Episode 112 - Monolith 3 and Spawn 356

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I want you to hit me as hard as you can. Good evening and welcome to the Mal Bulge. This is regarding Spawn, the world's best Spawn podcast. I'm your co host, John Fisher. [00:00:45] Speaker B: And I am your co host, David Williams. And Jonny. It's beginning to feel a lot like autumn. It's. [00:00:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Finally. It's not 80 degrees anymore in October. [00:00:55] Speaker B: My favorite part of fall is when a breeze comes through and you actually get to witness the falling of the leaves. [00:01:02] Speaker A: Oh, wow. There's some. Some strong breezes the other day. [00:01:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:01:07] Speaker A: Where's real windy in Chicago? Yuck, yuck, yuck. [00:01:11] Speaker B: It's also really fun to ride your bike through the big piles of leaves in the. In the gutter. [00:01:16] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:01:17] Speaker B: Real crunchy. Real crunchy stuff. [00:01:19] Speaker A: I just love to jump into leaves. [00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Probably shouldn't do that anymore, though. There's. There's a lot of. There's a lot of garbage in yards that you don't think about. [00:01:29] Speaker A: That's true. Crash test dummy. Action figure parts. [00:01:32] Speaker B: Yeah. All sorts of nasty stuffs. [00:01:36] Speaker A: Yeah. It's weird. It was like spooky. Season was hot and now it's like kind of autumn. But we're now in November, recording into the beginning of November here. [00:01:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's basically the people have switched the dial to immediate, immediate Christmas. [00:01:52] Speaker A: So did you do anything for Halloween? Did you get any trick or treaters? [00:01:56] Speaker B: No, no, we live too close to a neighborhood that gives out good candy. Oh, so the kids all just go over there? Yeah. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:07] Speaker B: But yeah, no, I didn't. I didn't do anything. Just sat home with the dogs. [00:02:12] Speaker A: You didn't watch a spooky movie? [00:02:14] Speaker B: We watched the season finale or series finale. Season finale of Agatha all along. [00:02:19] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [00:02:21] Speaker B: It was a good little witchy tale, but that's good. Not what I would classify as capital S. Spooky. [00:02:28] Speaker A: I watched the week of Halloween. I saw the Substance again in theaters. [00:02:32] Speaker B: Ooh, you must really like that. [00:02:34] Speaker A: I did really like that. It was really good. And then I saw Kiki's delivery service for the first time. [00:02:40] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [00:02:40] Speaker A: Which is fun. It's like a fun little quaint movie about, like. Sometimes you get depressed, man, and sometimes it sucks to have a job. [00:02:49] Speaker B: That's the Miyazaki way. Johnny finds ways to make you like, invest in. Oh. Oh. Oh, God. This is so depressing, but so good. What is happening? [00:02:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it was really cute movie. I liked it a lot. [00:03:01] Speaker B: She's got that silly little cat that hangs out with her. [00:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah, it was the dub, so it was Phil Hartman was the cat. I saw the dub, not the sub. [00:03:07] Speaker B: Nice, Nice. I don't have the hate for the subs or the dubs. [00:03:13] Speaker A: The G booms are good. They get good actors. I think they're fine. Kristen Dunst was good. That's Kiki. [00:03:19] Speaker B: I can never quite tell who it is though. [00:03:21] Speaker A: I know that always bugs me. [00:03:24] Speaker B: It's because there are people that you see their faces and you hear their voices and so you only recognize them together. But then when face actors go to audio only mediums, they disappear a little bit. For me, I don't know. [00:03:37] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I agree. [00:03:38] Speaker B: What I see affects how I listen. It's very weird. [00:03:43] Speaker A: One of the ones for me is in Toy Story 4. You cannot convince me that's Keanu Reeves. For some reason, it doesn't sound anything like him to me when he's Daring Dan or whoever he is. [00:03:53] Speaker B: Duke Caboom. [00:03:54] Speaker A: Duke Kaboom. Sorry, I fucked it up. [00:03:57] Speaker B: How dare you, Johnny. Your. Your nephews are like, oh no, Uncle Johnny. How could you? How could you? [00:04:02] Speaker A: How could you forget Duke Kaboom. They already had their Toy Story phase. Now they're in like, one's really into Super Mario. One's really super into Dragon Ball Z. Oh, nice. [00:04:12] Speaker B: Very nice. [00:04:13] Speaker A: The 9 year old likes the Dragon Ball Z and the 11 year old's into Mario. [00:04:17] Speaker B: Hell yeah. Hell yeah. That 9 year old just has hella time on his hands. [00:04:22] Speaker A: I don't think he watches the show. I think he just plays the video game and like, likes the characters. I mean, I don't even know if they're likeable. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:31] Speaker B: It's smashing figure or action figures together, Johnny. That's the whole show. [00:04:35] Speaker A: And they look cool. [00:04:36] Speaker B: And they look cool. And they get strong and then stronger and then stronger and then stronger. [00:04:41] Speaker A: That's a good segue to our issues today, because they're both about either strong beings or beings or people getting stronger by training. [00:04:48] Speaker B: Yes. Or just smashing action figures together. [00:04:51] Speaker A: I mean, basically, that's what Monolith is. But this is regarding Spawn. Welcome. Where each week we bring you two issues from Spawn's universe. Except when we don't. This week is no different. We have two modern issues. Because if you've been listening along, you know that we have a giant stack of modern Spawn to catch up with because there's been so much coming out. So we're just doing moderns until maybe forever. I don't know. We'll see. I mean, Spawnography's got the earlier ones covered, so we could be the future Spawn Podcast always save those classic ones for Patreon baby. Make you pay for them. [00:05:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Then you have to pay for the. Pay for the old books and then pay for the old episodes. [00:05:28] Speaker A: It's a racket. [00:05:29] Speaker B: It's a racket. [00:05:30] Speaker A: No, we're doing monolith number three all the way back from July 2024. And spawn 356 from September 2024. Hmm. [00:05:44] Speaker B: That was over a month ago, Joanie. Over a month. [00:05:49] Speaker A: Ah. [00:05:51] Speaker B: We'Re getting old in this year. [00:05:53] Speaker A: We're getting old in this year. It's getting long in the tooth. It's almost over. [00:05:57] Speaker B: Yeah. What's the. When does the year put on the cloak? Like. Cause, you know, he puts the cloak on first before he puts the hood up. So he's got, like a. A hood down cloak situation. Going for a little while. [00:06:09] Speaker A: Talking about the New Year baby. [00:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah, well, because you've got the New Year Baby turns into Old Man. Old man year. [00:06:18] Speaker A: I thought Old man was the last year who you beat up. [00:06:21] Speaker B: Well, no, because he's like Death with the scythe. He turns like, he gets so old he becomes Death. Because that's how old he is. Right? [00:06:28] Speaker A: That's how it goes. Okay. [00:06:30] Speaker B: That's how I've always. [00:06:31] Speaker A: I always thought they fought. [00:06:32] Speaker B: Am I wrong? [00:06:33] Speaker A: I always thought they fought the baby fought the old man. [00:06:35] Speaker B: But there's an old man fighting a baby. What is. [00:06:38] Speaker A: I feel like crazy. [00:06:40] Speaker B: I feel like if I had been told that that's totally what I would remember. Because what's better than an old man fighting a baby? [00:06:46] Speaker A: I might be remembering, like, a sketch on something where they did that. I might be Remembering, like, a Mr. Show sketch or something. I don't know. [00:06:52] Speaker B: I don't know. Well, if one of us is right or if both of us is wrong, just let us know. Regarding Spawn podcast. [00:06:59] Speaker A: Yeah. Does the New Year Baby fight the New Year man, and does he turn into death? In what? Where did this come from? They used to, like, stage this in arenas. Like, where does this concept even come from? [00:07:10] Speaker B: I have absolutely no idea. [00:07:12] Speaker A: Well, I mean, it was probably like a cartoon in a newspaper. [00:07:15] Speaker B: Probably. Probably. [00:07:17] Speaker A: That's what it seems the most likely. And it was so funny. They just reprinted it every year because you just put a new year on it. [00:07:22] Speaker B: They needed something