Podcast appearances and mentions of Brandon Vietti

Send us a textOn the podcast this time, Steven and Sean will have to deal with the consequences of their actions. We watched the 2010 film from Brandon Vietti, Batman: Under the Red Hood.When will everybody learn: the Joker absolutely, positively cannot be trusted under any circumstances! The dude is chaos incarnate. Even he likely has no idea what he's going to do next.One thing is for sure: our old friend Batman is going to face the shortcomings of his personal code. It'll be a tough one, that's for sure.(Recorded on March 14, 2025)Links to Stuff We Mentioned:Batman: Under the Red Hood - The Movie Database (TMDB)Batman: Under the Red Hood trailer - YouTubeBrandon Vietti — The Movie Database (TMDB)Bruce Greenwood — The Movie Database (TMDB)Jensen Ackles — The Movie Database (TMDB)Neil Patrick Harris — The Movie Database (TMDB)Jason Isaacs — The Movie Database (TMDB)John DiMaggio — The Movie Database (TMDB)Batman: The Killing Joke (2016) — The Movie Database (TMDB)The Silence of the Lambs (1991) — The Movie Database (TMDB)Lazarus Pit | DC Database | FandomAmazo - WikipediaBatman Beyond: Return of the Joker (2000) — The Movie Database (TMDB)The Dark Knight (2008) — The Movie Database (TMDB)Justice League: The Flashpoint Paradox (2013) — The Movie Database (TMDB)A Death in the Family (comics) - WikipediaFollow Us:Give us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts!Sean's Letterboxd profile!Steven's Letterboxd profile!Our Buzzsprout site!Our Instagram profile!Support the show

Directed by Bruce Timm, Lauren Montgomery, and Brandon Vietti, Superman: Doomsday is the animated superhero film adapted from the Dc Comics storyline "The Death of Superman". Luke and Nathan go back to 2007 to review this first film of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies. The Man of Steel (Adam Baldwin) battles an intergalactic killer, accidentally unearthed by a corporation - Doomsday.

This is a new adaptation of the classic 1986 comic book, so while the plot points of this film are openly discussed, it can hardly be called SPOILERS. Watchmen Chapter 2 is the second half of the animated adaptation of the classic 1986 comic book series. It picks up directly where Chapter 1 ended. Brandon Vietti directed both Chapters and is making his third appearance on the podcast. In this episode, Vietti discusses specific changes he made to the story based on original ideas and influence from the 2009 Zack Snyder film. He also addresses potential viewers who saw the 2019 HBO/MAX series Watchmen and may consider this film to be a prequel. Vietti also addresses the projects he's worked on that he's most known for. Watchmen Chapter 2 is out on digital and on Blu-Ray/DVD.

Directed by Brandon Vietti, Batman: Under the Red Hood is the 2010 animated direct-to-video superhero film featuring characters from DC Comics. Luke and Nathan revisit the eighth film of the DC Universe Animated Original Movies which is directly derived from the Batman storyline "Under the Hood". Red Hood (Jensen Ackles), a villain who knows Batman's (Bruce Greenwood) every move, takes Gotham City by firestorm as he begins cleaning it with the efficacy of Batman. The Joker (John DiMaggio) then resurfaces to taunt his old nemesis, Red Hood.

This is a new adaptation of the classic 1986 comic book, so while the plot points of this film are openly discussed, it can hardly be called SPOILERS. Watchmen Chapter 1 is DC's newest full-length animated film, kicking off a two-part adaptation of the acclaimed 1986 Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons comic book. The movie was directed by Brandon Vietti, who joined this episode to discuss Watchmen Chapter 1. Vietti is a longtime DC animator known for his work on Young Justice, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and Batman: Under the Red Hood. In this episode, Vietti discusses the process for adapting the storyline. He also discusses the other media adaptations, including a 2008 Motion Comic, the 2009 live-action Zack Snyder film, and the 2019 HBO Watchmen sequel/spin-off series. For Watchmen, Vietti had to walk a difficult line, staying faithful to the comic while making the story work in an animated format. Watchmen Chapter 1 is out on digital and will be released on Blu-Ray/DVD.

This week it's all about the interviews with some great guests! We start off by talking to Katie Cassidy and Adan Canto about their new movie, Agent Game! Hear about this mega star action movie with so many twists and turns, you'll be looking over your shoulder when it's over. Katie and Adan talk about the great chemsity on set, doing their own stunts and much more. SEE AGENT GAME IN THEATERS, ON DEMAND AND ON DIGITALHD NOW FROM LIONSGATE AND SABAN FILMS! Next up we talk to executive producers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti about what's happening on Young Justice: Phantoms! We get the inside info on the amazing storyline in Atlantis, the grief surrounding so many of the characters, fan theories and much more. Plus, they might even tease what's coming next. WATCH YOUNG JUSTICE: PHANTOMS WITH NEW EPISODES THURSDAYS ON HBO MAX! If you're a fan of The Binding of Isaac, get ready for your dream subscription box. Edmund McMillen joins us this week to talk about his creation, both the game and the box. We'll take you inside the boxes, the designs for the cool shirts and even how you can score some exclusives. Get more information at https://www.theunboxingofisaac.com Finally, we are joined by Aasif Mandvi to talk about his new show Would I Lie To You? from The CW. He talks about how he got addicted to this competition series, the great guest stars that join the show and the incredible team captains. To have fun and decompress from everyday life, you can watch Would I Lie To You, premiering Saturday, April 9th on The CW. You can also always find us at https://www.downandnerdypodcast.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's nerdtastically newsworthy episode of #NerdORama we're revisiting our conversation with Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman; the Executive Producers/Showrunners of the HBO Max and Warner Bros. Animation series, “Young Justice,” now in its fourth season, “Young Justice: Phantoms”…

I give spoiler my spoiler review if Manny Hernadez We Baby Bears and Brandon Vietti and Grieg Weisman's Young Justice S4. 02:37 We Baby Bears. 09:15 Young Justice S4. Follow me @quinten_dick on Instagram and Twitter.

On today's nerdtastically newsworthy episode of #NerdORama we welcome Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman; the Executive Producers/Showrunners of “Young Justice: Phantoms,” who join the program to share details on season 4 of the hit HBO Max and Warner Bros. Animation series…(new episodes drop Thursday's on HBO Max)

ICYMI: The Mo'Kelly Show Presents – Two nerdtastic conversations...First, actress Azie Tesfai, joins the program to discuss her co-writing episode 12 of the sixth and final season of “Supergirl,” which sees her character Kelly Olsen become the ‘Guardian'! Next, Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman, the Executive Producers/Showrunners of the HBO Max and Warner Bros. Animation series “Young Justice: Phantoms,” join the program to share details on the hit series on KFI AM 640 – Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app

  Hello Team, Today in the Watchtower we welcome back, for the second part,  the Dynamic Duo (Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman) behind Young Justice to answer some questions. Thanks to everyone for spending time with us. If you'd like to join us in discussing this incredible series, you can find us on Twitter @theYJfiles, on Facebook @crashingthemode, on Tumblr at theyjfiles.tumblr.com, and on our website crashingthemode.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Stitcher, and IHeartRadio. If that isn't enough you can email us at whelmedpodcast@gmail.com. If you'd like to support our show, please consider sharing it with a friend and joining our chats on social media. You can also support the show by giving us a 5-Star review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts, or your podcatcher of choice. The ratings, comments, and subscriptions help others find the show. If you do leave us a rating, please let us know at our email address or on social media! Especially if you’re outside the US, we have to look a little harder to find those. If you are able to support us monetarily, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/crashingthemode. Even $1 a month can help us do in-person interviews, actual play podcasts, fan meet-ups, discussion sessions, and more. And as always, Stay whelmed everyone!

Welcome to Comics from the Multiverse, our DC comics podcast starting with DC Rebirth where we discuss and review the major new DC comic books every week!  Discussed this week:0:00:00 - Intro0:01:49 - News0:37:31 - Future State: The Next Batman #31:02:05 - Future State: Superman of Metropolis #21:18:47 - Future State: Wonder Woman #2  (Joelle Jones)1:32:54 - Future State: The Flash #2 (Brandon Vietti and Will Conrad & Brandon Peterson)1:42:41 - Future State: Swamp Thing #2 (Ram V and Mike Perkins)1:54:16 - Man Bat #1 (Dave Wielgosz and Sumit Kumar)2:08:41 - PATREON Animal Man #52:23:39 - Picks of the Week patreon: https://www.patreon.com/mildfuzztvtwitter: @DCComicsPodcastMild Fuzz Twitter: @Mild_Fuzzfacebook: https://www.facebook.com/mildfuzznetwork/Audio: https://comicsfromthemultiverse.podbean.com/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/Mildfuzztv  #DCComics

