[Rob]: welcome to deer watchers a comic book omni verse podcast where we do a deep dive
[Rob]: into the multiverse
[Guido]: we were traveling through the storylines before and after that inspired or took
[Guido]: inspiration from this week's alternate universe
[Guido]: and your oats your watchers on this journey are me guido
[Rob]: and me rob the last man
[Guido]: i mean not technically but alright fine
[Rob]: it just lend itself to it very easily right i hope i'm not as annoying as him
[Rob]: though
[Guido]: yeah well you'd have to compare that to how annoying adam the actual kind of last
[Guido]: man is on the story that we read but we'll get into that first what's new
[Guido]: so last week we posted our
[Guido]: first commissioned art and that was really exciting so if you're listening and
[Guido]: haven't seen that on twitter please head over to our twitter at deer watchers we
[Guido]: have more art to come
[Rob]: should we say what it is for
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: for people or should they experience it oh okay yeah it is the golden girls as the
[Rob]: avengers
[Guido]: yes
[Rob]: and we have blanche as wasp we have dorothy as
[Guido]: well i'll let that be a reveal
[Rob]: iron man we have
[Rob]: okay oh
[Guido]: so
[Rob]: okay well there's only two left so
[Guido]: that uh that came up in episode twenty nine we were discussing that because wasp
[Guido]: made us think a little bit of blanche and happily we threw ten cent takes found a
[Guido]: great artist who made it come to life so you can find all that information on
[Guido]: twitter and we have more art coming soon we're really excited about other things
[Guido]: that we've talked about wishing we could see
[Guido]: and so we're gonna keep the fan art coming with these great commissions with
[Guido]: things that come up for us so we're really excited and we also just got some new
[Guido]: postcards with our new logo and design so if
[Rob]: he
[Guido]: anyone's really excited and wants us to mail them a postcard send us a message on
[Guido]: twitter or email us podcast at dear watchers dot com and we'll get you one and
[Guido]: lots more of art to come so that's something new
[Rob]: yes and then we had a great episode last week with our atlas heroes as well so i
[Rob]: hope everyone checks that out in all of our previous episodes but if you are
[Rob]: joining us for the first time well after a quick summary of
[Guido]: thursday
[Rob]: our alternate earth we have origins of the story covering what may have inspired
[Rob]: this other reality exploring multiversity diving deeper into the alternate
[Rob]: universe and finally pondering possibilities examining the impact of this visit to
[Rob]: the multiverse and what's followed or our hopes for the future
[Guido]: but before we get into those sections let's talk about else worlds because this is
[Guido]: our first
[Guido]: else world's episode which of course for those who
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: are not familiar is the dc comics imprint and i'll give you a lot more background
[Guido]: in a moment but rob what was your experience with else worlds
[Rob]: and of course this would also be our first d c episode really we did a our malcolm
[Guido]: well that's true other than the amalgam we read some dc titles through the amalgam
[Rob]: episode but this is our true first dc
[Guido]: work but yes true so what's your background with else worlds
[Rob]: very very little i believe the only else world i have read was gotham by gaslights
[Rob]: which
[Guido]: hm
[Rob]: i believe is the first else world story and i'm big
[Guido]: you'll find out if that's true in a moment
[Rob]: jack the ripper fan and everything like well not a fan of jack the ripper but of
[Rob]: the myth mithos so i
[Guido]: choose your words carefully
[Rob]: read that yeah not i'm not a big fan of hi big fan of his work but yes i read that
[Rob]: issue and then i've read some of the dc zombies which i guess also probably falls
[Rob]: into the else worlds
[Guido]: no but
[Guido]: okay
[Rob]: oh
[Rob]: okay and that's a elsewhere it's adjacent i think that's pretty much it for my
[Guido]: i'll talk about i'll talk about that yeah alright so goth
[Rob]: elsewhere else yeah
[Rob]: how about yourself
[Guido]: and by gas light is it
[Rob]: yeah that's pretty day the buck stops there yeah exactly
[Rob]: the bat stops there i should say yes
[Guido]: doesn't even have the else world's logo on it so i don't even know if it can count
[Rob]: no mo yeah
[Guido]: but
[Guido]: i love else worlds i be having been a what a fan i'm a big else worlds fan and
[Guido]: definitely goth them by gaslight was probably my entry into it especially because
[Guido]: it was the first sort of proto else worlds title and it was a logo that i would
[Guido]: often look for and seek out and then just buy now sometimes i was actually a
[Guido]: little turned off i'll talk in a moment about the prestige format that they chose
[Guido]: for else worlds and as a kid collecting i didn't love that i didn't love the
[Guido]: square bound books with the spines uh they were also a little bit more expensive
[Guido]: of course so i wasn't always into them but it gave us a lot of really huge
[Guido]: classics and i love it and i love the idea so i'm pretty familiar but there is a
[Guido]: lot of else worlds i haven't read and i'm very excited for us to dive into this
[Guido]: all of these different worlds
[Guido]: so
[Guido]: else world's comes from there's a long tradition of what d c actually called
[Guido]: imaginary stories and they would flat out be called imaginary stories because they
[Guido]: were the things even in the silver age where when there was a single issue that
[Guido]: didn't really fit in continuity like
[Rob]: mhm
[Guido]: what if superman married lois they would just call it an imaginary story
[Guido]: and so
[Guido]: fast forward to probably nineteen eighty eight mark wade is working on a secret
[Guido]: origins annual and brian augustine had an idea of batman and jack the ripper to
[Guido]: develop for that annual but the idea started to get so big and a lot of this
[Guido]: background is care of the back issue magazine which has some great history
[Guido]: industry of the else world's imprint and the idea got so big they went to dick
[Guido]: giordano editor and he gave it a green light to go run with it make it something
[Guido]: else
[Guido]: and so they decided to do that and that's how they worked with the marketing team
[Guido]: and came up with the idea that they were they would be prestige books they would
[Guido]: be these square bound more expensive higher quality paper thicker books and got
[Guido]: them by gaslight then in nineteen eighty nine is the first else world technically
[Guido]: although it does not contain the actual logo so that honor goes to batman holy
[Guido]: terror in nineteen ninety one so it actually took a little while until there's a
[Guido]: logo and they decided that this whole brand would capture everything that doesn't
[Guido]: fit into the core universe of those imaginary stories and they actually even came
[Guido]: up with a mission statement for the brand so in else worlds heroes are taken from
[Guido]: their usual settings and put into strange times and places some that have existed
[Guido]: others that can't or couldn't or shouldn't exist the result is stories that make
[Guido]: characters who are as familiar as yesterday seem as fresh as to morrow and so of
