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Hello, and welcome to this episode
of Superhero Ethics. Friends, the MCU

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decided to give us a Valentine's Day
gift and we want to pass that on

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to you. As many of you
already know, the official casting for the

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upcoming Fantastic Four movie has been announced, the movie that will bring the Fantastic

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Four into the MCU as a whole. And I have got myself and Jessica

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Plummer, who many of you may
know as the person we return to when

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there's comic book news and news about
comic books translating to on screen. A

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dedicated Superman fan and a lover of
so many comics and so much we have

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to educate us so much, and
someone who I know has a lot of

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passionate feelings about the Fantastic Four and
their casting. So let me. Actually,

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I want you to introduce yourself,
but I'll just start out by saying

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this. The thing is finally Jewish, Yes, and I'm very happy about

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that. Hi, thank you for
having me. I love the Fantastic for

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very much and I'm really excited to
talk about them. Awesome, awesome,

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And for those who don't know,
we just referenced the thing. Ben Grimm

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is a character in The Fantastic Four
and will talk more about it. We're

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not going to dive into it right
now, but just to give the quick

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summary because I think in many ways
this is one of the biggest parts of

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the announcement. News was always very
Jewish coded in the comics, and from

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the beginning was also very much a
Jack Kirby stand in character, and eventually

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was made canonically Jewish insomuch as even
going so far as having a even going

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so far as having a bar mitzvah
on comic books on comic page, if

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I remember correctly, and at one
point having a satyr or something like that

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or no, it's a Hanika celebration. But till now it has not been

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played by a Jewish actor, and
so this actor is Jewish, and that's

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something we're going to talk about.
But there's a lot of other great news

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because certainly for me, Pedro Pascal
and anything makes me very happy. I

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don't know about the Fantastic Four having
a magical baby that he has to take

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across the galaxy or the planet or
the city. No that, but yeah,

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yes, actually, yeah, he
has two kids. They're pretty magical.

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They spend a lot of time crossing
the galaxy. It checks out.

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It works perfectly. Okay, cool, cool, cool, Paedro Pascal continues

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to Patro Pascal as well as the
rest of the cast being really awesome.

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So, Jessica, let me just
start with this. I think a lot

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of people, especially if they're not
hardcore comic people, don't know much about

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the Fantastic Four. Maybe they watched
one of the Chris Evans movies or one

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of the newer movies, which are
all I think generally regarded as not the

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shining high point of comic book movies
nor the best adaptation of those stories.

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This is an utterly beloved story for
comic book fans that most people who watch

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on screen don't know much about.
Tell us about the Fantastic Four. Yeah,

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so the Fantastic Four are great.
You are right. They may have

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been in many movies and not never
really been shown in their best light,

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but they're referred to as the first
Family of Marvel among you know, by

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Marvel and among comic book fans because
they were actually the first characters who were

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created by Stanley and Jack Kirby when
they sort of revolutionized comics in the sixties.

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So the Fantastic Four showed up in
nineteen sixty one. They predate the

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Hulk, they predate the X Men, and they predate Spider Man, who

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of course was not Jack Kirby,
but still all those characters that like change

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the face of comics. It started
with the Fantastic Four, so there are

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four of them. Obviously, Read
Richards, who is a genius is he

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was for a long time the smartest
person in the Marvel universe. Now that

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title officially goes to Moon Girl,
so I guess he's probably second smartest.

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So Read initially in nineteen sixty one
created a rocket to beat the Russians to

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space. That they change that a
little, and it's probably gonna be different

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in the movie. And for some
reason, he brings along his best friend,

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his girlfriend, and her teenage brother
in his rocket crew. As you

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do, as you do. So
the purpose of their journey is to study

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cosmic rays, and they are affected
by the rays and they are given powers.

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So Reid gains the ability to stretch, and he becomes mister Fantastic.

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His girlfriend, Sue Storm, initially
just gains the ability to become invisible.

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Later she's able to create invisible force
fields. She's initially called the Invisible Girl

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and later the Invisible Woman. Her
younger brother Johnny gains the ability to set

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himself on fire and also fly.
He's the human Torch, and then finally

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reads best friend Ben Grimm becomes an
orange rock monster and reads like We'll call

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you the thing because he's not always
the best friend. And Ben is like

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sort of a tragic figure because unlike
the others, he can't turn it off.

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They're very much a family, even
though you know, Reid and su

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do eventually get married. Ben is
not officially quote unquote or biologically related,

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but they are. They are family, and they were revolutionary at the time

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that they were introduced because they were
flawed and they bickered a lot, particularly

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reading John or I'm sorry. Ben
and Johnny were always like kind of sniping

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at each other. They kind of
the two younger brothers in a way of

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the uncle. Yeah Ben. Ben
doesn't really have an excuse because he's like

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twenty years older than Johnny, but
yeah, yeah, there's a lot of

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like the two of them playing pranks
on each other, and Ben they both

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have very short tempers, so a
lot of bickering, a lot of the

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characters not being perfect shining paragons the
way that like Superman and Batman were,

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but underneath that there's this real core
of love and loyalty between them, right,

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and this sort of set the tone
for what the Marvel Age of comics

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is it's called would become. You
have these other characters who have sort of

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a tragedy inherent in their nature,
like the Hulk, like the X Men,

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or who have these not even necessarily
flaws, but who struggle with things

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the way the Spider Man does.
All of that kind of stems from the

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Fantastic Four, and they really are
the reason that modern superheroes are what they

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are. Yeah, and that's really
interesting I think to think about and I

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you know, we've talked. I
think a lot of people understand that Marvel

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is the one that started doing relatable
superheroes, not kind of like the demigod

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figures and who had, you know, girlfriend troubles and high school troubles the

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way Peter Parker does, But they
don't really think about the fact that these

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were really the first ones of them. And I appreciate what you said about

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the whole like it's cosmic rays because
to me, what that also says,

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is this seems like it's very grounded
in like to our modern years. I

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think that sounds rather silly as someone
who's been reading recently a lot more older

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science fiction. That sounds very grounded
in nineteen fifties science fiction world, you

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know, And is that accurate in
terms of also where that's drawing some inspiration

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from. Probably I have not done
the reading on nineteen fifties science fiction.

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But they are like absolutely a science
fiction franchise, The Fantastic Four. You

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know, they have a home on
Earth, they live in the backs you're

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building in Manhattan, but they are
very much you're constantly going to outer space

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or the negative zone or alternate dimensions
or traveling through time. Their stories are

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very are extremely cosmic and grandiose,
and they're like really imaginative. I mean

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there, you know, it was
a Fantastic Four story where Galactus first showed

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up. Who is a villain who
eats planets? Right? That sort of

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they have this quality of nothing is
too over the top, nothing is too

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silly, nothing is too outlandish.
Like there there's a real core of like

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letting your imagination kind of do whatever
it wants. And certainly Jack Kirby was

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absolutely doing that with the Fantastic Four
until he got to the point where he

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couldn't handle Stanley anymore and left and
went to DC. But for a while

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there his imagination was absolutely flourishing.
And it's with the Fantastic Four that he

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created so many of the importance well, I was going to say important supporting

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characters of the Marvel universe, but
that's not They became protagonists in their own

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right, like Black Panther, for
showed up in a Fantastic Four comic The

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Inhumans, like all these other really
key characters. And Jia also has kind

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of grounded in time. You know, we're talking about this as like to

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us today in which people go into
space with not regularity, but it has

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become somewhat scientifically, you know,
understood how this happens. When this was

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made, Juriga Garin the first human
being ever in space as we understand it,

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April nineteen sixty one, Alan Sheppard
the first American is May. This

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comic comes out November of that same
year, so very clearly this is when

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humans going into space, and this
is when they're going into like low medium

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Earth orbits. So it's still very
very new and so imagine that's where a

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lot of science stuff comes up from. It's actually a little newer than that.

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It probably would have come out in
September because at the time, cover

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dates were a couple months ahead,
so that the comic didn't look dated on

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the stand so it was even closer. Oh that's interesting how it does that

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and what would have been the normal
time? Like, does it seem then

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that it's a crazy coincidence because of
the how long it takes to produce a

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comic, or does it seem like
Yuri Gagarion goes into space, Alan Shepherd

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goes into space. Stan Lee and
Jack Kirby are in part inspired by that

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literally happening. They sit down and
write, and then within two or three

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months it's on the newsstands. I
mean, I think there probably would have

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been time from April to September.
I'm not super familiar with exactly how long

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it would have taken, but they
were both very aware of these sorts of

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things, Like they paid attention to
what was going on, and they were

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interested in outer space and technological developments
and science. Like a lot of the

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stuff that they just in their careers
was they were often very current or almost

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prophetic, and you do get weird
coincidences, like soon after that they would

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introduce the Brotherhood of Evil mutants in
an X Men comic, which was like

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within a month of DC introducing the
Brotherhood of Evil in a Doom Patrol comic.

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And like even the introduction of the
Doom Patrol, which is a team

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of quote unquote freaks led by a
guy in a wheelchair, was within like

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a month of the introduction of the
X Men. So there were coincidences,

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and this could have been one,
but I'm sure that they were at least

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paying attention, very close attention to
the space race, even if they maybe

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had started the issue before. And
actually everyone knew that the Russians of the

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Americans were trying hard to get into
space, right, and that's a big

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part of what fuels like read Ridge
Richards's decision in that first issue. But

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also they worked incredibly fast. Jack
Kirby once drew an entire comic in a

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weekend. So the man was in
you the marble pun he was in human,

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but like he he was a miracle
of a human being. Like I

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don't know how he did anything he
did. And we're going to get to

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the characters themselves and the casting in
a moment of promise. But I was

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one of these issues so interesting to
really look at the history of it.

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You know, you and I have
talked about how there's always been political undertones

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to these messages, and sometimes much
more overtones in reading the original Fantastic Four.

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Is there from read Richards kind of
a like raw raw America, I

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want to help us beat the Russians, Or is it more of a I'm

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from science. I want to do
this for science, not for you know,

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this cold war mentality. I wouldn't
say. I guess there's there's an

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underlying like pro America anti Soviet attitude, but it doesn't feel pointed. It's

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just it just feels sort of like
the background radiation of being an American in

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the early nineteen sixties. Like it
just it doesn't obviously everything's political, like

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there's no such thing as a neutral
statement, but I don't think that it's

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not. It's not like chest thumping
patriotism, but there is an understanding that

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like right America good, Soviet's bad, and there are definitely like one of

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their earliest villains is the Red Ghost, who is a Soviet scientist who goes

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into space with three apes and they
all develop superpowers and then you like,

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I don't know, Robs Banks or
whatever with his you know chimpanzee they can

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walk through walls or I don't.
I'm a nerd, but I'm not enough

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of a nerd to remember the separate
superpowers of the Red Ghost three different monkeys.

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But he's definitely like, that's a
Soviet villain. But there's not like

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deliberately political storytelling, right that makes
sense? And the main villain I think

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today is understood is Doctor Doom.
Is Doctor Doom someone who's found in those

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very early books or does he come
along later? Oh? Yes, I

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think he first appears in the second
issue and now I have to look it

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up because it's gonna bother me.
He I mean, doctor Doom is quite

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frankly, no, I was way
off number five. Doctor Doom is without

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quo, like I just I will
accept no other arguments. The greatest supervillain

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in comics like bar none, I'm
a DC girl, but interesting, okay,

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Joker, who, like doctor Doom, is incredible. He talks about

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himself in the third person. He's
an evil science wizard. Every time you

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think you've defeated him. It's actually
a robot. In his very very first

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appearance, he shows up, he
kidnaps Sue, and we should probably talk

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about how Sue is treated in those
early days, because it is not great.

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But he kidnaps Sue and he sends
the three boys on a mission if

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they want to get her back back
in time, to steal Blackbeard's treasure so

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that he can do an evil ritual
with it. And so they go back

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in time to pirate times, and
then they can't find Blackbeard anywhere. But

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the thing becomes a pirate captain and
he has the disguise that includes a black

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Beard, and they eventually realize that
the thing is the historical Blackbeard. It's

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and that's like, again there's this
sort of quality of like, it doesn't

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like, there's no level of ridiculous
you cannot do. And it's that that

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makes The Fantastic Four so great,
And it's that that makes Doctor Doom so

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great. Like he's absolutely a very
evil villain and he will do terrible,

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terrible things, but he will also
like send them into the past steel Blackbeard's

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treasure. I've watched enough. Our
flag means death. That now I'm having

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images of Taiko Wati, who is
Jewish, playing the thing, playing black

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Beard. That would be incredible.
I would like that. I would like

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that. So why do you think
it is that this property has had so

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much trouble being translated to film,
Because obviously, in more like we've had

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up periods and down periods of superhero
movies, but even long before, like

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the Snider Verse and the Figy Verse
and all this kind of stuff, we've

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had at least, like, you
know, pretty decent superhero movies. You

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know, the the Richard Donner Superman. I know you don't think that they're

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like the best representation of Superman himself, but they're well regarded movies. The

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Toby Maguire Spider Man, you know, the even going back to the original

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Chris carp and Tarthic X Men movies
like Chris Carpenter, but the end of

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the director was but you know where
Hugh Jackman first got started. Yeah,

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there're two thousands ones. Yeah,
the Black Leather Why And my understanding is

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like the I watched half of one
of the Fantastic Four movies. Uh,

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I think I've watched all of one
of the Christopher Evans movies. And all

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of the newest version I remember nothing
about them because they were just pretty darn

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bad. Why do you think we've
had so much trouble translating this beloved story

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into on screen. Well, I
appreciate that you mentioned Superman because I think

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they have the same problem, which
is that both of these franchises are fundamentally

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optimistic and positive and bright and sunshiny, and that's not a thing that Hollywood

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really likes with superhero movies. And
there are definitely occasionally we do get something

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now that the MCU exists, we
do get something a little bit brighter.

