The Glass Cannon Podcast - Glass Cannon Radio #24 – Superman (2025)/Superhero RPGs/Andor Finale

Episode Date: July 10, 2025

Jared and Joe discuss the upcoming release of James Gunn's Superman as well as some of Gunn's best films. Plus, a review of some great superhero RPGs, the final season of Andor with special guest Skid Maher, and a few obscure obsessions. 0:00 Intro 15:00 Superman 2025 37:45 James Gunn 1:10:00 Superhero RPGs 1:37:30 Andor Season 2 Watch the video here: ⁠⁠https://youtu.be/8sdppnf4OhM⁠ Access exclusive podcasts, ad-free episodes, and livestreams with a 30-day free trial with code "GCN30" at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠jointhenaish.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Join Troy Lavallee, Joe O'Brien, Skid Maher, Matthew Capodicasa, Sydney Amanuel, and Kate Stamas as they tour the country. Get your tickets today at ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cn8wr0⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. For more podcasts and livestreams, visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://hubs.li/Q03cmY380⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We can now confirm the stolen favorites have resurfaced at McDonald's Canada. The international menu heist. Try them all while you can. For a limited time in participating McDonald's in Canada. You are listening to the Glass Cannon Radio with your hosts Jared Logan and Joe O'Brien. Oh, I'm coming at you live from my brother-in-law's office in Connecticut. Oh, you're a wild man, Jared. Woo!

My brother-in-law has a nice office, and I'm letting you see a small sliver of it. He seems to have many degrees. Are those all degrees? Both of my brother-in-laws, my brother-in-law and the man he is married to both are extremely smart, smarter than I am, and more well accomplished than me. That is really hard to believe.

Why I'm staying at their house and they're not staying at mine. What are these degrees in? Are they, are they like law degrees? One of them, both of them went to medical school. One is a neurologist and the other one does something with finances and biotech that I don't understand. Wow. Okay. Finances and biotech. That sounds pretty dope. That sounds pretty dope. Gay excellence over here on my wife's side of the family. I want to be clear. Shining gay excellence. The excellence comes from my wife's side of the family. I want to be clear. Uh, the excellence comes from my wife's side of the family.

Um, here we are glass cannon radio. Look up in the sky. It's Superman week on glass cannon radio. Uh, the new Superman movie is coming out. I've got to go. I'm going to figure out how to go see it on Friday. I'm a giant Superman fan, so I got to get out opening night when everybody's going to be wearing their costume. Have to see if mine still fits.

I'm sure the Cape fits. Yeah, but I can't just wear the Cape. You know, I got to wear the Lycra body suit. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Oh, man, I will not make it opening night sadly, but yeah, I'm hoping sometime soon I can catch it. Well, you know what, as I say that, I just, you know, we're busy adults, which is why I can understand you might not make opening night, but I'm just gonna say these superhero movies, sometimes they piss me off because I'll be like, oh, I can't wait to go see that and then I'll be like What's the runtime on that?

Okay, yeah, okay two hours and ten minutes that is acceptable that's reasonable that's reasonable completely acceptable Yeah, I'll take it. I'll take it when it says and 40, man, when I went to see across the spider verse, a cartoon and it was two hours and 40 minutes long and at two 20, I was like, I don't think they're going to end this shit. I don't think this is ever going to end. I was legitimately pissed off when it was like, to be continued in the next one. I was like, that was two hours and 40 minutes long. You couldn't come to some kind of resolution.

I was amazed too, because I didn't even look at the runtime because I was like, it's a cartoon. It's under two. Like every single second costs millions. So it's just like, you got to really budget your time there for the, for the animated stuff. And it's just, it kept going and going and going. Like, oh my God. I mean, it was awesome. Don't get me wrong. I thought it was an awesome movie, but I think that they really undersold or didn't really throw really put out there the fact that it was a part one or that it wasn't going to be a whole story. And I don't know, personally, I felt a little cheated. I mean, you like listeners, you tell me, okay, is my distaste

for super long movies? Is that an old man, Gen X of attitude? Or is everybody a little bit sick of two hour and 40 minute long superhero movies? I'm with you. I'm with you. And the thing is, it's not it's like a long, a really long movie. That's great. But you don't feel it. You don't notice it. It's it's fine. But Great great movies are extremely rare. Yes, and it just seems these days that two and a half hours plus is not rare anymore It's like happening all the time For like middle rung movies and it does I think there is a little bit of old man to it for sure because I'm like I got shit to do man. Like I can't be in the movie theater all the time.

I actually get excited when I see that a movie I want to see has a runtime of an hour and 50 minutes. I'm like, yes, you know, it seems like a rare gift these days to get in and out and under too. You got to see black bag. Have you seen black bag? No, let me add it to my Glass Cannon radio. Oh, I'm sorry. I keep giving you movies to watch. No. It gets a little pedantic and insufferable, but 80 minutes long. Ooh. And it's like it's Kate Blanchett.

It's Michael Fassbender and it's a spy thriller that Steven Soderbergh does and he does it in like 80 minutes. It's awesome. What's it called? Black bag. Black bag. I mean, that sounds great. Yeah, you will love it. You will. I think you will love it. Uh, my wife and I loved it. Um, so, so yeah, I mean, I think what happened was the, this could be a whole topic. I guess we'll just do it now. I think that the model changed, you know, it used to be the opposite was true. It used to be that movie theater companies wanted to fit in as many showings as they could.

Right. And so they would always pressure the filmmakers to make 90 minute movies or shorter even. Uh, so they could fit in as many showings as possible. Then when TV took over and everybody was like, I'm going to stay home and zone out to my Netflix movies, I think decided, you know what to get people in the seat into the seats. We have to offer something. We have to offer some new thing that makes movies special. And I think one of the things that they decided to offer something. We have to offer some new thing that makes movies special. And I think one of the things that they decided to offer is, Hey, check it out. This is now an event. This is now a three hour event.

Isn't more movie, isn't more movie better? Yeah. But more movie is not better. More movie is more movie movie, I mean, more movie can be better if it's great. Like you say, Saving Private Ryan. I saw that in the theater like three times. Saving Private Ryan is three hours long and it feels like it's 25 minutes. You're just like, you're just like, what the fuck and it's over. One of the examples I always give is outside of film. This is theater and that's way worse. Right.

Like really long theater. It can be so bad. At its height of popularity, there was a play that they eventually made a movie called August Osage County. Yeah. You're familiar with this. It was a Julia Roberts movie, but it was a stage play in New York and it was getting all this buzz and I managed to get tickets through my, uh, through some friends and, and, uh,

set up in the, in the loft and heard that it was two intermissions because it was a four hour stage play, not a musical stage play for four hours. Wow. And it, every single act, all three acts absolutely flew by. Like I didn't notice it was four hours at all because it was a work of incredible art and genius. I think it won the Pulitzer Prize. It was so good.

And I was just like, you can do that if your stuff is that good. You know, you can pull that off, a two intermission play. So yeah, but otherwise it's hard to pull, it's just hard to pull that off. a two intermission play. So yeah, but otherwise, it's hard to pull... It's just hard to pull that off. And you know what it is to me? I think it's just... It's laziness is really ultimately what it is in a lot of ways, especially creatively, because it is so much harder to make a shorter movie and make it excellent than it is to make a longer movie. The reason that I love the four hour version of Lord of the Rings, of the Lord of the Rings

directors cut films is because they could have been two hours longer than that. But they just, they cut to just what you need. And that's still four hours. And I do love the extended cuts of the Lord of the Rings, but I think that that's an example where the quality is that high. Like yeah, but I think the quality is that high. Like it's sustained for that long. Yeah, but I think the quality is that high because even though it's four hours, it is still concentrated.

Like they still had to cut a lot to get there. They had to change the story to fit a shorter thing. It's if you just wanna keep doing whatever you feel like, you know, and you just keep adding stuff on, that's actually easier artistically to make something longer than to make it shorter. Um, I agree. I agree. Yeah.

I mean, you know, it's, when I, when I write games, homebrew a game, I always, after playing it go, I should have taken all of that stuff out. You know what I mean? Like I'm always realizing, oh, it would have been better if I'd taken stuff out. I might've said that on here before. Hey, you know what? Let's talk about what we're going to talk about today. And this is the show where you can call in, you can make your opinion known, and we encourage you to do so. Get on Discord, come to the Glass Can of Radio stage, raise your hand. We'll call on you. You can give us your opinion.

We encourage a variety of opinions. So, uh, feel free to disagree with us or point out something we have forgotten today in honor of the Superman. Premier this Friday, we are first going to talk a little bit about that film and kind of how DC Studios is sort of maybe riding on it, or maybe it's not. I read a bunch of conflicting reports, but it is interesting that DC, Warner Brothers DC is trying to create their own cinematic comic book universe and is it ever going to

work? Then we're going to talk about the filmmaker himself, James Gunn. There's a lot we can talk about with him and his history and his art. Then we're going to get into superhero tabletop RPGs. There are quite a few of them. What are your favorites? Do you like playing in the superhero genre when you play TTRPGs, why or why not? Then it's on to our Andor season two recap. I just finished so much to talk about with Andor season two, so we'll be sure to leave plenty of time for that.

Don't panic when we're in hour two with 15 minutes left and we finally get to Andor. And then we're going to close out with a little obscure obsession. We've done this before. Collars, you call in, you tell us about the thing you love that no one else loves that you never get to talk about. This is your opportunity to talk about it. And Joe and I are interested. We did it once.

We've done it once. And I walked away with like two things that I definitely looked into, and one of which I'm already into now, which is King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard. There it is. I wouldn't have heard of it if it wasn't for obscure obsessions of the niche. So please call in and let us know.

You know, music is great. Because if someone tells you to read a book it's like, oh Jesus I don't know. You know that's a lot of time. Someone tells you to watch a movie even or watch a TV show you're like, yeah that's a lot of my time. I got a car about time for this. Music I'm driving to the drug store.

Spotify, Kinggizzard, bang. Now I can find, you know I can check it out. So music is always a really good rec. I wish I was more into music. I'm, uh, I'm, I, I don't listen to it all the time. I'm like a podcast, audio book guy. Uh, but music always makes me feel good. You know, it's always good to pump up before a standup show. So I should get more into music. Uh, before we jump into Superman, I want to jump off of your, your thing about doing a homebrew and, uh, cutting out, you know, trimming it out and

making things shorter, I wanted to let people know, cause this is very last minute, this is just cropped up that I am going to run a live, extremely short PF2E home brew this weekend on Twitch. And Jared is going to play in it. Jared is playing in it. It's, it's, I wanted to show people what we mean when we, when we talk about gauntlets, the gauntlets that we do. We did admit a retreat in Nashville and we did them at Gen Con last year.

And we did a practice one behind the scenes before Nashville where we all got on a call and did one, but we've never streamed one and so I was like, let's stream one and because of our availability is crazy because leading up to Gen Con we're recording so much, the only time everybody's available is Sunday night. So this Sunday night, July 13th, mark your calendars. 9 p.m. Eastern. Sorry, Europe. But 9 p.m. Eastern, that's Matthew's fault by the way, that's start time. 6 p.m. Pacific, we are going to run a gauntlet. It's gonna be Jared, Matthew, Skid, Kate, and Sydney. I've got

five players. They're all gonna pick a pre-gen from iconic characters of the Glass Cannon Network, past and present. And they're going to go up against an extreme level monster that I choose for them. So, uh, tune in live. It's only going to be like an hour long, hour, hour and a half, not a huge commitment, but see if they can, if we TPK, if we beat the boss, if somebody dies but we beat the boss, I'm curious to see. And I might just be bringing back Xantar, King of the Zoogs.

Come on! And I honestly don't know if people are going to play characters of their repertoire or if they're going to play other people's characters. I have no idea what people are going to do. They're going to decide at the last minute, we're just gonna go live and have some fun. So anyway, tune in Sunday night, July 13th, 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific,

live on Twitch.tv slash The Glass Cannon, a live gauntlet with the GCN crew. Yes. So let's get into the show. Please come and watch that. And by come, I mean click on your computer and hit twitch.com. Couldn't be easier. And what a great time, no matter where you're at.

