Blood Hunt and Absolute Power
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Yeti Stereo Microphone: [00:00:00] Welcome to the multi-verse comics podcast. On today's episode, we talk about the big summer events. From Marvel and DC, we talked blood hunt and absolute power./ Enjoy.
Jason: We had an episode well, we've actually done two episodes where we talk about Blood Hunt. The first was a previews. Yeah, we were gambling. Yeah, yeah. And we were trying to figure out what we thought and Which one was gonna win. Which one was gonna win and,
Scott: yeah.
Between Blood Hunt and Absolute Zero,
Jason: correct? Yeah, is it Ground Zero or Absolute Zero? Absolute power. That may be a prophetic statement, we'll see. Oh man, that's how many copies we sell? We've sold a chunk.
Stephen: We've done okay. That's good. We still have plenty of I think we,
Scott: I think we've moved more Blood Hunt and tie ins now, but it's been running longer because Blood Hunt is on issue four.
Yeah. And It's a bi weekly. Absolutely. Or is it a weekly?
Jason: [00:01:00] One?
Scott: Monthly, I thought.
Jason: We only have the first one and then like this Ground Zero, which was a I read Ground Zero. It was fine. I was disappointed that it was like the free comic book day story plus, Like, a little bit of the other stuff. I want it to be a little bit more.
What's, what was interesting about Ground Zero to me, Oh, let me back up. The second episode that we did on Blood Hunt I screwed up. So, you'll never hear that one. It's terrible. Not because the discussion was terrible, but because the audio was awful. So, that thing's a goner.
Today we're running with a backup audio, so one way or another you'll get something out of this. And so we're redoing the blood hunt thing, but now we have absolute power out as well. When we did the previews episode, we talked about how these event books don't do great. You never know. Like you never know how many to buy.
You never know what to buy. [00:02:00] And that proved, Blood Hunt, as it turns out, was a pretty fun event. I think the last one's not out yet. Five is not out yet. And I've not read it. So, so far it's good in the set up at the end of the game. Just makes me super excited to read five, right? So it's turned out to be really good and Unlike almost every event I've ever read It's ever the opening of every Bloodhunt main issue.
I've been like, oh Oh, man, I need to go read where that happened. Like something will have happened off the main story. Yes. And I'll be like, Oh, I need to go read that in this other tie in.
multiple: Right.
Jason: And it makes me want to go pick up, you know, like the, the biggest one at the end of blood hunt one, I was like, I've got to read Dr.
Strange. Right. There was a Dr. Strange blood hunt. Well, and here's the thing we didn't, we didn't know it'd be good. And nobody ever buys the tie ins. And Dr. Strange is not one we buy a ton of for the shelf, like sub or two [00:03:00] for the shelf. I don't even think it's that much. Yeah. So, yeah, like it just doesn't, it's not a big title for us.
So we didn't have that. We didn't know it was gonna be like really important and really a good book to have. Yeah. So I don't think this is very dialed in because every single one, Marvel and DC are like, this is gonna be, IM important for you to have, oh yeah,
multiple: okay.
Jason: You, you've gotta have this book no matter what.
And then you end up with like, seven stacks of Beast Wars or whatever. Right. What was that thing? Was it Beast Wars? Night Terror's Beast Beast Wars thing. The Titan thing.
Scott: And as we said in that last one when we were gambling on, you know, which, which event, because we're, we're longer in the tooth, so we're a little more jaded about, you gotta buy every one, you gotta buy every one.
Yeah. And, and, you know, I will say that I was wrong about Blood Hunt and the fact that you can get by without reading that Doctor Strange, but it really adds more depth to it does [00:04:00] because that what the events that happened in Blood Hunt really washed over into, you know, you really wouldn't know what was going on in Dr.
Strange. I gotta find myself, I'm gonna call him Dr. Who at least twice during this, because that, because that, we were having a Dr. Who discussion before y'all came in. Right. So, Thank God for Second Prince.
Jason: Yeah.
Scott: And Third Prince. I mean, that, that was a lifesaver for the five to ten people that were interested in
Stephen: Well, that was the thing, because the Sunday after Blood Hunt, Well, okay.
So, there was, there was a, a There was a little bit of there was a little bit of unhappiness with one of the members of the Multiverse team, who will go, who will remain nameless, who said that they didn't like that the, let me get this straight in my head, that the free comic book day, the Marvel free comic book day, which had a lead in to Blood Hunt, came out The Saturday after the first issue of [00:05:00] Bloodhunt came out.
And this person's critique was, Why did they not delay issue one by a week so that everything would land in time? And my, my, cause, you know, I've always gotta have a a devil's advocate position here cause, you I'm an arse, this is how I get my jollies. I said, well, not everyone is a Wednesday warrior. So, maybe it's a case of, Issue 1 is out, people won't get it, but they'll grab the free comic book day book and go, Oh, I quite like this, when is this one?
