Plumbing the Death Star - Episode 1 All New, All Different Serious Issues (with Joel Zammit and Jackson Baly)

Episode Date: August 10, 2021

Welcome to the All New, All Different Serious Issues! In our first rebooted episode, Joel Zammit and Jackson Baly from Plumbing The Death Star join Levins to review Planet Size X-Men, The House of Lost Horizons: A Sarah Jewell Mystery and Toritan: Birds of a Feather. We're a weekly podcast again! Hallelujah! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey, Hansoms, did you know that we finally have a weekly comic book podcast on this goddamn network? Series Issues is all new and all different, hosted by our good friend Levens from the infamous Blink-182 episode, and rotating guests from across the Sandspants Radio line-up. Up next is Episode 1 of the brand new season, and if you like what you hear, you can listen to Episode 2, where we talk about Jackson's love of hobos and the beginning of me becoming a dune boy Sam Pence Radio Australia's coolest podcast network Serious of the Sandspans Radio Network. That is who we are. Yeah. I think like dunce and dunce. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The two head dunces.

So you've probably, you know, if you're familiar with this feed, this podcast, Serious Issues, you've definitely heard my voice way too many times on it. So hearing me at the start, no surprise. Maybe me saying the word weekly

for the first time in years comes as a surprise to you. But guess what, everyone? Serious Issues is going to be a weekly comic book podcast again. We started many years ago, and for the longest time, myself and Siobhan Coombs hosted the podcast every single week, and we reviewed sometimes more than 60 single issues of comics per episode. No.

Jesus. No. Believe it or not, not everyone we burned out what? fair call that's insane I'm shocked shocked to hear

so all those episodes exist you can revisit that era of serious issues and wonder how we didn't lose our minds or maybe we did you can let us know if we did whenever you like to but this is a season two this is all new all different serious issues um we're going to be a weekly podcast again

i'm going to host every episode siobhan coombs will be making appearances when she's able to fit us into her busy work and parenting schedule at work parenting and comic book reading schedule she's still reading them don't worry everyone everyone's worried she's still reading them not 60 a week but she's still reading them previous guests of the podcast like connor will make appearances and others as well but most excitingly uh every single week i'll be joined by at least one two or even three of my favorite folks over at sans pants because i mean because I mean, I know, I know you guys all somehow in amongst you, like, like me,

you know, we, we play too many video games. We, uh, what's the other thing that we do? Uh, we do some second thing,

TV thing. Yeah. But also we read too many comics. We definitely host too many podcasts. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

You do that. Uh, but we all, we all, we all read comics. And so I wanted to change the format of this podcast so any of us can come on and do this podcast um you guys um jackson and dammit both uh host a podcast called thumb cramps along with joel ducha who will also be appearing on

serious issues um and the format of that podcast is each of them talk about a video game that they've been playing that week every week. And I thought, hey, that makes just as much sense as that for comic books. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's not 60 games in a week. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That would be insane. The longest podcast ever.

It just never stops recording. You finish the 60th and then you hit start on the next episode. Doing 60, like reading 60 comics in a week is very reminiscent of when I used to collect hard copy floppies of comics. I was doing that, yeah. I think I got to a point where I definitely burnt maybe one or two comic book shops where they had a pull order that I just ghosted. So I can only imagine this thick stack of comic books that they're like he's coming back right he's gonna be he will buy these he wants these variants yeah then at some point they're gonna be like let's put them on the shelf let's put them on the shelf let's put them in the

dollar bin yeah uh so i we actually work we were recorded from king's comics in sydney which still exists you can check them out at kingscomics.com and I think it was being at the being at the store seeing all the comics on the shelf and them going yeah just borrow whatever you want

and I said well it was like that you know which comics do you want to borrow 11s yes

and just reading reading all of them oh no that's dangerous and like especially because I swear if you go back and listen to those

old episodes, I'm like, oh, I hated this. I definitely hated this. This comic destroyed my soul. Yeah, for sure. Because Marvel and DC put out way too many comics every single week. Absolutely. That's where the majority of my burnout came from.

So I mostly read manga these days, but occasionally will read the odd highly recommended superhero or other crime comic books are one of my favorites, and I think we share an interest in that, Jackson. Yeah, absolutely. But if you're familiar with many long episodes of SansPants podcast, particularly episodes of Plumbing the Death Star, you'll know that Zamet is a huge freak for X-Men. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, that too. Most Marvel. Yes, yes, yes. And there have been times, I know I've heard you stop yourself from ranting about the current state of certain superhero comics. Definitely always feels like standing on a landmine with Zammett. You're like, you have just an idle, simple question

where you're like, what's, I don't know, Professor X up to these days? And then he opens his mouth and you're like, what's, I don't know, Professor X up to these days? And then he opens his mouth and you're like, I wanted a one-sentence answer, but... I wish I was talking about 60 video games right now. So this is an outlet for Zamit now too, and Jackson as well, and Dusha, and I reckon Tom Walker reads comics. A plethora of SansPants radio hosts

will now appear on Serious Issues. But most importantly, it's weekly again. We'll be reviewing less comics overall, but there'll be more episodes and therefore more content. What more could you want? Well, yeah. What do you want from us? This is what you get.