It's not like it's like at 12 p.m. on a Wednesday or something. What a ridiculous time to live stream. What a ridiculous time to live stream anything. Guys, let us talk Superman. So July 11th, this Friday, the new Superman film debut is from Warner Brothers and DC Studios. DC Studios now headed by James Gunn, the filmmaker who created the Guardians of the Galaxy trilogy for Disney and Marvel. He's also known for The Suicide Squad, his previous DC Universe film.

Not to be confused with Suicide Squad, with Will Smith as Deadshot. Not so good. We're talking about The Suicide Squad. And, you know, this is a huge movie for Warner Brothers. There was a lot of talk going around that if this doesn't work, if this doesn't make good money, if it doesn't, if it doesn't have a big opening, that could be the end of a cinematic DC universe, at least for a while. So I wanted to talk about that a little bit, Joe. You know, Warner Brothers recently has kind of gotten a little bit into trouble because they have these two heads who have been giving very, very generous deals to filmmakers. And the biggest flop they had recently is they gave a giant budget to Bong Joon-ho

to make that film Mickey 17. Did you see Mickey 17? Nope. Neither did I. Did you see Parasite? No. Okay. So that was his previous film.

I wanted to, and I think I watched, I do think I watched like 15 minutes of it at one point and I immediately got distracted or I was on a flight and something came up. I can't remember, but I keep seeing it and keep being like, I gotta make time to watch that because I heard it was great. Didn't it win like best picture or something? Parasite won best picture. Skin is saying he liked Mickey 17. I'm seeing a lot of people that saw Mickey 17, but I'm not seeing it was awesome.

I'm seeing in the Twitch chat, it was good. It was fun. You know what? Anytime somebody says a movie was fun, that means it was not a good film. That's right. That's damning with faint praise. It was fun. It was a fun movie. Not a good film.

Have you ever had someone recommend you a film they clearly didn't like that much? Oh, you know what we saw? Mickey 17. You should see it. It was fun. That is an exact conversation that I think sounds incredible. Sounds like you really went away. Changed. Um, anyway, uh, yeah. So a lot of people didn't see that. Maybe you guys saw it.

Maybe, maybe some of the nation saw it, but a lot of people didn't, it didn't make us money back and that's just one of these like very generous deals that they've been making over Warner brothers. They've been spending a lot of money. They've been giving people deals that are a little unprecedented, like been giving them like first dollar gross and things like that, which just means that the filmmakers are making money on the front end instead of the back end after all the costs and things like that for distributors.

So the studio was a little bit on shaky legs, you know, you, you, you can't spend more money than you have. And now here comes Superman and, um, Superman it's in a weird position as a superhero movie. Have you seen any of the other DC universe movies, Joe? Uh, no, I don't think so. You didn't see justice league? No. Oh, I saw the Batman. The Batman. So this is what I mean by in a weird position.

The Batman doesn't exist in the DC cinematic universe. The Batman is in its own Batman universe. Well, that seems like a poor decision. It does seem like a poor decision. Marvel, when they started to create a Marvel cinematic universe, everything was in it. You know what I mean? They were like, if this movie comes out, yeah, if this movie comes out, it's part of this. And they went out of their way sometimes to their detriment, I think. Yes. Sometimes it was too much or Easter egg, the other. And when they did the Netflix series, they also made sure that they were mentioning

and calling back to those other films and stuff. DC it's been so confusing. So for example, the Batman doesn't exist in that universe. The Joker films do not exist in that universe. Justice League does exist in that universe. Black Adam, did you see Black Adam? No. Okay, good.

Because I saw it and Black Adam was, okay, so I've heard that The Rock has this thing where when you write a movie for him, he's kind of like, nothing bad can happen to me. And they're like, what? And he's like, cause it just wouldn't like that's my fans don't like it when bad stuff happens to me. So you just can't put that in there. And that's not how stories work. The rock watcher,

the rock movie and tell me when he's when he's really down. What exactly is going on with him? There's really no point where he's really down or ever makes a bad decision. You know, not really how stories work. Anyway, Black Adam was in it. The old I mean, I think it's like from 2010 now, the Henry Cavill Superman Man of Steel was part of it. The Flash with Ezra Miller was part of it. Of course, that was a movie that was like surrounded with all kinds of controversy. And it also did a very, what I find kind of irritating, which is that was a multiverse

thing. Did you see the flash? No. And it's funny because at the time I worked for the agency that repped Ezra Miller. And so this was a huge deal. And they were, I mean, so excited. And I was excited too, just because I really enjoyed some of Ezra Miller's first big films, you know, Hollywood-y films that he did as a minor character, as a relatively unknown, and he was so good that I was like, I can't... This is combining two things that I'm loving right now, like the superhero stuff,

and what I think is an excellent young actor in Ezra Miller. And I never saw it. And I think, well, first of all, you know, I heard that it wasn't great, like kind of right away. And then I just sort of like, I don't know, I do feel, and this is odd, I agree. If you think this is odd, I agree with you. That I have a weird sort of almost brand loyalty to Marvel. And so I don't, I kind of just don't have any interest in what DC does until I hear from somebody that it's great and I have to see it. So like that's what I heard about the Suicide Squad.

And so I was like, I'll go watch that, you know, I'll go watch that. And then somebody said, peacemakers great. And so like I watched some of that, I'll go watch that. And then somebody said, peacemakers great. And so like I watched some of that. I didn't finish that. But like, other than that, uh, you know, I just don't, I don't see them until I hear that they're great. I don't go see them first. Um, I don't think that you've missed anything that great. Uh, I mean, uh, the, the Ezra Miller flash was a multiverse thing,

which I think, uh, you know, used Michael Keaton as Batman, for example, which I think is just kind of a cheap Easter egg E cameo kind of thing. And a lot of these films are doing that now in lieu of just writing like an incredible story. I that's, that's my opinion. I thought, and the flash is one of my favorite characters and I'm a little bit different from you.

I am a DC guy first, which is, I think a lot of people are in your boat. They're like, come on, Marvel do or die. Marvel is better. And I will even, I will even agree with you. I mean, clearly in the films, Marvel has shown itself to be stronger. But in the comics as well, Marvel has, has shown itself to always be the stronger brand. And yet, I'm like a Superman, Batman, the Flash guy. Aquaman was in this DC universe. They made two of those. I watched the first one. People were like, it's really good. I was like, you know what my reaction to Aquaman was?

It was fun. It was fun. You should was fun. It was fun. You should see it. It was fun. So, this is interesting because James Gunn is now gonna reboot the entire DC universe. It's gonna get rebooted again. This Superman film is the first

in a entire new slate of films. They're doing like Marvel did, where they're planning films out 10 films ahead. This is chapter one, gods and monsters, an entire slate of films that includes other movies we can get into in a minute. But like, does everybody else, we may have talked about this on the show before.

Does everybody else have superhero fatigue? Is this not the bad time? We talked about Marvel fatigue and I think a lot of people have it. I don't think I'll ever get tired of them, but it is very, it is, it seems like a terrible time business wise to be like, Hey everyone, we're going to launch multiple films that you need to watch to understand and be a part of this whole universe thing. Also, I don't remember, I'm not plugged in at all in terms of the pop culture, but I don't remember that happening with Iron Man.

Didn't they just like make Iron Man? Yeah, the Marvel cinematic universe developed slowly. Exactly. It sort of evolved out of successful films. And it wasn't this announcement like, this is going to be the next universe, right? And so, yes, I agree. I think it's a bad time for that. But I'll say this.

I think I'm excited. I am very excited. And I really want to see this. And the primary reasons are one, and this is, you know you're just gonna yell at me again, but I Don't I couldn't tell you one minute of any of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies like I don't You couldn't tell one minute of the Christopher Reeve super no I don't think I if I saw them I don't remember them Well, I was young but I've rewatched since then and I love those movies.

I know, people love them. And for whatever reason, it just passed me by. And I never saw Man of Steel because I was right in the middle of that, like everything that they're going to put out DC is going to be garbage. Tell me if it's good. And, you know, never heard it was good. And so I didn't watch it. And I really, I love James Gunn stuff.

And so I'm like, I really want to hope that this is going to be good. And I'd love to see a Superman movie. You know, a real, I definitely have seen the Chris Rory movies, but I couldn't tell you the plot. You know, I can't remember it. It's been so long. And so yeah, I'd love to get some fresh, fresh perspective

on Superman. And I really love the woman who's playing Lois Lane. I can't remember the actor's name right now. Rachel Brosnan. Yeah, Rachel. Yeah. From the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I think DC Warner Brothers has always been kind of behind the curve on all of this stuff.

Their people in charge don't really understand it. So to give you an example, years ago, when they were first talking about sort of releasing some of these films and executive was like, we're trying to get the proper dark and gritty tone. And I'm thinking, well, we're in the 2010s now, the dark and gritty tone for comic books that was, that was in vogue in the nineties and the early two thousands. You know, those stories and comic books in the generation that's reading them now have

changed since then. And those, that kind of tone was in vogue when Tim Burton made Batman in 1989. So Tim Burton was ahead of the curve. 89 he makes Batman and he made it dark and gritty for Tim Burton, you know what I mean? Gothic. And we're talking, it was in the 2010s and some executive was like,

we're trying to get a dark and gritty tone on Justice League and Superman. And I was like, you're doing this wrong. You're doing, you don't understand. That's so interesting. I hadn't thought about it that way. I was watching the professional wrestling documentary on Netflix, the about, oh my God,

the guy, the guy that runs the whole thing. Oh my God, I'm blanking on his name. Vince McMahon. Vince McMahon. Mr. McMahon, like all about Mr. McMahon, quote unquote, is a four part series. And I, my height of professional wrestling viewing was in the nineties and like the late nineties, my buddies were all into it.

And we would watch raw like every Monday or whatever it was Sunday nights, I can't remember. But like the documentary puts it all in perspective about the tone of entertainment in that era. And that era is the, uh, the stone cold Steve Austin and the rock and like these kind of anti hero guys who no longer is it the Hulk Hogan, the shining golden hero who never does anything wrong. It's like the bad ass dudes that have an edge and then there's a negative quality to them. But in the end, like it's what's the lesser of two evils,

right? Like you need bad to fight bad, like that kind of vibe. And you're right. Like that was very nineties and that fits into that tone. But yes, you were right. It was 20, 15 years later. Well, yeah, the attitude era form. And that's exactly right. The attitude era. And that's when things, things changed by the 2010s. The generation was different, you know? But sometimes the people that are in charge of putting together these, these projects, they are, they're not up to date. And I think that's what happened with Warner Brothers DC in some ways. James Gunn seems to know what he's doing.

So, you know, he seems to understand the tone now. Yeah, exactly. So we'll see what happens with the film. If it's all right with you, I'd like to talk, kind of transition it to James Gunn for a second. Let's do it. Unless, but you know what, before we do that, we'll take a quick call. Let's take a call. But I do want to say real quick on that point about James Gunn is like, I feel optimistic because I respect what I've seen so far in his filmmaking of his focus on excellent storytelling from, you know, combining

character development, character struggle and comedy and drama all in one. Uh, he's done it very elegantly. And so he has absolutely. Prepper Jack on Twitch is saying, please make a good Punisher film. Oh my God. You know, it's not popular to say this anymore, but I am a huge Punisher fan. Um, I'm not blue lives matter. Uh, and I don't think that they should wear Punisher logos, the cops, but I am, I think the Punisher should be a scary character and they've had a couple of attempts, Prepper Jack, and it

hasn't really, it hasn't really worked. And I don't see them making it anytime soon. Let's take a call about Superman. Let's take a call about Superman. Let's take a call from Infinite Diversity wants to talk. Do you want to weigh in on Superman? Oh yeah. Hey guys. Hey, I'm

definitely looking forward to Superman. I got my ticket for on Friday. I'm forcing my wife to go with me. Nice. Nice. Always good in a relationship to force them to like what you like. Are you seeing it in IMAX? Is it in IMAX? No, I'm not seeing it in IMAX. I'm seeing it at our local, you know, independent movie theater. Just support your local independent movie theater. Everybody. My local independent movie theater, which I love and I love to support had its ceiling cave in about three weeks ago. Nobody was hurt. It was like an off hours. If only Superman had been there. But yeah, exactly. But they are shut down. the time being. It's very sad. And it's hard for

those theaters to get back up again without a financial injection. So they need donations. It's tough. I love trying to keep the local movie theater going. Anyway, I think the zeitgeist, I mean, I know we're talking about superhero fatigue and you know, and everything and I feel it myself but I think the zeitgeist of the time we live in, I think Superman is hitting that spot a little bit and if they, you know, if everything is correct and like they're leaning into the all-star Superman sort of vibe, I think, you know, I think people are going to like it and hopefully people are, you know, are just going to think, you know, I think people are going to like it. And I, and hopefully people are, you know, are just gonna like, you know, have a really fun movie and like be sort of really inspired, you know, hopefully by what James Gunn's message is like, you know,

this is a movie about kindness, right? Yeah. So you're talking about, you know, they're saying that this movie has it's the opposite of a dark and gritty tone. It's going to have a more bright and positive tone. You think that's what we could use right now? Yeah. And like James Gunn really understands and he's a fan of like, he's a fan of the whole four color filliness of comic books and he's just leaning in.

