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Milestone Book Club #38 - Kobalt #7-14 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:00
Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to the Milestone Book Club on 22 panels. I am joined by the brothers Anderson, no relation.
0:13
Tad Eggleston: For Minneapolis and, and,
0:16
Tad Eggleston: Is it Upstate New York? Is that what we call the Albany area? Or mid-state New York? Upstate is cool.
0:23
Marcus Anderson: Capital Region.
0:25
Tad Eggleston: Capital Region, that's what… you're both in the Capital Region.
0:27
Marcus Anderson: New York's Capital Region.
0:29
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you're both in capital regions. One in Minnesota, one in New York. So, cool, capital regions.
0:34
Ted: Well, I mean, technically it's, you know, St. Paul, so I'm not, like, I'm in the Twin Cities area, but…
0:40
Tad Eggleston: Are you in the Capital Region?
0:42
Ted: Well, I'm in Minneapolis, I'm in the suburbs.
0:45
Tad Eggleston: And Minneapolis and St. Paul are called the Twin Cities, and therefore they are one region.
0:52
Ted: But I'm on the other side of the river. Okay, never mind, we'll… we can move on.
0:58
Tad Eggleston: Are you trying to say that those St. Paul guy, you don't want to associate yourself? I just… I'm not…
1:02
Ted: I'm not trying to do some stolen… I'm not trying to do some stolen Valor stuff, is all.
1:06
Tad Eggleston: Oh!
1:07
Ted: Claim… Anyway, no, I'm… Ugh… What are we talking about this week?
1:17
Tad Eggleston: We're talking some… What was it? Cobalt?
1:21
Ted: Cobalt!
1:23
Tad Eggleston: Lots of cobalt.
1:23
Ted: the weird side book of the Milestone universe, and I don't mean that in a negative way.
1:30
Ted: But I do mean that it is a weird side book.
1:34
Ted: Yeah, sorry, I immediately took over there. How do people feel about this book?
1:41
Marcus Anderson: Financial. Like, overall, or this arc?
1:43
Ted: I'm just kind of curious, like, I… I… I want to know, kind of, because, Marcus, you mentioned you had read almost all of the stuff we're going to be going through. We read… so on the… on the sheet, we had issues 7 through 14.
1:55
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, this is a long arc.
1:57
Ted: This is a long… it's essentially the rest of the book, because those last two issues.
2:01
Marcus Anderson: Oh, that's.
2:02
Ted: Well, yeah, those last two issues, and they tie in really heavily with, like, what is the… essentially became the wrap-up for the Milestone universe, the, the Long Hot Summer…
2:14
Ted: Storyline. Yeah, it's… and it does fully wrap up what happens in Cobalt. Like, it's…
2:21
Ted: you know, it is… Cobalt is essentially… That, I mean, that…
2:26
Ted: this is… I mean, I'm kind of getting ahead of what I wanted to talk about with Cobalt, but Cobalt really feels like it should have been, and was probably plotted to be, like, 30 issues, or 50 issues, or something. Like, it's…
2:41
Ted: So cut short, and you can tell, especially in those last two issues.
2:48
Ted: And it just kind of has to hit an ending, and it really suffers for it, unfortunately.
2:54
Ted: I… yeah, I mean, I… I have a lot of mixed feelings about this series.
2:59
Ted: And it's really unfortunate how much it got kind of…
3:03
Ted: you know, ruin… well, it… here's the thing. It's sadder that Milestone as a whole obviously got shafted, but, like, this was one of the many… this was obviously one of the many, like, you know, casualties of it along the way that really, you know, it's… it sucks that this book in particular… it sucks that all the books, but you know what I mean.
3:22
Ted: Yeah, anyway, I… I… I like…
3:27
Ted: Cobalt a lot. It is a weird…
3:31
Ted: addition to the Milestone universe, and I kind of want to start off with that, I guess. I don't know, I mean.
3:37
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, okay.
3:38
Marcus Anderson: I mean, for me… I think, I think, you know… It is definitely, like, the…
3:45
Marcus Anderson: the odd book out. I've said before, I think when we were reading it the last time, that it's the book
3:51
Marcus Anderson: that feels…
3:53
Marcus Anderson: the most, like, some of the more stereotypical elements of what were going on in the 90s. And to be fair, I think… I think anytime you look back at something culturally, like, the big stuff stands out, so…
4:05
Marcus Anderson: You know, people think, like, huge spiked shoulder pads, and, like, really dark and gritty. You gotta have a serial killer in there doing, like, horrific.
4:13
Ted: No!
4:14
Marcus Anderson: stuff to win.
4:14
Ted: The serial killer stuff that… oh, God. And also, yeah, sorry.
4:19
Marcus Anderson: Oh, no, no, no, I won't go on and on. I think, basically.
4:23
Marcus Anderson: for me, right? It, cause, you know… I'm trying to think…
4:28
Marcus Anderson: when I was kind of done with Punisher. It's funny, because, like, as an adult, with my, you know.
4:36
Marcus Anderson: just political beliefs, et cetera, et cetera. I kind of just am like, man.
4:42
Marcus Anderson: really, The Puncher is a problematic character, it's a problematic book.
4:47
Marcus Anderson: But, like, in that era, you know, I drank the Kool-Aid, but I did, like, fizzle out on it. It wasn't even like I rage-quitted with my current, worldview, you know what I mean? Like, I hadn't even come to that yet. It was more just, I was like, he's shooting the guys, and oh, there's this…
5:05
Marcus Anderson: You know what I mean? It was just, it just kind of felt like, like the same old stuff. And, cobalt is not that.
5:11
Ted: It's that… Yes.
5:13
Marcus Anderson: But, but, it's in the… it's like Milestone's answer to that. It's, like, in the neighborhood. I… what I do like about Cobalt, I will say, because, yeah, if you ask me to pick up, like, a Punisher book of this era, like, right now, I wouldn't want to do it. But, or any of the other books that are a lot like this, what I do like about it is it…
5:33
Marcus Anderson: I feel… I know we said this, I said this last time, I… to me, it seems…
5:37
Marcus Anderson: Like, it's both doing…
5:40
Marcus Anderson: what that kind of dark and gritty hero genre did, but is also aware of it, and is, like, maybe subverting it in certain ways. Like, for instance, the fact that, you know, Cobalt wants the criminal underworld to believe that he's a murderous.
5:56
Marcus Anderson: monster, but he's basically got, like, a no-killing code. Like, you know what I mean? Yeah. And, like, and, like, stuff like that. Like, it plays with it, a lot. And then…
6:05
Marcus Anderson: you know, there's the Deathstroke guy…
6:09
Marcus Anderson: Harvest. Harvest, yeah, yeah. And, you know, so it's like, it's interesting.
6:14
Ted: Yes.
6:14
Marcus Anderson: I don't know if I would call it a…
6:17
Marcus Anderson: a satire of that genre, but I feel like there's elements where it's aware of what that is and it's playing with it. And sometimes it's just straight up doing it, too.
6:28
Ted: Yeah, like, it's… like, anytime Harvest shows up, especially, because Harvest's whole thing is, like, he only shows up because some guy blew up a school bus full of 17 children bazooka, and then his respo… and then he's like, I don't like guns, and then his response is to murder every person.
6:42
Marcus Anderson: To go into everything, yeah.
6:43
Ted: Yeah, with guns. Like, that's…
6:45
Marcus Anderson: I do, okay, I do, I did read that as commentary of sorts, you know what I mean? Because, I mean, you know, again, with the aforementioned Punisher, Punisher, like, was directly inspired by, like, you know, the… the, Burkowitzage…
7:01
Marcus Anderson: and the Dirty Harry's, and yeah, and all of that stuff. And all of those things… Dirty, hairy.
7:08
Marcus Anderson: It's a racist property, you know, and, like, it's, it's, it's… you know, Dirty Harry's up there with,
7:16
Marcus Anderson: You know what?
7:17
Marcus Anderson: I could… I could… I could, like, talk all day about this genre of film, so I won't even… I won't even evoke it, but… but my point is, like, Punisher is a direct descendant of that, you know what I mean? And… but without any type of examination of maybe the issues with it, the, you know, the problem of vigilantism, and I think that, Harvest…
7:38
Marcus Anderson: with his whole, like, I really hate guns, and it's like, so I gotta gun everything, like, you know, it is… it does…
7:47
Marcus Anderson: To me, point at the…
7:50
Marcus Anderson: Just kind of, like, nonsensical argument of somebody who's, like, Just a total trigger-happy vigilante.
7:58
Ted: Yes. Yeah, that's… I mean…
8:01
Ted: So, I was actually… I was trying to describe this to a friend of mine, as, like, because he… I was trying to describe this to a comics friend who is aware of all the Milestone books and had read some of them, and, like, just wasn't aware of this one at all, because guess what? It's got very little to do with the rest of the Milestone universe, which is also something I want to talk about, the fact that… we'll get there. But,
8:21
Ted: But… it's… it's so… like, I was trying to figure out how to describe it, and I'm like, okay…
8:30
Ted: it's like a Garth Ennis book from the 90s, but not as deeply satirical and actually a little bit sincere.
8:38
Ted: And also, a little bit, like…
8:42
Ted: like, a MITRE threats book from nowadays, or, like, an image comic from the 90s? Like, it's… it's really… it is 90…
8:50
Marcus Anderson: Good description. Yeah, go ahead.
8:51
Ted: Yeah, it's neither fish nor foul for a lot of ways. Like, it doesn't… because, I mean, the Garth Ennis thing was the most obvious comparison for me. Like, it feels… like, that premise is such a Garth Ennis premise, of, like, there's this grim and gritty vigilante type who's out to kill, you know, the biggest, baddest dude, but oh no, he's gotta have a kid's sidekick who's a bumbling fuck-up, like, that's…
9:11
Ted: That is… and I don't even mean that as an insult, necessarily, to Garth Ennis, but, like, that is a very Garth Ennis premise, and I, like, it would be a very different book, but it would be…
9:24
Ted: it would be a Garth Ennis book. Like, it… it… that… that is, I think.
9:29
Ted: a premise he would… he would have a field day with. It would not feel like this book. This book is something else. This book is not about, haha, look at this comical fuck-up kid. Like, there's an interesting level of, like, mentor-student relationship going on here. You know,
9:45
Ted: For all that we're talking about, like.
9:47
Ted: hard… er, hardware, Cobalt's, like, ludicrous, you know, metal plate and, like, skin-tight fabric, and yet his costume's chest is totally exposed. Right, right. I love that costume. It's so stupid. Like, for all that he is, you know, the, like.
10:04
Ted: 90s anti-hero.
10:06
Marcus Anderson: Oh my god, sorry, sorry. The… the open part is… is… kind of acts as a target to his vital organs. Alright, go ahead.
10:12
Ted: It's weird that it's like, yeah, here, here guys, shoot me right here. This, right, here, right here, boys, you know where to do it.
10:20
Ted: It's so bizarre. But, like, it… you know, for all of that, he's a smart character. He's a really sharp… he knows what he's doing, he's playing this for years, he's not just randomly gunning down drug dealers in the street, like, it's…
10:32
Ted: there's an intelligence to it that I think is really… like.
10:37
Ted: I respect that for making him more of a character than a caricature.
10:41
Marcus Anderson: You know? And, like…
10:43
Ted: But at the same time, that means it's a really hard sell, because it's not a satire.
