The Ringer-Verse - Ringer-Verse Recommends: June 2024

Episode Date: June 28, 2024

Return of the recommendations! The 'Ringer-Verse' and 'House of R' crews wrap up a packed June with the latest installment of their monthly shout-outs to fandom favorites from TV, anime, movies, video games, books, comics, and beyond that were released recently but not yet covered in-depth on a full-length episode. Host: Ben Lindbergh Guests: Charles Holmes, Joanna Robinson, Van Lathan, Jomi Adeniran, Arjuna Ramgopal, Steve Ahlman, Jonathan Kermah, and Zach Kram Senior Producer: Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Jomi Adeniran Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Y'all, it's the Midnight Boys. Poo-Bee-Boo! And we're opening up the kitchen again to talk about the Bears season three, returning to Hulu on June 27th. That's right, the Midnight Boys are taking over Prestige TV. How you feeling, Cousin? Cousin! New restaurant, new takes, new ups, new downs, new season.

I'm wearing to go, Chuck. That's what I'm talking about. Make sure you plug in to the Prestige TV feed. Van and I will be talking about every single episode. of the bear. That's June 27th on the Prestige TV feed. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections

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Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those WeatherTech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need WeatherTech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome into The Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom. I am Ben Lindberg, senior editor at the Ringer Buttonmash host and your guide to the wide world of Ringerverse recommends.

If you miss the first two installments of this series, well, you've got a lot of guts coming here after what you pulled. No, what I meant to say was, How you doing you, old pirate? So good to see you. Not that kind of pirate. We know you'd never access media through less than legal means, but we also know your voracious culture consumers, and we're here to help.

On Ringiverse recommends our monthly mandate is to tell you what we haven't covered, and thus what you may have missed. This is a place for us not to cap, but to tip our caps, to recent releases across the nerd culture landscape that we've liked but haven't had time to discuss in depth on a Ringiverse or House of Our episode. And this month, time, unlike content, has been in short supply. By my count, our podcast

tally for June, combining both feeds, is 23, which is more than the number of weekdays in June. So yeah, we've been a bit busy, and hopefully you've been busy listening to us. On the one hand, that means it hasn't been hard to find entertainment this month. On the other hand, it's been even easier than usual to miss some excellent stuff. So let's dig a little deeper than the boys and the bear and the acolyde and hot D and seal some of those cracks. in this content cornucopia. Now, we're one host short on recommends this month. We're missing Mallory Rubin,

who whenever you hear this will probably be wrapping up or prepping for her next four-hour deep dive into House of the Dragon. That doesn't leave a lot of time for much else. So let's just say that this month, Mallory recommends the collected works of George R. Martin. Aviv him, lad.

Is what Mal might say if she were here. But because she's not, two friends of the Ringiverse, the dynamic duo of Kerm and Kram have stepped up in her stead. So we have even more recommendations than usual. We're checking just about all the boxes this month. Adult fiction, YA fiction, nonfiction, comics, movies, anime and animation, video games. We've got it all.

And soon, so will you. I'll be back at the end to recap the picks and share a listener nomination, which you can submit for future episodes at ringerverse recommend to gmail.com. Now let's hear first from My Man Van. Who the heck are you? Stay away from my friends. Louis, Jimmy, and the Man of Steel are back. Just three best friends, living their best lives. Let's just go with my friend.

What's your own? Battling the worst supervillains in the universe. With this many toys to play with, we can finally take out Superman. What's your name? Lex. Lex Luthor. Yehaw, you punk motherfuckers, it's Van. And I'm here to recommend my adventures of Superman.

It's a fantastic show and anime-style tale of Superman Clark Kit Jimmy Olson, of course, takes place Metropolis, but a different style of Superman, a different take on some classic villains, some classic stories. It's fun, it's funny, it's cute, and to me, in my opinion, it is a very palatable, accessible entry point to anyone who wants to get into Superman lore. The story itself is very human like the story of Superman, of course, should be. This is something that you can watch on Max. I think it comes on Adult Swim as well. I've never watched it on Adult Swim.

I don't care about Adult Swim. Shout out to Adult Swim, but I don't use it to watch shows I use streaming services like other people. Okay? I'm telling you right now, My Avengers of Superman is one of the best Superman. is one of the best Superman adaptions currently, and dare I say, one of the best animated adaptations of Superman ever. Some great voice talent, some unique attempts at reframing Superman for a new audience and some great animation.

So I hope you guys are into it. I hope you guys try it. I hope you guys love it. I first saw the boy as one beholds the sun behind eyelids. Red heat. He brought his face close to Myraudout on the brow of Altisopraxa, who was dead. Brave boy. Curious, too, and a bit morbid.

