Episode 72 - Spawn 328 and King Spawn 27

[00:00:00] Speaker A: I'm a monster, and I've been one. [00:00:03] Speaker B: For a long, long time. Good evening, and welcome to the Malbolge. This is regarding Spawn, the world's best spawn podcast. I'm your co host, John Fisher. [00:00:48] Speaker C: And I am your co host, David Williams. And since we like to break k Fabe every once in a while. This is Johnny. As you well know, this is New Year's Eve that we're recording on. [00:01:00] Speaker B: It's New Year's Eve, it's snowing, and. [00:01:04] Speaker C: I feel we need to end the year with a bang. So we're going to have Jessica Priest watching over us. For our record today. [00:01:13] Speaker B: End it with a bang. Okay. [00:01:16] Speaker C: Or more like end it with a bonk. Bonk. [00:01:20] Speaker B: Man, I should have brought in my Jessica priest card if I'd have known. [00:01:24] Speaker C: You mean you weren't always carrying that thing with you, Johnny? [00:01:27] Speaker B: Now, I got this light set up in here so you can see me. I need to start putting spawn posters on the wall. [00:01:32] Speaker C: I can see you. It's much more obvious when you fall asleep during my rants. Now, though, I know. [00:01:39] Speaker B: It'S going to be tough. I'm going to have to get, like. [00:01:41] Speaker C: Start wearing sunglasses or get some of those clockwork orange eye holder openers, one of the two. And then Wanda can just stand back there and moisten your eyeballs every minute or so. [00:01:54] Speaker B: Terrifying. [00:01:56] Speaker C: Please know. [00:01:57] Speaker A: Please. [00:01:58] Speaker C: No. [00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, please know. [00:01:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. [00:02:00] Speaker B: It's New Year's Eve. You got Jessica Priest's trading card watching over you. [00:02:04] Speaker C: Yes, I do. She does have a kind of terrifying, evil smirk going on, too. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yeah, she was pretty demented in the early depictions. [00:02:12] Speaker C: If you can remove the distraction of the. She's scary lady. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Look at that. She's. [00:02:19] Speaker B: She has a certain insanity to her in the early. [00:02:22] Speaker C: Fine by me. [00:02:23] Speaker B: I mean, remember, it turns her on killing people. [00:02:26] Speaker C: Oh, boy. [00:02:28] Speaker B: Lest we forget, she does what she. [00:02:30] Speaker C: Loves, which means she never works a day in her life. [00:02:32] Speaker A: Right? Hey, you know that's true. [00:02:35] Speaker B: Except she's got know die, come back to life from Gaia, have her child hidden from her. [00:02:41] Speaker C: But she does get to team up with two of the coolest members of the scorched. Just like. [00:02:45] Speaker B: Yeah, they go to drinking a. That's like the best issue of the scorch. [00:02:50] Speaker C: Oh, man, it is so good. That layman run is turning out to be pretty great. Pretty great? [00:02:56] Speaker B: Yeah, it's awesome. I love that issue. And it finally started teases some stuff we've been wondering about. It's like, what is your name anyway? To redeemer. [00:03:07] Speaker C: We'Ll get there, Janet. [00:03:08] Speaker B: All right. We'll get there. [00:03:10] Speaker C: We got other issues of Spawn to talk about this week. [00:03:13] Speaker A: That's true. [00:03:14] Speaker B: We got two issues of Spawn because this is regarding Spawn, as I said. And each week we're bringing you two issues straight out of Spawn's universe. This week is no different. We've been continuing on this early Rory McConville run with Spawn 328 from March 2022. So little over a lot over a year ago. [00:03:34] Speaker C: About a year and a half ago. Over a year and a half. Damn. [00:03:38] Speaker B: Almost two years ago. [00:03:39] Speaker C: Oh, man. Damn, Johnny. [00:03:41] Speaker A: We're getting there. [00:03:42] Speaker B: And then our second issue of the day is the very heavy King swan number 27. [00:03:47] Speaker C: Probably should have devoted a whole episode just to that one because, oh, boy. It's good, but it's rough. It's some rough, rough stuff. [00:03:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Al Simmons, man, he's had a fucked up life. [00:03:59] Speaker C: Yeah, he has. [00:04:00] Speaker B: But before we get to that one. [00:04:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:02] Speaker C: We got to cover 328. [00:04:03] Speaker B: 1St 328. We don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves. [00:04:05] Speaker C: No, we don't. [00:04:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:06] Speaker B: So like I said, it's from March 2022. I'm looking at two covers. [00:04:11] Speaker C: Ooh, you got two of them. [00:04:12] Speaker A: I got two of them. Ooh, nice. [00:04:14] Speaker C: Looky, looky, nice. [00:04:15] Speaker B: I've got the Bjorn Barons. Is that the A cover, I believe? [00:04:19] Speaker C: Yeah, it's the a cover. Oh, it's gotta be the A cover because I've got the other one. You've got. And it's the B cover. [00:04:24] Speaker A: All right, that's cool. Yeah, yeah. [00:04:26] Speaker B: So I've got the Bjorn Barons cover, which is, like, medieval spawn with the world's biggest fucking axe. It looks like a table. [00:04:34] Speaker C: That's what Bjorn Barons does with the axes. Oh, boy. [00:04:37] Speaker A: It's medieval. [00:04:38] Speaker C: He's a big, beefy boy. He needs a big, beefy axe, Johnny. [00:04:40] Speaker B: It's huge. And he's fighting some kind of, like, medieval spectacle like gladiator arena. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:04:47] Speaker C: He's just waiting for Joaquin Phoenix to do his thumb thing. [00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah, because it looks like he's got the thumbs down. That guy's head's, like, exploding at his Eye hole. So I think he's probably dying. [00:04:59] Speaker C: Yeah, he's just slowly squeezing that head till it crumples. He could do that just, like, a soda can. [00:05:05] Speaker A: Just. Boy. [00:05:07] Speaker B: And there's already, like, four dead dudes around him. [00:05:10] Speaker C: What a way to go. It's brutal. [00:05:12] Speaker A: It's pretty brutal. [00:05:13] Speaker B: It is brutal. He's got a trident that he's dropping. The guy that medieval is killing has a trident. [00:05:17] Speaker C: Yeah, and the guy that he's stepping on has that classic, like, gladiator. One arm only, one arm of armor. [00:05:26] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:05:27] Speaker C: And there's like a dude in, like, a trojan helmet in the back. I bet. I bet Bjorn Barons was just like, hell, yeah. For medieval. I could just go to the museum and draw what I see. [00:05:39] Speaker B: Draw anything. [00:05:40] Speaker C: I watched the holdovers last night, and Paul Giamatti is just obsessed with the roman empire because that's what he teaches. He teaches ancient civilization, and every conversation he has somehow comes back to, you know, the ancient Greeks. [00:05:55] Speaker B: Was that streaming now? [00:05:56] Speaker C: Yeah, it's on Peacock right now. [00:05:57] Speaker A: Peacock. [00:05:58] Speaker C: Peacock, yeah. And they do that thing where they give you 60 seconds of commercials up front and then no commercials during it. So. [00:06:04] Speaker A: Great. That's nice. [00:06:05] Speaker B: Speaking of birds, speaking of peacocks, we got some ravens on the B cover. [00:06:09] Speaker C: On 328 by Giangioordano. It's raven spawn with a fuck ton of ravens. And he's just, like, standing in front of a full red moon. It's like if Spider man, after the Spider man crouch, when he stands up and he's about to fall off the building, that's kind of the pose he's in now, where it looks like he's about to just fall forward and cause some damage. [00:06:31] Speaker A: Yep, it looks like he's about to fly. [00:06:34] Speaker C: And the belt buckle for Raven Spawn isn't a belt buckle. It's, like, built into his abdomen, and it's got, like, crust scythes on it. Holy shit. Raven Spawn is absolutely awesome. There needs to be a black metal band where each of the members dress up as a spawn. Raven Spawn will be the front man. He's got the long, spoky forearm bands already. [00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:02] Speaker C: Oh, man, he's so cool. Another thing I like about this cover, Johnny, is you don't see a black logo very often. [00:07:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:07:10] Speaker C: Like, looking online. All of the pictures of it online have it with a white logo, but for some reason, it's a black logo. [00:07:17] Speaker A: And it's pretty badass. [00:07:20] Speaker C: Pretty badass. [00:07:22] Speaker A: Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, black and yellow. Very cool. [00:07:25] Speaker C: Bumblebee colors. Bumblebee. [00:07:28] Speaker B: Then opening it up, cracking open that cover we've already mentioned, but it is written by Rory McConville and Tod McFarland's on additional script. Carla Barberi is doing the art. [00:07:39] Speaker C: He's doing a good job. [00:07:40] Speaker B: Tom Horseshokowski on lettering. [00:07:42] Speaker C: Hell, yeah. [00:07:43] Speaker B: My old friend from Spawncon who I told where the bathroom was. [00:07:48] Speaker C: He's your bathroom bud, Johnny. Bathroom bud. Bathroom bud. [00:07:52] Speaker B: J. David Ramos on colors. We already covered the covers sure did. And then you got Tod McFarland as creative director. And Thomas Healy is editor in chief. [00:08:03] Speaker A: Yes, he is. [00:08:04] Speaker B: So previously in Spawn, the Exodus foundation has declared war with the assassination of Senator Rollins. The entire world sees spawn as public enemy number one. Did we know these people were the Exodus Corporation before this? [00:08:19] Speaker C: That's exactly the point I was going to bring up. It's another one of those information that we didn't get previously. That is in the thing because. Yeah, as far as I know. And we've been covering them here issue by issue. And Exodus Corporation only shows up, as far as I know, in kings, in Kingspawn. Like, what is that? Eleven or so? [00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:43] Speaker C: This is news by a footnote. [00:08:44] Speaker A: There you go. [00:08:45] Speaker B: The Exodus Foundation. [00:08:46] Speaker C: I imagine that's horribly, horribly confusing when you're reading this in trades. Although to my knowledge, this hasn't been put in trades yet. The trades, as far as I know, they haven't stopped at, like, what, 309, 310, whatever that one was. [00:09:00] Speaker A: Something like that. [00:09:01] Speaker B: I think they're coming out soon ish. But, yeah, they kind of stopped. [00:09:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:06] Speaker C: They were pretty regularly putting them out. Six months to a year after they came out. [00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:09:12] Speaker C: 310 is the last one, I think. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:14] Speaker C: I just haven't seen them. Because they put them in the previews whenever they come out, and I haven't seen them. I haven't seen them at shops. Nothing. [00:09:22] Speaker B: No. Because they always put up all the graphic novel or the trade paperbacks to release that day. Challengers. [00:09:29] Speaker A: They put them up there, and I. [00:09:31] Speaker B: Always look for the spawn and flip through them just to see what kind of stuff they got in them. [00:09:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:35] Speaker C: And also the benefit of being that guy at the comic book shop. Every time you walk in and there's a new fancy spawn thing, they're like, oh, hey, we heard. And it's like, yes, please. [00:09:48] Speaker A: Right. [00:09:48] Speaker C: They don't even bat an eye when you order a bad issue of a comic book from a bad person because it's spawn related. Oh, boy. [00:09:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:09:59] Speaker B: What did you get? [00:10:01] Speaker C: I'll show it to you here. It's the Dave Sims Cerebeth spoof of Spawn Batman called Spore Batvark. And it is, not to put too light of a touch on it, it is awful, but it's got spawn on it. So I figured I had to at least read it so that way you wouldn't have to. And even if it were physically readable, like, even if it were readable. Readable, it would still be bad. [00:10:30] Speaker B: It's just unreadable. [00:10:31] Speaker C: It's unreadable. And the jokes are bad jokes. It's very hard to explain how unreadable it is because I'd have to let you read it to figure it out. It's a headache in paper form. [00:10:44] Speaker B: Did this come out recently? [00:10:46] Speaker C: Yeah, it came out like two months ago. [00:10:47] Speaker B: Let's see what it's issue 380. [00:10:50] Speaker C: Issue 380. I think it does come out monthly. And the next one's for December 2023. So I think it came out November 2023. [00:10:57] Speaker A: Okay. [00:10:58] Speaker B: The second longest running. [00:11:00] Speaker A: Wait, is it 383 80? Yeah. [00:11:03] Speaker B: Isn't that the longest running now? [00:11:05] Speaker C: Well, yeah, maybe. [00:11:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know. [00:11:09] Speaker C: It might be because Tod McFarland wrote on a lot of the spin offs, so he might have just more. [00:11:14] Speaker B: Did he just recently pick it back up again or something? [00:11:16] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:11:19] Speaker C: That would require paying more attention to this man than I want to. Okay, on the back here, there's an advertisement for being able to download all of the issues that have happened. And it says, tod won't sell you the first 300 issues of spawn digitally for $99. You want to know why? Because he's too busy paying millions of dollars for other guys Balls. You don't get other guys balls money when you sell 300 issues for 99. What a jerk. [00:11:43] Speaker A: Wow. [00:11:43] Speaker C: And then does anyone give us a record breaking banner? [00:11:47] Speaker A: No jerks. [00:11:49] Speaker C: And if you have paid attention to the goddamn Todd father, Mr. Dave Sim, you would know that if you're feeling sassy, you put the banner on there yourself. [00:11:57] Speaker A: Goddamn. [00:11:57] Speaker B: Yeah, you put it on there. You don't think someone like. No one gives it to him. He puts it on there. [00:12:01] Speaker C: He's the fucking worst canadian ever. I'm upset now, Johnny. I need to calm my nerves with some gruesomeness. [00:12:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:12:13] Speaker B: So you go right here. Speaking of calm nerves, you go right into. So this issue opens with Brock the. [00:12:19] Speaker C: Shock fennel, the calmest presence in news. [00:12:22] Speaker B: Our third pundit. [00:12:24] Speaker C: But it's just him. [00:12:25] Speaker B: It's just him. It's a special report. [00:12:28] Speaker C: What we learn is, Johnny, we learn later that this is some fake news. I don't know how surprised you are about that. Personally, I was shocked. I was Brock the shocked. [00:12:38] Speaker B: You're Brock the shocked. [00:12:42] Speaker C: Oh, boy. I do like how in his second paragraph here, the word shocked is bacon in blue letters. [00:12:48] Speaker A: Yep. [00:12:49] Speaker C: Seeing Brock the shock say things like the word shock. Or like when you're listening to bands, they say the word that is their name, but not referring to their name directly, but it's just the same word. I always find that tickles me a little bit. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Shocked. Well, he's shocked because Senator Rollins was assassinated last issue. [00:13:11] Speaker C: Cold blooded murder. [00:13:12] Speaker B: Cold blooded murder. The one we covered with Logan there. [00:13:14] Speaker C: And if you remember, Cordelia was hanging out for the money shot. And right behind him on the screen there is the money shot that she was waiting for. [00:13:22] Speaker B: There it is. [00:13:23] Speaker C: Yeah, the spawned with the three commando guys in front of him. [00:13:29] Speaker B: At least they know it's a copycat. Yeah, they're like, spawn doesn't wear that kind of hat. [00:13:34] Speaker C: He wears a crown. [00:13:36] Speaker A: Wait, not yet, maybe. [00:13:38] Speaker C: They say that the government officials don't know who this copycat was, but they have their own information. And they say it's this guy, this guy who was a 28 year old college dropout named Elliot Cooper. [00:13:50] Speaker B: It's hilarious that they're like, yeah, this is who the guy dressed up as Spawn was with some college dropout. [00:13:56] Speaker C: He'd become obsessed with Alciman's fanatical claims over the past few months. [00:14:00] Speaker B: This is what we call a false. [00:14:02] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:02] Speaker C: Yes, indeed. [00:14:03] Speaker B: And so brock the truck fan is going to be all over this. [00:14:06] Speaker C: Yeah, he's leading the charge of the false. Like, this is a very sweaty metaphor here, Johnny. But he is one of the iwo Jima soldiers. Hoisting up that false spawn flag from the famous image he is. Yeah, that might be a bit sweaty. I might be a bit sweaty. [00:14:25] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:14:26] Speaker B: You've been under the weather. [00:14:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:28] Speaker C: And now we are literally under the weather because it is snowing. Look at that. [00:14:32] Speaker B: Yeah, it's snowing quite a bit. [00:14:34] Speaker C: It's still coming down. That's pretty great. I'm excited. I've been upset that I haven't had any snow to scrape this year, which, it's a weird thing to be upset about, not having to shovel any snow, but I enjoy it. It's fun. [00:14:47] Speaker A: Hey, why not? It's kind of like mowing. [00:14:49] Speaker C: It's a reason to be outside and not to be disturbed by anybody or anything. [00:14:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I can see that. I liked mowing, and it's like, kind of a Zen activity. [00:14:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:57] Speaker C: And if you run into a neighbor and give them just a little bit of help, the return on that effort investment is actually quite great, because they'll always be like, oh, yeah, he helped me dig out my. [00:15:07] Speaker A: It's. [00:15:07] Speaker B: It's. It's coming down. [00:15:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty good. Also coming down is Al Simmons on this rooftop here. He breaks into this building. I'm assuming it's some sort of police place. Because he melts the lock off an evidence door. And is going through one of these lockers. I like how unfazed he is. I bet gumshoe or Detective Spawn or Norrispawn, whatever we're calling him now, would have probably tried to jimmy the lock, but Spawn's just like, I'll smell through it. [00:15:34] Speaker B: And then as Brock the shock fennel calls Al Simmons, the leader of the 21st century Manson family. [00:15:41] Speaker C: What a crazy time to have been alive in the age of the rise of cults. So wild. So wild. I mean, I guess no more wild than nowadays. But for it to have been a shock would have been very interesting. Yeah, we're too jaded and unshucked, unfazed by anything. [00:15:57] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:15:58] Speaker B: I was pretty shocked by that mother God cult thing that's on HBO. I don't know if you've seen that. [00:16:02] Speaker C: No, I haven't watched it. It's one of those things that I'm like, I need to watch that. And then I sit down in front of the television, and I completely forget anything that I wanted to watch. And I'm like, maybe I'll just watch some dragon ball. [00:16:14] Speaker B: It's really good and disturbing. So that was shocking, for sure. [00:16:17] Speaker A: Nice. [00:16:18] Speaker C: I listened to a podcast series about Heaven's gate. Hosted by a guy who grew up in a cult. He would, like, break in every once in a while and be like, let me tell you my personal experience with episodes like this. And it was awesome. It was awesome. I don't remember what it was called, but it was very good. [00:16:33] Speaker A: That's cool. [00:16:35] Speaker B: Yeah, that mother God show was just, like, a really interesting cult. And had a really dark turn of events and dark ending. It was good. [00:16:43] Speaker C: Nice. I'll be sure to watch it. And then we can't forget the other documentary about contemporary cults. Midsommar. [00:16:51] Speaker B: Oh, yes. [00:16:53] Speaker C: Oh, boy. This is not us wanting to not get into the issue here. This is me just being excited that we get to do a recording today. [00:17:01] Speaker B: I know we were a few days. [00:17:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. [00:17:03] Speaker C: So Spawn's digging through these lockers, and he's got some armed men coming up behind him. Call him a motherfucker. That's pretty dope. They do a reference to king Spawn number two. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:14] Speaker C: Where Brock the shock fennel is casting doubt on Spawn's heroic ability, as he is wants to do. Because, as you remember, Spawn protected a whole bunch of people from getting shot by the couple. [00:17:25] Speaker B: The ones that, like, fucked in front of Billy? [00:17:27] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. They wore the helmets so that way he could creeps me out every time. That's so gross. And Brock says, defending. Are those people blind? He was probably instigating it. I don't think he could defend anything. [00:17:41] Speaker B: And Spawn just starts ripping up these guys. [00:17:43] Speaker C: Yeah, he chains this guy right through the head. And his head explodes into some blood splatter. It's great. [00:17:52] Speaker B: Just, boom, it's gone. His hat's just, like, floating in the air. [00:17:55] Speaker C: Actually, he does it to two of them. One of them has a hat floating in the air. And the other one has some broken sunglasses just dangling. Oh, boy. And he just rips through the rest of these guys. And the fun bit with this scene, since it's unrelated, talking over unrelated images, is brock shock ends with how easy of a takedown it was of the spawn impersonator. While spawn is literally easily taking down these guys. It's great, right? We cut to dark Redeemer saying he doesn't care who you have to contact. I want an audience with the almighty. And Cordelia's. Cordelia is wearing a top that Jessica priest would be proud. [00:18:34] Speaker B: She's really wearing the lab coat there. [00:18:39] Speaker C: Johnny, if I may, that is not appropriate lab attire. [00:18:43] Speaker B: Yeah, it doesn't seem like it. [00:18:46] Speaker C: Especially because the lab coat should be buttoned. But that's neither here nor there. Bonk. Again. So dark Redeemer is starting to realize. That Cordelia's not as good of a person. As she might have led him to believe. She's just, like, giving him the runaround treatment. She calls him forsaken. Which I forgot that he was also called forsaken. [00:19:07] Speaker B: Right. [00:19:08] Speaker C: So he's able forsaken dark Redeemer. Doesn't he have another name? I don't know. [00:19:12] Speaker B: He probably anti antispawn. [00:19:14] Speaker C: Anti antispawn. That's true. He is an anti antispawn, basically. Jesus. It's like pets. They all have so many nicknames. So they've obviously just had, like, a tussle in this lab room. And Dark Redeemer is just, like, visibly steaming. He's so upset with Cordelia. [00:19:32] Speaker B: Yes. [00:19:33] Speaker C: She tries to big dog him, and he's like, lady, my patience is almost over. Your exile is almost at an end. [00:19:40] Speaker B: So he wants to get, like, back into God's favor, it seems. [00:19:43] Speaker C: And I don't know if I'm making this up, but it also seems like maybe she intimated