Latest / Graymalkin Lane the podcast / Bonus Patreon Release: Lady Stilt-Man! With Ruthanne Price!

Transcript

Bonus Patreon Release: Lady Stilt-Man! With Ruthanne Price! · Graymalkin Lane the podcast

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Green Walken Lane Patreon channel where we get to celebrate oft overlooked characters that deserve a little bit more attention and today we are celebrating a well on the show this month we're celebrating characters who fall into the category of the gimmick.
0:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Now over on the mean show this month the trial is going to be a combination of the characters rampate
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: and stilt man and stilt man's one of my all-time favorite nerdy gimmick villains.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: He's ridiculous any character that kind of falls into that category of like someone Batman might have fought in the 1960s where like they have a gimmick and they make all the criminals they hire dress in that gimmick but also their base is
0:40
[SPEAKER_00]: the gimmick and also everything they steal is related to the gimmick like cat women's all cats and penguins all penguins and jokers all like smiley shit right like it's it's a fun thing to consider Marvel has a lot of these characters a lot of them are dare double villains from the owl to the jester and one of his earliest ones is the stilt man who I love
1:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we had to jump to the world of 2009 where we meet a variant on this character.
1:05
[SPEAKER_00]: My dear friend Ruth Anne Price is here to join with me on this episode.
1:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Hi Ruth, we were sitting down for coffee and Toronto.
1:12
[SPEAKER_00]: We brought up gimmick villains.
1:14
[SPEAKER_00]: I suggested this episode.
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You heard the name and thought what?
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: What I mentioned?
1:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe we should do Lady Stiltman.
1:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, how can you say no to Lady Stiltman?
1:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the best, not Stilt Lady.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Not Stilt woman, Lady Stilt man, just yes.
1:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Stilt man, it's kind of a feminist version of, right?
1:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Like if it was a man naming her, like Lady Stilt or something that'd be uncomfortable,
1:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a lot of characters that are male, spider-man, and then there's the spider-woman.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We've got, you know, Batman and Batman, Batman, it goes on and on, and there's this kind of just whole franchise of like the female variant of the male hero or villain.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You get Joker, and it's not Lady Joker, it's Harley Quinn, right?
1:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, what are your thoughts on the name Lady Stiltman as a reclamation?
2:00
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an odd choice for this character.
2:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It is.
2:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, within within the purview of the story itself, she chose it.
2:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So she wanted to indicate that she was in fact a lady, but also wanted to pick a villain named that had a certain cachet that came with it already.
2:14
[SPEAKER_01]: So I have a great deal of respect for that.
2:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And she does seem for the most part very ladylike with her very, very long legs and her very delicate movements until Deadpool gets hold of her.
2:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But
2:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Wilbur Day, the Stiltman, and I did write the profile on this guy on both the appendix and the handbooks.
2:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Love, love this character, truly just a narcissistic awful person, but he is a kind of fledgling inventor, who basically stole some hydraulic leg presses from like a guy, and then like made that guy look like a villain.
2:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Wilbur from the very beginning was like these are mine, I patented them, but they're really he didn't even invent them,
2:55
[SPEAKER_00]: career.
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And one thing you got to say about this guys, he is tenacious.
2:59
[SPEAKER_00]: He gets his ass kicked and he comes back and he comes back and he comes back and he comes back.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruth Ann, Spider-Man versus Stiltman, what's the easiest way for Stiltman to get defeated?
3:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, to get stuck to a wall apparently.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We're like web the legs together and tip to go over, right?
3:14
[SPEAKER_00]: She Hulk versus Stiltman, easiest way to beat him.
3:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Just hit him really hard.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: The tie is legs into a pretzel.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a hot guy versus still man.
3:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You just fire some slippery shit under his still me falls down.
3:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Like the gimmick is not really very smart at the end of the day.
3:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So he has to keep coming up with new ways to challenge.
3:34
[SPEAKER_00]: He'll come up with electric stills and he'll come up with like a force field and like body armor and like gas attacks and just shitty things keep happening to him but he just keeps coming back.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: He marries Princess Python at one point.
3:47
[SPEAKER_00]: There is a little kid villain running around and Avengers Academy called Kids Stilt Man now, who is his child.
3:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are other still man out there, including in one appearance, a Stilt Man gang.
3:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So, Stilt Man has a whole franchise, which is interesting to me.
4:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Dan Slot in Spider-Man several years ago, established the character Hobgoblin, was like taking old supervillain identities and franchising them out to people who wanted to be supervillains.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So like, I'm gonna get this identity of this dead criminal and all like, license or lease the identity out to you, fresh, excellent.
4:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to give me a portion of your robbing, like whatever you get from this.
4:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a it's like a really interesting Like I don't know he's like franchising fast food restaurants, but they're terrible super villain identities like the ringer and like steeplejack and all these like old crazy like Marvel villains I almost kind of wonder if that's where our character initially got her start We truly don't know why she chose to become lady stilt man.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: She got a pair of stiltes and they're cool They're cooler than stilt man stiltes
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And then she launches a career for herself, and we are here to support women's wrongs on this show every time.
4:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
4:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I would like to see, I don't know, her, she seems to rob a lot of banks, which is fine.
4:59
[SPEAKER_01]: But she doesn't seem to rob, well, you don't get a lot of really a lot of details.
5:03
[SPEAKER_01]: She gets mostly, you see her mostly getting caught from robbing banks.
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not someone to show me how she uses the stilts as a tool to do this more effectively.
5:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So her stills are more like tentacles almost.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: They almost come across like Dr. Octopus's arms, where they're kind of bendy windy, loopy, which doesn't always serve her well, but more interesting than, I mean, she doesn't use them to like wrap around people that more like quick evasions like the ability to kind of get away and twist through things.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And she loves, she loves having long still legs.
5:33
[SPEAKER_00]: But how would you describe her visual?
5:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she looks basically like a very, very long.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: She's kind of slinky like almost right because she's armored from sort of head to toe, except in that one issue where she's wearing a armor bikini of some sort, and her legs are showing at the top of her stilts, um, but it, you know, it's very just, she's silver, she's got a mask, she's got a helmet.
5:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Sometimes there's some hair flowing, um, but always wrapped in chrome.
5:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she's got like long chestnut hair that kind of flows out the back goggles and this woman, this is an angry woman.
6:06
[SPEAKER_00]: She's pissed off basically all the time.
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, we do see some vulnerability from her in one very serious appearance that we'll talk about involving misty night, but mostly she's just really pissed off and she has no time for superheroes.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: She's fine.
6:19
[SPEAKER_00]: and hates every one of them.
6:20
[SPEAKER_00]: She's super annoyed anytime one of them shows up.
6:23
[SPEAKER_00]: She just trying to do her damn job and her job is crime.
6:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And everyone leave her the fuck alone is kind of the mentality we get from her most of the time.
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, she's a little prickly in that respect.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she just, she wants people to respect her for who she is and what she does.
6:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And like you said, leave her alone, let her get the job done.
6:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like maybe a mentorship with Black Cat would be, you know, a little useful for her just in that respect, maybe a little that luck run off.
6:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't think Black Cat would have much time
6:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But now you and I've taken some interesting journeys together on my show, you've voiced the Scarlet, which we've done the trial of Hellcat.
6:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm assuming every once in a while your wife walks by and says, what are you doing?
7:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you go, well, I'm researching ladies still.
7:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, oh, it's for that podcast that that silly one with the silly things Not always silly, but today we're gonna be mostly silly.
7:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we're jumping into amazing spider and man number 611 is where we start with this character 2009 Joe Kelly and Eric connect by our man is by
7:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Getting a brand new foe, it's Stiltman Armor, except with new bendy stiltes.
7:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And also it's a lady with long brown hair, and she is angry, quick to action.
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Her name is Lady Stiltman.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So Spider-Man says, so before I get on with the business of heroing, please say it again, like you really mean it.
7:43
[SPEAKER_01]: She'll be with you in sec.
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the dawn of a new age and crime.
7:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So says Lady Stiltman.
7:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, there is a lot already to hell with you is a great thing to say to Spider-Man.
7:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The door of a new age of crime, and then the announcement of her name in all caps.
8:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Spider-Man is cracking up.
8:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, thank you so much, ladies still.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't even say it with a straight face.
8:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry.
8:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You probably worked really hard on that.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So funny.
8:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an homage.
8:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You just used a homology and you really meant it.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh god, I hope so, but it puts that up on YouTube.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You'll be the next photo bombing squirrel.
8:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep laughing, insect.
8:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'll squash it.
8:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Wait, wait, squash me like a bug.
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow, you excelled finding new and exciting ways to embarrass yourself.
8:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Did you even bother doing any research?
8:33
[SPEAKER_00]: There are a lot of bad guys.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You could have homage.
8:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the world is ready for a sister spot, maybe Baron is bomb.
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Shut up.
8:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Tell me the truth, this is a setup.
8:43
[SPEAKER_00]: We're on TV, right?
8:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You're at a Kardashian or a Hilton or something.
8:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Who wants to be a super-hill at S?
8:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a show?
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Where's Esther D'Cutcher?
8:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm adding some art here.
8:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So she is kicking and stomping around and she accidentally steps directly into this gimmick is ridiculous, but it made me smile so hard.
9:01
[SPEAKER_00]: She steps into a giant red high heel that's on the top of the shoe repair van, and then she's trying to walk around and heels on her stilts on one heel, and she's just fucking falling over.
9:12
[SPEAKER_00]: She's pissed now.
9:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll kill you Spider-Man, so swears, ladies still.
9:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the worst possible thing that could have ever happened to this character happens in this moment.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Deadpool shows up and he moves a manhole cover and then she steps into the open manhole with her other foot and just falls completely to the ground and then she just starts.
9:34
[SPEAKER_00]: sobbing, and it shows her in like a full set of splits, and her legs are long, long, long, long, long, long, long, long.
9:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
9:40
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like 40 foot legs.
9:42
[SPEAKER_00]: She just crashed to the ground and landed on her kuchi.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: One foot's in a high heel.
9:46
[SPEAKER_00]: The other is in an
9:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Literally like looney tunes.
9:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man.
9:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love Lucy.
9:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, man.
9:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let it out.
9:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Says Spidey.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I know the first one hurts the most especially, you know I mean you defeated my own legs.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Just thank God.
10:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You really aren't stilt matter.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd be singing soprano.
10:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay delicious comedy in this we have to admit what are your thoughts on the introduction of Lady still man, such as it is Well, it's pretty undignified.
10:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh
10:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So and that that just she's she has played for laughs a lot, right?
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think there's I don't know.
10:25
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of underlying pathos there.
10:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Just with her frustration in general, but she's also funny.
10:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So what do your thoughts on?
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
10:33
[SPEAKER_00]: We have male writers using the female character as a joke.
10:37
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of a funny take on feminism because she's not still woman.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: She's lady still mad.
10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And the name does make you smile.
10:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to admit.
10:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're spider-man then Deadpool teeming up like what a fun villain to fight.
10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: this story go too far.
10:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I think goes too far.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's it's when it happens just over and over and over and over again.
10:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it just gets a little bit tiresome right.
10:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's a lot of appearances where all you see is again, she's went to a wall or whatever some of the later ones.
11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I know we'll get to them later some of the later ones.
11:06
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a little bit more of like her personality and her taking a little bit of agency and situations that I'd like a little bit better.
11:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So this one though, if they had been like sexually harassing her or Deadpool starts making sexual quips, I'm over really fast.
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
11:20
[SPEAKER_00]: The gag of her landing in a giant high heel, it's very bug's bunny somehow.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, what would, do you want to share?
11:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never really walked in heels.
11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you want to share with listeners what walking in one heel on a New Yorkside walk might be like?
11:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I also have never walked in heels, so I look at it, look at you.
11:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, no, like maybe like, you know, a little pair of pumps.
11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's terrible.
11:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a very specific memory of being in New York City with Dementa Martini in full drag.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: She's in full drag.
11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: We're at a gig, and we have to walk back to the hotel.
11:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And she just takes her full heels off.
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And just just walking down the sidewalk in drag and her feet.
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like in her sockings.
12:00
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, and I'm like, I don't know if I would want to walk in socks on these sidewalks.
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like trust me, you don't want to walk in heels.
12:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it fucking hurts.
12:07
[SPEAKER_00]: This is what I'm getting.
12:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So that is the impression I get.
12:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have very good balance.
12:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it just I would be lady still planning everywhere.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I went.
12:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The, as I understand it, when you're in heels, you're supposed to try to walk on the ball of your foot and you have to keep your balance very precariously on your toes and the ball of your foot.
12:27
[SPEAKER_00]: When you are a still foot in a heel, there's no ball of your foot.
12:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's just a still leg like all of your joints are rolling, you know.
12:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I roll my ankles in Birkenstocks.
12:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So, would you rather be sister spot or Baroness Bong?
12:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, of those choices, probably sister spots.
12:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So, spot is a really spot.
12:48
[SPEAKER_00]: How does another gimmick character that's pretty fun?
12:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Spot is a guy all white that has black spots all over him and they're all teleportation circles.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: So he can like punch into his chest and then the fist comes out somewhere built in the portal.
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But his real name is Dr. Jonathan on.
13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So he's Johnny on the spot, which is ridiculous.
13:06
[SPEAKER_00]: The other character the referencing here is, a guy I consider doing for the Patreon, a guy named Dr. Bong, who's a Howard the Duck villain, who's a psychotherapist, who just wears it.
13:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He has his helmet is a giant.
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Bell.
13:18
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time he shows up, he gets cocked in the head, and there's like all these jokes about the giant bell.
13:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So we think of Bong in terms of like marijuana, but like this is sister spot and Baroness Bong.
13:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
13:30
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm kind of here for it.
13:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady still bends the best of the three though.
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: For sure.
13:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I had never heard of I had definitely gone to marijuana with Baroness Bong.
13:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And I only know spot from Spiderman.
13:41
[SPEAKER_01]: So.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a lot of fun.
13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a fun one.
13:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, is Lady Stiltman in on the joke?
13:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't seem like she's in on the joke.
13:47
[SPEAKER_01]: She doesn't seem to think she's a joke, right?
13:49
[SPEAKER_01]: She takes herself pretty seriously, I think.
13:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she really wants a respect and like thinks she's going to like build a name for herself.
13:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't exactly know where the story comes from or why this is so important to her, but we get a little, we get a little of this later in the more serious story.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, there's a very brief appearance in many loves of Spider-Man, which is a, there's, there's several stories in the third story.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: She's trying her second heist, and he webs her Spider-Man webs her to the wall again, and she named drops herself and gets mad.
14:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the kind of the same thing, but it's basically one panel.
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we jump to Villains for Higher, which is Abnant and Landing, giving us a Misty Night book, basically, where there's just a ton going on.
14:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a Heroes for Higher book that proceeds this, where Misty Night is taking down the puppet master and purple man, who are both mind-controlly rapey guys, and she's working with Paladin and several other heroes.
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And she gets to be the girl who's like control.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: She's calling everyone a lady.
14:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, hey, hero, are you for hire?
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: It's me, Misty Knight.
14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: She sends everybody on missions.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's big splashy art.
14:58
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of fun, like character stuff that you wouldn't expect.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Characters you wouldn't expect to see.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The follow-up to that series is the short-lived villains for hire, which is still Misty Knight putting a team together.
15:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're kind of fighting another team of villains that are for hire.
15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Ednik, the purple man and puppet master are still around.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: We get to see some fun X-Men villains here.
15:18
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some really fun people that show up in this series.
15:20
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a lot of fun.
15:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun to see lady still men as part of a team, not just in a group of people doing something, but like actually like recruited for specific purpose within a body of different people.
15:32
[SPEAKER_01]: The story was a little bit confusing.
15:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I will admit just because I don't know what's going on with Mr. Knight and so didn't have time to finish reading figure out what was up.
15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You know.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so in villains for higher point one, they were doing this thing where they would launch a series with an issue like 0.1 sidewinder, Gregory Brian, who's the replacement member of the circumsciety, has hired Lady Stiltman, who in this point starts going by Stiltman.
16:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Just for a little while, she says the names of good one, there's prestige attached, a solid rep. And she's stealing art.
16:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And she passes it on to some mulloids, the little subterranean guys from the underground that worked for Mulman.
16:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Misty Knights on the case, she sends Black Panther and Silver Sable after her.
16:20
[SPEAKER_00]: She says, still, man, thought he was dead.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: This a new one?
16:22
[SPEAKER_00]: How many are there since the original three or four?
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd think someone would have noticed it was a dumb ass idea the first time.
16:29
[SPEAKER_00]: She's mad at me.
16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So she still silversable, ladies don't men still silversable out of the air with her stilts.
16:37
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets to fight the black Panther.
16:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Black Panther says, but you're a woman, why not forge your own identity to which she says.
16:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Lady Stiltman just got me mocked.
16:46
[SPEAKER_01]: But God, this is the 21st century.
16:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be Stiltman.
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a like Jane Foster as Thor and everyone's like, are you Lady Thor?
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, no, I'm just fucking Thor or Laura Kitty is Wolverine.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no, I'm not the girl Wolverine.
16:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just fucking Wolverine.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, I can be it.
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all right.
17:02
[SPEAKER_00]: The God, there's no men taking on the Lady's names, which I suppose would be appropriation.
17:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I don't know.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of examples of female characters taking on the male identity and like launching into the fame, but I don't know.
17:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of hear the Black Panther too.
17:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Like your own identity is right there for you too.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have thoughts on Black Panther's comments there?
17:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
17:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it seems like an inappropriate place for this sort of conversation.
17:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why everyone's so hung up on her name.
17:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Perhaps at this point soon, we can start going by the Indigo Witch.
17:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah, I see, you know, she's mother, which is even better because he's gay.
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I love that actually.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and everyone's like really braiding her like they're really, they're really letting her have it kind of constantly.
17:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Every time she shows up on the page, she's having to just like defend her identity again.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like she can keep that a little bit though.
17:47
[SPEAKER_00]: She changed to stilt man for a while.
17:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I panther knocks her out on the subway.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: We jump to a villains for higher number two.
17:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, Misty Knight is hiring villains.
17:55
[SPEAKER_00]: She hires this new stilt man for assignments.
17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: She's working with a team of villains for higher against a different group of villains who are working for purple man.
18:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Fuck the purple man, that guy.
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've seen Jessica Jones.
18:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Stiltman gets to fight Bushwacker, who is a man of color, who has had his upper body grafted on to a giant cybernetic snake tail underneath.
18:17
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a character from the Serpent Society.
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So the Stilt girl, I mean, Lady Stiltman fighting the snake guy, Ruth, I know you have thoughts here.
18:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they seem like a good pairing just with the cybernetic snake body and then the long legs, right?
18:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Seems like there could be some interesting stuff there.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I just getting lots of villains together is fun, but then you get a lot of villains together and you're like, what is happening?
18:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's it's wild action with characters that you don't often get to see.
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a bunch of people who start showing up.
18:49
[SPEAKER_00]: In this fight with Bushmaster, there's a textbook that tells us she has an armored mobility suit and hydraulic ram limb extensors.
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And Bushmaster says, still girl, and she replies, still man, damn it.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Which here we go again.
19:04
[SPEAKER_00]: On her team are speed demon, super fast,
19:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Tiger Shark, who I love, a Olympic swimmer grafted to a shark DNA, old, old villain.
19:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Bomb shell, who's a evil juggler lady, who juggles time bombs, and she's on a full team of evil jugglers, by the way.
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a full supervillain team called the Death Rose with characters like Nettenpin, Oddball, like there's a whole group of evil jugglers.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you surprised by this?
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, no, not really, but I'm thinking group of people druglers family of still people, but we really need is an evil circus.
19:39
[SPEAKER_00]: We also have the circus of crime.
19:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
19:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a full drip there.
19:43
[SPEAKER_00]: See the princess Python episode for more on those guys.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Nightshade is also on the team.
19:48
[SPEAKER_00]: She has a trial on my show.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And Baku the Manipus here, who has an episode on my Patreon.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And then Crossfire, who's a shitty old Hawkeye villain.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: and they're fighting against Bushmaster, lady death stalker.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lady wearing an old Daredevil villain.
20:03
[SPEAKER_00]: This guy has like a death touch.
20:05
[SPEAKER_00]: He touches you and you die.
20:06
[SPEAKER_00]: So lady death stalker is here.
20:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Monster, head hunter, avalanche, and shocker.
20:12
[SPEAKER_00]: X-Men fans will recognize avalanche, surprise.
20:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Ruth Ann, I know has a particular affinity for head hunter and has dressed like head hunter for our episode.
20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, I'm only dressed like hand-hunter because my stulter at the cleaners.
20:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Then it's just a bunkers group, but I was not really familiar with any of these people, so, you know, but Tiger Shark is absolutely crazy.
20:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And psychotic from what I can tell.
20:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a list of like favorites that I just want to do trials for on my show, Tiger Shark's on that list, for sure.
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Still, man's been on it for a long time though.
20:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I really love him.
20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, and this is my favorite simple, lady still man moment.
20:50
[SPEAKER_00]: As the villain shit gets crazy and Peppett master stops in, she's done.
20:54
[SPEAKER_00]: She doesn't want to do it anymore.
20:56
[SPEAKER_00]: She's like, this is too much.
20:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And she says as she walks away.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Kiss my armoured butt.
21:01
[SPEAKER_00]: which is fantastic.
21:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So they treat her a little bit more seriously here.
21:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They're still in on the gimmick, but she gets a little bit more action and she's not just web to a wall.
21:10
[SPEAKER_00]: She did so misty out by the way to the purple man in the end, so she's up to make a profit and you know who can falter.
21:17
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the job.
21:18
[SPEAKER_01]: She's just doing the job.
21:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We have a surprise.
21:21
[SPEAKER_00]: X-Men appearance very briefly in X-Men volume three number 38.
21:25
[SPEAKER_00]: She's at the bar with no name.
21:26
[SPEAKER_00]: She's got her hips out with like bikini bottoms over her stilts, uh, accessorizing.
21:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, she's not at work.
21:33
[SPEAKER_01]: She's out for a night on the town.
21:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The girl can dress how she wants, right?
21:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Daredevil and Domino show up and there's a bar fight and Daredevil grabs her leg and knocks her down.
21:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Her only fight with Daredevil who fights a Stiltman all the time.
21:46
[SPEAKER_00]: I like that she's willing to dress and go out to have a good time.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, for sure.
21:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, it really seemed like much of a fight.
21:51
[SPEAKER_01]: She was just running away and he knocked her down.
21:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So I also don't understand that issue was fun.
21:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Lots of action.
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We're into that phase of comics where people stop explaining things.
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: So people like me who are coming in blind just have no clue.
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, and you're like, I have no idea who these people are why they're doing what they're doing or what is happening I don't know why that walk there and they're starting to fight.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make any sense to me Like maybe gathers well to be fair Domino was not starting a fight.
22:15
[SPEAKER_01]: She was gambling and doing pretty well Then dart dare devil was like let's start a fight for devil loves to go rough people up in a bar and get information It's his favorite way to spend an evening
22:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as a handbook guy, there are so many group shots of super villains hanging out at the bar with no name.
22:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you're like tabulating all their appearances, you have to like type it all out.
22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And here's everyone who was in the bar.
22:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it could get annoying because they're only in the background at a pool table somewhere, you know?
22:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Jumping over to Secret Avengers, 29 through 32 and Secret Avengers volume to number two.
22:43
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an entire nation of super villains.
22:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a strange concept that gets used.
22:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's called Begalia.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: It is a kind of an underground place where there's just no laws.
22:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of think of like the kingpin running everything.
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're a costume super villain, you have a lot of like street cred there.
23:01
[SPEAKER_00]: If you listen to the trial of Baron Zemo, Sean Perett covers the portion of the trial where Baron Zemo's the ruler of Begalia.
23:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't go well, but we do talk about that there a little bit.
23:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And Lady Stiltman moves there for a while and she gets put on a giant team of masters of evil that just has like dozens of supervillains.
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're all working for Max Fury, which is the evil Nick Fury, life model D-Coy, and they attack an old world war two hero named John Steele, and then they get all get possessed by an evil entity called Abyss, and then they fight the Avengers.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And you see Lady Stiltman in the mix of all this, but it's kind of inconsequential,
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: super-villination, demonic possession, and evil LMDs.
23:42
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot going on.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of action, very, very busy.
23:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I felt a little bit bad for Max Fury, who apparently is just an evil, but he was not worthy enough of the crown, so he could not be possessed by the Abyss, because he is just a life-model decoy.
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Still a lot of that running around.
23:57
[SPEAKER_00]: He's a big part of that series.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot going on with that character.
24:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a fun recommender read.
24:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a there's a lot of great valkyries stuff.
24:03
[SPEAKER_00]: This is when valkyries fucking flash Thompson as venom, which is a crazy choice.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But I love you.
24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I love you Ruth because you're willing to just jump in and be like, I don't have to understand all this.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just looking for this one carrying.
24:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's good, like the action in this one, I'd like, story wise, this one was a little bit easier to follow.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, the setup was pretty good.
24:20
[SPEAKER_01]: The summaries at the beginning of the issues were, were decent.
24:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I recognized some of the people's vote that helps.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: In Gambit Volume 4, number nine, this is the Gambit King of Thieves story.
24:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Gambit is with Joelle and a bar fight.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a whole bunch of supervillains.
24:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And we get one little moment where Lady Stiltman looks over at Boomerang, who's just a giant flop.
24:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I love him, Fred Mayer, the boomerang.
24:44
[SPEAKER_00]: He's in crutches and in an neck brace and on crutches, and she's like, maybe we should skip out early.
24:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And I kind of wonder if she's flirting with him here, like she wants to take boomerang home.
24:54
[SPEAKER_00]: He's hot, but also he's definitely weaker than her here, because he's injured or I don't know.
25:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and it didn't work because it does appear that she did step out early because I don't see her again in this issue, but later The end gambit are talking about like how to get the girl.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So obviously if she was flirting with him, he is not very good at his own game Yeah, but I kind of like her one of the big boomerang home.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It makes me happy.
25:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Another gimmick villain who often gets taken seriously
25:20
[SPEAKER_00]: In Deadpool 05 No.
25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: 10, there's a pre-cog, he sees the future, named Daniel Gump, who hires Lady Stillman, Taskmaster, Trapster, Trapster's like the original Marvel flop villain.
25:31
[SPEAKER_00]: By the way, his original code name is PacedPotPete, one of my all-time favorites, as well, like what I do the trial, a villain named Chance, and also Bat Rock is Eliebe.
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: to protect him from Deadpool and the superior Spider-Man.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a Dr. Octopus living in Peter Parker's body, being a better hero than Peter was.
25:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I love the superior Spider-Man.
25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Deadpool calls the group the bland tastic for, which I think is fantastic.
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Ladies still man kicks him out of a building and Deadpool goes, she kicks like a mule.
26:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, she has the face of a mule too.
26:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey lady, were you bitten by a radioactive mule?
26:05
[SPEAKER_00]: She's got legs, and she knows how to use them.
26:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I said.
26:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Worst thing that can ever happen to her is Deadpool showing up, because now we're insulting her appearance.
26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just not necessary.
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And not that funny, either.
26:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The others get stuck in trapsters glue at the end, which I apologize and advance listeners.
26:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You've heard me say this before any time you see trapsters glue on the page, it just looks like there's just like someone ejaculated everywhere.
26:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's always uncomfortable.
26:29
[SPEAKER_00]: People like plastered in white glop all over the place.
26:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, she tries escaping with the pre-cog, but, uh, Deadpool puts some explosive in her legs.
26:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So then she just ends up running away her in her underwear and a helmet.
26:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And she yells, You'll pay for destroying my legs.
26:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The radioactive muleshit truly unnecessary.
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Her running away in her underwear also unnecessary.
26:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Worst thing that can ever happen to a woman that's showing up in a dead pool book anytime.
26:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's, it's funny.
26:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Like,
26:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't try the Deadpool stuff as like so Deadpool and Spider-Man together is bad like Deadpool and as Deadpool's just an idiot, right?
27:01
[SPEAKER_01]: So like I don't know I don't even know if he's trying to be funny I think he thinks he's funny, but I find him easier to ignore just because I guess Spider-Man is trying to be funny Thanksies funny is supposed to be like Deadpool's a duch everybody knows
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There are some dead pool runs I like, there are some dead pool stories I like, and many dead pool writers I like, but it always feels like I'm watching the movie Jackass from the 90s.
27:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just, yeah, just not my favorite ever.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I just like that on the cover they put the inferior above dead pool.
27:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the superiors better man inferior dead pool, yeah.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that unbeatable squirrel girl meets beats up the Marvel universe is a giant epic story by my friend Ryan North squirrel girl beats up everybody Except it's her evil clone Don't worry about it and lady still man's in like one petal in this book truly in consequential then very long
27:50
[SPEAKER_00]: it's so fun though.
27:51
[SPEAKER_01]: So many pages.
27:52
[SPEAKER_01]: So many pages.
27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's great.
27:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Then we jump to despicable dead pool number 297.
27:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, so trying to get a little bit of time to herself a little time out and maybe a break.
28:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Lady Stiltman goes on a cruise for vacationing supervillains called the Queen Kathleen.
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, what a great idea.
28:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Give these people a break, chance to relax.
28:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Who shows up?
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Of course, dead pool of course shows up.
28:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Robbs the boat, blows it up.
28:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Lady Stiltman does kick him in the crotch,
28:20
[SPEAKER_01]: as the narrator says.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Morgan Freeman voice.
28:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Wade might not have remembered Lady Stiltman, but he sure wouldn't forget her.
28:26
[SPEAKER_00]: She kicked him square in the genital so hard that he would later bar fall over his own pouches.
28:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she gets to team up with Stiltman himself.
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Truly it doesn't even really play up on this, but it's her only team up with Stiltman ever.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: They are in fact in the same place at the same time, so not the same person in a way, right?
28:45
[SPEAKER_01]: So, but that's got Deadpool confused.
28:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Pete, how are you both here at once?
28:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought you were the same person, just different versions.
28:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This isn't from that dumb infinity stone story, is it?
28:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But they end up toppled over.
28:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Like you would expect from two stoked people working together.
28:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, fun.
29:00
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets to go on a cruise.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Nothing from her POV really, more smash them up.
29:04
[SPEAKER_00]: But she's a good time.
29:05
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same side of the cruise and have your boat blown up.
29:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I thought that would.
29:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We go to Marvel Voices in Finity Comic number 18, where Lady Stiltman Robbs a bank, and this time she takes some hostages, which is kind of an amplification for her.
29:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Miles Morales Spider-Man shows up this time.
29:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He jumps into the bank, he's, again, there's hostages.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: They said you were on stilt.
29:26
[SPEAKER_01]: still man?
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I prefer lady stilt man insect boy.
29:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And I prefer a rackenid boy.
29:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't patronize me.
29:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just as cocky as the other spider-menus.
29:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And this time she has stretchy arms too.
29:39
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like little telescoping stilt arms and her arms and legs are everywhere in this.
29:44
[SPEAKER_00]: She is kicking and whirling and like choking him.
29:47
[SPEAKER_01]: She says, won't you leave me alone?
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: You're the one robbing banks and taking hostages.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So, she takes a civilian hostage.
29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: She calls him the, quote, savior of the pathetic and the hopeless, and she says she might have to kill him.
30:01
[SPEAKER_00]: She admits she's having a very, very bad day, and she ends up webbed up and left for the cops.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, remember this story, because in a little while, we're gonna learn about something really bad that happened to her.
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And it wasn't planned that way, but the continuity stacks up in a certain kind of way.
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: She's having a little bit of like a break down here, and that's why she ends up taking hostages.
30:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's remember that this is also, I think, through them, the first time we've seen her get arrested, correct?
30:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think so.
30:25
[SPEAKER_00]: She usually runs away, so I mean, she gets wed, but we've never seen her officially go to jail.
30:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's perhaps implied previously, but this is the first real time that happens.
30:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just want to point out that she does stick with the same set of insults, regardless of which Spider-Man she's talking to.
30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Insect Boe, Iraq, Nid, yeah, yeah.
30:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, and then I opened earlier with the idea that, did maybe she franchise her stilts from Hobgoblin.
30:48
[SPEAKER_00]: When we jumped to Miles Morales 15 and 16, we see Lady Stiltman who has a gig protecting the Hobgoblin, working with other gimmick villains, Rickadana, the shocker, the gold bug, the
31:02
[SPEAKER_00]: She gets to fight Spider-Man, Ms. Marvel, Prouler, and Starling, and she gets knocked out when the shocker is thrown into her.
31:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So you've got to get read behind the scenes a little bit for this character to kind of put her together.
31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, now we get to this very sympathetic take.
31:16
[SPEAKER_00]: This is her most recent appearance.
31:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Captain America Sam Wilson, number 16.
31:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so this isn't the middle of the Me Too movement.
31:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Sam Wilson has taken on the role of Captain America.
31:26
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an expensive series.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a kind of an intense take on a super villainy.
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, there's a series in a series of stories in Miss Marvel in around two
31:38
[SPEAKER_00]: 2006 to 2008.
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: We've talked about once on the show when we had our conversation with the panel of women about kind of mind control rapies stories The puppet master has this story where he mind controls a bunch of like super women and it's just keeping them as like sex slaves And selling them out to pimp and like they're getting it raped and some of them are teenagers and like Miss Marvel has to come kick his ass
32:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, that's a sobering take on a story that you're just like, oh, this character is forever unredeemable because of that story, specifically purple man.
32:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, Ray B. Ray B. Ringmaster with the swirly hat in the mine control.
32:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Mastermind and what he does to Jean Gray.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: So these stories become uncomfortable when you start to take them in this direction.
32:21
[SPEAKER_00]: A life model decoy is a robot duplicate of a person and they often go into deep cover.
32:27
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of life model decoy stories.
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I can truly do a full three hour academic panel on life model decoys and like where they fall into like the genre of spy fiction with like 007 and get smart and all these old kind of spy thrillers.
32:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So the idea that shield has the
32:49
[SPEAKER_00]: cover and they don't even know that they are LMDs.
32:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I had one of my recent redskull chats.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: We talked about a story where there's a diamond back LMD that gets programmed by the red skull.
32:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like dating Captain America who thinks he's back together with his old girlfriend, but surprise, it's really a robot duplicate.
33:05
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a story where the winter soldier gets murdered in the big event, but turns out it was just an LMD.
33:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So we get a lot of those stories, but we also get variations on them, where there's like a series of stories in Nick Fury, where the like personality of the Nazi Baron Strucker gets uploaded into a division of the LMDs, so they're all like resurrected with like Nazi ideas.
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They're called the Deltites.
33:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So there's a lot of like LMD stories.
33:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They're all about like robots learning to be human and like defy their programming.
33:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a really uncomfortable version of that.
33:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so it's the MeToo movement.
33:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I was part of the MeToo movement.
33:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember this going all over Facebook.
33:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And just saying the words MeToo was just everybody saying, yes, I have also been sexually harassed, sexually abused, or sexually assaulted.
