Episode 51: The History of Shazam

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Right, everyone, welcome to another episode of nerdfficent Um. Your host,
if you wide away and sitting across from me as always,
is Danny Fernandez. How are you doing today, I'm doing good, Iffy,
I'm feeling Why do you giggle because you're like clutching
yourself as you said, Yes, because we're joined by someone
that I'm really excited about, me too, very excited. Yeah, great,

(00:34):
good friend of ours. Host over at Collider Heroes you
do Callisto six at geek and Sundry was on Valiant
for a spell Wednesday club at G and S for
a bit, and she's now at d C Daily. Yeah,
and she was on an RPG show with us as well. So,
ladies and gentlemen, put your hands together wherever you are

(00:56):
in your office, cubicle, on the train, or just sitting
on the sidewalk. For Amy Dallin, I am being astonishingly welcomed,
just welcomed, beyond my ability to cope so much for
having me. Yes, So I think you and I met
when we did that show together, Vanquished, Yeah, Vanquished. It

(01:17):
was a Valiant It was after the Valiant comics, but
you you also worked I think at that time you
were working at a comic book shop. As what I mean,
how did you get into when did you first pick
up a like? What was your first memory of comics?
When you got into comics? So I I do work
at a shop. I have worked there for many years.

(01:39):
But I think, like the comic thing with me goes
back mostly as far as I can remember, it was.
You know, I think we all read whatever was around.
It's like one of my weird side missions is to
remind everyone that they already read comics. Because if you
read Archie, or if you read newspaper comics, or if
you grew up on Asterix and Tintin, like, those are
all comics. Comics have been in your brain. But I

(02:00):
definitely hit like the X Men the animated series, and
Batman the animated series, like and then just off to
the races after that. So yeah, comics comics quickly followed.
I grew up on Calvin and Hobbes, Jim and the
Sunday funnies. Like my dad and I used to have
a like coffee. He would take me out on Sunday mornings.

(02:21):
We would go and get coffee, like me and him,
and he would give me that that section of the newspaper.
It was always my favorite that in Far Side. Yeah,
that's that's what I would read as I wanted to
read comics. Comics quote unquote so bad. But my dad,
you know, never was putting money out for it. He
was like, you usually read books. And I was like,
the parents just know, reading comics is reading. Don't fall

(02:43):
into my dad's trap. You could have a son that's
a doctor instead of a comedian. Uh. But I do
remember it was Sunday funnies for me. And then one
time when I was in a thrifty remember those uh,
and they had they were selling comics and they I
was able to grab Bloodshot and those were like the
two I grab. Because of course it was the nineties

(03:04):
and I was a young boy, so I was like murder.
That was the like as a kid, we'd be on
road trips and it would be you'd just be like
a gas station. It would be like a three pack
of random comics, one issue of Magnus Robot Fighter and
one issue and you would just be like, I'll figure
it out. I don't know who these people are, but
I will, you know. And it was there was some

(03:24):
of that joy of just like whatever you happened to
come across. We were all just so hungry for Yeah.
Also there was that short stint where they had the
Spider Man comic in the Sunday Funnies and that's I
lived for it. But but it would like it wasn't
consistent whatever, probably because my dad wasn't getting the same paper,
but like sometimes it would be there, and that's what
initially was like, I need to find Spider me. Yeah.

(03:47):
It's so funny because we don't really consider I think,
like Garfield and Peanuts and stuff to be comics, but
they are. They absolutely are, and they grow out of
the same traditions. Like in some ways, newspaper comics came first,
and then they were like, what if we bind them
up in magazines, maybe that'll work, and the you know,
the whole thing fit into itself, and now web comics
are kind of inheriting both legacies. It's yeah, it's super fascinating.

(04:07):
It's crazy to see how much the web comic industry
has blown up, you know. Yeah. Yeah, I have a
friend Austin Murrie. She does a web comic Soul on Hold,
and she has like over like a hundred thousand people
ready to read it. And I was like, man, I
didn't know the community was booming because I tried to
do web comics when I was in high school. It
was called Evolution Manga's yeah, because I was a weep,

(04:29):
so I was like, we're not making comics, we're making manga. Yeah.
It was real cool too, because like the site I
mentioned before, Polly Carbon Bbs, there was one guy from
the site who I knew from there who did comics
and I was like, hey, just send them to me.
And I was just gonna upload pages to this website
because I learned how to make websites. And they're still there.
I mean, don't go to you can google Evolution mangas.

(04:52):
Make sure all your blockers are up because it is
one of the because it's so funny because websites are
almost like buildings if you just leave them online. Like
that site has been live since I was in high school.
It's still live to this day, and now it's just
infected and slow. It's just like a building that if
it was unattended for all these years, it's just that. Yeah.

(05:15):
Did you hear about how my Space finally deleted and
everyone's like thank god. I mean there's a ton of
people that were really upset because they had you know,
I guess high school photos and things on there. But
I think like us were like cool, cool, don't have
to worry about that ever again. And my angsty like

(05:36):
my chemical romance, you know, bio and something corporate Jack's
mannequin that was my That was my Oh yeah, like
so cal Rot because I grew up here, um and
in uh in Orange County and then later in Texas.
But yeah, so that was my angsty. Like Warped Tour

(05:56):
years you're saying is gone now, I'm so sad. No,
I mean, but the that meat that that like that
rock isn't as prevalent, I would say today as it
used to be. And I definitely don't go to the
although we did go to Warp Tour. If you remember
last year, right, we went to Warp Tour because Valiant,

(06:17):
who we had our show with, was sponsoring Warp Tour.
It was really cool how comics and music crossed over
in that way that it became like more mainstream with
them because they Valiant had a bunch of their characters
and stuff at Warped Tour and they were on all
of their all of their um, yeah, their flyers and stuff.

(06:38):
So I did go recently, so full circle it was
all relevant working. Isn't that weird? Super full circle? I
guess I wanted to know, how did you move from
just liking comics to doing what you do now? I mean,
if he and I had an episode about how we
got into it, But how did you make that jump
to like being at Geek and Sunjury or working at
a comic bookstore, Like what made it turn from just

(06:59):
a hobby to your career? That that's a really good
question because it was always that, like that thing that
I was doing instead of whatever I was supposed to
be doing. Obviously, um, I did not major in comics,
but I you know, I had always been interested in
entertainment stuff. And I moved out here after school, uh,
and I needed just like a day job, and it

(07:21):
was just that, you know, you always had that like, oh,
I'd love to work in a bookstore, comic bookstore. And
I got lucky and I asked at the right store
on the right day, a lovely place called House of
Secrets in Burbank, and it just it like that love
and that joy kind of took over. And at the
same time I was studying entertainment and I was studying
communication and all this stuff, and just the sort of

(07:42):
right weird sequence of Domino's fell that I got to
know some of the folks over a Geek and Sundry
and they were launching this was this is ancient internet
history now, but they were launching a vlogs channel, like
a side channel, which would be people sort of making
videos about their own interests. And I had never made
videos before, but at that point had accumulated like a
lot of hours of talking about Nerds stuff because we

