The Flop House - FH Mini 130 - A Galactus-Sized Explainer

Episode Date: June 14, 2025

With The Fantastic Four: First Steps coming to theaters soon, listener Andrew asked the question "Galactus and The Silver Surfer -- what's their deal, man?" and Elliott gladly stepped up to answer.Subscribe to our NEWSLETTER, “Flop Secrets!Aura has a great deal for Father’s Day. For a limited time, listeners can save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get $30 off on their best-selling Carver Mat  frame. Promo code FLOP. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout! Terms and conditions apply.Get started at factormeals.com/flop50off and use code flop50off to get 50% off plus FREE shipping on your first box.

Hello out there in Flophouse Podcast land. My name is Elliot Kalin. I am one of the three Flopsketeers, the regular co-host of the Flophouse and it is my deep dismay to tell you that Dan and Stuart are not here today. It's just me. Just kidding. Here they are. Dan Stuart, introduce yourself please.

Wow. It's me, Dan McCoy. I was wondering how long you're going to keep that up. It's me, Stuart Wellington. I was going to go down that road and then I decided I didn't want to. So this is a Flophouse Mini. Normally on the Flophouse, we watch a bad movie,

we talk about it. Last week, of course, was love hurts and boy did it ever. This week though, we're gonna ease our wounds and kind of like nurse ourselves into good health from that hurt by doing a mini, which is when we talk about whatever we want, or in this case, whatever the fans want. One fan in particular,

because there was one fan in particular, Andrew, last name withheld, who wrote into the podcast asking for an explainer. I've done these kind of explainers every now and then for comic bookical things, when there's a comic bookical movie coming out. I didn't explain it for The Eternals, I didn't explain it for Adam Warlock one of those really cleared everything up

for me they did I mean one of those Adam Warlock explainers got hijacked by Tom Brokaw we don't have to worry about that happening today yes I know he I know he's out in the desert going on what he calls a dune walk so we don't need to worry about him to returning for this but Andrew last name withheld requested an explainer an explainer for the upcoming Fantastic Four First Steps is the name of the movie, right? Yeah, real quick, a dune walk, is that when the Fremen do that little

stanky leg thing across the dunes? Exactly, he's practicing that. He does that just for a day straight, until he goes into a fugue of some kind. So there's a new Fantastic Four movie coming up, not a Fantastic More movie, which is what I was about to say. Well, there's more Fantastic Four, because as you said, it's called First Step,

but this is the fifth Fantastic Four film. There was the Corman one, right? There were the two. Is it Tim Story? Not Tim Story. They have stories in them. The one that had Jessica Alba in those ones, and Chick Liss and whatever,

and then there was the F4. The one that we did onba in those ones and then in chick lists and whatever and then there's the f4 What the one that we did on this by Trance the triangle? Yeah, which is which is your favorite? Which is your favorite of the ones you've mentioned before Dan? You know like the the trank one actually had some interesting stuff in it It just felt like it was something something got fucked up with it with the studio or something honestly Honestly of all the fantastic four movies my favorite is probably the Corman one just because it's so it's so it's not good And it's so cheap

But it has the same kind of like ramshackle feel that the early fantastic four issues have In a bad way the ramshackle feeling the early issues is is good, but there's a bad way, but anyway It was Tim story who directed those the Alba chickless I said But but One of the writers one of the listed writers for the first fantastic four is Mark Frost Co-writer of Twin Peaks with David. Well, that's why invisible woman ends up dead wrapped in plastic at the end of the world anyway Mmm, sorry, anymore would be bummed out.

He would be so bummed. I mean, and as we know from what if comics, anytime Reed Richards loses his wife, either to Namor or to death, he goes insane and tries and just goes mad. So Andrew wrote in and said, I'm looking forward to the new Fantastic Four movie, however I'm not entirely familiar

with all of the characters in particular, Silver Surfer, Galactus and the mythology of the comic. And he asked for a small primer in the same vein of the Adborloquine. So that's what we're going to do today. And this is going to be a special episode mini called Elliot Explains the Galactus Trilogy. Let's say it's a Galactus Saga trilogy and I'll say Elliot Explains the Galactus Trilogy. And first I want to start by saying, Dan, Stu, how familiar are you with the Fantastic Four characters? And these are the characters that are going to be in this movie. The Fantastic Four, or Steps? How familiar are you with them? I know that Ben Grimm, the thing, just hates that Yancy Street gang.

I mean, they're always pranking him. That's the problem, yeah. I know that Silver Server's name is Roarin' Nad or something like that. No, it's Norrin Rad. OK, so you don't know something about him. You know, so they're, you know, they're four. They're four folks. Three of them are related. One of whom is Jewish.

Or at least in the same family, not related, all three. But and one of them is the best friend. And they went into space. They got bombarded with cosmic rays. One of them got stretchy. One of them can be invisible and make force fields. One of them is a rock guy. And one of them is a flame guy who can fly.

By a rock guy, you mean he collects minerals? His name is Slash and he's a guitarist for G and R. The G stands for geode and the R stands for rocks. So Dan, you've done a great job. Stuart, you've done it. Yeah, you almost got the server's name right. So let me take you back to the beginning. So the Fantastic Four,

they are the birth of the Marvel universe in comics. So it's ironic that they're coming so late in the movie versions because in 1961, Marvel Comics is not even fully called Marvel Comics yet. I think it's still potentially between names. It was called Timely at one point, it's called Atlas at one point. I think it was between Timely and Marvel,

I could be wrong, but it's November, 1961, that's the cover date, which doesn't mean it's actually when it came out, but that's the cover date. They do this, they've been doing monster comics for a long time at Marvel, and it's time to bring superheroes back for them, because superheroes are doing fine at DC again. And Jack Kirby and Stan Lee,

the two of the three bedrock foundational creators of the Marvel characters, the other one being of course Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, they come up with this team, the Fantastic Four. Now, here's the thing, we're gonna get into just slightly in this, but not a lot, for decades, the argument has been, who deserves's the thing we're going to get into just slightly in this, but not a lot.

For decades, the argument has been who deserves more credit, Jack Kirby or Stan Lee, did Jack Kirby come up with it? And then Stanley just kind of put his gloss. Did Stanley tell Jack Kirby, this is what I need you to do. And, and we will figure out together. There's a great, great book called, uh, I think Kirby and Lee stuff said, I think, which, uh, collects all of the existent kind of interview or known quotes from Kirby and Lee about working together and puts them kind of in chronological order.

And it's the closest I've been able to see of something that actually kind of digs in who did what and how much people can be credited with which aspect of it. But anyway, I highly recommend that book. If you want to learn more about the Kirby Lee relationship and how they work together. It's from Tomorrow's Publishing, I think. So go to them and find it.

