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 and the worlds that make up an omniverse of fictional reality we all love. And your watchers on this very long journey are being and me, Rob, and.
Rob: Our extra special guest for this, I would even call this a milestone episode. A Bang baby that is now part human, part action figure. The icon. ethan at. Make mine amalgam. Hi, ethan.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes. Or static lad. That will make sense later.
Guido: Oh my gosh.
Rob: A dear friend of the show, frequent guest, a great social media account to follow for fans of all comics, especially amalgam and milestone. And ethan, you have been busy creating your own universe. Can you tell us about that real quick?
Guido: Yes, that's an episode on its own exactly one day.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: So it is called the fodder verse. And I have definitely had a lot of help on Twitter with some names and just ideas of who to kind of mix together. But basically I've been taking a bunch of Marvel Legends characters and I thought, you know what? Let's create my own characters out of these pieces. Like, I got bags upon bags of extra heads and extra weapons. It's like, let's have some fun with this. And actually it all started I went to an action figure swap and they were selling these really cheap figures. And I found an incomplete craven the hunter. And it was like $5. He didn't have the vest. He was headless. He didn't have any weapons. And I looked at it and I said, I think I could do something with this. And so what I did was I was like, $5. So even if I couldn't, I was like, okay, whatever. Uh, and so I took the demo goblin cape from the demo goblin, um, build a figure wave. And I'm like, I don't think I'm ever going to finish this. So this guy's getting a cape. um, and then I found some pretty generic looking heads because there's a head that came with a hydro soldier. Two pack, two pack. And I was like, this is not anybody. This is not anybody's head. And so I put that on there and before I knew it, I had this barbarian character. And then I was like, okay, but he needs a name. And then somebody on Twitter decided, oh, his name's grit the unchallenged. And I thought, okay, that's a cool name.
Guido: And then I just had so much.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Fun just creating all these different characters. And it all started with that.
Guido: Mhm. Yeah, it's fun because it's like, you're crowdsourcing a new universe. That's what's been fun to watch about it is every contributions.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And it's funny you mentioned new universe because I've made a couple of jokes, uh, in the past where it's like I think I posted my first three together and I said, Jim Shooter wishes he could be this cool.
Guido: Little eighty s new universe humor there. I love it.
Rob: Before we get into this week's episode, gito, can you tell everyone what's going on in our little section of the universe?
Guido: Yeah. Well, last week was our own Quantum mania because not only did we have our kang episode a few weeks back, then our Young avengers episode, but we're on the shortbox podcast comic book talk show with our friend botter and their cohost ed last week to talk about kang's most recent solo outing. So go listen to that show, which you probably should be listening to anyway, because it's great stuff. And our bonus show on, um, the versatile was on a slight hiatus, but our patrons will see new episodes again as we continue the back half of our promethea book club. And finally, we have some amalgamini's stickers with the whole army of amalgamines that elliot comic art created. And we just want help spreading the word as our 2023 goal has been to get more people part of this community of listeners. So we'll send you a sticker. If you just DMs your reviews or the recommendations you sent to friends, we'll send you a sticker. So that's what's new with us.
Rob: We will. And if you are joining us for the first time, we have three sections of our travels today. Origins of the story. What inspired this other reality? Exploring multiversity. We dive deeper into our alternate universe and pondering possibilities. We examine the impact and what followed or coming in the future. And with that, dear Watchers, welcome to episode 85 and let's check out what's happening in the Omniverse with today's alternate universe. And today we are posing the question what if the milestone universe collided with the DC Universe?
Guido: And this universe, it's not really an alternate universe. It's one of those funky ones. So it's the Dakota Universe Prime, which I just named as such. And more on up, more on why later. And it meets up with the DC Universe prime. But of course, it's the pre zero hour, pre infinite crisis DC Universe. So this is an intercompany crossover with Milestone Media and DC Comics. Of course, the DC Universe has since been rebooted a lot. The Dakota verse has since been rebooted. We'll talk about all of that, though. This event was canon in the Dakota verse for a while. And, uh, if none of what I said makes sense, well, let's turn it over to ethan, who's going to tell us about Milestone Media before we get started with today's stories.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yeah. So a brief history about Milestone Media. Milestone Media was founded in 1993. It came to be because the creators felt that minorities were incredibly underrepresented in comics. So they decided to create their own universe that represented people whose lives reflected backgrounds similar to what they knew. And the founders of the Milestone Universe. Milestone Media were, of course, dwayne mcduffie, Dennis cowan, Derek T. dingle and Michael Davis. Christopher Priest was also involved at the beginning of milestones conception, but had to dip out for personal reasons. But it's a little known fact that he was the one who gave virgil hawkins the superhero name of Static.
Rob: I saw that also online that Christopher Priest named the Bang baby. So that was his concept as well.
Guido: Lots of cool collaboration in there. And I think we've all watched Milestone Generation, a really great documentary that anyone who's a fan of comics, whether you know everything about Milestone or know nothing about Milestone, it's a great documentary for fans of comics to watch. It's on HBO Max, and it has interviews with a lot of those people that were there and they tell anecdotes and stories and, uh, some behind the scenes business stuff, including some funny controversies that they experienced. So it's great film to get some background on Milestone and we'll talk more about where milestones gone since then in the third segment of today's show as we talk about the future.
Rob: Mhm and speaking of backgrounds, ethan, you gave us kind of the overall backgrounds of Milestone comics, but let's talk about our personal backgrounds with milestones. So ethan, what is your personal back story with Milestone? I know you are a superfan.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Oh, yeah. Well, being a youngen as I am, um, I probably was first exposed through the Static Shock TV show, which, looking back and watching some of that show again, I'm glad that that was my entryway because both the comics and the show are great. They have their own merit, but the comics are way better. So it felt like an upgrade as opposed to, oh, I'm reading the comics and then, oh, here's the show that's a little toned down for the kids. But then as I explored yeah, I explored the characters some more and just really fell in love with the universe. It's just a lot of fun and really neat, unique characters. And there's all this talk about Valzad getting a movie or them race, uh, swapping Clark Kent. And I'm just like, yeah, okay, that is an idea that you can have. But where's my icon movie? I would rather see an icon movie. mhm because, uh, he's not 100% a superman clone by any means. He's got his own rich history that I actually think is more interesting than superman in some aspects. So there's a lot that could be done with him. Well, not necessarily instead, alongside those.
