Podcasts about giant man

In the thrilling finale, our heroes, with the help of allies like Giant Man and Vision, successfully dismantle all the enemy monuments across New York. With their initial mission complete, they prepare for a final showdown against Baron Zemo, who has enlisted Thunderball, twin Hydra Clairvoyance Prototypes, and Arnim Zola. Just when the odds seem overwhelming, Moon Knight and Daredevil enter the fray, turning the tide of battle. In a dramatic and hard-fought confrontation, the team overcomes the villains, securing victory and saving New York from destruction.   Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1628612284256101/   Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/leagueofmelanatedgentlemanpod/   YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@TheLMGPodcast   Hosts: Jordan Mitchell    

FRANCHISES COMING TO AN END!! Marvel Animation's What If…? Season 3 | Official Trailer | Disney+ & Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning | Teaser Trailer Reaction & Thoughts.  Storm enters the MCU in What If...? Season 3 Trailer Reaction: Marvel Studios is back with What If...? Season 3, exploring alternate realities within the MCU. This season promises to delve deeper into the multiverse, featuring characters like Moon Knight, Sam Wilson/Captain America, Agatha Harkness, Monica Rambeau, Shang-Chi, Black Widow, Tony Stark/Iron Man, Riri Williams/Ironheart, Vision, Wanda Maximoff/Scarlet Witch, Melina Vostokoff, Shuri, Giant-Man, and Wong. Notably, America Ferrera joins the cast as Ranger Morales, a new original character. Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning Trailer Reaction: Tom Cruise returns as Ethan Hunt in Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, the eighth installment of the iconic franchise. The trailer showcases high-octane action sequences, including Ethan exploring a submarine wreckage and hanging off the side of a biplane. Joining Cruise are Hayley Atwell, Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, Rebecca Ferguson, Vanessa Kirby, Esai Morales, Pom Klementieff, and Henry Czerny. Become A Super Sexy Reject For Full-Length T.V. & Movie Reactions!  https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects Follow Us On Socials:  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/  Tik-Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thereelrejects?lang=en Twitter: https://x.com/thereelrejects Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Send us a textWhat figures go best with the big bad Giant Man HasLab? We're going to talk about that today.

Today by request we are doing a wrap up (until he's in hand) of the Giant Man Haslab campaign from Hasbro Marvel Legends.

Episode 2 - Murdock and Marvel: 1964 On last week's show we discussed the long history of Marvel Comics from 1939 to 1963. This week we finally see where Stan, Jack and the rest of the Marvel bullpen had been leading up to.  It's time to talk about 1964, and the debut of the World's Most Interesting Superhero – Daredevil!  Listener Feedback Let us know what you think of the new season The Year in Comics 1964 was an eventful year in America, and many of the things going in politics and culture made their way into the comics. New Comics, Creators & Characters Big Moments Best Selling Books... and Marvels The Year in Marvel By the start of 1964 most of the characters that would headline the Marvel Universe were already in place.  But there were still new characters and places to fill in, and 1964 added a number of Avengers and villains to the world.  Even as the cast of characters grew, though, Lee still had a limited number of monthly titles he could put out due to a restrictive distribution deal.  His solution?  Tales to Astonish would be divided in half, and would co-star the Incredible Hulk and Giant Man.  Later in the year Tales of Suspense would follow, with Cap and Iron Man sharing the title as of issue #59  Starts and Ends New Characters Who's in the Bullpen ROOKIE OF THE YEAR: George Tuska Stories to Remember The Year in Daredevil  Appearances: Daredevil Issues 1-5, Amazing Spider-Man #16 and #18 The stories were all written by Stan Lee by art was by three different artists: Bill Everett for issue 1, Joe Orlando for 2-4, and Wallace “Wally” Wood for issue 5 – who's announced in the title as the permanent artist.  Daredevil's origin story (April 1964) Nelson and Murdock law firm is formed right after Nelson and Murdock graduate college. Karen Page joins them as their assistant.   First cross over heroes/villain from another book, Thing/Fantastic Four and Electro in book 2 (Electro first appeared in Spider-Man #9)   Mostly single book stories involve Daredevil taking down the villain while hiding the fact he's Daredevil from Nelson and Page.   Letters column added starting in book 4  Full page “pin-up” of Daredevil at the end of issue 5.  New Powers, Toys or Places This Week's Spotlight: Daredevil #4 October 1964 Recap Why We Picked This Story The Takeaway Daredevil and the Blind Community Questions or comments We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime. ------------------ THANKS TO THE FOLLOWING CREATORS AND RESOURCES  Music: Our theme music is by the very talented Lesfm.  You can find more about them and their music at https://pixabay.com/users/lesfm-22579021/.  The Grand Comics Database: Dan uses custom queries against a downloadable copy of the GCD to construct his publisher, title and creator charts.  Comichron: Our source for comic book sales data.  Man Without Fear: Kuljit Mithra's Daredevil site contains a staggering collection of resources about our hero, including news, interviews and comic details.    The American Comic Book Chronicles: Published by TwoMorrows, these volumes provide an excellent analysis of American comics through the years.  Because these volumes break down comic history by year and decade they are a great place to get a basic orientation on what is happening across the comic industry at a particular point in time.  Joshua and Jamie Do Daredevil: A fantastic podcast that does a deep-dive into Daredevil comics.  This ran from 2018-2020, and covered most of the first volume of Daredevil, and was a fun way to get an in-depth look at each issue of Daredevil from 1-377.  My Marvelous Year: This is a reading-club style podcast where Dave Buesing and friends chose important or interesting books from a particular year to read and discuss.  This helped me remember some fun and crazy stories, and would be a great companion piece to Murdock and Marvel for those who want more comic-story-specific coverage.  BOOKLIST  The following books have been frequently used as reference while preparing summaries of the comic history segments of our show.  Each and every one comes recommended by Dan for fans wanting to read more about it!  Licari, Fabio and Marco Rizzo.  Marvel: The First 80 Years: The True Story of a Pop-Culture Phenomenon.  London: Titan Books, 2020.  This book is sort of a mess, as the print quality is terrible, and Titan doesn't even credit the authors unless you check the fine print.  It's like this was published by Marvel in the early 60s! But the information is good, and it is presented in an entertaining fashion.  So its decent, but I would recommend you see if you can just borrow it from the library instead of purchasing.  Wells, John.  American Comic Book Chronicles: 1960-1964.  Raleigh: Two Morrows, 2015.  Not cheap, but a fantastic series that is informative and fun to read.  Wright, Bradford.  Comic Book Nation: The Transformation of Youth Culture in America.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001.  This is the revised edition.  Marvel Year By Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2022.  The academic in my rails at using information from any work that doesn't have an author credit, but this is a decent (if very surface) look at each year in the history of Timely / Marvel from 1939 to 2021.    Cowsill, Alan et al.  DC Comics Year by Year: A Visual History.  New York: DK Publishing, 2010.  Because its nice to occasionally take a peek at what the Distinguished Competition is up to.  Dauber, Jeremy.  American Comics: A History.  New York, W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.  An excellent, relatively compact history of the domestic comic industry from its 19th century origins through to recent 21st century developments.  An excellent successor to Bradford Wright's Comic Book Nation. 

In this episode, IT'S CLOBBERIN' TIME as we kick off a two-part look at one of Marvel Comics' most storied tradiitons: epic slugfests between the Hulk and the Thing! Specifically, the first two face-offs between these fearsome foes in Fantastic Four #12 and #25-26, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby! First, everyone's on their worst behavior as General Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross enlists the FF's aid in subduing the Hulk, who's accused of sabotaging a military experiment! Then, with his teammates sidelined, it's up to Ben to stop the angry green goliath from rampaging across New York City, in a knock-down drag-out brawl guest starring the Mighty Avengers! Can the ever-lovin' blue-eyed Thing prevail against the jade giant? And can these stories go the distance in a title match against ... The Comics Canon? In This Episode: ·         A literal card-carrying communist ·         How pretty young ladies can help their men ·         “Aunt Petunia was pretty hardcore!” ·         Giant-Man's pill problem ·         What If? Season 2 and Echo ·         Doctor Who: The Angels Take Manhattan ·         Marvel Two-in-One #46 ·         Curt introduces an unscheduled order of business Join us in two weeks as we polish off this two-parter with a matchup of more recent vintage: The Thing vs. The Immortal Hulk from Fantastic Four (Vol. 6) #12-13! Until then:Impress your friends with our Comics Canon merchandise! Rate us on Apple Podcasts! Send us an email! Hit us up on Facebook or The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter! And as always, thanks for listening!  

Let's take a tiny backtrack to a backup story in Avengers: Solo and see how Finesse and Striker handle a little test created by Giant Man and Tygra. How is Power Pack involved...? Good question. Listen to the episode to find out.  First of all, let's define Solo. Solo does not mean that you have a partner or are in a smaller team from you original group. Which makes me always wonder about Han Solo. I mean, he is never really SOLO. And when he is, he get's stuck in carbonite or killed. He is more like, Han Team. But I digress. So when you are truly solo, you are going up against big odds by yourself. It is a challenge where you push your limits, and run the gauntlet on your own. Forget relying on others, charge your own trail. A great solo adventure would be one hero coming up against an army of robots that were created in the image of their teammates. That would be fantastic. And absolutely terrifying. What an absolute crushing defeat. Maybe they should have brought a team with them. But if you were able to go solo against one robot, who would you choose? I would go up against Crowww....Yes, he would make me laugh, but I think I could take him. I definitely have the reach, and also, I am not a puppet. Back to talking about what is a solo adventure. According to some sources, it is acceptable to have a solo adventure and work with people during that adventure, focusing on people that you do not work with. With that in mind, I would like to go on a secret solo adventure and team up with Einstein and Mark Twain. I think that would be a hoot. Fighting by yourself against another opponent is the traditional version of what a solo adventure is about. And, if you are truly the hero of the story, you should do your best to win. Otherwise it will be a short story. Another non-traditional solo story would be to have a partner on your adventures and then kill them with their own arm near the end of the adventure and tell everyone that it was all done just by you. It is a choice you can make. I really hope that I was not helpful today.  We also have some merchandise over at Redbubble. We have a couple of nifty shirts for sale. https://www.redbubble.com/people/jeffrickpresent/?asc=u   Check out our webpage at: https://jeffandrickpresent.wordpress.com/2024/01/28/avengers-solo-1-5-extra-credit/   You can also subscribe and listen to us on YouTube!  Our show supports the Hero Initiative, Helping Comic Creators in Need.  http://www.heroinitiative.org/ Eighties Action by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3703-eighties-action License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music: Flight Pack 1 - 6/6 (Dubby) by Sascha Ende Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/181-flight-pack-1-66-dubby Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  

Win a copy of Spider-Man 2 for PS5! Details in this episode of Marvelicious Toys where we go in-depth looking at the newest Marvel game. We discuss the product tie-ins, the game itself, and the characters and designs that would make awesome Marvel Legends figures. Speaking of Marvel Legends, on this episode we talk about some great deals on those Hasbro toys. From Ollies to Ross to online sales, find out how to get Legends for as little as $6! And more Legends talk, in the final hours the HasLab Giant-Man got funded...with one of two stretch goals attained. What does this mean for Marvel Legends and future HasLabs, and why do collectors wait so long? All that and more is in this new episode of Marvelicious Toys!

Win a copy of Spider-Man 2 for PS5! Details in this episode of Marvelicious Toys where we go in-depth looking at the newest Marvel game. We discuss the product tie-ins, the game itself, and the characters and designs that would make awesome Marvel Legends figures. Speaking of Marvel Legends, on this episode we talk about some great deals on those Hasbro toys. From Ollies to Ross to online sales, find out how to get Legends for as little as $6! And more Legends talk, in the final hours the HasLab Giant-Man got funded...with one of two stretch goals attained. What does this mean for Marvel Legends and future HasLabs, and why do collectors wait so long? All that and more is in this new episode of Marvelicious Toys!

This week on the Toy Power Podcast, we have another jammed packed Runsheet of News Segments from around the virtual Toy Aisles! Kicking things off, are the results on some of the Kickstarter Projects. Giant-Man with a race to the finish line & the New already successful Ghostbusters Ghost Trap & P.K.E. Meter. More reveals from McFarlane, and none of them are Batman themed!?! Some really neat Spiderman announcements from the Marvel Legends team - getting deeper into the universe. Some well overdue Star Wars announcements as well as crossover Transformers plus Beast Wars Combiners. The G.I. Joe Vamp vehicle is a true work of art along with the new Formo figures. Rounding out the news is Super7 ingenious ReAction of a classic Imperial colour variant. Then in our last segment, we list off the our latest scores! Enjoy!Support the show: http://patreon.com/toypowerpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=911NWb4R3Hc #2023 #art #music #movies #poetry #poem #food #photooftheday #volcano #news #weather #monkeys #climate #horse #puppy #fyp #love #instagood #onelove #eyes #getyoked #horsie #gotmilk #book #shecomin #getready 

This week Jarmar thinks Haslabs are dumb, Nate feels Giantman wasn't a Great offering, & Michael thinks Hasbro needs to cool off on crowdfunding! Join us as we discuss if There are too many action figure companies using crowd funding! Join us as we get together to talk about toys and sometimes other stuff. Vasco Toys: Youtube.com/VascoToys Become a Patreon: Patreon.com/ModernToyfare Teepublic.com/ModernToyfare Check out OnlyFigs on Twitch.tv/ModernToyfare Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/ModernToyfare Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ModernToyfare Follow us on TikTok: tiktok.com/ModernToyfare Follow Nate on Instagram: instagram.com/NateBryant1985 Follow Jarmar on Twitter: Twitter.com/jarmar_GAMES Follow Jarmar on Twitch: Twitch.tv/Jarmar_Games Follow Jarmar on TikTok: tiktok.com/JarmarGames Why Are You A Gamer: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nTQmCQIvKDyFQVC4lHoK?si=dbee567ed3894c4e --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moderntoyfare/support

GIANT-MAN IS FUNDED! Dayspring and Hammy breakdown this year's HasLab and how it all went down!

Welcome back nerds! It's all about the Crowd Funds today! Shout out to  @DanWhoReviews for interviewing Dan Yun from Marvel Legends. Full interview is linked below. But, are you backing Giant Man?! Will he make it?!?!Full Interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWk1ccdQt-Q00:00 - Intro02:45 - Welcome back08:48 -  @AfroSenju  10:27 - 2 NYCC Videos will be dropping17:10 - Shout out to Sting20:32 - Cobra Mothership24:10 - Haslab Giant Man28:17 - Dan Yun interview01:16:00 - Final thoughts01:18:11- Outro

Oh my goodness, we are covering something exciting and new. Wowzers, I hope you come aboard, because we have been expecting you! That's right, it is the LOVE BOAT...I mean, the Avenger Academy. I guess we should introduce you to this crew that will be on our ship as we cruise through these West Coast waves, so let me check the roster of....holy phone books Batman, that is a lot of people. You know what, Al Gore did not invent the internet so you could twiddle your thumbs, look them up yourself. Many people ask how big the Pacific Princess is, and I do know why they ask me that. I am not a captain, I just happen to think that a dress white uniform with shorts is comfortable and delightful. It also means that I cannot eat anything, so it helps me lose weight. Oh, and the ship is big....like Giant Man. No, I do not have dreams about celebrity guest stars on the deck of my ship. And if I did, I would not talk about them here. It is private. While there are snakes that are found in the water, that is not relevant to boats in the Pacific. Plus, we need to talk about the Avengers Acadamy. Or not, since I have run out of time. Oh well....next months.   You can find pretty pictures of this issue at: https://jeffandrickpresent.wordpress.com/2023/10/21/avengers-academy-20-endings/(opens in a new tab)   We also have some merchandise over at Redbubble. We have a couple of nifty shirts for sale. https://www.redbubble.com/people/jeffrickpresent/?asc=u   You can also subscribe and listen to us on YouTube!  Our show supports the Hero Initiative, Helping Comic Creators in Need.  http://www.heroinitiative.org/ Eighties Action by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3703-eighties-action License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Music: Badass by Phat Sounds Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/11820-badass Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license  

Help me, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, you're my only hope. Can the TMNT save He-Man and the Masters of the Universe from the clearance pit? Plus, do you smell what The Rock is cooking and if so, does it smell like a cry for help? And, it's do or die for Hasbro's Giant-Man HasLab. Will the Marvel Legend join Cookie Monster and the Rancor in HasLab Heaven? Bake 'em away, toys. It's The Reluctant Adult Podcast. Email TheReluctantAdultPodcast@gmail.com Save 10% and get Free Shipping on in-stock items on Entertainment Earth https://ee.toys/TOYPOD TikTok @TheReluctantAdultPodcast Instagram @TheReluctantAdultPodcast Twitter @Reluctant_Pod Facebook Toy Sale Boat YouTube The Reluctant Adult Podcast Paul's Amazon Wishlist Bill's Amazon Wishlist

We're entering the final days to fund Giant Man and we've got some thoughts about it. Can Hasbro pull this off or will history repeat itself with another failed project? Could this be the last Marvel Legends HasLab? Also, how are we feeling about Dakota's pirate mustache?

