Dear Watchers: an omniversal comic book podcast

Rob: Welcome to the totally safe, completely not haunted Camp Crystal Lake, aka Deer Watchers, an omniversal comic book podcast where we do a deep dive into the multiverse.
Guido: We are traveling with you to the Camp Crystal Lake Research Facility, to the Camp Crystal Lake Gene lab, and through the stories and the worlds that make up an omniverse of fictional realities we all love. And your watchers on this journey are me Guido X. That was an easy one.
Rob: Me Uber. Rob.
Guido: Of course. I should have picked the Uber. I forgot, though. They are one and the same.
Rob: Yes. True synonyms. And before we take our dive into the crystal clear waters of Crystal Lake that's a lot of crystal. Keto, what's new in our little section of the.
Guido: That? What's that Jason? Oh, okay. So Jason wanted me to tell everyone, go back and listen to the last episode, if you didn't already, because we do our first conversation about Jason Voorhees in our Jason Verse leather Face coverage last episode. And it actually does give a great deal of background on Jason, which will help with today's episode if you're not too familiar. And we decided to stay in the world of Friday the 13th, which was weird. But happy Halloween.
Rob: Yes, because this is coming out if you're listening to it when it comes out, the day before Halloween, indeed. And if you're not listening to it on that day, I'm a firm believer halloween can be any day of the year. So it's true. Evergreen concert.
Guido: That is Kate Pearson of the B 52s latest single, Halloween and Happy Halloween. Keep sending us pictures. After last episode, a few people tagged us online with pictures of their family in hockey masks or different cosplay they've seen related to the things we've talked about, so keep sending it. And one quick side note. We have our first print ad on its way out in a really great British magazine that I've been a fan of for a few years, since I discovered it called ComicScene. That's comics cene, and you can check out comicscene.org to order some of those issues. So the digital issue of their 2024 Big Year book issue that's coming out is there we are, the back cover ad. And it was really fun to do that. I wanted to do it really to support them and support their crowdfunding campaign. The print issue, I think, is supposed to be out in a few weeks, but it's just cool that that exists. And it's a good reminder if you aren't familiar with that magazine. They've done some issues dedicated to different eras of comics and mostly British comics, but they'll have good articles. Like, this one has a good article about Wonder Woman in it. So check out Comic Scene, and you'll see a, uh, familiar ad on the back page.
Rob: Is there like a Charles Atlas ad in there, too? Or X ray specs. Any of the classics that we can be right next.
Guido: No, it's all not. No.
Rob: Well, if you are joining us for the first time, we have three parts of our journey through the multiverse today. Origins of the story, exploring multiversity, and pondering possibilities. So thank you for taking this trip through the dark and scary woods with us.
Guido: And remember, you can leave a five star review wherever you're listening to us and even on the other platforms such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify. And find us on all social media. Send us those Halloween pictures. Tell us what your favorite horror movie comic book crossover is at Dear Watchers.
Rob: And with that Dear Watchers, mother wants me to make sure that you know. Welcome to episode 119. And let's check out what's happening in the Omniverse with our travels to today's alternate universe. Kill.
Guido: By the way, that is the video game sound effect for those wondering.
Rob: Ah. And of course, the composers always says it's Kiki Ma for Kill from Mother. But no one ever hears that it's.
Guido: Clearly M. Although that is the name of the video game track. Uh, Kiki ki Mama, which also sounds like a drag queen track.
Rob: It does. Kiki Ma. Well, today we are taking a rocket past Mars while also jumping the shark to find out the answer.
Guido: The shark is well jumped in that exploded.
Rob: And we are answering the question, what if the original Jason from Friday the 13th faced off against uber Jason from Jason X in Space?
Guido: The question everyone's been wondering. And this is yet another unknown world. It is a world that exists in three different comics and two different comic book series. So that's shocking that this world existed.
Rob: And a film too.
Guido: It is all strung together. I guess it's kind of canonical to the film. I, uh, think the filmmaker would have to confirm that. So we're going to call it a variant sequel on the film, sort of. Uh, but it does pick up right after and we'll explain all of that soon. I don't have a catchy name for this. Earth, I guess. Uh, Earth. Facing off against yourself with your dead mother in your head, I don't know. And then topless scientists.
Rob: I do my best thinking without a shirt on.
Guido: Oh, that's awful to laugh at because it's just awful in everything we looked at today. But tell us a background on the film we watched because this was a cross media spectacular. So tell us some background on that, please.
Rob: So Paramount had released Friday the 13th movies every Friday the 13th movie, going back to the first one in 1980. Series creator Sean S. Cunningham. He really wanted this was his goal in life, was to create a Freddie versus Jason movie. But New Line controlled the rights to Freddie. They're even known as the house that Freddie built. So Paramount actually sold the rights to Jason to New Line, but they actually kept the Friday the 13th name, which is still causing issues today in the future of this franchise.
Guido: And I wonder what we also watch. We're not going to talk about this at all, but we watched the Friday the 13th TV show, which has absolutely nothing to do with Friday the 13th except uses the name. But that was obviously lots of name rights, weird things that have totally yeah.
