Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

>> Rob: Oi. What's that lurking in the darkness? Oh, no, it's covered in blood. Oh, it's coming this way. It's dear Watchers in omniversal comic book podcast, where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

>> Guido: We are traveling with you through the stories and the worlds and the dark alleyways that make up an omniverse of, fictional realities we all love. And, ah, your watchers on this journey are me, Guido the Ripper, and me, Rob.

>> Rob: And there's absolutely no way to prove that I was in the east end of London in the late 1880s. I'll deny it any day of the week.

>> Guido: I think there is lots of media where Jack the Ripper is a time traveler, so maybe.

>> Rob: Oh, yes. there's no evidence. And before we dive into our true crime day here and here, watchers Kita, what's new in our little section of the multiverse?

>> Guido: It is true crime. Maybe it's going to make us the most popular podcast in the world.

>> Rob: exactly.

>> Guido: True crime and comic books. Oh, my gosh. It's a dream come true for most podcast fans. From what I understand, we don't have anything really new. So I just say we are here on episode 137. Go listen to a past episode. If you've never listened to every single one of our episodes. We have so many interviews from over the years. In fact, what I should have said probably, is this month, July is our three year anniversary.

>> Rob: Oh, wow.

>> Guido: Of doing the show, right? I think so, yeah.

>> Rob: Yeah. July or August. I don't know. It's coming up.

>> Guido: It was definitely July. Okay, I'm more thinking about the three years. Is it three years? Is it one year? I really can't remember.

>> Rob: It's not one year, but who knows? Podcast time.

>> Guido: Time is very confusing to me. But yes, our anniversary is here. And so to celebrate our anniversary, which was July 14, 2021, there we go. Coming upon our anniversary, go listen to a past episode. Go listen to an interview. We're gonna call out a few today that relate to our subject. And m you can find all those episodes if you go to dearwatchers.com, click episodes. You can use the search bar. Of course, you can do that in your apple podcast app or I'm assuming your Spotify podcast app or wherever you're listening. But our website also has them all listed. You can search by character or comic or interview, and you'll see what we have.

>> Rob: And if you're joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey through the multiverse origins of the story, exploring multiversity and pondering possibilities. So thanks for coming along and,

>> Guido: Remember to leave us a five star review wherever you're listening, and you can find us on social mediaear watchers.

>> Rob: And with that, welcome to episode 137. And let's check out what's happening in the omniverse with our travels today's alternate universe. You're a naughty one, saucy Jack. You're a haughty one, saucy Jack. Web street laughs, gaslight liquors. And then you see the last light.

>> Guido: Glinting off the entrail. Wait, that wasn't our transition music.

>> Rob: That is, of course, from the yet to be unproduced rock opera from the band this is Spinal Tap. Because that's, saucy Jack. All about Jack the Ripper. Because today we are cutting to the chase and also slicing and dicing right to the chase. To answer the question, what if Batman's origin was tied into the origin of Jack the Ripper?

>> Guido: And so, a quick background on our earth today, because it is, I guess we could see if it's. We think it's the most famous alternate earth. It's one of them, for sure. Earth 19 in DC Comics, formerly Earth 1889 made a solid number of appearances, though few add too much depth to the world of victorian era Batmandhood. I will actually describe a lot of the follow ups to this earth during our final segment today. Remarkably, though, this earth is really important because it's the birth of elseworlds, though slightly retroactively, because the logo is only put on the book after the fact. So while this is widely considered the first Elseworlds book, it was printed without a logo, naming it as such. That honor goes to holy terror. They then added the logo in all subsequent printings. Apparently, this book has never been out of print, so that's a lot of printings with elseworlds on it. And this book really did create those alternate universes. And we're going to get into the genesis of the book and elseworlds in our middle segment.

>> Rob: And Guido, what is your background with this super famous book, Batman? Gotham by Gaslight?

>> Guido: I read it when it came out. I don't know why I can't remember 1990 particularly well, but I know.

>> Rob: That I only easy time.

>> Guido: I know that I got it from the comic shop when it came out. I'm assuming someone recommended it to me or I just was intrigued by it. And because it was square bound prestige graphic novel, if you will. It always felt very fancy to me. It always felt like something a little special and something that stands out. Felt like I was holding, I don't know, almost like an adult comic. Not in any sort of inappropriate way, but just in this way where I was like, ooh, this is fancy. I don't know why. Anyway, so I always kept it in my collection, even when sometimes as a kid, I would get rid of things. And even though I'm not a huge Batman fan, I haven't revisited it probably in over 20 years. So while I held onto it and really enjoyed it as a kid, it's not a story that I've returned to. So I'm a moderate fan, perhaps m. we'll see. We'll see where my fandom lies when we get into the story. But that's my background. What about you?

>> Rob: This is definitely a book I had heard of, and, of course, one you have told me about and that we've danced around here on the podcast, being this founding father of Elseworlds, but it's not what I ever read, even though I grew up as a moderate Batman fan and also a Jack the Ripper connoisseur. But this was my first time reading this.

>> Guido: Can we find a different way of describing you being interested in the case that junior M a Junior Ripper?

>> Rob: Well, I'm a junior ripper. Yes. Well, let us go back to the dark and spooky London foggy nights with our origins of the story. Right now on this very show, you're gonna get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago. Well, before we talk about Saucy Jack, let's talk about body Bruce and are and everything Batman related. Guido, this is a brand new character we've never discussed before here on the podcast, right?

