Hello, and welcome to this special bonus episode of Superhero Ethics. Friends were
for the most part keeping to our bi weekly schedule, but a show came
out that is so important to me and that I really loved and I really
wanted to watch and talk about. And my good friend Will Freeland, Marvel
Comics expert extraordinaire who's been on this podcast a bunch of times, is back
to talk with me. And we're probably gonna do a number of different episodes
about this show because it has topics and characters that really just like Echo through
all of the things that I love, and I promise that will be I
can't say the last bad pun I'm gonna make about Echo, but probably one
of them, hopefully it'll be the last one, because there's really so much
for me to talk about here. Let's talk about Echo. It just came
out. My friend Will Freeland has watched it, as if I will welcome,
say a bit about who you are. Hi, thank you for having
me. My name is Will Freeland. I'm all over the place on the
internet as Silver Dreamers, silver Earth a Why. I also have a podcast
called Hype is My Superpower. Me and Steve Storman who's also been on the
pod and also have had superherothics on our pod. We talk about primarily majority
of Marvel comics and whatever comics. It's it's kind of like a really fun
book club, just talk about commentary read each week. I love it.
I love it. I love it. You mentioned the book club aspect.
We're actually be doing some book clubs here on the podcast that I'll talk about
in just a minute. But let me actually just ask you first straight out,
Will, what do you think of the show? I really I liked
it. It was it was fun. It they added so much and that's
totally fine. It's not a it's not a problem. The very first scene
of the show completely threw me off. I didn't know what was happening.
It kind of had eternal vibes for me, like just what. I was
so confused. But overall, honestly, I had a great time with the
show. The I don't think there's a single side character that I didn't like.
The humor was well placed and well timed. It wasn't over the top,
and each character kind of had their moment of like it was captivating.
I was binging this thing at like three in the morning, and I was
completely wide awake for it and it's it's worth the five episode sit down.
It was great. Yeah, it really is. It really is. And
for me as an amputee, obviously, this is a show that this is
a character that really resonated with me that I was so excited about that I
was so nervous about and it really hit on every cylinder And I'm going to
talk about that a lot particularly, and it has meant so much to me
that I was able to kind of take this feeling of, you know,
I'm an amputee, I'm seeing myself on screen. I'm seeing the issues I
go with from like the larger stuff, but just the moment to moment stuff
that most people don't think about. I'm seeing that on screen. And then
they're going to go online and hear, you know, from deaf people,
from Native people, from women, from so many others who saw themselves in
this. In many ways, I kind of feel like this is a kind
of a masterclass on intersectionality in terms of what we got in this show,
and we'll talk about all that, but also it was I've seen shows that
try to be like, we're going to be social justice and we're gonna check
this box and this box and this box, and they forget to actually be
a good show. And this isn't that like from the moment, like the
fight scenes are very well choreographed, the history and background is interially done,
all of the characters are engaging. Yeah, I just everything about it.
And I would admit I had some superhero fatigue recently, and even some I
know hard to say to some some folks out there, but some Marvel fatigue.
I haven't watched Hecred Invasion. I haven't watched Loki season two. Some
of the other stuff that i'd seen was the I've heard Loki season two is
pretty good. I just didn't like Look season one. That's a whole other
matter. But uh yeah, I just more than anything, I think I
walked away from this thinking the Marvel Netflix universe is back, you know,
not that it's quite the same. And I we can talk about continuity in
a minute, because I think they made it pretty clear that this is not
the same continuity as the Marvel Netflix universe, but the tone of it.
Kingpin felt much more like Kingpin than he did in the Hawkeye show. Freaking
as Daredevil was back, which I granted a small scene, but I had
no idea. Yeah, this just it felt like Marvel, like the spirit
of the Marvel mc the Netflix MCU was back. I absolutely agree. I
it's funny because and you know, the first like twenty minutes of the first
episode is the one that has all of the like cameos outside of Kingpin has
like the cameos and like the flashbacks and like the cool, fun, holy
crap and Starry Double kind of stuff. And Yep, that is exactly what
I've been saying Marvel's never gonna do. And so I'm so happy that they
did it and just straight up proved me. It's like they were listening to
an episode of my podcast and they were just like, oh, oh,
he thinks that okay. Because I've always said I've always said that it's too
expensive. There's no way they're going to spend the money on random cameo appearances
for one scene like that to make the universe actually feel connected in each individual
show. There's no way they're going to do that. But they did.
They did. They brought in Charlie Cox, they did the I mean,
it's just showing the same scene from Hawkeye, but they had a scene with
Jeremy Renner and or a handful of scenes with Jeremy Renner in it. They
they you know, at the end, they had rocks On on the gas
station, like they had these bigger universe name drops that for rocks On song
gonna cost him anything, but they can have like, oh, in this
world, there are other things like having Kingpin invest in like this amazing tech
for for Maya to use and then for healing his eye. Like God,
like, you don't think of you think of Kingpin. You think money,
crime, mob boss type stuff. You don't think of him having the money
to go and spend on tech. And the fact that they had that,
and it's just like it doesn't even they don't have to explain that this epatch
with the blue light on it is superhealing and all that kind of stuff and
and and like that's the world of the MCU and Marvel that I want to
live in. Tony Stark isn't the only one that flexes tech. It doesn't
have to be an Iron Man or a Spider Man show to have tech that
like shows the world is advancing in ways that we just don't in ours.
And it's ah so much fun. I loved it. I'm so glad you
brought that up because it hits for me in two very different ways. One
is about Wilson Fisk that I want to talk about because to me, that
scene is essential for understanding Fisk, but also because for me, and I
want to be clear, I am a disabled person, both some mental stuff
but also particularly physical. In terms of my amputation, deafness is not I
am not deaf or heart of hearing. And while there's a lot of overlap
between deafness and disability, a lot with a lot of deaf folks don't say
that deafness is disability. So I'm speaking about how that scene hit me as
a disabled person. I'm not deaf, so so take all this with a
grain of salt. And if deaf people have very different feelings about this,
I'm happy to listen to that. But for me, that scene made me
cry so much. First for all the king the Kingpin reasons, we will
listen to Fisk reasons, but also because you've probably heard me talk about this.
A lot of my fans have heard me talk about this. I and
a lot of other disabled people are often very frustrated by if we appear in
science fiction or fantasy. Yes, the character might be disabled, but very
quickly the science, the crazy science, technology or the magic is able to
basically erase the disability to a point where like and that's an interesting story idea,
But then at that point the character is no longer someone that that person's
life is no longer something that like disabled folks relate to in any way,
and or like many of us. Again, I'm trying to speak not in
generalities, but just these ideas I'm talking about are widely understood by a lot
of other folks in these communities, and so like to have it where there
is this incredible technology, but it's not technology to make her hearing, because
you know, if you remember, even in Hawkeye, she actually says to
the Hawkeye like that he re lies too much on technology, and that's kind
of a critique he has, and that she clearly like she is deaf,
that's who she is. She doesn't want to fix that necessarily. So what
the technology does is to allow him to better communicate with her using sign language.
