[00:00:00] Speaker A: Swan closes the cell door, then leaves. Unfortunately for Jimmy, these vampires aren't like the ones we've read about or seen on tv.
Good evening, and welcome to the mal bowls. This is regarding Spawn, the world's best spawn podcast.
I am your co host, John Fisher.
[00:00:50] Speaker B: And I am your co host, David Williams. And Johnny, did you know that this is the only episode of regarding Spawn from 2024 that is both a, recorded during Pride month, and b, will be released during Pride month? So we should probably say something about the spawn's cape is big enough to encompass everybody, so have a good time in it.
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Get on in there.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Hell, yeah.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: Swans got a rainbow cape.
[00:01:18] Speaker B: That would be pretty cool. That would be nice and distracting. That's how he could.
He could implement new sleight of hand techniques when he fights bad people and just be like, look at this shiny cloth and have him be like, be pretty cool.
[00:01:35] Speaker A: Star wars can finally do some pride covers that aren't just that lady in the background after the acolyte.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't watched the first episode yet. I've been running around doing errands and chores all week to get prepped for some friends who are coming over. So it's very exciting. It's very exciting. That means I have to be, like, I have to look at myself and my surroundings objectively and be like, does this look like I live in filth? Okay, I should probably claim that.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Yes. That's how it goes.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Nothing like the fear of being shunned by people. You like to get you in the mood to clean.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought it was pretty good. I watched the first two episodes.
[00:02:17] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:02:18] Speaker A: I enjoyed it. Excited for more.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Nice. I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm excited for the whippy lightsaber coming.
[00:02:25] Speaker A: Back from Vernestra Rowe. Yeah, she's from the books.
[00:02:30] Speaker B: Weren't they. Wasn't she in a lot of the. Or some of the dark horse comics way back in the day too?
[00:02:36] Speaker A: No, there's probably just someone else with a lightsaber whip. Sorry.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: So what you're saying is there's lots of lightsabers are the Pokemon of the. Of the Star wars universe in the books and shit?
[00:02:51] Speaker A: They are. They just never make it to screen. Somehow. It's always off screen. That's what's so funny about, like, the Star wars comics. Like, I was following them for a while, but I kind of stopped. Cause it's just like, all these ridiculous things happen to the people, and it's funny. Cause, like, it's like, this should be the movie. This is much more insane than what happened to the movie. Cause, you know, they gotta up the storytelling. From what happened in 1980, you know, for modern comics. So it's just funny to see, like, all the stuff they go through in between the movies. And it's like, wow, they went through a lot.
[00:03:21] Speaker B: Like, no wonder. No wonder Harrison Ford looks tired in the second one.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Yeah. Boy, they went through a shitload.
Fought Darth Vader, like, five times. It's crazy.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: I mean, if you can imagine, there's a lot of spawn. But there's almost more Star wars. In fact, there probably is more Star wars than there is spawn. Oh, geez.
[00:03:41] Speaker A: Yeah, probably.
This has been comics for years and years.
[00:03:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And those books with.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: There's comics almost as long. And there's books and there's movies. And there's tv shows.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: With Luke the cloned evil Luke from the hand that gets chopped off in cloud City.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: People love those books. That's the Thrawn trilogy. That's the grand animal throng comes from Luke.
[00:04:06] Speaker B: So, to be clear, that is me laughing at how much I love the ridiculousness of a cloned hand person named Luke with two U.
It's wonderful. That's the shit I like. I love it when shit gets ridiculous. Like, doctor who is wonderful. Because it's always a little goofy.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: You know what I say? Doctor who cares?
[00:04:29] Speaker B: I mean, you know, it's not for everybody.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: I'm kidding. I'm here. I'm just here to talk. I'm ready to talk about this. Spawn. David.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: Where are we? What are we doing?
[00:04:36] Speaker B: What? What are we doing? We are slowly trying to find a way to shoehorn what the show is. In. Our unhinged ramblings at the beginning of the show. Johnny.
[00:04:47] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's right. Because this is regarding spawn, where each week we bring you two issues. From Spawn's universe. Or the new you, whatever you want to call it. The new spawns you. Spawn you.
We always get to spawn you. But, yeah, two issues from Spawn's universe. Except when we don't. But this week, we are bringing you two issues. Slightly different format than normal usually do. A classic and a modern. But we're a little bit behind on the modern. Because there's been so much spawn. I'm, like, swimming in it. Yeah, we're just trying to keep our heads above the spawn water.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: We're like scrooge McDuck diving into just a room full of Spawn comics instead of coins.
I mean, basically, we, like, do the backstroke and just, like, spit a stream of Spawn comics out of our mouth like water.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: Yep. Yep. Basically. Yeah. We are catching up. So we're doing two in a row of king Spawn.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: Yes, indeed.
[00:05:39] Speaker A: We're doing King Spawn 31 and King.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Spawn 32 that so far have been. Every time they're referenced, they're referenced together, so it's good to read them together.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: They are referenced together, yeah.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: And 34, I think specifically, they reference 31 and 32 at one spot.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: Yes. They're repeated themes.
[00:05:57] Speaker B: They're very connected, and they're helping us build this, the new.
The new universe of King Spawn. Because, you know.
[00:06:05] Speaker A: Yes, because this is the first king spawn after the rules. The change.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: The rules. The ruler, the world, and the direction have changed, Johnny.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Because of the change, slash. The Flash.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Because of the flash change.
[00:06:18] Speaker A: The flash change. It changed the Flash when Nick sat on the floor. The change is my favorite superhero.
[00:06:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the change.
[00:06:27] Speaker A: Just the change.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: That's the change. Yeah, we were talking about him.
I bet the change would also be Dabusuke's favorite spawn or comic book character.
[00:06:37] Speaker A: The little gremlin of the casino in the last Jedi. Yes.
[00:06:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: You referenced it like, everyone knows who that is.
[00:06:43] Speaker B: Everybody should. He's a fucking space leprechaun, Johnny. How do you not remember space Leprechaun?
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Oh, I remember him.
[00:06:51] Speaker B: He's, like a little drunk guy, and he's like, what's this? What's this slot machine? And he just keeps trying to put money into bb eight.
[00:07:01] Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty funny.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Oh, boy.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: But, yeah. These are two issues written by Todd McFarlane and deal with spawn trying to get some information as some vampires and some other things happen.
But, yeah, they're from, respectively, February 2024 and March 2024. Nice. Respectively.
[00:07:23] Speaker B: Respectfully.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: Respectfully, of course.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: We should start with 31 then, if we're gonna go in chronological order.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Should we? Should we.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: I mean, we could start with 32.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: It'd be like the next issue, where they tell everything out of order.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: Spoilers.
We spoilers for 33. I think we should start with 31, because all of this spawn is complicated enough. We don't need to make it extra complicated.
[00:07:48] Speaker A: Yeah. Then we drown in it.
Yeah. So 31. We always start with the covers.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Yes, we do.
[00:07:56] Speaker A: So we got covers.
[00:07:58] Speaker B: I'll cover you.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: And there's two.
I have the COVID a by Javi Fernandez. I also have the Javi Fernandez one badass looking spawn. Turn around. He's got his invisible orange in his hand.
[00:08:14] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's got some green glow. Green glow. And, like, he's standing in some. In front of some smoke and some green fire, and the chains are just doing their chain stuff. Oh, man. It's a good one.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Javi Fernandez's detail and spawns always great. His face always looks so good. Yeah. Pretty badass.
[00:08:33] Speaker B: Yeah. It's hard to pass up Javi Fernandez cover, which is about to become very apparent because the second cover for Kingspawn 31 is bitching. And I remember being in the shop being like, eh, eh, eh, eh, eh. And finally decided on Javi. Cause gotta take the hobby.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: Cause you got von Randall doing a clown violator cover.
[00:09:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: And it's real stylized. It's really cool.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: It's like the separated clown violator. So it's biggest rickshithouse clown in front of, like, dumb beast violator.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: Yep. Oh, man. And it's just really, like, stylized and, like, they've got. It's really, really pretty badass.
[00:09:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. Von Randall also does very good covers.
[00:09:21] Speaker A: That's the problem. That's why you should get them both.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:24] Speaker A: If you got $2.99. But I'm buying too much spawn. My vault's already getting full.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I would like to buy more spawn, please.
[00:09:32] Speaker A: Hey, you got that Instagram money?
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: David just got $32 from Instagram settlement.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah.
That's to distinguish it from. We do not get paid for our Instagram content.
[00:09:45] Speaker A: Just so you know, we're not paid instagrammers.
[00:09:50] Speaker B: I would sell my content for money, but I'm not gonna shill for anything other than spawn. So, literally, unless Todd McFarlane reaches out to us and is like, would you like to advertise spawn, then? Yeah, probably not gonna have any sponsored content.
[00:10:05] Speaker A: I saw, like, a. There's just, like, a recommended video on YouTube when I was scrolling, and it was like, rob Liefeld doing a fucking, like, skewering impersonation of Todd McFarlane.
He was like, oh, look at Samurai Batman. You can buy the toy. You can get the toy. You get three pack, five pack. Like, he was just making fun of him doing his videos.
[00:10:24] Speaker B: I was like, damn, dude, man, no, chill. But, I mean, you know, he probably has a lot of. Since they worked together for so many years, he probably has a lot of just, like, things in his back pocket, and he's like, pulls.
[00:10:37] Speaker A: Oh, sure.
[00:10:38] Speaker B: His. His tight back pocket for his Lee. Of his Lee jeans.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Of his Lee jeans with his Deadpool money.
Or maybe he didn't get paid well for Deadpool. I don't know if those movies pay their creators well.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: I don't know. They at least get shouted out all the time?
[00:10:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Like, in the trailer for the new Deadpool movie, there's a shoe store called Liefeld's just feet.
[00:11:02] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:11:05] Speaker B: Hilarious.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: That is funny. Yeah. The movie's gonna be huge.
[00:11:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it is. It's. It's literally, like, the only movie I know that's coming out this year.
[00:11:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:15] Speaker B: I just saw an advertisement for that Kevin Costner movie that's coming out in two parts.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Horizon.
[00:11:22] Speaker B: Yeah. The one that apparently, like, led to a lot of breakdowns and a lot of relationships of his. So it better be worth it.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: David, you're not excited for Twisters?
[00:11:34] Speaker B: I totally forgot the twisters was happening in July.
[00:11:38] Speaker A: We got twisters.
[00:11:39] Speaker B: They're gonna try to.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Two twisters.
[00:11:41] Speaker B: They're gonna try to make us. Well, there's almost always two twisters, is the thing.
