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Heroes of Bronze Book Club #4 - Secret Crisis pt. 1 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:01
Tad Eggleston: Good morning, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels and the Heroes of Bronze Book Club. I am joined by a triumvirate from the City Lit Theater.
0:14
Tad Eggleston: today, as… as Mark Pracht and… and Sharon Harklerode have been joined by Brian Pastor. So… so now… now we're just, like…
0:24
Tad Eggleston: This, this could be the City Lit podcast, particularly, particularly because…
0:28
Tad Eggleston: Dan's not here. Brian's agreed to be the new Dan, at least until next month, when hopefully Dan will be back.
0:37
Tad Eggleston: So, we are discussing the Issues 1 of Secret Wars and Crisis on Infinite Earth.
0:45
Tad Eggleston: One of them I had read many, many, many, many times before. In fact, it was the first comic I ever purchased.
0:53
Tad Eggleston: And… and the other I read for the first time this week. And,
1:00
Tad Eggleston: it saddens me on one level to say that the one that I read for the first time this week was waaaay better than the one that I read many, many, many, many times before. But the one I read many, many times before had all of the heroes on the cover.
1:19
Tad Eggleston: And therefore, To the 4-year-old me.
1:22
Tad Eggleston: was.
1:24
Mark Pracht: I would have to tell you that the wraparound cover of Crisis on Infinite Earths 1 pretty much has all the heroes on it, too.
1:31
Tad Eggleston: I know, but I think the comic shop had closed by the time that one came out.
1:37
Sean Harklerode: But none of them show up in the book.
1:39
Tad Eggleston: I don't remember… I don't remember seeing that on the shelves.
1:43
Mark Pracht: That's not… wait, wait, that's not true. Crisis on Infinite Earths Ones, the, there's Earth 2, Superman, Pariah, Firestorm, Arian, Cyborg, Firebrand, they're all on the cover.
1:57
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:58
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah. Okay.
1:59
Tad Eggleston: It's pretty. And George, I mean, really, like, I was expecting the writing to be better.
2:10
Tad Eggleston: I wasn't expecting the art to be that much, but I mean, I know… I know I prefer George Perez to Mike Zek, but like…
2:19
Tad Eggleston: George Perez was… drawing out of his mind on this book. It was…
2:25
Mark Pracht: Y-yeah.
2:26
Sean Harklerode: You can feel it's a labor of love for both.
2:30
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
2:30
Sean Harklerode: Marv.
2:32
Tad Eggleston: I mean, both of these were essentially first issues to set up what was going to be going on for this year-long event, but one of them accomplished it very well, and one of them was a hot mess with a lot of different characters.
2:49
Tad Eggleston: And I still love the hot mess.
2:51
Sean Harklerode: I would… Go ahead.
2:54
Mark Pracht: No, go ahead, Sean.
2:56
Sean Harklerode: I mean, I would… I kind of differ.
2:59
Tad Eggleston: Okay.
3:00
Sean Harklerode: if I'm looking at these as Issue 1 and… one-to-one.
3:05
Sean Harklerode: You know, for my comic buying dollar as a kid, Secret Wars.
3:11
Sean Harklerode: would win.
3:13
Tad Eggleston: Well, as a 4-year-old, I obviously did win.
3:17
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, again, Crisis on Infinite Earths came out a year later, and I think our comic shop had closed, but,
3:25
Sean Harklerode: I feel like Secret Wars gives you the characters you want to read, And gives you action.
3:36
Tad Eggleston: Kind of.
3:37
Sean Harklerode: Crisis.
3:38
Sean Harklerode: Is really just setting everything up with a bunch of characters that you don't know, Right?
3:44
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, it's much more accessible, I think, to the casual fan.
3:49
Sean Harklerode: Right.
3:50
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, folks that maybe don't…
3:52
Brian Pastor (they/them): know the universes as well or as deeply, and as you point out, with Crisis, a lot of those characters you don't know at all, at first, and it spends the whole issue sort of gathering those characters together, whereas you get all the characters right away.
4:11
Tad Eggleston: I still felt like I kind of knew what was going on at the end of Crisis, whereas, like, at the end of Secret Wars, yes, I knew all the characters going into it, which meant that I should have had an even better idea of what was going on, because you didn't have to introduce anybody.
4:25
Mark Pracht: Here's…
4:27
Sean Harklerode: secret.
4:28
Tad Eggleston: Okay, that makes sense.
4:32
Mark Pracht: Listen.
4:32
Tad Eggleston: That's a good argument.
4:33
Mark Pracht: Look, I think that, you know, at one point we were talking about this, and Sean very rightly, I think, and I think very astutely pointed out that, like, these are, like, the two big mega-crossover, year-long projects that both the companies did.
4:48
Mark Pracht: But really, the DC analogy to Secret Wars isn't Crisis on Infinite Earths. It's the secret, or the Superpower series that Kirby did.
5:00
Mark Pracht: Because, look, the basic thing that… the basic difference between these two things is that crisis is created for the point of doing something editorially
5:11
Mark Pracht: that… that they had determined needed to happen, right? And Secret Wars was… we made a deal with Mattel to make a bunch of toys, and we need to have a book that'll sell the toys.
5:23
Mark Pracht: And I think that is the basic… I mean, like, the funny thing is, is it's so obvious, even in the first issue.
5:32
Mark Pracht: And now, you know, so… and I'm like, we might as well talk about this now, because it's going to be the thing that comes up, I think, all the time, right? It's… is that…
5:43
Mark Pracht: jim Shooter.
5:47
Mark Pracht: a… a… Really, really, really good comic book writer.
5:53
Tad Eggleston: Right.
5:54
Mark Pracht: Tad… a mission.
5:57
Mark Pracht: Which was, they're making toys of these characters, And they're making these playsets.
6:03
Mark Pracht: And I need to put them all in the book.
6:05
Mark Pracht: in a very real way, this book reminds me of something like ROM.
6:10
Mark Pracht: or Micronauts, or, you know, Shogun warriors, or something like that, you know?
6:18
Mark Pracht: And Sean's gonna hold up his copy of Shogun Player.
6:23
Sean Harklerode: No.
6:24
Mark Pracht: No, Sean's gonna hold up his…
6:26
Mark Pracht: 3 or 4 vintage Shogun warriors now.
6:30
Mark Pracht: But, you know, it's interesting, because, like, we were talking right before we started recording that I've been reading this tomorrow's book, The Crisis Companion, which is sort of the making of Crisis. And, you know, Crisis did come out about a year after
6:45
Mark Pracht: Not… not a complete year after, but it…
6:48
Tad Eggleston: I think they both started in January.
6:51
Mark Pracht: Yeah, well, that's true. I don't… I don't remember exactly, but…
6:55
Sean Harklerode: year later.
6:56
Mark Pracht: Yeah. And I think a lot of people try to position Crisis as some sort of answer to Secret Wars, and…
7:06
Mark Pracht: Quite honestly, if that's really what it was, They crushed it.
7:11
Mark Pracht: Right?
7:12
Mark Pracht: Because it's… it's…
7:15
Mark Pracht: it's just so much, like… here's the one thing that I will say, on a pure storytelling level.
7:23
Mark Pracht: Is, you know, as a writer.
7:26
Mark Pracht: They always want to tell you that you want to start your story as late as possible.
7:32
Mark Pracht: And the thing about crisis is, it starts
7:35
Mark Pracht: In the middle, in media res.
7:37
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah.
7:38
Mark Pracht: like, a planet is dying, right? And Secret Wars starts with, hey, we're in space, floating around.
7:46
Brian Pastor (they/them): How did we get here? Yeah.
7:48
Mark Pracht: what's happening? I don't know, and then a…
7:50
Mark Pracht: Yeah, what the? But, I mean, and that's… it's just…
7:57
Mark Pracht: like, and I think that even though what you're talking about, I think, is very true, is that crisis presents us with
8:05
Mark Pracht: the starting group of characters they bring together, Marv brings together, is not… the top liners.
8:14
Mark Pracht: But that's because he also has… he also has a much larger story to tell, and he knows that, like, Batman is gonna be coming in part of it, the Flash is gonna come into it, the Earth-1 Superman is gonna come into it.
8:27
Brian Pastor (they/them): Spoiler alerts!
8:30
Mark Pracht: Look, every single character you've ever heard of, it shows up in this book eventually, eventually. But,
8:36
Mark Pracht: And I think that… that… Just because there's so… there is clearly a goal
8:48
Mark Pracht: It… it's… it allows him to start in a much more dynamic manner, right?
8:54
Mark Pracht: And I think that… I'm with Tad. I think that Crisis on Infinite Earths 1 is…
9:04
Mark Pracht: even… even as a kid, I mean, and I… I don't know, I was…
9:09
Mark Pracht: 13 or 14 when this came out, I don't know.
9:13
Mark Pracht: And I would be much more compelled by
9:18
Mark Pracht: In fact, I remember I bought Crysis 1, and I bought Crysis 2, and then somehow got off track. And then I… or I, you know… and I don't… I think that I lived someplace where there was no comic shop, so it was, like, anything I could find on the newsstand.
9:33
Mark Pracht: But… I don't recall, when I was a kid, ever buying Secret Wars.
9:41
Brian Pastor (they/them): Hmm.
9:42
Brian Pastor (they/them): you know, there was an… there's an urgency about crisis, and, you know, well, you talked about the sort of inmateus res aspect of it, and I think that's really true, is like.
9:52
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, stuff's going down, and there's a race
9:57
Brian Pastor (they/them): to… to do something about it. And you feel like they're losing, right? You feel like they're losing that race. And… and so there's… there's an immediate tension and urgency that the book creates that is very absent.
10:15
Brian Pastor (they/them): in Secret Wars, which is, as you point out, most of the first issue is just them hanging around on a ship, figuring out where the heck they
10:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, how they got there, so…
10:26
Mark Pracht: Right.
10:27
Brian Pastor (they/them): That's definitely true.
10:29
Mark Pracht: Well, and then, you know, and they keep… I think that the other really, really, really
10:36
Mark Pracht: important thing that Crisis has is you have the pariah character.
10:42
Mark Pracht: Who is there to be, like.
10:45
Mark Pracht: shit is bad. It is bad. And even, even, the, the monitor and, lila, or Harboring, or…
10:54
Sean Harklerode: furniture.
10:55
Mark Pracht: Harbinger.
10:59
Mark Pracht: they're… they're not… they know things are bad, but they're not, like… the emotional impact, and how well… I think, how well Marv writes Harbinger, and how well George Perez draws Harbinger, or not Harbinger, Pariah,
11:18
Mark Pracht: Really, it gets the point across like nobody's business. And then, the other thing I love about it.
11:28
Mark Pracht: and I'll get around to Secret Wars eventually, I just… but is that we start off on Earth 3 with characters that we have learned to… are villains.
11:39
Mark Pracht: And we put them in crisis, trying to… to… Save their planet.
11:46
Mark Pracht: while not breaking them as villains, because they're like, I don't want to die, I don't want to die.
11:54
Mark Pracht: And in order for me not to die, I've got to stop this from happening, which would save the planet, right?
12:01
Mark Pracht: And I think that's awesome.
12:03
Mark Pracht: You know?
12:05
Mark Pracht: And…
12:06
Sean Harklerode: Perfect.
12:07
Mark Pracht: Go ahead.
12:08
Sean Harklerode: I think also you set up…
12:10
Sean Harklerode: you know, which I think is very cool.
12:13
Sean Harklerode: thematically.
12:15
Sean Harklerode: you have the parallel of Lex Luthor, or Alexander Luthor, there, and his wife, Lois Lane, saving their child, sending him away from a doomed world.
12:30
Sean Harklerode: To where he can… he can live.
12:32
Sean Harklerode: So, yeah, I just think that's…
12:37
Sean Harklerode: that really shows, I think, the scale that they're going for.
12:42
Sean Harklerode: beer.
12:43
Sean Harklerode: I was not as familiar with Earth 3.
12:50
Sean Harklerode: Or any of these, so… I remember reading this for the first time, And…
12:57
Sean Harklerode: reading Marv's, crisis mail blog.
13:02
Sean Harklerode: And… just thinking, okay, because I bought this thinking what you said, that this is going to be…
13:09
Sean Harklerode: their answer to Secret Wars. And, you know, right away, I'm like, oh, this is… he's really doing something.
13:17
Sean Harklerode: but…
13:23
Sean Harklerode: I feel like, if I remember correctly, it was the second issue that really got me hooked.
13:30
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
13:30
Sean Harklerode: And on this read, I just, I just felt…
13:36
Sean Harklerode: you know, if I were just picking this up, I… you know.
13:41
Sean Harklerode: I mean, it's got some funny stuff, the stuff with Killer Frost… And,
13:48
Mark Pracht: I always loved me classic Firestorm.
13:51
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
13:52
Mark Pracht: with Dr. Stein in his head, you know, and he's like, am I doing this alright? Dr. Stein? He's like, I've got no complaints, but I'm like, yeah, it's
13:59
Mark Pracht: I always read… I always read Dr. Stein with Neil Peart's voice.
14:05
Mark Pracht: But that's…
14:06
Sean Harklerode: That was an interesting thing, reading this. I had the Super Friends voices.
14:13
Mark Pracht: Mmm.
14:14
Sean Harklerode: in my head, for… for the Earth 3.
14:17
Sean Harklerode: They're in the villains.
14:20
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, and, you know, the thing about it is.
