Two In The Think Tank - 30 - Marvel Universe with NICK MASON!

Episode Date: May 18, 2016

This week, Jess has been on the road for a long time and while Dave and Matt miss her heaps, the show must go on! Enter: our good buddy Nick Mason from The Weekly Planet podcast! Nick tells us all about Marvel comics, films, characters and the universe. Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] the show and get rewards like bonus episodes:www.patreon.com/DoGoOnPod  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everybody, Jess and Dave, just jumping in really quickly at the top here to make sure that you are across all the details for our upcoming Christmas show. That's right, we are doing a live show in Melbourne Saturday December the 2nd, 2023, our final podcast of the year, our Christmas special. It's downstairs at Morris House, which usually be called the European beer cafe. On Saturday December the 2nd, 2023 at 4.30pm, come along, come one, come all, and get tickets at dogoonpod.com. Are you working way too hard for way too little?

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the GI Bill. Now is the time. Mycomputercareer.edu See you! Hello and welcome to Do Go On! My name is Dave Warnicki and I am sitting here with a man that I like to call Matt Stewart, hello Matt. That's Matt, that's Matt, obviously, yeah great. And Matt, exciting news this week.

Yeah, what's up? Well, usually I would introduce a third person to the equation now called Jess Perkins. Yeah, just, yeah, you should do that for sure. Sure, can't wait till she gets here. Oh, of course, it's gonna be great. I don't know how to tell Matt, but Jess is not coming this week. What? She is away, so I've bought in one of my bestest buds to fill in. Can I wait till he gets here? Fill in this week. Could you please welcome our first ever guest to the show? It's Mr Nick Mason, hello Nick. Hello. Oh, thank you, I expect you.

Thank you very much. Matt, please clap a bit louder. Are you on a audible clap? Clap on Mike, please. Thank you. Otherwise, it's like one man clapping, which was me. Great to be here. So just to ease the transition for you guys,

I have decided to dress as Jess Perkins. Yes, you were wearing a very Jess Perkins style jumper. I'm wearing her signature yellow jumper. She'll get it back after the recording. That's well, you look really good in it, Nick. Thank you. I imagine all future guests will be having to wear Jess's hand-me-downs.

I hope so. You know, I mean, assuming that we'd ever need another guest. Well, Jess is on Rochon now. Well, that's our first available Rochon. We should just for context, Jess is, become a comedy superstar since starting this podcast I will say.

I will say that. Yeah. Since Matt and I invited her to be the third person on the show. And correlation does imply, I call it, right? She has, exactly. She has overshot both of us, the original members of the show, and become a comedy superstar touring as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival Roacho around Australia. So we've got in, you, it may so.

You are one of our friends in real life. Friends in real life. Also, you do. The highest compliment one can receive. You are. You listen to the show. I tell you that I really feel at the point. And you also do your own podcast.

Ah, it's called the weekly planet. Yeah. The weekly planet, which is a really good podcast. I'll stop it. Stop saying how good I am, guys. It's because it's my perfect kind of podcast because it's about a thing I really like but don't understand it all, you know,

which is the superheroes in the cinemas. Oh, super, that's a perfect, is that kind of what it is? That's a perfect explanation. It's about the superheroes in the cinemas, yeah. Yeah, so we're talking about a big blockbuster, we'll talk about a TV show, you know, just the stuff that makes up life.

And it's all the stuff and I like, and then they explain things, but I didn't get we're important in those things. It's the best. I'm just like, I'm pretty, I'm enjoyed Batman vs. Superman, and then I get to listen to the weekly planet and find out why I shouldn't have enjoyed it. I shouldn't have enjoyed it. You're a bad person. Why are you showing that? Why you should retract your own opinion yourself. Don't have an opinion. Don't have an opinion in her somebody on the internet

tells you what that opinion should be. That's always been my rule. That's a good rule. And I mucked up with that one because it turns out I was the only person in the world who enjoyed that movie. You're not alone. I know a lot of people who have enjoyed it.

Apart, there are things that I didn't enjoy. I was going to say the riddler, but it's not the riddler, it's the main bad guy who... Did you okay? Not the joke. Yeah, I also thought you confused the riddler. Superman bad guy. Lex Luthor. Lex Luthor.

Yeah. He was really annoying. Not the riddler. No. No. But I think he was annoying just because I think- Not the riddle, though. No. No. But I think he was annoying just because I think I just don't like that actor that much.

Not Jesse Osenberg. Yeah, not his fault. But I mean, he was just sort of Jesse Osenberg in it. Yeah, well, that version of the character's based on a real-life person, Max Landis, who's a screenwriter. And that's like, that's a piece of the reconpression.

Oh, right. So he's a really good actor. I just found that character quite annoying. I haven't seen the movie, but they've decided to base this super villain on one of their friends that also writes movies. Yes. What happened there? Is that an ultimate compliment? Already is that very offensive that one of the most famous bad guys of all time. They're like, nan, screw his backstory.

We're going to make it about you, you nasty bastard. You're definitely worse than a man who's been paidedly tried to destroy the world. It's, it's, there's something just nice about him, but you, you don't have any redeeming qualities. Not at all. Oh, God, remember that script you wrote, Jesus. This is, boy.

Right. Well, that's weird. Well, see, see, they're the kind of things you don't, you don't know if he's watching it. Well, no, no. So that's why you are here, Maser. You are a triple threat. Let's just recap.

You are one of our friends. Threat number one. IRL. Threat number two in real life. That's right. Threat number two, you know the show that we're about to be on. This one, which you are already on. That's a threat.

And that's a threat, apparently. Number three, you are an expert in a field that Matt and I have been interested in, but have been too scared to dabble in on this show. Yes, we've had it in the hat a bit. And we've repeatedly had people request any sort of superhero based topics. Have you explained what this show is yet? I have explained what Miso's show is.

And to explain everything back together, threat number four coming from my mouth. Oh boy. This show... This show... explain everything back together, threat number four, coming from my mount. Oh boy. This show is going to bash us. Actually, I imagine we might have some people that have never heard the show maybe that have come across from your orpokka.

So what happens is on this show, usually Matt Jesseright, taking an intense research of topic, then report back to the class on the topic. And we hope that maybe we can invite you to actually report to Matt and I. So usually for the show to start the report, the person given the report has a question that they post the others. And I imagine this what you're going to have some sort of superhero-based question to get us on to whatever topic you've chosen in that realm. Yeah, okay. Look, well, my question was gonna be, and is, what company 20 years ago had to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy?

There were a company that were selling their own filing cabinets just to pay their rent. Oh, Anset, Anset Australia? You're very close, you nearly there. There's a more superhero-based. I imagine you're superhero now. They have a, they behind a film franchise that has, at this point, I think a revenue of $18 billion. So

Billion with it around billion with the billion with the day. Yeah, I think you had how many filing cabinets you could buy with a billion dollars 18 billion 18 at least really billion dollar. Yeah, that's right. It's a solid gold So I imagine there aren't very many options here. You've got DC Maybe you've got Marvel Sony the, what the Spider-Man. I can't understand. Yeah, that makes it, so there's, cause there's, oh, this is confusing. Hopefully you'll be able to explain this, Mace over there.

Sony, which is, is that fantastic for? No. That's, that's Fox. Okay, that's Fox. So Fox is fantastic for Sony. Fox, Sony, Spider-Man, yeah. Marvel Cinematic. Then there's DC Warner Brothers.

The answer guys is Marvel. Marvel, it's Marvel. It's not true. They were selling Farley Cabinans. Yeah, so there's a comic book writer called Brian Michael Benders. And I think he's done the most, he's written the most issues of Spider-Man.

He's written like 300 issues of Spider-Man. And he started in 1996 and when he came to the, the Marvel bullpen sort of their office sort of areas sort of known as this, it's kind of this wild party situation, every his friends and everybody's having a great time and he went in expecting that and he went in and there was just like all the like it was all dark except for like one strip of like benches and desks with a few people working there is in 1996 and like a big pile of filing cabinets in the corner and like near the door and he's like what's what's going on there and they're like oh

we have to sell those. We're trying to wear any fixture we don't need is going out the door so we can pay the rent this month. So yeah because Marvel is one of those giants where like it seems like it's been a success story forever Yeah, right when you there's you know if you've seen a Transformers movie It seems like those movies have been going forever and it's this billion dollar jug and all kind of thing But like in the 90s like that was that was on its last legs like they were producing little action figure Transformers that didn't transform Like just as this last ditch attempt to kind of try to catch in on it trying to catch it catch in on you know what I'm not transforming transformers yeah what so you'd have to buy a

separate transformed toy and then if you were playing with it you have to throw one behind your back with that go yeah look now it's a police car you need to employ a little bit of misdirection and then yeah yeah well that was pretty quick wasn't it? Yeah, right. Now it's a tank. But yeah, so Marvel is one of those, it's an institution now. But yeah, it's had a rocky road. Well, and so that was when this guy, Ryan Michael Bendis,

was starting out. He stayed for a long time. He did, yeah. He's plotting a lot of the universe right now. It's his universe in a way. Yeah, he owns the filing cabinets. Yeah, he has as many filing cabinets as he wants. Did I lose anything important? Like classic original copies of the things and stuff?

Outwork and whatnot. I imagine they just took them out of the filing cabinets. Oh, right. So shit, all those first editions were inside the filing cabinet of self-18 dollars. I mean, that's kind of, you know, oftentimes you'll hear about somebody just, you know, unearthing a filing cabinet at an auction or something, you know, but just a used goods auction and it's got first edition copies of something in it and it's not unheard of.

Right. So, what you're telling us is we should be buying filing cabinets? Yes, exactly. Invest in filing cabinets is my... Let's do it. Oh, we're doing it tomorrow. Anyway, so Marvel Comics. Great. So Marvel, it's a great topic. Yeah, so if we want to start talking about Marvel Comics, we should probably start talking about just comics in general. So comics is sort of the red-headed stepchild of just the art world. Like they've never had it. What is that a positive thing? Yeah, Matt says with his big red beard. Ah, look. Look, they've never had it. What is that a positive thing? Yeah Matt says with his big red beard.

Ah look. Look they've never had the love they've deserved. Oh okay, you know what I mean? Look they've never had the respect they deserve. And I think initially it's because comic books started, you know, newspapers had comic strips and comic books started essentially as collections of comic strips that had been sent into newspapers

that weren't good enough to be in the newspaper. And if you've ever read a comic strip in a newspaper. They're not that great. Look, from time to time, there's a good one. But Rose Man. So they're one of a robot man. The ones that couldn't make it in compiled. Compiled, yeah.

And just sort of bound up and put out there for five cents or something like that. Often, yeah, that feels like they're just incomplete thoughts, those things. Often, they are. Often, especially if it's a sequential one, because it's like one panel of like, what happened yesterday? Yeah, what happened last week? For minutes. One panel of action, and then look what's coming around the corner for next time.

Yeah, it's just like one panel a day. Yeah, right? Sweetcom. Eventually, some quality stuff started getting put into the mix. There was a character called the yellow kid in sort of the late 19th century. And he was sort of like a, he was like a street urchin. Man has real back. Is it vaguely racist?

