Welcome back everybody time again for Word Balloon, the comp Conversation show, Josh Sucher's with you.

Josh Shruheo is back.

Now.

You might know Josh from his wonderful Blue Beetle run from a year or so ago for DC, but currently he's got two great things going on at DC go their digital comic book thing that they're doing on DC Universe and other places.

He's doing a fantastic Aquamand story and really interesting dettel about that.

But right at the top, we're talking about a Marvel crossover that's coming in February that absolutely deserves your attention.

It is the Planet of the Apes versus the Fantastic Four?

Are you kidding me?

And Josh absolutely proves himself to be a diehard Ape fan, a diehard Fantastic Four fan.

This comes out in February from Marvel.

The cutoff day to order it is January fifth, But I'm telling you this is fantastic.

As a diehard FF fan and Planet of the Apes fan, this is legit and Josh knows what he's doing.

So lots of fun stuff to talk about with Josh Shrugillo on today's Word Balloon.

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Welcome back everybody time again for word Balloon, the Comic Book Conversation Show.

John Santris with you.

Happy to welcome back Josh Stroho to word Balloon.

Get to see you man.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

Happy holidays.

Happy holidays to you and a man.

We're already looking towards twenty twenty six with a really cool book that you've got coming out, a new Marvel project, and a fantastic crossover the comic We didn't know we wanted, but we certainly are glad it's gonna be out there.

Yes, it's the Fantastic Four in the Planet of the Apes.

What's that title?

Actually, what is it?

It's Fantastic four Planets of the Apes versus Fantastic.

Four versus Fantastic for this, I was I'm sure.

I was like, wait, does it meet the Fantastic for do they fight?

It's it's versus Fantastic.

For yes, and I am all for it.

I'm a big fan of both properties, and especially we'll keep it spoiler free everybody because it's not coming out till February, but the kind folks that Marvel gave me a sneak peek and it looks fantastic.

Tell everybody who your artist is.

Oh sure, We've got Andrew Devino on as our main artist.

And man, they really knocked the hell out of this one because the as you know, these are based off the seventies Apes, and so you know, back then, the makeup is kind of primitive, so to speak, and so you don't get a lot of emotion out of the facial expressions, and so some of the Apes comics or any sort of drawing of the apes.

If they exaggerate the motions too much, it looks off right, it looks on it doesn't look it doesn't feel right, or it feels too stiff.

But Andrea has really taken it over, like, has really made it his own.

And it's incredible to see how much emotion he's able to bring out of these characters and still make them feel unmodel.

That's always the trick with these licensed books.

That's interesting.

Did you have a chance to go back to Marvel's seventies ape magazines and see what they were doing with the ape stories.

Doug Munch, the fantastic writer of fan Chi, among other things in Batman, even in the eighties, he was one of the main ape writers back then.

It's amazing how big with those comics, or even some of the stuff they that they have in like fan magazines in the eighties and nineties, like the way they expand out the world because they're not a lot of world building, and I mean there is in the first film, but it's a limited world.

We don't know what the whole planet is like.

And then these comics will take you there and explore it, and like you do in the five movies and the TV show.

Yeah absolutely, man, No, I mean I remember one story.

I don't remember specifics, but it was like literally like a riverboat, like a Mark Twain sort of riverboat and stuff, and there was like gamblers and things, and no, it was You're right.

It was absolutely more will building world building.

And also they would add extra scenes to some of the established movies.

I remember they did Escape from the Planet of the Apes and you saw the perspective from the spaceship as it was traveling back in time and you saw Zero looking through the window and everything that's not in the movie, but you know they yeah, yeah, So no, I'm with you, man, And again, great idea to match these two up.

I mean, I'm sure I understand now that Disney owns Fox properties and stuff, it's a great opportunity to do crossovers like this.

And I love those seventies designs.

I mean, I just think they're the best.

That's why I don't know, man, I can't up to the Reeves movies.

I love the first one.

Yeah, is it played like an outer limits to me or the Twilight Zone.

But yeah, I don't know, I haven't had that excited like need to see the new Ape movies.

How about you.

I like the new Ape movies.

I will admit that my heart's kind of with the classic ones.

The third one, Escape is my favorite of the Apes movies.

I think it's the best one.

But beyond that, the New Reeves movies, I think they're they're trying to make everything Shakespeare right.

So it's very broad and operatic and powerful, and like, that's great, and like Andy Serkis gets probably his best performance in it, in the second one in particular, But my heart's with the old ones.

I think this crossover is for like the kids who grew up with the seventies and eighties material and like have been pushing the action figures together the whole life.

Now you get to see it.

Absolutely, No, that's great.

I mean, you know, you need you need Cornelia Sincera, you need Doctor Zayas and some of the others.

And again we'll keep in general, but no, man, and I'm so with you on Escape being the best of the five movies, because it starts off weird, then it becomes a comedy, and then half way through, hey, we're hunting the Apes and you know, and all of a sudden it becomes this very tense suspense movie with a very grisly ending.

Jesus you know.

No, yeah, it's so grim and I remember watching it like, oh gosh, probably on like AMC or Sci Fi like weekend afternoon rerun they just run on every weekend, and like, you know, this isn't like one pm on a Saturday morning.

It's like, oh, okay, I guess they just shot and a spoiler alert for Escape from the planet the Ear, but they shoot the baby like they're they're not afraid to go there.

In these movies, you know, they both planted.

In the second one they kill the baby, and the third one, it's like these movies are so dark, but they're you know, they're they're before PG thirteen, so they're.

All ready to be g or g josh.

I've been talking about AI lately on the show, and there's another movie of that era called Colossus The Forben Project.

I don't know if you know that movie.

No, I don't know this one, all right.

It's a it's actually mentioning both beneath well more so escape.

Eric Brayden, the guy who plays the scientist you know with the German action.

Here's a painting of a painting that guy he's a scientist in Colosses and he creates this supercomputer that is supposed to run the US military and especially like the nuclear missiles and everything.

Well, it gets so smart.

This is nineteen seventy.

It gets so smart it talks to the Soviet equivalent and basically both decide, you know something, these humans can't be responsible for their own actions.

Let's take over the world.

And they do that.

And it's a fantastic discar I mean, the orders of spoil two reasons.

One, it's a fifty five year old movie, and b it's it's also I think it's amazing and incredibly prescient.

And I've been talking to friends that are screenwriters in movie and TV people, and I'm like, somebody's got to remake this.

And then it dawned to me.

I'm like, you know, by the time it takes, you know, two years to make a movie, I'm like, by the time they're done with it, it's ai is gonna be different.

It's gonna be in a different place than it is right now.