It's a great book, Kirby Lee Stuff Said. I think Stuff is spelled S-T-U-F. Like, but I'm sure, maybe I'm wrong, I can't remember. But so we're not gonna get into that super much except in terms of the Silver Surfer later because that's the part of the story the Silver Surfer is the Stanley-Jack Kirby relationship. Anyway, they come up with these superheroes,

they got four of them, and they are Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic, he's stretchy and he's a brilliant genius, Ben Grimm, Reed Richards' best friend and college roommate, The Thing, fighter pilot, goes into space, becomes back a strong guy made out of rocks, Sue Storm, not yet Reed Richards' wife, but they will get married eventually, it's his girlfriend. She eventually, she goes up with him in space,

becomes the invisible woman, first the invisible girl. And then 20 years later, her name finally changes to the invisible woman. After she has become- She grew up after 20 years. It's literally, at a certain point she had, I mean, for a lot of it, she is married and a mother, and she's still calling herself the invisible girl.

Stanley kept saying, girl, you'll be a woman soon, but we put her off. But not yet, but not yet. And Johnny Storm, the hot, red, loving, younger brother of Sue Storm, who becomes the human torch. And so, like you said, Dan, they go up into space, they get hit by cosmic rays, because their spaceship is experimental,

it's not shielded right. They come back with these powers, and they become adventurers, and they become the first superhero group of the 60s Marvel And that's where do their powers are those extensions of their like personalities? Do the cosmic rays just take what was there and expand? Yeah, Reid's a really stretchy person Well, I mean you could say that rigid so it might be the opposite You could say as their characterizations develop that Johnny is a hothead, so he is a young guy

who's a hothead, so he builds the human torch. Ben Grimm is a character who is also a hothead, but has a, the thing that becomes the core of him is the issue of self-esteem that he has, that he is super strong, but he thinks he's a monster, he can never be loved. His girlfriend Alicia Masters is blind, and he's he's a monster. He can never be loved. His girlfriend, Alicia Masters, is blind and he's always worried that she's going to discard him

if she ever gains her sight and can see what he looks like again. So maybe it comes from a feeling of deficiency because his best friend is a genius. Reed Richards, you could say that his thinking is flexible. He's able to, he is very rigid in other ways, but that he's able to come up with these amazing ideas in the way that he stretches his body.

And as the Invisible Girl is written by Stan Lee, she is constantly disappearing into the background because as the female character, he does not care as much about her and does not give her as much to do. So I guess that's part of it. But this is where the Marvel universe really begins in the Silver Age.

And this is the book that Jack Kirby for a long time as the artist on the book and eventually mainly the plotter on the book who was writing the stories and then Stanley would write the dialogue. He was using this as his laboratory for creating new places and concepts that the other Marvel titles could then work off of, you know, and use.

Jack Kirby is, you know, one of the best known comic artists for a reason. He's the king. He's one of the greatest artists that ever worked in comics. Not necessarily because he has the best technical skills, although his storytelling skills are among the best that there ever were. His characters, their proportions are weird, their anatomy is weird. They're not always consistent in a great way from panel to panel, but his storytelling and his power are so strong.

And also his imagination is so incredible. It's so, he is like an idea machine when he's at his best. And also when he's at his worst, because his worst comics are the ones where he's just throwing a parade of ideas at you. And you're like, wait, hold on, hold on, stop and explain any of these to me. Hold on, stop and do something with one of these ideas.

And he's like, nope, sorry, I got another idea coming up anyway. We're talking about Fantastic Four, specifically for this movie. They are, as people say all the time, they're not just a team of superheroes. You know who they are, guys? They're family.

And I wanted to get into this. So I have read a fair amount of old comics, but certainly much less. A a fair amount of old comics, but certainly much less. A fantastic fair amount. Certainly much less than Elliot, probably less than Stuart, but I've read a lot of the early fantastic four books, like the very first ones in like one of those collections because I'm like, oh, well, you know,

this is where it kind of started, I'm curious about it, and I like the space age vibe of all of it. And everyone talks about how, oh, the innovation was, like, these are real people, right? They're like a family. They argue a lot, but they love each other. And I gotta say that reading a lot of those first comics, I was put off by the Fantastic Four

because they seemed to argue a lot. And maybe not like each other that much. All the time. Yeah, Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm seem to have like a Bart Simpson and Homer Simpson relationship. I mean, they are constantly fighting each other with their powers, yeah. I think, Dan, so those earliest comics are pretty,

I mean, there's an energy and excitement to them because it feels like something new is being done. But it is a, it's the later ones, the later issues of that Kirby Lee run, kind of the middle of the run is the sweet stuff. And I'm going to talk about that. So I'm glad that you brought that up. It's a little bit like listening

to the earliest Beatles albums and then listening to like Sergeant Pepper, where you're like, oh, there's this energy and there's this excitement, the early ones, but it doesn't have the ingenuity and it doesn't have the kind of like, this kind of like innovative beauty that the later work has, you know?

But you're right, and I think when it first came on the scene in 1961, the difference was that the characters argued, as opposed to the DC characters who are pretty like, alternated between being incredibly pleasant and professional and doing terrible things to each other to teach each other lessons. They're like, sorry, Jimmy Olsen, you have to marry a gorilla now

because I'm teaching you a lesson about humility. You know? Like, I think it's the feeling, those comics really are for young people, especially those old ones where it's like, the emotions are really high all the time. There's an adolescent energy in some of those early Fantastic Four issues

that's kind of similar to like Rob Liefeld's X-Force comics from the 90s, where if you look at them, they are objectively kind of dumb. The art is objectively like not technically right. Oh, what do you need like backgrounds and feet? Yeah, you want feet that look like they're on the ground. Yeah, and maybe people's thighs are not as big as their torsos. But when you're reading that comic book when you're 13 or 14 year old boy,

you're like, this is amazing. And it's the energy of it and the feel of it. That's really exciting about it. They give me a bunch of tiny lines all over everything. Exactly. That's how I feel. Like I'm covered in tiny lines and pouches full of I don't know what,

cause I never see anyone use them. That just change, I guess. And so I think the mistake, if you're getting into the Fantastic Four, this is an Elliot Caylen tip, the mistake is to start from the very beginning, Fantastic Four number one. Where you wanna start, I think,

is with this run of 10 issues in the middle of the Kirby Lee run. Kirby and Lee did this book together for 102 issues. And it's one of the longest straight runs that a writer and artist have done together. There are longer ones, and then you've got like, Cerebus, which is 300 issues, but that's also a mad man. Like, that's literally a person

who's emotionally unbalanced doing a- Don't talk bad about Gerhard or whatever. No, Gerhard is, that's not Gerhard that I'm getting at. Gerhard, that's a job for Gerhard. I was, this is, Gerhard, he's just a working guy doing backgrounds, you know. But between issue 43 and 53 is, he's just a working guy doing backgrounds. But between issue 43 and 53 is when Kirby's imagination in some ways is at his most fecund

and he and Lee are really keyed in for the most part about what they're doing. And that's a run that starts with the creation of the inhumans, characters who had their shot with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and fucked it up and totally whiffed it, which makes sense because the Inhumans are a kind of weird, it's a weird batch of characters. I like them, but they're weird. They're kind of like a precursor of the Eternals, a weird batch of characters that I do not like

particularly that also had their chance the Marvel Universe and whiffed it, but but the Eternals had less to work with. Anyway, in that run you've got the Inhumans, you've got Black Panther at the end of it being introduced. You've got the best single issue, I think, of the run, This Man, This Monster, issue number 51, which is a heartbreaking story about Thing and about this mad scientist character who's just in it for one issue and gets a full human story.

