December 12, 2024 • 37 mins
Yesterday saw the release of TWO comics that are related to the MCU . . . if not part of the MCU proper. The Inifinty Watch #1 continues the event from last summer and spring, which featured the return of Coulson from the dead to take on the role of …
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Tonight's episode, another crossover episode between Welcome to
Level 7 and the comic book time machine
as we take a look at the Colson
Comic Book Chronicles with Infinity Watch number 1
and an MCU tie in, your friendly neighborhood
Spider Man number 1, which may or may
not be part of the MCU.
And no, I'm not gonna talk like this
(00:21):
the entire time, but it's it's a pattern
for the last few episodes.
These crossover episodes where I talk dramatically
and growly,
and
I'm gonna stop now.
Welcome to level 7,
a podcast about Marvel's Agents of S. H.
(00:43):
I. E. L. D. And the Marvel Cinematic
Universe.
It's a magical place.
(01:15):
Hello, everyone. It's me, Ben, Ben, Avery, and
welcome to this special
crossover episode between the comic book time machine,
and welcome to level 7, where I take
some chocolate and I take some peanut butter,
and together, they taste great. At least, that's
the hope. The chocolate, in this case, is
the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
which is why this is going out on
the welcome to level 7 feed.
(01:37):
The peanut butter is the comic book elements.
The comic book time machine feed that this
is going out on is a podcast that
is about comic books, just comic books that
I happen to be reading or that Daniel,
or or Matt, my my cohost there, happen
to be reading about.
And,
yeah, and, of course, mixed together, they taste
(01:58):
great. At least that's the hope. And so
for the last few times that I've been
doing these episodes, it's been primarily talking about
Coulson and Coulson's appearances
in the Marvel
Comic Universe,
specifically the 616, which is now
even more confusing since the 616
actually refers to comic book continuity. So when
(02:18):
you're in the comic books and they talk
about the 616, they are talking about comic
books, and they are talking about the things
that have happened in their comic book world.
But, of course, they also now call the
Marvel Cinematic Universe the 616.
So if you're over there and you're, in
that prime universe where everything has been taking
place
(02:39):
until the multiverse, and then there's multiple multiple
universes outside of that, but the 616
is also
that universe. So, yeah, let's let's clear things
up by making things more confusing. Right? You
know, we need a label. So let's let's
use a label to make things
very, very clear for our viewers and our
readers.
(02:59):
And the label that we should use, since
labels help things to be less confusing and
more clear, we should probably just use a
confusing label. And that's kind of the thought
process that I feel like went into that
decision,
but that's that's just me.
So here I am to talk a little
bit more about Coulson, but I'm also mixing
(03:20):
in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man. Your Friendly
Neighborhood Spider Man is a comic book series
that is the official prequel
to the Disney Plus animated series, Your Friendly
Neighborhood Spider Man. And
what's interesting about this comic is that this
is official. So this is official continuity
to that series.
We'll talk more about how that fits into
(03:40):
the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The other comic book
I'm talking about today is the Infinity Watch,
which is a comic book series that I've
been anticipating
because of the
the annuals that they had, where they had
that crossover. And in every single one of
those annuals, except for the final one, there
was a backup story giving the background
(04:01):
to Coulson
coming back to the Marvel Comic Book Universe
and not as a
devil worshiping,
bad guy. And and that's good. That's a
good thing.
And he is now
deaf.
So is it better? Well, yes. It is.
(04:21):
Because, ultimately,
they have retained his core character, and that
is what's important here is that Colsonness
that you are going to get here. So,
or at least hopefully that we're going to
get here. So I'm gonna start by talking
about your friendly neighborhood Spider Man. I'm gonna
talk about how this comic book ties into
that animated series, but also how that animated
series
(04:42):
relates to Tom Holland's Spider Man, relates to
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And the answer to that question,
honestly, is it doesn't,
except in the sense that everything does because
it all can be a multiverse. And so
everything that they do
(05:02):
relates to each other because they're happening side
by side in in that multiverse. And I
just watched an episode of Lower Decks today,
And the season this final season of Lower
Decks has to do as a through line
of breaches in the multiverse.
And so as they're going along with their
regular
(05:22):
adventures, it's it's kinda like the X Files
when they would have the monster of the
week, but then there'd be, like, some sort
of tag
scene where the cigarette smoking man shows up
and says, hey, Mulder. Did you think about
this? And and Mulder's like, of course, I
did because I'm Mulder, and I'm always thinking
about that stuff. And then,
and then
Scully comes and says, well but but it's
(05:44):
not possible because it's not scientifically feasible. And
and then and then that's the end of
the episode.
Well, they have been dealing with sometimes in
the forefront of an episode and sometimes just
kind of the background of an episode or,
like,
the episode will start, and they're just finishing
up an investigation on a breach, in between
universes. And
one of the universes was the purple universe,
(06:06):
where it's the same as their prime universe,
except everything's purple. And it's kind of funny.
I have appreciated this season for being less
about be, about being jokey jokes, where it's
just we're gonna have characters say things because
they know about things
that we as the viewers know about,
but that I just can't wrap my head
(06:27):
around. Like, how do they know exactly what
Spock was thinking in this random episode?
That's not the kind of thing that we
put in the general public record, so to
speak. And so,
yeah, it's just they're they're getting beyond that.
We're we're and it's it's less
well, it's very self aware still, but it's
(06:47):
less self aware.
And so they did this most recent episode
is the penultimate episode. Next week is the
series finale.
And in this episode, there's some talk about
multiverses, and one of the characters is just
I hate multiverses.
It's so boring, and and it's just boring
and derivative, lazy copies of universes we already
know.
(07:08):
And
he's kinda speaking, I think, for the audience
a little bit.
That said, the episode itself is pretty good.
So,
you know, whatever you wanna say about,
Multiverses,
then they turn around and do a pretty
good Multiverse episode. So I'll throw that out.
And I know that on Welcome to Level
7, I have talked about how I'm not
a big fan of lower decks, and I'm
(07:29):
not. I'm not a big fan of lower
decks, but I do watch every episode the
morning,
of release. And it's a part of my
Thursday morning routine where I wake up, make
breakfast. For a while there, I I would
make breakfast while I and watch Frasier while
I'm making breakfast and then watch Lower Decks
while I'm eating breakfast, or sometimes
it'll be, watching Lower Decks while I'm doing
(07:49):
laundry or something like that. But it's part
of my Thursday morning routine because Thursday is
my day off
from my day job. So I I have
been enjoying this season, and the multiverse
is
used to its fullest potential and extent,
with this episode. And I'm not gonna talk
much more about that.
(08:09):
That said,
anything
can be multiverse.
Right? I mean, any anything can be. And
so
kind of the stance we take on Welcome
to Level 7 is it's not a part
of the multiverse
until
they
directly reference it on screen as part of
this continuity.
(08:30):
What does that mean for what the Marvel
Cinematic Universe or the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse looks
like right now?
It means
the
Spider Man,
series from the seventies live action series
might not be a part of the multiverse
yet. They have not
pulled it into the fold, so to speak.
(08:52):
The Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk series,
not a part of the multiverse yet. It
could be at any time. At any time,
they can make a reference to to that.
And and suddenly, it's that whole series of
The Incredible Hulk and the TV movies are
all part of this
all encompassing
multiverse. And
(09:12):
there's something about it, you know, kind of
getting going back to those in The Incredibles
quote, where if everyone's special, no one's special.
