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Milestone Book Club #44 - Long Hot Summer Part One · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

• 0:00
  Marcus: Thank you, Dad.
• 0:02
  Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels and the Milestone Book Club. I'm joined by the brothers Anderson, no relation.
• 0:12
  Tad Eggleston: And we're getting into, the long, hot summer.
• 0:17
  Tad Eggleston: In Milestone Compendium 4. How's it going, guys? And, what'd you think of the stories?
• 0:24
  Ted: It's… interesting… sorry, I just kind of jumped in, but, like, it's an interesting thing. I don't… this is one of the times, as with a lot of other stuff in Milestone, I would be fascinated to be a fly on the wall figuring out what…
• 0:37
  Ted: like… where they were at, like, I mean, knowing that this is kind of the last…
• 0:44
  Ted: big thing for Milestone. And I don't know to what degree did they know that going in, because some of their series end in the Long Hot Summer. Like, Cobalt…
• 0:54
  Ted: ends as part of Long Hot Summer. Did they kind of know going in that this was going to be…
• 1:01
  Ted: the end of Milestone as we knew it at the time, or were they still thinking it was gonna be…
• 1:07
  Ted: something else beyond this. I don't… I mean, I genuinely don't know, and I don't… It's…
• 1:14
  Ted: It's frustrating, because, yeah, I like this a lot as a story.
• 1:17
  Ted: As a part of, like, oh, this is…
• 1:20
  Ted: not the end of Milestone, because obviously it came back, although not in the ways we wanted it, but, like, not as much as we wanted it, anyway. Like, I wonder just what they knew at the time, like, were they aware this is gonna be it, or what? So…
• 1:34
  Ted: Yeah, I don't know, I like it a lot as a story, but… I'm…
• 1:38
  Ted: I would love to know the meta story of it, you know?
• 1:42
  Marcus: Yeah, I mean, that's interesting. I just, you know, I really enjoyed it. I famously am not the biggest proponent of events
• 1:52
  Marcus: But I feel like, for me, for me, if you're gonna do one, this makes sense. Interestingly enough.
• 2:00
  Marcus: It's because, you know, I think one of the things about the events that drive me crazy is that you'll have… you'll have certain threads in other events, but you'll have certain threads that you're following in your favorite books, you know, and then the events, like, forget all that, like, there's no time because…
• 2:14
  Marcus: the multiverse is expanding, or whatever, you know what I mean? But, like, this… I feel like this is the ideal way to do it, and I mean, I'm probably biased, obviously, because I have a lot of critiques about
• 2:28
  Marcus: institutional racism and, you know, gentrification and the deliberate nature of it, you know, and how it's violent. Like, it really is. Like, sometimes, you know what's interesting is, like, sometimes, people that don't get it when…
• 2:47
  Marcus: you are speaking critically about gentrification, it'll be like, what's the big deal? They're putting in some, cool coffee shops in there, or whatever, or… but it's like, it's not that.
• 2:59
  Ted: Clearing out old buildings, or whatever.
• 3:02
  Marcus: Yeah, it's so… there… there is…
• 3:06
  Marcus: it is… gentrification is a violent act, and I encourage anybody who is genuinely curious but doesn't necessarily know about it to, with an open mind, go and seek out information about that. You know, it would take more time than what we have today. But I will say that, you know, honestly.
• 3:24
  Marcus: This isn't bad for a primer on it, in the sense that,
• 3:28
  Marcus: you know, you really see it impacting the characters, some characters we're just meeting, and some characters that we've been with, like, you know, Rocket's mom,
• 3:40
  Marcus: Who's lost her job, her business, and her home.
• 3:45
  Marcus: And so I think it's good, but I guess just without getting too deep into it, just to answer your question you had asked Tad.
• 3:53
  Marcus: I… I enjoyed it, and, I think it works for me. It might… it doesn't necessarily… I don't have my same issues that I have with a lot of events, because you do still see, like, for instance, in the Bloods Syndicate, issue.
• 4:06
  Marcus: They didn't drop all of the interpersonal threads that are going on, but it's kind of like this, utopia…
• 4:14
  Marcus: Which is Utopia Park, which is the big park that's,
• 4:20
  Marcus: you know, displacing so many people in Dakota, it's kind of, like, literally hanging over everybody's head. Yeah. Kind of regardless where you are in the city, and so it's kind of… it plays into the story, and it's kind of a thread, but it doesn't totally derail the individual
• 4:36
  Marcus: Characters and storylines.
• 4:38
  Ted: That's the thing of it, like, this feels like… I mean, I think we've talked about it, I also dislike how events will just kind of come in and wreck everything, and you just kind of have to step back for a little bit. And I feel like this works really well, because it ties in with so many of the existing
• 4:54
  Ted: themes and ideas that are already present in all the Milestone books about, yeah, this… this up-and-coming… not up-and-coming, this modern city, this very diverse city, how are they dealing with the pressures of, you know, superheroes, but also some of those superheroes are gangbangers? How are they, you know, what's… what are the… what are the unique…
• 5:13
  Ted: The backgrounds of these superheroes and, like, what they bring to it, that affects everything, and as, you know, conversely, is also affected by the city environments and, like.
• 5:25
  Ted: what are… how Dakota shapes them. Yeah, it's… it feels very natural, as a… as a part.
• 5:32
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and… And, like, there's been the oligarch in Alva the whole.
• 5:38
  Ted: Yeah.
• 5:38
  Tad Eggleston: So, like, there's always been the thread of… Haves versus have-nots.
• 5:45
  Ted: Yeah.
• 5:46
  Tad Eggleston: Who does the government actually serve and… and… like…
• 5:53
  Tad Eggleston: The heroes sometimes serve, you know?
• 5:56
  Ted: Yes, that's my…
• 5:57
  Tad Eggleston: Heroes tend towards upholding the law, but sometimes the law itself is what's unjust.
• 6:06
  Ted: Yeah, that's… one of my favorite threads has been Icon design, you know, coming in and showing for Utopia Park, which I feel like is a little bit undercut in that, like, oh, he knows… was… okay, remind me, though, was that, like, was there… there wasn't, like, a prophecy thing, but there was something where, like, he was.
• 6:23
  Marcus: With Icon?
• 6:24
  Ted: I… Yeah.
• 6:25
  Marcus: back, so I went back to… Oh, good. I vaguely remembered it, but I did go back for that same reason, to kind of, like, really just, brush up on what his motivations was. And what it was, was, remember…
• 6:39
  Marcus: Previously, when Icon had gone back to his homeworld, you know, he realized… he came to learn that the Earth was being put on trial. Humanity was being put on trial, and…
• 6:51
  Marcus: He had to go deal with oblivion, and so he did. They, like, granted him, like, a stay of trial or whatever, so he could go deal with Oblivion. And when he was about to come back home, the,
• 7:07
  Marcus: I was gonna say.
• 7:08
  Ted: funeral.
• 7:08
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, whoever, yeah, the tribunal, let's just say that, for lack of better words. They, reached out, radioed him, basically, and were like, hey, we need you to chill there for a minute, this…
• 7:23
  Marcus: this… what's going on with Utopia Park could essentially be a great…
• 7:29
  Marcus: proving ground, one way or the other, for if, the Earth
• 7:34
  Marcus: proves itself worthy, if humanity proves itself worthy, how it plays out. Interestingly enough.
