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Showtime Synergy! We throw on our holographic micro-projector earring for a celebration of all things Jem & the Holograms! First we explore the 5-episode beginning to the iconic 80s series by Christy Marx...which Guido loves and Rob has just discovered. Then it's off to one of the wildest multiverses ever that sees Jem team up with such properties at GI Joe, Transformers, Micronauts, Stretch Armstrong, MASK, Action Man, Magic or Dungeons and Dragons, and more to create a shared Hasbro universe that only exists in a super rare 2011 New York Comic Con exclusive issue. We wrap up by chatting about IDW's 2015 Jem comic book series from Kelly Thompson and Sophie Campbell and what could be next for the band!
Ep. 110 What if Jem & the Holograms were heroes in the Hasbro multiverse alongside Micronauts, Transformers, GI Joe, MASK, Candyland, Inhumanoids, Stretch Armstrong, and others? (from Unit-E comic book)
From Hasbro's multiversal earth in Unit-E #1
Find us at https://linktr.ee/dearwatchers
Throw this episode on your tape deck, it's time for Dear Watchers' exploration of the iconic girl group Jem and the Holographs across TV and comics! We kick off with a brief history of Jem as toys and on TV before we dive into the first five episodes of the 80s animated show. Next up, we travel to a bizarre multiverse that sees Jem's Synergy putting together a super-team of Hasbro heroes including Jem herself! This never fully realized mashup only appears in a super rare New York Comic Con exclusive comic from 2011. We ponder what could have come next for this never realized story by Andy Schmidt (that also includes art by Art Adams and others). We wrap up by jumping into Jem's 2015 ongoing comic book series from Kelly Thompson and Sophie Campbell that reimagines the Holograms story for modern times. Of course, we also ponder some possibilities about what's next for this iconic band.
We’ll be back next week with part three of our coverage of Age of Apocalypse on episode 111 including the conclusion of the story and the future legacy!
Reading List:
- Jem & The Holograms, Episodes 1 to 5 (TV show 1985)
- Unit-E #1 (Hasbro comic book 2011)
- Jem & The Holograms #1 (IDW comic book 2015)
Theme music is Space Heroes by MaxKoMusic (Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0)
Creators & Guests
Host
What is Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast?
Dear Watchers is a comic book podcast taking you through the omniverse where your Watchers Guido and Rob explore a different multiverse each episode, from Marvel’s What If to DC’s Elseworlds and far beyond. Join as we discuss the stories that were inspired by and take inspiration from each episode's alternate universe. Includes special episodes with guest creators, scholars and fellow podcasters to share their favorite trips to the multiverse and help ponder the possibilities of what lies ahead for comics and storytelling. For bonus episodes: www.ko-fi.com/DearWatchers
Showtime. Synergy. Welcome to Dear Watchers, an Omniversal comic book podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
We are traveling with you through the stories, the worlds, and the songs that make up an omniverse of fictional realities we all love. And your watchers on this journey are me think I was trying to think of a dual name for myself, like JeM and Jericho. Garricka.
I don't know. Well, I am the truly outrageous rob.
Oh, there you go.
So I'll be misfit. Guido.
There you go. The bad boy.
She's got such a great name. I'll just be possessed.
And before we begin our trip to the 80s, guido, what's new in our little section of the multiverse?
Our giveaway just wrapped up our biggest giveaway, and our best giveaway is on the horizon. If you still want to enter our biggest giveaway, actually, there are a few more days after this episode goes live, and you can get instructions in a prior episode from this summer. And our upcoming best giveaway, by some standards of signed comics, might be today, might not. You'll have to listen to this episode to find out. And keep listening because it's been our summer of giveaways, and I haven't read.
The script, so I don't even know if it's today or not.
And even no matter what it says in there, that's true. We've also been posting about toys on our subject today online. Uh, so you should make sure to follow us online because you're going to see different stuff than you usually see from today's episode and our link to gem and on ways that you can support us. We are just coming due to our annual bill for hosting, and so if you want to be a patron, if you are able to give us even a dollar a month on coffee as a patron, please head to Deerwatchers.com and click Join. We do this because we love it, and it does cost us a chunk of money to do this. Our patrons don't cover the costs, and we are okay with that, but every little bit helps, so please feel free to join on Coffee, Deerwatchers.com.
And also, we're trying to support all those needy orphans, those foster girls, the Starlight kids, all those Starlight kids.
We're opening the Starlight orphanage.
I feel like we do, uh, illegal territory now. Just saying that. But anyway, if you are joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey through the multiverse today origins of the story, exploring multiversity, and pondering possibilities. So thank you for joining us on today's journey. And, uh, with that Dear Watchers, welcome to episode 110, and let's check out what's happening in the Omniverse with our travels to today's alternate universe.
Let me play our usual fine but expected transition music.
Okay.
Oh, wait. Uhoh.
Fashion.
And all right, we're gonna stop it there today.
Yes, we could listen to it all day, but instead, we are going to throw on our best mini holographic projector earrings to find out the answer to the question, what if gem and the holograms were heroes in the Hasbro multiverse alongside Micronauts, Transformers, g. I. Joe, Mask, magic the gathering, candyland, Inhumanoids, stretch Armstrong, and others?