(08:05):
can't be stopped. We all accidentally developed that skill because
we're like, okay, we got ten minutes at lunch break,
and I'm gonna convince you that this is awesome. You know.
It's it's a muscle that to some extent, we all
hone because we are unstoppable monsters of loving things. And
uh So, somehow that that all just came together, and
I learned enough about making videos to start shooting some

(08:26):
stuff in my bedroom and talking about comics, and then
just one thing led to another, and now I've gotten
to do a whole lot of explaining Nerds stuff and
things I care about. Two folks and we've landed in
this bizarre world where we all met each other playing
an RPG show and it's all very unrealistic but really
really fun. Super unrealistic, you know, Like that's one of
the things where it's like, at this point in our careers,

(08:46):
if we were to go back to our younger selves
and try and explain what we're doing now, they'd be like,
you're a liar charlatan who's trying to get me to
not focus on school so that I can so you
can take my life. Uh yeah, Yet, speaking of taking life,
Shazam takes life in theaters in the coming days, in

(09:12):
the coming days, And now we're here to talk about
the origins the comic book. And if you've never heard
of Shazam and you're going in blind, guess what we're
gonna give you. You know, a little info about Shazam
and me and Amy talked about this during my Collider's
Heroes appearances. If there's something you really wanted to just

(09:32):
talk about regarding Shazam, uh And I think that's a
fun way to start off, which is the lawsuit. Yes, okay,
so that thing I mentioned about, like, how can I
make this interesting? I am fascinated by this because the
short version is that Shazam used to out sill Superman
DC suit out of existence. Then eventually they bought the

(09:53):
rights and now they can't use the name, and it's
just like the full version of that, and like, as
a side note, out of left field indirectly inspired one
of the greatest temporarily lost works in comics, because Alan
Moore's Miracle Man is traced back to this exact same
legal nonsense. Uh So, I don't know how, how, how
how deep into this can we go. We touched just
a tiny bit. We touched on it in our Captain

(10:15):
Marvel episode because there's no way to not talk about
it because it was originally Captain Marvel. So Tiffany and
I touched on it a tiny bit. But um, yeah,
so essentially he was at Fawcett Comics, right, so that
was his when he originally that was where we trace
everything back to. But it is essentially they were copying Superman,
Is that correct? Ish? It's one of those like we

(10:37):
we can't exactly pull them up and ask them, but
they're so how much are folks listening? Maybe should be
some familiarity with the Golden Age of comics. Uh. So
comics as we know them, like binding them up in
magazines and telling serialized stories kind of come into their
own other come into existence in the late nineteen thirties,

(10:58):
and like the Big Guy, the one out the gate. Uh,
the somehow just immediately set it off with Iron was
Superman in Action Comics number one. Uh. And that's by
whatever cover date February. I want to say, Uh, there
have already been like, he's immediately a sensation. He's selling
like crazy. Oddly enough, they designed him to be a

(11:19):
newspaper strip. Uh, it didn't sell, so they pasted it
together and made a comic out of it. Uh. But
he's immediately sensation. And people do legitimately start running to
be like, we need a Superman, get us a Superman.
And you can interpret that to mean literally copy Superman,
which some people definitely did, or you could mean we
would like a hit comic. Make it about a strong guy.
And somewhere in the middle of that you get Fawcett Comics,

(11:43):
who set out to create. If you look at the
covers of the the first issues as we know them,
it's it's a strong guy in a cape throwing a
car there's there's a lot of common ground there, but
it is funny because to us as readers now, these
characters are huge July dissimilar. There's really not like for
a comic book reader in twenty nineteen, there's basically nothing

(12:05):
in common between I am the last son of an
alien race who has powers because of our son and
saves the world as an adult named Clark Kent, and
also Superman and uh, the the other version, which is
I am a twelve to sixteen year old homeless newspaper
selling kid who shouts a magic word that a wizard
gave me and turns into Like for us, those are

(12:27):
totally different concepts, but if you put your brain back
in like nineteen thirty eight to nineteen forty, they were
sort of like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we just invented this.
I'm wearing long underwear and I'm incredibly strong and pretty
much bulletproof and do similar things and d c. Like
as soon as they had Superman, they had to start
fighting all of these knockoffs, some of the some of
which were definitely a hundred percent knockoffs because there were

(12:49):
a lot of shady people in comics and you know,
still continue to be, but especially back then, they were
all like bootlegging half the time. Uh, that's a whole
thing with paper supplies actually came in with like liquor
boot legging. Anyway, comics are shady, and d C from
the very start was fending off imitations. So even though

(13:10):
Shazam to us seems very very different, they they like
one of their first cases came up before this particular
judge with this crazy name Billings learned hand was the
judge in one of these first cases that was like,
clearly an infringement. Strong guy does all this stuff you're
doing Superman, You're not allowed to do that. And uh.
In nineteen forty one, I want to say, d C

(13:30):
filed suit against Fawcett for their substantially similar Captain Marvel
character or what seemed at the time like you know,
a substantially similar one who, by the way, over as
I'm sure y'all are also going to get into at
some point, starts out selling Superman, was the most top
selling comic for its time, becomes wildly popular, gets a

(13:51):
whole extended family, basically invents the extended family of superheroes
before super right. Uh, and there's all these reasons that
you might be like not happy that this other magazine
exactly would piss me off so much. If I created
Superman and someone bootlegged him and then it out sold me,

(14:13):
that would be that would be Anyways, they made up
because they're both at the same franchise now, so that's cool,
but it always please continue. But like you know, the
legal stuff takes forever, right, So the suits filed in
like nineteen forty one and a decision doesn't come down
until like nineteen and you can look into this. It
is this totally bizarre technicality about whether DC shared the

(14:38):
rights with this company that was helped publishing a newspaper
comic and therefore had forfeited something about the copyright. So
the weird thing is that first result comes down and
Faucet wins. There's this weird technicality that sort of says like, oh, actually,
we're throwing this out because of whatever. So obviously d
C appeals or the company that we now know as
d C, which was probably National Periodical at the time.

