Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always so much
Speaker 1: for tuda. Could we get some non spoilery super hero music.
Speaker 2: That's my that's my sound effect for it. There it goes.
Speaker 1: That's our super producer, mister Max Williams. I am Ben Bullen,
Speaker 1: our Shazamer. Here are urah our hooray? Mister Noel Brown,
Speaker 1: Noel how sock?
Speaker 2: I just make sounds of my mouth. They pay me
Speaker 2: for it for some reason. Do it well though?
Speaker 3: I am doing well, And I've got to say that
Speaker 3: I don't want to spoiler. No spoilers to your point,
Speaker 3: but I had no idea that shazam stood for something
Speaker 3: that it's a freaking acronym.
Speaker 2: How cool is that? You know how much we love acronyms.
Speaker 1: Everything's in acronym if you're weird enough.
Speaker 3: If you give it value, Yeah, for sure. What are
Speaker 3: we talking about today?
Speaker 2: Ben? What are we shazaming?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked, because for a long time,
Speaker 1: like many filthy casual fans of comics and comedy or
Speaker 1: I thought, I thought healthy casual.
Speaker 2: Isn't that a gamer term? Don't?
Speaker 3: But it sounds like a yeah, mat filthy, So is
Speaker 3: that true? Fairwell, let's call it. Maybe this is sort
Speaker 3: of like being a fair Weather fan like sort of
Speaker 3: like you're not really in the weeds with this stuff.
Speaker 3: You're not a day one or you only know the
Speaker 3: movies that kind of fan wagon.
Speaker 1: So they're so, uh bandwagon, fair Weather, filthy casual, call
Speaker 1: me what you wish, fellow ridiculous historians. For quite for
Speaker 1: quite some time, I thought that Shazam was the name
Speaker 1: of the character. This is untrue. Shazam is the secret
Speaker 1: magic word shouted out by the character Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but also the movies, the character is named Shazam
Speaker 3: with the kid that turns into the guy who shouts
Speaker 3: the word, and also the name of the magical wizard
Speaker 3: who abused him. With all of these back, Okay, the
Speaker 3: point being, ben all of this stuff gets real convoluted.
Speaker 3: This is like a IP juggling competition that we're going
Speaker 3: to talk about today that is a lot longer than
Speaker 3: a lot of people might realize.
Speaker 1: How many Captain Marvel's are there?
Speaker 3: Nol no idea. Then I've researched this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 3: I guess what like four I don't even know what, Lucia,
Speaker 3: let's just get right into.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, yeah, you're right, you're right. So
Speaker 1: back in March twenty nineteen, with the help of our
Speaker 1: research associate Jeff, we got in a bit of a
Speaker 1: conversational pickle Shazam, the film about Captain Marvel and Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel the other film about another Captain Marvel. We're in
Speaker 1: theaters at the same time, through two different companies. They
Speaker 1: are unrelated, they do not exist in the same universe,
Speaker 1: and they are indeed a consequence, a result, a culmination
Speaker 1: of a history, as you said, no, a legally fraught
Speaker 1: history that goes back almost a century.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, that's the number I was looking for.
Speaker 3: And ip, of course, most folks show because you don't
Speaker 3: intellectual property, and that can get really fraught when you know,
Speaker 3: something all of a sudden starts to pop off and
Speaker 3: get really popular. And oh dear, that surely resembles my
Speaker 3: cartoon character that I created. Uh, maybe it's time to
Speaker 3: hire some lawyers and just see about that f around
Speaker 3: and find out, if you will. Yeah, they aft around,
Speaker 3: and they might find out that they are, in fact
Speaker 3: in a situation known as copyright infringements.
Speaker 1: Right, indeed, so funny thing happens at the comics stores
Speaker 1: in June of nineteen thirty eight, you find a thing
Speaker 1: called Action Comics number one, Action.
Speaker 2: Commoss number of worth with a lot of money, right,
Speaker 2: valuable piece. Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: To the fellow enthusiasts, you might recognize this as the
Speaker 1: print debut of DC Comics Superman. He comes out in
Speaker 1: June of nineteen thirty eight, and just a year after
Speaker 1: in Wiz Comics number two. I think they made it
Speaker 1: in nineteen thirty nine, but it comes out in February
Speaker 1: nineteen forty. Whiz Comics number two features guy named Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel original name Captain Thunder. He is absolutely as though
Speaker 1: we are in a court. Can we get like Max?
Speaker 1: Can we get like a Casey on the case Law
Speaker 1: and Order comic Court.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's surely in the folder. Stummare, there it is there.
Speaker 1: It is so your order. Captain Marvel originally apt in Thunder,
Speaker 1: is nothing like Superman other than the fact that he
Speaker 1: looks exactly like Superman and has identical powers and a
Speaker 1: slightly different outfit.
Speaker 3: Guys, we're gonna get to this, but I have to
Speaker 3: pose it right up front. I sometimes think people get
Speaker 3: a little high on their creative horse, maybe giving themselves
Speaker 3: more creative credit than they deserve. All of these characters
Speaker 3: are just modeled after Greek gods. Man, It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: what an individual imbued with super strength who can fly?
Speaker 3: Never heard of that before, never read the you know,
Speaker 3: Greek mythology on.
Speaker 2: A million percent dude.
Speaker 3: And that even comes in with the whole what the
Speaker 3: acronym shazam means, which we're gonna save and get to
Speaker 3: in just a minute.
Speaker 2: But I just wanted to put that out there right now.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of this is a little bit
Speaker 3: of a pissing contest, and we do see where the
Speaker 3: law ultimately sides.
Speaker 2: But none of these ideas are particularly unique.
Speaker 3: You know, a magical individual who can fly and lift
Speaker 3: heavy things.
Speaker 1: Joseph Campbell is nodding in agreement from Beyond the Grave,
Speaker 1: the author of Hero with a Thousand Faces. No one
Speaker 1: has accused human storytelling technology of originality. So let's learn
Speaker 1: a little bit about our buddy. Captain Marvel knee Captain
Speaker 1: Thunder comes out through an outfit called Fawcet Comics again
Speaker 1: publication in nineteen forty and Captain Marvel has a cool
Speaker 1: thing that's very appealing to the demographic of Fawcet comics.
Speaker 1: He is a twelve year old boy named Billy Batson.
Speaker 1: He's an orphan and in his origin story, he follows
Speaker 1: a stranger into the subway, and when he goes to
Speaker 1: the subway, he meets a mysterious old man, a wizard
Speaker 1: named Shazam. That's the actual It's like Frankenstein's Monster.