It may be bust by then, who knows you, Or it may get smarter and in a and appear in a very different way than the way it is.

Yeah, it's interesting too because in writing for sci fi in general, you know, you're always in these days, it feels like you're trying to hit a moving target.

Or with the apes and these apes because everything they do is about like the nature of society and mankind and all this stuff, and so like it's it's interesting to try to stay ahead of the curve because our life is moving, things are accelerating so fast.

How do you keep up?

Even in comics it takes sometimes what I say, it's about eighteen months from when someone has an idea to when it comes out, and so you can have a great idea for an AI storyline, but by the time it comes out, it's already it's real.

Life, right, And that's what I'm saying, and absolutely so.

But yeah, I bring it up because again, like you said, a lot, well, pretty much every Ape movie does not end well, from the Statue of Liberty to even the fifth movie where maybe there's hope but probably not.

I love that that final Oh yeah, yeah, right, Caesar said.

But I love I love all five of them, I really do.

Man.

So no, I'm always happy to talk apes.

And that's great, man, because we got a couple of decades between us.

But see when I was growing up, not only they were in like the afternoon movie, I'm like the local channels and stuff.

And then also the drive ins would have like ape weekends and they would run off five like all night long.

You want to really get to fret strap in man, watch the watch the Earth end in several different ways over five movies.

Ah, that's so funny.

My marathons tend to run out after about the fourth one.

No offense to uh was a Battle for the Planet of the eight Battle.

Yeah, yeah, no, it's an inchest.

I mean it's so low budget.

And also back then it was rated G, which is interesting and you know, but they really were strapped for effects.

But oh god, now I'm forgetting his name.

The British director that did five.

But he's a really good like he was a good World War Two director and actually a good action director and he did a great job.

And I don't know if you're watching, he says he was a he's a Conquest fan, which, oh yeah.

Conquest is great.

Conquest is like it takes all the social commentary, just makes a comment or he just puts it front and center.

Such a good job with that Roddy McDowell.

He's so great in all these movies, but I think he's actually the best in Conquest.

Absolutely.

You know, it's crazy.

You know he's not in Beneath the second one.

Oh, that's right, because it's some other guy is Cornelia.

He was doing another movie because really he loved he loved the producer, Arthur Jacob said.

Jacobs loved him too, but they unfortunately, they had a conflicent schedule.

So yeah, they got this British guy to play Cornelis for that and again with the makeup at Dell.

But I know it's true, but I heard that Roddy McDowell had had the Lawgiver statue in his yard for years and years and years after the movies wrapped.

Yeah, and also Dana Gould bought Roddy McDowell's house, the Comedian and yeah, you're right.

No, they had the Loggiver, which is I mean, can you imagine?

And I guess Sammy Davis also had a Loggiver statue.

Davis Junior is like a fan of Planet of the That's so funny, hey man, you don't think about these things coexisting at the same time.

But they did absolutely, man, No, and he was he was good friends with Arthur Jacobs, the producer of the movies.

Not you know, honestly, man.

I Also people don't realize that before Star Wars, the big merchandizing like success and especially for Fox, was Planning of the Apes and that they were so dumb when it came to Star Wars and Lucas is like, hey, I want the merchand I said like, yeah, good luck.

And it's like you just had a huge, you know, success with all the EPE licensing dummies.

Yeah, they have no idea what was coming, which is crazy because we wouldn't have Star Wars without Planet of the Apes.

There's no way they would have taken a risk on that movie.

That's that's a very interesting point of view on that.

No.

I hear what you're saying, man, and that's cool.

Do you mention the TV show?

Have you watched the TV show?

I used to watch it in rerun obviously in reruns, I guess, yeah.

I used to and watch a little bit of it.

I have no no real memory, strong memories.

It's just them running around with rifles sometimes and shooting, you know what I mean.

It's just it's just like a classic like a team kind of action show.

Yeah, they you'll forgive me.

I'm a big especially classic star Trek fan.

The guy who played Sarah Spock's father, Mark Leonard is general ursus in uh in the TV show and there was a different says it wasn't Murray sevens but you know for what it was.

And also you know, Roddy mcdell played Galen instead of Cornelius or se right.

But no, I mean it's a shame that it didn't get a chance to live.

But you know that was the case with the Lana genre shows.

You know, we were in the six Million Dollar Man, A Wonder Woman were like rare exceptions to the usual, like shows that were out in one season and stuff.

Yeah, you don't think about how some of these shows were only running for like thirteen episodes, but they're really they've been in reruns forever and ever and ever, Like Greatest American Hero.

I think it's like two seasons, but it's been you know, it's been on.

Forever again, old enough to remember when it was.

But so I know what you mean, man, No that's true, but uh yeah, crazy all right, ff though, I mean always the cosmic travelers, so it isn't surprising that one of their missive adventures might find themselves in this ape world.

Yeah, this is one of the funny ones because normally when they do these crossovers, like it's Godzilla or even though Godzilla has a history in the Marvel comics obviously, but you know, they do Godzilla or they do something like the Hedgehog over DC or whatever it is, people are always like, what how they think of that?

And then this one they announced it and everyone's like, oh, yeah, that makes sense, and one's like, yeah, of course they do that, Like of course the Fantastic Four would end up on the planet of the Apes.

Did you read you know again, these are old these are old comics.

But the twenty ninety nine books, they had a Fantastic Four book and it was cool because it had the team like in a year one uh situation, finding themselves in the future.

And it was really interesting because it really yeah, it was like this Lee Kirby Fantastic Four suddenly being in twenty ninety nine and stuff, and it was it was a really interesting idea.

That's a really smart way to do it.

I mean, are they would you say that your team is of the moment.

I mean, certainly you can say, well, they're timeless, but yeah, how would you characterize where the four are?

Yeah, that's a fair question.

I think my take on them is, uh, it's not quite Jonathan Hickman Secret Wars.

But they've been they've been through this before, They've been through this sort of thing before, you know what I mean.

Yeah, they are.

They aren't necessarily the Lee Herby like Invisible Girl, Great Gang, but they they have a lot, and they have the experience.

They're the characters, you know, for the most part, I say, for hopefully for the complete part.

I would say, so, yeah, man.

They're interesting.

They're interesting to write against the Apes, I'll say, because the Apes are allowed to be bastards and jerks and say terrible things to you and make big mistakes, and the Fantastic Four just don't do that, you know what I mean.

So that's that's the balancing off of it, right.

It's not like the Jetsons are the Flintstones crossing over where their worlds kind of blend pretty seamlessly in terms of tone.

The Apes are so serious and so dark and so socially conscious, and then the Fantastic Four are like the epitome of like clean, slick futuristic heroes.