so the newsies could circulate more pipes. [00:07:26] Speaker A: Exactly. We're circulating these papers and these books, as they call them, just books. You don't call them comics anymore. There's books. That's the cool way to say it. [00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:36] Speaker A: I mean, they're book. [00:07:37] Speaker B: They're book, like. [00:07:38] Speaker A: I know. It's just. It's just funny that I noticed that's like the trend now to say books. [00:07:42] Speaker B: Well, it's. It's one word instead of two. [00:07:46] Speaker A: That's true. That's how, you know. That's what slang is. [00:07:48] Speaker B: It's shortened versions of things we're understanding. You're going into an environment where you'll talk about comic books. So it becomes a little redundant after a while. Right. [00:07:56] Speaker A: It's true. If you're a comic shop, you know what kind of books you're getting. But we have first up, as we said. Might as well get into it. Monolith Number three. [00:08:06] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:08:07] Speaker A: This miniseries is the final issue of the Monolith miniseries. With an ending. There's an ending to it. It certainly is. I mean, certainly is a choice for an ending. [00:08:20] Speaker B: It's kind of a beginning. [00:08:22] Speaker A: The ending is the beginning is the end. [00:08:23] Speaker B: Yeah. That's kind of the whole point, is that this isn't the ending. This is just the beginning, Johnny. [00:08:29] Speaker A: I know. [00:08:30] Speaker B: So I gotta say. Right. Oh, I guess we should probably talk about the covers. [00:08:34] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Before we jump in. We gotta cover the covers. There are two. There's the. A cover by Valerio Giorgio, who is the artist on the book as well. [00:08:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:08:46] Speaker A: And it's monolithic with, like, two pole staff buzz saws. [00:08:53] Speaker B: Yeah, they're like pole saws for getting the branches up on your tree that you can't reach. [00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah, those are some big branches. He's cutting down. [00:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah, he's cutting down. He's cutting down, like, mighty, mighty redwood branches with this shit. [00:09:06] Speaker A: Yeah, he's cutting right through a Planet Eater. [00:09:08] Speaker B: Yeah, he's got that worm and he's pretty cool. He's covered with copious amounts of green goop. [00:09:18] Speaker A: Yes. [00:09:19] Speaker B: All sort of viscera. [00:09:20] Speaker A: It has the double branding, which is interesting. It says a Spawns universe title and new use. They just want to make sure, you know. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Johnny, you can't tell from the. You can't tell. Johnny, can you tell that this is a spawn book? I can't tell you. [00:09:34] Speaker A: No way. A Hell Beast. Like. [00:09:36] Speaker B: Can you tell that this is a spawn book? No, no, I can't tell it's a spawn book. Can you tell it's a spot book? [00:09:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Now you can. Yeah. Pretty cool cover. You know, I like those weapons. Those are wild. [00:09:47] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's a great. It's a great action shot. I like that. There's a whole ass. There's a whole ass Spaceship there just to show how big everything is. [00:09:55] Speaker A: Is that what that is? [00:09:57] Speaker B: Is that not what that is? It looks like a spaceship. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. [00:10:00] Speaker B: It looks. It looks kind of like monolith has jumped from the spaceship. [00:10:04] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:10:05] Speaker B: And then. And then the Planet Eater is coming behind because obviously Planet eaters are going to be real fucking big. Right? And this is just. It's like the scale of this. This one minuscule monolith is going to kill this big ass planet Eater. Hell yeah. I'd pay a dollar to see that. [00:10:20] Speaker A: I pay 3. Well, you're going to pay 250 because according to cover price, this has dropped in price to $2.50. So sad. [00:10:27] Speaker B: But Johnny, you mentioned there was a second cover, didn't you? [00:10:30] Speaker A: There's a second cover. That is very exciting. It's a blank cover. [00:10:33] Speaker B: Ooh. [00:10:33] Speaker A: So it can be whatever the hell you want. [00:10:35] Speaker B: Yeah. If you can. If you can think it and you can draw it, it can be your own whatever. [00:10:41] Speaker A: Your own personal monolith. Three number cover. Yeah, there's a blank for that. So there you go. [00:10:47] Speaker B: Nice. [00:10:48] Speaker A: So we pop it open, we got the credits. Script plot by Sean Lewis with Todd McFarlane on additional script. Hmm, interesting. Valerio Giantiorno for art Ulysses Areola is gone. Colors, letterings by Anne World design. We already covered the covers. [00:11:09] Speaker B: Absolutely did. [00:11:10] Speaker A: Creative Director is Todd McFarlane and editor in chief is Thomas Healy. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Show enough. [00:11:16] Speaker A: Previously in Monolith, Omega Swan and Monolith battle through the cosmos, eventually falling through a tear of time. Or it could be tear of time. It's unclear. Hmm. [00:11:29] Speaker B: I'm trying to think of. [00:11:30] Speaker A: You think it'd be a tear? It seems like it would be a tear in time. [00:11:34] Speaker B: Tear. Yeah, I think it would be a tear in time. Johnny, I have a lot of issues with specific phrasing in this book and I'm like. They could have phrased that slightly different to make it clearer. [00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:11:47] Speaker B: But I don't want this to turn into the pedant show. But just know that I did that. A lot of mental gymnastics while reading this to make it make more sense. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I do too. It's just a pretty. It just like goes and doesn't really explain. It's so confusing where it's taking place and what's going on. [00:12:09] Speaker B: You can. You can figure it out, but it is not. It's not what I would call approachable. No, it's like if you're trying to sit down to read a stream of consciousness novel, you gotta be. You gotta be focused on that task you don't sit down to read one of those. If you're looking to read like a Hardy Boys or a good old Stephen King. [00:12:30] Speaker A: I've never really read a stream of consciousness novel. [00:12:33] Speaker B: They're fucking great, but they're work. So I understand why a lot of people are like, fuck this. [00:12:39] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:12:40] Speaker B: I'm a big fan of Ms. Dalloway. I know she's just a vapid rich woman trying to buy some flowers, but that doesn't mean that it's not incredible. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Is that a book? [00:12:51] Speaker B: Yeah, It's Virginia Woolf, Ms. Dalloway. [00:12:54] Speaker A: Okay. I haven't read it. [00:12:56] Speaker B: It's good. It's good. If you're looking for a little mental exercise during these darker. These darker days and you're cozied up under the yellow lights of your reading lamps and you're like, I want to read something cozy. You could definitely do worse than this, Dalloway. [00:13:13] Speaker A: All right, well, I guess it's time to get into it. We open on Omega Island. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. [00:13:20] Speaker A: Unlike the base that we know very well from around the three hundreds, it was, like, featured in a lot of shit. Gunslinger Main Spawn. [00:13:28] Speaker B: It is much bigger than I remember it being. Johnny. [00:13:30] Speaker A: Omega island kind of just becomes what it needs for the story. [00:13:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And it makes. It makes sense for here because they talk about times repeating themselves and repeating themselves. And then immediately we learned that, like. [00:13:44] Speaker A: There were people here. [00:13:45] Speaker B: This is. This is a time. And they need to figure out which time they've fallen into. So that way they know how to act. So they need to know, like, what century they fell into. So they know, like, who's the king? You know, what sort of treaties are available. It's got a good little bit of time story, but you gotta work to tease that out. [00:14:05] Speaker A: And so Omega and Swan kind of like. Or Mega and Monolith kind of stopped for a second. Then they just go back to beating the shit out of each other. [00:14:12] Speaker B: You know, they're just like, oh, holy cow, that's gorgeous. Bot. [00:14:16] Speaker A: Bop, bop. And Monolith discovers some bones. [00:14:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause Omega smashes them into the ground so hard that there's like an earthquake, and it opens up a gigantic burial pit. [00:14:26] Speaker A: Bones. Do you remember when C3 says bones in Rise of Skywalker? [00:14:31] Speaker B: I do not. I do remember Bapu Frick, my oldest friend. [00:14:35] Speaker A: Yes. No. They find some bones, and Poe Dameron goes, oh, bones. I don't like bones. And then goes, bones. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Oh, Anthony Daniels. [00:14:47] Speaker A: It's when they're. The really confusing part where they're looking for the Ship of The guy who killed Rey's parents. [00:14:52] Speaker B: I don't remember that at all. I should probably watch this film. Jenny. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Maybe not. [00:14:57] Speaker B: Don't tell me what to do. You're not my mom. [00:14:59] Speaker A: I've seen like three or four times. And Rise of Skywalker is like when you're watching it you're like, okay, this is fun. I think I'm having a good time. I like these actors. Things are happening, but then afterwards you're just like, what the hell just happened? Oh yeah, there was Babu Frick. [00:15:15] Speaker B: They turned the emperor into a cenobite. Right? That's what that one was. That was that one. Okay. [00:15:20] Speaker A: He looks cool. [00:15:21] Speaker B: It's just like Cenobite Emperor. He has such sights to show us. Johnny. Could you imagine the cenobite of the Star wars universe just like shows up and takes Stormtroopers who are having existential crises with them, plays them. Speaking of large scary beasts in different universes, Johnny. Monolith recognizes this as the detritus from a predator of some kind. There's monsters there bigger than they are. [00:15:53] Speaker A: There's something bad. He smashes monsters in the ground so hard that it opens a hole into like a pit of dead bodies and flies. [00:16:02] Speaker B: Monolith just jumps down into the piles of bones. So like he's, he's like, I know there's a predator, I want to hunt it. So he jumps down and he's walking through this like waist deep pile of bones. Johnny. [00:16:16] Speaker A: Yeah, it's gotta stink. [00:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah. And Omega's like, hey, I've been, I've been in situations like this before. Why bother? And Monolith is like, nah, nah, I'm gonna do this. Screw you, Omega. So Monolith just like starts walking the basement corridors of the of Omega Island. There's just bones everywhere. Johnny. [00:16:39] Speaker A: He's trying to figure out the time he landed in. He says, the building seems advanced, but not alien. It was built post 20th century and something destroyed it. Is that thing still here? [00:16:50] Speaker B: Is that thing still here? It's. They found the wreckage and it looks like everybody's dead and the thing that attacked them is probably hiding somewhere. [00:17:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that'd be a good plot for like an Alien movie. [00:17:03] Speaker B: I was about to say. Isn't that the kind of the plot of. Part of the plot of Alien is they find that the crashed ship. [00:17:09] Speaker A: They find the crashed ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean like you could have a whole thing. Yeah, they find the crashed ship with the other aliens. [00:17:16] Speaker B: Yeah, they find a ship kind of like the one Ripley was on, only without their Ripley. So everybody died, right? So like a lone survivor. [00:17:25] Speaker A: They find the ship is like an alien ship that carried the aliens. They don't find like another ship. [00:17:29] Speaker B: Oh, no. I was, I was now thinking about the, the story we could write. [00:17:34] Speaker A: Oh yeah, exactly. You just find. [00:17:36] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:17:37] Speaker A: It'd be like a CSI alien because they're investigating what happened. [00:17:49] Speaker B: So. Yeah, Monolith is. He's figuring out what the bullet trajectories were. He's taken samples to send back to the lab for analysis. And at a certain point, Omega, I guess, followed him in and is going, you know, this is his island. He's. He's. He'd been here before Johnny, so he knows kind of the alternate pathways and so he's, he's going to find like the map room so he can, he can find where Monolith is going and track him. Only good things come from somebody doing a one sided tracking of another person. Johnny, nobody tracks for innocuous reasons. [00:18:30] Speaker A: No. Not at all. [00:18:31] Speaker B: Never. Not at all. [00:18:32] Speaker A: I don't know. My family all like. I'm like the only one in my family that doesn't just have my on location on. They're like, yeah, we don't. We just have our locations on all the time on their iPhones. And I'm like, I'm not doing that. [00:18:42] Speaker B: That's. That's weird. That's weird to me. That's weird to me. Yeah. I mean, I guess if you've got children that you're responsible for, you want to know where that child is at all times. I could see that being a thing. [00:18:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:18:55] Speaker B: I have a feeling that if that were available for me and my sister, my mom would have wanted us to have those on. [00:19:01] Speaker A: I just don't want my mom to wake up at 3am and check her phone and be like, oh, he's still out at a bar and text me and be like, go home. [00:19:08] Speaker B: Fun story. Did you know that airtags only work if. Because they use nearby people who have their Find my Phone turned on. And so it piggybacks off of them so that way you can find where your airtag thing is. [00:19:22] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:19:23] Speaker B: So if you lose something with an airtag somewhere where there's not a Find my phone feature on within, I think it's 3km, you're not gonna find it. You're not gonna be able to find it. But then also you're tracking other people to track the thing. Wild. It's wild. [00:19:40] Speaker A: So much tracking. [00:19:41] Speaker B: But anyway, speaking of tracking, Monolith is also tracking this big Old beast to its, its lair. And he's just, you know, walking along being like, hmm, ho, ho, oh, look, is that where it would be? You know, he doesn't find the lair of the beast, Johnny. He finds the resting place of the scorched. [00:20:01] Speaker A: Oh my God. [00:20:02] Speaker B: Difficult to say if they fell in battle or what. They probably fell in battle. It would appear they're just, they're just skeletons wearing badass armors on the ground there. [00:20:13] Speaker A: See, this is where I started to get confused. I thought they were just in the normal time now, but I guess they're not. [00:20:18] Speaker B: This is, this is, this is the far future, Jen. [00:20:20] Speaker A: Far future. Okay? [00:20:21] Speaker B: This is the far future, the grim darkness of the far future. This. Yeah. Very, very far future. And while Monolith is looking down and been like, I know these people. This was a warning. Omega sneaks up behind him and shucks him with a lance. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Just shucks him right in the back, right through the chest. [00:20:41] Speaker B: Monolith is like, oh, this isn't good. I'm probably dying. But you know what? If I'm dying, I'm not going alone. [00:20:45] Speaker A: I'm taking this motherfucker with me. [00:20:47] Speaker B: He just like grabs some random. Is that a rebar? Drops. He picks up some twisted rebar or a cable. I think it's a cable. [00:20:55] Speaker A: I think it's a cable. [00:20:57] Speaker B: It's some twisted cable from the floor of this room he's in. And just like garrots Omega. [00:21:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:05] Speaker B: Flips him over. And then while they're, while they're doing this beat em up action. We go, we cut to the shadows, Johnny, and there's Plague sitting there. We get a brief little overview of the history of Plague as Plague swoops in and slashes at both Monolith and Omega. So that way they stop and they're like, ah, what's this? What's going on? And Plague is just sitting there. Omega monolith, blood just dripping from his claws, being super, super menacing. And we learned that Mother Gaia knew that Plague was here and was specifically is invested in Plague being the best that it can be. Because she wants this original unfit for production hellspawn symbiote suit. She knew that it had the capacity to get rid of the thing that is affecting her Earth. Most humans. [00:22:03] Speaker A: Yep. [00:22:03] Speaker B: She could start Earth again in her wonderful image, Johnny. We call it Mother Gaia World or Green World. Probably this is her champion. So she was like, I gotta test it against the two hardest motherfuckers I know. And here are some big, dumb, hard motherfuckers Johnny and Monolith and Omega are like, well, I guess we gotta team up to beat this guy, huh? [00:22:24] Speaker A: Yep. [00:22:25] Speaker B: And that's what they do. That's what they do. [00:22:27] Speaker A: They do, like the double fist punch. At the same time. [00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah, twice. I can't imagine how much that hurts. And so it looks like they got. After the second time, they double punch him. Flake goes flying, and he's just like. He hits the ground like a ragdoll. He's like, huh? And then we get a big boot and green light, Johnny. And then Future Spawn arrives. [00:22:52] Speaker A: Dun, dun, dun. He's like, crazy looking. [00:22:55] Speaker B: Yeah, he is crazy looking. He's got that big right foot, though. [00:23:00] Speaker A: Hammer of Life, it's called. [00:23:02] Speaker B: Yeah, Hammer of Life. [00:23:04] Speaker A: It has, like, some crazy prongs on it. It's like a hammer lance. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Yeah, this has got a big old skull on it. And Mother Gaia knew that this guy existed but wasn't expecting him to show up. So best laid plans of mice and ninja, apparently of tree spirits and earth mothers. There we go. That bit. But, yeah, Future Spawn shows up and he's like, hey, Plague's my buddy. What the fuck are you guys doing? We're part of a sacred order of guys who look like skeletons and fight evil. What's up with you guys? And Monolith is like, I look like a skeleton. I can fight evil. Let me fight evil with you. And Future Spawn's like, why the fuck. Why the fuck will we let you. And Monolith says, because I want to. And I look like you. And they're like, meh. Okay, so then. So then Future Spawn, Monolith and Flag Spawn all fight up. All band together to fight Omega. Yeah, actually, I guess it's just Future Spawn and Monolith because Plague just kind of. Kind of sits back in the cut on this one. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker B: So these three beat up Omega. And then Monolith is able to punch him back through another tier of time. Johnny. [00:24:19] Speaker A: Time tier Time tear. [00:24:22] Speaker B: A tiered time tear, you know? Then Monolith, like the. Like the haggard detective bringing in the bad guy that he's always known, you know, turns back to the people who've just helped him make this caller. And he's like, what do I need to know before I leave? And he asks, everything here is dead. Why? The Future responds like some bullshit happened. And now we know we have to send back somebody who can be our champion to prevent this. And I'm pretty sure that you, Mr. Looks Like Us, is a good champion. So why don't you go to the past and try to keep this future from happening. That's what Monolith is saying as he leaves on this last page. Then send me to where the war started. Johnny. [00:25:04] Speaker A: Yep. He's gonna go back in time to Omega island and fight Omega And. [00:25:11] Speaker B: And the Planet Eaters. Yeah. [00:25:12] Speaker A: And the Planet Eaters. [00:25:14] Speaker B: Yeah. They're gonna do this again. And everything you thought you knew begins here. Johnny. [00:25:20] Speaker A: The end is the beginning is the end. [00:25:22] Speaker B: Certainly. It certainly tries. It's Spawn. It's Spawnoboris itself. [00:25:28] Speaker A: Yes. [00:25:29] Speaker B: So, yeah, that's. That's Monolith number three. [00:25:32] Speaker A: There it is. [00:25:34] Speaker B: That's. That's what happens. It's not a bad story. It's just. [00:25:40] Speaker A: It's a weird story. It's a weird place to start. And it's weird because it doesn't quite dovetail with where we ended up. [00:25:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:48] Speaker A: Before it also. [00:25:49] Speaker B: It does. It doesn't give you any concessions to kind of. It expects you to know shit and there's no knowing. [00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:25:58] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not an easy breezy read. [00:26:01] Speaker A: It's not. It's easy to, like, read it and be like, what just happened? [00:26:06] Speaker B: For real. [00:26:07] Speaker A: But there it is. [00:26:09] Speaker B: There it is. We got that skull in the back sheet. New generation, new stories. New you, Johnny, Rat City and Salmon Twitches that we've recently covered. [00:26:17] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:26:18] Speaker B: Warhammer 40K is a toy ad. Image Classics. And then Fallout is the second toy ad. [00:26:26] Speaker A: You get two toy ads. [00:26:28] Speaker B: Two toy ads. You get awesome orb back coverage. Honey, we don't get those very often anymore. They usually reserve that space for an advertisement. [00:26:36] Speaker A: Get an orb. There it was. [00:26:55] Speaker B: Next up, we have spawn 356. [00:26:58] Speaker A: That's me. [00:26:58] Speaker B: That's you. Fine. I was trying to sneak one in on you. [00:27:02] Speaker A: No, do it. Just keep it like that. Go. What do we got next? David? [00:27:06] Speaker B: But next up we got spawn 356. And Johnny. This one has a couple of covers I know of because. Well, there's always a couple of covers. [00:27:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:18] Speaker B: And I personally have cover a. The Mark Spears cover. Who always does an impressive cover, Johnny. [00:27:27] Speaker A: Our friend of the podcast, Mark Spears. [00:27:30] Speaker B: It is Spawn, you know, Spider Manning or batmaning on the edge of a. Edge of a roof and there's lightning in the background. [00:27:39] Speaker A: And you know, it's got that great, like, neon blue, those neon colors that Mark Spears is known for. [00:27:47] Speaker B: There's like some. The shadows are like green. It's very good. [00:27:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:53] Speaker B: Yeah. It makes it. It makes it feel so real. [00:27:57] Speaker A: Yeah. It's excellent. I love Mark Spears stuff. Congrats. [00:28:01] Speaker B: To him for getting the spawn 77. [00:28:04] Speaker A: Spawn 77. And forget that monsters book finally published. [00:28:07] Speaker B: Mm. Mm. It's good. That's good shit. [00:28:11] Speaker A: I like his little signature as a little homage to Todd McFarlane's signature. [00:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The little. Little scroll. [00:28:17] Speaker A: The little scroll. [00:28:18] Speaker B: And then the second cover is a Tauntaun Revolver cover, Johnny. Would you believe it? It's a pretty dope cover too, but. [00:28:26] Speaker A: It'S kind of a different angle of the other cover. [00:28:28] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like your mom. Your mom says we're gonna take pictures on vacation and we're gonna take them from every angle. And it's like, oh, okay, I guess. [00:28:37] Speaker A: But it's spawned on top of a church looking. Spawning spider. Manning. Yeah, like that Manning. [00:28:44] Speaker B: It's just. He's way up there. It's a really great church. Look at those. Look at those grotesque, Johnny. Like you can even tell that, like this, this is from the angle of somebody standing against a wall. Because there's like these gargoyles that are kind of honing in on the visage of Spawn. Jesus, Johnny. [00:29:04] Speaker A: Yeah, and it's like he seems so threatening. It's like. It's like a pedestrian's point of view. If you saw Spawn and it's. [00:29:11] Speaker B: I'm going to assume this is probably a bad man's point of view, Johnny. Yes, he's done some. He's done some nefarious deeds and Spawn's coming for him. Spawn has his prey cornered. Shit, Johnny. This looks. This looks like a still from the opening credits for a Batman style Spawn kids cartoon. That's awesome. That's real awesome. We've got a pop. These babies open after you look at the COVID Yeah, baby. We got world record breaking comic on the inside. And we got script plot by Rory McConville, art by Brett Booth, inks by Adelsa Corona, colors by Robert Nugent, lettering by Tom Warzikowski. We covered the covers. Creative director Tom McFarlane and editor in chief Thomas Healing. And then previously in Spawn. Spawn and Lyra make a narrow escape from Blood's forces and ready themselves for a counterattack. Each. Each time I sit down, Johnny, I forget that her name is Lyra. And I'm like, who is? Oh, okay. [00:30:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Lyra. Yes. And we go into a flashback 16 years ago, John. Exact time, even though it's not Todd McFarlane. [00:30:30] Speaker B: Yeah, we got a teen girl coming home, you know, texting as she comes in, you know, kicks off her shoes, yells, dad, I'm home. It's just like that. That's My Teen Girl voice, perfect. I learned from the best. Teen Girl Squad. Teen Girl Squad. [00:30:54] Speaker A: There you go. I remember Teen Girl Squad. [00:30:56] Speaker B: The ugly one. [00:30:59] Speaker A: Lyra walks into the kitchen and her dad is, like, gutting a dude has gutted. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Yeah. We've got a narration over the top of this where Lyra says that she always. She was always told her mom died of cancer. And in the narrations she says, but turned out to be a lie. When she says that is when we get the reveal of her dad just eviscerating these guys on their kitchen table. [00:31:25] Speaker A: Yeah, his head's cut off. He's, like, cutting them in half. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Yeah, he's like, don't come in. It's like, of all the things you could come home to catch a family member doing, that's the least expected, I bet. [00:31:37] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:38] Speaker B: She's obviously scared. Turns around to run away, and her dad's like, no, wait, no, wait. And, you know, captures her. All the. All this gore is still on him. And he's just like, I'll try to explain everything. And she's just like, freak the fuck out, Johnny. [00:31:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:55] Speaker B: I couldn't imagine having, you know, somebody I know be covered in blood to begin with and then have them reach out and, like, touch me and be like, I don't. I don't. [00:32:04] Speaker A: I don't want this blood on me. [00:32:05] Speaker B: I don't want this. I don't want you with this. We're sitting in the living room. He is telling her the truth. Not all the truth, apparently. He's skipping over some details, but the soup. The soup and nuts. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Nuts and nuts in general. Yeah, nuts with soup and nuts. [00:32:23] Speaker B: I don't know. He's telling her soup to nuts. But that there makes sense. Yes, it made sense to me when I thought it. And then when I said it, the sense went away. You ever have that happen to you, Johnny? [00:32:36] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:32:38] Speaker B: But so, like, he's telling her the basic truth. He and Lyra's mother were from different sides of a galactic war. One of them was a native of this moon who was defending their ancestral lands from the intergalactic empire that was coming in to take this moon for their. And one of them looked like a demon, and one of them had wings. And they kept their relationship a secret until one of them became pregnant, and then they went on the run. [00:33:13] Speaker A: So this is where the. I think this is, like, the beginning of the. I mean, this guy looks like Brad Pitt. Her dad. [00:33:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:33:19] Speaker A: And there's like. It's kind of like Mr. And Mrs. Smith. Yeah. [00:33:22] Speaker B: I haven't seen Mr. And Mrs. Smith. [00:33:24] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I haven't seen this since the theaters, but it's just, like, not the original. Not the new one. The original with Brad Pitt. Yeah, there's a new one with Donald Glover. This is the first of a couple Brad Pitt references that they kind of sprinkle in here. [00:33:38] Speaker B: Yes, he does look a little like Brad Pitt. Yes. And I don't know if you caught it, Johnny, but I was describing the plot of saga and not spawn 350 or. And spawn 356 at the same time, because that's what Saga is about. [00:33:52] Speaker A: I didn't even catch that. I was thinking about something else. [00:33:55] Speaker B: Yeah, One of them is a prisoner of war and falls in love with his jailer, and then they have a child, and then they. Like, nobody knew that a child could be made from a pairing of these two, and so they have to go on the run, and their child is sought after by empires and kings and bounty hunters. [00:34:15] Speaker A: It is Saga. [00:34:17] Speaker B: It is Saga. But, you know, understandably, Lyra doesn't believe him. And, you know, at the first chance she gets, runs and tries to tell the police, and they're like, okay, okay, okay. We'll get you set up in a. We'll get you set up with a foster house real quick. And then as she's being transported to this safe house, she learns that, oh, Jesus, my dad actually isn't insane. Oh, no. Oh, no, this is bad. [00:34:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:34:44] Speaker B: And then we get her dad swooping down in His Majesty. [00:34:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Because the cops are bad dudes. [00:34:54] Speaker B: They're on the payroll of his. Of her uncle, who would be a demon. [00:34:59] Speaker A: Mm. Who could it be? [00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah, because her mom was a demon and her dad was an angel. So uncle's gonna be a demon. [00:35:07] Speaker A: Or could be an angel. [00:35:08] Speaker B: Could be an angel. I'm gonna assume it's probably. I would assume it makes more sense for the. Yeah, the demon uncle. But, you know, I could be surprised. They could be hoping. Roy McConville could be hoping. Everybody's thinking that it's. And then a reveal later would be, this is the actual uncle. It's a whole the doctor was the mother type situation. [00:35:29] Speaker A: Definitely sprinkling in something kind of reveal there by mentioning an uncle. So maybe the violators are uncle. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Ooh, that would be wild. Lyra's dad pulls her out of this cop car, and she's like, oh, Dad, I am so sorry. And then this new person comes out and is like, we need to move, Alan. We gotta go. This new person is somebody who was Saved by Alan, Lyra's dad. And so felt that he owed a life debt to him. Very, very Wookieesque, this. [00:36:02] Speaker A: Yeah. His name is Carl. Is it the same Carl? [00:36:07] Speaker B: It can't be the same Carl, because the other Carl was. [00:36:09] Speaker A: He's like a robot man. [00:36:11] Speaker B: He was. He was. He was a man. So he wasn't an alien. Yeah. [00:36:13] Speaker A: Why is there another Carl? If you all remember, gunslinger's had a friend named Carl that he fought. It was a friend in the old west who was like a robot man. [00:36:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:23] Speaker A: And now there's another Carl. [00:36:26] Speaker B: I don't know, Maybe. Maybe it's a Brett Booth thing. Because didn't Brett Booth also draw Carl or. No, Carl was Dexter Soy. [00:36:32] Speaker A: Yeah, Carl was Dexter soy. [00:36:33] Speaker B: In between, maybe Brett Booth was like, I wanted to draw a Carl. [00:36:37] Speaker A: I want a Carl. [00:36:40] Speaker B: They go. And then we get a nice little montage of just over the years, all the times they've had to pick up and go and pick up and go and pick up and go. We get the story of what actually happened to Lyra's mom, right? And it was. Her parents had a code word, and they had both previously agreed that if this code word is sent that they don't even bother trying to help. They take Lyra, they get the fuck out of there, right? And one day, Alan gets the code word. Pretty on the nose run, but still. So, yeah, so he does. He does what the. What they had agreed to. And Lyra is upset. She's like, you didn't even. You didn't even fucking try. And he was like, first off, that. [00:37:27] Speaker A: Was the plan, man. [00:37:28] Speaker B: That was the plan. Second off, there was absolutely no way I would have made it in time to make any substantive difference. And then the plan would have been broken. And he says that that's the thing he will regret for the rest of his life. Till his last breath, he says, yeah. And then we see, you know, the Karate Kid montage of she's getting her powers and she's learning to fight, and she's. Aha. She's on the table and her dad's busting out his old armor. And he's like, here, this is. This is my armor. It'll suit you. It'll adapt to whatever. Whatever person it's put on. So it's like a living metal. [00:38:08] Speaker A: Yes. And it, like, sucks in and, like, binds to her arm and, like, changes sizes. Then we get another Brad Pitt reference here because he says, I want you to hit me as hard as you can, which is from Fight Club. You, like Fight Club. David. [00:38:24] Speaker B: I adored Fight Club for a number of years, but I haven't seen it in a while. [00:38:29] Speaker A: I watch. It's good. I mean, if you see his satire and like, realize, like, don't agree with what they're saying and like, yeah, it's a good. It's a well made movie. [00:38:38] Speaker B: I remember loving it. It is one of the things that got me into really paying attention to movies. So it will always have a special place in my sort of interior library of important movies. But me too, I just haven't seen it in a very, very, very long time. [00:38:58] Speaker A: I watched it when Blank Check was covering David Fincher. [00:39:00] Speaker B: And it was nice. [00:39:02] Speaker A: It was good. I mean, it's like, it's dated in some ways, but if you realize it's making fun of it from the get go, not making fun of it, but it's satire. It's like. [00:39:13] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's very obviously satire. And I think it's just having seen it at the age that I first saw it, I took it a little seriously when I first saw it. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Oh, me too. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Of course. [00:39:23] Speaker A: I was like fucking 13 or 14 years old. [00:39:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you just don't. You don't have the. You don't have the experience to immediately recognize satire. You just kind of take everything earnestly and you learn to be a jaded old codger later on. [00:39:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:39] Speaker B: But no, it's fun to live that experience. To watch something incorrectly the first time, like wildly incorrectly, and then slowly get to the point where you're like, oh, Jesus, how did I do that? Why was I so dumb? And then you realize, oh, I'm just old now. [00:39:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:57] Speaker B: I just actually know some stuff. [00:39:59] Speaker A: Right. Another a big memory of Fight Club for me was the trailer. Because it was on episode one. They had the fight club trailer for some reason. I guess it was the other big Fox movie that year. I saw episode one when I was a kid nine times in theaters. So I saw that trailer, like nine. [00:40:14] Speaker B: Times of real appropriate trailer for. [00:40:18] Speaker A: I mean, got me really wanted to see that movie. And I was pumped for it. And I eventually, I think a friend has recorded it off of hbo, one of my brother's friends, and he brought it over and we watched it. [00:40:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I watched it first. A friends pirated copy from the old. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Tyler Durton would approve. [00:40:35] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. [00:40:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he says the fight club line. [00:40:39] Speaker B: I want you to hit me as hard as you can. [00:40:41] Speaker A: Looking like Brad Pitt there. [00:40:42] Speaker B: Mm. [00:40:43] Speaker A: And they start fighting. [00:40:44] Speaker B: They start fighting. Yeah. [00:40:46] Speaker A: It shows him training over time. He's changing clothes. She's Changing clothes. Like. [00:40:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:40:50] Speaker A: Kind of like a montage here. [00:40:51] Speaker B: Mm. And then, like, as it goes, it starts off at the top of the page with him being able to easily block her stuff. And then by the bottom of the page, you know, she's gotten one in on him, and she's punched him against the wall. And then. So she. And the. Ooh. Ah. Second best yellow coat in this series, Johnny. [00:41:12] Speaker A: Who's got the first mess? [00:41:13] Speaker B: The. That one lady that. We don't know her name yet. [00:41:16] Speaker A: Oh, right. [00:41:17] Speaker B: With the little. The little small. The small yellow jacket. [00:41:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:41:22] Speaker B: Although that one's yellow and blue. There's. There's good yellow jack action. Jack yellow jacket action. In this book, Johnny come for the yellow jackets stay. Because it's a fucking great story. But then, you know, they learn about the. When. Is this when the Malbolgia was killed? [00:41:42] Speaker A: Yes, this is back when Malbolgia was killed. [00:41:45] Speaker B: Okay. So the death of Malbolgia led to heaven and hell being distracted. And so her dad's like, look, we're gonna. We're gonna lay low. Hopefully they'll forget about us. So that's the plan. They're laying low. Hopefully they'll be forgotten about. [00:42:02] Speaker A: And Lyra does all the life things. She graduates college, moves out. [00:42:07] Speaker B: She gets a job where she has to type and talk on the phone and make copies at the same time. [00:42:12] Speaker A: I know. Jesus. [00:42:13] Speaker B: What can I do? [00:42:16] Speaker A: Hangs out with friends. [00:42:17] Speaker B: She should have known it. It wouldn't have lasted, Johnny. [00:42:20] Speaker A: Just a nice, normal life. [00:42:24] Speaker B: And then we get two months ago, the night the war in hell ended. [00:42:28] Speaker A: And Chad calls her. [00:42:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:30] Speaker A: And it's just like, yo, yo, yo. There's no powers anymore. Need to get over here. [00:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah. She's like, right on it. Gonna be there right away. So she's. She jumps in her car and is just speeding, speeding out toward her dad's place. She says she notices on the halfway there that her powers still work. And she was like, shit, I gotta call my dad, because my powers still work. And he just. She calls. She calls. He doesn't answer. He doesn't answer. So she gets to his house, John. And she pulls up that classic. That classic thing you don't want to see when you pull up to your house. The door is just off its hinges. [00:43:03] Speaker A: Yep. [00:43:04] Speaker B: She's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. She runs in. You know, the issue ends where it began, with her going into the house asking about her dad. So, Johnny, much like Monolith, it's the beginning, is the end is the beginning. [00:43:24] Speaker A: Yes, it is. [00:43:25] Speaker B: I like that. I like that the story. The story ended the way it began, but in a horribly different way. [00:43:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:31] Speaker B: And. Yeah, she goes in and there's a framed picture of her and her dad and her mom on the floor covered in blood. And then we cut to now and we see Lyra talking to Spawn. And she's like, okay, so here's what we're going to do. You're going to help me get blood. And if you survive that, I'll join your army. Necrometer didn't issue. [00:43:57] Speaker A: Yeah. So she might be a new Scorch member here. [00:44:00] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very exciting. We're good to have new people on the established team to then make the established team kind of pull a little closer together and be like, what's. What's going on here? Yeah, it's fun. We get spawning grounds presents SDCC 2024 Spotlight. And there's just some photos. [00:44:23] Speaker A: Yep. You get Todd with David Das Malchin. [00:44:27] Speaker B: We have a speak of the beginning of the episode. Johnny Todd with Keanu Reeves Dunadon, whose. [00:44:32] Speaker A: Voice I didn't recognize in Toy Story 4. [00:44:34] Speaker B: We get Spawn production team with Jet Lucanus himself holding an initial copy of Dogspun. [00:44:43] Speaker A: Yep. And they are dressed as the Batman in the alternate future from Justice League. [00:44:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:49] Speaker A: With like the cool goggles. I love that Batman design with like the claw. [00:44:52] Speaker B: That's a great Batman. Yeah. And then somebody that we don't. Right. [00:44:56] Speaker A: That was Justice League. Or was that man of Steel? Or was it both? I think Batman of Steel, Batman v Superman. I don't remember. I think it was both. [00:45:03] Speaker B: I don't remember. I don't remember. I don't remember. A lot of stuff happened in both of those movies. Johnny and I just. They're long and. [00:45:09] Speaker A: Yeah, I've seen. I saw the regular Justice League and the. Whatever. The Snyder cut. [00:45:14] Speaker B: The Snyder cut. My thoughts on the Snyder cut are it's very much like Monolith, where it requires a lot out of you to get kind of what's happening. So it's not very approachable, but if you think about it a lot, it's good. And there's a picture of some of the production team. We got Steve Olaf, Ken Stacy and Todd McFarlane there. Just a couple of old guys hanging out, making peace signs. [00:45:37] Speaker A: Chillin. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Yeah, they're just like old Deadheads. Just like, hey, man, peace. Because we totally know that Todd McFarland would be a Deadhead. [00:45:47] Speaker A: You know it. [00:45:49] Speaker B: He would say, I don't want to Go to work. I just want to follow these people around, man. [00:45:54] Speaker A: Now he's a workaholic. [00:45:56] Speaker B: That's what he's addicted to. And there's an incredible spawn mask that somebody made. [00:46:00] Speaker A: Very cool. Pretty cool. [00:46:01] Speaker B: Very fun. [00:46:01] Speaker A: Very fun. [00:46:02] Speaker B: Need more Spawns universe, Johnny. [00:46:04] Speaker A: Always, always, always. [00:46:05] Speaker B: Then don't miss these ongoing titles. We got the Core four. [00:46:10] Speaker A: Yep. Ad for the Core four. [00:46:12] Speaker B: Then we get the Witchblade ad again. And Fallout is the toy ad. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Fallout. I've run out of things to say about Fallout. I've had so many Fallout Fallout toy ads. I don't have any funny quip about Fallout. [00:46:22] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's. We need. We need more. We need more of the ones that. That you're actually looking at buying, Johnny. [00:46:29] Speaker A: None of those Diablo tricked me into it. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Or those Diablo boys. Well, Johnny, speaking of what we need more of, we recently got a new dog in this house. [00:46:41] Speaker A: Oh, you did? [00:46:42] Speaker B: Yeah, we did. She had a broken femur, and so we're helping her get back. She also was from a hoarding situation. So, Johnny, we need to rate this puppy specifically as very good. That's a very good puppy. Um, but otherwise, we have other puppies that need. [00:46:58] Speaker A: Rated these issues. We gotta rate these puppies first. Up today, we did Monolith Number three. A kind of confusing brawl through time. Art's great. I love Gian Giordano. Just the detail and the grittiness absolutely is excellent. I was vibing with the second issue after kind of struggling with the first, and I struggled with this one. It's just. I guess it's not what I wanted out of a Monolith series. I wanted it to be a little more clear what was going on in Omega island in the past. And now it's just a little more. It's even, like, more confusing because when was he there? But, I mean, it makes sense because at the end, he goes back to another time to stop this from happening, which is where he ends up. But it's just like throwing the stuff about Gaia using Plague into the narration. We don't actually see any of that. [00:47:48] Speaker B: Mm. [00:47:48] Speaker A: It just throws you for a little bit of a loop, and you kind of have to, like, really kind of think about it. Not in, like, a way that's, like, it makes it some grand thing, but, like, in a way where it's just written a little confusingly. [00:48:00] Speaker B: Yeah, a little. A little. [00:48:03] Speaker A: A little bit. [00:48:03] Speaker B: A little. Just teeny bit. [00:48:05] Speaker A: I don't know. I. It kind of just is. And it wasn't one of my favorite spawn Titles. I love you, Sean Lewis. I love your king, Spawn. But maybe it's just the character model that I don't care about. [00:48:19] Speaker B: I don't know much about. [00:48:19] Speaker A: We don't know much about him. I still don't. [00:48:22] Speaker B: Still don't. Still don't. [00:48:24] Speaker A: I'm going to give it 2.5 scorched skeletons. [00:48:27] Speaker B: Ooh, it's withering. Withering review, Johnny. [00:48:32] Speaker A: Sorry. [00:48:33] Speaker B: No, I agree with you. [00:48:36] Speaker A: Play a science slide whistle. [00:48:37] Speaker B: Noise it. I mean it's not God awful. No, it's just this side of good. But it is not great. And it's just. It just comes down to that approachability. The art absolutely fucking kills it. It kills it as much as everything being killed in these issues. This could almost honestly have just been called Monolith Kills Everybody. And all of the same art just changed the. The words around to be Monolith killing shit and aces. Absolutely. I am also going to give it two and a half. I'm going to give it two and a half. Fat corpse flies just hanging down in that pit. [00:49:20] Speaker A: Nice. A lot of corpse flies in that pit. [00:49:23] Speaker B: A lot of them. There's a lot of corpses. Yeah. [00:49:25] Speaker A: It's just. I mean, 2.5 is like a middle of the road comic. [00:49:27] Speaker B: What do you do exactly? Metal. All right. If you can find it for 250 an issue and give it a go. [00:49:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:34] Speaker B: I mean if you end up missing it. [00:49:37] Speaker A: Eh, eh. I don't think it'll really matter. [00:49:39] Speaker B: Future Spawn looks cool, but this might be. If future Spawn gets real big. This might get up there as appearance, but there it is. It is. [00:49:52] Speaker A: So. So let it be. Let it be said. Our second issue was spawn 356. I really like this one. I like the flashback. I like the story. It was cool to get Lyra's story. She's a cool character. I like the dad looking like Brad Pitt and Sam Fight Club stuff. But it's just a fun like short self contained story that like, you know, really dovetails with. Like you said, the beginning and the end come together. And excited to see where the Spawn journey goes next. It's fun to get those little side episodes sometime. Or side issues. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good to have a character issue very much like. I think the pinnacle of Spawn for me is still Scorched issue number seven, where it's the story of Jessica Priest. Yeah, I love those. Very crucial to the overall tale. But ultimately self contained stories like that. [00:50:41] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, Brett Booth's killing it with the art. It's just like so Vibrant and like, moves. Love the Mark Spears cover, of course. Shout out to Mark. [00:50:50] Speaker B: Hey, Mark. Oh, hi, Mark. [00:50:53] Speaker A: Oh, hi, Mark. I'm sure he loves that. [00:50:56] Speaker B: I bet he's never heard of Johnny ever. [00:50:58] Speaker A: No, I mean, Brett Booth's killing it. The story's fun. Learning about new characters and just keeping things moving. You know what? I'm gonna give it five. That's right. Five, David. [00:51:13] Speaker B: Hell yeah. [00:51:14] Speaker A: Five pizza boxes falling out of the fridge in the kitchen. [00:51:17] Speaker B: Woo. [00:51:18] Speaker A: Nice little Brett Booth detail there when he's murdering the guy at the beginning. [00:51:23] Speaker B: He wants you to associate sausage with how the sausage is made, Johnny. [00:51:28] Speaker A: Yeah, we're just cutting up the guy. Yeah, I give it five. Yeah, it's a great issue. It's a great issue. I mean, it was just fun and there's nothing I'd improve on it. Like, why not? I love the art. Five out of five for me, Johnny. [00:51:43] Speaker B: I agree. I agree. It's five. I love the story, I love the art. I love just the book as it's going, the whole story. It's fucking fantastic. I loved, I loved learning the sad tale of Lyra's life. Sorry, sorry that this happened to you, Lyra, but thank you for being a story that's very, very good to read. I want to avoid saying fun to read because I don't want us to make it seem like we're sadists over here. Yeah, absolutely love this book. It is a great little tromp through this whole mythology that is currently centered around spawn. And I'm gonna give it five Run messages on a flip phone, Johnny. [00:52:23] Speaker A: Run to your nearest comic shop and buy it. [00:52:26] Speaker B: Absolutely. Do it. Do it. It's got the great cover, it's got the great story. I mean, if you just want a good, nice little self contained spawn story, this is a good one. [00:52:35] Speaker A: There might be a copy left. Or you can get it online, I bet. But yeah, if you haven't read it, check it out. Yeah, you should spawn three, six. [00:52:42] Speaker B: You should. You should be reading spawn. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Roy McConville. Killing it. [00:52:46] Speaker B: Mm. Absolutely. Speaking of killing it, Johnny. [00:52:49] Speaker A: Yes. [00:52:50] Speaker B: We got some friends who are always killing it in the good times department over on Instagram. [00:52:57] Speaker A: Yep. [00:52:57] Speaker B: You know, and they are just killing it. Killing it. [00:53:01] Speaker A: Yeah, Instagram's been fun. Like, it's been fun connecting with people and yeah, seeing the spawn. Spawn munity. [00:53:07] Speaker B: The spun the spawn. That sounds like we can't be infected by spawn. [00:53:13] Speaker A: Spawn Munity. [00:53:15] Speaker B: We've been inoculated, but yeah, it's a great place. I remember when we started this, Jonny. We Thought that the online Spawn community was going to be basically Mos Eisley Cantina. Not the whole town, just the cantina. I'm sure there are lovely people living in the alleys of Mos Eisley just trying to get by. [00:53:39] Speaker A: Not that cantina, though. [00:53:41] Speaker B: No, no, not there. It's a wretched hive. Wretched hive. Don't be going there on for a quiet. A quiet drink to escape the world. No, no, no, no, no. That is a place of business. And the business is not bartending. [00:53:53] Speaker A: Nope. [00:53:55] Speaker B: But no, it's. It's actually turned out to just be like fucking. The music video for everything is awesome. It is awesome. A great place full of great people just loving this great thing we call Spawn, Johnny. [00:54:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like the only good interaction I've had with social media is through the podcast. [00:54:13] Speaker B: Yeah, it's amazing. It's amazing. And, well, one very amazing part of that, Johnny, is our buddy Idris Ducre. They do art over on the Instagram and boy, howdy do they do art over on the Instagram, Jun. [00:54:30] Speaker A: Hell yeah. [00:54:31] Speaker B: If you want a gunslinger cover where you were looking down the barrel of the gunslinger's revolver, James Bond style, they have you covered. [00:54:42] Speaker A: They got a great plague spawn. [00:54:44] Speaker B: Yeah, they do. They got a good medieval scorched. They're just. They're just. They're just doing it all. All. All of it, Johnny. All of it there. They have. They have other properties that they do art of too, but huge chunk of Spawn stuff and all their art is fantastic. [00:55:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So make sure to give them a follow. [00:55:03] Speaker B: Absolutely. Do that. While you're on the Internet, you should also try to find Lonnie Bones. Lonnie Bones, he does our music. That's Lonnie with a Y. Google him. Find him on Apple. He's great. And while you're on the Internet, after having gone from Instagram to the Google, go back to the Instagram and look us up on Instagram as regardspawnpod. [00:55:27] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:55:28] Speaker B: We very much want to hear from you over there. It's. Johnny said it's the best interaction he's had with social media. And we'll take any good social media interaction we can get. Johnny, in this economy, you bet your last button. [00:55:42] Speaker A: You know it. [00:55:44] Speaker B: Last button, man. [00:55:45] Speaker A: Bet your bottom dollar. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Last button is very precious thing. What if you lose one of the buttons you're currently using and then you don't have a. Another button? Ah, Johnny, I've got button anxiety now. Please. [00:55:57] Speaker A: Your last button. It'd just be a shirt with one. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Button, I guess then you can just do. Do it island style, where you don't have it. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Yeah, you just have it open. [00:56:06] Speaker B: You go to. You go to the office and your. Your slacks, because they can have the little hook instead of a button. And your jacket, because it doesn't need buttons. And your tie. You've got your tie tied, but your shirt is. I guess you wouldn't get stuff on your. On your shirt right there while you eat it if it's open, huh? No, it just gets on the. Gets on the belly and you just give it a quick. [00:56:29] Speaker A: What were we talking about? Buttons. We're talking about Benjamin Button, Brad Pitt. [00:56:36] Speaker B: There we go. Excellent, excellent, excellent. We have worked weird chronological stuff in this issue, Johnny, what with Monolith and his spiral through time. [00:56:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:50] Speaker B: But also, if you want to interact with us not through Instagram, because you, like Johnny, have had terrible interactions on social media outside of the Spawn community, you can always send us an email at. Regardingspawnpodmail.com? [00:57:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I didn't have terrible interactions. It just gave me a lot of anxiety and it just wasn't worth it. [00:57:13] Speaker B: Wait, you're downplaying it at the beginning and then making it worse than I thought it was initially. [00:57:18] Speaker A: Oh, no. By the end of that. [00:57:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Don't. Don't say it wasn't. Man, Johnny, that fucking sucks. I really wish that hadn't happened to you. [00:57:28] Speaker A: No. Facebook gave me, like, mad anxiety. [00:57:31] Speaker B: Nobody should have to have that level of issue with something that's ostensibly supposed to be a fun goof around. [00:57:37] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Well, I'm glad that the Spawn community on Instagram has watched a little of that bad taste and gotten the. Out of that weird space that can crawl into your head. [00:57:51] Speaker A: Yeah, no, it feels good. But I won't be having a lot more social media, probably. Except for true social, of course. [00:58:02] Speaker B: Oh, boy. But yeah, Johnny, what should people talk to us about? [00:58:08] Speaker A: Yeah, if you want to email us. What do you think of Fight Club? I don't know. Do you think it's aged well or you hate it? I'm just curious what people think of Fight Club because we talked about it. [00:58:21] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just singing some. Not singing. I was actually just whistling some meatloaf yesterday. Johnny. [00:58:28] Speaker A: Meatloaf a day. [00:58:29] Speaker B: My meatloaf a day. Keeps the doctor at bay. [00:58:34] Speaker A: That's true. [00:58:35] Speaker B: I mean. [00:58:36] Speaker A: Yeah, don't eat them. Don't eat a whole meatloaf every day. [00:58:41] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure if you ate a whole one every day that it would keep everything away because you'd be dead. Well, maybe you'd get these corpse flies. [00:58:49] Speaker A: Big corpse flies just turn to a big pile of meat. [00:58:52] Speaker B: I just. I just watched a pre Labyrinth Jennifer Conley movie called Phantasm and in it, Dr. Loomis from Halloween is a entomologist who specializes in the bugs that feed off corpses. And he moved to Switzerland and just like helps out the local police department and identifying corpse flies. And so that's what this whole episode made me think of, Johnny, is those corpse flies. [00:59:28] Speaker A: Interesting. [00:59:29] Speaker B: It's a very interesting movie. It's on shudder. [00:59:32] Speaker A: Okay. It's called Phantasm. [00:59:34] Speaker B: Phantasm. It's by the guy who did. [00:59:39] Speaker A: Not the phantasm with the balls. [00:59:41] Speaker B: No, not the phantasm with the balls. It's by the guy Stereo Argento. Is that who it is? Yeah, the guy who did. [00:59:51] Speaker A: I've heard of that movie. Yeah, the witch. [00:59:53] Speaker B: The witch school. Yeah, that goblin did the music for that kicks ass. [00:59:58] Speaker A: Suspiria. [00:59:59] Speaker B: Yeah, Suspiria. [01:00:00] Speaker A: Yeah, that's Dario Argento. I'm pretty sure. [01:00:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:04] Speaker A: Fulci's the gross zombie one. [01:00:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's good, it's fun. And it's Pre Labyrinth. Jennifer Connelly. How does that happen? She was. She was like not age when she did that movie. [01:00:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Was it. It was American. Huh? Was it. [01:00:21] Speaker B: No, it was Italian. [01:00:22] Speaker A: It was Italian. [01:00:23] Speaker B: Uh huh. Yep. It's in English, but it was made in Italy. [01:00:27] Speaker A: It was made in Italy. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right. [01:00:30] Speaker B: But but filmed in. Made in Italy but filmed in Switzerland because they did it on site. [01:00:35] Speaker A: I don't want to go and star Italian pictures. God dam. [01:00:41] Speaker B: This is bringing it back, Johnny. Just bringing it back. [01:00:43] Speaker A: Oh yeah, Brad Pitt again. He's in that movie. [01:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah. And speaking of bringing it back, Johnny, I think in a week we should probably bring the show back and sprinkle in a little more Spawn in our lives. What do you say? [01:00:55] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it. What do you want to read? [01:00:57] Speaker B: Well, I want to read some more of this new spawn so that way this gigantic stack can be not so gigantic. [01:01:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, let's do it. Let's read some Kingspawn and some Gunslinger. [01:01:11] Speaker B: That sounds like a wonderful pairing. [01:01:13] Speaker A: Feels like it's been a minute since we've been doing these other spin offs. It feels like it's been a minute. So we got Kingspawn or a gunslinger. [01:01:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we're back. Back to a core set here. This is gonna be real good. [01:01:23] Speaker A: Yeah. So we'll do Gunslinger 34 and Kingspawn 37 next week. [01:01:27] Speaker B: Sounds like a great, great, great time indeed. Yeah, well, with those marching orders, Johnny, there's very little I can say except may the scorched be with you. [01:01:41] Speaker A: And also with you, David. [01:01:42] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. [01:01:43] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [01:01:45] Speaker B: So, Jonny. What? Brad Pitt quit? Do you want to leave this episode out on so that way we can drop it right here at the end? [01:01:52] Speaker A: Oh, I don't know. I guess. I mean, Inglourious bastards. But there's nothing that fits. I don't think it's kind of like, Spawny or. Yeah, or like they would fit, but I can't think. [01:02:07] Speaker B: I lit it. What movies has he been in? I've just, like, suddenly forgotten all of my Brad Pitt lore. [01:02:13] Speaker A: The only thing I think about Brad Pitt is the fucking not Sheryl Crow. That don't impress me much. Okay, so you're Brad Pitt. Who is that? [01:02:26] Speaker B: Oh, Jesus, I don't even remember that one. Oh, I should know. [01:02:30] Speaker A: That don't impress him much. You know, that's all right. [01:02:32] Speaker B: It wasn't Shania, was it? [01:02:34] Speaker A: Yeah, it was Shania Twain. Yeah. [01:02:36] Speaker B: Okay. The only thing I can think of is him in the running gear. Gif. Or I guess Troy. [01:02:45] Speaker A: Troy. Immortality. It's yours. Take it. [01:03:32] Speaker B: I think that's a complete stop, actually. [01:03:34] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.