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Bonus Patreon Release: Network Nina! With DG Chichester and Andre Mason! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Graham Oak and Lane Patreon channel.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm your host Chad Anderson, and I am joined by two of my favorite people, Andre Mason and D.G.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Chichester, the writer of Among Many Things, the Nick Fury Agent of Shield series, which we're going to be delving deep into from the 1990s.
• 0:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now I'm happy to have you both here.
• 0:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: This episode is going to be coming out in February for Black History Month, where we're going to be doing a lot of conversations around characters of color.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: The theme a little bit is voodoo, and network needed doesn't quite fit that theme, but Andre Mason and I were chatting a while back about GW bridge and there was a particular love of network needa That was mentioned so this character went on my spreadsheet.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was the perfect fit I'm gonna open by welcoming Andre to the show Andre.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do you love about network needa?
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where did you find this character?
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I'm gonna say I found her.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't find her until exports
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: when she showed up in those issues and I had to go, yeah, like in the middle of her, like her, her run.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then I had to go back because at the time, I'm like, what do you mean there is a black telepath that I've never seen before who's also a mutant?
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you mean?
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why didn't she an experiment?
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like, there were just things I needed to go back to.
• 1:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then that may be go back to the original, well, not the original, but like that agent of shields for Nick Fury run.
• 1:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: where I was like, again, this was before the internet.
• 1:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I didn't know where to go.
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I had to start from number one and like figure out where she was and then like pleasantly supplies the surprise that she had been in a good majority of that run.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just found like, she's a fun character.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's fun.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was a fun character.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's very feisty.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it showed.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's sexual.
• 1:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's a little unethical.
• 1:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is not a character I've given a ton of thought to.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So real?
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because she was black Emma.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's literally the blueprint.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's a black and before us back then.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Re-reading from our perspective.
• 1:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: This entire series was a delight.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let me also welcome DG Chai Chester to the show.
• 1:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dan, how are you?
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's great to see you.
• 1:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Take us back to 1988 in the life of Dan Chai Chester.
• 1:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, good.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yes, great to see you, Chad, great to meet you Andre and revisiting this.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I'll be honest, you know, when you suggested this, I had not thought of Nina in quite some time, and Nina was one of those characters who was not forced upon me, but when I took on, you know, shield, it came with some initial conditions.
• 2:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't necessarily going to be the regular writer.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I first did my first fury story, which I was happy to do, Bob Harris was the regular writer.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was positioned to me as kind of like a you get a little hiatus run, you know, while Bob needs some time.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I naturally didn't want to rock the boat and throw things out so I started to use some of his characters and then when he did leave the book not too long after, which I think had been Greg Wright's intention,
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: along a little bit to get me on the book if it was an opening.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I kind of naturally adopted a lot of the characters he was using.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I felt like I was supposed to maybe in some degrees and find ways to work with them.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I naturally kind of drew her into the mix and I liked that varied cast of people around fury and I really liked the idea that she could represent certain skill set that would play into the
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: theme that I really want to go with, you know, I didn't want to just simply play, you know, Nick Furious as a tough guy, I really wanted to work with the espionage aspect of it, play the spy theme, and so in that mission impossible sort of idea, you know, whether you used to throw the folders down and not just always choose, you know, Vingrames and, you know, and the same people over and over again.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: and used to mix it up, you know, she could be one of them.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's where I try to use her as much as I can recollect to 1980.
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I had a mallet and, you know, and all sorts of things.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that's the real key to 1980.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, my focus in this series, I had you on a previous episode where we discussed your work with Baron Struggler.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: and the ades.
• 3:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hydra and Greg was with us for that.
• 3:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was a delightful time.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this one I did a full read through very slow, which is always a fun time to watch a series change over time.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The later issues on series go crazy 90s.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of crazy.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's some weird Marvel 90s characters that just live rent free in my brain.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of them is the very odd character, Smoke Scream, who's like a lady with like a smokey dome over her head that like,
• 4:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's smoky.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't it's such a weird name.
• 4:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's there's some bizarre things because our choice is We'll talk about it.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, if you had other time.
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've only met Bob Harris once very briefly in passing and when I invited Bob to the show He said, oh, absolutely not in the nicest way possible.
• 4:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: He had no interest in talking about his early Marvel work
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know much down about the launch of Nick Fury Agent of Shield?
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: You took over on issue seven, I believe, like, so Bob and Bob Hall, who I've had on the show.
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love Bob, one of my favorite sellers of all time, launched this series in 1989.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it ran for quite a long time.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you know much about where the series came from?
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just some degree.
• 4:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You didn't talk to Bob at Terry's party, you know, it's surprising, like, just a little bit.
• 4:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I didn't ask you about that question.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, Bob had done a very successful, you know, in addition to being the X-Men editor and all the other things he was doing before he became editor and chief.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: He had written a very successful series, which was Nick Fury versus Shield, which is a great concept, suddenly Nick Fury has to actually battle the organization that he's, you know, deliberately identified with.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I believe the whole idea behind that was there a bunch of, you know, LMDs, like model decoy, robots that had infiltrated Shield, and he discovered this, and then had to go to war against his own organization.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: and it did really well.
• 5:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was of one of those maxi series, I think high quality formats when that meant something.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: That really got the attention of sales probably and said, what we should do more Nick Fury and that allowed him to then jump into the, you know, the regular Nick Fury book.
• 5:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think he really had planned to do a regular series.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: because the X-Men books were quite a big part of his time when I first came in with issue 7, which if I'm thinking right, that was the chaos serpent storyline, which would have had this sort of voodooish character Leviathan.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that was again, that was only and carefully positioned by Greg Wright as a limited run.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Bob needed some time to deal with other things he was working on, so this was me doing
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: a purposeful fill-in arc because I think that Chaos Serpent story was four or five issues, but so that's really where it kind of came out of where Bob had been involved and then he came back after the Chaos Serpent for I don't know how many issues a few at least and then I guess he at that point said yeah I can't do it you know I'm too busy with other stuff and that's when Greg turned back to me and and said all right you did a test Ron you did well now you get to play
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so Gregory Wright, everybody who's a close personal friend of Dan and mine, I met Greg through the show, a writer of Silver Sable coloristic story and editor on some books was the editor on this book.
• 6:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I didn't invite Greg to this episode because I wanted Andre here, but Greg would certainly have a lot of opinions to offer on
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, he doesn't have a lot to say.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, yes, absolutely.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nick Fury is the character from World War II, who's stayed alive all the years years from the infinity formula.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has been everything from a Nazi hunter to the director of the CIA.
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shield is its own complicated marble organization.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the international peacekeeping force.
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sometimes run by the United Nations.
• 7:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of lore with shield.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot of really cool, 60s comics featuring Nick Fury as the Asian.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: That go very like get smart and very like 007 Nick Fury is not often a featured character in modern comics because we have Nick Fury 2 the black Nick Fury Now around the Marvel universe the original Nick Fury got turned into that guy's chain to the moon after he murdered the watchers
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so there's the give you that I understand it.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: We talked about Nick Fury Jr.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like Nina network Nina is his mother.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's who I believe was his mother.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think it was the only optional like choice for me and that literally started this conversation.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do feel right now I got to look this up.
• 7:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Does Nick Fury too have a canonical different mother in the Marley universe?