Rob: That was all still back in the Paramount days. But Freddie versus Jason did not take off. So Cunningham and New line made Jason Goes to Hell the final Friday, and that even ends with Jason's Mask being sucked into the underworld by Freddy's Glove. But Freddie versus Jason remained in development.
Guido: Hell along with Jason's mask.
Rob: Yes.
Guido: And where everything that we watched and read today belongs.
Rob: Well, Sean worried that people were forgetting Jason or the rights were going to revert back to Paramount, who knows? But Cunningham decided to make another Jason movie while Freddie versus Jason was coming together, and that was Jason X. And they even said it in the future of 2010 to not mess with the Freddie versus Jason continuity. Not that these are series, people are very concerned with the continuity of that.
Guido: It was an interesting choice, though, you and I, when watching it, were discussing what the purpose of it was. And it does feel like it was meant to hold a prime canon, which is really an interesting choice for such an absurd premise. But it was, uh, constructed so that it could almost be like the final chapter after the chapters that we hadn't yet seen.
Rob: Mhm totally. Yeah. And there was this nine year gap between Jason X and Jason Goes to Hell. That's the longest gap in Friday the 13th history until now. And in terms of some of the outer space stuff, fancoya Magazine had once asked John Carpenter what would it take him to return to the Halloween franchise, and he said, maybe joking, that he would have to take Michael Myers to space.
Guido: Uh, what year was that interview? Because I wonder if that is like what inspired some of these weird franchises ending up in outer space.
Rob: That's what people seem to believe. It was in the late eighty s or early ninety s. And having just seen John at New York Comic Con, this is the kind of answer I think he would give to a lot of these things. Because then we got Leprechaun in space, we got Pinhead in space, and now we got Jason in space. They all ended up in space. And the writer, Tod Farmer of this film really intended to be a much more serious, straightforward, alien aliens kind of movie. But a rewriter was brought in to add a lot of jokes kind of off the screen.
Guido: I don't know if I'd call them.
Rob: Jokes, but a lightness, maybe. And the film was actually held for two years before it was actually released. And when it was released, it was released six months earlier in Spain than it was in the US. So then a lot of people in the US. Started to get, like, illegal copies of it anyway to be able to see it. Very weird. I don't know why they did that, but it was budgeted at 14 million. It only made 17 million. But done one year later, Freddie versus Jason finally came out. And that was a huge monster pun intended hit that made like four times its budget.
Guido: And that should have then wiped Jason X from existence and made everyone forget it happened, except there were comics. And they are here to remind us forever. Yes.
Rob: What about these comics? Because we talked a lot about the Friday the 13th comics in our last episode, but what else can you tell us about this run in particular?
Guido: Well, last episode, we did some of the earlier comics from the this is later. So the license at this point in 2005, has been picked up by Avatar. Avatar is known for their gritty, adult, violent, bloody, nude comics. They've published a lot of Alan Moore, Garth Ennis, Warren Ellis over the years. So they, with this license, start doing some one shots and miniseries, all either by writers Brian Polito or Mike Wolfer.
Rob: Yeah, I think it's crazy that all of them are by two people, sometimes together, sometimes separately. So that's just wild that it was like, you two guys, you do all of these comics.
Guido: Yeah, maybe they wanted it or I don't know. But after Jason versus Jason X, which we read today, avatar did just one final Friday the 13th book by the same author. That was a follow up to his previous miniseries. So all of these, they kind of have subtitles and they're all like sequels or prequels. It's strange. None of them are just sort of a straightforward ongoing until the license transfers to Wildstorm, when it does become an ongoing. But this is wildstorm in the early days of the DC acquisition, which is funny. So DC has published Friday the 13th comics via Wildstorm, but we will save those for another day. And as we mentioned last episode, avatar, along with Friday the 13th, had licenses for Nightmare on Elm Street, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Night of the Living Dead, uh, so they were leaning into the horror adaptations. And one quick quote from Mike Wolfer, the writer of today's. Two of today's three comics we read when Avatar pressed obtained the licensing rights in 2005, I was asked if I'd like to work on one of the titles, and if so, which one. I was always a huge fan of Friday the 13th, so naturally I jumped at it. I was originally the artist on the series, working from scripts by Brian Polito, but I eventually assumed the writing with Jason versus Jason X and Friday the 13th, the fear book.
Rob: Is that common for an artist to jump to writing like that?
Guido: I don't know if it's not, it's not unheard of. There are people who switch back and not it's not common, certainly, but it is not, uh, completely unique. So that is the background on the comics. And we'll get into what we read and why we read it in our second segment today.
Rob: Well, what is your background, guido on Jason X, aka Jason Ten. But Jason X is more fun.
