FH Mini 130 - A Galactus-Sized Explainer

[0:00] Hello out there in Flophouse podcast land.

[0:07] My name is Elliot Kalin.

[0:08] I am one of the three Flopsketeers, the regular co-hosts of the Flophouse, and it is my deep

[0:13] dismay to tell you that Dan and Stuart are not here today.

[0:16] It's just me.

[0:17] Just kidding.

[0:18] Here they are.

[0:19] Dan, Stuart, introduce yourself, please.

[0:20] Wow.

[0:21] It's me, Dan McCoy.

[0:22] I was wondering how long you were going to keep that up.

[0:23] It's me, Stuart Wellington.

[0:24] I was going to go down that road, and then I decided I didn't want to.

[0:27] So this is a Flophouse Mini.

[0:29] Normally on the Flophouse, we watch a bad movie.

[0:31] We talk about it.

[0:32] Last week, of course, was Love Hurts, and boy, did it ever.

[0:36] This week, though, we're going to ease our wounds and kind of like nurse ourselves into

[0:40] good health from that hurt by doing a mini, which is when we talk about whatever we want,

[0:45] or in this case, whatever the fans want.

[0:48] One fan in particular, because there was one fan in particular, Andrew, last name withheld,

[0:53] who wrote into the podcast asking for an explainer.

[0:56] I've done these kind of explainers every now and then for comic book-ical things when

[0:59] there's a comic book-ical movie coming out.

[1:01] I did an explainer for The Eternals.

[1:03] I did an explainer for Adam Warlock.

[1:06] One of those explainers...

[1:07] Those books really cleared everything up for me.

[1:08] They did.

[1:09] I mean, one of those Adam Warlock explainers got hijacked by Tom Brokaw.

[1:12] We don't have to worry about that happening today because I know he's out in the desert

[1:15] going on what he calls a dune walk, so we don't need to worry about him returning for

[1:19] this.

[1:20] But Andrew, last name withheld, requested an explainer for the upcoming Fantastic Four

[1:26] First Steps is the name of the movie, right?

[1:28] Yeah.

[1:29] Real quick, a dune walk, is that when the Fremen do that little stanky leg thing across

[1:32] the dunes?

[1:33] It is.

[1:34] Exactly.

[1:35] He's practicing that.

[1:36] He does that just for days straight, until he goes into a fugue of some kind.

[1:39] So there's a new Fantastic Four movie coming up, not a Fantastic More movie, which I was

[1:44] about to say.

[1:45] Well, there's more Fantastic Four, because as you said, it's called First Steps, but

[1:49] this is the fifth Fantastic Four film.

[1:52] There was the Corman one, right?

[1:54] Yeah.

[1:55] Or the two Tim...

[1:56] Is it Tim Story?

[1:57] Not Tim Story.

[1:58] They have stories in them.

[1:59] The one that had Jessica Alba in those ones, and Chiclis and whatever, and then there's

[2:04] the F4.

[2:05] The one that we did on this podcast.

[2:08] The Trank.

[2:09] Oh, yeah.

[2:10] Which is your favorite?

[2:11] Which is your favorite of the ones you've mentioned before, Dan?

[2:14] You know, the Trank one actually had some interesting stuff in it, it just felt like

[2:18] it was something got fucked up with it, with the studio or something.

[2:25] Honestly, of all the Fantastic Four movies, my favorite is probably the Corman one, just

[2:28] because it's not good and it's so cheap, but it has the same kind of ramshackle feel that

[2:34] the early Fantastic Four issues have, in a bad way.

[2:38] The ramshackle feel in the early issues is good, but they have it in a bad way.

[2:41] But anyway, Gunter said...

[2:42] Yeah, that's right.

[2:43] It was Tim Story who directed the Alba and Chiclis ones.

[2:46] I said they have stories in them.

[2:48] Okay, I lost a bet.

[2:49] But one of the writers, one of the listed writers for the first Fantastic Four is Mark

[2:54] Frost, co-writer of Twin Peaks with David Weinberg.

[2:58] Well, that's why Invisible Woman ends up dead, wrapped in plastic at the end of the movie.

[3:02] So wild, anyway.

[3:03] Sorry, I just had to...

[3:04] Namor would be bummed out.

[3:05] He would be so bummed.

[3:06] I mean, and as we know from What If Comics, anytime Reed Richards loses his wife either

[3:10] to Namor or to Death, he goes insane and just goes mad.

[3:15] So Andrew wrote in and said, I'm looking forward to the new Fantastic Four movie.

[3:19] However, I'm not entirely familiar with all of the characters, in particular Silver Surfer,

[3:23] Galactus, and the mythology of the comic.

[3:25] And he asked for a small primer in the same vein of the Adam Warlock one.

[3:28] So that's what we're going to do today.

[3:30] And this is going to be a special episode mini called Elliot Explains the Galactus Trilogy.

[3:35] Let's say it's a Galactus Saga trilogy, and I'll say Elliot Explains the Galactus Trilogy.

[3:40] And first, I want to start by saying, Dan, Stu, how familiar are you with the Fantastic

[3:45] Four characters?

[3:46] And these are the characters that are going to be in this movie, the Fantastic Four, First

[3:50] Steps.

[3:51] How familiar are you with them?

[3:52] I know that Ben Grimm, the thing, just hates that Yancy Street Gang.

[3:56] I mean, they're always pranking him.

[3:57] They're always pranking him.

[3:58] That's the problem.

[3:59] Yeah.

[4:00] I know that Silver Surfer's name is Roran Nadd or something like that.

[4:04] No, it's Norrin Radd.

[4:05] Okay.

[4:06] So you don't know something about him.

[4:07] You know, so they're four folks.

[4:12] Three of them are related.

[4:13] One of whom is Jewish, right?

[4:15] Or at least in the same family, not related, all three.

[4:18] And one of them is the best friend.

[4:21] And they went into space, they got bombarded with cosmic rays, one of them got stretchy,

[4:27] one of them can be invisible and make force fields, one of them is a rock guy, and one

[4:32] of them is a flying guy who can fly.

[4:33] Now, by a rock guy, you mean he collects minerals?

[4:35] Yeah.

[4:37] I mean, his name is Slash and he's a guitarist, but they're G and R.

[4:42] The G stands for geode and the R stands for rocks.

[4:46] So Dan, you've done a great job.

[4:48] Stuart, you've done it.

[4:49] You've done it.

[4:50] Yeah.

[4:51] You almost got Silver Surfer's name right.

[4:52] So I'll let me take you back to the beginning.

[4:53] So the Fantastic Four, they are the birth of the Marvel Universe in comics.

[4:58] So it's ironic that they're coming so late in the movie versions because in 1961, Marvel

[5:05] Comics is not even fully called Marvel Comics yet, as I think it's still potentially between

[5:10] names.

[5:11] It was called Timely at one point.

[5:12] It was called Atlas at one point.

[5:13] I think it was between Timely and Marvel.

[5:14] I could be wrong.

[5:15] But it's November 1961.

[5:16] That's the cover date, which doesn't mean it's actually when it came out, but that's

[5:18] the cover date.

[5:19] They do this that they've been doing monster comics for a long time at Marvel, and it's

[5:24] time to bring superheroes back for them because superheroes are doing fine at DC again.

[5:28] And Jack Kirby and Stan Lee, the two of the three bedrock foundational creators of the

[5:34] Marvel characters, the other one being, of course, Steve Ditko, co-creator of Spider-Man

[5:37] and Doctor Strange.

[5:39] They come up with this team, the Fantastic Four.

[5:41] Now, here's the thing we're going to get into just slightly in this, but not a lot.

[5:45] For decades, the argument has been who deserves more credit, Jack Kirby or Stan Lee?

[5:49] Did Jack Kirby come up with it?

[5:51] And then Stanley just kind of put his gloss.

[5:52] Did Stanley tell Jack Kirby, this is what I need you to do and we'll figure out together.

[5:57] There's a great, great book called, I think, Kirby and Lee Stuff Said, I think, which

[6:03] collects all of the existent kind of interview or known quotes from Kirby and Lee about working

[6:11] together and puts them kind of in chronological order.

[6:14] And it's the closest I've been able to see of something that actually kind of digs in

[6:17] who did what and how much people can be credited with, with which aspect of it.

[6:21] But anyway, I highly recommend that book if you want to learn more about the Kirby Lee

[6:25] relationship and how they work together.

[6:26] It's from Tomorrow's Publishing, I think.

[6:28] So go to them and find it.

[6:30] It's a great book.

[6:31] Kirby Lee Stuff Said.

[6:32] I think stuff is spelled S-T-U-F, like, but maybe I'm wrong, I can't remember.

[6:37] But so we're not going to get into that super much, except in terms of the Silver Surfer

[6:42] later, because that's part of the story.

[6:43] The Silver Surfer is the Stanley Jack Kirby relationship.

[6:46] Anyway, they come up with these superheroes.

[6:48] They got four of them and they are Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic.

[6:52] He's stretchy and he's a brilliant genius.

[6:55] Ben Grimm, Reed Richards' best friend and college roommate.

[6:57] The Thing, fighter pilot, goes into space, becomes back a strong guy made out of rocks.

[7:02] Sue Storm, not yet Reed Richards' wife, but they will get married eventually.

[7:05] It's his girlfriend.

[7:06] She eventually, she goes up with him in space, becomes the Invisible Woman, first the Invisible

[7:10] Girl.

[7:11] And then 20 years later, her name finally changes to the Invisible Woman.

[7:15] After she has become-

[7:16] She grew up after 20 years.

[7:17] But it's literally, at a certain point, she had, I mean, for a lot of it, she is married

[7:22] and a mother and she's still calling herself the Invisible Girl.