It's not racist. No, he's called the yellow kid because he wears like a, he wore like a really oversized yellow knight. Oh yeah. Is that us, us, is that, us being racist for, I guess it is. It was that era so it could have been but just I heard yellow and I had late 19th century and I thought I'll do it yes but he

was sort of this street urchin and he had adventures please to define look I'm you're gonna have to stop a few times about the show and find these nerdy comic book terms what the hell's a street urchin you know a little a little a little pitty's a he's a youth and he lives lives on the street. He just hangs out with his, with his strange little little friends. That's also imagine some sort of sea and enemy. Oh sure, right. Not just a little, little street-talf kind of character. Sorry about that. And, and he, like his, his, um, this strip was, it was in William Randolph Hearst's newspaper. It was in, uh, Joseph Puleitz's newspaper. And kind of, like, it was, like, super, super popular. And it was so popular that it sort of gave rise to the term yellow journalism Like that's where that term comes from because

People would be like oh what newspapers do you read? They're like all the yellow the yellow newspapers because they were the newspapers that had the yellow kid in them And so that eventually be and because you know Pulitzer and Hurst were known for like these sensationalist You know stories that not necessarily to do with the truth They're like going to yellow journalism kind of thing. And that's where that term comes from. But anyway, so eventually all these strips were collated into this first sort of proto-comic book of the yellow kid. And they kind of sort of kicked it off a little bit. So that was a big seller. That was a big seller. And it was like, I'll finally, there's

a little bit of quality to this. I'm surprised I got so far back. Right, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, comics sort of comics, there's a little bit of quality to this. I'm surprised I got so far back. Right, exactly, yeah. Yeah, so anyway, comics, sort of, comics, but comics has a medium of like, original content. I'm not just colliding in strips, so that happened sort of 1933-ish, so we're gonna skip, we're gonna skip a few decades. Basically, in about, I wanna say about 1935, we had a company called National Allied Publications. Some of this might be a little drive. We'll see how we go um and

They they produced their first comic book of all original material. It was called new fun the comics and it had like You know, it was an anthology so it was like, you know It was it was some pro story. There was some you know funny animal comics and there was some like swashbuckler, daring dude kind of musketeer kind of characters. There was like an occult detective called Dr. Occult, who was created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Schuster, who later, like a couple of years later, went on to create action comics number one, the character of Superman. Maybe you've heard of him? Yes, I definitely have.

Yeah, yeah. Second only to the yellow kid in my house. I know, right? I noticed those two posters on the way. That's right. One is a lot bigger than the other. Yellow kid. So that seems like a real mishmash though. It's just like the variety show of comics. Yeah, it was kind of like throwing stuff at a wall saying what's stuck. But Superman, you like this? You like this? Yes. Superman was the first thing to really change this universe because like prior to this you'd had like almost every comic like we're talking to you know swashbuckers and musketeers and stuff like that but it was almost always like a regular human character maybe he's a

detective he's got some you know blazing 45 automatics kind of thing he's just kind of you know it's more or less a regular guy but Superman he was this character looked like a circus strong man he could leap tall buildings in a single bound. So I did want to ask this Superman, obviously Big Deal, and I say to most people, Super Man probably comes to mind first. What's he say, he was an instant success? Oh, absolutely, yeah. This was a phenomenon, this is something people have never seen. And so he was the first ever superhero? Yes, he was the first of that mold. You'd have characters like the shadow,

you know, who are now we'd call them or mystery men. Yeah. Yeah, there's technically like a character who sort of bridges the gap. He's called the Crimson Avenger and he was like, he was sort of somewhere in the middle. He had like a red suit and a red trench coat

and he kind of sort of caked a life. He was kind of somewhere in the middle but most people like the golden age of comics kicked off with with superman. Now when you see those images of man evolving from monkey to man like it starts with this crimson dude. Yeah like kid I think. Yeah like kid growing up a little bit turning into what was the shadow man? The the shadow the shadow man I like to call him I'm absolutely We've got nicknames for all the superheroes you'll probably hear a few those show when I miss remember people's names

Then it's the Crimson. That's the Superman. Yeah, so I can't go for when you go from there Yeah, well where you go from there is you go to a guy called Martin Goodman He was the son of some Lithuanian immigrants. Oh, no, that is a recipe for a superhero. I know right So he was the eldest of 13 children. And you're from a big family, Matt. I am, yeah. Well, my dad is, yeah, a family of 13. Oh, and do you think?

And the Lithuanian is your nation. Oh, my God. Well, it says eldest of 13 recorded children. So who knows? Yeah, all my uncles and aunties have been recorded. Oh, that's definitely. Yes, I think it's me. You're Spider-Man. Oh, yeah. Is this true? We're about to talk about Spider-Man? No, that comes right down. Oh, sorry. Sorry, I'm sorry to get you hurt something. Yeah, so you're Lithuanian man. So he grew up in the great

depression. He grew up. He lived in a lot of hobo camps. We find it funny that they call it the Great Depression. Right. Doesn't sound like a fun time for all accounts I've read. Mm. Uh-huh. Please do go on. Oh, sorry. But he just sort of drifted across the United States. But in 1920, he was hired by a company called Eastern Distributing Corporation to work in like a magazine

publishing company. And he sort of learned some of that skill, I guess. And then he didn't help him like, because like three years later that company went bankrupt and he was sort of out on the street again. But he sort of learned that skill and he sort of picked up a lot of that skill and he kind of became sort of an aspiring businessman

and he got into publishing kind of thing. And he saw the success of Superman. He's like, okay, I've got a jump on this. I've got a jump on this superhero phenomenon. And he founded a company called Timely Publications. And basically, what would happen in a lot of cases with like comic book companies is they didn't, they didn't have an in-house team.

What they had is they had a comic, they hired a comic book packageer, which was basically like an off-site team of people who just wrote and drew stuff at home and You would just call them up and you'd be like I need I need some superheroes. I need some Some characters. I need some funnies. I need some one panel joke stuff like that Just put some together for me and just just throw an idea Telephone man that'll do. Yeah, exactly. Put it together.

Yeah, and so he put together a test comic called Marvel Comics number one. And this is in 1939. And so where did you get the word Marvel from? Is this something like he just thought that sounds like a great idea? Marvel comics that'll do? Marvel, Marvelous.

Right, it's all about fantastical. Is that what it, because that's kind of, Marvel's not a really big, big word apart from, like if you hear Marvel now, it just means you can marvel at something. No, totally, you totally can, but no one really uses it, like that anymore, but I think it's now just owned by comics. So wonder if it was just more common back then. It might have been, it is definitely very snappy. I think it's just something you pulled out of the air. It was DC around at this then. It might have been, it is definitely very snappy. I think it's just something you pulled out of the air. Is, was DC around at this stage?

Yes, the national, uh, So deep Superman was DC from the start? Yes, they were called national allied and the couple of, what happened is a couple of years later, they produced a comic called Detective Comics, which and Detective Comics number 27 was the first appearance of Batman and that kicked right off.

People are, people are hugely in favor of that Yeah, and then there was some sort of ownership shake up and like one guy left and one guy was replaced and all that sort of thing So they put the company back together and like well, let's call it detective comics. All right. They reformed the band without the drama for the thing. Yeah That's exactly what happened. Yeah, gotcha. I'm a Batman or Superman. I'm a Batman guy. I'm also a Batman guy. Are you Dave? I'll definitely pick a Batman over Superman. Yeah, that's interesting. Is that common? A lot of people find Superman really really boring Yeah, I think that's the key. Yeah, if you say if you say why Superman Who's your least favorite superhero most people say Superman? You say why and it's because he's he's a one-dimensional goody-two shoes, and he's boring, and nothing could hurt him except kryptonite.

Now, if we do say that, would you come back at us and say, that's correct, or do you think that there's a bigger fan? Yeah, look at us. I'm a big fan. I'm actually a big fan of Superman. What happens, the problem with Superman is that, like all those things that I've just said, they were also a problem for the writers of Superman. Like, it's hard to have him like throw some planets around is that like all those things that I've just said, they were also a problem for the writers of Superman.

Like it's hard to have him like, throw some planets around in one issue, and then the next issue, he's fighting some bank robbers, and he's having trouble fighting the bank robbers. You're like, why is, like, how do you write around that? And that was really difficult. So like in the 80s, DC had this event called Crisis on Infinite Earths.

And where basically they went, okay, we're gonna make some changes to this, we're gonna simplify everything. There's too much stuff in our universe. We'll just, we'll have this event happen and we Infinite Earths. And where basically they went, okay, we're gonna make some changes to this, we're gonna simplify everything. There's too much stuff in our universe. We'll just, we'll have this event happen and we'll change everything. And what they did is they de-powered Superman quite significantly. Like, he was still a very powerful character, but he wasn't. Like, if you hit him hard enough, it had hurt. It didn't happen like a kryptonite baller tour. You know, what have you? What happened is that they never really told the people who made the movies Because they made the Christopher the Christopher Reeves who man in 1979 and he was this one who could fly around the world and reverse time and

Do all these crazy things and I guess they were like well We can't really change it now so he in the movies is always been this guy who can do anything and that's not really very exciting But the comic book version like they went okay, it doesn't have as many powers Let's give him more depth as a character and that's still true to this day in comic book world. Yeah, it is Yeah, all right. That's interesting, but just not in like not in the movies still Yeah, they've gone more of a way to what I think in these last couple movies right where the people enjoy them as movies or not is Remains to be saying that's right. I mean not really what a lot of people hate them But yeah, only one person has enjoyed them and is sitting in this room.

We're sitting in this room, yeah. Well, I mean, it was very long and I'd say I enjoyed more than half of it. So, that's like, that's a good time. Is that a good review? If you saw a movie and you enjoyed 51% of it? Wow, I'd say 65% of it. That's a better pass. That is. That's a credit.

That's a C-Mineus maybe. Yeah. So anyway, Marvel Comics number one had some characters like the human torch. Not the the fantastic four human torch. The original human torch, it was an Android. Okay. A different character. The human torch was an Android. The original one was, yeah, he was created in a lab. Could he still fly mom? Yes, he could, yeah. Did he say the words, flame mom? Yes, he's from time to time, you do. Oh, that's cool.

So he was, so he's an Android. He's not human. Was he a torch? Could he, could he flick on a not? Was he like a dolphin torch? Yeah, in many ways. He was more of a battery power. So a half of his name was true.

Yeah, he was a torch. Okay. So he's certainly not human. He was good in an emergency. I don't know, but like kept on top of the fridge. Yeah. Great. Also another character, then, was name all the Submariner, who is sort of an Aquaman

star character. He's still in use today. Name all. Name all the Submariner. Well, he's some sort of Android. No, he's from the loss city of Atlantis. Oh. He's from the, he's, he's a sub-mariner. He's some sort of Android. No, he's from the loss city of Atlantis. Oh, he's from the, he's a Submariner. Yeah, correct.

And that means he's from below the... Imagine like a, like a, like a mighty man wearing like green, green swim trunks and he's got little wings on his, on his ankles and then able him to fly. Kiran Perkins. Yeah, it's Kiran Perkins with little wings on his, on his, on his, on his head, just to imagine myself. Was Kiran Perkins with little wings. I'm just on his... I'm going to say I just am editing myself. I was here. It was Karen Perkins based on him. I think so, yeah.