Yeah, leave us alone. Stop yelling at me. This is exciting. Yeah. Be happy. I get to talk about X-Men and I'm pretty happy with that. Sometimes I feel like I treat the listeners like I'm like a bad

dad at a birthday party and I'm like, why aren't you smiling? It's happy. Blow the candles out. You're liking the party, aren't you? Yeah. It's good. Put down the video game. Kid always on the phone. Put away your Game Boy.

Come on. Experience the world. Dance with Grandma. This is what the podcast is now. Just you guys yelling and me forgetting what we were talking about before you started yelling. So on the podcast today, Zamit, you're going to review Planet Size X-Men. Yes. A single issue of the comic that came

out a couple months ago jackson what are you reviewing i'm going to review i think only three issues are out at the moment but it's a comic called sarah jewel and the house of lost horizons which is a dark horse comic set in the hellboy verse um excellent i'll be i'll be looking at and i'll be reviewing a manga series called toritan birds of a feather let's get right into it zamit tell me about planet size x-men well so planet size x-men i think is as we all know uh play on i guess giant size x-men where uh back in the 70s when they were trying to uh i guess revamp the series they decided to get the five original x-men they chuffed them off to an island somewhere and so we got the brand new all all different, all exciting X-Men,

all from around the world. We've got Colossus, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, all your old favorites. Thunderbird, he died pretty quickly. Who's Thunderbird? Sounds like a spread. Thunderbird, he died in almost the next issue. He was like a Native American mutant. They were like, let's chuck him on!

Kill him off! I don't need to worry about Thunderbird is what I'm hearing. And again, it was a big shake-up of the status quo. Storm there, Banshee, so you've got Ireland, Africa, all the different nations in the world have mutants. And so with planet-sized X-Men, it's another big shake-up of the status quo that is the current X-Men, I i guess storytelling because again in the last year maybe

two uh x-men have just had this giant revamp because boy how did it get silly and stupid and bad um we we had the the the age of x-man which was just terrible and then please tell me your what's the lowest point that you have it as an-Men reader? Great question. Lowest point. I mean, there's so many, you know? That's grim. That's grim to hear. That's a stone cold bomb of it. There's just so much garbage that just kind of gets produced.

Like, oh, what's this? I think Avengers. No, it's not Avengers. Inhumans versus X-Men was pretty bad. We covered that. That was one of the last things we covered before we stopped being weekly. Yeah, there again. It was just this terrible time in Marvel's history where they're like,

we don't own the rights for the movies for X-Men, but we do own Inhumans, so we're going to push Inhumans a lot. And no one cares. But they still tried their damnedest to the point where they're like, okay, it's not working. What if we actively killed off the X-Men because it was the Inhumans' fault but made the X-Men the villains? And people were still like, no, we still hate this. Were they like, okay, you don't care about, we need you to care about the Inhumans.

So Wolverine's dead and now you care about Blackagar Baltagon. That's what you should be caring. There were some genuinely good Inhumans comics at the time, but you have one of the strongest fan bases ever in X-Men Readers. Yeah, we revolted. Yeah, exactly, you revolted. We're like, no, I'm not having any of this. I'm not doing it.

Blackagar Boltagon was like, okay, we're going to release the Terrigan Mist all over the world so that people who may or may not be Inhumans or who don't know that can become Inhumans, which is basically like mutants. It just happens randomly. And we're like, nope, still don't care. Okay, what if the same mist killed mutants?

And we're like, we really don't like that. And then it just got worse. That's so transparent. I think also around the same time, Black Bolt died. Probably, yeah. So the X-Men and Black Bolt died around the same time. And they killed off Cyclops, which was beautiful as well. They killed off all of the Jamie Maddox, the Madrixes.

He was one of my favorite characters of the X-Men franchise. So that was a pretty big low point. There's a lot of him to kill. So many. That doesn't sound easy. So that was pretty big low point there's a lot of him to kill oh so many that doesn't sound easy uh so that was low but also again the the the the story that happened just before hickman just came on and was like we're just revamping it because they just felt like we're it's our last hurrah and so they tried to cram a lot of 90s x-men bullshit into the comics um and i was like who is this for me thank you

but they did it in such a bad way like magneto appears and it was like who's this guy and they're like oh it's joseph you remember joseph and i was like i do no one else should yeah it was really bad how many other how many x-men comics do you reckon like single issues of x-men comics do you think you've read over the years it would be up up in the thousands i think wow is there a period that you haven't read um so i i didn't read from i i want to say like the hope side like when hope came into it yep uh who is the um i guess daughter of uh cable or like the adopted daughter of cable so um after that that that's sort of when i dropped off the adopted daughter of Cable so after that that's sort of when I dropped off the face of

X-Men where I'm like I've had enough this seems like it was a bit of a high because it was like the Messiah complex and it's like a bit of a high the art was really good the storyline was somewhat coherent and I was like okay I'm not going to get this for a while again so I think this is a good you know just dropping

off point I'm done I'm done. Would you ever go off point Would you ever go back and read the comics you missed? I have I like all the Jason Aaron stuff That kind of came out of that He started on Wolverine shortly after Messiah Complex Somehow I find the X-Men Just really exhausting I don't know why

What part of the last 10 minutes I find out recently That Mystique Had a kid with Xavier, but also had a kid with Wolverine, and they were, like, into the far future, but then they came back to the past to, like, screw things up, and it was a slog. Yeah.