10:47
Marcus Anderson: It's also not, like, a straight-up sincere superhero.
10:57
Tad Eggleston: Did we lose Ted?
10:58
Marcus Anderson: Maybe, might be his connection. Oh, Ted, can you hear us?
11:02
Ted: Hey, yeah, oh, sorry, I don't know, my tab just crashed, I don't know what happened.
11:06
Marcus Anderson: The last thing you were saying was… I think you were saying…
11:09
Tad Eggleston: A straight-up superhero.
11:10
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:11
Ted: Yeah, it's not a straight-up superhero, you know, it's not Icon and Rocket, you know, for starters. It's not a lot of different, you know, superhero-ment, you know, archetype-type stuff.
11:24
Ted: It hits so many weird… pieces that it's…
11:29
Ted: it's… I don't want to say it's unfocused, because I do think it has a very strong narrative focus, but it's also…
11:35
Ted: I don't know what the hell it is, you know? Like, I don't… Yeah.
11:39
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, and I think, in some ways.
11:42
Marcus Anderson: That's why I like it, like, I definitely.
11:44
Ted: Oh, yeah!
11:45
Marcus Anderson: The only reason I didn't, and actually, after, you know, we're done, when I get some reading time later, I am gonna finish the whole arc, but .
11:52
Ted: I realize I probably shouldn't have said.
11:54
Marcus Anderson: No, I was gonna be… I was gonna own it, like, it's cool. But, no, but my point was, like, when I was reading it, I was totally in, you know what I mean? I was kind of… and actually.
12:05
Ted: these issues kind of breezed by. Like, there was a few settings where I was like, alright, I'm just gonna read one, and then I, like, read two, you know what I mean? And, like… Yeah.
12:14
Ted: That's quickly, they're snappy.
12:15
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, no, it's.
12:17
Tad Eggleston: I think I read all of them last Monday.
12:19
Marcus Anderson: Okay.
12:20
Tad Eggleston: You guys… One of you was busy, and we rescheduled.
12:26
Ted: Yeah, and.
12:27
Tad Eggleston: And that's why I'm behind, because I haven't read them again since last Monday. I've read lots of other stuff. Which is why I have one question, and I… because I can't remember whether it was just alluded to, or it was actually
12:42
Tad Eggleston: a thing.
12:44
Tad Eggleston: It feels like… Cobalt isn't the only name he's gone by.
12:53
Ted: I…
12:54
Ted: Okay, I'm not sure about that. I remember… so, one of the gimmicks that Cobalt that comes up over and over again, there's a lot of times where it's like, you get these hints of him having a much longer, more storied career. That's what I meant. Yeah. Yeah, but it also… I don't know if it says specifically that he's gone by other names, like, he's done other…
13:14
Tad Eggleston: No, I just… I just mean that it… it… It seems like…
13:19
Tad Eggleston: The villains, and even the cops, treat him like he's…
13:26
Ted: Like, a myth.
13:26
Tad Eggleston: Well, a myth and a relatively new one, whereas particularly the woman treats him like she's known him FOREVER…
13:37
Ted: Yeah.
13:38
Tad Eggleston: And a couple of the things she said felt like she was, like, giving them a hard time for shedding something and turning into this…
13:47
Tad Eggleston: Thing that he is now.
13:48
Marcus Anderson: And actually, what you're mentioning, Ted, I feel like that's one of the things that I find interesting about this book. A lot of times, you know, you get pulled through a whole, sometimes, like, a five-issue origin story arc, and I kind of like that they jump in and…
14:06
Marcus Anderson: it's already, like you said, been going for a while, and, like, he's had different iterations, partners, I don't know about.
14:13
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it almost feels, I mean, like…
14:16
Tad Eggleston: It almost feels like he was maybe a more wholesome hero and adopted this…
14:21
Tad Eggleston: jark whatever, because he felt like it was the thing, because…
14:27
Marcus Anderson: You definitely had a reason, there's… there is a reason.
14:29
Tad Eggleston: Right.
14:30
Marcus Anderson: He's trying to cultivate this, you know, deadly… Warrior.
14:36
Marcus Anderson: thing, and even, I'm just leafing back to the first, appearances that we read, but it's like, when he first showed up, like, that, you know, that first panel, when he, splash page, when he jumps out of the sewer.
14:48
Marcus Anderson: water on those… those guys, like, they literally draw him like a monster, you know what I mean? And so…
14:54
Marcus Anderson: I think they're.
14:56
Tad Eggleston: And it seems like the killer dude, I can't remember his name right now,
15:02
Marcus Anderson: Oh, the serial killer?
15:04
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no.
15:04
Ted: Rabbit?
15:05
Tad Eggleston: Rab. Or, no, not rabbit.
15:08
Marcus Anderson: Oh, the, the, harvest. What are you talking about?
15:11
Tad Eggleston: Harvest, it feels like he was, like, a previous partner of his, so…
15:16
Marcus Anderson: They definitely have some overlap, but we don't know…
15:18
Tad Eggleston: It's like…
15:19
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, go ahead.
15:20
Tad Eggleston: I mean, like, again, this is just the vibe I got. I would desperately have to go back to, like, pick it up, but I want to figure out if any of you felt this vibe, too. It almost felt like, okay.
15:33
Tad Eggleston: like…
15:35
Tad Eggleston: just to use, like, Batman. He was, like, Batman 66 to Burt Ward Robin, except when… when Harvest went and became Jason Todd, he's like, oh…
15:47
Tad Eggleston: well, maybe he's not wrong about that darkness thing, and maybe I can convince him the killing's still bad if I'm dark with him, but don't kill.
15:59
Ted: It's…
15:59
Marcus Anderson: Oh, go ahead. Oh, go ahead.
16:02
Ted: I just think it's unclear. I think it's… I think that a lot of the questions of this book would maybe have eventually been answered, but we just… there's not enough for us to go on. Like, there really isn't. It sucks that there's not.
16:15
Ted: Like…
16:15
Tad Eggleston: But am I crazy to have that sort of vibe?
16:18
Marcus Anderson: No, I mean, the only thing I would say… no, I don't think you're crazy at all. I think the one thing I would say that I see slightly differently
16:27
Marcus Anderson: is… like… like Ted is saying, I don't necessarily know if their partnership was…
16:33
Marcus Anderson: a specifically Batman or Robin-type one. It could even have been, like… I almost viewed it as…
16:40
Marcus Anderson: And I think it's up for interpretation, but I viewed it as more like, Daredevil and Spider-Man, where they're kind of in.
16:45
Tad Eggleston: the same.
16:45
Marcus Anderson: orbit, but they're not, like, partner partners. But they will, like, team up, you know what I mean? And, like…
16:51
Marcus Anderson: They're kind of in the same… same, same orbit.
16:55
Ted: Well, and of course, there's also a whole thing with Clover, and, like, what her deal is with hardware… er, hardware.
16:59
Tad Eggleston: And is Clover… is Clover the mom of his sidekick?
17:03
Marcus Anderson: No, no, his sidekick's got a totally different family. Like, remember the sidekick's father…
17:09
Tad Eggleston: I thought we only saw the sidekick's father, and the sidekick's father, like, blackmailed him.
17:15
Ted: It's… no, it's… it's different from… it's not quite that. It's the… the… the sidekick's father… Richie's father once did a favor for Cobalt that isn't… Yeah, okay. It's only alluded to. It's like he got him out of prison or something. But it's a big favor. We do see Richie's mom at least once.
17:32
Ted: in the background or something. Like, she's… she's real. I don't think she looks particularly like Clover, unless I'm misremembering. That would be a hell of a twist, frankly, but…
17:40
Marcus Anderson: No, it is a different character, though.
17:42
Ted: Yeah, but there's all these interesting allusions to, like, every side.
17:46
Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's the twist. It's full-on Shakespearean soap opera.
17:50
Ted: Oh my god, actually…
17:51
Tad Eggleston: Really, he's Richie's father, and the faith…
17:54
Marcus Anderson: Oh, no. No, I think you're… I think you're adding Later.
17:57
Tad Eggleston: Raised him for…
17:59
Ted: No, we're going in a whole new weird area. No, I mean, I do… I… I do, like…
18:04
Ted: There's a… sorry, I'm kind of losing my trade of thought, because I'm thinking about.
18:07
Tad Eggleston: Sorry.
18:08
Ted: No, no, no! Sorry, this is… here's the thing. Everything I've said about this, I like this series a lot. I do feel like, when I say that it suffered from, like.
18:18
Ted: It suffered from a lot of, like, It's hard to…
18:24
Ted: It suffered a lot from the milestone closing publication, which, like, yeah, no kidding, a lot of stuff suffered from that. Everyone.
18:31
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but I think starting later than the other ones probably affected that as well.
18:37
Ted: Yes, and it does… it drops all these illusions of, like, you know, oh, I remember back when I was, you know, back when I trained you, and there's all these little hints of, like, oh, I… you know, once I did this… and it's… I like that, but it also means that it adds up to not a lot, because, like, we know that Harvest is one of his former trainees, we know that Clover is one of his former trainees, and also still has the hots for him, and also, apparently, she's the only one
19:01
Ted: I kind of went through and looked at some of the dialogue carefully, like…
19:05
Ted: he says that all my other partners either went bad or died, and so, like, she's apparently the only one who didn't, and he considers Harvest to have gone bad, I guess, but still works with him? It's…
19:16
Ted: It's a little unclear on a lot of reasons.
19:18
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, I would have liked to, to your point, to have seen how this plays out, you know, with what else they… where they went with it. Yeah.
19:27
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, I… and I don't… I don't feel like, oh, this is incomplete storytelling. I just feel like… like, I think we've said that they hadn't gotten to…
19:36
Marcus Anderson: you know, they hadn't had time to, like, fully flesh it out. I do feel like, in a lot of ways, obviously, we.
19:43
Tad Eggleston: We do have two more issues in the next compendium. I think they can cram it all in.
19:48
Ted: it doesn't, like… I gotta tell ya, I've read ahead, it does not. I mean…
19:53
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
19:53
Ted: Yeah, unfortunately, I… it's… and again, it's… it's… hey.
19:56
Tad Eggleston: And I should… I should make clear to listeners, too, that just because I'm in a sarcastic mood doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it, too. But I pretty much agree with what Ted said, is like, part of what I enjoyed was, like.
20:10
Tad Eggleston: there are so many threads that it's like… Dropped hands. What's this, and what's that?
20:17
Ted: And that's just the stuff about, like, the background of what all these characters are.
20:20
Tad Eggleston: doing stuff.
20:20
Ted: like, you know, Rabid shows up, and, like, he fails to kill the dude… so, okay, that's a whole other thing, too, I want to talk about, is, like, the complexity of all the various plots. But, like, Rabid fails to do the thing that St. Cloud hired him to do, which was,
20:34
Ted: kill, the witness, but, crucially, Rabid does find out, I… er, I keep saying other superheroes' names, he does figure out,
20:45
Ted: he does figure out, Cobalt's real name, which is apparently a big deal. Like, it's, oh man, Cobalt is secretly…
20:55
Ted: blah, blah, I don't know.
20:56
Tad Eggleston: Well, and that's another reason that I wondered about whether or not he'd had a previous identity. If, like, he'd been around as…
21:05
Tad Eggleston: He was Captain America, but then they found out Captain America was Steve Rogers, and was like, -oh, I can't be Captain America anymore.