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But certainly when the Chris Evans Fantastic
Boar movies were made, there was that

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was part of an era that was
quite self conscious about being superhero movies.

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Like yeah, I mean, I
said the Black Leather X Men, because

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there is actively a line in that
first movie where what are you expecting?

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Yellow spandex exactly like they're embarrassed about
being superhero movies. You cannot be embarrassed

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to be making a superhero movie and
make a Fantastic Four movie like you cannot

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do that. They are the first
superheroes of the Marvel universe. As a

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collective universe, Like obviously they're predated
by Captain America and Naymar and some other

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Golden Age heroes, but the Marvel
universe as it exists, they are the

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first superheroes again, just like Superman
is the first superhero of the DC universe.

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If you're embarrassed by the material,
you're not going to make a good

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movie with it. And then I
actually haven't seen the more recent Fantastic Four

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movie, but that one, very
it was very clear from the get go

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went way further in the totally wrong
direction. Like the first couple of Fantastic

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Four movies were bad, but they
at least tried to have some humor in

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them, and they just went full
grim dark with the more recent one,

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which is like you don't understand the
material in the slightest because very much like

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Superman, these are not vigilantes who
have to hide from the government, right

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they are. They're not the X
men the government. They're like they're heroes

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to the people. They're barely superheroes. They don't really fight crime. I

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mean they do, like if they
see a bank robbery, they'll stop it,

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but they're explorers fundamentally, which is
also I mean if you really want

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to get deep into things, like
at the time that they were created,

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superheroes had been out of fashion for
some time, and what you saw both

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DCS and Marvel doing was sort of
veering away from the more traditional superhero with

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the secret identity and having adventurers instead. And so actually at DC Jack Kirby

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had co created the Challengers of the
Unknown. Who I'm sorry, I I'm

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this pedantic. I have to look
up. This is this level of pedantry

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is why you're on the podcast We
Love It. Okay, First of all,

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forgive me. He did not co
create them. He created them.

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He was the writer to possibly with
Joe Simon or Dave Wood maybe, says

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Wikipedia. They debuted in nineteen fifty
seven, and if you look them up,

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they're very, very similar to the
Fantastic Four in that there's five of

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them, but they're in these matching
jumpsuits, purple instead of blue, and

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they go on adventures like exploring weird
stuff. And even the characters there's like

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a science guy and like a kid
brother and kind of a gruff muscle guy.

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Like it's Jack Herby had like one
cast of characters and he was going

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to use them over and over and
over again. Like you know, they

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the Warriors three in four, they're
in DC two, but they're furries.

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They're like he had, he had
character types that he really liked. Anyway,

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that was beside the point. The
Fantastic Four very much come out of

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that. They're not exactly superheroes thing. And that's why even though they have

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code names, they don't have secret
identities. Like from the very first issue,

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everybody knows who they are. They
don't bother to hide it, and

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they're much less focused on fighting crime
than they are on exploring and going on

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adventures and expanding like human knowledge.
I mean, in some ways I'm looking

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forward to the movie, but in
some ways it sounds like this would fit

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better as TV show, you know, where, yes, either a modern

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one, but also just like you
know, a kind of like New Adventures

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of Lewis and Clark or Quantum Leap
or something like that, where you have

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like an Adventure of the week,
but it's much more about just the fun

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shenanigans of the crew. That's the
dream. Actually. So Becky Allen,

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who I know has been on this
show, had a brilliant idea years ago

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when we were discussing this, and
their idea was that The Fantastic Four should

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be not actually a reality show.
It would be scripted. But like,

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the reason that they have powers is
because they were supposed to be a reality

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show in space and it went wrong. Oh I love that. Isn't that

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amazing? Yeah? I am very
curious about how they're going to do this,

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especially because the I try not to
watch trailers much and things like that.

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But the initial indications are that this
is going to be based in the

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nineteen sixties, so I mean,
curiously how this all plays out and things

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like that. Let's talk Let's start
talking about the casting itself though, and

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my thought was, let's talk about
what you know about what you think is

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kind of the essential version of each
character, because granted, like each of

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these characters has been written for I
don't like thinking about how long ago that

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was, but you know, one
sixty years now and like you know,

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saying, what is Batman? Well
we have, you know, ninety years

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of Batman. We have sixty years
of these characters. They've changed quite a

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bit. But let's start with mister
Fantastic And let me ask you to start

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by because so from the little that
I know of him, he is super

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genius, super aware of it,
not a playboy like a I want to

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say, Robert Downey Junior, Chylie
Stark Iron It's that, you know,

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Robert Downey Junior would be so happy
to hear you say that. Yeah,

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No, very true, very true. Which is funnycause I saw have An

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Oppenheimer a very different role but well
sort of, but you know he has

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that same like super arrogance, but
it annoys everyone because he's often very right.

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Tell me more about Rick Reed d
Well read Richard. Sorry, I'm

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where I got that, And let
me actually start by does he give himself

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the name mister Fantastic? He does, He absolutely does. Okay, So

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here's the thing, and this is
I think, out of all the casting,

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this is why I think this is
the most interesting casting. Obviously,

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Pedro Pascal is the most famous person
in this movie. It is also the

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only example in this particular movie of
race bending. We've seen it before Jessica

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00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:40.920
Alba in the first two movies and
Michael B. Jordan in the more recent

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one. So it's there's precedent for
The Fantastic Four. And you want to

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00:24:45.279 --> 00:24:48.319
argue we've seen it previously with Ben
grimm because, like you said, he's

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never been Jewish before. But Read
is as you say, he is a

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00:24:53.160 --> 00:24:57.039
super genius. He knows perfectly well
how smart he is. He's very aware

307
00:24:57.079 --> 00:25:03.200
of it. He does have a
tendency to towards arrogance and over confidence,

308
00:25:03.559 --> 00:25:10.839
and you could argue that over confidence
is his defining characteristic because he believed that

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the shields he had created on their
spaceship would hold and protect them from the

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cosmic rays, and obviously he was
very wrong about that, and for him,

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that's fine, and for Sue that's
fine. Johnny's powers are a bit

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00:25:29.599 --> 00:25:33.079
traumatic, actually, if you dig
into it, like I would like to

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fly, I don't really want to
burst into flames and be a danger to

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others. But obviously it's Ben,
who Read's best friend, who he loves

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00:25:41.160 --> 00:25:48.039
like a brother, whose life was
in many ways destroyed by this. And

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there's actually a really wonderful issue from
a few years ago where it's revealed that

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the reason that they don't have secret
identities was because it was a calculation by

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Reid because he thought he could make
them celebrities, he could make up for

319
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what he had done to them.
So he is he's absolutely arrogant. He's

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00:26:07.960 --> 00:26:14.319
absolutely overconfident. He's absolutely very aware
of how smart he is. He also

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loves his family so deeply and he
wants to do the right thing by them.

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He and Sue have two children,
Franklin and Valeria. He struggles to

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be a good father, but he
tries, and like I would say,

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if you compare him to somebody like
Batman, he has a much higher success

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rate. He is very very clear
with both of his children how much he

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00:26:37.359 --> 00:26:41.160
loves them. And like Valeria is
even smarter than he is, Franklin is

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not. Franklin has like cosmic powers. He's kind of a demigod, but

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he's only regular and like he's smart, but like Sue level smart, not

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00:26:52.319 --> 00:26:56.440
Read level smart, and Read makes
it very clear to him like he does

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not love him any less because he
is not as smart as well. Like

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00:27:00.559 --> 00:27:06.559
so he definitely has the good good
parent thing that Petrovoscal has on absolute lockdown

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00:27:06.680 --> 00:27:08.799
right now. Yeah, And the
thing about Read is he is he's a

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00:27:10.079 --> 00:27:14.880
divisive character, and I think people
who are Fantastic four fans do love him,

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00:27:15.759 --> 00:27:18.799
and people who are Marvel fans who
haven't read a lot of Fantastic four

335
00:27:18.960 --> 00:27:23.200
tend to not like him because when
he shows up, if you only see

336
00:27:23.960 --> 00:27:27.160
out of context moments especially, I
mean, there's a lot of stuff from

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00:27:27.160 --> 00:27:33.839
the sixties and you can find this
for every character where he is an asshole

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00:27:33.079 --> 00:27:38.680
or he's really sexist towards Sue.
Like that stuff absolutely exists, and there's

339
00:27:38.759 --> 00:27:47.079
actually some interesting analysis of like how
much of that came from stan as opposed

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00:27:47.200 --> 00:27:52.319
to Jack, because the way that
Marvel comics were created at the time was

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00:27:52.480 --> 00:27:55.880
what's known as the Marvel method.
Sorry, I'm like, this is so

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far what you asked. That's exactly
what I want to hear. So the

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Marvel So traditionally, when a comic
is the more common way that a comic

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is made is a writer writes a
script, they give it to the artist

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the penciler, and they draw it
and then the anchor inks at the color

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00:28:10.640 --> 00:28:15.920
is colors it, the letter or
letters it the Marvel method. The writer,

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00:28:15.680 --> 00:28:21.119
usually Stanley in those days, always
Stanley in those days, comes up

348
00:28:21.160 --> 00:28:23.440
with a pitch a story. They're
like, this is what's going to happen.

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It's like a treatment. It may
be more or less detailed, depending

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on who how much he knows and
who he's collaborating with If it's Jack Kirby,

351
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he could have been like, I
don't know. They go to space

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and Jack would handle the rest,
you know. Then the artist draws the

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comic, which, as I mean, you can tell listening to that,

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how much actual writing the artist is
doing. They're deciding so much of the

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00:28:47.839 --> 00:28:52.200
story if they're only working with a
pitch or like a one page treatment or

356
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whatever it is. Then Stan goes
back in and he writes all the dialogue,

357
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and we actually we have some extant
art of Jack Kirby's where we can

358
00:29:03.319 --> 00:29:07.160
see that like, for example,
Sue is making a decision to like attack

359
00:29:07.240 --> 00:29:12.599
a bad guy, and in the
final art, Stan has changed the dialogue

360
00:29:12.640 --> 00:29:18.720
to have Reid be like Sue attack
that bad guy, and so her decisions

361
00:29:18.920 --> 00:29:25.640
become Reid's orders. Which is not
to say that Jack Kirby was not sexist,

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as you know any man of the
sixties. Yeah, right, But

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00:29:33.359 --> 00:29:38.400
it's it's interesting to kind of see
how much we can unpack how much of

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00:29:38.519 --> 00:29:42.279
Reed and Sue's dynamic comes from Jack
and how much comes from Stan. Anyway,

365
00:29:42.720 --> 00:29:48.799
back to read, there's many many
images you can take out of context

366
00:29:48.839 --> 00:29:55.160
and be like this guy's terrible,
especially older issues. During Civil War the

367
00:29:55.880 --> 00:30:00.039
comics event he was fully on the
wrong side of his like he was pro

368
00:30:00.240 --> 00:30:06.400
registration. He and Sue actually separated
because she was anti registration. He was

369
00:30:06.519 --> 00:30:11.200
involved with Tony Stark in cloning Thor
and the Thor clone like killed people.

370
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It was he made some very very
bad decisions, and a lot of people

371
00:30:15.119 --> 00:30:22.039
have never forgiven him. I love
Read. I think that he's He's a

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00:30:22.079 --> 00:30:29.359
deeply flawed character, but he is
trying to do the right thing. And

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I think it will be really interesting
to see an actor who is so beloved

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in that role, because so many
people are predisposed to dislike Read, and

375
00:30:38.839 --> 00:30:42.839
I think this is a really interesting
way to combat that. Well. In

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00:30:42.920 --> 00:30:45.839
that way, I think you're having
a very well beloved actor and one who

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is very clearly not white. I
think can be very useful because from the

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00:30:52.839 --> 00:30:56.480
outside, part of what I saw
with Read Richard was I think in the

379
00:30:56.599 --> 00:31:02.279
last five to ten years longer in
some circles, but especially in the last

380
00:31:02.319 --> 00:31:06.960
ten years or so, there's been
a general sort of like, can we

381
00:31:07.079 --> 00:31:11.640
look at the fact that so many
comic book heroes are super smart, super

382
00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:17.839
rich, often straight white CIS men, who always seem to know the answers,

383
00:31:17.960 --> 00:31:22.359
and maybe that's not great. And
I think that is an incredibly needed

384
00:31:22.480 --> 00:31:27.200
critique and incredibly valid for a lot
of these people, including my beloved Bruce

385
00:31:27.240 --> 00:31:33.759
Wayne and Tony Stark and some others. And I wonder also up to something

386
00:31:33.759 --> 00:31:37.400
Saint read Richard's got caught up because
I certainly often hear him listed as one

387
00:31:37.519 --> 00:31:42.640
more you know, the super smart
white guy who knows everythingiz. He is

388
00:31:42.759 --> 00:31:49.279
a very patriarchal character. I will
he is usually wealthy. The money comes

389
00:31:49.319 --> 00:31:52.519
from patents. He's not like old
money or anything. He has earned that

390
00:31:52.640 --> 00:31:56.920
money from selling his patents. But
I'm sorry, I just have to mention

391
00:31:57.079 --> 00:32:01.559
this early issue because it's incredible.
There is an issue where he loses all

392
00:32:01.640 --> 00:32:05.519
of their money in the stock market. This is from the sixties. This

393
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:09.039
is uh Standing Jack comic. He
loses all of their money in the stock

394
00:32:09.160 --> 00:32:13.839
market and they're like, what do
we do? We don't have any money.

