Captain America and some actual books we are reading...
===
Yeti Stereo Microphone: [00:00:00] Welcome to the multi-verse podcast on today's episode. Captain America talk. And some actual books that we're reading. Yes, we do read real books. Join us in the middle of this conversation. Here we go. /
Go back. If you have the inclination and you want to hear the sound of your own voice, gentlemen, Go back several podcasts and re listen to the one where we talked about the first issue of Wonder Woman just came out and the first issue of Captain America came out. Yeah. And see where we are now because some of my concerns about Straczynski and his how he gets characters and then he doesn't.
Or he gets them and then he thinks he can. I don't know. It sounds awful to say improve them. I don't know. I'm not, I can't quantify what it is that he does. But they go off the rails. So what's interesting about this one though is the first, So the first [00:01:00] storyline was very much It was, He totally got Cap.
He understands who Captain America is. He knows like it's tied back to the character Of the kid that ultimately becomes Captain America. He gets that totally right. So a lot of times I'll read these things and it's like, you've never read a Captain America comic in your life.
He's not that guy. I think that every time I see someone make a DC movie, it's like, you've never seen Superman before ever. So he got it and nailed it. And I loved it. And I love the back and forth nostalgia of it. But now he's a sort of a, it was a weird origin for cap that first few issues like he was setting his stage, but then he's taking cap in a weird direction.
Nobody's ever asked ever for mystical cap, but we want super spy. We want, you know what? You know what? I think somebody needs to do with cap for real is Somebody needs to make Navy [00:02:00] SEAL cap. That needs to happen. There needs to be like, I'm a true, embedded operator kind of cap. Take some of the, take the Howling Commandos and they're like shield, but so the novels that I read right now are all are all.
Seal team spy kind of things. Okay. I'm on a, I'm on a run of those. So some of the books that I'm reading, book books that I'm reading right now are things like I've read Every Gray Man novel at this point. Okay. Like all the Gray Man books, there was just one, one that just came out, just finished it.
And there's a couple of, there's a Dempsey series, there's another series that's, oh, The Terminal List. Oh my gosh, The Terminal List is just a brutal series of books. Okay. I've read all of them, right? And there, it's all these, The Terminal List is actually written by an ex SEAL, so he slips in all this like cool SEAL stuff as he goes.
But, it's all about, the modern day ninjas. Which is what they are. They're modern day ninjas, right? [00:03:00] And they come in the cover of night They become the night they do their thing and the fight that they have in them They'll and they fight through buds training all this all that stuff.
I'm super into it right now I'm completely sucked in that in the Reacher books or I've somehow moved away from fantasy. I'm stuck on this for a minute That would be a great cap because you hear about the teams and like the lingo they use and the In these novels you'll hear the shorthand that they have right and how they speak to each other.
I Want cap to be a part of a military unit? That is doing is taking covert actions, right and being the ninjas of the modern day Because that is hugely interesting Place that we've never seen him go. I think it'd be awesome. I agree with you. I One of the things I always hoped That Marvel would do with cap [00:04:00] Was especially when they used to do their max books Yeah, is could we have some Captain America stories set during World War two under the mature readers?
Yeah thing not because I want the Mark Millar Ultimates version of Cap I want Cap as we know Cap to be, but in those truly horrific and horrendous. Yeah, Cap in war. Cap in war. Cap. Yeah, he's a soldier. Yeah. And certainly the things that That Qbert did with Sergeant Rock, I mean that, that kind of really, you really got a sense of it.
I don't know, I actually wondered maybe that's what they should do, they should just send, come up with a plot contrivance where Cap goes back to World War II. And he's gotta fight in World War II knowing everything that he knows now. And get Ed Brubaker to come back and write it. Or Can we just go back in time and get all, get that team back on the book.
That's all they [00:05:00] do. I do more of it. It was so good. I guess that's what trade paperbacks are for, but yes, it's, but then you have to go read the same story. It be careful what you wish for. Everyone wanted Claremont back on the X Men and when they got him, nobody was happy. And no, that's no, because I think that And not being anyone that's ever worked in the writing field, but I feel like this is, there's a lot of truth to this.