14:26
Mark Pracht: I kind of love the fact that
14:30
Mark Pracht: this doesn't start out with, like, let's get the A-list characters in a big line.
14:38
Mark Pracht: That it's like, okay, let's get Firebrand.
14:44
Mark Pracht: Like, and I remember when I bought this book, I was like, I don't know who this is.
14:49
Mark Pracht: But, I mean, the thing is, is, like, those characters that aren't as familiar.
14:55
Mark Pracht: Marv spends more time telling you who they are.
14:58
Mark Pracht: Right? Right. So, like… Firebrand gets an, an actually pretty good introduction, you know?
15:07
Mark Pracht: you know, these are my powers, this is where I'm from, this is the time period I'm from, I'm a society gal, I'm blah blah blah, you know, and you sort of, like, Don Star, he spends more time, you know, and it's like, I'm a tracker, blah blah blah blah, and then, Blue Beetle shows up, and it's slightly compressed, because maybe you've heard of Blue Beetle, if you've read the Charlton books or whatever.
15:30
Mark Pracht: And then…
15:31
Mark Pracht: But you still get a little bit more. And then, when we get to, when we get to, the monitor's satellite.
15:40
Mark Pracht: Okay, here's Superman from Earth 2, which we don't need to explain who he is. There's Green Lantern, it's Jon Stewart, but we probably don't need to explain who that is. You know, and it's like, I think that…
15:53
Mark Pracht: I think that that's clever, and I think that that's… that's good understanding of the writing. Now.
15:59
Mark Pracht: I'm not gonna argue, like, I don't think…
16:03
Mark Pracht: It's not the kind of book that's like, holy shit, wow! You know, because even the fight isn't that great.
16:09
Mark Pracht: Perez draws the shit out of it, but it's also sort of, like.
16:13
Mark Pracht: The villains are kind of nebulous, and you're not really sure what they can do or what they can't do.
16:20
Mark Pracht: I did kind of love Obsidian, where he was like, oh, they're shadows like me, and if I turn into my shadow form, will they hurt me, or blah blah blah, you know, and I'm like…
16:29
Mark Pracht: I just love that kind of stuff. And the thing is, is that it's funny, actually, this just hit me, is that…
16:38
Mark Pracht: for a company that ostensibly was not as character-oriented as Marvel was, there is more character stuff that happens in Crisis than happens anywhere in Secret Wars, right?
16:54
Mark Pracht: I mean, like…
16:55
Sean Harklerode: Psycho Pirate stuff.
16:56
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
16:57
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
16:59
Mark Pracht: Like, it…
17:01
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, I think that's true. You know, the one thing I will say that I think…
17:06
Brian Pastor (they/them): you were talking about the villains, right? And it's a little bit unclear who the villains are and that sort of stuff, which is sort of… which is interesting, but the villains are also what makes…
17:16
Brian Pastor (they/them): Secret Wars number one.
17:18
Brian Pastor (they/them): interesting, in a way, right? At first, there's just, like, a bunch of heroes, and trying to figure out where they are. The coolest thing about the first half of the book, where the heroes are just trying to figure that out, is the fact that Magneto is present there. Yeah. And I…
17:37
Brian Pastor (they/them): I imagine this is the first time that Magneto was, sort of.
17:41
Brian Pastor (they/them): Planted amongst the heroes, and you had to wrestle with that idea, which is interesting to me.
17:48
Brian Pastor (they/them): And then they show you all the heroes, and you see this lineup of, you know, Ultron and…
17:54
Brian Pastor (they/them): you know, Galactus, and Doom, and they're trying to wrestle with this, and
18:02
Brian Pastor (they/them): And… and they can't escape, right? Like, they're like, we are all powerful, and they're just being shot down. They realize they're in a position where they're used to dominating, and they… and they don't have the power. And then Doom becomes, like, the…
18:18
Brian Pastor (they/them): like the detective, you know? Like, he's…
18:21
Tad Eggleston: That is something that I still… Love, love.
18:25
Brian Pastor (they/them): That's interesting.
18:26
Tad Eggleston: secret.
18:26
Mark Pracht: I didn't.
18:27
Tad Eggleston: is…
18:27
Mark Pracht: I think you can.
18:28
Tad Eggleston: To me, it's where Doom takes… and I haven't read enough Doom before Secret Wars, but it's when Doom goes from being…
18:37
Tad Eggleston: A supervillain to, oh, this is a guy who thinks on a different level.
18:42
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yes.
18:42
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I think he's.
18:44
Tad Eggleston: never lets play the game. He's…
18:47
Mark Pracht: Now, and I think that that goes back all the way to Stan and Jack, really, but I do think… like, I think you could make the argument, in fact, I would make the argument that the protagonist of Secret Wars number 1 is Doom.
19:01
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
19:02
Mark Pracht: He is… he is the only character that is being proactive in anything.
19:08
Tad Eggleston: I mean, honestly, to a certain extent, I think you could make the argument that the protagonist of Secret Wars is Doom.
19:14
Mark Pracht: But, yeah.
19:16
Mark Pracht: I mean, in that That's awesome, right? And… but…
19:24
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, and like, the questioning of Magneto's place in these groups is interesting. I like, you know, and having…
19:38
Mark Pracht: having knowledge of where the story goes, like, you know, Molecule Man ends up being very interesting,
19:45
Mark Pracht: But, like… It… it really…
19:53
Mark Pracht: And I, I don't wanna, I don't wanna bury the lead here or anything like that, but, I mean, like.
19:58
Mark Pracht: The… the heroes are so fucking boring.
20:02
Mark Pracht: Like.
20:03
Tad Eggleston: Like…
20:03
Mark Pracht: The introduction of the heroes, like.
20:08
Mark Pracht: It's literally, let's stand in a line and tell each other who we are.
20:12
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
20:13
Mark Pracht: And I'm like, you don't… I think you all know each other.
20:19
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
20:20
Mark Pracht: But I… and I… but I get it.
20:21
Tad Eggleston: Somehow the Avengers have never met the X-Men?
20:24
Mark Pracht: Yeah, or, like, they don't know Spider-Man, I don't know. Look.
20:27
Tad Eggleston: Right.
20:28
Mark Pracht: The other thing about it is, I also acknowledge
20:33
Mark Pracht: Because I think that you can't…
20:35
Mark Pracht: For all that they tried to tie it into continuity, right?
20:39
Mark Pracht: And… But that also, like.
20:46
Mark Pracht: here's the… here's the other problem, right? And it's… it's sort of outside of the series itself, right? Is that… because I remember when we were talking about doing this, and Dan was talking about how he thought that… that the series all, like, went into…
21:01
Mark Pracht: holding patterns for the year that they were doing Secret Wars, and I'm like, no.
21:06
Mark Pracht: the next issue, everybody was back. Right. And it's like, so…
21:10
Mark Pracht: All… every twist and turn that's gonna happen during these 12 issues was blown.
21:19
Mark Pracht: 11 months prior, you know?
21:22
Mark Pracht: like…
21:23
Mark Pracht: we knew the next issue of Fantastic Four, they come back, Ben's gone, and She-Hulk's a member of the Fantastic Four. Spoiler. But, you know, it's like…
21:36
Mark Pracht: it… the… there was… And this kind of goes… this goes back to the book, to the Crisis Companion.
21:45
Mark Pracht: From tomorrow's press.
21:47
Mark Pracht: Written by Kevin Miller. He kind of goes to great lengths to talk about how he feels that DC's financial problems were what drove them to do Crisis on Infinite Earths. And I'm… I think…
22:07
Mark Pracht: This is me going into my, rider-detective mode thing.
22:11
Mark Pracht: There's this whole story that goes about how
22:16
Mark Pracht: Warner Bros. approached Marvel about licensing all of the major DC characters to publish.
22:23
Mark Pracht: And this is a story that has kind of gotten a life of its own, and it is entirely based on something Jim Shooter said.
22:33
Mark Pracht: And the only piece of evidence that Jim Shooter had was the memo that he wrote to the heads of Cadence saying, I think we should make an offer to license all the DC characters.
22:45
Mark Pracht: And I'm like.
22:47
Mark Pracht: I don't necessarily… that doesn't say to me DC was begging you to take over the characters.
22:54
Tad Eggleston: What?
22:55
Mark Pracht: But, I'm sorry, I'm leading… I'm leading to.
22:58
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no.
22:58
Mark Pracht: with this.
22:59
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
22:59
Mark Pracht: The sheer… command of what they were doing, and the fact that DC
23:11
Mark Pracht: built their entire year of publishing around what was doing here. And I mean, I know this happens all the time now, right? But…
23:21
Mark Pracht: what was happening in crisis was affecting books all over the place. Like, you can buy the complete crisis, which is, like.
23:33
Mark Pracht: this huge fucking book with all the crisis issues and all the regular issues of the books that tied into it. And…
23:41
Mark Pracht: It's sort of… it's… it's sort of magnificent in that Marv is writing the main book.
23:49
Mark Pracht: And it makes sense all the way through, and then… but then you can spin off, and you can see this is how… you know, like, this is what's happening with the Flash, and this is what happened with Batman, and blah blah blah, and…
24:01
Mark Pracht: It doesn't feel like a company that's
24:07
Mark Pracht: Thrashing around, trying to figure out what to do.
24:10
Tad Eggleston: Well, let me…
24:12
Tad Eggleston: add something to that really quick, because I fell down a rabbit hole after we were talking about whether or not this was a response to Secret Wars.
24:23
Tad Eggleston: Wolfman pitched it in 82.
24:26
Tad Eggleston: And it was approved by Levitz and Kahn. They hired a researcher to go through their library and read every comic the company had published. A task that would take the next 2 years.
24:40
Brian Pastor (they/them): Wow. Yep.
24:41
Tad Eggleston: the series was delayed to 83 due to time for research, and then delayed again until 85. Right. So, A, that's not, like, the actions of a company that is…
24:58
Tad Eggleston: having financial issues.
25:01
Tad Eggleston: B, like, it means that not only did they plan this, but, like, they planned it, planned it.
25:07
Brian Pastor (they/them): Right. Really? Yeah. This isn't.
25:09
Tad Eggleston: Which…
25:10
Brian Pastor (they/them): Mary, this is.
25:11
Tad Eggleston: Whereas… and my sources are Wikipedia, but they're well-sourced articles on Wikipedia. Like, all of that stuff came from,
25:22
Tad Eggleston: When Worlds Collided behind the scenes of Crisis on Infinite Earths, back issue, number 34 from Tomorrow's, and slugfest from…
25:31
Tad Eggleston: Decapo Press by Reed Tucker.
25:36
Mark Pracht: Good book.
25:37
Tad Eggleston: Likewise, with Secret Wars, apparently, there were decisions made on design and… and… And, plot, etc.
25:50
Tad Eggleston: based on information from Mattel.
25:54
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
25:56
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, you know, that's, like… The…
26:01
Sean Harklerode: So…
26:01
Mark Pracht: There, there's… there's no way to… like, the ambition, like…
26:06
Mark Pracht: DC identified a problem, right? And they're… they… what they decided…
26:12
Mark Pracht: And it's the same problem that we're still grappling with today, is that Having a multiverse.
26:20
Mark Pracht: Was confusing to some readers, right?
26:25
Mark Pracht: So, they hatched a plan to figure out how to…
26:29
Tad Eggleston: Also, some writers.
26:30
Mark Pracht: Sure. I mean, and they hash, you know.
26:33
Mark Pracht: you can't… you can't have… every writer can't be Bob Haney going, like, I don't give a shit.
26:39
Tad Eggleston: And every writer can't be Mark Waid going, I've read it all, and it's in my garage.
26:45
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, and I can…
26:46
Mark Pracht: tell you, if you describe the cover to me, I'll tell you what issue number it is.
26:50
Tad Eggleston: Right, right, right.
26:51
Mark Pracht: But, the… the…
26:58
Mark Pracht: Whether or not that was… that was, you know, like, we're in… we're in the multiverse…
27:07
Mark Pracht: The word that comes to mind is cesspool right now. But, you know, like, the answer to everything now is a multi…
27:15
Tad Eggleston: I thought we were talking about comics, not the real world.
27:18
Mark Pracht: Well, no, but I mean, like, you know, like, we're back to where DC was in, like, the 60s and the 70s and the early 80s, where it was like, oh, we want to do this, oh, it's just another Earth. You know, it's Earth 67, or whatever, or Earth S, or…
27:36
Mark Pracht: You know, we bought a new company, that's on a new planet, and it's like, okay.
27:41
Mark Pracht: But…
27:45
Mark Pracht: And now, whether that was the right thing to do or not, I don't know. And obviously, they've gone back and forth on it.
27:52
Mark Pracht: But the other thing, I mean, look, and we're…
27:58
Mark Pracht: I think as we go through this, it's gonna be more talking about the actual plots, but, right.
28:03
Mark Pracht: the truth of the matter is, is they made, like… Secret Wars promised huge changes.
28:11
Mark Pracht: and… there was, like, I think somebody.
28:14
Tad Eggleston: Did it promise huge changes? I thought it just.
28:16
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah.
28:18
Mark Pracht: Well, no, it promised that there would be big changes, and somebody… I read someplace, somebody broke it down, where it was like, okay, the big changes were Spider-Man gets a new costume.
28:29
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yep.
28:30
Sean Harklerode: been great.