21:13
Ted: That's a good point. It could be something like that. Whatever it is, though, it's like, this dude, whoever he is, like, has a past, has a… has a whole story going on that we don't know it, and I do like all the hints at it. It's just that it's frustrating that we're never gonna get all the answers, you know?
21:29
Tad Eggleston: Right.
21:30
Ted: The other thing that I wanted to say is just, that's all just, like, backstory stuff of, like, oh, Cobalt trained all these guys, and most of them died or went bad, except for this woman who has the hots room, and this dude who hates guns, but uses them anyway. Like, I'm making it sound, again, worse than I actually feel. I really, I really can't emphasize enough that I like this book. But, like.
21:50
Ted: they, there's all these things in the present, too, these interesting little threads of, you know, when Cobalt starts trying to take apart St. Cloud's
22:01
Ted: whole operation. There's, like, twisty little details of how he's trying to do it, because, oh, St. Cloud hires this crazy guy to, you know, clean up a dude who stole from him, except, oh no, crazy guy turned out to be crazy, so he blew up a school bus full of 17 kids.
22:18
Ted: So St. Cloud has to put that guy on ice, but that guy also killed a federal, like, an undercover agent, so St. Cloud has to hire a different guy, Rabid, in order to kill that witness, and like…
22:32
Ted: It sounds overly complex, but in.
22:34
Tad Eggleston: Always good to have a serial killer on payroll.
22:37
Ted: Oh, you gotta have the serial key.
22:39
Marcus Anderson: Even St. Cloud… even St. Cloud is like, yeah, I don't want to do this either, but, like.
22:43
Ted: Yeah, I like that. And there's, like, there's interesting little complexities, and I had to, like, go back and reread and be like, oh yeah, that's right, St. Cloud hired… or no, the guys who were the enemies in, like, the first arc, Volt and Redlight and, Slick, those were, like, a separate competing sub-organization.
23:01
Marcus Anderson: That were, like, secretly…
23:03
Ted: encouraging St. Cloud's dealers to skim off the top, so Cobalt defeated them, but now he's going after St. Cloud, but it's a bigger deal now, because St. Cloud knows he's a real guy and not just a myth, and like…
23:14
Ted: It's such…
23:16
Ted: like, interesting, weird layers of characters and who knows about what, because then Harvest finds out about the witness who saw the federal, undercover agent being killed, and he has to figure that out, and, like, it's…
23:28
Ted: there's so many threads that this would have eventually gotten to, and it's so disappointing that it never will, you know? Like, God, there's a lot of fun ideas here, and…
23:39
Ted: So, I've told this story so many times about how, like, I had random… one random issue of every series when I was younger, and one of the ones I had was Cobalt number 8, the one after the static team-up,
23:53
Ted: Where it turns out Static and Richie go to the same high school, because of course they do.
23:58
Ted: Where it's like, almost… not a lot actually happens in that issue, it's, like, hardware shows up and holds Cobalt at gunpoint for a while, and then Har… and then Cobalt's like, yeah, I don't care, take that box, it's a thing, I don't have, you know, to give two craps about. And Richie shows up and does that, where he's like, here, you steal? Which I always thought was really hilarious.
24:16
Ted: And then, like.
24:19
Ted: there's that bit where he… Cobalt and Richie… like, Cobalt is really pissed, and he takes it out on Richie.
24:25
Ted: And he's like, you little punk, you know, because of you, they know I'm a real guy, they're gonna… now St. Cloud is gonna be gunning for me, and Richie stands up and tells him, no, what are you talking about? I'm the whole reason you're still alive, I saved your life when we were fighting red light blue guys. And I really… even as a kid, I loved that moment, because then Cobalt apologizes.
24:43
Ted: Like, a scene later, he's.
24:45
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
24:45
Ted: in disguise, and he's like, you know what? You're totally right. I was a dick about it. You did save my life. I'll keep training you as long as you want to keep training. I loved that.
24:53
Marcus Anderson: A quick, a quick thing about that, I…
24:56
Marcus Anderson: the… because you just… yeah, I think what you said is accurate, that he shows up in disguise, but I almost think that the disguise is just… he's out of costume.
25:05
Ted: That's… yeah.
25:06
Marcus Anderson: We don't see his face. Yes. You know, but he's basically riding the subway, and like, you know, Paige doesn't know he's there. Right. And then he just starts speaking to him, and he apologizes.
25:17
Ted: That's another one.
25:18
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
25:19
Ted: Yeah, that's another thing I was thinking about, is I realized, like, you know, we don't actually ever see Cobalt's real face.
25:23
Marcus Anderson: No, we don't…
25:24
Ted: He's always either got the mask on, or he's, like, kind of shaded, like he was in this thing, where he, you know, he was behind a newspaper, or he…
25:31
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, sir.
25:33
Ted: Well, no, it's… I mean, or it's, you know, he's in some other kind of disguise. There's the bit where he's in, like, a policeman's uniform, but his face is obscured, and he's clearly, like… Rich even says something like, why are you wearing that, or whatever. And, like.
25:44
Marcus Anderson: We learn nothing about this guy, and I like that.
25:48
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, I do appreciate the consistency of…
25:51
Marcus Anderson: of, you know, it's like worldbuilding, because we know, just from that train interaction, that, alright, like, he is, like, walking around Dakota, like, just as himself, you know what I mean? But he's just, you know… The other thing, which I think you had touched on before, is the fact that,
26:07
Marcus Anderson: In a lot of other series, I think the temptation would be to keep the gag of, like, oh, he's not a… he's not a man, you know what I mean? He's more than human, and keep that going for a lot longer. But, like, you know, before issue 10, like, that mystery… at least as far as St. Cloud is concerned, that mystery goes away.
26:25
Marcus Anderson: And I mean, presumably to the… with the rest of the underworld as well.
26:30
Ted: Yeah, it's… and… and the maturity… I mean, I mentioned the Garth Ennis comparison, and I do still think that's a little bit accurate, but the fact that Cobalt apologizes like a real person, I think it's really crucial for this being something more than, like, the sum of its parts, you know? Like, I think there's a really…
26:48
Ted: There's an interesting heart to this writing that I was not expecting.
26:51
Marcus Anderson: Yeah. And I mean that in the most positive way that I can. I think this was…
26:56
Ted: This was a weird book in that it doesn't…
27:00
Ted: this is gonna… this is the part where I sound mean, and I don't mean to be. It doesn't feel like a milestone book. And part of that is because the other thing that I said when I was describing this to my friend in comics, I was like, oh yeah, that's the other thing that's weird about this book. There's, like, no characters of color. Like, everybody's white.
27:17
Marcus Anderson: Can I challenge that a bit? Let me challenge that a bit.
27:20
Ted: I'm trying to remember, though, because I was going through, and I'm like, is that… is there, like, a… was anyone black? Like…
27:25
Marcus Anderson: No, like, so this is what I was saying.
27:27
Tad Eggleston: was.
27:27
Marcus Anderson: Like, even, like, you know, Dwayne McDuffie, I think I just recently was reading
27:33
Marcus Anderson: the letter, because as… if everybody remembers, you know, we talked about the static issue in DC, but it wasn't… the final blow
27:42
Marcus Anderson: wasn't the cover artwork. The final blow was that, Dwayne McDuffie kept it really real in his editor's, note at the end of the issue.
27:53
Marcus Anderson: You know, like, he really, you know, spoke about, like, DC breaking their word, about their, their censorship, and, and specifically.
28:03
Marcus Anderson: that it was the idea of, like, two Black people, in this, you know, somewhat intimate situation that, you know, you see… you've seen similar portrayals in other comic books where people aren't Black. So he called all of that out. My point is, like,
28:19
Marcus Anderson: In that editorial, one of the things he pointed out is that, like, yeah, Milestone… is,
28:26
Marcus Anderson: you know, brought color to comics, and… but also, that they… that it's not exclusively, like, black, and you know, or even the stories, or even the creators. So, I actually, I would say…
28:37
Marcus Anderson: Because now what I'm thinking about when you say that, like, I know what you mean, but when you say…
28:45
Marcus Anderson: it doesn't feel like a milestone book. I would say, like, even the…
28:49
Marcus Anderson: core, because if we're… because I know Milestone is diverse in its titles.
28:53
Marcus Anderson: But, I mean, if we're being real.
28:55
Marcus Anderson: the first 3 books are kind of, like, the core, like, you know, Hardware, Blood Syndicate, and Static.
29:01
Marcus Anderson: And those, those 3 books, and Icon, yeah, sorry.
29:05
Ted: They call you Auto.
29:05
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, no, no, you're absolutely right, you're absolutely right. I was kind of remembering them in the order they came out. I remember it was Hardware, and I feel like, yeah, maybe Icon was second, either way, but those four books are, like, the core, you know? And even in those four books.
29:19
Marcus Anderson: they're…
29:20
Marcus Anderson: they're very different from one another, you know what I mean? Like, I mean, they may have it in common that they have Black characters, but that was one of the things I celebrated about Milestone, is that even when they have, like, books, with Black characters, Afro-Latino characters.
29:35
Marcus Anderson: that, they're not all the same, and there's an incredible diversity that feels like, you know, people I know in real life. So, I would just say that, in some ways.
29:48
Marcus Anderson: Maybe the one thing that makes this feel not like a milestone book is maybe just that it's less connected, and that you have less overlap. We did get.
29:56
Ted: steady.
29:56
Marcus Anderson: You know, but I think the difference is,
30:00
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, I mean, it actually works with what Milestone is. I remember when we spoke about,
30:08
Marcus Anderson: I was gonna say Deathstroke. The other death guy.
30:11
Ted: Yeah, definitely.
30:11
Marcus Anderson: Death Wish, yeah, when we spoke about Death Wish, you know, that was the other thing for me, is it felt like, yeah, you just were seeing a different side of the city, you know what I mean? As opposed to…
30:23
Ted: Yeah, you know, that's very fair. You are, like… and there's an interesting… something else I was thinking as sort of a second part of this, is that I don't know to what degree this was intentional, but also I don't think it matters. But, like, there's something to the idea of…
30:39
Ted: Cobalt being the book that is, like.
30:43
Ted: about the suburban white families who are doing the scared straight thing, and who are so worried about urban gang violence and the drugs, and, like, their whole thing is about, you know, what is my precious little boy gonna do? There's… there's something to the idea of… it's… it is…
30:59
Ted: it is, I think, reductive in the same way that you were saying, like, it's not just milestone were books for Black people, which, yeah, that's… yeah. Like.
31:07
Ted: It's a reductive way of looking at it, but it's one lens in which I think it's actually a pretty effective book, in that, yeah, it is about, like, oh shit, my son wants to be a superhero? Alright, let's show him what it is like to be a superhero, and then actually kind of take that premise seriously.
31:21
Ted: In a posi… in a good way, like, in a way that's… no, that's actually kind of cool, you know, that's a… what does that look like when the kid isn't a complete incompetence and the guy isn't a complete sociopath?
31:31
Marcus Anderson: Right.
31:32
Ted: Yeah.