Yeah, it's a weird question. This is a wild earth. This is fun because while we were planning this whole episode, you were thinking it was just going to be Gem. And then all of a sudden I realized last minute, wait a second, there is this grail of a comic. And we'll talk a lot more about why it's a grail. There is this grail of a comic out there. Let's do that. And here we are on this wild earth that appeared once in one extremely rare and hard to find comic. And we will get more into that comic and more into the multiverse. But first we need some background on Gem. So I'll start us off with gem the toy. Uh, gem the toy, though they launched together the TV show and the toy was created by Hasbro, who was making rock and roll dolls to compete with Mattel's Barbie sidebar. This actually led to Barbie and the rockers. So Gem, um, came first, and Mattel then copied and ended up winning this battle. 1986 was the year of release. They were twelve and a half inches so taller than Barbie and all other fashion dolls at the time. And each doll came with a cassette tape. There were 24 original line doll releases, but there were 60 outfits released. There were ten playsets released. And they were bright and fashionable. They had all these different colored hairs. The earrings of Gem lit up, so they had really cool stuff. They would release varieties and really fun, weird stuff. And as I said, in the development of the toys, they decided a show needed to be part of the launch. So, Rob, tell us the origins of the show.
Yeah, so hasbro really wanted to develop that cartoon and really follow the same playbook they'd used, uh, on G. I. Joe, minus the comic book line. They even hired the same production company and a writer who worked on GI. Joe. So that cartoon was, of course, based on the dolls by Hasbro. It was produced by sunbao productions, which was the company behind the TV shows for GI. Joe, transformers and my little pony, and a little company called marvel productions. And the main story was developed by the head writer and Jovette, Christy Marks. Jim began as a miniseries of 15 segments on super Sunday segments and became so popular it turned into its own TV series.
Yeah, an interesting tidbit. We were just listening to some interviews with Christy Marks, and she said it was constructed to be in between the two boy segments of that show. Of course, gender marketing at the time in toys, but it had to have like, Sci-Fi advantage elements. So that the boys would not turn off the channel because it was thought that boys controlled the channel in their house. Funny tidbit about that origin.
Well, some boys like you, did not turn the channel and others didn't either. Because that animated series ran from 1985 to 1988, it consisted of 65 episodes. 23 of those were written by Christy Marks. And other writers included Carrie Bates, Marv Wolfman, and Paul Denny. Some familiar names there real legends. The story revolved around the rock bands, their musical adventures, as well as their personal lives. And the genres were romance, drama, action, of course, glamour and fashion. And the really crazy thing is, throughout this entire series, there are over 150 original songs that were presented in MTV. Like music videos.
Yeah. For those not familiar, the show would almost though the song was deeply integral to the plot. There would then be like the MTV band, uh, name and song title posted at the bottom left of the screen when they switched into music video mode.
Um, everything basically looks like a Duran Duran album cover. And speaking of fashion, there was so much fashion on the show. There were nearly 1000 unique fashion designs. Wow.
And they are some of the coolest looks there are. And I feel like they're so popular right now. They actually remind me a ton of the Hellfire Gala designs.
Totally.
I feel like those are definitely all of those creators, especially Russell daughterman, are definitely inspired by Gem. I have no doubt.
I can totally see that.
So, real quick, Gem's history in the comics, before we dive into some of these examples, there are, as we've talked about with He Man and she RA, and I don't know if we talked maybe with ThunderCats. There's a line of UK comics which are actually the first run since the Dolls did not come with comics. The first appearance in comics up by Gem are by London Editions in 1980, 619, 87. There are about 15 different issues. It didn't last nearly as long as the Heman line did, but, uh, really cool and hard to find oversized comics as the UK was doing in the 80s. There were German, uh, Holland, Dutch, French, and Italian reprintings of the UK stories. But then Mexico in 1988 actually had original comics telling brand new stories over eleven issues. And that is it for Gem in comics until our multiversal moment in 2011 that we'll get into. And then our third segment when we'll discuss the 2015 run, which is from IDW and lasts over 40 issues, including miniseries, uh, until 2017. So we haven't seen JeM in comics for almost seven years, a long time. And we're going to get into her history in just a moment.
Let's talk a bit about our history and Guido, as you said, you've been posting some Gem toys, but I know you've been buying new ones because I don't think you have a lot of yours. But you had a big background. You were a big Gem fan, right?
Yeah, I was. It's been so fun. I'll say I had started my reappropriation of my fandom of Gem over the last few years, but it was actually the Barbie movie. Really? I loved that movie so much as I've shared on here that it just sent me back into what was essentially, I guess, my Barbie. I didn't play with Barbie quite as much. My sisters had Barbies, uh, and I was the youngest by a significant amount. So I would sometimes play with them or use them. But it was Gem that I loved. It was Gem that I watched the TV show of. It was Gem that I wanted all of the dolls of. It was Gem that homophobia prevented my mother from feeling comfortable buying me the dolls, uh, of. Uh, so I would always play with my best friend across the street, Alex, who had the Gem dolls. And we would mix and match and play with them. And of course, I loved Rio. Rio was not only purple haired and attractive, but he was also Latinx. So m. He's fun. But I have always loved the show, and I have appreciated revisiting it over the last 20 years since it was released on DVD. That I think it's really sophisticated storytelling. And of course, I think we have Christy Marks to thank for that. But I love the action and Sci-Fi element of it, which is subtle. It's mostly a soap opera. But then when we watch it, I mean, you might have noticed this and we're going to talk about the TV show more in a moment, but it's also, like the drama of running a record label. And they talk a lot about lawsuits, so it feels adult, but it's so bright and colorful, and the fashion is amazing. And it does have enough action. And I love Jen.
