A Multiverse Christmas
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[00:00:00] You're listening to the multi-verse comic podcast
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because now every time I think of holiday, DC anything, I think of that little clip from the Batman animated shows with Batman and James Gordon. Let's hope we're doing this again next year. Jink. Yeah. And he always beats him to the check. Now, has the Batman Santa? No, this hijinks this week.
I think it's this week. No, I think it's this week. I'm really looking forward to this. So am I. That looks great. But what we did get this week is the. Okay. Yeah. Is the the Christmas card variance? Ah, see, I was, I did not look at that. So, and I think we got one last week too. Like the the Superman one.
Superman one. , you were not. Oh, yeah. You were not impressed with the Superman one? No. I like the Superman one. Was it action? There's one that you didn't like the way Superman was drawn? Yeah, one of 'em I didn't, but I like the Superman one. . Is that the Jim Lee one? What I don't like is that they, yeah, it's the Jim Lee one.
I don't like that they have like, it looks like a white cover instead of the card. Yes. Like, I don't know why [00:01:00] they did it that way, because they, what they're saying, the idea being is that you will carefully detach the Christmas card cover Uhhuh and actually use it as a Christmas card. So the white cover protects.
The Christmas card not damaging my comic. No. I, I just buy two. Just buy two. I was on one of the, you know, Facebook groups Yeah. For collectors, and people were just, they're like, like, I'm going to, cut a $7 99 cents comic with scissors. I was like, yeah, of course you are. You know why?
Because I pay at least five, nine nine for a birthday card at Hallmark True. 7 9 9. That is true. You know, you start looking at, it seems like nothing to me. I think. Well, okay, so now Jim Lee, the artist on all of the, no. Okay. No, it's a mixed bunch that Jim Lee one was supposed to be one of the holiday themed covers last year, but it never, it never saw print, so I guess they finally found a use for it.
I suspect [00:02:00] it's an old image, but I could be wrong. What I thought was happening with these is that DC was sending out, basically things they had sent out to, vendors. Suppliers. Mm-Hmm. Partners, customers, or whatever. In the past as their Christmas card and they were reprinting them as Christmas cards that we can see.
I feel like when I, when I pulled the little white cover over, you should be able to start hearing that. Vince Aldi . ChArlie Brown Christmas music.
Okay, so, oh, I see. You can see there's a perforation. Okay. So you tear that out, so you carefully tear that there's a little embossed dent here so that you can easily fold it in half and share a, a bouncy of DC. Holiday Joy. Oh, and the other cover's still in there. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I'm feeling pretty good about this.
That's good. Oh, yeah. No, I think this is wonderful. I think they should do this all the time for every holiday occasion ever. And I would like to think that if I'm a store [00:03:00] that has a large customer base, . and I wanna send out, Hey, we love you as being our customer, so I can , click on DC or Diamond's website and order a box of those instead of having to mutilate.
I would buy boxes. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. , and granted, and that's centered around retailers not, yeah. , now I would be curious if we opened it up on our website if we had the ability to buy the e hermity. See, and we opened it up on the website, see how many of the general public would buy.
I. Like, if, if I was gonna get y'all Christmas cards, I would go for, you know, Superman, Sandman mystery theaters, you know, something, something along those lines of the DC products. Happy holidays. Well Dream. And then Imagine, imagine DC and Marvel having a competition on the cards, because , now I'm being the complete, after I've sent you a DC card, I might have sent you a Marvel card.
And so that's, that is DC or a Marvel person. Yeah. So you gotta kind of pick printing. You're printing, you're printing money for the, that way. But I think you're on something [00:04:00] with , the retailer thing because you've just popped a memory unlocked a memory in my head. I should say.
Put memories in my head. Although maybe you do. I don't. It's, we're now, we're in kind of strange days VO file. Exactly. Is many, many moons ago, 30 years I think, DC sent . You know, they, I don't know if they still do it, but they used to send out like preview ash cans I to retailer those. I remember those.
I haven't seen 'em in every once in a while. Every once once in a blue moon. Yeah. They would do it at Diamond, right? So the Diamond Retailer summit, you would get ash cans every time. So they, and they'd kind of, they used to have like, you know, this is not for sale.
This, you know, really clearly laid out what I've got because a friend of, a friend of a friend. I've got the ash can that they sent out for semi mystery theater as a matter of Oh wow. And all it is is that somebody took the comic, made black and white photocopies of the pages and then bound them together with it kind of looks like this is official [00:05:00] do not for resale, not for distribution cover on it, blah, blah, blah.
But tucked away in there was a postcard and there was a like a holiday . You know, holiday greetings from your friend might've been Diamond, but I think it was dc. Yeah. And it's an image that I've never seen reproduced anywhere else. And the picture is a little girl in bed and she's going to sleep. And if I'm remembering this correctly, you look around her bedroom and there's really nothing.
There's nothing Christmassy about it. And the Sandman Morphous Sandman is standing over her sprinkling . Okay. Sand over her head. So the idea being that, you know, , he's gonna give her sweet dreams. This kid's probably got not much else going on for her and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's a, I think it's p Craig Russell that does the eye , if I remember correctly, it's a beautiful image.
Never seen it re reprinted anywhere else. And that's kind of cool. I'm like, that's, you know, I would totally buy a box of DC Christmas cards. Well, I remember way back when [00:06:00] I house that for Steve Irwin. that as an employee, they would get a unique art Christmas card. Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . And it'd have the year and it was embossed and you know, very Right.