Guido: Mhm and you recently, I think, finished getting every single issue of every Milestone comic, right?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes. Uh, for Christmas, my big gifts, I got the Static Shock rebirth of the cool one through four, which I assume would be collected in issue five or six or volume five or six or whatever of the compendiums, uh, when that comes along. And, uh, Static 45, which is the big, like, last issue of Static.
Guido: Wow, very cool. That's really amazing. We'll go in reverse age order. So, Rob, what was your background with milestone?
Rob: I always had known milestone when growing up because I think I was reading comics right kind of when milestone hit. So I was definitely of the age where I could have been reading them, but I knew always of the characters, I think I always had Marvel trading cards, not DC trading cards, but the little trading cards I had. I would see, I remember in my head, like icon or hardware, like, uh, on some of the trading cards or something like that, and definitely seeing them in comics ads or stuff like that. But I had never read them. And I didn't know too much of the back story until we watched that amazing documentary that you had mentioned. So this was really definitely my first time ever actually reading these characters and gito as the oldest call as a.
Guido: Teenager when these were created and coming out. I think by virtue, it was interesting to learn, of course, later in life and in that documentary, that a lot of stores had difficulty figuring out how to carry the titles or just flat out were racist and not carrying the titles. And I think growing up in the New York City metropolitan area, I was exposed to these titles all the time. So these were the same as all of the new number ones, which everyone bought when you were going in the comic store in the 90s, boom especially. You just bought everything that was a number one. And so I had a lot of these, but I don't remember really reading them or getting into them in the still have a bunch of the issues. I think some of it is and I will tell you, I was flat out wrong. I didn't like the painted colors, and I was wrong. I love the painted colors now. But I think at that point, it was very different and it didn't match what I understood comics to be. So it was really only the last few years when the first compendium was coming out. And obviously, I've been reading all of the reboot, which we can talk more a bit about from 2020 onward, which is still going strong. So it's really only that now. And I'm excited to revisit all of those early issues, and in particular, knowing how many queer characters, queer creators, um, latinx, so all things that are part of my identity and then just representation across the board, that's not even my identity, but just being able to see worlds that are not represented and the politics of them. Also, I think I couldn't have appreciated as a kid. But now you read it and I think we're going to talk about this when we get into these origin issues, just how much these stories are saying. And I love that.
Rob: In my head. I think, uh uh, looking back, I put the milestone together, which and I'm sure it's totally very different with the ultraverse from malibu comics, and I just.
Guido: Seen that they are very different.
Rob: I know, but I was just that also premiered in 90, 93. So there was yeah, this is well.
Guido: It'S the boom, right? Image is coming out. It's showing everyone that you can start something new and you can sell millions of copies. And and that only holds true for a brief blip of a second. But everyone's trying. So yeah, it's a huge boom.
Rob: Well, is that boom you mean like the big bang? Here's my milestone reference.
Guido: I, uh, should have just stuck with, like, a boom tube.
Rob: Yeah. Okay. Well, this big bang is going to take us back to Origins of the Story. Right now on this very show, you're going to get the answer to all your questions. Our, uh, amazing story begins a few years ago. Okay, so we've got a lot of issues for you that we read, so we'll go through those, which are hardware number one, blood syndicate number one, icon number one, and static number one. Those are from April 1993 through June 1993.
Guido: And we are going to take a moment to give the credits for those, because there's nothing more important than the team that brought these to us. So hardware is from writer dwayne mcduffie. penciller, Dennis cowan. inker jimmy Palmiati. colorist noel giddings lettered by janice chang edited by dwayne mcduffie Blood syndicate, written by dwayne mcduffie. ivan vallez Jr. penciled by Trevor von Eden, inked by Andrew papoi, colored by Janet Jackson, lettered by Stephen dutro, edited by dwayne mcduffie. Icon, written by dwayne mcduffie. penciled by Mark Bright, inked by Mark gustovich colored by Noel gettings, lettered by Steve dutro, rochelle minash and Jim sherman editor duane mcduffie and Static Number One written by dwayne mcduffie, duffy and Robert L. Washington III. penciled by John Paul leone inked by Steve Mitchell colored by Noel gettings, lettered by Steve haney and edited by dwayne mcduffie. We read these because not only are these the four titles that play a role in the alternate universe that we look at, but these are actually the first four milestone titles. And so these are four origin issues kicking off these four books. So let's talk about them each separately, because I think they are great origins.
Rob: Well, and the one thing that doesn't separate them, too, is dwayne mcduffie, who was a writer or editor on all of them. And and I just couldn't believe it when I was reading this. And I know I've heard these stories about him and and ah, but yeah, wow. It took took me back to hearing about the only thing I could think was comparable was stan in the 60s, writing and editing all these books at the same time or with Jack. So it's just amazing that he literally had a hand in every single one of these.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Absolutely.
Guido: Definitely an architect. Yeah. So hardware hardware, of course, is the wealthy inventor who puts on a suit of hardware that turns them into a hero, at first for revenge and then for justice. So, Hardware, what do we all think of Hardware?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Well, he is my favorite of the milestone heroes.
Guido: Uh, why?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Something about him just kind of clicked with me. I really like his story. I like that it's been able to be fleshed out as long as it had for the 50 issues. um, as you get deeper into his story, his villains get really weird. um, but yeah, I love that. Originally his suit is kind of scrapped together. Like, if you see like, some of his parts are just kind of taped on. um, and Dennis cowan's art is always amazing, but especially on these books.
Rob: Mhm I really liked his relationship or antagonist relationship with his boss, edwin elvis. Yeah, it seems so classic to me, and yet at the same time, a fresh take on it where you're working for the person you're trying to bring down. But then kind of when we get into our later issues that they've had some kind of dayton, it seems he's got that kind of classic, I'm a villain, but I'm not a villain kind of thing. And the same thing with his relationship with Curtis, aka Hardware. I just thought that was a really interesting dynamic that you don't see too often.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yeah, it would be kind of like if Batman worked with lex luthor.
Rob: Yeah, totally. Exactly.