Speaker 2: A million you know, yes, no exclamation mark though, is right?
Speaker 1: So this so this wizard is like, stuff is messed up,
Speaker 1: young Billy Batson, and you are the only hope for
Speaker 1: all these crazy high stakes that I will not explain
Speaker 1: why am just because he happened to be the one
Speaker 1: that followed him or does he have some mystical destiny
Speaker 1: like you know, he's like you're reading the comic and
Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, I could do that. I should follow
Speaker 1: more strangers into the subway.
Speaker 2: That is not the takeaway.
Speaker 1: That's that's apparently that's the application. So okay, So the
Speaker 1: wizard imbues and I love that word imbuse or bruise
Speaker 1: young orphan Billy with this power whenever he says the
Speaker 1: word the magic word. The Wizard's name Shazam. Then he
Speaker 1: acquires can we get some like M c U or.
Speaker 3: D c U music, whatever you pick is certainly going
Speaker 3: to go along with him.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's uh, let's uh, let's round robin this please. Yeah? Okay,
Speaker 1: So what does Shazam stand for?
Speaker 2: The wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules.
Speaker 5: The stamina of Atlas, the power of.
Speaker 2: This lighting strike, the courage of Achilles.
Speaker 3: And the speed of Mercury.
Speaker 1: Do you get it?
Speaker 2: I get it.
Speaker 3: I guess it's good that he didn't have the fatal
Speaker 3: flaw of Achilles, right right.
Speaker 1: He has his own heels, as we'll find he also U.
Speaker 1: Let's let's uh, let's point out that there were a
Speaker 1: couple of Greco Roman gods that were ignored in this.
Speaker 1: He doesn't have like the bad attitude of Hades, you
Speaker 1: know what I mean.
Speaker 2: He doesn't have the limp of Vulcan.
Speaker 1: But he or Hephaestus, uh Captain Marvel for a time
Speaker 1: surpasses Superman in popularity. It's a real Pepsi versus Coca
Speaker 1: cola thing. In DC reads this. They do not exist
Speaker 1: in a vacuum. And you can tell, as our old
Speaker 1: pal research associate Jeff points out, you could tell because
Speaker 1: Superman's powers evolve all of a sudden, inexplicably right after
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel hits the scene.
Speaker 3: Absolutely DC changed their hero to kind of go with
Speaker 3: what this seemed like, the kids that were getting down
Speaker 3: with before Captain Marvel. We know the famous line that
Speaker 3: really does stick with it to this day, the property
Speaker 3: Superman could leap.
Speaker 2: Tall buildings in a single bound.
Speaker 3: But that speed of Mercury, Man, it's got some heat
Speaker 3: to it. So the idea that Superman was only propelling
Speaker 3: himself over tall buildings with a with some powerful gams,
Speaker 3: like a strong leap, but not necessarily the power of flight,
Speaker 3: because the speed of Mercury granted Captain Marvel the ability
Speaker 3: to fly. So before you knew it, Superman was up
Speaker 3: there too, taking these guys. And it's funny, I've always
Speaker 3: thought of that expression leap tall buildings in a single bound,
Speaker 3: and in my mind I just squashed it together with flight.
Speaker 3: But that's not what the original Superman did. He was
Speaker 3: just a really good jumper, strong jumper.
Speaker 1: And now it's a Now it's an incredible hulk power, right,
Speaker 1: Hulk can't fly, but he can leap so well it's
Speaker 1: all on smash.
Speaker 6: Also, I just want to jump in here. The buildings
Speaker 6: weren't as tall back then. They were, actually they were,
Speaker 6: they were really tall.
Speaker 1: I think, Max, that that reminds me of the first
Speaker 1: time I saw at the Tower of London and I thought, dang,
Speaker 1: I guess anything over three stories really was a skyscraper
Speaker 1: back then.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: And you know some of them had the like the
Speaker 3: little needle on top or the antennas just added a
Speaker 3: little bit of height.
Speaker 6: Jump in here. Actually, I remember when my aunt Jennifer
Speaker 6: lived in.
Speaker 4: Philadelphia, there was a law or rule or custom, I
Speaker 4: don't know which one was that no building could be
Speaker 4: higher than the hat of William Penn.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep, yep, uh, there's a There was a similar thing,
Speaker 1: I think, uh for a while in DC and in
Speaker 1: a couple of other cities around the world. Like d
Speaker 1: C is a very a very large it's a large,
Speaker 1: picturesque metropolis. But you're not going to see a ton
Speaker 1: of skyscrapers. You're going to see one weird looking phallic object. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Washington Monument Why is a nopolisk story for another day.
Speaker 3: Indeed, I'm sorry, Max, Taller than the gentleman's hat Williams.
Speaker 2: I don't understand.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I probably explain it. There's a statue of.
Speaker 4: William Penn on topic I thank you, thank you, a big,
Speaker 4: a big statue, a big one. Yeah, and you know
Speaker 4: it's William Penn. He had a larger than life.
Speaker 2: That neck of the loans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in a burst of humility, they call it Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: So there are other key differences between the early Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel and the early predecessor Superman. Captain Marvel franchises so quickly,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you got a whole Dare I say,
Speaker 1: Justice League of Marvel's a Marvel family. There's Captain Marvel Junior.
Speaker 1: There's Mary Marvel. There's a super cool old man. There's
Speaker 1: Talkie Tawny who is a tiger who can talk.
Speaker 2: Get it. And there's like there's like a.
Speaker 1: Superpowered rabbit or hair if you're in Europe, Captain Marvel buddy,
Speaker 1: and everybody loves these stories. Speaking of franchises, speaking of
Speaker 1: as you raised the point earlier, Noel, speaking of IP
Speaker 1: or intellectual property and derivatives thereof, there is a twelve
Speaker 1: part film series of Captain Marvel. There's a radio show.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of swag. A young, a young, up
Speaker 1: and coming allegedly malungeon entertainer named Elvis Presley out of
Speaker 1: Tennessee is very into Captain Marvel Junior and.
