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Captain Britain 13-16: From the Ashes! And an interview with Yvonne Chireau! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

0:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Graemeolk and Lane podcast where queer friends and allies gather to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
0:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we are recording this right around Christmas time for a February 2026 release.
0:20
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm assuming the world will still be running and we are still giving ourselves permission to be joyful and happy in these crazy times.
0:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I am thrilled to be joined by some of
0:30
[SPEAKER_02]: the uh... inestible will be grit crew with uh... our very own captain america joining us today in the in the voice of uh... atom kissari we're going to be having a captain britain captain america team up to fight nazis and evil super computers it's going to be a delicious time we're going to begin uh... with these scripts from uh... captain britain thirteen reading through captain britain sixteen i am chattanderson i will be the voice of your narrator today on january capital i'll be captain britain
0:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi, I'm Robin Muffet, I will be playing Emma Collins, Valerie Campbell, Civilian Number 1, and a cop.
1:04
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm Giza Gobo, I'll be playing Di Thomas, Little Boy, Elizabeth Braddock, and Doctor SIN!
1:12
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm Christian Smith and I'll be playing Civilian Number 2, and Master 1, no, not that Master 1, the other Master 1.
1:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, this is the Evil Computer Mastermind, we'll get there.
1:20
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm Adam Casserrey, thanks for having me, I'll be Captain America, James Braddock Senior, and Nick Fury.
1:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, you gotta, you gotta pull out a British accent for that James Braddock, you're all I'm writing.
1:30
[SPEAKER_02]: James Braddock Senior, here.
1:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, I will also be reading the voice of the Red Skull today.
1:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, previously in Captain Britain on Grey Malkin Lane, when student physicist Brian Braddock rubbs his mystic amulet, he transforms into Britain's superheroic champion of justice.
1:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Stanley presents the newest and greatest superhero of all
1:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain, the letters rotating through blue, white, red, white, blue on the cover.
1:55
[SPEAKER_02]: After rescuing an innocent young girl from being burned at the stake, Captain Britain hurdles helpedlessly toward his own fiery fate and a terrible tabloek directed by the mental energy of the demonic
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Dr.
2:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin, as the young warrior plunges into the blazing pyre, we wonder if even a superhero can rise from the ashes, which is the title of today's episode.
2:18
[SPEAKER_02]: But don't forget, there's also a mysterious computer called Mastermind watching from the far.
2:22
[SPEAKER_02]: We're beginning with Captain Britain 13 from January 1977 by Gary Friedrich, pencils by Herbert Trimpy, Inks by Fred Kita, colors by Marie Severand, letters by Irving with Tautaby, and the editor on this book is Larry Lieber.
2:35
[SPEAKER_02]: The cover, in full color, Captain Britain leaps through the flames while evading gunfire over a madden crowd and toward the
2:43
[SPEAKER_02]: a operatically dressed doctor sin.
2:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Nothing has stopped me from defeating you sin, not even fire.
2:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Captain America vs.
2:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Doctor sin in a deadly duel that only one can survive.
2:55
[SPEAKER_06]: Your time has run out, captain Britain, your brief career, your real life is over, but take heart for your dismal departure and my master plan to dominate the entire empire and
3:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But with Dr.
3:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin's sinister boast still ringing in our ears, let us switch our attention to Braddock Manor, the stately residents of our hero's alter ego, Brian Braddock, where events of most dire consequence are about to unfold.
3:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Events evolving, the family's long time should be a charwoman.
3:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Emma Collins, I love this character.
3:31
[SPEAKER_02]: A middle-aged woman with a red rag tied around her hair, wears a blue dress and a white apron.
3:36
[SPEAKER_02]: She carries a mop and pale as she looks at a foreboding door in the residence.
3:40
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the reads in huge letters, laboratory, do not enter.
3:43
[SPEAKER_05]: Dr. Braddock told me to never enter his laboratory, but that was long before his tragic death.
3:49
[SPEAKER_05]: After all this time, the room is bound to need a good scrubbing down, besides, once in a sign when the master posted it is no longer with us.
3:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm paid to clean, and clean I will.
3:59
[SPEAKER_05]: The master would want it that way.
4:01
[SPEAKER_05]: Master for mother, the laboratory.
4:03
[SPEAKER_05]: It's like something in the cinema, James Bond said, no wonder the room was off limits.
4:09
[SPEAKER_05]: All this fancy machinery must be terribly important, at best be careful cleaning, but wouldn't do to damage this expensive equipment.
4:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I wonder what all this is for.
4:19
[SPEAKER_05]: The master never said, he was so close mouth, well, I'm sure he had his reasons.
4:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I like that her best has been dead for like five years and she's like today is the day I will finally clean the basement.
4:33
[SPEAKER_02]: No, there's whack-hipes.
4:34
[SPEAKER_02]: No, here's.
4:36
[SPEAKER_02]: We're got we've gone full down to Navi at this point.
4:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Meanwhile Miles away.
4:41
[SPEAKER_06]: He claimed to be a superhero let us see if his arrogant boasts can survive the test of fire.
4:49
[SPEAKER_02]: And within those raging flames
4:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I found a small pocket of air here in the center, but I can't survive the heat much longer.
4:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm finished, but let me end as a warrior with weapon in hand.
5:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But then as the wooden shaft, almost magically still unburned, is grasped.
5:05
[SPEAKER_02]: One clutching finger depresses the as yet unused middle button.
5:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Miraculously releasing an invisible force field, which immediately surrounds Captain Britain and protects him from the deadly searing heat.
5:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so when this person rubs his amulet, he turns fully into this superhero with the staff in hand, but he's just discovered the button that gives him the secret force he'll just keep in you all up to date here.
5:27
[SPEAKER_02]: While scant meters away, a glowing doctor's sin proclaims victory.
5:32
[SPEAKER_06]: Here or otherwise, no man is impervious to fire by now, my enemy is slain.
5:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Uh, who's the man?
5:41
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm the man.
5:42
[SPEAKER_02]: No.
5:43
[SPEAKER_02]: You sure are a-
5:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Did I assign man, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Kristen, were you give us a man?
5:49
[SPEAKER_02]: I have to bring the showly dead.
5:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, yeah, a lot of one joke that I can't stop talking about.
5:55
[SPEAKER_06]: Hey, right.
5:56
[SPEAKER_06]: As I so vowed, and now I shall continue my epic march toward what old domination and you, my loyal, mentally dominated subjects will accompany me.
6:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Come, while the fire blackens the very bones of Captain Britain.
6:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The flay?
6:16
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, that's not me.
6:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Please go ahead.
6:18
[SPEAKER_04]: That's me.
6:18
[SPEAKER_04]: That's me, Chad.
6:20
[SPEAKER_04]: The flames.
6:21
[SPEAKER_04]: I no longer feel them.
6:22
[SPEAKER_04]: They're not even touching me.
6:23
[SPEAKER_04]: They stopped when I grabbed my staff.
6:25
[SPEAKER_04]: Perhaps this wooden weapon has capabilities I never suspected.
6:28
[SPEAKER_04]: No time to dwell on that, though.
6:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I'll use the staff as I did before to move swiftly and safely towards a nasty encounter.
6:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Surrounded by his newly discovered force field, Captain Britain leaps out of the flames.
6:40
[SPEAKER_04]: No, it isn't possible.
6:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, but it is.
6:43
[SPEAKER_04]: And what I'm done with you, you won't be able to terrorize me.
6:46
[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry.
6:47
[SPEAKER_04]: And that's all because of it.
6:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh.
6:50
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, but it is.
6:51
[SPEAKER_04]: And what I've done with you, you won't be able to terrorize even Mary Poppins.
6:55
[SPEAKER_02]: The writer of this book is only seen one British movie, isn't it?
6:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I just Mary Poppins.
6:59
[SPEAKER_02]: That's it.
6:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We're done.
7:00
[SPEAKER_06]: That's the only one I'm impressed with.
7:01
[SPEAKER_06]: Anyone needs.
7:02
[SPEAKER_06]: It's given very buffy the vampire slayer.
7:05
[SPEAKER_06]: It's season one.
7:06
[SPEAKER_06]: It was like not bad for a dead bear.
7:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, yes, but as the arch foes guard themselves for battle, let us return once more to Braddock Manor where Emma Collins is mopping and soon she trips over a small lever with her mop while reaching down to flip a master control switch.
7:25
[SPEAKER_05]: Some of these machines still seem to be running odd what with the master so long gone may be a best disconnect them I wouldn't want to get an electric shock it looks like it might be the master switch I'll just turn it off and when I finish mopping I'll switch it back on I'm certain nobody will know the difference I kind of want bag of chips to come in and just go there and that's much better real fast
7:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Definitely who I'm tanneling.
7:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Nobody indeed, with the possible exception of Dr.
7:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin, the villain is disoriented, but our hero is ready with a kick to the chest, fud.
7:59
[SPEAKER_06]: Something's happened.
8:01
[SPEAKER_06]: I suddenly feel so weak.
8:04
[SPEAKER_04]: That's rough.
8:05
[SPEAKER_04]: It's also an old trick that won't work.
8:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Now talk, tell me who you are.
8:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Where you're from, the source of your power.
8:10
[SPEAKER_04]: Talk, or I'll pound it out of you.
8:13
[SPEAKER_04]: And you will.
8:13
[SPEAKER_04]: I won't do it.
8:15
[SPEAKER_04]: Don't say anything.
8:18
[SPEAKER_04]: struggling to stick to the screen.
8:20
[SPEAKER_06]: No, please my chest.
8:22
[SPEAKER_06]: I can't breathe.
8:24
[SPEAKER_04]: It's my put on.
8:24
[SPEAKER_04]: He's serious.
8:25
[SPEAKER_04]: He's turning pale.
8:26
[SPEAKER_06]: You must believe me.
8:28
[SPEAKER_06]: You must.
8:29
[SPEAKER_06]: It's my heart.
8:30
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm dying.
8:31
[SPEAKER_06]: I thought it impossible.
8:33
[SPEAKER_06]: Yet it's happening.
8:35
[SPEAKER_06]: Somehow the computer has failed me just as suddenly as it took control of me and gave me my powers.
8:42
[SPEAKER_06]: It's taking them away and left me here.
8:45
[SPEAKER_02]: Today.
8:46
[SPEAKER_06]: And as we were not understanding that this little, we were loving respect, Robin.
8:51
[SPEAKER_06]: This little lady has just unplugged the computer to more and has killed a supervillain.
8:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, we'll get to the reasons momentarily.
9:00
[SPEAKER_02]: And as you ran, doctors, Dr.
9:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin's face turns calm and his hair disappears.
9:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, that's correct.
9:07
[SPEAKER_02]: He's bald with a white wrap around like John Luke Picard.
9:10
[SPEAKER_02]: You're talking nonsense.
9:11
[SPEAKER_02]: What computer?
9:12
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
9:13
[SPEAKER_06]: Bradduck manner, I worked there briefly helping Mr. Bradduck in his lab just before he died.
9:20
[SPEAKER_06]: You must destroy the computer before it destroys the world.
9:25
[SPEAKER_04]: It was gone.
9:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I should have recognised him, but he looked so different from when I knew him.
9:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Only at the end, when his power source no longer controlled him, to disfeet his return to normal, the villagers.
9:35
[SPEAKER_04]: They seem to be roaming about in confusion, but of course,
9:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Since hold over them has been broken, listen to me, the evil spell upon your village's gone, return to your homes, I'll explain everything to you later, after I turn to my own place of birth, and try to get to the bottom of this nightmare before it's too late, time is off the essence, for once I'll bless my superpowers rather than curse them, I've never really discovered just how far I can vote, looks like now it's the time to find out, fantastic, several hundred meters in a single leap, it's almost like flying, though Captain Britain pull vaults away and
10:06
[SPEAKER_02]: No, leaving this corpse of Dr.
10:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin on the ground up one, which is so irresponsible, meanwhile, only a few leaps away.
10:13
[SPEAKER_05]: There, all finished cleaning, and no, I'm done, now I'll just turn the power back on and call it a day.
10:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And the instinct to switch is thrown, the computer wears to life.
10:23
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm a master section to all sections, power restored, determined course of failure, report, results, contract emergency.
10:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, you listen to those machines, they almost sound like that talk.
10:33
[SPEAKER_03]: The governor sure was clever at building things.
10:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Section 4 to Master Source of failure and certain possible human interference.
10:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Master section now receiving data on subjects in subject to ceased result of power failure.
10:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Subject unable to maintain a power without computer assistance.
10:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Human effort to maintain level caused fatal coronary error attack Section 1.
10:54
[SPEAKER_03]: to master, enemy approaching, recommend all defense mechanisms be activated received, defense plan M activated, and home, but not to a warm half, that might be a certain.
11:04
[SPEAKER_04]: Sector 1 reporting, enemy closer, I can't believe my father would have created anything evil.
11:09
[SPEAKER_04]: M set.
11:10
[SPEAKER_04]: to strike instant enemy enters.
11:12
[SPEAKER_04]: But if he did, that it's my toss to destroy his creation or die in the attempt.
11:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Next, the malevolent menace of mass demand.
11:19
[SPEAKER_02]: And on the Captain Britain, Britain, fund page this issue, Captain America's triple shield maze and a big grouping of fours, like fantastic four, like the number four, which two floors are the same.
11:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, this sounds like a fun time on the fund page.
11:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Welcome to the British education system.
11:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Now we'll move to issue 14 on the cover revealed at last the dreadful death of Captain Britain's parents.
11:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Shock follows Shock when Captain Britain is metast by Mastermind and his father's lab filled with supercomputers, Captain Britain is leaping over and opening in the floor revealing a pool of acid below as a weird super villain, a bald man with an enlarged
11:58
[SPEAKER_02]: cranium, wearing orange, blue, and red, with his underwear on the outside, fires blasts that are heroes from guns mounted on his wrists.
12:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I was my call you here, but I call you dead!
12:09
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll spare you the recap of the previous issue and introduce the malevolent menace of Mastermind from the same creative team.
12:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain rushes down the stairs to his father's secret lab and finds the very strange Mastermind waiting, the new villain glowing with electric power.
12:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Stop!
12:24
[SPEAKER_04]: or die before you reach the bottom of the stairs, sick once, mastermind!
12:28
[SPEAKER_04]: By all that holy, it's some sort of giant, guarding the computer, but no matter what it is, I must get pasted to my goal, if I fail, or mankind may be doomed.
12:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been too hot, it is fully to fight when you can't win, but I will win for my pausing, you have given me the advantage.
12:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Only momentarily, for I should stop your advance with but too
12:46
[SPEAKER_02]: words, Brian, Braddock, and indeed the name of his alter ego hits our young hero like a thump to the temple, carrying as it does with its staggering implications.
12:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Mastermind fires a blast, destroying a wall of machines is our hero evades.
13:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Fizz!
13:01
[SPEAKER_04]: He knows, but how only my brother
13:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, your precious identity is no secret to mastermind, but for now, that is the least urgent of your problems.
13:10
[SPEAKER_03]: He's correct again.
13:10
[SPEAKER_03]: That blaster of his wrist weapon just about nailed me.
13:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Excellent.
13:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Your reflexes and toys on the pressure are truly admirable.
13:17
[SPEAKER_03]: A bit of such talent must be put to waste by a laser, right?
13:20
[SPEAKER_03]: But even you cannot escape.
13:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Think CB.
13:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Does he really call himself CB?
13:27
[SPEAKER_04]: What a dickhead.
13:29
[SPEAKER_04]: I think he beat.
13:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Think fast or in seconds you'll be senders.
13:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait, I know I've finished, but before you do me in, tell me how you might discover my true identity.
13:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Was it from Jamie?
13:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Is he your prisoner?
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: My store.
13:40
[SPEAKER_04]: By time I look for an opening.
13:42
[SPEAKER_04]: Only wish I'd export my powers more thoroughly to learn their foot extent.
13:46
[SPEAKER_03]: I'll tell you nothing, since knowledge is useless to those no longer possessing the spark of life.
13:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You've meddled in my plans for the final time, with this blast, you die!
13:54
[SPEAKER_02]: A fired blast glances off of Captain Britain's shoulder.
13:57
[SPEAKER_02]: He's taken dead aim, I must be even swift to them before.
14:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Ugh!
14:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Again, you're a astonishing agility, he's sped your life, but rest assured that my next shot will prove fatal.
14:06
[SPEAKER_04]: My shoulders and flames, the pain is clouding my thoughts, and here he comes, moving into the kill.
14:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And as Captain Britain rides on the floor, which may instinctively become his death beer, Mastermind aims a final fatal blast of light transmitted as total energy, while at the same moment.
14:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Only one chance to press the second button on my staff and pray it works like before.
14:26
[SPEAKER_02]: All in a matter of less than a microsecond, the young lion of London once more is surrounded by an invisible inexplicable force field, woosh!
14:35
[SPEAKER_04]: It worked.
14:35
[SPEAKER_04]: The field is there.
14:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm absorbing all the force of the laser and repelling it back towards the enemy.
14:40
[SPEAKER_04]: What?
14:40
[SPEAKER_03]: The beam.
14:41
[SPEAKER_03]: It's gonna straight through him, as though he weren't there.
14:43
[SPEAKER_03]: I've played most impressive, you've earned the right to a truce, which laid out our weapons and you will listen, but you may discover what you hear is even more painful than death.
14:52
[SPEAKER_04]: I must hear an out.
14:53
[SPEAKER_04]: Even though I protect the field would disappear when I lay down the staff.
14:56
[SPEAKER_04]: If Jamie's life is a stake, I have to take that risk.
