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Captain Britain 1 and 2! And an interview with Kieron Gillen! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

• 0:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Grey Morgan Lane podcast.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're queer friends and allies gathered to review and discuss the original X-Men comics in continuity order.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: But today we get to take a side journey into the world of Kieran Gillin.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I am such an enormous fan of Kieran.
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I have been for many years.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Back when I worked on the Marvel Handbooks, I had to correspond with a lot of different writers and editors.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here in was one of the most responsive, lovely, consistent people.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not only was I a huge fan of your work, but you were just so great.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got to meet Kieran to the couple of conventions.
• 0:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: You remembered who I was the second time I met you.
• 0:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just, I loved it, lovely person.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's many years later now, but welcome finally to Kieran Gillett, I'm very welcome late.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And how are you, my friend?
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's lovely here.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Odyssey of a based on the famously bad with both names and faces.
• 0:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that, if I remember, I've genuinely, if the gossip people have to have their free teamed up, and they've got to the front.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: It goes to the back of the key, which is free people long.
• 1:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I've forgotten who they all were to get to the front, because they've said they're sold a bit somebody else.
• 1:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: So like, I'm impressed if past me, if you're getting the name right.
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, this will be a thousand, this is like, two thousand eight and nine.
• 1:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is a long time ago.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
• 1:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I came out in twenty or nine.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this was a different life at the, at the time.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, Kieran, you are just an incredible incredible writer.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for today, I have a fifteen questions I've prepared that are going to jump all over your Marvel history.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would love to begin and I know this is a story you've shared before, but it's always a fun place to begin.
• 1:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Tell people a little bit about your origins as an X-Men fan, if you would.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like, I'm pretty sure.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: You may have noticed.
• 1:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: This audio podcast.
• 1:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I'm aggressively British, and over here we don't, you do get the American comics, but they're only in my special shots, or occasionally on news, on like Newstand.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: A lot of the small town called Stafford, and Stafford's like no comic shop back then, to Savord now, which is lovely.
• 1:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I know Access to the comics, really, except for, whatever turned it from the shelves, and also the British reprint.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: And what they do, the way the reprint works, either not monthly, they're weekly, and they cut the comic into sections.
• 2:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: So you basically get like a third of an American comic every week, but also get free comics mashed together.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's all stuff like, I don't remember what.
• 2:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like secret war.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, if it transporters had a backup story of like machine man.
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: And yeah, I'll be directly just had like eight years.
• 2:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: I demand.
• 2:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even though early Captain Britain books were reprinting like fantastic foreign Nick.
• 2:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: So you don't know what you're getting at any of the time.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I was getting X-Men from the sixties.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: One of the back-up Kirby, the original sort of X-Men stuff, but the same time I was also picking up the occasional random one-off issue of the X-Men.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's basically
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was, I think the first one I picked up was over a Freedom Force in San Francisco, or the Nimrod vs Hellfire Club in the park.
• 2:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that, like, one of those two is the first one I picked up, and I off the shelf and was on what the hell was this.
• 2:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: And, purest, if you look at that F in the Nimrod issue, that's about most of my mortal X-Men.
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's almost the entire cast of that.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: Which is great.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: But there was one other issue.
• 3:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: I only realized we're doing another podcast that I read Goldbuck.
• 3:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: Is it Goldbuck the flashback to the Nazi hunting?
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like that issue.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: I read that out of context way earlier, much too young.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that and some level, the idea of the X-Men being this, because they're like these weird, twenty-something people in these very seemed very mature like complicated lives.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: I would say no idea what was going on there.
• 3:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: but like, and that also sticks my hair.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: Especially like the opening images, it's kind of awful, um, Lee Andrew with images of the bought off the brood.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I'm not that sad.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: So yeah, yeah.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that's real kind of like brainworm for stuff like a pre-tay.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: So you picked up the X-Men tangentially and you had to catch up, you know what I mean?
• 3:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And also like cost was early crush, you know, my kind of bisexual I'll see.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, you know, cost is very much a kind of like my type.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're releasing this, well, we're recording this during Colossus month on my show.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Julan.
• 4:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, Colossus content, it's going to be a really fun thing.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've already recorded the episodes.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a great time.
• 4:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: My crush growing up was Cannonball.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was reading in the nineties, but picking up those like early new mutants, books, his lanky, he's the, you know, but there's a similar type between Colossus and Sam, and that they're both like the pure heart character.
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You like a beefy guy with a pure heart character.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, so nice.
• 4:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, so they have the him by was name in pop culture is a welcome one.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're you a Captain Britain fan growing up.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to release this interview with a script reading of the first two Captain Britain scripts involving an all queer Scottish and British cast, which is going to be really fun.
• 4:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I'm trying to make his debut on Great Malkin Lane with this.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: I like Captain Brewer, but less so than people think.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like people always assume that I would be, you know, as a British guy.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I like, I like the costume, there's lots of I like to it, but he is, as a brick guy, of a certain class structure.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: I just trust anyone who wears the flag.
• 5:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in my head, I always kind of foil Captain Brewer's posh posh guy.
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's a hard to do, he's getting over.
• 5:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just interviewed Paul Jenkins and we talked about Captain Britain and he said just like it's twenty twenty five and he's like my wife didn't believe me today when I told her there was a Captain Britain.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, I'll think it real about it.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wait what?
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Braddock family is, of course, a very queer coded when you look at Jamie Braddock and Betsy with Brian being yet another himbo.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did you have a crush on him growing up as well?
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: I was like, look, the look kind of adds a little bit to the idea.
• 5:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think about it.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking about it.
• 5:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm thinking about the ex-galiber issues with Claremont writing him just as an absolute beef cake with everyone kind of swooning over him.
• 5:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: this ridiculous lesson.
• 5:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, we're going to jump around a lot of your Marvel journey and there's so many things we're leaving out.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've been such an enormous fan of yours for so many years.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're not even going to touch on Star Wars and Dr. Afra for example today, but I'm going to take you through some just kind of specific questions and wherever the conversation goes is entirely great.
• 6:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to begin one of your earliest works at Marvel through a couple of different issues was working with the character of Saber Tooth.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Saber II and Wolverine have some very complex early origins, but you're one of the few writers that has taken kind of Saber II's early days and done more than that kid chained in the basement with his dad beating him up.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You gave Saber II's siblings and pathos.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: In Wolverine origin two, we meet his sister and his brother and in Xman origin Saber II, we meet another of his brothers.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Talk about dubbing into the mindset of the creed family, if you would.
• 6:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, it's horrible, isn't it?
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's strange to think that like, you know, um, that was my first full side, the savory fish shoe was the first full size X member comic I did actually, I think.
• 6:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not a happy place to start.
• 6:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, and it's also like a deep piece of continuity weaving.
• 6:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: Right, and that's also, you know, I'm not like one of the people who, as I've said before, it's like, I've ended up as a kid.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: I've had a kind of a patchwork montage approach.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then basically when I had to go in, I did not research.
• 6:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's the thing I always done is, and I kind of like, okay, what actually is there?
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: What do we actually know?
• 7:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: How can we tie it all together?
• 7:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I'll put our first, uh, safety origins.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: That was the kind of the goal.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: But to do the, uh, the Wolverine origins?
• 7:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, origin too, when you run his sister in brother-in-law and it's the reveal that that's all.
• 7:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Victor shows up at the very end.
• 7:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a really fun turn.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: No one's ever brought those characters back by the way.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Clara Creed is an amazing character.
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's a shit.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's stuff I really like.
• 7:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's stuff I loved about it.
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's always seems like it's so really well, but left no footprints in.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, I mean, it's solid.
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: We really, I think it really hit a target when people weren't as into X, uh, like, sort of, Wolverine.
• 7:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: They're kind of like, we're a little bit burnt out with the, uh, the past of Wolverine.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's a beautiful, beautifully drawn issues.
• 7:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: The stuff I really like in that.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We just reviewed that series on my show.
• 7:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: That episode just came out if you were.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are very kind things to say about it.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, I'm glad.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: Honestly, like, um,
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: I don't think I always mention that big fight with the bear at the start, which was, um, Joker-solder basically pitched that at me, or I said that, and it was like, oh, that's a really great idea.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's a great big set piece of visual, you know, um, to me, like, doing the origins, the important thing was that kind of code in relationship between, uh, you know, Logan and Sabato.
• 8:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's the kind of, like, if you're doing the origins too, you've got to kind of hit, okay, where does that come from?
• 8:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: because that's the kind of that that was my thinking is what's the next kind of big part of the building blocks of him.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's that's the relationship there.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I want to make it a family drama and make it about people.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: Also, there's sidestep the a Wolverine's code one of his love and spate, you know, because it's that kind of, you know, and that's the kind of, um, that's what it's like.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: I was pleased on what it happened.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's funny so long ago now.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: I got my god on wrote that book.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really quite cinematic, actually, and it takes Wolverine through a lot of the character beats that he gets over the years.
• 8:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, if you read the current Wolverine book by Solidina Madd, he's back in kind of the frozen tundra running with the wolves, you know, having these adventures in the Northwest, that's where you open.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also, polar bears were such a big thing at the time with lost, right?
• 8:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember you working with the Handbook team on this next question.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: You wrote a series called Sword that is delightfully exploring the very messy kind of office buddy comedy of Henry Peter Geirig versus Abigail Brand.
• 9:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember you assembling a list of like all the aliens that are living on Earth that can then become the target for this very xenophobic organization that are tossing aliens out, which is an uncomfortable parallel for America.
• 9:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, probably Britain.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: Especially, well, that's a series of stuff, you know, so the voice, yeah, that's a series that's very badly in that way, but also like worryingly relevant as well.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, do you want to talk about kind of assembling this universe of gyric versus brand in the backdrop of all these alien characters from everywhere?
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, the actual, the core idea of the series, like, let's get to basically add original sort of structure for a variety of things.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it was actually Nick Chloe who just pitched the idea.
• 9:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: And this is one of the very few times in my entire career I've gone with an idea from editor.
• 9:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: And he said, and he basically said, what it should be is all the aliens were taken off earth and this big list of aliens.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I think like I just ended researching it in that way.
• 9:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's like a who would be who would it be who's in?
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then of course when I looked at list, it's like a who's interesting and cool because especially because I came from like be right there.
• 9:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, my previous work was by Betray Belle.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: I used Abigail brand and they're getting there.
• 10:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I was already kind of like you see what is doing this all the time.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: They start getting touching a few characters and they start believing it together.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because they can't help themselves because they're trying to like make it feel like a large story because it's quite important for me like because it's interesting where I began of course Abigail and going back towards being a villain again because you know she starts a villain and then I'll talk about that which is I stress a great way of taking it but where I was writing I was writing here in a different sort of place just should write that
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because that's a female abbey.
• 10:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: She's also a half alien.
• 10:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's like for me, it was quite important part of her character.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: At least then, she was from Earth.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: And of course, the way it's been done later.
• 10:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, Alice made a much more of an alien person, which is, you know, I stress the great thing to do.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: But for me, that's the story about, then I'm Abigail, there's an Earth person.
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, she's, you know, she's, you know, she's her right to be here as much as anybody else on all these people.
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: And we're about from there.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's really fun to see who's there.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because at least I'll be making a list.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: You start for you.
• 10:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, who are the possibilities here?
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: Think about it.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: Imagine doing this story in the DC universe.
• 10:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: Imagine people trying to get a disobeyed man.
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: And actually, that's a pretty good story.
• 10:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, in an awful way.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: I don't know, I'm just kidding.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: What was the question?
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, you're great.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love writers who do their homework in that way.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a very curt-buy-seek way of approaching something.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's take all the pieces that are there and then build a story around it, right?
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love the comprehensiveity that you approach your titles with, which isn't easy lead into our next question.
• 11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this is a more recent title.
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Eternals was such a beautiful book on your part.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Those are hard characters for people to grasp.
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a very high concept, high sci-fi, very, very simple kind of master race.
• 11:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: story in a way.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you did this thing where you took the mythos that were there and built it out, right?
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remember you putting those lists of here's all the internals that exist in the background and creating this kind of rich interior world while focusing on specific characters.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then you bring it into the X-Men as well, which made the characters relevant to our listeners in a very different way during cracoa.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Talk about your work on building the spine of the internals book.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's interesting, you kind of have like some curbs, it's an interesting comparison, because cur is like, I just got myself not alive though, that's it, you know, I came to comics, I had limited experience earlier, and I'm a search everything, cur just knows everything, and he also does research, he's like a proper, somebody who's lived in brief comics forever.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: So when I just put a project, he's often, approaches the falling in love, like an alarm or stuff, you know, stuff I cover, simply fall, but also like, I need to dig into this.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: And at least that's part of the reason why I'm attracted to places which have limited continuity and I'm gonna say that, I'm gonna caveat that quite heavily, because he gets, sort of example, like, destiny, I really like destiny.
• 12:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: because there's a lot, there's not a huge amount of pieces that, you can read Destiny's canon quite easily.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, most reading Storm's canon for example, will be much, much, much bigger.
• 12:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: Not as a problem with that, but like, it trains to the job.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: With a turtle's like, oh no, yeah, it's turtle's been around forever.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, they're who they are.
• 12:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: But there's not a huge amount of turtles' comics.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I read the ball, and then it was that kind of like, okay, I see what's happened here.
• 12:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: Now let's try to make it one thing.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: So for my kind of job was, let's try to turn all this kind of continuity and turn into mythology.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: Continuity and some mythology was kind of the takeaway.
• 12:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: And okay, it's like, why hasn't it, what worked?
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: How can I kind of see things that have always been there and bring them up?
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's kind of what that's, how we all sort of tie together.
• 12:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's the, especially because it's a personal carer book as well.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: There was definitely a conversation in my head.
• 12:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was in conversation what John was doing in a kind of very, very different way.
• 12:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: In some ways, I thought about the internals as like the worst case scenario for a carer.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: The idea of like, you know, the thing about turnals is a turnals is being immortal.
• 13:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: The turnal means unchanging.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's what internal means.
• 13:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the story is about this existentialist horror of these people trapped in a system that they can't do anything about.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: Which of course is one of my views of the humanity in a different way.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's why I tend to use fantasy for as a way to basically talk about human issues and turn the dialogue.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, the turnals that's really about can any of us change.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: If I've been coded and you know, if I do good, is it because I'm good or is it because I've been programmed to be good by society or genetics?
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: That kind of stuff is what's in the turnals.
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: And of course, the big figure change was the cost of the eternal life, which, for me, was the underlying problem of the tunnels and one of the reasons I felt it never quite worked is then not really moral characters.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: While the cancer about that tragedy, you know, like a Spider-Man got his, you know, Uncle Keld.
• 13:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: They are the problem.
• 13:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the X-Men is, of course, about variety of things.
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: But the X-Men is basically being gifted in a foreign world.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, that's the, that's where the X-Men stories come from.
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: And being a tunnels, it's great being a tunnel.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: If you want to be an eternal, it's fun.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I was like, no, that's the answer for cost.
• 13:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's people.
• 13:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then I'm okay.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's really simple and clean.
• 14:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: Any time an eternal dies, somebody dies on earth.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then suddenly, you've got a problem, like, villainous tunnels, don't care.
• 14:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: Where would they?
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: Heroic internals are certainly, oh my God, I've got to be careful.
• 14:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: Also, how many people have I, you know, all that kind of stuff?
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: So yeah, that's what's my thinking.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: Just trying to make
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Why'd you make it all say?
• 14:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I thought they were really interesting compared and contrasted with Kakava era in that way.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's good.
• 14:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, yeah, there's so much about destiny and fate and God and rebellion.
• 14:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many wonderful pieces to this.
• 14:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: The reason I think I draw the beauty at comparison, and Effi, Effi just used one example, but you see it using Avengers or Thunderbolts.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: His volume of Avengers in the late nineties, let's bring in every character who's ever been an Avenger and throw them all at the wall and tell this epic story.
• 14:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it's really it's or Avengers forever if you've ever read that love issue series, which is so fucking impressive, right?
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It takes all newity and like weaves a story through it.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love and I think I don't know that people have ever really taken time to consider the implication of this question, but one of the reasons that the end of Krakawa was so brilliantly special is that you Jerry Doggan and Al-Yeling as well as the other writers are all taking that deep
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: context of everything that has ever mattered and weaving those stories together in such a way that also left it ready for the next person.
• 15:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to come back to the Coca-Cola questions and just, but I think that there is a fair comparison because it takes a very special writer to weave the history in a certain way rather than just pick the handful of characters and tell a certain story, right?
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: The history matters and the continuity matters and I'm one of those deep continuity heads.
• 15:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I consider myself a Kurt Bucic style writer.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to weave all the stuff in and make it make sense.
• 15:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: You had the rare opportunity to kind of do the bookends to one particular character, assuming she never returns, right?
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We don't know, but hope summers, who comes out of the decimation era, there's been no mutants, and here's this new kind of Christ child baby, taking through an epic time travel adventure by her Christ child father, because cable was another version of that character.
• 15:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: with the Phoenix forces kind of the glowing god in the sky weaving it through it all.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: The ability to take hope back at the beginning with generation hope and then we've heard inclusion in her most recent stories.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: I would love to hear what it was like for you to be able to return to this character in immortal X men and kind of tell this epic arc of a story spanning decades frankly.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's a total like the hot humbling in that way because obviously I didn't I think the make hope I was reading the comics that they were coming out but like you know I was doing much somebody when hope became a person after second coming you know I had the primary control of it you know and she was one of my archetypal characters across that entire first day of month and when I came back this is all the primary edge but there was definitely a thought that
• 16:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: I want to say we could have hoped could have done better in ADX as my first thought.
