Speaker 1: In a world where there is no new Twilight Zone
on television, we look to other media to fill our
needs in the fifth dimension, and tonight we go back
to the printed page with the id W comic The
Twilight Zone. And it's good to welcome back my old
friend and podcaster, comic book reader, and all around great guy,
my friend Zach Moore. Zach, welcome back.
Speaker 2: Thanks to that introduction. Tom. Happy to be back talking
Twilight Zone comic books with.
Speaker 1: You, Zach. It seems we might have bitten off a
little more than we can chew because I was under
the impression that this was a five issue run. I
don't know whether I imagined that or I dreamt it.
I had the number five in my head for some reason.
But actually I think this thing keeps running and running.
I know there's like at least five issues out now
and a six issues advertised. I think there's adverts out there,
maybe even up to number eight. So I think we
might have a bit of a job on our hands.
Speaker 2: It's like when you start a podcast about a show
that runs five years and you turn around and it's
fifteen years later and you're still doing this show now.
To your point, I believe. The last page of the
first issue listed off five issues to kind of, you know,
advertise and get you hyped up for what to expect,
and we all interpreted that as, oh, these are the
five issues of the Twilights of comic book. Maybe that
was the intention. Maybe it's doing really well on sales.
I'm not sure, but it's going beyond five. And you're
the captain of the ship here, sir. So if you
give me a call and say we're going to keep
doing these now and then I'll be here. If you
said you know what I'm done, that's fine too. But yes,
it's going beyond the original five issue commitment we thought.
Speaker 1: I mean, I like the idea of a Twilight Zone
comic having some legs and running for a while.
Speaker 2: That would be that would be a new thing, wouldn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, I think, as we spoke about in the
first episode, the way of things seems to be that
it comes out with a lot of bells and whistles
and then just sadly fizzles out after a while. So
I don't know whether this is doing well. I have
no idea. I don't tend to live in that world. Boy,
I hope it is. You know, it'd be nice to
have a nice long run of Twilight's own comics, And
irrespective of what we think of stories or whatever else
within the issues, I just think they look really nice,
you know, these nice black and white comics, interesting covers.
And while I'm a bit more of a collected edition
guy at the moment, I'm buying the single issues and
I kind of like having that collection there, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I like the covers with the little spaceman on there.
He's like it's one of the alternate covers, but he's
a consistent figure on the alternate cover. So that's the
one I'm collecting, and he's like a little invader looking spaceman,
a little taller, a little less chubby, but you know,
he's always on these with with the iconography of the show,
of the eyeballs, the doorways, the spirals, and so those
are the ones I'm collecting. And it's fun that there
is that, you know, through line throughout these alternate covers.
You know now that there's more than five, we'll see
if they keep that going. But yeah, I've been collecting
the individual issues as well.
Speaker 1: Well. We both enjoy having that collection there, but I
guess it's what's inside the count. So should we get
onto our issue for tonight.
Speaker 2: Yes, let's get on the boat.
Speaker 1: Okay, So this one is called False Bottom. The writer,
artist and letterer is Nate Powell, And yeah, it's one
of those things that we've said that we liked before
that these are given to a creator for the most part.
Some of them, you know, have a writer and artist
on them, but a lot of them have like a
single creator doing an issue, which we've both said that
we enjoy, and this one is no exception. So we
spoke especially in issue one, about how they kind of
need to get to the point quite quickly. They have
a limited amount of pages they've got to tell this story. Now,
this story starts out on a boat. It's got three
people on it and done wife, and the wife's kind of.
Speaker 2: Neer do well brother twin brother.
Speaker 1: Twin brother. Yeah, yeah, you're right, maybe a bit of
a loser in life. We'll get into that bit later on. On
this first page, the three of them are kind of
looking at this hole in the bottom of the boat,
and we have these three characters. I'll focus on the
brother and sister. I should have got their names, I know,
the brother is called Chet. I think it's Laura is
the sister.