[00:11:45] Speaker A: But at the same time, they're gonna.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Try to make us believe that that cow in this new movie is the same cow from the nineties. But I can tell you that cow probably didn't make it.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: That cow died.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: It did not land softly.
[00:12:01] Speaker A: No, I don't think so. No, we have cows. Well, don't have a cow, man. Pop open this issue, and we got the credits for 31.
Script plot by Todd McFarlane, art by Jeremy Hahn. A one off little artist here. Little artist. Not as a little artist.
I don't know. Maybe he is. I don't know.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know. He did a good job, though. I really enjoyed his artwork.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: He did. No, I think it was great. I think it was a good choice for the reveal of this new spawn look.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: It's because that panel where he shows up is just like, okay. That's probably why they picked him.
[00:12:36] Speaker B: It's got it.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Pull that off. Really?
[00:12:37] Speaker B: It's got that nice sort of gritty realism to it that just, you know, it gives. It gives additional flavor for the fact that spawn is now mortal again, basically.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, I didn't think about that, but that's a good point. Color by Ivan Nunes, lettering by emerald design.
We already covered the covers.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: Sure did.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Creative director is Todd McFarlane, and editor in chief is Thomas Healy.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Hell, yeah.
[00:13:03] Speaker A: Previously in King Spawn.
The aftermath of the race to the throne is upon us, and Spawn is now an uncharted territory.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: He's in the video game. Uncharted.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Yes.
He's tapping x to jump over a pit.
[00:13:22] Speaker B: Or he's in the movie Uncharted. Hanging out with Spider man. Right.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: No one saw that movie.
[00:13:28] Speaker B: I didn't see that movie.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: I hope no one saw it, I.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: You know, I understand the, the desire to adapt known properties because there's a built in audience. And I also know the challenges that come with adapting from one media to medium to the other. But, man, video game adaptations are just rough. Fallout was very good. It's probably the stand.
[00:13:57] Speaker A: Yeah, I was about to say the.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Standalone video game adaptation, that's worked really, really well.
[00:14:01] Speaker A: What about last of us?
[00:14:03] Speaker B: I didn't watch, I only watched one episode of last of us. And appropriately enough, for the pride episode of Spawn.
Of, regarding spawn, it was the Nick Offerman. The Nick Offerman homesteading episode.
[00:14:16] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:17] Speaker B: Yeah, actually, no, I guess that one worked pretty well too.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: But I can't, that whole episode's not from the video game.
[00:14:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a great episode.
[00:14:24] Speaker A: Do you think they would play that? You're playing, you're dying. Tapping x to die of cancer.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: It's just a, like a pastoral game that it's got, like, days and nights, like, like those Zelda games that it's just you and your, your old husband just gardening and fighting and occasionally having big dinners, inviting strange folk over for a party.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: That might be a fun video game, now that you mention it.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Hey, that's, that's literally just like a horror themed stardew valley, right?
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Kind of mortal Kombat the first. Both those movies are pretty good.
[00:15:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess that's true.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: The original is awesome.
I love the Street Fighter movie too, but that's, that's for a different reason.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: I've not seen the Street Fighter movie.
[00:15:12] Speaker A: You've never seen street Fighter?
[00:15:14] Speaker B: Harrison street fighter.
[00:15:15] Speaker A: Oh, my God. It's ridiculous.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: I've also never seen the super Mario Bros. Movie.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Oh, that one's awesome. I love all the video game. Well, I just like the really terrible ones.
I don't like it with their mediocre. I want to be really bad and weird.
[00:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:30] Speaker A: That Mario Brothers movie is wild.
I saw in the theater. I saw on a big screen at B Fest. It was a 24 hours b movie festival.
[00:15:38] Speaker B: Oh, nice to go to.
That's beautiful. It's beautiful. Gave a, gave old Bob Hoskins a drinking problem.
[00:15:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I think it gives anyone who watches it a drinking problem, but that's why it's so beautiful.
[00:15:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Speaking of beautiful, Jenny, we open on a beautiful New York City street here.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Just like the Mario Brothers movie.
[00:16:00] Speaker B: Yeah. More beautiful for New York at least.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Cause, I mean, it looks like a street. That's what a street looks like.
[00:16:08] Speaker A: It's like a street.
[00:16:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay.
[00:16:10] Speaker A: And it says it's been nearly a month since the change, and we got this guy who we know is Jimmy.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Walking down the street.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Looking all cool. He's mean, mugging it. He's smoking his cigarette. He's got his knit cap and his hoodie hood on.
[00:16:27] Speaker A: He's a bad dude. You don't want to mess with.
[00:16:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
Then he. He posts up outside, like, a back door in an alley over here.
[00:16:36] Speaker A: Lights another cigarette.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Lights another cigarette, and, you know, is impatiently waiting for somebody.
[00:16:42] Speaker A: Some douchebag.
[00:16:43] Speaker B: Douchebag. Yeah.
[00:16:45] Speaker A: He says.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: And then he gets a beeple, beep, beep on his cell phone.
And it's the guy he was waiting for. He was like, you're supposed to be here 20 minutes ago. It's very teenage mutant Ninja Turtles. The movie.
Pizza guy's got 30 seconds.
[00:17:05] Speaker A: Then he sees somebody coming. He's like, oh, it must be him. Never mind. Where the fuck you been?
[00:17:10] Speaker B: And then turns out he asked the wrong person, cuz. Johnny, he ain't Billy.
[00:17:18] Speaker A: He's not Billy. And you get a bam, bam, bam. Like, three quick hits, and then Spawn. Yeah, I love that, because it's like, you're gonna read that side panel really fast. So you want to get that picture of Spawn.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:30] Speaker A: And so it's just like, boom, boom, boom. It really, like, the momentum of. It's cool.
[00:17:33] Speaker B: Yeah. It's also really a really great. Just like that. Spawn walks up on this guy, who we know he's a demon now, but we don't know he's a demon at the beginning, but it's just like, Spawn doesn't. Doesn't waste any time being like, I am Spawn. He's just like, right to the point.
[00:17:50] Speaker A: Right to the point. And we get the badass new spawn with, like, the cape scarf.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: He's got his katana.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: He's got samurai sword. Yeah, katana.
[00:17:58] Speaker B: He kind of looks like a samurai mujahideen fighter.
All he needs is an ak that would complete the outfit. Johnny.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty much is what he looks like.
[00:18:15] Speaker B: That's kind of.
[00:18:16] Speaker A: He wants to know he's got a. You got to ask him some questions, and he wants to know what he did with the elderly woman whose last name is Blake. What? Yeah, granny Blake. I know this is, like, the first time we discover it. I was like, when I was reading it, I was like, granny Blake?
I thought she was dead.
[00:18:33] Speaker B: You know, Johnny, I honestly thought Granny Blake was dead too. It's wonderful.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: She did die.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: She did die. Oh, boy.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: I'm pretty sure she died.
[00:18:41] Speaker B: Oh, boy. Oh, man. That means we're gonna have to cover that, and I'm gonna be real sad.
[00:18:47] Speaker A: Yeah, well, she's back, baby.
[00:18:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And also with, uh. Oh, no, never mind. I was about to say, and she didn't change her name when she married Terry Fitzgerald. But Granny Blake didn't marry Terry Fitzgerald Fitzgerald.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: She might want to.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Could you imagine? Terry Fitzgerald takes care of Wanda. Just so that way he can be like, hey, granny, what's up?
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
I'm sure Granny, she was a man killer back in her day.
[00:19:16] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[00:19:17] Speaker A: We get that whole story about her husband.
[00:19:19] Speaker B: No doubt.
No doubt. She was. She's also a strong ass woman, so, yep.
[00:19:27] Speaker A: Ol Jimmy here says he doesn't know anything about that. And spawn does a hilarious. Like, hilarious, like, let me help you out.
I don't believe you. Bam. Oh, I'm sorry. Did I hit you? Let me help you out.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Bam.
So with this big bam, he knocks Jimmy out, apparently, because Jimmy is, like, waking up with a. With a fucked up face. The easiest way to.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Easy way? Yeah.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: He's taped to a chair.
And Al's, you know, in his. In his. Al face, in his leg.
[00:20:02] Speaker A: He's maskless in the background looking over him.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Do you know who I am? I'm Elsibus, the one they call spawn.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: He wants to know. He's asking him again, where the fuck is Miss Blake?
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's like, I don't know. I was just following orders. You know the best excuse, Johnny? Just following orders.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: It's just some guy's voice on the other end of the phone.
Just like in the acolyte. We haven't seen it, so I can't even make a joke.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: Next week. Next week we'll circle back and reference this in whatever book we're talking about, okay?
And Al says, that's disappointing. And then, like, slams his little mask down and is, you know, got his knife. His knife. If we're. If we're going on the. If we're continuing on the journey. Of how easy that knife would be to sharpen, Johnny. This knife.
Hella easy to sharpen.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: Okay, good.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Ain't got. Ain't got none of those curly cues curlicues cut out. Fancy. It's straight up. It's good. It's good. It would be good.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Straight up knife.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: He gives a little. A little nick. Like a little shaving Nick on Jimmy's neck with this big knife. It's like, I like the. I like the anticipation of, oh, what's he gonna do with this big knife? And it's just, like, little tiny.
After spawn Nicks Jimmy's throat, he's dragging him in his chair over to a cage. And all the while, he's, you know, he's trying to learn Jimmy a thing or two. He's like, you know, we've lost our powers. Of course, you know, we lost our powers. He's like, you know what that means? Like, you know what that really means.
How long have you been on earth, Jimmy? Must have come with quite a shock to find out hell's abandoned you and your kind. I know it was for me.
[00:21:49] Speaker A: So we know he's a demon.
[00:21:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
In this cage that Al Simmons has dragged Jimmy over to is a chained up vampire.
[00:21:59] Speaker A: And then Al says he's gotta lean on his friends a bit. So this is one of his new pals. He doesn't have his spawn voice bubble. Cause he lost his powers.
[00:22:06] Speaker B: But he does have his, like, a little on, the little pointy.
[00:22:11] Speaker A: He does get a pointy.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: So it's the same shape as the spawn bubble. It just doesn't have the gravitas.
[00:22:18] Speaker A: Booming voice.
And so he's using these vampires as, like, his supernatural torturing devices. Because they have power still, and he can use it to rip demons apart.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And apparently this vampire, he a hungry boy. Johnny. He's hungry.
[00:22:35] Speaker A: He hasn't eaten for weeks. He's like me. After the episode of recording an episode of this podcast.
[00:22:40] Speaker B: It does take us a week to record an episode.