33:49
[SPEAKER_00]: and like it's a shocking number of women and a shocking number of men that fall into this category.
33:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is, okay, the slug who is a very problematic villain.
33:58
[SPEAKER_00]: The slug is a morbidly obese drug lord named Ulysses S. Lugman.
34:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Old Captain America villain, he is so obese that he sits around on pillows and just eats piles of food.
34:11
[SPEAKER_00]: He lives on a boat and he's like dealing drugs.
34:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And when the superheroes come to fight him, they'll like find him like suffocating people in the roles of fat between his stomach and like murdering them, a truly unpleasant character.
34:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you have seen the recent Ironheart series on Disney Plus, there is a version of the slug in that world, working with Ironheart, played by Shaikulay, like the drag queen of color, is playing a variation of the slug character, which is just a wild.
34:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This character is worthy of further conversation, but he's Ikki, and they're treating him Ikki here.
34:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So the slug is here and he has started creating a line of life model decoys based on famous women.
34:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And then having these women act in porn videos or sex tapes that he then releases online.
34:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so your Britney Spears and there's like a deep fake AI of you like fucking someone.
35:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And it looks like you and acts like you and uses your phrasing.
35:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Do you have legal right to that as a public figure?
35:12
[SPEAKER_00]: We're working out a lot of that shit
35:14
[SPEAKER_00]: courts with like AI.
35:15
[SPEAKER_00]: So this is like an Iki version of that.
35:17
[SPEAKER_00]: If someone built like a wax statue of you that's able to go fuck on camera and now they're making profit by using your likeness really really uncomfortable.
35:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like the grossest version of a West world if you've seen West world where they go fuck all the cowboys and there's a rape.
35:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are versions of women and men in life model decoy form, getting released on sex tapes.
35:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Stiltman is here, and there is a very specific horn and kink for her, based on the fact that she has very stretchy limbs.
35:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And it alludes to this as being a big problem.
35:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So the story opens with Misty Night becoming aware of all of this because Lady Stiltman has discovered that there is a porn video of her but it's not her out there and her family saw it.
36:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So she has attempted suicide and it's kind of gimmicky and it's kind of silly because we open with her in the hospital and they've had to put together a whole bunch of gurneys in a row because she's laying down in the hospital bed in full costume
36:16
[SPEAKER_00]: and her stilts are too long for the bed so they need like four other beds to put her stilts on.
36:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So we open on this double-page spread of Lady Stiltman in like multiple beds and she's on suicide watch and it sets up this very rough story.
36:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So there are bandages around her ribs, her arms are in a sling and we learn her first her real name for the first time.
36:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Missy Knight comes in
36:36
[SPEAKER_00]: and says, Cali Ryan also known as Lady Stiltman, small-time criminal with a long reach.
36:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Claire Temple is here.
36:43
[SPEAKER_00]: She asks who they should call, and she has them call Misty Knight, because they work together one time.
36:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Misty Knight's an investigator.
36:49
[SPEAKER_00]: So she thinks of Lady Stiltman as quote, she's not a bad kid for the most part, and she sure as hell don't deserve this.
36:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Lady Stiltman is completely dismort demoralized.
36:59
[SPEAKER_00]: She is hurt, she's furious, and she defends herself.
37:02
[SPEAKER_00]: She says, do you wanna read this part?
37:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't me.
37:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, it looks like me, and it sounds like me, but I've never and the guy.
37:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I have no idea who he is, Missy.
37:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I swear to God, nobody believes me.
37:13
[SPEAKER_01]: My family sought, Missy.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any idea how humiliating that is?
37:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Every time I put this costume on, I see people pointing up at me laughing.
37:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It got to the point where I didn't even want to go outside anymore.
37:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So Misty ends up kicking the slugs ass, and she clears Lady Stiltman's name and all of the other porn video names out there and exposes the whole operation.
37:33
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a one-shot story, it's jarring, and it's quite good, and it handles it delicately enough, I think, to make you take it seriously.
37:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But this is where we get most pathos for this character.
37:43
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm now picturing her as the girl who didn't feel understood by her family, who ran away to the big city, who took a franchising job to try to prove herself, who has to keep fighting these awful men, both the criminals and the heroes, and it's always overwhelming.
37:58
[SPEAKER_00]: There's giant guys with snake bodies, and there's people throwing bombs at her, and she's like, I mean, she's Robin shit.
38:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'd like not do a great thing, but she is a woman in a man's world, and she is not having it.
38:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is the worst version of that.
38:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So my head cannon here, her family has contacted her.
38:15
[SPEAKER_00]: They are humiliated, they're like disowning her.
38:17
[SPEAKER_00]: She attempts suicide as a result, which is really rough.
38:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But she also, I kind of picture this maybe as happening before the bank heist in the hostages, because she's so demoralized, like, she gets the news, does something rash, and then ends up in the hospital as a result.
38:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a jarring one and when I interviewed Paul Jenkins about the character typeface who you've never heard of, but typeface is a super gimmicky villain with a very tragic backstory.
38:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Paul was telling me the only way you can really do comedy is if you have like a significant amount of tragedy just underneath it.
38:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I think this story makes me love Lady Stiltman in a different way.
38:49
[SPEAKER_00]: She's more than just kind of a cool silly character.
38:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Now she's someone with like something to prove and something to fight against.
38:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I am not a woman, I am a therapist, and I work with a lot of women.
38:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm an extremely feminist person in the way I view the world, but this story is jarring.
39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me say it is very upsetting.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the story in general.
39:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I do like the fact that we get a name for her.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nice that there's like an identity underneath it because it does.
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It goes a long way towards counteracting the gimmick, right?
39:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And the like the hospital beds all stretched out.
39:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like the first time I saw that image of her lying in the hospital bed.
39:22
[SPEAKER_01]: With the stilts, it was funny, but then you stop to think about it and like what a gesture of respect actually from the healthcare workers who are treating the person she is, right?
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Rather than forcing her to take her legs off, you know, the only time we've ever seen her with the stilts off was when Deadpool blew them up, right?
39:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know, I think there's there's a bit of a balance there and there's there's a lot more sort of she's finally unfortunately in this terrible story, getting the respect to that she's looking for this whole time, like it's it's starting to be written into it.
39:51
[SPEAKER_00]: because of this horrible thing this man did to her against her will.
39:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Exactly, but from a writer's perspective, I think the writers are starting perhaps to take her a little more seriously too, right?
40:00
[SPEAKER_00]: If we put this in order, she has her early adventures.
40:03
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the fights with Spidey and Daredevil.
40:04
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the villains for higher stuff.
40:06
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the bar fights.
40:08
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the move to Begalia.
40:09
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the cruise ship where devil blows her up.
40:12
[SPEAKER_00]: This story happens right after that.
40:13
[SPEAKER_00]: So Nick Spencer writes this story, it's in 2016, after that is the despicable deadpool infinity comics.
40:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And then finally, the one where she's defending a task master or excuse me, a hobgoblin, that last one written by Cody Ziggler.
40:27
[SPEAKER_00]: The only, I'm looking through the whole list, I don't think a female writer has ever written this character.
40:32
[SPEAKER_00]: They are all men thus far.
40:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm wondering what it would be like to see this character take in a little bit more seriously.
40:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think gimmick always has to be part of it.
40:41
[SPEAKER_00]: even when you're taking a character seriously and they're a gimmick villain, you have to play up the gimmick.
40:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's a bajillion versions of old 60s villains with gimmicks that get played up and you get to kind of enjoy them for the gimmick.
40:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's Zatanna with her backwards talk and her like, you know, like a little magician and crazy fishnets or characters that we have learned to love because they're gimmicks that get taken seriously.
41:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm fond of Callie Ryan, is a great name for her, by the way.
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to see her having some fun, right?
41:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Because there's, again, she's a gimmick and there's a joke, but there's not necessarily a lot of fun.
41:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'd like what you just say about having a female rider tackled that and then being leaning into the gimmick.
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to say Marvel has the perfect avenue for that, which is the infinity comics.
41:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Like I think that the Avengers Academy won't still kid or can still man show how that format can really be used to great effect.
41:35
[SPEAKER_01]: for someone with these physical characteristics.
41:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's my pitch.
41:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Find a woman to write you a lady stilt man, uh, infinity, like Marvel's voice's infinity comic villain series.
41:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, even making her a bit character or even just giving her a one issue arc where we see something.
41:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there's three versions of this that could really work.
41:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, we have a redemptive arc.
41:54
[SPEAKER_00]: where she's using the her gimmick for something slightly more heroic, but she's remaining the same kind of angry person who's finding her path.
42:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We definitely don't want that in like a romantic relationship where she has to redeem herself in the eyes of a man, right?
42:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But like she's owning the thing, uh, she's launching the business or doing the thing that's kind of redemptive where she's robbing banks but giving back to kids or you know something like that.
42:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Robbing this kind of thing.
42:16
[SPEAKER_00]: There's story versions of that, in a series in the Spider-Women series a few years ago, where Spider-Women's pregnant, she finds a community of women who have been partnered to supervillains, and they've separated themselves out and formed their own feminist community, where they're raising their kids, and they want nothing to do with these awful men.
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So I could see Callie in a story like that, and it would be really interesting how
42:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, second one, I could see her.
42:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the great Captain America story where superior launches her like yacht full of like Femezones and it's all the female supervillains like doing their own thing and living on their own terms And I could see ladies still been in a leadership role in that kind of story.
42:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It would be really fun by the right person.
42:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And then third is just a villain arc where she's taken very seriously.
43:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We get some backstory, she's doing shitty things, but she actually gets some moments, squirrel girl fighting her and like finding some redemption in the character, Janet Van Dyne meeting this character and offering her a job at the end.
43:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, there's some ways to do this character as a villain and make her fun, where it's more than the smash him up and more than making fun of her name.
43:20
[SPEAKER_00]: But God, I smiled in every one of her appearances too, right?
43:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Except for the radioactive mule line.
43:27
[SPEAKER_00]: How are we feeling about this character at the end?
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I like her even more than the first time you said her name, so I'm glad I did this.
43:33
[SPEAKER_00]: She's more than a name.
43:35
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a whole lady still man.
43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Or just still man.
43:38
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're just still, she is.
43:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, she's fun.
43:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I kind of want to see her kick still man's ass and like steal the gimmick for herself.
43:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Wilbur Day, but he's a fucking ass hat too.
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So like seeing her like claim the role on the villain team could be interesting.
43:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I like her.
43:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I think she's interesting.
43:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, it's gimmick month.
43:54
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to have a good time just celebrating gimmicky characters all month.
43:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Where can people find you anything you want to plug?
43:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Everyone can follow the show at Grimalk and under score lane on Instagram most easily.
44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The best place to find me is on Instagram.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm at Heta Deblur, like Heta Deblur, but I dabble and I mean, I don't have anything to plug for sure that I know about.
44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll be here most of the time.
44:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I love being the guy that just spent an hour making a lady still my episode with you.
44:17
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like another in my cat.
44:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's take care of yourselves.
44:20
[SPEAKER_00]: The world's crazy.
44:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We're recording this in January.
44:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It won't come out till March.
44:24
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a mass shooting in my city this morning.
44:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Ice killed a woman in Minneapolis yesterday.
44:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We kidnapped the president of a foreign country just before that.
44:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Things are fucking awful here.
44:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So,
44:34
[SPEAKER_00]: We're going to keep creating joy, but I want you to hear from my voice like we're doing our best and we're going to keep making safe spaces.
44:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Please take care of yourselves out there.
44:42
[SPEAKER_00]: It is wild times.
44:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Any final words, my friend?
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I just we can hope that by the time this drops we will look back on what we're thinking about right now is a total nightmare in the past.
44:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't think that's the case, but we're going to keep trying.
44:56
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, everybody, go get yourselves some stilts.
44:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Do not walk in high heels.
44:59
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see you back here next time on the Great Malkin Lane,