Guido: Yeah, I knew nothing about it. I knew it existed. I knew it involved space. And I knew because they sort of and you mentioned that they were supposed to sort of not spoil Uber Jason, but they put him on the poster and all the marketing so I could picture Uber Jason. I knew, like the silver, very 90s, mhm looking, uh, mask, kind of supervillain mask, if you will. So I knew the look. I knew it was space, and I knew nothing else. I've never seen it and I will never see it again. That's a preview of what I think, if my opinion has not been more and more clear. Doing this episode, I had a lot of sympathy for our friends Mike and Jessica at Tencent takes because I was thinking, gosh, they encounter stuff that is just not good all the time. And while I try to be positive, it's going to be really hard on this episode because I did not like this subject matter. What was your background as a Friday fan with Jason X?
Rob: Yeah. So as we mentioned on, uh, the last episode, friday the 13th is my favorite horror franchise. And 2002, I would have been in high school. I would have been the perfect audience to see this movie. But I didn't see it. And I was seeing so many movies.
Guido: In the theater, had a terrible distribution, especially with the box office. You said, I bet it was either in very few theaters or they put it in and pulled it out within like a week.
Rob: Yeah, it came out a week or two before the first Spider Man movie, which probably gobbled up everything. I don't remember the first time I saw this movie. A friend of mine who's a drag queen used to do Friday the 13th movies every year at a bar in New York City. And I probably saw it there. And then I've seen it like, one other time. This was probably like my third time seeing it. But it's yeah. Well, we'll get into backgrounds on it. Yes.
Guido: Before we get further. Well, I guess we could talk about this with movie, but I'll ask you now anyway, because I started is, uh, it ever referred to again in movie form?
Rob: No, because we only had Freddy versus Jason after this, which takes place before this movie. And then we had the Reboot movie, which I kind of like a someone.
Guido: So if someone wanted to go into the full prime canon of the original Jason series, which they're not going to do. But if someone wanted to, this is technically the end point. This is the end of the sacred timeline.
Rob: Yes. I guess so. Yeah. And what's weird, too, is then, uh, I guess, you know, that Jason would have survived in one way or another. Freddie versus Jason as well, because he's now in this movie, right?
Guido: Cryogenically.
Rob: Yeah. Even before that. Yeah. When he's just kept well, we'll get into it. So let's rescue our drowned small, deformed child and create a franchise with origins of the story.
Guido: Right now on this very show, you're.
Rob: Going to get the answer to all your questions. Our amazing story begins a few years ago. So first up is the film Jason X from April 2002, from Crystal Lake Entertainment Friday, x Productions and New Line Cinema. It's.
Guido: Directed by Jim Isaac produced by Noel Cunningham written by Tod Farmer It stars Kane Hodder as Jason. He's the most well known. And I think you said this is his final outing as Jason.
Rob: It is, until he came back to do the video game pretty recently. Yeah.
Guido: I'm not even going to name the rest of the cast because they probably want to remain anonymous. The director, Jim Isaac, worked on the special effects and second unit for David Cronenberg and Sean S. Cunningham and did work on Return of the Jedi and Gremlins. In the past, he would go on to do the remake of My Bloody Valentine and drive angry well, that's the.
Rob: Screenwriter would go on to write those other movies.
Guido: The screenwriter and the producer of this is the son of the series creator, and this is the only film he's produced. So we can assume he's a nepo baby. Uh, for sure. So can you summarize this movie?
Rob: Okay. It's 2010, and Crystal Lake is now a research facility that has captured Jason Voorhees. Jason, of course, escapes, and the scientist question mark Rowan LaFontaine managed to cryo freeze Jason, but not before he stabs her, causing her to freeze. Also cut to 143 years later, the Earth is no longer inhabitable, and a research team brings both Jason and Rowan aboard their ship. They unfreeze and heal Rowan, but Jason unfreezes as well and goes on a killing spree. When the female android Km 14 blows up Jason, the ship system heals him, turning him into a cyborg mhm into a cyborg uber Jason. But the credited yes, not us, but ultimately the revamped Jason is defeated and sent hurtling back into a lake. On the new.
Guido: Mean, I'll say the summary makes it sound a lot more fun than it is, and I'm sorry to people who like it. More power to you. I'm glad you like it. I hated this movie. I hated it.
Rob: Yeah, I read the Scarecrow Movie Guide review of it beforehand because it had been a few years since I had seen it and they compared it to Bride of Chucky, which I love, in that they were like, oh, it's like taking the tropes of a Friday the 13th movie, but making it very knowing and having fun with it. And I thought, oh, this is going to be fun, then I don't really think that's what this movie is. What do you think?
Guido: I firmly believe and you have tried to find information and seem to think this can't be true, but I think there is just no way this wasn't a script for something else that they then just made a Jason script. Because the movie is just your generic alien inspired Sci-Fi movie where the threat is suddenly the threat is picked up by a spacecraft, put on the ship, wakes up and starts killing. I mean, it's so generic. And then there's really the glimpse of originality comes in at the end when you get into some sort of, like hologram situation, mhm and you're making him think that he's actually back at Camp Crystal Lake and you're like, oh, okay, they could have played with this. But I'm sure the budget was a huge part of it. Because I have to say, as a fan of things like Babylon Five and a fan of 90s cheese and low budget Sci-Fi, this was so bad. I actually think the production design on this might have been worse than something like Andromeda or Cleopatra 25 25, or any of those shows. I mean, because maybe it's because I knew I was watching a movie, but it just looked so bad that because it was generic and looked bad, it just really did nothing for me.