(15:00):
That's the problem. Comic book company names change all the time. Uh,
So they appeal and they land in front of Judge
Billings learned hand the same dude, who by this time,
like eight or twelve years earlier, had been on one
of the very first Superman infringement cases. Ends up the
appeals guy who's looking at this like a newly renewed fight,

(15:22):
and he basically says that technicality thing was dumb. It's
obvious that they weren't that this thing doesn't cause them
to lose their copyright. And I do, looking at what
you all presented, it seems clear that some level of
copying existed. But essentially what he said is, I'm taking
it back down to the other courts, and to settle this,
you need to find the specific examples, and that would

(15:44):
mean both companies going through the entire history by this time,
the like twelve to fourteen years of publishing of each
of these to be like the first time you bounced
a bullet up your chest, the first time you jumped
real high the first time, and to sort of fight
it out count by count. Now, since he had also
said basically, you did establish that some level of copying existed,

(16:07):
Fawcett but was sort of like, this doesn't look great
for us, because he's basically saying you're gonna lose at
least some of this fight if you go back down
to the lower courts and settle it all right. Uh,
And by this time, it is the early nineteen fifties
and superheroes go out of style, so already the circulation
is falling. Already, everybody's like this superhero bubble is bursting,

(16:30):
and uh, we're not sure it's ever coming back. Now,
comic book fans know that it's coming back. There's gonna
be a thing called the Silver Age. It's only a
couple of years away. It's gonna inject new life into
comics and totally reinvent thing. Spider Man is gonna get here,
How Jordan and Barry Allen are going to get here? Uh?
The X Men and the Fantastic Four. It's all about
to blow up. But in the early fifties it looked

(16:50):
like that part was dying, so essentially fast goes Okay,
So it looks like we're gonna lose if we fight
this out, and uh, these magazines aren't selling like they
used to, so let's just basically call it a day.
They they had to pay the rumor is four hundred
thousand dollars plus costs to d C and agreed to
stop publishing their Captain Marvel character. Didn't that put them

(17:13):
out of business? I believe that they, like they either
stopped doing I don't. I don't know. I feel like
Fawcett Comics stopped being a thing, and I don't know,
to us, they had to fire there too. Yeah, Fawcett
shut down its comics division in the autumn of nineteen
fifty three and fired its comic book staff. Yeah so,
and then two of them, Auto Binder and Kurt Shaffing

(17:36):
Burger ended up at d C, Yes, being prominent members
of the creative team for the Superman related comics from
nineteen fifty four through the nineteen sixties. It's just funny
that it's like, well, we got fired. Now we're going
to work on the thing that we were going up against.
But yeah, so that that sounds like it shut them
at least their comics part. Uh So. In the meantime,

(17:58):
all these so so Billy Batson a ka Shazam as
I'm now finally used to calling him because spoiler alert,
that's just his name now due to complicated shenanigans that
will follow all of his like supporting cast and family
like Mary Marvel and Captain Marvel Jr. And all that stuff.
You you eventually got Supergirl, Uh, I think co created

(18:19):
by Auto Binder, who had worked on all of the
Captain Marvel stuff. Uh, you get like all this talent
is still there. They're still working on comics. Superman grows
the rest of his family, so they they sort of
the borrowing legacy is completed there and uh they yeah,
they survive on in It's fascinating because those original comics
that you're talking about, it says shah Zam across the

(18:41):
comic book, and then underneath that it says the original
Captain Marvel. Now, I think that is the branding that
they went with in the early seventies when d c
C got the rights, right Yeah. Uh and so so
like a lot of things happened to Captain Marvel because
he missed the sixties. It's one of those things to
comic book fans talk about a lot where essentially he

(19:03):
didn't have a silver age, he had a golden age.
And then when he showed back up, we were in bronze,
which is according to the way fans divide up the
eras of comics, they sort of have different hallmarks, and
Bronze was when they took the the relatability and imagination
and promise of the sixties and they got sort of
a little grittier with it. In the Bronze Age, you

(19:24):
get the punisher. In the Bronze Age, it's often marked
by often you mark the beginning of the Bronze Age
by the death of Gwen Stacy. But Shazam, this like
beautiful childlike big red cheese of a character had no
sort of transitional period. So DC got the rights to
him and brought him back, but it never took off
the way they wanted it to. And it's like, I

(19:46):
was just thinking about this earlier, and I don't know
how to connect these dots, But we always talk about
that and him sort of missing that, and then we
also talk about that there's so many different approaches for
handling the character who is sometimes a kid and sometimes
an adult. And it's weird to me that he now
echoes his own history because he had no middle period.
He only had kid and adult. He missed a whole phase.

(20:08):
You might have covered this on the Captain Marvel episode.
So where does Captain Marvel come in? Like, why did
they go with Captain Marvel after all that Well, I
think that that so he was originally Captain Marvel. I
think they liked the name of it, to be honest,
and with a part of the Marvel family. It was,
you know, before Marvel was Marvel, So I think it
was just the word Marvel just sounded cool, like, oh,
Captain Marvel, and yeah, what what you're getting at there?

(20:30):
I think is the other thing what he missed while
he was gone is that the company that had been
Atlas and Timely rebranded itself as Marvel Comics and became
just the biggest thing in the universe. So that's the
other thing that happened in the sixties while he was
off the scene is that suddenly Marvel was strongly associated
with comics, but it meant something totally different, and like

(20:51):
there's so there's this weird speaking of comics being shady.
There's this other random, tiny company that noticed in the
mid sixties that nobody was using the Captain Marvel name,
and they started this this frankly terrible looking superhero whose
powers that he falls apart, like just all his limbs
fly off, and then he relatable and it went. It
went like four or five issues, and they just kind

(21:13):
of gave up, uh, and Marvel Comics, which by this
time is getting very into like branding themselves. They got
the Soapbox, they've got the Mary Marvel Marching Society, where
they were sort of like, we can't leave that name
sitting around, right, somebody do something. And they got their
own Captain Marvel, which they've had basically ever since. What
was That's what happened in the sixties. I was gonna
say it was funny to me in Uh in Captain

(21:33):
Marvel the film is you know Marvel, which is what
was the original name, Marvel, And it was funny when
people are like, do do you think? Like I think
people didn't make the connection, and we're like, isn't it
awkward that they have to keep saying the name of
their company. I was like kind of but also not
really like yeah it is, but also and then you know,

(21:54):
they like suggest Marvel sounds good, you know, and I'm
just like, just they're flying around, nothing makes sense. It's chill. Uh.
The one comment before we move on that I wanted
to say is the the idea of a character whose
limbs just fall apart reminds me of something from Action League.
Now do you remember coblam An Action League. Now, oh god,

(22:15):
there's like nineties Nickelodeon one was just showing me. It
was a thing that I missed. But my favorite was
a melt man with the power to melt. Oh gosh,
so if if if, I don't know if this is
the right time for it. But the other hilarious thing

(22:35):
that happened when Fawcett shut down is that there had
been a company in England that was basically a big
part of their business and then was just to republish
these very popular Captain Marvel adventures, right, and then all
of a sudden, out of what seemed to them like nowhere,
it was like just kidding, there are no more uh,
And so they sort of scrambled around and got one
of their guys to be like, we need something to

(22:57):
replace that strip, and that was the birth of a character,
Old Marvel Man in the nineteen fifties in England. Uh,
we need aurus here, to be honest, So these people
need a thesaurus. There are other words you could have
gone with. So Mike Anglo creates marvel Man, who shouts kimota,
which is the word atomic backwards to transform into his