Very smartly done. And I would like to think that they keep doing those, those type of goodwill, Hey, I love you, you know, thanks for putting up with us, kind of Yeah. Delio, right. But yeah, I, I think there's. There's a market out there for all that kind of Christmas cardy stuff. I don't even, there, there may be some available, I've never, haven't gone to Hallmark in a while to go looking for Christmas cards.
No. I, I got, you know, every day I, yeah. once again, if my mother was up and about, she, she tell me the entire inventory of the Hallmark right around the corner. But I used to like going to Barnes and Noble and get like one of their multi-pack boxes. 'cause I would usually find something . a bit odd.
Like, there were several years and they might still do it actually. They [00:07:00] had Christmas cards that was based on artwork of Edward Gorry. I dunno if you know Edward Gorry, I probably have to see the art of, he's, it's very macabre. Very, very kind of spooky, twisted. Tim Burton. I think his entire aesthetic is kind of.
Must be based on, on Edward Go. Do you remember? Oh, what was it? PBS used to have like their mystery show and there would be like the intro credits with these weird animations of people like, you know, toughs in a nice house and there's a scream, and then there's a villain hiding behind a curtain. And the thing that that's, that was all Edward Gor.
That was tweaking. That's tweaking the memory. But yeah, so I always used to send those out because they're really bizarre Christmas cards and you know. , why not? There's only so many cardinals and robins and twigs of holly and snow and anyway, but let's move on. But Santa's head on a, all the eyes in the world staring are on [00:08:00] me right now.
Ah, Santa's head on a pipe. There's a, there's a holiday Christmas card. Yes. Happy, you know, Transylvanian Christmas with San head on spikes. I would, spikes, I would do, I would do a superman. Yeah. Card, I would send that out. Like I send, I send cards to work people. Mm-Hmm. oftentimes that Alex Ross, Christmas, Superman.
With that, that would be, that image should be on a Christmas card, which is a nice segue into one of the things we're discussing today, which is holiday comics, holiday themed stories, holidays has represented all things holiday ish. Holiday ish. This is holiday ish. This is the holiday episode. This is the holiday episode.
It is, we're in between the two, two big holidays. Yes, ma'am. The pre-Christmas and then Christmas or at American call, Thanksgiving. I thought you were gonna say Hanukkah. Hanukkah, but I was gonna say no. That starts on the 8th of December, I believe. Yes. I, I, I will not insult any of our Jewish friends out there by trying to
State. I know when Hanukkah starts Yes. [00:09:00] Stops any of that. That's right. Leave that alone. There's a lot of inflammatory things. I will slide down. That's not one of them. No. I've got a buddy that he grew up, his dad's Roman Catholic. His mom's Jewish, he's. Practicing Jewish guy Yes.
But they also do Christmas. Absolutely. That is the ultimate, that is the best possible situation. That's gotta be a good package in there, like growing up. Absolutely. Like, you gotta get that. Well, that's, no, well, my, my my ex-wife is Jewish and so our daughter gets the benefit of, of a Hanukkah and a Christmas.
So Yeah, absolutely. But holiday, so, speaking of fantastic Superman images, . What have you brought to the table? So we were gonna talk about our favorite holiday stories, and there's a story called Superman, peace on Earth. It was originally published in . Kind of these oversized Treasury edition.
That's correct. Size size books. I have kind of a bound absolute edition that combines that with justice, the justice [00:10:00] miniseries. That was really good too. It, is it the Justice Minis series, or is it the Justice League two parted thing that he did? It's the just well, it's the Justice we're talking about Alex Ross, right?
Yeah, the Alex Ross storyline. Alex Ross, yeah. Yeah. So anyway, the, anyway, the Superman story is actually a Christmas story. Yes. It's called Peace on Earth. And it opens up early once you get through the origin story.
The Superman flying a Christmas tree into Metropolis. Mm-Hmm. basically, you know, the equivalent of. The Christmas tree lighting at 30 Rock, that happens every year. It's their equivalent, but in Metropolis, of course, Superman flies the tree in. Yeah. Puts it down. And instead of somebody flipping a switch, Superman flies around super fast and decorates the tree.
I'm so envious of his ability, not only to decorate and light a tree with speed, but clearly he's not dealing with the tangled light situation that no, that hasn't happened. Might no matter how hard I try. Well, he, he might be. You don't know.[00:11:00] , he might have been really super fast. No, I think when he, I think at the end of the season, he'll swing by and take the ornaments off the tree and I'm sure he very carefully rolls the lights back onto a Oh, you think, you think he does that?
Absolutely he does. 'cause it's Superman. He's not gonna like He's a very put together guy. He is, yeah. He's a, as Mark Qua says. He, he was a Boy scout back when being called a boy scout wasn't a bad thing. That's true. Well, when y'all talk about, when y'all talk about Alec Ross, I'm just defer for a second.
I have the Christmas plate. Which one? The one with Batman looking in and looking in the window. I have that. Oh, that's cool. Yes, and that. That always comes out at Christmas. Yes. That comes out and on a little display. But keep going with your Superman. I interrupted. I just was No, it's, I wanted to remember, I wanted to make sure I was saying the right place.
'cause I couldn't remember if Batman was inside or outside. No, he's outside and I figured he was outside. I didn't, and you know he wants to be in there. Yes. I mean, there're having fun and the drinking eggnog and plastic [00:12:00] man is doing something stupid and, but he's gotta be on monitor duty. 'cause you know, if anyone's gonna be prepared for something from the hijacked Santa Clause, well, but hang on.