Rob: Yeah. And you mentioned andromeda and this shares a few cast members with that, including our main final girl, Alexa Doying, who was on Andromeda final girl, the cyborg.
Guido: No, because the robot's ahead for part of the movie.
Rob: Yeah, but she was on Andromeda as well. So there was a lot of Andromeda actors and people who were on the various Stargate series. This definitely has that shot in Canada feel. And you were saying the budget, they were actually considering a few different things to do with Jason. One was put him in like a submarine, which would make sense, I guess, like have an underwater story. Some were in snow, but that was deemed I think it was going to be much more expensive to shoot in snow than it would be to shoot in fake outer space. One of the stories was DAV, actually Jason tormenting the NASCAR circuit. I don't know why, but that was one of the ideas that was thrown out there. Crossover. But yeah. Well, Tod Farmer, the screenwriter, said that he intended this to be like a pretty serious movie that got kind of rewritten. So I don't know if it was really intended to be something else, but it has a lot of debt to the alien and aliens. And even the character of Todd Farmer, he's in the movie, the character he plays is named Dallas, which is Tom scarrett's name in the first alien movie, but it's got so much especially the whole plot is kind of the aliens in terms of her waking up in the future and the alien is still there. That's all just directly ripped off android.
Guido: And all of it.
Rob: The android, totally. Yeah, it's very similar.
Guido: I think the only thing they did to make it Friday the 13th ish was include the sort of teenage, although they're not teenagers, but like the young, horny people sexuality aspect of it. And when people have sex, they get killed. And there was even a scene where I said to you, is it almost as if the sexual energy is like bringing him back to life? Because they intercut his resurrection with all these different people having sex. Uh, and I think it's one of the most 90s, just awfully done, sophomoric, terrible humor, misogynist stuff ever. It's not even entertaining or enjoyable or there's nothing interesting about the sexuality that it adds. I think I both laughed hysterically at the end when he goes to the camp and the girls are just in their underwear, and then he kills them with the sleeping bag, which in a previous movie, which is the only interesting moments that uses the Friday the 13th lore. But in terms of, uh, the depiction of women's bodies, it's ridiculous. There's the scientist outfit, which is like, uh, just a crop top shirt with your bare shoulders, which makes no sense.
Rob: Yeah. To trick him. Late in the movie, they create a hologram, and it's two young women and they're like, oh, we're smoking pot and having premarital sex. And then they take their tops off. And that's funny because it's actually commenting on the series. And when you see the nudity there, it's like, oh, okay, that's part of the joke. The rest of the movie, it's like, oh, these are supposed to be students who are in a very serious scientific mission.
Guido: Why are they just never goes that far? No, I don't like exploitation movies, but was, uh, this rated R? If it was rated, it was rated.
Rob: R. But there was very OD R.
Guido: Because there's very little in it. I guess there are women's nipples. I don't remember if there's a lot of cursing, but it's an OD R. I mean, this movie reminds me more of something like the faculty or something. Uh, it sort of is flirting. It's like skirting sexuality. And part of that is probably just because it's so either so poorly executed or just so horrendous, uh, that it doesn't feel real to me. So it feels super PG 13.
Rob: I was listening to the Halloweenies podcast, what they had to say about this movie, and they said it was basically like if Maxim produced a film, which is true, because there's like, a little bit of toplessness. But for the most part, as you're saying, there's not a lot of actual sex. Like, you go back and watch some of the earlier movies. And the violence too. There's one of the best kills in any Friday the 13th movie, which is where one of our sexy scientists, her head is frozen in um, dry ice or whatever it is, and frozen there. And then he takes her head out and smashes it and her head explodes. And it's all practical effect. It's really cool. And that's pretty early. She's the first one killed on the ship, but then all the other ones are just machete killed. And most of the ah, time he's kind of cutting away from it even.
Guido: Well, that's the thing. I guess it was budgetary. But that's why I was questioning the R, because there's not a lot of gore in this movie either. But I guess it was, I'm sure, budget. Uh, so I guess before we move away from this, is there anything you find interesting about Jason being in space, uh, even outside of this movie? What about just the concept? Uh, do you think the concept has potential or do you think the concept is ridiculous? Like, as a fan of the series, what do you think of the concept?
Rob: I think it could have worked if they had actually played with more space elements. But, uh, there is nothing they don't really yeah, there's no moment where they release yeah, they don't release the gravity. They turn off the gravity. Uh, artificial gravity, for example. Like, what if they were all floating around? And that would be interesting. There's a little bit of Jason actually outside the ship, but it's like super quick. That would be interesting too. So there's the things they could have done. I don't think it's an inherently bad concept, but yeah, it just seemed underutilized. It could have been anywhere else. But my favorite thing is David Cronenberg does have a cameo in the early part of the movie and does get stabbed by like, a giant piece of machinery. So that is quite fun. Now let's talk about Jason X in the comics. With Exploring Multiversity.