• 16:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: As I felt we had made promises to the X-Men audience, we had been quite fulfilled with her.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: As we met, she was a big deal, she was a big deal, but it wasn't quite what we had promised to be in some level even.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because the end of the night, especially Cyclops ended up taking that control, some degree, and ended up sort of passive-tensing her a bit.
• 16:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that was in my head on one level.
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: And also when I came back, a lot of her is just like coming back and seeing where they'd left it.
• 17:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like, what the story is here?
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: What have been done?
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: I like hope is kind of the face of the five, which I great job for her, you know, she looks small groups of people.
• 17:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going biblical here, but the five are kind of her twelve of parcels in there.
• 17:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: I hit the apostles once before, you know, the apostles were like, uh, generation of hope people as well.
• 17:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: I kind of wish the five of the six then I could really lean into that.
• 17:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: But I also thought she's been way too nice.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: But not in that kind of order, she's not way too nice.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: She's been quiet, but hope is like, shall we say, not necessarily a quiet person.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: So the idea always, I hope getting a bit prickly.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's interesting.
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, you know, especially because these are the means of production, you know, that's power.
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: And if I'm doing a book about power and politics and good power, the idea of this thing which it's based upon, someone's got to be that.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that's kind of where we're starting, we came from, and also on sub-so, let's take this room.
• 17:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: And you sort of see the, you know, the approach and the truth, trangenitally, because the other third thing I knew is, when Kukura ends, whether the Kukura area is, which would I know you would have to head towards, the resurrection will go away.
• 17:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm aware, I was aware that, you know, anything else could have stayed.
• 17:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: The island public maybe could have stayed.
• 18:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: But like resurrection as a state, it's probably would have to change, because I couldn't see any way more of it will keep that, just because it's not a new state as far as long as that's true.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I had to find a way to make the resurrection go away.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: And at least part of that story is me realising.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, the way to save as many people as possible is it's all hopes the X factor.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: If you know, otherwise we'd have to kill a load of other people.
• 18:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: We've got to establish that resurrection is something different to normal kind of like just cloning and also like there's something that makes it magic and powerful and always hoping.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I also established that I established that other people caught copy her ability correctly, you know, and that means they just died.
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, then explicitly that there's the bit, you know, I have sort of, I have that whole section.
• 18:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: And if I don't know, I'm saving everyone apart from hope and it ends up becoming that, especially because I need the Phoenix was probably going to come into it.
• 18:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like that kind of felt very natural.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in my head, the kind of the Phoenix is, um,
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, this is, you see who the question is.
• 18:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: This is the our human thing.
• 18:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's the poetry of it all.
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: You end up sold digging at the Alice on I view like Kurt, like Kurt can really just notice and ties it together.
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: I love you as our poetry continuity.
• 18:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'll notice it all, explores it all, lives it all and kind of makes it sing.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I'm somebody who just the fucking work.
• 19:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, and that kind of cousin that like, oh no, I want to take the seriously and try to see what's there.
• 19:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I want to destroy our faith and belief and community and the new and hope and being kind of a body of that in that kind of like, and I'm not somebody who believes in anything.
• 19:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: But I think across the heart, the largest scale of like my work and especially with hope and exodus, you see this fame of belief there, you know, and what even like exodus is wrong about many things.
• 19:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: This is wrong about everything.
• 19:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's about perception and the idea.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: So yeah, it felt really meaningful to take home, give her the big beat.
• 19:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: I felt we felt promised, you know, it basically the Phoenix is always a story, which felt like it.
• 19:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's the now, I'll have the idea of like, what would measure, go, that's the now giving idea of the meeting of like, oh, it's the birth of the Phoenix.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's, oh yeah, that seems a big enough thing to justify anything to cover.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, so I was gonna ask this question in a minute, but let's go here now.
• 19:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: What is the Phoenix force, Karen Gillin?
• 19:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Good question.
• 19:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Let's try it like, I think, yeah, it's powerful.
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: I did with the Phoenix Force and I think they're the rest of the room did as well.
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: I wanted to create mystery and I mean religious mystery.
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, the idea like there's a contradiction in here about, you know, where to start by just the end and also crossing it slowly beyond their own or ability to comprehend.
• 20:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not what I don't understand.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's that I want the story to be bigger than that.
• 20:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: In some ways, it's the, I just anything I said about this is I'm aware that it's all going to nap out of context and use it on Reddit or whatever.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I'm always quite twitchy over giving a straight answer to anything, because any straight answer is deliberately incomplete.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: It is the embodiment of anything which I think is made to them and made them in the widest metaphorical site.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's how I see it.
• 20:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting to me.
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I grew up religious and I would listen, I'm not at all now, but I would listen.
• 20:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: I've always got a straight Catholic support.
• 20:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was a great Mormon.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: different realities, but very similar.
• 20:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I would listen to a lot of kind of like religious scholars posit on this, right?
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if you think of a Christ as like a God character wielding a God power and you have the God head.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you know, God is in this guy Christ is the son of God.
• 20:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the Holy Spirit is that thing that dwells in each of us, but it's also everywhere at the same time.
• 21:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Phoenix Force, as you guys were writing it, and it's not always this way, is that thing that dwells in all of us, right?
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the end of Krikoa, where all the mutants are joining together and they're forming the Phoenix Force by this kind of shared idea of consciousness, it gave very much like the old light of Christ's lectures that I would listen to as a kid.
• 21:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: but then like a gene wielding the phoenix that's her taking all of that energy and then pushing it forward.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: But it also seems to be kind of a manifestation of gene specifically as her ultimate goal.
• 21:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also is a cosmic building black in the universe.
• 21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's all of those things.
• 21:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yes.
• 21:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I think I think all those of them interpretations of it, I think.
• 21:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think one of my things that I think I've got this was trying to corner, but like, even the fact this is the end of the phoenix's life cycle kind of implies whether phoenix is a bit like mad at all the times we've ever met.
• 21:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, definitely all those things.
• 21:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think and that's actually why I think um extra sense of get excess is mostly wrong stuff, but actually it's quite a couple of mapping some of these concepts onto his own slightly warp fit Christian theology and that's kind of the point as in what like it's for me it was like
• 22:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think about the parable, the elephant's laws, you know, that kind of, not parable, but you know, the everyone's touching the Phoenix and you know, it's definitely the embodiment of all mutants as they say, touching a bit of the Phoenix.
• 22:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's it, because by definition, this big extra dimensional being is big of an us and we're going to be able to comprehend its fullness, I guess.
• 22:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's how I fail, anyway.
• 22:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's a tendency in comic, I mean, your continuity guy.
• 22:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: So in some ways, it's pushing against that.
• 22:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: But in some ways, majesty, it has to be bigger than our continuity.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's actually kind of the feeling that we're on a vote.
• 22:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: The cosmic is not just the facts of it, I guess.
• 22:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's kind of the feeling anyway.
• 22:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I mean, the fantastic for jump around all the different homes and they're going to all these places.
• 22:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's the microverse and there's the macroverse, but then when they hit that kind of cosmic house of ideas, and it's Jack Kirby as God sitting there creating things with a paintbrush.
• 22:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think there's there's a certain level of kind of majesty and reverence that you have to have with all of that, but when you make hell and heaven is like playable realms in the video game that comics, it's always a crazy thing.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're another writer and I I've interviewed so many writers who are good at this piece taking a particular character who has a long shared history and then telling a certain story with them and I I could do this with a dozens and dozens of characters that you're written but during your time on uncanny X men in the post utopia era you got to take the characters of Colossus and magic magic
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Magic has recently been resurrected, the dark child is like fully integrated into her form, and Colossus has adopted the power of the juggernaut, and is becoming this tortured figure, his heart kind of tingeed with rage, and then the story you tell, where she did all of this to kind of teach him a lesson, if you will.
• 23:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're releasing this just after Colossus must on my show, but talk about your use of the character's peoter and Eliana, and what made that relationship special for you to explore.
• 23:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: Firstly, thank you.
• 23:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, you pick up some, um, when I'm writing my characters, I do think of them in stories.
• 23:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: In some ways, it's like, I'm sort of jokes, isn't it?
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, no, the X-Men was canceled after that final panel of the Xavier in prison.
• 23:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, and it's a joke, obviously.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: But it's also not a joke.
• 23:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: It might have that's the end of the X-Men.
• 23:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think, and the same way all my characters, it's like, if this is the end of that arc, this is the end of their novel, and someone else will probably pick up and do their own stuff, but I'm trying to do an aesthetically closed story.
• 24:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that says something meaningful about the characters.
• 24:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: And of course, occasionally I write the sequel, but over in the, the, with Loki, I did an, the end of journey to mistress a hard end for Loki.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I write the sequel.
• 24:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, which is a, a completely different take on it and building in different ways.
• 24:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in some ways, being a work for horror writer for me is that challenge.
• 24:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: I said, oh, no, so I'm not just in a proper ending.
• 24:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: Now you pick up an, an implied status quote.
• 24:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: So with magic and classes that I was reading, it was, it was there, wasn't it?
• 24:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, several sort of books and it knew me.
• 24:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's my bright so long time.
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, they're well-did.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you mean it was amazing.
• 24:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: I read it with an amazing arc.
• 24:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think it was incredibly pummeling.
• 24:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was a lot going on.
• 24:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was incredible.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a beautiful run.
• 24:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, let's real book character backbone.
• 24:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: For me, it was like, I don't think people quite took what magic had done quite seriously.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, and it's one of his bits like, you know, magic has got a soul back, which is good.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: But she's done things before, you know, that's the thing that's rolefulness.
• 24:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: She's done all things where she didn't have a soul.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: And now she's a soul.
• 24:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: She can feel regret for it in that kind of way.
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: And so like, that's an awful, you know, I might the person did the crime.
• 25:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's the, you know, that's that things going on.
• 25:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I just saw this awful story about self-harm.
• 25:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, it's one of the things that in my head also, I don't know, no one picked up the story ended online.
• 25:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then they were next time people saw classes and magic they were back together.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was all okay again.
• 25:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in my head it's like the implied next story is at some point.
• 25:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's the closet goes, I love you anyway.
• 25:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: I know who you are and I love you.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, that's the kind of, that's my fanfic version.
• 25:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: But that's the kind of like especially because the closet side of the story's closest seemed to be very happy to die for people and very hard to live for people.
• 25:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's the thing that I always tend I was trying to do stories about self-sacrifices and the limitation of.
• 25:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: I did a book called The Week in Devine over at Image.
• 25:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's what Karen talked about.
• 25:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: Really a brilliant book.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 25:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, excellent fans.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think we're like, it's very sober and a lot of people making it.
• 25:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: But specifically, a countable Dionysus, he just gives people forever for, and eventually burns out and he can't be there for people when they need them because he's already given stuff to other people.
• 25:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like, you know, there's a limit to what terrorism can do without actually betraying the people who need you.
• 25:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's kind of what the class of story was about, you know, classes for my eyes.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: Red, you know, he, you know, he, you know, he, he, how he died by testing himself.
• 26:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, you know, all those kind of those things, he sees his masculinity in a very real way.
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: And this way, which isn't necessarily good, it's very hard to be with classes for various reasons.
• 26:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's a story about that.
• 26:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: And she uses his incredible kindness and self-sacrificing nature as a lesson to teach.
• 26:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm not worth saying, don't sacrifice yourself for me.
• 26:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's a cool stuff home.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: These two characters are unique in the X-Men world, and they have a different spin, but I always think of queerness when I'm reading X-Men characters.
• 26:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Colossus is the heart of a poet, the heart of a painter, who if he's allowed to develop, that is on rate, but he is forever the proletariat.
• 26:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is forever the person pushing himself toward the greater good, sacrificing everything.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Where magic to me is very much the character, it's innocence lost.
• 26:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: How do you carry the trauma of something that was taken from you?
• 26:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when you put these two characters next to each other, and Colossus is going to sacrifice anything, and she just wants to have her pain realized.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a brilliant journey.
• 26:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you do this with so many of your characters in this era, becoming the Xavier figure, right?
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like this one becomes the father.
• 26:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many places we can take it, but I'm always so impressed with writers who can definitely take a character story, but also still leave the playing pieces out there for other writers to pick up on.
• 27:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's why I love your writings so much, because you put it in characters.
• 27:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: What was the magic line?
• 27:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: There were no snowflakes in hell.
• 27:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: I remember I had that idea.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: I was actually a mobile somit.
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: Last day of the summit, I wasn't getting much from it, as they were often ever stuff.
• 27:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I was just on new plane.
• 27:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: I had that lot.
• 27:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: I just went outside, Nikola, I've got this line.
• 27:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's where we end it.
• 27:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's that kind of occasion.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's good.
• 27:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: Riding is really good when it's good.
• 27:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, I'm going to take you through a couple of side things away from the X-Men very briefly before we come back into the curricula era.
• 27:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is one as a reader that I ended up feeling very baffled by, and I'm going to presume that there was a certain amount of editorial influence, as you can share whatever you like here.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: You launched a volume of Iron Man, which brought the Arnold Stark story very much to the playing field.
• 27:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Iron Man had just been revealed to be a doppel.
• 27:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: by Howard and Maria, and there was this huge arc about Iron Man's family, his parentage, that ultimately left me as a reader feeling like, wait, what?
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: His dad was who, and his mom was who?
• 28:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, obviously, that was a weird time in my life.
• 28:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, my life basically, my dad was dying, so there's a lot, so I was doing an adventure at the same time.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just last my father, too.
• 28:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know what that's like.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm sorry.
• 28:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, that's... No, it's okay.
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you.
• 28:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: So, there's a lot coming on.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: So, I look back at that period with somewhat weirdly.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: And Iron Man was one of these runs which, of all my major runs that marvel is the one I'm least fond of.
• 28:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: And not because I take it's bad.
• 28:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think the amount of work I put in that is just isn't on the page.
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's very, like, the advantages I did at the same time.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's a lot of work, but you can sort of see the book.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, it's a book with people really like.
• 28:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, Iron Man was so much stuff and it's just not the comic I was trying to do for various reasons, some of my fault, some of the people's faults.
• 28:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's still epic, and it begins in the deep mysteries and Arno and the lore.
• 28:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: People are just like, it's always a bit so I don't want to be sued down there, because I know a lot of people like it, as they kind of get this sort of thing.
• 28:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's some compliments of book at you.
• 28:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: You always, you know, you never say, well, I think it sucks, because I don't know if I think it sucks.
• 28:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: I always think it made just, but it's like me having weird feelings about that.
• 28:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's very hard for me to separate how I feel about that book for my life around it at the time, you know what I mean?
• 29:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: The reason.
• 29:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's going to do real twice over that I originally had an idea for Iron Man, which was ended up being used by Anne wrote it for the fake or frontier.
• 29:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the idea is basically I want to do a dead one on the moon.
• 29:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to do Iron Man as a sheriff on a realistic moon based, like kind of doing it hard science, very, you know, really about space, but they're kind of much more grounded way than Iron Man usually is done.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then the idea came up with some it, which was, or she's sticking on the guardians.
• 29:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: And you can't have Iron Man on the guardians when he's also doing this.
• 29:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: You can't have doing hard-side fiction over here and Guardian can't be sci-fi action over here.
• 29:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that run disappeared and I probably should have quit that.
• 29:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: Not a bad way to cut it.
• 29:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh no, no, I'm already but in my head it's like I like solving problems.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I have an idea.
• 29:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, yes.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: Let's do fun space adventures.
• 29:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: So at first five issues, I sort of do this Montreal a bit.
• 29:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: He goes into space at the end of the thing.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I get asked, hey, it's the fifty of anniversary.
• 29:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: Was it fifty?
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: Probably fifty.
• 29:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's really good to do the second arc about earth.
• 29:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: And of course, at this point my brain goes, I swear, basically.
• 29:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: So, I've just got into space and I've got to do a story about earth.
• 29:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then I'm walking through Dublin Airport, I think, it's all I'm flying to Dublin.
• 30:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I have the unless Tony stops me laying in, and that's, of course, I have that idea after getting this an anger.
• 30:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then I stop and play a little bit more, and it simply becomes an interesting story to make, because it's like, well, what's one of the worst things that for Tony's the idea, so it plays the idea that Tony is implanted by it.
• 30:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it does, that's not a truth.
• 30:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, but the idea Tony has to come to understand that oh, I'm I'm I'm I'm I'm a constructed human like he's an I you know, and that absolutely intact Tony self by densely in all these multiple ways and the story becomes you go through there and then sure it's oh no it's not true Tony isn't no Tony's adopted because of his other reasons and it's a big story and I wanted to use our know because we're heading towards twenty twenty so
• 30:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm a question of Roddy's things and the rough, I think the idea of a solid, and especially my thinking, this is something I always try to do in my runs is, oh yeah, I'm at big place, but I don't break any, I'm trying not to break anything.
• 30:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's one of these things that I don't think make it totally adopted.
• 30:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's something that no one needed to mention that ever again.
• 30:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's one of those kind of things.
• 30:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: I didn't, you know, I know you still got a, the solid parents.
• 30:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: He's still got an extremely strange relationship, but then he still was trying to live up to them.
• 30:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know what I mean?
• 31:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: But it's still like that you can, if it was more successful, it could clearly be compelled to pop there.
• 31:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, I mean, I was, I kept waiting for it at the time, like, the Mandarin to be revealed as for his father or something.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, yeah.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: I don't, I'll see.
• 31:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: And, um, I'm drawing picks up a random event different ways as well.
• 31:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: But it's the only thing to like, I'm like, oh, man, it's, yeah.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think there's interesting stories here, but also it doesn't tie anyone's hands after me if they don't want to.
• 31:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I did have a different ending of that whole arc.
• 31:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, you know, I left it to twenty five, because they wanted to.
• 31:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: In fact, I was going to go to what became Superior's Iron Man.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: That was originally my idea.
