Let's Talk About Loki - feat. Charlotte Fierro (My Marvelous Year)

This week on Transcending Comics, we're joined by comic book scholar Charlotte Fierro! We dive into Loki's recent and increasingly queer character development in popular stories like Marvel's 'Loki, Agent of Asgard,' 'Young Avengers,' And 'Loki: Season 2.' We delve into the specifics of Loki's deviation from the stereotype of a villain, their relationship with ego death, and their steps into the realms of queer resonance and evolving gender fluidity.

As a bonus, we reminisce over another beloved mythological character – Percy Jackson! With a nostalgic discussion of one of our favorite book series and its on-screen adaptation. Join us for a discussion about mythology, fiction, and continuity in the ever-evolving Marvel Universe.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Music.

(00:17):
Welcome to Transcending Comics, a podcast dedicated to trans representation
in comic books, manga, and webtoons, both on panel and behind the scenes.
I'm your host, Tommy, and joining me today is someone who helped inspire the
creation of this podcast.
She's a co-host on the My Marvelous Year podcast, as well as their spinoff show, Extra Issues.
She's a comic scholar, often described as a comic book rainbow belt,

(00:39):
and having heard dozens of episodes of her shows, I can tell you she has impeccable taste in books.
She's She's here today to discuss her recently finished dissertation exploring
Al Ewing and Kieran Gillen's depictions of Loki in Marvel Comics,
and the evolution of the characters found in Loki, Agent of Asgard, and Young Avengers.
But no further ado, I'd like to welcome to the show the writer behind this incredible

(01:00):
dissertation, Charlotte Fierro.
Hello, glad to be here. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Thank you for this
incredible introduction.
Couldn't have done it better myself. self. I'm really glad to be here and talk
about the work that has haunted me for the full year of 2023.
Yeah, I've got to know, how did you come to this decision to write an over 40

(01:21):
page dissertation on this particular depiction of Loki?
So I'm not too familiar with the American university system,
but I was doing a master's degree in children and YA literature,
which like that's the official, like the official name is in French,
Literature de Jeunesse, which is like Like, youth literature is the literal translation.

(01:41):
But, like, it entails everything that's, like, books and comics and everything, literary for children.
Like, anywhere between, like, when you're born to when you're,
like, 20, 25, like, up until young adults, basically.
But also, like, everything that's in the realm of imaginary fiction,
like science fiction, fantasy, everything like that, we talk about.

(02:03):
And that was, like, two years of that master's degree.
And by then you're supposed to write a master's thesis
and i decided to do it about the
character of loki in in marvel comics first of
all because like there's not that like especially in france there's not that
much study like actual university studies about comics surprisingly enough for

(02:26):
like it's a huge medium like it's one of the culturally it's one of the biggest
things in the world maybe be like superhero movies more than comics,
but like superheroes are huge and there aren't that many studios about it.
So I wanted to do something related to that. And so, cause it's like my field
of knowledge, I'm a comic book podcaster and everything.
And like the curve of Loki is...

(02:49):
One of, if not my favorite character in superhero comics, and Marvel Comics
specifically, because of, I think, what the character is about,
and specifically because of the books with the characters written by Kieran
Gillen and Al Ewing in the 2010s.
And so, like, that's a character I'm really interested about.
Those comics from Journey into Mystery to Loki, Agent of Asgard are,

(03:10):
like, some of my favorite ever Marvel comics.
And I wanted to, like, take that opportunity to dive into, like.
What makes them so special to me.
And also like what do I not know yet about
them like kind of like take the opportunity to to delve into
those better and I think that's just what I
did so yeah yeah I was honestly really thankful for
the opportunity to read both Young Avengers and Loki

(03:32):
Agent of Asgard because both of those books I'd been
like kind of turned away from for stupid reasons for a
long time like Young Avengers the original run
of Young Avengers had been like one of my first and favorite comics so
like seeing and come back with a different writer I hadn't known yet
and like not the same team I was like oh I.
Don't know about this and then Loki agent of

(03:53):
Asgard I was first exposed to on a Rick Remender
binge of like Uncanny X-Force and Avengers and
the Axis event so my first issue I tried
was Loki agent of Asgard like number 8
or the Axis crossover you know the
whole event is around characters having their total like personality or
like good and bad reversed first agent

(04:15):
of asgard i feel like also flips the style
of book it is instead of being like this really cool modern
thing it's all written in an older style and
i don't usually love that when comics like try to write themselves
like an older comic and i just assumed that's what
the whole book was so i got like halfway through
that first issue i'm like this comic sucks i

(04:36):
like i get that this thing is terrible i'm never coming back to it
and then like i over the next few years everyone was talking
about like oh yeah loki agent of asgard it's like one of my favorite books
and i thought they were just like tumblr fans of loki
i mean there's some of that definitely that's like that's a big thing for the.
Character of loki is the mix between the character from the comics the character

(04:56):
from the movies and the character from like north mythology that happens like
around the tumblr fandom that has like solidified and has been like.
Kind of like a symbol of what tumblr culture is
like you take loki fandom of on tumblr and that's like
that's what people think about when they think about tumblr i think yeah loki
is a very tumblr character that's not that's not

(05:18):
all there is to him but yeah that's there is some of that and there is like
some of some of that playfulness in the comics because like kieran gillen
was on tumblr a lot when genin's mystery was
coming out and he plays with that a lot in his run and like on tumblr
and i wing like was less so but i think he was as
well quite on someone quite online uh when those comics were
coming out so like there's a there's a bit of internet culture like

(05:39):
infecting couldn't quote those comics yeah i
i do really wonder about modern tumblr like here i
am trying to promote a podcast as well as my first comic book
later this year and like i would i was never much of
a tumblrite i'm like do i need to get on there now i came
into tumblr too late i think because like when i
was when i was like 14 15 like that was

(06:01):
was a time like in instant fandom that was a time where everyone was
in tumblr and i couldn't quite get it i didn't understand how
it worked like i still quite don't feel like so old
saying that i don't get how tumblr works like i consumed tumblr posts on twitter
in the same way like that now people consume tiktok videos on instagram what's
the name instagram short bits yeah reels i think reels thank you so i i was

(06:25):
that old old person thing but like Like when I was 14, so yeah,
I never got into Tumblr culture.
But yeah, it was a big thing for my generation of internet fandom.
Yeah, didn't quite get the clues there.
Yeah, I was in college during the Tumblr heyday and like everyone at my table
I'd usually sit at was into it.
So like I just kind of got exposed secondhand to all their references and...

(06:49):
Like i'm not sure that was the best way like the best sell on tumblr
especially as like a huge comics person myself i'd hear
their little like shipping head cannons with iron
man captain america or like everything loki related
and like oh this is this is not what my comments are like at all yeah it's i
mean that's like that's an interesting thing of tumblr phantom of like of comics

(07:13):
characters i'm like super comics characters like it's the it doesn't stick to
one interpretation of the character, and I think that's really interesting.
You get a kind of cohesive version that melds up all those elements of different
versions, inspirations and everything, especially with characters from mythology,
you get those elements added onto there as well.

(07:33):
And mixed you'll never quite sure, like, everyone's a fan of different aspects
of the character, in a way. It's quite interesting.
That'd be something if I'd had more time
where I'd love to delve into to to a bit more is
like how does that work like who how do
you because like it becomes part of
your identity at least your internet identity and like that's that's really

(07:56):
interesting to me to to study in a very like cold and mechanical way so for
listeners of the show that aren't as familiar with marvel comics or at least
don't know loki beyond like his mcu appearances what can you tell Tell us about
these two series in particular,
or this particular version of Loki that makes them so significant compared to previous versions.