[Guido]: course some of the most
[Rob]: yeah i read that
[Rob]: i read that in the issue that we're going to read i i love the idea of the mission
[Rob]: statement it feels it does have a little bit of a real culprit that
[Rob]: last sentence there it's like okay we're the these old characters we're going to
[Guido]: yeah for for sure it's not
[Rob]: keep them fresh here and and
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: and just have having them state it like that it just feels like this was labored
[Rob]: over by a dozen people to come up with this one sentence
[Guido]: it's also pretty wordy like like the idea that we're going to put them in strange
[Guido]: times and places some that have existed others that can't or couldn't or shouldn't
[Guido]: exist it's like as a could you imagine as a kid like that's not going to really
[Guido]: you know turn you on
[Guido]: for the story but anyway it has a mission statement so they were really focused
[Rob]: yeah yeah
[Guido]: and some of the else world's books became some of the biggest selling titles at dc
[Guido]: ever got them by gaslight being a great example and then of course red sun super
[Guido]: famous else worlds kingdom come is an else world story
[Rob]: okay i've heard of that one
[Guido]: so there are really famous else world stories a lot of the team who worked on else
[Guido]: worlds talked about how you know things like watchmen and dark night returns were
[Guido]: essentially else worlds but
[Rob]: su
[Guido]: predated the formation of the label and of course batman was the most frequently
[Guido]: used else worlds the line continued until two thousand three and there are at
[Guido]: least one hundred twenty five or so worlds some of those books even have multiple
[Guido]: issues so that's not individual issues that's just the actual concepts some of
[Guido]: them are two partners three partners some are a little longer but generally they
[Guido]: are one two or three parts so two thousand three the brand disappears they stop
[Guido]: using it completely in two thousand ten they try to bring it back with the last
[Guido]: family of crypton but that's the only attempted reuse of it since then so
[Rob]: m
[Guido]: of course we do have a lot of multi verse stories showing up throughout dc
[Guido]: probably more than ever and we also have a lot of quote unquote imaginary not even
[Guido]: multi vers
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: stories like deceased which you just referred to tom taylor's zombies story or
[Guido]: like tom taylor's dark knights of steel currently transposing all the characters
[Guido]: into
[Guido]: the medieval times which actually did happen in a few else worlds which we'll get
[Guido]: to so
[Rob]: yes i'll go with with you to the
[Guido]: elsewhere as a concept hasn't stopped
[Guido]: but as the brand has
[Rob]: yeah i will i'll go with you to the comic book store on wednesday new comic book
[Rob]: day and i'll just look at the number of batman titles specifically and i'll wonder
[Rob]: as a non batman reader how is how are all these titles existing cause so there
[Rob]: those are so many of those i'm guessing are imaginary stories just not under the
[Rob]: elsewhere world banner
[Guido]: it depends so for example like right now
[Guido]: chips darky is writing
[Guido]: batman mini series that's a a recon it's a story that takes place in cannon but
[Guido]: took place when batman was younger when he's getting trained and so same thing you
[Guido]: know our dear friend elliot proposed that his favorite else worlds were superman
[Guido]: for all seasons or superman birthright and both of those are the same sort of
[Guido]: concept there're these mini series that are
[Guido]: somewhat rewriting our core continuity now that gets super complicated in dc
[Guido]: because dc's universe has
[Rob]: is
[Guido]: rebooted so unlike marvel which even though there's been some elements of a reboot
[Guido]: especially in the secret wars in twenty fifteen you still have a core universe a
[Guido]: six one six universe with a primary timeline dc doesn't have that because dc has
[Guido]: hard
[Guido]: complete three boots and then we even
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: have some revisions on those reboots so of course like the rebirth era revises the
[Guido]: new fifty two to merge it with the prime earth which is the crisis on infinite
[Guido]: earths reboot and then you have the multiversity multiverse on top of all of that
[Guido]: so it gets really complicated to figure out sort of what's core and canonical and
[Guido]: what's not
[Guido]: but
[Guido]: you it's pretty clear which of those mini series are supposed to be telling a
[Guido]: story within our world and which are not or sometimes the creators will not so
[Guido]: shaw king's batman catwoman series that's going on right now that is not taking
[Rob]: is it
[Guido]: place in the core cannon continuity it's something of an else worlds in fact but
[Guido]: they don't use that brand anymore
[Guido]: so that's our background on else worlds
[Rob]: thank you you know that was really interesting yeah it was really interesting to
[Rob]: get a little bit bit of that background and i'm really excited to dive in deeper
[Rob]: so with that dear watchers welcome to episode thirty eight let's check out what's
[Rob]: happening in the multi verse with today's alternate universe
[Rob]: and today we are going to be posing the question what if all the men in the dc
[Rob]: universe died except superman and lex luther
[Guido]: what a question that is and this is earth nine two two
[Guido]: so earth designations in dc are oftentimes not available
[Guido]: or
[Guido]: just constructed by someone in the world so take it as you will but this is earth
[Guido]: nine two two so a real brief summary and we'll get into a lot of the detail when
[Guido]: we dive into earth nine two two but on this earth a disease passes through it's
[Guido]: sort of a cloud disease floating through the universe comes hits earth all of the
[Guido]: men except superman die every single man lex luther saves himself by
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: staying inside his armor and because that happens many women step up into the
[Guido]: roles of other previously male heroes wonder woman starts to essentially lead the
[Guido]: earth via leading the un and the mesa takes on a whole new role as the capital of
[Guido]: the earth meanwhile there's research being done to figure out about this virus and
[Guido]: how it played out and of course everyone's thinking about the survival of humanity
[Guido]: so we end up with lois lane pregnant but lex luther refusing to accept that the
[Guido]: future of humanity is kryptonian so lex ends up revealing which turns out to be
[Guido]: true that superman is in fact now a carrier for what they call the fall the virus
[Guido]: has embedded itself in his cells so superman has to leave earth go away or he'll
[Guido]: risk infecting his child and anyone else that exists on earth in the future he
[Guido]: leaves he leaves behind his
[Guido]: genetic material in a canister for wonder
[Rob]: yes yeah
[Guido]: woman and
[Guido]: lois meanwhile gives birth so jump ahead a few years we find that all of the
[Guido]: children of the amazons now with superman sperm are being trained on thes scra and