You only have so many stories to tell. Yeah. You can not like, there was a time when I've said this many times, I would never turn down a Jeff John story, right? Yeah. And now I'm Oh, now I'm ah, what's going on? Even this new line he's watched, I had launched with image.
I'm like, ah, bend us. There was a time I loved every Avenger he's got, but in his Superman was interesting, but it didn't grab me like his Avengers did. And I think whether that's, whether that was [00:06:00] editorial problems, there could be, cause his young justice should have been much better.
His Legion should have been much better. And so I think there's just this time. And also. I hate to say this, and don't give me the hairy eyeball. It's our age when we read it. Because we just had a collection come in, and it was, it's funny we've talked about this, it was the ultimates. Part of that was the book.
Issue one through, they're just the ultimate ultimates. So not a knock it out of the park, not a, not 20 books. What are the values of the ultimates? Are they just they're hovering around three to five bucks. So they're not no. They have, this is just the ultimates. That's the books I'd like to have.
And I'm coming Those might go to my collection, I don't know. And because we talked about how Ultimates 1 was the Captain America that Jason liked when he jumped out of the plane and all that, so and then, but, Steven's dislike for, do you think the ACE thing, this is, this was But then looking at how far [00:07:00] from 9 11, those stories were written, wasn't very far, and as an American, what some of us were feeling, that, that story couldn't be told that way today at all.
But it really rang with a lot of people at that how old were you? What was going on? And where was the writer? Because at that time, what, at that time, Bendison, Malar and all them were writing 40 books a month every time you turned around their name was on something. But now, it is, but let's face it, Chris Claremont gets paid by Marvel to sit at home and not write.
For anyone other than Marvel. He doesn't get he doesn't get so but when he does right Because he's getting ready to come back to Wolverine. He did that special. He's gonna talk to me a little me serious We all looked at went. Oh, that's cute and set it aside. Yeah because like on Wolverine, I was just thinking the Wolverine that I'm that Steven got me back on.
Yeah That's a visceral book. Yes, and I can't [00:08:00] imagine a Claremont version of that. No And it won't Claremont introduced the ninja aspect and all that's but and I'm not saying that the Ultimates was good I enjoyed it when it came out except something different, but I preferred the music and Perez Avengers Like I said before he gave me a choice You I would have gone with the classic.
This was interesting, but even now reading it, it is so dated. The only thing Then I almost went, oh that's alright. When Cap's beating the hell out of Henry Pimp or smacking his wife around. If I knew one of my co workers was beating his wife and I found him in the bar, I would probably take a chair to him too.
But, So I wouldn't, I I actually just pulled that graphic novel down. The first two runs. And I'd probably say, just a word in your ear Dr. So and just because I like that line. But, Yes. No, it's a good he brings out the bug spray. Yeah. All of that. That's brutal When cap's whooping him around.
And Jan's, I love, I did, I reread some of these today on the clock sorry John. But it [00:09:00] was when Jan's you beat my husband, it's alright, you beat up my husband and now you come to the hospital, you bring me candy and all of this. This isn't 1940s, what do you think this is? What do you think you're doing to me?
And then at the end of the. with him. It's her boyfriend. So yeah, go smack him around a little bit and go smack Hank around and yeah, I think it's and we know this for anyone Who contributes to a narrative or music or just art, some people are people and then we all change over time and we organically change, we organically grow and so you, it's the, it's that classic, I really liked your old stuff, I can tell you, We're not going to because we'll be here all bloody night, but I could easily on bands that I absolutely loved and hung on to every lyric and every note in the 80s, absolutely cannot stand now because it's, they've [00:10:00] changed.
And so I can it's not something against the band, like I can listen to the, again, it's that cliche, I really like your your older stuff is awesome, but this new stuff, which is, of course, every artist wants to hear that oh, great, thank you for pointing out that, I'm stuck, I'm circling the drain, yeah, we're all older, yeah, There are some comic book writers who I think definitely.
