The Ringer-Verse - Into the Ringer-Verse

Episode Date: March 16, 2021

Welcome to 'The Ringer-Verse,' a multi-show podcast feed centered on all things superheroes, nerd culture, and fandom. We'll discuss instant reactions, theory breakdowns, mailbag questions, and more across the pop culture multiverse. In this special preview, Mallory Rubin and Van Lathan discuss some of their favorite fandoms and what you can expect from the shows premiering on this very feed. You can follow 'The Ringer-Verse' on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello and welcome into the ringerverse from The Ringer. My name is Mallory Rubin. And I'm Van Lathan. Now, before we get started, does anybody want to know what the Ringerverse really is? I'm so glad you asked. The Ringerverse is a podcast feed with infinite possibilities on all things, superheroes, nerd culture, and fandom. A variety of shows have instant reactions to new releases,

theory breakdowns, audience mailback questions, and fun takes on the latest trailers and more. In a single week, I will lead one show. Van will lead another. We'll introduce new shows and characters in the future. Maybe even plan a team up. Or some crossovers. I love a good crossover.

Anything is possible. In the ringerverse, but one thing is for certain. We are suiting up for a premiere on March 19th with full coverage of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Zach Snyder's Justice. We'll have at least two episodes a week and you can follow the show now on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there. or as Obi-One would say, hello there.

Thanks so much for checking out the trailer for our new Ringerverse feed. And now we want to share with you a conversation that Van Lathen and I had about some of our favorite fandoms, what you can expect from the Ringiverse feed, and more. Enjoy. Everyone, welcome into the Ringerverse. The Ringers new multi-show podcast feed on all things. Superheroes, nerd culture, fandom entertainment. We're here to give you a little sneak preview of the type of shows to expect. But before we do that, I'd like to make sure you guys know that I am Van Lathen,

one half of the Higher Learning podcast with Van Lathen and Rachel Lindsay. I am Mallory Rubin, co-host of Binge Mode. And we're here because we love to talk about these stories. We love them. We're thinking about them. We're watching them. We're reading them. We're talking about them.

why not talk about them right here on this new podcast feed. I got kicked out of school. I think it's 1991 or 92 because I got an argument over who can win, have a fight, Spawn and Wolverine. Which side of the argument were you on? Spawn. This is crucial backstory. Okay.

Spawn. I think it's Spawn. Don't get me wrong. Well, it's hard to be Wolvie, but Spawn is like, you know, he's enchanted. It's all kinds of supernatural stuff. It's just a lot for Wolverine. The point is that this is that. this is deeply rooted for me.

Like this podcast, this podcast feed, this entire thing, it's a 41 year old man, it's like a victory lap. We won. The nurse won. I can talk,

I can get paid for talking about this stuff. I love it. The number of times that someone in the MCU has gotten to say we won. Now here you are saying it. I don't see like the, the little decaying particles

from Ebony Ma's corpse anywhere, but you know, I sense that he's there. Fucking Ebony Ma. that guy. Don't miss him. Don't miss him. What will my version of that be? Let's see. Oh, boy. I once got in trouble in Hebrew school for reading the Fellowship of the Rings

underneath my desk instead of continuing with my aggressive tutoring course to memorize my Haft Torah portion. Wow. Yeah, needed to be focused. And I was focused, but I was focused on my precious, not on the curriculum of the day at Beth Israel. Now, let me ask you a question. Okay. Looking back on that, do you regret your decision? No, I don't.

I don't regret a single moment that I spent in Middle Earth. And I don't see how anyone could. Even the moments with the ends are precious to me, you know? Very true. Very true. Very true. Should we tell people what they can expect from the, the ringerverse other than our school tales.

There's going to be some of that. There's going to be some of it. Because look, I got to be honest with you. This is a little bit of a victory lap for me. And if you're listening out there and you grew up the way that I did, it should be for you too. But yeah, this is going to be where that victory lap happens where we're going to kind of dive into what really kind of is a renaissance right now. Or not a renaissance, a golden age right now of a fandom. their culture and we're going to have we have a hub for it right here on this channel or over at the

ringer the good old folks at the ringer so i call them i love it we are going to start of course with the falcon and the winter soldier and zach sniders justice league what a week it is here in the nerd verse and the ringer verse as well and in general we're going to have instant reaction pods. We're going to get into some theorizing, some predictions, mailback questions, of course. We want to hear from all of you because part of what we love about these stories is sharing them together and with all the other people who love them too. And part of the joy of that golden moment that Van you just described, I think, is, you know, we're in the Disney Plus era. Who knows exactly when we'll all be back in movie theaters, but there's so much Marvel.