14:58
[SPEAKER_04]: As you wish, drop your weapon when I lower mine.
15:01
[SPEAKER_04]: And Mastermind does.
15:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Thunk, bam!
15:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Now observe the computer video screen, it will guide you into the not too distant past and put before you the wretched failure that is your life.
15:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Before Brian's eyes, he looks back on a night just a few years before when he flirted with a pretty brunette girl in blue and a crowded pub.
15:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Her name is Valerie Campbell.
15:19
[SPEAKER_04]: It's the lion's rock pub and that girl, I was with her the night my parents died.
15:23
[SPEAKER_04]: Is it that night?
15:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Exactly as it happened, but why bring it back?
15:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Why make me relive it?
15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: Why?
15:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So now you're back in the past?
15:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, god, okay.
15:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
15:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd like to remain in chat a while longer, but I must be getting home.
15:39
[SPEAKER_05]: No, I thought you were really with it.
15:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I mean, the way the other birds, who over you?
15:44
[SPEAKER_04]: You tell me Valerie Campbell, does it feel fraudulent?
15:47
[SPEAKER_04]: In the video, the two sharing kiss.
15:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, young Brian Braddock, was quite the romantic in those days.
15:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And thus is all the shy student he is now.
15:54
[SPEAKER_03]: If only you'd been shy that day, your parents might still be alive, and while you doubt he'd selfishly in a silly flirtation, your parents waited here at Braddock Manor.
16:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And for the first time we meet Sir James and Lady Elizabeth Braddock.
16:08
[SPEAKER_02]: James has brown hair, graying, temples, and mustache.
16:12
[SPEAKER_02]: He wears a blue suit and tie and glasses.
16:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Elizabeth is in a dowry green and orange dress, also with glasses.
16:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Her hair gray going white.
16:19
[SPEAKER_02]: They soon enter James's secret laboratory.
16:22
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll just reject the computer and hit Brian Arise.
16:25
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm sure the lad won't be much longer.
16:27
[SPEAKER_06]: Don't judge me on my Maggie Smith.
16:29
[SPEAKER_06]: I'll go with you, James.
16:31
[SPEAKER_06]: Perhaps it will keep me from fretting about the boy.
16:34
[SPEAKER_07]: There's no need to worry about Brian.
16:36
[SPEAKER_07]: He's a good lad.
16:37
[SPEAKER_07]: He's most likely just given some last a left home.
16:40
[SPEAKER_07]: But come with me, if you wish, if he gets fightfully quiet in there, and after all, I can't converse with the computer, can I?
16:46
[SPEAKER_07]: Am I doing this for this British, sorry?
16:51
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm just kind of like a bro.
16:53
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm hearing, I'm hearing everybody shacks at the same time and I fucking love it.
16:58
[SPEAKER_02]: And I just want to point out, these two have two or three children and two of their children have the same names as them.
17:04
[SPEAKER_02]: Bloods were James and Betsy or Jamie and Betsy or two.
17:06
[SPEAKER_02]: That's right.
17:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
17:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Little did your father dream.
17:09
[SPEAKER_03]: The such discourse was possible, but it maxed not.
17:11
[SPEAKER_03]: The computer had already taken control and brilliant scientists that he was changed rather, was no match for the machine he'd created.
17:19
[SPEAKER_07]: Good thing I looked in, there seems to be a power shortage in the main sector, probably just a poor circuit, but I'd best pinpoint the problem before we leave.
17:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Little did he realize the malfunction was of the computer's end device, executed for the sole purpose of loading your father slowly and
17:39
[SPEAKER_03]: But of course, you are occupied with matters far more urgent.
17:42
[SPEAKER_02]: And as Elizabeth hands Jima wrench Brian is making out with Valerie in his car.
17:47
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get tongue-lashing at home.
17:49
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why I have a tongue-lashing now.
17:51
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I have a tongue-lashing now.
17:53
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, my God.
17:54
[SPEAKER_04]: But you're worth it.
17:55
[SPEAKER_05]: In that case, stay a bit longer, love.
17:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I can't have you getting short changed.
18:01
[SPEAKER_03]: So, stay, you did, while at home, the clock on your parents' lives continued to run out.
18:05
[SPEAKER_07]: I found that Treble and nearly repaired it a little bit.
18:08
[SPEAKER_07]: Had me that wrenched, I'll add the final touch.
18:10
[SPEAKER_07]: No, I can't take anymore.
18:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But you must, your guilt must be fully consummated.
18:15
[SPEAKER_02]: The word consummated while he's shaming Brian for fucking a girl in the car, while his parents died.
18:20
[SPEAKER_02]: It's truly a manipulative choice.
18:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
18:23
[SPEAKER_06]: Here's the edge, do you have please Harry?
18:26
[SPEAKER_06]: Don't want to know what the range is used for.
18:28
[SPEAKER_03]: I am, I'll only be another moment.
18:31
[SPEAKER_03]: Poor Dr. Braddock and his hapless wife, how ironic it was that the precise instant both the hands touched the wrench, computer unleashed a deadly charge of electricity, meant to kill only the scientists, but filling his wife as well, and as life emptied from their bodies, they cried out for the sun, who was not there to furnish aid, or phone for a physician, until it was too late.
18:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, turn your head in shame, Brian Braddock, for by our absence.
18:54
[SPEAKER_03]: You murdered your parents.
18:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Surely, as if you would thrown the switch.
18:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Just wish there was a little hologram of Brian's mother.
19:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, oh, Brian, why were you fucking, well, I just saw that.
19:03
[SPEAKER_04]: Also, there were two other kids.
19:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he's got the only child in this fucking family.
19:08
[SPEAKER_06]: Why are you talking about penetration, well, I'm dying.
19:15
[SPEAKER_04]: It's true, and since then not a single night has passed from my dreams weren't tortured by guilt, it worked perfectly.
19:21
[SPEAKER_03]: His mind is now wallowing his self-recombination, giving me time to recover my weapon and attack while he remains unarmed.
19:27
[SPEAKER_03]: For once again, you have allowed me to gain the upper hand.
19:30
[SPEAKER_04]: I allowed to only what is unimportant.
19:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Go ahead.
19:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Kill me.
19:33
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't look as good as I have to live.
19:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Next week.
19:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow, I mean, I mean, she's next week once upon a death wish, but on the Captain Britain fund page a word search mixing together Captain Britain fantastic for and Nick Fury words among them from our past script reads Dr.
19:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin, Jenny Braddock Betsy, di Thomas Kate Fraser, Dr. Mackenzie, Strag Reaver, Albert Potter, and there's a word puzzle to help you change the words sue to the word bed, but now science puzzle with re-spins trying to do for years.
20:05
[SPEAKER_02]: But now for Captain Britain 15, the cover tells us Captain Britain unmasked that last two men won a copper, the other a man in a trench coat with a cigar between his teeth, grip Captain Britain as they yanked the mask off his face.
20:20
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll throw all you did might, and once we know you are, it's the end of the Captain Britain.
20:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And from far away a mysterious man in a green hood is watching, you'll never guess the shocking identity of our awesome super villain.
20:35
[SPEAKER_02]: wish.
20:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, behold the hero, I'm able to endure his guilt, pleading for his death you are a fraud, Captain Britain, a guilt-ridden wretch who hides cowardice behind a mask.
20:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I killed my mother and father, and I can't live with it.
20:47
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't.
20:49
[SPEAKER_03]: Ah, I expected Sterner stuff from a superhero.
20:51
[SPEAKER_04]: I didn't seek my power, or my mission, though offered to me, but force is beyond my understanding.
20:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But, you accepted them, you made the choice.
20:59
[SPEAKER_04]: not from balance yourself interest, but from the desire to fight injustice in a turbulent world.
21:05
[SPEAKER_03]: Noble motives, I'm too tough, you lack more of fiber, you, sorry, specimen of.
21:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I forgot my dust plan, after getting it, oh, what in the?
21:15
[SPEAKER_04]: The chairwoman, who killed her?
21:16
[SPEAKER_04]: The chat won't fit, oh sorry, that's not chair.
21:18
[SPEAKER_04]: Is that a charwoman?
21:19
[SPEAKER_03]: I do look charwoman, but you look charwoman.
21:21
[SPEAKER_04]: What is it?
21:22
[SPEAKER_04]: What was a child woman?
21:23
[SPEAKER_07]: I was going to be able to explain that to me when it's a clean out.
21:27
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a clean out.
21:27
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a clean out.
21:28
[SPEAKER_07]: It's a clean out.
21:29
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a clean out.
21:29
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, seven.
21:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Excuse me.
21:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
21:31
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll give it again.
21:32
[SPEAKER_02]: A child woman is a woman hired to do cleaning or similar work in a large building.
21:36
[SPEAKER_02]: And the image that pops up when I do a Google search is Carol Burnett.
21:40
[SPEAKER_02]: It made, like, made soon.
21:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not doing it.
21:44
[SPEAKER_02]: the child woman he'll kill her uh hang on i'm getting uh i carol burnette image to you all give me one moment uh yeah yeah yeah yeah this is a real reason we have this is the light we'll discover here you are we'll see carol burnette is a reasonable alternative i was hoping you were going to see amacol and sit up to fun google
22:05
[SPEAKER_02]: The door opens, and Emma Collins walks in on a very strange scene.
22:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Mastermind aims his blaster and hits Eba with a concussive force.
22:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Appling female, I'm not yet ready for the world to love of my presence.
22:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the more time Robin.
22:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh!
22:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But as the woman falls, so does a young lad's self-torment.
22:26
[SPEAKER_04]: I was wrong.
22:27
[SPEAKER_04]: I can't quit.
22:28
[SPEAKER_04]: Can't take the easy way out.
22:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Not what such evil still walks the earth lots.
22:32
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this a turn about?
22:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Has the well suddenly found?
22:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Is spy?
22:35
[SPEAKER_03]: How commendable?
22:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And how futile?
22:38
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll finish, my friend, finished.
22:40
[SPEAKER_02]: As Mastermind aligns his foe in his sights, a gloved hand grabbed the mystic staff and depresses its second button.
22:47
[SPEAKER_02]: At the same instant, that a pencil thin beam of sheer energy issues from the laser gun on Mastermind's wrist and invisible force field forms around Captain Britain again repelling the ray and saving his life.
22:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I still don't understand how the shield works, but now is no time to dwell on it.
23:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I must attack.
23:04
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, it's not that complicated, but you push it right.
23:06
[SPEAKER_04]: You press the button, you get a force.
23:07
[SPEAKER_04]: You press three buttons.
23:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Sorry, just, does this man not have a fucking PhD?
23:11
[SPEAKER_03]: He's the dumbest doctor, silenced in the mind.
23:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god.
23:15
[SPEAKER_02]: What?
23:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Again, you repel my laser beam?
23:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain hurls himself at Mastermind, who turns intangible at just the right moment.
23:23
[SPEAKER_04]: I flew right through him.
23:24
[SPEAKER_04]: As if he weren't even there, but how?
23:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, nothing broken.
23:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I was lucky this time.
23:29
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait, that stream of light from the computer is aimed straight at mastermind.
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
23:33
[SPEAKER_04]: That's the answer.
23:34
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why he seemed transparent.
23:36
[SPEAKER_04]: Why he never moves away from the computer.
23:38
[SPEAKER_04]: Now it all fits into place.
23:40
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I know how to defeat mastermind.
23:42
[SPEAKER_03]: You've guessed my secret.
23:43
[SPEAKER_03]: You know the truth.
23:44
[SPEAKER_03]: You've aimed your core staff directly at the project lens.
23:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Where it hits, I'm doomed.
23:49
[SPEAKER_02]: DOOMED BLASH, and before the disbelieving eyes of Captain Britain, the monstrosity that was mastermind rapidly inexorably fades into nothingness, leaving not, say, the small whispers of smoke, where once an all-powerful presence had stood.
24:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I was right, he wasn't living being, he was a hologram, a three-dimensional image projected by laser beams, and if the computer can accomplish that, who knows what else it's capable of, but if the computer is quiet now, at least for the moment, Emma, her pulse is beating.
24:17
[SPEAKER_04]: She's still alive, but just barely.
24:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Captain Britain grabs the emergency phone!
24:21
[SPEAKER_04]: Please send an ambulance to Bradley's manner, quickly, a woman has been critically injured.
24:25
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't know how long she can hang on, and I have still more innocent blood on my hands, perhaps enough to drown in.
24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And as the emotionally drained hero carries the injured woman from the lab, the computer silently watches and waits and plots.
24:39
[SPEAKER_02]: We have not seen the last of Mastermind, ladies and gentlemen, but let us leave Braddock Manor temporarily and focus our attention on an astounding sight hovering high above the teeming streets of London, a colossal flying fortress which can
24:58
[SPEAKER_02]: an aircraft that causes more than idle curiosity among the citizens below.
25:03
[SPEAKER_05]: But the flame in here, is that?
25:05
[SPEAKER_05]: We'd bust it on the ground!
25:06
[SPEAKER_05]: We're being invited!
25:07
[SPEAKER_05]: I bet the spaceship mummy from Mars!
25:11
[SPEAKER_05]: They come, don't panic.
25:13
[SPEAKER_02]: The bed no threat in a movie yet.
25:14
[SPEAKER_02]: But while Londoners look on nervously, within the object of their concern, an eye-patched wearing, cigar-smoking, shield uniform wearing, Nick Fury is angry at Steve Rogers, who's in civilian clothing, a red shirt and brown pants, and Adam Kassar gets to play both roles.
25:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Here we go.
25:32
[SPEAKER_07]: Open your ears and hear me good Rogers.
25:35
[SPEAKER_07]: This might be the biggest job you've ever tackled.
25:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Our orders come straight from the Ministry of Defense.
25:40
[SPEAKER_07]: So you know we ain't after some Joker who's been fixed in soccer matches.
25:43
[SPEAKER_07]: Fact is defense suspect the commies are building some kind of computer complex here in Britain and they want shield to help check it out.
25:51
[SPEAKER_07]: And for this operation shield needs Captain America.
25:54
[SPEAKER_07]: You ain't just whistlein' God save the queen pal.
25:57
[SPEAKER_07]: Get into those red, white, and blue long johns at yours and pick up your orders on the way out.
26:02
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, and if you run into some costume clown called Captain Britain, check them out too, intelligence thinks he might be tied with the computer somehow.
26:11
[SPEAKER_02]: But Captain America may be too late to investigate Britain's first superhero, for even at that moment as Captain Britain carries the wounded char woman toward the waiting ambulance in front of Braddock Manor.
26:21
[SPEAKER_02]: He found his old friend died Thomas waiting outside, a cigar between his teeth as well.
26:26
[SPEAKER_06]: That'll be far enough, buckle, men, take the injured woman.
26:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Inspector Thomas, of all the times for him to show his face.
26:34
[SPEAKER_05]: What is the mug we've been chasing about the country side doesn't look so super to me.
26:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Give us the word inspector and we'll call her in.
26:42
[SPEAKER_06]: All in due course lands.
26:44
[SPEAKER_06]: First, I'll be asking over a young agent a question of 10, the woman, what happened to her?
26:50
[SPEAKER_06]: Was it you doing?
26:51
[SPEAKER_06]: Come on.
26:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Talk to me, Sunny.
26:53
[SPEAKER_04]: No time for explanations.
26:54
[SPEAKER_04]: Must get back to the computer.
26:56
[SPEAKER_06]: Cat got your tongue eh?
26:58
[SPEAKER_06]: Or maybe you think we're nothing to discuss?
27:01
[SPEAKER_06]: Well, hear me good lad.
27:02
[SPEAKER_06]: First, you all butt wreck London.
27:05
[SPEAKER_06]: Backling that hurricane block, then there's the strange business about the mutter of someone by the name of sin and a nearby village.
27:15
[SPEAKER_06]: You were at that scene as well.
27:17
[SPEAKER_06]: I know that's woman.
27:18
[SPEAKER_06]: You're no hero.
27:19
[SPEAKER_06]: You're a public man.
27:21
[SPEAKER_04]: That's not true, but I haven't time to explain.
27:23
[SPEAKER_04]: could best make time right now I want answers and I don't much care if I get them here but at the end I tell you I can't talk not now okay does it mean take them what spot them in if I resist and defy the law I'll be going against everything I stand for and yet I can't go to headquarters and even the computer alone the mechanical monstrosity is far too dangerous which ever decision I make it would be the wrong one
27:48
[SPEAKER_02]: But even as Captain Britain ponders his desperate decision yet another character joins our bizarre episode, stealing into the computer complex, undercover of the commotion outside.
27:58
[SPEAKER_02]: A mysterious man in a black robe, how simple the police have made things for me?
28:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Or are they apprehend Captain Prison?
28:04
[SPEAKER_02]: They unwissingly get, I'm going very British here.
28:07
[SPEAKER_02]: I gotta get my German bag, hang out a second.
28:08
[SPEAKER_07]: so many accents are going on and it's so hard to keep one on in my mouth.
28:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I've got to go back to Hanson's France.
28:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Costs simpler, the police have made things for me, but are they apprehend Captain Prison?
28:19
[SPEAKER_02]: They unwittingly give me the chance to slip inside and take control of these complex.
28:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And when I'm done no power on Earth will be able to stop me from achieving total victory of a great person.
28:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, I'm so British right now and I can't stop it.
28:33
[SPEAKER_02]: then domination of the entire world.
28:35
[SPEAKER_02]: First, I must see if the computer's hostages are well and safely guarded.
28:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, there they are.