(23:18):
alter ego. Uh. Not like Shazam at all. Definitely not.
And I love that. It's like someone literally just got
sued over this guy's But okay, so they do marvel Man.
That happens for a few years, something happens, they go
out of business. Is a little bit vague, but one
British kid was like on vacation reading Young marvel Man,
which was their version of Captain Marvel jr. Uh, you know,

(23:38):
possibly similarly legally distinct uh, and he like it stayed
in his little kid brain and then he grew up
and he became Alan Moore and eventually he was like,
I want to bring back that that British superhero that
I remember from being a kid. But here's what I
think would happen like in a dark, messed up version
of that. YadA YadA YadA. That comic is called marvel Man,

(23:59):
which became a Miracle Man when they published it here,
which got involved in a totally unrelated series of lawsuits,
and long story short, those rights have now landed at Marvel.
You know, I don't know why I thought you were
gonna be like that kid grew up to beat Jeff
John's amazing. I'm sure. I'm sure he has Oh of course, yeah,
because everyone that's involved. I feel like in comic book

(24:21):
writing grew up with comics. I grew up with comics.
We have to take a really quick break, and then
we're going to break down the character of Shazam. Right,
we go back, Oh right, welcome back, y'all, and we're
back here with Danny and Amy and we're gonna we're

(24:42):
gonna jump into this. So you know this. That was
a fun factoid that you get to talk about with
your friends as you sit outside the theater waiting to
go in. Uh, it's it's wild. It's great. And now
that that's out of the way, let's talk about the
product itself and start with Billy Batson. I think that's
the one thing everybody knows about the movie now and

(25:03):
now about the property, which has been the same. And
that's what I've kind of always liked about Shazam is
this hero seems like the one hero that you get
to be like, you know that kind of well, it
would be like if I had superheroes. Uh, And I'm
excited about the movie kind of exploring that idea. And
I love that because I feel like probably part of

(25:23):
the reason it went over so well is that it is?
It is the most basic wish fulfillment of like, I'm
a kid, I'm not strong, I can't fly. What if
I had a magic word that made me Earth's mightiest mortal?
Like done, everyone's just like yep in go on. Uh So.
Billy Batson has had several different origins. They've periodically revamped

(25:45):
and tried to retell it, but they all have common DNA,
which is that he is a kid. He is usually
a homeless kid or living in a foster home, occasionally
living with like a mean uncle, but but generally an
orphan Billy bats And who originally like a selling newspapers
on the street in what I feel like in the

(26:05):
forties where they were all like, we're all depression kids.
This sea. Yeah, kids work, that's just the thing they do.
Like you know, these stories are half of them are
being written and drawn by seventeen year olds. We've been
supporting their families for years, so I feel like that
seemed more normal back then, where now we're like, you
put a kid in danger. Uh. Original Billy Patson is
just a kid with a heart of gold who usually

(26:26):
lives on the streets and meets a mysterious stranger who
convinces him to go. In this case, the original one
is into a subway tunnel. So crazy it is, it's
he's in a trench code, and especially if this comic
is for kids, he's just like the shady dude and
a trench cod Like, hey, kid, come down to the

(26:47):
subway with me. I got something to show you. It's
a huge don't try this at home. But a mysterious
figure shows up calls him down. What I love about
the mix of like, because these comics are so unafraid
of magic that they're just like, it's a mad Jack subway.
Why wouldn't it be a magic subway? He gets on
a subway, it takes him off to a magical place
we now know is the Rock of Eternity. He walks

(27:08):
past these very menacing statues of the seven Deadly Sins
of mankind uh, and he meets a second mysterious figure,
the wizard Shazam, who tells him, essentially, you are the
candidate I've been looking for that I can invest my
powers in. Essentially I don't have long. You are the

(27:28):
right candidate. Here's how it works. You say my name
and you will be transformed, and his name, of course,
is an extremely reasonable and normal acronym. Yes it is.
Let's see chasm s for the wisdom of Solomon, h
for the strength of Hercules, for the stamina of Atlas,

(27:49):
Z for the power of Zeus, including his ability to
summon thunderbolts, a courage of Achilles, and m the speed
of Mercury. So originally that was is the wizard's name Shazam,
which and that's his his word of power. His power
gets shared eventually with the other members of the Shazam family,
with Mary Marvel, with Captain Marvel Jr. Who all have

(28:10):
their own independent origins and kind of transformation uh personas,
but uh that that has more or less staid consistent
wizard sins, magic word, mightiest, mortal. One thing that has
changed over time is that, I think, in part to
set him apart from other characters. Originally he was written
as very much like when he turns into Shazam or

(28:33):
what would have been Captain Marvel. He's a fully grown dude.
We're sort of like, oh, little Billy. That was a
close one. And what he missed is that period in
the sixties where we tried to get like psychologically realistic
with comics, so people afterwards have been sort of trying
to put the pieces together of like are they two
different people? Does he have a kid brain and an
adult body? And what we're settling into now is much
closer to the kid brain in the adult body thing.

(28:55):
That wisdom of Solomon is like a sometimes feature but
oh right, but it is interesting because that does set
him apart being essentially just like a kid in a giant,
powerful body. And that's fun with now. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
superhero big. And then I was gonna say so his yeah,
his family, the Marvel family, which later I think they

(29:16):
moved to Shazam family. I think so, yeah, it took over,
which sounds like a normal name to have on your mail.
Just have everyone this is my this, you know. I
think that's so funny about comics where we talked I
think we talked about this with the in the Harley
Quinn episode about how the villains like Edward did Enigma
and it was like, oh, I wonder who he is.

(29:40):
I wonder who he is? Um, I do love those
original comics. They have that like a lot of they
get made fun of for being cheesy, but like there's
so much fun to read, and there's so much fun
goofiness in them, and they are so unafraid of things.
Like an original character from those stories is TALKI Tani
the tiger. He is a tiger who talks. That's he's
not like you know, later on people would get embarrassed

(30:02):
about stuff like that. They'd be like, we need to
come up with a complicated reason that this tiger talks.
And those comics were just like, I don't know, Happy
the Marvel Bunny. I was about to say that, yes,
Happy the Marvel Bunny. So then let's dive in a
little bit to his villains, because he has two super
famous villains, and one of them that I thought was
going to be This isn't a spoiler. This is like

(30:23):
I thought he was going I haven't seen the film yet,
but I thought Black Adam was going to be But
Black Black Adams getting a solo film apparently, Yeah, and
that might be The Rock, it was announced. But then
the Rock is like in his own suit? Whatever is
going on with Hobbs and Shaw? I'm like, what is this?
Now a superhero? Is if he is the Fast and

(30:43):
Furious franchise? Now a superhero? Did you not see the
new trailer is now Superhuman and I'm here for it.
I love it. I love that he was like, Oh,
everyone's doing the superhero stuff, we should just make a
super Let's make our fast and furious thing just superhero. Um. Okay,
so yeah, let's start with Black Adam. Okay. So Black
Adam actually had essentially one appearance in the Golden Age,

(31:06):
and it's a fantastic story with a great ending that
you kind of have to read to believe. But he
was a really intriguing character. The idea behind Black Adam
is that Billy is not the first champion that the
Wizards or the Elders that's associated with have chosen. They
chose someone a few thousand years ago and it went badly.
This has been told a few different times, and Black

(31:27):
Adam even spent some time as a hero, but usually
he's just a villain that sort of represents what could
go wrong if you chose the wrong candidate for this power. Um.
The The very first origin is that like he went
super corrupt and mad with power, the exiled him to
the other side of the galaxy and he literally has
spent the intervening thousands of years flying here. That was
like the the All the Explanation United in the Golden Age. Uh.

