Full Transcript for Milestone Book Club #45 - Long Hot Summer Part Two

are. 29 00:01:50.410 --> 00:01:50.920 Tad Eggleston: Okay. 30 00:01:50.920 --> 00:01:54.850 Ted: sort of concurrent with those, even though I… I feel like… 31 00:01:55.110 --> 00:01:57.320 Ted: So, I mean, we'll get into it, but, like, those. 32 00:01:57.320 --> 00:02:03.819 Tad Eggleston: I mean, when Holocaust… pops up in here, he's very much, don't… don't call me Holocaust. 33 00:02:03.820 --> 00:02:12.769 Ted: Exactly, he definitely says, I'm pyre now, and that's a big thing. So, like, it's all vaguely simultaneous, but, like, look, we've all read comics, we know how, like, weird timelines. 34 00:02:12.770 --> 00:02:13.250 Tad Eggleston: Oh, yeah. 35 00:02:13.250 --> 00:02:14.030 Ted: We're… 36 00:02:14.030 --> 00:02:22.269 Tad Eggleston: No, we're reading, Secret Wars in, our Heroes of Bronze. We're actually reading Secret Wars, and, 37 00:02:22.690 --> 00:02:25.389 Tad Eggleston: Crisis on Infinite Earths simultaneously. 38 00:02:25.390 --> 00:02:29.419 Ted: Wait, Secret War, or Secret Wars, and 1985 or 19… 39 00:02:29.420 --> 00:02:30.259 Marcus: Yeah, what are you talking about? 40 00:02:30.260 --> 00:02:33.140 Tad Eggleston: Yeah. 84… 41 00:02:33.140 --> 00:02:35.680 Ted: Okay, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say. 42 00:02:35.890 --> 00:02:43.800 Marcus: Oh, man, wait, actually, pop quiz, who… Who had… who had which action figures out of there, or did you have any? 43 00:02:43.800 --> 00:02:44.559 Ted: I did not have any. 44 00:02:44.560 --> 00:02:45.640 Tad Eggleston: I had most of them. 45 00:02:46.470 --> 00:02:48.029 Marcus: Oh, really? I had… 46 00:02:48.030 --> 00:02:48.580 Tad Eggleston: Yeah. 47 00:02:48.930 --> 00:02:50.929 Marcus: I'm pretty sure… well, I have a… 48 00:02:50.930 --> 00:02:59.200 Tad Eggleston: I had Doom, and I had Spider-Man, but not the black one. I had Captain America, and I had Iron Man. And I think I had Hulk. 49 00:02:59.780 --> 00:03:01.480 Marcus: Okay, I had, 50 00:03:01.780 --> 00:03:06.510 Marcus: I think I just had Iron Man, and my brother got Doctor Doom, but I was mad. 51 00:03:06.710 --> 00:03:12.019 Marcus: Because, and I think… you know what's crazy? This actually, 52 00:03:12.590 --> 00:03:27.150 Marcus: I feel like that's… that was a summer when… when, like, I visited… visited Jamaica for the first time after… after… well, first time going back after moving here when I was little. But, so I was away, and I think my… 53 00:03:27.520 --> 00:03:35.659 Marcus: we got to get them, so, like, my mom got one for me, but I would have chosen Doom, but my brother got Doom, and I got Iron Man, so… 54 00:03:35.780 --> 00:03:39.319 Marcus: But I do have a… I got a Zoom on eBay that's sitting on my shelf right now. 55 00:03:39.320 --> 00:03:43.319 Ted: Is that a Doom? Does that Doom have, like, a removable mask because this is where he heals his face? 56 00:03:43.520 --> 00:03:46.470 Marcus: No, no, it's all… I mean, toys. 57 00:03:46.470 --> 00:03:48.080 Tad Eggleston: Weren't

nearly that cool yet. 58 00:03:48.080 --> 00:03:48.460 Ted: Okay. 59 00:03:48.460 --> 00:03:49.529 Marcus: Yeah, fair, fair. 60 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:50.340 Ted: enough. 61 00:03:50.340 --> 00:04:00.320 Marcus: It's, it's cool, but it's like… I think it originally had a cape. Actually, I don't know. The one I have definitely doesn't have a cape. But they had the little shields with the little… The lenticular shields. 62 00:04:00.320 --> 00:04:05.610 Ted: Oh, there we go, yeah. I see, I want to doom like he is in the comic, where he's, like, half vivisected. 63 00:04:05.610 --> 00:04:06.440 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 64 00:04:06.440 --> 00:04:11.640 Ted: That would be… you know, that would be… that would be a cool action figure. Like, half of it is on an operating table. 65 00:04:12.160 --> 00:04:12.720 Marcus: Good. 66 00:04:12.950 --> 00:04:19.259 Tad Eggleston: One of the things that we talked about with that, though, is that, like, the Marvel Universe just kept going. 67 00:04:19.260 --> 00:04:20.019 Ted: Oh, yeah. 68 00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:26.929 Tad Eggleston: So, so, in the main Marvel universe, everybody had already come back. 69 00:04:27.649 --> 00:04:31.689 Tad Eggleston: It wasn't even they were gone. Everybody had already come back. 70 00:04:31.690 --> 00:04:32.600 Marcus: No, cause… 71 00:04:32.600 --> 00:04:33.140 Ted: Yeah. 72 00:04:33.140 --> 00:04:40.770 Marcus: Because that event was just its own 12 issues, like, you know, as opposed to these other ones where it just takes over all the books. 73 00:04:41.450 --> 00:04:55.000 Ted: Yeah, I do have to say, I mean, now that we're gonna be, like, diving into the real meat of… well, we already were, but, you know, really diving into the meat of Long Hong Summer, I like that they did this event, because it is… this is affecting every book in a way that is very… 74 00:04:55.050 --> 00:05:05.759 Ted: like, true to the Milestone universe. Everybody is so hyper-local to Dakota that it makes perfect sense that the books just stop, you know, running apart from that, because it's… 75 00:05:05.910 --> 00:05:10.609 Marcus: Yeah, I think we talked about it last time. To me, this is an event that works. 76 00:05:10.730 --> 00:05:11.420 Tad Eggleston: Yes. 77 00:05:11.640 --> 00:05:22.549 Marcus: It doesn't even, like, stop all the stories cold. Like, if you read… Oh, it doesn't. Yeah, if you read Blood Syndicate, there's still character stuff happening. Interestingly… Oh, yeah, go ahead. 78 00:05:22.550 --> 00:05:32.810 Ted: No, I was just gonna… I was just agreeing with you, because, yeah, like, the thing about… like, the Blood Syndicate specifically, I remember we talked with this the last time we talked about Blood Syndicate, is that Tech-9 is back. 79 00:05:33.200 --> 00:05:38.020 Ted: but they're not… they're playing it pretty close to their chest that I think… that it's actually Masquerade. 80 00:05:38.020 --> 00:05:51.689 Marcus: Yes, and there's stuff that's happening that, to me, like, shows that even more. I feel like there's just… because we, I mean, granted, we didn't spend a ton of Tech Night with Tech9 before he passed. Right. 81 00:05:51.690 --> 00:05:53.940 Ted: We spent enough to get what his deal was. 82 00:05:53.940 --> 00:05:54.779 Marcus: Yeah. I realized, like. 83 00:05:54.780 --> 00:05:59.360 Ted: he wouldn't be the one, like, encouraging this riot, which he kind of… 84 00:05:59.360 --> 00:05:59.920 Marcus: Exactly. 85 00:05:59.920 --> 00:06:07.210 Ted: Yeah, so we… it fits… it dovetails really nicely with the character stuff that Blood City was building on, yeah. 86 00:06:07.210 --> 00:06:20.319 Marcus: But you know what's… you know what's fascinating, though? Is that, like, well, I don't know, maybe we should do the… well, you mentioned… I do want to… I do want to touch on this, and then we'll… it'll… it'll seed what we end up talking about in the recap. But, 87 00:06:20.530 --> 00:06:24.379 Marcus: the quick version is, you know, Ted, you just touched on it, that, 88 00:06:24.690 --> 00:06:29.660 Marcus: Tech9 is definitely… you know, everybody's, like, operating with him as a leader again. 89 00:06:29.850 --> 00:06:43.099 Marcus: And I say Tech 9 as in the character who appears to be Tech Nine. Right. But part of what raises my… what's interesting is, if we are operating under the theory that we are all pretty sure that this is Masquerade coming back. 90 00:06:43.340 --> 00:06:50.829 Marcus: then, what's interesting about it is, you know, Masquerade had a lot of animosity for everybody. 91 00:06:50.830 --> 00:06:51.280 Ted: Yeah. 92 00:06:51.280 --> 00:06:51.710 Marcus: No. 93 00:06:52.230 --> 00:06:54.850 Marcus: And… but he… he's actually… he's… 94 00:06:55.110 --> 00:07:05.179 Marcus: both Masquerade slash Tech9 is being manipulative in the sense that you said of, like, you know, literally stoking the fires, right? Of, 95 00:07:05.550 --> 00:07:11.019 Marcus: What gets set off there. But then, kind of giving a rousing… 96 00:07:11.990 --> 00:07:29.879 Marcus: speech about, like, how the people have been stepped on and everything. One thing that's really notable in these issues is we see Y's son, like, showing, like, real emotion, like, crying. Yes, yes. And, which, you know, I've always maintained. It's like, a lot of… 97 00:07:29.970 --> 00:07:43.529 Marcus: people that I've known in real life that are a lot like him, it's not that they don't have emotions, it's just that they, you know, they mask it, they do whatever, out of a sense of protection. But yeah, it was actually really… 98 00:07:44.030 --> 00:07:46.120 Ted: He ends up being kind of the core of this… 99 00:07:46.120 --> 00:07:54.930 Marcus: Absolutely, and that's where I was going with it, because, like, Tech 9, like, after, you know, like, lighting the match 100 00:07:54.930 --> 00:08:06.659 Marcus: the proverbial match. Also, when it gets to a certain fever pitch, he's like, alright, Wyze, I

want you to get on the PA system and, like, you know, speak to the people, and… 101 00:08:06.660 --> 00:08:09.460 Ted: Give an inspiring speech, man. Give one of those inspiring speeches. 102 00:08:09.460 --> 00:08:16.940 Marcus: Yeah, which actually is, like, real… he kind of did some real revolutionary action, even if he was being manipulative. 103 00:08:16.940 --> 00:08:33.900 Ted: Yeah, it's a thing where it's like, yes, Masquerade slash Tech9 is, like, it seems like the way that I read his actions the most in the Utopia Park bit, the Long Hot Summer bit, is he's kind of just doing whatever he wants to abuse himself at, like, at the moment. So, like. 104 00:08:33.909 --> 00:08:34.269 Marcus: Everyone. 105 00:08:34.270 --> 00:08:52.489 Ted: He's like, yeah, let's just kind of mess with Utopia Park. They're taking over all of Paris Island, let's go mess with them. They don't… they sort of spark the fire, but also, something that I think is notable that I don't think is shown as much in the other books, is that the first shot fired is by, like, a security guard. 106 00:08:52.490 --> 00:08:52.870 Marcus: Yes. 107 00:08:52.870 --> 00:09:02.410 Ted: they're provoking everything, to be sure, but, like, the actual shot fired is like a guy… is like a guard with a gun, and his partner's like, no, what are you doing? And there's a shot goes off, and then that's it. 108 00:09:02.410 --> 00:09:08.319 Marcus: Which our… our real… real life news lately has just been full of this… of that shit, but 109 00:09:08.320 --> 00:09:11.530 Ted: Yeah, no, it's… I mean, yeah, it's… I mean. 110 00:09:11.530 --> 00:09:12.450 Marcus: I mean, always, but… 111 00:09:12.450 --> 00:09:13.690 Ted: Yes. 112 00:09:13.690 --> 00:09:15.190 Marcus: Specifically, like… 113 00:09:15.190 --> 00:09:15.810 Ted: The fact that they're comparing. 114 00:09:15.810 --> 00:09:16.280 Tad Eggleston: What do you mean? 115 00:09:16.280 --> 00:09:16.970 Ted: And you put… 116 00:09:16.970 --> 00:09:27.610 Tad Eggleston: Guns in the hands of people who are scared and chaotic situations, and things don't work out the way that you would hope? 117 00:09:27.880 --> 00:09:28.880 Tad Eggleston: I'm shocked! 118 00:09:29.500 --> 00:09:30.260 Marcus: I mean… 119 00:09:30.730 --> 00:09:45.029 Marcus: I… do you want me to answer that? Because what I was gonna say is, like… I mean, no, I'm talking about, like, a system of scared people that grew out of slave patrols. 120 00:09:45.130 --> 00:09:45.900 Marcus: You know. 121 00:09:46.130 --> 00:09:54.790 Marcus: that have been… that are… the police benevolent Union and other forces are telling them at every turn that whatever you do will be justified. 122 00:09:55.880 --> 00:09:59.010 Ted: Oh, no, it's… no, I get you. 123 00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:15.760 Ted: But yeah, it's… the… the Tech 9 slash Masquerade slash Tech9 is, as I read it, he's kind of just, like, doing whatever he thinks is sort of… not… he's not, like, a total agent of chaos,