Speaker 2: Yes, Chet, Laura and Laura's husband. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Laura says, they're looking at this hole in the
bottom of the boat. And she says in the listing online,
I thought they were just describing a glass spot and cutout,
but no, And then her husband says, is it for
fishing maybe? Or for diving? And then Chet then they
do well, brother says why bother? We can just do
those out on the deck, or it says, I think
it's cool, and chats. You're constantly making questionable decisions because
of some death bag podcast. Okay, here we are, this
is what we're doing. I think maybe a page or
two too kinds of ease into what this was about
might have been the way to go personally. What about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we have this whole interaction with the or
just reveal. It's a reveal of what the mystical object is.
We don't know it that, we don't know that it
does mystical things yet, but it's like there it is.
There's the whole the first page, hole in the boat. Uh.
The character motivations are being thrown back and forth through
dialogue immediately before we given into the introduction, the very
short Surling esque introduction. It's literally like a paragraph and
a half and there's not even a hint of the
ian I didn't unless I miss something here, I don't
see like a cigarette or a suit or any any
Rod Serling esque iconography around in which I enjoyed. In
two of the last three issues, they wove that in there.
So it just kind of throws you off, like like
you like like this is I'm gonna keep saying this right.
You look at these comic book continuations of TV shows,
you want them to feel like the TV show. It's
a continuation of so the format should be, you know,
a narration setting the scene, a little bit of just
day in the life slice, and then something what would
lead into the opening credits of the show. Then we
come back into the proper story. Yeah, it feels like
we're just kind of thrown into the story in the
middle of a conversation. Oh oh, by the way, we
should have put some narration in there. They put that
in there there, and then we're off to go. So
you feel just kind of off a little off balance
of what you expect from Twileta's one the story off
the top here.
Speaker 1: Like I said, you know, they got limits of time
and stuff like that, but it would have been kind
of like you and I getting on this call tonight
and me saying, hey, Zac, how's it going, and you've
been like, you know, it would be fine Tom if
you went drink and so much all the time. You know, Oh,
hold on, where did that come from? You?
Speaker 2: Yeah? He's into that. Yeah, well, we have no we
have no baseline. What we're getting at is we have
no baseline for these characters relationships. So when you automatically
throw them into chaos, you don't like, is this normal?
Is it not? I mean they're they're brother and sisters,
so they're they're bickering. So that's the common trope, you know,
and then we you know, I do like that there's
only three characters.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 2: Something we've mentioned before, especially in the second issue, is
like there's way too many astronauts. I don't know who's Like,
we have three characters here. We know exactly who they are,
what they look like, what there and through the dialogue
we know exactly what their motivations are and where they're
coming from with their personality traits are. So there is that,
but you know, just stretched out a little bit, stretched
out a little.
Speaker 1: Bit, Yeah, because I think the interactions on page two
and three, where the brother and sister are kind of
bickering back and forth, probably enough. You know, you didn't
need to, like, you shouldn't be listening to that bag podcaster.
You know, people say that to my listeners all the time.
You shouldn't be listening to that podcaster. But yeah, let's
let's get to the narration. It's a really short one,
and you know that's fine. Sometimes Rod didn't stick around
and and it's always a balance and act with this,
isn't it? How how rad are you going to go
on it? But this one really short? An awkward family
get together with an insufferable curmudgeon and the only two
friends he has left in his world. A trip to
celebrate second chances, complete with a detour into the twilight Zone.
Short and sweet, not much to it, but that's fine.
I can kind of forgive that, Like you say, no,
no iconography, they're going season one with this thing, but
they're going season five with the length. You know. Then
we get a few pages of these guys just just
basically hanging out, and you know this is why I don't.
I don't feel we needed to get to like Cheat's
problem on page one, because we really see it over
the next few pages where they're hanging out, they're drinking.
You see, the chat is really just I think what
they're getting to is he's tapped into this kind of
I suppose to where there's manosphere type of thing. I
don't know whether you saw that documentary with Louis Theroux
on Netflix.
