Speaker 1: The history of the Twilight Zone in comics is almost
Speaker 1: as long as the history of the show itself. Every
Speaker 1: few years we get a new iteration of the Twilight
Speaker 1: Zone in comic book form, and this time around it's
Speaker 1: by id W So to go over this first issue
Speaker 1: and welcome back to the show, my friend and veteran
Speaker 1: comic book reader, mister Zach Moore. Zach, welcome back.
Speaker 2: Hello there, veteran comic book reader here reporting for duty.
Speaker 1: So Zach. Last time we spoke it was probably on Patreon,
Speaker 1: so I'm not sure everybody here to hear. But you
Speaker 1: were coming to the end of Smallville, and you got
Speaker 1: to the end of Smallville now on your show, will
Speaker 1: always hold on too Smallville. So how's retirement treating you?
Speaker 2: Oh, you know it's good, but like a like a
Speaker 2: like a good professional, it's hard to shake the game.
Speaker 2: You know, you can leave the game, but the game can't.
Speaker 2: The game won't leave you. So here I am again
Speaker 2: guesting on your show. I still have semi regular episodes
Speaker 2: I put out. You know Superman movies. You know there's
Speaker 2: comic books. Obviously there's comic books. So there's actually specific small,
Speaker 2: little comic books, and so I'm continuing the podcast, not
Speaker 2: in the regularity I was going through ten seasons, so
Speaker 2: it is it is nice to not have to have
Speaker 2: reached the end of the journey, as as I know
Speaker 2: you will one day, Tom, you'll be able to go
Speaker 2: back and watch the Twilight Zone, like for fun. I
Speaker 2: can now go back and watch Smallville for fun, because
Speaker 2: when people, you know, when you're doing it TV show podcast,
Speaker 2: the podcast about a TV show, you don't just throw
Speaker 2: on a random episode for fun, right, because it's like
Speaker 2: you gotta do your Oh, let me read this article
Speaker 2: or interview and let me oh, let me take these notes,
Speaker 2: and how am I gonna hold there's a screencap here
Speaker 2: of this problem. You're thinking that you're watching it a
Speaker 2: whole different way that you do as a fan, and
Speaker 2: we know what we got into, right. This is not
Speaker 2: a complaint, This is just a comment. So but now
Speaker 2: the work is done. Now I can just randomly watch
Speaker 2: an episode of novel and it's fun. So anyway, that's
Speaker 2: how it's going for me, Tom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the thing because I did season one of
Speaker 1: the Twilight Zone like fifteen years ago, so there's episodes
Speaker 1: of that show that I haven't seen in that long
Speaker 1: because I'm always on the next one, you know, so
Speaker 1: it will be nice to sit back and just enjoy
Speaker 1: the twilight Zone zone again. But I do enjoy doing
Speaker 1: this bo I also enjoy when something just comes out
Speaker 1: of the blue with the Twilight Zone on it, like
Speaker 1: this comic book. Now, we did an episode, Zach, where
Speaker 1: we went through like the whole dynamite run of the
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone, well most of it anyway, because there's the
Speaker 1: twelve book series by J. Michael Strazinski. Then there was
Speaker 1: a four book mini series, Twilight Zone The Shadow, and
Speaker 1: then there is the Shadow and Substance mini series that
Speaker 1: also had a few one shots and an annual, and
Speaker 1: they collected it together in that book. If you're thinking back, Zach,
Speaker 1: when do you think that came out?
Speaker 2: Wow? Oh that was a while back. Let me think
Speaker 2: it was before we went to serling Fest together though,
Speaker 2: because we hadn't met in person first, so I got
Speaker 2: to say twenty gosh, twenty seventeen, tom.
Speaker 1: So I think they had the license around twenty fourteen. Okay,
Speaker 1: so when I looked at that today because I was,
Speaker 1: you know, brushing up on my Twilight Zone comics store,
Speaker 1: of course, twenty fourteen. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't
Speaker 1: believe that that much time had passed because I remember
Speaker 1: doing that episode with you quite vividly. You know, we
Speaker 1: kind of we went through each of the issues and
Speaker 1: it was that Collected Shadow and Substance book that we
Speaker 1: went through, and I still remember the one about the
Speaker 1: Renaissance Fair was like, I remember, why are they punishing
Speaker 1: this guy so much for like.
