: You know, not only am I smart, not only did I do all of this stuff, but, like.
• 33:17
  Tad Eggleston: I also saved the world. You know, I deserve nice things.
• 33:23
  Ted: Yeah.
• 33:25
  Tad Eggleston: And I think there's an element of both of…
• 33:29
  Tad Eggleston: his persona, Hardware and Curtis, that, like.
• 33:33
  Tad Eggleston: Knows that he's full of shit.
• 33:35
  Ted: Yeah.
• 33:37
  Marcus: No, 100%.
• 33:38
  Tad Eggleston: But… but also, like…
• 33:41
  Tad Eggleston: Doesn't want to be full of shit. Wants to justify it to himself. Wants to just be able to feel good about saving the world, and then going home to a sweet-ass condo.
• 33:55
  Ted: I think that's.
• 33:56
  Tad Eggleston: And that's where I'm really, really curious what happens now that Alva's also the hero.
• 34:04
  Marcus: See? And he's not there.
• 34:06
  Tad Eggleston: there, and he's not there to actually be mad at.
• 34:11
  Marcus: On behalf of the Black.
• 34:14
  Tad Eggleston: To see how Curtis… Processes that.
• 34:18
  Marcus: I have to say, I wince a little bit every time I hear the hero. I get it, I get that maybe, like, members… I get that maybe… I know what you're… I know what you're saying, but I know you're talking…
• 34:30
  Tad Eggleston: persona special.
• 34:31
  Marcus: It's like Palpatine. I get it, because we as viewers know that Palpatine is the power, more power guy, but in the Star Wars universe, average people are like, oh, he's the, you know, he's our…
• 34:46
  Tad Eggleston: He saved us!
• 34:46
  Marcus: Yeah, he's the emperor, and we don't even see him here.
• 34:49
  Tad Eggleston: what Trump thinks he is.
• 34:51
  Marcus: Right, but also, like, after he gets his face melted, they just don't see him in universe, really. Like, you hear his voice, but, like, he's not visually seen. Anyway, I get it.
• 35:03
  Tad Eggleston: How much does an emperor need to be seen?
• 35:05
  Marcus: Very true, very true. So, yeah, Alva is, like, yes, viewed as a hero in maybe a more Palpatine-esque way. But what occurred to me is, as I was positing my theory about… I think I was slightly off, I think the answer is much simpler than what I was saying, about, like…
• 35:22
  Marcus: Hardware's direction.
• 35:25
  Marcus: probably, if you think about it, DC doesn't own Milestone, right? But, like, which is why… whatever, that's a whole other tangent I'm not gonna get into. But, like, they, you know, the Milestone, founders, they worked out a deal with them, and, you know, so it's under…
• 35:44
  Marcus: under the DC umbrella, but it's not, you know, owned…
• 35:47
  Ted: of editorial control.
• 35:48
  Marcus: Right. That being said.
• 35:50
  Marcus: This is after the issue of, and I think we can see where the static issue that caused all the static came in, but, like, you know, McDuffie's got all kinds of frustration
• 36:06
  Marcus: with DC at this point, and even doing this really cool thing with Milestone, having been doing it for a couple years at this point, but, still…
• 36:17
  Marcus: having DC trying to weigh in and lean on him. And it got ugly after that static issue, too, with DC's response. So I think maybe this, the, you know, Curtis's,
• 36:29
  Marcus: frustrating inability to, separate himself.
• 36:34
  Marcus: from Alva could be that simple, that McDuffie…
• 36:37
  Marcus: And Milestone, in effect, weren't separate from DC at this point.
• 36:42
  Ted: Yeah, I mean, it's… I…
• 36:44
  Ted: I think you're… I think you're… I think you're right. I mean, I think it's a little… you know this too, and I think you're saying it too, that it's a little simplistic to kind of map McDuffie's…
• 36:52
  Ted: thoughts onto hardwares, but I… I mean, I agree that there's… there's already.
• 36:57
  Marcus: But the structure of the initial conflict… the central conflict of Curtis, really.
• 37:04
  Ted: Yeah.
• 37:05
  Marcus: Throughout the story.
• 37:08
  Marcus: is… that part is based on his experiences. Obviously, I don't think he's… you're right, I don't think he's saying, issue by issue, what's going on with Dwayne this month, you know?
• 37:19
  Ted: The Dwayne Diaries, yeah. No, I… but again, no, I take your point, that it is… there's so much of Dwayne's relationship with the big two, and especially DC, is he informed… is he informing
• 37:31
  Ted: elements of hardware, and I think that's… yeah, and that's why I feel like killing Alva, as much as it is sort of a great, tragic, fuck you to Curtis, unfortunately also limits what's gonna happen from now. I mean, I don't actually remember what happens, really, in hardware from this point on.
• 37:48
  Marcus: I'm actually excited, because I told… I think I told you, like, we kind of passed the point where I was, like, regularly reading, so a lot… most of this is kind of new to me, so… I did… I did peek ahead a little bit, and it looks like there's some cool stuff that comes up.