• 31:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: But I had a very different way of games to appear Iron Man.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: Which was the basic plot was you can sort of see a ghost a bit because I was kind of working with Rick heading into access.
• 31:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: There was kind of a Iron Man as a crucially suspicious of Arnold doing something and if we have that he we eventually was oh no it's not Arnold is the problem Tony's doing stuff without realizing it like whenever Tony's asleep he's building stuff
• 31:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I know ends up essentially sacrifice himself, the end of all this arc, and it becomes, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's becoming a fabulous sacrifice, becoming a good, that's where it ends up going, and it leads to someone much more like, oh no, twenty, twenty as in the, the original comics.
• 32:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's not always this week, we turn this guy who is his brother into a monster, and he, because he's, and kind of time he's responsible.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Another example of fully realized potential, and we won't go on this tangent today, but Arno as a disabled character who allowed to shine at the level he should be able to shine is quite incredible, right?
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we've had a lot of disability awareness conversations on the show, but we probably will never do an Arno Stark episode on an X-Men-Fod guest.
• 32:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's a bit of a rage, shouldn't it?
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
• 32:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not just, yeah, that's the thing.
• 32:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: I look at that thing.
• 32:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, we couldn't, there's so much stuff in there that we could have made it work, but we didn't.
• 32:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it was falling, but it could have been better.
• 32:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, maybe I had a certain point.
• 32:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: You came out as queer, which is your own journey and all of us do.
• 32:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then a lot of your writing turned very queer as well, which I've always a huge fan of.
• 32:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for me, it begins with young Avengers, which is this kind of jokeie, like, here's this new generation of people dealing with this boomer energy of everything before literally fighting an entity called Mother.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: And you got to bring the character David Elaine, prodigy into the book, along with this great cast of people, beginning the long running joke that Kate Bishop never dates anyone who is straight, which is delightful to me.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to talk about your own coming out process and how that influenced your writing?
• 33:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then I'd love to hear about your work with prodigy.
• 33:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: It sort of states that, like, I think I, I'm not sure, but I will be out now if it was at the end of inches.
• 33:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I mean that, and I kind of like, you know, I'm married to, I'm, you know, I've been dumbly, I've been dumbly, you know, I'm mainly attracted to women.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, all these kind of, it's one of these things that I don't need to come out in that way.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's always, and I hate taking conversation, which other if you can't party to, you know what I mean?
• 33:33
  [SPEAKER_07]: This isn't my, you know, I hate being a spotlight on me in that way.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the fans, if I'm doing this fucking story, they have to be.
• 33:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's one of the things that I felt especially when photogrammers during the same time if these stories are becoming increasingly queer and there's always I think there's been quite a heavy quick subtext on a lot of my stuff over the years.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's I remember like when Margaret Danick came out as well and it was kind of like, what did you think was one of these fucking stories you love us?
• 33:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: Um, so yeah, those two things were tied together.
• 33:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in fact, simple.
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm slightly agree that I felt I had to come out because I was doing these stories.
• 34:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, I mean, I think there's, you know, that there was a bit, I mean, that bugs me.
• 34:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because that's a slightly bittersweet answer.
• 34:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, and my favorite straight people by the way, if we're using straight in italics are our straight guys, particularly your guys that can admit that they find certain guys hot stuff.
• 34:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, no, no.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's more than that.
• 34:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: I said this, the way I normal describe it is like, I hate feeling pretentious.
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know what I mean?
• 34:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: So like, that's the same time as I also feel deceptive.
• 34:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: If I, if I don't admit to it, I don't know where I'm deliberately not telling people something.
• 34:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's, you know what I mean?
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Like, yeah, yeah.
• 34:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that's always been my kind of thing.
• 34:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: And David, in young Avengers specifically, a story about that.
• 34:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the kind of the metaphor was trying to use.
• 34:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I think I did a better job when I came back to the metaphor when I wrote it for the, the Pride Special a few a couple years ago.
• 34:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah, that did another David story.
• 34:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: But the idea of like, his powers are, you learn to know about yourself more by knowing of a people.
• 34:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: And David's powers are really like knowing of a people.
• 34:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: And he's understanding of other people's sexualities, making them understand his sexuality bad.
• 34:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: I remember like, I don't remember.
• 34:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: I remember when he came up with me and I was talking about this year's beforehand.
• 34:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: And we sort of ensued over that stuff.
• 35:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: And those conversations of people like Alan, other people, allow me to tranquilite my feelings better.
• 35:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's kind of what David was about in that way.
• 35:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: Even Avengers was always aggressively the metaphor.
• 35:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: I want to put them out of the way up in the mix.
• 35:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, and the lot about David's story is a coming out story.
• 35:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, it's the kind of like, and in some ways, you could, what does the, um, Dr. Patriots represent?
• 35:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: And what is the Patriots?
• 35:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that's an mystery I never really answer and deliberately so, but the kind of, you know, it's, um, it's basically a machine, it's that this thing that's going around, saying to annoy a little bit more the time.
• 35:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not exactly so okay.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, it seems to be a parallel of the youth energy, right?
• 35:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like here's what that looks like unrestrained.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 35:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: Also, that's a hundred percent of the book is it's like that.
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, also it's quite important for us with your adventures, and that we didn't tap.
• 35:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was a majority queer safety type, but we didn't tell anyone until the shoe, fifteen.
• 35:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's because for multiple reasons, and at one of them is we didn't want more than to do a press release.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: and we also didn't want to sell it off the back of that.
• 35:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, we bought people, you know what I mean?
• 35:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, not going to be cheap in it because obviously there's really great books that advertise it's queer.
• 35:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: But in some ways it's like, no, we should do it because it's a good thing to do by itself.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the way, especially with young Avengers where it's structured, it's written to be reread.
• 36:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: So you'll know to stuff you go for it again and again and again.
• 36:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: So like, I was really mentioning at the end, makes you re-examine the rest of the book structuring.
• 36:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, yeah, obviously.
• 36:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, another one that's very special to my heart and I loved by the way y'all love young Avengers.
• 36:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: They corresponded with my own coming out process.
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: It really changed my understanding as a therapist of youth and I was a young father at the time like I really loved it, but one of the things about the so many people who show an Avengers as part of the coming out story as it is it's where it's be not used to it, but like it
• 36:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: So, oh, your advantage is a big part of me coming out, or a part of it's so much useful to me, and that's incredibly good.
• 36:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, because so many X-Men fans are like, oh, I had to read the mystique destiny relationship between the lines to see a queerness up front and on the page in that way, and such a bold and beautiful way was wonderful.
• 36:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's that panel of America at the last issue.
• 36:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's America basically looks at the redesigns and says, you're not that straight.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I like that explicitly is like, that page can be taken various ways.
• 37:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: But that particular bit is it's the reaching the hand out to the reader and saying, I see you and I love you.
• 37:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, that was a hundred percent what the book is.
• 37:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, and the fact that some people have got that and took it as part of the round journey.
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it was an important book for me as well.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, when I'm writing stuff like poetry, I've never said, I'm not, you know, I've never said that land.
• 37:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know what I mean?
• 37:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: I absolutely did.
• 37:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, I've never said this out loud because so much stuff is just inside your head until it isn't.
• 37:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we won't get lost in the lore of the setup of this question, but just to give listeners, there was a there was a Thor book happening at the time.
• 37:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a giant revelation that a
• 37:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Spawn character from Image Comics, where you can get Angela, who Marvel has now acquired the rights to has become Thor's sister, and then they do a big push for Angela to come out as a featured character in the comics.
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: You take this story, and as a therapist, I'm in my mid- forties now, but I've been working with the trans community primarily for the last several years.
• 37:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: The trans community is beloved to me.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: They are my favorite people in the entire world, the entire population.
• 38:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know that journey, I love the people that I know so envelopedly.
• 38:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: You created the character, Sarah, as this incredible trans character.
• 38:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's done with such nuance.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: So often trans characters, we focus on their suffering, right?
• 38:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: But here's this fully realized person who isn't a loving, wonderful relationship.
• 38:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: And at the time, that was not done very often.
• 38:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: In fact, we're in this kind of anti-trans world now.
• 38:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're seeing kind of a recidivism of those stories in some ways.
• 38:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But do you want to talk about the relationship you created between Sarah and Angela?
• 38:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're journey through hell for each other.
• 38:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's wonderful.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like more great.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, I must admit, this is such a really intense part of my life as I was doing Wickedive a lot there.
• 38:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: My dad had died by this point.
• 38:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was like the year after that.
• 38:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: So everything is intense.
• 38:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm my memory of shock for that year.
• 38:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, however, I genuinely can't remember whether it was me or Margaret had the idea.
• 38:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: Well, let's say it's both with us.
• 38:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: The part of the actual background of the Angela's, the angels had these kind of male angels.
• 38:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think, are they called the anchorites?
• 38:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: That sounds incredible.
• 38:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yeah.
• 38:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's certainly like, where's it?
• 38:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: We've got society of all men and all women in these very determined roles.
• 39:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: Khan, I mean, when you've got a society that's stripped of your reach, if you like me and Margaret you go, well, what about the exceptions to that?
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not everyone is going to accept that role that they're born into.
• 39:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's of course a great transmitter for.
• 39:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I think after you know, it was kind of why not, you know, I mean, and it definitely came from me.
• 39:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then let's put this transformer in the middle of this love story.
• 39:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: Let's put you in the in the classic classic, you disease kind of myth as an and your girlfriend is going to go to hell to save you.
• 39:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, and you're as a transformer or worth, you will work being loved in a way, which is on epic scale.
• 39:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that was always the desire.
• 39:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, part of what I like characters who's identity don't overlap with mine, I don't tend to do what I try not to do stories to defend the mentally about their identity.
• 39:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: However, what I quite like tries to do is take characters with an identity over the mine and try to write as a filter over and over a story.
• 39:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know what I mean?
• 39:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And of course, I'm like, like, like butter.
• 39:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: had to praise it.
• 39:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like Cassandra and Wickediff, another trans character.
• 39:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like when she gets transformed into a god, she's the only character keeps her real name, as opposed to taking on the god's name.
• 39:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because for multiple reasons, but primarily, as a trans woman, she's forced a lot more about her name and identity than anyone else.
• 40:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, and that is an example of how the filter changed it.
• 40:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: But at the same time, hashtag story isn't about big trans.
• 40:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: Instead, we're still a story isn't about being trans after a certain point.
• 40:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: Her origin is about being trans.
• 40:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: Great.
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: But we don't really do much for her origin.
• 40:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, I don't like that phraseology because let me be quick.
• 40:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her origin's not about being trans.
• 40:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: Her origin is learning to love and accept herself and be fully her in a system that tells you that he's trans and is.
• 40:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: But a queer journey is not about like, look, I'm gay.
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's about like, I get to me.
• 40:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I love myself.
• 40:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like, I definitely like the more we went into it, the more I view our actual work as Margaret in the words.
• 40:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: But I think the first song I do myself is kind of the architect and then Margaret was doing with me.
• 40:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the second song, Margaret was which was the witch hunter one, which was Margaret as the primary writer and me as a support writer.
• 40:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the third arc, I helped with the setup, which was Andrew and Hell, but like, uh, Margaret rolled the whole thing.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: Right.
• 40:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: So there was, I kind of think Margaret deserves the, the, the Sarah that they found in love with.
• 40:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think Margaret, at least, don't deserve at least, sixty five plus percent.
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: Not that we're gonna break it up like that, but yeah, I was happy.
• 41:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: I mean, you know, she was a meaningful character.
• 41:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was quite early for Transwrap and that way.
• 41:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well, and there was a story about there was a story about Angela and Sarah just last month in and Marvel Voices Pride once again, right?
• 41:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's still, there's still on the tip of her tongue right now.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: I was about to mention, I've read it.
• 41:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was lovely.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: I got forward, but it got forward to me by the writer.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's really nice to see, you know, especially at the end of what we've more Sarah to come.
• 41:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: It'd be really nice to, so I was playing multiple snap and Sarah was a really good card.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's jump to Krikoa, because I know that's more listeners are going to be most excited.
• 41:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are living in an era and I'm going to set this up very quickly.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are queerness, at least in America, started to feel more safe.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We started to see more rights.
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now, under this kind of fascist regime that we're living under currently, we're seeing a strong recidivism.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's an on parallel of what's happening in the comics because Krikoa was this place where mutants could be fully themselves.
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now they're living in hiding and in danger all over again.
• 41:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: People are still grieving Kriko a few years later, even though the current books are excellent and the creators are excellent.
• 41:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know a lot of them personally, which is a wonderful thing.
• 42:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you got to jump into Krikoa to tell some pretty incredible arcs.
• 42:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I always love your way of storytelling and moral experiment.
• 42:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was such a joy for him to back and then this epic insane inclusion.
• 42:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I conclude, so I have four questions from Krikoa for you.
• 42:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even though we could talk about so many things from the destiny to Exodus and everything else.
• 42:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Number one, how did you come up with the concept of the Moira engines?
• 42:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so delightfully sci-fi, and it fucks with my head in the weirdest way.
• 42:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like, I'm gonna say it's like, I kind of, you know what I'm saying?
• 42:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: I occasionally think the more flexible it is.
• 42:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I'm incredibly performance-act.
• 42:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: I like performance-act, it's really me and John.
• 42:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: As a John was trolling that I should write to the master for like online for like about a clear year.
• 42:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: I also was reading X van and loving it, because it's great stuff.
• 42:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: It kind of came from the core idea, I kind of got for sinister.
• 42:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like when I rebooted him, it's almost entirely when I was first on the box.
• 42:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: I had a lot of, it was about Victorianism, it's about imperialism, it's about a lot of stuff.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: But the best throw I idea, and it's like the throw I idea, it's the backbone is what sinister does he takes mutants powers and then turns them into things.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: No words, it's like he will object to find mutants.
• 43:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: As he loves mutants, he thinks they're amazing, amazing sorts of parts.
• 43:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: So that it's the, I mean, one of the ones that did an auto is the I boy plus cyclops equals floating drone, which is covered in eyeglass.
• 43:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, that kind of like, okay, how are you?
• 43:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it's kind of like, it's the opposite of the muted circuits.
• 43:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's very powerful and metaphorical community.
• 43:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: No, it's still a muted circuit by me that I'm a shit, it's about the opposite.
• 43:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's like a corporate entity turning you to a thing.
• 43:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, and that's why sin is as horrible.
• 43:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, he puts jokes on it.
• 43:28
  [SPEAKER_07]: The idea, oh no, you are just your gifts.
• 43:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: You're, you're not a person, you're a mutant.
• 43:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's that.
• 43:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's almost like that all the fall.
• 43:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's really all such since the logs, but it's more than anyone else.
• 43:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: But you just think the paper, you know, I'd like, anyway, boy by the bottom.
• 43:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, it's a, it's Joel Gray from Cabaret as the MC, but he's not just putting out a show.
• 43:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's also stealing your DNA.
• 43:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, God, yeah.
• 43:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, for, for, but get to the boy ranch.
• 43:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And so one of my things I do when I've got my sinister brain on is I look at mutants and work at him.
• 43:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: Okay, if I was an evil scientist, what could I do with this music gift?
• 43:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's what I looked at a lot more, and I went, okay, how am I clothing it?
• 43:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then you've got multiple safeguards.
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: And the idea of like, you know, using a working out how the, and then he basically saves comes his way through the model universe.
• 44:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: I like, what I originally had the idea was much more powerful.
• 44:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: And when we were pitching it, everyone liked, but be, it was much more, that probably needs limitations.
• 44:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: And he's right.
• 44:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: And you know, you know, it was right.
• 44:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it led to the situation.
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: Of course, the only thing I really love about lights for that idea is,
• 44:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: Even issue one, we just re-eventually see as the form of his face as destiny plays it.
• 44:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: So the whole kind of story became about this shudder war between destiny and sinister, as an evil could really admit they know the of one knows.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: And also too, it made me really great as the kill sinister dozens of times.
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like it was sort of these things that all the way in my head it was like I'm in a kill sinister whole bunch because I've got this machine that allows me to kill him as many times as I like.
• 44:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: So yeah, that's what the idea came from.
• 44:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: How could I take more of this idea of John this amazing big idea about how can we set the timeline and how would a super villain fuck with it?
• 44:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's where it came from.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I know you've described it as kind of the video game with the save points and the ability to reset.
• 44:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have the whole launch into sins of sinister, which we don't have time for.
• 44:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: But you take this and sci-fi concept and make it crazy.
• 44:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Another concept that gets really just flipped on its head.
• 45:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cosmic stuff, this high concept philosophical stuff is a reader.
• 45:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: I only enjoy when it's done deftly well.
• 45:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: When writers don't do it well, I'm just like, why?
• 45:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Why did we have to go there?
• 45:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: For example, famously, what, famously?
• 45:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've said my least favorite thing at Marvel in history is the Council of CrossTime Tangs.
• 45:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: All the technical conquerors from different universes made it a lot.
• 45:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then we see that kind of idea with the TVA and Loki that's done really well, right?
• 45:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you guys did this thing where you created kind of playing cards and esters and then did this giant enigma sinister blowing over the entire space time construct, which is
• 45:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: The god stuff we were talking about earlier, I would love to hear some of the conversations about how the four sinister idea came up.
• 45:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And what the fuck is in a nigma, Karen Gillin, for our readers who may struggle with high concept?
• 45:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, sin is basically.
• 45:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's a role as you are, Jason, I've got to tease the man because a nigma was in my original pitch.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like I had the idea of this basically master sinister, because I understood the two things.
• 45:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: One, if the core was gonna end, we need to get the minions back on the top.
• 46:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: If the actual story is, cause the core is about, when Alice has drawn the story is probably too big to go into here, but it is a story about false dichotomies for me.