Probably 100% less cocaine than there actually was in running a record label in the 1980s.
Though I will have to keep watching other episodes, see if there are any Eric.
Eric does seem a little coked out at times.
Yeah. And I have a feeling the misfits are into more.
Yeah, totally.
Yes.
Uh, and I feel like, M, the toys must have been a little bit more acceptable to play with than Barbie, because it is like a rock band, right? It feels like something that a boy could get a little you could squeak by. Maybe.
They were less Dolly, that is for sure. Uh, Barbie, at least in my experience of growing up, was always Dolly. And JeM, on the other hand, had as I said, they had ten playsets, right? So they had vehicles, they had cars, they had places. I guess Barbie had all.
Barbie had two. Yeah.
Um, but there was something that made Gem feel a little edgier. It still didn't make it. They were still clearly girl toys. There's no doubt about that even more than she RA. I think she RA was a girl toy but living sort of in a boy framework. And Gem was definitely a girl. Know, I remember friends that were boys playing with she RA and engaging she RA, but definitely not Gem, for sure.
Yeah.
Uh, so, yeah, I loved Gem. And I've loved Rediscovering Gem. And, uh, I'll always be a big fan of Gem. You, on the other hand, since you were born after Gem.
Well, there's a lot of properties on this show that we'll talk about and well, you know, I didn't really watch that. I didn't really read that. Jim, I don't think I even had heard of until a few years like that's.
How much when the live action movie maybe or something.
I think it was probably the live action movie because ThunderCats and a lot of these other shows they did put them into reruns. And I would see them on like toonami when I would come home from school. But I never remember seeing Gem on TV. And I was too young for the original run. And then, as you said, I was so foreboding to be a boy and play with a lot of these toys. I had no siblings or female friends even growing up. So I never even saw them around like second hand either. So, yeah, it was probably not until the movie that I heard about it. And then really meeting you and you introducing me to some of the episodes and the toys that I really, actually got to know it as a property.
And the other thing I introduced you to is the music. Because the music good.
The music is great. Yeah.
Anyone who doesn't know that, go find the songs. They're probably on YouTube. Uh, I've, over the years downloaded all of them. They're hard to find, but people have ripped them. They're of course not streaming, but they are like good 80 songs. There are a bunch I wish were longer than a minute and a half because they are good songs.
I'm surprised there isn't like an indie rock Brooklyn all girl band that just goes out and just plays these songs as like I would hologram at the.
Bowery Ballroom or doing drag if I wanted. That would be my shtick. Because I agree completely. It surprises me. There's not like a vinyl release of the Totally. I don't understand why Gem's not more marketable. We can talk about it after our third segment. But I agree there should definitely be a band doing that. I would go see them.
Well, let's flip on the a side of this conversation. And it is origins of the story.
Truly outrageously. Outrageous. Jim is my name. No one else is the same.
First up today is Gem in the Holograms, aka just Gem. It is episodes one to five from Hasbro Sunbrow Productions and Marvel Productions. These aired October 1985 to December 1985. And they are titled The Beginning Disaster, Kimber's Rebellion, Frame Up and the Battle of the Bands.
These are all written by Christy Marks. They're directed by Ray Lee, John Gibbs and Terry Lennon, and, uh, lots of great voice actors who people would recognize from a lot of other things. But most importantly, the, uh, eponymous Gem. Samantha Newark and Britta Phillips did her speaking voice. Samantha Newark and Britta Phillips did her singing voice.
And then Britta Phillips went on to be one of the first ladies of indie rock as a member of the band Luna and Dean and Britta, all very Velvet Underground slow tempo songs don't sound at all like Gem. But she's had a huge music career after the fact.
Yeah, well, it's well deserved. I wonder if she covers any Gem songs that she that's true.
Oh my gosh. And it said her father even played the keyboards on some of the songs, too. So it was a family affair with the Phillips family.
This was your first time seeing the origin opening arc of Gem. Let's start with your reactions.
Yeah, I really enjoyed it a lot. I think it has, of course, some of the silliness that you see in a she RA or He Man, but I think it actually is grounded, as you were saying, in a lot more reality around these characters and their plight to actually help the orphans, which we were kind of making fun of at Top, actually gives it, I think, a grounding. And it's not just, oh, we want to be successful and have a pop music career, it's like, oh, no, they have to do this for an actual specific reason. There's an altruism to it.
Yeah. And that adds the economic aspect, which becomes important. The other thing that I think grounds it in a real way is there's also ownership of the record company is an important part of the plot because Gems, for those who don't know the origin jericho uh, so I guess if anyone's listening to this who has no idea who Gem is, I guess we should summarize what Gem is. You've been very patient for the last 20 minutes. So Jericho Benton is part of a musical band with her sister and her close friends, who are essentially her sisters also. And her father, who owned a record label, dies. She discovers that her father had created a hologram called Synergy that is meant to be the what I think it's.
The ultimate ultimate audio visualizer. Yeah, exactly.