Dwight Stall, Ryan Ting, and Dan Yun from Hasbro's Marvel Legends team talk all things Giant-Man and Haslab--from why no six-inch figures were included as tiers to their thoughts on if this will fund (with just 10 days to go)! Watch now to get all the insights into this 2023 Haslab crowdfunding campaign.

RIP Keith Giffen, you are a legend. And Wizards ban Witches! Please support Signal of Doom on Patreon! Every single dollar helps the show! https://www.patreon.com/SignalofDoom Follow us on Twitter: @signalofdoom Dredd or Dead: @OrDredd Legion Outpost: @legionoutpost

This week on the Toy Power Podcast, its all about the Latest news!  Another big week with several Conventions happening over in the USA.  First off the ranks, we touch base on how well the latest HasLab is going, in the form of Giant-Man.  Then its an unusual cross-over of Skeletor & VeeFriends?  The Super Cyborg Krang Android is amazing, and very worthy of spot on your shelf as an upgrade of the Playmates version!  An absolutely beautiful version of Supergirl from Revoltech; then a big "Skelebration" checklist from Mattel, including both Origins & Masterverse figures.  Fraggle Rock wave 2 from Boss Fight Studios are incredible, but the Holocomm Star Wars Collection has us scratching our heads for many reasons....   The Ultimate GITD Radiation Ranger & Cobra MotherShip from Super 7 are both simply amazing, and rounding out the news is the announcement of Eternia's Choice Winner of the Snake Lair!  Then the lads chat about their experiences from the October Addelaide Comic & Toy Fair.  Another very exciting day all around, with some cool stories to share!  Support the show: http://patreon.com/toypowerpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dwight Stall, Ryan Ting, and Dan Yun from Hasbro's Marvel Legends team talk all things Giant-Man and Haslab--from why no six-inch figures were included as tiers to their thoughts on if this will fund (with just 10 days to go)! Watch now to get all the insights into this 2023 Haslab crowdfunding campaign.

Didn't think we'd make this video. Let's analyze HasLab GIANT-MAN and how it compares to past HasLabs!

Stefanie Myr is the head route setter, manager, and team coach at Climb Tacoma in WA. We met up in Leavenworth and talked about our similar upbringings in Christianity, why we both moved away from religion, finding “church” in the climbing community, confidence and self-belief, unique challenges as a short climber, being less certain and more curious, Stef's polyamorous relationship with her husband and partner, compersion, honest communication, doing what you can to make the world a little better, and much more!Listen to the Patron Show on Spotify!Check out Rhino Skin Solutions!rhinoskinsolutions.comUse code “NUGGET” at checkout for 20% off your next order!And check out EP 22 with Justin Brown to learn more about how to use Rhino products!Check out PhysiVantage!physivantage.com (link includes 15% off coupon)Use code "NUGGET15" at checkout for 15% off your next order!Check out Wonderful Pistachios!WonderfulPistachios.com to learn more!Check out Rumpl!rumpl.com/nuggetUse code "NUGGET" at checkout for 10% off your first order!Check out Chalk Cartel!chalkcartel.comUse code "NUGGET" at checkout for 20% off your next order!We are supported by these amazing BIG GIVERS:Leo Franchi, Michael Roy, David Lahaie, Robert Freehill, Jeremiah Johnson, Scott Donahue, Eli Conlee, Skyler Maxwell, Craig Lee, Mark and Julie Calhoun, Yinan Liu, Renzollama, Zach Emery, and Brandt MickolasBecome a Patron:patreon.com/thenuggetclimbingShow Notes:  thenuggetclimbing.com/episodes/stefanie-myrNuggets:0:04:05 – Miniature carpentry, and a gift for me0:11:49 – Stef role at Climb Tacoma, and the gym as a core part of her community1:17:19 – How she first got a job at Climb Tacoma, and having a diverse group of people on the team0:20:16 – Stef's unique financial situation, and the sustainability of working at a climbing gym0:22:38 – Moving away from her Christian upbringing, and finding “church” at the climbing gym0:25:09 – Our parallels with church music and moving away from organized religion0:30:31 – Bullet point lists, and how the gym functions like a “church”0:32:07 – Meeting people who changed the way we thought about organized religion0:35:16 – Stef's upbringing and programming, and not realizing she was bisexual until college0:38:39 – Stef's husband Julien0:40:34 – Stef's confidence, choosing Giant Man as an objective, and gaining something from every climb0:46:17 – Frustration with height and grades, and needing to be V12 strong to climb V100:48:02 – My conversation with Nic Rummel about grades, and an announcement about the Patron show being on Spotify0:51:19 – Sending Pimpsqueak V8/9 in Leavenworth, ABR (always be rolling), and why recording send videos feels important0:56:02 – The power of seeing someone like you climb hard things1:00:42 – More about confidence, embracing powerful moves, learning from coaching little kids, and unlocking pieces of the puzzle1:08:18 – The moments that show you that you've gotten better at climbing, and Stef's mountain1:10:23 – Stef's dream boulder in Goldbar WA, and other goals in Leavenworth1:12:01 – How Stef got on The Nugget1:21:52 – Self-belief, wanting to be good, and the power of affirmation1:26:17 – Our brain's reaction to negative comments, and how Stef deals with trolls1:38:02 – The lawyer in my brain, and making people think differently by asking better questions1:39:51 – Less certain more curious1:42:47 – Stef's polyamorous relationship, and why she wanted to talk about it1:50:50 – Normalizing sex, and redefining cheating in an open relationship1:56:18 – Equating sex and intimacy to love, how cool her husband is, and the story of how she came to be with her partner2:03:22 – Jealousy, and honest communication2:05:32 – Why Stef wanted to talk about her open relationship, and why people who are poly are not free-for-alls2:09:53 – Bringing all of who you are to yourself as a climber2:11:53 – Compersion2:15:11 – The depth of her relationship with her husband before they opened their relationship, and the distinction between security and trust2:17:53 – Marriage, and Stef's future with her partner2:24:47 – Double the love and laundry, and Stef's life in a go bag2:26:50 – Check-ins, RADAR, smoking weed, and “ask don't assume”2:32:23 – Double-committing, and learning to communicate her plans2:39:18 – What Stef wishes people spent more time thinking about2:41:10 – Make the world a little better2:42:20 – My episode with Ethan Pringle about his dad, and the importance of airing out the messiness2:47:35 – Stef's sponsors2:51:08 – Pursuing the child-free life, and final thoughts

There are legends, and then there are Marvel Legends. Completing the set of the Android, the Alien, and the Wizard, we are joined by real life Wizard and Marvel Legend Dwight Stall from Hasbro to talk all things Marvel Legends, HasLab, toy design, and even an impromptu "What if" we could build a soccer team from Marvel characters. Follow Dwight on Instagram @stalldwight and keep up with all of the Hasbro goings on @hasbropulse!Ready to shop better hydration, use our special link https://zen.ai/aicpod20 to save 20% off anything you order.Save 12% at BlendJet - use our special link and the discount will be applied at checkout! zen.ai/aicpod12Follow us @aic_podcast on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTubeIntro and other voices by Joe Azzarihttps://www.instagram.com/voicesbyjoe/Theme Music is "Game Boy Horror" by the Zombie DandiesProudly part of the Non-Productive Network

In this episode after our our famous ANR Dad Joke, we get into the weekly toy talk, followed by Haslab's GIANT reveal, Giant-Man! Lastly we breakdown the newly released Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Trailer. This episode is featuring Elvin and Dee. Check out the live version of this podcast on our Youtube channel!

This week Jarmar still thinks crowd funding is dumb, Nate feels Haslab isn't special anymore, & Michael thinks its odd Giant-Man is only $200. Watch as we discuss the NEW Marvel Legends Haslab GiantMan! Join us as we get together to talk about toys and sometimes other stuff. Vasco Toys: Youtube.com/VascoToys Become a Patreon: Patreon.com/ModernToyfare Teepublic.com/ModernToyfare Check out OnlyFigs on Twitch.tv/ModernToyfare Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/ModernToyfare Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/ModernToyfare Follow us on TikTok: tiktok.com/ModernToyfare Follow Nate on Instagram: instagram.com/NateBryant1985 Follow Jarmar on Twitter: Twitter.com/jarmar_GAMES Follow Jarmar on Twitch: Twitch.tv/Jarmar_Games Follow Jarmar on TikTok: tiktok.com/JarmarGames Why Are You A Gamer: https://open.spotify.com/show/63nTQmCQIvKDyFQVC4lHoK?si=dbee567ed3894c4e --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/moderntoyfare/support

In this episode of the cerealboxprizepodcast Aaron shares with us the epic Commodore 64 video game haul himself and our friend Dave found over the weekend, we get into a spoiler free review of thw Ah-soka Star wars show on Disney plus ( again its spoiler free), Hasbro has there next haslab and its Marvel's Giant Man and are all there haslabs just getting bigger and bigger but the question everyone is asking is... were the heck am i going to put this GIANT thing, Aaron explains the new Disney Lorcana Card Game, and gi joe classifieds release the televiper with flight pod, and me and Aaron coin the phrase "just say no to toys" and youll understand why after this episode. So pour out your favorite drink and snack and get ready as we share 3 scoops of pop culture. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/cerealboxprizepodcast/message

Batman, Giant-Man, Toy Anxiety Man!

It's been a busy week here at the Marvel Bullpen! Tune in as we chat with Josh Saleh about his first impressions on Marvel's Spider-Man 2, catch the latest on Marvel's Studios' The Marvels, hear a TWIM exclusive about Immortal Thor #5 from the writer himself, Al Ewing, and so. much. more! Plus, we're joined by Jesse Falcon as well as Dwight Stall and Ryan Ting from Hasbro to talk about their new HasLab Marvel Legends Giant-Man! To learn more about this GIANT action figure, be sure to check out Hasbro Pulse.

How does this reveal measure up against former HasLabs? We breakdown the reveal of the HasLab Giant Man!

Enjoy this wide-ranging conversation with Justin Overstreet, where we cover: The street-cred you get from growing up in Midland Texas baseball A program he created to rescue derrick workers  Advice on building an impactful career in the energy industry The key to holding yourself and others accountable Oilfield tech and how industry has changed in the last 20 years Recommendations: Justin: The show Peaky Blinders and the book Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink Kyle: Buying land Curtis: The story "Giant Man" on This American Life (Ep. 351, Act Four) Learn more about Wildcat Oil Tools and connect with Justin on LinkedIn.

MRC finishes up the rest of July 1965 with Tales of Suspense #67 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish #69 with Giant-Man and the Hulk, X-Men #12 and Avengers #18. Glam rock Nefaria! Undersized Dummkopfs! More bad-book-apocaplyse! A trillion concentrated molecules! Winning track meets with mind-reading! Safes plummeting from the skies! Check it out!

Russell begins the journey through all of the Hulk's starring appearances in Tales to Astonish. This issue is a big one. One of the biggest facets of the Hulk's lore is established in this issue. ALSO, What was happening in the other half of this comic with Giant Man?