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I believe he does, but originally that's when when I saw Nick Fury Jr. We are more for Nick Fury too
• 8:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm so under him like just kind of adjacent, you know, can and at this point.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's like, yeah, I do Nick Fury become Sam Jacks, you know, but I get no idea about that.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yes.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Nick Fury is originally a black Nick Fury.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're originally introduced in Ultimate Spider-Man by Brian Michael.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then they bring him right in the universe in 2011.
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a weird six-issue series called Battle Skars of all things.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: where he and his war buddy, Phil Colson, who goes by the name Cheese in that series, which is very interesting to me, are veterans basically.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're the sons of CIA agents.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Nick Fury II is the son of Nick Fury and a character named Nia Jones, NIA, who doesn't have a lot of history at Marvel.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: She showed up in like fear itself number seven, but I do love the theory that network media is there.
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: That makes me happy.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I was like, there's no, there's no getting around that, like, that's who it was, but I think she was a character that never left the era of the 90s, in fact, maybe the late 80s for anyone else to remember, but I remember because again, you know, when you don't have that many black characters in the 80s and especially ones that have telepathic abilities, that is just a more closely associated with the mutants and the X-Men and stuff.
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it resonated so like it was an immediate thing as she was much such an Adele Mark on me as a character.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're not gonna delve a lot of time into the Nick Fury supporting cast.
• 9:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: However, we have characters like Ophonzo, Mack Mackenzie and the Countess Valentina de Allegro Fontaine, who played by Julie Louis Dripis more recently in the films.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got dumb-dumb-dugin.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got Alexander Pierce who's a very very buff.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are coded 90s like Special Agent Character.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got Kate Neville who is Nick Fury's girlfriend.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have some really odd continuity building into all of this.
• 9:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're just gonna jump into the deep end here, though.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm gonna let my listeners just go with us on this journey.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Nick Fury agent of shield number two is October 1989.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is Bob Harris and Keith Pollard.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shield has been decimated, but there are new dangers in the world in the form of virchaum Schmidt, an old Nazi scientist, and an ally of the Strucker family.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Baron Verfgang von Strucker is dead, but dumb dumb Dugin's wife is killed by an evil LMD.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: We already talked about what those are, more on that in a minute.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the irony years later in continuity is that we'll learn that Dum Dum Dugin has been an LMD for decades, a program by Nick Fury himself.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the irony of his wife being killed by an LMD when he himself is one.
• 10:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, retcons are a great time.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Nick Fury is putting a new team of special agents together, though the people I just mentioned and he also wants to reach out to an old ally of mine.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: An old friend of mine he says a lady called network Nina to the contestant says
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you insane?
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: The woman is dangerous to herself and others.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I forbid it.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You forbid it.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Listen, Countess.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to get these joggers and I'll use any means I've got to get them because I'm sick of this garbage, understand?
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Contessa is both the president's liaison to Nick Fury, but also his former girlfriend, but also later at Con say she's been a hydra agent for decades at the same time.
• 11:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, again, retcons on retch.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And also, wasn't like being mentioned that he was like married to her, I won't point.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, maybe.
• 11:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like they were married.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: narrators.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Florida Keys, a place for the worshipper of sea and sand and sun, Nina's is one of the hot spots of the season where the young and wealthy come to party to revel in their good fortune to simply feel alive.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina would have it no other way.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we go to a place that has a sloping pink roof.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's at least two stories tall.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's surrounded by palm trees and
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's right on the ocean with a big giant ass sign.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is Nina's on the roof and these huge letters.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Nina herself is something.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Andre, I'm going to let you cover her initial look because she's gorgeous.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love her.
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I just want to use it in a British accent.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's just me.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: A media head cannon.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, again, very striking for for me, you know, in the late 80s, I was, you know, in my preteen.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: So seeing something like this wasn't necessarily shocking, but again, I think because of just how start she was in terms of her presence in the book, like you don't think that someone like this,
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: with D wearing something like that in the Florida Keys.
• 12:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like this, this cropped top with these shoulder pads that were like through the roof.
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: She had like these fishnet stockings and a red mini skirt and like these thigh high, my pass her thigh boots and like this very, it's giving rock hair.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's getting crazy like project runway to me.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 13:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like pointed shoulder pads.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's like basically make it except for a bra underneath this very small jacket.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like white gloves down to the elbow.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if we call those fish nets.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm like these red boots with the high heels and this hair style is insane.
• 13:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a key for Nina.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Is every time she shows up, her hair is crazy.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's true.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her hair is always different.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I can never figure out why.
• 13:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's giving very, I don't know, I don't know.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's giving very lint and to me.
• 13:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the reference that I want to put in my brain, but I don't think that's a fair reference.
• 13:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's probably more associated with, well, well, under who do you think of?
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like if we go to late 80s, who's the template for this character?
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Here's a thing.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Make a deal.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not the ladies.
• 13:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like her hair.
• 13:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Her hair was killing a Turner.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 13:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Beyond Thunderdome.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's beyond Thunderdome, guys.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's very Tina Turner.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 14:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: So drinking head Nina is in her establishment.
• 14:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: She greets a customer.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hello friend.
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Nina.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I own this humble establishment and you've seen Glam, which I simply cannot allow.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm realizing now the word Glam is what puts the British in my head automatically.
• 14:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: The guy says, sorry, my friends brought me here, trying to cheer me up, but I'm afraid I'm not in the mood.
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, divorce can be a down and I didn't say, you didn't have to, Nina knows, just as I know that young lady over there thinks you are the hunkiest thing around.
• 14:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's been trying to get your attention all night.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: to her.
• 14:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: She likes you.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina knows.
• 14:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, give the old college try.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: What spirit?
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love it.
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's happy tonight.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Feeling warm and loved and I can feel it all.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we're going to learn later that she feeds off of emotions.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like, it's like a battery charge for her to reflect on joy.
• 14:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: She immediately knows when Nick Fury shows up and she rushes into the next room.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nick darling, it's been ages and all sorts.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So hey, Nina house tricks.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry to barge in, but things have
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: probably on some sort of mission to save humanity.
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I get on to you thrilling, but enough chit chat, just kiss me handsome, and she does write up himself in front of his entire team.
• 15:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wait, now, see now I'm feeling pressured to do a Nick Fury impersonation.
• 15:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to see like how he would sound at this point, so I'm going to clear my throat and try.
• 15:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, Nina, I need your help and it's a mission.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: But first we have to deal with our unexpected passenger.
• 15:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's a deltite.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J-J
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But in 1988, in a different story, Arnhem Zola, so we have another Dozzi already, has designed the new kind of LMV, based on the mind of the dead Baron Struker.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Arnhem Zola also copied Hitler's brain once a few recall.
• 16:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: The ones that are based on Struker are called Deltites.
• 16:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the Deltites in a different story have started replacing shield agents.
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a bunch of spy business shit.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of these agents that Nick Fury has brought with them is a Deltite who's part of his team.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: program with Strucker, but she's a good guy named Red.
• 16:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina says, Adaltide, how exciting!
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: I thought they were all dead.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a mystery, and I love mysteries.
• 16:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: After all, wasn't I your best Esper Probe Nikki?
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love that she calls him Nikki.
• 16:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, the good old days now, Nikki, I haven't done a mine scan since I left shield.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I might be the tinctiest bit rusty, but I've got a red here, and I'm going to get it long, just fine.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her hand crackles with pink and white energy, and she reaches out in grabs reds head.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then she starts getting weird images of the death's head commandos, which are struck or deltites programmed to be like mass murdering robots, basically.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: This ends up summoning the commandos, and they arrive at her bar and start openly shooting people.
