Episode 33 - King Spawn 5 and Gunslinger Spawn 15

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Because you're smarter than me. Way smarter. Good evening, and welcome to the Mal bulge. This is regarding Spawn, the world's best spawn podcast. I'm your co host, Jon Fisher. [00:00:47] Speaker B: And I am your co host, David Williams. And Johnny, um. Heck a good spawn today. Hecka good. [00:00:57] Speaker A: Two. Two really good spawns. Two spawns where we peek into the past and glimpse into the future with characters old and characters new. [00:01:05] Speaker B: The characters very old. Holy shit. [00:01:09] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's. It was just interesting because both these issues end on a character reveal. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:15] Speaker A: And one of them is one of the oldest spawn characters. And one of them is currently one of the newest spawn characters. [00:01:21] Speaker B: If not. If not the newest. I can't think of a. I would. [00:01:26] Speaker A: Depends on if those, I guess as of this record, if the green, the council of all the green, if they were established before. I'm not sure. [00:01:34] Speaker B: I don't know. That issue feels like they're presented there. Like, this is the first time we're meeting them. [00:01:41] Speaker A: Well, it's also not like a singular character. There's, like, three of them, and they're not gonna be, like, following them. This guy seems like, well, we'll get there. I mean, welcome, everybody. [00:01:50] Speaker B: Maybe that'll be the next wave of action figures. We'll just be all, what is it? I want to call them the parliament of trees, because that's what I think the. They're totally based on. [00:02:02] Speaker A: Is that from swamp thing? [00:02:03] Speaker B: Yeah, it's from swamp thing. That's the. [00:02:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's got to be. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Inspired by at least the council of elders that runs the green, which is all of the living plant life on the earth. [00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I was running into some of that in the Lazarus planet crossover event because poison ivy and swamp things show up to beat up devil Nezah for a little bit. Yeah, I bought some of those crossovers because I went to the challengers Valentine's Day sale. 25% off. I got some spawn tray paperbacks to bring in some sponverts. So hopefully give that to some friends and get some people into it. [00:02:44] Speaker B: Gonna put them in some little free libraries and convert the children. [00:02:47] Speaker A: Yes, it's gonna be. I was telling Dahl at Challenger's, they're giving my friend a bunch of the bookmarks. And he was like, oh, I have a bunch of them. They're like, oh, just take them. Give them to somebody. And I was like, yeah, to be like me and just leave random issues of spawn on the bus. And he was like. He was like, oh, I've heard about that. You're the one doing that, huh? I wish if I was. If I was a benevolent. If I was a little richer. Wouldn't have to be that much richer. [00:03:13] Speaker B: No, not really. Not at that 2.99 price. [00:03:15] Speaker A: $3? No, not really. You know, maybe I'd leave a spawn, you know, on a playground bench. Or, you know, buried. Half buried in a ball pit at a McDonald's. Gotta get them in, yang. [00:03:30] Speaker B: It's our version of psalms 137. But instead of trying to kill the children to draw out our king, we are just trying to give the kids something to do. [00:03:41] Speaker A: Time. We're just trying to give the kids a story. [00:03:45] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:03:46] Speaker A: But welcome, everybody. Welcome to. Regarding spawn, if this is your first time joining us, we are two idiots that cover. Like Javi said at the beginning, you're probably way smarter than we are. [00:03:59] Speaker B: Yeah, probably. [00:03:59] Speaker A: But we decided that we were the ones to guide you through this. Aborus of spawn. Is that the right word? [00:04:07] Speaker B: The boy? Yeah. Sponoboros. [00:04:11] Speaker A: Sponoboros. It's Sponoboros. [00:04:13] Speaker B: I don't know if you could use Boris by itself. Unless you're talking about Mister Karloff. [00:04:18] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Oh, hey, I'll talk about Mister Karloff any day. [00:04:21] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:04:22] Speaker A: A good actor, that one. [00:04:25] Speaker B: You think if we could resurrect him, he could play Alc? No, he's too white to play Alcinous. [00:04:30] Speaker A: He'd be overkill. Or he would be overtkill. Or Cygor. Yeah, he's a big guy. [00:04:37] Speaker B: He's good. He's good with that makeup too. [00:04:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Always the two issues of spawn that we are covering today. Because we always cover two issues of Spawn. [00:04:47] Speaker B: Except when you don't. [00:04:49] Speaker A: Oh, there you go. Exactly. Today we are doing king Spawn number five and gunslinger spawn number 15. So just remember, 515. [00:05:02] Speaker B: It's a good time to. [00:05:03] Speaker A: It won't go astray. [00:05:05] Speaker B: You're out of work. You're on your way home. You're gonna get some dinner. Actually, I think 515 might be referenced in that fucking Mac tonight commercial. [00:05:16] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:05:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Hold on. [00:05:18] Speaker A: It all comes back to Mac tonight on this podcast. This is an early conversation. [00:05:23] Speaker B: We do Stan Doug Jones. [00:05:25] Speaker A: I stan that commercial. I remember when I was a kid. I loved that fucking commercial. [00:05:29] Speaker B: Oh, no, that's an hour and 15 minutes too early. Cause it's 06:30, babe. [00:05:35] Speaker A: No, it's 06:30 babe. You gotta get to those Big Mac. No, I love. Like I said before on the show, I love any kind of advertising character. I love Mac tonight. I loved the seven up spot. Like, my toy as a child, that was like my, like, teddy bear that I carry everywhere was a stuffed seven up spot. Like, when I was, like, a kid kid. [00:06:00] Speaker B: It was good to hold, too. It's a nice shape. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. The little dangly arms you, like, hang out with you. What was your, like, kind of like, special stuffed animal, David? [00:06:12] Speaker B: My special stuffed. [00:06:13] Speaker A: Did you have one? [00:06:13] Speaker B: Oh, man. Well, it's kind of boring. It was just a bear. The named Mister Bear. [00:06:20] Speaker A: I mean, that's classic. That's a little more classic than the seven up spot. I think. [00:06:25] Speaker B: I think the closest to advertising stuff I had was literally just ninja Turtles toys. Cause, you know, those cartoons were literally just advertisements for selling the toys and. Oh, man. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Wasn't as egregious as it was earlier. [00:06:39] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:06:39] Speaker A: It's not like master universe and stuff. Oh, I mean, that was just like the commercial. [00:06:43] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:06:44] Speaker A: And Gi Joe. [00:06:45] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. [00:06:47] Speaker A: But remember at the end, GI Joe teached an important lesson about strangers, so it was okay. [00:06:51] Speaker B: Pork chop sandwiches. What the hell are you doing? Get out of here. [00:06:58] Speaker A: I downloaded the computer. That was some early Internet meme. Who wants a bunny shows? [00:07:06] Speaker B: Look at all your different colored hats. [00:07:09] Speaker A: Oh, man. That was like pre social media meme. [00:07:12] Speaker B: Oh, man. I remember being in high school and being invited to a party at three in the afternoon at somebody's house, and it was literally just everybody sitting around the computer watching a supercut of those on ebaum's world. [00:07:24] Speaker A: No, that's a party. [00:07:26] Speaker B: If that doesn't date me, I don't know what will. [00:07:28] Speaker A: If anyone is, you know, under the age of 100 and wondering what we're talking about. Before things went viral was before social media, or, like, right at the cusp of it. Definitely before you could share videos on social media, there was a GI Joe edit where people, I can't remember what they're called, but they're just like Gi Joe Psas, I think. And it's just, like, really funny. Edited over those psas at the end of Gi Joe episodes. Pretty classic. So check that out. If you haven't ever heard of them, they're really funny. [00:08:00] Speaker B: Gi Joe's were so easy to break. They, like, they were held together in the middle by those little bitty rubber bands that you pull them a little bit and pow, you got top half, bottom half. [00:08:11] Speaker A: I love Gi Joe's. Those are some pretty classic figures. [00:08:13] Speaker B: Yeah, they were pretty great. [00:08:15] Speaker A: I never really had that many because they were, like, kind of older by the time I was. I mean, they were still around, but I remember I would get some, like, they made Gi Joe Mortal Kombat licensed Gi Joes, and I had a bunch of those. [00:08:27] Speaker B: What? Seriously? [00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:29] Speaker B: That's awesome. That's awesome. [00:08:31] Speaker A: I'll send you some pictures. Yeah, they, at one point, made mortal Kombat licensed Gi Joe's. And street fighter licensed Gi Joes. [00:08:38] Speaker B: That's awesome. When we were cleaning out my grandparents house, we found my dad and my uncle's Gi Joe's, like, still in the little foot lockers that they used to come in. This was pre eighties Gi Joe's. So they were like, oh, so, like, the full size. Yeah, they were, like, the twelve that looked like barbies. Yeah, yeah. And they had, like, a little jeep. I do believe his name was, like, Captain Daniel or something like that. [00:09:02] Speaker A: That's cool. Yeah, those were the. They were the action figure. The first action fig coined the term action figure. Because they thought kids would think they were dolls. Yeah, they're not dolls. They're action figures. [00:09:13] Speaker B: They act. [00:09:16] Speaker A: Speaking of action figures, Spawn has many action figures. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Spawn does have many action figures. There's lots of them. [00:09:22] Speaker A: And spawn has many issues as a person and as an intellectual property. Both. [00:09:28] Speaker B: Yeah. It's literally like that deadpool shirt that people you don't like wear that's got. It says, I have issues, and it's deadpool sifting through a box of comic books. [00:09:40] Speaker A: Can you imagine? You're like, I'm at work right now, and you're just like. And then Jessica used her hair to punch the curse. [00:09:48] Speaker B: Oh, man, that would be so good. I could just imagine somebody walking in on you and, like, you looking upset with these toys in your hand, being like, I can't get it to work. [00:09:59] Speaker A: And then, like, I just write, like, plays about people sitting around, and, like, I don't want someone walking in on me. I'm moving around and talking to myself. And sometimes I use action figures. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Somebody just, like, opens the door to your office and sees you, like, cursing out a little seven inch plastic toy, and then they just, like, silently leave and close the door behind. [00:10:22] Speaker A: Yeah, well, my plays usually have enough genre element that I can. You know, it's not just quiet people yelling at each other, but, like, most theater, it devolves into that at some point. Yeah, yeah, true. But that's what we want to see. That's what we're here for. [00:10:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it's definitely what we're here for. And speaking of what we want to see, we want to see these comic books, Johnny. And what do comic books always have on them? Well, any book, really. But especially with comic books, they got the. [00:10:48] Speaker A: Especially with spawn. They've got awesome ass covers. [00:10:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Speaking of advertisements, this is literally an advertisement for the book. Yeah. [00:10:54] Speaker A: It's like you're walking by, and you're going, I should buy that. It's got a cool cover. It's kind of like, I bought many comic books off their cover. [00:11:00] Speaker B: It's kind of like getting a playbill when you show up to read the book, and then it's like, oh, that's what the poster looks like, huh? I want to see this little part they have on the poster. I can't wait till we get to that part of the movie. [00:11:11] Speaker A: This b cover really does look like a movie poster too. On this issue. [00:11:15] Speaker B: The Fernandez cover five. [00:11:17] Speaker A: Yes, because it's like disruptor spawn. You get Soldier Al Simmons and then the Botswana village. [00:11:24] Speaker B: It is literally. Yeah, yeah, it is. [00:11:27] Speaker A: It's a movie poster. [00:11:28] Speaker B: This is. If this isn't the movie poster for Spawn, the movie, we'll still be happy, but. [00:11:33] Speaker A: Or something like that. [00:11:34] Speaker B: This will be a great poster for the movie. [00:11:37] Speaker A: If they're doing the writer of the. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Joker and Captain America, Winter Soldier, he wants it. [00:11:42] Speaker A: It's gonna be more small scale, r rated. You know, originally, it was at Blumhouse, which we know is like a $20 to $30 million picture. So I imagine the poster would be a little more minimalist. So probably just, like, glowing eyes or something is what I imagine. But I. The spawn movie, I want. And hopefully they can get there is, like, something on the level of the 1997 movie of, like, no, we're gonna put all these characters in here. We're doing it. Yeah. I would love to see. [00:12:12] Speaker B: Depending on how you do it, it can be a complete mess. If you feel that you have to introduce each character, like, with a lengthy sort of thing. Every time they show up, then that's an issue. But if you just take it for. These are the characters in this world, and we meet them, you know, like you would a regular character, then that's. That's a good way to do it. [00:12:30] Speaker A: You gotta Star wars that shit. Just, like, have someone walk by. Who's that cool person? I don't know, but they're cool. And, well, we jumped. We jumped the covers. Yeah, I'm jumping covers. We're remixing. I started with the b cover. It was a good transition because we were talking about. [00:12:45] Speaker B: We're always talking about movie posters. [00:12:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I love movie posters. I used to have a ton. My friend worked in movie theater all throughout high school, and I had a whole bunch. [00:12:54] Speaker B: I also worked at a movie theater in high school, but I worked. There was one coworker I had who the boss liked better, and she always got to pick the good posters first. And so I ended up with things like Troy. That's the poster I got, was the Troy post. [00:13:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I got. I got my best ones. They were like. They were like, gifts. Like, he got them and, like, gave them to me because they were, like, hard to get. But I had a return of the king poster. [00:13:22] Speaker B: Oh, hell, yeah. [00:13:23] Speaker A: And I have a kill bill volume one poster with the sword. With, like, the metal sword. Like, it's like foil. [00:13:30] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah. Those are the ones that would have gotten picked up by the. By my coworker. Although a moment of pedantry, Johnny. They are not posters. They are one sheets. They are one sheets. [00:13:45] Speaker A: One sheets. [00:13:46] Speaker B: I know. [00:13:46] Speaker A: You're right. Yeah, because it's one sheet. Because it bleeds through so the light can shine through it. [00:13:52] Speaker B: One sheets. Yeah, there's a. [00:13:55] Speaker A: You're right. You're right. I got him in my drawer somewhere. When I'm rich and famous, I'll have a big, giant mansion, and I'll hang him up on the wall. [00:14:02] Speaker B: There was, um. What was it? It was be cool. The follow up to get shorty that had rock as the rock as a, uh, as a. Basically a call boy, what a. What a movie. But they're. Yeah, there's one scene where they're sitting at a table looking at a whole bunch of one sheets, and somebody's like, look at all these posters. And he's like, they're one sheets. Um, and that, I saw that when I was working at the movie theater, and I was like, I did the Leonardo DiCaprio point. [00:14:36] Speaker A: Well, the a cover is really awesome. It's pretty unique, too. It's kind of a, it's a bjorn Behrens, which is that 3d. Kind of 3d art style. But it is a nude Al Simmons. [00:14:50] Speaker B: Nude Al Simmons, like, wearing barbed wire. [00:14:53] Speaker A: And, like, a skull codpiece. [00:14:55] Speaker B: And he's got toes. Johnny, have we ever seen. He's got Al Simmons toes before? I don't think we have. [00:15:04] Speaker A: I don't. This might be the first time. This might be a first Al Simmons toes. The Internet's gonna freak out. They love feet, right? [00:15:11] Speaker B: Oh, man. Al Simmons is gonna have to get himself an onlyfans. [00:15:14] Speaker A: You might have to. I mean, this is. This is for somebody, for sure. It's a little intense for me. Like, you know, I appreciate it. [00:15:22] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:15:23] Speaker A: It's looking guy. Like, he's in shape, but, like, the. The barbed wire and the skull codpiece is just pushing a little for me. That's okay. You know, I'm sure someone would be into that. [00:15:32] Speaker B: Hey, different strokes, man. Different strokes. [00:15:35] Speaker A: Well, he has strokes of paint all over him because he's got his spawn symbol, his m. His malbolgia m, painted on him, as well as his spawn eye holes. His eyes. I don't know what you call, I. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Mean, spawn mark, but he's not wearing a mask. So I guess it's just his makeup. Uh, it's kind of like his, uh, his clown face, where clowns have to register their face. They've got a. A registry of clown faces. So that way, nobody can try to make money off of somebody else's design. [00:16:08] Speaker A: So we've got nude buff Al Simmons with his clown makeup on in a graveyard. [00:16:14] Speaker B: I guess technically it would be buff squared, Johnny. Cause he is buff and in the buff. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah, that's true. He's buffing in the buff. And he looks like we're supposed to imply that he is raising these. [00:16:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I would assume so. With the. Cause they've all got the glowing. [00:16:29] Speaker A: The glowing hand and the green eyes. [00:16:30] Speaker B: Like, there's, like, the zombies don't stop. Like, as you look into the distance, there are more and more of them just, like, coming out of the woodwork. Well, technically, the ground, but, you know. You know what I mean? [00:16:44] Speaker A: The dirt work. The dirt and coming out of the dirt work. Yeah. No, this is a great cover. I love Bjorn Barons. Like I said before, he's been doing the alien series at Marvel, all the covers for the current arc, and they're just great. Luckily, that arc is just finishing, so I'm able to exit from my list as I tried to trim down the amount of comics I get. Yeah, I want my Instagram post to look like yours, David. [00:17:10] Speaker B: My big old stack this week. [00:17:12] Speaker A: I know. It's just tough because I like a lot of the Star wars, and I want to. Yeah, I got enough down that I shouldn't be spending ever more than, like, at least $20 to $30 a week, usually a lot less. So that should be fine. [00:17:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:27] Speaker A: Basically, if I limit to myself how I've done it is spawn, of course. And then I'm trying to limit myself to only ongoing series that I feel are unique to the comic medium. [00:17:40] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:41] Speaker A: So, like, west of Sundown and then a couple superhero books, like odd avengers and. And world's finest, just to, like, have my toe in there. Yeah, the superhero but also, like, I like the serialized, and I feel like things that are like five art, like, you know, if there's a thing I know is going to be like a trade paperback, that's going to be like five issues, if I'm interested, I'll just wait and buy it used or get at the library or something, just because I have so much to read as it is right now. Now that I've been to comics for, like, a little couple years now. So, like, it's just like, okay, I've got a good amount of stuff that I need to catch up on. [00:18:16] Speaker B: That to be red pile just keeps growing. It keeps growing. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And my friend Eloy was saying, like, yeah. When he got into comics to say they happened, you just start getting excited. Yeah, I'll get more and more. Whatever. They're like a few bucks, and then all of a sudden you're like, oh, no, what happened? [00:18:31] Speaker B: There are so many good comic books, Johnny. It's so hard to make decisions. [00:18:36] Speaker A: Yeah. This good comic book king, spawn number five, hails from December 2021. [00:18:42] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's. Man. Very long time ago. Only a year and some change, but. [00:18:50] Speaker A: Year and some change, but it's a world away. That was, like, right before the big COVID wave that got me and everyone I. Everyone, like, around my social group a little bit crazy to think there was still another mass mandate after that. But it seems so long ago. But it was still in January, February, March 2022. We had a mask mandate. [00:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I remember my parents came up to visit a couple in October of 2021, and Oklahoma had gotten rid of a mask mandate, like, almost immediately, but they still had it. They still had them for, like, if places said to wear a mask, you had to wear a mask here in Illinois. And my dad would always forget to take his mask. He would park his truck, and we'd be halfway to the store, and he'd be like, fucking mask. And then he'd have to go back. [00:19:46] Speaker A: I did that so many times. It was like the. Every time I left the house for a while. Yeah, I would have remembered if I had a spawn mask. [00:19:53] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah. [00:19:54] Speaker A: You would've just worn it. Yeah, spawn mask. [00:19:56] Speaker B: Worn it all the time. Like, this is just my face now. [00:19:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm just spawn. [00:20:00] Speaker B: That would have probably precipitated the divorce more than purchasing a gunslinger coat would, though. Johnny, I never see. I never. Johnny, I never see your face anymore. This is my face. Wanda, Johnny. [00:20:17] Speaker A: Wanda, your name is cursed in hell. [00:20:22] Speaker B: You could be like that in heaven. I mean, you could be like, that old. Oh, what did he do it on? That old Batman guy who just wore a Batman mask and spoke to his kids like, oh, he was like, being. [00:20:35] Speaker A: In the shower, just walking around. Yeah. [00:20:37] Speaker B: Jennifer. [00:20:38] Speaker A: Bat dad. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Bat dad. Yeah. [00:20:40] Speaker A: So, still going strong yet unbroken. In this book, we have script plot by Sean Lewis. [00:20:47] Speaker B: Additional dialogue with a little bit of. [00:20:49] Speaker A: Additional dialogue by toddfather himself. The toddfather? Todd McFarlane. [00:20:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:57] Speaker A: Art by Javi Fernandez. [00:20:58] Speaker B: Excellent work as always. [00:21:00] Speaker A: And world designed as the lettering. So does that mean that's someone's name, or is that like a company? [00:21:04] Speaker B: I think that's a company. [00:21:05] Speaker A: Okay. Um, just making sure. [00:21:08] Speaker B: So, um. Okay, so I'm gonna mention it here, and then we can just skip over it later, but. Andworld's design needs to learn how to use a fucking comma correctly. End of rant. [00:21:20] Speaker A: Hot take. Hot take. [00:21:22] Speaker B: Hot take. There are so many just, like, comma splices. And it's like, what the fuck is that doing there? What? What are you doing? [00:21:29] Speaker A: Damn. So here we go. As we got the previously in still saying spawn, they don't really update. It kind of bounces around between Spawn and King Spawn here for a bit, but eventually they settle on King Spawn. [00:21:42] Speaker B: Yeah, they get there eventually. [00:21:44] Speaker A: So here we go. Previously in Spawn, the battle with a resurrected king Cayde comes to a brutal and gruesome end. But Spawn is visited by the oracle and told that his fight is far from over. If he can't stem the tide of evil flooding the world, someone might just erase it all and start over. Dun, dun, dun. [00:22:07] Speaker B: Brutal and gruesome is putting it lightly. Oh, man. [00:22:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:13] Speaker B: Fucking. [00:22:14] Speaker A: That was a wild couple issues there. Three and four were pretty crazy. [00:22:17] Speaker B: Oh, man. So, so gruesome. So gruesome. Speaking of gruesome, we start just like, right in a. Right in a war zone, Johnny, right? [00:22:26] Speaker A: Cause where we left off, he bested Kincaid. Simon. Him got out of the burning house. Oracle's there like, yo, I'm gonna destroy the earth. And he's like, all right, all right. And then he popped. He banffed over to not Harry Terry and was like, hey, we're going to Botswana, baby. Yeah. I mean, that's where we find ourselves. [00:22:45] Speaker B: Al Simmons got Stiles fever, and he bamped over to Harry mid tour and was like, mister Stiles, I need your musical skills to get me through this time. That's what he did, right? [00:22:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that Harry. [00:22:59] Speaker B: That works. That works. That's a good joke, right? [00:23:02] Speaker A: So do that Prince Harry or Harry Potter. And I vote that you did the best of the three. [00:23:07] Speaker B: So good job. The one with the most interesting fashion. [00:23:14] Speaker A: Sense and the most of the moment, I feel like people talk. Didn't he just won a Grammy and. [00:23:19] Speaker B: He was in that movie? Yeah, he won, like. Yeah, he won something or other. [00:23:22] Speaker A: Yeah, he won an award. [00:23:24] Speaker B: Seems. Seems like. Seems like a cool guy. [00:23:26] Speaker A: Seems like, you know, who needs to get an e? Got is spawn. Spawn, Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, Tony. Just do it. [00:23:33] Speaker B: Just spawn the character. [00:23:34] Speaker A: Or for spawn related things. Okay, so spawn, stage musical. [00:23:40] Speaker B: Well, here's what we could do. [00:23:43] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:43] Speaker B: So we could have a little bit of stolen valor. And they could hire Whoopi Goldberg to be in the spawn movie. And then you've got his egotist. [00:23:55] Speaker A: Egot. [00:23:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:57] Speaker A: Egotter. Gad. He got a egoT. [00:24:00] Speaker B: Does Lin Manuel Miranda have his Egot yet? [00:24:03] Speaker A: He's got to, right? [00:24:04] Speaker B: I think he does. [00:24:05] Speaker A: He doesn't have an Emmy. I hope so. If you didn't have one, I don't know who'd have one. [00:24:08] Speaker B: Cause I have to say. Cause if he does, then you could also hire him to do the music. That would be wild spawn with the Lin Manuel Verazan Miranda soundtrack. [00:24:15] Speaker A: I sold my soul to Malbolgia. He got me in a hold ya. That's why I live my old Miranda impression. That's a fuck out. [00:24:25] Speaker B: Don't, man. It was. It was spot on. It was spot on, dude. It's unfortunately kind of what he's had to do. Cause I think his list of upcoming jobs, his very talented man. Nothing against him and his talent and what he can do. But I think his slate of upcoming projects. Has gone beyond what his sort of lyrical capabilities are supposed to be. He has. [00:24:57] Speaker A: I feel bad for him in a way. Cause, like, I like him, and I'm just really excited. But he's just overexposed. Yeah, it's like. I think we talked about it before, but it's like the Chris Pratt thing. It's like you're someone I liked and was excited about. But then Hollywood drove you into the ground, you know, no fault of your own, except maybe say no to a couple things every once in a while. But, I mean, if I liked writing songs and I was a working artist, I would say yes, probably. So who's to blame? Him? [00:25:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:25:22] Speaker A: It's just the studios, like, get other. There doesn't have to be one person that does the thing. Johnny, you can have multiple people. [00:25:32] Speaker B: Johnny, talking about the studio system. We can mark that off on the bingo card. So we've got David doing a rant. Johnny, talking about the studio system. Fan casting. So that's at least three bingo spots. We should totally put out bingo cards. [00:25:50] Speaker A: Respawn bingo. [00:25:52] Speaker B: Respawn bingo. For the nonsense we do. Maybe. Maybe a free space for every. What's the. What's the thing? I say, oh, man. Every 15 times, I say, oh, man. You get a free space. [00:26:04] Speaker A: That's the one time you didn't say, oh, man on the podcast. You're supposed to bingo. Because here comes an awkward transition back into spawn. So, mark that on your bingo cards, we opened in Botswana in a flashback. [00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Many years ago. This is before Al Simmons became spawn. Johnny. That's a yes. Nice little. [00:26:23] Speaker A: And so this is kind of a tying and expanding, one might say a retcon of Spawn's origin a little bit, just to kind of bring it into the king spawn fold. So he's going through this, like, burning village, and then we turn the page, and we get, like, cool tactical ops Al Simmons. Like, what I think of when I think of Al Simmons. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's real nice. It's a. He's got trigger discipline, too. Look at that. He's got his. He's not running around with his finger on the trigger. He knows not to shoot himself in the foot. [00:26:55] Speaker A: And this page is either Sean Lewis masterfully executing, like, todd father soldier explanation dialogue, or this is some of our fated additional dialogue by Todd McFarlane. Because it's like, Al Simmons is a soldier, if you can believe it, David. [00:27:10] Speaker B: Oh, man. I have to believe it because I'm seeing it. But if I didn't see it, I wouldn't believe it. [00:27:17] Speaker A: But, yeah, this page just kind of has some chewy text breaking down Al Simmons psych psyche as a soldier, man. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, we've talked about always ending up with more dead bodies than planned, and it's, you know, now he's just like, you know, a lot of people are gonna die no matter what. So let's just. He's got a high threshold for acceptable losses. [00:27:43] Speaker A: Yeah. And he's this mission. He's not, like, super ideologically on board with. He's saving. Saving a guy, an idiot. A diamond trader saving an idiot, basically for political reasons. [00:27:57] Speaker B: He comes up on a guy he's supposed to save, and he's talking to him about stuff. This kid is a. This kid is a warlord. He has only one hand. He has a psalm 137 tattoo. [00:28:09] Speaker A: You just assumed that, like, throughout, this hip probably got blown off by, like, an improvised explosive device. Yeah, probably take it. Take it as a punishment. Like, it's. It's a. Implies some fucked up backstory to the guy. [00:28:20] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. It turns out that this kid is also working for Al Simmons boss, mister. Jason Nguyen. General Nguyen. Simmons commanding officer. [00:28:30] Speaker A: That's confusing. He shouldn't be working for General Nguyen. What's going on? [00:28:34] Speaker B: General Nguyen's on the straight and narrow. We all. We all know that. Our first. Our first meeting with him, he's the paragon of morality. [00:28:44] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:28:45] Speaker B: He's so good. He's such a. Such a model. A model citizen that they have to just endlessly repeat his visage as a sort of morale. [00:28:56] Speaker A: So Al goes outside and is talking to his picture of wanda and gets sniped in the head. He gets sunk. [00:29:03] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. It says it's a brutal, brutal headshot. [00:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's right on the money, man. And we learned who did it. [00:29:15] Speaker B: Who did it? [00:29:16] Speaker A: Who did it? [00:29:17] Speaker B: It's perfect. Dark did it, apparently. [00:29:19] Speaker A: Joanna Dark. Agent Joanna Dark. [00:29:24] Speaker B: I never played the game. I don't know her name. [00:29:26] Speaker A: You have to inform me of this pop culture phenomenon. Agent Joanna Dark, man. [00:29:33] Speaker B: Well, she's got the pixie cut. How do you feel about. How do you feel about the pixie cut, Johnny? [00:29:37] Speaker A: Eh, so she looks. [00:29:41] Speaker B: She looks a little bit like the cranberries lady. [00:29:46] Speaker A: Yeah, no, she looks like perfect, Eric. That's just, you know, I like long hair. Jessica. I prefer it. [00:29:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I prefer hellspine. Jessica. But it's Jessica Priest. Jessica Priest killed Al Simmons. What? What the. [00:29:58] Speaker A: Yeah, this is bad because she's a little more like psycho. Like killer lady. [00:30:01] Speaker B: Psycho killer kiss kisses. You better. You better run. [00:30:10] Speaker A: She's like. She's like psycho in the movie and, like, gets off on, like, killing. It's pretty great. No, I'm gonna start yelling at you. Oh, my God. [00:30:27] Speaker B: Oh, that was a bad idea, Johnny. [00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I would say so. Just remember that anytime you have the urge to sing for longer than 5 seconds on Mike. Oh, no kidding. [00:30:40] Speaker B: I'm never gonna remember to not sing, Johnny. [00:30:43] Speaker A: I know, I know. You said wanda's been trying to get you to do it for years. So if she can, what chance do I have? [00:30:49] Speaker B: No, she has literally thrown things at me to get me to stop before, and, well, you just can't stop me, Johnny. [00:30:59] Speaker A: I love it. I love the go for it go show. [00:31:03] Speaker B: So we got Jessica Priest. After she's disposing of the body, she's dumping some gas on it, and she throws a zippo. Man, so many thrown zippos in recent spawns. [00:31:16] Speaker A: Yeah, I wish this one had a scorched logo on it, though. [00:31:19] Speaker B: Yeah, a little too early for the scorched logo to pop up, though. Although. Although this does bring up an idea that I was wondering about a little bit ago. I wonder how much of Tom Healy's job is just, hey, guys, there needs to be more skulls on this page. Maybe just put in a couple more skulls. Some more skulls. So I'm surprised, you know, there is a distinct lack of skulls in these couple of pages, so, yeah, there's no skulls. No skulls. [00:31:50] Speaker A: So then you get, like, alg and immolated, like, fucking qui gon jinn over here. Just getting burnt. [00:31:58] Speaker B: It's just a beautiful two page spread of, you know, we got our classic spawn sitting on some rooftops, and we got the cityscape in the background. And I just love how the sort of, like, story beats just take up the sides of buildings. So instead of being. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:14] Speaker B: Isolated panels that aren't part of the background, they're just like, you know when you're driving down the street and you see somebody painted a poster on the. The side of a building? That's what we got for Spawn's life. We got, you know, sort of files that he's dealt with. We've got that sigil floating around. We got Terry and Wanda. We got Jessica Priest as she spawn. We got. Who that man. Who that man? [00:32:40] Speaker A: Disruptor. [00:32:42] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, we did. We have been introduced to disruptor. [00:32:44] Speaker A: We know his name. His name's disruptor. We know him. [00:32:47] Speaker B: I couldn't. I couldn't remember if we'd seen him in King Spawn before or not. [00:32:52] Speaker A: He's in Spawn's universe. [00:32:53] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, he is. He is. Damn, Johnny, you don't know who he is. I don't. Oh, man. It's so hard to keep up and keep things straight. [00:33:02] Speaker A: I'm doing okay with it. I think Star wars gave me a lot of good practice. [00:33:05] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Yeah. [00:33:06] Speaker A: Just retaining bad. Like, not bad. Useless information about characters. [00:33:11] Speaker B: I did just plow through four episodes of the show to listen for quality control checks, and so now I have absolutely no idea where I am. [00:33:20] Speaker A: Well, thanks for doing that. [00:33:21] Speaker B: I appreciate it. In three days, I have listened to us talk about eight different books, and then read two different books for this episode, and then read this week's book. [00:33:31] Speaker A: How was the quality control? How was it? How am I doing? [00:33:33] Speaker B: Quality control is excellent, Johnny. It is excellent. [00:33:38] Speaker A: I like editing them. It's been fun. [00:33:40] Speaker B: I don't know if you guys like our show as much as I like our show, but, shit, dude, I laugh so hard listening to us talk about spawn. It's a good time. I love the show. [00:33:53] Speaker A: It is. [00:33:54] Speaker B: Johnny, we should. We should get ahold of that. Men in black technology where we can erase our memories after we've finished an episode. So that way we can come to it like a new episode of Respawn's out. Let's listen to it. [00:34:07] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Well, it was like that editing them, it's not like. Well, actually, because when they come out, I usually listen to them the day they come out, so I know what to say in the Instagram post. [00:34:19] Speaker B: Nice. [00:34:19] Speaker A: So because I don't remember what happens in the episode unless I listen to part of it. So I'm like, I don't know. [00:34:25] Speaker B: Yes. [00:34:25] Speaker A: When do we record this? And so usually that's. We record Friday. I listen to the last week's episode or the episode that posts that week, and then I do the Instagram post. [00:34:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:36] Speaker A: So I usually it's. Usually I have, like, a three or four weeks since I did it and then like a week or two since I edited it. So it's nice to listen to them then, because you kind of get a distance from it. If I try to listen to it right after I finish editing, it just sounds like mush, and I just think about all the things I did to it. [00:34:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it's. That's true. [00:34:53] Speaker A: Brain is like, you've just been listening to it for so long, your brain just kind of, like, doesn't work the same way. Yeah, you got to have some distance. [00:35:00] Speaker B: Definitely, definitely. That's why when you're. When you're in college and you're writing papers, you don't want to just do it all the night before. You want to do it a couple of days before. So you can sleep on it and then come back and be like, this doesn't make any sense. [00:35:14] Speaker A: If we got any college projects or learning, sleeping on it really does help a lot. Yeah, it's like, always sleep on it. [00:35:22] Speaker B: Always sleep on it. Especially if it's a strongly worded email. You want to type it up, then go to sleep, and then reread it in the morning before you send it. [00:35:30] Speaker A: Abso lutely. [00:35:32] Speaker B: Absolutely. So we jump back to Botswana from this lovely two page spread. It's an amazing two page spread. There's only so much good stuff we can say about Javi Fernandez's two