28:40
[SPEAKER_02]: The brother and sister of Brian Braddock, they will be prime hostages in the event that Captain Britain decides to challenge me.
28:46
[SPEAKER_06]: You so let close from American dad.
28:51
[SPEAKER_06]: The fish.
28:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it's what Hansen Franz.
28:53
[SPEAKER_02]: I've also been told the little pigs from Shrek, which all make me happy.
28:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
28:57
[SPEAKER_06]: I hoved and poofed and he signed an eviction notice.
29:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Sure enough, on the monitor, Betsy and Jamie are tied back to back in two chairs as a man with a gun stands guard.
29:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Then, the black and shrouded figures switches to another grim sight via the computer hollow screen.
29:12
[SPEAKER_02]: The computer view screen, the police have Captain Britain in restraints and die Thomas is reaching for the mask.
29:18
[SPEAKER_06]: wait a minute.
29:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Before we take a minute, let's find out who is hiding behind that bet of cloth.
29:25
[SPEAKER_02]: Next week, I hear a one masked end on the Captain Britain fun page of very weird Sean Chie-Maze.
29:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Go look it up if you'd like.
29:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And finally Captain Britain 16, it's Captain America versus Captain Britain on the cover and the cops are watching.
29:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Back off, Mr.
29:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm more than you.
29:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Save your breath, Yank.
29:43
[SPEAKER_04]: You started to scrap.
29:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Now I'll finish it.
29:46
[SPEAKER_02]: You're giving me like Leslie Jordan from like, what does that mean?
29:51
[SPEAKER_07]: That's the only way.
29:53
[SPEAKER_07]: We said we wanted access.
29:54
[SPEAKER_07]: I was like, well, just do Southern gag.
29:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey, what y'all doing?
29:59
[SPEAKER_02]: The same creative team once again, and a story called a hero unmasked.
30:04
[SPEAKER_06]: And the name of the law, I ordered you to remove your mask, since you refuse, I'll do it for you.
30:11
[SPEAKER_06]: No, you mustn't.
30:12
[SPEAKER_06]: My density must remain a secret.
30:14
[SPEAKER_06]: Bye!
30:14
[SPEAKER_06]: So you can go on causing trouble for the crown with her anyone knowing who you are?
30:19
[SPEAKER_06]: Sorry, my lad, but your days are fun and frolic are over.
30:23
[SPEAKER_06]: No, stop, don't.
30:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm not looking for trouble, but you leave me no choice.
30:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And Captain Britain kicks dead die time as right in the gut.
30:30
[SPEAKER_02]: Walk and Thomas draws his gun while still keeping his cigar between his lips.
30:35
[SPEAKER_02]: He has his priorities in the order.
30:37
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, okay, I didn't want to settle this with a gun and I don't think you will inspect her at least not until you've answered a couple of my questions You kept an America nice to be recognized this far from home Especially by Jan who seems to share my line of work now.
30:53
[SPEAKER_07]: What's this all about?
30:54
[SPEAKER_06]: See here, Ado want to seem unhospitable to a world famous figure like yourself, but you're interfering with official police business and we can't have that, not even by the esteemed captain of America, so stand down, or I'll be forced to rest you.
31:11
[SPEAKER_07]: No way.
31:12
[SPEAKER_07]: If this blows my chances to make goodwill ambassador of the year, I just can't indulge your official red tape.
31:17
[SPEAKER_07]: Time is far too precious.
31:19
[SPEAKER_07]: Run for a hero.
31:20
[SPEAKER_07]: Go on.
31:21
[SPEAKER_07]: I'll hold off these minions of bureaucracy.
31:23
[SPEAKER_07]: Holding his shield high.
31:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Captain America kicks the gun loose.
31:26
[SPEAKER_04]: Walk.
31:27
[SPEAKER_04]: Wrong yank.
31:28
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm in enough hot water and I won't get any cooler by a foreigner attacking British officers.
31:32
[SPEAKER_04]: Send them home.
31:33
[SPEAKER_04]: Send them home.
31:34
[SPEAKER_04]: He's just that he is
31:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Hey, back off, I'm trying to help you.
31:41
[SPEAKER_04]: Then put down your shield to surrender now.
31:44
[SPEAKER_04]: Sun, if I didn't knuckle under to the third rack, don't want to injure him.
31:47
[SPEAKER_04]: But by taking the side of the police, may go convince them I'm not a menace.
31:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Watch your guy, you'll hurt yourself.
31:53
[SPEAKER_02]: Written tries grabbing America, who dodges leaving Britain to fall on the snow.
31:58
[SPEAKER_06]: God, we try to stop him, sir.
32:00
[SPEAKER_06]: Are you deaf?
32:01
[SPEAKER_06]: Let them weaken each other.
32:02
[SPEAKER_06]: Then we'll take them all then.
32:04
[SPEAKER_07]: I warned you, fella.
32:05
[SPEAKER_07]: Now what say you stop trying to impress the cops?
32:07
[SPEAKER_07]: And let me get you away from them.
32:09
[SPEAKER_04]: I suppose you're right.
32:10
[SPEAKER_04]: That's it.
32:11
[SPEAKER_02]: Chum, just a little closer and America offers to help Britain up, allowing Britain to flip America over his head.
32:18
[SPEAKER_04]: You know what I'm most worried about you, yanks?
32:20
[SPEAKER_04]: Tell me.
32:21
[SPEAKER_04]: You're so unbearably trusting.
32:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Perhaps now you'll get the message that I'm simply not a lawbreaker.
32:26
[SPEAKER_07]: Wow.
32:27
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, you're coming in loud and clear.
32:29
[SPEAKER_07]: But you see back in the States, a hero does whatever is necessary to protect his secret identity.
32:34
[SPEAKER_07]: But then maybe you're not the genuine article.
32:36
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm really enough.
32:37
[SPEAKER_04]: The trouble is that you're not back in the colonies.
32:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Now lay down your shields or fight.
32:41
[SPEAKER_07]: Okay, buddy, either you're a phony superhero or your head has got more rocks than the whiteclaves of Dover, but since you're determined to square off, you got it in spades.
32:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Back in the colonies, it's just, it's just, it's just a good one.
32:54
[SPEAKER_02]: But while the two titans teeter on the brink of a deadly conflict, their vet every movement is being monitored from the bratic manner computer complex a few meters away.
33:04
[SPEAKER_02]: The mysterious man in the hood unmasks has the red skull.
33:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Cops in America here.
33:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But why could he suspect my presence?
33:12
[SPEAKER_02]: No, of course not, he doesn't realize I'm still alive and here not find out until it is too late.
33:18
[SPEAKER_02]: No, my curse had followed this time.
33:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You should not triumph this time.
33:21
[SPEAKER_02]: It will be different and in the end you will live forever.
33:24
[SPEAKER_02]: In the dark solitude of death while I rule the world.
33:28
[SPEAKER_02]: To achieve that, and I must first reprogram the computer for its final assault on mankind, how appropriate that my first victim should be my greatest foe, Captain America.
33:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Fight well, Sentinel of Freedom, for your victory over the Englishmen, will surely be your last.
33:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Britain hits America shield with his staff America throws his shield, but Britain jumps over it.
33:48
[SPEAKER_04]: blast, he's faster than I suspected.
33:50
[SPEAKER_04]: He nearly paced me with that throw.
33:52
[SPEAKER_04]: This will be the ultimate test of my powers.
33:54
[SPEAKER_04]: I only hope that equal to it, but equal or not.
33:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm in two deep to back out now.
33:58
[SPEAKER_04]: I was press my attack.
33:59
[SPEAKER_04]: I don't give an opponent of his ability, the advantage, even for a moment.
34:04
[SPEAKER_02]: It hits America with the pole whack, then kicks the shield away.
34:07
[SPEAKER_04]: Ugh!
34:08
[SPEAKER_04]: Slurring down yank.
34:10
[SPEAKER_04]: My shield!
34:11
[SPEAKER_04]: This guy's no slouch.
34:12
[SPEAKER_04]: He may be young, but he's got smart.
34:14
[SPEAKER_04]: What it looks like with now-compt America has had enough.
34:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Perhaps the famous superhero is just a husband.
34:20
[SPEAKER_04]: An old boy who running out steam.
34:22
[SPEAKER_07]: That does it, mister.
34:23
[SPEAKER_07]: Your mouth and my pride just can't live together.
34:26
[SPEAKER_07]: You need a lesson in manners and you pick the right teacher.
34:28
[SPEAKER_02]: America flips around with a double kick to Britain's chest, lumped in a knock to the ground, fud, but don't forget, the coppers are still there.
34:36
[SPEAKER_07]: Oh, still think I can't cut the mustard, or do you want to wise up and quiet while we're both still conscious?
34:43
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, I'm sorry, that's so g- Lately, George didn't just, I can't lay it.
34:52
[SPEAKER_06]: You still think I don't cut the mustard?
34:54
[SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, this is amazing.
34:57
[SPEAKER_06]: It started off like, you know, humkey captain America and then he's just got gayer and gayer and gayer and gayer and gayer's like, and queen, or mouth and my pride can't live together.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You're f**king race.
35:11
[SPEAKER_06]: Neither yank you blue eyed boys can carry on your argument from a join in sales.
35:17
[SPEAKER_04]: Wait, why take me in?
35:19
[SPEAKER_04]: He's the one who started the trouble.
35:20
[SPEAKER_07]: Be still, you're both under arrest.
35:23
[SPEAKER_07]: Negative, Mr.
35:25
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm sorry about that.
35:27
[SPEAKER_06]: You're like not a girl friend.
35:30
[SPEAKER_07]: negative Mr.
35:31
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm operating under orders from SHIELD with clearance from your own C.I.D.
35:35
[SPEAKER_07]: Your farm papers in my belt buckle.
35:37
[SPEAKER_02]: In my belt buckle, by the way C.I.D.
35:39
[SPEAKER_02]: is critical incident or criminal investigation division folks.
35:43
[SPEAKER_06]: P.P.O.C.
35:44
[SPEAKER_06]: Let's have a look.
35:45
[SPEAKER_06]: Be my guest.
35:46
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, my apologies.
35:48
[SPEAKER_07]: If only you'd shown these orders to me before, you didn't give me much of a chance, but apology accepted.
35:54
[SPEAKER_07]: Then we'll just take a prisoner and get back to London.
35:57
[SPEAKER_07]: Sorry, but I can't let you do that.
36:00
[SPEAKER_07]: As my paper is explained, I'm here on assignment.
36:02
[SPEAKER_07]: And this cat and Britain is an integral part of it.
36:04
[SPEAKER_07]: He'll have to stay with me until my mission is completed.
36:07
[SPEAKER_06]: Blah, just my rotten luck.
36:09
[SPEAKER_06]: Every time I corner this menace to society, he somehow gets off the hook.
36:14
[SPEAKER_06]: But our warn you, chum, whoever you are.
36:17
[SPEAKER_06]: I won't rest while you're still on the looks.
36:20
[SPEAKER_06]: As soon as there's assignments finished, I'm taken you into custody.
36:25
[SPEAKER_07]: Relay, that bulldog is the least of your worries.
36:27
[SPEAKER_07]: For now, anyway.
36:28
[SPEAKER_07]: And put the wagons stick down.
36:30
[SPEAKER_07]: Unless you want me to break it over your thick skull.
36:32
[SPEAKER_07]: Come on, cool it.
36:34
[SPEAKER_07]: How do I know I can trust you?
36:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Your papers might be forged.
36:37
[SPEAKER_04]: If you really are Captain America, why was I able to give you such a tussle?
36:41
[SPEAKER_04]: From all I've had, Captain America.
36:43
[SPEAKER_04]: That hero of yesterday and today would have made short work of a novice like me.
36:47
[SPEAKER_07]: You either overestimate me or you underestimate yourself.
36:50
[SPEAKER_07]: Your reflexes are fast, son.
36:52
[SPEAKER_07]: Perhaps even faster than mine.
36:53
[SPEAKER_07]: I'd say with a little more experience, you could hold your own against any hero in the business.
36:57
[SPEAKER_07]: But I didn't cross an ocean to test you out.
36:59
[SPEAKER_07]: My mission is to check out a computer.
37:01
[SPEAKER_07]: I think it's inside that mansion.
37:03
[SPEAKER_07]: You know anything about it?
37:04
[SPEAKER_04]: more than you believe probably, but I completely forgot about it during the heat of battle.
37:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I'd be happy to brief you if you'll forgive useful cheek.
37:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I agree to be friends.
37:12
[SPEAKER_04]: I thought it was like useful, you may useful cheeks, which yeah.
37:17
[SPEAKER_07]: Forgive my useful cheeks.
37:20
[SPEAKER_07]: You've got it on both accounts, buddy.
37:22
[SPEAKER_07]: Let's head for that house.
37:23
[SPEAKER_07]: You can clue me in on the way.
37:25
[SPEAKER_02]: And the two men shake hands, but a Nazi war criminal is watching.
37:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, Len, are you kind, Captain America, though no amount of information received you from the wrath of the Red Skull.
37:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Next time, Captain Britain and Captain America, team up against the most senses, shattering, super villain of all time.
37:43
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, wow, wow, there was a lot that just happened.
37:49
[SPEAKER_04]: the gayest cow to the queen.
37:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain is a brand radical as a science student who gets pulled aside by Roma and Merlin and given these powers.
38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: He fights Joshua Strag the Reaver, then he fights Albert Potter the Hurricane and
38:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Betsy picks him up and takes him home where a former friend of dads who's been powered up with illusion powers by a newly sentient computer makes Betsy go crazy and get admitted into a hospital.
38:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Then a crowdmind controlled into trying to burn a woman at the state.
38:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Then the housekeeper or child woman accidentally unplugged the computer.
38:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So mastermind has a heart attack and dies.
38:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Then Brian goes home, runs into the secret.
38:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Subbasement where a hologram attacks him the charwoman gets shot the computer gets turned off But then a Nazi's waiting in the wings while Nick Fury sends Captain America to stop Brian from getting arrested by the police There's the first
38:47
[SPEAKER_02]: 16 issues of Captain Britain in one very brief synopsis, and we have completely forgotten all of the Supporting cast introduced in the early issues by the Clairemont stuff.
38:57
[SPEAKER_02]: There is a lot happening We've got to begin James with Brian's deeply guilt journey related to the death of his parents.
39:05
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me hear you
39:06
[SPEAKER_04]: What?
39:08
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, come along now.
39:09
[SPEAKER_04]: Have we not, do we not know that we must ask for consent before we trauma dump on an audience?
39:15
[SPEAKER_04]: And these, these poor comic readers back in the day were just like this.
39:20
[SPEAKER_04]: What the fuck happened here?
39:21
[SPEAKER_04]: That boy, he is so complex him, that blaming, he blames his own penis for the death of his parents.
39:29
[SPEAKER_04]: And completely forgets that he has two other siblings.
39:31
[SPEAKER_04]: Get this and Brian, calm the fuck down babe.
39:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Now, as I'm reading this, I'm like, oh my god, this poor guy, all that guilt on his shoulders.
39:39
[SPEAKER_04]: Or because he was tongue-lashing with a gun in my car.
39:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Now in Captain Britain Volume 2, which is many years later in the 80s, we learned that Surgems, Braddock, the Father, is actually an agent of Merlin and a member of the Captain Britain Corps.
39:55
[SPEAKER_02]: And he's a scientist warrior philosopher, strategist among this legion of heroes who's also obsessed with AI and he's copied himself into an AI form,
40:04
[SPEAKER_02]: And that AI later launches a secret society of sentient AI's will perhaps get into all of that in the future on my show, but there's more going on to these origins with the retcons later on.
40:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It's truly crazy.
40:18
[SPEAKER_02]: First, the mastermind appearance, the 3D hologram that he projects, and how his true weakness is just a plug in the wall.
40:25
[SPEAKER_03]: It's so Doctor Who, it's amazing.
40:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, hologram's giant robots and all you have to do is unplug him.
40:31
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean,
40:34
[SPEAKER_04]: Have you tried switching him on or not?
40:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, foot on him again, angry, angry, angry computer probes, angry computer probes, you want to switch it on and off, you'll be fine.
40:42
[SPEAKER_03]: This is switch, ever switch is him off, he upgrades, it's yes, I don't think so, play, he'll be fine.
40:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
40:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Rubbin playing Emma.
40:50
[SPEAKER_05]: He is certainly in the top three of characters that I've played in the so far.
40:55
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm she is delightful.
40:56
[SPEAKER_05]: The fact that she used her purpose of leaning to
41:01
[SPEAKER_05]: The most dangerous villain that happened to Britain's entire back catalogue could never actually be me because I would never be here for I leave that for my husband.
41:09
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm all about equal opportunities here.
41:11
[SPEAKER_02]: We do not see Emma Collins again until 1983, but she does have over 10 more appearances after this, including a little bit in Excalibur for those of you that have read the later Claire Mont and she's still creating.
41:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, she's working for Braddock in the future.
41:26
[SPEAKER_02]: We get this character a little bit more, but we won't see her again in this current run.
41:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Shane.
41:31
[SPEAKER_06]: I think it'd be great just to have Thanos appear in an image.
41:35
[SPEAKER_06]: Oh, no, I'll wait that glove.
41:36
[SPEAKER_06]: Don't, for you.
41:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I imagine Emma to be like, oh, a good old glass we should mother just cleaning everything.
41:45
[SPEAKER_04]: I mean, that's not my mom, so that's the reason I get from Emma.
41:48
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to see in the next installment, the Red School has plans for the mastermind computer.