395
00:32:14.119 --> 00:32:16.759
And then they get a mysterious offer
from a movie studio to go out

396
00:32:16.799 --> 00:32:21.200
to Hollywood and film a movie about
themselves, and they're like, they're going

397
00:32:21.240 --> 00:32:27.240
to get paid one million dollars,
which is really Austin power is he now

398
00:32:29.720 --> 00:32:31.640
and they have to hitchhike to get
there, that's how broke they are.

399
00:32:32.839 --> 00:32:36.640
And then when they get there,
it turns out that the movie studio is

400
00:32:36.680 --> 00:32:39.799
owned by nay More and he's like
dressed himself up in a little like movie

401
00:32:39.880 --> 00:32:45.240
producer costume with like a cigarette holder, And of course it's an elaborate plot

402
00:32:45.319 --> 00:32:52.359
to kill the three guys and Mary
Sue, and it's it's so ludicrous.

403
00:32:52.480 --> 00:32:55.559
I have an article about it on
Book Riot because it's my favorite Fantastic four

404
00:32:55.640 --> 00:33:00.079
issue. But but yes, your
your overall point, Abbs stands aside from

405
00:33:00.079 --> 00:33:04.960
that one issue where Reid went broke
for stupid reasons. I love it.

406
00:33:05.119 --> 00:33:08.440
I love it reminds me of Oliver
Queen going broken Arrow, And yeah,

407
00:33:08.559 --> 00:33:14.200
the understanding of the vicissitudes of the
rish famous of comic book is not always

408
00:33:14.240 --> 00:33:19.240
the best. Well. Going broke
is a huge part of Oliver Queen's character

409
00:33:19.319 --> 00:33:23.839
in the comics. But Arrow maybe
didn't get some things right. Look,

410
00:33:23.880 --> 00:33:28.480
when you need to spend that much
time pointing a camera at those very beautiful

411
00:33:28.519 --> 00:33:32.359
pectortals, you don't have time for
character nuance, as we had transition into

412
00:33:32.440 --> 00:33:37.480
Sue. But also finishing up with
Reid. Am I right that it sounds

413
00:33:37.480 --> 00:33:39.200
like they had some troubles, including
the Civil War, but for the most

414
00:33:39.240 --> 00:33:43.799
part, this is the thing you
don't find in Marvel, especially the healthy

415
00:33:43.839 --> 00:33:46.960
relationship that has lasted through most of
comics. Yeah. I mean they have

416
00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:52.519
been a couple since nineteen sixty one. They got married when it was still

417
00:33:52.559 --> 00:33:59.400
the sixties, which is like shocking
that was not common. There's a really

418
00:33:59.480 --> 00:34:02.240
cute moment the wedding where Stanning Jack
get kicked out because nobody knows who they

419
00:34:02.240 --> 00:34:07.360
are. I like it. I
like it. They there have been some

420
00:34:07.519 --> 00:34:10.719
ups and downs. They've definitely separated
a few times, not just Civil War.

421
00:34:12.440 --> 00:34:15.400
I mean even early on there was, as I alluded to, there

422
00:34:15.480 --> 00:34:20.199
was a love triangle with nay More, but it was never really like nobody

423
00:34:20.280 --> 00:34:25.000
ever thought Sue was going to leave
Read for nay More. There have definitely

424
00:34:25.079 --> 00:34:30.320
been moments, often involving the children, like Franklin, as I've said,

425
00:34:30.440 --> 00:34:36.960
has his really immense powers that as
a very small child he could not control.

426
00:34:37.239 --> 00:34:43.559
And there is this issue where Reid
basically has to make him catatonic in

427
00:34:43.719 --> 00:34:46.880
order to save all of the existence
from being wiped out. Sue doesn't take

428
00:34:46.960 --> 00:34:52.159
it well and like leaves Read.
But again, I mean, that's an

429
00:34:52.199 --> 00:35:00.119
example of Read making this very unilateral
decision as extremely painful and destructive for a

430
00:35:00.239 --> 00:35:07.000
really good reason, but still making
it Like he tells Sue what's gonna happen.

431
00:35:07.079 --> 00:35:08.920
He doesn't make the decision. He
doesn't tell her what's gonna happen.

432
00:35:09.039 --> 00:35:13.039
It just happens, and then she's
like, what did you do to our

433
00:35:13.119 --> 00:35:28.400
baby? Sue is she's very much
initially initially, she's very much in the

434
00:35:28.480 --> 00:35:34.960
mold of many other female Marvel characters
from that era, like Jean Gray is

435
00:35:35.079 --> 00:35:40.159
very similar. You'll see female characters
tend to have powers that involve them kind

436
00:35:40.199 --> 00:35:45.840
of touching their forehead and squinting and
then fainting from the mental strain. So

437
00:35:45.840 --> 00:35:50.840
you know, with Sue it's the
invisibility, with Jeane, it's the telepathy

438
00:35:50.960 --> 00:35:59.559
or telekinesis. They don't have physical
powers, and gradually you see Sue kind

439
00:35:59.599 --> 00:36:05.239
of coming into her own. And
what's interesting is that there was pushback from

440
00:36:05.280 --> 00:36:09.679
it very very early on. Like
there's an issue where the Fantastic War are

441
00:36:09.760 --> 00:36:15.119
reading their fan mail and Sue starts
crying because people are writing in saying that

442
00:36:15.360 --> 00:36:21.280
Sue is useless, and read looks
at the camera and is like, Sue

443
00:36:21.400 --> 00:36:27.519
is not useless. She does all
of our emotional labor, which is like,

444
00:36:27.840 --> 00:36:32.639
oh boy, that didn't help,
or like there's an issue where they're

445
00:36:32.639 --> 00:36:37.719
working with the US military and Sue's
like, but what can I do?

446
00:36:37.119 --> 00:36:42.519
And this general, like an old
mustachioed walrus looking guy, is like,

447
00:36:43.320 --> 00:36:47.079
it's always helpful to have a pretty
woman along to for moral support, and

448
00:36:47.239 --> 00:36:51.320
reads like that's how we all feel, general, and it's like, oh,

449
00:36:52.639 --> 00:36:54.199
do they ever have her, Like
she's the one who has to put

450
00:36:54.239 --> 00:36:58.559
on a slinky dress and flirt with
the person to sort of get the information

451
00:36:58.719 --> 00:37:01.960
or do they at least avoid going
that with her? Not really, And

452
00:37:02.280 --> 00:37:09.280
when she does, it's usually like
she will sometimes cozy up to name more

453
00:37:09.920 --> 00:37:15.079
specifically because she knows how he feels
about her and she does care about him,

454
00:37:15.400 --> 00:37:20.559
but she's she doesn't really do the
honeytrap thing. If anybody does,

455
00:37:20.639 --> 00:37:27.920
it's Johnny's she and yeah, so
gradually, like again, it was really

456
00:37:28.000 --> 00:37:32.840
clear early on that there was pushback
against how Sue is being treated, and

457
00:37:34.199 --> 00:37:37.960
she is given more of an active
power. She's given her force field power,

458
00:37:38.159 --> 00:37:43.039
which these days many people would argue
makes her, in fact the most

459
00:37:43.079 --> 00:37:46.039
powerful member of the team because she
can just put a little tiny force field

460
00:37:46.079 --> 00:37:50.360
in your heart or your brain and
you're dead. Like it wouldn't even be

461
00:37:50.440 --> 00:37:54.119
hard for her. Do they ever
take her? The Jean Gray rout of

462
00:37:54.760 --> 00:37:58.760
she's more powerful than all of us, so we have to control her in

463
00:37:58.840 --> 00:38:00.719
this kind of like patriarch don't let
women have their power kind of a way.

464
00:38:01.159 --> 00:38:05.679
Not really, which is funny because
in the sixties read was constantly like,

465
00:38:05.840 --> 00:38:08.159
if Johnny ever turned against us,
the world would be in danger.

466
00:38:08.679 --> 00:38:13.000
If Ben ever turned against us,
the world would be in danger. But

467
00:38:13.079 --> 00:38:16.599
he never really does that with Sue. It's just which I don't think is

468
00:38:19.719 --> 00:38:23.039
meant to imply that she's not as
strong. I think it's just like people

469
00:38:23.440 --> 00:38:28.039
have that much faith in her,
like she's of all of them, probably

470
00:38:28.119 --> 00:38:36.559
the most unshakable. I can see
that. And yeah, so like the

471
00:38:36.679 --> 00:38:38.800
thing is, you know, I
don't want to I don't want to be

472
00:38:38.880 --> 00:38:42.679
like, oh, Sue sucked in
the sixties, but then she got badass,

473
00:38:42.840 --> 00:38:47.800
because I feel like that's really that's
still looking at the character through this

474
00:38:49.000 --> 00:38:53.360
really gendered like only masculine attributes or
valued lens. And the thing is even

475
00:38:53.440 --> 00:39:00.199
today, like Sue is very much
defined by being feminine, by being a

476
00:39:00.360 --> 00:39:06.480
mother, and even before she had
her children, she was very motherly.

477
00:39:06.559 --> 00:39:13.480
She's a lot older than Johnny and
pretty much raised herself and him. She's

478
00:39:13.519 --> 00:39:21.320
always had this maternal quality to her. She's always been the one who keeps

479
00:39:21.360 --> 00:39:23.719
the team together. She does do
all that emotional labor, Like she's the

480
00:39:23.800 --> 00:39:29.400
one who can kind of rain ben
in and get read to like come out

481
00:39:29.480 --> 00:39:35.639
of the clouds and pay attention to
them. And she's Johnny's parent and that

482
00:39:37.559 --> 00:39:42.559
that is fine. Like there's so
many female characters in the Marvel universe that

483
00:39:42.719 --> 00:39:46.199
like this is how Sue is.
This is not a commentary on how women

484
00:39:46.320 --> 00:39:51.320
are. And it's a huge part
of her strength. Like she is extremely

485
00:39:51.559 --> 00:39:54.679
powerful. She's also like a badass
hand to hand fighter. She's brilliant,

486
00:39:55.320 --> 00:40:01.440
she does not stand for bull But
she's also very very feminine. She's very

487
00:40:01.559 --> 00:40:06.320
nurturing, she's very warm. She
does do ninety percent of the emotional labor

488
00:40:06.400 --> 00:40:07.880
for the team, and that is
one of her strengths. And I don't

489
00:40:07.880 --> 00:40:12.880
think there's anything wrong with that.
Yeah, No, that's awesome. And

490
00:40:13.280 --> 00:40:16.239
how is she portrayed in visually in
terms of, like, you know,

491
00:40:16.480 --> 00:40:22.920
obviously a lot of this is during
the time of the gravity defying. You

492
00:40:22.000 --> 00:40:25.119
know, there's somehow a bra in
that tiny little outfit and you know,

493
00:40:28.239 --> 00:40:30.920
massive amounts of cleavage or other kind
of super heroine type things. Does she

494
00:40:31.000 --> 00:40:35.360
get that kind of like very sexified
portrayal or is she more in kind of

495
00:40:35.440 --> 00:40:39.480
like mom of the group and so
oh oh she does at one point.

496
00:40:43.599 --> 00:40:46.920
So for the most part, her
costume is really tame. She has literally

497
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:51.039
the same costume as read I was
going to say, as the boys,

498
00:40:51.079 --> 00:40:53.880
but Ben only wears panties. She
has the same costume as reading Johnny.

499
00:40:54.239 --> 00:40:59.719
It's a jumpsuit, like uh huh, it's skin tight, And it depends

500
00:40:59.760 --> 00:41:05.559
on how the artist in like that
particular artist draws her. And obviously,

501
00:41:05.719 --> 00:41:13.760
like you can certainly draw her in
that costume with like vacuum sealed breasts moving

502
00:41:13.840 --> 00:41:17.639
independently of each other and like all
the camera's always focusing on her butt or

503
00:41:17.719 --> 00:41:27.480
whatever. But the actual costume itself
is very neutral. However, there was

504
00:41:27.719 --> 00:41:30.840
briefly a time I can't even describe
it. Really there is briefly a time

505
00:41:30.840 --> 00:41:37.400
where she changed her costume to like
basically a bathing suit with the stomach cutout,

506
00:41:37.679 --> 00:41:42.840
and then she has like a four
cutout over her cleavage and it's completely

507
00:41:43.079 --> 00:41:49.320
ridiculous. I'm sorry. I know
that the listeners cannot see this, but

508
00:41:49.880 --> 00:41:52.000
I do want you to see it. So I think I have found it.