Speaker 2: In I know we didn't. I know, we didn't do
Speaker 2: it in twenty fourteen, though, no, we must have done
Speaker 2: it years after that, But no, it wasn't. It was okay,
Speaker 2: between twenty fourteen and twenty eighteen we did that podcast.
Speaker 2: That was a lot of fun because I think that
Speaker 2: was either one of my first appearances on the on
Speaker 2: the main show here, and we had a good time.
Speaker 2: And it's a lot of comic books you read, and
Speaker 2: a lot of them it was hit or miss tom
Speaker 2: as I recall, it was our verdict at the.
Speaker 1: End, definitely hit all miss. And I think it's such
Speaker 1: a strange history with the Twilight zoning comics, isn't it.
Speaker 1: You know, there was those initial gold key ones and
Speaker 1: then every few years the company gets it and they're
Speaker 1: like we're doing the Twilight Zone again, and you know,
Speaker 1: there's bells and whistles, then it kind of comes out
Speaker 1: and then it fizzles away a little bit. It's always
Speaker 1: seems to be like that, doesn't it.
Speaker 2: I mean, not that dissimilar from the reboots of the
Speaker 2: show itself, right, I mean there's been three reboots of
Speaker 2: the show, plus the movie and the TV movie, and
Speaker 2: so there's always like somebody has a new, fresh take
Speaker 2: on it, quote unquote, and it comes out and then
Speaker 2: before you know it, it's gone. And we'll see what
Speaker 2: happens with this series we're talking about here, Tom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's hope for better things, you know, because it's
Speaker 1: IDW who have it? This time? It was Dynamite. Last
Speaker 1: time round, they brought us that twelve book series by
Speaker 1: Jane Michael Strazinski, which I think is probably the best
Speaker 1: Twilight Zone we've had in comics. It was a bit
Speaker 1: of a different thing. But I know you like that too,
Speaker 1: right I did?
Speaker 2: I did. I really like Jmichael Strazinski's work. You know,
Speaker 2: Batlon five is a great television show, and obviously he
Speaker 2: worked on the eighty show of the Twilight Zone reboots.
Speaker 2: So natural Guy too. I mean, he's a comic book
Speaker 2: writer as well, so perfect fit. Great stuff. I've read
Speaker 2: all the things afterward that you've talked about. I have
Speaker 2: never read the Old Gold Key comics. If they ever
Speaker 2: came out with like a collection, I would get it
Speaker 2: out of curiosity and then and then I don't know
Speaker 2: when I would read it. I would probably read it
Speaker 2: when you did an episode about it, but I would
Speaker 2: I would like to own it and just have it.
Speaker 2: But that's where i'd go on. I'm kind of surprised
Speaker 2: they haven't at this point.
Speaker 1: Well, a friend of the show, ed is he has
Speaker 1: one hand in comic book publishing, and he was trying
Speaker 1: to get that together. But I think the rights issues
Speaker 1: have proven to me more difficult than he anticipated. It
Speaker 1: was a few years ago now that I spoke to
Speaker 1: him about it, and we haven't seen it since. But
Speaker 1: the thing with those is they are a bit more
Speaker 1: of a historical curio than actually anything really good. A
Speaker 1: lot of them are really very simplistic stuff, you know,
Speaker 1: very simplistic stuff. But we are who we are. We
Speaker 1: like collecting this stuff. I'm sure if that was if
Speaker 1: those were collected, I would buy them in a heartbeat.
Speaker 2: You know Rod Sterling is in those right, his likeness right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So that kind of separates it from most of these
Speaker 2: other things, which is the least notable in them of itself.
Speaker 1: So, like I said, it's IDW who has this one,
Speaker 1: and it's under their id dark in print. I don't
Speaker 1: know whether that's a new thing or something, but they
Speaker 1: have brought out I think it's maybe a five issue
Speaker 1: mini series, so maybe they're just hedging their bets as well,
Speaker 1: kind of see.
Speaker 2: According to the very back of the inside back cover
Speaker 2: this fall, IDW invites you to enter the Twilight Zone
Speaker 2: and it's the classic doorway and it's open and it
Speaker 2: has issue one, two, three, four five series debut September
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. So they at least have five plants.
Speaker 2: And now if it's not successful for whatever reason, they
Speaker 2: can say that we did our five as promise, and
Speaker 2: if it is successful, they can make more. So I
Speaker 2: think that's probably a good place to be, and they
Speaker 2: want to test the market, they want to test the interest.
Speaker 2: So here's to five and potentially five more. So.