[Guido]: being trained in the ways of warriors and the values of peace of course but
[Guido]: meanwhile lex is
[Guido]: mentally sort of entering the dream state of adam the first child lowest end
[Guido]: superman's child and convincing him that men need to take back their place in the
[Guido]: earth he ends up sort of triggering all of them to rebel against the amazons and
[Guido]: of the women in the who are running the world they begin a battle superman returns
[Guido]: in his own armor to earth found a vaccine out in space that doctor light helps him
[Guido]: develop
[Guido]: long story short t i know this has been a long summary but lex turns on his new
[Guido]: army of misogynist bald teenagers because he can't deal with kryptonians he plans
[Guido]: to kill them with kryptonite it turns out that super using the crypton makes the
[Guido]: vaccine work for superman so he can take off his armor lex has a heart attack and
[Guido]: they end up with a new
[Guido]: race of children that lex had been working on with his own genetic material that
[Guido]: now superman and all of the female heroes will raise as their own children and i
[Guido]: think those are all the really pertinent details for the sake of a summary of
[Guido]: earth nine two two
[Rob]: yes they're they're two pretty hefty issues so there was a lot to cover there
[Guido]: they are it's a lot and that's the thing with else worlds they're dense these are
[Guido]: two prestige forty page books so it's a it's a big story
[Rob]: yes and these are existing in the world of the ninety seconds j la or the nineties
[Rob]: j characters so gita what is your background with
[Rob]: that era of the justice society of america
[Guido]: well it's the justice league of america you like the justice society better but
[Rob]: of justice justice league of america i think i i wanted to subconsciously make it
[Guido]: it's the justice like
[Rob]: the justice society because i don't find these characters as interesting but go
[Rob]: ahead yeah what is
[Guido]: so i was not reading this era of dc i'd read
[Guido]: justice league books up until they sort of disband and i read a sum of justice
[Guido]: league international and then post superman's
[Guido]: red and blue states i really wasn't reading much else in the d c universe i have
[Guido]: gone back and revisited some of j a and i have the omnibus upstairs but i have
[Guido]: never read it straight through which i should and will talk about who the creator
[Guido]: is and why it's a creator that i cannot believe i haven't read this start to
[Guido]: finish but because like you i have no attachment to these characters and certainly
[Guido]: to them being on a team it never drew me in so i don't have a huge background with
[Guido]: late ninety seconds into the early two thousands j folks how about you
[Rob]: yeah i don't i did not read this era at all i really don't have a big connection
[Rob]: with the gla i like a lot of these characters in their own rights especially you
[Rob]: know batman and the flash those were characters certainly i i have read
[Rob]: but as a team it just never really did it for me i think because you have these
[Rob]: three heavy hitters up front plus the green lantern plus martian manhunter these
[Rob]: are pretty powerful people there was just something about even the aesthetic of
[Rob]: the look that i just never loved but this era i was not at all reading gla i was
[Rob]: reading js a probably around the same time but i think that was all i was really
[Rob]: reading in dc at this point
[Rob]: well let us dive in deeper into our origins of the story
[Rob]: and first up we have jl volume one issue one from january nineteen ninety seven
[Rob]: and the story is entitled them
[Guido]: this is written by grant morrison penciled by howard porter inked by john dell
[Guido]: colored by pat ghee and heroic age lettered by ken lopez edited by ruben diaz and
[Guido]: we read this because it's essentially this era's gla the title the else world's
[Guido]: title is from two thousand so a little after grant is still writing ja la at that
[Guido]: point it's a pretty long run on gala that they had but i just figured let's read
[Guido]: this first issue and get a little bit of the sense of the dynamics of the late
[Guido]: ninety seconds team
[Guido]: and grant is someone i am a huge fan of and that's why it's rather shocking that i
[Guido]: haven't read this run but i haven't and i will one day and this was the start of
[Guido]: it what do you think
[Rob]: well it's a really classic scifi story a kind of story that twilight zone covered
[Rob]: but also in other science fiction and of course i know grant morrison was a big
[Rob]: science fiction fan in fact there or is a science fiction fan in fact there's that
[Rob]: old monster movie called them about the giant ants i was
[Rob]: almost wondering if that's where they got the name for but i love this concept
[Guido]: yeah i was thinking that
[Rob]: that there's this other super race of people each one looks very different they
[Rob]: kind of have and now are analogous with the gla members in some ways that they
[Rob]: come to earth and basically say hey we're just gonna clean everything up we're
[Rob]: going to populate the sahara with forests and we're going to kill the criminals
[Rob]: instead of just keep locking them up but most of the people like that kind of
[Rob]: reminds me of some of the questions that mark ruin wald posed in his squadron
[Rob]: supreme run there
[Guido]: it's very squadron supreme as i was reading this i was like whoa if this is what
[Guido]: it is then i love it because you and i both love squadron supreme and it is very
[Guido]: similar in
[Rob]: this is
[Guido]: terms of yeah the social
[Guido]: ramifications of superheroes and whether or not they should help in certain ways
[Guido]: and what that means for society and how our society is organized and structured
[Guido]: and how we solve problems so i mean this first story is just the first few issues
[Guido]: and then i know they transition quickly into other stories but they wrote this for
[Guido]: years and so i would imagine that they revisit some of the themes on this run
[Guido]: because i yeah i had that same exact thought
[Rob]: yet i love that they do establish with the gla a lot of their personalities i love
[Rob]: that batman is just they're saying where's batman he's and that he's lurking in
[Rob]: the back and he says i've been here for an hour
[Guido]: yeah and he's like i've been here an hour
[Rob]: and kyle
[Rob]: ra rayner right
[Guido]: uhuh
[Rob]: is now the green lantern
[Guido]: mhm
[Rob]: that's his name i mean he's a little annoying he's definitely the smart
[Rob]: in these teams
[Rob]: but i i mean i think it gels well with the overall group i think overall compared
[Rob]: though to the avengers or the js a because superman and wonder woman don't and
[Rob]: even maybe this wally west don't have as much fleshed out personalities at least
[Rob]: in this issue that we read today
[Rob]: i think it would help if they were a little bit more idiosyncratic
[Guido]: yeah and i'd imagine perhaps they become that way but
[Guido]: yeah and i enjoyed it cause it sort of fills a gap for me too like i i love the
[Guido]: era after this that leads us into infinite crisis which is really about their
[Guido]: relationship to each other so i'm assuming this we'll get into some of that and i
[Guido]: agree since their personalities are