(08:18):
Yeah, I'm trying to craft the short version of the 58-page pieces here.
No, yeah, so Loki's created at the dawn of the Silver Age for Marvel,
like when Marvel becomes this big, huge superhero thing in the 60s,
starting with Fantastic Four number one.
Like, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko create, in the span of like three years,

(08:40):
they create the Avengers, the X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Thor,
Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Iron Man, etc.
Etc like the biggest names in marvel
and in in that list is loki who's created
in journey into mystery at the time it's not quite thor yet it's still journey
into mystery is the name of the magazine the comic journey into mystery number
83 i want to say oh i don't have the the numbers in my head that's uh that looks

(09:03):
bad but like the first appearance of loki is him as like this pure Thor,
the most satanic supervillain opposing Thor.
Thor is this noble warrior, long blonde hair, flying like Superman,
which isn't what Thor is like in mythology.
He's more like this big redhead bearded warrior.
He's more of a brute in North mythology where he's more of a noble white knight in comics.

(09:30):
And to oppose that Loki in Marvel becomes this pure evil satanic supervillain
to oppose that nobility of Thor's.
And he is that for the most part until 2010 when Ciaran Gillen starts writing the character.
So for the most part, from 1962 to 2010, Loki is just like pure supervillain.

(09:55):
The only times where he's going to fight,
side-by-side with Thor and, like, Ospreys, like, when Asgard is threatened by
a bigger threat, because, like, Loki, in comics, for the most part,
doesn't want to destroy Asgard.
He wants to control Asgard. He wants to be the All-Father.
He wants to replace Odin. And there's, like, whole...

(10:15):
How do you say that in English? Oedipal? Oedipal? Oedipal?
Oedipal, thank you. Oedipal thing there, with him wanting to kill his father
and become king of Asgard,
which is also a specificity of Marvel Comics
is in Marvel Comics Loki is the
adopted son of Odin and adopted brother of
Thor which isn't the case at all in mythology from

(10:38):
like the sources we have he's essentially
he's a companion of Thor in some adventures but he's
only familiar link to the other
Norse gods is that he's the blood brother of
Odin which that is never explained what that means
he's just called that like he's not
the son of any gods he's the son

(11:00):
of giants and yeah so that specificity
of Loki being a prince of Asgard the son of Odin is very is added by Lee and
Kirby in Marvel comics and that's become like something that's interesting is
that's become an aspect of the character in other places in pop culture since
I think of like in Supernatural he's the the son of Odin in like The Mask,

(11:21):
the movies with Jim Carrey, Loki is the son of Odin.
So yeah, that's the thing that Marvel Comics invented. That's not at all a thing
in mythological sources.
And so in 2010, Ken Gillan writes a one-shot for the siege event with a short story essentially.
At that time, Asgard is in Oklahoma in the United States.
There is a war brewing between the United States government and Norman Osborn,

(11:45):
who's leading the equivalent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
At that time, and the Norse gods in Asgard in Oklahoma are on American territory.
And so there's war brewing, big fight between the superheroes,
the American government and the Norse gods.
And in that event, Loki seems to sacrifice himself to save the world,

(12:06):
which doesn't track for who Loki has been for the past 50 years at this point. So that's strange.
Tying into that event, there's this one shot, Siege Loki number one,
written by Ken Gillan, drawn by his current collaborator, Jamie McKelvey,
with whom he's done Young Avengers at Marvel, but also The Wicked and the Divine
at Image, which people might know.

(12:26):
And in the comic it's the first comic
in marvel continuity because there had been other
loki series in 2000 but like in alternative
world there's one drawn by esed ribich that's incredible
that shows loki winning killing odin and taking control of asgard that's like
really really beautiful in four issues i highly recommend it another one that's

(12:48):
like the trials of loki that's like exploring the mythological origins of thor
and loki but like siege loki is the first just in continuity,
EarthSins 616 Marvel comic that has Loki as a protagonist.
And I think that's like really important to the start of Loki as the new characters.
Now he's the protagonist and we're going to delve into his psychology, how he works.

(13:12):
And Loki, essentially in Siege Loki, is just dissatisfied.
He's tried this so many times, like trying to take control of Asgard,
trying to be the supervillain. And it's just, it's just tiring.
It doesn't work. so he's trying to do something new
and like as a comic it's a
weird comic because you don't quite know what loki is
trying to do you just see him scheming with

(13:35):
like trying to manipulate mephisto hella other
big names of like mythology and like
he's kind of part of the the marvel universe into doing
something to save his soul and
like escape from the promise of hell
of the afterlife life he's supposed to go to once he dies
and essentially Siege Loki is about Loki

(13:56):
trying to free himself from his destiny
and trying to write his own destiny which
is going to be the central theme of the character going
forward it's about Loki being this
very specific character that's at the crossroads
between superhero fiction and mythology and basically
like walking those two world and

(14:19):
being kind of aware that he is a
creature of fiction both as a mythological being and character in comics not
quite in a way Deadpool knows he's a character of fiction because that's like
for laughs for humor and also like he fully knows he's in comics Loki is never
going to refer to the fact that he's in comics but he he knows he is a creature of fiction.

(14:43):
And that means his fate is malleable, but also like subject to writing rules
and narrative rules, not like realistic life rules, right?
And so as Loki, the fact that Loki tries to escape his fate going forward also
means that Loki, the character.

(15:04):
Is trying to escape his fate of being a superhero character in a big license
owned by a huge multinational corporation that is Disney.
Essentially, it's going to be a theme of writers trying to do.
What else can we do with these comics, with these characters, with these stories?
And loki is going to be like kind of the example of

(15:26):
that and the the way writers especially
can get an arguing try to do okay what else can
we do with this which is like a great ambitious question that
i love so yeah essentially that's going to be the central driving
factor of loki post siege loki i
really loved what i found in this book like i want to say that i
was blown away by both young avengers and maybe even

(15:48):
more so agent of asgard just to like the how
much they're the right book for me right now like how much.
They tackle ego death and like also the
main gripe of big two superhero comics of
like constantly being pulled back to the status quo as
mandated by some higher power in this case
marvel editorial but i'd love to know if like

(16:09):
the process of writing this paper has at all
changed the way that you view comics and comic
book characters or the way you read big two
comics going forward i think so yeah
it's really changed my view on like i
think part of me was scared that by delving deeper and
taking a more like research university kind

(16:30):
of cold approach to these comics i like be turned off by them or like find out
things i don't like or just like get exhausted by them and that didn't happen
which i'm really glad about i i think it It only deepened my enjoyment for them
and also my understanding of what makes them so good.
And yeah, I think it allowed me to take a step back from Marvel Comics.

(16:53):
And I think both this, writing this, and also doing my Marvel This Year podcast,
and we read a lot of Marvel Comics every week.
And after a while, you're forced to take a step back and be like,
okay, what's interesting about this?
Why am I a sisyphus on the hill, reading, reading,
reading, reading and expecting to to get a different outcome and

(17:14):
i think it's like first of all there are pearls in
the middle of the boring middle of the road comics that like are like the ocean
of marvel comics most most of most comics are boring that's that's to be said
but that like there are pearls that like that i really want you to get at what
makes superhero comics good what makes several stories interesting?