And it turns out that Synergy that he made Jerrica special, uh, earrings she Can Wear, that are micro projectors that allow her to construct holograms wherever she is. And she ends up deciding to take on the persona of JeM, a rock star who will lead the band of the Holograms in the battle of the bands against the rival Misfits to make money for all the reasons Rob is saying. And then, of course, more characters get introduced over the seasons and lots more high.
And this is not the Glenn Danzig band from New Jersey, the Misfits, the horror punk band, but rather a equally kind of well, the punky bad girls that play very similar music to Gem, but with a much worse attitude.
Yeah, they scream a little more. I mean, they wanted it all to be palatable, but their songs are a little more like discordant.
Yeah, I was reading that when they were creating the Misfit songs. They wanted them to really just be synthetic, use synthesizers strictly, while the Gem songs could have some acoustic elements and be a little bit more organic. That was one of the ways they separated them.
Mhm and then of course, we mentioned Rio earlier at the last plot point, uh, which is a classic Superman love.
Superman love triangle is that Jericho's boyfriend.
Is Rio and Rio does not know that Jericho is also Gem. So of course you get m potential flirtation. Does Rio like Gem more than and.
Jericho and her sister and the band are also taking care of orphans foster girls at the Starlight House. Now why the father spend all this millions of dollars building synergy and not putting it directly into the orphanage, we'll never know.
Maybe his ultimate plan was that the Holograms would take care of the orphans.
They'd be the parents of the orphans.
Parents for all the orphans.
I love it. Oh gosh, the reboot. I hear it.
They keep Juliet Lewis in the role of Eric Raymond.
Now you had watched these, of course, and you were into the Gem universe, but what did you think, Revisiting? Because this is like a five part origin story, basically, that we're getting here. So what did you think, Revisiting? This?
I think two things stood out to me. One is probably one of well, both are reasons I would have loved it as a kid. But I think the animation is great. There are moments where you can tell they're rushing, but otherwise it's great. Hand drawn cell animation has the look of she RA and He Man, but.
Much superior to that, where you see the same frames often in mean He Man and she RA here was reminding me of GI. Joe, which makes sense because it's the same company. Definitely seemed like a notch above those, uh, filmation programs.
Yeah. But same really good face work and character designs and everyone looks great and it's bright and colorful and it moves and there's a lot of action. So I love the animation a lot. I think they did an incredible job. The other thing I think is this show, even just recapping it right there, this show is so wildly, beautifully feminist. Mhm I mean, even thinking about Rio, rio is such a, uh, nothing character. He's the band's assistant. He's like their roadie. He's not at all in a position of power. He barely has agency. They really just constructed what typically would have been a girl role in any other property and mapped Rio onto it. And that's really fun. I mean, Rio does end up saving JeM a lot. I noticed in the opening episodes there's a gargoyle.
There's always something trying to fall on them, basically.
So that's fun. Uh, but even just it passes the Beckdell test with flying colors in a way that she RA even barely does. I mean, there really has so many different characters, so many different women and strong female characters. Even in that opening, there's that one orphan who really doesn't want to participate in everything goes over to the Misfits, wants to be a badass. And it's fun to just have these. I, uh, like that the Misfits are pizzazz is always pretty nasty. Sometimes they have to work together. But then you do have Stormer who has a little bit more of like a regret and doesn't always want to be the bad girl. And I just think they're just nuanced interesting characters. It's fun.
Yeah. Like the truly evil character is the rival record jealous record executive who's a man, Eric Raymond. The Misfits are more they are more like the punks. They're about anarchy. So they do some horrible and yeah, I really hated them because I was like, oh, they're really so awful. But you can kind of see where they're coming from. It's more just coming from creating chaos while he's actually out to murder people.
Yeah.
Set things on fire. Well, that's the other thing is it's a slightly dark show for the, for a toy line show. There is some dark violence to it. They're going to fall off a cliff. The house gets burnt down. So it's fun to have a show that has that element too well.
And I can see so much of what you're saying about the feminism also in the new Barbie movie too. I think that's one thing maybe it's one of the things that you saw in that movie that reignited your love of Gem because they do have that female first power there. And also I would think, uh, it's interesting because while both of them, both the Barbie movie and Gem were basically created to help sell toys, they both also have this almost anti capitalism streak running through them. Because Gem and Jericho, they're all kind of just doing it to create to help the orphans. And you see in Barbie too, when they're really making it. Oh, the toys should be about empowering girls, not just about making money. Well, the movies are also ultimately like doing a capitalist deed as well. So they're kind of, uh, doing both things, but doing both things successfully, which is very rare.
Yeah. So I loved rewatching it. We actually watched more episodes than just these five. But these were the five that are relevant to this conversation since they are her origin.
Mhm.
Well, let's flip the tape to the B side.
But I hear some bad girls coming.
Let's do quick. Let's explore multiversity.
All right?
And today we are asking the question, what if JeM and the Holograms were heroes in the Hasbro Multiverse alongside some very other familiar faces?
Yeah, some weird ones.
This is from Hasbro, but published by Unit E. That's Unit.
The name is Unit E. Comic.
Uh, Unit E? Yes. It's called Unit E Comics or Comic, and is from October 2011. And it was a New York Comic Con exclusive.