• 46:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: The idea that it's kind of about us and them, and the limitations of thinking about us and them, and where, and you know, essentially all of us and then to eventually to genocide.
• 46:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: You have to have a shared as otherwise, it just goes very badly.
• 46:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's, I think, drawn to take.
• 46:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: And sinister have always been a peer-alist, he already thinks like that.
• 46:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: So if the end game is, mutants will always lose in compared to dominions.
• 46:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's mostly a part of the one time when that's the take.
• 46:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: The real kind of thing for a super villain is, how can I become a dominion first?
• 46:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that was basically sinister.
• 46:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: The idea that, oh no, you can't beat the AI.
• 46:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: I've got to become the best AI before the AI does.
• 46:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's what I think of it.
• 46:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: And so that whole thing, all that what he does for all the cynicism is basically how can I do a thing to become a dominion and then become God essentially?
• 46:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's basically it.
• 46:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: The multiple cynicism's idea.
• 46:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: By the way, there's been multiple times on the show where I have older X-Men writers from like the eighties and nineties, and I'll tell them, okay, there's actually four senators.
• 46:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a hard club, and they're like, what the fuck?
• 47:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like every reaction is always delightful.
• 47:04
  [SPEAKER_07]: It is, and it probably is like, and then, Jerry, and I can't say why, but Jerry wanted a bit.
• 47:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: So he made a nervous sinister as a villain, and that became, oh, I've got these two bodies of power.
• 47:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Then, Sporia said, let's make full, want one free suit.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then that all kind of merged together.
• 47:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: And if it came, okay, each one of these is gathering, you know, if you're the image of sinister, well, the meta sinister is a cloning list of British cloning lists, gathering resources into Empire as in the amigma.
• 47:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: They can, so each one takes one bit of the multi universe like magic, so you know, that kind of stuff.
• 47:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: And then gather all the stuff and put it in the middle that makes a digger.
• 47:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's kind of the plot.
• 47:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: I guess I tell you the one that she's, I must say I think size, mother right, she's the one with more legs because she's no punitive, like she's the one who's most herself.
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I think, you know, we could have done more with all bits, I think, you know, for it's time.
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I'm sorry, I really like today.
• 47:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: I like, when I wrote stages to that one, I'm sure I like the idea of, like, everything he's interested in isn't he is, but still terrible.
• 47:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's this odd section of continuity in my brain.
• 47:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to write a bunch of like pre-X men's stories.
• 48:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's a number of characters who exist in the pre-X men world from sinister to apocalypse, but also these characters, Dr. Stasis and Orbistalara said mother righteous, as well as like the dark beast and sugar man who landed in the past, right?
• 48:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's all these insane mad scientists, like just fussing with mutant DNA.
• 48:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's so many crazy stories to tell in that realm.
• 48:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had this moment as a queer person.
• 48:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a convention locally called the uncanny experience.
• 48:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, when I was there last year, my very dear dear friend, Demento Martinez, who's the drag queen, did a number as mother righteous for a crowd that just cheered and cheered and cheered and cheered.
• 48:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then a drag king is like Wolverine came out and did a little strip.
• 48:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's like, it's a delightful time.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really fun.
• 48:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, Leah showed you some footage actually of this and it was, I could not be more delighted.
• 48:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: It looked astounding.
• 48:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was so, so fun.
• 48:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then here's what we'll kind of close by passing a few questions just for time sake.
• 48:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The epic end of Krikoa.
• 48:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: So often things just end, a book gets canceled, and there's no opportunity to really wrap things up, or you have to wrap up everything in one issue.
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sort of like the way Leo Williams had to end X-factor, so abruptly.
• 49:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And all those on-screen plot lines just got chunked together, you know?
• 49:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But with Cricola, and I know Tom Reward kind of came on and Jordan White was exiting, but there was time to wrap things up.
• 49:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had these books like X-Men forever and the rise of the house and the fall of the powers or whatever the Rubik's word called, where everything kind of got one epic conclusion and you got to really amplify things up.
• 49:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: The white hot room becomes like an active playable level and the hope summers are and the way the Phoenix and the Inigma are kind of the final big giant battle.
• 49:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Do you want to talk about what it was like to work on the conclusion of Krikoa, with this incredible team of people that you had assembled?
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: Thank you so much.
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: Honestly, I felt the responsibility, like, free phone responsibility, I think is the right of that.
• 49:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, one responsibility was just to the reader.
• 49:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, they've committed this long.
• 49:51
  [SPEAKER_07]: I would need to tie this together, too.
• 49:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: I felt a sort of responsibility to Josh and John, and that John has got this story.
• 49:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: And we've kind of gone a different direction in various places.
• 49:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: Can I bring it back to what I feel as some of the similar themes?
• 50:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: Not the same story, but some of the similar themes.
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: And can I do this?
• 50:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: And also, I'm writing this.
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: Sherry's writing this.
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's, I was writing a bit on the side.
• 50:09
  [SPEAKER_07]: There's multiple, multiple people whose books have lots that made promises, can I pay them off?
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: There was, I felt my responsibilities, my fraternity.
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: Let's have like, Legion, Legion becoming this big space gun at the end.
• 50:19
  [SPEAKER_07]: And you know, you know, I hope using Legion to, as a giant gun to hunt down the Phoenix, or whatever.
• 50:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: You're being another writer who does high concepts.
• 50:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, yeah, incredibly clever guy.
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: So they're the free levels of response, but that's what I was trying to measure and also so they're the responsibilities, but also how can I say this to the story?
• 50:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because it's got to be as one of those things, it's got to try to be a story.
• 50:39
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm really happy what we did.
• 50:41
  [SPEAKER_07]: I kind of wish we had two more episodes, you know like I wish X-Men forever was six instead of four and maybe maybe at the power of X of six issues instead of five if we had that little bit more space we would have had it would have been sat a bit better I think but I'm real really but I don't think I would have added any more scenes what I made to make the scenes longer
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, I would have much preferred to do like a big lesion boat battle, which was more than a couple of pages.
• 51:02
  [SPEAKER_07]: That kind of thing.
• 51:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: But oh my god, the art is such incredible work.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: That final issue after our case stepped over.
• 51:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: Lucy on a vacuum is like he came in on the last issue of rise of powers.
• 51:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: And he would not have worked without him.
• 51:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: He had he clearly, I mean, I wrote so many short cuts as I know we can do this save time because I do that what I'm aware when I'm asking ourselves to do something hard.
• 51:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm aware of the time.
• 51:21
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm actually, I'm essentially asking them to have it reduce their page right because their page takes twice as long to do.
• 51:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: They're the half as much money.
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, so as a writer, I'm always aware of what I'm asking and trying to balance it.
• 51:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: But Lucian just did it.
• 51:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: He just, he just went and drew every single X man from every single universe because he loves the X man.
• 51:35
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's kind of like the mind we've read at the end.
• 51:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: One of the reasons why we're doing it.
• 51:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because this is like, the car was just being born of love.
• 51:40
  [SPEAKER_07]: And you kind of, I'm really aware of what we're doing it, but ending it.
• 51:43
  [SPEAKER_07]: I've shown it ending it as well as possible.
• 51:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: Because it's one of the, well, if I didn't like this, but one of the upsetting things about it was, I don't think a colon lost.
• 51:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think a colon won.
• 51:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that, that juits the way it's from the ashes, followed.
• 51:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: It led people sort of go for the whole story thinking about it's going to be lost.
• 51:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I had no, there's more people that's almost certainly more beautiful life on and of the words of the start.
• 52:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: Kokoro still exists in a safe place where no one can blow it up.
• 52:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in ten years time, when anyone decides to cover his rights, they'll bring it back.
• 52:06
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, we're being very careful to sort of safe as much as we can at the end.
• 52:10
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I felt really happy with that.
• 52:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, it was work I'm really proud of working with a fascinating group of people.
• 52:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: And it was really, I occasionally think being an ex-menroist is a bit like being an ex-man in that you're forced against the world that hates you.
• 52:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: But with very little resources and you're trying to save it.
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I think that's what we did.
• 52:26
  [SPEAKER_07]: I felt like I was a real part of a team.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm really proud of that, everybody.
• 52:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: I've interviewed folks who have ended epic runs or epic shows and they're so much going on.
• 52:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can imagine the just sheer exhaustion you emerge from all of this with all the spreadsheets
• 52:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: all the collaborations, all the tabs open in the x-slacks, all the deep history, the comics and encyclopedias just stacked everywhere.
• 52:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now that a little time has passed, and I know you're still a very busy working professional, and you have a toddler, which is so
• 52:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, I have key dangers, I understand.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what's your thoughts on kind of cracoa as this kind of time period in your life with a little bit of reflection?
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's been interesting, Karen, as I'm asking you questions across history, as you map out your own journey, you know, here's the death of my father, here's this coming out process, here's the world changing.
• 53:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can see yourself in these works, I hope.
• 53:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But what's the microcoa mic?
• 53:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: Like, I think it was, I felt really good to be part of it.
• 53:18
  [SPEAKER_07]: I feel very strange because I feel like I came in a certain point.
• 53:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: And I was came in as the party was anything.
• 53:22
  [SPEAKER_07]: So I cut, cashy pause.
• 53:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: I almost wanted to lick, can we delete that last bit?
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm going to start again.
• 53:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: You didn't slide, I don't think that's relevant.
• 53:27
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think it's just really powerful forward looking comics in the, um, I think about it like as new X-Men, the Morrison thing in terms of like, immediately after new X-Men, it went much more conservative as a run, which is a fair way of doing this.
• 53:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: But all those ideas and new X-Men were brought back by Roy is in the next five to fifteen years, you know, because we all love Morrison.
• 53:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: You know, like, um, we just we picked me all that.
• 53:47
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's what I feel like in coals like this little test bed for the future.
• 53:50
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's kind of what at least won't necessarily really melt the X-Men.
• 53:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: You can, I don't like the, you, I don't often use the phrase in music metaphor because I don't think it's a metaphor because it's not one for one.
• 53:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not because honestly, you know, as queer people win or we don't have a eye blasts.
• 54:01
  [SPEAKER_07]: And even as a, you know, what the stories are with applicability, these stories often like what it feels to be like a pressed and various access, but like it's some ways, what one of the other reasons the X man is they're about the future, you know, I mean, they're about like the what can what can we be like a species if we're not afraid.
• 54:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's what I think a coals I look back and I think.
• 54:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's probably as good as work for higher comics can get.
• 54:20
  [SPEAKER_07]: And in some ways, it's that's one reason why I've gone back to create our own comics.
• 54:23
  [SPEAKER_07]: In that kind of like, I would like to do more like maybe as in a really like, I mean, that place where by the end of the crew, I was frustrated about the limitations.
• 54:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: Not that they stopped me doing anything.
• 54:32
  [SPEAKER_07]: But like, okay, there's some stories we're never going to have to tell pictures because they're with the X-Men.
• 54:36
  [SPEAKER_07]: And what can I do from the scratches where the power fantasy, the book I'm doing at the moment, to kind of came from, which is basically, okay, all those kind of stuff I loved about more selects men, can I do it from the ground up?
• 54:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: And that's where the book kind of came from in that way.
• 54:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's a bit like that.
• 54:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's why I look at the Cocoa as it told me to really love being part of a Shane.
• 54:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's not a bit that's long.
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's not a machine.
• 54:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's much more an anarchist commune.
• 54:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: That's the one thing about Cocoa.
• 54:57
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think as a then it'll slack went ran by Jordan.
• 54:59
  [SPEAKER_07]: It was absolutely a little pirate ship.
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_07]: So when it was thinking it was absolutely beautiful and it was slightly after my time before my time welfare.
• 55:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: But like Drunkic, I know people drawing the worst of COVID.
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_07]: That was an absolute lifeline for all those ex-med writers.
• 55:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Absolutely.
• 55:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_07]: Absolutely, it's the other.
• 55:16
  [SPEAKER_07]: So it's about people.
• 55:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: You have had to said we kind of became Gukura, which is nice to think.
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are just a lovely person, a brilliant writer, and it's been such a joy to connect with you today.
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you feel honored and seen by this interview, but I have been such a massive fan for such a long time.
• 55:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: What a joy to have you on the show.
• 55:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to wrap up here, Karen, I can't wait to read everything you're putting out.
• 55:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: I remain an incredible fan.
• 55:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: We didn't even talk about journey into mystery at all today, which is so good.
• 55:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's like something we didn't even touch on.
• 55:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to put this out on August the eleventh.
• 55:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everyone you can follow the show on Grey Malkin under score lane on Instagram.
• 55:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: I keep my own social media private because I kiddos care and you're welcome to follow me just ask.
• 55:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: The next episode of the show immediately after this is going to be a delve into a what if comic.
• 55:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: What if Wolverine led alpha flight?
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's an old mighty story.
• 56:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: My friend Simon Furman is rejoining me on that episode.
• 56:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my buddy Darrell Lawrence is back as well who just put out an alpha flight book.
• 56:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then stay tuned this episode and next we're going to be doing some script readings of old Captain Britain comics with an all-queer cast who are well-based in Scotland and England.
• 56:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's going to be a delightful time.
• 56:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: So stay tuned for the second half.
• 56:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I care and where can people find you online and is there anything you'd like to plug for mid August?
• 56:24
  [SPEAKER_07]: They're best twice to follow me online.
• 56:25
  [SPEAKER_07]: It's probably my newsletter, which is a Kiran-Gillan on button down.
• 56:29
  [SPEAKER_07]: So, like, just Google this.
• 56:30
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm on Instagram.
• 56:31
  [SPEAKER_07]: I post a lot of nonsense on my stories now, which I quite enjoy.
• 56:34
  [SPEAKER_07]: I'm on blue sky where I mainly do terrible puns.
• 56:37
  [SPEAKER_07]: They're the main ones.
• 56:38
  [SPEAKER_07]: My main book actually at the moment is a book called The Power Fancy, which I mentioned a minute.
• 56:42
  [SPEAKER_07]: The issue of eleven is gonna probably be out by August eleven.
• 56:44
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think.
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_07]: But, like, if you haven't read it, the first trades are out, the second trades are in September.
• 56:48
  [SPEAKER_07]: So, like, you can buy the boat for them and jump aboard.
• 56:49
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think if you lot max, let's stuff you will adore it.
• 56:52
  [SPEAKER_07]: But, I don't understand it.
• 56:53
  [SPEAKER_07]: I think it's really good.
• 56:54
  [SPEAKER_07]: Uh, in that kind of, um, it's not for noise this year.
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_07]: Uh, and yeah, you'll really got, oh my god, Kevin really is doing acts many stuff here.
• 57:00
  [SPEAKER_07]: We just got that and there's like, we actually had a proper sex scene in this issue, which is the last issue, which is the issue.
• 57:05
  [SPEAKER_07]: No issues and just now we're just going to have the sex scene.
• 57:08
  [SPEAKER_07]: Uh, the issue level has no sex scene, but it's still pretty good.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everything, everything is a little bit of a sex scene when you're reading a case.
• 57:14
  [SPEAKER_07]: Oh, Lord, thank you.
• 57:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay, thank you so much for your time and for the massive sharing of your talent.
• 57:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody stay tuned for the Captain Britain read just after this.
• 57:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll be right back.
• 57:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, everybody.
• 57:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thanks for sticking around for the second half of the Grey Malkin land podcast.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you enjoyed that interview with Kieran Gillin as much as I did.
• 57:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going to delve into a very unfamiliar world for V and that is into the world of Brian Braddock or Captain Britain.
• 57:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're going to begin and I'm going to go so obnoxious, maybe borderline offensive to our my guests today, but we're just going to delve right in.
• 57:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: So for our British listeners, and although a lot of their ladies and gents days and them's queens of drag cake true, say it as indastically as villains alike, you've tuned into the blue and grey moken lane podcast in Blania, we chuffed to bits today.
• 58:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've got no other than the one, the only sobrion bradik that's capin' written to you lots, joining us for a chinwag, so don't just sit there like a stun bullet grab your popcorn, crank up them here in trumpets if need be and prepare a laugh so hard, you'll blow the roof off your flat.
• 58:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cheers mates!
• 58:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't even know what most of those words meant, but I've put that together!
• 58:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And for our Scottish listeners.
• 58:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, wow.
• 58:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 58:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got to get it.
• 58:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is okay.
• 58:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 58:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I got a room to you, Bonnie Lads, Lasses, and lovely in-between.
• 58:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Whether you're a dozen drag queen and noble hero or a right wicked villain, you're all welcome here on the Green Walk and Lane podcast.
• 58:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then would you believe it?
• 58:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today we've got the very pride of Albion himself, Brian Braddock.
• 58:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey, that's Captain Flame and Britain, so did not fasc yourself.
• 58:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Grab a wee snack, give your all ears a boost if they need it and brace yourself tight life.
• 58:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So hard, you'll blow the killed clean offy.
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, I know that was much more Irish.
• 58:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wonderful.
• 58:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Wonderful.
• 58:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: No notes.
• 58:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I've drilled to welcome my friends to the show.
• 58:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Three of them brand new for a script reading of the first two issues of Captain Britain.
• 59:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk all about the origins of this series and just a little bit.
• 59:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Today I am your narrator.
• 59:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: My name is Chad Anderson and let me welcome my stunning and incredible voice actors.
• 59:15
  [SPEAKER_09]: Hi, my name is James Lee Campbell and I'll be playing Brian by the Captain Bitson.
• 59:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: Hello, I'm Ben here and I'll be reading Berlin the night and scientists Why my name is Robin Muffet and I'll be playing a Roma Lady of the Northern Skies.
• 59:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hello, my name is Giza Gobble and I'll be playing Joshua Strike the reverb.
• 59:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm Christian Smith on the replying Hugo Travis and the night these two issues are from late nineteen seventy six the series ran by monthly the first issue is just called Captain Britain in the second from the Holocaust
• 59:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: A hero!