41:53
[SPEAKER_02]: We've also got Janey and Betsy being held captive.
41:56
[SPEAKER_02]: And the Dr.
41:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Sin character is bless his heart.
41:59
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm glad he's dead.
42:00
[SPEAKER_02]: We never did see him again.
42:02
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm so sad about that.
42:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I really enjoy Dr.
42:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Sin.
42:05
[SPEAKER_04]: I would now be sad to see that.
42:09
[SPEAKER_02]: He's an old man that got put in drag by a super computer and given mind powers.
42:14
[SPEAKER_02]: He had a nice story.
42:16
[SPEAKER_04]: So did you just sum up season 28 of drag race?
42:19
[SPEAKER_04]: Because that's actually what I was going to pay you.
42:22
[SPEAKER_07]: I was like, I want to see him resurrect.
42:23
[SPEAKER_07]: I like I want camp resurrection.
42:25
[SPEAKER_07]: Like there's no reason this character shouldn't have come back 10 to 20 years later as a complete diva.
42:30
[SPEAKER_07]: And really selling on.
42:31
[UNKNOWN]: We're getting to it.
42:32
[SPEAKER_02]: It is really crazy to me that we've never seen the first super villain the reverb again, because that's the one that's like the opposite of Captain Britain.
42:39
[SPEAKER_02]: He, like Captain Britain took the sword or the amulet and he took the sword.
42:43
[SPEAKER_02]: The fact that we've never seen reverb again astounds me.
42:46
[SPEAKER_06]: I feel like we're just waiting for all these super villains to come back in a musical.
42:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Like the first Captain Britain movie that they make for the MCU will be a musical and geeseable play every single villain I'd want to say what's seated Like that was the guy that played Count Olaf in series of unfortunate events Neil Patrick Harris I'll be in the new Patrick Harris of Captain Britain just every just change a hat
43:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We now have a fully fleshed out backstory for Brian Braddock.
43:17
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a twin sister, although we haven't established their twins yet.
43:20
[SPEAKER_02]: We have an older brother.
43:21
[SPEAKER_02]: We have an ancestral estate with a secret sub basement full of Nazis and super computers.
43:27
[SPEAKER_02]: We have a Mick the man serving an Emma Collins the maid and the police after him.
43:32
[SPEAKER_02]: So there's a lot happening for this character.
43:34
[SPEAKER_02]: James, how are you feeling about the development of Brian Braddock as we're experiencing hit in real time here?
43:39
[SPEAKER_04]: I've never had a better ride in my life.
43:41
[SPEAKER_04]: It is exciting, it is traumatic, it is testing me as an actor because sometimes I really just want to give them a fucking slap, but I am loving the development that he's so complex, yet so simple at the same time.
43:56
[SPEAKER_04]: I hate the fact that he still forgets the, he's a doctor, he forgets his PhD.
43:59
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, what does this second button do?
44:01
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, you know what, babe, just try it.
44:03
[SPEAKER_02]: He's not saying to say, yeah, he's a student, this is a student.
44:05
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, sorry, that's right.
44:06
[SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, he's, okay, he's a student.
44:07
[SPEAKER_04]: That's why I let him off him.
44:08
[SPEAKER_07]: that all, oh, good times.
44:10
[SPEAKER_07]: You should still do how buttons work, Chad.
44:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
44:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, why don't we let how buttons work?
44:16
[SPEAKER_02]: There's so much queerness in this and bringing America in as Leslie Jordan just made everything more.
44:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Adam, have you ever read the original Captain Britain run or was this entirely in a material for you?
44:27
[SPEAKER_07]: Totally new to me it just was like even more than like what is it the champions here We're reading just so high camp that I was like it just feels so right and this like to me This is like another universe of Captain America where it's like I don't expect like the 1990s Steve Rogers to talk like this But like back in this time period.
44:47
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, he was just gay as hell like
44:49
[SPEAKER_06]: It's like a pan-to-main going on because it's like the weirdly overly cast pan-to-main that you get in the UK with it's you've got Maggie Smith You've got ladies with boards and you've got a Dalek you've got bag of chips I've got this from down of the news agents Yeah, that's it
45:08
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, and Dr. Who, right?
45:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Kind of all mixed together.
45:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and we got to call out to Mary Poppins.
45:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and even the white clips of Dover, the inner changes between Captain America and Captain Britain, which is brand-brandx for superhero team up, right?
45:24
[SPEAKER_02]: He's going to have many in the future.
45:25
[SPEAKER_02]: But we have this character like, I don't know what is happening to my life or my body.
45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know what's happening in my family.
45:31
[SPEAKER_02]: There is everything going on, but I'm murdered my parents.
45:35
[SPEAKER_07]: I think if I shout out to Christians, Mastermind, I thought, very doctor who, like, very robot.
45:41
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
45:41
[SPEAKER_07]: Fans have faith.
45:42
[SPEAKER_07]: It's kind of annoying.
45:43
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
45:44
[SPEAKER_03]: I've been upgraded.
45:45
[SPEAKER_07]: Really, really good.
45:46
[SPEAKER_07]: I just enjoyed your read through that.
45:48
[SPEAKER_07]: That was so funny and so perfect.
45:50
[SPEAKER_02]: I have never seen a single episode of Dr. Who, but I will be watching my plan to watch Dr. Who will let you know when to stop and what to do.
45:57
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
45:58
[SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
45:59
[SPEAKER_07]: I actually ended up watching like a ton of it in the past like year two.
46:03
[SPEAKER_07]: My ex and I like he was a big fan and he wanted to put the Christmas special.
46:05
[SPEAKER_07]: He's half British.
46:06
[SPEAKER_07]: and his family, like, really liked it.
46:08
[SPEAKER_07]: So he, like, watched, and it's, it was really good to get into it.
46:10
[SPEAKER_07]: It's not like, play with me, but like, yeah, should you love it?
46:12
[SPEAKER_07]: And that's, that's why I think this has that, you're trying to, that's like, it has that energy.
46:15
[SPEAKER_07]: I just like felt, I thought it was like a fight.
46:17
[SPEAKER_07]: It's also, thank you for allowing me to be here.
46:19
[SPEAKER_07]: It's so fun to watch all of you talk and act.
46:22
[SPEAKER_04]: Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.
46:24
[SPEAKER_04]: Thank you.
46:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And Adam is correct for those of you listening to the Champions Reads, especially Ice Man stuff.
46:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so gay, but these scripts are just so damn clear.
46:32
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, we're going to get in our next installment issue 17 through 20, which is just Captain Britain and Captain America, teaming up to fight Nazis, which gives us a lot of world work to stuff.
46:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Robin joined me for a red skull chat about this very story, and where we got to talk about the time reds.
46:45
[SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
46:46
[SPEAKER_02]: For Britain.
46:47
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's the area of scripts.
46:48
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be getting to next garrishly clad Nazis in green with giant reds fosters.
46:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And a full on superhero team up in the streets of London.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, springtime for Hitler and Germany, I feel talking about it's springtime for the Red Skull.
47:08
[SPEAKER_03]: I owe myself.
47:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Thank you, James.
47:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Let's see, Christmas holiday, you can have to rewrite the lyrics for Redstone.
47:17
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm ready, I'm ready, because I'm not busy in the phone stage or Redstone Mama.
47:21
[SPEAKER_04]: That's what I'm going to find.
47:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, Gary, so we're going to get Betsy and Jamie back.
47:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We've got Nick Fury, Captain Britain, Redstone and Nazis in our next few issues.
47:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So we get to hear a lot of British people doing German accents in our next installment, which of course, yay.
47:35
[SPEAKER_04]: Well, I just say what I do, if you get me to do a Japanese, I do sound like the caterpillar from Bugs.
47:42
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm like, I'm a beautiful butterfly.
47:44
[SPEAKER_04]: See, it's just, you know, just give me a jam in line with somewhere, please.
47:48
[SPEAKER_02]: By the way, I'm not joking.
47:49
[SPEAKER_02]: We're doing four scripts at a time, a four month apart.
47:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Our next two script reads are all them finding red skull and Nazis.
47:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Like the great installment in Britain or it.
47:59
[SPEAKER_03]: I need to be watching a lot of episodes of a lower load to get these accents.
48:05
[SPEAKER_03]: There's a phone number, don't wait to pick boobies.
48:10
[SPEAKER_02]: The boobie also goes from full color to black and white, just delicious recording with each of you.
48:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I love your presence.
48:16
[SPEAKER_02]: I love your voices.
48:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I love hanging out with these script reads.
48:19
[SPEAKER_02]: It just makes me deliciously happy.
48:21
[SPEAKER_02]: every time.
48:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, Captain Britain, wow, it just had a wild journey.
48:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I had never read these comics before.
48:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, Grimmelkin Lane in February, it's Black History Month.
48:29
[SPEAKER_02]: And this is a wild lead in, but we're just starting out silly.
48:31
[SPEAKER_02]: But the rest of the month, we're going themed.
48:33
[SPEAKER_02]: So this month, the theme on the show is going to be Voodoo in pop culture.
48:38
[SPEAKER_02]: So stay tuned immediately after this.
48:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I have a
48:40
[SPEAKER_02]: brilliant interview.
48:41
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm so pumped about it.
48:43
[SPEAKER_02]: It's great.
48:44
[SPEAKER_02]: With the academic Yvonne Chero, talking all about her studies of a Voodoo and the way that it shows up in our fiction.
48:51
[SPEAKER_02]: And the month is going to be culminating at the end of the month with the trials of brother Voodoo and black talent.
48:56
[SPEAKER_02]: We're also featuring a black and African talent on the show throughout the rest of this month.
49:01
[SPEAKER_02]: And over on the Patreon, we're going to be reviewing black characters, black voices, and especially a Voodoo theme over there as well.
49:07
[SPEAKER_02]: So we started out very, very
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to start it out very, very well.
49:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You're not just Whisteland Dixie.
49:18
[SPEAKER_02]: You can follow the show, Graham, welcome under score lane on Instagram most easily.
49:22
[SPEAKER_02]: And just thank you all for the ongoing support and listening voices.
49:25
[SPEAKER_02]: It is a genuine joy to make these episodes.
49:28
[SPEAKER_02]: It just gives me a balance and joy on the world that is entirely appreciated in this crazy world right now.
49:34
[SPEAKER_06]: But you can find me on Instagram at GizaGobo and I'll just shamelessly plug my audio books that I do on Patreon just search me on Patreon GizaGobo and if you enjoy my voices that I do on here, there's plenty more on there as well.
49:51
[SPEAKER_06]: I'm going through all Darren Shannon, the Golden Girls Murder Mystery Books, everything's so if you want to hear me be be Arthur.
49:59
[SPEAKER_04]: It's an interesting job, Nick.
50:01
[SPEAKER_04]: You can find me on Instagram, J.L.
50:03
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm the scorsy.
50:04
[SPEAKER_04]: I'm currently planting around the stage as Santa, because as we're recording in December, but February, I plan to hyphenate.
50:11
[SPEAKER_04]: I go back to sleep for 27 years before I pop up and be camp again.
50:15
[SPEAKER_07]: Well, that's easy.
50:16
[SPEAKER_07]: You can just find me, you can find me.
50:19
[SPEAKER_07]: So Adam Kassari, you can find me on Instagram at atum.co.us.airi.
50:24
[SPEAKER_07]: My last name.
50:25
[SPEAKER_07]: I'm also part of Homosuppairer podcast, which is a weekly podcast about the X-Men and the MCU.
50:30
[SPEAKER_07]: You can find us at Homosuppairer podcast and Instagram.
50:33
[SPEAKER_07]: Wherever a podcast can be found,
50:35
[SPEAKER_05]: My name is Robin Muffet, you want to thank me.
50:37
[SPEAKER_02]: As Robin is talking, I can fully see all my little jokes.
50:40
[SPEAKER_04]: I was saying it funny.
50:42
[SPEAKER_04]: That little cat asshole was just saying, hi mama.
50:45
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're not as old equal, the equal size as Robin's face in the camera.
50:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that was hilarious.
50:51
[SPEAKER_02]: I was happy to see you guys.
50:52
[SPEAKER_06]: Please, please tell me your screen record in this.
50:55
[SPEAKER_07]: I am just what I wish.
50:57
[SPEAKER_07]: It came up like you're robbing your yeah, you got all to the speaker screen.
51:01
[SPEAKER_05]: I haven't seen your profile in a while and I gas Like all I'm going to see is I'm also a drag performer and if you also want to see my asshole, you can come and see me at my drag shows
51:15
[SPEAKER_05]: Anyway, anyway, if you want to follow me on social media, you can find me on Blue Sky at Red Breasted Robin with Hawaii.
51:24
[SPEAKER_05]: If you follow me, you will get to keep up to date with my adventures as I move to Japan.
51:29
[SPEAKER_05]: This will probably be my last recording for the Grimout can lane podcast in the UK.
51:36
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we're going to be granted.
51:38
[SPEAKER_02]: I will work it out.
51:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Robin also does the voices of Moira and McTagger and frequently black Tom on Christmas with you funny on Instagram and Blisky at Chris E1701.
51:48
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you and everyone stay tuned for Food of Month launching with the incredible in Montereau right after this.
51:54
[SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, I'm so excited to be welcoming the incredible Iván Chiroo to the show today.
51:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to be talking all about Voodoo and Blackmagic odd are show this month on Grimalkin Lane.
52:05
[SPEAKER_02]: And I found Iván through some a series of incredible articles that they've written.
52:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Iván, welcome to the show first of all.
52:11
[SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to have you introduce yourself.
52:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Let us know your pronouns.
52:14
[SPEAKER_02]: Tell everybody a little bit about the work that you do.
52:17
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, well, thank you, Chad.
52:18
[SPEAKER_09]: This is fun.
52:19
[SPEAKER_09]: We just met five seconds ago, five seconds ago, but I've been I've been at this for a long time.
52:26
[SPEAKER_09]: This meaning I'm a professor very recently semi retired, which means I don't have to teach, but I'm just as busy at Swarthmore College, which is a Quaker Quaker College right outside of Philadelphia.
52:38
[SPEAKER_09]: And my specialty field is American religions broadly understood,
52:42
[SPEAKER_09]: But my focus is on African American religion.
52:45
[SPEAKER_09]: So when I started writing about African American religions and more of a historical and cultural perspective, I began to look at what religions were like before these enslaved people came to what later became the United States.
53:00
[SPEAKER_09]: So it took me to an understanding of African religions all the way to my current interest, which is in Poudou, which is I call magic and Voudou, which is a completely contrived invention that we'll talk about later.
53:15
[SPEAKER_09]: So it's been a wonderful journey because at the time,
53:18
[SPEAKER_09]: Maybe 30 years ago when I began to do this, it was outlandish, you were like, well, if you're talking about religion, why are you including this crazy witchcraft stuff, you know, so that's sort of been where I've made my mark and I really find it fascinating and completely fascinating.
53:34
[SPEAKER_02]: I find it delicious that you're researching Hudu and Voodoo at a Quaker College.
53:41
[SPEAKER_09]: Quaker infused, I mean, they have, but I mean, there's a lot, it's a very interesting thing because the Quakers, and this is this coast of my training in American religion, they really were the radicals, the early period.
53:54
[SPEAKER_09]: They were, you know, you talk about spirit possession and all the stuff that we kind of think of as fringy, even with African American religious, but that's how they got their name.
54:04
[SPEAKER_09]: They were, their bodies would shake, they believed in radical individualism
54:09
[SPEAKER_09]: So they've come a long way from that, but in some ways it's sort of an acceptance of all things are beautiful because the Quakers believe that all of us have an internet light, you know, an internet light that this is what this is human humanity.
54:23
[SPEAKER_02]: So how did you get started in this research and when did it become a fascination for you?
54:30
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, well, I mean, as a kid, I've always been fascinated with religion, but, you know, now they call it spirituality and not religion for children.
54:40
[SPEAKER_09]: We don't even make that distinction.
54:42
[SPEAKER_09]: We have a sense of the magical and the world, the, the wonders and I.
54:46
[SPEAKER_09]: that all children have is because when children come in, they don't have the layers of the the social glasses that we get when as we grow up.
54:54
[SPEAKER_09]: My family wasn't particularly religious, but they thought I was goofy and wacky enough that when I said I saw the little angel, so that the elves out in the garden or the imaginary friends, they said, okay, well, that's fine, honey.
55:09
[SPEAKER_09]: And I began to look for more of that in the myths and the stories of religion.
55:15
[SPEAKER_09]: So of course in the United States, this would be Christianity.
55:20
[SPEAKER_09]: One half of my family is from the French Antilles, which is the French Caribbean.
55:24
[SPEAKER_09]: So I had an interesting heritage from that angle.
55:26
[SPEAKER_09]: Not heavy, interesting is one of the other islands.
55:29
[SPEAKER_09]: My family encouraged it as kids, we were fascinated by the magical and the wondrous.
55:39
[SPEAKER_09]: And one of the wonderful things that I want everyone to know about African-American religion in particular, which is my specialty, is that it is spectacularly diverse.
55:52
[SPEAKER_09]: So even in my community, and I grew up in Queens, Queens, New York, you had spiritualist churches on the corner, you had a Muslim mosque on the corner, you had Saint Joseph's Catholic
56:06
[SPEAKER_09]: Churches, right?
56:06
[SPEAKER_09]: So growing up in that kind of environment and being aware of it, that really turned me on as a kid.
56:13
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't care.
56:14
[SPEAKER_09]: I would go to any church.
56:15
[SPEAKER_09]: I would go to any church and I would, you know, and I think, you know, unconsciously, that sort of plotted my course toward the career.