• 7:39
  Marcus: I… I… that… that was interesting to me, because I'm like, huh, like, are they just, like, not getting it? Because, A, they come from… if I remember correctly, I feel like Icon's Homeworld, while it might not have been perfect, it's, like, far more utopian than ours.
• 7:56
  Ted: Basically perfect, yeah.
• 7:57
  Marcus: Yeah, exactly. So… so it's interesting because they… it made me wonder, like, A, were they, like… because they seemed… they were pushing him to push Utopia. Maybe they were just being very literal, being like.
• 8:13
  Ted: Yeah, cool.
• 8:13
  Marcus: Utopia, so…
• 8:15
  Ted: place, just like Utopia in general, man, come on, yeah.
• 8:18
  Marcus: Yeah, so it's interesting, or is it just that they were being super literal, or were they… What I suspected was maybe just, I think, without,
• 8:29
  Marcus: being.
• 8:30
  Tad Eggleston: Well, the thing.
• 8:30
  Marcus: the irrational fires of our… sorry, real quick, without being in the irrational fires of our humanity and our Earth, maybe you just wouldn't even have perspective on.
• 8:43
  Tad Eggleston: Well, did they specifically say that Utopia Park needed to go through, or that Utopia Park and how it played out, would be something that would affect.
• 8:54
  Marcus: Good.
• 8:54
  Tad Eggleston: Our judgment, because… can be two very different things. Right.
• 8:59
  Marcus: To answer your question, they.
• 9:02
  Tad Eggleston: And I don't typically…
• 9:04
  Marcus: Yeah, no, I just checked on it, like, literally a few days ago. So they… what they asked Icon to do was what he ended up doing. Because you remember, we learned that, basically, the mayor is, is his ex, and… Right. And she… she was like, hey, boo, like,
• 9:23
  Marcus: you know, essentially, like, you know, would you do me this solid and back Utopia Park?
• 9:30
  Marcus: blah blah blah. Because the, the governor had just reached out to her, and really leaned on her. And so, and Icon kept it classy, and he was like, I'm not gonna do that for you. So he left, and then he, I think he was getting ready to go home, and that's when he got the message. So then he was like, alright.
• 9:48
  Marcus: I'll come back, and I'll… Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 9:51
  Ted: But not for you, just in general.
• 9:53
  Tad Eggleston: So maybe the aliens aren't that cool, but it's still better if they don't blow up the Earth.
• 9:59
  Marcus: But they just… yeah, go ahead, sorry.
• 10:01
  Ted: No, it's just, it's something… I feel like I've mentioned this before, but it was a friend of mine who was recently reaching some Milestone 2, and he made the really interesting point that, like, so Icahn is a conservative, like, he was very specifically written to be, you know, a black Republican.
• 10:14
  Ted: In some ways. And that fits with his character, because if you think about it, he comes from a place where everything's already perfect. You know, they don't have money, they don't, you know, they can clone you from, you know, a single cell or whatever and bring your memories back. Like, things are already as good as they could possibly be on his world, so he has a very…
• 10:33
  Ted: conservative mindset of, like, yeah, like, we should do what the government tells us to do.
• 10:39
  Ted: Like, everything's already as good as it should possibly be. He's also, you know, looking back at, like, yeah, I want things to go back to how they were, for me, really.
• 10:49
  Ted: And also, like, his society, it's… it's perfect in the sense that, like, it no longer has to change, you know? So there's a… there's a through-line there of, like, yeah, it makes perfect sense that they're like, yeah, you're evolving, you're becoming better people by tearing out all these dirty old buildings, or whatever. They don't say that, but, like.
• 11:08
  Ted: There's a through line of, yes, any sort of, you know, progression towards a more perfect world is inherently a good thing, and we say what perfect is because it is becoming more orderly, and it's…
• 11:20
  Marcus: Are you… are you… sorry, just real quick, I want to understand, are you talking about, like, that's the view of, of Icahn's people back on his… his planet?
• 11:28
  Ted: Yeah, they're very… well, both. I mean, an icon's own view is colored somewhat… that's… if that was a…
• 11:35
  Ted: His own view is shaped somewhat by Earth's politics. But, like, you know, we got that in that issue where he said… where, you know, he pointed out that, like, yeah, we got the Civil Rights Act, everything was basically fixed, and the fact that it wasn't sort of didn't shake his confidence enough.
• 11:52
  Marcus: Yeah, can I… He basically sent him into…
• 11:54
  Ted: Yeah, sorry.
• 11:55
  Marcus: Well, so just… I've found myself increasingly, over the years, actually, amongst other Black comic comic readers, like, becoming more and more of an icon defender, and…
• 12:08
  Ted: say, this is not me, like, attacking Icon as a character.
• 12:09
  Marcus: No, it's not even about a… yeah, it's not even a matter of attack. I think it's just a few points I would just add to it that make it a little more complicated. I would say when you enter…
• 12:19
  Marcus: his life in Icon Issue 1, that's absolutely the case, you know what I mean? I think the thing that… and a lot of people misread this, and I think when I have these debates with other Black people, it's because we obviously have skin in the game.
• 12:37
  Marcus: as far as, and, you know, a lot of us aren't super crazy about people that are like, hey man, it's all good, Martin marched.
• 12:47
  Marcus: Like, you know, just sit down and, you know, Calvin's got a job. I don't know, that's a deep cut. It's not a deep cut for black people, but I don't know if you guys get that one.
• 12:58
  Ted: I do not, but I'm curious how…
• 13:00
  Marcus: You guys don't remember.
• 13:01
  Tad Eggleston: McDonald's?
• 13:02
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, the Calvin McDonald's commercial in the 80s.
• 13:05
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
• 13:05
  Marcus: Yeah, yeah, no, this was… I would say, I feel like being a man of middle age and having seen a lot… this is a quick tangent… I feel like that was the moment when McDonald's was like, yo, let's.
• 13:19
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, I actually…
• 13:20
  Marcus: standard to Black people. But they did it in a way that was not satisfactory to anybody, and actually has become a decades-long running joke amongst Black people.
• 13:31
  Tad Eggleston: Wasn't it the reference for the burger joint in here?
• 13:35
  Ted: Burger Fool?
• 13:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that we just ran.
• 13:39
  Marcus: I don't… I don't think so. Why, do they have a commercial?
• 13:44
  Tad Eggleston: Well, they did… they didn't have a commercial, but they had the… the… the…
• 13:48
  Tad Eggleston: Get your job at Burger Joint, get…
• 13:50
  Marcus: Oh, maybe. Yeah, there may be.
• 13:52
  Tad Eggleston: That's a franchise, but then…
• 13:54
  Ted: Yeah.
• 13:55
  Tad Eggleston: happened.
• 13:55
  Ted: narrative.
• 13:55
  Tad Eggleston: No, we have absolutely no problem getting rid of you, because it's.
• 13:58
  Marcus: Oh, okay. No, no, that's interesting. Yeah, I overlooked that. But real quick, the quick point I was making about Icon is that it's a really…
• 14:07
  Tad Eggleston: That's what I thought it was,
• 14:08
  Marcus: No, no, no, that's a… that's actually a good… that's a good point. I didn't… I didn't think about that, because the Calvin commercial was so on-the-nose, in the sense of, like, they went out of their way…
• 14:19
  Marcus: show a lot of young Black teenagers and young Black men not doing anything, and then Calvin was different, and he got a job. But then I think as the commercials went on, he did seem to move up the ranks. So it does kind of line up with what you're saying. And actually.