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just before that though, Mac McKenzie breaks the contact between Nina and Red.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe I'm a hick from Tulsa, but women with sparklers for fingertips and re-grown dead people tend to get me upset and Nina is pissed.
• 17:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just spent $1.5 million redecorating this bar and under the masks of all of these attackers are nobians.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: GN-O-B-I-A-N-S.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will explain those next.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It just a moment, but let me...
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, to first Andre and then Dan, what are your thoughts on the introduction of network media?
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have an implied relationship with Nick Fury.
• 17:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got no Catholic powers.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got empath energy and she's just kind of fucking great.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love her.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the moment.
• 17:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's great because it does introduce all those things you say, like past history, but the intrigue of that, you know, it leads into it, it's got action, it's got cutoffs, but when you describe it in this way with all the stacked lore, it becomes insane.
• 18:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like a wiki-pedient entry, I would bail on, unlike, you know, paragraph two, because it's not so it's great that you don't know any of this in contact.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'm going to have to agree because again, you get who she is right away.
• 18:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: There is just an impression that she shows you like she is very confident.
• 18:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: She is very whimsical.
• 18:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: She clearly is in control of herself and of her personality, even of her powers.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you don't even know that she had powers until like, you know, things start to happen.
• 18:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're like, oh, okay, so she's that girl.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, she's that person that Nick has to trust.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you would think at this point Nick doesn't trust just anybody.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, this is a bizarre conversation to have in 2025.
• 18:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Both of you have already joined me for a Red Skull Chat on my show before, so we're going to talk about fascism.
• 18:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to delve into the lore of the nobiens very quickly.
• 18:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: This gets very high-concept-sci-fi very quickly, and it is a bold undertaking for a comic book, because this is something that needs to be seen in like technical or crazy animation.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: The nobians are revealed to be a race of alien wanders, who were devoted to sampling different cultures through empathic links, and they landed on Earth in World War II in the Black Force of Germany, where a Baron Strucker, with his original Nazi deaths, had squadron find the creatures, and they see the extent of their technology, and they want the entire town of civilians wiped out,
• 19:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: The nobians witnessed this atrocity.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: They, uh, there's a big giant fight Nick Fury in the Howling Commandos show up.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And basically at the end of this, the mother nobian, who's like the mother board of this entire race of blue empathic creatures.
• 19:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absorbs the hate of Baron Strucker into her, so the Nazi hatred of humans and the evil potential of humans has now driven her mad.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the nobians are reawakening and she has formed a new death's head squadron made of her own nobians soldiers, and
• 20:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: and she is striking out at the world around her.
• 20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a corrupted race torn apart by Nazi hatred.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's the story, Nina gets introduced it, and it gets a really high concept because they end up going to the novienship where all of the characters have memories that are all playing out in real time around them.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like the astral plane almost where their dreams are coming to life, and a lot of the dreams are based in World War II, where there's a lot of Nazi shit already going on.
• 20:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, Dan, when you signed up for this book, you really jumped into the deep edge.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: because there's a weird fucking character named Lump.
• 20:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lump is a lump, Lump is a noobie and who's like, a little bit of baby.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: He kind of looks like slimer from the Ghostbusters almost.
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: But he represents like the hope and innocence of the noobie and race and the noobians have been corrupted by Nazi hatred.
• 20:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Lump later, he's turned into like a muscle daddy, but he kind of looks like gumby, he's a weird character.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dan, do you have thoughts on Lump?
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you know, that's, this is like where I felt I had this responsibility to keep playing with these characters and and lump kept showing up on my stories and in retrospect, it wasn't like I was in love with lump, you know, what I would just use if you'd love in mind is not he's in your head if anyone knows.
• 21:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I could do it all over again, you know, I probably would have cleaned house in a much different way and it would have helped me kind of get into what I wanted to do a lot simpler and a lot faster.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I don't think any of these characters you know had a lot of reader association either.
• 21:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, there wasn't like a lot of real pull-through beyond fury and maybe dumb dumb in a couple of others.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I could have and should have probably picked and chosen a little smarter, but when I reread some of the stuff which I did recently for something else, you know, for with lump.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, he comes across as like an earnest force.
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: So he's a fun supporting cast member.
• 21:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: But yeah, exactly.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: My word.
• 21:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is not a simple character too.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, no, no.
• 21:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lump has never shown up in a single series besides Nick Fury, which is yeah.
• 21:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So issue three.
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nina gets a jetpack and she goes flying with Mac and Pierce.
• 22:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, this is simply glorious to be one with the stars.
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: The eternal ethos.
• 22:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Mac notes that she's doing loop deloops at a hundred miles an hour.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It notes that she used to be part of Shields Esper Squad.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to get more on that in a minute.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But the Esper's were agents selected to get telepathic implants, which we're going to later learn.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're hydratech knowledge.
• 22:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the implants have the ability to burn out.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she's not a mutant.
• 22:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's a cyborg, almost.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's got these like tech implants in her brain.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was made to believe that she was immune and that the implants were put in later to enhance her abilities.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Interesting.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 22:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 22:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: She explains, I'm a cybal heightened sense.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel things on an older, more primeval level than others.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she reads in reds mind, a connection to another size sensitive that they are now there to find.
• 22:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: She has a, quote, technological infusion her brain to increase her telepathic power.
• 22:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, so we've got an increase there.
• 22:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So yeah, maybe she's got some natural inborn telepathic abilities.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's been healed in hands.
• 23:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina ends up captured.
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: She calls her allies.
• 23:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Phenestines were not trusting her.
• 23:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: She senses the area has been blanketed by telepathic.
• 23:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: probe, she follows them, she ends up getting stuck in her own memories where she's eating a meal with her mother and father.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So now they're in this like astral plane flight space.
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: An issue four, as far as I can tell, the complex is one vast memory storehouse.
• 23:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: The air is humming with senses that are probing our brains, honing in on these areas that store our recollections.
• 23:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: and then somehow they project the images they find creating a totally new environment.
• 23:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Believe me, it adds new meaning to walking down memory lane, and the others are so confused.
• 23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Questions, questions, what did you boys do before I came along?
• 23:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: She says, now shush, but she can sense Kate Fraser and Red nearby are nearby and have reached out to them.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're trying to find each other in this weird environment.
• 23:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: They end up shifted into outer space because the danger of the astroplane is whatever you think it's going to turn real
• 23:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: They discover the verner of Armstrong are there, and this weird ass noby and mother, who just looks like a giant glowworm with a bunch of bones.
• 24:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: So weird.
• 24:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if I don't talk about little smother that way,
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Love's mother.
• 24:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like it.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: The the group is captured by the new hydra.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina soon into it's that there's technology all around them combining their memories And so she uses her powers to her advantage and pulls the group all together including red and Kate and makes the world around them Look like they are on an asteroid floating through space So Nina has learned how to command the telepathic energy of the environment almost like it is the Astral plane and now we get a catchphrase that Nina's gonna use more than once.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lordy, Lordy and Mrs. Nixon now
• 24:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting the egg of this.
• 24:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: The her catchphrase is Lordy, Lordy, Mrs. Nixon.
• 24:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're looking there.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's right up there with, I'm the best, you know, what I do.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm the best.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: What I do.
• 24:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lordy, it's amazing.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I haven't seen that in cover copy.
• 24:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Crazy.