56:22
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't know there were such things as professors.
56:25
[SPEAKER_09]: I didn't know there were religion professors, but again, having a family that encourages you and, you know, that I don't know what you're doing, honey.
56:33
[SPEAKER_09]: keep doing it and enjoy yourself.
56:35
[SPEAKER_09]: And I think that's sort of the early start to where I ended up becoming an academic for these things.
56:42
[SPEAKER_02]: My white listeners start thinking about your own origins.
56:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm I'm assuming for many of you that those are Christian origins and if you take a topic like Christianity and you apply it to Mississippi versus Idaho, they're very different things.
56:54
[SPEAKER_02]: If you apply it to Mormons versus Protestants versus Catholics, very different things, but it also becomes kind of our societal bedrock.
57:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It becomes the way we form laws, where we form norms and customs, it's deeply ingrained into societal thinking.
57:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And every group has its own spiritual history.
57:10
[SPEAKER_02]: And we see a lot of that in comics, of course, as we see white writers latching on to concepts that they have seen.
57:18
[SPEAKER_02]: So so much of our comics history is white writers taking these ideas of like these belief structures and customs from other places and then telling stories about them.
57:27
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we end up with really beautiful representation often in very problematic ways.
57:32
[SPEAKER_02]: and we go from there and that is modern pop culture.
57:35
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm over summarizing in very simple ways, you're your spiritual curiosity.
57:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did you find Hudu?
57:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Hudu, black magic?
57:44
[SPEAKER_02]: Where did that interest begin for you?
57:45
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, you know, at the time, because in the black community, you know, these words are contested.
57:50
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, to call something Hudu is the kiss of death, right?
57:53
[SPEAKER_09]: So, you know, that's, that's
57:55
[SPEAKER_09]: the underworld, really.
57:57
[SPEAKER_09]: That's the scary stuff.
57:58
[SPEAKER_09]: So the things that people did, they didn't call it that.
58:00
[SPEAKER_09]: In fact, a lot of like you just said a lot of these ideas are imposed by outsiders.
58:05
[SPEAKER_09]: So but so I came face to face with this when I was in graduate school, looking for a dissertation topic, trained in American religion, and I'm really glad that you mentioned the varieties, even of Christianity.
58:18
[SPEAKER_09]: So we can't even say the Baptist versus the Mormon, right?
58:22
[SPEAKER_09]: They're all
58:24
[SPEAKER_09]: same thing applies to black American religion.
58:27
[SPEAKER_09]: So I'm looking around for a topic.
58:30
[SPEAKER_09]: And I noticed that a lot of the sources are referring to something, a religion that doesn't really have a need.
58:36
[SPEAKER_09]: And in fact, the great Frederick Douglass, our statesman, our diplomat, a former slave himself, said that there's something, and he describes a wonderful experience that I always talk about.
58:47
[SPEAKER_09]: He says, hmm, there's something that I witnessed when I was a slave, he was a young, he was a,
58:54
[SPEAKER_09]: that doesn't have a name.
58:55
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a religion for which we don't have a name.
58:57
[SPEAKER_09]: And that became what was called, and I'm gonna use their calls, but no one can see the Kuru and Voodoo because a lot of times, as you said, these terms, people impose names on them.
59:08
[SPEAKER_09]: So Douglas was talking about something that was really prevalent in the slave community.
59:14
[SPEAKER_09]: I said, that's it, Bingo, I have to write about it because no one else is written about it, but also because it's so interesting because we simply don't know enough about what's,
59:23
[SPEAKER_09]: slave religion looked like and I'll just say it because I always have to bring my intellectual ancestors in.
59:29
[SPEAKER_09]: I had the chance to study with the person who wrote the book on the religion of American slaves and this was a book that came out in the 70s.
59:38
[SPEAKER_09]: Up to that time it's just like sort of like you hear, you know, the Charlie Kirk Christians they'll say, well yeah, black people were Christians.
59:45
[SPEAKER_09]: Well no, you know, a lot of more Muslims actually because a lot of
59:51
[SPEAKER_09]: some of them were practicing what came to be called voodoo, right?
59:57
[SPEAKER_09]: So I wanted to explore that diversity in the enslaved population that carried through a emancipation that actually even carries through in the present day.
1:00:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I'm going to go to the dark place for a minute, but if we go back to times of enslavement, which went on for hundreds of years, people from their homes, sometimes this children, sometimes as adults, put in chains, women used as breeding stock, men used as manual labor, and well, everybody used as manual labor.
1:00:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And you look at how would they latch on to the things from their childhood, from their culture, to keep their well-being alive, when their freedoms and ability to educate, and to care of themselves has been removed.
1:00:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Then we blend all that together because you have people who are bringing in tradition and mixing it with other traditions.
1:00:41
[SPEAKER_02]: But they also have to keep it under the radar because it's not really allowed.
1:00:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And then let's go on for a hundred years.
1:00:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We take all of these elements and we put them in this cultural melting pot.
1:00:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And then what Disney makes song of the self?
1:00:58
[SPEAKER_09]: I thought you were going someplace else with that because you were on it and then you said, okay, you know, yes.
1:01:04
[SPEAKER_09]: You know, I'm still there.
1:01:05
[SPEAKER_02]: The reason I ended there, there isn't I ended there is because we look at it.
1:01:08
[SPEAKER_02]: We go, oh yeah, that's a problem.
1:01:09
[SPEAKER_02]: But when we let it be actually complicated, it gets very, very concerning, very quickly.
1:01:14
[SPEAKER_09]: Yes, yes, yes.
1:01:15
[SPEAKER_09]: You know, when you said the Disney thing though, again, I thought you were going someplace else and I'm hoping someone writes the book on this.
1:01:23
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't think I have it in me, but thinking about popular culture and even how black religions have been represented and presented in in film.
1:01:35
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I know two people who write about this, but, you know, because it's filmed their very specific in a period, someone should write about who do and who do and who do and who do and who do and who do and who do and who do and who do.
1:01:43
[SPEAKER_09]: I actually tried to do this to Halloween.
1:01:45
[SPEAKER_09]: I said, let's have a, let's have a film series on who do and because I'm a child of the 20th century, I said, let's show some of these golden, they're not even golden names.
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_09]: They're like, you know, silenced.
1:01:54
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, we're talking to sugar.
1:01:55
[SPEAKER_09]: He'll, we're talking.
1:01:55
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, there's some great ones.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_09]: Really?
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:56
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:01:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah
1:02:00
[SPEAKER_09]: but even earlier we're talking white zombie we're talking aronga and voodoo man oh my goodness people can't handle it I mean they're like for first of all it's 20th century and it's black and white and it's ugly and it's racist and they I'm like no let's jump into that so I tried it it was a failure but I'm trying to do the same thing with my comics I'm trying to start with
1:02:30
[SPEAKER_09]: Vuru and see what comes up.
1:02:33
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'm really surprised at what has come up.
1:02:35
[SPEAKER_09]: And again, I'm alone out there.
1:02:37
[SPEAKER_09]: So if there are other people who are interested even in comics and how would comics do with religion, I'm there.
1:02:44
[SPEAKER_09]: I know there's five of us.
1:02:46
[SPEAKER_02]: But let's begin in the mid-1970s at Marvel Comics for a moment.
1:02:50
[SPEAKER_02]: This is going to be a brother Houdu month on my show.
1:02:52
[SPEAKER_02]: And later in the month, we're having a big academic panel on the characters, Brother Houdu, and Black Talon, which is already an interesting journey.
1:02:59
[SPEAKER_02]: So early 1970s, post-fit mom generation supposed civil rights era, political assassinations are happening.
1:03:05
[SPEAKER_02]: The comics' code authority has released
1:03:08
[SPEAKER_02]: some of it's a very stringent control.
1:03:11
[SPEAKER_02]: And now companies can start telling stories about monsters again.
1:03:15
[SPEAKER_02]: So we've got where we'll find a night and go strider and all these things.
1:03:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And we've also got black exploitation happening, which is where Misty night and and Luke Cage come from.
1:03:23
[SPEAKER_02]: One of the characters that debuts in this era is Jericho drum, Brother Voodoo, who is
1:03:28
[SPEAKER_02]: an American-trained psychiatrist who returns home to Haiti because his brother, his twin brother, Daniel, has become a houngan, and is now dying because a man who calls himself Dumbala has corrupted the local region.
1:03:42
[SPEAKER_02]: The brother dies fast-forwarding, but Jericho gets trained as a houngan.
1:03:47
[SPEAKER_02]: His brother's spirit then comes to dwell in his body, and now we have a new magic superhero.
1:03:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Brother
1:03:57
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, and this can actually be really, really helpful for me.
1:04:01
[SPEAKER_09]: So in my own self-interest, this is the chapter that I'm working on in my book.
1:04:07
[SPEAKER_09]: And as I said, the book starts with the 1930s.
1:04:09
[SPEAKER_09]: So to get to the 1970s and everything that happened, I'm learning a lot.
1:04:15
[SPEAKER_09]: So basically, everything, as you said, this is post-CCA.
1:04:18
[SPEAKER_09]: And what's interesting about Voodoo.
1:04:21
[SPEAKER_09]: So we assume that after the comics code, which I think your audience knows what that is,
1:04:27
[SPEAKER_09]: It does, but it doesn't.
1:04:29
[SPEAKER_09]: It, you know, we have these wonderful, this period, I think, in the 60s, where you have the black and white magazine comics, like weird and creepy and eerie.
1:04:41
[SPEAKER_09]: And those were comics that sort of got away from being called comics because they were in magazine format.
1:04:47
[SPEAKER_09]: Think of Vampirella.
1:04:49
[SPEAKER_09]: These were, these were horror.
1:04:50
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's the pop stuff, yeah.
1:04:52
[SPEAKER_09]: of the pulpy stuff.
1:04:53
[SPEAKER_09]: So it wasn't really comics, but it was black and white.
1:04:56
[SPEAKER_09]: And that's where you get some of the post-CCA iterations of Voodoo, right?
1:05:02
[SPEAKER_09]: You get the zombie.
1:05:03
[SPEAKER_09]: You get a Cimon, I call it, I use the name Cimon.
1:05:08
[SPEAKER_09]: It's Simon.
1:05:09
[SPEAKER_09]: You get these white zombie characters.
1:05:10
[SPEAKER_09]: You also get some interesting racial dynamics.
1:05:13
[SPEAKER_09]: So brother Voodoo belongs in that milieu as much as I think he belongs in Black's
1:05:18
[SPEAKER_09]: Now, I am not an expert, I'm learning, but I'm gonna make the argument that Brother Voodoo is not only a sort of, in my article, I call him from Harvard to Hero.
1:05:31
[SPEAKER_09]: He is not really a horror character, although he, you find him in Mark of Desanbi, you find him in the horror series first before he gets his own thing going.
1:05:41
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a experience in zombies and chanting in drums and white audiences must have been a guest.
1:05:48
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, you know, it's such an interesting time because the writers who are turning to brother food are there actually.
1:05:56
[SPEAKER_09]: more fascinated with, you know, they're less fascinated with the Blackspoitation stuff.
1:06:01
[SPEAKER_09]: I think they said, let's let's put him there so that he can be a crime fighter and go to the ghetto and help these folk.
1:06:08
[SPEAKER_09]: But they're really fascinated with a voodoo, a Haitian voodoo renaissance that's happening at the same time.
1:06:15
[SPEAKER_09]: Almost in an attempt to, and they were real liberals, they tried their best.
1:06:25
[SPEAKER_09]: no longer Tony Jenner.
1:06:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Jenny Isabella.
1:06:27
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
1:06:28
[SPEAKER_09]: Who are who are saying?
1:06:29
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, we can redeem this thing.
1:06:31
[SPEAKER_09]: We can redeem this religion.
1:06:32
[SPEAKER_09]: It's not about the horror.
1:06:34
[SPEAKER_09]: This is my problem with that.
1:06:35
[SPEAKER_09]: And I know I'm jumping the gun.
1:06:37
[SPEAKER_09]: You're trying to redeem it.
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_09]: You're trying to save good patient Vodu is not about horror.
1:06:43
[SPEAKER_09]: zombies and it's it's a real religion, but you need to use those tropes in order to make your character appealing.
1:06:49
[SPEAKER_09]: So what you have with Jericho drum is the story, you know, he's like every other superhero.
1:06:55
[SPEAKER_09]: He has a tragedy.
1:06:56
[SPEAKER_09]: He goes back to and he has this transformation.
1:06:59
[SPEAKER_09]: He has a mentor and so forth.
1:07:00
[SPEAKER_09]: But they have to sort of go.
1:07:02
[SPEAKER_09]: It would be really boring if they just made it a basic you know a black man goes back to his his island roots and so they're using the tropes of horror they're using the tropes of the superhero but in order to do so they have to distort will do and that and that was my big problem.
1:07:18
[SPEAKER_02]: People, let me give you just a quick tangent.
1:07:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And intentional or not, so much of this era with right white creators creating by characters, Luke Cage is a direct parody of Shaft.
1:07:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Misty night is a direct parody of Pam Greer.
1:07:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I kind of, I don't even know what film they saw, whether it was Sugar Hill or something else, but we saw this movie, we need to do that in the comic book.
1:07:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And even though there's a lot of care given to this character, yes, I understand exactly what you're saying.
1:07:44
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, and I don't want to complain because it's better than nothing, it's better than waiting till the 80s, frankly, because I think, I think, and I don't know who your audience is, but fans can be like, We're in diverse groups who enjoy this kind of conversation, aren't we?
1:08:01
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, but I mean, sometimes the queer and diverse groups are really like, don't, don't, don't mess around with my hero.
1:08:08
[SPEAKER_09]: Don't, you know, so I have to be, you have a safe space here, you're about to be okay.
1:08:12
[SPEAKER_09]: But in my opinion, so I have to tread lightly because I actually love these.
1:08:18
[SPEAKER_09]: And I'm actually learning to love the ones from the 30s and 40s that are really caricature.
1:08:24
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm learning to love them.
1:08:25
[SPEAKER_09]: And that's why I'm struggling.
1:08:26
[SPEAKER_09]: But one of the best characters.
1:08:29
[SPEAKER_09]: So brother Voodoo, I'll put him, I'll give him a B-minus.
1:08:32
[SPEAKER_09]: you know, for novelty, but for for getting us closer to the spiritual tradition of Haitian will do and the power of that tradition, it's got to be a seed, a seed minus.
1:08:44
[SPEAKER_09]: Even though the creators are working with sources, they're reading a lot, you know, they're reading the stuff about Haiti, the sensational stuff.
1:08:52
[SPEAKER_09]: One of the best ones, the best iterations of this character type is
1:08:58
[SPEAKER_09]: is in the invisible.
1:09:00
[SPEAKER_09]: And I just wrote about this.
1:09:01
[SPEAKER_09]: It's really remarkable.
1:09:03
[SPEAKER_09]: Grant Morrison wrote about a character called Jim Crow.
1:09:07
[SPEAKER_09]: And Morrison is someone that you got to, you got to read carefully because you'll think that this is just racist, racist stuff, and they go deep.
1:09:16
[SPEAKER_09]: So, um,
1:09:17
[SPEAKER_09]: still vote sensationalizing vote do.
1:09:20
[SPEAKER_09]: And the reason I pick on Morrison is because they went to they didn't go to Haiti, but they went to have initiations in order to, you know, come in with the deities.
1:09:30
[SPEAKER_09]: They're not, uh, organs.
1:09:32
[SPEAKER_09]: They're, uh, dabblers, dilatons.
1:09:34
[SPEAKER_09]: So, this is someone, again, who has a spiritual sense of the religion, a magical sense of the religion, conveys that in this character in the invisible, which I recommend to everyone if you can find this, but still sensational, this is,
1:09:49
[SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's, yeah, the only defining characteristic for a lot of these characters is that trope is that that mystic connection and I've had conversations with with some Native American folks.
1:10:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It's very similar where the character is either a savage or like some sort of spiritual savant medicine man who wears a tote of you know of some kind.
1:10:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Let me toss a couple of just random topics your way and and I want to hear your opinions and with kind of a pop culture focus.
1:10:17
[SPEAKER_02]: uh white magic versus black magic white magic you don't mean the race because to me they're conflated there's white people's magic and there's black people's magic that's not what most people mean so my book was cool and the the the the trope itself of like white is good and black is bad is already a problem in our language yes
1:10:34
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, yeah, I need, but you know what, magicians use that themselves.
1:10:38
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, magicians use it and it's not racialized.
1:10:41
[SPEAKER_09]: So my book talks about this and my book is actually called Black Magic and people got pissed at me.
1:10:46
[SPEAKER_09]: And I was like, bring the book first and I'm like, oh, oh, okay.
1:10:49
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm assuming the dichotomy here is between magic that is benevolent and that works with a good, you know, yeah, brother Voodoo's channeling loa, where Black talent is channeling zombies.
1:11:00
[SPEAKER_02]: One is white, blue black.
1:11:02
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, although one could say that his brother himself, he's channeling his brother's power, his brother is a law himself, so he's, you know, so yes, they, they just they'd mix all of that up.
1:11:13
[SPEAKER_09]: I think that in the Haitian tradition, as in most African traditions, there's not a line between good and evil.
1:11:18
[SPEAKER_09]: This is really a Christian sort of in position but on on religion that there's good there's the devil and there's but no in in African religions it's actually very much like the eastern traditions it's like they shade into each other so what might be good or seen as good is actually there is no pure bad or evil there's no devil which people always direct know there's nothing
1:11:42
[SPEAKER_09]: So, it doesn't quite work this notion of good magic and back magic, black magic.