[7:25] And they kept saying, girl, you'll be a woman soon, but we put her off.

[7:27] But not yet.

[7:28] But not yet.

[7:29] And Johnny Storm, the hot, red-loving younger brother of Sue Storm, who becomes the Human

[7:33] Torch.

[7:34] And so, like you said, Dan, they go up into space.

[7:36] They get hit by cosmic rays because their spaceship is experimental, it's not shielded

[7:39] right.

[7:40] They come back with these powers and they become adventurers and they become the first

[7:44] superhero group of the 60s Marvel.

[7:47] And that's-

[7:48] Do their powers or those extensions of their, like, personalities, do the cosmic rays just

[7:53] take what was there and expand?

[7:54] Yeah, Ree's a really stretchy person.

[7:57] He's actually kind of rigid, so it might be the opposite in that case, I don't know.

[8:03] You could say, as their characterizations develop, that Johnny is a hothead, so, like,

[8:07] he is a young guy who's a hothead, so he becomes the Human Torch.

[8:09] Ben Grimm is a character who is also a hothead, but has a-

[8:15] He's very kind.

[8:16] But has a-

[8:17] The thing that becomes the core of him is the issue of self-esteem that he has, that

[8:20] he is super strong, but he thinks he's a monster.

[8:22] He can never be loved.

[8:23] His girlfriend, Alicia Masters, is blind and he's always worried that she's going to discard

[8:29] him if she ever gains her sight and can see what he looks like again.

[8:32] So maybe it comes from a feeling of deficiency because his best friend is a genius, you know.

[8:37] Reed Richards, you could say that his thinking is flexible.

[8:40] He's able to-

[8:42] He is very rigid in other ways, but that he's able to come up with these amazing ideas in

[8:46] the way that he stretches his body.

[8:47] And as the Invisible Girl is written by Stan Lee, she is constantly disappearing into the

[8:51] background because as the female character, he does not care as much about her and does

[8:54] not give her as much to do.

[8:56] So I guess that's part of it.

[8:58] But this is where the Marvel Universe really begins in the Silver Age.

[9:02] And this is the book that Jack Kirby, for a long time as the artist on the book, and

[9:06] eventually mainly the plotter on the book, who was writing the stories and then Stan

[9:09] Lee would write the dialogue.

[9:11] He was using this as his laboratory for creating new places and concepts that the other Marvel

[9:16] titles could then work off of, you know, and use.

[9:22] Jack Kirby is one of the best-known comic book artists for a reason.

[9:25] He's the king.

[9:26] He's one of the greatest artists that ever worked in comics, not necessarily because

[9:29] he has the best technical skills, although his storytelling skills are among the best

[9:35] that there ever were.

[9:36] His characters, their proportions are weird, their anatomy is weird, they're not always

[9:41] consistent in a great way from panel to panel.

[9:44] But his storytelling and his power are so strong, and also his imagination is so incredible.

[9:51] He is like an idea machine when he's at his best, and also when he's at his worst, because

[9:56] his worst comics are the ones where he's just throwing a parade of ideas.

[10:00] is that you and you're like, wait, hold on, hold on, stop and explain any of these to

[10:04] me.

[10:05] Hold on, stop and do something with one of these ideas.

[10:06] And he's like, nope, sorry, I got another idea coming up.

[10:09] Anyway, we're talking about Fantastic Four, specifically for this movie.

[10:13] They are, as people say all the time, they're not just a team of superheroes, you know what

[10:16] they are, guys?

[10:17] Their family.

[10:18] And I wanted to get into this because like, so I have read a fair amount of old comics,

[10:26] but certainly much less.

[10:27] A fantastic fair amount.

[10:29] Pretty much less than Elliot, probably less than Stuart.

[10:32] But I I've read a lot of the early Fantastic Four books, like the very first ones in like,

[10:38] you know, one of those collections, because I'm like, yeah, well, you know, this is where

[10:41] it kind of started.

[10:43] I'm curious about it.

[10:44] And I like the the space age vibe of all of it.

[10:49] And everyone talks about how, oh, the innovation was like, these are these are real people,

[10:55] right?

[10:56] They're like, they're like a family.

[10:58] They argue a lot, but they love each other.

[11:00] And I got to say that reading a lot of those first comics, I was put off by the Fantastic

[11:05] Four because they seem to argue a lot and maybe not like each other that much.

[11:09] All the time.

[11:10] Yeah.

[11:11] Johnny Storm and Ben Grimm seem to have like a Bart Simpson and Homer Simpson relationship.

[11:15] I mean, they are constantly fighting each other with their powers.

[11:18] Yeah.

[11:19] Yeah.

[11:20] I think Dan.

[11:21] So those earliest comics are pretty.

[11:22] I mean, there's an energy and excitement to them because it feels like something new is

[11:26] being done.

[11:27] But it is a it's the later ones, the later issues of that curvy run, kind of the middle

[11:32] of the run is the sweet stuff.

[11:33] And I'm going to talk about that.

[11:34] So I'm glad that you brought that up.

[11:35] It's a little bit like listening to the earliest Beatles albums and then listening to like

[11:38] Sergeant Pepper.

[11:39] We were like, oh, there's this energy and there's this excitement, the early ones.

[11:42] But it doesn't have the ingenuity and it doesn't have the kind of like this kind of like innovative

[11:47] beauty that the later work has, you know.

[11:50] But you're right that the and I think when it first came on the scene in 1961, the difference

[11:53] was that the characters argued, as opposed to DC characters who are pretty like alternated

[11:58] between being incredibly pleasant and professional and doing terrible things to each other to

[12:03] teach each other lessons.

[12:04] I'm sorry, Jimmy Olsen, you have to marry a gorilla now because I'm teaching you a lesson

[12:08] about humility like the.

[12:13] I think it's it's the feeling those comics really are for young people, especially as

[12:19] old ones where it's like the emotions are really high all the time.

[12:21] There's an adolescent energy in some of those early Fantastic Four issues.

[12:25] It's kind of similar to like Rob Liefeld's X-Force comics from the 90s, where if you

[12:29] look at them, they are objectively kind of dumb.

[12:33] The art is objectively like not technically right.

[12:36] What do you need, like backgrounds and feet and feet that look like they're on the ground

[12:41] and maybe people's thighs are not as big as their torsos.

[12:45] But when you're reading that comic book, when you're 13, you're a 13 or 14 year old boy,

[12:49] you're like, this is amazing.

[12:50] And it's the energy of it and the feel of it.

[12:52] That's really exciting about it.

[12:53] Give me a bunch of tiny lines all over everything.

[12:55] Exactly.

[12:56] That's how I feel like I'm covered in tiny lines and pouches full of I don't know what

[13:00] because I never see anyone use them.

[13:02] That just change, I guess.

[13:04] And so as the so I think the mistake if you're getting into the Fantastic Four, this is an

[13:08] Elliot Kaelin tip.

[13:09] The mistake is to start from the very beginning, Fantastic Four number one, where you want

[13:13] to start, I think, is with this run of 10 issues in the middle of the Kirby Lee run.

[13:18] Kirby and Lee did this book together for one hundred and two issues.

[13:20] And that's it's one of the longest straight runs that a writer and artist have done together.

[13:25] There are longer ones.

[13:26] And then you've got like Cerebus, which is three hundred issues.

[13:28] But that's also a madman like that's literally a person who's emotionally imbalanced doing

[13:33] a talk about Gerhard or whatever.

[13:36] It's not Gerhard that I'm getting at Gerhard.

[13:38] That's a job for Gerhard.

[13:39] I was the this is Gerhard.

[13:42] He's just a working guy doing backgrounds, you know, the but between issue forty three

[13:47] and fifty three is when Kirby's imagination in some ways is at his most fecund.

[13:52] And he and Lee are are really keyed in for the most part about what they're doing.

[13:56] And that's a run that starts with the creation of the Inhumans, characters who had their

[14:00] shot with the Marvel Cinematic Universe and bucked it up and totally whiffed it, which

[14:05] makes sense because the Inhumans are a kind of weird it's a weird batch of characters.

[14:09] I like them, but they're weird.

[14:11] They're kind of like a precursor of the Eternals, a weird batch of characters that I do not

[14:15] like particularly that also had their chance, the Marvel Universe and whiffed it.

[14:19] But but the Eternals had less to work with anyway.

[14:22] In that run, you've got the Inhumans.

[14:24] You've got Black Panther at the end of it being introduced.

[14:27] You've got the best single issue, I think, of the run.

[14:29] This man, this monster issue number fifty one, which is a heartbreaking story about

[14:32] thing and about this mad scientist character who's just in it for one issue and gets a

[14:36] full human story.

[14:39] And you get in between between those stories after the Inhumans and before this man, this

[14:44] monster, you get the Galactus Trilogy issues forty eight through fifty, March to May of

[14:49] nineteen sixty six.

[14:50] I think that's when they were cover dated.

[14:52] That's the middle of this.

[14:53] This ten issue amazing run that happens in this one hundred and two very foundational

[14:57] run.

[14:58] You have these three issues, the Galactus Trilogy, which is a really fantastic story.

[15:02] And within that story laid the groundwork for so much stuff that would be like the Marvel

[15:06] way of doing things.

[15:08] And again, it's kind of amazing that this Galactus story is now it's been told once

[15:11] in a movie, but they kind of, again, they whiffed it, that it's because there's like

[15:14] a big cloud in that movie, right?

[15:16] He's a big cloud.

[15:17] He's not really a character.

[15:18] Yeah.

[15:19] That's true to Jack Kirby's vision.

[15:20] Yes.

[15:21] I mean, here's the thing about Jack Kirby.

[15:23] He is not subtle.

[15:24] So even if his villain was a big cloud, it would be a big cloud with a face.