If, if Batman's on monitor duty, what the hell is he doing? Peeking through the window at Justin headquarters. He should be up in the, you know, bat man. You know, Batman has a plan. Well, actually probably he drafted Robin. He's Rob Robin's sitting up there. Alfred's up there, right? This is why, this is why Jason Todd cracked and became a lunatic was that he didn't get to celebrate Christmas down with the Justice League.
Please Bruce this year. Quiet. Alright, we've got way off topic. We're gonna talk about Superman. So humbug, so in this story in peace on earth, Superman's going through sort of just, it's, it's an introspective story. There's no, nobody else talks. I don't think. , maybe a little bit, but , it's very, you're in Superman's head the whole time.
Yes. First person. Yeah. Right. Very first person. And he's he ultimately decides that the gift he wants to give humanity is to cure world hunger. That's his thing, right? And he tries, he tries a couple of different ways and [00:13:00] he tries to bring food to these, , to some this war torn area. And these warlords try to take it and it really ticks him off.
And , he has to kind of try to solve that thing. He gets in a standoff and basically Superman loses. Mm-Hmm, , Superman is unable to help these people in the way that he wants. And his conclusion was that, ultimately people have to have compassionate fellow, fellow man, and they all have to be a part of the solution.
No one person can solve it. Exactly. Not even even a Superman. So it is it is a great story. It's a hundred percent a Christmas story, Superman's trying to give us a gift and we're we're not very good , at receiving that gift apparently, as humans. Yeah. And there's another, another image in here that's one of my favorite, who remain images where
He comes back from being defeated. Basically these warlords box him out and basically make it where if he tries to give the food to these people, the people will die. So you've got Superman just sitting like in [00:14:00] with his Clark Kent shirt unbuttoned kind of in this armchair, just, just pooped like at the end of the day.
Yeah, just beat. And I'm like, that is the most humanizing image of Superman I've ever seen. So it's just a great story. The artwork is . It's literally , the best images I've I've ever seen of Superman. All the iconic images that you end up seeing in other places on posters and other things. Most of them come from this story.
Most of them are from, this piece that's put together. So, I love Piece on Earth. I do too. It's, I, it's brilliant and I think out of the . Four or five ones that they did. I know they did a, a Batman's War on crime. They did a Wonder Woman, captain Marvel, the Captain Marvel one is Power of Hope.
I think. Batman is War on crime or is Wonder Woman Power of Hope? I don't remember. I'll find I have, I have, he probably has a list right there. There's not an index. It's, it's weird. It's weird. Yeah. But the Superman one is, [00:15:00] is absolutely the strongest of, of the lot. Paul Dini's writing is as superb as, as always.
When, when it comes to writing humanized, um, superheroes yeah. War on crime. War crime Paul Dini , is, is a good way to go. , it solves , the great problem of spirit of truth is Wonder Woman Power of Hope, I think is the Shazam one, captain Martin. But I do recall enjoying , and still enjoying the the notion that , the greatest power that Superman has is to be an inspiration to humanity.
Not try and solve all of humanity's problems for them. And if, they do that secret origins, is it that's how he gets himself into the most trouble is when he decides, no, I'm going to take an action here. I'm actually going to do something to help humanity improve themselves. Yeah, [00:16:00] that's a, he can't do that 'cause we've gotta find this stuff out for ourselves.
So it's got the justice one secret, origins, and all of the one shots. Gotcha. Gotcha. Pretty good. Yeah, it's a good book. What I enjoyed about these, now I, I will confess, I don't have them committed deep to memory anymore, but I loved the, I loved the treasury format. Oh. Because, and, and, and that larger oversized book also for Alec Ross does, yes, his artwork justice.
But over time, I've come to appreciate, you've got to have a big . Page to appreciate the canvas he lays out. That's right. And I, I like that it's off the holiday topic, but it's complimenting the artist every one of those characters. And I'm looking at the slip case too, that this book came in. I mean, that is as iconic and you could, you could have no other comic book artist do any work and hold that up.
And people other than Martian [00:17:00] Manhunter, people would probably . No, that's it. But that, that's the, that's the Superman. I see. That's right. They made a poster image of this. I have that poster. The long one. Yeah, I have that. Yeah, I had it. I don't need anymore. They did some individual ones as well. They, they did individual posters and they, and they did start doing, he did the Justice Society.
Mm-Hmm. . I have those too. That's right. I think I may wanna buy some Alex Ross like original art. 'cause like at Comic-Con, he stands up. Well, he, well, you, you buy like fancy prints, like okay, expensive things. Say, are we gonna start harvesting organs off the homeless to finance this? I'm, no, he stands up like a, a gallery at Comic-Con.
Mm-Hmm. And you can go, you can go in there and he'll have like that, that image of Superman. Yeah. That, that I was showing. He'll have, you know, that. And you can buy a print of that that's framed or, and Right. You know, signed or whatever it is for . Not what an original piece would [00:18:00] cost, but it's still a bazillion dollars.
It's still more than Oh yeah. No, it's still, still not, it's still not 29 99 off of Amazon. It is. No. When I went, I went and I checked it. I, I was super tempted because it, they had each one of the, the stories, the individual stories. Had this one page that was like a one page origin. Mm-Hmm. , or a, like a recap.
It folds out to, to an origin before they do the title page. Right. Every one of 'em had that. So he had that as as a piece. Mm-Hmm. . And I was like, Ooh, A Superman origin would be pretty great. I would love to have that. It would fit, it would fit your, the collection. Yeah, it would fit my collection, but I didn't get it.