Speaker 3: Talking about yourself, right no, no, no, no no, My
Speaker 3: have action is a little bit nastier, but yeah, talking
Speaker 3: about old Elvis, right, yeah, Elvis Presley uh is said
Speaker 3: to have borrowed his look from not Clark Kent, but
Speaker 3: Captain Marvel Junior. The whole clean cut, mild mannered vibe
Speaker 3: also comes into question once we get into the legal
Speaker 3: battle of all of this. And it is interesting too
Speaker 3: because it does seem like, you know, while we might
Speaker 3: think of superhero Superman as the most iconic kind of
Speaker 3: og superhero, it does seem like Captain Marvel got some
Speaker 3: things right quicker. The idea of a super crew, you know,
Speaker 3: like a superhero kind of squad. It seems like they
Speaker 3: were right out of the gate with that. And it
Speaker 3: would be a bit longer, I believe, before like the
Speaker 3: Justice League came around.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, just so Justice So whatever, keep it, give me,
Speaker 1: it's yours, I want to.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: So, by the mid nineteen forties, the original Captain Marvel
Speaker 1: Akshizam as we call him today, by far the most
Speaker 1: popular comic book superhero in the country, most popular comic
Speaker 1: book character in general. Sorry, Popeye, Tutelou, Tutelou, Yellow Kid,
Speaker 1: Betty Booth, Guitarzad. Superman basically comes in a year or
Speaker 1: two before and gives birth to what we would call
Speaker 1: the superhero genre today, launching the house Yon days of
Speaker 1: the Golden Age of comics, and Superman is following up,
Speaker 1: you know, pepsine coke again with Captain Marvel. Superman gets
Speaker 1: his own radio show, he's in comic strips, he gets
Speaker 1: a cartoon, he gets a TV series, but he doesn't
Speaker 1: get one thing that Captain Marvel gets, which is the
Speaker 1: movie business.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you know, it's like the early days of movies,
Speaker 3: but it's certainly an early era of this type of franchising, right.
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel reaches the film industry first to date, Fellow
Speaker 1: ridiculous historians, Captain Marvel is the first superhero ever to
Speaker 1: be adapted, to have their story adapted into a motion picture.
Speaker 1: And you know, now then I'm thinking of it, Noel Max,
Speaker 1: you know what this reminds me of? It reminds me
Speaker 1: of that poor kid in the TLC Day's Honey Booboo.
Speaker 1: Remember that, Remember honey Booboo? Oh, I thought you meant
Speaker 1: like TLC the R and B group. Now I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the Learning Channel that eventually just became the amorphus TLC.
Speaker 3: Yes, of course, honey Booboo. And what was her mom's name,
Speaker 3: Mama June, Mama June.
Speaker 1: I think that's how they went a lot of Thompson
Speaker 1: is the name of the former child star, and people
Speaker 1: started calling her honey Booboo because of her catch phrase
Speaker 1: that was like her Shazam, and Captain Marvel became known
Speaker 1: as Shazam anyway side dope.
Speaker 3: So the studio behind the film was called Republic Pictures.
Speaker 3: They were originally actually working with d C, which at
Speaker 3: the time was called National Comics Publications to make a
Speaker 3: Superman picture, but they already had an existing cartoon deal
Speaker 3: with Paramount, which prevented them from signing another type of
Speaker 3: property like that at the time. So Republic goes with
Speaker 3: Captain Marvel instead, and DC was understandably post and Fawcett
Speaker 3: Comics had already published Masterman, which was in and of
Speaker 3: itself even more egregious.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't really fallout.
Speaker 3: On either other side in terms of whether or not
Speaker 3: Captain Marvel was an utter rip off of Superman. Sometimes
Speaker 3: there's parallel thinking, maybe there was a little bit of
Speaker 3: ripping off going on, but Masterman definitely obvious one to
Speaker 3: one clone. Masterman also doesn't really roll off the tongue
Speaker 3: very well.
Speaker 1: It's like give me my It's like the alliteration, but
Speaker 1: it's like give me my weird havana cigar and let
Speaker 1: me kick my feet up at the comic book spot
Speaker 1: and be like, oh, a Superman, he's a he's he's
Speaker 1: eating a lunch. What's another word for super uber It's
Speaker 1: too German kolaba Masterman ulva.
Speaker 2: Master's not great either.
Speaker 3: I'm picturing like a southern gentleman in like a white
Speaker 3: suit with his feet up, drinking a mid julib, watching
Speaker 3: the field hands at work.
Speaker 1: You know, Masterman's sound all right, the over survibe, I
Speaker 1: feel you. Masterman sounds like in the early seventeen hundreds
Speaker 1: it was an obscure crime, possibly true, a crime that
Speaker 1: William Penn would have prosecuted or been found guilty of. Right, absolutely,
Speaker 1: I love how I love how we're all sort of
Speaker 1: nodding with that one, So yeah, agreed, Masterman is an
Speaker 1: even more obvious copy of Superman, and DC threatens a lawsuit.
Speaker 1: They send like their version of what we would call
Speaker 1: C and D a cease and desist. Faucett just says, okay, haha,
Speaker 1: you got us, and they pull it. But they but
Speaker 1: they're keeping with Captain Marvel, and DC is still really
Speaker 1: beefed up about it. They're saying, Captain Marvel again is
Speaker 1: just another guy who came after the guy that we
Speaker 1: made up.
Speaker 3: Isn't it interesting though, how this really does start to
Speaker 3: feel almost like a superhero arms race.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was theander of that word in the research
Speaker 1: as well. Like it is it is people attempting to, yeah,
Speaker 1: come up with the the end doll be all like
Speaker 1: quintessential super hero and stealing ideas from each other left
Speaker 1: and right.
Speaker 2: I mean.
Speaker 1: In June of nineteen forty one, National Comics sues Fawcet
Speaker 1: Comics for copyright infringement, and this creates one of the
Speaker 1: longest running legal battles in the history of comic books
Speaker 1: and lasts over a decade. And National Comics is, by
Speaker 1: the way, think of them as like the representative of
Speaker 1: DC Comics, and they're saying, look, we came up with
Speaker 1: this a year before you guys did, and then you
Speaker 1: came up with a guy who looks exactly the same.
Speaker 2: Oh one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: By the way, in case you're trying to picture the
Speaker 3: word faucets and you're picturing a tap dripping water, it's
Speaker 3: actually spelled like Pharah Fawcetts. Yeah Fawcett. So, as you said, Ben,
Speaker 3: longest running legal battle in the history of comic books
Speaker 3: at least, why don't we start with a little break
Speaker 3: down of kind of how it started and how it's going.
Speaker 1: For sure, Yeah faucet, Like Farah says, all right, we
Speaker 1: get it, Yana. These I'm twiddling an invisible cigar this
Speaker 1: whole time. All right, we get it, Yana. These two
Speaker 1: characters are very similar, but it's not to the point
Speaker 1: of infringement. I mean, think about Popeye, I think about Taza.