They then did sell it in the HasLab toy shop online, but it was mostly distributed at New York Comic Con. It was written by Andy Schmidt. Andy Schmidt had done some Marvel work, a good chunk of like a dozen issues or so as, uh, writer and then editor, but then left to do IDW work. Wrote Transformers, which is obviously a hasbro. Left, though, shortly after this issue and runs Comics Experience, an online school for comics professionals. The art in this issue. And there are a lot of artists who are doing different segments of the issue are robert Atkins, juan Castro, simon Goh, marcelo Mater, nick Rungi, peter Naguyon, david Finch, levio Romandeli, emiliano Santa Lucia, chris Sotomayor, ken Christensen, art Adams and Peter Stegerwald. And the issue is lettered by Dave Sharp. So a lot going on in these just 20 ish pages.
24. 20 artists, basically 20 pages.
We are all doing, like, the different characters.
Yes.
Real quick summary of what's happening in here. A spaceship arrives. There's a teenager who's awoken by Biotron and Synergy. So Biotron is a character from the micronauts. Synergy, of course, being gems. Synergy. Synergy tells this teenager how Earth is special because they're going to find all these heroes that they need there. And she brings up a holographic display full of the beings across the multiverse that she's collected information on. So that's where we really see everybody, G. I. Joe, Transformers, et cetera. But she starts to go into some of them specifically and how they're going to help the mission, starting with Stretch Armstrong mask. Mask 80s cartoon toy line. And then talks about another Earthling, a singer, Jericho. And he doesn't understand how she's going to help at this point, she's only Jericho because Synergy talks about that she's going to become something bigger. She's going to help him, and she's going to compose the music of the spheres. Then she talks about the action man other micronauts princess. Ah, Lolly from Candyland, the board game. The primordia creatures which are apparently hasbro's attempt at rebranding the Inhumanoids. An 80s comic that we have talked about, based loosely, very loosely on lovecraft canon. And Synergy, uh, says that they have to reclaim their world from Baron Karza, who is a villain, to the Micronauts, and these heroes are his only chance. And he then puts on the armor of Acro Year, another Micronaut. So it's a little Micronaut heavy with Synergy thrown in and then just crazy bonkers characters showing up. Yeah, there is a concluding.
Oh, and the GI.
Joe.
The Transformers. Uh, and, uh, magic. We only get to see them a little bit, I guess. They were so popular. They were like, okay, we don't need to remind anyone about well, they had.
Their own properties run of comics at IDW. And while clearly they were allowed to do this issue, I wonder if there was some, uh, right thing with featuring them as speaking characters. Now, before we dig into this, it closes with a letter from Andy Schmidt, where he talks about it, uh, being a little love letter to the varied brands that hasbro has had the pleasure of ushering into the world and that it's created. To answer that age old question, what if, in a way that we could really sink our teeth into? I mean, Princess Lolly in the same book as Battleship, galaxies in the same book as Action Man. That's just insanity. And also a huge challenge and a lot of fun. I forgot that Battleship characters are in here, which I don't even know they made.
No, there are characters in Battleship.
Sure. So he says, if you like it and want to see more or something like it, be sure to let us know. We hope you're excited by all the possibilities and potentialities from a project like this one. Now, I wonder where Acro year is off to so I can talk a little bit more about what happens in the future after this issue. It never gets an immediate follow up, but first, let's talk through the issue and our thoughts about it. And then I'll, uh and it's good.
That you explained the plot, Guido, because people cannot just go on ebay and buy this if they're so intrigued by.
This you cannot believe it. And Jake and Jesus, if you're listening from, uh, now they're doing a new segment that they've just announced called White Whale or Whaletail Whaletail, which is like the grails that got away. This is going to be my whaletail because this issue is not for sale anywhere. I cannot find a sales history for it. It exists. And annoyingly I was at that New York Comic Con. Of course, I've been to everyone, and I don't have this issue. And I need it. I cannot find it, and I need it. So if anyone ever sees a unit e hasbro New York Comic Con 2011 comic out there in the wild, please help me.
Yeah, there's not really a plot, right? So it's hard to talk about the plot here. Some of these characters I know of Mask, I didn't really know them. I've heard Stretch Armstrong. The one that really intrigued me was Action Man because he kind of sounds like the Lee Falk Phantom, where he's.
Uh, a young man, like Doll man.
Oh, well, here the concept, I guess, is that there's always an Action Man and that they get all the knowledge of. Previous Action Men, but the Action Man just before this one turned evil. So now we've got like this 25 year old with 125 years of combat experience. So I was like, I've never heard of Action Man. I'm sure other people have certainly heard of him, but it was like, oh, that sounds interesting.
Sixty s to the eighty s. Okay.
And he's got like guns and a sword, which is very different, of course, than Gem, which as a property really didn't have much in that way. I mean, there's car chases and stuff, but no one's going around shooting people in Gem world. So I'm curious how they would have all come together in that.