(31:50):
But he is has become the best known of of
the Shazam villains over time. So it was interesting when
they went to make the movie where we were like, oh, okay,
they're gonna have a right Oh my god, the Rock
is gonna be great. Although for the record, he also
would have been an amazing Captain Marvel. Uh. And so
then they were like, no, just kidding, it's going to
be its own movie, and none of us know what

(32:10):
that means yet. I honestly, my opinion of that was,
and I was talking to Danna, producer before they started,
is the Rock is such a big he has to
be the star, you know what I mean. He's such
a bit. He's the biggest movie star that there is.
I feel like out right now, like he sells like
no one sells. So if you're gonna get if you're
gonna put him in a movie, he needs to be

(32:30):
the star of the movie. And not that was my
opinion on it. They were like, oh, maybe we'll make
him this side villain, and then they were like, oh,
we're just gonna give him his whole whole entire film.
I really want to know if he's still a villain
in that film or if they're doing like, oh, maybe
the potentially I guess, but like the briefly existing good
guy version of him, well I don't even know about that,
but I think that they're starting to dabble more into

(32:52):
And this is what I do love how it's told
that he might be a villain. But it's like with Venom,
like it's um, but you're rooting or him. Yeah, right,
so it's the solo film, but for some reason, you're
rooting for someone that you normally wouldn't necessarily be depending
on how it's told. And they have a lot of
room for that with the uh, I guess semi spoilers

(33:13):
for the two thousand eleven UH redo or the the
two thousand eleven two now era redo of the Shazam character.
We're finally just calling him Shazam because it simplifies matters. Uh.
But they tweaked Billy for that. They they gave him
kind of a new, different family situation, but that's still

(33:33):
like comes clearly from that same legacy, but they added
some new characters who I love, and they've they've kind
of gone with that version, going forward, but they added
some new dimensions to Black Adam's story that I wonder
if our plans for like long term how to make
more out of that character. He's still villainous in that,
but they give it some sort of like some some
interesting shading that that I think might be might be

(33:56):
what they're playing off in the long term. Yeah, So
the New fifty two run, the Twin eleven run, I
think is what is mainly what this film. Have you
seen it already? I have? Okay, So if he and
I haven't seen it, so and he's not going to
give anything away essentially, but if we're it's okay, but
we're so. Essentially that is what they've based this current character.

(34:17):
The film adaptation is based off of the New fifty
two definitely, Like the story isn't the same story exactly,
but the mythology they're using for this film is very
clearly that incarnation of Billy and his story. Okay, if
that makes sense. So Black Adam had also has does
he also say shazam? I believe that is also his

(34:37):
magic word yet? Okay? Because he has s the stamina
of shoe h, the speed of here A, the strength
of amen Z, the wisdom. Why does he have different
he got different elders. I guess he was cursed from
the beginning. See this is not his fault, it was
it was gave Billy the good elders was Greek gods.

(35:02):
These all seem like they're yet they're Egyptian deities because
he originally he was sort of sort of Egypt based.
And then they invented a country for him to be from,
something I could kind of give it its own history. Uh,
and they they got involved, like we haven't even talked
about there was a seventies MTV show and there was
a female super here. They made up for that who
then has become part of the mythology. Her name is

(35:24):
Isis That does not work out great for We're definitely
going to get a name changed by the movie, but
that they've folded that into sort of the fake country
that they made up for Black Adam to be from.
But I I feel like even when Mary Marvel gets
her powers, they give it different female goddesses for those
letters to be from. I think it's just seemed fun

(35:45):
is probably the reason. Or they were playing off the
fact that he's supposed to be old enough to make
using the Greek gods wouldn't make any sense. Weird coincidence though,
Good job wizard, all right, yeah yeah, So the you
know we we did talk about our was with the
rock not being there. But it seems like the villain
that is going to be fit featured is Dr Savanna.
Can you tell us more about the comic book version

(36:07):
of Dr Savanna gives give some people some some basis. So,
the comic version of Dr Savannah is one of the
oldest supervillains in comics, and he started out as just
your basic evil mad scientist. Apparently his likeness was based
on Max Shrek being no s fraw to uh and
it was just sort of like just a creepy faced

(36:27):
dude who has bad idea plans for the world. He
was less on the sort of extreme magic and monster
society and other end and and more just a a
standard uh I I have plans for domination and lots
of evil schemes and I'm I'm sinister involved. Now, the
New fifty two version of him is interesting because they're

(36:50):
giving him this this relationship with magic. Like the New
fifty two comics, he has this magic eye that lets
him see through things and kind of gets him involved
in the mythology side of it in sort of a
more integrated way. But his basic deal has just usually
been that he's he's a bad dude, and Captain Marven
Lieza stop him. People aren't gonna like this, but some
of these picks, he looks a little like Heisenberg Um

(37:13):
and the doctor from Nightmare Before Christmas. Definitely, Sally, people
love my impressions if he they love them. You know,
they love it when you're present in the discord or
you were in there so funny, so it takes so funny.

(37:34):
So he there's also just for the old school villains,
you get some of the like the super out there ones.
There's tons of weird monsters that he fights. There's literally
the Monster Society of Evil that there have been a
couple of versions of. There's like an evil little worm
named Mr. Mind who speaks out of a speaker. This
is if you I have to a book recommendation. There
is a hardcover that's called The seventy five Years of

(37:55):
Shazam or something like that the DC put out that's
just stories from different ear risk that kind of walk
you through all of these different versions of the character.
And so the Mr mind stuff in the Golden Ages,
some of the most fun bonkers like this, what what happened?
He took over a movie studio and now he's trying
to captain Captain trapped Captain Marvel into like it's it's

(38:16):
this very, very bizarre and out their Golden age delight.
I love this character. I think it's really fun that
a bunch of people are about to know who he is.
And I just had to throw a shout out for
all the weird stuff. Do people still call him Captain Marvel?
We shouldn't, but we do. Okay, it's a hard habit
to break. There's a solo series he has right now

(38:36):
and they made, uh, like they came really close to
making a saying Captain Marvel joke, um, and they just
sort of backed up. But we all know what's happening.
But his name is Shazam now and we're getting used
to it, and he just, you know, can't say it.
I do love the fact that Bree Larson, who had
the opening weekend of her film like went to the