Speaker 1: They already do all sorts of you know, kind of
Speaker 1: superpower stuff. So who really is to blame? And then
Speaker 1: National Comics or you know, DC's representatives, they they come
Speaker 1: in and they go objection you Ana, here, we have
Speaker 1: bin got to bind we gotta bind what's in the binder.
Speaker 3: Well, this is kind of where it does start to
Speaker 3: you know, I can see the issue where you start
Speaker 3: to have these page by page comparisons of different comics,
Speaker 3: over one hundred and fifty pages in fact, panels from
Speaker 3: they are comics of Superman juxtapose with panels from Captain
Speaker 3: Marvel with close details kind of like circle like Exhibit A.
Speaker 3: Everything from costumes from the various you know, coutrema like
Speaker 3: capes and boots, the various superpowers of course, flying abilities, strength, speed,
Speaker 3: bullet invincibility, the ability to withstand explosions and shells and
Speaker 3: stuff like that, the idea, the detail of a secret identity,
Speaker 3: and they also edit. I think I mentioned this briefly
Speaker 3: at the top. They also went so far as to
Speaker 3: say that there was some copyright infringement going on in
Speaker 3: the fact that they were both clean cut, clean shaven individuals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no facial hair. That's a bummer for Max Nolla myself, folks,
Speaker 1: No superheroes with facial hair. Also, I love invincibility to bullets,
Speaker 1: not necessarily invincibility overall.
Speaker 2: You just can't shoot at.
Speaker 3: Them, that's right, And I guess I haven't seen the
Speaker 3: Panels or the by Psyche comparison. But even some of
Speaker 3: these things just on paper, not entirely unique.
Speaker 2: I think there are examples of this. I mean when
Speaker 2: you just modernize like a hero.
Speaker 3: Of course, bullets are going to come into play, because
Speaker 3: that's what all the baddies use, the gangsters. But when
Speaker 3: they start circling things like costume similarities and very specific
Speaker 3: like copy cat items from one comic issue to another,
Speaker 3: with enough of those stacked up, got a pretty good
Speaker 3: case on their hands, I would argue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the court agreed on to trial nineteen forty eight.
Speaker 1: The judge primarily ruled in favor of our friends over
Speaker 1: at DC and said, Okay, this Captain Marvel guy is
Speaker 1: an infringement on Superman and a lot of this comes
Speaker 1: to us courtesy of our friends at Plagiarism Today dot com,
Speaker 1: who creates that detail on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're gonna be really careful to cite them every
Speaker 3: chance lest they come after us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's letter box over there. Yeah, let's also
Speaker 1: shout out Jonathan Bailey. And this is a pretty recent
Speaker 1: article that comes from May twenty ninth, twenty nineteen, talking
Speaker 1: about the larger tale of captain Marvel and don't worry,
Speaker 1: we'll get to your favorite marvels, your modern marvels, dare
Speaker 1: I say in a moment. But obviously the courts have
Speaker 1: to agree on the infringement here. It is kind of
Speaker 1: obvious because who reads comic books at this time, people
Speaker 1: who make comic books.
Speaker 3: We have not yet reached the kind of mainstreaming of
Speaker 3: comics that we know today. You know, we're every single mining,
Speaker 3: every single piece of intellectual property from these canons. You know,
Speaker 3: this back catalog of stuff to make you know, a
Speaker 3: movie or television show or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's it's still coming from that that newspaper
Speaker 1: comic strip origin, right, the idea of a whole book
Speaker 1: of funny pages. That's why they're called cop books.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So the issue is there's the comic book issue. Is
Speaker 1: there is a there is this halsey on era again
Speaker 1: wherein it is kind of mainstreamed in print. But during
Speaker 1: the post World War Two, in the early nineteen fifties,
Speaker 1: the sales of these superhero comic books they're in the
Speaker 1: can they're slumping. People are not making as much money,
Speaker 1: and so Fawcet decides, hey, we can't really fight this case. Right,
Speaker 1: we're already hemorrhaging money in sales, so they pay four
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars in damages if we can inflation calculate,
Speaker 1: and a dude a booth and a book, that's about
Speaker 1: four million dollars today, and.
Speaker 2: So certainly not chump change.
Speaker 1: Not chump change. But Captain Marvel may have gone out
Speaker 1: like a chump Fawcet Comics shut up their whole comic
Speaker 1: book division and they bow out. This has intergenerational copyright consequences.
Speaker 1: But this is not the end of Captain Marvel.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, actually not meanwhile.
Speaker 3: It takes a little time fast forward, in fact to
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty six. Captain Marvel has largely become a dead property.
Speaker 3: It wasn't until February of nineteen sixty six that the
Speaker 3: pulp magazine Magnates Myron Fasts, which is, if there ever
Speaker 3: were a name that felt right for a pulp magazine, Magnate,
Speaker 3: Myron Fast has my vote, and Myron Fast publishes Captain Marvel,
Speaker 3: which is considered by many in comic book circles.
Speaker 2: It's just three circles to.
Speaker 3: Be one of the worst, if not the worst, comic
Speaker 3: books ever written.
Speaker 2: Which you know, makes sense if you're thinking.
Speaker 3: About what pulp magazines were famous for putting out.
Speaker 2: It was crap a lot of times.
Speaker 1: And our research is associate Jeff is Co citing that.
Speaker 1: But folks, that comes from Britannica, the Encyclopedia Britannica is
Speaker 1: telling us that Myron Fast as Captain Marvel is one
Speaker 1: of the worst.
Speaker 3: I'm wondering, I get I'm assuming that Myron Fast and
Speaker 3: maybe acquired this intellectual property after the decline or the
Speaker 3: you know, I guess disintegration of Faust Comics. I don't
Speaker 3: have that detail right here, but that would be the
Speaker 3: only thing that would make.
Speaker 1: Sense, right, that would be logical. And this Captain Marvel
Speaker 1: is released around the same time Marvel Comics is riding high.
Speaker 1: They've got Fantastic Four, They've got Spider Man, They've got
Speaker 1: X Men. As you know if you follow superhero films
Speaker 1: and adaptations, folks, Spider Man and X Men are making
Speaker 1: a lot of money. Fantastic four is also on the
Speaker 1: way in the next few years.
Speaker 3: Interestingly enough, though, if I'm not mistaken, both Spider Man
Speaker 3: and X Men are similarly kind of like there's a
Speaker 3: weird device disconnects between like two studios that have the
Speaker 3: right box so.
Speaker 2: Together.
Speaker 6: Well, so Fox doesn't have them anymore. It's not anymore Disney.
Speaker 4: Disney bought out that entire part of that studio and
Speaker 4: got all that stuff.