31:33
Ted: Yeah, no, I… it is… it is reductive of me to be like, there's no black people in this, but…
31:37
Ted: But it was a little bit weird for me to be like, are there any major characters in this who aren't white? And kind of…
31:43
Marcus Anderson: Well, there's some characters where I was glad they weren't black, but…
31:46
Ted: That's another part of it, is, like, this… this isn't, like we were saying, this isn't a straight parody. This is not, like, haha, you know, superheroes are dumb and everybody knows it, but it is a little bit about, like, what do people think superhero comics are?
32:01
Marcus Anderson: And…
32:02
Ted: That's… again, not exactly the same thing, but, like, there's… there's… there's…
32:10
Ted: I don't even know what I'm saying anymore.
32:12
Marcus Anderson: No, I hear you, I think I know.
32:13
Ted: Yeah, it's… it's a… it's a weird beast of a book. It's neither a fish nor foul. It's not a parody, but it's also not a completely straight example of superhero stuff.
32:22
Ted: Nobody is a joke, but people do have really funny aspects to them, and there's…
32:29
Ted: there's things in this that are very, very interestingly incisive, and I wish that this book had more time to spread its wings, you know? Because there's some stuff in here that could have gone some real interesting places.
32:42
Marcus Anderson: One thing, something you said made me think about this, or maybe just the idea of…
32:49
Marcus Anderson: The fact that there… you know, there, there, there are, like.
32:53
Marcus Anderson: aspects to, Paige, you know, the mentor-mentee relationship, where they, they zag when most books with a zig, like, you know, and, like, like, things like, Cobalt actually taking a beat.
33:07
Marcus Anderson: And coming back and surprising us by apologizing and having that humility. And even, like, Paige, like, telling him off the way that he did. Yeah. Which won his respect. One thing I was thinking about is.
33:21
Marcus Anderson: I'm realizing that what this book is doing, which is different than a lot of books of this time and this
33:28
Marcus Anderson: genre, if you want to call it a genre, is a lot of times you would get the narration box, characters, you know, noir thoughts, like, you know, as you're, as you're reading. You, you, you know, like the Batman Punisher, I sit atop the rooftop, blah, blah, the Ranger.
33:45
Marcus Anderson: You know, like, that type of stuff. And a lot of the character work, or the character's interiority, you get it through that convention. You don't, this book doesn't really give us,
33:59
Marcus Anderson: the inner monologue of Cobalt, you know what I mean?
34:03
Ted: It does… it does, but it's very, very…
34:06
Ted: I mean, it does, but it's limited in its perspective. It's not trying to be, like, you know, it's…
34:14
Ted: Yeah, I'm trying to think how to put this, because it does… it does definitely give us some of his inter… inner… inner life. Like, we get to see…
34:21
Marcus Anderson: In that specific way, though, with the…
34:23
Ted: But not… it's not in the hyper, like…
34:26
Ted: it's not super introspective, I'll tell you that. It's not him being like, maybe I should have done things differently. It's… it's… from what I remember of his inner monologue, it's mostly pretty kind of cut and dried, like, well.
34:37
Marcus Anderson: Oh, yeah, I see a few examples, yeah.
34:40
Ted: It's… but it's very… it's very limited in what it's saying, because it's him mostly being like, alright, on to the next target. It's… it's very.
34:45
Marcus Anderson: Oh yeah, he's actually, like, talking about what he's doing, yeah.
34:48
Ted: Yes. Yeah, and even when he is musing a little bit, he's not, like, going deep into it, he's definitely doing the heavy narration. Again, it's not a parody, it's not doing Frank Miller's Daredevil, or Andosanti's Daredevil, too. But, like, it is doing…
35:01
Ted: you know, yeah, how does this guy who has planned all this stuff out for years actually think about it in the moment, you know? It's… I like that. It's…
35:09
Ted: God, this is such a weird little book.
35:11
Ted: And again, I don't mean that in a negative way, but, like, what do we do with this? Because it is… we were looking up, before the episode started, dear listeners, we were looking up about, like, what else John Rosamond did, and I had totally forgotten he'd also written Zombie, which is the other… I mean, one of several, but one of the other weird…
35:31
Ted: books of… of…
35:34
Ted: of Milestone, and Zombie was self-consciously doing weird. Like, Zombie was specifically doing, you've had a weird science experience, now you are living in weird world. Like, that… that was the mission statement of Zombie, which I liked, but…
35:48
Ted: It's a different thing from this, where it's like.
35:51
Ted: It's also the fact that Cobalt has been doing this for years, when, like, in every other Milestone book, Issue 1 is, like, the superhero origin story, whether it's hardware putting on, you know, designing the suit, or static getting the powers… well, actually, I guess he gets the powers in issue two, but you know what I mean. Like.
36:07
Ted: every other mainstream milestone book, pretty much every milestone book, frankly, except for, I guess, Shadow Cabinet, but that was sort of a weird one-off. Like, they all open with, page 1, here's the superhero origin story. This one is like, oh, he's been doing this for decades, possibly? Well, maybe not… he's been doing this for a while.
36:25
Marcus Anderson: Yeah. We just haven't… yeah, he's a myth. Nobody believes he's real.
36:29
Ted: But he's been doing this for forever.
36:32
Marcus Anderson: And it's… Small clarification. If I remember, I think static is, on page 1, is already in the suit, but they do, they do tell you the origin.
36:43
Ted: Yes, that's… yeah. And I think the same might be true of hardware, where, like, I think it cold opens with him, like, blowing up the helicopters, and then goes into… yeah. But, no, yeah, but…
36:54
Marcus Anderson: Right, but I see what you're saying, like, like, COBOL has more history when we jump into this.
36:59
Ted: and a lot of history, and, like, a lot of unexplained, you know, things of, like… because not only does he have that police captain who's so close to finding out who he is, and he's deliberately leading her there, because he thinks it's a good idea, I guess, he's also, like… they used to date, I guess? That's sort of…
37:15
Ted: brought up once and never really expanded on. They're like, oh yeah, we used to, you know, we used to be in a relationship, and now I'm gonna bring her into my secret identity, so I have another friend in the force. And I… I do kind of like that weird hints of this past, but it's also…
37:26
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
37:27
Ted: Yeah, I don't know.
37:28
Tad Eggleston: I think also, in a grander scheme, if, like, Shadow Cabinet established that there were powers before…
37:36
Tad Eggleston: the Big Bang, what… what Cobalt establishes, because Shadow Cabinet's supposed to be, like, in the shadows. Yes, there are powers, but they're not… they're not necessarily public to the world. What Cobalt establishes is that
37:52
Tad Eggleston: In the Dakotaverse, the Bang Babies weren't the first public superheroes.
37:58
Tad Eggleston: Yes. Which makes some sense when you think about it, because, you know, I mean, Rocket…
38:04
Tad Eggleston: Didn't really act like she was coming up with the idea of being a superhero.
38:08
Ted: Out of full cloth.
38:10
Marcus Anderson: Hmm.
38:12
Tad Eggleston: You know, so that at least establishes the idea that there's comic books, but…
38:17
Ted: Yeah. Well, I also…
38:19
Marcus Anderson: I see comic books in there.
38:20
Ted: I was about to say, and the worlds collide thing. I also, I still love that bit. Like, I know I mentioned it before, but I love the bit where Richie busts in.
38:28
Marcus Anderson: Let's do.
38:28
Ted: Yeah, aren't you steal? I have your action figure! Such a good line.
38:35
Ted: Yeah, like, it's… it is… and also, I mean, the other thing, I was actually… I was going through this in my head the other day, Shadow Cabinet, none of those characters got their powers from the Big Bang. Like, none of the main characters of Shadow Cabinet, so far as I can remember, literally none of them got theirs from the Big Bang, which I think is a cool…
38:51
Ted: I don't want to say subversion, because that word gets overused, but, like, that's, you know, there's very explicitly disconnected from the thing that defined the rest of Milestone Comics.
39:00
Tad Eggleston: It's more texture to the universe.
39:03
Ted: Yes, yeah, and, yeah, I, I, I…
39:08
Ted: I don't know, for some reason this feels… it's partly that… okay, it's partly that…
39:12
Ted: Cobalt has been doing this for so long, and yet never gets mentioned in any other book. It's partly that his arch-nemesis is, like, the big evil crime lord of Dakota, and yet also pretty much gets never mentioned in any other book.
39:25
Marcus Anderson: Like, Edwin Alva is the main villain of the Milestone universe, and he…
39:29
Ted: you know, this Milton St. Cloud guy, there's even a bit… I was rereading the issue, and there's even a bit where Cobalt… I keep calling him other superhero names, why do I do that? Cobalt is looking at the box full of, like.
39:43
Ted: St. Cloud's… er, Alva's receipts, and is looking through this, and he's like, man, Alva makes St. Cloud look like a nothing, you know, this is… this is wild, this guy's got his fingers in everything, and it's…
39:53
Ted: it feels disconnected in the sense that, like, Milestone is a superhero universe, and yet this dude has been doing it for decades, apparently, or years, at least, and nobody sort of talks about it?
40:05
Marcus Anderson: But let me… but wouldn't you… well, even, like, what you just said, I think that's interesting, because it's like…
40:11
Marcus Anderson: You know, like, Marvel has their street level versus,
40:15
Marcus Anderson: you know, more cosmic heroes. And obviously, you got people like Spider-Man who go… who has gone from back and forth between street level and, you know, cosmic. But,
40:25
Marcus Anderson: So, I don't know, I almost think about, like, I think that's kind of revelatory, too. It's like, okay.
40:31
Marcus Anderson: For lack of a better word, maybe Cobalt is…
40:35
Marcus Anderson: it's a matter of perspective, too. Like, he's dealing with, like, smaller fish, but they're big…
40:41
Marcus Anderson: From his vantage point as well.
40:43
Ted: Yeah, not to… I feel bad about this. I don't want to spoil too much, but part of what gets brought up explicitly in the last couple issues is the idea that, like, he's used to fighting non-super-powered.
40:55
Marcus Anderson: Bruh.
40:56
Ted: He's… he fights normal dudes.
40:58
Marcus Anderson: Right, right.
40:59
Ted: The fact that he's now fighting largely super… not largely, but he fights a lot of super-powered characters is a real source of distress for him, because he's like, I don't… like, I mean, the first time, actually, we saw him… the first time we see him fight, you know, super-powered guys is… is, the… the…
41:16
Marcus Anderson: Oh, the…
41:17
Ted: It's cool.
41:17
Marcus Anderson: Oakland is sinker?
41:19
Ted: No, they're not superpowered. It's, it's earlier than that. It's, slick, red light and volt.
41:25
Marcus Anderson: Okay, yeah, yeah.
41:26
Ted: Yeah, and he almost dies until Richie manages to figure out, like, oh, red light's invisible, wear those goggles.
41:33
Ted: Which, again, I also really love, because that's Richie being kind of a smart guy. That's cool. But the fact that Cobalt sucks so much against super-powered characters is, I think, a neat character trait to have. It's like, yeah.
41:46
Marcus Anderson: Ew.
41:47
Ted: Was doing his thing, and then suddenly had to fight.
41:49
Marcus Anderson: I don't know. Oh, no, even as a kid, even as a kid, I did find it kind of funny that, like, you know, the Hawkeyes and the green arrows weren't, like, just immediately didn't have their head blown off by a laser in some of these big…
42:04
Ted: Oh, yeah.
42:06
Marcus Anderson: You know what I mean? Like, it's kind of crazy.
42:08
Ted: I got a bow and arrow, Thanos, yeah.