but he's kind of just going with what he wants to at the moment, where it's like. 124 00:10:15.760 --> 00:10:28.119 Ted: you know, he wants to kind of have some fun at Utopia Park. It ends up turning into a full-fledged riot, and then they have to kind of fight back against Pyre or the others for a while, and then eventually he's like, okay, things are kind of getting serious, how about we have you… 125 00:10:28.190 --> 00:10:32.370 Ted: Meaning, why son, go up on the PA system and tell everybody to calm down. And… 126 00:10:32.500 --> 00:10:37.239 Ted: you know, just because he's kind of done with everything. It… he reads to me like a… 127 00:10:37.640 --> 00:10:45.109 Ted: I don't want to call him an Agent of chaos, because I don't think he's, like, a joker, but it's sort of just, like, he's having what… he's having his fun in the moment, you know? 128 00:10:45.110 --> 00:10:50.360 Marcus: I could see that reading, definitely. I think there's maybe an error of mischief. 129 00:10:50.520 --> 00:10:57.740 Marcus: But I think he… I do think they… I should say they… I do think they care. Do care on some level. 130 00:10:57.940 --> 00:10:59.280 Marcus: Like, I don't think… 131 00:10:59.280 --> 00:10:59.710 Ted: Yeah. 132 00:10:59.710 --> 00:11:06.439 Marcus: They would be doing this if it was only just, like, oh, I'm gonna, like, play around. Like, you know, so I think it's both. 133 00:11:07.040 --> 00:11:17.079 Ted: That's a… yeah, that's a good way to look at it. I think… yeah, I think part of this is messing around, but also they are… they genuinely feel the same about, like, hey man, power to the people, let's get us some… 134 00:11:17.240 --> 00:11:20.390 Ted: Let's, let's, you know, the bit where he's marching down to the… 135 00:11:20.490 --> 00:11:32.749 Ted: to the Utopia ticket office with a, you know, bag full of money, but then, like, encourages people to go with them, like, as sort of a parade march, almost. Like, that… that… no, that rings true. I like that. I like that… 136 00:11:32.910 --> 00:11:46.879 Ted: it reads… like, knowing… and I do have to say, I'm, like, I know that it's Masquerade. Like, knowing that it's Masquerade doing this reads as, like, he's suddenly in a position where people look to him for how the situation should go. 137 00:11:47.050 --> 00:11:49.200 Ted: And he's getting to be… 138 00:11:49.450 --> 00:12:08.219 Ted: sort of like the good guy revolutionary who's like, no, power to the people, let's do this. And things get a little out of control, at which point he's like, okay, let's, you know, chill out a bit, and have somebody else give the inspiring speech to make things calm down. But I do think, I mean, I think there's actual room in his heart for revolution. It is just sort of… 139 00:12:08.530 --> 00:12:12.140 Ted: it's a little bit secondary to immediate concerns, maybe. I don't know. 140 00:12:12.420 --> 00:12:28.990 Ted: But yeah, like, so that's the blood syndicate part. That's sort of the summary of the Blood Syndicate part of it, is we get to see their perspective. I mean, first of all, we have these beautiful criss-cross pages of, like, DMZ flying over the city with some groceries. There's some really gorgeous stuff in these issues. 141 00:12:29.460 --> 00:12:37.010 Ted: we get, some of the follow-up with Flashback, having joined Pyre's team, which is… 142 00:12:37.830 --> 00:12:43.750 Ted: I still don't know why, like, Pyre did that, unless he has some sort of weird crush on Flashback. I don't know if there's anything else… 143 00:12:43.750 --> 00:12:46.079 Marcus: No, there's history, there is history. 144 00:12:46.080 --> 00:12:47.169 Ted: I couldn't remember if the… 145 00:12:47.170 --> 00:12:53.809 Marcus: I don't remember the exact details, but it's definitely been, it has come up. Okay. 146 00:12:53.810 --> 00:13:00.740 Ted: That's good to know. But yeah, like, I… I was kind of curious what the… what the story was, but I… I… yeah. 147 00:13:00.740 --> 00:13:05.609 Marcus: I think… I think very spec… sorry, I do remember, I think it's the issues… 148 00:13:05.880 --> 00:13:10.600 Marcus: Where I can see it in my head. It's the one where I think they went to get 149 00:13:10.830 --> 00:13:20.270 Marcus: Brickhouse's hair done, because they were gonna have… you know, like, I think they had just come off of something big and crazy happening, which… I mean, they always have something big and crazy happening, but… 150 00:13:20.270 --> 00:13:21.120 Ted: Yeah. 151 00:13:21.120 --> 00:13:27.869 Marcus: There was… it was after, like, a big event or something, and they basically were gonna have, like, a girls' night out. 152 00:13:27.870 --> 00:13:28.230 Ted: Oh. 153 00:13:28.230 --> 00:13:28.639 Marcus: That's okay. 154 00:13:28.640 --> 00:13:30.469 Ted: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that might have been after Worlds Collide. 155 00:13:30.470 --> 00:13:34.379 Marcus: Yeah, and as I remember it, I feel like they… 156 00:13:34.720 --> 00:13:38.800 Marcus: were… partying somewhere. I may have been… 157 00:13:39.350 --> 00:13:47.859 Marcus: Pire Holocaust Club, or it might have been… or he might have just been there. But he definitely was, like, already, like. 158 00:13:48.480 --> 00:13:56.739 Marcus: You know, making power moves, or, you know, alluding to the fact that he's finally gonna have her, or be with her, or whatever. 159 00:13:56.920 --> 00:13:57.530 Ted: Carmen. 160 00:13:57.530 --> 00:13:59.559 Marcus: She wasn't… she wasn't having it. At all. 161 00:13:59.560 --> 00:14:05.590 Ted: Yes, okay, yeah, yeah, I remember what you're talking about now. Because, yeah, okay, it's not right after Worlds Collide. 162 00:14:05.810 --> 00:14:14.309 Ted: Right. Yeah, there's some kind of, like, yeah, like you mentioned, a girl's night or something, but it's also, that's when, that's, brickhouse is still part of the team, because she leaves a few issues later. 163 00:14:14.310 --> 00:14:14.940 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

164 00:14:14.940 --> 00:14:29.189 Ted: Okay. I'd have to look it up too, but I know what you're talking about. Okay. But yeah, so, Flashback is with Pyre's team, they're… they've been contracted to provide security, which is… 165 00:14:29.680 --> 00:14:38.259 Ted: I… that's something that happens in hardware, where Pire is given the… the… security concession, I guess? 166 00:14:38.990 --> 00:14:44.319 Ted: Although, is that also mentioned in Holocaust… My name is Holocaust? I can't remember. 167 00:14:44.990 --> 00:14:51.040 Marcus: I didn't get into it, but you could tell that his… that his mom basically had plans for him, so I think… 168 00:14:51.040 --> 00:14:58.330 Ted: He was… he gets a seat on the… on the… the… coalition, whatever. Yes. 169 00:14:59.820 --> 00:15:08.310 Ted: Sorry, I'm kind of looking through, I'm trying to remember what the… what happened in those static… those shadow cabin. Blood Syndicate issues. Yeah. 170 00:15:08.830 --> 00:15:11.680 Ted: But yeah, it's a thing where they, 171 00:15:12.110 --> 00:15:17.500 Ted: Holocaust has been given the… Pyre has been given the commission to do security on the, 172 00:15:17.770 --> 00:15:36.109 Ted: At Utopia Park, which means that he's gonna… he, and then Flashback, of course, is on the team, so there's gonna be the great conflict there. And then we end that first issue of Shadow Cabinet… I think it's Shadow Cabinet. The Blood Syndicate issue, seeing them come up to the… to the ticket booth. 173 00:15:36.220 --> 00:15:44.619 Ted: and things starting to pop off, and then the guard shooting somebody first, causing everything else to go sideways. 174 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:48.150 Ted: Yeah, it's… It's… 175 00:15:49.120 --> 00:15:55.520 Ted: I mean, that's… it's interesting that this… it's not that Blood Syndicate is the only, you know, 176 00:15:56.850 --> 00:16:01.299 Ted: the only, comic that's touching on a Utopia Park. I… 177 00:16:01.810 --> 00:16:06.370 Ted: I was about to say that it feels like it's the most tied to it, but it's really not, it's just… 178 00:16:06.370 --> 00:16:14.949 Marcus: Definitely, definitely in this particular six issues that we read, I think there was a… it leaned a little bit more into Blessing the Kid, but there was, there was static… 179 00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:19.300 Marcus: There was hardware… these hardware issues tied in, right? 180 00:16:19.300 --> 00:16:32.030 Ted: Yeah, well, and that's the thing, they also, like, not only do they tie in, they each give kind of a different perspective on what's going on, because, yeah, Blood City shows us a lot of the conflict of the security team, and also shows us hardware… er, sorry, not hardware, Pyre being… 181 00:16:32.190 --> 00:16:36.660 Ted: Pyro being convinced that, like, hey. 182 00:16:36.660 --> 00:16:37.040 Marcus: Universe. 183 00:16:37.040 --> 00:16:42.239 Ted: want to be part of this and, like, joining in on keeping people out or whatever. You want to be… 184 00:16:42.240 --> 00:16:43.030 Marcus: Right. 185 00:16:43.030 --> 00:16:46.770 Ted: you know, that's… that's a… that I thought, was sort of a crucial moment, and I don't know if it… 186 00:16:47.530 --> 00:16:59.370 Ted: I don't know. It felt weird to be reading that at the same time that My Name is Holocaust is coming out, and it's, like, kind of the exact opposite moments, because this is Pyre realizing, like, man, no, what am I doing? I'm not gonna be part of this. 187 00:16:59.720 --> 00:17:12.300 Ted: crime coalition thing, and then the very next issue at, like, the same time is, no, actually, I don't want to do this, and it's a very weird little combination of… of… 188 00:17:13.250 --> 00:17:17.670 Ted: I don't know, I, I… Yeah, I don't know what to say. 189 00:17:17.980 --> 00:17:18.929 Ted: I'm, I'm, I'm kind. 190 00:17:18.930 --> 00:17:23.170 Marcus: Well, there's a lot of moving parts, you have different writers, and the, 191 00:17:24.270 --> 00:17:29.160 Marcus: Because, yeah, actually, I didn't… and it is, it is tricky, I think, when you have a huge… 192 00:17:29.660 --> 00:17:34.819 Marcus: event, and like we said, I think they… they really handled it better… 193 00:17:35.220 --> 00:17:42.750 Marcus: without totally derailing the individual series is. But, I mean, I guess that is a lot to keep track of as you're going. 194 00:17:42.750 --> 00:17:43.440 Ted: Yeah. 195 00:17:43.780 --> 00:17:46.300 Marcus: In separate books being done by separate people. 196 00:17:46.300 --> 00:18:01.330 Ted: Yeah, that's… I mean, it is really impressive. I kind of want to go back once I've read all the… all the other parts, too, and just sort of try and line up as much as I possibly can, because I'm sure that, like, you know, hardware flies by at one point, and I think Blood Syndicate, and it's like, oh yeah, he's doing his own thing. It's like, oh yeah, yes, he is, we've just seen that. 197 00:18:01.330 --> 00:18:04.569 Marcus: Yeah, and that's one of the cool things, we get different views. 198 00:18:04.570 --> 00:18:05.160 Ted: Yeah. 199 00:18:05.160 --> 00:18:10.100 Marcus: Like, I think there's stuff… I think you alluded to it before… alluded to it before, but there's, like, 200 00:18:10.380 --> 00:18:16.519 Marcus: as far as the moment when the people bust through the gates, like, I think when we originally saw it, it seemed like… 201 00:18:16.640 --> 00:18:21.500 Marcus: It was this organic thing that happened while Blood Syndicate was busting in. 202 00:18:21.630 --> 00:18:24.249 Marcus: But then we get, like, way more context. 203 00:18:24.250 --> 00:18:24.790 Ted: Yes. 204 00:18:24.980 --> 00:18:25.929 Marcus: This time. 205 00:18:26.250 --> 00:18:38.680 Ted: Yeah, where we get the actual moment it happens, but also, oh, there's a guard shooting someone involved. Although it doesn't actually show what… well, whatever, I didn't really want to see him get, like, shooting somebody, but also, like… 206 00:18:38.680 --> 00:18:46.310 Ted:

It would have been a little nice to know, I guess, I don't know. But yeah, like, what I was saying, I finally kind of collected a little bit of my thoughts, but it's, like. 207 00:18:46.310 --> 00:18:58.630 Ted: you know, Blood Syndicate is giving us the conflict with Pyre, it's giving us sort of the turf aspect of it, whereas Static is giving us the on-the-ground moments of people getting, 208 00:18:58.810 --> 00:19:04.970 Ted: you know, trapped on rides, and rick getting trapped while selling hot dogs, which is its own 209 00:19:05.270 --> 00:19:09.870 Ted: fun little moments. And then hardware giving us kind of the… the… 210 00:19:10.200 --> 00:19:25.220 Ted: the elite… the guys who actually run the show… run the show, what they think about it and how they're trying to handle it, which has its own fun twist that, like, totally shakes up what hardware is for the rest of the hardware run. Yeah. Because, yeah, so… 211 00:19:25.440 --> 00:19:30.469 Ted: Do we want to… we haven't really done a proper recap, and also, I'm kind of frazzled, and it's… it all kind of. 212 00:19:30.470 --> 00:19:32.190 Marcus: Yeah, I mean, maybe we could just kind of give… 213 00:19:32.620 --> 00:19:42.949 Marcus: Big picture of it, I think, you know, because I think the big picture, right, is we spoke last… anybody who listened to the last episode, which I know you did, we can go back and. 214 00:19:42.950 --> 00:19:43.990 Tad Eggleston: Hi, Mom. 215 00:19:44.300 --> 00:19:44.720 Marcus: Yeah. 216 00:19:44.720 --> 00:19:46.260 Ted: Tad Archives. And everybody. 217 00:19:46.260 --> 00:19:49.330 Marcus: else. I know you have other listeners, but, like, 218 00:19:49.330 --> 00:19:49.840 Tad Eggleston: One or two. 219 00:19:50.280 --> 00:19:51.010 Ted: Excuse me. 220 00:19:51.010 --> 00:20:05.399 Marcus: you're being false humble, and I don't appreciate it. But the… for everyone who listened to the last episode, or read the issues, which I also recommend, I think the big picture, right, is that this is… 221 00:20:05.740 --> 00:20:20.680 Marcus: just all the horrors of urban renewal and gentrification, all kind of boiled into one project of, you know, this Utopia Gardens… wait, is that Utopia Park? Utopia Park, 222 00:20:21.170 --> 00:20:27.740 Marcus: amusement park. And it's just displaced everybody. I think… literally… 223 00:20:28.230 --> 00:20:47.259 Marcus: Well, I was gonna say, no, even Virgil… I was gonna say, like, every character, if they're not affected or their family's not affected, somebody who they know is affected, and Virgil worked for Raquel's mom, for Rocket's mom, and she got displaced, she got displaced, both her home and her business. 224 00:20:47.260 --> 00:20:49.310 Ted: Yeah, they closed down the burger pool. 225 00:20:49.590 --> 00:20:50.710 Marcus: Yeah. Yeah. 226 00:20:50.710 --> 00:21:01.970 Ted: And… yeah, but I do love that it is affecting everybody, or at the very least, we get to see how it affects everybody. Like, I don't think hardware is specifically affected, but he is… like, he… 227 00:21:02.680 --> 00:21:18.299 Ted: he's… well, he's seeing Alva's side of it, which is Alva making this into, like… So, the part that I had kind of forgotten about Alva's story in all of this is that Alva says to hardware… first off, Alva uses hardware as, like, a show of muscle to the rest of the… 228 00:21:18.490 --> 00:21:20.290 Ted: Crime Coalition. 229 00:21:20.400 --> 00:21:21.870 Ted: thing. 230 00:21:22.210 --> 00:21:31.329 Ted: And then… and basically says, yeah, don't try to stop me, I've got hardware here, and he's really super cool, and everyone, you know, thinks he's badass. And… 231 00:21:31.520 --> 00:21:43.729 Ted: But then he privately says to hardware, look, this is me retiring. I am going out on top, I'm gonna become a philanthropist, no more business, I am… I don't think he's leaving the company to… 232 00:21:43.910 --> 00:21:52.899 Ted: to Curtis, but he is, like, I'm going out while I can still be sort of a force for good, and Utopia Park is, like, my… 233 00:21:53.140 --> 00:21:57.370 Ted: Swan Song, you know, starting to give everything away. 234 00:21:57.370 --> 00:22:00.340 Tad Eggleston: It's about repairing my legacy. 235 00:22:00.340 --> 00:22:06.309 Ted: Yes. And from what we can see, this seems sincere, which I think is sort of the most, like. 236 00:22:06.450 --> 00:22:10.079 Tad Eggleston: I mean, it's about as sincere as the Rockefellers or the… 237 00:22:10.080 --> 00:22:11.320 Ted: Carnegie. 238 00:22:11.800 --> 00:22:12.470 Ted: It's just… 239 00:22:12.470 --> 00:22:16.559 Marcus: But I think what you mean is he believes it's himself to be sincere. 240 00:22:16.560 --> 00:22:17.050 Ted: Exactly. 241 00:22:17.050 --> 00:22:21.390 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, which actually, from the people's perspective, means nothing, but yeah. 242 00:22:21.390 --> 00:22:32.749 Ted: well, yes, he did still make his billions off of, like, you know, arms deals and horrible bullshit. So, like, yes, he's still an awful person, but this is him being like, oh, well, I opened an amusement park in the middle of, like. 243 00:22:32.750 --> 00:22:33.250 Tad Eggleston: Well. 244 00:22:33.250 --> 00:22:35.390 Ted: And gentrified a city, so… 245 00:22:35.390 --> 00:22:41.639 Tad Eggleston: Right, and he's not actually Trying to atone as much as… 246 00:22:41.640 --> 00:22:42.360 Marcus: Legacy. 247 00:22:42.360 --> 00:22:43.460 Tad Eggleston: his image. 248 00:22:43.460 --> 00:22:47.339 Marcus: No, that's what… which I… I love, that you could tell… 249 00:22:47.560 --> 00:22:54.519 Marcus: that, like, you know, a marginalized person, a Black person in particular, wrote this because, 250 00:22:54.640 --> 00:23:02.929 Marcus: Yeah, the Alvos of the world do believe… they, again, they're obsessed with their legacies, they're obsessed with how they're remembered, and then, like. 251 00:23:02.930 --> 00:23:12.500 Tad Eggleston: I mean, Carnegie, I destroyed

the nation, er, destroyed the working class, but I built some libraries for them, now they can read stuff. 252 00:23:12.500 --> 00:23:13.310 Marcus: That'll have money. 253 00:23:13.310 --> 00:23:15.359 Tad Eggleston: afford to buy their own books, but I… 254 00:23:15.360 --> 00:23:16.220 Ted: I built something like that. 255 00:23:16.220 --> 00:23:18.040 Tad Eggleston: Some libraries. I built some opera houses. 256 00:23:18.040 --> 00:23:29.149 Ted: You guys like opera? Oh, you can't afford it. Well, sucked to be you. Right. Yeah. I do. I mean, now that you've said that, I kind of wish that I saw more of Curtis' reaction to all this, because I feel like he didn't actually. 257 00:23:29.150 --> 00:23:29.620 Marcus: Don't… 258 00:23:29.620 --> 00:23:31.149 Tad Eggleston: Get me wrong. 259 00:23:31.590 --> 00:23:38.249 Tad Eggleston: I would love it if our current crop of billionaires did a little bit more of this, rather than deciding that rocket. 260 00:23:38.250 --> 00:23:41.859 Marcus: Wait, of Utopia Gardens? 261 00:23:41.860 --> 00:23:44.219 Tad Eggleston: You don't want to be a guard. I think you meant the whiteboard. 262 00:23:44.220 --> 00:23:44.910 Ted: Like, why… 263 00:23:44.910 --> 00:23:46.939 Marcus: Oh, oh, oh, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. 264 00:23:47.870 --> 00:24:00.219 Marcus: Well, no, I mean, it's funny you mention, hardware's reaction, because I… alright, so this is… and I know we have more hardware to go and more character development, but I have to say, 265 00:24:00.650 --> 00:24:04.889 Marcus: I've spoken before about how, like, I differ 266 00:24:05.310 --> 00:24:10.150 Marcus: from… not all, but, you know, some of my Black peers who… just… 267 00:24:10.660 --> 00:24:16.249 Marcus: kind of oversimplify icon, right? And they literally are thinking about Icon in maybe the 268 00:24:16.250 --> 00:24:37.109 Marcus: first half of issue one. And they'll say, like, oh, Icon's a, you know, he's just a conservative, he, you know, he's not really down, blah blah blah. And it's like, no, I… we've talked about it. I've talked about it at length. I'm an Icon defender. And arguably, I bring this up, you know, not to tangent, but I bring this up because I actually… 269 00:24:37.120 --> 00:24:39.180 Marcus: am more frustrated… 270 00:24:39.650 --> 00:24:59.620 Marcus: with Curtis at this point, you know, because he… he… and it's fascinating. I don't… and I don't mean frustrated in a, like, I… I love reading the hardware issues, I… you know what I mean? I have not, like, quit hardware, but I think Curtis, the character and his choices frustrate me, because, 271 00:25:00.560 --> 00:25:12.500 Marcus: Icon, like, I think he's solidified as far as, like, being for the people, thinking about the greater good. He literally was part of the Underground Railroad, you know, and has done a lot of great things, but, like… 272 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:22.690 Marcus: Hardware's arc, if you look at it, like, he initially was all about revenge on Alva, but specifically because Alva was his adopted… 273 00:25:23.200 --> 00:25:41.530 Marcus: father figure, but it was, surprise, surprise, it was BS, he was being used, and… and also, just without credit or anything, right? And so, then he has a… he has an arc where, like, you know, Baraki, who has operated as his conscience in many ways, 274 00:25:41.740 --> 00:25:55.940 Marcus: you know, got him to think about doing things a little different, you know, not necessarily killing everybody, and so he was, you know, he was, he was kind of moving in a certain direction. And then Alva, we've talked about this in the past, 275 00:25:56.080 --> 00:26:02.470 Marcus: At a certain point, like, realizes who he is, and basically makes this… 276 00:26:02.980 --> 00:26:15.210 Marcus: devil deal, you know, with him, like, oh, I'm gonna bring you under my wing, you'll have access to more tech than you, you know, more resources than ever before, blah blah blah. But he's essentially, like. 277 00:26:15.350 --> 00:26:31.449 Marcus: Alva's arms, like, you know, and and that is really hard to deal with. I almost feel like the ire that the icon gets would be more well-placed on him. Now, he differs with Alva, and, you know… 278 00:26:31.930 --> 00:26:48.609 Marcus: he's… and he definitely will, like, think to himself about how, you know, maybe his days as Alva's guy might be numbered, but he's doing it. He's doing the devil's work, you know? So, that's all I want to say. I feel like, you know, justice for… justice for Augustus. 279 00:26:48.610 --> 00:26:56.569 Ted: Yeah, he ends up walking the walk. I get what you're saying. I do… I feel like hardware… 280 00:26:58.920 --> 00:27:04.220 Ted: It's hard… I don't think I can say that I have been disappointed by Hardware the comic. I do think I can. 281 00:27:04.220 --> 00:27:06.040 Marcus: Oh, not the comic, I meant the guy, go ahead, yeah. 282 00:27:06.040 --> 00:27:14.650 Ted: No, that's what I'm saying. Like, I think that I could… I… I agree that I'm frustrated with the decisions of hardware, the character. 283 00:27:15.130 --> 00:27:16.569 Ted: In a way that's… 284 00:27:17.390 --> 00:27:25.770 Ted: I get why it's interesting in a comic book. I'm not as… I'm not convinced of… like, I… it's… 285 00:27:26.160 --> 00:27:36.730 Ted: I don't know. I get what you're saying. I think I get what you're saying, and I think I'm agreeing a lot of, like, yeah, it's frustrating that he basically agrees to work with Elva despite everything. 286 00:27:37.190 --> 00:27:38.670 Marcus: Which, you know what's fascinating? 287 00:27:38.670 --> 00:27:40.029 Ted: is… I don't know. 288 00:27:40.030 --> 00:27:45.680 Marcus: Yeah, no, no, no, no, no. It has me thinking now, I mean, sorry, Tad, you might have been about to say what I was saying. 289 00:27:45.680 --> 00:27:46.379 Ted: But it has me. 290 00:27:46.380 --> 00:27:47.699 Tad Eggleston: No, no, you go first. 291 00:27:47.700 --> 00:27:59.979