So , it was super expensive. Like I couldn't bring myself to do it. I get that, but I'm kind of leaning towards it now. See, I can't not see Marsha Man, hunter and not think of how , when my children were very little , and we used to watch the Justice League cartoon. , the Bruce Tim one my middle girl dma.
, she never referred to him as Marcian Manhunter. She was referred to him as Marcian man, [00:19:00] hunter . She really extends out the a ian man Hunter. And it still sticks in my house to this day if ever there's anything pops up. Yeah. Related. It's always, it's the Marcian man, hunter . I dunno why that still tickles me, but it does.
Ah, kids Ali used to watch that opening too, and it used to . Playfully outraged her grandmother, that Allie knew the starting lineup of the Justice League. Yeah. Before she knew the alphabet, but she never got Martian Manhunt ride. It was John Jones. John Jones, and she would run it together. John Jones. John Jones.
And I was quite proud. Oh yeah. Hey. You know, I think, but absolutely, absolutely. So Christmas comics, Christmas or holiday comics, I think of two. It's going right off the top of my head. And they're both justice aside. There is one where Flash, green, lantern, Wildcat, and Hawkman go see ma uncle. Right. She's playing Santa Claus.
Yeah. And it's in the Jeff John's run. Yeah. And [00:20:00] it's right after Carter has come back in the series. Yeah. And it was , their discussion about
they're grown up with her. Yes. And, and, and you know, Wildcat was having a hard time Ted Grant's having a hard time cussing in front of her where he cuss anywhere 'cause he thinks he's cutting up in front of his grandmother. Right. And her even kind of counseling Carter
About coming back really different this time, but having all the memories and, you know, shy, he did, you know, him and Shair have not reconnected like he thought and just little hints and ta , and chats of her just playing the, and at the end of that, you know, she ends up being the Justice Society's counselor , and housekeeper almost.
And then there's another one, . Where , it's a holiday way. It's where the Justice League and the Justice Society have Thanksgiving together. Okay. And the original lib, what's accused, the original Liberty Bell is trying to pair up her daughter [00:21:00] Jesse Quick with the younger hour man. Black Canary has to talk with Dr.
Midnight about their affair. They didn't really have, because Ollie's back and . , two mystical villains break in at the end call AK and the other one, right. And looking around and it's like, and the whole time Batman keeps jumping back and forth between monitors and you thinking something's gonna happen.
thEy brush in, they're like, someone's got egg on, or, you know, master test on their head. And they're like, oh, there's a lot of 'em. Oh, they were just getting ready to sit down to eat. Maybe we should leave now. And it's that, you know, the pummeling is coming. qUite soon. I'm glad you glad those source materials, 'cause that's gonna help us through this.
'cause those, did, did Marvel ever do any holiday specials? Yes. Yeah, they would do that. I'm, I'm trying to go back and think of some of the Christmas individual issues. . The one that comes to mind for me is, are you looking for that story I was telling you about? No, I'm trying to find a different one.
[00:22:00] But it wouldn't be because this is all the holiday specials put together. Yeah, that one. Yeah, I got that. Got that. This is my, so this is my other Go-to Jason is showing a cover of a, probably in the nineties. Yeah. Chris dcs Christmas with superheroes. They did two, they did one year, and this was the second one that I liked better.
The, the Marvel one that sticks out to me and . You know, they never really called it a Christmas issue, was uncanny. X-Men 1 43 where Kitty pride is left at home and has to fight the alien monster. Right. And, blows up everything. Yes. And you know, John Burn's last run. Yes. But just the kind of funness of a 13-year-old home alone before home alone was a thing.
Right. I remember that. Well, so my other, there's two good stories in this Christmas with superheroes. thIng one is, um, it's a Batman story and basically they , the way it breaks down is[00:23:00] Dick Grayson ends up getting the robin costume for Christmas, right? So the way that he becomes Robin, is he pulls a thing out from under the tree and he opens his present.
Oh, I'm Robin now. So he gets that for Christmas, and that's, that story is in here. And then there's a really fun story with flash and Green Lantern at the end, where of course, flashes stuck monitoring the watchtower right at at Christmas. Everybody else saw this. Is this Wally at this time?
Actually, it was Barry. I thought it was Wally, but it, it ended up being Barry. I, I went and reread it. I think that was a, that special 'cause they did too, and it's late eighties, so. Yeah. It probably is Barry. Yeah. But he does this thing, they're, they're talking about like these gifts that they get, like, so Green Layer has one he says.
Is that your Christmas present from Green Arrow? Yeah. It's Dust Capital. He gives it to me every year. . I think it's his way of making sure I read it. Yes. And then Barry gets socks [00:24:00] the same socks from Wally every time he keeps telling him that he doesn't wear out socks faster. Right, right. Like, just little things like that I find funny.
But the whole, they ultimately end up doing this weird sort of reverse Scrooge story where there's a really wealthy guy who's disheartened that everybody's, everybody else is terrible, right? And they need to kind of, show him the Christmas spirit somehow. So they basically make him Santa and they start throwing him down chimneys.
Right. And running around with him in a green lantern sleigh. It's just, I mean, you cannot get any better than that. Oh, no. It's, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, it absolutely is. buT I know that that issue, that that comic that you are, you are thumbing through because one of my favorite holiday stories is in that, is actually in that, in that book as well. I'm gonna guess. Go on. I think I know. Which one Is it the Deadband story? No. No. Okay. No, it's the enemy, A story. Oh, okay. Yeah. There's a really nice . [00:25:00] S story about like, you know, enemy Ace was the, the World War I character. I think John Byrne, it is a John Byrne story. Yeah. But he doesn't, he did the art, but he, I, either the inks or finished something was, it's finished by Andy Cooper.