• 14:36
  Marcus: Knowing Milestone that… and the timing of these issues, that makes a lot of sense, that, it could be critiquing that.
• 14:45
  Marcus: But what I was gonna say about Icon, I'll be brief, is just that, when we enter in Issue 1, that's absolutely the case, right? And… but it's even more so, and I think this is where, like, Icon doesn't get a fair shake sometimes, is that…
• 15:00
  Marcus: he's been growing continually. And he… he backslides or is wrong about something, but it's his genuine, you know.
• 15:11
  Marcus: love and partnership with… with Rocket that…
• 15:15
  Ted: Yeah.
• 15:16
  Marcus: He's willing to learn, be challenged, and grow. And, you know, to be quite honest, when I think about, a lot of people of marginalized groups.
• 15:27
  Marcus: They go against their best interests and become, you know, Republicans. They don't even do it halfway. Sometimes they Republican harder than…
• 15:36
  Marcus: other Republicans, because they… they gotta prove themselves amongst… amongst the Republican pack. So my point is, they don't usually take kindly to their ideas being challenged, or their worldview being challenged, and that's always been something ICON's been willing to do, even to the extent… to the point of saying no to backing Utopia Gardens. And if you… if you… this is getting a little ahead of, in the,
• 16:01
  Marcus: arc we just read, but when Rocket is rightfully confronting him about having backed it, he basically tells her that he has his own reasons, and just trusts her… and basically trusts him…
• 16:16
  Marcus: there are, like, really serious reasons, and the reasons being Earth could be…
• 16:21
  Ted: Yeah, there's…
• 16:22
  Marcus: disjudged or destroyed, you know what I mean? Like, this is, like, world-level things.
• 16:28
  Marcus: And… but he can't tell her, you know what I mean? So, it's not even like he's… he's like…
• 16:33
  Marcus: Yeah, Utopia Gardens is great, and I'm all good with the placement. And the last, last point I'll make, I'll make this point super quick, is that,
• 16:42
  Marcus: the Milestone creators, and Dwayne McDuffie in particular, they know their history, they know their arcs of history, and, you know, these books are being written in the early to mid-90s, and, you know, so that's still in the window of…
• 16:59
  Marcus: the illusion of the post-civil rights movement, and all of the…
• 17:08
  Marcus: the lies and ideas that were being spread that, like, we made it, you know what I mean? Even though, like, for a lot of Black people looking around, we're like, no, we didn't, you know what I mean? But then… but then even… but it gets more complicated, though, because we did have…
• 17:22
  Marcus: internal debates, and still do, about, like, if it's…
• 17:28
  Marcus: you know, how much work needs to be done and what needs to be done, how much racism and institutional racism impacts our life. So, ICON is a reflection of that. He's a reflection of these times, and if you think about it, that post-Civil Rights Movement was a breeding ground for… while Black Republicans may not be
• 17:47
  Marcus: any type of, majority amongst us, they…
• 17:51
  Marcus: there were certainly more, I would say, during that era, because that era kind of…
• 17:56
  Marcus: if you were willing to buy into that narrative, and you're like, oh, I got, you know, I've got mines, you know, you can… you can buy that lie, you know, as long as you don't, like, look too deep and scratch too deep beneath the surface. So I would say Icon was that. And the one other thing, sorry, I could talk all day long about this.
• 18:15
  Marcus: So if you think about his history, and this is where I always challenge people that are like, he's just a conservative shill, you know, and a sellout. It's like, no, he literally was on the front lines of the Underground Railroad, and he got his hands dirty in the fight for, you know, racial justice and struggle,
• 18:38
  Marcus: And I forget the exact… well, I know it was grief. Grief played a large part.
• 18:43
  Marcus: in him chilling out, you know, on his fire, per se. But, like, so my point is.
• 18:51
  Marcus: he hasn't even always been a conservative. It's almost like he sees the relativity of being a Black person that's, like, hundreds of years old, you know what I mean? So, he's like, dawg, I remember, like, being in shackles, and I remember, you know.
• 19:11
  Marcus: things that, in a relative sense, you're like, oh, okay, it really is better now. But, like… and then to go from all that to being, like, wealthy, and being able to afford a lifestyle where you don't have the ills.
• 19:25
  Marcus: of society right up in your face all the time, it's easy to forget things. So I think it… I think Icon is… he's a pretty fascinating character, and I think that,
• 19:35
  Marcus: it's way more complicated and a very… and way more interesting than if he was just, like, a really conservative person, which I know wasn't your… your point, but I just think it's always important to put out there, because…
• 19:48
  Ted: Yeah.
• 19:49
  Marcus: I feel like a lot of people miss the…
• 19:51
  Marcus: what they're doing with the character, and also the interplay between him and Rocket.
• 19:56
  Ted: Yeah, and that is, I mean, that's the whole point that Rocket is, like, such an equal part of the book. And frankly, one of the things that bugs me that I'm glad they finally fixed it, they brought it back, is that it's icon and Rocket.
• 20:05
  Marcus: Right.
• 20:06
  Ted: Which I think is always really important that she's an equal part of this story.
• 20:10
  Ted: bigger character. But yeah, I… I mean, it is… I mean…
• 20:15
  Ted: Yeah, in the narrative, his mind largely changes as a result of finally going back home and seeing everything, and sort of…
• 20:21
  Ted: and also having met Rocket, and, you know, not just having witnessed the quote-unquote victories of the Civil Rights Movement, but also everything that happened after the victories of the Civil Rights Movement. That, I mean…
• 20:34
  Ted: That's… yeah, that's a big part of it, and he is meant to be in the wrong. Like, we've talked about this. He is… he is meant to be challenged by Rocket and occasionally admits
• 20:43
  Ted: Oh, yeah, crap, you're right. And also, I mean, his views are more nuanced. I mean, there was the whole abortion issue, where he is like, yeah, no, I'm, you know, this is your decision, I'm not taking it away from you. Here's my experience, but…
• 20:56
  Ted: don't… you know, I… obviously, this is not my decision to make. So, yeah, there's… there's a lot that makes him… he's not…
• 21:03
  Ted: Yeah, this is not some Uncle Tom shit. He's not… he's not, like… yeah, I don't even know if that's a phrase I should be using, but you know what I mean.
• 21:11
  Ted: But yeah, I think it's important that he is initially, and still to a degree, more conservative as a hero than…
• 21:20
  Ted: Than other heroes, but that's…
• 21:23
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 21:23
  Ted: Yeah, I mean, I also… this is… I mean, this is interesting. I looked it up, first of all, the Calvin got a Job thing. That was, like, 1990 and 1992 were the sort of big pushes of that, so yeah, that's… I… I had never seen those commercials. I'm gonna watch them, I was not aware of it.
• 21:37
  Marcus: Oh yeah, they're on YouTube. Also, also, Chappelle Show also, also revisited at a certain point.
• 21:43
  Ted: Really? Oh, wow.
• 21:44
  Marcus: You'll find that, too, after you watch the commercial.
• 21:46
  Ted: That's… I mean, that's interesting. I have a vague interest in, like…
• 21:50
  Ted: How different, you know, how advertising starts reaching out to
• 21:55
  Ted: people from various marginalized groups, and of course in America that's largely black people, and, like, the different ways in which it's…
• 22:03
  Ted: Like, at what point various companies try to reach out to different markets in order to, you know, spread… spread their influence and get more money, and, like, what…
• 22:12
  Ted: What is seen as… I mean, I think of, like, the famous example of, of,
• 22:18
  Ted: is it Levi's or Levy's Bread, where it was, you know, they had this advertising campaign in, like, the 70s that was, you don't have to be Jewish to enjoy Levy's Bread, or Levi's Bread.