They caught lightning in a bottle, there was something, it was the right person, at the right time, the right this, the right that, whatever it was. You talk about somebody like Bendis. Having followed some of what Bendis has done in the last five years, I don't think Bendis is actually capable of going back and doing
the kind of things that he did on The Avengers. I, he's grown. He's moved on. And sometimes it works out and sometimes it doesn't. There, there are some writers who it just seems like like Denny O'Neill, for example, [00:11:00] Denny O'Neill just never seemed to the quality from my view just never seemed to drop, but he really didn't stray to the exception of the question, which we've talked about at length.
He never really strayed too far away from the Denny O'Neill style, the thing that he does. Even Howard Chaykin. Howard Chaykin is still overflowing cornucopia of crazy original ideas. But it's all written in that Chaykin style that he's perfected over the last 50 years. Somebody like, you know, say Bendis, I don't, I think that would be, that would probably be Mr.
Bendis's, idea of what hell would be like. Sitting in a dark cave somewhere, having somebody poke him with a trident, saying Avengers, please. Oh, man, he, over time he did say he, he didn't handle disassembled. As well as he should have. When he was like, yeah, we're gonna kill them all.
I didn't realize people would be so sensitive about it. It's a lesson that they all learn, [00:12:00] but But, yeah, it's, like I said, So you just have to, Alan Moore, we've still got an Alan Moore podcast we need to do at some point. You know the one that really hasn't changed a whole lot either for me is Neil Gann.
Gaming his sense his he's got a good beat. Yeah, he does and but he also spaces it out Yes, he does and that may be maybe you need to recharge. I just know I think all creative types have a Fuel tank they did. Oh, yeah maximum potential and if they don't recharge or they don't Well, it's just, it's a, I have a Neil Gaiman confession.
Okay. You don't know who he is. You've never read him. I've never read Sandman. Now I've consumed Sandman in two other ways and they were, it was awesome, but I've never actually read Sandman. And They may have read the first issue. Let me tell you something. I say Steven's over here.
I, I think one eye is poking at, this isn't as bad as his watchmen. That [00:13:00] we still never gone down. No, actually I I read Watchman. I just didn't like it. No, that's what I mean. That's, I have something to say about this but please, I It's not what you think. No I will say that I don't know if I picked up Sandman at this age.
If it would grab me like it did when I was sitting in that convention. And that's a true story kids. It just came out this week on the podcast. When some guy in a leather jacket with sunglasses goes, Hey kid, you want free comics? At least he didn't ask us to go into a white van cause I might've followed.
But yeah. Um, I reread the trade paperbacks about every five years for Sandman. And I acknowledge that I. but it does not grab me. If you gave them to me today as a Christmas gift, I can't tell you that I'd become a Neil Gaiman fan. Haven't met the man now about five times in autograph sessions.
And I've got a soft spot for anyone that gushes over my grandkids or my sister. And he loves my sister because she's a librarian. I like the man. [00:14:00] More than some of his work But I will sit he does a one man show about once every three or four years He'll come to the majestic theater in Dallas My sister and I will go We will pay to sit in the upper balcony and listen to him read two chapters out of his next book In these small chairs not built for us wider than wide men and can't feel my legs But I'll go stand in line for two hours just to go shake his hand get a postcard signed Because of I have, I've watched his masterclass, so Neil Gaiman, I like, and so I really like Sandman, I like the TV show Sandman, and the audio drama, yes, was amazing.
So I've consumed the same story, the twice now, yes, in two different formats, which were very consistent, by the way. And I read the first, I did read the first issue, but I haven't read I know there are people who just keep that tome is their tome, right? And I've not been through all of that.
And I [00:15:00] still don't know what to think about the guy with the chomper eyes. Oh, the Caribbean? Yeah. I think actually and might be better off just the way you're at. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If you've done the audio book and you've done the TV show, I think you've gone I, God, I'm going out on a limb here.