I'm trying to every day thinking, you are a name-on. One day I'm going to be, I'm just going to leap out of this pool and just fly. So name-on-the-submarine was actually the first character, the first superhero who could fly. Because up until this point, Superman was just a leap-told building in a single bound guy. He hadn't yet gained the ability to fly. Big jump up. Yeah, it was a big tall buildings in a single bound guy. Oh, big jumper. Yeah, it was a big more jumper.

He was fried. Was he already from the planet? The planet krypton? He was. He was in the planet krypton. Yeah, he was. And he grew up on a farm all the other. The original incarnation of Superman arrived on Earth as an as an adult man.

Right. He's still pretended to be mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent. What happened is ladies, some people emailed. People didn't email. They said a letter like they did back in the day and they said, hey, what was Superman like as a boy? And they're like, we should do the adventures of Superboy. And so they created these additional stories of him.

And they're like, okay, well, he arrived on Earth as an infant and he was raised by the Kent's. And when he was a kid, had adventures as a super boy. Because that added something to it right, that whole growing up as a simple farmer. I think so yeah. That gave him some good old fashion family value. Some farming crit. Yeah, that's right.

He always had a laboring job. Just in case things went wrong at the journalism factory. Technical term. Thank you. So Marvel comic number one, so actually to give you some background nowadays, if you publish a comic book and it sells maybe 30,000 copies, that is that is knocked out of the park, that is if you have bloody hit it for six. So that's like a platinum album. That's a good that's a good result. So the first issue of Marvel Comics in 1939 sold 80,000

copies and then they were like, well, we've sold out, we'll reprint it again and then they sold 800,000 copies. So that's, so that's pretty impressive. So, name more and human talk to a very popular. Yeah, absolutely. They very quickly got their own titles. What basically happened is good ones like, okay, I'm on a good thing here. I've made my money back from Funnies Inc. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna make this in-house. So what he did is he went to the staff at Funnies Inc. and he was like,

I'm gonna grab some people out of this. So he got this writer called Joe Simon, who he wanted as the editor of his comic book company and he got a guy called Jack Kirby. Oh, I've heard of him. See, he's very important in the editor of his comic book company, and he got a guy called Jack Kirby. Oh, I've heard of him. See, he's very important in the world of comic books, a Marvel especially. And he also got,

he had, his cousin by marriage, was a 16 year old kid looking for work at the time, and he really needed a job. And so he moved across country to work at timely publications, and his name was Stanley Leber. Oh. It was probably better known as Stanley. Oh, I fed him.

Yeah. And he was on the 16th when he joined the time. So he grew up sort of in the upper west side of Manhattan, sort of middle class. And he'd offered, he's like I said, it's the feeling the most important thing for a man is to have work to do, to be busy, to be needed. Like that was his philosophy. And so he did a few little jobs. He wrote advanced obituaries for the news.

So like just in case people would die. I guess famous slope start. Yeah, exactly. He'd write those in advance. He did publicity for a hospital, I think. He worked in like a theater project. But yeah, so his cousin was married to Martin Goodman and he was, you know, in the comic book world. So he got a gig as like their gofa, you know, just around the office doing, you know, bits and pieces.

And he sort of almost immediately started writing scripts for this, you know, this new business. So, and he would sign them Stanley, as opposed to Stanley Leaver. He said that, but his anecdote has always been that he wanted to save his real name for when he would write the great American novel. So, he was like, look, it's, so Stanley, if you've never, if you don't know anything about Stanley, you've probably still seen Stanley. Like, if you've seen a Marvel movie, you you've seen Stanley because he's in almost all of them

He's got a he's like a he's an old man He's got like aviator sunglasses and like a caterpillar mustache and he speaks in a New York accent and he appears In the Marvel movies at some point like there's always a countdown until he appears in the movies like a friend of mine Recently went and saw Deadpool at one of the Marvel movies at the cinema, was during the school holidays and he filled with teenage kids or whatever and he sits down and he looks to his left and a couple of seats to his left, there's like a six-year-old woman probably and like her 85-90-year-old mom and he's like, oh no, they've stumbled into this by the state. Oh this is, this is, this is, and you know this is not the best experience. Yeah, like Margot who's got to. Exactly.

And like 10 minutes in there's been like language and sex and people being decapitated and what have you and he's like suddenly this becomes the new movie just turning over to watch there. That's right and he's like oh so this is uncomfortable for me. This must be uncomfortable for them they can't leave what have you and then all of a sudden it goes to a strip club and like the the owner of the strip club, Stan Lee. And the six year old woman goes, look, Mom, Stan Lee. And they're like, yay! So like he's this, he's a character.

He's a character. You can't really talk about Marvel without talking about Stan Lee for good or ill. Oh, is there ill? There is a little bit of ill. We'll get to it a little bit. So he started writing scripts of this. So about 1940, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon,

they created a character originally to be called Super American. But instead, Joe Simon was like, now there's too many super characters already. So we'll make this guy Captain America. So in 1940, they released Captain America. This is before America enters the war, so this is like a year before Pearl Harbor was bombed, but like the war has started. But the first issue, the cover is him punching Hitler.

Like that's, that's not it. Yeah, they've started out strong. Yeah, and that's all the million copies. So that was, that was a strong start, like immediately like a million copies. In the net market and that's all the million copies. So that was oh, man. That was strong start like immediately like a million copies In the net market and that year. Yeah, yeah Anyway, so so Stanley began his go for this place. He was writing scripts and he meets Jack Kirby and

so the story goes that You know Stanley is this you know, he's this really cheerful guys really animated is you know He leaps around the office, he plays an ocarina in the office I don't know if you know what an ocarina is, it's a little... A panpop, it's a little panpop kind of situation Fans of the legend of Zelda will if it was his six years. Kirby was, you know, quite a few years old, and he was just like hunched over his death smokiness again.

He was already jaded from the, yeah, exactly. And so- Sounds like Martin from The Simpsons just prancing about. Around with his loot? Yeah, exactly, yeah. And then Jack Kirby's like, oh, for fuck's sake. I'm so, so, fuck, fake. I'm so sorry. I'd forgotten about Stanley, but in my head,

he must have invented Marvel, because it's weird that he gets that cameo and everything. It's like he is Marvel, but he wasn't necessarily, I guess. Yeah, well, he wasn't, we'll get to it a little bit, but I guess he was the guy who stuck around the longest. So he started in 1939. And so still. So, and he provided some tweaks to the,

he would write scripts and he'd provide some tweaks to stuff. Like he would, like Captain America example, he originally had like a shield that was shaped like a medieval kind of like a, like a, that classic sort of shield, yeah. Like classic shield. And then another company who later became Archie Comics, well like, you can't use that, it's too similar to one of our characters of the shield.

You can't, so they had to change it. And it can only be one superhero with a shield. Exactly. And so they changed it to this round shield, which is the one you see in the movies. And Stanley was like, okay Have it in this issue. You haven't throw the shield and it's like this kind of boomerang kind of like throwing weapon and people like Oh, that that'll catch on and that's like that's now who's kind of that's Captain Raker's signature

So he's kind of like a Sydney Seanberg type character. I don't know if you know if you know a Sydney's work, but Dave Oh, yeah, he was the one who fixed up back to the future in some ways. Oh yeah, he had some tweaks, give some juice. Give some sweet cheek, some of them didn't come off. No that's right, he throws out 50 ideas hoping to get two good ones right. Yeah, that's the showroom. Absolutely, yeah.

That's the showroom, very good. Yeah, like all Stanley, you know, for decades he's just been a showman. Like he puts 100% into everything he does. Even the panpipes. Even the panpipes, exactly. But like, so Kirby and Simon who created, you know, Captain America, they created, they sold a million copies

of the first issue and then... And Stanley's still even like tweaks as like a 17 year old kid. Yeah, that's right. How about this? And so the fuck are you, man? At least who ran a foul of Goodman and they're like, you know what, we're out.

We're gonna leave. Who's sorry? Kirby and Simon. They're creators of Captain America. They're like, you know what, we need, we want a little more, but you're not giving us anything else. So we're just gonna take off. But so basically at this point, Stan Lee,

who was 19, nothing 18 or 19, Goodman's just like, okay, you're the editor in chief now. You're the editor in chief Timely and so he stuck around you there the pan-past you're in charge like you're moxie you're in and he And he held that position for basically two decades like see that's that's I like that but also You become the top dog at 19. We you would expect by the age of 40 that you'll be the president or something and then of the country. Right, 20 years. So like, still is not.

So you got that 19 year old job. And it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily like it with like 20 years left. That's a four career essentially. You don't think, but Stanley I think is 93. He doesn't feel like 93. No. He's been there since the beginning. But like, except for like, there was three years he was in the Army. So that was, like 93. He's been there since the beginning. But like, except for

like, there was three years he was in the army. So that was, you know, that's a little... Yeah, right. I can't picture him in the army, but he's done so many cameos. He's played every different profession. He can be a general. Yeah. Yeah. So, but I think he was never really, he was never 100% happy there. I think partly because Goodman was this He was never 100% happy there. I think partly because Goodman was this trend chaser. Like, so after the war, superhero comics were a little bit, were significantly in decline. So, superhero punching Hitler on the front cover's not selling his many clothes.

Exactly. And the boss is like, what's wrong? This used to be great. People used to love this. I mean, he's been punched to death. Oh, wow, okay. So, like... Just punching with the other hand. Yeah.

So like, even Superman and Batman fell out of fashion. So for example, like, there was a company at the time who did a like, Betty and a Cops and Robbers series. It was called Crime Does Not Pay. And so Goodman was like, oh, we should come up. So he was like, okay, we gotta make some knockoffs. And so in response to crime does not pay, he released crime must lose.

Exclamation mark. Oh my God. Crime can't win. That was another one. Lawbreakers always lose. Like that was kind of. Crime, it does not pay. It does not pay.

Yeah, so like, and so every time the win's shifted. So like in, it feels like crime does pay, if you can rip people off like that and make a lot of money from it. Yeah, so like romance was big in like the late 40s like 1948 like romance and like Teen adventure is doing Marvel romance yeah Marvel Marvel again when you think of Marvel you like superhero superhero but it like it went through all kinds of really yeah so like never a weird porn? No, although I think at one point,

Comic book porn. I think they had some sister companies that were more into blog, more like Adol. What would get to more Adol stuff, I think in a couple of minutes, but like, so the 1940s, there was all these romance and because also there was a company called Archie Comics and it was like, America's, you know,

most lovable teen, it's Archie Andrews kind of thing and he was in a love triangle with Betty and Veronica and all these, you know, these fun little high school adventures. It's good when I was like, we need a character called Fatsy. Well, that's the thing, like he created a character, well a character was created called Patsy Walker. Um, he was like, okay Archie Andrews, like he has this red hair and it's got like specific crotch crosshatching in the hair you should have her have that same crosshatching in the hair like he was he was a micro manager to that point where it's just like okay the secret must be in the hair to his success give over the same hair I don't think fun fact for it's a maniac yeah it's a maniac yeah I'm sorry this this comic pretty closely yeah it's definitely the hair that's hitting this one. Fun fact Patti Walker from

1948 still around as a character. She eventually became the superhero Hellcat and she's in, if you watch the Death Devil, er, the, sorry, the Jessica Jones series on Netflix, she is that in that play by Rachel Taylor. She's Trish Walker. Yeah, she's became Australian. Yeah, yeah. Amazing. What an evolution.