A slog to get through. X-Men, as well as having, like, one of the most insanely large character rosters um also some of the most insane time travel hijinks as well yeah it's a bold combination and don't i'm a big fan of like the original like uh like what cable did and haul him like going to the future to kind of fix his techno-organic virus but then you're like okay yeah he's into the future and he comes back but But then they're like, what if we fuck it up more and Jean Grey and Cyclops go into the future anyway,

but not as Jean Grey and Cyclops, but they'll call themselves Red and Slim. They'll raise him, but they won't tell him that they're actually his actual parents. He won't figure that out for a while. Anyway, he's back now. Oh, God. It always feels like I'm at a party full of people I don't really know, and I don't know how to interact with any of these people, and I'm hearing all of their drama, and I'm like,

oh, yeah, that's cool. Who had a kid? I don't know that guy. I'm excited. That sounds nice. It's a beautiful soap opera that I love and adore. Fair enough. So, yeah, so recently they've just revamped X-Men to be the best it's ever been in a long, long time.

Thank you for Hickman coming in and being like, let's just reboot. Let's just do some good soft rebooting, hard rebooting, who gives a fuck. There's, like, things you remember, we might include them, things you might not, who cares? They might be the forgotten years or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And so they've just been like, right. So after all this bullshit that happened with setting up, so the mutants now live in an island called krakowa um so they had this called x of swords crossover which involves like other world and magic and

bullshit and the big takeaway there is that there was another island uh a living island krakow was a living island there's a second living island called aroka um and two of them once were a planet right yes well either a big planet or a big island it's all to do with apocalypse what was what was the combination of krakow and aroka called oh god yeah you're testing my krakow surely it was called krakow surely tell me it was called krakow let's say yes yes that's awesome views and yeah like uh Apocalypse was first around, he's first horseman. So Apocalypse, you've got that big blue dude.

And he's got like horseman of like whatever. And his wife was also there. And they're like, there was some bullshit that went down by like a being called Annihilation, I think. And they're like, we've got to stop these people from invading. And so they're like, right, my horsemen and my wife, you go in there and I'll stay out here and protect what is now Earth and Oroka goes in there.

And so you've had like millennia of evolution where these mutants in particular who grew up in Oroka, they are basically hardened by war because they're constantly fighting. And so they're like more of a hardened race. Anyway, long story short, that island now got transported to Earth, so now you have Croaca and Oroka kind of joined together. Anyway, because now you have these million more mutants

have just popped up for no reason everyone's like that's sus but because they're more of a war like mutant and they've sort of grown up where like you know survival of the fittest they're just kind of like causing a bit of problems around earth

so then Magneto has an idea to be like right let's terraform Mars and give it to them. And that Mars can be the new, I guess, capital of the Sol system. And basically that can be where we're claiming Mars for mutantdom. And so planet-sized X-Men. Ah, the planet is Mars. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It involves gathering all the Omega-level mutants, so the Omega-level mutants, of course, being mutants who basically just have the upper limit of their particular power. So you've got Magneto because he can do shit with magnets. That's real great. You've got Storm who can do shit with weather. You've got Vulcan who does shit with, I don't know,

volcanoes maybe, I don't know. You've got Vulcan who does shit with volcanoes maybe. You've got Hope. Iceman, he does molecular manipulation with his ice. You've also got Hope who can boost everything. And you've got a couple of telekinetic and telekinesis people as well. Basically they all come together and you've got

Exodus. They all come together and they're like right, we're going to reality bend and all this stuff to finally make Mars habitable and they do it and it's a great

it's a great comic I love it so much the artwork in this one in particular is just beautiful so it's written by Jerry Duggan with art by Pepe Larraz

Larraz has done the majority of the reboot art he's one of the reboot art. He's one of the more prominent artists in this current run of X-Men. And Jerry Duggan, he's been writing Marauders, one of the new recent X-Men books, and Wolverine. Are they his two books or Cable?