• 24:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to go like, I'm sorry, I'm as Jackson.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Are you for real?
• 25:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's not the same.
• 25:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: It doesn't have the same rating to the fan.
• 25:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, so she realizes by scanning reds memories, they entire deltide affair.
• 25:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's also blocking probes into her mind because the nobion mother feels them as a threat.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they're in this memory world and Nazi soldiers are there and Glowy Alien babies are floating in the air.
• 25:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And these are the simple aliens, the nobians.
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we learned they came to Earth and now here's lump.
• 25:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just skipping through all of this.
• 25:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: In six, it's hinted that Network Nina's telepathic implants and technology might be related to Hydra, or even Nobi and Technology, we'll see more of that later.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when Nina sees the Nobi and mother, we get a repeat of her catchphrase, Lordy, Lordy, Mrs. Nixon, is she a big one?
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina Lump are attacked telepathically by this massive alien indicating that she could never say no to Nick Fury.
• 25:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina telepathically probes the mother, sensing the Nazi infection within her, but realizes that the mind is so alien that it's nearly incompatible with humans.
• 25:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Networking, engaged to mine, such hate, such twisted madness, the pain, incredible, dialed howl, a field of my vengeance.
• 26:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Overcome with madness from the Novi and Mother, Nina tries strangling Nick Fury, but the contestal judo chops her in the neck.
• 26:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want you about Nina Nick, her abilities, what always too unpredictable, remember that for later.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: The group then manages to purge the evil from the mind of the nobion mother, but she kills her entire race to stop it from turning Nazi ever again.
• 26:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that is the end of the first arc of Nick Fury Agent of Shield.
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Holy shit, that's like, it's a good story, but it's hard to read.
• 26:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to figure out what the fuck is.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's hard to, yeah.
• 26:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's, it's, it's,
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: are cops for like packing it with like crazy shit you know it's like this isn't like you know a 20 page comic we're you know everyone sits around in a diner for like 18 pages and like you know what he's the Lordy Lordy miss is Nixon I mean you know you have to like miss is Nixon I really love it you you have to get Bob Harris on just to explain that if he even has any clue you know
• 27:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: It did what kind of books needed to do, like you know, you have a character like Nick Fury and you know what he's about, you know what she'll do about and then you get these strange alien Nazi driven entities and you're like, okay, yeah, that's very comic book.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think the first art wasn't saying just
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just insane into South Characters, which was dropped in and you got like his really high concept of sci-fi genre thrown into espionage world of Marvel, which was just insane.
• 27:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: But again, it did what Tom books needed to do back then.
• 27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Nina comes in with high fashion, crazy cool hairstyle.
• 27:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kind of interesting motives.
• 27:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's very sex positive.
• 27:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's very fucking powerful, and she can kind of turn Nick Fury's head in a way that makes me very happy.
• 27:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's in front of his girlfriend, and front of his girlfriend.
• 27:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's also very powerful.
• 27:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dan, now you're hired by Greg or whoever to come in and do this series.
• 27:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You have to jump into this crazy arc and then you're ready to take a look.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have thoughts on what it was like to just jump into this world as a writer?
• 28:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a lot to step into.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it was, but I'd remember this was this was the interim arc, right?
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was not I'm taking over Nick Fury.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was the fill in for Nick for Bob Harris.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Greg Wright was the one to brought me in, but you
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: You gave me a lot of latitude.
• 28:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't break anything and leave it in this place for Bob at the end of it in between do whatever you want Which is a pretty nice charge to play with so I had to play with some of the characters which is great You know, it's nice to play with other things in the toolbox, but I got to invent Leviathan.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got to play out that and I got to
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, run with that whole weird, you know, sort of Tom Clancyish, weird siaps stuff that I was trying to kind of emulate.
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was, I didn't feel burdened by what Bob had done at all.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just felt like I got to play James Bond for four or five issues.
• 28:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: time.
• 28:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now when you come in with issue number seven, it's a whole new arc and we get a really fun black supervillard that is kind of iconic.
• 28:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's giving very rocky horror picture show, um, if you would, do you want to talk about the creation of Leviathan?
• 29:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I think there was probably a little wrong here, our picture showed Tim Curry, you know, why going on.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I also want to stack the deck, you know, because I did a fair amount of research for what I could at that time, you know, in terms of espionage, personalities, approaches, and also about.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I want it, you know, somebody who is really playing against expectation, you know, you see him at first, you think he's going to be this, but then he's also, you know, running this the Coven, you know, he calls it, you know, his, you know, his group and he's, and then ultimately he's not really about any of those things.
• 29:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, you find out that he's basically this manipulator doing whatever he wants.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was a lot of aspects of things that I'm not quite sure jailed a hundred percent, but I was trying to pack as much in as I could because I was having a chance to kind of go to bat in this stadium with no, you know, since doing it to come back again.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right, there was no guarantee I'd get to come to these guys another time.
• 29:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, go go all in give somebody, you know, for Nick Fury to go up against who's got some unpredictability and strength that is not just pulling from the regular cast of characters.
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that probably fueled my my creation of him as much as anything.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I remember having a lot of fun with them.
• 30:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: And like a lot of the things I did in those days.
• 30:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was too stupid to go back and use him elsewhere again because I
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's interesting character.
• 30:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Andre and I, Andre and I friendship kind of first solidified when Andre, you came on for a Moses Magnum episode.
• 30:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: We got to jump into like old 90s, like Deathlock comics.
• 30:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's some cool shit happening in the 90s by Black creators and Black characters.
• 30:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of them, Marcus McLoreny, I've interviewed on the show, introduced the villain Hardcore over in the series.
• 30:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: We each are on this time, which is really interesting.
• 30:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Leviathan stands out as does network need.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the chaos serpent arc beginning an issue seven and running through ten.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shield has now officially reformed Nina's back on the team, but Leviathan who's a black villain with a pension for lipstick and lily pops and who has a degrees in theology and psychology and is also an illusionist and has also had run-ins with the KGB and the CIA.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina has a new hairstyle and it is nuts.
• 31:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It almost looks like a woven basket on her head.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this is a busy large thing on her head.
• 31:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a no-office.
• 31:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It must wait 30,000.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see her giving an old woman sex advice on a plane, a man tries to hijack the plane and need it in a black dress with fishnet stockings, fain's helplessness to get close enough to read the man's minds.
• 31:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got him, Nikki, inside of his head's empty, and then a bag of cheetos at Roseanne, Bars House, with Dan Chichester, that joke is the truth.
• 31:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: In the time, we probably seem very funny, but you know, it's pretty nice to be here.
• 31:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's so, you know.
• 31:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Leviathan's out of jail and wearing a new horny helmet and attacking the military with his group the cover and Fury has to take him down.
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a new shield base in the grand canyon.
• 31:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina now gets a mohawk which I love and her red skin tight suit with white inlay.
• 31:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see you're flirting with a technician.
• 31:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You want to talk about overloading circuitry slick.
• 31:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: You come up and see me.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jerry says glad to see you're having a good time Nina, but I didn't haul my butt down here to see you do your may-west in person.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I fucking love may-west.
• 32:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I assume you've been doing more over the last couple of days than keeping up the men's morale.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why, of course, kind of, I'm what they call a woman of many.
• 32:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't doubt it.
• 32:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Give me a what you got.
• 32:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: She puts a hold together a whole profile on Leviathan.
• 32:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: All the data's there.