Guido: Yeah, that's a good comparison. What's interesting is Hardware is not the kind of character I like. I don't like big, uh, gadgety characters. He's like a little cable esque in design and that doesn't tend to be a character that interests me. But what I love about this book is that right out of the gate, it almost feels like the potential of the milestone universe here, because on the COVID you have a cog and the corporate machine is about to strip some gears. So you know there's going to be some social commentary and then that opening page about glass ceilings and how you can't actually be free until you perceive all of the sources of oppression. And there's sort of the subtitle on that page, which I'm assuming maybe editorial or someone wouldn't let be. The title of the book, which is Angry Black Man is written across the bottom of the page. So it really struck me and in that relationship with his boss, you see a lot of that way that systemic and institutional racism are expressed and the way it's subtle and the way that I think we started to, in the 90s understand more and are still reckoning with and trying to make people aware of today. So I I really loved that aspect of the character and his motivation and.
Rob: Totally, it sets it apart from the DC books right from the start because Hardware is just killing people, too. He's up, uh, in their helicopters because you're so conditioned to you mentioned Batman, ethan. You're so conditioned to Batman. He's going to blow up the helicopter. But then he shows throws out a battery, and it captures the guy before he hits the water. But no, no, hardware is just killing folks. And it really does set the tone along with the art, along with kind of this black and white gritty page that even the credits are on before we kind of get into the rest of the art. So it's really setting oh, this is different from the DC books that, you know.
Guido: All right, let's go.
Rob: Even crazier team. So when we think hardware is pushing it, then we really are going even further with Blood syndicates.
Guido: Oh, yeah. So Blood syndicate is the team that are the what is it? The bang babies.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: They are bang babies. And yes, there are other characters that are Bang Babies as well. But we'll get to them.
Guido: Yeah. So it's a team of at first looks like nine characters to start, who each have unique powers, who are living on these somewhat abandoned basically abandoned to crime, abandoned to criminal gangs, paris island. And they are the kind, uh, of heroes kind of vigilantes of that island. And what do you all think of this subtitle? America eats its young, by the way.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: I think what's really neat about the Blood syndicate is that they try to be heroes. And overall, they succeed. But they also grapple with the idea of, like, are we really heroes? Or are we a gang with superpowers mhm?
Guido: Yeah, I love that aspect of their story. And Blood syndicate, I mean, I will read all milestone titles, but this is the one that will, I think, own a part of me in particular because it has that X Men quality. And I cannot wait till we get to Worlds Kawide and talk about that, um, when I saw that. But instead of, uh, they're heroes for a world that hates and fears them, it's what you're saying it's, are we heroes or are we just a gang? Especially because the world the city is telling us we're a gang. They're telling us we don't matter. um, we're economically depressed. We're surrounded by crime. The reporter is coming to write this story about them in the first issue. And it's so relatable, especially to New York City and especially having grown up in and around New York City. It's very much a story of class and crime and youth. And I loved that aspect of it. Plus, then they all have really quirky, weird characters.
Rob: I think while some of the other Milestone characters, while they're completely original, they do have these analogs with other preexisting characters as well. For here, it definitely felt like, wow, each power was so unique. And I think this was probably my favorite of the books because I just am a sucker for a team where it's, uh, all these different powers that are thrown together uh, as cool as hardware is, it's not just a guy with a suit. It's someone who can literally fade through anything. And then you've got a guy who doesn't talk and is super strong and he's super mysterious and your kind of thing stand in almost. But it's a woman and she's now suffered brain damage while also becoming super strong. So I thought that was just super interesting. And just some of this, I mean, also I think I mentioned like, well, hardware starts with him shooting down the helicopters, but it's still fairly bloodless as far as comics go, even though he's killing people. Here we've got a character who can manifest guns out of his hands that can shoot infinite bullets. And he literally shoots the guns. Not that, no, he doesn't shoot the guns out of people's hands. Shoots hands off of their body. And the art there is just completely brutal, just showing their hands are missing and just like blood is just spewing from their stumps. It is uh, quite the panel.
Guido: Yeah. ivan Valley Jr. Also is a queer comics icon and should get a lot more attention than he does for doing work so early on. He's out and queer. latinx from the bronx wrote Tales from the closet in the 90s, which was an indie comic that was telling lots of queer stories, HIV aid stories. He's amazing. So his fingerprints are all over this. And I know that just continues as some of these characters come out and grapple with their identities.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And if, uh, I'm remembering correctly, I believe he takes on full writing duties as the series progresses.
Guido: M. mhm. Yeah. And I love too, the other aspect of that, of his identity coming through is there's a lot of spanglish in here, which also feels very relatable.
Rob: And one character that especially we see more in our world's, collide, is really only speaking in Spanish and it's not translated at all. Was a great choice. Yeah, this book also had um, definitely like an actual draw dropping moment for me, which was our kind of intro into this story is that we are following, I guess, presumably a white reporter who's kind of here kind of finding out what's there. And she's staying in there, of course, uh, behind them. But the Blood syndicates getting in this battle and at one point she just gets a shotgun to the face and her head just like explodes off. And I was like, oh my gosh, they just killed this character in the most violent way. But it's actually used to set up one of the Blood syndicates powers flashback, who has one of the coolest powers I've ever heard, which is that she's able to reverse time, but only 3 seconds. So she's able to save this reporter by just going back 3 seconds. And that's such a cool power because you think, oh my gosh. I'm just thinking, oh gosh, if I didn't send that email I could just.
Guido: Go back 3 seconds or something, but.
Rob: At the same time, you go, 3 seconds isn't that long. So, like, what would I really use that for?
Guido: Uh, and you have to be fast on your feet. Yeah, I love that power, too. This is going to be a tangent for a moment, but it's the kind of power that when I was a kid and I used to try to imagine what my X Men power would be, I always tried to translate it, and maybe ivan Vale Jr. Did too, to something that had limitations. Because it's like you can't just have Gene gray's power, then you're too omnipotent. So you had to have a power that had some catch to it, because that was the only way I could conceptualize of a human being having a mutant power in our real world. And she feels like that to me. She feels like someone who has one of those kinds of powers where it's like she can't just turn back time. Then she could do anything. She could do it for 3 seconds. So it's a cool limitation.
Rob: All right, let's jump 3 seconds into the future to talk about our next issue or next character, which is Icon, aka really Icon, of course, Icon, but it's really Icon and Rocket characters.
Guido: It is. And is it like that for the whole series? ethan obviously, the modern one, is called Icon and Rocket. She's a side character for his whole series, I'm assuming.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes. And side character is not wrong, but also wrong.