[15:27] Probably.

[15:28] Yeah.

[15:29] Go in everywhere.

[15:30] Yeah.

[15:31] Probably a mustache.

[15:32] I mean, like the first you have that is ego, the living planet.

[15:33] Another Jack Kirby character was literally a planet with a face, with a beard.

[15:39] But this Galactus story, this Galactus trilogy, is just this high point of the Silver Age

[15:46] of comics and of the Fantastic Four and of the Marvel Universe.

[15:50] And guys, I want to ask, have you ever read this story?

[15:53] The Galactus trilogy issues 48 through 50.

[15:55] Never read it.

[15:56] No.

[15:57] I never read it.

[15:58] I know that Galactus's deal is he's like, he sees planets, he's like, yum, yum, give

[16:01] me some.

[16:02] Yeah.

[16:03] He has a seafood diet when it comes to planets.

[16:04] He sees planets and he wants to eat them.

[16:06] Yeah.

[16:07] And he does that.

[16:08] You did quote.

[16:09] It's a good catchphrase.

[16:10] Yum, yum, give me some.

[16:11] Yeah, yeah.

[16:12] And he's got, he's got little guys who go out and find the planets for him to nom down

[16:15] on.

[16:16] He does have his heralds, that's right.

[16:17] There's a, there's a funny comic.

[16:19] Does he also have his heralds?

[16:21] Yeah herald.

[16:22] Yeah, yeah, there's a lot.

[16:23] Get all the herald jokes in there.

[16:25] That's great.

[16:26] I don't know.

[16:27] I ran out of heralds after Pinter had one.

[16:30] He has a purple crayon.

[16:32] Oh there you go.

[16:33] Is that why his outfit's all purple?

[16:34] That would be fantastic.

[16:35] No, of course it's.

[16:36] I would love, this should be, if a fan hasn't done it, they should do it.

[16:38] They should do a tie-in between Galactus and Harold and the purple crayon, where it's

[16:42] his herald with the purple crayon and he rides on that crayon.

[16:44] Anyway.

[16:45] Of course, herald is spelled, of course, differently.

[16:47] It's like, you know, you have a trumpet before the king, herald is what I'm talking about.

[16:52] Yeah, yeah.

[16:53] To quote Smithers, when Burns asked him if Homer Simpson is related to, if this Homer

[16:57] Nixon is related to Richard Nixon, Smithers said, well, he spells and pronounces his name

[17:01] differently, sir.

[17:06] So this, so, uh, I'll give you the brief, the brief story of what happens in this, the

[17:11] brief version.

[17:12] Okay.

[17:13] The Galactus trilogy.

[17:14] There's this character they had already introduced called the Watcher.

[17:16] Guys, do you know what the Watcher does?

[17:17] And I don't know.

[17:18] He watches.

[17:19] He watches.

[17:20] He's like, what if something happened?

[17:21] He's supposed to not interfere, but he does it all the time.

[17:24] Exactly.

[17:25] So the Watcher.

[17:26] Is he the guy with a, is he the guy with a pot on his head?

[17:28] No, that is the high evolutionary I think you're thinking of.

[17:31] I'm thinking, he's the guy from, he's from what the?

[17:34] Oh, the pot, that's Forbush man.

[17:35] The guy who literally wears the pot on his head.

[17:37] Yeah.

[17:38] No, that's Forbush man from what the, the humor, uh, magazine that Marvel brought out.

[17:41] So he's not the Watcher.

[17:42] No, that's not the Watcher.

[17:43] The Watcher is the host of what if the non-humorous magazine where the, what if is an excuse for

[17:49] every story for you to see the Marvel characters getting killed in different ways every month,

[17:53] you know?

[17:54] Uh, so the Watcher, his name is Uatu.

[17:56] Uh, he is a big bald baby in a toga.

[18:01] He lives on the moon and he just watches the earth and he does not interfere.

[18:06] He has a strict rule of non-interference, which as Dan says, he, he, he interferes all

[18:10] the time.

[18:11] He constantly is interfering.

[18:12] And in this case he does because he has to warn the Fantastic Four Galactus is coming

[18:18] and they're like, what is this?

[18:19] And he's like, it's the worst thing in the world.

[18:20] And soon they are greeted by the Herald of Galactus.

[18:24] That's right.

[18:25] The Silver Surfer.

[18:26] And as we learn Galactus, he's a huge guy with this amazing helmet that he, it is one

[18:31] of the all time great Kirby helmets.

[18:33] He and Hela have the best Kirby kind of head pieces and it's just, it's amazing.

[18:38] It's a fantastic look.

[18:39] Galactus is a Fantastic Four look.

[18:41] Yes.

[18:42] Galactus's original design is not the best.

[18:44] He has a big G on his chest and wears a short, short sleeves and kind of a toga with bare,

[18:48] like a toga skirt with bare legs.

[18:50] But the next time you see Galactus, he's wearing pants and he doesn't have a G on his chest.

[18:54] And the design is just fantastic.

[18:56] I also love that he's always just like standing.

[18:59] Yes.

[19:00] Galactus.

[19:01] So what were you going to say Dan?

[19:02] I'll tell you.

[19:03] You know, my college friend, Matt Bird, has a Marvel, you know, reread podcast called

[19:14] Marvel Reread Club.

[19:15] They were just mentioning, I think Galactus just showed up for the first time or maybe

[19:19] they're just mentioning him in an episode, but they pointed out the humor of, of course,

[19:23] a character arriving on Earth who is not from Earth, having the initial in English of their

[19:30] first name on their shirt or whatever.

[19:34] And Marvel did the smart thing was just discarded it the next time, as opposed to what Superman

[19:38] has had to do over and over again, where they're like, oh, that's a Kryptonian symbol.

[19:41] Yeah.

[19:42] That's what their family does.

[19:43] Yeah.

[19:44] Yeah.

[19:45] It means that he's down to clown.

[19:47] Yeah.

[19:48] That's right.

[19:49] It's like a pineapple.

[19:50] It's like a pineapple or whatever.

[19:51] So this, with that SM, it's like, it's like wearing a red, red handkerchief in the back

[19:55] pocket of my pants.

[19:56] It lets you know what I'm into.

[19:58] So glad.

[19:59] So they'll make.

[20:00] Long story short.

[20:00] Crystal stuff.

[20:02] Yeah, Superman is really into crystal stuff.

[20:05] That's true.

[20:06] That'd be so funny if Superman is like,

[20:08] he's a great superhero,

[20:10] but he's always going to crystal shops.

[20:11] I mean, what's the energy vibrations on this one?

[20:13] Yeah.

[20:14] This is the crystal that has my dad in it,

[20:17] and this is the one that goes in my butt.

[20:19] Yeah, well, I just, and I love the idea that he-

[20:20] I don't like to get them mixed up.

[20:22] That like, yeah, there's like crystal shop,

[20:25] like new age crystal shop owners that are like,

[20:27] yeah, there's this weird guy, Clark Kent,

[20:28] who keeps coming around buying up crystals.

[20:31] He seems so like straight laced.

[20:33] He's always got a glass of crystal light in his hands,

[20:36] you know?

[20:36] Yeah.

[20:37] So Galactus, he's the devourer of worlds.

[20:40] He is an enormous giant

[20:42] who feeds off the life energy of planets.

[20:45] He has a machine he sets up

[20:46] that sucks the life energy out of planets,

[20:48] leaving them withered, lifeless husks,

[20:50] destroying all life on them.

[20:52] That's the only way he can survive.

[20:53] The Silver Surfer is his herald.

[20:55] He is a shining silver guy on a silver surfboard,

[20:58] and this is Jack Kirby being really influenced

[21:00] by 60s kind of surf culture.

[21:02] He was always kind of like picking things out

[21:04] of the zeitgeist and just throwing them into his books.

[21:07] And the Silver Surfer flies through space,

[21:10] finds planets for Galactus to eat.

[21:12] Galactus comes and sets up his machine,

[21:15] sucks all the life out of it,

[21:16] and they go off to find another planet.

[21:18] And the Watcher is like, I've become attached to Earth.

[21:20] I can't interfere, but I'm gonna warn you about this.

[21:22] And the amazing thing about this story

[21:25] is that the Fantastic Four try to fight Galactus,

[21:28] and they cannot do it.

[21:29] He is just too powerful.

[21:30] And there's a scene where he's setting up his machine,

[21:33] and the characters are literally like,

[21:35] Mr. Fantastic is shaving.

[21:37] They're just kind of doing regular

[21:38] taking care of themselves stuff,

[21:39] because they feel like there's nothing they can do.

[21:42] Like there's no, and it captures a feeling

[21:45] of if anyone has ever been in a place

[21:47] where there is an enormous catastrophe,

[21:49] and there's the moment after that catastrophe

[21:51] where you do not know what to do with yourself.

[21:53] Like these comics kind of capture that feeling

[21:55] in a hyperbolic way.

[21:56] The same way that, this is a tangent,

[21:58] but the thing that hit me the hardest

[22:02] in terms of capturing the feeling of what it was like

[22:04] the day after September 11th,

[22:06] or the night of September 11th.

[22:08] Being in New York City the night of September 11th

[22:10] was this issue, I think it was the second or third issue

[22:13] of the second League of Extraordinary Gentlemen volume,

[22:15] where Martians have landed, they have set a village on fire.

[22:19] The League has shown up, and now it's the night after that,

[22:22] and they're just in and in,

[22:23] and they don't know what to do with themselves.

[22:23] They're playing like kind of matchstick riddle games.

[22:26] They're just kind of sitting around.

[22:27] They don't know what to do with themselves.

[22:28] There's nothing they can do.

[22:29] That's what it feels like.

[22:30] And there's something enormous has happened.

[22:33] You cannot affect it, but time is there.

