Podcast of Doom (transcript):
Wolverine #67, Green Lantern #33 and more!

[SFX: Intro Music]

JIM DOOM: Hello and welcome to the latest Podcast of Doom. I’m Jim Doom, and with me as usual is Doom DeLuise. Want to talk about Wolverine?

DOOM DELUISE: That movie hasn’t come out yet.

[sound of audience laughter]

JD: Wolverine issue 67.

DD: Oh. [more laughter] Ok, sure.

JD: You told me you liked it, after hating part 1 last month, but it was for some weird reason. What did you like about this that you didn’t like about last month?

DD: Two things. “They broke me, bub,” and Thor’s hammer.

Let me explain.

JD: Please do.

DD: Last issue, they implied that Wolverine hung up his spurs because something so terrible happened that he could never pop his claws again. That’s a decently cool concept, even though we all know the entire story-arc is leading to the point where he’ll pop his claws again; however, when he admits that he finally got broken, and they show the scene where he’s being attacked by Omega Red and Mr. Sinister, it just pumped me up.

I want to know exactly what happened, and I’m excited to see where this is going.

Further, as far as Mjolnir just being a tourist landmark nowadays, well, I thought that was really cool. How do you kill Thor? I WANT TO KNOW.

So I thought it was super fun and badass. What’d you think?

JD: There seemed to be a lot of future continuity that directly contradicts current continuity.

Do you think it’s worth wondering about the things that don’t line up, or do you think Millar is just writing it from a perspective of “Hey, this is basically a ‘What If?’ story — I’m not constrained by anything.” ?

DD: I’m not sure what didn’t line up. Spell it out for me.

JD: For example, Sabretooth being alive. Sinister being alive. Captain America being alive — in order to be killed.

Do you think this is suggesting they’ll all come back, or is it not worth thinking about because it’s just Millar writing a future story how he would like to write it if he had nothing restraining him?

DD: I’m okay with either explanation. I didn’t realize Sinister was dead, though. When did he die?

JD: Messiah Complex. He died in a really stupid way, with Mystique pushing his face up against Rogue or something really awful like that. Not quite as stupid as the awful storyline leading up to Sabretooth’s death, though.

DD: Didn’t Jeph Loeb behead him?

JD: Yeah, Loeb had Wolverine behead Sabretooth in that horrible horrible awful terrible “this makes Countdown look good” story in the early #50s.

And then there’s stuff like Spider-Man having a black daughter. It makes me wonder if we’re supposed to be thinking “Who do we know in Peter’s life that’s black who he might hook up with or marry?” or if it’s just like “Oooh, miscegenation! Shocking!”

DD: I didn’t think that black daughter was Spider-Man’s. I thought that was Hawkeye’s, and it was because he hooked up with that lady at the end.

JD: Hawkeye’s ex-wife, the woman with whom he has that child, is Peter Parker’s youngest daughter, according to the story.

DD: Oh, I forgot about that.

Yeah, that’s weird.

In a bad way.

JD: So little things like that make me wonder if they’re worth thinking about, or if it’s just Millar thinking “I wonder what crazy thing I can think of next that will make this future even zanier.”

Know what I mean?

DD: I totally know what you mean.

I guess I just felt like overlooking that stuff, because of those fun moments I mentioned earlier. Call me a sucker, but I can see the Wolverine return moment coming, and I’m excited for it.

It’s the same reason I loved Battle For Bludhaven.

JD: Yeah, I totally agree with what you said you liked about the issue. I was just bringing up some other stuff. One other thing I didn’t like though is that the cover says “THIS IS WHERE THE HEROES FELL: LOGAN AND HAWKEYE AT THE MASSACRE OF THE SUPERHEROES!”

That never happened in this book. Not even close.

I liked how Hawkeye thought Wolverine was just kidding around or playing hard to get with his tough-guy side. I also liked how there was more to the massive United States change than just super-villains, with this reference to those subterranean “immune system” people. Like a bunch of bad stuff happened at once and the villains were just there to capitalize at the right moment.

DD: Oh, yeah, both of those points are really good. I friggin’ hate misleading covers, and this one was a hum-dinger.

Steve McNiven’s art, though, is spectacular. I am in love with that guy’s art.

JD: Totally. This stuff is beautiful.

He clearly wants Wolverine to be an old Clint Eastwood, and that is 100% cool with me.

DD: Can you think of a more talented artist working today than Steve McNiven?

JD: Well, I think Leinil … Leinil … how do you pronounce that?

DD: Leinil.

JD: Leinil?

DD: LEINIL.

JD: Okay, Leinil —

DD: LEINIL!

JD: Mr. Yu is still my favorite, but McNiven is great.

DD: I think Wolverine #67 is the best comic book issue ever made.

JD: Didn’t you think Wolverine #66 was the worst?

DD: One of ’em.

