Latest / 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast / Milestone Book Club #41 - Static Shock ep. 6-10

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Milestone Book Club #41 - Static Shock ep. 6-10 · 22 Panels - A Comic Book Podcast

0:02
Tad Eggleston: Good evening, everybody. Welcome back to 22 Panels and the Milestone Book Club. I am
0:08
Tad Eggleston: Judge… er, judged. Yeah, I'm probably judged too, but I try not to think too hard about that. Joined! Joined by the brothers Anderson, no relation.
0:19
Tad Eggleston: To talk about some… some static shock.
0:24
Ted: Yeah, our…
0:24
Tad Eggleston: I can…
0:25
Ted: our second episode in a row about the Static Shock animated series based off the Static Comics. I'm sorry, I'm kind of doing your lines, I should be…
0:32
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, no, no, that's fine. I was gonna say, I think it's worth…
0:41
Tad Eggleston: At least, I won't speak for everybody, but I'll…
0:45
Tad Eggleston: I'll note a piece of solidarity, though I don't know if it will…
0:50
Tad Eggleston: Extend to a full-on boycott for me, but, but, black Comics Alliance.
0:58
Tad Eggleston: I think yesterday.
1:01
Tad Eggleston: called for a boycott of DC Comics as they continue to… not…
1:06
Tad Eggleston: center any of their black characters, or…
1:09
Ted: I think… what was the statistic? Very many. Yeah. What was the statistic where it's, like, in the last 30 years, there have only been, like, 10 ongoing series with a black main character? Something like that?
1:19
Tad Eggleston: Ugh, something like that.
1:21
Marcus: It's some… yeah, some crazy… but not crazy.
1:24
Tad Eggleston: It's currently been 1,204 days since a single issue in an ongoing comic book had a black
1:32
Tad Eggleston: character at its center, that was, issue 18 of I Am Batman from February 14th, 2023. .
1:40
Ted: Sounds about white. I mean, right?
1:43
Tad Eggleston: Absolute Green Lantern does have… have… character, and there have been…
1:48
Ted: That's…
1:49
Tad Eggleston: And there have been a handful of miniseries.
1:53
Tad Eggleston: In those time… in the last 20 years or so, you've got, it looks like, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12.
2:03
Ted: Well, and of course, some of those are even going.
2:04
Tad Eggleston: 16 to 17.
2:05
Ted: milestones.
2:06
Tad Eggleston: 18 miniseries in the mainstream DCU in the last, you know, 20 years?
2:15
Ted: Yeah. It's not great, nope.
2:21
Ted: So, yeah, we can continue… we can consider this part of the boycott then, right? Is that what you're saying?
2:24
Tad Eggleston: And, and, and, and, that they, they, they also point out that, that,
2:32
Tad Eggleston: Dc Comics will say that black comics don't sell, but they don't really disclose… Sales?
2:42
Marcus: No, no, they don't.
2:43
Ted: Yeah, sales. Yeah.
2:47
Tad Eggleston: And they really don't disclose?
2:50
Tad Eggleston: Digital sales?
2:52
Ted: Well, and also, it's hard to…
2:53
Tad Eggleston: Paperback sales.
2:54
Ted: those comics, so, you know.
2:56
Tad Eggleston: Milestone has always done well.
3:00
Tad Eggleston: And, and, and never mind,
3:06
Tad Eggleston: like, in other mediums, things like Sinners, or Black Panther, or whatever, doing… Overwhelmingly well.
3:16
Marcus: Yeah, no, it's low.
3:17
Tad Eggleston: Right.
3:18
Marcus: I think… I think that one…
3:21
Marcus: I have so… I have so many thoughts about this, but there's…
3:28
Marcus: Because on this very podcast, I feel like I was early to this, frustration, because I was… we speak exclusively about Milestone, right? And while I have really enjoyed the rebirth, the listeners go back and, you know, give, give Tad some extra…
3:48
Marcus: extra listens, but, like, in past episodes, I've talked about how, like, I've been waiting. Like, you know, the milestone would return, I waited decades for that, and it finally happened, and there were some great books that came out of it, but then it's like, you're waiting for season 2, and, you know, it's one of those things where it's like.
4:07
Marcus: DC editorial, you… it's one of those things where people think they have…
4:11
Marcus: ideological cover, because technically there's some other books that have season one, that season format, although I will say, one of the last books I remember reading that had that format was Naomi. Shout out to David F. Walker, Brian Michael Bendis, but, like.
4:28
Marcus: Naomi was a Black character, too, so it's kind of like… it's this, it's kind of caution… it's kind of caution that's…
4:35
Tad Eggleston: Two whole seasons.
4:37
Marcus: Sure, but.
4:38
Tad Eggleston: One in 2019, and one in 2022.
4:41
Marcus: I'm not impressed. Also… I'm not either. I'm not here to speak.
4:44
Tad Eggleston: That was supposed to be dripping with sarcasm.
4:46
Marcus: Right, no, I feel you, I feel you. But I'm not here to speak for.
4:49
Tad Eggleston: And it had Bendis attached, and it's still only.
4:51
Marcus: Right.
4:52
Tad Eggleston: two whole seasons.
4:53
Marcus: Yeah, and I… and I'm not here to, you know, speak for David and his business, but he's… he will tell… he will tell anybody who asks that.
5:01
Tad Eggleston: That he's got more strength.
5:02
Marcus: You got a raw, raw, raw, raw, raw, raw deal out of that. And so, in more ways than just them not continuing the book, you know what I mean? So, like, there's… there's… what do you do to stand,
5:15
Marcus: you know, by the talent you have, and tell diverse stories, and like you said, like, you know, you guys mentioned the success of Black Panther, held the original milestone, and so the lie that continues to be told about
5:30
Marcus: you know, Black comics don't sell, Black Star Wars don't sell, whatever, has been disproven over and over again. So… but, it's like, there's so many people who are willing to perpetuate it. I'm not gonna go down a rabbit hole, but I was briefly referenced right now, we're in the middle of one of the dumbest,
5:50
Marcus: crybaby, racist tantrums over the Odyssey, you know.
5:55
Ted: God.
5:55
Marcus: over literally one of the most beautiful actresses in the world being cast as Helena Detroit. Helena, you know, was supposed to be, like, you know, the most beautiful woman in the world, and these racists can't see past their bigotry,
6:09
Marcus: And, you know, everyone, this has been so dismantled that I don't even want to honor it enough.
6:14
Tad Eggleston: Roy, in that era, was probably not particularly white.
6:19
Marcus: No, yeah, yeah. That's what… I was about to say everything you were about to say, but I kind of feel like it's been so thoroughly debunked, I don't want to justify Musk or any of these… under these bigots.
6:29
Tad Eggleston: I have managed to miss all of that, that, hoopla, because I, I, like, the big piece of, the, like, just ridiculousness that I saw, and this is unfortunately more related than it should be, is that,
6:47
Tad Eggleston: All of the women and people of color in line for promotions?
6:51
Tad Eggleston: And the armed forces were removed by the Defense Secretary today.
6:56
Marcus: Yeah.
6:57
Marcus: That's what I'm saying, so it's kind of like, well, these crybabies are crying over a casting decision, it's like we're seeing the real impact, you know? Hell, all that Doge nonsense and cutting from the, the government sector, that's explicitly racist, because.
7:15
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
7:15
Marcus: you know, government jobs, that is an actual representative workforce, and so it's like, they… it's no…
7:25
Marcus: There's no… yes, they had more jurisdiction over government jobs, but those choices were deliberate, and
7:32
Marcus: It just led to a lot of Black people being fired, essentially. But anyway, like, yeah, as far as it comes to…
7:39
Marcus: DC and Milestone. I've been disappointed for a long time,
7:44
Marcus: you know, there's… there's a lot I could say about, because I've been very closely following the conversation,
7:54
Marcus: And, you know, it's just brought up the need to support. On a positive note, I can say, and this is DC-related, because, Stephanie Williams has written, quite a few, like, incredible DC, series, first Black woman to write… Yeah, she's done some wonderful.
8:12
Tad Eggleston: woman, she's done…
8:14
Marcus: yeah, Nubia, a lot of stuff. But, like, you know, shout out to her for…
8:17
Tad Eggleston: For a couple Eisner.