There there's something about the multiverse just kind
of taking everything into the fold that just
feels
I don't know. It just makes it less
special. Like, The Incredible Hulk as a series
is a very, very special thing because it
exists
in its own realm and it does its
(09:33):
own thing. And when they had those,
TV movies where he meets Daredevil and he
meets Thor and they were trying to do
some backdoor pilots for other series,
and there was even a talk It didn't
get very far, but there was even talk
about, the
camera, the actor's name, Nicholas. I can't remember
his last name, but the the Spider Man
from the seventies actually being,
(09:55):
part of a crossover
TV movie with Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby
in an Incredible Hulk, TV movie. They never
did it, and and I I don't know
how far that the talks actually went, but
there was talk of it.
But, anyway,
I
once they started realizing that they might be
getting into the multiverse,
I I started wondering, like, is this gonna
(10:17):
feel unwieldy? Is it gonna feel less special?
And in some ways, it is less special.
It means that, yes, a character might die,
but that character could be brought back at
any point because of the multiverse. And, yes,
it's a different variation. It's a variant.
And and, yes, they've done some great things
with the variants
and with
(10:38):
the multiverse. Loki is a great example of
an amazing
show that really embraced the multiverse and and
told some really well made stories. And the
multiverse of madness, the doctor Strange movie, not
not a bad usage of it. And the
Spider Man, Far From Home.
Was it far from home? Homecoming, far from
home.
(11:00):
No Way Home. No Way Home. That that
was also a a a good story. So
I knew that the stories could and and
probably would be
decent and and
and enjoyable.
But
once you bring in a multiverse, there's no
putting the genie back in the bottle, and
suddenly anything's possible. And
(11:20):
it just it takes away from some of
the specialness to me where you're pulling away
from these characters that you're spending time with
and saying, yeah, but we can have more,
more, more. And it just feels like that
indulgent
fan service rather than, you know, telling
cohesive stories that are relatable
and with your following characters that you want
(11:42):
to follow along. And it's not just I'm
because now now suddenly you're following
the actor
who is doing other variations. I mean, Deadpool
and Wolverine just
again embraced it and did some fun things
with it. But
then also,
again,
brought in
and and that's where talking about the whole,
(12:03):
like,
on screen,
validation
of of what is multiverse. Well,
Deadpool and Wolverine brought in all the X
Men movies. All of them. They're all in
there. And the Fantastic Four movies. Now,
fan forecast or fan fortis for stick or
(12:23):
however you wanna say, a Fantastic 4 that
was not as well received back in, what,
20, 2019 or whatever it was.
There has not been on screen validation for
that. But as far as the Fantastic Four
and Rise of the Silver Surfer,
pretty much they they said this is Johnny
Storm played by Chris,
(12:46):
not Chris Pine, not Chris Hemsworth.
Chris Evans. That's the Chris I'm looking for,
who's
a a current Hollywood Chris. So
your friendly neighborhood Spider Man has been confirmed
by the creators
not too long ago or not I mean,
not too long after they were they had
announced things
as being
(13:06):
a separate universe. This is
was originally
pitched to us
as an upcoming series
that would tell Tom Holland's origin story. And
they said we stayed away from doing the
origin story when he first appeared because you've
seen it already.
You've seen it 2 times on screen with
the 2 different, with with,
(13:27):
Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. We've seen it
already. We've seen that origin story and Uncle
Ben and all that stuff.
And we're not we don't need to do
that here. And so we never saw, like,
what what spider bit him and things like
that. Well,
it turns out
that this was supposed to be, when they
originally talked about it,
(13:48):
this was going to be Tom Holland's background
and his origin story and all of that.
It's not.
It's not. They then reversed their the story
on that, and they said, actually,
it is basically a what if
story. And so this is part of the
MCU's
multiverse
(14:10):
officially,
but it is not
a part of the 616
MCU.
And that's disappointing to me. And that actually
makes Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man, the the
animated series, a little less enticing for me
when it was going to be a part
of that character's backstory
instead of just a character who's very, very
(14:30):
close to that one.
What it does for them is it did
open
up opportunity
for him to interact with characters that in
the MCU
he had not interacted with by the time
he stepped into Civil War.
His first appearance in Civil War was his
first opportunity to really interact with most of
(14:50):
those characters, all of those characters, really.
And in the your friendly neighborhood Spider Man,
they are changing that, and he is going
to be able to interact with any characters
they want him to.
And so it
it and on the on the plus side
for them, it allows them to go beyond
what a normal prequel does. Because when you
(15:12):
do a prequel series, you are beholden to
what is supposed to come after it because
it's already been written. The future has been
written for that character. And so you have
to be careful how you write his present
when you're doing that prequel
story. They don't have to worry about any
of that. And so they're going to be
getting into
(15:32):
having him appear with characters who have already
appeared on screen as his first
opportunity to meet them. Well, he can meet
them earlier now.
So it does,
from a storytelling perspective, make things easier for
them. But on the other hand,
as someone
who likes the challenge of something like that,
(15:54):
I do wish that they had gone with
the challenge and went ahead instead said, this
is
Tom Holland's
origin story, or at least if not his
origin story, this is his story
as he was learning to be Spider Man
and growing into that homemade costume
that he has at the beginning
of things with,
(16:16):
where before he gets a suit from from
Tony Stark. So
yeah. So this comic book, the way this
fits in, I wasn't sure what this would
be, but it is an official prequel. However,
it doesn't feel like a prequel because there's
a couple things in here
that reference things you would see in the
first episode
(16:36):
of the show.
How do I know that? Because
in the middle of the comic, it's actually
not quite the exact middle. It's one page
away from the exact middle where the staples
are. But in the middle of the comic,
there is a caption box that says, see
the first episode of your friendly neighborhood Spider
Man on Disney Plus for details of the
mysterious
attack.
(16:57):
Yes. This is referencing things that happen in
the first episode of the show. And so
I can't tell if this is kind of
a
side quill more than a prequel in that
the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man show, that
first episode has things happen. There is an
attack on the school that causes an explosion.
And,
(17:18):
and this this, the comic book actually starts
the attack has already happened. And then you
see him get bit by the spider. And
I'm not going to talk about how he
gets bit by the spider. Apparently, the first
episode of the show actually does give more
details where the spider comes from, but it's
a little bit confusing because of that. Because
I'm like isn't aren't wasn't his show going
to be the origin? Weren't we going to
(17:39):
see this in the show? This is a
prequel to the show, but they're showing things
that I think we're going to show up
in the show, and I said the word
show way too many times here.
But anyway,
in the comic book then, they are investigating
the explosion that happened in that episode.
And so I'm curious, does this take place
in between scenes?
(18:00):
Does this take place in between episodes?
I'm not sure how this is is this
is going to work.
The good thing is once you get beyond
that kind of initial scene,
it does become something that does feel like
it's a story that belongs here by itself.
It's it's self contained
in the sense that it's going to be
a 5 issue series. It's gonna be continued
(18:21):
to be continued between each issue,
but it
does, feel a little bit were weird at
first.
And the other thing that felt weird was
in this first scene, actually, technically, the second
scene, but we'll get into that. In this
first scene, he meets for the first time,
Nico Minoru.
Now you might recognize that name from another
(18:43):
MCU project that may not be Prime Universe
MCU anymore.
Although, since this is its own universe, it
doesn't necessarily
push that show out. But Nico
Minoru Minoru
is a character from The Runaways.