509
00:41:52.159 --> 00:41:55.199
Is it? I found a picture
that's her with blue hair, and

510
00:41:57.960 --> 00:42:04.320
she's got like blue thigh high garters
on blue hair, blonde hair. So

511
00:42:04.480 --> 00:42:07.800
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the one. It's it sure

512
00:42:07.920 --> 00:42:14.519
is something that was thankfully very short
lived. So there have been times in

513
00:42:14.880 --> 00:42:17.039
you know, in the eighties and
nineties where they really tried to make her

514
00:42:17.159 --> 00:42:23.320
sexy because she's not. She's never
been a particularly sexualized character because she has

515
00:42:23.440 --> 00:42:30.000
those like really strong wife and mother
vibes. Right, There's also this whole

516
00:42:30.079 --> 00:42:36.440
storyline where she was like possessed,
she became like this evil version of herself

517
00:42:36.480 --> 00:42:43.039
called Malice, and she's wearing this
like really skimpy, bondagey like black costume

518
00:42:43.360 --> 00:42:46.599
and she's evil but in a really
sexy way. But those storylines are pretty

519
00:42:46.639 --> 00:42:51.360
few and far between. Okay,
that makes sense, And so what do

520
00:42:51.400 --> 00:42:54.000
you think of Vanessa Kirby as her. I don't know too much about Vanessa

521
00:42:54.079 --> 00:42:58.559
Kirby, but I did see her
in the early seasons of The Crown where

522
00:42:58.639 --> 00:43:02.480
she played Poincess Margaret, and I
thought she was and great Prince's Margaret is

523
00:43:02.519 --> 00:43:07.679
a very dark character who's really wrestling
with a lot of family, you know,

524
00:43:07.119 --> 00:43:10.440
her own demons and things like that, and very much a party girl

525
00:43:10.599 --> 00:43:15.280
with a sort of like darkness inside
her of all the horrible things she's had

526
00:43:15.320 --> 00:43:20.519
to go through, which which doesn't
they sound like su storm at all,

527
00:43:20.599 --> 00:43:22.400
but you does sound like like she's
a strong actress for sure. What do

528
00:43:22.440 --> 00:43:24.679
you know of Kirby? And like, how do you feel like she fits?

529
00:43:25.400 --> 00:43:30.840
I? Actually I don't think I've
seen her in anything. Actually,

530
00:43:30.880 --> 00:43:35.880
when you texted me about recording this
episode, I was like, oh,

531
00:43:35.960 --> 00:43:37.400
I have not done my homework.
Like you know how You're always like,

532
00:43:37.639 --> 00:43:40.800
hey, have you seen this new
superhero movie or TV show? And I'm

533
00:43:40.880 --> 00:43:44.679
like, no, I haven't.
But I'm almost done with Batman Beyond,

534
00:43:45.960 --> 00:43:52.880
so I have not seen The Mandalorian, The Last of Us, The Crown,

535
00:43:52.760 --> 00:44:00.199
the Bear or Stranger things Like I'm
that's fair, So yeah, I

536
00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:04.400
I you know what, I have
seen something with her. I've seen Jupiter

537
00:44:04.480 --> 00:44:07.360
Ascending. Okay, she has a
very small role in that. I mean

538
00:44:07.440 --> 00:44:14.360
she looks the part. She's a
beautiful blonde woman. I'm for me,

539
00:44:15.639 --> 00:44:19.679
for me. My concern is always
going to be about the writing with Sue

540
00:44:19.840 --> 00:44:25.840
and not necessarily like I have faith
in the actor if they are given the

541
00:44:27.920 --> 00:44:31.880
space and ability to like, if
they're the support that they need to play

542
00:44:31.920 --> 00:44:37.440
the role correctly. I will never
forget reading a quote from Jessica Alba.

543
00:44:38.280 --> 00:44:45.119
She's talking about filming the second movie
Rise of the Silver Surfer, and you

544
00:44:45.199 --> 00:44:50.199
know, out of everybody in those
movies, Jessica Alba got dunked on the

545
00:44:50.320 --> 00:44:53.760
most and like criticized the most for
being a terrible actress. But she was

546
00:44:53.840 --> 00:44:59.280
talking about the scene in that movie
where her character dies and like Johnny is

547
00:44:59.400 --> 00:45:05.519
like we over her and she's crying
because she's dying, and she said that

548
00:45:05.599 --> 00:45:08.199
the director kept telling her, cry
pretty, Jessica, cry pretty, don't

549
00:45:08.199 --> 00:45:16.280
scrunch up your face like that.
And there's no actress on the planet who

550
00:45:16.360 --> 00:45:22.679
can make that work if you're supposed
to look pretty while you're dying. So

551
00:45:22.719 --> 00:45:27.719
I know that that phrase is often
now used as a like example of the

552
00:45:27.840 --> 00:45:31.599
kind of horrific things that women actresses
have to go through. Yeah, and

553
00:45:31.880 --> 00:45:36.239
the cry pretty and so I know
that, you know, I'm sure there

554
00:45:36.280 --> 00:45:38.239
are other times where it has happened
that phrase, but it comes apart from

555
00:45:38.280 --> 00:45:44.239
here. Yeah. So I'm much
more concerned with, like, are they

556
00:45:44.360 --> 00:45:49.320
going to make is somebody going to
be saying cry pretty Vanessa or like all

557
00:45:49.400 --> 00:45:53.679
the gags in the first Fantastic Four
movie about like, you know, her

558
00:45:54.000 --> 00:45:58.559
turning invisible and then her clothing isn't
there, and then she's visible again and

559
00:45:58.599 --> 00:46:01.719
she's naked, ha ha. Like
if we steer away from that, I

560
00:46:01.840 --> 00:46:06.920
have I have faith in this actress. At least one of the movies I

561
00:46:07.039 --> 00:46:09.360
remember, I think the Micha wil
B Jordan one, which we'll talk about

562
00:46:09.440 --> 00:46:13.639
later, that we remember these two
based on who played Johnny Storm. But

563
00:46:15.960 --> 00:46:20.159
one of the sort of reasons why
doctor Doctor Doom character who my understanding is

564
00:46:20.199 --> 00:46:22.280
this was a very bad version of
Doctor Doom. But it's sort of like

565
00:46:22.480 --> 00:46:28.119
that he saw himself as a rival
for Reid Richards in many things, including

566
00:46:28.280 --> 00:46:31.719
for the heart of Sue Storm.
Is that something that's from the comics or

567
00:46:31.800 --> 00:46:37.559
is that kind of something that was
It's not not from the comics, but

568
00:46:38.400 --> 00:46:42.199
it always kind of feels like he's
going through the motions, like he doesn't

569
00:46:42.239 --> 00:46:45.800
really seem that into her. It's
more like, this is what you do

570
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:51.800
when you're a villain, you know. He's like, it's just it's kind

571
00:46:51.840 --> 00:46:55.599
of half asked. Yeah. His
history with Reid they were they went to

572
00:46:55.679 --> 00:47:02.800
college together and Doom was like,
I'm the smartest person on the planet and

573
00:47:02.920 --> 00:47:07.199
Reid was like okay, and Doom
was like, I'm going to do this

574
00:47:07.360 --> 00:47:10.239
experiment and Reid was like, okay, you've done your math wrong and that's

575
00:47:10.280 --> 00:47:13.800
going to go really horribly. And
Doom was like, don't tell me what

576
00:47:13.880 --> 00:47:15.840
to do. And then he did
it and it went horribly and his face

577
00:47:15.960 --> 00:47:19.079
was horribly scarred. We've never seen
his face in the comics as far as

578
00:47:19.079 --> 00:47:22.119
I'm aware, and it's been sixty
years, we've never seen it post scarring.

579
00:47:23.239 --> 00:47:29.639
And so he has hated Richard's ever
since. And like that's really the

580
00:47:29.760 --> 00:47:36.599
pivotal right, Like they have this
really really intense relationship, to the point

581
00:47:36.719 --> 00:47:40.079
that a couple of years ago he
Doom got married and he asked Reid to

582
00:47:40.119 --> 00:47:44.960
be his best man because that Reid
was the person he was closest to.

583
00:47:45.119 --> 00:47:47.400
It was so funny. I mean
that's very much Batman and Joker, you

584
00:47:47.480 --> 00:47:52.079
know. Yeah, yeah, but
yeah, So Sue is sort of when

585
00:47:52.199 --> 00:47:58.800
she's used by Doom, it's much
more as like kind of a prop And

586
00:47:58.880 --> 00:48:01.880
then as the decades on, he
just started hating all of them because they

587
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:07.320
like thwart him and he like knows
that he should not mess with her unless

588
00:48:07.360 --> 00:48:12.000
he's prepared to deal with it.
But yeah, I've just I've never gotten

589
00:48:12.079 --> 00:48:16.280
the feeling that he was like particularly
into her. It's I just want to

590
00:48:16.320 --> 00:48:20.760
take everything from him, and so
perspectively in the sixties and seventies, that's

591
00:48:20.800 --> 00:48:22.199
often going to be I'm going to
take his woman kind of. Yeah,

592
00:48:22.599 --> 00:48:30.719
he actually so Doom. If there's
one member of Reid's family that he would

593
00:48:30.800 --> 00:48:36.920
want to take from Reid, it's
Reid's daughter Valeria, Like she calls him

594
00:48:37.000 --> 00:48:40.039
Uncle Doom because he saved her life
like when she was being delivered. They're

595
00:48:40.079 --> 00:48:45.880
actually really close. So we can
spend so much, so much time on

596
00:48:45.920 --> 00:48:47.599
all these characters, but I want
to keep going. Yeah, let's talk

597
00:48:47.599 --> 00:48:52.239
about the thing. Ben Graham,
who is a very pop character. I

598
00:48:52.280 --> 00:48:57.639
know, one that is very close
to your heart, and that Jessica,

599
00:48:57.719 --> 00:49:01.360
know you've talked before about the lack
of Jewish representation, in that there is

600
00:49:01.400 --> 00:49:05.360
a number of good Jewish characters,
and that that's important in part because there

601
00:49:05.400 --> 00:49:12.159
are so many these characters written by
Jewish authors, or and so talk about

602
00:49:12.239 --> 00:49:15.719
the thing and he is Judaism and
why that's important, and sort of how

603
00:49:15.760 --> 00:49:23.639
you felt about Evans casting. Yeah, so Ben is Ben's the best one.

604
00:49:24.239 --> 00:49:29.599
Like, objectively speaking, Johnny is
my favorite member of the Fantastic Four,

605
00:49:29.760 --> 00:49:34.880
but I am aware that Ben is
the best character. Ben is arguably

606
00:49:35.719 --> 00:49:40.599
the best Marvel character. Like it's
like Ben and Spider Man, like they're

607
00:49:40.679 --> 00:49:45.079
the ones. He is one of
the greatest characters in comic book history,

608
00:49:45.320 --> 00:49:55.679
bar none. And it's because he
has such a powerful and interesting and really

609
00:49:55.840 --> 00:50:08.880
unique blend of like h and sort
of brashness and like roughness and really deep

610
00:50:09.039 --> 00:50:17.039
pathos, because he is trapped in
this in this body that has given him

611
00:50:17.119 --> 00:50:22.920
so much, but also that has
so deeply alienated him from other people.

612
00:50:22.159 --> 00:50:27.800
Like he can't sit on normal furniture, he obviously can't wear normal clothing.