Uh-huh. And what about the cross hatching? Yeah. No, she's blonde. There's no cross hatching of any kind. Goodman would be rolling in his grave, I assume he's dead. Yeah, I would hope he's dead. So Stanley was... We've got to turn on some people with just not here.

Someone's got to hate people out of nowhere. And turn on the dead. That's like a trademark. Paging on the dead. Punching people with a can fight back, or accountants. Like Hitler. Like Hitler. Yeah.

Punches them all with the car. Cut that, Hitler. So yeah, so romance in the 40s. Horror comics will begin the 50s. So, um. Oh, is this true? Yes. That the Adam's family started as a comic book?

No. I do not have the answer. Your face says, I said something stupid. No, my face says I don't know. My face says I do not have the face as your face as I said something stupid. No, my face is I don't know my face is I do not have the information available so look no, I'm I'm Barris myself in front of a. You know what? You're right. They were they were in the newspaper character strip I think yeah we could look that I'm later or somebody could email in and correct us. Yeah, I'll be sorry. Okay. I'll horror in the 50s, the Western came back so they did Western comics for quite a while. The raw high kid was a very popular Western character for Marvel.

He came back as sort of, he came back very quite recently with a sort of a homerotic subtext. It's a good fun series. And then through Marvel or fan fiction? Through Marvel a few years ago, had an imprint called Max, which was like, like, this ain't your daddy's Marvel comics, it was kind of like a... Was that genuinely the tagline? Because that'd be amazing. Not really, no, it was like...

It was like it didn't, like it was kind of like, you know, all the safeties are off and they're swearing, they're sex and there's, you know, etc. It, you know, you said it was a fan fiction, isn't that kind of what it's become anyway? Like, because it's... All these characters have been around for so long, and it's like kids who grew up with it, fans, ended up just doing official fan fiction a lot of. That is a lot of cases, like people who grow up as huge fans of these comic book characters. Eventually, yeah, they got the writing skills, they got the artistic skills, and they're like, I want to work for Marvel or DC.

Criticism that is often leveled at some writers especially in Marvel and DC at times is that they always wanna keep this status quo, like certain characters never evolve because a character, you know, a person's like, well, I grew up in the 80s and Greenland was like this. And so now, and they go to work for DC and the character to move on and they're like well I I'm gonna bring him back to how he was in the 80s kind of thing and so you know there's that kind of just nostalgia yeah it's in a style geno way I kind of I

would prefer you know characters that keep evolving but that's not all of these characters the original characters evolving like he's Captain America in the 50s becoming Western Or doing it like the erotic stuff or are they staying true to superhero kind of stuff that we'd imagine That's a very interesting question captain America didn't survive into the 50s He's the last two the last two issues of his comic were called captain America's weird tales Captain America was not in them. That would just... That was weird it was.

That was just horror suspense comics. He was on the cover of issue 74, but he was not in the issue, and he was not at all on the cover of 75. Did that piss people off? Well, I think, you know, nowadays I'm sure I would have, but... He was so popular that... Yeah, right.

If he was popular enough, he would have been in him, I'm imagining. Yeah, I mean, I think... Yeah, I mean, and also back in the day comics were kind of disposable. Like now when you think, you know, action comics number one is featuring Superman. It's worth a million dollars. That's because when it came out, everybody read it and just immediately threw it away. Or wrapped the fish and chips up with it. And so, you know, in order for somebody to be collectible, you can't be many. Yeah, they can't be, they have to throw it a lot. People have to devalue them. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. It's called the, it's called the trough of no value. I learned this recently that not only does something have to have no value, it has to have so little value that in like storing it in your house, that is costing you money. Right. Because it's taking up the space of collection of fridge magnets or whatever. So you have to have to just, so it has to reach like negative value, negative value, and then eventually there's so little of it and the past is that it becomes super valuable. Right, exactly, yeah. But it also has to be something that people then care about again.

Like there'd be a lot of things like that that no one even thinks about now. Right, right, exactly. Fuck up. I fucking love this world. But people have become so... Comic book, I'm a comic book kid that just never had a comic book, exactly. Fuck, I love this world. But people have become so... I'm a comic book kid that just never had a comic book, alright? What did you collect, though? Uh, footy records.

Oh yeah! Still got a couple of boxes of them. The truff of no value was deep in that project. So basically, the comics industry was in kind of, you know, through the 50s, the comic industry was kind of in a decline. And it's only 20 years old, less than. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, it was, you know, up and down. Yeah, right. What happened in the 50s? There was a guy called Frederick Wortham.

He was a psychiatrist. And he, he wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent. And he sort of claimed that there was a rise in juvenile delinquency and homosexuality and, you know, other bad things of the time. And he was like, the reason for this is popular media for kids. And so he was like, and then so... You know that weird tales of this one of Captain America? Wow, really set the kids chilling.

So there were, I mean there were a few, there were quite a few, you know, there were a lot of examples in his book. It was kind of like the Buzzfeed list of its time. Like check this out. He has a little bit of commentary. Check this out. He has a little bit of commentary on it. And there was a guy called, a publisher called Bill Gaines and he created Mad Magazine, which you know, is still around today.

But he also created a lot, he published a lot of like comics like Tales from the Crypt and these like horror comics and crime comics. And they were very lured and there was a lot of murder and there was a lot of torture and there was a lot of you know sexual attacks and all this sort of stuff and like you know you could I you could definitely argue you know that's that's not for kids you shouldn't be just putting this on a you know and you stand for kids to grab and and take away but at the same time a lot of his examples were like he's a he's a close-up of a's armpit and it looks like a vagina. That's obviously the, like it's obviously, you know, this subliminal message to children to, you know, whatever. And he was like, you know, or like, this is, you know, he's Robin from Batman and Robin

and he's standing, you know, arms a Kimbo and his legs are spread apart and he's thrusting his crotch at the reader, you know, kind of thing. But you know, as a penitent, as a, and- It's a pity, me on. It's a pity, take me. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, me, reader. So, basically, it's tough to, I mean, that's certainly what have contributed to the client, this book, this kind of this moral panic of, you have to, you know, you're ruining your kids' lives, they're becoming criminals because of, you know, this- That's just been a thing forever though.

Yeah, definitely, every- Every generation, it's a video games now is what they say. Yeah, exactly, yeah. It's just, you know, not to get political on this, though. Yeah, you're definitely every year. Every generation, it's video games now is what they say. Yeah, exactly, yeah. It's just, I know, not to get political on this, but it's, you know, for parents, I guess you go, I want the idea that there's an off switch. You know, you get rid of this and then everything's going to be fine again, but it's not going to be fine. No.

But anyway, basically what? It's because of society. Yeah, right. But we need to turn society off. Do you want to podcast, we need to turn society off. Do you want to podcast, will we become that? No. Podcasts are ruining children's minds.

They're staying in their rooms. And the people who are making them are staying in their rooms. Maybe there'll just be a society where no one interacts except via podcasts anymore. So anyway, this resulted in something called the Comics Code Authority, which was this super limiting kind of This set of rules that you could not break. No, I'm pissed. It looked like vaginas. It looked like but no

I was looking I'm not interested anymore No, it was this kind of like it was very limiting You know, so it was like no torture no, you know horrible mutilation Which was fine, but then it was stuff like you could never end an issue with like the bad guys ending up on top. So you could never have like an issue then in an auto cliffhanger because it was always, because then the bad guys were the winners kind of thing. You could never have like a character in a position of authority who turned out to be bad, so you could never have a comp on the take, you could never have a corrupt politician. Well, that would be, you know, so unbelievable that kids...

I wouldn't understand exactly. Can you even imagine a corrupt police officer, Matt? No, impossible. I'm trying, look, I'm trying. I'm trying real hard. And then, you're in your bloody early 30s, you can't do it. Imagine if a 15-year-old kid. You're just a 16-year-old kid being the editor in chief of Marvel Comics.

You can't understand it But yeah, and it but it sort of went to the bizarre it was like okay, there's to be no mention of Werewolves and ghouls and zombies and vampires Normal wolves to find out were werewolves they're right out. I was a lot. Yeah, so Yeah, just I guess just in case kids were like oh, I'd like to be a ghoul I like to be myself and become a yeah I like to be a ghoul. I'd like to be a ghoul. I'd like to be a ghoul. Yeah, right. I'd like to be a ghoul.

Yeah. I mean, eventually- When I grow up, I'd like to be a ghoul. Eventually, these rules were sort of rescinded, or like, you know, modified a little bit. I honestly think we should bring them back. Yeah, that right. Now, that would sort that captain.

So, yep, Captain Batman versus Captain bring them back. Yeah, that would sort that captain. Yep, captain Batman versus captain Superman. Right, yeah. So I had my way. Are you working way too hard for way too little? There's never been a better time to consider a career in IT. You could enjoy a recession resistant career and a rewarding field with plenty of growth opportunities and often flexible work environments.

Go to mycomputercareer.edu and take the free career evaluation. You could start your new career in months, not years. Take classes online or on campus, and financial aid is available to qualified students, including the GI Bill. Now is the time. Mycomputercareer.edu So Like you know later Marvel comments created like like the vampire hunter and the good advice Wesley snops Wesley snops. Yeah, they created Wesley snops. They created they created his career certainly and then I crushed it

So like at yeah, he did for tax evasion. Yeah, for like five years Right, yeah, did he do something else bad? Most celebs that get done for tax evasion. 57. Five years for passing to 57. Yeah, always bet on black. No, that's, yeah, that I only said because that's a thing I know he did. But that was a good movie.

Yeah, definitely. He took him down. Devolution man. Also, right? Yeah. He did a lot of good stuff. I was gonna say, um, so yeah, so yeah, so they eventually rescinded it but at the time like these were so stupid So the guy who created a blade so guy called Mark Wolfman many years prior like during this

Comic book during this comic code authority shenanigans like one time he submitted like a comic book to this authority And they sent it back and they're like this is unusable. You can't it was like some sort of tales of suspense horror kind of kind of thing and they're like and he's like why can't you use it and they're like title page look at that and I'm pit vagina yeah no well said that's the thing like he he had he had wanted a like a credit like I'm like you know written by you know art by etc etc but his name his name is Marvel Wolfman and his last name is Spelt Wolfman and so they're like You can't say Wolfman So it was that it was that stringent. Oh, is that he's real name. Yeah, it's Marvel Wolfman. Yeah, that is that's one of the best things I've ever heard

No, that's not you can't learn here's it. So yeah, so this your name makes me think You're dangerous for the kids. So yeah, so this your name makes me think you don't do the kids. So in the 50s comic books got they got Less violent, but they certainly got weirder because I guess you know, they're like we can't use the standard stuff We're gonna have to think out of the box and a lot of stuff was kind of you know good You can find some good comic books from the 50s. But there's just no real violence. Yeah, yeah.