Speaker 6: That's when Disney bought out twentieth Century Fosh.
Speaker 1: Shout out Kevin Page, the architect, the mad genius of
Speaker 1: the MCU.
Speaker 3: He also, like the Sony Spider Man movies are largely
Speaker 3: considered be pretty bad until the Spider Verse movies, the
Speaker 3: animated ones, which are I think regarded as some of
Speaker 3: the best Spider Man films ever to be made.
Speaker 2: And I would tend to agree with that.
Speaker 4: The new ones with Tom Holland there's weird things products, there's.
Speaker 3: A partnership with Marvels, and there are certain characters they're
Speaker 3: not allowed to use or not allowed to cross feature
Speaker 3: because the whole deal with the Cinematic Universe stuff is
Speaker 3: to have appearances and a continuity.
Speaker 2: So those are properties that tend.
Speaker 3: To be a little confusing and convoluted, and I think
Speaker 3: those deals are going to run out, and then ultimately
Speaker 3: it all goes.
Speaker 1: To let me, let me tell you guys what happening.
Speaker 1: Let me tell you guys, what happened. So Marvel goes bankrupt.
Speaker 1: Marvel as a comic book entity is in the tank,
Speaker 1: and in their darker days, they start selling off properties,
Speaker 1: their derivative IP, you could call it, to different companies,
Speaker 1: and hence you have for a while twentieth Century Fox
Speaker 1: owning X Men, and then a different company, Sony owned
Speaker 1: Spider Man. It was a fire sale. I don't I
Speaker 1: don't even know if we want to do a bend
Speaker 1: with fact thing on this.
Speaker 5: That seeking the phone bed and PA's full in knowledge.
Speaker 2: It's just for you right now.
Speaker 1: It's an unpleasant story, and it explains a lot of
Speaker 1: the weird, a weird attempts that we see these different
Speaker 1: companies doing, you know, with the Sony Spider Man or
Speaker 1: Spider verse, right they're trying to make a Venom verse
Speaker 1: where Spider Man doesn't show up. They're trying to make
Speaker 1: a morebius film.
Speaker 2: Where that one didn't go super well, are you kidding?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: More fis No, it's more bs.
Speaker 3: That's the Vampire one with Jared Leto that was apparently
Speaker 3: I saw it on a plane actually, but I just
Speaker 3: sort of tuned out because it was embarrassingly bad and
Speaker 3: now there's this new Madam web movie. It is apparently
Speaker 3: absolute garbage.
Speaker 1: The comic books were good, but I don't know if
Speaker 1: the creators were at the comics.
Speaker 3: But is Madam Webb an official Marvel release or is
Speaker 3: there another weird crossover here because it seemed of a
Speaker 3: lower quality than the typical I know, Marvel Studio seems
Speaker 3: to be struggling a little bit, but Madam Webb looked
Speaker 3: like a B movie kind of it's and it is okay,
Speaker 3: So it's still in the Spider Verse because Madam Webb
Speaker 3: in the comics is uh is affiliated sort of with
Speaker 3: the pantheon of Spider Man.
Speaker 1: And so they've got this, They've got this whole legal
Speaker 1: plaquemire going on, and our pal myron Us Myron, Myron thanks,
Speaker 1: he loves his mother. Yeah, Myron, he's got to get
Speaker 1: out a skid row, right, shout out the little Shop
Speaker 1: of Horrors. It seems right, It seems obvious that he
Speaker 1: is trying to uh claim this trademark. And it's kind
Speaker 1: of like, in a weird way, it's like a print
Speaker 1: version of those B movies that you would see, uh
Speaker 1: straight to VHS and the days of Blockbuster, right, remember
Speaker 1: those that not quite the same horror film. It wouldn't
Speaker 1: be like uh, hell Raiser, it would be like heck
Speaker 1: Ruckus hell Bringer.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, and then you know, there was a company called
Speaker 3: the Something O Jesus, I know what you're talking about,
Speaker 3: But they coined the term mockbuster. Mockbuster, that's it, straight
Speaker 3: to video things where literally part of their business would
Speaker 3: be people confusing their thing for the real thing on
Speaker 3: the shelves a blockbuster. That's what my asylum, I think
Speaker 3: is what it was called. I want to say it
Speaker 3: was called the Asylum. But he stead of snakes on
Speaker 3: a plane, they did snakes on a train. But they
Speaker 3: were leaning into that, and this whole deal is pre that.
Speaker 3: But this is exactly right then, the absolute B movie
Speaker 3: version of popular thing.
Speaker 1: He did such a he got in trouble because he
Speaker 1: also got too close to the actual properties and characters.
Speaker 1: He used Plastic Man, which is a real DC character and.
Speaker 3: A real rip up of mister Fantastic or vice versa. Hey,
Speaker 3: I'm not even sure what order they came in, Hey,
Speaker 3: law and order saying yeah, you're right, you're right.
Speaker 1: Sustained doctor Fate And then how bad is this he
Speaker 1: had a Batman character and he was like, well, we
Speaker 1: can't call it Batman, We'll call him the bat Yeah.
Speaker 2: Perfect ride.
Speaker 3: Can we also, once again, no shade. This is all
Speaker 3: first to market stuff. You can only come up with
Speaker 3: Batman one time. It's not the most creative thing in
Speaker 3: the universe. It's a guy who looks like a bat
Speaker 3: and he's called Batman.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, Spider Man has man bat Oh wait,
Speaker 1: how do you.
Speaker 2: Say the man? Wait?
Speaker 3: But then there was the man bat in the Batman
Speaker 3: the animated series, who was still weird mutant bat thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And there's Batgirl. Oh sorry.
Speaker 3: You can see how this stuff is even confusing for us,
Speaker 3: and we're fans of this stuff, so it really does
Speaker 3: get pretty convoluted pretty quick.
Speaker 1: And so he uh, he has his own Captain Marvel
Speaker 1: that he he makes a side This guy has a
Speaker 1: like a Batman Robin relationship. In the Myron Fast stuff
Speaker 1: and Myron Fast as Captain Marvel has a sidekick named
Speaker 1: Billy Baxton with an X which is just a Batson
Speaker 1: pretty close to Billy Batson. So you can see how
Speaker 1: that didn't work out After just a few issues. Fast
Speaker 1: as Captain Marvel disappears, and Marvel Comics has this look
Speaker 1: around the room moment and they say, wow, these low
Speaker 1: quality imitators, these grifters, they can do lasting damage to
Speaker 1: everything that we represent. We have to go back to court,
Speaker 1: we have to lock down this Captain Marvel name. And
Speaker 1: so in I think it's like nineteen sixty six, the
Speaker 1: publisher of Marvel goes to Myron Fast and says, look,
Speaker 1: we'll give you six grand to the rights for Captain Marvel.