Marcus: that, like, you know, hardware definitely is not at all unrelated to Dwayne McDuffie's frustrations and experiences working for the big two. 292 00:27:59.980 --> 00:28:00.370 Ted: Oh, yeah. 293 00:28:00.370 --> 00:28:10.250 Marcus: And hitting the glass ceiling in the comics world. So, it's fascinating. I wonder if, timing-wise… because he, he did… 294 00:28:10.470 --> 00:28:22.529 Marcus: you know, it's not like he did Milestone and he never worked with Big 2 again. I mean, he famously went on to, do incredible, like, comics and animation work with DC. 295 00:28:22.530 --> 00:28:23.060 Ted: Yeah. 296 00:28:23.060 --> 00:28:28.030 Marcus: So it almost makes me wonder, does some of this parallel. 297 00:28:28.030 --> 00:28:28.360 Ted: like. 298 00:28:28.360 --> 00:28:37.840 Marcus: Him getting other opportunities. No, no, not even justifying. Does this maybe… does this time… time-wise, maybe overlap with him doing other… 299 00:28:37.840 --> 00:28:53.939 Marcus: Big 2 work. I don't know if he was exclusively Milestone at this point in, like, 95, but it would make sense if, like, maybe this overlaps with him dipping his toes back in the Big 2 waters. That's really interesting. And if maybe that's where… 300 00:28:54.190 --> 00:29:01.000 Marcus: these… these complications in Curtis' path, you know, pop up. I don't know, this is… I don't know the answer to this. 301 00:29:01.000 --> 00:29:08.920 Ted: No, that's a really interesting question. I'm actually trying to look right now, at his… He… okay. 302 00:29:09.300 --> 00:29:12.019 Ted: As far as I can tell, he would have been… 303 00:29:12.650 --> 00:29:18.889 Ted: No, he really didn't write much of anything. Okay. Apart… I mean, okay, apart from… 304 00:29:19.270 --> 00:29:23.189 Ted: Milestone. He did not write much of anything during the time that. 305 00:29:23.190 --> 00:29:29.689 Marcus: That makes a lot of sense, because he really was, like, About Milestone during this time. 306 00:29:29.690 --> 00:29:43.290 Ted: He did go back and do a few more things for DC and Marvel in, like, starting, like, the 2000s. He did a bit of XO Man O' War. I didn't realize that. That's awesome. Oh, he also did some fill-ins on… 307 00:29:43.840 --> 00:29:58.070 Ted: No, that's other stuff. He… no, he was pretty much just doing Milestone stuff in this period. Later on in, like, the 2000s, he would go back and do a little bit of stuff for Marvel and DC, but also by that point, he was moving more into television as well, so… 308 00:29:58.070 --> 00:29:58.400 Marcus: Right. 309 00:29:58.400 --> 00:30:10.620 Ted: it's interesting that I… no, I totally get what you're saying, and I think you're… I think you're… I think there's definitely a… yeah, there's something to that. And it also is just, yeah, I… I've… it's not that I dislike Hardware the comic. 310 00:30:10.620 --> 00:30:11.230 Marcus: How do I have you. 311 00:30:11.230 --> 00:30:13.050 Ted: issues with hardware, the character. 312 00:30:13.050 --> 00:30:13.430 Marcus: Yeah. 313 00:30:13.430 --> 00:30:21.979 Ted: way that I think is… well, and it's… I don't think it's terribly well served, unfortunately, by what happens in these two issues. The other big thing, which is Alva dies. 314 00:30:22.230 --> 00:30:23.580 Marcus: He sacrifices his life. 315 00:30:23.580 --> 00:30:29.480 Ted: to save a whole bunch of people in the riots by taking up his experimental 316 00:30:29.590 --> 00:30:39.089 Ted: Robo Hardware 3.0 suit. I like that they're specifically making it 3.0, because there's already a hardware 2.0. And I do, I mean… 317 00:30:39.430 --> 00:30:45.510 Ted: The comic book nerd in me knows that, like, oh, they already set up the fact that this suit can be remote piloted. 318 00:30:45.510 --> 00:30:45.860 Marcus: Specific. 319 00:30:45.860 --> 00:30:49.779 Ted: Specifically so, if they ever wanted to, they could bring it back. 320 00:30:49.780 --> 00:30:50.100 Marcus: Also… 321 00:30:50.260 --> 00:30:57.289 Ted: they didn't, after this point. So, I mean, spoilers, but they just, you know, they don't. Yeah. And… 322 00:30:57.460 --> 00:31:05.190 Ted: But yeah, I mean, like, they… they choose to kill him off in this storyline in a way that I think is interesting. I mean, it is… 323 00:31:05.230 --> 00:31:22.700 Ted: I do like that, you know, Elva retires, specifically saying, like, hey, I'm gonna go out being, like, a cool benefactor and donating a bunch of, like, money and doing this park stuff, and then also, he gets to save, like, 200 people from a giant crashing piece of statuary, and die a hero. Like… 324 00:31:22.840 --> 00:31:37.550 Ted: he gets to… you wanted legacy, buddy? Here you fucking go. Like, he gets to have this incredible moment of heroism to close out his life. And that's so unfair, and, like, from a storytelling perspective, great, you know? 325 00:31:37.740 --> 00:31:38.200 Marcus: Yeah. 326 00:31:38.200 --> 00:31:56.389 Ted: But also, it does… I wanted to see hardware, like, play out the rest of his relationship with Alva, and realize, again, like, hey, it still sucks that I'm working for you, like, I… maybe I want to think it over again, because I still think you're kind of a terrible person. 327 00:31:56.900 --> 00:32:04.650 Tad Eggleston: So, here's what I was gonna jump in earlier with, and I think it fits even better now. 328 00:32:05.630 --> 00:32:06.550 Ted: Excuse me. 329 00:32:06.550 --> 00:32:15.580 Tad Eggleston: like… I see two major conflicts going on that are very tied together inside of Hardware Curtis. 330 00:32:15.910 --> 00:32:20.519 Tad Eggleston: The one is much more the hardware conflict. 331 00:32:21.370 --> 00:32:24.639 Tad Eggleston: Yes, he's helping out this horrible man. 332 00:32:25.870 --> 00:32:32.459 Tad Eggleston: Even in some criminal ways, but… but, in exchange, he's getting 333 00:32:32.920 --> 00:32:37.700 Tad Eggleston: the resources to do all of the other good that he wants to do. 334

00:32:37.700 --> 00:32:38.230 Ted: Yes. 335 00:32:38.740 --> 00:32:48.700 Tad Eggleston: So there's that, that, that ends mean thing. I'm not… I'm not saying I agree with his decision, I'm saying that's the conflict he has, is that he's… 336 00:32:48.700 --> 00:32:52.280 Marcus: Oh, yeah. No, no, no, continue. I just have some thoughts, but continue. 337 00:32:52.520 --> 00:32:57.990 Tad Eggleston: convincing himself that, like, the ends justify the means. 338 00:32:58.650 --> 00:33:06.230 Tad Eggleston: And as Curtis, I feel like there's an element of… I earned this. 339 00:33:06.640 --> 00:33:09.449 Marcus: Oh, 100%. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. 340 00:33:09.450 --> 00:33:11.910 Tad Eggleston: You deserve to have this nice life. 341 00:33:12.110 --> 00:33:12.680 Marcus: Good. 342 00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:17.870 Tad Eggleston: You know, not only am I smart, not only did I do all of this stuff, but, like. 343 00:33:17.980 --> 00:33:23.629 Tad Eggleston: I also saved the world. You know, I deserve nice things. 344 00:33:23.630 --> 00:33:25.200 Ted: Yeah. 345 00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:28.529 Tad Eggleston: And I think there's an element of both of… 346 00:33:29.120 --> 00:33:32.839 Tad Eggleston: his persona, Hardware and Curtis, that, like. 347 00:33:33.690 --> 00:33:35.409 Tad Eggleston: Knows that he's full of shit. 348 00:33:35.610 --> 00:33:36.500 Ted: Yeah. 349 00:33:37.390 --> 00:33:38.630 Marcus: No, 100%. 350 00:33:38.630 --> 00:33:41.340 Tad Eggleston: But… but also, like… 351 00:33:41.810 --> 00:33:53.589 Tad Eggleston: Doesn't want to be full of shit. Wants to justify it to himself. Wants to just be able to feel good about saving the world, and then going home to a sweet-ass condo. 352 00:33:55.760 --> 00:33:56.340 Ted: I think that's. 353 00:33:56.340 --> 00:34:04.309 Tad Eggleston: And that's where I'm really, really curious what happens now that Alva's also the hero. 354 00:34:04.790 --> 00:34:06.940 Marcus: See? And he's not there. 355 00:34:06.940 --> 00:34:11.320 Tad Eggleston: there, and he's not there to actually be mad at. 356 00:34:11.320 --> 00:34:12.979 Marcus: On behalf of the Black. 357 00:34:14.139 --> 00:34:18.689 Tad Eggleston: To see how Curtis… Processes that. 358 00:34:18.690 --> 00:34:30.129 Marcus: I have to say, I wince a little bit every time I hear the hero. I get it, I get that maybe, like, members… I get that maybe… I know what you're… I know what you're saying, but I know you're talking… 359 00:34:30.139 --> 00:34:31.409 Tad Eggleston: persona special. 360 00:34:31.409 --> 00:34:46.049 Marcus: It's like Palpatine. I get it, because we as viewers know that Palpatine is the power, more power guy, but in the Star Wars universe, average people are like, oh, he's the, you know, he's our… 361 00:34:46.050 --> 00:34:46.980 Tad Eggleston: He saved us! 362 00:34:46.980 --> 00:34:49.650 Marcus: Yeah, he's the emperor, and we don't even see him here. 363 00:34:49.650 --> 00:34:51.809 Tad Eggleston: what