Andy Bert, yeah. Yeah. 'cause he, he's really channeling his dad, his dad's style on the ins. And of course, you know, Joe t. Yeah, did artwork on enemy ace back in the day. So it, it was nice that he, he kind of captured that style, but it's just a sweet little story about sort of honor amongst, um, men. You know, the, these are, these, this is the, the, the theater of the sky, the, with World War I, the, these, you know, propeller planes that are held together with
You know, bal wood and cel wood and twine and, and a hell of a lot of faith in a higher power. And just the, the notion that, you know, these these [00:26:00] pilots go up and of course the life expectancy of pilots during the Great war world War I, and they call it Great war was very, very small, very limited.
Black Aada. I don't know if you guys ever watched the TV show Black Aada, but there was this, it's a comedy, British comedy series and one of the seasons, it was called Black Aada Goes Forth and it was set in World War I and they black Adder is played Barone Atkinson, Mr. Bean. And he's, he thinks he's got the perfect dodge to get outta trench warfare by joining the Royal Air Force.
And their nicknamed is the 20 Miners, and he thinks it's because. The average time pilots actually spend in the air is about 20 minutes . And it's only until he's sitting the training class, which has this sort of brilliant bit by Rick male who used to a guest star on the show from time to time.
And he explains no, it's the average life expectancy of a new pilot is 20 minutes. And all the joy and hope of his [00:27:00] clever . Plan is quickly evaporating from his face. Like, oh shit, I'm gonna die. But anyway, it's, it's a very nice little story. It's, you know, John Byrne is, is capturing something kind of eternal with the sort of spirit of Christmas and honor and gentleman and so on and so forth.
So, but that's in that comic. It is. Back to you with the js. I didn't mean to jump in there. No, no. Yeah, that, that saved me. 'cause I found, I found. They're back to back in this trade. It's the Thanksgiving one, ah, power code, putting the Turkey on the Yep. And we all know that image and, and that image right there.
That's great. Yeah. And you know, that's, that, that's where they break in. But this, the next, the very next issue is, yep. All them going and. And that there's, I'm flipping through. Sorry guys. It's great site gag for a podcast. Well, no, it makes it sound legitimate. Yeah. We are actually touching, we do actually touch real comics in this story.
There are comic books here we are comic books. Yeah. You can see ma is even counseling. Yeah. You know, dower Carter trying to help bring, and if this was just a [00:28:00] great, these are the two holiday ones that stick out to me. Yeah. That, because I know like Avengers didn't do a whole lot of Christmas stuff. And as I was a kid, I kind of every, I figured every 12 months you could get a Christmas story.
Yeah. And that was very rare. I remember Batman seemed to do it more. There was always a Christmas mystery. Yeah. Or there was always a criminal that had a heart of gold and was only stealing food for, to feed his family kind of, , you know, he got off the hook, you know, Batman, let that one off the hook.
Yeah, there's a couple of Santa Claus. It was kinda like Santa Claus, I think actually Frank Miller's first Batman work is like a Christmas the Santa, the Night Santa died, or the Santa Claus murders or something like that. I don't remember what the specific story was. But yeah, I like d dc tend, I think, to do more holiday spirited stories than, than Marvel does.
But yeah, Marvel, . The [00:29:00] Marvel did do a couple of treasury science editions, treasury editions in the seventies, DC did some as well. And yeah, I ran into just a stack of, um, holiday images just online. I, I have, I was looking for something specific for, for an ad we were doing for the store. And I just landed the search I did, just gave me all the good stuff.
Yeah. So I've been posting those every day. I, I set up a, a post a today the week I saw the golden green lander and pop. Yeah. There's just, it's been pretty fun. Like I, I dropped, but there are way more . DC ones, and there were yes, Marvel. Like there, there's a Spider-Man, Deadpool one that's in there that, that shows up eventually.
But yeah, I just noticed that I, I found way more DC even really old stuff like that, the golden age. There's a lot of imagery. Yeah. With, with in, with Golden Age characters. Yeah, exactly. You know, and the only one I really remember with Marvel was the thing dressed up as [00:30:00] Yeah. Santa Claus. Mm-Hmm. . I would see that.
But other than that, I don't, like I said other, like the uncanny X-Men. I remember I'm trying to think. Marvel two and one Marvel team up if there were any themed, but I, well, that's, that's mine is the Marvel. Yeah, it's a Marvel. That Marvel team up. Okay. That's, that's mine. Which one is that? It's Spider-Man and the Watcher.
Oh. And that, that is my favorite holiday story. JM D mate, uh, who, you know, all did everything. He did everything well. His run on Marvel team up, um, is my favorite Spider-Man run from any writer, and I know that puts me into dangerous territory against the likes of, you know, Stanley and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
I don't care. It is because it was the, it it was the, the ability to craft . A one shot story month over month. [00:31:00] Spider-Man and a different member of the Marvel Universe. And following that book, when I was first getting into comics, meant that that served as my introduction to so many, um, Marvel characters that I I did not.
Spider-Man and Professor X. Who the hell is Professor X Spider-Man. And Wolverine the hell is Wolverine. You know, this kind of stuff. I did give you an idea. Spider-Man knew everybody. yEah. They, they didn't all care for him. Yeah. Yeah. That, but usually that's different. They all knew everybody and, and Ben Grim Yeah.