And it is clearly like sci fi technology, at least as far as
I know, it's possible that someone's actually coming pretty close to inventing that already
and if they haven't, you know, go ahead and do it, because
it certainly seems like it would be possible. But so just seeing that moment,
to me, that felt like people who understand these concerns and issues are
very involved in making this show because it was you know it to me,
it's kind of like the difference between technology that would fix a person and it
like fixes a word of using a huge parenthesis, because that's part of the
point is that it's not people don't need to be fixed, but like,
you know, you could give someone like, oh, hey, your proalysis
is fixed, you're no longer in a wheelchair, or like if they gave
them like their wheelchair had nanotech so that whenever they were at a step,
they could like instantly generate a ramp. You know, like that would be
like awesome science fiction technology that's about still helping a person who has the disabilities.
So it just that moment hit to me on that part at least I'll
talk about It wasn't fist thing in a minute, but you just kind of
respond. It was just like every time I complain about like Yoda dropping the
cane and bouncing around and all this kind of stuff. Or like Avatar and
all the ableism of that, like this is what I mean, this is
what we want. Yeah, that was phenomenal. I like, I thought
it was just such a cool application of technology. And I love that they
played it in a way that you could kind of hear the translation in Fisk's
ear as it was finning. I loved that. And then like as soon
as Maya called him out and I was just like, you never even bothered
to learn asl to communicate with me. It made me feel so guilty for
being so excited about having this technology. And I was like, wait,
no, there literally is and has been a way for them to communicate.
He just never put in the f ah damn oh no. And my part
of the problem it was it just it spiraled for a good like thirty seconds
while you're trying to watch the show, and I was like, man,
that is really well done. I feel like they they pulled in and again
like as you're saying, okay, I am not the I'm not disabled physically,
and I like, I don't you know, I'm not hard of hearing
other than like just have a thick skull, but like so I don't know
what it's like to be on the other side of that conversation. And from
my perspective, it seemed like, and you've been saying this a couple of
times, but like it's it seemed like they really put in the effort to
really tell this story from Maya's perspective as a deaf person, and like you
have your classic I was a child, you shouldn't have let me go,
But then you have the extended family being like I was also in pain,
like and there's that classic storytelling of like whose pain was greater, And the
fact that we never actually had a conversation means that you feel like I was
never hurting. But then there's these other conversations and story beats where only a
an amputee or a deaf person would have this kind of conversation with people,
and that they like they were able to do it and weave it into the
storytelling. It felt like seamlessly. That was that was so impressive to watch
as an able bodied hearing person. That was that. I loved it.
It was great. Yeah, well, and I really love what you brought
up though about how she is like wait, you know you could see her
being like, oh my god, I'm so impressed, and so, you
know, honored that you've done You've made all this effort to make all this
technology, although it's also very possible. He's just like, you know,
he just you know, called up his friends at rocks On and said,
hey, sure do this, you know or whatever. But also she called,
like you said, she calls him out and says, but you haven't
done the work. And I thought that was to me, that was a
moment that said so much about Wilson Fisk, because what I noticed was iman
kind of go through a couple of points here to as a larger thing.
But let me start with this and see if you saw it the same way.
I felt like the show made it very very clear, without any doubt
that yes, he is manipulating her, Yes he is using her as a
tool in his army, but his feeling of familial love towards her and like
treating her like a daughter is one hundred percent real. Absolutely, And the
because one of the things I noticed was that like the first scene where we
see them kind of really interacting as the story goes forward, not that's more
flashbacky stuff where she's gotten in trouble with the law. I think she was
like stealing a motorcycle or something, and he shows up just like you know,
it's kind of like, you know, he hears about her in trouble,
and he goes to her in the middle of the night, and he
has with him an ASL interpreter who clearly he to some extent, trusts not
to talk about the things that they're gonna say. Now clearly doesn't trust entirely.
As we learn, she does not come to a good end. But
part of what that told me was that he had already thought about this,
and like, I don't think that he is the It's not that he said,
oh, yeah, she's deaf, but I'm gonna forget about that and
not really care much about it. I think he very clearly had gone to
great lengths to say, a member of my family is deaf. I want
to make sure that I'm able to deal with that and to communicate with that
at all times. But also just the way he approaches the world is not
I am going to like take time away and sit in a classroom and learn,
but I'm gonna throw money at this problem and fix it. Yeah,
And to me, like you know more about the character in comics, but
from what I've seen in just the MCU shows that felt like a perfect illustration
of who Fisk is. Oh yeah, I mean so so the MCU,
for all of its grandioseness, is much more down to earth than the comics.
Yeah, and and the way that they go about problem solving, even
though it is otherworldly sometimes is a lot more practical. And the where I'm
going with this is literally just yesterday I had a conversation with my wife about,
Oh, if we had money, what we could throw Like there there
are problems in our lives that you can just throw money at and you don't
have to worry about it. Like plumbing. I don't know plumbing. I'm
not going to put in the work to learn plumbing. I'm gonna throw some
money out of plumber to go and do that for me, right, uh,
and so like Fisks. And then and that's another freaking parallel between me
and Fisk that it's stressing me out. But like he's he saw you know,
he he adopted this a young girl who is deaf in an amputee and
instead of learning how to asl he throws money at the situation, gets an
interpreter, and then down the line he has more money, and so what
more money? What can more money do? Oh throw in an interpretation,
contact lens and and a camera and a translator in his ear, so he
doesn't have to put in the work. Like it's it's what what can what
problems can I solve with money? So I can focus on the things I
can't be solved with money. That's how I how I like to see the
world. And apparently that's how a Fisk sees the world and that's not how
our hero say sees the world. And and that's a problem for me.
Yeah, no, I get well, I'm going to question the use of
the word hero, which is something we'll get to in a bit sure,
but like to me, I also think about the scene that you know,
when she's a young girl and he takes her and or he coming to pick
her up from school and she wants to buy I Scream and the ice cream
guy is like, you know, really rude to her and ablest and you
know clearly like really hurts her. That scene was one of like the thing
about Fisk is particularly the Daredevil show, particularly in season one, it's like
fifty one percent a Daredevil origin show and forty nine percent of Wilson Fisk origin
show a Kingpin because you met Vincentinafrio manages to make him so incredibly compelling and
so incredibly sympathetic in ways where you're like, there are times in my life
where I feel red hot anger, and there's a part of me that wants
to use my fists and go out and fix the problem that I'm seeing.