Speaker 3: Okay, again, we don't even have to inflation calculator. You
Speaker 3: could probably figure that was probably close to to like,
Speaker 3: you know, fifty grand or maybe even one hundred grand
Speaker 3: at the time. But when you think about where things
Speaker 3: ended up with all the movies and how even minor
Speaker 3: characters like that were big have become big money shout
Speaker 3: out man exactly, the minorists of characters. That was probably
Speaker 3: a little bit of a sweetheart deal there, know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And so it's so weird because Marvel, so Myron
Speaker 1: Fast turns them down. Marvel goes ahead and says, forgiveness
Speaker 1: V permission, We're going to introduce our own Captain Marvel,
Speaker 1: a brand new Captain Marvel. And in nineteen sixty seven.
Speaker 1: I want to say. They come out with Captain Marvel
Speaker 1: on the twelfth issue of a thing they were running
Speaker 1: called Marvel Superheroes, and Myron Fast says Marvel, gosh dotted,
Speaker 1: I'll sue your pants off if infringing on by trademark
Speaker 1: that I stole from you. And they say you're being
Speaker 1: a cartoon And so my Ron Fast ultimately settles for
Speaker 1: four thousand, five hundred dollars. And we've got a great
Speaker 1: quote here at Noel. You'd love to do this one,
Speaker 1: he says.
Speaker 3: Our Captain Marvel was selling lousy anyway.
Speaker 2: I mean, really, the only way to say that is like.
Speaker 5: I was lousy. I was selling lousy. Who cares get
Speaker 5: rid of it? For everyone on the trash.
Speaker 1: Heap, for everyone listening along at home. Our pal Nol
Speaker 1: is also twiddling a fake cigar at this point, and
Speaker 1: us that's how publishers talk, right, It's true, they always have,
Speaker 1: like a fake cigar. Not much happens for the next
Speaker 1: twenty years. The original Captain Marvel is no longer publishing,
Speaker 1: The name and the character, more specifically, stop being used
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight. That's where we get the current
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel. So this modern, this new Captain Marvel is
Speaker 1: an alien. They make up a whole backstory, build out
Speaker 1: a world for Captain Marvel's race. Captain Marvel, who is
Speaker 1: not the current iteration played by Brie Larsen, is a
Speaker 1: dude alien from a race called the Cree, or a
Speaker 1: species called the Cree.
Speaker 3: Which you might recognize from the Guardians of the Galaxy films.
Speaker 3: And again, you know, I think like you yourself been,
Speaker 3: I have friends who are deep into all of this
Speaker 3: stuff and all of this lore and these various iterations
Speaker 3: and the Cree have been around for you know, decades
Speaker 3: and decades, and you know, really what Marvel Studios have
Speaker 3: done is mind all of this intellectual property, sometimes taking
Speaker 3: some creative liberties, sometimes being very true to the source material,
Speaker 3: but it's essentially just an absolute, you know, pool of
Speaker 3: stuff they can pull from to kind of like tell
Speaker 3: these stories. And the Cree are a big part of
Speaker 3: that as well as like introducing Thanos and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: They got creative give it that drum. Yeah, all right,
Speaker 1: So this, uh, this direct predecessor of the current Marvel,
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel is mar dash Vel and his Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: just so, and This was an editorial necessity. They needed
Speaker 1: to use the trademark, which is kind of also why
Speaker 1: Loki Sony comes out with a Spider Man movie every
Speaker 1: so often, because they have to use it to keep it.
Speaker 1: So Marvel is uh is kind of checking the boxes
Speaker 1: for Marvel. I mean, he he looks a lot like
Speaker 1: he has this like a lot of the same superpowers.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He gets uh, he gets a different uniform. He has
Speaker 1: gold wrist bands which you'll later see and stuff like
Speaker 1: Captain Quantum and whatever. In Marvel, he's got a starbarst logo.
Speaker 1: Uh he.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: He has a different sound effect when he strikes his
Speaker 1: wrist together. He doesn't say shazam, but what triggers his
Speaker 1: superpowers is the sound effect.
Speaker 3: The tang, which is really just kind of like automatopoeia
Speaker 3: for the sound that it might make when the risk
Speaker 3: you know, braces or slapped the tang.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because because they're the Billy Batson in this is
Speaker 1: a teenager named Rick Jones who finds these golden wristbands
Speaker 1: the negative the megabands megabands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that doesn't sound good, it's that oh sorry, because
Speaker 2: they're from the negative zone. They're from the.
Speaker 1: Negative zone, got it. Yeah, so the the lore is there.
Speaker 1: They put it in place, but I would prefer sh
Speaker 1: as Am to a Katang. I don't know what do
Speaker 1: you guys think?
Speaker 3: Absolutely, and the whole negative zone negative all seems a
Speaker 3: little bit lazy if we're being honest.
Speaker 1: We're being honest. The fans didn't really dig this, and
Speaker 1: the sales reflected that. So Captain Marvel in this iteration
Speaker 1: was always sort of on the cusp of being canceled.
Speaker 1: And this is where we get to the actual Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel that you may know and recognize from the Disney
Speaker 1: brun MCU today. Carol Danvers makes her first appearance in
Speaker 1: Marvel Superheroes issue thirteen, just after issue twelve, right in
Speaker 1: March of nineteen sixty eight, and she originally is hanging
Speaker 1: out with these alien cre She's hanging out with Marvel.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: She actually gets abducted by a jealous Cree officer named
Speaker 3: Jon Rog, which sounds weirdly cthulhuesque, and Marvel flies in
Speaker 3: to rescue her in like you said, Captain Marvel at
Speaker 3: number eighteen. Then there's a battle between Marvel and Yon Rag,
Speaker 3: and during said battle, a device is exploded an ancient
Speaker 3: Creed device called the psyche Magnetron, which is kind of
Speaker 3: cool sounding.
Speaker 2: I like that.
Speaker 3: I might use that for I don't know, it could
Speaker 3: be a cool band name or something. And it explodes
Speaker 3: and creates sort of like a fallout area wherein Marvel and.
Speaker 2: Danvers get bathed in this radiation.
Speaker 3: Marvell presumably is being okay, being sort of you know,
Speaker 3: extra human and all of that. And Danvers, however, transforms.
Speaker 2: She's infused with Cree.