On this week's Stack podcast: Runaways #33 Marvel Written by Rainbow Rowell Art by Andrés Genolet Man-Bat #1 DC Comics Written by Dave Wielgosz Art by Sumit Kumar Specter Inspectors #1 BOOM! Box Written by Bowen McCurdy Art by Kaitlyn Musto The Immortal Hulk #43 Marvel Written by Al Ewing Art by Joe Bennett Future State: Superman of Metropolis #2 DC Comics Written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton Art by John Timms, Valentine De Landro, Cully Hamner Future State: Wonder Woman #2 DC Comics Written and art by Joëlle Jones Future State: The Next Batman #3 DC Comics Written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins Art by Laura Braga, Sumit Kumar, Jack Herbert Future State: The Flash #2 DC Comics Written by Brandon Vietti Art by Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad Future State: Swamp Thing #2 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Mike Perkins Future State: Harley Quinn #2 DC Comics Written by Stephanie Phillips Art by Simone DiMeo and Tony Infante Deep Beyond #1 Image Comics Created by Mirka Andolfo, David Goy, Andrew Broccardo and Barbara Nosenzo The Legend of Shang-Chi #1 Marvel Written by Alyssa Wong Art by Andie Tong Chained to the Grave #1 IDW Written by Andy Eschenbach & Brian Level Art by Kate Sherron Far Sector #10 DC Comics Written by N.K. Jemisin Art by Jamal Campbell Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures #1 IDW Written by Daniel José Older Art by Harvey Tolibao Luna #1 BOOM! Studios By Maria Llovet The Comic Book History of Animation #3 IDW Written by Fred Van Lente Art by Ryan Dunlavey King in Black: Marauders #1 Marvel Written by Gerry Duggan Art by Luke Ross Transformers: Beast Wars #1 IDW Written by Erik Burnham Art by Josh Burcham King in Black: Black Knight #1 Marvel Written by Simon Spurrier Art by Jesús Saiz Fear Case #1 Dark Horse Comics Written by Matt Kindt Art by Tyler Jenkins Sea of Sorrows #4 IDW Written by Rich Douek Art and Colors by Alex Cormack SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. Full Episode Transcript: Alex:                 What's up y'all. Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. Alex:                 And on The Stack, we talk about a bunch of books that have come out this week- Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 And we're not running away from this many reviews. In fact, we're running towards them, starting off with Runaways number 33 from Marvel- Pete:                Oh, I see what you did there. Okay, I see. Alex:                 Written by Rainbow Rowell. Justin:              [crosstalk 00:00:25]. Yes, that's what we thought. That's what we knew. Alex:                 I know, it was a little tricky there, but there you go. Justin:              No, we're running toward them. Alex:                 Yes, this title has been sporadic to say the very best, but I think it is always welcome when it returns. We're cutting in on our kids. Some of them are going to high school, some are not. They're trying to balance responsibilities. This run by Rainbow Rowell has been so good and I am so happy whenever it comes back. Justin:              I agree, it's so well, each scene really stands out. The characters are so well thought through, the art's great. I love this story. It captures adolescence and also the superhero side of it at the same time. It's one of my favorites. Alex:                 Pete. Pete:                I mean, I really liked it until the man-handling of Wolverine. And then I was like, “Eh, right.” But the art's unbelievable. It's some really great storytelling. I think it is fun. I really liked the gib. Justin:              You think Wolverine could beat a Doombot? Doombots are so strong, there's no way. Alex:                 They really are, and Wolverine's so short. Justin:              He's so tiny. Pete:                Oh, I hate both of you. Justin:              Doombots are robot dooms, which is good, doom's good and robots are cool. Alex:                 One of the things that I think is particularly impressive about this book is usually you don't see this sort of second resurgence. I mean, not to get too lofty about it, it's maybe not quite on the same level as bringing back the X-Men or anything like that. But you certainly had Brian K. Vaughan launching Runaways, petering out after a little while. Sorry, Pete, I know you don't like me saying that. It just came out. Pete:                Yeah, use a different expression. Justin:              No problem, it LePage'd out a little. Alex:                 LePage'd out. Pete:                It's not funny. Alex:                 And then they took the characters and they split them up and put them on other teams and use them in different ways. It's kind of amazing that they're taking them back and making them work so well and it makes me very happy. Let's move on to another book, Man-Bat number one from DC Comics written by Dave Wielgosz, art by Sumit Kumar. This is following the Man-Bat, some bad stuff is happening to him. He's trying to be a hero, but it just doesn't work because he's just a Man-Bat. Justin:              He's just a Man-Bat. Alex:                 What'd you think about this book? And as a follow up, who asked for this? Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it's a little weird. I mean, also it's kind of, he's a scientist that doesn't do science. He just thinks that flying around like a Man-Bat is going to win the day. And I don't see how that works, but the art- Alex:                 You walk around as a human all the time, Pete, what is that doing? Justin:              Good call. Pete:                Burn? I don't think so. But yeah, the art's great. Alex:                 Justin, what'd you think about this one? Justin:              Thought you were going to say more. I mean, this strikes me as a different … Man-Bat in the DC Universe right now feels very much like the Justice League Dark character. And I really liked that iteration of Man-Bat who's this sort of loopy scientist who's obsessed with darkness, but also trying to make his science into sort of mad science. And so this take is different. And I missed the other one reading this, but I do like the art and it feels very much like a classic Batman: The Animated Series take on Man-Bat. Alex:                 I do think I was obviously being very glib with who asked for this because I don't think anybody was necessarily demanding a Man-Bat series. It was confusing. Pete:                I'm sure there's people out there who love the Man-Bat. Alex:                 I'm sure. It's the sort of thing that felt to me like if it came out at Halloween, I'd understand what was going on here, as is I think well-written good art. I like it. I don't know what its long-term prospects are necessarily. But as an individual book, if you like the character, I think you'll be happy. Justin:              But here's the thing, if you go up and you're like, “I love Batman.” You're like, “Let me try this other version of the words.” Alex:                 Yeah, that's true. There's also a book coming out next week we're going to be talking about called Bat Bat and a book after that called Madman. Pete:                Wait, wait. Justin, let me just, so if somebody walks into a comic book shop and they say, “Hey, I like some Batman,” and they say, “We're sold out, but would you like to try some Man-Bat?” And you think that's how Man-Bat sells? Is that what you're saying? Justin:              I mean, yes. Pete:                Okay. I think so. Justin:              All right. If you walk into a grocery store and you're like, I'd like some pineapple and they're like, “No, we have regular apples and some pine nuts.” You'd be like, “I'll take it.” Pete:                I don't know if you would. Alex:                 Yeah. You can make them at home. Look at it on Epicurious. All right. Specter inspectors number one for BOOM! Box, written by Bowen McCurdy, art by Kaitlyn Musto. This is I think another win for BOOM! Box, just a fun story of a bunch of ghost investigators who encounter something even more terrifying than what they expected. This book is a delight and I am completely on board. Pete:                Oh, I couldn't agree with you more. I love this book. I really thought it was cool set up, took some great turns. I was really impressed with this. The art's storytelling is really a lot of fun. Yeah, I think it's great. Justin:              I agree. It really surprised me with how like it's … I think there are a lot of books like this in this art style where it is sort of character driven, like these people are trying to do this and they haven't figured it out. But this really like, the art pays off on the comedy side and the character and relationship side. And then the story itself is super fun as well. I really like this. Alex:                 Yeah, good stuff, excited to follow this book. Next up, The Immortal Hulk number 43 from Marvel written by Al Ewing, art by Joe Bennett. In this issue, a lot of stuff going on, but Joe Fixit is on the run hiding out, the U-FOES are training and getting ready to fight the Hulk. And of course it all goes down by the end of the issue. I don't know what more to say about this book than it is great. Justin:              Well, let me say, to me this was a good reset issue, where if you've been a little lost lately with all the different sort of stretchy Hulk with eyeball hands and stuff, this is a good restating of what the premise, where it's like, at the beginning of the issue Joe Fixit says, “All the other Hulks are gone. Now it's just me, Joe Fixit, and dumb Hulk, we're in the body.” It's back to sort of the basic whole premise, except instead of being a smart scientist, he's not a smart grifter and he's on the street. Pete:                I would say he's doing pretty good. Justin:              He's not as smart as Bruce Banner though. Pete:                Oh, well, sure. Justin:              And I think he is doing good, but his whole thing is being a good grifter as opposed to being a scientist, and he is. Pete:                He is a good grifter. Justin:              And I love this. He's a good grifter. And would you rather be a scientist? Pete clearly hates science and loves grifting and that's what he worships. Alex:                 I mean, this book is great, it's fantastic. But I really liked the Joe- Justin:              When you're sick, Pete, you don't go to a doctor, you go to a three-card Monte person. Pete:                Yeah, exactly. You see a guy in the back of a restaurant who take a look at it and he can tell you what's going on. Justin:              He's like, “Right here, follow the diagnosis, follow the diagnosis. Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Here you go. Here we go. You have a irritable bowel syndrome.” Pete:                I think that I could have used more Joe Fixit on the streets. I thought this was fun. But that being said it was very cool to see him still have to kind of fight for the underdog and do what was right. So yeah, I very much enjoyed this. Also Alpha Flight cameo was great. I mean, this was a lot of fun, it continues to be amazing. Justin:              Doc Sampson is Sasquatch somehow. Alex:                 Good stuff. And just to work off of what Pete said, as I always say, Joe Fixit in the streets and loose Hulk in the sheets. Pete:                Oh my God. Justin:              You do say that too many times. Alex:                 Too much. Justin:              I love the U-FOES and they do a great job here as being the villains. And we get to sort of actually find out who they are and what they do. Alex:                 Let's move on to our future state block. We've been doing this for the past couple of weeks, as DC has been trucking through their look at a possible glimpse of the future of the DC Universe. As usual with this, these are the titles coming out this week. There's Superman of metropolis number two, Wonder Woman number two, Next Batman number three, The Flash number two, Swamp Thing number two, Harley Quinn number two. And we read all of those, but call it what you like. Pete, what was your favorite title of this bunch this week? Pete:                Ooh, favorite title. Alex:                 This is a big surprise because we've only done it for the past four weeks. Go ahead. Pete:                Yeah. Big surprise. Big surprise. Justin:              I have an answer if you want to think. Alex:                 Yeah, go ahead, Justin. Pete:                No, Harley Quinn number two. I'm really impressed with the writing and the art on this. And it continues to be really great. Alex:                 This is written by Stephanie Phillips, art by Simone DiMeo and Toni Infante. In this book, Harley Quinn is working for Scarecrow trying to take down Black Mask. There's plenty of twists and turns throughout the book. Justin:              Scarecrow is like a cop essentially. Jonathan Crane on the side, the quote unquote good guys. And Black Mask is the bad guy and that gets a little confusing. My take on this book, these two issues felt like an episode of Batman: The Animated Series if Harley Quinn were the central character. [crosstalk 00:10:03]. Pete:                Or Harley animated series. Justin:              That's sort of what I'm saying in a lot of ways, but it's not like the Harley Quinn animated series, it's like Batman: The Animated Series [crosstalk 00:10:13]. Alex:                 I thought it was sort of like Scarecrow. It was sort of like a Scarecrow the animated series, is what I'd say. Pete:                It's nothing like that, how dare you Zalb? Justin:              A lot of hard takes. I just think there was sort of a lesson at the end. The characters are having fun, even though they were fighting each other. I enjoyed this. Alex:                 What about you, Justin? What was your favorite title of the week? Justin:              This- Pete:                Justin if you need me to go while you're thinking I can do that. Justin:              Do not need you to go, you just went. Pete:                Oh, okay. All right. Well, if you just need some time, I could- Justin:              No time necessary. I'm ready to talk in three, two, one, talk Justin. I really enjoy, there are a lot of weirder titles out this week. And the two that I want to highlight are The Flash, Future State: The Flash number two and Future State: Swamp Thing number two, are my two picks. Alex:                 Flash number two written by Brandon Vietti, art by Brandon Peterson and Will Conrad. Swamp Thing number two by Ram V, art by Mike Perkins. Take it away Justin. Justin:              Flashed number two just like heartbreaking. These two issues were so good, so unexpected. You have Wally West as this villain who is maybe possessed by this spirit and Barry Allen who's lost his powers to trying desperately to track it down and save him while also stopping the killing spree that's going on against the other speedsters. And it was just such a good two-part story. I think this is a great standalone just Flash story that is absolutely tragic, but really gets to the core of what Flash's powers are. It's not just running fast, it's hope. Alex:                 Hmm, interesting. And Swamp Thing, what about that one? Justin:              Swamp Thing, totally different like this post-apocalyptic parable about Swamp Thing who created his own offspring through the green, built them. We get to see through both of these issues how meticulously he built them and even their biological features. And then at the end, this is a spoiler, but he sacrifices them for the sake of humanity because he knows that humanity has a soul and the plant children he created do not. And another like- Pete:                That part was heartbreaking dude, what was that? Justin:              … [crosstalk 00:12:28], heartbreaking thing. Pete:                What was that dude? Justin:              It was great. It was just like both, that's why I put them together, both the Flash and Swamp Thing did what you want across over like this to do, take your characters, get to a core value that they have and show it in a new way, a new unexpected way. And I think both these books did that super well. Pete:                Oh, go ahead. Alex:                 Go ahead Justin, bearded Justin. Pete:                Pete. I'm Pete. Justin:              I'm shaved Pete. Pete:                I just wanted to say I'm still enjoying the new Batman. I really liked the backup, so the Black Lightning, Katana and the signal. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 I was going to call this out. I haven't gotten to talk yet, Pete. Justin:              He hasn't chosen yet Pete. Alex:                 But [crosstalk 00:13:10] whatever, take all your picks. Pete:                Justin got to say two. Alex:                 Sure. Future state: The Next Batman number three written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins, art by Laura Braga, Sumit Kumar, and Jack Herbert. I agree with you, the outsider's backup has been excellent. Justin:              So good. Alex:                 And that's one where it ends, it's not quite as apocalyptic as Swamp Thing or anything like that. It definitely feels like, what I want out of these where it feels like, oh, this is a pilot. I want to see more of this. I want to see more of this world. And the big one for me is Future State: Wonder Woman number two, written in art by Joëlle Jones, which obviously has a lot of heat at it. We talked about this before. Was this something that was a kind of adapting- Pete:                It's so hot right now, it's so much heat. Alex:                 It's so hot right now, they're adapting for [crosstalk 00:13:53]. But this new Wonder Woman heading to the underworlds rescue, whatever compatriots. And I know I said this the last time, but I'll repeat it as well. It feels revolutionary to the Wonder Woman mythos in the same way the brand Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's run did. And it's the sort of thing that I absolutely want to follow going forward. Pete:                I just, the one part that bothered me about that book was she rips off the bones of the arm of the boat person, taking them across. Doesn't say sorry, nothing. Alex:                 She does, she says, “Oops.” Or something like that. Pete:                Oops is not sorry, you know what I mean- Alex:                 It's fine, there was such a [crosstalk 00:14:31]. Pete:                … you still got to roll the boat. Alex:                 She takes Sharon's bone hand off, throws it to [inaudible 00:14:35] to distract him because he's a dog, it's a very cute funny bit. Pete:                It's funny but that guy still has to row a boat with now less bones and only one arm and she doesn't help out at all, doesn't even offer to row or nothing. Justin:              Rowing a boat with less bones is a problem, I agree with you. And she doesn't offer to row. He is an undead spirit. But let me also say Pete, once you don't have skin, your bones are up for grabs. Pete:                Wow. That's a rule? Justin:              That's a rule. Watch out, keep [crosstalk 00:15:04], keep your skin. Alex:                 I don't know the last time you'd been to a cemetery, but if you look they have a sign outside that says up for grabs. Pete:                Wow. Alex:                 Every sector. Justin:              Bunch of loose bones in the cemetery. They got a bone box. Pete:                They shouldn't have loose bones at the cemetery guys, it doesn't make any sense. Justin:              It's like give a penny, take a penny, but you just take bones. Pete:                What? Justin:              There are extra bones. Pete:                What? Give a penny, take a penny, oh my God. Justin:              Are you using all your bones right now, Pete? I don't think so. Alex:                 You have so many head bones. What are you using them for? Justin:              So many bones. Alex:                 Are you playing piano? Pete:                The piano? Alex:                 The piano. Justin:              We got fucking Mozart over here using all his bones. Alex:                 That's what he was known for. All right. Moving on from Future State, let's talk about Deep Beyond number one from Image Comics created by Mirka Andolfo, David Goy and Andrea Broccardo and Barbara Nosenzo. I'll tell you.,I really liked a lot of what Mirka Andolfo has been doing an Image Comics, but this comic is bonkers. I don't think bad bonkers, just hard to hold onto exactly what's happening in the plot bonkers. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              There's a lot going on here. This book to me read like a Rick Remender book where … read like two Rick Remender books both happening at the same time. Alex:                 Yes. Justin:              And that's not to say I didn't like it. It has a lot of elements that I like. Pete:                Also there's weird soap opera in there as well. Alex:                 It takes place in maybe a post-apocalyptic future where the sun or gasses outside or something killed people. Justin:              Pollution. I think pollution fucked us up. Alex:                 Yeah, pollution fucked us up. And we're explaining it much more straightforward than it actually is. But there's a bunch of different characters that get involved there. Some of the characters you're following at the beginning don't survive, even a quarter way through the book and then it jumps over to another situation. It is the sort of thing that feels like by the second issue it might've calmed out a little bit and focus, but there's so many ideas at play here. Again, it's hard to hold onto something. The art, very good and gross though. Justin:              Beautiful. Yeah. I liked the art and to your point, Alex, I like the sort of propulsion into the second issue. Alex:                 Yes. Justin:              But yes, a little confusing. Alex:                 Agreed. Moving onto The Legend, and I'm going to pronounce this wrong, Kevin Feige pronounced it a different way and now it's really gotten into my head. We've called him Shang-Chi, but it's something else where you actually pronounce it, Shang-Chi or something like that, number one from Marvel written by Alyssa Wong. I'll look it up. Art by Andie Tong. This is a one-shot focusing on the character, clearly teeing up the movie that's coming at some point. And this pits him against Lady Deathstrike. I thought this was a lot of fun, just a good actiony book. Justin:              A 100%. This feels like if you are excited about the Shang-Chi movie, then you can read this and feel. I think you're going to get a lot of the elements of the movie right here in this book. Pete:                Yeah, I love this. The art's unbelievable. The action of course is fantastic. Great to see Lady Deathstrike, not associated with Wolverine kind of doing other things. And yeah, I'm very excited for this and more of it, so I hope this does well. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about another book that I think was a little hard to hold onto, but there's still some exciting elements into it. Chained to the Grave number one from IDW written by Andy Eschenbach and Brian Level, art by Kate Sherron. The thing that I really like about this book is it's mostly about a dude who died, sort of probably bad cowboy, is resurrected by his wife. And is like, “Hey family, let's go on a voyage of vengeance to take out the people who killed me.” That's the straightforward part. There's a lot of other stuff happening in this book, but the art sale is good. Pete, you had to love the big guy. He's a big hulking guy with half a face and he wants to kill people, right? Pete:                Yeah, I thought it was great. I mean at start it was a little weird, the blow job in front of the kids, but we'll move right past that. And just kind of talk about a lot of the twists and turns. The art's really unbelievable. But the character design is really cool. I'm excited for more action and to kind of find out what's really going on. Justin:              This reminded me of … I forget the title of the book. And I think we've talked about it a lot. The woman who lives in the house and the house has a bunch of … there's blood everywhere all the time. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. We consistently forget the title of this book. Justin:              Yes. And I knew it last time when you didn't know it, and I now don't know it. It was- Alex:                 Murder house. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:19:41] murder house. Justin:              It's like House of Sorrows or something like that. But stylistically the art also reminds me a little bit of Chew in a good way. And yeah, this is, it's fun. I agree. It's a good read and I really wish I could remember the name of that book that I try to think of. Alex:                 I think I read about House of Sorrows or something like that. I'll introduce the next one, you can look it up if you want. Far Sector number 10 from DC Comics, written by N. K. Jemisin, art by Jamal Campbell. We gush over every issue of this book. I thought this was a particularly good one. And it jumped out to me once again how important it is that not just the writer, but also the artist has stayed consistent for 10 issues on here. It's made it a really cohesive package following our main Green Lantern. She has been imprisoned and shit goes down this issue. This feels like a lot of what this title has been leading towards. There's been a lot of stuff happening in the background on this weird planet that she's been living on. And it's all coming to head in terms of a revolution. It's all coming crashing down. Great stuff. This was honestly I think one of my favorite issues of this book so far. Justin:              Agree, to get all these answers. Pete:                And that's saying a lot. Justin:              Yeah, it is. To get all these answers in this book is so good and sort of restating the thesis, we get a nice lead in page at the top of this issue to really remind us of exactly what's happening. So many great ideas, so many just … The premise and the philosophies on display here are so good. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, it's hard to keep coming up with different things to say about how amazing this book is, but the stories continues to impress. The art is so creative and unbelievable. Just every time I pick it up, I'm like, I'm worried it's not going to be as good as the last issue and it continues to be dope as fuck. Alex:                 Next up Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures number one from IDW written by Daniel José Older, art by Harvey Tolibao. We talked about the first issue of Marvel Star Wars: The High Republic. This is part of that expansive overarching story set much earlier in the Star Wars timeline. This one is for all ages readers, which is what IDW does with the adventures one. I thought it'd be interesting to check in with this particularly compared to the Marvel book. What did you guys think about this one? Pete:                Well, I really liked it. I thought it was really cool the way it was kind of split and the story kind of comes together, very, very cool. I liked the art, it was very interesting kind of fresher take on Star Wars. We're used to a certain style and seeing people a certain way. It was a nice kind of like creative take, it felt like it was a grittier Star Wars which I appreciated. Yeah, I thought it was really cool. Had a great ending that got me excited to read more. Justin:              Well, you know we love this timeline page. But the last book we talked about extensively where they list all the movies and TV shows in timeline, it's very satisfying to just look at that. Alex:                 Speaking of satisfying, what do you guys think of hot Yoda? That's something we've got a little sense of in the Marvel book, but definitely more here. Pete:                What? Alex:                 This is a buff Yoda. He's a little jacked, probably has some abs under that robe going on. Pete:                What are you talking about? Where's the robe? Alex:                 And he is ready for action. He's young. Justin:              He's got abs on his forehead. He's got abs above and below his lips. He's all abs. Alex:                 He's young, dumb and full of [inaudible 00:23:17]. Pete:                Oh my God, that was awful. It was weird how people were like, “Hey, maybe we should think about this.” And Yoda was like, “No, fuck it, we're in too deep, let's roll.” Alex:                 It was surprising for a kid's book that he said fuck it in the text. Justin:              Let me say seriously about this, what I like about the choices here, the art is very … it feels very much like a fantasy book. And I think that's a smart choice for a comic about Star Wars. We've seen this sci-fi version of the Star Wars world a lot, to see the fantasy version of it is worth a lot of the roots of the Jedi and everything are, there have laser swords. And this was a very cool version of that. And I like the ongoing monologue from our young force sensitive character that we meet through in this book. Alex:                 The other thing is we get a sense of the bad guys, which we didn't really get in the Marvel book yet. There's this overarching force of evil. They seem to be augmented in some way that are going to play into this whole high republic story that they're telling, so that was kind of neat. I assume you guys have not as well, but I haven't read the novel by Charles Soule necessarily yet, which I think deals with them a little bit more, but that should … it's interesting. And it's not as young aiming as you might think. Justin:              A 100%. Alex:                 Speaking of things that are not as young aiming, let's talk about Luna number one from BOOM! Studios by Maria Llovet. Now, Pete, you're a huge fan of the book Faithless by Brian Azzarello and Maria Llovet. This is following a different girl who also gets fucked by some magical creatures. Pete, what did you think about this one. Pete:                So Zalben you're like, “Listen, I got to find something that's creepy enough, but artistically driven enough where I don't feel so dirty reading it.” Alex:                 Here's the thing, we are still in lockdown. I can not go to the museum of modern art and jerk off there anymore, so I got to find out. Pete:                You mean the museum of sex to jerk off. Alex:                 I can't go there. Justin:              I sadly know he goes to the museum of modern art or the natural history museum. He goes to any museum. He just loves naked. Alex:                 I go to the [inaudible 00:25:28] sometimes in the temple of [inaudible 00:25:30]. Pete:                Oh my God. Alex:                 There's room in this tube I shout. Pete:                Oh my God. Justin:              The publishers of this book are like, let's listen to Comic Book Club, see if we have a good quote for the book. No, they mostly talk about one of their hosts jerking off at a museum. I really liked this book. I think Maria Llovet's art is great. And yes, a lot of her books focus on an innocent woman getting slowly deeper into some sort of mystical- Pete:                Sex cult. Justin:              … thing where there's sex involved. But it plays really well and I think this one makes sense. She's the writer and artist so it feels very much like she's taking ownership of this story. And the tone that her art sets is so good. And so I want to watch it. I want to put it on the wall of the museum. Alex:                 Well, I'll do something to that. Pete:                Oh my God. Don't do that. Justin:              See you there. Alex:                 Yes. I agree with you, her art is fantastic. It is particularly psychedelic here. It's about this character that travels, I think to the desert though, it's not 100% clear and maybe take some LSD or something like that. It goes into some very weird visuals. It's not dark and devilish like Faithless is necessarily, it goes in a different direction. But it's gorgeous stuff, it's a little sketchier. I mean that literally like the lions are a little looser than say [inaudible 00:27:07] or something like that. But great, I really enjoyed this book as well. Let's move on, talk about the Comic Book History of Animation number three from IDW written by Fred Van Lente and art by Ryan Dunlavey. And this one we're continuing- Pete:                We should get them on the show because I'd love to talk to them about this book man. Alex:                 Pete, we just have them on our live show which is available as a podcast. Pete:                We should have them back, I want to talk about this issue. Alex:                 All right. Well, in this issue, we're continuing to deal with the Disney revolution, delving deeper into Looney Tunes, as well as Fleischer creator of the Superman cartoon and other things. Another great issue of this book, imperative, fun. I'm having a blast reading this. Justin:              Yeah. Getting into all these characters that we know you got some Mr Magoo in here, you got your [inaudible 00:27:55], you got your Daffy, you got your Wile E. Coyote, just all your favorites are here. The anecdotes that they incorporate into the story are so good. And this is getting into prime time of this type of cartooning. Pete:                Yeah. And what's great is not only is it amazing art and fantastic storytelling. We're also learning stuff and it's cool. Good to find out about all this, this way. Yeah, I'm having a blast with this, really impressive. Justin:              [inaudible 00:28:26]. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about [crosstalk 00:28:28] King in Black: Marauders number one from Marvel written by Gerry Duggan, art by Luke Ross. In this issue, the marauders are heading to New York sensibly on a mission to rescue the X-Men who have been taken over by Knull the King in Black, but they run into a couple of snags along the way. I thought this was really well done. This is a great book that stands as a one-shot story, tells you enough that you need to know about the marauders while feeding the ongoing story there. You don't necessarily need to be reading King in Black, but you get enough of a sense of it. That's a really hard balancing act, but I think they walk it perfectly here. Justin:              Does all that, also telling this tragic story about human trafficking. It covers a lot of bases and it's just a testament to that, really heads up storytelling to be able to do all that in an issue seamlessly. Pete:                Yeah. I was really impressed with this book. This I think so far is my favorite X-Men book that I've read of this new kind of era. And I really enjoyed it. I thought there was a lot of great action, a lot of great kind of commentary by the quote unquote heroes. I thought this was really fun, amazing art, great action. And I love the ending, I thought was so powerful and cool. Man, Magneto dude, that was really crazy with the whole skipping a rock thing and talking, that was unbelievable. Justin:              I also love Magneto at the end. He sort of like laying down in the air hardly. He's not hovering in a menacing way. He's feels like he's sort of reclining in a way. I was like, “Yeah, of course he's going to sort of lay down a little bit. He's just tired superhero.” Alex:                 Yeah, he's got a lot of stuff going on. Justin:              Sort of. Alex:                 Speaking of a bunch of tired superheroes, let's talk about Transformers: Beast Wars number one from IDW written by Erik Burnham, art by Josh Burcham. This is a reboot of the classic Transformers: Beast Wars franchise with the transformers heading to earth in dinosaur times, taking the form of dinosaurs. Most of the book though is spent with robots- Justin:              And other beasts. Pete:                Yeah, other beasts. Alex:                 Other beasts, sometimes fruit bats or whatever, I don't know, gorillas, anyway- Justin:              Optimus Primal. Alex:                 If this is what you're into, this is the fuzziest the transformers have ever been. Pete:                Yeah. Beast Wars were big kind of like bringing the transformers back to popular kind of like cartoon Saturday's styles. And I was a little, I missed Beast Wars. I was kind of done with transformers at that point. Justin:              You grew up, you grew out of it. Pete:                I grew out of transformers little bit although- Justin:              You're a big boy, you don't like it anymore. Pete:                I don't know about all that. But yeah, Beast Wars kind of missed me. But I kind of felt like Zalben when he was reading a transformers book and you were like, “I don't know who's who,” and it was a little confusing because I wasn't as familiar with these transformers. It was a little hard in the beginning with them. By the end I thought it was pretty cool. Alex:                 Like Optimus Prime and Megatron? Pete:                No, there were other versions. Alex:                 I knew who they were Pete. Everything was very obvious. Pete:                Well, there was a book that you were like weren't … I don't know if it was Power Rangers or- Alex:                 No, I couldn't tell any of them apart, they were all robots in this book. Justin:              Well, they're in disguise. They're in disguise as cars, so it's hard to tell who is who. Pete:                Not in this one. Justin:              If I could turn into a car you'd be like, “Who's that car? Is that Justin?” Pete:                I would know. Justin:              I don't know. Alex:                 I always do that when I'm walking on the street. Justin:              You're like, “Which car is Justin and which car Pete?” Alex:                 I try to start a podcast with every car. Pete:                Oh man. Good luck. Justin:              Yeah, good luck. I loved Beast Wars when the show is on. Pete:                Okay, here we go. Justin:              Of all the cartoons, Beast Wars got into this very philosophical place with the transformers, they were chasing their sparks, they were trying to find out if essentially they had souls, it was so good. And this comic feels like it's maybe going to get there, I hope it does. This issue really set the stage for that, and I hope they really honor the depth of storytelling they did on this cartoon that Pete was too good for. Alex:                 Next up, here's what I'm sure Justin enjoyed a whole lot. King in Black: Black Knight number one from Marvel written by Simon Spurrier, art by Jesus Saiz. The reason I call it, you like the Black Knight, right? Justin:              I like him. I like his role in The Avengers, and I feel like he … and I do like him, I'm not saying I don't. But back in The Avengers he was this sort of like, ah, I don't know what I'm doing. I think he was sort of a precursor to the Hawkeye-effication of so many Marvel characters where he was like, “Yeah, I'm sort of a shit head, I don't shave, but I put my helmet on and I have my glowing sword. What are we doing today?” And this is a little bit that, but a little bit not that. It sort of had a wobbly beginning, it felt like the premise was really in your face and I didn't really buy into it until about halfway through the issue. But at the end of it, I thought it was a good issue. Pete:                Yeah. I really love the way this ended. It got a little bit weird at some points, but I love the action. I loved kind of like the whole backstory and why Knull is after the swords and all that kind of stuff like that. I very much by the end of it and I'm very excited for the next issue, I thought this did a great job of laying the groundwork to get you pumped for more. Alex:                 Yeah. I mean, to that point, the next issue is I assume ongoing series for Black Knight that is going to pick up here. So to your point, Justin, to me it felt like this is probably stuff that Simon Spurrier is going to deal with more heavily in the series once he gets to it. But he's kind of playing around with ideas of throwing there, but can't go all the way, because it was just this one crossover issue where somebody was like, “Hey, what are the characters that say black in their name, have them do a King in Black thing, let's go.” Alex:                 But it's good issue. And the art is good and it brings us fun characters. And to your point there's some fun action by the end. Last but not least, Sea of Sorrows number four from IDW written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. We had Rich on our show a couple of weeks back. What? Pete:                Did you say the last one? Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                We didn't do Fear Case. Alex:                 What is Fear Case? Did you make that up? Pete:                No, that's the … are you serious? Justin:              What is Fear Case? Pete:                Fear Case number one by Matt Kindt. Alex:                 Oh, no, I missed that one. Do you want to talk about it, Pete? Pete:                Yeah, I would love to. Alex:                 Great, go ahead. Pete:                Okay, I'm sorry. Just I've been waiting to talk about this book. I'm very excited about it. This is cool. This is like the setup of this kind of like FBI hazing of like, okay, here is this case that nobody can solve. We'll let you rookies work on it for a little while. And it really builds it up as like this epic all-time thing that nobody can figure out. And you're like, “How can this thing be going on for so long?” But really kind of lays out this interesting mythos and very high stakes. I love the art. It's like sketchy, but cool in this way, that is kind of great. I feel like fits with the story because it's a little dark and telling this kind of epic tale. I was really impressed with the art and storytelling. This is a fun who done it, what's going on? How are we going to all figure this out? I thought this was amazing first issue that really got you excited for a bunch of stuff. Justin:              And I want to talk about Hat Dance. Pete:                Oh, okay. Sure. Hat dance number one or which one? Justin:              Number 607. You guys haven't been reading Hat Dance. Alex:                 I want to talk about [Miles 00:36:35] Friends number one. Pete:                Oh, Miles' friends. Yeah. Justin:              I think you're talking about Cinderella and I'm here for it, [inaudible 00:36:43]. Alex:                 Two movies honestly. There's a whole thing going on with Cinderella, there's a thing going on with the mouse and the cat. I don't know, bring it together some way guys. Sea of Sorrows number four from IDW, written by Rich Douek, art and colors by Alex Cormack. In this issue, we are finally getting some hardcore, absolutely gross mermaid attack action here, spoiler, but they reveal what these mermaids look like and it is absolutely horrifying. The slow tension has been building for three issues. The lid is off here and it's awful. What'd you guys think about this issue? Justin:              Great reveal. This is what I've always wanted to see in The Little Mermaid. Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Pete:                Yeah. I thought it was- Alex:                 Pete, did you want to read Fear Case or what's going on? Pete:                No, first off the art is so creepy in all the right ways- Justin:              So good. Pete:                … it's great. And they've been teasing on what's going on with the kind of what the bad force is driving behind it. And we finally get to really see it in all its glory in this issue. And it is really creepy and messed up, but really interesting to see how they're going to kind of make it, how these ships are going to do out in the middle of nowhere. Alex:                 Awesome, good stuff. And if you'd like to support our podcast, patreon.com/comicbookclub. Also we do a live show every Tuesday night at 7:00 PM to Crowdcast and YouTube. Coming up, we'd love to chat with you about comic books at Comic Book Live on Twitter, iTunes, Android, Spotify, Stitcher, or the app of your choice. To subscribe and to listen to the show, comicbookclublive.com for this podcast and many more. Until next time, bye. Justin:              Ooh. Short. Hat Dance number 607 guys, check it out. The post The Stack: Runaways, Man-Bat And More appeared first on Comic Book Club. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/comicbookclub See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