And you get in between those stories, after the Inhumans and before This Man, This Monster, you get the Galactus trilogy, issues 48 through 50, March to May of 1966, I think that's when they were cover dated. That's the middle of this 10 issue amazing run that happens in this 102 very foundational run. You have these three issues, the Galactus trilogy,

which is a really fantastic story. And within that story, laid the groundwork for so much stuff that would be like the Marvel way of doing things. And again, it's kind of amazing that this Galactus story is now, it's been told once in a movie, but they kind of, again, they whiffed it. That it's-

Because there's like a big cloud in that movie, right? He's a big cloud, he's not really a character. Yeah, yeah, that's true to Jack Kirby's vision. Yes. I mean, here's the thing about Jack Kirby, he is not subtle. So even if his villain was a big cloud, it would be a big cloud with a face, probably.

Yeah, probably. Lightning bolts flying everywhere. Yeah, probably a mustache. I mean, like the closest you have to that is Ego, the living planet, another Jack Kirby character who was literally a planet with a face with a beard. Yeah. But this Galactus story, this Galactus trilogy,

is just this high point of the Silver Age of comics and of the Fantastic Four and of the Marvel Universe. And guys, I want to ask, have you ever read this story, the Galactus trilogy, issues 48 through 50? No. Never read it? What about you, Dan? No, I haven't read it.

I know that Galactus' deal is he sees planets, he's like, yum, yum, gimme some. Yeah, he has a seafood diet when it comes to planets. He sees planets and he wants to eat them. Yeah, and he does that. You did quote, so you did read it. You know his famous catchphrase, yum yum, gimme some. Yeah, and he's got little guys who go out and find the plants for num num down on. He does have his Harold's, that's right. There's a funny comic.

Does he also have his Pinter Maltz? Yeah, Harold. Yeah, there's a lot. Get all the Harold jokes in there. That's great. I ran out of Harold's after picture. I had one. He had a purple crayon. Is that why his outfit's all purple? That would be fantastic. I would love, if a fan hasn't done it, they should do a tie-in between Galactus and Harold in the purple crayon, where it's just Harold with the purple crayon and he rides on that crayon. Anyway.

Of course, Harold is spelled, of course, differently. It's like, you know, you have a trumpet before the king. Harold is what I'm talking about. To quote Smithers, when Burns asked him if Homer Simpson is related to, if this Homer Nixon is related to Richard Nixon, Smithers said, well, he spells and pronounces his name differently, sir. So, I'll give you the brief story of what happens in this. The brief version. Okay, the Galactus trilogy. There's this character they had already introduced called the Watcher.

Guys, do you know what the Watcher does? And I don't know if you're... He watches. He watches. He's like, what if something happened? He's supposed to not interfere, but he does it all the time. Exactly.

So the Watcher... Is he the guy with a pot on his head? No, that is the high evolutionary I think you're thinking of. I'm thinking... He's the guy from... Oh, no. He's from What The? Oh, the pot, that's Forbush Man.

The guy who literally wears a pot on his head. No, that's Forbush Man from the humor magazine that Marlowe brought out. So he's not the Watcher. No, that's not the Watcher. The Watcher is the host of What If, the non-inverse magazine where What If is an excuse for every story for you to see the Marvel characters getting killed in different ways every month, you know. So the watcher, his name is Uatu.

He is a big bald baby in a toga. He lives on the moon and he just watches the earth and he does not interfere. He has a strict rule of non-interference, which as Dan says, he interferes all the time. He constantly is interfering. And in this case he does because he has to warn the Fantastic Four, Galactus is coming. And they're like, what is this?

And he's like, it's the worst thing in the world. And soon they are greeted by the herald of Galactus, that's right, the Silver Surfer. And as herald of Galactus that's right the silver surfer and as we learn Galactus he's a huge guy with this amazing helmet that he it is one of the all-time great Kirby helmets he and Hela have the best Kirby kind of head pieces and it's just it's a mate it's a fantastic look Galactus fantastic for look yes Galactus his original design is not the best he has a big G on his chest and wears short sleeves

and kind of a toga with bare, like a toga skirt with bare legs. But the next time you see Galactus, he's wearing pants and he doesn't have a G on his chest. And the design is just fantastic. I also love that he's always just like standing. Yes, Galactus, so, what were you gonna say, Dan? I'll tell you.

Just, you know, my college friend, Matt Byrd, has a Marvel, you know, reread podcast called Marvel Reread Club. They were just mentioning, I think Galactus just showed up for the first time, or maybe they were just mentioning him in an episode, but they pointed out the humor of, of course, a character arriving on Earth, who is not from Earth, having the initial in English

of their first name on their shirt or whatever. And Marvel did the smart thing, was just discarded it the next time, as opposed to what Superman has had to do over and over again where they're like, oh, that's a Kryptonian symbol. That's not a mess. That's what their family does. Yeah.

Yeah, it means that he's down to clown. Yeah, that's what their family does yeah yeah it means that he's down to clown it's like a pineapple or whatever so this with that SM it's like it's like wearing a red red handkerchief in the back pocket of my pants let's you know what I'm into so glad so don't make a long story short crystal stuff. Yes, it really is a crystal stuff. That's true. That'd be so funny if Superman is like he's a he's a great superhero, but he's always going to crystal shops. I mean, like what's the energy vibrations on this one? Yeah, this is this is the this is the crystal that has my dad in it.

And this is the one that goes in my butt. Yeah, I don't like to get them mixed up. That like, yeah, there's like crystal shop, like new age crystal shop owners. They're like, yeah, there's like crystal shop, like new age crystal shop owners. They're like, yeah, there's this weird guy, Clark Canoo keeps coming around buying up crystals. He seems so like straight lace. He's always got a glass of crystal light in his hands.

You know? Yeah. So Galactus, he's the devourer of worlds. He is an enormous giant who feeds off the life energy of planets. He has a machine he sets who feeds off the life energy of planets. He has a machine he sets up that sucks the life energy out of planets, leaving them withered, lifeless husks, destroying all life on them. That's the only way he can survive.

The Silver Surfer is his herald. He is a shining silver guy on a silver surfboard, and this is Jack Kirby being really influenced by 60s kind of surf culture. He was always kind of like picking things out of the zeitgeist and just throwing them into his books. And the Silver Surfer flies through space, finds planets for Galactus to eat. Galactus comes and sets up his machine, sucks all the life out of it, and they go off to find another planet.