I mean like bam crypto. Right. Bam the dog. That's awesome. And one last thing before I go, I know that I'm in early on the the superhero RPG thing, but I want to just give a shout out to the best superhero RPG ever, DC heroes. I love that game. I hope like, you know, people discover that game and like discover like, yeah, that game is like really captures, you know, the silver age

of DC comics. Do you mean the one from like the eighties or nineties or do you mean the one from the eighties? The eighties. Yeah, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, that was a huge game.

People loved that game. What was this? This is always my first question. I never played it, but, uh, and we'll talk more about this later, but what was the core mechanic? What was the core dice mechanic of the game. The core dice mechanic, it's like the D100, D10 system, but it's got tables, tables galore. Yeah, it's got these tables that show you like how, what, to what extent your powers work.

They're all about like distance and weight. And, uh, I mean, it's, it's wild. Yeah. It's got really cool tables. People love those tables. Love a good table. Thanks for the call, Infinite. Good job starting us off.

That was great. That was great. Thank you, Infinite. Let's bring up Harry is here. Harry1385. We've had Harry on before. Harry, are you there? Hey, how's it going?

Hey. Good. How's it going, Harry? It's going great. I too am very excited for Superman and have my tickets booked for Friday. Nice! There you go. Are you going to see it in IMAX?

Is it in IMAX? I don't know. I'm curious if this film is... I don't have an IMAX near me so I'm not going to see it in that movie. Can I say something really quickly, Joe? Yeah? Screw IMAX. Yeah, I mean...

Screw IMAX, screw laser, all of that shit. Oh, our chair is a recliner. Fuck you. Give me a rickety chair. Give me no reserve seating. I just get the seat that I get when I walk in. All of this stuff is gobbledygook. No, I want a reserve seat. I want a the seat that I get when I walk in. All of this stuff is gobbledygook. No, I want a reserved seat.

I want a good seat. I do like a reserved seat. I will say. I like that. No, you get the Harry, you get the seat, you get when you walk in. So you have to get there early, Harry. No, you arrive 20 minutes late to ski.

You come waltzing in on the second to last trailer and sit down. And also, I don't care where I sit. If I sit in the back corner, if I sit in the front row, fuck it, man. That's my experience that time. OK. But I don't want a bad experience.

So it's bad if you're in the wrong seat? If you're in the front row, it's a bad experience. I guess you should have shown up early. Yeah. Harry, so what are you excited about? I mean, are you a big fan of Gunn's films? Are you a big Superman fan? Big Superman fan, big super big fan of James Gunn as well.

It seems like he gets the character. It seems like the actor gets the character, which I think is really important. What have you heard about the actor? How do you know that? Are you watching interviews and stuff like that? Yeah, they saw interviews. They saw that he's the reason they kept the... Or that James Gunn was trying to justify why giving him the trunks, because they look silly and James Gunn was trying to figure out a practical reason why he wear the trunks. And the actor

was like, maybe he just wears them because he wants to look silly, because he wants to seem approachable. He wants to undercut his power a little bit to the public he wants kids to like think he's funny and like a cool guy and not this deadly threat that could destroy the planet you know he wants to wow yeah hey that's cool yeah yeah i like that seems to really get it yeah which love uh yeah Joe, I think you should absolutely rewatch the old Chris or Eve films like the first. Yeah. The plotting isn't the best part of those movies.

It's all about in the, in the performance. He just nails it perfectly. And he's, I think it's just so iconic. Yeah. I think you really did it if you went back. Silly. They're silly, but they're like silly in the best way. Um, Gene Hackman is an incredible Lex Luthor.

Whatever happened to that guy? Jared. Does anybody know what Gene Hackman's doing now? Would you stop? You make people upset. You make people sad. They don't understand that you're a sociopath and always joking. They don't...

Is he doing anything new this year? Oh, God. Please leave me with only happy memories of Gene Ackman. Thanks, Harry. I'm going to... You know what? Thank you, Harry. Thanks, Harry. Thanks for calling in. I think I am going to write down on my ongoing list, Superman. Christopher Reeve, Harry. I'm going to, you know what? Thank you, Harry. Thanks, Harry. Thanks for calling in. I think I am going to write down on my ongoing list, Superman, Christopher Reeve Superman. Let's talk about James Gunn. Let's talk about James Gunn.

Yes, please. I didn't know this about him. You know, he started on the Troma films. You know, Troma? They did the Toxic Avenger. They did Class of Newcombe High. Movies like Surf Nazis Must Die, they did like trash cinema in like the 80s and 90s.

Okay, so he wrote scripts for them. He wrote the scripts for the Scooby-Doo films, you know, that started like Sarah Jess—I mean, sorry, Sarah Michelle Geller, forgive me. Sarah Michelle Geller, yeah. Yeah, and Linda Carlini and all those people. And then in 2006, he has a movie that I know, I'm just guessing you haven't seen Joe, but if you guys like horror movies

that I think are just a riot, you've gotta see Slither from 2006. It has Nathan Fillion from firefly. Uh, and the rookie, uh, it has Nathan Fillion as Elizabeth Banks. And, um, it's just a gross, wild horror movie about like this alien parasite that invades a small town. Uh, that slithers. It's all these like little slithering worm things.

And I think right there you can tell he's, you know, he's a great filmmaker and he did direct that. Then in 2010, he did a film called Super. Super was a, so all the way back in 2010, James Gunn was already parodying superhero movies. Super is a parody of a superhero movie. It stars Rainn Wilson from The Office as a young man who is a loner sociopath, who receives a vision and decides that he is a vigilante and begins fighting back

against bullies in his town, uh, in the most violent way you can imagine. It is a laugh riot. I it's been a while since I've seen it, but I really recommend super. And then from there, uh, four years later, we have guardians of the galaxy. Volume one. And, uh, and then I think we're all more familiar with his films since then. But what I will say about James Gunn is that I feel like a lot of his great direction is really in his great script writing.

He started as a screenwriter. I think the scripts are really tight, really, really, really funny. He is an extremely funny guy. And that's why things like Peacemaker work, because he understands comedy and Peacemaker is funny. And so is the Suicide Squad. And so are all three Guardians of the Galaxy. So I think that that's his greatest strength

is writing and being funny Joe, what's your experience with James Gunn? Yeah, I'd say the same. I'm my experience. I didn't see those earlier films you know, I come in at around at Guardians of the Galaxy and I didn't know anything about the Guardians and this happened to me with a lot of Marvel movies like outside of X-Men all I ever Read growing up was X-Men And so like I didn't have Comic experience of these other characters and so I had no idea who Star-Lord was and I had no idea

Most people didn't yeah people didn't know the Guardians characters Which I think was in their favor when you made a movie about them because you didn't have to like Also, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I'm sorry, just wasn't that also part of the comic? Like the first comic was like, weren't they pulling these like obscure heroes that like never really took off? Well, Joe, the original Guardians of the Galaxy were versions of the Avengers many, many, many years

in the future out in space. And then later they kind of came to this version, which are just kind of a ragtag band of space heroes, including like Rocket Raccoon and Drax the Destroyer. These are, but yes, you, I don't know why I'm answering this so long-windedly like a pedantic nerd. Yes.

And they were always- This is why comic book nerds went so far in our March Madness bracket. Obscure characters banded together was one of the hallmarks of the Guardians of the Galaxy when they were kind of rebranded and reimagined in the 2000s. Yeah. Awesome. So anyway, that's the first film that I see and I obviously loved Guardians of the Galaxy

from the first moment, like the first scene, that song, and him just like dancing through that wreck and like killing things, I thought that it was, the tone was set right away. Actually, I don't think that's the first scene. That's the first scene after the prologue. And what a great prologue, you know, a great superhero prologue.

Like you get this like hugely quiet, sorry, hugely, this very quiet but hugely tragic scene where, and then it immediately turns on a dime and the music changes and the tone changes and it becomes something funny. That dichotomy is just brilliant storytelling, it's brilliant pacing. You know, I was taught this when I was first taught about writing and editing and performance. It's like, it's so important with an audience that you consistently shake up what they're expecting to kind of happen next or the feel that's going to happen next. Like you can't be funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, funny, only it'll never be great.

You know, you got to be funny, funny, funny, sad, then funny again. And you keep people emotionally off base. And it's a natural thing that audiences end up loving. And so I just loved it. I thought it was so great. There's great drama too near the end. They have like a little love story happening. And it just has everything. It has everything.

And so I really, really enjoyed it. And I don't think, I'd have to go back, but I don't think that I enjoyed volume two and three as much, but I think that they're good, like really good. I think three is pretty great. Three is great. People say two is maybe the weakest of the three. That's what I think I would say. It's probably one, then three three than two, probably for me.

But like I didn't hate to, you know, not at all. No, not at all. It was fun. It was fun. You should see it. It was fun. But it is important that like he gets, you know, his down films are still good. Right.

Like at least in this, ever since that that the start of that. Right. Uh, Guardians of the Galaxy era. So yeah, I'm curious what people think if like, if people are big fans of Guardians of the Galaxy or not. Yeah. Well, um, let's look here on the Twitch chat. I mean, uh, uh, so, uh, yeah, someone's asking two or three, the one with Kurt Russell. Kurt Russell is number two, yeah. And number three, Singing Zombies says is the sad raccoon one, which I think was the original subtitle, Guardians of the Galaxy 3, the sad raccoon one. The sad raccoon one. I really liked that part.

Now I'm remembering that part. And that made me think a lot about, if Skid is still here, Skid, that made me think a lot about if skid is still here skid that made me think a lot about dr friss skid had a character that uh was a yosoki a rat folk in starfinder and had that like the way that he would describe the horror of his backstory was like it was eerily similar when that movie came out right scene scene. And I was like, Oh my God, I feel like I can see where Dr. Frisk came from. This is just like, it's a very scary and horrible situation to have to come out of and survive. Well, what a great way to offset what is, what could be viewed as a funny animal character, you know, and kind of show, you know, that the funny animal, the funny talking animal actually has this incredibly dark backstory of being horribly tortured and experimented on. I think that that's really, really smart.

Um, so I just want to talk a little bit about the suicide squad. The suicide squad, which he kind of did between guardians two and guardians three. To me, people give me shit for this. and Guardians 3 to me, people give me shit for this. I think it's like currently my favorite superhero movie. Wow. And I never ever, I never ever thought I would say that. But it just has me laughing out loud from the moment it starts,

and it's absolutely bat shit insane. Like it's really is bad out of its mind. It's so crazy. And talk about obscure characters. He goes for like the most obscure ridiculous characters he can. Like do you remember detachable boy who can just detach his arms? Yes. The whole fight on the beach where they get slaughtered is so crazy and so fucking funny. Yeah.

Yeah. So, you know, that movie, it just keeps ramping up and ramping up and it does things that I thought I wouldn't like. And I ended up really loving. There's that whole sequence, you know, all of the, it's not just really funny. All the set pieces are really good in the suicide squad. So for example, there's this point where Harley Quinn, a character, a character I don't like in comics or stuff.

I don't need, I don't need sexy Joker. I just, you know, it's very irritating. And, uh, the amount of cosplay you see of Harley Quinn is concerning. Uh, anyway, um, that's so many people are like, this is, this represents me. Um, so, but, but that said, I still love this film and I still love this sequence where Harley Quinn takes out a bunch of guards and sort of this like kind of slow motion sequence. It's so beautiful.