Yeah, I think you might just be better off. And I think he'd say thank you. Yeah. Because but, Because I love that book. I followed it monthly when it came out. It was all I wanted to talk about. I gave it to friends. I gave it to, Anyone I could, hey, read this book, you must read this book.
And certainly the response from the, literati was, more than justified the, when they did those collections, you've got Robert Bloch doing a forward, you've got Stephen King doing a forward, you've got, I think, Ramsey Campbell doing, you've, You remember the fervor around it.
Oh yeah. When they were coming, I'm there, there was, the first issue flew under the radar. I think the first couple [00:16:00] of issues actually, but then you would come in and it would be nothing to see a shop going through 50 to 75, 100 books just on subs. Absolutely. And the back issue values were all over the place.
That, no, that's it. That it was issue eight, the, and Gaiman himself, I think talks about how he, they really thought it was only going to last about eight issues before they got canceled. But issue eight, which is the death story, day in the life of death, and that was the one that just. Okay, and then you've got this really strange, it's African fairy tale thing.
And then it goes into the doll's house and you've got the Corinthian, Green, you've got the Serial Killers Convention. Oh God, the Serial Killers Convention, and all these kind of great, all these kind of interesting things. And it just grew and grew and grew and grew. But I started rereading it about a year and a half ago.
And I got the, To a game of you and I I think I'm going to [00:17:00] read something out. There's aspects of it that have not aged well. And once you know it, it doesn't hold a lot of surprises for repeat viewings. That is one thing that You can say something like yeah okay Watchmen does actually give you some gifts for repeated, going back to it but it's not a slight against the work, it's magnificent, although, It did go on, I think Sandman did go on a little too long.
But but yeah, no, I think it's the story that's the most important thing about that. So if you're getting the sense of the story, the richness of it from the audio book and from the TV series, yeah, I think you're, I think you're right, right where you need to be. I'm enjoying it, but, and I've I have a great deal of respect for Neil Gaiman.
Sure. So I've he has a masterclass on writing. Yep. So good. And I can listen to him talk forever. Yeah. Yeah. Just listen to watch the read the read the phone [00:18:00] book. I could. Yeah. One of the things that he did, one of his more recent books, he actually was the, he was the narrator. He was the reader on one of his audio books recently.
And then he did Is it Locking He? Was that his? Are you thinking of I don't know. David Tennant and the Angel and the Devil. No, no Good Omens. Locking He. That's that's not Neil Gaiman. That's Cause I think, cause I'm thinking Is that one of Stephen King's sons? Maybe. If only, once again, if only he had a device.
Yeah. There was something that he did where he was the, Something of his where he was the narrator and I was like, that's really good. I just remember, didn't didn't he do God's voice in at one point in Good Omens? Or somewhere? No, in Good Omens it's Francis McDormand is the voice of God. But, I know American Gods, that series.
Was that it? I didn't love American Gods. It's Good Omens. I read the book, but I didn't [00:19:00] like the book. Yeah, there was something about it that I just didn't really connect with. Did you ever see the I think it's the BBC did it, the Neverwhere? I think I've got that on DVD somewhere, I'll have to bring it in.
It is, That was actually quite good. That was his first stab at doing a TV Neverware? Neverware. Okay. I've got to think if I have a way to play a DVD anymore. You've got a Blu ray player. I don't. You know what I have? I have Yeah. Do you have 25 in your pocket? You can go buy a Blu ray player.
That is also true. That is very true. Lock and Key was written by Joe Hill. Joe Hill, there you go. See, Stephen King's boy. So I was about to say, it's not going to be hard to That show's a good show. Yeah. You haven't seen Good Omens on Amazon? No I haven't. I started to. I don't think I got very far.
Read the book. Read the book? Read the book. I'll do the book. Do the book. And then watch the show. [00:20:00] I tend to like the books. I'm a, I don't know. I, like I enjoy David Tennant. Seeing David Tennant in that. And that role cracked me up. The show was very good and the casting was very good and all of those things.