Speaker 2: I have learned the term menisphere in recent days time,
so I know exactly what you're talking about. So we've
coined that phrase now, so now we know what to
assign the dude. Bro philosophy is the manisphere and that's
what I mean. Chad here is like I found my
people online, real guys alphas. I'm like, okay, all right,
we know we know what you're all about.
Speaker 1: Chet, here's the thing. And maybe it's a conversation to
be hard early, because I think the struggle the modern
Twilight own has, whether it's on television or whether it's
on the printed page, is saying something about something, and
a lot of the people consuming it find it to
be too explicit in what it's talking about. Now, I
don't necessarily always subscribe to that. To be honest, I
feel like it's the modern world. We have different things
that we want to talk about and comment on, and
I think it's okay to do that in a Twilight
Zone context, you know. But at the same time, I
think if people are going to be turned off by
this issue. I hate to bring this back up from
you know, the Jordan Peel Twilight Zone days, but the
words on the nose were spoken very often.
Speaker 2: Ye, you should smile more.
Speaker 1: And it's whether the messages are too on the nose
or explicit, it tends to turn a lot of people off.
So what do you think of this one, Zach? Is it?
You know, should they have been a bit more, be
a bit more vague about this or.
Speaker 2: Well I think they're using shorthand to kind of try
and tell you what this guy is. And it's like, okay,
like we could have we could have spent a little
more time, like like seeing how you react to the thing.
Just his his behavior speaks for itself. I don't think
we necessarily needed it. And by the way, he listens
to these good podcasts, you guys know what I'm talking about.
I'm like, yeah, okay, yeah, I know what you're talking about,
but also his behavior. He's entitled, he's kind of a
failure to launch out, he's living in his parents' basement.
His sister's dragging him along. Like all those character traits work,
we don't need just immediately assign you know what his
interests are and so you can infer any other things
about him. And that's the thing, right, I mean, the
Jordan Peel twilight Zone is our most current on screen
twilight Zone. And i'd say, you know, from my perspective,
an episode like not All Men has the same message
as an episode like Try Try, right, I think those
are the very go look it up, guys, if you're like,
what episodes are those? I think they actually are saying
the same thing. But the execution and in the way
it's articulated could not be further apart, and not like
one of those a lot more than the other. And
I'll leave it there because we don't need to re
engage in those debates now, Tom, But uh no, but
that's what there's There are ways to get these same
messages across, and I prefer one than the other. The
less on the nose approaches, the one I prefer because
these are these are parables. These are you know, modern fables, right,
examinations of the human condition all that I dialogue you
can say, but really this is what they are. They're
just morality plays, right, and that's that's what I get
from from these stories.
Speaker 1: We get to a point where they all gather around
this hole in the boat.
Speaker 2: You know, I did like by the way, when chetl
like puts his arm in there and he acts like
it's like eating them and stop stuff, right, and the
sister's like, what are you doing? Like we would all
play the either ourselves or friend we know would absolutely
do that in that situation. So I enjoy that a
little bit.
Speaker 1: So they all gather around this hold it's in the boat,
and things are reaching fever pitch. At this point, the
relationship between Laura and chet is really bad. Laura's like, okay,
forget this. She jumps into the hole, thinking that it's
it's simply just a hole that goes underneath the boat,
you know, like a glass bottomed boat without the glass in,
you know, or something like that. I don't know, and
heir and her husband go in and then Laura's husband
kind of pops his head up again. And says, Chet,
come on, you got to come in. You got to
see this. So Chet jumps in as well. However, what
Chet then experiences is different to what Laura and her
husband then experience. Now it's here where I'm not entirely
sure what this is supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna ask you, Tom, so I okay,
we're in the same boat, no fun intended? Uh yeah, yeah,
because he goes down there and he looks around and
he sees his ladder and he crawls up his ladder.