Knew everybody. Oh, yeah. But, but, but everyone loves Ben Grim. Yeah. So, but usually by the end of the, the Spider-Man team up, it would be a sort of begrudging . yOu're all right. Web head, but you know, don't you know I'm not putting you on my friends list or whatever anyway. Yeah. But the watcher one is, is a Christmas story and it centers around.
Obviously the watcher is doing his watching thing. I Watch, but I never get involved, which is such a crock because [00:32:00] at the age that I'm at now, thinking back over the watcher, appearing in various Marvel stories over years. He, he doesn't have to do anything. Sometimes he just sh there's that, I think it's Civil War where they're all you know, there's an, a large assortment of Marvel heroes.
They're all hanging out at Adventures Mansion, and they're kind of waiting to see what the government's gonna do with their registration thing, blah, blah, blah, and . Suddenly the watcher is there. And I think like Reed Richards points out like, you know, usually the watcher appears when you know something of great significance is about to happen.
It's like, okay. So yes, you're not getting involved, but cl just you being there has just told everybody, well, the Illumina's about to get serious. You know, the Illuminati had a checklist. Yeah. So that, that's how I gonna notify. Okay. The watcher show. You're, you're, you're, that would be a fun argument to have with him.
You know, just by showing up. Yeah. We to see you. We know there's a problem. That's right. I mean, unless you're walking out with cherry pie in your hand, you there, the pie [00:33:00] would be nice. Yeah. Because I, you know, he, he doesn't strike me as the kind of person who brings a gift. No. But he could. But in this, this particular issue, um, there's a sort of a Christmas party.
This, this is when Aunt May is running the boarding house with Nathan Lubinski. Okay. And, , they're having a bit of Christmas cheer, da da da dah dah. And Mr. Chekhov, the the Russian immigrant poet who used to live at the boarding house. If you know your Spidey verse, you know exactly who I'm talking about.
He's looking rather mournfully out the window. It's snowing outside, and it turns out that he's Chekhov has got a granddaughter. That he hasn't seen for a very long time. And he was hoping that she would come to this Christmas party because his son, I think, died with his wife. So the, the granddaughter is like all he has left.
And then Spider-Man kind of gets involved in this [00:34:00] situation involving drug dealers and the, it turns out that this granddaughter is kind of mixed up in that. And Spider-Man gets to a point where like . He doesn't know what to do and he's getting frustrated and he's getting angry and the watcher's sort of floating there and he's yelling and screaming at the watcher.
And the watcher does something. I don't remember what it is. He does something to kind of point Spider-Man in the right direction. Like, that's the way you need to go. You can save the girl and you can, you can save the day. And and no spoilers. Come on. Spider-Man story. Of course he does. And there's a reunion between Grandfather Chekhov and the granddaughter, and it's all very sweet.
And the watch has got like the single tear, you know, and he has one of those beautiful de mate little kind of monologues about the beauty of humanity and, and you know, the, the, the enrichment of the soul and all this kind of stuff. Di Tate is just such a lovely writer for things like that. anD there you go.
It's, it's, it's, [00:35:00] it's, it's a wonderful life in . That kind of tone, um, on its Spiderman and the Watcher, which seems like a really odd combination, but it works brilliantly for this story. And and yeah, if you ever want to explore the, the depth of the human condition, I highly recommend pretty much anything that Dees has written, especially his creator own stuff.
MoonShadow, the last one, uh, seekers into the Mystery Mercy. Moon Shadow is, is is quite a, a John Mout, if you like, watercolor artwork like Alex Ross, John Jth actually nails that one, but I digress. Hmm. Blood A Tale. Blood A Tale. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I think that was Ken Williams. But yeah, it's a, it's a lovely Christmas story.
That's my favorite Christmas story. anD on the DC side, yeah, I love that enemy, ACE one and, you know, and I'm looking through here recently well certainly since Rebirth DC have gotten into the holiday specials [00:36:00] and they, they've got enough of them out there now that they can collect a few of them together.
'cause these are prestige format books. They can collect them together and trade Paperback a lovely gift for a comic book fan at the holidays. Plug, plug. And you know, hey, anytime you get to, I know this is gonna sound terrible, but anytime you get to see Harley Quinn dressed as a Christmas elf, I think that's well, I suppose you could, you could pick up the trade of jingle.
Was it Jingle Bell? The, the Paulini comic series about the, the Disgruntled Elf. You ever read that? I read that. Oh, it's quite funny. It's quite, there's some funny stuff there. So Batman and Detective Chimp in the Night We Saved Christmas. See, that's a, that is, that's a good one. Look at that. This is a brilliant image, if I can describe it.
You got Batman and Detective Chimp in the snow and Detective Chimp is holding a smoking gun and there's a dead elf by their feet with his [00:37:00] brain blood spatter across the snow. You know, it's gonna be good. Yeah. Well, just anything with Detective Chimp, it's Detective Chimp. Absolutely love Detective Chimp.
So I used to read the we would go to my grandparents for Christmas every year. Right. And I would load up on comics to, for the, it was like eight hour drive. Yeah. For the, yeah, yeah. No. So I'd load up on comics and I'd read some wooden, read some, and I remember reading these Christmas specials.
There because it was a bunch of different stories and had all the different heroes. So I, I felt like it was a good deal. Right, right. Like if I, oh, you can get three comics. Okay. One of 'em is gonna be this one for sure. Yeah. I got nine stories in it and that's why I always, I always collected Justice League because you could get all the heroes and you got in the one book.