28:30
Mark Pracht: ben Grimm leaves the Fantastic Four, and She-Hulk comes in.
28:36
Mark Pracht: And, Kitty Pracht and Colossus break up.
28:41
Tad Eggleston: Also, it was renamed from Cosmic Champions to Secret Wars, because children respond positively to words wars and Secret Wars. Secret and Wars.
28:51
Mark Pracht: Yes, yes.
28:51
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
28:52
Sean Harklerode: Mattel, Mattel, like that. I wanted to go back on what, Tad was saying about the origins. According to Marv.
29:02
Sean Harklerode: The idea came,
29:05
Tad Eggleston: Even earlier than that.
29:06
Sean Harklerode: in the letters column, Green Lantern 143, so I just looked that up.
29:12
Sean Harklerode: It's, so that was a… cover date of August 1981.
29:18
Tad Eggleston: No.
29:19
Sean Harklerode: So, someone pointed out You know, a mix-up in continuity.
29:25
Sean Harklerode: And, you know, of course, they don't have no prizes.
29:28
Sean Harklerode: And… Marv's answer was, one day, we'll probably straighten out what is in the universe and what is outside.
29:38
Sean Harklerode: According to Marv, that's where he got the germ.
29:41
Sean Harklerode: Of the action.
29:42
Mark Pracht: I can actually read that letter to you if you would like.
29:45
Mark Pracht: It's…
29:46
Tad Eggleston: I'd love it.
29:52
Mark Pracht: The dark secret of existence is that history has been destroyed and reborn over and over and over time, and that cycle has accelerated. Because of that acceleration, the fabric of this universe is losing its cohesion.
30:07
Mark Pracht: Reality has been taken apart and put back together too many times. Therefore, creation is not only stalled, it is under great threat.
30:16
Mark Pracht: Reality cannot survive another crisis.
30:20
Mark Pracht: That's apparently what the letter said.
30:27
Mark Pracht: So…
30:27
Sean Harklerode: ban Gary Thompson.
30:29
Mark Pracht: Yes. That's true.
30:31
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, that's pretty prescient there, and, you know, use of crisis, very nice.
30:36
Mark Pracht: Well, and I think, you know, I think that…
30:41
Mark Pracht: You know, and it's funny, you know, it really is funny, because, like.
30:45
Mark Pracht: we're sitting here and we're talking about these books, right? And we haven't really mentioned The plot at all.
30:52
Mark Pracht: And the thing is, is… Because I think…
30:59
Mark Pracht: Crisis is setting so many pieces in place.
31:02
Mark Pracht: That it's… it's almost maddening to try to explain it.
31:06
Mark Pracht: Even though on the page, I think it works really well.
31:09
Mark Pracht: And if you sit down and you try to explain what happened in that Secret Wars book, it's like, okay, they were on these little ships, and…
31:16
Tad Eggleston: Oh, baby.
31:16
Mark Pracht: Like…
31:17
Tad Eggleston: They did introductions.
31:20
Tad Eggleston: And…
31:20
Mark Pracht: They're a big, wide-open The villain?
31:22
Tad Eggleston: did introductions.
31:23
Mark Pracht: Yup.
31:25
Tad Eggleston: And then… Galactus got his butt kicked.
31:30
Tad Eggleston: And… Doom decided that they shouldn't play the game.
31:35
Sean Harklerode: Right.
31:37
Mark Pracht: But then he got pissed off when he went to try to talk to Reed about it, and Reed didn't…
31:41
Mark Pracht: Right. Showing the proper.
31:43
Tad Eggleston: But nobody…
31:43
Mark Pracht: And he was gonna…
31:44
Sean Harklerode: Because Reed, read it!
31:48
Sean Harklerode: always reading.
31:51
Sean Harklerode: all over. There's a.
31:53
Mark Pracht: Oh, a couple of them.
31:55
Sean Harklerode: The Council of Reeds.
32:01
Mark Pracht: I did, you know, the one thing… there is a passing line in Secret Wars that I loved, where Doom basically says that, that,
32:11
Mark Pracht: Kang is a future version of himself. Right. And I'm like, okay, alright, like… So, you know…
32:19
Mark Pracht: Doomsday is still the Kang… Kang conspiracy, or whatever it is.
32:27
Mark Pracht: But… I don't know, I mean, like…
32:31
Mark Pracht: And I felt like the… the…
32:34
Mark Pracht: you know, and it's only fair. It's a 12-issue miniseries. They're both setting the… putting the pieces in place.
32:44
Mark Pracht: the action is pretty lackluster, I think, in both books.
32:49
Mark Pracht: I do think that…
32:57
Mark Pracht: while I really love Mike Zek, in a lot of things.
33:03
Mark Pracht: I think that this… and I believe, if I remember correctly, he was under terrible deadline crunch. I think they were… it was supposed to be drawn by somebody else, and they gave it to him last minute.
33:14
Mark Pracht: But, like, it's… the… the art is just night and day. I mean, it's just like… It's…
33:26
Mark Pracht: It's a… you know, with what we were talking about, with all the research and all that stuff, like…
33:35
Mark Pracht: how long was George working on this book? I mean, like, it could have been months, years, I don't know.
33:42
Mark Pracht: And… My exec turned in a… competent…
33:51
Mark Pracht: early, mid-80s Marvel book, you know?
33:55
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, it had… it had a couple…
33:57
Brian Pastor (they/them): Splashy pages, I'm not gonna have to say a splash page, but at a couple
34:02
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, great, sort of, images of, you know, like, when…
34:06
Brian Pastor (they/them): galactus got his butt kicked and ends up, you know, like.
34:10
Mark Pracht: Right.
34:11
Brian Pastor (they/them): Lions smoking on the ground, you know, there's a couple moments like that.
34:16
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, a couple nice shot close-ups of…
34:20
Brian Pastor (they/them): Wolverine-looking stunned and stuff like that. But the art itself does feel very pedestrian for that time.
34:29
Mark Pracht: For that period, yeah. I mean.
34:35
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean… And then these are… when did these books come out? It was, like, 84 and 85?
34:42
Sean Harklerode: I was gonna point out, so the cover date…
34:44
Tad Eggleston: May of 1984 to April of 85 for Secret Wars, and April of 85 to March of 86 for Crisis on Infinite Earths, so you could buy Issue 12 and Issue 1 in the same model.
35:02
Mark Pracht: And then…
35:02
Sean Harklerode: So, to Tad's point, Tad had, had said that,
35:06
Sean Harklerode: He thought they came out in January.
35:09
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
35:09
Sean Harklerode: Best for us.
35:11
Sean Harklerode: Here's the… it must have been close to the New Year, because the subscription ad has the Hulk as Baby New Year 1988. Right.
35:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): Very nice.
35:25
Tad Eggleston: 1884.
35:28
Sean Harklerode: Street date must have been probably January, maybe. So…
35:31
Mark Pracht: But, like, here's… here's… here's a thought.
35:34
Mark Pracht: Crisis wraps up.
35:39
Mark Pracht: And in 86, what do we get?
35:41
Mark Pracht: Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen come out.
35:44
Sean Harklerode: Right.
35:44
Mark Pracht: like…
35:46
Mark Pracht: like, this whole idea that DC is in some sort of crisis mode and doesn't know what they're doing, it's like, Jesus Christ, like…
35:54
Mark Pracht: 3 huge, fucking massive things. One very mainstream, and then two not-so-mainstream, you know?
36:03
Mark Pracht: And not continuity-based.
36:06
Mark Pracht: Not supposed to be continuity-based.
36:08
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, boom, boom, boom, you know? Like, Jesus.
36:15
Brian Pastor (they/them): And this is… I was gonna say this earlier, that…
36:17
Brian Pastor (they/them): when you read Crisis, it feels like… I mean, it's setting it up to tell a very…
36:25
Brian Pastor (they/them): carefully laid out adult story. It's still appealing to kids, I mean, there's, you know, and it's not doing anything offensive.
36:34
Brian Pastor (they/them): But if… but it's a very… Mature kind of writing.
36:39
Brian Pastor (they/them): And… and DC kind of followed that up, as you point out, with these, you know, these… these books and these storylines that… that feel…
36:49
Brian Pastor (they/them): Like, they're really… it feels like… literature.
36:55
Brian Pastor (they/them): And, you know, at this point in time, I think Marvel… Was really thinking about
37:03
Brian Pastor (they/them): just how do they market their characters? You know, they're really thinking about the Spidey television show, or the toy lines, and you're seeing that explode everywhere, right? Because you've got, you know, Transformers on television, and, you know, all these other He-Man, and…
37:21
Tad Eggleston: Undercats, Jejo…
37:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, oh yeah.
37:24
Tad Eggleston: I was the right age for all of this stuff.
37:27
Brian Pastor (they/them): So it's like, they're cashing in on that. And, you know, we'll pass it to them.
37:32
Tad Eggleston: Centurions, Voltron…
37:35
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, you also have Shooter, and I mean, look, I think… I think, as Brian knows, I think Jim Shooter is a fascinating figure in comic book history.
37:48
Mark Pracht: who… Has an iron grip on…
37:53
Mark Pracht: Marvel editorial at this time, right? Like, nobody does anything unless he says it's okay, right? And everything has to match up, and it's…
38:05
Mark Pracht: It's… it's so funny, because it's very much like the Stan Lee thing.
38:10
Mark Pracht: Right? Where Stan had a handle on everything that was going on, and he made sure that this fit with this. Of course, he was directly working on those books.
38:21
Mark Pracht: whether he was plotting them or what, I don't know, but he's directly working on those books, and it was a… it was basically a handful of comics. And now Shooter's there, he's got…
38:32
Mark Pracht: You know, they're also going into their era of trying to flood the marketplace.
38:38
Mark Pracht: And he's sitting there going, like, you have to do this, you have to do that, you're doing this.
38:42
Mark Pracht: you know, he's giving… he's giving writers lectures on how to structure a comic book story. He's giving artists lectures on how to draw a comic book story. Like, famously, you know, when he was
38:56
Mark Pracht: When he first started writing, when he was 13, right?
38:59
Mark Pracht: He would draw… Breakdowns.
39:04
Mark Pracht: of each page. And I find myself wondering if he didn't do the same thing on this book.
39:10
Mark Pracht: Because that was part of his process, that he… and… and, you know, like.
39:15
Mark Pracht: Kurt Swan is drawing his Superboy stories, and he's handing Kurt Swan, like, breakdowns. And he's like, oh, Kurt loved that.
39:24
Mark Pracht: I'm like, did he?
39:26
Mark Pracht: But, I think it's just a very different…
39:33
Mark Pracht: I think that there's just a very…
39:36
Mark Pracht: I think Shooter had a very process-oriented mindset, right? This is what needs to happen, we need to do this, we need to get to this story beat by the end of the book, we have to make sure that these characters are, you know… and that…
39:53
Mark Pracht: 100% guarantee that Issue 2,
39:58
Mark Pracht: there'll be a reintroduction of all the characters, which totally makes sense. Like, I agree with that on a, you know, like… like Stan always said, every comic book is somebody's first. But the other thing is, is, like, the other thing that's rewarding about Crisis is that
40:17
Mark Pracht: it rewards you for knowing stuff, right? And, you know, obviously this is also, you know, the Easter egg thing has gotten completely out of control, but, you know, like, in the introduction of,
40:31
Mark Pracht: Of Arian. Arian. Aaron?
40:34
Mark Pracht: you know, the Mage of Atlantis, right? And,
40:39
Mark Pracht: there's a… there's a brief reference to the ice would melt, and that another… a hero would arise from it. And it's like… it's Aquaman, right? Doesn't say that.
40:51
Mark Pracht: But if you're reading it, you're like, oh yeah.
40:54
Mark Pracht: I mean, and it doesn't matter whether you know who that is or not, it's just… it's… it's…
41:00
Mark Pracht: It's a little… it's a little breadcrumb to leave there where you can pick it up or you can not pick it up, it doesn't really matter, but it also sets in tone that, like, all of this is connected.
41:14
Mark Pracht: And… Sorry, I'm kind of going now. And part of the… where.
41:20
Sean Harklerode: I'm just kidding.
41:20
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I know. Part of the problem with Secret Wars is that we've taken these characters and removed them from their environment so that we don't have to
41:31
Mark Pracht: We don't have to connect to anything.
41:34
Mark Pracht: Right?
41:35
Mark Pracht: So there's no fun of… Oh, that's that, or that's that, or that's that, you know?
41:41
Mark Pracht: And… I don't know.
41:44
Mark Pracht: It… But yeah, it is funny, like, this time when I read it.
41:50
Mark Pracht: And this is one of the… this is one of the few times I've been able to read both of these books twice before we recorded this.
41:57
Mark Pracht: is how… because I've also been rereading the Micronauts book.
42:03
Mark Pracht: How similar they are.
42:05
Mark Pracht: You know?
42:07
Mark Pracht: It's… it's fascinating.
42:09
Mark Pracht: It reads like…
42:10
Sean Harklerode: How similar they are to each other, or to the.
42:12
Mark Pracht: Yeah, well, not… not, like, plot-wise or anything like that, but the way they set up. Like, that it's… that it's a… it's a… it's a lot… it feels like a licensed book. It feels like something that they bought the rights to a toy line.
42:25
Mark Pracht: And they needed to make a story out of it, right? Or, you know, I haven't read the Transformer, the Marvel Transformers comic in years, but…
42:34
Mark Pracht: You know.