But then he's in like nightmare shadow realm, while Laura
and her husband are in you know, this odd, idyllic,
even better version of where they were. It's like the
same boat, but it's nicer and there's no bugs, and
the weather's perfect, and it's like this ideal version where
they were. Well, Chet's in this like he's on a
boat too. It's the same. It's like this dark mirror reflection,
but with all these like shadow dude bros. Tom.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Earlier on, somewhere in the dialogue, Chests and Laura
talk about being mirror images of each other. You know,
she's even even faced with Chet's despicable behavior, she wants
the best forum. She wants to help him out. She's actually,
you know, a good person where there, Chet just seems
to be pretty despicable. So, like you say, when Check
gets back on the boat, there's all these shadowy do bros.
And you know, they're cooking steak and they're coming out
with some of these you know phrases alphas.
Speaker 2: And mid the mid yeah, tick me.
Speaker 1: Laura and her husband are out on their deck having
a cocktail and there's a point in it where Laura's
husband starts to talk about how he dislikes Chet, you
know what a loser Chet is, and his dialogue bubbles
start to go dark. Yeah, and I'm not one hundred
percent short of the significance of that. I was wondering
whether you had any ideas on it.
Speaker 2: No, I'm just curious what it was trying to say,
because it's like, is he becoming one of those shadow people? Know,
because he's in this other reality, like the the two
sides of it are Laura and Chet, and he's this
extra guy. I mean, I think he's really there. I
don't know why he's starting to sound like the other
guy is like I like he like she eventually's like,
oh my god, we can't leave chet, I gotta go
find him. He's like, wait, we're in heaven here. She's like,
Heaven's overrated if he's not here, and she leaves, and
she leaves him there in this idyllic place. But the
place itself, it doesn't start disintegrating or anything, is just
his speech bubbles have the black bubble white text, which
is what all the shadow dubros have, And I too
could not really figure out what they were trying to
say with that.
Speaker 1: Tom Okay, So this is my best guess. I think
when Chess is in the dude bro world, yes we
have now coined it, he says a couple of things
where actually he he starts to talk about Laura and
you know, he wants to get back to them, and
they're like, why, you know, what do you want to
go and see them for? And they start to see
him as weak and they call him a beta meat
for the strong term. They start to call him a
beta and soft and so on. Now, I think, if
you want to comment on that world, I'm starting to
think of things like Rod Sailing talking about racism. He
had that character of imperial me in Carol. For another Christmas,
where his point of view is that right now, you're
in this group and you don't like that group, But
if you get rid of that group, then people within
your group are going to find someone else to pick on.
That's just the way this works. And at some point
it may be you, because the circle will just get
smaller and smaller, and when it's not color anymore, it's
going to be hair color, or it's going to be
because you were born, you know, at the other side
of town, or whatever it might be. That was a
recarring thing in Rod Sailing's work. So I think if
that's what it's saying about this dude bro world where
it's like, you know what, you only exist in this place,
you only have status in this place if you toe
the line. You know, the minute you say anything different
than you're the one that they will turn on. So
you know, you think this is freedom, but it's not
because basically you can't be free to have your own
thoughts and feelings. You've just got to go with this
this messed up tribe. So I think there's something to
be said there. You know, there's a discussion to be had.
If that's what it's saying, I mean, I don't know.
Do you think I might be onto something there or.
Speaker 2: I think you're on something. I don't know if it's
what this was on too. I agree you're saying I
think that him him showing up in this shadow dimension. Uh,
and then it being all dark and like obviously ominous
and vad is is not really the way you would
think a story like this would unfold. You think he'd
poply like, oh this is great, these are my people.
Oh I love it here, and then it's slowly kind
of then he realizes how like the dark underbelly of
what it really is, and and oh, we're gonna do
that now. Oh we're gonna do that now, like a
guy who's like on the edge of like, yeah he
has some radical ideas maybe, but he's like, oh, not
that extreme. But then he sees it like everybody's extreme here,
like oh my god, this is I'm trying to get
out of here. This isn't my place. But they don't
even there's no character journey, I guess is what we're
getting at. That's why we're confused.