[22:36] You know, you're still living, so.

[22:37] And it captures that feeling.

[22:39] Ultimately-

[22:40] Yeah, can you just keep the digressions

[22:41] on this very non-digression podcast to a minimum?

[22:44] You're right, thank you.

[22:45] I gotta be super streamlined

[22:46] as I explain this comic book from 60 years ago.

[22:49] You're right, thank you, Stuart.

[22:51] The, ultimately, two things happen

[22:54] that turn the tide for humanity.

[22:55] One is Alicia Masters, the blind sculptor

[22:58] who is Ben Grimm, the Thing's girlfriend,

[23:00] and is also the niece of the Puppet Master.

[23:03] We don't need to get into that.

[23:04] A hilariously, a villain who also looks

[23:07] like a big, bald baby.

[23:08] He looks like a living, kind of bald,

[23:10] Howdy Doody-style puppet.

[23:14] He's not in this storyline.

[23:15] She meets the Silver Surfer and convinces him

[23:19] that there's something worthwhile in humanity

[23:21] and that he should turn against Galactus

[23:24] and try to defend them.

[23:25] And he does this-

[23:25] Do they, like, bump into each other

[23:27] at, like, a street fair or something, or?

[23:29] How do they find, I don't remember how they find it.

[23:31] He ends up in her apartment.

[23:32] I don't remember how.

[23:33] And Silver Surfer, in this storyline,

[23:35] but nowhere else, is presented as a fairly inhuman figure

[23:39] who does not understand,

[23:41] doesn't understand life or emotion.

[23:42] Later on, as we'll talk about,

[23:44] Stanley decided that wasn't the way

[23:45] he wanted the character to be,

[23:46] and he really changed the character drastically

[23:49] without Jack Kirby's input or knowledge

[23:51] in a way that really pissed Jack Kirby off.

[23:53] But both Jack Kirby and Stanley

[23:55] really took to the Silver Surfer in different ways.

[23:58] And this is a character who Jack Kirby

[24:00] is just a full creator on,

[24:01] that literally he handed in the pages of the book

[24:05] to Stanley, and Stanley was like,

[24:06] oh, there's a new character in this.

[24:08] I don't know who this character is.

[24:09] Like, what is this thing?

[24:10] Because Jack Kirby just decided Galactus is so big,

[24:14] he needs someone to announce him.

[24:15] He needs a herald to come along before him.

[24:17] But anyway, Lisa Masters convinces the Silver Surfer

[24:21] to, that he should defy Galactus,

[24:23] and the Watcher, non-interfering as always,

[24:26] helps Johnny Storm travel through dimensions

[24:29] on a quest that almost drives him insane

[24:32] at how minuscule humanity is at the scope of the universe.

[24:36] He comes back, he goes, we're like ants, ants!

[24:38] Like, he's almost mad.

[24:40] Like, he's almost bonkers.

[24:41] But he's able to retrieve an item

[24:44] called the Ultimate Nullifier,

[24:46] the most powerful weapon in the universe

[24:47] that can just, as long as you are holding it

[24:50] and focusing on, entirely with all of your thought

[24:53] on one object, that object ceases to exist.

[24:55] Now, the problem is, if your mind slips for just a moment,

[24:58] it eats up you and you cease to exist.

[25:00] No!

[25:01] As happens to Quasar many years later.

[25:02] I'd be really bad at that.

[25:03] Aw, poor Quasar.

[25:04] Yeah, everyone would be bad at it, it's terrible.

[25:06] You gotta be like, just the biggest Zen master to use it.

[25:08] And Galactus is so afraid of the Ultimate Nullifier,

[25:11] which is this tiny little handheld device,

[25:13] it's another great Kirby design,

[25:14] that he says, if you give that to me, I'll leave.

[25:16] And I won't eat Earth.

[25:17] I just, I don't want you to have that.

[25:19] You're like children playing with a nuclear weapon.

[25:21] Like, you shouldn't have it.

[25:22] And at the end, he takes the Ultimate Nullifier

[25:24] and he leaves, Earth is saved,

[25:26] and the Silver Surfer is damned by Galactus

[25:28] to be stuck on Earth.

[25:29] He says, you will never soar the spaceways again,

[25:31] or something like that.

[25:32] And now, for a long time, Silver Surfer was stuck

[25:34] on the planet Earth and couldn't get back into space.

[25:36] And that's the Galactus trilogy.

[25:37] And who became his herald after that?

[25:39] He's had a bunch of other heralds, right?

[25:40] He's had, and of course, he's had other heralds

[25:42] after that he had.

[25:43] I forget if the one after that, I think it was Fire Lord.

[25:45] There was Air Walker.

[25:47] There was Nova, Frankie Ray.

[25:49] There was, there was Terax.

[25:52] You know what Terax might've been?

[25:53] No, nevermind.

[25:54] There's Terax the, whatever his name is.

[25:57] There's Morg, the Executioner, or whatever.

[25:59] He's had a ton of heralds.

[26:00] His heralds are always turning on him

[26:02] or becoming so dangerous that he has to destroy them,

[26:06] or something like that.

[26:07] But being his herald, Silver Surfer has a bunch of powers

[26:10] that we'll talk about when we talk about his origin,

[26:12] which I'm gonna talk about very soon.

[26:13] So that's this original Galactus story.

[26:15] The Silver Surfer shows up.

[26:16] He's like, my boss is gonna eat this planet.

[26:19] The Galactus shows up.

[26:20] Nobody can stop him.

[26:21] Silver Surfer is like, hey, you know what?

[26:22] Humans ain't bad.

[26:23] I'll try to protect them.

[26:24] And the heroes are like, look at this thing we have.

[26:27] And Galactus is like, put that down.

[26:28] Give it to me and I'll leave.

[26:30] And that's the basics of the story.

[26:31] But the way it's handled is great.

[26:32] And what's amazing is, issue 51, the last issue,

[26:36] oh, issue 50, I'm sorry.

[26:36] Issue 50, last issue of the trilogy.

[26:38] The story ends with Galactus like halfway through the issue.

[26:41] And then Johnny Storm like goes to college.

[26:44] And it's about Johnny Storm going to college

[26:46] and meeting like his new roommate, Wyatt.

[26:48] And Wyatt, the football coach who really wants Wyatt

[26:51] to play on the team and Wyatt doesn't want to.

[26:52] And there's something amazing

[26:53] about this huge epic cosmic story

[26:55] that ends partway through the issue.

[26:57] And then it's like, yeah, well, life goes on.

[26:59] Johnny's gotta go to college now.

[27:00] So it's really amazing.

[27:02] And so this-

[27:03] I mean, there might be a class there

[27:05] about defeating Galactus.

[27:06] You never know.

[27:07] That's a good point.

[27:08] He should have taken it first, yeah.

[27:09] And the thing that makes this story special

[27:11] in so many ways is partly the scope-

[27:12] Is the thing?

[27:13] Is the thing, either.

[27:14] Partly the scope-

[27:15] Well, the issue that comes directly afterwards

[27:17] is an amazing thing story.

[27:18] And that is what makes that one special.

[27:19] This man, this monster.

[27:20] And the-

[27:22] Which I highly recommend.

[27:23] If you're gonna read one Fantastic Four issue,

[27:25] issue 51, this man, this monster, is the one to do.

[27:27] It's just beautiful.

[27:29] But-

[27:29] Is it the Fantastic Four,

[27:31] like that one Alan Moore issue of Swamp Thing

[27:34] is the Swamp Thing?

[27:36] Which one issue of Alan-

[27:37] Because of-

[27:38] The one where he-

[27:39] The sex one?

[27:40] The one where he's like, he realizes that he's-

[27:43] The one?

[27:44] You know.

[27:45] The first issue?

[27:46] Spoiler.

[27:47] The first issue of the run.

[27:47] Okay, I mean-

[27:48] Not technically the first issue of his run,

[27:51] but the first issue of the story that he did.

[27:53] Of the Alan Moore storyline that he's doing.

[27:55] The, yeah, I mean, it's different than that.

[27:58] I feel like it's different than that.

[28:00] But you could say that with the,

[28:02] it's like, it is to that what the issue

[28:04] of Amazing Spider-Man is, I think it's 33,

[28:06] where Spider-Man lifts all that heavy junk off of him.

[28:09] Where he's able to find the strength to save his aunt

[28:11] and save himself from this big, heavy machine

[28:13] that's on top of him.

[28:14] Which is the greatest moment to me

[28:16] in the entire Spider-Man run.

[28:18] And it should-

[28:19] I mean, that's weird though,

[28:20] because I feel like that's an example of a trope

[28:22] that you hate in general,

[28:24] which is, I just got to want it more.

[28:26] No, because the issue, it's the buildup.

[28:28] Because-

[28:29] Okay.

[28:30] So that, this is a huge digression.

[28:31] And then we'll do, I'll leave space for ads,

[28:33] and then we'll come back and talk about the origins

[28:34] of these characters, what happened to them

[28:35] after that trilogy.

[28:36] But that issue, Dr. Octopus has trapped Spider-Man

[28:41] under this heavy thing of metal.

[28:42] And the medicine that Aunt May needs to survive

[28:45] is just out of reach.

[28:46] And the room is flooding.

[28:47] The stakes are so bad.

[28:49] Spider-Man is going to drown.

[28:50] And if he does, Aunt May is going to die.

[28:52] And he does not have the strength to do it.

[28:53] And the issue is, it's not that he is hurt

[28:56] and he suddenly is at full power

[28:58] and gets berserker strength.

[28:59] Instead it is, you have this, I think a five page sequence

[29:02] where he is talking himself up to it.

[29:03] He says, that's it, I can't do it, I failed.