And superheroes were out. Yeah, they sort of, towards the late 50s DC sort of came back on the scene with, they started again. They started a series called Showcase and they brought back a new version of the Flash. They brought a new version of Green Lantern and that sort of, this was like the mid to late 1950s and it sort of kicked off again. What do you sit on the green lantern? See I saw a cartoon with him during the week. And he

he just sort of like you had a ring on and then he just like he wanted to get the bad guy. So he's ring turned into a steam train and the steam train ran over the bad guy and then he and Batman was there and Batman was falling so he got this mate his ring on a green box. Oh yeah. Oh no I'm it. And then that turn into an elevator and the elevator came up in the air just through the air and went ding at the top of the building up. Yeah.

It was you know a little much. Yeah so I didn so explain that. I didn't enjoy him. What do you think about him? I look, I have no objection to a character who can do anything, like even a superman from back in the day who could throw a planet about, as long as they're paired up with a villain who can do the same. Who can counteract them, who's got, you know, but I like Greenland. I think he's an interesting character.

Yeah, it's just, I mean, there's been no- I mean, it was a cartoon, I was about to say very cartoony. A little bit, a little bit unreal, isn't it? Yeah, a bit far fetched, I think. Yeah, so basically it was, you know, not even maybe, you know, the late 50s, early 60s, and so Martin Goodman, who owned Timely Comics, which, you know, he'd since re-known Marvel Comics,

he's like, alright, I'm this trend follower, I'm this guy, let's give Superheroes a try again. And so he got- I thought it was gonna make the Super Beatles or something, because the 60s- Oh yes! Getting on the badminton. Ben that happened. So what did he decide to do instead of Beatles?

Oh, instead when he did is he went, okay, Stanley, Jack Kirby, you got to put some together for us. And this is where, so Stanley and Jack Kirby have been sort of lauded as this incredible team and they created amazing stuff, but every time you, like, anyone, either of them did an interview about, you know, them creating these amazing characters, they're, like, they're, their explanations of what happened are always completely different. So like, so Jack Kirby had always said, so they're like, okay, you're gonna come in, this is this amazing new idea. And Jack Kirby came in to, Jack Kirby who'd left Marvel many years ago, but he was sort

of working as a freelance basis, he'd be like, he's like, I kind of forgive you guys, I'll come back for a little bit and I'll just see what I can come up with. So he comes in like the early 60s and they're like again they're moving out furniture. They're like taking desks out there like this is over. Yeah they invest a lot in their furniture don't they? It's just solid gold desk. It's solid gold fiber. Solid NTS right?

Not emotionally though because of the drop of the hat they're sewing it all. Right. Get it out. Yeah. So so he says he comes in and he says Stanley he's sitting on a chair He's crying. He doesn't know what to do. He's like he's this kid and he's I'm in a handpush really. He's been doing all these jobs to do and he you know He can't save this company on his own kind of thing and he goes up to Stanley and he says okay

Go in a month tell him stop moving the furniture out. I'll do something I'll see that the books make money like I'll'll get this company back in the black single handedly kind of thing, right? And then he single handedly creates the characters in the plot of the first issue of the Fantastic Four, like this. So he made all four of the characters. According to him, but so Stan Lee has a completely different version of the story. Oh. Basically he says that Martin, you Martin Goodman told him that he noticed that one of DC's comics had been selling really well. The Justice League of America and it's a team of superheroes. And he's like, okay, if the Justice League is selling, why don't we

put out a team of superheroes? That sounds like Martin Goodman to me. Exactly, totally right. Yeah. And so Stan Lee's like, well, I don't want to just create some swill. So I'll just, I'll create a super team such as Comic-Gym has never known. Like that, he's the shaman, right? And he's like, okay, their character is their fallible, they're feisty, they're colorful, they've got, you know, they're colorful, but they still have feet of clay, like they're these realistic kind of characters, right? And so, according to him, he created the fantastic four out of nothing.

Who do you believe? Look, look, look. I mean, Stanley's always been the showman. He's been the PT Barnum kind of of these characters always. And the thing that's Marvel pioneered is this thing they call the Marvel method of creating stories. And this sort of came about because, again, Stanley was this one guy, he was this editor-in-chief at this company, and he's churning out these dozens of stories. And according to him, like somebody who'd come up to him and go,

okay, I've got to write a new issue of this. What's the plot going to be? I need the script, and Stanley would just go, okay, just, um, okay, it's going to be this, it's going to be this character, this villain and he's going to be robbing a bank and the good guys are going to come in and they, this is going to happen and then they're, you know, they're going to stop him and put him in jail. Okay, go draw it. Right. That's the formula. That's, that's the formula. Basically, so, you know, then the artist would just go away and he would draw whatever he wanted. And then he'd give it back to Stanley and Stanley would draw in some,

write in some dialogue and then that was the finished issue. And like, this was very much a double edged sword because some artists were like, okay, this is amazing. I don't have to look at a script and go, okay, page one, panel one, you see this guy and then page one, panel two, you see, and he's looking at how to window and page one, panel three, blah, blah, you can just go, okay, I'm gonna draw an amazing battle scene. I can do it in 10 panels, I can do it in 20 panels, I can do it in just one giant panel,

I can do, you know, whatever I want. But at the same time, in a way, the artist is also writing the story. And Stanley was always, Stanley would always insist when he created, you know, when he put out a series that it would say written by Stanley and drawn by Steve did co-al, what have you, but in a lot of cases it should have said written by Stanley and

Steve did co-illustrated by Steve did co. And so it does a bit like a band making a film clip and then like a director and then going, hey here's the music video and then you're like, all right I'll bust out some chords to it. Yeah, I'm right. I'm trying to match to it. And kind of just ask quickly before we do go on about Jack Kirby and Stanley.

Either of them drawing the original, they claim to create these characters. Are they fantastic artists themselves? Jack Kirby is an amazing artist. So he actually, yeah, he was, this is what the thing looks like. Yeah, I absolutely, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he,

came up with the designs for all these characters. Yeah, cool. There was a editor of the X-Men called Louise Simonson in the 80s, and she described him as the Picasso of comic books, of American comic books. It's a very specific style. It's very stylized. It's not photorealistic, by any stretch of the Imaginace, but it's got this amazing dynamism and it's got this sense of movement and it's not photorealistic, baining stretch of the Imaginace, but it's got this amazing sort of dynamism and it's got this sense of movement and it's real good guys. And what about the Stanley draw?

No, no. No, I mean, you, you, you, people, they want to earth a sketch from time to time, but he's not an artist, no. He's an ideas man. I feel like if I want to be Kirby sounds like the full package. Right, right.

But yeah, so like, but I mean, never that, so that was sort of the, we're talking about Fantastic Four, but that was sort of the, that was sort of the, um, the way it went every time like, uh, there'd be, you know, Stanley had this charming account of how he, you know, he come with his amazing colorful characters and we saved the day kind of thing, and Kirby's like, they wanted a character to do this, so I made this, kind of thing, right? And it turned out in, maybe 2009, Jack Kirby's estate his family said, look, he co-created all these characters. It's always said, created by Stanley or what have you, but look, we need, we would like some of the money. You've made a billion dollars of this kind of stuff, we would, you know, and there was a settlement out of court. So it's under terms of considered quite generous, but we don't know what they are We we believe now that he's dead. Yep, and he can't get anything that he deserved right we want it

I don't know about that. Yeah, I feel like Stanley deserves it more than you who had nothing to do You're right, at least Stanley was in the build. But anyway, so the Fantastic Four hit the stands and this, and it blew people away. Again, it was like Superman. It's something they'd never seen before. Because like, to the- The Stanley was right.

Yeah, yeah. So to, to, you know, when you, when you, when you've provided this, when you thought of comic books, a lot of comic book characters were like, they were a millionaire playboy, and they just decided on a lock to become a superhero kind of thing. And they talked like people didn't talk and they acted like people didn't act and that kind of thing. But sort of this was these were kind of characters who they talked like real

people and they they they they they called amongst themselves you know one month they'd be saving the earth from the alien alien invasion and then the next month they'd nearly be evicted from their house because they couldn't pay the rent. It was that kind of, you know, it was a, you know, these amazing fantastical stories, but it was also kind of these, these relatable characters. It's funny because, you know, I think, because I've never read the comics and stuff, the way I understand all these characters is based on like how the movies have been perceived so to me Fantastic for like a super lame thing. The fantastic forable the fantastic foreign film has always been this bitter disappointment to me Because it's it's such an amazing world and it's such an iconic part of the Marvel Universe

again they kicked off this sort of in the incredible universe and Every movie that has been produced has kind of been, it's there've either been just okay or they've been atrocious. Like the last one, director by a guy called Josh Trank, which was messed by the studios very significantly, is just a train wreck. And there were a couple in the 2000s, which were, were fine. They were kind of dumb, but they were you know They were kind of fun and there was one in

1994 Directed by Roger Coleman who famous B movie director that was never released because it's It's bad. I think I've seen a clip of it. Yeah on YouTube or something maybe and it yeah It looked look a lot of people have said I thought it I thought there was a thing about Whoever the studio is needs to release it a certain amount of times to keep the right. Yeah, that will probably get to that in a sec, but yeah, that Marvel have a history of up until very recently giving away their characters for very unfavorable

turns to them. I did. Again, it's this filing cabinet thing. It's to make a quick buck. They're like, okay, you can have the character, you can have it it forever just give us a little bit of money so we can stay afloat Anyway, so yeah, so the fan has to pull really kick things off They it really started like this movement happening. I think Stan Lee said at the time before they did fantastic for they might have gotten You know, they an issue got released and they might have gotten a letter that said you know

I bought one of your comics and the staple came out, I want my dime back, kind of thing, and they'd take the letter and they'd put it up on the wall and go, fan, fan mail, kind of thing. But, you know, after this actual fan mail and people going, look, I really relate to this, you know, it's great. That's pretty cool. Yeah, and so, and so this came for our hate mail to turn into fan mail. That'll be a great day. Anyway, so they kicked it off and it was just, you know, then, then after that it was, you know, Lee and Kirby and Steve Ditko who created a whole bunch of just these amazing characters.

So like Hulk, Thor, the Avengers, Ant-Man, Spider-Man, that was Stanley and Steve Ditko. And that, again, this was kind of a revolutionary character because again, it's not a, he's not a millionaire, he's not a, you know, this, this idle playboy who just wants to, you know, have a bit of fun. He's a teenager, which up until this point, you wouldn't find a superhero who was a teenager, they were always the sidekick, but it was like, okay, he's a, the, the,

18-aggers, this is a character like you, they're, who's, who's the teenager? Peter Parker, Spider-Man. Spider-Man's a teenager. Spider-Man. Spider-Man, he's interesting. So he, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's, he's's interesting. So he was this teen and he wasn't, you know, he wasn't again like a like a DC here a kind of infallible character. He was kind of, he's kind of a jerk. He,

in his initial appearance, he, you know, he shows off his powers on TV and he just blows off his as my, I was like, who cares? You kind of think he lets a criminal just run past him because he's like, not my job is to stop that guy, I kind of think. And that criminal later goes on him because he's like not my job is stuff that guy kind of thing and that Criminal later goes on to kill his uncle and then he realizes, you know with great power comes great responsibility that that kind of classic line Oh, that's from that's from spot man. I think it's from something else originally maybe some sort of philosopher But most not enough percent of the population pretty myself. Yeah, Peter Parker. I fully bought that it was just Oh, that's a spider man. No, but it is that fully bought that it was just, oh, that's a Spider-Man.