Altissa was unmarked by death, beautiful in life. So the boy did not realize at first what he had found. Then, pricked by the barb of realization, this stately face belonged to a corpse. He inhaled sharply. That was my train out of purgatory, and you'd better believe I scrambled aboard. The Breath of Life. Hello, it's me, Joanna Robinson. I'm coming to you from the set of Talk to Thrones, and I'm here with My Ringervverse Recommends,

which is a book called Moonbound by Robin Sloan. Robin Sloan wrote Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour bookstore, if you ever read that book. And what I love about this book is often, as like, genre fans, we have to pick between fantasy and sci-fi. And this book is like, why not both? We've got dragons. We've got wizards. But we also have like sentient AI and computers and robots and future and multidimensions.

If you like, I don't know, Terry Pratchett, if you like Jasper Ford, if you like something kind of like weird and funky and funny, this is a book for you. So that's my Ringervis recommends for this month. Thanks so much. Bye. That was Venger, the force of evil. I am dungeon master, your guide in the realm of Dungeons and Dragons. Hey, everyone, what's up? This is Arjuna with my June ringerverse recommendation.

I'm actually going to go with a book, Dungeons and Dragons, the making of the original D&D, 1970 to 1977. It's actually a huge hardcover book that just came out this month, that has a lot of great details on everyone's favorite Dungeons and Dragons game. It's for super fans of the game who want to kind of learn about the origins and where the game came from. And even if you're not a big fan or you've even just had curiosity about D&D, I highly recommend this book. There's just a lot of great information that might be the thing to get you to try that game with your friends.

I feel like if you're a fan of Ring orverse content, you might be a fan of D&D. So definitely recommend checking that out. Night Springs, a special place, a shifting space, existing in a countless number of parallel realities. Different every time we set upon the road that leads us there. And yet, always familiar to us in. Night Springs. Hello, Ringiverse. Steve Alman here, and I'm here to give you my June recommendation a little game for Alan Wake 2.

But there's some brand new DLC that came out for it this June called Night Springs. Announced during the Game Awards, Night Springs is a three-episode little dalliance that Alan Wake to Creator Studios Remedy Interactive is giving you basically exploring their own little cinematic video gaming universe. It has characters from the game's control and quantum break and all of these other great little Easter eggs that come with what would be one of my personal favorite games of that year, Alan Wake 2. It takes place right after the game ends, and it's set in this Twilight Zone-esque in-canon TV show, basically presented like little Twilight Zone episodes, and these could not

be more fun. They're very much tongue-in-cheek in the way that some of the best sort of satirical elements of Alan Wake can be. You must... might see a couple of spoilery characters that I might want to get into right now, but the combat is great. It emulates both the best parts of Alan Wake 2 and control in some instances, but I won't

get into it too much. It's an easy recommend for you, and if you haven't checked out Alan Wake 2, it was one of the best games of that year, and in my opinion, the best. Check it out, and keep on gaming. Dad, did you ever worry that your power wasn't enough?

Every single day the world needs you to become something more. It's actually kind of cool of biting monsters. It's just, I'm not very good at it. Hey folks, Ben Lindbergh here. I assume you've seen Godzilla minus one, whether in theaters or on Netflix, but if you somehow haven't, or if you want to watch it again, and why wouldn't you, why not make it a kaiju double feature and follow it up with an animated movie on Netflix

that came out in June, Ultraman Rising? This is technically the 44th film in the Ultraman franchise, which has been around since the 60s and is about as ubiquitous in Japan as Superman is in the States. There's a lot of lore there, but if you're new to Ultraman, don't worry, you don't need to know it. All you need to know is that Ken Sato is both a baseball superstar and secretly a reluctant hero who's taken over the Ultraman mantle, the ultramental, from his father. When a kaiju comes to attack Tokyo, it's Ken's job to stop it, even though that's not a job he asked for. Nor did he ask to become the caretaker of an infant kaiju. But when an egg hatches and a newborn gigantron imprints on him, he has to be a dad to an extremely big baby. Hyjinks and heartwarming maturation ensue.

Ultraman Rising came out on the same day as Inside Out too, which is tough timing. But it has some of that Pixar crossed with Iron Giant Heart. It's a monster movie. It's a superhero movie. It's a baseball movie. And it's also a movie about being a parent. If you have a kid or you've spent time around kids or you've been a kid, I think that covers everyone. You know that kids on occasion can be kind of kaiju-esque.