It's so crazy. It's so violent, but it's so, the craft of it is so perfectly done that even me watching it going, I'm not interested in Harley Quinn. I'm not interested in another CGI slow motion fight sequence, but I am in this one because it's so well executed. So, um, I really think I, and, and my, my friends were yelling at me that I'm a fool. I think it's his best movie too. I really do. Um, so, uh, that's, that's, that's my two cents.

Can I say, uh, just a little, a little just a little side topic on James Gunn, just a little side thing. McD, if we could put back up the James Gunn picture from the start of the James Gunn segment. I never looked at James Gunn before. I'd never seen him before. I just like, I went and saw his movies, saw his name, be like, ooh, James Gunn, good stuff. And when I first saw his picture, I was like, who does this guy look like? And I feel like he is like a spitting image, well, slightly older and not as handsome for screen,

not as screen ready as Dan Stevens. You know Dan Stevens from- You think he's a spitting image of, yeah, I know who Dan Stevens is. Yeah, I think he's a spitting image of Dan Stevens. Yes. I was looking up pictures of it, but I was like, this guy looks just like Dan Stevens. Uh, just look at the both. It's kind of like, yes. Joe.

A hundred percent. No, Joe, what are you talking about? He just also has facial hair. That's the only... That's it. It's more than that. It's a look. I'm telling you. It's there. The second I saw him, I was like, who does this guy remind me of? Dan Stevens is great. Yeah, Dan Stevens is great.

Oh, speaking of which, did you see... Oh yeah, we talked about that when we did the other segment. I started watching, because of that, because of Glass Can other segment. I started watching because of that, because of Glass Canada Radio, I started watching, oh Christ, no, not Legacy. What's it called? Come on, Joe. You can do it. The Dan Stevens Show, the TV show, Legion. Downton Abbey? Legion. Oh, Legion.

Yeah. Downton Abbey. I started watching Downton Abbey. Yeah, I did some Legion. It's awesome. Isn't Legion cool? Yeah, it's really, really cool. Legion is really weird. I like that about it. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, what if the X-Men was weird?

Yes. And the X-Men's already pretty weird. By the way, a little while ago, McD wrote, Joe should tell the seeing X-Men in the theater story. Oh God. Oh God. Okay. That's a good one. All right. Well, this is going way back. This would be a little bit of a tangent here, folks, a little bit of a tangent, a little bit of a side tangent. This would be way back, this is 2000.

This is the release of X-Men. So when X-Men came out, McD and I were very excited and as we had grown up reading the comics and we were in college and we went one night to go see it. And on the way over in the car, we smoked a little weed. And I illegal at the time. And I smoked too much weed. And so I got there and I was just like, Oh, man, like, ah, this sucks. I'm just like a little too stoned. But I was like, I'm gonna get in there, get in the theater, get focused. And we went with one other buddy of ours,

moat, our buddy moat. So it's me, McD and moat. And we go into the theater, get focused. And we went with one other buddy of ours, Moat, our buddy Moat. So it's me, McD and Moat. And we go into the theater, we get popcorn and a soda. I walk, I walk into the theater. It says X-Men. I walk in and I just follow my buddy and it's dark and we were late. Like we knew we were late and the movie had already started and we sidle in and sit down. No McD.

So I'm, I thought he was right behind me. I'm looking back, Noah McD. We sit down, I'm like, maybe he went to the bathroom or something. I'm waiting. The movie is going. And I know all of these characters because I grew up, you know, reading the comics. So it's like, you know, there's Cyclops and there's Jean Grey and there's Wolverine and there's, you know, Rogue, et cetera. Oh, there's Cyclops and there's Jean Grey and there's Wolverine and there's, you

know, Rogue, etc. Oh, there's Magneto, right? And I am watching the entire Liberty Island finale of the movie. We walked into the wrong theater. We walked into an X-Men showing that had 10 minutes left in the movie. And so I'm sitting there and I'm just like, this is the most epic opening scene. I was like, I guess they're going to just like then slow roll in introduce who these people are because then I see, you know, Magneto's doing the whole thing and it's spreading out and over the island and everything. And I'm just like, Oh my God, this is just incredible. And then I see rogue get the strip, right? The white strip of hair. And I'm like, Whoa, this is like the rogue origin story. And it goes to, and I'm so into it.

And then it goes to him in prison, you know, and, and, and, uh, Patrick Stewart and, uh, and, uh, professor X is sitting across from him and he's just like, you know, I'm going to be keeping an eye on you or whatever he says. And Magneto's like, I'll count on it. Old friend. And I'm just like, what an awesome start, you know, like to the movie. And it backs up slowly from the cage, slowly, slowly directed by what's his face. And I look at my buddy boat and he's like, what the fuck? And so we get up and we walk out and McDermott has spent the 15 minutes just standing outside

the theater waiting for us to realize we had walked into the wrong one and come out and he wouldn't go in and get us because he didn't want to bother the people that were watching the movie. He thought we'd realize in an instant and just turn around. And we came out and the look on his face, he was just like, you guys are fucking idiots. That's amazing. I did not see the first 20 minutes of X-Men for like another four months or something. That's amazing. But I must admit to you, I don't remember the film, but I think I've done that when

I wasn't high before. Like gone in, the movie started, sit down and go, this is weird. I'm not following something here. Yeah. Like I would have done that with anything else with this. It was just, I knew every character. So it's why you gotta get there early. You gotta get there early.

That's why you gotta get there early. I had already, I had already seen the movie. This is my second movie. I knew. And we walked in. I was like behind them and I was like, guys, guys. And like, nope. Like, there we go. I was like, all right.

Well, they'll realize. Nope. No, they did not. They'll realize when the credits roll. Amazing. Amazing. Should we take some calls about James Gunn or anybody wants to talk about anything to do with Superman, superhero movies, the DC cinematic universe?

That's what I'm calling it. I don't know what they're calling it. Lazy Eagle wants to weigh in. What do you got Lazy? Hey folks, great to talk to you again. Just want to say that I'm a massive James Gunn fan. All these things that you've been talking about reminded me of things that I'd forgotten about. Slither, what a great film.

My 12 year old is always looking for kind of horror-y things that she might like to watch and I think she'll love that. Yeah, wow, you've got a very mature 12 year old. I don't think there's any kind of sex or inappropriateness in that way. Exactly. Yeah. Um, but it's horrible. Like, oh, it's disgusting. Such great actors in it as well. Um, you know, but you know what I mean? Michael Rooker at the end. Michael Rooker? He's just, oh, he's just something else. I love Michael Rooker. We talked about him last week.

He's brilliant. Well, he's in almost all of James Gunn's stuff. You know, he's like Nathan Fillion. You know, he's got a revolving cast of characters and they're all brilliant. You know what, I completely forgot until you just said that that he's a major character in Guardians of the Galaxy. I totally forgot about that. He's in every James Gunn film it feels like yeah. Yeah, even the Suicide Squad. He's in that too.

Yeah, yeah But I'm really looking forward to Superman. I know I've read a few reviews some That just seemed ridiculous in their negativity Some that just seemed ridiculous in their negativity, others that were incredibly glowing in their praise for it. And like he said, yeah, a movie where goodness wins out. Wouldn't that be wonderful where it's not like some horrible gray area? But I also read a review that kind of voiced concerns about how politically charged it

is. I don't know if he touched upon this earlier, but yeah, apparently there's two states at war which Superman intercedes in and it's a very, well, according to this review, a very thinly veiled depiction of something in the real world. So I just hope there is in the real world. Do you know what thing in the real world it's depicting? Are you sure you want me to go into this now? Why not? Just bring it up. Apparently it's Israel and Palestine and okay. All of that stuff going on. That's something going on in the world we can talk about. Yeah, but it's, uh, yeah, it's very, uh, charged. And I would understand that on a Wednesday afternoon or

morning or whenever people are listening to this, might want to go into this now. I know I certainly don't. I just want to talk about James Gunby in a great film. No, that's fair. That's fair. But yeah, it's interesting to, to hear that that, that there was a reviewer that sort of dug into that. That's it. Well yeah, it's interesting to hear that there was a reviewer that sort of dug into that. Well, obviously we're not going to dig deep on what's going on in Israel and Palestine, but I do think that, you know, I don't cringe or flinch away from James Gunn doing some sort of metaphor for that in a Superman movie. Me either. metaphor for that in a Superman movie. I actually, that makes me, that makes me kind of more keen to see it. That's a big swing. That's something that could, that could blow up in your face.

That's why it's a risk. But I think that that's cool that he's willing to take risks like that. I think it's brilliant. And when was the last time we saw someone who was given, you know, the keys to a franchise like that, that was actually allowed to make a big swing that wasn't just absolute bullshit like some of the other DC movies we saw. Yeah.

Awesome, Lazy, thank you, very good call. Thank you, Lazy. I saw an interview with James Gunn on this, just briefly, as I was watching for the show, and he seemed to indicate, I don't know, I got a positive vibe, maybe it's because I'm coming in with so many positive feelings about James Gunn already in his art,

but he seemed to intimate that there isn't a hard and fast plan for the development of the universe, that it is very like each creator kind of brings their own thing to it, like each creator kind of brings their own thing to it and it's kind of wide open and gonna be able to be, a very, very large sandbox to play in is sort of what was intimated to me by the interview.

He was like, there is no clear vision for what it is going to be. It's gonna be determined by the individual movies and the creators that write those movies. They're gonna develop the universe. So I don't know, I kind of see that as a positive. determined by the individual movies and the creators that write those movies, they're going to develop the universe. So I don't know. I kind of see that as a positive.

I mean, that sounds good to me, but what I was reading is that there's already a slate, there's a list of films, and that they are part of something called Chapter One Gods and Monsters. Let's see. Yes, but even with all that, you can have a slate of films that are titled and have a vague outline. You can also have a vague outline of a larger universe event and still have wide open creativity of theme and plot and feel and vibe all within that.

Sure. You know, so what the individual writers bring to it is going to change an outline greatly. Dr. Billy has been wanting to talk since Superman. Oh, what's up, Billy? What's up, Doc? Hello, how are we doing? We're doing great. Good, man.

Good to see you. Good to see you all, too. Good to see you at Vegas, buddy. You know I had to get in on Superman. Yeah. High far my favorite superhero. That's the comic that his comics are the ones I started reading to get me into it.

It took me a little bit longer to branch out after that. But there's just my goal here, my soapbox is to deliver what I was going to say last week with Captain America, but I think it applies to Superman too, is to counter the narrative that Superman is boring. I hear that all the time. I hear, you know, he's boring. He's a goody-two-shoes. I think that. Like just from a gut reaction reaction because I don't know much about I mean I know all the big things but like here's the thing Joe, you know, I'm just very vanilla right Superman's Hey vanilla, he could do anything ever. Yeah struggled to make a decision trying to figure out. What is the right thing to do?

Yes, yes, I have you can relate to Superman. That is he's not relatable. He's too powerful It's not about the power if anyone who writes him like it's about the power doesn't get Superman. The point is, he is the one who inspires others, he has to decide to do the right thing with such incredible power, that that is what the interesting narrative comes from. Everyone on Earth has made a tough decision

and had to struggle with, you know, I can do X, Y, Z thing, but I need to do what's right versus it's very much in line with like why everyone loves Spider-Man. But the difference is Spider-Man doesn't have infinite godlike power, but the infinite godlike power is what allows Superman to reinforce his status as an inspirational figure. That's what I think is so interesting about him. Yeah, Al Grande, Al Grande Papa in Discord chat says, I think summing up what you're saying, is saying Superman is constantly holding back his power. Absolutely.

Well, with great power comes great responsibility, which is ironic because it also, I think, applies to Superman. You know, I think that when you really tap in, and that's why I think James Gunn, I don't know, I haven't seen the movie yet. I'm actually on call this weekend, so I'm gonna try to sneak in an evening showing when I'm less likely to get a call. But I think James Gunn understands

what makes characters compelling and with someone with so much history as Superman and that prevailing thought of being a somewhat boring, one-tone character in the greater mythos for some people, or the greater zeitgeist for some people. I think he understands that. one-tone character in the greater mythos for some people or the greater zeitgeist for some people. I think he understands that. I think, you know, he, I hope that my, I hope that he delivers.