8:18
Marcus: For Eisner's, yeah. And this is, again, this is one of those firsts that, like, we celebrate, but it's also a damning, indictment.
8:29
Marcus: you know, of the country and the system. It's also the first Black woman ever to be nominated for Best Writer, and the first Black writer to be nominated since the late, great Dwayne McDuffie.
8:42
Marcus: also, you know, man, these tangents, we're keeping it… we're still… no matter how many topics we talk about, it still comes back to milestone, you know? But, like, no, but, like, so… that's…
8:52
Marcus: On a positive note, though, shout out to Stephanie, shout out to Quinn McGowan, all the people from, Black is a New Noir, and, yeah, there's been, like, a significant number of…
9:03
Tad Eggleston: Go, go, sign up to be notified of their next…
9:08
Tad Eggleston: Kickstarter, the pre-launch page just went up today.
9:13
Marcus: Dude.
9:15
Marcus: So, yeah, so there's…
9:16
Tad Eggleston: For Black is the New Noir. Some really good stuff.
9:21
Marcus: Yeah, so I say to everybody, like, you know, you may or may not, I mean, I support the boycott, but, like, you may or may not choose to, and that's, you know, no judgment, but what I will say is, even more so.
9:34
Marcus: just support…
9:37
Tad Eggleston: Definitely support.
9:37
Marcus: creators.
9:38
Tad Eggleston: And go nuts to, you know, I've been getting Stephanie's books with other publishers, I… you know…
9:46
Tad Eggleston: as I was talking to Julio Anta earlier today, and like, I know this makes me a weird old white man, but
9:55
Tad Eggleston: More and more, the easiest way to get me excited is to tell me that whatever story I'm about to read is from anybody else's point of view.
10:07
Tad Eggleston: And that doesn't mean I don't read any old white men, but…
10:10
Marcus: I mean, you can't read comics and not read white people. Like, you know what I mean?
10:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, you can't read books without reading white people, that sort of thing, but, like.
10:20
Tad Eggleston: I get what you're saying. Whether it's… whether it's sinners, or… or…
10:26
Tad Eggleston: Roots of Madness, or Milestone, or…
10:33
Tad Eggleston: I can't even think of all the things I've read or got to read.
10:40
Tad Eggleston: Studios.
10:40
Ted: Railroad by Colson Whitehead, so, you know.
10:42
Tad Eggleston: Oh, I need to. That's on my list.
10:45
Marcus: One of my favorite authors.
10:47
Tad Eggleston: Like…
10:50
Tad Eggleston: I love it when I get to read things that make me think about something differently, that make me look at something and go, oh, I hadn't considered that angle.
11:00
Marcus: for it.
11:02
Marcus: As do I, as a black.
11:03
Tad Eggleston: I honestly don't understand why there are people who don't.
11:08
Marcus: racism.
11:09
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I know that there are people that don't.
11:12
Marcus: Word sprints.
11:12
Tad Eggleston: like… No, no, no, no, I…
11:14
Marcus: I'm so busy.
11:16
Tad Eggleston: I, I know…
11:17
Marcus: Agreed.
11:17
Tad Eggleston: No, Marcus, I know the reason. I can't wrap my head around what it might feel like to not want to know a different perspective.
11:26
Marcus: Well, I will tell you.
11:27
Tad Eggleston: to me.
11:28
Marcus: Okay, I'm gonna break it down a little bit, if you think about it like this, right?
11:32
Marcus: While white people absolutely have privilege, every human being, every group of human beings has… has problems, right? Interpersonal problems, like community, life, poverty, whatever, struggles. Now.
11:45
Marcus: It just so happens that, like, a lot of us marginalized groups of people have all the regular human problems on top of all these structural and systematic ones, but with the privilege of these systems of, like, white supremacy,
12:02
Marcus: the beneficiaries
12:04
Marcus: start, you know, using other groups of people as scapegoats for all of their unhappiness. I mean, like, look, the boy prince, the sad boy prince that we're all cursing every day, you know, he…
12:17
Marcus: is one of the most unhappy people you've ever seen, and who are the targets? Everybody that's different, like, you know, like, trans people, you know, Black people, Latino people, everybody.
12:31
Ted: Family that he doesn't like.
12:33
Marcus: Yeah, so it's kinda like, you know.
12:35
Tad Eggleston: I mean, he didn't go to his son's wedding.
12:37
Ted: Exactly! Jesus. Yeah.
12:38
Marcus: Well, he's… I mean, he's got decades of hating that dude, but…
12:42
Marcus: you know, but this is my point, is just that, like, these, it's not a mystery to me. I mean, A, it's lived experience, but it's also…
12:50
Tad Eggleston: No, I was trying to, like… it's not a mystery to me.
12:55
Marcus: Are you saying, like, on a human level, you can't put yourself…
12:58
Tad Eggleston: Human…
12:58
Marcus: Yeah, yeah.
12:59
Tad Eggleston: I can't empathize with it on any.
13:01
Marcus: It doesn't make sense, because bigotry.
13:03
Tad Eggleston: Right.
13:03
Marcus: doesn't make sense. Yes, you are correct. I pick up what you're putting there.
13:07
Tad Eggleston: Like, I have… I have such a curiosity for so many things that I don't understand when… when anybody doesn't, like, actively doesn't want to know something.
13:18
Marcus: But you just said it, curiosity. You get what I'm saying? Like…
13:22
Tad Eggleston: Due.
13:23
Marcus: A lot of people don't…
13:25
Tad Eggleston: It's still hard for me to… it's still, like, like…
13:29
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I'm autistic, and, like, I've come to realize that there are a ton of things about me that are, like, very unique to me.
13:38
Tad Eggleston: But, like, of all the things that are unique to me, the one that just, like, feels weirdest that it would be is curiosity, because it's so much fun.
13:48
Tad Eggleston: It's like, why… why… why would people not, like, want this thing where, like…
13:54
Marcus: Can I ask you a question? Yeah. I hear what you're saying, these are great… these are great questions, but do you feel like…
14:00
Marcus: you Like, just throughout life, like,
14:05
Marcus: I'm sure you've always been, like, curious, but, like, this particular… these particular curiosities, do you feel like they had to be kind of nurtured or learned at some point? Or do you feel like…
14:14
Marcus: You always had them.
14:17
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think all…
14:18
Marcus: And this is with no judgment.
14:19
Tad Eggleston: No, no, no, no, no, I think all of my particular curiosities wax or wane depending on who I'm around, what's going on in the world.
14:28
Tad Eggleston: you know, if we didn't have this podcast, I probably wouldn't fall down as many rabbit holes that are…
14:34
Tad Eggleston: that are to this, but, like, there's never been a time in my life where I wasn't prone to fall down rabbit holes. Spent half an hour while podcasting on…
14:46
Tad Eggleston: Saturday morning, down an ABC afternoon special rabbit hole.
14:53
Tad Eggleston: Like, I come across anything even remotely cool that I don't know about.
15:00
Tad Eggleston: And I can fall down that rabbit hole and want to know more. Yeah, yeah. So, does knowing you, does having these conversations, does knowing Julio and having conversations with him, that sort of thing, make me even more prone to these rabbit holes? Absolutely, because I know that I have
15:20
Tad Eggleston: I always have more of an ability to fall down a rabbit hole that I'm gonna have somebody to have real conversations about it with.
15:27
Marcus: Yeah, no, that's fair. And look, props to you, because there are a lot of
15:33
Marcus: terrible racists who do have Black friends or partners or, you know, just people of other groups, and still
15:41
Marcus: managed to, like… you know, there's that great, great bell hooks… yeah, sorry, I was gonna say, Toni Morrison Bell Hooks has so many great quotes, but this was Bell Hooks, who said, essentially, I'm paraphrasing that, like.
15:54
Marcus: You know, she's talking about… This phenomenon where, like, a lot of
15:58
Marcus: white people will meet… racist white people will meet, a Black person that totally blows away their preconceptions and their stereotypes that they held.
16:09
Marcus: And instead of taking that as an opportunity to be like, oh, I was wrong about these stereotypes, they look at that person as exceptional, or like some type of, you know, exception to the rule.
16:22
Marcus: Which is, you know, Patently bigoted, but that is, like, very common.