• 22:28
  Marcus: I think I've heard some, yeah.
• 22:29
  Ted: Yeah, that's a… it wasn't exactly the same thing, but the idea is you see all these people who are, you know, very…
• 22:35
  Ted: clearly, to the eye, not Jewish, including, like, you know, black kids or whatever, biting into a sandwich with a great big smile on their face, or whatever. And, like, that's sort of offensive now, but in a way, it's also not, because it's like, hey, you… everybody likes this bread, because it's so… it's… it's one of those things you're like, oh, that's a product of its time.
• 22:54
  Ted: it's a little bit weird, but I guess it comes from the… from a good place? So…
• 23:00
  Marcus: But yeah.
• 23:00
  Ted: Yeah, I… sorry, that was also going way off tangent, but, like, again, you're… I mean, you're right that Icon is… is more complex of a character than just being a black… a black Republican…
• 23:11
  Ted: Superman. And also, I mean, again.
• 23:15
  Marcus: I don't even know if he would identify as such right now. Maybe he would, but like, yeah.
• 23:19
  Ted: Yeah. He… I mean, the… when I think of him as being more conservative of a character, I mean that in a very…
• 23:27
  Ted: Not with the capitals.
• 23:28
  Marcus: C. Yeah.
• 23:29
  Ted: Yeah, not a partisan sense, but just in the sense that, like, yeah, he's.
• 23:32
  Marcus: I was leaning.
• 23:33
  Ted: Yeah, he looks backwards for very specific reasons, in very specific ways that don't always line up with… yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember as a kid reading… I had a bunch of,
• 23:42
  Ted: Dunesbury Collections as a kid, or I've gone through some of the old Doomsbury Collections, and there were some characters… this is, like, around the same time, this would have been early 90s. I don't remember the character names, I don't remember, sort of, what their connection was. It might have been, like, Mike's Old Students…
• 23:56
  Ted: or one of his friends from college, grows up to be, like, a cookie magnate. Like, he, you know, he's a black kid who grew up to own this company that makes, you know, essentially Oreos or all sorts of stuff. And one of, sort of, the… not jokes, but one of the elements of his character is that he and his wife had completely opposite views on, affirmative action.
• 24:14
  Ted: Of whether it's, you know, helping us get a leg up when we've been put down for so long, or giving us an unfair advantage that we don't really need and we should be able to prove ourselves. And that… the fact that that was the debate that was, you know, defining these characters, I thought was interesting.
• 24:31
  Ted: for… again, this would have been early 90s, I don't remember the specifics, but just… again, white kid from the suburbs being exposed to that, it's like, oh yeah, people can have different ideas about this shit, I guess.
• 24:42
  Ted: To put it crudely.
• 24:44
  Ted: Yeah.
• 24:45
  Marcus: I'd have to… it's interesting you mention that, because I, I think about… every now… every now and then when Doonesbury comes up, I think about, like, revisiting it from an adult perspective, because I remember…
• 24:57
  Marcus: the… I remember I was heavy into Bloom County, which, you know, also would go back and forth between stuff that, as a kid, you just could get it, and then… but sometimes, like, you know, political stuff and things, where… or current events or whatever, but Dunesbury was, like, even more so…
• 25:14
  Ted: Extremely, yeah.
• 25:15
  Marcus: Yeah, so it would be interesting to read it as an adult. I just haven't revisited it.
• 25:20
  Ted: Oh, yeah, well, and hey, when I was a kid, my dad had a huge interest in a couple old cartoon comic strips, including Pogo, from, like, the 50s, 60s, 70s, which was…
• 25:31
  Ted: Sometimes very specifically political, and sometimes in less so, but, like, it had a very…
• 25:38
  Ted: it was profoundly political in some really interesting ways that really kind of stuck with me to be reading something that was also about politics that were very far removed, in some ways, from my day-to-day experience, because he was making fun of politicians that, you know, from my perspective, had been dead for 20 years, and I was 9, so…
• 25:55
  Ted: Anyway, sorry, we're getting way off topic here. But yeah, I mean, this… this… the whole Utopia Park…
• 26:01
  Ted: you know, storyline idea is tailor-made for this, for having all these different contradictions of, well, is it good for Dakota? In what ways could it be good? You know, what… what… who are the people being affected? And I think…
• 26:13
  Ted: The way that the actual Long Hot Summer miniseries starts, where it's just sort of following a few seemingly random people around Dakota.
• 26:24
  Ted: is really smart, where, like, that first issue of the miniseries specifically, it hits on… I forget who specifically shows up, like, of the superhero cast.
• 26:34
  Marcus: Yeah, I think we get, sorry, I have it in front of me.
• 26:37
  Ted: Yeah, I…
• 26:38
  Marcus: Well, first, yeah, first we meet, like, what, like, Lester and…
• 26:43
  Ted: The fact that we meet Lester, the guy who owned the Burger Fool franchise, because that's very clearly telling us, hey, this is a story about, like, the people of Dakota, not just the superheroes in it.
• 26:54
  Marcus: So, sorry, I annoyed.
• 26:55
  Ted: left on you immediately.
• 26:56
  Marcus: No, no, no, it's all good, it's all good, yeah. Yeah, so you had that, you had, let's see, I think…
• 27:02
  Marcus: Well, Icon definitely shows up, and then there's also… because, yeah, because Icon…
• 27:09
  Marcus: He's talking to the mayor, oh yeah, and then you have those two young kids…
• 27:15
  Marcus: And they're called the Shock Jock guy. Yeah, yeah.
• 27:18
  Ted: Yeah, oh, that's right, they call the not-Howard Stern character.
• 27:22
  Marcus: Right, right. Who I would say ends up…
• 27:25
  Marcus: It's just being more reasonable than Howard Stern.
• 27:28
  Ted: And also, like, a revolutionary guy.
• 27:30
  Marcus: He was able… I don't think you would be able to compel Howard Stern to take over.
• 27:35
  Ted: Throw a Molotov.
• 27:36
  Marcus: Or even, yeah, or even to just be on the right side of history, yeah.
• 27:39
  Ted: Yeah, fair.
• 27:41
  Ted: But yeah, like, that first issue of Long Hot Summer proper, the miniseries, really gets into…
• 27:48
  Ted: like, or not gets into, but just shows this broad spectrum of, you know, what are people interested in? What is the… what is… what is Utopia Park doing to everybody?
• 27:59
  Ted: not just our superhero pals, although they're a big part of it, too. And I love, like, you know, the whole idea of the CEO of Lucky Cola being like, hey, those Blood Syndicate guys, they're hot right now, what if we ask them to be…
• 28:10
  Ted: spokesman for our… for our cola. Like, that's…
• 28:14
  Marcus: Yeah, can I say one thing about that?
• 28:16
  Ted: Oh, please.
• 28:17
  Marcus: That… I think that's pretty ingenious. I think it speaks to… it speaks to the ways in which, you know, a lot of times, people outside
• 28:27
  Marcus: of Blackness, just are like, oh, the solutions are so easy, they're just… they just didn't have me to tell them to do the solutions, you know what I mean?
• 28:37
  Marcus: And they're like, clearly, if I go in there with a stun gun or whatever, you know what I mean?