that she might have a way for him to get back into heaven without the dead zones. Because as we remember right now, the dead zones are locked. [00:19:55] Speaker B: Yes, that's what it seems like. [00:19:57] Speaker C: So that would be a very good reason. Why dark Redeemer is putting up with this nonsense. We get a nice little walk and talk here between Terion and Al in a abandoned cabin. It looks like. I guess this is the hideout. It's just another. [00:20:11] Speaker B: This is a secret hideout. [00:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:13] Speaker C: So this is like the barn of. [00:20:14] Speaker B: The secret hideout or it's all underground underneath the barn? [00:20:18] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. [00:20:19] Speaker C: We never get a good map of what the secret hideout looks like. [00:20:23] Speaker B: No, not really. It's kind of like nebulous, which is. [00:20:27] Speaker C: Good because that means if they need to have a thing there, they could just be like, yeah, this has always been here. [00:20:32] Speaker B: And Terry is just helping him dig up intel. [00:20:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:20:36] Speaker C: This is how we learned that Brock the shock fennel was engaged in distributing fake information because they just picked up a random dead guy and didn't blame the old body swap. [00:20:48] Speaker B: Yeah, just like old. I just didn't have any intelligence to. [00:20:51] Speaker C: Say, hey, Johnny, join the club. So Terry's filling spawn in on some stuff. We get just the casual, hey, Cygor, how's it going? Like, they pass them through in the halls as you do at a workplace. And Terry's talking about how all the necroplasm sightings that they've had, that they've been tracking when they first started after the closing of the dead zones, they didn't track them very closely because there were just too many of them. But he's been able to isolate certain signatures, and some of them disappear and then come back and then disappear again. But there's no good way to explain it because the dead zones are closed. So they're starting to think that somebody out there has the ability to cloak a necroplasm signal, which, pretty spot on, honest. [00:21:40] Speaker B: Seems like it might be the exodus corporation. [00:21:43] Speaker C: And we know they have a lot of them, and they do specifically reference good old gumshoe spawn coming back after having disappeared. [00:21:51] Speaker B: Yeah, 23 spawns out there, baby. Think about that. [00:21:54] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:21:57] Speaker C: How many action figures are slated for the next year? [00:22:00] Speaker B: 23. One of them is the Trex. [00:22:03] Speaker C: Terry says it's like someone's trying to collect hell spawns, which I feel personally attacked there. [00:22:09] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:22:11] Speaker C: But then they somehow lucked into dark redeemer, did a whoopsie, and abducted our old gumshoe spawn in a place with a camera. And so they can literally see him being abducted, which is fun. And he got abducted on February 22, February 17. [00:22:30] Speaker A: Sorry, 2022. So we'll have to Mark that when. [00:22:35] Speaker C: It comes up this year as two years of abduction of gum shoe spot. [00:22:42] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:22:43] Speaker B: We got to remember, I like, it was just, like, on the street somewhere. He's just like, hey, come here. [00:22:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's pretty great. And then, so they're all just talking about this stuff, and Cygor comes up and then does green eye smokies. And then we get a cool little panel that I don't think I understood the first time I saw it. But where Jim Downing and Cygor right next to each other and the green lightning going between their eyes and their brains. [00:23:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:11] Speaker C: That's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. [00:23:13] Speaker B: It's cool. He's, like, watching through his eyes. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:23:16] Speaker C: And then Mark comes up and is like, yo, Jim, what's up? You meditating or something? Does Jim downing strike you as the meditating type? [00:23:24] Speaker B: Not really. [00:23:25] Speaker C: Not me. [00:23:25] Speaker B: More of a brooding type. [00:23:27] Speaker C: He was just distracted thinking about something. [00:23:29] Speaker B: Exactly. So there he's moving in. [00:23:32] Speaker C: Mark's like this box where you want me to put it? It's like, there's a pile of boxes right there. Mark just put it with the box. [00:23:39] Speaker B: It's in, like, some secret cave area thing. [00:23:42] Speaker C: Yeah, it almost kind of looks like the Batcave went on the market and they just scooped it up. [00:23:48] Speaker B: Yeah, they bought the Batcave. Bruce Wayne's like, I've got it done. So just lend this out to some other superhero. [00:23:54] Speaker C: Is this is what it would look like without the trophies and the uniforms and the automobiles and the giant penny? The giant penny. And the dinosaur. Because there's a dinosaur. [00:24:06] Speaker B: There's a dinosaur. [00:24:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:07] Speaker C: And Mark's just excited to do something normal for a change. [00:24:11] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:11] Speaker B: Everyone loves moving. It's so much fun. [00:24:13] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:24:13] Speaker C: Oh, boy. It's the best. Especially when one of your friends who's helping you move watches a music video the night before and can only remember the chorus. [00:24:27] Speaker B: Oh, God. Hey, Lisa. Our friend of the pod brand, Morehead, sent me a video of a viral. Or it's like, trying to go viral music video. And it's latinas for Trump to the tune of Carol the Bells. So the two that stuck in my head right now is, please, four more years. Please, four more years. Please, four more years. Please, four more years. That's the song. I'll have to send it to you. [00:24:56] Speaker A: Please, four more years. Please, four more years. Please, four more years. Johnny. [00:25:03] Speaker C: That's helping it go viral. [00:25:04] Speaker B: Please, four more years of Trump. [00:25:07] Speaker C: Oh, God. I'm going to isolate that. And that'll be the opening quote there. [00:25:13] Speaker A: Whatever. [00:25:14] Speaker B: We'll get some new audience we haven't had before. [00:25:17] Speaker C: I mean, we'll get a couple of hate listens out of it. [00:25:19] Speaker B: At least play both sides. We could have, like a normal. [00:25:26] Speaker C: We could do like the 2008 elections where there was a red cover of spawn and a blue cover of Spawn, a one that said Obama wins and one that said Romney wins, and you voted with your dollars to see which one you wanted to win. We could do that. Only we could have a red stream and a blue stream. Blue Stream will be our regular episodes. And our red streams will be. [00:25:47] Speaker B: It will be our regular episodes. But we'll play that Trump song highly. Please, four more years. Please, four more years. [00:25:55] Speaker C: It'll be like three and a half minutes. I'm not that flexible with my morals to play both sides, Johnny. [00:26:04] Speaker A: I'm sorry. Oh, my God. [00:26:06] Speaker B: Not even for the views and the listens. [00:26:08] Speaker C: Our red stream will just be us covering this issue of the spore Batvark. [00:26:16] Speaker B: The spore Batvark. [00:26:18] Speaker C: Oh, boy. It's bad. It's very bad. I don't know if I've gotten that across enough, but it is not good. [00:26:26] Speaker B: Is it actually within the comic, a parody of Swan Batman? [00:26:30] Speaker C: No, it's just the COVID Well, at some point, Dave Sims, his wrist fucked up and so he couldn't do art really very much anymore. So for the past ten years, his issues have all been just like either one simple thing that he drew once and then just repeated it for every page, or just recycling old images that he drew during the run of the book. And the premise of this is that, I don't know, Cerebus and some other guy in the universe have been cast in the upcoming spore Batvark movie, and they're doing, like, the red carpet press junket for it. And so it's just a dumb question and even worse answers followed by even worse questions with even worse answers. So it's literally this image over and over again with just different dialogue. [00:27:30] Speaker B: Okay. Oh, boy. [00:27:32] Speaker C: Yeah, they do do a sort of shout out to the pundits, which is probably the best part of it. An old timey sort of square with rounded corner tvs, the kind baby boomers dig the most man know and trust. [00:27:45] Speaker A: That's funny. [00:27:47] Speaker C: But it just, like, descends into utter nonsense. Enough of that, Johnny. Let's get back to Jim Downing and. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Mark, because there's an alert. [00:27:57] Speaker C: Alert, alert, alert, alert, alert. And there's a warning system for human hybrids and celestials because Jim's trying to recruit them. And Mark says recruitment's for what? Jim just says for reinforcement. [00:28:10] Speaker B: But we know it's for the green world. [00:28:12] Speaker C: Yeah, he says try to get him for our side. And Mark asks, whose site is that? And Jim Downing says, the same site as when we first met. And then, Johnny, there's a little asterisk. Little asterisk says, issue 185. And so I took myself to hoopla because it was easier to go to hoopla than to figure out which part of my humble bundle. Issue 185. And I downloaded 185. And I read it three fucking times. [00:28:35] Speaker A: There is no market. [00:28:36] Speaker C: There is no Jim Downing. [00:28:39] Speaker B: Seriously. [00:28:40] Speaker C: There's a brief overview. A brief overview. I can show it to you right here. [00:28:44] Speaker B: I was about to go buy the compendium just so I could read that from Wanda gave me a challengers gift card for Christmas. [00:28:51] Speaker A: Merry Christmas, Johnny. [00:28:52] Speaker C: Merry Christmas. Challenger is more like it. So it's got this badass cover. It's called endgame part one. So it's the first part of that, but it just starts off with, like, Al Simmons walking through hell. [00:29:04] Speaker A: And then he gets angry. [00:29:06] Speaker C: Angry. He gets, like a green glowing fist, and he shoves it into his face, right? And then he causes a big spark in New York City. He's always causing these big sparks in New York City, Jenny. [00:29:19] Speaker A: So right there, like, look at that. [00:29:21] Speaker C: He just digs his hand into his. [00:29:22] Speaker A: Face is where he kills himself. [00:29:25] Speaker C: Well, he kills himself in a guess. I guess it's the way. Does he kill himself with his hand? I thought he killed himself with a gun. [00:29:33] Speaker A: Maybe this is the one he killed himself with. [00:29:36] Speaker C: But anyway, big spark in New York City, this guy wakes up and says, son. And he is referred to as patient 47. He's been in a coma. And when he wakes up, there's a whole bunch of people who are doing calls. They're like, patient 47 woke up and they're like, but you were supposed to let us know if there were any occasions. And he's like, he just woke up. And one of these people that's on those phone calls has a phone call. [00:30:00] Speaker A: And then loads a gun, and then. [00:30:03] Speaker C: A little tiny blame in the distance. So somebody fucked up. And then. And then we just get clown walking through the streets of New York City, trying to taunt Al, and then coming across Al's dead body and says, you did it. You finally did it. But absolutely no, Mark. Absolutely no. [00:30:22] Speaker B: Jim Downing must be the next issue. [00:30:26] Speaker C: I also downloaded 285 to see if that's what they meant. I didn't do 186. [00:30:30] Speaker A: I should have done that. [00:30:32] Speaker C: 185. Absolutely. Unless Jim Downing is the patient 47. But that still doesn't explain what side they're fighting. [00:30:41] Speaker B: It's got to be the next issue, because if that's where Al kills himself. [00:30:44] Speaker C: Yeah, I don't know. How long has Mark been in the universe? Has Mark been around that long? [00:30:49] Speaker B: I mean, around there somewhere? [00:30:52] Speaker C: Also, that issue came out in 2008, which would have been when we were in college. [00:30:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:30:57] Speaker C: Damn. We could have jumped on the train then. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Could have read Spawn. [00:31:01] Speaker C: How dare we? [00:31:02] Speaker B: How dare we? [00:31:04] Speaker C: Yeah, but then Jim Downing is just like, I'm going to go check out these recruits. And he twinkles out of the lair. And then Mark's just like, ah, geez, what did I get into? And then we cut to the penthouse of a very tall building. It's got a restaurant in it, and we've got Cordelia and good hair. Dude. [00:31:23] Speaker A: Who? [00:31:23] Speaker C: I forgot his name again. Already. Yeah, doesn't matter. They're having a sort of heated conversation, and during the middle of it, Cordelia gets real upset and kind of half transforms into her. [00:31:35] Speaker B: Yeah, she's like, I'm going to go fleabiac out for a second, but only for one panel. [00:31:40] Speaker C: Yeah, but she's so upset with slash able that she just can't contain it. And then she's demons out, and then they keep talking, and we get a flashcut to what Abel is up to at this moment, and he's just flying around killing people, trying to figure out the truth. Pretty brutal. [00:31:59] Speaker A: Pretty brutal. [00:32:00] Speaker B: He's got a cool spear. [00:32:01] Speaker C: Yeah, he does have a cool spear that looks like a spear that medieval would have carried. It's one of those cool accessory weapons that Carlo Barberi likes to give us. And then 4200 miles away, on the outskirts of Ryja, Latvia. Hope I said that, right? We get a yeti fighting redeemer. [00:32:20] Speaker B: Yeah. In, like, an apartment. [00:32:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:32:22] Speaker C: And this yeti is pissed. [00:32:24] Speaker A: He's cool. [00:32:26] Speaker B: Wampa. [00:32:27] Speaker C: He's great. [00:32:27] Speaker B: I always love the wampa. And empire strikes back. [00:32:29] Speaker C: Yeah, he's cool. I've got a wampa koozie that I like to use. [00:32:33] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:32:34] Speaker C: It's pretty fun. So the yeti wampa is complaining about some stuff to Redeemer. The cleansing has already begun. Nothing will stop it from coming. They've been abandoned, and I guess they're going to take over the world. [00:32:48] Speaker B: Whatever story here with this yeti, I got to know. [00:32:50] Speaker C: I don't know. I got to know, too. Maybe they'll give us a redeemer miniseries with Yeti. Yeah, but anyway, Yeti is short lived because he gets foamed right through the chest by Redeemer with a cool. You won't be here to see it. Then Al Simmons, just like, shadow blasts right behind him and says he does. Impressive. He's like the mortal Kombat announcer. Impressive, Spawn. [00:33:19] Speaker B: And he's like, who is that to the bath? That yeti? And he's just like, someone from my past. Don't worry about it. [00:33:25] Speaker C: And then spawn's like, I need info. The kind, you know. When did heaven start creating redeemers? Our knowledge is that somewhere around. When was it? 1990? 419 93 is when the first redeemer shows up. [00:33:41] Speaker A: But, you know, there's history there. There's history to that. [00:33:45] Speaker B: There must be war before that. That's just our first one. [00:33:47] Speaker C: Yeah, that's just our first one. And then we then cut to a scene of some friends walking home rather drunk. They both have little bubbles above their head to indicate how soft they are. [00:34:01] Speaker B: The classic. [00:34:03] Speaker C: Oh, it's great. And one of them is complaining about how he's so unlovable that he's run out of dating apps to try, because all of them have run out. And one of them has even sent him an apology. We're very sorry, Mr. Hayes, but you're going to die alone. You have failed to match with every single woman in the United states. Oh, his name is Bobby. So I wonder if Johnny, this is Bobby Jr. He's a drunk man, and his name is Bobby. You never know. But then his buddy gets an attack of the green eyes, and it's just like, girl. [00:34:40] Speaker A: And bam. Turns into gumshoe spawn. Yep. [00:34:44] Speaker B: I forgot this happened, because I was like, oh, no. Gumshoe spawn died forever. But he immediately comes back. [00:34:49] Speaker C: Immediately comes back. And the guy's like, shit, you're the guy that killed the senator. [00:34:53] Speaker A: And he's like, what are you talking about? [00:34:55] Speaker C: And then Bobby sees somebody in the background, and he's like, wait, who's that guy? And we get a nice little monologue. Know, somebody's always wondered what would happen if a spawn was killed while the dead zones were closed. And it just seems that the spirits go to a new host instead of going back to. [00:35:11] Speaker A: Yep. [00:35:11] Speaker C: Now we know. [00:35:12] Speaker A: Now we know. [00:35:13] Speaker C: We get a lateral transfer instead of having to go back through the machinations of the Malbols, right. But very shortly, a hand comes out and grabs Gumshoe's bomb by the throat and just thinners him. He just goes. [00:35:28] Speaker B: He sucks out his powers. [00:35:29] Speaker C: He just steals his vittle fluids. [00:35:32] Speaker B: We know who does that. [00:35:33] Speaker A: We know who does it. [00:35:34] Speaker C: It's sin. [00:35:35] Speaker B: It's sin. [00:35:36] Speaker C: It's Mr. [00:35:37] Speaker A: Sin. It's a sin. Yeah. And then we get a. [00:35:40] Speaker C: To be continued. [00:35:41] Speaker B: And he sucked out all the hell spawn. [00:35:44] Speaker C: Yeah, he's. [00:35:44] Speaker B: I like when he says, oh, it's me. Who are you? And he goes, forgive me. I sometimes forget how I've represented myself to you guys. What would he represent himself as to like nor spawn? He would have been like, maybe a sexy dame, a fem fatal. [00:35:57] Speaker C: Or maybe he would have been like, a low down, like an informant, like a dirty rat. He would have been a dirty. Yeah, you dirty rat. You killed my mother, my brother. [00:36:08] Speaker A: Brother. [00:36:09] Speaker C: Necrometer is at 2219-221-9219 and we get a mailbag in the spawning grounds. The first question is something that is right up Johnny's alley. A John Carpenter the thing homage. [00:36:23] Speaker B: That'd be fun. [00:36:24] Speaker A: That'd be fun. [00:36:25] Speaker C: And Thomas says that homage covers are a tricky business, but you never know. [00:36:31] Speaker A: You never know. You never know. [00:36:34] Speaker B: That's a very specific question. [00:36:36] Speaker A: That is, would Tom want to do. [00:36:38] Speaker B: A the thing cover in the near future? It's like, sounds like you want him to. [00:36:43] Speaker C: Maybe if there are enough emails saying the thing, the thing cover, the thing. [00:36:48] Speaker A: Cover that, they'll get on it. [00:36:51] Speaker B: Then Thomas Healy says, and this guy also mentions, can you bring back Lotus? [00:36:55] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't even know who Lotus is. I don't know either. [00:36:59] Speaker B: Thomas says, wow, that is a deep cut. [00:37:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it is quite deep. [00:37:03] Speaker A: The first cat is the deepest. [00:37:06] Speaker C: Then we get Michael Peace saying that. [00:37:10] Speaker B: Okay, I'm not trying to make fun of anyone, but this letter takes a wild turn about halfway through. [00:37:17] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, letter. [00:37:18] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm not making fun of you, Michael Peace. It's just like, damn. [00:37:24] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:25] Speaker C: So Mike starts off saying he's a big spawn fan. He says he's been a fan since the cartoons and movies came out. So what's that, 25 years or so? [00:37:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:37:37] Speaker C: And then he loves the lore and the action, and then just casually drops in that he's the survivor of something horrific. [00:37:45] Speaker B: I'm sorry. I don't know why. I think it's so funny and it. [00:37:50] Speaker C: Helps him gets through. And boy, howdy. Boy, howdy. The amount of work Mr. Michael has had to go through to just be able to casually drop that in there instead of kind of make it the whole lots of love to Michael. Hell, yeah. Keep up the good work, sir. I hope you're able to keep any unwanted thoughts or anything at bay. And thank you for still being here. I'm sorry that happened to. And then, you know, Thomas Healy says much the same. Know, he's a sweet. [00:38:21] Speaker A: Thomas Healy. Yeah. [00:38:22] Speaker C: So that's good to. Is we like to see every once in a while, the letters that come into the spawning grounds about people who have been able to get through tough times with Spawn. And that's amazing. It's amazing. It's a fun, little, dumb comic book that is able to help people through much more difficult things than it seems like it should. And that's a wonderful thing. This next one is in Spanish, and I have, luckily, Google lens on my phone. [00:38:53] Speaker B: Are you serious? You can just scan. [00:38:55] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Google lens lets you scan it, and it auto translates words for you. [00:39:00] Speaker B: What the fuck? [00:39:01] Speaker C: Yeah, that's fucked up. It's super awesome. So if you want to know, he says hello to everyone who was part of comics, toys, and everything related to spawn in this universe. I have a question. How did Nixon Priest meet? In which comic did it happen? And another question, if you allow me, because if priest was the one who killed Al Simmons on the orders of Jason Nguyen, now it turns out that they cooperate with each other. There should be a huge conflict. Why are they allies? I hope Tod McFarlane or anyone in the group could answer these questions, which are only a very small part of my doubts, which I will ask in another email. In the meantime, thank you very much for reading me. Without further ado for the moment, I say goodbye and look forward to your response. And that's from Quintero. Quintero, Mexico, with love. And Thomas Healy says, hello, Adrian. Thanks for the questions. Jessica and Nick's were shown to have been working together in Spawn 298. They have been dealing with the fallout from Al's revelation to the world. Now, as for Jessica being the one who shot and killed Al Simmons, Al still doesn't know. Ooh, dun dun dun. [00:40:01] Speaker A: I don't think I knew that. [00:40:02] Speaker B: I figured he knew. [00:40:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I figured he knew. Ooh, that's going to be spicy. But I'm sure it will be an awkward conversation between the two of them when they finally have it. [00:40:10] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [00:40:11] Speaker B: There you go. [00:40:12] Speaker C: I love that they're putting spanish letters in here. [00:40:14] Speaker A: It's fun. [00:40:15] Speaker C: There should be more language options. Every issue of spawn should come in at least one other language. They've started doing it with blue beetle. [00:40:24] Speaker A: Where blue beetle, there's two issues every. [00:40:26] Speaker C: Time there's an issue. There's the english issue, there's the spanish issue. And it's just on the rack. You don't have to special order it. You don't have to go to another store. It's just there. That's the kind of stuff we like to see. [00:40:40] Speaker B: It's cool. [00:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:40:41] Speaker C: Need more spawns. Universe. Yeah. [00:40:43] Speaker A: Image classics. Yeah. [00:40:45] Speaker C: Avatar, the last bender. [00:40:47] Speaker A: Advertisement. Yeah. [00:40:49] Speaker C: And then that's issue 328. [00:40:51] Speaker B: 328. Ain't it great? [00:40:53] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:10] Speaker B: All right, so next up we have Kingspawn 27. 