Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

>> Rob: It's time for some fish and chips and bangers and mash. And welcome to Dear Watchers, an 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 empires that make up an omniverse of, uh, fictional realities we all love. And your watchers on this journey are me, Guido, and I'm not going to do any sort of british accent. I'm sure it's annoying.

>> Rob: Yes. And me, the rob who says, knee, knee, knee.

>> Guido: All right, that works. I even got that reference.

>> Rob: And before we do our trip today across the pond, Guido, what's new with our little section of the multiverse?

>> Guido: Well, it's been two weeks since our last episode. We covered the entire series, two of what if. Have you listeners watched the second series of what if? Do you agree with our rankings? Do you want to see more, Captain Carter?

>> Rob: Tell us.

>> Guido: We want to hear from you. It was really fun to cover those. And so check out our last episode, also unrelated explicitly to the show, but I got Mark Gruenwald. Grail. I guess it's kind of related because it's actually the inspiration for the show. I got a Grail I've been searching for, for years. So Mark Gruenwald had done a primer on reality and comic book literature with his father, which is like this pamphlet explaining all of the multiverse. And I had that. And then, uh, he did two issues of omniverse, a fanzine, all about fictional reality. Have those? But I did not have a treatise on reality and comic book literature. This 120 page, basically master's thesis on the explanation of reality and the multiverse in comic literature. And this is in the 70s, before these are even words. He is, as we've talked about on the show when we first started years ago, he is credited with creating the term omniverse. Um, most certainly. So I don't know what we're going to do with that. Uh, Elliot said online maybe we should make an episode dedicated to it.

>> Rob: Yeah, maybe we will one day.

>> Guido: So I can't imagine you reading it, so I explaining it to you.

>> Rob: I'd also just be afraid to touch it because it's so super rare. You've only seen, like, one other copy ever going up for sale, right?

>> Guido: Yes, correct. And I let it go. And this one, I refused to pay anything and I got it.

>> Rob: Well, uh, one day we'll cover that. But for now, if you're joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey through the multiverse today. Origins of the story, exploring multiversity and pondering possibilities. So thank you for coming along with us.

>> Guido: And remember, leave a five star review wherever you're listening, and find us on threads or instagram at Dear Watchers or Blue sky and check out what we're up to.

>> Rob: And with that, dear Watchers, welcome to episode 125. And let's check out what's happening in the omniverse with our travels to today's alternate universe. And today we are driving on the opposite side of the road, past Big Ben, to answer the question, what if cal l arrived to Earth in rural England to become Colin Clark, repressed british Superman?

>> Guido: Yeah. This earth, oddly, for such a standout. Ah, elseworlds. Earth, branded as elseworlds, has never been cataloged. As far as I can tell. No other issue has ever referenced it, tried to assign a number to it, anything like that. So we'll just call it Earth true, Brit. And, uh, someone can correct us if there is some cataloging out there. And we were going to do this issue at some point, I'm sure, anyway. But you and I have been anglophile obsessed for a long time. Yes, but yesterday we were both sick and had really a bit of a fever dream of a day where we just had british quiz shows on because we have a VPN now and watch basically only british tv. And we would come in and out of sleep and just things were happening on tv that were sometimes unexplainable. So we were like, uh oh, this issue has to be what we cover now.

>> Rob: Exactly. Well, let's talk about our backgrounds with british humor and more specifically with Monty Python, because this issue was actually written by one of the founders of Monty Python. Well, I'll kick us off. And for Monty Python, I got into them a little later. It was like in high school. I feel like a lot of people get into them in middle school because are they the. Mostly. Okay, yeah. And a lot of people watch them on PBS here in the states, but I never remember seeing them there. I think I mostly probably rented some of their videos from the library of, uh, the flying Circus, the tv show, and then, of course, the movies like Holy Grail and Life of Brian.

>> Guido: Was it like your parents or where did this come?

>> Rob: Didn't they were not Monty Python people. My dad was like a Mel Brooks person, but not Monty Python. So I think at that point, it was just me becoming obsessed with comedy and wanting to know about different comedy and going, oh, well, Monty Python is one everybody talks about, right? I watched all those kind of movies and of course, then the other movies that people are in, like, a lot with John Cleese, who's the co author of today's issue, like Fish called Wanda. And then I just saw the spam a lot musical a couple of weeks ago. I had seen it the first time on Broadway, and then I just went to go see it again. So Monty Python was very much in my mind. And then british humor in general, uh, like you just said, really super into british, uh, humor in general, really, over the last few years. Yeah.

