MK Podquest

It's the team-up you never thought you'd see: Neal and Corey. Together they join forces to read Mortal Kombat: Rayden and Kano from Malibu Comics!

Show Notes

It's the team-up you never thought you'd see: Neal and Corey. Together they join forces to read Mortal Kombat: Rayden and Kano from Malibu Comics! One of the boys liked it more than the other - see if you can guess who!

Next Week, an UNHOLY ALLIANCE
Until Then:
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Creators & Guests

Host
corey price
Co-host of MK Podquest, They Made Another One?! and Strat2
Host
Neal Hallstrom
Co-host and editor of MK Podquest and Crew Expendable, Sega enthusiast, proud Zune owner

What is MK Podquest?

Two internet buddies embark on a journey through the world of licensed Mortal Kombat TV, Film, books and comics.

Corey 0:06
Okay before you do any bit you want to do I have a question

Neal 0:09
I don't really have a bit so bring it on

Corey 0:11
good fuck you. Okay, can I open the Tavan cassette? The Raven cassette?

Neal 0:18
Can you open the Raven cassette? Yeah, you can open the-

Corey 0:21
I just keep looking at it wrapped in plastic and I'm just like getting mad. I'm just like, Why didn't why? Nobody cares

Neal 0:26
open

Corey 0:26
nobody cares that this is still sealed. Let me

Neal 0:29
Well the whole thing is like I thought it would be a bit if you ever meet Jeff Meek to hand him that wrapped cassette open it in front of him so he can sign it.

Corey 0:37
I agree. That is funny. But let's just be honest with ourselves. Like,

Neal 0:41
when is that going to happen? Right?

Corey 0:42
Am I gonna remember to bring it if that happens?

Neal 0:45
Well I expect you to carry it on your person at all times. Just in case.

Corey 0:49
I could probably buy a second one.

Neal 0:51
That's actually yeah, open it and then

Corey 0:54
I'll buy a second one. Absolutely.

Neal 0:56
I'll, I'll help you pay for a second one.

Corey 1:00
It wasn't that far away. It was on the other side of my room. Okay, so we got the front cover here. Well, this could really use a video element. It won't get one. It just says original soundtrack for the TV series Raven. I'm gonna get the plastic off.

Neal 1:14
Get right in the mic. Get that ASMR

Corey 1:19
I need something sharp. I guess. I didn't really think this far. I guess I thought what if what if Neal says no?

Neal 1:26
When do I ever say No?

Corey 1:28
That's true. You're very much like a 'yes and.' can you hear the plastic? I'm pulling it off.

Corey 1:34
It came off in one big piece. I also have a fan going which I kept on cause I'm assuming you couldn't hear it. This is not peak professional podcasting. But I've now got the unsealed casette holder in my hands. It's looking absolutely pristine

Neal 1:54
We call those tape cases. We call those cases not cassette holders.

Corey 1:58
Is it holding the cassette tape?

Neal 1:59
Sure, but it's encasing, it's more specifically in casing it. Do you call a CD case, A jewel case, Do you call that a CD holder?

Corey 2:07
I would just call it a case. I wouldn't call it a jewel case, though.

Neal 2:10
Okay. The jewel case is what you keep your Juul in between cartridges.

Corey 2:14
Now that I'm rebelling against the FDA.

Corey 2:18
I regret to inform you. This is just clear plastic. It's not fun plastic. It also looks like it's slightly unspooled the tape on the inside. I don't really know how to adequately describe what I mean by that.

Corey 2:33
Yeah, I'm gonna send a picture. Like it looks loose at the top. And I feel like it probably Oh no, it's just reflective. Because it's clear plastic. How do I get a picture of this?

Neal 2:45
Have you handled a lot of cassette tapes?

Corey 2:47
A few Yeah.

Neal 2:48
Okay.

Corey 2:48
This isn't like my first time

Neal 2:50
not your first rodeo

Corey 2:50
I'm just wondering if it shouldn't look like that. No, no, I found a bunch in my basement. When I was growing up. I have it somewhere it's got a really funny name. That's why I kept it. Can you see right at the top of the tape how like the tape is off of the spool

Neal 3:03
I can, I think you can just turn that a little with your pinky should tighten that right up.

Corey 3:08
I think I turned it the wrong way. It got worse.

Neal 3:10
Yeah, just turn it the other way. It'll be fine.

Neal 3:12
Righty tighty. Nothing has really changed. I'm going to stop touching it.

Neal 3:17
Okay, just take it into cassette player and see what happens.

Neal 3:21
that is a beautiful cassette tape that is pristine. pristine,

Corey 3:25
it is like perfectly like it is absolutely flawless. This is PSA 10 I'm going to open up this little pamphlet Yeah, that the cover was

Corey 3:36
Oh my god. Oh no. There's a few important details here. So first of all, this is just like hey, do you want to go buy a fuck ton of Tangerine Dream album? It's just Christopher frank with Tangerine Dream soundtracks.

Neal 3:55
They really knew their audience didn't they?

Corey 3:57
sorcerer thief Risky Business Firestarter near dark and then their actual like studio. That's genuinely very cool to me as the guy who listens to Tangerine Dream

Neal 4:07
Sure, Christopher Frank member of Tangerine Dream

Corey 4:09
there is a short biography of him.

Neal 4:11
Oh, sick dude

Corey 4:13
Not going to read all of it. That's a little indulgent. But the thing that I was laughing at is on the back. Yeah, where the setlist is at the setlist The tracklist sorry. You've got side A which is the tracklist. And on the right there's just a picture of Jeff Meek shirtless.

Neal 4:30
Oh, hell yeah, dude. See, that's where you get him to sign it. That's where you get him to sign it when he bring it

Corey 4:35
Yeah, but now we know we had to do this as recon so that when we got it open the first time I wasn't doing all this in front of him. Sure. And then on sde B. It's just a picture of, um, our boy

Neal 4:52
Raven, Jonathan Raven?

Corey 4:54
no other guy or

Neal 4:55
Cary Tagawa?

Corey 4:56
our old man. I thought our boy was gonna get the point across cuz I forget his name.

Corey 5:05
Jeff Meek and the other guy is ski ski.

Neal 5:08
There we go hardcore Raven fans of the two of us,

Corey 5:11
and just two babes.

Neal 5:13
And just two babes. I think that was in the opening credits.

Corey 5:15
It has a picture of them like Christopher Frank in the studio.

Neal 5:19
Oh, hell yeah, dude, that's actually sick.

Corey 5:24
So this is actually pretty cool.

Neal 5:25
That is cool. You know what? No,

Corey 5:27
It's not cool?

Neal 5:28
No, I'm thinking. I looked up at my shelf to try to grab my CD copy of The Raven soundtrack. And it's not there. And that's when I remembered Oh, yeah, it's in my truck icon, the CD player as we speak.

Corey 5:43
Okay, why is this not folding up? How I thought it would casing everything in there. So you got it. This thing's got to get back in the back in the hole. Close close up, my man.

Corey 5:54
It's like it's as if I folded it up wrong. But there's no other way to fold the paper backup. I said none of that into the mic because I'm looking down at the tape because I'm confused.

Neal 6:04
I heard it all. I'm probably cutting out your confusion. Don't worry.

Corey 6:08
But like how do I know I need I want to close it before we start though is the problem. I would like to put it away.

Neal 6:14
I can't help you, man.

Corey (off-mic) 6:16
Did I, is it supposed to do this? This... is it this?

Neal 6:19
I don't, I can't see it.

Corey 6:21
No, no, I just I'm not asking you. I'm asking you just like God asking the the the forces at work. Okay, we're vibing I think we're good. Yep. Yes. Okay. All right. Hell yeah, brother. So, my Raven tape is open.

Neal 6:45
Nice.

Corey 6:47
We got to find a better system for these anyway. Raven. Jonathan Raven.

Neal 6:52
Next week we'll check out the inserts and everything for the compact disc version of the Raven soundtrack

Corey 6:51
Content you can only get on MK Podquest

Neal 6:51
Help me remember to get it out of my truck because I legit spent a day driving around listening to it

Neal 6:59
Yeah. The problem though, is I do want to listen to this, right.

Corey 7:09
I don't currently have a way to do that.

Neal 7:11
You just want to hear it all or do you want to just listen to the cassette?

Corey 7:13
I want to hear the cassette.

Neal 7:15
Okay. All right.

Corey 7:16
No, I mean, if you're saying like, I'll burn the CD. I like

Neal 7:19
Sure. I think I already did.

Corey 7:20
Did you rip the CD or anything? So where did it get it?

Corey 7:23
Where did it end up in the drive? I'm not sure I'll take a look. I'll take a look later.

Neal 7:28
If I haven't. I'll rectify that. And I will absolutely

Corey 7:31
I see Raven screens. That's probably not No, not at that dog don't hunt, so to speak. No. No, it's probably somewhere. We'll find it. I'll get it for you, though. I do just want to look at Raven screens. He is Giro Yamashita. It's true, you know.

Neal 7:49
Oh, totally.

Corey 7:53
Anyway, I don't know comic books, fucking I dunno

Neal 7:55
Mortal Kombat. Rayden and Kano issues one through three from Malibu comics. So what do you what did you think? I know you're not a big Kano fan.

Neal 8:06
What do you have your feelings changed about Kano having read this, this team up comic at all?

Corey 8:12
Fucking hell no, brother. Fuck no. I'm probably my least favorite comic books yet.

Neal 8:19
Really?

Corey 8:20
Look, man, you can't just keep doing this over and over again.

Neal 8:24
Okay, that is, that's a fair point.

Corey 8:27
people introduce themselves, a vague conflict emerges. Some fights happen or don't. And then it just sort of ends.

Neal 8:36
And then everything goes back to the way it was before.