42:10
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, you got all your, like, She-Hulks and your invulnerable characters, and then Hawkeye's like, and you're like… but they're, like, going up with each other.
42:18
Ted: Spring, baby.
42:19
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, they're going up against some crazy Thanos-level threat, and he's jumping around with arrows. So, like, yeah, I'm saying, like, I think this book is actually getting across, like, oh yeah, there is a real differential between somebody who can do what Icon does.
42:34
Marcus Anderson: And, you know, somebody like Cobalt, even though Cobalt is jacked, and he's skilled, and all that, but at the end of the day, like, yeah, if you're going against other worldly powers, like…
42:46
Marcus Anderson: You know what I mean? You're not gonna, you're not gonna just, like, be going toe-to-toe.
42:50
Ted: Yeah, that's… yeah, and I… I do…
42:53
Ted: again, there's so many little interesting bits about this book that, like, it sucks that it… it sucks that all the milestone books got cut short, but, like, this book in particular was doing a fun bit of worldbuilding of, like, yeah, there have been all these guys all over the place, you just never see them. Like.
43:10
Ted: this dude's been doing it for years, I guess. And… Yeah, I don't know, it's…
43:17
Ted: It's… it's fun to see it from the perspective… from kind of the bottom-up perspective, that's not the best way to put it, but, you know, the street level here.
43:24
Marcus Anderson: Crown level, yeah.
43:25
Ted: Yeah, and also, Richie being a superhero fanboy who doesn't really know what he's doing when he gets into actual superheroing, and only kind of manages to survive by the skin of his teeth, and…
43:40
Ted: Yeah, I… it's…
43:44
Ted: It's good. I, like, I kind of don't know what else to say about it. I do love it, but it's just… it sucks that it… it does… I mean, having said all that, again, I do still feel like it feels disconnected, because again, the only bits of the milestone universe we see are hardware shows up for one issue.
43:59
Ted: you know, points a gun at Cobalt for release. Yeah, and then the static issue, which was fun, but, like, it's kind of a nothing burger, you know, what actually happens. Like, it was… it was fun that, you know, Richie and Static, like, it was a fun little bit that they both go into this bathroom, and they end up in the, like, neighboring stalls, and then they both come out in costumes, and they're like, what? And, like…
44:18
Ted: That was a fun… that was a fun moment, but…
44:20
Ted: it also didn't… I don't know, it didn't really…
44:24
Ted: Static game, that was a throwaway… that was kind of a throwaway issue. It was fun.
44:28
Marcus Anderson: Also, quick side note. This is… I… I know there was a monsoon Bible, I just… you can tell, like, our wives sometimes, though, when other characters… other…
44:38
Marcus Anderson: artists draw aesthetic, draw Virgil.
44:42
Marcus Anderson: They just… it just doesn't,
44:45
Marcus Anderson: It sometimes takes you… if it didn't say, like, Virgil, like, I would be like, oh, who's that? You know what I mean? But I will say, like, this is… and, like, I love Jamal Igle's work. I think this was, like, some of his very, very early work, too, so…
44:59
Ted: it's… some of these issues are rougher than others. I feel like those first 6 issues had a real problem with inking, and I feel bad that I'm calling out a specific dude who worked in the production team whose name I don't even know, but, like, some of those inks in those first few issues were real weird and heavy, and didn't…
45:15
Ted: do anybody any favors. But these issues get better, and there's a weird, like…
45:21
Marcus Anderson: I like Eric Battle's work as when he jumps in.
45:24
Ted: When does he, like, I'm trying to remember what issues he got.
45:26
Marcus Anderson: He's, like, after… He does not do the first issue.
45:31
Marcus Anderson: And then he jumps… he kind of does everything after 8. Well, he might not do the last 2.
45:36
Ted: Issue… yeah, issue 8 had some great art. I remember that that's, again, that's the issue that I had the childhood fondest for, but, like, even going back to it, I'm like, oh, that's some fun stuff. And I think 9 is… yeah, 9 is him too,
45:48
Ted: yeah, I'm kind of looking these up right now as we talk. There's… and there's bits in this that even look a little bit like…
45:55
Ted: God, there's, like, some parts where… where Richie's expressions… it looks like frickin' Derek Robertson, it's such a weird, like, caricature, almost? I don't know.
46:05
Ted: Yeah, sorry, I'm also just paging through, and I keep forgetting about little bits along the way that I like. There's the whole sequence where, like, they try to do another honeypot trick on…
46:16
Ted: Cobalt, where, oh, let's trick him into going to this bakery where there's a whole lot of cocaine, and of course, Cobalt sees through it. But then we cut to the bakery, and there's, like, the one giant lizard guy.
46:28
Marcus Anderson: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
46:29
Ted: fake employee, and he's like, how long do we gotta wait for Cobalt to show up? He's like, man, just, I'm just… I'm just like, you think, you think you got it bad? I'm just gonna sit here and keep fake shoveling sugar in this bag, like…
46:39
Marcus Anderson: It's such a great, funny moment that's so…
46:42
Ted: God, yeah, there's… there's… there's a lot of little bits along the way to love about this series, and it just… it…
46:48
Ted: God, it sucks that we never got more of it, you know? Like, it… it… you can feel it's going…
46:53
Ted: Two interesting places that it never manages… it does not have the space to arrive at.
47:00
Marcus Anderson: Right.
47:00
Ted: You know what I mean. Anyway.
47:03
Ted: Yeah,
47:05
Ted: I don't know, these issues don't wrap up the story. In fact, they really, like, you feel like it's heading into the most complicated section of story, because there's all this stuff about the witness, and, like, Harvest comes in, and then we call in Mr. Rabbit, and all these other characters, but unfortunately.
47:22
Ted: we have pretty much hit the end of Cobalt. There is the two issues that are essentially wrap-up issues, and that's kinda it. Like…
47:31
Ted: It… it does not end satisfyingly.
47:36
Marcus Anderson: And that sucks, because, like, you can see where it's going, or at least you get an idea of it.
47:42
Ted: But it's never gonna get there. And, I mean, again, that's not unique among the milestone books, unfortunately. Like, a lot of them had that thing where it's like, there's… there's so much more that's gonna happen with static, or Icon, or hardware, or any of these guys that just… won't.
48:01
Ted: Yeah. Sorry, depressing note.
48:02
Marcus Anderson: Maybe that might… that might be a good segue point. I mean, you can come back if anybody has anything more to say about cobalt, but
48:11
Marcus Anderson: like, I'd say just, like, maybe, like, fast-forwarding to today, yeah, like, anybody who's been, you know, if you've been anywhere near, well, there's…
48:24
Marcus Anderson: I wouldn't say Black Twitter is a thing. It's definitely not what it was. But, you know, like…
48:29
Tad Eggleston: It's been brought up on a lot of the comics news sites, too.
48:32
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, but it's, you know, like, definitely in the Black comics, sphere, there's been a very healthy conversation, and, you know, past guests.
48:44
Marcus Anderson: Joe Illage is one of the writers, not the only writer, but one of the writers on a new book called, you know, History of… New History of DC Universe, the Dakota Incident, and, you know, the new history of the DC Universe has been ongoing, and it's been really good.
49:00
Marcus Anderson: It's, I think it's… it's all Mark Waid, right, up until this point, right? But then, yeah, this,
49:07
Marcus Anderson: So, this one deals with, like, some interesting developments where the Dakota universe
49:15
Marcus Anderson: is overlapping and interacting with the DC universe. And it's a really good read. I think if you happen to have been listening to this, you know, milestone, book club with the three of us.
49:28
Marcus Anderson: But haven't picked up, you know, milestone books. It's actually a pretty good place to jump in, especially if you're already familiar with a lot of DC characters. It's kind of a fun…
49:39
Marcus Anderson: thing that… that brings…
49:42
Marcus Anderson: you know, those two universes together, and folds in milestone history, but you're just kind of getting it as the story goes along. It's not like beating you over the head with it. So I think it's good. The other thing I will say,
49:57
Marcus Anderson: I'm assuming, if you're listening to this, that you are… you're an ally of, and you'd like to see, more…
50:04
Marcus Anderson: comic books that reflect the diversity of humanity, and I will say part of the conversation that's been going on around this book is Joe Illage,
50:14
Marcus Anderson: like…
50:16
Marcus Anderson: stressed a point that I've, stressed on this podcast, which is that it is a shame that there is not, an ongoing, you know, there aren't ongoing milestone books. I think I've been lamenting the fact that all of the ones that have come back get, like, a season, in the case of Static, two seasons, and then…
50:36
Marcus Anderson: you just don't hear from them for years. Like, it's been well over a year since we heard from Blood Syndicate.
50:41
Marcus Anderson: So Joe…
50:43
Marcus Anderson: is coming at it from the perspective that, Static is, like, if you think about it, he is. He's, like, the…
50:51
Marcus Anderson: started to kind of, like, walk so Miles Morales could… could thwip, you know, and he… he's a character who, like, has just, like, a huge…
51:02
Marcus Anderson: like, like, presence beyond just the page, you know? Like, the great Dwayne McDuffie brought him to, to be a very successful animated character. And there's a whole generation of kids that it's like, even if they don't know Milestone, they, like, know Static.
51:17
Marcus Anderson: You know, so Joe's… basically, I say all this to say Joe… Issued this 100-ish,
51:24
Marcus Anderson: sorry, 100,000 issue, sold challenge, because, you know, he's urging readers to send a message to DC Comics that there is a, market for milestone books, you know, and that, people want to see it. So Joe is, like, really looking
51:43
Marcus Anderson: to get, an ongoing static book is the goal of this. So anyway, I say I.
51:49
Tad Eggleston: That would be great.
51:50
Marcus Anderson: It would be good for anybody listening, if you're curious about Milestone, or you like Milestone, make sure you pick it up at your local comic store. The first one sold out, first printing, but it's going.
52:03
Tad Eggleston: Going back to print. Also, have you been reading the Batman Static Beyond?
52:10
Marcus Anderson: I have all of them in my box, I haven't gotten them yet.
52:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, that's where I'm at. I have them all.
52:16
Tad Eggleston: I think I read, like… I feel like I read the first one, but it's been a while.
52:20
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, yeah.
52:21
Tad Eggleston: But, so there is… there is a static-ish book.
52:24
Marcus Anderson: No, no, no, no.
52:26
Tad Eggleston: I wanna…
52:26
Ted: ecstatic.
52:27
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, it doesn't count.
52:29
Marcus Anderson: And it's also a mini-series. It's a mini-series.
52:32
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, I get it, I get it.
52:35
Marcus Anderson: I, you know, I gotta tell you, I gotta tell you, I… I just got a lifetime…
52:40
Marcus Anderson: Of seeing the ways in which
52:44
Marcus Anderson: You know, little games are played to be like, oh, we're kind of representing you a little bit, right?
52:49
Tad Eggleston: I'm just saying, sell the hell out of that, too, and it becomes harder.
52:53
Marcus Anderson: Oh, sure, yeah.
52:55
Marcus Anderson: Pick it up, definitely pick it up, but my thing is, like.
52:58
Tad Eggleston: No, no, that wasn't supposed to be a, oh, DC's ecstatic going. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not… It's a…
53:04
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
53:04
Tad Eggleston: Everybody go buy the static book, too.