27 is my lucky number. [00:41:17] Speaker C: That is also Wanda's lucky number. [00:41:19] Speaker B: I know. We said that before. [00:41:21] Speaker C: Yeah, because that's your birthday number, right. [00:41:23] Speaker B: That's my birthday, and it's her lucky number because it's my birthday, probably. [00:41:27] Speaker C: I honestly don't know why. It's just always been, like, ever since she learned her three times tables, it was always just her favorite number. [00:41:36] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:41:38] Speaker B: It's got a nice ring to it. [00:41:40] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:41:40] Speaker C: It's just serendipity that it happens. [00:41:42] Speaker B: My initial screen name in the world was Phantom 2270. [00:41:46] Speaker C: Jeez, Johnny for Phantom of the Opera, not Phantom menace. [00:41:51] Speaker B: Well, then I could say it was Phantom menace later, but, yeah, originally it. [00:41:54] Speaker C: Was Phantom the opera during that awkward time where you had to pretend like you didn't like the things that you liked for some reason. Because being an adolescence is garbage. [00:42:05] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. [00:42:07] Speaker C: So Kingspawn 27. And we should probably cover the covers, which we often do. [00:42:13] Speaker A: Right? [00:42:13] Speaker B: There are two covers. [00:42:15] Speaker C: I am currently only sitting with one cover, and let me tell you, it's the wrong cover. [00:42:23] Speaker B: You have the brimstone cover. [00:42:24] Speaker C: I've got the brimstone cover. It's pretty dope, though. He's, like, melting. He's got that very. As I said on my review video, it is very. The bees made honey in the lion's skull very similar to that album artwork. It's very good. It's very good earth. [00:42:42] Speaker A: Good music. Go listen to it. [00:42:43] Speaker B: Look what I got. I got the Sam and twitch. [00:42:45] Speaker C: Oh, man, it's so good. Look at those boys. Looking real good. [00:42:49] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:42:50] Speaker B: So Sam and twitch. Sam's smoking a cigarette. [00:42:52] Speaker A: Twitch is twitching. [00:42:54] Speaker C: I like how that version of Sam looks like he was like. It looks like the top of his head is flat. Like he got dropped on his head as a child. And that's some great character for Sam. I bet he probably was dropped on. [00:43:09] Speaker B: His head as a child of the cigarette. Like, goes around the hair on the. [00:43:14] Speaker C: It's almost. It's almost a little bit of cowboy bebop action there. He almost looks like. What's his thing? [00:43:19] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Spike. [00:43:20] Speaker C: Spike. [00:43:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:43:22] Speaker A: Now it's pretty cool. [00:43:23] Speaker C: Good covers, both of them. [00:43:24] Speaker B: And we didn't even say who did them. [00:43:26] Speaker C: No, we didn't. The brimstone was by Dan Pennocian. [00:43:29] Speaker B: And Donna Gulio did the salmon twitch. But, yeah, they're both pretty awesome. [00:43:34] Speaker C: Yeah, they're great. [00:43:35] Speaker B: Both have nothing to do with what's in the issue whatsoever. [00:43:38] Speaker C: Absolutely not. I don't know what would be further away from what's in the issue on the COVID honestly. Maybe Cygor on the COVID would be even further away, but, yeah, maybe. [00:43:51] Speaker A: I mean, oh, boy. [00:43:53] Speaker C: We should just get into it, Johnny. Because if we don't get into it. [00:43:55] Speaker B: We'Re going to keep avoiding it. It's a heavy issue. [00:43:58] Speaker C: It's a heavy issue. Script flapped by our good buddy the Tod father there. So this is his keeping the king spawn on track for the meet up with Spawn 350. Javi Fernandez and Kevin Keane have done the artwork. The color by Ivan Nunez, lettering by, and world design. We covered the covers. Tod McFarlane's the creative director. And the editor in chief is Thomas Healy. [00:44:23] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:23] Speaker C: Previously in King Spawn. Spawn makes a deadly decision in an attempt to sneak into hell. Yeah, that's kind of what happened, pretty much. He pissed off that librarian lady pretty good. [00:44:36] Speaker B: Yeah, he did. [00:44:38] Speaker C: He killed a lot of people to get there, too. And she was like, God damn it, this is a library, Spawn. [00:44:42] Speaker B: Yeah. He carved a bloody path across New York. [00:44:46] Speaker C: Yeah. With that super awesome image from Javi Fernandez. Of just Spawn walking across Manhattan. [00:44:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it was cool. [00:44:55] Speaker B: But at the end of that issue, he got basically put through this hell portal. And she said, there's no way of ever bringing you back as he went in there. [00:45:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:03] Speaker C: She's like, you're never going to be able to come back. And you're probably not going to survive. So I'm just going to forget you exist now. [00:45:09] Speaker B: And Spawn's falling into the void. [00:45:11] Speaker C: He's falling, and he's wondering what she was talking about. Did the visage gaze into Spawn's future, or was she simply stating a fact? Knowing as she does that no one has ever passed the test of purification? And as Spawn's falling, we know that few have witnessed this process, have never called it a test. So I'm assuming the few who have witnessed the process. Are the ones that have gone through it. [00:45:33] Speaker A: Yes. [00:45:34] Speaker C: And they know it. It's actually a punishment and not a test. Al Simmons's life kind of explodes here in a whole bunch of different scenes. We've got him as a child, him. [00:45:45] Speaker A: As a baby, him as an adolescent. [00:45:49] Speaker B: We've just like society in general. [00:45:51] Speaker C: And then we've got a nice image of Malbolga here with fantastic fucking hair. Look at that. [00:45:57] Speaker B: Yeah, look at that, he's like, permed. [00:46:00] Speaker C: Yeah. It's like Malbolgia is watching the movie of Al Simmons's life being like, that's the motherfucker that I need to get on my army. [00:46:08] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:46:09] Speaker C: And so we're going through scenes of Al's life that made him ripe for Hell's sort of nails to get in there. So the things that made him a great candidate for a hellspawn. He was kind of a bully. His dad slapped him. He was arrested as an adolescent. Then he joined the army and was just, ooh, very good. Very good at killing. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Yes. [00:46:31] Speaker C: And needed to, you know, he needed to cut the edge off of that killing buzz he got by holding on to something beautiful to love, and that is Wanda. So Wanda saved him from his terrible, terrible nature. But unfortunately for Al Simmons, he couldn't keep it tamped down forever. And this panel where it says it had to come out, that is just. Oh, boy, oh, boy. That is a rough one. Just Wanda in the background and Al Simmons just, like, seething in the foreground. And then he falls into, like, an abyss of a spiral of his. Of Wanda yelling and glasses breaking and throwing things. It's rough. It's hard enough to read this in two dimensions. Imagine falling through it in gigantic iMAX screen style. [00:47:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:47:26] Speaker C: Oh, I couldn't imagine. And then we fall upon the thing, his unforgivable sin that happens on the top of the next page. He slaps Wanda. Al Simmons slaps Wanda. Holy. I did not know this was a thing that happened. Apparently you did before you read this issue. But I was just like, what? [00:47:44] Speaker A: Holy shit. [00:47:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. And we covered it not too long ago. It was mentioned again in, what, like two. In like 325 or so or 324. [00:47:53] Speaker C: Somewhere around there in one of those ones. Before I started reading it regularly. So I had just missed the knowledge of this. [00:47:59] Speaker A: Right. [00:48:00] Speaker C: Oh, boy. It hit like a ton of bricks. It was like, oh, Al. Oh, fuck me, Al. But then we learned that it's one of those. I learned it from watching you, dad, because his father used to just regularly beat his mother, and he just sat there and did nothing. And so that just sort of, like, seeped into how he approaches the world is just kind of. He would ignore the violence, but when the violence needed to happen, he was there, ready to do it. Yeah, pretty rough. [00:48:31] Speaker B: Terrible thing. [00:48:32] Speaker C: It's not good. The spiral of domestic violence is not one that's easily escapable by anyone. [00:48:40] Speaker A: It's. [00:48:40] Speaker C: It's never good. It's never good. And then it's just a dissent into why that makes Al such a good killer. And it's rough. It's rough, rough stuff, because it keeps cycling back to him being sort of an aggressive young man and then a good killer, and then Wanda being that beautiful thing that was able to allow him to escape from this terribleness that was his life. And then the fact that he messed that up, too. [00:49:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:49:07] Speaker C: It's not that we get introduced to this once. It is much like it said at the beginning. It's not a test. It's a punishment. It's just recapitulating. Recapitulating. Like, we can assume that Al kind of gets this rush of the terrible things he did. Then he gets this nice little escape, and then he ruins it again. And then it goes back, and then it repeats and it repeats and it repeats. It's rough. And then at the end of it, Al Simmons lands in a big white space, and then a darkness opens up, and he just allows it to swallow him. And then he falls through the darkness some more, falls ever further from the light. And this is where we do a cut from Javi Fernandez's art to Kevin Keane's art. [00:49:54] Speaker B: Yes. Before we skip over this page of, like, with Jason Nguyen and the army and stuff, it's just so gruesome. They show, like, wanda burning alive in her car. [00:50:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:03] Speaker C: So not only did he lose her, like, even within the cycle, not only does he lose her once from his own volition, but he loses her multiple. [00:50:12] Speaker B: And we switch to the art, to the Kevin Keane. And Spawn has fallen to this pit of hell. And there's all these tentacles. It's Borg Gullet. [00:50:22] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:22] Speaker C: Do you remember Borgullet from Star wars? [00:50:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:50:26] Speaker B: Rogue one. He's like, Borg Gullet. Well, no, bring in Borg Gullet. He's like this tentacle beast that makes you, like, read your mind, I guess. [00:50:34] Speaker C: Oh, no. I don't remember. Sorry. [00:50:37] Speaker B: Wars. [00:50:37] Speaker C: Well, because it sounded like a Star wars name. [00:50:40] Speaker B: Oh, it's from Rogue one. [00:50:41] Speaker C: I liked Rogue one. I don't remember much specifics about it. [00:50:45] Speaker B: I don't really like it that much. [00:50:46] Speaker A: Really? [00:50:46] Speaker C: I liked it because it was a heist film. I love a heist film, but it. [00:50:49] Speaker B: Was a bad heist. [00:50:50] Speaker C: But I had alitudic, so what? [00:50:53] Speaker A: I don't know. [00:50:54] Speaker B: Everyone loves that movie. I'm