And also, again we can keep it spoiler free, but it is obvious that the four are going to show up.

They can speak, and certainly that's the last thing they're expecting from humans on the planet the apes do we know?

And again, if you can't answer, is this before the events of Taylor Charlton Heston's character in.

Those three I there were a couple of ways to go about this in terms of the timeline, right, yes, because the end of the second movie really complicates telling stories going forward.

Well, certainly, yeah, there's no planet after the second movie, so I wanted to incorporate all the classic characters because Zerra and doctor Zayas has actually been the most fun character I think I've written in like years.

But it takes place between the first end of the first movie and the beginning of the second movie.

There's a vague period that isn't really established how long it's been after Taylor goes into the Forbidden Zone and when the guy who isn't Charlton Heston comes, Sir comes to the brand.

Yeah, Brent James Franciscus, Absolutely.

Yeah, James Francisius.

So it takes place between those moments.

It's in another room, or I'd pull out my migo of Brent that I bought years ago.

That's how much of a plan of the Apes fan I am.

I'm like, oh, they finally made a Brent.

I'm like, I am all in for that.

Continue.

Excuse me.

No, it's fine.

So we won't see Charlton Heston and we won't see Nova, but we see all all see all our Apes friends, and we're kind of seeing a little bit of the aftermath of Taylor and we're seeing I'm putting some threads out there, there's some questions in the later Apes movies and how did this happen?

And so the Fantastic Four get the help explain away that I'm that continuity guy in the for the most part.

That's great, man.

Well, that's honestly.

I think Ape fans and others kind of look for that, and that's one of the reasons why too, I was wondering where the four were as far as the story.

No, that's cool, and again I can appreciate the potential story opportunities because there is this space between both movies that I think can be explored.

Another guy that did great adaptations of the Ape story was this writer Andrew Gaska.

He did illustrated novels.

A couple of years ago.

I had him on my show and he even did the like, uh, he got these wonderful artists or the publisher did to do these paintings within this ill It was a full pros novel, but it had occasional spot illustrations, and one of them was the Apes dredging up Taylor's capsule and you know Dodtor Milo.

Yeah, and then basically told the story of how Doc Doctor Milo was able to reverse engineer how to fly the ship.

You know.

So that's one of those questions you watch the movies and you're like, this doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, And that's the thing I mean, as you say, I think this is this is an opportunity for some world building.

So beyond Ape City, might we see other eight locations?

Yeah, we'll see, We'll see the outskirts of Ape City.

There's uh, what am I trying to say.

There's a there's a drought that is a big plot point in the second movie Beneath the kind of forces earned versus his excursion into the Forbidden Zone, and we're going to see the beginnings of that and how that affects the ape farmers basically who live on the outskirts.

So it's a battle for ape civilization.

They never get a break.

That's cool, that's fantastic.

There's a fantastic twist everybody in the last moments of the first issue that I will just leave at that, one.

Of those classic I can't believe they let me do that moment.

That's great.

Man, who's that editting you right now?

It's Martin Bureau.

So we work together on My first Marvel work with him was a hell Cow short if you know, hell Cow for the blood Hunters crossover blood Hunt, and then we did a Gambit one shot at the beginning of last or this year, where so what if Gambit became a Herald of Galactus?

Was cool because we had had the costume was designed by Ron Limb, so it was like just bleeding nineties energy off of them.

Yeah, that's a good cosmic guy to tap too.

Oh yeah, And for Gambit, it's like the perfect art I think naturally for that for at least for the designs.

And who who did this cover for the f f oh.

Gosh, that is Greg Land himself, the legend.

There you go, absolutely, and we have a.

Great b cover and we have some there's some movie homage variant that haven't been shown out yet, but I'm excited for people to see those.

So they're having a lot of fun with it they're doing.

You know, it's like Marvel Tape takes on on eight Posters Ape takes on classic Marvel moments, anything they can find in between.

You know.

I remember when I d W had the license and they did a start original series Star Trek crossover with the apes and yeah man and j d J.

JK.

Woodward was the was the artist, and it was great because, yeah, it was a great opportunity to show like them being like I think Spock in Nova were being carted away in one of those wagons like we see in the movies.

Yeah, and the and the bamboo cage, you know, one of them was in the Wow.

I love those like jungle gym looking cages that the humans are in.

Sometimes there's so much great visual stuff and I was I was watching some video about it a while ago.

I think there's inspired by like architecture in Tanzania or something that's completely insane, like they the production designer found this old like African architecture book and was like, oh, we just let's just do this, like this looks like it's from another world.

I think Ape City was kind of decaying by the time of Beneath, but it kind of still worked.

It's like whatever material they used to construct those kind of Hudson everything that they lived in.

And also is interesting because the second director, this guy Ted Post, was really a TV director, really didn't do many movies, and I really I love Beneath.

I think Beneath is a cool like again, it has an incredibly depressing ending.

But I think the last twenty thirty minutes of Beneath are like some of the best of the apes.

It is.

It is dark and weird and suspenseful, and the mutants are great, like the whole thing.

The whole thing is treat my friend our Baltizar will chant the the mutant onto my God, which is off key, and he does it off key.

It's fantastic.

But no, man, I know I love those all those people, you know, including I believe Natalie Trundy was the female mutant, and also she's one of the science the good scientists.

I never read that connection, but yeah, I'm thinking about it.

Yeah she's Arthur.

She was Arthur Jake's the producer's wife.

And good she was a good actress.

But yeah, I love the I love the Mutants.

And that's why I love the final movie because them, you know, the Mutans come out of out of the subterranean caves and they try to make an attack on ahe city and it's great because it's so low budget and they got like one school bus and maybe it's hilarious.

Right, they're just getting kids from the neighborhood.

They're getting anyone they can to show up on the back lot that day.

Here and again, good to see, and says in Beneath when the mutants peel off their faces freaking out, Oh god, yeah man, because you know they look all nice and clean with their with their cowls, and then all of a sudden, it's like, hey, guess who had radiation fallout?

All of us?

All right, great, I'm so great.

They're worshiping the bomb the.

Whole Yes, honestly, again, like these ideas, I don't remember who was it roll do all.

I can't remember who wrote a lot of the movies.

But that's great science fiction man.

Oh yeah, even like Rod Serling did some draft of Yeah, I think yeah.

And I think he wrote a couple of the episodes of the TV.

Show Wow, I'm gonna have to look at them.

Correct me.

I'm wrong, But I think he did a couple of teleplays for them.

That's cool.

Well.

And of course the novel by Peter Boulet and and and Serling's original draft are very different from what we got in sixty eight in the first movie.

