Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Welcome to Dear Watchers, a comic book Omniverse podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.

We are travelling through the storylines before and after that inspired or took inspiration from this week's alternate universe. And your watchers on this journey are me, Guido, the she devil.

And me Rob, the last living similar don't have to write that one down because it's a little bit of a. I know.

Yeah. I don't even know what that is. I thought you would just be Rob Plunder.

That's very boring because that is his last name. So then that would just be my last name.

But such a good last name it is.

That's very true. Yes. That's a little preview of who we're going to be talking about today of the episode. That's also true. Yes. It's not a surprise to anyone. But before we get into Mr. Plunder and his she devilish family, Guido, what is new?

Well, we had our creator interview with Joe Glass go live last week, and the reaction has been so great and so fun. So if you checked out that episode, thank you for listening and please review us and share, because that helps so much for a small podcast like ours. And I hope everyone feels great.

Also, ordering young men in love as well, or telling their comic book shops to order it.

Yes. And then we are still getting some more merch perks ready. But we do have stickers. If people send us a copy of their review. We are sending new stickers out this week to people who have sent in their reviews to us. Uh, and just DMs on Twitter or email podcast@deerwatchers.com We have more creator interviews coming up next week. It's going to be really exciting. Also, though, I don't want to jump too far ahead because we have some exciting stories to talk about today. But keep telling us what you want to see, and we'll try to do it as we keep diving through the Omniverse together.

Yes. And if you are swinging on your jungle vine to our podcast for the first time, well, here's a quick summary of what we're going to be talking about. So after we discuss our alternate Earth, we're going to be diving into Origins of the Story, where we're going to be discovering what may have inspired this other reality, then exploring Multiversity, diving deeper into the alternate universe, and finally pondering possibilities, examining the impact of this visit to the multiverse and what's followed or our hopes for the future. And with that, Dear Watchers, welcome to episode 42. And let's check out what's happening in the multiverse with today's alternate universe. And today we are going to be posing the question, what if New York remained the Savage Land forever?

And this is Earth 98911 two. So a little bit of summary for Earth 98911 two. I'll do my best. It requires a little six one, six summation because it's one of those what if issues, especially laid in volume two, that directly takes a recently published book and flips it around. So in the six one six, we had Kevin plunder's, Ka-Zar's brother, working with Thanos. They use the Terraformer that created the Savage Land to TerraForm New York. And it's all part of some plan for Thanos to get enough power to reenter Earth and our reality and take it over. And there's a medallion that ends up helping them resolve it, which we will talk more about momentarily in this Earth. That medallion does not get given to Ka-Zar. So the Earth stays terraformed. And on Earth. 98911. Two Where the Earth is terraformed, we jump five years in the future. A number of heroes have been killed or were not able to survive because of the now Savage Land Savage New York that exists. There are villains who've taken over. We see some future iteration of The Avengers featuring Hawkeye featuring Firestorm. But wait, Firestorm, is that right? In my head, I'm thinking Firestarter.

No, it's not. Now. Um, of course I'm blanking on who because there's the DC Firestore.

No, she's Firestar, Firestar, Angelica. But in this, she has a different name, Rogue has a different name. We'll explore all of that, but these heroes end up encountering Kazar returning after five years. Zabu is dead and he's wearing him. And Shayna has been trying to get this resolved for the betterment of all humans. And Kazar has been off trying to find their son, but couldn't escape the encounter Kazar's brother and find that he had a way of turning this back to double cross Thanos, whose name is Carnival.

By the way, you're not mentioning his wonderful name. Carnival Plunder.

Oh, his name is so good. Parny Plunder. I really love it a lot. And so Carnival has this fail safe thing that he had set up in case he needed to double cross Thanos. But the detonating didn't work and he waited five years because it took them that long to realize that Thanos was never coming back for him. So he, Kazar and Shanna go find the detonation and explosion. Turns out it needs people to turn it on and kill themselves for it to work. They do that, Kazar and Party do that. Shayna goes out. She's happy that New York is back to New York, but discovers that Thanos had terraformed at least Queens and the rest of New York City, and that maybe he terraformed the rest of the Earth or even the rest of the universe, and that she was going to go after him. So that is how it ends. And we'll talk a lot more about details in that. But that's my best attempt at summarizing our Earth. 98911.

Two I wonder what happened to Staten Island.

That'll come in the later issues, which we'll talk about whether or not we want to see Shanna.

The she devil of Staten Island.

I definitely think there's a spin off waiting in that.

Yes. Oh, totally, yes. Gito, you mentioned a lot of characters that are a little on the more periphery of Marvel. Dumb. So what is your background with Ka-Zar and his family?

So he just always was in the background as someone who, and we've talked about on the show before who doesn't like Conan and doesn't like the sort of jungle, uh, sword, which Ka-Zar doesn't have a sword but doesn't like that kind of he's had at times, though, if you were ever to have a sword, it would probably be in the title that we read.

But anyway, it's made out of like a Tyrannosaurus Rex tooth or something like that.

That's true. That's true. So I never knew much about him, but then, of course, being such an Xmen fan and collector, I obviously thought of him and the Savage Land as predominantly Xmen creations, even though that's not where they spend the majority of their time. So I am a little bit more familiar, I'd say, than other characters who have only had 250 appearances over 40 years. Uh, close 50 years, but I'm not very familiar. I did not read any of his solo titles, ever. I collected the recent miniseries, which we'll talk about because I wanted to see what they were doing to sort of bring him back and what that meant. So I never read Ka-Zar. I never read Shanna, other than when they would appear in other major crossover events, which happened a bit in the 90s, a bit again in the 2000s, but nothing major. How about you?

Yeah, I wasn't super familiar with them. They always seemed growing up as the King and Queen of the Dollar Bin, even in the 90s, where you'd always just go and see their back issues. And I didn't remember this until we were doing research for this episode. The one issue I probably knew Kazar from the most was Global Jeopardy, the WWE. I talked about that Worldwide Life Foundation Marvel crossover where he's very heavily featured, so I do it from that. And I knew the Savage Land because it's heavily featured in the Xmen animated series when Charles and Magneto go there. But I don't really think Kazar is in that. Is he? Maybe he is a cameo.

But he want to say there's a cameo. He might show up in an episode helping them or something, but yeah, there's not a lot of information. I think at that point, he's just a resident of the Savage Land.

Well, more than a resident.

He's the did you know he debuted in X Men?

No idea. I did not know that. And not, uh, being the Xmen aficionado that you are, I did not really associate them. Of course I associated the Savage Land with Xmen, but I didn't really associate him with the Savage Land. I kind of just always put him in his own titles, I guess. Yeah, but it makes sense because we are going to talk about the Xmen in just one moment. So let's jump into Origins of the Story 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 this amazing story starts, of course, with Stanley and the Uncanny X Men, volume one, issue number ten.

So really, there's no Uncanny in the title at the time.

Okay, later. Uncanny excellent. Is from March 1965 and it is called The Coming of Kazar.

Uh, which the title includes the pronunciation. I really appreciate K-A-Y-S-A-R Kayzar.

We were recently talking about Dormamu versus Dormamu, so here they just spelled it out for us.

I love that. So this is written by Stan, penciled by Jack Kirby, inked by Shake Zone, lettered by Sam Rosen, edited also by Stan. We read it because it is the first appearance of Kazar. Uh, so what did you think?

I thought this was a really fun issue. And I think what Stan does so well is you really get a sense of who all these characters are, even though he's writing in this more antiquated writing style now. But you really see who all the X Men are. Maybe not so much Gene and Warren as much, but Bobby and Hank and Scott are all so fleshed out. And then I just love like the kind of I'm always a sucker for a King Kong story. So I, um, do love kind of the classic Lost World kind of elements that this story brings in once we meet Kzar and the rest of the Savage Land.

Yeah, I agree. I think it's light on story and even characterization of Caesar is a little light here. The X Men have, yes, these fully developed characteristics and dropping them in this average land, I mean, it makes total sense, especially from a pulpy 60s perspective that you'd want to say like, hey, what happens if we drop these characters in a world where there are just still dinosaurs? It's a fun introduction. Most of the Silver Age doesn't. X Men doesn't have a lot of depth, but sometimes you get a really cool character. I don't think this debut of KSR is the most exciting character debut of the Silver Age. Uh, but it's good. And obviously the drawing is great. Kaiser's movement and look is very Kirby, but also very dynamic and fun. And Zabu is in it. Shayna doesn't debut for many years later and the other more evil tribes or whatever you want to call them, very Kirby.

They all have the Kirby headdress, the classic New Gods eternal kind of headdress action going on.

Yeah. Um, and I don't know, I don't remember if it's ever established, like, who they are, because later, of course, the Savage Land has the Mutates and we find out that Magneto actually made the Mutates. So I'm not totally sure. I don't feel like I know enough about the continuing, uh, history of the Savage Line because it really moves out of Xmen after this Kazar at least, uh, storyline. Did you know Kazar was an existing character? No, in name only. So Kazar was a pulp character from the 30s, Ironically named David Rand, which is very similar to Iron Fist. Yes. But there's no sort of hand off. There's no public main. Must have been true for Kazar. Stan does not credit anyone. I don't think there was ever any court case, nothing like that with Captain Marvel or any of those kinds of things that ever happened. So my guess is the 30s pulp character Kazar fell into the public domain or just they never Copyright the name Kazar. And since this was a completely different character with the same name, though, I think the pulp is also the same idea. This person who lived in, uh, the jungle, who then has interactions with should not really be crediting is the Edgar Rice Burroughs.

Family, because, uh, basically Kzar is Tarzan, right?

I guess he's more Tarzan. Conan. I mentioned Conan earlier. Right?

Yeah, they're very.

Tarzan grew up in the jungle.

In the jungle. But he's from a wealthy British family and he left there and then later finds out, or maybe American family, but wealthy family. So very similar story. And here in this issue, Kazar speaks kind of like Tarzan. He speaks in that very broken English. While later that must have been reckons because we know that Kays, our little boy, is in the Savage Land, so he doesn't speak like he speaks like a normal.

Yeah, I'm looking at the last page. He says, no talk. Your world above my world. Jungle only Kazar is Lord of jungle. You go, no return.

Yes. Which is basically when everyone, most people haven't even seen a Tarzan thing, but they know how to speak like Tarzan. And that's exactly it. And it's interesting, too, that you mentioned Rand and Iron Fist because it's also kind of the same story as Danny Ironfist, this rich white kids through a little bit in a mystical land, another, uh, dimension.

Yeah, that's a good point. I think that's true. So fun debut of Kazar and the X Men. He goes on after this before we get into what we read, which is much more modern, he goes on to show up in a few other Marvel titles, like in the years of the 60s. They do some backups with him in Strange Tales and then the Bronze Age is the first time he gets a focus. He gets his own title. Shana the she Devil has a five issue title in the 70s and then he's used really intermittently, as I mentioned earlier, he has 250 appearances, which is pretty small for a character that I think most people know his name. So it's not until the 90s, which we're about to talk about where he gets his solo title again.

Yeah. Well, reading this too, I think one of the big differences from reading comics here from the 60s and comics now is I don't have the feeling that Stan and Jack were really thinking all this through. I think they were thinking like, what's cool. Okay, we're going to put the jungle in Antarctica. What do little boys like? Well, little boys like Tarzan. Okay, we're going to put basically, Tarzan in a jungle in Antarctica. We're going to combine it with the X Men, because that sure. Why not? And then we're going to figure it out later. So maybe that's one of the reasons why his character has been more intermittent, because there wasn't a really probably clear backstory as to why they were kind of coming up with this.

Well, I imagine, too, in a universe of the Six One Six being so grounded in our reality, it becomes really hard to tell. Even with characters like a Galactus or something like, you can still have the Fantastic Four in New York City and dealing with this cosmic threat, but once you drop Kazar into a story, it sort of changes it into a Tarzan story. And that, I think, was probably hard to reconcile a lot of the time. I think it's still hard to reconcile. And we'll talk about the most recent KSR that exists, but I wonder if that's part of why it's been hard to bring him into the larger Six One Six universe, certainly in the 60s. But let's jump to his next outing, his next major outing that dropping Kazar into New York City.

We are going to be discussing Kazar. That is volume three, issues number eight through ten. And that's from December 1997, January 1998, February 1998, and March 1998. These are part of a mini.

Uh, series story arc called Urban story arc.

Story arc, Urban Jungle. And those are, I love these titles. Bright Lights, big Jungle. It's a jungle out there, outgrowth. And, of course, the best of all, Garden of Evil.

And so these issues are written by Mark Wade, penciled by Andy Kubernetes, inked by Jesse Del, Per Day, colored by Joe Rosas, and Digital Chameleon, though issue nine has Jason Wright on it, lettered by Todd Klein and edited by Matt Idleson and Paul Churchrone. And this is the middle of his solo title at this point. So it's a 20 issue title from 97 to 99. And this is during the heroes were born. So most of the Marvel heroes are out of Six One Six. The Avengers, Fantastic Four, Captain America, Hulk, Iron Man are out of the Six One Six. So I think that was probably an opportunity to bring characters like Kazar up. There was a Heroes for Hire title running a second time. Yeah, I think it was. Now, those other titles, of course, were selling really well, and the image creators were working on them, but they were out of the Six One Six universe, so this gave them a chance. This run, though, lasted 20 issues. So we're right dead center of it with this pretty big story. I'd say. So it pays off some teasing. That's done. In the end, there's an annual that kicks off this series, written actually, by Brian Papuan, which will be relevant in a moment, in a few minutes. And it sets up that, uh, Party Plunder has made some deal with Thanos. And so this four issue story is then that set up. And as I mentioned earlier, in the alternate universe, he ends up terraforming, Thanos and Party end up terraforming New York City. And then the medallion relevance is when you put it together, it grants you access to a maze that helps you move through to the center of the Terraformer, which is how it derives its power. And that's ultimately also like how they trick Thanos into entering the Earth and his power diminishing, entering the terraforms New York City, and his power diminishing. And Meanwhile, Shana goes through to the Terraformer to destroy the power, and in the end, ends up absorbing the power and being a conduit for the power of the Terraformer, which then continues in the rest of this title. But that's why we read it, because these are the issues that are directly switched.

What if all that medallion stuff is actually making me think? The other thing that it reminded me of is The Phantom, which, uh, is another kind of similar, um, story, too, of a rich white person being dropped into the jungle and becoming the Lord of the jungle and having these mystical artifacts. That was definitely a subgenre onto itself.

Well, it was a pulp shot, right? All these characters are pulp creations are like 30s era pulp creations. So there's something in that. So this story, I loved it.

Me, too.

I absolutely loved reading this. As soon as I finished the fourth issue, you were still reading it. And I went on Ebay and bought every single issue of Kzar that exists.

Of course you did.

I did. And I'm really excited, um, to read it because it was so fun. First of all, Andy Cooper is just iconic era that we both grew up, uh, with art, and he's so good. But it's just also it's nostalgic and really good. And some of the pages because he gets to do some cosmic stuff in here. Like, Thanos is sort of just out in space as this cosmic being. And so you just get to sort of break apart and the dimensions are all irrelevant. I mean, he grabs Shayna and he's like King Kong size at that point and the galaxies behind them, and then all the weird metaphysical, um, stuff in that. But then also it's Mark Wade, so it's not surprising. Like, the humor. I love this.

Lots of humor. Yeah. This really felt like to me what Marvel does really well, where you have these interdimensional stories Multiversity in that way, then you have the humor. There's lots of quippiness. And then, though at the heart of it, too, you have this KSR really going through this existential crisis, the classic kind of Marvel hero thing of he's deciding, wait, do I even want to be a father, even though he's already has this kid and that Shayna and him are having this argument in the middle of all this world crashing action.

Which is intense and really emotional, I would imagine. I don't know if Mark was pulling on his own experience of being a parent or just sort of trying to understand some experience of parenting, but I would imagine you could read this as a parent and derive a lot from it about what it means to have a child and when you're younger and how to figure that out and what role each you and your partner are going to play in parenting. And it's really good.

Yeah. I felt like reading this and I felt really that I could see this story adapted into the MCU really well, not just adding the Kazar character, because I think like all characters, he's probably going to pop up eventually. But I thought this story could really be adapted well.

Let's talk about the MCU in our let's wait till our future discussion to bring the MCU in, because I do want to talk more about that. But I see the cinematic qualities in this story, which is not surprising for both Mark Wade and Andy Cooper, because they're both really good at that sort of tone shifting, but things feel epic and that stuff.

That humor you definitely see in all the MCU characters that have been successful, that kind of tongue in cheek, a little very quick, heavy.

But you know who's so good in this is Party, I think. I love Party.

Yes. He's the main joke machine in this, and he is really great, and I definitely want to I already have my dream casting for him, so maybe we can talk about that in our future segment. But I think he's a really great character.

I want to read all of his appearances because. Yeah, and maybe it's just Wade writing them and so it'll just be this 20 issue run that I'll get to enjoy. But really, you understand him as a villain. He's got a cool design, especially at this point. I guess he sort of embraced technology. That's sort of the contrast they use to put Kevin and Party against each other. As you have the one who's embraced nature and the one who's embraced technology, and he has the mechanics sort of built into his face and he doesn't look like a Cyborg. He really looks like someone who accessorized with future technology. But then, yeah, he's like funny and snarky and he's snarky with Thanos and he's snarky with Kazar, but he's really enjoyable.

He's basically riding Thanos during the big giant climactic fight, as if Thanos is a horse and he's saying quit the entire time and then Thanos is eventually like or Thanos says something along the lines of like, I'm tiring of this. It was like, yeah, you just kill them already. It was like, no, I'm talking about you.

Yeah, it's great. It really was so fun. I can't recommend it enough. We read it. So what's odd is this entire 20 issue series is not on Marvel Unlimited. Part of it is. Most of it is, but not all of it. But these four issues are, and I really highly recommend them, even with such little context. Uh, they do a good enough job explaining I didn't know they had a kid named Matthew. And you get that. I didn't know Kevin had a brother named Parney who was obsessed with tech. They do a good job of explaining how Thanos, uh, drops in. And they even summarize, like, all of his attempts to take over, like the Infinity Gauntlet and stuff and why now he's sort of stuck and wants back in and wants power. It works so well. And then, of course, we get a wonderful as Thanos is taking, uh, over and Terraforming. He actually starts to TerraForm and gets Huawei wrapped up in a bunch of vines and stuff. So we got Uatu appearance here.

Yes. Even a line, I think, where they say something along the lines of like, well, this is what you get for just watching and not taking action.

Yeah. Take a good look at this, Baldi. You keep clinging to your valve, non interference. Something's going to start clinging to you wrapped up in vines. And that's Kazar talking. Right. So these characters have such distinct voices and such enjoyable dialogue. I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed this. So, yeah, I think we're ready to see what happens when you twist it.

So let's twist it. Mhm up in our vines. Some exploring Multiversity.

I am your guy. Through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question What If?

So today we are discussing What If? Volume two, issue number one two from September 1998. And this has a classic, lengthy volume two title, which is, um, what with no Question at that with no question. And that title is What If? Starring Kazar, New York, the New Savage Land. No Escape, Brave New World. Or as we well.

AK Brave New World.

Aka Brave New World. And we summed it up is What If New York remained the Savage Land.

Well, that's on the recap page. So during this, I think I've mentioned this before when we've gone into this part of What If? Where they drop the question, you sometimes aren't given a question. Sometimes the question came in actually the Solicit text, and then sometimes the previously page, which this is the era which I love and work in of gateful Open covers that, uh, give you character BIOS and recaps. So this has one of those. And on the recap pages, sometimes the What If? Would include the questions. So this one actually has toward the end of the recap page which recaps the story, uh, urban Jungle that we just read. But what if the Plunder medallion was never made available to Kazar? What if nothing they did could prevent Carnival from fulfilling his mission? What if New York remained a Savage land forever? So the writer on this issue is mega famous writer Brian K. Vaughn. And I'll give you some backstory in a moment. It's penciled by Coy Turnbull, inked by Keith Champagne and Ray McCarthy, lettered by Chrissy Leopolis and VC Studios, which I only learned in this issue stands for Virtual Calligraphy Studios, colored by Felix Serrano and Kevin Summers, edited by friend of the show who we interviewed back in the fall, Frank pittery. See, and that is our creative team.

Some great terms in there. Coy Turnbull and Keith Champagne.

Well, let me give you some backstory on the creators. As with most Volume Two issues, unless it's a really famous, iconic issue, there's not a lot of interviews that I can find that give us any insight into the creation. But this one just to tell you a bit about the creators. So starting with the pencil or Coy. So Coy did very little work for Marvel. This is one of two titles that Coy did for Marvel. They went on to DC and did a bunch of DC stuff and then really got a lot of work in Fathom. That's the Image Studios with which Blade and those characters, the Mark, uh, Sylvestery Studios and then has done some stuff for Valiant more recently, Brian Cayvon. At this point, this is early in Brian Cavan's career and he had written Tales of the Age of Apocalypse for Marvel. So funny enough, he'd written in an alternate universe. He wrote, as I mentioned earlier, the KSR Annual, which unusually, the annual kicked off the series. So the KSR 97 came out and then the series launched. I don't know why they had Brian Cavan write that annual and then not the series, but they did. Then he wrote this what if, obviously, and then started to work more and more for Marvel and his own major stuff, obviously, creating Y, the Last Man, creating Xmakina, creating the Runaways for Marvel.

So really what Yorick was originally going to have a pet Sabertooth Tiger changed?

That could be. Well, clearly there are steams that BKV has that he likes that we can talk about. And there is one other thing. Oh, the other thing I want to mention in the behind the scenes before we talk about the issue itself is this previously also has almost an Else Worlds inspired mission statement for what if, which is really cool because you don't see that I actually didn't go check if it's in the other issues of this era, but if it is, it's not in more than a handful. So it says the characters and events that have shaped the Marvel Universe are part of an intricately structured history. If even a small part of that chronology were altered in any way, it could dramatically change the lives of the heroes and villains we've come to know. This begets the question what if? A question that presents the opportunity to explore an alternate reality. We experience a Ray of hope knowing that Marvel heroes will ultimately triumph over Marvel villains. But what if the unexpected happens? What if everything turned out differently? What if we shed a little light on the dark side of the Marvel Universe? So it's interesting. I don't know if it was inspired by Else worlds to sort of put this mission statement of what what if trying to do. I also find it interesting that they highlight the darkness of what if that they're going to tell stories where good doesn't always win. That's an interesting choice to describe what you're doing. Anyway, so that's the behind the scenes on this issue, anything, uh, about the behind the scenes before we get into it?

No, I don't think so. Yeah. Like you were saying, with the darkness, this isn't really a dark issue. I would say not in the way that some what ifs and else worlds are, but it definitely, um, has a bit more of an ambiguousness about it, I would say in terms of light darkness.

Well, I think the darkness, I think Vaughan just doesn't show it to us is that a lot of the heroes we know have died in five years. And one detail that I think I figured you probably would have grabbed onto in that is I love that still even the Champions of these mean streets weren't ready for the threat that second string villains like Plant Man would pose in a jungle environment. So I love that part of the reason that the heroes have died is that they're out of their element, which is cool if you think about Marvel being such an urban universe that if you drop these heroes and villains into a jungle, they're going to have a harder time surviving, and so it's going to shift the balance a bit. So that was a fun way of setting up why the world is different, why the heroes couldn't just fix this. So what did you think of this issue, mhm?

Overall, I really like this a lot. I think it's a really great companion piece to the KSR 98 series that we were just talking about 97, 97. Then he said 98, and then I think this is a really fun what he does so well in this. And the thing that we talk a lot about on this podcast is world building. Just in so few pages, you really get a sense of where these kind of supporting characters, the other Avengers, uh, and Xmen that you see what they've kind of been through, even though they have very little page time. But the whole overall world building of how New York has been in the last five years is really stupendous for so little real estate. No.

Yeah. Well, it is funny, then, to think about Brian Cayban being the creator of these huge worlds, both Super New York based by the, uh, last man in Ex Machina. So clearly he's so good at it. And there are certain things that interest him, like playing with New York and the apocalypse. Not the character apocalypse, but an apocalypse of some kind happening. Yes, I agree. And there's such subtle stuff. So he's talking about how the people who survived had to evolve. And so you have Punisher, who's looking more like a Conan like Punisher character.

He's got the skull drawn on his chest with no shirt on.

Yeah. And he has a battle axe. And then you have Iron Man, who's now taken to using Cap shield and a sword because he no longer has technology. And clearly, Cap died at some point. We're led to believe.

He went to King Arthur's time. So maybe he's using those skills from his King Arthur time with his sword.

Um, could be. And then Rogue is there, but Rogue is called Aurog and controls lightning. And it's never explained. But clearly what we're to believe here is that Rogue was able to permanently absorb storm's powers at some point, whether she had to or whether she accidentally did or who knows? But the fact that she called Aurora and has weather controlling powers is like, Whoa, cool way of saying that's how Rogue survived.

Yeah. Uh, and she uses the word we, so it's almost as if that Aurora.

Well, she says both of us. Yeah, I've battled dinosaurs in the Savage Land many times. Both of us. And they do that when she absorbs Ms. Marvel, too. Like, Ms. Marvel lives in her brain, in her consciousness. So it is neat world building. And with those details.

That Hawkeye is the head of the Avengers here, because his skills, even without his trick arrows, do translate to a more primitive, less technology based world, too, because he can still.

Right. Bows and arrows were used somewhere thousands of years ago. Yeah.

And he talks about that he has to make his own homemade bow here.

Yeah, I like mhm, too. There's a lot in the characters. Again, they're such tiny characters. I think Frank Castle is probably in three panels, but I love the moment that they have where Kazar has returned and he's trying to find Matthew, and now he thinks that maybe Matthew is dead or isn't sure, and so has come back. And Frank Castle says, you owe it to your family that this world took away from you to never give up trying to make it a better place. So it makes total sense that, of course, because Kazar is not really a hero in this world. It's actually a little upsetting, I guess, that he sort of just left everyone that he contributed to making this mess, and he left everyone. And to sort of bring him back into hero mode, you have Frank Castle telling him like, okay, in honor of your lost family, do this. And of course, Frank would say that. So there's such good character beats in Teeny Tiny Space.

Yeah. And we don't see them, but we know there's only now to a fantastic duo. We don't even know.

Yes, we, uh, don't even know who they are.

It's, uh, still alive. We just know that they're a fantastic duo and they still have the flare that goes up into the air.

Yes, I think that's great. I think it's also a very cool choice that this issue is. The protagonist is Shayna, so Shana is the omniscient narrator. All the caption boxes are Shayna's voice. And it is cool. It's cool because while she's had two solo miniseries, she didn't get to be a protagonist often. And so it's neat and makes a lot of sense. But you also get fun stuff in it, like how much she hates Now The Jungle, but she also hates New York City. But then, of course, when it turns back and, uh, she's happy to feel the concrete, and it's fun to have her as the main character that we follow in this. And then, of course, we have our friend Carnival.

Yeah, great. I love the line. Well, he's living in this suit because he's kind of almost a Kang kind of suit, and he's living in it because he also doesn't want to smell the air of the jungle.

Yes, he's a germaphobe.

Yes, he's a germaphobe. But there's a great line of like, wait, you thought New York air was fine but okay with the jungle air and. Yeah, uh huh.

Lots of stuff. I like that. When they encounter the rafters in the sewer, too, he talks about having seen the Lost World and that a little girl with a few years of gymnastics can beat them, so can't they. And Shana's like, no, that's not how it works.

There's lots of great humor there. And then, of course, the kind of ending the climax is such a classic set up where you have, uh, Kzar and Carnival both have, uh, to turn these keys at the same time and sacrifice themselves and Party, who it even says in the opening, is not quite a villain. He's kind of more misguided. And then he has this turnaround here where he's going to sacrifice himself to save New York.

What's a fun beat moment, too, is when they're turning the keys and KSRs is ready Carnival. And he says, oh, I suppose. And they go, three, two. And both of them say, dad always liked me better. And then they explode. It really pulls off the same as Wade does. That just the tone of lightness, even though there's all this, even though they're about to die in an explosion. And that's really fun. And then the end is cool. I mean, I had to look to make sure it didn't go on. We weren't missing pages. I really had to look because it just suddenly ends. But I love that it ends with this question. We don't even know the answer. But did Thanos, TerraForm everything. And I love Shayna. It ends with Shayna's eyes only in the panel. What if he had taken away one woman's entire family? What if it were up to one solitary she devil to stop an invincible God? That God had better start running. I mean, that is just awesome. It is kick ass awesome. I want more.

Yeah, totally. Um, I wasn't a huge fan of some of the Coy Turnbull art, I think in part because Andy Cubert, uh, art is so good, and this is kind of telling the same story. So it was a little jarring, but that final page where you have Thanos against the Galaxy and then all the different Earth, and then her eyes. As you mentioned, that page kind of makes up for the rest of the whole issue because it is so good. Just that one page.

Well, the art is, you know, I looked them up and their art has evolved a lot. I actually like their style in more recent stuff, and I was surprised to see some of the Valiant covers I've liked over the last few years have been them. But this art I also really didn't like. I think it took away at times from the story, sadly. But you know what it reminds me a lot of? Uh, that where you're watching for the first time, and where I'm re watching is Eon Flux. It's that sort of exaggerated. Like the body can't quite work like that. Coy, I don't know. Their pronouns, they don't objectify Shayna. I mean, Shayna and Rogue are, uh, half naked the whole time, but they don't objectify them. But their bodies or Kayza, any of the bodies just really don't. They're so exaggerated. They're almost grotesque. It's that sort of part that's almost grotesque. And I don't like that as much here. I don't think it fits as well. But I agree that there are panel breakdowns and page breakdowns, including the last one, that are very cool and work really well. So this Earth has never mhm been revisited. And I want to know if you want to go back, but I'm going to answer my own question and say, I want to go back. I want so much more of this world. I want Brian Cayvon to write a miniseries. There's actually some Kazar traveling through time and universal stuff happening right now that I'll tell you about it in a few minutes. But I want them to go back into this world and see what's going on. I want to know, did Shayna beat Thanos and how totally and what's going on with that? Uh, I want to know where Aurora Rogue is. I would like an Aurora Rogue miniseries. I just want this whole world more totally.

I completely agree. And just like you, when it ended, I was like, wait a second, is this actually the last page or are we missing something? Because I definitely wanted this journey to continue. So I would totally go back to this Earth and find out what happens and also explore more of the worldbuilding, see what other heroes are still out there and how they have changed and evolved over time. Even now that New York has been returned. But we don't know about the rest of the world, so there could be people anywhere else that are affected by this. Maybe it would be interesting to see Wakanda, which is in the jungle, but has all this technology and maybe their technology has been overtaken. And what is that story? That would be a really interesting one to explore.

Yeah. There's so much potential and I love.

It. Yes. Well, let us journey into the future and ponder some possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? So, Guitar, as you said, Kazar is kind of come and gone in the Marvel Dome. So how did you come up with this list of possibilities?

Well, I stick to post Nineteen 1998. That's the what if the alternate universe that we visited and he does show up in some stuff. There's a Shana miniseries. He shows up in, uh, Secret Invasion. He shows up in Empire with a Y, which he actually dies in. But none of it's very interesting, nor is he a focal character. So last year he gets a five issue mini series and then out of that mini series. Though not related almost at all, that miniseries tells a pretty standalone story. He has shown up in Avengers very recently. By Jason Aaron. I do not like The Avengers by Jason Aaron at all. I strongly dislike it. I even reread it today to see do I want us to explore this and I just didn't. So I'll describe it when we're done here, but I decided I love Zack Thompson. I hadn't yet gotten into the Lord of the Savage Land miniseries, but I owned it. So I figured let's dig into Lord of the Savage Land and that's where we are.

Yes. So we are discussing Caesar Lord of the Savage Land, volume one, issue one from November two, 2021.

No. And the story is written by Zach Thompson, penciled by German Garcia, who also did the inks colored by Matthews Lopez, lettered by Joe Carr Magna, uh, edited by Sarah Brunstead, Kat Gregoriotz and Jordan Dwight. Like I said, we read it just as a recent looking at Kzar. It's his resurrection post Empire and figured he'd give us a chance to see what he's doing and if Brian came on, had any influence on that. So what do you think about this first.

Issue? I liked it. I definitely would be interested to see a little bit of where it's going because I was familiar not with Zach Thompson's superhero work, but I did read his series, I Breathed a Body, which is very body horror and a new horror subgenre that a lot of people are doing, fungi horror. And you kind of get the same thing here as well. This body horror, this kind of Earth horror coming through. So I'd be curious to see where that goes. And I think tying back to the Mark Wade series and also maybe to the Brian Cayman as well, you get a lot of that Kazar existential problems here, whether how he views being a father and views even like his role in the Savage Land. There's a lot of that here. Maybe that's very interesting to the character.

Yeah. I don't know if it is, honestly. It's Mark Wady, it's Brian Gay, Bonnie. Those writers do that a lot. And then it's Barry Zack Thompson. And this series actually goes on to do a lot with the question of colonization and the question of him being in the Savage land and being an outside force. And it does that a little bit through this parasite and this other thing that's growing. And so it definitely is diving into his childhood and what that meant and how he reflects on it.

Yeah. It's very much also about a father and son and also not toys with both the Earth and but also technology and the role that technology plays. So a lot of those themes are in this issue as well. Yeah.

In some ways then I think KSR at least was and maybe it's not going to be as true moving forward, but was kind of a cipher where whoever was writing him could deal with the themes that interest them because he doesn't have such a deep backstory that directs what you have to do with him as a character. And so I think we probably have Mark Wade and Brian cave on to a certain extent. And now Zack Thompson to thank for them bringing in the things that have interested them, which again, all three of them are somewhat interested in philosophical questions, existential questions, tensions in society. And at least Zack Thompson and Mark Wade are interested in the parenting question that comes up in this. So, yeah, it's fun to see. I mean, are you going to read the rest of it? It's five mhm.

Issues.

Maybe. Probably not. If you had infinite time, maybe you would.

If I had infinite time, I would. It did intrigue me. And I think going back to the Mark Wade series and into the what if, it definitely also explores the fragility of the Savage Land and that there's all these all these corrupting, uh, forces that is threatening Eden. In fact, the last one of the Mark Wade run that we read was the Garden of Evil. So also kind of bringing, uh, back to Kazar and Sheena as these kind of Adam and Eve characters who are protecting this land. But then also what does that mean for them being the ones that are also controlling this in some way? So I think those are some issues that you definitely see, Matthew the sun bringing up in this issue. And that would be very interesting to explore further.

Well, before I get into what Jason Aaron does with him that follows this. So I guess we've kind of explored if the alternate universe inspired Zack Thompson in this. And I think the answer is not necessarily there's something Mark Wade and Brian Cayvon did with the character in The Nineties that Zack Thompson is also doing. But I don't think that mhm I don't think the What If had any correlation to it, because also Zach Thompson is including a lot about mhm climate change in here and the environment. And there's actually a letter in the fifth issue about the environment, and I don't think that was present even in Brian Cayvon's world. There wasn't any commentary on the environment in there. So, yeah, I don't think there's a direct link from them. But let's look ahead to Kazar. Let me tell you the comic stuff before I get into the MCU stuff, let me tell you the comic stuff. And maybe we have a listener who can convince me why I should reappraise Jason Aaron's work on Avengers. But I have such a hard time with it. And what's strange is I should like it, because what Jason Aaron is doing is he's pulling from the multiverse, he's pulling all these characters from other places and times and playing with them in his Avengers run. And it's led to the spin off title Avengers Forever, which has explicitly a team of multiverseal Avengers. But there's something about it that it doesn't hook me. And I know it's partially Avengers one 1 million. I do not like these characters. I do not like the Phoenix stuff going on. But with that in Avengers. Fifty 50 is a big super sized issue by Jason Aaron from just a few months ago that pretty much is setting up, I think everything that we're seeing in Avengers comics and more for, uh, the next few months or even years and in that case, are moved about through time, shows up, ends up fighting a different Howard Stark from another world who's a villain and doing all this stuff. The Iron Inquisitor he is. And Kazar has the outfit that Shana made for him in Zack Thompson's run, so we know it follows it, right? Zack Thompson's run, reestablishes him, revives him, and gives him sort of these slight other powers with his connection to nature, and then with this outfit that she makes for him where it can sort of mold and change. So Kayzar now has that. And then it turns out that he encounters Galactus on this trip as he's returning to our timeline and our time and ends up becoming Galactus'herald. And that's it. So far, we don't actually know where that goes.

One of the many very bizarre heralds of Galactus.

So he has the power cosmic, and he's floating through space in his regular outfit with a knife, and he says, I'll find a way home. I'll track my enemies across the starlet jungles of time and space, and then we'll both feed big guy. And so it closes. Epilogue Kazar the Savage Herald. And surely there is a plan for that to show up somewhere. I don't know if there's going to be a new Kasar title. I don't know if he's going to show up in some event, but that's where he is in the comics.

Even though Kazar is in our time, he's not from the past. It reminds me of the Conan that we've covered on this show, where there's something about these characters that have that kind, um, of Barbarian feel that we just want to send them through time. I guess it's oh, how are they going to contrast in different eras? There's something about that that people seem to be obsessed with. Yeah.

I don't know why, but. Yeah. So one of the reasons that we covered this is that when we were trying to figure out what to cover for this episode, and we don't always link to current media, but it's hard because it's infused in my brain so much. And so in this case, we, uh, chose it because. And I'm so glad we did. But it was something we hadn't covered. It was something new to us in a lot of ways. And there's been constant speculation and rumors or even reports that the Savage Land is in the MCU, without a doubt whether it's multiverse of madness, which I think is the general consensus, though it could be Thor, Love and Thunder, because I think there was even a report that there's a whole Savage Land set in Australia built. We know that this is going to exist in the very near future in the MCU, apparently. And so the question is, is Kay's are going to show up? And that would be an interesting he's an X Men debuting character, which of course, Scarlett witches too. So it's kind of fun to do that, even though he's not a mutant, which they actually talk about in his debut.

I was thinking not a mutant.

But, um, you said reading this, you thought you could see how he as a character could come in, regardless of the Savage Land coming in. What were you thinking about?

Yeah, I was thinking just adapting the Mark Weight story pretty specifically where now the tricky thing is to not have it be exactly the same as the Iron Fist story. And Iron Fist is not the most beloved of the MCU properties.

It's not an MCU property. That's.

Why. Yes or no?

Maybe I say no.

I don't know if I'll be seeing Danny back anytime soon, but I think you would tell that kind of story of him being. It would be similar to Danny's story, in that case, him being dropped into the Savage land and talking about the technology that keeps the Savage land there and there. You're working with so many things. Maybe it was the giant eternal things with my blanket on there. What do they call it?

Um, the Celestials.

The Celestials. Maybe the Celestials even put the devices that keep the Savage land there. You could tie it in there. But then I think, like, the plot of the movie would be very just out of the Mark Wade story. But remove Thanos, of course. So you have Percy, who wants to get rich.

Or maybe he.

Wants to get rich, or he wants to success, so he steals the terraformers. Maybe he wants to actually heal the world. Or maybe he just wants money. And then they get out of control. And Caesar and Shana, who you have to introduce not as Shana, the she devil. She'd be Shana the veterinarian in the first movie, and then she becomes the she devil by the end of the movie, and they have to stop the terror performers. But I could totally see that as a plot because it ties in with climate change and things like that, and you could really put that as part of the story and it just feels like it's tailormade for the MCU.

Well, the, uh, other big character who shows up actually in the issue after urban jungle to deal with Shayna having the Terraformer power being the conduit for the TerraForm power is the high evolutionary. And they actually referenced the high evolutionary then again in the Zach Thompson series. So the high evolutionary has played a large role in Kzar's life. He's played a large role in the Savage Land's life. And so I think with the speculation of the Savage land showing up with Wanda's presence and therefore the speculation of high evolutionary showing up, uh, that high evolutionary could play one of those roles. I'd rather he not play the party role because I want Party in the MCU. But he could, uh, play the Thanos role in some ways or something.

I could see them combining those characters too. Like have party be the high evolutionary. They both also have the suit.

Yeah, though I don't think they're going to have. I mean, the high evolutionary product doesn't have nearly the sense of humor.

No, I would want the Carnival persona, but maybe they would just put those two characters together because they're both embracing technology there. And I think it's the high evolutionary backstory a little convoluted. I'm sure they're not going to do it.

Yeah, a lot too. Yeah. So that is blank slate potential in some ways for the MCU.

And definitely when I was reading this, I didn't cast Kazar because I think Kazar, if they made an MCU movie, would be great to be an unknown kind of what they're doing with Heman for the Masters. Of The Universe, Like Get Some Hot Young Actor Who We Don't Know His Name. That Can Be Kazar. But For Carnival, I Just Had Glenn Howerton's Voice In My Head. Glenn.

Howerton? That Is Perfect. I Did Not. And I Can Totally Hear It.

He Was Almost Starlord Before Chris Prak Got The Role, So He's Kind Of Already In that MCU Vein. So I Think He Would Just Be A Great Villain In that.

That's Fine. So Then You Have To Cast Kazar Around Someone Who Looks Like They Could Be Glenn Howardon's Brother, But Maybe Rob McElaney Could Be.

I Actually Was Thinking He Would Be A Great Director, uh, Rob Mcaleeny, Because He Has That Kind Of Humor. He's Doing That Kind Of World Building In Some Of The Myths.

Caitlin Olson Could Be Shayna, The She Devil. Really? And Charlie Day Could Be Zabuz.

He Kept Thinking Zabu Is Going To Talk And He Doesn't. I Kept Thinking Of Him As The Tiger From Matches In The Universe Bottlecat. Yeah, Battlecat.

He's not, um, Battlecat. Well, I Like that. We Just Got Our Next Mashup Of Always Sunny And KSR And Family. Uh, All Right. Well, I Have Been Guido.

The She Devil, And I Have Been Rob, The Last Living Simul Don, Which Is A Sabre Tooth. I Guess. It's A Fancier Word. That Has Been Deer Watchers. So thank You, uh, So Much For Listening.

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