Guido: I am your guide through these vast new realities. Follow me and ponder the question, what if?
Rob: And today we are asking the question, what if the original Jason from Friday the 13th faced off against uber Jason from Jason X in Space? This is Jason X special from December 2005 from Avatar Press. And Friday the 13th Jason versus Jason X from March 2006 and June 2006 from Avatar Press. Issues one and two.
Guido: So the Jason X special is written by Brian Felido. Pencils and inks by Sebastian Fumara. Color by Mark Sweeney. Potentially no letters or editors known. They're not credited. And we didn't dig around too much, but not credited. Perhaps some of the other team also did those things and just it wasn't listed. And the same is true, actually, for the Jason versus Jason X titles. These, though, are written and drawn by Mike Wolfer with color by Andrew Dahlhouse and letters and editor are unknown. So that first comic picks up exactly at the end of the movie with Uber Jason landing on this other Earth, we find out that another scientist wearing her scientist outfit named Chrissy was tracking the events that we'd seen in the movie, had planned to capture Jason to use his regenerating genetic material to save her husband. But the ghost of Pamela Voorhees is in the machines and the nanobytes and takes over in Jason's brain and helps Chrissy and kill Chrissy and her husband, via Jason, of course. And Uber Jason arrives on a new ship, which is a big place called the Fun Club, with lots of naked women, lots of naked women, scantily clad.
Rob: Men and naked women.
Guido: And so then, obviously, this was written as sort of a, uh, bridge to get from the movie to the core series, jason versus Jason X. So in this two issue series, picking up right from the special, uber Jason is running amok on the Fun Club. A group of scavengers raid the Grendel, the ship from Jason X. The film, unaware that the original Jason, using the severed head from the movie and the nanobytes and the bodies of his victims, has pieced himself back together. And so we've got original Jason now it's a little confusing. Original Jason now killing this crew, except for one member who escapes to the Fun Club with now Jason on her heels. And there Jason and Uber Jason meet each other. They battle it out. Uber Jason, of course, has Pamela Voorzees in her head, in his head. It's not clear if the other Jason can also hear her. They sort of mind meld at times. Their eyes like lock, and they have lightning bolts going across them. Really unclear what is happening, but this person who escaped melba and another android, of course, in the same android outfit, escape uber Jason, defeats the original Jason after a lengthy battle, pulls out his brain and inserts it in his own head. So that the voice of Pamela he's been hearing. And the memories of Jason are finally united together in his head. And the comic ends. I can't believe these are the words coming out of my mouth. Whoa. It's a weird one. It's a weird one. I don't know where to start. You start. What did you did you enjoy it?
Rob: Uh, here's what I enjoyed. I enjoyed in the first comic, the Brian Polito comic, I liked, uh, the actual device that Chrissy the scientist. So her husband's dying. She wants to capture Jason because he's always regenerating his tissue, and they're going to use that tissue's sample to save her husband. I thought that was actually like an.
Guido: Interesting and that's in the movie, too. There's one line, I can't remember where it is, but if it's in the opening sequence when they have him captive, or if it's later, but they talk about that they were trying to harvest his tissue. Because he had these healing powers.
Rob: Yeah. And in the movie, the kind of crooked professor is going to sell the body off for experimentation and military warfare. So maybe it's coming in there too. But I thought that was an interesting I was like, oh, that's a really interesting concept to, uh, kind of making Jason into a and I think some of the other comics dealt with this, actually make him into a military figure, or to use his tissue to actually improve Earth and have that be the catalyst. So I thought that was really well done. Uh, now everything around it might not have been as well done, but that core concept. I'm on board.
Guido: So if you can separate out what Avatar Press is doing, which is borderline softcore porn, the comics version of softcore porn, which is a lot of nude women and ridiculous, uh, poses, ridiculous outfits, and then the violence primarily hits the women. There's a few men who get disemboweled or severed in half separating all that, I'd say. The other thing that happens with the art in here is it's confusing m, and I don't know if it was rushed. I don't know if it's just not the strongest execution. Maybe the artists just didn't have a sense of how to do panel breakdowns. Maybe the page count changed midway. I don't know what the reason is, but the art is just confusing. You at one point, thought you were reading the pages out of order because we were reading it digitally. But it's just that it jumps around and it's not clear what's happening when. And that makes then even like the final battle scene, which should be really interesting, makes it slightly confusing. I'm sort of like, okay, who's winning now? And it's like original Jason seems to have the upper hand at one point. Then Jason X just suddenly comes and chops his head off. And I'm like, I can't follow the battle. So the art and the breakdowns themselves took away from the comic, which I wouldn't have enjoyed anyway, but they didn't help, certainly.
Rob: Yeah. Uh, one thing I'll say, though, is that we talked about for the last episode, Jason versus Leatherface, that like most comics, it's not really a versus like there's a couple of pages of a fight. Most of them is them getting along. And it's the same thing with Superman versus Spider Man and everything. I will say the second issue of Jason versus Jason X is just one giant fight. Like they're just fighting the entire time.