Oh, Issue 1 is out now, oh, let me go. So I can actually see that that is probably the Marvel's gambit. Yeah. Not that Gambit, but Gambit. Different Gambit. Different Gambit. And not the Avengers one either. Not that Avengers. The Steed and Mr. Anyway! You're spiraling. I'm spiraling. But what was interesting is, is that [00:06:00] Sunday after issue one came out we had three, maybe four different groups come into the shop saying, Do you have Doctor Strange?
Yeah. And I was like, Nope! Yeah. And this sort of look of, I don't know if that I can't imagine that we were alone in everybody. It's
Jason: a it was like retailers everywhere We're unless you happen to have and different books have different like fan bases Yes, like you'll end up in a store. We'll have That's why you have some stores that like spider man's their main book and some that Batman's their main book because you end up with a bunch of people that sort of
multiple: Talk to each other and end up
Jason: with liking a lot of the same things.
We don't happen to have a Dr. Strange big fandom. We have a few that pick it up, but, but we don't have a mass of Dr. Strange people, right?
Scott: It's not, it's not number five or six. No, it's not.
Jason: Yeah. It's, it's pretty much. Pretty far down that list. And honestly, it hasn't been a great book lately. Like they [00:07:00] went like a little weird on it.
It that strange. Yeah. No, I've been loving it. Have you? Okay. Yeah.
Stephen: Yeah. But this is, but this is the thing. I think you might be thinking of the previous structure train run. Yeah. That one kind of went off the rails, but the current one is, has actually been very tight. The current one's good. Yeah. Okay. But here's the thing.
I don't know if I've read the current one. Jed McKay, who's writing Blood Hunt, is writing Doctor Strange. Okay. And he's been writing Moon Knight. So, if you've been following Doctor Strange and Moon Knight Can you get a larger picture? When Blood Hunt hits, it's like, Oh, okay, this is kind of, and of course, Moon Knight, definitely.
He's also writing, I think, The Avengers.
Jason: Yeah.
Stephen: So, it's, this is where he's I don't know if this was the plan or, or what, but he's found himse I think what, the way that I've read it is that he's got, he's got the the task of doing the big summer event, and he's like, oh, I can actually [00:08:00] kind of tie some things into this.
Yeah. And certainly, Moon Knight is Is one of those
Jason: things. Well, and that's another one. That's the other big one where I think it was at the end of maybe the third issue. I don't know if it was third or fourth issue. I was like, Oh, Moon Knight looks like a really cool. I wanna read that thing. That's gonna be a story where lots of random vampire murders are happening.
And that looked like a killer story. And I was like, I didn't add that to my pull list. Right. I should have.
Scott: Yeah. It, it was. It's, it's very difficult because we, you know, I can talk about Titan's beast war. Now, I'm not trying to be cocky or arrogant. I looked at that and knew that was going to be Titan centric only.
Right. Everyone's like, Oh, it's a stepping stone until. Absolute Power. Ah, is it? Because you just make one mention, it's it's spinning up Amanda Waller more. But Amanda's always been [00:09:00] spun up. You've done nothing in the Everyone's trying to say, you know, Dark Crisis leads into this, leads into this. This time around, DC has done a very poor job, I think.
Now, I'm enjoying Absolute Power, and I'm looking forward to the two of y'all reading it. And Because that way we can all discuss it intelligently and not, you know, because there is a, what won the summer right. Because I'm going to almost go out on a limb and say they might tie
multiple: with
Scott: blood hunt.
That's what I enjoy. Is that basically it's, it's an Avengers and a Blade story, but it's also another level of supernatural, you know, issue four added a new layer of, you know, what's going on with Blade. Right. The Avengers for the most part, Don't do very well against Supernatural. No, I think that's very
Stephen: evident by the end of this shoot.
Yeah,
Scott: yeah, that, that, that, that was. And, you know, how, how they have to fight back. Because, you know, at the end of the day, it's not going to be, we're going to go two years with all the Marvel Universe deezens being, you know, [00:10:00] Vampires and it would be interesting just to see how it works for two years we're just going to do this and see what happens.
It'd be much more interesting than the next X Men launch, but The character development in the tie in books is a lot of fun. That Dracula. I got an answer on why they don't use Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Dracula and they had to create the other one. Universal was going to start their Dark Universe, right?
And they pulled the rise to the classic looking Dracula. So if Marvel wants to use that. Classic Universal monsters, universal Monster, Bella. How interesting. We have to license it.
Stephen: I didn't know that was ever a licensed thing.
Scott: Uni, the name Dracula and some of the back history, somewhere in one of the little books is like License from Universal or a little acknowledgements.
While Wolfman created a lot of the backstory and a lot of the legend and side characters and all that, that actual, there was. [00:11:00] When Tom Cruise was going to be the superhero, it's about the time you line up and you see that Dracula showed up. It was just very quietly, universal. Yeah, because they were redoing the mummies from there.