And so The Runaways, when I was first
(19:03):
reading this and didn't realize that this was
not Prime MCU,
I thought, well, that just pushed out,
runaways from the prime MCU, but this doesn't
push it out. It doesn't pull it in
either. I mean, that's the other thing that's
confusing right now is just how do all
of these different things that they are coming
out with fit into that multiverse thing.
(19:25):
It's not a bad thing as long as
they would maybe, you know, clear things up.
Unfortunately,
the timeline book that they put out clears
things up only as far as the MCU
movies and tie ins that we already knew
were officially tied in, Loki and things like
that. Agents of S. H. I. E. L.
D, we all know that that's a whole
(19:46):
bondoogle
boondoggle. I don't know. It's a whole problem.
It's a whole thing,
with with how does that fit into things
because it clearly did when they were creating
it, and the intention was that it clearly
did.
But then they did things
where they split.
And the movie continuity and the TV show
for Agents of Shield continuity
(20:07):
definitely split. And so were they together? Do
they
were they never together? Like, that's something that's
going to have to be retconned at some
point
if someone who cares
were to be put in part in charge
of something
that would allow them to, you know,
clear it
up. I don't think anyone really cares about
clearing it up anymore. AgentShield is done, and
(20:29):
they don't need to worry about it. They
don't need to explain themselves to anyone.
And not a lot of people that I'm
aware of are going back to Agents of
Shield. However, there are some of you out
there, and some of you have discovered our
podcast
because you've rediscovered Agents of Shield. And I
wanna say welcome to the podcast. I'm so
glad that you're enjoying our coverage of Agents
of Shield.
(20:50):
It was a great show. It's amazing show,
and I love the character of Coulson.
And so,
yeah, does this
push Runaways out? No. That's assuming that Runaways
is actually ever in in the first place,
though.
And and with the whole Darkhold and, basically,
the Darkhold that showed up in Multiverse of
Madness and Darkhold that showed up in Runaways
(21:11):
and Darkhold that showed up in Agents of
Shield feel like 3 different things, which would
suggest potentially that we are looking at 3
different universes.
Is it a bad thing? Well, yes. I
definitely had some disappointment
when I started realizing they're kicking my show
out.
My show being ages of field, not not
(21:32):
Agatha all along and and,
runaways. But,
but at the same time, my show still
exists, and it was still good. And it
was still so much fun, and it's still
highly, highly recommended.
So one thing that this comic does that
I did like,
although at first, I wasn't sure, is that
(21:53):
it definitely starts out in that cliched
trope where
the superhero
is in a horrible, horrible spot and then
asks the question,
you're probably wondering how I got here.
And but the way it does it is,
Spider Man saying, don't worry. I'm not going
to say you you're probably wondering how I
(22:13):
got here.
And then the next caption says, I am
painfully aware of exactly how I got here.
I decided to become your friendly neighborhood Spider
Man. And that was probably a really bad
idea. That's the first two pages. And then
as he and then he's thrown off a
building, and then
but let's freeze the frame, rewind, and start
back at the beginning. So it's totally,
(22:34):
like, embracing the cliche,
and I get it. I get what they're
doing there.
It's clunky.
If I was an editor and I would
be looking at this and saying,
don't worry. I'm not gonna say you're probably
wondering how I got here. And then the
very next line is I am painfully aware
of how I got here. That that's a
little clunky transition. But
(22:54):
does it work? It does. It does. And
it's definitely,
I think, playing with and making fun of
the trope and and having fun with it,
but also starting with high stakes.
I do feel like that the explosion
and the attack at the school,
I I don't know if they could actually
have portrayed it because it's gonna be in
(23:15):
that episode.
However, I feel like that would have been
a high enough stakes
to start with here. But,
at the end of the episode or at
the end of the issue, I should say,
they don't come back to wrap around to
the beginning of this. So I do wonder
if in issue 4, I keep wanting to
say episode, in issue 4 or 5,
if that's where we're going to come back
(23:36):
to this. So we get to see
him get bit by the spider. We get
to see him talking about his uncle and
how his uncle has has already died. And
so I'm not sure what the time frame
is between when he gets bit by the
spider and when his uncle gets killed.
But we are definitely in Friendly Neighborhood Spider
Man, the cartoon, going to be exploring that
(23:58):
for the character of Spider Man. The other
thing that we are gonna be exploring that
gets told in almost every version of the
origin story or at least the ones that
matter and that is the whole wrestling match
where he is taking on a wrestler as
he is learning his powers.
How do I know that? Because that's the
cover for issue number 2. It's him
(24:19):
in the wrestling ring
throwing a giant
wrestling
shaped bodied man,
out of the ring.
And so I definitely feel like we're gonna
be getting that chapter of things. I'm just
not sure how that fits into the hole,
where he
chooses not to do something, not my problem,
and allows a bad guy to get away
(24:41):
while, you know and then and then that
bad guy kills uncle Ben. Because it felt
like there's a line in here where he
talks about how I don't wanna be the
guy that everyone just knows of as the
guy whose whose uncle died.
And
and so I I I don't know how
the time frame works here.
All that said, this is
shaping up to be, I think, a fun
(25:02):
retelling of early Spider Man Adventures. That's what
they're hoping for from the cartoon series,
the which we will be covering here on
Welcome to Level 7. I'm not sure how
what frequency.
As you can see,
the frequency of welcome to level 7, if
you were to ask me what's the frequency,
Bennett,
the frequency has not been as hot as
I would like it to be. I haven't
(25:23):
recorded many episodes with Samantha or with Stuart
lately because I have a backlog of episodes
that I need to edit about Agatha all
along. And so we're we're getting there. We're
we're getting there. But,
I wanted to hop on the mic and
talk about this comic book. It's really more
timely than Agatha all along, obviously.
But the truth of the matter is I'm
more excited about these comics than I am
(25:44):
about Agatha all along.
But I do need to get to it.
And, Samantha,
Stuart, I'm sorry that I haven't.
It's hard. It's hard. You know?
So anyway,
let's talk about the Infinity watch, which is,
the main event here. Although, I might talk
about it less than I talked about, Friendly
Neighborhood Spider Man because I don't think I'll
have as many rabbit trails to go down.
(26:05):
This,
Infinity watch is something I was expecting them
to do. I knew they were going to
do. I talked about a little bit with
Stuart. I did not talk about it in
a specific episode
about the comics and I did not talk
about it with the comic book time machine.
And so some of this might be new
information, but
by the time they got to the end
of those annuals
and that whole Thanos thing that they were
(26:27):
doing there,
I you could tell they were building up
to a team up with these
people who are their stone bearers.
And so it's a it's a superhero team
book. The Infinity Watch is a superhero team
book. It includes Colleen Wing, so she's a
known character in the Marvel Comics universe. It
includes Coulson, also a known character, And it
(26:47):
includes,
what's the guy's name?
I'm trying to remember his name. Apex, I
think. I'm looking through the comic to find
the name. I probably should just look it
up online, have the list in front of
me, but that's not what I'm doing. Apex,
who appeared in Thor comics ahead of time,
and it includes the other new characters who
have the soul stone. And so you have
all the stones. There's time, space, soul, power,
(27:09):
reality, mind,
and death. Death being the new stone that
is,
now Phil Coulson, who has taken on that
job.
He he is not just a character in
this book who has a superhero
life.
He also is at the same time going
and escorting
(27:29):
everyone who is
dying in this universe
to the afterlife. He goes to them and
appears to them as they expect to be
to be seeing death appear.
And so when he first shows up in
this comic, he looks like the Grim Reaper
because of the expectations that some of his
clients
he doesn't call them clients. I am. But
(27:51):
some of the expectations of people who have
have just died or about to die, that's
what they're expecting to see.