42:36
Mark Pracht: Or, you know, the Marvel Star Trek.
42:40
Sean Harklerode: what? Yeah.
42:41
Mark Pracht: Yeah, you know, the Marvel Star Trek book they did after the motion picture, where…
42:46
Mark Pracht: You know, they're like, we only have the rights to the motion picture.
42:50
Mark Pracht: And I'm like, how the hell does that work?
42:53
Mark Pracht: So, like, everything was like, you know, they would have… I remember every letter page was like, oh, are you gonna bring back core? Can't use it.
43:01
Mark Pracht: Are you gonna bring back Trelane? Can't use him.
43:04
Mark Pracht: You know, and I'm like, Why the hell did you buy these rights, then?
43:10
Mark Pracht: Anyway.
43:11
Mark Pracht: I'm done.
43:13
Mark Pracht: I have nothing else to say, you talk about yourself.
43:18
Sean Harklerode: I'll believe that.
43:21
Brian Pastor (they/them): He's talked himself into a stupor.
43:25
Mark Pracht: into a stupid,
43:32
Sean Harklerode: Well, I, I know, I think back issue…
43:38
Sean Harklerode: Tomorrows is doing a gym shooter issue, I think in December. So I think we'll… we'll have some more
43:47
Sean Harklerode: details on the… on the Secret Wars, backstory.
43:52
Sean Harklerode: As we go on.
43:55
Sean Harklerode: For me, I…
43:58
Sean Harklerode: again, as I said, I think I enjoyed Secret Wars number one more. This is the third time I've read Secret Wars, and probably the fourth or fifth time I've read, Crisis.
44:11
Sean Harklerode: Which was interesting to me, because for me, I came into this, I was a total Marvel kid.
44:21
Sean Harklerode: And I picked this book up.
44:23
Sean Harklerode: Because I was… and I was like, oh yeah, they're trying to copy, you know, Marvel.
44:29
Sean Harklerode: and I picked up Crisis, And, you know, through…
44:35
Sean Harklerode: Through the course of that next year, I…
44:38
Sean Harklerode: was equally… you know, I… I got onto the DC bandwagon. I was there for Man of Steel, and Detective, and…
44:49
Sean Harklerode: you know, Dark Knight Returns.
44:52
Sean Harklerode: Swamp Thing, you know, it was… this is what made me a DC fan, this series.
45:02
Mark Pracht: I mean, which was the point, right?
45:04
Sean Harklerode: Right?
45:05
Mark Pracht: That's what they were trying to do, right?
45:12
Sean Harklerode: But,
45:14
Mark Pracht: They, be…
45:15
Sean Harklerode: art, As we've said, you know.
45:19
Sean Harklerode: And also, when we were talking about
45:23
Sean Harklerode: other combinations to read. It would be interesting to read Crisis and Infinity Gauntlet.
45:32
Sean Harklerode: But then we'd just be talking about how great George Perez is, or Perez is, and there's nothing wrong with that. Yeah. And no one would disagree with any of it.
45:46
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, I think, you know, we should give our props to Mark Wolfman, who, you know, was…
45:56
Mark Pracht: hired… you know, they headhunted him from Marvel.
46:02
Mark Pracht: after his brief tenure as the editor-in-chief over at Marvel, and then, and put him on…
46:10
Mark Pracht: you know, they put him and Perez on, Teen Titans, and it went through the fucking roof, you know, and it… and…
46:20
Mark Pracht: You know, like, those were the two… those were the two… the two big books were X-Men, Claremont… Claremont and, I… I don't know, it was Burn… Byrne probably had left by that point. But, you know, the Claremont X-Men, Claremont with whoever was driving… drawing at the time. You know…
46:38
Tad Eggleston: I'm actually floating through…
46:44
Tad Eggleston: League of Comic Geeks week by week, starting with Secret Wars number one, and I'm surprised at how little X-Men there is.
46:55
Tad Eggleston: Among the most collected.
46:58
Tad Eggleston: Now, that doesn't necessarily line up with sales, because it's the ones that people have logged in as part of their collection, but it certainly lines up with what people still care about.
47:12
Tad Eggleston: New Mutants is showing up a lot.
47:14
Tad Eggleston: Peter Parker the Spectacular Spider-Man.
47:19
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, at that point, at that point.
47:21
Tad Eggleston: Swamp Thing's already going.
47:25
Mark Pracht: There really wasn't… I mean, there was really only the two X-Men books, right?
47:30
Mark Pracht: There was X-Men and New Moons.
47:33
Tad Eggleston: Right.
47:34
Tad Eggleston: Like, like here, Uncanny X-Men comes in at… 183 comes in at the 9th most collected book in…
47:44
Tad Eggleston: Daredevil comes in higher most of the time. West Coast Avengers looks like it was big.
47:49
Brian Pastor (they/them): It was. It was huge at the time.
47:51
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
47:53
Brian Pastor (they/them): What's really interesting.
47:54
Tad Eggleston: Routine Titans definitely comes in high every time I go through.
48:00
Brian Pastor (they/them): This is the… this period in time where…
48:05
Brian Pastor (they/them): Dc was actively poaching from Marvel with regularity, and they lost
48:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): a ton of talent to DC, and a lot of it has to do with, you know, just the business aspect of it, right? The way that Kahn and Levitz were running their business versus the way that Shooter was treating, you know.
48:27
Sean Harklerode: Greeting people.
48:28
Brian Pastor (they/them): the legacy of the way Marvel, was training their artists and stuff.
48:33
Brian Pastor (they/them): But yeah, I mean, Byrne and Miller and all these guys, I grew up.
48:38
Brian Pastor (they/them): we're going to DC and just…
48:41
Brian Pastor (they/them): And their best work in so many ways was still ahead of them. And that's when, you know, you got a new influx of talent coming in to Marvel, but they couldn't hold onto them either, right? Because by the early 90s, they were all going independent. So, it was an interesting time for Marvel in terms of
49:00
Brian Pastor (they/them): really bleeding talent. They were… they were attracting great talent, but then they were losing them to others… other… Right.
49:08
Mark Pracht: I mean, and they.
49:09
Sean Harklerode: What's the issue of, Fantastic Four that…
49:13
Sean Harklerode: like, Shooter was gonna make Burn redraw the entire thing. In fact, I think he gave it to someone else to do.
49:21
Sean Harklerode: And that… that was the last straw for… for burns.
49:25
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
49:25
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, Burns' first art for DC was 1980, I know that because I'm holding it in my hands.
49:31
Brian Pastor (they/them): Untold Legend of Batman.
49:34
Brian Pastor (they/them): I think you wrote it… I think you did it with Aparo.
49:37
Brian Pastor (they/them): That was in, you know, 1980. So, by… yeah, by the mid-'80s, I mean, he was…
49:44
Brian Pastor (they/them): well into his DC time.
49:47
Sean Harklerode: But further to that, Marv, in his… when he's giving credit to who all helped with this.
49:56
Sean Harklerode: it's a who's who of Marvel talent at DC. So, Jerry Conway, Len Wein was originally going to co-write
50:06
Sean Harklerode: And he did co-plot, at least this issue.
50:10
Sean Harklerode: but then… Len… Branched off to do Who's Who.
50:18
Sean Harklerode: in the DC Universe.
50:20
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
50:20
Sean Harklerode: Roy Thomas… Roy Thomas did… gave him a lot of research on the Golden Age, which, you know, who else can tell you about the Golden Age but Roy Thomas?
50:33
Mark Pracht: You're naming all the people who are on the cover of this Crisis Companion.
50:38
Sean Harklerode: Alright, and then, of course, Perez and Wolfman, you know, it was… Yeah, the cross-pollination.
50:48
Mark Pracht: Well… You know, and the other thing was,
50:53
Mark Pracht: you know, who's who of the DC Universe was running concurrently with all of this.
50:57
Sean Harklerode: So, they couldn't do both.
51:00
Mark Pracht: Right.
51:02
Mark Pracht: so… but I mean, like, there was a way for you to… Sooner or later, get… Who's that?
51:13
Mark Pracht: Oh, that's who it is, you know, and…
51:18
Mark Pracht: And then, you know, the Handbook of the Marvel Universe, which I think was the reaction to Who's Who, if I remember correctly.
51:25
Mark Pracht: And then, of course, you know, the whole thing wraps up with the history of the DC Universe.
51:34
Mark Pracht: the two… two-issue prestige book that… that, Wolfman and Perez did to, right.
51:40
Mark Pracht: to put everything back in order. I mean, and…
51:45
Mark Pracht: you know, I think… I think that there's just… I mean, I…
51:52
Mark Pracht: it's interesting in this companion book, like, they have, Giordano as the editor… the EIC, you know, he's saying repeatedly that these changes are permanent.
52:04
Mark Pracht: we're… this is the way it's gonna be. And… You know?
52:10
Mark Pracht: they stuck with that for a long-ass time, you know? Like, I think… I think it's hard to forget
52:19
Mark Pracht: How long the changes that this series wrought
52:24
Mark Pracht: stayed in effect. I mean, it was till the early 2000s, if I remember correctly. Maybe the… maybe the late 90s.
52:31
Sean Harklerode: Yeah, they started teasing it with the, what, not Infinity Crisis, what, Dark Crisis, remember Dark Crisis, and…
52:38
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
52:39
Sean Harklerode: Those sorts of things.
52:41
Mark Pracht: But I mean, like, I remember at one point, like,
52:44
Mark Pracht: Again, not to… not to get spoilery, but… When… when they took…
53:01
Mark Pracht: The, the, the flash of… Barry was the Flash…
53:09
Mark Pracht: a shorter period of time than Wally was, by the time they took Wally off the book, you know?
53:15
Mark Pracht: Like, Wally had been the Flash for more years than Barry had been.
53:20
Mark Pracht: When they actually switched it back.
53:23
Brian Pastor (they/them): Hmm.
53:24
Mark Pracht: And I remember being shocked by that, because I counted it up, and I was like, wow.
53:29
Mark Pracht: You know?
53:32
Mark Pracht: And, because it was close. Don't… don't get me wrong, it wasn't like it was by 10 years or something like that, but it was… it was very close.
53:41
Sean Harklerode: That Wally West flashbook that comes out of Crisis, is amazing.
53:48
Mark Pracht: It's… it's… it's brilliant.
53:50
Mark Pracht: I mean, and… You know, that's one.
53:53
Sean Harklerode: mile of, of, Barry Allen.
53:56
Sean Harklerode: You know, the end of that run, leading up to that is also a masterpie.
54:02
Mark Pracht: It's amazing. Yeah, it's… the whole thing is just great.
54:07
Mark Pracht: But I, yeah, I think… I just think…
54:14
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I keep coming back to the fact we just… we haven't really talked about, like, the plot of these books at all. And it's like…
54:21
Mark Pracht: like…
54:22
Mark Pracht: And it… it's one of those things that makes you a little worried, because it's like, is the concept of the book more interesting than the actual book?
54:29
Tad Eggleston: Well, I think for the first issue, both of them are setting up the concept. They don't have a lot of plot.
54:36
Mark Pracht: Right.
54:36
Sean Harklerode: I almost feel like.
54:37
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think I gave a pretty good synopsis of the entire plot of Secret Wars.
54:43
Mark Pracht: Right.
54:44
Tad Eggleston: Issue 1.
54:45
Tad Eggleston: I mean, the Crisis on Infinite Earths issue 1 plot is…
54:51
Tad Eggleston: Universes are vanishing. Something's going on. We should try to stop this.
54:58
Mark Pracht: Well, and I… you know what I really… I really love is the first Earth that dies is totally unnamed.
55:04
Tad Eggleston: Right.
55:05
Mark Pracht: We have no idea what Earth that is.
55:07
Mark Pracht: It's just gone.
55:08
Mark Pracht: And then we go to Earth… yeah.
55:11
Sean Harklerode: I kind of feel like if this were being published now.
55:15
Sean Harklerode: Right. Like, maybe Issue 1 of Crisis would be in number 0.
55:21
Brian Pastor (they/them): music.
55:22
Sean Harklerode: Zero issue.
55:23
Tad Eggleston: Could be.
55:24
Mark Pracht: Probably.
55:28
Mark Pracht: And then there'd be a 12.5.
55:31
Sean Harklerode: Right.
55:34
Tad Eggleston: Okay, this is crazy.
55:36
Sean Harklerode: -Oh.
55:38
Tad Eggleston: On top of all of this…
55:41
Tad Eggleston: that we're talking about. Do you know what debuted?
55:45
Tad Eggleston: in…
55:53
Tad Eggleston: May of 1984?
55:58
Mark Pracht: Big Brother?
55:59
Sean Harklerode: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
56:03
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, yeah, but then its second issue wasn't until October.
56:07
Sean Harklerode: I believe that was, May 23rd, 1984.
56:12
Tad Eggleston: And it's third issue, and the first time it cracks the top nine, Collected books on… on…
56:23
Tad Eggleston: League of Comic Geeks was March of 85, so it's, like, happening in the background, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started up.
56:31
Brian Pastor (they/them): There you go.
56:32
Sean Harklerode: Oh.
56:32
Mark Pracht: What was that?
56:33
Tad Eggleston: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
56:35
Mark Pracht: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
56:37
Mark Pracht: Yep.
56:38
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, look.
