Episode 104 - Rat City 4 and Sam And Twitch Case Files 3

[00:00:00] Speaker A: No good deed, no good deed. No good deed goes unpunished. Good evening, and welcome to the Mal Bulls. This is regarding spawn, the world's best spawn, a podcast. I am your co host, Jon Fisher. [00:00:55] Speaker B: And I am your co host, David Williams. And Johnny. Johnny, I don't know about you, but I've been very much enjoying new music lately. There's a lot of good shit coming up this season. It's good. [00:01:08] Speaker A: I need to get back on music. [00:01:09] Speaker B: There's new Nile last week, new leprous this week. New opeth coming out. [00:01:15] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:01:16] Speaker B: New immortal bird. I know those names mean. Absolutely. [00:01:20] Speaker A: I've heard of Opeth. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Every five or six years in the metal world. There's just, like, one season that it's like. Like a gluttony of riches, and then for the rest of the time, it's, like, sporadic, but there's been a lot of good shit released this year. [00:01:36] Speaker A: That's good. [00:01:37] Speaker B: How's it going in the nonmetal realm? [00:01:40] Speaker A: You're lucky I'm fucking here, because today is the launch day of Star wars outlaws. There's a brand new Star wars video game sitting on my Xbox right now. [00:01:48] Speaker B: Oh, shit. [00:01:49] Speaker A: Yeah. Open world. It's like grand theft Star wars. [00:01:52] Speaker B: Are they known outlaws or are they. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Her name's. You play as a character named K Vessel, and she's, like, a known smuggler. I mean, she's not a. She's a new character, but she's, like, has. She's, like, not like a brand new smuggler or anything, but it's open world and supposed to be pretty cool. You go to Tatooine. You can go to Kijimi from Rise of Skywalker, where Babu Frick lives. [00:02:16] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, nice. Does the whole planet have the little bitty doors? [00:02:20] Speaker A: I imagine so. Well, he's just a droid maker on Kojimi, which is, like, a backwater, like, criminal planet, because that's where Poe is a criminal. [00:02:29] Speaker B: You're gonna. You're gonna have to let me know if CaD Bane shows up. [00:02:32] Speaker A: I will. Boba Fett. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Hopefully he does. That dude's awesome. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll let you know. In Star Wars, Jedi Survivor, they had Boba Fett show up, and you didn't expect him. That was pretty cool. [00:02:44] Speaker B: It would be awesome. It would also be very great if, like, you could, since it's open world, you can make it either absolutely ridiculous or very serious. Obviously, Cad Bane would be the serious route, but if you were going to be absolutely ridiculous, you would just go and hang out with Hondo. [00:02:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Hondo might be in it too. I don't know. I know that the pikes are in it. Kira's in it from solo because she, in the comic books became the leader of Crimson dawn after Darth Maul. I guess just left or something. [00:03:14] Speaker B: Or died again. [00:03:15] Speaker A: Died again. Well, no, he left because he didn't die till way later. Maybe died a second time in between the third die. He dies in rebels. Old Obi Wan kills him on Tatooine. [00:03:26] Speaker B: Is it rebels? I thought it was. I thought it was clone wars. [00:03:29] Speaker A: No, it's rebels because it's, like, at the time of, like. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Oh, spoilers for anybody who doesn't know that. Obi Wan Kenobi, go start them all. Oh, it is rebels. [00:03:38] Speaker A: It is rebels. I knew it was rebels. [00:03:40] Speaker B: What the shit? Does he also do it in the Clone wars? [00:03:43] Speaker A: No. [00:03:44] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:03:45] Speaker A: Cuz you probably just watched the clip online, you fool. He probably dies the 6th time. Who knows? He's got spider legs. He doesn't have spider legs. [00:03:52] Speaker B: All right, I guess I just haven't watched the fourth season of Rebels yet. Okay, what am I thinking of from. I don't know. I don't. Oh, I do remember that. That's the episode where Chopper and Ezra get, like, lost in the desert, and then it just, like, cuts away from them to Obi Wan, right? Yeah. Okay. Okay, I remember now. [00:04:13] Speaker A: There you go. Good movie. Solved that. On our spawn podcast. [00:04:17] Speaker B: You are still the authority when it comes to Star wars. On regarding Spawn, I should stop not trusting. [00:04:22] Speaker A: No, I'm just excited to play this game, and it'll be fun, and it's got. [00:04:26] Speaker B: You'll be able to hear it in Johnny's performance. [00:04:29] Speaker A: You will. I'll be going very fast. All right, now let's go. We gotta go. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Come on. Come on. Time's wasted. [00:04:35] Speaker A: What are we wasting time on getting to? We're wasting time on bringing you two issues from Spawn's universe. And we've got two modern issues for you today. Rat city number four. Hot off the heels of our Erica Schultz episode we did a few weeks ago. So if you haven't listened to that, definitely check that out. It's a really great episode. She's awesome to talk to, and just a lot of good insight into the characters and teases about the future. [00:05:02] Speaker B: Yeah. If you don't already love Rat City, the talk with Erica Schultz is gonna make you love Rhett City. If you already love Rhett City, you're gonna love it even more. [00:05:11] Speaker A: You're gonna love it even more. [00:05:12] Speaker B: It's such a good series, John. [00:05:14] Speaker A: So it's rat city number four, followed by someone we also love, Sam and Twitch number three, which has basically so far been Twitch, which is cool. It's fun to see Twitch on his own, but when they finally come together, it's gonna be epic, mate. [00:05:28] Speaker B: It would be great if the second arc was what Sam is doing while Twitch is off in Indiana. [00:05:37] Speaker A: He's just, like, bumping around in New York, going to pizza places, harassing people. [00:05:40] Speaker B: Yeah, like, every third page is him calling Twitch and being like, damn it. [00:05:46] Speaker A: No, but Sam and Twitch. Case files number three. [00:05:50] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:05:51] Speaker A: Those are two issues up today. And I was saying, man, we are in good company. I had fun reading these. We were positively eating today, David, as the kids say. [00:06:00] Speaker B: As they say, yes. [00:06:01] Speaker A: Or said, like a year ago. What do they say now? How do you understand what they say now? [00:06:06] Speaker B: Oh, what do they say? Yeah. I haven't heard eating in a while. No, I don't. I don't know. What. What replaced eating? [00:06:14] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:06:15] Speaker B: I'm sure we will figure it out in, like, three weeks when it finally filters up to us. Yeah. You know, I never. I never knew what the slang was when I was the age to have to be a part of the slang. So I don't. It doesn't matter. [00:06:30] Speaker A: No. We are eating today. We have some great issues of Spawn from Spawn's universe. Cause Spawn doesn't even appear. [00:06:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's actually some eating in one of these issues. [00:06:39] Speaker A: There is some meatloaf and a ranch. A side of salad with a ranch. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah. House dressing in Oklahoma is almost always ranch. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:47] Speaker B: And as much as that kind of makes you recoil as a person who wants to eat a salad to feel healthy, man, fucking ranch dressing is delicious on a salad. It makes that shit so good. [00:06:57] Speaker A: Really good. [00:06:58] Speaker B: So good. Oh, boy. Speaking of so good, Johnny. [00:07:05] Speaker A: Let'S get into it. [00:07:06] Speaker B: We can get you to Star wars outlaws. [00:07:07] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, you're right. I gotta speed through this. I gotta find out if Cad Bane's in it. [00:07:12] Speaker B: You heard that the spawn is so good, Johnny already forgot about having a Star wars game to play. [00:07:17] Speaker A: I know. I'm just mainly looking forward to, like, Monday when I have a day off and I can play. [00:07:23] Speaker B: And you could play all day. [00:07:25] Speaker A: Yeah, all day. There's nothing else going on Monday. Oh, yeah. I record two episodes of. [00:07:30] Speaker B: Regarding Swan, you could have one controller with the Diablo and the other controller with Star wars. Work on making your eyes rotate independently so you can stare at two screens. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Now, David's being really cruel. And on Labor Day, putting the name in Labor Day, he making me record two episodes. [00:07:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm making him labor. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Making me do it. No, it's okay. I wouldn't have switched back to Diablo. I kind of finished up most of what I wanted to do this season, so I'll see it again in October. That's the beauty of the seasonal format they do. But this rat City is not from October. It's from July 2024. [00:08:06] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:08:07] Speaker A: And we got the Covers to cover, and we have our friend of the pod, Mark Spears. [00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Doing the A cover. And it is. I mean, there was never any question of what cover was being picked up for the week this came out. Sorry. No offense to Kevin Keene, who did cover B, which is pretty good. But if there's a Mark Spears cover, you get the Mark Spears cover. That's the word. [00:08:33] Speaker A: Yep. And there's a fuzzy animal on it. [00:08:35] Speaker B: There is. There's a rat. There's a rat, like, way up. [00:08:37] Speaker A: He's the mayor of rats. The mayor of Rat City. [00:08:40] Speaker B: These rats are getting everywhere. [00:08:41] Speaker A: I mean, that isn't in the name. [00:08:43] Speaker B: I mean, I guess it is a CiTY of rats. [00:08:45] Speaker A: Yeah. You got the deviant hunkered up, looking out of. [00:08:49] Speaker B: There's rain hanging out next to a whole bunch of these, like, holographic pseudo neon signs. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Yep. Gotta have them. [00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And the rain. Oh, man. This also just has to be one of the most fun books to work on, Johnny getting to play around in the cyberpunk space. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. For, like, a cover. Just, like, come up with something. That's pretty fun. [00:09:07] Speaker B: I bet everybody who does a cover for this, like, sits back at the end and is like, hell, yeah. [00:09:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Even more than they usually do. [00:09:15] Speaker A: But there he is, the deviant in all his glory. [00:09:18] Speaker B: And he's also got the. He's also got the zoo eyes. [00:09:21] Speaker A: Yes. The anime kind of shiny eyes. [00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah. They're, like, boring out into the universe. [00:09:27] Speaker A: Yeah. So shout out to Mark Spears on a great cover. Hope to have you back on the pod soon. [00:09:33] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. I have to talk about more of these fuzzy animals. [00:09:36] Speaker A: Indeed, because we got that cat coming up with the salmon twitch cover. [00:09:42] Speaker B: Oh, Mandy, I love the return of the cat. [00:09:45] Speaker A: Gotta have a cat. This is a rat, though. He switched out the rat for the cat. [00:09:49] Speaker B: Hey. I mean, if it rhymes, right? If it rhymes, it plays. That's. That's how the. That's how the saying goes. Right? [00:09:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, there's the bee cover, as you mentioned by Kevin Keane, is kind of an opposite view of this cover. It's behind his back overlooking the city. [00:10:04] Speaker B: Yes. So we're seeing a part of the city that the deviant is staring out at. [00:10:10] Speaker A: David said it had the twin Towers in itheme. [00:10:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it's got, it's got a twin Towers feel to it. There's one big building that looks like if you took the twin towers and filled the space in between them with extra floor stuff. And it's just, that's very, that's very New York. Right? [00:10:24] Speaker A: This isn't the September issue, David. It was the July maybe in this world, one world tower or whatever. Something happened to that. [00:10:32] Speaker B: They made two world tower. Yeah, it mitotically divided. So it's, it's just the original tower, but it's gained sentience through the nanites that, uh, that have been invented by pts. And the building just went shwunk. [00:10:47] Speaker A: I must go to my natural form. I must revert. No, but it's pretty cool. Like Kevin Keen style. Like a little more cartoony. [00:10:57] Speaker B: It's very, very clean. There's lots of motion to it, even though everything's standing still. [00:11:03] Speaker A: It looks like if this was like an animated series, like Rat City the animated series, this would be similar to what it would look like. [00:11:10] Speaker B: I would totally watch Rhett City the animated series. Yeah, they should, they should make a kid's version of this first. [00:11:16] Speaker A: That's what I mean. Yeah. Like the end. Not like a prestigious HBO one, but like a, you know, kids one. [00:11:21] Speaker B: What would the food that the show revolves around be like? Ninja Turtles has, has pizza. What would the rats. [00:11:28] Speaker A: I feel like in the future, in cyberpunk, they're always eating fucking noodles. [00:11:32] Speaker B: Like ramen. [00:11:33] Speaker A: Everyone's eating ramen. Yeah, they're like walking down the street in the rain eating noodles. Because in cowboy Bebop, in the movie, they were eating noodles. [00:11:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. They eat noodles all the time. Well, also, because in cowboy Bebop, they're bounty hunters who kind of always miss out on a score. So they're perpetually poor. [00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah, so they're eating. [00:11:49] Speaker B: So noodles is what they can afford in the movie. [00:11:53] Speaker A: I don't know if this is the show, but, like, their instant packs, you just, like, pull out a tab and it, like, cooks in the package. [00:11:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:59] Speaker A: Is what they have on the cowboy Bebop movie, which I thought was pretty clever. [00:12:03] Speaker B: Yeah, either that or, like, sometimes they'll come across something and they'll be like, mushrooms growing on parts of a spaceship, and they're like, man, this is all we have to eat. So I guess we should take these mushrooms with us. [00:12:16] Speaker A: Yeah. Two great covers, but, yeah, if you see Mark Spears, you gotta get the Mark Spears. [00:12:21] Speaker B: You gotta. It's the rule. If I ever. If I ever find out you're not buying the Mark Spears covers, Johnny, I'm gonna. I'm gonna come to your house and throw a Mark Spears cover at you. [00:12:31] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [00:12:32] Speaker B: This one instead. [00:12:33] Speaker A: Okay, I'll take it. You pop it open. Yeah. [00:12:38] Speaker B: That's a good way for you to now, you know, budget consciously have both covers be like, oh, no, I forgot to get the Mark Spears cover this week. [00:12:48] Speaker A: David, you're gonna have to come throw it at me. We pop it open, and we got the credits. Script plot by Erica Schultz. [00:12:57] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:12:58] Speaker A: Art by Zay Carlos. Color by J. David Ramos. [00:13:03] Speaker B: Such beautiful colors. [00:13:04] Speaker A: Lettering again by Erica Schultz. Yeah, I will say there's some wonderful lettering in issue five when he melts down a little bit. Yeah, we'll get there. But anyway, I thought that was really cool, but that is not this issue. [00:13:23] Speaker B: That is not. [00:13:24] Speaker A: We cover the covers. Creative director is Todd McFarlane, and editor in chief is Thomas Healy. Previously in Rat City, Peter and Quinlan meet for the first time as a shocking truth is revealed. [00:13:37] Speaker B: Yeah, that happened. [00:13:39] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [00:13:40] Speaker B: It was quite shocking, actually. [00:13:42] Speaker A: And we open on Quinlan at the apartment of Quinlan. Wally, I guess. Wally. [00:13:48] Speaker B: Wow. [00:13:48] Speaker A: Wally. Ava. [00:13:53] Speaker B: 8 hours. 8 hours before the events on the final page of the previous issue. Channel. [00:13:59] Speaker A: 48 hours. [00:14:01] Speaker B: 48 hours. Whoa. I completely missed the. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Because, remember, she thinks this is before the big flash. She thinks she starts it. [00:14:08] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:08] Speaker A: Which we know she doesn't. [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:11] Speaker A: You know, it's spawning. [00:14:13] Speaker B: It's itchy, old, all natural owl like, exploding the last of his necroplasm meter. [00:14:20] Speaker A: Yep. [00:14:20] Speaker B: Quinlan starts saying they really screwed up. They thought they had it figured out, the power booster that they had. They were like, this power booster that I needed to decrypt some files that I stole from pts. [00:14:33] Speaker A: It exploded, and that's when the energy. [00:14:36] Speaker B: Wave hit it, like, all happened at once. [00:14:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:40] Speaker B: I, like. I love the. This panel on the next page of the energy wave hitting. [00:14:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:14:44] Speaker B: And, like, everything. Everything, like, shifts its focus a little bit. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Yep. I love this little device. It's pretty cool looking. [00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, it kind of looks like a soda can. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Only it's way more. It's got way more juice in it than any jolt cola could ever, ever dream of. [00:15:04] Speaker A: I love the, like, loading power bar. Like, dun dun dun dun. You're, like, waiting on it to get. [00:15:09] Speaker B: The files a loading bar. Factually inaccurate, though. Because I've noticed now that most things don't have a loading bar. They just have a percentage number. Yeah, and the percentage number isn't as fun as the loading bar. Come on. [00:15:20] Speaker A: No, give me the loading bar. It's something to watch. Just in these last few pages. It's like boom, boom boom. Action. Action. [00:15:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:15:27] Speaker A: The colors are great. It's story told very well through the pictures. [00:15:32] Speaker B: And there's light narration over. You know, we're getting the story through the action. I also like this. Something on your computer starts going wrong and it's just like, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. [00:15:45] Speaker A: Pretty much. Especially if it was, you know, catches on fire. Catches on fire. [00:15:51] Speaker B: So Quinlan eventually founds, like, a pitcher of water and just, like, dumps it on there. And then they're like, whoo whoo. But then after Quinlan gets the fire. The fire out. There's. There's powers out everywhere. There's a bam bam on their door. A bam bam, wham. Thank you, ma'am. [00:16:08] Speaker A: A bam bam wham. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Quinlan does, obviously, what you would do if the power goes out and somebody starts knocking off the door and running in the other fucking direction, hiding in the bathroom. Hiding, yes. [00:16:19] Speaker A: But she hears a scream from beyond the door and we see that it's Rhys. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Yeah. Rhys is like the necro. The necro lightning going through him. It's actually. It's like a mixture of. Of necroplasm and lightning beams of different colors going on. And he's just like, cocooned in it. [00:16:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:36] Speaker B: Oh, boy. [00:16:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he's going through the same stuff that we saw Peter go through a few issues ago. [00:16:42] Speaker B: I like how Ze has done things to make it look kind of like you're looking at one of those old fashioned 3d pictures without the glasses. [00:16:50] Speaker A: It does look like that. [00:16:52] Speaker B: It almost feels like if I were to find some of those and put them on, that these. These lightning beams would just be like, pow. And pop out at you. [00:16:59] Speaker A: Yeah, the neon green and blue is a cool mixture. [00:17:03] Speaker B: You know, I wonder if that I need to find myself some of those. Let's see if that works. [00:17:08] Speaker A: The red and blue ones. [00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:11] Speaker A: I can't remember the official name. [00:17:13] Speaker B: They just called them 3d glasses for the longest time until they. [00:17:16] Speaker A: Glasses. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Until they came up with the. With the. The regular ones that they do for the movies. [00:17:20] Speaker A: The sunglasses. So Quinlan comes out of the bathroom and you see the electricity zapping through her door. And they're like, what the hell's going on? And looks through a futuristic peephole, which is a nice little stretch. [00:17:34] Speaker B: It's a gigantic peephole, Johnny. [00:17:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:37] Speaker B: And then as they're peering through the peephole, Rhys does like a kind of. He does like a dramatic hamster. [00:17:45] Speaker A: Yes. And turns around. [00:17:47] Speaker B: He turns around. He's got the. [00:17:51] Speaker A: Eyes, the spawn eyes, the anime shining eyes. [00:17:56] Speaker B: Yeah. He doesn't have the outline yet of, like, the spawn mask, but he does have the. [00:18:01] Speaker A: That's when he gets supercharged. [00:18:03] Speaker B: Later, Reese and Quinlan start talking through the door, like, hey, hey, you're out there. Let me try to open this door. And Quinlan tries to open the door, and it will go. [00:18:13] Speaker A: That's something. The future of the power goes out. You can't get your fucking door open. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Yeah. No, that's terrifying. That's a fear that I've heard people express about a Tesla. Like, what if the power goes out and I'm in a sinking car? How is the door supposed to open? [00:18:28] Speaker A: Yikes. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Yikes. I did learn a little trick that apparently, due to their danger senses, if you really want to cut in front of a Tesla, and the Tesla driver isn't letting you in, if you just merge, their automatic braking system will allow you to just zoom right in. [00:18:50] Speaker A: There you go. [00:18:53] Speaker B: But that's only if it's working. If it's not working, it will probably speed up and hit you. What high hopes we had for that company, Johnny. And what delivery they have not given. [00:19:06] Speaker A: I saw a cybertruck the other day. [00:19:08] Speaker B: I saw one too. I didn't see it driving. It was parked. [00:19:11] Speaker A: No, it's all parked too. [00:19:12] Speaker B: Yeah, they saw ugly in real life as they look on the computer. [00:19:17] Speaker A: They look like something from Halo. From, like, n 64 halo, if that existed. [00:19:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I think somebody's actually modded their cybertruck to look like a warthog. [00:19:26] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, they kind of do the. [00:19:29] Speaker B: If I remember correctly, the picture online was actually accompanied by the title stolen Valor by some old millennial Lan party kid. [00:19:40] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Not very cyber. [00:19:43] Speaker B: No. But you know what is cyber, Johnny? This technique. Reese just wrenching open this door. [00:19:50] Speaker A: Yeah? He rips it right open. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Quinlan makes a little joke about not getting the security deposit back. Well, news flash, Quinlan, you ain't. You. You weren't going to get that thing back anyway. Yeah, that's. That's a trap as old as time. Yeah. Trying to convince you that if you clean your apartment before you leave, you get your security deposit back. No, they just keep the security deposit. And, hey, guess what? They don't have to clean it now because you did. [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yep. [00:20:19] Speaker B: A little awkward reunion, it seems. Not expecting to meet each other again under these circumstances. [00:20:25] Speaker A: Right. And it seems there's a something. War between them. [00:20:30] Speaker B: Mm hmm. There's a little bit of. A little bit of tension here. And, you know, Reese's. Reese is like, it. Something. Something burning in here. It's burning. [00:20:40] Speaker A: Nothing smells gross. And, like, burning electronics. [00:20:43] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:20:43] Speaker A: Burning wires and shit. That smells like burning plastic. [00:20:46] Speaker B: It's real bad. I don't know. Burning hair might be worse. Burning hair might be bad. They're both. They're both also very insidious. So, like, once they happen, it's gonna be weeks before that. That smell is fully gone. [00:20:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:59] Speaker B: They both determined that they're both safe, which is good because they're both there when they're seeing each other, so they know they're safe. And Reese gives Quinlan a little kiss on the top of the head. A little smooch arena right there on the purple hair. [00:21:13] Speaker A: Yep. And we have the pop up of adapt or die, remember? [00:21:17] Speaker B: A fun little joke. Yeah. Well, keep adapting then. [00:21:21] Speaker A: I don't want you to die. And then you turn the page, and there's a big old. [00:21:25] Speaker B: A big old smoocherino. So Reese is spending. Spending all of this time around this interaction, you know, trying to figure out what. What Quinlan. What Quinlan's up to. Quinlan's spending all this time trying to hide what they've done from Rhys. And then after the. After the smooch, Rhys is just like, give it to me straight. What did you do? [00:21:48] Speaker A: I fucked up. [00:21:49] Speaker B: And then says, they fucked up. So then we cut back to in media fall from Brooklyn Bridge. [00:21:56] Speaker A: Yep. At the end of the last issue, number three. [00:22:00] Speaker B: Mm hmm. And Quinlan is just going down, just teeth gritted, straight, headfirst. [00:22:07] Speaker A: And we know that Peter won't let her die. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Peter won't let them die. Nope. And so Peter just. Peter jumps after them. And as he jumps, the deviant suit, just like, it venoms together all over. [00:22:20] Speaker A: He does this doc ock thing. [00:22:22] Speaker B: He reaches the cape, reaches out, and catches Quinlan and wraps them up in the cape. And then Peter gets ahold of them, and right as they hit the ground, they shadow walk from the ground of the alley into the apartment of Owen Reese. [00:22:41] Speaker A: Just bam. [00:22:41] Speaker B: And, uh. Yeah, I know. We get. We get a classic. We get a classic spawn. Uh, first shadow walk experience here, Johnny. [00:22:48] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:22:49] Speaker B: And Quinlan. Quinlan hurls in the sink. It delivers. [00:22:54] Speaker A: They know that. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Erica. Did you say Erica Schwartz? [00:22:57] Speaker A: Erika Schultz. Sorry. [00:22:58] Speaker B: Either that or I was paying too much attention to spaceballs, but yeah. So. So Quinlan's thrown up in the sink. And Peter, with the dumbest question of all time. You okay? That's a. That's a. That's a really dumb question to ask somebody who's throwing up. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah, usually that's not good. [00:23:17] Speaker B: It would be much better to just, like, be there and be silent and be helpful. Don't. Are you okay? I see you throwing up, but you know what I mean? Like, you good? Can I leave? [00:23:27] Speaker A: Is it a good throwing up or a bad throwing up? There's no such thing. [00:23:31] Speaker B: It's just throwing up. [00:23:32] Speaker A: It's just thrown up. And it's always. Never fun. [00:23:35] Speaker B: No, it never is. Oh, geez. So Peter. Peter's trying to continue the pre Quinlan jumping off the bridge conversation, trying to be like, you know, first off. He's like, first off, I don't understand. What the fuck is this suit? What is it doing? I don't know. We'll figure it out later. And then, you know, Quinlan's. Quinlan's saying, this is all my fault. I did all of it. And Peter's like, ah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Hold on. Back up. We need specifics. What are people after you for? [00:24:04] Speaker A: Yeah, and they've. They've roughed. They've mussed up her apartment. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's Reese's apartment. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Reese's apartment. His apartment. [00:24:12] Speaker B: Yeah. So. So obviously, obviously whoever. Whoever is after them knows that Rhys and Quinlan were working in tandem. [00:24:20] Speaker A: Yep. [00:24:21] Speaker B: We learned the backstory of Quinlan used to work at PTS. They discovered, probably as a data analyst, found some encrypted files that weren't flagged with any sort of official thing. So they were like, what is this? What is this? Yeah. Look into it to try to see where they can put it for actual, actual documentation purposes. And was horrified to find what they found in those files. [00:24:49] Speaker A: Johnny, they're using them all as guinea pigs, all kind of experimental crap into their patients. [00:24:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And we see specifically Quinlan's covering their mouth in surprise is when they notice that both Peter and Rhys were part of the program. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Yes. It has, like, a cool keychain thing. [00:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Like this little USB stick for the amount of computing power that gets collapsed into smaller, smaller bits every few years. Johnny, how much space do you think a thumb drive that. That size? [00:25:24] Speaker A: It's probably like a 20 terabyte fucking USB drive. [00:25:29] Speaker B: It just, like, holds all of the world's knowledge from. From the beginning of computing to somewhere around 2026. [00:25:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I remember how small they were. Not small, but like. [00:25:41] Speaker B: But like. Yeah. [00:25:42] Speaker A: And how expensive they were. [00:25:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they were like $40 for 512 megabytes. [00:25:47] Speaker A: Yeah, because I bought. That was the original way you could add on, like, a hard. Your Xbox 360 didn't have a hard drive unless you, like, got one specifically. And it was really small. So you could put in these little. Mine think, look like pinhead by the end of it had, like, three of them. But. [00:26:02] Speaker B: And it probably also, since it only held 512 per per thing, it probably also said, I am so exquisitely empty. [00:26:13] Speaker A: No, they could use the. There was a 16 gig you could use. It could use up to a 16 gig one. But those were expensive. [00:26:19] Speaker B: Those. Yeah, those were like $200. [00:26:21] Speaker A: Yeah, we're like 150 or so. [00:26:24] Speaker B: Yeah, man, those were the. Those were the things you had to ask for the Walmart employee to open the little, like, the bulletproof glass case. [00:26:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:26:34] Speaker B: Where they kept all the game Boy games and the USB sticks. [00:26:39] Speaker A: I think just like three years, consecutive for Christmas. Basically. My mom was like, what do you want for Christmas? And I was like, USB drive. I think I just use it as my Christmas cardinal for, like, three years in a row. It was like a eight gig, 16 gig, and then a 32 gig as the years went on. But, yeah, this one's probably a ten terabyte, and it's, like the size of a key. [00:26:56] Speaker B: And we learned that Quinlan then goes to, you know, tries to basically file a complaint with the government watchdog groups. [00:27:03] Speaker A: Does the right thing. [00:27:05] Speaker B: Does the right thing. But as we know, sometimes corporations are. [00:27:10] Speaker A: A little shady, and no good deed goes unpunished. David. [00:27:14] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely not the theme of the episode. Yeah. So. So we learned that PTS is in bed with the government watchdog agency and what is definitely not supposed to happen at all with whistleblower complaints. Quinlan gets. Gets the boot and some. [00:27:31] Speaker A: Literally, the boot. [00:27:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I like the little stars. Yeah. Because I'm going to assume that's probably, um, you know, it's not salacious, but I'm going to assume that's probably Quinlan's butt right there. [00:27:47] Speaker A: Yes. [00:27:47] Speaker B: And they're getting the boot swiftly to it because it kicked me out on my ass. Yeah, yeah. Some subtle work there, but, yeah. So then. Then Quinlan goes home and does their. Their hacks or thing and is, you know, trying to infiltrate certain groups of people who are trying to. It's like the conspiracy boards. This is futuristic four chan before it turns into terrible. [00:28:12] Speaker A: Yes. [00:28:13] Speaker B: Just trying to find anybody who will talk to them to try to get more information and disseminate more information. And the only person who didn't ignore them, Johnny, was Reese. Good old Reese, they were going to. [00:28:25] Speaker A: Work together to shut down pts. He was going to help reach out to other vets. And Peter's like, well, yeah, okay, that's all well and good, but you didn't tell me how you started the blackout. [00:28:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And it seems like this is how Quinlan and Rhys meet. Officially. [00:28:41] Speaker A: Yep. At a bar with a cool neon sign and has, like, a holographic menu. [00:28:47] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a burger. They're eating a burger. [00:28:49] Speaker A: The can's, like, futuristic looking. [00:28:52] Speaker B: Yeah. And then Reese fall hard. Look at this. Reese fall real hard. Reese. San Quentin, sitting in a tree. Yeah. So then Peter's like, okay, okay, okay, okay. But how did you. How did you cause the blackout? And so Quinlan says that they were using those same forums to try to find a battery that could help them get enough power to decrypt these files they had. Because apparently there's a proprietary pts encryption that takes a lot of. [00:29:21] Speaker A: A lot of power, a lot of juice. You gotta use that power. [00:29:24] Speaker B: They were able to get a power booster from some shady person in the alley. Lots of shady alley handing overs. [00:29:34] Speaker A: Yes. [00:29:35] Speaker B: So Quinlan says that power, that power supply is what caused the blackout because it just, like, short circuited the whole system. [00:29:42] Speaker A: Yep. But we know that that's not what happened. [00:29:45] Speaker B: Yeah, we don't. We know, but they don't know. [00:29:47] Speaker A: They don't know. [00:29:48] Speaker B: And then Peter's literally saying that. He's like, you don't fucking know that. You're the one that did that. Why are you being so hard on yourself? But he's interrupted by doctor Ammon coming in with his prosthetic lower lip and his blaster rifle. And he's like, I want those files. Go to files. [00:30:08] Speaker A: And that's the cliffhanger we end on. [00:30:12] Speaker B: Yeah. This is very current main title, where it ends with just the appearance of one character. Yep. [00:30:20] Speaker A: That's been happening a lot. [00:30:22] Speaker B: We got the sculpt and the issue. New generation news stories. New you. [00:30:27] Speaker A: Yeah, we got violator on this one. The first time. We got violator. [00:30:30] Speaker B: Yeah. Which hasn't come out yet. [00:30:32] Speaker A: And it says August 2024. [00:30:33] Speaker B: It says August 2024. And not to blow up our spot on anything, but there's. There's, like, a day left in August. There's no Wednesday left in August, y'all. [00:30:45] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it got delayed to September. I didn't just miss it, did I? No, I would have heard of that. [00:30:49] Speaker B: No. No, my comic people definitely would have been like, why didn't you pre order this? We got it. Or either that or they would have pulled it for me. Cause they're. They know. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Yeah, same with challengers. I'm just like, sign me up for all the spawn. Cause they actually stopped me one day, and they were like, we noticed we have zero preorders for spawn kills everyone. Number two. Like, you needed to preorder that, right? I was like, oh, shit. Yes. [00:31:11] Speaker B: It's a good thing you pre ordered it because it's fucking good. [00:31:13] Speaker A: Yeah. I haven't read it yet, but I'm gonna read it after this, probably. [00:31:16] Speaker B: It's a joy. [00:31:17] Speaker A: I can't wait. [00:31:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:31:19] Speaker A: I love the first one. Excited to check it out. [00:31:21] Speaker B: Advertisement for Spawn Origins collection, volume one. Only $9.99, Johnny. [00:31:27] Speaker A: Yep. Then we got my favorite comic, Witchblade. [00:31:31] Speaker B: Witchblade. Oh, man, I love Marguerite Bennett. It's a good. It's a good one too. This Witchblade is a good series. [00:31:38] Speaker A: Yeah, I was gonna get it, but I have too many comics I need to read, so. Yeah, we also have that paperback, Warhammer. [00:31:44] Speaker B: 40K is the toy advertisement on the back page. [00:31:48] Speaker A: Indeed it is. And that's. That's it. [00:31:51] Speaker B: That's it. That's red city number four. [00:31:53] Speaker A: All the way from the future and. [00:31:56] Speaker B: The past at the same time. [00:31:59] Speaker A: Jinx, you owe me a coke. All right, next up, we got a hot case for you. A case file. [00:32:23] Speaker B: A fucked up case. [00:32:24] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not really a hot case. [00:32:27] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's ongoing, so it's. It's, uh. It's as twitch does say at one point, the media is gonna have a field day with this when it gets out. Yeah, I guess that makes it a hot case. [00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:40] Speaker B: Probably make or break a career or two. [00:32:42] Speaker A: Yeah, or make a good season of fucking true detective. [00:32:46] Speaker B: Yeah. I've never seen any true detective. [00:32:49] Speaker A: Neither