613
00:50:29.119 --> 00:50:34.280
He has to be so so careful
all the time. He can never you

614
00:50:34.400 --> 00:50:37.079
know, the others, they're all
celebrities, but the others could like put

615
00:50:37.119 --> 00:50:40.320
on a baseball cap in sunglasses and
you know, hand them on tanna their

616
00:50:40.360 --> 00:50:45.840
way around the world. He can't
do that. Ever. He always has

617
00:50:45.960 --> 00:50:50.760
to be the thing. And in
the early years, i mean nowadays,

618
00:50:50.840 --> 00:50:52.440
if you live in the Marvel universe
and you see the Thing, you're like,

619
00:50:52.519 --> 00:50:55.639
wow, cool, it's the thing. In the early years, when

620
00:50:55.679 --> 00:51:00.320
people were not as familiar with him, he was often people would act like

621
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:07.920
he was a monster, because he
is a monster. He but even though

622
00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:14.800
he again there are so many stories
about the pathos of his situation. He's

623
00:51:14.800 --> 00:51:19.519
also a very funny character. His
dialogue is so funny. He's always cracking

624
00:51:19.679 --> 00:51:25.480
jokes. He's he has all these
like cute catch phrases, like he'll constantly

625
00:51:25.559 --> 00:51:30.280
refer to himself as like the ever
love and blue eyed thing, or his

626
00:51:30.400 --> 00:51:37.079
aunt Petunia's favorite nephew, Like obviously, there's his it's clobren time catch phrase,

627
00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:43.480
Like he's he's this really like sort
of earthy, entertaining character who you

628
00:51:43.639 --> 00:51:49.280
want to hang out with because he
is fun and funny, and he is

629
00:51:49.360 --> 00:51:57.079
also deeply, deeply loyal and deeply
sensitive and just really like his reaction when

630
00:51:57.119 --> 00:52:04.480
he finds out that Read and So
gave their Franklin the middle name Benjamin is

631
00:52:04.679 --> 00:52:12.119
like, he's, he's He's just
he's got it all right now. It

632
00:52:12.159 --> 00:52:15.719
sounds really beautiful. And don't think
how to get into this because I feel

633
00:52:15.800 --> 00:52:19.079
like as important as it is,
I think to me and I know to

634
00:52:19.119 --> 00:52:22.920
you and to many others that the
characters Judaism become a part of how he's

635
00:52:22.920 --> 00:52:24.559
presented. I also don't want that
to be the whole conversation about either him

636
00:52:25.039 --> 00:52:30.719
or or or we're having today.
But it's funny because as you're describing that,

637
00:52:31.440 --> 00:52:35.840
I don't think this is exclusive to
to you know, the Jews I've

638
00:52:35.880 --> 00:52:39.480
known both personally and and in general. But I think I associate very much

639
00:52:39.559 --> 00:52:45.519
with Judaism is a kind of like
the world is broken and sad, but

640
00:52:45.599 --> 00:52:50.119
let's laugh about it, you know, that kind of like the the finding

641
00:52:50.280 --> 00:52:54.719
humor in the sadness and in the
pathos. And so say something about like

642
00:52:55.960 --> 00:53:00.760
how how that aspect of the character
has been portrayed in the journey from it

643
00:53:00.840 --> 00:53:05.840
being kind of like coded to explicitly
named and I could I just start with

644
00:53:05.840 --> 00:53:08.559
that before you even get into the
actor. Yeah, so I would absolutely

645
00:53:08.559 --> 00:53:13.320
agree with you, like humor out
of tragedy is a very Jewish value.

646
00:53:13.400 --> 00:53:17.039
And also fetching, like he's a
confetcher, he fetches all the time.

647
00:53:17.519 --> 00:53:22.440
She's extremely Jewish of him. Like
for those who do not know Yiddish or

648
00:53:22.559 --> 00:53:30.360
just New York City language, define
covech for those America complaining whining but not

649
00:53:32.039 --> 00:53:38.039
Yeah, it's not in a like
it's it's like a humorous like like there's

650
00:53:40.440 --> 00:53:49.559
it's not a negative word and it's
a way of sort of processing the negative

651
00:53:50.079 --> 00:53:53.960
so that you can let it go. Yeah. My spouse when she first

652
00:53:54.079 --> 00:53:59.280
came, who's from uh Minnesota,
when she first came to meet most of

653
00:53:59.320 --> 00:54:04.280
the Jewish side hamilely for my sister's
wedding, at one point said why is

654
00:54:04.320 --> 00:54:07.480
everybody so unhappy with everything? And
I'd explained, like, no, that's

655
00:54:07.559 --> 00:54:10.320
not this is just how we express
each other, you know, express things

656
00:54:10.320 --> 00:54:14.039
to each other and the like,
it's not it to me. It's very

657
00:54:14.119 --> 00:54:17.400
different than like an actual I can
tell when like someone in my family is

658
00:54:17.519 --> 00:54:22.480
upset or bothered by something versus when
they're just like Look, the good days

659
00:54:22.519 --> 00:54:25.719
I had don't make good stories.
But the days when something went wrong on

660
00:54:25.840 --> 00:54:30.000
the train or someone was an idiot, but when crossing the street in front

661
00:54:30.000 --> 00:54:31.039
of me, those make better stories. So that's what I'm gonna tell you

662
00:54:31.039 --> 00:54:37.079
the story. Right, There's something
about fetching that's like you're it's it's a

663
00:54:37.119 --> 00:54:39.599
little it's performative, not in the
sense that you don't feel it, but

664
00:54:39.800 --> 00:54:47.000
like in the sense that like you're
you're telling a story, like you said,

665
00:54:47.119 --> 00:54:52.079
like you're kind of going through it
and putting like a humorous spin on

666
00:54:52.199 --> 00:54:54.800
the like annoying thing that happened to
you. Let me tell you about airline

667
00:54:55.119 --> 00:54:59.440
Let me tell you about airline food
is like the right cavetch sentence I can

668
00:54:59.480 --> 00:55:04.639
hear. Go. Yeah, it's
absolutely something that comes like that cadence comes

669
00:55:04.679 --> 00:55:08.119
out of like the borsch belt or
you see it reflect in Borschvelt comedy in

670
00:55:08.199 --> 00:55:14.519
a lot of stand up pattern,
which is a good segue to like talking

671
00:55:14.559 --> 00:55:20.119
about Ben's jewishness as it's been depicted
in the comics. Because yeah, like

672
00:55:20.199 --> 00:55:22.840
you said, initially it was coded, and I don't know how intentional it

673
00:55:23.079 --> 00:55:31.880
was, it was very much something
It wasn't even necessarily that he was written

674
00:55:32.039 --> 00:55:37.840
to sound Jewish so much that he
was written to sound like he came from

675
00:55:37.880 --> 00:55:39.760
the Lower East Side, and most
of the people who came from the Lower

676
00:55:39.760 --> 00:55:45.920
East Side, at least not even
so much during the sixties, but during

677
00:55:45.039 --> 00:55:50.760
the time that Jack Kirby grew up
that he was drawing on most of those

678
00:55:50.800 --> 00:55:53.679
people were Jewish. Like Jack Kirby
was reflecting his own speech patterns in the

679
00:55:53.719 --> 00:56:02.000
speech patterns that he grew up with. And of course the sort of connection

680
00:56:02.280 --> 00:56:08.440
and you mentioned this at the beginning, like the thing is a very is

681
00:56:08.599 --> 00:56:14.960
understood to be a very autobiographical character
for Jack Kirby, and that is to

682
00:56:15.159 --> 00:56:16.960
a certain like I don't know what
Kirby would say if he were here right

683
00:56:17.000 --> 00:56:21.440
now. In a lot of ways, that's you know, readers and fans

684
00:56:21.519 --> 00:56:25.719
putting that on him. But many
people have sort of drawn that line,

685
00:56:25.880 --> 00:56:38.079
that that line of blanking on the
word empathizing with and self representation. Yeah,

686
00:56:38.199 --> 00:56:45.679
representation, I mean between the idea
of Ben Grimm being this talented person

687
00:56:45.760 --> 00:56:49.840
in his own right, but who's
always in the shadow of his extremely talented

688
00:56:49.920 --> 00:56:52.079
and thus the new you know,
the media pays a lot of attention to

689
00:56:52.280 --> 00:56:55.119
partner with Rie Richards is very much
a Jack Kirby and stan Lee kind of

690
00:56:55.159 --> 00:57:04.599
a story. I mean absolutely,
And there's people talk a lot about One

691
00:57:04.639 --> 00:57:09.840
of the recurring gags, which stems
from the Lee and Kirby era of the

692
00:57:09.920 --> 00:57:15.800
Fantastic Four and has continued to this
day, is the Yancey Street Gang.

693
00:57:15.039 --> 00:57:20.360
So the Thing grew up on Yancey
Street, which is fictional, it doesn't

694
00:57:20.360 --> 00:57:22.360
exist, but it's in the Marvel
universe. It's on the Lower East Side,

695
00:57:22.840 --> 00:57:28.199
and he is now as an adult, constantly be deviled by the Yancey

696
00:57:28.239 --> 00:57:34.880
Street Gang, who are always playing
pranks on him. But they are good

697
00:57:34.920 --> 00:57:37.840
people, Like they're not villains,
they're just mischievous and they will help the

698
00:57:37.920 --> 00:57:44.639
Fantastic Four when you know, push
comes to shove. And I've seen people

699
00:57:44.719 --> 00:57:52.159
talk about like Kirby was expressing a
certain alienation from his background with that,

700
00:57:52.480 --> 00:57:57.760
like the Thing can't go home again
because he's battling the Yancey Street Gang.

701
00:57:57.800 --> 00:58:02.239
He doesn't live on Yancy Street anymore, lived in the Baxter Building, but

702
00:58:02.360 --> 00:58:07.840
yeah, for a very for decades. The the sort of Jewishness and Judaism

703
00:58:08.400 --> 00:58:14.199
of which are not necessarily the same
thing of Ben Grimm was very much coated

704
00:58:14.320 --> 00:58:15.880
or it was just sort of something
that you could like pick up from his

705
00:58:16.000 --> 00:58:23.719
speech patterns. But maybe right,
wasn't I don't want to say wasn't intentional,

706
00:58:23.800 --> 00:58:30.639
but wasn't ever necessarily something that was
intended to be made explicit. But

707
00:58:32.000 --> 00:58:38.239
we do have like a holiday card
that Kirby drew one year for Hanukkah,

708
00:58:39.119 --> 00:58:46.000
that is the thing, wearing Yamica
and Talie prayer shawl and saying happy Hanukkah.

709
00:58:46.199 --> 00:58:55.360
Like it's certainly it's clear that whether
that was Kirby identifying himself, like

710
00:58:55.400 --> 00:59:00.480
whether he was essentially drawing himself in
that card, or whether he was saying,

711
00:59:00.280 --> 00:59:05.199
here's a Jewish character wishing you a
happy Honikah, or whether he was

712
00:59:05.280 --> 00:59:07.960
just going, here's a character I'm
famous for drawing happy Honkah. We don't

713
00:59:08.039 --> 00:59:15.119
know, but that has been seen
as sort of the earliest confirmation, although

714
00:59:15.559 --> 00:59:22.480
not actually in a comic. And
then Ben was finally explicitly made Jewish many

715
00:59:22.519 --> 00:59:28.480
decades after, after Kirby was no
longer with us in or the early two

716
00:59:28.519 --> 00:59:31.760
thousands, I want to say,
two thousand and one, But there is

717
00:59:32.039 --> 00:59:42.320
an issue where he goes back to
Yancey Street and basically saves a pawnbroker who

718
00:59:42.800 --> 00:59:46.679
he knew as a child from a
criminal. And when the pawnbroker almost dies,

719
00:59:47.159 --> 00:59:55.639
Ben praise the shama, he praise
in Hebrew over him, and the

720
00:59:55.679 --> 01:00:02.840
guy's fine. But when the pawnbroker
recovers, he's like, you know,

721
01:00:04.280 --> 01:00:07.679
you're always in the news and they
never mentioned that you're Jewish. I thought

722
01:00:07.719 --> 01:00:12.440
maybe you were ashamed of it.
And Ben says, no, I just

723
01:00:13.239 --> 01:00:20.159
didn't want He basically says he was
private about it, and he he views

724
01:00:20.239 --> 01:00:23.840
himself as a monster and he didn't
want people to connect that monstrosity with Judaism,

725
01:00:23.960 --> 01:00:29.119
and the pawnbroker is like, you're
an idiot. It's a really beautiful,

726
01:00:29.159 --> 01:00:35.480
beautiful story. It's a basically a
young Kipoor story, even though it

727
01:00:37.079 --> 01:00:39.880
explicitly does not like Ben thinks it's
young Kapor and he's like several months off

728
01:00:39.960 --> 01:00:45.320
and it was published in June.
But it's a really really lovely issue that

729
01:00:45.440 --> 01:00:49.880
sounds like it. Yeah, and
so why was it important for you?