16:28
Tad Eggleston: That… that also doesn't make sense to me, and I don't know if that's…
16:35
Tad Eggleston: because I've been the exception to so many rules throughout my life.
16:40
Tad Eggleston: To begin with, and therefore, like…
16:51
Tad Eggleston: particularly intellectually, like, I didn't develop a lot of humbleness until I was in my…
16:58
Tad Eggleston: 20s. Because I was always the smartest kid in the room.
17:03
Tad Eggleston: But… but there was also enough diversity among the people who were in my league that it never occurred to me that that had anything to do with me being white.
17:13
Tad Eggleston: while I was still aware of the…
17:18
Tad Eggleston: like, privilege that I held, because I was way more likely to be recognized as smart than half of the people that I knew were smart.
17:28
Tad Eggleston: Who, like me, were sometimes
17:31
Tad Eggleston: So smart that they were bored by the stuff we were doing in class, and had mixed study habits because of it, you know?
17:44
Tad Eggleston: I mean, I think that's… that's one of the places where I… I…
17:48
Tad Eggleston: I mean, aside from the fact that, like, my, my…
17:53
Tad Eggleston: My grandmother was a teacher during… Bussing and a strong ally.
18:02
Tad Eggleston: instilled that in her boys, and it stuck, at least as far as my dad was concerned. So, like, as a 5-year-old, the first time I suggested that, like, an issue I might have had with a… a…
18:16
Tad Eggleston: neighbor was that he was black and I was white. Like, the response was, nope, try again.
18:25
Tad Eggleston: You know… Yeah, I don't know.
18:30
Tad Eggleston: And you're muted, so I can't tell what Marcus is thinking.
18:35
Marcus: Oh, no, sorry, there's noise in the background. Yeah…
18:40
Tad Eggleston: I started babbling, I'm like, am I babbling?
18:42
Marcus: I'm listening.
18:43
Tad Eggleston: Everything you're saying.
18:44
Marcus: No, no, I'm listening to everything you're saying. It's, yeah.
18:49
Marcus: It, you know, I mean, I think, I think that it's, like, a curious person
18:55
Marcus: regardless of your ethnicity, like, should never stop trying to grow. But we live in a deeply and curious country that… where, intellectual curiosity and critical thinking are being beaten out of.
19:10
Tad Eggleston: beaten out of everybody in the education system, I'm altogether too aware of that as a member of the education system.
19:19
Tad Eggleston: All the more so, the more fractured we become.
19:25
Tad Eggleston: Because we stopped… Stop having the conversations that need to be had, because somebody might get upset.
19:32
Tad Eggleston: Whoa. More protection.
19:33
Marcus: So, they don't care if I get upset. It's more some other people they're worried about.
19:39
Tad Eggleston: No, no, I understand, but, but, but, but,
19:47
Tad Eggleston: I mean, we still don't have diverse enough schools, just because we don't have Diverse enough communities.
19:57
Tad Eggleston: And even at the ones that are diverse, it becomes, like, as soon as there's anything controversial, the word is, we don't want to talk about it.
20:07
Tad Eggleston: Well, really, the word is, you're not allowed to take any political stances, but that's read as, don't talk about this, because to talk about this is to take a position.
20:19
Ted: Neutrality favors only the oppressor.
20:21
Marcus: Exactly, because, I mean, at the end of the day, if you think about it, and I'm not asking you
20:27
Marcus: tab this, but if you… even when… even in the sentence, like, we don't want to talk about it. It's a very specific we, right? And then… and then when the idea of
20:38
Marcus: if we tell the real awfulness of American history, students will be upset. They're not talking about the Black kids who have always been sitting in the class and hearing about, like, terrible things, or, you know what I mean,
20:54
Marcus: Or just a kind of, like, blase, retelling of some of the most
21:00
Marcus: the biggest horrors in history, you know what I mean? So, it's like, there's a… it's a very specific… even when we say we in this country, it's a very specific meaning. It doesn't mean not everybody's included in that we.
21:13
Tad Eggleston: Right.
21:14
Ted: Yeah, who is we in this story that we're telling?
21:16
Tad Eggleston: Well, I mean, we, for me, was… was referring to… to…
21:22
Tad Eggleston: the school that I work at, that actually has a decent job of teaching the history,
21:31
Tad Eggleston: But won't touch the present with a 10-foot pole.
21:39
Ted: by that. I mean, that's… that's interesting, where it's like, as everything is in the… there's that great…
21:43
Ted: Oh, man, there's this great comic by, I am completely biking on his name, Mike…
21:49
Ted: Is it Dawson? No.
21:52
Ted: There's a great comic that he did about how America loves an underdog after the fact. You know, you may have seen this. He did something specifically about, like… I mean, it was specifically sort of about white Americans' reactions to, like, Black History Month. And it's, we love the heroes once they are heroes, whereas, of course, at the time, Martin Luther King was one of the most profiled men in America.
22:12
Marcus: Nope.
22:13
Ted: Yeah, no, there's that level of, like, we love a hero.
22:15
Marcus: And he was murdered.
22:16
Ted: And he was murdered, yeah, I mean, like, let's…
22:19
Marcus: To the extent that he was… he was reviled to the extent that he was murdered.
22:22
Ted: Yeah, exactly, he was assassinated, even more so. But yeah, like, there's this level of, you know, we… we love them, we love them until they're… we love them until… or we love them once they're dead, yeah. It's… poof, yeah, no, I… I think that's extraordinarily true, I think it's fascinating, I think it's horrifying, I think it's… it's…
22:42
Ted: Something that… that is…
22:45
Ted: I don't know if it's an American thing specifically, or just an individuality thing, or what, but yeah, there's something that's upsetting about that.
22:52
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I mean, like, we… like, I've been in English classes where we've read books that are about identity,
23:01
Tad Eggleston: I mean, we read Dear Martin, we read…
23:07
Tad Eggleston: Collection of short stories from a lot of different
23:12
Tad Eggleston: But the conversations tend to be…
23:15
Tad Eggleston: as abstract as they can possibly be, and or rooted in history, because… because if we come too close to now.
23:26
Ted: Nobody wants to talk about the fact that… like, everyone loves the story of Helen Keller. Nobody wants to talk about the fact that Helen Keller was also like, hey, you know communism.
23:32
Tad Eggleston: Feminist?
23:33
Ted: too. Yeah.
23:36
Ted: Anyway…
23:36
Marcus: Yeah.
23:37
Ted: We are here, theoretically, to talk about static shock.
23:41
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, let's talk some Static Shock, sorry.
23:43
Ted: Not that this isn't a great conversation.
23:44
Tad Eggleston: Oh, dude!
23:45
Ted: I love that we…
23:45
Tad Eggleston: I mean, this is… this is… this is part of the reason that I started the Milestone Book Club, and some… some weeks we have more energy, or some months we have more energy for it than… than others.
23:55
Ted: And it's also, like, we should point out, listeners, that we had also talked about Sinners for, like, half an hour before this.
24:00
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
24:00
Ted: Seems like, it's hilarious.
24:01
Tad Eggleston: So if it comes up again, it's because it's very fresh in our minds.
24:05
Ted: Yes.
24:07
Ted: Yes, anyway, no, I just, I'm sorry, I just thought that was very funny.
24:11
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
24:12
Ted: We're so wide.
24:13
Tad Eggleston: I should have started recording earlier.
24:16
Ted: hey, no, I get it, man. Well, I should have come in earlier. I was, like, 20 minutes late, because I literally just sort of forgot to look at the time, and was like.
24:23
Tad Eggleston: That's okay.
24:24
Tad Eggleston: Nobody showed up before I texted.
24:26
Ted: Oh, that's true, you know. Well, and also, I do have a broken ankle right now, so I'm slightly distracted.
24:31
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, how… I meant to ask, how is your… I mean, you were here last.
24:34
Ted: Getting Detroit.
24:35
Tad Eggleston: to you before Marcus is here.
24:36
Ted: Yeah, that's right.
24:37
Tad Eggleston: How's your ankle? It's cute. Marcus, I'm used to being 5 or 10 minutes late. He's always eating, or…
24:43
Ted: Hey, don't.
24:44
Tad Eggleston: Drawing!
24:45
Marcus: Feels a little,
24:47
Tad Eggleston: Organized life with lots of stuff in it.