Oh, I didn't, I didn't read that. Why Marvel's not using Frankenstein's monster the way they used to, and Werewolf at Night looks different than iterations. They can still use Jack Russell.
Stephen: Yeah.
Scott: Which still cracks me up that the Terrier. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think that's great. But you know how it looked kind of like Lon Chaney's werewolf?
Yeah. Now you've got him, he looks like Sasquatch from Alpha Flight.
Stephen: Yeah. Windigo. Windigo. Yeah. So there's,
Scott: there, there was just a little subtle Well, that's interesting. Little behind the scenes, cause I left our last podcast going, why did they change Dracula? But the, the Blood Hunter. Little anthology stories have been very interesting.
Jason: Yeah.
Scott: I've, I've enjoyed, this is the first time in a long time, the tie ins are almost as enjoyable as the main, the main book.
Jason: Yeah. Yeah. I like the Midnight Suns one. Yeah. Midnight Suns. Midnight Suns [00:12:00] and
Scott: Doctor Strange do run high on that list. Yeah. I haven't read the Hulk one that's coming out. And I haven't looked through the recent Wolverine one, but Wolverine against vampires has always always entertaining.
Yeah And there's some history. Yeah, there's a long history of that. So I'm like I said, i'm i'm I am very much enjoying blood hunt a lot more than I thought. I I would I I thought this was gonna be night terrors all over again, right? And i'm, sorry for the one and a half of you that enjoyed night terrors if there's more of y'all Hit us up and let us know, put it in the comment section, cause I'd like to, I'd like to, I'd like to, I'd like to, I mean, once again, I love the Joker and the Green Lantern one, but other than that, I can't even tell you, they brought Sandman back from the dead somehow,
multiple: but
Scott: once again, absolute zero, or ground zero, whatever this is, absolute power,
Stephen: he's stuck,
Scott: I can't, I can't get, well I'm looking at ground zero, ground zero,
Stephen: That's it.
Ground power?
Scott: Yeah, ground power. Power there is, Ollie does something [00:13:00] in this that I really want to see what the end game's gonna be. Right. Because it's very, it, it's very unusual for Green Arrow to outsmart Batman. True. And so, and leave it to Mark Waid to geek out and have Green Arrow list the ways that he just beat Batman.
Cause he's a part of this. Right. And you're like, oh wow. Some of it doesn't make sense. I don't know how you're going to get Amanda Waller to cripple the specter, but there's got to be some backstory in there, but that's, and I know, you know, you, you shook your head about this DC event. If anything, I would tell you when you're in here on Sunday, counting the books.
Just pull the book and read it. Put it back. I mean, it's not gonna, I know this month you're, you know, maybe you're off DC or whatever it is. The the Green Lantern tie in was very, that was very interesting because we created a new emotional spectrum and our, I heard about it. Yeah. Did you, did you watch Sasha's?
Oh,
Stephen: so [00:14:00] the the, I saw it on YouTube.
Scott: It is so, I'm going to steal something that Jay said earlier. It was so on brand for Hal and Carol. The on brand is what I'm stealing. We had an inside joke. And Sasha did her little video on it, which was a lot of fun. Yeah, and I went back and was like, Aw, oh, Okay You are making Hal and Carol kind of very toxic for each other, but like so toxic that they're the only two in the DC universe that can put up with each other.
I don't lo It's an interesting take, I don't know if that could be I prefer Jeff Johns run with her still back then. Yeah, I, I,
Stephen: I read through the first I think half dozen issues. It's Adams, isn't it? The name of the guy who's writing it? I think so.
Scott: And, and his, his didn't grab me. It still hasn't, it's not, it's one of the top 10 books I'll go through my pile to read, but it's not like the old days when Johns was on top, but the last two [00:15:00] or three where they're starting to unspin this problem with the lanterns, it's been a little more interesting.
I'm just tired, sorry, this isn't, I am tired of the Guardians burying Power Cores. I'm tired of the Guardians burying Power Cores. All over the place. Because if you're doing that, then my ring should never run out of power. I'm, I'm, I'm waiting to find out that Gnort has one and he thinks it's a fire hydrant
Jason: and he keeps.
It's true. That is, that's, that's the next block. Does
Scott: that is, but. If you enjoy, and Jason's the one that turned me on to the Batman Superman World's Finest, if you enjoy Mark Waid's style of geeking out, it, especially when you get to the green arrow part you're like, oh, okay, not, didn't see that coming, but I don't read the green arrow book.
Our store manager was like, oh yeah, you didn't know this was coming? It's like, that. Right. Okay, so I picked up that. Yeah. Issue 12, thumb through that. But still not used to Green Arrow besting Batman, mentally.
Stephen: Yeah, that seems kind of an odd, I'll have [00:16:00] to, I would have to, you know, read that and see what, what I think.
I, No, I'm not, I'm not following it. I'm no plans, really no plans to I'm bang, this is going to sound terrible and I fully understand that, but my gut tells me I'm going to have, if I wanted to read it later, I'm not going to have any issues. I'm not going to have any problems finding the issues.