(38:57):
theaters and was she had that picture of her that
I conic one now where she's like drinking from a
cut like a soda cup and then has some popcorn,
and then Zachary Levi also took the same exact and
everyone tweeted like Captain Marvel's you know, honestly so great.
I think it's beautiful because, especially like ten fifteen years ago,
if you told me Billy Batson and Carol Danvers are

(39:18):
both getting movies, and not only are they both getting movies,
they're coming out a month apart, I would have called
you a liar. I would have been like, there's just
no way that that is happening. I would love that,
but it's not at all realistic. So anyway, I love
the future. It gives us awesome things, like to Captain
Marvel movies back to back. I know, it's it's such

(39:38):
a beautiful thing and so much fun. I mean, man,
it's a good time to be a comic book fan,
I must say. But you know it's it's it about
that time. We're about to go on a quick break
and then we're gonna come back, give a few closing thoughts,
and then I'm gonna hit you with a fun question
uh that I'm gonna wait till the moment that I
asked it to let you know, see you after this

(40:00):
brain and we are back. So in January seventeen, d
C and New Line Cinema announced the Shazam film. Do
you remember I don't really quite remember when this was
originally announced, like how everyone felt about it was at

(40:22):
the same time that was Zachary announced also right away?
Or did we know? I feel like there was a
while before we got zach Levi. It was kind of
for me. It was the puzzle piece that I was like, Oh, okay,
this is a really fun choice. I could be remembering
that wrong, but I remember being confused about like why
they were separating the movies. And you know, I had

(40:43):
had my fan casting that I thought would be cool
if Dwayne Johnson played him, or like played both of
them and all this, and I had time. I just
thought that what they should have look at you. That
would have been so funny to have the rock playing
both Shazam and Black Adam. He would have been a
lip kita. That would have been really cool. But I

(41:03):
had time to wonder about that and let all that
time pass, and then I was ready to be like, okay,
but what are we actually doing when they cast Achary
Levi and I was like, oh, this is going to
be fun. Yes. In July of that year, David F.
Sandberg was confirmed as a director, which I thought was
really cool and interesting me. He's typically known for directing horror. Um,
he did lights Out. We talked about this on our

(41:23):
How We Got here? Uh podcast? But my favorite thing
ever is his lights Out short, which is terrifying and
beautiful and under three minutes and just oh it's so great. Uh.
And then yeah, he directed lights Out. He did Annabelle, right,
is that correct? So it was an interesting toys that
they picked him, but one so far, a lot of
the reviews have been really great about it. And then yes,

(41:45):
in October seventeen, they cast Zachary Levi and then Asher
Angel who plays Billy Batson, Little Billy Batson. So and
then of course, um Dr Savannah is Mark Strong is
just fun to watch at all times. But definitely was like, oh,
we're just I'm I'm excited from all folks to see

(42:09):
the film because he was just like, I'm I'm who
now got it, Let's do this. He has a villainous energy,
is what I think. He's a very villainous Patterson. So
where do you We're not going to get into the film, Um,
we don't want to spoil anything. Yeah, no spoilers, But
where do you see the DC, because there's so much
change happening right now. Yeah, not to totally just behind it,

(42:33):
but I do think this is a good point to
kind of discuss that this is and I think just
what both of you all have been saying and welcome
change in the DC universe. And I've said this before.
I think I said this on Coliner Heroes, and I
said this on another podcast before that. This is kind
of DC's first foray into something fun, exciting and not
necessarily putting the same dark lens filter over all of

(42:53):
their movies. So yeah, what do what do you What
do you think for the future, And what's another fun,
not dark movie you think the DC should take on.
It's an interesting question because you know, if you if
you sort of zoom out to all of DC history,
they've done a bunch of different tones, and sometimes I
feel like we get unfair where we're sort of like,
if the last several films have been this thing, we

(43:15):
feel like they've never done anything else. And the last
several ones were Aquaman, which wasn't and Wonder Woman, which
wasn't And yeah, yeah, I Wonder Woman I still view
as a war Yeah, now you're a period piece. That's
exactly what it was. And it was, you know, to
you know, pat my own stuff on the back. And
the reason I think the last few films were successful

(43:36):
were two major things. The one thing that I'm gonna
pat myself on the back is I said, what Marvel
was doing right right, is that they choose a genre
for their films. You can even go back to I
think during the m c U episode, I bring that up,
and that's what they've done. They took Wonder Woman, was like,
this is gonna be a World War two war movie,
because if you just took out Wonder Woman and just
put like a general in her position, that that could

(43:58):
be any war movie, you know. And the fact it's
just happened to have a superhero. And that's I think
every good superhero movie just happens to have a superhero.
I haven't seen Aquaman yet, but it seems like a
fun water romp or whatever. Yeah, and this is going
to be a fun coming of age film. And that's
why these three are so successful. I don't think there's
anything wrong with Dark I think the Dark Knight trilogy

(44:22):
is great. You know, I'll be a little overrated, you know,
I think, you know, yeah, I think it's I think
the Dark Knight was phenomenal and carried the other two
up in how much in how much everyone likes them.
I think The Dark Knight was great and amazing. I
think Dark Knight is not underrated. I said, it's that

(44:45):
thing is that thing is over I mean it was
a great entry, but just as as I mean, just so,
here's where I totally agree with you. I love those movies,
but I do think that it was sort of a
mistake in the aftermath of them to assume that all
movies needed to be those movies. Those movies were those movies.
And the truth is that like comics is not a genre,

(45:06):
comics is a medium. Superheroes is closer to a genre.
But the truth is that even within that, you get
better stories when you let them Like, you know, I
I think that you don't need to be embarrassed about
being a superhero movie. You don't need to be like
it doesn't even matter if they have powers. You can
let the powers be part of the fun in the magic. Please,
for the love of God, don't ask your fans to

(45:29):
wake up. You came into our world, you came into
our medium. You're making stuff based off of what we liked.
You need to wake up. Zack Snyder. I'm sorry, but
I'm the biggest as a creative. That that made me
scoff so hard because it's like you can't come into
someone's subculture and be like, oh, no, y'all need to
wake up. This is how it should be done, because

(45:49):
it's like, no, bro, we're telling you you're doing it wrong,
and you're you are so what Batman killed that one?
It is funny because it is the thing where it's like, yeah,
it's not the biggest you like, there can be a
Batman that kills We can do that, we can establish that.
I don't think any changes there but to like yell
at everyone and just basically like he he truly did

(46:10):
insult fans. He literally said, you know, and then when
you lost your virginity is like, we're really doing that.
You're literally a the same jock who goofed on nerds
making movies for us, and you're you just revealed yourself.
It really was not that like it. They were not
nice things to say, and it was weird where it
was sort of like, but what you just said, like,

(46:32):
but that is how fans talk to each other. But like,
you know, maybe when we're younger and before we think
through how our words make other people feel. I was
gonna say I had that whole I had a whole
thread on my thing that Coy actually your co host,
Um wrote me. He was like, I'm thinking of you
right now with these punisher comments, because all I wanted