Corey 8:39
None of these haven't had any consequences at all. Right. But don't you use like a God killing sword and it just goes away? By the end of it.

Neal 8:49
It doesn't do anything. Sure. But that's classic Defenders of the Realm

Neal 8:53
also like, yeah, defenders of the realm sucked. That was bad.

Neal 9:01
Good point. Good. Good point. Or warrior king, Warrior king crossover territory, whatever. Yeah.

Corey 9:09
Either way, I'm not like,

Neal 9:11
you didn't feel like this was like a self aware commentary on the fact that that's what they've been doing with all of the comics so far?

Corey 9:19
No, no, no.

Neal 9:23
All right.

Corey 9:24
I was I have not been more bored by any of these until this. And like, even if that's what the writers were intending to do, it all reads the same as the previous books anyway, so it doesn't matter.

Neal 9:37
That's fair.

Corey 9:38
I I'm just bored and I know like people are gonna be like, Oh, I don't know who these hypothetical people are. Because you're listening to this you probably don't care. But some person that I've made up to complain about will say, "oh, like come on, give it a break. It's motal Kombat comics" because like yeah, man, but like, it's also still boring. Like, it just keeps like introducing a weird levels to the lore that then end up not being uttering at all

Neal 10:01
that's that is something that it definitely does for sure.

Corey 10:04
And it's just like hey, what if there was 18 new characters that you saw for three seconds each. Is this what writing is?

Neal 10:11
For some people it is apparently for not just Charles Marshall but also the people in charge of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise who just introduced new characters constantly. There's a joke for somebody also. Yeah, like, like it's an actual statement about what they do.

Corey 10:27
Like Lammi Sue and like Thunder, Thunder smash or whatever that like family tree of Knuckles is, but

Neal 10:34
I'm not even just talking about Mr. Ken Penders. I'm talking about Sega themselves who just like Ah fuck it, but make a new character for this thing.

Corey 10:42
Okay, this one's got a squirrel girl in it. This one's got this one's in like, like a hot like a hot girl summer outfit the whole time. This one's a bee.

Neal 10:52
The Bee's kind of grandfathered in. That's kind of a classic character,

Corey 10:56
the bee's grandfathered in. route to the bat grandfathered in at account of sexiness.

Neal 11:02
Rouge the Bat grandfathered in for sure. Yeah. Whatever I liked. I enjoyed this one. Man. I had fun.

Corey 11:13
I gotta be honest with you, Neal. I'm not surprised at all.

Neal 11:17
You're not surprised at all. That feels like a judgment.

Corey 11:20
It's not. It's just like, I if this is how, like, this is how I would expect this episode to go.

Corey 11:26
Okay, you hate it and I don't

Corey 11:27
I feel like I don't hate it. But it just like, you've been much more forgiving of it in general. You know, like,

Neal 11:33
I don't even think I'm being forgiving. I think I just enjoyed it. Like, again. It's not, it's not Watchmen, right. Like, I don't think I'm supposed to think real hard about this story and

Corey 11:45
say we need to think hard about it. But it's like, it doesn't have to be, like annoying to read.

Neal 11:51
But I wasn't even really annoyed is is kind of what I'm saying. I mean, the artwork annoyed me a little bit and some of them will we'll get into that,

Corey 11:59
bro. They got to figure out faces so bad. Yeah, the first these people are writing in a room that has no mirrors.

Neal 12:07
Issues one and three, kind of rough. Issue two looked incredible to me.

Corey 12:12
I also think it's worth flagging that I have. And I'm not gonna I'm not saying that your enjoyment is entirely hinging on nostalgia, because I don't think that's true. But I have no nostalgia for this art style. Generally, like this just not even this execution of it. But you know what I mean? Like this kind of look at all. So for me reading this, but each of them like they all look the same. They're like indecipherable ly the same. Like maybe they introduced a new random location, but like they barely even have backgrounds. And it's just the most jacked up looking muscular people you've ever seen in your life. Like, and I'm just like, I don't know.

Neal 12:51
Yeah, I mean, I get what you're saying. I don't know. I enjoyed it. It was late at night last night when I read them I read them at like midnight.

Corey 12:58
I read them at like 7pm Last night. the witching hour

Neal 13:02
I put on the Mortal Kombat the album like I did when we first started blood and thunder. I was like I gotta get back to that I gotta get in the zone. You know?

Neal 13:12
Yeah, and I gotta get I had to go to Autozone

Corey 13:14
Autozone

Corey 13:15
I bought a cassette player at Autozone I listened to the Mortal Kombat SL sleep guide on on on headspace or whatever that app is called.

Neal 13:24
It was complicated because I don't, I have I have the CD not the cassette. So I had to go get a cassette player installed in my truck. Yeah. And then get one of those cassette adapters that plugs into your portable CD player and then put the CD in that it was it was it was

Corey 13:39
important to sell the truck to get a truck that had a different Yeah, yeah,

Neal 13:43
it was unnecessary but worth it to sit in my truck at midnight with the engine running, listening to Mortal Kombat music and reading Rayden and Kaino issues one through three.

Corey 13:55
This definitely hasn't won me over on Kano. imagine thinking at the beginning of the first issue. Yeah. Kano's not lying

Neal 14:05
Didn't see it coming at all did you man? what a twist.

Corey 14:08
Wow, couldn't believe it. Damn, son.

Neal 14:10
All right, let's dive. Let's dive in. Hold on.

Corey 14:14
You're gonna hit every soundboard button again.

Neal 14:16
I am now (cacaphony of SFX) let's dive in

Corey 14:25
something that we haven't considered. As I talked over this is it keeps going. Yeah. Is we make one button that does that. Like we put all of those on like 800 tracks and just make one mp3 And then map that to every button on the soundboard.

Neal 14:43
All at the same time. Sure. I'll work on that later. Let's go to page go to page two. (more SFX)

Corey 14:53
Yhe 'traitors" sticks out like a sore thumb. It's so loud in the mix.

Neal 15:00
Here's a fun thing I discovered the other night

Dakota, Dave and Paul 15:03
"Tony Toretto's Legendary Cousin Dom"

Corey 15:09
Paul just really hitting that at the end.

Neal 15:11
This was the Dakota Dave and Paul with our "Tony Tore..." ah you all just heard of I don't need to tell you what it was.

Corey 15:22
Rayden Thunder God's a legendary co worker Wynd.

Neal 15:27
Issue one is titled, Eye of the Storm.

Corey 15:31
Get it? (rimshot)

Neal 15:33
Written by Charles Marshall pencils by Kiki Chansamone And Ed LaRoche inks by Abraham Madison and Mark Brill colors by Salvador Mancha and Wolfpack letters by Joseph Allen color design by Janice Wismar we have I'm gonna jump ahead No I'll save it for when we get there we've got another insane like Color Studio name in this

Corey 16:01
More than Wolfpack?

Neal 16:02
More insane than Wolfpack. We'll get there, I think it's issue three. We'll get there

Corey 16:06
Wolfpack is the EDM duo that Kenny beats was a part of that joke is for nobody. He was at a group called loud pack which is okay that jokes for no one.

Neal 16:18
Glad you didn't go with like, you know the wolf pack like in The Hangover movies.

Corey 16:23
Yeah, but the hangover is lame and for nerds. Did you think about that?

Neal 16:28
it's not cool and sick like EDM trios or whatever

Corey 16:37
It's not cool and sick like Kenny Beats

Neal 16:45
Alright so issue one opens with Rayden just kind of doing like a superhero flying pose, right? And we just get introduced to Rayden. He is the storm warrior-

Corey 16:45
In case you fucking forgot. Jesus christ

Neal 16:45
The Light bringer, the Thunder god. And then it says 'Men call him Rayden.' Do other people call him different things? Like-

Neal 16:57
yeah, 100% I think I think women call him Rayden with an I.

Neal 17:03
Uh huh.

Corey 17:06
non binary people just call him dude.

Neal 17:08
That's not so much what I think I meant like, is it like, I'm

Corey 17:12
like bears call him Jeff like is that when you know, like, there's a gender question or a species question.

Neal 17:18
It's, it's kind of neither it's more of an existence question. Is it like, he's a god. The gods like do the Gods not?

Corey 17:30
Gods call him like Terry.

Neal 17:32
Well, like maybe something unpronounceable by the tongue of of humankind.

Corey 17:37
So, like, I doubt it because all the gods tend to speak a lot of English, right? Yeah,

Neal 17:42
but maybe they're only doing that when they're talking to humans. And then we're getting the translation in the comic books. Like in this universe, I'm implying is it like a like a Black Bolt situation where if someone speaks his name, it'll just like cause heads to explode. So he's like, Well, I guess I'll go by Rayden when I'm on Earth, you know, talking to dudes.

Corey 18:01
What? Hold on What is this? Somebody? What is black bolt heads explode?

Neal 18:06
Well, that's that's maybe a bad example, but black bolt from the Inhumans like, he can't speak because his voice is so powerful. It'll cause heads to explode like kill people or whatever.

Corey 18:17
Like he can't say words

Neal 18:19
not to humans. No, I mean to other inhumans and presumably Gods I think it's fine. but like mortals can't like, I mean, I generally I've generally got that right. I may not be perfect on the details. Oh, here's a better example when Alanis Morissette as God in Dogma speaks at the end and blows up the angels head.

Corey 18:38
Alanis Morissette played God in a movie?

Neal 18:40
spoiler alert for dogma

Corey 18:43
I'm just more surprised it's Alanis Morissette than anything.

Neal 18:45
Yeah, man. Literally literally God

Corey 18:47
Isn't that ironic? I don't know.