And A I'm not very good at fighting, so it would be a very
bad idea. But also like I just think morally that's not the right thing
to do. And like so when he gets out of that limo and it
was just shot so perfectly to build the suspense and he starts walking towards that
ice cream guy, I had this really uncomfortable mix of dread and exhilaration because
I was so afraid of what he was going to do to that ice cream
guy, and I so badly wanted to see him utterly kick the ass of
the ice cream guy. Yeah, you know, and like it also the
way that they did that scene where he was so in touch with his emotions,
it felt like, oh, this is early Kingpin, Like you know,
like by the time we get to like Daredevil's season three, that I
guess there's two there's two ways to think about it. One, it's like
there's the experienced Kingpin who he's going to have more control of his emotions to
deal withituations like that, because you only ever see out quote unquote outbursts to
that degree seldom, seldomly in the later seasons. However, it could also
be said that this is a Kingdon who is in control of his emotions until
family gets brought gets involved, because when Matt starts messing up or poking Fisk
with about Vanessa and stuff, that's when he loses it. So you see
someone who is belittling and disrespecting his chosen family. Yeah, that's gonna that's
gonna bubble up. Also, But that scene was it didn't go where I
thought it was gonna go. Like I thought he was either just going to
he was going to make a statement to him, say something, or he
was going to actually just kill the guy. And then for him to do
that like I want to keep Maya relatively innocent and make a phone call and
try to replace it and then have her show up. Just that was that
that's her origin, Like that's her like Kingpin, Queen Pin origin story.
She goes and kicks them twice with her with her with her foot, and
it's just like, oh my god, this is literally I was watching it
with one of my partners and as she goes over, like my partner says,
this is way too dark for Disney, but I really hope she kicks
the guy too. But I was like, that's so, because you're right,
it's her origin, it's her, and I think part of that also
is, like, you know, her, like her father had kind of
like exposed her to some of that. But yeah, and I want to
talk a lot about her character to be sure, but just because we started
with Kingpin, for me, it's that, like, I think you're right,
it's that he's upset that he sees her disrespected, but more even more
so, I think it's that he sees the pain on her face. And
you know, obviously this is a daughter, not a mother figure. But
I think it really highlights that for Fisk, his central motivation is protection.
He wants to protect the people he loves and cares about, which then becomes
and then we see, in a brilliant end scene, becomes all the people
of his city, you know, And that's a to me, that's also
where him and Daredevil are so is like, you know, you always hear
about the superhero being like, this is my city and you can't do this
in my city. And I think that's Fisks motivation as well. Oh absolutely
can't do You can't do this to my mother, you can't do this to
my daughter, You can't do this to my city. Oh man. Yeah,
that end credit scene is impressive. Yeah. Well, last thing about
that I want to say. I want to say, this is the theory
that I have, and I'm wondering if you're feeling the same for me.
One thing they also did in this is to say, yes, these are
the same characters, but this is a different continuity, this particular universe,
and it may well be that, like they've added now the other MCU Netflix
shows to the official timeline on Disney Plus, so it maybe that they're saying
that, like in a different continuity, because remember we're in the multiverse,
so that all those other shows are canon, just not in this universe,
but that this particular Wilson, Fisk and Daredel we were watching are not the
exact same ones from the other one. And and the things that really stood
out to me about that were. It's very brief, but they show him
looking at that white picture, the one that he buys in Netflix to when
he meets Vanessa. That one was horizontal. This one is vertical, and
it's a little bit different, and it's just there's just such an interesting change
that felt to me like it was very specifically being like, no, this
is not the same, Yeah, exactly same but different. Yeah. And
then again the timing of it, he is now doing his mayoral run when
it already happened in those To me, it just was like, yeah,
this is this is this is a different continuity. Yeah, for sure,
absolutely, man Oka ahead, Oh no, I'm just I'm just thinking,
just thinking about the characters in the show. They they did a lot with
echo, most of them. So I guess to fulfill my role because you
bring me on to these comic based shows to talk about the difference between the
show and the comic, like ninety eight percent of this is original and new
in the comics. So specifically, just from the very beginning, Maya is
a choc Daw tribe is from the Chocta chalk. I think it's Chocta is
how do you spell it? C h O c t A w In the
comics, she's Cheyenne, and I think it's just because of where they decided
to the the show. That's not a big deal. She's not necessarily very
in touch with her heritage in the comics, and so what tribe she's a
part of, what tribe she's from, is not a big deal. The
uh, this that like spiral power that has been passed down through her lineage.
That's not a thing. In the comics. She has photographic reflexes,
just like task Master, and that's her only power. And they get around
she is deaf in the comics. She's not amputee in the comics, but
she is deaf. But she's such a good lip reader that they just kind
of ignore that as much as they want. And so like, if someone
is talking to her in a ask, she can't understand what they're saying.
What they're saying, but like and so like that's kind of the only time
it really comes up is when people are looking away from her and trying to
talk to her, and she's like, and so she speaks, so she's
you know, she says, I can't understand what you're saying. You have
to look at me. But so as far as she can. She can
speak in the yeah, yeah, and so like, yeah, it's just
like a oh, hey, by the way, kind of a thing that
doesn't get it's it's not part of her identity or how people interact with her
much, just because it's such a non big deal because she's such so good
at lip reading, which is kind of weird, but it is what it
is. Uh, just re Most recently in the comics, she became a
host of The Phoenix Horse, which is a whole other thing. And she
hasn't done a whole she's been she's a side character. She's only been on
she's only been a title character I think twice most recently, like this last
year was Daredevil, an Echo and I and she's been like she's been an
Avengers, but on the New Avengers, you know, she was involved in
Secret and Asian and the other stuff. But she's she doesn't have a whole
lot of like primary screen time, and so they kind of had they kind
of had a blank slate to work with for the MCU and bringing her in
and yeah, everything they've done so far has just been fantastic. But it's
all very original, and I don't I don't even think there's a character reference
for them to pull from as far as like this chocked out legacy and stuff
that that is completely original to the best of my knowledge. I mean what
my understanding is that it is original to the MCU, that it is not
in d from whul Cloth, it is actual chalk Taw legend and things like
that, And to that extent, I am glad in some ways that this
is new because the idea of stan Lee or someone like that doing their version
of the character here much later. But like stan Lee doing chalk Tall legends
in the nineteen seventies does not strike me as a great idea. Oh god,
yeah, oh yeah, Mike got introduced in the late late nineties.
Yeah, she's a pretty good character. Yeah. But like when I started
the show and it starts with this beautiful depiction of the chalk Taw creation myth,
at least the creation myth of humans, I literally stopped the show to
make sure I was watching the same thing because with my thought that was kind
of be like referencing Netflix MCU and that it was based in Hawkeye, which
was a very kind of like low powered show, like everyone there is trained
in ways, but I don't think anyone in Hawkeye really has superpowers such such
as we talk about them. And so to start with like super mystical thing,
I was like, did I watch start the wrong thing or something?