(46:55):
to say was, Um, it wasn't that. I mean, Batman
has killed don't don't at me, but he has like canonically.
And also I mean, if you're counting all the people
he's punched off a building that we don't know if
they lived or not. To me, I consider those casualties.
But whatever. Anyways, you part of the premise of the
fiction is that, like, you know, if Batman just routinely

(47:15):
kills people, then Dark Knight returns, which Snyder and everybody
else loves, including me. Part of the premise of that
film is like what if Batman could like killed like
or not film part of the premise of that story
eased that line. If the line doesn't exist, then the
story doesn't mean anything. So maybe we participate in the fiction.
Maybe we let that be the case, Like, it doesn't

(47:38):
make you dumb to believe in premises of a story.
I think I agree. I think for me it's I'm
okay with people taking risks of like what would it
look like if Batman would And there are actually comics
that do that with him, you know, there are lines
that do that. What if this happened with Batman? Um

(48:00):
for me because people were tweeting him like he has
a code. I'm like, so do doctors and police officers
like you know people, He's also human, which I like
to remind people of. He's one of my favorite characters,
which another thing I had to keep reminding people of
when people got mad because I was like, no, no, no no, no,
I love him. I love that he's human and that
he's flawed and that he makes mistakes for me. But

(48:21):
like hearing from so many people like you were saying
if he I heard from so many fans that were like, no,
this is so important to us, I was like, okay,
I get it now, Like I get it that Also
another thing is the world is so horrific already, why
can't we just believe? And this man that dresses up
like a bat and doesn't kill people. And so for me,
I'm like, sure, fine, you know what, we're already believing

(48:41):
a billionaire dresses up like a bat why not we
just go the extra step and believe that he doesn't
kill So that's exactly the case. It does feel a
little bit like you go back in time to Superman
the movie and you're just like anyone who believes a
man can fly as a sucker, and it's just like, what, no, not, Yeah,
that's and I think that's what it is. It's not
even necessarily explore that are all that that's fine. I

(49:02):
think it's the fact that he's like y'all, the fact
that y'all would question why I would move from the
source material. This is done, like he basically said, Batman's
coat is dumb. And I think that's what drove people
crazy because you feel bad because the man is allowed
to have opinions on Batman. For me, I know and
always people, no, don't come at me and I and

(49:26):
this is the perfect just desserts for everyone who was
asking for the Snyder cut, because I know the people
who are annoyed by this. I know there's some Snyder
cut folks who are like, yeah, but the people who
are annoyed by this are also Snyder cut folks. You
asked for this, this is Is this your king? Is
this your king? If they do like it, that's that's
it's a difference opinion. I might not agree with it,

(49:48):
but like that that's what anyway, I don't know. That's
a separates so is a separate discussion. I think one
thing that I feel like we always seem to agree
on is I am glad when someone finds joy in
a film. So even if I didn't find joy in
a film, I'm glad that somebody that it resonated with someone.
And another thing is for me personally, I don't mind

(50:09):
when filmmakers take risks or want to see a different story.
But also we have dragon Ball evolution, so I shouldn't talk.
So yeah, my my thing is like I just just
because I want to truly like just so no one's confused.
I have no problems with people taking that risk, but
I have a big problem when people don't respect the

(50:30):
source material, when people are kind of spitting on who
you're serving too, because at the end of the day,
those are your fans that you're calling virgins and sitting
in front and telling to wake up. It's like and
the thing that the same thing. I mean, if we're
going way back when who was it. I think it
might have been Azarello who was like challenging someone at
a panel. It's like all these corny comic dudes who

(50:53):
like talk this macheese moost like I grew up in
that life, and if we want to play that game,
catch my fate outside of heart al ah. But we
don't want to do that. We don't want to do that,
we just wanna We're probably just take the criticism and
in succinctly say why instead of trying to be an
insult or because I'm the best at that. And then
if if I hop in that panel, it's gonna be
a much different one when you're talking to the crowd

(51:14):
and no one's challenging you. But if it's me toe
to toe Zack Snyder roast battle, I'll send you home
crying like that's the and and I'm it's just like
it's insulting to have It's almost as if I walked
into a restaurant and before I and I ordered a
steak and the waiters like, oh you ordered a steak, dummy,
that's what it feels like when the other person who's

(51:36):
worked in a comic shop for many years, it is
like the besetting sin of comic shops that people are like,
oh you want that, Well that's terrible, and it's like,
and we see what happens. It creates a culture no
one wants. Don't be that guy. Don't be that guy
behind the counter. Don't be that guy in a conversation.
I don't know, just be nice y'all. Yeah, But in
in the end, you know, I hope you know, whatever

(51:57):
Batman movie you like, I hope you get what you
want out of it. But the second thing I never
mentioned that made all these recent films good. What's the
one thing that was different about all these films? Uh,
besides just the direction they took. They used different directors,
You had different eyes, different visions on it. The reason

(52:17):
the d c U is so dark and gloomy is
because you got the dark and gloomy. You got the
regional managers of Hot Topics directing all of the you know,
the whole universe. So yeah, all the movies look the same.
And that's the thing I was saying on I think
it was screen junkies s JU was like, the reason
Suicide Squad had no chance at succeeding is because what

(52:42):
made Suicide Squad the comic so crazy is because it's
such a dark turn on this thing. Like DC comics
are dark, but Suicide Squad was dark dark. You had
a suicidal lead of a team who was going to
do these missions where they weren't supposed to come and
that's dark dark. But if all your movies are dark,
how is this gonna pop out of your collection of movies?

(53:04):
So now, if you have movies like Aquaman, Wonder Woman
and show Zam out there and you do this new
Suicide Squad that guns working on, it's gonna pop when
you see it because you're gonna be like, oh, this
is dark dark. And I know, like even that film
has people who found a ton of joy in it.
But you make like there's a strong case we made
for like, let the different parts of the universe be different,

(53:25):
let them embrace what's good about them. Billy Batson doesn't
need to be involved in any discussions about heroes killing people.
You know, like, it's let this be what it is,
and in terms of what it means for the future,
I hope that people love and find this film. I
hope that they enjoy, like I love that they got
a horror guy, because there's an element of fantasy and
mythology to it. Like what we talked about earlier, those

(53:45):
comics were never afraid to be like you literally got
your powers from a wizard. You're gonna You're still gonna
fight Nazis and do all the normal Golden Age comics stuff,
but we're not afraid of the like of monsters and
out there stuff. And I feel like there's so much
more they can do there that I am excited hopefully
we'll get to see happen. But the other thing is like,
don't put all that weight on one movie. Just let

(54:05):
this movie be a good time. There was so much
weight on Wonder Woman when you think of how she's terrifying, well,
when you think of how she blew everyone out of
the water and how Patty Janke, it's like just how
amazing that film was. But everything was writing on that film,
you know, and it's and she's a wonder Woman, so
she was up to it. That's true. It's true. I

(54:28):
love her so much. On Heroes, Amy and I just
got to geek out about wonder Woman. I mean, I
just she's my aside from the dragon ball tattoo that
was the other tattoo I was thinking of getting, wonder
Woman is my She is my everything that I aspire
to be. Actually not because I post like third straps
and cuss all the time, which I don't know, you know,
I think I Wonder Woman would be doing for that.