>> Guido: You have to remind me who Batman is. It's funny because first of all, Batman, I don't think I need to tell anyone, but DC Comics Bruce Wayne, dark knight.

>> Rob: All right, he had a hit show in the sixties.

>> Guido: You might know him as Adam west. We have talked about him so many times, and, neither of us are huge fans. But anyway, we've talked Batman starting way back on episode 39, which is Phantom of the Opera. So it's a ties in, really well era a little later. But we've talked Riddler and Clayface. We've talked Kingdom come with Elliot. We talked Amalgam Batman on episode 73. We had Robin writer Megan Fitzmartin on for an interview as a guest. We've talked Stan Lee's Batmandhouse. We had lance of comic book keepers on for speeding bullets. Back in episode 89, and we actually talked a lot about why Batman, is such a good character for reinvention and alternate universe storytelling. But I think we should revisit that question now. We've covered him so many times. Why do we think Batman lends himself to alternate universe stories? What do you think it is about the Batman character that lets him so easily be transposed?

>> Rob: Well, I think he has his roots in a scarlet Pimpernel, kind of masked vigilante. I think the Scarlet Pimpernel based the original, the novel. That's, I think, the very first ever masked vigilante. And the Scarlet Pimpernel was this. In. Outside of his. In his real life, was this rich person, and he would act very effete, and that was his guise. And a lot of these characters, Zoro, who obviously, like, is tied even into the Batman origin story, and Batman, they all take that as their jumping off point. So I think there's just something we're just so used to with that character ingrained in our bones.

>> Guido: So how does that then lend itself to an alternate universe?

>> Rob: Well, I think. Well, look at this. Like, the dad is a character that is been in Spain with Zorro. It's been in France with, Scarlet Pimpernel. It's been in Gotham city. Like, you can take that character and put it in all these different worlds, and I guess the ideas of Greece.

>> Guido: Because it's an archetype.

>> Rob: Yeah, yeah.

>> Guido: At this point, Batman is an archetype. Whether he created it or was just part of a legacy, it's an archetype.

>> Rob: And so, yeah, because I think we can relate much more with him, even though we're not millionaires and many of us have not seen our parents murdered in an alley. But we could probably relate more to Batman than we can with Superman, with an alien from another planet who can do anything. Do you agree, or do. What else do you think? Like, where else do you think Batman has come from?

>> Guido: Well, I think it's in his origin, actually, that it tends to work to transpose him. I remember thinking this in speeding bullets, and I think we talked with Lance about it. The parents, actually, what you just named, I think, is the easy thing. You can move into any condition, in part because that's become a trope or an archetype. Audiences know that we've talked about plenty of times, as most comic book fans have, why movies don't really need to show that origin anymore. Everyone knows it. So that makes it really easy language to move the story. Then you just, you can put this character in any time or place. All you really need is him to witness his parents being killed as a child. And it inspires him to be some sort of dark or not even dark vigilante. That's all.

>> Guido: That's, that's the archetype. Take that and you can put that in any situation. And sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. So in this situation, we are putting it in the world of Jack the Ripper and we'll talk a little bit about how that happened and how this comic came about. But first, for the rest of our origin segment, let's talk Jack the Ripper a kind of a character. I don't know if character is possibly, probably a real person. I don't know. I don't really understand. So tell us who Jack the Ripper is.

>> Rob: So in real life, Jack the Ripper was. Well, we don't know. But the Jack the Ripper murders were committed in the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. At least five women, known as the canonical five, were murdered by having their throats cut. And at least three of them actually had their internal organs removed. Originally he was known as the Whitechapel murderer or the leather apron, but he named himself Jack the Ripper in a letter. And later a postcard sent to the police. And a third letter was sent claiming to be sentence from hell. Comic book fans probably recognize that that actually contained part of a kidney, though. Hundreds of letters were sent and the from hell letter actually appears to be written by a different person than the first two letters. So who really knows who wrote any of this? More than 2000 people were interviewed, 300 people were investigated, 80 people were detained. But the identity of the killer was never found and of course never will be found. Though speculation around suspects had included, or does still include, the royal family, the artist William Stichter, author Lewis Carroll of Alice in Wonderland fame.

>> Guido: A lot of these are like modern people who are trying to make sense of this. It's not necessarily that there was any documentary evidence.

>> Rob: No, definitely not.

>> Guido: So yeah, there's so many conspiracy theories, I feel like almost about this.

>> Rob: Oh yeah. And well, to this day, Ripper ologists are still trying to uncover this. There's still Ripper tours still going strong in the UK where Jack was actually voted the worst Britain of all time by the BBC in the two thousands.

>> Guido: Like they're, they're skipping over a lot of wars, they're skipping over a lot of oppression, legacies to get at this one person who killed five people who yeah, exactly.

>> Rob: Who may or may not even been one person, really?

>> Guido: Yeah, exactly.

>> Rob: And his legacy is still so strong that even just just a couple years ago, we there was two fish and chip shops that opened in the UK named Jack the Chipper.