56:39
Mark Pracht: It's funny, Colleen and I always talk about it, you know, like, the 70s is really sort of like the golden age of film, right? You know, in a lot of ways, like…
56:51
Mark Pracht: there was no Hayes Code, and, you know, and it was…
56:54
Mark Pracht: But you… I feel that about the 80s with comics, really, is that it was just so…
57:02
Mark Pracht: it had turned a corner. I mean, I'm always… I'm in love with 70s comics, but there was a corner that was turned in the 80s that was just, like…
57:11
Mark Pracht: people who were, you know, you got people like Frank Miller, you got Alan Moore, you got Dave Gibbons, you got…
57:19
Mark Pracht: Perez and Wolfman, you know, people who had been thinking about what this means and what they could do with it, right? And not just…
57:29
Mark Pracht: And maybe… maybe this is the… you know, it's really funny, for he… for as young as he was.
57:36
Mark Pracht: Shooter came up in the era of…
57:40
Mark Pracht: The jobbers, who were just like.
57:42
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
57:42
Mark Pracht: The job is to get a book out every month.
57:45
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
57:46
Mark Pracht: And not, you know… Make sure you're telling the story, and…
57:51
Mark Pracht: that it hits all the beats, and then we get out. Get in and get out. And…
57:56
Mark Pracht: That… maybe that's the big difference.
57:59
Mark Pracht: It's an interesting thought.
58:01
Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's definitely also, like, the 70s started it, but by the 80s, most of the people making comics
58:08
Tad Eggleston: grew up loving comics and wanting to make comics. Yeah.
58:13
Tad Eggleston: So they were… they were much more people who thought about the medium.
58:18
Tad Eggleston: Than artists or writers who found themselves in the medium.
58:25
Mark Pracht: Yeah, you know, there's a… there's a really, really good Frank Miller documentary that just showed up. I watched it on YouTube.
58:34
Mark Pracht: It was free with ads on YouTube, but I just saw that it's, it's Amazon Prime free, too.
58:42
Mark Pracht: Frank Miller, American Genius.
58:45
Mark Pracht: It's… it's a real… like, having just read Push the Wall, it's a really.
58:51
Tad Eggleston: Which, I loved it.
58:52
Tad Eggleston: I loved… I loved Thaw.
58:54
Mark Pracht: I mean, like… like… There's… the more… you know, I hadn't really…
59:04
Mark Pracht: the last time I really heard Miller speak in any sort of Extended period was…
59:11
Mark Pracht: that Kirby panel, where he came in and pissed Mark Evenir off.
59:18
Mark Pracht: by saying that Stan and Jack were fighting, and they really, for no reason, or whatever, that they… it was not their fault, that… and even…
59:32
Mark Pracht: What a… like…
59:33
Mark Pracht: And I know he's got his demons, and, you know, he talks about that a lot in the documentary, about his drinking and everything like that, but…
59:40
Mark Pracht: He's like, I had a watch, and that watch was just to tell me when the bars opened. You know, it's like, okay.
59:46
Mark Pracht: But, like…
59:51
Mark Pracht: a pure artistic soul. I mean, and whether… whether you agree with him on everything, it's… it doesn't matter. He just… he…
59:58
Mark Pracht: He takes what he feels and puts it into his comics, you know?
1:00:02
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:00:03
Mark Pracht: Even when you take something as, like, kind of gross as Holy Terror, It was all that anger.
1:00:11
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:00:12
Mark Pracht: all that anger about 9-11, and he was like, I need to do something with this.
1:00:16
Tad Eggleston: Bright?
1:00:16
Mark Pracht: So he put it on a piece of paper.
1:00:18
Mark Pracht: There's a lot worse things you could do.
1:00:21
Tad Eggleston: That's true.
1:00:22
Brian Pastor (they/them): you know, and he's been through, you know, a lot of health troubles and stuff, and yet he's still cranking out covers and stuff, and people are always like, you know, Frank, why are you bothering? Like, why are you… you don't need to do this, why are you still…
1:00:34
Brian Pastor (they/them): Try not…
1:00:35
Mark Pracht: and…
1:00:35
Brian Pastor (they/them): I got these covers, and it's, you know, and he's like, look, they're not gonna be perfect, and I don't care about that.
1:00:42
Brian Pastor (they/them): I… I just… I just want to make something that… that has a… has a vibe and a feeling and… and… and a visual interest that, like.
1:00:52
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:00:53
Brian Pastor (they/them): you know, that expresses something, right? He's a true artist at heart. I mean, he just really wants to express himself in these ways, and…
1:01:00
Mark Pracht: And… And that his art has evolved. Like, he's embraced more of a cartoonist aspect, you know?
1:01:09
Mark Pracht: Like, he… he… He was talking about that with, the Dark Knight Strikes Again.
1:01:17
Mark Pracht: He's like, yeah, I moved towards Bigfoot cartooning.
1:01:22
Mark Pracht: And I went back and looked at some of the art, and I'm like, oh my god, he did. Like, they look like…
1:01:28
Mark Pracht: Beatle Bailey characters in some senses, you know? It's like, it's fascinating. I mean, it's fascinating.
1:01:34
Brian Pastor (they/them): It's not quite… it's not quite Scotty Young, right? But it's like… Yeah.
1:01:38
Brian Pastor (they/them): But you can see that evolution, and it…
1:01:41
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:01:41
Brian Pastor (they/them): you know, he's just saying, I can do something that maybe is simpler, but it evokes
1:01:46
Brian Pastor (they/them): what I'm trying to express.
1:01:48
Mark Pracht: Right. And the thing is, is that, you know, our sort of myopic, binary society is like, we can't draw anymore, it just sucks, and blah blah blah blah, and it's like, when…
1:01:59
Mark Pracht: you know.
1:02:00
Mark Pracht: But it's like, I'm sure…
1:02:02
Brian Pastor (they/them): like, if you look at Impressionist painting, and you zoom in, all you see are a bunch of weird brushstrokes, right? Like, yeah, if I zoom in in high def on a modern Frank Miller cover, it's gonna look a little, you know, a little chippy, right? But who cares, right? You zoom out, and you look at the expression as a whole.
1:02:21
Brian Pastor (they/them): And it speaks to you, in a way, and I think that's what he's trying to do.
1:02:25
Mark Pracht: Yep.
1:02:26
Mark Pracht: Well, and
1:02:32
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, it's… it's interesting because, you know, the Lucas Museum is opening, and I've been watching a lot of videos from there talking about
1:02:40
Mark Pracht: illustration versus fine art, and all of that stuff. And, and, and…
1:02:46
Mark Pracht: It's just deeply interesting to watch people talk about it, and watch people grapple with it, and watch, like, the mainstream arts press
1:02:56
Mark Pracht: try to… grapple with what this museum is, you know?
1:03:02
Mark Pracht: Because there's been some… I read some shit that's…
1:03:05
Mark Pracht: pretty dismissive of the whole thing, and I'm like, Alright.
1:03:11
Brian Pastor (they/them): And then you see folks like Jim Lee touring this, and, like, what it means to them, because they put their life into creating this art for people, and…
1:03:21
Brian Pastor (they/them): And it… it does, you know, it does have value, right? And that now people can experience that and think about it in a different way. And a lot of, you know, Marv Wolfman was talking about this, he just visited…
1:03:33
Brian Pastor (they/them): And he was talking about the juxtaposition of fine, quote-unquote, fine art next to
1:03:39
Brian Pastor (they/them): Drawings and comic book art, and the way they can speak to one another, and how powerful that was, and then how powerful it was, of course, to… to… his wife pointed out that, you know, here's a comic page from one of your stories, and it was on the title page, and what that meant to be a part of that legacy.
1:03:58
Brian Pastor (they/them): of, of turning…
1:04:00
Brian Pastor (they/them): what was, you know, a traditionally marginalized art form, stuff that was thrown in the bin, stuff that was censored, that now is celebrated and is now being on display literally in a museum next to quote-unquote fine art, and I think that's… that's really powerful.
1:04:21
Mark Pracht: I think, I think that that, I think, you know, not to… we're…
1:04:26
Mark Pracht: Tad's gonna tell me that this is what we do here, is get off the subject, but
1:04:31
Mark Pracht: But yeah, no, I mean…
1:04:33
Tad Eggleston: I don't even have to anymore, you tell yourself.
1:04:37
Mark Pracht: But yeah, but, like, to bring it back to… to…
1:04:42
Mark Pracht: Because it's funny, because, like, I've been reading these digitally, right? And sometimes I use… sometimes I try… I try to read full pages, because I think that's the experience. But, you know, sometimes my eyesight ain't as good as it used to be, so I'll, like, go panel panel.
1:04:58
Mark Pracht: it's striking how bad Mike Zec panels look when you blow them up.
1:05:07
Mark Pracht: And how great…
1:05:11
Mark Pracht: George Paris Panels look when you blow them up. It's… it's… it's kind of insane. Like… what…
1:05:20
Mark Pracht: George Perez did to himself.
1:05:24
Mark Pracht: Every goddamn time he put the book… just… just… like… How…
1:05:31
Mark Pracht: Like, and he loved it so much, my god! Like, I… I remember the first year… first year I went to San Diego, he was there, and had a panel, and…
1:05:42
Mark Pracht: It was a small room panel, so he was right in front of us, and he was just the sweetest, nicest guy, and he was like, oh, everybody would ask a question, like, did you feel this way about doing Wonder Woman? Oh, yes, it was wonderful. You know, and I'm like, okay.
1:05:56
Mark Pracht: What, what a… what an incredible person. And… and…
1:06:02
Mark Pracht: Yeah, like, it's such a pleasure to look at the art. And it's, you know, and he, you know, and knowing that
1:06:11
Mark Pracht: he loved putting 35 characters into a panel, you know? And that he would spend all that time making it
1:06:20
Mark Pracht: Look exactly like it was supposed to, and… And that… that… That, you know, Marv did the same.
1:06:31
Mark Pracht: to figure out how to make this story work, right? What they were trying to do, And… George just…
1:06:39
Mark Pracht: They were just, you know, they were like Atlas, holding up the world. It's amazing.
1:06:43
Brian Pastor (they/them): gonna see this, you know, to think… to think ahead. As we get into Issue 2, I think we're gonna see
1:06:51
Brian Pastor (they/them): how well Marv has plotted out this story.
1:06:54
Brian Pastor (they/them): And…
1:06:57
Brian Pastor (they/them): saggy at some times the plotting is for Secret Wars, and I think this is… before you get into the meat of the battles, like, you know, this kind of, like.
1:07:09
Brian Pastor (they/them): at the end, you know, you've set it up now, and then we see where it goes from here, and I think you'll see the difference in plotting between what Marv is doing and what Jim has done. And again… This is not to just…
1:07:22
Brian Pastor (they/them): disparage Jim Shooter as a writer, right? I mean, he's… he's a lifer, right? He did this…
1:07:30
Brian Pastor (they/them): forever, and… and he's, you know, he's a… he's a future Eisner Hall of Famer. But…
1:07:40
Brian Pastor (they/them): But Wolfman's…
1:07:42
Brian Pastor (they/them): Preparation for this, and his work in this, and… and what he's trying to do in terms of pure
1:07:48
Brian Pastor (they/them): storytelling is really, really impressive. And same thing with George, right? The detail in those panels blown up, because I read Crisis
1:07:58
Brian Pastor (they/them): Digitally, too.
1:08:00
Brian Pastor (they/them): And then I went back, out of curiosity, and looked at the, Secret Wars stuff in the same
1:08:09
Brian Pastor (they/them): manner, and it… yeah, I mean, it just… it just re… it looks rushed. It… it really lasts.
1:08:15
Brian Pastor (they/them): They're really leaning on their colorist, because it's… It's… it's pretty spare.
1:08:21
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I mean, I think… I just think that… it is…
1:08:30
Mark Pracht: it almost… I mean, like… It almost feels like one era ending.
1:08:35
Mark Pracht: and another era beginning, right? And it's fascinating on that level.
1:08:41
Mark Pracht: But yeah, I mean… There is that part of me that's like, wow, you know, if they'd made…
1:08:52
Mark Pracht: Secret Wars 6 issues.
1:08:54
Mark Pracht: 4 issues, it probably would have been… awesome.
1:08:58
Mark Pracht: You know? Because it would have been pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
1:09:03
Mark Pracht: Because, like, Like, like we talked about, there is no grand design to what's happening here, right? It's just…
1:09:12
Mark Pracht: sell the toys. So you might as well have just made a big action. Like, Contest of Champions, Sean and I were talking about that. Like, it's… it's…
1:09:21
Mark Pracht: I mean, like, it was sort of a gag book that was supposed to tie into the Olympics, right?
1:09:26
Mark Pracht: And… I shouldn't say gag book, but I mean, it was a… it was a high-concept tie-in to the Olympics, right? And…
1:09:34
Mark Pracht: Then the Olympics, we boycotted.
1:09:37
Mark Pracht: But, But, you know, it was 4-ish.
1:09:43
Sean Harklerode: Pulling for yogis, yahooes, by the way.
1:09:48
Mark Pracht: Laugh Olympics, I always love it. but yeah, I mean, like, but even that, like, it's so…
1:10:01
Mark Pracht: It's so narrow in scope.
1:10:06
Mark Pracht: And it drives through, and it's sort of like, well, that was a good time. I had fun reading it.
1:10:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): Well, and it's clear that people, especially young people, really, I mean, obviously really enjoyed reading Secret Wars, and I do think… and those books are still highly collectible, highly collectible.