And the Watcher is like, I've become attached to Earth. I can't interfere, but I'm going to warn you about this. And the amazing thing about this story is that the Fantastic Four try to fight Galactus and they cannot do it. He is just too powerful. And there's a scene where he's setting up his machine and the characters are literally like,

Mr. Fritz is just shaving. They're just kind of doing regular taking care of themselves stuff because they feel like there's nothing they can do. Like there's no, and it captures a feeling of, if anyone has ever been in a place where there is an enormous catastrophe and there's the moment after that catastrophe

where you do not want to do with yourself. Like these comics kind of capture that feeling in a hyperbolic way. The same way that, this is a tangent, but the thing that hit me the hardest in terms of capturing the feeling of what it was like the day after September 11th or the night of September 11th, being in New York City the night of September 11th was this issue to the second or third issue of the second league of extraordinary gentlemen volume where Martians have landed.

They have set a village on fire. The league has shown up and now it's the night after that and they're just in and in and they don't know what to do with themselves. They're playing like kind of matchstick riddle games. They're just kind of sitting around. They don't know what to do with themselves There's nothing they can do. That's what it feels like and there's a there's a suddenly enormous has happened You cannot affect it, but it time is there, you know, you're still living so and and it captures that feeling Keep the digressions on this very non digression podcast to a minimum Let's keep the digressions on this very non-digression podcast to a minimum, Alec. You're right.

Thank you. I got to be super streamlined as I explain this comic book from 60 years ago. You're right. Thank you, Stuart. The, ultimately, two things happen that turn the tide for humanity. One is Alicia Masters, the blind sculptor who is Ben Grimm, the thing's girlfriend, and is also the niece of the puppet master. We don't need to get into that.

A hilariously, a villain who also looks niece of the puppet master. We don't need to get into that. A hilariously, a villain who also looks like a big bald baby. Like he looks like a living kind of bald, howdy duty style puppet. The, he's not in this storyline. She meets the silver surfer and convinces him that there's something worthwhile in humanity and that he should turn against Galactus and try to defend them. And he does this- Do they like bump into each other at like a street fair or something? I don't remember how they find it.

He ends up in her apartment. I don't remember how. And Silver Surfer in this storyline, but nowhere else, is presented as a fairly inhuman figure who does not understand life or emotion. Later on, as we'll talk about, Stanley decided that wasn't the way he wanted the character to be, and he really changed the character drastically without Jack Kirby's input or knowledge

in a way that really pissed Jack Kirby off. But both Jack Kirby and Stanley really took to the Silver Surfer in different ways. And this is a character who Jack Kirby's the full creator on that literally he handed in the pages of the book to this to Stanley and Stanley was like Oh, there's a new character in this. I don't know who this character is. Like what is this thing because Jack Kirby just decided Galactus is so big he needs someone to announce him. He needs a Herald to come along before him. But anyway but Lisa Masters convinces the Silver Surfer to that he should defy Galactus and the Watcher

The Master's convinces the Silver Surfer to, that he should defy Galactus. And the Watcher, non-interfering as always, helps Johnny Storm travel through dimensions on a quest that almost drives him insane at how minuscule humanity is at the scope of the universe. He comes back and he goes, we're like ants, ants! Like he's almost mad. He's almost bonkers.

But he's able to retrieve an item called the ultimate nullifier the most powerful weapon in the universe that can just if you have as long as you are holding it and Focusing on entirely with all of your thought on one object that object ceases to exist now The problem is if you if your mind slips for just a moment it eats up you and you cease to exist No, that's happens to quasar many years later. I'd be really bad at that. It would be yeah, everyone be bad at it. It would be, yeah, everyone would be bad at it. It's terrible.

You've got to be just the biggest Zen master to use it. And Galactus is so afraid of the ultimate nullifier, which is this tiny little handheld device. It's another great Kirby design that he says, if you give that to me, I'll leave and I won't eat Earth. I just, I don't want you to have that. You're like children playing with a nuclear weapon. Like you shouldn't have it.

And at the end, he takes the ultimate nullifier and he leaves, Earth is saved, and the Silver Surfer is damned by Galactus to be stuck on Earth. He says, you will never soar the spaceways again or something like that. And now for a long time, Silver Surfer was stuck on the planet Earth and couldn't get back into space. And that's the Galactus trilogy. And who became his herald after that? He's had a bunch of other heralds. And of course, he's had other heralds after that.

He had, I forget if the one after that was, I think it was Firelord, there was Airwalker, there was Nova, Frankie Ray, there was, there was Terax, you know what Terax might've been, now I'm right, there's Terax the, whatever his name is, there's Morgue, the Executioner or whatever, he's had a ton of heralds. His heralds are always turning on him or becoming so dangerous that he has to destroy them or something like that. And but being his herald, Silver Surfer has a

bunch of powers that we'll talk about when we talk about his origin, which I'm going to talk about very soon. So that's this original Galactus story. The Silver Surfer shows up. He's like, my boss is going to eat this planet. The Galactus shows up. Nobody can stop him. Silver Surfer is like, hey, you know what? Humans ain't bad. I'll try to protect them. And the heroes are like, look at this thing we have. And Galactus is like, put that down, give it to me and I'll leave. And that's the basics of the story. But the way it's handled is great.

And what's amazing is issue 51, the last issue, oh, issue 50, I'm sorry, issue 50, last issue of the trilogy. The story ends with Galactus like halfway through the issue. And then Johnny Storm like goes to college. And it's about Johnny Storm going to college and meeting like his new roommate, Wyatt, and the football coach who really wants Wyatt to play on the team and Wyatt doesn't want to.

And there's something amazing about this huge epic cosmic story that ends part way through the issue. And then it's like, yeah, well, life goes on. Johnny's got to go to college now. So it's really amazing. And so this- There might be a class there about defeating Galactus, you never know. That's true.

That's a good point. He should have taken it first. Yeah. And the thing that makes this story special in so many ways is partly the scope. Is the thing? Is the thing. Partly the scope. Well, the issue that comes directly afterwards is an amazing thing story.

And that is what makes that one special. This man, this monster. And the, which I highly recommend, if you're going to read one Fantastic Four issue, issue 51 issue 51 this man this monster is the one to do it's just it's just beautiful but it's a fantastic for like that one Alan Moore issue of Swamp Thing is to Swamp Thing which one issue of Alan because of the one where he's like he realizes that he's the one, you know, the first issue. The first issue of the run. I mean, not technically the first issue of his run,

but the first issue of the story of the Alamo storyline that he's doing. The yeah, I mean, it's in some, it's different than that. I feel like it's different than that. But you could say that with the, it's like, it is to that, what the issue of Amazing Spider-man is and it's 33 Where it spider-man lifts all that that heavy junk off of him where he's able to find the strength to save his aunt and save Himself in this big heavy machine that's on top of him

Which is the greatest moment to me and in the entire spider-man run And I mean, that's weird though Because I feel like that's an example of a trope that you hate in general, which is I just got to want it more No, because the issue it's be that it's the build-up because okay that this is a huge digression And then we'll do I'll leave space for ads and then we'll come back and talk about the origins these characters What happened to them after that trilogy? But the that issue Doctor Octopus has has trapped spider-man under this heavy thing of metal. And the medicine that Aunt May needs to survive

is just out of reach and the room is flooding. The stakes are so bad. Spider-Man is gonna drown. And if he does, Aunt May is gonna die and he does not have the strength to do it. And the issue is, it's not that he is hurt and he suddenly is at full power and gets berserker strength.