Speaker 1: This fast issue that we've both got is called Blanks.
Speaker 1: It's written by Dan Waters and Morgan Beam I think
Speaker 1: Dan Waters is a fellow Britt, So hello, Dan, if
Speaker 1: you're listening. I did reach out to IDW through their
Speaker 1: publicity department and I got a big, old silent response
Speaker 1: from them. So so, you know, it would have been
Speaker 1: nice to have some of these people on the show,
Speaker 1: but hey, that's the way it goes. But I know
Speaker 1: you're the same as me zach in that you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily at the twilight Zone needs to be in black
Speaker 1: and white Guy or the TV show or any movie
Speaker 1: versions that they do. I kind of feel it would
Speaker 1: be a big, gimmicky, you know, but I think it's
Speaker 1: a great choice for the comic book. I think the
Speaker 1: difference in medium it really lends something to this. So
Speaker 1: I think, you know, straight from the off, I think
Speaker 1: they made a really good choice doing it in black
Speaker 1: and white.
Speaker 2: Oh, I totally agree. I think different mediums call for
Speaker 2: different approaches, right, And you know, television being what it
Speaker 2: was in the fifties and sixties that that was a
Speaker 2: black and white TV show, and we're not in the
Speaker 2: fifties or sixties anymore, so it makes sense it'd be
Speaker 2: fun to have a one off episode or a one
Speaker 2: off segment of a movie I think, but don't make
Speaker 2: the whole thing that. It's the style of it, right,
Speaker 2: and when you and then how do you communicate? You
Speaker 2: don't have music, you don't have actors, you don't have
Speaker 2: Rod Serling. How are you going to capture the essence
Speaker 2: of the Twilight Zone? You know, in a comic book
Speaker 2: these days, Making a black and white one of the
Speaker 2: ingredients people associated with the original I think is a
Speaker 2: smart choice. And it's not totally random. There are lots
Speaker 2: of black and white comics that exist out there, so
Speaker 2: it's not just some weird random choice to try and
Speaker 2: recapture the original show, which you'll never be able to do.
Speaker 2: But capturing one of those elements is smart. And when
Speaker 2: I heard, or when we saw the covers and art,
Speaker 2: I guess we assumed it was going to be in
Speaker 2: black and white. And you know, I like that idea then,
Speaker 2: and I like it now. I think it was a
Speaker 2: smart choice.
Speaker 1: So I think we'll talk a little bit generally fast
Speaker 1: for anyone out there who hasn't picked it up yet.
Speaker 1: You know, we won't go spoiler heavy in the beginning,
Speaker 1: but then I'll give you a fair warning. And when
Speaker 1: they when we do get into spoiler territory. So we'll
Speaker 1: try and stay quite general here. So it's in black
Speaker 1: and white. It is the regular amounts of comic book pages,
Speaker 1: it seems, and in the back they have a preview
Speaker 1: of a Sleepy Hollow comic that they're doing as well. Yes,
Speaker 1: I would have liked maybe if those pages were given
Speaker 1: over to the Twilight Zone.
Speaker 2: No, you know, I noticed this the IDW they have
Speaker 2: a lot of ads in the back, because I've got
Speaker 2: other comic books of theirs before Godzilla, for example, they
Speaker 2: do Godzilla, so I'm kind of used to like, the
Speaker 2: last six or seven pages is going to be like
Speaker 2: a preview of this, and add for that an alternate
Speaker 2: cover of this. So but I would actually I would
Speaker 2: rather be all collected at the end than interrupt the story.
Speaker 2: So fair enough, fair enough. They got to pay the bills, Tom.
Speaker 1: They gotta get people turned on to their other products,
Speaker 1: so I get it. I get it. The other thing
Speaker 1: to notice about this is that the artwork it's by
Speaker 1: Morgan Beam. Now I'm a bit of a lapsed comic
Speaker 1: book reader, so I'm not up to date on who's
Speaker 1: who in the business these days. My comic book memories
Speaker 1: are like you know, ten, fifteen, twenty years old, and
Speaker 1: I still keep my hand in here and there with
Speaker 1: some collected editions. But I'm not a comic book heavy guy.
Speaker 1: So this artwork is quite stylized. What did you think
Speaker 1: of the artwork, Zach?