Guido: Well, and that's what I didn't know. When they do their mind meld thing with their eyes, I actually wondered if it was going to be like a Jason versus Leatherface thing, if they were going to suddenly unite. But no, they stayed antagonists. The way they united was via, um, um, a literal mind meld, I guess, brain mush.
Rob: And I liked the introduction, although it didn't quite make sense. I don't know really how she was there. I liked including Pamela Voorhees because I always liked that aspect of the series. And I like Pamela as a character and bringing her back in. And I believe they wanted to use her in the movie, but then they couldn't get Betsy Palmer, who originated her. So obviously in the comics, just like her voice. So that works. But I don't quite know how she was in the machines or I guess she was like I guess she was.
Guido: Embedded in, uh, the biological matter of Jason.
Rob: Who knows?
Guido: Who knows? It's also ridiculous. Everything about it is ridiculous. I guess if you're coming to this comic for the same thing, well, here's what I'll say. It is remarkably follows suit of the movie. Jason X, m in tone, in messiness, in sexuality, uh, in exploitation. It really felt similar. So that's a plus for it. If you liked Jason X or you want more X, like, this comic is so similar, it's a little confusing. There's lots of random female nudity or, uh, skimpy clothing. And then Jason just terrorizes. Sometimes good, sometimes mediocre kills. But it's what you're there for.
Rob: Yeah. And there was actually a lot of attention to detail. Like you said, you were actually confused at first if the scientists were the same person or the android because they're wearing the same clothes. So it's like, oh, that is like a scientist outfit. That is like what the androids wear. And then I noticed that when the original Jason is reconstituted, he's using the futuristic machete from Jason X the movie. And that's because the original machete has been transformed into uber Jason's weapon. So original Jason is now stuck with the, uh this is a lot of words. Original Jason is stuck with the futuristic machete. So that's like just a weird little detail of like, oh, they actually took that into account. And all that really point is coming from the movie carefully.
Guido: Yeah.
Rob: And mhm, there's a few other little Easter eggs there. Like, the other android who we meet is named Alice, which is the name of the final girl in the original Friday the 13th movie. And they even have a line of like, that's such an old fashioned name.
Guido: They do. I know, because they all have weird names like Melba and Chris.
Rob: Well, one is like, Chrissy that's not melba is not even that weird.
Guido: The one man that gets killed, his name. I remember thinking like, oh, someone was imagining that in the year 24, whatever, that's what a person's name is going to be.
Rob: Mhm, now, also, going back to what you were saying about the other movie, don't you think it would actually been more interesting if it hadn't been like a research facility, but it had been like the fun club where the movie was actually set, put it maybe in some kind of weird pleasure ship or something like that.
Guido: At least it also would have made it less alien, less like a direct copy.
Rob: Totally.
Guido: In a good way. But I'm sure it was budgetary. Uh, obviously in the comic, they could go further. Do you want to go back to this world on screen or on page? Like, do you want more Jason versus.
Rob: Think? I think because I'm old fashioned, I like the original Jason design. I don't love the Uber Jason design, so I wouldn't want to see that be the look of Jason. Moving on for so aren't there other.
Guido: Jason's that use that? Um, what I don't like, I don't like the Jason and this is Uber, but I feel like there's others that do, where, um, he looks like the Toxic Avenger, like, pushing out past the mask. So there's like, all the kind of scarred, lumpy tissue, and it pushes out past the hockey mask. That's uber jason. But also, I feel like there's other Jason's that look like that, and I don't like that quite as much. I like the more realistic looking.
Rob: Yeah, I mean, starting with the 6th movie, he becomes a zombie. Before that, he is just a normal guy, so you don't see that. But then, yeah, he starts to get more and more Toxic Avenger like, as those movies go. And actually, Sean Cunningham always said he hated the hockey mask, and I'm wondering if that's almost one of the reasons for the redesign in Jason X, which was like, okay, let's not make it really look like a hockey mask. Let's just make it look like another very metallic, robot like mask.
Guido: Make it look like any Sci-Fi movie or TV show era 90. Um, s character mask. It's an interesting exercise in multiverse, if you will, in Mashup, which I think we'll talk about in just a moment. But as a just, it's interesting that instead of just a sequel, because clearly the sequel part of this Jason X special is meant to get you to Jason versus Jason X. So instead of just doing a sequel to Jason X, like, someone thought, OOH, what if we resurrect original Jason and have them fight off? So mhm, it's interesting because there wasn't in all of Avatar's publications, there wasn't anything else with Jason X. Right? This is it.
Rob: Yeah, this was it. It was those three. And maybe also it's coming not too long after Freddie versus Jason, that was maybe part of it as mean. So this was Jason versus Jason access three years later, but maybe they were still kind of, OOH, let's use the momentum from that, because that was such a huge hit after a long time of neither of those franchises having a hit. So maybe they were like, uh, the versus format. That's the way that we need to go.
Guido: Oh, that's true. That's true. Yeah. All right, well, let's talk about the verses format in our segment.