24:49
Ted: Come on, don't, don't tie with the… come on, don't, don't air dirty laundry. No, I am… it's healing, I got this, I got surgery on it, which means I now have to have my foot up for 21 hours out of 24, which is…
25:02
Ted: You'd be surprised at how boring that gets, you know? Like, it's just…
25:06
Tad Eggleston: No, that sounds… I have all the time in the world.
25:08
Ted: play video games now. Oh…
25:10
Marcus: Oh, man.
25:10
Ted: doing that.
25:11
Ted: You got…
25:12
Tad Eggleston: You gotta set up the… I mean, this is actually where a tablet with a lot of comics is useful.
25:17
Ted: It, you know…
25:17
Tad Eggleston: We've got the video games and the tablet.
25:20
Ted: Oh yeah, I got the, I got the one.
25:22
Tad Eggleston: You can go back and forth.
25:22
Ted: I got a nice comfy chair with, like, a PC and my PS5 right over there. I've already beaten all the LEGO Batman game, and anyway.
25:30
Ted: Moving on, but yeah, no, I… I'm healing nicely, and I am here, and I'm eager to talk about this, but I also… that means I had plenty of time to watch the Static Shock episodes, which, one of the things we were texting about as well is we're a little bit unclear as to which episodes we should have watched, because we said 5, but, like.
25:48
Ted: The order of episodes is different between production and when they aired?
25:54
Tad Eggleston: I just went with the…
25:55
Marcus: I do think…
25:56
Tad Eggleston: on-season had them.
25:58
Ted: Okay.
25:58
Marcus: Yeah, but I do think when we… when we ran it in the… we did check in in the group chat, it seemed like we did all watch the same ones, regardless.
26:07
Ted: Oh, we had! I think it's just, I think we all watched one too many, like, I…
26:11
Marcus: Oh, I see what you're saying.
26:12
Ted: Two of them are just out of order, like, we were supposed to watch five, and I think we all watched six, and whatever.
26:16
Marcus: Yeah, I literally just… I just kept going, and then I was like… I think I… I'm looking at my playlist, I actually got 13 minutes into 12, and then I was like, oh, I watched too many.
26:24
Ted: Oh, man. Well, here's the thing. I think… excuse me.
26:28
Ted: I think this, set of episodes really gets, really good. Like, I mean, I feel like those first five episodes are good. Like, they show kind of what the idea is with this series. They show where they're gonna head. Those first two episodes are essentially just the origin, and then we've got, like, the Destruct episode, which I thought was really excellent.
26:46
Ted: We've got the thing with the weird amoeba, which was kind of nothing, and we got the first Rubber Bandman episode, which is good, but I think the second one really outclasses it, and so I think these five… these next 5 or 6 episodes
26:59
Ted: Also, in terms of quality, I think, just in terms of, like, the animation quality, I think they're… they're much improved from the first ones. And the first ones weren't bad, but, like.
27:10
Ted: I don't know, maybe it was just me, but they…
27:11
Marcus: Yeah, no, no, I think you're right. I think you're right. I think they're, you know, like a lot of shows, I think they were finding their footing.
27:16
Ted: Oh, absolutely.
27:16
Marcus: boom.
27:16
Ted: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's very normal. It is just like, oh, this is where we hit, like, kind of critical mass of, like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is good.
27:24
Marcus: Yeah.
27:24
Ted: So, yeah, I mean, we got through 5 or 6 episodes, depending on how you order them.
27:31
Ted: we introduce some new major characters, as well as some recurring characters who aren't actually that major. But, like, we get… so, like, we start off with, like, the one with the new kid, where he goes to this special school for genius kids, because he's secretly a genius, where he meets… first of all, he meets,
27:49
Ted: Not freedom.
27:50
Marcus: Daisy.
27:50
Ted: Daisy, yeah. He meets Daisy, who ends up coming back to his usual public school with him at the end of the episode, but also we get the, minor villain pair of Specs and Trapper.
28:01
Ted: Who… I had to look this up. Do you know who voices those characters?
28:07
Marcus: Yes, I feel like I did look it up, but I already forgot who they were. It's.
28:11
Ted: It's such a weird pair of characters. It's Patton Oswald.
28:14
Marcus: That's right, that's right.
28:15
Ted: And… what's his name? Rosenbaum.
28:17
Marcus: No, that's why I looked it up, because I definitely recognize Patton Oswald's voice. I didn't recognize the other dude, but I…
28:24
Ted: And the thing is, is they're not doing very much in voices, they're kind of just generic, vaguely sinister white guys, which, you know, sure, that's perfect, but, like, it's also just like, oh my god, these are two guys who are gonna be so much more famous in, like, 10 years. I mean, they already were famous, too, but it's like…
28:38
Tad Eggleston: proving once again that Milestone is a launching ground.
28:41
Ted: You know what? It really is, it really is.
28:45
Ted: But yeah, I mean, that's a fun episode, you know, it brings Alva back, it brings Alva to the fore again as, like, he's the villain here again, he's the one who caused the Big Bang, he's doing more research on it. He also farms his research out to other people, which is not, you know.
29:00
Ted: not a hardware reference exactly, but it kind of fits with his personality as we see it. It had some fun action, you know, it had Icon showing off his… er, Icon, it had static showing off his smarts. I thought that was a fun episode.
29:12
Ted: It did have the introduction of Daisy as well, who does stick around for the series. I don't know…
29:19
Ted: to what degree their relationship changes, and I'm curious to find out.
29:24
Marcus: Hmm, we'll see.
29:25
Ted: Yeah.
29:27
Ted: I don't know, I mean, I thought that was a fun one. That was a… that was a fun starting…
29:31
Tad Eggleston: I thought they were all fun.
29:32
Ted: Yeah, they were.
29:34
Tad Eggleston: I watched them last week.
29:35
Ted: Yes, me too. So I'm kind of reading back and reminding myself of everything that happened in it. Like, it was… it was a cool, you know, big, splashy action thing for a bit. It was also ecstatic getting to be… it wasn't directly touching on racism.
29:50
Ted: like… I do think it's…
29:53
Ted: I don't know, I think it was… the fact that all the students except for the two white guys are students of color.
29:59
Ted: Because it's just him, Daisy, and then those two twins.
30:03
Ted: I don't think that's actually significant, but it feels like it should be. I don't know. It's… it's milestone.
30:09
Ted: But it's, you know, it's a good fitting thing for Static's kind of milieu to have this, oh, he's actually secretly really smart. Not even secretly, but he's…
30:18
Marcus: Yeah, it's not a secret, yeah.
30:20
Ted: Yeah.
30:21
Ted: I don't know, I mean.
30:22
Marcus: Well, no, it's a… yeah, it's a huge part of his…
30:24
Marcus: this character, it's interesting because, you know, I mean, obviously, Static is one of the
30:30
Marcus: Static did run so Miles could fly, but, like,
30:35
Marcus: That was one thing that frustrated me with the…
30:39
Marcus: first… and I love Miles Morales, like, from, you know, the initial comics, but it did bother me that, the science… that he wasn't strong at science, especially with the whole Spider-Man tradition, it's like they kept everything but that. But then, like, subsequent,
30:56
Marcus: writers have really made Miles a little bit more… more adept at STEM.
31:01
Ted: Yeah, I did always like the detail in, you know, the first Spider-Verse movie, that it's like, he's deliberately playing down his intelligence so it's not.
31:09
Marcus: Right, right.
31:10
Ted: like, targeted. I thought that was a really smart… Character detail, yeah.
31:15
Ted: But yeah, no, it's good to see Virgil getting to actually show that off every now and then, and also just his cleverness and like, oh, okay, this thing's tracking me everywhere, how about it just tracks me right back to Alva's office and trashes the place? Perfect. Yeah, that was fun.
31:27
Ted: We get the one with the… the one with the character who's not based on an existing milestone character, as far as I can tell, this… this kid and his older…
31:36
Marcus: Right.
31:36
Ted: brother, who are… yeah, he's a bang baby who can basically change anything into anything else, I guess?
31:45
Ted: It's very, sort of.
31:46
Marcus: Yeah, it's like you can kind of, like, get… make wishes, right? Like, for himself, or…
31:51
Ted: You can change anything.