I can't remember one of them. I think it was Wolverine. And, like, yeah, I think Halley and – Wolverine is Benjamin Percy. So I think, yeah, Duggan's been doing Cable and Marauders. So, yeah, all the new X-Books are just, like – some of them are a lot better than others. And I think, like, Duggan's been doing Cable and Marauders. So, yeah, all the new X-Books are just, like, some of them are a lot better than others, and I think, like, when they first launched them, there were a couple of, like, I would say near misses,

like Fallen Angels. Very short run. Yeah, short run, and thankfully it was a short run, because it was not very good. But, like, a few of them, like, Helions in particular is, like, one of my personal favourites. So, yeah, so they've just decided to terraform Mars, basically do what humans will do in several, several generations,

to be like, we're doing three hours! And it's, again, setting up this status quo. They get the reality bender Jamie Madrix, not Jamie Madrix, sorry, Jamie Braddock, who is currently king of one of the other world realms. And they're like, hey, we have an idea. Come have a wild weekend with us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Come up over here. We need your help. We need a reality bender. And they're like, I've got an idea for, because when they do everything, they're like, we're missing something. We're missing maybe a protection of this new Mars. They're like, hey, we're going to give you an idea,

and you're going to give birth to that idea. And he takes it literally. There's a bit of an empreg in X-Men, which is great. He gets a big old belly, and then he births a giant sword, as in S-W-O-R-D, a sword station. A huge space station. Yeah. And Jean Grey has to chuck into the atmosphere as he gets big.

Magneto catches it with his magnetic powers. It's beautiful. It's so good. My lord. It's all happening at the Hellfire Gala, which is like the very first, like the mutantdom being like, we're going to have a big old ball. And I think some of you might have seen some of the wacky costumes the X-Men were wearing

for the Hellfire Gala. And this was them showing off to the world, flexing their might, flexing their money, flexing their powers. And also, fuck you, we've terraformed Mars as their big sort of like grand finale, which has got some ramifications happening in all the other X-Books.

Because everyone's like, fuck i guess it's kind of a big deal it's kind of yeah probably gonna gonna affect some things i mean it's just yeah again it's setting up that status quo and i really like the like the reason why they're doing like all this from like you know uh magneto's perspective being like hey erokians you're uh a bit violent uh let's just give you a whole planet to deal with, and we'll go from there. Because otherwise, you're going to cause some strife down on Earth. And yeah, it's interesting seeing how they're doing and what they're playing with. Because again, when you look at mutantdom in the Marvel Universe,

they've always been like humans. We hate them. I wish they'd fuck off. And so now they're basically well we're fucking off to our own island and they were fucking off to a different planet and the humans still not happy it does feel like a huge status quo chain like maybe the biggest ever that's happened sort of like to mutants and in in comics i mean like that's a huge claim but it feels i would say with kkoa and then this,

it's just kind of like the one-two punch of kind of like really shaking up what mutants are, because they've really kind of been stagnant for the longest time. Yeah. And it's kind of like there's so many, like how many stories can we get where it's like, ah, yes, humanity hates and fears the X-Men because they're different. And then you're like, ah, yeah, Cyclops, he shoots fucking lasers out of his eyes.

But Captain America, we love him. He's just strong. That's not scary. Captain America has a cameo in this, in the closest thing to conflict this issue has. What I liked about the issue the most is there's no fighting in it. It's just a whole comic about terraforming Mars. Yeah, that is great. Captain America calls Cyclops to the now dilapidated,

uninhibited X-Mansion. And he's like, hey, so there's like a million more mutants on the world now. What are you going to do about it? And Cyclops is like, just you wait. And then that's the end of the scene. And Captain's like, yeah, I'll wait. It sounds good.

Sure. All right, good. It'd be so funny, like, writing, like, a street level, like, you know, writing, like, a Luke Cage comic at Marvel right now. Because you have to have, like, you know, obviously people in the world are going to be talking about the fact that, like, a mutant race just terraformed Mars.

Yeah, it's kind of a big deal yeah it and i really like like the hints to other things as well that are sort of going on the wider sort of like marvel universe because they reference um i think it's like mckayda who is like this mutant that really only ever appeared in like like a run of x factor like just in like during like the 198 days where he disappears into like a bunch of butterflies at some point i think from memory anyway you remember the 198 days jackson yeah yeah yeah only 198 mutants left he became butterflies leavens i yeah this doesn't make sense to me after w Wanda said no more mutants. Uh-huh. You know, remember that? I do remember that.

I mean, I don't remember that, but I know of it. This was after they make the House of M series. Mm-hmm. You know, where mutantdoms, you know that thing, and Magneto becomes like king of all the land. Sure. And they realize it's a reality thing, and then unfortunately

magneto kind of lashes out and kills pietro which is why you remember all this i remember absolutely 198 or whatever they're only reduced to like only 198 mutants anyway so they they reference him to be like oh we need a reality bender and they're like well you know he's he's not around to help us out they reference legion x Xavier's son. They're like, he's a bit too unstable at the moment, so we don't trust him. And they reference Franklin Richards, yeah, to be like, powerhouse. Fuck Franklin Richards.

He's like, yeah, he's not family anymore. Which, again, I'm not sure what's going on with Franklin Richards in Fantastic Four. I think he's no longer a mutant. I know he definitely has gone from a blonde to dark hair, which is interesting, I guess. God face. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's dyed his hair or something. I don't know. But yeah, it's a great little comic. Do not read it stand alone. It will be confusing. Yeah, this feels like I couldn't just read this comic. I would be completely lost. Go back to House of X and Powers of X and then just continue from there.