Rob: Move into our pondering possibilities. Will the future you describe be averted? Diverted. Diverted just so I feel smarter in, uh, this last segment. I'm going to take my top off. That was my favorite jokes, actually, in the Brian Polito comic, where they're actually like, oh, talking science. It makes me feel so sexy. That was kind of a knowing wink wink. But yeah, it was.
Guido: And then what's funny so this couple and these comics are so hard to find. So we shared a more detailed summary and I'll share this detailed scene because this couple start having sex because she gets turned on by science. And they're thinking they see Jason fall into the lake, the guy starts saying, like, E equals MC squared, like spitting out random science things. And then Jason kills them with a tree, like an entire tree. He just picks up a tree and smashes. That is that is a silly fun moment.
Rob: Yeah.
Guido: All right.
Rob: But anyway, uh, back to this segue. What are we talking about for our pondering possibilities?
Guido: So since there are no other Jason X comics and there is nowhere else to go with that character, thankfully, we are just going to ponder this setup of characters versus other versions of themselves. We've probably encountered it in some ways over our 118 other episodes, but this is definitely the most explicit where they are taking a, uh, character, finding a way. In this case, it's not time travel, it's not the multiverse. It's nanobyte regeneration, finding a way to pull that character back and having them fight another version of themselves. And so does this work? Should there be more of it? Is there less of it? And then eventually we'll share our dream person versus themselves. Matchup. But let's start just overall. What do you think of this kind of story?
Rob: I think it's a really fun setup. I don't think it really works well here, in part because Jason is such a, uh, non entity as a character. And also, why wouldn't Uber Jason just always kick regular Jason's butt? Because one of them is Uber. He's like the version in his name. Yeah, I don't know. So that just doesn't work. But if they were more fairly connected, like, the example I'm actually thinking is in army of Darkness and the Evil Dead movies, you often have like, an evil ash that's forming and that a lot more fun. And then you get like an actor like Bruce Campbell, who can then play the evil version also in the movie and gives that person a lot to do.
Guido: Well, what that does well is that's a completely different version of him to the point where the first few times he's on screen, you're even wondering, is that Bruce Campbell?
Rob: And it is.
Guido: And then you find out his origin story and then he was one of the little ones and blah, blah. So I think that's the key here. And in part because, well, for whatever reason, they had to amp up original Jason. So him and Uber Jason don't seem all that know exactly what they could have done. Maybe they should have turned uber Jason into some futuristic cyborg, like given him some arm machine gun or something. And then although then original Jason is just screwed. But still, they could have distanced the two characters.
Rob: But then could it have been like stuff that like water or something? Like he rusts or something that our electricity sorts him out? You should have leaned into the robot cyborg aspect of it.
Guido: Yeah, it's funny. I guess there are a lot of examples. There are a good number of classic examples, certainly in comics, of characters facing themselves, but it's not as common a trope as you'd think it would be. I'm trying to think of if there are countless examples and there really aren't.
Rob: The other one that just, I guess based on this, because he's also a Cyborg, is, uh, when is Superman right? Is Superman versus Cyborg Superman? And there's a bunch of if you.
Guido: Want to count that as mean, that's a it's a different person. He's a different person. So I don't know that that would count. That's more like just an evenly matched, similar power set type thing. But it's not a Superman from a different universe. And it's interesting because as multiversal as we know comics are, that's why our podcast exists. There hasn't been a great, uh there's been a few I mean, I guess Infinite Crisis actually does this. Interestingly, you take an alternate Earth version of that character, have it be the villain and play that out. But there hasn't been like a red sun Superman versus prime Earth Superman, like big battle world matchup. And it feels like there could be more of that. But like you're saying with the Jason's, it might just not blend itself, as we said, with army of Darkness. It might work when the two versions are so different, not they can't be too curious. I don't know if I like this story trope or not, because I don't think I've seen quite enough of it. One good fun one is actually Buffy has Willow and evil Willow.
Rob: Uh huh.
Guido: Yeah. So that's fun. That one, though, plays so much more with just an alternate version kind of trope. There's not as much the battle trope. So I don't know if I like the notion of the battle of the alternates so much.
Rob: We talked about back in our age of apocalypse that we'd love to see. Apocalypse versus apocalypse. Yeah.
Guido: And those are examples of things where I'm like that hasn't existed. Um, and that gets me. I'll tell you my dream matchup. I couldn't not choose two. I had to choose two and both I wanted to choose comic ones. I'm sure there are countless others, but one is the more sort of fun one. I was thinking fun and fairly easy is what we were saying with the AOA one. But I was thinking like, no one there have been comic book adaptations of the Fox franchise X Men, but they have never, for probably very good reasons, existed in the 6116. Wouldn't it be fun if there's just one throwaway issue where the X Men actually fight? Like the Holly Berry, james Marston, Tom Kajanson, Hugh Jackman, X Men. Patrick Stewart. X Men, like in the black leather. They encounter them, like the jokes that would go between them. Um, I mean, I just think that would be really fun to take the Fox X Men movie team and pit them up against the core canonical 6116 X Men team. So that was the fun one. I was thinking the less fun one, but really interesting one to me would be actually Promethea, because, as our listeners.