just not a big fan. [00:50:56] Speaker C: That's fine. [00:50:56] Speaker B: I'm a hater. [00:50:57] Speaker C: Not everything's for everyone, Johnny. [00:50:59] Speaker B: I'm a hater now. [00:51:02] Speaker C: You know how people who don't like Spawn and have us being like, but Spawn is good at know. Not everything's for everyone's Yanni. [00:51:10] Speaker A: It's true. [00:51:11] Speaker B: But in this space, the tentacles attached to this creature, who starts talking to him. [00:51:15] Speaker C: Yeah, like, holds him down. And it says, this space belongs to the forbidden. Symbiotes were banned long ago. Why have you broken the treaty? Bond's just down there like, hey, hell's. [00:51:25] Speaker B: Thrown to the throne. [00:51:27] Speaker C: He's like, I just need directions, bud. [00:51:29] Speaker B: That's all I want. [00:51:30] Speaker C: Don't hassle me. And then this beast says that this is the fifth realm. The throne is in the third realm, and there's no bridge between the two because the hell spawn burnt it. [00:51:40] Speaker B: Burnt it long ago. [00:51:41] Speaker C: I am actually going to see if I can find in issue eight what realm they're in, what the realm stuff looked like. Okay, so three third sphere served with a fourth sphere. Fuel rod. Fifth sphere. Oh, so old Vinny is telling Billy that there's no way you're going to end up as nose candy for some fifth sphere hippie meta squid. So this is a hippie meta squid, Johnny. [00:52:11] Speaker A: What the fuck? [00:52:12] Speaker C: It is right there. Nice. [00:52:14] Speaker B: What does it say about the third realm? [00:52:16] Speaker C: What about the third sphere? Honest, I'd understand. Getting fillet and served with a light pastry is what some guys like. [00:52:22] Speaker B: I know that I'm getting fillet at the throne. [00:52:25] Speaker A: That's hilarious. Yeah. [00:52:28] Speaker C: So, yeah, hippie meta squid, Johnny, this means that there is hope for us to get some fleshed out ice cream shrimp. [00:52:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:36] Speaker B: If this is the hippie meta squid. [00:52:37] Speaker C: Hell yeah. It only took how many issues? Yeah, 30 years. [00:52:43] Speaker B: A whole new series. [00:52:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:44] Speaker B: What a fucking coincidence. [00:52:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:52:46] Speaker B: Or maybe it was intentional. [00:52:48] Speaker C: You never know. Issue to issue, issue to issue. He's like, I need something. Here we go. Alan Moore. Let me look up here. [00:52:54] Speaker B: 5Th, fifth. What do we got? Meta squid. [00:52:56] Speaker A: Got it. [00:52:57] Speaker C: Much like how the Todd father said that he worked with Bret Booth. He was like, draw what you want, I'll write a story around it, basically. [00:53:05] Speaker A: Right? [00:53:06] Speaker C: Dinosaurs. Okay, we can do a dinosaurs. [00:53:08] Speaker A: Let's get it. [00:53:09] Speaker B: The creature starts smelling him. He's like, you're a half breed. I forgot. I heard Malbosia was using your kind. [00:53:15] Speaker A: That's all we ever heard. [00:53:17] Speaker C: He's like, you smell like Cher. Like a gypsy, a tramp, and a thief. All three of them. That's what you smell like. So Al's like, how could I get out of here? And he says, you can't. [00:53:25] Speaker A: If you die here, so will you. [00:53:27] Speaker C: Or if I die here, so will you. So I guess the implication is that either this guy's the only thing that can navigate this space or this space is dependent upon the life of this guy. [00:53:38] Speaker A: But one of the two, yeah, this. [00:53:41] Speaker C: Guy keeps trying to be like, you're not a Hellman. What are you? And I was like, I don't care what you want. Humanity's greatest flaw is know it lashes out with one of its hippie dippy tentacles and fucking recapitulates the story here, Johnny, with, yes, him viewing, him doing, and it being sort of the major flaw within Al Simmons bull gullet. [00:54:09] Speaker B: It's crazy. I keep saying it because Forrest Whitaker is all crazy in that movie, and he's like, bring me bull gullet. And then he touches him with the tentacles, and it makes him go crazy. [00:54:18] Speaker C: Kind of like then. So this violence, it makes sense that Al Simmons's cloak is red, a symbol of the blood you've spilled. But we might not need to destroy you, if that's your nature. We might yet be able to coexist, but you must approve yourself by crossing the forbidden land alone. [00:54:37] Speaker B: And if he says, if I make it? And he said, you be the first. [00:54:41] Speaker C: And then while this is happening, like, a whole bunch of bugs start crawling up Al's legs and cloak, and it's like, yee, look at those. Those are scorpions, but they're like, hell scorpions. [00:54:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And they start going for his eyes. [00:54:52] Speaker C: Yeah, they start covering his eyes. So he's got spider eyes. And then Al asks if they can guide him to the throne. Hippie squid says, nah, you gotta do that yourself. And true creatures of the dark know how to navigate it. Johnny, as we well know, Al Simmons knows his way around the dark pretty well. [00:55:11] Speaker A: Pretty well. Uh huh. [00:55:13] Speaker C: A nice little shot at Malbolgia here, kind of implying that you are already handicapped in this pursuit because Malbolga chose you, and Malbolga didn't know fucking shit about choosing. Hell, people always got to shit on the middle manager, don't you, little bit. [00:55:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:30] Speaker C: This hippie squid says that in order for the path to be shown, he has to let the insects burrow into his mind till he is blinded. And then he asks, raise your hand. What do you see? And Al raises his hand and is like, I see nothing. And then he just shoots his spikes out and says, and neither will you. And just shoots like, yeah, this 20. [00:55:50] Speaker B: Spikes to this guy's face. [00:55:52] Speaker C: This guy's got so many little eyes and just Al Simmons just fucking. [00:55:55] Speaker B: And neither will you. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:57] Speaker C: And then, like, the bugs immediately drop from his eyes, and he says, that's it. [00:56:01] Speaker A: Scream. [00:56:02] Speaker C: Let them know I'm here and what I've done to you. [00:56:05] Speaker A: And I hope they'll all come so I can show them. And then we get the opening. [00:56:09] Speaker C: The opening reading that Al Simmons as hellspawn him be monster. [00:56:13] Speaker A: I'm a monster. [00:56:14] Speaker B: And I have been for quite a long, long time. [00:56:18] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty brutal. [00:56:20] Speaker B: Pretty brutal. Just a painting of the monstrous things Al Simmons has done and had done to him. [00:56:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:56:26] Speaker C: So he was born in the darkness. [00:56:30] Speaker B: He was. [00:56:31] Speaker C: So we get quite a light spawning grounds here. For the sort of heaviness of the issue here. Oh, boy. Where we get an eleven year old son named George, the big fan of Spawn, and has drawn a picture for the art page. [00:56:44] Speaker A: And it's dope. [00:56:46] Speaker C: It's got the logo. [00:56:47] Speaker B: Spawn, violator and clown. [00:56:49] Speaker C: Yeah, he's got that big right foot. [00:56:53] Speaker A: And clowns. [00:56:54] Speaker C: I like how clowns got the little vest pocket. [00:56:57] Speaker A: Yep. [00:56:58] Speaker B: It just makes me think of that one Reddit post in, like, comic books or something. And one of the comments was like, spawn is there to be cool for twelve year old boys? And spawn abides. [00:57:07] Speaker A: And that's awesome that there's eleven year old enjoying it. Shit. Yeah. [00:57:11] Speaker C: I mean, there will always be eleven. Unless we enter, like, a children of men type situation. There will always be eleven year old boys. [00:57:17] Speaker B: Or why the last man. [00:57:18] Speaker A: Yeah, it's excellent. [00:57:19] Speaker C: I love that these eleven year olds are getting the chance to experience this hell guy. Because I wasn't afforded that when I was eleven. Oh, boy. [00:57:28] Speaker B: Yeah, that's cool. I was into the movie. [00:57:31] Speaker C: I wasn't allowed to see the movie because it was. But it was PG 13, wasn't it? [00:57:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:36] Speaker C: That was the problem I saw in the theaters. I still wasn't allowed to watch it for some reason. I think there was a question about. I think my parents were like, I think it's supposed to be rated r, so no. [00:57:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:46] Speaker C: I was only nine at the time, so maybe. [00:57:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:57:50] Speaker B: I mean, I saw it in the theaters, which is what it was 96 or 97, so I saw it in fifth grade in the theaters. [00:57:56] Speaker C: But my parents were pretty strict about what I watched. [00:57:59] Speaker B: It was at my friend Andy Gardner's house. His parents let us see whatever the hell we wanted, and I just wouldn't tell my parents. [00:58:07] Speaker C: And Richard P. From Alabama says that he just got done reading King Spawn 24. And it's fucking awesome. And he's been following Spawn since 1992. And here we go again with best paper, best price on the stands, 299. And Thomas Healy's like, hell yeah, well, we're going to have more stuff. And it's still going to be 299. It's still going to be high quality. [00:58:29] Speaker B: You love to see it. [00:58:30] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:30] Speaker C: Speaking of young Spawn fans, we get another sketch from a 15 year old named Hunter. And he did a massive, massive spawn on one of those blank black covers. And it is great. Holy shit. [00:58:45] Speaker A: It's really good. It's really good. [00:58:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it is kind of a light swining grounds for a heavy issue. [00:58:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:52] Speaker C: Trying to get you out of that spiral. Real light and easy. We get Spawn's universe ads, image, classic ads. Demon Slayer is the toy ad on the back of this one. [00:59:04] Speaker A: This dude. [00:59:04] Speaker C: I don't remember this guy's name, but he's a Hachira. He's the Hachira of the water breathing technique. [00:59:11] Speaker A: Yeah, that's who that guy is. [00:59:13] Speaker B: Okay, have you watched? [00:59:16] Speaker C: I'm in. I'm in the third season right now. It's fucking great. [00:59:20] Speaker B: Okay, cool. [00:59:21] Speaker C: It's real good. And an advertisement for Kingsman 28 on the back. [00:59:26] Speaker A: Yes. [00:59:27] Speaker C: Well, Johnny, I got myself Mr. Cusco here. [00:59:33] Speaker B: Hi, Cusco. [00:59:34] Speaker C: He says, hey, I'm a puppy. I think it's time you rate me. So I think it's time we rate the puppies. [00:59:40] Speaker B: It's time to rate the puppies. So first up, we had Spawn 328, a world spannings adventure. Kind of the aftermath of the assassination of the senator Rollins and the assassination of noir. Spawn who comes back but then immediately dies again. [01:00:02] Speaker C: The worst kind of comeback. [01:00:03] Speaker B: The worst kind of a. It's just keeping that Rory McConville going, his good plottiness kind of building to where we are now. And it's a fun issue. [01:00:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:00:12] Speaker B: I'm going to give it four green eyed Jim Downings and Cygors mind melding together. [01:00:18] Speaker C: Nice. Four green eyed monsters, you would say, I guess. [01:00:23] Speaker B: Is Jim a. [01:00:27] Speaker C: Mean. He's no Al Simmons level monster? [01:00:29] Speaker B: No, he's not that kind of monster. [01:00:31] Speaker C: Is Cygor a monster? [01:00:33] Speaker B: I mean, I think people more likely call him a monster