have I, but it seems similar to this. [00:32:52] Speaker B: But I've been told it's good. Yeah, I've been told it's very good. [00:32:56] Speaker A: These are some true detectives right here. And the covers highlight them very well. We got two Jonathan glaffion covers. [00:33:04] Speaker B: Yes, we do. Which cover do you have, Johnny? [00:33:07] Speaker A: I got Sam. What'd you get? [00:33:10] Speaker B: I have twitch. [00:33:11] Speaker A: Hey, I figured. [00:33:13] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah, Jonathan Glapion did character. Two different character covers. One Sam, one twitch. And the use of negative space here for twitch is coming out of the buildings, and there's an alley, and there's a little Sam at the bottom of the alley. [00:33:31] Speaker A: Yeah, and this one's the exact opposite. You got Sam with a little twitch at the bottom. [00:33:37] Speaker B: I do like that. The alley is wider for Sam, for twitch, like, to. Just to show that Sam is a bigger person. [00:33:45] Speaker A: Yes. The detail in this is great. I think Sam's also smoking two cigarettes. [00:33:51] Speaker B: Oh, man. I mean, that's. That's. [00:33:55] Speaker A: That's a. That's a feat. [00:33:56] Speaker B: I mean, that's. That's on brand, though. Sam is definitely. Sam is definitely the person that, like, lights a cigarette, puts it in the ashtray, then lights another one. And it was like, ah, fuck, I got two. He's like, uh, who was it? Caliban in the. In the bar in main title, where he. [00:34:15] Speaker A: Oh, he was triple smoking. [00:34:17] Speaker B: Yeah. He was a cigarette forever hand. [00:34:20] Speaker A: Yep. No. [00:34:21] Speaker B: Pretty cool. [00:34:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Jonathan Glassian again, as we always say, we're really excited for no home here. [00:34:27] Speaker B: Excellent use of negative space in these. [00:34:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:34:29] Speaker B: There's like, there's like layers of negative space. It's so good. [00:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Take a peek at them online. [00:34:38] Speaker B: If. [00:34:39] Speaker A: You don't have them in front of you, because they're beautiful. And I love that they did like, the two covers, the one with Sam, one with Twitch. [00:34:45] Speaker B: It's real fun. [00:34:46] Speaker A: Just frame them and put the action figures right in front of them. You're good to go. [00:34:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Or if you're. If you're on a budget, you don't have to frame them. You can just use the little stands that come in like a power a page puncher. [00:34:57] Speaker A: There you go. [00:34:58] Speaker B: Because then you don't have to take the whole thing apart to read the comic book. You can just. [00:35:01] Speaker A: That's true. You can just read it. [00:35:05] Speaker B: Maybe they'll release them as posters at some point. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Speaking of reading it. Yeah, we gotta read it. [00:35:10] Speaker B: We gotta open them if we're gonna read it. So we. Twitch. Case files script plop by Chav McFarlane with co plot by John Goff. It's good to see John Goff again. Welcome back, John. Art by Simon Kudransky. Color by FCO placentia and Sheila Saldanya. Lettering by the Tom father himself, Johnny. [00:35:29] Speaker A: Good old Tom o. Tom Wozczkowski, our friend from c two. E two. [00:35:33] Speaker B: We covered the covers. I do like how it says cover arthem tists because that's the template, but it's only got one. Yep. Creative director is Todd McFarlane and editor in chief is Thomas Healy. And then we have previously in Sam and Twitch. Twitch heads out of town to help an old academy buddy on a difficult case. Difficult is putting it lightly, I think, though. [00:35:57] Speaker A: Yes. It seems like a web of conspiracy and death and. Murderous. [00:36:02] Speaker B: Mm hmm. And, man, we just. We just get right into it, Johnny. We start off with a classic nine panel page that I should have not read this next to the old lady on the train. [00:36:16] Speaker A: Yep. [00:36:18] Speaker B: We start off with an eyeball and a hand and legs. Legs and half a face and mutilated face and. Oh, boy. [00:36:29] Speaker A: Foot sticking out of the ground. [00:36:31] Speaker B: It's all the parts that they've been able to find of all these bodies laid out in the lab. [00:36:38] Speaker A: Laid out in the lab and some at the site. Still, it's like a mix of both. Yeah, but that last picture is. Yeah. Laid out in the lab. [00:36:46] Speaker B: And then we turn the page, and it's just. It's twitch going through the actual medical record, medical examiner files, and he's talking to. What's this guy's name? [00:36:59] Speaker A: Jim. [00:36:59] Speaker B: He's talking to Jim being like, hey, we got to make sure to do this real quick, because if the feds sniff anything that they can get out of this, they're going to jump all over it and take it away from you. [00:37:10] Speaker A: He says, from what you're looking at, time isn't on your side. [00:37:13] Speaker B: Then we cut to the middle of a cornfield, and twitch and Jim are walking through a clearing, and we learned that they literally cleared this section of cornfield. Not for amazed, Johnny. No, no, no. But to make it easier to get to the crime scene. [00:37:28] Speaker A: Yes. Because this is what the end of issue two is like, the picture of all the, right. [00:37:34] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Yeah. [00:37:34] Speaker A: The end issue two is like the pictures, all the buried bodies. [00:37:38] Speaker B: I remember one of them ended with body parts. We also get sprinkled in here at the very beginning. What's happening? What's going to happen at the end of the book? We got somebody putting on gloves and opening up a plaid shirt and shoving some straw on it. What's going on there, Johnny? We got a little. We got a little arts and crafts going on in the background. [00:37:58] Speaker A: Yeah. What is that? I don't know. [00:38:00] Speaker B: Maybe. We'll see. Yeah. But then, uh, you know, Twitch is doing. Twitch is doing. Asking questions, trying to get all the information, you know, doing twitch stuff, trying to figure out why the body's here. What's the, what's the point? What's the point of this? It doesn't look like anybody was killed there, which they get confirmation of later on. Yeah, but, but they're like, what's. What's the significance? [00:38:25] Speaker A: What's the point of this spot? What's the deal? [00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's like it's fucking Indiana. There's corn fucking everywhere. Why this corn? You know, Twitch is asking about the cultivation cycle to see about stuff. [00:38:37] Speaker A: Right? [00:38:38] Speaker B: And then they go to. They go to talk to the coroner. The way these word balloons, as we call them, are set, it makes it looks like they're coming out of the basement. And so I wonder if they're in the basement here, Johnny. [00:38:52] Speaker A: They might be. [00:38:53] Speaker B: That's where I would put the morgue, is the basement. [00:38:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, usually that's where it is. It's the coldest spot. [00:38:58] Speaker B: And so the. The medical examiner is looking at some. Some blood spots under the microscope. He's got a. He's got the. The balding with the ponytail. Yeah. [00:39:07] Speaker A: He's got the escrow zoller going on. [00:39:09] Speaker B: He's kind of a little. A little bit like Woody from psyche. Woody is the medical examiner in Psych, and he got fired from one police station for accidentally sewing a sandwich into a body. Oops. [00:39:21] Speaker A: What are you, 80 year old woman watching Psych? [00:39:24] Speaker B: Psych is hilarious. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Hilarious. I know you like this. You like all those USA shows, don't you, Monk? [00:39:31] Speaker B: I've never seen monks. [00:39:32] Speaker A: Okay. I figured you like. I figured you'd like monk. What about burn notice? [00:39:36] Speaker B: Fuck, yeah. I love burn. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Yeah. Bruce gamble. [00:39:39] Speaker B: Are you kidding me? Bruce Campbell just sits around all day in a hawaiian shirt? Hell, yeah. But. So the medical examiner is like, you know, it's four or five months between the victims. [00:39:50] Speaker A: You know, they're killed in different places. The soil doesn't match. [00:39:55] Speaker B: Yeah. He's like, I've been. I've been doing the DNA puzzle to try to get all of the pieces of one person together. We're still missing some pieces, as you can see. [00:40:04] Speaker A: He's just like, why? Why did he want them discovered? What is the point? [00:40:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're like, perhaps they wanted to be found. And they don't know why. I don't get it either, Johnny. And it's like, he could have buried the bodies. He didn't. It was at a field that was about to be cultivated, so that way they would obviously be found sending a message, he says, but what's the message? Is the question, Jenny. [00:40:27] Speaker A: Then they get interrupted by this one cop who looks like Justin Theroux. These two cops come in, and they're talking about a. [00:40:35] Speaker B: The drug. A drug. A drug case they've been working on for a while, for six months. [00:40:42] Speaker A: And they gotta go. It's time. [00:40:44] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, no, no. So he. Justin Theroux guy has a folder of the missing persons for the past six months, and he's like, yeah, it's on my desk. You can get it. We gotta go do this drug thing. Understaffed police force, et cetera, et cetera. They offer to let twitch come and help them on this drug case. And he's like, no, no, no, I got stuff to do. While he's getting papers together, Sam Burke