• 32:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina gets a slick black stealth suit in the mission alongside Captain America, and it's you tend to take down Leviathan, but the yellow claws behind it.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not even talking about the yellow claw today, but Nina's part of the team now.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I love her.
• 32:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great work with her, Dan.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: That rose and bar joke, though.
• 32:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like I said, some things date themselves, the day after you write them, you know?
• 32:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm wondering, do you want to take us through the hydrophar?
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so, because you just mentioned like yellow claw, I don't know, good stuff.
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: The hydra fair is essentially just getting into the background of like Madam Hydra and how she is currently in what she's doing and like how much of a Thorne she is in shields back.
• 33:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's really just about a very particular thing that she is after and you don't really know what she's after, but she's she's like digging around and in another part of southeast Asia she's trying to like
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: get something.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And there is a very particular villain in the form of yellow cloth.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: In this area, it's a really big thing that I saw with Network Nina because it started to get her into like, and that just it's feeding off the emotions, but she started to understand a little bit more of how her powers are working.
• 33:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, I'm in shield now, and I'm I'm I'm going to do this thing.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then she asked there us also this thing where her and Madam Hydra
• 33:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's literally, yeah, so it's a little bit of history.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: They didn't get into it.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I thought that was interesting when I went back to reread some of these things that there is a level of Madame Hydra knowing what Nina is all about.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm calling her out on it.
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, we see Nina back in New York, it issue 12.
• 34:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's getting called into action.
• 34:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, poor back.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't feel like saving the world tonight.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Can't you feel the emotions of this city?
• 34:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: The joys fears, the passion.
• 34:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I could soak it up.
• 34:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a miracle.
• 34:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then she walks over to two people in the club.
• 34:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Excuse me, you too.
• 34:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: But I want you, you, but you are in love on to you.
• 34:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: She like pushes them together.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me just, you, just a little to share your joy.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just the briefest touch, the smallest of moments.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But thank you.
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: You love birds.
• 34:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina is satiating.
• 34:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you feel like a little bit of an energy sponge.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I really love this about her, actually.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, but I think it's also part of her charm.
• 34:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you know, the whole thing with her and her power of like picking up psychic residue, she was almost like she's just almost an empath.
• 34:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, she's feeling around with other people.
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's why she love being in the nightclubs scene.
• 34:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, this is like her second club.
• 34:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, it's almost she's almost giving Celine vibes.
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she enjoys people picking up people's thoughts and seeing what they're doing and pushing, like, let's see, did the first time she goes, hey, go talk to that guy or, you know, maybe two lovers need to get in a cab together in this moment.
• 35:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, Madam Hydra is a character that we've done a whole trial on on the show.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: For those of you who've heard, I really enjoy this character, despite her craziness.
• 35:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: But there's a couple writers that will really give her like a strong love story.
• 35:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: For example, her relationship with the silver samurai is often very sexually implied.
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: It also is implied that she has a very loving sexual relationship with Alexander Pierce, and she wants nothing more than to turn him evil.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So she's after him and me, I like checks in on that very quickly.
• 35:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: She wants this hot gay man to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be a good guy to be
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, we'll we'll talk about it.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a moment where she gets to tap into some technology.
• 35:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: She grabs on I merely need to hook into your armist power source aligned my neural cybernetic implants to the proper frequency And I should be able to review the last face Madame Hydra saw in this room.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: and she's able to project some psychic images.
• 36:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're on a mission and fury is immediately like very concerned about Nina overusing her powers.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of hints that like do you remember what happened last time and like if you're into quickly too far, Madam Hydra gets Alexander Pierce and then dresses him in the sluddiest little 90s costume I've ever fucking seen.
• 36:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's drawn so horny in his little one piece bathing suit.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you have comments on Drake?
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I was fine.
• 36:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you know, there's gay awakenings and didn't expect.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was he had this rambal like hairdo like it was just this mullet this curly mullet with like a with a bandana and a one piece painting suit by yeah, I don't I have no words Yeah, and you know how much of this is in the writers you know purview or descriptions and how much is it you know the artist I mean I was in writing those issues, but I don't know you know sometimes the artist just goes and like
• 37:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, becomes something else, you know, brings it forward.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it was, you know, it was rich guys, you know, decision, you know, with, you know, with Joe and the head of a few issues, you know, with the Baron Strucker stuff, did you just have him start showing up like shirtless and like, strutting around like, you know, and that was just him.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was never written that way.
• 37:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I referenced as a role with it, so sometimes, but I had Simon Furman on for the wire episode and I'm like Simon, you have naked men wrestling in the woods for an entire issue with little whispers over their pages.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's like, oh, I didn't realize it was gay.
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess it is.
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like it's a man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's man's
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: We consider it a cult back then or it's like, you know, well, I didn't write it as a cult, but I made it could have been I guess But yeah, I mean it's a terrorist organization I think for an artist point of view making a bunch of guys naked, you know, it was is more fun, right?
• 38:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You just throw the human body and off the word.
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, goddamn costume.
• 38:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yes, and in a point was that there's there's a point of Mail subjugation that happens
• 38:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And a lot of these stories where, you know, it also happened to, you know, I don't know if you knew this or not, but like Chad, you would know it, but like when the havoc and Madeline prior got together, it was like that male subjugation where he completely was wearing like this ripped outfit and it was mimicking her.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so in this case, I was in their peers is mimicking what Madam Hydra is wearing.
• 38:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she's wearing this kind of like this, who's C.A.
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: looking one piece suit and then he's literally mimicking her.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of that my control male subjugation.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: I guess that was allowing them to be kind of like these.
• 38:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let me break this.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, you know, people, you know, you know, anyone Brad dated like in the 80s and 90s who started dressing like them.
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it was all this.
• 39:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Y'all look like it's involved.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Madam Hydra gets her like very serpentine look where her hair looks like it's a cobra hood almost.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's right here.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of reclamation of Nick's soul.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina gets involved trying to reawaken.
• 39:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: All memories of family of love have been wiped clean.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nothing exists except devotion to madam Hydra.
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've never seen such effective brainwashing, but it's cruel.
• 39:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: unnatural.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want the woman responsible for this Mac.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want her to pay for this inhumanity.
• 39:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as the story goes on, there's a lot of big sword fighting, and then we get the intuitive that Nina is connected to Hydra through her technology.
• 39:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like almost as though Madam Hydra is somehow involved in her creation, which is a story we never quite see followed up on, but it's interesting.
• 39:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Shealed using Hydra technology to program their agents or to boost their powers.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I enjoyed it.
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think she wasn't in this one a lot.
• 39:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was in it very sparingly, especially again when we got to the towards the end where, you know, with the last fight between Alexander and Nick where she was like, you know, he's kind of like Alexander still kind of in there.
• 40:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have to do anything, but she was like hoping that he found himself.
• 40:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: But then you get into this whole push and pull situation with her and Madam Hydro, which I really, really want it more up.
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I think
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want it more of Nina here, but I think this is also the part where she's only brought in narratively for certain things, which, again, certain characters start to become like those kind of shows up, you don't forget her.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Which she shows up, she shows up, but like she's one of those narrative push characters, like the ones I call the the DSX mock-and-a-characters that they're only brought in.
• 40:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to say that, yep.
• 40:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: to fill a very particular narrative because that's what their powers do.
• 40:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: It affords them that solution.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Dennis, we're Nick Fury 15 through 19 in a story called Apigy of Disaster with Bill Jessica and one of Marvel's weirdest fucking characters that I've ever seen the low hand.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: No relation to Lindsay as far as I could tell.