My daughter isn't 20 feet tall, but in most other respects, she's a lot like the incredibly cute but incorrigible kaiju that Ken finds himself raising. Like most great kaiju movies, it's not just about the monsters. Like most great baseball movies, it's not just about baseball. It's about relationships between teammates, between fathers and sons, between fathers and daughters. It's beautifully animated by industrial light and magic. It's got great action set pieces, and a lot of it really rings true to me as a dad who,

like every parent, often feels overwhelmed by the prospect of holding down a job and holding it together without holding back the tiny person who loves and depends on me. I hope you'll depend on my recommendation and check out Ultraman Rising. Anyone past this point who causes pain, who brings destruction, who holds evil in their heart, those punks are going to get purged by Bufarin without exception. You better never go forgetting my name and face. I want weaklings like you to avoid me and the strong to seek me out. Who am I?

Haruka Sakura over at Fureen High. Yo, it's Coke Baby. I'm here back. Ringiverse recommends this month. I'm recommending Windbreaker. It's on Crunchyroll. It's this insane anime, but very endearing, about this boy who loves to fight. And he wants to go to this high school with a bunch of other delinquents. You're like, oh, man, they're going to be fighting, and they do.

But then these boys, they just love each other, and they take care of this town, and the town takes care of them. It's beautiful. It's sweet. It's just going to make your heart grow a thousand times bigger. I love Windbreaker. If you have Crunchyroll, watch it. It's safe for the entire family.

It's a blast. See y'all next time. This Matt Brooklyn left with a note. Where was she going? This site is tracking the location of a bunch of dinosaurs. How many people are in on this? Want to make a little chaos? Run!

This is really happening? Yeah. It's happening. You know who it be, Joe, me. Back for another edition of Ringiverse recommends for the month of June. I got two mics here because I'm too excited to talk about Jurassic World Chaos Theory, right? So let me give you guys some backstory real quick. There was a show on Netflix called Jurassic Road Camp Cretaceous about these kids who got stuck on Jurassic World.

Jurassic World and had to survive there by themselves for a couple of months. It was crazy. I was locked in, right? If I'm being honest, didn't love the way it ended, right? So when they announced the sequel series, I'm like, all right, man, I'm not really locked in. Like, y'all, y'all pissed me off last season. I don't really want to get into it. But, you know, your curiosity gets the best of you, right?

It's a 10-episode series, okay? and I dive in. And when I tell y'all, it was special, oh, we! I was locked in. It matures with this audience, right? Which, you know, was for kids at the time. But even me as a grown man, I was like,

yo, what kind of themes are we dealing with? There's a mystery element that's really intriguing the relationships with all the characters as they've grown and separated. And, you know, their past. you know, living together, trying to survive together on island. When they come back together, how do their relationships work? And frankly, it's some of the best Jurassic World content, Jurassic Park content,

we've seen this century, if I'll be completely honest. It is awesome. It's fun. You know, look, Vans not going to like it because, you know, he hates pluck. But it's honestly a great time. If you love intrigue and you love good storytelling and you love characters, that makes sense and do things in a world that you're like, huh, normally they would do something else, but because this is true to life, in a way, they're actually going to make the decision that normal people would make.

Holy crap, this is awesome. You're going to love Jurassic World Chaos Theory. Tap in if you're a real one. A sharp twang pulled Aina from troubled dreams. She staggered to her feet, ignoring the protest of her muscles as she grabbed her bow and slung a quiver across her back. Razor wire hung across the craggy walls like the web of some monstrous spider. One of the tripwires stretched taut. Ena followed its trembling path out of the cave and into the moonless night.

Her mother whittled a thumb-sized stone by the fire, her back, rigid as a blade. What are you doing up so early? She barked without looking up from her task. Ena watched, transfixed, as her mother ran a finger over the stone, caressing away tiny chunks, as if they were carved at knife point. but her mother had never needed a knife, not when she could shape the world around her through channeling. Hello, Ringiverse Family and Friends.

I'm Zach Cram, and I'm joining the recommends team this month to pitch you on Spin of Fate, a debut fantasy novel from author A.A. Vora. This is an Asian-inspired fantasy featuring animal gods based on creatures from Pokemon and Naruto. Eons ago, these gods split the world into four domains, where people are sorted by the purity of their souls. Those who think good thoughts and do good deeds live in the upper realms, which are full of waterfalls and gemstones and helpful magical abilities. Conversely, those who think evil thoughts and do evil deeds are stuck in the lower realms,

where they're haunted by volcanoes and starvation and twisted magical energies. Or so it seems, the three point of view characters in this story learned that all isn't as it seems on the surface. Now, fair warning, this is a young adult story, so you're not going to read the most refined pros and dialogue, but the world building crackles, the plot really zips after a slow couple chapters to set the scene, and the characters are extremely compelling. We all know the ringerverse loves a character on an arc. So if you want to dive into a new rich mythology in the first book of a planned trilogy, go to your local library and check out Spin of Fate.