Well, and that's okay. That's true with any of these. Yeah, well, yeah, I mean, well, first print.
multiple: Yeah.
Stephen: But, not that matters. One thing I just, and I think we talked about this, is that this is Amanda Waller's show. Mm
multiple: hmm.
Stephen: So that Beast World thing kind of set the stage, and they've set the stage with her in a couple of other places.
But what we, what we haven't actually had It is a decent Suicide Squad book for ages to really get to see that character [00:17:00] do what that character does best.
Scott: One of our listeners came in and asked me about Amanda Waller's backstory. Yeah. Where was there an issue? And I'd say it's all been recon, but I referred her to the John Otterman, Osterman's suicide run where there was a private lives thing.
But then when we got into it, we started walking through about how, you know, there's two suicide squad books going on there that very similar to the blade book ties into blood hunt a little bit. Marvel didn't do a good job DC is definitely not doing a good job of, they took the character from the super girl show, a dreamer, right?
They've incorporated her into the DC universe. Well, she's, She's an integral part of what's going on in that issue. Very reluctantly, but the lead ups are in this suicide squad that I've got plenty of on the wall. So if ya'll want any to get it before you start come and grab it. But The Beast Wars actually also ties back into that [00:18:00] Earth 3 crossover a while back with that Amanda Waller was a part of, that at the end Peacemaker and Girl Peacemaker are all, and, they're all making peace?
Well, it was, well, I, I thought they were, giving peace a
Stephen: chance.
Scott: It, it was a, it was another one of these, it was a special. The In fact, I'll look it up. And that's where it got Waller once again. Superheroes have too much, too much authority. And then somewhere in Beast Wars the Titans took over and started giving orders to the military and that rattled That rattled Amanda and Sergeant Steele.
And apparently part of, they're trying to tie in some of the things that's going on in Wonder Woman with Amanda's Amanda's agenda.
Stephen: Right. Which is,
Scott: which is, yeah, The War for Earth 3, you remember this? You moved that cover around. I don't
Stephen: actually remember that.
Scott: It was, it was a horrible, [00:19:00] like, Nightwing was with Owlman and Ultraman was with Superboy, and they jumped over to Earth 3 because Amanda wanted the titans and the analogs to eliminate.
Stephen: Was Ultraman still snorting kryptonite dust?
Scott: No, that was that was only Grant Morrison, I think. No, that was
Stephen: Jeff Johns. Was it Jeff Johns? That was Jeff Johns, yeah.
Scott: A different one. I,
Stephen: I
Scott: still think that was funny. But, so It's, it's
Stephen: a drug ad.
Scott: Yeah. To me, this, this, this, this, I think Amanda Waller deserves better.
And I also don't think that Amanda Waller should be a different version of Lex Luthor. And what I mean by that is, superheroes don't need to be running around unchecked. Cause she wants to control through a mazo technology and all this.
Jason: She,
Scott: she wants to control, she wants her own superheroes. Now, you know, when you had suicide, you know, when you had suicide squad, you were on, I kind of enjoyed more government black ops, quiet [00:20:00] Amanda, where, you know, if you were saying Amanda's name, you were either needing her help or you were getting ready to be, neck collar with a bomb.
But no one else knew other than Maxwell Lord, which I think was a great back, back in the eighties, a great relationship, but I'll leave it to Mark Wade, where of all the renditions of this Amanda Waller, I enjoy this one because he's been given, he didn't create her this way. He's, he's been given this storyline And you see Sergeant Steele pushing back on her a lot, like, hey, are we supposed to be, and she's very much, I'm the goddess, you know, we're gonna, we're gonna take care of this.
I got the president of United Earth Galaxy, whatever, on my side, United, whatever's going on in the Where Earth now is the, the Alabama of the Galactic Alliance out there. I'm not worried about anyone in Alabama listening to this. They don't have electricity, so World World is a very
Jason: close neighbor.
Because Superman brought World World over.
Stephen: Yeah,
Jason: yeah. Everybody was thrilled about that [00:21:00] part.
Stephen: Well, I Okay, so This is a I think this is kind of an established thing. I don't know if it's a trope. I'll leave that to the other guy. But There's that There's that idea that the And again, I'm going into this not having read this.
So I can't critique it. I can't. Okay. But the best villains Are the ones I don't know. The best villains tend to be, I should say, the ones who do not consider themselves villains. They actually consider themselves, not heroes, but that they are doing the right thing. They firmly believe that what they are doing is to the betterment of the world.
As opposed to the detriment of all. So, you look at somebody like Doctor Doom. I think Doctor Doom is probably one of the best examples of this on the Marvel side. Is that this is a guy, he understands that everyone thinks he's a villain. And he's okay with that. He actually [00:22:00] doesn't care. But, Doom, when Doom has been right, he doesn't care.