1:11:47
[SPEAKER_09]: In Vodu, at least because people are very pragmatic.
1:11:50
[SPEAKER_09]: It's think about it, think about it.
1:11:52
[SPEAKER_09]: You're enslaved.
1:11:53
[SPEAKER_09]: This slave owner is kicking your butt.
1:11:55
[SPEAKER_09]: He is abusing you and you're a good Christian person.
1:11:58
[SPEAKER_09]: What are you gonna do?
1:11:59
[SPEAKER_09]: Are you going to pray for that person to die?
1:12:02
[SPEAKER_09]: Or are you going to use good magic to say, oh, you know, let's all, you have a choice.
1:12:08
[SPEAKER_09]: You can do it is one black magic
1:12:10
[SPEAKER_09]: bad is one white magic.
1:12:12
[SPEAKER_09]: So particularly when we're talking about this enslavement situation, it's very hard to gauge between the good stuff and the bad stuff.
1:12:20
[SPEAKER_09]: People are very pragmatic.
1:12:22
[SPEAKER_09]: They're like, let me use something that will bring me out of this situation.
1:12:26
[SPEAKER_09]: And I mentioned Frederick Douglass because he actually documents the
1:12:30
[SPEAKER_09]: This, in his autobiography, he's he and he's he's so very secular he hated Chris he hated he hated all religion he hated Christians, but when pushed came to shove he's a young man he's trying to run away he used the hudu root he had that.
1:12:45
[SPEAKER_09]: And he says in that in that famous boat, he says this is this is how the slave became a man.
1:12:52
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm holding this route and there actually it's a double entendre because the the the most famous route in the tradition of who do is called hija.
1:13:01
[SPEAKER_09]: And it's a it's a it's a phallic looking route.
1:13:04
[SPEAKER_09]: It's something that most people carried for protection and so that he carries this thing and he says this kept me from being beaten.
1:13:12
[SPEAKER_09]: Frederick Douglass, all right?
1:13:13
[SPEAKER_09]: So the fact that you're using protective magic is that bad when you're slave owner drops dead.
1:13:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Only from the perspective of the slave owner.
1:13:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And I think we have to give it the right amount of, again, seriousness here too.
1:13:28
[SPEAKER_02]: A loss of freedom is not just a loss of freedom.
1:13:30
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a loss of will.
1:13:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Your body is not your own.
1:13:33
[SPEAKER_02]: Your children are not your own.
1:13:35
[SPEAKER_02]: Your time is not your own.
1:13:36
[SPEAKER_02]: You have to make something that's your own.
1:13:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Right?
1:13:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Like people needed things that would get them through for heaven's sake and family connection becomes a huge part of that.
1:13:44
[SPEAKER_02]: So I think a lot of times when we see magic in comics, it's like the intent and the cost, right?
1:13:49
[SPEAKER_02]: What deal are you making?
1:13:51
[SPEAKER_02]: What's your intent behind it?
1:13:52
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you willing to sacrifice to get it?
1:13:54
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, and the line between that and religion, I always talk to my students about this when I had students.
1:14:01
[SPEAKER_09]: What, you know, can Christians work magic when Christians pray when Jesus walks on the water?
1:14:07
[SPEAKER_09]: And we have, you know, and I'm sure you know more about this than me.
1:14:10
[SPEAKER_09]: We have a latter-day Saint tradition that is filled with angels and magical rituals.
1:14:15
[SPEAKER_09]: Is that magic?
1:14:16
[SPEAKER_02]: If you're worried about my voodoo, but you put the body of Christ in your mouth once a week to purify your sins, then we got to talk.
1:14:22
[SPEAKER_09]: Is that magic?
1:14:23
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a cannibalism, so even the word magic, which is my dissertation.
1:14:29
[SPEAKER_09]: It's like black, white, good, I don't even know what it means.
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_09]: So my point is that religion is magic is the religion of the other.
1:14:37
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, the soul of religion, but so you want to say, but yeah, it's a good question.
1:14:40
[SPEAKER_09]: I do find in the comics, though, and this annoys me, that it's never, you never really see people praying or doing
1:14:48
[SPEAKER_09]: the things that we associate with religion.
1:14:50
[SPEAKER_09]: So it already religion has to be this dynamic thing except and I'll give you all the factoid.
1:14:56
[SPEAKER_09]: This might be boring to some.
1:14:58
[SPEAKER_09]: And the 1940s, we have a whole genre of Christian comics.
1:15:02
[SPEAKER_09]: We have Catholics, we have Protestants, we have the Mormons doing the thing later than the forties.
1:15:09
[SPEAKER_09]: We have Black Christians.
1:15:10
[SPEAKER_09]: So comics themselves are speaking about religion from within the religions and I was amazed that no one else has written about this.
1:15:18
[SPEAKER_09]: They invited me to Comic Con and I was like, you mean, no one talks about Christian comics.
1:15:23
[SPEAKER_09]: Let me get up in there.
1:15:24
[SPEAKER_09]: So to me, comics are like a template for popular culture and different periods and they tell us so much.
1:15:30
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm really laser focused on religion, but you know, I can talk about magic in the comics as well,
1:15:38
[SPEAKER_02]: and as we're going out these intertwined with each other.
1:15:40
[SPEAKER_02]: Now a lot of the portrayal of Voodoo and Hudu in comics is specifically related to necromancy, bringing back the dead, the channeling of the Luah, into the mortal form.
1:15:54
[SPEAKER_02]: And now we have an entire genre of like zombie franchises and movies and like we're obsessed.
1:15:59
[SPEAKER_02]: And it originates kind of live with this at least in pop culture.
1:16:03
[SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to talk about the Huda Connections to kind of a necromancy?
1:16:07
[SPEAKER_02]: And I know it's been bastardized widely in our media.
1:16:10
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:16:11
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, Huda, I'm going to separate out Huda.
1:16:13
[SPEAKER_09]: So Huda to me is the contrived imagined religion.
1:16:18
[SPEAKER_09]: It's a, and then you have Huda, which is the Haitian the real religion.
1:16:22
[SPEAKER_09]: And then you have Huda.
1:16:23
[SPEAKER_02]: And the second word, everybody, I think you just more commonly see it spelled as VODOU.
1:16:28
[SPEAKER_09]: Exactly.
1:16:29
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, okay.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, you, you've done your work.
1:16:32
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm done my research.
1:16:34
[SPEAKER_09]: All right.
1:16:34
[SPEAKER_09]: I can't wait to see your dissertation.
1:16:37
[SPEAKER_09]: So, so, but Hulu is black America, right?
1:16:40
[SPEAKER_09]: So, so Haitian over there, the Wudu, Wudu, which is the American bastardization of all of it, and then Hulu, which is the stuff that's in sinners.
1:16:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's amazing, by the way, it's so good.
1:16:54
[SPEAKER_09]: I'd surprised me though, because it was like, oh, vampires, you can tell them a tender and squeamish kind of person and that and that does go back to the zombie thing.
1:17:04
[SPEAKER_09]: I was never as fascinated as many of my friends.
1:17:07
[SPEAKER_09]: with the zombie and with the whole industry of the zombie.
1:17:11
[SPEAKER_09]: Oh, the zombie, as you mentioned, comes to us in the 1920s through a Hollywood through White Zombie, but really before that, and this is what I'm tackling in my book.
1:17:20
[SPEAKER_09]: There are two moments that shape every single representation of Voodoo, Voodoo, the fake, the fake stuff in the comics, two historical moments.
1:17:29
[SPEAKER_09]: The first moment that's been forgotten by everyone,
1:17:32
[SPEAKER_09]: Basically, what's that Haiti overthrew?
1:17:35
[SPEAKER_09]: It was the first post colonial regime in the West overthrew the slavery declared universal emancipation before any nation.
1:17:43
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay.
1:17:44
[SPEAKER_09]: I know they like to say, well, the US no, it wasn't.
1:17:47
[SPEAKER_09]: It was Haiti.
1:17:48
[SPEAKER_09]: that that historical event shapes everything that we know about voodoo and voodoo because the rebels were practicing this religion.
1:17:57
[SPEAKER_09]: The second event is much more relevant to disamby and the the other stuff and that is the occupation and occupation of Haiti in 1915.
1:18:07
[SPEAKER_09]: We don't talk about these.
1:18:09
[SPEAKER_09]: It's like they just happened.
1:18:10
[SPEAKER_09]: But during the time of the occupation, the US Marines go to Haiti to prop up the regime.
1:18:16
[SPEAKER_09]: They begin to send back.
1:18:18
[SPEAKER_09]: So we're talking about 1915, right?
1:18:19
[SPEAKER_09]: Around 1920, there's a fascinating lineage with you mentioned pulp.
1:18:24
[SPEAKER_09]: These are pulp magazines like weird tales and HP love craft and all that garbage.
1:18:29
[SPEAKER_09]: The Marines are beginning to reflect on their experience.
1:18:33
[SPEAKER_09]: Right?
1:18:34
[SPEAKER_09]: And they're going into make Haiti great again.
1:18:37
[SPEAKER_09]: So they've got to stamp out the voodoo, right?
1:18:40
[SPEAKER_09]: So we begin to get stories.
1:18:41
[SPEAKER_09]: The first zombie story comes out, I think, in the 20s with William C. Brooke.
1:18:45
[SPEAKER_09]: So there's a lot of background to what we find in the comics that we think just plops out of thin air.
1:18:51
[SPEAKER_09]: But it's a, I think it's a lot of propaganda.
1:18:54
[SPEAKER_09]: I actually think you're gonna hate this.
1:18:56
[SPEAKER_09]: I think most comics, I think comic books begin as a kind of American propaganda.
1:19:01
[SPEAKER_09]: No, no, I don't hate that.
1:19:02
[SPEAKER_02]: I agree with you universally.
1:19:03
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you.
1:19:04
[SPEAKER_09]: Thank you because people think I'm yes There was a commercial element that that was very important, but yeah, yeah, it's a great man power fantasy.
1:19:11
[SPEAKER_09]: Overload again Yeah, and that doesn't make it bad, and I'm not trying to shame any good.
1:19:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we love our comics
1:19:17
[SPEAKER_09]: We love our comics, but the fact that they come out of a war, right, or just so anyway, so I'm interested in the background noise that that shapes these representations of voodoo because it's very hard to get to Haiti and voodoo.
1:19:31
[SPEAKER_09]: And that's why I'm less interested in the zombie because people find it to be a spectacular.
1:19:36
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm like, how many versions of the zombie can that?
1:19:40
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, yeah, it's interesting.
1:19:41
[SPEAKER_09]: But to ask your question on necromancy, that's another thing I think most people get wrong because I think that it's a twisted a fixation on, you know, the dead and the grossness of the body, where what the Africans are trying to tell us is about ancestors.
1:19:55
[SPEAKER_09]: They are trying to tell us, look, we had this trauma.
1:20:00
[SPEAKER_09]: We had this exiled formary.
1:20:02
[SPEAKER_09]: We had this chain that was broken because of the middle path.
1:20:05
[SPEAKER_09]: We cannot find our ancestors.
1:20:07
[SPEAKER_09]: So what African American religion is about is coming to and finding that ancestor.
1:20:14
[SPEAKER_02]: And if comics are a white man power fantasy, what are white men afraid of, become the villains that the white men power fantasies are punching, whether that's a loss of will, a loss of body, a loss of my female, a loss of my riches, or here's these traditions that want to overthrow the way I think.
1:20:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And when you look at it from the view of other cultures, you very quickly understand the other side, but that's not how the comics were written.
1:20:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I do think brother Brudu comics the early ones at least are written with a certain amount of delicacy that I don't see in a lot of comics of its time, but that's the cold true through his entire roto comics for sure.
1:20:48
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, I don't want to balance that.
1:20:50
[SPEAKER_09]: I don't want to sound like one of those, you know, I don't know, complainers because they really did try hard to work with the sources that they had in trying to understand Vodu.
1:20:59
[SPEAKER_09]: There were a couple of special issues on Vodu, but still it's like, it's like, it's
1:21:04
[SPEAKER_09]: It's very hard for people to get that.
1:21:06
[SPEAKER_09]: It's very hard for people to understand it.
1:21:08
[SPEAKER_09]: And at the same time, keep that sensational, spectacular element.
1:21:11
[SPEAKER_09]: So I enjoy it.
1:21:13
[SPEAKER_09]: I enjoy the comic.
1:21:14
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm not going to say, lie and say that it's a total loss.
1:21:18
[SPEAKER_09]: Some of it's really corny right now to look at from today.
1:21:21
[SPEAKER_09]: But if you look at it back then, it really was, it's historical.
1:21:25
[SPEAKER_09]: First of all, I have a Haitian.
1:21:27
[SPEAKER_09]: So you have this African superhero.
1:21:29
[SPEAKER_09]: You have Black Panther, Tatala.
1:21:32
[SPEAKER_09]: And then you have a Haitian.
1:21:34
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, that, that, that alone to me is like, wow, this is amazing.
1:21:37
[SPEAKER_02]: And one's a king and one's a, one's a psychiatrist, like, there's, there's a certain amount of, of power given, you know, misty nights a cop, but Luke Cage was a, was a prison inmate.
1:21:48
[SPEAKER_02]: The black Americans get the, yeah, it's fine, it's fine.
1:21:50
[SPEAKER_09]: A lot of the other portrayal I see of like, we talked about necromancy.
1:21:52
[SPEAKER_09]: A lot of the other portrayal, the theme I see a lot in comics is where we talk about, like, loss of control.
1:21:55
[SPEAKER_02]: We see the guy with the voodoo doll, the removal of will, the changing of your mind.
1:21:58
[SPEAKER_02]: I light this thing and then you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're, you're
1:22:10
[SPEAKER_02]: children are walking toward me and they can't control themselves and I am wow right it's this odd kind of evil which energy a lot of the time.
1:22:19
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah yeah this is actually and you gave me something that I have to add more to my books.
1:22:24
[SPEAKER_09]: So what makes these religions distinctive and we definitely see a holdover of this in black American religion is this notion of what is popularly called
1:22:34
[SPEAKER_09]: And spirit possession is the idea that an external spirit, an intelligence and entity can can possess the body during ceremony and ritual.
1:22:45
[SPEAKER_09]: Now it's not just black people or African people doing this, you know, the shakers have a spirit possession.
1:22:51
[SPEAKER_09]: It's universal, right?
1:22:52
[SPEAKER_09]: But somehow somehow when the black people do it, it's like a
1:22:55
[SPEAKER_09]: So this notion is that in Haitian will do that the the deities can actually I'll put it in air quotes, but no one can see it Possessed the body it means it's a displacement of the consciousness during the ceremony So it's a sacrament in the religion and the deities will come and they will talk and it's like bringing back the you know the beloved spirits in body in them in form Oh my god
1:23:20
[SPEAKER_09]: that's the worst thing in the world.
1:23:22
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, first of all, it happens in many religions, not just, you know, it happens in Christianity if you've ever been to a Pentecostal church, the Holy Ghost will possess you and you'll be dancing around.
1:23:31
[SPEAKER_09]: But again, when it's the voodoo, it becomes horrifying.
1:23:35
[SPEAKER_09]: So I'm trying to always push back against that even the idea of necromancy, those sort of discourses I think come from a fear of that lack of control that occurs with spirit possession, which in a ceremony is quite wonderful.
1:23:50
[SPEAKER_09]: And if you've ever been to a Pentecostal service or any white people have spirit possession, the Holy Rollers have it.
1:24:05
[SPEAKER_09]: because it feeds on fear.
1:24:07
[SPEAKER_09]: And I will often find those tedious.
1:24:09
[SPEAKER_09]: Again, I was raised in these traditions.
1:24:11
[SPEAKER_09]: I was raised in these churches.
1:24:13
[SPEAKER_09]: I, you know, I, I've gone to many voters, ceremonies.
1:24:16
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm part of that community.
1:24:17
[SPEAKER_09]: And it's like, what where is all the scaringists?
1:24:19
[SPEAKER_09]: It's actually quite beautiful and, and quite fun.
1:24:22
[SPEAKER_09]: But you probably wouldn't have good comics if you just focused on the fun part, right?
1:24:28
[SPEAKER_02]: So let's lean into one more major topic.
1:24:30
[SPEAKER_02]: And this will be the last one I introduced as far as the big topics.
1:24:33
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's kind of the very specific thing that is New Orleans Voodoo, where we have characters like Marie Lavo that have become like we've become obsessed with the idea of this black powerful witch.
1:24:47
[SPEAKER_02]: We throw terms and again it's very nuanced based on region but we this is where we get Barron Somity and Dumbolla and frankly the princess and the frog right like do you want to share your thoughts on New Orleans specific Voodoo in pop culture?
1:25:02
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, absolutely.
1:25:04
[SPEAKER_09]: It's not Haitian.
1:25:07
[SPEAKER_09]: It's not like anything else in the world.
1:25:09
[SPEAKER_09]: It's it's its own thing.
1:25:11
[SPEAKER_09]: It emerges in the 19th century.
1:25:15
[SPEAKER_09]: So it's a historical religion.
1:25:17
[SPEAKER_09]: But the argument isn't and there are a couple of brand new books about this that that New Orleans Voodoo Voodoo because they do call it Voodoo.
1:25:24
[SPEAKER_09]: Now, Voodoo died out in the early 20th century or the late late late 1800s.
1:25:30
[SPEAKER_09]: And
1:25:30
[SPEAKER_09]: No, I know people who practice this today.