>> Guido: For mean, no surprise that I'm not a Monty Python fan. I think just because I wasn't exposed to it, I don't know why. I remember also like you, for whatever reason, people liking it in middle school and referring to it and quoting things like the knights who say knee. And I just couldn't get into it. I think I just wasn't exposed enough. What's funny is I found my way to other british humor with probably abfab being my point of entry, my, uh, gateway drug to it, and really loved it a lot. And then I think just because I was really obsessed with the Spice Girls and got into a lot of other british culture, and I would order things from british record stores and stuff to get it. So I feel like I was exposed to more of it. But I never like upstairs, downstairs, even when you made me watch it. I'm not into that old school british humor, but I think I have a newer appreciation over the last 20 years especially. And then the quiz shows and the panel shows that you love, I also love.

>> Rob: They're great.

>> Guido: They're unique and unlike anything else and are really, really cool and fun. So it's fun. I like the sarcasm and the self deprecation. And we'll see all of that in today's issue.

>> Rob: Yes. So now for something completely different, let's go to origins of the story.

>> Guido: Right now on this very show, you're.

>> Rob: Going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago. So for our origins, let's talk Superman's origin and some background on the twists that it has experienced.

>> Guido: Yeah, because we've talked Superman a bunch. We did his action comics number one, Origin back in episode 51 in June 2022, when we looked at that imaginary story that had some meta stuff where he's watching his Fleischer cartoon origin. We probably have a dozen other Superman episodes. If you go to deerwatchers.com and click episodes and search Superman, you can go back and listen. But I wanted us to talk a little bit about his origin, uh, in its iconic status, and then give a little background on some of the twists. So cataloging Superman else worlds is hard. He probably has the most imaginary stories. So if you're looking at, like, the silver Age and Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane's titles, there's just countless examples of these other earth stories, most of which, of course, are famous for being ridiculous and absurd and sometimes even mean spirited, like they were just wild.

>> Rob: Certainly not politically correct in many cases, too.

>> Guido: No, definitely not. And so it's interesting because he's had lots of twists on his origin, but, uh, focusing in on sort of the more formal alternate universes or the else worlds. This is not an exhaustive list, but here are some key ones, some of which we've covered and some of which we absolutely still need to. And I wanted to give an overview of those that twist his origin with geography. There are a few that twist it with time. So a nation divided is in elseworlds where he lands during the American Civil War in the 1860s, or Superman Cal is both time and geography because he lands in medieval England.

>> Rob: Oh, so another England, but probably very different than this issue.

>> Guido: It is very different. But looking just at geography, the dark side is a story where he lands on apocalypse and is raised by Darkseid, last son of earth actually flips it, and he is sent from a dying earth to Krypton.

>> Rob: Oh, interesting.

>> Guido: We looked at speeding bullets, of course, with Lance from comic book keepers back on episode 89 in March 2023, where he lands in Gotham and is raised by the Waynes. Superman. Tarzan has him raised in the jungle. And then probably the most famous of the geographic twist origins is Red sun, where he's in the Ukraine. He lands in the Ukraine and ends up becoming a hero for the USSR. And we have not covered red sun, and it is on the short list of books that we definitely need to cover. So those are some of the key ways that it's been twisted. And in looking at those, I was wondering, do you think Superman has to be from origin? Do you think it's important that he was raised on a farm in the midwest?

>> Rob: No. Uh, well, I think even the issue that we're reading, we read today, he is on a farm and he is in a rural area, but it's not Kansas. And yet so much of the character remains the same. But I also think that Kansas of when Superman was created, it was probably very different than even Kansas today. What do you think? Do you think the fact that so much time has gone by, what was rural then, is different than today.