730
01:00:50.320 --> 01:00:52.519
I think for many people. Well, let you pphrase that. So,

731
01:00:52.639 --> 01:00:55.679
why do you think it's important that
the actor be Jewish? Because I remember

732
01:00:55.719 --> 01:00:59.559
bringing this up to someone when one
of the last conversations happened, and the

733
01:00:59.559 --> 01:01:01.679
first thought was, well, who
cares if he looks Jewish? The characters

734
01:01:01.719 --> 01:01:07.079
look Jewish, the character looks like
a rock. But especially as you talk

735
01:01:07.119 --> 01:01:10.599
about like the speech patterns and the
like the attitudes, talk about why it's

736
01:01:10.599 --> 01:01:15.920
been important to you, well,
you know it's important. It's funny because

737
01:01:15.960 --> 01:01:19.000
I fully admit to being a bit
of a hypocrite here, because I actually

738
01:01:19.480 --> 01:01:23.960
have said many times and will say
again that I don't actually think that Jewish

739
01:01:24.119 --> 01:01:29.719
characters need to be played by Jewish
actors, similar to the way that I

740
01:01:29.840 --> 01:01:32.960
don't think that queer characters need to
be played by queer actors, or vice

741
01:01:34.079 --> 01:01:37.599
versa. I don't think because I
think that that leads to a vice versa

742
01:01:37.719 --> 01:01:45.440
trap where Jewish actors are pigeonholed into
playing Jewish characters, and it leads to

743
01:01:45.480 --> 01:01:51.760
certain assumptions about who does and does
not look Jewish, Like there were rumors

744
01:01:52.519 --> 01:01:55.719
that David Diggs was going to be
cast as the thing David dis is Jewish,

745
01:01:55.800 --> 01:01:59.719
but a lot of people would not
know that looking at him because he's

746
01:01:59.719 --> 01:02:08.480
also black. I also think that
there is an element again parallels between Jewish

747
01:02:08.480 --> 01:02:15.199
actors and queer actors of sort of
forced outing. Unfortunately, we have never

748
01:02:15.360 --> 01:02:19.920
lived in a world where it is
all that safe to be publicly Jewish,

749
01:02:20.039 --> 01:02:27.599
and right now for you know,
obviously really horrible real world reasons anti Semitism

750
01:02:28.360 --> 01:02:36.800
as well as Islamophobia are on the
rise, and I just feel like it's

751
01:02:36.920 --> 01:02:39.920
acting, you know, like it's
not like it's not like blackface or something

752
01:02:40.000 --> 01:02:46.559
where like that you're using a prop
to change your physical features, unless you're

753
01:02:46.559 --> 01:02:52.719
Bradley Cooper, and then you are
all that said and that I really I've

754
01:02:52.760 --> 01:02:55.880
said that many times. I really
believe that. And yet when I saw

755
01:02:55.920 --> 01:02:58.599
the cast thing, I was like, oh, thank god, Ben is

756
01:02:58.679 --> 01:03:02.000
Jewish. Again. I fully admit
that I'm a hypocrite, But for me,

757
01:03:02.159 --> 01:03:07.519
it's different with Ben than it is
with like, like I think we

758
01:03:07.599 --> 01:03:09.360
talked about this, when we talked
about Moonnight. I was not upset by

759
01:03:09.360 --> 01:03:15.920
the oscar is is at casting at
all, even though arguably Judaism is much

760
01:03:15.000 --> 01:03:22.199
more central to that character in his
story. But for Ben, because he

761
01:03:22.599 --> 01:03:25.159
was in a lot, he wasn't
the earliest canonically Jewish character because it took

762
01:03:25.199 --> 01:03:30.760
him a long time to be canonically
Jewish. But in a lot of ways

763
01:03:31.320 --> 01:03:38.880
he was right, and it's just
it's just maybe, I mean, it

764
01:03:38.960 --> 01:03:45.119
could be entirely personal. I identify
so strongly with Ben and his Jewishness,

765
01:03:45.280 --> 01:03:51.840
like he literally reminds me of my
grandpa. So and it's very interesting.

766
01:03:52.239 --> 01:03:55.440
There's the copping that I want to
comment on. First part of I think

767
01:03:55.599 --> 01:04:00.119
is and this is probably unfair to
any individual context of cast, but it

768
01:04:00.239 --> 01:04:05.880
does it does matter to the overall, like how our Jewish characters or whatever

769
01:04:06.039 --> 01:04:10.280
the group is being represented. And
I'll speak to all the examples you talked

770
01:04:10.280 --> 01:04:15.320
about. Ten years ago, I
would have said I don't ever want to

771
01:04:15.320 --> 01:04:20.280
see a queer character not played by
a queer actor, and even two years

772
01:04:20.280 --> 01:04:26.800
ago I probably would have still said
that. And then I saw one of

773
01:04:26.840 --> 01:04:34.199
the strongest embodiments of masculine masculinity,
Nick Offerman, play a that yeah,

774
01:04:35.360 --> 01:04:44.360
Nick Offerman play a beautiful depiction of
a gay man in the Last of Us,

775
01:04:45.440 --> 01:04:48.000
and his character utterly broke my heart
and I loved it, and in

776
01:04:48.079 --> 01:04:54.559
part because it felt so representative to
have this character, this actor who isn't

777
01:04:54.599 --> 01:04:57.079
gay. But it is very much
an embodiment of a lot of things that

778
01:04:57.159 --> 01:05:00.719
gayness is often not associated with and
be able to say no, this person

779
01:05:00.800 --> 01:05:05.480
too can be this. But in
part that's because there are a lot more

780
01:05:05.599 --> 01:05:12.440
queer actors playing queer roles and queer
actors playing straight roles and in the same

781
01:05:12.559 --> 01:05:15.679
kind of a way. And you
know, we'll probably talk about this character

782
01:05:15.679 --> 01:05:21.400
more at some point. Echo the
TV show is not necessarily my favorite TV

783
01:05:21.519 --> 01:05:25.679
show in terms of like I think
it is the best made. It does

784
01:05:25.760 --> 01:05:30.159
give me a lot of hope for
the Netflix Daredevil universe coming back in a

785
01:05:30.199 --> 01:05:33.920
real way. Yeah, and you're
wearing the shirt, but I mean Echo

786
01:05:34.079 --> 01:05:39.079
is the character who I feel most
represented by on screen, and that's odds

787
01:05:39.119 --> 01:05:42.559
and them talking about a deaf Native
woman none of those things are related to

788
01:05:43.320 --> 01:05:47.119
but she uses as a prosthetic And
in that case, they specifically wanted a

789
01:05:47.280 --> 01:05:53.119
native deaf actress because I think both
of those things are fundamental to the a

790
01:05:53.280 --> 01:05:57.320
or fundamental of the character, but
be or often have often been played by

791
01:05:57.360 --> 01:06:00.320
people who are not of those communities. Did start doing it, so happened

792
01:06:00.360 --> 01:06:03.719
that the best person for the role
was also a prosthetic user, and so

793
01:06:03.880 --> 01:06:08.320
they said, let's write an into
the character, which is to me the

794
01:06:08.440 --> 01:06:12.480
ultimate kind of like the non pigeonholing, because not only was it a well,

795
01:06:12.519 --> 01:06:15.519
she has a prosthetic, so she
can't play this role, but it's

796
01:06:15.559 --> 01:06:17.239
a because she has a prosthetic,
Let's make the character have a prosthetic as

797
01:06:17.280 --> 01:06:23.599
well. All kind of a dialog
a tangent, but echo affected me that

798
01:06:23.679 --> 01:06:25.800
much that I'm just gonna bring it
up whenever i can for the next six

799
01:06:25.840 --> 01:06:29.719
months because it was It was amazing. Matthew. Yeah, I know,

800
01:06:29.800 --> 01:06:33.119
I hate tangents and would never go
on one exactly exactly, especially things related

801
01:06:33.119 --> 01:06:39.039
to Daredevil, but I really like
the way you described that because it does

802
01:06:39.119 --> 01:06:42.000
seem like from the little I know
of this character, that is very essential.

803
01:06:42.199 --> 01:06:46.880
And I also really liked how you
said Jewishness and Judaism as two separate

804
01:06:47.000 --> 01:06:54.679
things, because there's an extent to
which a lot of times when people want

805
01:06:54.760 --> 01:06:59.480
to couch anti Semitism, they won't
say, oh, I hate those Jewish

806
01:06:59.480 --> 01:07:02.280
attitudes. They'll say I hate those
New York attitudes or I hate that New

807
01:07:02.360 --> 01:07:08.760
York humor. And it's one of
those times where it is absolutely used as

808
01:07:08.800 --> 01:07:13.320
a slur and as a coded kind
of anti Semitism, but there's also a

809
01:07:13.400 --> 01:07:17.960
lot of truth to it. And
to be honest, I would expect and

810
01:07:18.039 --> 01:07:25.960
have encountered, a higher level of
like the conversational Yiddish that is used by

811
01:07:26.079 --> 01:07:31.719
many New Yorkers covech schmuck like words
like this. I would expect a Catholic

812
01:07:31.880 --> 01:07:36.159
New Yorker to know those better than
a Jewish person who grew up not in

813
01:07:36.239 --> 01:07:41.559
a Jewish community in the Midwest somewhere, you know, and like so in

814
01:07:41.639 --> 01:07:44.599
those regards, yeah, I think
it's not I need the character to be

815
01:07:44.679 --> 01:07:46.320
a New Yorker, you know,
and that is very much a New Yorker

816
01:07:46.400 --> 01:07:50.159
of that time and place, and
that is very associated with Judaism. Yeah,

817
01:07:50.320 --> 01:07:54.960
and I also really appreciate it.
Go ahead, no, you go

818
01:07:55.079 --> 01:07:57.760
first. I was gonna go in
a new direction to oeh me too.

819
01:07:58.719 --> 01:08:05.039
Well that that also speaks there's sort
of something in that. Ben doesn't just

820
01:08:05.480 --> 01:08:15.319
represent Judaism and Jewishness. He represents
a historical New York that is vanishing.

821
01:08:16.840 --> 01:08:26.479
He represents the New York cadence of
a century ago. Because again Jack Kirby

822
01:08:26.680 --> 01:08:30.680
was drawing on not New York of
the sixties for Ben's language, but New

823
01:08:30.760 --> 01:08:38.560
York of the twenties, and do
you know I live in Manhattan. Do

824
01:08:38.640 --> 01:08:41.479
you know how rare it is for
me to hear a New York accent?

825
01:08:42.279 --> 01:08:45.439
So there's something and there is that, as you say, a really really

826
01:08:45.479 --> 01:08:48.840
strong overlap between what people think of
as a Jewish accent and what people think

827
01:08:48.840 --> 01:08:54.640
of as a New York accent.
But to me, Ben sounds like home

828
01:08:55.000 --> 01:09:00.880
for for many reasons. And I
I'm excited to hear. How I've been

829
01:09:00.600 --> 01:09:05.119
in talks like I don't want to
hear his pattern. When Mary, my

830
01:09:05.239 --> 01:09:09.039
spouse, came to New York with
me, she didn't. She was like,

831
01:09:09.239 --> 01:09:11.720
I'm not hearing that New York accent. I don't really have much of

832
01:09:11.800 --> 01:09:15.000
it. No, it sounds like
bugs bunny. The taxi drivers certainly don't.

833
01:09:16.199 --> 01:09:19.119
But then she met my father,
who has you know, my father

834
01:09:19.319 --> 01:09:25.560
was born in Row far Rockaway,
Queens in nineteen forty one, and so

835
01:09:25.800 --> 01:09:29.199
was most of his family, and
most of them have much thicker accents.

836
01:09:29.359 --> 01:09:30.319
And she was like, oh,
that's a New York accent. I was

837
01:09:30.359 --> 01:09:33.800
like, it's the Brooklyn Jewish Act. It's Queen's but it's Brooklyn Jewish.

838
01:09:34.159 --> 01:09:38.720
You got to go to Staten Island. They got it in stanton Ion exactly

839
01:09:38.920 --> 01:09:42.560
exactly, but then you'd have to
be in Staten Island, so don't actually

840
01:09:43.199 --> 01:09:46.279
yeah, And I will say I
also love the point you made about how

841
01:09:48.039 --> 01:09:54.119
sometimes when we as fans want to
know that an actor is playing a character

842
01:09:54.319 --> 01:09:58.439
and the actors had experienced as similar
to the characters, that does mean they

843
01:09:58.439 --> 01:10:01.119
were often demanding a level of information
about the actor that maybe is not fair

844
01:10:01.199 --> 01:10:08.279
to ask. And I remember when
I first looked up so, uh,

845
01:10:08.600 --> 01:10:10.479
make sure you get the name right. I had it written now and then

846
01:10:10.479 --> 01:10:14.720
I look somewhere else for a second. And so, for example, when

847
01:10:14.760 --> 01:10:18.560
I first found out that this person
Evan Moss Backrock, who I've heard good

848
01:10:18.600 --> 01:10:21.039
things about and I've seen him,
but I don't I don't think I've ever

849
01:10:21.159 --> 01:10:24.319
paid much attention to anything he's been
in. I haven't seen the Bear,

850
01:10:24.399 --> 01:10:28.199
which is the main thing he's known
for. We did an episode on something

851
01:10:28.279 --> 01:10:32.119
he's been in. He was micro
and Punisher. Oh you're right, okay,

852
01:10:32.239 --> 01:10:36.319
yuh, he's doubling up on mcu
rolls. Good for him, Good

853
01:10:36.359 --> 01:10:42.800
for him. But my first thought
was is he Jewish? And I have

854
01:10:42.960 --> 01:10:47.640
to say I think It's interesting that
the Internet has decided he is Jewish enough.

855
01:10:47.760 --> 01:10:50.359
He is Jewish, and so all
the stories are about a Jewish actor

856
01:10:50.479 --> 01:10:55.640
is being cast, which I'm very
glad to see because but you know,

857
01:10:55.760 --> 01:11:00.640
when I look his Wikipedia page says
that he was born his father is Jewish.

858
01:11:00.600 --> 01:11:03.439
And for those who don't know,
within Judaism, there are some debates

859
01:11:03.600 --> 01:11:09.800
and there are some perspectives, particularly
more orthodox realms of Judaism, that say

860
01:11:09.800 --> 01:11:15.640
that you're only Jewish if your mother
is Jewish. And I actually commented to

861
01:11:15.800 --> 01:11:17.640
another partner of mine who is also
Jewish, and we were talking about that.