53:07
Marcus Anderson: I hear you. Yeah, I'm not… I'm not taking issue with what you're saying. I think… but this is the… this is the problem, is that…
53:16
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, they will throw him, or even, in some cases, Icon…
53:22
Marcus Anderson: into another, you know, property, or do a crossover, but it's like an event, and then… but my thing is an ongoing, you know? Like, if you were a Daredevil fan back in the day, you got to really see Matt Murdock's story play out over years.
53:39
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no.
53:40
Marcus Anderson: I mean, same with all these other characters. You get to, like…
53:43
Marcus Anderson: see them grow, see them go through all different stages, and we just don't have that with the modern iteration of the milestone characters. And it's glaring, and…
53:54
Marcus Anderson: DC might not… they may not think it's glaring, but, like, as a Black person.
53:58
Tad Eggleston: It is.
53:59
Marcus Anderson: used to us being thrown scraps and being told, like, you're ungrateful for not liking these scraps, you know what I mean? Like, it 100% feels that way. Because I… I dug the first,
54:12
Marcus Anderson: Blood Syndicate run of this new era. You know, I wanted to see where they were going, but we didn't get to. And that was one of my favorite things back in the day.
54:21
Marcus Anderson: was… you never knew what was coming in the next Blood Syndicate issue, and it always surprised you in a good way, and we just don't have that opportunity. I feel like they set up something interesting, but…
54:34
Marcus Anderson: Goody.
54:35
Ted: It needs… Milestone… I don't know if Milestone needs to be totally separate from the DC Universe.
54:44
Ted: But I really think it would be… I… I…
54:49
Ted: I would like to see it be its own thing again, you know?
54:52
Marcus Anderson: I agree, I agree.
54:54
Ted: I like having the idea of all these characters bounce off each other, because, like, yeah, it was fun in Worlds Collide. It was a cool idea to have, like, Hardware and Steel team up and not really have the same ideas about how things work, and watch them kind of deal with that.
55:07
Ted: But also.
55:08
Tad Eggleston: Well, and… The DC universe is already split into cities more than the Marvel Universe is, so, like…
55:16
Ted: Yeah, it is just, like, it should be…
55:21
Ted: I really… I don't know if it needs to be its own thing, but I think it has… it deserves the… they deserve… they deserve to try, dammit! Like, they…
55:32
Ted: Milestone has a unique flavor to it and a character to it that I, like.
55:36
Ted: Obviously, I like it a lot. Guess what? I would love to see it be able to thrive and be like, yeah, here's a full-ass Milestone universe again. You remember this? Remember Milestone universes, guys? Like, giving it a better and bigger and more…
55:51
Ted: Coherent self, but at the same time getting to continue itself.
55:57
Ted: God, just imagine what that would be like, you know? Like, do a…
56:00
Ted: do a… do a webtoon series, you know? Do, like, a bunch of interconnected webtoons. That's gotta be, like, less of a financial outlay than doing a whole bunch.
56:08
Tad Eggleston: I mean, they've been doing lots with their vertical line.
56:11
Ted: Yeah! Oh yeah, like…
56:14
Ted: heck, guys, do… do… do something with, like, all this webtoon, you know, readership you built up. Give a whole bunch of talented creators the chance to do interconnected milestone webtoons. Don't have… you don't even have to pay for printing.
56:26
Marcus Anderson: It's very frustrating. Like, I get that the direct market model saved comics, but this, like.
56:34
Marcus Anderson: crazy adherence to it, like, you know what I mean? Like, we are gonna decide what books live and die based on what gets pre-ordered
56:43
Marcus Anderson: through the direct market, when, like you're saying, like, I've been singing that tune as well. It's like, we have a lot of ways to get comics out that don't cost as much as printing up a gazillion glossy books, like, you know what I mean? Right.
56:57
Marcus Anderson: So I, I think if, if we really…
57:02
Marcus Anderson: I mean, the bottom line of publishers is to make a profit, which is the bottom line of the world, you know what I mean? But, like, it's… they're…
57:11
Marcus Anderson: It is an art, and I guess what I'm talking about is the ongoing, which is the story of my life, the ongoing disconnect between, you know, art and, art business, you know, so…
57:23
Marcus Anderson: I think we all, as readers and creators, care about the… the…
57:29
Tad Eggleston: I mean, speaking of art and art business, like, particularly with DC about to be under new hands, like…
57:42
Tad Eggleston: Would it be a nice thing to see, to have Milestone just spun off?
57:49
Marcus Anderson: I mean, maybe they can negotiate out of this, I don't know, but I don't… yeah, I don't know, like…
57:54
Marcus Anderson: I would… I wouldn't mind.
57:56
Marcus Anderson: I think if it got me some… if it got us some regular books, that'd be great.
58:01
Ted: Yeah, man, I'd… Put a milestone somewhere that it… it… it… Yeah.
58:09
Marcus Anderson: It can turn around.
58:10
Ted: Yes.
58:10
Tad Eggleston: People with fuck you money, listen, listen up.
58:15
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, actually, yeah, somebody, yeah.
58:17
Ted: Yeah, if you got a few million dollars, excuse me, a few billion dollars lying around, maybe.
58:21
Tad Eggleston: A few million might do it for Milestone. I mean, frankly, like, given half of what I've heard, a few million might do it for DC.
58:30
Ted: Oof.
58:31
Marcus Anderson: Hmm.
58:32
Tad Eggleston: As long as you don't take the movie properties.
58:35
Ted: Yeah,
58:35
Tad Eggleston: Like, nobody seems to care about the comics publishing.
58:38
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, that's not a frustrating thing.
58:41
Ted: Oh, boy, that's a whole other thing. I both would and would not love to see, like, a milestone movie slash TV series. Well, wait, we already have static.
58:48
Marcus Anderson: No, they've.
58:49
Ted: Wait, I like that.
58:50
Marcus Anderson: Oh, you mean the cartoon? But every now, every few years, we keep getting these pump fakes, so like, oh, they're developing, or they're optioning a static
59:00
Marcus Anderson: TV show or whatever, and it just doesn't happen. I mean, I think it's been a while since they even faked us out with that, but I remember specifically, it will bubble up every now and then, and nothing comes up.
59:13
Ted: It is, like, I mean, what we're kind of talking about with all these things that sort of circles back in a weird, oblique way to Cobalt is the idea that, like, all these universes need
59:21
Ted: space to breathe and be in small moments, too. Like, it can't all just be events, and big fights, and big conflicts. It can't all just be crossovers, and, you know, the sensational new character find. It, like…
59:35
Ted: it's gotta be individual issues, and, like, weird one-offs, and like, hey, what if Paige and Static team up to fight a weird mutant fly monster at their high school that they go to together? Like…
59:48
Ted: All these universes, whether they're comics, or whether they're movies, or whether they're whatever, like.
59:54
Ted: they deserve to have small amounts of things. They deserve to come out in small quantities, which is big things, you know? Like, that's always… my personal…
1:00:05
Ted: like, weird…
1:00:07
Ted: you know, flame-hot opinion, perhaps, is I… I still don't like that the Marv… the Marvel universe is primarily movies. The Marvel Universe… like, the Marvel live-action universe should be primarily a bunch of TV shows. Like, there should just be…
1:00:23
Ted: there's… there should have just been a bunch of Cap… like, there should have been a Captain America TV show, there should have been an Iron Man TV show, there should have been everything, and yeah, I know that…
1:00:31
Marcus Anderson: Also, quick side note, we can come back to it, I don't want to interrupt your thought, but honestly, I saw Wonder Man. It was, I really…
1:00:38
Tad Eggleston: Oh, you appreciate it.
1:00:38
Marcus Anderson: Appreciated it.
1:00:39
Marcus Anderson: And…
1:00:40
Ted: I've heard nothing but good things, so, like, that's on my list. I mean, I have a long list.
1:00:44
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, and I feel like… I feel like it's… we'll talk after you've seen it, but I feel like it speaks to what you're talking about. I think that they…
1:00:53
Marcus Anderson: they took a big swing, and I think it really was successful. It's not a spoiler to say
1:01:01
Marcus Anderson: that…
1:01:02
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, it's a… it's a show about a guy with superpowers, but it's by no means, like, the focus. If you're showing up to it for, like, a big battle in the sky, it's like, you're not gonna get that, that's not what it's about.
1:01:18
Marcus Anderson: And… but there's a tension, like, surrounding him being a super-powered dude. And I won't say any more, because I don't want to… I don't wanna spoil it, but I think that, like, it's so much, like, really fascinating character stuff.
1:01:32
Marcus Anderson: Also, the pairing of, of Yahya Abdul-Mateen and, Ben Kingsley is, like…
1:01:39
Marcus Anderson: It's one of the most magical pairing, movie… movie pairings I've seen, like, in… out of… in memory, you know what I mean?
1:01:46
Ted: That is… no, like, that alone got me interested that, like, that's such a cool combination of people. I have to see how this is going, you know? Like, I wanted to… I really… I… it's… I have a long, long list of stuff I want to get into, believe me, but, like, I… I do really want to make this stuff
1:02:04
Ted: I want to get back into the stuff. And yeah, Wonder Man sounded like that. And yeah, that's kind of what I want to see more from Marvel, and I also realize, like, as I'm saying this, that what I'm asking for is basically, hey, remember when we used to have all those weird, crappy shows in the CW that were all sort of in the same universe?
1:02:18
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But, like, imagine if they were semi-good instead.
1:02:23
Tad Eggleston: Well, like the Marvel street-level Netflix stuff. You know, that's, you know, fair point, not a bad comparison, frankly. Where most… where more of them were good than weren't.
1:02:35
Ted: I, yeah, I have a fondness for a lot of those, the Marvel, like.
1:02:40
Ted: they… they weren't… they… I mean, they had their ups and downs, to be absolutely sure, but, like.
1:02:46
Marcus Anderson: Hmm.
1:02:47
Ted: there was… there was some really good stuff in those, and I think it was a… Yeah.
1:02:51
Tad Eggleston: I thought the Daredevil and the Jessica Jones were excellent.
1:02:55
Marcus Anderson: Yup.
1:02:56
Tad Eggleston: I thought the first season of Luke Cage was excellent.
1:02:59
Ted: Oh, yeah.
1:03:00
Tad Eggleston: They swung and missed with Iron Fist.
1:03:03
Ted: I… even Iron Fist had a couple good things in it.
1:03:06
Tad Eggleston: Oh, I don't think it was bad.
1:03:08
Marcus Anderson: It was a big miscast… it was a miscasting, though. Like…
1:03:11
Ted: Yeah, the main… so, the guy who played Iron Fist, I do not think was a good Iron Fist, but, like, I loved their, Colleen Wing, and I loved, like… Misty didn't even.
1:03:21
Marcus Anderson: Misty.
1:03:22
Ted: She was great, like, no, there were… there were a lot of…
1:03:26
Tad Eggleston: Long and Mission.
1:03:28
Marcus Anderson: His name wasn't in the title, you know what I mean? Like… Yeah! Your title character was the one that had the flaws, or.
1:03:35
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, but the…
1:03:35
Ted: He's swinging.
1:03:36
Tad Eggleston: missed by not having a Misty series?
1:03:39
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
1:03:40
Ted: God.
1:03:41
Tad Eggleston: They, they…
1:03:42
Ted: Happy.