JD: Any idea how long this series is supposed to last?

DD: No, I’m not sure.

What are your predictions for how this will play out? Is Hawkeye really shipping drugs? Seems too obvious.

JD: Stuff like this, I don’t even try to predict. Stories like this, like you suggested above, are all about leading up to something you know is coming — Wolverine going nuts and tearing people up again. You know exactly what’s going to happen and the excitement is in how the creators choose to take you there. All this other stuff — reimagined villains, superhero pop culture references — none of that really matters to me. I enjoy it for what it is but otherwise just am thinking about how cool it’s going to be if they build that tension just right for the moment he finally pops his claws and goes at it.

DD: Considering that it seems to be leading to just that moment and nothing else, I have a feeling it’s going to be super sweet. I’m on board.

JD: Well this is always kind of boring when we just totally agree on everything. Did you buy Green Lantern #33?

DD: Yes.

HATED IT.

[laughter]

JD: Really?

DD: Yes. I’m bored as hell by Green Lantern.

I read this story fifteen years ago.

Oh, but there’s new stuff that we didn’t know about before? Whatever. That’s dumb, revisionist history.

And, as much as I love Ivan Reis, has he seriously drawn the same friggin’ cover for the past five issues or what?

JD: I’m liking it but I looked at the cover and was like “This is chapter 5?!?!” This story is moving so freaking slowly. I’ve never thought of Geoff Johns as one of those writers who stretches out a story far beyond how it should play out.

I think I’d put Ivan Reis above Steve McNiven, for the record. But Steve McNiven is still good.

I don’t really have much else to say. I dig the story but it’s maddeningly slow. I was really pumped when this started, because it was going to be a retelling of something old that also introduced something new. We’re now into the fifth chapter and we’re just barely getting hints of what the new is all about.

When I was excited about the mix of old and new, I figured the new stuff would come pouring in by chapter 2.

DD: Yeah, that’s the thing. You hit it. It hasn’t done anything BUT hint at new stuff. Like, the big Light War is coming up, or whatever they’re calling it, and they’re just kind of introducing the Red Lanterns’ origin in this arc. It’s kind of infuriating. And the rest of it is totally retread.

JD: I think we’re really getting to a point where writers are talented enough that they’re getting to write the stories on their own terms, so these things really are written for the graphic novel format and then chopped up into 22-page pieces. There really isn’t a point for the monthly format for stories like this. If anything, the serialization hurts the story, because I’ve nearly dropped Green Lantern several times thanks to how slow this is.

DD: We’re agreeing on everything!

I hated the Dark Knight!

[laughter]

JD: I absolutely can’t read anything Robert Kirkman writes on a monthly basis, because Walking Dead and Invincible and Ultimate X-Men are insultingly paced to where you can read a trade in about the time it takes to read a typical issue of an early ’90s comic.

I normally read 3 or 4 new comics in one sitting on the toilet these days. A few weeks ago, I sat down to read some of my old Guardians of the Galaxy comics from around 1991. I didn’t even get through one issue when my legs fell asleep!

DD: Yeah, I agree. Looking back at Wolverine #67, the thing has so little writing to it.

JD: The only thing these Green Lantern issues have going for them is that there’s at least a lot of stuff in it. Johns isn’t speeding through the issues; he’s almost going the opposite direction, giving us every little detail as we trudge through to whatever it is he’s presumably going to reveal in order to justify this repetition.

DD: Considering The Blackest Night is fast approaching, I’m looking forward to the end of this arc to see how it’s propping that new story-arc up. It should be super fun.

But, in the meantime, it’s boring as hell.

JD: Does Blackest Night happen during or after Final Crisis?

DD: Basing my guess completely off of the DC Universe #0, I’d say during.

JD: I like how Final Crisis is so irrelevant that other giant events can start during it, and we don’t have to worry about the outcome to Final Crisis disrupting whatever this other big event’s eventual outcome will be.

I mean, it’s not like Final Crisis is going to eliminate New Earth or something, resulting in Blackest Night abruptly ending midway because its universe no longer exists.

DD: Yeah, it’s entirely irrelevant. It’s even contradicting Batman RIP (which was also in DC Universe #0), which is even being written by the same fuck-tard as Final Crisis.

JD: Pay attention to continuity to spot the details that help solve the mystery! But only pay attention to continuity I wrote, not continuity anyone else wrote! And actually, don’t pay attention to what I wrote either! Thank you for the handsome check, Mr. DiDio!

DD: Good lord, DC comics sucks right now. Too bad Chris Nolan just made the greatest movie of all time and they’ve all got more money than sense now.

JD: So in conclusion, Wolverine #67 – great; Green Lantern #33 – so very slow and dull; Final Crisis & Batman R.I.P. – crap.

DD: I agree.

High five!

[SFX: flesh slapping against flesh]

[SFX: music fade out]