1:25:32
[SPEAKER_09]: It's almost like Wicker, where there was a revitalization of Wicker, but it was not the same as the witchcraft.
1:25:38
[SPEAKER_09]: So there are reinterpretations of it.
1:25:40
[SPEAKER_09]: So basically the original New Orleans style, or I'll just say we see out of style.
1:25:46
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, that's true.
1:25:48
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it comes to us because the the colony was sort of a very multicultural colony was Spanish and it was French and so forth.
1:25:55
[SPEAKER_09]: But the city itself because the city was a port and it was the second largest port in North America for breeding and slaves.
1:26:08
[SPEAKER_09]: Catholic Union, so it becomes this amazing melting pot of religion and race and and it's it's quite wonderful and and during the time of the revolution that I mentioned in Haiti, a lot of refugees come.
1:26:21
[SPEAKER_09]: So it's hard to say where their voodoo, where it is born.
1:26:25
[SPEAKER_09]: Marie Lavo is sort of a mythic figure.
1:26:28
[SPEAKER_09]: She's real, but there's a lot of stories attached to her.
1:26:31
[SPEAKER_09]: It's not clear to us at all whether she had any relationship to do with Haiti.
1:26:36
[SPEAKER_09]: She had a relative or a husband who was Haitian, but it seems to me the argument's being made that voodoo in New Orleans, or Louisiana, is an American comb-grown religion.
1:26:47
[SPEAKER_09]: Now, some people out there are like, no, and I'm saying, take it up with the two scholars who came up with the book.
1:26:52
[SPEAKER_09]: But as we know today, it's become intensely commodified.
1:26:55
[SPEAKER_09]: I love the city of New Orleans.
1:26:57
[SPEAKER_09]: It has a lot of flavors of that multicultural that essence.
1:27:01
[SPEAKER_09]: But I would argue it's one of the few unique places where you do have these sort of African,
1:27:07
[SPEAKER_09]: style religions.
1:27:09
[SPEAKER_09]: In the comics, it becomes a useful city.
1:27:11
[SPEAKER_09]: It becomes a useful urban scene because whenever you have black black characters in the 70s, they got to go to a city.
1:27:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, but even modern comic, this is where stranger Academy is housed, if you read some books.
1:27:21
[SPEAKER_02]: And you know, I've been to New Orleans a few times.
1:27:23
[SPEAKER_02]: You think of alcohol and marty grye and like marching bands in the streets, but you also think of the voodoo shops and the raised cemeteries.
1:27:29
[SPEAKER_02]: You just, you stretch just a little outside the city and you think swamps and
1:27:35
[SPEAKER_02]: people don't want to think about that, but it's also right there.
1:27:38
[SPEAKER_02]: It all makes together, right?
1:27:39
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's perfect.
1:27:41
[SPEAKER_09]: It's perfect.
1:27:41
[SPEAKER_09]: So that I think is the second major iteration of Buddha.
1:27:45
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm less interested in that, but now that I'm talking to you, I think I have to include more of that.
1:27:50
[SPEAKER_09]: Brother Buddha, of course, goes there.
1:27:52
[SPEAKER_09]: You know, it's not enough that he has a home in Haiti.
1:27:54
[SPEAKER_09]: And he's the the source for a supreme in Haiti.
1:27:56
[SPEAKER_09]: He has to have a home in New Orleans.
1:27:58
[SPEAKER_08]: So he has one
1:28:00
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, it's it's quite interesting, but yeah, you're actually making me think of how far I have to go in this in this book that I'm doing because it's dangerous.
1:28:10
[SPEAKER_02]: It becomes as focused or as wide as you want to be.
1:28:14
[SPEAKER_09]: I know, I know, I know, I know, I know.
1:28:16
[SPEAKER_09]: But it really is wonderful the way that the comics do and they do not reflect the reality.
1:28:23
[SPEAKER_09]: They take a little bit of it and they tell these stories.
1:28:26
[SPEAKER_09]: There's been a lot of very, and when I first read them, I didn't like them at all, but the Sandman series, Neil Gaiman series.
1:28:33
[SPEAKER_09]: They had the writer, Tana Rivey, do several series in the Sandman universe about the Haitian law of the spirits, especially Ursula Fira.
1:28:44
[SPEAKER_09]: And it's set in a nightclub and all of the servants or these queer men who are serving this law as she's the goddess of love.
1:28:53
[SPEAKER_09]: And it's a very recent version.
1:28:56
[SPEAKER_09]: I would say,
1:28:57
[SPEAKER_09]: And I guess this is going to be my final chapter because I'm far more interested in the earlier stuff and how it evolves into these now comics can tell stories about these deities.
1:29:07
[SPEAKER_09]: They're no longer monstrous.
1:29:09
[SPEAKER_09]: They have agency.
1:29:10
[SPEAKER_09]: So it's almost like American gods, but with these will do deities.
1:29:14
[SPEAKER_09]: So that's recent and I think that I like to see more on who do I'm not seeing that much.
1:29:20
[SPEAKER_09]: There's a there's a wonderful comic, but it's about a family of root workers in Harlem
1:29:27
[SPEAKER_09]: 1330s and they don't ring a bell.
1:29:29
[SPEAKER_02]: I apologize.
1:29:30
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so but who do is not?
1:29:33
[SPEAKER_09]: It's it's up and coming, but it's not as provocative as voodoo is or patient inflective voodoo.
1:29:40
[SPEAKER_09]: So I'm looking forward to see what kinds of things people do in the present time.
1:29:44
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm stuck in it.
1:29:44
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm stuck in the 20th century.
1:29:46
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to talk for one more weird topic at you and this one doesn't take up the same amount of space, but it's kind of its unique thing.
1:29:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Another thing that we see in comics over and over again with Voodoo is chickens, the idea of like the sacrifice of chickens.
1:30:00
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so full soon.
1:30:01
[SPEAKER_02]: people, villains who have chicken identities, which is of the black Muslim character, the game caught character.
1:30:07
[SPEAKER_02]: There's this odd correlation at, and the people who do the chicken thing are always evil, because they're killing the chickens.
1:30:13
[SPEAKER_02]: It's the sacrifice and the blood and the bones, and we're obsessed with it at our comics.
1:30:17
[SPEAKER_02]: It's insane.
1:30:17
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, that black talent was a mistake, he's like a rooster head, it's a dumb, it's a dumb, but to your point, chickens are, they're not as prominent symbol as the serpent, the snake.
1:30:29
[SPEAKER_09]: So we have the balla who's the first supervillain.
1:30:32
[SPEAKER_09]: The balla comes from the Haitian pantheon.
1:30:34
[SPEAKER_09]: The other animal is the goat.
1:30:36
[SPEAKER_09]: I can't get away from goats in the 1940s.
1:30:39
[SPEAKER_09]: There's nothing but goats when you talk about food.
1:30:41
[SPEAKER_09]: So the chicken might be part of that.
1:30:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm smiling because I'm picturing you trying to sleep, but a bunch of black and white goats won't leave you alone.
1:30:51
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, no, I do not like that supervillain.
1:30:53
[SPEAKER_09]: And you've seen him, he's, you know what, it doesn't matter whether I like him or not, does he do the job?
1:30:59
[SPEAKER_09]: I think that the balla is a much more interesting, cold war era supervillain.
1:31:04
[SPEAKER_09]: And he's the one that sort of initiates Jericho Trump's emergence as
1:31:09
[SPEAKER_09]: Brotherhood.
1:31:10
[SPEAKER_02]: But he has like five appearances where Black Talon has like sixty five appearances.
1:31:15
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's different.
1:31:16
[SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting.
1:31:18
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple years ago.
1:31:19
[SPEAKER_02]: A couple years ago.
1:31:21
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, well, did you want to talk about the spirituality connection to chickens specifically?
1:31:25
[SPEAKER_02]: No, I think it's the ritual of blood being used in sacrifice, which again Christianity has a lot of like sacrifice and and blood ritual It's a white chickens white white chickens.
1:31:36
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean that okay, okay, I think I don't know someone somewhere along the way I got the idea And it just is not long since
1:31:43
[SPEAKER_09]: Well, let me just, let me just give you the history, the real stuff in this religion because it comes from, you know, traditional people animals are offered instead of human humans are never offered animals are offered to the deities the deities are called loa and each loa has its favorite so, you know, most people in Haiti are poor a chicken's easy, but actually the the guinea hand but go there are certain sacrifices that you have to do and if you wear a chicken to certain loa they'll be like
1:32:12
[SPEAKER_09]: So in the U.S. of course, because somehow we have this sensitivity about killing birds and they're kept in the most disgusting and inhumane circumstances and we get squeamish when someone breaks a bird's neck and uses the blood these birds are usually eaten I've never understood and I talked about this with my students what what's to deal about sacrificing chickens when Colonel Sanders sacrifices millions of chickens in the most disrespectful way birds are always preyed over these ceremonies, so I don't know if I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm going to say that I'm
1:32:41
[SPEAKER_09]: I always recommend, if you want to know about this religion, it's open, you can visit ceremonies now.
1:32:47
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, you can.
1:32:48
[SPEAKER_09]: And you see that it's not, it's not filled with Devils and Necromancers and dead chickens.
1:32:54
[SPEAKER_09]: It's, it's, it's, it's actually, it's sometimes Hall Farmers, it was very boring when he went to his ceremonies in, in Haiti, because they sit around and they pray for four hours, which I actually like.
1:33:04
[SPEAKER_09]: So the chicken thing, I think, I have no idea what, with
1:33:07
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, I'm sad of traditions that were held on to came from tribal customs that people would hold sacred and if you read the Old Testament everybody I guarantee you're reading about animal sacrifice So from the last topic I wanted to throw your way is the idea of reclamation
1:33:24
[SPEAKER_02]: So, brother Voodoo has recently become Dr. Voodoo.
1:33:27
[SPEAKER_02]: There's an amplification of the style of stories.
1:33:30
[SPEAKER_02]: He had a romance with the Scarlet Witch.
1:33:32
[SPEAKER_02]: He's the head of the Strange Academy.
1:33:34
[SPEAKER_02]: We've allowed the character to become more complex when handled in the right way.
1:33:39
[SPEAKER_02]: And then his origins become fascinating.
1:33:42
[SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on the way people take these old stories?
1:33:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And we try to use them in new ways.
1:33:48
[SPEAKER_09]: I can't say what I like it or not.
1:33:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes it depends on the writer, depends on the story.
1:33:52
[SPEAKER_02]: Read any storm comic from over 50 years.
1:33:55
[SPEAKER_09]: There you go.
1:33:56
[SPEAKER_09]: There you go.
1:33:57
[SPEAKER_09]: I like reclamation for one thing because it removes the religion, even if it's a tenuous connection from the sort of degrading elements.
1:34:05
[SPEAKER_09]: It becomes something that is it's
1:34:07
[SPEAKER_09]: It elevates it in some ways.
1:34:09
[SPEAKER_09]: They don't quite get it right.
1:34:10
[SPEAKER_09]: It's still sensational.
1:34:11
[SPEAKER_09]: The argument can be labeled.
1:34:12
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, this is this is Dr.
1:34:14
[SPEAKER_09]: Strange 3.0.
1:34:15
[SPEAKER_09]: You know, but I'm all forward if it gets people to think in different ways about a religion that has been truly
1:34:23
[SPEAKER_09]: even now, Haiti's religion is demonized.
1:34:26
[SPEAKER_09]: It is literally demonized.
1:34:28
[SPEAKER_09]: So if it gets people to think about a Haitian voter in a different way.
1:34:32
[SPEAKER_09]: Unfortunately, I think that the connections are less tannuous.
1:34:36
[SPEAKER_09]: People think about the origin.
1:34:37
[SPEAKER_09]: They kind of know that the sorcerer's supreme is Haitian, that this
1:34:40
[SPEAKER_09]: that's the heritage, but those religious elements aren't quite there.
1:34:44
[SPEAKER_09]: I hear that he's going to be in a movie though.
1:34:47
[SPEAKER_09]: I'm hoping that, you know, they're looking for a consultants for that one.
1:34:51
[SPEAKER_09]: Although, again, I don't know that much about it, but I always like the idea that we can recover and the word is revalued.
1:34:59
[SPEAKER_09]: These characters from a place
1:35:01
[SPEAKER_09]: The first voodoo character that I found was in 1941, and he was called the voodoo man.
1:35:07
[SPEAKER_09]: And he is an extraordinary, you would think that he's just a complete caricature and racist stereotype.
1:35:14
[SPEAKER_09]: And he actually has a kind of agency because of his sort of spectacular style.
1:35:20
[SPEAKER_09]: you know, he does the spells and he's in the cemetery.
1:35:22
[SPEAKER_09]: And his story went on for quite a few quite a few episodes.
1:35:26
[SPEAKER_09]: We've come such a long way from that in with with these comics and with these characters.
1:35:32
[SPEAKER_09]: Now he's a villain and brother Voodoo or Dr. Voodoo is now a hero.
1:35:37
[SPEAKER_09]: So that to me is the that's the story from from the heart to the hero that that I'm trying to get at.
1:35:42
[SPEAKER_09]: But it's a great
1:35:45
[SPEAKER_09]: So I'm just really glad about this.
1:35:47
[SPEAKER_09]: I really got that we're having this conversation because it's so obscure.
1:35:50
[SPEAKER_09]: I am, we're looking out, but it's so obscure.
1:35:54
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm delighted by this conversation and your energy.
1:35:56
[SPEAKER_02]: It's fantastic.
1:35:57
[SPEAKER_02]: We're fast friends, which I love.
1:35:59
[SPEAKER_02]: Okay, now if listeners want to take a challenge and go for this ride after hearing this conversation, go watch an old movie from the 30s that you can find on YouTube even, just called White Zombie.
1:36:10
[SPEAKER_08]: Oh, yes!
1:36:10
[SPEAKER_02]: So start there and then I want you to jump forward to the 70s and watch Sugar Hill.
1:36:14
[SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
1:36:15
[SPEAKER_02]: And then jump forward a little farther into just a few years ago where the Princess and the Frog came out, then jump to sinners, which is more recent.
1:36:24
[SPEAKER_02]: And if you want to take an even deeper dive after hearing this conversation,
1:36:27
[SPEAKER_02]: New Orleans specific go watch American Horror Story Covenant Front to Back, which is pretty fucking great They're there some problems in it at the same time because this isn't meant to be a horror trope We've taken black African religion and like culture of people and turned it into a sub genre of horror in American pop culture And you know zombies have taken off and become their own thing I don't know if there's any putting the zombie back in the grave
1:36:51
[SPEAKER_02]: But I think we can certainly culturally understand the nuances of what we're consuming and then decide where our limits are at, right?
1:36:59
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and I agree.
1:37:00
[SPEAKER_09]: I think that and I have several friends who look at this.
1:37:03
[SPEAKER_09]: This is the golden age.
1:37:04
[SPEAKER_09]: They're arguing for black horror.
1:37:06
[SPEAKER_09]: Again, I'm not a more squeamish than that, but this sense that now we have black directors and writers who are recovering and revaluing this tradition of a black horror.
1:37:20
[SPEAKER_09]: Yeah, so I think that, you know, I'm still not sure, I was just at a meeting about this, whether how we think of religion in relation to hara, but it's something that people are talking about with respect to the Bible, the Bible is full of hara stories.
1:37:33
[SPEAKER_09]: So we're in a moment.
1:37:35
[SPEAKER_09]: So it's good.
1:37:36
[SPEAKER_09]: We're in a moment now.
1:37:37
[SPEAKER_09]: So let's let's just let's grab a hold of it and try to make sense of it.
1:37:40
[SPEAKER_09]: And I think that voodoo air quotes, oh, oh, is definitely part of that moment unless sure about Haiti and Haitian voodoo.
1:37:47
[SPEAKER_09]: I always want people to learn more about that religion.
1:37:51
[SPEAKER_02]: So we feel like we went deep today, everybody, but really we got in an airplane and we just flew over the landscape.
1:37:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Like we barely touched on anything.
1:37:58
[SPEAKER_02]: We did not land in any spot.
1:38:00
[SPEAKER_02]: But I want you to hear some of the nuance.
1:38:01
[SPEAKER_02]: Now as we go throughout the show through Black History Month in February, we're gonna be having nuanced conversations on these topics.
1:38:06
[SPEAKER_02]: Over on the Patreon channel, if on I have a character channel where I do a weekly episode on a specific character.
1:38:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And I would love to have you back to talk about a character sometime.
1:38:15
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm already getting ideas.
1:38:16
[SPEAKER_02]: But over on the Patreon channel this month it's going to be all characters that are related to this topic and then on the main show we're going to be having these conversations as well culminating in the trials of brother Voodoo and black talent at the end of the month, which is our big academic panel.
1:38:28
[SPEAKER_02]: This is an excellent beginning for that and if on I'm thrilled to have a new friend and colleague I can't wait to trade more ideas with you.
1:38:35
[SPEAKER_09]: Again, I'm finishing the book.
1:38:36
[SPEAKER_09]: The book is due.
1:38:38
[SPEAKER_09]: So we won't see that for a few years.
1:38:40
[SPEAKER_09]: You have a title yet.
1:38:41
[SPEAKER_09]: The book is called graphic blue to grace and religion in the comics imaginary.
1:38:46
[SPEAKER_09]: So I'm looking at specifically at this notion of Haiti, Haitian will do.
1:38:51
[SPEAKER_09]: versus a voodoo, but I really fixated on the 20th century.
1:38:56
[SPEAKER_09]: I blog, not too often, but I blog at academichudoo.com, which is probably how you found me.