But Dana Gould, the comedian again who I said had Roddy mcdeal's house.

He he adapted Serling's original screenplay when Boom had the license, and it was it was interesting.

It's really interesting to see.

Did you watch the screen test with Edward g.

Robinson when they were first testing the make Actually, yeah, that's on YouTube everybody if you haven't seen it with.

A Boom That did Gabrielle Hartman for some of the apes.

Those were beautiful, those one those ones really caught my attention when they came out.

Yeah, Gabs, Gabs a good friend of mine.

He uh, you know, he he did some great ape comics.

Uh, and I was referred It's so funny.

I was.

So, I was telling a friend today that we were going to talk tonight, and I was talking about Gabe's Run and Gabe Gabe like they were about twenty years before the first movie and isaiahs as a young man, and so I refer to the series as the Adventures of Young Doctor Ziah's because that's that's kind of what it was.

Yeah's they're cool.

And again, you know it's it's those original designs again, that's I mean the Tim Burton movie.

He didn't know what he was doing.

Yeah, he really anyone who worked on that movie I were, I don't really talking about it.

H It's about It's about the first five for me for sure.

Yeah, man, No, I'm with you.

I'm with you.

Although, but like Tony Fleece is like, you gotta watch the other than just the Franco.

You gotta watch threes.

Those are really good.

Three is dark.

Three is as dark as any APE movie gets.

Yeah, I'll have to get to it.

I hear you, man.

So what are some of your favorite f F runs?

Oh gosh, uh The first one that comes to mind is the Mark Wade and Ringo uh Ron.

That's a classic for me.

That kind of was my entry point for the universe and that way.

Yeah, oh yeah, and Mark Wade just makes everything so accessible for the most part, so you just like just start going from there.

My favorite storyline is probably the Trial of Galactus.

That one was like when it was mind expanding ones and then you go back and read like the classic Kirby stuff.

But it's interesting because it's like all the Kirby stuff for the Fantastic scores, like the Book of Genesis, right, It's like it's like held up there to such a pantheon and then we're just kind of in the shadows of these amazing stories that happened back then.

Those are so yeah, they really set an incredible foundation for the series.

And oh my god, don Adam Ryan North is on it right now.

And yes, oh my god, Ryan's killing it.

He's killing it.

Hit the smartest person in comics, just like those are some His Squirrel Girl was dense and intelligent, and this Fantastic Four is like that to the next power.

I'm with you, I'm a little intimidated writing those characters to begin with, because Ryan North has his run and I'm like, I don't know how robots work.

I'm just I don't know how quantum physics.

Work, do you?

So you didn't coordinate at all with him.

I mean again, I'm kind of outside of continuity.

Yeah, we're we're we're beholden to continuity, but we do not We're not in it.

You know, it's we're not interfering with it.

No, I get it.

It's gould be a story in between mission, you know, in between the adventures that Brian didn't get to.

And I mean everyone says it, which you think it's kind of cliche, But the thing is, is the easiest character to write in comments that's greatly it really is.

I was like, oh, I just feel like it's gonna sound a little cliche or whatever, and then you start writing him and you're like, oh wait, no, as long as you get the humanity in him.

Yeah, absolutely, and Ben has some challenges on the planet of the Apes.

Let's just leave it at that.

Yeah.

Absolutely, I'm glad we get to do a lot of interesting then stuff in this one.

I bet, I bet.

Also, I I again betraying my age.

I mean, I remember when you know Marvel twoin one was essentially a thing book, and the really kind of solo thing I mean even though he always had a partner or whatever.

You know, Yeah, they felt like, you know, it was solo adventures, and yeah, I'm glad that.

Yeah, I'm always right that they don't.

People don't really use him more as a front and sea character, a front and center character.

Another one, and I'd be curious to hear what you think The Invisible Woman.

Oh, I love, I love too.

Uh.

It's great because I feel like she gets a lot of she gets a moment to shine in the miniseries, I will say, And it was really fun to write her.

I think that, like she's always been a popular character, like there's no mistaking that, but something about the movie that came out last year or this year has really like catapulted her because she was so prominent in that film, and I think they did such a good job with her.

It's like everyone's crazy about The Invisible Woman right now.

Well, and honestly, I'll even admit just being an old fashioned FT reader when they're like, oh, Sue's going to be the leader, and it's like really, and again not that not that she's not capable.

So I used to read being you know, in charge and no Vanessa Kirby did a great job.

It was really a great portrayal, and I felt like the characters were very consistent with what we get in the comics.

And and also mentioning our friend Mark Waite again when Mark was Sai at Marvel still and there was finally an Invisible Woman's solo book, and it's like, it's about fucking time.

It's crazy how some of these characters will go fifty years without anyone thinking of giving them a solo title.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And also I was surprised A Force didn't continue as well, the Old Woman hero team, and I'm like, no, that's a good idea, do that, like, and I'm maintained it, you know.

I would be surprised to see it come back in some form or another.

Maybe team These team books are interesting because some of them really hit and then some others are I don't know, sales wise or whatever, they kind of passed through.

But I love the A Force lineup.

That was great because it's like, where else are you gonna see Dazzler team up with Tigris?

Absolutely?

Man, Now, how is it?

We're gonna talk about your Aquamand book from uh earlier this year as well?

But and you've got multiple characters there, How is it manipulating when you've got so many I mean not only the FF but obviously all the eight characters as well, and moving the chess pieces.

Well, you know you've read the issues, so you know we did not just we did not only have the Fantastic Four.

We've got the four main Apes, Ursus Zayas, Cornelius Zerra, We've got some fantasic classic Fantastic Four villains and some weird oddball ones.

And then of course we've got He's on the cover, so you've got Doom.

So it's a it's a it's a big cast, and I'm excited to do that.

I love stories with their big ensemble.

I feel bad for the artists sometimes because he has to draw scenes where their eight characters having a conversation, but you know, we figure it out.

It's a really, it's a it's a it's a really interesting batch of characters to throw against each other and trying to like just thinking about like what would Doom think about the planet of the Apes?

You know what I mean, Like what is Doom?

What does Reed think?

But what does Doom think?

Is he cool with this?

Does you know he's got so many He's still multifaceted, and he got the sense of honor and like kind of justice in some level.

It's like really interesting to put him in these hard sci fi conundrums.

And if it's a spoiler, don't say it.

Sure, but do they know they're on Earth or do they think it's another planet?

Uh?

How are is there?

I don't think it's a spoiler.

It's something they're learning, something they're figuring out.

I mean, obviously, you know, while the hips are speaking English, so they must assume.

Right there, they know something weird is going on.