(17:37):
Why do I personally like them? And I think something I realized is...
All superhero comics i mean something that i already
kind of knew but like fully realized with studying
loki is all superhero comics have the potential
of being queer first of all like there is
to the core of superhero comics

(17:57):
and that doesn't that doesn't track with every superhero but that's
like if you imagine a superhero they have a secret identity
and they have a superhero name
that is different from their birth name right at
the core of the superhero idea and narrative story
fiction there is the idea of someone that
changes their identity at one point

(18:20):
in their life and starts living a
double life that they feel they can't admit or
reveal to to the people they care about and and
that are around them that's like that's insanely
queer right yeah i think so in 2023
I wrote both this thesis and an
article for Comic Book Herald about the character Spider-Gwen

(18:42):
in the Across the Spider-Verse movie and
about like her trans identity or what
I read as her trans identity and writing
both of those things at the same time made me like really think
about superhero comics as trans and
queer stories overall and I think that's something that you
can't it's i feel like writing comics

(19:05):
in 2024 you have to to know that
right you have to realize even if your comic.
Doesn't include trans character or like your main character.
Isn't a trans or queer character you have to.
Get that there is a queer resonance to
it or there can be and people are gonna read that into it.
And i think that's something that that's one direction that super comics like

(19:27):
can be incredibly interesting that's what that's part of what makes across the
spider of us so good to me it's like even if it doesn't feature any canonically
trans character it very much feels and reads like a trans story.
Those, like, kind of trans identities or genderqueer identities in non-queer focused comics.

(19:48):
There's a few notable examples of that I found that, like, I think this one's
really going to piss off your co-host, Dave.
But Mark Millar's Kick-Ass is, like, I revisited it a year or two ago right
as I was starting to, like, approach the trans community or.
Like, figure this out about myself.
And like yeah it reads as

(20:08):
incredibly gay and or trans like if you just
replace the superhero outfit with being in drag or
like a femme presentation or any kind of
like queer public presentation like there's a very kind
of parallel theme with that character like you
know the dangers of it getting like assaulted on the street because
he's in the superhero costume and it just feels like

(20:29):
oh yeah if you just replaced super heroics with like a drag performance this
and like go again going viral because of
it like this feels like the drag queen origin story
just it's that's really interesting i i haven't read kick-ass
and i knowing what i know about mark i can't imagine
that wasn't intentional oh no
but that's that's like that's super interesting yeah like because like

(20:50):
sometimes super comics are so straight
they become queer because like some
some writers of super comics are like so outside of anything
queer related like of that knowledge and ideas that
like they don't realize what they're reading is
incredibly is incredibly queer it's like when when
writers write like to made friendship and makes it so straight that it that

(21:14):
it becomes gay i don't think it's dave you're gonna piss off with that rather
be mark miller and his fans like that's that's a really interesting reading
yeah the main character of kick-ass even talks about like how empowered he feels
wearing it under his clothing And I'm like.
That's, that's trans egg, that's egg baby right there.

(21:34):
And yeah, with the character of Loki, I think something that's interesting is,
it's a character that in the context of Marvel Comics has existed for now more than 60 years.
And for most of that character's life, it's been fully supervillain,
very masculine, or like very binary, at least, idea of villainy.

(21:55):
And also like the ways when that character is feminine, it's seen as like a crime, essentially.
That's something that happens in the 2000s in
jms james straczynski's run
i don't want to attribute anything to that writer because i
don't know his political opinions and it could very
much be an accidental thing of someone not being like aware of of trans issues

(22:18):
and stuff but in that comic loki takes the appearance of sif he essentially
like steals her body and like like walks around in a dead woman's body for most of that comic.
And like for most of the life of Loki, like Loki is considered as a male character.
And when Loki has a female appearance, that's Loki like impersonating someone

(22:41):
or like committing a crime of gender transgression, kind of.
That's the way it reads, which reads like very transphobic, right?
But I also think it's also the comic not thinking about trans issues in the way that could be read.
It's just like full sci-fi idea of
just like someone who can change their appearance like that's

(23:02):
what loki is that's the way loki's gender
fluidity is interpreted which like to be fair in norse mythology let's not pretend
like loki being having female attributes is considered like a cool thing it's
very much a way that the characters made fun of in mythology at least from what
we we know from the very few sources we have.

(23:23):
But like in 2024, it's hard to write a character that like is transgressive
of gender rules and how that'd be a bad thing without being someone I don't
necessarily want to read, right?
So what, especially Al Ewing, because Kiernan doesn't do that much of it.
So just like Loki wearing nail polish in the Young Avengers,

(23:45):
but like with Al Ewing in Loki, Agen of Asgard and later Defenders Beyond and
currently Immortal Thor, You see Loki being like purely queer,
being gender fluid, switching their appearance and their pronouns like in equal
manner from the end of the run of Location of Asgard.
And like taking the care of having sci-fi and superhero ideas of the way a god

(24:10):
can escape their cosmic destiny.
Having that and intentionally giving it a aura, a theme of, well,
what actual real life feeling does that have?
Does that channel right what does that mean for real
people because that's like stories are about real people when
even when they're about like fantasy superhero stuff and

(24:32):
having that link to the real or having that
weight to it is really important i think that's something
especially alluing is really good at giving real
world social issues weight to superhero fun
stories and i think like at the core of
the character of loki especially in location of asgard defenders
and is beyond and now immortal form there is that queerness

(24:54):
that is like fully intermingled with ideas
of like cosmos and mythology and stuff later in
agent of asgard when like that was something i really resonated with
personally like loki has his ego death
that they've been building to all through the book and once they're
on the other side of it she's depicted as much
more gender fluid in their expression like every couple panels

(25:16):
they switch from a male to female presentation representation and like
i mean that's what happened to me i i had an ego death and then i came out of
it and like started being way more androgynous and that led to like the proper
transition so like yeah i i love how well they tackle like the sense of queerness
and i know that's not unique to me i've met a lot of people that like some kind of ego death sometimes.

(25:37):
Psychedelic assisted has been a big factor in that new
expression but like with this being i mean
mean probably both you and i like one of our favorite parts
of the character in their modern depiction like was this
hard not to make an even larger focus of your paper i
mean that's the very part of me
that just wanted to talk about loki loki's queerness look the themes of yeah

(26:02):
ego death and how the character evolves in a very yeah gender fluid queer way
i think that's a different paper and maybe a less literally accepted classic paper.
That's something I could write if I kept going with those studies for a little bit.
I think that's really interesting. Like, you talked to me about that by message.

(26:24):
And, like, I don't think I considered it that much while, like,
I tackled ego death in my essay in a different part than I tackle Loki's queerness.
And I think I didn't necessarily have made that link between the two.
But I think that's something that's incredibly interesting is that Loki,
among the many aspects of Loki that change when he goes through ego death.