>> Guido: No, granted, I haven't been to Kansas, but I suspect it's still quite rural, especially to those of us who live in a major metropolitan area. So I think that's the part of the origin that I think does matter is that you don't just have the origin of the alien immigrant coming to earth, you have the farm boy going to the city. And I think you do need that for a real Superman story. So I guess whether it's Kansas or Montana is irrelevant ultimately. I'm sure that someone would argue, I don't know, they're going for like a heartland type thing. Like, he learned family values by living in this small farm community. But I suspect you could translate that. Know, a small mountain rock climbing community that lives in the mountains of Canada or something like so. But I think what matters is that going from royal to city, I feel like, is such a huge part of his story too. Even if you look at the movies and the different interpretations, I feel like you have to have that fish out of water on top of the much larger fish out of water and that he's just not human.

>> Rob: Hm. Though I think that aspect has been downplayed at various times. Like, the new animated my adventures with, like, I don't feel like that's a huge part of his character. Maybe because he then reveals to Lois and Jimmy very early on about his secret identity.

>> Guido: It's not clear in that I don't think he does transplant himself.

>> Rob: Uh, yeah, that might be true.

>> Guido: He's growing up in the same place that he's. Because he's young in that. So I don't think he is a transplant in that they've just edited that part out of the but.

>> Rob: And then I think, uh, when I was thinking about ruralness, I think when I was thinking of Superman and Lois, like, the smallville of that show doesn't really feel very small town. Right? Because probably because they were shooting it in like, there's actual big businesses and the newspaper seems to be quite large. I mean, it's not certainly like a giant metropolis, but at the same time, it doesn't seem like.

>> Guido: But even in that really tiny town, what matters to me about his origin in that show is that especially speaking to me and, uh, the age that I am is he at that point has already left for the big city and has returned. And so there's still this thing about him coming from two worlds. And I like the fact that built into the dna of his origin is Krypton Earth and Farm city. I think those two worlds mean a lot. So, yeah, even though in Superman and Lois, it seems like a great mid sized city that Smallville now is. He also has left and come back. He went to the big city, he did his thing, and now he comes back home. So I think that is an important part.

>> Rob: And has there ever been anything said about the connection between the Kansas here and like a Kansas and wizard of Oz? Because I always think when I think of Kansas, I think of two people, I think of Superman and I think of Dorothy in the wizard of Oz. And is it just that Kansas then being in the middle of the country then is the ultimate nowhere, everywhere kind of location that both of these things are set.

>> Guido: But I accept that I probably, as you do, have like a coastal bias where I haven't spent a lot of time in the middle of the middle. But I doubt the writers of these stories did. I don't know, was El Frank Baum. I know Simon and Schuster were from.

>> Rob: Ohio, but that's Simon and Schuster. Maybe they were from there too, but I don't know.

>> Guido: So, yeah, so I think it does. I think he does have to be from somewhere rural. That's my opinion. And it's interesting you compare it in today's piece because I think today's piece actually doesn't read like Superman to me, even though he is from someplace rural.

>> Rob: Well, let's jump into it. It's tea time and time for exploring multiversity. And today we are discussing Superman. True Brit number one from DC Comics from December 2004.

>> Guido: And this is written by Kim Howard Johnson with some support or something. It's credited odly from John Cleese, penciled by John Byrne, inked by Mark Farmer, colored by Alex Blayart, lettered by Bill Oakley and Jack Morelli, edited by Mike Carlin and Ivan Cohen. This is an official else world's imprint title. So Kim, Howard Johnson is actually an american writer, though he's written a lot of Monty Python books. He actually got to know the troop in like the late seventy s and then just started writing books about them, their history, trivia books, all this stuff. And he's also an improv comedian himself. He's written some Marvel and DC comics. John Cleese, of course, is a founding member of the comedy troupe Monty Python. Many would consider him the breakout star of the Python since he was the co writer and star of Faulty Towers, the tv series, and was in films like a fish called Wanda and then the artist on here. John Byrne was born in England. I don't know too many people know that. I mean, anyone who's a fan does, certainly. But he is an american citizen and has lived in the US or Canada, actually, and is known for, of course, his work on X Men, Fantastic Four, she Hulk and Superman, amongst countless others. Sometimes as a pencilr, an inker, sometimes as a writer. Probably thousands of comics that he's written. So for true Brit number one, it's a long one.

>> Rob: It's 90 pages.

>> Guido: Yeah, it's almost 100 pages. So we will try to give a quick summary because it is quite different. So we'll give a bit of a summary before we dive into talking about it. So do you want to kick us off?