And so he does take on the regular,
Agent of S. H. I. E. L. D.
Look being in a suit and tie with
a skull for a lapel
pin in this in this comic.
And what's interesting, though, is as they go
(28:11):
into battle, because there are some bad guys
who come and who are able to drain
the Infinity Stone powers. That's what they do
is they drain and eat Infinity Stone powers
and stone bearers as well.
And
when he is fighting these guys, he says,
hey.
Is there a nonlethal setting for my death
powers? And so that's why I do appreciate
(28:33):
what they have done with Colson here. He
is death. Yes. He has the role and
the job of
escorting people when they have died. He's not
going around killing people, you know, but he's
going around and and being the guy that
they're gonna see when they die. And it's
kinda
interesting to have him have that aspect of
things. But then also along with that, as
(28:55):
he goes into action as a superhero, he
doesn't want to kill.
Even though these bad guys are really bad
guys, and they're doing some bad things, and
they,
there's no reasoning with them.
And so
what happens in the midst of this is
there is someone who
shows up with those bad guys
who ends up needing the help of the
(29:16):
stone
bearers. And
the twist is I don't want to get
into the twist too much. I'm trying to
decide how much to spoil
or not.
And so I'm not gonna spoil anything as
far as what the twist is, but he
needs all of them and all of their
powers.
He himself
is a stone bearer. And so he's coming
(29:39):
to specifically request their help
with
fixing what the other bad guys
because, well, I don't know if he's a
good guy or bad guys for I mean,
without binary, good bad, good evil,
white hat, black hat kind of a thing.
They did something to his universe, and now
he needs
the
(30:00):
reality bending powers
of this team to help them. And the
other interesting thing as they are going through
all of this story is that they are
kind of talking about when we are together,
we are a God. We are God. Like,
we are so powerful
with the the reality
stone allowing this the reality stone bearer to
(30:20):
literally shape reality
however she wants to,
to death,
to, you know, controlling time and being able
to move through time and being able to
move through space
and being able to,
pull in and and speak to souls and
all the things that they're able to do,
they are a very, very powerful team. That's
(30:42):
one of the things I was curious about.
Like, what's going to happen when you bring
these characters together into a team
that would be overpowered, that that that could
very, very
seriously
be an overpowered team
for any kind of
of foe and any kind of antagonist.
And so the they bring in this small
team of antagonists who are able to kind
(31:03):
of fight them to a standstill
until
the other guy reveals himself. And then it's
like, okay.
We've got a we've got an antagonist here,
a team,
that they actually is a match for them.
Well, then this other guy is a match
for them as well as he's making his
case and asking for what he wants, and
they are not willing to give him what
he wants right away. They and he's not
(31:25):
willing to wait. And so the the ending
like, there's some weird stuff going on here.
There's some mind bending, reality bending, story bending
stuff going on here. Some 4th wall breaking
potentially, if not 4th wall breaking,
then potentially
it's it's kinda getting into that Grant Morrison,
(31:46):
meta
storytelling.
And and so there's there's some interesting stuff
going on here. I wasn't sure what to
expect,
but I did know that this would be
a comic book that was going to go
on my poll list. I have
3 comics on my poll list right now
as far as ongoing series.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man, Infinity Watch, and
(32:06):
Gatchaman,
which is based on the anime series Gatchaman,
which spawned the Battle of the Planets, which
is a
huge, huge influential
cartoon
from my youth that is still influencing me
today
when I,
do some of my storytelling
as far as some of the characters and
team dynamics and things that I've done and
(32:28):
am doing.
More on that later. I'm not gonna talk
too much about, you know, future things that
haven't happened yet, but that are in the
planning stages. But that's another reason why I
haven't been able to get into
the podcast
editing the way I would like to. I'm
still part of that whole
Larry Boy project for Veggie Tales, but I
(32:49):
have some other things that I'm trying to
get going and and we'll hopefully be able
to talk about,
on microphone
in the not too distant future. So
there was a rabbit trail, but not as
big of a rabbit trail as the friendly
neighborhood Spider Man rabbit trails were.
I recommend this, but it's a hesitant recommendation.
It's not for everyone. It features characters that
(33:11):
you're not going to be familiar with unless
you read those annuals.
Those annuals are part of this story, and
they directly lead into this story. So if
you're picking this number one issue up, hoping
you're gonna get to know all the characters,
you will get a sense of the characters
personalities. That comes through very well in the
writing,
which by the way, let's talk about the
credits. Derek Landy is the writer. Penciler was,
(33:34):
Rari
Coleman. Anchor was Scott Hanna. Colorist was Brian
Reber, and Eric
are
Arkanagia.
And the letterer was Corey Pettit.
And so this
as far as the writing goes, the characters
come through. You'll get a sense for who
they are
as far as personality types.
(33:56):
You will not get a sense of who
they are as far as where they came
from
unless there's there's there's very few lines of
exposition.
There is one line where the person with
or the the robot guy with the soul
stone says, do you think the soul stone
chose me because I don't have a soul?
And,
the time guy, who they were just talking
(34:16):
about how maybe the time stone chose you
because you want to change the past. And,
you
know, so you don't get a whole lot
more than that.
There's a brief mention that Colleen Wing is
the one person out of this whole team
who wasn't the first choice of the stone
because the first choice was killed in that
(34:36):
in that annual. So,
yeah, I I'm not a huge fan of
this team book. I am a fan of
a character on this team, and that's why
I'm buying it, and that's why I'm interested
in it.
And
I will be reading it. And so monthly,
you can probably expect
maybe not every month, but but generally speaking,
I'll be talking about more of these comics
(34:58):
in comic book episodes.
The same with, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man,
which was written by Christos Gage,
drawn by Eric Gapster,
colored by Jim Campbell, and lettered by Joe
Caramagna.
Now, the one thing I will say about
the Infinity watch is the artwork
sometimes
(35:18):
is dynamic. And then there was one splash
page
that felt more like a cover.
They're supposed to be in an action pose,
but they are just standing there, and it's
not dramatic at all. It was very interesting,
when I turned the page, and it just
wasn't this very dramatic
pose. And
so, yeah. I
I
(35:39):
enjoyed it. It was good
enough for me to say I'm not gonna
feel bad picking up issue number 2. I'm
not gonna feel any kind of trepidation picking
up issue number 2. But both of these
comics aren't they're not things I'm super excited
about. They're just things I'm
interested in.
And that's my comic book collection in a
nutshell, stuff I'm interested in. There's no comics
(36:00):
of any value other than they had value
to me at the time when I purchased
them because I was interested in it, and
I wanted to read it, and I liked
it. So
with all that said, I wanna say once
more to you. Thank you so much for
spending time with me and for listening to
me ramble, and have fun talking about
comic books and characters that I like. And
(36:21):
as far as the Colson Chronicles
and the Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man comic book
stuff, I'm not sure if I'm gonna break
it out into their own episodes or if
I'm just gonna do, like, every once in
a while, do something like this, where I'm
just talking about MCU
comic books
comic books related to the MCU.
And yeah. So as far as that goes,
I I don't know. I'm not gonna do
(36:42):
any deep dives into okay. Here's all the
Agatha all along comics. I'm not not anything
like that. It's just gonna be really following
Colson and following the friendly neighborhood Spider Man.
So
that's what you can look forward to, but
yeah. Until next time, I just wanna say
wherever you are, wherever you are going, I
wanna say thank you so much for spending
(37:02):
time with me as you're going there, and
I also wanna wish
you Godspeed.