• 38:00
  Ted: Yeah, and that's the thing, like, I do… I… I am excited… I'm obviously always excited to see what's happening in Milestone stuff, but, like, it's…
• 38:09
  Ted: I feel like there could have been even more stuff regarding Curtis and Elva's relationship that would have been fascinating.
• 38:16
  Ted: And so it's a little bit like, oh, I would have loved to have seen how it evolves after this point.
• 38:21
  Marcus: Hmm.
• 38:22
  Ted: But also, I mean, hardware is the character, not Alva, so, you know.
• 38:27
  Marcus: And also… I might not just see how we go, I'm gonna be honest, I'm just gonna say it.
• 38:33
  Ted: It's also… Alva can be a little one-note, like.
• 38:37
  Ted: We got his internal monologue in this issue, and it's a little bit like…
• 38:41
  Marcus: He's so insufferable, oh my god.
• 38:43
  Ted: Yeah, like, you know, this swashes all my sundry buckles to.
• 38:47
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 38:47
  Ted: It's like, shut the fuck up.
• 38:49
  Marcus: You know how bad he is? He's so bad that when he was with the Crime Coalition, who none of them are particularly… are particularly, you know, characters that we're enamored with, but I actually was like, you're, like, the biggest jerk out of this whole…
• 39:07
  Ted: These are…
• 39:08
  Marcus: jerks, like, you know what I mean? Like, he's… I actually was… I felt frustrated for them on… frustrated on their behalf. By his conduct.
• 39:17
  Ted: I, oh.
• 39:18
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 39:19
  Ted: No, I understand completely. Like, it's also… we don't really know much about the other characters in that. Like, we know Milton St. Cloud, because he's Cobalt's guy, and we kind of know… what's the guy's name? Harm? The one who actually has.
• 39:31
  Marcus: Yeah, and he's, like, undercover, yeah, yeah.
• 39:34
  Ted: Yeah, which I don't think actually really goes anywhere, but, like, it's fine.
• 39:38
  Ted: But, yeah, I… like, we don't really know anything about any of them. There's the one woman who may have powers, which is sort of hinted at, but I don't think it goes… that does anything, so… because she, like, puts out the fire that Holocaust, or pyre starts, so… anyway.
• 39:52
  Marcus: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 39:53
  Ted: Yeah, I don't… it's not…
• 39:54
  Ted: I don't know, it didn't seem super clear to me. But, but yeah, no, Alpha isn't… Alpha's a jerk, he's an asshole, and he's… like, it's not just that he's a villain, he's so smug about it. Like, that's… that's the thing of it, you know? And, unfortunately, by dying heroically, he gets the last word on that, and that's what… yeah, that's… and I say that as someone… like, that's a great… that's a great tragic moment to end with, where it's like.
• 40:17
  Ted: shoot, I can't even be mad at you when you're dead, because you saved, like, 200 people from dying. Like, damn it, man! So, I am looking forward to those elements of it, but also, like, he was a good foil for Curtis, and I'm more just wondering what they do with Curtis now that he doesn't have his most obvious counterpart, so…
• 40:37
  Marcus: Yeah. But comics… comics does do this. They'll take the… we've seen a lot of times where, like, a really interesting antagonist or something is taken off the board, and, you know, in good comics, they'll figure out a way to, you know, have new tensions, and yeah.
• 40:55
  Ted: Yeah. Like, I remember, I mean, hey, the Alva equivalent in the rebooted Milestone universe, where it's suddenly like, oh, he's got a sister, and not only that, she's black, or not, his sister, like, cousin, or… there's some… yeah, no.
• 41:09
  Marcus: Well, see, now I'm frustrated again, because we haven't gotten to see that continued.
• 41:13
  Ted: Yeah, that's true, we haven't gotten that set. Oh, God, comics, we love them and we hate them.
• 41:16
  Tad Eggleston: Hey!
• 41:18
  Tad Eggleston: Supposedly.
• 41:19
  Marcus: Don't give me, don't give me hope.
• 41:21
  Ted: Static is coming.
• 41:22
  Tad Eggleston: swimming.
• 41:23
  Marcus: Yeah, but static, but I know, and I love static, but I want to see… It all continued.
• 41:30
  Ted: I love static. I really did like the static parts of this, because it's continuing after 25, which was emotionally a lot. Now we're getting into stuff that's a little more kind of classic superhero-y stuff. I ended up liking it a lot. You know, he hangs out with Dusk. Is it… it's Dusk, right? The girl that…
• 41:47
  Marcus: Yes, I believe so.
• 41:49
  Ted: He does, you know, he gets into conflict with Pyre, ends up kind of, getting won over on him, actually. You know, gets to save some people, saves Frida, er, not Frida, no, Frida, yeah.
• 42:03
  Ted: Trita and Terrence. There's the fun little bit with Rick working as the hot dog guy in Utopia Park, which I think is kind of funny. There's even, like, the joking little reference where he finds out that, like, wait, so Utopian and Utopiandy really are just guys in costumes? You're not, like, super cool androids? Come on, man, don't lie to me.