• 59:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: These are both just eight page stories that we are going to get right into it and talk afterward.
• 59:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And here we go, I'm so excited to have you all here.
• 59:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: On the cover, it's a brand new magazine.
• 59:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: The lead story is Marvel's newest and greatest superhero Captain Britain.
• 1:00:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: His name flows on a white flag mock up in bold red letters.
• 1:00:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's in full color with a use, so you know it's England.
• 1:00:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the magazine features back up stories about the fantastic Ford and Nick Fury agent of shield.
• 1:00:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just reprints.
• 1:00:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: In the cover box we get an image of the masked Captain Britain.
• 1:00:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: His mask full black except for the red band over his eyes, a point extending upward toward his loose blonde hair.
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two red and white stripes that inlay points, giving a real union jack vibe.
• 1:00:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Around his neck a white amulet.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Below we get the heroes full look.
• 1:00:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: His suit is nearly fully red head to toe with an enormous golden lion on his chest, assembled in invoke's national pride, being the emblem of the royal arms of England.
• 1:00:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Called the golden lion peasant garden.
• 1:00:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It lunges with one paw raised, jaws open wide.
• 1:00:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: It appears on the traditional royal coat of arms associated with English royalty.
• 1:00:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: The irony, of course, there are no lions in England.
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain swings what appears to be a red and blue pool cue, knocking four men dressed like golden and green knights back.
• 1:01:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain also has the union jack symbol on his wrists.
• 1:01:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's a Larry Lieber cover.
• 1:01:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Two blurbs inform us that one, this is a very special origin issue.
• 1:01:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And two, there is a free Captain Britain mask inside the issue.
• 1:01:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: Cut it out yourself and paste it on your face.
• 1:01:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: We open the book.
• 1:01:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Since every hero's journey must start somewhere, ours opens in the remote vastness of the shaviot hills, just south of the Scottish border.
• 1:01:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, we seem to be starting in the middle of our tale, but there's a reason, a fantastic reason.
• 1:01:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look now, as Captain Britain grips his mighty blue, then white, then red, then white, then blue, then white, pool cue, at some armed guards in silver.
• 1:01:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: They clutch futuristic pistols as their leader, a man and gold armor with the hugeest feather plume on top, shouts orders.
• 1:01:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the river.
• 1:01:42
  [SPEAKER_09]: All right, gentlemen, if you want me so badly, come and get.
• 1:01:45
  [SPEAKER_05]: Don't keep him waiting, Phil's.
• 1:01:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: This so-called hero is all that stands between us and enough power to roll the world.
• 1:01:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: KEM!
• 1:01:52
  [SPEAKER_09]: You'll find that easier than said than done, Reaver.
• 1:01:55
  [SPEAKER_09]: Good Lord.
• 1:01:56
  [SPEAKER_09]: I bet he's won my staff.
• 1:01:57
  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, I knocked him unconscious.
• 1:01:58
  [SPEAKER_09]: Another Reaver's bully boy is coming up behind me.
• 1:02:00
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm reacting with the speed of thought.
• 1:02:02
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm battling these thugs as if I've been fighting all my life, but I haven't.
• 1:02:05
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm a physicist.
• 1:02:06
  [SPEAKER_09]: Not some superhero.
• 1:02:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: And although he's narrating his own fight in his mind, I'm still here to do my job too.
• 1:02:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: The staff knocks down one night, wap, it hits another in the stomach, wap.
• 1:02:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: A third is hit by Captain Britain's own furious fist.
• 1:02:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then we get our first full view of the reaver.
• 1:02:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: The golden helmet extends to full golden body armor covered by a green tunic with huge puff sleeves, a purple sash at the waist.
• 1:02:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's giving guy wearing bathrobe that's too small,
• 1:02:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: But also that plume again, purple in the size of basically a human leg.
• 1:02:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: He also has a sword and slashes that Captain Britain, who flips away.
• 1:02:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then Captain Britain parries a blow with his staff.
• 1:02:52
  [SPEAKER_09]: Second I'm I'm unbeatable, but how why was changed me this way or know is that this fight is some sort of test and that I'm the one being tested not weaver Nice try butcher, but when you're facing Captain Britain one chances all you get Now where in the blazes to that name come from probably the same place that my costume and powers it sounds right though
• 1:03:11
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'll give it that, but that still does explain what happens to me tonight.
• 1:03:14
  [SPEAKER_09]: What's happening to me now is being one shock after another and would no let up.
• 1:03:19
  [SPEAKER_09]: No chance to think.
• 1:03:20
  [SPEAKER_09]: I must think if I'm not to survive.
• 1:03:21
  [SPEAKER_09]: I must remember.
• 1:03:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: The stuff hits the reavers' foot, wad, and then squares him center in the back.
• 1:03:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: The foul.
• 1:03:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Captain Written is lost in thought.
• 1:03:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Memories.
• 1:03:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: tucked in between the harsh grunts and straining muscles of a battle to the death, Darkmore Research Center, twenty-two fifty-eight hours.
• 1:03:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Darkmore, a top secret nuclear complex, half hidden on the lonely moor, the moor was a place of fairy rings and the old gods of sprites and elves and haunted woods, a place of legends and ancient power, but the old stories and older fears had made Darkmore a desolate place as well.
• 1:03:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get a view of men rushing all over a futuristic facility as Brian Braddock with feathered hair, a green suit, red tie, and pipe held between his teeth.
• 1:04:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then he meets with Hugo Travis, a white-haired scientist in a green trench coat orange tie and thick glasses.
• 1:04:12
  [SPEAKER_08]: That's the most main attraction for us, Brian, with the only people for twenty miles in any direction.
• 1:04:18
  [SPEAKER_08]: So if anything would go wrong with our reactors, we'd be the only ones to get hurt.
• 1:04:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: By the way, I'm very pleased with the way you're working out as my assistant.
• 1:04:25
  [SPEAKER_09]: But it's only temporary Dr. Travis, until the new turn begins at Tang University.
• 1:04:29
  [SPEAKER_08]: You're too modest, Brian.
• 1:04:30
  [SPEAKER_08]: There are men who would sell their souls to work on this project, even temporarily.
• 1:04:34
  [SPEAKER_08]: Just as there are men who would kill to learn our secrets, because dark war centers on the threshold are developing a practical, safe fusion reactor system, one that will solve the world's energy crisis overnight.
• 1:04:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: Make no mistake, Brian.
• 1:04:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: We're playing for very high stakes, and the game is winner to go on.
• 1:04:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Quite true, Dr. Travis, such a pity there are always people all too willing to stack the deck in their favor by any means possible as they speak of futuristic ship arrives, landing just outside the perimeter of Darkmore.
• 1:05:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Simple Dr. Travis, the villains are making their entrance.
• 1:05:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: A bizarre battle tank bursts through the wall, scabram, it's got a gun firing energy pulses, a huge spiky drill, legs that it is walking on.
• 1:05:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: A hatch that opens underneath as the silver clad knights with guns that we saw earlier are barreling forward guns firing,
• 1:05:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And sitting atop in a glass case is a man who looks like a caveman except he's wearing a brown suit in a red tie.
• 1:05:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: He grips two massive joysticks to control the tank.
• 1:05:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the revert outside of his feathery costume.
• 1:05:41
  [SPEAKER_05]: A salt team's A and B perceived to your object as a neutralized all resistance gas the scientists put them aboard the hovercraft when they awake.
• 1:05:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: These were the gentlemen will no longer serve the crown.
• 1:05:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: They will serve Joshua Strag the river.
• 1:05:56
  [SPEAKER_06]: You heard the boss.
• 1:05:57
  [SPEAKER_06]: Now move it, because if you lay your left behind.
• 1:05:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's no time to resist the assault as the Reversments, warm through the complex, and nothing the dark more personnel could do even if there were time.
• 1:06:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Their scientists, not soldiers.
• 1:06:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Listen in, as one gets shocked with a stop.
• 1:06:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah!
• 1:06:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's not even a place to hide, because any wall too strong for his men to handle the Revers himself blasts down.
• 1:06:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Zabam.
• 1:06:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: The cautionary doctor Travis takes a shot to the chest as gunfire erupts.
• 1:06:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Scangs are Brian, Braddock runs for it.
• 1:06:39
  [SPEAKER_09]: Dr. Travis, he's done like everyone else.
• 1:06:41
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm the only one left to use the smoke and confusion as cover, and to make break for that hole in the wall to the car park beyond.
• 1:06:47
  [SPEAKER_09]: I only pray there's too much going on for the Reaver's mentorship strained.
• 1:06:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: That boy, he's escaping, get after him.
• 1:06:53
  [SPEAKER_05]: The success of our operation depends on everyone believing that the Darkmore staff all died in a reactor accident.
• 1:07:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: But if that boy escapes to reveal the truth,
• 1:07:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Brian Braddock rushes off on a motorcycle.
• 1:07:05
  [SPEAKER_09]: So fast, they're good.
• 1:07:06
  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't hear anyone following me.
• 1:07:07
  [SPEAKER_09]: Now, if the police will only believe what happened.
• 1:07:09
  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, it's also fantastic.
• 1:07:11
  [SPEAKER_09]: First, drag hijacks to find his nuclear mind to the UK, then forces them to work for him and voila, straggatomics corners the energy market.
• 1:07:18
  [SPEAKER_09]: What to strike care if those half a hundred lives will eventually be sacrificed because once he's taken everyone a dark more, he can never let them go.
• 1:07:26
  [SPEAKER_09]: Just as he can't afford to let me go.
• 1:07:27
  [SPEAKER_09]: No, that hovercraft rising up blocking the road.
• 1:07:30
  [SPEAKER_09]: It's like it's blinding me.
• 1:07:31
  [SPEAKER_09]: I can't see.
• 1:07:31
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm going off the cliff.
• 1:07:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Brian Braddock's motorcycle indeed goes off a cliff and explodes.
• 1:08:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: The pain, welcome to the siege, perilous, brine bratter, welcome home.
• 1:08:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: As Brian Braddock crawls to safety, he looks up to see the giant face of Merlin in the sky.
• 1:08:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: His eyes angry, his hair stark white as he beckons forward.
• 1:08:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: A woman with black hair and a white head man manifests behind him.
• 1:08:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the lady of the northern skies.
• 1:08:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: As Merlin gestures, the sword seems to stick out of one mountain, an amulet hangs around a second.
• 1:08:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And after this first story, we get a full text page written by Stan Lee that's part of the issue.
• 1:09:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to read it out loud because this is really interesting.
• 1:09:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Stan Lee says, I'm not doing a Stanley accident.
• 1:09:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Everybody is.
• 1:09:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: It had to happen.
• 1:09:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Even though Marvel's heroes are the world's most popular comic book characters, the time has come for a new superhero, one who will be Britain's own.
• 1:09:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Month after month you have demanded him, comic dumb has needed him.
• 1:09:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of Britain has been waiting for him, and now he's here at last.
• 1:09:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: Imagine, specially written and drawn, just for you, never before printed in any other magazine.
• 1:09:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: With indescribable pride, we have presented for the first time anywhere.
• 1:09:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Britain's greatest superhero, defender of the week, and the oppressed, destroyer of evil and injustice.
• 1:09:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: The mightiest, most mysterious man on earth, the one and only, Captain Britain.
• 1:09:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: If all this sounds as though we're wild with excitement about our newest magazine, we are!
• 1:09:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: We spent nearly a full year creating the characters, developing the themes, and producing the greatest possible stories and illustrations.
• 1:09:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then, to top it all off, we decided to print each and every Captain Britain adventure in glorious color so that you can, excuse me, use in these words, glorious color so you can save ruler every thrilling panel.
• 1:10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Indeed, we are determined to make Captain Britain the greatest comics weekly of all time.
• 1:10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And with your help and support, we cannot fail, but before I turn you loose to thrill again to the excitement of our incredible adventure,
• 1:10:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: I must first thank writer Chris Claremont, artist Herb Trimpy, and editor Larry Lieber, as well as the entire splendid staff of Marvel Comics London, including the lieutenant, Alan Murray, George Mina, for the magnificent feat they have performed on this the most sensational new weekly we have ever launched.
• 1:10:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: To each and every one of you, I say, well done, lads, and now that you have met the newest, most daring superhero of all, never let yourself forget the best is yet to come.
• 1:10:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Excelsior, Stan Lee.
• 1:10:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Also, there's an ad that says you could get a Captain Britain boomerang in the next publication.
• 1:10:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's also a Captain Britain fun page, but all the activities are oddly about the fantastic four, and there's a Captain Britain pin-up born in fulfillment of an ancient dream forged and tempered in the fires of defeat and death, a man gifted with superior powers and abilities.
• 1:11:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is that rarest of all men, a superhero, and now Captain Britain number two in full color, but each letter in the word color is actually a different color, which is funny to me.
• 1:11:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Staff against Sword, Hero against Villain, in enchanted combat to the death.
• 1:11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: We see Captain Britain's staff holding the sword of the Reaver off, and the Reaver's mask is up to show his very angry face.
• 1:11:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: The air crackles with an energy around them, and sure enough, the boomerang is advertised inside.
• 1:11:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, you get to cut it out, paste it together and throw and maybe it'll come back to you, but I don't think so.
• 1:11:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: From the Holocaust, a hero.
• 1:11:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're open on Merlin and the lady of the northern skies back in the sky, the sword and the amulet remain on the rocky peaks, but the reaver in his brown suit still out of his costume, and the knights are closing in.
• 1:11:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: The time is midnight, the place dark more.
• 1:11:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: A desolate patch of ground set deep within Northumberland's shaviot hills.
• 1:11:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: The young man is Brian Braddock, a university student who minutes before saw his colleagues from the Darkmore Atomic Research Center kidnapped by Jason Strag, the river.
• 1:12:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: Only Brian Braddock escaped the raid and from that moment on he's been a man caught in a nightmare.
• 1:12:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: Merlin Speaks.
• 1:12:08
  [SPEAKER_06]: Choose Brian Braddock the amulet or the sword, the power of life or a lot of death and may have for thy will.
• 1:12:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: There's the boy.
• 1:12:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: Grab him.
• 1:12:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'll have the height of anyone who lets him get away again.
• 1:12:21
  [SPEAKER_09]: Revers men.
• 1:12:21
  [SPEAKER_09]: They're all around me.
• 1:12:22
  [SPEAKER_09]: I've no place left to run.
• 1:12:23
  [SPEAKER_09]: Don't know what to do.
• 1:12:24
  [SPEAKER_09]: So hard to think of these voices pounding inside my head, commanding me to choose, this is madness.
• 1:12:29
  [SPEAKER_09]: To be dreaming in the midst of life and death struggle, and yet, Samu looks really enough.
• 1:12:33
  [SPEAKER_09]: Everything is happening so fast, too fast, and he's time to make sense of...
• 1:12:39
  [SPEAKER_09]: Choose which, the sort of the amulet, the symbol of bloodshed, or the symbol of life.
• 1:12:43
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'm no killer, no slayer of men.
• 1:12:45
  [SPEAKER_09]: For me, there can only be one choice, the amulet.
• 1:12:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: An editor's note, we seemingly forgot that he broke a bunch of bones in a motorcycle accident a few seconds before, so we're just gonna call magic and then just let him move forward.
• 1:12:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Midnight.
• 1:12:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: On Earth, Brian Braddock touches a mystic stone that has lane untouched within the siege perilous for a thousand years, while at the same moment an infinity away, a bolt of purest energy arcs across the face of the universe to strike home a moment later.
• 1:13:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: In a cosmic expanse, a bolt rushes toward the planet and Brian clutches his head in pain.
• 1:13:18
  [SPEAKER_04]: Rejoice my son for there has chosen the amulet of right or the sword of Mike.
• 1:13:24
  [SPEAKER_04]: Therefore let there be beauty and strength, power and compassion, honor and humility, worth and reverence within you.
• 1:13:33
  [SPEAKER_09]: My mind, images tearing at me.
• 1:13:35
  [SPEAKER_09]: The goddess's voice louder than I can stand in heaven's name.
• 1:13:38
  [SPEAKER_09]: What is happening to me?
• 1:13:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: Be one with thy brothers of the brown table, with Arthur and Lancelot, Gawain and Galahad, with them all.
• 1:13:47
  [SPEAKER_04]: Be thy what they wear.
• 1:13:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: A hero, strive forever to maintain the rule over right of law and justice against those who live and rule by might.
• 1:13:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thy first test is upon thee now, Brian Braddock.
• 1:14:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: I pray thou art worthy of it.
• 1:14:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Brian Braddock, the amulet around his neck, finds himself fully changed into Captain Britain, the superhero name, pre-planted in his brain.
• 1:14:10
  [SPEAKER_09]: This is insane.
• 1:14:11
  [SPEAKER_09]: A second ago, it was as if my very being were on fire, my mind, body and soul together.
• 1:14:16
  [SPEAKER_09]: And now, this costume, appearing out of nowhere, fitting me as if it was tailor-made.
• 1:14:20
  [SPEAKER_09]: And my body within the costume, I feel bigger, faster, stronger, if we bursting with power and how and why.
• 1:14:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: The boy hero looks confused.
• 1:14:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not sure I believe what I'm seeing here myself, but whatever is going on, I must stop that costumed clown before he stops me.
• 1:14:36
  [SPEAKER_05]: And this sword seems to be as good a weapon as any to do the deed if only I can pull it free.
• 1:14:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And where Brian Braddock grabbed the amulet of right, the reverb grabs the sword of might.
• 1:14:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Midnight, another bolt of energy.
• 1:14:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: This one dark, almost malignant, wreaking of an inner basic evil.