It's usually a case of, Oh wow, yeah, actually, we probably should have listened to Doom. You know, his Achilles heel is that he wants to bring Reed Richards. Richards! If it wasn't for the Reed Richards thing, he actually could almost border on being a hero. Almost. Almost. Bendis took a swipe at, you know where I'm going?
Yeah, yeah. Bendis took a
Scott: swipe at that when in Famous, Infamous Iron Man. Yeah. Where that's right, because Reed and
Stephen: Sue were out of the universe. That's right. So, and, and Lex Luther, I mean, now Lex Luthor is, I. He, he believes what he's doing is for the betterment of mankind, as long as he's at the top.
Yep. Okay, so he, he's a villain in so much that he, he cannot possibly think that what he's doing is good. He knows the things that he is [00:23:00] doing, that there is a moral lapse there. Okay, I think Doom has, Doom actually probably has a very solid moral compass with what he does. Yeah. Especially when it comes to things like, you know, being honorable about things, or not being petty about things.
You know, he's always got, Doom is never petty, you know, and all this kind of stuff. Whereas Lex Luthor is as petty as all get out. Amanda Waller, the thing that I like about her is that she almost falls into the Doom canon. She believes that she's, this is her job. She is protecting America. She is protecting the interests of a nation.
And yes, it's a dirty job, but she sleeps just fine at night. And those character moments, I think she's got a daughter. There've been some kind of fun character things that have been done with her in the past about the relationship that she has with, with her children because they think that she's [00:24:00] diabolical.
Well, definitely in Peacemaker.
Scott: Yes. Peacemaker, that Peacemaker is the best. I've seen
Jason: that relationship. Okay.
Scott: And what's interesting, this speech that you're giving. Yeah. Are you sure you didn't read? I'm quite sure because Amanda explains exactly what you're talking about, and I don't want to give spoilers away, because there's an interesting thing that they do with AI in the media.
That's why I'm kind of, there's some things I'm talking about, but you're, but you're absolutely on the nose.
Stephen: And that's, she, there's almost a, if I had to draw a Marvel parallel, it would actually be, possibly, Nick Fury. She's, she, in some respects, she's the Nick Fury of the DC. The, the, the DCU because she's got government clout, she's got clearance above, you know, she's got, you know, what, what was that Nick Fury thing in in well, gosh, what the hell was it called?
The Civil War, where they, the Avengers, when they're on the run, they're [00:25:00] hiding out in A bunch of Nick Fury's old hideouts. And it's like, okay, this has level 36 clearance. Only level 36 clearance knows about these hideouts. Well, who has, oh, it was only Nick Fury. Like, he's the only one who actually has level 36 clearance.
So, I kind of always Amanda Waller is, is, is closest, I think, to Nick Fury. But even Nick Fury fell from grace. And oddly enough, Marvel kind of kept that one going. The, the original Sin thing. Yes. Is that, okay, so basically he's the Watcher, he's up on the moon now. And they were okay with doing that because they had a, a new, new Nick Fury.
Nick Fury Jr. Well, Sam, I mean Sam j Sam Jackson. They had to bring Sam Jackson
Scott: into the
Stephen: Fury, Jackson 6 1
Scott: 6 universe.
Stephen: And they've kept that going, so it's like, okay, fine. But that's, that's the Amanda Waller that I like, anything that sees her with designs. above and beyond that job. I'm like, I don't buy it.[00:26:00]
So that's, that's kind of been my like reluctance to be like I don't know about this.
Scott: Well, she's very clummy. Once again, all that's very close to what you see on there. It's just, yeah. To me, DC didn't network at all. Get to see her spin up, you know, like she's over here and then two years later we're gonna touch on it here.
Yeah. You almost forget a man because, because DC's universe changes so much. You almost forget what Amanda we're getting, you know, because we we're coming up on another relaunch. I'm sure once we get done with this. 'cause there, there's gotta have to be a new, I mean, at the end of this, there has to be a new Justice League team created.
Because in, in that comic they mentioned about. the Justice League trying to get the word out and everyone's like, what, what Justice League? And so that's just my speculation.
Stephen: Okay, so bounce back to Bloodhound for a second. So I think it's in the latest issue. Is the reveal about. Now I, I've been, I was so [00:27:00] pleased with everything about Blood Hunt and the Titans and everything.
I'm so glad that everything else had been really strong. Because if it wasn't, because I thought that kind of fell flat. But. It's a minor thing, because Blade's plan here, or what have you, is, is just one cog in a bunch of spinning wheels that are, that are doing rather well. So, that, that was a little bit of a okay.
Because I was kind of hoping that actually, you assume that there's something That Blade turned heel. Yeah, why has Blade gone evil? Or Blade's
Scott: on a mission that he can't tell anyone about, so he doesn't mind He doesn't
Stephen: mind Yeah, because when has Blade ever really cared about anything other than Blade's agenda?