Instead it is, you have this, I think a five page sequence where he is talking himself up to it. He says, that's it, I can't do it, I failed. And thinking to himself, no, I've got to do this. It's not like, it's my inner strength that's important. It's not my outer strength. I have this responsibility to Ant-Man, I have to do it. And each page, there are fewer and fewer panels

until finally the last page is this just one full panel splash page of him throwing the thing off going, I did it. And then afterwards, he's like, he's weak and he's like in a daze as he's fighting his way through to get out. And it's the difference I think of in movies that happens super fast. And then when they did this scene in Spider-Man Homecoming,

it happened super fast, it didn't work. And what works for me is the buildup, the buildup and the philosophy behind it. Because the thing I love about Spider-Man, what makes him the greatest character in fiction to me is partly that he has an ethic and a philosophy and you feel him living out those ethics and trying to make those ethics work

in a world that makes it very hard to remain ethical and still be true to your stealth and still be good to all the people in your life. It's a very, for lack of a better word to me, he's a very Jewish character in that way, where he is about, these are the laws I have to live by and life makes it so incredibly hard for me to live by these laws and I have to square my responsibility to the rules that I have, understand to be the right way to live and

the reality of living in a world that does not operate by those rules and that's why those rules exist because if that was the way the world worked, we wouldn't need them, but the world doesn't work that way so we need them. And so it is him working through that philosophy as he's regaining the strength in himself to do it, as opposed to the thing you see in movies where it's like, I've been beaten all to shit and the bad guy goes, now I'll kill your child.

And the person goes, no, and jumps up and suddenly is full of justice strength. Instead it's how deep he has to dig in himself to find that strength. That's what makes it work for me. Anyway, so this man, this monster, is the equivalent of that to me, you know, in terms of early Marvel stuff or single issue stories.

So the thing about Galactus is he is a godlike figure. That's what makes him different from other super villains. He's not a guy who wants to conquer the world. He is a force of nature. He is a cosmic force of nature that does what he does purely to survive. And he constantly says this to everybody. He constantly says, I am neither good nor evil.

I do what I do without pleasure. I merely do what I must to survive. He does it while holding his hand out to people. Yeah, he's always holding his hand. Jack Herby loves drawing people with their hands out in like Roman oratorical poses. He's always doing that. And there's a legend that for years,

there was this legend that Stanley said to Jack Kirby, give me a story where the FF fights God and that this is what he came up with. That's not true. But Kirby was definitely thinking on the level of like, we want a God-like figure. How do we get bigger with these stories? They're gonna fight a force of nature

who is not immoral, but purely amoral. There's no morality to what he does. Is that why he had a G on his chest? Cause it stands for God? I mean, maybe, who knows? I mean, it's a- It stands for goof troop. Oh, yeah.

It stands for goonin' all day long. It stands for goofy movie come of the. That's what it stands for cause he loves it. So that's the word- I mean, he would love the songs of Powerline. That's true. So that's Galactus and Silver Sur, he would love the songs of Powerline. That's true. So that's Galactus and Silver Surfer as they appear in that first story.

Silver Surfer is kind of a kind of emotionless herald of Galactus who learns to find a little bit of feeling for humanity. Galactus is a force of nature, but we don't learn the origins of either of these characters in this storyline, where did they come from and how much of it I think might show up in the movie. We're gonna discuss that after this break.

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Fly get other back. I guess so you do that but Before you do that Let's talk a little bit more about these characters because here's where it gets interesting from a behind-the-scenes perspective perspective also because One of the things I find most interesting about Marvel Comics is not just what's happening on the page But what's happening behind the page with the creators involved. I'm endlessly fascinated by the history of these people who made Marvel comics, and to a lesser extent, Disney comics,

but mostly Marvel comics. This thing that at the time that these were being created was considered a cheapy, kind of like trivial, vulgar art form. Certainly not something where there was a lot of money in it, unless you were the guy who owns the merchandising rights and even that it was not billions of dollars you know, it was maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars and Which has become so important to so many people who are now adults

But at the time if you asked most grown-ups, hey, what do you know about the fantastic four? They'd be like what I just came back from World War two And now I'm trying to, I've been working as an executive or like on an assembly line for 15 years or whatever, 20 years, like I'm trying to raise a family. Like I don't understand what's going on with the youth today. Like I don't have any,

President Kennedy was killed a couple of years ago. I don't have any time for Galactus. What is that? Yeah, yeah. And the amount of, I got a moon landing to prepare for. Exactly. The amount of effort that was being put into these books that were essentially, at the time, considered, except by Jack Kirby, who thought, this work is going to live forever, essentially throw away juvenile entertainment.

So they came up with this Silver... Jack Kirby comes up with the Silver Surfer character, and Stanley instantly is like, I love this character. This is my favorite character. I want to do a whole book of the Silver Surfer. I'm going to write it. It's going to be my version of the character. And you know what? My version of the character is not a construct created by the Galactus who learns how to be human,

learns how to have emotions, which was kind of, it seems like it was Jack Kirby's original plan. My version is a man who sold his soul to the devil as a sacrifice to save his world. And as a sort of Jesus hamlet figure endlessly soliloquizing about why can't humanity get along? Why is humanity so full of hatred and bloodshed?

Stanley's like all the stuff I feel as a mid-century American liberal about why can't we just love each other despite the colors of our skin? Silver Surfer is my vehicle for that and so he starts doing a Silver Surfer comic with a different artist, John Buscema, and Jack Kirby, who had big plans for the Silver Surfer after his appearances in Fantastic Four, was devastated by this. That this character was taken away from him,

and also that the version of the character that now became continuity canon was not his version. So what's the Stan Lee version, which became canon? Well, the Silver Surfer we learned was Norrin Radd, an inhabitant of the... Close to what I said. Close to what he said, Roarin' Nadd. Yeah and the inhabitant of the... Roarin' Nads, that's what I've got. Yeah, his original power was Roarin' Nads. Yeah, there's a villain named Angar the Screamer

who's kind of a psychedelic hippie and it would be funny if his power was anger the screamers hit power was roaring nads There's like by heavy vibrations that come out of his testicles Noran Radd lives on the planet Zen law. He is in love with shallow ball and Galactus comes to eat Zen law and to save his love and to save his planet Noran Radd says spare my planet and I will agree to be your herald and to find other planets for you. I will do the work so that you can just focus on chomping down those celestial orbs that you love to eat so much and kind of loses humanity.