(54:51):
So the last question I want to ask Amy actually
has just a simple question that I think will help
a lot of listeners. So one slid in a d
M S recently. It was Toemy wah Ao Tomi Watt
Underscore on Twitter and he said, Hey, man, love Nerdificent
you do? Uh? You said love what you do on Nerdificent? Question?
Do you read the Marvel DC comics regularly or as

(55:13):
religiously as I hope? Uh? I'm a I'm like a
whole last year behind on comics, maybe even more than that.
And I wanted to know if you have opinions on
where I can jump right in without missing too much,
to which I replied, yo, in all caps, I'm in
the same position. But I'm getting the answer to your
question from Amy Dallin, so we're in good hands. I'll

(55:34):
let you know, Oh, that's so awesome. Uh, depends on
what you are looking for. There there used to be
a rule in comics every comic is someone's first, and
it was one of those like where whatever you're doing,
make sure somebody can jump in right now. And obviously,
these days, because we have most things get collected in
trade paperbacks, most things you expect, like they call it

(55:57):
writing for the trade, where now people are planning out
a lot of arcs and they're sort of like assuming
that you'll try to catch up. So essentially finding any
number one is designed to be a good jumping on
point for folks. But all of the people making these
are working really hard to try and give their a
good jumping on point every few months for every book.
It's an impossible challenge, but that's what they try to do.

(56:17):
So if you if you're specifically like about a year
behind and you just want to marathon some stuff, both
of the major companies have services you can look at.
Marvel Unlimited has a subscription thing where you can digitally
read basically everything six months old and older. Um So,
if there's like a story from the last couple of
years you really want to catch up on, First of all,
your local library might have that trade paperback. Second of all,

(56:40):
your your local comic bookstore might be able to find
that for you. But third of all, you can just
pop around on Marvel Unlimited and look for that. DC
has DC Universe, and that one is more curating, like
especially if you just don't know where to start with
a character. They're doing lists of like best Batman story, Uh,
how to meet the Doom Patrol if you're watching the
TV show on DC Universe. Uh, they're sort of curating

(57:00):
a rotating collection over there for that. Now, if you don't,
if you have a friendly local comic bookstore, go in ask.
If they're not nice, find a different one. But I
promise a lot of us are nice and we're really
excited for you to be there and read some books. Uh.
Pay attention to the company social media because they're working
really hard these days to be like here's our latest

(57:22):
press released about the exciting thing that's happening in a
couple of months. So they just announced that Jonathan Hickman,
who's a writer who has been indie only for the
last couple of years, he's coming back to Marvel. He's
doing some X Men stories and that's kicking off in July.
They just announced it at the Chicago Con. I'm so excited.
If you don't know, Hickman had he was writing Future
Foundation for a bit, which was the continuation of the

(57:44):
Fantastic Four when it was like their whole family, and
it was so good. He's very good at almost everything.
But I like when he takes on teams, so I'm
excited for him. The keys like, don't let it scare you.
There's no wrong place. There's just like whatever calls to you,
back up to the beginning of an arc, or if
they're or they like find out when the writer who's

(58:06):
currently on there took over, and that's usually been designed
as a place for you to jump in. Uh. They
really they want you to start reading their books. You
don't need to know everything. You don't need to read everything.
Libraries can help, the Internet can help. Your friendly local
comics store can help. Comic Xology has an unlimited service
that's just a bunch of stuff you can borrow to
read and check out. If you have an Amazon Prime membership,

(58:29):
I think you get free Comicsology unlimited with that. Yeah,
and like if you want to try a random indie
Image Comics has a thing where nearly all of their
volume ones are now, so you can basically just try
half a year of the book to see if you
dig it. Uh so, yeah, there's just no wrong answer.
It depends like figure out if there's a character you

(58:50):
want to check on, just ask around and it'll be like,
oh yeah, just four months ago they started a new
Chazam book. He hasn't had his own solo book in years.
That started. Number four is this week. This is a
perfect place to start. Perfect. Well, there we go. That
was the answer, and I guess the next question is
where can people find you? Oh? Thank you. I am
at enthusiamy all over the internet like enthusiasts, but my name,

(59:15):
Uh you get used to it, I promise. And it's
been really awesome to be here. Thank you so much. Yeah,
thanks for stopping by. It was good chatting with you
and me. As you know, I'm if you Widway on
Twitter and Instagram. I f y interview A D I
W E if he's on Twitch. Lots of nerd fam
coming through with them Twitch Prime stuff. So keep the
love coming and remember you got to come back every month.

(59:36):
It doesn't do it by itself. I need you, I
need you, Promise you, I need you. And the Discord
Salts Discord dot g G slash Salt Squad if you
want to continue the convo. Danny was in there talking
up a storm this morning. She was she was ready
to blow off some steam. So definitely come in there
and also go to te public. We're we're already you know.
DJ Dan has already been like, look, we gotta get

(59:58):
some more these T shirts. And I got the ideas.
So you gonna see some new T shirts cooked up
and ready for you to wear and meet us because
it's almost SDCC and you know, I don't know where
we're gonna meet, but we're definitely gonna up. Yeah, no
matter what we're meeting up saying and anyone who doesn't
have a nerdistance shirt, I'm not gonna talk to you. No,

(01:00:18):
that's not I will talk to you. Um. But also
if you send us pictures of you in your shirt,
we will repost them on our Instagram. So that's really cool.
I met miss Danny Fernandez. I wasn't Discord because we
had that discussion with Bechtel cast member last week and
we were talking about Steven Spielberg in him his comments

(01:00:41):
on Netflix and then lo and Behold. He is a
part of Apple Plus. Anyways, Um, I am on a
new show on Verve with open Mic Eagle. He has
a show at Comedy Central called New Negroes which is
really cool. And we have a Wizarding show where we
play two wizards who go to Wizarding Community College. Because
we didn't get into saying Paul if Tompkins, isn't it

(01:01:01):
Baron Vaughan from Grayson Frankie and New Negroes and um gosh,
who else? Adoye Travis Uh from Dark Tank. So many
people are Jamie Loftus, I think Carl. It has a
lot of how stuff works alumni. Jammy Loftus is on it.
Carl Tart, I believe plays our dog uh Dean. We

(01:01:22):
have a dean that's a dog um and the only
ways and I say I think it is because he
had to do vo for it, so I was not there,
but I was there with the dog Um. It's really great. Yeah,
we played two wizards in a wizard in Magic School.
So check it out. It's on for right now, and
I think that's it. Like we always say, stay nerdy,

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 51: The History of Shazam