• 42:20
  Ted: Like, there's fun little bits with him as well. It's very…
• 42:24
  Ted: he doesn't have, like, the personal stakes… his personal stakes are not as high as, like, the Blood Syndicate, and he doesn't have the connection like Hardware has, but he has, sort of, enough of a personal stake that I like
• 42:37
  Ted: What he does in these issues.
• 42:39
  Ted: Yeah, I don't know, the static stuff was fun to me. I liked…
• 42:43
  Ted: I liked what they did with him. I kind of forget what he did in, like, the second of his issues.
• 42:48
  Marcus: He… wait, in the second issue… Oh, the one at the end of this arc?
• 42:53
  Ted: Yeah.
• 42:54
  Marcus: I mean, he really took on hardware, basically, to save the day. There's a pretty scary part where, as.
• 42:59
  Ted: Wait, hardware?
• 43:00
  Marcus: I think… not hardware, sorry, Pyre.
• 43:03
  Ted: Oh, Pyre, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he stands up to Pyre, which is kind of a… it's a fun moment, it's like, yeah, hell yeah, man.
• 43:08
  Marcus: Yeah, and it's a little uncertain, because he's… he's… at the end, he's even like, I think I…
• 43:15
  Marcus: stopped it, I hope, like, basically, you know what I mean? Because he's not… because, you know, like, Pire just never… he never… he's so hard… yeah, he's just so hard to stop. And then there's stuff with this scary moment with Daisy, where she…
• 43:29
  Ted: Right.
• 43:30
  Marcus: Like, you know, as a narrow escape from some really bad dudes, as the violence spills over into the communities.
• 43:37
  Marcus: You know.
• 43:39
  Marcus: Which shows just how… when we're talking about showing, like, different perspectives of all the Utopia Park events, you know, you're seeing it from inside the park a lot in the blood syndicate issues, but, you know.
• 43:51
  Marcus: You see, in the last static issue in this particular arc we read, how it's like, no, it's not contained to the park, it's really spreading out into the communities, and…
• 44:02
  Marcus: That's true, yeah.
• 44:04
  Ted: I do… okay, one last thing about Blood Syndicate that I remember noticing that I was like, wait, did I miss something? Did we know that Wise Sons…
• 44:11
  Ted: Okay, it's his son and his sister, but the sister's really young.
• 44:17
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 44:17
  Ted: Did we know they had powers, or she had powers?
• 44:21
  Marcus: No, well, wait, wait, a little, because remember, this is, like, early on, but there was a moment that had something… What was it?
• 44:30
  Marcus: There was a moment where, with the…
• 44:33
  Marcus: Oh, and I feel like I remember the sisters saying.
• 44:37
  Marcus: to the mom, like, he's doing it again. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Does this sound familiar? There was… there was something where the son, like, was able to see…
• 44:48
  Marcus: something going on… I don't know, I'll have to come back to it, but.
• 44:51
  Ted: Yeah, I'd have to look it up, too. I just don't remember, because, like, I really like Wise Son as a character. I do feel like the one drawback, and I don't even know if this is a drawback, but, like, the fact that Blood City is such a good ensemble book means that there's some points where I wish they'd dig
• 45:05
  Ted: much deeper into just one character. Like, I wish there were more, like, bottle episodes, which normally I don't, and again, like, the ensemble stuff is so strong in Blood Syndicate, but every now and then, I'm like, man, I want to know a little bit more about, like, you know, I want to know about what third rail and Brick House are up to, because they opened the bakery, like, that happens in this sequence too, you know? Yeah.
• 45:26
  Ted: But yeah, there's a thing where his sister can apparently, like, go… like, she can create portals through mirrored surfaces by writing.
• 45:32
  Marcus: That's what it was. There was a mirror thing early on.
• 45:35
  Ted: Oh, okay, so there was an earlier part with that, too. Okay.
• 45:38
  Marcus: It's in a very early issue. I feel like… I feel like it was around the time when we were introduced to the brother… to the son and the sister.
• 45:45
  Ted: Okay, I'm gonna have to look that up too, because, yeah, I couldn't remember. But yeah, she does it in this issue, and it was… it took me a minute to be like, wait, how'd they get to the… oh, she, like, wrote the name, and that lets them…
• 45:53
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 45:54
  Ted: Okay, sure, alright. I mean, it's… it makes sense, like, sure, yeah, that's, you know, he's got powers, obviously the, you know, the Big Bang spread everywhere, like, sure, it makes total sense that, of course, other people are gonna have powers, too. It's just sort of like, oh, I… we know this, I guess?
• 46:09
  Ted: I forgot that that had been brought up before. But it is, like, I like that then, you know, it's one more thing going on with everything else, is that his, you know, these two little kids are running around and trying to figure out what to do, and we also get to see, not only do they get, manage to get back home.
• 46:22
  Ted: before Pyre finds them… well, he does find them, but he lets them go. But also, they send that lady to the hospital, apparently, which I thought was kind of a sweet add-on.