Trump thinks he is. 364 00:34:51.810 --> 00:35:03.339 Marcus: Right, but also, like, after he gets his face melted, they just don't see him in universe, really. Like, you hear his voice, but, like, he's not visually seen. Anyway, I get it. 365 00:35:03.340 --> 00:35:05.540 Tad Eggleston: How much does an emperor need to be seen? 366 00:35:05.540 --> 00:35:21.860 Marcus: Very true, very true. So, yeah, Alva is, like, yes, viewed as a hero in maybe a more Palpatine-esque way. But what occurred to me is, as I was positing my theory about… I think I was slightly off, I think the answer is much simpler than what I was saying, about, like… 367 00:35:22.350 --> 00:35:24.970 Marcus: Hardware's direction. 368 00:35:25.040 --> 00:35:44.250 Marcus: probably, if you think about it, DC doesn't own Milestone, right? But, like, which is why… whatever, that's a whole other tangent I'm not gonna get into. But, like, they, you know, the Milestone, founders, they worked out a deal with them, and, you know, so it's under… 369 00:35:44.320 --> 00:35:47.459 Marcus: under the DC umbrella, but it's not, you know, owned… 370 00:35:47.460 --> 00:35:48.560 Ted: of editorial control. 371 00:35:48.560 --> 00:35:50.340 Marcus: Right. That being said. 372 00:35:50.600 --> 00:36:06.149 Marcus: This is after the issue of, and I think we can see where the static issue that caused all the static came in, but, like, you know, McDuffie's got all kinds of frustration 373 00:36:06.240 --> 00:36:17.240 Marcus: with DC at this point, and even doing this really cool thing with Milestone, having been doing it for a couple years at this point, but, still… 374 00:36:17.360 --> 00:36:29.839 Marcus: having DC trying to weigh in and lean on him. And it got ugly after that static issue, too, with DC's response. So I think maybe this, the, you know, Curtis's, 375 00:36:29.980 --> 00:36:34.030 Marcus: frustrating inability to, separate himself. 376 00:36:34.250 --> 00:36:36.900 Marcus: from Alva could be that simple, that McDuffie… 377 00:36:37.120 --> 00:36:42.069 Marcus: And Milestone, in effect, weren't separate from DC at this point. 378 00:36:42.350 --> 00:36:43.899 Ted: Yeah, I mean, it's… I… 379 00:36:44.090 --> 00:36:51.859 Ted: I think you're… I think you're… I think you're right. I mean, I think it's a little… you know this too, and I think you're saying it too, that it's a little simplistic to kind of map McDuffie's… 380 00:36:52.250 --> 00:36:57.000 Ted: thoughts onto hardwares, but I… I mean, I agree that there's… there's already. 381 00:36:57.000 --> 00:37:04.679 Marcus: But the structure of the initial conflict… the central conflict of Curtis, really. 382 00:37:04.680 --> 00:37:05.210 Ted: Yeah. 383 00:37:05.210 --> 00:37:08.040 Marcus: Throughout the story. 384 00:37:08.310 --> 00:37:17.920 Marcus: is… that part is based on his experiences. Obviously, I don't think he's… you're right, I don't think he's saying, issue by issue, what's going on with Dwayne this

month, you know? 385 00:37:19.060 --> 00:37:30.590 Ted: The Dwayne Diaries, yeah. No, I… but again, no, I take your point, that it is… there's so much of Dwayne's relationship with the big two, and especially DC, is he informed… is he informing 386 00:37:31.130 --> 00:37:47.849 Ted: elements of hardware, and I think that's… yeah, and that's why I feel like killing Alva, as much as it is sort of a great, tragic, fuck you to Curtis, unfortunately also limits what's gonna happen from now. I mean, I don't actually remember what happens, really, in hardware from this point on. 387 00:37:48.140 --> 00:38:00.129 Marcus: I'm actually excited, because I told… I think I told you, like, we kind of passed the point where I was, like, regularly reading, so a lot… most of this is kind of new to me, so… I did… I did peek ahead a little bit, and it looks like there's some cool stuff that comes up. 388 00:38:00.780 --> 00:38:08.939 Ted: Yeah, and that's the thing, like, I do… I… I am excited… I'm obviously always excited to see what's happening in Milestone stuff, but, like, it's… 389 00:38:09.060 --> 00:38:16.660 Ted: I feel like there could have been even more stuff regarding Curtis and Elva's relationship that would have been fascinating. 390 00:38:16.830 --> 00:38:21.800 Ted: And so it's a little bit like, oh, I would have loved to have seen how it evolves after this point. 391 00:38:21.800 --> 00:38:22.330 Marcus: Hmm. 392 00:38:22.330 --> 00:38:27.420 Ted: But also, I mean, hardware is the character, not Alva, so, you know. 393 00:38:27.460 --> 00:38:31.629 Marcus: And also… I might not just see how we go, I'm gonna be honest, I'm just gonna say it. 394 00:38:33.640 --> 00:38:37.149 Ted: It's also… Alva can be a little one-note, like. 395 00:38:37.290 --> 00:38:41.480 Ted: We got his internal monologue in this issue, and it's a little bit like… 396 00:38:41.480 --> 00:38:43.499 Marcus: He's so insufferable, oh my god. 397 00:38:43.500 --> 00:38:47.269 Ted: Yeah, like, you know, this swashes all my sundry buckles to. 398 00:38:47.270 --> 00:38:47.950 Marcus: Yeah. 399 00:38:47.950 --> 00:38:49.670 Ted: It's like, shut the fuck up. 400 00:38:49.670 --> 00:39:07.559 Marcus: You know how bad he is? He's so bad that when he was with the Crime Coalition, who none of them are particularly… are particularly, you know, characters that we're enamored with, but I actually was like, you're, like, the biggest jerk out of this whole… 401 00:39:07.560 --> 00:39:08.110 Ted: These are… 402 00:39:08.110 --> 00:39:17.669 Marcus: jerks, like, you know what I mean? Like, he's… I actually was… I felt frustrated for them on… frustrated on their behalf. By his conduct. 403 00:39:17.670 --> 00:39:18.059 Ted: I, oh. 404 00:39:18.060 --> 00:39:19.070 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 405 00:39:19.070 --> 00:39:31.359 Ted: No, I understand completely. Like, it's also… we don't really know much about the other characters in that. Like, we know Milton St. Cloud, because he's Cobalt's guy, and we kind of know… what's the guy's name? Harm? The one who actually has. 406 00:39:31.360 --> 00:39:34.240 Marcus: Yeah, and he's, like, undercover, yeah, yeah. 407 00:39:34.240 --> 00:39:38.469 Ted: Yeah, which I don't think actually really goes anywhere, but, like, it's fine. 408 00:39:38.770 --> 00:39:52.809 Ted: But, yeah, I… like, we don't really know anything about any of them. There's the one woman who may have powers, which is sort of hinted at, but I don't think it goes… that does anything, so… because she, like, puts out the fire that Holocaust, or pyre starts, so… anyway. 409 00:39:52.810 --> 00:39:53.470 Marcus: Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. 410 00:39:53.470 --> 00:39:54.939 Ted: Yeah, I don't… it's not… 411 00:39:54.940 --> 00:40:17.389 Ted: I don't know, it didn't seem super clear to me. But, but yeah, no, Alpha isn't… Alpha's a jerk, he's an asshole, and he's… like, it's not just that he's a villain, he's so smug about it. Like, that's… that's the thing of it, you know? And, unfortunately, by dying heroically, he gets the last word on that, and that's what… yeah, that's… and I say that as someone… like, that's a great… that's a great tragic moment to end with, where it's like. 412 00:40:17.500 --> 00:40:37.079 Ted: shoot, I can't even be mad at you when you're dead, because you saved, like, 200 people from dying. Like, damn it, man! So, I am looking forward to those elements of it, but also, like, he was a good foil for Curtis, and I'm more just wondering what they do with Curtis now that he doesn't have his most obvious counterpart, so… 413 00:40:37.080 --> 00:40:55.880 Marcus: Yeah. But comics… comics does do this. They'll take the… we've seen a lot of times where, like, a really interesting antagonist or something is taken off the board, and, you know, in good comics, they'll figure out a way to, you know, have new tensions, and yeah. 414 00:40:55.880 --> 00:41:09.729 Ted: Yeah. Like, I remember, I mean, hey, the Alva equivalent in the rebooted Milestone universe, where it's suddenly like, oh, he's got a sister, and not only that, she's black, or not, his sister, like, cousin, or… there's some… yeah, no. 415 00:41:09.730 --> 00:41:13.169 Marcus: Well, see, now I'm frustrated again, because we haven't gotten to see that continued. 416 00:41:13.170 --> 00:41:16.870 Ted: Yeah, that's true, we haven't gotten that set. Oh, God, comics, we love them and we hate them. 417 00:41:16.870 --> 00:41:17.440 Tad Eggleston: Hey! 418 00:41:18.460 --> 00:41:19.590 Tad Eggleston: Supposedly. 419 00:41:19.860 --> 00:41:21.530 Marcus: Don't give me, don't give me hope. 420 00:41:21.530 --> 00:41:22.810 Ted: Static is coming. 421 00:41:22.810 --> 00:41:23.430 Tad Eggleston: swimming. 422 00:41:23.720 --> 00:41:30.090 Marcus: Yeah, but static, but I know, and I love static, but I want to see… It all continued. 423 00:41:30.550 --> 00:41:47.580 Ted: I love static. I really did like the static parts of this,

because it's continuing after 25, which was emotionally a lot. Now we're getting into stuff that's a little more kind of classic superhero-y stuff. I ended up liking it a lot. You know, he hangs out with Dusk. Is it… it's Dusk, right? The girl that… 424 00:41:47.580 --> 00:41:49.360 Marcus: Yes, I believe so. 425 00:41:49.570 --> 00:42:03.039 Ted: He does, you know, he gets into conflict with Pyre, ends up kind of, getting won over on him, actually. You know, gets to save some people, saves Frida, er, not Frida, no, Frida, yeah. 426 00:42:03.180 --> 00:42:20.930 Ted: Trita and Terrence. There's the fun little bit with Rick working as the hot dog guy in Utopia Park, which I think is kind of funny. There's even, like, the joking little reference where he finds out that, like, wait, so Utopian and Utopiandy really are just guys in costumes? You're not, like, super cool androids? Come on, man, don't lie to me. 427 00:42:20.930 --> 00:42:24.730 Ted: Like, there's fun little bits with him as well. It's very… 428 00:42:24.730 --> 00:42:36.979 Ted: he doesn't have, like, the personal stakes… his personal stakes are not as high as, like, the Blood Syndicate, and he doesn't have the connection like Hardware has, but he has, sort of, enough of a personal stake that I like 429 00:42:37.020 --> 00:42:39.250 Ted: What he does in these issues. 430 00:42:39.300 --> 00:42:43.200 Ted: Yeah, I don't know, the static stuff was fun to me. I liked… 431 00:42:43.480 --> 00:42:48.269 Ted: I liked what they did with him. I kind of forget what he did in, like, the second of his issues. 432 00:42:48.750 --> 00:42:53.450 Marcus: He… wait, in the second issue… Oh, the one at the end of this arc? 433 00:42:53.720 --> 00:42:54.120 Ted: Yeah. 434 00:42:54.120 --> 00:42:59.760 Marcus: I mean, he really took on hardware, basically, to save the day. There's a pretty scary part where, as. 435 00:42:59.760 --> 00:43:00.270 Ted: Wait, hardware? 436 00:43:00.270 --> 00:43:03.059 Marcus: I think… not hardware, sorry, Pyre. 437 00:43:03.060 --> 00:43:08.610 Ted: Oh, Pyre, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he stands up to Pyre, which is kind of a… it's a fun moment, it's like, yeah, hell yeah, man. 438 00:43:08.610 --> 00:43:14.529 Marcus: Yeah, and it's a little uncertain, because he's… he's… at the end, he's even like, I think I… 439 00:43:15.030 --> 00:43:29.899 Marcus: stopped it, I hope, like, basically, you know what I mean? Because he's not… because, you know, like, Pire just never… he never… he's so hard… yeah, he's just so hard to stop. And then there's stuff with this scary moment with Daisy, where she… 440 00:43:29.900 --> 00:43:30.540 Ted: Right. 441 00:43:30.540 --> 00:43:37.080 Marcus: Like, you know, as a narrow escape from some really bad dudes, as the violence spills over into the communities. 442 00:43:37.140 --> 00:43:39.050 Marcus: You know. 443 00:43:39.110 --> 00:43:51.979 Marcus: Which shows just how… when we're talking about showing, like, different perspectives of all the Utopia Park events, you know, you're seeing it from inside the park a lot in the blood syndicate issues, but, you know. 444 00:43:51.980 --> 00:44:01.909 Marcus: You see, in the last static issue in this particular arc we read, how it's like, no, it's not contained to the park, it's really spreading out into the communities, and… 445 00:44:02.270 --> 00:44:03.960 Marcus: That's true, yeah. 446 00:44:04.000 --> 00:44:11.259 Ted: I do… okay, one last thing about Blood Syndicate that I remember noticing that I was like, wait, did I miss something? Did we know that Wise Sons… 447 00:44:11.610 --> 00:44:16.940 Ted: Okay, it's his son and his sister, but the sister's really young. 448 00:44:17.090 --> 00:44:17.660 Marcus: Yeah. 449 00:44:17.660 --> 00:44:19.999 Ted: Did we know they had powers, or she had powers? 450 00:44:21.020 --> 00:44:30.159 Marcus: No, well, wait, wait, a little, because remember, this is, like, early on, but there was a moment that had something… What was it? 451 00:44:30.370 --> 00:44:33.000 Marcus: There was a moment where, with the… 452 00:44:33.250 --> 00:44:37.030 Marcus: Oh, and I feel like I remember the sisters saying. 453 00:44:37.190 --> 00:44:47.839 Marcus: to the mom, like, he's doing it again. Do you remember what I'm talking about? Does this sound familiar? There was… there was something where the son, like, was able to see… 454 00:44:48.570 --> 00:44:51.400 Marcus: something going on… I don't know, I'll have to come back to it, but. 455 00:44:51.400 --> 00:45:05.610 Ted: Yeah, I'd have to look it up, too. I just don't remember, because, like, I really like Wise Son as a character. I do feel like the one drawback, and I don't even know if this is a drawback, but, like, the fact that Blood City is such a good ensemble book means that there's some points where I wish they'd dig 456 00:45:05.950 --> 00:45:25.939 Ted: much deeper into just one character. Like, I wish there were more, like, bottle episodes, which normally I don't, and again, like, the ensemble stuff is so strong in Blood Syndicate, but every now and then, I'm like, man, I want to know a little bit more about, like, you know, I want to know about what third rail and Brick House are up to, because they opened the bakery, like, that happens in this sequence too, you know? Yeah. 457 00:45:26.100 --> 00:45:32.209 Ted: But yeah, there's a thing where his sister can apparently, like, go… like, she can create portals through mirrored surfaces by writing. 458 00:45:32.210 --> 00:45:35.180 Marcus: That's what it was. There was a mirror thing early on. 459 00:45:35.180 --> 00:45:38.039 Ted: Oh, okay, so there was an earlier part with that, too. Okay. 460 00:45:38.040 --> 00:45:45.300 Marcus: It's in a very early issue. I feel like… I feel like it was around the time when we were introduced to the brother… to the son and the sister. 461 00:45:45.300 --> 00:45:53.830 Ted: Okay, I'm gonna have to look that up too,