No, but it is, that's the lesson he learned. And I think, you know, people really related to that. I think because he, even though he was this guy who climbed the walls and, you know, lift a truck or whatever, he couldn't, he had problems and he just couldn't punch them away. And that's, that's real people. You can't just punch your problems away.

Right, yeah, I've learned that the hard way. I haven't seen any Spider-Man, so I don't know much about him. I just thought he was like, yeah, I thought he was just the web-slinging. Web-slinging. Web-slinging? Uh-huh. I didn't know he could lift cars.

Oh, he's super strong. Yeah, right. So, and again, spider-man, the creation of spider-man is basically the most disputed story. Oh no, Stanley, come on man, take him away. Stanley's like, okay, one, you know, he saw a spider and he thought all the amazing powers, the, you know, the man could have him if he was given the gift to the spider, or he's like, oh, I thought, you know, I saw, there was a pulp, you know, a pulp hero

called, like the shadow called the spider and I remember him and then I'm like, what would that look like in the modern era, what kind of, you know, what kind of character would that be, kind of thing. But then Steve Ditko said in the past, Stanley just came up with a name and every other aspect was him. Right. So, how about some sort of spider-man?

Exactly. And then everyone, and Ditko's like, all right, I don't make another one. And the additional rinkle is that Jack Kirby then said, I know actually I came up with everything and I gave it to those two. Right.

So it was me. It's incredible, but I believe that because memory is so fallible, right? Yeah, exactly. So it's very possible that they all fully believe their memory is. That's true. Well, they say, you know, the more you, if you keep telling, maybe if you keep telling a lie, eventually you start believing it's true. That maybe eventually they were like, maybe they're like, I have to tell people I created, and eventually they're like, no I did.

Yeah, I did, I'm pretty sure I did. Yeah, I did, definitely did. And does it, does it, does it start claiming it once they start making lots of money? Is that often, often the way, or the way it works back then is that you create the character and you just get paid away, so you don't even get paid. Yeah, but back in the day up until very recently every kind of comic book creator every publisher Hide people work for hire so if you created spider-man whilst working for them you day-owned spider-man You got paid your day rates, you know, 50 bucks a day. They're 50 dollars for the day

But if we make five million dollars next year, you don't get a car well, exactly. Yeah, shit Yeah, so yeah, so and again, there was so many of these you know They created this amazing universe and eventually Kirby quit again and he went to work for DC and he immediately created a character Called funky flash man who was a very very thinly-veiled version of Stanley who was just this flashy businessman Who never created anything and just rode on the co-tales of other people and then he like you know he would he would trick the superhero like he didn't have it he wasn't a super powered villain but he would trick the heroes into you know making terrible mistakes kind of thing and so that's great funky flash man yeah I did forget that same thing over it now although he should be called

super fungy flash man in my mind And all the readers are like, God, this sucks what he's thinking. Yeah, that's right. But yeah, and so through the 60s and the 70s, I guess Marble's greatest trick was this. Well, the greatest innovation was probably the Shared Universe. On the one hand, it was great to have this amazing Shared Universe and all the characters could interact and they all lived in New York

and they'd all have, you know, they'd clash and they'd be friends and etc. etc. but also at the same time, business wise it was amazing because if you wanted to know what had happened to this character before you encountered the other character you'd have to read their book and then maybe they'd team up and if you loved Spider-Man and he was meeting the Fantastic Four you'd have to read that issue of Fantastic Four that he was in otherwise you wouldn't understand what happened in the next issue of Spider-Man. Right, yeah.

I think that's the thing that's got me into it. I love like, I've only really got into any of this sort of stuff in the like leading up to the Avengers movies. You know, that whole series of Captain America's and the Iron Man ones. I think it was one of the Iron Man ones that was the first thing that got me into the whole comic book superhero thing. And that's what I think that's why I love it the most. I don't think I've loved one of the Iron Man ones that was the first thing that got me into the whole comic book superhero thing.

And that's what I think that's why I love it the most. I don't think I've loved any of the movies really individually. I just love how they all come together and so they all in Marvel they all live in New York City, which is a great idea for them I guess. Whereas you've got in DC, you've got someone in Gotham, the Batman, Correct. Over in Metropolis, you've got Superman, and then you've probably got other ones as well. You do, the Don the Mariner. Interesting fact for you, the DC Universe Earth is slightly larger than the regular Earth. So 5% larger.

So the Marvel Universe Earth is the same size as our Earth. But DC Universe Earth is slightly larger, because it contains all the regular cities, plus additional fake cities. Right. So, it contains Gotham and Metropolis and Opal City and Star City. Are they in America? Oh, no, they're all in America, yes. So, if you're a citizen of Gotham, you are an American citizen.

Yes. I'm right, I never thought about it. Yeah, I don't assume. Yeah, because it's got American accents and stuff Cool, but back to Marvel. Oh back to Marvel. Um, so super as a back Good time bad time good time bad time. Yeah, it goes back and forth cowboys and horror is out It's right out again at potential legal. Let me check my timeline. Oh, time ones are very important Let me check my timeline. Oh, timelines are very important in the next 30 years.

I know exactly. Let me see. In 1986, the company that owned Marvel was liquidated. It was sold to New World Pictures. Again, that's Roger Coleman's company. So the fame of the movie director, I think that's how the whole Fantastic Four situates. He owned Marvel for a while. He did, yeah. Always company did.

And he's still only did B-mo be movies. Yeah, right weird huh? Well, but but superhero movies weren't even big in the 80s. Yeah There were a few attempts back in the day, but they never really amounted to anything Was Batman the first big one? It was yeah, I think it was I mean there was there was a few attempts I mean Superman had a pretty yeah, I mean a lot of people look at those fondly. I don't care for them so much. Yeah, I find boring. Just seven.

I haven't even been able to watch it. Yeah, in 1989, the company was bought by Ronald Perillman, who he owned. He was an executive at Revlon, the makeup company, but his company bought Marvel. And he just bought for fun. Well, he bought it. I think he saw, there was a big boom in the late 80s,

early 90s in comic books. People, our age will probably remember, there was like a big speculator boom, because there were these hot new creators of comic books. There were these new guys, their names like Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee, these guys who were kind of like, these guys are the new Lee and Kirby.

These are the guys. Jim Lee, you're related to Stanley? Completely unrelated. Okay. So basically, there was this era, 80s, early 90s, where there were these new guys, and they were amazing artists for their time. They had this very late 80s early 90s style that was very dynamic and was great to the time. And again, this was a point where, again, and was, you know, great to the time. And again,

this was a point where, again, they were selling a million copies of everything. Wow. It was a new issue of Spider-Man, this guy Todd McFarlane, he was the artist on amazing Spider-Man and they gave him, and he was selling so well, they gave him just a new Spider-Man book, it was just called Spider-Man, like it was the definitive one. And it sold 1.3 million copies or something like that that it was like this huge Seller and now 30,000 is huge. Yeah, yeah, we're approaching a crash see if you see it coming um and so

Basically, there were these amazing creators and people were like, oh, okay, so these guys are gonna gonna create the action Comics number one of the of the. So we got to get in here. We've got to get all their number ones and we'll hold on to these and we'll be millionaires. Also people started collecting them. Yeah, like people collected. Yeah, people collected, they would collect one to, they collect one to read and one to save. Like one they'd read and one they put in like a like a plastic bag with a board in it and it would you know they put in a hermetically sealed vault and they'd be like that's but then again everybody felt to realize that if you're printing a million copy of it then this this timeline of when it's going to be worth something is gonna go out to 100 years. Yeah, beyond your lifetime. Beyond your lifetime exactly and then these

cr- again these creators uh yeah they were huge and so this this guy he spent $82 million on Marvel so he bought Marvel for his company. The Revlon either Revlon man man. He must be very rich Oh, he's he's a very rich man. He's worth like 12 billion dollars now this guy and he Yeah, he then took the the the idea of money and he was like, okay We're gonna buy a trading card company and we're gonna buy a toy company and we're gonna buy a stick account and we're gonna buy these video game properties, we're gonna buy all this sort of stuff and he spent like $700 million on this model stuff for Marvel.

Yeah. And then the stock prices went up for Marvel and he got out fairly quickly. And then, I think he made $800 million on Marvel, and then people left to pick up the pieces because very quickly afterwards, people realized, oh, we've got a million copies of this. You know, really, got to wait for $900.

He said it's kind of like an evil genius. Evil genius in a way, right? Yeah, it sounds like a funky man. A real funky flash man. Yeah, a real funky flash man real joke Oh, yeah, and so yeah, so from the from the comic He's trick was he basically went to his investors and he went okay, so There are all these collectors out there and they're willing to pay more money and they're gonna buy more product Because they're gonna buy one you know one to keep and one to read and blah blah blah and you know we'll release a release an issue

and it's sealed up and it's got a trading card in it and there's six different trading cards and so people have to buy six but that's about twelve. They have to buy at least six right otherwise there's no guarantees right and so he's like okay we'll do that and then so the investors you know they people invest in heavily because I'm like yeah, this guy's got, this guy knows what he's talking about, this guy knows what's up. And then, and he kept promising, okay, they'll buy more,

they'll buy more, they'll pay more, they'll buy more kind of thing. And eventually, who ruined it? Yeah, they eventually ruined it. People were like, people did people catch on, they were like, I wonder about six of the same kind of stuff. Yeah, but now, like, you know,

there'd be an issue of Spider-Man and it had six different covers on it. And you had, you know, you wanted to go, and people were just like, well, I don't, I just want the story and I don't care about all these hologram covers and these metal foil covers and what have you. And eventually people just stopped buying. And so, Marvel's in this situation where they were just producing a million copies of everything and getting hundreds of thousands of copies back, because people weren't buying

them. And they built this distribution network to put everything out there and they owned this toy biz, this toy company that were producing action figures that weren't selling or to have you and then it all just sort of came to them. Marvel kind of took the comic book industry with it in a way because they had this distribution network that kind of collapsed and so they ended up with a lot of debt and so in 1996 they filed for bankruptcy. So we're back at the start basically. So that's not my family cabinet. So yeah.

What a loose unit. But I'm bloody loose unit. Interestingly, the bankruptcy voided Stan Lee's contract with Marvel and so he went back to negotiate with Marvel and he actually said, okay, the contracting negotiate, I think it was secret for a long time but he negotiated he got $800,000 a year just for being the figurehead of Marvel. He got like a pension for his wife of like maybe half that a year and he also got 10% of profits from all their TV and movie projects. So that is, well see here's the thing. So that's worth like a lot more than a hundred and a thousand dollars. Right.