>> Guido: And yet it's controversial. You had said those were controversial. There was I told you, there was a London, Ontario, Canada minor league team that wanted to be the Rippers. And the mayor even pushed back, I guess, you know, he did kill women. If it was one person and if it was a man, then we can assume there's some misogyny here. So I get trying not to valorize, him, but of course, he's become a larger than life character and so he has a whole history in fiction. He's a fictional character at this point almost immediately, starting in the novel the Curse of Mitre Square by John Francis Buer, which came out the same year as the murders. So that is, they jumped right on that guy, got right on it. You did not use chat. GPT it was like law and order.

>> Rob: Ripped from the headlines, basically.

>> Guido: And then the next year in the darkest London by Margaret Harkness. So those are coming out right away, 1888. But then it's really the short story of the Lodger by Marie Belloc Lowndes in 1911, which feels like it. It's a turning point m at this point where it's adapted into film five times, starting with the Lodger from 1927, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, which is his first thriller and probably the first on screen appearance of a Jack the Ripper character, either explicitly or clearly inspired by. And so that's a huge moment in terms of Jack the Ripper becoming an icon of pop culture. I mean, you and I were also realizing it's so weird because we both love Hitchcock and love that movie. It's weird that many, if not most people seeing that movie or reading these books or certainly reading the short story of the Lodger were alive when the murders were happening. Like, that is fascinating.

>> Rob: we were doing the math and, one of my all time favorite movies is David Fincher's Zodiac. And there was actually more time going between that first murder and David Fincher's movie than we're going between Alfred Hitchcock's movie and the Jack the Ripper Murders, which is just very strange to think about.

>> Guido: Yeah. So it's really interesting. I mean, of course, in fiction, in stories he's tangled with Sherlock Holmes. And there have been so many writers who've written Jack the Ripper stories, including Robert Block, who shows up in this series, wrote the foreword for Gotham by Gaslight, Harlan Ellison and Gardner Fox, Ramsey Campbell, Kim Newman. Just really famous short story horror writers, comic names that are involved. And the Ripper also features in a play in 1904. So again, so early he's getting put into things on stage in different medium and of course that's turned into a film and later an opera. So there is a lot that Jack shows up on.

>> Rob: Well, he's also had many screen appearances, including in one of Hammer's first horror films, room to let. One of his most famous is time after time, where Jack actually uses HG Wells time machine to travel to the 1970s to keep killing. And on television. Wow. He has been in every and some of the weirdest shows. So he's been in Star Trek, get Smart, Friday the 13th, the series Kolchak, the Night Stalker, Grimm, Babylon Five, Sleepy Hollow, and fitting for today's conversation, DC's Legends of Tomorrow. There's also been many times where Jack was actually, actually a woman, including the Dolph Lundgren vehicle Jill the Ripper. And in music, he's been in the subject of songs by Link Ray, screaming Lord, such Nick Cave, Morrissey, Bob Dylan and Ghost, and three Batman Ripper connections. I wanted to point out in time after time, Jack is played by David Warner, who played Ra's al Ghul in the animated series. Michael Kane played the lead inspector in the Jack film, in a Jack film, and of course also played Alfred in the Batman series and the lead on the Ripper inspired tv show Whitechapel, which came out just a few years ago. Rupert Penry Jones. He was one of the Riddler's victims in the Batman.

>> Guido: So you're saying Michael Caine was Jack the Ripper in real life? That's your theory that you're putting forward from that?

>> Rob: He's not quite old enough.

>> Guido: and is it a coincidence that he shares last name with Bob Kane? It's a conspiracy, but still. Alright, so we are a comic podcast, and Jack the Ripper has probably just as many comic book appearances. He's such a wild character. So of course, the seminal piece, which is not the earliest by any means, but the seminal piece is Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's from Hell graphic novel. Originally serialized in a UK compilation called Taboo. It goes into the royal conspiracy approach, probably, or almost definitely had to be inspired by a 1970s book that explores that possibility, though is not predicated on any documentary evidence, is just a conspiracy theory. And so that's serial, is coming out and then finally collected throughout the nineties. Into 98 and is adapted into a film. In 2001, the Jack the Ripper has appeared in Hellblazer, Doom Patrol, Wonder Woman, Predator mangas. In the JLA, at one point, it's proposed that Vandal Savage might actually be Jack the Ripper. And in a Superman's girlfriend, Lois Lane, that at some point we'll have to cover, because that series is wacky and we love it. In 1971, the ghost of Jack sends his knife, forward to murder Lois. And over in Marvel, the appearances are even more wild because on Earth 616, there is a whole mythology of Jack the Ripper where they're trying to unify some different appearances of him, positing that he's actually a spirit from the dark dimension of Dormammu.

>> Rob: Oh, wow.

>> Guido: Keeps recurring in history. And so you have, like in Master of kung fu with Shang Chi, the idea is that Jack the Ripper was actually an escape experiment of Fu Manchu. And then you have another version because it's the same sort of demonic entity reappearing or repossessing who fights Wolverine. And that was actually not that long ago. And then in the Marvel Max comic, wisdom, of course, pete wisdom from Excalibur, from the two thousands, he has to fight a bunch of time displaced multi universal Jack of the Rippers, including a killer orangutan and a, ah, Jill the Ripper. So this character is everywhere.

>> Rob: There's actually, I guess, some real life theories that believe he could have been an escape to bring a tang. I don't know. Maybe that's a real super fringe one. I'm wondering, Gita, why do you think this character has appeared in just so many different mediums? Like, why are we still obsessed with this character?