What's up y'all? Producer Kerm here. If you listen to a Mint Edition, it's no surprise what my June Ringer recommends recommendation will be. X-Men issue number 700, which was essentially the grand closing of this X-Men Cricola era where they're on this island nation of sovereignty, Cicola, written by Kieran Gillen, Jerry Duggan, and Al Ewing. I feel like they put the perfect bow tie on what's been over four years of storytelling in this era. And if that's not enough for you,

if that's not going to just make you shed some tears with the grand closing on its own. Chris Claremont has his own little mini-commodel. within this mega-sized comic, which deals with Nightcrawler and facing an absentee parent. And, you know, I'm not going to lie, it made me tear up a little bit. So you might want to check it out for those that love X-Men, for those that have loved the Krakawa era, that want to, you know, maybe start at the ending or just want to cry about some deadbeat parent shit, you know, tap in. Peace.

All right, your friend, Ben, back again with this month's final listener recommendation. Sent to Ringerverse Recommends at gmail.com by longtime fan and first-time writer Tzu Chow, who says, I'd like to spotlight the recently released Metroidvania game Nine Souls, S-O-L-S. Nine Souls is a 2D Metroidvania that is best described as Hollow Night Meets Sekaro. Described as Tao Punk by its creator, it features a setting that mixes Chinese mysticism with a cyber-futuristic dystopia, along with gorgeous hand-drawn art, and most importantly, brutal but satisfying combat mechanics, inspired by Sekaro's Perry. It also has a story that's presented

through comic-style cutscenes and character dialogue, something that's rarely a focal point for Metroidvania games. The combat is brutal and requires patience and precision. Each death requires you to go on a corpse run to retrieve dropped resources not dissimilar to Souls games. However, when you get into a flow state,

precisely parrying enemy attacks, each success accompanied by a satisfying symbol chime like an impromptu Chinese opera fight, it's one of the most satisfying gaming experiences you'll ever have. Released at the end of May, just ahead of the chaos that was summer game fest, Nine Souls seems to have been lost in the shuffle, which is a shame because it might be one of the best games released this year.

It has overwhelmingly positive reviews on Steam and an 8.9 user score on Metacritic, despite very few gaming publication reviews. For those pining for Hollow Night Silk Song, Nine Souls is a worthy alternative. I'd also like to highlight its Taiwanese developer Red Candle Games, previously best known for making two highly regarded horror games, which, which bravely pivoted into a well-established genre and made something worthy of uttering in the same sentence as Hollow Night. The game was crowdfunded and delivered an excellent condition. Its existence is a defiant contrast to the incoming wave of Chinese AAA games with seemingly unlimited budgets like Black Myth Wukong and Phantom Blade Zero,

showing that small independent studios can also create something world-class with just the support of people and creativity. Well, here at the Ringiverse, we create things with the support of people in creativity, too. people like Tsu and people like you. So to tell us what we've missed while we've been busy with Jedi and Dragons and Soups, or to submit your own nomination for next month or a future month, send us an email or even a recording to be played on the show at ringerverse recommends at gmail.com. All right, let's recap the picks from June 2024. From Van Lathen, the second season of animated series My Adventures with Superman on Adult Swim and Max.

from Joanna Robinson, the sci-fi fantasy novel Moonbound by Robin Sloan. From Arjuna Ramgapal, the D&D retrospective book, The Making of Original Dungeons and Dragons, 1970 to 77. From Steve Alman, the Night Springs Story expansion DLC for the video game Alan Wake 2. From me, the animated Netflix movie Ultraman Rising. From Charles Holmes, the Crunchyroll anime Windbreaker, from Jomey Adoneron, the animated Netflix series Jurassic World,

Chaos Theory from Zach Cram, the Y-A-Fantasy novel Spin of Fate by A.A. Vora. From Jonathan Kerma, aka Kerm, the comic X-Men 35 or Uncanny X-Men 700. And finally, from listener to Chow, the Metroidvania video game on Windows and Max, nine souls. Woo! More recommendations to come next month. For now, please stay tuned for next week's Talk the Thrones, Midnight Boys, and House of R on House of the Dragon, the Acolyte, and the boys. We'll also be button-mashing about the best games of the first half of the year. Thanks to Steve Allman for producing this episode, to Jomi Adeneron for editing and posting our recommendations on the socials, and to our Juno Ramigapal for serving as

Ringervor's Dungeon Master. Finally, thanks to you for listening and to the creators who give us so much to discuss. We'll talk to you soon, and in the meantime, we hope you'll recommend the Ringiverse. Feels like every product claims real protein these days. But Real doesn't start on a label. It starts at the source. Like real California milk from California farm families. It's real dairy delivering high quality, complete protein with all nine essential amino acids to help build muscle, give you energy, and keep you satisfied longer.

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