There's so much Star Wars. We're about to be back in, in, in, in, Westeros with the Game of Thrones spin-offs. On and on the list goes. Lord of the Rings show coming. Again, as mentioned, four hours and one minute of Justice League waiting for you this very week on and on and on and on the list goes. There's so much of it. And we want to find ways to talk about and celebrate and explore the characters,

the themes, and the universes that bring us such joy. Yeah. And we also have to sort of mark the moment in time, right? These are the dominating stories in pop culture. They've dominated our youth. And now it's interesting to me to be able to do this with the lens on it that we have, you know? A lot of shows are coming out. They're coming hot and heavy.

And if you're just getting into it, if you're the casual fan, you want a guide of what you've missed or what you need to expect, this will be a place that you can come and get it. all right. We do the work so you don't have to. And we'll be up on this stuff and we'll be right here as a resource. I love that. I love that.

And, you know, much like the MCU or any of these other universes, you start in one place, then you build and you grow, right? So who knows? Who else you're going to be hearing from? What else we'll be covering in the wider nerd verse? We're going to have some variety shows. find ways to talk about not only the new releases, but other news that is surfacing in real time. It feels like there's something new to talk about every day about what's in development,

what might be coming. You know, like, we're just going to be like the podcasting version of Tony and Jarvis and dummy and dumb you just down there in the lab. Let's see. Let's just test some things out, man. Just tinkering. This is Mark I, you know? Who knows what Mark two will be?

Tinkering. Who knows? We're going to get to nanotech. We're going to get to all kinds. Yeah, the bleeding edge armor comes eventually. The bleeding edge armor comes eventually. Oh, wow. That's what I love. That's what I'm into. Listen, here's the thing. The one thing that Marvel really got right, which is everything,

is just the evolution of the armor tech itself. Because when you go back and you look, he just, our boy came so far. He came so far. The second time he was carrying the armor around in the suitcase, like it was a dirty bomb. And the second one, he was like it was a whole little thing. But before they just, we haven't seen a cultural phenomenon like the MCU ever in filmmaking, in my opinion. And it's those little details that they get right. They get things right.

Couldn't agree more. I still have some notes for Ivan Van Gogh about his reaction time while Tony was opening that briefcase and activating that armor. But that's neither here nor there eventually. So at launch, at the beginning of this journey, we will each. be leading a show on this feed each week. I am going to lead a show where we talk about some of the theories, answer some of those mailbag questions, talk about some of the characters and themes, see how people are processing the new release a couple days after it airs. You will be right there with them. Right. Instant reaction show. I'm impulsive. So, you know, I am the

guy that says, hey, hey, you just saw it. Let's discuss it as a family. Discussing things as a family is my entire deal. So I'm going to be an instant reaction guy looking forward to it. I love it. I love it. Maybe we'll have a crossover event, you know, a team up. Team ups are at the heart of comic book storytelling. They are. Crisis on infinite earth, something like that, like we'll do it all. So setting the stage. Sure. We're here. We're talking about getting the team together. Nick Fury is showing us Phil Colson's trading cards covered in his blood. You know, we have a lot of stuff to figure out, a lot to organize. How do we get to know each other? You know, we're sitting here on Zoom, man. It's still quarantine. So we can't get that team

Schwarma, at least not yet. And so we need to find the digital equivalent of the Schwarma team building exercise. What if we just kind of did like a rapid fire lightning around just off the dome, Some of the questions that we have for each other about our fandom. I'm into it. Okay. Where to start? What are your top three favorite MCU movies? And not just round about and why.

In the interest of brevity, I'll try to keep it. I'll try to keep it quick. My top three MCU films, I think I have the fortune of having recently powering to all 23 at the end of the binge mode Marvel season. So if I remember correctly, and it's possible that I don't, even though that was mere weeks ago, my top three for the MCU films would be, number one, Winter Soldier. That's my favorite MCU movie, which I'm always a little bit surprised by just because I really love the, like, overtly fantastical and magical elements in general and fantasy stories. And Winter Soldier is not that, right?

but the cap films are my favorite stand-alone character trilogy, and I just think Winter Soldier is basically a pitch-perfect movie, and it's, of course, one of the reasons that I'm so excited for the Falcon and the Winter Soldier, MCU, Disney Plus TV show experience, because I just love those characters. Next for me would be Infinity War, and then Thor Ragnarok, I think, rounds out my top three. My top three would be number one Winter Soldier. It's just the best movie they made. It's just the best movie they made.

Just get over the past. I'm sorry. It's great. The elevator scene in absolute all time. Just get out of here. Two is Ragnarok. As far as movies that I watch, Ragnarok is the Marvel movie that I probably watch the most. It's such a joy. Just a lot of fun to watch, man.