[29:07] And thinking to himself, no, I've gotta do this.

[29:09] It's not like, it's my inner strength that's important.

[29:12] It's not my outer strength.

[29:13] I have this responsibility to Aunt May

[29:14] and I have to do it.

[29:15] And each page, there are fewer and fewer panels

[29:18] until finally the last page is this,

[29:20] just one full panel splash page

[29:22] of him throwing the thing off, going, I did it.

[29:24] And then afterwards, he's totally,

[29:25] he's like complete, he's weak.

[29:28] And he's just in a, he's like in a daze

[29:30] as he's fighting his way through to get out.

[29:31] And it's the difference I think of

[29:33] in movies that happen super fast.

[29:35] And when they did this scene in Spider-Man Homecoming,

[29:38] it happened super fast, it didn't work.

[29:39] And what works for me is the buildup.

[29:41] The buildup and the philosophy behind it.

[29:43] Because the thing I love about Spider-Man,

[29:44] what makes him the greatest character in fiction to me

[29:46] is partly that he has an ethic and a philosophy.

[29:49] And you feel him living out those ethics

[29:51] and trying to make those ethics work

[29:52] in a world that makes it very hard to remain ethical

[29:55] and still be true to yourself

[29:56] and still be good to all the people in your life.

[29:58] It's a very, for lack of a better word to me,

[29:59] he's a very,

[30:00] a Jewish character in that way, where he's about,

[30:02] these are the laws I have to live by,

[30:04] and life makes it so incredibly hard

[30:06] for me to live by these laws,

[30:07] and I have to square my responsibility

[30:09] to the rules that I understand to be the right way to live,

[30:13] and the reality of living in a world

[30:15] that does not operate by those rules,

[30:16] and that's why those rules exist,

[30:18] because if that was the way the world worked,

[30:20] we wouldn't need them,

[30:21] but the world doesn't work that way, so we need them.

[30:23] And so it is him working through that philosophy

[30:26] as he's regaining the strength within himself to do it,

[30:28] as opposed to the thing you see in movies

[30:30] where it's like, oh, I've been beaten all to shit,

[30:32] and the bad guy goes, oh, and now I'll kill your child,

[30:35] and the person goes, no, and jumps up,

[30:37] and suddenly is full of justice strength.

[30:40] Instead, it's how deep he has to dig in himself

[30:44] to find that strength.

[30:44] That's what makes it work for me.

[30:45] Anyway, so this man, this monster,

[30:49] is the equivalent of that to me,

[30:50] in terms of early Marvel stuff, or single-issue stories.

[30:54] So the thing about Galactus is he is a godlike figure.

[30:57] That's what makes him different from other supervillains.

[30:59] He's not a guy who wants to conquer the world.

[31:01] He is a force of nature.

[31:02] He is a cosmic force of nature

[31:04] that does what he does purely to survive,

[31:06] and he constantly says this to everybody.

[31:08] He constantly says, I am neither good nor evil.

[31:10] I do what I do without pleasure.

[31:12] I merely do what I must to survive.

[31:13] That kind of stuff.

[31:14] He does it while holding his hand out to people.

[31:16] Yeah, he's always holding his hand.

[31:18] Jack Kirby loves drawing people with their hands out

[31:20] in Roman oratorical poses.

[31:23] He's always doing that.

[31:24] And there's a legend that for years,

[31:28] there was this legend that Stan Lee said to Jack Kirby,

[31:29] give me a story where the FF fights God,

[31:31] and that this is what he came up with.

[31:32] That's not true.

[31:33] But Kirby was definitely thinking on the level of like,

[31:35] we want a godlike figure.

[31:36] How do we get bigger with these stories?

[31:38] They're gonna fight a force of nature

[31:40] who is not immoral, but purely amoral.

[31:42] There's no morality to what he does.

[31:44] Is that why he had a G on his chest,

[31:45] because it stands for God?

[31:47] I mean, maybe.

[31:47] Who knows?

[31:48] I mean, it's a...

[31:50] It stands for goof troop.

[31:52] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[31:54] It stands for goonin' all day long.

[31:57] Goofy movie, comma, the.

[31:58] That's what it stands for, because he loves it.

[31:59] So that's the origin.

[32:02] He would love the songs of Powerline.

[32:04] It's true.

[32:05] So that's Galactus and Silver Surfer

[32:08] as they appear in that first story.

[32:09] Silver Surfer is kind of a motionless herald of Galactus

[32:13] who learns to find a little bit of feeling for humanity.

[32:15] Galactus is a force of nature,

[32:17] but we don't learn the origins

[32:19] of either of these characters in this storyline.

[32:21] Where did they come from?

[32:23] And how much of it, I think, might show up in the movie?

[32:27] We're gonna discuss that after this break.

[32:34] Actor Samantha Sloyan has played a lot of characters.

[32:38] Bev Keene in Midnight Mass,

[32:39] Miss Rohrbacher in the new film, The Life of Chuck,

[32:42] Lily, the mother who diligently watches over her son

[32:45] in the hit medical drama, The Pit.

[32:48] But what character really made Samantha Sloyan feel seen?

[32:52] That is special agent Dale Cooper from Twin Peaks.

[32:56] When you see somebody swing for the fences

[32:58] with almost like no sense of embarrassment

[33:02] or just with total abandon, I'm just captivated.

[33:06] Join me, Jordan Cruciola, for that and more

[33:09] on the latest feeling scene from MaximumFun.org.

[33:18] Hey.

[33:19] Hey there.

[33:20] Do you love reading smut?

[33:22] Do you love erotica?

[33:24] Romance?

[33:25] Romanticy?

[33:27] Is your e-reader full of horny fairies and sexy shifters?

[33:31] Are your shelves bursting with enemies to lovers?

[33:36] We're Reading Smut, your new fated mate.

[33:38] Every other Friday, we dive into sexy books

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[33:45] Consider this our meet cute.

[33:47] Reading Smut, every other Friday on Maximum Fun.

[33:53] The Flophouse is sponsored in part by Aura Frames.

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[37:40] And we have a J-J-J-Jumbo Tron.

[37:43] This one is from the Lands That Make Us podcast.

[37:48] The Lands That Make Us is a D&D 5E,

[37:53] that's the fifth edition, I believe,

[37:54] podcast set in a detailed world made up of four countries,

[37:59] each created by one of the players.

[38:02] Join us as we save our nations from ancient threats

[38:05] through high-stakes role-play

[38:07] and collaborative world-building.

[38:10] So check out the Lands That Made Us podcast

[38:13] on your podcast player of choice, or find at,

[38:18] now this is gonna be a mouthful, so listen up,

[38:21] https colon slash slash l-i-n-k-t.ee slash t-l-t-m-u.

[38:38] That is Lake Tree with a little dot

[38:42] between the T-R and the E-E of tree,

[38:46] and then t-l-t-m-u after the slash,

[38:51] standing for the Lands That Made Us podcast.

[38:55] Thank you to all our sponsors, and now back to the mini.

[38:59] Okay, guys, we're back.

[39:01] Dan told you a bunch of ad stuff.

[39:03] Go and buy those products.

[39:04] Help us enrich the people who buy space

[39:07] on the podcast so they can do that,

[39:08] but before you do that,

[39:10] let's talk a little bit more about these characters,

[39:13] because here's where it gets interesting

[39:14] from a behind-the-scenes perspective also,

[39:17] because one of the things I find most interesting

[39:19] about Marvel Comics is not just what's happening on a page,

[39:21] but what's happening behind the page

[39:23] with the creators involved.

[39:25] I'm endlessly fascinated by the history

[39:27] of these people who made Marvel Comics,

[39:30] and to a lesser extent Disney Comics,

[39:32] but mostly Marvel Comics.

[39:33] This thing that, at the time that these were being created,

[39:37] was considered a cheapy, kind of trivial, vulgar art form,

[39:42] certainly not something where there was a lot of money in it,

[39:44] unless you were the guy who owns the merchandising rights,

[39:46] and even then, it was not billions of dollars.

[39:49] It was maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars,

[39:53] which has become so important

[39:55] to so many people who are now adults,

[39:57] but at the time, if you asked most grownups,

[40:00] What do you know about the Fantastic Four?

[40:01] They'd be like, what?

[40:02] I just came back from World War II and now I'm trying to,

[40:05] I've been working as an executive

[40:06] or like on an assembly line for 15 years

[40:09] or whatever, 20 years.

[40:10] Like I'm trying to raise a family.

[40:11] Like I don't understand what's going on

[40:13] with the youth today.

[40:13] Like I don't have any,

[40:15] President Kennedy was killed a couple years ago.

[40:16] I don't have any time for Galactus.

[40:18] What is that?

[40:19] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[40:20] And the amount of, the amount of-

[40:22] I got a moon landing to prepare for.

[40:24] Exactly.

[40:25] The amount of effort that was being put into these books

[40:28] that were essentially at the time considered,

[40:31] except by Jack Kirby, who thought,

[40:32] this work is going to live forever.

[40:34] Essentially throw away juvenile entertainment.

[40:36] So they came up with this,

[40:38] Jack Kirby comes up with the Silver Surfer character

[40:40] and Stanley instantly is like, I love this character.

[40:44] This is my favorite character.

[40:45] I want to do a whole book of the Silver Surfer.

[40:47] I'm going to write it.

[40:48] It's going to be my version of the character.

[40:50] And you know what?

[40:50] My version of the character is not a construct

[40:53] created by the Galactus who learns how to be human,

[40:56] learns how to have emotions,

[40:58] it seems like it was Jack Kirby's original plan.

[41:00] My version is a man who sold his soul to the devil

[41:03] as a sacrifice to save his world.

[41:04] And as a sort of Jesus Hamlet figure,

[41:07] endlessly soliloquizing about why can't humanity get along?