>> Guido: I don't know. I mean, I'm sure it has. I'm, sure it has something to do with, as we said at the top, people's obsession with true crime podcasts and the popularity of true crime television. Obviously, there's just a fascination with crime, and I'm sure it's been explored by very smart people who've analyzed why, psychologically, we have this interest in understanding or being just exposed to people who do things that we can't understand. I get why that happens, but why him? Why did he sort of elevate? I don't know the answer to that. Honestly. It feels like maybe some of it had to do with timing. You and I were talking earlier today about the fact that he's sort of. It's early enough, 1888, that there is not DNA. There's certainly not photographs like there's nothing that really makes it that we have this body of evidence that we can look at like we have from the Zodiac killer or certainly any later serial killers. But it's late enough in history, right? If this was the 17 hundreds, you wouldn't have mass media, you wouldn't have global media, you wouldn't have the means of communication to spread this story around. And so it feels like maybe the timing has a lot to do with why this character became just this thing. And then I don't know why so many comic book writers, for example, feel they have to put them in a comic book. I guess it's probably just people who grew up interested in thinking about him, who were like, oh, let me try this story out. What do you think it is?

>> Rob: I think a big. I think that's definitely. I definitely agree with you with all the things you just said. I also think a big thing is the fact that we don't know and really will never know who he actually was. So, like, with today's comic and those movies, you can really make Jack into anyone you want to be. So I think that really frees you up as a storyteller to go, do you want to go the conspiracy route? Is he going to be a killer gorilla? Is he going to be a time traveler? Like, you can go all those different ways and really dive into it. And I think the other thing is, and I propose this question to you, too, like, do you think we'd be talking about this character if he was still called the leather apron or the Whitechapel murderer?

>> Guido: Like, the name, we just go, oh.

>> Rob: That was a guy that killed five women. It's like, okay, like, no one's remembering the Whitechapel murderer all these years later, but, like, jack the Ripper. And he, or someone posing to be him, named himself in this very grandiose way. It's kind of like the first way of, like, it's almost like proto social media and putting yourself out there controlling the narrative.

>> Guido: Exactly.

>> Rob: Exactly. Everyone's eating kidneys now. Yeah, it's going to be widespread.

>> Guido: He was the first influencer. I love it. All right, we've solved it.

>> Rob: Mm Well, let's get our long scarves and our top hats and our walking sticks, and we're gonna go down the dark alley that is exploring multiversity.

>> Guido: I am your guide through these vast new realities.

>> Rob: Follow me and ponder the question, what is the. And today, we are talking about Gotham by gaslight, number one by DC Comics from January 1990. Answering the question, what if Batman's origin story was tied up with the origin story of Jack the Ripper.

>> Guido: Yeah. And so this is written by Brian Augustin, penciled by Mike Mignola, inked by P. Craig Russell, colored by David Horning, lettered by John Workman, and edited by Mark Wade. So some background on these creators before we dive in at this point. Brian Augustin had been at DC a few years, mostly in editorial. He actually hired Mark waid onto the Flash, which became a really iconic run, in both the Flash and Mark Wade's histories. After this, he continued. After this project, he continued at DC for some years before going to some indie publishers. As a writer, he has very few credits. This is his first book. After this, he wrote some valiant and one Marvel miniseries on the Imperial Guard, and then did some co writing at DC with Mark, especially on the Flash. Mike Mignola, of course, probably the most famous name in this group, got his start as a fanzine artist, doing some pencil work then for Marvel in the early 1980s before joining DC just a few years before this story, doing death in the family, and a few other books, he worked for both companies. He was doing Marvel Wolverine work at the same time that he was doing Gotham by Gaslight. And then after all of this, in the mid nineties, of course, he created Hellboy and that entire universe, including all the related spin offs, and still does those and other independent horror titles and other work for both the big two and other companies still. And last is, I want to mention the inker, P. Craig Russell, because I'm a huge fan. We haven't talked a lot about P. Craig Russell, but he is an unsung hero of comics. He's a penciling legend who penciled most of Neil Gaiman's myth stories, fairy tales, a ton of independent work. He did some iconic defining runs for Killraven at Marvel and Elric at a few different companies, actually, that mythological characters moved around. He defined, really, an era of fantasy comic looks, and he's openly gay and he's considered one of the first major comics creators to come out. And he's still working. And his art is just extraordinary. The detail is just wild. And they just did a variant of the new Scarlet Witch series with an old cover of his, and it's really so good and he's just great. And so his inks on Mike Mignola here are adding a lot, even though it's not his pencils. And I wanted to make sure to mention him.

>> Rob: And then a little about the creation of this book. Bryan Augustin was a close collaborator of Mark Wade's, as you mentioned, Guido. And while brainstorming a Batman annual, Wade had just done secret origins and felt he had explored official histories just too much. So why not an alternative one? So Augustine and him, and Wade kicked around different ideas and they ended up with Batman and Jack the Ripper. And as for the art by Mike Mignola, with inks by Pete Craig Russell, apparently Mignola happened upon Wade and Augustin after their pitch. Augustine's not quite sure if this is like apocryphal in his own memory, but it might have happened. And they told Mike about the book. He was over committed at the time and continually insisted he would not draw it. By the time they finished though, talking about this and pitching him, he had started to form a visual sense of the story in his head and he realized he was going to be doing the book and there was no going back.