Right. So, I remember that one issue that I pointed out, the holiday . special number two. I remember that one being one that I remember. Remember when they did the the else world's annuals? Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm. . So I had a [00:38:00] of those, yeah. I had a stack of those at one point at, at my grandparents' house. But I just, I, I remember exactly where I was when I read, read certain books that I would read there, right?
At their, at their house. So, all the nostalgic feels come out for those things, and, and I love that part of our hobby. Yeah. You know that there's, you know, a book. That's okay. I love this story. And I, I remember which Christmas I was sick 'cause Yeah. Every time I had to go my grandparents stack of Right.
I read, I, I read crisis number one like nine times at my grandparents' house, . 'cause that was the only one that came out. And I was so tooken aback by Perez's art and all that. So I, I get exactly what you're saying on that. Yeah. There's another. holiday story from DC I remember, and it was the Santa Claus issue with Starman, where Jack finds yes, finds kind of an indigent individual and he brings them to the, the O'Hare, the Odes family dinner.
That's family dinner. [00:39:00] And that's, that is true. And, and I'm just trying to stretch my memory. It's just I know if I went through my collection. and Jason's got the digital stuff over there that would save our lives. That's saving our lives right there, . Yeah, but it, it, it's tough. I can remember the ho the Halloween ones more than I can remember.
The Christmas, you see, I knew the Whitey. Oh, yeah. But, well, I remember a big, apparently there's a big stack of these that I missed. So, and like in my heyday, I don't know how I missed, I made, I made it a point every year to get both the Christmas and the Halloween ones, but there's a lot of 'em. I just don't,
I'd have to pull 'em back out and reread them. Right. 'cause I think I was like, oh, cool. How, you know, Christmas stuff and put it, you know, well, I liked this is terrible. Frank Miller Sin City. He did, he had a Christmas issue. I think I remember that. Do you remember that? Yeah. . And, and it's called Silent Night.
And it's a completely silent issue except for the very last page. [00:40:00] And it's, you know, it's on a, on a darkened moonlit. Snowy cold Christmas Christmas Eve. Marv is running around the city, breaking faces and stomping on teeth and all this kind of stuff, and it's, it's, there's a, there's a little girl. It turns out this little girl's been kidnapped by, you know, probably about to be trafficked and Marv knows where she is and
you know, he absolutely maim and mutilates all the goons that are in this stronghold. And the last page, he's kicked open the door and there's this terrified young girl in a, you know, in a darkened room with, you know, rats and all this, you know, it's horrible, horrible the situation. And I think Mar's dialogue is like something like, you know.
You know, come on Becky. You know your mom's worried about you, or something like that. And it's like, oh, Mar, you know, he, this is the, the, the, the giant with the heart of gold and, you know, but but I remember that and Hellblazer, [00:41:00] it's funny 'cause we were just talking about the Garth Ennis run and very early on in the Garth in his run he, he has a Christmas issue.
Really? Yeah. And it's Constantine. It's like, you know, Christmas Eve, he's in the pub getting soused. feeling sorry for himself and he bumps into the Lord of the dance . And it's, it's, it's a really, you know, Lord of the dance is kind of telling him about, you know, his purpose on this earth is to kind of
Bring people together and to celebrate life and you know, enjoy and all this kind of stuff. So not Mark Michael Flatley, like No, no, no, no, no, no. Not the Irish guy. No, not the Irish guy. Okay. Although he could be, he could be. I'm sure he's, you know, it's, there's a lot of eat, drink, and be merry and all this kind of stuff.
And then there's that little denominate at the end with, you know, . You know, Constantine mate, you know, you pissed off the, the last people that you should have. But when the time comes, I'll be there for you, mate. And of course that plays out much later in the final [00:42:00] rake of the gates of hell and poor old Lord of the dance, as we discussed in a previous podcast.
Mm-Hmm, , you don't really wanna fall under the charm of John Constantine because you're gonna get killed. So that's kind of a sad note, but that story was actually quite a sweet one, so, you know. Anyways. There, there we go. Kids. There we go. Kids. There we go. Kids. That's, that's, that's Christmas. But no, I think that you're admiring my wallpaper.
I did notice that for me. I was like, Hey, that's a Carly Quinn. Is that, is that? It's Dotson or is that huge? That's Joe. Joe, that's Cho. I've got I was playing around with the wallpaper sitting on my phone, so I've got Harley Quinn in a Santa hat on my phone. 'cause you know, it's festive, but of course, but no, I, I like the I'm trying to think.
There's some other, I tell you what else is really good. Very, very good value for money actually. And I'd be really remiss to not mention it. Hellboy. Hmm. I mean, Noel has done a number of Christmas specials. He, I think he's actually done one every Christmas [00:43:00] the last couple of years. Krampus knocked and the, the Seven Brides or something like that, Hellboy at Christmas time, um, works really well especially because of the types of stories that Magnolia does with Hellboy.
Very sort of, you know, old. Pagan creatures and demons. I mean, MCNO must have the most amazing reference library. You know, and he's fast on his way to becoming, you know, Vincent Price, I think. But but yeah, and of course Hellboy. There, there is a couple of, if you go online and Google it, there's some really great images that mcno list on of Hellboy in a Santa suit.
Oh my. And you know, I think that's brilliant. I, I'd love to see Santa Hellboy. I think that would be a lot of fun. But there you go. There. Yep. Yeah. Alright, well there's some ideas. Go get your holidays on. Yeah. . I, I love, I love the the holiday issues. [00:44:00] They're one of my favorites. I do too. I I've been disappointed a little bit lately in the, a couple of them.