>> Rob: Yes. So when Krypton explodes, Kal El spaceship lands in rural Great Britain instead of the US. And he is raised by a local couple as Colin Clark. Colin's earth parents are constantly afraid of their son using his powers, especially after he causes many accidents around the farm. Colin goes off to college, where he meets fellow student and wannabe reporter Louisa Lane Ferret right before graduate. No, don't know. And right before graduation, Colin accidentally impales a fellow student with a cricket bat, which leads to a newspaper magnate, peregrine white badger, to hire Colin.

>> Guido: I'm assuming there are a lot of jokes in these names that we just don't get. But moving right along, when Colin sees the band the rudles about to die in a car accident, he first dons a Union Jack outfit and cape to become Superman since his parents told him he's not allowed to use his powers. And after saving them, he's given a number of tasks by the queen herself, considered three impossible tasks, which are making the trains run on time, giving everyone hip surgery without delay and fixing the quality of BBC programming. All of which he achieves. But his success soon angers white Badger, who partners with a mysterious figure to knock Superman down. Superman gets a kryptonite necklace given to him as a prize for winning a cricket tournament as the sole member of a team. And that, of course, leads him to lose his powers. This mysterious adversary is revealed to be the person Colin impaled with the cricket bat who now goes by. Ready, Batman? I love that reveal.

>> Rob: And White Badger and Batman, along with Luisa, threaten to reveal to the world that Colin is Superman. But Colin reveals himself instead and also exposes White Badger's corruption. And in the end, Colin takes a job at the Daily Planet in the US with Louisa's cousin Lois and takes the new name of Kent Clark because.

>> Guido: His family was from the area of Kent. So he decided to incorporate that, but, of course, backwards. We also find out that his family is now living on a. His parents are now living on a boat outside of Manhattan. And White Badger now bought the Daily Mail. So they're almost, like, setting up the conflict that's going to happen for him. New York at the end. And he takes the Union jack off of his.

>> Rob: Oh, yes, yes. The classic Superman outfit is the final image.

>> Guido: So this is a weird book, I think. I don't know where to start with it. Uh, do you want to start with anything overall? Otherwise, I have a comment on the first few pages.

>> Rob: No, go ahead.

>> Guido: I think what I appreciate about the first few pages, although I don't think it ends up paying off, which is what I'm sad about, it really starts with telling you, like, this, is going to be a self deprecating british satire. So right at the beginning, when Jor El is narrating, sending him to Earth, first page, he says he's gonna send him to this planet Earth where he's gonna have powers and abilities far beyond those of his fellow men and at least two chat shows. So right there, you're like, okay, there's going to be sarcasm and humor. It continues on the next page when they are sending him to the great empire of Britain, they think that's, like, the best place on earth to send him. And there's a little splash panel with a dentist and tons of rain and all this stuff that, of course, Britain is stereotypically known for not doing well or not being pleasant. So I appreciate that at the outset. Then it just goes on for too long.

>> Rob: Yeah. The other thing I really appreciated early on is actually some of the stuff with the parents. I don't think it works, like, comedically, but I kind of like some of the stuff along, uh, in the farm. So it's things like we never really thought of. So at one point, they have Colin milk the cows and all the cows get killed. Because what if someone with superhuman strength wound up milking the cows? And it's like, oh, that's something we've never thought of with Clark. The Kents had cows probably on their farm.

>> Guido: Well, and what's interesting about that, and this is actually, like, one of the core elseworlds twists of this story that I liked. And I think it gets sort of buried in the, uh, attempt to be humorous. That then, I think doesn't go too far enough for me. But even with that cow example, part of what's happening on the farm is they're telling him to repress his powers and that I thought was a really cool detail because I guess british people are known for repression. And it's an interesting idea of what would happen if he's talent being told to repress these powers, not being told to hide them, being told to actively repress them. So like his heat vision goes out of control because he's being told, repress it, repress it, repress it. And he accidentally burns his mother because he not being told like, no, use it, but just conceal it. So I think the cows is an example of that where Clark Kent that we know didn't have that issue because he learned how to use his powers, he learned how to modulate his strength. And Colin is being told, no, you must suppress everything about who you are. So I think that is probably the most interesting part of the story to me.