Neal 18:50
Hey-ooo

Corey 18:50
What are we doing anyway? It's just like Dennis the street or whoever the fuck that Danny

Neal 18:56
Danny the street yeah man

Corey 18:58
Douglas the street

Neal 19:00
anyway Rayden is flying to the Arctic Circle but it's no biggie to him even though it's like super cold and harsh up there. Because in this universe he controls all weather not just thunder and lightning right makes me think he must have like the warrior kings orb powers you know control storm right? I'm not going to bring the warrior kings orb up every time I find a loose association to it but .

Corey 19:21
I don't believe you, you're lying to our listeners.

Neal 19:24
I do it often, I know that. I'm saying I could do it more often. Anyway, he like gets to the I don't know center of the Arctic Circle and like blast the ground which

Corey 19:34
as a reminder is cold. Very cold. Those comic book does feel compelled to explain to you that the Arctic Circle is cold. And people typically don't live like directly in the center of the Arctic Circle.

Neal 19:49
Yes, hard, hard spot to travel to, you know, so he blast the ground with lightning, Storm powers or whatever. And unearths of black sword The sword has been called the angel Slayer, the demon sword reign core. It's an evil sword actually called the Ebbonrule, and it's a blade of pure malevolence, so like dude has an evil sword

Corey 20:14
unequivocally evil sword.

Neal 20:15
Yeah, just like the evilest of swords. Right then from there we cut to as the comic book describes it, a part of town. You don't want to be in After Dark, right? Yep. And we got Jax and Sonya showing up for about two pages in this entire arc. Because they are searching like

Corey 20:32
they're turning to goop.

Neal 20:34
It's yeah, the art in this one. I'm not it's-

Corey 20:37
Look, I'm comfortable saying it's not very good. It's we can just say that good. It's not good. Everything looks like it's like melting into goop.

Neal 20:46
Yeah, like, I don't know if it was I mean, the pencils the inks the color. I don't know what it just didn't come together.

Corey 20:52
It's not. Yeah, I don't I don't remember the executions. Fine. But like, conceptually, you're way off What like a human person looks like

Neal 21:01
Yeah. Well, it is raining. Maybe they are melting because it is raining. Right?

Corey 21:09
Right. Famously, people can't go outside when it rains.

Neal 21:12
Certainly. Anyway, Sonya and Jax are searching for Kaino and they're like man can't find Kano, Kano's so dangerous. We're both afraid of Kano like don't tell anybody but we're like scared of this guy. Right? This is Jackson Sonya talking

Corey 21:24
and that's your first clue where it's like what they really just say boy Kano gives me the heebie jeebies

Neal 21:33
Kano busts out a window holding a knife, like ready to fucking kill them. And I think he does cut jacks and then it was all a dream, dude. Kaino wakes up in a big bed in a gigantic room with like, very large

Corey 21:50
He wakes up in the 2001 room. The 2001 room from the end of 2001.

Neal 21:54
Uh huh. There's a giant space fetus floating.

Corey 21:57
Yeah.

Neal 21:57
And yeah, he wakes up in this in this gigantic room and has no idea where he is or what's going on and he gets approached by two women sisters. I think they're twins and they introduce themselves as Wynd and Rayne. Guess how those names are spelled listeners? You are correct.

Corey 22:19
Moving on.

Neal 22:23
And they are servants of Rayden.

Corey 22:26
What so Rayden has slaves What the fuck? One his big granite grid laser. Base single single bed bachelor pad. He's got two servants,

Neal 22:42
which he calls it the house of Rayden by the way,

Corey 22:45
yeah, dude Rayden talks like a dude who like just saw Fight Club for the first time. The energy that Rayden is bringing to the table seriously. And if you're doing that the book where Kano is also here, you got to balance this energy out somehow guys.

Neal 23:01
Weirdly, if you look in the corner, there is a fight club poster hanging on Rayden's wall inside. Yeah, it's very, very small. You have to sort of really look for it. So what do what do Rayne and Wynd look like? Corey?

Corey 23:15
They've either got masks or makeup on.

Neal 23:17
It's kind of like kabuki makeup. Right?

Corey 23:20
Yeah

Neal 23:21
they look sort of like, what's her face from the Suicide Squad?

Corey 23:25
Oh, I don't know anything about the Suicide Squad. You're asking the wrong guy. Oh,

Neal 23:29
they kind of look like Katana from the Suicide Squad from DC Comics.

Corey 23:34
Not to be confused with

Neal 23:36
Kitana.

Corey 23:37
That's right.

Neal 23:37
Katana. Yeah. And they're just like, hey, hey, you're in Rayden's house. He needs your help.

Corey 23:44
Rayden asked if you wanted to come over. spoiler alert. You did

Neal 23:50
have some tea right they're offering him some tea

Corey 23:53
and some tea now spoilers this tea was not made for humans to drink. No. So brace yourself.

Neal 24:00
It was not made for human lips and then came immediately is like "where your lips made for human lips?"

Corey 24:09
"Did somebody say lips? I would love to assault somebody"

Neal 24:11
and then he attempts to but wind and rain just beat the absolute shit out of him for even trying. Then Rayden shows up right or like this Kano, Kano like pulls a knife and then Rayden shows up I don't know.

Corey 24:22
Yeah. No Kano explains that he's got both a knife and a bad attitude.

Neal 24:27
Uh huh. Yeah.

Corey 24:28
And that's pretty rad. Because it's like 1995 or whatever.

Neal 24:32
90's edgelordord.

Corey 24:35
And then Rayden shows up and talks about Yeah, a guy.

Neal 24:39
Okay, so a couple things before we get to that, first of all, Kano, exuding like a major guy from my fifth grade class named Jeff energy.

Corey 24:51
Yeah, if Rayden just saw Fight Club Kano is watching Fight Club on a loop for four years

Neal 24:56
right. But here's the thing like, I just want to touch on- We saw in battle wave Kano when he escaped the black dragon who tried to kill him for breaking out of I don't know why they did it doesn't matter

Corey 25:08
because they're bad people

Neal 25:10
I guess when he surfaces from the water in that he sees Rayden the Ravens like, come on cane Oh, we got a job to do. And then they leave. And in this case, I was just waking up and Rayden his house like where the fuck am I? What's going on? And then Rayden is introducing himself

Neal 25:24
like contextually it doesn't make sense at all.

Neal 25:26
Yeah, we saw you go with him. Like

Corey 25:28
you guys have interacted before

Neal 25:30
several times.

Corey 25:32
This is my problem where the books won't stop thinking that every new page is the first page that a new reader is reading for the first time that has never heard of Mortal Kombat. It is so everything is constantly getting recapped reintroduced renamed contextualized again, and it's just like, we don't need to do that

Neal 25:55
sometimes twice on the same page.

Corey 25:57
And it's like, it's like, and you know, it's just like, that's really frustrating to read over and over again.

Neal 26:03
Yeah, I get it. I mean, I get it. Like, I get it. Like that thing you said I get. Uh huh. Okay, that's all

Corey 26:11
Yeah. Okay. I feel like you're really like tripling down on this like,

Neal 26:14
no just showing support

Corey 26:17
I get it, so-

Neal 26:20
I can't believe he immediately started fucking like trying to assault them

Corey 26:27
Yeah,

Neal 26:27
that's that's kind of

Corey 26:28
he's bad, remember?

Neal 26:29
That's some some Conquest shit, dude.

Corey 26:32
It's not good. No, it is Kano though.

Neal 26:35
Right And he's decidedly not good.

Corey 26:38
No, that's true. Anthony Fantano gave Kano a 'not good'

Neal 26:45
All right.

Corey 26:46
So the thing that I want to talk about is so right. It is like hey, storytime, motherfucker.

Neal 26:52
Yeah, man. Origin of the Black Dragon apparently.

Corey 26:56
So cut to the past the ancient past. Yes. And there is a guy named Draxxon. Draxxon with two exes. He is Swamp Thing with a mortal kombat ninja mask for a face.

Neal 27:14
Yeah, he's kind of got the body of Steppenwolf from Justice League. The movie, the theatrical cut.

Corey 27:22
Okay, he's also green like Swamp Thing and sort of looks like swamp thing and has red eyes like Swamp Thing

Neal 27:29
later later on in one of the recaps he's gold. It's a very confusing he's generic. 90s like bad dude. Right?

Corey 27:37
And he's got it also he's also called the soul snatcher the souls because they can't they can't stop giving people names and

Neal 27:46
Well comedy comes in threes, right, so he's got three, three nicknames.

Corey 27:50
Yeah. And so he has a side he has like a number two man. Uh huh. It is a man wearing an eyepatch named James Caan was

Neal 28:02
named just named Caan.

Corey 28:04
James Caan

Neal 28:06
c-a-a-n

Corey 28:06
from thief scored by Christopher Frank is in the book. And he he has moved on from simply trying to rob safes and he's trying to come on you can do it kill a god. You can do it with it with I can't. I don't think I could tie that one. But it was James Caan. I'm gonna call on that the whole time. But his name is just C-A-A-N, aka, it's a parallel for Kano I know how to read.

Neal 28:44
He's even got one one eye like Kano. He's got an eyepatch. Yeah, they're not. subtlety is not they're strong suit even a little bit. And so

Corey 28:54
Draxxon is like the baddest dude in the world. He's like Shao Kahn level bad. And James Caan

Neal 29:03
and was ruler of outworld in the past. This is an old ruler of outworld. This is Dragon King. Onaga, but named Draxxon instead.

Corey 29:11
Essentially. Yeah, and James Caan has Ebbonrule, the sword

Neal 29:17
the sword,

Corey 29:18
and the sword gets its power from making evil people do good things.

Neal 29:25
Yes, if

Corey 29:26
Which I'm assuming means it like siphons the evil out of you ever uses it to power up the sword.