I would be completely lost. Go back to House of X and Powers of X and then just continue from there. Yeah, literally every single X-Men comic book, read them from that moment. Except Fallen Angels. You don't need to read Fallen Angels. Yeah, yeah. I'm not going to read any of them like this.

That's the trick. You don't need to. You've got to zam it. Yeah, exactly. I'll just yell at you. You'll beckon call. Cross the room. I'll just be like, hey.

Get it all by osmosis so I've got a vague understanding of everything that's happening yeah but no it's a great step forward for mutantdom i'm a big big fan of what's going on we got to meet some of the uh other mutants from aroca who was like one was this giant caterpillar lad who just kind of like splurts and almost explodes themselves to kind of chew up the dirt to make it more habitable. You've got some giant unit who is this like tall fish guy. He cuts himself and he's like, right, that's going to be, my blood's going to be the water on Mars, and it does. And you've got someone who just teleports the giant external portal,

which is, of course, the external portal made from the bones of the external mutants, the immortal mutants. They kill them and they make the bones of the... Of course, of course. Yeah, so made from the bones of the external mutants, who are the immortal mutants. They kill them and they make the bones of the... Of course, of course. Yeah, so they can... You know, you know. You don't even need to explain it to me. And so they can teleport to and from the island.

So what a great little comic book. Highly recommend it. It is... If you were a fan of X-Men in the past and you've fallen off and you're like, do I dabble back into it? Yes, 100%. You start with House of X, fan of X-Men in the past and you've fallen off and you're like, do I dabble back into it? Yes, 100%. You start with House of X, Powers of X. Otherwise, it's very confusing.

I want to know what the tipping point is, though, because at the moment, death doesn't matter because they've figured out a way how to reincarnate any mutant. They've terraformed Mars. They have their own island. At some point, is it all going to come crashing down, do you think? Or do we think we just this is the status quo forever now i think the moment x-men enter the mcu just like how when

we had the the the movies of old and how they affected the comic books and we had um like a dirty wolverine in just a leather like a leather jacket with no shirt underneath we're going to have that same effect onto comic books. So the moment the MCU introduces X-Men as whatever they are, whatever that is will influence X-Men and then they'll have a big reboot. Yeah, because you couldn't have like... Reality shifting moment. Yeah, I can't jump

into this absolute nonsense you've been describing. Or like, I can't watch the X-Men movie where it's just like, if it's the original six or five or whatever. Five, Jackson, come on. Excuse me. And they're, you know, 198, Jackson.

198, the X-Men are bones. Now name them. They're bones or portals or something. And then jump into this shit. I was just, it would be so confusing. Which is unfortunate, I think. Oh, yeah.

As much as the X-Men confuse and terrify me, it's cool that they're getting weird with it. That's always going to be better than playing it safe. Well, yeah. This is a long history of X-Men getting weird with it. Because there were so many... If you look at X-Men stories of past, they're like,

we're truffling off to space and we're having affairs with bird aliens. That's pretty neat. And then suddenly they're like, hey, we're in a fantasy land and one of my kids is a dragon yeah and like that's pretty cool uh so like again x-men can go all over the place they're like you know what's cool what if like a giant alien laid an egg in me and i gave birth to that alien that'd be scary yeah and so like yeah they just kind of kept really changing a lot of

shit in the x-men uh back in the day um and like with like claremont uh in like um burns run it was just kind of like all these like cool ideas and all these things were happening and it's just more and more as it kind of kept going as it kept going and people were like no let's kind of keep the sustain and keep it stagnant and you have like that problem of like wolverine in every single like basically issue yeah of the 90s where just things became very very samey. And it will be disappointing when they reboot this. I will be sad, but I'll get over it

and keep reading the filth that is X-Men. And I will enjoy it because that is the curse of me. And I'll let you talk about it once a month. Yes. Yes. I'll be so happy. Lucky. So, yes, no, a beautiful book.

I don't know. 10 out of 10. I don't know what Raiden would do any other way, or if we just got a big thumbs up or a big thumbs down, but this gives like two big thumbs up from me. That's good. So we're going to move from the House of X to the House of Lost Horizons.

That's true. For a Sarah Jewell mystery number one. Jackson, tell us about it. So I'm a massive fan of the Hellboy comics, Mike Mignola's sort of like Hellboy-verse. One of the things I really love about this series is that, you know, obviously you have the main Hellboy run, but it loves to do this thing

where it will idly mention a character and then all of a sudden that character will get their own like, you know, massive run of comics, which I know is pretty typical for like, you know, your superhero thing, whatever. If a character is popular, you're going to get a comic. But I think it's rarer with the kind of like horror comics or the whatever you would call the sort of like Hellboy series. Because I don't know if it really typically sort of like is what you call a superhero series.