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss life after being an Avenger. What are the responsibilities? What are the privileges? Do they get top secret briefings? Are they like ex-Presidents? Or like ex-FBI? Who pays for the damage they cause when Giant-Man decides to grow to 35-feet in the middle of the city and starts knocking down buildings? These are unprecedented times, but someone has to figure this out quickly!Behind the comic:This is the first adventure of Giant-Man and the Wasp post-Avengers. The story continues into the next issue, but at that point they “retire” and the title converts to dual stories of Namor and the Hulk. It turns out Giant-Man just wasn't that popular. It didn't help that Tales to Astonish had consistently been one of the weaker titles for the previous few years. Something needed to change. Also in this issue, the Human Top, who was originally introduced as a “normal human” who just happened to be able to spin quickly, has now developed the ability to fly…In this issue:Giant-Man and the Wasp are practicing just outside the city. A plane intentionally flies into Giant-Man, and the pilot, the Human Top, considers killing him but does not have time before Giant-Man wakes up. The Top splits, and Giant-Man returns home. Giant-Man practices his growing ability in downtown Manhattan. The Human Top then returns and battles Giant-Man and the Wasp, and Giant-Man is enraged when the Top leaves with a captured Wasp.In the Hulk story, the Hulk saves Major Talbot from dying during the Leader's attack. Then, when the Hulk has turned back into Bruce Banner, General Ross places him under arrest for treason. The leader sends his humanoid minions to the base where Banner is being held, and while they attack Banner, he turns back into the Hulk and battles them but is knocked out as they steal an invention of Banner's for the Leader's use.Assumed before the next episode:People are fed up with Giant-Man leaning on their buildings, carelessly causing damage.This episode takes place:After Giant-Man has leaned on one too many buildings.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, what do you do when you retire from the Avengers? What's next? What's next on your plate?Michael: I don't know. It's hard to go higher in the superhero community, but it's also harder to get a better job in even the military or that kind of like super diplomacy communityEdward: and super diplomats.Michael: Well, that's what they are, right? Like they're like, I don't know, like Warrior Kings in a way. Right?Edward: Thank you for your service, giant man. I'd not like you to be the diplomat in charge of Poland. Over there with the wasp. You can help us deal with geopolitical situations in the Eastern Republics.Michael: But that's what they've been doing though. They've been acting asEdward: the last time giant man went into the Eastern Europe, he was crashing through the Berlin wall. It's not diplomatic, it's not known for diplomacy.Michael: No, but his actions, whether they're clumsy or not, were actually affecting international relations. So that's what I mean, like the general sense of whatever they are.Edward: Yeah. So causing diplomatic relations is not the same as being a diplomat, just cuz they both have the word diplo in them.Michael: No, no, no. I'm not saying that they're, I'm not saying that that's the job. It's just that what have the Avengers been? They've saved the world. They've battled villains. They have taken upon their self to go to other countries, to act in America's interests.And then at times we've found that they've acted secretively to the same extent, further in the interest and theory of America. So I don't know what you want to call them, but they're not regular. And so you're, they're not regular. And, and your question at the start was like, well, what do you like, what do you do when you retire?Well, it's not unprecedented, but it's unusual. And so it's a good question.Edward: And so what's unusual, you're saying retiring as a superhero is unusual or retiring as an avenger is unusual. What's unusual?Michael: Retired from the Avengers is unusual because, well, yes, it's Avenger.Edward: Avengers have only been around for a couple years. No one has retired until now. But now we've had, now we have three retirements, sorry, four retirements, 1, 2, 3, 4, all at the same time.Michael: Yeah. And my point is that it's unusual. We have an experience where someone with that much power who's had such a fascinating role and influence on world affairs, is now no longer in that position? I think there's a qualitative difference between being on the Avengers and being the go-to team for. Pretty much any big problem to be on their own. Are they still on the payroll or at least getting the status and the influence they had on Avengers?Edward: I wouldn't think so. If you're not, you can't be like, not on the Avengers, but still getting all the Avenger privileges.Michael: That's right. So that's what I mean. Somebody that tied in to International affairs in such a highly visible way and such an influential position, I would think that they don't just retire and, then our intelligence organizations are like, that's cool.I guess you just. Have all this knowledge and this know-how, and you just go off and do what you want. So I'd imagine that there's something that must tie them closer. Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like maintain them and to be still being sort of a post adventure, but still in the family. You know what I mean?Edward: Got it. You're a post, you're not in ave anymore, but now you're a post a event. It's like a presidents. When presidents retire, they still have the secret service. Follow them around everywhere. They still get paid. Right., if you're an ex-president, you still get a salary.Michael: I think so. Or some kind of pension, I don't think they'd wait till like they're, you know, like most of 'em seem to be quite old when they're president, when they retire. I don't think they, they have to wait long before they get the stipend. Right. Which makes a lot of sense as well, cuz you don't want them to Go out and say, I've been the president of the United States for eight years and now I'm interviewing for this job at General Electric.Or I might go, I think I'd like to go work in Hungary. You know what I mean? I don't think that they're gonna be like, what's next for me? As if it's just like anybody in the world. They're just not. And so I think get to pay them enough to keep them on the bench in a way, and still get to know-how and the benefit of the expertise and still have them available to contact them.I would think.Edward: Okay, there's an ex-presidents club. You think there's gonna be an ex Avengers club where they all get together and come back together and talk about, I dunno, I guess the new Avengers can ask the old Avengers for advice the presidents do that sometimes. Yeah.Michael: I think so. I mean, I'd like to think so because the alternative would be that the Avengers, so somebody who's been so tied into our security and the intelligence organizations, but also our military and our political affairs is just suddenly like, huh. Well, I gotta make a living not an Avenger anymore.Edward: Maybe I'll go rob Banks,Michael: right? Or maybe I will go maybe work for, another country. I mean, like they could, and it's unusual, like the adventures started as this voluntary group, but very quickly became integral to our security intelligence organizations, et cetera.but I bet that there are those types of organizations and associations already. I bet they just attach that type of structure over to the Avengers to make sense.Edward: Paul, you're saying there's other structures like the Avengers out there?Michael: You used presidents ex-president, as an example.I think there has to be some kind of process they can follow to say, time.Edward: But the difference is the presidents, like that's part of the constitution, like that's built into the fabric of our country and there are rules and regulations that go back. Hundreds of years. The Avengers are a couple years old.We don't even know exactly how the Avengers are affiliated with their government, how they're affiliated with Stark Corp. They're all part of this military industrial complex, and I don't think we understand what's going on. It's definitely not the way we understand what happens with the president.Michael: Well Ed, I'm not saying I'm cool with it. I find it to be the most weird you know, and people that listen to our show know this. I've always found it to be the weirdest thing that the military, the government, our intelligence organizations are like, I don't know, better get the adventures involved. I've always found it to be strange, but whether it's strange or not, they're tied in and they have this connection and they have this. Powered authority in our society. So just to have them float off and possibly just what, decide that they want to, take what they know and not do anything with it, or,Edward: yes. You're basically say we should bribe them so that they don't do that. We should have tax dollars go towards paying giant man and Thor and Iron Man in the wasp and tell them, Hey, here's a hundred grand. Uh, please don't work for the Russians.Michael: I think, I wouldn't use the word bribe, but I think it's incentivized, I suppose, but's be honest, let's be honest. You, I've had shows where, where your solution is like, I guess we gotta kill them. Or lobotomized them. I'm like, no, I'm just following your well trod path on this one. Like probably need to pay them is the better alternative than like, Like, where I know you want to go on these things where it's like, too dangerous of your life. See you later.Edward: You know, I'm gonna tell your wife about the things you've been doing, unless you give me an incentive to not do thatMichael: well yeah. It's, like, protection, money protection.Edward: I'm not gonna, uh, bust into your shop, but, you know, I need some incentive to make sure that it stands up. Okay.Michael: But Ed, you wouldn't characterize it as bribing that you say, Let's say Kennedy, who's a young president, let's say. He hadn't been assassinated and he continued on, and he retired after, let's say he served two terms. He would've been in his early fifties, you wouldn't have considered bribery to pay him a pretty healthy pension.Edward: No, you're, right. It's not bribery to have to pay someone to do their job.Michael: It's a role.Edward: It's an incentive pay. It's an incentive. So that you go and do The Thing that we we're paying you to do. I think bribe, connotates something illegal, right? Or something underhanded. What's what's going on here though, is, it kind of is underhanded, because it's not public, it's not well-known. Is Stark Corp paying their post avenger salary? Is it the government? That's to me the, big question. And the other thing is that well at least giant man is still active. We haven't heard much from about Thor Iron Man, but, it's Giant man is out there. Experimenting and doing more stuff. Like the latest things on Giant Man is he can now grow to 35 feet tall. He's getting bigger and bigger, so his power levels are increasing. And he's doing it right in the city. He's damaging buildings, he's doing practices. He weighs tons with tons and tons of weight, and he's walking through the city causing damage.And so in the past when that happened, the Avengers had some sort of fun that paid for that stuff. Is there a post Avengers payment fund now too?Michael: That's part of the reason why I was thinking about this, there has to be some kind of structure in there. Not just about the idea that they have information that would be damaging, to our interests if they went somewhere else, for instance.But also if giant man is practicing growing in the cities, and holding onto buildings so he doesn't fall down. He's causing damage. And in the past, it's still irresponsible them to do that. But at least there is some kind of recourse for the regular person or insurance companies. He get some kind of, kind of like, you know, fix, fix the masonry on this. You know, likeEdward: fix, it's like an irresponsibility reading. As an avenger you can have a 10 on irresponsibility, but now that you're post Avengers, let's bring that irresponsibility level down to a six or a seven.Michael: And he hasn't, you know what I mean? Practicing growing around buildings when you wait tons and could knock one over if you just tripped, is not responsible.Edward: And also grabbing, grabbing onto the edges of buildings and like having bricks fall off. It just seems a little dangerous.Michael: It's super dangerous. So that's why I think that there must be something in the way, some process or some similar continuation of coverage.Really. Like I know when lawyers retire, we have mandatory insurance and then when you retire you can have runoff insurance, which would cover you. So you might get a claim, there's only so long you can Sue your former lawyer there's limitation periods and then you'd wanna make sure you cover. So if you did get sued,Edward: the insurance covers you, not for the time that you were a lawyer, but the insurance is covering you for right now. Like, for example, if you stopped your insurance today, And you got sued for something you did yesterday, the insurance wouldn't cover you.Michael: No, so insurance covers terms, so as long as you have occurrence base and claims based policies, but the most common policy would be like if you get into a car accident, you have insurance policy with company A, and then you get sued two years later. B, you no longer are insured you by that company. You're run to another insurance company. It's the company that was on risk that would cover you. And so I'm saying for, Lawyers when they retire, they wanna make sure they've got insurance and coverage, to continue a bit longer. I see I'm diving into stuff. I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm far from retirement, but I just know that there is coverage up.Edward: There's something, there, something, there's something's something there that's a giant man probably has some sort of insurance policy that's covering him post Avengers, some sort of runoff policy that lasts for some period of time.Michael: Or you just have the Avengers have so much money at their disposal. They're either self-insured in a sense, or they just have money to pay. But whatever it is, I think that you don't have these retired Avengers running around causing damage and then not, and then what you're gonna Sue giant man, you're gonna find out where that guy, who he really is. Or do you still follow the process that is in place that we we're aware of where they could make a claim. Because of the damage that the Avengers caused, which I think is a way that's kept people kind of okay with them in general.Edward: So if he has to have this coverage that keeps lasting, like we're kind of paying for giant man for the guess for the rest of his life or for some time period.Does he have responsibility then too? This is like reserves in the military. I think we can call back up giant man if the Hulk was rampaging through the city and we're like, you know what? The Avengers are a little weak right now. We need some, uh, we need some more bench strength.Can he be called in?Michael: I don't know. I mean I would think so. I would think that's part of the deal. Like we said at the beginning, it's unusual and unprecedented about what they are in our society, but they are unusual. They are unprecedented is so, you and I are just trying to speculate about what should make sense.And I think what makes sense is that if they're out there, Having information or abilities that could harm us if they were no longer on our side. I think that there's a built-in incentive to have them close to home, really. But also if they're out there doing activities, and they're more or less government agents, which they have been.I think there should be some kind of recourse for regular people. Otherwise people would not be as keen about Giant man doing his calisthenics in the middle of the city.Edward: Like you're sounding more and more like the Avengers are like the mafia. Once you're in, you can't get out. You think you're out and we pull you back in.Michael: I'm not saying that they're not like that. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

MRC finishes June 1965 with Strange Tales #133 with Human Torch and Dr. Strange, Tales of Suspense #66 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish #68 with Giant-Man and Hulk, and Avengers #17. Getting plastic surgery to look like Uncle Fester! Sploosh! Nautilium! Hateful bellboys! Boopsie! Leaping from passing plane to passing plane! Ultrasonic Vibro-Waves! Check it out!

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the shocking loss of scientific skill among the country's top scientists. It clearly seems purposeful, but what is the purpose? Aliens trying to keep humanity from developing new technologies? A domestic test to take away targeted abilities from exceptional people? Will they be able to take away superpowers next? And if so, is it ethical? If we can't keep someone in prison, is the choice really between lobotomizing their abilities or capital punishment? What is the ethical choice? Ed and Mike disagree!Behind the issue:The after-effects of this issue result in Giant-Man unable to shrink smaller than a normal human for the remainder of his time in this title (which is ending soon and will be replaced with Namor. More on that when it happens!). Otherwise, nothing special here. In this issue:A guy is driving around town while being directed by a man in a hidden laboratory in a funny costume named the Supreme One. When the driver sees Giant-Man, he decides to zap him in a green ray, which causes Giant-Man to grow weak. This is because the ray is designed to steal power. The Supreme One becomes obsessed with stealing Giant-Man's power, as he was unable to do that the first time he had someone try. To that end, he has his minion drive around town bathing scientific geniuses in the green ray, stealing their next-level scientific abilities, i.e. a top physicists forgets everything he knows about physics, etc. Giant-Man and the Wasp investigate, eventually tracking down the Supreme One, who escapes in a spaceship (turns out he is an alien).In the second story in this issue, the Hulk fights the army in a foreign nation, and when he turns to Bruce Banner, he is captured by some locals. Major Talbot is sent in to rescue Bruce Banner, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger - will Talbot and Banner fall to their deaths as they escape? Tune in next week!Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering what is happening to all the smart people. They are getting … less smart? How does that make any sense?This episode takes place:After people learn of the de-smartening that is happening.Complete transcript:Edward: All right, Mike, we're gonna change it up this week. We're gonna change it up a little bit because I have a story I think we should be talking about that's not, well, maybe it is superhuman. The scientists around the world are losing their scientific abilitiesMichael: right?Edward: So these are top physicists who are losing the ability to do physics or top geneticists who can't do genetics anymore. Top chemists who can't do chemistry anymore. And their brains can still do everything else. They can still have conversations, they can still love their families, but they're losing their scientific abilities. And so I think this is a super thing. We don't know who's doing it or why, but it sounds superhuman.Michael: Okay, before we get to this superhuman, if they're superhuman. Not saying that what you're saying is thatEdward: No, I'm not saying human. It's a superhuman, some sort of superhuman thing. I don't think we know any scientific way to remove parts of knowledge from someone's brain like that feels like a superhuman thing.Michael: Right. So you're saying that there must be a purpose to it. This phenomena that's only targeting extremely intelligent and highly accomplished and specialized people like physicists. They're being targeted and their abilities are removed, which. Yeah, it doesn't sound normal.Edward: Um, well, it's never happened before, so therefore it is by definition, abnormal. Although it's abnormal, it's happening more and more now. So is it becoming normal? It's becoming normal. It was not normal, but now it is.Michael: It's normalized almost, and so normalized.So I guess the first question is, what's the purpose of it? So your first thing is that you're thinking that there's a super villain possibly, or an alien or something that is doing this for a reason. Right. In that it's making humanity weaker. It's making our ability to defend ourselves worse. Worse. Is that where you're kind of going on it,Edward: it sounds that way. Like, oh, you're right. Maybe it's a villain who's doing blackmail, but it seems purposeful. If it was a virus, That was just spreading around, right? And causing brain damage to people. First of all, that'd be terrifying, but secondly, it feels like that viruses don't work that way. The viruses wouldn't go and attack just the most intelligent top scientists in the world and just attack their scientific knowledge and leave everything else untouched. So you're right, it seems purposeful.Michael: And that's alarming because we know that in the last few years, in addition to what appears to be naturally occurring superhuman abilities and extraterrestrial or, paranormal, superhuman abilities, we have seen that there's been greater advances in technology, in science that have allowed humanity to reach new levels. So Iron, Man and other, you know, giant. Giant man have been able To create things that are just impossible they're fantastical. It's basically modern magic, the science that they've been able to wield so is this a preemptive attack, a taking away the ability of other people to create such modern miracles?Edward: Oh, you're right. Yeah, it could be stopping the creation of new superheroes. We know, if you look at the superheroes that are out there, a handful of them, like the X-Men seem to be that this people who are born with this weird gene that's being activated by something.But for most superheroes out there, or, super villain for that matter. It seems to be either, Some sort of science that science is doing it. That's right. Captain America is experimented on and turned into Captain America, like the Reed. Richards took fantastic four up into space and space stuff turned them into the Fantastic four. Sandman was like atomic research, whatever turned him into Sandman. So it feels, or to your point, Iron, Man and Giant Man was actually, or the porcupine, they're actually building technological wonders. And so if our top minds, the people who can like do the engineering, the people who can understand the atomic science are losing their ability to do that.Hey, maybe it is aliens. Maybe aliens are trying to put humans in their place and say, Hey, stay on the planet Earth. Stop leaving and stop developing powers.Michael: It's wild. It sounds paranoid, but at the same time it's starting to make a lot of sense. This will fundamentally weaken humanity. By taking our top scientists off the board. That's right. Quite frightening. That's right. But then the other part of it is leaving side the motivation which is alarming and I'm hopeful that say the Avengers or the various federal agencies are on top of this, you gotta wonder how they're doing it. Like how is it that they're doing almost micro lobotomies. Is it a technological basis for it or is it magical? How exactly are they doing it at all.Edward: You're right. Clearly, it's not something that anyone has done before, but someone has found a way to go and do, lobotomy is a good word. It's a very, it's like a targeted lobotomy. Because what's fascinating about this is it's not like these scientists are coming in with other brain damage. They're able to continue on their lives. Normally. They are still able to, whole jobs. Not even like they can't do normal stuff. They can do all the normal things. They just, it's like this piece of knowledge. They're cutting edge brain power and I don't even know if their intelligence was affected so much as their knowledge was affected. So if you're a scientist who's like really brilliant and spend 40 years of your life diving deep into physics, you're not gonna be able to spend another 40 years we just don't live long enough.Michael: It's quite a violation of their autonomy too. I don't want to discount that, but, however they're doing it, it's wild. And you gotta wonder if it's not some extraterrestrial kind of thing or some kind of super thing. What if it's actually a, just, it's something more domestic? We talked before about, What do you do with these super villains that you capture and have these amazing abilities? Like say, let's say Sue Storm turned into be a bad person and she has force fields and can turn Invisible. Like how do you deal with that and make, and IM prisoner if she was a villain, is this. Some technology that somehow got into the world where they've been experimenting on how to turn off abilities and it's got into the wrong hands and they're using it to turn off the abilities, for lack of a better term, of regular humans.Edward: If you're right, maybe it is just an experiment then, and they're testing to see if they can turn it on and off before they say, Hey, let's turn off the superpowers of. Sue Storm or Reed richards. Let's turn off the brain power of some physicists and you're right, if it doesn't work and they can't turn it back on again, that would be really bad. But not as bad as if we like turn off the superpowers of the Avengers because hey, that's irreplaceable.Michael: It does lead into to a consideration of like, how if this is like a deliberate thing that might be done by people on our side, say a government kind of project that got the wrong hands, that tells us I guess I've ever thought about the idea that turning off, say, superpowers is akin to a pure violation of a person's autonomy, right? It's more relatable in a way to basically make a very intelligent person, less intelligent in a particular area that is actually, it's so remarkably unethical, cuz it is effectively targeted Phlebotomy.Edward: Clearly whether it's just happening to Random intelligent people, it's unethical. But if we did this to get against the guy who was building the porcupine suit or the wizard who is like notoriously committing crimes and breaking outta prison and committing the frightful fore attacking the Fantastic four, if we just reduced his intelligence and stopped his ability to go and create these fantastic suits, I dunno, is that still unethical?Michael: I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It, definitely is it is a version of lobotomizing those intelligent people. We don't do that right now. There have been super intelligent people in history and if the choice is to build a better prison or to lobotomize somebody, you would choose you should choose to build a better prison.Edward: That's fair. And I guess I feel like we haven't really. On that route, far enough. We still are building these terrible prisons and allowing these criminals to escape again and again. But I guess let's go further. Remember there was the vanish. Do you remember the vanish, right?Yes, I did. So that's, yeah, so the vanger had the ability to teleport and, I'm not sure how he was dealt with, I assume, like we assumed at the time maybe that they just killed him. There was just a extra, judicial murder to take this guy out because otherwise what do you do?You can't put in prison someone who can teleport outta prison. He was teleport into the Oval Office. He was threatening the president. You, can't stop someone like that. And so if we had, if for the vanish or. Let's say what they had this ability to turn off his power. Or, and along the way it also turned off his ability to do complicated differential equations. It feels like that's a better alternative than allowing him to go free or a better alternative than murdering him.Michael: Yeah. But it's the same, you know, The Thing with ethics is that they're not relative. This goes to, the question I suppose, is the ability to have like a superhuman power, and you, if you remove that, is that the same as effectively doing a version of a targeted lobotomy? And I think the answer is yes. I mean, I think that the Vanger, even by basis of just looking at his name, He identifies, that's a core part of who he is.Edward: He enjoys vanishes, and if he stops vanishing, then who is he anymore?Michael: Well, exactly. And so to remove that from him,Edward: it's, I'm the talker. If you take away my, if you make me mute, who am I?I can't, I can't, I can't do The Thing that I do.Michael: But it, but it's the same thing, like, so it is the same thing removing an ability for somebody to solve differential equations as a top physicist is the same as taking away a person's ability to, in this case, do a unique thing, which is the ability to,Edward: so I'll grant you that, but the difference is, is that the guy doing the differential equations isn't trying to murder the president. It feels like that. Like that's the difference. You're right. I don't think we should go and find everybody who can teleport and then go and take away their abilities. That seems like a draconian a totalitarian government that would do something like that. But if there's somebody teleporting around murdering people, I think by all means we should stop that person. And if that means taking away their ability to teleport, I think so. Be it.Michael: I guess the question is, what is a worse and more abominable crime towards an individual or harm that you could cause them? Is it one to give them effectively a brain injury so that they are not the same person as they were before, because that's what you're doing if you turn up abilities. I think it's similar to making somebody less, less intelligent to like solve differential equations either argues the same as turning off their ability to do what they're born to do, which is teleport. So it's a better termEdward: to murder. I was born to murder precedents.Michael: Wait, so you either give them effectively a brain injury, so you actually violate what they are as a human at who they're as a person. Their core being or you killed them, is what you're saying. Or you build a better prison. Yeah. Yeah. And you're saying you handled a better prison. It's only two choices.Edward: That's right. That's right. So I think we are all agreed that if you can build a better prison, you build a better prison that feels like the right thing to do, I think. Mm-hmm. When you can't build a better prison, when you have someone like the vanish or the absorbing man who can, if you put him in a prison, whatever you. Put him in, he can absorb the strength of that thing and bust his way out. And so what do we do? The absorbing man, they set him into space to drift aimlessly for eternity. Like that seems worse. It feels like if you had a choice between, that's the worst one. Drifting through space for all eternity, or losing the ability to absorb the strength of materials around you. I think most of us would give up the ability to absorb, even if our name was the absorbing man. It feels like you can get a new name.Michael: Hey. They sit him down and say, listen, here are the two alternatives. We've been up all night thinking about the options here, and one is that we turn you into a race that'll float through the empty space forever, or we give you, effectively we change your brain chemistry. And I think that, historically, it's a pretty slippery slope when you start messing around with people's brains and changing who they are. I don't know what the right answer is, ed, but I have to say youEdward: really don't know the right answer. You really think that maybe the right answers to have 'em drift through space for all eternity.Michael: I don't know. You're forcing me to say that. I think it'd be better. I think it would probably be better to actually like, uh, And I'm against a death penalty. But that seems to be preferable to actually really lobotomize againstEdward: sin. Bomb the ball. No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, imagine. So let's put you in that, those shoes. Okay? Now, Mike, you now have the ability to fly. You are flying, man, and you could fly around and so on. But you know what? You used that, you used that flying power for evil, and you started killing presidents. And so now they're like, Mikey, you need to go to jail. Unfortunately. This metaphor is falling apart because we could put a flying guy in jail. You,Michael: you put a, the ceiling solved the problem, ed.Edward: Okay, Mike, you have the ability, we're gonna use this vanish again. You can teleport Mike, you can now teleport everywhere and you're murdering people left, right, and center. Because you know what, maybe the teleporting also meant your brain go, went crazy, and the government comes to you and says, Hey Mike, we have two choices.We can take away your ability to teleport and you'll go back to being old Mike. Or we can murder you. Are you really, are you like, have you given that choice? Like you think the right choice is to murder you?Michael: Uh, it's, it's just such a hard It, it is. It's not hard. Murder. Murder is a problem. The slippery slope stuff is terrible.Eddie, you're actually,Edward: yeah. But one of them, one of them has a slippery slope. The other one is a giant hole of death.Michael: You know what I think because,Edward: you can recover from a slippery slope, you can't recover from a murder.Michael: Eddie, I'm a lawyer. I'm not a judge. I'm not making that call right now. But you're, but clearly I know where it goes with you. You'd be like, take away my ability. Give lobotomize me so that I don't go out and vanish anymore and I'll live the rest of my life.Having you having fundamentally changed what, who I am as a person? Yes. Yes. How is that any different than Lobotomizing people that. The state didn't, consider to be, desirable?Edward: Well, we've already, I think the difference is, is we've agreed that you are only doing this as a last ditch effort. We're not saying, Hey, you're a murderer, a normal murderer who like walks around with knives and guns. We'll just take the knives and guns away from you. Even though you call yourself gunman and you define yourself by using guns, we're gonna take away the guns. And then, and you're like, oh, but I can't be gunman without guns.Well, too bad you're no longer gunman. You are now just man, and we're gonna put you in a jail. And that jail is not gonna give you access to guns and that's the preferred choice. But if you can't, but if you can't put them in the jail, you need another choice. And the second choice should not be killing them indiscriminately.Michael: So I guess the problem and hear me out on the slippery slope, but like if the technology is developed and you can use it on these, in these extreme situations, my fear is that you use them. Even if you could rationalize that, you would use them in more mundane situations where all prisoners, all people convicted of violent crimes are now gonna get, effectively get a lobotomy because it's safer.Because you can't keep them in prison forever. Or if you do, the prisons are unsafe, et cetera. There's gonna be a rationalization for actually using this technology to effectively lobotomize them too. So it won't be limited, I'm afraid to this very unique situation that. The teleporters of the world. I wish we know there's one. And it could extend and it could, it would extend what I consider to be an abomination throughout. Oh, again, you're worried Our society.Edward: Well, maybe we just put in rules in place that the person needs to choose to have this. We just get to a certain point where it's like, Hey, you can choose to be lobotomized or murdered, and if you prefer murder, we can do that for you.The state's really good at murdering people.Michael: I think it's what, I think one of those, that's what they consider to be actually not a real choice. Ed, I thinkEdward: know that's the point is, but like, we're stuck at this point where we have to choose the choice. We don't give them three choices if it's not like we can take away your powers, murder you or put you in a jail that you can escape from in two seconds. Which do you choose now? Well, clearly the guy just escapes from jail and so that's not an acceptable choice for our society. We need to stop the vanger and people like him from murdering people. And so far it seems like what we're doing is we're just murdering. We murdered the vanger and we sent the absorbing man into space. And this molecule, man, we don't know what happened to him. These people who are extremely powerful. They seem to just be disappearing and we're not talking about it. That is the slippery slope. And so this is a way to reduce the murdering this against villains.Michael: Well, if I had to guess. I suppose the murder's been working out. At least that's what's been happening and I think it's unfortunate. I think it's horrific. And so what I hope will happen is that maybe if the government is secretly funding this research into this technology, maybe they should direct their attention. Towards better prisons that would solve the problem and avoid these thorny issues. That, that you're pushing on me.Edward: Teleportation proof prisons. That's the next scientific achievement. Read Richards. Go do it.Michael: Send them to Asgard Ed. We know that they must have their, they're superpowered.God's like Thor. They must have the technology up there to deal with strange, unique powers. Let's, let's, let's start talking about that.Edward: Vanisher, get off Earth. Go murder Odin. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