  Hello Team, Today in the Watchtower we welcome back the Dynamic Duo (Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman) behind Young Justice to answer  Thanks to everyone for spending time with us. If you'd like to join us in discussing this incredible series, you can find us on Twitter @theYJfiles, on Facebook @crashingthemode, on Tumblr at theyjfiles.tumblr.com, and on our website crashingthemode.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Stitcher, and IHeartRadio. If that isn't enough you can email us at whelmedpodcast@gmail.com. If you'd like to support our show, please consider sharing it with a friend and joining our chats on social media. You can also support the show by giving us a 5-Star review and/or rating on Apple Podcasts, or your podcatcher of choice. The ratings, comments, and subscriptions help others find the show. If you do leave us a rating, please let us know at our email address or on social media! Especially if you’re outside the US, we have to look a little harder to find those. If you are able to support us monetarily, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/crashingthemode. Even $1 a month can help us do in-person interviews, actual play podcasts, fan meet-ups, discussion sessions, and more. And as always, Stay whelmed everyone!  

Comics Reviews: Dark Nights: Death Metal 7 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Yanick Paquette, Bryan Hitch, Jonathan Glapion, Alex Sinclair, Nathan Fairbairn, FCO Plascencia Generations Shattered by Dan Jurgens, Robert Venditti, Andy Schmidt, Oclair Albert, Paul Pelletier, Danny Miki, Bernard Chang, Yanick Paquette, Matt Ryan, Aaron Lopresti, Scott Hanna, Klaus Janson, John Romita Jr, Fernando Pasarin, Emanuela Lupacchino, Wade Von Grawbadger, Sandra Hope, Mike Perkins, Kevin Nowlan, Doug Braithwaite, Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Hi-Fi Future State: The Next Batman 1 by John Ridley, Nick Derington, Tamra Bonvillain, Brandon Thomas, Sumit Kumar, Raul Fernandez, Jordie Bellaire, Paul Jenkins, Jack Herbert, Gabe Eltaeb Future State: Superman of Metropolis 1 by Sean Lewis, John TImms, Gabe Eltaeb, Brandon Easton, Valentine de Landro, Marissa Louise, Cully Hamner, Michael Avon Oeming, Laura Martin Future State: Wonder Woman 1 by Joelle Jones, Jordie Bellaire Future State: Harley Quinn 1 by Stephanie Phillips, Simone DiMeo, Tamra Bonvillain Future State: Swamp Thing 1 by Ram V, Mike Perkins, June Chung Future State: The Flash 1 by Brandon Vietti, Dale Eaglesham, Mike Atiyeh House of El: Book One: The Shadow Threat by Claudia Gray, Eric Zawadzki, Dee Cunniffe Sensational Wonder Woman 1 by Stephanie Phillips, Meghan Hetrick, Marissa Louise Truth and Justice 1 by Geoffrey Thorne, ChrisCross, Jordi Tarragona, Wil Quintana Eternals 1 by Kieron Gillen, Esad Ribic, Matthew Wilson King in Black: Return of the Valkyries 1 by Jason Aaron, Torunn Grondekk, Nina Vakueva, Tamra Bonvillain Star Wars: The High Republic 1 by Cavan Scott, Ario Anindito, Mark Morales, Annalisa Leoni Scout's Honor 1 by David Pepose, Luca Casalanguida, Matt Milla The Last Witch 1 by Conor McCreery, V.V. Glass, Natalia Nesterenko Avatar: The Last Shadow 1 by Jeremy Barlow, Josh Hood, Wes Dzioba Resistance: Reborns 1 by J. Michael Straczynski, C.P. Smith, Snakebite Cortez Wrong Earth: Night and Day 1 by Tom Peyer, Jamal Igle, Juan Castro, Andy Troy Stake 1 by David Byrne, Francesca Fantini Soulstream 1 by Saida Woolf Loot 1 by Don Handfield, Richard Rayner, K Lynn Smith Sweet Downfall 1 by Stefano Cardoselli, Panta Rea Sengi And Tembo 1 by Guiseppe Falco Unthinkables 1 by Paul Hanley, Ian Richardson, Julien Hugonnard-Bert, Simon Gough, Thomas Mauer Thrae: The Heroes Odyssey 0 by Garry Price Impending Blindness of Billie Scott by Zoe Thorogood Katie the Catsitter by Colleen AF Venable, Stephanie Yue Additional Reviews: Miles Spider-Man game, Dollhouse Family, Wolfwalkers, The Institute, Batman/TMNT, Star Wars: Captain Phasma, Recipe for Seduction News: Omninews, Bizarre DCEU rumors, Ascender ending with 18, other Lemire news, Project Patron from Aftershock, Punisher in modern comics, Justice Society animated movie, no Black Canary spinoff show, Way of X by Spurrier/Quinn Tribute to Michael Apted Bold 2021 Comic Book Industry Predictions Am It Glenn? Comics Countdown: Dark Nights: Death Metal 7 by Scott Snyder, Greg Capullo, Yanick Paquette, Bryan Hitch, Jonathan Glapion, Alex Sinclair, Nathan Fairbairn, FCO Plascencia Crossover 3 by Donny Cates, Geoff Shaw, Dee Cunniffe Thor 11 by Donny Cates, Nic Klein, Matt Wilson Katie the Cat Sitter OGN by Colleen AF Venable, Stephanie Yue Guardians of the Galaxy 10 by Al Ewing, Juann Cabal, Federico Blee Future State: Harley Quinn 1 by Stephanie Phillips, Simone DiMeo, Tamra Bonvillain Venom 32 by Donny Cates, Iban Coello, Jesus Aburtov Stranger Things and Dungeon and Dragons 3 by Jody Houser, Jim Zub, Diego Galindo, Msassyk Last Witch 1 by Conor McCreery, V.V. Glass, Natalia Nesterenko Wrong Earth: Night and Day 1 by Tom Peyer, Jamal Igle, Juan Castro, Andy Troy