Turned out obviously it did not, and I wound up really loving it because
you said you got kind of the Eternals vibe from it. I admit I
watched Eternals once and have now mostly blanked out of my brain, so it's
very possible the same. What I got, though, was some echoes of
the I'm gonna say Atlantean because I don't remember the pronunciation of the I think
Adalon, the Native, the group that is referred to as Atlanteans in Black
Panther Two, who are also based very much in Native Indigenous communities, but
of Central America. And what I really loved was that it felt me like,
you know, like if you take like tribal myths from like Spain and
tribal myths for like, you know, Sweden, they probably are going to
bear some connection to each other. That's a lot more than like they would
have to something from Japan. But they're still vastly different because they're on you
know, thousands of miles apart. Sure, this felt to me like it
had a little bit of some of the same. And again, I'm not
a visual person, so I might be completely making this up or I was
like projecting it, but it felt like it had a little bit of the
same kind of idea in terms of the visual construction of it, but was
still very unique and different, very you know, to these two different like
communities that that MCU is introducing that are are based in you know, our
own world's understanding of you know, the the myths and stories from native indigenous
Native American communities and indigenous communities. So yeah, I really liked that and
I but I was definitely very confused. I was like, where are we
going with this? And because I didn't I I didn't see it coming at
all that echo would have superpowers. And I really loved the way that they
did it and this kind of slow build and the fact that they the introduction
of each of these different chalk Taw legends everything from the like, you know,
uh, the creation myth to hey, by the way, lacrosse is
a sport based in something from Native Americans, which, by the way,
I believe that in the upcoming Olympics, the Iroquois nation which has members of
both American and Canadian citizenship are gone because it's but yeah, so this acknowledgement
of like, yeah, it's not exactly lacrosse, but it's clearly the sport
that our modern day sport of lacrosse was based in to the whole thing about
the light horsemen and the significance of the braid, which they never commented on,
but you know they in the film they say, you know, braids
were supposed to be for warriors, and that's not for women. As the
show goes on, Echo is wearing more and more of her hair in a
braid, un told by the last week fight scene, or actually I think
it was when she comes to her family after It's a braid all the way
down. It was just I just loved it, And I thought the way
that they weaved her story into those creation stories and legends of her people was
just utterly fantastic. Yeah, absolutely, and with her mom being oh,
it's just and I actually kind of liked that they didn't dive into one of
those things where it's like were you paying attention? But in the car crash,
when it looked like Maya was checking her mom's pulse but she did it
with both hands and it looked like she was trying to heal her mom in
the car crash, like right after the crash. Yeah, and then you
find out, you know, four episodes later, that that's the motion that
her mom would do to do her healing ability, and it's just it's it
just adds that extra little heartbreak of Maya trying to heal her mom and it's
just ah man, but but there that was a complete tangent. But uh,
bringing in her mom for the last like story to bring everything together as
far as like showing different origins of the past. I loved the way that
her mom was just like you need to be you need to be brave and
it has you know, the episode one flashback, you need to be cunning,
like the episode two flashback, and just the way that just in the
way that they chose to tell the story worked so almost flawlessly to keep everything
wrapped up into one coherent book. For lack of a better phrase, Yeah,
it was was. It was awesome. It felt like you actually had
one team, one good writer, making one good season of a show and
not like something If this had come out weekly, I'd be so scared that
by episode five something would have been like reshot or changed because of X y
Z feedback andugh, just it was, man, it was. It felt
like a like a complete thought, and I hope that they feel like the
showrunners feel like they did what they set out to do, because it felt
like, yeah, no, I think it's very true. And I know
we've heard stories about that they released it all at once because Marvel doesn't believe
in this and I don't know the behind the scenes, but thought I thought
it works much better because it's all as one. And again also that's a
throwback to the Netflix shows that were also released all as one. And just
one more thing on her as well. I love that one of the things
that is praised about her and said, this is something you embody from you.
Her ancestry is her ferocity, because I think ferocity is something we often
think of as a negative thing for a hero, because it's about, you
know, like Kingpin is ferocious, Like it's about like being able to almost
kind of like berserker rage is what comes to mind from that, and so
to me, it is still balanced with healing and the fact that she's she
has two different opportunities to kill Fisk, or at least one to actually do
it, one to try, and both cases she doesn't. And in the
second when she literally tries to heal him, which doesn't seem like it worked,
which is something we'll talk about later, which was curious. But yeah,
I just thought that like naming her ferocity, but also showing that unlike
Fisk, she can keep control of it, I think was a really beautiful
thing. Absolutely, So is she a hero, She's a Netflix hero,
which is so different. I don't know, it's I have. I have
trouble calling most title characters in the MCU heroes if you use the definition that
they don't kill, because most of them do, and it's usually unnamed bad
guys. So let's just say unnamed hired thugs and terrorists. So how do
you define a hero? So intering? I've never heard that definition before,
and I would say, you're I don't think it's a single superhero I've ever
seen on screen who doesn't kill, just because I don't think that they understand
how bodies react to the massive concussive forces that even like Batman's fists do.
But that's the other thing I think for me, the way I would define
a hero. And we've done whole episodes about this. It's a very complicated
topic. But you know, if I had to use a brief rubric,
it's are you using your powers? And your powers can be superpowers, your
powers just can be your fighting ability. Your powers can be your money or
your political influence, whatever. But are you using the power that you have
to protect the things that are personally relevant to you, which can be yourself,
your family, the people you love and care about, or are you
doing it in a more altruistic way to protect like people? Are you working
to protect people you don't know basically? And you know, so for me,
like I think that most of the Netflix people are heroes, and I
think that's kind of the thing for Jessica Jones is when she's the most reluctant
hero of them in some ways nick Cage. But when she goes from like
I'm just gonna like look out for me and my sister to I'm going to
look out for like others, you know, and she should grumpy and reluctant
about it. But that's when she becomes a hero or's like Punisher to me,
never become because Punisher is always about his own personal revenge quests, and
I love his character, to be clear, but I just don't think he's
a hero. I think he's a villain in a lot of ways in the
MCU at least, But to me, I feel like she hasn't quite crossed
that line. Like she kind of protects all the people at the even there,
like it's her family who protects everyone else at the pow wow. And
admit, I don't really know why Fisk wanted to like kill all the people
at the pow wow, and that's a whole other thing. I think it
was mostly just to like cause the disturbance so that he could get to Echo.
But yeah, I think she's she is heroic in many ways, and
she has great power and she uses that great power and she resists killing her
enemies when they're you know, not in the middle of a fight, which
I think is heroic. But yeah, I think she's still very much a
gray character who the heroes can be gray. But like, I don't know
where she's gonna I think she's gonna be. My sense is that she will
be an antagonist to Daredevil and maybe by the end take, Like I don't
know if this is actually a comparison that people have drawn before. But I
can see her very much becoming the Catwoman to Daredevil's Batman. You know,
Catwoman is never quite a hero, and in some ways you're like Batman,
do you treat her more like a villain less like a villain because she is,
like you think she has a purer heart, or because she looks so
good in those tight leather pants, and certainly about the writers, but like
you know, she takes hero turns. She helps Batman, but often for
like all right, fine, I'll help you kind of reasons. And yeah,
so I don't know if that's a comparison that's been made before, because
I know her and Daredevil have relationships in the comics. I imagine she will
wind up teaming up with Daredevil in some very reluctant way against King Penn in
the show, kind of like Electra does. But I think she will remain
some kind of Morley Gray, not quite heroic figure. Yeah, yeah,
so I guess to the comic book nerd, the knee jerk reaction is like,
uh no, that's Electra. But right, that doesn't mean you can
only have one Catwoman to your Batman. So that's time. I was gonna
say, God, God forbid that. Uh, Marvel have numerous characters who
play similar roles for each other. Yeah, heaven, Heaven's Heaven's forbid?