>> Guido: Yeah. So this book, we're gonna spoil it, is, 30 years old, but we are gonna spoil it and get into the whole story. So let's start with first impressions. Since this was your first read of it, what'd you think?

>> Rob: So my first impression is I love the kind of mood of the book and the kind of setup. I think it is genius. I love the art. I think I had very high expectations, expectations for this book, being that it's the first else world and being that I do know a bit about Jack the Ripper and I've read from hell and all these other things. And in that case, it definitely fell short of those expectations for me. But I still enjoyed it overall. But that was my first impression. And now this is like your first impression, like 20 years later. So what did you think going back through the London fog to revisit the.

>> Guido: I think we probably had the same opinion. I'm not. I, don't think it's great. I think it's fine. I think it's good. I think it's a good idea and I think it's executed fine. I don't have any problem with the, writing or the art, but it doesn't ever hook you. There's nothing really exciting or interesting to it. Our what if question is, I think the only sort of interesting premise that's, that's bound up in it. And I think it's a little controversial too, I'd say. And we can get into why we posed the question we did and where it comes from. But on the whole, as a book, yeah, it plods along a little. It's text heavy because he's doing the diary writing style where you're reading from Bruce's diary to get some of the exposition. It's not very exciting.

>> Rob: No. And I feel like at 50 pages, it feels a little rushed to me. Like, I want to know a little bit more about just the world here. There's a little. I think I would learn a little bit more world building about Gotham. And not that I need to focus on the victims, like, in the same extent that Alan Moore does in from hell, but you really don't know them at all. Like, I don't even think you hear what their names are.

>> Guido: No. And one thing we should tell listeners. So I guess we didn't prepare a summary of the story because we figure most people know it, but let's assume maybe not everyone knows it so quickly. A few key things I think people should know about it. It doesn't change the history of Jack the Ripper. He still commits the London murders, but he then goes to Gotham and starts murdering more people. It obviously plays with Batman's origin just because it needs to move him in time, but he's essentially the same character. We will talk about his origin because it's our key question today. And then the way the story unfolds is Bruce is accused of being the murderer he's framed explicitly. And because he goes out at night as Batman, of course, he can't. He doesn't have an alibi and can't explain it. So he is sentenced to death for being Jack the Ripper. He, of course, tries to solve the case on his own, struggling to do so in the end solves the case, which we'll get into, because that's the key question, solves the case and confronts the murderer, who then Jim Gordon, ends up killing. And so that is, I think the summary. Is there a point I missed that you want to throw in?

>> Rob: No, I was just going to say, I think, for me, one of the most interesting parts of this story is Bruce getting framed for the murder and exploring the idea of, like, oh, like, here's a guy who. No one knows where he is at night, and he can't tell people where he is at night because it's going to reveal that he's Batman. Like, that is a very interesting idea to me.

>> Guido: And one thing Bryan Augustine does there that I think is really interesting, too, is it's not that he doesn't want to tell people because he doesn't want to expose a secret identity. It's that he, the Batman, is seen as not a good hero. And so he's like, if I tell them I'm Batman, they'll still say I'm crazy. And whether they think I'm Jack the Ripper or not, like, they're gonna still condemn me. So I think that's a really interesting idea there is. Like, it's not that he's like, I can't out myself as being Batman. It's that that won't actually save me in this case. And I think that's a really interesting idea there too.

>> Rob: Yeah. And I like, also in then him uncovering who the killer is and solving it, you get Detective Bruce, which I think ties in so well with this because we mentioned earlier that Jack the Ripper has also had many stories with Sherlock Holmes. So it just feels good that, like, oh, you're getting Detective Batman, the world's greatest detective, uncovering this, it feels a bit rushed, and there's a little bit of, like, almost like, ah, that's the answer. And it, like, it, seems to come out of nowhere.

>> Guido: Because what happens is he. He. The knife is what was used as evidence to frame him. So the knife is left in his mansion. And when he's examining the knife for the umpteenth time, his father's picture from being a military surgeon is, like, falls out of a book or whatever.

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> Guido: And he sees that the knife has the same symbol as his father's regiment. And so he realizes it must be one of the people in that picture. And, of course, one of the people in that picture is his uncle, who we've met earlier in the story in, like, a throwaway scene when they're riding a boat together.

>> Rob: Not his real uncle. Not, I guess, his blood uncle. Right. But it's like his, like, adopted Uncle Jack.

>> Guido: I don't know. You don't think it's possibly his father's brother? I'm not sure.

>> Rob: I don't think so, no, I don't think it is, but.

>> Guido: So now let's get to the important part here. Linking these two stories up is what Brian Augustin proposes, is that Jack the Ripper is spurred on by Martha Wayne. So the only reason Jack the Ripper is killing people, killing women, is because Martha Wayne rejected him, because Thomas had everything and felt so lucky and privileged to. To this. To Jack the Ripper. And he then tries to court Martha away from Thomas Wayne. And Martha laughs at him, and he can never stop hearing her laughter, and therefore, he kills women. So. So essentially, Martha Wayne has caused Jack the Ripper.

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> Guido: Is what's happening in this idea, much.

>> Rob: M. Like, in Batman ver. Much like in Batman versus Superman, it all comes down to Martha.