• 28:44
  Ted: full of money.
• 28:45
  Marcus: Yeah, the Blood Syndicate's gonna jump at it, because they're, you know, we've talked many times about…
• 28:52
  Marcus: the… how interesting It is to, posit
• 28:58
  Marcus: you know, Blood Syndicate as having received superpowers, but not instantly being like, oh, we're gonna be superheroes, they're like a superpower gang. And you know, sometimes they do right, sometimes it's in between, and sometimes they do wrong. But the point is, like, one of the things we talked about a lot is the… the…
• 29:16
  Marcus: familial, the ways in which, like, gangs in general, like, good or bad.
• 29:23
  Marcus: fundamentally began and operate as a replacement for family, or a stand-in for family, for people where maybe their families are broken, maybe their community is broken, or whatever, and they need security, they need numbers, you know what I mean? And, like, so, of course, the COLA CEO
• 29:42
  Marcus: she doesn't get that. You know, she's obviously…
• 29:45
  Marcus: So she just thinks, oh yeah, I'm just gonna go in and they're gonna do what I want, because I'm rich, and I'm me, and I, I've worked for people like her, so, you know.
• 29:54
  Marcus: And, yeah, so I think it's fascinating that she just thought she was gonna roll up in there, and you know, she fundamentally doesn't get…
• 30:02
  Marcus: what Blood Syndicate's code is, like, who they are, and she just thinks that she'll be able to mold them, basically.
• 30:09
  Ted: I wasn't.
• 30:09
  Marcus: I mean, it doesn't go that way, basically.
• 30:11
  Ted: Yeah, well, so I do have to say, I was a little disappointed at how quickly she was killed, and also that she was killed by Boogeyman, who was sort of…
• 30:19
  Ted: I mean, not to say that he's the least involved, he is, like, the one white member of the gang, which I think is not insignificant to his character.
• 30:27
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 30:27
  Ted: Very abrupt that they just kind of cut off that black thread.
• 30:31
  Marcus: That's a great point, but do… do we know for sure that she's dead? That's okay.
• 30:36
  Ted: Okay, also fair, because she was… the gun she had, it's unclear if it was a gun or, like, a stun thing, or whatever, so…
• 30:41
  Marcus: Yeah, cause he… because what happens… I'm looking at the pages now, right? Like, she… she has the gun, she, shoots Boogeyman with it.
• 30:51
  Ted: She shoots a rat, and then he's like, hey, how dare you shoot a rat.
• 30:53
  Marcus: That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then he grabs it, and, he's… he goes, goddamn cattle prod. Like, which to me is that, like, alright, it's not like,
• 31:04
  Ted: It's not… High caliber.
• 31:05
  Marcus: weapon or something, and he does shoot her in the back when she falls, and he slashes Lester, but then he just decides to have mercy on him. He sees his, St. Christopher thing.
• 31:17
  Ted: Oh, the metal, yeah. I might have misunderstood then, because I thought… I thought he straight up just killed her, which would have felt really… both uncharacteristic for Boogeyman, and also, like, kind of cutting off a potentially interesting plot thread. Not that I would have expected the Blood Syndicate as characters to go along with it, but, like…
• 31:34
  Ted: the debate over it, I thought, would have been interesting, so…
• 31:38
  Marcus: Yeah, I said, you know, I'm gonna… well, we'll read ahead, and we'll see if she survives. I interpreted it as she might have survived, but I don't know.
• 31:47
  Ted: No, it's possible, you're right. I did, I did kind of assume that she didn't, I don't know. I also, I mean…
• 31:52
  Tad Eggleston: I kind of did too, but… but I…
• 31:54
  Ted: It's… yeah.
• 31:55
  Tad Eggleston: Didn't like her, so, you know…
• 31:58
  Ted: Well, I didn't like her either, but she's, you know.
• 31:59
  Tad Eggleston: I might have been wishing interesting.
• 32:02
  Ted: She's a potentially interesting character, you know? She plays an interesting… she could play, or could have played, I don't know.
• 32:10
  Tad Eggleston: No, but, like, I'm gonna say that one of the things I like about Milestone that I wish we saw more of is sometimes they don't…
• 32:22
  Tad Eggleston: They don't fuck around?
• 32:24
  Ted: Like…
• 32:26
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, really? She could potentially be an interesting character, we say, thinking of James Bond villains. Yeah, okay.
• 32:34
  Ted: I mean, she's not like a… she's…
• 32:37
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, she's not quite a James Bond villain, but at the same time, like…
• 32:42
  Tad Eggleston: She's completely, transparently not out for their best interests, and, like…
• 32:49
  Tad Eggleston: They're… fighting for their survival right now, so why would they fuck around with her?
• 32:55
  Ted: That's… I mean, yes, like, it does make sense, sort of narratively.
• 32:59
  Tad Eggleston: But it's also… I don't know, I always… I mean, it's kind of like, even though it wasn't what was originally scripted, it's so… the most brilliant scene
• 33:09
  Tad Eggleston: or among the most brilliant scenes in Raiders of the Lost Ark is when the guy comes out, swinging the sword, and doing all fancy stuff, and Andy just goes.
• 33:19
  Tad Eggleston: I don't got time for this.
• 33:21
  Ted: Yeah.
• 33:22
  Ted: I mean, true, I can't deny that it is sort of in keeping with a lot of…
• 33:28
  Tad Eggleston: I mean, with everything going on, like, they just… they don't have time to even entertain the idea of being the spokespeople for a fucking cola.
• 33:42
  Ted: Right, it's not like I thought they would do that as characters. I mean, like, the Blood Syndicate are very much the embodiment of, no, fuck you, as characters. Right. In a positive sense, but like, you know, that's the whole reason they kind of…
• 33:55
  Ted: helped win in Worlds Collide, is they were the ones who got slotted into trying to be, you know, the fresh, clean kids, and of course, they basically just all
• 34:05
  Ted: went…
• 34:06
  Ted: wild and broke out, and, like, that's… that's their sort of ethos as characters, like, I get that, but it is also, like… I don't know, maybe it's just me not wanting to see a potentially interesting plot thread get cut off, it's…
• 34:17
  Ted: I don't know, something.
• 34:18
  Marcus: Well, no, I mean, like, let me to be clear, like, in general, comics, movies,
• 34:25
  Marcus: TV shows. I do… it does bother me when, like, interesting characters that I'm like, oh, I'd love to see what they could do with this character die. That being said, I didn't feel that way about her.
• 34:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I didn't think she was that…
• 34:37
  Ted: Fair, but…
• 34:38
  Marcus: No, no, I think she served a role, and she shines a light in, like… Unreal dynamics that happen.
• 34:45
  Tad Eggleston: Right. No, no, no. I think what she's been so far is interesting. I don't see much interesting… Left.
• 34:55
  Marcus: Yeah, and to the point where I almost wonder, being that we know Lester is alive, like, maybe, if Lester continues to be a part of this story, maybe his story's more interesting without her and that weird, racist mother-in-law dynamic that he… she has going on.
• 35:13
  Ted: It did just kind of come out of nowhere, Drew.
• 35:15
  Marcus: The other, the other thing I was gonna say is, if you think about it.