Speaker 2: I like it. It's some black and white. It's it
Speaker 2: is a definite style, right, this is this is a
Speaker 2: person that I assume that this artist style right how
Speaker 2: he draws people, and would not be my first like,
Speaker 2: oh that looks beautiful, sign me up for ten of these,
Speaker 2: but it works for what he's going for, Like, there's
Speaker 2: nothing wrong with it. It's just artist's objective top of course.
Speaker 2: So that's what did you think of this? Because it
Speaker 2: definitely is like all the people have a certain look
Speaker 2: to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, quite bony and long fingers and things like that,
Speaker 1: so it is kind of stylized. They'd probably be ideal
Speaker 1: for a horror comic. And I suppose this has got
Speaker 1: one foot in that world, you.
Speaker 2: Know, true, I guess this is what this is, so
Speaker 2: maybe it's not. It's not wrong. I just would like
Speaker 2: so like for example, like the covers, right, I got
Speaker 2: the alternate cover with the guy on the with like
Speaker 2: the spacesuit. Yeah, like that looks cool. I like that.
Speaker 2: I like that better than the cover you have with
Speaker 2: like the actual main character in a hospital bed. I'm like, Eh,
Speaker 2: So for example, that's just my that's my preference, that's
Speaker 2: my taste.
Speaker 1: I'll give this just general comment about it before we
Speaker 1: get into spoiler territory. So the story is about a
Speaker 1: guy called Edward Kine. Now he goes to this island
Speaker 1: where you know, he's been donating money. He's like a
Speaker 1: billionaire or something. He's been donating money towards the research
Speaker 1: of you know, these scientists on the island, and the
Speaker 1: thing that they are developing is a kind of serum
Speaker 1: that the way they present it is it kind of
Speaker 1: resets the body, if you like, In that the things
Speaker 1: that usually go wrong with us when we age, it's
Speaker 1: almost like the body forgets to do them or something
Speaker 1: along those lines. So if you take this thing, you
Speaker 1: won't age, and you know, they want to go broad
Speaker 1: with it, give it to the whole human race, save
Speaker 1: millions of lives. And that's the setup really, and obviously
Speaker 1: this is the twilight zone. Edward has stomach cancer. He
Speaker 1: takes the serum and then what happens after that is
Speaker 1: what we will get into shortly, both for anyone who
Speaker 1: wants to stop at this point, Zach, any kind of
Speaker 1: just general impressions, your general thoughts on it.
Speaker 2: I think it's a great setup. It definitely felt like
Speaker 2: a Twilight Zone episode premise, you know, a rich guy
Speaker 2: looking for immortality. The isolated location is good to even
Speaker 2: thinking about, like what they could accomplish at the show,
Speaker 2: because when you do tie in novels or tie in
Speaker 2: tie in anything right, tie in anything, any multimedia, you
Speaker 2: want it to be something they could have done on
Speaker 2: the show. At least that's how I feel. So it's
Speaker 2: like I could see, yeah, it's a remote location. It's
Speaker 2: not some like they're not in some crazy futuristic city.
Speaker 2: They're like they're like at a resort on an island.
Speaker 2: They could have filmed that in nineteen sixty five or whatever.
Speaker 2: So I think that's a good premise. It's a good setup.
Speaker 2: And the the of course, you're you're waiting the whole
Speaker 2: first half to see where this is gonna go, which
Speaker 2: we are going to get into in a minute.
Speaker 1: So let's put this spoiler warning out there at this point.
Speaker 1: All better off now and we're going to talk about
Speaker 1: the story. So I think after I read it the
Speaker 1: first time, I might not have adjusted to the format, because,
Speaker 1: like I say, my comic reading is collected editions now,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't go issue by issue usually maybe
Speaker 1: for something like Planet of the Apeside do it. So
Speaker 1: my first time reading this, it was like, Wow, that
Speaker 1: was brief. You know, it was so quick that I
Speaker 1: couldn't quite believe that it was over when it was over.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, it seems like it's going to go
Speaker 2: into the third act and that it is.
Speaker 1: Well, I've read it like two or three more times
Speaker 1: since to just really get a flavor for it, and
Speaker 1: I think I've adjusted. You know, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, you've only got so many pages. You can
Speaker 1: only do what you can do in it. And I
Speaker 1: think for what they do, it fills that spot those
Speaker 1: pages pretty well. Because Edward Kine is this millionaire guy.
Speaker 1: He takes to see her him and then when he
Speaker 1: wakes up, everyone else on the island has got a
Speaker 1: blank face. Now what he does is, well, let's not
Speaker 1: get ahead of ourselves a first. When he's talking to
Speaker 1: the doctor who's going to administer this stuff, he's like man,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm just going to miss people so much.