When episode 200 was first published we push the wrong audio (audio for episode 199). It has now been fixed. Apologies for the error (Thursday, April 27, 2023)In this episode:Mike and Ed continue to dive into the shocking changes to the Avengers line-up. It has now been announced that in addition to Hawkeye, Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch will be joining the team, and all of the founding members will be leaving. Is it still the Avengers is none of the founding members are on the team? Are we concerned that 75% of the team is made up of former villains. Are they really FORMER? And even if morality was not an issue, can we expect these new members to replace the missing firepower of Iron Man, Thor, Giant Man and the Wasp?Behind the issue:There was so much to discuss in this issue we broke it into two. And we still never covered the death of Baron Zemo given it was unclear if it was ever made public. Surprisingly for the comics Baron Zemo, the archenemy of Captain America at this point in the continuity, remains dead until the present day. However his son takes on the title and continues to battle Captain America and the Avengers on an ongoing basis.In this issue:(This is a repeat of the last episode) The issue opens with the Avengers once again emerging victorious over the Masters of Evil in New York, with Captain America defeating Baron Zemo in South America. It continues with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp in New York having a team meeting and deciding to take a break from being on the team. At the same time they are having the meeting, Hawkeye breaks into their headquarters and asks to join the Avengers. His beloved Black Widow has been murdered by her employers behind the iron curtain, and he has had a change of heart on his line of work. The team decide to take him up on the offer, and on top of that, seek out new potential teammates, with the papers reporting this initiative. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver decide to apply to join the team, and they are admitted to the ranks as well. By the time Captain America returns, the team has been completed reconstituted, with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp out, and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch in as their replacements.This episode takes place:After Cap's kooky quartet has been announced.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, never believe the rumors. Never believe the rumors. The rumors are total bs. Can't trust those people,Micheal: even if we're the ones that are spreading the rumors in.Edward: Even that we need to stop, stop with the speculation, I think last we heard captain America and Thor were off the team. Hawkeye and someone else were on the team and now that's all been thrown for Loop. Thor is off the team, but now Iron Man and Wasp and Giant man are off the team as well. Captain America is back. It's just nothing makes sense anymore.Micheal: Well, not really, no. So our speculation before was that we found it suspicious that Hawkeye, a former villain, was on the team when the remaining three Avengers were people with power suits, basically, who could be swapped in and out, but now it's Hawkeye's off. Two more villains. Rick Silver and the Scarlet Witch are on the team. And Captain America's in charge. I mean is it really the Avengers? You know what I mean? They said isn't.Edward: There's no original ventures left. What's that? That's it. Thesis' ship You're talking about Thesis' ship. That's what I was gonna say. Yeah. Yeah. They've replaced every board and brought on new boards. Is it still the same ship when none of the boards are left.Micheal: Well, what's funny is like, I think about law firms where law firms start out with a name of like, Smith and Jones, and then, eventually there's no Smith and there's no Jones. It's just a name andEdward: It's an overhand,Micheal: people treated as I think that it has the risk of being Smith and Jones in name only. And being not the same as it used to be. And maybe that's what the Avengers are. Is thatEdward: the Avengers innate only?Micheal: That's Well, they are until they do something right. It does strike me. So leaving aside the fact that now it's Captain America and three former villains and going through the whole discussion of. We can skip the discussion now cause we had it last time. We spoke about, well, how do those, how does a villain get on the team? But they did apparently.Edward: Yeah. No, remember last, so last time we speculated. Okay, well maybe the other hero they're gonna bring on is a former villain we talked about Radioactive man or the Wizard, or, yeah. Mr. Hyde. It can never occurred to us that they bring on. The former Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, people like, well, I guess we talked about that before too, the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants so they're all kind of they're all dead now or captive or whatever, except for two of retired, well, they didn't stay in retirement very long.Micheal: No. And they thought, you know what? Like, uh, we're good now. And, uh, and that was good enough, I guess for the federal security agency. Good enough for Captain America.Edward: Yeah. Like, they're like, we were never immoral. We were just amoral. We're joiners, we're joiners.Micheal: We just, you know, if you've got a good pitch, we'll listen. But, uh, it does seem as, it does seem quite odd and I guess, I think the best way to look at it. So leaving aside the points that we've discussed about how it's challenging to bring on villains, um, maybe give 'em a chance, but they do seem severely underpowered compared to the original Avengers team, right? Correct. Or the former Avengers team.Edward: Yeah. In terms of Ross Strength, Thor, giant man. Iron man, all three super strong. Yeah. And now like their strongest members, captain America, who is the weakling on the old team.Micheal: I know. And then, Hawkeye, good aim. Okay. And, um, I don't, we don't know much about Scarlet Witch, her powers. They seem to be kind of just,Edward: I think they're very witchy. They're like witch powers,Micheal: witchy. I don't, I mean, I don't really know. And then Chris Silver Fast.Edward: It's in the name Mike. It's in the name.Micheal: Yeah. They're both in the name, but I wonder, so with quick silver, I wonderEdward: Red, red Magic, I think she has a lot of red magic.Micheal: Well, red Magic. Oh, that's the best kind. But you think so Quicksilver, I mean, the only qualification I have is that I think being able to move at super speed could have enormous power of potential.Edward: I think that's the best power.Micheal: Yeah. If like,Edward: oh, except, except for if, you know, it's a better power. Flying fast. Running fast. Really, really good. Better flying fast. Because if there was The Thing in Europe, can, he runs so fast, he runs on water. I don't think he runs that fast.Micheal: I don't know. I don't know. But, you're the physicist. And so how does it work if Quicksilver can run, say as fast as a plane, right? Sure. Just say that. Sure. Would his body not to be super durable and super strong to withstand that pressure, like say he's running, like if I'm running really fast, fast for me, or I'm in a car going very fast and I put my hand out the window and I hit a mailbox, like think my arm will fly off, right? It's just, I'll break my arm.Edward: But don't do that, Michael. Don't do that.Micheal: Don't do that. All the listeners at home don't do that. But so quick.Edward: I teach, I teach our kids not do that. Like, don't put your arm outside the window. Just don't, it's not a thing.Micheal: Not a good idea. So if you are Quicksilver and you're running very fast, presumably he's running so fast, he's running into bugs or pounding off his face and it's probably next to impossible not to hit things. Is his body super durable result?Edward: If it is durable, it must, must have some, it must, like if nothing else, his eyes are super D, durable. The guy's not wearing goggles, right? Like he's running along and if a bug gets in his eye at 400 miles an hour, that's like, that's his eye's gone.It's a dead eye, dead eye. He's a pirate.Micheal: Yeah, he's a pirate, like in both eyes. He's not, he's probably outta the pieing business too, unless, um, well, I guess he could find a way to accommodate that, I guess. But I guess that sounds more insensitive than, I mean, but like, anyways, hopefully he doesn't lose both his eyes, but, um,Edward: he's not losing his eyes. He has some sort of super eyes. He has better eyes than Hawkeye.Micheal: Okay, so he must, so he must be powerful and if his body's durable, then I'd imagine that you're the physicist. If he hits something with that amount of speed, he just obliterates somebody, wouldn't he? Through a wall?Edward: Yeah. Yeah. This is a mathematical equation for this. It's very simple equation. It's just mass times velocity. And so the amount of damage you're gonna do is mass times velocity. And so if you go twice as fast, you can weigh half as much and still do the same amount of damage. Right. The faster he goes. So if he's, yeah, so if I charge into you and like, I dunno was making up a number, I weigh 200 pounds and I charge into you. I don't even know how fast one runs. Like I run 10 miles an hour into you. That's gonna do 10 times 200 or like 400 pounds per second image or something. But if he runs at 200 miles an hour, he can be. Much smaller than me, it would still do a lot more damage. But your point, your point, he's probably heavier than that. He's probably, he's durable and strong to begin with. Cause if he runs into something, the damage that he receives is the same damage as The Thing receives it's equal and parallel. Yeah. And usually what happens is The, Thing that's moving really fast is much bigger and stronger and runs into the other thing. So he must be like, he must have some sort of like super durability if he runs into anything otherwise he's squished.Micheal: Exactly. So, he must have super durability and therefore with the super durability and the strength, it means he's super strong basically.Edward: Do we know that he's strong? Oh, he's, his legs must be strong to move it fast.Micheal: They would be, but like again, like if he's going, if he's super durable and he's like running in it to you with his fist and his fist hits you, that would effectively be super strong.It would cause serious damage. Not to his fist if it's durable. Yeah, fair enough. The. Thing, he said it,Edward: it would do. Damn. But it doesn't mean he can lift things. He's not strong. Strong. He can't lift a car.Micheal: Well, no, you're right. He's powerful. Yeah.Edward: Powerful. Not strong.Micheal: I like that we're getting to these distinctions.Like this is strength. Strength is not so great. Power powers lots of charts.It's like, anyway,Edward: Bruce Lee, Bruce Lee can punch really strong, but he's not necessarily strong, but he can like, he's powerful.Micheal: He's powerful. He's not necessarily strong. He couldn't lift somebody, if they fell off a building, he grabs his hand. I could pull you up, you know, or something. He'd be like, uh, no. But I could punch, punch. I could punch you. So he won't feel it when you hit the ground. No, I think that it's a challenge, a challenge to suggest that he's, that's not a challenge. Sorry, I, that's a totally wrong point that I was trying to make there.Let me rewind that. I think that if we're getting back to the original point, I think that the closest that you get to replacing Thor. Or Giant man or Iron. Man in the function would have to be quicksilver. That's the only way,Edward: and I guess you could argue that most of the time, what does Thor and Iron Man and Giant Man use their strength for? They use it for punching people. Mm-hmm. They use it for damaging villains and like they don't spend a lot of their time like lifting villains up in the air.Micheal: No. And so that they effectively, they're doing their job. Yeah. So that'sEdward: Okay. All right. So maybe quick silver's, the replacement. I still think it's a sketchy team. I think they're in for, in for a wake up call.Micheal: Yeah. And we'll be there to chronicle it. Yes.Edward: But you talked about, Hawkeye replacing Captain America, and so that's not true. So we, if we do like a one-to-one comparisons here, Hawkeye did not replace Captain America.Hawkeye I think replaced Iron Man. My original argument. Mm-hmm. They're both technologically people and they do all sorts crazy things. So that's the replacement. And then I think you're saying Quicksilver is basically replacing Thor, Thor taking out the strength ring, which I guess, hey, it's a different versatile power and he's powerful, maybe, seems weak. And that leaves Scarlet Witch who basically takes on the role of Giant Man and the WASP and takes on two of them at the same time. And, I don't know. That seems also there's a gap. There's a gapMicheal: maybe, but maybe I'm kind of stretching a bit. But maybe the Scarlet Witch,Edward: there's, well, we, Richard not on the team, so there's, there's no stretching involved, Michael.Micheal: No, but like this is Trace, but The Scarlet Witch. The Scarlet Witch, she's got an unpredictability to her power and in a way like, This is a bit of stretch, but chime in and, and was, have always been unpredictable. It's just sort of weird, the idea that super small, it's counterintuitive like that being super small leads to some benefit to the team, but it clearly did. So maybe that's to some degree she kind of functions in that capacity.Edward: She's the surprise, the, you know, surprise factor, like giant man in the wasp can surprise you because they're little small things and they pop up in the really big. Yeah. And so now she's using her magic to be like surprising her red magic. Cause you never know what it's gonna do.Micheal: Alright, let, we figured it out. Good luck to the new Captain America LED team. Uh, there you go.Edward: Well, hey, there's more to it than that though, because they're talking about, about potentially bringing Hulk onto the team. That's the new rumor. Although, Hey, can we, can we listen to any rumors? Can we listen to any rumors at this point?Micheal: No, even though we are a show that speculates. I like, we have to be careful about spreading rumors because, maybe it wouldn't be fair at this moment to speculate about other people joining the team because Cap did come out and introduce his three teammates as being this is our team so before we start saying, yeah, but maybe you should get. Like a crazy green monster in your team. We should probably just give 'em a chance at showing us how this is gonna work.Edward: Yeah, just do working with what they have. I think the one other point I think we need to get in before we wrap this up is that Tony Stark is clearly back involved. We talked before about how maybe this is a more of a government organization now the FSA is taking charge of things and approving all these people and letting them on the team. We thought maybe it's shifted a little bit from being part of Stark Corp to being part of the federal government. But when Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch were flown into the country, it wasn't someone from the Pentagon that met with them. It was Tony Stark who was there at the airport greeting them and bringing them on, taking them to the Avengers Mansion.Micheal: That's what you're saying is that it's the military industrial complex.Edward: It's the military industrial complex. It's all connected, Michael, it's all connected.Micheal: It's all the same apparently. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