It's a big review Stack podcast this week as we discuss: Star Wars: The High Republic #1 Marvel Written by Cavan Scott Art by Ario Anindito Dark Nights Death Metal #7 DC Comics Written by Scott Snyder Art by Greg Capullo With Yanick Paquette and Bryan Hitch Crossover #3 Image Comics Written by Donny Cates Art by Geoff Shaw Eternals #1 Marvel Written by Kieron Gillen Art by Esad Ribić Future State: The Next Batman #1 DC Comics Written by John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins Art by Nick Derington, Sumit Kumar, Jack Herbert Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1 DC Comics Written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton Art by John Timms, Valentine de Landro, Cully Hamner, Michael Avon Oeming Future State: Swamp Thing #1 DC Comics Written by Ram V Art by Mike Perkins Future State: The Flash #1 DC Comics Written by Brandon Vietti Art by Dale Eaglesham Future State: Wonder Woman #1 DC Comics Written and art by Jöelle Jones Colors by Jordie Bellaire Future State: Harley Quinn #1 DC Comics Written by Stephanie Phillips Art by Simone Dimeo The Amazing Spider-Man #56 Marvel Written by Nick Spencer Art by Mark Bagley The Last Witch #1 BOOM! Box Written by Conor McCreery Illustrated by V.V. Glass Generations Shattered #1 DC Comics Written by Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt and Robert Venditti Art by Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Scott Hanna, Ferbabdo Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Aaron Lopestri, Matt Ryan, Emanuela Luppacchino, Wade Von Grawbadger, Bernard Chang, Yanick Paquette, Kevin Nowlan, Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Paul Pelletier, Sandra Hope, John Romita Jr., Danny Miki, Doug Braithwaite, Rags Morales and Mike Perkins Backtrack #10 Oni Press Written by Brian Joines Illustrated by Jack Elphick Return of the Valkyries #1 Marvel Written by Jason Aaron & Torunn Grønbekk Art by Nina Vakueva Getting It Together #4 Image Comics Co-written by Sina Grace & Omar Spahi Art by Jenny D. Fine & Sina Grace The Vain #4 Oni Press Written by Eliot Rahal Illustrated by Emily Pearson Venom #32 Marvel Written by Donny Cates Art by Ivan Coello Inkblot #5 Image Comics Created by Emma Kubert & Rusty Gladd SUBSCRIBE ON RSS, ITUNES, ANDROID, SPOTIFY, STITCHER OR THE APP OF YOUR CHOICE. FOLLOW US ON TWITTER, AND FACEBOOK. SUPPORT OUR SHOWS ON PATREON. This week's episode is sponsored by Shape & Foster. Visit www.shapeandfoster.com for your free 14-day trial. Full Episode Transcript: Alex:                 What is up everybody? Welcome to The Stack. I'm Alex. Justin:              I'm Justin. Pete:                I'm Pete. What it is. Justin:              What it is, he says. Alex:                 What it is. Justin:              T I Z. Alex:                 On The Stack, we talk about a bunch of comics that have come out this week. Lots of big stuff here. We're going to have a big chunk in the middle to hold that all we'll get to in a moment, but first, let's talk a bit… A big kickoff that happened this week. Star Wars: The High Republic #1 from Marvel, written by Cavan Scott, art by Ariel Anandito. This is a comic, but this is also a megastory that is going to be told over comics, books, games, probably TV shows. I don't know what else, but it's all set at the height of the Jedi. They're facing down a new threat. This is the first salvo hero. I believe the first two things that were released were this comic book today and, yesterday, Charles Sol, comic book writer, wrote a book called Star Wars: Light of the Jedi that touches on a lot of the same plot lines. Alex:                 This is a big deal. This is [crosstalk 00:02:08] part of it again. Pete:                He also writes really good novels, okay? He's not just a comic book writer, okay? Alex:                 No, this is a novel that he wrote, that I was mentioning, Pete. Pete:                Yeah. Oh. I thought you tried to just pigeon-hole him as only a comic book writer. Alex:                 No, I'm just trying to pigeon-hole him as a lawyer. Justin:              Pete hates pigeons, and he hates the holes that they live in. Pete:                You're god damned right, I do. Justin:              He's coming for you. Alex:                 The thing that I'm curious about with this book is, does it work, first of all, as its own comic book, as its own thing? What do you think about it as part of this Star Wars: The High Republic megastory? Pete:                I just have a question real quick. The lizard guy with one arm, that's not the guy from the bar who loses an arm? Justin:              No. Pete:                Okay. Just making sure. Justin:              That would be a crazy coincidence. Pete:                Well, that's the thing. It's a lizard guy with one arm. I mean, I don't know. Justin:              This takes place before that. Alex:                 No, this takes place, yeah, hundreds of years before, I believe. Pete:                Oh, okay. All right. Just checking. Just making sure. Justin:              Let me throw out, I love just seeing the timeline infographic they did for the cover. Alex:                 Oh, yeah. Justin:              That's just fun. It's just fun to see all those things and be like, “Oh, look at all the good stuff, and then look at all the bad stuff,” all on one page. Alex:                 I stopped reading there, so I think we can move on to the next title. No, I actually like this. I was a little trepidatious, frankly, going into here. I think, sometimes, it's a mixed bag with Star Wars books, particularly when you're not focusing on the main characters that have an established voice, but I think this new character that we're following, this young Jedi, this Padawan, who goes on a mission, gets elevated, spoiler, to the level of Jedi knight, gives you a really good setup for the stakes and everything that's going on. There's clearly some danger coming her way, but I enjoyed it. I thought it was a fun Star Wars book, independently of anything else that's going on. Pete:                Plus the double-sided sabers. That's always badass. Justin:              Yes, always badass. Never not successful. Justin:              I like this, too. My favorite parts were where I felt like there was some new ground broken. I feel like these new characters, it feels a little [Star Treky 00:04:20], a bit. Alex:                 Yes. Pete:                Whoa! Alex:                 I think very much so Justin:              Which I think makes a lot of sense in that the height of the Jedi would be a much more organized society, like Star Trek is. I thought that was cool. Justin:              The parts that I don't like are when they're just referencing shit that we've already seen, like, there's a lot of splash pages later on where the only species we see are species we've seen in Star Wars. I'm like, “I see why you did that, but throw some other people in there. I want to see some new stuff. I'd like to see the Force used in a different way,” was my takeaway here. Alex:                 What'd you think about hot Yoda? Because we kind of get a hot, younger Yoda here, like a little more ripped. Justin:              He's sort of a teen, like an angsty teen. This Yoda fucks, and I love that. Pete:                Yeah, but he's still- Alex:                 Yoda's the kind of guy, Yoda, you'd want to grab an IPA with, like plug his mind, find out what's going on there. What are his ideas? Pete:                Well, first off, he's still got- Justin:              Yoda, put away that joint! We can't get high now. We have a big council meeting. Pete:                Yoda's got a walking stick, so he's not that young. Alex:                 Smoke, you will. Justin:              Relax, we must. Alex:                 Meeting dot 420 minutes, it is. Pete:                Oh my god. Nice. Nice. I mean, I can't believe I'm not in on these bits, but really impressive, Alv. That's the smartest 420 bit I've ever heard. Justin:              Wow. Pete:                Yoda's still got a walking stick, guys, all right? He's not that- Justin:              But he's not using it. He's not leaning on it. It's sort of more of a fun stick. Pete:                No, he's not. Yeah. Justin:              That's [crosstalk 00:05:53] a bowl. Alex:                 It's a pimp stick. Justin:              It's a bowl. Alex:                 That's a pimp stick. Justin:              It's a very long bowl that he smokes out of. Pete:                It's a bowl. Yeah. Pete:                Yeah, it's cool. It's nice to see him. I also am more interested in the horned Chewbacca character next to him, like Justin said, that it's like, “Oh, this is interesting. This is new.” Yeah, I think, with all the Star Wars, I agree. It would be nice to be like, “Let's just go away from what we know for a little bit and really just kind of get lost in some new shit,” but I enjoyed this. I very much enjoyed this. The fun timeline with all the symbols in the beginning was great. Love the action. This is just some good stuff. I feel like it's a great setup for this world to get into. Alex:                 I'm not laughing at you. I'm actually laughing at us, the fact that we were like, “Love that timeline.” Justin:              We do. Alex:                 First few pages. You open it up. Timeline. Close it back up. Justin:              Yeah. All I want, just the context. I love context. Pete:                Exactly. Just give me… Where are we? Alex:                 Yeah, I also did love the timeline, though. Pete:                What are we doing? Justin:              Yeah, exactly. As I say, everybody loves a timeline. Pete:                [crosstalk 00:06:59] disagree with you. Wording wasn't like- Justin:              I think what Pete's saying is, he wants more of his comics, like the X-Men specifically, with pages in the middle, where they just have information. Pete:                Fuck you. Justin:              Especially symbols. Pete:                Fuck you. Alex:                 Don't worry. We'll get there. We'll talk about another Marvel book that has that, but first, from the beginning to an ending, let's talk about Dark Nights: Death Metal #7 from DC Comics, written by Scott Snyder, art by Greg Capullo with Yonic Bucat and Brian Hitch. This is wrapping up this mega, wild saga of the DC Universe versus the Being, the Batman, I don't know what you call him, who laughs. Here, as has been not wildly rumored but put out there, the entire DC Universe, the cosmology of it, gets completely redefined at the end, really characterizing this, in case you weren't clear, as the level of a crisis in terms of redefining the universe, which is, I think, a big deal. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 What'd you think about how this book wrapped up as a whole but also where it leaves the DC universe? Nobody say anything, please. Justin:              No, Pete, I thought that was yours. There was a perfect lane for you. Alex:                 Yeah, you sort of bent back as if you were winding up for like, “Here it comes.” Justin:              A real haul-off. I thought a haul-off was coming. Pete:                It got kind of crazy in a way that I was like, “What is happening?” but I'm the first guy to get lost in stuff. The Wonder Woman mirror thing was a little weird. It got kind of meta. It was cool, the way it kind of started with Skeleton Head Rock, and then we got to see kind of like a young Sergeant Rock that was cool. Pete:                I think this event overall was a lot of fun. I wasn't like, “Oh, shit! DC Universe is completely changed!” You did a thing about a hand that kind of shows up. It got weird in spots, but I thought this was fun. I like the Batman talking shit, calling somebody a punk. Yeah, this was a fun event. Justin:              What I love about this, and I thought this ended really strongly here. There were a lot of titles throughout Death Metal that felt like, if you were reading everything, it was like, “Wait. Where are we? We were off the main plot here.” This book really landed all of the planes together in a great way. It was funny, while at the same… Every character was really playing their character game, the thing that make their essence at a high potential the entire time. I love that the focus never shifted from Wonder Woman. I thought for sure it was going to shift back to Batman at some point in this, because it's such a Batman-focused event, and I love that they didn't. Batman and Superman had their fights, and they were sort of off, but it was all about Wonder Woman. I appreciated that so hard, because the themes of this crossover are her themes. It's like truth, ultimate justice, be direct and simple to your truth. That's where we end up. Wonder Woman wins by not knowing the consequences but still just doing what she thinks is the right thing. The fact that that paid off, I thought was great. Justin:              The philosophy at the end of this, where the DC Universe is landing, where it's like, “Let's bring these characters back to their cores but, at the same time, let everything go wild. Let's push this universe into any direction we want.” I just love that creative potential. The event, from the premise to the endpoint, that was the idea. I love that it's taking over the whole line now. Alex:                 Yeah. I completely agree with you. My only two tiny, little quibbles that I don't even completely agree with but I'll say out loud anyway, one of them is that it felt like this was leading up to a point where Wonder Woman was going to die, right? Justin:              Mm-hmm (affirmative). Alex:                 I appreciate the fact that they didn't kill her off, which is why this is a dumb thing to bring up, because that would have been very frustrating, but it felt like they did the thing that they did with Tony Stark over in Civil War 2, where it was like, “Well, story-wise, we have to kill off Iron Man. That is the only option here. Instead, let's come up with this weird middle point where he doesn't die so we can keep him around, so we don't just rely on, ‘Oh, and then we're going to bring him back anyway.'” They do the same thing with Wonder Woman here, where it's like, she should have died. That was the natural ending point of this thing. It would have been a huge bummer and frustrating, so instead, they did this weird middle point that's going to lead to something else. A lot of that depends on whatever story they're about to tell with Wonder Woman going forward, I guess. Alex:                 The other part is just the idea that everything matters, which is the same as, I think, the Hyper Time idea that they tried a little while ago, that is confusing to think about. I think the way to approach it and the way that I'm approaching is, don't worry about it too much. We've been reading comics for years. None of it makes any sense when you lay it out linearly, so just allow yourself to remember the stories you like and ignore the things that don't necessarily make it cohesive. That's fine. That's how I'm getting past it, but there's certainly times when I'm reading this book where I felt like, I don't know how everything can matter. That just doesn't jive up in any sort of way. What does Superman remember that happened right now? What was his life like in a linear fashion? You know? Justin:              I think that what I like about this is, that's the problem anyway. Continuity is a fluid thing. You believe enough parts of it so you're like, “This is the story,” but every specific detail isn't important, because they start to conflict. Then you're left with mush, so I like the idea that they were able to play a little bit faster and looser with it, where it's like, “Yes, he was married. He has this kid. The kid was aged up in the future. All those things are true. Then, now, we're shifting into Future State, where we're really exploring extrapolations on those themes. Then we'll see where the main stories land,” but the fact that there are lanes where new stories can be told are great. Justin:              I just want to say to your point, Pete, how did you feel…? I thought Alfred looked great in this comic. Pete:                Fuck you, you fucking fuck, bud. Justin:              I think he looks better. Pete:                This comic brings up an interesting point. I'm wondering if you guys have thought about this at all. If you see a different version of yourself, the mirror version of yourself, do you just assume that it's you, because it looks similar? Do you kind of quiz yourself to make sure it's you? How do you react to seeing kind of like a different version of you in the mirror there? Justin:              You can always tell with a kiss. Pete:                You're going to kiss yourself? Alex:                 I agree. I agree. Pete:                You're going to kiss yourself? Alex:                 Exactly what I was going to say. Pete:                Why would it…? How would…? Kissing yourself, you would know it's you? How would that…? That's… Justin:              It is intimacy. You just know. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              Sometimes, you just know with a kiss. Pete:                What? Oh my god. Alex:                 You can just feel what's in the other's heart. Pete:                Oh my god. All right. Alex:                 Let's move on to another crossover, [inaudible 00:14:11] Crossover #3 from Image Comics. [crosstalk 00:14:12] Shaw. Pete:                Oh, I see what you did there. I see what you did. Alex:                 In this issue, a lot of the story threads are starting to come together as our main characters are trying to bring a comic book character back to the dome that is over Denver. They run into some trouble along the way. We get a reveal at the end of a character they've been teasing that is a big deal at the end of this issue. I thought the reveal was great. I cackled out loud when I got to it. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I don't know if we want to spoil it necessarily, but what did you think about this issue and the story as a whole? Pete:                We shouldn't. I thought this was great. I really love the reveal. I thought it made a lot of sense. You kind of get a hint of stuff along the way, which is cool. Yeah, I'm really impressed with the writing and the creativity on this book. It's very interesting. It's really cool to see how things are going to unfold. I love the kind of action stuff that happens here. I think I'm completely on board. This has been a lot of fun. Justin:              Yeah, I like it, too. It's amazing how meta and comic book [insidery 00:15:27] this book is, but it doesn't bother me. It's just a book for a very specific audience, and that's because- Pete:                Your review is, this book doesn't bother you. That's what you're saying? Justin:              I guess what I'm saying is, my expectation was that, if someone was like, “Hey, we're going to do this book where we reference all this very insidery things and sort of call a character Dr. Strange in a very winky way and then back off of that idea, I would be like, “I don't know if I would like that,” but I thought it's really handled in a very smart way. The reveal on the last page, I thought, was very fun. A couple characters, the guy's dad is the male love interest, is drawn like John Goodman from The Righteous Gemstones, like so hard. Alex:                 Yes, 100%. Justin:              Which I thought was fun. Alex:                 Mm-hmm (affirmative). Justin:              It's good. It's really striding a line that I think is difficult to stride. Pete:                I just don't understand, if you have a comic book, why you wouldn't put John Goodman in it. You know what I mean? Alex:                 Exactly. I completely agree. I think he was in Dark Nights: Death Metal somewhere. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 I also like the fact that Donny works in, I think it's The Paybacks, which is a book that he wrote back in the day, that he very cheekily is like, “Well, nobody read it, but it was very good,” which I thought was a fun, little detail. Again, you get that character at the end that I think is definitely a swerve but is perfectly- Pete:                Did it bother you, though? Alex:                 Should we just talk about it? Pete:                No, no. I just want to know if it bothered you at all. Alex:                 What bothered me? Pete:                Some things didn't bother Justin. I just want to know if you wanted to say, anything didn't bother you. Alex:                 What? No, nothing bothered me. Justin:              Yeah, do you want to talk about the reveal at this point? Alex:                 Yeah, sure. Let's talk about the reveal. Spoiler if you haven't read it already, but Mad Man shows up at the end. We got this tease in the first issue. The character drew somebody who has been taking people, helping get in and out of the dome. It looks like it's a picture of Superman, so the implication is, “Holy shit, did they somehow get Superman?” No, they did not get Superman as of yet, but it turns out, it's actually Mad Man, Mike Allred's creation. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 That is just a perfect character for this sort of dimension-hopping weirdness sort of thing. That's the thing that I really liked about the reveal, is it's not the biggest swerve you can think of from Superman, but it's certainly something you're like, “I never would have predicted that character would be coming here, but it makes perfect sense for the story they're telling.” It definitely doubles down on, “Okay, we're going for this. Here's the crossover. This is not just original characters that we're doing here.” Justin:              That's what I think. It really served the crossover premise so strong. Pete:                Yeah. I think my big takeaway is, this comic doesn't bother me. Justin:              Good. Go ahead and throw that on the cover. Alex:                 Let's move on- Justin:              One quick thing in the credits. Alex:                 Yeah. Justin:              Mark Wade worked on this book, as a… It says, “Story edits.” Alex:                 Ooh. Justin:              Yeah, interesting that he's there, helping craft the final book here. Alex:                 That is very interesting. Alex:                 Let's move on to one that may or may not have bothered Pete. Eternals #1 from Marvel, written by Kieron Gillen, art by Esad Ribic. As Justin mentioned on the live show, we talked to Kieron about this on our podcast a couple of months back. He teased this. I still think, even based on his teases, I didn't know what we were getting into here. This is a wild ride. This seems very clearly influenced or perhaps just parallel to what Jonathan Hickman has been doing over on X-Men in this book. There's a lot of back matter and integrated matter. We've certainly talked about how that works sometimes with the X-Men books, sometimes does not. Here, in my mind, it definitely does. I thought this book was great. Again, great last page reveal. I loved it. Justin:              Yeah. Great. I mean, the art by Esad Ribic is just stunning. It really… I think it serves sort of the tone of this book, which feels very postmodern superhero book that's owning, like a lot of books we've talked about, about continuity. This owns all this continuity. It feels like these characters, these Eternals, have been alive forever. They have done everything. They're a little bit cold about everything. It's still the world. Iron Man shows up here. It feels like a comic book reader. I've seen hundreds and hundreds of stories. Where's the new ground? It feels like we're going to get there. It's sort of like the, “God is dead at the end of the world. Who did it?” I love that. Pete:                Yeah. I mean, I've never really been a big Eternals fan, and I'm wondering if this movie's going to be any good or not, but- Alex:                 Did you say, “Eternals,” or, “A-turtles?” Never been a big a-turtles fan, huh? Pete:                No, Eternals. Alex:                 The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. They love the pizza. Pete:                I don't know what's going on, but you know I'm a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fan, so I wouldn't say that. Alex:                 Oh, okay. Pete:                Yeah, I have a hard time where the characters are eternal. They live forever. They're these all-impotent beings that have lived life forever, whatever whatever. Nothing's new for them. They get bored and do stupid shit. Pete:                I was impressed with the head butt. I thought that was glorious, calling your shot, which was great, but other than that, the art's fantastic. There were some weird pages of symbols that I didn't check out on purpose, but we'll see how this wraps up. Alex:                 Interesting. Pete:                Last page, saw that coming a mile away. Alex:                 Wow. Justin:              What? No way. Pete:                Yeah, dude! Justin:              Wow. Okay. Pete:                Get to the planet, and it's basically his name. I mean, what the fuck? Justin:              Wow. Alex:                 All right. Justin:              Okay. Alex:                 One of the things, just to- Justin:              Why did you call the ending of the second issue, then? Pete:                What's that? Alex:                 Yeah, Pete. If you know it so well, what's happening at the end of the second issue. Pete:                He gets the fucking gauntlet. I don't know. I don't fucking know what that's going to happen in the next one. Justin:              All right. The thing with Pete is, it probably will happen. Pete:                I mean, they dropped him. [crosstalk 00:21:36]. Alex:                 One thing that I wanted to respond to, that I think Kieron Gillen does so well here, is deal with the idea that these are Eternals. These are immortals. They think they have this purpose, and they found out their purpose is not necessarily wrong but just doesn't mean anything, so what do they do next if they're never going to die but their lives don't mean anything? What does that mean for the lives they continue living? To me, he almost treats it like office worker drones, right? Like you're going into work every single day. You're doing the same thing. What is the end result? For them, there is no end result. There's nothing, so what is their purpose? I think that's the setup here. We're going to find out, do they have a purpose? Who has a purpose? What do their lives mean going forward? I think that's a very exciting and interesting and very esoteric, mind you, thing to talk about. Alex:                 The other thing that I really loved about this book was the description of Deviants. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 That really popped for me, because there's this setup at the beginning of, the Celestials came down. They created 100 Eternals. They created 100 Deviants. They left. Then there's a little shruggie emoji beneath that. That's the perfect setup for the book. What he talks about with the Deviants in there, there's this comparison of like, yeah, not all Deviants are bad. Some of them just go bad, but they look at human beings as like, “Well, some of you are serial killers.” You know? I thought that was just such a good sequence of dialogue, aligning us with Deviants when the rest of the book is aligning us with Eternals. Just great writing, great art across the board. I really like this book quite a bit. Justin:              Now, one follow-up I know we talked about. Do you think, if the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles lives under, in the sewers of other cities, they would like different stuff? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah, sure. Justin:              Like if they lived in the sewers of Seattle, would they just be like coffee drinkers? Alex:                 Yeah. They live under St. Petersburg, and they're like, “I love being a turtle, and I love borscht.” Justin:              Yeah. “Borscht time!” Alex:                 If they lived in Rochester, they would love garbage plates. Pete:                There you go. Justin:              Wow. If they lived under Philadelphia, they'd be sucking on a cheese stick. Pete:                Ah man. Alex:                 Wrong podcast. Alex:                 Let's get into our Future State block here with a ton of books that were released off of the end of Dark Nights Battle from DC this week. Pete:                Here we go! Alex:                 They all take place in an indeterminate future of the DC Universe. However, as we found out when we were talking to Phillip Kennedy Johnson on our live show, they're all interconnected in some way, and they all do matter in some way as well. They're going to take elements and work them back, so this isn't just Elseworlds. This isn't just like what if or anything like that. It's something else. We don't know fully yet, but I figured the best way of approaching this, I'm just going to read through the titles. We don't need to talk about each of them individually, but I'm curious to hear you guys shout out. Then I'll read off the creative teams as well. Alex:                 We've got Next Batman, Superman of Metropolis, Swamp Thing, The Flash, Wonder Woman, and Harley Quinn. Justin, you were super into the Swamp Thing one, which was written by Ram V, art by Mike Perkins. You want to talk about that? Justin:              Yeah. This one is sort of post-apocalyptic Earth. Swamp things are the only things alive, at least at the beginning of the issue. Pete:                I like what you did there. I like what you did there. That was nice. Justin:              Yeah. It's just really nice. It's an issue about, oddly, like being a parent here. Swamp Thing intermittently walks us through the construction of a body of his children, basically, as he's going. Then bad things start to happen. This is the kind of story that I hope DC does more of with Future State and beyond, where it does feel like an Elseworlds that matters. Alex:                 Pete? Pete:                The art's glorious. I thought it was okay. Justin:              Great. You weren't bothered by it? Pete:                Yeah, it didn't bother me. I think there were other ones in the stack that I really like more, but you know. I'm not a parent, so I didn't really- Alex:                 I will say, reading these in the order of Next Batman, Superman of Metropolis, Swamp Thing; Next Batman brings up this new villain for Gotham city. Superman of Metropolis brings up a new villain for Metropolis, so I started to feel like, “Okay, we're getting kind of this interconnected thing.” Swamp Thing, I could not figure out how that gelled with that, so it took me a little while to get into it because of that, but I agree with you, Justin. I thought this was really nice storytelling and very interesting and weird. It reminded me a little bit of a Jeff Lemire take on Swamp Thing, almost like Sweet Tooth in a certain way. Justin:              For sure, yeah. Alex:                 I like this one quite a bit. Justin:              Swamp Tooth. Alex:                 Swamp Tooth. If you weren't into this one, what was your jam? What did you like of the Future State books? Pete:                I thought The Dreaming was cool. Batman was great. Alex:                 We're not talking about The Dreaming. Let's talk about Next Batman, though, written by John Ridley. Pete:                The backups were great as well. Alex:                 Hold on. Let me just say the writing staff on Next Batman. Pete:                Okay. Alex:                 You got John Ridley, Brandon Thomas, Paul Jenkins, art by Nick Derington, Sumit Kumar, and Jack Herbert. This is the big deal. This is like their shout across the bow, because this is a black Batman. This is Luke Fox, I think? Lucius Fox's son who was taking over, I think. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Am I wrong about that? Justin:              I think you're wrong about that, because Luke Fox- Alex:                 Maybe it's his brother? Justin:              Yeah, Luke Fox was the other Batman family character. Alex:                 Okay. All right. I think it's part of the Fox family. Justin:              Definitely that, yes. Pete:                Yeah. Agreed. Alex:                 It's probably like the Simpsons. Justin:              Oh, no, you're right. It is Luke. It's Luke. It's Luke. It's Luke. Alex:                 It's Luke Fox. Okay. This is a big deal. We get a couple of backups to show us other things that are going on in the world of Gotham City as it's under this tyrannical rule, this fascist rule. Pete, what did you like about this book? Pete:                Well, first off, the villain that kind of gets attacked has some sweet knives. You don't see the combination of like brass knuckle and knife very much anymore, so that was great, to see that again. Some good action sequences. Then also liked the kind of like bubble that we got inside Batman's head a little bit, and Justin really likes that. Then we kind of got a little of the Fox residence. Then there's this kind of interesting thing about masks and putting on masks in Gotham, which is cool. Yeah, there was some really cool ideas going around here, so it got me very excited to see where this is going to go. I really like the design of Batman. The action of Batman in this comic was really great. This had a real cool feel to it, and I liked it very much. Alex:                 Yeah, I thought Nick Derington's art in particular was very good here. It feels like a classic Batman tale, which is probably transgressive in and of itself, that it's not a Batman who is black first and foremost, but it is a Batman first and foremost. Then it has these other layers to it. I think it was very purposeful on John Ridley's part and works really well. Alex:                 The one that jumped out to me, Future State: Wonder Woman #1. Pete:                Yes. Alex:                 This was written and art by Joëlle Jones, colors by Jordie Bellaire. Pete:                Wait. Alex:                 Yes? Pete:                Before we move on, we should talk a little bit about the backups in the Batman issue. Alex:                 Sure. Go ahead. Pete:                Okay. Katana was great. Alex:                 Yeah. Pete:                The design was really awesome. Sometimes, Katana is done not too well. This was really great. I really appreciated all that we got from this character. I'm very excited to get more. I hope these cool backups continue. Then we kind of got these team-up stuff as well. We got the Outsiders stuff in there. That was done well. I'm very excited to see, in this future state, how the Batman team is going to work, so I feel like they did a great job of getting us excited in this Next Batman Future State issue for the, not only Arkham Knights but the Outsiders as well. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. I hope this is the format of these books, where we get to see little snippets of the other characters. Great take on Outsiders and just really great across the board. Pete:                Yes. Sorry, Alex. I didn't mean to cut you off there. Alex:                 No, that's fine. Back to Wonder Woman. This Joëlle Jones art alone, to heat it up a little bit, on this book is so phenomenal. Justin:              Yes. Yes. [crosstalk 00:30:42] alone! Alex:                 This is a book that… I definitely went into it with preconceptions, only because it isn't out yet. It's already in develop by the CW as a TV show, so I was like, “All right. How is this going to work? What is this TV show about?” That was the critical lens I was looking through it. I still have no idea, having read the book, but once I was able to get past that, this is the boldest reinvention of the Wonder Woman mythology since Cliff Chiang and Brian Azzarello, and I love it. Love it. So good. It's a completely a different character. It feels consistent with the name Wonder Woman as she goes down to the underworld on a mission. We get to see different aspects of it. It's funny. It's weird at points. There's interesting mythology that's mixing different mythologies than just the Olympic mythology that we're used to, with Diana. This is so good. I think it is, actually, but this is one that I hope is ongoing, beyond the two to three issues that they're going to be doing over the course of these months. Justin:              Yeah, I mean, I agree. Pete:                Yeah, this… Oh, go ahead. Justin:              It's a young, brash Wonder Woman. Just comparing this Wonder Woman to the Wonder Woman from Wonder Woman 1984 is just like… This is so much more exciting. This is just all in one issue. Pete:                Yeah. This is just a great version of Wonder Woman, who is very action-forward, which is great. The kind of villains and the cool characters along the way doesn't feel like Wonder Woman, but it works in such a nice way that it makes it feel fresh. Yeah, I was like, “Okay, what's this going to be?” and then didn't want to leave this world. I loved the last splash page at the end. This is very exciting stuff. Alex:                 Let's touch on some of the other ones real quick, sort of do little capsule reviews of them. We got Future State: Superman of Metropolis #1 from DC Comics, written by Sean Lewis, Brandon Easton, art by John Timms, Valentine De Landro, Cully Hamner, Michael Avon Oeming. One thing that I really liked about this one is how weird it was. Justin:              It was very weird. Pete:                It was super weird. Alex:                 Yeah, this is weird, sci-fi Superman tales, something that I don't think we've seen in a very long time, and I appreciated that. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. It was almost a little too… I wanted more of like, “Oh, I see what this story is, and I see where it's going.” It was very grim also. It felt like I was… I'm not confident things are going to work out, which is an odd tone for a Superman book. It's funny. In the Batman book, I thought the first story was the strongest, and in order, that's how I liked them. In this, I feel like it was the reversed order. Pete:                Yes. Justin:              I liked the Guardian story at the end the best. Pete:                Yes! Justin:              Then, second, the Mr. Miracle, and third, the Superman [crosstalk 00:33:51]. Pete:                Exactly, man! The Guardian was badass! It was really great! I was surprised how much I loved that. Yeah, Superman was all right, but what are we doing with Superman? You know what I mean? Are we changing things up, or is this just like anime Superman? What are we doing? Alex:                 I don't know. I can't get too mad at a ball of teeth. That's a pretty weird, cool villain. Alex:                 Let's talk about Future State: The Flash #1, written by Brandon Vietti, art by Dale Eaglesham. Love Dale Eaglesham's art, one of my favorite artists ever, so great to see him draw the Flash family. Justin:              Yeah. Dark take. Alex, are you saying you don't love this? Alex:                 I didn't love this. Justin:              Because it's so dark. Pete:                Whoo! Justin:              Flash, mostly a bright- Alex:                 No, I don't know. There was something a little stilted about the language, to be honest. Just the writing, the dialogue was a little weird to me. It didn't feel like as bold of a swing as some of the other books that we read in some of the Future State stuff. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 It felt like, if the assignment was what happens in 40, 50 years down the road in the DC Universe, this was what happens two, three storylines down the road. Justin:              Interesting. Pete:                [inaudible 00:35:09]. Alex:                 You know what I mean? Justin:              Mmm. Alex:                 I wanted something bigger and weirder with the Flash, and that's not what we got here. Pete:                I read this- Justin:              Interesting, because- Pete:                Oh, go ahead. Justin:              Go ahead. Pete:                I was just going to say real quick, I read this one. I was like, “Well, I hope that Alvin liked this.” Justin:              I read it, and I was like, “Oh, I think Alex won't like this,” because I do think it's a bold swing, because it's a very not… The Flash is so bright and shiny and, “I'll fix this by running.” This is the opposite of that. Pete:                That's his move. Justin:              I think you also don't like it, Alex, because Wally's the bad guy. Alex:                 It makes no sense. Pete:                Shots fired! Alex:                 He's the good guy. Come on! Pete:                Shots fired. Justin:              He's the bad guy in this one, Alex. I want to pick up the next one, because I really was surprised by the tone and the vibe of this. I like the way that the heroes change. Heroes die, and the heroes change their tactic in the middle of this book. I thought that was interesting. Alex:                 Last- Pete:                I think one of the things I realized reading this is like, I've tried doing the Flash philosophy, just run harder, and it doesn't always solve your problems. Alex:                 Oh, go ahead. Oh, really? Pete:                Yeah. I think this book kind of falls short. Justin:              Pete, maybe you need to run a little harder. Pete:                I've tried. I've tried that. Alex:                 Okay, but run even harder. Pete:                Yeah, I- Alex:                 Last, we're going to talk about Future State: Harley Quinn #1, written by Stephanie Phillips, art by Simone Di Meo. This one, to me, almost had the clearest setup of a book. The rest of them felt like they were cutting in in the middle, but here we get, Harley is captured. Scarecrow is basically working as her Charlie-style, from Charlie's Angles, style handler, sending her off on missions to take down other villains in Gotham City. I thought this was a fun setup. I liked it. In particular, I thought Simone Di Meo's art was very good on the book. Justin:              Yeah, I agree. I like the setup here. It is the most… I see what this book is, and we're going to see more of this style story. Pete:                Yeah, that's what I liked about it, was like, “Okay, this is what it's going to be.” It gets you excited for what's going to happen next, so I feel like it does a good job of, “All right. Here's our take on Harley Quinn. This is her new look.” Cool, great. Awesome. I don't hate this at all, but I felt like I wanted a little bit more, but I feel like I'm excited to see where this could go, because it has a lot of possibilities. Alex:                 Let's move on to talk about some non-Future-State books, starting with The Amazing Spider-Man #56 from Marvel, written by Nick Spencer, art by Mark Bagley. Somehow, we're done with the Last Remains storyline and have moved on. We see here how the Kingpin and Norman Osbourne captured Harry Osbourne, AKA Kindred, and what starts to happen next. Alex:                 I know we talked about this with the last issue. Mark Bagley's are always good. He's always a good Spider-Man writer. I am starting to lose my patience with this storyline, to be perfectly honest with you. Justin:              Interesting. Alex:                 I always hesitate to say things like this, but we need to get to it. What is Kindred's deal? He can't stand in the corner and be like, “You know what you did,” for another 15 issues, because I am going to go insane. Justin:              It's funny you say that, because I think the story is sort of moving on. There's a ton of setup in this book for what the next things that are going to be happening. I will say, I liked the little moment where Kindred has little tears running down his weird eyes, his empty, pumpkin head eyes, but I think I've shifted… The coin, I think, is just part of this. We're getting some story. I think what the issue is for me now is, Spider-Man is not the main character in this book, and we're not in Spider-Man's head. Spider-Man is a side character. We're just observing him. It's about the Osbournes, Kingpin. We're in all these other heads. We need Spider-Man to be the center here. The Sin Eater story was about Spider-Man and Sin Eater and what was happening there, and I feel like we've been on Kindred's side of it, and I hope we're going to flip back as we go forward. Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Also, sorry Pete. The one thing I was going to say about the Sin Eater thing is, so much of this issue is consumed with talking about how cool the Sin Eater storyline and how interesting it was and the fallout of that, to the point where I'm like, that was more interesting. I like that. That was fascinating, and that really brought Spider-man to the brink, in the way that I just don't understand what Kindred means to him, even though he's a character that we've known for decades at this point. Justin:              Yeah. Pete:                I kind of, as Alvin said, might be a little bit nicer. When you've got a character talking about cool shit that happened before, that's not a good comic book. You're not in the moment in a way that's exciting. You're like, “Man, you know what was really cool? Couple issues ago. That's when shit was exciting. I don't know what's happening here, but I'm going to monologue as I walk circles around this cubed villain. Cool.” Yeah, I didn't like this at all. I want Nick Spencer to be off this book so I can go back to enjoying fucking Spider-Man. Justin:              Not necessary. Alex:                 No, you don't want to take somebody off of a job. That's mean, Pete. Alex:                 Let's move on, though, talk about The Last Witch #1 from BOOM! Box, written by Connor McKeery, illustrated by Vivi Glass. In this book, we meet a young girl who is very interested in sneaking up on, maybe, a witch's castle on her birthday. She is stymied because of a couple of different things. Alex:                 Really like the art here. There's some good all-ages stuff. I wanted a little more in the plot, and we finally get there by the end, so I am excited enough to read issue two. Justin:              Yeah, I thought this was a sock-fixing book for a good portion of it. Pete:                Oh man. Justin:              Like, “Yeah, fix these socks.” Pete:                You can't have your fun until you've fixed some socks, Justin. Everybody knows that. Justin:              Darn those socks. Darn, darn those socks. Justin:              I will say, I liked this. I think the dread that is set up throughout the story is good. It really pays off at the back end. It feels very Blair Witch, if I may reference an old movie. Alex:                 No. Justin:              Okay. Alex:                 The movie we talk about on this podcast is Blair Witch: Book of Shadows. Justin:              Retracted. Pete:                Wow. Justin:              Yeah. That's the bummer. We refuse to mention any movie but the current sequel that's out there. It really makes a lot of our movie conversations horrible. Alex:                 What's more current than Book of Shadows? Justin:              Yeah. Justin:              I thought this was good. Definitely going to pick up the next issue. Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. Good stuff. Pete:                I agree that I thought this was a lot of fun. The art's fantastic. You got a badass grandma who's smoking a cigar. That's good times. Justin:              Is there anything you like more, Pete, than grandmas? Pete:                Nope. Justin:              All you talk about is grandmas on this podcast. Pete:                Plus you got a little kid, uses gap tooth well. I'm excited to see where this goes. There was a lot of kind of walking in place, if you will, a little bit, but I'm glad we got to see the tower and what's going to… I'm excited to see what happens after that. Alex:                 Yeah. I agree with you. There were a lot of points where they weren't focusing on the grandma, but then, there were a couple of pages where they focused on the grandma. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Yes. That's what Pete's interest… Really, Pete? Pete:                Yeah. Alex:                 Let's move on and talk about one more DC book here, Generations Shattered #1 from DC Comics, written by Dan Jurgens, Andy Schmidt, and Robert Venditti, art by… Are you ready? Ivan Reis, Joe Prado, Scott Hanna, Fernando Pasarin, Oclair Albert, Aaron Lopresti, Matt Ryan, Emanuela Lupacchino, Wade van Grawbadger, Bernard Chang… I like that you're both taking drinks of your beer. Yanick Paquette, Kevin Nowlan, Dan Jurgens, Klaus Janson, Paul Pelletier, Sandra Hope, John Romita Jr., Danny Miki, Doug Braithwaite, Rags Morales, and Mike Perkins. Alex:                 This is a book that I included here on the stack, because it certainly seems like, okay, you go Dark Nights: Death Metal. You go Generations Shattered. Then we're into Future State. It even says on the cover, “Spinning out of the pages of Dark Nights: Death Metal.” It doesn't have anything to do with that. Justin:              No. This book is a bit of a fever dream. Alex:                 Oh, yes. I didn't mind it once I got past realizing, “Wait, this has nothing to do with anything else going on in the DC Universe,” because there's just a fun thing about Kamandi building a team to take down another time-threatening villain. There's some good, fun art in it. There's a weird team that he puts together, has Dan Jurgens leading into his Booster Gold stuff, which… Justin:              Loves Booster Gold. Alex:                 That's cool. Loves Booster Gold. Justin:              I know people love Kamandi. I've always just been like, his only thing is he's the last boy. It's sort of like, “Well, he's just the last one.” Alex:                 No, man, he has long, blonde hair. Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 He wears cut off jean shorts and no shirt. Justin:              I feel like he's cold. He's traveling through time with no shirt on. It's got to be cold. Alex:                 Yeah. Put on a shirt. Justin:              Yeah. Put on a shirt, Kamandi. Justin:              I do like Wave Rider. I like a lot of these weird characters that they pulled together for this. There's a lot of fun, weird… Like fighting Hector Hammond's big head in this middle bit, the young Booster Gold versus old Booster Gold. Alex:                 I think the problem is the timing of how this comes out more than anything. This feels like there's this weird, other event that's been going on during the big event, that is trying to do a lot of the same things that Dark Nights: Death Metal is doing but in a more conventional way. It's fun to read but confusing to read this week. Justin:              I think that's fair. Pete:                I really love the Remuter Jr. bit. That was enjoyable, but the other shit was really kind of fucked up. Justin:              The other shit was fucked up. The woman's doll in the fridge, I was like, “Is that…? Are you recalling out fridging here?” Pete:                Ooh. Alex:                 Oh, I don't even remember that. I think I missed that entirely. Pete:                Oh, yeah. Batman, yeah. Yeah, it was kind of crazy. Justin:              It was a weird thing. Pete:                Yeah. Justin:              Then the very end, I liked the last couple pages, but I don't know what it means. Alex:                 The black and white? Justin:              Yeah. Alex:                 Yeah. Who even knows? No idea. Alex:                 Next up, Backtrack #10 from Oni Press, written by Brian Joines and illustrated by Jake Elphick. We've been following this title all along. This is the last issue, I believe, of this death race through time- Justin:              Yes, for now. Alex:                 For now, death race through time book. It ends on a little bit of a question mark note, but how'd you feel about how it wrapped up? Pete:                I really liked the emotional choices that were made in this. It's really interesting how great the relationships are. There's this insane race going on, but then as the story goes on, we get little pieces of people's lives in such an interesting way. I thought this was a great somebody sacrificing their wish for somebody else, a classic thing but done really well, kind of in the backdrop of Fast and the Furious. I think this is a great book from start to finish. I was really impressed with this insanity, but it was done in a way where you could follow. Justin:              Fun art. Cars. If there was one of us on this podcast that loves cars, you know it's JT Sizzle who is really always checking what's under the hood and kicking the tires. Alex:                 What?! Yeah, you're a real gearhead, man. Justin:              That's exactly right. This guy gets cars. That's why I mentioned a Ford truck earlier tonight on another podcast. Alex:                 Cool. Justin:              I agree. This is a fun… I did like the emotional- Alex:                 Do you just want to flex about how you do other podcasts, too? Justin:              With you. It's not a… It's with you. It's not a flex to say that. Justin:              I like the emotional turnaround we got at the end of this. It's fun. Alex:                 Yeah, good stuff. This is one that I think is going to read really well in trade in particular. Justin:              Yes. Alex:                 Moving on, Return of the Valkyries #1 from Marvel, written by Jason Aaron and Torunn Gronbekk, art by Nina Vekueva. As the title implies, this is Jane Foster, slowly, potentially building the Valkyries back up. In this case, she is ferrying the sentry to the Underworld after the events of King in Black and runs into some trouble. We start to bring in a character that is not exactly but very similar to Tess Thompson in the MCU and hook back up with her. As usual, they just do a great job of the Jane Foster book. This is more of the same. If you like that, you're going to like this. Justin:              Agree. I love the sentry stuff. There's so much nice, down-to-earth stuff where his life flashes before his eyes with the good parts. He remembers a good joke with his wife. Really good stuff. Pete:                Yeah, there's nothing like a good bit. You know? I think this is a lot of fun. A lot of cool stuff going on. Art's fantastic. Some good storytelling. Yeah, I think this is solid. Justin:              I really hope, when my life flashes before my eyes, it goes back to this moment, when I said that Yoda fucks. Alex:                 Getting It Together #4 from Image Comics, cowritten by Sina Grace and Omar Spahi, art by Jenny D. Fine and Sina Grace. This is also the last issue of this, at least for now. This issue, we get to watch one of our main characters travel out to LA, find her solo music career. Alex:                 I got to say, I like this last issue in the story. They told quite a bit, but I was bummed that it only included one of the main characters for the most part. Pete:                Agreed. Alex:                 Bless you, Pete. Pete:                Agreed. Yes, was very cool that we got this, but you did miss the rest of the band. You know? You did want to know what was going on with them. I think this is a great book, a cool take on what it's like to be in a band, where all these people with different ideas and what they want to do and how you manage that, but I think the art and the storytelling in this is just really nice. Justin:              I hear your criticism, Alex, but what I liked about this book in general is that it's about a time in your life ending or a time in these characters' lives ending. When that happens, especially when it's a group, when you're young and you have a group of friends, and everyone just sort of splits off and goes in their own separate way, I felt like it was spot-on to only follow one character, because that's what happens. Everyone falls away, and you then go on with your life. For this book, we ended up just following her as she went to LA and sort of sorted out her solo music career. I appreciate it, but I do agree. I wish there was more. It felt like it ended right when I wanted to just hear her just go. I hope they do more of this, because I really love the tone and the setting of this book and the humor, the way the characters are built. It's really good. Alex:                 I agree. Next up, The Vain #4 from Oni Press, written by Elliot Rahal, illustrated by Emily Pearson. In this issue, we're in the '60s with our vampire criminals. They are building up a cult. Some of them are on board with it. Some of them are not. Alex:                 It is wild to me how much this book jumps forward every single issue, time-wise. Justin:              Yeah. Yeah, it jumps around in a wild fashion. It's funny. I feel like we compared it to American Vampire a lot. It's just such a different-type book. The pacing's wildly different. I still like it. I like the way vampires are rising, then they're falling, then they're all killed. The story is just innovative takes on what being a vampire is. Alex:                 Yeah. Pete, what do you think about this one? Pete:                I'm not sure. It's okay. Alex:                 Thanks, Pete. Pete:                I liked other issues more than this one. I don't know what to tell you, man. Alex:                 Great. Thanks for coming on the podcast. Alex:                 Venom #32 from Marvel, written by Donny Cates, art by Iban Cuello. Here, we get to see what happens after Eddie Brock hits a car and dies. Turns out, Eddie Brock, his body is dead, mind not quite dead because he's part of the hive mind that has been created by Knull, the god of the Symbiotes, starts to fight back here in a certain way. What do you think about this? Pete:                I love the message here. When you're falling to your death, you