Speaker 1: I think tom So in Laura as well, do you
know her husband with his dark speech bubbles is saying,
you know, forget about chat, stay here, enjoy this, and
she is like, no, you know what, that's not the
real world, that's not the way these things work. Yes,
he's difficult, but we just need to work at that.
Whereas I suppose her husband, like the Dude Bros, Is
just very binary. It's one thing or another. And maybe
that's maybe that's part of this conversation as well, because
she goes back to the hot well, actually she jumps
back into the water and swims up to the hole
at the center of the boat. I think maybe Chet
runs down to the center of the boat from the
dudebro boat. And then by the end of the issue,
they're kind of just looking at each other through what
is now a kind of almost a mirror between them.
They can see each other, they're both banging on the
other side of it, and you know, they can't get
to each other. And this is where the issue ends,
and comic book Rod says, pieces of a pair stuck
with each other from bath even as they're pulled in
different directions, both mirror and shadow imperfect compliments, holding each
other up, dragging themselves a bit further down into the
twilight zone. So what I'm thinking it tends to be
getting here is that we are dealing to a degree
with extremes. You know, Laura is very good.
Speaker 2: She's a social worker. They established that earlier, so she
has a heart for people who need help.
Speaker 1: She's always trying to see the goods in Chet, whereas
Chet is you know, not particularly good, a bit of
a waste of space, bit of a loser. He's latching
onto all these you know, messed up ideologies. Maybe what
it's saying to us is that it says imperfect compliments
holding each other up, the that actually, you know, there
needs to be some they need to meet in the middle,
Like the name of that Twilight So exisode.
Speaker 2: You like, yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 1: So I don't know that that's all I can get
from this. That maybe it's it's really about they both
realize that they shouldn't be at the extreme end of
this thing, and they actually do both need each other
and they need to find compromise. And that's probably the
best I've got.
Speaker 2: Well, Laura says that earlier, she says, and every day
we try again to help you out, but that means
you've got to meet us halfway, right, So that's what
we're talking about a little bit also though, like the
when the shadow dude ros start turning on him, this
is what they tell you, But it's like this shadow
version of his sister that tells him this, which is weird.
It's like someone who failed your own tests, the easiest prey,
consider themselves the predator. You accepted help up the ladder,
after all, why didn't you simply pull yourself up right
when he's coming out of the boat, Because he's made
such a big deal about all he doesn't need help,
like a sisters trying to get him a job, but
he got his own job. But of course someone offered
him help and he took it, so I don't. I
just feel like there's a lot of conflicting, vague ideas here.
I'm not sure what it's trying to say, and you know,
it did. I thought we were gonna like kind of
lock in and kick it into the last climax, and
then it just ended. It felt similar to the first
issue Tom I'm like, oh, okay, the guy's on the helicopter.
Now he's got the disease, and oh it's over. And
this was even more abruper, like the two characters, the
brother sister meet again on the hole in the boat,
but they can't get through the glass now or whatever
barry that is. And then it just ends. I'm like, oh,
did they die? Like I don't. It's this reality what
happens to the husband? Like I just it feels very unresolved? Yeah,
and like there wasn't. It's not like she realized that
the fantasy that her and her husband was like terrible.
It was more like, I can't leave my brother behind.
So I don't. Does a husband just stay in that
Willoughby world that he's in on the boat by himself forever? Now?
I don't. I don't understand. I read this twice, Tom,
I really did try to understand what it was trying
to tell us. There's some good ideas, here's some interesting imagery,
for sure, But I don't. I just couldn't connect the
dots of what it was trying to ultimately say.
Speaker 1: You know, you just mentioned that it's a shadow version
of his own sister who says these things to him
that make him run back to the hole in the
boat to try and get back. Yeah, so that was
that was what that was, right?
Speaker 2: I believe so because he's like Laura, like even in
questions it because it is the shadow looking person who
says that is the outline of his sister, or at
least looks kind of like that, But maybe it's not.
I don't know, because after that he's like Laura like
he says that, After that shadow person says that, so
that's what I took from him.