[Guido]: either sort of more two dimensional or
[Rob]: that's
[Guido]: just harder to add nuance to i think it's in their relationship that you have to
[Guido]: do a lot of the storytelling and so i would
[Rob]: hm
[Guido]: imagine grant gets to that but in this first issue it's just basically an intro it
[Guido]: was fun to read get a sense
[Rob]: and one last thing before we move on to i there's this one channel on the one page
[Rob]: where the new superhuman who arrive are killing other super villains
[Guido]: hm
[Rob]: or other superhero characters and we see some marvel characters in there
[Rob]: there's dr doomed one hundred percent the one looks just like wolverine it's hard
[Rob]: to exactly see but he's got the yellow and blue and got wolverine's hair i'm not
[Rob]: sure if anyone else is there so do you know any backstory with with that panel or
[Guido]: no i did not i did not even catch that so i don't know if that was a a grand
[Rob]: is that just fun
[Guido]: easter egg or a howard porter easter egg or what the deal if that is i mean
[Guido]: grant's done that a few times
[Guido]: a good number of people have done that a few times where they'll they'll represent
[Guido]: the multi verse the com the comic book omni verse in fact in panel in the
[Guido]: background as an easter egg so no i did not catch that and maybe it means
[Guido]: something in this run we'll have to find out with the omnibus that's upstairs
[Rob]: well let us jump in our giant egg pods which is what these other superheroes
[Rob]: arrive in and launch into exploring multi diversity
[Rob]: and this week
[Rob]: as leaders of the council of watchers we have made this elsewhere into the
[Rob]: question
[Rob]: what if every male in the dc universe died except superman and lex luthor and this
[Rob]: was explored in j la created equal one and two part one is the fall for march two
[Rob]: thousand and part two is the children of the spring from april two thousand
[Guido]: and both of these issues were written by phobia nisa penciled by kevin mcguire
[Guido]: inked by joe rubinstein the first issue was colored by gloria vasco's and the only
[Guido]: background on this that i could dig out was that the gala's presence in the else
[Guido]: world's stories was quite late so gli didn't the justice league didn't get any
[Guido]: else worlds until nineteen ninety fours annuals which were all else world's
[Guido]: imprints and then it wasn't really until the success of kingdom come in nineteen
[Guido]: ninety seven that the line grew a lot for the gla so between nineteen ninety eight
[Guido]: and two thousand one there were a good number of justice league else world's
[Guido]: titles at this point and this came in that wave
[Guido]: so this was big
[Guido]: what did you think of this
[Rob]: so i really
[Rob]: enjoyed both of these issues as we kind of said when you were giving this summary
[Rob]: there's a lot going on here and i thought early on it felt a little uh rushed but
[Rob]: then once it really gets into the issues proper i i thought it raised some really
[Rob]: interesting questions about
[Rob]: and also
[Guido]: like what
[Rob]: elevating some of these characters i love
[Rob]: so well i think first off that how they're raising the the next
[Rob]: line of heroes or dex line of of
[Rob]: people a of well superman's children
[Guido]: of humans
[Rob]: and that they are being raised by yeah oh yes well they're the half human half
[Guido]: right but they're the future of humanity yeah
[Rob]: crypton ands but i thought
[Rob]: yes the hu future of humanity and i think it was it's really interesting having
[Rob]: them being raised by all women
[Rob]: that then you know we get this corrupting influence from lex in there
[Rob]: and it just it's just in it's interesting because i could see it in a very
[Rob]: realistic setting how a teenage boy would react it didn't seem like it was
[Rob]: superhero level which was what i think it made it work it was like this is how a
[Rob]: sup uh a teenage boy would react when suddenly exposed to probably a corrupting
[Rob]: male influence
[Guido]: i don't know if i totally agree on your read because i think i mean one thing that
[Guido]: i think is really tricky about this issue these issues which i also really liked
[Guido]: but i think we have to be careful and i actually think fabian is really careful
[Guido]: with
[Guido]: with essential izing gender and there's actually nothing in this happily that
[Guido]: essentialize gender so there's only one moment toward the end
[Guido]: where one of them when all the teenage boys who've been sort of telepathically
[Guido]: triggered start to attack one of them says well it's their nature that in fact the
[Guido]: telepathic control of luther sort of only
[Rob]: is
[Guido]: triggered something but
[Guido]: i don't read that
[Guido]: maybe it was just me but it didn't read to me as a commentary on the nature of man
[Guido]: because of course that's very gender essential izing also of course the this
[Guido]: entire issue is constructed around a binary of gender not surprisingly for twenty
[Guido]: years ago
[Guido]: so
[Guido]: but
[Guido]: i saw it more as and this is private the health teacher in me i saw it more as
[Guido]: about puberty like they were you know they even the way they talk about having
[Guido]: these dreams which is the telepathic communication and that they have all these
[Guido]: feelings they don't know what to do with and they want to sort of be
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: heard and understood and so it felt much more about adolescence to me than about
[Rob]: mm
[Guido]: male gender
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: and and maybe it's just a better way for me to appreciate this with more nuance
[Guido]: and not worry about it being a commentary on male being menn being evil but you
[Guido]: know for the fifteen years that they're raising these boys
[Rob]: you
[Guido]: like nothing happens they're not more violent i mean there's you
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: know adam accidentally kills lois but that's because of his superpowers it's not
[Guido]: because he's like a you know an out of control boy there's no boys will be boys
[Guido]: moment and all of lex's
[Guido]: commentary and convincing them i mean it is
[Guido]: so trumping
[Rob]: yes very so yeah
[Guido]: it is so brilliant like i i don't know maybe fabian even had trump in his mind and
[Guido]: certainly there have been misogynist you know arrogant leaders who've preyed on on
[Guido]: men's fears that they're losing power and control but all of the comments that he
[Guido]: he makes to them about the way the world should be structured and what capitalism
[Guido]: means in the world
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: like all of that was so good and it to me it was a comment that
[Guido]: gender is is is more nurture than nature our social
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: construct of gender is nurture that these boys did not have that there was not
[Guido]: gonna be a push for a patriarchy until lex came around and said these women are
[Guido]: taking away your power
[Rob]: yeah well i think i think just hearing you talk and and thinking back to the
[Rob]: issues i think fab and these nsa is obviously telling a story about gender with
[Rob]: these two issues but i think you could replace gender with something else