So basically what happened from this point, again, this is 1996 and again they're selling the file cabinets. They're stuff's going out the door and so basically what happened is they went okay, there are people sniffing at the door, we'll sell off some of our properties to movie companies. That's how we get some money back and we'll make money off merchandise and it's going to be great. So they started selling stuff off. They sold Blade, we've mentioned before, to New Line cinema and Blade made the movie with

Wesley Snifes. That made $70 million profit and Marvel got $25,000. Like that's there. And Kirby's like, sweet, two and a half grand. I mean Lee, probably mean 10, 10%. Quick note, Jack Kirby died in 1994. So he died when it was, they were back in time. Broke it up.

Looking good. So he went out going just in the past. Yeah, I guess, I think he might have been just as they were hitting a nose dive, I think. All right. And he's like, good. Yeah, imagine he would have been happy. Supposedly Stanley and Jack Kirby were at a common

convention in 1994 and they had a reconciliation. But is this according to Stan? This is according to Stan. It sounds like fan fiction. Yeah, so there's no other confirmation of that. So the only way, so the idea was very bad with the Blade movie then. Yes, and so they kept doing this,

so again, they sold X-Men to Fox, they sold, fantastic four, they sold off Spider-Man to Sony. And essentially, what happened is they were making some bad decisions. And then they also put in, there must have been some sort of perpetuity clause where if you keep making movies every couple of years, you get to retain ownership of these properties. So which is why they made,

they made three Spider-Man movies. Then there was a little break, then they made two more Spider-Man movies. And while they keep making X-Men movies, and they keep trying to make a fantastic four movie, even though they're terrible. And so they kept doing this and eventually um... I tell you... Give fantastic fallback. You've had your chance. Yeah I know. My dream is that they sell the rights back to Marvel and if we... Chicken now afford it. Yeah exactly. And every year Marvel makes one and they let

the other guys make one as well. Right. And so we get a really good one and we get a terrible one every year That's kind of my dream. I would like to say that happened. I just I just want every I feel like I feel like Uncomfortable yes that Marvel doesn't have all their own things makes me feel gross You know, right right like it's like it's needed to be complete and all I feel bad about it It just makes me feel awkward. And they also, in a way, at the time, they sold off their biggest pro. In a way, it's been kind of a positive. Okay.

They sold off their A-list stuff. They sold off the X-Men. They sold off Spider-Man. And they went off and they did some, you know, they did some okay business. You know, some of the Spider-Man movies are super fun and what have you. But then they've had to go, well, we have to do this, basically, what happened is there's a guy called David Macell

who was a talent agent and he basically came up to them independently and he was like, why are you doing this? Like why are you, I have some connections, I will, like you should produce your own movies and get all the money. And I'll help you make that happen kind of thing. And the pitch was they went to a company called Merrill Lynch, which is like a

financial services company, and they basically said, we have all these properties, we have, we're going to give you 10 comic book properties like some of our great characters, and give us $500 million. We will make that money back and we'll give you that money with interest, but if we don't, you can have these characters. Like we will give up these characters forever kind of well That's the collateral. Yeah captain America. They gave him the Avengers Nick Fury black Panther and man Dr. Strange Hawkeye a couple of a couple of others that I guess with thrown in just to see if anyone was paying attention Power pack cloak and dagger and Shang Chi the master of Kung Fu

Okay, that was exactly nobody in Jose day. Okay, that was... Exactly, nobody in Jose Daya. Right. That was... I think that was just the... The test. That was actually... There's three posters on my wall. I'm one of them. Shang Chi, the master of Kung Fu.

And Power pack. Yeah. Power pack, and then also yellow boy. Yeah. And eventually, and so they... Kid. Yeah. And so, for me, the good thing about this is they went,

okay, well, what... We're gonna put these characters up, and we're gonna, you know, we're gonna front them, and we're gonna get this money, and we're gonna make some movies. And they were went, okay, well what, we're gonna put these characters up and we're gonna, you know, we're gonna front them and we're gonna get this money and we're gonna make some movies. And they were like, okay, what characters do we have left? We don't have Spider-Man, we don't have X-Men. Right.

What, can we get some B-list characters and bring them to the front, maybe? And so they took, you know, Iron Man, who, as a kid, was my favorite character, but nobody ever, like when the, I'm gonna try to look at him out, people were like, is this guy a robot? What's, what's this guy's deal?

Who even knows, can't it kind of yeah, that's funny And that made that made $585 million so that Immediately made them all their money back plus a little more. Yeah, they created Marvel Studios Which is their own producing company and they kind of so everything off so captain America was already big big But Iron Man wasn't correct Thor no not big as a mythological character sure America was already big, but Iron Man wasn't. Correct. Thor? No. Not big?

As a mythological character, sure. Yeah, but not like he thought, no. No, right. Yeah, see, I'd just assume they're always big. Right, okay, yeah. So they're all, that makes sense. So they were just like, oh, we do what we can with these guys. Yeah.

And then I know that Guardians of the Galaxy was like something that I'd never heard of and I don't think, like the layman would have known him. Yeah, I mean that's a group of characters that have been around for a very long time, but it's sort of be-list characters who exist off in space. Yeah, I read about him at a time there's like a few different formations of him. There was one in the 60s or something. Yeah, there was one in the 60s, there was one, there was a team set in the 30th century, and there's some modern era ones, and sometimes sometimes they meet and sometimes they cross over and etc and yet it's kind of a mess but they've really you know they've gotten people

who who love the form and love those characters and trying to make the best characters they can and I think they've really they've really nailed it. So you're like yeah maybe it's true that if they had all of their own characters initially maybe yeah maybe it wouldn't have been as good. Yeah, but they wouldn't have had to have worked for it. Yeah, maybe it wouldn't have been as good. Yeah, maybe, yeah. That's certainly. How about what's the Hulk Steel? I was finally confusing this many Hulk films, sometimes two in the same year.

From different, different, like Eric Banner is one, and then Edward Norton is the other than the next year. And are there those Marvel made? Well, the Edward Norton one is from the current university. Yeah, that's the, I mean, what they've done now is Marvel, again, of pioneering the shared universe in the comic books They've then created a shared universe on screen, which is again a very cany move because sometimes you can watch them independently But if you want to get the full picture you do have to watch every single one and then maybe buy one DVD and watch them again

And the post credits, then. There's a part, exactly in what they did is they created, they released Iron Man and then they released the Incredible Hulk with Ed Norton and at the end of that there was a post-credit sequence where Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man shows up at the end and is like, hey look at this, we're on the same universe, how about that, kind of thing. And yeah, they kind of kicked it off again. So originally the plan for the Incredible Hulk was to have Mark Ruffalo, but then the studio insisted on Edward Norton, and then Edward Norton was apparently such a pain to work with. They got rid of him and he didn't want to come back anyway,

and so they were like, well, Ruffalo's in, and now he's the Hulk. So yeah, the Eric Banner one was unrelated. Yeah, they read it the origin in the incredible Hulk, so it's slightly different. You can include it if you want, you know? Okay. Yeah.

I choose not to. Okay, Yeah. I choose not to. Okay, great. Goodbye, Banner. Yeah. I haven't seen that one. I don't find that, well the incredible Hulk's was definitely a big-ish character, right? Yeah, definitely. He was a, he had his own series and the TV series in the 60s.

Yeah, with Bill Bix, maybe not the 60s, the 80s. What's the main guy's name? Bill Bixby and Lou Farrigno. Lou Farrign no, he's still famous as the Hulk I think I've heard of it Yes he is and he has a different thing from time to time he will be the voice of the Hulk in a lot of it And I made it serious. He's the voice I think in in the Avengers the the first Avengers Isn't the voice just a lot of he speaks every once in a while right and when he does Yeah, and when he does they're like get loopering now in. Yeah, that's cool. Okay, oh man, I want to know so many things.

Uh huh. At the end of the question time, here we go. And then one of the movies, there's the duck. How are the duck? How are the duck? Correct. Is that gonna be a movie? Almost certainly no.

They tried that in the 80s. There was a How are the duck movie? I saw it in the 80s, I reckon. Yeah, I think it was. What's How are the duck? How are the duck is a, it in the movies, Eric. Yeah, he's Eric and you were the Duh-Man. Yeah, I was. What's How The Duck? How The Duck is a, he's a humanoid duck. He's from a parallel universe.

He knows Quack-Fu, which is a form of martial arts. He wears a little suit and tie. Oh, man. He's kind of a very easily-angled Donald Duck-style character. He's had some very good comic book series, but he's sort of considered box office poison because Steven Spears it was it was the Steven Spear book or George Lucas made a movie. I think it was George Lucas made a movie in the 80s and it was just a weird looking duck character and it was a very bizarre about that pluck of duck sort of thing. Yeah, kind of yeah, like a real squat pluckerduck and it was very, it's a very odd movie. Now, I reckon, you know how these things come in peaks

and troughs, more gives the house, put it all on a quack food. That is my place. That's what I'm taking away from this episode. I saw that, I reckon as a kid. I would have had absolutely zero idea that it was from a, like I would have had zero idea what Marvel was. Right, yeah.

And I mean, until really just then, did I put it all together I wasn't so that was already part that duck. It wasn't some weird joke that duck was from Marvel Yes, it was a weird joke, and it's but it is from Marvel. Yeah, he's been well. I also want to know Dave I want to know what's everything. I want to know to Stanley still get 10% of all the movies. No, here's the thing in I want to say 2002, Stanley realized that he wasn't being paid that 10% from his movie earnings, and he went to, he actually sued

Marvel, and so, and people refer to it, it's like Colonel Sanders suing KFC, you know, way, because he's, he's the figurehead and he's suing his own company, but the, the, the, the head of Marvel is a, uh Marvel is a guy called like Pearl Mata and he is notoriously cranky, which is very diplomatic to say. And he doesn't like Stanley apparently. And so he's like, I don't understand why he gets paid every year for doing nothing.

I don't like him. He's like, I want him out of here kind of thing. And so he wasn't paying that 10%. And so Stanley sued Marvel. They settled out settled out according again nobody knows the actual figure but people The the assumption is that he got paid 10 million dollars and they said but you're out like you can't we're gonna stop paying you and You don't get the way you don't get the way you don't get anything else 10 million to bucks in your out But you know why it's still a lot of money in a way in a way in a way especially We're not coming at that time of what he's in his early 80s and he's still a lot of money. In a way, in a way. In a way, especially when you're having at that time of what he's in, he's early 80s.

And he's like, well, I probably won't be around that much longer. Right, right, yeah. Is there any chance they're going to bring everything back together? Bring all the, because they're, so they're Sony? Yep. Fox. Fox and another one. Yeah, New Line.

There's been a couple of others. We have gotten a few characters back. So Daredevil was originally back, so Daredevil was originally, I think Daredevil was given to Sony as well, and Electra, which is a spin-off from Daredevil, and they produce some terrible movies, quite terrible movies, and they have been purchased back. So Daredevil got his own series on Netflix. The punisher was purchased, he's come back as well. Spider-Man has come back for Civil War, so that is a very significant negotiation. A lot of people, some people will like who cares if Spider-Man's in this,

and it's because he's a quintessential part of that universe, and he hasn't been able to be in what people consider the best version of at this Marvel Cinematic Universe, and now he's back. So people are very excited. So Sany, you like to give us a bit of money? Yeah, we don't, again, we don't know the details and we don't know. Is it a loan or? Yeah, they're gonna do a Spider-Man solo movie. It's coming up soon.