Speaker 1: Well, to be honest, though, that makes sense because if
that is indeed the case, it's almost like he has
been railing against what Laura is all about all the
way through this thing and saying, no, you know, my
way is the best I've found my alphas, et cetera,
et cetera. But then when he's confronted with a vasion
of Laura, who is even more alpha than he thinks
he is, who subscribed wholesale to this whole thing, it's
at that point that he goes, WHOA hold on, Actually, no,
I don't like that, and actually I do need my
sister as she is, And a world where we're all
this way probably isn't a very good world after all,
So it would probably make sense if that's the case.
Speaker 2: Well, there's on the opposite page of that, there is
a panel of Laura and the Heaven Willoughby World, So
I'm gonna start calling it and it's opposite of that
shadow version of her, like the framing and her face
and everything with her hair. So I really do think
that is what it's supposed to be. But against kind
of it's a little too vague, Like I don't, I
don't know, Like I just think it's a little too vague.
I feel like I'm I don't know, I'm a I'm
media literates. I feel like I can pick up on things,
but I feel like this is just a little too vague.
But yeah, something triggers them, like both to go seek
each other at the doorway again. But I don't know,
Like I like the concept of you you rent a
boat I mean it's it's a classic horror sci fi
short story concept. You rent a boat house. There's a
poor at the bottom of the boat house. It takes
it to different places based off who you are. Like
that's interesting, but there's no like back and forth. They
don't like go and come back or anything like they go,
they're in their spot. Then they try to meet in
the middle and they can't and that's the end. I
don't know, Like you know when we talk about these,
it's not like, well, here's what I would have done,
Here's what I would have thought. It shut a man like,
I don't want to do that whole game, but I just.
Speaker 1: I just want to understand what's happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's vague, it's incomplete, and you know,
as we as we wind down here, I gotta say,
I think this is my least favorite so far tom
of the of the stories.
Speaker 1: Even less than the one with the Broccoli Monster.
Speaker 2: Well, Rockney Monster. That one I think had such a
great Twilight Zone set up and ending. It was all
that when they got to the weird you know, well
to the rabbit monsters and all that stuff, I was like,
that's a little strange, and not that this is a
again like do these all have to be? Could this
have been an episode in nineteen fifty nine? No, probably not,
And that's not a prerequessit or anything. But I don't know.
I guess there's a certain sense of casualness in this.
There's not a lot of twilet zones, even in the
modern Twilight zones we talk about Jordan Peel again, the
most modern one. There was a sense of I don't
know of class and maturity to most of them. You
know veneer to it all. I you know that, but
this is like three young people on a boat like
I don't know, like on a summer voat like that
doesn't feel twilight Zone to me. Then you get into
your whole like what is twilight Zone and you go
down that rabbit hole. But I don't know, like across
the board, this just didn't really care neck like, visually, aesthetically,
thematically to anything the Twilight Zone usually does. Like I
don't know, So I felt myself just kind of lost
and like I wasn't like mad at it. I was
just kind of confused, so the least enjoyable because I
would just spend most of the time trying to figure
out what is? What was it even trying to tell me?
So that's ultimately where I land on it. Tom.
Speaker 1: Well, before we sum up, I'm going to read a
quick email from a gentleman named Dan from Australia listeners.
If you want to chime in on any of these,
please do send me an email Tom at the twilight
Zone podcast dot com and Dan says good day, Tom
idw does some terrific comics based on existing ips. For me, however,
this Twilight Zone series has been an unfortunate exception. The
first issue is great, but I've seen diminishing returns ever since.
Issue four continued that trend and was the least effective
and enjoyable so far. I think my concerns with issues
two and four can be up with two words, subtlety
and storytelling. Whether due to the technological limitations of the past,
the difference in cultural context between then and now, or
conscious decisions by the respective writers, it seems overall and
entertainment is far less subtle than it used to be.