• 35:21
  Marcus: Wise Sun has…
• 35:25
  Marcus: who is… you know, well, he's vying for… technically, Tech Nine is a leader, Tech 9 slash most likely, Masquerade is a leader, but,
• 35:36
  Marcus: But what I was gonna say is, like, Wyze has increasingly been…
• 35:41
  Marcus: like, on edge, even for himself, you know what I mean? And… and also, there's actually been many times when he's, like, threatened to end people, and he… there was some level of restraint, or the person didn't end up dying. So, I almost feel like it would be…
• 35:59
  Marcus: unrealistic. Granted, it was Boogeyman that did it, to your earlier point, but, you know, people have been messing with the syndicate, or even just kinda… so the idea of… and, like, for what it's worth.
• 36:11
  Marcus: many characters in the lead-up to this stupid plan to go recruit the Syndicate to be cola mascots were like, you're gonna die. I mean, Rob Chaplik said that. She was like.
• 36:25
  Ted: Yes, yeah.
• 36:26
  Marcus: You're gonna die. I do, also.
• 36:28
  Tad Eggleston: Right.
• 36:29
  Ted: I did also like that this was the return of Rob Chaplin, who I don't think we've seen since… God, since the first issues of… no, did.
• 36:35
  Marcus: We've seen her briefly. We've seen her briefly, yeah.
• 36:37
  Ted: But, like, for her to actually come back, because it is… it's always fun to have that outsider character come in and be treated more or less as sort of equals… not equals, but, you know, she… she… she at least is allowed to be part of the Blood Syndicate's inner workings in a way, that I always liked, so… I was… I was happy to see her come back.
• 36:56
  Marcus: Yeah, no, I agree.
• 36:57
  Ted: But yeah, I… I… I mean, I also did read ahead just to the next Blood Syndicate issue, because I really wanted to see… I was a little weirded out at how quickly they decided to just knock down the gates, and I guess it does make sense… and I think it felt abrupt because…
• 37:17
  Ted: in that issue of Long Hot Summer, we hadn't really seen the Blood Syndicate up until that point. We saw Boogeyman kill the CEO, but, like, the Blood Syndicate themselves didn't get much screen time. And so for them to just kind of show up and immediately, you know, bust the place open.
• 37:34
  Ted: felt a little abrupt, so I wanted to see how they handled it in the Blood Syndicate issue. And they did, I mean, things… things were different, you know, they… they… there's more build-up to it, there's more discussion, different characters are doing this, different characters are doing that. I had completely forgotten that
• 37:49
  Ted: Holocaust showed up and offered a job to… not offered a job, said, hey, you have to work for me, that's the price. Like, I forgot that that happened, so there's…
• 37:59
  Ted: Yeah, there's a lot of stuff I kind of lost track of in all of this. But,
• 38:04
  Ted: But yeah, I mean, this… this… whole Utopia Park plotline.
• 38:09
  Ted: like, I feel like I've been saying sort of quibbles and nitpicks, but it's so good overall at being exactly what, like, a Milestone book…
• 38:17
  Ted: event should be, because it's not tied to some giant…
• 38:21
  Ted: you know, towering, galactus-style, super-cosmic power. It's not, like, something big and outside of the universe that they've created. It's very organic. It's very street level, which is… has consistently been one of the Milestone strengths.
• 38:37
  Marcus: Ms.
• 38:38
  Ted: It's so good to see that be…
• 38:40
  Ted: like, acknowledged, and then also it's a great thing you can just slot into every book, because it affects every single character, even as small as, like you mentioned, Rocket's mom losing her job because she was the manager of that Burger Fool. And I was trying to remember, have we… had we seen before that she runs the Burger Fool where Virgil worked? Did I miss that?
• 38:59
  Tad Eggleston: I think we did.
• 39:00
  Ted: Okay, because that's great, that's such, like, the bit where then Virgil and Rock Raquel…
• 39:06
  Marcus: Hmm.
• 39:06
  Ted: are together, and he's like, hey, you look really familiar, what's going on here? They just, like, keep hinting, like, hey, do you have any hobbies where you hang out with people in.
• 39:14
  Marcus: Right, right, right. Well, and then Virgil blew up his own.
• 39:17
  Tad Eggleston: That you don't like to talk about in public?
• 39:21
  Marcus: Well, he…
• 39:22
  Ted: Well, no.
• 39:22
  Marcus: What I truly love about it is he even got himself in, even though he wasn't doing what Daisy, his girlfriend, perceived him to be doing, which was, you know, basically pushing up a rocket, like…
• 39:35
  Marcus: he, he got himself in trouble because he handled it in such an awkward teenager way. Like, like a nerdy, awkward teenager, like, trying to be, subtle, but being anything but.
• 39:49
  Ted: Yeah, no, I… I thought that was such a cute… not cute even, but just, like, fun moment of, like, oh yeah, like, they've never met outside of costume, but they have this natural connection, and I thought that was… that was played really well.
• 40:01
  Marcus: Yeah, which, which, to be honest, like, I, in one of my…
• 40:06
  Marcus: comic stories that I've just been sitting on for too long, that I… I'm going to write one day. Well, I've started writing it, but, like, actually, like, created. But that is one of the things, because I…
• 40:19
  Marcus: where, like, certain characters who just really know this, superhero character are like… that's you, right? Like, you know what I mean? Because…
• 40:29
  Marcus: it's one thing to be like, oh, you got a mask, you know, and actually, some people have brought up a good point, about, you know, obviously we all know Clark Kent.
• 40:38
  Marcus: and has the worst disguise. That being said, it would only really be a danger to people who knew both Clark and Superman, because it's, like, a big… I mean, Metropolis is, in a sense, like Manhattan, like, you know what I mean? Like, you're… Yeah. You don't…
• 40:55
  Marcus: you could see, they even did it in, Toad Fire Spider-Man, where he stopped the train, a bunch of people saw him without his mask, but they're like, they don't know who Peter Parker is, like, you know what I mean?
• 41:06
  Ted: Man, they're not gonna ever see him again, yeah.
• 41:08
  Marcus: Yeah, I mean, unless you happen to just be in his class, like, you're not gonna know Peter Parker. So my point is, I do like when, you know, superhero stories are like, oh yeah, it's not a totally bulletproof idea that you got a domino mask on or something. Like, you know what I mean? Like, some people are gonna put pieces together.
• 41:25
  Ted: There's always… there's a… there's a panel or a page that I can see floating around social media a lot, where it's… it's from some superhero… like, Superman short story, or something that was in, like, an anthology.
• 41:36
  Marcus: where he's like.
• 41:36
  Ted: talking to a teenager who figures it out, or just, like, he revealed it to him or something, and the kid's like, so what? You just never, you know, you can never take your glasses off? And he's like, no, I take my glasses off all the time. You know what people tell me? You look just like Susan.
• 41:49
  Marcus: Looked like Superman. Exactly, yeah.
• 41:51
  Ted: Because that's… that's what it is. You don't expect him to be the guy that you, you know, see on the bus every day, or whatever. Superman lives at the North Pole, or whatever, you know, it's like… Yeah.
• 42:01
  Ted: I do love that element of it, but it also… it makes a lot of sense for Dakota, where it is like, yeah, these are all people who were at the same event. Well, actually, not in this case, because Raquel wasn't there.
• 42:12
  Ted: But,
• 42:13
  Ted: But yeah, like, all those… all these characters have, or most of these characters have that… that one degree of separation in a way that I think is really…
• 42:22
  Ted: I do like that. I mean, I like that this is still a superhero universe, where people will put on masks or whatever, but also, like.