Anyway, so one character that they mentioned years ago was a character named Sarah Jewell. And she is like idly mentioned, maybe offhand by a character in one of the sir edward gray witchfinder comics and then in one of the the later runs of that i mean those comics are incredible and one of the later and uh not very good comics she makes her first debut um and then i i think there was some announcement like oh we're gonna get a bunch of sarah jewel uh sort of like comics or at least a run and maybe a couple more after that. And yeah, so finally it's been released. And it's effectively like a kind of Miss Marple

or a sort of like Agatha Christie, like locked house mystery, sort of like a Poirot sort of thing, but set within that Hellboy universe, which is a kind of sort of a comic that I didn't think would work almost like i i thought that was the kind of thing that might end up being like too wordy or or too difficult to convey onto the page uh but it's it's it's it's done spectacularly well i'm so invested the sarah jewel is a uh i guess like an occult detective is the idea like so many characters within the hellboy universe uh and i think this one is set in the 1950s maybe of the 1960s and uh the premise is

that she is uh uh on a a mansion on an island uh with a bunch of other people because somebody has died and basically they're trying to figure out who but the sort of twist is like the he died in a supernatural way but he was also a collector of supernatural artifacts and now they're like well which one of these artifacts could be the the cause of his death and do how do the people who are also staying at this mansion sort of play into it only three issues are out at the moment um but it's yeah i'm really enjoying it i think recently with these sort of like stories in the hellboy verse because i don't know when it when it was but like a couple of years ago they they wrapped up the arc of hell

boys is finished hellboy and hell yeah hellboy and hell and then the end of hellboy and hell and then even the end of bpid hell on earth or i think it was called the devil you know which like entirely wrapped up the very end of the world and uh so like that's all finished and now they're kind of going back and they're doing like well these are the sort of like interstitial stories that were also happening in the background and i think that's done a kind of a weird thing for hellboy comics where they have to start what am i trying to say so like back in the day before we knew the ultimate outcome of the world you could you could have stuff where you're like oh we're clearly building to this grand finale but they've done the grand finale now and everything that was going to build to it has built to it and that means that any comic set in this universe now has to build

to something that was also happening and i think that's kind of caused some weird stuff so like they've started releasing a bunch of um just hellboy in the bpid sort of short run comics so they had like five issues at a time right and they're always really amazing art teams on them oh yeah they some of them some of them rule like uh the seven wives club was great and i think they're doing a kind of like haunted house one at the moment which is really fun as well because somehow in hellboy's entire run he's never just come up against ghosts so like which is so shocking but I guess he's always fighting like a big vampire or like a golem or whatever so this time it's it's just like a haunted house mystery so those are really fun

but they have to be quite self-contained and even like some of those so i think there was one recently called the return of effie kolb which is a sequel to a really good hellboy comic where a witch at the end gets turned into a horse that's a great one yeah it's awesome so there's there's a sequel comic to that where hellboy is returning and effie kolb who was the witch that does he ride the horse no unfortunately not she's gotten out she's not a horse anymore it's a bummer but but it's full of these weird little hints to like so like he meets this young girl and the young girl she can draw on a piece of paper and what she draws comes to life and in the end it's hinted that she's going to go to like an evil magic school

in boston and you're like well that's i guess you're setting up future stuff, but it just feels very, because we've seen the entirety of Hellboy's story, these ones that are like, oh, we're furthering Hellboy's story, they feel a bit strange or whatever. But I mean, I'm always excited to see what happens. They're still good comics. The way you describe me, it sort of sounds like, because I know you recommended

quite a lot of Hellboy stuff. They are all good. Well, they're not all good. But most of them are. And you recommended me a couple months ago Joe Gollum, which is sort of like I got kind of just powered through all them. And there's sort of a similar premise there. Yeah, for sure. That's what you're describing.

Well, yeah, Joe Gollum, because Joe Gollum is set in the Outerverse, which is Mike Mignola's other supernatural. It's so funny because it's basically the same idea more or less it's just like well let's play with this alternate history or whatever but yeah so you can see definitely the same themes are there and joe gollum has the beauty of being like well this story's not finished yet so we can lead to something grand although i must say a lot of the new out of us comics i really don't like for some reason um like a a lady baltimore just not for me very frenetic i don't know just jumped me in and i was like everyone's talking who is anyone

please slow down so maybe it'll get better i don't know but yes the house of lost horizons was written by this guy called chris robertson and he wrote one of my favorite hellboy tie-ins um the visitor how and why he stayed That's an incredible tie-in. About an alien. Yeah, very good fun. An alien with her wife. Wow. But yeah, so it's really well paced.