[00:22:42] Speaker A: No, it doesn't take a week.
I'm just saying I'm always hungry by the end.
[00:22:47] Speaker B: I'm just always hungry all the time. Anyway. That's the problem.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: I mean, that's the real thing, isn't it?
[00:22:53] Speaker B: Yeah, but you know what? Food is good, so.
And then Al says, and I think he smells the blood from your neck. The vampire is all.
[00:23:03] Speaker A: He's straining against the. Yeah, against the chains, trying to get to him.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Now where's Miss Blake? And Jimmy continues to claim innocence. And then spawns, like, enough of this. And just throws Jimmy into the cage with the vampire.
[00:23:21] Speaker A: He can't quite reach him.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:23:23] Speaker A: Cause of the chains. So he's just sitting there like a dog at the end of a. Yeah.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: And so then we flashback real quick. One week earlier, we flash back to a boardroom.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: Hmm. I wonder who wrote this.
[00:23:38] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: A bunch of guys, bosses in a boardroom.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: It's never happened before in Spawn that I know of. Johnny, this is uncharted territory.
Much like.
Much like all of Spawn's universe now. Uncharted and I don't know.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: I think these people are fucking heaven or hell. I had a hard time discerning.
[00:23:59] Speaker B: I don't know. I think it's intentionally vague. I hope it's intentionally vague. But they've got, they've got, like, little sneaky pseudo yakuza tattoos coming up out of their clothes.
I only say pseudo Yakuza because the Yakuza don't have them showing, but these guys do.
And they're talking about, Jesus Christ. They're talking, like, global domination here.
[00:24:23] Speaker A: Yeah. They're trying to use disadvantage of the change to take over.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: And in rereading this, so in one of the more recent issues of Spawn's universe, there was a pundits page that specifically referenced a lot of the stuff that they are talking about here. So there is a lot of conflict going on all over the world by these people trying to grab up power in this, you know, this worldwide dead zone.
[00:24:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:55] Speaker B: So this is actually kind of important to pay attention to a little bit here, because it informs the additional titles. But, you know, the good thing about books is you can always just, you know, look back if you need to.
[00:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah, it does inform. Like, these. This is pretty tied into what's going on in Spawn.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So, so there's, uh, there's a guy named Kruger who is apparently, like, directly opposed to blood. So they're two big players. And then I guess this is a third group of players. Who are trying to figure out whether an alliance with blood is good or whether they kind of want to, you know, just be like, yeah, fuck that guy. Let's have everything ourselves. So.
[00:25:38] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:39] Speaker B: It's pretty good. Pretty good.
[00:25:42] Speaker A: Classic boardroom. And basically, they want to set it up so it looks like even though they kidnapped Granny Blake, they want to look like Kruger kidnapped Granny Blake.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: So spawn will go destroy him.
[00:25:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Cause apparently Kruger is the bigger threat out of Kruger and blood. And so anything they can do to make. To try to get Kruger off the board beforehand, they're gonna call up a whole bunch of wronged parents, and these people are gonna go take him and throw him into a boiler.
[00:26:11] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:26:11] Speaker B: That's their plan.
[00:26:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's their plan. That's what we do with a Kruger. When you got a Kruger, you throw him in the boiler.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's. And then we end the big boss in the boardroom scene. With one of the most unsettling smiles I have ever seen. Johnny. Holy crap. Jeremy Hahn. Literally worth it for this panel right here. It is his face. Insanely creepy.
He's just doing. He's just killing it. He's doing a good job. I'd like to see Jeremy Hahn come back.
[00:26:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, me too.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Yeah, he's doing some good stuff. And then we cut from there.
[00:26:50] Speaker A: We've been talking about Granny Babe being kidnapped. Granny Blake being kidnapped. But she hasn't even been kidnapped.
[00:26:54] Speaker B: No. Yeah, she hasn't, because we're still on the. A week earlier, and we cut from the boardroom to a doctor's office.
[00:27:02] Speaker A: Doctor room.
[00:27:04] Speaker B: A doctor.
[00:27:05] Speaker A: A doctor room.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: And we got. We got Granny Blake being told that, uh, this doctor wishes all of her elderly patients were as fit as Granny Blake.
[00:27:17] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. Granny Blake, take care of yourself.
[00:27:19] Speaker B: Yeah, get it, girl.
[00:27:22] Speaker A: You need to watch your blood pressure and diet. But otherwise things are good. That's what my doctor says to me.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: I think that's literally. I think that's what they all say. Oh, boy. Yeah. I like the feeling that. It feels like Granny Blake there staring at her. Just like, I'm not gonna change the way I eat. Don't even bother.
You will. You will not separate me from my delicious foods.
[00:27:50] Speaker A: Then she comes out and meets this young lady who we find out next page is her caretaker, but not her normal caretaker.
[00:27:58] Speaker B: Normal caretaker? Yeah. He's a substitute caretaker who, you know, obviously is still getting to know Granny Blake because they're at the grocery store. And this caretaker's like, ah, I can grab that for you. And Granny Blake's like, please. I remember where things are. Although, if I may, Johnny, call foul at how inaccurate to real life this is.
They fucking changed the grocery store all the. All the time, Johnny.
[00:28:27] Speaker A: All the time. There's always, like. There's always like, the managers are in the middle of the aisle, like, talking about how to change it. Like pointing at shit.
[00:28:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:28:34] Speaker A: Like, anytime you go to the grocery store, I remember.
[00:28:37] Speaker B: I remember distinctly being like grandma when she would complain about the hy vee changing where they put the jellies. And now it's like, where the fuck did the jelly go?
[00:28:48] Speaker A: Where's my jelly?
[00:28:50] Speaker B: I don't know. It does keep it exciting.
It does mean that you have to pay attention when you go grocery shopping instead of just zoning out, which I guess is kind of a good thing, because then you notice new things and then you buy $150 worth of junk food that you don't ever actually eat because you get back and you're like, what the hell did I do?
[00:29:10] Speaker A: I eat the junk food. I don't eat the salad that I buy.
[00:29:13] Speaker B: I like to. I like to buy way more fruit than I could possibly eat before it all goes bad.
[00:29:19] Speaker A: It's probably a good plan.
[00:29:20] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, it would be a better plan if I ate the fruit.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: That's true.
[00:29:25] Speaker B: But half of it goes to waste. And I'm just like, why did I do that? Ah, sad, but yeah, never shop hungry and never do it. Or high.
Well, there's a certain level of high where you're, like, zoned in, and then you're like, I just gotta get this. This.
[00:29:40] Speaker A: As long as you already ate.
[00:29:41] Speaker B: Yeah, but. But now it very easily could just be like, whoa, man.
[00:29:48] Speaker A: All the same, I'm gonna get it. One of everything.
[00:29:52] Speaker B: Did you know there are lots of pickles?
[00:29:56] Speaker A: That's me at Costco, man.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: I always go, pickles are. Pickles are delicious.
[00:30:00] Speaker A: I go for, like, two things, and I get, like, $250.
They have so much fun, like, prepared foods you can make, though.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah, and tons of it.
[00:30:11] Speaker A: Tons of it.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Stuff that you can never find anywhere else. And you gotta buy all of it.
[00:30:16] Speaker A: Well, this caretaker, she takes her to church, takes her to the store, takes her home.
[00:30:22] Speaker B: And the old ladies are being a little. A little saucy about the. The reverend.
[00:30:29] Speaker A: Yeah, they get a bonk.
[00:30:30] Speaker B: Yeah, old ladies bonk.
And. Yeah. So being driven home from church, Granny Blake's like, I know we're not going the right direction. And Tina.
[00:30:43] Speaker A: Tina says there was a detour.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: Tina says there was a detour. And that detour is to, like, the quintessential. The quintessential urbanization. Urban picture from the early nineties. Johnny.
Some guys stranding around a burning trash.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Can in an alley, probably by the.
[00:31:00] Speaker B: Docks, probably by the ducks. Man, I love a burning cat.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: And one of them looks a lot like Jimmy.
[00:31:04] Speaker B: It does look a lot like Jimmy. I bet it is Jimmy. Or as we learn later, it might not be Jimmy, but it probably, as.
[00:31:11] Speaker A: We learn the next issue, it might not be. It could be a different demon.
[00:31:15] Speaker B: Well, Johnny, forget what I said earlier about something. Something pundits page. Because it turns out that. That pundits page was actually in this comic.
Oops.
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Although I was in the other one.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: I could have. I could have sworn that in main title spawn, there's another similar. Because.
[00:31:34] Speaker A: There is.
[00:31:35] Speaker B: Because. Okay, okay, good. I'm not going crazy. Or at least not as crazy as I think.
[00:31:40] Speaker A: No, you're just. You're just getting overwhelmed by spawn. You're drowning in it.
[00:31:43] Speaker B: Yeah. It's all just like merging into one image. And pretty soon, I'm just gonna, like, read read the titles through and say this is the same story, but people aren't the same, and the story's not the same. It's all one. It's all one, Joe.
[00:31:59] Speaker A: Yeah. The pundits are complaining about how the costume heroes have disappeared.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:04] Speaker A: And the CNR lady talks a little bit about how the economy is bad and that we're in an election year.
[00:32:12] Speaker B: That's never happened before, Johnny.
[00:32:13] Speaker A: Never happened before. Wow. I read this. Needs to get away from the real world.
[00:32:19] Speaker B: The. The toddfather loves sneaking. Sneaking real world conflicts into the. Into the.
[00:32:24] Speaker A: It's an election year. It's gonna be so.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: Oh, I. It's. It already is, Johnny. Oh, boy.
It makes my morning listen to NPR very not as enjoyable as it usually is.
[00:32:39] Speaker A: I know.
[00:32:40] Speaker B: Like, didn't we just talk about this yesterday? I want to hear something else.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: Well, something else is the info now guy or. Yeah, the show.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Oh, not Brock.
[00:32:48] Speaker A: No, she skipped the middle guy. He's not info now. I don't know what I stands for.
[00:32:53] Speaker B: It was info now. Yes.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Yes.
And he starts talking about area 51, how people think shit's hidden in there. So.
[00:33:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:01] Speaker A: Time to storm Area 51 again.
[00:33:03] Speaker B: Yeah. If you got a Naruto run, they can't catch all of you.
That was a flawed thinking, because if they were hiding anything that could stop everybody all at once, it would definitely have been in area 51.
[00:33:17] Speaker A: Yeah. Like a sonic sonic wave gun or something.
[00:33:20] Speaker B: Yeah, or just sonic. They've got Sonic in there, and he wraps them up.
[00:33:26] Speaker A: Sonic's a good guy. He wouldn't do that.