Guido: No, that's wrong. I shouldn't have said that.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Um, so they kind of spell it out further in the reboot by calling it Icon in a Rocket. But when you read the comic, it has always been Icon and Rocket.
Guido: Yeah. Well, because she's a core part of his origin. Right. She isn't just a sidekick in that way. And that's why it was wrong, because we have Icon, who was an alien, but who landed on planet Earth in the 18 hundreds in the south and so was raised a slave, but is immortal and invincible, essentially superman. And then we cut to today and find out that he's a Republican corporate right wing black man leader, and he's provoked by Rocket and her group of friends who are committing this crime in his house. And then she goes back to him and talks about the potential of what he could be. And that kicks off our story. I think that is just so cool. I, um, think it's the coolest twist on superman mythology in so many ways. Not just obviously the race, like you said, like a Valzade, but the time, right? Having arrived 100 years earlier than superman and then also what that person would become. I completely believe that someone with superman's powers, even though he's black and an oppressed group in this country, would probably become a conservative, corporate, rich, right wing someone who supports right wing causes. Because what does he care? He's rich and invincible. Like, he's not thinking about the downtrodden or anything like that. So it's cool. It's a cool twist.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And there's a lot of interesting back and forth throughout that series of how their political views he and Rocket, their political views clash. How they're able to change each other's minds on certain things. M come together on certain things, agree to disagree on certain things. Their relationship is really interesting.
Guido: Yeah. It feels like it fulfills the potential of what hawk and dove could have been, but was a little more heavy handed. This is a little more nuanced, a.
Rob: Lot more autonomy than a Robin or something like that. um, she is the instigator. She's the one that is presenting, this is what we should do. And icon is saying her outfit is too risque, but she's still owning it. She's still saying, no, this is what I'm wearing there. So, uh, it's fun to see her because she really isn't. Even though she's billed here or in the later issues as his sidekick, she really is his equal in every way. And they really do drive home even the very last panel, which is them arriving and having the police or some of the force all pointing their guns at him. And Rocket sang, but I bet this never happens to superman. So really setting up that comparison between these two characters, which we get even further in our world's collide.
Guido: Mhm and superman being a fictional character in Dakota or until world's collide. Yeah.
Rob: Well, let's surf on our hub caps.
Guido: Over to Static number, the last of our origin issues. Yeah. And probably at this point, the most famous of the milestone characters, I guess because of young Justice ethan. Right.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Because of the static shock cartoon.
Guido: Okay. Right. Because he starts in static shock, then ends up in young justice.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yeah.
Guido: Okay.
Rob: It's a great Phil lamar as his voice on the cartoon series.
Guido: Yeah. So thoughts on static.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: I'm, um, going to just have the disclaimer, uh, as it's on the record that his name is Static. And we all agree his name is Static. And I don't know why on earth they called the cartoon static shock because it has confused a generation.
Guido: Yeah, it's a good question. Why they felt the need to add that second word that's never present in the comics.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: It's never present in the cartoon.
Guido: Oh, it's just the title of the show.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: He called himself Static.
Guido: That's funny.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: His own little mantra of, uh, the name static and I bring a shock to your system, but that's it.
Guido: That's ridiculous.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: There's nothing else. Nobody calls them static shock. But every time I see, like, oh, Hollywood is looking to cast Lucas from Stranger things a static shock, I was like, okay, number one. Number two. Yes, please. Uh, caleb. I can't remember his last name, but.
Rob: Yeah, um, I was getting strong. I don't know if. This was an influence for them at all, or that they wanted to have their own take on spiderman. But I was definitely getting kind of so much of the Peter Parker, especially now thinking about the Tom Holland as Peter, where we get the high school drama aspect of that. I think maybe by 93, Peter was already well out of high school, right? Living his life as a young adult. But here, yes, definitely getting and the wise cracking icon super serious. The Blood Syndicate has some dark humor, but kind of serious characters hardware. Also kind of serious. So here we get that kind of quippy, Marvel esque kind of character.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes, spiderman was definitely an influence. And actually, if I'm remembering correctly, miles morales is inspired by static for a while. He's got that venom thing that's kind of like that. Also, I thought I read somewhere, but this might be stretching it, that his name is Miles after Milestone. ah, but that might be reaching.
Guido: Might be. But that's a fun myth. Regardless, UM, I have to say, this is my least favorite of the Milestone titles. I don't dislike it, but I couldn't get into the high school aspect of it. And the other thing that felt like a, uh, disconnect just for me is because I love John Paul leone's work, but associate it with a real grit. I usually feel like it's part of a Marvel fanfare type storytelling that is like, a little more adult, edgy, violent, sometimes sexualized. So John pale leone's work with, like, this really high school quippiness, it was very hard for me to fuse those two, so I couldn't get into it. I don't dislike it, but I just couldn't get into it. mhm.
Rob: M. Yeah. Even with the high schoolness and the quippiness, though, it still does have the adultness of the other icon issues in the fact that the villains really here are trying to rape this statics friend, who is a great character, has a lot more autonomy than it seems. UM, Mary Jane actually kind of reminded me of the zendaya take on mj, where she's got all this kind of sass, uh, and real attitude there. But, yeah, it gets kind of icky there in the moment. It's not just, oh, they want to capture her for some obtuse reason. It's like, oh, no, you kind of know what they're trying to do here.
Guido: All right, anything else to say on our origins of Milestone? Because we have only scratched the surface of what we have looked at today.
Rob: I know. Well, okay. Well, let's jump into our time portal to go one year into the future for our exploring multiversity.
Guido: I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: What.
Rob: If we are calling this alternate universe trip? What if the milestone universe collided with the DC universe? It is from the, uh, mega event World Collide. This 14 part event ran from July 1994 to August 1994 with some seeds planted in superman Man of Steel 34, steel number Five and static 13. The full event, 34, 30. There you go. The full event included from DC Comics, superman, the man of Steel 35 and 36, superboy Six and Seven, steel Six and seven. From Milestone Media Hardware 17 and 18, icon 15 and 16, blood syndicates, 16 and 17, and static 14. Lots of comics. And the co released copublished Worlds Collide, which was of course anyone, uh, alive then or has the issues knows was published with color form, vinyl decals of all the different characters so you could stick them all around the wraparound cover of metropolis and Dakota fused.