MRC wraps up May 1965 with Tales of Suspense #65 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish #67 with Giant-Man and the Hulk, X-Men #11, and Avengers #16. Weasel Wills! More barely-rewritten Joe Simon! Bees in test tubes! A literal cliffhanger! Taking names off Cerebro! Endless press conferences! Check it out!

Next week is our 200th episode! It was fortunate timing that it ended up landing right on our episodes about Avengers #16, which was one of the most important issues of the era. If you are enjoying What If Marvel was Real?, now would be a great time to spread the word! Thanks for your help in getting our little show out there, and for all the listeners who have been here from the beginning.In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the surprise announcement that Hawkeye, the supervillain, will be joining the Avengers as a new member. The Federal Security Agency has given Hawkeye a thumbs up, but how is that possible? What do they know that we do not? Do we need to talk conspiracies again? The rumors are that Captain America and Thor are out of the organization. If true, we will only be left with heroes with technological powers - have the people behind the technology (and masks) been replaced? Is this the end of an era?Behind the issue:This is one of the key issues of the mid-60s. The Avengers were originally Marvel's answer to the Justice League, whereby the publisher put all the heroes from different titles into one book to get the readers excited and turning over their hard-earned cash for tales of camaraderie and adventure. But the individual hero titles continued, and Stan had to keep his developing Marvel universe consistent. He had to juggle the storylines in, say, the individual title Tales of Suspense with what was happening in the team title Avengers. If Thor had been called away to Asgard, then how would be be around for an Avengers adventure that same month? Making it all make sense every month was challenging for Stan, and he wanted a solution.The answer was to take most of the heroes with their own titles off the team. He kept Captain America, and maybe rationalized it by knowing that the Captain America stand-alone stories could be set back in World War II whenever he wanted them to be. Then he filled in the rest of the team with supporting characters from other titles - characters who did not have their own books (and would not get their own books for many years, i.e. Hawkeye did not get his first solo title until 1983; Scarlet Witch, with Vision, until 1982; and Quicksilver until 1997).In this issue:The issue opens with the Avengers once again emerging victorious over the Masters of Evil in New York, with Captain America defeating Baron Zemo in South America. It continues with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp in New York having a team meeting and deciding to take a break from being on the team. At the same time they are having the meeting, Hawkeye breaks into their headquarters and asks to join the Avengers. His beloved Black Widow has been murdered by her employers behind the iron curtain, and he has had a change of heart on his line of work. The team decide to take him up on the offer, and on top of that, seek out new potential teammates, with the papers reporting this initiative. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver decide to apply to join the team, and they are admitted to the ranks as well. By the time Captain America returns, the team has been completed reconstituted, with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp out, and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch in as their replacements.Assumed before the next episode:People are excited, and a little nervous, that the Avengers roster has been changed so completely.This episode takes place:After the announcement that Hawkeye will be on the team, but before Captain America returns from South America.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, I told you that Hawkeye was a superhero. I told you. I told you. You were like, oh no, he's not that good. He can't even fight anybody just as Arrows. Oh, go back to the 14th century. But no. Now Hawkeye is an Avenger. Mike. He's an avenger.Michael: Yeah. I guess the Avengers, they already had a man who's basically a one man rocket and can shoot energy from his fists as an Iron man. They needed to get somebody who could. Arrows on the team.Edward: Hey. The last time Hawkeye faced Iron Man, first of all, last time he faced Iron Man, he was a villain. We should talk about that. But when he did, yes, he defeated Iron Man, right? He blasted him with his energy discharge arrow and took him out. So, hey, this guy is versatile. We've had this debate. We don't need to debate it again. I think you are against Team Hawkeye. I am on Team Hawkeye. I think that it's absolutely fine from a power perspective that he's on the team. I'm not sure from a, ethics perspective, he's the red venture.Michael: Well, okay, let's break into, those two points then. So from a powerless perspective there must be something to him that he brings into the team, right? I can't imagine that it's solely just really good aim. There must be some other, maybe he's got some other ability that like he's, um, some kind of likeEdward: oh, maybe his really, maybe his really good eyesight. HawkeyeMichael: In the name, I mean alone, but he's got, there's some kind of, maybe, I'm just thinking maybe this is a signal that the Avengers are going from less, overt action to be more in the shadows.Edward: And nothing says sneaky like a purple costume carrying a bow and arrow.Michael: It's a dark purple ed. It's a dark, dark purple. No, but there must be something to it. Like he did take on Iron Man. He did seem to defeat him. So in a skills-based contest and maybe he's. Like you notice that Captain America wasn't at the press conference when they announced Hawkeye, so maybe he's a replacement for Captain America's, who's also similarly strategic and stealth based in a lot ways.Edward: There you go. There you go. Cause the rumors are right now that Captain America and Thor are being replaced and Hawkeye is the first edition to the team, but there will be,Michael: and your second point was the ethics. It does strike me as being a little odd that there's a guy who's worked with a known terrorist. The Black Widow. Correct. A Russian agent and he's fought Iron Man a few times. And, I would imagine in the course, Committed some crimes may, maybe he did, maybe technically he didn't commit any crime.He's justEdward: He did. No, I just did. I think they were doing something robbed. They were robbing Stark Corp or something. Yeah. They kidnapping somebody he was doing bad stuff.Michael: They kidnapped, they kidnap people. Yeah. Yeah. That seems a bit much to sweep under the rug.Edward: That's right. Where I come from, kidnapping is a crime, Mike. It's a crime. But come from planet, but not according to the federal security Agency. The federal security agency has approved Hawkeye as a member of the Avengers, says that his record is clean, that he is totally allowed to be on the team.Michael: Well, I know when I became a lawyer there is a requirement of good character to become a lawyer and. I think that there's a lot of lawyers, soEdward: I think the bar should be higher for the Avengers. Shouldn't the bar be higher than the lawyers?Michael: I think it should be. I think it should be. It should be higher than the bar for lawyers. The bar for superhero should be much higher and it turns out that it isn't. And let's be honest, the Avengers are the super team that people are in, are interested in, and it that are called in as the heavy hitters. So this seems like. Quite a promotion for somebody who, as you say, committed the crime of kidnappingEdward: That's interesting. Let's go back and talk about your issue with, Hey, lawyers have a high bar. I think part of the reason why we can hold lawyers to a high bar is that the supply of lawyers is really high. We're graduating more lawyers every year, and if there's an unethical lawyer, we can say, no thank you. We don't need you. We can replace you with an ethical lawyer. I wonder if the problem is, People who are powerful enough, superheroes who are powerful, super people who are powerful enough to be Avengers. There's not an excess supply. There's a handful of these people. Mm-hmm. There's like a few dozen maybe on the planet. And so if you're looking to augment that team and your bar is high from a power perspective, maybe you have to bend a little bit on the ethics perspective.Michael: Or maybe, if you believe in rehabilitation, which I do, maybe there's a steep rehabilitation curve? Because as you say, demand exceeds supply. And so if we need to have, Superpowered or super skilled people either we're willing to turn a blind eye or we're willing to go through the process that hopefully allows him to achieve rehabilitation. So behind the scenes there's been this sped up process. Yeah. Because we need to have this person. I know what you're saying. It does seem a little fu butEdward: it does. I'm stretching a little bit, trying to make sense of the fact that we have a known super villain on the team. And not just on the team, but specifically signed off by the federal government, the federal security agency has come on and said, Hey, this guy is clean. He's totally, totally legit. Now, and maybe the other possibilities that maybe the whole villain thing that Hawkeye was doing before was a misunderstanding, like the, the Avengers declared martial law on America. Turns out it was a mistake. Right? It wasn't actually them maybe and we're okay with that because Avengers do good, Avengers do. We'd say, oh, the bad was a mistake. We're all good. And Hawkeye just didn't do the good part at the beginning. He was just doing much of bad, but then like, oh, nope, we are okay with it. It was a, it was kind of a mistake. It was a misunderstanding. He's actually a good guy and maybe we just have to accept that.Michael: I guess, and the fact that it's Iron Man who he's fought, who's come forward and vouched for him, must mean there's something to the idea thereEdward: that's assuming Iron. Man is Iron Man.Michael: I know it's the Iron Man with whomever that person is has come forward and voast for him? For, for Hawkeye, andEdward: well, no, no. Let's say a Iron Man has come forward and Vos for Hawkeye. Yeah. But that's a whole other point. We've talked about this conspiracy. Do we know that the Iron Man inside the Iron Man suit is the same as the Iron Man who was in the Iron Man suit fighting Hawkeye. Maybe the Iron Man inside the suit. The individual inside the suit has been replaced and now he's like, I was an enemy with the old guy in the suit. Let's bring on some more of the people who are also his enemy onto the main team.Michael: So a hostile takeover, Eddie, like you got. This Iron Man. That's not real. Who's recruiting a villain and who's left on the team? Who are the other people on the team? Ed?Edward: Well, we know that I think giant man in the WASP are still people on the team, and so, hey, we, know that giant man in the wasps, their powers come from technology, right? We know this now too, right? There's some sort of helmet or pills or something they take and they wear masks. We don't know who they are. Maybe they've been replaced at the same.Michael: It's Wild Day, so the three members of the team of the Avengers, who are technology based, Iron Man, giant men in the Wasp are still on there and they could be swapped in. And interchangeable. For all we know. Thor isn't exactly interchangeable.Edward: That's right too. So the two people that are not, that looks like they're being replaced are Captain American Thor and Thor is, that's right. Clear. Like whatever. Thor is magical, powered, mutant. We don't know exactly what he is. We know that he is not an armored suit. He's not taking a pill. And turning to Thor and Captain America we know is some experiment from like the 1940s during World War ii, who is Un aging and like super strong. And he's a super powerful individual. He's physically fit and he's not replaceable either. He's not like, you can just put someone else, put the,Michael: there's footage of him going back to the forties as well, so maybe hard to just replace him. Whereas you have the, you're right, you have the only three members of the Avengers left are one second, easily be swapped out, and now they're. Pac a villain, or at least a criminal.Edward: I think somebody should be taking photos of the lower half of Giant Man's face and matching that up to previous photos. I guess you could still replace him with someone who's lower Jaw looks the same, but maybe they didn't go to that much trouble. I think someone should at least investigate.Michael: Or get his dental records, or photos to get a sense of his teeth and then compare them to old photos and say, aha, aha, I can see that that front tooth is shifted over quite a bit. That's not the same giant man.Edward: He's like, but I was punched in the face. I'm an avenger. I can punch in the face a lot.Michael: Uh, maybe wouldn't be the best one. But the nose, even like noses are pretty distinctive. Or even ears that they pot. Well, I don't think ears pot though, butEdward: his ears are covered. We don't, we don't know what his ears look like,Michael: but this all goes through our fundamental problem is that we, as a public and as the fifth, the state, have a hard time, Getting a sense of who these people are or possibly being fooled because they wear masks. And I guess, if we see that the Avengers as basically a very public facing, paramilitary organization that's to some degree manage or governed by the government say the Federal security agency in this case, then I guess there must be some safeguards. I good, good guess, but it's hard to say.Edward: And even if there are, it feels like, it's not the first time that you can imagine some corruption within the government, right? Maybe it's not even, a giant corrupt thing that we're talking about, but maybe that giant man in the wasp, our agents of the government, Iron Man is an agent of the government and somebody in charge. Whoever we don't know who that is. Someone in charge decides to bring on Hawkeye, and let's say all five members of the team are. Forget it. We don't want this guy on the team and the government guy's like, no, no, no, no, no. We've done the checkup. He's totally fine. He's totally legit. But they're like, no, we, we all quit. And so Captain American Thor are gone. You can't replace them, but you're like, oh, well hey, you three, you can't quit. You can quit if you want, but whatever. Tom Jones and Bob Smith can quit, but a giant man and the Iron Man in the was, they don't quit. They just get replace.Michael: Yeah, this deserves investigation. This deserves further inquiry. There's too many moving parts of the story to just let it sit. It's easy to be distracted by a new member of the adventures for the public, it's the first new member that they've added since they formed,Edward: no, no, no. That's not true. That's not Captain America came on. They, and he joined the team. Wonderman came on and he joined the team. Now, Wonderman died almost before we knew he was on the team. But he was an official Avenger for Okay. Some period of time. So this is the third new member of the team.Michael: Okay. It's still relatively unique though, let's just say that it's a big deal. Like Captain America is a new Yeah, it's a big deal. So it's, but it's distractingly. Interesting. And so other people, other journalists, and if I don't think we would consider ourselves journalists, but maybe we should, in this instance, should be asking these tough questions. And then I would think if they are truly a paramilitary organization, there is an interest, a public interest in perhaps knowing their identities in the same way that you would of any kind of, Government agents, unless they're spies, which the adventures aren't.Edward: Okay. Can we talk a little bit about speculation? We've done this conspiracy stuff, but now we have so it's true the Captain American Thor are off the team. I think your argument is that Hawkeye kind of replaces Captain America and I can buy that, right? Like they're both extremely talented individuals in some way, shape, or form. Both of them have projectiles that they incorporate one arrow and one a shield. I would argue arrows. More effective than shields start in terms of projectiles. But so that leads Thor. How do you replace an as guardian thunder God?Michael: Maybe with a Hulk. I don't know. Like, I mean, like what?Edward: Yeah, that went well last time.Michael: Maybe. The Thing, maybe.Edward: Oh, maybe The. Thing. Oh my gosh. That's a great call. Great call. Maybe it's time to shift things up.Michael: Yeah, I mean like maybe he's tired of being I wouldn't say that the fantastic four second tier, cause they aren't, but they do serve a different niche right, than the Avengers. And maybe that's true. Maybe Ben Grimm who was in the military. His interest might align better with a paramilitary organization rather than a more adventuring kind of organization. Fantastic.Edward: That's a great idea. Now, here's another theory is that Hawkeye was a villain that they got over to the hero side. Why don't we look at the list of villains out there? Radioactive man. Radioactive man from China. They decide to he's gonna defect and join America and join the Avengers. Because I would argue radioactive then wasn't evil. He was just serving the wrong master. And people have defected from China to America all the time.Michael: I mean, it'd be hard to get notice to him over in China, but Sure. He does have a skillset. He is extremely powerful. Similar to, I don't think he's the same strength level as Thor, butEdward: hasn't he battled Thor? Isn't Thor and radioactive man, aren't they arch.Michael: It's hard to tell. How many battles do you have to be an Archie enemy? I think you need a few, but,Edward: Just a regular enemy.Michael: Yeah, he's an enemy. Well, how about, okay, there's two. I'd say if you wanna go straight on, as guardian to as guardian, it would be the executioner. Executioner, yeah. Or Loki. Are the, oh Loki. If you could rehabilitate in the way that they rehabilitated, Hawkeye presumably, but I'd imagine rehabilitating an ancient immortal being that it might be a little tough. Tougher it. A little tougher to serve the interests of America or the world.Edward: No. You've been focus, we've been focused on like strength though too. Mr. Hyde is another strength strong guy. Yeah. Right. Maybe Mr. Hyde. But I wonder Thor is more than just a strong guy. He's more than. Pure muscle, the guy can fly. Remember we talked about how fast he can fly across the ocean?Yep. So do we need a guy who can fly? Like how about the wizard? Can we bring the wizard back?Michael: Yeah. But it's not like he's made a couple mistakes. Like you suggested maybe hot guy. He's a career criminal now. He just broke bad. How about, how about that guy with the, the wings from the x.Edward: Oh, angel Fly. Angel could fly Fly Angel. Yeah. Angel. Angel could fly. Yeah. You know, I think the point is it's gonna be hard to replace Thor cuz there's people who are strong that we could find. There are people who can fly. We could find, but trying to find somebody who can do both, that's a pretty unique spot. I think maybe there, there were, they made a mistake to let Thor go.Michael: Like I say, it's a developing story and I'm still distracted by the idea for lack of a better term, a super villain. Hawkeye is now in the Avengers, seems kind of funny. For a couple reasons. And then longstanding Avengers are just, I just disappeared. The only ones that remain are ones who are basically, are suits, where power suits seems kind of strange. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder what's happening. You know, we gotta get into this.Edward: There's also the point that we, this is all speculation too, because they did not say the Captain American Thor off the team. There was questions asked, and it was all just no comment. No comment, no comment. We're not gonna talk about it. What did he, he said something about the lives of Avengers are private citizens. We can't comment on them. Like, it was a definitely a very sketchy statement of we're not gonna go there.And so, hey, I guess stay tuned is the answer. More to come. More to come. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