(26:48):
And it's coming to, like, you get at least five or six different iterations
of Loki throughout the 2010s and now 2020s.
And each time he goes through, yeah, a type of ego death that,
like, I use that phrase because it's literally said in Loki and the Basgard.
There is many times the words ego death is coming to you, I think,

(27:10):
something like that, that is repeated throughout the comic.
And it's in the comic it means like he it
means that the way loki is currently
can't last that like change is
coming to you and change is a type of death and i think that's like that's that's
the main theme of loki throughout the 2010s and like in current marvel comics

(27:31):
and yeah the way that resonates with the catch of loki being queer and the idea
of well the person you are when you transition,
when you have that realization about yourself.
Is the same person but also not and
that's like that's at the core of loki here that's like
that's something that's really really interesting i mean the the words ego

(27:53):
death come i think from the study of psychedelics
like that's where it originates from and i don't think
that's like that's meaningless i think that's really interesting yeah
that's that's like something that's really interesting about
the way al ewing proposes loki as
a way to progress address superhero comics and
allow that idea of change in them is like

(28:16):
he makes that ego death
and regeneration process a core part of
the character like the way i read it is almost doctor who like of like the character
is gonna regenerate once in a while just like to keep things fresh to keep things
interesting and to yeah refresh the character not have not have stories and

(28:36):
characters stagnate and i think that's like that's incredibly interesting and like you You see,
as soon as Al Ewing is done with Loki, Agent of Asgard,
the characters go mostly into the hands of Jason Aaron and his Renan Thorpe
poster from 2015 to 2018, something like that.
And you get a Loki in that, but that doesn't quite track with the Loki of Al Ewing.

(29:02):
That Loki is fully male for the most part, like only uses he-him pronouns and
has like masculine, Like,
he looks like a younger version of Tom Hiddleston, essentially,
and goes back to being more nefarious, more villainous,
while also melding aesthetic and thematic aspects of what Ken Gillan and Al

(29:24):
Ewing added to the character,
and also what Tom Hiddleston in the MCU added to the character.
But like you see that there's a I mean it goes back to basics in a way in going
back to basics it loses that queerness what makes the character more interesting
and I think like yeah if if.
I don't know, like, that's... Ego death is a really interesting idea to add

(29:47):
to superhero comics as a whole and, like, to a form of storytelling that spans
decades and, like, hundreds if not thousands of different books.
Like, a universe that is... A fictional universe that is absolutely huge.
If you want to make those characters stay interesting, they're gonna have to
change, and sometimes in radical ways.

(30:09):
And it's not gonna make sense if
you read the same character in 2024 and in 1964 because
like those are the same characters but also not and I
think the the idea of ego death and inserting that
idea of change and revolution almost
as like an integral part of superhero comics
of like it's gonna need to renew itself I

(30:32):
think that's like that's a great idea that's like that's something
superhero comics absolutely need and that's
something like you see with I mean even arguing on Immortal
Hulk the current x-men era krakowa era
of x-men in marvel comics those are big themes of that
as well and i think that's like that's a tendency i.
See more and more especially in marvel is like that

(30:53):
idea of writers writing superhero comics
about superhero comics and about what they
can be and i think especially defenders beyond which
is the last comic i treat in my in my
paper especially talks literally about that
Defenders Beyond is very much a comic about Marvel
Comics and about what Marvel Comics can be and it's

(31:14):
very metatextual and yeah ethereal.
Strange comic that I really love yeah I
think Ego Death is something that I I
mean I feel like maybe if there was one thing I wish
I'd had more time to to tackle and see in
that essay it'd be that yeah both Ego Death
and and queerness and like what that means

(31:36):
for loki and for superhero comics in general that metatextual
nature of the book like i mean agent of asgard literally starts
with loki's mission being to retcon
his story like you know yeah i'm saying
that magic is fiction magic
magic is telling a story so good narrative magic that's
a great phrase yeah like he's literally

(31:58):
going about like changing his history and like accepting this
whole nature of like he's the product of all the stories that are told
about them and i know from your coverage
of earlier thor adjacent comics on
my marvelous hero like going back to thor disassembled like
oh it seems like this has kind of been the corner of marvel's
universe where they can get this meta about the nature of being like fictional

(32:21):
characters or like gods like in the norse mythological sense but also gods in
the way like we treat superheroes like gods yeah it's i mean that's like that's
something interesting thing about having mythological figures in the.
A universe that is a super universe that is a
fantasy slash sci-fi universe that you have two

(32:42):
ways of going about it you have the way of treating them
like essentially just aliens that humans interpreted
as gods which is like the couldn't get easier but like
pure sci-fi way which is what the mcu does at
least at the beginning you have a whole speech between thor
and jane foster in the first thor movie about thor explaining that
like no basically we're just like strong immortal

(33:04):
aliens and like we use einstein
rosen bridges is what the the bifrost
is like using real life and
quote unquote real life science explanations for mythological
stuff and like trying to make that fit our understanding of the world and the
other way is well there isn't such a thing as mythological canon right mythology

(33:28):
is about belief and it's also about like having an infinity of different different
versions of the same characters,
and you can't reconcile that, because mythology is stories that live in the heads of everyone.
And that doesn't track with what cultural, what IP is, intellectual property,

(33:50):
which is what superheroes are, like Walt Disney and Warner Bros.
So yeah, you have that idea of, well, what... these characters are gods.
What does that mean? What is that? You don't get much of people worshipping
the Asgardians in Marvel Comics.
But you do get them not having history that makes sense, right?

(34:16):
Even more so than other Marvel characters. Other Marvel characters are like Iron Man.
When he starts off, he gets his powers in the Vietnam War, I think, essentially.
Eventually at least like in in east asia and
in nowadays you get it like in the middle east
in afghanistan or iraq like depending on what
year you're you're reading comics like yeah there are things that does

(34:38):
don't make sense and are updated with the
asgardians and and mythological characters in marvel comics it's
like it depends on what kind of mythological mythological
stories the writers want to adapt odin like
is a character that in north mythology one of his cornerstone own
traits is he has only one eye and that's

(34:58):
like a big thing of the way he obtained knowledge the
secret of the runes and everything in mobile comics from the 1960s
to 2000s odin is drawn with two eyes
and when he starts being drawn with one eye
there's not a story that explains it it's just like oh we
actually realized that's a thing in mythology so we started doing it right
and there's a lot of that of just well that

(35:21):
wasn't a thing up until now in comics but
it's kind of a thing in some mythological stories so
why not do it and so you get quite a bit of mythological characters being like
having different versions of their own story and being like well how did that
happen like who knows that's the way they work like their past and their life

(35:44):
and their truth is different.
Kind of muddy because that's how myth works
that's how gods work because they're creature of fiction
and it's really interesting that in the context of marvel comics they're
creature of fiction even more than the
other creatures of fiction from their fictional universe and that's
like a great context to to write stories about

(36:04):
fiction on that note of being like characters that
are made of stories like this also came
at a good time for me like both these comics because i've
been at a point where i'm looking into this concept of narrative
magic that like loki's very directly tapping into
like i'm on a bit of a grant morrison kick i'm reading the invisibles
and that tackles this a lot and i mean

(36:26):
writers like grant morrison and phil k dick both
write about how their writing goes on to
shape their lives and like they therefore turn themselves
into a product of story and like
i can only imagine how hard it has to shape
one's sense of reality if like you are the type to write yourself
into a story yeah and then like if.

(36:47):
You're writing about things like alien abductions and then you experience an alien
abduction and then you have the spiral did that happen just because
or did that happen because i wrote or will write about
that yeah and like how that story shapes even
real life senses of self and i think
it's put best in this book in dr doom's
speech uh and one of the absolutely yeah yeah

(37:10):
yeah side note but google translate was how i
read your paper since it was written in french but uh they sometimes
translated it to dr fatalis and
i'm like that's a really good name i that's that's interesting thing
in there are a lot of french translations of marvel characters that like have
stayed the same since the the 60s and 70s and so you guess of like dr doom doom

(37:33):
doesn't quite make sense as a french word like in english you get like it's
doom it's something that's It's tragic.
It's fate. In first, like...
That's that's what it sounds like so instead they replace
it with fatalis which is like fatality you get the
idea you get kind of the same idea but with a different word
so yeah in french dr doom is dr fatalis fatalis

(37:56):
you get other names change that doesn't quite make sense
like she hulk in french is miss hulk you could have kept she hulk that's kind
of weird miss hulk yeah it's weird you get plenty of stuff like that uh of weird
translations of marketers and And some of them that like are translated in like
that were translated in the comics and still are nowadays.