Guido: Yeah. Okay, so credits are a little hard to do on 14 issues. This is our biggest episode ever, actually. So to give a quick summary of some of the credits, it's the teams of every individual issue, in fact. So dwayne mcduffie obviously being one of the biggest architects writing a lot of the books, but you also have ivan valez Jr. You have Carl cassell, you have weezy simonson, you have Robert L. Washington III. And then artists are again the standard art teams on these books. So you have Jean Paul leone and Chris batista and Tom grummet and Mark Bright and Dennis cowen and Chris Cross. And then you have the DC side folks like John Bogdanovov and the artist on Steel who was umberto, ramos in some of these issues. And then you have colorists, like Noel giddings, who's keeping doing the Milestone work. And inkers robert Kihano bobby Ray Art Nicholas. And this is just a fraction of the people that worked on these books. The editors on all of these books are some combination of dwayne mcduffie, Mike M. carlin, Chris duffy and Frank Pitterici. And that name is familiar to our listeners because Frank is been a friend for a long time and guest. It was one of our first actually was our first creator interview back in an early episode some many eons ago. And uh, for our behind the scenes today, I actually have some information from Frank to share. So let me get to what Frank had to share with us. And hopefully we'll have Frank back on to share more about this and the other work that he has touched from this era that we've talked about, but what he remembers about World's Collide. I can't hear's direct quotes from Frank. I can't quite recall how it came about, where the suggestion came from. But I know once it became official, there was a big creative summit with Milestone and DC teams to plot out the story. The summit lasted at least one full day, maybe more. Everything was charted out in detail, very similar to how the superman books of that triangle era were being planned in advance so that the writers could then flesh things out in script form. All of the elements were passed back and forth for approval at every stage between the two companies as the crossover progressed. So pretty standard from what we've heard in terms of Marvel versus DC and how all these intercompany crossovers work is you have the editorial teams trying to fuse it together, which, of course, in this case, is a huge task. You have 14 books, one being co published. So a lot of stuff to do. And it wasn't always smooth. Frank shares that there was once a kerfluffle when DC received a finished issue, an issue that was running very late and behind schedule for Milestone. It was the black and white art but fully lettered that had gone off book. And the content of the story was not discussed. It was not from the agreed upon outline. And there was art in it that was a bigger concern because a large chunk of the issue was drawn in the style of archie comics. We can all guess which issue that was in fact. And so, uh, the superman editor, Mike carlin, might, uh, have had some challenges with that decision. And so even though they had talked through every chapter and seen everything at every stage, this particular issue was not seen. And obviously, they had to get rid of it. Mike carlin put his foot down and they had to do a replacement version rushed out by the Milestone team. So that's one of the few stories Frank remembers from those days. The other thing is, of course, he enjoyed the heck out of the notorious color forms cover, and he got to write the slogan that appeared on the promotional poster. So Frank wrote One Man, Two Worlds. And the end of all that is DC milestone worlds collide. Very cool promo poster that I'm definitely going to be tracking down. So that's a little behind the scenes on this. And then to do a quick story summary, very quick for 14 issues, there's this character of Fred benson, who also becomes known as Rift, who goes back and forth between Dakota and metropolis I love. Yes. And becomes convinced that the metropolis and DC characters are creations and that he, in fact, has the power to create reality. And he's convinced of this because, of course, they are comic book characters in the Dakota universe. So there starts to be bleed between the cities. As he's going back and forth, the characters start to cross over naturally. There's matchups between Icon, uh, and superman, rocket and Superboy, steel and Hardware, and then Blood Syndicate and static are heavily involved. And finally, Rift decides he wants to fuse the two universes, and he's causing all sorts of destruction. And the superman and Steel, uh, and Hardware create a bomb that superman and Icon used to trap him in a pocket universe. So very brief summary of 14 issues.
Rob: I love this kind of set up, though, with Fred. So he's a male carrier in Dakota, and he's just living his life and he's fine. He goes to sleep at night, and then he wakes up the next day and he's a male carrier in metropolis. And he's also fine with that. Like, he's just kind of, again, living his life. It's a very interesting idea. And also kind of making him this male carrier, someone who moves things from different places. So I love that kind of connection there. And really, he's fine, like, kind of doing this until really often these external forces are some of our villains kind of start to get involved and really want yeah.
Guido: And he gets trapped and exploited and.
Rob: They start to exploit this person. Otherwise, he's really well, he becomes this horrible antagonist and ends up killing thousands, if not, like, millions of people in the story. Even though it's luckily reversed in the end, he's at the same time, you do find sympathy with him because he really doesn't know what's happening. He's definitely losing his mind.
Guido: I think the character of Rift and the setup are an example to me of how this is a really interesting story that I liked a lot because it gives you just a little more texture, even though it's using a lot of tropes and perhaps it actually is the archetype for many tropes. I want to talk a lot about how I think this influenced Marvel versus DC. I have zero doubt that this story was the impetus for Marvel versus DC. UM, it's so similar in so many ways, but it's cool because yeah, it could become really two dimensional and over 14 issues, it would be hard to read a story that was just full of tropes, but because, yeah, you have this cool notion this character, this guy wakes up in a different universe every day. That's cool. And then the fact that he's convinced that one half of it is fake and he created them, that's a cool twist on like, he just becomes a deranged being of powers who wants to meld the worlds. It's like, no, he thinks he created them for the majority of the storyline, he thinks superman is fake and that he needs to destroy all of the fake things he created. So it's a very cool, more complex story than it seems on the surface.
Rob: Ethan, it's reminded me of the now I'm blanking on his name, but I'm sure he's a character in the, uh, Malcolm universe. But that character really just feels like he's there. He is a plot mechanism, and we don't get his personality or we don't get inside his head like we do with Fred, where it's like, oh, no, we really get to see this character's journey from kind of mild mannered postal service member to full fledged megal melaniac.
Guido: Yeah, I agree. I actually think this is a better executed Marvel versus DC. I dare I say. I think it is. Yeah.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And I agree.
Guido: You heard it. Here, make mine. Amalgam thinks this is better. Yeah, and, uh, something Rob and I were talking about when we finished reading it too, is that part of why it works really well is because it moves between all these different stories and characters, even though it's only telling one story. But if you had this whole story be focused around Steel and Hardware, it would probably get really boring. If you had this whole story focused around Icon and superman, it would probably start to get really boring. So to be able to move from the Steel Hardware story to the Icon superman story, to the Blood Syndicate, to Superboy, Rocket and static, it breaks it up and it helps it move at a really good pace. And I was never like, oh my god, is this still going on at any point in my reading?