because, yeah, I couldn't remember. But yeah, she does it in this issue, and it was… it took me a minute to be like, wait, how'd they get to the… oh, she, like, wrote the name, and that lets them… 462 00:45:53.830 --> 00:45:54.280 Marcus: Yeah. 463 00:45:54.280 --> 00:46:09.210 Ted: Okay, sure, alright. I mean, it's… it makes sense, like, sure, yeah, that's, you know, he's got powers, obviously the, you know, the Big Bang spread everywhere, like, sure, it makes total sense that, of course, other people are gonna have powers, too. It's just sort of like, oh, I… we know this, I guess? 464 00:46:09.530 --> 00:46:22.380 Ted: I forgot that that had been brought up before. But it is, like, I like that then, you know, it's one more thing going on with everything else, is that his, you know, these two little kids are running around and trying to figure out what to do, and we also get to see, not only do they get, manage to get back home. 465 00:46:22.390 --> 00:46:29.980 Ted: before Pyre finds them… well, he does find them, but he lets them go. But also, they send that lady to the hospital, apparently, which I thought was kind of a sweet add-on. 466 00:46:29.980 --> 00:46:30.620 Marcus: Right. 467 00:46:30.620 --> 00:46:37.919 Ted: Which I… yeah, that was just a nice little bit. But yeah, there's… it's… like, oh man, I just… I wish we had so much more, you know? Like… 468 00:46:37.920 --> 00:46:38.840 Marcus: Obviously. 469 00:46:38.840 --> 00:46:50.909 Ted: Like, I wish… and I know that, especially, even Wise Son gets his own mini-series, which we'll get to… is that in this volume, or the next one? But, even so, you know, I still want so much more… I wanted… 470 00:46:51.360 --> 00:46:51.970 Ted: Oh, yeah. 471 00:46:51.970 --> 00:47:04.759 Marcus: No, I do think… wait, I think the Wise Sun series is in there, so I… or is it in the next book? I have the issues, so I've read it, actually, a couple times in the last few years, but… no, no, it's not… I guess it's not in there. 472 00:47:04.760 --> 00:47:11.120 Ted: Yeah. But yeah, and then also, like, I do think it's funny, and I kind of get the reason why, but I do think it's funny that suddenly there's, like. 473 00:47:11.220 --> 00:47:27.080 Ted: a dozen more superpower MOOCs just, like, showing up in this, because, like, we have to have enough to be on Holocaust staff, so I was like, oh, here's Lead Balloon, and Grasshopper, and Stinger, and also the joke that, like, all of St. Cloud's guys are named after mixed drinks. 474 00:47:27.080 --> 00:47:27.490 Marcus: So there's… 475 00:47:27.490 --> 00:47:41.329 Ted: Stinger, Mai Tai, Gimblets, Bloody Mary, like, every single one of them is… every… like, just his guys have names of mixed drinks, which is sort of a… it's just… it's a nice, dumb joke. I like that that was thrown in there. 476 00:47:41.760 --> 00:47:42.280 Ted: But… 477 00:47:42.660 --> 00:47:53.600 Ted: So it does mean that there's just, like, randomly 2 or 3 dudes who have weird-looking faces or whatever, or strange, like, werewolf looks or something that'll just show up and be like, yep, okay, this is a… 478 00:47:53.790 --> 00:48:00.119 Ted: this is a guy who's got powers, I guess. Sure. It's a little out of nowhere, but okay. Yeah. 479 00:48:00.440 --> 00:48:10.579 Ted: Yeah, here's Lead Balloon. He looks like a giant inflatable dude with, like, silver skin, I guess. He's probably got a power? He can fly, I guess, but… 480 00:48:10.840 --> 00:48:11.570 Ted: Anyway. 481 00:48:12.090 --> 00:48:19.070 Ted: But yeah, I mean, this… this middle part of… of… The Long Hot Summer is… 482 00:48:20.240 --> 00:48:33.599 Ted: I don't know, it's interesting. It's also, I mean, we didn't… we didn't really talk much about, sort of, the most important thing that happens in this, which is when Wise Sun actually gives the speech about, like, hey, we can't be doing this to our own community. 483 00:48:33.800 --> 00:48:39.380 Ted: And I like that that's a moment where Wise Sun, who… I mean, he was always… 484 00:48:39.580 --> 00:48:53.770 Ted: He wasn't, like, a joker, but… a jokester, but, like, he didn't… it's not that he didn't take things seriously, but he was always, for a while, he was very kind of quick to move, he didn't like to think things through, he was very kind of gung-ho. 485 00:48:53.990 --> 00:48:56.329 Marcus: Well, his, his, his anger… 486 00:48:56.330 --> 00:48:56.860 Ted: Yeah. 487 00:48:56.860 --> 00:49:05.990 Marcus: was present in, I would say, all that he did. And if anything, it just got in the way of a lot of things, and 488 00:49:06.160 --> 00:49:13.710 Marcus: And anger in a… defensive way, too, you know, like, you just… So, yeah. 489 00:49:13.710 --> 00:49:18.649 Ted: It's important, I think, that, like, in his very first time he shows up in, like, issue 1, 490 00:49:18.650 --> 00:49:34.069 Ted: he makes some crass joke, and Brinkhouse hits him so hard that he, like, gets knocked through on the floor. And that's partly just to demonstrate everybody's powers, but also, like, no, this is who he is, you know? He's the guy who will wisecrack or mouth off, or whatever, and then get punched through a wall. And it doesn't hurt him, but still, it's like, yeah. 491 00:49:34.070 --> 00:49:34.670 Ted: But… 492 00:49:34.690 --> 00:49:40.860 Ted: But I like that then he's the one who's called upon. He kind of has the biggest change of heart. 493 00:49:41.530 --> 00:49:48.899 Ted: In realizing, like, we can't be doing this, this… people are hurting, this is unconscionable, we have to be the people to stop this. 494 00:49:48.900 --> 00:49:50.189 Marcus: Absolutely. Well, no… 495 00:49:50.190 --> 00:49:50.880 Ted: Good morning. 496 00:49:50.880 --> 00:49:52.110 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, sorry, go ahead. 497 00:49:52.110 --> 00:49:56.660 Ted: Well, he's not the ones to stop it, but the ones to call for it to stop, you know. 498 00:49:56.660 --> 00:50:05.900 Marcus: Absolutely, and you know what's really

interesting? Because, yeah, I definitely wanted to talk about… about him. I mentioned earlier, you really saw… 499 00:50:06.190 --> 00:50:09.450 Marcus: What's beneath the… the, 500 00:50:09.940 --> 00:50:15.630 Marcus: the veneer, you know, of the bravado with him a little bit more. He had very human moments. 501 00:50:15.910 --> 00:50:19.699 Marcus: You know, it's also nice to see that he's, like… 502 00:50:19.920 --> 00:50:27.439 Marcus: Because, you know, there was times in these issues where he hadn't been home, you know, and you see, he's just like, no, he's just chilling at home. 503 00:50:27.740 --> 00:50:32.159 Marcus: with Edmund, his sister, and his mom, 504 00:50:32.160 --> 00:50:32.480 Ted: Yeah. 505 00:50:32.480 --> 00:50:38.000 Marcus: And… and he… he cares. He's really feeling his mom's imminent displacement. 506 00:50:38.180 --> 00:50:38.510 Ted: Yeah. 507 00:50:38.510 --> 00:50:42.400 Marcus: And there's that moment in the alleyway 508 00:50:42.550 --> 00:50:49.310 Marcus: which I love Ivan Liz, he… he… he does a great job with Blood Syndicate, we talked about it a million times, of, like… 509 00:50:49.460 --> 00:50:53.310 Marcus: Juggling a lot of characters and still making it really… 510 00:50:53.390 --> 00:51:11.529 Marcus: flow, but, like, he also loves to throw in a mysterious thing that doesn't get paid off for a few issues, and there was that thing… did either of you… I was trying to figure out who that person in the shadows was in the alleyway. You know what I'm talking about? Like, like. 511 00:51:11.530 --> 00:51:12.960 Ted: In, in these issues? 512 00:51:12.960 --> 00:51:18.840 Marcus: Yeah, cause, like, why… so why's son is at his, his mom's place. 513 00:51:18.980 --> 00:51:20.510 Marcus: And then he… 514 00:51:20.580 --> 00:51:32.789 Marcus: he's just… he leaves because he's frustrated, because his mom is, like, kind of going on about things, the kids are asking questions, and he… he kind of blows up and says, I don't know my… you know, I don't effin' know… 515 00:51:32.790 --> 00:51:40.710 Marcus: And then he… he storms out, says he has to take a walk. So he goes outside, and he's, like, really kind of breaking down, and he's, like, cursing to himself. 516 00:51:40.790 --> 00:51:45.290 Marcus: And then, somebody shows up in the shadows. It's page 351. 517 00:51:45.800 --> 00:51:46.690 Ted: Yeah, yeah, yeah. 518 00:51:46.690 --> 00:51:51.060 Marcus: And they say, hello, Hannibal, long time no see. And we don't… 519 00:51:51.450 --> 00:51:59.510 Marcus: to my knowledge, I don't think we get to see who that was. So… so that's interesting, because I don't… that might be something that's gonna pay off… 520 00:52:00.310 --> 00:52:03.790 Marcus: In future issues, but I don't think we… yeah. 521 00:52:03.790 --> 00:52:20.369 Ted: I had totally forgotten about that. No, thank you for reminding me, because, like, God, I totally blanked on that. Because, yeah, I don't remember it having anything else