(38:18):
But in the movies, they're not because like in the 2000s and 2010s,
like French people have a better sense of English and like what English words means.
Like if you watch the MCU movies in French, the Avengers are called the Avengers.
But if you read the comics, they're called Les Vengeurs.
Vengeurs, the French word, which is a translation of Avenger. it's

(38:39):
like in comics you have a lot of english names of
characters that are translated and sometimes like some that
are translated some that aren't so like the winter soldier
the falcon and winter soldier show is called the in
french it's le falcon and le
soldat l'hiver so one is translated but the other is not which
is like weird but yeah there's a

(39:00):
lot of different names in french including dr fatalis which
is dr doom if you ever find yourself writing marvel
comics someday like if you somehow get to
make that path i'd love to see you tackle these same concepts of
like okay story and narrative magic is
what makes these characters real but like what happens
when they have to confront like oh but other cultures know you by a

(39:21):
different name and how does that shape you as a yeah that's
interesting i mean that's something i if i were
to write a moral comic i'd love to make it
non-american for once like why is why
is it that there's only only superheroes in America right and seeing
what superheroes look like in different cultures
but also like from the point of view of different cultures in.

(39:43):
Marvel comics you see like Chinese superheroes Russian superheroes
but they're very much like Chinese and Russian superheroes from the point of
view of the US and what the US imagines Russian or Chinese superheroes would
be I think I'd be really interested in superhero comics like Marvel giving the
reins to like European creators African creators Asian creators to write stories

(40:03):
in their own country but also in their own, like.
Country style of comics, right?
About comics from those places. Like, I'd love to read a Marvel manga by a Japanese
mangaka about Japanese superheroes in Marvel Universe.
And, like, same from European comics about European superheroes.
African comics about African superheroes. Like, that'd be...

(40:26):
Give Black Panther to an actual African writer, please.
It'd be great because Black Panther and Wakanda are some of the best ideas in
Marvel comics, but they're also very much an American idea.
And the, like, Tenehese Coates, when he writes Black Panther in the 2010s,

(40:48):
very much writes it about racism and being black in the United States.
And I'd be really interested in a comic about Black Panther and Wakanda in the
context of Africa and African politics,
African society and stuff like that Marvel comics surprisingly are very American
centered and I'd love for that to like get expanded a bit more How did we start talking about this?

(41:10):
Oh yeah I did the side tangent on Doctor Doom being called Doctor Fatalis which
brings us back to that speech I wanted to touch on here but as you put it I
need to find it, can I please read it?
I love that speech Okay, I wrote it out to read it, but I will let you do the honors here.
Oh, perfect. I need to find it first. Give me a second.
One second. Let me send it in the chat here for you. I love dramatic reading,

(41:34):
and especially reading Doctor Doom is a pleasure.
If magical thinking is the assumption of a high narrative of the flow of events.
Then true magic is an imposition of narrative upon reality.
It is telling a story to the world and making
the world believe it the dark work of polis and
politicians of rulers and tricksters and if

(41:56):
magic is narrative then to be a creature of magic to
be a god is to be a creature of story yes ah love it i love it aliaring is very
unappreciated dr doom writer yeah i want immortal doom so bad after just that
one issue in here yeah like i'm I'm glad he's on Thor because I'm hoping that
means some kind of real continuation.

(42:18):
As you've mentioned, I didn't know that until this episode that we do indeed
get that, which great. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Immortal Doom is done by like, I think that's just makes sense as a next major character.
I don't need to see him do Iron Man or Spider-Man. Like, let him have Doom.
He gets this character so clearly. I mean, I'm going to be quick about it,
but like, I have a great pitch for the Immortal Iron Man.

(42:40):
Like that's something i'd love to to see ewing
do because like iron man is a character that's never quite as
interesting and fun as you think he's gonna be
in comics like he's not the big fun robert
downey jr character from the movies he's like a more
blend version of that and like there aren't many like classic great iron man
stories in the comics and i think like doing something like al ewing thinks

(43:04):
about immortality in the context of cosmic horror and the horror of immortality
in Immortal Hulk Immortal Thor is very much about like.
Immortality as like a mythical idea about like
cosmic beings and fiction and and
mythological ideas and i'd love to see him do something
about immortality as like a like about

(43:25):
transhuman stuff and like the the man in
the machine intelligence artificial intelligence like that'd be
a great way to to put the immortal thing with
iron man yeah what if tony stark becomes such a like
well-known billionaire like he's got like his
old elon musk vibe of the marvel universe there is always going to be not just
an iron man but someone that's willing to clone you once that becomes a possibility

(43:49):
so you have to accept that that's something i think like the the core problem
of like one of the core problems of iron man is like it's a billionaire you're rooting for.
That's hard to do yeah like i think ali win could do really interesting stuff with that like,
questioning like going to the call the collection and being like wait
is it a good thing that he's a
billionaire and would it make it would it actually make

(44:11):
him better if he gave up his fortune like what does that look like
that's also interesting i think that's plenty of interesting stories to
be done with iron man and i just haven't seen many of them but
yeah the tension's over now i do
think we should touch on loki season two specifically or
just yeah he is a series because i do feel like loki
season two tackles a lot of the same ideas of

(44:32):
agent of asgard just with that more sci-fi flair
like it's less like he's dealing with the nature
of being like a creature of myth but like i
mean in season one we see him watching the mcu
movies basically and responding to himself as a
character and like changing because of that like it's him coming to grips with

(44:52):
this idea and like how he can be better and like how there are different versions
of him so there are all these better possibilities of loki and i'd love to know
how you feel about about how Loki on Disney+, like,
how it tackles a lot of these same ideas that Ewing and Gillen were getting at. Yeah, I think...
Loki, the Loki as a series is very strange.

(45:15):
The Loki of the Marvel Cinematic Universe is, I think, one of the most interesting characters in the MCU.
Like, he has a trajectory from the first Thor movie to being the bad guy in
Avengers, and then to having that, like, kind of strange redemption arc throughout
Thor 2 and 3. That's, like, really interesting.
But, like, he's never as interesting as, at least to me, as the character in

(45:38):
the comics. It feels more like, it's more straightforward.
Doesn't tackle much ideas of like myth and
stuff but also because that's not what the thor stories
were in the mcu for the most part and i think
i had the same opinion about the
first season while still finding it
to be like i think probably my favorite thing

(46:01):
in the mcu is the the first season of loki i
think it's like very fun sci-fi story
with at its core an interesting idea for
what that character is and the trajectory of the
character but also like not dealing about those ideas
of dealing with the idea of change for the character
but not in the context of the comics of talking

(46:23):
about fiction in fiction about myth and everything so it felt to me kind of
like a more bland version of of what happens to comics and and more straightforward
again but i i really love the first season the second season is a strange one
it starts off really really good to me. Yeah, I love that first episode.
Yeah, and then it gets into, like, weird Kang, not even Kang,

(46:47):
but, like, Victor Timely shenanigans, and Jonathan Mage is, like, even...
Outside of everything going on with Jonathan Majors in the real world.
Jonathan Majors giving the weirdest performance as, like, a comic book character,
a cartoon character, but it's not a cartoon character.
Those episodes are very, very weird in the middle, and that portion I don't
quite... It felt very strange.