Well, let's talk about that and let's talk about Gem a little bit. I think what strikes me, what works for me in this issue and makes it really cool and doesn't I mean, it's strange. It's very strange. You are trying to turn Candyland into something like with a deep mythology to it, which is I'm all for, I fully support, but it just feels strange as you're reading it. But for JeM, synergy is such a central part of this and that makes total mhm her. That's where her show was Sci-Fi and her show maybe was a show those ignorant boys would leave on, uh, as Christy Marks had talked about. So it's cool to me that the wraparound is being fueled by Synergy M because otherwise it's totally micronauts heavy. My guess is this was around the time that Hasbro was going to be rebooting the micronauts. Micronauts, of course, are an OD thing. They're also a toy line. And Marvel originally printed them for quite some time. There's a micronauts. X Men We're going to cover Micronauts at some point, I'm sure. And they are getting reprinted by Marvel for the first time next year. It just got announced. But in this, it's cool that synergy is catalyst. Synergy makes sense. And that means JeM could have been treated as a true hero in this M. She would have been a part of this, she wouldn't have been left out. Which I think probably most people who are imagining a Hasbro universe are focused on like G. I. Joe, Transformers, maybe Mask, but I think pulling in Candyland, Stretch Armstrong and Gem is a pretty bold move.
Yeah, well, and synergy is such a trope. Not necessarily a bad way, but something we've seen so many times that does bring all these people together and has this knowledge. She's reminding me of, of course, the Sorceress in Master of the Universe, but even like Jor El in Superman world and Zoron, right? Is that the Power Rangers big floating, uh whenever there's, like, a big source of knowledge who's also kind of stuck in one place, which is also what all those characters have in common. But they're the one that knows everything and is kind of acting as a supercomputer the way that everything is connected. So I totally see that that's how they would be using synergy to bring all these people together.
Well, and what's cool about that, I mean, the examples you just gave of like, the one who knows everything are older examples. But think about what synergy is doing here and the fact that it's 2011. So you and I have talked about how much multiversal storytelling has just exploded even since we started our show a little over two years ago. This is twelve years ago, when no one, I mean, there was Marvel versus DC in the course. Super famous singular example. But beyond that, no one's doing a connected universe. The MCU has barely started, and yet here they are in Hasbro saying what? HM, if we tried to connect our universe.
Yeah. So do you think this was a little too soon in way?
I do. That's what I was going to say. So the future. Now to share where this comic goes. The character of Acro Year, of course, continues. I don't know if it's the same teenager we meet in here or not, but since it's an existing micronaut, he continues. And then the Unit E, which is, I realized, also Unite, which is a cool thing, sure. Um, but it's like Unity, Unite and Unit E. Unit E shows up in a Transformers cartoon as like a random agency a few years after this, and then also a Beast Wars online comic a few years later, but has nothing to do with the multiverse. As far as I could tell from looking at it, I'm not at all familiar with that world. So this never goes anywhere. And I don't know if the intention was for it to go somewhere meaty or if it truly was like a fun Hasbro ad teaser format. There have since been obviously other crossovers transformers NGI Joe have crossed over the micronauts, NGI Joe and Transformers have crossed over. There have been a lot of ways Hasbro's world has connected, but Gem has actually never, ever been a part of it, even in her 2015 relaunch, which is at IDW, which had the license to Transformers to GI. Joe, to all of the Hasbro comics. So I think it was probably too soon. Or they never intended it, which might be, but I think it also probably was too soon. You know what I just realized? My little pony's missing from here. But maybe they didn't have any of the rights to show.
Yeah, uh, I definitely think it was too soon. And now I wonder almost if it's too late in a way, because we've.
Kind of feel like they're copying everyone.
Else'S well, and we're on the other side of the interconnected universe wave. It seems like we're DC kind of half moving away from it and Marvel people kind of being upset with it in other property. I mean, outside of comics, I guess. So I wonder if it's like, uh oh, maybe they missed the boat here. Although at the same time, it's like it does totally make sense when you have one company that holds so much, uh, recognizable IP, why aren't they maybe doing something together? I don't know.
Well, and I think there's a distaste for it, at least on a Hollywood level. But I'm thinking about the current right now example where Mark Millar is releasing The Big Game, which is a miniseries that's putting all of his past series together. So Kick Ass is now going to coexist in the world of Nemesis, which is coexisting in the recently created world of the ambassadors and nightclub. So there is, I think, a way to do it that is interesting. Uh, that's obviously one creator, but I could see this turning into a comic miniseries and people being a fan of it. I don't know where the rights for some of these things live. IDW is still publishing Transformers comics. Uh, I don't think they're publishing GI. Joe, but I don't know. Oh, no, we did buy we recently bought a GI. Joe snake eyes. And it was IDW. So they do still have that. Those are probably the only two that are coming out in comics, though, from this team. Like I said, micronauts an unusual one because Marvel has ah, a part of those rights in some fashion, is now reprinted. And Rom space night is the same deal. Rom is, uh, also a Hasbro Marvel thing. IDW did some comics for it. Marvel's now reprinting the old ones for the first time ever.
Well, and I think your gem obsession, your new gem obsession all kind of started with Barbie, too. And I think the success of that movie is certainly going to see some of these properties come, if not into comics, certainly into other forms as well. I don't think Hasbro would be sitting on these things. It's funny, you were just joking and saying, like, oh, wow, they're going to be trying to make a serious comic character out of Candyland, but I wouldn't be surprised if we see a Candyland movie. And actually, I was looking it up. There was going to be a Candyland movie about ten years ago with Adam Sandler, and that one fell through. But I'm sure they're going to pick that back up. And I think even characters that are a little less known, like Mask, like Action Man, hey, if they own them, I bet they're developing them. Whether we'll see them.