>> Guido: It is all her fault. Typical. Yeah, I don't love that. Like, I. I appreciate the attempt there to, like, bind up the two origins. I think it's an interesting idea, but, of course, I really am never comfortable with the idea of. Even if there's something to be said about the realistic role misogyny plays and the fact that a lot of male killers are killing in response to something that happens with a woman. In this case, like, you're not spending a lot of time going into that. So to just turn the whole story on the fact that Martha caused this is, like, a little weird to me. Well, I think created Jack the Ripper, so I'm not a big fan of that.

>> Rob: I think in many cases, when you go into that and, like, you mentioned Robert Block, who wrote the introduction to this. Like, when you do something, like, how is Norman affected by his mother? Like, and then the backstory, it's like years of abuse or all this, like, okay. Like, you see maybe where this could have come from, but here, it's, like, really was, like, this one interaction where she laughed at him. Like, how fragile was Jack's ego? Like, that this one single moment, like, broke this character. We'd get it if, like, he had been. If we then also heard, oh, like, he had this relationship with his mother that also, like, at least then, like, we can see a little bit more backstory. But it's like, really, this one moment made you kill dozens of women. I don't really buy it.

>> Guido: Yeah. And in part, that's the thing with you feeling like it's rushed, I think, too, is. Yeah, I think if you. That. That detail could have been interesting if it had. You had spent more time with it, but you don't spend any time with it. So it literally becomes. I can't stop hearing Martha Wayne's laughter. Martha Wayne is the reason I kill. And, like, that is literally, it, that's the story.

>> Rob: Well, and I think the other issue with this whole Jack character is, as you and I, you know, both of us, one of our favorite movies, horror movies of all time, is scream. And what scream and all the scream movies do well, is, like, you really don't know who the killer is, and everyone could be a suspect and that kind of thing. Agatha Christie, too. Right. But this is one of those ones.

>> Guido: Red herrings.

>> Rob: Exactly.

>> Guido: Expectations. Yeah, but this is one of those.

>> Rob: Things where, like, we. We meet Bruce, and then Bruce is on a ship going back from Europe, back to Gotham, and then he just randomly runs into his uncle, who's also coming back from Europe. This is not a character we really know in DC lore. So it's like, oh, could jack the ripper, who could he be? Could he be the random character we've been introduced to? And, like, page five, who's also coming back from Europe at the same time, like, I wonder who the killer could be. And then when the knife is found in the house, it's like, oh, the uncle was also just visiting the house. It's like, okay, this is all a little too on the nose.

>> Guido: Well, there's also. There's very few characters. You almost think, again, a 40 whatever page prestige book. You almost feel like you're gonna go meet lots of different characters. Bruce is gonna be at a party. You're gonna meet these people. You're gonna meet these cops. You're gonna meet this part of the family. And you don't. And in part. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. It's where the pacing, I think, is a little off for me. You'll have these beautiful art pages, which are great multi panel, some splash pages with Mignola's art and very little dialogue. And those feel good. Like you're moving forward in the story, particularly in the action sequences in the end, which there are very few in the book. But then you'll end up with these just page after page after page of the dire entry stuff. He's in his prison cell for, like, three pages. He's in the prison cell. So it doesn't give you the chance to meet lots of characters in the world. And that's where the world building, I think, is not totally there.

>> Rob: Yeah. Like, also coming over on, the ship from Europe is, like, the prince, I guess, like Victoria's son. and like, a duke. And going back to, like, the Ellen Moore from hell. Like, all these people are potential suspects. And that's what, like, ripperologists also think. So I thought the book was gonna go into. Okay. So, oh, we met Jack. He's obviously a suspect, but, oh, we've also got this, like, prince. Then we never really see them ever again. They go to a party that they're at, but, like, we don't know. Like, they have no dialogue. We don't see them again. So again, if this book had been longer, I think we could have explored these other characters who are coming over as. As well. And it's like, at least then there would have been other suspects. To play around with, or are these like, copycat murders and it's actually a member of the Gotham, police force or something else? Like, like, we could have gone that route as well, but it definitely multiple people. Totally, yeah.

>> Guido: Yeah. I do wonder, I mean, in the origin, we saw, in the origin of the series, we saw that it was supposed to be the annual, and then it was such an appealing idea to editorial that they said, let's make this a, standalone thing and a one shot thing. I wonder how all of that started to affect the length. Annuals are generally a little shorter than this, so it might have started shorter and needed to stretch, but clearly they weren't going to stretch it to be a hundred page book because those kinds of things from superheroes didn't really exist at that point, that you would have these, these dedicated graphic novels that were so long. So there could have been something funky in that that affected what we're experiencing here.

>> Rob: One thing I. Oh, I was gonna say one thing I did like, is the Mike Mignola art and the PK Russell inks. I'm not always a huge fan of Mike's art. It's just not, I think it, I mean, it's probably great, but it's just not my cup of tea, to use a british reference. But here, I think it really just works. Like, it just gives you, like, that bees on scene of, like, what London would look like. That sketchiness that I don't always love really works, I think, in this world.

>> Guido: So did you like his art there in the opening? I think it was Bryan Augustine, one of them said that David Horning's colors really did a lot.

>> Rob: That too. Yeah, totally.

>> Guido: So I do think it's, everything sort of came together really well here because I agree, about Mignola's art. It's, it's not my favorite. I don't mind it in certain horror tone comics, but I don't generally love it. And this one it is, does have more detail, probably from the inks and just from his style still developing at this point and evolving. So before we move on, because there is a lot of future with this world that we can talk about. But before I even go into that, to wrap up this segment based on this, like, do you want to spend more time on Earth 19? Do you want to spend more time in this world?