calls, and, you know, twitch hits yield, decline button. [00:41:15] Speaker A: Just tells Jim it's just a spam call. [00:41:18] Speaker B: Sad he blocked it. [00:41:19] Speaker A: I hate spam calls. It gets so fucking many. [00:41:22] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Especially now during election season. Jesus. Oh, yeah, that is so bad. Then a second bald cop makes a prostitute joke. And like, I got some. I got some. I got some calls you might want to take. Then they make jokes about the quality of the prostitutes in their town versus the quality of them in Indianapolis, the. [00:41:43] Speaker A: Big city Indianapolis, you know? [00:41:46] Speaker B: And Twitch is like, yeah, no, yeah, no, guys, no. And Jim's like, man, you guys are jerks. [00:41:53] Speaker A: Read the room. [00:41:55] Speaker B: Tries to go. Tries to go make apologies for him. And while he's doing that, Sam calls again. And like, the way that twitch is holding his fucking phone, you know, Jim can see that it's the exact same person calling from the exact same number. So Jim knows. Jim knows something's. You know, he's starting to put together the pieces of why Twitch is even out there helping in the first place. [00:42:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:42:16] Speaker B: Even though, you know, he called and was like, hey, you should come help with this. He's starting to put together the pieces. They're both puzzle pillars. They do puzzles. They like to put the puzzle pieces together. Jim then introduces Twitch to Kimberly, one of the deputies who is there getting the information or getting some evidence and stuff. [00:42:37] Speaker A: Yeah. And he says, you need a raise? And she says, tell me about it. [00:42:41] Speaker B: Yeah, good joke. And while Kimberly has gone pulling folders, Kimberly is like, it's more than folders. They look at the wall of awards. [00:42:55] Speaker A: Which has, like, a creepy air to it. Like, this guy's, like, so proud of his town. There's obviously some kind of, like, dark history to it. Yeah, it's like foreshadowing in that way. [00:43:03] Speaker B: Been through the civil war, the depression, race wars. Like, okay, yeah, that's great. Any city that's been around since America kind of has seen all of that. I also felt very weird about displaying awards in a police department. That seems very. [00:43:23] Speaker A: No, there's definitely something going on weird in this police department. [00:43:26] Speaker B: That's very weird. Like, who gives out an award for best police? I don't know. It seems like there's individual medals. Like individuals receive medals, but, like, the police department itself they probably give out state awards. [00:43:41] Speaker A: They probably do. [00:43:42] Speaker B: All right, all right. [00:43:44] Speaker A: That's what he says. Anyway. [00:43:45] Speaker B: Twitch is. Twitch is skeptical. He's, he's, uh, he's like, um, uh, I like, I like how he's, he's like, like lazily pointing at them, just feeling like, yeah, you'll be fine. [00:43:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:58] Speaker B: So Kimberly comes back with a box, just like, basically gives twitch the stack of new spawn comics. [00:44:06] Speaker A: Yes. [00:44:07] Speaker B: Podcast. [00:44:09] Speaker A: Giant stack of missing persons in the last six months. [00:44:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, the first picture he finds is the ex cop who was. He was like, I thought this guy just moved away. Why is he in his misses purple? His case? [00:44:20] Speaker A: He's like, oh, this must be a mistake. [00:44:22] Speaker B: He's like, I'll look into this. I'll ask Relis about this one. Then, you know, they part. And Jim's like, yeah, we're gonna get some drone surveillance of those cornfields. We're assuming that the killer knows harvest schedules, which I'm assuming. In a town that size, everybody knows the harvest schedules, so it's not gonna be that news isn't secret. As twitch is leaving, he's just looking over some stuff, and he says, what a mess. Media's gonna eat this up when it gets out. [00:44:48] Speaker A: Then he decides to eat up. [00:44:49] Speaker B: He does. He drives and drives, and he goes to the diner and he orders meatloaf with gravy and ranch dressing on the salad. [00:44:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Love a good ranch. I like, I know, it's like, oh, wow, how bad? But I like occasionally getting ranch with my pizza too. Dipping it in. [00:45:05] Speaker B: Yeah, ranch on a pizza is great. Ranch is just fucking delicious. Yeah, it's real good. One thing I like to do, Johnny, when I want a little snack, and I have all the components, take a flour tortilla, put some ranch dressing in it, fill it with flamin hot cheetos. [00:45:22] Speaker A: Wow. [00:45:23] Speaker B: Roll that bad boy up and eat it. It's phenomenal. [00:45:26] Speaker A: Oh, wow. That's an interesting snack. [00:45:28] Speaker B: If I'm feeling healthy, I might put a little lettuce in there, but that's usually, that's usually not in reserve. That's not in the house as often as tortillas and flamin hot cheetos. Flamin hot cheetos. It's delicious. [00:45:42] Speaker A: Nice. [00:45:42] Speaker B: Works with most chips. [00:45:44] Speaker A: Okay, good call. I remember we used to go to Mexico. Joe's in stillwater. Canceled. [00:45:52] Speaker B: Name not problematic at all. [00:45:53] Speaker A: No. And they would give you queso with chips and tortillas, and I would crunch up the chips, put queso in it, put salsa in it and roll it up. It's damn good. I love that escalation in the nineties and two thousands of mexican places of what free stuff they gave you. Because originally it was chips and salsa. Then, like, teds in Oklahoma City started giving you queso for free, so other places started giving you queso for free. [00:46:14] Speaker B: There was a place in my hometown that made, like, when they brought the chips out, they brought red sauce and white sauce, which, if you read the recipe for the dupe online, you can google it. Just call it Hamlin's El Toro white sauce recipe. You won't be. You won't be disappointed. The recipe itself sounds disgusting. Like it's. It's like Keenan trying to explain the. The recipe for the secret sauce and good burger. Yeah, like, it's. It's. That level of. This sounds fucking disgusting, but it's delicious. Due to the popularity of that, every Tex Mex place in town had to start making their own white sauce or they would literally lose customers. [00:46:54] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:46:54] Speaker B: Like, there's no white sauce. Fuck this. I'm out of here. [00:46:57] Speaker A: That's hilarious, Sam. Well, Sam eats his meatloaf and salad. [00:47:02] Speaker B: Twitch eats his meatloaf and salad. [00:47:04] Speaker A: Sam. Why did I say Sam? Twitch? [00:47:06] Speaker B: Cause it's. Cause it's food and it's obviously. [00:47:08] Speaker A: Yeah, usually. [00:47:09] Speaker B: Speaking of Sam, he's looking through the. [00:47:12] Speaker A: Actually, he doesn't eat his salad. It's just sitting there. What the fuck? [00:47:16] Speaker B: But it doesn't have any ranch dressing on it. Maybe that's why he only ate the wet. The wet leaves. [00:47:21] Speaker A: Maybe put his ranch on his meatloaf. [00:47:23] Speaker B: Hey, meatloaf can take anything. Meatloaf can take. Barbecue sauce can take ketchup. [00:47:28] Speaker A: I'm sure it can take a ranch. [00:47:30] Speaker B: You know? You know, meatloaf is good, Johnny. Yeah, there's that long running joke about meatloaf and. Ha. Meatloaf and it being, like, the joke dinner. Man, meatloaf is fucking good. [00:47:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I used to not like it as a kid, but I like it now. [00:47:45] Speaker B: I used to make meatloaf sandwiches with the leftovers and. Oh, boy, a meatloaf sandwich is. That's good shit. Sounds good. That's real good shit, but yeah. So Twitch is sitting there looking over the files, and there's a lady at the bar who just keeps looking over at him, and eventually she looks over. [00:48:05] Speaker A: And he's gone and he's in the car. [00:48:07] Speaker B: We also see that Sam has called. [00:48:08] Speaker A: Three times, and he's in his car outside Healy's hideaway. [00:48:12] Speaker B: Yep. The hotel. [00:48:13] Speaker A: The hotel and he's trying to call his wife, Helena. But then there's a knock. [00:48:18] Speaker B: It's the lady from the bar. And she's got, like, fucking babadook eyes. [00:48:22] Speaker A: She's got scary mascara eyes. [00:48:24] Speaker B: She's been. She's been crying. And her mascara is just running, running, running, running, running. Yeah. [00:48:29] Speaker A: So she followed twitch from the diner. [00:48:31] Speaker B: I'm gonna assume the diner is attached to the hotel because they did mention that they have the best pancakes in town. [00:48:37] Speaker A: Okay. [00:48:38] Speaker B: And, you know, most. Most motels, hotels have a diner or something nearby. Yeah, like a Denny's or. [00:48:45] Speaker A: Or Ruby Tuesdays. [00:48:47] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. You know, from experience. [00:48:50] Speaker A: I know Denver. [00:48:51] Speaker B: So this lady was the. That one guy, that one police officer who is on the missing persons list. Officer Lasky was her boyfriend. Was the best boyfriend she ever had. And she's like, he didn't go somewhere else. He didn't fucking. No, he didn't go to Indianapolis. He fucking hates it there, right? They said he went to Indianapolis, right? [00:49:16] Speaker A: Kentucky. [00:49:17] Speaker B: Kentucky. Yeah. He didn't go to Kentucky. He fucking hated Kentucky. So she's like, you gotta. You gotta listen to me. Nobody's listening to me. And she thinks. She thinks that twitch is part of the conspiracy to cover stuff up, right? And twitch is like, what is. What is going. What is. What is that? And then, you know, twitch. Twitch says he's. He promises he's gonna look into it. And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard that before. [00:49:39] Speaker A: And Twitch just goes into his hotel room, but he knows something's up. [00:49:43] Speaker B: His gears are turning. Johnny. And then we cut back to that arts and crafts person from the beginning of the issue, putting on gloves again. And they got. [00:49:53] Speaker A: They got some straw. [00:49:55] Speaker B: Straw. [00:49:57] Speaker A: No good deed. Over and over again as he stuffs these clothes with straw. [00:50:02] Speaker B: No good deed goes unpopular. Punished. [00:50:07] Speaker A: Is that a song? [00:50:08] Speaker B: No. Act of charity goes unresented. Yeah, it's no good deed from wicked. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. We turn the page and there's some ominous looking scarecrows. [00:50:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Some scary fucking scarecrows. They do. They do, though. They do look very much like scarecrows that are right up Pearl's alley, though. [00:50:30] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, she would love that. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Scarecrow. Pearl would fucking. Fucking dance with those dudes by the pale moonlight. Anytime, anytime. [00:50:38] Speaker A: One of them's headless. One of them's got a red coat on. [00:50:41] Speaker B: One of them's just all in shadow. [00:50:44] Speaker A: And they're there looking ominous. [00:50:46] Speaker B: It's spooky. Fucking scarecrows. [00:50:48] Speaker A: Scarecrows in the moonlight. Spooky. Spooky. [00:50:51] Speaker B: That's the end of the issue. [00:50:52] Speaker A: Yep. [00:50:55] Speaker B: The new series is new generation, new stories, new you and ad for all. [00:51:00] Speaker A: The monolith, Rat City and Misery. [00:51:02] Speaker B: The image classics ad and fallout is the Toya. [00:51:06] Speaker A: I saw some clickbait headline. I didn't click on it, but it was like creator Fallout says the show could go on for 50 years. And I'm like, damn. Okay. I mean, the video games has been going on for like, 20. They came out in the nineties. So I guess that's not as long. [00:51:19] Speaker B: As you find somebody who can write a story based in that ip. It can last. [00:51:24] Speaker A: Yeah. And FallOUt's such a big world, you could really put stuff into it. Yep. Fallout toys. And that's the end of the issue. Well, I guess that's it. I'm gonna go play Star wars outlaws. Bye. Right. We don't do anything else, do we? [00:51:35] Speaker B: No, no, definitely not. But, you know, looking back at this rat city, we're looking at the little fuzzy. The fuzzy creature that, uh, that Mark Spears likes to put on his covers. [00:51:46] Speaker A: Yes. [00:51:47] Speaker B: And, you know, I'm. I'm surrounded by some fuzzy creatures, some dogs. So I think we should probably rate these puppies. [00:51:54] Speaker A: Jenkin, it's time to rate the puppies. So, first up today, we had rat city number four continuing that exciting rat City story. Get some backstory. There's not a lot of forward moment. This is more of a backstory issue. Not a lot of, like, forward momentum. But you got to take a pause after, like, the action packed first few issues and kind of bring us up to speed. [00:52:18] Speaker B: So fills in a lot of the holes. That gives us some. Some parallel action to when Peter was stuck in the hole and got Kazibert did by, uh, by the explosion. [00:52:33] Speaker A: Right. [00:52:33] Speaker B: Or the wave gives some excellent. Some excellent, like, humanizing backstory to everybody, to. To Quinlan specifically and why they are involved in what's going on. Yeah, it's a very human issue. [00:52:48] Speaker A: Very human, uh, very, like, ground level. I like that. I love the art and just the neon and all the colors. Both Zay Carlos and J. David Ramos are killing it. And it just is fun to, like, peel back the layers on these characters a little bit. [00:53:08] Speaker B: Yeah, like. Like an onion. [00:53:10] Speaker A: Like an onion. People have layers. More shrek. [00:53:14] Speaker B: Not everybody likes onions, though. [00:53:16] Speaker A: That's true. But everybody likes Shrek. [00:53:19] Speaker B: Everybody loves cake. I mean, who doesn't love Shrek? You show me somebody who doesn't love Shrek, and I show you somebody who doesn't have any joy. [00:53:26] Speaker A: All right, you tell them. [00:53:27] Speaker B: Tell them that shit's good. [00:53:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I, like I said, it's kind of a. It's a backstory issue. Great art. I'm gonna give it four exploding power banks out of five. [00:53:38] Speaker B: Nice. Hell yeah. I agree with you that the. The story is, you know, it's. It's a little. It's a little. We're. We're pressing. We're pressing the clutch. We're about to shift gears, but we got that little narrow before we. We can go back up into a higher gear. [00:53:55] Speaker A: Art, you have, like, you know, ebbs and flows. [00:53:58] Speaker B: It's a very emotional issue, especially Zay Carlos's fucking faces. Jesus Christ. Does great faces just, like, great emoting from these faces? Yeah, wonderful. It's wonderful. I love it. I love it. It's good. It's great writing. It's great art. It's a great fucking story. It's a great setting. It's a great concept. It's a great comic book, Johnny. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:54:26] Speaker B: I'm gonna give it for boot to the butt stars. [00:54:29] Speaker A: Boot to the butt stars. And it really plays into. And actually, five makes it retroactively even better because you get a lot more. Even more backstory. That's interesting. So it really plays into five really well. [00:54:40] Speaker B: Having read five, the series already started off great, Johnny. It was great. It's fantastic. It's fucking good. Each issue is better and makes all of the previous issues better for being. I fucking love this series, Johnny. I don't. I don't know. We should just become a Rat City podcast and just read them over. [00:54:58] Speaker A: Just Rat City. [00:55:00] Speaker B: Just Rat City. It's fucking great. If you aren't reading Red City, go read Red City. [00:55:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Hopefully, if you're listening to this, at this point, you're reading Red City. [00:55:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Don't. Just don't just take our word for it. Don't listen to our recaps. Well, do listen to our recaps, but don't just listen to our recaps. [00:55:14] Speaker A: Yes. Experience it for yourself. And second up, we had Sam and Twitch case files number three. Kind of the same kind of thing. Kind of a. Kind of a lower key issue. Just kind of twitch feeling out the town, feeling out the copse. We are getting a sense of something weird is going on and that the case is not what it seems. [00:55:36] Speaker B: Yeah. And we're seeing Twitch put together the. The pieces of, like, because we know that there's weird shit and Twitch knows that there's weird shit, and we're seeing our knowledge and Twitch's knowledge of weird shit. Going on kind of mesh. [00:55:49] Speaker A: I really enjoy the series. I like just the. I mean, I like the characters of Sam and Twitch and just spending time with them and, like, a kind of, like, more serious Todd. Father Todd McFarlane's really good at this hardboiled detective, like, modern noir stuff, so. [00:56:03] Speaker B: Yeah, he really is. He is excelling in the writing on this. [00:56:07] Speaker A: And I like the art, and I like just the clean way it's presented and, like, the word bubbles and everything just make it feel that much more gritty. So, yeah, it's a good issue. I'm gonna give it 3.5. I know that might seem low, but it's just like, that's how I feel in relation to the other issues of Sam and twitch. [00:56:26] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [00:56:26] Speaker A: I gave 3.5 sides of ranch dressing. [00:56:29] Speaker B: Oh, hell, yeah. Can you really have a half, a half a side of. Yeah, I guess. I guess if. I guess if the cup is. [00:56:37] Speaker A: They fill up the Ramekin halfway. [00:56:39] Speaker B: Yeah, but, I mean, some places, it's just like, what you get is what you get, and that's the side, no matter how much they give you. Damn unscrupulous ranch slingers. Oh, man, I want a. I want a ranch salad so bad. [00:56:50] Speaker A: I know that sounds good, refreshing. But, yeah, it's just kind of a lower key issue. Kind of in between. Nothing, a ton happens compared to, like, four and five. So that's why I give it a little lower score. [00:57:01] Speaker B: But, yeah, I would agree with that. [00:57:04] Speaker A: Actually, I should probably should jump it. You know, I'm gonna bump up to four because the covers. Okay, the covers make it for me. So it's gonna go up to four. [00:57:11] Speaker B: Four. Size of ranch. [00:57:12] Speaker A: You get that full side of ranch. [00:57:14] Speaker B: Oh, hell yeah. Hell, yeah. Thank you. Thank you, sir. I can now dunk my chicken nuggets in. Yes, you can. [00:57:20] Speaker A: Be as wild as you want. [00:57:22] Speaker B: Well, now that you've bumped it up to four, it seems kind of like I am copying you on all of the rating because I'm also going to give it four. I'm going to give it four raises for Kimberly. She needs a raise because I love this book. I don't love this book the same way I love Rhett City. [00:57:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:42] Speaker B: I love it in a different way. The two books are almost incomparable, just wildly different. But I am loving watching Twitch in his element. I love Sam and twitch together. But I'm liking this unfettered twitch where it's just pure twitch. He doesn't have to worry about making sure that Sam is, you know, not dropping hoagie dressing all over the crime