[00:33:29] Speaker B: But he's also. He's also young, so he could be easily swayed to do work for bad people.
[00:33:37] Speaker A: Area 51 would have shadow the hedgehog. They'd have shadow the hedgehog. He's like an experimented on hedgehog. Okay, so, yeah, they can send shadow after him. Shadow has a fucking gun. So did you know this?
[00:33:49] Speaker B: I know. I know Shadows. Shadow is, like, black and red, right?
[00:33:54] Speaker A: But in his game, he, like, uses a gun.
[00:33:57] Speaker B: Oh, man, that's crazy.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah, that's crazy. He's in Sonic with a gun.
[00:34:02] Speaker B: And then where does Amy.
[00:34:03] Speaker A: Then we get rock.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Is Amy a bat? Amy's a bat, right?
[00:34:06] Speaker A: Amy rose?
[00:34:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: I never thought about it. I don't know what the fuck she is.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:34:12] Speaker A: I don't think she's a bat. That'd be weird.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: I could have sworn. I don't know. I don't know if you know about the Sonic the hedgehog universe. Continuity hit us up.
All I know is that wanda and I used to play the two player Genesis with, she was sonic and I was tails. Cause tails could just hang out and be useless and not mess anything up.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: All right? Amy Rose is a pink hedgehog, all right? She ain't no fucking bat.
[00:34:39] Speaker B: Okay?
[00:34:40] Speaker A: Come on. We don't want any bat in hedgehogs. It's not like that one sonic game where they have him kiss a woman.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: What? Oh, man, the nineties with.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: No. It was in the two thousands. They made this game.
Yeah, look it up. Sonic kisses a lady.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Johnny, I am not going to the Internet and typing in Sonic kisses a lady. His mic.
[00:34:59] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:00] Speaker B: It will explode.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: Do it.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: It will explode. And there will be a Klaxon sounding saying, this man is a pervert. This man's a pervert.
[00:35:09] Speaker A: He's looking for Sonic kissing.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: And I.
I don't need that to happen again today.
[00:35:14] Speaker A: There's a great tweet from a fake sugar Miyamoto account. And it was like I saw a picture of Mario Luigi kissing. Please stop doing this.
Makes the circles as if it's a real tweet a lot of times, but it's not.
[00:35:28] Speaker B: So. So while we're. While we're on the topic, my favorite sort of fan continuity kissing logic is that if Hitler and whorf from Star Trek kissed, they'd make a complete mustache.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: That's weird.
[00:35:49] Speaker B: And then Worf obviously would disembowel Hitler for having no honor.
[00:35:55] Speaker A: Yeah, well, speaking of no honor, we get Brock the shock fennel as our last pundit.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Yeah, he's wearing his sunglasses inside, so he's either very cool or very high.
[00:36:08] Speaker A: He's probably on fucking bunch of Adderall and just doesn't want people to see his, like, little fucking eyes. Or.
[00:36:14] Speaker B: Or maybe. Maybe. Oh, no, that. That doesn't trick. I was about to say, or maybe his demon eyes are showing, but Jimmy. Oh, yeah, Jimmy on the first page very clearly has regular eyes.
[00:36:25] Speaker A: Well, they all lost their powers too. So he's just a normal Joe.
[00:36:28] Speaker B: Yeah, he's. So the cocaine hits him harder than it used to.
[00:36:33] Speaker A: Yeah, that's why he's got the sunglasses on. He's like, I don't have my demon powers to burn through this cocaine, but he's just. He's got a Coke rant going on. He's just ranting and ranting.
He says the government is behind it.
[00:36:46] Speaker B: They're distracting us from what's actually happened.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: Yeah, pretty classic brock chockfinnel stuff.
[00:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah, like, I don't. He doesn't actually even really say anything here?
[00:36:54] Speaker A: No, he doesn't have a point. He's just, like, yelling.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Honestly, pretty great.
And so we flash back to now where, you know, we got spawn saying, it's your choice, Jimmy. I'll let you out of. I'll let you out of the cage. Tell me where they took Miss Blake.
And, you know, he's like, I don't like it when they come after people I care for. And Jimmy says, that's why they took her.
And then Spawn says, no, Jimmy, you took her. So we're led to believe that that is Jimmy next to the burning trash can.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:37:29] Speaker B: And Jimmy is staring down this just, like, vampire maw that is just, like, floating in front of him, and it's got blood spittle coming out of it that's splashing all over his face.
And Jimmy says, if I tell you, I'm a dead man.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: It's like working for Tony Twist.
Nobody's safe, not even the accountant.
And then a chain breaks, and the vampire gets his. Gets his hand around Jimmy's throat, and Spawn comes.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: Spawn needs him still and says, leave him alone.
[00:38:10] Speaker B: I need that guy.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: He punches the vampire.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: Punches him, man. Even though he's mortal now, he still packs quite a wallop. Johnny.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, yeah.
[00:38:21] Speaker B: And then, you know, he brings the knife back out.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: He must have borrowed that knife from the freak. It looks like some of the freak would have.
[00:38:29] Speaker B: I think it's too well taken care of to be like, that's true.
[00:38:33] Speaker A: Maybe Swan polished it up after he borrowed it.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Maybe. I think. I think, like, that's what the freak does. He goes and he gets knives and then just, like, does what he can to make them even more gruesome and just, like, rusty, like, stainless steel. Fuck that stain.
So, you know, Al picks Jimmy up by the lapels there and is like, fuck it. Out of time. Jimmy says, jersey.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: She's in Jersey.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: She's in Jersey.
[00:38:59] Speaker A: She's in Tromaville.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Traumaville.
If the pollution doesn't get you, the aroma will. Johnny. Yeah.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: I just watched toxic adventure a little bit ago.
[00:39:09] Speaker B: Nice. Nice.
I love the conceit of a custodian trying to clean around the pool, which is an end of the day task while the whole entire state of New Jersey is swimming in this one fucking pool.
[00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, Melvin, just go take.
[00:39:29] Speaker B: Just go take a cigarette break, dude. What are you doing?
[00:39:32] Speaker A: Then they throw him out the window in a nuclear waste. So what are you gonna do?
[00:39:37] Speaker B: What are you gonna do?
[00:39:38] Speaker A: I mean, obviously, really fun movie, though.
[00:39:40] Speaker B: Yeah, the Troma movies are fun.
[00:39:43] Speaker A: Some of them.
[00:39:44] Speaker B: Some of them are very bad, though. I guess all of them are very bad. Some of them just feel like they take a week to watch.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: Yes. I watched one called Tromas War, and that was pretty good.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: Just, like, trying to be an action movie, but it's like an action comedy.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: Sergeant Kabuki man is pretty funny.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: He gets. He's.
Because he's like, a sergeant in the NYPD, and he comes across a crime scene where this old, like, kabuki samurai man is dying. And he's like, I have to give my power to the last person I see. So it's very, like, green Lantern. Like, he's the. The most acceptable and willing host around. And so this old man dies, and he gets the kabuki samurai powers. And then just, like, it takes over him whenever he needs to use them, it's bad.
[00:40:38] Speaker A: But that sounds funny. That sounds funny. I like it.
[00:40:41] Speaker B: It's probably aged less well than I remember it because it was.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: I'd imagine if I had to guess so.
Okay, well, this is the end of the issue, basically. Spawn just.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: So spawn. Spawn gives Jimmy, um, a stake, a.
[00:41:00] Speaker A: Classic vampire killing weapon.
[00:41:02] Speaker B: Of course, since you helped me here, you can help yourself. I'm gonna leave you in this cage, but I'll give you the means to escape. Right. You run out.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:41:11] Speaker B: Do it yourself. And Jimmy just, like, immediately stabs, ah, right into the vampire's chest with the stake.
And then we get the opening reading. Johnny.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Yeah. Because these vampires aren't like the ones you read about or seen on tv.
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And so I like this final page because it's got half of it is just spawn doing the classic crouching on a rooftop pose.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: Bats in the background.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Super awesome.
And then over on the other side, just a couple of quick panels of the vampire just, like, laughing at the steak.
[00:41:47] Speaker A: Didn't matter.
[00:41:48] Speaker B: And then Jimmy's face just, like, slowly getting closer. And then just blood splatter, get wrecked, Jimmy. Yeah. Fuck you.
[00:41:57] Speaker A: Spawn knew it too. He played on his preconceived vampire notions.
[00:42:02] Speaker B: I mean, Spawn's not playing around. Spawn doesn't play around when it comes to granny Blake. Oh, no.
[00:42:08] Speaker A: Nope. You gotta get granny Blake back.
Then we get the king Spawn logo.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: And some spawning ground, some fan art.
Johnny, this is the cleanest fucking alley in the whole world.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: I know. Wherever they are.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Yeah, man.
[00:42:24] Speaker A: Yeah. It's Spawn cosplay. I believe it's king. It's spawny boy, right? I think I saw these pictures before on his instagram.
[00:42:32] Speaker B: It looks like it, but I cannot say for sure. So you should probably look into.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: I think it is, but it looks.
[00:42:39] Speaker B: Very much like his costume. So. And we.
[00:42:41] Speaker A: He's chilling in the alley with the clown.
[00:42:43] Speaker B: He's in New York, so that makes a pretty good sense.
[00:42:47] Speaker A: And he's there by the NYPD car and just, like. Is that, like, a spawn logo?
Yeah, they edit that.
[00:42:53] Speaker B: I think that might be edited in. Yeah.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: Yeah. That'd be crazy if it wasn't. They put a spawn logo on the side of a building, or if they.
[00:43:00] Speaker B: If it's somebody with a projector. And they paid them, like, $5 to put the spawn logo up for a couple of seconds for a picture. Yeah, but you can see the Empire State building in the background there, Johnny.
[00:43:11] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:43:11] Speaker B: Like, way in the background. That had to have been a fun. A fun photo shoot. Just walking around.
[00:43:17] Speaker A: Just walking around. I'd flip out. If I saw spawn just walk around New York, I knew you were real.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: I would probably have a panic attack. It'd be like, what's coming after us now?
[00:43:31] Speaker A: The multiverse is real.
[00:43:34] Speaker B: And then there's also some fan art by Lorenzo.
[00:43:38] Speaker A: Lorenzo. Very cool, whoever that is.
[00:43:40] Speaker B: Yeah, it's pretty dope.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:46] Speaker B: Need more sponges.
[00:43:47] Speaker A: I like the one with the skull always.
[00:43:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Which one did you like? The one with the red one.
[00:43:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:54] Speaker B: Yeah. That one's pretty awesome.