than Jim. [01:00:36] Speaker C: I think in the classic sense of monster, in that he's a wild beast, but not in the fact that he's like a human brain just like plopped into a gorilla body. [01:00:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:47] Speaker C: Oh, boy. No, that's good. [01:00:49] Speaker B: That's good. [01:00:49] Speaker C: I agree. Rory McConville. [01:00:51] Speaker B: What did I give it? [01:00:52] Speaker A: Four. [01:00:53] Speaker B: Okay, cool. [01:00:55] Speaker C: Rory McConville has taken great pains to make sure that he is laying out the playing field. Absolutely. Before he goes anywhere because he knows what he's trying to get to and he doesn't want to miss anything about it. It's great. It's great. This is one of those not very much really happens in this issue, except for a lot of pieces are being set up right. [01:01:18] Speaker B: But it's a fun read. It's got a lot of imagination to it. I love there's a yeti. [01:01:22] Speaker C: The conversations are all wonderful. All the characters that we see are very good. It's one of those issues where not much happens, but we get to see a little bit of everything. [01:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:33] Speaker C: Which is an issue I like. It's not one that you can just jump into without any prior knowledge, but it helps inform everything. [01:01:41] Speaker A: Right. [01:01:42] Speaker C: However, since it does kind of lack that sort of standalone ability, I'm going to knock it down a little bit just so that way it's more of a normalized because as we know, I like to give things high ratings and we can't give everything a high rating because we got to make room for stuff. So because we know where Rory McConville is going, I want to make sure that I give room for his high numbers to just soar. So I'm going to give this three and a half unstoried yetis. [01:02:10] Speaker B: Unstoried yetis that we want the story of. We want the story of this yeti that redeemer fights. [01:02:14] Speaker A: Yeah, it's real good. [01:02:15] Speaker C: It's real good, though. I have yet to really be disappointed with anything Rory McConville's done yet. [01:02:21] Speaker A: So that's good. [01:02:24] Speaker C: He's been writing for three solid years, is that right? Or two solid years coming up on it. And every, every issue has just been. They've been good. Not, he's not done a single stinker, which is pretty impressive because even with whatever you're writing, there's always going to be, like a little stinker of an issue because sometimes it's just like, but. [01:02:43] Speaker B: Dude, we'll talk about it when we get to it. But, man, that newest gunslinger was not my favorite. [01:02:48] Speaker C: Or what about issue seven? Issue seven, yeah, I know that's really bad. [01:02:52] Speaker B: But I think the newest gunslinger was like Carl. Like, it's just another guy shows up named Carl and it's like, okay. Oh, yeah, I'm here, too. What's up? Yeah, it's very tod fathery. [01:03:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I think unslinger is kind of just flailing a little bit for. Yeah, I feel like they're kind of spinning their wheels just kind of trying. [01:03:12] Speaker B: Waiting for the new series, maybe, or. [01:03:14] Speaker C: Trying to wait for the new creative team to start full bore. [01:03:19] Speaker A: Right. [01:03:19] Speaker C: We'll get there when we get there, though. But, yeah, so three and a half. It was either going to be three and a half unstoried yetis or three and a half unsafe lab outfits from Cordelia. From Cordelia. [01:03:31] Speaker B: That might be more in steam with your. [01:03:33] Speaker C: Yeah, with. I mean, I'm sorry to say, johnny, if it's choice between tits or yeti, I'm probably going to choose the yeti. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Every time. Every time. Yetis are fucking. [01:03:47] Speaker C: Love a yeti. [01:03:48] Speaker B: Then next up we have king Spawn 27. [01:03:50] Speaker C: Yes. [01:03:51] Speaker B: My lucky number here. It's a heavy issue. [01:03:53] Speaker C: It's a heavy issue. [01:03:55] Speaker B: And we always kind of are goofy on this show. But there are some heavy themes in spawn. And, I mean, this is a really good issue. I think it is kind of looking to the dark mirror that is Al Simmons life and seeing what has made him. You really kind of get why he's so angry all the time. [01:04:11] Speaker C: Yeah, he's a very angry man. [01:04:13] Speaker B: He's a very angry man. Maybe he just needs to go to mean he does. [01:04:19] Speaker C: That would be the end of Spawn as we know it, though, John. [01:04:21] Speaker B: I know that'd be the end of Spawn if he just went to therapy. He's like, oh, okay. [01:04:25] Speaker C: Unless it were like an aa style. Having to make amends. And he's going around and is having to make amends with all these hell people as spawn. [01:04:34] Speaker A: I don't know. [01:04:34] Speaker B: I thought it showed a restraint and maturity from the Todd father. [01:04:38] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. [01:04:39] Speaker B: So I would give it five hippie squids. [01:04:42] Speaker C: Nice. [01:04:43] Speaker B: From the fifth realm. [01:04:45] Speaker C: Excellent. [01:04:45] Speaker A: Excellent. [01:04:46] Speaker C: We do talk a lot about how a lot of people think the Todd father is not a good writer. But we contend that he is a good writer. He's just not a great writer. [01:04:55] Speaker B: He also writes a lot. [01:04:57] Speaker C: He does write a lot. But this is one of the issues that kind of maybe makes me wonder if he isn't occasionally a great writer, because it is as goofy as a lot of his things get and sometimes a lot of loosey goosey. This is very concise and very pointed. And quite honestly, done incorrectly would just be a pile of garbage. Yeah, it would be just like, what the fuck, dude? But it hits so hard. It hits so hard that it's just very well done. And the art, I mean, it's hard to argue with the Kevin Keane. I've grown to really love Kevin Keane's work. It's so different from Javi that it was like, I don't know if it fits. No, it fits. [01:05:45] Speaker A: It's just. [01:05:47] Speaker C: It gives it a little bit more comic booky. Feel, but it's still very. Just like, bah. I'm going to give this four and a half lustrously maned malbolgas. [01:05:56] Speaker B: Oh, I figured you would. [01:05:58] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Look at that guy. Oh, boy. He's just missing his pot belly. This must be him in his adolescence when he was still keeping it tight. [01:06:06] Speaker B: He's keeping his hair straight. He's keeping it tight. [01:06:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:06:09] Speaker C: It's in his hair metal phase where he's wearing girl pants, so that way he doesn't have the stomach that comes over. Yeah. [01:06:15] Speaker A: Yep. [01:06:16] Speaker C: Oh, boy. It's a good issue, Johnny. I don't want to read this fucking issue again, no matter how good it is, because each time I read it, it just fucking brings. [01:06:26] Speaker A: But it's great. Yeah. [01:06:28] Speaker B: That's issue 28. [01:06:29] Speaker C: That's issue 27. [01:06:31] Speaker B: 27, yeah. One of them something. [01:06:34] Speaker C: Well, Johnny, we were talking about the unstoried yeti earlier, and the thing about the unstoried yeti is that it's Fighting Redeemer. And as we know, we don't know who Redeemer is, but I can tell you for sure he cuts a fine figure. That's a roundabout way of saying, johnny, I have here a Christmas present that I got. It is the Redeemer action figure. [01:06:55] Speaker B: Nice? [01:06:56] Speaker C: I think we are very, very due for a Todd's toy talk. [01:07:00] Speaker B: It's time for Todd's toy talk. Oh, yeah. We are overdue. Who got you the redeemer? [01:07:18] Speaker C: My friend Matt. Shout out to Matt. Thank you very much, sir. He drew my name in Secret Santa this year, and since I didn't make a list, he was like, I know what to send him. And he sent me several spawn action figures, and they are all ones that I literally have been like, should I get these now? Should I wait, should I get these now? So now I don't have to worry about it, because I got them. [01:07:38] Speaker B: That's awesome. [01:07:39] Speaker C: It's great. So this is the redeemer as we know. [01:07:42] Speaker A: We got the blackened feathers falling down. [01:07:46] Speaker B: There they are on the box. [01:07:48] Speaker C: I'm a little sad that there's only this one little bit of artwork on the side of it. I would prefer the artwork to be all in the back. [01:07:55] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:07:56] Speaker C: But 22 moving parts. Not a toy, as they say, 14 plus. So I'm going to open my handy dandy spitzarmi knife here and just cut this tape here. [01:08:07] Speaker B: I have this figure. It's a great figure. [01:08:09] Speaker C: Yeah, it is a great figure. And I can now have him and my dart redeemer fight each other at work. Yes, it's fun to have professional people come over to my desk and be like, I love how fun this is. And then have to pretend to be an adult. Get that good plastic feel. [01:08:28] Speaker B: Sweet asmr. [01:08:31] Speaker C: Oh, no, the wings are stuck. Got a good plastic smell. Is that good plastic smell, Mr. Budy? [01:08:40] Speaker B: Gotta smell the plastic. [01:08:42] Speaker C: So we got him. He's just here in his altogether. Well, not in his altogether. He's wearing stuff, but you know what I mean. Smelling that book. [01:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:08:51] Speaker B: I'm jealous. I'm going to smell something nice. [01:08:52] Speaker A: I'm going to smell this book that's been sealed. [01:08:58] Speaker C: It sucks when you don't have the double, so that way you can't appreciate the smell as well. [01:09:03] Speaker A: I know. [01:09:06] Speaker C: We're going to get this big sword out. [01:09:08] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:09:08] Speaker C: It's a nice sword. So it's very much just the dark redeemer in a different color way, basically, yeah. [01:09:17] Speaker B: Same kit, same tooling, as they say in the biz. [01:09:21] Speaker C: I didn't even know that. Same kit, the same tooling. [01:09:24] Speaker B: I've been reading this toy collector magazine. It's really good. And they talk about some of the inside baseball of it. [01:09:32] Speaker C: Although I think I'm seeing some difference here. I think that there's a difference in the arms of redeemer here. [01:09:43] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:09:44] Speaker C: Because you are not allowed to chew on that. I don't know if there's. This looks like padding on the dark redeemer action figure. [01:09:54] Speaker B: Oh, I don't know. [01:09:55] Speaker A: Ooh. [01:09:55] Speaker C: And also the back. The back sculpting is. Is much nicer in that blue, that blue colorway. Oh, man. [01:10:01] Speaker A: Oh, man. [01:10:02] Speaker C: I know I already gushed about the dark redeemer version, but the regular Redeemer version is great. [01:10:10] Speaker A: I got a nice view of his ass. [01:10:11] Speaker B: And you're holding up to the camera there. [01:10:13] Speaker A: Spank it. [01:10:14] Speaker C: Spank it. [01:10:14] Speaker B: Smack it. Smack it. [01:10:16] Speaker A: Bonk. [01:10:16] Speaker C: I also think he has a bigger. [01:10:18] Speaker A: I think he has a lusher booty. [01:10:20] Speaker C: Than dark Redeemer does. [01:10:22] Speaker A: Take that, Abel. [01:10:24] Speaker C: Maybe. Maybe Abel's head wasn't the only thing that Cain crushed with that rock. Johnny. These wings are great. [01:10:36] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, the wings are awesome. [01:10:38] Speaker C: Yeah, we got the little stand. [01:10:41] Speaker B: I love how they hold up. And you can balance them pretty well. Yeah, to stand. [01:10:48] Speaker C: This is a great figure. This is a great figure. I got to put it in the right side. Feel