page spreads without just repeating ourselves. It's fucking gorgeous. [00:35:51] Speaker A: I mean, they're always epic, cosmic, and just, like, do a good job summing up where we are at this point in the story and just bringing it all together. [00:36:01] Speaker B: We don't do it justice by talking about it. You just literally have to see them. They're so fucking good. So fucking good. So, yeah, back in. Back in Botswana, we got spawn, you know, staring at stuff, talking to. Talking to Terry. Terry's like, what are we doing here? And spawns. [00:36:18] Speaker A: Oh, look, they got the McFarland's weapons pack. [00:36:20] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Nice. Nice. [00:36:22] Speaker A: They must have got that in the mail, like me. [00:36:24] Speaker B: Did yours come with an AK? [00:36:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:27] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:36:29] Speaker A: Well, then, yeah, there's a ton of guns. So I gave the Ak to Sam. [00:36:33] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:36:34] Speaker A: Sam's holding the AK to the air, and then his right hand holding out a pistol straight, like, he's gonna shoot you. So he's got two guns. No, no. Twitch, twitch. Not Sam. Oh, my God. [00:36:43] Speaker B: This implies that just off panel that there is that cork gun. [00:36:50] Speaker A: Yeah, there's a court gun, and there's an alien laser gun next to it. [00:36:54] Speaker B: Can you imagine Spahn just walking around with a. With a cork gun? It's funny. [00:37:01] Speaker A: They put a court gun in there. [00:37:02] Speaker B: He's got, like, the Jack Nicholson Joker gun that just says bang. But, yeah. So Spawn is Phil and Terry in on the nonsense that's going on. He's like, yeah, this is. We got people fucking with us. We got to come here to get the clues, and, well, we might as well walk around some big ass guns. So let's get some big ass guns. [00:37:27] Speaker A: And they're at the exact same spot, same houses where Al was. Went after the guy earlier in the issue. We went after the diamond trader, literally retracing his steps. [00:37:36] Speaker B: Like, we got alternating panels of Al Simmons and then Spawn and then Al Simmons and then Spawn and then Al Simmons and then Spawn and, you know. [00:37:47] Speaker A: And there's graffiti inside the house that says, the king returned. [00:37:52] Speaker B: We got Spahn trying to talk to Terry. It might be confusing me saying Al Simmons and spawn, but this is, like, pre spawn. Al Simmons and Spawn, right? [00:38:02] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:38:03] Speaker B: Just in case anybody's not reading along. And they're. They're like. But isn't Al Simmons spawn? [00:38:07] Speaker A: But no, they made an Al Simmons versus spawn action figure. [00:38:10] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Is it, like, half and half? [00:38:13] Speaker A: No, it's. It's like they're fighting. So Al Simmons. It's like that. I think it's from issue somewhere in the nineties or so, in, like, night, between 91 hundred. He has that where Al Simmons is, like, talking to him, trying to get him to, like, some sense into him. And they fight, and they made, like, a art of spawn box set. [00:38:33] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:38:34] Speaker A: That is them fighting, which is pretty cool. [00:38:36] Speaker B: That's a. That's a good one. Oh, man. Being able to have that. That high detailed quality on just a regular alseman's face has to be beautiful. It has to be beautiful. [00:38:47] Speaker A: Yeah, it looks good. Someone posted it the other day, actually. Oh, nice. [00:38:50] Speaker B: And so as soon as Spahn walked into this hut, he lost communications with Terry. And then he gets snuck up on by disruptor, who just blasts him in the back. [00:39:02] Speaker A: It disrupts him. [00:39:03] Speaker B: Oh, man. Literal and art on this page is beautiful. Again, it's. Oh, man. Just the amount of light basically coming through. Al Simmons. He's getting disrupted so hard. [00:39:22] Speaker A: So hard. [00:39:24] Speaker B: You know, and disruptors, you know, mocking him for, you know, acting like a soldier. Cause he's like, I knew you were gonna do this. Cause you're a soldier. And. [00:39:31] Speaker A: Ha ha. [00:39:31] Speaker B: I gotcha, right? [00:39:33] Speaker A: He's like, you're gonna. The sickle told you to come here. [00:39:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:39:35] Speaker A: You're gonna come here because you follow orders. [00:39:37] Speaker B: Yeah. And even if those orders were closer to a death threat, and then, you know, then spawn gets thrown out of the hut. This. Johnny, Johnny, this page. This page is the staple page. And this staple page came way too soon. [00:39:52] Speaker A: I know it did. [00:39:53] Speaker B: I was like, this story just started. How are we at the staple page? This book goes way too fast. [00:40:00] Speaker A: Well, for all you staple page heads, mine was already ripped out by the time we were recording this. [00:40:06] Speaker B: Nice. [00:40:06] Speaker A: It's already taped in. [00:40:07] Speaker B: Nice. [00:40:08] Speaker A: It was previously taped. [00:40:10] Speaker B: Yeah. And so disruptor is not only throwing spawn around, but he's throwing Terry at Spawn. Like, he literally throws Terry at spawn. [00:40:18] Speaker A: Rude. [00:40:18] Speaker B: So rude. You know, disruptor keeps saying, you know, why? See what happens when you don't listen? Just take the crown. Let your servants worship you. We need you to do this. [00:40:34] Speaker A: Swan's like, who the hell are you talking about? You said, someone said I wouldn't come. Who do you mean? He's like, I'm not telling you that. No, no, no. [00:40:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I do like the little detail that disruptor has 137 on his boots there. [00:40:45] Speaker A: So that is nice. I didn't even notice that. [00:40:49] Speaker B: Yeah. So this is all tied together, Johnny. It's almost as if the pieces in comic books, you know, tie into each other. [00:40:57] Speaker A: He's got 137 on his knee pads. [00:41:01] Speaker B: Yeah, he does, man. Yeah. And, you know, he's just lording over Al Simmons there, being like, you can get what you desire. Don't you know what you deserve? Al's all like, you have no idea what I desire. [00:41:15] Speaker A: I just love King Spawn. I mean, we talked about it before, like, with the nose holes and, like, the really sharp teeth. [00:41:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:21] Speaker A: The way spawn's drawn in. King Spawn's excellent. [00:41:24] Speaker B: He's very skeletal and very angry. And so we get this good fight here between Spawn and disruptor. And then it just gets grittier and grittier as the page goes down. And then this final panel where Al's yelling at him and bringing his hand around to grab a disruptor's face is just awesome. It's some good shit. It's got lots of texture. [00:41:53] Speaker A: And then, boom, he gives them, like, an uppercut of electricity. And this big two page spread. [00:41:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:41:59] Speaker A: And in the background, you get all the little bits of, like, the other cells and attacks that have been going on. Like, you get a little bit of the ice cream truck. You get, like, a 137 soldier. [00:42:10] Speaker B: We get, like, the school explosion. We get. [00:42:13] Speaker A: Looks like one of them is the room where he found megaton. [00:42:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:19] Speaker A: Or, like, the hallway. [00:42:21] Speaker B: Metatron. [00:42:23] Speaker A: Metatron. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Megaton. I mean, there's probably gonna be a character named megaton. [00:42:27] Speaker A: So Megaton would be a good swan. [00:42:29] Speaker B: Good swan character. There's lots of ice cream truck here because there's the ice cream truck on the sidewalk from the distance. And then there's just, like, the grill of the ice cream truck. [00:42:39] Speaker A: It all comes back to Billy. [00:42:41] Speaker B: It's real. It's real fun. And he says, I give the orders here. Not you. You hear that, soldier? Not you. [00:42:49] Speaker A: He's using soldier's insult. He's a jerk. [00:42:51] Speaker B: Then he throws after the uppercut, you know, spawn flies away and hits a building again. And the disruptor says, get up, you coward. I taught you better than that. And then we get a little internal monologue from spawn, and he's like, what the fuck does he mean? He taught me. Cog's the only one who taught me anything about spawn abilities. [00:43:14] Speaker A: No, but I taught you. [00:43:16] Speaker B: And then, so Al's like, you never taught me anything. And he's standing up. Oh, this Al, this spawn standing up to strike back image is so gnarly. His arm is just connected by, like, some ropey necroplasm. And he's got a bone sticking out. Oh, oh. Oh, Johnny. [00:43:40] Speaker A: He's all kind of fucked up. [00:43:42] Speaker B: It is so gross. Oh, no. I found an. I found a problem with this image, Johnny. So what arm is broken? [00:43:52] Speaker A: The left arm. [00:43:53] Speaker B: What hand is on the ground? [00:43:57] Speaker A: The right hand. Oh, wow. He really fucked him up. [00:44:04] Speaker B: He fucked him up so hard that he reversed his hand. [00:44:07] Speaker A: Maybe he turned the hand around. No, I guess that's not even possible. It would be. Yeah, man. Man, that's funny. [00:44:16] Speaker B: It's just so gross. It's so gross. [00:44:18] Speaker A: It is. It looks like gak. It looks like the green slime that would come with, like, the ninja Turtles action figures. [00:44:24] Speaker B: Yeah, this is, like, coming out of the pipe. [00:44:28] Speaker A: Yeah. And, like, my mom would, like, never get it for us. Cause she's like, you're gonna get it in the carpet. Slime was very popular then. [00:44:35] Speaker B: Yeah, slime. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. Apparently one of the, like, remote most repulsive things about double dare on Nickelodeon is that, like, the slime would just, like, fester because the stage was so hot that it would just basically cook all day. And so the stage just smelt like overcooked slime. [00:45:03] Speaker A: Mmm. Yummy. Speaking of yummy, his next page has got a nice meal for spawn. Cause we got some. Some grubs in there, some maggots. [00:45:12] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Spawn shoots his chains out to knock the head off, knock disruptor's helmet off to see who the. Who it is under there. And he says it's me adjacent. Yeah. [00:45:25] Speaker A: Basically, take a good, hard look then, and know your eyes aren't seeing things. It's me. And I'm more alive than you. And it's Jason Wynn. Classic silhouette looking slightly to the side. We know it's him. We got the widow's peak. [00:45:38] Speaker B: Yeah, but he's. He's missing an eye. His half of his face is all fucked up. [00:45:42] Speaker A: It's got, like, maggots coming out of it. [00:45:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, Jason Nguyen has seen some. See the scene. [00:45:48] Speaker A: They don't show immediately after. This is Swan goes, thank you. I need to regenerate my powers. And he starts eating the worms out of his eye. [00:45:55] Speaker B: Oh, man. I like how he's got, like, a chunk taken out of his ear, too. Holy crap. [00:45:59] Speaker A: Yeah, he looks all kind of messed up. [00:46:01] Speaker B: Oh, man. And may God help everyone's soul. Johnny. [00:46:05] Speaker A: Here he is. [00:46:06] Speaker B: And then fate to king to spawn. [00:46:09] Speaker A: Chron Spawn, the king spawn logo. And then we get a little bit of a spawning ground breakdown with the birth of a monster. [00:46:17] Speaker B: Yeah, we're still pre getting the letters, so there's nothing posted. But we get a, you know, a nice little history of Billy Kincaid. The last issue, we got a history of clown. This one we're getting a history of Billy Kincaid. For those who didn't start, you know, issue five there, then to issue eight, and then to shit. I don't know what issues those are in. [00:46:40] Speaker A: See, we gotta talk about this this is something that someone mentioned another letter recently. What do you. I wish they would have kept the Billy Kincaid as a hellspawn plotline. I wish that would have been a, I don't know. You could have. You could have done a lot with that, but, yeah, you could have done. [00:46:54] Speaker B: A lot with it. That's a, it was like all of those different spawns that were, that were part of the army. I wish there had been more al, actually, as the general of hell's army stuff, that would have been a, like, maybe he loses his ability to remember why he's there, and he's just like, oh, yeah, I'm a general in the army of hell. And they have to have, like, sort of a redemptive arc to be like, ow. Ow. You can't do this. Ow. [00:47:23] Speaker A: No, that would have been fun. [00:47:25] Speaker B: That would have been fun. [00:47:26] Speaker A: I just like the idea of. I don't, because you don't know, like, what's going to be important or not. And just the idea that Billy Kincaid being like, a little hell swan is funny, but. [00:47:41] Speaker B: Well, I mean, it's a rich, there's a lot of stuff that they can go back on that's, you know, now that Billy Kincaid's back, they can do kind of like how Billy Kincaid went from being a bad, bad man to being, oh, Jesus, even worse, you know? And maybe, maybe it could be like his sort of being a member of Hell's army made it, turned him into this wretched thing that he's. [00:48:10] Speaker A: Yeah, his comic books, if they haven't covered it, it's always possible. Yeah, but basically this is just saying that he kind of, like, was a bad soldier and kind of languished there until we started coming back. [00:48:22] Speaker B: Yeah, but how many, how many stories are there of a soldier who's a bad soldier who just ends up turning into a fucking, you know, war machine type type individual. It's not like it's out of the realm of possibility. I do like that we have a reproduction of that final page from a couple issues ago with exploded Billy Kincaid shoving the crown on Al's head and Simon just being like, yeah, it fits. [00:48:51] Speaker A: It's just the art without the letters. That's pretty cool. It'd be a great poster. [00:48:57] Speaker B: It just throws into sharp relief how fucked up that whole thing was, because. [00:49:03] Speaker A: The pile of guts, of bones, it's like, guts just sitting in there. [00:49:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And this little bitty kid just, like, cheering it on. Oh, man. Oh. Sean Lewis comes up with some fucked up shit and gets Javi Fernandez to draw some fucked up shit. [00:49:21] Speaker A: They're a dynamic duo. [00:49:23] Speaker B: Good ass book. It's a good ass book. So good. [00:49:26] Speaker A: Yep. [00:49:27] Speaker B: And that's. [00:49:28] Speaker A: Well, we get. We get scores from one ad. We get the image first. Ad. [00:49:35] Speaker B: Yeah. With some art from I hate Fairyland. [00:49:39] Speaker A: Which I just bought an image first. I bought at that sale. I bought a copy of Gunslinger spawn to give to a friend. So, you know, $9.99. You know what? Hey, what is that? Nothing. 