(47:08):
And then it adds on, like, two great episodes to me.
One episode where he's, like, going through time uncontrollably,
and trying to assemble the different people that don't remember
him and that have found their original lives and that's
like that's a great episode they even get to it like you're
facing not a science problem but a fiction problem and

(47:29):
like that's starting to get really at the meat of this and
then the final episode i really really do like as well and gets more into giving
him a less realistic sci-fi ending and more like a thematically resonant strange
ending when he becomes kind of like this god at the end of time tying all stories
all lives lives together.

(47:49):
And shaped like Yggdrasil, like he's on the tree now.
I really like this series as a whole, in the context of the MCU especially.
I think it's one of the most interesting things in the MCU.
I still think by the end of it, it feels like a lesser version of the comics.
The first season doesn't quite deal with the ideas of the God of Stories and

(48:10):
all that from the comics.
It gets at the idea of change for the character in different ways,
with time travel essentially, essentially, basically.
And the second season, and the first season has like some aesthetic.
Nods to the works I cheated in my paper, especially like having the character
of Kid Loki there, but it has nothing to do with the Kid Loki of the comic,

(48:30):
he's just like another Loki that happens to be a kid.
And also like, very little queerness in the MCU's Loki, like,
kind of one-off nod to him being bi or pansexual.
And then having, like, a female version of Loki, but it's Loki from a different universe.
Like, kind of a weird way to not have queerness in your thing.

(48:52):
Like, we're gonna have your female Loki, but it's not gonna be queer in any
way, shape, or form. Which is a bit disappointing.
But yeah, I think the second season, especially towards the end,
gets a bit more to those ideas of the God of Stories, of mythical, fictional ideas.
But doesn't quite merit that? doesn't

(49:12):
quite like treats that in any way earlier in
the comic which is so it feels a bit like
oh that's what you like in the comics so we're gonna
do a bit of that but i do like it and i'm
i i am glad that it's in the movies so it works
it works but it's not i definitely don't think it's as
interesting as what happens in the comics yeah now seeing loki on

(49:32):
the world tree at the end like yeah that kind
of great visual left me with this idea like now that al
ewing is writing thor and has control right
the mainline norse mythology book and loki and
we see this relation with odin and like
they mentioned them as blood brothers like what does that mean and we see
like loki even in odin's early history with

(49:53):
some of the time travel shenanigans with king loki how would
you feel if like the eventual reveal is that loki and odin are the same person
right that's what this blood brother thing is there's like loki is the odin
at the end of time or like the version that like has to then craft his own story
and like needs to kick off the norse mythology saga in general.

(50:16):
So that's a super interesting thing of Norse mythology is we,
first of all, we don't know much about Loki.
Loki is a very mysterious character in Norse mythology.
And one of the theories about where Loki comes from, what he is,
is he might have initially been an aspect of Odin that throughout the years,

(50:38):
throughout the decades,
the centuries became a independent character in Norse mythos.
But it's very possible that originally Loki was
just like one aspect of Odin because
in Norse mythology so in the comics Odin is
very much like god the father Zeus being he's
like this great authoritative figure that's like

(51:00):
a very patriarchal almost imperialistic
thing in Norse mythology Odin is he's
the king of the gods he is like the leading figure in the
mythology but in the the pantheon he's also a trickster he
is a god of knowledge he is a god of magic of
mystery he's the god that has the knowledge of the runes he's

(51:20):
more mischievous and trickstery than in the comics and in that way that's way
closer to loki and like something i talk about in towards the end of my paper
is my theory of my view of the the character is towards the end of loki's arc
under the writing of Al Ewing,
Loki becomes an adaptation of the mythical figure of Loki as much as the mythical

(51:48):
figure of Odin, because he gets those aspects of being the god of stories,
the god of magic, the god of fiction.
We should think that Odin doesn't have the Marvel Universe, so Loki can get
that, can be that part of Norse myth and that pantheon.
I think, talking about it literally, in terms of Loki being Odin, that's a fun idea.

(52:13):
That's a fun theory. I don't know if I see that quite working, especially if with...
I'd be really interested in you reading Immortal Fall, the current issue that
I wrote, because it does some really, really interesting things about what the
gods are, what the Asgardians are,
and what do they mean, and what's above the Asgardians, in interesting ways.

(52:34):
But i think thematically you're definitely getting at somewhere there
with like the idea of loki in the
marvel universe currently taking on some aspects
of the mythological figure of odin which is something alluring does directly
in location of asgard you see in a dream that loki has you see a version of
odin that looks and behaves much more like the mythological odin than the Marvel Comics Odin.

(53:00):
And the firm's Loki, I'll add. Like, that was pretty cool.
Accepting that Odin. So I feel like there is kind of a symbolic passing of the
baton there of, like, comics Loki taking on aspects of comics Odin.
Now, like, with Al Ewing back in control of Loki, like, where would you personally
like to see the character go from here?

(53:21):
I think so at the end of Defenders Beyond,
which, by the way, high recommendation on the
defenders miniseries and defenders beyond which is its
sequel that alluing did at marvel in 2022
2023 i started avengers beyond
or defenders beyond yesterday and i was so sad i
couldn't read it all before this episode but i'm loving it so far so

(53:43):
it's written by alluing drawn by very bad spanish accent javier rodriguez and
it's about the The Defenders being assembled by some kind of like tarot spell
that isn't like... It's very mystical and cosmic.
And it's dealing with Marvel Comics as a universe.

(54:06):
And dealing with the different dimensions of Marvel Comics as like fiction.
And so talking about the limits of fiction. Talking about what it is to be a
character in the prison of fiction.
It's very weird and out there but in ways that I love and the art is incredible,
Javier Rodriguez is awesome at doing those like very cosmic beings and like

(54:32):
universes that like I mean it took me.
Twice reading it to to quite get what was
going on it's it's strange but in a
way you can follow and i think it's like very very
much helps by the art it feels like very much like
a modern use of jack kirby
style artwork in moments without trying to be like without

(54:53):
just aping that style like i've seen others do just trying
to draw like him instead of like what would jack kirby's art
look like if he had modern tools yeah it's very
evocative of like what you imagine
as classic superhero art while being
very modern in in its coloring like it's
very modern colors it's new it's it's done

(55:14):
on computer right but yeah it's great art
and the end of that series has loki considering escaping from the fictional
world and like freeing herself from the chains of of fiction and continuity
and the rules of IP in the Marvel Universe to escape to a higher plane,

(55:35):
but chooses not to after being convinced by Blue Marvel, which is another really
interesting character, to make a Bodhisattva vow.
I'm sure I'm pronouncing this very, very wrong, but it's an idea from Buddhism,
I think, of someone who achieves...
I'm very sorry.