Rob: Hm. Yeah, I think the pace is so key, as you just said, because you've got superman and Icon, serious characters, not really one for cracking jokes. Same kind of with steel and hardware. Hardware has got a little sense of humor, but then you've got the Superboy and Rocket stories and both of them are just constantly clashing. And he's a little pervy. But I love this super boy. Would I want to know him in real life? No, probably not. But other than he's very cute.
Guido: Yeah, I mean, I want to know him.
Rob: He's got some great lines and it's just great to have him go up against a Rocket who is his equal in that she is not going to take any of his bs, she's going to throw it back at him. And then they kind of later in the story, introduced static as kind of a similar character, but someone who's not directly involved in kind of their conflict back and forth. So it's just great. And that kind of that fun humor really breaks up and they fight parasite, which is kind of a completely side story for a little bit. And it just breaks up the kind of momentous rest of the other storytelling, which tends to be a little bit more serious.
Guido: The other thing that I think breaks it up is even in that example of Steel and Hardware being a little more serious, then they have a really interesting philosophical debate because Hardware wants to kill Rift and Steel refuses, which even just speaks to what we were all identifying about the difference between Milestone Comics and DC Comics. And I really like that issue a lot because I think it's very believable. steele is your typical comic book character, at least from Marhole or DC. He's like, absolutely not. Absolutely no way. And he's trying to stop it. And Hardware is like, I'm going to choose killing one person over the millions of people that will die instead. And is very convinced he needs to do it. And that leads them to fight, which is another good way of getting that hero to hero fight that we often are exploring in alternate universes, that always happens for some misunderstanding or something. This is not a misunderstanding. This is like they really are disagreeing and therefore need to set up in.
Rob: Our first Steel issue where steele actually is going to kill this general that has been attacking his family. And then Steel is convinced, no, don't do that, I need to set myself apart. So we get that right away. reinforced early on in the miniseries that okay, this is steele's take on. And then right away, as we kind of discussed with our introduction of hardware, he has no qualms at all about killing people. So it's great that we kind of get that conflict there. And I love also these are secondary human villains. Edward ah, alva, and uh, who's the, uh, other villain in the mask?
Guido: Hazard.
Rob: Right, hazard.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes, hazard. If I'm remembering correctly, because I'm reading Steel right now as well, I recently collected all those. UM, I think Hazard actually shows up, was in some of the Steel books prior, and Fred is in an issue of Steel that isn't six or seven.
Guido: Uh, yeah, so lots of seeding that was going on.
Rob: They're just like doing their own plots and they're just also saying, I love the moments where they have basically the exact same idea to control Fred. And then we see that Fred is actually in both of their laboratories at the same time in both the universes. And then they even, they come together to say, okay, we're going to work together. But at the same time they just say to each other, you know, we're going to just stab each other in the back as soon as this is done. I just love that kind of transparency between these characters. They're still trying to do their evil stuff, even though the world is literally falling down around them.
Guido: Yeah. I want to talk about Blood syndicate.
Rob: That's what I was going to say. Take a moment to talk about that issue.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Was the Blood Syndicate one the one that they were planning on doing, the archie?
Guido: I'm assuming so. Frank didn't say. Perhaps not wanting to out, uh, who was responsible for trying to slip something by. But my guess is, based on the issue being the only issue to have these quick jumps between alternate realities, I'm assuming that they had done a section in the style of archie or perhaps the section that we see in there, uh, where they're in school. Maybe it was originally done in the style of archie, and then they redrew it. So for people listening who didn't go back and reread this 14 issue mega event, although I think you should, if there is one issue that you should read for fun, it is the Blood Syndicate issue number 17. Because in this issue, Rift sends Blood Syndicate, who we've talked about this kooky Dark team, into first a world where they're going to be reeducated. So the social commentary in those few five pages of them being in this school is so good because it is all about taking these brown and black kids into a school and trying to reform them. So they're trying to teach them all about how great Columbus is, and they're busy thinking about tea. And there's the joke about Gray poupon, which, of course, there was the very famous commercial of this era where the guy in the limo pulls up an S for gray poopon, showing that Gray poopon was like, what rich people ate. So there's so much in these few pages of school about just the way that education seeks to, at times, reinforce a particular understanding of racing class. And I love that satire in here, so that alone makes it worth it. But then we end up with the underappreciated X Gang gang. And, uh, I think I have read a lot of X Men parodies in my life. I think that these three pages are the best X Men parody ever. There are things in here that I was laughing so hard when I was reading this. And even, uh, when Rob was done, I was like, but wait, did you notice the way that he's riffing on claremont's caption boxes? He's just written these huge, long caption boxes that just ramble, and they're like, non sequitur thoughts, and they're just rambling. And so you have that element. You then have these characters who are speaking just like rogan gambit in the 90s with these heavy accents, and the words are written out with the accents, so you can't even tell what this person is saying. And one of them is this heavy French accent. And then, uh, of course, you have the wet hydrox, and you have this Aquamaria being resurrected as the Phoenix. I mean, it's such a spot on parody. It is clear ivan's love of those characters that he is also making fun of. And I love it M, because even.
Rob: Then, when she's resurrected, the one character says, what? Damn, not again. Which I'm just joking on the fact that this has already probably been done to death in X Men universe as well.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And I think I caught the rogue and gambit homage with the accents, but I also thought that they were, UM, trying to do a commentary on how characters of color back in earlier comics had very offensive thick accents and how they were trying to bring into light that, no, this is not what Milestone is about. We're making fun of the past.
Guido: Yeah, I think it could totally work on that level.
Rob: But they push it so far that it's almost hard to actually know what they're saying. It is pushed to the so they.
Guido: Sound a little bit like the maimi stereotype kind of thing.
Rob: We should read just because I have it up the caption box that you were referencing, gito, because it says it is another typical moment in the unusual lies of the infallible ex gang. One can say all too typically usual for the unusual. Yes, as the Ex Gang, they have sworn and promised to uphold the laws of the very society and people that hate them and hate and despise them much. They do. Yes.
Guido: And that's just one of two gigantic text boxes devouring an 8th of the page. So it's a great issue, m. And uh, I loved it earlier when we.