More from NYCC with Bruce Greenwood, Vincent Martella, Zehra Fazal and writer director Brandon Vietti

Interviews from NYCC with Bruce Greenwood, Vincent Martella, Zehra Fazal and writer director Brandon Vietti

More from NYCC with Bruce Greenwood, Vincent Martella, Zehra Fazal and writer director Brandon Vietti

Interviews from NYCC with Bruce Greenwood, Vincent Martella, Zehra Fazal and writer director Brandon Vietti

Welcome back to GYCO Tower for episode #43 of the podcast! In this week's news we are talking about the shifting release dates at Warner Bros. Pictures including the postponement of Matt Reeve's The Batman until March 2022. We're also catching up with a slew of news from the Star Trek Universe including the return of Kate Mulgrew and Alex Kurtzman's master plan for Trek on TV through 2027. Then we dive deep in to the murky world of Warner Bros. Animation's Batman: Death in the Family interactive movie. Neil and Martin review the film before interview two of the creatives behind it. Firstly Martin speaks with voice actor Vincent Martella about his return as Jason Todd. Then Neil sits down with writer-director Brandon Vietti to talk about crafting the film's interactive narrative. ----------------------------------- 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:50 Star Trek news roundup 00:13:20 DC Films release shakeup 00:16:50 Soul goes to Disney+ 00:20:08 Batman: Death in the Family review 00:37:35 Vincent Martella interview 00:43:49 Brandon Vietti interview 00:54:15 Outro ----------------------------------- Theme - "Cataclysmic Molten Core" by Jingle Punks

This DC Showcase Animated Short also serves as a follow-up to the film Batman: Under the Red Hood with the cast from the latter film reprising their roles. Directed by Brandon Vietti, Batman: Death in the Family is the animated interactive short film based on the storyline of the same name. Trained as Batman’s protégé, Jason Todd brings a relentless sense of justice as Robin, who sets his sights on bringing down the Joker. Joker captures Robin and leaves him to die in a warehouse that is rigged to explode. But can Batman save Robin from a fate worse than death? Tragedy, revenge, and redemption await in this interactive animated film. Who will live? Who will die? Who will watch over Gotham?

Batman: Death in the Family will be released on Bluray Tuesday October 13th in an exciting 'choose your own adventure' format where viewers get to decide the outcome of the adventure as they go along. FilmSpeak and Vocal Qs got an exciting opportunity to sit down with other select journalists to partake in a roundtable discussion at New York Comicon recently, with voice actors Bruce Greenwood (Batman/Bruce Wayne), Vincent Martella (Redhood/Jason Todd), Zehra Fazal (Talia) as well as Brandon Vietti, the writer, director and producer of the film. The cast also includes Gary Cole as Harvey Dent/Two Face and the incomparable John DiMaggio as the Joker. Batman: Death in the Family follows the iconic Batman crossover event written in the late 80s, following the fate of Jason Todd, the second young soldier to take up the mantle of Batman's sidekick, Robin. Trained as Batman's protégé, Jason Todd brings a relentless sense of justice as Robin, who sets his sights on bringing down the Joker. But can Batman save Robin from a fate worse than death? Tragedy, revenge and redemption await in this groundbreaking DC film! Who will live? Who will die? Who will watch over Gotham? The blu ray also includes 4 additional DC Showcase Shorts: Adam Strange, Sgt. Rock, The Phantom Stranger, and Death. We at Vocal Qs wanted to bring you this exciting BONUS episode where the voice actors share their experiences. It is important to note however, that this was a Zoom call with over 30 participants (mostly press) and where we did not have control over the audio settings, or possible interruptions throughout the interview. While there may be some audio issues at times, we did want to present the great question and answer session relatively uncut.

On a very special edition of the DC Comics News Podcast, Brad Filicky, Kendra Hale, and Sharna Jahangir sit down with some of the cast and crew of the upcoming interactive animated short film BATMAN: DEATH IN THE FAMILY, including Brandon Vietti (Writer/Director), Zehra Fazal (Talia al Ghul), Vincent Martella (Jason Todd), and John DiMaggio (The Joker), to talk about their experiences on this movie and what the fans should expect. Enjoy! Brad Filicky: www.twitter.com/FilickyB1 Kendra Hale: www.twitter.com/DevourAllWords Sharna Jahangir: www.twitter.com/KatsuyaCrimson Brandon Vietti: www.twitter.com/BrandonVietti Zehra Fazal: www.twitter.com/ZehraFazal Vincent Martella: www.twitter.com/VinMan17 John DiMaggio: www.twitter.com/TheJohnDiMaggio Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or Google Play, and if you like what you hear, please give us a 5-star rating and review! Follow us on social media: Facebook: www.facebook.com/DCComicsNews Twitter: www.twitter.com/DCComicsNews Instagram: www.instagram.com/DCComicsNews Tumblr: www.tumblr.com/DCComicsNews

Phillip and Guy reunite to celebrate one of the most beloved animated films created: Batman Under The Red Hood for it's ten year anniversary. Debuting July 28th, 2010. A terrific voice cast led by Bruce Greenwood, Jensen Ackles, John DiMaggio, along with Neil Patrick Harris, Wade Williams and Jason Issacs. Directed by Brandon Vietti along with the screenplay from acclaimed writer Judd Winnick as well as the fantastic score from Christopher Drake, this animated adaption truly stands the tests of time as one of the best Batman stories ever told.