25% off. 999. Come on, that's cheaper than. Cheaper than lunch at McDonald's. [00:49:59] Speaker B: $7.50 is what it costs to get two tacos from the truck that parks near work. [00:50:04] Speaker A: So you get two tacos or the first trade paperback at Gunslinger spawn if it's on sale. [00:50:10] Speaker B: Either way, your appetite will be sated. [00:50:14] Speaker A: Yep. You'll be happy either way. But if you have $15, you should get both and eat the tacos while you read Gunslinger spawn. [00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah, and let me tell you, a little bit of taco grease on the gunslinger pages isn't gonna hurt nothing. It's fine. It'll be a nice sentence memory for you. [00:50:41] Speaker A: Speaking of taco grease, I think I might have some on my copy of Gunslinger spawn here. Oh, no, that's ramen. I don't know what it is. [00:50:51] Speaker B: Give it a nice sniff. Does it still have a smell? [00:50:53] Speaker A: Let me see. No. Smells like ink. Smells like a comic book. This is a freshie. This is a still pretty freshy one. Still smells like a comic. [00:51:02] Speaker B: Oh, man. I don't even know what. I haven't. I haven't smelled a comic. Hold on. [00:51:06] Speaker A: Smells like ink. [00:51:07] Speaker B: Oh, hey. Yeah, I do know that smell. Yeah, it's. It's like a. [00:51:11] Speaker A: It smells kind of like my cool. [00:51:14] Speaker B: It's like a subtler version of the mass trade paperback books that they sell at the grocery store or at Walgreens. There's something about the smell of those books that's just so good. That's also how my mom has worked at pharmacies her whole career. She's a pharmacist. Wow. And that's how I started reading Stephen King books, is because she got a discount for anything that she purchased at the store. And I was like, oh, look at the Stephen King book. I want to read this. And she'd be like, okay. And then the first thing you do is you crack it open and you stick your nose in the middle of it, and then you start reading, right? [00:51:55] Speaker A: Dude, I think I said it on text. But, man, I have Fangoria's subscription. I swear, they, like, print those puppies off, put them right into the envelope they come in. Cause you like, open that thing, and I almost pass out from the ink. I'm like, so high. [00:52:10] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:52:11] Speaker A: Also, because, like, I mean, it's just really well produced. Like, you can tell they use, like, high quality ink and paper, like, the blacks in that issue, like, the tone of the black and like, the dark colors. And that issue is just in any issue. The new fangoria is really cool. [00:52:25] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, they do have a higher price point than a regular magazine, but I mean, quality is there. [00:52:32] Speaker A: It's like a little exclusive. And they never reprinted online. It's never reprinted anywhere, which is. It's like a book. It's like a horror book for the quarter. [00:52:41] Speaker B: A horror. [00:52:41] Speaker A: A horror book. David, you probably because you're a little more removed from when I was on social media from like, the horror community, but a lot of people don't like to do Fangoria because it's too woke. [00:52:56] Speaker B: Oh, no. Oh, no. [00:53:00] Speaker A: It's like a horror magazine. [00:53:04] Speaker B: Are they upset that people aren't, are no longer just being murdered in horror films for being, you know, not white men? Is that the issue? [00:53:12] Speaker A: No, it's just because they cover things from, like, a modern perspective and I don't know, it's a modern. [00:53:18] Speaker B: They care about the well being of the artists that actually produce the art that we. And if they're shitty people, they don't want to do anything with them. What? [00:53:29] Speaker A: Also, if you look at horror and genre, it's always been the wokest. Cause it's the stuff you can get away with. The stuff that's on the fringes. So it's always been the most progressive, cheapest to produce. [00:53:39] Speaker B: So that way if it just fucking, if it just fucking flops, you're not out of a lot. But if it hits, you know, I mean, everything is basically pure profit. [00:53:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So, man, it's just funny. I thought it was funny that people would think that, but I don't think anyone will probably accuse Gunslinger spawn of being too woke. Oh, oh, oh. Especially this issue. There's one character I'm like, hmm. [00:54:01] Speaker B: There's, there's, there is a large potential for David to have another rant so you can fill out another free space. [00:54:10] Speaker A: Ding, ding, ding. [00:54:10] Speaker B: On your bingo card. So, man, I am. [00:54:15] Speaker A: Oh, no, go ahead. [00:54:17] Speaker B: Oh, no, no. I think we were going to the same place. I'm going to try to avoid it. [00:54:21] Speaker A: We have cover a in front of me. I have both covers in front of me. Actually, there's two covers. [00:54:28] Speaker B: It only says there's one cover cover artists. Puppeteer Lee. Yes. [00:54:32] Speaker A: Because the second cover is a sketch variant of the first cover. Oh. It looks like it's, like, a marker. It's either work in progress or, like, a proof, but it's like. It looks like it's marker. Like, sharpie and pen. Like, it might be his, like, concept, but it's interesting to see, considering how. [00:54:55] Speaker B: I don't know. [00:54:56] Speaker A: It's really cool to see that. I love puppeteer Lee, one of my favorites. I love, like, the floodlight look of, like, his things look real and scary. Really good stuff. Oh, man. [00:55:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm looking at it online right now. [00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it's fun. It's fun to see that. [00:55:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:12] Speaker A: And I like the. It looks like marker, right? [00:55:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah, it does. [00:55:19] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:55:20] Speaker B: It's either a marker or, like, a digital. A digital mock up. [00:55:23] Speaker A: Right. So, yeah, there is just one cover artists. [00:55:29] Speaker B: Oh, nice. Well, I mean, it's a good. It's a good single artist to have. [00:55:33] Speaker A: One of my faves. [00:55:34] Speaker B: Oh, man. [00:55:35] Speaker A: So this is Gunslinger Spawn still, like, king Spawn unbroken with the writer script plot by Todd McFarlane, art by Britbooth, art by Bret Booth. And King Spawn has had two artists. So we can't say, I guess, technically now Gunslinger has had two artists. We'll find out at the end of the issue. Yeah, it's like a. Oops. Sorry, guys. All right, so previously in Gunslinger. Gunslinger continues to pick names off his hit list one by one, slowly making his way towards eliminating all that have done him wrong. This issue hails from December of 2022, so exactly a year after the last issue, we just covered Kingspaw number five. [00:56:26] Speaker B: Pretty. Talking of all the random connections we like to make between our current books and our classic books. It's fun. It's fun. I like it. Oh, man. It starts off with probably the worst words to start a comic book on, especially a comic book that's fun. Sadly, Johnny, I don't want to be sad when I'm reading Gunslinger spawn. I want to read Gunslinger spawn when I'm sad to stop being sad. I don't want to start off with sadly. Every day in the news, we hear a read of some horrible act of violence. [00:57:04] Speaker A: This is toddfather doing his, like, pull back and do, like, a grand. Where he has, like, pinpoints, like, a grand problem in the country or something, and pontificates on it for a little bit. He does that occasionally. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Oh, this is. This is fucked up, though. It sucks. It's got, you know, couple. Couple of people sleeping. And then they get shot in the. [00:57:23] Speaker A: Head and, like, by this. Kicks the door in half. In half. [00:57:28] Speaker B: Oh, man, that dude. That dude's a jerk. How dare he? And we cut back out to his partner whitting in the van. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Partner's got a good gig. He doesn't have to kill anybody. [00:57:39] Speaker B: Yeah, he just sits in the van smoking cigarettes. [00:57:42] Speaker A: Yeah, real cigarettes, not those necro cigarettes, mind you. [00:57:45] Speaker B: Yeah, they had some nice jewelry in there, so, you know, he counts it as a good score. [00:57:50] Speaker A: This is hilarious because this is so similar to Ab and zab in the issue 100 time when urzel is popping up. Because they're like two hitmen who talk about pop culture. [00:58:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause they go to a bar and start talking about best fantasy series. [00:58:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Also, like, look, these guys are bad nerds because I wouldn't consider you go Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, Avatar. I would consider Avatar more Sci-Fi or do you think they're talking about Avatar, the last airbender? [00:58:26] Speaker B: I don't know. Could be either. Well, they. They don't, they don't explain. Maybe that's lost in the, the conversation they have, because they do continue their wide ranging debates. So maybe they're debating the merits of avatar versus avatar movie over. Over Avatar the last airbender. [00:58:42] Speaker A: I like how they range from everything from music to sports to video games to women. Oh, I didn't even see that. To women. [00:58:51] Speaker B: Johnny. You don't see women? How dare you? I like, on the previous page, he's talking and his cigarette is just floating in midair in front of his mouth. I love those little, I love those kind of flourishes that you can get in the drawn media. [00:59:08] Speaker A: Yeah. Makes it a little more cartoony. It's fun. [00:59:10] Speaker B: There's some fun, fun background photos on the wall. [00:59:16] Speaker A: It's interesting to think about that. I think mainly it was talked about on probably blank check when they were covering some of the animations, different animated movies. Maybe it was a different podcast. But I remember someone saying, no, it was definitely blank check, because Griffin Newman would have said this. But it was like how when cg movies, animated movies came out, they stopped doing, like, animation where, like, you know, exaggerated features and, like, things had no rules of physics. And they kind of stopped doing that because the goal was to try to make things look like real physical objects. It's kind of sad because it's fun when, like, the thing with the cigarette chomping and bouncing or like when Bug Bunny's eyes get huge or whatever, you know, anything like that. Yeah, the proportions can change. So it's fun. [01:00:05] Speaker B: Yeah. I love the ridiculousness of count of cartoons and stuff. I like a flat wily coyote. [01:00:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Who doesn't? [01:00:15] Speaker B: He paints a tunnel on a wall, and somehow the roadrunner can run through it, but he can't because the roadrunner believes. [01:00:22] Speaker A: Wily Coyote doesn't believe in himself enough. [01:00:24] Speaker B: Oh, man. Well, if he just didn't look down, he would be able to walk across that canyon and not. And not fall. [01:00:29] Speaker A: That's true. I've tried it. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Cause he's perfectly fine until he looks down, and then it's like, oh, what am I doing? Help. They get done at the bar, and then they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll see you tomorrow. We'll split up the jewels, do a. [01:00:40] Speaker A: Good murder, go to the bar, go home and take a shower. Shit shower, shave. [01:00:47] Speaker B: And then get attacked by a hand coming out of a mirror. [01:00:51] Speaker A: Real ash, evil dead action here. Yeah. [01:00:53] Speaker B: So we got some sort of mysterious man in black. [01:00:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:57] Speaker B: Coming back to the gunslinger. We got the man in black, Jony, and he finds a bullet that was, you know, we know it from the last issue as having been shoved in that pasture's head. So we know where that bullet came from. The man in black doesn't know. He doesn't know. [01:01:13] Speaker A: Why do they have it? [01:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah. What is. What is going on? [01:01:17] Speaker A: I have no idea. [01:01:20] Speaker B: This man in black says it best. What? [01:01:23] Speaker A: The only thing I. The only thing I can think of is that they somehow worked for that preacher with all the money and somehow found him or something like that. But I was just like, hmm, hmm, interesting. Maybe it'll come back later. I don't know. And then you got Taylor. Oh, man, I love how. [01:01:40] Speaker B: See this? [01:01:40] Speaker A: This is a good trope because I love how some people in movies and in comics and whatever, mainly movies and comics, I guess when they're drawing or, like, depicting people playing video games, and it's still like, Atari. Like, he's playing like. Yeah, he's playing like, Super Nintendo. I mean, look at that controller. Like, yeah, it's got, you know, and that's cool. He's playing classic games. It's just funny when, like, I would always crack up on, like, a tv show and they'd be holding, like, a PlayStation controller, and they'd be like, boing, boing. It had, like, noises from, like, an arcade machine from, like, 1982. [01:02:17] Speaker B: They're playing like, q Bert, right? [01:02:18] Speaker A: Exactly. But it's like, the high tech controller. It's always funny. [01:02:22] Speaker B: I like the action. That's going on here? Because as someone who didn't grow up having a video game system in the house full time, I never got past that sort of moving the controller, hoping that it helps move. [01:02:37] Speaker A: I was gonna say, I bet you did seem like someone that would do that. [01:02:41] Speaker B: I remember people being very pissed off when the Wii came out because they were like, I just can't deal with this motion sensor. What is the fuck going on? But I was. I was like, hell, yeah, dude. The way I played video games my whole life, it now actually does. [01:02:57] Speaker A: Finally. [01:02:57] Speaker B: Oh, man, I loved slotting that little Wii mote into the wheel and just fucking Mario Kart in the hell, yeah. That's the. Like, all of my friends would just play it with the nunchuck and the Wii mote, and I was like, nah, man, I gotta have that wheel. I gotta. I gotta drive it the way to go. [01:03:14] Speaker A: Oh, you got a kindred spirit with Wanda. Wanda, my Wanda plays. Played with the wheel on that one while I was a jerk and played with the controller because I'm a jerk. [01:03:26] Speaker B: Yeah, you jerk. How dare you, David? We got Taylor at home playing some video games, and Javi comes by knocking on the door. Knock, knock, knock, knock. Who is it? It's me. Open up. I like how Taylor's got the little chain, you know? That chain ain't gonna stop me so good. [01:03:52] Speaker A: He's drinking, like, an energy drink or something. [01:03:55] Speaker B: Yeah. As soon as Javi gets into Taylor's place, which, oh, man, is not in good shape. His wallpapers peeling off, and you can see, like, the slotted boards that make up the wall. [01:04:09] Speaker A: It's a terrible, terrible hotel. One would say a motel, I guess. [01:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess probably, you know, Javi quickly changes into his gunslinger Persona, and Taylor's like, why the fuck you doing that? And we learn we got a nice little. Another clock going for gunslinger. So not only does the necrom count, but the more he uses Javi's body, the faster it rots. [01:04:34] Speaker A: So, yeah, this is a crazy revelation that, like, first of all, he's not Javi. He's just using the body, and he is. [01:04:42] Speaker B: Well, or he. He is Javi. He is using the Javi body makes it rot faster because, you know, he. He stole that necroplasmic energy and is now a spawn somehow. [01:04:55] Speaker A: Well, I'm thinking maybe. Like. I'm thinking maybe it's like, there's a gunslinger spawn is, like, an entity that has, like, manifested itself throughout many different people. I don't know. That's my theory right now. That's my going theory. [01:05:09] Speaker B: Well, I mean, luckily, we are only at issue 15 of what we can only hope can get to at least halfway to the mark of the beast. [01:05:18] Speaker A: And we gotta have gunslinger. She spawn. We gotta have gunslinger. Saigor. We gotta. [01:05:24] Speaker B: Todd. Father did it once, he'll do it again. [01:05:25] Speaker A: We gotta have gunslinger. Who else could be medieval gunslinger? Medieval gunslinger. [01:05:34] Speaker B: I guess the overt kill would be sicilian gunslinger. I guess he could just be Sergio. Sergio Leone. A spaghetti western. He could be the spaghetti western. [01:05:45] Speaker A: Yeah, he would just be. His name's just the spaghetti western. [01:05:54] Speaker B: Spongetti Western. [01:05:56] Speaker A: Ooh, I'd love a spongetti western. Don't be talking about spaghetti, David. [01:06:02] Speaker B: We're in the second book, Johnny. It's hitting me too. I had breakfast before we started, but I get two, though. It's worn out. [01:06:08] Speaker A: You spawn. I get so hungry. Talking about spawn whips up an appetite. [01:06:13] Speaker B: At least there aren't the $3 cheeseburgers to taunt us in this episode. But then we get. We get the opening with the opening quote that we talked about where Gunslinger is buttering Taylor up because he's basically just using Taylor. Taylor can read. Taylor can write. Taylor can read. [01:06:35] Speaker A: A man getting, although I guess, play on his emotions. He's like, yeah, I lost my family too. You could come with me. [01:06:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. But for Gunslinger, Taylor's greatest skill is that simply. He can simply read. [01:06:48] Speaker A: Pretty much. [01:06:48] Speaker B: Taylor doesn't know how valuable that skill, along with being able to write, will save their lives in the coming months. Nice little foreshadowing. [01:06:57] Speaker A: That's gonna be hilarious. If, like, there's, like, an issue later where someone's like, write me a story gunslinger. I'll kill you. And Taylor's like, I got this. It's gonna be like, write a term paper gunslinger. [01:07:09] Speaker B: It's gonna be like a song of Susanna style where they show up and they meet Todd McFarlane. And they're like, todd McFarlane, you need to write this fucking story so that way we can get back to it. [01:07:19] Speaker A: You have to get to issue 333 of Gunslinger Spawn. You can call it gunslinger too. We don't care. You can just call it gunslinger as long as you keep making it. [01:07:27] Speaker B: I mean, if it turns into that and we can just continue to make dark tower references in our Gunslinger spawn book, I mean, fucking do it. I love it. It's so good. [01:07:39] Speaker A: So Javi goes to the gas station. [01:07:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I think this is where maybe. [01:07:44] Speaker A: Your rant might be coming. [01:07:46] Speaker B: Yeah, my rant's about to start. [01:07:49] Speaker A: So there's a mystical, indigenous person which is not a great trope. [01:07:56] Speaker B: Yeah. So there's an old ass Cherokee man who has hopefully, hopefully he becomes more of a character going forward. But currently he is literally just using, he's just filling that role of mystical, mystical man who helps our heroes along the way, which is God awful overused. These people are people. They aren't just tools to get you to the end. But also we're two boys that I like how you just like, let me go into it, Johnny. You can't let me just go into it. [01:08:37] Speaker A: No, I mean, I agree, but also I'm a dumbass. [01:08:40] Speaker B: So like, us as Oklahoma boys who literally live on twice stolen land, people lived on Oklahoma land. But then we fucking moved them over and then took all of the people who lived in the southeast Florida area and fucking forcibly removed them to Oklahoma and then post Louisiana purchase realized, you know, this land could be valuable, but we can't put a price on it to have people move there for manifest destiny. But there are, there are some people living there already. We put them there. Let's just fucking move them again and then give their fucking land away for free to a whole bunch of white people. So that way. Twice stolen land. Twice stolen land. Yes, it is fucking on reservation dogs. There's the opening to one of the episodes is an old couple drive into church and they drive by a sign for the exit to the reservation and they've just spray painted land back on it. And the couple is talking and they're like, I wonder what they mean. So the old man is like, I wonder what they mean. And his wife is like, I think it means they want their land back. And he's like, all of it or some of it because we can give them some of it. And she's like, no, they want all of it back. And he's like, but they could be fine with some of it. And she's like, shut up and drive. Yeah. So fucking Johnny, I love this book so much and I want this to be a good representation for everybody. If this character does not come back. [01:10:32] Speaker A: Weah is his name. [01:10:36] Speaker B: It, uh, it would be unfortunate if he does. I mean, it would so, yeah, it would be unfortunate if he doesn't come back because then he is just stuck as being this plot point. And now he's charming. [01:10:47] Speaker A: I like the bromance aspect. I like, like, oh, you call him a salty dog. Old Krusty dog is. [01:10:55] Speaker B: I do like, is this a bromance? So, I mean, he looks like he could be a fucking great dude, just like him and Javi hanging out, doing stuff that doesn't have anything to do with any sort of, you know, the old sort of cowboys and Indians trope, which I'm never gonna say the I word again, but that is what the trope has become. [01:11:15] Speaker A: Right. [01:11:16] Speaker B: Kind of hard to avoid saying, but that is very much a word as a person of my descendants should not be using because it is inaccurate and has been used to such terrible effect. So I want to love this character, and I want him to be a full character. Currently, he is not, and that's what frustrates me. [01:11:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:11:49] Speaker B: Okay. Rant over. [01:11:50] Speaker A: So weah basically tells him where some of his other people are. Kind of. I like. Whereas I like that he taunts a little bit. I like that he, I don't know, makes fun of him for wasting all of his energy on bullets. I like Javi pointing, pointing at him. [01:12:09] Speaker B: Yeah, Harvey point is always good. [01:12:12] Speaker A: And then we blow right past this maybe unfortunate diversion to a great, great, great panel. Big old page panel, almost, of Javi leaning against some rubble and Taylor hiding behind it. It's awesome. [01:12:29] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's pretty great. [01:12:32] Speaker A: And he's. We learned that. [01:12:33] Speaker B: I want to know what Ron is, though. There's a bit of graffiti that says Ron is, but you don't get to see what it is. What is Ron? [01:12:41] Speaker A: You'll never know. [01:12:43] Speaker B: We'll never know. [01:12:44] Speaker A: I just love those Brett booth little details. Like, there's no reason to have that, like, cool, fun graffiti, but there is a reason. [01:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Speaking. Speaking of good Brett booth stuff, I know it's. It kind of plays in on the trope that I ranted about, but he draws a real good candle. Those candles all look real good. [01:13:02] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:13:03] Speaker B: Oh, no, it does. [01:13:04] Speaker A: I mean, it looks great. It's like I said, it'll be unfortunate if he doesn't come back and become a well rounded person. [01:13:14] Speaker B: Yeah. It's not immediately. Absolutely awful, but it is not immediately. [01:13:25] Speaker A: I mean, I went. I kind of, like, tilted my head. [01:13:27] Speaker B: And went, uh, you know what I mean? Um, so, yeah, kind of the same. [01:13:33] Speaker A: Reaction I had with the spawn was hung from the tree, not gunslinger spawn, when spawn was hung from the tree. [01:13:42] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:43] Speaker A: Because even with gunslinger spawn, that's like a western trope, is you hang a guy from a tree on a horse. Like, that's a thing. [01:13:49] Speaker B: Yeah, that's part of it. And unfortunately, I mean, tropes exist for a reason. They can help tell the story. It gives you something to play with or adhere to, and we know it, and it helps kind of get some of the groundwork out of the way so that way you can build up the emotion of a story. And there's good and bad tropes all over the place. [01:14:10] Speaker A: Right. As long as you're not mining people's culture and identity for tropes. [01:14:15] Speaker B: That's not, yeah. So at least, like, I mean, they give him, he's, he