(55:56):
Enlightenment. yeah but chooses not to reach nirvana and chooses to stay on earth to help,
everyone else attain nirvana and enlightenment
and alluring ties that to like
a way more like political and social idea with a
quote from i don't know the name like from a socialist american

(56:18):
politician from the 20th century that says essentially like as long as one person
isn't free i am not free as long as one person is in prison i am in prison like
essentially having having that idea of Loki cannot be free if everyone else isn't free.
And Loki making the vow of freeing essentially every other character in the

(56:41):
Marvel Universe from their chains of fiction.
Which to me reads as like an incredibly ambitious thing from Al Ewing of being
like, yeah, as the writer, I'm going to try to free Marvel characters from their chains.
Like that's an ambition I love from superhero writers.
And so Loki gets, that's, that's the guiding words of Loki going forward.

(57:06):
And we've seen a little bit of that, but not quite as much in Immortal Thor for now.
But I think that's going to be somewhere. I really hope that's something Allerwing
is going to continue to pursue and see what that means.
Like, what is Loki going to actually do to train and attain that?
And I think that's going to be, that's probably going to be a big part of Immortal Thor.

(57:26):
Because like that series is dealing already with ideas
of fiction of myth so i'm really excited to see
where loki where where alluring goes
with kaiser next i'd love to see someone pick up on this
like i think deadpool would be an ideal character
for like a crossover doing this but instead like yeah what if
we saw this narrative creature loki dealing with a post marvel comics version

(57:51):
of a marvel character like a self-aware one like deadpool or even just a standard
hero But like they're dealing with in our world something has happened that
comics aren't published anymore maybe there's been some kind of apocalypse but.
This character still exists because there is still stories of Deadpool or Spider-Man,
or like there's still people making these action figures.
I mean, that's... They have to like, help to make peace with that.

(58:12):
Yeah, that's something that's like, people in fandom and in pop culture often
associate the idea of superheroes with myth and talk about like,
superheroes as like, modern myth,
which like, isn't anything that has its problems, definitely.
But that is interesting to discuss and talk about, I think.
And again it'd be interesting to see talking about those

(58:35):
creatures of fiction in a world where they are basically myth
or like are fiction but also kind
of real that that's really interesting yeah yeah
i think deadfall is an interesting character because i've never
read a deadfall comic that i love but like
i can definitely see i have like this half-formed pitch
in my head of a deadpool dr doom comic

(58:57):
because like dr doom is this highly ambitious
egotistical like i am
the best person in the world and i'm the only person
that can save the world but also saving the world also means that
the world is under my foot and this very
self-serious person and that's
very like also mythical and magical and stuff and then

(59:20):
deadpool who's just a guy who hates himself and
has no sense of ambition or being
a good stickle or he's just like just a guy who
who's like he's I mean to me Deadpool is kind of
the opposite of in every way of Doctor Doom and
that's like that's an interesting thing to to brush against and like someone

(59:40):
that's like fully opposite of Doctor Doom but also is a master of the fourth
wall and of the limit between reality and fiction so it's like that's that's
that's an interesting idea idea that I'd love to see someone tackle. Now, I don't know if.
There's a question I wanted to make sure I got to ask you before you go. Yeah.
And it's about another mythological hero that I think may be even closer to

(01:00:02):
your heart than Loki himself.
And that's Percy Jackson. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Finally, welcome.
Hello and welcome to my Percy Jackson year. I'm hijacking this podcast. Let's do it.
Hell yeah. Yeah. How are you feeling about the Disney Plus series?
I am feeling great and I wasn't expecting to. Percy Jackson is a series that,
yeah, is very near and dear to my heart.

(01:00:24):
Children's book series that i read growing up
loved uh the writer of
post-rejection wrote other series in the same universe dealing with
roman gods egyptian gods north north gods as
well there is a version of loki in the subject universe and
that had like terrible movies in the
2010s absolutely garbage god awful movies

(01:00:45):
and the writer like got to i mean talked to to disney which publishes the book
and now has the rights to the books to try and do a show and have some say over
how the books are adapted into a show.
And the series is currently airing on Disney+, Percy Jackson and the Olympians

(01:01:09):
Season 1. That's adapting the first book, The Lightning Thief.
And so to be fully fair, I love the Percy Jackson books and the others of Rick
Riordan's mythical books.
Like not everything has aged super well
and they're very much like children's books like don't expect to
get into them at age 35 and like love them
or like if you're if you're an adult that isn't really

(01:01:32):
necessarily interested in in reading comics in reading children's books probably
not for you but they still have like a big place in my heart and like are a
huge part of of what I love in fiction and what I'd love to write myself someday.
And the TV show is really interesting because I was expecting it to be good,

(01:01:55):
but I was expecting it to be like very straight up adaptation of the book without changing anything.
Because it felt like the writer was very much burnt on the earlier movie adaptations
and would like to just have it stay absolutely the same.
And felt like a lot of the fans that's what they wanted to
which like is fun but i'm i

(01:02:18):
think i'm less interested in watching a one-to-one
notation than i am in just rereading the books and
i think the series has like what the series has changed
from the books it's been for the better and to make it
like feel like a tighter stories and so like read more
in line with writing a story in the 2020s rather than in 2005 like actualizing

(01:02:41):
some aspects of it like I think the relationship between Percy and his mother
is really interesting in this show like Percy in the book is a bit more eager
to like not quite eager but like.
Thinks about his dad as much as he thinks about his mom his
dad being poseidon the greek god and his mom just being like
a normal human woman named sally jackson but in

(01:03:01):
the book it's like no everything he's doing it's for his mom
it's to save his mom like that's the one thing he
cares about because she's the one person that's been there
for him and that relationship is really cool to to me
and like having the mom also be an actual character fully
like full character that's just not just
that damsel in distress has been cool and also like just yeah the

(01:03:21):
story has been made tighter i think like the actors
are really really good the actress that plays annabeth one
of the main characters is incredible and yeah
i think it's pretty cool to see those very young actors and see
them at a stage where it's like okay this might make them big
and i think like like seeing seeing hints of like oh
this these might be great actors someday yeah and i think it's it's really cool

(01:03:44):
that they decided to to have to have actual child actors play 12 year olds instead
of 20-year-old actors playing the parts of like 20-year-old characters but that
behave like 12-year-olds in the movies which was a whole thing.
Yeah, I mean, it's still like it is a kind of like blockbuster Disney show.

(01:04:06):
Like don't expect high art or high TV from it but it's a fun time.
And I think like if you have kids that like mythology or stuff, it's a great show.
It's a great show to watch, I think. now i didn't ever read
the later series of percy jackson like i was
i was in middle school and they started coming out and read
those original five books loved them and like

(01:04:27):
it was more my thing like i was a percy jackson kid rather
than a harry potter kid like it seemed well yeah and like does
that make me better than the people that
were raised on harry potter i would say probably but like
by the time the second series came out the like i started to see through the
formula i was growing out of young adult novels in high school but like do the

(01:04:52):
later like wider universe books ever tackle any of these same ideas of like
what are the gods or like creatures of narrative anything like that.
Bit but it's not it's never the core
power the core part of the series i think the
the gods in person are more nebulous than
in most marvel comics but less

(01:05:14):
so than in most low-key comics i think
we're like the the sequel series to person is heroes of
olympus and that has roman gods but
that are like they're not fully different things from
the greek gods there's like kind of a a different aspects
of the same entity thing going on there so there
is like you know a bit of that of gods being not quite

(01:05:37):
just like immortal aliens like they behave in
ways that don't quite make sense and they don't
behave like normal people like you feel that there
are entities that have been around for thousands of years and
like aren't quite rational because of it there's a
bit of that there but it doesn't quite double choose those
existential themes as going

(01:05:59):
to do i remember kid me was like this is stupid why would people be going to
war over like having a different aspect of the same general being as your belief
system and god i was naive but i still think that's a pretty stupid thing to
go to war yep that makes me think of a some some of the stuff that hasn't aged well in Bessie Jackson,
is the war between the Greeks and the Romans is supposed to originate or like,

(01:06:24):
the American Civil War is supposed to be part of that?
Hmm. Which is like, okay not sure what you're doing there.
And like, I think the Romans are supposed to be the southerners in that camera.
I was like, I don't know if I want my Roman demigod heroes to have been on the
side of the southerners at all.