That speaking as a generalization, with all the problems and
exceptions that come with a generalization. Of course, for me,
issues two to four come in far too heavy handed,
both with their concept and their storytelling. As you noted
in your review of Issue too Once, the spaceship lands
on the alien planet were quickly bombarded by one goofy
creature or situation after another. For me, the Relic in
issue three didn't feel very much like the Twilight Zone.
A big part of that was that the issue had
an epic scope with the war and the spectacle of
the battle and so forth, but it didn't give us
a more personalized look at a character we could identify with.
When the original Twilight Zone dealt with epic events like Wars,
it kept it intimate two by giving us compelling characters
and situations as the focus, such as in the Papal Testament.
This lack of subtlety continues its downward trend with issue four.
In their political discussion, the two main characters came across
as archetypes rather than people of substance we could really
identify with or find compelling. The shadow beings from the
other dimension were far too over played. They came across
as something not from the Twilight Zone, but rather some
middling monster of the weak fair. The situation faced by
the characters at the end of the story was similarly unsubtle.
The original Twilight Zone didn't use a metaphysical mechanism like that,
especially in such an overt fashion. Finally, there wasn't really
a twist at the end, just an odd circumstance, as
has been discussed on your podcast before, Tom, there doesn't
need to be a twist to make a Twilight Zone,
but it helps. Thank you for your podcast, Tom, I
enjoy it so much that have been listening to it
more or less constantly and have finally gotten up to
date with the most recent episode. Regards Dan from Australia, Well,
thank you, Dan, I appreciate that, and thank you for
being the first one to chime in on these. You know,
I think I probably like the series a little bit
more than Dan, but I think he makes some good points, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I totally agree. It sounds like the first one
was his favorite. We definitely like the third and more
than he did. I do see his point though as
far as like it is a different flavor than what
we see on the original show, is like epic battles
and that sort of thing. But the fact that it
did become kind of a two hander than that whole
you know, maybe it's the plan of the apes of
it all Tom that won us over on the ending,
But we found the absurdity of that whole ending just
somewhat you know, appropriate, And you know, we're talking about
you know, text and subtext and all that sort of thing.
Like I feel like the third issue like it's saying
something and he can kind of say whatever you wanted
to say, and that's and that's kind of the sweet
spot for these kinds of stories as opposed to like, oh,
I know exactly what. Well, that's the thing. I actually
I don't know what issue for saying I know exactly
what their They want you to represent. They want you
to know of the characters. And that's a great point
too about the characters there. They are archetypes because she
she's a social worker and she helps people, and he's
just just dude who lives in a basement. Listen to podcasts,
like you know, even like you know characters who are
like the villain or whatever. Right, you gotta have some
sort of something to grab onto that you either like
about them or you can relate to about them. Otherwise
they're just like yeah, I don't I don't care that
this guy got stuck in the shadow realm. I finally whatever,
he's kind of a loser anyway, right, you want to
feel the tragedy. I I feel bad for his sister
being stuck under the water. Is she gonna drown? I
don't know, but like, yeah, like they're just two I
guess archetypal, stereotypical versions of whatever these characters are supposed
to be. So they don't feel authithicy, you don't feel
real on that. That's a great point that you made there.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's rough, isn't it. How should you present
this stuff? How should you approach this stuff? It sounds
like we've been pretty down on this issue, but I
honestly didn't hate it. Yeah, I still generally enjoyed it.
I think I was just a little puzzled by it.
And we can think these things out and try and
figure them out, and that's fine. Sometimes that's part of
the thing. I also understand Twilight Zone being a bit
more explicit and arch in the way it is presented
in a comic book because it's a different medium. I
don't think subtlety always plays as well in a comic book.
I mean it can do. I've been a comic book
reader for years, so I've been exposed to a lot
of different comics. I'm not saying it can't be that,
but I understand being a bit more explicit in things
in a comic book format, and that's going to play
differently to pretty much everyone who picks it up, I suppose,
So I don't know. I don't know. I mean, if
I was to rank the issues so far, I would
go issue three in first place. Issue one in second place.
I would put this in fairst place, and then I
would put issue too at last place.