Speaker 3: DNA and she actually gets powers very similar to those
Speaker 3: of Marvel.
Speaker 1: Dare we call her Captain Marvel? Not quite yet, because
Speaker 1: for almost a decade, Danvers is just a second tier
Speaker 1: recurring presence in the overall Captain Marvel series. It isn't
Speaker 1: until the nineteen seventies when DC has wonder Woman wonder
Speaker 1: Woman coming to like the cover of Miss magazine, that
Speaker 1: the folks at Marvel look around and they say twiddling
Speaker 1: the invisible cigar.
Speaker 2: Indeed, hey, why don't we have a why.
Speaker 5: We have a woman's superhero? Women's lib is hot right now?
Speaker 5: We got this second wave feminism. We need to get
Speaker 5: with it.
Speaker 1: With the picture j Jonah Jamison banging the desk, bring
Speaker 1: me a woman, Superhero any woman as quick as you can.
Speaker 2: And then you know they you can kind of see.
Speaker 3: Through the ploy here as well, even by the name
Speaker 3: they plopped on her with as Miss Marvel.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like throwing a bow on pac.
Speaker 3: Man and calling him Miss pac Man, but even more
Speaker 3: kind of obnoxious, frankly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And so in January of nineteen seventy seven, Nola's right, folks,
Speaker 1: Miss Marvel debuts and now our character, Carol Danvers has
Speaker 1: a fair uh faucet hairdoo get it? Easter egg? Oh snap, yeah,
Speaker 1: and she's traveling to New York City. She's gonna work
Speaker 1: as a journalist for a magazine called Woman.
Speaker 2: Woman Super Creative.
Speaker 1: It's published by Jay Jodah Jamison.
Speaker 3: Who's all about you know, women's lib Yeah, class classes
Speaker 3: big time. So, you know, Miss Marvel does never really
Speaker 3: quite quite lock into a rhythm, whether it be with
Speaker 3: the stories or the art, because that's very important to
Speaker 3: kind of establish like sort of a cohesive feel to it.
Speaker 3: A rotating cast of artists means that it never really
Speaker 3: quite gets into that groove. A new costume that gets
Speaker 3: unveiled in nineteen seventy eight, but overall it's a bit
Speaker 3: of a dud, and it gets canceled just a few
Speaker 3: issues later, an issue number twenty three April of nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy nine. But then they decide to bring back Marvel
Speaker 3: the Watch. She doesn't get her own imprint or her
Speaker 3: own series. They throw her on a team.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Avengers. The moment where Marvel Comics said, we
Speaker 1: have Justice League at home. It's true Justice Leake comes
Speaker 1: before the Avengers.
Speaker 3: But I think her inclusion is a little bit offensive though,
Speaker 3: or there is. She's sort of this token woman that
Speaker 3: is treated a disrespectful.
Speaker 1: There's a storyline where she gets sexually assaulted. It just
Speaker 1: in short, it doesn't age well. But the writers, like
Speaker 1: artists and writers like Chris Claremont said, hey, we're not
Speaker 1: treating this character well. This character has a lot of
Speaker 1: potential and depth. And so in October of nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 1: Claremont himself tries to fix this and he says, all right,
Speaker 1: Carol Denvers has made her way back from space to Earth.
Speaker 1: She's escaping the Creed, but she's haunted by it. She
Speaker 1: runs into Rogue, the very southern mutant from the X
Speaker 1: Men who can steal powers.
Speaker 3: And also can will kill you right, just touch her
Speaker 3: hand loog.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so I didn't realize Rogue was ever not
Speaker 3: connected with the X Men. I really only knew her,
Speaker 3: and I am one of those what did you call it, filthy?
Speaker 3: I'm filthy in some way, filthy fans on fair Weather
Speaker 3: is what I'll call myself. I really only knew about
Speaker 3: a lot of this stuff from like the X Men
Speaker 3: animated series or like Batman the animated series. Those were
Speaker 3: really excellent, by the way. And there's this new X Men. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's supposed to be fabulous and I really can't wait
Speaker 3: to watch it. They really nailed the style and apparently
Speaker 3: it's very, very smart. I'm excited to check it out.
Speaker 3: But no, I had no idea that Rogue was her
Speaker 3: own thing.
Speaker 2: Oh well, Rogue is.
Speaker 1: Rogue was formerly from the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants helmed
Speaker 1: by Magneto, and then she joins the X Men. So
Speaker 1: she's a bit of an anti hero. But she has
Speaker 1: this complicated relationship that actually passes the Bechdel test with
Speaker 1: Carol Danvers, and so the reason Rogue has powers there are.
Speaker 2: Those two women talking to each other right without talking
Speaker 2: about dude.
Speaker 1: So she gets her she gets her powers, super strength
Speaker 1: and flight and all that because she is permanently intertwined
Speaker 1: with Carol Danvers as Miss Marvel. And when when Rogue
Speaker 1: and Danvers get into this situation, Danvers loses all of
Speaker 1: her memory, which is sort of Chris Claremont wiping the
Speaker 1: slate clean, Tabila, rasa and and so then he has
Speaker 1: Clairemont writes Danvers or Miss Marvel as a character who
Speaker 1: is recuperating and discovering herself and her identity with the
Speaker 1: X Men. It's a great thing, right, And Clairemont does
Speaker 1: very well with the X Men series. His run goes
Speaker 1: almost twenty years, but it's Captain Marvel still. They want
Speaker 1: to hold on to Captain Marvel. How do we shazam
Speaker 1: this back to its original success. Maybe we fast forward
Speaker 1: to the movies.
Speaker 2: Right, where's my Oh? Well?
Speaker 1: Now, now instead of publishing Magnates with print nol, we've
Speaker 1: got to twiddle our vapes. Now we're Studio Magnates.
Speaker 2: Studio Magnates.
Speaker 3: Indeed, and as we've talked about throughout this episode, the
Speaker 3: MCU is feeling like it's in a bit of a slump,
Speaker 3: but it is still quite big business. And when it
Speaker 3: first really came out the original runs of MCU films
Speaker 3: from the Ironman franchise and onto the Avengers and Infinity
Speaker 3: Wars and Guardians of the Galaxy. I mean, this is
Speaker 3: some very creative use of this intellectual property, very well made.
Speaker 3: It's neat to see them pulling in some smaller directors
Speaker 3: to come in and do these really really big, big films.