I have all faith in that. I'm excited for it. You know, I just want to, I want to pipe in here. I agree with everything you say there, Billy, about what makes the character interesting is that, you know, making those decisions with so much power, you know, and making the right decision. But also I just like that Superman is just kind of bonkers. It's a bonkers story.

His costume is silly and bonkers. He's got a super dog. He, you know, he's from another planet. Like, everything about it is so, so off the wall. And when people are able to take those crazy elements that developed since the 1930s, that's like 1930s science fiction and make them work. I find it, it's unique.

Those kind of like pulpy kind of weird science sci-fi, like the fact that we're getting the, the super bots at the fortress of solitude in the movie, like that tells me enough, like, okay, like we're doing something neat and fun and goofy with this, but in a good way. Yeah, yeah. It just, it's unique among, among superheroes. We see a lot of Batman type things or a lot of things that follow the rules of, you know, me shoot gun, me kill you, you know, and those can be really cool

because they're realistic and we can relate to them. But when someone can pull off the really wild, off the wall, pulpy science fiction of Superman, I find that to be really, really fun. Yeah. And I think James Gunn can do a good job of that. I think in like Suicide Squad and Guardians, he got, he had a, strikes a good balance of humor but also heart about getting us to care about these characters on more than a superficial level So I I really hope that's what he brings into uh, Superman. I'm i'm real excited to see it. Um

Yeah, I mean that's awesome. That's what I got. Good to see you. Yeah you too. Thanks billy. Thanks for the call. Um, thank you doctor What else we got rodenth wants to hop in? What do you got, Rodith, on the old James Gunn or Superman? Yeah, Gunn is, he's brought a really, really cool respectability to all of the superhero genre because of the fact that he does have a sense of humor. He doesn't take it too seriously. And I'm not a Superman fan for all the reasons mentioned before, but the specific thing that I'm looking forward to in this is that Superman not taking himself so seriously,

I think will be a fresh take on Superman. I really hated the Zack Snyder Superman for exactly the reason that it is taken so seriously. And it's like a dark and gritty take where he, you know, in the Man of Steel murders the enemy at the end. I really hated that. Am I Nick Offerman? No, I'm not. Thanks though.

He doesn't even, you don't even sound like that much like Nick Offerman. I've had costume before. You sound like Nick Offerman as much as James Gunn looks like Dan Stevens. Good call back there. No, but yeah, the Gunn as far as like the Guardians of the Galaxy, that was just a, it was perfection. And, you know, here's the story that doesn't take itself that seriously in the first place,

and we're gonna write it so it's, we have an ensemble cast, all of whom have something to say about either the primary character, the human character in it. And that's our entree into this world that is bizarre and outlandish and crazy. Like the best of, I think what Jared's talking about with superhero stuff is when it gets crazy it can be particularly cool.

The same thing about the Suicide Squad. Same thing. Right there you've got this, these guys are, they have like duper powers, they don't have great superpowers. Or their superpowers, yeah, they're like, you know, I can detach my arm, okay, that's awesome for you. And it brings me back to the song Detachable Penis, right? Well, uh, yeah, good, good call, Rodith. It, it, it makes me think of the, of how I went in suspicious on, uh,

Guardians of the Galaxy, same way I went in suspicious on the Suicide Squad, even after already liking Guardians of the Galaxy. It's because, and you and I agree with this in our role playing, the way we approach role playing. It's like, we're not big fans of silly. Like silly will out, that's fine. Like silly moments are great, but when your whole intent is silly,

it usually doesn't do much for me. And I worried that Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be a two and a half hour joke film, like silly joke film. And he and Gunn just has a really artistic way of taking wild, crazy, what could be goofy shit and making it funny, but then also making you care about it. And that's an interesting combo.

There's a difference between silly and funny. And I find that funny is often, it comes out of the character. It's that the character has a point of view and the point of view is comical, you know? But it's such a fine line between silly and funny and you know, I think that you know, the Suicide Squad gets away with things that might be silly because it's also incredibly violent and the consequences are real, you know, for these kind of laughable characters. But just an example of like where silly and funny can get lost is, you know, Thor Ragnarok by Takeo Atidi.

That's funny, but it's a good movie. And then Thor Love and Thunder is silly. It's just silly. Yes. So, um... That's a really good example. And I feel the exact same way about those two movies. When I when I finished watching Thor, I was a big fan of saying

that's the best superhero movie I've ever seen. Along the years. Like when I when I saw X-Men in 2000, I loved it so much. Actually, X2, really, when I saw X2, I was like that unseated, you know, what was probably, I really loved the original Spider-Man. I know people didn't with, not the original, but the, what's his face with, uh, Toby McGuire? Toby McGuire.

I really enjoyed that Spider-Man. And previous to that, it was like Batman, right? And then it was like, oh man, this X2 is amazing. And they kept going along. When I finished seeing Thor Ragnarok, I was like, that was the funniest superhero movie I've ever seen and in a good way. Like it was just such a, such a well done funny movie. But then I have almost no memories of love and thunder.

I'm just like, eh, you know, I'm good on that. Just silly. It just, it got really silly, you know? There was tons of potential there and they did try to go for the heart. They tried to go for the serious in some places, but I don't know, stuff with like the rock guy and stuff just got, or the other gods got really, really silly.

Anyway, it's a very, very fine line to find between funny and silly. I am very much, sorry, go ahead, go ahead. I was just gonna wrap it up and we gotta get moving. Yeah, that's what I was gonna do. But yeah, I was just gonna, final thought for me is, after all this talk and you guys and listeners, thank you.

Like, I'm really excited for this delve back into Superman. And I just love everything that's being said here. I'm excited. Yeah, yeah. But we did mention role playing just now and how we don't like to do silly, but we are a fan of funny in our role playing. So let's talk about some tabletop role playing.

Let's talk about superhero RPGs. And instead of running on at the mouth as we begin a segment, I'm gonna throw it over to you right away, Joe. You have been playing the Marvel RPG. Tell me about that because I haven't gotten to play it. Yes, I will tell you about that. That's my only experience.

It's the only superhero role playing game I've ever played. So if you're really, yeah, I would say I'm going to talk about that for a second. I'll kick it back to you. You can go old school for a minute if you'd like. And then I'd love to bring it up to leave it up to callers to mention games they love. Because there's so many out there and many I haven't heard of. Several I have and a couple I've read of the newer ones

because I almost played them on New Game Who Dis and stuff like that, but never got around to it. Here's what I'll say about Marvel, a multiverse role playing game. I absolutely love it. I think it is a blast. I think that its downside is that it is, I don't think it's as approachable

as maybe some other games. Now, I don't know, some of these 80s games sound like they are deep and complicated. And this game, it plays very well, but there is a lot of math and there is a lot of, you know, die rolling and calculation that goes into it as compared to a Blades in the Dark style mechanic, a Forge in the Dark mechanic. So that is kind of the only downside, but that's kind of, when I say

that, that is just for getting new people to hop on and play with you. That's that. It's not a downside for me. I love Marvel brand. I mean that's that's an ease of entry, you know, no one's gonna be like what is this universe? They know it Yeah, exactly. And that that's a really cool part of it. I think that it does a fantastic job of of Making you feel like you're playing a superhero. It really does in the action the way that the action is executed, it feels very, you feel almost invincible until you aren't. And it turns very quickly in a very fun way. So you can be doing really epic stuff in a really, really epic fight and the mechanics support your ability to spend a limited resource, your focus pool, to do incredible things. But that resource can be depleted to zero,

and certain awesome enemy spells and stuff like that can sap that focus pool from you. So you can start to not be able to use your powers as effectively, and once you can't do all that amazing stuff, you suddenly become very vulnerable very quickly. And when you go down, down, there's all kinds of fun stuff for how you can not die, die, but just be out of the fight. Or you could play it so that you could die,

and the mechanics are all written in, and it just feels very much like it's developed by people that love superheroes and how those stories feel. And to me, it feels when it's released, you know, in this time and frame, it's released with a lot of, you know, the films have had a major impact on it, in my opinion. Now, I think the creator, the creator of the game, Matt Forbeck and his team, they're going off of the comics for sure. But there is a feel in the action and the way that it plays that it makes it feel

like you're making your own movie. It's just really, really well done in that respect. Turns are very narrative. You're not super limited on what you can do. You can do a lot of stuff in a turn and be very heroic. And yeah, that's the other thing is there's two big mechanics that act similar to a hero point from Pathfinder. One is individual and then one is team based. So you have a limited resource that you can spend to really do heroic stuff. Reinforce your own hit points,

reinforce your own focus pull, but that is very limited. And you have a team activity that you can do like once or twice maybe in a fight that is super epic but once it's done it's done and if you're not you know win by then you're in trouble so yeah just fun gamifying of superhero action and you play original characters right because I know some versions of the Marvel game you play actual already known Marvel we've done both and I have an absolute blast with both the you can do both. You can do both.

I mean, the game is, the original core rule book has, I want to say something like 90 to 100 pages of pre-generated characters in the core. It's phenomenal. It's like all these great A-list superheroes going way way way back when and they're grouped into what they call it's not levels what's it called tears but there's there's basically like five tiers I'll use the word tear for now and they might be tears but there's tier one which is just like street level superheroes like my block, you know, and then there's tier two. We've played some tier three and four, so most of most of

your typical Marvel superheroes are tier three and four, and then I think tier five is you know is like Magneto, Silver Surfer, and Captain Marvel, that kind of stuff. Thor. They're galactic level superheroes. Right. And that's how they sort of describe them. There's street level, neighborhood level, city level, world level, and then intergalactic. Cool.

Which is a really cool way to rank. That's it. It's nothing too fancy. Rank. Rank one, rank two, rank three, rank four, rank five. And so when you play an adventure you say, guys, what do you want to play? And you don't really level up. Like you can, but that's not a main mechanic. Like if you create rank two heroes, you're playing a rank two story of those heroes.

And if you want them to level up, you can just do it narratively through your campaign, however you want. And so yeah, I've done pre-gen and I've done, I've made characters and this last thing I'll say, character creation is really great. It's chunky, but it's chunky because it makes you create a really interesting person. You can pick and choose from so many different powers and combine them in different ways. They've basically taken every individual little thing all of the epic superheroes of Marvel can do, and they've sort of peeled them out into specific powers that you can mix and match however you want.

And so there's pages and pages and pages of powers. You have a limited pool at character creation based on your rank of how much you can spend on powers. And some of them are feet trees like, where you have to have this before you can have this, et cetera. But I made a character that I've not played yet in one of our streams last year for Gen Con, which had the elasticity of, is that Mr. Fantastic?

Mr. Fantastic, yes. It had the elasticity, she had the elasticity of Mr. Fantastic and like these high level healing powers. And it turned out through our improv and role play of building this character, we ended up making her the school nurse at Xavier's school for the gifted. Like she was an extra. And she was from World War II, like Captain America. So she had lived a really long time, but was still very young looking. And she had elasticity and healing powers It was just really fun. Like you could come up with all kinds of fun stuff

That sounds awesome. I really really would love to play Can I ask you are there like little advantages you can put on powers? Like, you know, for example, if you shoot a blast, can you make it like can you add? You know spend more points to make it able to go around corners and things like that? Uh, well, there are certain powers that are, you can't take just in my experience so far, you can't just take a regular power and always be able to buff it in some way with some

other power. It's like some powers are based around how much you spend and they are at their their base level they are X, but you could spend more and more and more focus to juice them up and increase the damage, usually is what you're doing, is increasing the damage or effectiveness of it, but then you're draining a limited resource that you have in a fight for how much you can use.

Okay, cool. You know, it sounds great, but you know, it sounds a little crunchy, which is what you were kind of saying earlier. And you know, that is just something that comes up in superhero RPGs because unlike a fantasy RPG or, or I don't know, like a modern RPG, like Delta green, you are trying to simulate all this, like way more variety and kind of powers, you know?