to do in this. Like, there was nothing else in these issues that made me think, like, oh, yeah, this is something having to do with the person in that alleyway. I don't know, that's… 522 00:52:21.130 --> 00:52:28.790 Marcus: Well, I'm assuming… yeah, like, I'm only… I can only guess, but I don't know, I'm assuming maybe somebody from the neighborhood he knew… 523 00:52:28.900 --> 00:52:31.949 Marcus: I was trying to look at the… 524 00:52:32.320 --> 00:52:37.909 Marcus: the profile to see if it looked like anybody, but I couldn't quite… it didn't match anybody I could think of. 525 00:52:37.910 --> 00:52:42.509 Ted: Yeah, it looks kinda like… It maybe is a woman, it's hard to tell. 526 00:52:42.510 --> 00:52:46.340 Marcus: Yeah, no, I do think… I do think it's a woman, I just don't know who. 527 00:52:46.670 --> 00:52:47.310 Ted: Yeah. 528 00:52:47.780 --> 00:52:52.049 Ted: I have no idea. That's a good point. Yeah, I don't know if anyone's gonna be… gonna be… 529 00:52:52.880 --> 00:52:54.830 Ted: If that's gonna come back anytime soon. 530 00:52:54.970 --> 00:52:57.160 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, we'll see. We'll see what comes up. 531 00:52:57.160 --> 00:53:08.130 Ted: Yeah, no, it's… it is, like, I love that they are sowing all these seeds for things that are gonna happen. Who knows? An issue from now, 10 issues from now? Whatever. But, like, I… I… I do love that there are… 532 00:53:08.600 --> 00:53:15.570 Ted: you know, things being pulled in. Well, and actually, also, come to think of it, I just noticed, D.G. Chichester takes over writing… 533 00:53:16.340 --> 00:53:18.190 Ted: If not permanently. 534 00:53:18.190 --> 00:53:18.750 Marcus: What's syndicate. 535 00:53:18.750 --> 00:53:24.299 Ted: next… yeah, at least for the next couple. Oh, he takes… okay, D.C. Tricester comes in for the next two issues. 536 00:53:24.510 --> 00:53:30.140 Ted: And then, who knows? I don't know, that might just be kind of a fill-in story. 537 00:53:30.140 --> 00:53:30.910 Marcus: Okay. 538 00:53:31.840 --> 00:53:40.509 Ted: Yeah, we'll get into it. I'm just… but you're right, though, I totally forgot about that, because it was so… you know, nothing came of it, and it was never referenced again. I totally forgot about it. Damn. 539 00:53:41.050 --> 00:53:55.419 Ted: But yeah, I… I… as you, like, as we said at the beginning, it is so difficult to balance this major event, especially when the events cross… the event… you know, everything crosses over so closely with each other that, like. 540 00:53:55.420 --> 00:54:02.350 Ted: you know, these people are literally walking by each other in the crowd sometimes. Like, the fact that they're so… 541 00:54:02.350 --> 00:54:15.800 Ted: close, which requires such careful management of, you know, time and page space, that then suddenly… but at the same time, they're also managing, you know, like we were saying about, like, third… Tech9 and… and… 542 00:54:16.050 --> 00:54:28.989 Ted: Tech 9 slash Masquerade,

and then also, you know, Wise Sun's character development. It's really tricky to try to manage everything. I think they did an incredible job, but it also means that, like, man, I really can't wait to get back to the main book! 543 00:54:28.990 --> 00:54:31.080 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, I know. 544 00:54:31.450 --> 00:54:34.010 Ted: Yeah, I'm just kind of speeding through… 545 00:54:35.100 --> 00:54:40.769 Ted: what I can read up on these issues. Yeah, not a lot of it… oh, yeah, I don't know. 546 00:54:41.070 --> 00:54:44.259 Ted: Shoot, I'm not sure how much of that actually comes back. 547 00:54:44.560 --> 00:54:50.459 Ted: Interesting. I don't know if that… Person is relevant again. 548 00:54:51.300 --> 00:54:52.510 Marcus: The person in the alleyway? 549 00:54:52.510 --> 00:54:53.850 Ted: Yeah, I don't… that's… got it. 550 00:54:53.850 --> 00:54:57.600 Marcus: I do, I do remember in my conversation… 551 00:54:58.130 --> 00:55:00.889 Marcus: with Ivan Velez, I feel like he said that he… 552 00:55:01.050 --> 00:55:05.659 Marcus: Did love to set up all these threads, and as some… 553 00:55:06.280 --> 00:55:08.820 Marcus: Of them, they… you know, you didn't get to see it through the… 554 00:55:08.820 --> 00:55:09.260 Ted: Yeah. 555 00:55:09.260 --> 00:55:10.220 Marcus: fruition. 556 00:55:10.390 --> 00:55:13.539 Marcus: Because of when, maybe how things ended or how they went. 557 00:55:13.710 --> 00:55:18.690 Ted: I have to say, I think I remember, I think I mentioned this before, but, like, I remember looking through those, 558 00:55:18.870 --> 00:55:34.030 Ted: the Milestone trading cards, and, like, there are characters who are only… there are characters who got a whole trading card of themselves who I don't think ever appeared on panel. And some of them maybe even didn't get mentioned, but, like, they had a whole bunch of characters they were ready to pull out, and even they didn't get… 559 00:55:34.610 --> 00:55:44.160 Ted: You know, so I understand that it, you know, they had a lot more plan than they were eventually able to do, and that's… again, as we keep saying, like, it's such a damn shame what happened with Milestone, but like… 560 00:55:45.250 --> 00:56:02.909 Ted: Yeah, man, but it's also, you know, it's smart comic books writing to be like, yeah, sometimes every now and then, you gotta just set up something that'll maybe pay off 20 issues, or 20 years later, you know? I have… I still have this issue, this one random issue of X-Men from the early-mid 90s, which is the issue where, like. 561 00:56:03.200 --> 00:56:19.829 Ted: Cyclops is hanging out with Mr. Sinister, and just kind of having a long conversation with the guy, and Mr. Sinister makes some reference, like, oh yeah, you and your brothers, and he's like, I only have one brother. And he's like, oh, yeah, you're one brother, that's right. And, like, I don't think… I think that might have even been, like, a Claremont issue. 562 00:56:19.830 --> 00:56:21.019 Marcus: But I'm like… 563 00:56:21.020 --> 00:56:31.869 Ted: It's a thing where it… I don't think they had any plans at that moment to be like, yeah, there's a third Summers Brother, but they just threw it in there to be like, yeah, sure, maybe it'll be something, maybe it won't, who knows? 564 00:56:31.870 --> 00:56:32.189 Marcus: Both of them. 565 00:56:32.190 --> 00:56:42.550 Ted: set that up just to kind of mess with people and open up, potentially, a future story arc somewhere. I mean, in that case, what we got was, was that Adam XD Extreme? 566 00:56:42.850 --> 00:56:56.370 Ted: It was someone… I think it was someone pretty lame, but, like, just knowing that, like, yeah, you want to set up… you wanna… you wanna put in… you gotta make some investments, and maybe they'll pay off some interest eventually. And, you know, this was an investment. 567 00:56:56.370 --> 00:57:00.990 Marcus: Okay, Vulcan… sorry, you made me think of it. Yeah, was later… 568 00:57:00.990 --> 00:57:03.070 Ted: Volcan was the third Summers brother. 569 00:57:03.070 --> 00:57:04.530 Marcus: Lead Genesis, okay. 570 00:57:04.530 --> 00:57:05.640 Ted: Yeah, oh… 571 00:57:05.640 --> 00:57:07.149 Marcus: Oh, and Adam X, yeah, yeah. 572 00:57:07.150 --> 00:57:09.330 Ted: Oh, Adam, was he another brother, or was that, like, a close? 573 00:57:09.330 --> 00:57:12.410 Marcus: Well, according to AI Overview, which is horrible… 574 00:57:12.410 --> 00:57:14.399 Ted: Oh, let's not even get into it! Oh, God. 575 00:57:14.400 --> 00:57:19.839 Marcus: Yeah, don't get me… I'm just about to set myself off doing that, so I'm sorry, I won't get myself started. 576 00:57:21.460 --> 00:57:33.360 Ted: Hey, honestly, I think we can kind of call it for the night, frankly, because that kind of covers everything that happens in this, because the speech that Wild Send gives seems to sort of end the riot, more or less. 577 00:57:33.390 --> 00:57:39.490 Ted: Hardware's story is also basically done, because he ends by basically, you know, cradling Alva's body. 578 00:57:39.510 --> 00:57:58.679 Ted: Blood City, it ends more or less with them being like, well, we did what we could, we made this big speech, let's see what happens. And then Static ends with him kind of sit… doing a very Spider-Man thing, and I mean that in a positive sense, but, like, sitting on a rooftop, being like, man, I'm exhausted, you know, what else can I do to help save the city? There's still stuff going on, you know, like, it's a very… 579 00:57:58.680 --> 00:58:04.209 Ted: It's the very Spider-Man thing of, like, oh man, I just had to beat some really tough villain, and now I gotta take a breather. 580 00:58:04.230 --> 00:58:07.860 Ted: So, it's… it is… 581 00:58:08.250 --> 00:58:26.170 Ted: setting up the finale of… or I guess it is… these bits are the finale of Long Hot Summer in their own books. We still have Zombie, Blood Syndicate, or, Shadow Cabinet. God, I keep saying Shadow Cabinet and Blood