• 46:29
  Marcus: Right.
• 46:30
  Ted: Which I… yeah, that was just a nice little bit. But yeah, there's… it's… like, oh man, I just… I wish we had so much more, you know? Like…
• 46:37
  Marcus: Obviously.
• 46:38
  Ted: Like, I wish… and I know that, especially, even Wise Son gets his own mini-series, which we'll get to… is that in this volume, or the next one? But, even so, you know, I still want so much more… I wanted…
• 46:51
  Ted: Oh, yeah.
• 46:51
  Marcus: No, I do think… wait, I think the Wise Sun series is in there, so I… or is it in the next book? I have the issues, so I've read it, actually, a couple times in the last few years, but… no, no, it's not… I guess it's not in there.
• 47:04
  Ted: Yeah. But yeah, and then also, like, I do think it's funny, and I kind of get the reason why, but I do think it's funny that suddenly there's, like.
• 47:11
  Ted: a dozen more superpower MOOCs just, like, showing up in this, because, like, we have to have enough to be on Holocaust staff, so I was like, oh, here's Lead Balloon, and Grasshopper, and Stinger, and also the joke that, like, all of St. Cloud's guys are named after mixed drinks.
• 47:27
  Marcus: So there's…
• 47:27
  Ted: Stinger, Mai Tai, Gimblets, Bloody Mary, like, every single one of them is… every… like, just his guys have names of mixed drinks, which is sort of a… it's just… it's a nice, dumb joke. I like that that was thrown in there.
• 47:41
  Ted: But…
• 47:42
  Ted: So it does mean that there's just, like, randomly 2 or 3 dudes who have weird-looking faces or whatever, or strange, like, werewolf looks or something that'll just show up and be like, yep, okay, this is a…
• 47:53
  Ted: this is a guy who's got powers, I guess. Sure. It's a little out of nowhere, but okay. Yeah.
• 48:00
  Ted: Yeah, here's Lead Balloon. He looks like a giant inflatable dude with, like, silver skin, I guess. He's probably got a power? He can fly, I guess, but…
• 48:10
  Ted: Anyway.
• 48:12
  Ted: But yeah, I mean, this… this middle part of… of… The Long Hot Summer is…
• 48:20
  Ted: I don't know, it's interesting. It's also, I mean, we didn't… we didn't really talk much about, sort of, the most important thing that happens in this, which is when Wise Sun actually gives the speech about, like, hey, we can't be doing this to our own community.
• 48:33
  Ted: And I like that that's a moment where Wise Sun, who… I mean, he was always…
• 48:39
  Ted: He wasn't, like, a joker, but… a jokester, but, like, he didn't… it's not that he didn't take things seriously, but he was always, for a while, he was very kind of quick to move, he didn't like to think things through, he was very kind of gung-ho.
• 48:53
  Marcus: Well, his, his, his anger…
• 48:56
  Ted: Yeah.
• 48:56
  Marcus: was present in, I would say, all that he did. And if anything, it just got in the way of a lot of things, and
• 49:06
  Marcus: And anger in a… defensive way, too, you know, like, you just… So, yeah.
• 49:13
  Ted: It's important, I think, that, like, in his very first time he shows up in, like, issue 1,
• 49:18
  Ted: he makes some crass joke, and Brinkhouse hits him so hard that he, like, gets knocked through on the floor. And that's partly just to demonstrate everybody's powers, but also, like, no, this is who he is, you know? He's the guy who will wisecrack or mouth off, or whatever, and then get punched through a wall. And it doesn't hurt him, but still, it's like, yeah.
• 49:34
  Ted: But…
• 49:34
  Ted: But I like that then he's the one who's called upon. He kind of has the biggest change of heart.
• 49:41
  Ted: In realizing, like, we can't be doing this, this… people are hurting, this is unconscionable, we have to be the people to stop this.
• 49:48
  Marcus: Absolutely. Well, no…
• 49:50
  Ted: Good morning.
• 49:50
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, sorry, go ahead.
• 49:52
  Ted: Well, he's not the ones to stop it, but the ones to call for it to stop, you know.
• 49:56
  Marcus: Absolutely, and you know what's really interesting? Because, yeah, I definitely wanted to talk about… about him. I mentioned earlier, you really saw…
• 50:06
  Marcus: What's beneath the… the,
• 50:09
  Marcus: the veneer, you know, of the bravado with him a little bit more. He had very human moments.
• 50:15
  Marcus: You know, it's also nice to see that he's, like…
• 50:19
  Marcus: Because, you know, there was times in these issues where he hadn't been home, you know, and you see, he's just like, no, he's just chilling at home.
• 50:27
  Marcus: with Edmund, his sister, and his mom,
• 50:32
  Ted: Yeah.
• 50:32
  Marcus: And… and he… he cares. He's really feeling his mom's imminent displacement.
• 50:38
  Ted: Yeah.