I'm just not as well read. I didn't realize it was a book until they started advertising about it. I was like, oh, and then, so I ended up going backwards. What, why I would recommend the book over watching the show first is, yes, Neil Gaiman, He co wrote that book with Terry Pratchett. Ooh, I like her.
Him. That's a him? Yeah. I always assumed it was a her. And he's passed away. And he passed away far too young. And Terry Pratchett is the Discworld, Yes, that's why I thought it was a her. I never looked at the pictures. Yeah, Tony Pratchett. And what's odd is that Gannon said this last time he was in town.
They were talking about Good Omens. Pritchard wrote [00:21:00] first one drafted out the third one. And Neal had to pull it out of his Rear end about the second one because there was no there's like a outline, right? And He was like, I know how it's supposed to end so So I can see I might be able to answer that cool because so Terry Pratchett was He I equate him with Charles Dickens, easily.
Because what Pratchett managed to do, in a similar way that that Dickens did, is that you're coming to these books, and it's a fantasy setting, and you've got death, and you've got witches, and you've got, wizards, and all this kind of stuff. But what he's actually writing about are people. The same problems, the same concerns, the same personality hangups that you [00:22:00] and it applies to all beings.
That's why people love this world. Yeah, that's it. So whether you're a troll, or you're a dwarf, or you're this, you're that, it's all under the same blanket of, oh, I know this guy, oh I know that guy, I know that guy, I know, I've met that one. So he wrote 40, I think it's 40 novels.
And he's fiercely protected over his creation. So it was, I can't remember the guy's name. He has an assistant, and Pratchett's instructions when you die. Oh, the estate's attorney or Will. Will. Yeah, Will. The executor of the estate. It's yeah, it was a request. Was that when he died, his assistant needed to take his computer, his desktop computer, And destroy it.
So that no notes, no Everything that he had was on that [00:23:00] computer. And they made a, there's a thing, you can go online, you can look at it. They got a steamroller, and they steamrolled over it. They destroyed that computer. Wow. Because he was like, I don't want anybody to I don't he's got it in his will agreement, no, there will be no more Discworld books.
Last wishes. Last wishes, thank you mate, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. There will never be any Discworld books. They're not gonna bring in another author, they're not, no, absolutely not. And his daughter Rihanna she's a writer as well. She's overseeing some of the media stuff that they do. But she's been asked many times and she keeps saying the same things.
No I no, no more Discord, that's it, that's all you're getting. And which is sad, but at the same time With Brandon Sanderson wrote it. I just don't think anyone could do what Pratchett was able to do. And I have thought Robert Jordan, after you're finished, I'll have some thoughts on that.
Robert Jordan wrote the wheel of Time. Series, right? . Have you read any of those? [00:24:00] Okay. But I'm familiar with it. So he wrote, I can't remember how many, nine or 10 books. I think it was 10 books. And the story was supposed to wrap up in 12. He had notes. He knew, like we knew how it was supposed to end.
Bring in Brandon Sanderson, and he was brought in to finish it, and he had to do more books than Was originally planned, I think they did 14, but I'm not positive on the numbers. Turns out Sanderson's better at it than Robert Jordan was. Like some of the characters are way better when Sanderson writes them, and This is a slippery slope.
No. There's a There's a character Matt Cawthon, who's probably the most fun character in the whole book series, but he got a little shmarmy, when he had, his voice had shifted badly. And Sanderson turned him back into the coolest character. That he was in the early part of the books.
And writes him way better than [00:25:00] Jordan Peterson did. Not Jordan Peterson. Robert Jordan. Jordan Peterson's a totally different guy. Yeah. That's a political problem. That's right. There you go. So yeah, he wrote him better. And then, the other thing that he wrote better was I think the, I'm sure the ending was the same.
I think there were some nuances that were very Sanderson like. But Robert Shorten had this thing where there was lots of slapping women on the fanny. That was his thing, slapping on the fanny. And all the fanny slapping disappeared really quickly. Probably a good idea. And the bosoms, they disappeared as well.