• 40:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dad, do you want to tell us about the idea of disaster?
• 40:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, hopefully the title doesn't, you know, set the stage for the entire storyline, but I guess this is where I was coming in as the writer, you know, like full on at this point.
• 41:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not quite sure why I started with this story, but it looked like it was going to be fun.
• 41:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think most of it is kind of fun.
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it was a crazy, yeah, it's a great, well, yeah, a lot of crazy 90 stuff.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's a twisted scientist who somehow gets melded together with, you know, his own satellite technology.
• 41:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember all the specifics and there's a, it was an excuse to get big danger and big spy hijinks and outer space and up on the moon.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: That was really my, you know, melding my two interests right space and, you know, espionage together.
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it seemed like it would be a fun way to kind of really kick things off in a big way, right.
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here was in another expected Nick Fury kind of piece.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go somewhere else.
• 41:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's what really sort of drove.
• 41:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: the thinking behind it.
• 41:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, one of my big regrets on this is, and I don't know why, because usually I connect it really well with the artists, but maybe I was busy juggling, you know, a few things at this point in time.
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I never connected with her triimpi, who is the artist on most of it, right, and then four issues of this was, you know, the well-known artist her triimpi.
• 42:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I regret because I really admire his work, but I think this isn't necessarily his best work, because I think he was being forced to sort of try to adopt, you know, more of an image style
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: at this point.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you see some weird inconsistencies in his art and his approach, because I think he was trying to be something that he wasn't.
• 42:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that doesn't land as well in terms of his best visual sense, which is the point.
• 42:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: The fantastic four guests are in here, Nina, Nina gets a little tricky.
• 42:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Looks at Reed Richards and says, you know, for all you go on, your lips is the only things that don't stretch.
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he goes, yeah, I suppose you're right.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm just just a subject.
• 42:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Great moment for her.
• 42:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can make fun of Reed.
• 42:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've done something right.
• 42:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Absolutely.
• 42:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it goes to a big, you know, a big battle on the moon and then everything's crazy.
• 42:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It melds with the, you know, the villain low hand with that point is like some gigantic cybernetic, you know, creature melds I think with the space shuttle on their way back or a space shuttle like a crowd.
• 43:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like a weird body horse.
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like a giant.
• 43:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 43:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: He faced on this like lumbering shambler, the covered in garbage, it's a really weird visual.
• 43:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's the thing, I'm sure I did not describe it that way.
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's not any disrespect to her or anything, right?
• 43:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, you're right these things.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And maybe there was some kind of body horror aspect to what I was writing, you know, I'm coming up being a big David Croniburg fan and whatever else at that point in time.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But probably it was a lot more technology oriented
• 43:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: was that bioorganic witness, which you have no control over, right?
• 43:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's this is part of the wonder and the the anxiety of comics, right?
• 43:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because the stuff comes in and it's like, yeah, there's no time to change it.
• 43:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: The editor tells you if you see it and you comment on it.
• 43:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, nope, it's got to get done, live with it, roll with it, write something around it, or squint your eyes and pretend it's what you like.
• 44:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: When Nina does the interface with the low hand, she now, please get out of my head, get out of my head.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was mentally reaching out to the wreckage, low hands accomplices.
• 44:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a sudden surge, mental energy, and mental agony, and low hand, low hand kernel.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: His mental signature.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was he, yeah.
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: So she's like, you've got, well,
• 44:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You've gone from English not to like vaguely cabaret, you know, you're doing a little joke for me, like, you know, whatever works for you, but you know, you're You know, I have no control of my accent and I may have no idea that you're you're you're selling it, but I also think that at one point in time.
• 44:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: D.D.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: does give her very early African-American vernacular, like, you know, she does mention someone by sister, so it's like, it is a very kind of black phrase to refer to someone in that way, like, yeah, you know, your right sister, like that's it.
• 44:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So Nina's space adventure and she gets to eventually kind of help overload the creature and like she gets to
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: taken over by the Lohan briefly and like her eyes glow yellow and she has to be knock then conscious.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's it's a fun story.
• 45:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a great space adventure and then we build two Operation Rebirth which I know Dan is like you're finally like really making your mark on this title at this point.
• 45:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: You want to tell us about Operation Rebirth in issues 20 through 25?
• 45:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, briefly, you know, this, I think, rose really where if I came anywhere into my own on the book, would would be this.
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this had really kind of brought together everything I wanted to do in the kind of vibe I want it.
• 45:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And being teamed up with Butchgeys was was terrific, not just because he drew a shirtless, you know, like, you know, proto-nots here or whatever.
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this was, you know, bringing back Baron Strucker, you know, a big villain.
• 45:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was playing with a lot of themes of, of, of, of,
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: of pure play, espionage, and kind of bigger than life, you know, stuff, and I just, I love for my own sake, you know, all the kind of beats of this, you know, just the unpacking of bringing back a major villain and doing it in a way that I felt every issue kind of ended on a really strong cliffhanger.
• 46:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I had a ton of fun with, with
• 46:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: with this.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Baron Strucker had been defeated years and years ago, whenever that means in Marvel time and had been left, his corpse had been left for dead at the bottom of the ocean in Hydra Island, you know, a special base, but a bunch of Nazis, you know, really pure play Nazis want to resurrect him to bring him back, you know, in his power back, so they go, they sacrifice themselves through, you know, some kind of techno-battle technology.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Their
• 46:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: basically mixed into the whole mix of this death spore virus that had been what had killed him.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: And now that infused his corpse, somehow preserved in the great depths of the ocean, and he comes back to life, stronger than ever, infused with his death spore virus and comes back, realizing that Hydra is beloved organization.
• 46:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: had become a bunch of middle management people like arguing over petty things and little this and little that and he comes striding in with this supreme supremacist attitude that he's going to reinvigorate hydro as a you know you make it under my leadership or you you die and anybody can rise to the occasion.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you have to really kind of show your metal, show your worth, and this is kind of his mandate for the world.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he decides, as part of this mandate for the world, he's going to also destroy shield, and if fury, but fury doesn't know.
• 47:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that, that struckers come back and have struckers again, the bane of his existence, which allows for some nice villainy behind the scenes while Nick gets wound up, and ultimately gets to the point where he destroys shield headquarters.
• 47:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: The guest pencils in this are gorgeous.
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina gets absolutely assist.
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: She gets prominently featured in 23, where she briefly gets involved, Rosa Kleb, which is really fun for me.
• 47:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a reference to a James Bond character from Russia.
• 47:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I would love.
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of James Bond references, probably one, too many, you know.
• 47:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which was, it was, draws everyone like a supermodel.
• 47:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 47:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You really fun.
• 47:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of almost pent up designs and a lot of it.
• 47:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: You would really fun.
• 47:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love butch and there's, you know, but you never knew what you were going to get.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, and, you know, you would get back those pent-ups shots.
• 48:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it'd be like, all right.
• 48:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just roll with you.
• 48:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: No way.
• 48:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not necessarily what you wrote.
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is what Dan and I talked about in our red skull conversation for those of you that may have heard that episode on the wider show.
• 48:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Andre, do you want to take us through Nina's next arc in Nick Fury 26 through 31 and then she's out of the series after this.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: She gets things out of the series.