Well sure, yeah, well yeah, clearly obviously, I guess obviously they know something weird is going on, but they it's something they slowly pieced together.

I would say, okay, but they're not a moment.

They're not really at such a big moment where they're going to stand in front of the Statue of Liberty at our screening.

Right, it should be the ruins of the Baxter building.

That's the other exciting potential without knowing what happens moving forward, But it certainly would be interesting if they're to see it deestimated New York like we saw it beneath the planet of the Age.

Oh yeah, some of those shots of the decimated New York and I know it's just a matte painting or whatever, but it's still it's very effective.

No, that's what I'm saying.

Man, They like really cut corners on the second movie, but they work because you're right, it is a weird little matt painting or whatever, and for and like I said, the same thing with Ape City, it's like, no, actually all this stuff still works.

So yeah, it's really it's uh, it's interesting some of the notes we get from the studio whoever, you know, you would I would hope that they never slack and they don't hear at all.

Like they get very thoughtful notes.

They're like, this is the kind of rifle the Apes youth, this is, this is what, this is the exact shape the windows in Ape City have to be.

It's stuff like that that like you would take for granted as you know, Oh, it's just it's just any rifle, it's just whatever.

And it's like no, like they're they're so smart.

They have so much reference material for the artists and they're immediately go pull out the wrong They're like, this is the wrong shade of reddish brown stuff like that.

Josh, that's reassuring because Gabe Hartman's a friend of mine and he was telling me that he was really concerned that the Fox Art department when the sale to Disney happened, was going to go away because he's like, they've got they had photos of every movie they shot, literally going from the beginning of the sound era, so like literally you could look up a nineteen thirty five Fox movie and go, oh no, they did X, Y and Z on that and had those kind of records.

And it is really reassuring to hear that those that movie franchise is literally fifty plus years old, and that the current people that are vetting your story are that detail oriented.

That's one.

No, they're just as specific about it as they would be probably with the Star Wars or a Star Trek license or whatever it is.

And that's really exciting for me because I mean, they're the real you know, they're the real fans.

Did they offer any sort of Bible of the Ape character?

Not for me.

I think visually they provided a lot of reference or they have access to that sort of thing.

For me, it was less like you know, it watched the movies one hundred times down for that information into your brain and try to get the character voices right.

And so like, you know, the Ape story is like it's just so epic and sprawling and big, and it really does match up well with the kind of stuff the Fantastic Four I think are known for.

It's like these big ideas, these wacky situations.

We could have a lot of fun with it.

But also there's a lot of there's a lot of drama obviously, and we get to see apes breaking a lot of laws left and right.

Ape has skilled Ape.

No, this is no the culture clash, and also to have it represented by the Four versus you know, Charlton Heston's one man show of Taylor and everything.

No, I think again, it presents some interesting opportunities.

And I'm looking forward to the conversations between Zira and Sue and sure, hey, is is Lucius going to show up the teenage Ape?

And are you Johnny gonna Bonda?

I don't want to spoil I will say Julius the That's who I meant, maybe.

Julius Julius Julius or Lucius I couldn't.

Rememberbe's looking one of them is the prison guard.

One of them is the teenager.

Whatever we see the prison guard and I don't want to spoil anything for the teenager yet.

Cool.

No, that's great.

Man again, I I think I think you're off to a great start.

When is the final cutoff to order the book?

I think it's uh or January fifth.

I want to say, Okay, go to your local shop and and and beg them for some Planet of the Apes comics and some variants and the whole thing.

How many issues for the series?

We're four, which is always an interesting act structure to follow, but with this cast it actually works out pretty well.

I will say it's I I were landing the ship.

I'm writing the fourth issue actually probably just this week.

And communicating with Andrea.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

He is so friendly.

I think he's based in Italy, but the most supportive, one of the most supportive artists I've ever worked with.

And every script I know he pours through and he pulls out these moments and he references them in the emails and he just like this was really powerful.

I feel like you're doing a great job here and here and here, because sometimes you know, they take the script they're like, okay, thank you very much.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, So there's like a lot of passion coming from here.

And I don't know if he was an Apes fan already, but it definitely shows in his artwork.

I can't you know.

There's a double page spread I think that might have already been revealed where the Fantastic Four are under trial in Ape City, and it's like, oh, you were like, you didn't you didn't slack on this.

No, it looks great everybody.

And again you got these great land covers.

I haven't seen any of the variants yet, but no, it's a wonderful production and I will certainly be paying attention as it comes out.

That was really I appreciate you guys all sending me that first issue.

I mean, again, as you can tell, I could talk about this stuff without reading it, and and no, you know, I have plenty to say about the potential of an APE f F crossover and everything, but no, it's it's really good and I think both FF fans and APE fans will not be disappointed.

So well done.

U.

Now I want to ask about Aquaman and now was this published or was it?

Is this a digital books?

It's a digital book so you can read it on DC Universe Infinite, which is their their comic app.

Yeah, the digital app.

Yeah, so if you if you get a subscription, if you get the just the free account, I think you can read the first eight seven or eight for free, and then if you get the paid account, you can read.

But it's going to be twenty six issues for this season because they go in seasons.

So it's a lot.

It's a it's a lot of comic.

You know.

These things are roughly about eight to ten pages, I'd say maybe a little bit more comparatively to a print comic.

But if you add up all those pages, it's the longest continuous story I've ever told in comics, even longer.

We had seventeen issues of Blue Beetle.

This is longer than that.

That's great, And give people the plot of and it's sure first of all.

Yeah, it's give the title first of all here, I'll yeah.

So it's Aquaman Yoho, hold on to your hook.

And that's not a typo.

It's because they're pirates.

It's a world where the DC Universe is known as the dcde Space Sea.

It's the big ocean that covers the entire planets, so every every major location in the DC Universe, Gotham, Tamaran, Crypton, whatever you've got is an island or a continent on this enormous stretch of ocean, and so navigating it is our aquaman, Jackson Hyde, who's the second or I guess it's the third Aquaman after Tempest, but anyway, Jackson Hyde is our auqua man and he's on this this pirate ship with with Hiwaya, who's a recent character that's been introduced to the Aquaman lore.

And then Dolphin is there as well.

Love Dolphin.

I was very excited to get to write for Dolphin.

And so the three of them they're going on this epic quest to recover King Arthur's Hook, and so that's the that's the big plot device they're trying to get, is King Arthur's Hook, because you know, we we're all in this, like just like the Lee Kirby stuff.

Uh.

The Peter David has just completely transformed Aquaman in our perception of Aquaman for the modern readers.

And so we wanted to have that like little nod, right, that's cool And also it's kind of a YA book, would you say, right.

Yeah, definitely.