has a name that I totally steamrolled over when you said it. Why? Uh, he has a reason for being fucking old. Um, we don't know what it is, but he's lived the whole time, so that's something cool. Um, they, they do give him, like, like, they say he is Cherokee instead of just being like, well, this, this native man that we don't know. It's ambiguous. So, so the hope is that they are will, you know, keep him to, you know, traditions that would be correct for him to have. But, yeah, I grew up, I grew up with a whole bunch of people who are part of the Cherokee tribe, but they're like one, one eight or 116, which, the more I think about it, the more those fractions kind of squig me out. Yeah, it's kind of weird, but, yeah. I have a real good friend who is part of the Cherokee Nation, and he's considering getting into gardening just so that way he can help propagate the indigenous plants that the Cherokee tribe, you know, cultivated for, you know, centuries. So there's, like, the heritage corn that they've got, like, seven different varietals of corn that they used for different reasons. And the way that they help keep, like, a seed bank of these heritage, these heritage crops is that any member of the Cherokee nation can get these seeds for free and grow as much as they want to do whatever they want with, as long as at the end of the season, they send some seed back to the bank and it, you know, helps keep that sort of heritage alive. It's great. [01:16:19] Speaker A: Awesome. [01:16:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:16:22] Speaker A: Well, we're going to a party. Farts and cuts up a bunch of people with a knife. [01:16:28] Speaker B: Sorry, sorry, sorry. Yeah. No gunslinger walks into a warehouse just, like, loaded for bear. [01:16:37] Speaker A: His body is anxious and ready to kill, and he does. [01:16:41] Speaker B: He delivers his own cruel necessity. Johnny, he blam. [01:16:44] Speaker A: He is just bad slashing, shooting. [01:16:48] Speaker B: I love how, like, every time you see his hands, it has a different. [01:16:51] Speaker A: Gun in it or a knife. [01:16:54] Speaker B: This is, this is, we talked about it earlier that as soon as I finished rereading this issue last night, I took my drunk ass to the computer and bought myself a gunslinger action figure because I was like, I must have gunslinger action figure. It was literally this two sets or two pages here that I was like, I need to have that in my life right now. Yeah. [01:17:13] Speaker A: I put a bunch of different guns in his hand from that accessory set, and I was just, like, messing around with him. I explained with him, I wasn't that drunk, but I was excited. I was hyped up. [01:17:24] Speaker B: I hadn't had drinks for most of the week, and so one old fashioned sent me down. The spending too much money on the Internet, so that'll do it. Worth it, worth it. [01:17:34] Speaker A: Worth it. And you got something. We'll be hearing about that soon, I bet. [01:17:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Stay tuned. And then we just got Javi sitting on a throne of just. We've got people with their faces cut off. We got just, like, exposed spines and ribs. We got, oh, we blew past one. [01:17:56] Speaker A: Of my favorite parts because we get. [01:17:57] Speaker B: A Todd knife right to the head. [01:17:59] Speaker A: Get a Todd father trope. Todd father trope. We got the boss. Okay, we got a boss. Yeah, the boss is wearing a desk. He's got a cane like a snake on it. Pretty cool. [01:18:12] Speaker B: Oh, man, he is. He is a pretty cool boss. [01:18:14] Speaker A: We always got to get a boss. He's always behind the desk, and that's the boss, man. That's who you gotta kill. You gotta kill the fucking boss. [01:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:18:21] Speaker A: I wonder what that says about Tommy Farlane himself and his as, like, the boss and, like, a corporate structure and, like, the kind of George Lucas narrative where you became the businessman you never wanted to be. I wonder if that's why he's always killing the boss. [01:18:36] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure I've never seen the Todd father in a suit. He's always just wearing, like, jeans and a t shirt and a spa. [01:18:43] Speaker A: Yeah, he had a suit on at the Avatar premiere, but he was also. He was also carrying a toy with him. He went down the red carpet in, like, a suit with his y. With Wanda, but he had, like, the banshee, the creature that they ride, and he just took it down with him on the red carpet. [01:18:59] Speaker B: I bet. I bet that whenever he does have to wear a suit, he probably has a little action figure in his pocket, like a pocket square. So he's just got, like, a little spawn sticking up. [01:19:10] Speaker A: I just imagine him going down the line of reporters and him being like, okay, look. This is the detail on this banshee. This is a really cool toy. It's $24.99. There's, like, Westfarland store. You get a digital copy with it. [01:19:22] Speaker B: Look at this articulation. Look at it, look at it. You can have him post. Look at this post. [01:19:27] Speaker A: He's just so impressed. [01:19:28] Speaker B: The little Rockets. The little Rockets, they shoot out. He's just shooting the reporters with the. [01:19:35] Speaker A: Little like, okay, guy. [01:19:38] Speaker B: Well, look at, look at, look at this corpse reveal. Action. Bing. [01:19:42] Speaker A: Crazy man who bought baseball shoots at reporters at Avatar premiere. That would be the headline. [01:19:49] Speaker B: Oh, man. [01:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah, he's just so. Yeah, I just want to make sure we didn't blow past that. That Todd boss. That was a Todd father boss. [01:19:57] Speaker B: It's a good boss. [01:19:58] Speaker A: We must stand. We must, we must pay our respects to the boss. [01:20:03] Speaker B: So Javi's smoking what looks like a real cigarette on top of this pile of dead bodies. And then some guys come at him again, and so he just starts shooting them. He shoots this guy through the head. [01:20:12] Speaker A: Cuts a guy in half, cuts this. [01:20:13] Speaker B: Guy in half, he shoots another guy just like straight up the back, lights some guys on fire. [01:20:19] Speaker A: I love when he says, there's just. Damn, there's so many you guys. Didn't you know what the pity about this is? There's so many you guys, they didn't have enough time to drag them all here. Now that would have been a good opening quote. [01:20:31] Speaker B: Yeah, it would have. Oh shit, Johnny, we're dumb. Oh, well, it happens. So it just like strolls into boss office. [01:20:42] Speaker A: Look what the cat, after he lights the pile of bodies on fire, does he use a zippo? [01:20:50] Speaker B: No, he uses his cigarette. [01:20:51] Speaker A: Yeah, he uses a cigarette. Darn, I thought we were gonna find some zippo symmetry in these issues as well. Cause we do find on this page when he walks in the boss's office, some boss with a widow's peak symmetry. [01:21:03] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh man, a widow peeked bus. [01:21:06] Speaker A: Gotta love it. [01:21:08] Speaker B: Hobby's just leaning against the desk. Looks like it looks like a hostile takeover is about to happen. And this dude's like, oh, I've got magic. Ahaha. I'm gonna beat you. [01:21:19] Speaker A: And like, he just. His cane is a snake. Just turns into a snake and starts attacking him. [01:21:24] Speaker B: You can't win this one, you know that. Maybe so, I guess. But I met me a good friend today, and he taught me some tricks to you. [01:21:30] Speaker A: So I guess Wyatt taught him how to turn his gun into a snake. I guess he was probably like, yo, you're gonna fight this guy. He's got a snake cane. Let me teach you how to turn your gun into a snake. Just in case he points snake can at you. Can have your snakes fight. That's probably how it went down. [01:21:46] Speaker B: Oh, man. This would have been a good quote too. So you wanna fuck with me? I've got nothing but time. [01:21:51] Speaker A: Oh, that is good. [01:21:53] Speaker B: That's the hobby version of Captain America's. I could do this all day. [01:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Actually, gunslinger, you don't. It says on the next page. [01:22:04] Speaker B: Cause they got their snakes and their snake fight in there. And then we got the main in black comes in Johnny, and he just fucks shit up. Look at it. We got. We got money flying through the air again. That's, uh, that's another gunslinger trope. Just money. [01:22:20] Speaker A: Always money raining down, raining around. And he's not. He's the man in black. The man that was in silhouette is a man in blue. [01:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:22:31] Speaker A: And gold. [01:22:31] Speaker B: Like, it's like blue black. [01:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah, he's like blue, black and gold. [01:22:35] Speaker B: He, uh. He elbows Javi in the back of the head, drops this. [01:22:40] Speaker A: Oh, ow. Oh, sorry, David. I just. I fell on my keys. Because this is a key issue. [01:22:48] Speaker B: First appearance, 1st, 1st appearance. Although a lot of times for. If a first appearance happens at the very end of an issue, it's always the next issue. That the first issue counts. Because I think that's a big controversy about Doctor Doom. Because Doctor Doom is literally revealed on the last page of the first issue where he is introduced. [01:23:14] Speaker A: I think they call that a cameo. [01:23:15] Speaker B: So I don't know. [01:23:16] Speaker A: I've seen it on the websites where they're like, first appearance cameo and then first full appearance. So this would be a cameo. [01:23:25] Speaker B: But. But he does appear, you know, all the way at the beginning of the book. So technically, I guess this would be. [01:23:31] Speaker A: I think this is the first full appearance, but we don't get his name until the next issue. [01:23:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:23:35] Speaker A: So this would be first appearance, unnamed, I think is what it would say. [01:23:39] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, man. But just. Oh, man. The action on this page, it's fitting because obviously this man is a speedster. [01:23:47] Speaker A: He'S a speed guy. [01:23:48] Speaker B: And Bret Booth's artwork vibrates like we talk about a lot of. And that's a big thing in the flash mythology where, you know, the flash can move so fast that he can vibrate between particles. So we're just vibration everywhere. There's so much motion, there's so much action. It's just. Oh, fucking love it. I love a speeder, a speedster. They're excellent. I mean, every. Every super team's got one because they're really fucking useful. Holy shit. [01:24:19] Speaker A: Love the. I love both the scenes. And the X Men with Quicksilver were both good. Oh, yeah. [01:24:27] Speaker B: Where he's like he's emptying the building, and he's just, like, fucking. He stops to eat a hot, hot. [01:24:32] Speaker A: Dog, and then the. [01:24:35] Speaker B: Or is that in Justice League? Which one was the hot dog? Oh, no. Justice League is where it's like, you think he's ogling Diana, and then it's just that there's a hot dog, and. [01:24:45] Speaker A: He'S like, was that the Joss Whedon one? [01:24:50] Speaker B: That was the. That was in the Snyder. I like the Snyder cut, because in. In the. In the Joss Whedon one, he's literally just ogling. [01:24:56] Speaker A: Yeah, he, like, falls on her and grabs her boobs or something. It's really ridiculous. [01:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:25:01] Speaker A: Ay, ay, ay. The. So then there he is, the guy. Yeah, we know. His name is full of glory. [01:25:10] Speaker B: The boss man is mine. [01:25:11] Speaker A: Gotta get that boss. [01:25:13] Speaker B: Like, it's. It's. It's not the boss or the bad man. It's the boss man. [01:25:18] Speaker A: I've waited too long for someone like you to get in my way. And he's got red eyes. So here's our new character. Yeah, I won't say his name on. [01:25:29] Speaker B: The ground yet, so, yeah, so good. [01:25:33] Speaker A: Then we get spam 1429, and we get the apology page to von Randall. [01:25:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Artist spotlight, von Randall's work on the last two issues. And then, you know, just, you know, putting it there to make. This wasn't Brett Booth. This was Von Randall. [01:25:51] Speaker A: And they show my favorite, the crow bringing the hat, like, from the heavens again. I love that. [01:25:59] Speaker B: And the wolves just smiling at him like, yeah, this is the big cheese. [01:26:04] Speaker A: That's really good. I'm excited to get more of that. Cause I loved that. [01:26:08] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's. It's good. It's real good. Need more spots, universe, Johnny. I know I do. [01:26:15] Speaker A: Don't miss these ongoing titles. It's got an ad for all the December and January titles. [01:26:20] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:26:22] Speaker A: And we get the image classics in the Sam and twitch ad that we've been having recently. [01:26:28] Speaker B: Yeah, real good. [01:26:29] Speaker A: There it is. [01:26:30] Speaker B: It's a good issue with some flaws. We will hope that those flaws don't, you know, manifest as some weird stuff later on, but overall, very enjoyable. [01:26:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it's got a. It's two sides of a