1:03:44
Tad Eggleston: One season of Punisher was okay, the other, not so much. I think I only ever saw the first one, so I can't… And the Defenders was the biggest swing and miss, which was a shame, because…
1:03:57
Tad Eggleston: Like, if that… if that, like…
1:04:01
Tad Eggleston: If that's even a base hit.
1:04:05
Tad Eggleston: They probably get another round of everything.
1:04:10
Marcus Anderson: Maybe. I know you're…
1:04:11
Tad Eggleston: You know, Daredevil's back now.
1:04:14
Ted: I haven't seen it, but I heard it's okay.
1:04:16
Tad Eggleston: Oh, I thought… I thought it was outstanding.
1:04:19
Marcus Anderson: You're talking about Season 1? Ted?
1:04:21
Tad Eggleston: Season 1 of.
1:04:23
Marcus Anderson: Oh, Born Again?
1:04:23
Tad Eggleston: Born again, yeah.
1:04:25
Marcus Anderson: I like Season 1 a lot. The… I don't know if you know about the backstory about how, like, there had been the one set of creators who had, like, shot, like, a good amount, and then creative differences, which we'll never, like, fully get an answer. Anytime you hear creative differences, you're like, alright, you're never gonna really know what the…
1:04:43
Tad Eggleston: Not on the record.
1:04:44
Marcus Anderson: Because there's no, so many NDAs. But… but then a new team came in, and they did really…
1:04:50
Marcus Anderson: cool stuff, which I think you're speaking to. So you are aware, like, when you're watching Season 1, that…
1:04:56
Marcus Anderson: you're kind of… to me, it's kind of evident that you're watching two visions, and then I feel like… but the cool thing is, I feel like it really was hitting its stride
1:05:05
Marcus Anderson: towards the end, because you were really getting to see that second team's vision, for what it was. And… and so, like, I'm really looking forward to Season 2, like, like, where they're taking that and everything, but… yeah, it's… yeah, they're doing cool stuff. But that's the thing, I think we're all maybe kind of speaking to this, the fact that…
1:05:23
Marcus Anderson: everything doesn't have to be a huge budget, like, CGI.
1:05:27
Tad Eggleston: Well.
1:05:28
Marcus Anderson: extravaganza.
1:05:29
Tad Eggleston: But also, back… back to comics, like, space to breathe, not having every episode have… or every issue having to be part of, like, a big part of the bigger…
1:05:41
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, yeah.
1:05:42
Tad Eggleston: I mean, because Marvel's been having this problem with comics, too, where it feels like… I mean, seriously.
1:05:48
Tad Eggleston: Spencer Ackerman got 10 issues of Iron Man, and then they rebooted it again.
1:05:53
Marcus Anderson: Yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, I… yeah, I have not been…
1:05:57
Marcus Anderson: I've been reading way more old Marvel. No, I get it. I get it.
1:06:02
Tad Eggleston: But, like, when you have to… when you're deciding to reboot Iron Man after 10 issues.
1:06:09
Marcus Anderson: Yup.
1:06:11
Ted: Yeah, I… oof.
1:06:13
Ted: Why, guys? And here's the.
1:06:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you know…
1:06:16
Ted: the last thing that I will say about my conversation with my… with my comics friend about Cobalt was, like, yeah, I kind of laid out the whole thing, but I was like, yeah, it was a fun, weird little series, it never quite got its… got a chance to do everything it wanted to do, but it had some cool ideas, and it really, you know, I mean…
1:06:31
Ted: it, you know, it should have been 35 issues, but it got 16. He pointed out that, like, you know, 16 issues for a series that kind of didn't do anything and didn't go anywhere. That's… that's a lot.
1:06:41
Marcus Anderson: There's a lot in the city. Yeah, they wouldn't let you go that far today, yeah, yeah.
1:06:44
Tad Eggleston: I mean, in a lot of ways, all the stuff we read this time… Might not have happened.
1:06:53
Ted: Oh, God.
1:06:53
Tad Eggleston: Cobalt was made today.
1:06:55
Ted: Yeah, oh, no, that's, like, that's the real tragedy, is, like, Cobalt would have been…
1:07:00
Ted: Like I mentioned, the idea of Cobalt would have been, I don't know, a minor threats book, or a…
1:07:07
Ted: I don't know, I… that's… that's a pork.
1:07:08
Tad Eggleston: I mean.
1:07:09
Ted: I don't mean that it's.
1:07:10
Tad Eggleston: It makes me think about, like…
1:07:13
Tad Eggleston: If Marvel gives up on Daredevil.
1:07:17
Tad Eggleston: Anywhere in the first 150 issues?
1:07:22
Tad Eggleston: We never get Frank Miller.
1:07:24
Ted: Oh, yeah.
1:07:26
Ted: Good point, yeah.
1:07:28
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:07:28
Ted: It's, like, you gotta let… you gotta let it breathe, guys. You gotta just let him have more issues.
1:07:33
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I don't know if 150 issues is, like, the appropriate number… amount of rope most of the time, and there were a handful of good runs in there. Jerry Conway did some interesting stuff, you know…
1:07:45
Tad Eggleston: Steve Gerber did some interesting stuff, but it was mostly a delister.
1:07:52
Marcus Anderson: But that's the thing, like, we use that phrase…
1:07:54
Tad Eggleston: We're willing to give it to him.
1:07:56
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, he's weird.
1:07:57
Tad Eggleston: It's got some chops, let's put him somewhere where he doesn't have pressure.
1:08:01
Tad Eggleston: Having titles that aren't under pressure
1:08:04
Tad Eggleston: It's a good thing for developing talent.
1:08:07
Marcus Anderson: Absolutely. And, you know, Ted just used a phrase, a weird, weird little book or something like that, and that just brought me back to the spinner racks. You remember, like… Yeah. Because you would just… you would just be a kid, and it's like, you're in the drugstore or whatever, and there's a spinner rack, and you're like, what's this? Like, you know, you pick it up.
1:08:23
Marcus Anderson: And you take it home, and you, like, love it, you know, even though it's not, like, some…
1:08:28
Tad Eggleston: It's completely infuriating to me that they have more titles coming out than they ever have.
1:08:34
Tad Eggleston: But they don't give any of them any breathing room.
1:08:38
Tad Eggleston: And half of them… R… Either flat-out miniseries, or spin-offs of… Batman, Spider-Man.
1:08:51
Marcus Anderson: Yes!
1:08:51
Tad Eggleston: or… or Superman.
1:08:54
Marcus Anderson: Right, and all… you just named the titles of four heroes and teams that I love, but it's like, I do… when I read a modern book, and all the ads are like…
1:09:04
Marcus Anderson: what if Harley Quinn was mixed with this character? And, like, you know, not even, like, a team-up, but, like, just a mash-up, because it's like, you like this, don't you? And you like this, asshole. Oh, you're gonna love.
1:09:16
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you're right.
1:09:17
Marcus Anderson: You know, it's like…
1:09:18
Ted: I mentioned minor threats, and as much as I like that book, and I think that book is really good, and I think it absolutely deserves all the praise it's been getting, I don't think that book would have nearly the following or attention it would have, and the ability to exist if it weren't for Patton Oswald being involved with it.
1:09:32
Tad Eggleston: And I'll say I enjoyed it enough that I almost finished the first series and keep meaning to get back and read more of it, because people… you know, because more and more… because…
1:09:43
Tad Eggleston: Because more and more, like, legit creators jump into the universe. I did go in and read the Kyle Stark stuff. I need to go read some of the, you know.
1:09:53
Ted: Any crossover coming up?
1:09:54
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, well, I think it's already going.
1:09:56
Ted: Oh, damn, I'.
1:09:57
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, but, but, like…
1:10:01
Tad Eggleston: even in that series that I haven't quite finished.
1:10:05
Tad Eggleston: Like, I saw that they'd laid out enough that, given time to breathe, and bringing some other creators in, which you knew would happen with a Patton Oswald book, it was gonna be something cool. So I'm certain that there will be a time where I do a deep dive.
1:10:21
Tad Eggleston: But you're absolutely right. If that miniseries had not had Pratt and Oswald's name on it.
1:10:27
Tad Eggleston: That miniseries would have been, that's it.
1:10:30
Ted: yeah, a quote-unquote real writer. Like, you know, I mean, you know what I mean when I say that, that, like, that's.
1:10:36
Tad Eggleston: No, because I think most people consider Jordan Bloom to be the real writer. Patton Oswald is the one that means it won't lose money, period.
1:10:45
Ted: Yes, that's, I mean, that's, that's… yeah, to be… to be perfectly…
1:10:49
Tad Eggleston: Particularly if he's working for free, or, or, or normal rates, like…
1:10:55
Ted: Yeah.
1:10:55
Ted: To be perfectly clear, I like that book a lot, I'm not making fun of any of it, I'm not… No! It's just, this is…
1:11:01
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think…
1:11:01
Ted: about it, I realized.
1:11:02
Tad Eggleston: Like, like… I even defend and like most of, like, the Berserker comic.
1:11:10
Tad Eggleston: Because, again…
1:11:11
Ted: Yeah.
1:11:11
Tad Eggleston: Like, like, I don't have a problem with a big name being involved in comics if they're good comics.
1:11:18
Ted: Oh, yeah.
1:11:19
Tad Eggleston: I don't even really care if… if their participation is minimal, if they're good comics, and they're.
1:11:28
Tad Eggleston: Co-writers, or their co-creators get paid!
1:11:31
Ted: Yeah.
1:11:32
Tad Eggleston: Which all indications from the handful of people I've talked to involved with the Keanu Reeves Berserker stuff is they got paid! They got paid regardless of whether it's sold. It's sold, of course, but they got paid! Yeah.
1:11:47
Ted: Yeah, that's the thing, is, like, these books need space to complete what they're doing, to really give it, you know, get their footing, do the whole thing, and it just sucks out loud that they don't, and, like, milestone
1:11:59
Ted: you know, oh man, I can't believe this cool little weird indie, quasi-indie book with, you know, the making fun of 90s anti-heroes only got 16 issues. Like, wild a thing to say, you know? Right. It sucks so much all over, but I just…
1:12:15
Tad Eggleston: I mean, you understand that Acme Novelty Library's only up to its 24th issue, right?
1:12:20
Ted: Oh my god, that's right.
1:12:24
Ted: But yeah, it's… it's just…
1:12:26
Tad Eggleston: I mean, Chris takes a lot longer to put a book together.
1:12:29
Ted: Yeah, let's be clear here, it's, you know, it's… it's quantity, quality over quantity, anyway. Yeah, it's… it all… it is… it is a… it turns out comics sucks, but basically so does every industry, so…
1:12:41
Tad Eggleston: Well, particularly artists. I don't…
1:12:43
Ted: Yeah, I should…
1:12:45
Marcus Anderson: for what it's worth… for what it's worth, I don't want to be totally negative either, because I feel like there are good… there's even good… there's even good big two books coming out, but I think what I'm talking about is just the… I think what we're all talking about is, like, the business model, and the way that it's…
1:13:01
Marcus Anderson: I don't know, I… Yeah, I, I…
1:13:04
Tad Eggleston: I… like, seriously, if you give me a couple million dollars, I would start my own comic company, because…
1:13:13
Tad Eggleston: I think that not enough people Seemed to realize that, like… you don't…
1:13:22
Tad Eggleston: look for profits in a month or a year when it comes to books. Publishers look at, like, 10-year outlooks, 20-year outlooks.