Uh I yeah, I guess. The way I see it is like she
had twenty years of this very dark bringing upbringing under under fisks rule quote unquote
versus her like eight years on the chalk Don nation before her mom passed.
So and you can't undo, you can't, you can't overweigh those first eight
years compared to the last twenty in one visit back home. So I think,
uh, the first step is embracing her lineage and how she was descended
from the first I think. I think I think that that Chakta's name was
Chaffa. She is directly descended by Chaffa. Embracing that and then using that
as your compass to hopefully become a hero. But yeah, I don't think
she's there yet, which I believe. Chafa is also her mother's name,
and it's supposed to be very significant. Oh, I think a loot her
mom's name was uh uh Talloa. Oh you might be right, Okay,
I surely could missed something there. I know the first episode title is also
Chafa yeah yes. So each episode's name I think is the name of the
the flashback character, so Chafaka Hello to Loa, and then the fifth episode
name is yeah yeah. And I did love how they did all that.
Clearly, you know, people have gotten the memo the generational trauma is what
we want to see and like seeing the scene her her scene with her grandmother
where you know again, I think this is more than the Netflix what it
does, although I think like some of the Disney shows, other Disney shows
have done this as well, like they didn't have a Here's why I felt
this way, Here's why I felt this way tearful reunion. You know,
I think the grandmother is clearly wrong and does a horrible thing by kicking out
her, her son in law and her daughter, but also the pain she
feels is like I have not lost a child. I can only imagine what
it's like. But it's not like I think, oh, she must be
a monster. I can very much emotionally understand where she was coming from and
all and the way she is both defending it but also showing with all this
guilt how wrong she was, and the way that echo isn't willing to just
forgive that at first it felt very very real. It's not just everything about
the family was so well done. All the characters were interesting. So let's
again, There's so much we can talk about. And I think we're gonna
do more episodes. And I will say on the MCU cast, which is
part of the strand of Pana Network, which I'm a huge fan of used
to be a part of, they're doing episode of by episode coverage. Definitely
recommend people check that out. It is phenomenal. It's gonna be phenomenal.
I'm sure we're not gonna try and do that. It's not gonna go through
everything. But I wanted just to kind of move back to this conversation of
representation and the like and talk a bit about what it was like for There's
great people who are talking about definitis in the show. Great people talking about
Native Native representation in the show. Uh, the Chalk Drawn Nation, like
they specifically say, was very involved. There's a lot of chalk Tawk and
other Native creators who've been talking about this. I want to talk about what
the show is like for me as an amputee and the larger question of representation,
and I want to start by asking you actually will, And as I
say this, it feels like I'm setting you up. There's no right answers
to any perspective you have go for. But I'm curious, what is your
feeling about representation in these kind of shows. I so, okay, blanket
statement. I love it. I love that we that they as the non
represented, a member of the that isn't represented in some of these shows.
I love seeing the posts, the random suggested posts that they sent my way,
either through Facebook or through Twitter, of people being moved so much by
seeing their representation. I would say, so, I'm African American, and
I feel like classically African Americans are the only ones that get that, like,
oh, hey, we've been represented here, and so like when Black
Panther happened, it was a big deal, but like it didn't feel like
such a big deal to me because we've had representation before, Like we have
our Blade and Wesley Snipes, and we have our famous black actors that have
done amazing things and have all these accolades and accomplishments, and so it's like
cool, yay black people. Cool, But then getting seeing this representation for
deaf people and amputees and the wave of excitement that flew across the internet during
Hawkeye for because I feel like, especially with Hawkeye, there was like there's
two different kinds of deaf representation, with Hawkeye trying to struggling with his hearing
aids versus Maya just fully embracing the fact that she's deaf and she's not that
she can use here. It's uh, being born deaf and becoming deaf,
I think are two very different things as far as your relationship deafness. I
don't know for sure, but my memory is that he's better described as hard
of hearing rather than actually deaf. But I'm not and I's not corrected to
birth and I yeah, yeah, I don't know, we're both yeah,
but I do appreciate the distinction. So and and seeing how excited people were
about because there are there have been amputees, like if you watch like Agents
of Shield Slingshot got lost both of her arms and they you know, they
gave her bionic arms. And then Misty Knight is another famous arm amputee that
almost every single time it's replaced with something that's a high tech replacement and it's
an upgrade and not A, this is the real world application of what would
actually happen, and for them to keep it for Maya it being someone who's
non ampute. I think I appreciate it, and like I don't want to
say it's novel because I don't want to like trivialize the impact, but like
I really like seeing it initially, and then I go to the Internet and
people are just loving it, and and I've seen like posts from you and
other and other people saying, you know, as an ampt this is one
of the greatest things I've ever seen, and that's so exciting to me.
I love that the same way that like representation of homosexuality like on Shit's Creek
versus other gay couples in other shows, where like it's a plot point and
it's and it's like they embrace it in a way that's a comedic way,
and and it in Shit's Creek it's just natural. It's they're not praised for
for being together in public and all this other stuff. It's, yes,
it's just another relationship. And so when and I think that's the goal for
representation of just like we're not basing the story around this situation for the character
it's just they have it. And for Maya, she uses it, uses
her metal foot in ways that people with flesh feet cannot, and that is
that's what you want to see. And it felt someone but pro tip someone
tying someone up by the ankles when they have a prosthetic foot bad idea,
because we're kind of mister potato heads in that regard. Oh man, Yeah,
it's so much fun. I love it. I'm totally with you.
And for me, I mean, it made me cry numerous times because I
got this and I had that already with Echo from Hawkeye. There were just
a couple of moments, and there were I'm not going to go through everything,
but I want to go through some of those moments of how how it
affected me. I also want to say that, well, I am an
amputee, and I think you're right a lot of other amputees are are feeling
similar to this. I should also say, like a terminology issue, there
are people who in the same way. There's like deaf and hard of hearing,
and the exact definitions amputee, I think is often used as a catch
all phrase for people who use prosthetic legs. That's not actually accurate because some
people are born without a limb for whatever reason, in the same way someone
could be born deaf. They will often still use a prosthetic leg. They
are not technically amputees. I think I think the term that is well that
we looked this up, and the two terms that I saw they're used most
often. One is limb deficient, which is utterly awful and talk about like
super ablests, like you're not what it should be. The other is u
The other is unipod or uniped, which is fine and like you know,
uniped versus biped. My understanding from Latin that I studied twenty five years ago
and never got above us B minus in so it could be wrong is that
for the singular it should be pod not ped. But it could be wrong.
Personally, I prefer monopod or monoped instead of by instead of uniped,
because then it can be shortened to moped. But that's just my own thing.
I know. Sorry, bad jokes, that's what you're gonna get with
me. I will, though, say, like, so, I'm gonna
speak in that perspective, but it's not a univocal community. Like I post
a couple of things online about this already and In one conversation, there's someone
who's also an amputee who's like, I hate representation, blah blah blah blah
blah. You know, I don't want to see myself on screen like this.