Mattel announcement after Barbie that the fact that they had, like, Uno in development and they have all these other things that you just can't quite imagine what it's going to be, but it could end up being awesome.
And Crayola, uh, is starting to develop stuff based on their crayons. Okay, sure.
But I mean, as we saw with Barbie, uh, it can be done. Yes, it can be done in an interesting and original way. I haven't seen the modern jumanji's, but maybe they're good. Although Jumanji didn't start as an actual board.
No, that was a board game.
Anyway, so do you want to go back to this Earth this Earth Unity? We'll call it Earth unity.
Yeah, I do, because I think there were so many possibilities that we just didn't get to see here because this was so short. This really is just a preview book. We don't really fully know what's going on with our main character. We're introduced to all these other characters. So, yeah, I would love to see how they're actually going to connect, who truly is the villain and what that villain's plan is. So, yeah, I'd love to kind of go back to this world.
Yeah, I would love it too. And I think it has the potential for someone like me to do what I think a really good story and a good crossover does, which is it gets me into something else. So as someone who is just like a big fan geek nerd who loves worlds and world building, I would get into this because of Gem, but maybe I'd come out of it appreciating the micronauts or Transformers totally even, or GI. Joe, even in a way that I don't step into those worlds. So this would sort of get you into that. So that's where it would be really successful, I think.
Yeah. And I'd be curious if Andy Schmidt wrote, like, a series bible to anticipate what might have come before. So even if those comics weren't there, I'd love to see if there was somehow he was able to leak it. Oh, here's what the plan was. Or can we make this into like a prose version instead, or something like that? Because I kind of think if you're starting this out here, you must know where it's going to go, especially someone who's worked in comics like he has. So I'd be curious. Oh, hey, Andy, let's see what you were planning.
You'll have to reach out to him.
Well, let's do our final closing track, our encore. It's pondering possibilities.
Jim is my name. No one else is the same jim is my name.
So, Keto, what are we talking about for our pondering possibilities?
Well, we are talking about the 2015 IDW Comics launch. I mentioned it in the opening and it ran for three years, over 40 issues. So pretty successful ongoing run. And we are going to just take a look at the first issue. So you can see the most recent interpretation of Gem. That's out there.
Yes. So this is Gem and the Holograms from IDW Comics issue one from March 2015. And it's entitled Showtime Part One.
It's written by Kelly Thompson art and co created story also by Sophie Campbell, colors by Victoria Robato and letters by Sean Lee. So it's only the first part of what is a six part arc. Uh, but it gives you the full origin, at least. So thoughts about the origin? Thoughts about the new interpretation.
It just reminded me so much of other comics that we've read. I think ThunderCats comes to mind, and probably Archie as well, where you're taking a property that was definitely intended for children, and you're not fundamentally changing it, but you're adding more nuance onto it. You're adding more motivation to the characters, but you're not changing the fundamental DNA of what it is. So I thought in that way, Kelly Thompson did a really good job, and Sophie Campbell did a really good job of like, okay, we're not going to destroy what Jim is, but we're going to make Gem something that's a little more than for just children.
Yeah, I agree with that totally. And now I read this when it came out, and I only ended up staying with it for a few issues, in part because and I know you agree, the art is just not for me. I have no problem with it. I don't think it's bad art, but it is not stylistically the way that I can really engage a book. So that was really a turn off for me. But otherwise, I appreciated that adultification that you're talking about. It's not really even adultification. It's more like a complication. They're just adding so much complexity within the.
Well, like, the biggest thing here is that we have Jericho and she as her lead singer before she discovers synergy. And Jericho just has stage fright, like she's trapped in her shell. And I think that gives depth, uh, as to why she needs to become Gem. And that's not something we ever get on the TV series. She just kind of wants to become Gem because I don't know, it's fun. And when she's doing all this thing to hide her identity, but we never really know why she needs to do it. And here she's like, well, now I can become Gem and no one's going to know it's me, and I can sing out and be fearless in that way. And it's like, oh, okay. That makes a lot of sense.
Yes, it's very drag. There are a lot of totally of this story, not just this comic, I'd say, even watching the show and stuff, but definitely in this comic. I think it's brought forward the way it's about drag, and it's about playing with identity and playing with presentation of identity. And that's cool, and it evolves. Uh, there are lots of, I think, cool moments in the issues that I've read of this series that hit on these deeper questions.
Yeah. And we don't have the foster house here, which, as we said, I think adds a lot of depth to the TV series. But also, you're wondering, okay, why are these three, uh, I don't know, 1820 year olds running this foster house altogether less realistic? Yeah. Even little things like the fact that their secret hideout on the TV series is in this drive in very, like, um, Fortress of solitude here, here. The secret hideout is at her house. So it's like, okay, that also makes behind a jukebox. So this tied to music. Why is it a movie theater which has nothing to do with music in the TV series?
My guess is it's because it would be abandoned right? In the 80s.
No one yes. Oh, I guess that's true. Mhm.
But what I like though, and Kelly Thompson talks a little bit about this in her intro to the first trade paperback about who this is for and trying to bridge something and not have it just be nostalgia. It's a cool intro that she writes and I'm a huge fan of hers, but I like that even though she makes those changes to the scene, she is clearly such a fan because she uses verbatim some of the language she has synergy say like, ah, uh, your father constructed me to be the ultimate audiovisual synthesizer entertainment. There's so many language and moments in it that I'm like. Having just watched the cartoon, I'm like, oh my God, she was doing that exactly. Even though she was transposing it, even though it's modern times, even though she's changing some of the details and changing some of the characterizations, uh, all of What You Love is still there. So I think that's a really well executed reboot.