Yeah. Should we play Get Help right now? We should play Get Help. I don't want to do Get Help. We should do get help right now. At number three is In Game. I have In Game. I'll tell you why.

Like, I'm willing to go along with everyone that overall Infinity War is a better movie than In Game. Overall, it's probably Infinity War does give you a chance to breathe, blah, blah, blah. Here's the thing now. The highs in In Game, there's nothing. I'm sitting there in the theater. And by the way, with as much as I've consumed, and as much as I know from comic back story,

there's no way they should have been able to surprise me. I just, I'll never stop talking about it. When me and Eric is summoned to Cap's hand. And all-timers, spine tingling. And I'm looking around. I stand up in the arc light and I do like this. And I'm shaking my hands and popcorn is falling on people. They don't care.

It's like, you can't, to me, I don't know. And then that moment is amazing. So think about the sequence of moments. Real quick. I'm not supposed to spend too much time on it. Think about the sequence of moments. There, okay, after that, because remember, Cap only is in that fight for another, what, two minutes.

He then gets punished. Then on your left comes. And then after on your left comes, we've been waiting four movies for Cap to give the call. We've been waiting a decade for it. Oh, right. I mean, it's... He needs to be. never said it, not one time

the many how many battles the Avengers have been in and watch that scene again. When he says Avengers Assemble, it's amazing, but there's something that happens right behind him. Thor lets out the craziest battle cry.

And I got chills right now. I got chills. I don't watch it after we get off this. And that's why it's my third. It's just the movie took me it made me a kid, man. It's absolutely so good. I mean, again, I haven't in my top five, too. I couldn't agree with you more. And the ability that it has to transport you back to the first time you saw it in that way, it's so visceral. It is such a thrill. What an incredible. And I have such a tendency to as the consumer of these stories to like parse the intricacies of the world building and did this make sense. And so I think the fact that I watch Engy and are just like the emotional spectrum, everything you just described, the thrill of it, the surge of it. And then you can have a scene like the one between Thor and Friggin.

for example on Asgard back in 2013 about how, you know, how hard it is to be the person you're supposed to be, right? Right. That variance, I don't care about the ultimately like logistics of the time highest when I'm watching that because it's just so completely mesmerizing from start to finish. Neil DeKrasse Tyson now. Just go along with you. Just like, what are you like, what are you doing?

I don't know. Like, don't do this, man. What are you going to do here? Listen, let's talk about the PIM particles and how they should have just tried to get more of them first. No, let's not do that. How about Star Wars?

What Star Wars project are you currently most excited about of all of the TV shows and films and you could bring in the High Republic stories, anything you want? What are you most excited about of what is on the horizon right now? Obi-Wan. Hell yeah.

Because Obi-Wan-Kinobi is the greatest Jedi that's ever lived. Okay, what do you mean by that, though? Like, in what way? So he's not the most powerful Jedi that's ever lived, right? That's obviously not true. But to me, Kenobi is the greatest Jedi that ever lived. As far as what we can watch,

I'm not talking about from years before or whatever. When you look at what Obi-Wan accomplished and what he did, he stayed there until basically the story was over, right? So Canobie comes up over under Quigon. He trains Anakin, defeats Anakin. I don't know how much since the battle made, but whatever. Don't jump.

I told you. No, hold on. Wait a minute. The Musufar duel is unimpeachable. I love that sequence so much. Should we just recite the dialogue back and forth to each other right now? I love it. So I love it.

I love it. But my thing is this, though. I think one of the things the prequels the prequels did was they did a poor job of demonstrating how powerful Anakin Skywalker was supposed to be

it did a poor job of that now you get it you know there's other stuff but the movies themselves did a poor job of that and if he was supposed to be what he was he sure had his hands full with Kenobi

and that's not to take anything away from Kenobi who's a fantastic Jedi He had the high ground right he had the high grind says Anakin don't try it and it's like you're going to jump anyway you under that's something made my power to cut the man's legs

off. Incredible moment. Cut the man's legs off. So. I hate you. I love you, Anakin. As he's... You are my brother.

And so when you look at everything that Canobi has done, and then it goes in hiding, oh, we think, but lives on Tattooey and looks after Skywalker for all of these years, then takes it upon himself to then train Luke. Like, the story simply doesn't work without everything. that Canobey contributed to the Jedi, to the resistance, all of that stuff.