I don't need that. Granted, this person also thinks wokeness is the
worst thing happening to America. So we're not really seeing things in the same
way in a lot of ways. But I want to acknowledge that that's another
amputee who feels differently about this, and I'm sure he's not alone, or
they're not alone. I think he, but who knows. It's a Twitter
person. So with all those caveats, the first moment that I knew,
yes, this is going to be honest to my experience and to the experience
of other amputees, to the leg amputees people whose arms obviously, and that's
a different thing, but I think related. She gets out of the hospital
and she and her father are getting ready to go to New York because the
grandmother is kind of kicking them out and saying like, you're not welcome here,
and she doesn't have a prosthetic leg yet, because like when most people
lose their leg in a traumatic accident of some kinds, Like sometimes it's an
amputee and it's planned, like with diabetes or something like that. Even there
are though, I think it can still take a while to heel, but
especially if it's a traumatic accident, it can take weeks or months to the
point of like any contact on that part of your limbs possible, because often
they need to do like skin grafts or muscle graphs or other things like that.
So when like Misty Knight gets this badass prosthetic arm two days later,
it makes her a cool story. You know, get me wrong, Misty
Knight's an incredible character, But that doesn't speak to the ampute experience at least
not it's an arm. It's not my experience. But like I think a
lot of people at the time said, like, that's it's not realistic.
Sure, So the fact that she's leaving the hospital it's probably been like a
couple of weeks or at least a week or so, and her stump is
still fully banged up. She does not have a prosthetic leg. I was
like, yes, that's it. The fact that her grandfather, who's clearly
very good at machinery and stuff like that, but it's not a prostheticist himself,
and it's certainly not like a Tony Stark level inventor. Yeah, when
she breaks her prosthetic because it gets stuck, which is a very real thing
and can certainly happen. And when I saw that, I was like,
if aprosthesis is fine, I'm gonna be so mad. But it clearly wasn't,
and she was like limping on it afterwards, and then they make her
one that again it's not a perfect fit, has to limp some and because
it's going to take time for him to fix this and to do it right,
all of those things, I was like, yes, this, this
is what. This is much more accurate to the ampute experience, certainly the
leg one, and there are times where she can do things with her leg
that I absolutely cannot do with mine. And like the combat, like the
way my leg fits, it fits pretty well. But if I start to
do like lots of kind of crazy footwork things like the hold between my leg
and my stump is not perfect, and it's gonna start to wiggle around some
and and be a problem. And certainly if I like impact it in very
hard ways, it will like it could have come off, or certainly it
will you know, become loosened and and and also be very painful to me,
and certainly if I drop from a height and land on it. I
tried rock climbing. Granted this was like ten years ago, when I prosthetic
technologies advanced a lot, But I tried rock climbing ten fifteen years ago.
I dropped like five feet and it was incredibly painful because it was like,
you know, you know, and I think the one she has has much
better shock absorbers than the one I had back then. The one I now
have has shock absorbers that are better than my cars. But still, I
for me, I imagine it would be painful and difficult. But the fact
that it is literally an actress with her own prosthetic leg doing those things,
and you mentioned before that she's not an amputee. In the Comics Awesome part
of the story, they were looking for a native deaf actress who also can
do fight scenes, and as it happened, the one they found was an
amputee, and so instead of trying to like always keep her in pants or
something like that, they were just like, fine, our characters amputine now
as well, right, which is just like talk about wonderful representation, Like
there's the intentional like we want a deaf character, so we want a deaf
actress, but oh hey, the actress has an amputation, so let's just
make that part of the character as well. That's also just awesome. But
you know, and from all the interviews and things that I've seen, I
am convinced that, for the most part, some stuff is probably an exaggeration,
because fight movies are always an exaggeration of what physics can actually do.
You know. Even Bruce Lee, you know, use sometimes wires and stuff
like that for the incredible scenes. I believe that, so certainly many martial
arts movies do the point of all this being the fact that it was a
Loquo Cox doing it. I think I'm pronouncing her name right, and if
not, please let me know. Fans told me that I could trust that
these are things that a person with a prosthetic could do it. But it's
funny also because at first I was wondering that she have a very different like
does she have it like really strapped into her legs? No, the like
I think you've seen me, I just have a rubber thing that fits on
my stump and it has a pin at the end of it, and then
the plugs right into my prosthetic. And there's one moment where it's half a
second and you might miss it, but she puts her stuff into her leg
and it doesn't click immediately and she has to kind of adjust and push her
leg down again. And I was like, that's that's my experience. I've
seen that, So yeah, I just thought all those stunts, all that
stuff. Yeah, some of it's EMCU movie making magic, and that's fine
because I do it with everyone else. But there was never a time where
it felt like that's that doesn't fit what an amputee could do, what a
person with a prosthetic leg could do. That's awesome. I really like hearing
that. What keeps on standing out to me is the silhouette of her fighting
Daredevil and she like holds her foot and then just like builds up tension and
lets it go. It just slams it down on Daredevil. This is so
cool. That was that moment. Just maybe cheer so much, and yeah,
because I've definitely had like, again, I'm not a martial artist by
any means, and that's not because of a prosthesis. You know, it's
just because I'm not in great I'm not in great shape, and I've never
studied martial arts. But yeah, that scene, it was just all of
it was just exactly what I wanted to say. So, yeah, so
happy about that. Yeah, it really was, It really was. We've
got about an hour already. We're gonna do a quick bonus section for our
members. And by the way, if you haven't thought it, become a
member. There's a great time to do so. It's only five dollars a
month, fifty five dollars a year. You get access to add free content,
you guys, is to bonus content. As I mentioned, we're gonna
be starting book clubs definitely for Star Wars universe, probably for superheroes as well,
once a month episodes that will be only for members, So definitely check
those things out. Please become a member. It's a great way to support
us. All the informations in the show notes. But before we wrap up,
will any of the last things you wanted to bring up or talk about,
or any of the last like plot points or characters or story beats we
haven't gotten into. There's comparisons with the comics, sure, Okay, I
guess I have two observations. One, I I don't feel like cutting brake
lines works as amazingly well as like every single Mob show does, because I
refuse to believe that from when someone gets in the car to when they get
hit. The first time they hit the brakes is when they're trying to stop
at a at a traffic light, like even when you first turn the car
on, your foot's on the break. So like I just and it's it's
not an Echo problem. It's literally just a generic storytelling problem that stands out
to me every time it happens. And that was like my least favorite part
of the show because it took me out of it. But I don't know,
I don't I've never cut brakes on a car. I've never had a
car. I've never driven a car with breaks the line cut, So I
don't know if that's accurate, but it just it feels weird anyway. That's
one thing. And then when I think of Echo, there's two designs design
aspects about Echo from the comics that stand out to me. One is she
has a white handprint that she uses like paint on her face. That's like
part of her like putting on her costume quote unquote, and that is an
homage to when her father died, he left a bloody handprint on her face,
and they did that in Hawkeye Slash the flashback of this show, where
he like had her his hand on her face and like left blood stains on
her. So I loved that. But then also her dad and then also
her costume going forward had this like circle triangle or triangles in a circle that
is part of it's on her costume in the comics. And then her dad
has a tattoo on his right shoulder, and then it was worked onto her
vest, and then also her her outfit that her grandma made has that same
design. And I have zero familiarity with the Native American ties to that,
but like when I think of Echo, I think of that circle triangle design
and I love that. Sorry my dog, and I love that they had
that in there, and it's it's like my favorite part about Echo as a
character. I need to take a quick I want to respond to that,
but I quickly first need to say I want to point out to everybody that
if you're looking for a great podcast about comics by people who really know their
comics. Remember that Will started by saying he doesn't really know that much about
like is not like the one he really knows that well, and that level
of detail that you would just pulled from memory like is just like, yeah,
sure you like listen to this man and his buddy Steve talk about comics
on the Hype is My Superpower podcast. It is phenomenal that goes so deep.