[Rob]: and and you would still get the same overall arc and i'm thinking i was just as
[Rob]: you know i finished just reading this comic american cults and i think
[Guido]: person
[Rob]: one of the great things that that poses is that when you're in these very confined
[Rob]: species without a lot of outside influences good things can come but also bad
[Rob]: things can come so i think what you're getting
[Rob]: on the on the paradise island is that in some ways they are growing really well
[Rob]: because they are getting all these amazing lessons from the amazons and these
[Rob]: other teachers but at the same time they're not necessarily fully growing into
[Rob]: full humans because they're not getting all of those outside influences as well
[Rob]: and that includes bad influences like lex so there's almost a isolationist versus
[Rob]: non isolationist feeling i'm also getting which is also interesting because we had
[Rob]: we were talking a lot about that after the september eleventh attacks too but that
[Rob]: was still not even you know that was a year away as well those those kind of
[Rob]: discussions so i think this was very prescient in many ways but do you think you
[Rob]: see any of that as well that kind of
[Rob]: lack of outside influences and the good things and bad things that can come from
[Rob]: that
[Guido]: well and that's what i see i like to me that can also apply to parenting and
[Guido]: adolescence again and growing up so the idea that if you over shelter your child
[Guido]: then they they might be more easily exploited and susceptible so in case
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: as you were saying like these these these kids were not being exposed to differing
[Guido]: views you can even apply this to
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: a lens or a polarized po a political thing right they're not being exposed to
[Guido]: different views and so as soon as they encounter someone charismatic preying on
[Guido]: their fear telling them that they have power they can take back then than they are
[Guido]: susceptible to that and they can be sucked into that so yeah
[Rob]: and that
[Guido]: i think this
[Rob]: i think really resonates when you're thinking about like the twenty sixteen
[Rob]: election and things like that you know people
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: who are not often exposed to as many views if they meet a really charismatic
[Rob]: figure that's telling them what they want to hear they can be swayed
[Guido]: or the way social media has destroyed us you know it's
[Rob]: oh totally yes
[Guido]: because it sets up echo chambers like and you know you stop becoming exposed to to
[Guido]: differences and so yeah i mean the fact that we're able to talk about so many
[Guido]: different
[Guido]: current social topics for sure speaks to me about how good this issue is about how
[Guido]: well executed it is
[Guido]: e even if you can you know
[Rob]: and he does also i think discuss
[Guido]: no go ahead
[Rob]: and it does also i think take into not just these bigger social issues but also
[Rob]: good superhero issues as well like you mentioned adam accidentally
[Rob]: you know murders lois his mother and it's and it's interesting like if superman
[Rob]: had been around to train adam how to use his powers would that have happened maybe
[Rob]: it would have been but this is another great like superhero problem to even
[Rob]: encounter
[Guido]: yeah i agree i agree and i think it i mean it does it well too even with some of
[Guido]: the the women like there's this comedian who this maria who
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: is going to be wants to be totally self absorbed and only use she gets the green
[Guido]: lantern ring and she only wants to use it for her own benefit and essentially
[Guido]: would like to steal money but since they do away with money in this world
[Guido]: she very utopian she
[Guido]: essentially can't do it she uses them i love the the appar like chippindale
[Guido]: dancers that she uses to fight
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: against the other heroes and then they pass her ring on to barbara gordon we
[Guido]: actually don't even know what happens to her we
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: just know that they end up with the ring and they give it to barbara so yeah i
[Guido]: think there's a lot of superhero questions raised in this about
[Guido]: what you do with power and how you are a hero and legacy and stuff that is so
[Guido]: present in comics to day with legacy characters and how many people can we call
[Guido]: batman how many people can we call wolverine who
[Rob]: sure
[Guido]: can have that title like all of that definitely shows up in here too
[Rob]: and that comes up here too be cause the the superheroes are are now the women's
[Rob]: superheroes are changing their names now that their male counterparts are gone so
[Rob]: jesse quick is just the flash and it's not hawk girl anymore she's just the hawk
[Rob]: and the green lantern is a woman and it's not mrs green lantern you know
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: you it made you then think about oh wow there's so many characters because they
[Rob]: come from such a different era that we're putting girl or boy or woman or man like
[Rob]: onto their names and as you said like now that those barriers are being broken
[Rob]: down and we're thankfully exploring more diversity and in comics and in elsewhere
[Rob]: it really comes up with that question of oh how do you approach these kind of
[Rob]: legacy characters does the hawk does hawk girl can hawk girl just be the hawk
[Guido]: yeah i i think those questions are really interesting in this and i think it
[Guido]: builds to know i was thinking in our pre reading list which was really short this
[Guido]: week with gla that there are so many good utopian scifi stories that i think tell
[Guido]: similar stories to this and we could have looked at those and i'm thinking about
[Guido]: one that i just read last year her land which was written in the twenties which is
[Guido]: a society of women now that's not it's actually not an alternate earth they
[Guido]: live in like a isolated place on earth but it's thought that that book probably
[Guido]: influenced the creator of wonder woman to create fem ska so yeah i think there's
[Guido]: lots of questions about
[Guido]: identity gender and legacy that show up in here and that come from a long lineage
[Guido]: of sci fi around like what
[Rob]: h
[Guido]: what is utopia is present in this and
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: then how does gender play out in that
[Guido]: did you have other thoughts about this
[Rob]: and these are all heavy questions but well i was going to say these are all big
[Rob]: heavy questions but i think there's also there also is humor still in the issue as
[Rob]: well i think as you mentioned superman giving wonderful a what looks like an urn
[Rob]: or faberge egg con containing his sperm is probably supposed to be a little funny
[Guido]: and wait what does he call it it's well she she calls it well well
[Guido]: hippo calls it the gift of hope
[Guido]: and she just
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: asks them like have you given any thought to what i asked and so yeah they they
[Guido]: keep it a little vague but i love the idea the gift of hope is uh a superman sperm
[Rob]: yeah and a lot of alexis lines as disgusting as he is he does have a lot of great
[Rob]: lines when he's talking about the fact that he's just lobotomized all these
[Rob]: telepaths and also i think the overall idea that the superman's offspring father
[Rob]: living on you know the paradise island all have long hair and then once they
[Rob]: become followers of legs they all have leg
[Rob]: shaved heads which is classic sci fi but it is also a little funny too cause a
[Guido]: they all save their head yeah
[Guido]: well it also fits it fits with what you were saying too about like cult behavior
[Rob]: little on the nose
[Guido]: you know these are people who
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: are really susceptible right now and so as soon as they start to idolize lex
[Guido]: they're like oh let's do let's look like him
[Rob]: totally and we've we've talked a lot about the story and fabian
[Rob]: contributions but what do you think about the art here because it it it's a very
[Rob]: interesting mix of styles even though it's all from one person
[Guido]: yeah this is this is
[Guido]: very representative kevin maguire art which i like kevin mcguire are to me kevin
[Guido]: mcguire art is like it's very terry moore strangers in paradise it's like a bit of
[Guido]: a
[Rob]: uhhuh
[Guido]: hybrid to me of
[Guido]: of like indie books like it looks more like love and rockets
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: or strangers in paradise but with a superhero action sensibility so it doesn't
[Guido]: have a lot of definition or detail or lines it's very simplified but it has a lot
[Guido]: in the characters faces and bodies and their physical appearances he draws
[Guido]: characters really well so i like kevin mcguire i mean there are points that i wish
[Guido]: were a little stronger there are some splash pages that i'm like this would be
[Guido]: gorgeous if it just had a little bit more definition or care paid to this point
[Guido]: but i like it what about you
[Rob]: mm hm yeah i think it it's very interesting because i guess to what you're saying
[Rob]: often when if it was in film terms and it's a wide shot there's very little detail
[Rob]: in people's faces and in the backgrounds everything is very clean it's a little
[Rob]: cartoony but then when you pull in and do a close up especially with superman and
[Rob]: lex throughout these two issues it becomes like you're saying there's almost indie
[Rob]: there's this one great part where lois is gonna go skippy skinny dipping and then
[Rob]: there's this close up of superman's face just smirking and suddenly it's just full
[Rob]: of detail and there's some other great superman shots and leck shots so it's
[Rob]: almost like you put all of this time into a few of the panels and the rest of the
[Rob]: time maybe because it was also such a big book
[Rob]: did a little bit of a quicker less detailed style i don't know if the timing
[Rob]: played a part in it
[Guido]: yeah i don't know if it was rushed or anything like that or and of course inking
[Guido]: and coloring can play a huge part this is obviously and we've talked about this
[Guido]: before i think with el at once on an episode this is the early
[Guido]: advent of computer coloring and it gets it makes the image very flat so that could
[Guido]: be part of what's going on here i think
[Rob]: and brights there's lots of super bright super primary colors throughout both of
[Rob]: these
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: issues the blues are blue and the reds are red and there's very little in between
[Guido]: yeah
[Guido]: so you know with else worlds there are times that earth are revisited and i'll
[Guido]: obviously talk about those when we get to them this earth has never been revisited
[Guido]: that i know of or could find there is a lot of legacy in here and i'll talk about
[Guido]: this now because it doesn't it's not how i chose the list so you know there's some
[Guido]: cool legacy stuff like we have this woman of color becoming the atom and
[Guido]: eventually a man of color becomes the atom and so you get some cool stuff like
[Guido]: that and and then of course we have and you asked me this when you were reading it
[Guido]: the birth of superman in lois
[Rob]: hm
[Guido]: having a child the the birth of their child i don't think this has anything to do
[Guido]: with john kent being born and he's born in twenty fifteen there's zero connection
[Guido]: to the story so there's a lot of stuff like that but we've never gone back to this
[Guido]: earth specifically before we begin to explore the possibilities that this might
[Guido]: have inspired you want to go back to this earth
[Rob]: i don't think i really need to go back to this earth because
[Rob]: i think
[Rob]: the the questions that these issues posed are answered here and i don't really
[Rob]: need to see how we're gonna then repopulate the earth after this
[Guido]: with all the the half lex jean pool people running around
[Rob]: yes yeah
[Guido]: yeah i i agree i mean i think it's so satisfying a story and it's eighty pages so
[Guido]: i think it you know it the right idea i think there could have been a sequel there
[Guido]: could still be a sequel like you could still return to this earth because you do
[Guido]: still have an earth with
[Guido]: you will have i guess aged like let's say you even jump twenty years into the
[Guido]: future you'll have like a matriarchal society essentially with the
[Rob]: is
[Guido]: exception of superman you'll still have women ruling the world and having
[Guido]: constructed society but now the population will be
[Guido]: more gender varied hopefully even beyond just male and female so you know i think
[Guido]: the right writer and creator could tell us equal story but yeah i think it was
[Guido]: satisfying
[Rob]: well while our lex babies continue to germinate we will spend some time pondering
[Rob]: possibilities
[Rob]: so we're really interested to ask you guido how you came up with this list because
[Rob]: we've got a superhero comic and we have a non superhero comic
[Guido]: that's true well so this is you know typically when we cover what if one of the
[Guido]: rules i use so one rule is that the anything we look at as a as a possibility
[Guido]: we're pondering should follow the alternate universe in terms of the order that it
[Guido]: was written and created in so that we can look at any shared dna or connective
[Guido]: tissue but the other rule of choosing something from the same universe doesn't
[Guido]: apply and it's going to be really hard while we're navigating the dc universe
[Guido]: because dc has always had
[Guido]: a lot of multi val storytelling going on and has this whole one hundred twenty
[Guido]: five else worlds that are not even necessarily numbered earth or earth that we've
[Guido]: ever seen before and so it will become very hard and then even when you get into
[Guido]: the core dc earth you know you have prime earth you have new earth you have earth
[Guido]: zero like you have all these questions you have timelines that have been
[Guido]: reconstructed so the silver aid stuff did happen didn't happen it's going to be
[Guido]: very
[Rob]: listen
[Guido]: hard to have one core thing to go into and so i decided okay let's just stay with
[Guido]: dc's publishing and look at things that seem connected and so i chose