He gains what's called the power cosmic, an ill-defined power that allows him to do pretty much anything. Yeah, I remember trying to get my brother to explain the Silver Surfer to me and he said well, he's got the power cosmic I'm like, what's that? Was he always shiny or is that power cosmic? That's power cosmic He gains this shiny covering over his body that allows him to survive in deep space. Was he always a surfer? That's a good question. I've never seen a story where he's surfing on Zen Law. The board is part of his power. Okay.

And so he's always, he can always call the board to himself. One of his catchphrases is, is to me my board, and then the surfboard will come to wherever he is. I love the Silver Surfer, and he's a great character. I like Stan Lee's origin for him,

and I love those issues, even though it gets very tiring to see Silver Surfer just constantly, page after page of him soaring around in the air going like, oh, if only man could learn to learn love. Why is there so much war on this earth? You know, I love your elderly version of this. Oh, if only man could learn. Yeah. And he is very much a Jesus figure in the Marvel Universe. Understandly, one of his main villains is Mephisto, who is one of Marvel's stand-ins for Satan.

He's a demon who wants, devil who wants to get Silver Surfer's soul. So the Silver Surfer becomes that. He becomes this guy who, over time, has become a mainstay of the Marvel Universe. He's had his own title for a long time. There's been great runs on his title. Steve Englehart had a great run.

There's a run by Ron Mars and Ron Lim that is fantastic. Jim Starlin, one of my favorite Marvel creators, he had a run on Silver Surfer. There's a lot of great run. There's a run by Ron Mars and Ron Lim that is fantastic. Jim Starlin, one of my favorite Marvel creators, he had a run on Silver Surfer. There's a lot of great runs. He's a big part of the infinity gauntlet story in the original comics, even though he's not in the movies. And Surfer and Thanos and Adam Warlock are three characters that I love

who are kind of always bumping into each other and revolving around each other. So he's one of the linchpins of the cosmic world that Marvel has. Marvel has two types of worlds. There's the world outside your window, which is the New York of the Marvel universe, where it's just like here in New York,

but there's superheroes, and then the cosmic universe, where there's constant energy bolts that are thousands of miles long flying around and gods and strange demi-god characters and embodiments of abstract principles and forces that see humanity as microscopic beings and so forth. And the third one is the Savage Land, right? Well, I guess you could say then it's the,

it's the, what you'd call kind of like uncharted lands. And that's the kind of stuff that Kirby was always coming up with. And then you'd have like the Savage Land or Wakanda, Black Panther's Nation, which is secretly in those early comics, secretly this technological wonderlands that the rest of the world doesn't know about.

So I guess those are those three things. The Savage Land for anyone who doesn't know is the part of Antarctica that aliens put a protective field over. So it's always warm there and dinosaurs still live there. And the X-Men seem to end up in the Savage Land all the time for some reason. And there's a great X-Men Savage Land storyline

in the John Byrne Chris Claremont run where Sauron comes back. Sauron, a character dear to my heart because my everlasting legacy in comic books is one panel of Sauron talking to Spider-Man. So Jack Kirby had this idea of what Silver Surfer is. Stan Lee changes it. The same thing's not gonna happen with Galactus, right?

Right, Dan? I feel like you're setting me up for a trap. It is a trap, Dan. The same thing happens with Galactus. There's a series of Thor comic books where for some reason they decided that this fantastic four villain Galactus should have his origin told in Thor.

They were trying to make Thor more cosmic. He goes out in space a lot. And they have this Thor, Thor, Thor storyline, we learned Galactus' origin. Yeah, what's the story here? Do you guys know what Galactus' origin is? No, he's like a dude. He's a big guy, right?

He is a big guy. He's a big dude. He's a big crippled dude. Did he not start out big? Is he like the smallest dude on his planet where he's from and that made him want to eat plants? Like, Ber Bernard Herzog? Even dwarves started small? Yeah, even Galactus started small.

Galactus, so he starts out as a scientist named Galen on the planet Taa. And this is not in our universe, but in the universe before our universe. And much like in the Superman origin where his father Jor-El was like, Bripton's gonna blow up and everyone's like, nah. Galen, I believe, has an understanding, Bripton is going to blow up and everyone's like, nah, gallon, I believe has an understanding

that the universe is coming to an end. There are these explorers that are with him. I'm trying to remember it. I should have read it before this episode. I remember the point is he is the only survivor of the previous universe before our own and the spaceship that he's in that saves his life becomes a sort of cosmic egg.

And when he emerges from it, he is Galactus. And the watcher sees all this and is, and it has, and it's like, and the, and it just keeps flipping off. Yeah. Yeah. He has sunglasses. He keeps flipping and you just see the watcher's feet in the panel. And the watcher had already had his origin messed with. Jack Kirby's idea for the watcher, I think dovetailed with Galactus' origin. Stanley set up, oh, the watcher has this origin where the watchers were an advanced race,

they met this primitive race and they gave them modern technology and that race used it for weapons and destroyed themselves in nuclear war. And the watcher said, we are never doing this again. We are never interfering. We're just going to watch from now on and there's a whole lot of us were a whole species of watchers were all big ball babies and togas were just going to watch things were the ultimate

voyeurs we never get involved. Jack Kirby starts doing and he does that another comic that Jack Kirby wasn't working on. Jack Kirby starts doing Galactus origin and it seems like they've had to recreate reconstruct it based on the fact that these comics were obviously very cut up obviously changed. It seems like he saw Galactus origin as Galactus survives the you know is the survivor of some cataclysm. He's nursed back to health or rescued by Uwatu and Galactus then becomes this devour of worlds, this cosmic force of destruction.

And that's when Uatu is like, I'm never gonna do anything again. It's too dangerous. I will just become the Watcher and there's just one of me. And apparently he may, it seems like Jack Kirby drew and wrote this whole story. And then Stanley was like, Jack, you're not reading the other books?

Like this doesn't square what we already said for the Watcher and they had to remake everything. So the point here is Galactus, he's the last survivor from the previous universe. He's in a big cosmic egg, turns him into the big purple guy in armor who travels around the universe having to eat things. And by doing that, he has become a force of balance in the universe. And what that means exactly has been described differently in different comics. In the comic book Earth X, which is a great mini series set in the future

of the Marvel universe, it's posited that celestials inject their eggs into the center of planets. And in order to keep them from overpopulating the universe, Galactus eats the planets that have celestial eggs in them, but he doesn't know this. At one point, Galactus is seen kind of shaking hands

with eternity and infinity, these embodiments of the very basic reality of the existence as it's in itself. And they're like, ah, hail brother, hail sister, that Galactus is the third point of this Trinity somehow. He's just a force, he's a force of nature in the universe. At one point, Galactus get in the eighties, Galactus gets caught and put on trial

for eating the Skrull home world, I think it is. And Reed Richards defends him on trial saying like, he's a force of nature. Like you can't put him on trial. You have to, you know, I'm going to, as you know what it is, I'm sorry. Reed Richards is on trial for saving Galactus' life. Galactus comes to earth and he's dying.