• 50:38
  Marcus: And there's that moment in the alleyway
• 50:42
  Marcus: which I love Ivan Liz, he… he… he does a great job with Blood Syndicate, we talked about it a million times, of, like…
• 50:49
  Marcus: Juggling a lot of characters and still making it really…
• 50:53
  Marcus: flow, but, like, he also loves to throw in a mysterious thing that doesn't get paid off for a few issues, and there was that thing… did either of you… I was trying to figure out who that person in the shadows was in the alleyway. You know what I'm talking about? Like, like.
• 51:11
  Ted: In, in these issues?
• 51:12
  Marcus: Yeah, cause, like, why… so why's son is at his, his mom's place.
• 51:18
  Marcus: And then he…
• 51:20
  Marcus: he's just… he leaves because he's frustrated, because his mom is, like, kind of going on about things, the kids are asking questions, and he… he kind of blows up and says, I don't know my… you know, I don't effin' know…
• 51:32
  Marcus: And then he… he storms out, says he has to take a walk. So he goes outside, and he's, like, really kind of breaking down, and he's, like, cursing to himself.
• 51:40
  Marcus: And then, somebody shows up in the shadows. It's page 351.
• 51:45
  Ted: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 51:46
  Marcus: And they say, hello, Hannibal, long time no see. And we don't…
• 51:51
  Marcus: to my knowledge, I don't think we get to see who that was. So… so that's interesting, because I don't… that might be something that's gonna pay off…
• 52:00
  Marcus: In future issues, but I don't think we… yeah.
• 52:03
  Ted: I had totally forgotten about that. No, thank you for reminding me, because, like, God, I totally blanked on that. Because, yeah, I don't remember it having anything else to do in this. Like, there was nothing else in these issues that made me think, like, oh, yeah, this is something having to do with the person in that alleyway. I don't know, that's…
• 52:21
  Marcus: Well, I'm assuming… yeah, like, I'm only… I can only guess, but I don't know, I'm assuming maybe somebody from the neighborhood he knew…
• 52:28
  Marcus: I was trying to look at the…
• 52:32
  Marcus: the profile to see if it looked like anybody, but I couldn't quite… it didn't match anybody I could think of.
• 52:37
  Ted: Yeah, it looks kinda like… It maybe is a woman, it's hard to tell.
• 52:42
  Marcus: Yeah, no, I do think… I do think it's a woman, I just don't know who.
• 52:46
  Ted: Yeah.
• 52:47
  Ted: I have no idea. That's a good point. Yeah, I don't know if anyone's gonna be… gonna be…
• 52:52
  Ted: If that's gonna come back anytime soon.
• 52:54
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what comes up.
• 52:57
  Ted: Yeah, no, it's… it is, like, I love that they are sowing all these seeds for things that are gonna happen. Who knows? An issue from now, 10 issues from now? Whatever. But, like, I… I… I do love that there are…
• 53:08
  Ted: you know, things being pulled in. Well, and actually, also, come to think of it, I just noticed, D.G. Chichester takes over writing…
• 53:16
  Ted: If not permanently.
• 53:18
  Marcus: What's syndicate.
• 53:18
  Ted: next… yeah, at least for the next couple. Oh, he takes… okay, D.C. Tricester comes in for the next two issues.
• 53:24
  Ted: And then, who knows? I don't know, that might just be kind of a fill-in story.
• 53:30
  Marcus: Okay.
• 53:31
  Ted: Yeah, we'll get into it. I'm just… but you're right, though, I totally forgot about that, because it was so… you know, nothing came of it, and it was never referenced again. I totally forgot about it. Damn.
• 53:41
  Ted: But yeah, I… I… as you, like, as we said at the beginning, it is so difficult to balance this major event, especially when the events cross… the event… you know, everything crosses over so closely with each other that, like.
• 53:55
  Ted: you know, these people are literally walking by each other in the crowd sometimes. Like, the fact that they're so…
• 54:02
  Ted: close, which requires such careful management of, you know, time and page space, that then suddenly… but at the same time, they're also managing, you know, like we were saying about, like, third… Tech9 and… and…
• 54:16
  Ted: Tech 9 slash Masquerade, and then also, you know, Wise Sun's character development. It's really tricky to try to manage everything. I think they did an incredible job, but it also means that, like, man, I really can't wait to get back to the main book!
• 54:28
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, I know.
• 54:31
  Ted: Yeah, I'm just kind of speeding through…
• 54:35
  Ted: what I can read up on these issues. Yeah, not a lot of it… oh, yeah, I don't know.
• 54:41
  Ted: Shoot, I'm not sure how much of that actually comes back.
• 54:44
  Ted: Interesting. I don't know if that… Person is relevant again.
• 54:51
  Marcus: The person in the alleyway?
• 54:52
  Ted: Yeah, I don't… that's… got it.
• 54:53
  Marcus: I do, I do remember in my conversation…
• 54:58
  Marcus: with Ivan Velez, I feel like he said that he…
• 55:01
  Marcus: Did love to set up all these threads, and as some…
• 55:06
  Marcus: Of them, they… you know, you didn't get to see it through the…
• 55:08
  Ted: Yeah.