I think it's younger skewing.

It's a little more for teens or thereabouts.

If you if you like kind of like shown in manga, if you like like One Piece is obviously a big inspiration for the book.

But if you like other stuff like Dragon ball Z, You're Outlast Star or any Potensi Moyo.

There's a lot of fun we kind of combine and we try to make a fun book.

The idea for these Go comics because there's a whole line of them.

There's a Wonder Woman one, there's a there's a night Wing one that's very popular.

Nothing but Nightwing, Harley Quinn, whatever.

Any character you like probably has a DC GO book.

But these are weekly installments there.

You get them on the app, and they're not left to right page turned books.

They're designed to be scrolled on screen, scrolling it like you would a web tune or even like you would an article on your phone.

Sure, and so the panels they don't go left right, they just go down.

And so we have an advantage because its Aquaman.

The goal visually for these comics should be you're always pulling the reader's eye down because you want them to keep scrolling.

Well, in Aquaman, they can jump off the ship and go in the water, and so it's a natural, it's a trick.

We it's our secret weapons, Like how do we make this visually interesting?

They jump in the water and it's like you know what I mean, they do some backflips, or we come out.

They break through them, they break through the floor of the room, and like, it's so fun to play after those moments because they're very unique to the format in a way that you couldn't do in print.

No, and I appreciate that and that you know, so once you figured that out, it must have been fun to write to that kind of format versus like the nine panel grit.

Yeah.

Absolutely, I thought when I first realized we were doing a scroll comic, because I did a couple of them for Marvel already, Yes, I was.

I was a little like disheartened because I was like, uh, we lose we lose the page turn reveals, we lose the double page spreads, we lose some of the language of comics that are so special to me.

And in this one.

There are other ways.

There are other opportunities, and I think the biggest opportunity of all is that you can just read it on your phone.

You know what I mean.

You don't have to zoom in and pinch or whatever.

It's formatted perfectly for your device.

I read them on my iPad, but whatever you want to.

Yeah, So they're they're great.

We've got a really a murderous row of artists.

We have Nicolo Alapi, who's another Italian artists.

Actually he has a web comics background.

We have Andrew Drillan, who I've worked with on We did a couple, we did a Bunker short, and we've done some other various projects here and there in the DC universe.

He's like, he has a fine arts background.

It really shows in his work.

And then we've got Bradley Clayton, who is a superstar comic artist kind of coming up.

He had did some Stranger Things comics this year and also did a book with seen A Grayce last year West Hollywood Monster Squad.

That's kind of what it got them on DC's radar.

So it's interesting because we have like the web comics artist, We've got like the fine artist, and then we've got like the classic comic book artist in the cuber style.

And so it's like trying to write for those three strengths, depending on what storyline I'm doing is a lot of fun as well.

It's like my favorite, my favorite comic series of all time.

It's probably fifty two.

Just the excitement of coming back every week and see what we'll see with X.

Yeah.

So I always dreamed of working on a weekly book.

But be careful what you wish for.

It's not easy.

It is not easy to write a weekly comic.

So assist and I'm going joshure is.

It's for twenty six episodes.

So the first twenty I think have already come out, and we're on a winter break until the beginning of January.

Okay, I think so on a Planet of the Apes foc day, go to your local comic shop, order order some apes, and then on the walk back you can read the latest Aquaman on your phone because we come back I think around that time.

But so twenty have already come out.

We're gonna we're gonna land the ship in January, and then we'll see what the future holds from there.

But like I said, you get to no one gets to do twenty six issues of anything anymore.

Absolutely, how many like will will it eventually be adapted in a heart you know, a hard version.

That's my hope.

We haven't made any promises here or there.

That's really my hope.

But I will say that maybe more than some of the other DC GO books, because some of them are Some of them read just like panel sacked on each other, which I think is a totally valid way to read it.

Sure, but we do the flow, you know what I mean.

We make it feel like one continuous read as much as we can, and that's going to be harder to translate into print.

So I think truer.

I think our strength really is we're leaning into the format of the digital comic.

Not not to say that it can't be adapted.

I'm just saying I'm not smart enough to know how to do that.

You know, Honestly, it's been really interesting watching the evolution of the digital comic because again, I was, you know, Ward Bullen was there when those first comics were coming, and especially pre iPad.

When you're reading surface was your iPhone, and I would equate the screen to the size of a baseball card.

And just like you said, uh, not only you know, double page spreads and that impact moment that a traditional comic will have.

No, it doesn't have that, but it is interesting Scott McLeod's whole understanding comics and talking about scrolling in that.

Then it seemed like for a while the digital comics got away from it and they were swiping and you know, they would have the layered images and stuff like you used to be a gun and then you'd swipe and then all of a sudden you'd see the gun fire.

Things like that.

Mark Wade was doing it with Rell bet My Buddi's Allison Baker and Chris Robertson with the Monkey Brain.

You know.

So, yeah, it is.

It's kind of cool that web comics and digital comics are like, no, you know something, I think the scroll is probably the best way.

Yeah, it's an interesting format and honestly, I've I've had fun, a lot of fun writing for it.

And Aquamanica, of course naturally lends itself again to diving into the water, jumping off a building, whatever you have.

But it's a cool book.

You know, we've got our main cast and then everything in the DC universe has been reimagined as pirates.

So you've got you've got Captain Harley Quinn and Lady Ivy, or you've got the Superman on Metropolis Island, or we've got Psycho Pirate who pops up?

Of course, what's that You're doing a pirate book.

I was like, we gotta do Psycho Pirate, like that's great.

Of course, the dereliction of duty not to include him, but we get we get weird and specific with it.

We just did.

I don't know how how deep your Aquaman lore goes talk to.

Yeah, we've got we've got quisp here, who's from Aquaman one.

It's kind of this mp water sprite, very much like Aquaman's mixel pitlick.

Yes, he plays a big role in one of the episodes, but we're trying to do it, you know, the self contained done in one and then you know, you piece it all together and we're telling one big epic.

That's great.

Man, Now is that plant like you said, it's the d C.

Yeah, so is that one of the numbered earths of you know, I mean technically, I mean, you know, it's great.

It's great to give the Psycho Pirate there from the pirate standpoint, but is he kind of aware of the alternate universes?

Like he's yeah, that's actually that actually is a plot point of the Psycho Pirate one because I like.

I like the Psycho Pirate.

That's like I remember, you know what I mean?

I love that.

I love that guy.

And so did you watch did you watch the animated Crisis movies?

I got to the there's three of them, right, I think one I haven't.

I'm not completely there yet.

It's greater today to see them do some of these characters and animation for the first time.

Really well.