Corey 29:32
that's what I'm choosing to believe

Neal 29:34
that makes sense. Because that the the the sword itself gets more powerful, right?

Corey 29:39
The less evil shit you do.

Neal 29:40
Yeah.

Corey 29:41
Um, and so he uses it to uh, murder

Neal 29:50
murderer, his boss,

Corey 29:51
his boss. Right which, you know,

Neal 29:53
that doesn't sound like a good thing like if like that's what Shang Tsung wants to do to Shao Kahn right but the thing that apparently made This good is that Rayden was like nudging

Corey 30:03
was that he didn't have health benefits.

Neal 30:06
Rayden was like nudging and influencing Khan, to be like, Come on, man. Like, do a good thing. Like stop this evil man, like, be good and then Caan chose

Corey 30:16
He was DMing him like, Dude, come on. You gotta help me out on this one man you owe me You owe me one dude. I got Christopher Frank to score your movie you owe me.

Corey 30:28
I talked to Michael. And I talked to Michael Mansell and his head exploded and Tangerine Dream do the soundtrack to your movie.

Corey 30:45
I Let you adopt a child, which they wouldn't let James Caann's character do.

Neal 30:50
Alright.

Corey 30:52
And that jokes over now. Thanks Everybody.

Neal 30:55
It's over now. It wasn't over 30 seconds ago.

Corey 30:58
Absolutely not. Because I was still telling it

Neal 31:01
now. So yeah, anyway, long story short. This is this is Rayden's plan. He's like man, Shao Kahn is getting out of control. I'm gonna get the

Corey 31:12
first of all, he says let's be honest. You want to do a good thing? Oh, yeah. What if that good thing was assassinate Shao Kahn with an evil siphoning magic sword.

Neal 31:22
Right. He's dangling redemption and forgiveness in front of Kano to get Kano to do what he wants.

Corey 31:28
Yeah, he's assuming that something Kaino wants. Yeah. Yeah. Which Cato was implying he does, which we know is he's full of shit. But like, right,

Neal 31:37
yeah. So he's like, Come on, man. Like you wanna you want a chance of redemption? Here it is. We're gonna do the same thing we did back in the past. I'm gonna give you the sword. You're gonna we're gonna go to Outworld you're going to use the swords

Corey 31:48
"He's gonna take you back to the past"

Neal 31:50
to kill Shao Kahn And put an end to his evil reign, right? And Kano was like, Alright, fuck it. I'm in

Corey 31:56
"to kill your shady boss who sucks ass" and et cetera. And the song goes on.

Neal 32:01
Yeah, we're gonna have to pay royalties if you sing too much more

Corey 32:05
Tangerine Dream did the theme song to Angry Video Game Nerd

Neal 32:08
They decidedly didn't

Corey 32:10
But what if they had? think about that? That's all I'm saying

Neal 32:15
maybe they'll do a cover.

Corey 32:19
That'd be that guy back to sing though. Whatever that dude's name was I don't remember.

Neal 32:25
Yeah, that dude. Anyway

Corey 32:28
Sorry,

Neal 32:29
cut to Rayden and Kano flying, like Rayden is flying like Superman like he do. Carrying Kano sadly, not carrying him like, in his arms. You know, cradling him

Corey 32:41
Carrying him precariously

Neal 32:43
not cradling him like Superman would a Lois Lane, right. I would have loved to see that with with Rayden and Kaino. If if anyone out there wants to draw that. Please do.

Corey 32:54
We'll pay you for that. Sure.

Corey 32:55
Sure.

Neal 32:57
Yeah. And they're flying over the ocean to where Shang Tsung Island should be but it's not there. And Kano's like, Wait, it's not always here, et cetera, and Rayden it's like, yeah, it's only here what he wants it to be. But don't worry, I'm a God. And he just sort of like flies like breaks through the barrier between realms and gets he and Kaino into our world. Right? And Kano's got the Ebbonrule. And they're like, Alright, there's the fortress. Let's just rush the fortress and go in and kill Shao Kahn real quick. Right?

Corey 33:27
That's correct. Yeah, yes.

Neal 33:31
Meanwhile, inside the fortress, Shao Kahn is just abusing reptile. Right? Because he can like sense that Rayden is in Outworld and he has the Ebbonrule. And reptiles like I'm I'm loyal to you. Why are you abusing me and Shao Kahn like shut the fuck up? And then it's it's all messy and confusing, right? All of the Shao Kahn stuff is I think underwritten because they aren't trying to give away the twist yet. You know,

Corey 33:57
a twist that I know they don't give away until the third issue. But it's like, we all know what's happening here, right?

Neal 34:04
Yeah, is of course it's gonna happen. It's yeah, of course. Kano is gonna betray Rayden at the end, like duh, but he's basically like, oh, shit, what do I do? They're coming to kill me. Oh, hey, that like I thought this part was actually interesting, where he's like, Wait a second. Rayden has come into my realm with a sword intent on killing me. That's an invasion. That's like a violation of the rules. Right? So if I now attack him or stop this, it'll be quote unquote, in self defense, and the gods will see that, that that's the case. It's kind of the reverse of like, the Mortal Kombat two story, or the whole Mortal Kombat nine, he must win stuff, right? Like, they actually have to violate the rules before the Elder Gods actually do anything. I thought that was a nice twist to see that that from from the Outworld side, right?

Corey 34:53
Right. Yeah, that like this rule is just like an omnipresent thorn in the side of everybody who tries to do everything related to anybody.

Neal 35:00
Yeah, I love that. So, so he does, he's like, Well, okay, now if I act against Rayden it's in self defense because he's in my house, right?

Corey 35:09
Yeah. Rayden Rayden came to my doorstep and said he wanted to sell me chocolate bars, but I'm already trying to sell my own chocolate bar. So I get the record at the school and get my name up on the big plaque and I'm gonna fucking beat the

Corey 35:19
shit out of me chocolate.

Neal 35:22
Exactly like that. So

Corey 35:25
It's just like that. They're just like us.

Neal 35:28
So he starts like summoning some magic and shit. And then as Rayden is, again, flying Kano towards the fortress Rayden kinda starts like feeling funny, right? He's like, Oh, shit, something's wrong. I don't know what's going on and he drops Cana shit. The edibles kicky. And as Kan'os falling Rayden is like it's all up to you now Kano please don't let me down. And then Rayden just fucking explodes.

Corey 35:53
That is correct.

Neal 35:54
Boom. Explodes no more Rayden ever. He's gone. Shao Kahn just killed a god.

Corey 36:02
Seemingly. Yes. And then Kano was like, man, he dropped me where the trees talk? Fuuuck

Neal 36:08
Yeah

Corey 36:08
Son of a bitch.

Neal 36:10
That's the end of issue one. Issue two titled The evil that men do. New penciller on this one. Darrell Cobbs inks by David Mallory letters by Brent carpenter and color designed by Tim Devar. I really liked the art in this one. I liked that. It's got like this sort of, like 2000AD Judge Dredd like European cartoony style to it it. It reminded me of like the the Hanover Fiste segment from the Heavy Metal movie. That's something out there. At least one person will get who's listening to this.

Corey 36:45
I mean, I've heard of the heavy metal movie, but I just haven't seen it.

Neal 36:49
Well, this is just this specifically the Captain Stern Hanover Fiste segment of that movie because that's an anthology. It doesn't matter. Anyway. I liked the way that this one looked. It felt a little more cartoony and that seemed to just sort of fit the style of a story a little better for me, personally. What uh, what are your thoughts though? I have the bone how it looks. Yeah, specifically issue two because issue one and three looks the same.

Corey 37:15
So I wrote a decent amount of notes for the first issue for the second issue I wrote three and for the third issue I wrote one of so if you want to know where my sort of thought process was headed, it was to issue to is quote can't believe body slammed by a tree. Holy fuck. Why are we getting another recap and then I put a live break and then just well that was boring. Jesus but now now that I'm like, yeah, the faces are clearly different. There's clearly something else going on here. Yeah, I'm trying to call this better than issues one in three certainly. I'm into it like everyone still looks a little mushy. Right. He's got the part where the you know, the the evil sword shoots pink lightning everywhere.

Neal 38:02
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, we're a fan of that. Also, all three of these covers are phenomenal in my opinion. Like the covers are the best part of this thing.

Corey 38:12
Yeah, the covers are cool.

Neal 38:13
Covers are very good. Issue twos cover is awesome with Rayden and Kano just like mugging at each other and Rayden got the lightning eyes and Kinos got orange eye out of his cyborg I don't know. It's just pretty slick looking. Anyway Kano is falling and as he's falling he's kind of like Goddamnit like I might fuck up and lose my chance at redemption and Rayden is lucky because he got exploded and I'm going to smoosh on the ground right and then they cut to like this panel of Rayden's like hat falling, which I just thought was a nice touch.

Corey 38:43
Yeah,

Neal 38:44
like dudes gone. Dude is burnt up and gone. Kano manage,s like he's fallen for a forest that at first I thought just looked like a pit of spikes, but it's actually the forest and he catches himself on a branch and he's like, Oh, sick cool. I'm not gonna die. And then the fucking tree body slams

Corey 39:00
The trees like Bitch you thought

Neal 39:02
fucking rules because he fell into the living forest Dude, my favorite Mortal Kombat stage of all time. And the tree talks to him right saying some shit. But then the tree recognizes the Ebonrule and it's like, hey, the forest respects that sword so I'm not gonna kill you. I guess.

Corey 39:19
Sure. Yeah, if you have the sword you must be cool that's not famously wielded by an evil person at all.