It just They're just better books. In some ways that's how a comic book creator comes behind someone else writing the X Men. But I will tell you as someone that loved the Myth Adventure series, Robert Asprin writing it, late 80s, it's a humorous fantasy, Series. Okay. Is great. Okay. [00:26:00] Now, Robert had problems with investing his money and other, bad faith actors in his life.
And so there'd be delays in books. Did he buy comic shop? He did not buy a comic shop. . He did not. You poor man. Too soon. Too soon. But then what happened is he got sick. And he brought in a, he worked with another writer. She was supposed to, he also wrote a group called fool's quest, which was a bunch of.
Military misfits and they created thieves world. Yeah, the anthology was part of that. So he handpicked his successor To come in his last few years try to hand it over before he died and he died with three more books left And she wrote these things And she was a great writer in other places These were Nowhere in it, you might luck into getting someone that could finish your work.
I understand why Terry had his stuff bulldozed [00:27:00] over. That passion about credit. Cause the Robert, I can't read, I can't read the last three books. It is. And that's just such a shame that I invested. Age 17 to 41 and I don't really get to and she writes other books now and they're just wonderful.
But they weren't her characters. They weren't her beat. She wasn't as funny. The main character is Skeeve. Little kid who's learned how to be Harry Potter, basically before Harry Potter. Yeah. And his sidekick was a big goblin. Name Oz. A Z H. And every time someone goes, your name's Oz, he goes, yeah, no relation.
Like he knew there was another Oz. And they would just roll down these. And there was a little comic Thor showed up, but it wasn't Thor. And other just different little beats. You, Stephen's got this look on his face like, I know this. No, yeah. Robert Fogle drew the two volumes that,
Yeah, there's a thing that authors are [00:28:00] doing right now where when they get tired of writing a series or a story a set of characters, they'll bring on a ghostwriter to do a couple of books together. Yeah. And then it's pretty much that guy's book. Like they, they keep those characters running while the main author is picking up new IP, they're building new IP, right?
So Clyde Custler does this. Sorry. Are we talking about William Shatner? Is that what we're talking about? Tech war. You're probably better off in that case. But Clyde Custler does this as a series that I read that he started and now it's handed off to somebody else who's not doing well. So I stopped reading it.
But there's, but as soon as he writes one again I'll pick it up. Tom Clancy. His stuff, he's been dead for a while, but his stuff has been pretty good. And the continued it's hit or miss actually. But the ones that are, but Mark Greeney was one of the, was like the main [00:29:00] first big ghost writer that he had this guy named Mark Greeney.
And Mark Greeney is the writer of the Gray Man series that's now its own, Netflix show and its own sort of thing. And I can very much see, I've, I heard him interviewed and he was talking about like the method that Tom had and picking up Tom Clancy's method working with him. And starting to write those books afterwards and how it informed his books.
When you read his stuff before he ever basically apprenticed with Clancy it's just a very different thing than after he apprenticed with Clancy. And was writing Clancy's books for him. I think you, yeah, I mean that, that happens. I think, what is it, James Patterson? Oh, yeah. He's got ghost riders who do stuff for him.
All the stuff. All over the place. All those big mystery and spy novels the ones that, they're like the top sellers in the freakin airport. Yeah. All of the airport top sellers. Yes. [00:30:00] Those guys, they get tired of reading. They get tired of writing Jack Reacher. There's 25 books in the Reacher series, I think.
They get tired of that at some point, and they move to the next thing. I just, I don't know, and maybe, and I'd be more than happy to, concede this. Maybe I'm a snob when it comes to these things. I don't know. But I have this hesitant, is a reluctance to go down. The rabbit hole of somebody of an author that I really love when somebody else is picking like Ian Fleming Yeah, I love the Fleming Bond books.