31:52
Tad Eggleston: It's like he's got a lantern ring.
31:54
Ted: Yes, but I also like the fact that, like, when his older step… when his stepbrother, who's sort of, you know.
32:00
Marcus: Manipulative.
32:00
Ted: jerk, tries to get him to make a $100 bill. He makes this cart… he makes this bill.
32:04
Marcus: Right, right.
32:05
Ted: Yeah.
32:06
Tad Eggleston: I can't imagine it.
32:07
Ted: Yeah, he's never seen one in person. I like… that was a fun little goofy detail. I thought that was… that was nice. There was something specific about that episode I was gonna mention, and now I have completely lost it. Crap.
32:18
Ted: There was something that was like, oh, that's a really cool detail or use of something.
32:23
Ted: And now I'm completely blanking on it. Vanformer, what I call it, wire Q&A.
32:26
Marcus: Oh, yes.
32:30
Tad Eggleston: How about the Mets?
32:33
Ted: Sorry, okay, alright, I don't know. I… there was some, like, detail of, oh, it's cool that they did this with this character, or whatever. I guess it's nice that they're bringing in more Bang Babies, even if they're not doing, like.
32:46
Ted: you know, full Blood Pact, or Blood Syndicates.
32:51
Marcus: Yeah, I think they're… I agree. I think it's kind of like the decision to…
32:59
Marcus: bring, like, Alva a little bit more to the forefront as a static villain in this kind of smaller.
33:07
Marcus: Dakota, because it's like they're, A, adjusting to the medium, you know, so I think, like, yeah, like, maybe having
33:17
Marcus: the… the other band babies be…
33:20
Marcus: you know, not necessarily as dangerous, or at least a little more cartoonish. It just kind of makes sense to the medium of animation.
33:27
Ted: Yeah. This one also, I forgot, it does have a lot more, like, slam-bang action, very cool-looking designs, because, like, the kid.
33:33
Marcus: Do you mean?
33:34
Ted: Like, video game characters that are really big and.
33:36
Marcus: Yeah, that's true.
33:38
Ted: That was a fun… that was a fun element of that episode I forgot about.
33:42
Ted: Yeah, I mean, it was a… it was a, you know, minor episode, but it was fun, it was… it was a… it was a…
33:46
Ted: Cute little episode, reminder, like you said, that, like, yeah, not all Bang Babies have some big story to them, they're just…
33:52
Ted: normal people who happen to get weird powers. Yeah, I don't know. The one after that is the first racism episode.
34:00
Tad Eggleston: It's… It's one of the more powerful episodes we've seen yet.
34:04
Ted: It is. It's more direct, I think, is also, is, like, the way to put it as well. It's…
34:10
Ted: I think it's a little… it's…
34:12
Ted: It feels very 90s cartoon, goofy in…
34:17
Marcus: No, it felt like a sitcom episode, but I… one thing I really liked is… and I mean, I'm sorry, I'll let you get to the…
34:24
Ted: No, no, no, please.
34:25
Marcus: the plot, but well, alright, well, I'll just brief… the plot is pretty simple to recount, but it's essentially, you know, obviously, they've… it's been well established that, Richie and Virgil are best friends.
34:39
Marcus: Richie being white. And, and they're tight, like, you know, they really have each other's back.
34:45
Marcus: And, there is an episode where it's like, you know, they're hanging out at Virgil's house, Sharon comments on Richie always being there, then it's the type of thing where it's kind of like a time bomb, it sets off in Virgil's head, like, yeah, wait a second, we always…
34:59
Marcus: hang out at my house whenever it chores, and so we asked, like, you know, how come I don't, hang at your house?
35:06
Marcus: Which… Actually, I've had
35:09
Marcus: familiar situations in my childhood. But anyway, so there's ways in which this episode actually resonated on a memory level that I wasn't even thinking about. But,
35:19
Marcus: there's…
35:21
Marcus: So, so anyway, so, Richie's very hesitant, so you can tell something's up. I knew it was up. And then, he goes, he's hanging out, I think it's just Richie's…
35:32
Marcus: family except for his father. It's like his mom and everybody else, and his mom's like, oh, your father's home, and it's very clear right away that Richie's dad is a racist cop, and .
35:47
Ted: nervous when she… when his dad comes in. Right. Like, everybody knows what's coming.
35:52
Marcus: Right. And… and it's like…
35:54
Marcus: And, you know, kudos to the show, because I think this was my point, is that a lot of other shows, you know, they might just kind of say a thing here or there, and obviously, I didn't need him to say any slurs or anything, and that's the thing, is, like, racism doesn't need to be slurs, but he,
36:11
Marcus: He says just a lot of real, stock, generic run-of-the-mill…
36:18
Marcus: white guy, racist stuff. Like, oh, you see how they do this, and like…
36:24
Ted: rap music that gets everybody.
36:25
Marcus: Yeah, and just judging whole communities by their limited perception, all of this stuff, you know what I mean? But you're saying… you're saying it pretty directly, and…
36:34
Marcus: Later in the episode, you know, obviously, it being a 30-minute, you know, animated show with, Moro, he…
36:45
Marcus: he does learn something. We don't know how much, but he does learn. And part of the plot-wise, which was pretty smart, is that, like…
36:55
Tad Eggleston: kind of appreciated that he didn't have, like, that.
36:58
Tad Eggleston: 100% conversion, because it's a 30-minute show.
37:02
Ted: Man.
37:03
Tad Eggleston: like, that's one of the things that always struck me as wrong in your typical after-school special. It's like, oh, I had one experience, and now all of my bad habits and prejudices are gone.
37:16
Marcus: Well, but they also, if it was ongoing… if it was an ongoing series, they just never kind of dealt with it again.
37:23
Tad Eggleston: Right.
37:24
Marcus: It's not even proven that it's gone, you know.
37:27
Ted: Can you say, though, about, like, how they do it, though, Marcus?
37:29
Marcus: Oh, just that, oh, just that, yes, that, that, Richie is really disappointed, so he runs away, and then on top of that, whatever…
37:38
Marcus: The… that episode's particular villain situation was, also…
37:44
Marcus: was creating a certain level of danger, and Richie's dad, as bigoted as he is, you know, loves his son and wants his son to be safe. So he ends up having to team up with… he goes checks with everybody else first, but then he ends up checking with the Hawkinses, and Virgil's dad…
38:00
Marcus: like, too often, has to be the bigger person, and is like, well, this guy sucks, but I don't… I care about Richie, and I want him to find his son. So he helps him, and
38:14
Marcus: you know, and, you know, Richie's dad's just being racist all over the place while they're looking. But, like, Virgil's dad, when he, like, really calls him out, he says stuff that you don't get to hear on a lot of other shows, like sitcoms that would have dealt with this. Like, he speaks way more directly
38:29
Marcus: to the ignorance, he speaks more directly to being, you know, the recipient of bigotry and racism, and…
38:37
Marcus: all of that stuff, which I appreciated, and I mean, that… I feel like that… I didn't look at the writing staff, but it felt like it came right from Dwayne McDuffie's pen.
38:44
Marcus: Yeah.
38:45
Ted: And like I… like you said, I mean, pairing him up with Virgil's dad, as opposed to Virgil himself, which would have made more sense because it's, you know, it's his show, but, like, it makes a… it made for a more…
38:58
Ted: mature-feeling conversation, maybe, is the way to put it? I don't quite know how to put it, but…
39:03
Marcus: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
39:04
Ted: Yeah, I like that a lot. I think… I mean, again, like, when I said this is sort of cringey, your after-school special, I don't mean it was bad. Like, it was… there were definitely some good points to it, there were some fun episodes, and like you said, yeah, the pairing of Richie's dad with Virgil's dad was a really smart, really sharp way of doing it.
39:20
Ted: It's more just like, I keep hearing that line where Richie's like, you and your stupid racism, and it's like.
39:25
Marcus: Oh, yeah, yeah, no, no, no.
39:26
Ted: No, you have.
39:26
Marcus: 100%. Yeah, yeah.
39:27
Ted: No.
39:28
Marcus: That was very much after-school special.
39:30
Ted: Yeah, and there was also some fun bits, like, I forgot the town… it was the… Eben and his gang were in this, and there's.
39:35
Marcus: I think there's…
39:36
Ted: I'm rewatching it right now.