Speaker 1: The human race is an amazing thing. We're also different. Yes, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you know, so you actually think you know what This
Speaker 1: guy's okay. You know he likes humanity, he likes the
Speaker 1: diversity of humanity. He's not your typical Twilight Zone bad guy.
Speaker 2: That's a great point because I read it a couple
Speaker 2: times of myself, and the first time I read it,
Speaker 2: I was like, hmm, okay, But when I read it again,
Speaker 2: I pick up more on that stuff of like where
Speaker 2: the guys coming from. It's like, I want to meet
Speaker 2: people there are in the world. I want to meet
Speaker 2: them all. They're all so different, we all what did
Speaker 2: you have for breakfast? Something different than me? We're all
Speaker 2: so individual and that's so interesting, and so knowing what
Speaker 2: happens at the end like that adds a whole another
Speaker 2: layer to it, which made me joyed and appreciate it
Speaker 2: a lot more than I think maybe I did the
Speaker 2: first read.
Speaker 1: Definitely, I think there's definitely a bit of acclimatization to it.
Speaker 1: So he takes this, he gets given this serum, and
Speaker 1: when he wakes up, well, what did.
Speaker 2: You what did you think was going to happen, like,
Speaker 2: what did you Was he going to wake up like
Speaker 2: in the future? Were they gonna be robots or apes?
Speaker 2: Like what? I thought? Maybe he was going to be
Speaker 2: like the future or something, or I don't know, what
Speaker 2: did you do? You have any guests whatever was going
Speaker 2: to happen?
Speaker 1: I didn't because the thing is the story is called Blanks,
Speaker 1: and you see him on the hospital bed on the cover,
Speaker 1: so you know he's going to wake up and everyone's
Speaker 1: face is going to be blank, which is you know,
Speaker 1: what are you going to do? You can't really hide that,
Speaker 1: I suppose, But I was thinking to myself, well, hold
Speaker 1: on a minute, why would him take in something make
Speaker 1: everyone else's face go blank? That's just crazy unless it
Speaker 1: was some kind of internal madness that he had where
Speaker 1: he couldn't see people's faces anymore. So I've got to
Speaker 1: say I never had any idea what it might be.
Speaker 1: So you were thinking the future or something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like he'd wake up and it was a thousand
Speaker 2: years and all we put you in cry over freeze
Speaker 2: and here we go. But now we've evolved to this
Speaker 2: point now, or this monoculture or something like that. I
Speaker 2: thought maybe that might be what they do. I like
Speaker 2: what they do better than that. Just for the record,
Speaker 2: I'm not saying they should have done that. That's just
Speaker 2: me guessing. Like obviously, when a guy wakes up and
Speaker 2: everybody's gone, something has gone wrong and he's gonna find
Speaker 2: out what it is.
Speaker 1: And what it is, and like I say, spoilers. So
Speaker 1: basically he is patient zero. But when this sort of
Speaker 1: viral element of the drug has passed on to other
Speaker 1: people on the island, he is immune to it because
Speaker 1: he's patient zero. But what it does when it moves
Speaker 1: to other people, it's mutated, and it strips away everything
Speaker 1: that is individual about them, including their face. So all
Speaker 1: you're left with is this kind of wandering husk of
Speaker 1: a person, basically with no personality, no way of looking
Speaker 1: or speaking to you, just these blank faces. And when
Speaker 1: you said they could do this in the original show,
Speaker 1: it makes you think, how great would this be in
Speaker 1: the original show?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: I think they definitely could do it.
Speaker 2: I think you just put a little I mean a
Speaker 2: little bit of prosthetics under somebody's face to kind of
Speaker 2: smooth out the underneath, and then put like a some
Speaker 2: kind of sock cover on their head. I mean, like
Speaker 2: something smooth and a wig and a hat, and you
Speaker 2: could tell that would be unsettling. This would be one
Speaker 2: of the most unsettling, you know, instances of the Twilights,
Speaker 2: and it'd be not up there with the big people
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, but it'd be one of those
Speaker 2: images because you think, yeah, there's a lot of like
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone DNA in this, which is great. It's like,
Speaker 2: that's what you want. You want what you know, but
Speaker 2: you want a new twist on it. So it's like
Speaker 2: somebody looking for immortality the price living forever. There's always
Speaker 2: a you know, a catch to that. He wakes up
Speaker 2: and he says, where is everybody? All right? Look at that?