And Reed Richards is like, no, he's necessary for balancing the universe. So that, and we can't let someone die. So they save his life. And then Reed Richards is put on trial. And the Watcher shows everybody that Galactus is necessary in a sort of cosmic trip. Everyone has the same trip.

If you're gonna blame anyone, blame the Super Scroll. And they're like, oh, not again. That guy, Collart, he's such a dick. And they do a neat thing there where they say, Galactus is such a huge concept that he appears to every species as one of their own. So that's why he looks like a guy in a helmet to us, is because we just,

with the same- With a big G for guy. Exactly, for guy. The same way that we interpret God as a human, because we think of things from a human point of view, we interpret Galactus one. Anyway, the point is, Galactus would show up with a different origin later, with his own origins change.

Galactus, for a while they were like, this guy's super powerful, what do we do with him? Here's what you do with him, you use him over and over again until he becomes not as special as he once was, and he just becomes just another dude that is coming by Earth every now and then to eat things. Or to have adventures. Galactus, Galactus Hungy, can we eat Earth now?

But there's still a certain mystique to him. And so here's what I want to talk about now, as we round out this episode. That's what you want to talk about? You're not there yet? As we've already gone too long is. Our main story tonight. Wow.

Well, this was an explained rep, so no. I'm curious about what they're going to do in the movie. Cause in the movie, I think what they have to capture, I think is the feel of the enormity of this threat. And that he is not just like a cool character, but that he is on a different plane of existence from all these other ones. And I feel like there's a shot in the trailer

where you just see Galactus' feet walking down a street. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if this is quite doing it. Like, I don't want to see him walk. I don't want to see him move the way human does. No, you want to see him like stand, basically. There's a moment in the original comics where they knock him off a building and they're like,

that's it, we knocked him over. We defeated him. We were able to knock him down. And instead of clamoring to his feet, he just kind of levitates and then turns so that he is now upright. And they're like, oh shit, the guy didn't even have to use his hands to get up.

Like, that's how powerful this guy is. Knocking him over didn't do anything. How is he small enough to be on top of a building? Was this like a giant space building? No, it's just, I think that you have to imagine that he is, he is not even just kind of, his body's not even just kind of resting on it. Either he is levitating always,

or he is so in control of his own matter that he can control how he affects that matter around him. But anyway, so I'm hoping they can capture that, because the big changes that they're making in this movie are, it's coming in a world that is post, for us the audience, post Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet and all that stuff. You know, it is no longer,

glass is no longer the biggest thing that you can imagine. When someone has snuffed out half the universe by snapping their fingers, a big dude who eats just earth is, I think they're gonna have to work to get that that the enormity of that but also you can tell from the trailers the Silver Surfer is a lady now and I want to know how you guys feel about that because I I'm not online very much I don't deal with discourse very much but I am totally unaware of any discourse of people being upset that the Silver Surfer is a woman in the tree I mean I

like Julia Garner. Yeah, and also like... He plays the character. I mean, I love Julia Garner. I was trying to get her for a project and I could not. But also, I have absolutely no issue with this. And I feel like, I wonder if other people have no issue because they don't care that much about the Silver Surfer.

Understandable. He's a character I love, but he's never been like a top popular character. He's one of these characters who often has his own series, but cannot support his own series for as long as others. He's like Dr. Strange or Daredevil that way, where his book is always getting canceled and relaunched. Or if it is just, do we live in a world now where this kind of stuff doesn't matter to people as much, which would be great.

What do you guys think? I don't think we live in that world. You've been paying attention to the news. where this kind of stuff doesn't matter to people as much, which would be great. What do you guys think? I don't think we live in that world. If you've been paying attention to the news, I think that we would. I wonder if, so something, a theory that was floated a long time ago that really struck with me was

people getting so mad about like the Zack Snyder cut and this character being like this in this movie from young men who feel like they have no control over their own lives. And so they feel like they can exert control over this own lives. And so they feel like they can exert control over this as fans. And maybe it's a side effect of those guys having won and America now being a misogynist authoritarian shit show

that they no longer care as much what gender the Silver Surfer has. Because now they feel finally that they can take out their ire and their anger at the real people whose genders they're mad about. I don't know. I wonder if that's part of it. Is that the world has the world gotten bad enough that people realize how unimportant the Silver Surfer's gender is? I don't know. But maybe you guys have seen more stuff online than me. No, I try not to go there anymore.

Okay. It makes me sad. He doesn't like being online anymore. No, I mean, it's true. It's been very good, because you know what I've done more of recently? Reading books. Reading books is great. I love reading books.

Books are my second favorite thing after my family. It's like a movie in your mind, right? Yeah. It is, because Dan, I want to say that this has not had anything to do with this. This might be too personal. That makes me really happy that you are no longer in the stage of your life where you feel the need

to be online and respond to hardcore right-wing people on Twitter with an image of someone's boobs painted like to be Garfield's face, which you were doing quite a bit of at one point. That's true. That was during the first Trump years. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I'm not saying I'm never online or I never get cranky with anything, but it's a lot less because I do it for my own health. Okay, that's fair. And maybe that's the most important thing to explain in this issue, in this episode,

as we go way longer than I meant to, talking on and on and on about Silverstone Fintest Four, and I apologize to everybody if I was just boring you this whole time, because I find these characters fascinating, I find the backstory behind them fascinating. I'm really curious how they're going to be handled in this. I'm not excited about the movie necessarily.

I think because there's so many more important things in life, but I am curious about it. And I think maybe that's the lesson of all this is that within the Marvel Universe, the coming of Galactus, the story of the Silver Surfer, the introduction of the Fantastic Four into the Marvel Universe, within the Marvel Universe is of massive importance.

It's of massive foundational cosmic importance. The Fantastic Four, they're coming late to the party, but they were in the comics, they were the first ones there. I've always thought it was very funny that the Marvel Universe in the movie starts with Iron Man, a character that at the time, they could afford to make a movie of

because no one gave a shit about that character. He has always been, for most of Marvel history, he has been a B level character, Iron Man. A very important character in being an original Avenger and things like that, but a B level character. And now he's like, when it made me, this is one thing that did make me mad, was in the Spider-Man, new Spider-Man movies,

when he's like, oh gee, I just gotta be like Iron Man. And like, I gotta use all this Iron Man gimmickry. And I'm like, dude, do you not know your Spider-Man? The greatest character? Like, you're the best, greatest, most famous, most popular character. You don't need Iron Man gimmickry and I'm like, dude, do you not know you're Spider-Man? The greatest character? Like, you're the best, greatest, most famous, most popular character. You don't even know how hot you are. And maybe that's what makes Spider-Man so great is he doesn't know how hot he is. Yeah, exactly. He thinks he needs to be Iron Man when he's way hotter than Iron Man.