1:39:03
[SPEAKER_09]: My thoughts on everything.
1:39:05
[SPEAKER_02]: That is how I found you, by the way, yes.
1:39:07
[SPEAKER_09]: Okay, and then that's great.
1:39:08
[SPEAKER_09]: It's really, I haven't touched that thing.
1:39:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but your work there is smart and insightful and comprehensive.
1:39:14
[SPEAKER_02]: I really enjoyed reading everything.
1:39:16
[SPEAKER_02]: Which is why I reached out.
1:39:17
[SPEAKER_02]: I think you're great.
1:39:18
[SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I mean, I made an insistent, you know, I would just say to your viewers, again, take a look at religion.
1:39:24
[SPEAKER_09]: It's, you know, and this is my students, you know, once they get into the classroom, they're like, we never knew that you could look at this in religion, because they assume that it's just, you know, it's one thing in Jesus and the evangelicals or whatever they think religion is, but take a look at religion and see it for what it is,
1:39:47
[SPEAKER_09]: So I, that's, that's my sort of raw raw for religion, which is not done with us.
1:39:53
[SPEAKER_09]: That's what that's what I like to tell people and I'll, I'll leave it at that.
1:39:56
[SPEAKER_09]: And certainly comics in religion because I'm looking for some more conversation partners for sure as I continue in this.
1:40:03
[SPEAKER_02]: have a million thoughts on this.
1:40:05
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm a trauma specialist and I think there's such a deep correlation between religion and the way we survive trauma, but also fandoms in the way we survive trauma.
1:40:13
[SPEAKER_02]: I think if you look at what people are most likely to have tattooed on their body, it's either religious iconography or fandom stuff, right?
1:40:19
[SPEAKER_02]: You're going to see Jesus on one arm and Wolverine on the other, like it's kind of an odd correlation that people don't think about.
1:40:25
[SPEAKER_09]: When we get, when we move, when we shut down this, there's a book that's coming out on comics, it's called Graphic Medicine, actually, on comics in trauma.
1:40:35
[SPEAKER_09]: So there's some good stuff in that field.
1:40:37
[SPEAKER_09]: So, excellent.
1:40:38
[SPEAKER_02]: Well, you've got an incredible meeting you.
1:40:40
[SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait to have you back on the show.
1:40:41
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk more about your work.
1:40:43
[SPEAKER_02]: And when your book comes out, let's give you some feature there's stay tuned.
1:40:46
[SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be a fun month on the show.
1:40:47
[SPEAKER_02]: If I'm amazing to meet you, thanks everybody for listening.
1:40:50
[SPEAKER_02]: We will see you back here next week on the Grimmelton Lane Show.
1:40:53
[SPEAKER_02]: and now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism, as a special guest and I talked about a red skull story, and its modern applications.
1:41:03
[SPEAKER_02]: The Knights of the Iron Cross, or the Ritter-Cruz-Dess, a Sarenon Cruces, was the highest combat decoration of Nazi Germany during World War II.
1:41:12
[SPEAKER_02]: It was formally instituted on the 1st of September 1939, the same day Germany invaded Poland,
1:41:19
[SPEAKER_02]: as an expansion of the earlier Iron Cross system that dated back to Prussia in the 19th century.
1:41:25
[SPEAKER_02]: The award was intended to recognize exceptional bravery on the battlefield or outstanding military leadership.
1:41:32
[SPEAKER_02]: And it could be granted to members of all branches of the German Armed Forces, including the Vammarkt and the Voffin SS.
1:41:39
[SPEAKER_02]: Unlike lower grades of the Iron Cross, the Knights Cross was worn suspended at the neck, making it immediately visible.
1:41:45
[SPEAKER_02]: And it almost has like an odd Christian connotation when you see a cross.
1:41:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But this one has those kind of sharpened black edges in the rounded sides.
1:41:53
[SPEAKER_02]: As the war progressed, additional grades were introduced to distinguish repeated acts of valor or continued military success.
1:42:00
[SPEAKER_02]: These higher grades included the Knights Cross with Oak Leaves, introduced in 1940.
1:42:04
[SPEAKER_02]: The Knights Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords in 1941.
1:42:08
[SPEAKER_02]: the night's cross with oak leaves, swords, and diamonds in 1941.
1:42:12
[SPEAKER_02]: And finally, the night's cross with golden oak leaves, swords, and diamonds in 1944.
1:42:17
[SPEAKER_02]: And this starts to sound kind of messotic, it away to me.
1:42:20
[SPEAKER_02]: Each level was progressively rarer, with only one reciprocant, Hans Ulrich Rudel, receiving the highest grade.
1:42:28
[SPEAKER_02]: In total, approximately 73 hundred night's crosses of all grades were awarded during the war,
1:42:38
[SPEAKER_02]: He was the most decorated pilot of the war, and the only recipient of this higher honor.
1:42:50
[SPEAKER_02]: He knocked out personally, it's believed, 519 tanks, one battleship, one cruiser, 17 landing craft, and a 150 artillery in place.
1:43:00
[SPEAKER_02]: He claimed 9 aerial victories in the destruction of more than 800 vehicles,
1:43:04
[SPEAKER_02]: He flew 2,530 ground attack missions, exclusively on the eastern front.
1:43:09
[SPEAKER_02]: He ended up surrendering to US forces in 1945, where as an unrepentant Nazi, he immigrated to Argentina and helped Nazis escape into freedom.
1:43:20
[SPEAKER_02]: He sheltered Joseph Mendesla for a little while, and then worked as arms dealers for right wing regimes in South America.
1:43:27
[SPEAKER_02]: So just to all around great guy, would be said sarcastically.
1:43:30
[SPEAKER_02]: By the final year of the conflict, the Knights Cross had taken on a strong propaganda function.
1:43:35
[SPEAKER_02]: While many early recipients were decorated for documented battlefield actions, later rewards were sometimes used to bolster morale, or reinforced loyalty, as Germany's military situation deteriorated, almost the equivalent of the American Purple Heart in an odd way.
1:43:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Recipients were frequently featured in newsreels, newspapers, and posters as symbols of endurance and heroism, even as the third Reich faced imminent defeat.
1:43:57
[SPEAKER_02]: After the war, the decoration was banned in its Nazi form, though a denotsified version without the swastika was later authorized for wear by veterans and West Germany under strict regulations.
1:44:08
[SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting, we'll talk about this, but the thing that was celebrated so widely is now so so clearly a badge of shame and dishonor as you look back at the truth of history.
1:44:19
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, we're going to talk about Captain America, the other word war from October 2001 by Peter Hogan and Leonardo Monko.
1:44:25
[SPEAKER_02]: The art on this is beautiful.
1:44:26
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to summarize this pretty quickly, but it's kind of a crazy wild wonky story that you didn't know you needed.
1:44:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Back in Western Germany in October 1944, the Reds.
1:44:34
[SPEAKER_02]: Skull in his full military uniform, complete with chains medals, golden eagle insignias, red swastika on his armband and the Iron Cross award, he receives soldiers back from a mission and they brought him the eye of Agamado, as well as the ancient one, a familiar sorcerer for Dr.
1:44:49
[SPEAKER_02]: Strange fans.
1:44:50
[SPEAKER_02]: who were not played by Tilda Swinson in this world, who refuses to teach the Red Skull how to use the Mystic device, but the Vad Dumpt Nick Fury in the Helling Commandos, Captain America and Bucky are there to intervene.
1:45:01
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a fight that breaks out.
1:45:02
[SPEAKER_02]: A portal opens into the Dark Dimension, where Dormamu lives with his mindless ones, and the Red Skull ends up making a deal with Dormamu in a trade for power.
1:45:12
[SPEAKER_02]: But in the fight, he fails to hold up his end of the bargain, and he ends up spiraling through dimensions.
1:45:17
[SPEAKER_02]: There's a full page shot of him just kind of falling
1:45:19
[SPEAKER_02]: I will not go insane, I will not go insane, I will not go insane.
1:45:22
[SPEAKER_02]: But for he finally lands back in Nazi Germany in the field of a peasant.
1:45:26
[SPEAKER_02]: When he finds out he's back in the right, he says, with a huge smile.
1:45:29
[SPEAKER_02]: Let the father land rejoice for the red scholar has returned, bring me food, a drink, and your daughter peasant.
1:45:35
[SPEAKER_02]: I have victories to plan.
1:45:37
[SPEAKER_02]: All right.
1:45:37
[SPEAKER_02]: To talk about this crazy story, let me welcome my dear friend, Josh Brockier to the show.
1:45:41
[SPEAKER_02]: Joshua, hello, are you a red skull fan, my friend?
1:45:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh boy, hi Chad, I don't know if anyone is or could be a red skull fan, since he is first and foremost a Nazi, and those are pretty bad guys in case it needs to be said.
1:45:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a pun character when he shows up, but he's, you know, the testable by nature.
1:45:58
[SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on Captain America, the other world war?
1:46:01
[SPEAKER_02]: It's a fun little one shot.
1:46:03
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, I had a good time with this one.
1:46:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's, it's definitely unexpected.
1:46:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those little side adventures that's largely in consequential to like the overall story because, you know, it don't think anything of great consequence happens but it's fun to read.
1:46:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun seeing Captain America kind of often these little magic adventures that are where he's a bit out of his depth.
1:46:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's written well, the action is good.
1:46:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's a fun rom.
1:46:23
[SPEAKER_02]: Did you have any moments in this story that stood out as a good time for you?
1:46:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, yeah, when they went on a Captain America and Nick Fury go to this village in the dark dimension and find a young clay.
1:46:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a it's a fun little Easter egg.
1:46:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Love her watching Red Skull, uh, Robled poor door mom and kind of a roller versus funds like, oh yeah, this guy's a prosthetic snippling worm.
1:46:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You might have how much he struts about.
1:46:45
[SPEAKER_02]: I could watch Leonardo Mako-Dry anything, but him drawing Dormamu in the Red Skull and his interchange is incredible.
1:46:51
[SPEAKER_02]: It's always weird to see Red Skull in his like military regalia, like the like soldiers uniform.
1:46:57
[SPEAKER_02]: That's always an odd thing for me, because you often see him in campy supervillain, like gear or armor, you know?
1:47:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, or like a black trench coat, but I like seeing him in the full dress regalee because it's a stark reminder like this guy is a literal Nazi and the way he's illustrated his face is not just a red skull.
1:47:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It looks like raw meat.
1:47:14
[SPEAKER_00]: It's really disgusting.
1:47:15
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's he's Ikiki Ikiki of course.
1:47:18
[SPEAKER_02]: And then we have Harrowism winning the day.
1:47:20
[SPEAKER_02]: People willing to punch Nazis and fight the good fight and stand for what is correct.
1:47:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, I opened with this kind of idea of the iron
1:47:31
[SPEAKER_02]: Rot Thomas wrote the series The Invaders for years, which is all the World War II Superheroes, and he creates a villain called the Iron Cross, a head of the Gruler who is a character that's kind of Iron Man like who fights for the Nazis.
1:47:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if you're familiar with any of those kind of storylines, but do you have thoughts on the military regalia or the idea of what was celebrated by the Nazis's military victories later becoming the thing that's banned at all costs?
1:47:56
[SPEAKER_00]: see what this one group is holding up as a great victory seen by the rest of the world and anyone of any decent moral standing in atrocities.
1:48:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So it kind of shows you that they're on the wrong side of history and even today, especially in 2026, there are some people who would look at that dubious badge of honor of something awful as like actually this is still good.
1:48:15
[SPEAKER_00]: This is still something that we should be okay with and celebrate even so, you know, even some 80 something years later like the dark forces that they're fighting against here have not fully been
1:48:26
[SPEAKER_02]: If, if you look up the character of the Iron Cross, he's an interesting guy.
1:48:30
[SPEAKER_02]: He's kind of an an a Nazi soldier who after World War I ends up believing in the Nazi cause as like the soul for his country.
1:48:38
[SPEAKER_02]: He gets in case in this armor and ends up living into the modern day.
1:48:42
[SPEAKER_02]: Fabian, you see, has a right to him in the thunderbolt in the Vibitalion run where the Old World War II heroes get to go kick this guy's ass.
1:48:49
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's interesting as well because that mantle has been passed on to his granddaughter Claire Grouler, who is a woman of color, who like inherits her grandfather's legacy and becomes a superhero in Germany, she also is is an inhuman.
1:49:06
[SPEAKER_02]: So it's like her claiming the old Nazi title and trying to be a hero with it.
1:49:10
[SPEAKER_02]: Instead, it's an interesting journey written in the all new invaders series for those that want to look up this character.
1:49:16
[SPEAKER_02]: She was created in 2014.
1:49:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That's very interesting.
1:49:19
[SPEAKER_00]: It does feel like a very Obama era.
1:49:22
[SPEAKER_00]: spot in a way.
1:49:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And there would seem like a lot of examples of like like a sea heroes, kind of like inverting things, doing twists on them, Captain Britain, the black knight, but doing with all those little nostis, like, is that an image that you want to, you know, refurbish, rehabilitate even if you have the best of intentions?
1:49:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Not sure.
1:49:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't read anything about this character, but that's interesting academically.
1:49:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I just not sure how they pulled it off.
1:49:47
[SPEAKER_02]: The
1:49:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, as a sign of like German pride, I finished that in my synopsis.
1:49:51
[SPEAKER_02]: Like can we reclaim this symbol and take the Nazi out of it and still use it as like military victory?
1:49:56
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think so, because Germany was sanctioned after World War I and World War II was much worse.
1:50:00
[SPEAKER_02]: Like it's just not a great thing.
1:50:02
[SPEAKER_02]: Now, we're recording this in January where the news recently is that we have kidnapped the president of Venezuela and there's all kinds of craziness going on.
1:50:10
[SPEAKER_02]: The way we award military honor even now and recognize signs of valor as we kind of look at the world and see things with a different kind of truth.
1:50:19
[SPEAKER_02]: How you doing in 2026, my friend, these are crazy times.
1:50:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think everyone was happy to leave the madness of 2025 behind and then 2026 came in hot with, you know, the craziness of kidnapping the president of another country on the third day.
1:50:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'd also be remiss in not pointing out that we're recording us on January 6 on the fifth anniversary of the Capitol.
1:50:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And the history that is being rewritten daily with, you know, the president pardoning the rioters, the plaque that's supposed to commemorate the police officer should die defending the capital is not displayed because the current leadership doesn't want to be displayed.
1:50:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, there's their turning like us, what was a riot against democracy into something positive to be inspired to the same thing.
1:51:02
[SPEAKER_02]: You as a neurodivergent person in a queer, interracial relationship, intersectionality being what it is in these crazy times.
1:51:12
[SPEAKER_02]: We connect for many reasons with the people that we connect with, but how are you and yours getting by these days, my friend, keep in hope alive, how you doing?
1:51:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Keeping hope alive is best we can, I find solace in my community and my fellow,
1:51:26
[SPEAKER_00]: queer and trans people who, you know, we, we, we, we stick close to each other.
1:51:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but, but hope feels harder in some ways to like, clinging on to given, um, the craziness to keep happening and in some ways how powerless the individual can feel against, uh, something as big as, you know, a government kidnapped the head of another because they could.
1:51:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, great for you.
1:51:47
[SPEAKER_02]: Truly crazy times.
1:51:48
[SPEAKER_02]: What are you doing to find joy?
1:51:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I definitely find joy in art, you know, whether it's a wacky y'all comic like this like this Captain America story or there's a lot of fantastic TV shows that are on that have been really good to get kind of really immersed in.
1:52:01
[SPEAKER_00]: 2025 is a great year for movies as well.
1:52:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, you know, there's there's art that's being put out by like great, you know, queer creators that are like, you know, kind of like them bearing their souls and really talking about issues that matter to us.
1:52:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I know if the internet is obsessed with huge rivalry for good reason, that's felt like a great escape from the madness of the real world.
1:52:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen it yet, it's on my list.
1:52:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I've only got it, it's very good.
1:52:21
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so great, it's so produced.
1:52:22
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:23
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:24
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:25
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:27
[SPEAKER_02]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching the pit, it's so produced.
1:52:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been watching the
1:52:33
[SPEAKER_02]: It's so smartly acted in film, I'm really impressed with it.
1:52:37
[SPEAKER_02]: Really, really enjoying that journey.
1:52:39
[SPEAKER_02]: You and I are new friends, Josh, I respect you a lot.
1:52:43
[SPEAKER_02]: I think your sense of determinism, your optimism, the reality and realness that you approach the world with.
1:52:50
[SPEAKER_02]: And just the presence that you create for yourself, the space you carve out.
1:52:52
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm really glad we're friends and I can't wait to hang out in a few weeks.
1:52:56
[SPEAKER_02]: But it's going to be great.
1:52:57
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you very much, Chad.
1:52:58
[SPEAKER_02]: Alright everybody, please take care of yourselves as we are continuing to speak truth and have these silly conversations about serious topics.
1:53:06
[SPEAKER_02]: I hope you are finding joy and education in these things.
1:53:09
[SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you're paying attention to history in the world around you, but taking care of yourself along the way.
1:53:13
[SPEAKER_02]: Living joyfully is an act of defiance as a reminder always.
1:53:17
[SPEAKER_02]: Thanks everyone for listening.
1:53:18
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you Josh.
1:53:18
[SPEAKER_02]: We will see you all back here next week on Animal Kingdom.
1:53:22
[SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
1:53:24
[SPEAKER_02]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
1:53:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
1:53:36
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1:53:43
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1:53:48
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1:53:51
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1:53:59
[SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.