Neal 39:26
That's it that's his entire reputation. Maybe Maybe Draxxon like just hated the fucking trees like maybe he was just like super into like cutting down all the trees right? And they were like, Oh shit. Oh, he's dead now. So we like the guy who killed him like an anti logging PSA. It probably I mean honestly,

Corey 39:45
you're a carpenter though, you need to do you need that shit.

Neal 39:48
Yeah, I'd be fine without it. We do a lot of metal framing to

Corey 39:50
true and metals famously not alive but all trees are. old trees can talk.

Neal 39:57
You can use metal framing and residential construction. Then like you can do masonry and metal framing.

Corey 40:02
Yeah, we could all live in electric houses that are powered by currents going through the framing of the house.

Neal 40:09
That's not That's not at all how that works.

Corey 40:11
It could be

Neal 40:12
no I mean

Corey 40:13
if we build the technology

Neal 40:15
It would be fucking terrible

Corey 40:17
you got a tin roof you had a cat in a hot tin roof. It gets struck by lightning get courses to the foundation of your house and charges the battery, I don't know. Your house battery.

Neal 40:28
This is this is bad advice. Don't listen to Corey.

Corey 40:32
If you have the money to build a house from scratch, built entirely out of metal and put a big battery in the center of your kitchen floor.

Neal 40:39
Just build the whole thing out of like car batteries. You got all the power you need.

Corey 40:44
You should take take all of the-

Neal 40:48
make the whole plane a black box. What are you doing?

Corey 40:53
I don't know what that means.

Neal 40:55
Doesn't matter.

Corey 40:56
I don't know what that one is, though.

Neal 40:58
You know, the black box is indestructible on the plane, right?

Corey 41:00
Indestructible. They're supposed to be indestructible?

Neal 41:03
So you can find

Corey 41:03
why don't we build everything out of that?

Neal 41:06
That's the joke. I mean. I don't think it's my joke. Somebody it's not actually I know it's not my joke. Somebody else said that.

Corey 41:15
Look man jokes are jokes are jokes, you know?

Neal 41:17
Sure. You wanna talk about Mortal Kombat Rayden and Kano?

Corey 41:22
I mean, I guess we're halfway there.

Neal 41:25
Rayden V Kano. Dawn of Justice.

Corey 41:27
Batman vs Kano Dawn of Rayden's ass

Neal 41:32
Kano is in Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe and Rayden does have a dump truck in that game.

Corey 41:38
Does he?

Neal 41:39
I don't fucking know dude

Corey 41:41
Oh, I don't know I thought you were like speaking with like intent. Like you were like no this is true everybody like famously the character models got like a fucking Pixar mom ass for no reason

Neal 41:51
no, I was just yes-and-ing I think they only gave the

Corey 41:54
yes Andy is that's my new nickname. Because I love tellin' jokes call me Yes Andy.

Neal 42:00
Yes Andy from Toy Story there we go.

Corey 42:02
Where's Andy?

Corey 42:04
Get it? Something something animated movie.

Neal 42:07
Are you just quoting the toys from Toy Story? I get it. that famous quote F-

Neal 42:15
(Neal will now laugh uncontrollably for a full minute)

Corey 42:19
I need to show you a video later. saw somebody just walks out into this like it's like an improv video. He walks out pretending to be one of the like, soldiers like he's just not moving his legs at all he's

Corey 42:36
wobbling and he just goes Where's Andy? Just like walking into shit. It's really funny. Wears it's really funny. Hang on.

Neal 42:53
I'm dying.

Corey 42:57
Oh, no. I'll find it later.

Neal 43:00
Okay,

Corey 43:01
it's really funny

Neal 43:03
that famous line from Toy Story. Where's Andy?

Corey 43:09
Yeah, exactly.

Neal 43:12
I need a minute.

Neal 43:13
That's okay

Neal 43:14
all right. You almost killed me. Anyway, reptiles here, right reptiles in the forest. And he's cloaked which is kind of sick. I don't think we've seen him use that in the comics. I know they they didn't use it enough in Conquest that's for sure. And yeah, reptile just starts beating the shit out of Keno a while invisible until he kind of reveals himself like hey, motherfucker. I'm reptile and I'd beat the shit out of you. And I got the sword and I'm gonna take the sword back to my boss, Shao Kahn and he's gonna loves me. His right?

Corey 43:46
Yeah, dude. I gotta say I'm so fucking sick of the way reptile talks.

Neal 43:49
Yeah it must be hell on the letter. I'm just gonna say

Corey 43:52
yeah, it is like just keep doing it over and over and over again.

Neal 43:56
And Kano's like who the fuck are you? And the trees like you fucking tourists dumb ass Don't you know who reptile is? Everybody knows reptile. Right? The tree like roasts Kaino for not knowing who reptile was.

Corey 44:07
Yeah, like what you've got the evil sword but you don't know who the snake man is? fucking dumbass. What are you not from our world that he's like? No. And I was like, Oh, why didn't you tell us you're not from our world? Duh. Of

Corey 44:22
course you don't know the snake man is. Fuck.

Neal 44:25
snake man. And he's like, do you mean Quan Chi?

Corey 44:28
Craig? He says he's not from outworld!

Neal 44:31
what do you think the trees names are like

Corey 44:33
Craig is one of them

Neal 44:35
is definitely one of them. But like yes, like Bruce?

Corey 44:38
Masahiro Sakurai.

Neal 44:40
Okay settled.

Corey 44:41
After this. He went on to make Super Smash Brothers.

Neal 44:44
Yeah, clearly. And that's what the big Kirby tree is a reference to

Corey 44:49
100% Yeah, that's what that's about. It's a reference to Mortal Kombat Rayno and Kano right

Neal 44:55
Rayno Kano exactly. Anyway, Reptile and Kano fuck around and fight some more and at some point Kano gets the sword back and he's like No, I'm gonna do good with this and he like takes a swipe at reptile and I think cuts him but it's like kind of hard to tell like you don't see the wound, right?

Corey 45:12
Right

Neal 45:12
and then this unlocks the power in the sword because now Kasno is fighting for something, you know something and the source power has been unlocked and he holds it up over his head like He-Man style and he's like, look out Shao Kahn Kano's heading your way right? And then a bunch of undead warriors show up.

Corey 45:32
Yes, that's correct.

Neal 45:33
Yeah, the army of undead warriors led by Dragon King Onaga I mean Scorpion all show up to kill Kano I guess we know that Scorpion is leading this undead army. It's kind of replaced the Tarkatans and everybody else in Shao Kahn's ranks. Kano starts fighting them and I don't know if that fight is going well or not. Because it's only about three panels long. Before we get the exciting huge reveal that somehow fucking Rayden is back.

Corey 46:04
Yeah, Rayden is just alive again.

Neal 46:06
Yeah, yeah, he was dead for about four pages total.

Corey 46:09
Yeah. Because we can't have real stakes. No, no real stakes at all. This is this is a very I think this is still true of Marvel movies. I'm gonna say this. This is a very like MCU approach to stakes. Which is just like anything can happen but none of it will matter at all. Right? It's like yeah, we'll kill Rayden will also just not sure long right away. Yeah, like Sure. I don't sure will kill. I don't know what I can say. That's not actually in a movie.

Corey 46:41
Did they kill? I don't know, man. Spider Man.

Neal 46:44
Squirrel girl. No, no, I don't think they've killed Spider Man yet. Look, I'm not a

Corey 46:48
If they did he wouldn't be dead for long. Right?

Neal 46:51
Yeah, he'll be back like he'll just be back. Right?

Corey 46:53
Yeah, they should put Squirrel Girl in those. She seems fun.

Neal 46:55
They've been trying to they've been trying to do a bunch of stuff with Squirrel Girl. And they can't

Corey 46:59
Why?

Neal 46:59
I don't know why I don't know dude.

Corey 47:01
Like, I thought what do you own the squirrel or something you don't want them to have?

Neal 47:05
Like, they're not offering me any money at all.

Corey 47:08
That's kind of how they approach the people that make all this stuff they're adapting.

Neal 47:12
I know but things are supposed to change. I don't I don't fucking know. Dude, I don't know anything about anyway. And it's not that it's not my area of

Corey 47:20
of what copyright law is like your area of expertise is

Neal 47:23
copyright law and also the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Anyway Rayden is back and like we get like some narration I guess about what he was going through. And like apparently, when he exploded, there was like a brief where Rayden just contemplated like, well, I've had a good run this is it. I'm just going to embrace Oblivion, right?

Corey 47:43
What if I just wasn't a God anymore?

Neal 47:44
What if I was just gone? Like that seems kind of sick right now. But he's like, No, I can't just give up. I've got a job to do. I've got to vanquish all evil in all the realms because the rest of the gods are not doing anything about it. It's all up to me. And he like, man, if like he put himself back together like Dr. Manhattan, apparently, so that he could come back and finish this

Corey 48:03
Famously like, like Dr. Manhattan. I've read that book and I still don't remember which guy that is.

Neal 48:11
The blue guy. The big blue guy

Corey 48:12
Yeah. Okay. Yeah. He put himself back together at one point. Damn, I didn't read that book close enough.

Neal 48:17
That was his origin.

Corey 48:18
I don't remember that.

Neal 48:21
Are you? Are you sure you read it?

Corey 48:25
I definitely read it. i But I read it when I was like, I was like 15, which is about 10 years ago.

Neal 48:31
That's also the age you're supposed to read watchmen when you're

Corey 48:34
Yeah, it's you either start reading watchmen or like Ayn Rand books. This is like the one of the things that can happen when you're when you're white and 15

Neal 48:42
Sure, that's also about the age you start

Corey 48:45
watching Fight Club

Neal 48:46
misunderstanding Fight Club. Yeah.

Corey 48:50
Kano took all of the wrong lessons from all of the media he consumed when he was 15. Yeah,

Corey 48:57
it shaped the rest of his entire life.