1:10:23
Mark Pracht: Right.
1:10:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): But…
1:10:26
Brian Pastor (they/them): I agree. I mean, I think it… probably, we're gonna look back on this in a year and say, if this was…
1:10:32
Brian Pastor (they/them): A 6-issue miniseries?
1:10:35
Brian Pastor (they/them): To help them, you know, sell these lunches toy line or whatever.
1:10:40
Brian Pastor (they/them): Great job, you know?
1:10:41
Tad Eggleston: Nobody in Tippy.
1:10:43
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yep.
1:10:43
Tad Eggleston: Go ahead.
1:10:44
Brian Pastor (they/them): Good.
1:10:46
Tad Eggleston: I was just gonna say, to be fair, Secret Wars 2 was only 9 issues, and it was worse.
1:10:51
Brian Pastor (they/them): True. Fair.
1:10:56
Sean Harklerode: You know, Tad, I don't think we've really… Mention?
1:11:00
Tad Eggleston: And it's…
1:11:00
Sean Harklerode: available.
1:11:01
Tad Eggleston: And it was actually up week by week against… like, the first two, Secret Wars 2, came out the same week as Crisis 5 and Crisis 6.
1:11:13
Tad Eggleston: Wow. So that's probably your response book.
1:11:18
Brian Pastor (they/them): Well…
1:11:19
Sean Harklerode: The Beyonder.
1:11:20
Tad Eggleston: Sean, you were saying something.
1:11:21
Sean Harklerode: I was saying, you know, Look, the words secret and wars appeal to.
1:11:28
Tad Eggleston: It's true.
1:11:28
Sean Harklerode: They do.
1:11:30
Tad Eggleston: Dude.
1:11:30
Sean Harklerode: Proof, right here, the first comic book you ever bought.
1:11:35
Tad Eggleston: What? Though I insist it had much less to do with Secret and Wars, and much more to do with ALL of the heroes on the cover.
1:11:43
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah.
1:11:44
Sean Harklerode: So, I mean, you were 4. Did you know the heroes?
1:11:49
Tad Eggleston: I knew Spider-Man, and I knew Hulk, and I knew Captain America, and I assumed that since everybody else was with them, that meant they were good guys.
1:12:00
Tad Eggleston: And that's why I wanted that more than World's Finest or Marvel Team Up, because World's Finest had Batman and Superman, and that was great.
1:12:13
Tad Eggleston: And Marvel Team Up had Spider-Man and whoever…
1:12:18
Tad Eggleston: Well, like, this is… it was a shop that would keep back issues, so I wasn't actually just looking at the newest one, I was looking through all of the ones…
1:12:28
Tad Eggleston: That they had from the last 5 months, or whatever.
1:12:31
Brian Pastor (they/them): Tad, I'm really impressed by this discernment of the 4-year-old self.
1:12:37
Brian Pastor (they/them): I mean, I was pretty into Richie Rich and Casper, and…
1:12:40
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, that kind of stuff.
1:12:42
Tad Eggleston: Well, I'd already… I'd been introduced to Marvel, because my dad and uncle were Marvel fans, so there were Marvel comics at…
1:12:49
Tad Eggleston: my grandmother's house. Yeah. And… and I watched… I watched the Lou… I mean, I got… I… Lou Ferrigno and… and… and Bill Bixby were on… were on Mr. Rogers.
1:13:01
Mark Pracht: Right.
1:13:02
Brian Pastor (they/them): That's true.
1:13:03
Tad Eggleston: So, I knew…
1:13:03
Brian Pastor (they/them): I was into anything Mr. Rogers was into, yeah, for sure.
1:13:06
Tad Eggleston: And there was a Spider-Man comic strip.
1:13:10
Mark Pracht: Yup.
1:13:11
Tad Eggleston: So I read him regularly in the newspaper, and we were at the comic shop, because my dad was still reading,
1:13:20
Tad Eggleston: Sienkiewicz's… Work on, on, new mutants.
1:13:29
Mark Pracht: Huh.
1:13:30
Tad Eggleston: That was the one comic that he was still picking up, so when he was going down to get it, he'd take me with, and I'd get to pick a comic.
1:13:39
Mark Pracht: I mean, look, I think… I think talking about the covers is also a really interesting conversation.
1:13:44
Mark Pracht: Because, like, like, Secret Wars does have some great covers.
1:13:50
Mark Pracht: of Issue 2 is great, too.
1:13:54
Mark Pracht: I could… I would… my argument would be, I think that the wraparound cover of Crisis 1 trumps everything.
1:14:03
Sean Harklerode: Yes.
1:14:04
Tad Eggleston: I think, honestly, with crisis, The covers were ahead of their time.
1:14:11
Mark Pracht: I think that's true, too. But I mean, like…
1:14:14
Tad Eggleston: I think until you get to issues 7 and 8.
1:14:18
Tad Eggleston: They look much more like covers that we would be all over today.
1:14:24
Tad Eggleston: But were… were different, and weird, and… and probably appealed to some people, but… but…
1:14:32
Mark Pracht: Well.
1:14:32
Tad Eggleston: Other people, whereas the Secret Wars covers are very much of their time.
1:14:37
Mark Pracht: Yeah, but I mean, like, they're also much more, like, consciously iconic.
1:14:43
Brian Pastor (they/them): Right?
1:14:43
Mark Pracht: Like you said, it's like all the heroes, and then there's the answer cover that comes a little later in the series, where it's all the villains, right? And they're basically in the exact same pose, right?
1:14:56
Mark Pracht: But… like, I…
1:15:00
Tad Eggleston: That would be Issue 6.
1:15:02
Mark Pracht: Yeah, the, midway point.
1:15:06
Tad Eggleston: Issue 2 has all the heroes again, but it's got… it's got Magneto-centered.
1:15:12
Tad Eggleston: And just the heads of the other heroes.
1:15:14
Mark Pracht: Right. But I mean, like, the Crisis 2 cover is… is a striking design, But it's also not…
1:15:24
Mark Pracht: It's not that iconic.
1:15:26
Mark Pracht: And it's funny, because the iconic covers from Crisis are…
1:15:32
Mark Pracht: Well, we all know the two biggies, right?
1:15:35
Tad Eggleston: 7 and 8.
1:15:36
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:15:36
Tad Eggleston: Probably, I would assume.
1:15:38
Mark Pracht: And, but,
1:15:44
Mark Pracht: But it's interesting, I think that also speaks to what the story is, and what the storytelling is, and what…
1:15:49
Mark Pracht: You know.
1:15:51
Brian Pastor (they/them): Well, and going back to that idea of, like, character versus story.
1:15:55
Brian Pastor (they/them): Like, that Secret Wars 8 cover.
1:15:59
Brian Pastor (they/them): is etched in my memory from childhood forever. You know, my brother brought that comic home.
1:16:06
Brian Pastor (they/them): And I will never forget what that cover looks like. The thing that people forget is, like, if you look in the background, you know, there's, like, the Hulk and stuff, and they're fighting, you know, there's, like, a battle going on. Yep. And I think… what was the…
1:16:21
Mark Pracht: Well, that's the chaos that out of… out of the chaos came.
1:16:25
Brian Pastor (they/them): Costume, right?
1:16:26
Tad Eggleston: Honestly, to me, the one…
1:16:28
Sean Harklerode: Peter says a chaos comes ordered.
1:16:32
Tad Eggleston: is, is issue 10 the, the, the doom with, with…
1:16:37
Tad Eggleston: like, all the torn armor, etc.
1:16:40
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah.
1:16:41
Mark Pracht: No, like, look, like…
1:16:44
Mark Pracht: the one thing Marvel always was able to do was a really hot cover, you know? And,
1:16:50
Mark Pracht: And I think that… Like, look, I, I love, I love… Perez…
1:16:58
Mark Pracht: sequentials. I… I don't think he's as strong… a… cover artist.
1:17:05
Mark Pracht: Just because it starts to get… A lot, right?
1:17:10
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:17:11
Mark Pracht: Whereas Marvel, the Kirby… the Kirby influence is BOOM.
1:17:17
Brian Pastor (they/them): Boom. Right?
1:17:18
Mark Pracht: And especially with a series of this nature, the whole idea is, Buy it.
1:17:25
Mark Pracht: You know.
1:17:26
Mark Pracht: like, that's the… that's the one trick that… that is the one trick that, that Jim missed on this one, was the,
1:17:37
Mark Pracht: Jim Shooter says, buy it, you know? All that stuff that Kirby was doing with the Fourth World and stuff, you know? I mean, like, that, that, that… that would have been fun. I mean, yeah, it's just…
1:17:50
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:17:51
Mark Pracht: I… I… I'm… I'm excited to… I think… I think this trip is gonna be interesting.
1:17:56
Tad Eggleston: I think it will be, too.
1:17:57
Mark Pracht: Good.
1:17:58
Sean Harklerode: And Tad, your dad would have been buying New Mutants number 15 that day.
1:18:04
Tad Eggleston: I think so.
1:18:06
Sean Harklerode: I just looked up what else Marvel had on sale, that week. A-team number 3.
1:18:14
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah.
1:18:14
Tad Eggleston: I mean, he might not have been… he might not have been, like, because he wasn't a Wednesday Warrior. Okay. So, you know…
1:18:23
Tad Eggleston: I don't guarantee we were there on the days that they showed up, but then I liked it enough. See, in Wheaton, Illinois.
1:18:31
Tad Eggleston: Which is where I grew up.
1:18:34
Tad Eggleston: At the time, the comic shop was in this building that was by the train tracks, and, like, half a block away from
1:18:42
Tad Eggleston: what is still there, a little place called the Popcorn Shop.
1:18:46
Tad Eggleston: The popcorn shop is literally…
1:18:50
Tad Eggleston: They essentially put a door and a roof over the space between two buildings, and put candy and a popcorn
1:18:58
Tad Eggleston: copper.
1:18:59
Mark Pracht: So they…
1:19:00
Tad Eggleston: In.
1:19:00
Mark Pracht: sell popcorn.
1:19:02
Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah.
1:19:03
Mark Pracht: It wasn't just a clever name.
1:19:05
Tad Eggleston: No. No, no, no, you could… because… so, but, but it was like…
1:19:10
Tad Eggleston: At the time, it was primarily penny candy.
1:19:15
Tad Eggleston: So, like… I could have a quarter and get…
1:19:21
Tad Eggleston: a serious bag of candy. My dad would get a bag of popcorn, and then we'd walk down the street and get a comic book apiece. And then we'd walk home. And that was the thing. If I took the walk with him.
1:19:32
Tad Eggleston: Because it was, like, probably half a mile to downtown. If I took the walk with them, we got to go to the popcorn shop.
1:19:39
Tad Eggleston: And the comic shop.
1:19:41
Brian Pastor (they/them): Those are cool.
1:19:41
Tad Eggleston: Eventually.
1:19:43
Brian Pastor (they/them): About the 80s, the cool thing was that you could literally buy anything you wanted as a kid for 50 cents.
1:19:49
Tad Eggleston: Yup. Yeah.
1:19:50
Brian Pastor (they/them): You could buy a pop, you know, you could buy a candy bar, a comic book, a pack of cards…
1:19:57
Tad Eggleston: I had to negotiate for Secret Wars, because it was 75.
1:20:00
Brian Pastor (they/them): Oh, yeah, yeah.
1:20:02
Sean Harklerode: Ow.
1:20:03
Tad Eggleston: But it had all of the heroes.
1:20:09
Tad Eggleston: I think I had to promise to clean my room or something.
1:20:18
Tad Eggleston: But it had all of the heroes.
1:20:20
Brian Pastor (they/them): Amazing.
1:20:20
Tad Eggleston: All of them.
1:20:23
Tad Eggleston: I've actually…
1:20:24
Mark Pracht: I, I…
1:20:26
Tad Eggleston: I have 3 sets now.
1:20:28
Tad Eggleston: One… Terrible condition. Well, but if I was.
1:20:31
Mark Pracht: We're scared of?
1:20:32
Tad Eggleston: year old.
1:20:34
Mark Pracht: Daredevil?
1:20:35
Tad Eggleston: More heroes.
1:20:36
Mark Pracht: tonight?
1:20:36
Tad Eggleston: exist.
1:20:37
Mark Pracht: Okay.
1:20:40
Tad Eggleston: I didn't know who this Captain Marvel person was. I didn't know who Cyclops was. I kinda knew who Wolverine was. Rogue was new to me. What is this She-Hulk? I didn't know there was a She-Hulk.
1:20:55
Tad Eggleston: Iron Man, I knew, because, like, Dad had read, you know, there was Iron Man in… Fantastic Four, I pretty much knew, again, because there was Fantastic Four stuff, and, like, Dad and Uncle Adam's collection that was at my grandma's.
1:21:11
Tad Eggleston: But… but, like…
1:21:15
Tad Eggleston: there were these… there were characters that I… I didn't know, and all of the characters that I did know, so in my head, it had all of the heroes.
1:21:27
Sean Harklerode: I… I do kind of hate when you talk about all the heroes, I…
1:21:32
Sean Harklerode: I do kind of hate the fact that Sue Storm is… is missing.
1:21:36
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:21:36
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:21:37
Sean Harklerode: She was pregnant at the time.
1:21:40
Mark Pracht: Yes.
1:21:41
Sean Harklerode: Whoa.
1:21:41
Tad Eggleston: Also, she's the invisible woman, so I didn't know that she wasn't there.