It's done a great job of introducing these characters that are all staying in the mansion with Sarah Jewell in a way that isn't overwhelming and is just giving you a little insight. Quite unlike Lady Baltimore, there's no freneticness to it. You're kind of slowly introduced so you can get to learn who these characters are so that the ultimate sort of like the classic Agatha Christie like reveals of like,

oh, well, here's this secret this character had or here's this secret this character had can come at you in a kind of like at an appropriate pace, which makes it all the more all the more intriguing and sarah jewel is such a fun character that um i'm i'm sort of surprised they hadn't done anything with kind of yet because i i know that uh mike mignola he talks about a lot of the characters that he has in in the sort of i guess spin-off so to speak hellboy comics as like he's always loved this genre and he wants to

kind of like play around within that setting so like uh sir edward gray witchfinder is because he loved like the kanaki the the that that's sort of like uh occult victorian detective so he's like well i'll do an occult victorian detective comic and his lobster johnson comics because he's like well i love that like 1940s pulp adventure comic, so I'll do my own version of this. And I feel like Sarah Jewell is like, well, I love that Agatha Christie, Poirot, Locked Room.

Cluedo. Cluedo, yeah. So this is my version of that. And yeah, I'm just really enjoying it. Sarah Jewell is like this kind of brash American occult detective which is a really nice change of pace from a lot of the other characters I think as well especially in that setting but yeah

it's really good it's like it's not it's not trying to tie into anything larger there's no like war this is a big mystery this is a big epic story it's just like a fun little murder mystery on a spooky island mansion and um yeah i'm really into it so i recommend it if you're looking for like you're

like oh hellboy comics i'd like to get into them but there's so many of them and clearly there's this massive story going i want something more self-contained it's a really great one to pick it's also one of the very few hellboy comics with a female lead, so that's good about it as well. So if you want to jump into it for that reason, there you go. But yeah, I recommend it. And you can just read this just by itself, self-contained? Yeah, pretty much. You don't need to know much else about the Hellboy universe.

I don't know how I feel. Yeah, yeah. Nobody's terraforming Mars. It's just human beings. Self-contained. And maybe a ghost. It makes sense in just, hmm. You could definitely make this as convoluted. If you try hard enough, you could make this confusing and convoluted. Oh, I mean, I'm sure you could.

I believe in you. So the art for this was also done by Leila Del Duca, who did the art on one of our favorite comics on serious issues a few years ago called Sleepless,pless and book about, uh, it was like a, like a period piece about, um, where like the, every castle is protected by a man who doesn't sleep. That's cool. Beautiful romance story. And the colors are by Michelle Madsen, uh, who, uh, she did the colors for a great book called lady killer and tons of other stuff for DC and dark horse, but yeah, great creative team on that one. Yeah, for sure. And it really shows like it, the colors for a great book called lady killer and tons of other stuff for dc and dark horse but

yeah great creative team on that one yeah for sure and it really shows like it's just it's a really tight solid comic um which is which is great i don't know i think i just found it particularly refreshing because a lot of the other mignola books that i'd read recently i found a little bit disappointing so i was like oh great like even some of the later, the most recent Witchfinder, where we find out about Jack the Ripper in Mike Mignola's universe, which is something they've been setting up all the time. Every time they mentioned Sir Edward Grey,

they're like, oh yeah, he was the Queen's Witchfinder until that business with the Ripper. And you're like, what the fuck happened with Jack the Ripper? Because it must've been crazy. And then you read it and you're like that was a bad comic wow how horribly disappointing after all of that build-up so i found sarah jewel really refreshing and i really recommend it fantastic so we've terraformed mars we've ventured into the house of lost horizons now it's time to have sex with a bird man because it does shock me how how much we don't like like manga anime that does end up feeling sex with a bird man sounds awesome one of the ulterior

motives of uh of this podcast is to get jackson reading more manga and maybe you too zamit uh so uh last year i reviewed on the podcast a uh the first book in a series called Torotan, Birds of a Feather by a writer named Katetsuko Yamamoto. And this is a manga series. The second volume came out. It's published by Viz and it is part of their imprint, which is called BL Sublime. And do you guys know what BL stands for? No. Be Lucky.

Yep. It stands for Boys No. Be Lucky. Yep. It stands for Boys Love. And this is a genre of manga, which is almost predominantly written by women that explores the love between two men. And as someone always looking to expand my horizons, I thought, sure, I'll give a romance book about two men a go, read something different.

I've read a couple and they've all been pretty enjoyable. Most of them have been pretty like, you know, down the middle kind of like romance stuff. So I picked up Torotan Birds of a Feather and straight away we meet a aspiring private detective who is not good at his job. So he is just a kind of like a jack of all trades who does odd jobs around the neighborhood his name is unasaki and uh pretty early on in the book we learn that he has the ability to talk to birds okay it is a bill an ability that he hates because birds don't shut the fuck up ever anyway one day he meets a crow and he falls in love with the crow. That's fair. Crows are smart. That's not what I expected, but cool.

This crow is really suave. He plays by his own rules. And the first volume of Tora's Handbirds of a Feather actually made a pretty convincing argument as to why one would fall in love with a crow. Wow. Quick question. Can the crow understand the boy as well?

Yeah, they can talk to each other. Okay, all right. The best thing about manga is that, and obviously comics too, but particularly manga will have the dialogue box and then you'll have what the characters are thinking. So pretty early on in this book, he's like, is this crow flirting with me?