862
01:11:17.680 --> 01:11:20.720
We were kind of bracing ourselves for
is there going to be a debate

863
01:11:20.840 --> 01:11:25.800
of is he Jewish enough? And
you know, because he practiced Judaism,

864
01:11:25.960 --> 01:11:28.199
is his white, are his children
Jewish? Any of this kind of stuff,

865
01:11:28.439 --> 01:11:31.159
particularly because it was his father who
is Jewish, And I'm very glad

866
01:11:31.159 --> 01:11:33.560
to see. I'm sure that exists
somewhere on the internet. I have not

867
01:11:33.640 --> 01:11:38.640
seen any of it, and I've
not seen any like, you know,

868
01:11:39.279 --> 01:11:42.199
here's the synagogue he goes to?
Or does he go to synagogue? Or

869
01:11:42.239 --> 01:11:45.520
that kind of a questions because yeah, like I think I know enough about

870
01:11:45.600 --> 01:11:48.359
him to know that he's comfortable with
people saying he's a Jewish actor, and

871
01:11:48.479 --> 01:11:55.880
that's we'll see how he appears on
screen. And I'm I'm glad to know

872
01:11:56.000 --> 01:11:58.239
he's Jewish, but I also feel
like I don't have a right to know

873
01:11:58.359 --> 01:12:00.600
how Jewish he is, and I
hope we don't go down that route.

874
01:12:00.560 --> 01:12:03.399
Yeah, absolutely, And that well, And that's the other thing that Like

875
01:12:03.640 --> 01:12:09.600
the reason I keep saying Jewishness and
Judaism is because they are obviously related,

876
01:12:09.680 --> 01:12:16.159
but they are not necessarily the same
thing. And belonging to the Jewish people

877
01:12:17.039 --> 01:12:28.680
as uh a culture and an ethno
religion is not the same thing as your

878
01:12:28.760 --> 01:12:33.159
actual religious beliefs. Like the fact
that there are so many Jewish atheists speaks

879
01:12:33.199 --> 01:12:38.479
to that, Like many of my
loved ones are Jewish atheists. I would

880
01:12:38.520 --> 01:12:44.039
consider myself agnostic, but I'm still
Jewish, and so yeah, like that

881
01:12:44.319 --> 01:12:49.279
that that is private again, like
with the the analogy of queer actors,

882
01:12:49.439 --> 01:12:57.000
Like I don't need to know what
happens in somebody's private life, right,

883
01:12:58.479 --> 01:13:02.439
Like did you know i Franco the
musician? Yeah, yeah, she was

884
01:13:02.760 --> 01:13:05.520
a favorite musician of mine when I
was young, especially because like when I

885
01:13:05.560 --> 01:13:09.159
was coming out as queer. She
was one of the first openly queer musicians

886
01:13:09.199 --> 01:13:12.359
that a lot of us knew about, and she was by and then she

887
01:13:12.439 --> 01:13:14.359
eventually got married to a man,
and a lot of people were like,

888
01:13:14.399 --> 01:13:16.399
oh, so we need to know
who was your girlfriend at some point to

889
01:13:16.520 --> 01:13:20.159
kind of prove your biness and yeah, and I would just say, I

890
01:13:20.279 --> 01:13:25.800
am I am bracing myself because I'm
sure some of that will happen. I

891
01:13:25.960 --> 01:13:29.760
am absolutely positive that it's some press
junket. Someone's gonna ask him for his

892
01:13:29.840 --> 01:13:34.000
opinion on Israel, Palestine, Gaza, which I think is completely A lot

893
01:13:34.000 --> 01:13:36.399
of us should have very strong opinions
of that. I certainly do. Would

894
01:13:36.399 --> 01:13:42.399
have talked about them in other formats, the actor being Jewish like I did,

895
01:13:42.760 --> 01:13:45.399
or ask all four of them.
Yeah, I think every famous person

896
01:13:45.439 --> 01:13:46.079
should be taking a stand on it. But I think, yeah, I

897
01:13:47.600 --> 01:13:50.119
know that's gonna happen, and I'm
dreading it, and I'm just I'm glad

898
01:13:50.159 --> 01:13:53.840
that so far there's been very little
of that kind of conversation, So we'll

899
01:13:53.840 --> 01:13:56.800
see what happens. What do you
know though, of him as an actor,

900
01:13:56.880 --> 01:14:00.600
because I will say I don't remember
micro and the slightest The Bear.

901
01:14:00.680 --> 01:14:03.960
I also haven't seen The Bear,
but I do remember him and The Punisher.

902
01:14:04.039 --> 01:14:08.640
I really liked him. And actually, speaking of Jewish actors, it's

903
01:14:08.680 --> 01:14:14.800
a perfect example because he was playing
David Lieberman, obviously a Jewish character,

904
01:14:15.239 --> 01:14:20.159
and John Burnhal, who is also
Jewish, was playing an extremely Italian character.

905
01:14:21.640 --> 01:14:25.920
So you know, it just goes
to show that, like, it

906
01:14:26.039 --> 01:14:30.239
can be helpful in conveying a character, but we don't need to pigeonhole anyway.

907
01:14:30.680 --> 01:14:34.920
Yeah, I liked him a lot
in The Punisher. He's very much

908
01:14:35.079 --> 01:14:43.800
sort of he's a very different character. He's very much a non combatant and

909
01:14:43.960 --> 01:14:47.920
he like he argues with Frank a
lot, but he's not like a brawler

910
01:14:48.159 --> 01:14:55.000
like Ben is. And obviously his
actual physicality doesn't matter at all because presumably

911
01:14:55.079 --> 01:14:57.760
he will be CGI. Like.
I don't think they're going to put him

912
01:14:57.800 --> 01:15:02.199
in a big, chunky suit.
I mean, I would give my right

913
01:15:02.359 --> 01:15:05.359
arm for practical effects with Ben,
but we're not going to get them.

914
01:15:05.439 --> 01:15:11.279
We're going to have. Yeah,
everybody but Sue be CGI all the time,

915
01:15:11.880 --> 01:15:15.399
which which may also help answer that
question I asked a while ago of

916
01:15:15.439 --> 01:15:19.199
why wasn't this made into a TV
show in the Arrow era or something like

917
01:15:19.319 --> 01:15:24.680
that, probably because the amount of
CGI you need to represent these characters on

918
01:15:24.800 --> 01:15:28.880
screen. I mean even like one
of the reasons that they changed Ms.

919
01:15:29.039 --> 01:15:32.680
Marvel's powers for her show was because
her powers are supposed to be the same,

920
01:15:33.119 --> 01:15:38.479
very similar to reads where she stretches, and that's a lot harder to

921
01:15:38.600 --> 01:15:44.239
convey in CGI that looks good than
the like sparkly powers that they gave her.

922
01:15:45.680 --> 01:15:50.760
But yeah, I have heard really
wonderful things about Evan from the Bear

923
01:15:51.760 --> 01:15:56.439
and didn't he just win an Emmy? He did? Yeah, Yeah,

924
01:15:56.560 --> 01:16:01.680
So I'm excited. And the thing, the thing is, and this will

925
01:16:01.720 --> 01:16:08.279
be a good segue for us.
The first two Fantastic Four movies are bad,

926
01:16:08.720 --> 01:16:13.239
but the least bad things about them
are Johnny and Ben. And what

927
01:16:13.319 --> 01:16:18.119
I've heard about the Michael B.
Jordan version is the same thing. The

928
01:16:18.279 --> 01:16:23.199
least bad things about that movie are
Johnny and Ben. For some reason,

929
01:16:23.920 --> 01:16:30.680
they seem to be easier to get
right. So my hopes are high in

930
01:16:30.800 --> 01:16:33.319
this case. Well, and like
I said, I do think it's interesting.

931
01:16:34.079 --> 01:16:40.119
Jessica Alba is still a name that
I recognize and cares weight, But

932
01:16:40.239 --> 01:16:44.359
I think that I don't remember the
names of any of the other casting of

933
01:16:44.439 --> 01:16:46.760
the others, and certainly not the
others of the more recent one. And

934
01:16:47.319 --> 01:16:50.279
I would certainly say that like Chris
Evans and Michael B. Jordan are probably

935
01:16:50.359 --> 01:16:55.960
the two most recognizable names from all
of those. Yeah, so let's talk

936
01:16:55.960 --> 01:17:00.600
about Joseph Quinn, who it's interesting
this is the first time, Like he's

937
01:17:00.640 --> 01:17:04.520
a perfectly good looking man, but
they didn't pick the most beautiful human being

938
01:17:04.640 --> 01:17:08.199
on the planet, which is what
they did the last two times, which

939
01:17:08.239 --> 01:17:14.039
is interesting. And like I said
earlier, Johnny is my favorite. Like

940
01:17:14.119 --> 01:17:16.199
Ben is the best character, objectively
the best character, but Johnny is my

941
01:17:16.319 --> 01:17:26.640
favorite. I'm just always going to
love the like flashy, hot headed,

942
01:17:27.159 --> 01:17:34.960
like kind of vain character who loves
attention and loves flirting and like, you

943
01:17:35.039 --> 01:17:42.960
know, it's sort of like the
like I've said, I haven't seen the

944
01:17:43.000 --> 01:17:45.920
Michael B. Jordan version. I
do think Chris Evans did a pretty good

945
01:17:45.000 --> 01:17:50.000
job. Like if you've seen that
version of Johnny, Yeah, that's that's

946
01:17:50.119 --> 01:17:57.239
that's Johnny. He's yeah, well
he's like I'm trying to think of how

947
01:17:57.279 --> 01:18:00.039
to describe Johnny as I understand him, and hearing you talk about your love

948
01:18:00.079 --> 01:18:04.159
for him, I'm reminded of.
It's not Barry Allen, it's the Flash,

949
01:18:04.239 --> 01:18:08.560
who's very like if I remember,
there's a version of the Flash who's

950
01:18:08.680 --> 01:18:12.079
very much like this, Oh,
Wally West. Wally West, Yeah,

951
01:18:13.000 --> 01:18:15.960
similar, Yeah, I would say
that Johnny is like further into that,

952
01:18:16.439 --> 01:18:24.560
like Johnny. Johnny is a model. Johnny gets endorsement deals like Johnny.

953
01:18:27.000 --> 01:18:31.079
There's this one great panel that I
don't even remember what comic gets from,

954
01:18:31.199 --> 01:18:35.880
but like the Fantastic Four has arrived
in like Antarctica or something, so three

955
01:18:35.920 --> 01:18:43.880
of them are bundled up, and
Johnny is wearing like swim trunks with flames

956
01:18:43.960 --> 01:18:47.800
on them and sunglasses because he can
like he's not bothered by the cold,

957
01:18:47.840 --> 01:18:50.880
and he wants everybody to look at
him. And Johnny is in fact a

958
01:18:50.960 --> 01:18:57.239
deeply insecure character who is a lot
of deep seated fears that he doesn't like

959
01:18:57.319 --> 01:19:03.960
to talk about, and he uses
the facade to hide all of that,

960
01:19:04.199 --> 01:19:08.319
which of course just makes me love
him even more. He's he's much more

961
01:19:08.359 --> 01:19:12.680
similar to like Booster gold Thani,
I mean, maybe Wally West in like

962
01:19:12.760 --> 01:19:15.520
the late eighties, but like that
kind of like flashy hot shot. Yeah,

963
01:19:16.000 --> 01:19:18.520
well, it'd be very interesting because
first of all, I will say,

964
01:19:18.880 --> 01:19:21.560
look, he as IMDb page.
I'm not positive about this, but

965
01:19:21.600 --> 01:19:28.600
I'm reading this correctly. He is
Joseph Quinn the eighth. Wow. Very

966
01:19:28.720 --> 01:19:33.640
rarely see like someone beyond the second
or third, so that's interesting. Oh

967
01:19:33.760 --> 01:19:39.159
no, wait, never mind,
that is a no wait okay, yeah,

968
01:19:39.279 --> 01:19:42.720
yes, yes, it is Joseph
Quinn born nineteen ninety four. God,

969
01:19:42.800 --> 01:19:45.560
I feel old now. Oh God, and his listened. Joseph Quinn

970
01:19:45.640 --> 01:19:49.760
the Eighth, the character he plays
in Stranger Things, which is the main

971
01:19:49.800 --> 01:19:53.880
thing I know him from, but
which I would now watch anything he's ever

972
01:19:54.000 --> 01:19:59.239
in because he was so amazing in
It is a version of that, but

973
01:19:59.520 --> 01:20:01.199
very different. You've not seen Stranger
Things, you said, right, I

974
01:20:01.319 --> 01:20:05.159
have not, but I am on
the internet, so I'm aware of Eddie.

975
01:20:05.960 --> 01:20:11.199
Yeah, he's Eddie Munson. He
is the He's flashy, but in

976
01:20:11.279 --> 01:20:14.600
a very like I know everyone in
the school hates me, so I'm gonna

977
01:20:14.600 --> 01:20:18.760
have fun being the weirdo because he's
the guy. He he dms the Dungeons

978
01:20:18.800 --> 01:20:24.079
and Dragons group in the nineteen eighties
when people still think that's devil worship and

979
01:20:24.239 --> 01:20:29.359
he oh yeah, no, Johnny
is never the weirdo. Johnny is preppy,

980
01:20:29.520 --> 01:20:32.119
the unbelief Johnny. Like I know, he's on fire, but even

981
01:20:32.239 --> 01:20:35.560
so, he's wearing three polo shirts
and all of the collars are popped,

982
01:20:35.720 --> 01:20:45.239
like he is. He that's amazing. He's mainstream popularity. He is all

983
01:20:45.359 --> 01:20:48.159
five members of a boy band.
He actually did have, like try to

984
01:20:48.199 --> 01:20:51.800
have a music career for a while. Like that's amazing, that's amazing.