Tonight's episode, another crossover episode between Welcome to
Level 7 and the comic book time machine
as we take a look at the Colson
Comic Book Chronicles with Infinity Watch number 1
and an MCU tie in, your friendly neighborhood
Spider Man number 1, which may or may
not be part of the MCU.
And no, I'm not gonna talk like this
(00:21):
the entire time, but it's it's a pattern
for the last few episodes.
These crossover episodes where I talk dramatically
and growly,
and
I'm gonna stop now.
Welcome to level 7,
a podcast about Marvel's Agents of S. H.
(00:43):
I. E. L. D. And the Marvel Cinematic
Universe.
It's a magical place.
(01:15):
Hello, everyone. It's me, Ben, Ben, Avery, and
welcome to this special
crossover episode between the comic book time machine,
and welcome to level 7, where I take
some chocolate and I take some peanut butter,
and together, they taste great. At least, that's
the hope. The chocolate, in this case, is
the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
which is why this is going out on
the welcome to level 7 feed.
(01:37):
The peanut butter is the comic book elements.
The comic book time machine feed that this
is going out on is a podcast that
is about comic books, just comic books that
I happen to be reading or that Daniel,
or or Matt, my my cohost there, happen
to be reading about.
And,
yeah, and, of course, mixed together, they taste
(01:58):
great. At least that's the hope. And so
for the last few times that I've been
doing these episodes, it's been primarily talking about
Coulson and Coulson's appearances
in the Marvel
Comic Universe,
specifically the 616, which is now
even more confusing since the 616
actually refers to comic book continuity. So when
(02:18):
you're in the comic books and they talk
about the 616, they are talking about comic
books, and they are talking about the things
that have happened in their comic book world.
But, of course, they also now call the
Marvel Cinematic Universe the 616.
So if you're over there and you're, in
that prime universe where everything has been taking
place
(02:39):
until the multiverse, and then there's multiple multiple
universes outside of that, but the 616
is also
that universe. So, yeah, let's let's clear things
up by making things more confusing. Right? You
know, we need a label. So let's let's
use a label to make things
very, very clear for our viewers and our
readers.
(02:59):
And the label that we should use, since
labels help things to be less confusing and
more clear, we should probably just use a
confusing label. And that's kind of the thought
process that I feel like went into that
decision,
but that's that's just me.
So here I am to talk a little
bit more about Coulson, but I'm also mixing
(03:20):
in Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man. Your Friendly
Neighborhood Spider Man is a comic book series
that is the official prequel
to the Disney Plus animated series, Your Friendly
Neighborhood Spider Man. And
what's interesting about this comic is that this
is official. So this is official continuity
to that series.
We'll talk more about how that fits into
(03:40):
the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The other comic book
I'm talking about today is the Infinity Watch,
which is a comic book series that I've
been anticipating
because of the
the annuals that they had, where they had
that crossover. And in every single one of
those annuals, except for the final one, there
was a backup story giving the background
(04:01):
to Coulson
coming back to the Marvel Comic Book Universe
and not as a
devil worshiping,
bad guy. And and that's good. That's a
good thing.
And he is now
deaf.
So is it better? Well, yes. It is.
(04:21):
Because, ultimately,
they have retained his core character, and that
is what's important here is that Colsonness
that you are going to get here. So,
or at least hopefully that we're going to
get here. So I'm gonna start by talking
about your friendly neighborhood Spider Man. I'm gonna
talk about how this comic book ties into
that animated series, but also how that animated
series
(04:42):
relates to Tom Holland's Spider Man, relates to
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
And the answer to that question,
honestly, is it doesn't,
except in the sense that everything does because
it all can be a multiverse. And so
everything that they do
(05:02):
relates to each other because they're happening side
by side in in that multiverse. And I
just watched an episode of Lower Decks today,
And the season this final season of Lower
Decks has to do as a through line
of breaches in the multiverse.
And so as they're going along with their
regular
(05:22):
adventures, it's it's kinda like the X Files
when they would have the monster of the
week, but then there'd be, like, some sort
of tag
scene where the cigarette smoking man shows up
and says, hey, Mulder. Did you think about
this? And and Mulder's like, of course, I
did because I'm Mulder, and I'm always thinking
about that stuff. And then,
and then
Scully comes and says, well but but it's
(05:44):
not possible because it's not scientifically feasible. And
and then and then that's the end of
the episode.
Well, they have been dealing with sometimes in
the forefront of an episode and sometimes just
kind of the background of an episode or,
like,
the episode will start, and they're just finishing
up an investigation on a breach, in between
universes. And
one of the universes was the purple universe,
(06:06):
where it's the same as their prime universe,
except everything's purple. And it's kind of funny.
I have appreciated this season for being less
about be, about being jokey jokes, where it's
just we're gonna have characters say things because
they know about things
that we as the viewers know about,
but that I just can't wrap my head
(06:27):
around. Like, how do they know exactly what
Spock was thinking in this random episode?
That's not the kind of thing that we
put in the general public record, so to
speak. And so,
yeah, it's just they're they're getting beyond that.
We're we're and it's it's less
well, it's very self aware still, but it's
(06:47):
less self aware.
And so they did this most recent episode
is the penultimate episode. Next week is the
series finale.
And in this episode, there's some talk about
multiverses, and one of the characters is just
I hate multiverses.
It's so boring, and and it's just boring
and derivative, lazy copies of universes we already
know.
(07:08):
And
he's kinda speaking, I think, for the audience
a little bit.
That said, the episode itself is pretty good.
So,
you know, whatever you wanna say about,
Multiverses,
then they turn around and do a pretty
good Multiverse episode. So I'll throw that out.
And I know that on Welcome to Level
7, I have talked about how I'm not
a big fan of lower decks, and I'm
(07:29):
not. I'm not a big fan of lower
decks, but I do watch every episode the
morning,
of release. And it's a part of my
Thursday morning routine where I wake up, make
breakfast. For a while there, I I would
make breakfast while I and watch Frasier while
I'm making breakfast and then watch Lower Decks
while I'm eating breakfast, or sometimes
it'll be, watching Lower Decks while I'm doing
(07:49):
laundry or something like that. But it's part
of my Thursday morning routine because Thursday is
my day off
from my day job. So I I have
been enjoying this season, and the multiverse
is
used to its fullest potential and extent,
with this episode. And I'm not gonna talk
much more about that.
(08:09):
That said,
anything
can be multiverse.
Right? I mean, any anything can be. And
so
kind of the stance we take on Welcome
to Level 7 is it's not a part
of the multiverse
until
they
directly reference it on screen as part of
this continuity.
(08:30):
What does that mean for what the Marvel
Cinematic Universe or the Marvel Cinematic Multiverse looks
like right now?
It means
the
Spider Man,
series from the seventies live action series
might not be a part of the multiverse
yet. They have not
pulled it into the fold, so to speak.
(08:52):
The Lou Ferrigno Incredible Hulk series,
not a part of the multiverse yet. It
could be at any time. At any time,
they can make a reference to to that.
And and suddenly, it's that whole series of
The Incredible Hulk and the TV movies are
all part of this
all encompassing
multiverse. And
(09:12):
there's something about it, you know, kind of
getting going back to those in The Incredibles
quote, where if everyone's special, no one's special.