Yeah, they're dated and yeah, there's this problem in that issue and blah blah blah blah blah you Kick all that out of the way and you're reading spy stories from a guy who was A part of British intelligence, okay, and that informed what he wrote, [00:31:00] not the fantastic side, it's the little things that, that I was reading, I'll tell you the one that really sticks with me, I think it's Live and Let Die, there's a scene, Where Bond is flying into New York and he's going past, I think, like the Empire State Building or something like that.
You've got to remember this book was written in the very, very early 1950s. That's where it's set. And Bond is looking out the window and he's reflecting on all these beautiful buildings. And this is New York. This is the shining, this is the Big Apple. And he's got this little thought in his head about, A terrorist organization that's where you want to hit, you want to blow up one of those big buildings.
Yeah, I read this three, four months after 9 11, and was just like, oh shit! Yeah, you wrote this back then. Okay, yeah that clearly somebody else had that idea as well. So it's Tom Clancy's stuff was Incredibly trouble with [00:32:00] the FBI. They yeah, he that guy he predicted all sorts of things even so much that There was one thing that he wrote The bear and the dragon that freaked me out.
Okay, and it was this whole scenario where? where Russia was Russia and China, I know it was China, has trouble feeding all of its people. There's too many people given the amount of food they produce, so they have to produce exports to pay for food that they ultimately import. And even today, my friend who's first generation Chinese, he's people think that there's all these, that the normal Chinese people have all these thoughts and conspiracies, they don't care about any of this.
They care about food. Will I have food? And that's even now, right? Sure, yeah. The Bear and the Dragon there's a there's a global basically blockade, basically the, something horrible happens in the very beginning of the book that makes every nation on earth basically say, [00:33:00] Those are the bad guys.
And they they say, nobody buys and sells from China anymore and they're cut off. They can't have that. So they've got to go do something. So they move on like Chinese oil in Siberia on the other side and you, it forces this war, the, this war between Russia and China, which ultimately would have escalated into some horrible thing that, Jack Ryan president had to get out and get ahead of because that's how that goes.
Anyway, I was like, Oh This whole, everybody being pissed off at China, that's a very real possibility. That could happen. I don't think we'd ever do anything because, I'm not sure anybody's ready to give up their really cheaply made stuff that they get from China now. No, but, you never know.
It's all, it's it's, to, Oscar Schindler, it's all the presentation. You never know. But I just, again I like, The idea, one of my favorite authors [00:34:00] is Raymond Chandler. And I love his Philip Marlowe books. And I just, I love it. And Chandler only wrote, it's I think less than ten of them.
And there have been other authors who've come along and done Marlowe books. I've got no interest in following them at all. I watched a movie once, Poodle Springs, with James Caan. You don't only read Marlowe books. Stan Lee's Spider Man books. No. No, not at all. Not at all. But I'm, like I said, particular author, particular voice, their character, and I'm, again, artists. It's funny, talking about artists that lose their voice or change organically, what have you. Terrence Malick. Terrence Malick made Badlands, Days of Heaven, and then he disappeared from film for what was it, 20 years? And he's come back and now he's doing movies again. And, no disrespect to Mr.
Malick, but, man, I wish you hadn't. Because, sitting [00:35:00] through the Thin Red Line. Oh, so highbrow, man. Thin Red Line? The war movie? Yeah. Oh. I think I like that. Wow. That. I can't remember. I think I liked it. Endless bloody shots of kids splashing around in the river and Oh, that was annoying. Trees and all that sort of stuff.
And then, you hear the, this is just going to turn into a slagging session. You hear about all the actors who were so excited. I'm going to Malick. And they went and they'd spent time like in the Philippines. And then they worked with him. And no. What happened was, is that Terrence Malick is notorious.
He will have a script. He will shoot the script, and then he will get into the editing room and go, I don't like this script anymore. I want to make something different. I'll just use what footage we've got. The guy who thought, I think it's, I think it's Adrian Brody, actually thought that he was the lead character in that film.