They really talk about the kind of ethical questions we love, but also
just the awesome fight scenes. They're very critical of things. They're not just
hype men for it podcast name notwithstanding. Definitely check out that podcast. But
yeah, I just like it is now. I guess just kind of a
point that all of these superhero shows have to hit. And I wouldn't mind
if every now and then we skipped it of here's the emotionally important story or
just the funny story of how they get their first costume. But I did
think that the whole story for this and like her grandmother making it, and
that's kind of reconnecting with her grandmother and the power there. I have seen
little things about it online, people talking about how yet it is very authentic
to the chalk Talk community and things like that and I can't, like you,
I can't speak to it, but it was but it just it was
just so beautifully done. I will also say, as someone who worked in
car repair for a while, this is my understanding is was told to be
by the way, who So I think we're also just yet like very clear,
but is like you can do things to damage the break so that they
will slowly wear down and not be a problem until you're going at high speed.
Sure, and I think cut the break line is kind of just like
movie, you know, TV waving your hand over a much larger complicated thing
that thirty seconds of break line technology wouldn't be what the show needed. But
also, yeah, I was a little throne by that. What was a
little more thrown by is But again in the kind of like it's a superhero
show where she's going to heal people with her hands. I'm not going to
worry too much about the exact physics of it. As far as I understand,
there hasn't been a windshield built in the last fifty years that would break
in such a way that a huge piece of glass would on its own fly,
you know, break, they shatter, they're designed. Yeah, and
here's the thing. Did I have a moment of okay, that doesn't really
fit. Sure? Did it pull me out of what was an incredibly emotional
scene, not the slightest, right, And did it bother me in any
real way? Not the slightest. Because the idea that she loses her leg
in a car accident, which makes total sense. And by the way,
the idea of like, one of the ways you can lose your leg is
if your leg doesn't have to be severed, if just anything happens to sever.
I think it's the femeral artery. But whatever is the artery in your
thigh and your limb basically loses blood, even just for a couple of hours,
it may often have to be amputated because just the loss of blood in
just those few hours can be incredibly damaging. So all of that makes total
sense. The fact that it's a big piece of glass, yeah cares.
I guess I would have crushed it. But yeah, I only bring this
up because as anything that as women led. There's a whole bunch of people
on the Internet who absolutely hate this. Many of them have probably never seen
it, some of them clearly watch enough to see that scene, or at
least to see some other picture of the scene, because those parts of the
internet are going crazy about the idea of Oh, this is so fake,
it's embarrassing, it's badly done, how could you possibly do this. I've
had two people come to me and be like, as an amputee, aren't
you so offended by how badly this was done? And I'm like, no,
absolutely not. The physics of it perfect, No, should anyone in
the right minds actually care? No, Like, I'm never gonna be the
person who well, that's probably too offensive. If you really care about granular
details like that, and that's how you enjoy something, I'm not saying you're
wrong, But if you then claim that everyone should should folks is on those
granular details and not enjoy something if the granular details aren't right, I think
that is it's just a really jerk position to take. And maybe, sure,
yeah, no, I guess the how it happened isn't as big of
a deal as how are they representing it post happening, Like the reason to
become amputated isn't as important as how you show an amputee post amputation. Right,
Well, and even then I think they did answer. If someone asked
me, how did she lose her leg? I would say someone was trying
to get to her father because of her father's criminal ties or whatever. Yeah,
she said again, if someone asks me how did she lose her leg,
I'm going to say her father was somehow connected to underworld stuff and someone
tried to get at his family, and there was a car crash, and
in the car crash, her mother died and my lost her leg. Yeah
that's yeah. Like the fact that it's a piece of glass instead maybe should
have been a piece of the dashboard or something like care yeahs on that.
I was just like, where did that glass come from? Oh? Well,
yeah, moved on. I will say that the two little quibbles that
I would have had, and one of them is just a storytelling thing,
and the other I'm speaking about my how I felt about how the deafinness was
portrayed. And so again, people who are more of that community, let
me know your thoughts on it. First of all, though, just when
she walks into the her room and her mother is standing there and it just
looks like a person who is standing right there, it felt a little weird
to me. And then I literally had a moment of like, wait,
is this some like you never see the dead body. We kind of saw
the dead body, but like, if this can survive being shot in the
head, maybe the mom can. Like I thought the mom was literally alive,
And yeah, I wish I wish there had been a little bit of
like forced ghosty like something to show that this was a spirit or this was
like I don't think it's in her head. I think it was a real
vision she was having, but something to show that this was like a vision
of her mother or her mother reaching out through I want to say through the
veil, but that's a very kind of Western phrase of it. I don't
know what would appropriate language, but like through the echo. Yeah, yeah,
yeah that works. Which I did love the way that they they gave
that her name that way. Yeah. The other thing that's for me a
bit was I thought there was some wonderful, wonderful moments where they cut out
all the sound to show that they're showing is from perspective but in a lot
in a lot of them. Then they had music. I just like the
music felt a little bit like they had to hold our hands a little bit
and tell us, like what we should be feeling in the scene, and
you know, I I did have one deaf deaf person who I'm friends with
through TikTok, and I asked them about this. Their comment was like,
well, I didn't hear the music, and I was like, okay,
sure, but sure, sure, you know, which is I think a
very valid position. But like it to me, I wish they hadn't had
that. But again, those are two just like small quibbles. And I
did think that for me as a hearing person, I thought it did a
fantastic job of giving me an understanding of what she would which how she would
be experiencing the world in those moments. Yeah, yeah, I agree,
Yeah, it's funny because I did like as a hearing person, I do
notice that, you know, oh this is from Maya's perspective, because all
of the finding sound effects effects and the and the grunts and everything are either
muted or gone. But yeah, that the music is still playing. I
guess that didn't even click for me. Huh huh, No, well done.
Different people notice different things, and there's so many visual things that I
noticed. But now other than that, I just how do you feel about
the MCU now having seen this? I guess I mean, I come out
of it feeling the same way I do about every other entry of just like
what's going to help me under? What's going to help me figure out how
I feel about it? Is how this gets referenced in the next thing,
or like whenever it shows up again, how is it going to get played
from? Or like what are what have they introduced? What have they done
that they're going to use down the line, like Fisk running from Mayor and
sorry, I know my mic is picking up my dog right now, so
I'm cricket. People love dogs. It's fine, please stop, thank you.