[00:43:55] Speaker A: With the skull head.
[00:43:57] Speaker B: It's.
It's definitely the less is more of the three options there.
[00:44:02] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:44:03] Speaker B: Oh, man. Yeah. Ongoing titles. Got that monstrous ad.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: The same ads we've had for a bit. The monstrous ad. The shitty movie maniacs ad. Yeah, they're not shitty. Just the Flash. The Flash, Sheldon, is shitty.
[00:44:17] Speaker B: Yeah. Eh, we'll get over it, I guess.
[00:44:20] Speaker A: I'm never gonna get over it.
[00:44:21] Speaker B: David, that's Kingspawn 31.
[00:44:24] Speaker A: You said that should be a tv maniac. So you're saying Ted Lasso should be a tv maniac?
[00:44:29] Speaker B: Are you saying that, like, on your deathbed, you're gonna be like, that fucking movie maniacs from 2024? And the McFarlane line was bullshit. Should have been tv maniacs.
[00:44:39] Speaker A: I am gonna be like that.
Mark my words.
So next up, we got the next issue. Oh, King Spawn 32.
[00:45:03] Speaker B: You don't have to wait a month for it.
[00:45:06] Speaker A: Nope. It's right here in your hands here.
[00:45:08] Speaker B: Bing, bang, boom.
[00:45:10] Speaker A: And we got two covers, as per usual.
[00:45:13] Speaker B: Yes, indeed.
[00:45:14] Speaker A: I have the a cover. I also have the by Francesco Matina, which is spawn holding a visible orange. He's singing a metal song.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Yeah, he's he's doin out right now, probably singing about some rainbows or some shit.
[00:45:32] Speaker A: And he's got, like, a green, glowy orb in his hand.
[00:45:35] Speaker B: He's got, like, a fishhook on one of his chains, just, like, swinging by. I would be so scared, like, getting used.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Catch you on the lip.
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Getting used to the chains. Just, like, doing their own thing. Seeing a big ass fucking, like, maui hook or.
Maui. Yeah, that's his name. Maui hook going by. And it's like, what the hell?
Like, I wonder if it ever, like, gets caught on his meatball face.
[00:46:01] Speaker A: Maybe that's why he has a meatball face.
Hitting himself with his own damn chains all the time.
[00:46:06] Speaker B: He started out just, like, perfect.
[00:46:08] Speaker A: Alcibiades gets caught on the shoelace in his head, pulls it out.
[00:46:14] Speaker B: This is the kind of nonsense that Mad magazine needs to.
Needs to uncover, Johnny.
[00:46:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Let's get Mad magazine to parody spawn in the year 2024.
[00:46:23] Speaker B: Hell, yeah.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: I wonder if they did a spawn movie parody, you know?
[00:46:30] Speaker B: I don't know. No idea.
[00:46:32] Speaker A: Probably wasn't big enough.
Maybe.
[00:46:35] Speaker B: Maybe.
[00:46:37] Speaker A: I always love those movie parodies in Mad magazine.
[00:46:40] Speaker B: Yeah, they were always real fun, but. Yeah, and then you said there were two covers, johnny, but we've only been talking about this one.
[00:46:47] Speaker A: Oh, there's two. Yes. There's also a Javier Fernandez, which is a really badass cover. It's, like, black, white, and red.
[00:46:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's just spawn, like, just, like, walking over a field of skulls coming at you. And as metal.
So if Spawn is singing a metal song on the Bettina cover with his invisible orange, he's singing a song about the spawn on the frances or the Fernandez cover. Cause that is metal as fuck, dude.
[00:47:21] Speaker A: Yeah. Just walking over the skulls. Oh, man, it's black, white, and red. There's that whole series they've been doing, like, marvel does. Like, black, white, and red for, like, different things.
[00:47:31] Speaker B: I know Batman did a black, white, and red along ago.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: They've been doing it with Star wars. They did it with Vader. And they did it with Darth Maul, which makes sense. With Darth Maul.
[00:47:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Very, very little red.
Very little red intrinsic to Darth Vader. Except for his lightsaber.
[00:47:49] Speaker A: His little red light. Yeah, one of his lights is red.
[00:47:53] Speaker B: But I think it definitely, definitely works really good with Darth Maul. But what if his brother, Savage opress, shows up? Does he just white?
[00:48:04] Speaker A: I guess they probably didn't write him into it.
[00:48:07] Speaker B: Some pajo press, man.
I love Star wars names. Johnny.
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Before they shut down LucasArts. They were working on some game, and George Lucas wanted to name the bad guy Darth icky.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: Let me guess.
[00:48:24] Speaker A: Everyone thought he was joking. He was not.
[00:48:26] Speaker B: He was. Icky. Was he? Was he, like, hexus from Ferngully and just like, a goopy black matter guy?
[00:48:33] Speaker A: I have no idea what. I don't think anyone knows what Darth icky looked like, man.
[00:48:37] Speaker B: We should call up old Georgie Porgy.
Be like, hey.
[00:48:42] Speaker A: He'd be like, please leave me alone. I just want to eat my spaghetti in the mall.
[00:48:44] Speaker B: I was about to say we'll offer to buy him some spaghetti and Diet Coke.
[00:48:49] Speaker A: Yep. See how we pop open the covers. We got the credits. You want to take this one, David?
[00:48:54] Speaker B: I'll take this one. Credits are almost exactly the same with key difference.
[00:48:59] Speaker A: Key difference.
[00:49:00] Speaker B: Script plot by Todd McFarlane. Art indeed by Javu Fernandez.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: Ah, that's the different one.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: What's the difference? Covered by Ivan Nunez. Lettering and world design. Covered the covers. Creative director is Todd McFarlane. Editor in chief is Thomas Healy. And I was just looking at this, Johnny, and I don't think interns ever get anywhere near as much love as they should. So I'm going to also shout out intern Imani Davis on the credits here. So, hell yeah. I hope TMP is paying you and you aren't an unpaid intern.
[00:49:32] Speaker A: I'm sure they are.
[00:49:34] Speaker B: I just learned about interns that have to pay $15 an hour to be at the place that they're interning, and it's like, what the what?
[00:49:42] Speaker A: What the shit?
[00:49:43] Speaker B: What the shit?
[00:49:45] Speaker A: That sucks.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: Yeah. That's fucked up that our economy runs on unpaid and negative reimbursement. I think they're called interns. Oh, boy.
[00:49:56] Speaker A: Oof.
What a term. Negative reimbursement.
[00:50:02] Speaker B: Oh, boy. Previously in King Spawn. Granny Blake has been kidnapped, and Spawn will tear through every demon hideout until he finds her.
Yeah, that's true.
[00:50:14] Speaker A: That's pretty much what happened.
[00:50:15] Speaker B: Pretty much. Yeah.
[00:50:17] Speaker A: We get a nice domestic scene to open this one.
[00:50:20] Speaker B: Yeah, we got a. Doing a tie, doing a watch, putting phone in a pocket, and then a daddy, and then both the most. The most excited child and the most pissed off child in the world. Oh, boy.
[00:50:37] Speaker A: Yeah. That boy looks so mad.
[00:50:39] Speaker B: He is so upset.
[00:50:41] Speaker A: The girls happy, though.
[00:50:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:43] Speaker A: And they want to come with their dad wherever he's going. And we turn the page, and the dad's Terry Fitzgerald. Yeah.
I wonder if.
[00:50:50] Speaker B: How much. How much of the boys being upset is the fact that he got old Terry's hair as a young man. So, like, he's already got the gray going on.
[00:51:00] Speaker A: Yeah, he's got, like, the gray stripe.
[00:51:05] Speaker B: But, nah, Terry's like, no, no, I have to. I wish you could come, but now I have to. This is something that I have to do without you.
[00:51:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:51:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:15] Speaker A: So gotta go.
[00:51:16] Speaker B: Boy's name is Jake. Girl's name is Katie.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they've been around for a while.
[00:51:22] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't.
Aside from the aftermath of the death of Wanda Blake, I really haven't interacted much with.
[00:51:31] Speaker A: I mean, I don't think the comic interacts much with him.
[00:51:34] Speaker B: Terry's children, outside of Cyan.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:51:39] Speaker B: But so, you know. You know, I think it's. It's hard to. It's like, I would imagine it's hard to leave your children, and then it's also even harder to leave your children for something that you don't really want to go to in the first place, and they're upset at you for doing it. So I feel Terry Fitzgerald's pain here just being like, that's a great panel. As if this night wasn't going to be bad enough anyway.
[00:52:04] Speaker A: I love that shot of him just looking out the window, just looking despondent.
[00:52:07] Speaker B: Little does he know it could get worse.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: It's about to get worse.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: It's about to get a whole lot worse. And get a beautiful Javu Fernandez New York City traffic scene here.
[00:52:19] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. With the rain.
[00:52:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:52:20] Speaker A: Like the water, like, reflecting.
[00:52:23] Speaker B: Oh, boy. And it's just.
It's just Javi Fernandez. Just.
Just Javi Fernandez. That's the whole sentence.
[00:52:32] Speaker A: That's all you have to say.
[00:52:33] Speaker B: And, you know, Terry's talking to Miguel.
I don't know if that's his partner or just a friend, but he's like, man, what am I doing? What is all this? And Miguel's like, you just got to find a hot chick, marry her.
So it's like a morose twitch and just in a less disheveled Sam.
Yeah, basically, Miguel wears clean clothing.
Yes. But has that same sort of chaotic energy as a sand burke.
[00:53:19] Speaker A: There's some kind of, like, fundraiser dinner event.
[00:53:23] Speaker B: I like that Miguel's. Maya Coppola is okay. She doesn't have to be that hot. Yeah, but, yeah, they're the fundraiser, and so it's the crowd scene. And Terry's like, ugh, I hate this.
And Miguel's got the. Got the. I don't know. You said, I like that. The one little bit of party dialogue we get is just this, like this.
The bummer person who's just talking about, you know, uh, didn't get paid enough. Yeah. Like, their paycheck at a. What's supposed to be a fun event. Like, okay, I get it. Talking about compensation with your co workers is an important thing. You have a legal protection to do. So. But time and place, context. Not at a party, dude.
But.
[00:54:19] Speaker A: And this guy's, like, staring him down in the background.
[00:54:22] Speaker B: Yeah. And then, like, he reaches into his coat, and then he pulls down a little knit cap, and he's got a gun.
And then that. Man. My God, does he have a. And then we get a blam.
[00:54:37] Speaker A: He shoots somebody.
[00:54:38] Speaker B: Yeah. And this lady who's talking to Miguel is like, miguel. And Miguel's just like.