He's actually in the film for two minutes. Might have been the lead originally. Oh no, that's it, the original, sorry, but, Malick [00:36:00] decided to do something different and, I think Travolta or Mickey Rourke, somebody like that. Did a bunch of work in it, never seen it, on the cutting room floor, Terrence Malick, ladies and gentlemen.
What's getting y'all just so highbrow? I was, I'm bringing up my Robert Asprin and my Peter David, created his own little Star Trek universe, and that was great, but We love what we love. That's all there is to it. I just feel like I gotta play catch up now with some of the, I'm writing down these quotes.
No, not with Terrence Malick. I think what's interesting though is, But I've read the, I'm reading Jack Reacher. I've got two of those. I've been trip wire, trip line, whatever that one is. That was like the fourth one. Fourth one. Okay. That one's pretty good. Cause I wanted to skip, since I saw the first book is the first season.
Yeah. So I missed it. The second season's I'm not even to the second season. Oh, second season is great. Like I've watched it, but I'm not to that book. That's like a book 12. Yeah they're not doing them in order for a particular reason. They just said, I think it's whichever one converts TV.
Cause there's some, I'm like, Some of the books would make a good TV episode, not a season. What I [00:37:00] wish they would do is have a season of that, of the book, of the show, which is episodic. Shows up in the town, hears the threat, takes care of the threat, and then he's off. There's one that happens Like Texas border town kind of thing.
And when I read that, I was like, that is not a season of a show. That's an episode of a show where drifter blows into town. Something goes awry, drifter gets involved in solving the problem. And then he then he leaves, he gets back on his bus at the end of the show. And goes to the next place. Do they play that haunting incredible Hulk music?
I mean you could yeah, This book the book series very much is he is bruce banner and he's as big as the whole Yeah, he's i'm on book seven right now, okay, I think I took a pause right now. What am I doing at the moment? Oh some of my favorite like All of my spy novels are, I'm waiting for the next one to come out.
There's one that comes out next month in May, [00:38:00] but the authors wrote another series. One of my favorite set of authors wrote another series. I was like, all right, I'll give that a shot. And it's the, like it's tangentially right. And I'm hooked on it. It's called the Shepard Series.
This one is it's the same sort of tactical unit sort of team that gets involved and pulled into, Big Grant's conspiracy and they have to come save the day. SEAL Team 60 kind of stuff. But, What if it's like crazy demonic stuff happening and these guys have some sort of like angelic connection as well.
Okay. I'm like, okay, you did good on this other one. So sure. Here we go. So the other series isn't straight like Navy SEALs. Okay. Like they have one series, which is like elite detached task force that doesn't have to go through all the red tape that the CIA does or whatever, which I dig.
But they [00:39:00] call in their Navy SEAL buddies every once in a while for help because they're a little bitty unit. Then their Navy SEAL buddies got a spinoff. So that was good. So they've got these two series, one that's like the main like super spy organization, one that's Navy SEAL buddies. And now they have this third thing.
I'm like, I wish you would just work on one of these two, but I'm reading the third one now. It's that from dusk till dawn where you think you're watching a movie about two bank robbers on the run. And then all of a sudden, all hell breaks loose, and you're like, hang on, I I like the bank robber story, and I like the vampire story, but I don't necessarily like them butted right up against each other, that just seemed But I don't mind Selma with a snake.
Nobody minds Selma Hite with a snake. That was a, that was an early Clooney. It was an early Clooney. That's right. That was a good one. I liked the, I actually liked the movie. I liked. There's things to like in the movie. Yes. There are definitely things to like in that movie. Yes. Probably not as a holistic No.
[00:40:00] I just rewatched it not too long ago. No. It's Yeah. Anyway, I wouldn't watch it. So this episode turned into What are all the novels we read? Ramblings of the old group./
Yeti Stereo Microphone-1: Thank you for listening to the multi-verse comics podcast. If you'd like to join us online, you can do that at www dot multi-verse dot shop. That's our online store or in person at the multi-verse. In Hurst, Texas. We'd love to see you there. See you next time.