>> Rob: Yeah, uh, I agree. And I think that does show some of the differences between America and Britain maybe where in America it's like, okay, we want you to go out as parents. We want you to go out and do the good things. And here it's more about repression. And I did like the idea too, where they actually, I don't know if this is ever in Superman lore, but where they create Colin's glasses from part of the spaceship in order for vision.

>> Guido: Because again, he can control his heat vision.

>> Rob: Exactly.

>> Guido: Yeah, but I like matters here.

>> Rob: Yeah, I like that detail of like, oh, one of the reasons why he wears the iconic eyeglasses is because it actually suppresses the heat vision. Almost like cyclops. Right? And it's like, oh, and it comes from the spaceship. It's like, oh, that's a really clever detail that they had.

>> Guido: Yeah, well, and along those lines of the parents and how they raise, like the other part that I think feels, I don't know, maybe it feels like a knock if you live in England. But I think it's a valid criticism around this repression is like his parents keep telling him, wwtnt, what would the neighbors think? So every decision he makes has to be fueled by like, well, what would the neighbors think? What would the neighbors think? And in fact, it goes to an absurd extreme in this type of monty python humor. And his parents start moving all the time because they're worried about what would the neighbors think? Even though he's not been outed yet, they're just worried about the neighbors. And so they keep moving their location.

>> Rob: Which is a through line that never really works, I think.

>> Guido: No, I agree. I don't think it works great. That's the thing. There's these strands here that I like. But I don't know if this story needed more room, if it needed to be like a five issue miniseries, although this amounts to basically a five issue miniseries or if it needed some better editing, I'm not sure what it needed. But there are these strands that don't pay off for me.

>> Rob: Yeah. And then a lot of it, of course, once he gets to London and he's working, a lot of it then becomes a satire also of the tabloid news world.

>> Guido: Yeah, so much which I have no problem with. But, uh, like a lot about the tabloids and fact checking and celebrity culture and what the point of journalism is, which we know all to be very true in Great Britain. And then even the way that the tabloid, uh, and how it relates to the people in power and the government and the economy. And it's really fascinating.

>> Rob: Mhm. And they make a point too. Very like Rupert Murdoch to say that. Ah, peregrine white badger, the Perry white stand in, owns all of the tabloids so that Colin really couldn't just get a job someplace else because he owns everything, which is very much what we know of a lot of those conglomerates, especially in the UK. Although I'm sure he.

>> Guido: I didn't realize.

>> Rob: You did not. Peregrine white badger. Oh my God.

>> Guido: I think Peregrine and it's Whyte Badger. I think all of that was so like obtuse to me. It was distracting. Oh, well, I, uh, don't understand why Louisa Lane, who's Lois Lane's british cousin. Lois does exist in this world. Why is she dash ferret? I guess just because Lane's not a british name.

>> Rob: No. And then you get ferret and Badger are both animals. Uh, right.

>> Guido: But why, why add those? Right?

>> Rob: And they're both kind of villainous.

>> Guido: Why white dash badger?

>> Rob: And. Well, part of it is then we see white badger sitting in a chair and has a big WB on it. So I was like, is this a commentary on Warner Brothers owning Superman?

>> Guido: That's a bit of a stretch.

>> Rob: I hadn't thought of it until I saw the chair. And then it was like, oh, it's got a giant WB. And they are, of course, who own the property. Yeah. And here he's trying to own Superman, basically, like he says, oh.

>> Guido: You are.

>> Rob: Only allowed to do stories with us. And Superman says, well, I never signed anything. Why is that the. So what do you think about the actual plot then? When we get into some of the stuff with Batman and white Badger and also some of the things around, like these three tasks, these herculean tasks that he's given.

>> Guido: Well, it's absurd. So the way all these tasks play out is that he does the three tasks, but then it turns out that by doing the three tasks, uh, there was actually a negative effect. And it's not clear to me if this is true or not. But they claim, for example, that everyone who got the surgery had an infection. And I don't understand if that's the tabloid lying or if that actually happened. So then because of that, Superman decides that he has to pay off the entire debt of England or Great Britain. And he does that by making a ton of diamonds from the coal. And then it almost becomes like a, ah, lesson in economics, because then, um, of course, Superman's being told by Batman in, like, you actually messed everything up, because the economy works by supply and demand, and by now, having diamonds be less scarce, there are too many diamonds, and people can't heat their houses with diamonds. Yeah, there's houses with coal.