I loved their two dimensional choices for those three movies in particular, but also I appreciated the differences in the story compared to the you know, the original Crisis story, and it works.

And yeah, man, I think Psycho Pirate is one of the best things about those three movies.

I really do.

Oh yeah, he's great.

We just did.

We did Justice League International, so the International League of Pirates.

And one of the strengths of our book is we know it, we get to you know, we get bored.

So we're like, well, let's go, let's do the Justices leagu International.

Let's do the Titans, who we call the Titaneers.

And so we do the Pirate redesigns of all the characters, and so we post them online usually the week of and that gets them like some attention online, but it's like for the Justice They International, We're like, okay, well, how do you really break that team down to five or six members?

And our answer was, no, we're just gonna all of them.

We've got Crimson Fox, We've gotta We've got Oberon, We've got you know, we designed Bradley and Andrew designed probably twenty three characters just for the two part storyline.

That's so great, Josh.

Honestly, I'm really glad that they're letting me play with as many toys as you want.

And do you know, is there any sort of overarching attitude towards these digital books, because there is a lot of freedom beyond the traditional Earth one depictions of these characters.

And I mean, I was even thinking reading these it reminded me of those graphic novels of Ya adaptations of Zatanna and Nightwing and things like that, that it kind of had the same vibe.

But as you say, too, more of a digital comic with scrolling and but yeah, like you know, you guys can do whatever you want for the most part, have you had any No, We've got.

We've got complete freedom.

And you know what, I know that there's a Superman with John Kent book right now out as well.

It's one of the more popular series.

And I know they they because it's Superman, they have to hew a little closer to continuity in some ways.

Okay, but we're our own universe and so and also we're Aquaman, so we can we can do whatever we want, you know what I mean?

Like are as long as we as long as we don't make the Arthur fans too, man, I think we're doing doing good and we we This book is a love letter to the classic comics as well.

We have a big storyline coming up that's uh.

We just reintroduced Arthur into the narrative late in the game and so we're gonna see what he's up to.

But just like we go, we have so much fun with it.

I was.

I've been digging into a lot of the Silver Age Aquamant stuff for inspiration because those comments are just full of ideas and that's something I wanted.

I wanted just to have to the book is like you never know what's gonna happen next.

That's excellent, man.

I Uh, I've been buying a few Silver Age Aquamans with those great Nick Cardy and oh man, Yeah, that's that's some really great stuff.

Or there was one where like Aquaman dies and I'm sure you've seen it where he's on the slab and he's being carried by Batman, Superman, Hawkman, and I forget who the fourth guy is, but Mara and and Wonder Woman are like, he's Wonder Roman's consoling Mara in the background.

I think it was Metamorpha, and you know the of course other than you know, Superman doesn't need the the oxygen tank, but the others have him.

They have the little bubble and everything.

Yeah, I I I I always loved And also I was a big Jim and Parow Mike Fleischer Adventure comics seventies Aquaman reader.

Did you read any of those?

Oh yeah, oh gosh, where's my every I mean literally everything from Ramona freedo In to Butch guys to Yes, I mean literally everything about Alex Ross.

So the whole thing is a love letter to the Aquaman mythos we tempest has a big role in the story.

We even Tula shows up and has stuff to do.

The Aquaman fans are telling me, they're like, this is the most Toola has ever had to do, and I'm like, that's what we did right by her, you know, that's what you want to hear, is like this is for the real ones.

That's excellent.

Man.

I was gonna ask, you know, the what kind of connection you're having with the community and stuff.

How do you communicate with them?

You know?

I when we post the new designs every week or whenever we have the new pirate designs, usually we'll get picked up by some of the Aquaman fan sites and they've been really great about reaching out personally and just telling saying nice things about the book Coreat And I know, I you know our books about Jackson, but you know, I know the art and so it takes a little winning over for the Aquaman fans.

But I think once they saw the love that we're putting into it and how we have so much respect for the Aquaman mythos and for Arthur in particular, I think it's been It's it's been great, honestly.

Way would you never know, would that second Aquaman ever show up?

I don't even remember, if you know, he disappeared once they went back to Arthur and everything back in Jeff John's day.

But that previous uh, interpretation of Aquaman.

I guess he was an Arthur Curry.

You'll probably remember better than me.

Oh gosh uh, I will say I'm very much a Mark Wade.

Everything counts.

But kind of mentality about this stuff for our book, we don't ignowl.

We don't really have time to go through that, but maybe never say never.

There's a lot of stuff I want to go.

I want to go to Zebel.

That's my big thing.

We don't have enough room.

Remind me of Zeel.

It's the dimension that the Mara comes from.

Okay, I was going to say, yeah, yeah, we see.

It sometimes, but we'll see it forget.

Given that it's such a huge part of the aquaet mythos, We're never there, and so I'm like, why are we?

You're telling me there's a whole under another undersea kingdom that like we don't have act we never go to.

Like, that's what I want to learn more about.

So if we do Theson two, knock on wood, a lot of Mara stuff, a lot of Zebel stuff.

I want to get into some of this the Aquaman war that hasn't been expanded on.

That sounds great.

Have you had a chance to talk to Jeremy and all Adams was doing the regular Aquaman book.

It's funny because I know Jeremy and he's doing his Aquaman book and his I think, had a recent issue with pirates in it as well, and I was like, Oh, we're getting a little too are close to each other, but it's it's a it's an Aquaman book.

Of course they're going to be c pirates.

Yeah, so we're our own flavor.

I'm not worried about getting too close to what they're doing.

But I know that there's like a lot of Aquaman stuff happening right now with DC KO, and I think they're really prime in that gesture for a big moment.

You know.

Honestly, I read that KO issue of Aquaman facing off with Hawkman, and Jeremy wrote it was great, and again that's I'm so happy.

And honestly, I think a lot of these second tier heroes they have great stories in them, they just got to find the right creators.

And you know, based on when I read of your run and everything telling me in this thing no again, you and Jeremy, I think are two of the right guys to be bringing Aquaman and man, I gotta tell you, and I'm glad you're getting opportunities to a marvel.

But you know, d C right now, I gotta say, they're they're killing it, and a lot of off beyond the I mean, I'm an Earth one DC guy and always was the Absolute Universe is interesting.

What you're doing with d C is interesting, and yeah, I think, uh, there's a lot of cool ideas happening with the characters.

They're playing with them in different ways.

Yeah, I think right now.

And it kind of it always goes back and forth, right sure, but I feel like DC is coming at it with like, let's see what sticks.

That's especially true of the DC GO books.

You know, they did they brought Warlord back for the DC GO books, you know what I mean.