Speaker 2: Like somebody knows the show running around the hospital, right,
Speaker 2: So it's like either beholder. So there's a lot of
Speaker 2: those elements in there. So yeah, I like that. I
Speaker 2: think that was great and I think that would have
Speaker 2: been a really cool, fun visual gimmick they absolutely could
Speaker 2: have done back then.
Speaker 1: Just to go off on a slight tangent, there is
Speaker 1: a British TV show I think they made it in
Speaker 1: maybe the seventies or eighties called Sapphire and Steel, very strange,
Speaker 1: very off the wall, and if I remember, rightly, there
Speaker 1: was a being in one of those episodes who looked
Speaker 1: exactly like this, no features, and it was extremely creepy,
Speaker 1: very off the wall kind of show. I suppose it
Speaker 1: does share a bit of DNA with the Twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: so it's out there, you know, if people want to
Speaker 1: look that up. So basically Edward Kine, he manages to
Speaker 1: find the doctor who administered this to him, just before
Speaker 1: the doctor's humanity is completely gone, and he explains to him, look,
Speaker 1: you know you're immune bought. Everyone else is, and if
Speaker 1: you go off this island, you're just going to wipe
Speaker 1: out individuality from humanity.
Speaker 2: Oh that's why he's trying to destroy the helicopter. Brother,
Speaker 2: he's like as a lighter, he's going to like blow
Speaker 2: up the helicopter, set it on fire, and you don't
Speaker 2: know why he's doing it. Anthlete talks to him, but
Speaker 2: I don't think they mentioned it. The cure worked, by
Speaker 2: the way, he feels young, he doesn't have his stomach
Speaker 2: cancer anymore, he's running, he feels great. So again he
Speaker 2: got his wish fulfill But at what cost you.
Speaker 1: Right, Absolutely so, Edward Kine, this guy who at the
Speaker 1: beginning was like preaching about how great humanity was with
Speaker 1: all of its differences. He now has a choice. Does
Speaker 1: he stay on the island with these blank faced creatures
Speaker 1: or does he go out into the world where this
Speaker 1: will spread more and essentially will end up wiping out
Speaker 1: humanity into these faceless things. It's a real test for
Speaker 1: what he said earlier on in the book, because he
Speaker 1: makes the decision that he's going to go out into
Speaker 1: the world and he says, well, that might be a
Speaker 1: people who you're immune, you know, So all of that
Speaker 1: kind of good will he had built up at the beginning,
Speaker 1: it turns out that he's actually not that guy at all,
Speaker 1: and quite selfishly his immortality that he has now, I
Speaker 1: don't know, I mean, what do you make of the
Speaker 1: end of this act, because there's a there's a couple
Speaker 1: of things that where he he's going out there basically
Speaker 1: and he's like, I don't care, you know, I'm going
Speaker 1: to go out there and he knows what's going to happen,
Speaker 1: a very selfish thing now, or he could also end
Speaker 1: up just as a prisoner of the world he's created,
Speaker 1: where you know, he's the only one with any consciousness.
Speaker 1: So what what do you make of the end of it.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean that's ultimately what's gonna happen to him, right,
Speaker 2: I mean he's he's taking these short term selfish out
Speaker 2: to make a long term selfish out because he's gonna
Speaker 2: he's gonna he's gonna spread this and it's gonna go
Speaker 2: across the entire world. And yeah, his justification to himself
Speaker 2: like yeah, you know, there might be other people who
Speaker 2: are immune. You don't know. It's like that's how you
Speaker 2: know that you're making a BADGHO when you're saying stuff
Speaker 2: like that trying to justify it. He even tells the doctor.
Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, you understand, right, because I can't miss
Speaker 2: my son's birthday or if he says that in there somewhere,
Speaker 2: and uh, yeah, that's that's a very dark ending, right,
Speaker 2: and it's align with a lot of dark apocalyptic Twilight
Speaker 2: Zone episode endings and yeah, and like, like you, I
Speaker 2: was taking it back because it ends with him this
Speaker 2: helicopters taken off, and I'm like, oh, onto the third act.