But I think the important lesson is that these things are of cosmic importance. The very survival of the Earth within the Marvel Universe. But in real life, they're not that important. It's just there to have fun, maybe learn a little bit, maybe be inspired a little bit. If you can take something positive from these stories, which I have, I think what I've taken positively from these stories, if I can be personal, especially from Jack Kirby's work, but also from Steve Dicco's Spider-Man work, especially from Jack Kirby's work with his characters, the new gods, is this feeling of being able to take control

of your own life, despite obstacles in your path and trying to be the best version of yourself and live by the principles that you think would make the world a better place and understanding that you will not always live up to those principles, but trying your best to live up to them most of the time and also recognizing that it's difficult to do that. And it's difficult to be a full human being,

to do right by the world, to do right by the people that you love and also to do right by yourself and to fulfill your responsibilities. It's hard to do that. I feel like that is the, that's the lesson of that first run of Spider-Man, which means so much to me,

is it is hard to be a good person, but that doesn't give you an excuse to not be a good person. You don't get to opt out and you have to just recognize that it's difficult. And with the Fantastic Four, that you are gonna be confronted with problems that are seemingly unsolvable and maybe unsolvable,

but you have to do your best because life continues. And that's the beautiful thing about that last issue in the Galactus story, like I was saying is, they have just saved the world from Galactus, the devourer of worlds. They've been exposed to the sheer magnificent scale of the universe in a way they never have before. And they've recognized how tiny they are in the eye of God, like how small they are in

the grand scope of things. Then it's time to go to college, got to move in, got to meet your roommate. Like Ben's going to go patch things up with Alicia. He gets jealous because he thinks that she might be into the Silver Surfer, that like those things are important too, and they're more important. And that like you can't, certainly more important than a fictional universe, but also that the things within your life are just as important as the big things, and in some ways more important, it's difficult to do right by them,

but you have to try, and that's where the meaning of your life is going to come from. So if you can draw those types of things, like I have, and I'm very glad that I have, I'm very thankful that I have, from this work, that's amazing. But at the same time, it's not real. Like it's not real and doesn't matter. And maybe that's why I'm so happy that I have not seen, if it's happening, I'm not aware of it. And if it's happening, I'm not aware of it, then it makes me feel a little sadder that I have not seen this big backlash of like, what, Silver Surfer's a girl now? Because it so doesn't matter.

It so doesn't matter at all. When they drop it- I think enough of the other casting has been very pleasing to fans. Maybe that's it. Maybe that's it. I think then that it is a sign, I think, of maybe a healthy reevaluating

of where the Marvel Cinematic Universe lives in people's lives and in culture. Yeah. And hopefully where fictional universes in general live in people's lives and culture, that I feel like the tone I'm getting around most people with a Fantastic More movie is like, yeah, I think I wanna see that, that looks fun.

As opposed to, I need to see it. I have to know what's gonna happen. I need to know what's gonna happen in this universe because it's my responsibility as a fan or as a movie goer to be aware of it. More like, yeah, this looks fine. I think this is going to be good. I hope it's good.

Well, not to take the wind out of your sails, Elliot, but if you just wander over to the last of us subreddit, your opinions on fandoms will change. Well, I think this is a good lesson for everybody is don't go to the last of us subreddit. We could any subreddit, unless maybe ours is probably fine. I don't want to get insulted. No, I think here's my final moral in this long thing, and then you guys can cut me off.

If you're going to be a fan of anything, be a fan of your life, being alive, living in reality, the actual world. Do it. Just do it. You can be a fan of other things, but save your biggest fandom for your own life. Yeah, learn to date yourself first. I mean, we talked a lot about dating yourself in that last episode. And my, the thing I will say is I don't have a lot of experience with Galactus,

but every time I think of Galactus, I think of that reoccurring bee story in top 10, where the one character's grandmother has super mice. So the exterminator or ex-verminator, I think is his name. Ex-verminator, yeah, he brings in super cats. And it leads to a crossover event with Galactopus, which is a cat that looks like Galactus. And I'm like, I just think about it all the time.

That, I mean, if you walk away from this episode learning anything, it is one, spend more time in real life than in fictional worlds. And also, you should read Top Ten. That first run of Top Ten that Alan Moore, Xander Can, and Gene Hall run is so good. It's such a great book. Yeah. And I'm a huge fan of the smack spinoff as well. Yes, the smack spinoff is great.

That's true. I bug Xander Can about all the time and he has a new book out and it's great. Yeah. And I mean, get that Top Ten Omnibus and read through that. There's that one mini series in the middle that is not so great. But otherwise, it's all great stuff. So guys, thank you for coming with me on this very long journey through the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer, and Galactus. If anyone is still with us, then I hope that you enjoyed it.

If you're not still with us, join us next time when we're going to be talking about a movie. This has been the Flophouse. My name is Ellie Kalin. We're on the Maximum Fund Network. Please listen to the other Maximum Fund Podcasts, sample them, see what you like. I think you'll enjoy it. If you are interested in learning more about the Fantastic Four Kirby Lee issues- Busy with your local library.

Yeah, don't take my word for it. But I am going to recommend not a Max Fund Podcast, unfortunately, but a podcast called Screw It. We're just going to talk about comics by Will and Kevin Hines. And they read through the entirety of the Lee Kirby Fantastic Four run and did a podcast of it. It was great. Or you can go to the Marvel By The Month podcast, a friend of this podcast also. They read through all those issues

and they did a great job with it. You wanna dig in more into Marvel history. Those are two great podcasts to do it with. But first, go to Maximum Fun Podcasts. I wanna thank our producer, Howell Doughty, AKA Alex Smith. He goes by Howell Doughty online and Alex Smith in real life, which is the real one.

I don't know, he just stares in a mirror and says, who am I, am I Alex or Howell? Thank you so much for probably putting in some sound effects to make this like a funnier episode than it was otherwise. And thank you finally to you, the listener. If you like the Flophouse, why not leave us a positive review on the podcast dealy of your choice? Why not? Or tell a friend about it. You know what? Spread the word of the Flophouse. Yeah.

Go on a street corner. Make this your life. Spreading the gospel of the Flophouse. Be our... Congressman. Yeah, be our herald. Congressperson. Yeah, congressperson. Paint yourself all silver and go out and be the herald of the Flophouse. And you know, Flophouse, devourer of time, is coming your way. You better listen to it. Until then, I am Elliot Kalin. I'm Dan McCoy.

I'm Stuart Wellington. Saying go outside, do something in the real world for a little bit. Babe, babe, wake up. The Flophouse mini's finally over. Ha ha ha. ["The Flophouse Mini's finally over. Hahaha.