Speaker 3: And you know, you've got like James Gunn, for example,
Speaker 3: who got his star with Trauma Pictures and Toxic Avengers
Speaker 3: and all of that, helming the Guardians of the Galaxy movies,
Speaker 3: I think to great effects because there is with the
Speaker 3: legacy of these properties, a lot of pulpy fun kind
Speaker 3: of trash involves. So he's a guy that kind of
Speaker 3: gets that, and that's why I think his are more
Speaker 3: successful than maybe some of the others. And it feels
Speaker 3: like they've gotten to a place where they sort of
Speaker 3: just lost the plot.
Speaker 2: And it is neat that James Gunn, I believe, now.
Speaker 3: Is revamping DC who have notoriously been a little more
Speaker 3: dour in their films, like with the Batman's films with
Speaker 3: Chritopher Nolan, which are obviously very good, but there's not
Speaker 3: quite as much fun and lightheartedness as you might find
Speaker 3: in some of the Marvel movies. So interesting to see
Speaker 3: where that's gonna go. But that being said, Marvel Cinematic
Speaker 3: Universe did grow into one of the most successful film
Speaker 3: franchises of all time, and hence the mining of every
Speaker 3: inch of intellectual property they can from back as far
Speaker 3: as the nineteen forties.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, this is where Carol Danvers slash Miss Marvel
Speaker 1: slash Captain Marvel goes to the big screen. Everybody total
Speaker 1: of your vapes. Breed Larsen, the actor, is cast in
Speaker 1: the title role of Captain Marvel after the after the
Speaker 1: role gets teased in Avengers Infinity War. So March twenty nineteen,
Speaker 1: Captain Marvel comes out. It makes more than one billion
Speaker 1: dollars US worldwide. And then in the later that same
Speaker 1: year Avengers Endgame comes out, we also get we also
Speaker 1: get the introduction of other ancillary characters, just like Shizam,
Speaker 1: just like Captain Marvel of old, there's Monica Rambeau who
Speaker 1: is who is affiliated with Captain Marvel and has similar powers. Right,
Speaker 1: and then because we have promoted Danvers to Captain Marvel,
Speaker 1: there's a new Miss Marvel and This is a Pakistani
Speaker 1: American teenager, Kamala Kahan. Her powers are way different in
Speaker 1: the comics versus in the film or the series adaptations.
Speaker 1: It's pretty interesting because what we're seeing is overall the
Speaker 1: adaptation of these modern myths. I really appreciate the idea
Speaker 1: that you pointed out of this continuity between Greco Roman
Speaker 1: gods of old and deities and pantheons, and the way
Speaker 1: that those stories echoed down to the world of comics
Speaker 1: and entertainment today. It seems that, as our pal Jeff said,
Speaker 1: it's a reminder that with superheroes, no death is truly final.
Speaker 1: You might be exactly, you might be the next Captain
Speaker 1: Marvel Max.
Speaker 2: You never know.
Speaker 3: And also, I would have to argue, does seem to
Speaker 3: lower the stakes white a lot, And I would argue
Speaker 3: is maybe one of the reasons why some of the
Speaker 3: Marvel properties have lost their luster a little bit, because
Speaker 3: if you if you don't really have to worry about
Speaker 3: what happens to a character because you know there's going
Speaker 3: to bring them back through a multiversal timey whimy flip,
Speaker 3: then are there are there ever any stakes?
Speaker 2: Really? It just kind of feels a little bit you.
Speaker 3: Know, lazy uh, and their ability to continuously cash in
Speaker 3: on all these characters without actually having to commit to
Speaker 3: any of their decisions.
Speaker 1: Interesting to say, is that how you feel about Doctor Who?
Speaker 1: Because you said time with Whymy?
Speaker 2: I said Timey whymy?
Speaker 3: Just because it's you know, it does seem to be
Speaker 3: a narrative device and it's a little vague as to
Speaker 3: how it actually works, and I feel like the mechanics
Speaker 3: behind it are a little you know, amorphous, And I
Speaker 3: also feel like it's just again like is it really
Speaker 3: is a character ever really gone? If they can bring
Speaker 3: them back, you know, in the next movie. It just
Speaker 3: seems to me to be a little bit of a
Speaker 3: I don't know, cash grabby kind of move. I do
Speaker 3: think it can use creatively. Obviously, it was stuff like everywhere,
Speaker 3: everything everywhere all at once. This time travel stuff and
Speaker 3: multiverse stuff is really really cool. And obviously those the
Speaker 3: directors of that film and writers, the Daniels are now
Speaker 3: in a deal with I believe the Russo Brothers and
Speaker 3: and some of the bigger studios. Hopefully they're not going
Speaker 3: to get relegated to just making superhero movies. I don't
Speaker 3: think they will, not only they would allow themselves to
Speaker 3: be used that way. But I do think it's a
Speaker 3: technique that can be used well. But also it.
Speaker 2: Feels like Marvel's kind of done it to death a
Speaker 2: little bit at this point.
Speaker 1: What about James Bond?
Speaker 2: I guess I feel like.
Speaker 3: That's a little different, just because the continuity doesn't matter
Speaker 3: quite as much, and it feels like every time they
Speaker 3: cast a new Bond they reset the clock.
Speaker 5: And oh like with Spider Man, yeah, a little bit,
Speaker 5: I guess.
Speaker 2: All the Spider Man's Meet also, that was fun. I
Speaker 2: did enjoy that.
Speaker 6: Has been so much.
Speaker 2: I don't think it should be No, No, it's fine.
Speaker 6: They put the put in the ads.
Speaker 2: Do you guys? You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Though, it feels like if there's never really any anything
Speaker 3: to worry about, because you know they can just come back,
Speaker 3: does it feel like there's a little bit of lowering
Speaker 3: of the stakes and you're not really concerned with what
Speaker 3: might happen.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe I'm being out.
Speaker 6: Yes, I agree with one hundred percentul.
Speaker 1: And we cannot thank you enough for tuning in. Folks.
Speaker 1: We hope fellow comic book nerds, we hope you are
Speaker 1: nodding along as we're hitting some of this stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: obviously we alighted over some of the more in the
Speaker 1: weeds part of this evolution. But I think what we
Speaker 1: all agree on here is that a story never really ends.
Speaker 1: With that, we can't wait for you to tune in
Speaker 1: next week. We have so many more explorations ahead. History
Speaker 1: continues to be ridiculous. Big thanks to our super producer
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams, and our own lex luthor Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 3: Indeed Alex Williams who composed our theme, research associate extraordinary
Speaker 3: Jeff bart Let's and of course.
Speaker 2: You Ben and with you as well. We'll see you
Speaker 2: next time, folks.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.