Speaker 2: There's no third act. This is the end. But if
Speaker 2: you think about Twilight Zone episodes in their structure, like
Speaker 2: this is actually very true to that. You know, we
Speaker 2: think about like time enough at last, like this bomb
Speaker 2: goes off like two thirds the way through the episode
Speaker 2: or something, and then it's this last climax and it's
Speaker 2: the end, you know. And then's something like this as well,
Speaker 2: like he wakes up from this injection and he's running
Speaker 2: around and has this conversation and then it's the end.
Speaker 2: So yeah, rereading it, I definitely appreciate it more. And yeah,
Speaker 2: he's he is ultimately going to be a prisoner of
Speaker 2: his own choice. And he's not that's the thing, right,
Speaker 2: Like you said, he's not like a bad dude as
Speaker 2: far as like his intentions, right, but ultimately he makes
Speaker 2: it extremely self a choice that is going to wipe
Speaker 2: out humanity. So walk the walk, talk the talk. When
Speaker 2: it came down to it, he made the bat. Now,
Speaker 2: who would want to live on this island? No? What
Speaker 2: of course, But I don't know. Now, you're going to
Speaker 2: make the whole world like this island. So it's it's
Speaker 2: it's a it's a good, uh moral quandary at the end.
Speaker 2: And I mean, I don't know what I do in
Speaker 2: that situation. I mean I don't I mean, that would
Speaker 2: suck to stay there, but I wouldn't want to kill
Speaker 2: everybody else, so I'm glad we're not in that position.
Speaker 1: Tom Me too. So overall, I think the right of
Speaker 1: Dan Watters has a has a really good handle on
Speaker 1: what makes the Twilight Zone the Twilight Zone. And like
Speaker 1: I say, I did have to adjust slightly to the
Speaker 1: brevity of it, but that's comic books. You know, You've
Speaker 1: only got those pages to work with, so what are
Speaker 1: you going to do. But I think once you are acclimatized,
Speaker 1: he fills it really well. I think it will be
Speaker 1: even better at the end of this five issue run
Speaker 1: when you have a a collected edition where you're just
Speaker 1: going from story to story to story, and I think
Speaker 1: that is going to reframe this in a really nice way.
Speaker 1: But I think talking about this issue on its own,
Speaker 1: I was really quite happy with it, and I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed it. There's good instincts of what made the Twilight Zone,
Speaker 1: and I think straight away, apart from maybe that Strazinski
Speaker 1: run which is reshaping the Twilight Zone anyway, because that
Speaker 1: was like all different people encountering the Twilight Zone and
Speaker 1: the stories overlappen, so it's almost the thing in and
Speaker 1: of itself. But I would say straight away with issue one,
Speaker 1: I'm kind of feeling more positive about this than I
Speaker 1: did with any of those shadow and substance stories from Dynamite.
Speaker 2: You know, yeah, I can't think of one, especially that
Speaker 2: we were because there were so many we read and
Speaker 2: talked about in that episode. I have to go back
Speaker 2: and re listen to that episode now, but yeah, I couldn't.
Speaker 2: I can't remember when I'm like, you know what, this
Speaker 2: would be one from the original show, like maybe think
Speaker 2: there was arian even there. One was one of like
Speaker 2: astronauts or something, and I'm like, that feels like that
Speaker 2: feels like the show. I know what that is. Not
Speaker 2: that again they were hit or missed. Not that all
Speaker 2: of them are bad, but none of them had that
Speaker 2: that Twilight Zone secret sauce was just the one seems
Speaker 2: to have and I was I was a little harsh
Speaker 2: on the on the art. On the art anyway, nothing again, nothing,
Speaker 2: it's bad. I just like it was like once you
Speaker 2: talk about acclimating, like once I acclimated to, oh, this
Speaker 2: is how people look in this in this comic book,
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, got it. Question for you though, Uh
Speaker 2: the rod sterling of it? All right? Okay, there is
Speaker 2: this on like the second page here, there's this this
Speaker 2: guy behind an umbrella smoking a cigarette. And I didn't
Speaker 2: realize until, like I reread it, I'm like, oh, that's
Speaker 2: supposed to be Rod Sterling. I guess doing the narration,
Speaker 2: I was just like, this is a guy this resort,
Speaker 2: but no, this is a it's Sterling in the scene, Tom,
Speaker 2: it's what you love. Yeah, and you don't see his face.
Speaker 2: He's blocked by an umbrella.