• 55:09
  Marcus: fruition.
• 55:10
  Marcus: Because of when, maybe how things ended or how they went.
• 55:13
  Ted: I have to say, I think I remember, I think I mentioned this before, but, like, I remember looking through those,
• 55:18
  Ted: the Milestone trading cards, and, like, there are characters who are only… there are characters who got a whole trading card of themselves who I don't think ever appeared on panel. And some of them maybe even didn't get mentioned, but, like, they had a whole bunch of characters they were ready to pull out, and even they didn't get…
• 55:34
  Ted: You know, so I understand that it, you know, they had a lot more plan than they were eventually able to do, and that's… again, as we keep saying, like, it's such a damn shame what happened with Milestone, but like…
• 55:45
  Ted: Yeah, man, but it's also, you know, it's smart comic books writing to be like, yeah, sometimes every now and then, you gotta just set up something that'll maybe pay off 20 issues, or 20 years later, you know? I have… I still have this issue, this one random issue of X-Men from the early-mid 90s, which is the issue where, like.
• 56:03
  Ted: Cyclops is hanging out with Mr. Sinister, and just kind of having a long conversation with the guy, and Mr. Sinister makes some reference, like, oh yeah, you and your brothers, and he's like, I only have one brother. And he's like, oh, yeah, you're one brother, that's right. And, like, I don't think… I think that might have even been, like, a Claremont issue.
• 56:19
  Marcus: But I'm like…
• 56:21
  Ted: It's a thing where it… I don't think they had any plans at that moment to be like, yeah, there's a third Summers Brother, but they just threw it in there to be like, yeah, sure, maybe it'll be something, maybe it won't, who knows?
• 56:31
  Marcus: Both of them.
• 56:32
  Ted: set that up just to kind of mess with people and open up, potentially, a future story arc somewhere. I mean, in that case, what we got was, was that Adam XD Extreme?
• 56:42
  Ted: It was someone… I think it was someone pretty lame, but, like, just knowing that, like, yeah, you want to set up… you wanna… you wanna put in… you gotta make some investments, and maybe they'll pay off some interest eventually. And, you know, this was an investment.
• 56:56
  Marcus: Okay, Vulcan… sorry, you made me think of it. Yeah, was later…
• 57:00
  Ted: Volcan was the third Summers brother.
• 57:03
  Marcus: Lead Genesis, okay.
• 57:04
  Ted: Yeah, oh…
• 57:05
  Marcus: Oh, and Adam X, yeah, yeah.
• 57:07
  Ted: Oh, Adam, was he another brother, or was that, like, a close?
• 57:09
  Marcus: Well, according to AI Overview, which is horrible…
• 57:12
  Ted: Oh, let's not even get into it! Oh, God.
• 57:14
  Marcus: Yeah, don't get me… I'm just about to set myself off doing that, so I'm sorry, I won't get myself started.
• 57:21
  Ted: Hey, honestly, I think we can kind of call it for the night, frankly, because that kind of covers everything that happens in this, because the speech that Wild Send gives seems to sort of end the riot, more or less.
• 57:33
  Ted: Hardware's story is also basically done, because he ends by basically, you know, cradling Alva's body.
• 57:39
  Ted: Blood City, it ends more or less with them being like, well, we did what we could, we made this big speech, let's see what happens. And then Static ends with him kind of sit… doing a very Spider-Man thing, and I mean that in a positive sense, but, like, sitting on a rooftop, being like, man, I'm exhausted, you know, what else can I do to help save the city? There's still stuff going on, you know, like, it's a very…
• 57:58
  Ted: It's the very Spider-Man thing of, like, oh man, I just had to beat some really tough villain, and now I gotta take a breather.
• 58:04
  Ted: So, it's… it is…
• 58:08
  Ted: setting up the finale of… or I guess it is… these bits are the finale of Long Hot Summer in their own books. We still have Zombie, Blood Syndicate, or, Shadow Cabinet. God, I keep saying Shadow Cabinet and Blood Syndicate, like, alternating… anyway. And then…
• 58:26
  Ted: I guess the third issue of Long Hot Summer, Yeah, zombie, shadow cabinet, icon? Wait.
• 58:36
  Ted: Does there…
• 58:38
  Marcus: Can I say that again?
• 58:39
  Ted: Oh, Icon… oh, Cobalt! Yeah, god, of course, Cobalt, and then…
• 58:43
  Ted: The third issue of Long Hot Summer. Okay. Yeah, so apparently there's one more issue of Icon. I'm just looking ahead in the book. One more issue of Icon, a few more issues of… the last issues of Cobalt, and then the third issue of the Long Hot Summer book proper.
• 59:01
  Ted: Which will be interesting to see how much of other stuff gets thrown in there. Oh, yeah, and zombies, so…
• 59:07
  Ted: Yeah, we've still got some… we've still got quite a bit ahead of us, I guess.
• 59:10
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 59:11
  Ted: Even if this sort of wraps things up.