• 48:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like D.G.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: said, this next arc deals with the fact that Hydra has now attacked Shield's headquarters in the middle of New York City and Nina is experiencing a very turbulent time here because the thing is for powers and now going haywire because again, she has this very kind of empathic ability where she's picking up on everyone's emotions and she feels everyone's feelings who are left alive in the hell of a carrier that just crashed.
• 48:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she is going to lose basically through it, he loses her signature hair in this a little bit like she gets a little bit us yeah orange he does it's yellow jacket look it's not by favorite for her no it's a very subject look for her because again, you know at this point I's not that she's been inconsistent with what she had been consistent on is a wild look she is a very kind of like relaxed kind of orange down street care and give me like she can use in music video somehow.
• 49:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 49:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: very very that but again at this moment in time there's some very popular redheads and marble and they all have like the same look so you know she's she's giving you that but Wolverine again that makes sense because again she's a redhead he loves redheads
• 49:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: it's one of those characters who asked to feel certain things in order for her to push her powers forward.
• 49:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now like I said, her powers are kind of going, hey, why are and then she disappears for like an issue because once the fantastic board and the Avengers show up, you know, she's okay, we have a lot.
• 50:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then talk about the cover of Nick Fury agent of shield number 28 where it's Nick Fury wearing a polar bear and like Wolverine with claws out like in the in the Arctic together,
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, he's wearing a full mental polar bear, so you're like
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why not?
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Why not?
• 50:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I respect their mission, but their mindset sometimes a little bit off, but um, you know, I thought it was a it was another fun kind of way to play things out.
• 50:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love kind of trying to blow out hydro more.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love the super agents of hydro approach, you know, that was part of the mandate that we kind of had for it.
• 51:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: We wanted to kind of give them more of an identity and not just a bunch of faceless guys and like the smock.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I thought there's a lot of neat ways to kind of play this out, which we did.
• 51:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I felt this was continuing that, you know, high espionage, high action or that I really wanted the book, you know, to be about.
• 51:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a lot going on to explain the infinity formula.
• 51:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot happening with the other characters.
• 51:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Deathlock is here.
• 51:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Leviathan is here.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I thought this was fun.
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was very reminiscent of like GI Joe.
• 51:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: like, there was a lot of fun moments where it was just like, I think my favorite moment was them on the snowmobiles, just like having a blast, just like fighting hydrant and snowmobiles so it was very, like I said, I remind me of GI Joe at that point where it's like just high you know, high intensity action on.
• 51:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll take that comparison.
• 51:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a good song.
• 51:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And things in vehicles that you should just like shouldn't be doing tricks on, but it was really funny.
• 51:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then Scott libbell shows us shows up here to take over the run after this and that's a perfect place to have the podcast now I'm joking Exit from this book then the exit from this book was an unfortunate circumstance amounts stupidity.
• 52:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was laid on the book
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And more than once, and I was, I was rude from the book, you know, for good reason.
• 52:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I, I did not keep my contract with the editor, but that, you know, I don't mean a physical contract.
• 52:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, the agreement to be on time.
• 52:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was getting pulled in a few different directions, and it was a kind of a shameful moment, you know, that I was, you know, embarrassed to be put through, but my grock with who was the editor at that point, you know, made the right call.
• 52:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: He'd given me, you know, a kind of a fair warning, and I, I didn't respect that properly.
• 52:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I was disappointed because I really, I really like this book.
• 52:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I really like this character.
• 52:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's not my favorite part.
• 52:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I, of course, I'm going to wonder how it would have gone differently.
• 52:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, please, now I need to know.
• 52:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, how it, what was your plans for that?
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what, what, what were you thinking back then?
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, we're going to take a look.
• 52:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, Andrew, I couldn't even tell you at this point.
• 52:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, I mean, I mean, theory was for me.
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I had, you know, short-term plans, but I rolled with it just because I liked that sense of kind of adventure and pulling some topical, you know, type of things.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mentioned like that Tom Clancy sort of influenced, you know, at one point, what's going on in the headlines, what's going on?
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you a political scene that you could sort of play into this and make it bigger than life?
• 53:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where I, where I plan to kind of go.
• 53:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just know that I fumbled a ball on it.
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, kick myself, you know, for it.
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, stood up and take the blame as a post saying, well, the editor fired me, you know, and, or something like that, you know, this is my own fault.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but I do have to applaud you for the use of net work, you know, and that just only hurt, but just like Leviathan, and all these really great characters that just deserve better.
• 53:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: You were writing them.
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, you try to find the ones that work for you and you try to kind of create your own little mini universe because then you can like build something around it.
• 53:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, hopefully the readers are getting that.
• 53:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it gives you like a comfort zone to sort of be able to fall back and build upon a character like Leviathan or Nina.
• 54:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I think I was probably doing what you said before with Nina too.
• 54:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nina was a great, not exposition machine, but you know, she could come in, she could solve a problem, then she could get overloaded.
• 54:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you could sort of move her, you know, move her out if she wasn't serving your purpose, which is a disservice, you know, to her.
• 54:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I would look at a character like that.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Nowadays, with hopefully more thinking and skills, and I would kind of get more into her, you know, why is she so sexualized?
• 54:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why is she so connected in with things?
• 54:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, when characters hint at those backstories, it's sometimes fun to just let those backstories stay hint at that, but it's also sometimes fun to find an issue and delve into it, you know, and really go through.
• 54:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll go here early.
• 54:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I always ask the question at the end.
• 54:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's the story we need?
• 54:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would love a home network need at Ark in this era.
• 54:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to see her whole origin story, her history, the way that she pushed all the buttons.
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: But let me cover her history after your exit.
• 54:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's up in Motor Mouth, one over one through five, Marvel UK had a bunch of shit, and there's a ton of X-Men shit in this.
• 55:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Motor Mouth and Kill Power number six as well, the book gets retiled.
• 55:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina's part of a shield group investigating the actions of like Mistech in the UK.
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: She doesn't have a lot to do, and there's one particular issue where she is very clearly miscullered as a white blonde woman.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Which is weird.
• 55:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe she's using her telepathic powers.
• 55:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: No prize for Chad.
• 55:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: The very agent of Shield 45, she's back by Scott LeBdele.
• 55:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: After a long absence, she's at the leather and lace club and lower the Manhattan.
• 55:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's in skin type copper pants, a colored purple shirt and it gives bare stomach and plenty of cleavage.
• 55:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: She has a brown brimbed hat on.
• 55:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: It gives very witty Houston again.
• 55:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And her hair is tinge with red and styled and just this impossible ponytail.
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nick is there, he needs her help, but he does not want to fuck her.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's very, very, already for him.
• 55:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: He takes me into a flying car in a flying part of a helicopter carrier, which she notes would make a swinging nightclub, where Clay Corner Ayn is being held after being reigned washed by Hydra, after commenting on how hot Clay is, Nina reads his mind, and then reads the mind of GW Bridge, which takes you back to my previous episode with Andre on this character.
• 56:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she hears some of his altered memories and learns about other former shield Esper agents out there.
• 56:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: One of them named Cyborg.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a woman named Fiona Wyman, who is teammates with a woman named Violence, her real name is Violet Pinkerton, which is amazing.
• 56:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm not about such.
• 56:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Jarnos Bragg is an Australian character.
• 56:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're fighting shield agents.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nina's in psychic combat with cyborg, and she pushes herself so hard that she starts bleeding from her eyes, and then she makes cyborgs head explode, and Nick Fury yells,
• 56:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because you never really knew what he did with Vader knew what he did, right?