coin and not the same side of the same coin. Two sides of a coin. Yeah, of the normal two sides of a coin. [01:26:57] Speaker B: Speaking of grinning wolves, um, I think we gotta rate these puppies, Johnny. [01:27:02] Speaker A: Time to rate these puppies. So first up, we had king spawn number five, in which spawn goes back to Botswana into his past and fights disruptor with Terry. [01:27:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm going to eat some maggots to. [01:27:22] Speaker A: Up his necropolis, some maggots out of Jason win's eye to get his necroplasm up. I'm gonna give this issue five pixie cut jessicas. [01:27:36] Speaker B: Nice. [01:27:37] Speaker A: I just loved it. It's fun. Like, little mini kind of side thing. I don't know. It's just, it's moving on from the Kincaid stuff. It's opening up the world of King Spawn, building us up to the court of priests. It's a fun reveal. I like how they're bringing back all the hits like, it's King Swan. He's saying how psalms is bringing him back to his origins. So we're getting clown, we're getting jason win. We're getting, yeah, we're getting not clown. Sorry, the other guy. The other fat creep. Billy Kincaid. [01:28:08] Speaker B: Bill Kincaid. [01:28:10] Speaker A: I always, I don't body shame. I only call it Fat Creek because they're, like, murder child killers. Okay. [01:28:15] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:28:16] Speaker A: Hell, I'm a fat. [01:28:19] Speaker B: Their creeps creeps first. The fat is just secondary. Yes. [01:28:23] Speaker A: And the, yeah, so I would, yeah, I give it, I give it five pixie cut jessicas burning Al Simmons to death. [01:28:33] Speaker B: Nice. I'm gonna give it five McTarlane toys gun packs that Terry and Spahn bought for their bought Swanna mission. [01:28:42] Speaker A: That's, like, over 50 guns. If you had five of those, you have so many guns. [01:28:46] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah. [01:28:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I hope that popcorn, I hope that popcorn's just off panel. [01:28:52] Speaker B: Oh, I hope it, I hope it shows up like it's, uh, Spawn has shoved it into, uh, the boot compartment of his, of his symbiote, and he just pulls it out later. [01:29:04] Speaker A: It pops. He's like, terry, I told you not to get the weapons back. [01:29:10] Speaker B: The other one, not the comedy weapons, the normal one, not the joker one. [01:29:16] Speaker A: Or do you mean Joe Kerr? [01:29:19] Speaker B: Joe. Oh, yeah, Joker, definitely. And so then we got the unenviable task of rating gunslinger 15, which cut out three pages into rant, and you got another solid five. But for me, I'm gonna give it, I'm gonna give it a, I'm gonna give it three snake rifles. [01:29:42] Speaker A: Three snake rifles, Johnny. [01:29:45] Speaker B: Three snake rifles. I've I fucking love this book. I love the story. I I've already said what my issue with it is. It's, it threw me out more than I wish it had. So we get three. [01:30:05] Speaker A: Hey, in honor of what this inspired, and I'm going to propose maybe a little tip of the hat as to what. What this issue is about. I'm going to give it three wide ranging debates. Remember our two killers at the beginning? They continue their wide ranging debates. This has wasn't really a debate, but this issue spawned some wide ranging thoughts. But, yeah, I would give it a three as well, just because that feels, like right in the middle of. Hmm. Hmm. I give it three emojis of the thinking man emoji. [01:30:45] Speaker B: You give it the sticker of the thinking man emoji that has, like, the reduplicated hands on it. [01:30:53] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. But other than that, I mean, you get a boss. You get a boss. See, that's the thing. Boss man, two sides of a coin. I would give it three wide ranging debates, but then I give it five. Boss man behind the counters. [01:31:09] Speaker B: Yeah, but it's. [01:31:11] Speaker A: You get the pilot of the bodies. It's really great. Inspired you to buy an action figure. It's fun. Action scene. [01:31:16] Speaker B: Yeah, he fucking just, like, shrunks that guy in half. [01:31:21] Speaker A: We find out some stuff about Javi we didn't know, like, with the fact that he's, like, a rotting Javi's body. [01:31:28] Speaker B: Javi needs Taylor, so he's gonna stop trying to dump him in the middle of nowhere again. [01:31:36] Speaker A: Finally. [01:31:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I mean, I guess we gotta take the good. We gotta take the bed, and we're a pro spawn podcast, so we're gonna. But we're not gonna shy away from issues. If there are issues, you know? [01:31:49] Speaker A: Hey, that's. We're here. It's art. It's media in 2023. Cool. [01:31:56] Speaker B: Yeah. I thought you were about to say 2026, because for some reason, I thought it was 2026. [01:32:00] Speaker A: Oh, boy. Hopefully not. How long have I been in this closet? [01:32:06] Speaker B: I don't know. [01:32:07] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:32:07] Speaker B: Is that. Is that Vortex still opened or the. [01:32:10] Speaker A: No, I managed to close that. I managed to close that. So it's not really an issue anymore. [01:32:16] Speaker B: Just as long as you don't write down the spell that reopens the vortex in a book and then record yourself saying that sequence of words that some drunk, horny high schoolers can play on a reel to reel player while they're trying to have a horny weekend in the woods. [01:32:34] Speaker A: I promise I won't. [01:32:38] Speaker B: But you just gotta remember the three words to fix it all. Johnny, you got your klitu, you got your verratta. You got your ha. [01:32:51] Speaker A: Necktie. [01:32:53] Speaker B: Necktie. Nickel. [01:32:56] Speaker A: Well, David, I would consider those puppies rated. [01:33:01] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, rated. Rated and reviewed. And, man, this cover is so fucking cool. Too, though. [01:33:09] Speaker A: That is cool. [01:33:10] Speaker B: I wish. I wish I didn't fucking care so much. I wish I could just, like, you know, separate myself from all of the ideas running through my head and just sit down and enjoy a thing. But now I'm. I don't want to cause controversy, but I'm not gonna just skip by it, so. [01:33:32] Speaker A: Yep. [01:33:33] Speaker B: You know, God, I love spawn. It's so good. [01:33:37] Speaker A: Well, something uncontroversial is that there's a great spawn community on Instagram. [01:33:43] Speaker B: Oh, hell, yeah. It's the best community. [01:33:46] Speaker A: And we've been trying to highlight someone each episode that we've been enjoying their stuff, and this week, we decided to highlight another Spawn collector. That is another underscore spawn understore collector. I collect spawn stuff, mostly spawn figures and comics. And it's got some great toy photography. [01:34:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's great toy photography. There's been some toy photography coming up and spawning grounds from time to time, and hell, yeah. It's an amazing. It's like a subsection of the Spawn collector Instagram, where, you know, like, even people who don't sort of interact with most of the spawn stuff, there's, like, a collection of spawn action figure stuff, and it's amazing. I'm a terrible picture taker. I'm a terrible setter upper of dioramas, and these people just fucking knocking it out of the park every time. [01:34:41] Speaker A: He's got some really cool stuff too, and there's some classic figures, as well as some new ones. Yeah, really awesome. [01:34:51] Speaker B: So real nice. Real nice. Also really awesome and really nice and really cool. And over on Instagram, we got Brian. Brian does our music. [01:34:59] Speaker A: That's t. Brian Voyler. [01:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Hell, yeah. He does real good. Give him some love. He had a rough weekend. He had a rough week, you know, and he shared it. He shared it with the Instagram family. So let him. Let him know that you send in some good vibes his way. [01:35:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Lost a pet. So that's always sad. [01:35:22] Speaker B: Like, 20 years. That's a. [01:35:24] Speaker A: That's a long time for a kitty. [01:35:26] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. My best friend in high school hit an 18 year old cat who would just, like, would just nap in the middle of the street. Like, didn't give a shit. Cars would come up, and the cat would just, like, lift its head and just be like, eh, whatever. If you run over me, you run over me. I think he did eventually get hit by a car, which was real sad, but that cat had no fucks left to give. It was great. [01:35:51] Speaker A: That's awesome. [01:35:53] Speaker B: Yeah, we're over there too, Johnny. We do some fun stuff occasionally. Yeah. Regardingspawnpod, which also happens to be our email address. Regardingspawnpodmail.com, drop us a line. Let us know what you think. Yeah, let us know what you think about, you know, the state of the comic books would, you know, maybe if you want to accuse us of being too woke, that's, I guess, the place. [01:36:23] Speaker A: You'Re putting that out there. Oh, my God. [01:36:25] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, I'm cutting that out. [01:36:29] Speaker A: I have the power. Oh, what? [01:36:31] Speaker B: You want me to. You want me to. You want me to beg for emails? No, because I'm not above it. [01:36:36] Speaker A: I'm not above it. [01:36:39] Speaker B: But drop us a line. Send us some pictures of your. Of your figures if you don't have a social media presence. And, you know, if you want us to share pictures of your. Your collection, just be like, hey, I'm not on Instagram. You want to share some of this? And we'll fucking tell the world that you got some cool shit, and then we'll show the world your cool shit. [01:36:57] Speaker A: Tell us your favorite spawn issues. Tell us your favorite series, anything. Tell us we're great. Tell us we're bad. [01:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Let us know what got you into Spawn. [01:37:08] Speaker A: That's actually the most interesting, I think, is what got you into spawn. I love getting. Hearing about that. Everyone has a different journey. [01:37:17] Speaker B: Yeah, everybody. Everybody has, like, a. Every story we've talked to. Like, everybody's like, yeah, I know. I know. This is the same story you've heard from over there, but, I mean, they're all slightly different. It's, um. It's. It's amazing where people get in on spawn. It's. That just shows that the toddfather knows what he's doing with all these jumping on points. [01:37:35] Speaker A: Mm hmm. He sure does. [01:37:36] Speaker B: Nice. Yeah. Did you already say rate in review? [01:37:40] Speaker A: No, I'll say that. Yeah. Guys, please rate, review, subscribe if you're listening. We know someone is because we see the analytics, but. So please rate just a robot or me listening to it. Over. [01:37:53] Speaker B: I was, let's say, unless it's Johnny accidentally, but downloading the episode six times every day. [01:38:01] Speaker A: No, it's not. Yeah. Please rate, review, subscribe, drop us a rating on iTunes or Spotify. Drop us a review. I don't think you can review on Spotify, but you. You can definitely on itunes and things. Great things are coming. This is the. We've kind of mastered. Not mastered. We've gotten to a good new plateau in our level of production, I think. And, like, things are getting better on the audio end. So now we're kind of going to work. On trying to spread the awareness. A little bit here in the next few months. So fun stuff come in store. [01:38:34] Speaker B: We're at the point where we're having more fun. And being less worried about, you know. [01:38:38] Speaker A: If we can even do it. [01:38:39] Speaker B: Like, are we doing this right? Can we do this going on? [01:38:42] Speaker A: Should we do this right? [01:38:44] Speaker B: Yes. Yes. We should always talk about spawn. We're gonna talk about it anyway. [01:38:47] Speaker A: You should too, right? [01:38:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh. Oh. We gotta talk about the books for next week, Johnny. [01:38:52] Speaker A: What do we read next week? David? Hey, gang. It's me, your co host, John Fisher. As you may have remembered, last week I edited the episodes out of order. So this one was supposed to come out first and vice versa. So I had to cut out the part where we talk about what we're reading next week. Because it was completely wrong. Next week will be a very exciting episode of regarding Spawn. Where we will be covering Spawn 300. That's right. The one that ties, for the record, the end of that road. We're finally there. It's an excellent, excellent issue of Spawn. And we're also covering Kingspawn, number 18. For a more contemporary issue. So, sorry, episode. Edited the episodes out of order. You know, the numbers can get a little confusing as we talk about a lot. But that's what we love about Spawn, is just being in it. And we're in it to win it. Anyway, I'll go back to the episode. And let David take us out and see you around. [01:39:49] Speaker B: Johnny. I think that just leaves me. The only thing I have left to say is, may the scorched be with you. [01:39:57] Speaker A: And also with you, David. [01:40:00] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very nice. I'm gonna. Oh, man. I gotta go see the boss man about, um. I gotta go see a boss man about a snake.