And that can get really, really complicated really quick. And the first really big superhero RPG that was played in the eighties and nineties. And I have read so many accounts of old school nerds having had long campaigns of this game. And I don't know how they did it is champions. Champions was the name of the, uh, the game. It later, it became called the hero system, but it is this point by system where everything is very like, like you said, peeled out into these very distinct little power

things that you can add to your character. Uh, and it goes on and on and on and it gets so, um, modular and crunchy that creating a champions character. When I tried to do it as a teenager, it took days. It was like creating a GURPS character. days. It was like creating a GURPS character. And then the way the initiative tracker worked, it worked with this sort of like graph with different phases. And if you were, for example, a speedier character, you got more turns on this graph than people who were less speedy. And that got really kind of chunky and kind of, kind of complicated. So, um, I would love to hear if anybody out there has played champions,

cause it's been around a long time and it's been very, it's very popular. I mean, as non D and D RPGs go, it's definitely got a name for itself. So I'd be interested if anybody else out there, would, would, would tell me if they've played that the one that I think is currently the top of the pile in terms of superhero RPGs, but the last edition came out in 2011. So a long time ago is called mutants and masterminds and mutants and Masterminds is a D20 system. I've played that more recently. I think I played some of that during the pandemic. I had a character called The Heavy

who could make himself heavier till he was like super highly dense. And he kind of talked like a heavy from like a Muay on the heavy, you know, but that game, you know, it gets a little crunchy, but it doesn't really deal with hit points. It deals with like this sort of like, this sort of like thing. It's kind of like how, how Savage Worlds doesn't have hit points where each time you take a real blow, you get a higher chance of eventually being knocked out the next time you take a blow.

So it's more like a knockout mechanic than a hit point mechanic. And it can simulate every kind of power you can think of, power armor, Superman type powers, human insect, you name it. It's very fun. But for some time, each time I played it, for some reason rather, each time I played it, I always was like, could I play a campaign of this? I'm not sure I could, but I'm not sure why. So if anybody's played Mutants and Masterminds and can kind of point their finger on that or disagree with me, I'd love to hear it. So there's so many out there. I'd love to hear what the callers have played.

Why don't we go ahead and go to them and see what they think. Yeah, see if there's any out here. Sir Grumpy Cat, are you a fan of superhero RPGs? Do you have any that you like to play in particular? Hello there, guys. Longtime listener, first time caller. Oh, welcome. Hey. Longtime listener, first time caller. Oh, welcome. Thanks for listening. Hello. Thanks for calling.

We met last year in Portland. I traveled from Germany to Portland and it was awesome. So amazing. Cool. Awesome. So I just want to comment to the Superman thing. I have to actually be the one that says I'm not going even to watch it, not even on streaming because I don't think that Superman is boring, but do I really want more of a silly take

or a bit of an out there take in the modern time when I can have a show like and Grounded gets a message across and it's more for me engaging than having some naive guy in his trunks flying around so That's a show like what what was the show and or I'm sure you Yeah, he got cut off, but I think he was gonna say and sorry and playing superheroes somewhat, that never really got my attention. I think it's interesting and fun for a one shot or a few shot, but I can't really imagine running a campaign or more because you always have to put ethical or whatever problems before the superheroes or have the power Power Ranger phenomenon of putting even more

powerful bad guys in every next session. So I loved it when the glass cannon cast plated, but a few shot, okay, but more, I'm not sure. Yeah, cool. Thanks Sir Grumpy. Thanks for calling in. It is interesting. I've said to the group, particularly to Skid, who I think is still here, that I think it would support campaign play for us.

I think playing the Marvel Multiverse role-playing game, we've had some really good heartfelt moments. We've had some really interesting narrative stuff happen through that game that I feel like I'd like to see more of this. I like to believe it can happen and I think the mechanics, the mechanics absolutely support non-action very important roles. There are a ton of powers that are mental, that are tech-based,

that are like information-finding based. I mean, I played the vision. One of the visions largest capabilities is in knowledge and computer hacking kind of stuff. You would be able to do so much outside of combat and even in combat, you're like actually a little bit less than some of the other heroes like shine outside of combat. So I do think that, I'd like to think there's campaign potential in the MMORPG. No, that's great. And you know, that might be why I felt like mutants and masterminds or some of these others might not have as much campaign potential because I'm not sure that there was as much, uh, for the character in those non-combat, non-big brawl scenes for them to do. I mean, of course in champions, that's super crunchy system. You can make it that way, but it's so wide open.

You have to really help your characters build a well-rounded character that can do things in scenes outside of the fights, because if they want to, they can put all their points into just being awesome in a fight. So, um, you know, there's so much, uh, hand holding and careful construction of the scenario that needs to be done in some of these games because they provide so many options. You really have to narrow down the options and tell people, Hey, make sure you, you give them information, hey, make sure you give them information finding skills and you give them skills that are not just about shooting lasers out of their eyes.

Right, exactly. Sneaking, information finding, hacking, all that kind of stuff. Let's see what Aaron the Shark wants to add. Do you got a superhero game you like? Well, I like, I haven't played many, but I really dug when I was younger in the 80s, villains and vigilantes. Mm hmm.

Yeah, actually, that's the first first superhero RPG I've heard. I've never played it. I mean, one of the things that drew drew it to me was it was the art was amazing. So you as a young kid, you walk into the game shop and you'd just see this amazing, well-drawn cover. It was done by the Jeff D., who I think was actually a comic book artist in his own right, but he also helped design the game.

But I grew up in the Bay Area, Northern California Bay Area in in Oakland and San Francisco, which was the which was chaos, EMS headquarters chaos. I was in Oakland and Albany, which is next to in the East Bay there. And so I used to see their superhero game a lot because you could get all the chaos and products very easily. They never ran out at like the game. What was their superhero game? It was called Super World.

Right. And it didn't it didn't last very long. It also had very cool cover art. But I think if you played Call of Cthulhu, you know, a lot of their games follow the same same basic. World playing engine. Yeah. Yes exactly Yeah, and so you could sort of shift very quickly into it I think and I think some people did that but Champions was the big one then came DC and I think Marvel had one before their most recent one. They had a couple. Yeah

And they were they were all awesome and if you were a comic book collector like I was you know you you Instantly gravitated towards them, but as I remember not that many people played them Yeah, you know yeah, and I I wonder why I wonder if it's Aaron you Posted in discord just a little bit before you got on here Aaron posted champions original character sheet looked like a nuclear physicist thesis. It was really like as somebody who was like math, you know, avert aversion, you know, had a math aversion as a as a young person. I'd look at these sheets and I'd be like, what the fuck am I trying to solve like, you know, like some sort of algebra problem?

Champions was definitely beyond my abilities when I was a teenager. And that's when I was taking the highest level math I ever took. Yeah, and you had nothing else like deteriorating your brain cells. Like you were just boom, focused and yeah. All right, Aaron, thanks for the call.

Oh wait, what was the name of that first one you mentioned? Villains and what? Villains and vigilantes? I'm not sure who put that out. I think there's some sort of legal issue going on. I think it's out again But I think there's some sort of legal issue But I gotta look into it. All right. Thanks a lot Aaron. Thanks for calling in buddy Vigilantes, yeah, I'm curious Yeah superhero, yeah, that does have some great art.

What do we got? How about RT Next? You've been waiting, RT Next. Why don't you jump in? RT, get in here. You want to talk superheroes? You want to talk Superman? What do you want to talk?

So a little bit of both. I was at work for the first half of the show, so I missed the earlier discussion. But when James Gunn was the topic, did anybody bring up his movie from 2000, The Specials? No. No. James Gunn was the topic. Did anybody bring up his movie from 2000, the specials? No. No. Okay. So back in 2000, he didn't direct it, but he did write it and co-starred it. Craig Mason, the guy who did Chernobyl actually was the director of that.

And it was a movie that he wrote about like a really like D string super team. It had, who was it? Judy Greer was in it, Thomas Hayden Church, James Gunn was in it, his brother Sean, a bunch of people. And the idea was that it was what they were doing on the days that they weren't out fighting crime. And so they had gotten an action figure deal from a toy manufacturer and they were getting ready to have like the launch party for their action figures. And on top of that, they're dealing with all their

like interpersonal team drama, you know, people cheating on each other and stuff. And it's, it's, if you can find it, it's a really, it's, it's extremely silly. But when you see later things like the suicide squad, you can kind of get the, you can see where, where the genesis of all this stuff came from with guns, like, you know, goofy affection for superhero. This looks amazing. I've never heard of it. I had a friend of mine recommended this to me back in like 2000, 2001,

and we had to special order a DVD for it because we couldn't find it anywhere. Yeah. It's from 2000. Yeah. Yes, I called again. The specials. The specials.

Yeah, definitely. It's rough around the edges, but it's definitely amusing. It's got Rob Lowe. Yeah, Rob Lowe is in it. Oh, don't tell me it's fun. the edges, but it's definitely amusing. It's got Rob Lowe. Yeah, Rob Lowe's in it. Oh, don't tell me it's fun. Don't tell me it's fun. Don't tell me it's fun. You might have missed that in the first part of the show. That's a key.

Oh, I'm good. I'm sorry. That's a secret way of saying a movie stinks. Yeah. Okay, well then I won't say it's fun. You should see it. It's fun. It's fun. It's fun. So yeah, and I didn't know if anybody brought that up in the first hour because I was at work.

But as for superhero RPGs, a couple thoughts. One, Champions was horrible. Back in the 90s, I had two groups when I was living in Florida, two different RPG groups going on. And one of them was obsessed with Champions. They wanted to run it all the time. And we never wanted them to. But we finally relented to one game, and that game lasted exactly one session.

Because the team ended up imploding, admittedly partially due to crap that I pulled with a character of mine, but it was like, you know, there was a character with a code against killing, which was a big thing for a lot of the characters in that. And they had built this supervillain who was basically invincible. And you mentioned, Jared, your density character, the Heavy. that and there was a they had built a super villain who was basically invincible and you mentioned Jared your density character the heavy I had a character who was kind of similar to that and what ended up happening was we couldn't get through her damage resistance and somebody ended up fastball specialing my character at her and I kicked my power

into the highest like basically I had the density of like a battleship and like sunk her into like a, like a 15 foot hole in the ground and just like just turned her into a paste. And the, um, the team ended up disintegrating cause all of our, um, various like codes and ethical concerns were at conflict with each other and the session lasted one, one session. So, one four-hour session and one eight-hour character creation session. You know, eight hours is honestly probably being generous. I think it took the better part of a couple of days to make the characters we made for that thing. That's wild.

Interesting. I never want to go back to that again. But the RPG I wanted to highlight, and I never see this thing get mentioned and it really deserved more respect, was back in the mid late 90s, TSR just before they went under and went bankrupt and wizards bottom up, they had released a system called the Saga System. Does anybody remember that? I don't really know the Saga System. Okay, so the first thing they released for it was when they rebooted Dragonlance after all of the War of the Lance books, they released this and it was kind of their first attempts at doing like a narrative forward

game instead of something that was extremely crunchy. It worked around instead of dice it had a deck of cards that you use to resolve things and it was just another way of doing random number generation but there was other stuff on the cards too and then they had the license for Marvel at the time or maybe they still had it from the earlier 80s when they did the old face rip Marvel game. But they did one called the Marvel Superhero Adventure Game, or MSHAG for short, and it used the same situation. So you had a deck of cards and they were divided into five suits. You had strength, agility, willpower, and intellect, and then you had the Doom suit.

And the Doom suit served as like GM fodder like a currency for them and So the way you would like if you're doing random character creation You would draw like a hand of like 10 cards and then you would assign Cards to the different power. You know, there's the books are all small like digest sized books And if your suits of your cards match to the suit the power, you would get extra stunts for that power. So like you could throw any card into a power, you could throw an intellect card to buy like super speed,

but if you threw, you know, agility cards into there, you could have super speed with bonus, like bonus stunts. And each card had like, you know, they were valued from like one to nine, except the doom suit went to 10. And they had like little one or two word like prompts on them. So like, intellect might have like sudden breakthrough or you know, strength, one of the strength cards might say like, you know, unstoppable or something like that. And the idea was that the GM could use those, they could draw a

card as if they needed like a little kind of a prompt for something to change the scene up. And it was very narrative forward and it was played extremely quickly and it was very compact and like I both ran that and played it and I loved it. It was great. It was awesome. It sounds really cool. If you can track a copy down, I imagine the cards out there are probably pretty beat up at this point.