985
01:20:51.920 --> 01:20:57.119
Okay, he's well, actually the
best singer of the group, because it'd

986
01:20:57.159 --> 01:21:01.000
be very interesting because I mean,
as Eddie, he's a very attractive character,

987
01:21:01.039 --> 01:21:04.520
and I think a very good looking
man, in large part because he

988
01:21:04.520 --> 01:21:08.840
has gorgeous long hair, which does
not strike me as Johnny at all.

989
01:21:10.319 --> 01:21:14.439
It's gonna be interesting because I think
he particularly because, like you know,

990
01:21:15.920 --> 01:21:18.279
I grew up getting bullied from playing
Tounches and Dragons and reading comic books.

991
01:21:18.880 --> 01:21:23.199
I'm sure it still exists today,
but my understanding is that being a geek

992
01:21:23.319 --> 01:21:27.920
is much more socially acceptable among youth
today. But Munson was really still a

993
01:21:27.960 --> 01:21:30.880
hero to a lot of us because
of that. So I'm there's a part

994
01:21:30.920 --> 01:21:33.279
of me that very much wants to
hold out. No, he like this

995
01:21:33.479 --> 01:21:39.279
actor should play weirdos. No,
but I will see the actor is incredibly

996
01:21:39.359 --> 01:21:45.439
good at being charming, but also
at having a lot of innervulnerability, which

997
01:21:45.520 --> 01:21:50.039
sounds like he's very very good at
like I'm scared, I don't understand what's

998
01:21:50.079 --> 01:21:51.960
going on. I'm trying to do
the right thing. I don't know what

999
01:21:53.079 --> 01:21:56.720
that is, which sounds like it
is a lot similar to Johnny. So

1000
01:21:57.479 --> 01:21:59.880
yeah, I mean, the thing
you have to remember is in the com

1001
01:22:00.359 --> 01:22:01.920
and I don't know exactly how they're
going to handle this in the movie.

1002
01:22:02.000 --> 01:22:04.760
I don't know if it's going to
be an origin story or if they will

1003
01:22:04.800 --> 01:22:09.439
be established heroes. And like,
I mean, you just said he's thirty

1004
01:22:09.520 --> 01:22:13.840
years old, so he won't be
as young as he was in the comics.

1005
01:22:13.880 --> 01:22:17.000
But in the comics he was fifteen
when they got their powers. Like

1006
01:22:17.159 --> 01:22:23.880
he was a teenager and all of
a sudden, he was a superhero with

1007
01:22:24.079 --> 01:22:30.800
this incredibly dangerous superpower and he was
world famous, right, and he had

1008
01:22:30.960 --> 01:22:35.479
to cope with that, Yeah,
and he there is like for a while,

1009
01:22:35.600 --> 01:22:40.720
he kept going to high school and
he thought that nobody knew that he

1010
01:22:41.039 --> 01:22:45.760
was the human Torch. And there's
like a whole he was he was.

1011
01:22:45.960 --> 01:22:49.359
It was believed that he would be
the most popular character when the characters were

1012
01:22:49.439 --> 01:22:55.640
created, because there was the main
Fantastic Four comic book, and then there

1013
01:22:55.800 --> 01:23:00.359
was he had a backup feature in
another comic book called Strange Tales, and

1014
01:23:00.520 --> 01:23:02.119
he was the first one that they
spun off into something else. They were

1015
01:23:02.199 --> 01:23:06.319
like, obviously, like, he's
young, he's attractive, he's charismatic,

1016
01:23:06.399 --> 01:23:11.640
He's going to be the most popular
character. And they quickly realize no,

1017
01:23:11.840 --> 01:23:15.439
actually, Ben, it was then
and remains and forever will be by far

1018
01:23:15.560 --> 01:23:19.159
the most popular character. And then
Ben had his own book for Ages and

1019
01:23:19.239 --> 01:23:27.039
Ages. But in this this Strange
Tales backup feature, Johnny was just like

1020
01:23:27.119 --> 01:23:30.119
living in the suburbs, even though
he also lived in Manhattan at the same

1021
01:23:30.159 --> 01:23:33.319
time, living in the suburbs,
going to high school, like you know,

1022
01:23:33.520 --> 01:23:38.840
ducking into closets to change into his
costume and stuff. And at the

1023
01:23:39.000 --> 01:23:41.600
end, when they like finished,
you know, they did like twenty issues

1024
01:23:41.720 --> 01:23:46.560
or whatever, and the last one
he he like gets caught and he's like,

1025
01:23:46.640 --> 01:23:48.680
oh no, now you know,
I'm the human Torch. And whoever

1026
01:23:48.720 --> 01:23:53.319
he's talking to is like, everybody
always knew you were the human torture kidding,

1027
01:23:53.359 --> 01:23:57.119
and he's like, oh wait really, and they're like yeah, yeah,

1028
01:23:58.520 --> 01:24:00.439
well see, yeah, we'll say
into the actor being thirty years old.

1029
01:24:01.479 --> 01:24:05.000
Two years ago, he very convincingly
played a high schooler on a show

1030
01:24:05.039 --> 01:24:10.439
where some of the actors no longer
can convincingly play high schoolers. So yeah,

1031
01:24:10.720 --> 01:24:13.720
I think they can definitely play him
as that. Yeah, I mean

1032
01:24:13.800 --> 01:24:16.560
I don't I think that would be
interesting. I don't think it's necessary.

1033
01:24:16.640 --> 01:24:19.720
Like I said, like, I
would be really interested in a Fantastic four

1034
01:24:20.039 --> 01:24:27.319
movie that's not an origin story because
we see so many origin stories, or

1035
01:24:27.439 --> 01:24:31.560
they could have him playing a fifteen
year old, or they could not try

1036
01:24:31.600 --> 01:24:34.960
to find a reason a fifteen year
old is going into outer space like with

1037
01:24:35.079 --> 01:24:40.399
the movies. You know, Chris
Evans was obviously much younger when he made

1038
01:24:40.439 --> 01:24:43.319
those movies, but he was not
playing a teenage er. He was playing

1039
01:24:43.359 --> 01:24:48.760
an actual astronaut, right right,
That makes sense. Yeah, I'll be

1040
01:24:48.800 --> 01:24:51.279
curious to see. Well, this
has been a fantastic conversation, Jessica.

1041
01:24:51.359 --> 01:24:56.079
Thank you as always so much.
I want to go into so many more

1042
01:24:56.560 --> 01:24:59.640
parts of this, but we just
don't have any time. And I do

1043
01:24:59.760 --> 01:25:00.800
have a bonus section with you.
We're going to talk about some other things

1044
01:25:00.840 --> 01:25:04.600
that have come out on screen from
the comic book pages, most especially Blue

1045
01:25:04.640 --> 01:25:09.920
Beetle, our favorite hime. But
any other last things you want to wrap

1046
01:25:10.000 --> 01:25:21.800
up with. Yeah, I just
that I'm I do fundamentally believe that there

1047
01:25:21.840 --> 01:25:28.520
will never be a what I consider
a good Superman or a good Fantastic Four

1048
01:25:28.680 --> 01:25:31.520
movie. But I hope I'm wrong
because I do think this is a good

1049
01:25:31.680 --> 01:25:38.239
cast. I do think that superhero
movies are in a very different place than

1050
01:25:38.279 --> 01:25:44.239
they were when the last ones were
made. The promo image of the characters

1051
01:25:44.319 --> 01:25:49.319
in the sixties really gives me a
lot of hope because it seems to understand

1052
01:25:49.560 --> 01:25:54.680
fundamentally who these characters are. So
yeah, you know, maybe they'll break

1053
01:25:54.720 --> 01:25:57.439
the streak. Maybe this will be
the one. I hey, it's the

1054
01:25:57.520 --> 01:26:03.600
fourth one, so four times the
charm could be. Yeah. I certainly

1055
01:26:03.600 --> 01:26:06.760
hope so too, because you know, I am mister grim dark. I

1056
01:26:06.880 --> 01:26:11.399
love the dark, and I think
it's a lot of why I generally don't

1057
01:26:11.520 --> 01:26:14.800
like Superman, though I like your
version of Superman quite a lot. The

1058
01:26:14.840 --> 01:26:16.920
wh do you tell me about?
And it's funny though, because also,

1059
01:26:17.000 --> 01:26:21.039
as you said that story. It
kept being like, oh, the father

1060
01:26:21.199 --> 01:26:27.880
figure feels guilty about the harm done
to his friend, and grim has all

1061
01:26:27.920 --> 01:26:30.600
of this like reasonable resentment, and
like here's this young man with all these

1062
01:26:30.880 --> 01:26:34.319
Wow, you could do so much
grim Dark based on these stories. But

1063
01:26:34.439 --> 01:26:39.159
I also can see how you like
you could and they did a bad job,

1064
01:26:39.199 --> 01:26:44.159
and it was a bad movie exactly. And I think I am especially

1065
01:26:44.279 --> 01:26:47.399
things like MS Marvel, which I
think you know has some like seriousness,

1066
01:26:48.000 --> 01:26:53.720
but it's so fundamentally hopeful and happy, a show in a way that I

1067
01:26:53.880 --> 01:26:58.000
really found refreshing and I really loved
because of it, And I really loved

1068
01:26:58.039 --> 01:27:01.479
also about Blue Beetle, which we'll
talk about in our members only section that

1069
01:27:01.720 --> 01:27:03.920
Yeah, I'm really excited to see
this, and when we do, of

1070
01:27:03.960 --> 01:27:06.680
course we'll get you back to talk
about it. So J justic for those

1071
01:27:06.720 --> 01:27:10.279
who you mentioned book Riot. For
those who want to find more of your

1072
01:27:10.319 --> 01:27:14.159
stuff, where can they find it? Yeah, I am a contributing editor

1073
01:27:14.159 --> 01:27:17.640
at book Riot. I write about
comics over there. I can be found

1074
01:27:17.720 --> 01:27:24.960
on social media at formerly known as
Twitter and blue Sky as at chess Plumber.

1075
01:27:26.760 --> 01:27:30.399
You can find my fiction. I
have a short story in Swordstone Table

1076
01:27:30.439 --> 01:27:38.520
which is an Arthurian Retellings short story
collection. And speaking of Superman, next

1077
01:27:38.680 --> 01:27:43.279
year, I will have a book
about Superman coming out called Even Superman Has

1078
01:27:43.319 --> 01:27:46.680
Bad Days. It's nonfiction. I'll
be out May twenty twenty five from Running

1079
01:27:46.720 --> 01:27:53.399
Press. So that is fantastic,
you know, check that out in thirty

1080
01:27:53.560 --> 01:27:56.920
or fifteen months. Okay, okay, well, I definitely know. We

1081
01:27:56.960 --> 01:27:59.760
will definitely have you on for our
book club at some point to discuss that

1082
01:27:59.760 --> 01:28:02.159
book and talk all about it.
And of course if you want to send

1083
01:28:02.159 --> 01:28:04.720
in your thoughts, what do you
think about the fantastic for I imagine most

1084
01:28:04.760 --> 01:28:08.520
of my fans know these characters better
than I do. What do you think

1085
01:28:08.560 --> 01:28:10.680
of the discussion? What do you
think of these castings? Let us know.

1086
01:28:11.439 --> 01:28:15.920
If you search for the Ethical Panda
on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,

1087
01:28:15.119 --> 01:28:17.920
any of those places, you can
reach us. You can email me at

1088
01:28:18.039 --> 01:28:21.640
Matthew at Theethicalpanda dot com, and
of course you just go to the Ethical

1089
01:28:21.720 --> 01:28:26.520
Panda dot com website. There you
find all the information about this and my

1090
01:28:27.039 --> 01:28:31.520
other podcast, star Wars Universe podcast, Star Wars Generations podcast, and of

1091
01:28:31.560 --> 01:28:34.720
course at all those places you can
find ways to come a member for only

1092
01:28:34.800 --> 01:28:39.560
five dollars a month fifty five dollars
a year. You can get access to

1093
01:28:39.960 --> 01:28:44.359
all of our content ad free,
no ads. You get to listen to

1094
01:28:44.479 --> 01:28:46.640
the content often it comes out a
few days earlier, so as you know,

1095
01:28:46.680 --> 01:28:49.199
in a week earlier, and we're
now starting to do bonus content that

1096
01:28:49.319 --> 01:28:53.359
is remembers only, and plus once
we start live streaming, we're we're going

1097
01:28:53.399 --> 01:28:57.560
to be doing fairly soon. We
will be doing that with members having a

1098
01:28:57.680 --> 01:29:00.359
chance to participate and ask questions stuff
like that during the live stream. So

1099
01:29:00.640 --> 01:29:03.600
please think about becoming a member.
Please check about all the wonderful things that

1100
01:29:04.359 --> 01:29:09.399
Jessica is doing. And I especially
personally want to recommend her story in a

1101
01:29:10.479 --> 01:29:15.880
Stone Sword Table, Sword Stone Table. It's a great story. I really

1102
01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:19.199
enjoyed it. Yeah, check it
out and I hope you are a member,

1103
01:29:19.239 --> 01:29:21.680
will keep listening. But for everybody
else, we have spoken