Neal 49:02
We need to media literacy classes.

Neal 49:06
Anyway Rayden is back and he's fighting with Kano back to back taking out all these undead warriors and they're doing fine and then Scorpion shows up for about two panels and he's like I heard the fight wasn't going well. So I came to support my troops I am the commander Scorpion or whatever.

Corey 49:25
Hey, it's me Scorpion you know who I am.

Neal 49:27
Kano is like oh, I remember Scorpion he's that undead ninja right and

Corey 49:31
and then we get re explained who that is again because they can't do anything else.

Neal 49:35
If you know who I am then you know I can't speak killed and then Rayden is like there are there are fates worse than death and the dead can be killed again and just a bunch of nonsense right?

Corey 49:46
People love to die or whatever.

Neal 49:48
Definitely some some certainly. The short version is Rayden is like alright que no just just make a break for the for the temple for the fortress. I'll handle this shit right now. So he does. We cut to the fortress where reptile has returned and he's like telling Mileena Hey Mileena

Corey 50:10
somehow reptile has returned. Sorry

Neal 50:14
he's like, he's like, where's Andy?

Corey 50:19
Where's our dad?

Neal 50:22
Reptile runs and it says Where's daddy?

Corey 50:26
She's like He's just by dad even that's not true, which is a fun detail.

Corey 50:30
He's nobody's dad in this scenario.

Neal 50:33
He's really I mean, yeah, adoptive ybe? We're not gonna

Corey 50:37
He's a bad guy.

Neal 50:38
We're not gonna get into all that. But Mileena is like Shao Kahn, still resting. He used up a lot of his power killing the thunder god, but Rayden is just like right there. So like,

Corey 50:49
yeah, I wouldn't say killing so much is temporarily exploding.

Neal 50:53
Sure, for about four and a half minutes, probably. In fact, I think Rayden was instantly like back

Corey 51:01
and that probably takes a lot of energy. So I'm not going to take that away from him, but it's just like, I don't know try harder, maybe.

Neal 51:06
But like all that time when Kano was fighting reptile and shit in the forest before Rayden reappeared after exploding was just Rayden searching for his hat that fell

Corey 51:16
Yeah, like Indiana Jones style.

Neal 51:18
Yeah, but he just he's just like on another part of the forest

Corey 51:21
Where's my hat?

Neal 51:22
looking for his hat, right? Reptiles like the Ebbonrule is here. And Shao Kahn comes out he's like, I know it's true.

Corey 51:29
I know dumb ass. We've we've been knowing that

Neal 51:33
get the fuck out of here. I want to face my fate alone. Right? So like implying that he's like ready to like face Kaino and get killed? Like they're really selling this to everybody. Right? Everyone is acting like what's happening? What we think happening is actually happening.

Corey 51:48
News flash

Neal 51:49
so then Kaino and Shao Kahn face off right and oh shit. Everything is not what we thought it was gonna be. Unless you know anything about Kano

Corey 52:02
literally anything. How could Rayden not see the living forest from the living trees on this one? (rimshot) Thank you. Um, just seems like a like a, like a gimme. Really? You know?

Neal 52:16
Well, that's the he has a line later where he does say that he he knew this would happen. But he had to take the chance. Anyway, we'll talk about it when we get there. I don't I don't know that I believed him. Anyway, so So Kaino gives Shao Kahn the Ebbonrule and Shao Kahn like Okay, first thing I need to do is make sure that this never comes back to Outworld.

Corey 52:29
For some reason, he doesn't keep the sword

Neal 52:37
right. Well, hedidn't want anyone getting their hands on it. Like it kind of makes sense that

Corey 52:40
What, is he incapable of using it? It's a very powerful sword,

Neal 52:43
but he would have to do something good to use it. So I think that

Corey 52:46
the definition of good is relative isn't it? Sure. I like if he does something good for outworld. He's in charge of outworld so he determines what's good. Maybe it's bad. Can he trick the sword?

Neal 52:58
I don't know. He didn't even fucking try to find out right?

Corey 53:00
Did he try to you know, prank the sword bait the sword?

Neal 53:08
He did not

Corey 53:09
because is well I guess it becomes a greater question of is the definition of good relative.

Neal 53:14
But here's the thing.

Corey 53:15
Can you tell the sword when you're doing a good thing or not?

Neal 53:17
Well, clearly you can because Kano pranked the sword. Right?

Corey 53:21
Yeah, by just believing it really hard.

Neal 53:23
By just believing it really hard.

Corey 53:24
By acting. do you do you think Johnny Cage should get the sword if it's just acting?

Neal 53:27
Well, he's I don't think he's a very good actor. Interesting.

Corey 53:30
But Kano is?

Neal 53:32
Well, yeah, because Kano-

Corey 53:33
You're saying Kano should be in the next ninja mind movie is what you're saying.

Neal 53:36
Kano does it just for the passion of acting. He's not doing it for the paycheck. Right?

Corey 53:40
Right. Kano is doing it because he just loves fucking with people.

Neal 53:43
He committed to this in a way that that Johnny Cage has never committed to a role in his life.

Corey 53:50
Right? Because Johnny Cage is too self conscious about how people perceive him exact and that just doesn't make good work.

Neal 53:56
Whereas Kano knows he's ugly and doesn't care.

Corey 53:58
Yeah, that's why the Academy has never really recognized his efforts. You know, Johnny Cage's hubris is the reason we don't have a stunt workers category, the Academy Awards, and I think that should change 100% Yeah, and it is Johnny cages fault.

Neal 54:14
Justice for the stunt workers on sudden violence, or whatever movie Johnny Cage one that asked

Corey 54:20
not to be confused with sudden sudden death, the John Claude Van Damme movie where he fights the Pittsburgh Penguins mascot.

Neal 54:25
Exactly. Have you seen it? Finally. Did you look it upafter we talked about it? Because he does fight the mascot

Corey 54:30
just I just talked about it on They Made Another One. I know he does to I, we just talked I brought it up on They made another one last week. So

Neal 54:36
nice,

Corey 54:37
because but I also got the title wrong again.

Neal 54:43
That's alright. Yeah, you know, we're imperfect people.

Corey 54:46
Yeah, truly

Neal 54:47
but that's a perfect movie.

Corey 54:48
Anyway, we're almost there. This last issue should take about four seconds to talk about

Neal 54:52
so so Shao Kahn does the thing that we're used to seeing Rayden do which is open a portal or something and chuck the sword through it I think like just to get rid of it and be like this can never be in our world again right it's like I don't know is this like Are these like the swords of Ilkan right where they have the power to strike down gods or whatever

Corey 55:11
yeah why isn't it just the sorts of Ilkan? you have

Neal 55:13
well this came first

Corey 55:15
then why didn't they use that Ebbonrule your your needs like this universe can't have this many swords that can kill Gods then get chucked into random portals. that can't be the solution every time.

Neal 55:28
So do you think like much like when the warrior kings orb came through Defenders of the Realm and Rayden just chucked it into space and that led to the Wing Commander crossover episode. Do you think that every time someone checks a weapon through a portal, there is an associated like, there should be like an associated cartoon spin off crossover for each one right?

Corey 55:51
Like you're saying that like the Ebbonrulel get a chance to the portal should have meant that we did like a Dirty Dancing crossover with Mortal Kombat.

Neal 55:57
Maybe not Dirty Dancing. Maybe they keep it in like in like the the universe of Malibu comics, right?

Corey 56:03
I was just thinking of like, the least stored related thing I could think of

Neal 56:08
so maybe it crosses over into Rune

Corey 56:10
into Raven

Neal 56:11
into into the Star Trek Deep Space Nine comic, you know,

Corey 56:15
maybe it crosses over into-

Neal 56:16
just a sword pierces the hull of the Deep Space Nine.

Corey 56:21
This sword pierces the heart of the most annoying character on that show

Neal 56:27
Okay, anyway. So yeah, so Kano's like man, I almost believed all that being a good boy shit myself, and I'm like,

Corey 56:36
lmao Just kidding, dumbass.

Neal 56:38
Yeah. And so Shao Kahn is like, Well, you had to believe it, because we had to fucking prank Rayden and everybody else but now I've gotten rid of this sword. And I'll hold up my end of the bargain. And he gives Kaino God powers. That's how that issue two ends with Kano flying, like, look out. Look out. Rayden Kano's coming for you or some shit. And he's like glowing with like, super saiyan energy.

Corey 57:04
Yeah, he's got Chaos Control or whatever.

Neal 57:06
Yeah, he's got God powers. They're like call him the God of evil. Right.

Corey 57:11
Which is a big statement. And then they don't tell you until the next issue that he'll be the God of evil for about 20 minutes.

Neal 57:16
Yeah, yeah, they don't tell you that. Now. They're on the cliffhanger. They leave you hanging. Issue three. When part the heavens. Kiki Chansamone is back on pencils. Mark Brill and Abraham Madison are back on inks. Joe Allen is lettering. Mike Heilmann, I believe is on color design. It's written in a very shitty font. That is hard to read. I don't blame that on Joe Allen. Just to be clear. Kim Bitsui is the color editor and the interior colors are by some entity named as far as I could read with this poor font, FOODHAMMER.

Corey 57:55
I gotta reopen this that can't be it

Neal 57:57
Foodhammer.

Corey 57:59
It's my favorite. Peter Gabriel song.

Neal 58:02
It's fucking food hammer, man.

Corey 58:06
Oh, yeah, that's tough huh?

Neal 58:08
It's hard to read, isn't it? I don't know what they did.

Corey 58:12
I don't think that's a D.

Neal 58:14
I'm looking at the print versions. And I like I like, had to like put it under a lamp and like,

Corey 58:20
yeah, we need to find what does the other is there another a lowercase d? Oh, wait, no, you're saying it's an uppercase D and then an H next to it.