I know I saw mine is still around somewhere, but I really wanted to adapt that system into other various things because it was it was really, really fun. I'm sorry. Oh, I used the bad word again. It was flexible. Okay. But it was flexible. It was fast to play.

It was like the antithesis of Champions in the sense that playmaking a character took you like if you had an idea. You could throw a character together in 15 minutes. You know, that's all cool. Thanks. I would definitely say that's good if you could do that. Awesome. Good.

Thank you. Oh, that was very interesting. Uh, really cool to hear about some of these others that I've never heard before. I don't have any experience with. Um, yeah, but now I think it's time. Yeah, we're running out of time. So let me just mention it. Like, I had almost run City of Mist.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'd almost run City of Mist. That looks really interesting. I'd love to try that out. Masks, we've talked about before on this show. And some people say that's a great one, too. So those were two other ones that I had remembered. OK, then I get to mention two others.

Yeah, because. Aberrant, aberrant, white wolf's superhero game where you have, the more you use your power, the more you become tainted and it starts to make you insane. And then also one that you would like, Joe, Godlike. Godlike is you are superheroes in World War II with like very realistic World War II combat scenarios, weapons, equipment. It's like a very realistic take on superheroes on the World War II battlefield.

Oh shit, this is under the banner of Arc Dream who publishes Delta Green. The guys that came up with Delta Green came up with Godlike. Yep. Oh, Godlike is good. Oh my gosh. The, the, the book, the, the RPG book has Hitler and Churchill on the cover with an explosion between them. I mean, that's amazing. Yeah, that cover is, I love the game. That cover is not a good cover. It looks like a Photoshop disaster, but the game is very cool. Oh, this is cool. I'm going to reach out to my friends at Arc Dream Publishing.

All right, let's keep it moving, dude. Big things to discuss in the last part of the show. And or recap. And or season two, you want to just say season two, but you could just say finale. Andor finale, which, and this is amazing for me, I didn't know. I didn't know that Andor season two was the last of Andor. It was? Yeah. I didn't know that.

That's it. So when I said, I was shocked to find out that was the end and Matthew gave me the, are you an idiot tone? And he's just like, the final scene, the final scene of it is exactly the start of rogue one, like obviously that was the end of, of Andrew. That's why I didn't understand that. Cause rogue one is a bad movie. I don't like and don't remember any parts of.

Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, oh, sorry, chaotic. We'll see you. Thanks for hanging out, though. Appreciate you. People are just telling us they're leaving? Well, somebody just said that they're like, oh, I haven't finished it yet. I got to sign off. And that is smart because this is going to be spoiler heavy.

Yeah. Yeah, we're going to talk a little Andor here and then we'll get in a couple obscure obsessions at the end. So, yeah, I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started.

I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I'm going to go ahead and get started. I this is gonna be spoiler heavy. Yeah. Uh, yeah. We're going to talk a little and or here and then we'll get in a couple obscure obsessions at the end. So I mean, how dumb to just be done with and or the only good star wars thing to come out in the last 20 years. But here's the philosophical question. It was it so good because it was so short, you know?

Like they decided to tell a whole lot of story and they just picked the best of the best shit and just boom, boom, boom. Didn't drag anything out. Nothing felt like there was a little bit in the very middle of the season that I'll say I was like, oh, I'm not into every single minute of this right now it was probably episodes four five and six somewhere in that range and Everything else was like pure gold. I felt like like the whole time

I don't know. Did you feel that way through the end that it was just fantastic. I really well so My thing was I thought every episode felt like a pretty big episode. I did. I maybe, and now my memory of the first five or six maybe is a little dated now, because I kind of finished those months ago and then finished the others just recently. But I felt like every episode was a big episode. The only time I started having trouble in season two was when they started heavily referencing Rogue One. Yeah. Which I don't remember and do not like.

So when it started doing that, I started kind of going, can I just hear about what's going on now and stop setting up things that are happening in a movie in the future? You know? And I think that's a problem with all of this IP stuff. It's constantly putting a lot of energy towards setting other things up instead of just doing what it's supposed to be doing. But other than that, I thought Andor season two was excellent. And every episode felt like an important episode to me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Especially in the latter half at the time that like, from the time that Mon Mothma gives the speech on the Senate floor, which is so awesome. And to have it set up in such a way that she, like the moment it's done being said and you, even as a viewer, you're like, Oh, like to have it set up in such a way that she like the moment It's done being said and you even as a viewer you're like, oh like she yeah, she said it, right? You know, she's done now like she's dead now. She'll be a target for assassination. She'll be arrested whatever me immediately and

To have her get you know whisked away a SAP by you know, your main character It was just so cool and how she couldn't trust him. He was like, just do what I tell you and don't be a pain in my neck. Like I'm trying to save your ass. Like it was, oh man, it was really great. And then, oh, I also like real quick, just in that scene, I just remembered just how when he shoots her driver, he just like doesn't hesitate for an instant. He's just like, bang!

And she's like clearly shaken. And that was really cool. She wasn't like, oh cool, for an instant. He's just like, bang. And she's like, clearly shake him. And that was really cool. She wasn't like, oh, cool. He's a bad guy. He should die now. She's not used to just seeing somebody shot, whereas Andor is like, he's been through this, man. Like, he's ice cold now, ice water in his veins.

We know where Tony Gilroy comes down on the Han shot first. We absolutely know what side he is on in that debate. I can't believe that I sat down to talk about this topic today and did not know that that was the end of Andor. Because I was shocked that so many characters were dying. I was like, wow, they killed, they killed Luthen. They killed Pardigas. They killed, who all did they kill?

They killed Cyril. Oh, couldn't believe who all did they kill? They killed Cyril. Oh, couldn't believe that they killed Cyril. I loved Cyril. They killed Cyril, dude. And I couldn't believe that Dead Ramiro ends up in the Andy Serkis prison. Yeah. I can't believe that there was no Andy Serkis. I was holding out for him all season.

When is... Tony Gilroy now has to make a show called Dead Ramiro where we just see her get out of Andy Serkis prison. Yes. Yes. What a cool... God. What a cool character.

Her role in the whole rebellion, what's it called? The planet, the Goth... I can't think of the name. Gorm? Gormin. Gormin. Gormin. Her role, thank you, Jen with two N's, an adult woman. I don't know if you've noticed that, Jared, but she has changed her name on Discord to Jen with two N's, an adult woman, as you clarified last week because of her fear of Mars attacks. I think I actually

might have said it, but yeah, she is indeed an adult woman. Anyway, Deidre Miro overseeing that whole thing was so intense and the moments that she was on edge and then trying to keep Sea Roll down in the basement, like just keep your mouth shut, just stay down there until it's over. And every time she'd like walk out toward the balcony and you knew that Andor was out there with a sniper rifle, just waiting for it was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, just so well done. The, the, the way the tension, uh, uh, would rise from moment to moment.

I mean, we, we have to bring, uh, uh, skid up here to moment. I mean, we, we have to bring a skit up here. Skit is joining the, skit usually hangs out on Twitch, but, um, he's in the discord. I've, I've invited you to speak buddy. If you want to hop on and, uh, and join us here. Oh, your mic, wait, no, no, I got it. Hello. You got to unmute him. I got you.

No, it's not you skit. It's me. Um, sounds like you're breaking up with him. you, Skid. It's me. Um, can you hear me now? It's not like you're breaking up with him. It's not you. It's me. I've just gone through a lot of changes lately. Skid, can you hear us? I don't think he can hear us.

Oh man. Well, we'll leave him there until he figures it out. I'm getting some Skid Blue Balls right now. I thought I was going to skid blue balls right now. Skid may need to unmute you guys. Ah, that might be possible. Okay, cool. Anyway, so, and it just the the I feel like the intensity

just kept ramping up in such a perfectly paced way up toward the end where it was just, okay, I'll say one negative thing. One like to me, one thing that I was like, what? And like I love all of it so much that I don't wanna nitpick. But there was one thing that I was just like, it felt like for a story reason, they had maybe they wrote themselves in a bit of a corner. But when Bix left. Yeah, that was a good, that was a good moment.

Yeah. Like in the, what do you mean a good moment? Well, I don't mean like happy moment, but I thought that that was a really well-written, well-thought-out, like that she realizes she has to leave him in order to kind of help the rebellion. Really? I thought that that was such a stretch. Really?

Yeah. I thought that it was like crazy. Because they had spent so much time baking into his character that he didn't want to do this, didn't want to do this, he wanted to live the quiet life, he wanted to be with his wife, his partner, right? He wanted to be with her, and they had written that part of the character so far, it felt like they kind of forced her out

for not a good reason. I mean, this did- What? No way, man. She is the only thing that he would prioritize over the rebellion. She knows that he is special and he must help lead the rebellion. So she has to take herself out of play. I understand how they rationalized it. I just feel like it seemed a bit of a stretch. Like to me, I feel like she'd be like, yeah, let's get the hell out of here and hide somewhere.

You know, honestly, maybe Bix just wasn't feeling it anymore. Like we don't know what Andor is like in bed. You know, maybe, maybe she's just not that into him. He's yeah, maybe, maybe he thought it was going better than she thought, you know? And that was, you know, he gave her a really great out. I need to leave you to save the rebellion. Meanwhile, she's on that Paradise planet where he got arrested just, you know, with like gigolos.

She's just having a good time with alien gigolos. Who knows? We don't know. We don't know what's going on in Bix's head. Right. Well, Harry says you gotta remember that she, at that point, knew that she was pregnant. And that, to me, is even more reason why you'd be like, I want the father of my child to leave with me and go hide somewhere.

Because, like, I don't know, I felt like one of the things I loved about Andor in general is that Andor is just a guy. He just, he keeps getting by, by his, the edge, just a razor's edge of his wit and his instincts, right? Just by a razor's edge. He's not a superhero. He's not Luke Skywalker, right? Just by a razor's edge. He's not a superhero. He's not Luke Skywalker, right? He's not the destined, magically empowered hero that's going to fix everything. I just don't see like, to me, it was a stretch that Bix really thinks that like, there's no way

the rebellion could survive without him. But my head can is that's not Andor's kid. And she was like, she took the test and was like, uh-oh. Uh, and then she was like, I have to leave you to save the Rebellion. That's good. That's actually really good. Now let's make it a lot more sense. Yeah, see, I figured it out for you.

I loved early on, I'm gonna take a few calls here real quick. I loved early on when, oh, I loved the stuff where, I'm forgetting to take a few calls here real quick. I loved early on when, oh, I loved the stuff where, uh, I'm forgetting character names now, but, uh, where, um, uh, Mothma's childhood friend that was financing and backing, was moving the money, was laundering money for her implies that he needs a bribe basically, or he's gonna out her.

And they're having that little bantery conversation where you know what's being said underneath, you know, and she's like, and then she mentions it to Luther, and Luther's just like instantly assassinates him. Like no hesitation. And I think there's a line where she says like, I can't imagine what you would do or what you did or something like that. I don't want to know what happened to him or I can't, I can't remember where it came up, but she says that to Luther like,

he's like, well, you know what has to happen. And she's like, no, I don't. And he's just like, well, I envy you then. Like it was something like that where he was like, I envy your innocence in this whole thing that you don't realize what has to be done to keep this going. Oh, how nice for you. Passifish Jedi said it. Yes. How nice for you. Great line. Skid. Skid's available now. Hello. I'm here. There he is. I'm sorry. I forgot. I have you both individually muted in Discord because of our recording.

So I didn't realize that. Yes. Yes. Sorry, buddy. We got you now though. and discord because of our recordings so I did yes yes sorry buddy yes hello so I'm with Jared I'm also not a big fan of rogue one I agree I don't think it's a very good movie but I were you there I'm here yeah sorry I'm see it you're good Jared you have to unmute skid oh my god I'm the one that has him muted. He just said he agrees with you and he does he's not a big fan of Rogue One Yes, and then and then that's all I said so far. Yes I just I don't think it's a very good movie. I think it was sort of

It's like a Frankenstein of a film that was kind of rebuilt and built in a couple of different ways by a bunch of different hands. And I think there's a lot of seams in it. And I just think there's too many characters. What this is something I talk about with my girlfriend like all the time. What I wish they could do is do a third or a third and a fourth season of Andor and just remake all the events of Rogue One. Oh, that's such a cool idea. That's a great idea. Yeah. Yeah. That would be awesome. I mean, that would be awesome. Skin, what were some of your main takeaways of season two?