[Guido]: actually one issue that doesn't take place in this earth at all and doesn't have
[Guido]: an earth de designation because as you said it's not a superhero book and then i
[Guido]: chose another book that is
[Guido]: another alternate earth it it again it's not taking place in the core justice
[Guido]: league universe but it's another alternate earth that felt a little connected and
[Guido]: felt like it would be fun to visit so that's how i got to what we're gonna read
[Rob]: yes and first up following the adventures of the world's most annoying man and his
[Rob]: monkey it is why the last man volume one issue one from september two thousand two
[Rob]: and this is unmanned part one of five
[Guido]: this is written by brian kavan penciled by pi garra inked by jose marsan junior
[Guido]: colored by pamela rambo lettered by clem robbins edited by zach raoul and heidi
[Guido]: mcdonald published by vertigo
[Guido]: and we read it because the
[Guido]: similarity is remarkable the
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: fact that dc
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: published these two things
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: two years apart right and i don't
[Rob]: mm hm
[Guido]: know if brian cavan was inspired by bab and iza as i mentioned there are sci fi
[Guido]: stories that predate both of these but
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: it is remarkable
[Rob]: totally
[Guido]: that in a span of two years dc published two stories were all but one man die off
[Guido]: in the earth
[Rob]: yeah and i i think having worked a little bit in the entertainment industry too i
[Rob]: just know that i won't slide brian cavan because i know that these are
[Guido]: no no
[Rob]: this is sometimes how things go you you're thinking of a story something else is
[Rob]: maybe successful but i'm sure this was already in his brain before
[Guido]: totally and it's a completely different story
[Rob]: it got put out it just happens that it's by the same person yes yes
[Guido]: oh totally it's and no i i don't in any way think that yeah and in terms of the
[Guido]: question we usually pose ourselves were these inspired i don't at all think brian
[Guido]: cavan was inspired by phoebe naza gali created equal but it is just like whoa in
[Guido]: two years dc published these two books were
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: where literally one man survives i guess and created equal lex survives through
[Guido]: his armor but otherwise ukri killing all of the men on earth it's it's like wow
[Guido]: so
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: we watched some of why the last man series i've never read all of why the last man
[Guido]: i read a little bit of the early issues you never read why the last man what
[Rob]: now
[Guido]: do you think of reading this first issue
[Rob]: i really you can see why i it would be adapted into a television series because
[Rob]: this it's very cinematic in how this is presented hopping along between the
[Rob]: different storylines the way that it's even giving us those title cards of this is
[Rob]: how much time is left it's all brian cavan and and p agua using cinematic tropes i
[Rob]: think or cinematic devices i could should say in the comic so i thought that was
[Rob]: really interesting and i i think you know i was making fun of him but i think what
[Rob]: he and i know it was a criticism also of the television show is the character of
[Rob]: uk because he is very annoying and he's also annoying in this comic but i do think
[Rob]: that was the point of what brian
[Guido]: yeah for sure
[Rob]: cavan was going for it's like when you go to the j l a that we just read you know
[Rob]: you have the polar opposites you have superman you know who wouldn't want superman
[Rob]: to be the one man left alive on the planet and you have lex who's the one person
[Rob]: you wouldn't want and here it's like again telling that story of like well what if
[Rob]: one person survived but he's incredibly annoying he's kind of you know worthless
[Rob]: useless i should say in many ways so you know i think that is part of the story
[Rob]: does it make it fun to read
[Rob]: or watch on tv no not necessarily but uh yeah so that's my kind of initial take on
[Rob]: it
[Guido]: i will say i you know i enjoyed the show and i wish it that continued but reading
[Guido]: this again which i had read the first arc of why the last man but not in a long
[Guido]: time it's much more enjoyable reading it than watching it
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: so yeah
[Rob]: yes i i think at at it it was interesting to reading this back with j la because
[Rob]: we were listening to mark frost the co creator of twin peaks on another podcast
[Rob]: and he was talking about how sometimes you can it's actually more interesting to
[Rob]: tell stories using like a demon rather than rather than someone explo you know
[Rob]: struggling with their alcoholism they're struggling with a demon that's
[Rob]: representing their alcoholism and that can actually be more interesting and i kind
[Rob]: of got that reading these two issues back to back it's kind of in some ways i
[Rob]: found a little bit maybe it's my personal preference found it more interesting
[Rob]: exploring the same problem through a superhero lens through a super then through a
[Rob]: very realistic lens and maybe that's just also where i'm at in the world and i
[Rob]: want that that little element of distance in my story telling right now
[Guido]: yeah
[Guido]: so yeah that we just read that for fun cause again the wildness of two years apart
[Guido]: these two things being published but let's
[Rob]: it was
[Guido]: move on to the next thing we read
[Rob]: yes so next we are returning to the world of superheroes with superman batman
[Rob]: volume one issue twenty four from january two thousand six and it's entitled
[Rob]: lengthy title with the vengeance part five the price of ar sins
[Guido]: this is written by jeff lobe penciled by edm gins inked by dexter vines colored by
[Guido]: dave mcg lettered by richard starkings edited by eddie berganza and tom palmer
[Guido]: junior so this is very cool this is earth eleven this is one of the
[Guido]: fifty two
[Guido]: canonized
[Guido]: earths in the multi verse of dc earth eleven and earth eleven is known as the
[Guido]: gender reversed earth so it
[Rob]: okay
[Guido]: cameos in the issue prior to this its debut is in this issue and then sadly
[Guido]: there's actually it doesn't show up a lot more it it makes an appearance in one
[Guido]: justice league crossover a few years later where they deal with different earths
[Guido]: and then there's one in the countdown event there's one issue where the
[Guido]: challengers of the unknown are searching for ray palmer and they go in and out of
[Guido]: different earth they actually go in and out of a bunch of else world's earths and
[Guido]: one of the earths is superwoman batwoman and that issue's not available digitally
[Guido]: i'm holding it up so you can see the beautiful ryan suk cover of batwoman and
[Guido]: superwoman and the female green lantern so you get a little bit more of the earth
[Guido]: flushed out in this but that's actually it and yet earth eleven is like it's in
[Guido]: grant multiversity index it's people of earth people reference and i think i heard
[Guido]: someone mention on twitter when we mentioned we were going to be visiting earth