Speaker 1: I just to be clear, that's probably the way to
Speaker 1: go with it. I think he is there. He's at
Speaker 1: the place. He's sitting in a deck chair on the
Speaker 1: beach or something, or on the you know, at the
Speaker 1: sides of the jetty where the helicopter's coming in if
Speaker 1: I remember rightly, and it's just his arm with a
Speaker 1: cigarette in it. I think the opening dialogue was pretty great,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty dead on sailing esque stuff. So I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, probably not having his face in it is
Speaker 1: really the way to go. And I think they did
Speaker 1: a good job with it.
Speaker 2: What about you, No, I think so too. I I
Speaker 2: it's funny. I've been I've been catching up to you
Speaker 2: and Chris's Outer Limits podcast on the Patreon. Sometimes I
Speaker 2: let those pile up and I listen to some a
Speaker 2: few of them in a row, and like it felt
Speaker 2: honestly in my head, I was like, this sounds more
Speaker 2: like The Outer Limits than Twilight Zone because it's like
Speaker 2: ever so it's the first cave man. I was like,
Speaker 2: that's like, because the Outer Limits intro is often like
Speaker 2: some history lesson or something. But that first, that first paragraph, Gobby,
Speaker 2: but but you're right after you kind of get through that.
Speaker 2: I was like, Oh, yeah, this feels like Rod Serling,
Speaker 2: especially at the end. And I'm glad they had an
Speaker 2: in narration too, because I've said this, I say this
Speaker 2: every opportunity I can in these podcasts, like I think
Speaker 2: it in narration is essential because you went through this
Speaker 2: crazy thing and you want Rod to come in and
Speaker 2: tell you here's what we learned. It's all gonna be okay,
Speaker 2: and you can just guide you out of there, because
Speaker 2: then it feels incomplete without that bookend of the opening narration.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad they kept that, And yeah, I'm looking
Speaker 2: forward to seeing where they go with it. A definite
Speaker 2: last thing I did want to mention is just it's
Speaker 2: gonna be interesting to see where these are all like,
Speaker 2: I don't know where in time these take place. Not
Speaker 2: that that matters, right, the Twilet Zone's always been all
Speaker 2: over the place, But because you're in this isolated island somewhere,
Speaker 2: this could be the sixties, it could be the twenty twenties,
Speaker 2: it could be two thousand, it can be any time period.
Speaker 2: And I like that timelessness of it, so I hope
Speaker 2: they keep that flavor for the rest of this mini series.
Speaker 1: I liked the last panel two where it's got the
Speaker 1: close and narration going over it, but the helicopter it's
Speaker 1: against the backdrop of you know, the television, the giant
Speaker 1: spiral clock, the eye, as if it's like this is
Speaker 1: just another story flying off into Twilight's own history now,
Speaker 1: And I think that worked pretty well. So you know,
Speaker 1: we've got new creative teams with each issue, which I
Speaker 1: don't know, could be a good thing.
Speaker 2: The next issh, I'll be like, oh man, I take
Speaker 2: it all back. I love the artwork of the first issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that's it. You know, it could it could
Speaker 1: go anyway. Really, It's a shame in a way because
Speaker 1: I like Dan Wasser's work on this. He's got a
Speaker 1: good handle on it. But it's anthology comic books, like
Speaker 1: anthology television. You just got to go with whatever comes next.
Speaker 1: So I'm looking.
Speaker 2: Forward to it absolutely same here.
Speaker 1: So you and I are going to try and do these.
Speaker 1: It's it's not going to be day and date with
Speaker 1: each new release, but we will you know, we'll get
Speaker 1: to them whenever that might be, whenever our two schedules
Speaker 1: are able to do so, but always good to catch
Speaker 1: up with yours.
Speaker 2: A yeah, no, thanks for having me on for this.
Speaker 2: It's fun to again, like you, like you mentioned off
Speaker 2: the top, when these new things pop up about the
Speaker 2: Twilight Zone, it's good to jump on them and talk
Speaker 2: about you know, who knows when the next you know
Speaker 2: TV show, where movie is gonna happen. There's always rumors,
Speaker 2: but you know what we do have. We have these
Speaker 2: new comic books and we're going to talk about them.
Speaker 2: So I always want to jump on microphone and talk
Speaker 2: with you about this stuff. Tom.
Speaker 1: Great, great, glad to have you back. So what will
Speaker 1: the next episode be? Well, there's a few things in
Speaker 1: the WS. It's probably going to be down to what
Speaker 1: gets done next, so we will see. It's always a
Speaker 1: surprise here on the twilight Zone podcast and we'll speak
Speaker 1: to you soon, and bye for now.