Neal 58:29
Yeah, I think so. Hold on, let me bring it up. Also, this is important.

Corey 58:33
It could be like full dreamer. Foodhammer?

Neal 58:38
pretty sure it's Foodhammer.

Corey 58:39
Well, if you Google if you Google foodhammer does it does anything foodhammer comics, I'm gonna google that. FODH A M M E R Oh my god food hammer. It is food hammer. Sold done. Marvel.fandom.com It's also as an exclamation point in the name apparently

Neal 58:56
sick

Corey 58:57
according to this foodhammer were a color and group who were made up of Kim Bitsui. Sorry, yeah. Charlie paulose. Kevin Gallogly. Jeff Rose. Chris. Otcosec. Okay, Lucy kazanjian. Okay, Chris Canty and Anna wallavec.

Neal 59:22
So this is this is I'm assuming one of the digital color studios that Malibu comics had part of the reason I think Marvel acquired them was to get their hands on their like their color studios

Corey 59:33
because they worked on Spider Man maximum clone edge Alpha volume 11 sick or is that just trending pages? No. I misheard the Page No no they worked on there's there's a bulletproof list of 89 items including night demand volume 12

Neal 59:49
Oh hell yeah. I got I got a night man issue somewhere.

Corey 59:52
And firearm of volume 111

Neal 59:55
Nice. All Stars, all of them

Corey 59:57
Solitaire?!

Neal 59:59
Did they do Windows Solitaire?

Corey 1:00:01
Yeah, famously, they did the colors for Windows solitaire

Neal 1:00:03
sick.

Corey 1:00:04
No, it's Solitaire, Volume One, number eight.

Neal 1:00:07
Okay, well, we're gonna read that next week. For now let's finish.

Corey 1:00:11
It's a Malibu comic.

Neal 1:00:12
Let's finish up Rayden and Kano.

Corey 1:00:15
They fight.

Neal 1:00:16
they are locked in a battle in the sky for the entire issue. It's it's really hard thing to describe. But I just want to say in terms of long comic book action pieces, I thought that this one was pretty well executed overall, right? Like, there's a lot of

Corey 1:00:34
yeah, if you want guys and lightning and like magic balls,

Neal 1:00:37
it was cool. Like it was cool to see/ I suggest flipping through it if you own it, like I was into this, I felt like this was probably the best extended action piece we've had in any of these Malibu comics so far. Like, they really went for something here. You know, they didn't, you know, it wasn't like two pages. And it wasn't like six pages of insults being thrown back and forth. Like it was just a lot of fighting less dialogue than we usually see a lot more description of what's going on. I just I think it worked. Honestly. There's one section where smoke and Jade show up for absolutely no reason.

Corey 1:01:12
No reason at all. They show up just to be like, call me Smoke. I'm confusing. And then And then he says toasty. And then they're like, oh, wait, they're still fighting. Okay, I guess we'll leave.

Neal 1:01:23
Well, they tried. They tried to like take Rayden down when he's weakened because they're like this,

Corey 1:01:27
they wanna capitalize on killing Rayden

Neal 1:01:29
Yeah, this will get us back in the good graces of the Emperor. But then Kano like, fires his god energy at both of them. And they're like, oh, shit, this is decidedly not toasty. So they just leave, right because Canelo wants the victory for himself. We also cut back to Shao Kahn and Mileena sort of watching this from the ground and talking about how fucking cool and sick it is. And that's how we learn that the God powers aren't gonna last for very long for Kano. And Kano also knows this apparently, like that was part of the deal. He's not caught off guard by this.

Corey 1:01:59
Yeah. Frankly does doesn't seem like a super worthwhile deal.

Neal 1:02:02
Yeah, but he wanted he just I guess wanted to fight fight. Rayden like, I don't know, man that someone was like, Hey, do you want like some like, hella God powers for two hours? I'd be like, Yeah, I do. Are you kidding me? That's gonna be fun. Right? But then I feel like maybe I'd spend the rest of my life jonesin for more, you know?

Corey 1:02:19
Yeah, that's what I mean. Like, why?

Neal 1:02:21
It's like, it's like the reason I won't do cocaine because I know like, that'll just be it for me,

Corey 1:02:26
right? Like, you're like, I can't do cocaine because I won't want to do it once.

Neal 1:02:30
I know that about myself. So I don't do cocaine at parties. And kids, you don't have to do cocaine parties, either. It's

Neal 1:02:44
just be true to yourself. Just say no,

Corey 1:02:46
spin the chair backwards and talk to your friend Greg about why he needs to stop doing cocaine

Neal 1:02:52
Anyway,

Corey 1:02:54
we need to talk to our friend Craig.

Neal 1:02:57
So another thing I liked about this is they're just sort of describing the fight is looking like this unnatural storm in the sky. And like to the people,

Corey 1:03:08
Yeah that's a cool idea

Neal 1:03:09
to the folks on the ground like the residents of Outworld. It's like they've never really seen anything like this. They've never really seen like a storm driven by such passion and fury, like unbridled fury and passion, I believe is how they describe it, which is kind of corny language. But like, they say that to the people of outward like it looks just it's a thing of rare beauty to have just these unbridled emotions, showing I don't know, I kind of poetic I think there's some cool ideas in that. Again, I was into this, even though nothing really happens. It's just a long fight scene. I think it's a well done long fight scene that sort of takes advantage of the medium. But towards the end as Kano starts sort of feeling his power dwindling, and Shao Kahn is feeling his strength returning enough, at least for him to be able to think he can go finish off Rayden himself. Kano gets Rayden in a headlock, and he's like, Look, man, it's nothing personal. I just hated that you were treating me like one of your servants. And besides, like, you're a god, you should have known that I was going to betray you. Right?

Corey 1:04:11
That's the biggest thing was like, How did Rayden not know I know that. Rayden says that he like it was on his radar. But it's like, clearly it wasn't on Rayden Rayden radar because he didn't see it.

Neal 1:04:21
Well, he says now he says in response to this, that he knew that Kaino would but he had to take the chance that he wouldn't, I guess again, because he took a chance on Caan all those years ago and it paid off,

Corey 1:04:32
I guess. But all you've done now is lose the sword.

Neal 1:04:36
And he Yeah, and he needed he needed somebody with the like somebody evil with the potential to turn good in order to like, enact this plan. So he's like, I'm taking the chance because nobody else is doing anything. And this is all I got. Right? This is the only thing I know can kill Shao Kahn and this is the only way that it can be utilized to do that. So Kano is my best option.

Neal 1:04:57
I feel like Hydro may be a better option. Maybe Sub-Zero Somebody who has assassinated people and is like, evil, right? Maybe a better option maybe less inclined to betray you and more inclined to turn good. Feel like there were better options than Kano for this plan for sure. 100% Rojak fucking Rojak I don't know.

Corey 1:05:18
Rojak again Rojak Rojak again, where's Rojak?

Neal 1:05:27
fuck you. So anyway, Kano was like, you know, your plan could have worked, but I guess we'll never know. And then he throws Rayden through a portal that somehow appeared. I shouldn't understand this.

Corey 1:05:43
That's fine.

Neal 1:05:43
This is this doesn't track for me.

Corey 1:05:45
It's fine. It's fine.

Neal 1:05:47
So who opened the portal? Where did it come from? Did Rayden open the portal as he was flying? Was this portal just like a waiting for them to be able to make their escape? We don't know. But Shao Kahn is like Oh Kano, you fucking dumbass. You just threw him out of Outworld and kano's like, Oh, my bad dude. I had no idea that that's what I was doing. Right?

Corey 1:06:05
Right.

Neal 1:06:06
So then Shao Kahn is like well, you are a major character in this franchise and I we're not allowed to kill off any major characters. So I guess I'm feeling benevolent today and I won't strip the flesh from your bones. But I am going to take the rest of the god power away from you.

Corey 1:06:20
I am going to cut the GOD Power even shorter

Neal 1:06:22
because Shao Kahn should have absolutely killed him for this

Corey 1:06:26
Shao Kahn well and this is the problem with like the they just won't kill anybody is like yeah, it is in character for Shao Kahn to kill Kano.

Corey 1:06:33
Absolutely.

Corey 1:06:34
It's weird that he's not doing it. And the only reason you want to do it is because you chose to use a named character.

Neal 1:06:39
Right? So he's like, You're lucky I'm feeling or you're lucky Shao Kahn is feeling benevolent today. Why would you be feeling benevolent after this happened?this should have shifted your mood.

Corey 1:06:48
you should be feeling the least benevolent you've maybe ever felt in your life

Neal 1:06:51
Just it is just absolutely not unbelievable. It's similar to the shit they did in battle of the realms. If you remember that were

Corey 1:06:59
how can I forget

Neal 1:07:00
they had their they had their core characters, but then they introduced a bunch of new characters, mostly just to kill them off, so their core characters would stay alive. And the end of watching that just being like why? Why are they being willy nilly with the fatalities in this? Like, why didn't they just kill Johnny Cage? Outworld would have just killed Johnny Cage. Right? But they didn't it just it does. fuck things up. Right?

Corey 1:07:24
Yeah.