• 1:14:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: It envelopes the screaming, writhing form of Joshua's Strag, consuming him, making him one with itself, and as the first bolt did with Ryan Braddock, the second leaves the river changed forever.
• 1:15:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yes, they both gave us a Zarg.
• 1:15:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's part of the magic spell y'all, and Stragg has changed into the man in gold armor with the giant plume that we described last issue.
• 1:15:19
  [SPEAKER_06]: Harry, Joe, all of you, look what's happened to the boss.
• 1:15:22
  [SPEAKER_06]: He looks like some bleeding knight in shiny armor.
• 1:15:25
  [SPEAKER_08]: Together, boss, we've got to put this superhero down.
• 1:15:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: Free gets his wind up.
• 1:15:28
  [SPEAKER_09]: Let's get him, Lance.
• 1:15:29
  [SPEAKER_09]: What are you here for me?
• 1:15:30
  [SPEAKER_09]: A superhero.
• 1:15:31
  [SPEAKER_09]: No time to worry about names now.
• 1:15:33
  [SPEAKER_09]: Revers men tackling me from all sides too many to cope with.
• 1:15:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sit men smash the hero down!
• 1:15:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Kill him!
• 1:15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Overwhelmed Captain Britain lashes out, hitting the men back with a bfowl.
• 1:15:44
  [SPEAKER_09]: Turns out he's super strong.
• 1:15:45
  [SPEAKER_09]: What?
• 1:15:45
  [SPEAKER_09]: I bet he swung my fist.
• 1:15:46
  [SPEAKER_09]: Yet my blow-hold those men off me like they were nothing.
• 1:15:49
  [SPEAKER_09]: But one punch went win this battle.
• 1:15:51
  [SPEAKER_09]: The odds are too great for me to somehow with fist alone.
• 1:15:54
  [SPEAKER_09]: Interesting.
• 1:15:54
  [SPEAKER_09]: As I thought that my hand instinctively went to the stick thing on my back.
• 1:15:58
  [SPEAKER_09]: And it fits my palm if it were made for me.
• 1:16:00
  [SPEAKER_09]: Just like my costume.
• 1:16:01
  [SPEAKER_09]: There are some studs on the half.
• 1:16:03
  [SPEAKER_09]: Let me press when and see what happens.
• 1:16:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do love a stick that fits perfectly in your hand with studs are ready to be pushed.
• 1:16:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: And when he pushes, the staff expands into three feet long, compensating.
• 1:16:14
  [SPEAKER_09]: For that!
• 1:16:15
  [SPEAKER_09]: No more footing about Brian.
• 1:16:16
  [SPEAKER_09]: Here comes Reeves meant to finish you off.
• 1:16:18
  [SPEAKER_09]: I only hope this quarter staff gives me the edge I was hoping for, because if it doesn't, I'll be dead.
• 1:16:22
  [SPEAKER_09]: And the kidnapped scientists will be Reeves slaves for life.
• 1:16:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: That had been a half hour ago, and since then, the fight has been hard fought and brutal, no quarter-asked, none-given, until you're mad at Basin Reva, your dreams have conquested, finished.
• 1:16:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Reva fires an energy blast with his sword, Rezac, it hits the hero right in the chest.
• 1:16:39
  [SPEAKER_05]: Beating my man was easy, hero, but I won't be easy to defeat, for a high-received power, too.
• 1:16:46
  [SPEAKER_05]: This night power is far deadly other than yours, and deadly as to among them is the power to kill.
• 1:16:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: It is not I who will be finished in eight captains, so-called Britain, it's you!
• 1:16:58
  [SPEAKER_05]: Blast!
• 1:16:59
  [SPEAKER_09]: Call me by surprise, no feel shredded.
• 1:17:01
  [SPEAKER_09]: Never known such agony before.
• 1:17:02
  [SPEAKER_09]: Can't let me hit me like that again.
• 1:17:04
  [SPEAKER_09]: Must keep him off balance until I regain my strength and I think I know how to do it.
• 1:17:08
  [SPEAKER_09]: May improvised javelin for I was an exactly Olympic material, but it will do.
• 1:17:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain throws his staff, hitting reader in the face.
• 1:17:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Butok, reader pulls his face plate up.
• 1:17:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: A desperation move, Captain, but useless.
• 1:17:20
  [SPEAKER_05]: You've gained a few poultry seconds, Grace, but by throwing away your only weapon.
• 1:17:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: You didn't defeat me, fool.
• 1:17:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: I barely felt a thing inside my armor.
• 1:17:29
  [SPEAKER_05]: This fight has gone on long enough, my friend.
• 1:17:32
  [SPEAKER_05]: The time has come for you to take your final bow and die.
• 1:17:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Another sword blast is the canal.
• 1:17:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: The ground shakes, then explodes.
• 1:17:41
  [SPEAKER_09]: Shockwaves, I've managed to regain my stuff, but it's going to do me precious little goods again to these.
• 1:17:46
  [SPEAKER_09]: Ugh!
• 1:17:47
  [SPEAKER_09]: Revers keeping up the pressure, playing cats and mouse with me, but sooner or later, who get bored when he does, I've had it.
• 1:17:53
  [SPEAKER_09]: Unless it's a mad thought for Revers' power comes from your sword, as mine does the amulet.
• 1:17:57
  [SPEAKER_09]: His force blasts the emancipation of that powers, my strength and agility are mine.
• 1:18:01
  [SPEAKER_09]: Here's for evil.
• 1:18:02
  [SPEAKER_09]: mind for good.
• 1:18:03
  [SPEAKER_09]: Our powers are total opposites, each balancing the other, and perhaps canceling each other out as well.
• 1:18:08
  [SPEAKER_09]: Thus it's possible that Reeva can only harm me if he catches me on a wares, or if he's with a stronger than mine.
• 1:18:13
  [SPEAKER_09]: In short, if he's a better man than I am, and now the time to find out by stepping into the open to give Reeva the shot that he's been waiting for.
• 1:18:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: We get one page in black and white, and the editor tells us it's a special bonus, and do it yourself colour page, uh, I think they ran at a time.
• 1:18:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Reaver fires the shot, because him, the Captain Britain staff, repulsed it back to him with his account.
• 1:18:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And with the reverb defeated, Merlin and the Lady of the Northern Sky appear once again.
• 1:19:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: The eye test is over, Brian Braddock.
• 1:19:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: The eye has proven that I self-worth thee.
• 1:19:06
  [SPEAKER_04]: The eye destiny awaits thee.
• 1:19:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: Well, they pick up the gauntlet young sir and become the champion of good against the forces of evil, or dust they refuse such noble service.
• 1:19:18
  [SPEAKER_09]: I don't know.
• 1:19:19
  [SPEAKER_09]: This is also sudden, so incredible.
• 1:19:21
  [SPEAKER_09]: No, I do know.
• 1:19:22
  [SPEAKER_09]: I made my choice the moment I reached for the amulet.
• 1:19:24
  [SPEAKER_09]: And I'll stick by it.
• 1:19:25
  [SPEAKER_09]: I'll be your champion, Melady.
• 1:19:27
  [SPEAKER_09]: Now and forever, I'll be Captain Britain.
• 1:19:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Darkmore, midnight, and amid the ancient knowing stones, the legend is born.
• 1:19:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Next, mayhem on a Monday morning, but first there's one more Captain Britain fun page.
• 1:19:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wow, that was a fun, campy, ridiculous read.
• 1:19:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of your character voices are delicious.
• 1:19:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can't wait for our listeners to get to know each of you and to hear more of your interior thoughts as we go.
• 1:19:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So let's take a pause for just a moment.
• 1:19:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me have you each introduce yourselves with your name and pronouns.
• 1:19:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'd love to hear if you're willing to share what is your connection to the Captain Britain mythos?
• 1:20:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: as a queer person based in a particular geographic region that is often remembered and associated with this character.
• 1:20:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me begin with a welcome in Giza Gobble to the show.
• 1:20:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hi, Giza.
• 1:20:13
  [SPEAKER_05]: Hello, hello, hello.
• 1:20:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I'm Giza Gobble.
• 1:20:16
  [SPEAKER_05]: My pronouns are all of them that he haven't.
• 1:20:19
  [SPEAKER_05]: She hardly then because of what I do is a drag performer.
• 1:20:22
  [SPEAKER_05]: So I didn't have a connection to Captain Britain but I knew of Captain Britain and it wasn't until I was approached with this that I actually fully fell in love with the madness in the campness of the river and I didn't realize how much of a villain I might have been until this very moment.
• 1:20:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Type casting question mark.
• 1:20:43
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yes, with a giant feather plumen added in, I love it.
• 1:20:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: The size of a leg.
• 1:20:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Could you turn this reaver look into a drag costume?
• 1:20:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's all ready, drag.
• 1:20:52
  [SPEAKER_05]: I don't need to do anything to it.
• 1:20:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's already cinched at the waist.
• 1:20:56
  [SPEAKER_05]: It's described as a man in a bathrobe that was too small for them.
• 1:21:00
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's drag.
• 1:21:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm picturing you like it's the full face and there's the big reveal in the middle of your number where you pull the mask up and you have painted your face to just look like a caveman.
• 1:21:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: The great to do the opposite way will go from the caveman look into this huge, was it the green with like, puffy shoulders and this huge plume cover, I don't know where I'm keeping my plume, but I was going to be popping out of somewhere.
• 1:21:25
  [SPEAKER_05]: We know where you're keeping your plume.
• 1:21:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was previously packed and then it was really nice.
• 1:21:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me also welcome Ben Hugh to the show.
• 1:21:35
  [SPEAKER_06]: He, him, I really didn't have a connection to Captain Britain until Cracoa, when I kind of picked up Betsy as the new Captain Britain and her story is kind of in my introduction to Captain Britain.
• 1:21:47
  [SPEAKER_06]: I've got a few of the old Alan Moore trade paper back that I need to go back and read that.
• 1:21:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And let me also welcome James Lee Campbell to the show, voicing Brian Braddock.
• 1:21:56
  [SPEAKER_09]: Hi, James Lee Campbell, my name.
• 1:21:58
  [SPEAKER_09]: Uh, pronoun they then he connection to Captain Britain.
• 1:22:01
  [SPEAKER_09]: Um, well, I'm going to be honest, um, I only know Captain Britain through Christian Christian introduced me and then, and then, yeah, uh, the same as Ben once the Krakow airs era started and, um, Betsy became Captain Britain.
• 1:22:11
  [SPEAKER_09]: I was like, oh, let me read this more.
• 1:22:13
  [SPEAKER_09]: And then I realized it's just a mystical world of fairies and I like mystical worlds of fairies.
• 1:22:18
  [SPEAKER_09]: Take that as you will.
• 1:22:19
  [SPEAKER_09]: But, uh, yeah, that's kind of my connection to.
• 1:22:21
  [SPEAKER_09]: I think there's so much whimsy around it that I really should go back and read a bit more.
• 1:22:26
  [SPEAKER_09]: So this, this gave me a beginning insight to him as well.
• 1:22:28
  [SPEAKER_09]: I really enjoyed that.
• 1:22:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: So you've just blown up in a motorcycle accident, James, and you're offered the sort of mind or the amulet of right, which would you choose?
• 1:22:36
  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, me personally.
• 1:22:37
  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, you know what, I want to say the amulet by Reckon or be the sword.
• 1:22:42
  [SPEAKER_09]: It would be the sword.
• 1:22:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: One gets a quarter staff, the other gets a giant loom, so.
• 1:22:46
  [SPEAKER_09]: I mean, I don't want to like be in competition for the plume, though.
• 1:22:49
  [SPEAKER_09]: So I think me and Giza might just have to fight out over the sword instead.
• 1:22:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: My plume is far better than yours.
• 1:22:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Uh, let me welcome Christian Smith back to the show.
• 1:23:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: The official Graham, I can lean Bear Correspondent.
• 1:23:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Christian is lovely to see you.
• 1:23:04
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hey, Joe.
• 1:23:06
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hey, Christian Smith.
• 1:23:07
  [SPEAKER_08]: Hey, him.
• 1:23:08
  [SPEAKER_08]: Um, so my collection to Brian really started with the the original in Scalaba.
• 1:23:13
  [SPEAKER_08]: No, I do have a visceral remembering of that boom ring.
• 1:23:17
  [SPEAKER_08]: And I swear as a kid, I had that second issue.
• 1:23:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: And I actually had the boomerangs.
• 1:23:22
  [SPEAKER_08]: I remember having it.
• 1:23:23
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes, I'm that old.
• 1:23:24
  [SPEAKER_08]: Thank you.
• 1:23:24
  [SPEAKER_08]: Did it work?
• 1:23:25
  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, yeah.
• 1:23:26
  [SPEAKER_09]: That's why I wanted you to.
• 1:23:26
  [SPEAKER_09]: That's what I want you to know.
• 1:23:27
  [SPEAKER_09]: Did it work?
• 1:23:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yes.
• 1:23:31
  [SPEAKER_08]: Those boomerangs were in all of the British comics.
• 1:23:33
  [SPEAKER_08]: And they won't cut out.
• 1:23:34
  [SPEAKER_08]: You actually got them and they're poor starry or plastic.
• 1:23:37
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah.
• 1:23:38
  [SPEAKER_08]: Like what?
• 1:23:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: OK.
• 1:23:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And finally, let me welcome the incredible Robin Muffet to the show.
• 1:23:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Robin, you read Roma as just this dripping.
• 1:23:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: She is dripping wet fresh from the lake.
• 1:23:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh, not dripping wet.
• 1:23:55
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god.
• 1:23:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Oh my god.
• 1:23:58
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, you know what?
• 1:23:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I get tight cast.
• 1:24:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: My two characters are Sultry Middle-Ede's British women or bold lesbians and there's no middle-brand and that's totally fine.
• 1:24:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love that for me.
• 1:24:10
  [SPEAKER_04]: My name is Robin Mothford.
• 1:24:11
  [SPEAKER_04]: She her pronouns.
• 1:24:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I am a drag performer.
• 1:24:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: I go bioteal participant.
• 1:24:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm doing that.
• 1:24:16
  [SPEAKER_04]: Otherwise, Robin.
• 1:24:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yes, my relationship to Captain Britain.
• 1:24:19
  [SPEAKER_04]: One of the first ever comics that I read when I go into them as an
• 1:24:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: at all, because then I barely read them a lot, as a kid, was on Kenny X-Fort, which has a whole, like, other world, EPM, Toriana, and I remember reading it and just being like, what the fuck is this shit?
• 1:24:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: I have no idea what any of this is.
• 1:24:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: This is so weird.
• 1:24:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: Then I fell in love with Rachel Summers from reading other comic, went back to its caliber, and then I was like, oh my god, this shit is fucking bananas.
• 1:24:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: I love it!
• 1:24:44
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ross time caper.
• 1:24:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, obsessed with the original Excalibur.
• 1:24:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love love love to hate Captain Britain.
• 1:24:51
  [SPEAKER_04]: He is just so hateable, but in it he's like he is the dumb straight guy that hangs out with all the queer people that like he knows he's the joke and he lets everyone take the piss out of him.
• 1:25:01
  [SPEAKER_04]: But every so often he has a little hecyphate about it and like has to just like go and sit down in the corner for five minutes and calm down.
• 1:25:08
  [SPEAKER_04]: We all know that straight man.
• 1:25:09
  [SPEAKER_04]: And he's a joy to be around until he's not.
• 1:25:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I love Captain Britain by him too.
• 1:25:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: There is a lot about this character.
• 1:25:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when I was reading comics in the nineties, I had a wealthy access to back issues because I worked in a comic book shop.
• 1:25:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I remember reading some of Brian's earlier stuff in the X-Men and Marvel team up in other places.
• 1:25:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this is kind of my first time making this show going back to read these original Captain Britain stories.
• 1:25:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: It goes on for a while.
• 1:25:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a lot of mythos
• 1:25:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the stuff that's set up in this very first issue, plays off in the X-Men stories in major ways.
• 1:25:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Siege Parallis, Lady Roma, who rescues all of them from the adversary, if you remember, plus there's an entire Captain Britain core.
• 1:25:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a multiverse full of Captain Britain's across different realities.
• 1:25:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there is kind of just one horny lady in other world that's always really obsessed with either Brian or Betsy Braddock.
• 1:25:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's a ton that goes into this character.
• 1:26:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the mysticism of this character is really interesting.
• 1:26:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: because he is very much a kind of an a thore way like are you worthy of this power that you are picking up.
• 1:26:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And the only thing that made of worthy is he was chosen to make a selection.
• 1:26:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it's interesting the connection to this character, but it's Brian Braddock's across multiple timelines.
• 1:26:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on this kind of mystic origin of Brian Braddock at Darkmore being presented with the option of these two choices?
• 1:26:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: And there's only one right choice.
• 1:26:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: right.
• 1:26:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're bringing fairies in.
• 1:26:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're bringing Merlin in and we're referencing the Knights of the Round Table all very loosely here.
• 1:26:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Anyone who has thoughts on his origin story.
• 1:26:38
  [SPEAKER_04]: After one first, I think Ryan's origin story is interesting.
• 1:26:42
  [SPEAKER_04]: Ultimately based on his characterization and more so in the future, but I think even a little bit here, I'm like
• 1:26:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: Sorry you just went over a cliff on a motorcycle you're being chased by someone who wants to kill you someone says have a little necklace or have a sword you don't choose the necklace this man is an idiot.
• 1:26:59
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm sorry he is so they're like he's doing he is studying under this like really prestigious professor He's doing physics.
• 1:27:05
  [SPEAKER_04]: I'm like this man could barely talk his way out of a paper bag You are not convincing me that he was smart enough to make this decision and become captain Britain He is the hero the Britain deserves not the hero the Britain needs and the hero the Britain deserves is a bit of an idiot
• 1:27:18
  [SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, I think that makes me dumb then because I absolutely I'm going for a bit of agility.