Uh, yeah, I would have loved to seen too with I know some comics are doing this now. I would have loved for them to put out some music to go along with.
She wrote great lyrics every issue. She has written a few lyrics on the page that it shows them as if they're singing. And in this know, Jericho is singing this song to herself before she meets synergy. So I agree. It would have been so cool if they had, uh, hired someone to write actual music and then produce. Maybe maybe we can get AI to do it now. We can get synergy.
Like synergy. Exactly. Well, maybe someone there's so many lost possibilities here. There's Andy's uh, script and Kelly's songs. Maybe we'll all still there's still possibility we'll see it somewhere in the new Hasbro verse.
Well, before we move on, I do want to talk about what is the possibility of Gem? Do you think it's going to come back and in what form do you think it's going to come back in? And do you think it's going to be a reboot? Do you think it's positioned for a recall like Masters of the Universe revelation is? What do you think about the future of Gem and why haven't we seen it in six years?
And we should point out too, that in 2015 there was also a live action film yes.
Which neither of us have seen.
Neither of us have seen.
Really not like the core of the story that it should be. But I'm willing to see it and judging it separately.
Well, I think everything these days it's all about four quadrant hit up the consumer in all these different ways. And I think Gem is actually perfect for that. Because you've got a comic or you've got a TV show, you've got the toys, and then you've got the music, which I think is such a big thing. That was never the music, I think, is the one part that was never really fully exploited, even back then, because the songs were a minute and a half. And it's for kids and it's a cassette tape. But now I think it would be so cool if they really made it, like, okay, maybe you even lead with the album first and then make a comic that goes along with the album or something like that. Or like what shows like Nashville or Riverdale did, where they're really integrating songs into a TV show in that way and also releasing that music. You're making money that way. Like, that's where I think a future of Gem could really be.
Yeah. Do you think it'll be animated or live action? And do you think it'll be TV or movie or which do you want it to be?
I don't know. Not having seen the live action movie, it's hard to say. But I think a TV show actually would make a lot of sense because you can incorporate different songs into it and do different styles. I don't know.
Um, I'd love animated animation has never gone away. I don't think we're in like a golden age, but I just think there's so many recent examples of really good animation for adult, for kids, or for both. And obviously, He Man, the Shira reboot is great, comes to my mind. But the he man not reboot. The He Man continuation is just such a good example where it looks enough like the original, but it's modern. And so I think I'd love to see Gem animated.
Mhm I do think you'd have to go back and tell the story again because I don't think it's a property like Masters of the Universe that people kind of know. What do you think? Do you think it could be continuing, like, the new He Man show or like she RA? You'd have to kind of go back and retell the origin.
I don't know. It's a good question. I'm not even sold that she RA had to be rebooted. Uh, I appreciated the reboot. You and I enjoyed it a lot. We never ended up finishing it, but we enjoyed what we watched quite a bit. So, I don't know, because I think the right person can probably tell that story and make it really accessible to new people. I agree. It needs to be accessible to new people. Uh, I don't think there is the largest Gem fan base out there. There was a reboot, if you will, of the Dolls by a company starting in 2015 or 2012. For a few years, they did these really high end fashion dolls that, sadly, I missed out on and are now literally $500 to $1,000 each, um, because they just made them in small print runs. And they're not meant to be toys. They're meant to be, like, collectibles. But that's it. I mean, Super Seven has done, like, the little reaction one and stuff, so I just don't know how big the Gem world is to know. But, uh, I'd like it to be a continuation. Even if someone finds a way in that continuation to sort of retell the origin so that people can watch it. I'd love a continuation, and I'd love christy Mark said this in one of the interviews we listened. I'd love it to be in the 80s.
Yeah, we'll see.
Yeah, I'm sure we'll see Gem again in our life, but, uh, I just don't know when or where or how. I'd say one warning to anyone listening who's a Gem creator. I don't think it would work well to make it about being an influencer, which I suspect is what that movie was, was like a proto influencer and feels like what Gem should be updated to be. But that's not why people like the story of Gem, and it also makes it more, uh, time bound. So I think that's one thing Kelly Thompson does really well in that social media exists, modern media exists. But the story is still about Gem and this band and their singing, and it feels very analog. It's not about becoming YouTube stars or TikTok.
And you've got Olivia, Rodrigo and Billie Eilish, like the whole new generation of female songwriter in almost a little bit of the Gem vein in that way. Different genres of music. But going back to that so I feel like it could be back again. Okay, well, uh, our tape has hit the end. Our needle has skipped. I don't know whatever there, but that is a wrap. And there is no giveaway this week. But if you are looking for our active giveaway, we highly recommend you listen to the last few episodes.
And I have been Pizzazz, aka the.
Oh, uh, now I forget what it was. Oh, uh, the, uh, always amazing Rob. I don't remember her theme song. Truly outrageous. Rob. Uh, and the reading us on all.
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Reading list is in our show notes. And leave a review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.
In the meantime, in the words of Boat, you keep pondering the possibilities.
Jam is my name? No one else is the same? Jam is my name? I found my.