Syndicate, like, alternating… anyway. And then… 582 00:58:26.330 --> 00:58:35.060 Ted: I guess the third issue of Long Hot Summer, Yeah, zombie, shadow cabinet, icon? Wait. 583 00:58:36.810 --> 00:58:37.340 Ted: Does there… 584 00:58:38.470 --> 00:58:39.629 Marcus: Can I say that again? 585 00:58:39.910 --> 00:58:43.499 Ted: Oh, Icon… oh, Cobalt! Yeah, god, of course, Cobalt, and then… 586 00:58:43.730 --> 00:59:01.160 Ted: The third issue of Long Hot Summer. Okay. Yeah, so apparently there's one more issue of Icon. I'm just looking ahead in the book. One more issue of Icon, a few more issues of… the last issues of Cobalt, and then the third issue of the Long Hot Summer book proper. 587 00:59:01.230 --> 00:59:06.949 Ted: Which will be interesting to see how much of other stuff gets thrown in there. Oh, yeah, and zombies, so… 588 00:59:07.550 --> 00:59:10.370 Ted: Yeah, we've still got some… we've still got quite a bit ahead of us, I guess. 589 00:59:10.370 --> 00:59:11.269 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 590 00:59:11.270 --> 00:59:13.700 Ted: Even if this sort of wraps things up. 591 00:59:14.150 --> 00:59:16.560 Marcus: I'm happy to be getting back to some more zombie, because I… 592 00:59:16.560 --> 00:59:21.360 Ted: I… I forgot… I've forgotten completely what last happened in Zombie, I gotta say. 593 00:59:21.360 --> 00:59:23.530 Marcus: Yeah, I might go back and read some of that. 594 00:59:23.530 --> 00:59:31.890 Ted: I might go back and read all of it. I remember… I remember the, like, the nuns, and the wasp… the dead wasps that turn into weird ghosts, anyway. 595 00:59:32.020 --> 00:59:39.940 Ted: Yeah. But yeah, no, that kind of covers all this. It's, again, like, this is… this is a really good event in that it… 596 00:59:40.100 --> 00:59:53.710 Ted: It does stuff that ties in with each book, but at the same time, each book maintains its own throughline, and it just… it reads so well the whole way through. And none of it feels forced or, like, un… 597 00:59:53.990 --> 00:59:57.579 Ted: necessary… yeah, I don't know, this is a really good… 598 00:59:57.800 --> 01:00:00.460 Ted: This is just a really good event, guys, I don't know what to tell you. 599 01:00:00.460 --> 01:00:03.460 Marcus: Yeah, I… I just want more. 600 01:00:03.460 --> 01:00:03.940 Ted: Yeah. 601 01:00:03.940 --> 01:00:04.470 Marcus: Oh, I love… 602 01:00:04.470 --> 01:00:06.270 Tad Eggleston: Enjoying it, we'll get more. 603 01:00:06.270 --> 01:00:12.429 Marcus: You know what I would love? You know what I would love if… it's not gonna happen. It's hard enough to get them to even continue Milestone Reborn. 604 01:00:12.430 --> 01:00:12.840 Ted: Yeah. 605 01:00:12.840 --> 01:00:17.770 Marcus: I would love if we almost had, like, a… 616-1610. 606 01:00:17.770 --> 01:00:18.950 Ted: Jewish, where they… 607 01:00:18.950 --> 01:00:26.169 Marcus: you know, did… and we did see… there was a special that was released a couple years ago at this point. 608 01:00:26.170 --> 01:00:26.900 Ted: Yes. 609 01:00:26.900 --> 01:00:34.180 Marcus: Yeah, we're, we're the… The 93 Milestone characters were meeting the new characters. 610 01:00:34.680 --> 01:00:35.750 Ted: Yes. So… 611 01:00:35.750 --> 01:00:41.510 Marcus: I'd love it if we just got a continuation. Although then again, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna reread… 612 01:00:42.030 --> 01:00:47.490 Marcus: those McDuffie, milestone… what was the name of that event? 613 01:00:47.490 --> 01:00:48.599 Ted: Forever? Milestone Forever. 614 01:00:48.600 --> 01:00:50.899 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, yeah, those were good, I enjoyed those. 615 01:00:50.900 --> 01:01:01.319 Ted: That… or was that the… whatever, we'll figure it out, but yeah. Yeah, it's… this… I mean, I remember a few years back finally getting through all of Jack Kirby's Fourth World stuff, and it's just… 616 01:01:01.380 --> 01:01:13.049 Ted: After some incredible highs, you eventually get to the point where you realize, like, oh, this is where they start cutting books, this is where they start, you know, walking him off of stuff, and this is where they start, you know… 617 01:01:13.220 --> 01:01:25.649 Ted: ruining things, and he's doing less and less of what he wants to do, and it's… it's kind of hard to read. And it's like, oh yeah, shoot, this is where… this is where, unfortunately, we are on kind of the… 618 01:01:26.500 --> 01:01:31.239 Ted: downswing. The second half of Milestone, you know. 619 01:01:31.240 --> 01:01:34.010 Marcus: Where does his… Where does his… 620 01:01:34.250 --> 01:01:37.739 Marcus: Does that overlap with his, with Kirby's, 621 01:01:38.180 --> 01:01:49.920 Marcus: frustrating return to Black Panther, because he… because he had been away, and, like, McGregor had done, and other careers, had done some really interesting stuff with Black Panther. 622 01:01:49.920 --> 01:01:52.890 Ted: Then Pantser's Quest, or Panther's Rage and Pantser's Quest, yes. 623 01:01:52.890 --> 01:01:57.909 Marcus: Yeah, and then… and then Kirby, like, came back, and he was like… 624 01:01:58.130 --> 01:02:02.750 Marcus: He's like he had an axe grind, and he just undid everybody's stuff. And I'm sorry… 625 01:02:02.750 --> 01:02:03.250 Ted: Remember that. 626 01:02:03.250 --> 01:02:11.149 Marcus: as much as I… as much as I love T'Challa and Wakanda, other writers took those little bits. 627 01:02:11.150 --> 01:02:11.520 Ted: spread. 628 01:02:11.520 --> 01:02:18.169 Marcus: that Sam and Jack did. It is fascinating to me, because every time I look at it, I'm like, guys. 629 01:02:18.290 --> 01:02:23.570 Marcus: You could've did some research. They're literally just were taking whatever… 630 01:02:23.570 --> 01:02:24.190 Ted: Yeah. 631 01:02:24.190 --> 01:02:26.780 Marcus: Pan-gentle picture they had of quote-unquote. 632 01:02:26.780 --> 01:02:28.180 Ted: Africa. 633 01:02:28.320 --> 01:02:32.950 Marcus: And just… yeah, so it's like, to come back and still not have

learned anything. 634 01:02:33.330 --> 01:02:36.829 Marcus: And be like, hey, all the work that you other creators did. 635 01:02:37.060 --> 01:02:41.580 Marcus: I created this guy, I'm gonna, I'm gonna just, do me on this. 636 01:02:42.040 --> 01:02:44.760 Ted: You don't like King Solomon's frogs? 637 01:02:44.890 --> 01:02:45.520 Marcus: Oh, God. 638 01:02:45.520 --> 01:02:52.369 Ted: Okay, I'm sorry, to be clear, I actually haven't read those issues, that's just, like, one random thing I know about that happens, I'm just… 639 01:02:52.370 --> 01:02:53.040 Marcus: Yeah… 640 01:02:53.040 --> 01:03:01.529 Ted: Yeah, no. He… yeah, that actually would have been just about right, because, yeah, the Fourth World stuff was mostly wrapped up by, like, 75-ish. 641 01:03:01.530 --> 01:03:02.080 Marcus: Cuh. 642 01:03:02.080 --> 01:03:08.669 Ted: And he started his Black Panther run. He only did, like, 12 issues. Right, right. 77 to 78, okay, so, yeah. 643 01:03:08.850 --> 01:03:17.679 Ted: That sounds right. Yeah, that's… No, I get you, because I remember I picked up those Don McGregors years back, and I'm like, oh, shoot, this is great. 644 01:03:17.990 --> 01:03:18.760 Marcus: Yeah. 645 01:03:18.760 --> 01:03:19.730 Ted: But then… 646 01:03:19.730 --> 01:03:23.429 Marcus: He's still one of the greats, but that was not his… that was not one of his shining moments. 647 01:03:23.430 --> 01:03:30.259 Ted: Hey, they can't all be Sky Masters, Marshal of the Air, or whatever that guy was. Anyway. 648 01:03:31.860 --> 01:03:41.789 Ted: Yeah, cool. I don't know. This was… this was a good chunk of comics, obviously I can't wait to get back to more of it, and yeah, this is a good event, but, like, I want the regular stuff back, so… 649 01:03:41.810 --> 01:03:42.300 Marcus: Yes. 650 01:03:42.360 --> 01:03:45.229 Tad Eggleston: Well, you know, some zombie next week… month? 651 01:03:45.470 --> 01:03:46.380 Ted: Yeah, so… 652 01:03:46.380 --> 01:03:47.110 Tad Eggleston: month. 653 01:03:47.110 --> 01:03:52.650 Ted: How many issues are we reading next month? It's kind of a lot, if we're gonna try and finish out Long Hot Summer. It's… 654 01:03:52.650 --> 01:03:55.209 Tad Eggleston: Well, no, we're not finishing off Long Hot Summer, I think we're. 655 01:03:55.210 --> 01:03:56.989 Marcus: Oh, yeah, yeah, I think we're just gonna do zombie, yeah. 656 01:03:56.990 --> 01:03:59.620 Ted: Yeah, we're just gonna… oh, yeah, there's a… oh, wow, yeah, it's. 657 01:03:59.620 --> 01:04:01.479 Marcus: Yeah, there might even be 6, or 5, okay. 658 01:04:01.480 --> 01:04:04.000 Tad Eggleston: It's still… it's still… yeah, it's 5. 659 01:04:04.160 --> 01:04:04.960 Marcus: It's… 660 01:04:05.190 --> 01:04:12.610 Ted: Yeah, 5 Issues of Zombie, oh yeah, and then there's Shadow Cabinet, Icon, Cobalt, and then the end of Long Hot Summer. Okay, okay. 661 01:04:12.610 --> 01:04:14.769 Marcus: Yeah, yeah, let's just do Zombie, I think, right? 662 01:04:14.770 -->

01:04:19.210 Ted: Yeah, so Zombie 12 through… 16, yes, yeah, those fine. 663 01:04:19.210 --> 01:04:19.530 Tad Eggleston: Yeah. 664 01:04:20.090 --> 01:04:20.590 Ted: Okay. 665 01:04:20.590 --> 01:04:27.620 Tad Eggleston: 12 through 16, and then probably the month after that, the shadow cabinet, the icon, And… 666 01:04:27.620 --> 01:04:28.809 Ted: Black Hot Summer. 667 01:04:28.810 --> 01:04:29.820 Tad Eggleston: Cobalt. 668 01:04:29.990 --> 01:04:32.099 Ted: Which wraps up… Well, that's a long… 669 01:04:32.930 --> 01:04:36.430 Tad Eggleston: Long Hot Summer 3, I think, could be… 670 01:04:37.020 --> 01:04:39.250 Tad Eggleston: Part of the month after that. 671 01:04:39.580 --> 01:04:41.719 Ted: I don't know, I feel like, knowing that… 672 01:04:41.720 --> 01:04:43.160 Tad Eggleston: hardware and icon. 673 01:04:43.160 --> 01:04:52.150 Ted: Knowing that… here's the thing, is I know for a fact that the cobalt stuff ties really strongly into Long Hot Summer, so I feel like it makes sense to keep that in place. 674 01:04:52.150 --> 01:04:56.919 Tad Eggleston: I just didn't know if the… if the hardware icon shadow cabinet did, too. 675 01:04:57.310 --> 01:04:58.269 Ted: No, I think by that point. 676 01:04:58.270 --> 01:05:02.190 Tad Eggleston: Because we've only got an issue a piece of… of those. 677 01:05:02.490 --> 01:05:04.889 Ted: Wait, in the… Know those? 678 01:05:05.740 --> 01:05:07.779 Ted: We might have to work this out off the air, folks. 679 01:05:07.780 --> 01:05:11.210 Marcus: We can figure it out, in the chat. 680 01:05:11.210 --> 01:05:13.859 Tad Eggleston: What! This is the most riveting part! 681 01:05:13.860 --> 01:05:14.610 Marcus: This is riveting. 682 01:05:14.610 --> 01:05:18.539 Ted: We've got two issues of Shadow Cabinet, one issue of Icon. 683 01:05:18.660 --> 01:05:24.599 Ted: two issues of Cobalt, and then Long Hot Summer. So yeah, I say that's how we do that. 684 01:05:24.970 --> 01:05:32.340 Tad Eggleston: Well, but then right after that, we have one issue of hardware, one issue of Icon, and one issue of Shadow Cabinet. 685 01:05:33.010 --> 01:05:35.629 Tad Eggleston: Before 5 more issues of Zombie. 686 01:05:35.630 --> 01:05:40.250 Ted: Yeah, I… I don't know, I guess we could do that, but also I think that's the final issue of Shadow Cabinet. 687 01:05:40.570 --> 01:05:41.410 Ted: So… 688 01:05:41.410 --> 01:05:54.150 Tad Eggleston: Yeah. So, I mean, it's either we go one more neck… er… I mean, we've got two months to figure it out, but it's either we go one more, and then, like, have a really short month, or we… 689 01:05:54.660 --> 01:05:57.530 Tad Eggleston: even him out a little bit. That's… that's all I was saying. 690 01:05:57.530 --> 01:05:59.390 Ted: Yeah, no, good point, we'll figure it out. 691 01:05:59.390 --> 01:06:05.129 Marcus: I'm just picturing all the listeners that are at home, they're like, thank God they got through all this comic stuff so we can get to scheduling. 692 01:06:05.130 --> 01:06:05.849 Ted: Scheduling that. 693 01:06:05.850 --> 01:06:07.989 Tad Eggleston: That's right! Look, man, for some of us… 694 01:06:07.990 --> 01:06:09.760 Ted: That is the most important part of that. 695 01:06:09.760 --> 01:06:12.820 Tad Eggleston: scheduling on 22 Panels. Oh, boy. 696 01:06:12.820 --> 01:06:14.440 Ted: Yeah, exactly. 697 01:06:14.440 --> 01:06:21.629 Tad Eggleston: This has been the Brothers Anderson, no relation, and we will see you after the next page.