For the Star Wars Rebels heads out there, of course, one of the best moments, one of the best episodes of that show. And really, I think, I don't know, this might take at least one of the best moments in all of Star Wars. This is a spoiler if you haven't seen rebels. We will be spoiling, we should say,

we will never spoil something that has not come yet. We're not going to be dealing with that. But if it has aired, we will talk about it. So you've been warned. Mall and Obi-1 on tattooing the fateful final battle. Iconic moment. Can I tell you what I want the Obi-1 show to be? This is just my personal...

What do you want to be? Fierce, fierce desire. Let's tweak the timeline, because obviously we know when this is supposed to be said, and it does not align with what I'm about to say at all. Let's tweak the timeline, rework things a bit. And let's give the people, and by the people I mean me, what they, and by they, I mean, I want, which is the romance between the Duchess Sateen and Obi-1-Kon-Kinobi.

Oh, wow. That is what I want. Cartoon Obi-Wan-Kobey from the Clone Wars and his desperate love and yearning for the Duchess Sateen. I'm sorry, and this may sound crass. I just want the show where they finally fuck. That's what I want. need it. I need that in Star Wars. Sorry. No, but look, see,

does it work with the timeline of her death? No. That's okay. Let's find a way. But this is the thing. There's a lot of unanswered questions about Obi-Wan. There's a lot of stuff. There's a lot of stuff that goes on about Canobi. I always wanted to know more about Canobi because Kenobi was always the most underrated to me. The Skywalker's are the least trustworthy family. Listen to me, the Skywalker's are by far The least trustworthy family

In any epic anywhere It's six and a one half dozen and the other That the Skywalker is going to kill the whole universe You know, think about how temperamental Ben is Think about how temperamentally is With a lightsaber walking around Doing all kinds of crazy stuff But anyway, so really Obi-Wan is the steadying force

of the whole thing. I was so excited to see this show happen. And there are other shows that I watch, you know, Bad Bad Badge and all of this stuff I'm excited for. Should we talk about DC and some Justice League Snyder cut wishes for a second? What? I have so many questions.

We're running out of time already. So we unfortunately do not have four hours and one minute like the movie itself to talk about this. You'll be back, though. You'll be back with your Zach Snyder's Justice League takes. What is your hope and dream and primary wish.

If you're back in Wonder Woman 1984 and you have one wish about Justice League, what would it be? What are you really hoping for from this movie? My wish for, you can't believe you brought up Wonder Woman 1984. I'd like to apologize. You're trying to trigger me. It's very upsetting.

So my hope for Justice League is my basic hope for D.C. Okay. So we all have family members who we love, right? I just know I'll speak for myself. D.C. is like a family member that's on dope. They are. Like, you love them and you're going to keep loving them. But God damn it, if you don't want them to just get their shit together, right?

You love them. And there are times when they're over for Christmas or there are times when they're over for, like, Thanksgiving, that they're lucid. and you can still play basketball and they get it right every once in a while, but you're thinking, God damn, you guys don't even know how smart Cousin Johnny is. Cousin Johnny is smart.

Cousin Johnny is all of this stuff if he could just get his shit together and you want to help him. And that's kind of my thing with D.C. It's my first love. Like it was Superman and Batman that I fell in love with, right? It was those stories.

and they got some amazing, amazing source material over there that they can draw on. But it seems as if, and I don't know if this comes from the relationship between the creatives, you know, and Warner Brothers and these characters being owned by a big studio. And not that that's not the situation right now with Disney and Marvel, but it didn't start off that way and, you know, just whatever. But I forget about Zach Snyder and what he wants, his vision. I want to see them do these characters justice. These are fantastic characters.

I'm not saying we haven't gotten great Batman movies. We just got three great Batman movies, not too long ago. But I want to see them do these characters justice. I want to see them write these characters in a way in the majesty, with the power and with the social relevance that they have, the cultural relevance, should I say, that they have. And I just hope they get it right. I find that actually genuinely very moving.

That's really nice to hear. My hope is that in the extended. four-hour version of this, we get to hear Step and we'll finally say mother, because we haven't heard it yet, you know, and people have been waiting for it. No, I'm not kidding. My hope is, you know what I'm looking forward to? In addition to everything you said, which I really do agree with, I'm looking forward to getting more of the backstory that we've been waiting for for slash and cyborg, you know, finally getting into some of these scenes that have been teased for a long time. I'm like, I'm a big DC-C-W-verse person, so.

Are you now? Yeah, like I love Arrow. I love Flash. And I'm excited to see this version of the Flash, this version of Barry Allen, a little more fully fleshed out. I'm into that. Falcon Winter Soldier. We have so many other things we could talk about. We could do the Dyer Wolf or Dragon game. We could get into Hoggworts houses on and on and on the list could go. But to put a pin on it for now, to put a bow on it for now and talk about the thing that is coming this week, Friday, March 19th. Thursday night, if you're willing to stay up late, right? Hopefully Disney Plus won't crash and everyone can watch right away. The first episode of the six episode, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier season. There are so many things we could talk about.