[Guido]: eleven that there's a series coming out in the near future that might be in earth
[Guido]: eleven or include characters from earth eleven so it's had a lot of impact and yet
[Guido]: we read essentially its core issue so what do you think of earth eleven
[Rob]: well it was this was definitely one of those cases where it's hard for me jumping
[Rob]: in not knowing i i see i didn't even know that it was necessarily a different
[Rob]: earth because i'm really jumping into this blind and
[Guido]: batman says it he says
[Rob]: oh okay well
[Guido]: although this gotham city seems like what i know we were traveling back from
[Guido]: another world when suddenly i appeared here
[Rob]: okay well i guess cause i was i didn't know how he appeared suddenly
[Guido]: uhhuh
[Rob]: it's part five
[Rob]: but
[Guido]: yes
[Rob]: so i think i think it's fun i think i think what is fun is that it's not it's not
[Rob]: just the exact story that we were discussing where suddenly all the heroes are
[Rob]: women but it is that gender flip so you have instead of supergirl super lad and
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: he's wearing kind of the me masculine version of her costume so i think that that
[Rob]: is what makes it fun and i also really loved i don't know if this is a character
[Rob]: that exists in proper dc but is bat zo who's the world's worst detective so i
[Rob]: thought
[Guido]: yes
[Rob]: that that definitely made me laugh
[Guido]: yes i figured you'd like the bizarre stuff even though that wasn't why you read
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: it but there
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: are little elements to to it like i don't know if you notice but when they go into
[Guido]: bat woman's bat cave the giant coin the penny that she has saved has a woman on it
[Rob]: yes the coin is a different face on it yeah
[Guido]: and so yeah so it's fun like that there's this whole world where
[Guido]: yeah there's gender reversal like in in this issue the countdown search for palmer
[Guido]: one we meet wonder man who's wonder woman but but gender flipped um and he had
[Guido]: just murdered maxine lord
[Rob]: don't sue marvel
[Guido]: instead
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: of max lord so yeah it's fun to see i like miss miracle and big bard i think
[Guido]: that's fun in the issue that we read
[Rob]: mm yeah yeah and
[Guido]: so it really is just
[Rob]: i love like learning that dark side is a woman too
[Guido]: yeah yeah exactly so it really is just fun to imagine like okay now again it
[Guido]: presumes binary which
[Guido]: any future telling of the story needs to explore a greater diversity of identity
[Rob]: yes
[Guido]: within gender but it's fun regardless and apparently it's inspired by a superman
[Guido]: from the eighty seconds that i would have had us read but is not available
[Guido]: digitally and really it would have had to come before the created equal but it's
[Guido]: an imaginary story where characters are gender swapped so i'm showing you the
[Guido]: cover right now of superman
[Rob]: i see yeah
[Guido]: number three forty nine which has like this that apparently was the inspiration
[Guido]: for earth eleven to be created but
[Guido]: yeah just a fun visit do you think earth eleven was inspired by j created equal at
[Guido]: all
[Rob]: no i don't think so
[Guido]: yeah i don't think so either
[Guido]: so any other questions we have thoughts about the the impact of these stories
[Rob]: well i think i'm just the one thing i'm now just thinking back to is that as as
[Rob]: you said we're making more diversity strides in comics especially it it will be
[Rob]: interesting to see how they tackle these legacy characters moving forward and i
[Rob]: feel like every time they always come up with you're always saying well who's is
[Rob]: gonna be the new james bond is it gonna you know still gonna be a white guy is it
[Rob]: gotta be a woman how do you stay true to the original creation of those characters
[Rob]: while also allowing for more diversity so you know is someone just gonna be the
[Rob]: bat instead of the batman or ba woman so i think that's definitely something i i
[Rob]: feel like we're starting to see now but i think it will be a bigger question
[Rob]: to tackle especially as people are looking for even more diversity in the film
[Rob]: representations and how those film representations will also in terms of gender or
[Rob]: in terms of other diversities will then be reflected in the comics
[Guido]: yeah i think we got there really quickly remarkably i mean
[Guido]: in many ways of course not fast enough but it seems striking to me that you know i
[Guido]: can remember i don't know four years ago
[Guido]: the and there are still people who endlessly debate can laura kinney be wolverine
[Guido]: but from the
[Rob]: eight
[Guido]: publishing side it seems to me like dc and marvel no longer care about that debate
[Guido]: so you have batman
[Guido]: you have the you have a black batman in new york city right now in a title running
[Guido]: concurrently to batman you have you know bisexual john kent as superman while
[Guido]: superman is out in space you have wonder girl
[Guido]: new character from brazil who just coexists with dona troy with cassie with all of
[Guido]: the characters so you just have all of the characters can now just coexist and you
[Guido]: no longer have to stress about it well verne is laura kinney and wolverine is
[Guido]: logan and so it no longer feels like the publishers are that worried about who
[Guido]: holds the mantle and has it even though i'm sure there are still segments of
[Guido]: fandom on reddit debating this but
[Rob]: yeah
[Guido]: that's doesn't seem to me that the publishers care as much what's interesting is i
[Guido]: actually think dc has more gendered names and so i think has a bigger issue with
[Guido]: gender diversity like you just described like you do have batwoman superwoman
[Guido]: batman superman back girl super girl super boy you do have a lot of gender names
[Guido]: and marvel doesn't have that as much so
[Guido]: yeah
[Rob]: yeah and i think
[Rob]: yes there's zatanna but really you know there's there's wonder women and you
[Rob]: really power girl is is not as big of a hero while if you look at marvel there
[Rob]: definitely seems to be more big name woman heroes i mean in the x met alone their
[Rob]: half that team is is female represented so
[Guido]: yeah they're dc
[Rob]: it does seem a probably just coming from bad
[Guido]: dc is leading the way on diversity right now as
[Rob]: oh yeah i think they are i think i think a lot of these things go yes definitely
[Guido]: someone who reads most of both companies titles dc is really pushing us further
[Guido]: than marvel is right now
[Rob]: uh yeah i agree no i think i think a lot of this comes from the fact that so many
[Rob]: of these dc characters are are so much older and that you are still battling the
[Rob]: those those hurdles
[Guido]: all right well
[Rob]: well
[Guido]: i've been
[Guido]: gedo
[Rob]: yes
[Rob]: and i have been robb and that's a rep thank you dear watchers for listening
[Guido]: the reading list is in the show notes please review us wherever you listen
[Rob]: yes
[Rob]: and we will be back soon with another trip through the multiverse
[Guido]: in the meantime in the words of hutu
[Guido]: keep pondering the possibilities