There there's something about the multiverse just kind
of taking everything into the fold that just
feels
I don't know. It just makes it less
special. Like, The Incredible Hulk as a series
is a very, very special thing because it
exists
in its own realm and it does its
(09:33):
own thing. And when they had those,
TV movies where he meets Daredevil and he
meets Thor and they were trying to do
some backdoor pilots for other series,
and there was even a talk It didn't
get very far, but there was even talk
about, the
camera, the actor's name, Nicholas. I can't remember
his last name, but the the Spider Man
from the seventies actually being,
(09:55):
part of a crossover
TV movie with Lou Ferrigno and Bill Bixby
in an Incredible Hulk, TV movie. They never
did it, and and I I don't know
how far that the talks actually went, but
there was talk of it.
But, anyway,
I
once they started realizing that they might be
getting into the multiverse,
I I started wondering, like, is this gonna
(10:17):
feel unwieldy? Is it gonna feel less special?
And in some ways, it is less special.
It means that, yes, a character might die,
but that character could be brought back at
any point because of the multiverse. And, yes,
it's a different variation. It's a variant.
And and, yes, they've done some great things
with the variants
and with
(10:38):
the multiverse. Loki is a great example of
an amazing
show that really embraced the multiverse and and
told some really well made stories. And the
multiverse of madness, the doctor Strange movie, not
not a bad usage of it. And the
Spider Man, Far From Home.
Was it far from home? Homecoming, far from
home.
(11:00):
No Way Home. No Way Home. That that
was also a a a good story. So
I knew that the stories could and and
probably would be
decent and and
and enjoyable.
But
once you bring in a multiverse, there's no
putting the genie back in the bottle, and
suddenly anything's possible. And
(11:20):
it just it takes away from some of
the specialness to me where you're pulling away
from these characters that you're spending time with
and saying, yeah, but we can have more,
more, more. And it just feels like that
indulgent
fan service rather than, you know, telling
cohesive stories that are relatable
and with your following characters that you want
(11:42):
to follow along. And it's not just I'm
because now now suddenly you're following
the actor
who is doing other variations. I mean, Deadpool
and Wolverine just
again embraced it and did some fun things
with it. But
then also,
again,
brought in
and and that's where talking about the whole,
(12:03):
like,
on screen,
validation
of of what is multiverse. Well,
Deadpool and Wolverine brought in all the X
Men movies. All of them. They're all in
there. And the Fantastic Four movies. Now,
fan forecast or fan fortis for stick or
(12:23):
however you wanna say, a Fantastic 4 that
was not as well received back in, what,
20, 2019 or whatever it was.
There has not been on screen validation for
that. But as far as the Fantastic Four
and Rise of the Silver Surfer,
pretty much they they said this is Johnny
Storm played by Chris,
(12:46):
not Chris Pine, not Chris Hemsworth.
Chris Evans. That's the Chris I'm looking for,
who's
a a current Hollywood Chris. So
your friendly neighborhood Spider Man has been confirmed
by the creators
not too long ago or not I mean,
not too long after they were they had
announced things
as being
(13:06):
a separate universe. This is
was originally
pitched to us
as an upcoming series
that would tell Tom Holland's origin story. And
they said we stayed away from doing the
origin story when he first appeared because you've
seen it already.
You've seen it 2 times on screen with
the 2 different, with with,
(13:27):
Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield. We've seen it
already. We've seen that origin story and Uncle
Ben and all that stuff.
And we're not we don't need to do
that here. And so we never saw, like,
what what spider bit him and things like
that. Well,
it turns out
that this was supposed to be, when they
originally talked about it,
(13:48):
this was going to be Tom Holland's background
and his origin story and all of that.
It's not.
It's not. They then reversed their the story
on that, and they said, actually,
it is basically a what if
story. And so this is part of the
MCU's
multiverse
(14:10):
officially,
but it is not
a part of the 616
MCU.
And that's disappointing to me. And that actually
makes Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man, the the
animated series, a little less enticing for me
when it was going to be a part
of that character's backstory
instead of just a character who's very, very
(14:30):
close to that one.
What it does for them is it did
open
up opportunity
for him to interact with characters that in
the MCU
he had not interacted with by the time
he stepped into Civil War.
His first appearance in Civil War was his
first opportunity to really interact with most of
(14:50):
those characters, all of those characters, really.
And in the your friendly neighborhood Spider Man,
they are changing that, and he is going
to be able to interact with any characters
they want him to.
And so it
it and on the on the plus side
for them, it allows them to go beyond
what a normal prequel does. Because when you
(15:12):
do a prequel series, you are beholden to
what is supposed to come after it because
it's already been written. The future has been
written for that character. And so you have
to be careful how you write his present
when you're doing that prequel
story. They don't have to worry about any
of that. And so they're going to be
getting into
(15:32):
having him appear with characters who have already
appeared on screen as his first
opportunity to meet them. Well, he can meet
them earlier now.
So it does,
from a storytelling perspective, make things easier for
them. But on the other hand,
as someone
who likes the challenge of something like that,
(15:54):
I do wish that they had gone with
the challenge and went ahead instead said, this
is
Tom Holland's
origin story, or at least if not his
origin story, this is his story
as he was learning to be Spider Man
and growing into that homemade costume
that he has at the beginning
of things with,
(16:16):
where before he gets a suit from from
Tony Stark. So
yeah. So this comic book, the way this
fits in, I wasn't sure what this would
be, but it is an official prequel. However,
it doesn't feel like a prequel because there's
a couple things in here
that reference things you would see in the
first episode
(16:36):
of the show.
How do I know that? Because
in the middle of the comic, it's actually
not quite the exact middle. It's one page
away from the exact middle where the staples
are. But in the middle of the comic,
there is a caption box that says, see
the first episode of your friendly neighborhood Spider
Man on Disney Plus for details of the
mysterious
attack.
(16:57):
Yes. This is referencing things that happen in
the first episode of the show. And so
I can't tell if this is kind of
a
side quill more than a prequel in that
the Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man show, that
first episode has things happen. There is an
attack on the school that causes an explosion.
And,
(17:18):
and this this, the comic book actually starts
the attack has already happened. And then you
see him get bit by the spider. And
I'm not going to talk about how he
gets bit by the spider. Apparently, the first
episode of the show actually does give more
details where the spider comes from, but it's
a little bit confusing because of that. Because
I'm like isn't aren't wasn't his show going
to be the origin? Weren't we going to
(17:39):
see this in the show? This is a
prequel to the show, but they're showing things
that I think we're going to show up
in the show, and I said the word
show way too many times here.
But anyway,
in the comic book then, they are investigating
the explosion that happened in that episode.
And so I'm curious, does this take place
in between scenes?
(18:00):
Does this take place in between episodes?
I'm not sure how this is is this
is going to work.
The good thing is once you get beyond
that kind of initial scene,
it does become something that does feel like
it's a story that belongs here by itself.
It's it's self contained
in the sense that it's going to be
a 5 issue series. It's gonna be continued
(18:21):
to be continued between each issue,
but it
does, feel a little bit were weird at
first.
And the other thing that felt weird was
in this first scene, actually, technically, the second
scene, but we'll get into that. In this
first scene, he meets for the first time,
Nico Minoru.
Now you might recognize that name from another
(18:43):
MCU project that may not be Prime Universe
MCU anymore.
Although, since this is its own universe, it
doesn't necessarily
push that show out. But Nico
Minoru Minoru
is a character from The Runaways.
And so The Runaways, when I was first
(19:03):
reading this and didn't realize that this was
not Prime MCU,
I thought, well, that just pushed out,
runaways from the prime MCU, but this doesn't
push it out. It doesn't pull it in
either. I mean, that's the other thing that's
confusing right now is just how do all
of these different things that they are coming
out with fit into that multiverse thing.