[41:10] Why is humanity so full of hatred and bloodshed?

[41:13] Stanley's like all the stuff I feel

[41:16] as a mid-century American liberal

[41:18] about why can't we just love each other

[41:20] despite the colors of our skin?

[41:22] Silver Surfer is my vehicle for that.

[41:24] And so he starts doing a Silver Surfer comic

[41:26] with a different artist, John Buscema.

[41:28] And Jack Kirby, who had big plans for the Silver Surfer

[41:31] after his appearances in Fantastic Four,

[41:33] was devastated by this.

[41:35] That this character was taken away from him.

[41:37] And also that the version of the character

[41:38] that now became continuity canon was not his version.

[41:41] So what's the Stan Lee version, which became canon?

[41:44] Well, the Silver Surfer we learn was Norrin Radd,

[41:48] an inhabitant of the-

[41:50] Oh, close to what I said.

[41:52] Close to what you said, Rorrin Nadd.

[41:53] Yeah, and the inhabitant of the-

[41:56] Rorrin Nadds, that's what I've got.

[41:57] Yeah, his original power was Rorrin Nadds, yeah.

[42:01] There's a villain named Angar the Screamer

[42:03] who's kind of a psychedelic hippie.

[42:04] And it would be funny if Angar the Screamer's

[42:06] hip power was Rorrin Nadds.

[42:07] There's like heavy vibrations

[42:10] that come out of his testicles that debilitate people.

[42:13] Norrin Radd lives on the planet Xen'La.

[42:15] He is in love with Shalabal.

[42:17] And Galactus comes to eat Xen'La

[42:20] and to save his love and to save his planet.

[42:22] Norrin Radd says, spare my planet

[42:24] and I will agree to be your herald

[42:26] and to find other planets for you.

[42:28] I will do the work so that you can just focus on

[42:30] chomping down those celestial orbs

[42:33] that you love to eat so much.

[42:34] And he kind of loses humanity.

[42:36] He gains what's called the Power Cosmic,

[42:38] an ill-defined power that allows him

[42:41] to do pretty much anything.

[42:43] Yeah, I remember trying to get my brother

[42:45] to explain the Silver Surfer to me.

[42:47] And he said, well, he's got the Power Cosmic.

[42:49] And I'm like, what's that?

[42:50] Was he always shiny or is that Power Cosmic?

[42:53] That's Power Cosmic.

[42:55] He gains this shiny covering over his body

[42:56] that allows him to survive in deep space.

[42:58] Was he always a surfer or was that Power Cosmic?

[43:01] That's a good question.

[43:02] I have never seen a story where he's surfing on Xen'La.

[43:04] The board is part of his power.

[43:06] Okay.

[43:07] And so he can always call the board to himself.

[43:09] One of his catchphrases is, to me my board.

[43:12] And then the surfboard will come to wherever he is.

[43:15] I love the Silver Surfer.

[43:16] I think he's a great character.

[43:17] I like Stan Lee's origin for him.

[43:19] And I love those issues even though

[43:21] it gets very tiring to see Silver Surfer

[43:23] just constantly page after page of him

[43:25] soaring around in the air going like,

[43:27] oh, if only man could learn to learn love.

[43:30] Why is there so much war on this earth?

[43:32] I love your elderly version of this.

[43:35] Oh, if only man could learn love.

[43:38] Yeah.

[43:39] And he is very much a Jesus figure

[43:40] in the Marvel Universe under Stan Lee.

[43:42] One of his main villains is Mephisto,

[43:44] who is one of Marvel's stand-ins for Satan.

[43:46] He's a demon who wants,

[43:47] devil who wants to get Silver Surfer's soul.

[43:49] So the Silver Surfer becomes that.

[43:51] He becomes this guy who over time

[43:54] has become a mainstay of the Marvel Universe.

[43:55] He's had his own title for long times.

[43:57] There's been great runs on his title.

[43:59] Steve Englehart had a great run.

[44:00] There's a run by Ron Mars and Ron Lim that is fantastic.

[44:04] Jim Starlin, one of my favorite Marvel creators,

[44:06] he had a run on Silver Surfer.

[44:07] There's a lot of great runs.

[44:08] He's a big part of the Infinity Gauntlet story

[44:11] in the original comics, even though he's not in the movies.

[44:14] And Surfer and Thanos and Adam Warlock

[44:17] are three characters that I love

[44:18] who are kind of always bumping into each other

[44:20] and revolving around each other.

[44:22] He's one of the linchpins of the cosmic world

[44:26] that Marvel has.

[44:27] Marvel has two types of worlds.

[44:28] There's the world outside your window,

[44:30] which is the New York of the Marvel Universe

[44:32] where it's just like here in New York,

[44:34] but there's superheroes.

[44:35] And then the cosmic universe

[44:36] where there's constant energy bolts

[44:38] that are thousands of miles long flying around

[44:40] and gods and strange demigod characters

[44:44] and embodiments of abstract principles and forces

[44:47] that see humanity as microscopic beings and so forth.

[44:52] And the third one is the Savage Land, right?

[44:54] Well, I guess you could say then it's the,

[44:57] what you'd call kind of like uncharted lands.

[44:59] And that's the kind of stuff

[45:00] that Kirby was always coming up with.

[45:01] And then you'd have like the Savage Land

[45:03] or Wakanda, Black Panther's nation,

[45:06] which is secretly in those early comics,

[45:08] secretly this technological wonderland

[45:10] that the rest of the world doesn't know about.

[45:11] So I guess those are those three things.

[45:13] The Savage Land, for anyone who doesn't know,

[45:14] is the part of Antarctica

[45:16] that aliens put a protective field over.

[45:18] So it's always warm there and dinosaurs still live there.

[45:21] Seem to end up in the Savage Land all the time

[45:23] for some reason.

[45:24] And there's a great X-Men Savage Land storyline

[45:27] in the John Byrne, Chris Claremont run

[45:29] where Sauron comes back.

[45:30] Sauron, a character dear to my heart

[45:32] because my everlasting legacy in comic books

[45:35] is one panel of Sauron talking to Spider-Man.

[45:38] So Jack Kirby had this idea of what Silver Surfer is.

[45:43] Stanley changes it.

[45:44] The same thing is not gonna happen with Galactus, right?

[45:46] Right, Dan?

[45:48] I feel like you're setting me up for a trap.

[45:51] It is a trap, Dan.

[45:52] The same thing happens with Galactus.

[45:54] There's a series of Thor comic books

[45:56] where for some reason they decided

[45:57] that this fantastic Thor villain, Galactus,

[45:59] should have his origin told in Thor.

[46:00] They're trying to make Thor more cosmic.

[46:02] He goes out in space a lot.

[46:03] And they have this Thor storyline

[46:05] where he learns Galactus' origin.

[46:08] Yeah, what's the story here?

[46:09] Do you guys know what Galactus' origin is?

[46:11] No, he's a big dude.

[46:12] He's a big guy, right?

[46:14] He is a big guy.

[46:16] He's a big dude.

[46:17] Did he not start out big?

[46:20] Is he like the smallest dude on his planet

[46:22] where he's from and that made him wanna eat plants?

[46:24] Like Werner Herzog?

[46:26] Even dwarves started small?

[46:27] Yeah, even Galactus started small.

[46:28] Galactus, so he starts out as a scientist

[46:30] named Galan on the planet Ta.

[46:33] And this is not in our universe,

[46:35] but in the universe before our universe.

[46:37] And much like in the Superman origin

[46:40] where his father Jor-El is like,

[46:42] Krypton's gonna blow up.

[46:43] And everyone's like, nah.

[46:44] Galan, I believe, has an understanding

[46:47] that the universe is coming to an end.

[46:48] There are these explorers that are with him.

[46:49] I'm trying to remember it.

[46:50] I should have read it before this episode.

[46:52] The point is, he is the only survivor

[46:54] of the previous universe before our own.

[46:56] And the spaceship that he's in, that saves his life,

[46:59] becomes a sort of cosmic egg.

[47:01] And when he emerges from it, he is Galactus.

[47:05] And the Watcher sees all this and is, you know, has,

[47:08] and there's-

[47:09] He's like, what?

[47:10] Whoa, whoa, whoa.

[47:11] He's like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[47:14] And the-

[47:17] Why he doesn't wear wigs anymore

[47:18] because it just keeps flipping off.

[47:20] Yeah, his sunglasses.

[47:22] He keeps flipping backwards

[47:23] and you just see the Watcher's feet in the panel.

[47:27] And the Watcher had already had his origin messed with.

[47:29] Jack Kirby's idea for the Watcher,

[47:30] I think, dovetailed to Galactus' origin.

[47:32] Stanley set up, oh, the Watcher has this origin

[47:35] where the Watchers were an advanced race.

[47:37] They met this primitive race

[47:39] and they gave them modern technology.

[47:40] And that race used it for weapons

[47:42] and destroyed themselves in nuclear war.

[47:44] And the Watcher said, we are never doing this again.

[47:47] We are never interfering.

[47:48] We're just gonna watch from now on.

[47:49] And there's a whole lot of us.

[47:50] We're a whole species of Watchers.

[47:52] We're all big bald babies in togas.

[47:54] We're just gonna watch things.

[47:55] We're the ultimate voyeurs.

[47:57] We never get involved.

[47:58] Jack Kirby starts doing-

[47:59] And he does that in another comic

[48:00] that Jack Kirby wasn't working on.

[48:01] Jack Kirby starts doing Galactus' origin.

[48:03] And it seems like they've had to recreate,

[48:05] reconstruct it based on the fact that

[48:07] these comics were obviously very cut up,

[48:10] obviously very changed.

