Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Happy New Year, and welcome to Dear Watchers, an omniversal comic book podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

We are traveling with you through the stories and the worlds that make up an omniverse of fictional reality we all love. And your watchers on this journey are.

Me Galloping Gito, and me XCON turned pro wrestler turned multimillionaire. Rob.

That'S a lot hinting at, uh, what's happening here today. Mine was the hardest. I was just trying to be illiterative, which I won't spoil why yet? But I was just trying to be alliterative. However, it's very hard with Jeez.

I think that's true. Well, Galloping, before we get into the present, let's jump into the past, back to 2022, and talk about what's happening in our little section of the multiverse.

Well, we last week released our top ten most listened to episodes of 2022, and we think people should check those out. Still, if you haven't listened to last week, please go listen. And if you haven't listened to those episodes, go revisit our Back catalog. We intentionally structure our episodes the way we do so that they are pretty timeless and you have a lot to gain from them. So go find an episode you haven't heard before from our Back catalog. We are on 78, so you have 77 others to choose from and check it out. And so that is last week and our last year of episodes to share, but also our regular reminder that you can follow us on Coffee. That's where we do our patronage. You can follow us even without financial support, but do consider joining as a patron to get access to our Spinoff podcast and a whole lot more. Coffee is also where Elliott comic arts incredible amalgamines that we've been working on together. We're really just the idea people and he's the artist come. You'll find all the amalgaminis there, and there's so many more to come. Those are so much fun. So please consider following us on Coffee. Joining us on Coffee.

Yeah. And speaking of spin off podcast, didn't we also give people a sneak preview of that podcast last main feed?

Yeah, well, it wasn't even a sneak preview. It was the whole first episode, which hopefully inspired some people to read Promethea, because that's what we're working on right now as a Promethea book club on that series.

Yes, a belated Christmas present for everyone. And now, what about a New Year's resolution for everyone, which is please take a moment when this episode is over to do two things tell a friend to listen to us, and two, leave a review on Apple. You can also relieve a review on other great places, too, but Apple especially helps, and that then you'll complete your New Year's resolution for 2023. It's that simple. In the meantime, if you are joining us for the first time, we have three sections origins of the Story. What inspired this other reality? Exploring multiversity we dive deeper into our alternate universe and pondering possibilities. We examine the impact and what's followed or coming in the future. So that's enough said, I think. And with that, we are watchers. Welcome to episode 78 and let's check out what's happening in the Omniverse. Um, with today's alternate universe.

Today M.

We are asking the question, what if Stan Lee created Batman for DC Comics? What?

Just imagine.

Well, just imagine. Yes. But before we get into the just Imagine universe, let's talk Stan Lee for a bit. So I'm going to actually read a bio that is in the Just Imagine collections. And I think most listeners are probably know the basics of this man whose centennial birthday was just last week when this episode is out.

Yes. Happy birthday, Stan.

Happy birthday, Stan. But here is a quick bio. Stan Lee or Stanley Martin Lieber, was born in 1922 in New York City. An American writer, editor, and publisher, he was made editor of what would eventually become Marvel Comics at age 19 and served as both president and publisher in his time there. His creations are some of the best known superheroes of all time and are credited with bringing new complexity and naturalism to the genre. They include daredevil with Bill Everett, Spiderman and Dr. Strange with Steve Dick Co and with his fellow legend, Jack Kirby. He created the Fantastic Four hulk, the Xmen, Thor and Iron Man. He is an inductee of both the Will Eisner Hall of Fame and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame. In 2001, he did his first ever work in DC Comics. Reimagining flagship characters like Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. He passed away in 2018 at the tender age of 95.

Yeah, it's a cool bio because it's probably the only posthumous bio to his work other than there's all those prose adaptations and stuff. But DC was writing that bio right around the time of his passing. So, before we get into our alternate Earth for today, staying on Stan as a little bit of a tribute, since it was just his hundredth birthday, I thought for the centennial that we would each share two things, two thoughts about Stan before we dive into the work that he did here for us today. So I'll start with one, which is that I think something I always think about is how he's a little bit of the PT. Barnum of comics. And what's really important to me about that is like PT. Barnum, for whatever his showmanship is, was really important to not just circuses, but I remember in college taking like a PR class, and PT. Barnum is the big focus of it, right? He constructed this way of being so even if I don't know a lot about circuses and the business of circuses, but even if PT. Barnum maybe wasn't good for the circus of businesses, he had a huge impact on things. And I think a lot about that with Stan that I think regardless of what's true or not true in terms of his creator and authorship credits and all of the disputes that are out there, he's a huge part. Of why the comic book industry existed when we were growing up in the way that it did and exists today in the way that it does. So that's my first thought about this man whose centennial just passed. What's your first thought?

Mine's a variation on that, which is he gave a face to a faceless industry. Most people don't know what comic book writers or artists look like. Most people can't.

They weren't credited for so much.

Yeah, they weren't credited, of course. And then most people don't know what they look like, and especially even today, of course, if you're a super fan, you may know what they look like, but otherwise you don't. And Stan really kind of changed that. He was the face not just of Marvel Comics, but of comics itself. And it kind of makes me think of hearkening back to a time, I guess, that was happening at the same time in the 60s, where you had writers like Truman Capote or Gore Vidal, and they would be on The Tonight Show and talking, and you would never think of, oh, an author that's actually in front of the camera speaking. And Stan would do a lot of that as well. And that's something that we really don't have today in the world of literature, in the world of comics.

Yeah. And that was an important shift in the industry, for sure. And the second thing I think is a little bit about that sort of human being aspect is when you read stories about people who worked with him, and I read a lot from his co creator on what we did today, you see in those stories that he was really great to work with. And so, again, maybe he exploited people, maybe he took advantage of people. Maybe he took credit for things he shouldn't have, uh, none of which I'm excusing or finding acceptable. But he was not a toxic person by, uh, standards of today. He was not someone who I think today should be. We turn our back on him. So I think the stories of the people who worked with him are what matter most to me in who he was. And again, today, we have some great stories coming out of the creators of these books, and it was clear that he cared so much about this work and got super into it. So I like reading those stories about and I think they're more important than the biographers, and they're more important than the people who are analyzing his role and all of that stuff. So that's my closing thought on Stan for his centennial. What's yours?

Well, also, in terms of his humanity, I'm going to focus on his humor. And Stan was a very funny writer, and his lines are funny, especially, I think, the thing ben Grimm stands out as one of the great kind of comic characters, comedic characters, I should say, in comics. But also, Stan was a really funny prose writer. If you ever read even here, there's a letter that's at the back of the Just Imagined comics. But also, if you read his correspondence to people, especially some of the stuff that came out since he passed away, he was just a very funny, clever writer. And I think he doesn't get the credit for that that he should. And all the things that Stan does get the credit for, I think he just doesn't get the credit for sometimes just being just a plain good, funny writer.

Yeah, I agree. And he's a little self effacing.

Mhm. Totally.

I think sometimes people lump that into sort of what his stick was, but they don't think about the impact that that voice had in Dan soapbox in the comics themselves.

Totally.

And then yeah, I agree. Even in this closing letter, there's that funny line where he says all the amazing artists he got to work with made him think about he didn't even feel comfortable taking a fee for doing this project, almost. He's being funny.

And as much as he and Alan Moore probably differed on their, uh, approach to that's, the thing they have in common, that self effacing. Let me make fun of myself a little bit. Um, I have a lot of ego.

Also, but I'm also willing to laugh at myself.

Totally. And that funniness that you sometimes, especially with Alan, you don't know. We think that is going to be there, but is actually there, especially in their kind of just prose writing.

Yeah. So, happy 100th birthday, Stan. We are covering this alternate universe for the first time as a little bit of a tribute to Hem, because this is Earth six in DC, the Just Imagine Earth, which, again, we've never covered before. It's an alternate universe for DC. It still is canonically in the multiverse. More on that later. And before we get into the issue and I'll add some more context to the alternate Earth, I wanted to give some backstory on the project of Just Imagine Stanley creating fill in the character. So prior to this project, which is from 2001 to 2002, there are 13 books that come out under this project. One is a secret files in origin. So it's really twelve stories that make up the larger world that he's constructed. They come out over a year in prestige, square bound, trade paperback style books. They're still being reprinted. There's an omnibus, though it's out of print. There are trade paperback collections, and they're available digitally. So, unlike some of the company crossover stuff, since this doesn't have IP shared, it is very accessible. And so the way this came about and some prehistory well, in 1989 is the only other time Stan did anything officially with DC other than the marvel DC stuff. He wrote a paragraph tribute for a 600th anniversary issue of batman. And that might tie into the origin of this book, because this book really came about because of Michael Uslan, who talked to Bob kane and Stan lee at the batman premiere. Before I get into that story, rob, since you're the movie person, tell us about Michael Uslan, who is really important in Batman world.

Super important. Michael Uslan a jersey boy like you and me. And by 1969, he had over 30,000 comics. So even more than you, gido, I hate to say I'm working on it, but his collection also included a second issue of batman and the first issue of superman. So pretty good collection there. He got his law degree, but comics really remained his passion. And he created a course on comic books at the university of Indiana, which was really the first of its kind. He also wrote a little bit for DC comics in 1975 a shadow. He wrote a shadow and weirdly, a beowulf comic. Very bizarre. And then the big thing was that he acquired the rights for the film rights to batman in 1979 with Benjamin melnicker. And they developed the 1989 movie specifically to kind of make it a darker version of batman than what we kind of had grown to know batman as, which was the 1960s Adam west kind of campy version. And Michael and melnicker remained EPS on all batman related films, including any crossover. So the Lego movie, scooby, do, their names are on all of those things. And they did that until melancher died in 2018 at the age of 104. So wow. And, uh, even after his business partner passed away, yusuan continues to be the EP on all batman movies, including the new Matt reeds film. And separate from Batman, he has also helped produce the spirit film, the Constantine film, the swamp thing film, and animated series, and weirdly, the American treasure film. That's the outlier. The national treasure. Yes, that's the I think the outlier there. But then, gito, you're going to tell us a little bit about how michael then kind of cross paths with Stan.

Yeah, there's some cool stories. And a lot of these actually come from the tomorrow's Stanley universe publication from 20 years ago or so. They did a deep interview with Michael Uslan, and there's one cool anecdote is he had actually met him on a tour. Flo steinberg introduced them. When Michael Oslon was in 7th grade, he toured the building. He actually came into New York looking for the Baxter building, only to discover that the baxter building didn't exist. He knew that s four weren't real.

But he thought the Baxter building that's good, at least.

But he then actually encountered stan again. This is a real quick side story, because he taught the first credit bearing college course about comic books in 1971. Michael did. And to get a lot of press. And this is a very Stan thing to do, actually, a PT. Barnum thing to do. Michael Uslan would call the local news and pretend to be a citizen, complaining that the college was teaching comic book courses. And this drew the news's attention. So his course ended up on the news. Stan saw it and called Michael Uslan out of the blue and said to him that what he was doing for the industry was a huge help to everyone. If there was anything Stan could do to help him, let him know. And from then on, he started sending him comics for his course. He sent him speakers. Jerry Conway and Steve Engelhardt went to lecture in the class. So they started a relationship then and then is at the Batman premiere in 1989, that Bob Kane and Stanley, who were friends for many years, had been at a table with Michael Uslan having dinner. And they're joking back and forth and sort of ribbing each other. And they're saying, like, oh, could you imagine if and Stan saying, could you imagine if I created Batman? And apparently Bob Kane is saying, could you imagine if I created Spiderman?

Bob Kane should have said, could you imagine if I created Batman?

Could you imagine if Bill finger created Spiderman? So, uh, anyway, this plants a seed in Michael Ozlon's mind. And throughout the 90s, he said he was thinking about this. And when Marvel hit bankruptcy in the 90s, he knew that Stan was willing and interested to get involved in other collaborations and other work. And so he finally approached him. Stan loved the idea of reimagining DC characters as if he had created an origin for that character M, with no rules linking them to canon. And he thought DC would never go for it. But Michael got DC then publisher and President Paul Levitt to agree. He got Mike Carlin to edit. And there's a whole lot then in the collaboration. So they did try to use the Marvel method. So Stan would do a plot breakdown. And Michael Uzelan said that the plot breakdowns were far more detailed than they ever were for Marvel, according to Stan, because he had to really think a lot more about what made this character this character. And so he did super detailed breakdowns, and then he would provide those to the artist. And he was working with the top artists still to this day that there are in comics, uh, 20 years ago. And so the collaboration then would be influenced by the artist. Some artists really stuck to the plot breakdown and then turned the art back into Stan. And Stan would fill in the dialogue, the Marvel method. But a few of the artists did more a collaborative work on the plot. So Dave Gibbons was cited as one, for example, who really reshaped his story and would work with Stan on it. Or Stan had some notes, apparently, for John Busima and actually started sketching over Busima's work, uh, and gave that back to him to try to work together. So it was a really close collaboration, but again, trying to use the Marvel method. And Stan wrote in the afterword for the collected edition about how much he loved to do this. And he really didn't want to write the end at the end of it. The artists were, again, top shelf. They were just treasures for him. And one side note is this is John Busima's last published work. He does the Superman issue with Stan. And the other thing Stan talks about in that closing is how at, uh, conventions following this project in 2001, 2002, he would be able to talk to fans about the characters and their backstories. And he said it made him feel young again. It made him feel like he did in the when he could go to conventions and talk about these stories and these origins and these characters and his vision for them. So he really loved that aspect of it. He also waxes for a while on how both companies can coexist, how they should be friends. They're both part of the fabric of modern culture. He then does his usual standing and says he wishes, like, countries of the world would function like that and the world would be a much better place. So it's a really neat project. And after this project, just one quick note on Stan in DC. He does do a Superman story a few years later in a Superman anniversary or tribute book that's unrelated to the just imagined universe. Then he has a cameo and Teen Titans go. But that's pretty much all the work that he did officially for DC other than the Marvel DC collaborations. And I'll share more about this alternate Earth as we get into the issues and beyond.

So, before we, uh, get into our first issue, Guido, what was your background with the Just Imagine books?

I actually have to admit, I was not a fan of these when they came out. I don't know. I think I was not able to appreciate what the point of it was. So it felt unnecessary to me at the time. And then whichever few I read seemed almost silly and hokey to me. And I didn't read all 13 books. I didn't read the story that he was doing. Uh, so, yeah, my background is that I obviously knew they existed, and I read a few of them and really just was not a fan of them. So this is my first time revisiting them with a different lens and considering my feeling about them now. And this is my first time reading a few of them. There's a few not today's. Today's, uh, that we cover, I had read, but there will be a few that when we get to them. I never read them 20 years ago because I just wasn't that interested in the project and how about you. Uh, I'm sure you didn't read them. Did you know that these existed?

Not until fairly recently. Or maybe when we, uh, read the book Slug Fest. And I think this might be mentioned in passing, or maybe it's not, or maybe I just had heard about it afterwards. But no, this was very new to me in general.

Well, here we go.

Well, yeah. What's not new is the first issue we're going to discuss. We're going to head back to the 30s, but with that stan, take it away.

Yeah. How fitting. Here is right now on this very show, you're going to get the answer.

To all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago. And yes, a few years ago indeed, quite a while ago. This is Detective Comics issue number 33 from November 1939. This is called the Batman Wars against the Jerrigible of Doom. Quite the mouthful of doom.

Um, I love that we actually covered.

This issue in episode 39 of this podcast where we discussed Two Face being mashed up with the Phantom of the Opera.

Yeah. So this issue of Detective Comics 33 is written by Bill Finger and gardener Fox. Pencilled by Bob Kane and Sheldon Maldoff, inked by Bob Kane. Lettered by Sheldon Moldoff, edited by Vincent Sullivan. We read the beginning of this issue because it is the first origin. So, of course, it's a few issues after the debut of Batman first origin retelling. And it's really only two pages of the origin. But we wanted to read that before we got into stands. So, real quick, uh, any thoughts rereading the origin of Batman this time?

I can't remember what I said the last time we covered this. I don't know if I said this then, but I think what's so striking is that how short it is. And we're about to then cover the just imagine, which of course, is a whole issue. And here we get a whole origin of one of the most iconic fictional characters of all time. And it's two pages, very little dialogue. So it's just striking that, uh, everyone knows this origin story and yet it's so condensed here. And of course, it's been retold, but the foundations of it are so short.

Well, we've talked about this before. You get the feeling that none of these comics were interested in doing origin stories. It's part of why they never start with the origin. They start with the character. And then if they claim if there's an interest, I don't know where it comes from, then they'll share the origin eventually. So whether it's a sense that people just don't care or that little kids can't hold on to a back story in their minds, I don't know what it is, but clearly they're not interested. However, what that speaks to, I think, then, is almost how iconic this is. I mean, I don't know, in 1939 and pre 1939, what other stories were out there that this could have been pulling from. I'm sure it's not the most unique, groundbreaking thing, but like you said, it's two pages and every single panel. So many people on this earth could recognize what's happening in there. You have the parents, you have the crime in the criminal in the alley, you have the gunshots, you have, rather grotesquely, the dead parents lying there, and Bruce is looking at them. Um, it doesn't shy away from that. And then you have the fact that he has a lot of money, spends time becoming really smart, becoming really strong, has technology, and wants to stop crime in his city and protect his city. So the core is all there on those 16 panels or whatever it is.

Yeah. And I know Bob Kane comes under a lot of probably self deserved fire for some of his actions, but definitely just his artwork or with Sheldon Maldoff here. Some of it's just great. There's just after Bruce's parents are dead, and there's just a close up off his face, and it's crying in the background. Um, greenish.

Yeah, that one's really a cool one. It's almost out of place in 1930s comics because he is showing so much emotion.

And all of them just have this kind of noir. And the next one, his face is kind of obscured by shadow. Then the next one is after that. Got a very Sci-Fi it almost seems like it's anticipating the guess here. It's kind of the early, uh, serials kind of feel, almost a Buck Rogers kind of thing to it. Semi futuristic and noir, which is so funny because that's kind of also the same feel that they did with the 1989 Batman movie. Whereas, oh, it's a little bit of now, it's a little bit of the past that's maybe always been inherent in the DNA of Batman.

Yeah. And cool stuff like the Bat flying in, why he gets his name. I mean, it just keeps it really simple and clean and interesting. So it was fun to revisit. And there's a reason why it has never been modified.

Until much later.

Yes, exactly.

It was. So, yes, let us explore some multiversity.

Um, I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question, what if?

And so today we are discussing, just imagine Stan Lee's Batman, issue number one from September 2001. And the story is just simply titled Batman with a backup called on, um, the street.

Yes. And so the credits for this issue, it's written by Stan Lee, penciled by Joe Cooper, who also does the inks colored by Sibin Slavkovic, lettered by Bill Oakley, and edited by Mike Carlin. The backup is written by Michael Uslan and Stan Lee. Penciled and inked by Mike Colluda colored by Alex Sinclair lettered by Bill Oakley edited by Mike Carlin Real quick on the collaborator on this issue. Since each issue, again, being the Marvel method, the collaborator is quite important. So Joe kubert is a golden age and silver age icon of comic book art, mostly for DC. He did work early work on blue beetle preDC, but then created a ton of characters for DC starting in the onward through into the 80s. He's still doing a ton of work the 90s, batman, superman pretty much stays in DC. Primarily a few independent books. But that is mostly where his iconic work on, uh, sergeant rock, on batman, on superman all, uh, comes from. So that's the collaborator.

We've been to his comic book school in New Jersey, right? You can even buy comics there.

Right at the cuban school, which he formed in the 1970s. And then of course, he has incredibly famous children, adam and Andy. So he is a comic book legend family. And that's the collaborator here. Other than Michael Uslan, who writes this backup in every single issue of just imagine that sort of reflects on the character but doesn't move the story. And real quick, I mentioned I would go into more of the alternate earth when we get into this issue. So earth six is confirmed time and again in the pages of DC. This is the first time earth six appears. It's not numbered here. The numbering might have something to do with six one six. I wonder, because they do play around with a few sort of marvel knockoff universes in some of the world mapping that shows up in multiversity. Grant Morrison's multiversity in the index in the pages of that, it's called the happening home of, uh, familiar names given new and unfamiliar stories. And in the very recent dark crisis, big bang. Barry allen, written by Mark wade. But Barry allen has an index of all the earths. And earth six is described as the wildly alternate variants of earth zero heroes. So that is earth six. And this is our issue. We should probably give a summary of our issue to our listeners in case they're not too familiar.

Yes. So our main character is Wayne Williams. Wayne williams. So Wayne Williams, who is living in Los Angeles, and he gets caught up, uh ah, in a gang war.

In inadvertently father gets killed by an encounter with this gang that has taken over this part of the city. He and his mother observe and wax on how horrible the crime is.

Yes. And then then he's basically framed by that same gang that kills his father. He's sent to prison for the attempted murder of a store, uh, owner, where.

He becomes a really good friend. With who?

With, uh, an inventor. I don't know.

An adorable little bat becomes his best friend. That's true.

He makes two friends. An elderly, a human inventor, and a little bat that becomes his friend in.

The but most importantly to the origin is he becomes the best friends with this bat in the prison. And that's what inspires him when he gets out and wants to. End all crime and stop this criminal gang. He goes to the Inventor and says, give me everything this Bat has. So he gets a costume that helps him sort of glide fly. He gets night vision glasses, superheroing things. And then, of course, he made his body strong by working out in the prison all the time.

Well, and then that's kind of what I mentioned or, uh, joked about a little bit in our intro. He becomes super buff in prison and then becomes the Batman is a wrestler. And uh, in this very cool Batman outfit that I'm sure we'll talk more about, he becomes this wrestler and also becomes like a multimillionaire from that. Gets this adventure to kind of be the front almost to, uh, run this. And then, of course, he winds up taking on the, uh, gangster that helped kind of put him away to begin with.

Yeah. Confronts him and kills him.

Yeah, kills him.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. So what do you think of this reinvention of Batman by Stan with a completely different character? He's black, so different race, different totally different origin. I kept waiting. His mother dies of a broken heart because he's in prison. But that's it, mhm. She's not killed by criminals. So anyway, what do you think? First impressions?

I really like this a lot. Uh, it's fun because it takes kind of just a little bit of seeds of Batman. Of course, he's dressed like a bat and all that, but as you said, so much of the rest of the story is different. It really does feel like a completely new character. And, yeah, I thought it was a really kind of fun read. And it gets us into some kind of darker places and I guess kind of going back to the Stanley thing of bringing realism in some form or another into comic book storytelling. The fact that he actually kills the person at the end of the story, and then the fact that, uh, that guy's gangster mall kind of one is like, oh, no, she actually rejects Batman because, oh, he actually killed someone. So it's interesting. It's not as black and white as I kind of thought it was.

Moral conflict.

2001 would be yeah.

No, I think he probably was. Even though his stories are schlocky and get schlockier as he gets older and get a lot lighter in tone. I think probably since he became known for having constructed a marvel universe where there's moral quandaries that people can relate to, I think he probably tried to do that in these books is create add a moral quandary that makes it not a completely clear situation. Because, of course, Batman's origin is very clear now. He's complicated later, and there's more nuance added to the character later. But the Bruce Wayne batman is clear. He's a vigilante who you support. He wants to stop crime because of this trauma he experienced here. It's a little more complicated because, as you said, he ends up killing. He ends up making all of his money off being a pro wrestler, which I couldn't help but think about spiderman, of course.

Of course.

Definitely elements of the Spiderman origin in here because Spiderman chooses to do that and then stops because of Uncle Ben's death. So it's cool to see Stan play with that idea. Like, okay, well, what if him becoming a pro wrestler actually helps his heroism and doesn't create harm to someone? So it is fun just how different it is. It's not unlike, I think, an else worlds and certainly a, uh, what if, like, he's not even trying to do the Bruce Wayne thing. No, what I feel like he did really well is he tried to boil down Batman, and he said, okay, Batman hates crime, but let's come up with a different reason he hates crime, and Batman wants to seek vengeance and be a vigilante. Let's come up with a different reason he wants to do that. And then Batman has all these quote unquote superhero heroic special powers as related to a bat. Let's come up with a different reason why that he pulled these core parts and then totally transformed why they exist. And that's really cool.

Yeah. And I think it's interesting, too, because Wayne is kind of the inciting incident that kind of helps transform Wayne. He Wayne Williams. He's much older than Bruce as well. So we're kind of get he's he's already can live this life. He's not this little kid that is then shaped by this. So we're getting a very different story from that as well. And, of course, him not being this being born a millionaire billionaire, we're not also getting this entitled rich guy who's then trying to also put his will onto the city. We're getting someone who has kind of worked his way up into this. And then, even then, even though he becomes a millionaire, he's like, oh, no, I don't want that to be the face. I want you, the white guy, inventor, to actually kind of be the face of this house. And I'm kind of more in the shadows, which actually makes a lot more sense when you think about kind of keeping a secret identity secret.

Yeah. And not being the center of attention and having people look at you. The costume you wanted to mention, because I do want to talk about Kubert's art here. So what is it about the design? Although I'm sure it was probably in collaboration. They came up with the designs, but obviously Kubert executed it. It almost looks like he has a dead best head on the head, though. There's no Bat that big, so I don't think he does. But it looks like I think the.

One thing about Batman, uh, is that the Batman we all know, I should say Bruce Wayne Batman bruce Wayne Batman is that he doesn't really look that much like a bat. I mean, he's got the cape, really.

His shadow that he casts exactly.

That looks like the famous insignia. But really if you just saw him and you said to someone, an alien who landed, who had no idea who Batman was, they wouldn't say, oh, that guy looks like he's dressed like a bat. He just looks like he's got a spiky head. But this guy, there's no confusing it. He looks like a bat.

They look like, ah, actual pig nose.

Yeah. Mhm. And they always say in the comics, oh, he dressed like Bruce Wayne. Batman dresses like that to scare the, the criminals and stuff like that. But I don't think it's really scary. Especially when you think about like sixty s and seventy s and it's like the gray and blue. But if I saw this Batman out in the street, this would scare me. Definitely.

Yeah. No, he's ugly.

Totally.

Bats are pretty ugly. Sorry to anyone who likes bats, but bats are pretty ugly. Uh, which actually is even a part of this plot. He talks about how everyone hates bats and so people hate bats and that's why he's going to become one and he befriends one. But anyway, bats are ugly and creepy. So it does work that he is also ugly and creepy, I think. And I uh, love the art. It fits. Kubert's style is very classic. The only thing I do wish is, uh, I don't know if it was a time thing or a Kubernetes older thing, but there are a lot of pages and panels with no backgrounds. They'll just flood out of color. So even the big moment when he's Batman, it's just like this purple tinted background, though. He's at actually like a wrestling arena. So probably for time's sake. The backgrounds are a lot of empty space, but the art itself I really like. It, uh, fits the tone well.

A lot of the antagonists too, both in the jail and the gang he's fighting also all kind of looked like one another. There's kind of a generic look to a lot of them. And it's almost like he put so much time and detail into the amazing Batman outfit and into Wayne himself. Whenever you see Wayne's face, it's also very detailed. But it's almost like that took up so much time that everybody else had to get a little bit of a rough draft version of them.

Yeah.

Mhm, and one other big thing I was going to mention too, is what do you think about setting it in La. It's really in like the Hollywood area of La. As opposed to Gotham City.

Yeah. And it's interesting because there's a little bit of debate as to whether or not Gotham City is Chicago or New York. It's probably some amalgam of them, but it's definitely not La. And so he's obviously choosing to pick a city that is completely separate. And I guess he might have also picked it for the very practical reason of the pro wrestling famous thing. Maybe that is more an La. Thing. And he wanted that sort of celebrity profile status. He's probably also pulling at the fact that in the 90s, there is a lot of conversation in the US. About race. And it's coming out of events, uh, in La. Between La. Riots and conflicts and lots of police issues as it relates to black people. So he's probably choosing La. To add a little bit of that texture to the character and the being framed in jail and then the pro wrestling career and stuff.

Mhm I think that's definitely true in terms of the racial aspects. I was also thinking it's interesting because Los Angeles m not living there. In my mind, you always think of Los Angeles as sunny, as bright, and of course, here's a character and at night, and we live in New York City. New York City is always kind of a little even on a sunny day, it's kind of dark because of the big skyscrapers and everything. So here it almost taps into maybe that noir aspect of La. That David Lynch kind of la. Where his mansion is up here. It's not like the big kind of Connecticut upstate New York mansion that we kind of think of for the Wayne Manor here.

It's like, um, on the cliff, blinding.

Mary got that kind of Alfred Hitchcock, like, north by Northwest kind of feel to it. So it's definitely playing a little bit also into that version of Los Angeles, that kind of dark night version.

Yeah. So it was very cool to meet Wayne Williams before we leave this, and we will talk a lot more about Wayne, but this also introduces the character of Reverend Dominic Dark. And just real quick, I'll say we're not going to spend time on him, but he is the only recurring character in the just imagined universe because he, uh, becomes the ultimate villain. That the JLA, which all of these characters are on the JLA, so you see them again, but that they ultimately fight in his crisis issue, stanley's crisis issue, which is the final issue of the series that he does for Just Imagine. So we get introduced to him in the background, but he's not the key villain to the Batman origin story. Let's move on because I'll share more about how this Earth has been revisited in our next segment.

I know we're going to jump now to a super, super recent issue. So let us ponder some possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? So Gito, what are we going to be talking about for pondering possibilities?

So there are a few appearances of Earth Six, and I'll describe them all now. There's a brief one in infinite frontier. There's the cataloging of the Earth in Multiversity. And then there is the cataloging of the Earth in Dark Crisis, Big Bang. So these are the two major multiversal crisis events, both within the last ten years. So there is not a lot of revisiting of this Earth or these characters. But just last week, when we were recording this, a special issue came out that formally revisits Earth Six that tells updated sequel stories, if you will, for each of the main characters that Stan created. And they did it DC did it as a tribute to for Stan's birthday for his 100th centennial birthday. The Marvel actually released nothing for Stan's centennial birthday, however this issue came out. So tell us what the issue is.

Yes, it is Tales from Earth Six, a celebration of Stanley issue number one from December 2022. Although the COVID date is February 2023.

So the future and, uh, so what's really cool, we looked at the one story, which is called Choked Batman's Story in this, written by Michael Uslan. Penciled and inked by Lee Weeks, colored by Patricia Mulvihill. Lettered by Clayton Cals, edited by Andrew Moreno. So in, uh, this story, it's a short story in this anthology, we get introduced to the Choker. It's a very cool origin in which the Choker is someone who's trying to rob a woman and kill her in an alley. He does that by choking her. He uses the word Choke as if joke. He says to Batman, what's the matter? You can't take a choke? So Batman goes to try to stop him and encounters Commissioner Hal Jordan and also a very excited police officer who is corrigan, uh, the Specter. He's the Specter in the universe we know. And Specter ends up shooting just willy nilly, a little over eager. But they end up getting the Choker, and Batman makes a deal with Hal Jordan, Commissioner Hal Jordan that they'll work together. And it closes with a fun joke where Hal Jordan says, let's set up a signal so I can reach you. And Batman says, don't call me commissioner. I'll call you. It's a really fun look at the continued activities of Wayne Williams, batman, Earth Six. What did you think?

Yeah, I thought it's super fun and just I don't know. There's something about the name of the Choker. I know it's obviously a play on the Joker, but there's something about that name and just someone who's going around, like, choking and strangling people. I don't know. It gives it a, uh, sense of reality amongst the superhero ness of it all. And I just thought that had a real effective creepiness to it.

What's really cool, too, and I don't know if this was Michael Uslan or Leeway, because obviously Michael Uslan came up with the character. First of all, he looks like the Joker, right? He has green hair, white his skin, and a purple jacket. But what's cool about the Joker is not just the fact that it rhymes with Joker. And that even more than rhymes with I don't remember what the word is for words that do that, but it doesn't just rhyme, right? Joker choker, they sound alike, but on top of that, he's like, smiling and laughing when he's choking people and when he's choking them, their faces aghast, almost like that's true. Leeway and Michael Luscian constructed this character that is the Joker, but not. And it's very cool that they were able to do that with all the darkness intact. Like, the Joker post Silver Age is a pretty dark, demented character. So making him, um, the choker or, uh, this other dark, demented character. It's a cool thing. It's a very cool thing.

One of the comics I read the most growing up was the comic book adaptation of the Batman 89 film.

Uh, I just cataloged the very beat up version of it because I read.

It all the time. It's so beat up. But I think Leeweeks'art, specifically the choker here specifically looks like the young Jack Napier as depicted in that they look very similar. And I would imagine that, again, Michael Yusuf basically helps create that movie. So I was sure that's all kind of a reference. Again, back to kind of the 89 Batman version there, bringing it full circle for his career.

Yeah. So I do want to talk about the legacy of this story. But real quick, now that we have this follow up Tales from Her Six, do you want more? Wayne Williams? Do you want more of this story?

Yes. I really would like to kind of explore more of this character in this kind of alternate. Like you said, I think it's refreshing that it's not an else world where, okay, it's the same character, but something has changed. No, this is a whole new character. And I would love to kind of spend more time in this world in this kind of la ver, you know, this Gotham City as as Los Angeles, and exploring this character and seeing more about the he's, you know, supporting cast who we haven't really gotten to meet, which is such a big part of also Batman as well. So I yeah, I just kind of I definitely would love to read more.

Well, that's what's fun about this. Michael Uslan Leeway. I think prior to actually this new story, I would have said, like, sure, I'm willing to read more, but I wouldn't have been so into it. But it's really Michael Uslan's and Leeweeks's story in this anthology that makes me like, oh, this is cool. I want this world. I want to see his relationship to Commissioner Hal Jordan. I want to see what happens to the choker. I want to see who his other villains that he's coming up against, what's the Arkham Asylum in this universe? How do you do all of that storytelling in a completely transformed universe? So I totally agree. Based on this story, I want more. So, thinking m about what we learned on this trip through the multiverse, I do want to point out that the first Black batman happened post future state and is happening right now, which is Jace Fox. Tim jace Fox, the son of Lucius Fox in future state, becomes Batman, and then post future state takes the mantle and coexists with Bruce Wayne Batman in the same way that all of the characters now have these legacy versions coexisting. And his origin as Batman involves the police. It involves being wrongfully accused of starting a riot, and then he actually moves to New York. So that's how he still is Batman in the awesome ongoing title I Am Batman that I highly recommend people read. I'm hard pressed to imagine that's not, uh, being inspired by Stan's creation here, even though it's 20 years later. It's hard for me to imagine. First of all, as far as I know, they're the only two black Batman. But then to also tell the origin of this person becoming Batman and having it involved police and wrongful accusations being framed, and then placing him in a different city, and so you can explore his relationship to police in that city and what that means, it feels like it must be inspired. He doesn't have, uh, the hideous ugly Bat costume. Do you think it was also inspired?

Yeah, it certainly sounds that way. Why do you think they created this new character instead of going back to Wayne?

Oh, like bringing Wayne Williams?

Yeah, if they wanted to tell kind of that version of the story using, as you said, their backstory is so similar. So why create a new character when you already had a preexisting character? Yeah, I don't know.

Maybe, uh, uh, the multiverse in DC right now is super permeable, but it still is a multiverse. So other Earths do still exist. Some don't exist, some are destroyed, etc. But maybe they wanted to sort of protect the integrity of Earth Six so that they could possibly revisit it or retell stories in it and not have it affect things. Maybe. Also, while Jace Fox was created by Lenwine in the 70s, it was they were able to have a black writer take Jace Fox and turn him into the new Batman. So that's John Ridley, who is writing I am Batman and telling those stories. So perhaps they didn't want to go down the path of Kubert and Stan being two white older men, um, who were creating the Wayne Williams character. True. I have no idea. I mean, I'm only speculating, but I think there could be reasons to keep this Earth intact.

Yeah, and hopefully it would be nice too, if we're able to still have our Wayne Williamson. Maybe have Michael Yuslan also passed a baton to a black writer as well, and have both of these characters coexist because as you said, it is a multiverse, which this show is all about. So they can both be able to exist, potentially.

Jace Fox could meet Wayne Williams.

M oh, totally.

There's a story to be told about the multiversal Batman's meeting each other.

Um, and then how many times do we have two white superheroes meeting, but two superheroes that are not white meeting is still a, ah, big rarity. So that there's probably a story in there and talking even about their shared origins.

Yeah, and Bruce can show up and also be there. So you get all the Bat men together, and there are plenty of Bat women, too, to include that all of the bad people. But it is really cool to just think that Stan's commitment to inclusion, which I just think is, uh, always apparent, but was particularly apparent in the Just Imagined series. And I think we'll get a little bit into that again in our next episode next week. But his commitment to inclusion sort of foresaw what they would ultimately, finally do. And 2001 was too late for it, and 2020 is certainly too late for the fact that DC took that long. But it's still important that they're doing it now. And great that they're doing it now. Any concluding thoughts?

I really enjoyed, uh, reading this, and I kind of want to read more. If only we had another episode, um, in this universe.

Well, guess what? M our next week's episode, we are going to return to Earth Six.

Oh, my gosh.

And we will be covering another of the Just Imagines, and then we'll break it up, we'll go back into other issues, and we'll just pull Earth Six in down the road. But we did want to do two back to back to really get a sense of this world and celebrate Stan centennial. So tune in next week when we will be back on Earth Six. And for now, that's a wrap. Dear Watchers, thank you for listening. I have been Guido.

And I have been Rob. The reading list is in the show notes, and you can follow us on all shows. Social media at Dear Watchers.

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And in the meantime, in the words of Otu Excelsior.