1:21:49
Mark Pracht: Wah, wah.
1:21:51
Tad Eggleston: Didn't know.
1:21:58
Tad Eggleston: Could have appeared.
1:22:00
Mark Pracht: you know, Now, I think, I think it was… it was always interesting to, Yeah, I… I… like…
1:22:17
Mark Pracht: Knowing, knowing the genesis of this book, like.
1:22:22
Mark Pracht: I wonder if there wasn't this thing where it was like, okay, well, we've got enough girls, so let's figure out how not to bring soup.
1:22:32
Mark Pracht: Because, I mean, really, like, think about the drama of that. If Sue had been brought with them.
1:22:37
Mark Pracht: And she's pregnant?
1:22:40
Mark Pracht: And… Like, but then that's… that's too much, right?
1:22:44
Sean Harklerode: You, you can't, you can't sell toys with…
1:22:48
Mark Pracht: You can't sell toys of a pregnant woman.
1:22:50
Brian Pastor (they/them): and, so… Yeah.
1:22:54
Mark Pracht: But, no, I don't know, I think, yeah, I do remember as the secret.
1:22:59
Tad Eggleston: I mean, that's not true, because… because I… I bought,
1:23:03
Tad Eggleston: a Spider-Man figure of the pregnant… Spider-Woman from… from…
1:23:11
Tad Eggleston: into the Spider-Verse recently, so… so maybe it's you couldn't sell toys of a pregnant superhero THEN.
1:23:17
Brian Pastor (they/them): Right.
1:23:18
Tad Eggleston: now?
1:23:19
Sean Harklerode: Well, you were selling… you know, then children bought toys.
1:23:25
Tad Eggleston: Are you saying I'm not a child?
1:23:29
Mark Pracht: You know what?
1:23:30
Sean Harklerode: I am not saying that.
1:23:33
Mark Pracht: I remember… you know what? I remember very vividly when those Secret Wars toys hit the shelves. Because I was like, okay, I like superheroes, I like toys, I'll… you know, I like Spider-Man, I like Captain America, I'll get…
1:23:51
Mark Pracht: And I was like, what are these fucking shields?
1:23:53
Mark Pracht: What is this bullshit? And then Cap… Cap had a shield, but it didn't look like the shield.
1:23:58
Tad Eggleston: Right.
1:24:00
Mark Pracht: And I was… I felt very… Very ripped off.
1:24:05
Brian Pastor (they/them): Hmm…
1:24:06
Mark Pracht: Just leave it.
1:24:07
Tad Eggleston: I thought they were cool, because they were lenticular.
1:24:11
Mark Pracht: What?
1:24:11
Sean Harklerode: Did you buy the…
1:24:12
Tad Eggleston: Cool, because they were lenticular.
1:24:14
Mark Pracht: Did I buy any of them? I bought a Captain America.
1:24:17
Sean Harklerode: Okay.
1:24:18
Mark Pracht: because that was the only… he had the shield, and I was like, okay, well…
1:24:22
Tad Eggleston: You know what else was lenticular at the time?
1:24:26
Tad Eggleston: you could buy a Slurpee.
1:24:28
Mark Pracht: What?
1:24:29
Tad Eggleston: And at the bottom of the cup was a little round thing that had lenticularly and between 2 and 3 baseball players.
1:24:37
Brian Pastor (they/them): It was amazing. It was the best time to be alive.
1:24:41
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, I liked those.
1:24:44
Mark Pracht: When lenticular technology went public, that was the.
1:24:48
Brian Pastor (they/them): It was amazing.
1:24:49
Mark Pracht: alive.
1:24:49
Brian Pastor (they/them): You got your Slurpee, and then your collectible baseball.
1:24:54
Tad Eggleston: Baseball guy.
1:24:55
Mark Pracht: Well, I mean, like, look, but it, it is, it is, like, okay, so…
1:25:02
Mark Pracht: when you think about the superpowers line, the DC, the Kenner, superpowers, you know, I…
1:25:10
Mark Pracht: I always… I always thought of Mattel as low rent because of those fucking Secret Wars figures, because they…
1:25:18
Tad Eggleston: Well, also, Kenner made the Star Wars guy.
1:25:20
Mark Pracht: It was… Sure.
1:25:23
Tad Eggleston: There's never been a better…
1:25:25
Mark Pracht: Like, they all…
1:25:25
Tad Eggleston: toy series than Star Wars.
1:25:28
Tad Eggleston: Everyone.
1:25:30
Mark Pracht: But, I mean, like, the superpowers figures all had, like, power features, right? You know, you could… the flash, you would squeeze his arms, and his legs would go, you know, and Robin would kick, and Batman would… Batman and Superman would punch, and I was just like, wow.
1:25:47
Mark Pracht: And they got a lenticular shield. That's great.
1:25:53
Brian Pastor (they/them): My, you know, my… my… going back to the comic real quick, my… my favorite is, you know, the introduction of all the characters is so silly, and… but, you know, it's… and it is so much like, okay, we're gonna have this action figure, this action figure… they just list them, but my favorite part of that is…
1:26:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): Professor X goes through and lists every single X-Men, and then Colossus is a little offended and goes.
1:26:20
Brian Pastor (they/them): And Lockheed the Dragon.
1:26:22
Sean Harklerode: Right, right.
1:26:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): I'm like, we need some more Lockheed, why are we worried about all these other guys? We need some more dragon action.
1:26:31
Mark Pracht: Well, you know, I… Yes, I,
1:26:40
Mark Pracht: I… I will… okay, look, I know we've been on for quite a while, but now I've just suddenly remembered something. The one thing… okay, so Secret Wars… the Doom stuff is super cool.
1:26:52
Mark Pracht: It is. I mean, like.
1:26:53
Tad Eggleston: It is…
1:26:54
Mark Pracht: It is the most interesting thing. But I also was really taken with…
1:27:00
Mark Pracht: when the Beyonder makes his offer, Yeah. Galactus is, like…
1:27:08
Mark Pracht: Sate my hunger. Do it now.
1:27:11
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:27:11
Mark Pracht: Like, the desperation about it.
1:27:14
Mark Pracht: And I thought that was fascinating, too. Yeah. And again.
1:27:21
Mark Pracht: You know, and it's weird how… the… the… characterizations
1:27:33
Mark Pracht: It seems to me like if you were doing a project like this, you would want to be like, okay, we should get Tony Stark back in the armor for this thing.
1:27:42
Mark Pracht: But no.
1:27:45
Mark Pracht: And then… and that… but that's also… that's also almost ahead of its time now, because, like, right now, we're…
1:27:51
Sean Harklerode: Wait, is Tony not in the armor?
1:27:53
Mark Pracht: Well, in fact…
1:27:55
Tad Eggleston: during.
1:27:55
Sean Harklerode: Brody?
1:27:56
Tad Eggleston: when Tony falls off the wagon. The famous…
1:28:00
Tad Eggleston: By morning, Tony Stark Will Be Sober or Dead cover is… is during the Secret Wars year.
1:28:08
Sean Harklerode: Really?
1:28:09
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:28:09
Sean Harklerode: I did not, I did not put that together.
1:28:15
Tad Eggleston: Well, I recently went through 2 years of comics on
1:28:19
Tad Eggleston: League of Comic Geeks while you guys were talking. Well…
1:28:24
Sean Harklerode: That does… that does answer a couple of things, so…
1:28:27
Mark Pracht: Yeah. Well, that's why he's not in with the brain trust trying to figure stuff out.
1:28:32
Sean Harklerode: Right, I was… I didn't understand that. Okay.
1:28:35
Mark Pracht: Well, and the… and the, you know, the… the Hulk with Banner's brain, you know, that…
1:28:43
Mark Pracht: I mean, in a lot of ways, like, the Hulk being there wouldn't…
1:28:47
Mark Pracht: It would be a much bigger complication.
1:28:51
Mark Pracht: If he wasn't… you know.
1:28:55
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:28:55
Sean Harklerode: Well, I mean, the Hulk has now been intelligent far longer.
1:28:59
Sean Harklerode: I mean, now he's evil.
1:29:02
Sean Harklerode: But…
1:29:04
Mark Pracht: Sean has feelings about that.
1:29:07
Tad Eggleston: Up to date on the whole…
1:29:09
Sean Harklerode: But,
1:29:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): Someday we'll talk.
1:29:13
Tad Eggleston: Is the bee still eating?
1:29:14
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah, how he feels.
1:29:19
Mark Pracht: I… I don't know, I think… I just…
1:29:20
Sean Harklerode: Play planet Ball!
1:29:27
Mark Pracht: I don't know, I think… I think it…
1:29:33
Mark Pracht: in so many ways, Secret Wars is such a weird fucking series. It's just like… it's like…
1:29:39
Mark Pracht: Half in and half out of continuity, and it… it… eat, like…
1:29:46
Mark Pracht: I think, like, some of the characters are really sharply defined, and, like, I don't think any of the heroes is particularly, like.
1:29:56
Mark Pracht: really in character? Like, really in character?
1:30:00
Mark Pracht: Doom is in character, most of the villains are kind of weirdly just…
1:30:07
Mark Pracht: Like, I think Doc Ock gets kind of the short end of the stick.
1:30:12
Mark Pracht: I'm like, he seems like kind of an idiot, and
1:30:18
Brian Pastor (they/them): Right, so many of these… these villains…
1:30:21
Brian Pastor (they/them): are, like, super geniuses, but they don't really come across that way in the book. I mean, Doom comes across as extraordinarily intelligent, but…
1:30:30
Brian Pastor (they/them): I do think that most of them
1:30:33
Brian Pastor (they/them): seem dumbed down in a way to make them part of the group, because they're not… they're not usually part of a group dynamic.
1:30:39
Mark Pracht: Right.
1:30:40
Mark Pracht: Well, and, and, you know, Ultron…
1:30:46
Mark Pracht: Ultron gets negated pretty frickin' quick. I mean, and again, it's Galactus, so that makes sense, but
1:30:55
Mark Pracht: Yeah, I don't know. I mean, like, they… Doc Ock seems just, like, one of the… one of the…
1:31:02
Mark Pracht: The wrecking crew, really.
1:31:04
Mark Pracht: You know? And the wrecking crew, you know, are clearly just there to be muscle.
1:31:09
Mark Pracht: And that's fine. That's a perfectly good way to use them. But… you know.
1:31:17
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yep.
1:31:18
Mark Pracht: And also, like, in a lot of ways, in a lot of ways, you know, the Enchantress, like, in a lot of ways, they seem seriously underpowered compared to, like.
1:31:33
Mark Pracht: three-quarters of the Fantastic Four, the Avengers, the X-Men… You know.
1:31:41
Mark Pracht: 8 tenths of the X-Men.
1:31:43
Tad Eggleston: Well, they didn't want little 4-year-old me to think that there was any chance that the bad guys were gonna win.
1:31:50
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:31:52
Mark Pracht: Okay.
1:31:54
Mark Pracht: Did you… did you ever think that there was a chance to buy win?
1:31:57
Tad Eggleston: No, I did not.
1:31:58
Mark Pracht: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
1:31:59
Mark Pracht: Because,
1:32:00
Tad Eggleston: Which is why when Doom actually did well, it was very disturbing to me.
1:32:04
Mark Pracht: Well… you know… Doom… yeah… It…
1:32:10
Mark Pracht: It really is interesting. Like, it is a…
1:32:13
Mark Pracht: There's so many things about it that I think are subpar, and yet, as a Doom narrative, it's pretty fucking interesting.
1:32:22
Brian Pastor (they/them): It's a reminder how…
1:32:25
Brian Pastor (they/them): how powerful a character that Doom is, and I think that we lose track… I mean, obviously, people who are big, you know, FF fans and stuff, they… I mean, they know about Doom, but, like, I think the casual Marvel fan who's maybe just reading, X-Men or Spider-Man or whatever, they…
1:32:43
Mark Pracht: Just knows the movies.
1:32:44
Brian Pastor (they/them): Or just knows the movies, right? Who, until now, haven't had Dune.
1:32:48
Brian Pastor (they/them): Aren't really aware of, like, what a complex, cool, intelligent, powerful character Doom is, and this really does highlight that in a lot of ways.
1:32:59
Brian Pastor (they/them): You know, even when it comes short up short in other ways, it really highlights what a…
1:33:07
Brian Pastor (they/them): what a… Cool, cool villain.
1:33:11
Brian Pastor (they/them): Zoom really is.
1:33:13
Mark Pracht: But even that choice of, like, Doom is in… Doom is in the middle of a situation that he doesn't quite grasp, right?
1:33:19
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yeah.
1:33:20
Mark Pracht: He's like, this is… this is way beyond me. And what does he do? He immediately is like, there's only one man that I can talk to about this.
1:33:28
Mark Pracht: Read.
1:33:29
Brian Pastor (they/them): Read, yeah.
1:33:30
Mark Pracht: And he gets in the fucking thing and flies to try to talk to Reed.
1:33:34
Mark Pracht: And then they shoot him down. The bad guys shoot him down. Like…
1:33:38
Mark Pracht: There is so much more interesting shit happening with the villains.
1:33:43
Mark Pracht: They're with the heroes? Like…
1:33:45
Brian Pastor (they/them): zip.
1:33:46
Mark Pracht: I mean, it's like, okay.