So, the, the, the ones from way back in the eighties and nineties were far more entertaining than . . Yeah. Some of the ones coming out now. I, I think they, I, I don't know. Maybe I'm, maybe this is a cynical view, but it, it, it feels like maybe the publishers don't think that people would necessarily buy into that or, I, I don't know.
I would, I mean, I think it's, like I said, I, I, I think it's a lot of fun and when you, when you stick the holidays, which is such a joyous time, or it's supposed to be such a joyous time, and then you mix that with, with. These characters that we love. It's, you know, why, you know, the isn't in one of these, the, the Flash story where he's trying to get, like, he's trying to get gifts for people and he's running all over the world.
There's like a certain action figure that all the kids want and while he's left [00:45:00] it to the last minute, I think that's ends up running to Japan, China, I think, I think that's during the Greg Laroque. Yeah. Mm-Hmm. time. You know, the old, you know, the kid wants the Green Power Ranger and of course all the stores only have the Blue Power Ranger and it's, he said he would get it and he forgot.
'cause you know, it's Wally. It's Wally. And and I think there's another one. It's sort of a play on Scrooge with the Teen Titans, but this would be like the 1960s Teen Titans that's in one especially. Yeah. Kind of. Yeah. Yeah. It's fun stuff. Yeah. I'm looking forward to, I. Speaking of this year, the, the Batman is it Silent Night too?
It it is called Silent Night with another K Well, there's another Silent, there's a Silent Night movie. I, I think somebody needs to get a little more creative. Just in general. There's a John W film that's Silent Night. Yes, there is. That's right. With Joel Kinnaman. And I couldn't figure out like the, the preview for this thing.
It was just basically like, . John W's gun fu [00:46:00] plus. It just showed like all the John w stuff. Right. But I had no idea what this movie's about. Like no clue. I think it's actually a silent film. Like there isn't any dialogue in it. Really? Yeah, I believe so. Oh, wow. Interesting. There's lots of shooty up.
Oh yeah. Well, John Wu, I mean, yeah, that's By the way, kids, if you're looking for a really good double feature for the holidays, the killer and hard boiled, the original versions with Cha and Fat have fun. Excellent. You'll thank me. Nice. Yes. Yeah. So the Batman Silent Night stuff, the Batman, Santa Batman, chin Santa.
So Santa Claus. That looks awesome. I'm totally there. Yeah. Looking forward to that. No, it's great. Absolutely there. Didn't now wait a second. So now Santa Claus in the Marvel Universe is a mutant, isn't he? Yes. I see that. Look on your face, Scott, remember because, well, it's that Dr. Doom series that I loved so much.
Right. It came out right around the pandemic. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And you know, there's an image of Dr. Doom riding a fricking [00:47:00] bear. Yeah. And, and there's a special with Dr. Doom and Tony Stark. Yes. Where it's Santa Claus. And Doom is having a hard time believing in Santa and, and understandable. It, it was written by the same team and, and they've, they haven't reprinted that.
No. Run has, he did Dr. Doom Well, did. Santa ended up going to cocoa. Is that, is that okay? Well, some, something ended up happening where Santa showed doom the, you know, great power of love Yes. Or whatever, and yeah. It's kind of, I, I just remember him riding off in the sleigh and, and. Stark, like snickering or something in dooms, like, shut up.
Or there's . I don't wanna spoil it on, man. May walk over there and see if it's there. But that, that whole doom run was there, is it's, it's like the, the guide to the Marvel universe, the those the Marvel version of the Who's who there, there's one of those books. So we are, we're going back to, I think the late eighties, early nineties now.
[00:48:00] There is a profile, I think for Santa Claus. Hmm. And it, it's, I think it's John by, I want to say that it's John Burn Art, but I may be wrong. And, and they either allude or outright say that no, Santa Claus is a mutant, he's one of the first mutants, and that's his ability to be able to hit every house on on Christmas Eve and deliver all those presents and stuff.
And, and there you go. But in the DC universe, I dunno. So I guess we're gonna see, but I know that one of the variants for Batman, Santa Claus Silent Night has I think it's Ben Warren who does the art and it's like an extreme closeup of a very beat up, bruised, grungy looking angry Santa Claus. And it's a scratch and sniff cover
And I can only imagine what the smell, I think I kind of get a sense [00:49:00] of of where you're playing Christmas music. Damn. I'm stress. I'm kind of wondering, is Santa, because we dunno what the plot is. Is Santa Claus in this Batman Santa Claus team up story that's about to come out? Is Santa like some store Santa like Billy Bob Thornton type Santa.
And the scratch and sniff is gonna be some stale alcohol and urine type smell. Don't, I don't, I kind of hope not, but at the same time, I kind of hope that's the case 'cause Oh, oh my God. Wouldn't that be vanilla icing? That's what, yes. No, the crossover for Iron Man and Dr. Doom, I was researching it was a king in black.
Right. That explains why you Oh, wow. Haven't seen the reframe. Yeah. Yeah. It's, that's, sorry kids. I was just re I just remember I enjoyed that and I was like, what . What was, why were they together? Oh, except Christopher Kentwell. Wow. Something good came with King and Black. Yeah. Oh wow. I know, right? Shots fired.
Shots fired. Not really. That's a whole other show, . I'm a long one at that. Alright, gentlemen, . Happy holidays. [00:50:00] Happy holidays. Happy holidays, everybody. Bye-Bye.
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