Speaker 2: What about you, Yeah, I am very similar. I would
go three, one, two four, This one would be last.
And I don't hate this. Am I gonna go burn
my coffee of it or anything like that? Look, I
like that the idea of there being like a portal
at the bottom of a boat that takes you to
like a different reality. I find that interesting. That's a unique,
fun concept, and I wish they would have done more
with it instead of just just leaving us confused as we.
Speaker 1: Were top Okay, so we will leave it there. I
think as this series progressors, we will probably return to
it every now and again. We're not going to go
day and date, I mean, at this point to recording
with three issues behind anyway, But that's okay, you know,
we will. We will just head back to it every
now and again. You know, sometimes me and new Zac
will maybe get Alan back on down the line and things.
But but yeah, it's it's still nice to have some
new Twilight Zone stuff to talk about, and I'm enjoying
the effort that people are putting in to find that
Twilight Zone voice that's as much part of me enjoying
it as anything. So yeah, I'm enjoying this quite a bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we still have our contractually obligated issue number five
we have to cover, Tom So, We're not we're not
quite done yet with our initial run here, right.
Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all, Okay, Zach So,
I hope you'll join me again for issue number five
next time. And why don't you let people know what
you're up to in the podcast and realm on where
they can find you.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm happy to be here on the Twilight Zone podcast,
so whenever you ask, Tom So, I will be back
for issue five, despite me not liking issue four. That's
the thing right about episodic episodic comics, episodic TV. You
never know what the next installment is going to bring.
And yes, you can find me and my podcast always
sold on to Smallville on social media at always Malva.
With the one s we talk about the Young Superman
show from the early two thousands and I have finished
covering every single episode and now we're just having fun.
We're doing rankings were eventually we're going to talk about
speaking of comic books, there's some comic books we're going
to talk about. There's some novels. So it is a
very different speed as we're encountering here covering a comic
book versus covering an episode of a TV show, totally
different approach, So looking for I'm looking forward to doing
that as well. And much like the Twilight Zone, Tom,
there are Smallville comics that came out when Smallvelle was
on the air, and there are smallvell comics that came
out after, so that I always you know, I know
we've talked about this with our fans. There's something about
talking about the time. Material that came out around the
time of the actual thing has such a unique, different
flavor than the whole all Right, it's twenty years later,
we're looking back at this amazing thing. You know, it's
totally different energy and so I'm glad that those flavors exist.
So anyway, all that to say, look me up at
Always Malville with one s out there on the internet.
Speaker 1: Now, Zach, you've been part of this podcast for longer
than I can remember now. To be honest, I can't
remember the first thing we did. You know, there's been
a law, whether it's here or in the After hours
club There's been a lot of times that you've jumped
on board, and I've often referred to you as the
fifth Beetle of the twilight Zone podcast. And you have
attended sailing Fest with me a couple of times in
the past. Yes, and I'm attending sailing Fest this August.
You plan on joining me.
Speaker 2: I plan on joining you, Tom, when you were at Sirlingfest.
I am at Stirlingfest. That's how I approach it. So
we've had a couple of great times there, meaning meeting
and then meeting again and hang out with our new
friends we made over the starling Fest years and over
the airwaves here. So as you said, I've said many
times over the course of talking about stirling Fest, the
event itself is great, but the icing on the cake,
the cherry on top of all that, is getting just
to hang out all together. I found my people Alphas,
you know. Listen to that podcast by basement.
Speaker 1: There you go.
Speaker 2: So no, I definitely looking forward to coming back to
sterling Fest for a third time and hanging out with
you and everybody.
Speaker 1: Tom excellent. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. So everyone
check out the last episodes when I talk about sailing Fest.
This year. The excitement is only going to build in
the next few months. And go to rodsailing dot com
to get your tickets and then you can come and
hang out with me and Zach and have a great time.
So Zach, thank you for joining.
Speaker 2: Me absolutely, Tom thanks for having me, and we will.
Speaker 1: Catch you next time here on the Twilight Term Podcast.
Bye for now.