• 59:14
  Marcus: I'm happy to be getting back to some more zombie, because I…
• 59:16
  Ted: I… I forgot… I've forgotten completely what last happened in Zombie, I gotta say.
• 59:21
  Marcus: Yeah, I might go back and read some of that.
• 59:23
  Ted: I might go back and read all of it. I remember… I remember the, like, the nuns, and the wasp… the dead wasps that turn into weird ghosts, anyway.
• 59:32
  Ted: Yeah. But yeah, no, that kind of covers all this. It's, again, like, this is… this is a really good event in that it…
• 59:40
  Ted: It does stuff that ties in with each book, but at the same time, each book maintains its own throughline, and it just… it reads so well the whole way through. And none of it feels forced or, like, un…
• 59:53
  Ted: necessary… yeah, I don't know, this is a really good…
• 59:57
  Ted: This is just a really good event, guys, I don't know what to tell you.
• 1:00:00
  Marcus: Yeah, I… I just want more.
• 1:00:03
  Ted: Yeah.
• 1:00:03
  Marcus: Oh, I love…
• 1:00:04
  Tad Eggleston: Enjoying it, we'll get more.
• 1:00:06
  Marcus: You know what I would love? You know what I would love if… it's not gonna happen. It's hard enough to get them to even continue Milestone Reborn.
• 1:00:12
  Ted: Yeah.
• 1:00:12
  Marcus: I would love if we almost had, like, a… 616-1610.
• 1:00:17
  Ted: Jewish, where they…
• 1:00:18
  Marcus: you know, did… and we did see… there was a special that was released a couple years ago at this point.
• 1:00:26
  Ted: Yes.
• 1:00:26
  Marcus: Yeah, we're, we're the… The 93 Milestone characters were meeting the new characters.
• 1:00:34
  Ted: Yes. So…
• 1:00:35
  Marcus: I'd love it if we just got a continuation. Although then again, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna reread…
• 1:00:42
  Marcus: those McDuffie, milestone… what was the name of that event?
• 1:00:47
  Ted: Forever? Milestone Forever.
• 1:00:48
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, those were good, I enjoyed those.
• 1:00:50
  Ted: That… or was that the… whatever, we'll figure it out, but yeah. Yeah, it's… this… I mean, I remember a few years back finally getting through all of Jack Kirby's Fourth World stuff, and it's just…
• 1:01:01
  Ted: After some incredible highs, you eventually get to the point where you realize, like, oh, this is where they start cutting books, this is where they start, you know, walking him off of stuff, and this is where they start, you know…
• 1:01:13
  Ted: ruining things, and he's doing less and less of what he wants to do, and it's… it's kind of hard to read. And it's like, oh yeah, shoot, this is where… this is where, unfortunately, we are on kind of the…
• 1:01:26
  Ted: downswing. The second half of Milestone, you know.
• 1:01:31
  Marcus: Where does his… Where does his…
• 1:01:34
  Marcus: Does that overlap with his, with Kirby's,
• 1:01:38
  Marcus: frustrating return to Black Panther, because he… because he had been away, and, like, McGregor had done, and other careers, had done some really interesting stuff with Black Panther.
• 1:01:49
  Ted: Then Pantser's Quest, or Panther's Rage and Pantser's Quest, yes.
• 1:01:52
  Marcus: Yeah, and then… and then Kirby, like, came back, and he was like…
• 1:01:58
  Marcus: He's like he had an axe grind, and he just undid everybody's stuff. And I'm sorry…
• 1:02:02
  Ted: Remember that.
• 1:02:03
  Marcus: as much as I… as much as I love T'Challa and Wakanda, other writers took those little bits.
• 1:02:11
  Ted: spread.
• 1:02:11
  Marcus: that Sam and Jack did. It is fascinating to me, because every time I look at it, I'm like, guys.
• 1:02:18
  Marcus: You could've did some research. They're literally just were taking whatever…
• 1:02:23
  Ted: Yeah.
• 1:02:24
  Marcus: Pan-gentle picture they had of quote-unquote.
• 1:02:26
  Ted: Africa.
• 1:02:28
  Marcus: And just… yeah, so it's like, to come back and still not have learned anything.
• 1:02:33
  Marcus: And be like, hey, all the work that you other creators did.
• 1:02:37
  Marcus: I created this guy, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, do me on this.
• 1:02:42
  Ted: You don't like King Solomon's frogs?
• 1:02:44
  Marcus: Oh, God.
• 1:02:45
  Ted: Okay, I'm sorry, to be clear, I actually haven't read those issues, that's just, like, one random thing I know about that happens, I'm just…
• 1:02:52
  Marcus: Yeah…
• 1:02:53
  Ted: Yeah, no. He… yeah, that actually would have been just about right, because, yeah, the Fourth World stuff was mostly wrapped up by, like, 75-ish.
• 1:03:01
  Marcus: Cuh.
• 1:03:02
  Ted: And he started his Black Panther run. He only did, like, 12 issues. Right, right. 77 to 78, okay, so, yeah.