• 1:27:31
  [SPEAKER_04]: That's because the drag has seat into your bull and ski.
• 1:27:34
  [SPEAKER_04]: So you are great.
• 1:27:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: The active heroism for him here.
• 1:27:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Perhaps is he's offered huge power, but he takes time to slow down and consider what the right choice is.
• 1:27:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that alone kind of adds a certain element of heroism when the opposition is Joshua Strag.
• 1:27:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, who's randomly called Jason Strag in one panel, but canonically his name is Joshua Strag.
• 1:27:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Strag immediately goes for the power, right?
• 1:27:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: I want to kidnap, I want to brutalize where Brian's like, I want to fight for the people, which is very, very interesting already.
• 1:28:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Brian is a complex character to get sorted out a lot through the years through his relationships primarily.
• 1:28:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: He represents basically the normal,
• 1:28:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: every day civilian of Great Britain in that he lives in a castle with his very rich parents who both died.
• 1:28:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: His dad is a crazy like AI robot scientist.
• 1:28:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: He himself is a scientist.
• 1:28:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has a crazy older brother who wears a diaper and manipulates reality.
• 1:28:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And a sister who is a purple-haired ninja assassin in an Asian body for a while before taking his place has kept in Britain.
• 1:28:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: James Lee, what were your thoughts on a Brian as a representative of the people?
• 1:28:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like you've just read out my backstory.
• 1:28:43
  [SPEAKER_09]: I was just saying someone who knows him.
• 1:28:46
  [SPEAKER_09]: That's exactly right.
• 1:28:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely.
• 1:28:48
  [SPEAKER_09]: I was just saying to my reality warping brother the other day that I would really like flowers that are green all over please and he was like, yeah, sure.
• 1:28:58
  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, I do love the fact that they pick, probably every trove that they thought an English person was.
• 1:29:05
  [SPEAKER_09]: You know, throw in the British mythology, throw in the, oh, well, Melon, you need to be involved.
• 1:29:11
  [SPEAKER_09]: Oh, do you know what else is big?
• 1:29:12
  [SPEAKER_09]: Night to the round table.
• 1:29:13
  [SPEAKER_09]: So I feel like, you know, I think they picked really well when they went for that kind of background and dynamic for him.
• 1:29:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me hear from Ben and then Christian on your thoughts on the design of Captain Britain's costume.
• 1:29:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Chris Claremont had heavy input into all of this.
• 1:29:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Herb Trimpy was actively involved herb of courses as a legendary character designer and creator.
• 1:29:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've talked about him on the show as a co-creator of Wolverine and others.
• 1:29:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Wolverine being like the national hero of Canada in his own way.
• 1:29:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Captain Britain is coming out of the time when Marvel's marketing across the world and they don't have an official presence in England, but they did set up a Marvel UK office and were running comics
• 1:29:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: for the public that were being picked up quite often as reprints.
• 1:29:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: So the idea to launch their own hero, right?
• 1:29:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: They bring in Chris Claremont, who's American but grew up in London.
• 1:29:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: And they design him in the colors of the Union Jack.
• 1:30:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: It is symbolic of the British royalty and British patriotism at a level that's almost uncomfortable in the way that Captain America's uniform with the stars and stripes and wings and the letter A on his head is like just so over the top.
• 1:30:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are your thoughts on the costume design here?
• 1:30:17
  [SPEAKER_06]: I mean, I've never been a huge fan of the flag suits.
• 1:30:21
  [SPEAKER_06]: Like, so for me, it's just not patriotism.
• 1:30:24
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's a bit much.
• 1:30:27
  [SPEAKER_06]: I like the way it evolves over the years.
• 1:30:28
  [SPEAKER_06]: Don't get me wrong.
• 1:30:29
  [SPEAKER_06]: Like, it comes more practical rather than camping and just in your face.
• 1:30:34
  [SPEAKER_06]: It's not like I've seen.
• 1:30:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: and see, I like the red one.
• 1:30:38
  [SPEAKER_08]: There's something about, all right, yeah, there's all sorts of extra stuff with the staff and all that.
• 1:30:42
  [SPEAKER_08]: Give it all that.
• 1:30:43
  [SPEAKER_08]: Be stripped down that red costume with the lion on it.
• 1:30:45
  [SPEAKER_08]: And it's actually a good costume.
• 1:30:47
  [SPEAKER_08]: And then they replace it with the Union Jack, which is just seems really obvious.
• 1:30:51
  [SPEAKER_08]: But it's weird that Captain Britain is the one character I can think of, where the costume changes do seem to stick.
• 1:30:57
  [SPEAKER_08]: A lot of the time, you know, they'll change, they'll give them a new costume, and they'll revert back to the original.
• 1:31:01
  [SPEAKER_08]: Where's Captain Britain has changed his four times now?
• 1:31:04
  [SPEAKER_08]: It always seems to have stuck with him.
• 1:31:06
  [SPEAKER_08]: But yeah, that red one, I'm shocked around.
• 1:31:08
  [SPEAKER_08]: But did it come back with line hop?
• 1:31:09
  [SPEAKER_08]: Similar with, you know, way.
• 1:31:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 1:31:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's multiple versions of the Captain Britain mythos over the years.
• 1:31:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And eventually I'll do a Captain Britain trial.
• 1:31:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'll give you the whole history.
• 1:31:17
  [SPEAKER_09]: I like how it aligns with other superheroes of, like, I think it's Guardian and Alpha Flight.
• 1:31:23
  [SPEAKER_09]: Is it Guardian?
• 1:31:24
  [SPEAKER_09]: He's got in good.
• 1:31:25
  [SPEAKER_09]: Like he had that made them the red white and half a maple leaf and I really like that they came blaring out with all red and then the gold line and then changed it to the union jack.
• 1:31:36
  [SPEAKER_09]: I really quite liked that.
• 1:31:38
  [SPEAKER_09]: That campy obviousness in your face kind of cost you a lot of quite like to.
• 1:31:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: So this is a time, nineteen seventy five in both America and Britain, although I've never been to Britain.
• 1:31:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: So please correct me.
• 1:31:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is just based on research, but patriotism and nationalism was really being pushed by the government as like you need to be proud of where you live.
• 1:31:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting because if we look at nineteen seventy five in Great Britain, they're just starting to kind of understand that queer people should have some rights.
• 1:32:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're just kind of introducing the idea that women should deserve some equality.
• 1:32:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Here's an interesting fact from nineteen seventy five.
• 1:32:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was something
• 1:32:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: pulled the European community's referendum that was going through kind of the parliament.
• 1:32:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Harold Wilson, who was the prime minister at the time, was a regional, James Harold Wilson, was calling on this referendum to like resolve internal divisions in the labor party.
• 1:32:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: So there were a lot of debates happening about sovereignty and economic independence and like the future of British trade and identity.
• 1:32:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: And fifty years later, this is the Brexit story.
• 1:32:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we can see some similar patterns in America where there was thin things happening that and now we're suddenly in this make America great again movement that's so awful out of noxious so there's some really odd parallels and we put these flags on our heroes that we celebrate because they're part of fun comic books
• 1:32:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: but they represent topics that are often kind of incomparable in modern readers.
• 1:32:56
  [SPEAKER_04]: One thing I think is, first of all, I think we need in the modern story of, now that he's Captain Avalon, I want to see Captain Avalon fight Captain Brexit.
• 1:33:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: Like, is that so much to ask for?
• 1:33:07
  [SPEAKER_04]: There are so many interesting directions, I think that a character like this can be taken in this era.
• 1:33:12
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think back then, it's very interesting.
• 1:33:15
  [SPEAKER_04]: Curious of easier you agree with me.
• 1:33:17
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think when you see a character like this is Captain Britain, it very much feels like Captain England.
• 1:33:21
  [SPEAKER_04]: It doesn't feel like it's representative of any of the other nation states of the United Kingdom.
• 1:33:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: That was nice next question.
• 1:33:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, please go ahead.
• 1:33:29
  [SPEAKER_04]: So yeah, I just think it's it's weird because anytime they've tried to do Scottish, Welsh, or Northern Irish flags, it characters, they haven't ever really pushed them.
• 1:33:39
  [SPEAKER_04]: And honestly, I think that I don't think that any of our countries would be particularly receptive to it in the way that I think English politics often.
• 1:33:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think that's politics not so much the populist.
• 1:33:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think English politics often wants to push it.
• 1:33:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: South as like we should be really proud of ourselves and Scottish people are like we're all too busy being really really drunk to care about that.
• 1:33:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: You just shot Captain Britain if you paint him in these colors and put him in London it's already complicated, but you put him in Ireland you put him in Scotland you put him in India or South Africa there's a very you know a controversial amphitheater but I disagree with you Ireland has Shamrock and Scotland has Wolves Bane and I don't I can't think of better representation of just
• 1:34:22
  [SPEAKER_09]: But let's also not forget Captain Kimru who was a Captain of Wales as well.
• 1:34:32
  [SPEAKER_09]: I know right and she was fierce.
• 1:34:34
  [SPEAKER_09]: She was she was a way what I would before this podcast I was looking into other versions of captains just in case something arose and yeah the Welsh one is a fierce woman.
• 1:34:43
  [SPEAKER_09]: Still in red white and blue though.
• 1:34:45
  [SPEAKER_04]: And you know what?
• 1:34:46
  [SPEAKER_04]: She might be fierce, but she is not the best captain.
• 1:34:48
  [SPEAKER_04]: The best captain is the swan.
• 1:34:50
  [SPEAKER_04]: I will say yes.
• 1:34:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: The best of Braddock swan.
• 1:34:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm part of the T-Rack Spexy Braddock as well.
• 1:34:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's interesting too, and we'll close part of the conversation here, but in Intini Howard's recent exploration of Betsy Braddock as Captain Britain, it's a lesbian mutant, and the public is upset.
• 1:35:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're like no, there's a dust.
• 1:35:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: You and your purple hair.
• 1:35:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: There you go.
• 1:35:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have to talk about the rich interior world of Joshua Stragg, who is the, I don't know.
• 1:35:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a face that maybe even his mother doesn't love.
• 1:35:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know how he experiences.
• 1:35:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're in an era of comics where if you have an ugly face, you only have a choice to be a supervillain.
• 1:35:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's your only option in the seventies, but he owns Stragg atomics.
• 1:35:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is
• 1:35:33
  [SPEAKER_02]: Pretty well equipped for himself to the point where he builds this like walking hovercraft with like tank lasers and employees a bunch of knights to follow him before his big power up.
• 1:35:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I guisa what was it like to delve into the mindset of this very serious supervillain?
• 1:35:49
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh, yes, super serious, very, very serious intelligence businessman.
• 1:35:54
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was, it was a lot of fun.
• 1:35:55
  [SPEAKER_05]: But I think even though, yes, villain, I think what I love about this one in particular is beyond the rest, he was, yes, intelligent, quite strategic, but also very genuinely mad.
• 1:36:08
  [SPEAKER_05]: Like that, this is like the, to me, the, like a definition of mad scientist.
• 1:36:12
  [SPEAKER_05]: that if you had to draw mats, I just, it's, it's best meant.
• 1:36:15
  [SPEAKER_05]: I think he's brilliant.
• 1:36:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's crazy to me, but I don't think this villain has ever shown up again, except in reprints of this story.
• 1:36:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: But when you read him as the counter to Brian Braddock, like the literal guy who chose the other Angela, it's insane to me that he's never returned in a comic book.
• 1:36:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: In all those Allen Davis books, they've never brought him back.
• 1:36:33
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I feel personally attacked.
• 1:36:34
  [SPEAKER_05]: I'm not gonna lie.
• 1:36:35
  [SPEAKER_08]: I feel like I deserve a reprise.
• 1:36:39
  [SPEAKER_08]: He's coming back and he's good to destroy Tony Stark.
• 1:36:42
  [SPEAKER_08]: He's been building his empire.
• 1:36:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: Oh yeah, you watch me and my big plums gonna take care of him.
• 1:36:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Or he attacks other world directly, right?
• 1:36:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's some really interesting things here.
• 1:36:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Merlin is a really complicated character as well who has his own complicated origins in both moral comics and like popular fiction.
• 1:37:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: I prefer Merlin from like the sort of the stone.
• 1:37:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's my favorite Merlin.
• 1:37:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this is kind of an evil guy where Roma is his like kind of daughter who's trying to do her best even though her dad is nuts.
• 1:37:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really fun to see these two characters because they're so frequently used in X-Men and Excalibur later.
• 1:37:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did we have any comments on those two?
• 1:37:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: We could just leave a picture.
• 1:37:22
  [SPEAKER_04]: Yeah, I was just going to throw in.
• 1:37:23
  [SPEAKER_04]: I think they're exceptionally camped.
• 1:37:25
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't really have anything else to add besides that.
• 1:37:28
  [SPEAKER_04]: The idea that they just hunt people who crash off the side of a cliff in just go one last chance.
• 1:37:33
  [SPEAKER_04]: You want us to swore your bones back together.
• 1:37:35
  [SPEAKER_04]: Pick the right one.
• 1:37:36
  [SPEAKER_04]: I feel like if if Brian Braddock had picked the sword, they would have just been like, no, I'm sorry.
• 1:37:41
  [SPEAKER_04]: You just get to die in a pile.
• 1:37:42
  [SPEAKER_05]: That's kind of the same Robin.
• 1:37:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: Your performance of Roma was given Kate Blanshire in Lord of the Rings.
• 1:37:48
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was very collage real.
• 1:37:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
• 1:37:50
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
• 1:37:51
  [SPEAKER_05]: It was very that.
• 1:37:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Thank you, that was the inspiration I'm glad to carry it.
• 1:37:56
  [SPEAKER_09]: I also love how it touches on dysfunctional, a father-daughter relationship.
• 1:38:01
  [SPEAKER_09]: He's like, you must use one, she's like, welcome to your new destiny.
• 1:38:04
  [SPEAKER_09]: It was, it was perfect.
• 1:38:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: The dichotomy between them is perfect.
• 1:38:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: The other character we meet here is Dr. Hugo Travis, who is Brian's kind of supervisor at this like science facility.
• 1:38:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Another character we have never seen again.
• 1:38:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: He has never shown back up, although I think there's some interesting connections for this character as well.
• 1:38:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm really amazed by Christian.
• 1:38:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you had fun playing the Dr. Travis character.
• 1:38:26
  [SPEAKER_08]: Absolutely.
• 1:38:27
  [SPEAKER_08]: Absolutely.
• 1:38:28
  [SPEAKER_08]: And again, one of the dumbest men in Britain, if he hired Brian Braddock to work in a nuclear facility.
• 1:38:34
  [SPEAKER_08]: I'm sorry, keep that man away from things like boom.
• 1:38:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: We pointed this out subtly as we were doing our reading, but there's a lot of homo eroticism in the script as well.
• 1:38:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: Come on, boys, come and get me.
• 1:38:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Perfectly in the head.
• 1:38:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Look, it's extending just super fun.
• 1:38:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had such a joyful time here.
• 1:38:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: All of you voice these characters and I can't wait to have you back again.
• 1:38:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I hope you would love to come back and do another.
• 1:38:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: to hear any final thoughts as we are wrapping up.
• 1:39:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm not going to put this up till the second week of August.
• 1:39:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: We're recording this way early.
• 1:39:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm getting ahead on the show before my summer travel schedule.
• 1:39:07
  [SPEAKER_05]: Final thoughts is it was a great introductory.
• 1:39:10
  [SPEAKER_05]: Because I said it was my introduction to Captain Britain itself and it was just brilliant.
• 1:39:17
  [SPEAKER_05]: This is a great starter for anyone wanting to go into the deep dive world that I found out there's a T-Rex version.
• 1:39:26
  [SPEAKER_05]: out of nowhere.
• 1:39:27
  [SPEAKER_05]: So this is a great way to start and I thought it was brilliant.
• 1:39:30
  [SPEAKER_05]: Where you can find me, you can find me on Instagram, in TikTok, at Giza Goble.
• 1:39:35
  [SPEAKER_05]: And I think at the moment, I'm trying to think far ahead, but I think at the moment the only thing I have to plug is I have a book out called the Department for Law Souls by Giza Goble.
• 1:39:44
  [SPEAKER_05]: So if you want to check that out, you can get it on Amazon.
• 1:39:47
  [SPEAKER_05]: Thank you.
• 1:39:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so great to meet you.
• 1:39:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: And everybody follow Giza.
• 1:39:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: She and Robin's drag both are just lovely.
• 1:39:53
  [SPEAKER_04]: Let's go to Robin next.
• 1:39:54
  [SPEAKER_04]: Okay, so if you want to follow me on social media, you can find me on Instagram at Negasonic Tranny Warhead, or you can find my drag account at October under score first.
• 1:40:04
  [SPEAKER_04]: I don't really use Instagram as much these days, so if you want to follow me and actually see me post things about the X-Men, then follow me on Blue Sky at Red Breasted Robin with a Y.
• 1:40:14
  [SPEAKER_04]: My final thoughts are loved seeing one of Chris Claire months very first body and souls in comics and that's always delightful to pick up as a hardcore fan of the man and anytime I catch a body and soul it like just adds a few extra minutes on to my life and I love that and I'm going to leave it there excellent Chris slowly introduces the characters in brand products life over the next multiple issues.
• 1:40:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: including characters like Courtney Ross, Betsy Braddock, right?
• 1:40:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: So we get to see those, and then of course he brings them into his X-Men and other work later on, which is like connects these characters.
• 1:40:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, indelibly to the characters that we love as X-Men fans.
• 1:40:48
  [SPEAKER_06]: Okay, I mean, it's the first time I've ever done anything like this sort of super fun.