[48:11] It seems like he saw Galactus' origin as,

[48:13] Galactus is the survivor of some cataclysm.

[48:17] He's nursed back to health or rescued by Uatu.

[48:21] And Galactus then becomes this devourer of worlds,

[48:25] this cosmic force of destruction.

[48:26] And that's when Uatu is like,

[48:28] I'm never gonna do anything again.

[48:30] It's too dangerous.

[48:31] I will just become the Watcher.

[48:32] And there's just one of me.

[48:33] And apparently, it seems like Jack Kirby drew

[48:35] and wrote this whole story.

[48:36] And then Stanley was like,

[48:38] Jack, you're not reading the other books?

[48:40] This doesn't square what we already said for the Watcher.

[48:42] And they had to remake everything.

[48:43] So the point here is,

[48:44] Galactus, he's the last survivor

[48:46] from the previous universe.

[48:47] He's in a big cosmic egg.

[48:48] Turns him into the big purple guy in armor

[48:52] who travels around the universe having to eat things.

[48:54] And by doing that,

[48:55] he has become a force of balance in the universe.

[48:59] And what that means exactly

[49:00] has been described differently in different comics.

[49:02] In the comic book Earth-X,

[49:04] which is a great mini-series set in the future

[49:05] of the Marvel Universe,

[49:07] it's posited that celestials inject their eggs

[49:10] into the center of planets.

[49:11] And in order to keep them

[49:12] from overpopulating the universe,

[49:13] Galactus eats the planets that have celestial eggs in them.

[49:16] But he doesn't know this.

[49:18] At one point, Galactus is seen kind of shaking hands

[49:20] with eternity and infinity,

[49:22] these embodiments of the very basic reality

[49:26] of existence in itself.

[49:27] And they're like, oh, hail, brother.

[49:29] Hail, sister.

[49:30] That Galactus is the third point of this trinity somehow.

[49:34] He's just a force.

[49:35] He's a force of nature in the universe.

[49:36] And at one point, in the 80s,

[49:37] Galactus gets caught and put on trial

[49:40] for eating the Skrull homeworld, I think it is.

[49:42] And Reed Richards defends him on trial,

[49:44] saying he's a force of nature.

[49:47] You can't put him on trial.

[49:50] I'm sorry, Reed Richards is on trial

[49:52] for saving Galactus's life.

[49:53] Galactus comes to Earth and he's dying.

[49:55] And Reed Richards is like,

[49:56] no, he's necessary for balance in the universe.

[49:58] And we can't let someone die.

[50:00] his life and then Reed Richards is put on trial and the Watcher shows everybody that

[50:04] Galactus is necessary in a sort of cosmic trip.

[50:08] Everyone has the same trip.

[50:09] If you're going to blame anyone, blame the Super Skrull and they're like, oh, not again.

[50:12] That guy, Kallart, he's such a dick.

[50:15] And they do a neat thing there where they say Galactus is such a huge concept that he

[50:20] appears to every species as one of their own.

[50:22] So that's why he looks like a guy in a helmet to us, is because we just...

[50:26] With a big G for guy.

[50:28] Exactly.

[50:29] The same way that we interpret God as a human, because we think of things from a human point

[50:33] of view.

[50:34] We interpret Galactus as one.

[50:35] Anyway, the point is Galactus would show up with a different origin later, with his own

[50:39] origin has changed.

[50:40] Galactus, for a while, they were like, this guy is super powerful.

[50:42] What do we do with him?

[50:44] Here's what you do with him.

[50:45] You use him over and over again until he becomes not as special as he once was.

[50:50] He just becomes just another dude that is coming by Earth every now and then to eat

[50:53] things.

[50:54] Is it time to eat yet?

[50:55] Can I eat you this time?

[50:58] Galactus hungy, can we eat Earth now?

[51:00] But there's still a certain mystique to him.

[51:02] And so here's what I want to talk about now, as we round out this episode.

[51:06] That's what you want to talk about?

[51:07] You're not there yet?

[51:08] As we've already gone too long is...

[51:10] Our main story tonight.

[51:11] Oh, wow.

[51:12] I'm curious.

[51:13] Well, this was an explainer episode.

[51:14] No, I'm curious about what they're going to do in the movie, because in the movie, I think

[51:16] what they have to capture, I think, is the feel of the enormity of this threat and that

[51:21] he is not just like a cool character, but that he is on a different plane of existence

[51:25] from all the other ones.

[51:26] There's a shot in the trailer where you just see Galactus's feet walking down a street.

[51:31] And I'm like, I don't know.

[51:32] I don't know if this is quite doing it.

[51:33] I don't want to see him walk.

[51:35] I don't want to see him move the way he does.

[51:36] You want to see him stand, basically.

[51:39] There's a moment in the original comics where they knock him off a building and they're

[51:41] like, that's it.

[51:42] We knocked him over.

[51:43] We defeated him.

[51:44] We were able to knock him down.

[51:45] And instead of clamoring to his feet, he just kind of levitates and then turns so that he

[51:50] is now upright.

[51:52] And they're like, oh, shit, the guy didn't even have to use his hands to get up.

[51:55] That's how powerful this guy is.

[51:56] Knocking him over didn't do anything.

[51:57] How is he small enough to be on top of a building?

[52:00] Was this like a giant space building?

[52:02] No, it's just, I think that you have to imagine that he is, he can, he's not even just kind

[52:09] of, his body's not even just kind of resting on it.

[52:11] Either he is levitating always or he is so in control of his own matter that he can control

[52:17] how he affects that matter around him.

[52:19] But anyway, so I'm hoping they can capture that because the big changes that they're

[52:25] making in this movie are, it's coming in a world that is post, for us the audience,

[52:31] post-Thanos and the Infinity Gauntlet and all that stuff.

[52:34] You know, it is, it is no longer, life is no longer the biggest thing that you can imagine.

[52:38] When someone has snuffed out half the universe with, by snapping their fingers, a big dude

[52:42] who eats just Earth is, I think they're going to have to work to get that, the enormity

[52:46] of that.

[52:47] But also, you can tell from the trailers, the Silver Surfer is a lady now.

[52:51] And I want to know how you guys feel about that because I, I'm not online very much.

[52:55] I don't deal with discourse very much, but I am totally unaware of any discourse of people

[53:00] being upset that the Silver Surfer is a woman in the movie.

[53:03] I mean, I like Julia Garner.

[53:05] Yeah.

[53:06] She plays the character.

[53:07] I mean, I love Julia Garner.

[53:08] I was trying to, I was trying to get her for a project and I could not, but the, but the,

[53:12] but she, but also I have absolutely no issue with this.

[53:17] And I feel like, I wonder if other people have no issue because they don't care that

[53:20] much about the Silver Surfer.

[53:21] Understandable.

[53:22] He's a character I love, but he's never been like a top popular character.

[53:26] He's one of these characters who often has his own series, but cannot support his own

[53:30] series for as long as others.

[53:32] He's like Dr. Strange or Daredevil that way, where his book is always getting canceled

[53:35] and relaunched.

[53:37] Or if it is just, do we live in a world now where this kind of stuff doesn't matter to

[53:42] people as much, which would be great.

[53:44] What do you guys think?

[53:45] I don't think we live in that world.

[53:46] If you've been paying attention to the news, I think that we would.

[53:49] So something, so a theory that was floated a long time ago that really struck with me

[53:53] was that people getting so mad about like the Zack Snyder cut and this character being

[53:58] like this in this movie from young men who feel like they have no control over their

[54:03] own lives.

[54:04] And so they feel like they can exert control over this as fans.

[54:07] And maybe it's a side effect of those guys having won and America now being a misogynist

[54:12] authoritarian shit show that they no longer care as much what gender the Silver Surfer

[54:16] has.

[54:17] Because now they feel finally that they can take out their, their ire and their anger

[54:21] at the real people whose genders they're mad about.

[54:24] You know, I don't know.

[54:25] I wonder if that's part of it is that the world has the world gotten bad enough that

[54:29] people realize how unimportant the Silver Surfer's gender is.

[54:31] I don't know.

[54:32] But maybe you guys have seen more stuff online than me.

[54:35] No, I try not to go there anymore.

[54:37] Okay.

[54:38] It makes me sad.

[54:39] He doesn't like being online anymore.

[54:41] No, I mean, it's true.

[54:44] It's been very good.

[54:45] Because you know what?

[54:46] I've done more of recently reading books.

[54:48] Great.

[54:49] I love reading books.

[54:51] Books are my second favorite thing after my favorite movie in your mind, right?

[54:54] Yeah, it is.

[54:55] Because Dan, Dan, I want to say that this is not having to do with this.

[54:57] This is might be too personal.

[54:59] That makes me really happy that you are no longer in the stage of your life where you

[55:02] feel the need to be online and respond to hard, hardcore right wing people on Twitter

[55:07] with an image of someone's boobs painted like to be Garfield's face, which you were doing

[55:12] quite a bit of at one point.

[55:14] Yeah.

[55:15] During the first Trump years.

[55:16] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[55:17] I mean, I'm not saying I'm never online or I never get cranky with anything, but it's

[55:25] a lot less because I do it for my own health.

[55:28] Okay, that's fair.

[55:29] And maybe that's the most important thing to explain in this issue, this episode as

[55:33] we get go way longer than I meant to talking on and on and on about Silverstone Fintest

[55:36] 4.

[55:37] And I apologize to everybody if I was just boring you this whole time, because I find

[55:40] these characters fascinating.

[55:41] I find the backstory behind them fascinating.

[55:43] I'm really curious how they're going to be handled in this.

[55:44] I'm not excited about the movie necessarily, I think, because there's so many more important

[55:49] things in life.

[55:50] But I am curious about it.