39:37
Marcus: Okay, yes, this was an urban episode, yeah.
39:39
Ted: Yes, and there's this bit at the very beginning where, like, they're robbing everybody at the mall, and then, this old lady, like, pulls a thing of mace out of her purse and sprays it in the eyes of what's-his-face with the knives, just to… it's…
39:53
Marcus: It's like…
39:53
Ted: It's just a funny little moment.
39:56
Ted: But yeah, I mean, it's a good episode. It's good, and it's as sort of the first…
40:02
Ted: big racism episode. I shouldn't call it that, but you know what I mean. Like, it… as the… as the first episode that really tries to cover this, I think in a… in a…
40:11
Ted: in a substantial way. I think it does a really good job, and I think it's…
40:15
Ted: Yeah, again, it's good to see the show really trying to play up to milestone's strengths, and having this, not just this diverse cast, but this cast with this, you know, real-world conflicts to it.
40:26
Marcus: Yeah.
40:27
Ted: Yeah, there's… oh god, I just skipped ahead of the episode, I'm watching, and it… like, there's this bit where Virgil's dad is just completely talking down…
40:35
Ted: Richie's dad about, like, you know, your son ran away a long time ago, and it's like, damn!
40:41
Marcus: Yeah, yeah, no, no. It's cool.
40:43
Ted: It's a fun, solid episode, as the second episode with Eben, I think?
40:48
Marcus: Yeah.
40:49
Ted: It works really well.
40:51
Marcus: And Evan's a great villain, too, like, I…
40:54
Ted: film, like, that' Honestly, one of the best things the show did is they, you know.
40:59
Ted: Static didn't really have… well, he had Hot Streak. I was about to say he didn't really have a central villain. He did have Hot Streak, but Hot Streak…
41:08
Ted: Like, he's kind of disappeared by the point where we are in the comics. Not completely, but…
41:13
Marcus: Yeah.
41:13
Ted: he's… he's not the thing that drives… like, Static's relationships with his peers drive pretty much everything at this point, which is fine, it's good, but it's also, like…
41:23
Ted: there's not… Yeah, there's… having no.
41:26
Marcus: Yeah, and it's almost out of necessity, right? Because a big part of…
41:31
Marcus: the static Virgil, hot streak, Francis, you know, rivalry is Virgil having to get past a level of fear in himself, you know what I mean? So it's almost like, with him in both the comics and the show.
41:50
Marcus: having gone through that, and been down, and then, like, conquered it, it's almost like, well, what's the option if you keep High Speak around to, like, you know, I don't know, make him kind of keep falling into those fears, you know, and…
42:04
Marcus: When he kind of has figured out how to defeat him.
42:07
Ted: Yeah.
42:08
Ted: But yeah, I mean, this is, again, this is another bit where it's like, oh yeah, Eben is a really solid addition to this cast. He's… he's threatening, he's interesting, he has a… he has a solid motivation that keeps bringing him into static, into conflict with static, yeah, so… it's fun to see him back as well.
42:25
Ted: So I think what comes next, like, depends on whether you're going by production order, or… let's see here, there's something where it's like…
42:32
Ted: 758, 59, yeah, okay, so… By production order, what comes next is the one with Alva's son.
42:39
Marcus: Oh, okay.
42:40
Ted: Yeah, my air…
42:41
Marcus: I think I did see that in a different order. Okay, but go ahead.
42:44
Ted: Because, oh, going back.
42:45
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, the one I saw next was Winds of Change, and then Ben Out of Shape.
42:49
Ted: Yeah, exactly.
42:50
Tad Eggleston: Alva's son would be the next one that I'd see.
42:52
Ted: Yeah, which Slipstream, which was… Fine? I don't know, it was…
42:57
Ted: It's kind of fun and stupid. It was, hey, what if we had a dude with the powers of, like, wind control and talked like Fat Albert? Which… sure.
43:05
Ted: Like… I don't know, I don't really know I have a whole lot to say about that episode.
43:10
Marcus: Yeah, I mean, it was cool, but it was, yeah, it wasn't the highlight out of the bunch.
43:14
Ted: No, I mean, it was… it was good that they… you know, they had to kind of do one episode that was like, oh no, Richie and Static are fighting, how will they become friends again? Which…
43:23
Marcus: Yeah, and you're right. To your previous point about, like, the kind of interpersonal stuff.
43:28
Marcus: Being, you know, arguably more what the series is about, than just, you know, punching
43:36
Marcus: I think that's a perfect example, because that was… that was the thing I remembered about this episode, is they threw in, best friend tension, which I actually say… I will say I appreciate it, because.
43:46
Ted: Oh, yeah.
43:47
Marcus: Especially as kids, and young… young boys even, like, yeah, it could be your, like, tightest friend, and you could have, like, the dumbest, most intense fight, and then… and then you're good again, you know? So it's…
44:00
Marcus: It was pretty… pretty believable, I would say.
44:02
Ted: Yeah, and I do also like that Daisy, like, I…
44:06
Ted: she steps up and actually makes them sort of talk to each other again, which was fun. It's…
44:10
Marcus: Sure.
44:10
Ted: It's a little bit playing into the stereotype that the girls have to solve the problems for the dumb boys, but it is…
44:15
Marcus: Hmm.
44:15
Ted: It's still fun to see her, you know, get to be a part of the cast.
44:19
Marcus: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, you're right, and it was a good opportunity to… To kind of,
44:25
Marcus: you know, ease her in as a regular, too. Because we talked about how, and I think just purely by, probably.
44:33
Marcus: the limitations of, their budget and animation. He has a smaller cast of friends.
44:40
Ted: Yeah, it's, like, Wade doesn't stick around, as far as I… as far as I know.
44:44
Marcus: That's right. Which way it seemed, like, kind of like a Larry analog, but… But not quite.
44:49
Ted: we'll…
44:51
Marcus: Oh, wait, which one is… wait? Am I confusing?
44:53
Ted: Larry, I thought… because it's, like, his full name is Larry Wade?
44:56
Marcus: Oh, okay. I didn't realize that.
44:58
Ted: He doesn't stick around in the show, though.
45:01
Marcus: Riker.
45:02
Ted: Pretty much.
45:02
Marcus: I don't know, I don't know, because it's only the first season, so that's… that's a good question.
45:09
Ted: But yeah, either way, not the standout episode, but whatever, it's, you know, it was fine, it was fun. It, you know, had some…
45:15
Ted: had some fun character bits. But then we get the real, like, I love this, but it's the second Rubberman Man episode. And this was great. Yeah. The bent out of shape?
45:26
Ted: Because it's… one of my absolute favorite things that a show does, is when it brings back a character who was a villain but a sympathetic one, and makes him a hero, and kind of gives him a reason to change, and it does it in a really good way, and it's just…
45:40
Ted: it's so much fun, and also when it's a character like Rubberband Man, who has such a great design, like, I…
45:46
Ted: God, yeah. The way he's just built for animation is so good.
45:50
Marcus: Yeah.
45:53
Ted: I pulled that up again, and I'm just… I'm just scrolling through it, and it's, like, the things they do with his transforms, where he's, like, you know, slipping through a window, or, like, extending his ear so he can listen in, he turns himself into a chair. God, there's so many fun little bits.
46:06
Ted: Yeah, no, this… this is…
46:10
Ted: This is, again, like we were talking about, the thing that's static, and the milestones do really well of having the extended cast.
46:17
Ted: And in this case, bringing in rubber band.
46:20
Ted: Rubberman as a new… Continuing character with different motivations.
46:26
Ted: Yeah, no, I… this was a fun one. This is a really fun one.
46:30
Marcus: Yeah, and he was dating Sharon.
46:32
Ted: dating Sharon, and apparently, I looked it up a little bit, apparently he at least kind of sticks around… I don't know if he stays… if he's still dating her, but he does stick around in that role somewhat, or at least keeps showing up, and like, I like that a lot. Yeah, that's…
46:45
Marcus: Also, also, I've mentioned it before, but I will always…
46:49
Marcus: give flowers to Kadeem… Kadeem Hardison, the voice of, Wade. Also.