Uh, I think I just, I'm just such a huge fan of Cassie and Andor as a character. I just think he's such a great character. He reminds me of Han Solo a little bit in that they're both really quick thinkers and they're both really decisive. Yeah. Like they don't, they talk about the hand shooting first, like they don't hesitate. Yeah. Cassian never hesitates.

Yeah. No, he just, he makes a decision and he just goes 100% on what that he follows through 100% every time And I just I love that and I love to like this is season one But like when he gets thrown into prison on narkina 5, I just love watching His face. I love watching his eyes because He's like he's like a trapped rat. He's like a trapped like sewer rat. And he's just the entire time, he's on program, he's got his hands on his head.

And his eyes are just bouncing around constantly taking in everything, looking at any advantage that he can ever get from the situation and break out. I just love watching him sort of put this together. I love it. It's so great. That's Diego Luna, baby. Diego Luna is an awesome actor. And he's subtle.

It's subtle how awesome he is, you know. It's not big acting. It's like really and that's what's good for Andor since Andor is so realistic and so on that human level, he has this like very subtle, incredible ability about him, Diego Luna. I love him. I do too. And I do want to push back a little bit on Joe's taking issue with Bix's decision as well, because it and some people in the chat too, were saying that they don't like, you know, the force healer being brought in and like, Cassian like having a destiny like making that. I mean, that certainly that does factor

into Bix's decision is like this sort of realization that Cassian does have this greater destiny that she doesn't want to prevent him from fulfilling despite what she might personally want. And remembering too, like everything the Empire did to her and how important it would be for her to make sure that the Empire falls. So I think that for me it makes sense. And then as far as like including the force in some way, because you know they talk about, and we see in one of the episodes, the factionalism with the rebel forces, like all these different sort of divisions of it, like fighting each other, infighting, you know. And one of the things that does end up drawing them together is

this religious faith. And you have to include that. You cannot ignore that. It is so important. You have to do it. And I don't give a fuck like I'm not I'm personally like going to ignore midichlorians, anything George, all the fucking prequels, they're terrible. I'm gonna ignore all of that. But I'm going back to, in my mind, just the original concept of the force as this amorphous kind of this religion. And that makes, I don't know, it makes a lot of sense to me. And so I think that you can say like, I don't like exactly how they did it, but like you had to include it somewhere

Yeah, I think you had to for sure. It's part of the it's part of the whole mythology You know it has to be in there, and I like how they did it. I really liked how they did it Yeah, I did too. They did a great job. I also wanted to point out the well. You know actually how about I shut up? Let's let's take a call here Well, you know, actually, how about I shut up? Let's take a call here. Aniolator22, why don't you join us, if you want to weigh in here at all on Andor season two, if you're still there.

Aniolator, you there? Hello, hello, can you hear me here? Yeah, we got you, what's up? All right, hey, hey guys, long time, first time, you know the whole spiel. I love Andor, you know, top to bottom. And I think there have just been a few points within that show that just blow my mind. Like Cyril, right at the end, you know, one of the last things he sees and experiences is

Andor looking at him and saying, who are you? I love that. He's been obsessed with this guy for years of his life now, the one that got away. And you know, he hits that point where he finally has caught him out of nowhere. And he's in this power position. And he just realizes, what have I been doing this whole time? He just gets struck with that. He's wasted so many years looking for somebody and making himself to somebody who doesn't care about him at all. Doesn't even know he exists. So I just I love that part of it. Yeah. And good call. Great moment. It's

Moby Dick. It's like the way that's it's a whole let's look at the whale doesn't give a shit. It doesn't weigh a have is like you have it devot devote his entire life. It destroys itself trying to hunt this thing down. It's the same thing. Yeah, yeah, and it's perfect. It's beautiful. And that's one of many parts that hit like that.

The other really quick point I'm going to make is just as someone who is been in into all the Star Wars stuff, you're talking the cartoons with Clone Wars and Rebels and Rogue One and, of course, the original movies. Seeing the way that Tony Gilroy and the team threaded the needle of picking a part where everything is so busy in that timeline and fitting it in flawlessly with new characters that have explanations and depths and turning

the empire into such a beautifully like awful empire is so incredible. Something that's here. That was my favorite thing about the show was the characterization of the empire, you know, making it actually scary, actually awful, seeing the Imperials at work. I would just watch the show. I keep saying about the Imperials at the office. I would love that. That's the biggest accomplishment of the show. Yes saying about the Imperials at the office. I would love the biggest Accomplishment of the show. Yes. Yeah is making Yeah, making making the Empire scary again and evil truly evil Yeah

Yeah Please go ahead. Thank you All right. Take it easy man. Yeah, that was I loved that scene I actually did want to mention that that was on my list of who are you? And just the look on his face and he's all beat up and in that moment, it was so good. So good. Okay. Another moment.

Oh, actually, I'm going to do one more call. Kill Tourist Kill has been waiting for a while before I mentioned this last moment here. Kill, please join us. Hello. Hey, how's it going patience hey sorry I raised my hand because I wanted to talk about the obscura obsession thing oh great we got to jam it in in one minute anyway so there you go I was the one who called about King Gizzard. Uh, I was just wondering if any, if any, uh, songs or albums stuck out to you when you listened to them, Joe? No, no, nothing by name. I just sort of like put on King.

I went to Spotify. I went to this is King Gizzard and the lizard wizard just hit shuffle. And I'm astounded by the variety of the music. It's like completely different genres. It sounds like I'm astounded by the variety of the music. It's like completely different genres. It sounds like I'm listening to, yeah, like a random playlist of different bands. It's actually very impressive. So yeah, I don't know any specific titles, no.

If I had to recommend one, I'd say listen to Nonagon Infinity. That's like one of their best albums. Nonagon Infinity? Yeah. Got it, thank you. Nonagon Infinity? Yeah. Got it. Thank you. I'll check it out.

Do you have a new Obscure Obsession to share or is that what you wanted to share? I've been getting more into like local indie bands out here in Colorado. So just some random bands out here that I've gotten to like know some of the guys. All right. Name one. What's the one you want to give us one? The one that I've been really into is Los Tom's.

They're sort of that psychedelic vibe that King Gizzard fills. But I got to see him live. Los Tom's like the name Tom. Los Toms. The thing about band names is that they are always so random that it's always like, wait, what is it again? Calliope choir show? What would you?

Illogical sentence sense. Cream pie obelisk fart John? What is this? Thanks for letting us get in some obscure obsession because I think that segment's gonna have to get cut. Max H, because I don't wanna stop talking about Andor just yet. Max H, do you have something on Andor before I say one or two final things here?

All right, we'll wait for Max for a second. I loved the breaking out in the final episodes of the show I loved the breaking out in the final episodes of the show of, let me get character name here right, Clea Markey. Oh my God. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on! I mean a character-

Such a badass. How you have for this whole time has always been a badass, but has always been a minor character. Has always been a, and the assistant, right? Like a cool character, mysterious, severe, right? Like serious, whatever. My God, the break-in scene. It's like, it's like to me, it was like the prison scene of season one, the prison

break out for sure. This was the hospital break in and it's all her. And it's just to have that whole scene rest on just you as a performer. And I've never seen this woman before this, this show. This was her first acting credit. Oh, she's right out of school. That this is her first thing. She's awesome. She absolutely killed it. And she, she will work. Max H is with us now. Max, can you hear us? Oh, try one more time.

Hello. Hello. Hello. Yeah, we got you. Hello. You want to talk, Andor? Okay, awesome. Absolutely.

Yeah, I was actually going to say the same thing about Elizabeth Dulao Andor being her first, uh, like real acting, uh, credit and then just amazing to see, uh, like someone just coming in, uh, to acting with like these acting chops to carry this kind of performance. Uh, but what I wanted to, uh, comment on was, uh, to do with the comparisons with Rogue One and the criticisms of the movie, because I also rewatched it after finishing Andor. And it really does just feel worse in comparison. I thought it was fine when I watched it when it came out.

And it just seems worse than it did when I first saw it. But it reminded me that Skid and I think Matthew had talked about these like 4K preservation of the theatrical cuts of the original trilogy. Yes. Yeah. Kind of in the same space of the fandom, there are these projects where fans try to re-edit these movies, including Rogue One, to try and bring it either closer to like the swashbuckling tone of the original trilogy or more the gritty, intriguing pathos of Pandora. So I think like one of these projects was like recutting the movie into three TV

episodes, cutting out some of the sillier stuff like that, a cynical creature or whatever, and switching some of the... Well, call it! ...the music with music. Max, we're gonna have to let you go. I'm sorry, your mic is just not working, buddy. We have to let you go. I heard a lot of what you said, Max. Yeah, yeah.

It was just a bad connection. But yeah, we heard a lot of it. Need to get Topher Grace on the job. Have him re-edit all the Rogue One. Make it good. Yeah. I mean, that sounds super interesting to re-edit it, kind of fix that tone. I can't part without also shouting out Anton Lesser as major part. Oh my God.

So good. So fantastic. So many times. Providers. Oh my God. He's so fucking good. He's so good. He's so good.

God. And I just, it's amazing how much, like you guys already said very smartly, the construction of the Empire through the two seasons saved Star Wars for me in so many ways because it rebuilds the fear that I had as a child of the Empire. It doesn't make stormtroopers silly anymore. It makes them scary. Yes. I mean, that whole Gorman rebel scene with stormtroopers mowing down unarmed people,

that shows you once again how scary. I had tears streaming down my face the entire episode. Yeah. And when they started the next episode with that music cue of them, the song they were singing, I started crying all over again. Yeah. It was just incredible. And I can't stress enough that cue of them, the song they were singing, I started crying all over again. Yeah. It was just incredible. And I can't stress enough that part of that, and I don't know how you do

this, it's just genius. Like I cared about Dej Romero, Cyril, even Anton Lester's character. Like I didn't like him, but I loved every second he was on screen. I just, I liked him. I liked watching him be whatever he was, the head of a ISP or whatever. Like, yeah, just so good. Just so fantastic. That's great. Uh, and before we go, and this is also kind of an obscure obsession, but I do

want to mention that I've been watching a French village, which is a French show about the German occupation it's like a 8c 7 7 season show and it was a huge inspiration for and or and a lot of the actors actually from a French village ended up on and or as well and I am loving it It is so I'm in season 5 right now now and it's it's really great. So big recommendation for that too. Awesome. All right, skit. Thanks for joining the show for a little bit. That was always a pleasure. I wish that we could we ran out of time here. I wish that we could have more time to go into more obscure obsessions, but we'll do it again in a week or two. Yeah, don't worry about it. Um, but we used all of our time on it. The list of topics is really a suggestion. It really is. It's more of a guideline. It's more of a guideline, uh, that we don't necessarily have to follow. Just like James

Gunn's new, uh, DC, uh, uh, you know, multiverse or whatever you want to call it. DC universe. It's, it's, it's, it's open-ended. It's a suggestion. We'll see what happens. The artists will do what they want. And the, today the artists pretty much skipped the last segment. Today the artists skipped the last segment. Uh, well said. Uh, I do want to mention everybody next week, uh, is book club is up next week. Don't forget July 16th, next Wednesday, if you have not finished, uh, project Hail Mary, which I have not, I'm not even close. In fact, I think I'm going to have to buy the audiobook today because I just, the only time I'm going to

have to listen to this is while driving the car or mowing the lawn. So like I think I'll just do the audiobook and I'm loving it, but I want to get to the end. So Project Hail Mary next Wednesday, we're going to do that then. So make sure you're caught up and finish up the book. I can't wait, I have thoughts. Awesome, awesome. Well, that is gonna wrap it up for us this week. Thanks everybody, we appreciate you. We love you so much.

Have a fantastic week. Hang out with us Sunday night live. Jared and I and Skid and Matthew and Sydney and Kate. We're all gonna play a Pathfinder 2E one and a half hour ish homebrew deadly encounter with GCN classic characters. It's a GCN gauntlet baby and it's happening live Sunday night, 9 p.m. Eastern, Twitch.tv slash The Glass Cannon. Make sure you tune in for that. We'll see you then. Take it easy, everybody. See you then, guys. Bye bye.

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