that crack of the crack of. [01:11:01] Speaker B: The plastic getting cracked in there. Yeah. [01:11:05] Speaker C: Oh, that's almost chiropractic sounding. [01:11:08] Speaker B: Oh, boy, look at that. He's so. [01:11:09] Speaker C: He's majestic. [01:11:11] Speaker A: Look at that. [01:11:15] Speaker C: We still don't know his name. So one of these days, we'll be able to give him a little name tag that says, hi, my name is. [01:11:23] Speaker B: I'm excited to find out who he is. [01:11:25] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a long tease, though. It's a long tease. Well, yeah, so it's a beautiful figure. [01:11:30] Speaker A: It's a great figure. [01:11:31] Speaker C: Thank you again very much. My friend Matt shoutouts to him. It's a great figure. [01:11:35] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Yeah. [01:11:38] Speaker C: That is Todd's toy talk. [01:11:41] Speaker B: That's Todd's toy talk for the day. [01:11:43] Speaker C: Yeah, him right here, so we can watch. [01:11:48] Speaker A: All right. [01:11:49] Speaker C: So speaking of friends, Johnny, we like to have friends. They send us cool things like spawn figures for Christmas. And we've got a friend right now, right, that we want to make sure that you guys know about. We've been on a little bit of a cosplay kick recently because Spawn cosplay. [01:12:06] Speaker A: Is always just top notch. [01:12:10] Speaker C: So we're going to highlight another one of our friends on Instagram who's really big into spawn cosplay. And that is at Azrael cosplay. And he's got, like, processed shots. He's got finished shots. He's got just pictures of his face, which is, hi, friend. Like to see your face. [01:12:30] Speaker B: He's got a Santa spawn. [01:12:32] Speaker C: Yeah. He's got a video of him dunking a cookie. [01:12:36] Speaker A: Oh, no. [01:12:36] Speaker C: He dropped that gingerbread cookie right into his coffee. But, yeah, so it's awesome seeing the work and the craft that's gone into it. [01:12:44] Speaker A: It's dope. [01:12:45] Speaker C: Absolutely dope. He also has a cool mortal Kombat cosplay. That's one of the sort of techno guys that was from later versions that I didn't play. [01:12:55] Speaker B: Oh, where's that? [01:12:56] Speaker A: Who? I see it. [01:12:58] Speaker B: It's not Cyrax. It's like a different version of Cyrax. [01:13:02] Speaker C: It's the red one, whatever his name. [01:13:03] Speaker B: The red one, whatever his name is. [01:13:05] Speaker C: We should Google Red Cyrax real quick. Who's the red robot in Mortal Kombat sector? [01:13:11] Speaker A: He's sector S-E-K-T-O-R. Sector. All right. [01:13:16] Speaker B: I'm glad I remembered Cyrax. I can't believe I could remember that. Only the important things stay in, David. The names of the yellow robot on Mortal Kombat. [01:13:24] Speaker C: The names of all Star wars people, even from Star wars that you don't like. [01:13:28] Speaker A: Borgullet. [01:13:31] Speaker B: Borgullet will know the truth. [01:13:33] Speaker C: Borgullet. And while you're over there looking at these amazing pictures of cosplay from our friend Asriel, cosplay, you should check out Brian underscore voyals. Underscore 27. Because Brian, he does our music and he puts up some fun stuff to look at every once in a while. [01:13:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:51] Speaker B: And if you listen to the last episode, our Christmas episode, he did the fun Christmas remix of our theme. [01:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:13:56] Speaker C: You get to listen to the Todd's toy talk theme again this time, which is one that we love listening to. It's great. I love doing the editing because every time I edit, I have to listen to each song, like, four times. [01:14:06] Speaker A: And I don't get tired of them. [01:14:09] Speaker C: I do not. [01:14:09] Speaker A: No, I love them. They're all great. [01:14:11] Speaker C: We're over there as well. We're regarding spawn pod. Pictures of our pickup, pictures of our toys. We do occasional videos where you can see our faces and we talk about stuff. It's a fun time. We like to interact. We like to have a good time. [01:14:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Good. Yeah. And if you want to reach out. [01:14:30] Speaker B: To us, you can reach out to us at regarding [email protected] please send us any questions, comments, concerns you may have. And I always like to have a prompt. And since we're recording this on New Year's Eve and this will be one of our first or second episodes of the new year, I just want to know if you have any spawn New Year's resolutions, Spawn related or not, but mainly spawn related. Are you going to buy less spawn stuff? Are you going to buy more spawn stuff? Are you trying to get a certain spawn thing? Is that part of your resolutions? Just let us know what your spawn illusions are. [01:15:02] Speaker C: There we go. That's what I was trying to get at. Spawn illusions. [01:15:06] Speaker B: Spawn illusions. So hit us up on regarding [email protected]. And remember, we will send you a sticker and read it on air. [01:15:16] Speaker C: We will read the sticker on air. [01:15:18] Speaker B: Yes, read the sticker. [01:15:21] Speaker C: It's very easy. It's just respawn. The world's best spawn podcast. [01:15:24] Speaker A: There we go. [01:15:25] Speaker B: QR code. How do you read a QR code? [01:15:31] Speaker C: You just got to make some robot noises. [01:15:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:15:33] Speaker B: I feel like beaming the website to your phone would be the sound of a QR code being read. [01:15:39] Speaker C: Or maybe it just sounds like Godzilla. [01:15:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it could. Excellent. [01:15:45] Speaker B: You see some good Godzilla when you were. [01:15:47] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, yeah. I have no idea how I got through being sick without that Godzilla channel on. But, like, you just turn Godzilla on. And when you're lucid, you can watch basically, a dinosaur destroy a city. [01:15:59] Speaker B: Then you fall asleep. [01:16:00] Speaker C: Then you fall asleep. And then you wake up and then there's some lightly clad islanders making some yellow paste. And then Godzilla and a lobster playing catch like they miss their. [01:16:16] Speaker A: Edinburgh was. [01:16:17] Speaker C: On during this time. [01:16:19] Speaker A: And it's a good one. [01:16:20] Speaker C: It's a really good one. [01:16:23] Speaker A: I recommend it. I recommend it. [01:16:25] Speaker C: Then there's also. [01:16:28] Speaker A: I forget what the name of it. [01:16:29] Speaker C: Is, but it's the one where it's the kid whose parents are away, and so he has to stay with this toy maker. [01:16:36] Speaker A: And. [01:16:37] Speaker C: And the kid develops a thing that allows him to mentally connect with Manila, and Manila teaches him to stand up for himself. And so it's, like, nominally a Godzilla movie, because the kid just dreams of Godzilla. [01:16:54] Speaker B: Weird. [01:16:56] Speaker C: It's great. [01:16:57] Speaker A: It's great. [01:16:58] Speaker B: I've been watching a lot of the mystery science Cedar 3000 channel. [01:17:01] Speaker C: Oh, nice. [01:17:02] Speaker B: Well, also, they've been doing a live stream on YouTube. It's just like a year end countdown where they've been showing nonstop mystery science theater. [01:17:12] Speaker C: Shout out to personal friend of ours, Mike Norton at Miketron 2000, who does the artwork for the current mystery science Theater 3000 series. [01:17:22] Speaker A: Oh, I didn't know that. [01:17:23] Speaker C: So, yeah, he's a great guy. He loves pugs. He did battle pug. He also loves cats. [01:17:29] Speaker A: He's got a couple of cats now. That's awesome. So be sure to look for him. [01:17:35] Speaker C: On instagram as well. Johnny, I think my spawn illusion is going to be to read more spawn. [01:17:40] Speaker B: I like that. I think I could get behind that. [01:17:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:42] Speaker C: And I think I'm going to start right away. [01:17:45] Speaker A: Okay. All right. And you know what I think I'm going to start with. [01:17:49] Speaker B: I think you're going to tell me. [01:17:50] Speaker C: I think I am. I think I'm going to start with main title spawn number 329. And scorch number 23. And then maybe I'll come back in. [01:18:00] Speaker A: A week or so and talk to you about them. [01:18:03] Speaker B: Sounds good to me. [01:18:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Nice. [01:18:05] Speaker C: I'm very excited about that. I'm loving this scorched run. Loving this spawn run. [01:18:10] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [01:18:11] Speaker B: It's going to be a good scorch rider. [01:18:12] Speaker C: Lashley Layman, right? [01:18:15] Speaker A: Layman. [01:18:15] Speaker B: I think that's right. [01:18:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:16] Speaker C: Layman. John Layman. [01:18:18] Speaker A: John Layman. [01:18:19] Speaker B: Yeah, he's doing great. I love his first few issues. [01:18:21] Speaker A: They've been awesome. [01:18:22] Speaker C: They've been really good. They've been really good. I'm excited to talk about that reveal at the end of this next issue. [01:18:28] Speaker A: It's real fun. [01:18:29] Speaker B: Isn't that the next. [01:18:30] Speaker C: No, that is the next. [01:18:31] Speaker A: Next. Shit. Yeah. [01:18:33] Speaker B: This is the one where Jessica Priest and spawn fight. [01:18:35] Speaker A: Okay. [01:18:36] Speaker B: It's really so really good. [01:18:37] Speaker C: It is really good. It's a good series. It's going to be a great trade paperback to give around to people to be like, you should get into this. They're like, but I don't know anything. And it's like, it's a jumping on point. Get on it. [01:18:47] Speaker B: Just read it. [01:18:47] Speaker C: Just read it. So that's exciting. [01:18:49] Speaker A: That's what we got. [01:18:50] Speaker C: We've got what we're going to read for next week. We've got friends that you've all learned about. [01:18:55] Speaker A: We've got the email. Very exciting. [01:18:57] Speaker C: So we've had a fun time here. But, I mean, as Spawn has showed us, not everything all the time can be all sorts of fun. And if you know anybody or you yourself are personally involved in any amount of domestic violence, please reach out to the national domestic violence hotline. At 1807 97233. That's 1807 97233. You can also text start to 88788. It's terrible. A terrible thing to happen at all. It's not something that should exist in the world, but it does, unfortunately. And please, if you can help anyone in that situation at all. Their ending is not going to be super fun. Dressed in symbiote kicking demon, which. [01:19:51] Speaker A: Which we wish it could be that. [01:19:53] Speaker C: Way, but unfortunately, it isn't. So please take care of yourselves. Take care of each other. [01:19:57] Speaker A: And Johnny, I think that just leads me to say, may the scorched be with you. [01:20:03] Speaker B: And also with you, David. [01:20:05] Speaker C: Hell yeah. [01:20:06] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. [01:20:07] Speaker B: Well, happy new year to everybody. [01:20:09] Speaker C: Yeah, happy New Year. [01:20:11] Speaker B: Hope everyone had a great new year and a great Christmas. The holidays are over. We're into 2024. There's just great new things coming to respawn this year. We excited to talk to you about. [01:20:23] Speaker C: Should I own acquaintances before God and all things I. All right. [01:20:38] Speaker B: Yay. [01:20:39] Speaker C: Happy new year of Spawn, y'all. Glad to be here with you. [01:20:43] Speaker B: It's going to be a big one. Lots of new titles coming. Here we go. [01:20:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:47] Speaker C: Let's do it together. [01:20:48] Speaker B: Let's do. Please, for my years. Years. Please, for more years.