MRC gets crushed under the remainder of April 1965, featuring Strange Tales with Human Torch and Dr. Strange #131, Tales of Suspense with Iron Man and Captain America #64, Tales to Astonish with Giant-Man and the Hulk #66, and Avengers #15. The Bouncing Ball of Doom! Lackeys of lackeys of lackeys! Hurtling handcars! The endlessly confusing Carter Family! Deadly plastic toy tractors! Proton guns! Villains imprisoned with their melting rays on! Check it out!

MRC wraps up March 1965 with Tales of Suspense #63 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish #65 with Giant-Man and the Hulk, X-Men #10 and Avengers #14. The most forgettable villain ever! Beautiful hags! Oomphy looks! The world's luckiest Soviet sub! The first and/or last refuge of the incompetent! Two sub-polar cities! Check it out!

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the battle between the Avengers and the Masters of Evil - not to be confused with the Brotherhood of Evil. Ed explains the importance of differentiation in your brand - you don't want to be confused for someone else. Mike wants to know if every superhero also has to be a tailor in their spare time. How many costumes does someone like Spider-Man own? Is his summer costume made with different material than his winter costume? Is the real benefit of being on a super team the laundry services? And why is Giant-Man re-branding yet again? The red and blue suits you, big guy, now stop fiddling with it and just embrace the fit!Behind the issue:This is the last full issue of this Avengers roster. The next issue, Avengers #16, completely changes the membership (more on that when we cover that issue). This issue ends on a cliffhanger but is wrapped up quickly in the next issue. The battle is used as the driver of why most of the team members decide to leave the organization. Also in this issue, Captain America battles Baron Zemo one-on-one and kills him. But that takes place in a far away country and is, at this point, unknown to the wider public.In this issue:Steve Rogers is contemplating a career change. As he does so, he notices the supervillains the Enchantress and the Executioner drive by, and he chases after them but they get away. Steve changes into his Captain America gear and reports back to the Avengers about the evil duo being in the city. They resolve to deal with them, but before they can do so, Rick Jones is kidnapped right in front of them by henchmen working for Baron Zemo. The Enchantress and the Executioner then break the Black Knight and the Melter out of prison and have them join their team with Zemo, the Masters of Evil. Iron Man and Thor do battle with the Black Knight and the Melter high above the city, while Giant-Man and the Wasp chase after the Enchantress and the Executioner at street level. The villains are ultimately defeated. At the same time, on a separate mission, Captain America locates Rick and frees him, with Zemo dying in the process by his own hand (accidentally).Assumed before the next episode:People are keeping an eye out in the streets for large muscular people in costumes, and then running for their lives so they are not caught up in a super-person battle.This episode takes place:After the Avengers have defeated the Masters of Evil.Full transcript:Edward: All right. That's what I'm talking about, Mike. We got the Avengers fighting a League of Evil super villains in the city. They're back to doing what we pay them to do.Michael: Or somebody pays them to do , but definitelyEdward: our tax dollars at work. Mike, our tax dollars at work,Michael: back to business, doing what we want them to do and not dealing with what was the last thing that they're caught up in, just. Regular,Edward: regular, regular what wasn't like giant man dealing with the mafia, I just felt like know, like get, get, get back on track. We have police that can deal with the regular stuff, but when you have a guy who can melt walls and an enchant who's casting magic spells and an as guardian and executioner, now is the time to step in with superpower people.Michael: That's right if we're anything Ed, we definitely believe in specialties and specialists. and superheroes are by definition specialists in super villains, not just, you know, rescuing cats stuck in trees and, and, uh,Edward: oh, my, I would be mundane, angry if Thor was spending his time getting cats outta trees.like, I feel like, like, not, not a good use of tax dollars. I dunno what we're paying him, but I figure we could pay someone a lot less to get the cats outta the trees. .Michael: But that being said, if my cat got stuck in a tree, I'd rather Thor flew up there than I had to climb a tree and possibly break my neck trying to rescue the bloody cat. But anyways,Edward: I, okay. Like you are not specialized in getting cats outta trees, that is not your specialty either. You stick to the law. Thor sticks to the super villains, and we can get the firefighters to get the cats out of the trees.Michael: All right. I think we've settled on it, on what should happen, certainly with cats and trees, but also with superheroes addressing super villains and so, It's back to business as usual, not great that we had to have them as, you know, having evil super villains, the masters of evil coming back and battling the Avengers, but at least, yeah, fine. The Avengers are tackling this discreet issue.Edward: Let's not even talk about the fact they're called the Masters of Evil. Again, we have the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, we have the Masters of Evil, we have the frightful four. Like these guys are just throwing themselves out there as being, I am not to be trusted.Michael: I know. Bless. I don't know. It's like good and evil are just, there's no like room for gray in here. Maybe there's . There's no misunderstanding.Edward: The masters of Gray we're the brotherhood of ambiguity, .Michael: How about misunderstood, tough childhood and trying to work through it. People together in a union, fighting for own version of justiceEdward: I will say as a marketing guy the bigger problem is, it's just confusing because right, there's the brotherhood of evil, but, and there's the masters of evil, like, I think. The evil is the key word in both those brands and it's easy to confuse them. Mm-hmm. So to be clear, the masters of evil who fought the Avengers this week there was the melter who could melt metal, not magni, who could move metal. Totally different people, unrelated, different teams, different names, but the same team name. Using that evil.Michael: There's some overlap there I guess, but I think they maybe, well you gotta wonder why they haven't consulted with, an agency about branding, which would make sense.Edward: So the key thing on branding is, number one is be descriptive. And I guess they're being descriptive. We are evil, mean people. And they've handled that part of it. But you also need to differentiate yourself. The other people who are doing similar work. And so if there's two teams of evil people doing evil super stuff, you just can't, you need to find a new name for yourself. And Frightful four does it, right? Frightful four does not use the evil name. They went to their local Theora and they've, looked up evil and they're like, you know what else is similar to evil is frightful. How about frightful instead of evil? And they're like, let's go with it. And there's no confusion there. But I think Masters of Evil and Brotherhood of Evil, to me, those are too close. And one of them should re. .Michael: That leads to the next question. We talked about lawyers might specialize in super powered people and insurance might be responsive to it. I wonder if there's any, well you would know, are there any agencies that deal with this kind of stuff?Edward: I don't think it's, the market's not big enough, Mike. The market's not big enough. Hmm. And, and especially if you're dealing with, nobody wants to be the marketing agency to. The criminals and the mafia. There's no mafia doesn't have a marketing agency working for them. They might have marketers as part of their team, but it's not like they need, they don't need them the way they need, lawyers and accountants.Michael: I'm not saying that General Electric is evil or anything, but you know, , they, they, they definitely, and they, they don't practiceEdward: the, the General Electric of Evil .Michael: No, but I mean like, like they're big corporations that, that, actually I don't wanna get sued by General Electric never meant nevermind about that. But, but regardless, I would imagine that there's agencies that would, for the right price would certain. Wanna be engaged by the Masters of Evil to say, let's call yourselves, maybe not the masters of evil, but the master, you know, the brotherhood of people. I don't know. Or something. Brotherhood of people. Some kinda, some kinda like, I said the, brotherhood of evil. Like the idea is like there's some kind of more palatable name that they could have to achieve their goals. I would imagineEdward: they could take the name they have right now, instead of the Masters of Evil, just be like, How about just the masters? The masters, the masters of super, the ma, the masters of powers, take the other characteristics they have other than evilness and lean. Lean into those. .Michael: Yeah. Like maybe like, they're really smart, I don't think if they're getting in fights with the Avengers, they need people to tell them that they're the antagonist in this dispute. Cuz the Avengers have clearly occupied the superhero world. Why don't you just call them some, call themselves something else? Like the masters or the, uh, the terrifics or something. It's the positive. Be positive by yourself, the public.Edward: Take the Avengers name and play that. Like, they can be the Avengers, like they can, they're the anti Avengers and the anti Avengers. You could define yourselves as being the opposite of your competitor.Michael: And leave it open as to whether they're in the wrong or not, that's what I find so confusing about the branding of automatically saying, we are definitely in the wrong, we are evil people. Evil, evil, evil. Or we are frightful, terrible, terrible people, , we just call themselves the amazing four, let people find out that they're bad. ,Edward: surprise, also evil.Michael: Surprised I was evil. But you know, we kind of had you there. You bought our action figures, because we're the amazing four hey Rob banks and try to destroy nuclear powered, power stations. But anyways. Mm-hmm. we're the amazings,Edward: I think the part of the has become is we don't see a lot of rebranding we've seen groupings of superheroes that come together and created a new brand, but the Avengers haven't decided, oh, we're gonna change our name. Or the Fantastic Four haven't been like, you know what? We've, we totally made a mistake. There is a possibility we could add a fifth member . Um, we need a new name. Um, yeah. It seems like everybody's commit. Well, I guess with one exception, ant Man has rebranded, right? Right. But apart, but apart from Ant Man, everybody's basically stuck with the. Brand since they started. We have any superhero that's switched brands along the way, or super villain for that. .Michael: No. And again, I kind of was being a little tongue in cheek about having agencies that might be involved in branding, but there's probably something to it, if not the name, certainly in the costumes or the outlook or the perspective on, or at least the narrative that they wanna advance. Because we do know that there are some superheroes who are more popular than others, why is Captain America more popular than Spider-Man? It might. because of the name. It might be because he's not covering his whole face. It might be just a costume, but, I'd imagine that there's something there. There's value in being popular and being celebrities as we know the fantastic force. Certainly there's a value in that and a financial benefit to that. So you think it might be worth their time to actually consult? Maybe a lot of them have, certainly the Fantastic four have already consulted with a brand expert and they say, you know, yeah, sure you might be limited in your membership numbers, but you're doing everything else right? You have a very clean, clear lines in your costumes. You're not hiding your face. You don't even have se secret entities. And that's led to them being not only popular, but making money from the whole enterprise. And you gotta wonder, maybe other people would. From it. Or they've already gone through it and just are just trying to play out the whole marketing plan.Edward: We don't know what's going on behind the scenes. We can just see the effects and like I can say there are certain things that are pretty consistent in the world of branding that are important. Mm-hmm. , so things like affiliating your brand with good things. , right? So this is why we run advertisements. That's why beer commercials show people drinking beer and having fun. And now you say, oh, you know what, if I drink beer, maybe I will have fun too. Maybe I will be surrounded by attractive women. And I think there's no difference in superheroes where if Spider-Man is continually getting affiliated with bad things, we start to affiliate Spider-Man as being bad. And if Captain America's affiliated with winning World War ii, which was a pretty good thing that. Leans off onto his brand. So that's number one. Number two is brand longevity matters a lot too. So a brand that's been around for a long time, people tend to like the things that stick around. And part of that's a trust thing because if you have a brand that's brand new, you don't know whether to trust it or not. But if something's been around, like ivory soap has been around for 60 years or something like that, they have a pretty good consistent record on, they're gonna do, they're gonna make you clean. And I think that's part of the reason why Captain America is so loved is he's been around longer time and they, he's consistently stuck on message and delivered that same message over and over and over again, over an extended period of time. And so we can trust him. But Spider-Man, he's like a brand new dude who knows what's what he's gonna do.Michael: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Well, yeah. And of course, this is something you have an expertise in about branding. But that leads to the question then. But the question I asked earlier is do you think that most these of these superheroes have consulted with a brand expert?Edward: No. No, of course not. No. they not talking to anybody. They peop, but like, just like most companies don't spend a lot of time with brand experts. They figure out things on their own, uh, and mm-hmm. and the biggest companies have lot. They're spending money on everything. But smaller companies, and I think most superheroes, you can think of them as fairly small companies. They're small, like little tiny startups trying to figure stuff out and they're not gonna have a budget to go. Spiderman doesn't a budget these spending on public relations people and a marketing team and a advertising organization and like they, they don't have that stuff. Most celebrities may have a publicist and a manager at best. And I think most superheroes are behind. .Michael: Well then let's talk about the one superhero who seems to be constantly rebranding and who would probably benefit from having some assistance. Antman, I mean, giant Man. I mean, okay. , whatever he is. How many costume ?Edward: Well, he's just had three. Right. So he had Antman and he was fairly consistent as Aunt Man. Yeah. And then he rebranded to Giant Man, and that was very confusing. Yeah. For a long time we didn't even know the Giant Man and Antman were the same person. And then, and now he has a new costume again, so this is. His second rebrand, and as far as I know, he's sticking with the name this time. He's not rebranding the name, just the look and. .Michael: But it's sort of funny, so if you go through those cautions first, when he is ant man, he clearly looked like, he's small and stuff and it's just like a red costume and stuff. And then when he is giant man, he still had those sort of funny antennas on his, head that suggests like, all right, okay, and he's bigger, he's walking around and like all giant, he's a giant now. He's a giant ant. Like it's just like, why don't you just call yourself like big aunt or something, and then, cuz that's what he's like, why if you're now giant, man, when I think of giants, I don't think of having an antennas on their heads, but whatever. That's what he did and now he seems to have. Well, let me think about, look at the news. Did he, does he still have those antenna on his head in his new costume?Edward: I don't even know. I haven't, I should have done more research. I feel like I haven't spent time really examining this new costume of hisMichael: Well, regardless, it's another rebranding and so that's where I'm wondering. Okay. If he, if this isn't part of a plan, then what is it? Is it just that he's like, I don't know, I don't say this, but insecure about his, you know, he's just like, oh gosh, doesn't make me look so good.Edward: So I think it's like, Hey, stay. Staying with a consistent costume can't be easy on any of these guys. Now the advantage is they don't need to think of what they're gonna wear in the morning, but the disadvantages is how many costumes do they have to have? Like you, you and I, I think I have a fairly consistent brand in terms of what I wear. I don't wear, I'm not gonna show up to work in like, I don't know, green tights. I'm gonna wear the consistent clothes every time I go to work. , but it doesn't mean I wear exactly the same clothes. I might have a blue suit or a black suit. I might wear a white collar or a blue collar. I feel like I can change up within a range. Yeah. It feels like superheroes don't do that and maybe giant man is just trying that. He's like, you know what, today, I just didn't feel like the antennas.Michael: Well, okay. Just to loop back on that, I've looked at the, the reporting still going with the antennas, , I don't get it, but regardless,Edward: he's, keeping, so there you go. That's his consistent theme. Yeah. He was like, he was an ant man to a giant man, to a, new giant man, and he kept like the ant theme all the way along. And, that's a branding choice too. So you take some brand elements and you carry them forward so people can still, when they walk into the store to pick up their. Tide, the new Tide brand looks different, but it looks similar enough to the old brand. They're not gonna get confused.Michael: Okay. So he is following some of the rules that you've identified, but when you're talking about this costume idea, so leaving aside the branding issue is just how is it working with costumes? Because, you know, like I like to exercise as you, as you know, and so do you, and I've got a number of outfits that I use. For any other reason than practicality. If I exercise, I need to wash the clothing right away. So these guys are like, let's say take Spider-Man for example. That guy is swinging through the city. He must be sweating like crazy . And you think he just goes home? Is he doing laundry every single night,Edward: Do you think he has a summer version of his costume and a winter version? When it's cold out, he wears his warm tights and then the summer he's wearing I dunno, really, really thin tights.Michael: You'd have to, it'd be a winter weight and a summer weight but also on top of that, in the summer, you probably have to have way more versions of this costume . And so who's making it for him? Or is he just laundering it every night? Who made it to begin with, but then. , who's clean, who's continuing to make other costumes for 'em, or same version of the costume, which looks complicated. You see all the design elements and then clean.Edward: I guarantee if I was a superhero, I would be wearing block colors. There's no way I'm gonna making, these are like small black lines on my, I'd be like, I'm gonna wear red and I'm gonna go buy some red stuff and just make a red costume. The idea of sewing together the blue and the red, and then to your point, not doing it once. It's not like the guy behind Spider-Man's mask is, maybe he's a tailor for his side job, but, he's not making one costume. To your point. He, he must have dozens of costumes for the different seasons and, for the smell. If he has so many and to make them all identical.Michael: Yeah, it's quite an enterprise and to my knowledge, I don't think Spider-Man makes money from what he's doing so it's quite an investment. It's not just one costume. Maybe he could have gotten away with having a few of those costumes if he