• 42:29
  Ted: People just…
• 42:30
  Ted: you know, some people just have powers, and it's just kind of like, yeah, you know, that's something I do, and not everybody is into the whole superhero thing, and I think that's really fun.
• 42:39
  Ted: But yeah, like, this… this is a lot… so we've read these first two issues of…
• 42:46
  Ted: Long Hot Summer, and then a bunch of the books around it, like Shadow Cabinet and Icon and some other ones that were, like, right around the same… I had to check, they're all organized by monthly pub date, which makes… I think is the best possible way to do it in an anthology like this.
• 43:03
  Ted: And then, we are… I mean, we have this… this…
• 43:08
  Ted: build up to the big moment at the end. I think we stopped at a really nice place, because we ended at the moment where
• 43:16
  Ted: the walls are coming down on Utopia Park, suddenly the haves, have-nots are really coming into the haves, and everything is blowing up. You know, the not Howard Stern is lighting a Molotov cocktail, which is so good.
• 43:31
  Ted: Like, I love that that's his…
• 43:33
  Ted: Ugh. But, but yeah, this is where everything starts to finally kick off, and I'm… like, I read Long Hot Summer long ago. I don't remember everything about it, but I am so pumped to see how it all plays out, because I remember there being some really fun…
• 43:50
  Ted: like, cross-through moments, you know, where some guy runs by in the background, and then it turns out, oh, that's Zombie, and he's doing his own thing. I mean, that even happens in this issue, where Zombie's coming in, and David is coming in, you know what I mean.
• 44:02
  Marcus: Yeah, good.
• 44:03
  Ted: Yeah, and Howard Stern, not Howard Stern. What is it? It's Chainsaw something? Chainsaw Mike, or whatever?
• 44:09
  Marcus: Something like that, yeah.
• 44:10
  Ted: It, you know, says, like, oh, that guy looks like a zombie over there, there's a nun with him. It's like, yeah, we get it. But I love that, because, yeah, this is the Milestone universe. Everyone's constantly bumping shoulders, like…
• 44:22
  Ted: they exist in a very, you know, tight-knit universe that I think is really fun to have everyone just kind of… yeah, they always run into each other, that's how it works. That's how Milestone is designed.
• 44:35
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 44:37
  Marcus: Yeah, it's interesting, too, because it's,
• 44:39
  Marcus: We… I think we've officially reached…
• 44:42
  Marcus: the last Blood Syndicate issue that I read. So everything in Blood Syndicate from this point on is new to me as well.
• 44:49
  Ted: Yeah, it's… I… oof, yeah, I'm trying to remember… I mean, I read it all once upon a time, but I don't…
• 44:56
  Ted: Yeah, I forget kind of what happens after. I mean, I said at the beginning that this is sort of the beginning of the end of Milestone, and that's not strictly true. Like, there's still gonna be more stuff, there's a couple more storylines, you know, they have a couple books end, but also a couple books start up, although only for a little while. Like, it's not the actual enden of Milestone, but I do…
• 45:16
  Ted: Part of me just wants to know, like, how much did they know… like, how much of the writing was on the wall at this point, you know?
• 45:22
  Ted: As morbid as that sounds, like, I'm curious. I wonder to what degree they were like, alright, well, what can we wrap up here? How do we use this event as a way to give satisfying endings to this, this, and this?
• 45:36
  Ted: And I… yeah, I don't know, I'm… I'm… I'm really curious to see… Everything about that, so…
• 45:44
  Marcus: I think as I…
• 45:46
  Marcus: I feel like I know a few… I mean, some of it's, like, a 6 degrees of separation thing, but I…
• 45:51
  Marcus: At some point, when I do have opportunities to speak to some people.
• 45:56
  Marcus: who are involved, I will… I will ask that, because I am curious.
• 46:00
  Ted: I would love to know, because it is, like, it's depressing to think about, like, yeah, these guys are, you know, watching everything they've worked for over the last 5, 6, 7 years just go down the toilet, but it's, like…
• 46:12
  Marcus: It's also part of the thesis of Milestone, though, is the shenanigans of… you know…
• 46:18
  Ted: The money guys.
• 46:18
  Marcus: The industry, yeah, and, and, yeah.
• 46:21
  Ted: It's, yeah, it's sad, but it's also like, well, that's unfortunately, you know, that…
• 46:27
  Ted: But of course, their legacy isn't over, because then, you know, Static Shock comes in, and then we get the reboots, and we get the… the other reboots, and then the other, other reboots, but that… yeah. But yeah, like, I… I…
• 46:37
  Tad Eggleston: And at least, theoretically, more static on the way.
• 46:40
  Ted: Yeah? Yeah, man, that's right. I forgot about that, too. But yeah, it's… it does just make me wonder, like, yeah, to what degree…
• 46:49
  Ted: I mean, I'm assuming Long Hot Summer have been in the works for a long time, I just wonder, yeah.
• 46:54
  Ted: What did… how much of this…
• 46:56
  Ted: was them being like, well, we gotta wrap things up, guys. Yeah, I don't know.
• 47:02
  Ted: Sorry, I'm also just looking at the clock, we're pretty much at time. Yeah. You got a whole other book club after this.
• 47:08
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I got a whole other book club to roll into.
• 47:11
  Ted: Woo!
• 47:12
  Marcus: I think we've had an interesting discussion.
• 47:13
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I think this is a good place to stop, particularly because we're in the middle of the story. So, like, this is… this is wonderful and great, but… but, like, to…
• 47:27
  Tad Eggleston: I, at least, haven't read it before, so I don't know what's coming next, so, like.
• 47:32
  Ted: Yeah.
• 47:33
  Ted: I did read it, but it was a wash.
• 47:35
  Tad Eggleston: I only have… only have the ability to talk about it that I have so far, which is…
• 47:41
  Tad Eggleston: as Marcus pointed out quite eloquently, it, it, it…
• 47:48
  Tad Eggleston: really shows the violence of gentrification. Like, I mean, I think… I think sometimes it's assumed that when… when neighborhoods are being rebuilt, that they're already empty, and that's very rarely the case.
• 48:05
  Ted: Yeah.
• 48:06
  Marcus: Which, real quick, also is a…
• 48:09
  Marcus: Direct parallel in lineage, in conversation with the way in which
• 48:14
  Marcus: the American history we were often taught also painted a picture of this country being barely occupied, you know? Right, yeah. So I just wanted to throw out that parallel as well.
• 48:23
  Ted: Lushboard.
• 48:23
  Tad Eggleston: Absolutely.
• 48:24
  Ted: fields completely uninhabited. Nobody else has lived here.
• 48:27
  Marcus: Actually, shout out, shout out to, Nate Powell, but he, his, his adaptation, you know, they get into that, his adaptation of, Lowen's, Lies My Teacher Told Me, yeah.
• 48:40
  Ted: Oh, yeah, God, yeah, hey, I got that on my library bookshelf. I encourage you to check it out.
• 48:44
  Tad Eggleston: I was actually gonna shout out another comic writer, but not one of her comic books. Eve Ewing's most recent.
• 48:53
  Marcus: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 48:55
  Tad Eggleston: Original Sins is about the miseducation of Black and Native children.
• 49:00
  Tad Eggleston: And the construction of American racism.
• 49:03
  Tad Eggleston: She does a really, really great job of, of, of… tying together
• 49:11
  Tad Eggleston: the ways in which the Black and Native communities were often treated in very similar ways, particularly in the education system.