I mean But
Scott: that would, his agenda was always wiping out vampires. Yeah, I mean,
Stephen: I think Jason Aaron was the one who stuck him in the Avengers. And most of the, my memory of that is most of the time he's like, why am I here? I don't want to [00:28:00] do this. We had the
Scott: man thing on the show, the little man thing. Mini man thing, mini
Stephen: thing.
Yeah, mini me, mini me thing. Which I was, I thought that was kind of cute. And then he's the sheriff of Vampire Town in Russia. I liked that as well. My
Scott: favorite part of Bloodhunt is Dr. Strange going to Dr. Doom for help. Oh, yeah, I just
Stephen: All right Here's what I want. Yeah, and Doom's like, yeah, sure. I'll do this.
Here's what I want in return. And you saw it coming a mile off like, oh, come on, man. You Come on, Victor. I think that's what Steven said. Come on, Victor. Come on, Victor. But this goes all the way back to the Bendis era. You know, where it's like, there's one, there's a couple of things that Doom will allow himself to be fully human, fully, you know, with the same crummy impulses that the rest of us mere mortals have.
One is he wants to see Reed Richards admit you're the best, you are the [00:29:00] best. And the second thing is he wants Stephen Strange's job. And that's it. And it's like, well, okay. And I'm kind of hoping that he gets it. And I know the Doc Strange book apparently is, is, is And they're recycling
Scott: it again. Is
Stephen: being cancelled.
And I'm like, look, you gave us that lovely, that gorgeous Christopher Cantwell written Doom book a couple years ago that I loved the hell out of. Can we now have Doctor Doom, Sorcerer Supreme? I'll buy that book, especially if you get Cantwell back to write it. I'll be all over that.
Scott: I want another occasion I can see Dr.
Doom riding a bear. That was the
Stephen: best.
Scott: Or Dr. Doom figuring out Santa Claus is a mutant.
Stephen: Yes, that was great. And
Scott: that Tony Stark didn't deserve a gift but Doom could get one. That was outstanding.
Stephen: That was the best part of Kenya Black. That really was, possibly the only good thing about Kingdom Black, but, yeah, but, yeah.
And I see you've got a package of plastic teeth.
Jason: I do.
Stephen: I guess we've got [00:30:00] another one. I do.
Jason: Special gifts for the podcasters. We have Blood Hunt. Each card, every trading card is different. Every trading card is a different one. Blood Hunt teeth. This one's this one's Power Grid. Is he one of those Oh, no, no, no.
It is a Power Grid.
Stephen: Oh, it is a Oh, okay, I was gonna say, is he one of these Is he part of
Scott: Power Pack? What is he?
Jason: This is a Doctor Strange one. Right, this is This is Scarlet Witch. Vengeance, Moon Knight Vengeance. Tigra. Miles. Yeah. This is one of the Oh, this might be Dracula. I thought it was one of the That is Dracula.
Okay. Yeah. And then, what else do we have? We have These are, these are are vampire teeth, like Halloween vampire teeth. Yeah. But with character cards attached. Yes. So this is Oh, this is like the, the, whatever the bad vampire guys are.
Stephen: Oh, yeah. The what are they called? I [00:31:00] can't remember. The Crimson Fury?
I don't remember.
Jason: Yeah.
Stephen: The Blood Coven.
Scott: Sorry, guys, we would have researched this more,
Jason: but I'm sure there's people sitting at home
Scott: going, They've got the books in front of them. Why don't they just look this up?
Stephen: Yeah, we probably could have. Pepe Lares, So those, those are the specials. Oh, that's there. I see there, yeah.
So, yeah.
Jason: So we have teeth. We have teeth. We have teeth that we can, we can we can use.
Stephen: That's
Jason: it. So, yeah. Blood Hunt. Like it. Like all the tie ins. Yep. Yep. Absolute power. I'll tell you, I was flipping through, I haven't even flipped through it yet and at first I was like, man, who's the artist on this?
It's really good. It's Dan Mora, of course. I've been reading his stuff forever. Yeah. So, like, I, somehow I had forgotten that Dan Mora was doing this. But you've had a lot going on. Yeah. I have had a bunch going on. But. I gotta tell you, there's a couple of iconic Superman images in here. And I'm a big Superman fan.
Mmm, it's good. I'll go home, read it tonight, maybe. I will. Yeah, it's, it had not [00:32:00] made, like, the priority list for me. I'll tell you, I started with Ground Zero, and I got a little disappointed with it. So the, the main book actually looks really, really good. Plus when was the last time you saw Animal Man in anything?
And that's a key. There's a,
Stephen: Oh, okay. Is that Buddy Baker? Yeah. Animal Man.
Scott: And his daughter.
Jason: Maxine?
Scott: I think so.
Jason: I mean, he's, he's, I flipped through and there's some, there's some characters. I'm just like, Oh yeah, I want to read a story with that one. And that one too. And that one. And what I'm interested in seeing is like, What do they do with the non powered heroes?