Rob: Were in the classroom and I don't know ethan if you know, because at this point I'm not sure when this was revealed. Yes, but the character of masquerade in the Blood Syndicate is a trans character.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: He's a trans man.
Rob: Yes, he's a trans man who we are always seeing presenting as a man, but then rift as a woman. And then from Esquerade retransforms, once they kind of take over the situation again and says, I'm a man. How much had that been discussed so far? Do you know?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: In Blood Syndicate, if I'm remembering correctly, this takes place maybe a couple of issues after them learning that he's a.
Rob: Trans man, mhm.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Because he's got the power to, UM, shape shift. And so at one point his guard is let down and it's revealed that he had always been using his powers to present as a man, as his true self.
Rob: Mhm?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: UM, it's also man. I think it's even earlier, if I'm remembering correctly, that we learned that boogie Man, the big, UM, rat guy, is the single white character on the team. And the members of the Blood Syndicate feel kind of betrayed because he hadn't revealed he never presented outside of his rat form and they thought he was like posing or something.
Guido: Wow. Yeah, there is such cool stuff in this title.
Rob: And it's fun too, because in this whole event they're a little off to the side. UM, aquaria has a huge role in kind of helping save the day. The team doesn't play a big part. Which is then kind of fun that it actually saves this amazing issue for so late in the run where it can kind of put it in there and kind of almost as, UM not quite non sequitur, but kind of just totally throw things up. Because the icon and the Superboy and the Rocket stories and all that. superman. Are much more kind of driving the plot forward. So it's kind of great kind of going back to what you were saying geeto, about the pacing. What's so great is even though this doesn't necessarily affect the overall plot as much as some of the other issues, it just makes the pace so much more bearable because it just is something new and fresh.
Guido: Yeah. Well, before we get ready to leave this alternate universe, I have to point out that there's also a ton of amalgam stuff going on in this universe because you have the one moment when Icon and superman are pushed together and become that character which it's only on one panel. And my gosh, I immediately knew ethan is going to need that in a Marvel legends figure.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes.
Guido: UM.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Or more likely if mattel, uh, ever did DC again. Since these are DC and DC adjacent characters, I would need, uh.
Guido: DC, uh.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Universe classics of it.
Guido: Oh my gosh, it would be great because it's a really cool look. And then the characters of static, Superboy, and Rocket, they don't become amalgamated, but they all become transformed into like the, uh, 1950s sci-fi heroes, like original very legion of superheroes. They then of course are looking at the board to find where all the legionnaires are and you get all sorts of characters that are made up for this. Like fabulous Boy fanboy, rocket gal, fat boy, kodak, kid, doe boy, frat boy.
Rob: And a couple of characters we got to meet earlier on, fabulous Boy, who's just like a superman, and the amazingly named supernate fighter we do get to see in action.
Guido: So it's a fun way of, uh, exploring the alternate universe part of this story when riff does actually squeeze Dakota and metropolis together and you end up with these characters that are not just combinations of each other, but also just different versions of what we know. So I love that aspect of this story too, for sure.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And static lad is perfect because, you know, you already got Lightning lad, so you kind of put him in Lightning Lads costume.
Guido: Yeah, yeah. It's really clever stuff. And that's in the static issue, I mean, it just shows again, the humor was not only in that blood syndicate issue. Like there's good humor and fun in a lot of this event, which is what makes it, I think, a really awesome event, I think, for sure event that people should read. And again, I think it's a proto marvel versus DC. Without a doubt. And a proto Amalgam without a doubt.
Rob: Yeah. I said to gito I wasn't necessarily planning on reading each issue as in depth as I wound up reading, which I wound up just like actually going back and rereading pages and stuff like that. I was thinking, my gosh, 14 books to read. This is going to be a lot. Some of this isn't going to have much to do with the plot. And I was completely wrong. I completely went in and fully digested everything that was there and went back and reevaluated some of the stuff I had already read. So that's the power of this event.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Mhm.
Guido: So let's jump to our final segment because we can analyze the event a little bit more in that context.
Rob: Yeah. So I know the two of you are just figuring some of my imagination that I just have completely made up. But let's all have a collective dream of pondering the possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted?
Guido: I thought your segway was going to use the word collide. I mean, come on.
Rob: I was trying to get into my Fredness, uh, dogito after 14 issues and all of our origin issues as well. We're not talking about more issues. So, uh, what are we talking about? We're not pondering bosses.
Guido: We're not and we could have, but we're going to save them for other episodes. So here's what we're going to do. We'll talk for a brief moment, and ethan, please correct me on anything, but we'll talk a little bit about where milestone went after this and this story's position in all of that. And then we can just speculate a little, talk about what we want, talk about if we want to revisit this world. UM, so Milestone, of course, in 1997, shuts down the comics. So it's actually not long after this. I mean, three years, I guess, is a good amount of time. And they disappear for some time. You get milestone forever in 2010 in DC Comics. And static. static? Is that what year is?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Static?
Rob: Shock.
Guido: Do you remember?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: I believe it's 2000, approximately. I believe it.
Guido: Okay. So you do start to see static show up in the DC Universe, but he's the only character, and it's not in comics, so the comics don't show up until 2010. You get milestone forever. And you have dwayne mcduffie writing in dla, a sort of Worlds Collide sequel, but not totally, because at this point, the DC Universe has been rebooted. So we will deal with that story on a future episode, without a doubt. But it's not a proper sequel or follow up to this story at all. It is the Dakota verse characters, though, showing up in the DC Universe briefly. But, of course, the DC Universe is rebooted again after that. And that's what brings us to today. We're starting in 2020. We have what's now known as Earth M M. So it's the first formal Earth designation in the DC Universe that the milestone characters all inhabit. We have not yet seen an Earth M M cross over with the prime Earth of DC. So I have a feeling that we will at some point. This season of the milestone returns. We're now getting icon versus hardware. Just came out a few weeks ago, which is very cool. So I have a feeling we'll get maybe a worlds collide again one day, but that's pretty much it. UM, there's been a long and development animated movie that they talk about, actually, in milestone generations.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: It's, uh, probably now a tax write off, bank state tax.
Guido: So, sadly, Warner Discovery might have scrapped it. uh, which is a real shame because these characters all have so much potential disgust.