Favorite Sam and Bucky moments, how you're feeling about Zemo returning. I'm personally curious to know if you think that they should, you know, no shade at drone Red Wing, who seems great. living, breathing, actual Red Wing in the story. You know, I love to talk about magical creatures.

I saw Joanna Robinson tweet recently about how they need to introduce Bucky's comics, Canon, Cat into the show. And I'm like, yes, we need Alpine in the MCU immediately. So I'm just personally thinking about Red Wing and Alpine. But no, I mean, we have so much we could talk about here. Steve Shield, Sam assuming the mantle. The list goes on forever.

And that is, of course, why people should tune back in. to listen to your pod on the first episode and all of the subsequent discussions to come on the ring reverse feed. But is there one thing that you're most excited about, a character that you're looking forward to seeing return?

Are you hyped for Zemo? Anything in particular you want to call out on the eve of the Falcon premiere. So I'm interested in Sam's character. I think that they really use Falcon in a lot of these movies as sort of the comic relief, psychic,

he was, look, I'm going to be honest with you. Falcon isn't very cool than the MCU. Like him just fine. But at one point, it was starting to bother me a little bit. Like Falcon was like, O for four. He got his ass kicked by Ant Man, you know. Yeah, that was tough. So Ant Man kicked his ass.

Rumlow kicked his ass. All right. In Winter Soldier. Ant Man kicked his ass. He was just getting his ass kicked a lot and just dropping in one-liners. And that was the, that was the whole. thing. And now, based upon that, they got a kind of

this character has to take a step forward. Right. Like this character has to take a major step forward. And I'm interested in seeing the way that they do it. It's not as if Sam Wilson is not a cool comic character. He is. In the comic universe,

he's been several different things, you know, including a very capable Captain America. Now they have to sell that to the viewers, and I'm interested in seeing how they get that done. I think I'm probably most interested in Falcon on the TV front, obviously Black Widow on the movie front, was actually supposed to be first in terms of the launch of phase four. And because of the pandemic and the schedule changes, we ended up getting Wanda Vision first. And I'm really curious to see how much, either throughout the entire season or at the start, how much of Falcon feels like a reset and how much of a reset and how much of it.

connects back to the past, both through the character lenses and how they are processing everything that has happened to them and through our fandom lens where, you know, I think that Marvel understands that two things are true at once, right? Even if you just look at the programming slate and the characters we're getting more time with, but also, you know, look at like Eternals, right, or Fantastic Four entering the fold, whatever the case may be on and on the list goes. When you're building a show around characters who have these deeply rooted bonds with Captain America, Steve Rogers, one of the most beloved characters of the first three phases of the MCU and, of course, Marvel in general.

How much are you building around the past and fan connection and attachment to the past? And how much are you working to establish what's next, both for these characters and for the future of the MCU? And I think it's really what you mentioned earlier about... villains who don't stay around long. Like, it makes me think of how interesting it is that Zemo is coming back because Zemo actually in Civil War is one of the more interesting villains in the MCU in terms of his intent, this idea of victory not being something that you achieve

for yourself, but just watching your enemy crumble. Like, there's something so soul deep and sinister about that. And seeing him come back is this, again, it's kind of the both phases of that operating in tandem. Okay, good. That's a new, not new. It's not like, obviously, you know, we got Thanos a more than one movie. We got Loki in more than one movie, but this determination to say, let's continue to invest in and expand on and build on these characters who people were intrigued by, much like you would in comic book storytelling, right? Find ways to bring them back and resurface them. But then again, even though there's a new spin on it, it is something from the past. It is a relic

from the past. So I'm fascinated to see what role Falcon plays not only within the six episode story itself, but in terms of setting the stage four, phase four, and the rest of the MCU. Can't wait. Well said. It all gets started right now. We're in the eye of the nerd storm. And it's me and Ma. We're your storm watchers. We're your Doppler guides through the whole thing. Okay. So reminders of what's to come. You will be back on the feed. on Friday with a Falcon Winter Soldier, episode one, instant reaction. You will also be back on the feed on Sunday talking Justice League.

I will be here on Tuesday talking Falcon, some theories, hearing from you, the listeners, and you can hear all of that and more if you follow us on Spotify. Yeah, and we'll tell you guys how Rie Richards was actually the aerospace engineer the entire time. And you just missed it. It's not their fault. It's your fault. It wasn't Agatha all along. It was Mephisto.

Damn it.