And how do those guys have to save the day for the powered heroes and all that business? I think it'll be, I think it'll be good. So I have renewed interest in absolute power. I I'm trying not to get too high on the event bandwagon because blood hunt was it's, it was such a good event for me. By the way, I'm not a huge horror fan.
Right. I don't love, like, all the occult [00:33:00] y books that much. They're not, like, my favorite books. But the story was just The way, actually, I think part of it is the writing. Yeah. The way it's paced and the way it's written. Yeah, pacing
Stephen: is great. Is,
Jason: yeah. He's leaving a really killer cliffhanger at each one.
at each issue and it builds like a, you know, you've got the three acts in there like it, you, you get the, you, your attention is captured, then things are down to the dumps, and then there's a big turnaround, but we haven't seen the payoff on it yet, so. Like it's, it has kept me excited to read the next one, which in comics in general, they don't always do like, it feels like they're just like one chapter in a story and you're reading a chapter a month.
Yeah. This one is definitely like, it's like a episode of a great TV show. Like it's watching, it's like a, It's like watching an episode of Lost, where you're, you're, Okay, I gotta see the next one, I gotta watch the next one.
Stephen: No, I think, I agree with you, I think that's exactly it. [00:34:00] Marvel's I'm a huge fan of Marvel's, the decade of Marvel horror, 1970s, okay?
Where you've got, you know, The Tomb of Dracula, and the Monster of Frankenstein, and Werewolf by Night, and the Living, the Living
Scott: Mummy,
Stephen: and then you've got, you know, Tales of the Zombie, and you, then you've got the ancillary characters, you've got Brother Voodoo, and actually that's one thing needs is more, every book needs more Brother Voodoo, or Dr.
Voodoo, as he's known now. And, and I loved all that. I loved the creepiness of it. They did a really good job creeping, you know, kind of get creepy. You get into the 80s, they backed way off of that, which is fine, because that's when DC started to come to their own with, with horror. They, they had taken stabs at that swamp thing.
The House of Mystery. The Witches. Witches. High
Scott: Vampire.
Stephen: Yeah, but I think it was, it was the 80s. I mean, Alamor Swamp Thing and then you've got Hellblazer and then all the Vertigo stuff. [00:35:00] DC really kind of commanded that. It's nice. I like to see that occult horror world, and we would talk, we started this talking about midnight suns, where it kind of spills over into the mainstream superhero thing every now and then, causes a bunch of problems because nobody knows how to deal with it except for these freaking weirdos like Damien Strom, and you know.
And then they all scuttle back into their, you know, crypts of their own little pocket thing, and I love that.
Scott: The Fantastic
Stephen: Four
Scott: tie in for Blood Hunt was a lot of fun too, where Ben and Johnny are like, It's vampires? What do we do with these? Yeah,
Stephen: it's not in their wheelhouse. They're all dealing with cosmic things, not, you know, occult y things.
But but yeah, I'm thoroughly enjoying it. I'm enjoying it. Like, this is good. It's, and I'm, I'm getting the the uber gory, violent, baggy, sealed versions of the main book. So we started ordering
Jason: more of those because [00:36:00] more people wanted those. Yeah. And we, we had, we, it took us the first two issues to get the mix right.
Right. Because of the way ordering worked. And then we started ordering more of the red band after that. I end up getting leftovers, like that's how my, my collecting goes, because I just want to read the story. I couldn't tell that much of a difference in the, like, I think issue three and four, I did the Red Band.
I couldn't tell much of a difference.
Stephen: It's not much of a difference. It didn't feel like it was for two of us. No, in the first issue, there's more of a difference. There's more panels of vampires doing horrible things to people. Okay. What's kind of interesting, I suppose, depends on how you feel about it, Those free digital codes that you get in Marvel books, which I love, don't have to stop please the, the free digital code from Bloodhunt, you get the regular version.
Even if you've bought the gory version of the book, the digital code is for the regular version. Got it. They don't have a digital version of the gorier [00:37:00] one. And the nice thing about that is, is that it means you can read the gorier issue. And then you can re read the digital one and see what the differences are.
And that sort of, spot the difference, you know, you got the, when you were a kid, the two pictures. That guy's not wearing a hat. You know, that kind of thing. That clock is a different time. That
Scott: guy's got a vampire on
Stephen: him. That guy's got a vampire on him. You know. In this one, you see the vampire's about to attack the guy.
But in this one, oh, they've, they've attacked him and they're eating him and there's innards everywhere and, and there's a small child terrified and it's just upping the ante of horrible horribleness. Great for the kids. This is what the kids want. So yeah, kids like change. Yeah, absolutely. And I guess, you know, it's funny.
You mentioned Blade, like Marvel really didn't do a very good job pushing the Blade series. Totally agree. I enjoyed it, I actually thought it was pretty good. And then they stopped it, and it was kind of, it [00:38:00] felt super awkward. And now Blade's in this. There is a tie in back to that, and Blade's getting a new Ongoing, I think in November, and there's a couple of books coming out that Marvel are going to continue this, the red band Baggy version.