(01:06:44):
And the same thing with in the Greek Guard, like Like the big three gods Zeus,
Poseidon and Hades stopped having demigod children after World War 2 because
World War 2 was a conflict between the children of Poseidon and Zeus.
Allies side and the children of hades on the
nazi side which okay not great

(01:07:06):
i have children of hades characters that i love in
those comics and like that doesn't quite like yeah
the tying purely fantasy stuff
to real world tragedies and
very like grave events not a
great idea right recritin that there's some of that there and also like it's
very american centered and talking about But the reason why the Greek gods are

(01:07:29):
now in America is because of like the great idea of Western civilization traveling
from Greece to Rome and then to Europe and now to the US.
And the US now being the lighthouse of American civilization,
of Western civilization.
It's a bit weird reading that in 2024. There's a bit of like weird propaganda-ish stuff there.

(01:07:50):
That's not in the show. It feels very much like one of those things the writer
looked at and like, Like, yeah, maybe I shouldn't have written that back then.
And I'm not going to write that now when I have the chance of doing something
different, which is which is nice, which is nice.
Now, just kind of bringing things to a close here, Charlotte,
do you think there's any chance in English translation of this dissertation

(01:08:11):
will ever make it onto the Internet?
Yeah, that's something we didn't talk about. I wrote this in French because
I am French and I study in French. What?
I'd love to write, to translate it into English.
I know plenty of people who would be at least interested in reading it. Two things there.
First of all, it takes a lot of time and I'm currently both working at a bookshop

(01:08:35):
and still continuing to like my studies at university.
I'm like doing an apprenticeship at a bookshop to become a bookseller.
And so like, that takes a lot of my time with the podcast on top of that.
That's like, I have very busy weeks.
So like, I need to find the time to do that. But maybe this summer, we'll see.

(01:08:56):
And the other thing is, I have to resist the instinct of, whilst translating
it, starting to write it again, rewriting it, right?
That's like a hard instinct to kick, like to not do.
So I'll have to restrain myself because I know once I try like switching once
I start switching some sentences and,

(01:09:18):
reworking some paragraphs I'm off to start rewriting
it from the beginning which I shouldn't do I don't have time to do that so I
need to to to kick that instinct but uh but yeah I really really want to do
that at some point I will say Google Translate did a really good job with it
it might be a good start yeah yeah I hadn't used Google Translate in a few years
but I think they've I've really advanced with that.

(01:09:40):
So I think it gives you a starting point. You could knock out,
like, if not in a day, within a week or so.
I mean, it's not that long. It's like the actual essay is 48 pages, something like that.
So like writing like a page a week, I could do that in a year. So that's doable.
But yeah, I have to find the time to do that.
Charlotte, it's been absolutely wonderful having you on my show.

(01:10:03):
I'm glad you were able to come on here as well as Giant Size Violence.
So thank you again for making the time to come talk
about your paper and sharing that here as for our
listeners if they'd like to hear more of your thoughts on
comics where can they find you you can find me on the
my marvelous year podcast on every feed on spotify on google podcast apple podcast

(01:10:25):
etc you can find me on the extra issues podcast which is the podcast i do with
matt with my mmy co-host zach about like essentially every comic we want to
talk about we started with a theme on superhero subversions Watchmen,
Peter Cannon Thunderbolt which is like another Karen Gillan comic about superheroes
and fiction at the same time and about Watchmen and the impact of Watchmen on

(01:10:49):
comics which is really interesting,
highly recommend Peter Cannon Thunderbolt if you're at all interested in superhero comics.
Then we did a theme on Molly Knox Ostertag, who is a writer of YA,
like, young adults and teenager comics.
The Girl from the Sea and the Boy Witch trilogy are her most well-known works.

(01:11:09):
And she's also worked on the Owl House animated show for Disney.
I'd like to say, fans of this show, absolutely check out their Molly Knox Ostertag episodes.
Because they're very much in the same vein and, like, another great trans writer
that, like, I'll want to look into someday on this show.
I don't think my next tag is friends
she i think she i she she's she's queer but

(01:11:31):
i think she's her husband and nate
stevenson is a is a trans writer who was
a co-creator of shira and the princesses of power the
animated show for netflix but i'm pretty sure
my next tag is cis oh okay my
bad yeah i just googled it and i am mistaken i think
just the like how cool some of the trans themes

(01:11:52):
in her work are yeah especially like which
boy i'm like oh they must be which does bring me
to the point of like garen gillen is maybe my
favorite person like one of my favorite cis writers that i
see tackling trans characters yeah we didn't get a chance to get into
it but oh my gosh die probably has my favorite
like trans narrative in a story that's not about.

(01:12:12):
Being trans yeah but yeah like there's a.
Short list of cis writers that i would still love to have on.
This show and like karen guillen is definitely on the top of
that list yeah no yeah karen guillen and are you in are both like
the best people in superhero comics country like
not non-trans writers at superhero comics
writing queer and trans themes in superhero stuff

(01:12:33):
and also in non-superhero stuff for karen guillen and wicked and
divine die and all his other stuff yeah
absolutely so yeah check out the trade shows if you're interested in in any
of that we are about to start a we're
currently recording episodes on the manga berserk the
first arcs of that then we're going to do jeff smith's
bone which is like very big series that i know next

(01:12:55):
to nothing about and then we're tackling sandman which i
weirdly have never read a single page of
sandman i barely know what it looks like i kind
of know what it's about it seems like something that i would love
it seems like something that tackles like yeah ideas of myth and stuff
like everything thing we've talked about today that i would probably love but always
been out of my radar so it's gonna be a nice opportunity to

(01:13:17):
to discover that yeah and and for my
writing i don't write much these days haven't had the time
but like my the the last article i wrote was
on the character of spider gwen in the across the spider verse movie i mentioned
that before uh you can find that at on the comic book herald website which is
like great place to to find stuff about comics and yeah type Spider-Gwen on

(01:13:39):
Comic Book Herald and you'll probably find it and I'm really proud of that so
yeah I'd be glad if you read it awesome.
Thank you again, and if the listeners at home have requests or recommendations
for comics or creators you'd like to hear us cover in the future,
you can send them our way on social media.
You can find us on the Transcending Comics Instagram and Facebook page,
on Twitter as at TranscendComics, or email us at TranscendingComics at gmail.com.

(01:14:03):
We'd like to thank you for giving our podcast a chance and give a shout-out
to Ray Day Parade for designing our logo.
Our intro and outro music this week is A Little Soul and You've Been Starring by Carlson.
Check out more of his music on Carlson.com. Join us again next week as we continue
transcending boundaries and exploring the colorful world of trans,
non-binary, and genderqueer representation in comic books of all kinds.

(01:14:24):
As the curtains fall on this episode of Transcending Comics,
remember that comics have the power to inspire change in countless worlds, including our own.
Keep reading, keep writing, and keep transcending.
Hell yeah.