scene. [00:58:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:08] Speaker B: Informing Sam that he needs to stop yelling about who ate the last doughnut since it was, uh, he himself. Who himself? [00:58:16] Speaker A: Who did. [00:58:18] Speaker B: I'm. I know for a fact at the end of this sort of arc, I'm going to want that. That buddy interaction that they have with each other. But for right now, just the. The pure twitch of it all is. Is wonderful. Um, this art is fucking creepy as hell. It's. Yeah, it's just. It's got a good full time vibe to it. This is the. The culmination of this arc is going to be perfectly timed around Halloween, and it's gonna be, you know, that. That sort of grounded, fucking absolutely terrifying horror because it's something that could happen that's just gonna. It's gonna. It's gonna be perfect. It's got the vibes. It's got the timing. It's good. I love it. And as much as I will rail against the Todd father for current writing he's doing elsewhere, the writing on this is. This is his zone. [00:59:11] Speaker A: Yeah. This and gunslinger, which is funny because they're so polar opposite, but he. [00:59:15] Speaker B: He needs. He needs to. To stick around with more hard boiled shit because he's pushing himself further than he should on King spawn right now. [00:59:27] Speaker A: Well, it feels like. It feels like the one he gives the least care about. [00:59:31] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:32] Speaker A: And it's like. But that used to be, like, the flagship one. [00:59:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:59:37] Speaker A: I don't know. We'll see what happens. [00:59:39] Speaker B: We'll see. We'll see what happens. But, yeah, two good issues that go good together. Johnny, I enjoyed. I enjoyed covering these. These puppies. [00:59:46] Speaker A: Like I said, I'm full. We ate. [00:59:48] Speaker B: Definitely, definitely need to go get a ranch salad. [00:59:52] Speaker A: We ate in the millennial or the Gen Z sense. We've eaten. Yeah, we have not really eaten. Speaking of eating, we mentioned one of our Instagram friends last week, and we'd already picked the highlights, so we didn't really highlight them. But I thought this week we could go back and retroactively give a shout out to that fn nineties guy. Yeah, that fn nineties guy on Instagram. [01:00:22] Speaker B: That'S nineties 90s, not nineties spelled out. Spelled out. [01:00:27] Speaker A: Yeah. But he got the Jurassic park collector's cup. He's got great posts, just, like, really fun content. If you like spawn in the nineties, I mean, obviously they go hand in hand, so there's a lot of, like, crossover there. [01:00:40] Speaker B: A lot of. A lot of wrestling, a lot of Jurassic Park, a lot of sort of action figure nostalgia. He's got the goods when it comes to those. [01:00:50] Speaker A: He's got Jurassic park toys. Pretty cool. [01:00:53] Speaker B: It just hits so hard. Johnny, he's got street sharks. Fucking God, I love street sharks. As we have mentioned many times. [01:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, check him out. Give him a follow. [01:01:04] Speaker B: Especially if you were a nineties kid. If you were a male child in the nineties, this is going to hit. [01:01:11] Speaker A: You right in the feels. But, yeah, give him a follow and give him a shout out. Tell him respawn sent you. Well, also a good account. Not as good, probably, but we have an Instagram account regarding spawnpod. Give us a follow on there. And while you're on your computer, if you want to hit us up with the email, hit us [email protected]. [01:01:35] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:01:35] Speaker A: My question this week is, what is your favorite salad dressing? And I would say, I mean, I do like ranch a lot, but I really like creamy Italian. Specifically the creamy Italian they had at Hideaway pizza in Stillwater, Oklahoma. Creamy, creamy Italian is my personal favorite. [01:01:53] Speaker B: I'm a big fan of a vinaigrette. Vinaigrette classic. There's no room. There's no room to hide with a vinaigrette. Like, if something is bad, the vinaigrette's not going to cover it up, which is a good thing about a ranch salad, where if your vegetables aren't peak, just cover them with ranch. They'll be fine. [01:02:10] Speaker A: There you go. [01:02:11] Speaker B: Vinaigrette is good, but creamy Italian. Underrated. Yeah, underrated. [01:02:16] Speaker A: You don't see it a lot, especially. [01:02:17] Speaker B: Up here in Chicago where you've got a lot of true Italians. [01:02:20] Speaker A: Right? [01:02:21] Speaker B: The idea of a creamy Italian is just like blasphemy, right? It's good. It's good. [01:02:26] Speaker A: Cool. We'll hit us up with your favorite salads, dressing at Gmail. On our. Gmail. What else is good, David? [01:02:32] Speaker B: Our music is good, and it is done by the incomparable Lonnie Bones. That's Lonnie with a Y. Lonnie Bones music. Look him up. He does good shit. Yep, he does. He does good shit beyond just the good shit he does for us. [01:02:47] Speaker A: And make sure to do your good shit. And by that, I mean subscribe rate review. Tell your friends, family, other spawn friends. Let us know. [01:02:57] Speaker B: Eat your salad so you can be regular. [01:03:00] Speaker A: Eat your salad, all that good stuff. [01:03:03] Speaker B: Blast us everywhere. Tell everybody who could ever conceivably like us also, just get some more spawn. Speaking of some more spawn, Johnny. [01:03:14] Speaker A: Yeah? [01:03:14] Speaker B: We're gonna have to. We're gonna have to read some more spawn. If we want this fucking box of spawn comics that Kimberly has brought from the back room to diminish in any way whatsoever. [01:03:24] Speaker A: I know. As I mentioned, you're making me record two episodes on Labor Day, so I'm never. [01:03:30] Speaker B: I'm. Y'all, I'm never gonna hear the end of this. We're gonna be. We're gonna be 76 years old, and Shawna's gonna be like, remember, remember when you made me. You made me record two episodes on Labor Day and I didn't get to play Star wars? [01:03:44] Speaker A: Do you remember? [01:03:46] Speaker B: Something is gonna happen, and you're gonna miss out on some sort of secret, like, limited time opportunity thing. [01:03:53] Speaker A: Yeah, probably to see Cad Bane. [01:03:56] Speaker B: That's actually gonna happen. I'm gonna. I'm gonna laugh. But anyway, to get through this. To get through this stack, we're going to cover a couple of new issues again next week instead of the one old, one new. So we're going to keep on doing with some scorch number 31 there. So scorch. We've already covered scorch, but it'll be the first issue for one of the new mini series. Johnny. [01:04:20] Speaker A: Yes. [01:04:21] Speaker B: We're going to cover monolith number one next week too. That'll be fun. Yeah, we'll get to remit our good friend Sean Lewis, even though it won't be in the pages of scorched that we're covering. [01:04:32] Speaker A: Or Kingspawn. [01:04:34] Speaker B: Or Kingspawn. It'll be good to see our buddy again. [01:04:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I liked that first issue, monolith. It kind of went downhill, but it. [01:04:43] Speaker B: Yeah, the first issue was strong. The other two was not as strong as the first ones. [01:04:49] Speaker A: We'll get. [01:04:49] Speaker B: I will give them right now. We'll get there, though. But, yeah, so that's scorch 31 and monolith number one next week. Week. So, you know, go out, support your local comic shops. Make sure that you're getting these. These current issues that you're helping. Helping these brick and mortars stay. Stay in business. Yeah. All of. All of these creators basically live and die by the success of their current books. So even if they created a really, really, really good series that ended 15 years ago that everybody just loves, they're not making much money off of those. They're making some money. I'm not trying to say that they're all destitute, but if you. If you like your creators and you like more stories, you gotta buy the new shit, Johnny. Cause that's what the world runs on, this new shit. [01:05:31] Speaker A: This is the new shit, as Marilyn Manson said. [01:05:35] Speaker B: Yes. Yes, indeed. That gets us. That gets us there, Johnny. We will get us. And now. Now I'm just. I'm just seeing how long you'll let me go. But before you start tapping your watch, you're gonna bring out the lightsaber and cut me off. I think that leaves me with nothing else to say, Johnny, except for May the scorched be with you. [01:05:58] Speaker A: And also with you, David M. Hell, yeah. Hell, yeah. All right, I'm running out the door. Well, actually, first, you have as much time as you have to keep talking to me is how long it takes me to order a ranch salad on. [01:06:12] Speaker B: Uber eats ranch salad. Are you gonna. How are you gonna eat that while you're playing star? Is you gonna. [01:06:20] Speaker A: I don't know, but I'll figure it out. [01:06:22] Speaker B: That's like the. That's, like, the least Star wars video game acceptable. [01:06:27] Speaker A: Yeah. You want, like, a hot pocket or something you need with one hand? [01:06:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:06:31] Speaker A: All right, I'm off to Star wars land. [01:06:33] Speaker B: All right, well, watch. Watch where you're swinging that. That lightsaber, Johnny. [01:06:38] Speaker A: And it's about smugglers. You don't have a lightsaber. You got a fucking blaster, David. [01:06:42] Speaker B: Watch. Watch where the other people with lightsabers are swinging them. And don't shoot yourself in the foot there. How about that? [01:06:48] Speaker A: All right, sounds like a plan. [01:06:50] Speaker B: All right. Say hi to cad Bane for me. He knows me. [01:06:54] Speaker A: So that's it, just you and me, then. [01:07:01] Speaker B: Uber. [01:07:44] Speaker A: I'm going to need a break. Play the music.