It's called Spider-Man Homecoming and Sony are making it, but they are scripting it and producing it with Marvel's approval. Right, so it's in the universe, but Sany makes some money. Sony's still making it, yeah. Oh, yeah.

It's complicated, but it's maybe a good compromise. I mean, and again, at this point, you know, the final business stroke here, I guess, is that Disney were bought, Marvel were purchased by Disney in 2009 for $4 billion. Right. So now they have Disney behind them. So ultimately, at this point,

I think if Disney wants a character back, they will just give whoever owns it a billion dollars and say, we would like it back, please. Right. If they think it's worth it. So at this point, I don't know. Like some characters kind of poisonous. Like the Fantastic Four, do they even want it back?

You know, they might need 10 years before people's the memory of those characters are gone and they can give it another try. Yeah, it just seems like a corny thing. Yeah. But what about the X-Men? Because that's a pretty successful cinematic universe as well. That's true. And quite well received. Would you call it a universe?

I mean, it's just one thing. I would call it a universe. I mean, there's a lot of spin-offs. And it's a very strange continuity in that they keep resetting time and they keep, you know, there'll be a character who's a teenager in the 90s, but then he's also a teenager in the 60s and there's... Oh, okay. It's very odd, but at this point the X-Men universe is kind of just watch the movie and have fun with it. We don't really care what the continuity is, But yeah, I think that one's gonna be that one seems quite tricky

There's a there's a version. There's characters in the Marvel universe called the inhumans and they're kind of I think Marvel Of building them up to be the equivalent of the X-Men in in the cinematic universe So if they can't get the X-Men, they're like well, he's a he's a backup Right. These guys is a backup But because there's something about not being able to use mutants, right? Correct, yes. They are like, whoever, whichever company that is, they bought mutants. They bought, yes, exactly they did, yeah.

So there's no way you could have Wolverine, but he's not a mutant or something? No, I don't. Otherwise, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't. So that's a fun fact for you. So Wolverine was created's a fun fact for you that um so huge uh Wolverine was created by a guy called Len Wayne as a villain for the Hulk. There was this period of time with the Hulk. They're just like okay creator. We need a we need somebody to fight the

Hulk you know this month the next month and the month after that and they just were like okay create a throwaway character and they lend this guy Len Wayne created Wolverine. And then many years later, I think it was one of the Wolverine premieres. Len Wayne was invited to that premiere and Hugh Jackman said, this guy, it's Len Wayne, he created Wolverine. I owe my whole career to this guy. He's amazing. Take a bow, everybody, and everybody was like,

woo, this guy's the best. And later Len Wayne was like, order, prefer to check. If I'm honest with you Come on guys, you know, but I don't know that it's it's all it's all a mystery all right I'm okay I probably should stop asking questions eventually what about what about this? Yes, I could sense that you're about to pitch a common-card

What about this all right, so it's a part human? Yes, no mut's a part human. Yes. Part animal. No remutants. Part in human. Oh, good work. Part goes part funk man. Part in this. Part androids. Part shadow.

Part androids. He's a bunch. He's a bunch. Yeah. You know how like all the most famous characters all seem to have a huge history, right? They all go back to the 30s or the 40s or the 50s or something. Yeah. Are there any iconic characters that have been invented in, say, our lifetimes? So since the 80s or 90s? Yeah, it was a no chance for new characters.

What did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Or did they just say? Yeah, that's a good question. A lot of the X-Men are modern, modern created in the 80s. I guess there's a lot of more independent characters that like from like more indie creators that have probably given me a second. I'm sure I can figure somebody. Because it's kind of, I think it's just like everything is like all movies in general. It's just like old ideas being redone. Correct. TV shows and everything. So it just, yeah, it feels like a new superhero character it all goes, oh, that's just made up. It's a real one.

Yeah, you give us a real one, like the ones that we had when we were kids, yeah. So, but it'd be cool if they could figure out how to do that. Guys, I can't help you. I think it's, or maybe one of our fan Cecil is a regular tweeter to us. I have this hundreds of people just yelling at modern era superheroes artists. I mean there's a lot of

I've heard of that's the catch. Yeah, I see that's the thing. Yeah exactly. He can't just be like, oh how about that? Yeah, I mean again a lot Marvel and DC are actually very good at introducing sort of more minor characters and superhero teams that do have a lot of appeal if you're already you know part of that you know you're a big fan of that universe already. And maybe it will take, you know, them being pushed into a Marvel movie and, you know, that will be, then they'll be coming eyeless here, but until then, you know, they're just kind of middling, you know, they're good characters, but they're not blockbusters. B players.

The B. What about that? Is there such a character? I think there's a sign for the movie. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. The B movie. about that? Is there such a character? I think there's a sign for the movie. Oh, it's the movie. Yeah, the B movie. Yeah. Yeah. Everything's been done. Everything's been done.

Cool, well. Speaking of everything being done. Well, this episode seems like it's pretty done. Thank you so much. Well, turn off the mics, anyway. I'm going to keep asking you. Yeah, we have to be asking questions all night long. Oh.

Yeah. And it's only 4 p.m. Yeah. It's a long night. Thank you so much Nick Mesa. It's my pleasure for schooling. I knew I don't know I'm not that up to date. Yeah I want to be. I don't know I still don't know if you're up to date. Can I ask you? It's in peace. You obviously see the movies is the final question for me. Do you read comics? Not as much as I used to. Most of this knowledge has come from being a big fan of them in the 90s. It's that knowledge that won't leave my brain.

And in the 90s, would you go out and buy them from coming up a shop right? And did you keep any of those for when the trough becomes so deep? There's also shallow. I do have a spider man number one. I do have the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man number one. It's just the regular cover.

It's not a fancy cover. It's bagged and boarded. What year is that from? 93. I'm gonna say 93. No, three, but this is one of the one million that we made at the time. So I'm gonna wait 200 years and

I'm shooting out all the other people of Dyn. I want the nuclear fallout. His car down the half life of them. I am gonna cash right in. But you're not so much in me. I do like to get digital comics. You can just put them right in your iPad. That's good.

Just a read. Yes. Not to take up space. Exactly. Digital space. All right. I've got a couple more questions. I'm ready.

Sorry about it. This feels like good wrapping up ones though. All right. So I reckon a lot of people listening probably don't know much about it. Like, kind of like me and Dave, who can't do it, but really don't. I think that's what the average person now I reckon knows a little bit, because the movie's also big.

So your favorite character is a kid with Iron Man. Here's a couple of parts, right? Who's your favorite character now? Yep. All-time. What's your favorite movie? All-time, and what would be your suggested movie to someone who is who hasn't Seen anything what would be there? What's the entry level good questions?

Do you mean my favorite when you say favorite character? Do you mean just Marvel or anything Marvel and everything? Oh, okay It might still be a Iron Man because he's a real arrogant jerk, but he's got there on the grid He's gotten there on the grid of just, he's got, he's grit and he's tenacity and he's genius in his parents billions of dollars. So that's pretty good for him. My favorite character of all time is a DC character called Starman, who is a character from the, he's a character from the 50s, but then his son took over the role. He was kind of a character, he wouldn't wear a costume and he thought the whole thing was kind of dumb. And he would rather negotiate his way out of a fight than actually fight. And he was kind of, it wasn't quite an ironic take, but it was kind of like a,

it was like a fan of comic books becoming a superhero kind of thing. And it was, I'm a big fan of it. And it had like, it was 80 issues long and it had like a very defined beginning middle and end. So it was like this saga and you read the whole thing and it was finished and it was really good. Oh man, you can track that down. Like the idea of something having a star finish? Right, exactly. It's so rare in the comic book world.

My favorite, I think Civil War is actually very, very good. I'm a big fan of that one. If you want to see just one, Captain America, the Winter Soldier, which is the second Captain America movie, that's the second Captain America movie. That's him in the modern era and it's a great, a lot of the Marvel movies are, there is genre film wrapped up like a superhero film because just a superhero film can be kind of boring like, oh they have an origin and I find a villain and that's the end. So you know they're they're they can be kung fu movies or they can be you know magic movies or what have you and they've

just got this superhero trapping But Captain America the Winter Soldier is this espionage movie That is wrapped up like a superhero movie. It's very very good actions great It does have this super espionage style Chain to it it feels like there's there was a movie in the 70s called three days of the condor which had Robert Redford in it This is this spy movie and it has the feel very much like that and also Robert Redford is in The rest of your thoughts and it's a good film. That's that's your best tip for a new player If you're a newbie, yeah, check that one out awesome

Thank you so much for coming in and being Jess Perkins. It's been a pleasure big shoes to feel yeah, I know right? Yeah, as you know, yeah, the deepest trough of all am I right? I very yellow jump a. So yellow. Yellow boy. Yellow boy. Yellow kid. Yellow kid. Yellow kid. Yellow kid. Yeah. Yellow kid. Yellow kid.

Oh, we definitely did. Thank you very much. If we would like to hear more of your weekly musings on... Oh, sure. Superheroes and the... Oh, you can listen to the weekly planet, myself and my friend James. Do this podcast every week and we talk about the nerd news of the week and then we'll pick some sort of topic or we'll watch a movie and we'll review it or we'll have a good old time. We might do a

we might do a superhero showdown where people will email in superheroes they want to fight and we all determine definitively who the winner is. Oh I mean not definitively but we're not really that invested in it if I'm honest with you. It would win between Matt and I. Oh, it's a good question. That is a good question. It would be a long and boring battle. But I think, look, I think, it's just a lot of talking.

It's a lot of talking. Yeah. But I think just the fact that you asked the question would suggest that you have... A tendency to violence. You have the tendency to violence. You have the grit and determination. I think you might win. Yeah.

I think that's probably true. Absolutely. Imagine getting beaten in a fight by a man who weighs as much as... Who Paris Hilton? Is I the same way this Paris Hilton, that's right. Imagine. Well, imagine. I can't imagine it. Well, if you donate to the show, imagine no more. That's right, we will start a Kickstarter for Matt and I. Don't fight to the death.

Thanks so much for listening everyone. You can suggest a topic. Thank you very much to Pete. Yes, suggesting this topic. Do go on podatgmail.com if you're on the email, if you are on Facebook, we're at dot com slash do go on pod. And you can tweet us at do go on pod. Where the hat is brimming with ideas.

Love it. Yes. What's your Twitter again? You got a great Twitter. Oh, I'm at Wikipedia Brown, which is a sweet reference from the 80s that nobody gets anymore. It's like the Wikipedia Brown. It's like the Wikipedia Brown. Dave's got it. First one. Well done, Dave.

Thank you. I win this fight, overall. So you're getting contact. Thanks so much for listening to the show and we'll be back with the lovely Truffield shoes that is Jeff's Jess will be back We'll be back with Jeff or Jess Perkins. We'll find someone who she doesn't make it back because she's such a comedy superstar They say thank you very much and good night Are you working way too hard for way too little? There's never been a better time to consider a career in IT. You could enjoy a recession-resistant career in a rewarding field, with plenty of growth

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