just was dressed in all black, for instance, with a funny mask and maybe you don't to, well, he had to wash the mask every night. If you're wearing this full head on mask, It probably It would stink too.Edward: Yeah, like crazy. And maybe that's, maybe he only has one or two costumes and he just washes them every night. He goes home. He has his own, he's clearly not taking them to like a public, dry cleaners. He probably has his washing dryer in his house and he's just running the washer and dryer. Every he gets home, takes off his outfit, washes it, dries it, and it's ready to go the next day.Michael: Or has the most discreet laundromat in the world, , you know, in addition to the most discreet Taylor, but that's not just him, right? It's all the, these heroes, they present with the same costume. And if we're comparing them to say, The police or the military, they have multiple versions of their outfits when they're on duty, when they have to wear outfits for work. It's mindblowing to me. So let's go to a team element, I'd imagine that, if you want to find out, I suspect they all know who each other are on this, on the Avengers. So we wonder if, find out who they were. I bet if they all are having their costumes washed by somebody or they're having mul tailors, , you know, prepare their costumes for, somebody's gonna speak about it. You know what I mean? It should, they should find out. Oh,Edward: well the Avengers are different though, right? The Avengers, we know they we're close with Star Corp. I'm sure Star Corp has like a supply of tailors and stuff to make these costumes, right? So whatever giant man's secret identity is, he's not taking the costume to a tailor a secret identity. He's just passing it into the, through the stark corpse team of people and they make the costume. They probably have industrial cleaners that take care of it every night for them. I think that's all veryMichael: standardized. . Can you imagine? What's your job? It's star carp. Okay, I've got a really top secret job, but job, I can't talk about it. And then as this man's telling his wife, I can't even talk about my job. It's star carp. I just cannot tell you. I can't tell you what I do. And then he's sitting alone in a dark room. He's like, I wash giant man's clothing. .Edward: I get, I get, that's what I do. I get the stand. You think your trouble tough, he was attacked by a lava monster. Getting lava stains out of these costumes is impossible.Michael: yeah. It's just like it. But that's what it would have to be. , it would be top secret, right? To keep his identity secret. So whoever's washing his clothing would have to like oh. Under, under penalty of like imprisonment. Don't tell, you can't tell anybody. You know anything about Captain America's the underwear he wears outside of his pants or whatever. It's just wild to me. It's just what a job.Edward: Well, I think I, we figured out the number one recruiting technique. I feel like if I'm an independent hero now, the number one reason to join the Avengers is not the money. It's not the fame , it's the laundry service.Michael: Sign me up, Eddie. Sign me up. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the increased police presence in the city and how that is affecting both real and perceived crime. Is this because police have less to do as a result of the superheroes helping out? Is the presence of superheroes itself causing criminals to give up lives of crime, and maybe even become heroes? More to the point, is that what happened with the Green Goblin - he was inspired to become a hero? If so, why has he not changed his appearance? Does he want to be scary, or is what he truly looks? And how the heck does he balance on that glider - does he have abs of steel?Behind the Issue:This is the third appearance of the Green Goblin. Clearly, he does not become a hero. Steve Ditko and Stan Lee decided to keep the Goblin's identity secret, but behind the scenes they were debating who he should be. Lee wanted him to be someone from Peter's life, but Ditko wanted him to be a stranger. The disagreement meant that the Goblin's identity remained a secret from the readers until Ditko left the title (the Goblin's identity was revealed in the first issue after Ditko was replaced). Oh, the drama!In this issue:The Green Goblin tries to take over the New York City underworld, and while they are not convinced, he is definitely scaring them. Meanwhile, Peter Parker notices that former reporter and criminal Frederick Foswell is back at the Bugle. Apparently, the Bugle's publisher J. Jonah Jameson believes in redemption, or at least the value in giving people a second chance. Peter is not convinced that this is a redemption story, though, and he tails Foswell, whom he notices speaking with a thug. Foswell turns over information to Jameson that the thug had on a crime boss, who in turn provides this information to the police. The Goblin is overjoyed with these pieces falling into place - he has set this whole thing up to help him with his hostile takeover of the world of crime. Peter then changes into his Spider-Man outfit and tracks the Goblin, who tricks him into conflict with a mob boss and his lieutenants. Spider-Man basically does the Goblin's dirty work, taking out the gang and leaving them for the police. Realizing he has been played for the fool, Spider-Man finds and attacks the Goblin, who gets away. It's not all roses for the Goblin, though, who is disappointed to find out that Spider-Man did too good a job when he took down the mob boss and his entire gang, with the result that the Goblin had no gang to take over.Assumed before the next episode:The Green Goblin is going to need to rethink his whole gang takeover strategy.This episode takes place:After Spider-Man took down an entire gang.Full transcript:Edward: Feeling safer these days? Mike?Michael: No. ? No, I wouldn't say so. ,Edward: I feel like, like there's increased police presence on the streets. They're putting some crime bosses away. Is New York not a safer place than it was even a few weeks ago?Michael: Oh, well I guess that's standard than maybe, but I definitely have noticed a greater police presence in the last little while, certainly since the, a. Population of superpowered individuals on the scene. Do I feel safer before buildings could be captured and kidnapped and brought into space? I wouldn't say so in, you know, multiple invasions in New York City, butEdward: so, so, so, so clearly. Life is less safe now than it was in 1960 before.Michael: RightEdward: buildings. Were getting torn away, but I'm just talking about recently, like recently it feels like the superheroes are out on the streets. There's a bunch of them now. It feels like they're covering the ground around the monsters and the super villains, and that's freeing up the police to go and take out the normal villains.Michael: Well, I think so. I have noticed that there's more police for sure. I, don't know what element of that is performative and what element is that the costume vigilantes that we speak about every week have been in addition to attacking gods and monsters and aliens have also been attacking street level crime as well. There is no doubt that Ant-Man and now Giant-Man and Spider-Man and all the insect related heroes, I suppose are trying to deal with some street level justice, which probably is freeing up some time for the police to focus on other things, other elements of society that require policing. That's my guess. Or, is his performatively they're just trying to show that maybe they shouldn't be ignored. Yes, there's people flying through the air, but we're the police, darn it. And we're in the. Keeping you safe, .Edward: Yeah. That, that, that is something, right? If that performativeness makes us feel safer, it could also make the criminals feel less safe and drive the criminals back into the holes they came from.Michael: Maybe. It could, but I still wonder if it's just performative. It's almost just trying to get attention, if you know what I mean. Like it's like everyone's talking about Iron Man, but don't they know we're the real heroes, , and it's likeEdward: the, the every we have, we need more, less kids. Dressing up as Iron Man and more kids dressing up as everyday police officers.Michael: That's right.Edward: Let's have more realistic dreams. Kids. . .Michael: Yeah. Unless you are a super science genius, can invent your own costume, you should probably apply to the police academyEdward: don't expect to be superhero. Just be a regular, everyday hero.Michael: Yeah. And that's good enough. But no, but seriously, I guess I haven't made my mind up. I'd be curious about the statistics. let's just call it regular crime and whether police are being freed up to deal with more of the regular crime that's why we're noticing it. And if they aren't, if there's no real change in how much, in the impact of like regular crime and how it's being policed, then I think it is performative. And it just seems like they're just trying to get some of the attention. I have a mixed mind, not when it comes to the police in general, it's just they're not there to tell me what to do and not to do they're there to investigate crimes and well, and,Edward: and they've, and they, so they've had some successes lately, right? So, lucky Lobos basically says whole criminal enterprise got all swooped up. The Frederick Farwell, a former crime boss himself outta prison now working for the daily bugle, put together a. Basically did investigative reporting figured out where all of Lucky Lobo's financial records were kept and, blew it out to the police. And they shut down, not just the head of the family, but basically shut down the entire operation and that's gotta reduce crime. ?Michael: Well, yeah, it would, I think, I'm not saying that there haven't been some recent successes, it's just that I'd like to see that's more anecdotal. Or at least there's a recency effect here. I'd like to see what has been the impact? I guess I'd express it this way. What has been the impact of having superheroes and super villains out in, say, New York City on the ability of police to police regular crime? If there has been any impact, so is it that the superpowered individuals are taking care of that and a little bit of regular crimes such there's more effort being put into a policing regular crime or if it's just no impact at all. And it's just for show, I don't know.Edward: It's interesting when I was in business school, one of the studies that we looked at was about crime in cities. And clearly like when crime goes down, real estate prices go up. And so we, well, we cared about in business school was money Mike and how forget about safety, but how safety affects money. But the point was, When you could, one way to drive down crime and drive up real estate prices was to basically do us like a spike of policing. Because if crime was at a relatively low level, that meant the police that you had on duty could identify any new crime that happens and shut it down. But if crime is at a really high level, the same number of police can't handle all that crime, and crime goes unenforced, which then encourages more crime, cause you can get away with it. Your chances are getting cock down. And so you need to drive it down to a low level and then keeping. At that low level is a lot easier than getting it there to begin with. And so I wonder if this, like the spike in policing that we've seen, the performative nature of it, the fact that we have these superheroes doing stuff. Has that driven crime down to a level now that it's gonna be easier to maintain at a low level. And it's driving even super villains to become superheroes like so the Green Goblin, for example, now he's gone from being a villain to like apparently being a hero. And maybe that's because crime doesn't pay anymore. let's switch to the other side.Michael: Before we get to the Green Goblin, I understand the point you're making, maybe, I mean, again, but I think as a business person, you would like to see the data as would I, but I'm a little confused. Why are you saying the Green Goblin is, is acting like a hero?Edward: So Green Goblin was involved in this whole shutdown of The lucky Lobo criminal gang, he helped take them on and he was seen battling them and taking out the crime bosses. He's working for the good guys.Michael: Yeah, Goblin's always worked for the good guys.Edward: Are you saying? Saying maybe if he's gonna switch sides, he should change his name too and become like the green? I don't know. Green Elf, .Michael: I don't know. He is got this goblin mask, he looks frightening on purpose. So are you sure he's on the side of the angels now, ed, you don't see that maybe taking out a whole. Might be in the interest of someone who's previously acting like a villain and attacking the city.Edward: Oh, so you're saying that he's just taking out his competition?Michael: Well, I mean that's, yeah, I mean, cuz The Thing is, okay, how about this? Previously he was acting like a villain, dressed up like a goblin, and he's frightening. He's on this glider, he is throwing bombs. at a, I think wasn't at a TV state. At a, at a tvEdward: Wait, at, at, the fan event, the Spider-Man fan event. He was like terrorizing people.Michael: I think it was being filmed too, but whatever it was, it's certainly at a fan event. So that's a criminal? Who should be locked up? And so do we have such a short-term memory that he just is still wearing the same stuff with the same equipment? And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm good now. Well, he reallyEdward: yes and no. So we assumed he was a villain, but we also assumed that Spider-Man was a villain, right? There was a lot of assumptions flying around with these people, and it's not like Spider-Man and the Human, Torch haven't had public battles in Times Square, like the go what did the Goblin really do in his past event? He basically tried to attack Spider-Man, but like, it feels like everybody wants to attack Spider-Man. Maybe he's just like a guy who like has a grief with Spider-Man and now he's like trying to do.Michael: Wasn't he throwing bombs at crowds of people?Edward: Wasn't the Human Torch throwing like fireballs at crowds of people?Michael: I don't think he, no, I don't think he was at crowds of people, but I don't know. But may I assume you're right.Edward: They were in New York City and there were fireballs going around and there were people in New York City. Now nobody got hurt, but I don't think anyone got hurt from the goblins bombs either, did they? .Michael: I don't know off the top of my head, but I think there's a difference between throwing a bomb into a crowd of people and then actually being engaged in a fight. But anyways, I don't wanna make that go down, that so far cuz then we get the whole idea that you're right, they shouldn't be fighting in crowded places, but let's, okay, let's assume he's the go, the green goblins now a hero. You're a business guy. Is this good marketing? Like should he, what if he just got a new costume?Edward: Fair enough.Michael: He's truly on the side of angels and just changed it. So he looks like, I don't know, the,Edward: well, here's the other thing. Do we know it's a costume? Patel? Maybe he's like a Defor. Maybe he's like, that's his face. Like do we know it's like an actual mask? Maybe It's like, like, I dunno, like the Hulk looks kind of weird and stuff like there, there's all sorts of villains.Michael: I think it's a rubber mask. I, I think that the reporting shows it's a rubber mask. It's not like as a skin texture, but,Edward: maybe his, I think he, like Mike, we live in a world of monsters and aliens. Maybe his face just looks like a rubber mask, , and the poor guy can't change his face. The poor guy is like this ugly. Deformed thing that was driven into crime because it was deformity and people were making fun of him, mocking him, people like you. And now he's trying to go to the side of good and we're still mocking his like ugly.Michael: So you heard it here first, folks, ed, nevermind humanitarian, , goblin, goblin, defender,Edward: . I'm just, I'm just saying that not enough people defend the ugly people. People like there are focus groups and there are groups that help all these different people who have a tough time in life, but there's no group of like the Association of Ugly people that helps people like,Michael: Ed, I think that you've got the organizational skills. I think you're the person that should do that. But I wanna talk about one other thing before we go on to your pledge drive to help the criminally ugly people in the world. But what do you think about the green goblin? And I was, I was kind of thinking about this for a while. Like, what do you think about the fact that he is flying around on a glider like technology that doesn't exist? Right? He flies through the air at fantastic speeds. On the one you think, he must be a genius to invent that. But on the other hand, don't you think he would take some special training in order to manage that? Like I as a kid found a skate. Challenging, you know what I mean? as an adult,Edward: many people can use skateboards. Michael , many people use skateboards.Michael: It's, yeah. But to really use it like, to do tricks and whatever and to go down the street. But as an adult, I think I would find it impossible. But what do you think, but what kind of skill level would it take to properly manage that glider? I mean, we've seen it. We've seen it in action. It's incredible what he can do with it.Edward: Clearly, clearly the goblin has some skills.Michael: Some skills, but where do, where does he get the skills? So he gets it from, is he actually a military trained operative who's now broken, bad or good? Depending upon your view of him. Is he like,Edward: maybe, maybe he's just a really skilled skateboarder.Michael: really skills skateboarder . But what if he's a foreign national scent here to just ferment descent? I mean, I don't know, but that's the first things that jump to mind, right?Edward: Yeah. Yeah. So , it's po It's possible maybe I'm a foreign national here to do dissent. Who knows. I think jumping to the conclusion just because this poor man is ugly, that therefore he is a foreign national Michael. Like, like they're, they're ugly people Are, they're ugly Americans as well,Michael: what I'm saying. Forget the, you're the one calling him ugly, by the way. I'm not like, I've never called the,Edward: you said he's so ugly and he must be wearing a mask that no human can look as bad as this poor man looks .Michael: I think he's wearing a mask. I definitely think that, but you're the one that calls it ugly. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make though, is that to talk about what is where do you think the green goblin's from? Right, and I think the ability in and of itself to fly in that glider tells me that he's had some training.Edward: Or, or maybe he has like superpowers, like other people do. Like Spider-Man, I dunno. Like spider, I'm pretty sure Spider-Man doesn't climb walls and fly on webs cuz of training. He's not like some foreign national or military guy. He has like some sort of superpowers that give him like the powers of a spider. Maybe the green goblin has like the powers of a goblin. .Michael: Yeah. He's got like an amazing core, . so strong, and he's like, he's like, his quads are unbelievable. Just like the power of like standing crouched like that and flying at like standing upright, well, flying through the air at 50 miles an hour. The amount of strength that takes.Edward: He's, he's ripped man. The man is ripped. So all you women out there that are worried about his ugly face, but he's a ripped body. You know, this is the trade off that sometimes has have with men. But I think Spider-Man for example without any, I think additional training could be riding that glider, captain America could be riding that glider. Right. We, we have a lot, we have a lot of these superheroes that have special abilities. To me, it makes sense that the goblin has these special abilities too, and the fact that he, and, maybe he didn't invent the glider himself. Maybe Tony Stark invented the glider and gave it to somebody who had the superpowers to be able to use it. .Michael: I'll tell you what I think that the Green Goblin, if he's listening to our show, should feel comfortable coming on our show because , hi,Edward: because it's a radio show and it's no video, so he doesn't have to worry about his ugly appearance.Michael: no, I never said he is ugly and he is clearly gonna offend and Ed, who thinks he's a good guy? So, come on the show Goblin, but leave your goblin pouch outside with the bombs. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