>> Rob: no, not really. Because I think also, as you said, like, Batman's origin is really not very different from the origin that we know. It's just, like, moved to the past but it's the same thing.

>> Guido: The other detail we didn't mention is that the uncle hired the Joe cool character who kills the parents, and that was this. I guess his first murder was that he was so outraged by this rejection from Martha that he hires the murderer who kills him. But, yeah, otherwise it is the same.

>> Rob: Yeah, it's just that, not different enough to explore. I mean, if I could go back in time in, like, a time machine like Jack the Ripper does in time after time, I would just tell Bryan Augustine and Mark Wade and the team, like, make this, like, a hundred page book, and then I'd really want to, like, live in it a lot more than, like, the 50 page book that it is.

>> Guido: Yeah, well, it's also clear, well, we'll get into the sequels in a moment, so I'm not going to answer this question. Let's jump along.

>> Rob: Ah. Ah. So, yeah, well, I'm going to power that time machine back up, and we're going to travel HD Wells. Get out of here. It's pondering possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? Averted, diverted? So, Gita, what are we talking about for pondering possibilities?

>> Guido: Well, first, we'll just spend a few brief moments on the future of this world before we get a little broader, because we're gonna actually save the direct sequels for future episodes, not our next episodes. We'll give some breathing room between them. But I do want to give a quick snapshot of Earth 19 and how much it's been revisited, relatively speaking, not a ton, though no alternate Earth has really been super, amply revisited over the years. So it does have one direct elseworlds sequel just a few years later, written by Bryan Augustine again, which I think makes it clear that his interest is more the Batman in the victorian age and less the Jack the Ripper. Jack of the Ripper almost becomes, I think, the first entree into the victorian age and thinking, oh, wouldn't it be cool if. But really, I think the what if here is Batman in the victorian age, and we'll explore that more when we get to that direct sequel. The world then returns a long time later in playing and plays a large role in the search for Ray Palmer in convergence. So big events, it's shown up and always gets glimpses in multiversity stories. Even a recent Batman pulls some of the characters from this for a few moments. And it now has a third official sequelae entitled Batman, Gotham by Gaslight, the kryptonian age. And that's a twelve issue series that started this month that we're recording right now. So it is brand spanking new by new creative team. And I'm, excited about it. It's cool. Obviously, calling it the kryptonian age means it's gonna put Superman in this world and give us a little more of that. So I am intrigued. The other really fascinating sequel to this series is the 2018 animated movie, which really greatly diverges. Even though it is called Gotham by Gaslight, it is so different. Not only does it introduce Selina Kyle and Dick and Jason, and, it changes who the killer is completely, and it removes the entire link to Batman's origin. So it's interesting because that sort of tells us that this, what if this elseworlds isn't really about that? Who is the killer? It's really at least the people the creative team of the animated movie seemed to be broadcasting that, wouldn't you say? So that sort of supports what you and I were thinking as we were reading it and the complaints we had about it.

>> Rob: And I think the idea that maybe this would have benefited from some additional characters, like a Seleta Kyle or other characters that can and help us get to deeper into Bruce, because we don't really get that deep into Bruce in this issue, even though he's the lead.

>> Guido: Yeah. So, of course, Gotham by Gaslight being so famous, it's shown up in video games, in toys. It's perhaps one of the most recognizable alternate universes, even by name, not even character design, but just by name alone. So we will revisit those direct sequels, and we are getting the kryptonian age. I have the first issue, though I haven't read it yet, but we, do have it. But for now, for our pondering possibilities segment, let's just talk about the future of Elseworld's adaptations. The brand is officially back at DC, which I think is very cool. So this kryptonian age is relaunching the brand. They are actually doing what they did with Gotham by Gaslight. They are retconning things that came out when they had abandoned the brand. So, such as Tom Taylor's Dark Knights of steel, that medieval one gun that is now part of Elseworlds and is going to have a sequel that's officially under the Elseworlds brand. And we know that James Gunn has said that Elseworlds projects are in development on screen. So what do you think the future of Elseworlds is? And do you think it works to do elseworlds on screen, big screen, small screen, any screen?

>> Rob: Totally yeah, I think DC has always, and we've talked about this before on the podcast, but I think DC has always been kind of in, else worlds. Yeah.

>> Guido: In general, it's like the Joker M movies are else worlds.

>> Rob: Oh, totally.

>> Guido: I think Gunn might even said that at some point. Yeah, totally.

>> Rob: And now that there's going to be the Penguin tv show, which is tied into the Robert Pattinson movie, which feels like it came out, like, 20 years ago at this point, I don't know. It feels like there's so long. But the fact that that can exist at the same time as the Joker, same time as the Harley Quinn, and still, like the on their way out CW shows. So it feels like they've always done elsewhere else, and now they can actually just lean into it more.

>> Guido: Well, that's the thing. I think they've always done multiple versions, but we haven't really seen an example of elseworlds like this. We m haven't seen the what if aspect of an elseworlds where it's like, we're gonna give you a Batman movie, but we're gonna put it in medieval times, or we're gonna give you a Wonder woman, but we're gonna move her to Mars or whatever. I mean, these would not be good stories, believe me, but. So do you think that is gonna be interesting? Do you think they're gonna do that? Do you think we're gonna see, like, a completely standalone Gotham by Gaslight? Do you think we'll see, Red sun? Do you think we'll see some of these iconic elseworlds as, like, a standalone movie project?