[00:54:44] Speaker A: Everyone starts running.
[00:54:45] Speaker B: Yeah. And the gunman, you know, shoots himself then.
[00:54:52] Speaker A: Didn't really need the knit cap. But, no.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: It looks cool.
[00:54:59] Speaker A: It looks cool.
[00:55:02] Speaker B: And then we go from the blam to a.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: Ambulance is coming.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: And Miguel sitting there like, Terry. No.
[00:55:10] Speaker A: Yeah. We turned on the page and found out Terry was the one that was shot. Yeah.
[00:55:13] Speaker B: Oh, no.
To make the night even worse, Terry literally was checking his phone for a message that somebody sent saying, hope you're having an enjoyable night.
[00:55:25] Speaker A: I assume that's Wanda or not Wanda. I don't know who it would be.
[00:55:28] Speaker B: I don't know.
[00:55:29] Speaker A: Not Wanda. She's dead.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Not Granny Blake. She's held up like, holy.
This is a nightmare evening, Johnny.
[00:55:39] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:55:42] Speaker B: Doing our boy Terry dirty.
[00:55:45] Speaker A: I know. Leave his kids get shot.
[00:55:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
I like the transition from this page to the next page, where instead of having the narration of now versus then, it's just spawn saying now. And it does double duty. It's great.
[00:56:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I like that too. Now I'm really pissed off.
[00:56:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And he's standing there. He's got his chains. He's got his chains around something. Cause he's, you know, yanking on them.
[00:56:11] Speaker A: They're tight. Yeah, he's got.
[00:56:14] Speaker B: Look at that. Look at that fucking.
He's got that bicep biceps from hell right there.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: Yeah, I like it. Has little squares, like, highlighting his head and his arm.
[00:56:23] Speaker B: Yeah, these are cool.
And then we turn the page, and it's a nice big two page spread. And what's straining against the other end of that chain is that vampire one.
[00:56:36] Speaker A: Yeah, that pesky vampire. We're back at the same place we were last issue.
[00:56:40] Speaker B: Yeah. And Spawn's like, ask him what I did to your twin brother. And then, you know, see last issue, this guy's like, this guy looks a.
[00:56:50] Speaker A: Lot like Jimmy in the last issue.
[00:56:51] Speaker B: Sure does. Only a lot less dead.
[00:56:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:56:54] Speaker B: And he's like, this wasn't my brother. I swear. And then we, we learned that very much like in the violator miniseries.
That, hell, people don't really understand differences between human beings. So. So all of their human Personas are just, like, the exact same dude.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: Yeah. I thought that was pretty funny.
[00:57:17] Speaker B: Oh, it's a wonderful little bit of continuity.
[00:57:20] Speaker A: They can't change now. They can't transform. So, yeah, they're all sucked that way.
[00:57:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
So, so Spawn is doing the exact same thing he was doing last issue, only he's got. It's got another little flavor to it. Maybe a little bit more intimidating, more likely to get an answer out of this guy.
[00:57:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:57:41] Speaker B: So this guy, like, they, they took granny. They, they took Miss Blake to try to, to get you. Because it's open season on hellspawns. And whoever I'm working for knows that's how you're gonna come out of the woodwork. I'd say it very effective, Johnny. Their plane worked.
[00:57:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Got him out of the woodwork. He got him mad.
[00:58:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:02] Speaker A: And spawns, like you have in your head. That we're equals or we're somehow the same.
[00:58:05] Speaker B: Yeah. And kicks him right in the face. With those fucking spiky boots.
[00:58:11] Speaker A: Bam.
[00:58:12] Speaker B: Hmm. That can't be comfortable. Yeah.
[00:58:14] Speaker A: This guy goes through it.
[00:58:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:58:16] Speaker A: And then he says, I don't need my powers to crush your skull.
[00:58:19] Speaker B: Which he, like, holds him, holds him down on the head. And, like, digs his thumbs underneath his eyeballs so they're coming out. Oh, Jesus. Oh, when I spawn, I reread this on the bus yesterday. And, like, I had to close the book. And, like, my eyes are already watering again because, oh, geez.
I. Stuff is bad. Oh. And it's, it's the one of the thumbs going under the eyes that hurts more. Yeah.
[00:58:45] Speaker A: Where it's like, it's like Luke's squishing like a grape.
[00:58:47] Speaker B: Than the one of him actually smushing the eyeball.
[00:58:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:58:52] Speaker B: But, yeah. So Spahn's just sitting there, and he's just squeezing this guy's head, putting his thumbs in his eyeballs. And I, like, on the last little. Last little panel, when there's a crunch, there's a little bitty. A little bitty grin on Spawn's face.
Yes. He's enjoying killing some demons the old fashioned way.
[00:59:10] Speaker A: He doesn't seem to mind it.
[00:59:11] Speaker B: Yeah. Your brother sent me to an empty building. Now he's dead. Where's the old lady?
At the docks.
[00:59:19] Speaker A: He's at the docks. We were right. They were at the docks.
[00:59:21] Speaker B: Docks. The cruise terminal, Pier 29. And then, you know, Spawn's like, I'm gonna insurance this. And so he gives another little nicknick.
[00:59:30] Speaker A: On this, even though the guy's already covered with blood. It's like, come on, you really need to do that, too.
[00:59:35] Speaker B: It's. It's symmetry, Johnny. It's symmetry.
It's the opera of the thing.
[00:59:44] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
These issues are just a little samey.
[00:59:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I like to think of it as when you watch baseball players every time before they do everything, they have their little get ready, and it's the same just because that's their process for getting through it.
I think maybe Todd McFarlane falls into that a little bit, and it's like some people who are very, very good at what they do sometimes have their little ritual that they go through just as a matter of course, because it's muscle memory. It's how they get in that space.
Maybe he's equating spawn with those people. And it's like, this is how he does his investigation. If he does it the same way, he knows that he's doing it right. He knows that he's done every step. He knows that if at some point he wakes up in the middle of what he's. Or, like, he, like, comes to a realization in the middle of what he's doing, and he's like, wait, what the fuck am I doing? What? Okay, I did it the right way because that's the way I always do it.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe so.
[01:00:47] Speaker B: But, you know, it's also probably just, you know, Todd McFarlane was like, yeah, we did it. That's what. Let's just have him do it again.
[01:00:54] Speaker A: He also didn't work. Try, try again. He's been obsessed with his time jumps just, like, back and forth and back and forth. So now we're back to 6 hours earlier.
[01:01:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:01:03] Speaker A: Where he discovers the said empty warehouse where Randy Blake was supposed to be.
[01:01:08] Speaker B: Spawn in a flasher's trench coat just walking down the street. Yep, yep, yep. And he steps into an empty building. And then when he steps into this empty building, he gets a little that says, your friend has been shot.
And then this is a powerful panel. Johnny just spawn, like, glaring at his phone while a whole bunch of bats fly around him.
[01:01:32] Speaker A: Yeah, that's hilarious. It's also hilarious he has to use a phone. Cause he doesn't have his powers now, so he has to, like, have a phone.
He'll go get a go to the.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: Phone store, piece of garbage. Yeah. My first thought was like, how did he get his phone number?
[01:01:45] Speaker A: Also, he's got some really big texts on his text. Like, his font is huge.
[01:01:51] Speaker B: Al Simmons would be an old Mandev. Year of our lords, 2024.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:01:57] Speaker B: He was in his thirties in 1987 when he died.
[01:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah, gotta read that giant text.
[01:02:04] Speaker B: He doesn't. He doesn't bifocals take the hell intimidation factor out of it. So he's gotta. He's gotta just raw eye it, Johnny.
[01:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:16] Speaker B: Then we cut to another classic. Another classic McFarlane boss office with the.
[01:02:24] Speaker A: Tall windows and the shades.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: Shades.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: I'm assuming it's the same boss as last time.
[01:02:31] Speaker B: I'm assuming, because I think that there's a suggestion of a tattoo on the neck of the guy across the desk from him, but just forlornly, sitting there with his glass of whiskey, it's wonderfully composed chat.
Harvey Fernandez knows what he's doing. Jesus Christ.
[01:02:51] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:02:52] Speaker B: And they're. They're talking about, you know, making sure that. That having captured Granny Blake is, you know, what they should have been doing. Like, that. The plan is going apace.
And they're like, good, I hope. I hope you dropped all the breadcrumbs that we went to drop, because Alistair.
And there won't be a rock he won't look under.
And then we go to the security office of the venue where Terry was shot. And Spahn has the security guard's mouth taped shut. And he's like, having him do the.
[01:03:31] Speaker A: Zoom in, enhance the blade runner thing.
[01:03:34] Speaker B: Yeah.
And they zoom in on the guy who shot Terry. And on his wrist is a tattoo that we've seen somewhere before. Johnny.
[01:03:44] Speaker A: That's the gunslinger tattoo.
[01:03:45] Speaker B: Sure is the bad gunslinger, folks. Yeah. That, you know, is emblazoned on that western United States bank.
[01:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah, some bad dudes.
[01:03:58] Speaker B: Yeah. And then we get a, you know, spawn. He's. He's dressed to kill here, Johnny. He's. He's rocking his rifle, his double katanas. He's just walking through the streets of New York with his weapons and nobody's saying nothing.
He goes down an alley and he sees a rustle. Rustle, rustle under a cardboard box.
And, you know, he moves the box and shoves his gun into the face of the guy who's under there. And Johnny, it looks like Jimmy.
[01:04:32] Speaker A: It looks like Jimmy.
[01:04:33] Speaker B: Jimmy. So this is obviously a demon.
[01:04:36] Speaker A: Obviously a demon.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: Or might just be an actual unhomed man or unhomed Jimmy. But whatever. He's freaked out of his gourd and he's like, I didn't do anything. I'm just. I heard the shit. I didn't want to be a part of it. And Spawn's like, heard what? The man's like, the screams.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: So he goes down the alley.
[01:04:58] Speaker B: This man shows Al what he means. And he's like, it's down there. I can't go down there. And so Al walks down the alley.
And then he stumbles across it. Just a pile of bodies.
[01:05:11] Speaker A: The whole bunch of bodies.
[01:05:12] Speaker B: Whole bunch of bodies. And bits hanging from, like, telephone wires.
Oh, geez.
[01:05:19] Speaker A: Just one thing. Just one more thing. Just to get him drawing towards Kruger. To get him angry.
[01:05:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And then. Jesus.
And what a way to end an issue, Johnny. Whoo.
[01:05:30] Speaker A: Yeah.
King Swan logo. Boom.
Do we get the swanning ground?