• 49:23
  Tad Eggleston: You know, so there's… there's… there's parallels there. A lot of them.
• 49:28
  Tad Eggleston: The last question I'll ask the two of you before we roll.
• 49:33
  Tad Eggleston: Have either of you seen Megalopolis?
• 49:36
  Ted: No.
• 49:37
  Marcus: Wow.
• 49:38
  Ted: No, I had…
• 49:39
  Tad Eggleston: Well, I ask this because I… I'm… I'm on the shortlist of people who really like it, but also, I wonder if…
• 49:50
  Tad Eggleston: Coppola bread.
• 49:52
  Tad Eggleston: Milestone, because there's a… there's… there's a thread that… that… Very much.
• 49:59
  Tad Eggleston: is… In tune with the Utopia project.
• 50:09
  Tad Eggleston: So…
• 50:10
  Ted: Interesting.
• 50:10
  Marcus: Okay.
• 50:11
  Ted: I would… yeah, I'd be… I would… I personally would kind of doubt it, but his nephew did name… did change his name after a comic book character, so, you know…
• 50:20
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and Coppolis got some past with comics, and for that matter, some… I mean, I read the comic adaptation of Megalopolis before I watched the movie.
• 50:31
  Ted: God, there's… that's right, there was a comic adaptation of it. Wow.
• 50:34
  Tad Eggleston: And it's amazing.
• 50:37
  Ted: I mean, it's…
• 50:37
  Tad Eggleston: It's amazing.
• 50:39
  Ted: I'm just like, I just, I can't…
• 50:40
  Tad Eggleston: It's… it's… it's Chris Ryle and Jacob Phillips, and I talked to Chris Ryle about it, and he said it was amazing, because, like.
• 50:48
  Tad Eggleston: he got to meet with Coppola a number of times, and the biggest… the biggest note that Coppola had for him was, like.
• 50:57
  Tad Eggleston: This is your adaptation of my script.
• 51:01
  Tad Eggleston: This isn't my movie.
• 51:03
  Marcus: Yeah.
• 51:04
  Tad Eggleston: Okay.
• 51:05
  Ted: All right.
• 51:05
  Tad Eggleston: We're working.
• 51:06
  Tad Eggleston: tandem.
• 51:08
  Tad Eggleston: you know, Jacob and Chris were working at the same time he was filming.
• 51:14
  Tad Eggleston: And, like, clearly there were… there were some… some things that, you know, because a lot of the visuals wound up really similar, but… but, like, it sounds like some… a lot of that had to do with, like.
• 51:25
  Tad Eggleston: the way Francis had envisioned it in the script, as much as, you know, because they weren't, like, getting set stills, or…
• 51:34
  Tad Eggleston: Anything like that.
• 51:36
  Marcus: Boom.
• 51:37
  Ted: Alright, well, yeah.
• 51:38
  Tad Eggleston: But it definitely has that gentrification angle.
• 51:43
  Tad Eggleston: Going as well.
• 51:48
  Tad Eggleston: without knowing how it ends in the Milestone universe, I don't know how… how… how…
• 51:54
  Tad Eggleston: tight the thread is, but the whole…
• 51:57
  Ted: Yeah.
• 51:57
  Tad Eggleston: the whole.
• 51:58
  Marcus: I mean, I just…
• 51:58
  Tad Eggleston: The city of tomorrow.
• 52:01
  Marcus: Actually, the cast. I don't… I mean, if there was any inspiration, they might not have gotten as deep into the,
• 52:09
  Tad Eggleston: No, yeah.
• 52:10
  Marcus: The race on the…
• 52:11
  Tad Eggleston: Dad, I… that…
• 52:12
  Ted: I mean.
• 52:13
  Tad Eggleston: Giancarlo Esposito.
• 52:15
  Marcus: Yeah, okay, but… I mean, that's… One, and.
• 52:21
  Tad Eggleston: Well, and his daughter.
• 52:22
  Marcus: And it's Giancarlo Esposito, who is Hollywood's go-to for, over 50 black man actor with a gravitas. Like, you know what I mean? Like, and obviously there's tons of people that can.
• 52:37
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
• 52:38
  Marcus: But he's the go-to. So you actually… I'm gonna dock you a point for D'on Carlo Escondido.
• 52:44
  Tad Eggleston: That's fair.
• 52:45
  Tad Eggleston: It's totally fair!
• 52:48
  Ted: My wife John Carlos Mosito, but I know… I love him! I think he's great! Yeah, no!
• 52:52
  Marcus: I have a whole theory, I have a whole… I have a whole theory, I might do a short comic about it, where… where I tie together all of his roles, from… from bugging out in, Do the Right Thing, to Grandma Tarkin, to, Gus Fring, you know, so…
• 53:06
  Ted: Oh, yeah. And on Homicide, too?
• 53:09
  Marcus: Yup. Yeah, exactly.
• 53:10
  Tad Eggleston: Okay, okay, okay. I'm down for this.
• 53:13
  Ted: Sure.
• 53:14
  Marcus: I mean, that's like, that's like being, like, you got Denzel in your cast. It's like, yeah, but it's Denzel, like, you know what I mean? Like, you don't…
• 53:20
  Tad Eggleston: It's like.
• 53:22
  Marcus: Give me the deep cuts, like, show me the other black actors that aren't getting a shot.
• 53:26
  Tad Eggleston: they're…
• 53:26
  Ted: Give me a don't worry, Lindo.
• 53:27
  Tad Eggleston: There aren't many… many non-A-list actors Period.
• 53:34
  Marcus: Yeah, it's a stacked cast, I saw it, I saw it.
• 53:36
  Tad Eggleston: Yeah. Just… just…
• 53:38
  Marcus: Yeah, there wasn't a Delroy on there, there wasn't… but, you know, we're getting… it's cool, it's cool.
• 53:42
  Ted: Yeah.
• 53:44
  Ted: Alright.
• 53:46
  Tad Eggleston: Completely reasonable points!
• 53:49
  Tad Eggleston: They were all off making, making, the, the sinners. That's it. That's it. Oh, God. They were all in sinners.
• 53:57
  Marcus: You do not have…
• 53:58
  Tad Eggleston: You're busy!
• 53:59
  Marcus: It had an incredible cast, had an incredible cast. It did not have all the Black actors in the book. There's so many, so many people who weren't in that film, so I… that…
• 54:11
  Ted: He's got a point. He's got a point.
• 54:13
  Tad Eggleston: He does, he does, he has a very good point.
• 54:16
  Ted: I'm sorry, I'm laughing, I, like… you're 100% right, I just, I love the way that this conversation is turning.
• 54:26
  Tad Eggleston: Mark is slapping me down, because I…
• 54:29
  Marcus: No, I'm just keeping it real! Whoa. Are you painting a picture of a violent black man? I mean.
• 54:34
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no, no, no!
• 54:36
  Marcus: I remember floating with you, it's okay.
• 54:38
  Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no.
• 54:40
  Tad Eggleston: Mark is gently patting.
• 54:42
  Marcus: Meat on the head!
• 54:45
  Marcus: Wow.
• 54:46
  Tad Eggleston: saying.
• 54:47
  Marcus: Oh, no.
• 54:47
  Tad Eggleston: Oh, boy.
• 54:51
  Marcus: It's all good, y'all.
• 54:53
  Tad Eggleston: I gotta stop now before I dig my whole hole deeper for the Brothers Anderson No Relation. This has been the Milestone Book Club on 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.