1:13:31
Ted: Yo, baby.
1:13:32
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:13:33
Tad Eggleston: So, like…
1:13:37
Tad Eggleston: the way I always look at it is, like, if you were willing to spend $20,000 on production, like, like…
1:13:45
Tad Eggleston: creative production.
1:13:47
Tad Eggleston: On any given comic.
1:13:49
Tad Eggleston: You would, like, essentially double what everybody's making.
1:13:52
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:13:54
Tad Eggleston: Right, you'd be paying them a living wage, and at $5 an issue, of which 2 of it, at least, is going to the publisher.
1:14:05
Tad Eggleston: It's 10,000 books to sell.
1:14:07
Marcus Anderson: Yep.
1:14:08
Tad Eggleston: Even if they cost 50 cents a piece, that's, what, 30,000 books to sell? And yes, that's a huge amount in this market, but I don't feel like it has to be.
1:14:18
Ted: Yeah.
1:14:19
Tad Eggleston: Beyond that… They're all part of the trade paperback.
1:14:26
Tad Eggleston: Which means you get to sell them again.
1:14:29
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:14:29
Marcus Anderson: True.
1:14:30
Ted: It is, I mean, unfortunately, the whole thing boils down to, capitalism sucks, guess what?
1:14:35
Marcus Anderson: Yep, yeah, pretty much. Sorry, not to… not to… not to…
1:14:39
Tad Eggleston: And arts capitalism has always been the worst, for two reasons. The first is artists generally don't know business, because, like.
1:14:50
Tad Eggleston: It turns out that math skills and drawing skills and writing skills aren't anywhere near the same skills.
1:14:58
Marcus Anderson: And I can understand?
1:14:59
Tad Eggleston: Possessed them both!
1:15:00
Marcus Anderson: In addition to… in addition to what you're saying.
1:15:03
Marcus Anderson: there is an element to… whether it's the visual arts, whether it's writing, music, etc, there's an element to, like, the more creative side of things, where you're compelled to make things, like, you know what I mean?
1:15:18
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, no, I…
1:15:19
Marcus Anderson: If sometimes it…
1:15:20
Tad Eggleston: too.
1:15:21
Marcus Anderson: But I'm actually… yeah, but I'm not actually arguing with your point. I'm just adding a little texture to it. I would say, like, another factor to why a lot of times as artists, it's like our strong suit isn't the business side of things, is because…
1:15:34
Marcus Anderson: it's like, we're… we're in love with doing the thing, you know what I mean?
1:15:40
Tad Eggleston: When your strong suit is not the business side, and you're in love with doing the thing, like…
1:15:48
Tad Eggleston: The money side can go a long way by just barely keeping a roof over your head and food in your mouth.
1:15:56
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, yeah. That's an apt description, I feel judged, but sure.
1:16:01
Tad Eggleston: No, it wasn't supposed to.
1:16:02
Marcus Anderson: I'm doing, I'm doing it.
1:16:03
Tad Eggleston: I'm really trying to judge the money side and the system that somehow thinks the money side is more valuable.
1:16:11
Ted: Yeah.
1:16:12
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:16:13
Marcus Anderson: No, unfortunately.
1:16:14
Ted: It just kind of sucks all over.
1:16:16
Marcus Anderson: Dude.
1:16:16
Ted: Not to… not to wrap things up too much, but, you know…
1:16:19
Tad Eggleston: No. No, it does!
1:16:21
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:16:22
Tad Eggleston: I mean, even if we want to talk Tomahawk missiles, the guys actually making the missiles aren't making that much money.
1:16:29
Ted: Oh, God, I don't even wanna… oof, I don't… Too soon.
1:16:32
Marcus Anderson: Too soon.
1:16:33
Tad Eggleston: It's always too soon.
1:16:38
Marcus Anderson: On a parting note, and I mean, I'm gonna try to make this positive, I would say, like, probably… one of my favorite things to talk to people, you know, in comics and around comics about is just, like, what… you know, what books, like, really…
1:16:52
Marcus Anderson: just, like, opened your eyes and your imagination. And, like, a lot of times, yeah, sure, it might have been something that's, like, a top… perennial top seller, but a lot of times, it was something, like, weird and, like.
1:17:04
Tad Eggleston: You know what I mean?
1:17:05
Marcus Anderson: Not necessarily. I have this issue of the Avengers I always go back to, not because it's, like, the best Avengers issue, but because,
1:17:16
Marcus Anderson: I remembered the number, because I just looked at it recently, but it's this random issue, which, ironically.
1:17:24
Marcus Anderson: part of the issue is that the Avengers have to save Nick Fury and, Ronald Reagan. But that's not why I like it. That's not why… I like it despite the fact that they had to save Ronald Reagan. But, like, the threat that they had, it was like, Plant Man? I think the dude, his name is literally Plant Man.
1:17:39
Tad Eggleston: Ronald Reagan really in danger?
1:17:41
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, not really. But, you know.
1:17:44
Tad Eggleston: Or was he really the mastermind behind it?
1:17:47
Marcus Anderson: Sure, yeah, I would have loved to see him be the villain, but no, but it's not even about him. That was a side note of the irony of the fact that
1:17:56
Marcus Anderson: I, of all people, this really important issue for me, like, had Ronald Reagan as a character. But, the thing I was gonna say is, like, there's this part of the… I just remember being, like.
1:18:09
Marcus Anderson: maybe 7 or 8? And, like, my cousin, like, brought these comic books over, you just come from the comic book shop. He had some, like, G.I. Joe comics, some Transformers, and he had this Avengers issue, and there's just this scene at the beginning where these ridiculous
1:18:23
Marcus Anderson: automaton villains that were, like, these, plant-based, things, they, like, they rise up out of, like, the water, and then they, like, there's this military base, and they, like, they walk through the fence, and you see, you see the… and I was just like, yo, this is amazing. But, like, it was… it… it hooked me in, it grabbed me in, because, I mean, I already love G.I. Joe and Transformers, so, like, it was guaranteed I was gonna like those books.
1:18:46
Marcus Anderson: But, like, that just really awaked my imagination. And then there was just random things. I was talking about the spinner rack.
1:18:52
Marcus Anderson: you know, where you'd go to, like, the store, and you'd just see some book that nobody remembers, you know what I mean? But, like, as a kid, you just, like, I would read it over and over again, you know?
1:19:04
Tad Eggleston: Particularly because comics are the one form of reading that you very much are supposed to buy because of the cover.
1:19:11
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:19:13
Ted: And it is…
1:19:14
Tad Eggleston: Full cover on it, and, like, people read lots of stuff.
1:19:18
Marcus Anderson: Yeah, that's what I'm saying, like, I think it's… we should let people be weird. Let people make…
1:19:23
Tad Eggleston: I guess.
1:19:24
Tad Eggleston: Totally agree with you.
1:19:25
Marcus Anderson: And to be fair, a lot.
1:19:27
Tad Eggleston: This is why I love Indie Comic Cons.
1:19:29
Marcus Anderson: That's what I was about to say. Indie creators are doing that, you know what I mean? I just want to see a world where indie creators are doing that, and…
1:19:36
Tad Eggleston: And not having to work at Walmart?
1:19:38
Ted: Yeah, and get health insurance. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:19:40
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Indie creators are doing that, paying rent, without living 6 people to a studio apartment, and have health insurance. That is my dream world.
1:19:51
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:19:52
Marcus Anderson: So, I'm.
1:19:52
Tad Eggleston: People to a studio apartment.
1:19:54
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:19:56
Marcus Anderson: There's a lot to love about comics, so yeah, like, you know, on that note, there's a lot to love about comics.
1:20:00
Ted: There are. I… thank… sorry, I didn't mean to cut you off with that, I just… No, no, no, no, that's all, that's all.
1:20:05
Tad Eggleston: Well, I…
1:20:07
Ted: That was how I discovered Milestone 2. Like you said, like, I had these random one issues from the middle of all these runs that made no sense, but compelled me.
1:20:17
Tad Eggleston: Well, and I also, like, we've noticed a lot of time, and they might be fill-in issues, they might not, but we've noticed a lot of, essentially, one-shot… I mean, like, the one we talked about here, where, yeah, it didn't… didn't give anything to the overall Cobalt mythos, but it was kind of fun to see Static and Paige in the bathroom together.
1:20:37
Tad Eggleston: Whoa, wait!
1:20:40
Marcus Anderson: No, I was gonna let it go, hu.
1:20:41
Tad Eggleston: Cool, too?
1:20:42
Ted: Yeah, it was, it was a fun little reminder.
1:20:44
Tad Eggleston: Can we skip that part where we fight each other and then realize we're on the same side and go fight the bad guy?
1:20:51
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:20:53
Tad Eggleston: What was that?
1:20:54
Ted: And I loved… I also loved… it doesn't get called out, but, like, that's something that Static could have said, too, because, like.
1:21:00
Ted: Gravik's also a nerd, you know?
1:21:02
Marcus Anderson: Right.
1:21:03
Tad Eggleston: Hey!
1:21:04
Ted: But yeah, like, I… I… these… these books had such… special…
1:21:09
Ted: a special place in my heart, and I'm so glad that we get to talk about it, and I'm so glad that it gets to be part of all of our conversations. So, yeah, man. If any of y'all get a chance to check out Static, or, Static, well, Static.
1:21:21
Tad Eggleston: Well, milestone Compendiums are out there for everybody to grab. They're nice, big phone book sizes, but…
1:21:29
Tad Eggleston: They read okay for a phone book.
1:21:31
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:21:33
Tad Eggleston: And, and, and, like, again, I, like, I can't…
1:21:37
Tad Eggleston: I mean, in an era where everything is built for the trade, and while I get that from a marketing strategy, I think you could do that and still have breathing issues.
1:21:47
Marcus Anderson: Absolutely, yeah.
1:21:48
Tad Eggleston: Some of the delivery.
1:21:50
Marcus Anderson: issues.
1:21:51
Tad Eggleston: What's their thoughts?
1:21:51
Ted: Static Season 1 was good, like, I… I can't help but feel like an ongoing static would be even better.
1:21:57
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. I mean, one of the ways that it seems to be happening in indie comics is they'll do an issue in between trades that doesn't get collected, or doesn't get collected until, like, a bigger volume or whatnot, but I don't even think you have to do that. Say you were gonna do a five-issue miniseries, do it as a…
1:22:15
Tad Eggleston: Do those 5 issues in 7, with 2…
1:22:20
Tad Eggleston: You know, maybe one in the middle and one at the end that aren't directly related.
1:22:26
Ted: Yeah.
1:22:26
Tad Eggleston: that are more of an aside, get to know the character a little bit. Understand that, oh, there was 2 days between issue 3 and Issue 5, and during those 2 days, not much happened to Static, but Virgil had some shit.
1:22:42
Ted: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, in short, in publishers, please, give us more, but also, give us less.
1:22:52
Ted: put it, but…
1:22:53
Marcus Anderson: Yeah.
1:22:54
Ted: Yeah. On that note, it is my… unfortunately, my bedtime, but I… Yeah.
1:22:59
Tad Eggleston: No, no, pizza.
1:23:00
Ted: Cobalt is…
1:23:01
Tad Eggleston: I gotta work in the morning. For 22 panels and the Milestone Book Club, this has been the Brothers Anderson No Relation, and we will see you after the next page.