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: The series ends two issues later with the defeat of Strucker in Hydra, and then we get Nina in a very brief arc in x-force 2322, I bought this off the shelves, much like Andre.
• 57:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Nick Fury, GW Bridge, Alexander Pierce, and that work Nina put on huge gold suits and raid cables, Graham Allkins space station.
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: The place blown up at Leilachini saves their life.
• 57:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: War machines here.
• 57:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've never seen it again.
• 57:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: What do we need about this character?
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like her a lot.
• 57:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: What's the story that you want to see in in in the modern era, Andre?
• 57:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's a good question.
• 57:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, because again, I was in the assumption that she was immune.
• 57:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would love for them to kind of delve into that potential because, you know, like how they would delve into the fact that Polken dagger were potentially mutants and that the drug we took, just a woken there.
• 57:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Action.
• 57:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would love for them to go back and like maybe that's what happened to her, that, you know, that she holds intervention with the cybernetics unlocked her ex-gen. Do you want to let me in a team up with Astrid Bloom?
• 58:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, you know, as you all, hold on.
• 58:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: That would be an awesome black girl's rock type of issues, but I don't think because they have two different things.
• 58:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Ashley Bloom has an issue with Emma and I don't think that they would gel.
• 58:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think I would love to see where network Nina is currently with Shield.
• 58:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: If she would still be around them, would she maybe she would want to come back as a leader?
• 58:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I don't know, like it would be really interesting to go back into where she is.
• 58:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: I kind of wonder back as a supervillain, but more than anything, I just want to see her happy in her nightclub.
• 58:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: She's feeding off of horny white people's emotions all the time.
• 58:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, listen, I would love to see like, you know, the cover copy, this issue bear stomach and plenty of cleavage.
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, that would be the perfect, like, you know, way to sort of, you know, kick it all.
• 58:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And, uh,
• 58:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as long as Andre and I get Alexander Pierce back in that mancini again, we're the mancini.
• 59:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, absolutely.
• 59:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 59:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that would be a little, and you know, and then he'd be in a little circle in the bottom corner of the cover, you know, plus mancini, you know, and it's like, you know, all the good things there.
• 59:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: But actually I think what you really cool to um, um, I'd love to see like a current day story, you know, much, you know, that's absolutely true of her of her and a very cyber punk, you know, sort of way, you know, kind of teet because she has that vibe, you know, a little bit, you know, she kind of goes on when you think about her ability to kind of, like tap into things and teamed up with Leviathan, you know, frankly in it, you know, because they're both opportunists, I think.
• 59:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think that we're really interesting to sort of play it out, you know, not necessarily as villains, but sort of cyberpunk style, opportunists who get pulled into something and get to play out those two characters.
• 59:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, as the chaotic bisexual, like fucking the black lead from Rocky Horror Picture Show, I am all of your friends.
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're in, right?
• 59:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's all over.
• 59:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it comes, it comes poly bag with a lollipop.
• 1:00:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's like it's hurting you.
• 1:00:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I mean, I honestly, I don't know like I would love to see something because we know that both are and like, you know, eventually gw bridge just for tires like what happens to them like what do you do when you're no longer needed in that sense.
• 1:00:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I would love to see that.
• 1:00:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like is it is there a retirement community for shield agents?
• 1:00:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like what do they do?
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I like her a lot.
• 1:00:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think she has a ton of potential, but more than anything, I've loved this conversation with the two of you.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Awesome.
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Deep 90s lore.
• 1:00:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now, I think more than anything what this episode is about, besides Nina's unresolved trauma with Madam Hydro, which is for sure a story we need to see.
• 1:00:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a character episode about representation mattering.
• 1:00:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is coming out in black history month.
• 1:00:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: I, as a white kid reading these stories, is a very different experience than Andre is a black kid reading these stories.
• 1:00:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I think we have to always recognize that.
• 1:00:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: This character in the late 80s, early 90s, served a representation that we just didn't see a lot.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah.
• 1:00:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Storm was always bugging amazing, but network need a matter to somebody, just like every queer character, every black character, every disabled character matters representation is key.
• 1:01:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You hit it on the head, because again, you know, growing up, you can count B, B amount of black superheroes on one hand just from one company alone.
• 1:01:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: whether it was DC or Marvel or even image at one point, there wasn't enough.
• 1:01:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like in network Nina, she's a deep cut, but she is a part of Black character history and fiction more so than anyone else.
• 1:01:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think was just a fixture in a world that no one really read.
• 1:01:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's the disservice that she was, you know, she wasn't, again, wasn't the mutant area.
• 1:01:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was just a superhero and a different part of the Marvel universe
• 1:01:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: It would be a different part of the armor universe if it was the cosmic area or the the horror area Like blade was blade was just the black guy The horror job right like she was the black character superhero in the spy area with GW bridge, and I think They deserve that recognition
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like her a lot.
• 1:02:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Follow the stream of an underscore lane.
• 1:02:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's going to be really fun content this whole month.
• 1:02:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to hear any final thoughts remind of you.
• 1:02:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And anything you'd like to plug for February where can people find you both online?
• 1:02:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's go to Dan and then, Andre.
• 1:02:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right.
• 1:02:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: God knows where I'll be in February, but you can always find me at DJ Chai Chester on Blue Sky, Threads, and those are good places to look for me.
• 1:02:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the final thought would be, you know, under as you're saying this, I have to wonder now in a retro history if she had been given a more consistent visual identity if that would have helped her.
• 1:02:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, like we're talking about like all the cool, the cool looks that she had, but, you know, the identifiability of a single costume, you know, would have elevated her, you know, from a recognized ability point of view.
• 1:02:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And while we enjoy it all these different appearances, that's what makes, you know, in that type of comic, you know, have more, oh, I know that I know her well, I know Yes, I think that's the choice thing about that little would have had to have made winning title, you know, yeah, but you knew like dumb dumb Dugan was because he had a very identifiable It always says the bowler hat right at the bowler hat, like yeah, you knew who certain characters were Yeah, you know was they they were consistent
• 1:03:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: she had a new hairstyle every issue right and that would be something you know to to have thought about you know even from where I could have influenced it you know at a point in time you know to sort of say you know she has a cop design a costume for and let's make sure she shows up you know every single time looking like that which would have been you know but that's it that's all I got you know there's a great cyberpunk series i just finished for blackbox comics while the risk which is out right now you
• 1:03:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing too plugged necessarily, you know me.
• 1:03:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just an aging pop culture enthusiast who loves comics and all things nerdy.
• 1:03:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you can find me online at talk and nerdy to me.
• 1:03:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's T-A-L-K in our number two, DUI, on X, which I'm really not on that much, but I'm very active on Instagram.
• 1:03:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lordly Lordy, Ms. Nixen, she's a big one.
• 1:03:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the one I got.
• 1:03:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 1:03:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright everybody, thank you so much for your ongoing support.
• 1:04:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's great to see you both, so happy to hang with friends every time.
• 1:04:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I did like seven therapy sessions and then got to hang with you guys and this was definitely the highlight of my day.
• 1:04:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
• 1:04:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
• 1:04:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Alright everyone.
• 1:04:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for listening.
• 1:04:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Please take care of yourselves.
• 1:04:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Who knows what's going on in the world?
• 1:04:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're recording this in December.
• 1:04:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: February feels like age is a way, but please stay safe.
• 1:04:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Years.
• 1:04:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I will see you all back here next week.