• 1:40:53
  [SPEAKER_06]: I enjoyed myself even though it was quite notice.
• 1:40:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: You can find me on Instagram, dude, I mean, eight, eight.
• 1:40:58
  [SPEAKER_06]: So that's over, and eight, eight.
• 1:41:01
  [SPEAKER_06]: Yeah, that is a great time.
• 1:41:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's great to meet you, man.
• 1:41:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
• 1:41:04
  [SPEAKER_08]: Christian Swiss, you find me on Instagram and Blue Sky, Chris E. One, seven, oh, one.
• 1:41:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: Final thoughts.
• 1:41:10
  [SPEAKER_08]: It's amazing how much those Marvel UK stories get done in eight pages.
• 1:41:15
  [SPEAKER_08]: The fact that we are went through two pages is two issues is astonishing.
• 1:41:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: Yeah, nice.
• 1:41:20
  [SPEAKER_08]: Great.
• 1:41:21
  [SPEAKER_08]: And more capture, even if it's not the problem, good one.
• 1:41:25
  [SPEAKER_09]: I've always got something creative and theatrical going on in my life, which you can, from shows being directed, or being in, so you can find me on Instagram at J.L.
• 1:41:34
  [SPEAKER_09]: Underscore C, or you can follow my drag persona, which is at Miss Underscore Kitty Underscore Flat.
• 1:41:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's so great to meet off, I believe.
• 1:41:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is really fun to, to hang out.
• 1:41:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: I feel like I'm hanging out over the pond.
• 1:41:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, we'll, if I ever make it to London, we have all got to get you.
• 1:41:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: You are always welcome.
• 1:41:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, we will have a blast.
• 1:41:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: We will have a blast.
• 1:41:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: Lastly, I'm Chad Anderson.
• 1:41:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: I keep my own social media private because I got kiddos, the five of you are welcome to follow me just ask, but to show you can follow a grandma and underscore lane on Instagram.
• 1:42:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And now stay tuned for some thoughts on fascism as a special guest tonight talked about a red skull story and its modern applications.
• 1:42:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: In nineteen thirty nine, after Hitler occupied Czechoslovakia, the Nazis took over the entire Czech arms industry.
• 1:42:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: A massive company built up by Inoskoda in eighteen fifty nine, becoming the largest arms dealer in the world leading up to World War one as it manufactured locomotives, aircrafts, machine tools and steam turbines.
• 1:42:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hitler took this established company, broke it up, and then turned it primarily into building panzer tanks.
• 1:42:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: those themselves with a check design.
• 1:42:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: In nineteen forty after France fell Hitler added their own tanks to his army repurposing them into the German boys' apostles which literally means captured tanks.
• 1:42:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: In nineteen forty one the Nazis began Operation Barbarossa which translates to red beard and enormous front in the Russian territories
• 1:42:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: And as they took more ground, they began adding Russian tanks and rocket launchers to their own artillery.
• 1:43:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: These designs were recognized as vastly superior to the Nazi designs and were carefully studied to upgrade the German weapons as the warfront continued.
• 1:43:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now we're going to jump to the very silly, but also very serious, super villain team up numbers ten through twelve from nineteen seventy-seven.
• 1:43:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Seven, in this story, fresh out of after his defeat in Great Britain, Red School has returned to Latvia.
• 1:43:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is his second attack.
• 1:43:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, determined to rule the country, and he invaded the castle and sat on the throne.
• 1:43:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: After shooting Prince Rodolfo, the who has disguised himself as Dr. Doom.
• 1:43:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is the guy who was like, considers himself the rightful ruler of Latvia.
• 1:43:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Red School then held the shroud at gunpoint.
• 1:43:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Pitchford misguided American, the past is gone, soon our men shall raise their hands to a new order, a fourth rike, and proclaim the red scroll fielder over all.
• 1:43:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Dr. Doom has a new weapon.
• 1:43:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's back, ready to take his country back.
• 1:44:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's got a hip no ray.
• 1:44:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's on the moon, in order to ally with the submariner, the Red Skull vowed that he would change his ways, and he now supports democracy, but of course the ploy fails.
• 1:44:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: The Red Skull's apps himself into a space station where he smokes a cigarette while his aid dresses him, and then he rents about how he has brought Dr. Doom's own weapons to turn against him.
• 1:44:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: After killing one of his aids for questioning him, the Red Skull fires missiles at the attacking doom, then dresses in a Nazi space suit.
• 1:44:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red's little star wars blaster ship out into combat, but the ship is soon destroyed.
• 1:44:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: So after a fist fight, the skull is buried in a landslide on the moon and is man abandoned him, siding with Dr. Doom and leading him to die there.
• 1:44:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me welcome my guest for this little vignette.
• 1:44:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: My dear friend Scott free.
• 1:44:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Scott, are you a red skull fan?
• 1:44:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think anyone should describe themselves as a red skull fan.
• 1:44:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think he's a fascinating villain because he's one of the few villains where there's just absolutely nothing redeemable about him.
• 1:44:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like doom is a complex figure where there's, you know, you can, you can debate doom's moral philosophy and thought and stuff.
• 1:45:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing redeemable about red skull.
• 1:45:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's a,
• 1:45:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: like he's he's a Nazi.
• 1:45:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: This question I've been asking every guest and it makes everyone so uncomfortable.
• 1:45:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: What was it like for you to read super villain team up ten through twelve?
• 1:45:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of assuming this is your first time having read this little trio of stories did this this was my first time reading this it's insane it's
• 1:45:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, some of Bill Mantle's, I would say, craziest, like, dialogue and plotting.
• 1:45:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I went into this not knowing what I was going into.
• 1:45:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You get cap, but you get the shroud, which is a bit of a deep cut for modern readers.
• 1:45:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do, name or red skull.
• 1:45:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was a whole banana of just big personalities.
• 1:45:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red Skull as the background villain is one thing.
• 1:45:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red Skull is a featured character, kind of taking a broom on the page or something else.
• 1:45:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: The interior world of this man is never pleasant to look at, and it gets worse this time goes on.
• 1:46:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, no, no.
• 1:46:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was really fascinating, like, to get serious for a moment.
• 1:46:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is a real sort of commentary on
• 1:46:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like the way that fascism and nazism works, it's like they don't create anything of their own.
• 1:46:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no creation of value.
• 1:46:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's just taking other things, appropriating things and going, oh, well, this is mine.
• 1:46:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's absurd in the context of him stealing Dr. Doom's hypnore and all of Doom's technology, but it's like skull.
• 1:46:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: The red skull hasn't created any of this.
• 1:46:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's captured it and said, oh, well, this now belongs to the fourth Reich.
• 1:46:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rare to say this, you have to side with Dr. Doom and be like, give the man back as fucking hypno ray, you Nazi.
• 1:46:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Doom is, well, let's talk about that.
• 1:46:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's about four points.
• 1:46:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think you're really interesting to explore here.
• 1:46:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: The contrast between Dr. Doom and Red Skull is something you already played up on, right?
• 1:46:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Doom is a dictator.
• 1:46:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: He is not just dictator, according to many, but he does have
• 1:46:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: a sense of honor, and he's definitely an awful supervillain who's obsessed with power.
• 1:47:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: But when you compare him to the red skull, it's kind of not the same.
• 1:47:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Doom will conquer the world with a cosmic cube and make sure everyone will pay attention to him.
• 1:47:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: But red skull will conquer the world with a cosmic cube and then kill about half the planet in concentration camps because he thinks they deserve it.
• 1:47:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's just they're not the same character, but it's an interesting contrast.
• 1:47:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, dooms, dooms main focus is doom, but doom wants also the people of light area to be, you know, prosperous and, you know, technologically advanced on the subred skull.
• 1:47:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: As long as they know their place, but yes.
• 1:47:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, standard sort of dictator stuff with the addition of high technology and magic.
• 1:47:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Red Skull, like you said, will kill third half the population because their Jewish, their mutants, their Romani, you know, they looked at him funny like take your your pick and it's like there isn't anything constructive about the Red Skull at all.
• 1:48:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whereas doom and name were also features in this.
• 1:48:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: sort of, you know, they're dictators, but they do have positive traits in a way.
• 1:48:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: But Redskill has the kind of several different types of storylines.
• 1:48:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really interesting, because you know, often he's like wheels within wheels, plots within plots.
• 1:48:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: But this is a thing he sees where I can just seize this base of power.
• 1:48:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then use all the stuff there to further my plot, right?
• 1:48:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I can let a sub-mariner, I can take the things.
• 1:48:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: But when there is kind of this pilfered technology, and I provide those real world examples of the Nazi cause,
• 1:48:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: moving forward and then slowly adding things to their own ranks and using slave labor basically to uphold them and you know they paint their designs and then call it theirs.
• 1:48:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's weirdly akin to what we're seeing a lot from American administrations currently, which is deeply uncomfortable in its way.
• 1:48:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Again, in a silly supervillain story, but it's it's uncomfortable to watch.
• 1:48:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Especially considering, you know, my theory is obviously fictional, but it's supposed to be in sort of the Romania, Hungary, area, migration.
• 1:49:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a country that probably would have been occupied during World War II by the Nazis.
• 1:49:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: They would have suffered
• 1:49:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: like a lot of other Eastern European peoples and it's very jarring for you know to put that real world history in there to then just have this unrepent and unrestructed Nazi taking over this Eastern European nation and you know he thinks these people are subhuman or beneath him even though he you know looks like a leather chair he thinks he's he's better than everybody and you know this is something that we see with
• 1:49:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: contemporary fascists where it's like the guy who's screaming at you about how he's from the master race is then you know like Donald Trump who is not exactly the pinnacle physical fitness and you know it's like oh this this is your master race okay
• 1:49:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: Well Hitler himself as well.
• 1:50:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Prince Rudolfo is a character who shows up in astonishing tales number one.
• 1:50:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: Dr. Doom has like, you surped the throne of Latvia from the royal family.
• 1:50:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's part of his big origin.
• 1:50:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: And Rudolfo shows up, I don't know, it doesn't times or so, ish, prominently featured through Supervillain team up in a couple of different storylines.
• 1:50:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And in Superville in team up, twelve, he shot by Dr. Doom, and it's later confirmed this killed him.
• 1:50:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, this is a character who is dead at the hands of Doom.
• 1:50:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: So not only, excuse me, at the hands of the red skull.
• 1:50:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So not only did he take the throne from Doom, but he also killed the one who was trying to win it back from Doom at the same time.
• 1:50:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: We often see the red skull commit murder with his hands, with his own heads, but this is a jarring example of that as well, where he's interfering with, you know, international politics.
• 1:50:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we get to the silly red skull.
• 1:50:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is another theme we're watching over and over again.
• 1:50:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we have silly Donald Trump as well.
• 1:50:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: But anytime we look at the comics and see, you know, red skull in kind of a Donald Duck type adventure, he's like in his little space blaster out in space.
• 1:50:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Pup, pup, pup.
• 1:51:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: It gives me the visions of like Donald Trump like behind the McDonald's drive through window or like in the in the truck like Hong Kong, like I figured that with the Easter Bunny, like there's all these ridiculous memes of this horrible horrible man, like trying to be cute somehow.
• 1:51:15
  [SPEAKER_02]: Red skull in his little spaceship is somehow delightful.
• 1:51:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
• 1:51:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: One of the things, and we see this in contemporary culture, one of the things that fascists cannot stand or abide is when you laugh at them.
• 1:51:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because somebody like Red skull sees his little ridiculous space suit with the swastika and his little bike.
• 1:51:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he thinks this is aesthetically, this is great, this is beautiful.
• 1:51:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you laugh at guys like this, they cannot stand it.
• 1:51:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: It breaks their brains.
• 1:51:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is just like meta commentary.
• 1:51:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think on not intentional meta commentary, but commentary on just like the absurdity of like Naziism and stuff where it's like this guy is positioning himself to be the new Hitler and yet he's up on the moon in a nineteen forty space suit.
• 1:52:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: uh, getting in a fist fight with Dr. Doom, and it's like, how are we supposed to take you seriously?
• 1:52:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, there's also the end where, you know, he gets his come up and send it's way where all the men who he tried to force to be loyal to him abandoned him on the mood and his little landslide and leave him for dead.
• 1:52:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: Of course, it doesn't work because our Nimzola shows up next time.
• 1:52:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: but he gets his kind of come up in the end of this.
• 1:52:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: Were there any moments in the story you wanted to highlight or discuss?
• 1:52:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: I did like when Neymor actually encounters red skulls men trying to, I think they're trying to mine in the city of Atlantis, Atlantis in this period, everybody's in stasis.
• 1:52:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, it gets and highlights sort of the difference between guys like Neymor and
• 1:52:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Red Skull, where the Red Skull's best goes like, these people are just supposed, well, I don't care.
• 1:52:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Get me what I want from there.
• 1:52:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And where his name or just goes absolutely ached shit when he finds these people attacking his city.
• 1:53:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And he's like, me or the history with the Nazis himself, for sure.
• 1:53:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:53:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I mean, this is a guy who spent World War II drowning Nazis while wearing a Speedo.
• 1:53:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's like, respect for that.
• 1:53:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, this is mostly a doom Red Skull story, but the name or bits I did find really interesting because it's
• 1:53:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's name or at a point where he's actually fairly low or like, you know, Atlantis is frozen.
• 1:53:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: He's just doing this thing and it's actually kind of like fun to see name orders cut loose on his Nazis and it never believe in Nazi as well, right?
• 1:53:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Because we have red skull being like, I support democracy now.
• 1:53:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can trust me, but of course, if you listen, it doesn't end well.
• 1:53:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I did his handbook profile too.
• 1:53:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is Maximillium Cole Ridge.
• 1:53:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's a complicated character.
• 1:53:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's been in the Moon Night books which Ed McCay recently.
• 1:53:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: But he's kind of on this odd quest around the world.
• 1:53:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: It has early history.
• 1:53:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's one of the
• 1:54:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: throughline characters through super villain team up as he's trying to like figure himself out.
• 1:54:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then right after this book ends, he ends up becoming like a mock criminal in Fort Leica, like a mock kingpin basically, because he's trying to infiltrate super villain undergrad.
• 1:54:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: This man always has very complicated ethics.
• 1:54:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: He's an interesting character.
• 1:54:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:54:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: The shroud is fascinating.
• 1:54:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you said, he is very complicated ethics.
• 1:54:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: He tends to come up with and or get himself involved in overly complicated plots and plans.
• 1:54:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's one of these things as the reader where you're just like, hey, buddy, is this a good idea?
• 1:54:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're not thinking this through.
• 1:54:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, for example, recent Moon Knight series.
• 1:54:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not going to spoil it for anybody, but like, buddy, did you really think this through?
• 1:54:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he tries to become the moonlight for a while.
• 1:54:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then we have that civil war story with Julia Carpenter.
• 1:54:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, he has some crazy journeys along the way.
• 1:54:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: My final sort of thoughts are, we've mentioned before, always laugh at fascists, always laugh at Nazis.
• 1:55:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: They hate it.
• 1:55:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Guys like the red skull or real-life fascists, they cannot stand people making fun of their absurd aesthetics, their absurd plans.
• 1:55:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when you encounter these people in real life, treat them humorous.
• 1:55:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, they are not humorous, but they will not like it if you laugh at them.
• 1:55:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a batshit crazy book and I would wholly recommend people reading it because I had never read this before and it was a ton of fun.
• 1:55:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bob Hall is one of my all-time favorite penslers.
• 1:55:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: I had the fortune of having Bob on my show.
• 1:55:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Beautiful pencils.
• 1:55:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: The cover of the Super Bowl and team up number ten alone.
• 1:55:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's the red skull looking so grotesque.
• 1:55:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like holding out his hand while he has Captain America and Dr. Doom fighting in his hand.
• 1:55:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: But then in the very next cover, we see Red Skull fighting doom directly.
• 1:55:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: With the price of admission for issue number twelve, if you just look at the cover alone, you get the image of Red Skull and his little helmet with his little blaster on his little ship in space and it's just crazy.
• 1:56:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's really, really nuts.
• 1:56:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: When you're considering like the classic X-Men cover boxes, and you're used to like storm and cyclops and long shots heads up there, it's jarring to see Dr. Doom in the red skull sharing the cover billy.
• 1:56:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know, it's just, it's a spin right here.
• 1:56:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you're, you're expecting not Dr. Doom in red skull.
• 1:56:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I don't know how else to put that, and it's just like, oh yeah, that's the fucking red skull.
• 1:56:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
• 1:56:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: So to put it in our final, my final thought is Dr. Nume's a very bad guy, and the red skull is one person he'd never fucking work with.
• 1:56:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll just say that.
• 1:56:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: When I was reading this, it was funny.
• 1:56:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was thinking back to, it's one of the GCN Marvel crossovers that man kept in America, and the Joker very famously, when he finds out the red skull is a Nazi, he says, I'm a sociopath, but I'm an American sociopath, God damn it.
• 1:56:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think that really sort of puts the red skulls all stick in the perspective Yeah, like Kingpin kind of has this place weirdly Mr. Sinister Magneto is the even I mean not saber to so much I suppose but still red skulls the worst of the worst of the worst every time it's uh if you touch Well, thank you Mr. Scott for your time and talent.
• 1:57:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's always great to see your face.
• 1:57:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bye.
• 1:57:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Bye.
• 1:57:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for listening to Grimalk and Lane.
• 1:57:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: We hope you are enjoying this podcast.
• 1:57:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Grimalk and Lane is produced and recorded in Salt Lake City, Utah with music and editing done by my husband, Michael Bell, and promo art done by the incredible Seth Martell.
• 1:57:35
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• 1:57:42
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• 1:57:48
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• 1:57:50
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• 1:57:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll see you back your next time on Grimmulkin Lane.