(19:25):
It's not a bad thing as long as
they would maybe, you know, clear things up.
Unfortunately,
the timeline book that they put out clears
things up only as far as the MCU
movies and tie ins that we already knew
were officially tied in, Loki and things like
that. Agents of S. H. I. E. L.
D, we all know that that's a whole
(19:46):
bondoogle
boondoggle. I don't know. It's a whole problem.
It's a whole thing,
with with how does that fit into things
because it clearly did when they were creating
it, and the intention was that it clearly
did.
But then they did things
where they split.
And the movie continuity and the TV show
for Agents of Shield continuity
(20:07):
definitely split. And so were they together? Do
they
were they never together? Like, that's something that's
going to have to be retconned at some
point
if someone who cares
were to be put in part in charge
of something
that would allow them to, you know,
clear it
up. I don't think anyone really cares about
clearing it up anymore. AgentShield is done, and
(20:29):
they don't need to worry about it. They
don't need to explain themselves to anyone.
And not a lot of people that I'm
aware of are going back to Agents of
Shield. However, there are some of you out
there, and some of you have discovered our
podcast
because you've rediscovered Agents of Shield. And I
wanna say welcome to the podcast. I'm so
glad that you're enjoying our coverage of Agents
of Shield.
(20:50):
It was a great show. It's amazing show,
and I love the character of Coulson.
And so,
yeah, does this
push Runaways out? No. That's assuming that Runaways
is actually ever in in the first place,
though.
And and with the whole Darkhold and, basically,
the Darkhold that showed up in Multiverse of
Madness and Darkhold that showed up in Runaways
(21:11):
and Darkhold that showed up in Agents of
Shield feel like 3 different things, which would
suggest potentially that we are looking at 3
different universes.
Is it a bad thing? Well, yes. I
definitely had some disappointment
when I started realizing they're kicking my show
out.
My show being ages of field, not not
(21:32):
Agatha all along and and,
runaways. But,
but at the same time, my show still
exists, and it was still good. And it
was still so much fun, and it's still
highly, highly recommended.
So one thing that this comic does that
I did like,
although at first, I wasn't sure, is that
(21:53):
it definitely starts out in that cliched
trope where
the superhero
is in a horrible, horrible spot and then
asks the question,
you're probably wondering how I got here.
And but the way it does it is,
Spider Man saying, don't worry. I'm not going
to say you you're probably wondering how I
(22:13):
got here.
And then the next caption says, I am
painfully aware of exactly how I got here.
I decided to become your friendly neighborhood Spider
Man. And that was probably a really bad
idea. That's the first two pages. And then
as he and then he's thrown off a
building, and then
but let's freeze the frame, rewind, and start
back at the beginning. So it's totally,
(22:34):
like, embracing the cliche,
and I get it. I get what they're
doing there.
It's clunky.
If I was an editor and I would
be looking at this and saying,
don't worry. I'm not gonna say you're probably
wondering how I got here. And then the
very next line is I am painfully aware
of how I got here. That that's a
little clunky transition. But
(22:54):
does it work? It does. It does. And
it's definitely,
I think, playing with and making fun of
the trope and and having fun with it,
but also starting with high stakes.
I do feel like that the explosion
and the attack at the school,
I I don't know if they could actually
have portrayed it because it's gonna be in
(23:15):
that episode.
However, I feel like that would have been
a high enough stakes
to start with here. But,
at the end of the episode or at
the end of the issue, I should say,
they don't come back to wrap around to
the beginning of this. So I do wonder
if in issue 4, I keep wanting to
say episode, in issue 4 or 5,
if that's where we're going to come back
(23:36):
to this. So we get to see
him get bit by the spider. We get
to see him talking about his uncle and
how his uncle has has already died. And
so I'm not sure what the time frame
is between when he gets bit by the
spider and when his uncle gets killed.
But we are definitely in Friendly Neighborhood Spider
Man, the cartoon, going to be exploring that
(23:58):
for the character of Spider Man. The other
thing that we are gonna be exploring that
gets told in almost every version of the
origin story or at least the ones that
matter and that is the whole wrestling match
where he is taking on a wrestler as
he is learning his powers.
How do I know that? Because that's the
cover for issue number 2. It's him
(24:19):
in the wrestling ring
throwing a giant
wrestling
shaped bodied man,
out of the ring.
And so I definitely feel like we're gonna
be getting that chapter of things. I'm just
not sure how that fits into the hole,
where he
chooses not to do something, not my problem,
and allows a bad guy to get away
(24:41):
while, you know and then and then that
bad guy kills uncle Ben. Because it felt
like there's a line in here where he
talks about how I don't wanna be the
guy that everyone just knows of as the
guy whose whose uncle died.
And
and so I I I don't know how
the time frame works here.
All that said, this is
shaping up to be, I think, a fun
(25:02):
retelling of early Spider Man Adventures. That's what
they're hoping for from the cartoon series,
the which we will be covering here on
Welcome to Level 7. I'm not sure how
what frequency.
As you can see,
the frequency of welcome to level 7, if
you were to ask me what's the frequency,
Bennett,
the frequency has not been as hot as
I would like it to be. I haven't
(25:23):
recorded many episodes with Samantha or with Stuart
lately because I have a backlog of episodes
that I need to edit about Agatha all
along. And so we're we're getting there. We're
we're getting there. But,
I wanted to hop on the mic and
talk about this comic book. It's really more
timely than Agatha all along, obviously.
But the truth of the matter is I'm
more excited about these comics than I am
(25:44):
about Agatha all along.
But I do need to get to it.
And, Samantha,
Stuart, I'm sorry that I haven't.
It's hard. It's hard. You know?
So anyway,
let's talk about the Infinity watch, which is,
the main event here. Although, I might talk
about it less than I talked about, Friendly
Neighborhood Spider Man because I don't think I'll
have as many rabbit trails to go down.
(26:05):
This,
Infinity watch is something I was expecting them
to do. I knew they were going to
do. I talked about a little bit with
Stuart. I did not talk about it in
a specific episode
about the comics and I did not talk
about it with the comic book time machine.
And so some of this might be new
information, but
by the time they got to the end
of those annuals
and that whole Thanos thing that they were
(26:27):
doing there,
I you could tell they were building up
to a team up with these
people who are their stone bearers.
And so it's a it's a superhero team
book. The Infinity Watch is a superhero team
book. It includes Colleen Wing, so she's a
known character in the Marvel Comics universe. It
includes Coulson, also a known character, And it
(26:47):
includes,
what's the guy's name?
I'm trying to remember his name. Apex, I
think. I'm looking through the comic to find
the name. I probably should just look it
up online, have the list in front of
me, but that's not what I'm doing. Apex,
who appeared in Thor comics ahead of time,
and it includes the other new characters who
have the soul stone. And so you have
all the stones. There's time, space, soul, power,
(27:09):
reality, mind,
and death. Death being the new stone that
is,
now Phil Coulson, who has taken on that
job.
He he is not just a character in
this book who has a superhero
life.
He also is at the same time going
and escorting
(27:29):
everyone who is
dying in this universe
to the afterlife. He goes to them and
appears to them as they expect to be
to be seeing death appear.
And so when he first shows up in
this comic, he looks like the Grim Reaper
because of the expectations that some of his
clients
he doesn't call them clients. I am. But
(27:51):
some of the expectations of people who have
have just died or about to die, that's
what they're expecting to see.