And I was just like, oh, God, this is so much fun. Thinking you're going to get just a regular romance book and then finding out it's about a man falling in love with a bird. Unbelievable. Yeah, spectacular. Anyway, so I was very excited for Volume 2 to show up. Fair. And I have some bad news. Anyway, so I was very excited for Volume 2 to show up. Fair. And I have some bad news.

Oh, no. Volume 2, Kuro the Crow is not in this volume because we learn that another boy in the neighborhood that Unasaki met in Volume 1 has the power to take over the minds of birds. So he entered the mind of a crow to flirt with someone, and neither of them, they're like, while Inosaki has more experience, he's been out for longer.

His pursuer, Mitsuru, he's not out yet, and so he is looking to have his first experiences with a man and he does this by taking over the mind of a crow and flirting with him because he's able to communicate with birds

that that did he know like or was it just like I'm just going to control this bird and oh lucky me yeah this guy

can talk to birds exactly no exactly so he was basically he would use his power he can only use it for a few minutes

at a time and one day when he's like you know basically checking a guy out as a bird the the guide in osaki offers him some dried squid that he's eating yeah and the two begin a conversation that ends up them forming a relationship um what was great about the first volume though and i missed it so much, is that you had these scenes where he's lying in bed at the end of the day being like, oh, I wish that bird would call me. And just contemplating his feelings,

not only because, one, it's weird for interspecies romantic feelings to exist, but also this is a species that he, for his entire life, since as long as he had this power to talk to them, has hated. So the idea of falling in love with something that he hates the most, it was a compelling read. Yeah, I can imagine. So the second book is, it's revealed that like, yeah,

like his pursuer knows that he can talk to birds and also his pursuer can take over the minds of birds. And so it's about them having like an awkward start to their relationship. And, um, eventually, um, the Mitsuru, uh,

gets into college and, um, he, Inosaki promises to him that they'll, they'll finally have sex that he, the day that he gets into college. And so he gets into college, they have sex.

And then the book and the series is over now oh what i mean i look it's kind of nice that he he gets to make love to a human man as opposed to a crow um but it is that is weird he feels like he's being like magically catfish yeah exactly it doesn't feel it doesn't feel ethical for some reason. It's like I fell in love with a crow. Yeah, I didn't fall in love with a man. I fell in love with a crow, man. It's the same issue I have with Beauty and the Beast.

When Beast goes into that foppish blonde boy, I'm like... Oh, man, that made me so mad when I was a kid. That's not who I fell in love with. I fell in love with the Beast. Yeah, exactly. I'm like a hairy man, not this smooth boy. What a shame. I fell in love with the feathered crow. hairy man not this smooth boy what a shame i fell in love with the feathered crow yeah not this smooth it must have been such a shame for you as well lovins to be like i've been convinced by this comic that he should be in love with a crow and then almost

for the comic to turn around and be like you idiot of course he shouldn't be in love with a crow he should be in love with a man who is in a crow you know yeah uh but yeah a wild roller coaster um sounds like it you know it sounds ridiculous to to recap it but there are like you know really well conveyed emotions uh in this book through the writing and the art which is just you know it's that really nice effortless kind of like slice of life conversational um artwork that really is well suited to a book like this. Yeah, again, the story and art is by Kotetsuko Yamamoto, and she's apparently got a bunch of other series on the way, so I will be looking out for her books.

Fair. Look, if anyone has a recommendation for a book where a man actually does consummate his love with a crow. With a crow, yeah, exactly. I have been playing a lot of the video game death's door where you are a crow with a sword he doesn't get fucked either yeah that's true i think we've all been playing that game quite a lot yeah and i have not noticed any sex happening to the protagonist i'm just saying look creators maybe 2022 is the year of crow sex yeah. Yeah, I think it should be. Phase five of the MCU. Every character fucks a crow. Every character's fucking crows.

Odin's got them two ones that are his eyes or whatever. That's true. It would be a drastic change from the current MCU's run, but I think audiences would... Appreciate. Yeah, I think they'd come to understand well you can let us know uh if if which which uh popular superheroes you'd like to see enter romantic relationships with crows in 2022 uh we have a facebook group uh facebook.com

slash group slash serious issues podcast with a few thousand people in it and if you want to talk about the podcast in there i'd love that uh we also have a uh sans pants radio discord with a serious issues channel in it you can talk about the podcast and comics in general including recommending comics for us to try in the future especially if they have crows in them um you can catch uh zamit and jackson on several sans pants podcasts namely plumbing the death star baseless speculation and thumb cramps every single week and you can catch all these podcasts that I've been talking about

plus a bunch that I do including hey fam and all the small games over at sans pants radio.com thank you so much to lit for listening if this is your first episode of the all new

all different serious issues there's there's years of the podcast that you can go back and listen to or you can catch us back here next week for another episode with the three of us and then oh yeah future episodes with different guests in the in the future but uh

jackson zamit thank you so much for for bringing this baby back to life hey any time just call me an omega mutant that can terraform a podcast perfect okay Former podcast. Perfect. Okay. Thanks for listening. If you want to hear more, just search for Serious Issues on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts.