Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: Welcome to Dear Watchers in Omniversal comic book podcast, where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido: We are traveling with you through the stories in the worlds that make up an omniverse of, uh, fictional realities we all love. And your watchers on this journey are.
Rob: Me, Gito and me, raw but sexy and from the 1940s.
Guido: I know we're wearing a pageboy cap the other day that it was like you were from the 1940s.
Rob: Mhm, so I hope that reference didn't bomb. But look, there's a bombshell on our screens. It's knockout author and returning guest, Tim Hanley. Hi, Tim.
Tim Hanley: Hi. Great to be back.
Rob: Great to have you back.
Guido: Yeah. Thank you so much, Tim. Listeners, make sure you go back and listen to episode 60 from August 2022 for an in depth interview with Tim about his many incredible books on comics, especially his most recent, not all Supermen Sexism Toxic Masculinity and the Complex History of Superheroes. Because it's on that episode that Tim mentioned his love of bombshells. So we knew this episode was an inevitability.
Rob: Yes. Welcome again, Tim, and thank you. And Gito, what's new in our little corner of the multiverse?
Guido: We just launched our Amalgaminis, our collaboration with Elliot comic art. So we have series one of these amazing little characters he's drawing where we're mashing up the weirdest and wildest and most fun things we can think of and things that we love. And the result is these characters that you can get from Elliot or you can follow along on our coffee. But my favorite, I think, is probably the Dr. Manhattan Frankenfurter. I think that's a really great combination for Dr. Uh, Manhattan furter or whatever. We decided to call him Frankenhatten.
Rob: He's my favorite.
Guido: And I started talking about Rocky Horror and watchmen other amalgamations we could conceive of. They actually sort of overlap quite well.
Rob: Yeah, definitely. And we have little BIOS of everyone as well that it's going to be rolling out. So it's not just art. You can get a little backstory too.
Guido: Yeah. So that's been really fun. And you can follow our coffee even if you aren't going to be a supporter. You can follow us on there because we post a lot of pictures and, uh, blog posts. And we do have some fun merch and more to come.
Rob: Mhm holiday gifts. Holiday gifts from our coffee.
Guido: Yes. Tim's book makes a great gift.
Rob: Mhm lots of gift ideas. So while you think of those gift ideas, we'll tell you a little bit about our show. So please tell a friend about us. And of course, leave a review on Apple as well. But if you're joining us for the first time, we have three sections of the show origins of the story, what inspired this other reality? Exploring multiversity well, where we will dive deeper into our alternate universe and pondering possibilities. We examine the impact and what's followed or coming in the future. And with that dear Watchers, let's head back to the 1940s and the 1980s, I guess. And welcome to episode 75. And let's check out what's happening in the Omnibrase with today's alternate universe. And today, we are asking the question, what if the DC female heroes were all fighting in World War II as a team called the Bombshells?
Guido: So, some background on our question and where it comes from. It's the bombshells. Earth. We've never covered it before. It's not technically in else worlds in DC. It's not an imaginary story, but it is a fully distinct, fully developed alternate universe without a numerical designation and a little bit of history. And Tim, please jump in. So, in 2011, the origin of this world is that illustrator Ant Lucia inspired DC collectibles. Apparently, at a comic con, they actually saw his work to create the line. And in 2013, they launched with statues, which became one of the DC collectible's most successful lines. It then became a variant cover series on DC comic titles. And that led into the launch of a digital only comic series, which later got print issues and collected editions. And the comic ran from 2015 to 2019 in two volumes. DC Comics, bombshells and Bombshells United. The world has barely been revisited, although we'll talk a little bit about that in the third segment. And there are still toys, there's an art book, there's still some statues. And of course, now there are funko pops from the world. Did I miss anything on the history of the Bombshells line, Tim, that you want to add?
Tim Hanley: No, I don't think so. Um, yeah. At Lucia was doing art, like, kind of pick up stuff on his own. It's one of the rare instances where DC was like, cool, let's work together instead of ceasefire.
Guido: I know it's funny because even in there's an official video that DC made, like, seven years ago telling the story, and they sort of gloss over. They say that Ant Lutia was doing pinups of World War II that inspired them to think of DC characters. And it's like, well, we've all been to comic cones and we know that's not true. We know that, in fact, a lot of artists use the characters. Um, yeah, so you're right. It's a funny example where they decided to work together and hopefully we're fair in doing that.
Tim Hanley: Um, and then the variant covers were the first foray in the comics. This was when, like, DC was doing a different variant cover theme every month. So Bombshell's month was their first big jump. And then it was like, at least another year or so to the actual comics.
Guido: Oh, wow. Yeah, very cool. And I was thinking about also toy lines that have become comics. So other than, of course, examples that are not really comic, erlated, like Heman and Micronauts and Chris are. I was thinking there's Secret Wars, though, that's a little different because that is a comic and a toy line. Coming out at the same time. So they're trying to promote the Mattel toys with the comic. And then there's DC Superpowers. But that's kind of the same as Secret Wars. So there's these three miniseries that anyone of a certain age like me had those miniseries. They were so pervasive. But they were done to promote the Kenner toys at the time. So I think this is really interesting that this started as a collectible statues line, not quite Toy mhm. And then I was thinking about Too in the McFarland line very recently, they do these designed by McFarland. So there's actually toys that come out like a Wonder Woman that don't exist in the comics. So it's almost like bombshells. Like, maybe one day we'll see a comic series of the McFarland designs. But that's one of the few examples of the comic book characters who are being created and designed for toys before they're being created and designed for books.
Rob: I know McFarland created a Blair Witch figure, too, even though you've never seen the Blair Witch in movies, too. So it's kind of like, oh, they're putting the figure out there, and maybe one day they could maybe use that design in, uh, a movie, if Blair whichever comes back.
Guido: So, yeah, interesting direction that this line, the origin of this line took.
Rob: Yeah. And speaking of Bombshells, I was very new to it. So let's talk about our backgrounds with Bombshells. And Tim, love to start with you, since this kind of all came from you mentioning your love of this run on your last appearance on our podcast.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, so my first introduction to Bombshells was the very cover line. The first one, I didn't pay too much attention to the statues because I don't have those things are so expensive. But, um, when they announced the, like, a, uh, World War II pin up style line, I was like, oh, come on, DC, this is it was 2013. It was not a great era for female characters at DC. And my first thought was, like, with a month of pinup variance, was, we don't need this. We've gone through enough. Let's not objectify our female characters even further. And then, like, the covers came out and they were kind of cool. Like, the costumes were decent. I was intrigued, but still not like, super on board. And then the comic came out and it was Margaret Bennett, and it was, um, Margaret Savage on the first few issues, like, well, this does sound kind of cool. Maybe I'll check it out. And then loved it. Immediately bought every single issue from then on. Um, I've got action figures. They did a, uh, collectible card line. I have the whole thing. So once it turned into an actual story, instead of just like, slightly sexualized.
Guido: Images.
Tim Hanley: They did such a good job with it that I couldn't help but.
Guido: Love yeah, that's very cool.
Rob: Yeah. Gido, what about you?
Guido: So I knew it existed just by being in a comic store every week and reading comics. But I think, like you, Tim, I was sort of turned off. It just felt pinuppy. And I didn't even know even the comic felt that way. I was wrong. And I didn't know that I was wrong, but I just never got into it. And I tried to read it maybe two, three years ago. I got the collected edition. I was waiting, actually, because I was waiting for all of it to be collected in hardcover. That's how I prefer to buy things. And they never finished it in hardcover. So it stuck. Only partially collected in hardcover. And so I finally broke down and bought the trade paper back and started to read it. But it didn't hook me right away. I must have not just been in the mood at that point and put it down and didn't pick it back up until preparing for this episode and picked it up and read all of volume one in trade paper back form. So not very familiar, other than just sort of knowing it existed. Not familiar.
Rob: Pretty similar. And I think very similar to both of you. I would see the statues at Cons and go, oh, I don't know about that, because they're all a little, let's say, bustier. Then maybe they're depicted in the actual drawings in the comics. And I was like, oh, and you see that a lot in statues. It definitely feels like it's for the male gaze, let's say. But then I would see more and more female presenting people dressed as the characters at Cons and kind of really embracing that aesthetic. And I had then seen the covers, and I actually really had no idea that there was even a comic book run of it until I think, Tim, since you mentioned it. And this was definitely my first diving into this world. So, yeah, let's go a little deeper into that. But first, we'll kind of dirty. Yes, uh, a detour into the 1980s. So grab your headbands and your sweatpants. And it is disco balls. And your disco balls it is 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. Yes, because before we fight evil, occult Nazis, we're going to battle a giant alien with the power of disco ball eyes and the Four Horsemen of the, uh, Apocalypse question mark. And that is Judgment in Infinity, books one through three from Wonder Woman, volume one issues number 291 to 293 from May, June, and July of 1982.
Guido: So these are all three written by Paul Levitz, who's credited as the plotter, roy Thomas, who's credited as the script. All three are penciled by Gene Cohen. The anchor on all three is Frank McLaughlin, though in 292, he's joined by Romeo Tangal. In 293. He's joined by Bob Smith and Adrian Gonzalez. The colorist on all three is Carl Gafford. The letter on. Um, the first issue is john Costanza. In the second two, it is Ben ODA. All three are edited by Len Weine. And there is a special thanks in that third issue to Marv Wolfman. Not sure why.
Tim Hanley: I think because, um, the T types.
Rob: Are in it, I think so.
Guido: Interesting.
Tim Hanley: Star, Fire and Raven.
Guido: Wow.
Rob: They even say thanks for their permission or something like that, where it's like I don't know if they actually needed Marv's permission to do it, but nice that they did give him a little shout out there.
Guido: A quick summary, Rob, and then we can talk about why we read this.
Rob: Okay, quick summary. The adjudicator. Don't worry, it's a character who never, ever again shows up. But he does show up here to pass judgment on Earth using a disco ball and disco ball eyes to do so. He creates the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to judge, like, the real Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, and a bunch of the heroines from Earth One, Earth Two, and Earth X fight these horsemen and this giant alien. But the adjudicator captures them and saves them all, deciding to destroy Earth after all. After all. But Wonder Woman lassoes the truth out of him to discover what really sent him there or something like that. Uh, gets a little messy and a little deus Mahina in the end.
Guido: But so as a boss and the boss comes back.
Rob: Exactly. Um, and he gets zapped. So, Gito, why did we read this, um, let's say unusual comic?
Guido: Well, we have Tim to thank or to blame for this, because I was looking for so there's the very classic Avengers story, lady Liberators, perhaps coincidentally, or not, also by Roy, that's from the it is one of the earliest, or even perhaps the earliest in Marvel times that they assemble a team of female heroes. It's not quite the deal, but it's a fun issue where he forms this team. So I asked him for DC examples, and there are not too many there's like the Lady Blackhawks, but I don't even know when they are from. And then, Tim, you shared this one, which any chance to read Bronze Age Wonder Woman is fun and painful. So, Tim, why this one? Or what do you know about this arc?
Tim Hanley: Yeah, it's one of the few times we get a lot of DC women together. Um, maybe the only time before. Gosh, they were the girl power books in the 90s. It's not a thing DC really put a lot of effort into. So our, uh, our options were limited. But, like, it's Sainy and fun. Yeah, it's the 80s for Wonder Woman. Were were not a great time until the Perez relaunch. Nor were the 70s. It was a weird limbo period where a new writer would come on every year or two and kind of reboot the whole thing. She was in the 40s for a while to match the first season ah, TV shows and bumped her back. Steve Trevor died, came back to life, died again, merged with a steep Trevor from a different universe. It was just like 15 years of chaos. And this book is kind of hard for the course, but, uh, with a lot of rad guys.
Rob: Yeah. And I know this is common with Wonder Woman, but her powers don't even seem too defined here. It's not quite clear how invulnerable or even super strong she is. There's a lot of emphasis on the power of the bracelets. The bracelets are doing a lot of the work. The bracelets in the lasso, if she didn't have those, she'd just be like a regular lady, it seems.
Tim Hanley: Yeah. That was part of the shifting teams. There was really not a consistent presentation of Wonder Woman. You saw kind of with Superman in the 70s. Like, there was an effort to kind of depower them, level them out, make them more, like, identifiable. And that kind of stayed consistent throughout the then Wonder Woman was just, whatever fits the story. Next week is what we're going to do.
Guido: Yeah, it's a weird book because there's a banner on the COVID advertising that it's this big event, this judgment in infinity. And even on each opening splash page of the three issues, it says, like, a special three part miniseries. On, um, the COVID of one of them, it says, starring almost everyone. Like, it felt like an event book. Like they were really trying to make it an event book. And this is prevent books. You don't have event books at this point. So it's interesting that that's the approach they're taking. I don't know why that's happening. And then it's really underwhelming as an event book. Like, other than the splash page, there's not a lot that I enjoyed about the story or the characters. It's dry and convoluted. And the reason these characters come together is never explained. Like, I don't know why Raven and Madam Zanadu and Zetana and Wonder Woman and Supergirl are doing this. I don't know what you both thought.
Tim Hanley: I would guess they pitched it as an event book to maybe help with sales because Wonder Woman sales were abysmal at this point in time. So anything they could do to kind of bump it up a bit, making a big event, bringing guest stars, um, it's around this time. Uh, Huntress had a backup feature in Wonder Woman. So, like, Earth 200.
Guido: Uh.
Tim Hanley: So they were trying whatever they could stick into the book to make it sell better. Um, little of which book.
Rob: Yeah.
Tim Hanley: As for the story itself yeah. The lack of reason for why they all get together is kind of one of the things I like about it. Because comparing it to, say, Lady Liberators, which was like, this very intentional, women's lived feminist issue with lots of poorly done feminist. But it was very much like the women's lib issue. This is why we're getting together to stick it to the chauvinist male Avengers who won't let us take center stage. It's very hacked and bad and hilarious, but like that. And this is not that they're not getting together because they're women. They just happen to be the ones who are there, I guess.
Rob: Exactly.
Tim Hanley: Thomas, I guess, has learned from Lady Liberators and Skewed very hard in the other direction so much as to not give any reason whatsoever for the while they're working.
Rob: Yeah, I was actually kind of surprised. I think one thing that I could definitely say in these books favor is that there's no moralizing there around, oh, us being women or something like that. It just is kind of presented as fact as, oh, these are the characters that we're going to follow, and we're not going to be them being women. It doesn't play a part in the story, which actually seems, in some ways, actually ahead of its time. That would maybe be one of the biggest pluses these stories have going for them.
Guido: Yeah.
Tim Hanley: And any, um, other team up at this time, like any book where a bunch of heroes get together, it's going to be mostly dudes anyway, with no explanation because that's just what the majority was.
Rob: Totally.
Tim Hanley: It's kind of nice in that respect. The story itself doesn't pan out super great, but the idea behind it, like, let's just throw them together and not make like a thing of it except to call it an event and make it like panels. Yeah, it's an interesting approach.
Rob: Yeah. Not that I wanted these books to be longer, because I didn't. But one of the things that seems to happen kind of over, uh, and over again is all the action and everything does seem very abrupt and almost cut short. Each story has a couple of the female heroes put together to battle. One of the Four Horsemen of Apocalypse. Famine or Plague is coming down there, and everyone's getting sick or something like that. And then Plague battles two of the heroes. He gets them sick a little bit, but they start to battle back. And just as they start to battle back, the adjudicator uses his disco ball eyes to bring Plague back. But the battle has just kind of started there. It feels like everything is cut short. And then it almost feels like an episode of Power Rangers or something like that, where we're just seeing the same thing over and over again. Just, oh, let's put a different Horseman and a different superhero in their place. And just rinse and repeat over and over.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, no one ever wins. They just kind of slow.
Rob: The Horseman always seems like they have the upper hand. And then the heroes do like, one thing that puts the Horsemen back a little bit. And then the Adjudicator, I guess, goes, well, that was it. They showed too much strength. It's like, oh, I don't think so. I think you could have still won this.
Tim Hanley: Just stick it out a little longer. You could have ended the whole thing.
Rob: Exactly.
Tim Hanley: Just quick to pull the trigger and take them back.
Guido: Yeah, it's worth it for Jean Collins art, for sure. I mean, the inking and clearly they were rushed because they add one anchor in the second issue, and then they add two more in the third issue. And then by the third issue, the inking is taking away the detail of Colin's art, but the core of it is still there. And especially in the first issue, having him get to draw all of these different characters is really fun because he is such a Bronze Age iconic artist. And even though he's obviously using DC's house style because they rarely deviated from it, you can see a little of his more horror inspired dark shading and line work. And it comes through in a cool way, I think.
Rob: Yes.
Tim Hanley: He really goes for it with the Four Horsemen, too. Like, you can see that horror element.
Rob: Definitely. And before we move on, we should definitely talk about our main antagonist here, the Adjudicator, who is this giant green alien. He's in purple robes. He's got, like, these disco ball eyes for some reason. I guess it was the me. I'm wondering what you both thought. To me, he's a combination of a lot of Marvel characters. He's like the Living Tribunal, but also Galactus, because he kind of wants to destroy these worlds, but also Apocalypse celestials. The Celestials. Totally an apocalypse because he's controlling the Four Horsemen, and there's this kind of survival of the fittest element to them, and he's all kind of mashed up in one. And then we kind of find out that the reason why he's out doing this is because he's insane. And his bosses just were like, well, let's just keep him busy and give him, like, a shiny object and send him out to do things. And at the end, when he kind of realizes this, then the bosses just kind of pull him back with really no explanation. So what did you all think of the Adjudicator, his plan and how it ends?
Tim Hanley: Definitely not the most fleshed out film we've had. Um, and the ending is yes. So very abrupt. Like, I had to I was skimming a little bit at that point because agreed. Again, books aren't that great. And I got to the next page and he was suddenly gone, wait a second. And I had to flip back and see what happens. It's a very sudden note. He's gone. Whatever alien beings are more powerful than them has snapped him back from whence he came. It's like it's a cool idea that, yeah, Marvel has done better, like, 20 times before this. But, yeah, an actual ending would have been, like, big fight might have been fun or something. I think lever Oaths, martin yes, for sure.
Guido: I think it's weird that he's never come back because with every crisis, especially even now, joshua Williamson's Dark Crisis. Like, you have these people who are writing, who are obsessed with DC lore and are obsessed with pulling in these little bits. And you even had creators create, um, characters. Like James Tinian made The Chronicler, and it's like, well, why didn't he just use the adjudicator? He created this being for death metal that can see all the worlds and has this really cool design. It's like, why hasn't someone pulled the adjudicator out of the pre crisis world and made a new version of him? It would actually be interesting to have him show up and have a better story told with him. Um, but maybe, like you said to him, people have done it better, so there's no point.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, there's a lot of weird characters from Bronze Age Wonder Woman that have just never come back. Like, as much as for the past however many decades, DC has been run by, like, diehard Silver broadcast fans. Uh, none of them were reading it's. Like, a handful of people a month, even they didn't like it that much. Not a lot from this era has carried on in many ways. And there is stuff like, yeah, the adjudicator, if revamped and made actually interesting, could be a cool character. Uh, it's a concept that has some potential, but no one's going back to old Wonder Woman.
Guido: Yeah, maybe.
Tim Hanley: I will say the current run of Wonder Woman is tapping into some old more Golden Age stuff lately, but it seems to be a creative team that appreciates the history of the character. So maybe we'll see some other stuff back. But generally speaking, everyone just kind of ignores each other.
Rob: So, yeah, if you're buying on speculation, maybe the adjudicator won't be popping up anytime soon. I, uh, fueled up the invisible plane, everybody, so we're going to hop in it. But it's not just a plane, it's also a time machine. So we're going to hop in the invisible plane and journey back to the 1940s to explore some multiversity.
Tim Hanley: I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question.
Guido: What if?
Rob: And today we are asking the question, what if the DC female heroes were all fighting in World War II as a team called The Bombshells? And of course, we read DC Comics Bombshells volume One in trade paperback, which is issues one to six in printed form and one to 18 in digital form. Yes, it's confusing. These are from 2015 and are entitled and listed in the first arc and combat for the second. And a million people were involved, right? Keto?
Guido: Not a million, but yes. Well, all are written by Marguerite Bennett and a little background on her before I get into the artist. So, Marguerite Bennett's an American writer. She actually was in Scott Snyder's graphic novel class at Sarah lawrence started doing some single story DC. Work. Then the same with Marvel, launched Afores for Marvel the same year as Bombshells for DC. And has since done some dynamite work, some Archie work creator owned for aftershock and a, uh, title for bad idea and sadly doesn't have the largest output right now, but she did the writing on all of these. The art in this volume I'm not going to go issue by issue is by Marguerite Savage Laura Braga, Stephen Mooney, Ted NIFA uh gary Brown Bilkis Elvley Mirka andolfo Ming Doyle, Sandy Jarrell, ML Sanopo and Mark Deering Colorists are marguerite savage, wendy broome, doug Garbark, and kelly fitzpatrick. Letters are all by Wes Abbott. There is cover art in this volume from Anne Lucia, the series inspiration, and it is edited by Jim Chadwick.
Rob: And a quick summary. Is it's world War II? And on um, behalf of the US. Military. Amanda Waller is putting together a crew of Kickass Women heroes, including Kate Kane's, Batwoman, Wonder Woman, and Mira. Alongside the Soviet defectors Supergirl and Stargirl, together with Zetana Catwoman, Harley Quinn, poison Ivy, and John Constantine as a bunny rabbit, they battle occult Nazis led by the evil Joker's daughter and Tennbras, the binder.
Guido: So I think before we dive into this volume, specifically, Tim, what do you love about bombshells?
Tim Hanley: I think what I love most is that it's obviously all these great female characters in a setting. We haven't seen them before, but just the idea that it's the female characters instead of the male characters. Like a lot of times when female characters take center stage, it's because the men are somehow incapacitated or sidelined or whatever. Um, and the book opens with the traditional Batman story. It's the Waynes in the alley and, oh, no, they're going to get you. That woman shows up and saves them, and guess what? There's no Batman in this world. It's the female characters instead. So it's just this complete revamp of the universe. The men are like, no female characters are derivative of a male character. The female characters came first. The men either just never happened or kind of off doing their own thing elsewhere in non superheroes. It's just a really cool kind of way to get into this era. And these characters like we've never seen before.
Guido: That's the part that surprised me the most because I thought for sure it was going to be a league of their own setup. I thought for sure that the men were going to be off somewhere. And that was why we focused on the women. And so it was really interesting to enter this world where it's like, no, this is just how it is. These are all the characters and we're not going to wonder where Superman or Batman are. But it's also not like the else worlds where no men exist, which we've covered. And something else, because you have Steve Trevor, you have men fighting the war, but. Like you said, the focus is on these female heroes. They're not men. They're not female counterparts to male heroes. And I was surprised by that.
Rob: Mhm. Yeah. And some of the characters are very similar to their main world counterparts. So Wonder Woman is very similar. Harley Quinn is very similar. But Batgirl is very different. A bat woman. Sorry, bat Woman is very different because she's not inspired by the animal, she's inspired by baseball. And she carries around a, uh, bat. And the first time we see her is a League of Their Own kind of reference, where she is playing baseball because the men are all at war. But it's kind of a cool take on that character. I actually laughed out loud when the first reveal of her using the bat happened because I didn't know that was going to be part of her character. And it was like, oh, that's so clever.
Tim Hanley: Yeah. And a great way to explain the name. Because we know Bat Woman because Batman came first and she was a derivative of that. But without that Batman origin, without her falling to a pit of bats as a child, I guess, like there's there's none of that. She's just a baseball player.
Rob: Yeah.
Tim Hanley: And it just it works perfect. It's so simple and good and encapsulates everything I love about and her.
Guido: That's one of the go ahead, Rob.
Rob: Oh, and her the way she speaks. I mean, I know that I know this show takes place in the 60s, but I was really hearing Rachel Brosnahan how Mrs. Um, maisel speaks on the fabulous Mrs. Maisel. Just because that wittiness and just having a quip for everything. Because some of the book is quite serious. Obviously it's dealing with Nazis and the Holocaust and things like that. But it's nice that you have that woman in there who's kind of always the quippy one, and even to the point where they're calling out that she's making these puns all the time, which I loved.
Guido: I was hearing May Clark from, uh, the James Cagney scene, the grapefruit, who I since have fallen in love with May Clark. I was hearing her the whole time.
Tim Hanley: Totally.
Guido: Had, um, any of those yeah.
Tim Hanley: Ah, I had an amalgam of like classic 1940s, you know, those fast talking his girlfriend, totally fast, quick fire things. That's the vibe I got from her.
Guido: Well, that's what's fun. You know, I was reading some of the interviews, of course, that Marguerite Bennett's done, and she talks about how she wanted this multigenera book so that you have that as the pulp and action hero sequence. You have Catwoman's sequence as a noir. You have Wonder Woman's as the war film, supergirls as the propaganda film. She refers to Zetanas as kind of a hammer horror film. So you have all these different tones. The art shifts a bit in them, though. I like that there's a consistency to the art and design, even though the artists are doing different things. So that was fun.
Tim Hanley: The artists kind of stick with characters as it goes on, too. So, like, Laura Brega kind of does most of the Wonder Woman centric stuff. Um, Berkeley and Dolpho does most of the Harley Quinn stuff. Um, Margaret Savage does like a lot of the Batman stuff, so they kind of stick with characters, which is nice. And then kind of when they all come together in different moments, you get to see other people with different takes on. But the design work is so strong. Like, the way they've done the costumes is so clear and good that there's like a nice through line through everything.
Guido: Mhm well, that's in the visual element, but I think even in the story, what I liked a lot about this and found really refreshing, and some of this has to do with the origin. We were talking about the fact that these are just fully established people, but the world just exists. There's not a lot of time spent explaining origins. And perhaps some of this had to do even with the medium, with these little with these shorter digital installments that she was constructing, but you just go right in. It's a fully built world and you don't spend a lot of time explaining details. There also doesn't seem to be, and I was, before we were recording, telling you about this book, Tim, that I read on retcons, where they talk a lot about JSA All Star Squadron and the way that Roy Thomas tried to fit these DC heroes into our world's history of World War II. And so you had to put everything back at the end because you had to have World War II still play out that way. This world doesn't feel like it's doing that. This world feels like it's a different world. The Nazis are also zombies and it feels like it's okay, uh, I get the World War II references, but I'm not going to need to put all of these things back in the box for 1945 to come around or whatever. So I like that.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, there's no later continuity it has to tie into in any way. It can just be its own thing and go absolutely wild in whatever direction.
Rob: And yet by using some real world, actual, real world things, it is also a shorthand there. So it is Nazis. It's not another fictional evil empire. So we go, oh, they're Nazis, they're evil, and the Soviets we know, okay, they're double crossing supergirl and stargirl and they're using them as propaganda. Okay, we get that. So I think if they had created fictional worlds, there a fictional evil empire that's kind of trying to take over everyone. We'd have to kind of explain that a little bit too, and kind of get into that. But it's like, okay, Nazis are evil, we know it. We can jump right in and we're using a little bit of our real worldness, but at the same time, as you're saying, it doesn't have to exist within our world's continuity. So there's also a freedom there, too.
Tim Hanley: The use of real world stuff is like really judiciously done too much as it's like Nazi zombies and it's crazy when it's like serious stuff that matters. Um, down the road, beyond this first volume, they address it well, and with um, some careful tact and the heaviness it deserves, like there's an arc set in a, uh, Jewish ghetto in Berlin that leads to my favorite moment in the story. I think I mentioned it last time. It was on the mirror. Marvel. This different version of Merrier Marvel that comes from Jewish, uh, heroines that's her power source, the Shazam, corresponds with different, uh, female heroes from from Jewish lore. And it's like this very heavy depiction of, you know, what it was like in a ghetto in the in the 1940s in Berlin. And it ends differently. It's Mary Marvel, and there's this huge, uh, magical ending where she's able to transport them out of Berlin and to the coast of France. They go live in Atlantis with, uh, Mira as refugees. But like, it's bringing in that real world stuff in a way that really has a lot of power to it and is uh, kind of true to the past. But then taking it in these fantastical and often moving new directions, like the reveal of Miriam marvelous with her powers and her ability to save her entire community is just absolutely floored to me. The first time I read it.
Guido: Yeah, that was another thing that surprised me, was there were moments there's people dying, there's a darkness to it, uh, a dark reality to it. And even Zetana, whose story we barely scratch the surface of so far, but she refers to having a Jewish and Aramani parent and why that makes her a target of Nazis. And clearly her sequences are also an homage to Cabaret, which has that same kind of really good tone where it's very engaging and you can enter this world and it's a little fantastical, but it's also revealing something dark and true underneath that we have to look at.
Rob: Mhm. Yes. Yeah. And even the idea that Wonder Woman then joins up with the Allies, but because she refuses to kill the Nazi prisoners and she wants to just keep them as prisoners, then she's thrown in prison and you go, oh, that is a real world implication. That would probably happen if you had superheroes like this or superheroes used as propaganda, as we get with Stargirl and supergirl by the Soviets.
Tim Hanley: Yeah. Bennett's good at using the history as like, touchstones to kind of ground the story and then take it off in these cool new directions. It's a really well executed book in that regard and holds well through the entire run series.
Guido: So, without spoiling the end of it, I am curious from you tim, like, does it resolve? Is the story that she's telling complete? I know United got canceled. I think this finished its run. Tell us a little bit about the end again, without spoiling too much, because I am definitely going to go read the rest of it.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, without spoiling. And it's been a few years since I've read it. Take my recollections with a grain of salt here. I think it ends around 1943, so I don't know if we get the full extent of the more I feel like there's still more stories that could be told. A lot of the bigger, not real world stuff is taken care of, like the more supernatural elements and the other things that come in that gets sorted. I can't recall if they just end the war two years early or if there's more to be told, but I think it ended sooner than it was m meant to m. So I think there is a little bit of ambiguity at the end, and then the arcs are very long. So this first volume is six issues, but there's no real ending to it. We're really just getting started with it. So that goes on for some time. This kind of first arc gets sorted, then there's kind of a 1942 Arc, then a 1943 arc, and United. So there's these big, long stories and I think, uh, space for more if they ever want to go back to it. But this many years old.
Guido: Yeah, it feels really carefully plotted because you definitely get the sense that this is all set up for strands, that she knows where she's going over a long period of time, which is also cool because, again, format wise, you could see this having been like, all these vignettes. And it's not. They're all really building something. Even the Harley story feels like it's building to something. It's almost like a fun interlude here. Uh, just her and Ivy getting together. But it's like, okay, I'm going to guess all of these strands are going to just keep building, which is cool.
Tim Hanley: Also shout out to bombshells. I think this is the first time Harley and Ivy actually get together on panel.
Guido: Oh, fun.
Tim Hanley: They end up as I don't think it's in this first volume, but they do end up as romantic pairing, like they do in main continuity. But I think this was the first place that happened, like, a few years before.
Rob: Definitely heavily hinted at in this first volume. And then, of course, we get a very, you know, we get Kate as very explicitly a lesbian and writing back to her lover partner, to Maggie.
Guido: Well, they both are out in the main DC earth at this point, but I think I read spoiler that Supergirl is also in a relationship with a, uh, female Lane character. Not Lois.
Tim Hanley: Yeah.
Guido: There's lane.
Tim Hanley: It's Louisa Lane. When Margaret Bennett writes Lois Lane, she always gives her, uh, a cube inherited she did that Lois Lane special, I want to say like 2013 or something that kind of introduced that and then in Bombshells carried it on. So she's Ella easily. She's not a reporter, she's like a newspaper girl.
Rob: Oh, I've seen the images, the pin up of her in my NEWSBOY cap Keto.
Tim Hanley: I think she and Supergirl have something. Um, there's flashbacks, uh, later that reveal Wonder Woman in Mirror had something.
Guido: I remember knowing that too.
Tim Hanley: Yeah. Everyone in this book is super gay and they do not shy away from it. This first volume pretty clear about, um, Kate and Maggie. But as it goes on, they're not dancing around it. You don't have to read between the lines. Quite clear.
Guido: It's cool too. I saw in some interviews with Marguerite Bennett that she said she really wanted to have queer characters too, that are just fully formed queer. And that's not the story. So they're living their lives so that people can see themselves and find themselves in those stories. And it's not a conflict or anything. So I'm excited.
Rob: Our catwoman too, here is with the threesome with a vibe and that's very Cabaret, very much of the movie Cabaret, where you get this kind of threesome vibe happening in Germany. Totally.
Guido: Yeah, that's true. Uh, before we move on from this part of Bombshells and talk about the future of Bombshells, the other thing I was thinking too, is I found it hard not to think about Red, uh, sun a little bit. I was curious if if Marguerite Bennett was perhaps inspired. Maybe she didn't even realize because it's just to put Supergirl in Russia, it's hard not to see the connections to Red Sun a little bit there. So I kept thinking about that kind of almost being an elsewhere's influence on this other alternate universe.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, I could see that. And I do like that Red Sun takes Superman decades to realize, oh, maybe this is a little bit evil. And Supergirl is like first mission. You know what? Not cool enough for me. We're getting out of here on.
Guido: It was fun too, to have Stargirl in there with her. That seems a random pairing. Supergirl and Stargirl aren't at least in my familiarity, which is not too deep of them, but they're not an obvious pair that you'd see. So, uh, that was fun to have.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, there's some unexpected team ups that work out really well in cool ways. There's um, an annual later on with um, Barbara Gordon Back Girl, which is just a full on vampire. It just goes weird from there. Super fun and great. Elsa Sharne drives the annual. Yeah. Awesome.
Rob: Well, we get a great I like how much this story does embrace the occult in magic, which we get with the Nazis and with Joker's daughter. And that all is quite sinister and evil. But then we even get a Swamp thing, uh, cameo, which comes from the fact that Supergirl and Stargirls adopted parents, where their mother was really into the idea of mythology and mystical creatures. And that swamp thing actually exists and it protects them all. So I like that it's all embraced, while it is also next to that woman who is just a woman with a baseball bat who's going around hitting people. So it has those both sides to it.
Tim Hanley: There's also like big bardid just hanging out in the background. Yeah, she has a little more to do down the road, but I guess apocalypse exists here somewhere in this world.
Guido: Yeah, because she even refers to in this arc being, uh, an exile from much further away than Russia or much.
Rob: Worse than a m much worse situation. Yeah.
Guido: Very cool.
Rob: And speaking of magic, I don't know if you both can see this. There's a small bunny in the corner smoking a cigarette and he's creating a portal to the future.
Guido: A bisexual bunny.
Rob: A bisexual bunny smoking a cigarette. Portal to the future. So let's all jump in and ponder some possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted?
Tim Hanley: Averted. Averted.
Rob: Sohito what are we talking about for our pondering possibilities?
Guido: Well, I wanted our, uh, focus to be on Bombshells. I didn't want to go elsewhere. I didn't want to taint the experience. And so what I did is I looked at all of the places where Bombshells exists, which are very few outside of the Bombshell's title. So I'm going to recap some of those and then we can talk through what we think about the potential of Bombshells and the future of it. So there's a DC Universe Online 2015 downloadable story that introduces Bombshells to the video game. Not going to focus on that. The three main comic places where it shows up are Harley's Little Black Book, which is actually parallel to these. So it's 2016 in issue four. I went and read it. She is transporting in that series, it's a, uh, Connor and Palmyati series. She's transporting two different universes in every issue. So in an issue, she ends up in the Bombshells world. It's sort of fun. It ends up with Hitler killing himself. She has nightmares about Joker and he's kind of Hitler esque, and it's a fun little romp. But it's parallel to bombshells. So it's not really moving the Bombshells universe forward. Other than that, there's only two that I could find appearances other than Pinups and stuff, which I'm not going to bother with. So in Wonder Woman 750, which is the anniversary issue from 2020, there is a brief story by Marguerite Bennett that sort of summarizes and reintroduces each character from Bombshells in just a fun little story in that anthology. And then other than that, in Dark Knight's death metal Rise of the New God in late 2020, there is one in the backup story of that issue. They're gathering these multiversal heroes, and there is Kate Kane, bombshell's Kate Kane, but that is her only appearance. There's no plot. There's nothing else, and that's it. There's no animated series shockingly, there's no animated movie shockingly. There's just nothing else. So what do you all think of that? Tim, were you familiar with any of those minor, unimportant appearances of Bombshells?
Tim Hanley: Yeah, I remember the one from, uh, Wonder Woman 750, because I was very excited to see it's been so long since I've seen any Bombshells, I think did Laura Braga draw that? Was she back?
Guido: I think so. It looked like it, yeah.
Tim Hanley: So Laura Bragg is the one who had drawn most of the original wonderful Bombshell stuff. So that was really cool. But yeah, I feel like that's kind of got to be what it is. Everything now, again, like a special anthology issue or something. They'll show up maybe, uh, like, I guess in the next couple of years, it'll be like the 10th anniversary of Options. Maybe they'll do something cool.
Guido: Yeah, I was wondering that too, if next year, being the ten years from the collectibles line, if they do something.
Rob: Mhm I mean, uh, reading this, I was just shocked that there hasn't been an animated series or animated movie. We just recently had Megan Fitzmartin on the podcast who wrote the new recent JSA World War just a society World War II movie. And I was thinking, oh my gosh, this would be such a great kind of companion, alternate world companion to that story and I think especially works so well in animation as opposed to live action, not only because of budgets. And you're dealing with having these big demons and zombies in World War II. That could be really pricey. But just getting that the style, the look, even though it's all these different artists, the look that pin up look is so key to the success of this. So I would just be shocked that there isn't something in the animated world.
Guido: Yeah, it makes me wonder if there's something with the rights that were constructed because it started as a collectibles line. Obviously, they own the rights, but I don't know if Aunt Lucia gets a percentage of everything bombshells, and so they're sort of not incentivized. It's just strange to me, again, going back to Josh Williamson's Dark Crisis, and the way that there have been major stories, death Metal included, that are pulling the multiverse. Their infinite Frontier was doing that. Now they're really pulling all these characters from throughout the multiverse, and somehow the bombshells just aren't showing up in that, and they're so ripe for it. They're great designs. They're unique designs. They're fully formed characters. You could drop them into a battle and it would just be fun to see them. And for some reason, they're not doing that. And I, uh, can't understand it.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, it seems like a lot of the digital first stuff they've done over the past decade kind of stays just in its lane over there. Like, there's not a huge amount of crossover between what they do there and what they do elsewhere. Like, um, there was the renewal, um, legend of Wonder Woman book that's not really like that version of the character. Another World War II setting that's not really showing up anywhere else. Um, any of the stuff they've done with, like the adaptations, like they had that Wonder Woman 77 comments. Mhm, super good.
Rob: Mhm.
Tim Hanley: But like so obviously they got the rights to like Linda Kyle. They could stick her different places. So it's yeah, they just don't seem to be tying it in like they do with everything else.
Rob: And time and the zeitgeist seem to have been in Bombshell's favor since 2016. Greater emphasis on female representation, on queer representation, you know, also now we have major celebrities that are kind of pretty pro Hitler. So maybe a book that's also anti fascist, anti Nazi would know. Maybe now is the time to reintroduce that.
Guido: This is pre 2016.
Rob: Yeah. Uh, it seems like everything is ripe for this to emerge now in 20, almost 2023, when we're recording this. So it's, it seems like an odd decision to not put this back out into the world in one form or another.
Guido: Well, there have been these two huge pride anthologies from DC. Why wasn't there a Bombshell story in one of them?
Tim Hanley: Yeah, that would have been good. Maybe James got true.
Rob: Yeah.
Tim Hanley: Everything at DC seems to be in flux right now. So whatever we knew as the standard operating procedure for how Warner Brothers makes decisions about shows and movies and stuff seems to be a little bit out the window. So maybe we'll get something cool like Bob Shells.
Guido: Yeah, that would be amazing.
Tim Hanley: Totally.
Guido: And I do hope that the printing the publication side has some plans for the ten year. I really do, because it looks like too, only the funko pops are sort of the thing that's still coming out. You mentioned you had some of the action figures. Are those from the McFarlane? Like the highly detailed ones?
Tim Hanley: No, these are like old DC direct ones. Uh, they came out probably three or maybe even five years ago now. It's been a while.
Guido: So I wonder maybe there aren't even some of the really highly articulated collector action figures that have been coming out the last few years because I only.
Tim Hanley: Found I don't think McFarland has done any Bombshells. McFarland doesn't do a lot of feedback. There is that. I, um, wonder why the statute seemed to stop around two, uh, thousand and 20 I think was the last statue. So it seems to be over. It, uh, off a little bit.
Rob: But yeah, when you go to a New York Comic Con or I haven't been to San Diego, but going to a Comic Con, you see so many, again, female presenting people as these Bombshell characters, which is just really cool. And that's definitely grown so much more in, in recent years. So hopefully that shows people that there is that fan community. So maybe when DC is wandering the aisles like they did when they first discovered bombshells, they'll see, oh, look at all these people dressed up as these characters.
Guido: Oh, people liked that. So, uh, anything that we want to wrap up with? What did this trip through the multiverse tell us and help us understand about DC's female heroes? Tim, you're the expert on this. Tell us.
Tim Hanley: Yeah. DC's feel of heroes seem to be best when DC lets creators do interesting things in their own weird, unique ways. So, like letting Margaret Bennett do what amounts to almost like 50 print issues, I think of this huge, expansive, epic story presenting these female characters in such a new, different way. It's so fun and so awesome and so different and seems to be kind of left alone in its own little corner of the DC universe to do whatever it wants. And that's one of the best ways to get good stories, especially with female characters, because otherwise, when you get all the editors and brass involved, it kind of tends to not go well.
Guido: Yeah.
Tim Hanley: So it's not a thing that happens a lot because DC is very protective of its IP. But when it does happen, um, you get something pretty great magical.
Guido: Yeah, I agree. Yeah. I'm trying to think, like, they haven't even dad. I'm thinking about a force now. And some of the recent Marvel attempts, like, even Marvel's done the Women's History Month issue. I don't feel like DC has done a lot of that. I think DC as a whole is telling a lot more progressive, inclusive, and diverse stories than Marvel. But when it comes to female characters, I'm trying to think of other examples of them building, like, a female team. And other than Wonder Woman, the Trial of the Amazon, fleshing out Wonder Girl and Yarfloor and Nubia and getting all these characters going. I haven't seen too much in that way. So I think we do need another creator who's given a lot of freedom to tell some story with a bunch of the characters, uh, we know and love.
Tim Hanley: Yeah, we have Back Girls as a team, at least. Now cass and Steph and Barbara together.
Guido: That's a pretty yeah, that's true. That's right.
Tim Hanley: Marvel's not got a lot. Captain Marvel is a Captain Marvel series, but, like, it tends to have a.
Guido: Lot of supporting characters.
Tim Hanley: Other female characters in this, um, like Spider Woman, there's a new one called.
Guido: And there's Binary, too, that I love, that they create a character.
Tim Hanley: And, uh, Carol's half sister, L'Oreal. Yeah, it's a great book for working in female characters, but it's not a female TV because Marvel really doesn't do that well.
Guido: That's a good example where I love that book. I suspect Kelly Thompson was given that flexibility, and she's the right person. There are a lot of things about Kelly Thompson's writing that actually remind me of Marguerite Bennett. They both have that lightness and fun, and they're telling these really good classic comic stories while doing fun things and often with female characters and queer stories. So I love them both.
Tim Hanley: So, yeah, um, they're both great at things that seem like fun superhero adventures. And then out of the blue, you get like, you got me there.
Guido: Well played. Well, uh, here's hoping for more Bob Shells, but at least I know I have the next 40 issues to read. So I'm excited about that. Yeah. So I think that's a wrap. Thank you for listening. And Tim, can you share with people where they can find you, follow you, and remind them the book that makes the best gift for every comic book lover this holiday season?
Tim Hanley: I am, uh, at Tim Hanley One on Twitter for as long as Twitter continues to survive. Should, um, it collapse, I will be at Tim Hanley One elsewhere, whatever comes out of its ashes. Or you can go to my website, t hanley WordPress.com. If, um, you are looking for an excellent Christmas gift this year, my new book, Not All Superman, is available wherever books are sold. Check it out. It's a lot of fun. It's kind of a bummer, but it's got good bumps, too.
Guido: Well, you also have all those incredible books. You have the lowest lane book, the catwoman book, the, um, Wonder Woman book. Do any of those have Bombshells in them or are they all pre bombshells when you're writing?
Tim Hanley: I, um, think the lowest book might mention Bombshells offhand the one woman one doesn't. I think The Cat will be very offhand.
Guido: Well, they're all still great histories of those characters that people should check out. And those are also really great gifts and companions to the Bombshells comic.
Rob: Our reading list is in the show notes if you want to read more about Bombshells and our weird Wonder Woman comics that we also read. And you can, of course, follow us on all social media at Deer Watchers.
Guido: Yes, and leave a review wherever you listen. We'll be back with you soon for another trip through the multiverse.
Rob: And in the meantime, in the words of a Watu, keep pondering the possibilities.