1:33:49
Mark Pracht: I just…
1:33:50
Mark Pracht: It's like, hey, let's all stand around and decide who's in charge, you know? Like, that conversation was just like, oh my god, Captain America's right here. He's right here.
1:34:01
Mark Pracht: Jeez.
1:34:02
Tad Eggleston: And it takes Thor to convince everybody that he should be in charge.
1:34:08
Mark Pracht: Right. I mean, and then, like.
1:34:10
Mark Pracht: And, like, Wolverine acting like he doesn't know who this man is. You know, he's like, I'm not following him. Fuck you. Shut up, Shorty.
1:34:19
Brian Pastor (they/them): Let's follow the dragon.
1:34:22
Tad Eggleston: I mean…
1:34:25
Mark Pracht: That has, like.
1:34:27
Tad Eggleston: Possibilities.
1:34:28
Brian Pastor (they/them): If he was a bigger dragon, they would have flown.
1:34:32
Tad Eggleston: Probably.
1:34:33
Brian Pastor (they/them): You just look so cute and small and… and purple.
1:34:37
Tad Eggleston: I mean, in the long run, it's arguable that Kitty Pracht's the coolest of them all.
1:34:44
Mark Pracht: Well, yeah.
1:34:45
Tad Eggleston: I was just really young at the time.
1:34:47
Mark Pracht: Sure.
1:34:48
Mark Pracht: But yeah, no, I think…
1:34:51
Mark Pracht: Like, it… yet again, it brings up the ridiculousness of that… the introduction scene. It's just like…
1:35:00
Mark Pracht: Oh my god! Yeah, we… you all…
1:35:03
Tad Eggleston: They got selective amnesia when they got dropped on Battleworld.
1:35:10
Mark Pracht: Well, like, and the other thing is, is like.
1:35:12
Sean Harklerode: 4-year-old Tad probably really appreciates that.
1:35:16
Brian Pastor (they/them): I do.
1:35:17
Tad Eggleston: I did, actually, because I didn't know who some of them were.
1:35:20
Brian Pastor (they/them): But Captain America, clearly everybody in that room knew who the hell Captain America was.
1:35:25
Mark Pracht: Yes. Well, they would… they would have… like, they should all at least have some idea who… you know, like, this… this is the whole thing. Like…
1:35:34
Mark Pracht: Part… part of…
1:35:37
Mark Pracht: I think the challenge of reading these two together is that they're aimed at such different audiences.
1:35:44
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yes, yes.
1:35:45
Mark Pracht: And…
1:35:51
Mark Pracht: And I think that… really, Secret Wars, outside of a nostalgic kind of view.
1:35:57
Mark Pracht: It's just not gonna hold up.
1:36:01
Mark Pracht: At least that's the way I feel about it.
1:36:03
Mark Pracht: Maybe we'll… maybe as we go through it.
1:36:06
Brian Pastor (they/them): Tune in next time. Right.
1:36:08
Sean Harklerode: I'm…
1:36:09
Mark Pracht: That's right.
1:36:09
Sean Harklerode: I've said, you know, for my reading pleasure, I was as surprised as anyone, I give this one to Secret Wars.
1:36:18
Tad Eggleston: Alright.
1:36:19
Tad Eggleston: I suppose I can…
1:36:22
Sean Harklerode: 3 to 1?
1:36:22
Tad Eggleston: I just…
1:36:24
Mark Pracht: We should… we should end each episode with that question.
1:36:27
Mark Pracht: Which, which series?
1:36:30
Tad Eggleston: I… I gotta go crisis for this issue, if only because I… like, again, I… I…
1:36:37
Tad Eggleston: I was expecting Crisis to be the better written, the more… the more mature…
1:36:43
Tad Eggleston: actual story, but I wasn't expecting there to be that level of disparity in the art, and… and… and… I mean, George Perez is great, there's not enough that can be said about George Perez,
1:36:58
Tad Eggleston: But, like…
1:37:02
Tad Eggleston: he's also really known for cramming a lot of characters in one page, and that means that sometimes I think he gets underrated for the fact that he's a really, really fantastic visual storyteller. And again, he draws us out of it. This book is drawn
1:37:18
Tad Eggleston: Next slide.
1:37:20
Mark Pracht: And he crams all those characters into a panel.
1:37:23
Mark Pracht: Right. But he's thought out where each person should.
1:37:26
Tad Eggleston: Right. Right.
1:37:27
Mark Pracht: Like, it's… it's astounding.
1:37:30
Tad Eggleston: He doesn't just put them standing in a line.
1:37:33
Sean Harklerode: Right.
1:37:34
Brian Pastor (they/them): That's… that's true.
1:37:37
Mark Pracht: I'm sure…
1:37:39
Sean Harklerode: Quarters of the panel taken up by… by a… Word balloon.
1:37:44
Mark Pracht: Right.
1:37:45
Mark Pracht: And… and no background.
1:37:47
Brian Pastor (they/them): There's no list of names.
1:37:49
Sean Harklerode: Just, just…
1:37:50
Mark Pracht: Figures standing in line.
1:37:52
Sean Harklerode: Well, this is… people always complain about.
1:37:55
Tad Eggleston: They should have put price tags on it.
1:37:56
Sean Harklerode: Marvel movies, You know, taking place in that gray… this is where it started, man.
1:38:02
Mark Pracht: That's right.
1:38:03
Sean Harklerode: They're on brand.
1:38:04
Mark Pracht: Actually, the most accurate adaptation ever.
1:38:08
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yep.
1:38:09
Brian Pastor (they/them): I, you know, I…
1:38:10
Mark Pracht: That Secret Wars movie is gonna come out, and there's, like, no backgrounds. It's just…
1:38:17
Sean Harklerode: Well, Kevin Feige's gonna be the Beyonder, right? We've already seen him in,
1:38:22
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think it would be hilarious if just once they accidentally, accidentally released one of the movies where they didn't actually fill the green screens.
1:38:36
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yep.
1:38:37
Mark Pracht: Well, where they… they… it was only the actors who could actually be there on the same day in the scenes together?
1:38:43
Tad Eggleston: It'd be even funnier.
1:38:45
Brian Pastor (they/them): Just, like, two characters wandering around together.
1:38:49
Mark Pracht: Just one, you know.
1:38:51
Tad Eggleston: But I even think it would be hilarious.
1:38:52
Mark Pracht: Tony, what do you think we should do?
1:38:54
Tad Eggleston: All of the acting got put in, but, like, none of the background stuff.
1:38:59
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
1:39:01
Brian Pastor (they/them): I'm wondering.
1:39:03
Mark Pracht: pay fucking money for that. But I will tell you this.
1:39:06
Sean Harklerode: Wasn't that called Quantum Mania?
1:39:08
Brian Pastor (they/them): Oh… gosh.
1:39:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): Well, let me say, you know, here's my final word on this, is that…
1:39:18
Brian Pastor (they/them): I… I grew up with Secret Wars, and I did not read Crisis until I was an adult.
1:39:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): And as an adult, I like, I like Crisis better, and I do think even in these first issues, the storytelling is stronger.
1:39:34
Brian Pastor (they/them): And the art is definitely better.
1:39:37
Brian Pastor (they/them): That said, Secret Wars, number one, is really fun, and there's, like, there's little…
1:39:44
Brian Pastor (they/them): there's little Easter eggs of stuff that just spark your curiosity, right? You know, there's this weird appearance of Magneto with all of the… all of the heroes, and there's this great moment where, you know, Galactus gets a beatdown, and then, you know, Detective Benoit Blanc, I mean,
1:40:04
Brian Pastor (they/them): June…
1:40:05
Mark Pracht: Irvondo?
1:40:06
Brian Pastor (they/them): And, I don't know, I had a lot of fun reading it, I really did.
1:40:11
Mark Pracht: Oh, man.
1:40:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): And, yeah, and, and I…
1:40:16
Brian Pastor (they/them): I can already tell, again, you know, I have a… Read this stuff in ages.
1:40:22
Brian Pastor (they/them): But I can already tell, just the quality of the storytelling, quality of the art, is clearly superior
1:40:28
Brian Pastor (they/them): On… on… on Crisis, but there's some… there's some… there's some fun stuff we're gonna… we're gonna trip over in, in our exploration of Secret Wars.
1:40:37
Mark Pracht: You know, I… I…
1:40:40
Mark Pracht: This is a bit of a tangent, but I'm… this is where it's the last thing I say. I was just… when you said that, Benoit Blanc.
1:40:47
Mark Pracht: I was like, oh… because, like, I am very much, not excited about, Robert Downey Jr. as Doom.
1:40:55
Mark Pracht: I feel that it's a desperation move, and I just recently read a story that Mads Mikkelsen was…
1:41:02
Mark Pracht: Offered that part.
1:41:04
Brian Pastor (they/them): Wow.
1:41:05
Mark Pracht: And I was like, wow. But then when you said that, I was like, wow, Daniel Craig might have been a really fucking cool doctor.
1:41:12
Brian Pastor (they/them): Pretty cool Doom, yeah.
1:41:14
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:41:15
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yep.
1:41:18
Mark Pracht: Alright.
1:41:19
Sean Harklerode: It reminded me, while we're talking about this, I did the great foreshadowing When the dark…
1:41:30
Sean Harklerode: shadow, enters one of Harbinger's, forms.
1:41:36
Mark Pracht: with the eyes.
1:41:37
Sean Harklerode: Yeah.
1:41:38
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:41:39
Sean Harklerode: I didn't realize that came so early.
1:41:44
Mark Pracht: right out of the gate. Yeah.
1:41:46
Mark Pracht: The one thing, the Magneto thing, I thought that was interesting, because, like, as I was reading the book, it was funny, because they all showed up and Magneto was there, and then it's like everybody just forgot about it for a minute, and then suddenly it was, like, there again, and I was like, okay, is that because Shooter didn't…
1:42:05
Mark Pracht: know what to do, and then suddenly did? Or was it intended to be like, alright, alright, wait a minute.
1:42:13
Mark Pracht: Complication. And that's… it's… it's an interesting choice.
1:42:19
Sean Harklerode: Yeah, I mean, I think it's important for… for Magneto's arc.
1:42:24
Brian Pastor (they/them): Yes.
1:42:24
Sean Harklerode: As we know him.
1:42:26
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:42:28
Sean Harklerode: to be…
1:42:29
Mark Pracht: I mean, and…
1:42:30
Sean Harklerode: he's an anti-hero, right?
1:42:32
Mark Pracht: Yeah.
1:42:32
Sean Harklerode: Those… yeah.
1:42:34
Sean Harklerode: As can… as can doom be, you know?
1:42:38
Sean Harklerode: they can be heroic.
1:42:43
Mark Pracht: Well, you know, I,
1:42:46
Mark Pracht: I was reading a whole thing, the team-up companion had a whole section on the Super Villain Team-Up book.
1:42:52
Mark Pracht: Which was really, supervillains fight each other.
1:42:55
Mark Pracht: So they had Namor in there a lot.
1:42:57
Mark Pracht: But they would also… pit…
1:43:02
Mark Pracht: various villains against the Red Skull.
1:43:04
Mark Pracht: Right. Because it was like, everybody hates the Red Skull, you know?
1:43:11
Sean Harklerode: And that's apparently getting the… now that Clover Press has licensed the Marvel Masterworks.
1:43:18
Sean Harklerode: Supervillain Team Up is one of the…
1:43:22
Sean Harklerode: properties that are doing the Marble Masterwork.
1:43:25
Mark Pracht: Cool.
1:43:27
Tad Eggleston: Whoa?
1:43:28
Mark Pracht: Anyway…
1:43:29
Tad Eggleston: Alright. Well…
1:43:31
Mark Pracht: show to do in, like, 3 hours.
1:43:33
Tad Eggleston: Thank you all, and break a leg tonight. Sean, are directors and artistic directors supposed to break legs too, or are you just supposed to keep the trains on time?
1:43:45
Tad Eggleston: I don't know the jargon.
1:43:47
Brian Pastor (they/them): No, that's a good
1:43:48
Brian Pastor (they/them): question. You know, we typically just say, you know, have a good show to each other.
1:43:53
Brian Pastor (they/them): To avoid confusion, because I don't… I don't want to actually…
1:43:57
Brian Pastor (they/them): risk breaking a leg. I mean, you might as an actor say to an actor, you know, break a leg, but I think…
1:44:02
Brian Pastor (they/them): For other people in the production, we just say, you know.
1:44:06
Tad Eggleston: Good show. Good show. Okay. So all three of my, my, my co-hosts today are involved in Shane at the City Lit theater through October 4th, is that right?
1:44:18
Brian Pastor (they/them): Patriot?
1:44:19
Tad Eggleston: Yep. October 4th, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday every week, I think a couple Mondays mixed in. Sean's used up his,
1:44:28
Tad Eggleston: his, his, his…
1:44:30
Tad Eggleston: his understudy night, so he won't… he won't be missed. I have to try to come again if I actually want to see him in the play.
1:44:41
Tad Eggleston: What is your excuse, Sean?
1:44:44
Sean Harklerode: I have no excuse.
1:44:46
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no excuse. Okay.
1:44:49
Sean Harklerode: You know, I can only be so bad, you know, I gotta…
1:44:53
Sean Harklerode: I gotta take a break and be a nice guy.
1:44:57
Tad Eggleston: So that's… that's fair. Cubs tickets. You got it.
1:45:04
Tad Eggleston: For 22 Panels, this has been Heroes in Bronze, and we will see you after the next page.