46:54
Marcus: So just, and this is, again, near and dear to my heart, you know, in the…
46:59
Marcus: in the 80s and 90s, if you were, like, a skinny black kid with glasses, you know, uncreative people, their discs, their go-to disc would be, like, to call you Urkel, but Kateem Hardison made it cool to be a skinny dude with glasses. So, shout out to him.
47:15
Ted: Yeah, no, he does a great job. Like, that's… I think it's… it is one of those things where it's…
47:20
Ted: I don't know… I would be curious to know to what degree it was planned to have Rubberband Man stick around as a character, and to what degree it was, hey, this character has a really cool design, and we've got a great VA for him, let's keep him around.
47:36
Ted: Cuz… I… I would be curious. It can be…
47:40
Ted: sometimes a character sticks around in a TV show just because, like, they get along really well with the rest of the cast or whatever, and I would be really curious to know whether it was that or whether they always had this planned for Bandman, but… yeah, it's… he's… he's… he's so well played.
47:54
Ted: Oh, no, I like it a lot. He… I even think he does a little bit of a subtle…
47:59
Ted: it's hard to tell, I'm watching it right now, but I have the sound off.
48:03
Marcus: Thank you.
48:03
Ted: does a little bit of a voice change between when he's still pretending to be Stringer, the new rapper, and himself.
48:10
Ted: I think he kinda, like, pitches it up or down a little bit, so…
48:13
Marcus: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I think you're right, yeah. Which is interesting, yeah.
48:17
Ted: Yeah, and it's good, and it's subtle, and it works really well, and like… Yeah, I don't… I…
48:23
Ted: Yeah, shit, man, this is a good episode. I don't know what else to say.
48:27
Marcus: No, it's weird.
48:28
Tad Eggleston: liked it.
48:28
Ted: His design is really good, too, as Stringer, where he's got just the little subtle cheekbones, like…
48:35
Ted: Oh, yeah.
48:37
Ted: This show, man, this is where it really starts to feel like it's getting its footing, where it feels like, oh, they know what they're doing now with this cast.
48:43
Marcus: Right.
48:43
Ted: In a really fun way. And then, yeah, so this final episode…
48:47
Ted: which was the sixth episode, we were only gonna watch five, but whatever, is that one Junior, which was…
48:56
Tad Eggleston: Which was the one I didn't watch.
48:58
Ted: Okay, you didn't watch this. Do we want to talk about it, even? Because it was a… it's… it's a weird one.
49:02
Tad Eggleston: I mean, if we do, we have even less episodes for next month.
49:06
Ted: That's true.
49:07
Marcus: Yeah, we can talk about it next month.
49:09
Tad Eggleston: Because there's only 3 more episodes in the season.
49:12
Ted: Yeah, yeah, that's right, I forgot about that. Yeah, we can hold off on that one, but yeah, no, this… these 5 episodes, this is a really fun batch of episodes. I…
49:19
Ted: I'm starting to get more and more, like, what the appeal was here. I mean, I always kind of got the appeal, but you know what I mean, like, I'm starting to see why it was at least getting those whole four seasons, because there's…
49:31
Ted: there's… There's a creative identity here.
49:35
Ted: that's…
49:36
Ted: well, I mean, as with Milestone itself, it's not just the black Spider-Man, it's… this is a character with his own really interesting, elements and characterizations and plots, and, like, the way that he interacts with the world around him is really…
49:50
Ted: is unique, and yeah, man, it's good. I don't know what else to say.
49:55
Marcus: Yeah, no, that covers it. I think, oh, also…
49:59
Marcus: I had previously, when it was unavailable, bought it on, Amazon Prime, but I don't know if we talked about this. It apparently is on Tubi.
50:08
Marcus: Now, so you don't have.
50:10
Tad Eggleston: Good to know.
50:11
Marcus: If you… well, let me… I'm double checking well. Yep, it's up here.
50:15
Ted: Okay.
50:15
Marcus: Tubi actually has a surprising amount of things.
50:18
Tad Eggleston: They just, they swap things out more often.
50:21
Marcus: Yeah, yeah.
50:22
Tad Eggleston: Like, a one-month license on a lot of things.
50:25
Ted: Oh, God, that's great.
50:25
Marcus: Period.
50:26
Ted: Where it's like, oh, I was watching this last month, and it's, oh, now it's completely gone.
50:29
Marcus: Actually, let me look ahead to make sure they have more than one season. I see season 1… oh, they have four seasons.
50:35
Tad Eggleston: Can I do?
50:36
Ted: know about the show is they changed the main theme. I think the theme song for, like, seasons 1 and 2 was different from 3 and then 4.
50:43
Ted: Or… I don't know. But I know there's different theme songs, and I'm curious to know what the others are like, because this… this theme song is…
50:50
Ted: Kind of just a generic beat, it's fine, but there's…
50:53
Ted: to it. I'm just curious what the other theme songs are like, and I'm wondering if there are any, like, rights issues or anything like that with us.
51:00
Marcus: Yeah, we'll see.
51:02
Ted: Yeah, I… it's…
51:05
Ted: It's interesting to see what they can get away with and what they can't, as it were, in terms of what static the comic did.
51:13
Marcus: I mean.
51:13
Ted: Obviously, we're not gonna get the episode about will he or won't he sleep with… sleep with his girlfriend, but, like…
51:19
Tad Eggleston: Not as an afternoon cartoon, and not with him set as more of a middle schooler than a high schooler.
51:25
Ted: Exactly, yeah. But, like, I do… I do, I am glad that we finally have, like.
51:29
Tad Eggleston: I mean, maybe if they got into Season 6 and moved to Primetime.
51:33
Ted: When they got the movie, when they got the hypothetical movie in the future, yeah.
51:37
Marcus: No, don't get me started on that.
51:38
Marcus: It keeps getting rumored, like, every 5 years.
51:41
Ted: I mean… I do think, unfortunately.
51:45
Ted: a studio executive these days would say, well, we already have the Miles Morales movies, why do we need this? Like, I… I don't think that's right, obviously you get what I'm saying, but, like.
51:54
Marcus: Oh, I, I do.
51:55
Ted: Yeah, no, it's… that would be the… oof.
51:57
Tad Eggleston: That's like saying, we don't need Jason Bourne, we already have James Bond.
52:02
Ted: We don't need two spoons.
52:03
Marcus: Oh, no, there's never too many of those.
52:06
Marcus: Never too many white dubes.
52:09
Ted: So, somebody pointed out that the three of the classic elements of spy fiction in the West have the JB initials, James Bond, Jason Bourne, and Jack Bauer.
52:18
Marcus: Yeah, that's true.
52:20
Marcus: That's what I'm saying, I mean, that's… that's Tad's early.
52:23
Tad Eggleston: Because then we'd have the most inane sets of conversations about how they were based on Jesus Christ that you've ever heard.
52:34
Tad Eggleston: Can you tell that I went to a high school in a very Christian town?
52:38
Ted: Hey, I read Preacher, I know that they do that for a reason.
52:42
Tad Eggleston: Sometimes, but, like, I once had to listen to somebody go through half an hour about Julius Caesar being based on Christ.
52:50
Ted: Okay, now…
52:50
Tad Eggleston: Sitting there going, first, Julius Caesar is a real person.
52:54
Marcus: real person, that's the first incarcer.
52:56
Tad Eggleston: This is set before Christ. And the person's like, yes, but Shakespeare was after Christ. I don't have to ask it as an allegory.
53:06
Marcus: I don't have to ask how this person voted. You probably don't even know, but…
53:09
Tad Eggleston: I don't know! I don't even remember exactly… I can't even remember if it was a boy or a girl.
53:14
Marcus: Come on, though.
53:14
Ted: Now I'm curious if this person voted.
53:16
Marcus: If you… I'm saying this stubborn adherence to being wrong, that they're, like, plowing right through… being incorrect, the…
53:28
Tad Eggleston: There's a character in Grapes of Wrath.
53:37
Ted: Anyway, no, I get you, it's…
53:40
Ted: There are a whole lot of white dudes in fiction, aren't there? Yeah. No, it's…
53:44
Tad Eggleston: But I'm just saying, JB, I like that way better. Then they can talk about Jim Beam, which is probably more accurate.
53:52
Tad Eggleston: Particularly for the Bauer and the Bond.