And so he does take on the regular,
Agent of S. H. I. E. L. D.
Look being in a suit and tie with
a skull for a lapel
pin in this in this comic.
And what's interesting, though, is as they go
(28:11):
into battle, because there are some bad guys
who come and who are able to drain
the Infinity Stone powers. That's what they do
is they drain and eat Infinity Stone powers
and stone bearers as well.
And
when he is fighting these guys, he says,
hey.
Is there a nonlethal setting for my death
powers? And so that's why I do appreciate
(28:33):
what they have done with Colson here. He
is death. Yes. He has the role and
the job of
escorting people when they have died. He's not
going around killing people, you know, but he's
going around and and being the guy that
they're gonna see when they die. And it's
kinda
interesting to have him have that aspect of
things. But then also along with that, as
(28:55):
he goes into action as a superhero, he
doesn't want to kill.
Even though these bad guys are really bad
guys, and they're doing some bad things, and
they,
there's no reasoning with them.
And so
what happens in the midst of this is
there is someone who
shows up with those bad guys
who ends up needing the help of the
(29:16):
stone
bearers. And
the twist is I don't want to get
into the twist too much. I'm trying to
decide how much to spoil
or not.
And so I'm not gonna spoil anything as
far as what the twist is, but he
needs all of them and all of their
powers.
He himself
is a stone bearer. And so he's coming
(29:39):
to specifically request their help
with
fixing what the other bad guys
because, well, I don't know if he's a
good guy or bad guys for I mean,
without binary, good bad, good evil,
white hat, black hat kind of a thing.
They did something to his universe, and now
he needs
the
(30:00):
reality bending powers
of this team to help them. And the
other interesting thing as they are going through
all of this story is that they are
kind of talking about when we are together,
we are a God. We are God. Like,
we are so powerful
with the the reality
stone allowing this the reality stone bearer to
(30:20):
literally shape reality
however she wants to,
to death,
to, you know, controlling time and being able
to move through time and being able to
move through space
and being able to,
pull in and and speak to souls and
all the things that they're able to do,
they are a very, very powerful team. That's
(30:42):
one of the things I was curious about.
Like, what's going to happen when you bring
these characters together into a team
that would be overpowered, that that that could
very, very
seriously
be an overpowered team
for any kind of
of foe and any kind of antagonist.
And so the they bring in this small
team of antagonists who are able to kind
(31:03):
of fight them to a standstill
until
the other guy reveals himself. And then it's
like, okay.
We've got a we've got an antagonist here,
a team,
that they actually is a match for them.
Well, then this other guy is a match
for them as well as he's making his
case and asking for what he wants, and
they are not willing to give him what
he wants right away. They and he's not
(31:25):
willing to wait. And so the the ending
like, there's some weird stuff going on here.
There's some mind bending, reality bending, story bending
stuff going on here. Some 4th wall breaking
potentially, if not 4th wall breaking,
then potentially
it's it's kinda getting into that Grant Morrison,
(31:46):
meta
storytelling.
And and so there's there's some interesting stuff
going on here. I wasn't sure what to
expect,
but I did know that this would be
a comic book that was going to go
on my poll list. I have
3 comics on my poll list right now
as far as ongoing series.
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man, Infinity Watch, and
(32:06):
Gatchaman,
which is based on the anime series Gatchaman,
which spawned the Battle of the Planets, which
is a
huge, huge influential
cartoon
from my youth that is still influencing me
today
when I,
do some of my storytelling
as far as some of the characters and
team dynamics and things that I've done and
(32:28):
am doing.
More on that later. I'm not gonna talk
too much about, you know, future things that
haven't happened yet, but that are in the
planning stages. But that's another reason why I
haven't been able to get into
the podcast
editing the way I would like to. I'm
still part of that whole
Larry Boy project for Veggie Tales, but I
(32:49):
have some other things that I'm trying to
get going and and we'll hopefully be able
to talk about,
on microphone
in the not too distant future. So
there was a rabbit trail, but not as
big of a rabbit trail as the friendly
neighborhood Spider Man rabbit trails were.
I recommend this, but it's a hesitant recommendation.
It's not for everyone. It features characters that
(33:11):
you're not going to be familiar with unless
you read those annuals.
Those annuals are part of this story, and
they directly lead into this story. So if
you're picking this number one issue up, hoping
you're gonna get to know all the characters,
you will get a sense of the characters
personalities. That comes through very well in the
writing,
which by the way, let's talk about the
credits. Derek Landy is the writer. Penciler was,
(33:34):
Rari
Coleman. Anchor was Scott Hanna. Colorist was Brian
Reber, and Eric
are
Arkanagia.
And the letterer was Corey Pettit.
And so this
as far as the writing goes, the characters
come through. You'll get a sense for who
they are
as far as personality types.
(33:56):
You will not get a sense of who
they are as far as where they came
from
unless there's there's there's very few lines of
exposition.
There is one line where the person with
or the the robot guy with the soul
stone says, do you think the soul stone
chose me because I don't have a soul?
And,
the time guy, who they were just talking
(34:16):
about how maybe the time stone chose you
because you want to change the past. And,
you
know, so you don't get a whole lot
more than that.
There's a brief mention that Colleen Wing is
the one person out of this whole team
who wasn't the first choice of the stone
because the first choice was killed in that
(34:36):
in that annual. So,
yeah, I I'm not a huge fan of
this team book. I am a fan of
a character on this team, and that's why
I'm buying it, and that's why I'm interested
in it.
And
I will be reading it. And so monthly,
you can probably expect
maybe not every month, but but generally speaking,
I'll be talking about more of these comics
(34:58):
in comic book episodes.
The same with, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man,
which was written by Christos Gage,
drawn by Eric Gapster,
colored by Jim Campbell, and lettered by Joe
Caramagna.
Now, the one thing I will say about
the Infinity watch is the artwork
sometimes
(35:18):
is dynamic. And then there was one splash
page
that felt more like a cover.
They're supposed to be in an action pose,
but they are just standing there, and it's
not dramatic at all. It was very interesting,
when I turned the page, and it just
wasn't this very dramatic
pose. And
so, yeah. I
I
(35:39):
enjoyed it. It was good
enough for me to say I'm not gonna
feel bad picking up issue number 2. I'm
not gonna feel any kind of trepidation picking
up issue number 2. But both of these
comics aren't they're not things I'm super excited
about. They're just things I'm
interested in.
And that's my comic book collection in a
nutshell, stuff I'm interested in. There's no comics
(36:00):
of any value other than they had value
to me at the time when I purchased
them because I was interested in it, and
I wanted to read it, and I liked
it. So
with all that said, I wanna say once
more to you. Thank you so much for
spending time with me and for listening to
me ramble, and have fun talking about
comic books and characters that I like. And
(36:21):
as far as the Colson Chronicles
and the Friendly Neighborhood Spider Man comic book
stuff, I'm not sure if I'm gonna break
it out into their own episodes or if
I'm just gonna do, like, every once in
a while, do something like this, where I'm
just talking about MCU
comic books
comic books related to the MCU.
And yeah. So as far as that goes,
I I don't know. I'm not gonna do
(36:42):
any deep dives into okay. Here's all the
Agatha all along comics. I'm not not anything
like that. It's just gonna be really following
Colson and following the friendly neighborhood Spider Man.
So
that's what you can look forward to, but
yeah. Until next time, I just wanna say
wherever you are, wherever you are going, I
wanna say thank you so much for spending
(37:02):
time with me as you're going there, and
I also wanna wish
you Godspeed.
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