Okay, So I'm looking for when's fit's going to show up again.
It's probably gonna be Daredevil, but like, how is that going to play
the Mayor of New York? So he's going to you, you know,
he will have this perspective of the civilian compared to all of the superheroesananigans that
go on. So I'm excited for that. I uh as the Okay,
I don't have a problem with the MCU. I think I think they did
themselves a disservice in the big picture of saying that this is the multiverse saga
and these three phases are going to be all multiverse, multiverse multiverse, whereas
I feel like this is more of the expansion Saga, and we're we're doing
things like a Moon Night and She Hulk and and were Wolf by Night and
like these shows and movies like Shaun che where it's like this all this is
all also happening within the MCU. It's not just those core characters from the
Avengers. It's there's all these other things going on. And I am super
happy to get more entries into this expanded lore kind of a thing. I
just the setting the expectation of multiverse Saga really did a lot of the shows
that are worth watching or half things that are good takeaways a disservice because they
didn't feed into the multiverse aspect. Like nothing about Echo says multiverse, and
that's fine. But I'm looking forward to her appearing in Daredevil's story. And
if Daredevil appears, like he's already peared in a Spider Man movie, but
if Daredevil appears in an Avenger movie at some point, that's great. I
have no expectation and no need for Echo to ever appear on the big screen,
you know, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm happy for
it to be a smaller part of things. Yeah, I still love Superhero
fatigue. I'm I haven't seen Marvels. I haven't seen the Marvels yet.
I'm very excited for that movie. I think it's gonna be really good.
I just I've been very with COVID being bad again and stuff like that.
I don't want to go to a theater, but I'll probably you know,
pay for it as soon as I can on Amazon or something like that.
And yeah, I just this makes you feel lot better about the MCU.
I feel like the last couple of things that left me to probably disappointed,
this feels better. I'm gonna just do a quick run down of a couple
of last things I had, and then we'll close and do a member section
my Baby as a centerfold. It's just a classic classic eighty song that I
absolutely love that the lyrics, like most eighty songs, have not aged well,
but it's still a great song and I love that. Like, you
know, I think we often do think of like deaf people as being completely
like I think it can be just like there is it's like hitting mute on
your computer, but oftentimes there's still like you can be aware of vibrations or
you can hear as you said, sound is like it's like it's turned all
the way down but still there. So the fact that the song was playing
just made my eighties kid heart so happy, and the fact that she was
aware of it. I thought it was a really nice character beat. I
did comment early that I thought that we were seeing with Bonnie Checkov's firetruck,
because they made a point of showing that Bonnie is a firefighter and she's there
with her firetruck, and I was like, oh, so, clearly he's
gonna be a major fire and she's gonna show up Later. It turned out
it was not Chekhov's firetruck, so that's fine. But I will say that
the acting throughout this was top notch. One of my favorite moments may be
Bonnie translating as someone is saying that he's going to kill Maya and Bonnie herself,
because I'm trying to imagine what that would be like to be like trying
to act as the dispassionate like, you know, I'm not here as part
of the conversation. I'm just acting as the translator. But the words that
I'm translating are utterly terrifying and horrifying to me, and just enough like it
would be so hard to not get that right. It's so easy to not
get that right. And I thought, just her acting there was utterly phenomenal
love but you kid saim love the sci fi assisted tech, and just as
one little character beat. And this is the last thing I'll say. Oh
two of the things. I'll say, sorry I was thinking. And then
just two last things. One it was very blanket you miss it, but
at the pow Wow they had the American flag, and they also had the
pow Mia flag, which, like from again my very limited understanding, is
a very important I mean, it's important in a lot of communities, but
like there were an awful lot of Native Americans who went into the military and
were drafted or you know, wound up doing it because there's so little economic
opportunities and are part of that community of people who were never found from Vietnam
POWs are missing in actions. And I you know, from the few other
Native gatherings I have been to and from those who I've been friends with,
they've often talked about how important that flag is in some of those communities.
So that was brilliant. And then the last thing just is because there's no
commentary about it. But it was so perfect having Wilson Fisk be connected to
the Chalk Talk casino because and again I might be projecting a lot here onto
it, but I know that, particularly in some of the areas I've lived
in, like New York State and Wisconsin, but also in others, the
fact that a lot of these casino a lot of these tribes have opened casinos
where the promise is that it's going to bring real economic vitality to everyone in
the in the tribal community. I think that happened sometimes, but a lot
more often a few people wind up getting a lot of the economic benefit and
instead and then it's wanted to feeding gambling addictions among people who are already very
poor, disadvantaged, and and there's been a lot of commentary by Native American
activists about like are these casinos actually good for us? And is it mostly
like white investors who are benefiting And so again I'm projecting all kinds of things,
but to me, I read that as of course, part of how
Wilson Fisk would have first got connected to this community is that he's an event
during their casino, Like it just fit so perfectly to me. Yeah,
absolutely, all right, Well, thank you so much. Will. We're
going to have a quick member section. We're going to talk about some of
the other Netflix MCU stuff and how it might show up or not show up,
particular in terms of what's the future for FISK. But for those who
are not members yet, hope we will. Hope you become members. But
for those who aren't, Will, where can they find you? Ooh,
come and find me on my podcast Hype is My Superpower. Me and Steve
Storman just gushing about Marvel Comics. Primarily it's a lot of fun. I
hope you enjoy your visit. You can find me specifically as a Silver Dreamer
all over the place primarily twitch and silver with a Y, and I build
lego and building bricks and model kits and booknooks. Also on Sunday as we
read Marvel comics and we're in the middle of Original Sin, the twenty fourteen
crossover event. It's a lot of fun. That's awesome. Yeah, definitely
check out Will's podcast technically check out the stream. They're both awesome things.
The links to those in the show notes. Of course, I am the
ethical Panda. You go to the Ethical Panda dot com or just find me
on true Story FM. You'll find this podcast the superhero of the Star Wars
Heroes Podcast. A lot of great things happening on both. We have finally
finally wrapped up our Rebels coverage. We're going through the original movies with my
new hosts. Because this is me being dumb, because I woke up early
to do this. It is the Star Wars Generations podcast now because I've got
two great new hosts who are where. We have a millennial, a zoomer,
and myself a gen xer, and we're having a lot of fun talking
about Star Wars over there. Check all that out, and of course become
a member you get a lot more content, you get add free content,
but most importantly, it helps keep the lights on. It helps give you
all the things that are necessary to make this podcast content, and of course
give us feedback. I'd love to know what you think of Echo. I'd
love to know what you think of these characters, particularly if you are deaf,
or native, or disabled or an amputee or any of those things,
but also just whoever you are. We'd love to hear your thoughts. All
the informations on the show notes. You can join our discord, you can
tweet at me, you can Facebook me, all those different things, so
please check all that out. Please check around for our member section if you
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