53:59
Ted: Anyway, we… we are obviously enjoying the hell out of the Static Show, and I'm really excited to see more of it, and I'm curious whether we should even go on to…
54:09
Ted: I mean, I think after this first season, we go on to the actual… we go back to the actual comics for a while, because I think.
54:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah. It'll be time to do another volume. Which means I really gotta get them in the mail.
54:19
Ted: Yeah, you know, it's… it takes a while, we get it. But also, now I'm curious whether we should eventually get on to do the, like, Justice League episodes where Static shows up?
54:27
Ted: I don't know, that's what we got.
54:28
Tad Eggleston: Maybe. I mean… Hopefully, we all have long lives. I don't intend to stop doing this anytime soon.
54:37
Ted: You know? Good point.
54:38
Tad Eggleston: So, so, you know…
54:40
Ted: We got, we got nothing but time for Milestone.
54:44
Tad Eggleston: That's right.
54:45
Tad Eggleston: That's right. And then when I suddenly become…
54:49
Tad Eggleston: the next Joe Rogan, because I'm a white male, and that could happen.
54:54
Tad Eggleston: I just meant in terms of listenership.
54:56
Ted: Oh, sure.
54:58
Marcus: Why is that? There's so many other… there's so many… no, no, there's so many other people you could go to.
55:02
Marcus: I don't know, Ted. I feel a little uncomfortable.
55:05
Ted: fiber glass, maybe?
55:06
Marcus: Yeah, Ibra Glass, exactly.
55:07
Tad Eggleston: Okay, cool!
55:08
Marcus: Right there.
55:08
Tad Eggleston: Cool. When I become the next Ira Glass.
55:11
Ted: When you become the next Mr. Magnus Archives, I don't know who…
55:14
Tad Eggleston: Because I'm a white man, and that's how it's supposed to work. All of our podcasts are huge.
55:20
Marcus: But you picked one of the worst ones.
55:22
Ted: He's, you know, you're not right.
55:24
Tad Eggleston: My only point is that when I'm huge, there will be this depth of milestone, and suddenly all the white people will start asking for static shock. Of course, that could go horribly.
55:37
Marcus: Berkeley.
55:37
Tad Eggleston: Horribly wrong as well.
55:40
Marcus: You got a lot more faith in me, buddy.
55:42
Marcus: Oof. That was good.
55:44
Marcus: No, no, because…
55:45
Tad Eggleston: I was thinking of the ways that it could go horribly hor- I was reading something recently about, like, all of the real-life characters
55:55
Tad Eggleston: Recast as white people in movies made that involved them.
56:02
Tad Eggleston: The real-life black people recast as white in… in…
56:07
Tad Eggleston: Based on a true story. But true.
56:09
Marcus: You're complicating the argument of racists everywhere who counter… who counter a casting decision with, like, what if we made Black Panther white? You know, the laziest…
56:23
Marcus: work it. And then, that's another one where there's easily dismantled, that I'm just like, guys, let's not even…
56:29
Marcus: They're not interested in the truth.
56:32
Tad Eggleston: I think it was a response to,
56:35
Tad Eggleston: and Tom King elevated this because Tom's a good guy when it comes to this sort of thing. Somebody had put up her…
56:44
Tad Eggleston: her, supergirl cosplay, and gotten… gotten a hard time, so she… she… she…
56:55
Tad Eggleston: like, put some text over it, you know? The first, you know, I forget exactly what she called… she was somewhat polite, but, like.
57:06
Tad Eggleston: idiot fanboys, you know. Supergirl isn't white. Me.
57:11
Tad Eggleston: Supergirl isn't real.
57:15
Marcus: written.
57:16
Tad Eggleston: Right. Supergirl isn't Asian, I'm sorry, Supergirl isn't Asian.
57:22
Marcus: I did see that one, yeah.
57:23
Tad Eggleston: Supergirl isn't real.
57:25
Marcus: But that's the thing, you know what I mean? Like, it's…
57:28
Marcus: Just, it's been decades of these common sense…
57:32
Marcus: responses, and these people aren't… they're not interested in… they're not like, oh, dang, I gotta even think about that. It's like, no.
57:40
Ted: Yeah.
57:41
Marcus: They'll just call you… they'll call her a terrible name, and then move on to being…
57:46
Marcus: Against the next person. They'll move on to policing a bathroom somewhere.
57:51
Ted: Yeah, racism isn't rational and can't.
57:53
Tad Eggleston: You know, that's the other thing that, like, when it comes to things like that, I'm like, you just really haven't thought it through. Like, how do you enforce that law? Are you gonna follow people in the bathroom to look at their junk?
58:10
Tad Eggleston: How does that work when it is a woman?
58:13
Marcus: I mean, arguably, yes, because I think the people who cry the most about this are some of the
58:19
Marcus: Most perverted people amongst us.
58:22
Marcus: Aw.
58:25
Ted: We were already talking about how, like, you have this… you don't understand people who aren't curious, and, like, that is absolutely what is happening here as well.
58:32
Marcus: That's what we're talking about, yeah. Yeah, it is.
58:34
Ted: People are not… these are not people who have any…
58:39
Ted: like, connection with reality. So, no, I…
58:41
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, no, I don't actually think it's that they're…
58:45
Tad Eggleston: they're that crazy. I think it's that when they actually get the things that they want that they hadn't thought out.
58:53
Tad Eggleston: They are… I mean, I guess it is that crazy in a sense. They are crazy enough that they will go do that thing that, like, if you had suggested it to them in any other context, they would have called you a pervert, or whatever.
59:07
Tad Eggleston: But, like, now that they've gotten what they want, but it requires this, they can't admit that maybe they were wrong.
59:15
Marcus: These people are, A, incapable.
59:19
Marcus: Of understanding their own hypocrisy. And yeah, I mean, and it comes back to what we said before, they'll never be happy. They could get every nasty thing they want, and they will never be happy.
59:30
Marcus: You know, because there's a…
59:32
Tad Eggleston: They're unhappy with themselves.
59:34
Marcus: Exactly.
59:36
Ted: And stupid, don't forget stupid.
59:38
Marcus: Yep.
59:40
Tad Eggleston: Or, at the very least, incurious…
59:45
Tad Eggleston: and deliberately, willfully, what's the word I'm looking for.
59:52
Marcus: Ignite.
59:54
Tad Eggleston: Yes.
59:55
Marcus: And stupid. I don't care, because you know why? You know why? You know why? There are people who have book learning, but apply it selectively, and come.
1:00:01
Tad Eggleston: Oh, absolutely.
1:00:02
Marcus: conclusions, and I would argue that that is…
1:00:04
Tad Eggleston: I don't even know if ignorant is the word I was looking for. Deliberately and willfully, illogical.
1:00:10
Marcus: Sure, but that's my point.
1:00:12
Tad Eggleston: Or short-sighted.
1:00:13
Marcus: That's my point. You can…
1:00:14
Tad Eggleston: Yeah, yeah.
1:00:15
Marcus: People might be able to demonstrate aptitude in certain respects, but it's like, man, it is inherently stupid.
1:00:23
Marcus: you know.
1:00:23
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:00:24
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:00:25
Marcus: And there's different types of intelligence, and they're… they're dumb in some of the ones that… that matter the most.
1:00:32
Marcus: And I would argue… that people…
1:00:36
Marcus: Having, you know, having intellectual aptitude in many
1:00:40
Marcus: Different fields, but selectively choosing to apply it and to…
1:00:47
Marcus: you know, Neo their way around facts. Like…
1:00:53
Marcus: I'm not impressed with that, you know what I mean? Like, you could say…
1:00:55
Tad Eggleston: Not either.
1:00:56
Marcus: Good.
1:00:59
Marcus: They're… they're dumbasses.
1:01:02
Tad Eggleston: I'm not…
1:01:02
Ted: I'm laughing because I do love just how far we get off tangent in all these things.
1:01:06
Tad Eggleston: Yeah.
1:01:07
Ted: No, I'm…
1:01:09
Ted: I do love it, man. There's a reason I keep coming back every week. Every… wait, every month.
1:01:14
Tad Eggleston: Whatever.
1:01:15
Ted: God, I'm losing.
1:01:16
Tad Eggleston: Well, for the Brothers Anderson No Relation, this has been the Milestone Book Club on 22 Panels, and we will see you after the next page.