• 1:03:08
  Ted: That sounds right. Yeah, that's… No, I get you, because I remember I picked up those Don McGregors years back, and I'm like, oh, shoot, this is great.
• 1:03:17
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 1:03:18
  Ted: But then…
• 1:03:19
  Marcus: He's still one of the greats, but that was not his… that was not one of his shining moments.
• 1:03:23
  Ted: Hey, they can't all be Sky Masters, Marshal of the Air, or whatever that guy was. Anyway.
• 1:03:31
  Ted: Yeah, cool. I don't know. This was… this was a good chunk of comics, obviously I can't wait to get back to more of it, and yeah, this is a good event, but, like, I want the regular stuff back, so…
• 1:03:41
  Marcus: Yes.
• 1:03:42
  Tad Eggleston: Well, you know, some zombie next week… month?
• 1:03:45
  Ted: Yeah, so…
• 1:03:46
  Tad Eggleston: month.
• 1:03:47
  Ted: How many issues are we reading next month? It's kind of a lot, if we're gonna try and finish out Long Hot Summer. It's…
• 1:03:52
  Tad Eggleston: Well, no, we're not finishing off Long Hot Summer, I think we're.
• 1:03:55
  Marcus: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think we're just gonna do zombie, yeah.
• 1:03:56
  Ted: Yeah, we're just gonna… oh, yeah, there's a… oh, wow, yeah, it's.
• 1:03:59
  Marcus: Yeah, there might even be 6, or 5, okay.
• 1:04:01
  Tad Eggleston: It's still… it's still… yeah, it's 5.
• 1:04:04
  Marcus: It's…
• 1:04:05
  Ted: Yeah, 5 Issues of Zombie, oh yeah, and then there's Shadow Cabinet, Icon, Cobalt, and then the end of Long Hot Summer. Okay, okay.
• 1:04:12
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, let's just do Zombie, I think, right?
• 1:04:14
  Ted: Yeah, so Zombie 12 through… 16, yes, yeah, those fine.
• 1:04:19
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 1:04:20
  Ted: Okay.
• 1:04:20
  Tad Eggleston: 12 through 16, and then probably the month after that, the shadow cabinet, the icon, And…
• 1:04:27
  Ted: Black Hot Summer.
• 1:04:28
  Tad Eggleston: Cobalt.
• 1:04:29
  Ted: Which wraps up… Well, that's a long…
• 1:04:32
  Tad Eggleston: Long Hot Summer 3, I think, could be…
• 1:04:37
  Tad Eggleston: Part of the month after that.
• 1:04:39
  Ted: I don't know, I feel like, knowing that…
• 1:04:41
  Tad Eggleston: hardware and icon.
• 1:04:43
  Ted: Knowing that… here's the thing, is I know for a fact that the cobalt stuff ties really strongly into Long Hot Summer, so I feel like it makes sense to keep that in place.
• 1:04:52
  Tad Eggleston: I just didn't know if the… if the hardware icon shadow cabinet did, too.
• 1:04:57
  Ted: No, I think by that point.
• 1:04:58
  Tad Eggleston: Because we've only got an issue a piece of… of those.
• 1:05:02
  Ted: Wait, in the… Know those?
• 1:05:05
  Ted: We might have to work this out off the air, folks.
• 1:05:07
  Marcus: We can figure it out, in the chat.
• 1:05:11
  Tad Eggleston: What! This is the most riveting part!
• 1:05:13
  Marcus: This is riveting.
• 1:05:14
  Ted: We've got two issues of Shadow Cabinet, one issue of Icon.
• 1:05:18
  Ted: two issues of Cobalt, and then Long Hot Summer. So yeah, I say that's how we do that.
• 1:05:24
  Tad Eggleston: Well, but then right after that, we have one issue of hardware, one issue of Icon, and one issue of Shadow Cabinet.
• 1:05:33
  Tad Eggleston: Before 5 more issues of Zombie.
• 1:05:35
  Ted: Yeah, I… I don't know, I guess we could do that, but also I think that's the final issue of Shadow Cabinet.
• 1:05:40
  Ted: So…
• 1:05:41
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. So, I mean, it's either we go one more neck… er… I mean, we've got two months to figure it out, but it's either we go one more, and then, like, have a really short month, or we…
• 1:05:54
  Tad Eggleston: even him out a little bit. That's… that's all I was saying.
• 1:05:57
  Ted: Yeah, no, good point, we'll figure it out.
• 1:05:59
  Marcus: I'm just picturing all the listeners that are at home, they're like, thank God they got through all this comic stuff so we can get to scheduling.
• 1:06:05
  Ted: Scheduling that.
• 1:06:05
  Tad Eggleston: That's right! Look, man, for some of us…
• 1:06:07
  Ted: That is the most important part of that.
• 1:06:09
  Tad Eggleston: scheduling on 22 Panels. Oh, boy.
• 1:06:12
  Ted: Yeah, exactly.
• 1:06:14
  Tad Eggleston: This has been the Brothers Anderson, no relation, and we will see you after the next page.