>> Rob: Yeah. There's a panel of people trying to shovel diamonds into their furnace.

>> Guido: And of course, I think it's becoming like, it's trying to be a bit of an economic satire. But again, either it needs to be a little more fleshed out or it needs a little bit of editing, because it's just not clear what the point of all this is.

>> Rob: Yeah. Uh, and I did love the design of Batman and the reveal I totally didn't get. He's very. It really reminded me of the tick, like, a lot of the villains on the tick, because what happens is he's still got, um, the cricket bat impaled.

>> Guido: In him, all this technology around.

>> Rob: Technology around him. So it really reminded me of, like, chairface Chippendale and some of the people on the tick who have these kind of weird, uh, attributes. So I did love that. And I did love, like, oh, this is clever, like, how it sets up this character from much earlier on that turns out, and it makes sense. Oh, he survived, and he's going to be taking his revenge. But I just don't think some of the other stuff in terms of how they find out his, Colin's identity. Like, there's some stuff where Batman then goes to the parents and gets the kryptonite. But I think it's unclear to me, like, at what point does he figure it out, who he is? Some of the stuff like that I felt like was a little unclear. What about you?

>> Guido: Yeah, no, I agree. Again, based on how long it was, uh, part of me wonders if it had been developed as a miniseries and then they decided to do it as this one trade paperback release and maybe trimmed a bit off because there's also. John Byrne is a controversial person for his opinions, particularly about, uh, trans people.

>> Rob: But he so is, uh, really, uh, yeah. John Cleese has a show on UHGB News, which is like the Fox News of Great Britain now, where he's very much against the pc police and all those kind of things.

>> Guido: But he's obviously a legend in his art. Burn here. I don't know. I think he must be rushed, honestly, because even the panel breakdowns are not great. There are pages where there's like eight or nine panels and they're like different shapes and it's even hard to follow left to right, and there's so much happening in them. And then there are very few splash pages to show off his art. There's maybe like four in the entire book. Uh, so something about it all feels a little rushed to me, even art wise.

>> Rob: And for being written by a, uh, Monty Python scholar and a member of Monty Python, I was surprised that there wasn't more Monty Python jokes or even some of the attitude. There's like one or two moments, like early on we, uh, see people hitting each other with fish, which is like a Monty Python thing. The Ruttles, who are, uh, kind of a Monty Python spinoff, Eric idols, like fake Beatles band. They play a part Michael Palin's mentioned later, which I like, when Colin's parents are living in Antarctica, uh, and he's, oh, Mr. Palin's here with the BBC because he was doing a lot of travel shows then, but there's not a lot of other references. And not that I wanted it to be like a greatest hits of, uh, like, oh, don't you remember this? I could have used a few more things like that. Or even just the wackiness that you come to expect, like the total non sequiturs and stuff like that. There really aren't any of those here. No.

>> Guido: And I do wonder if there's, uh, would have been a rights issue. I don't know anything about the Monty Python rights. The other thing that's weird along those lines is like, so they have Elizabeth Turley, who I'm assuming is supposed to be Elizabeth Hurley. Hurley hot at the time they made her blonde. So, like, it's almost like they were really worried about her being upset. But then what's strange is then they mentioned Britney Spears by. Yeah, I don't understand why they didn't just lean into the spoof parody stuff and put actual Monty Python references put actual people from the world that we. But. So they sort of shied away from it, but not completely because, yeah, the.

>> Rob: Beckhams are mentioned and Vinny Jones and a few other people are.

>> Guido: Don't. I don't understand. I don't. That I don't know anything about Kim Howard Johnson, but I'm going to imagine that he would have gone further with it. I'm sure that editorial probably said like, no, you can't be riffing on these real world people. But it sort of doesn't work. Stuck in between.

>> Rob: Well, and do you think by the end that there was going to be a sequel happening, or do you want to see kind of any sequel? Because, of course, as we mentioned in our summary, it's set up that the villain now owns a newspaper in New York and that he's going to meet up with, uh, lois there as well.