[01:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah, we do. Yeah, we do.
Get Alexander G. Sent in some fan art of basically. Commandospawna, as imagined in call of duty.
[01:05:52] Speaker A: Yep. And Thomas Healy says he's still rocking Commando spawn skin in modern warfare three. I wonder if we've been in the same lobby. Or maybe I've been in the same lobby.
[01:06:01] Speaker B: What foul thing did you call me in the lobby?
[01:06:05] Speaker A: Yeah. What did you say to me? God, the lobbies. Back in the day, you get into a halo lobby, everyone just starts yelling slurs at each other. That's like what it was.
[01:06:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it was real bad.
[01:06:13] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
And then Steven T. Says in his collection of spawn figures. Looking pretty similar to mine. Got a lot of the newer figures.
[01:06:22] Speaker B: Yeah, it's looking pretty good too, though. He's got that great redeemer. He's got. He's got. He's got plague.
He's got a mono. He's got. He's got our boy Sam and Twitch.
[01:06:36] Speaker A: Gotta have the same.
[01:06:37] Speaker B: Twitch got Spider kingdom. Pretty good.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: Everyone's favorite guy.
[01:06:42] Speaker B: Pretty groovy.
And Thomas, Thomas says, hey, great picture. I think you're gonna need a bigger shelf soon. So I wonder if that's tease for shit. Tons of shit. Tons of figures coming out this year.
[01:06:56] Speaker A: Probably gotta get our Knicks figure.
[01:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, gotta. It's gotta come with the throne too.
Then we got Amana plan a canal, Panama.
Jorge C.
Saying he's been a forever spawn fan from Panama.
Send him some fan art, Johnny.
This is a greater human achievement than the Panama Canal. I'm saying it here, and I'm not backing down.
It's fucking great. Look at that. Holy shit. It's very good.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Yeah, we really need to ride into them to promote our podcast.
[01:07:33] Speaker B: One of these days we'll get off our duff.
[01:07:35] Speaker A: One of these days, we'll do it.
[01:07:37] Speaker B: Need more sponsor universe as always, man.
Every time, every time I see this advertisement for that Jonathan Galapian scorch 28 cover, I get really excited, and then I remember that I actually have that cover, and then I get even more excited.
[01:07:53] Speaker A: Yeah, that one's awesome. The Ravenswan.
[01:07:55] Speaker B: It's so fucking cool. Jonathan.
[01:07:57] Speaker A: So excited for no home here.
[01:07:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Get that monstrous ad again.
[01:08:03] Speaker A: Monstrous ad. Add for monstrous in the back as it's been for a long time.
[01:08:08] Speaker B: And the Warhammer 40K figures. Yes, very nice. Very nice. That's king spawn number 32.
[01:08:17] Speaker A: That is King Spawn 32.
[01:08:20] Speaker B: How you do?
[01:08:23] Speaker A: How do you do?
[01:08:26] Speaker B: How do you do? Do?
[01:08:29] Speaker A: I think we do do time to rate the puppies.
[01:08:31] Speaker B: Oh, yes, indeed. I'd say it's time to rate the puppies, Johnny.
[01:08:37] Speaker A: So first up this week, well, I guess we had two issues with 31 and 32, both kind of parts of a whole.
I'm probably gonna give them one score again, just because when we do these two issues in a row, it's hard to differentiate.
I like the art on both a lot. I loved Jeremy Hong coming in, and, like, I thought you really knocked it out of the park, especially on the reveal of the new spawn and just, like, the details on the faces and everything. And Javi Fernandez is always doing great work, but I really like the art. I don't know, I hate to be a hater, but, like, the McFarlane King Swan stuff has just felt lacking for me. Yeah, it's just not, it doesn't have that weight of, I mean, I see what he's going for, but it just doesn't have that, like, weighty center that the Sean Lewis stuff had.
But he's onto grand things like pirate, Viking Queen, and some other comic books. But I do miss the Sean Lewis a little bit in the king spawn, I will say. I mean, it's just because, like I said, the stories are kind of samey.
There's like, the double of the vampire. The vampire stuff's a little confusing. Like, okay, who's Kruger? Who are these people trying to frame for Krugere? You know, it's just a little.
Little Todd McFarlane. Maybe he's just a little overwhelmed right now, working on too many things.
[01:09:55] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[01:09:57] Speaker A: But I can admit that's not to say I don't like it. I like these issues, but it's just like, they aren't my favorite king spawn. I've been a little disappointed recently.
[01:10:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I feel the same way.
[01:10:08] Speaker A: So I'm gonna give them three out of five mainly for the art and for, like, the cool reveals of spawn and some, like, other cool stuff. But, like, it's just these issues leading up to granny Blake's rescue have all been kind of same y. And, like, the time jumps he's experimenting with, I guess he's just, like, got that in his head. That's a good way to tell a story.
Sometimes it's a little confusing.
[01:10:32] Speaker B: It's a quick way to build narrative tension. If you have maybe not the whole story figured out, it gives.
[01:10:39] Speaker A: That's true.
[01:10:40] Speaker B: It gives a little oomph to an oomph. Listen, story. Mm hmm.
[01:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's pretty much what I think about it. I don't want to be a hater, but not my favorite little arc of king spawn so far.
[01:10:52] Speaker B: Well, Johnny, I agree with you.
I am actually going to give it two scores. I'm going to give it an art score and a writing score just because I feel that the art in both of these issues far surpasses anything in the writing.
That's both excellent. So right off the bat, I'm given both of them both.
I keep forgetting his name because he's so new. Both Jeremy Hahn and Javi Fernandez, they're getting five neck tattoos for the art. It's just incredible.
It's great storytelling in this art.
I am going to give the writing two God awful evenings of Terry Fitzgerald.
[01:11:37] Speaker A: It had a bad night.
[01:11:40] Speaker B: It's. I think. I think the toddfather might be doing too much, because this kingspaw now feels like a soulless version of the tone poems. At least the tone poems were leading to something here.
It's kind of a mush, but this is very much like that dead space gunslinger arc between the end of one gunslinger story and just stalling for 350. Only.
[01:12:09] Speaker A: Right.
[01:12:10] Speaker B: With King Spawn dressing, it feels like he's trying to make King spawn back into, like, mid sixties run of main title spawn. And that's not what I want from this bond. I want King spawn to be spawnier. If that's grandiose.
[01:12:34] Speaker A: Yeah. A little more grandiose, a little more epic. A little more.
A little darker.
[01:12:42] Speaker B: Yeah. Like, like what people liked about the. The HBO series was that it was like a darker, grittier version of this reasonably dark, but oftentimes ridiculous comic book.
And it's just.
It's just spinning. It's just spinning. I'm hoping that it goes somewhere, but, man, whoever, I love the Todd father, I want him off King Spawn as quickly as possible. And I'm excited.
[01:13:14] Speaker A: I know, me too. I'm sorry. It kills me to say it does, but, I mean, it doesn't. I need him on Gunslinger and Sam and twitch. He's doing a great job. It's like this one is just like. It just makes it all feel a little too samey and like it just doesn't have its own flavor.
[01:13:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't.
[01:13:29] Speaker A: It feels like it's looking for an identity, that it doesn't really have one right now.
[01:13:33] Speaker B: It's not that. That hardboiled detective story that he's good at with the same of twitch. And it's not just all the fart jokes which he gets to do with gunslinger.
It's that middle ground that I just don't think he's ever.
I don't think he's ever really developed sort of the middle ground necessary for what's going on here. He's not a subtle writer, and king spawn works better with subtlety.
[01:13:57] Speaker A: Well put. Yeah, that's kind of what I'm thinking.
[01:14:00] Speaker B: So. So on the whole. On the whole, I like the issues, but mostly for the art.
[01:14:05] Speaker A: Yep.
[01:14:06] Speaker B: And Granny Blake. I love Granny Blake.
[01:14:08] Speaker A: We do love seeing Granny Blake again. Yeah, you love to see it.
[01:14:13] Speaker B: I just said that, didn't I?
[01:14:15] Speaker A: You did.
[01:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah. You know what else I love to see, Johnny?
[01:14:19] Speaker A: I love to see our friends on Instagram.
[01:14:22] Speaker B: Hell, yeah. That's what I was gonna say.
[01:14:26] Speaker A: Oh, well, then you love that too.
[01:14:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely do.
[01:14:30] Speaker A: And we always gotta give a shout out. This week is no different.
[01:14:32] Speaker B: Well, we don't have to, but we like to.
[01:14:36] Speaker A: We have to. David.
[01:14:40] Speaker B: Somebody is holding. Holding our granny's Blake hostage.
[01:14:45] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:14:46] Speaker B: And I'm trying to get to their Instagram page so I can look at the stuff again and talk about it in real time. But I keep putting in there. I keep putting in their name. And the little meta thing keeps telling me that nonsense.
[01:15:03] Speaker A: Oh, it tells. It says, like, that's not a real thing. Yeah, that may be a username. Yeah, I've seen that before.
[01:15:09] Speaker B: I don't understand why I have to go through that to do.
[01:15:14] Speaker A: I found him.
[01:15:15] Speaker B: Did you. Did you search it? Yeah, just the ask meta.
[01:15:19] Speaker A: I didn't ask meta. Yeah, ask meta and or search. I don't know.
[01:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah, it's literally not bringing up fucking. What the. What the. Oh, there it is. Jesus Christ. Oh, okay.
There you go.
[01:15:35] Speaker A: Thanks, AI.
[01:15:36] Speaker B: This is. This is harder than looking for fucking granny Blake.
[01:15:40] Speaker A: We should go to Cara.
[01:15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, but anyway, spawn, spawn 6900 is who we're showing. Nice. Yeah. Alejandro Ortiz, they got spawn figures. They're showing it to us. They kick ass. He's got a one of the. He's got the classic spawn adventures guy. Look at him. So cool.
[01:16:02] Speaker A: Yep. He's got the swan adventures.
Some other figures as well. But, yeah, he's got, like, spawn fighting the violator.
[01:16:09] Speaker B: He's got anime spawn.
[01:16:11] Speaker A: You got a cool, like, custom cape he bought or something because it's, like, super bendy and stuff. That's pretty cool.
[01:16:17] Speaker B: Yeah, he's got, like, that classic medieval spawn and the old, old, old timey curse.
[01:16:23] Speaker A: Gotta get that.
[01:16:24] Speaker B: Old timey curse and fucking what's his name who killed Spawn the first time?
[01:16:33] Speaker A: Chapel.
[01:16:33] Speaker B: Chapel.
[01:16:34] Speaker A: Come on.
Jesus Christ.