MRC welcomes back special guest Rob Salkowitz who was nice enough to stick around and mop up the rest of February 1965 with Strange Tales 129 with Human Torch and Dr Strange, Tales of Suspense 62 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish 64 with Giant-Man and the Hulk and Avengers 13. Just add a back seat, Dick! Tension, unrest, war and anarchy! Knee suction cups! Suspiciously sinister eyebrows! Must oil my W! All the Way with LBJ! Non-physical chemicals! Check it out!

Fellow Paul Rudd fans, good news: some primo, top quality, high grade Paul Rudd nonsense is about to hit your eardrums. Also along for the ride are his castmates from the third Ant-Man outing, including Evangeline Lilly, Katherine Newton, Jonathan Majors and Michael Douglas - plus their director, Peyton Reed (lest we forget). Talking about breaking, CGI chicanery, fan interactions and plenty of other teeny tiny bits and pieces, quite a lot it covered in this Giant-Man-sized interview special, so please do enjoy.

We Need To Talk About Sue's... Uh... Hello, and welcome to episode 365 of The Fantasticast. Each episode, Steve Lacey guides you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. This week, we're taking a well-earned break, both in the real world and in the podcast. Steve's travelling to Los Angeles to attend the Gallifrey One convention, and Ben, Alicia, Bobby, and Bill are off to the circus in Marvel Two-in-One. Such a shame that there's only one circus in the Marvel Universe (yes, we're discounting the one with Johnny's cousins from Strange Tales), and that one is the Circus of Crime! Tom DeFalco, David Michelinie, Jerry Bingham, Chic Stone, George Roussos, Michael Higgins, Bob Budiansky, Jim Salicrup, Jim Shooter, Joe Sinnott, and Gaspar Saladino present Marvel Two-in-One #76 - The Big Top Bandits. Guest-starring both Iceman and Giant Man, and featuring some curiously silent heroes, a thoroughly irriating clown, an accidentally-forgettable artist, and the strong need to talk about Sue's... uh... As well as this, we're also joining the latest of Marvel's merry mutants to follow her disco-laden adventures with Doctor Doom in Dazzler #3 and #4. Send in your feedback to fantastic4podcast@gmail.com, leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.

In anticipation of Marvel Studios' ‘Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantamania' movie, Mike D. & Tommy discuss the comic book debut of GIANT-MAN in Tales To Astonish issue 49 (August 1963)! Ant-Man is all growds up, kids!    For all things Jacked Kirby, including listening links and social media links, visit our FlowPage: www.flow.page/jackedkirby   If you like the show, share the show! Tag a friend, tell a friend, share the flyer, spread the word! And please rate/review the show on Apple (or wherever else you can rate & review it! Do it! Now!) Thanks!   

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss how to pronounce “Madam Macabre”. Is she a villain or just a Giant-Man competitor? Can we trust Giant-Man on this? How fast will growing/shrinking technology proliferate? And why is everyone with a superpower a hero or a villain? Why not just use your abilities to save some money or become an entrepreneur?Behind the issue:This is the first and only appearance (so far) of Madam Macabre. Part two of this issue is a Hulk feature, which is not covered in the podcast. The only public fact of the Hulk feature is that Bruce Banner is in the Soviet Union, and it is unclear if he is defecting or kidnapped again.In this issue:Giant-Man and the Wasp storyMadam Macabre is able to use technology to shrink inanimate objects. She is envious of Giant-Man's ability to shrink himself. And so she sets up a meeting with Giant-Man. She explains at the meeting that she was mentored and tutored by the supervillain the Mandarin. She then makes the pitch for Giant-Man to quit the Avengers and to partner with her in some vague plan to take over the world. Being the hero that he is, Giant-Man rejects the offer. She returns to her lair and schemes to defeat the Giant-Man. The step in this scheme is to kidnap the Wasp, which lures Giant-Man to her lair. He is trapped in a shrinking room, but the Wasp breaks free and rescues him. The Wasp then successfully defeats Madam Macabre and frees Giant-Man.Hulk storyThe Hulk is trapped in the Soviet Union. A kindhearted Soviet scientist helps him out, but he is killed. This causes the Hulk to become very angry. He goes on a rampage at the Soviet base, where he is stuck for a while, and eventually escapes.Assumed before the next episode:People are starting to wonder about all of the superheroes and supervillains with similar powers.This episode takes place:After Madam Macabre has been soundly defeated.Full transcript:Edward: Mike first there was giant man, then there was the wasp, and now is there. There is mad. Mc, oh my gosh. I can't even say the word. You can't say it, eh, I can't say it. Madam Mc mc macur mebrak. Madam. I can't, I can read the word Mike. I just can't say it out loud.Micheal: I think you need to start watching some old films. Macra describes like some old classic film noir, if I'm thinking of it correctly, but certainly it's a word. MaccaEdward: Mac. But here's The Thing. You should do so. So say the. First person who can shrink ant man, first person that can grow. Giant man. Very descriptive names. The wasp also like descriptive as in small animal. You'd think that Spider-Man could also shrink, but no, he doesn't. But this new person who has the ability to grow and shrink things, Madam Mak, uh, has nothing to do with, with changing size. Like what type of name?Micheal: Well, it's not descriptive, but, I would award points for originality. I think the intention behind calling yourself Madam Mac is that you're suggesting some malhi days. You know, you're suggesting some mallin, some malicious intent. Right. And, certainly some, darkness to her. And she was according to giant man, she was, Villain who could shrink. Just like him, right?Edward: And according to giant man, she was like stealing something that, like a art gallery or something. She was breaking in and stealing stuff and they caught her. To be fair though, we only have giant man's word on that. We have No, I don't, I dunno if there's any evidence that she was actually doing that other than giant man say so.Micheal: Other than name, other than the word of an unknown vigilant, master vigilante who happens to have captured someone with the exact same power set as him. It seems, if I was being cynical, I would say that I would question whether a giant man is trying to take out the competition. But we know he is, he's been a hero. It's just that, that he's also human, I think, and so maybe he just felt threatened by having somebody with the same power. Being out in society?Edward: I would think so. You can look at the timeline of it, right? So the timeline was Madam Mebrak. I'll look at that. I can say it now. Thank, thank, thank you for this education. Madam Macabre, she becomes semi-famous. So she's in the papers. Mm-hmm. , she has this special ability, she's not committing crimes. She's just advertising her ability to say, Hey, I figured out this technology. I too have the ability to grow and shrink. And then shortly afterwards, giant Man comes out and. . Yeah, but she needs to go to jail cuz she's a criminal. So the timing is a little bit suspicious in terms of him shutting her.Micheal: Yeah, it is. And the adventures have all had, they've recently had some issues that we've observed when they appear to be acting in their own interests after a few years of acting heroically. So we just don't know what to make of it. And I would assume people will find out more at the criminal trial, but much like any trial you need to have, you need. Evidence for witnesses who could be identified. And so Thank you. I would imagine she go, she might go, she might go free, you know, like, cuz it's just the word of a vigilante. So an Avenger's,Edward: an official, he's an official vigilante though. He's working for somebody. We're not exactly sure who, but he's working for somebody. We think he's like at least semi-official. I think what, to me, what's interesting about this is two things. One is that, sooner or later this technology is going to get out, right? We know, we've seen from other evidence that giant man's powers don't come from the fact that he was experimented on or some sort of magic radiation, it's some sort of pills that he was taking, and so mm-hmm. , it's a technology that he has that's able to go and do this. And we know from the past that once someone has the technology, it gets spread, right? Like the Americans were the only ones with the nuclear bomb in 1945. And like by 1950 there was at least four or five countries with the nuclear bombs. And so, it feels like this technology is gonna get out there. Once we know it exists, someone's gonna be able to d.Micheal: But I don't think there's any evidence that, Madam MCC Abra had got the technology. You know what I mean? It's more. I wonder if it's just it's more the idea that gets out there.Edward: That's right. That's right.Micheal: Where she learns that somebody can shrink through some kind of process and so she creates it or duplicates it in her own way because there's historical precedent for that as well. At least when it comes to people, meeting challenges and surpassing.Edward: Yeah, I'm not claiming that she stole his abilities. And as far as I know, giant man isn't even claiming that she stole his abilities. And so, no, he has reason to claim that she is and he's not. So it suggests that no, she came up with it independently. But we've seen that happen again and again in different technological situations like both in scientific theory and in technology, right? So, like Isaac Newton is credited with inventing the theory of gravity and calculus, but if he hadn't, there was, there were a number of other people that were waiting in the wings who would be publishing the same things soon afterwards. It's very rare that a scientist is doing it, and if they weren't around that nobody would've ever come up. .Micheal: And it suggested inevitability to the scientific process, but also even just with respect to humanity and people. Remember that people thought the four minute not be run and then as soon as Roger's Banister, broke that record, ran the four minute mile, what was it a month and a half later, someone beat that record and then people thereafter continued beating that record, just suggests that as soon as people could see that it was possible, it became possible for.Edward: That's right. It was Landy or something. It was 46 days after Banister broke the four minute mile. It was, John Landy came out and beat it. Mm-hmm. and, and, and, and, and banister just barely beat it. Like he was point happened to be half a second faster than the four minute mile. And then Landy came in and like blew past him, was Two seconds faster, like a few days later. And since then a number of people have break broken the four minute mile. I think it's interesting before Banister did it, doctors were saying that anybody who's going to be able to break, anyone who attempts to break the four minute mile will die. I think that was the quote. They will die. It is so hard on the human body. If you ever run that fast, you will die. And now we've no, absolutely not true. And other people are training for it, and they know that it's possible. They know that it's something that you can achieve. And now we know shrinking the human body down to the size of an ad is something that we can achieve.Micheal: That's it. And I think that's the take home message really. And the question lends itself to whether other superpowers are gonna be, duplicated and we're gonna start seeing more. But you gotta wonder sometimes, have we. I don't think we have, but have we hit maximum powers? You know, we have people that can grow large, they can grow small, they can get strong, they can uh, theyEdward: can fly. We talked about Thor last week. He'd fly really fast.Micheal: They can fly really fast. And I are we gonna see a lot of different powers, you know what I mean? Or is this just that we've hit the max powers and our, we're gonna see versions of it come out, with more shrinking and whatever.Edward: Could be, could be, I dunno. But it feels like we're still seeing a significant amount of variety happening, right? It wasn't that long ago that Sandman popped up and he's, the ability to turn into sand like that seems pretty unique and different from everybody else. Spider-Man's power different than other people. I guess some things, like he being really strong or flying seems to be common, but we're also getting we're still seeing lots of variety. Just because we have somebody else shrinking doesn't mean that this is it. It's not the end of, it's not the end of the beginning, Mike. This is just not even the beginning of the end.Micheal: We're continuing on. Here's the other question that I had though I have to admit, it's been bothering me. So, you know, when you, when youEdward: tell me your therapist today,Micheal: my therapy session, so Dr. Ed, here's what's been on my mind, and it might just be because it's unreported, but it seems that when people developed a technology or developed powers, they go one of two ways in quite a binary sense. They either become superpowered Adventurers or they become criminals, and you know what, I'm just like, well, wait a minute, isn't there like a third path where let's say for instance, I was inspired to develop technology, to learn how to grow taller or shrink Maybe I wouldn't decide to quit my job as a lawyer and become an adventurer, or certainly become a criminal. I just decide well, I gotta reach that can, on the top shelf in my kitchen, I'm just gonna grow. Instead of grabbing, going in the step ladder or I, I move in, I decide like, you know what? I wanna maybe downsize a little bit. Literally, I get a smaller apartment in New York and I can fiddle up more furniture, or I can get around more easily in my own apartment. It just fiddle. I don't know.Edward: It's like that you have like a very spacious apartment. All of a sudden. Your television is enormous. You have the biggest screen television in the whole world.Micheal: You know, or maybe I wanna save on food and maybe, I dunno if this is how it works, but I shrink cuz I, I could just order small portions everywhere, and just like nibble away for like a week on something. You know, this loaf of bread, one loaf of bread fills me up. Maybe eating a lot of bread isn't a good idea, but you know what I mean? , and so, but I just gotta wonder. And there's not just, there's other technologies. Like if I had the power to turn Invisible again, would I join a super team or break into a bank or would I more likely turn Invisible so I can, when I'm walking home in the evening, I don't want to pop,Edward: I don't wanna hear who you're spying on. Mike, I don't want to hear, I don't want, this is not time replace . Hey, I think, I think you're coming onto something right? Of like, Hey, you have these, if you had these abilities, if this technology was out there, you don't have to go and fight criminals and you don't have the best way to help society is not necessarily to go and help criminals. Maybe if you had this power to grow and shrink instead of stealing art, you could just start a moving. Imagine how efficient your moving company would be. They could just, you go to someone's house, you're like, no problem. We'll just shrink your whole house down. Bang, we'll throw it into an envelope. We'll ship it to the new place and then we'll just grow it again. And we can be the most efficient, fastest, we can charge a much lower rate and make much higher margins. And like all of a sudden we have a nice little business going.Micheal: Yeah, exactly. Or what if I could be like a Human Torch, I could just, save money on my heating bill every month.Edward: so like, here's The, Thing, . Every time you get a power, you're looking for a way to, to save some sense. I think the better look for growth opportunities. Look for ways to increase your revenue. Don't just cut your cost. You can't shrink yourself into success, Mike.Micheal: You know what? That's a good point. And this is why we're buddies. So this is, I'll bring the pessimism. You bring the optimism . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

MRC wrestles with the second half of January 1965, featuring Tales of Suspense 61 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish 63 with Giant Man and the Hulk, X-Men 9 and Avengers 12! Continued confusion about which Asian country has which martial art! Distended foreheads! Put-upon tourists! Disappointingly ape-less Red Ghosts!

MRC finally finishes December 1964 featuring Strange Tales #127 with Human Torch and Dr. Strange, Tales of Suspense #60 with Iron Man and Captain America, Tales to Astonish #62 with Giant-Man and the Hulk, and Avengers #11. Fake mustaches! Mindless Ones! Uranus! Great relish! Second Story Sammy! Nuclear grenades! The royal we! Check it out!