Neal 1:07:25
People act out of character. Anyway, that's kind of that's kind of that we cut back to the house of Rayden dude is just like pouting in his chair tinkering with like a scale like the scales of justice that's sitting on his end table and Wynd and Rayne bring him tea and he smashes the tea on the floor and he's just like so fucking pissed. He's like, all I ever tried to do is tip the scales towards good and the gods don't want to do it. They just want to keep everything in balance all the time. Has anything I've done even made a difference like he's just like getting fucking furious like this is it I'm not giving up. shits got a change, right? And I think it's Wynd is like, Lord Rayden You've gone mad and Rayne is like no, he's never been more sane, which is just like another little subtle, subtle thing about like, Nah, man again and Yang balance, right? It was kind of dumb, but this gave me like strong, dark Rayden vibes from like, The Deadly Alliance like the 3d era, or like the Mortal Kombat 10 ending, right where Rayden is like, I'm done playing by the rules. Fuck the Elder Gods fuck everybody. I'm doing what I have to do to protect earth realm. It's kind of cool to see an early version of that. You've seen a lot of early proto stuff in these that feels like it informed game stuff later on. And I don't know it was just like maybe another one of those I'm not sure. But that's that's basically the end of the three issue comic book series. Everything went back to the way it was before the start of this with the exception of the sword no longer being someplace Rayden can get to it.

Corey 1:08:58
Yeah, that's all that really happened as he went from not having the sword to not having the sword.

Neal 1:09:03
Yeah, Shao Kahn still alive Kano, Kano's not a god Kanos also still alive. The sword the sword has disappeared. That's that's the end. I don't know man. I I get the I get the concept of like, well, everything is being kept in balance. The gods want everything to be balanced. This kind of goes back to like the the Mr. Z and abacus you know, the gods of chaos and order. From the Goro prince of pain series were like at the end of that they're just playing like a chess match. Right? Like, we get it Charles Marshall balance. Like everything needs to be balanced. You're balancing everything to ensure an ongoing comic book series. It's going to last for many many years, where nothing really changes the stakes never change. Alliances don't really shift and it's just all the same. Over and over and over and over again. Like you nailed it, dude.

Corey 1:09:59
Yeah, Oh, yeah, yay. Yeah. Um, I don't know, I get that, like, if you're reading a series of comics might, my thought isn't that like, you know, they need to be significantly different from each other all the time and like, just keep me guessing and like, just be this like, really confusing mess. Because that's not really what I mean. But on the flip side, like this feels so OneNote and bland and samey relative to the rest of what we've read up to this point that I'm just sort of, like, what are we doing? You know, can we at least you can the narrative form shifts slightly? To Can we do something new with the things that we have on the table even vaguely? And apparently the answer is generally no. And that's justkind of annoying.

Neal 1:10:46
It is. I Yeah. But that's

Corey 1:10:48
I know they're trying to sell Video games with these, I get it

Neal 1:10:51
I still have fun reading it though. Like, I don't know. I still dug it.

Corey 1:10:55
Yeah. And I mean, like, I'm prepared to not eat my words, but sort of like recognize that I might read future comics that I like more that are very similar to this. Because it seems like that's just the likely outcome. But you know, it is a question of execution like this has so little of anything actually happening in it like

Neal 1:11:15
like you have to balance like when you're doing a licensed comic in particular right you're you're beholden to the city Yeah, yeah. The studio the there'll be hauled into Midway Games so anything they do has to like pass muster over there right it's so you can't you don't have the options to really just like go buck wild and start murdering people like

Corey 1:11:35
I'm not saying you got to murder people to sit down and say things just don't make it Kaino but the different Yeah, if you want to if you want to kill somebody to make things exciting, and just make it somebody you could kill

Neal 1:11:45
Yeah, make it Rojak right. You can kill Rojak but that's what but then when they do that shit, it's like okay, well they're introducing these new characters just to kind of kill them off like Lance and hydro and Grum

Corey 1:11:56
I admit there's no winning.

Neal 1:11:58
Right? There's no There's no winning like, if they

Corey 1:12:01
But you can lose less

Neal 1:12:02
if they go wild, like Malibu did with the streetfighter comic book, you get cancelled because Capcom fucking hates what you're doing. And you're ruining their the image of their property.

Corey 1:12:13
Wait, how wild are those?

Neal 1:12:15
That's the one where can I think Ken is scalped by Vega and his scalp gets sent to Ryu in a car that crashes into his house

Corey 1:12:23
That's fucking nuts. Holy shit. That's not for children. Like it's

Neal 1:12:29
not it is not it is bloodier. It is bloodier, and more violent than the Mortal Kombat comic book.

Corey 1:12:35
That's kinda cool, though. That sounds cool.

Neal 1:12:37
I mean, I own it, we can do an episode if you want.

Neal 1:12:42
Yeah, but then like the medium of comic books, in general, if you're planning on a very long running ongoing series, you can't change too much too fast either, right? Like, you can't just make Kano a good guy, because then in a year, you're gonna make Kano a bad guy again, and stories are gonna get repetitive and like superficial changes are gonna happen that are just gonna get changed back. Just seems like a tough, tough medium to work with. I feel like you have to

Neal 1:13:06
Whoever wins, we lose

Neal 1:13:08
especially in the 90s. Like, you just kind of had to take, take what you got, and just go along with the ride, right? Knowing that anything that happened would be undone later. And knowing that anything that happened in the license book wasn't going to be dramatic, because, like you said, they're just trying to, they're trying to sell video games, or, you know, they're trying to cash in on the popularity of the video games, so they don't want to betray it too much.

Neal 1:13:33
I don't know, man. I don't have the answers. All I know is I fucking listened to that immortals album and read this last night. And I had a fun fucking time. At the end of it. I was like, Well, none of that fucking mattered in the end did it but I still enjoy it. And I got to see some cool stuff.

Corey 1:13:48
Yeah, and that's fine. It's okay. When stuff doesn't matter. It's just like, I didn't enjoy the process of it either.

Neal 1:13:56
Right? You didn't have the fun reading it that I had.

Corey 1:13:59
No, sir. Not really.

Neal 1:14:01
That's that's fine. I mean, that's totally

Corey 1:14:04
yeah, that's that dude life do be like that sometimes.

Neal 1:14:07
Yeah, yeah, it just be that way. You know?

Corey 1:14:10
Yeah, yeah, I do know. Yeah, I DO KNOW.

Neal 1:14:14
Are you sure?

Corey 1:14:14
Yeah, yes. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Uh huh. Yes.

Neal 1:14:18
Rojak

Corey and Neal 1:14:19
Rojak! Where's Andy?

Neal 1:14:24
we should get out of here. You want to get out here?

Corey 1:14:26
Sure.

Neal 1:14:26
Go look for Rojak and Andy.

Corey 1:14:28
"go look for Rojak"

Neal 1:14:33
So what do you got going on? Corey What are you doing with your life?

Corey 1:14:38
fucking shit all my guy I'm not much I'm realizing that I can now buy the vans Sailor Moon stuff but realizing a bunch of it's probably not going to be in my size anymore.

Corey 1:14:53
I'm realizing that for sure.

Neal 1:14:56
It's a little pricey.

Corey 1:14:58
It's a little pricey, but like I'm willing to waste money on that kind of like, I just kind of am. You know, like, I'm just like an easy mark for that kind of thing. It

Neal 1:15:14
looks I'm looking I've been looking at a couple of those shirts they look sick as hell yeah,

Corey 1:15:18
some of the designs honestly aren't great.

Neal 1:15:22
But those the shirts like across the board I think are

Corey 1:15:25
unfortunately this sweater that looks like the school uniform is out of stock. Now bomber regrettably, you hate to see that you do. That's just not how we drew it up back at the factory. Um, I don't know what I'm saying anymore.

Corey 1:15:38
I guess you if you want to hear me say more random car pitch. You can do that. If you want. You can go to uh "They Made Another One?!', which is sequels, reboots, remakes, movies, podcasts with my friends, Liam and Mitch, that's "They Made Another One?!'s the name of the show Google that @theymadeanother on Twitter. You can also hear me talking about cars. Specifically Formula One cars mostly actually, on my show about f1 which is called 'Strat2' which is @Strat2f1 on Twitter, and I'm on Twitter @ mrcoreyprice.

Neal 1:16:11
Nice. They have a pullover crew that looks like the school uniform that seemsto be in stock still.

Corey 1:16:20
I'm on the vans Canada website because I don't live where you live.

Neal 1:16:23
Right. Okay.

Corey 1:16:25
Yeah, you hate to see that.

Neal 1:16:26
The shirt I liked is gone. This one's good too, though.

Corey 1:16:29
You just can't wa- folks, you can't win them all.

Neal 1:16:34
You can find me on Twitter @FinalNeal. Instagram @FinalNealRetro. I do another podcast all about the Alien franchise with our buddy Kenny. It's called "Crew expendable". We are just reading, watching playing all the alien content we can find in roughly chronological timeline order with some predator stuff thrown in there. When necessary. You can find that @CrewExpendapod on Twitter or go to Crewexpendable.net. Find links to all the podcast services, et cetera. Follow this show, MK podquest on Twitter and Instagram @MKpodquest, go to our website, MKpodquest.com. Find the link to our YouTube channel, our merch store our coffee page, if you want to help support us

Corey 1:17:23
And actually, yeah, if you felt like sending us money right now, perhaps it is better spent elsewhere for now. We would also encourage you there's a link on our Twitter page if you want to donate to local abortion funds. Even if you don't live in the United States, which I don't. Donations like that still go along the way. So you know if you were thinking about kicking us a few bucks, maybe wait a month. We'll be fine. Send money there. That's where people need it. Yes, absolutely. Unequivocally fuck the Supreme Court of the United States.

Neal 1:18:02
evil evil fucking bastard. Absolutely

Corey 1:18:03
terrible shit. And, you know, we'll be around. But if you were feeling like throwing some money around, send it to people who need it.

Neal 1:18:14
Yeah, there are definitely better places to be sending the money right now. Give us good five star ratings. Give us nice reviews on whatever platforms you can and we'll be back next week, I think to talk about an unholy alliance over in the Mortal Kombat conquest universe.

Corey 1:18:32
Where's Andy?

Transcribed by https://otter.ai