Rob: Know, I love Prometheus.
Guido: Uh, our bonus podcast is, uh, all about Prometheus issue by issue, and there's only ever been one other version of Promethea. DC tried to introduce her, and we'll eventually talk about this on our bonus podcast when we get back into a rhythm. With that, DC, uh, pulled her in for one Justice League storyline and tried to introduce her into what was then the prime DC Earth. And it was not well received, of course, and they have not done it again, and I doubt that they ever will do it again. I think that would be sort of fun, especially because Promethea is so meta and about story. I think it would be really fun to have the Promethea Alan Moore's Promethea. Obviously, in my dream, Alan Moore's writing this, which means it will absolutely never happen. So have the Promethea meet this comic bookified, DC superhero version of Promethea that got introduced, and start exploring that and the meta nature of that. I think that would be really fun. So those are the two things I thought about when I dreamed up, uh, a Jason versus Jason X scenario. What's your dream? Jason versus Jason X?
Rob: Well, I think the character that people often have polls about the most as to like, oh, who played this the best is Batman. So I do think it would be fun to see a, uh, big meta, uh, Batman movie where you had all different kinds of Batman making sure that Val Kilmer, who might have been my favorite Batman, is not left out of it as well. But then, uh, you've got Adam West that you've got the Kevin Conroy animated one. Maybe you also throw in, like, the Frank Miller. Like that. The Dark Knight Returns.
Guido: But who are the versions? Who are the Jason versus Jason X?
Rob: I think this one's like a full big melee of a bunch of different people. Yeah. And then maybe you have the dark moody ones, like Affleck and and Pattinson, like, they're bonding together. But then you have like, Adam West and George Clooney. They're like the fun ones. And then Kevin Conroy, Val Kilmer, they're in the middle.
Guido: I do wonder if one day when it wouldn't be quite as clearly a copy of into the Spider verse if one day there would be like a DC animated movie like that that takes mhm, just 20 different Batman and tells a story. Catwoman would be fun that the Spiderverse has a comic foundation, but it'd still be fun. Maybe in 20 years they'll do it again when they're far enough removed from into the Spiderverse that it doesn't just feel like they're copying mhm.
Rob: Yeah, even Catwoman, you've got like the three Catwomen from the original series movie. You've got Anne Hathaway. You've got Halle Berry. You've got, um, um, uh, there's I guess because those franchises have been around so long and they've done so much recasting, it just would be fun because you've got little links between the different characters. And some they're playing it more dark and some are playing it more campy. I don't know, something like that. But I agree. I think something animated like they kind of did when they brought back the 66 animated ones. That would be fun. Mash them all together.
Guido: Or here's, uh, to stay on Horror and Halloween as we wrap up. My favorite franchise, as our listeners might know, is Scream. Let's get a ghost face versus ghost face movie. Yeah, we've never seen it. And it'd be so fun because you wouldn't know who either is. And you could slowly like, you could learn who one is and then you still don't know who the other is. And you could have Ghostface trying to sort of outkill another ghostface.
Rob: I love that. That would be without giving too many spoilers because it's a new movie. They kind of were going to have a little bit of seeds of that in the most recent film where I don't want to say too much because people still probably haven't seen it, but there was a little bit of that in there. But I love that idea because it is the ultimate. It's the one character that is trying to always one up and be smart. And unlike Freddy or Jason or whoever it is always multiple people. Right.
Guido: You don't need to it's perfect, right? Like Jason needed the nanobyte explanation.
Rob: Yeah, I love that idea. I think that would be really a really smart way to go ahead because everyone's always wondering, oh, it's got to be multiple people being Ghost Face. Since all but one of the movies there are unified. They've been unified.
Guido: So I love that working against each other. All right, Kevin Williamson.
Rob: Call me. It's perfect with the way that fans react to things, too. Like I was just saying with Batman where people are running, everyone would the Ghost Face would always want to be the number one ghost.
Guido: And one obviously has to be Nev Campbell.
Rob: So that'll be her return. Totally. Yeah. And we did see we saw on Chucky we saw a bunch of Chucky's on the most recent show, actually. We saw a good Chucky versus an evil Chucky as well.
Guido: That's another great but Chucky's done it within their core universe because of the way that there are multiple dolls and Chucky can transfer his consciousness. Like they've been able to do that kind of plot and not have it be a Jason versus Jason X or have it be a multiverse or time travel story.
Rob: Well, now, maybe Chucky will go to outer space in the next series. He's in the White House right now. I wouldn't put but I think they're going to do it much better than this movie and comic franchise.
Guido: Great show. And it's on break, so if you haven't watched it, go watch it. And catch up, everybody, before it comes back next year with the second half of the season. But for now, that's a wrap. Dear Watchers, thank you for listening. I have been Guido, X and Uber Rob here. Yes. And our reading list, watching list is in the show notes, though you don't need to do any of it. Just listen to our summaries.
Rob: They're full enough. And give us a five star review wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll be back soon with another trip through the multiverse.
Guido: In the meantime, in the words of Watu, keep pondering the possibilities and ha