Rob: Yeah. Reading this, I kept thinking, why going back to what you said earlier, ethan, why aren't these characters on screen? uh, I get Blood syndicated, maybe the most expensive to do. They all got a bunch of different towers. But all these characters, I just seem so much just why aren't we seeing. Them. And kind of to what you were saying, ethan, we should see these characters sitting alongside of the preexisting, mostly white DC characters. They can exist together. And that way we also kind of get this great racial representation and different kind of storytelling. And these characters are so unique, even though they have similarities to pre existing characters, they are such a fresh new take on them as well.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: And they're original, which is a big, big thing.
Rob: Yes, I was going to say you don't have to deal with the continuity issues of going back to the 40s. You only have to go back to the 90s. You don't have to deal with, like, did Steve Trevor fight in World War One? And that's where he met Wonder Woman. No, let's just kind of revamp these characters for now.
Guido: But what's fascinating, and it comes up a little in Milestone generations, is DC doesn't own these characters as far as we know. So, uh, I don't think anyone knows, as is true in Hollywood generally, you don't know exactly what the deal is and the contract. Obviously DC has the rights to reprint and publish the old issues. They obviously have the rights to print the new issues about these characters. But Milestone Media still exists as a company and Milestone Media likely still owns these characters. So whatever the deal is, perhaps that's part of why we don't see them to the extent that we would if DC owned them outright. Which I'm, um, frankly glad DC doesn't own them outright because I think that the people involved at Milestone do amazing things with these characters and then they do amazing things with that Milestone program that DC is a huge part of in terms of building a pipeline of more creators of color and more diverse creators coming through. So I'm glad Milestone exists, but perhaps that's part of why you don't see an icon and rocket movie in development right now, as far as we know.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Mhm and you mentioned, um, that you wonder if the world's collide is going to merge again into the main dcu. I think we are going to get a worlds collide. But the next issue that's coming out in a couple of weeks this week, whenever, um, they're doing a crossover of modern hard reboot earth M and the 1993, um, counterparts.
Guido: Oh, get out. Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, I didn't see that solicited. I can't wait to pick that up. That's fine.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: I'm very excited. It's either a variant cover or the main cover, but they are homaging the flash of two worlds. And you have modern static and 90s static.
Guido: Wow. Very cool. I can't wait for that. um, well, the other thing before we wrap up, ethan, part of what prompted this episode is that the day this episode is releasing would have been, sadly, dwayne mcduffie's 61st birthday. So, uh, february 20 is dwayne mcduffie's birthday. He died tragically young at 49 back in 2011. But he, for all of this is a total legend. But he's created other things. Damage control. He created who we are seeing a lot in the mcu. So over at Marvel, he created them. He wrote for Justice League and he wrote for all of the DC animated shows for some time. And so really did extraordinary things. And by all accounts was an extraordinary person to work with and a real visionary in the work that he did. So happy birthday and uh, a sad loss.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Exactly. And he also wrote a what if for volume, uh, two. What if the Fantastic Four had fought Dr. doom before getting their powers?
Guido: Gosh, I did not remember that was he wrote that. So yeah, we'll have to cover that at some point.
Rob: I like to think that obviously Earth M is for milestone, but I would imagine they all also consider it M for him.
Guido: And we know naomi mcduffie. The character of naomi, created by Ryan Michael bendis and starring in the ava duvernay Show was named for dwayne mcduffie. So yeah, lots of tributes to him, I think, throughout because of the impact that he had and the potential impact he could have had, had he not died young.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Absolutely.
Guido: At least we have this world to still walk into. And I can't wait to see where it goes.
Rob: Yeah, mhm.
Guido: So, any closing thoughts?
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Uh, just that another idea that's been kicking around in my head about worlds collide is if we ever got another world's collide. Dakota Verse and this would sell really well because it's Batman instead of superman steel icon and characters like that. Batman and cobalt because uh, cobalt and some of his characters, uh, are very Batman pastiche to his, uh, sidekick page. He's got a character who's kind of, um, catwoman meets huntress named clover. There's a red, hood like character called Harvest. There's a lot that could be done to basically do the world's collide concept again, but make it Batman. And again, Batman is like the most popular superhero. So I don't know why they didn't do world collide too, in like 1995.
Guido: But with Batman, cobalt, maybe we'll see it what this year's story was 94. So next year would be the, the uh, 30th anniversary. So maybe next year for the thirtyTH anniversary, we'll get our World's collide sequel. And hey, I'm going to, I'm going to request, there's been, you know, for years people have been waiting for the Marvel DC rematch. So I'm going to request that maybe to dip their toe in the water, we get a blood syndicate x Men cross over her. I don't think it's going to happen, but my gosh, uh, they both live on islands.
Rob: Paris island.
Guido: Paris island. They do now live on the islands. That's a great point. All right, well, this extra long episode for an extra long crossover is a wrap to your watchers. Thank you for listening. I uh, am keto and I am.
Rob: Rob, and thank you, ethan, for joining us and also for suggesting this episode. It was amazing to read. And please let everyone know where they can find you online.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Well, you can primarily still find me on, uh, Make Mine amalgam, um, uh, until it's destroyed by lex luthor or whatever it is. I've dabbled in other social medias, but my golly, Twitter is just the one and only for me, really. So at Nick, Mine amalgam, uh, follow me for all your action figure enthusiasm, especially as I dabble, uh, into. Well, not even dabble. I've got like, 30 plus characters now. It's just with the fodder verse where the big thing really is. Like, I'm just piecing them together. Hey, look at this. And then I still have characters that need more story. uh, I joked just recently, I've got a character that I've named, uh, petshop Boy, after the band of the Pet Shop Boys, but his power is he can communicate with animals and he's got okay, so I got a squirrel that came with my squirrel girl figure, and I've got a crow. Well, a raven, but I'm using it as a crow so I can do another music, uh, pun. Her, uh, name is cheryl. um.
Guido: Oh, my gosh.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: The thing I said was, uh, I have more character development for a freaking squirrel that I do, like, five of my human characters.
Guido: So, yeah, go follow ethan on Twitter and you can contribute to, uh, the backstory for some of these great characters, and then one day, we'll be covering them in an episode.
Ethan of MakeMineAmalgam: Yes, please.
Guido: So the reading list for this episode is in the show notes. You can follow us on social media at dear watchers and leave a review.
Rob: Wherever you listen to podcasts and send it to us and we'll send you a stick speaker. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.
Guido: In the meantime, in the words of uatu, keep pondering the possibilities.