>> Guido: I think that's just a fun way to end it. I do not think it's intended as a sequel. I think a lot of these elseworlds, or even what ifs, like when they're resetting to a slight status quo, they put a little bit of stuff in it that makes you can help you see that there's a future in storytelling. But just as an ending, I don't think with an actual intention to tell the rest of those stories. And in this case, do I want more stories? No. And it's not just about how I feel about this. It's that in the end, I don't know how some of it, this might speak to the weakness. While Colin is very different from Clark throughout this issue, in the end, I guess he's roughly Clark. So a sequel would just be a. I don't. There's no difference in this superman anymore.

>> Rob: Mhm. Right.

>> Guido: Yeah, I think he ends in the same place. Even though he had this whole life of repression and this very different origin story in terms of his powers and how to use them and how to engage them in service of the community around him, he ends in the same place.

>> Rob: Mhm. Yeah. You don't see remakes as much in comics as you do in film and tv, but I feel like this would be ripe for a remake and now, 20 years later, where there's enough kernels of good ideas here. And I think it's an interesting concept that I would love to see it executed in a different way and someone else come in and retell this story, maybe in a wackier way, or leaning even more into some of the britishness.

>> Guido: Well, that's what's so weird about not seeing that this world has been cataloged is they've mined so many of the else worlds, even sometimes just for like a panel in a book where you'll see a character from an elseworlds in something. Uh, or they'll assemble them together. You have, like, Justice League infinite and after infinite frontier, who assembles like Carrot man or whatever? Carrot and all these wacky characters from around the multiverse. It's od to me that this one hasn't shown up. I don't know. Again, I don't even know if there's a rights thing or they're just worried or they don't want to be involved with Kim Howard Johnson or John Cleese. I mean, I really have no idea. But it is weird that this hasn't been mined for more.

>> Rob: Well, speaking of more, let's talk about our pondering possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted, diverted? So, Guido, what are we talking about for pondering possibilities?

>> Guido: Well, let's just wonder a little. So first question, what geographic twist would you give Superman's origin and why?

>> Rob: M, okay, so I was thinking, of course, we have the fortress of solitude in Antarctica or something like that. But I was thinking like, oh, that would be interesting if we had Superman in the Arctic or the like, somewhere where he's completely removed from society as we know it. Because then what would that mean in terms of him learning his powers and things like that? And I could see great scenes where he's walking out in the cold without anything on. And they're like, how is he not freezing to death there? But then what does it mean to be growing up as Superman with all these powers, being isolated? It's like the ultimate Kansas where he's so removed from society. What do you think about something like that?

>> Guido: So he's not totally isolated.

>> Rob: You're saying there are like, there are people there? Yeah, because he has to be like some people. But is it like the research base, uh, in Antarctica? Where, yeah, research base in Antarctica. You almost get, like, a thing aspect or like the Eskimos in the Arctic or something like that, where it's very super isolated.

>> Guido: Yeah, I think it's an interesting question. I'm trying to think if there's another comic book origin that has that level of isolation built into it.

>> Rob: And I know you said tarzan, uh, is one of them. But that, to me, is more in the Tarzan world and less probably in the super isolated world.

>> Guido: Tarzan isn't isolated. He's just surrounded by a lot of.

>> Rob: Mhm.

>> Guido: This is, this is more real isolation. So that's why I almost, I don't know, maybe the base raises him and then they die when he's like old enough to sustain himself or something like that. Real isolation. Because then what's really interesting in that story is obviously his first encounter with the rest of the world.

>> Rob: That's true.

>> Guido: What happens when he's, I don't know, 16 and decides to go on a slightly longer flight and ends up flying into Canada?

>> Rob: Yeah, I love that. I could see that there's a big snowstorm and everyone on the base is eventually killed or something like that. So yeah, that would be an interesting. What about you? Where's your geographic twist?

>> Guido: Uh, I had a hard time thinking about this. I don't think I have an answer. I think I prefer time twists or crossover license ip, like, honestly, the first thing that popped into my head, no idea why, but I was thinking, what if you landed on fraggle rock?

>> Rob: Yeah.

>> Guido: Uh, obviously a, uh, crossover would be really fun with anything, but would be unlikely to happen. And then, yeah, I think time ones just present some interesting ways of telling stories about history, just as a nation divided does with the civil war. I think there's just so many interesting moments in time that you could place him and wonder what would happen. So, yeah, I don't think I have a geographic twist. I guess what, I don't know if it's been told I have to look at the elseworlds now. Based on our earlier conversation, I guess what my answer will be, to answer the question with fidelity is what, uh, would happen if he had landed in metropolis? Because that is just a slight twist. But I wonder, I bet there's some really interesting stories to be told where. What is the difference? Uh, and I wouldn't want to go down a very two dimensional city versus country stereotyping thing. But still, there's obviously huge differences growing up in a massive city of millions of people from growing up in a rural area with thousands of people.

>> Rob: It was also made me think, even going back to this issue in what would the neighbors think? What if he had landed in ultra suburbia like the suburbs of New Jersey, where everyone is like, uh, where you.

>> Guido: Really have place we often see depicted other than Wanda vision miniseries.

>> Rob: Yeah, exactly. But that's exactly the kind of place where you really can't use your powers. Of course he can use his powers out on the farm in Kansas or in great Britain, but you really can't use your powers when people are looking next door. Yeah, it could really lean into the WandaVision with, like, a Gladys Kravitz, like, knowing, uh, neighbor kind of type character that's really thinking that he's an alien. Very sitcom esque in that way.

>> Guido: Yeah, that would be fun. I'm trying to think. I, uh, don't know that that's been done either. So, yeah, there are some other potentials. What other characters, comic characters, do you think could have geography altered in their origin to get interesting multiversal stories? Do you think there is any other character where the geography matters? So don't. Let's take Spider man, for example. I don't think it matters where Spider man gets bitten. Now, of course, a lot of people identify Spider man so much with being this kid from Queens and this New York City character. But if you transplant him to Smallville, I don't think it makes a huge difference. Are there characters where if you move their story, it makes a huge difference?

>> Rob: Well, my mind goes right to. And maybe there's been some else worlds with him where this is the case, but with Batman in a very rural setting, because Batman is another character that's so associated with a city. Uh, but what if he was in the middle of nowhere somewhere and still trying to be a superhero? Even some of the things that he does with, uh, a grappling hook and stuff like that, that only works on a big skyscraper. So how would he do that exactly? Yeah, those kind of characters in a very rural setting, that would be an interesting story.

>> Guido: Well, you're right. Ah. And that's interesting, considering Superman, Batman, are sort of two sides of the same coin, because he is, I'd say, yeah. Uh, really deeply connected to the city.

>> Rob: Even stuff like Gotham by gaslight and things like that. It's still a city, even if it's not modern day.

>> Guido: Yeah. So taking him out of the city, I think, would be pretty other. I was wondering, just because X Men is my favorite, I think X Men's proximity to New York City M always was a really important part of the storytelling, especially once the Claremont era and beyond started, because they were telling that story of being hated and feared and being different, and this story that you could map so many different identities on. And so much of that has to do with the city. It's why queer people flocked to cities and why people of color migrated to cities over history. There's something to be said about being diverse in a city. So I think if you were to have moved the X Men to Smallville, you'd probably be telling a very true that's true, you'd have this group of outcasts in a much more homogeneous community.

>> Rob: And so many of the X Men, Storm, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, are international characters as well. So, yeah, putting them into a super small town, not only their powers, but also where they're coming from, their identities. That's very. Yeah. Um, and just a weird, wacky one. What if you just put, like, Aquaman in the Sahara desert? What if you took a character whose whole powers are about, like, water or whatever it would be and just put him in place where there is no.

>> Guido: I bet that story has been told in prime Earth, like, something where I think he had been exiled for a long time and couldn't be in the ocean or something. So I bet those kinds of transplant stories have been told more often, because that's sort of more of a trope of story, like a denial of destiny or something.

>> Rob: True. Yeah, that's a little different, because you.

>> Guido: Couldn'T have Aquaman be born in the Sahara desert, right?

>> Rob: Like, all right. Uh, you could change his origin, I guess.

>> Guido: I think that's a little harder. Yeah. All right, well, uh, governor, that's a wrap.

>> Rob: Yes. Thank you, dear watchers, for listening. I have been Guido and I have been rob.

>> Guido: The reading list is in the show notes. You can follow us on all social media at dear Watchers and leave a.

>> Rob: Five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.

>> Guido: In the meantime, in the words of Huatu, keep pondering the possibilities.