Scott: Blood Hunters or something. There's a Blood Hunters thing.
Stephen: I know there's another Werewolf by Night coming out Because we got, we got like a one shot Yeah, there's another one coming out and that one is going to be a red band And then I think Blade is going to be a red band. I'm like look, come on If, if, if you're gonna, if you're gonna go down, if Marvel's going to say, okay, maybe we can be a little more, you know, cause they're not comfortable with this.
It's not in their wheelhouse. Once upon a time they had epic comics. And then they did the Max books, absolutely. These have always been very much separate from the main Marvel Comics world. And they make, they've always made a big show of making [00:39:00] sure, you know, that the advisories say, this is not for children, stamp right on the cover.
So buy as many as you can. So I understand and I appreciate their concerns. But I think this is a very good way to go. Let's, let's get a little bit more adult fare in the regular Marvel Universe. If you want to put them in bags, put them in bags! If you want to send us a note that says, Please don't sell this to any kids under 18.
Well, sure. Vertigo tried it and I, I understand that most comic shop retailers were, were, were very careful not to supply any Vertigo books to people. You know, I actually got carded once. There's a comic book shop in Florida. I got carded here. I went to, I was picking up. In this spot. It was Green Arrow.
Sandman, and I think Shade the Changing Man. Cause those were all suggested for mature readers. And the guy actually said, can I have a look at your driver's license, can I have a look at your license please, I want to make sure you're over 17. I was like, okay. I was, thankfully.
Scott: And this was Lone Star, and Buddy had the [00:40:00] tiered I 15, I 17, whatever.
Okay. Someone got confused, and I got carded here too, and then I asked for their ID.
Stephen: Right. Hm. Nice. I wonder if we should think about that. We could. Some of the mature stuff. Actually, this comic shop in Florida that I'm thinking of, they actually put all their mature books in one section, and like had a big sign over the top of it.
It was like an alcove, like where our graphic novels are. You must be over 17 to enter this alcove. So, of course, all the kids want to go in. Oh, of course. I
Scott: mean, if anything you do like they used to do when they had them here. The top row. The top row, yeah. If you're not tall enough to reach that book.
That's where you put all that. If you're not this high, you can't go to the right. I will also say the idea that Disney is going to let Marvel go down the road that they have to Right. do that, it's not going to happen. I want them to explore.
Stephen: That's We're getting R rated Deadpool, who knows?
Jason: Well, I think they're also seeing I think they're seeing
Scott: Well, we [00:41:00] don't have an R rated Deadpool comic.
We have an R rated Deadpool movie. Give it time. Oh, maybe. Maybe. Yeah,
Jason: they know who their readers are though. Yeah. Right, and I think that we've seen that happen in a couple of different places where the story is built for, Oh yeah, a person this age. Like, I think Ultimate Spider Man is very much that. I think the, the Ultimate Spider Man is a we know that, There's 30 and 40
Scott: year olds out there that want to
Jason: see it.
And we want them to identify with Spider Man just as much now as they did when they were a teenager and they started reading it. So I think they're, honestly, I think it's a, it's knowing their customer. And it's not a bad idea. I mean, it's what everybody's supposed to do. Know your customer and, and deliver products that, that your customers ultimately want so, or need.
So, we, apparently we all need. Dirtier comics? I don't know. No, it's just, it's the
Stephen: maturity. I mean, More mature. Think about,
Scott: It's the same [00:42:00] reason why you like the CW Superman show. Superman dealing with teenagers and kids.
Stephen: Felt real. Yeah, no, that's it. That's, that's what. So, D. C. though, made that, that, and it was a huge gaffe.
It really was. It was a huge mistake. When they did their new 52, and they dissolved Vertigo, And they took those DC characters who had come out of DC, you know, Prime, or whatever we call it, go to Vertigo, and now Constantine, and Swamp Thing, and all these guys, they're in the regular DC comics. Those comics are garbage!
They are absolutely garbage, because they lend themselves. Look, Alan Moore kind of ruined Swamp Thing for everybody. He's never gonna be a superhero. And then you've got him in Justice League Dark. And Constantine is even worse. So it's like, no, I think they can be in that universe, but in a separate kind of publishing strategy, I like the interaction.
Jason: They just sleep dark, darker. [00:43:00] You can have a detective champ.
Stephen: You can't, you can never, you will never convince me that John Constantine as I know that character coming from the mind of Alan Moore and then Jamie Delano and then Garth Ennis and then Paul Jenkins and so on and so forth would be comfortable in a Justice League.
I mean, No! But anyway, that's my final word. No! There we go, kid. No! Alright. We'll see you next time. /
Yeti Stereo Microphone-2: Thank you for listening to the multi-verse comics podcast. If you'd like to meet us in person, you can do that in Hurst, Texas at our shop. The multi-verse. If you'd like to join us online, you can do the www dot multi-verse dot shop.