>> Rob: Yeah, I definitely think there's a good chance of it. And I think one of the reasons why they can do it is because the three biggies, Batman, Superman, and maybe to a little lesser extent, Wonder Woman, everyone knows them. Everyone knows their backstories. So you don't even need to develop a, yes, there's a new Superman movie coming out, but they could do Superman, Red sun before that, and everyone is instantly going to get a what it is. It's not like over at, Marvel where we're gonna make a black Knight movie, and it's like, okay, we need a whole movie to know who he is or Shangxi or some of these deep bench characters. But I think because they're so famous, they're so old at this point, it's very easy to make an else worlds movie with them.

>> Guido: Yeah. Well, and what I like, what appeals to me, especially with the direction multiverse, has gone in at, ah, Marvel and the MCU, what appeals to me is doing elseworlds and multiversal stories and not trying to link them up.

>> Rob: Yes, totally.

>> Guido: Which is totally gonna be the case at DC, obviously. You know, the Joaquin Phoenix Joker is never going to encounter any other character. He's not gonna show up in some crossover movie. The Lady Gaga Harley is not going to make some cameo anywhere. Like, it's not gonna happen. It's gonna be its own discreet, walled off world. And I like that idea, especially when you're gonna go, I've not seen that movie. I don't have any interest in seeing the sequel to it. But when you're gonna go further and get more creative, like a gotham by Gaslight or a red sun or a Wonder Woman Amazonia, you can really start to play. And I love that idea, but I think it's risky, so I don't know how far they're gonna go.

>> Guido: Yeah.

>> Rob: M and I think, I think, like, victorian age, there's something about that that is an easier jumping off point maybe than Red sun because Red Sun's very political.

>> Guido: So that would, well, then that too.

>> Rob: But it also, I think there's something about the victorian age that just puts a distance from it. So instantly you see Batman and he's on cobblestone streets with a horse. You go, oh, it's nothing are Batman. It just is a very clear, delineating line where if you're gonna show something a little bit more modern, maybe it's a little harder. It blends into what we're thinking about those characters in, like, the mainstream continuity. So I think there's just something about victorian age that really. Or even older, of course. Like that. Really. Yeah.

>> Guido: There's a Superman civil war.

>> Rob: That could be. That could work. Totally.

>> Guido: There's the Kenta, which puts the Kents in, like, the outlaw Wild west. So there are a lot of other temporal examples that we just haven't covered yet, but that they can pull from for different series.

>> Rob: Do you think that with a character like Wonder Woman, who they've clearly kind of stopped making her? Well, her previous movies, like, do you think, like, for the character like, that, they could just jump right in and do, like, an elseworld as, as, like, a clean break for the audience?

>> Guido: No, I think it would be much harder. I think there's, there's also fewer Wonder Woman else worlds, and that, I think, is for the same reason, which is she, her, first of all, her origin has changed over time. M in a few different key ways. It's been retconned. And that has made it sort of hard to. To trace. I think there are aspects of the character people know. I think people know themyscira. People know man's world, but people don't know, like, and. And we, as comic fans can't even keep track of, like, okay, where are we now? Was she a baby made of clay that Hippolyta made? Or was she the daughter of Zeus? Or, like, where did she come from? Like, that is never clear. So I think that makes it hard. The other thing I think is people, maybe because it's not as iconic, there haven't been as many sort of seminal wonder Woman stories or aspects, like we were saying, with Batman's origin, Superman's origin, those are like a story. You can transpose Wonder Woman's origin. How do you transpose that idea of being isolated? Like, I guess you could make her an alien. Okay. But that story is then just the Supergirl story. So I don't know. I think there is something inherently challenging, and I think it's not inherent to the character. I think it's just the character's history has made it really hard for that character to be moved. And then, like you were saying, audiences now just would need to see a clean break. I think any version of Wonder Woman now, if they did Nubia, if they did anything, people would think, that is the new Wonder Woman.

>> Rob: Yes.

>> Guido: And so I don't think audiences could handle a different Wonder Woman right now. I think you'd have to reintroduce the. The prime Earth Wonder Woman on screen, at least. And then you could maybe play with alternate Wonder Woman's. But, yeah, it's really. It's a shame. And again, she has very few else worlds and we haven't covered them, but there's a reason for that, so.

>> Rob: Mm We'll see. There's. It feels like there's. Feels like there's so many things that are coming out at DC. And also, like, unlike Marvel, it does seem like they take their sweet time developing them. The fact that, like, yeah, the Batman, I don't even know if they have a date for a sequel to the Batman.

>> Guido: Saw a rumor that he might be in the Penguin series, which would be pretty interesting and I guess serve as a bridge then for us. But, yeah, we shall see. James Gunn's DC Universe starts this fall winter with creature commandos. So with the animated series creature Commandos. So we will really get a sense of what's happening there. But in the meantime, that is a wrap. Dear Watchers, thank you for listening. I have been Guido the Ripper and.

>> Rob: I have been the completely innocent. Rob.

>> Guido: Our reading list is in the show notes. You can follow us, especially on Instagram.

>> Rob: And threadsearwatchers, and leave us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.

>> Guido: In the meantime, keep pondering the possibilities.