Welcome listener! This week The Blerds discuss Batman: Under The Red Hood written by Judd Winnick and directed by Brandon Vietti. Feel free to contact us at: Twitter: @theblerdsword Instagram: theblerdsword Facebook: The Blerds email: theblerdsword@gmail.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Issue 70: In this issue, Rhayne talks about Kaldur'ahm aka Jackson Hyde; The queer Atlantean who got his start on the animated screen before being translated to the comics, Aqualad CBN Season 6 | Issue 70 | Kaldur'ahm - Jackson Hyde: Aqualad *Use the hashtag #CBNpod when listening to this episode Kaldur'ahm was created by Brandon Vietti, Greg Weisman and Phil Bourassa for the television series Young Justice, and voiced by Khary Payton. Kaldur'ahm was subsequently adapted for the DC mainstream continuity by Geoff Johns and Ivan Reis, debuting under the name Jackson Hyde in Brightest Day # 4 (August 2010).

Welcome to DC All Stars the podcast that covers the world of DC comics from the comics to animation to film, In this episode Darrell Taylor, Gil Colon and Julian Lytle cover Young Justice: Outsiders the third season of the American animated superhero series Young Justice developed by Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman. which is currently available on the DC Universe app. You can follow us on Twitter @stars_podcast This podcast is part of the TaylorNetwork which is a home to many great podcasts all available on taylornetwork feed on Spotify, Itunes, stitcher radio and also google play

Welcome to DC All Stars the podcast that covers the world of DC comics from the comics to animation to film, In this episode Darrell Taylor, Gil Colon and Julian Lytle cover Young Justice: Outsiders the third season of the American animated superhero series Young Justice developed by Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman. which is currently available on the DC Universe app. You can follow us on Twitter @stars_podcast This podcast is part of the TaylorNetwork which is a home to many great podcasts all available on taylornetwork feed on Spotify, Itunes, stitcher radio and also google play

Today we are out of the Watchtower, and have Zeta’d to Burbank, California to sit down with Phil Bourassa, art director for YJ as well as animated movies like Planet Hulk and Justice League: Crisis in Two Earths; Brandon Vietti, YJ producer and showrunner as well as director of animated movies and series like Under the Red Hood, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and the Legion of Superheroes; and Greg Weisman, producer and co-creator of Spectacular Spider-Man, Gargoyles, and of course, Young Justice. Enjoy Part 2 of our discussion! Thanks to everyone for sharing time with us. You can find us on Twitter @theYJfiles, on Facebook at @crashingthemode, on theyjfiles.tumblr.com, on our website crashingthemode.com, our email address whelmedpodcast@gmail.com, and now on YouTube, Stitcher, and iHeartRadio. If you enjoy our show, please consider sharing it with a friend. You can also support the show by giving us a 5-Star review on Apple Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice. The ratings help others find the show. If you do leave us a review, please let us know! Especially if you’re outside the US, we have to look a little harder to find those. And even though Season 3 is on its way, please continue to spread the word to friends and family about the series, #BuyYJcomicsoncomixology, and get yourself up to speed for the S3 premiere. And as always. Stay whelmed everyone.

Today we are out of the Watchtower, and have Zeta’d to Burbank, California to sit down with Phil Bourassa, art director for YJ as well as animated movies like Planet Hulk and Justice League: Crisis in Two Earths; Brandon Vietti, YJ producer and showrunner as well as director of animated movies and series like Under the Red Hood, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, and the Legion of Superheroes; and Greg Weisman, producer and co-creator of Spectacular Spider-Man, Gargoyles, and of course, Young Justice. Enjoy Part 1 of our discussion! Thanks to everyone for sharing time with us. You can find us on Twitter @theYJfiles, on Facebook at @crashingthemode, on theyjfiles.tumblr.com, on our website crashingthemode.com, our email address whelmedpodcast@gmail.com, and now on YouTube, Stitcher, and iHeartRadio. If you enjoy our show, please consider sharing it with a friend. You can also support the show by giving us a 5-Star review on Apple Podcasts or your podcatcher of choice. The ratings help others find the show. If you do leave us a review, please let us know! Especially if you’re outside the US, we have to look a little harder to find those. And even though Season 3 is on its way, please continue to spread the word to friends and family about the series, #BuyYJcomicsoncomixology, and get yourself up to speed for the S3 premiere. And as always. Stay whelmed everyone.

Jimmy attended the press room for Young Justice: Outsiders and chatted with producer Brandon Vietti, producer Greg Weisman, art director Phil Bourassa, and voice director Jamie Thomason! Why the decision to bring the show back? Why wait so long? What changes can we expect? Tune in the find out! No regular format show over the next few weeks. Just the awesome and massive SDCC coverage!! Leave your iTunes comments! 5 stars and nothing but love! Also, get a hold of us! Thanks for listening!

Comic-Con International: San Diego 2018 Week continues on The Show with interviews with the cast and crew of Young Justice: Outsiders: Greg Weisman, Brandon Vietti, and Phil Bourossa; Jaime Thomason; Stephanie Lemelin; and Troy Baker. Please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/earth_2.

Comic-Con International: San Diego 2018 Week continues on The Show with interviews with the cast and crew of Young Justice: Outsiders: Greg Weisman, Brandon Vietti, and Phil Bourossa; Jaime Thomason; Stephanie Lemelin; and Troy Baker. Please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/earth_2.

Comic-Con International: San Diego 2018 Week continues on The Show with interviews with the cast and crew of Young Justice: Outsiders: Greg Weisman, Brandon Vietti, and Phil Bourossa; Jaime Thomason; Stephanie Lemelin; and Troy Baker. Please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/earth_2.

With Season 3 of Young Justice underway, Executive Producers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti and Character designer Phil Bourassa sat down and gave some indepth tidbits about the upcoming season and the process in delivering storylines for this show. Lots of good information to listen to.

Hello team! Welcome to Discussions, our bonus episodes where we bring a special guest into the cave and talk about topics that relate to Young Justice as an entire series. Because of that, there are spoilers for both seasons everywhere. Consider yourself warned. Today in the Cave we have the mind behind the fantastic Earth-27 Project, Roy Westerman. Earth-27 is a fan fiction project by Roy and artist Phil Cho that reimagines the entire DC universe in a way that parallels Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti’s unique vision for Young Justice. Roy’s inspiration for creating the Earth-27 Project is a story that hits close to home for me, but I’ll let him share that story himself. Tune in to hear Rich geek out and then stick around and listen to everything Roy has to share. As always, thanks for listening and all your support. We appreciate each and every one of you more than we can express. If you have a moment to add some additional support, a rating and review on iTunes or your pod catcher of choice would help immensely. And if you have the ability to support us monetarily, we have a Patreon here.  Thank you all, and stay whelmed.

Young Justice season 3 is in production! We are so hyped,we dedicated a whole episode to it. Darryl and Phil discuss the Young Justice Season 3 Announcement. To celebrate the return of this fantastic cartoon that was cruelly cut short, we give a SPOILER FREE review of seasons 1 and 2. We discuss what we loved, the struggles with air dates, and what we look forward to for the new season.  We tried to be as spoiler free as possible, so out and watch it if you can. DVD's are available, and it's on Netflix. Watch one episode a week, and after 46 weeks you'll be that much closer to season 3 :D Ratings Young Justice Season 1 Darryl: A+ Phil: A+ Young Justice Season 2 Darryl: A- Phil: A References Young Justice Season 3 Announcement! Greg Weisman's and Brandon Vietti thank fans  IMDB Page Subscribe on Android Subscribe on iTunes

Dans l'absence totale de préparation, voici le quatrième numéro d'Éteindez la Lumière (Commencez le Cinéma!) enregistré dans la panique. Dans ce quatrième épisode, nous vous parlerons de... Euh... D'un peu de tout et n'importe quoi. On essaie de se concentrer sur les remakes/reboots et autres joyeusetés. On parle aussi de Mademoiselle, le nouveau film de Park Chan-Wook (à ne pas confondre avec la version coréenne de Parks & Rec), de La Folle Histoire de Max et Léon, le film du Palmashow, ainsi que de l'état actuel de la comédie française, on reparle de Westworld parce que bon, voilà. De toutes manières, on s'en fout si c'est chaotique: le monde est en plein chaos. Le Royaume-Uni a quitté l'Europe, l'Amérique a voté Trump, l'extrême-droite monte en France, les abeilles sont en voie de disparition, la Troisième Guerre Mondiale approche à grands pas et CBS a commandé un spin-off de Big Bang Theory centré sur Sheldon. À noter que l'épisode fut enregistrée avant l'élection de l'autre. On parle, entre autres, de:Starship Troopers de Paul VerhoevenLe Loup-Garou de Londres de John LandisTotal Recall de Paul VerhoevenTotal Recall de Len WisemanRobocop de Paul VerhoevenRobocop de José PadilhaMademoiselle de Park Chan-WookYoung Justice de Brandon Vietti and Greg WeismanLa Folle Histoire de Max et Léon de Jonathan BarréOSS 117: Rio ne répond plus de Michel Hazanivicius Retrouvez les extraits et bande-annonces sur notre site!

SPOILER ALERT! You're listening to the ComicsOnline Podcast. Season 16 Episode 35 Part 3: San Diego ComicCon 16 Rewind Featuring The Cast of Scooby-Doo vs WWE: The Curse of the Speed Demon. This Episode our comic con correspondents got a chance to talk to Director Tim Divar, Producer Brandon Vietti, the voice of Shaggy, Matthew Lillard, Grey Griffin the voice of Daphne, WWE Superstars Paige and Sheamus. Tune in and enjoy!

We continue our re=posting of our "missing" episodes with the first appearance of Brother Steve as a regular co-host! The original show notes provided that "We are very proud to announce that our past guest Steve Mowry is now joining us as a regular co-host! As part of his initiation for his new role, Steve first takes us through some of his favorite things about comic books. Then Billy Z recounts his going to Toy Fair for the first time. Next up Justin and Bryan join in for a discussion about the new Lego DC Comics Super-Heroes movie Justice League vs. Bizarro League. Billy Z attended the NYC premiere screening and you'll hear his interviews with James Arnold Taylor, the voice of The Flash, and filmmakers Brandon Vietti and Jim Krieg. Then some comics related TV talk. Then a whole lotta comics talk - Multiversity: The Mastermen, Nameless, The Black Vortex, All-New X-Men, Marvel's June 2015 Solicits, Ant-Man, Justice League United, Batman, Action Comics, Future's End, Earth 2: World's End, Divinity #1 and Displacement, a graphic novel which maybe made Steve cry."

This week on Shanlian on Batman we talk to Brandon Vietti. Brandon has worked on an extensive list of Batman projects including two fan favorites, Batman Bad Blood and Young Justice! Hear how he got his start in the business and his personal experiences working on some of our favorite shows. We had a blast talking to Mr. Vietti and we hope you enjoy listeing, also don't forget to visit us at both, www.ShanlianOnBatman.com and www.PodcastEmpireNetwork.com Thank you!

The guys asked twitter and the fans spoke! This week SoB does a commentary track for the animated film, Batman: Under the Red Hood, written by Judd Winick and directed by Brandon Vietti. You guys gotta listen to this one YOU asked for it. So sync up your copy of this film and enjoy this commentary track of Batman: Under the Red Hood Shanlian on Batman style.

State of the Empire is Nerdy Show’s Star Wars speculation podcast where we “look for news in Alderaan places”. The Star Wars universe we know is changing rapidly. Like the cycle of rebirth, the old must be burnt away before it can come back familiar but new and (hopefully) stronger. With game-changing shake-ups like this we had to convene for a new State of the Empire. The Expanded Universe is in the process of drastic revision as the recently formed Lucasfilm Story Group compress the franchise into a unified timeline. Meanwhile, the inevitable has happened and it’s been announced that after 20+ years Dark Horse will be passing the Star Wars comic right over to Marvel. While this was expected, what we didn’t expect was that in the process we might be loosing our favorite thing to happen to Star Wars comics in ages: Brian Wood’s Star Wars. Join Cap, Hex, and Doug as we go in-depth with these happenings and offer our Force Adept insight on what they spell out for the future of the Star Wars Galaxy. We also discuss the latest news on Episode VII including the possible reason for the screenwriter switch-up, who the lead characters might be of VII and beyond, the rumored spin-off films, the future of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, how Captain EO could be in Star Wars continuity, the latest about Indiana Jones, and we’re joined by Star Wars: Rebels executive producer Greg Weisman and Young Justice co-creator Brandon Vietti to discuss Willow. For links and more info, head to the main episode page: http://nerdyshow.com/2014/01/episdoe-164-state-of-the-empire-a-whole-new-galaxy/Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

State of the Empire is Nerdy Show’s Star Wars speculation podcast where we “look for news in Alderaan places”. The Star Wars universe we know is changing rapidly. Like the cycle of rebirth, the old must be burnt away before it can come back familiar but new and (hopefully) stronger. With game-changing shake-ups like this we had to convene for a new State of the Empire. The Expanded Universe is in the process of drastic revision as the recently formed Lucasfilm Story Group compress the franchise into a unified timeline. Meanwhile, the inevitable has happened and it’s been announced that after 20+ years Dark Horse will be passing the Star Wars comic right over to Marvel. While this was expected, what we didn’t expect was that in the process we might be loosing our favorite thing to happen to Star Wars comics in ages: Brian Wood’s Star Wars. Join Cap, Hex, and Doug as we go in-depth with these happenings and offer our Force Adept insight on what they spell out for the future of the Star Wars Galaxy. We also discuss the latest news on Episode VII including the possible reason for the screenwriter switch-up, who the lead characters might be of VII and beyond, the rumored spin-off films, the future of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, how Captain EO could be in Star Wars continuity, the latest about Indiana Jones, and we’re joined by Star Wars: Rebels executive producer Greg Weisman and Young Justice co-creator Brandon Vietti to discuss Willow.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

It's our San Diego Comic-Con animation special! CNI correspondent Maria Bernal-Silva sat down with the producers (Bruce Timm, Jim Krieg and Giancarlo Volpe) of the new Green Lantern animated series. Jimmy sat down with some of the Young Justice folks to discuss the animated series and its upcoming 2nd season. He chatted with producder Brandon Vietti and art director Phil Bourassa as well as voice of "Miss Martian" (and former "Winnie Cooper"/math genius) Danica McKellar. Leave your iTunes comments! 5 stars and nothing but love!

Yet another round table from SDCC! Jimmy chatted with producers Brandon Vietti and Greg Weisman of the the new Young Justice cartoon, Diedrich Bader (voice of Batman in Batman: The Brave and the Bold) and legendary voice director Andrea Romano.