[55:52] And I think maybe that's the lesson of all this is that within the Marvel universe, the

[55:56] coming of Galactus, the story of the Silver Surfer, the introduction of the Fantastic

[56:00] Four into the Marvel universe within the Marvel universe is of massive importance.

[56:03] It's of massive foundational cosmic importance.

[56:07] The Fantastic Four, they're coming late to the party, but they were in the comics.

[56:11] They were the first ones there.

[56:13] I've always thought it was very funny that the Marvel universe and the movie starts with

[56:16] Iron Man, a character that at the time they could afford to make a movie of because no

[56:20] one gave a shit about that character.

[56:22] He's always been for most of Marvel history.

[56:24] He has been a B-level character, Iron Man, a very important character in being an original

[56:29] Avenger and things like that.

[56:30] But a B-level character.

[56:31] And now he's like the when it made me.

[56:34] This is one thing that didn't make me mad was in the Spider-Man, new Spider-Man movies

[56:36] when he's like, oh, gee, I just got to be like Iron Man and like I got to use all this

[56:40] Iron Man gimmickry.

[56:41] And I'm like, dude, do you not know you're Spider-Man, the greatest character?

[56:45] Like you're the best, greatest, most famous, most popular character.

[56:47] You don't even know how hot you are.

[56:50] And maybe that's what makes Spider-Man so great is he doesn't know how hot he is.

[56:52] Yeah, exactly.

[56:53] He thinks he needs to be Iron Man when he's way hotter than Iron Man.

[56:56] But I think the thing, the important lesson is that these things are of cosmic importance,

[57:02] the very survival of the Earth within the Marvel universe.

[57:04] But in real life, they're not that important.

[57:07] It's just there to have fun, maybe learn a little bit, maybe be inspired a little bit.

[57:11] If you can take something positive from these stories, which I have, I think what I've taken

[57:15] positively from these stories, if I can be personal, especially from Jack Kirby's work,

[57:18] but also from Steve Ditko's Spider-Man work, especially from Jack Kirby's work with his

[57:21] characters, the New Gods, is this feeling of being able to take control of your own

[57:28] life despite obstacles in your path and trying to be the best version of yourself and live

[57:34] by the principles that you think would make the world a better place and understanding

[57:37] that you will not always live up to those principles, but trying your best to live up

[57:41] to them most of the time and also recognizing that it's difficult to do that.

[57:45] And it's difficult to be a full human being, to do right by the world, to do right by the

[57:49] people that you love, and also to do right by yourself and to fulfill your responsibilities.

[57:52] It's hard to do that.

[57:53] I feel like that is the, that's the lesson of that first run of Spider-Man, which means

[57:57] so much to me, is it is hard to be a good person, but that doesn't give you an excuse

[58:01] to not be a good person.

[58:02] You don't get to opt out and you have to just recognize that it's difficult.

[58:05] And with the Fantastic Four, that you are going to be confronted with problems that

[58:10] are seemingly unsolvable and maybe unsolvable, but you have to do your best because life

[58:15] continues.

[58:16] And that's the beautiful thing about that last issue in the Galactus story, like I was

[58:18] saying, is they have just saved the world from Galactus, the devourer of worlds.

[58:22] They've been exposed to the sheer magnificent scale of the universe in a way they never

[58:28] have before.

[58:29] And they've recognized how tiny they are in the eye of God, like how small they are in

[58:33] the grand scope of things.

[58:34] Then it's time to go to college, got to move in, got to meet your roommate, like Ben's

[58:39] going to go patch things up with Alicia, he gets jealous because he thinks that she might

[58:42] be into the Silver Surfer, that like those things are important too, and they're more

[58:46] important.

[58:47] And that like, you can't, certainly more important than a fictional universe, but also that the

[58:51] things within your life are just as important as the big things, and in some ways more important.

[58:55] It's difficult to do right by them, but you have to try, and that's where the meaning

[58:59] of your life is going to come from.

[59:00] So if you can draw those types of things, like I have, and I'm very glad that I have,

[59:05] I'm very thankful that I have, from this work, that's amazing.

[59:08] But at the same time, it's not real, like it's not real and it doesn't matter.

[59:13] And maybe that's why I'm so happy that I have not seen, if it's happening, I'm not aware

[59:18] of it.

[59:19] If it's happening, I'm not aware of it, then it makes me feel a little sadder that I have

[59:21] not seen this big backlash of like, what, Silver Surfer's a girl now?

[59:25] Because it so doesn't matter, it so doesn't matter at all.

[59:28] I think enough of the other casting has been very pleasing to fans.

[59:33] Maybe that's it, maybe that's it.

[59:38] It is a sign, I think, of maybe a healthy re-evaluating of where the Marvel Cinematic

[59:43] Universe lives in people's lives and in culture, and hopefully where fictional universes in

[59:48] general live in people's lives and culture, that I feel like the tone I'm getting around

[59:53] most people in the Fantastic Four movie is like, yeah, I think I want to see that, that

[59:56] looks fun, as opposed to, I need to see it.

[1:00:00] to know what's going to happen. I need to know what's going to happen in this universe

[1:00:03] because it's my responsibility as a fan or as a moviegoer to be aware of it. More like,

[1:00:08] yeah, this looks fun. I think this is going to be good. I hope it's good.

[1:00:10] Well, not to take the wind out of your sails, Elliot, but if you just wander over to the

[1:00:16] Last of Us subreddit, your opinions on fandoms will change.

[1:00:21] I think this has been a good lesson for everybody is don't go to the Last of Us subreddit.

[1:00:26] Go to any subreddit, unless maybe ours is probably fine. I don't want to get insulted.

[1:00:33] No. I think here's my final moral in this long thing, and then you guys can cut me off. If

[1:00:38] you're going to be a fan of anything, be a fan of your life, being alive, living in reality,

[1:00:44] the actual world. Do it. Just do it. You can be a fan of other things, but save your biggest

[1:00:49] fandom for your own life. Yeah. Learn to date yourself first.

[1:00:54] I mean, we talked a lot about dating yourself in that last episode.

[1:00:57] Yeah, yeah, the freezilla. And the thing I will say is I don't have a lot of experience with

[1:01:04] Galactus, but every time I think of Galactus, I think of that reoccurring bee story in Top Ten

[1:01:14] where the one character's grandmother has super mice. So the exterminator or exverminator,

[1:01:21] yeah, he brings in super cats and it leads to a crossover event with Galactopus, which is a cat

[1:01:28] that looks like Galactus. I'm like, I just think about it all the time.

[1:01:31] That, I mean, if you walk away from this episode learning anything, it is, one,

[1:01:37] spend more time in real life than in fictional worlds. And also you should read Top Ten. That

[1:01:41] first run of Top Ten, that Alan Moore, Xander Cannon, Gene Haugh run, it's so good. It's such

[1:01:46] a great book. Yeah. And I'm a huge fan of the Smack spinoff as well.

[1:01:49] Yes, the Smack spinoff is great. That's true. I bug Xander Cannon about it all the time and

[1:01:54] he has a new book out and it's great. Yeah. And I mean, you get that Top Ten

[1:01:58] Omnibus and read through that. There's that one miniseries in the middle that

[1:02:01] is not so great, but otherwise it's all great stuff. So guys, thank you for coming with me on

[1:02:06] this very long journey through the Fantastic Four, Silver Surfer and Galactus. If anyone is still

[1:02:11] with us, then I hope that you enjoyed it. If you're not still with us, join us next time when

[1:02:17] we're going to be talking about a movie. This has been The Flophouse. My name is Elliot Kalin. We're

[1:02:21] on the Maximum Fun Network. Please listen to the other Maximum Fun podcasts, sample them,

[1:02:26] see what you like. I think you'll enjoy it. If you are interested in learning more about

[1:02:30] the Fantastic Four, Kirby Lee issues, visit your local library. Don't take my word for it,

[1:02:36] but I am going to recommend not a Max Fun podcast, unfortunately, but a podcast called Screw It,

[1:02:40] We're Just Going to Talk About Comics by Will and Kevin Hines. And they read through the entirety

[1:02:45] of the Lee, Kirby, Fantastic Four run and did a podcast of it. It was great. Or you can go to the

[1:02:50] Marvel by the Month podcast, a friend of this podcast. Also, they read through all those issues

[1:02:54] and they did a great job with it. If you want to dig in more into Marvel history, those are two

[1:02:59] great podcasts to do it with. But first, go to Maximum Fun podcasts. I want to thank our producer,

[1:03:04] Howell Doughty, aka Alex Smith. He goes by Howell Doughty online and Alex Smith in real life,

[1:03:09] which is the real one. I don't know. He just stares in a mirror and says,

[1:03:12] Who am I? Am I Alex or Howell? Thank you so much for probably putting in some sound effects to make

[1:03:18] this like a funnier episode than it was otherwise. And thank you finally to you, the listener. If you

[1:03:24] like the Flophouse, why not leave us a positive review on the podcast daily of your choice?

[1:03:30] Why not? Or tell a friend about it. You know what? Spread the word of the Flophouse. Yeah. Go on a

[1:03:35] street corner. Make this your life. Spreading the gospel of the Flophouse. Be our congressman.

[1:03:39] Yeah. Be our herald. Congress painting. You're a congressperson. Paint yourself all silver and go

[1:03:44] out and be the herald of the Flophouse. You know, the Flophouse devourer of time is coming your way.

[1:03:49] You better listen to it. Until then, I am Elliot Kalin. I'm Dan McCoy. I'm Stuart Willington

[1:03:56] saying go outside, do something in the real world for a little bit.

[1:03:58] Babe, babe, wake up. The Flophouse mini is finally over.

[1:04:01] Maximum fun. A worker owned network of artists owned shows supported directly by you.

FH Mini 130 - A Galactus-Sized Explainer

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