[01:16:36] Speaker B: My brain's already filled in the retcon of it being Jessica priest. Yeah, good shit, Troy. Good shit. He's got. Oh, Johnny, he's got godzillas.
[01:16:45] Speaker A: Hey, we like that.
[01:16:47] Speaker B: Hey, I just watched Godzilla minus one. And controversial opinion here, Johnny.
Godzilla minus one is fucking amazing.
[01:16:56] Speaker A: Great movie.
[01:16:57] Speaker B: Oh, it's so good.
[01:16:58] Speaker A: I had it on in the background the other day when I was doing some stuff. I didn't sit down and watch the whole thing, but I popped it on for a bit.
[01:17:03] Speaker B: The only thing I didn't like about it is I have now found out that it is Godzilla. Sweet. Number two on the soundtrack.
But one of the first times, I think it's as he's destroying the city. What's that city?
The city where lady works.
[01:17:23] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:17:24] Speaker B: Um, whatever the name of that city is, I forget. Um, but while he's destroying that city, in the middle of his Godzilla theme, they play a little bit of the Mothra thing. And I was like, no. Fucking Mothra. What the hell?
[01:17:41] Speaker A: Oh, no.
It's.
[01:17:43] Speaker B: The only thing I didn't like is that they teased me with some mothra and then didn't give me any mothra.
[01:17:49] Speaker A: Well, maybe in Godzilla plus one they'll have it.
[01:17:52] Speaker B: I don't know. We'll see. Apparently, they haven't. They haven't announced whether there will be a direct sequel or not. And it's like, how. How do you not. Like, how do you.
[01:18:01] Speaker A: It's like the biggest Godzilla movie. Yeah.
[01:18:02] Speaker B: So, so fucking good.
Yeah, Mandy. And, like, when he's swimming after the boat, he looks so real.
[01:18:09] Speaker A: He's just like, oh, it's crazy. It's terrifying. It's very scary.
[01:18:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's very. It's very intimate. It's.
I like the group of, the group of vets are just like, the wackiest guys.
[01:18:22] Speaker A: Oh, the guys in the boat.
[01:18:25] Speaker B: Like, because it's a very serious movie, but they're just, like, out there doing weird anime shit. And it's like, wait, what? What is this?
[01:18:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:18:33] Speaker B: Or the doctor. I like the Doctor. He's fun. It's a good movie. It's a good movie. If you haven't watched Godzilla minus one, go watch it.
[01:18:41] Speaker A: It's on Netflix.
[01:18:41] Speaker B: And if you aren't following Spawn 6900 on Instagram, go follow them. They got good shit.
[01:18:47] Speaker A: They got good shit. They got Godzilla's and spawns, things we like.
[01:18:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's all you need. Godzillas and spawns.
[01:18:53] Speaker A: While you're over there, make sure to give us a follow. We are regarding Spawnpod, and also, if you want to follow the person who does our music, that is Brian Voyles, 27.
[01:19:04] Speaker B: Yes, indeed, he does good music.
It's the best part.
[01:19:08] Speaker A: If you want to reach.
[01:19:09] Speaker B: I was about to say it's the best part of editing the episodes is you get to listen to the Brian music. Again.
[01:19:14] Speaker A: It is true.
We want to hear the music for the mailbag, so please send us an
[email protected]. dot.
[01:19:24] Speaker B: Yes, indeed, please.
[01:19:24] Speaker A: We'll answer any questions, comments, concerns. You just want to say, hey, anything. Drop us a line.
[01:19:29] Speaker B: Yeah, do it.
[01:19:30] Speaker A: Each week, I like to ask a question to spur conversation. And this week, I'm just wondering what you guys think of the Todd McFarlane art of Kings Arc of King Spawn. The Todd McFarlane arc of King Spawn, not art arc. Is it something you've been into it? Like? If you have, that's cool. Tell us why. Or if you agree with us that it's a little lacking, that we want to get back to a new rider on King Swan. But just let us know what you think.
[01:19:56] Speaker B: We'd love to hear our opinion. You have to hear our opinions because we know that you're strapped to a chair and forced to listen to us every week by the person who's torturing you. Yes. But please, please, voluntarily give us your opinions. We'd like to know. Just see what the spawn community feels about these.
[01:20:17] Speaker A: Todd McFarlane listens to our show and hates it. So the next king spawn, he's torturing people by making him listen to our show.
He's like, hey, we're in the comic.
[01:20:25] Speaker B: Hey, you know what? I would be absolutely thrilled if that happened.
[01:20:30] Speaker A: I would be too. You know, there's such thing as bad press.
[01:20:36] Speaker B: I wouldn't go that far.
[01:20:38] Speaker A: No, it's true. There's definitely bad press.
[01:20:40] Speaker B: Yes, indeed.
[01:20:41] Speaker A: Just ask Kevin Spacey.
[01:20:46] Speaker B: Kevin Spacey, please send us an email. No, please don't.
[01:20:49] Speaker A: It'll be a cease and desist. He'll sue us.
He, like, sues everybody that talks about him.
[01:20:56] Speaker B: Oh, man. You know what, Johnny?
I want to sue you and be given the restitution of hearing you talk about more spawn.
[01:21:06] Speaker A: Okay, you win. I concede. You don't have to sue me. I'll do it. All right, well, we can save some time.
[01:21:12] Speaker B: You owe me some musings and ponderings on gunslinger issues number 31 and 32, so. Okay, why don't we prep that for next week, and then we'll have our court mandated reciprocation session there.
[01:21:26] Speaker A: I think I'll handle that. Talking about old Linder some more?
[01:21:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, man.
As much as I am bummed out by the story of King Spawn, gunslinger spawn is still just great. This.
[01:21:40] Speaker A: Oh, it's been a hoot. Yeah.
[01:21:41] Speaker B: Issue that came out this week. I was just like, oh, Java, you're a doofuse.
[01:21:48] Speaker A: I love that he went to the bank with, like, his full gauntlets on. And then she was worried about him having guns and knives. Like, he's got knives on his hands.
[01:21:54] Speaker B: And he's like, I also brought some guns.
[01:21:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it was great.
Poor Linda.
[01:22:00] Speaker B: Oh, man. She needs to dump his ass, honestly.
[01:22:04] Speaker A: Yeah. She needs to get on back to the hotel.
[01:22:07] Speaker B: Much too nice for the jerk that Javi is becoming. But that's. That's not. That's not issues 31 or 32. That's. That's later. But those are still.
[01:22:16] Speaker A: No, it's 30 and 31. Just very right.
[01:22:18] Speaker B: 31 and 32.
[01:22:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That's what we're doing next. Yeah.
Wow. I was just confused. We just did 31, 32, but of a different series.
[01:22:28] Speaker B: Yeah, well, they did start, like, right at the same time. So.
[01:22:31] Speaker A: A month. Yeah. A month. Yeah.
[01:22:36] Speaker B: Hey, this is your co host, David Williams here, just popping in to say that Johnny was, in fact, correct. And that our next episode, we will be covering gunslinger spawns number 30 and 31. So listen to. Listen to Johnny, not to me.
Back to the episode.
In the year of Spawn.
[01:23:01] Speaker A: In the year of Spawn, our Lord.
[01:23:02] Speaker B: This is the new year of Spawn.
Spawn New Year. Like little spawny New Year. He's in his little. He's the little chibi spawn, his little diaper. And he's like, it's a new year.
[01:23:14] Speaker A: Yay.
[01:23:14] Speaker B: And then you got old. You got old Ravenspawn with his scythe.
[01:23:18] Speaker A: Being, you know, old man to old year.
[01:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that would be wonderful. Okay. But, yeah, gunslinger, 31 and 32, and we'll talk about him next week. And that's gonna be a hoot.
Don't.
[01:23:29] Speaker A: Should be.
[01:23:30] Speaker B: Don't forget to like us. Subscribe us, subscribe to us, follow us. Put a. Put a review of our podcast out there anywhere. ITunes is a great place to put it. I guess it's Apple music now.
[01:23:43] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:23:43] Speaker B: Yeah. I wish you could put Apple.
[01:23:45] Speaker A: Apple. Apple Podcasts.
[01:23:47] Speaker B: I wish you could put reviews on Spotify. But, I mean, you know, if you can't say the review, just give us a couple of stars. It helps us.
[01:23:53] Speaker A: Give us some stars. More than a couple. Give us five.
[01:23:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
A couple times two, plus a couple times 2.5. There we go.
[01:24:02] Speaker A: There we go.
[01:24:02] Speaker B: There we go.
Yeah. Does your mind work where there's one and then a couple is two and then a few is three and then several is four?
[01:24:14] Speaker A: Maybe? Not exactly that, I think.
[01:24:16] Speaker B: Yeah. Because I always use those as exact numbers, which is antithetical to the point of having not exact numbers, but that's the way I think of it, so.
[01:24:28] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:24:30] Speaker B: Oh, man. Johnny, my brain is bad and math is hard.
[01:24:35] Speaker A: Indeed it is.
[01:24:36] Speaker B: But you know what's very easy, Johnny?
[01:24:40] Speaker A: What's that?
[01:24:41] Speaker B: It's saying this.
May the scorched be with you.
[01:24:49] Speaker A: And also with you, David.
[01:24:50] Speaker B: Hell, yeah.
[01:24:52] Speaker A: Hell, yeah. Well, happy pride, everybody.
[01:24:55] Speaker B: Yes, indeed, yes.
[01:24:57] Speaker A: Have a great pride month.
[01:24:59] Speaker B: I hope it goes.
[01:24:59] Speaker A: Have a great June.
[01:25:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
Get excited for all of that corporate rainbow washing that will immediately disappear at 1159 on July. June 31. 30th. Yes, June 30.
Just like our podcast will disappear forever.
No, we won't disappear forever.
[01:25:21] Speaker A: Never.
[01:25:22] Speaker B: Never. And we'll tell you to be proud even after June is over.
[01:25:27] Speaker A: So, you know we're better than target.
[01:25:30] Speaker B: Yeah, they have more money than take that, unfortunately.
[01:25:34] Speaker A: But we have the moral high ground.
[01:25:37] Speaker B: Yeah, we. Is that how you're gonna say it, Johnny?
[01:25:42] Speaker A: I have the high ground. Target.
All right, cool.
[01:26:26] Speaker B: Nice. I just got $32, Johnny.
[01:26:29] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[01:26:30] Speaker B: From Instagram settlement.
[01:26:33] Speaker A: Congratulations.
[01:26:34] Speaker B: Stop. I'm rich. You know how many spawn comics I can buy with that? About ten, maybe eleven if I squeeze.