It's like what like and then they're willing to take that chance, right because like, you never know what's going to take off, And these these GO books are for kind of a younger reading audience, ones who are familiar with the format from web tunes or tapas or whatever it is.

And so like there's a cooking book called Taste of Justice.

There's a Wonder Woman book that's more like Babysitters Club, but it's wonder Woman's the baby, and so there's all sorts of crazy concepts and even in the print you're seeing now they's had oh gosh, what is it beneath the trees where nobody sees that.

They're folding that into d C KO like insane, you're happening right now.

I like that.

That's the fun of it is like that again, you never know what's going to happen next.

No, I Greg Rucky used to tell me Marvel and DC they're kind of like the tortoise and the hair, and DC's the tortoise and all of a sudden, you know, the hair's zipping along and all of a sudden it's like, well, he's not behind me in my wait a minute, he's ahead of me.

What hell's going on?

And again, no disrespect to Marvel.

I love my Marvel stuff.

Again, we spend a good half hours so talking about FF charm and the apes and everything.

But yeah, I gotta say right now, there's there's a lot of good invention going on at DC, and it's I'm glad it's clicking, and I'm glad people are having as much fun.

And really I was worried about KO.

I really was.

I'm like, because they you might remember they did something similar in the aughts and I like there, like it maybe it was during Countdown or something, but I remember like, oh yeah, they were like in arenas and it might have even been called Arena and it was like you know, Dark Knight Batman versus Bad Blood, you know, Vampire Batman or whatever.

And it's like and it was fun from an art standpoint, but the stories just weren't there.

And like I said, man, I read Jeremy.

I mean, I'm enjoying the Kao books anyway, but Jeremy's Achaman Hawkman face off really interesting really, and again for.

Him, I think those are too great character for him to write.

And so yeah, those are great.

And also, like if you, I don't know if you watched a lot of anime, but obviously like fighting anime, fighting tournaments is such a it's such a trope of the genre.

Yeah, and I think it's interesting to put that kind of trope against the DC heroes, and it's like it just goes back to Constants of Champions, right, like, yes, we've been doing this forever.

It's just interesting that we have to see what this generation looks like.

Well, and again, and no disrespect to anime, but it just feels like there is more story beyond the fighting scenes and everything.

And that's that's what really.

I mean, God, the first two issues at d C k O, I really had to sit and like, all right, what's happening here?

You know, I need to pay attention what that was happening here is?

And just okay, here we go and I and I'm intrigued by this whole idea of building a champion to face dark side and everything.

I think that's yeah, and.

No one, no one tells me anything, but I I feel like this is the jumping off point for something even bigger.

I don't know what that is, but I'm I'll be reading it for sure.

No, it's very and again, no disrespect to Marvel.

I like One World under Doom.

I like a lot of the Marvel books right now.

But yeah, I got to say that they're beyond I mean, hey, I'm am eating potatoes comic book guy.

But when something you know off the wall or you know, from the left of center suddenly comes out, it's like, oh, that's interesting, all right, And again, I think you're right.

The Goat books represent that as well.

So that's neat.

Let's talk Blue Beetle before we wrap up.

Yeah, so that was the last time you and I talked.

We talked about your run on him and everything, and I was very pleasing.

We're bringing back Dan Garrett and everybody you put in the book and everything.

So yeah, looking back, how was the experience?

Oh?

It was.

It was a dream come true.

You, I will say, you never think you're gonna fall in love again.

After after Bluebido, I was like, I think I think that was.

I think I've spent.

But now I got an aquaman here and I've got doctor's hands on the other hand, and I'm I'm doing just fine.

But I love, I loved writing I may I'm I'm begging them for the opportunity to get back to the character.

But you know, the things you thinks coming go.

But I love I loved the original everything from Blue.

I love the the Dan Garrett stuff, I love the Steve Didko stuff, I love the eighties, the Lenoine stuff.

I love all of it.

And so like to be able to give get a little bit of space to like smush it together and show what my corner of the Blue Beetle universe looks like was so cool.

And we're lucky that the movie came out around the time that I was doing it, so we got that, we got that boost of interest and attention that maybe, you know, not an A list character wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Wasn't the and and I'm sorry, man, I apologize.

I'm sure a million comics in a couple of movies since But wasn't your antagonist that the same character as in the movie.

Yeah, we folded in ted ted Cord's evil sister Victoria into the series.

I have I have the only piece of Victoria Chord merchandise.

Oh yeah, so it's this little, this whole thing.

So here's my theory.

So in movie, so it's just a little I don't know what you put you is it not a little?

It's not a funk.

It's something like a funk go whatever that is.

But she has blonde hair, and in the movie Susan Sarandon has red hair.

I think I think my theory is this toy was for when Susan Sharon Stone was cast in the role, because they always have to be made so far in advance.

Sure, maybe it's.

Been looking around.

This is the only Victoria Chord toy that came out around the movie.

So I had to I had to buy it on eBay.

I spent more money.

I spend more money from my comics, on toys, on original art, from issues I worked on.

It's just that's the cave.

That's great, man.

What's your what's your favorite?

Do you have a vintage toy that you absolutely love or even one you know, not only from your own childhood.

But I was actually I was gonna buy some Planet of Ego figures.

Actually, I think when I when I wrap up the series, and I like to have a little little thing here and there.

Something.

I just got more resents from McFarlane.

It's a it's a Quist statue of the fifth dimensional if we're talking about yes, and so that came with one of the the Aquaman figures that they just did, and so I I just bought.

I don't I don't have a lot of room for statues right now, but I was like, I need the Quisp.

So I had to buy him separately on on a disreputable website.

Oh my, you know already art bounces are mixed custom egos.

So I was totally in with the entire Migo community.

He doesn't have a three D printer, but he he knows guys that do.

And I don't know how deep you get into the the hobby.

Ibrahim Ustafa also makes He makes custom action figures.

They're bigger than migos.

But I am really fascinated by the whole migo culture and you know, the old stuff.

But yeah, I've got like already pointed me to some of those websites and you can buy bodies and things and and you know, and also private collectors will three D print and sculpt heads like I saw like a Buster Crab Flash Gordon head, you know that kind of thing.

And christ And literally like already has Christopher Reeves Superman heads and stuff and they look.

Like what I really want.

The thing I really want from Apes is I don't think they ever made it, but I want a Lawgiver statue for my desk.

I want like it could be I want the either I wanted to have, like the bloody eyes from from Beneath from Benieva or the single tier or whatever, you know.

I want something really stupid.

Well that's Caesar.

Caesar's the crying statue.

Oh you're right, Yeah, you're right.

I got You're right.

What I love also about battle, I'm an old movie freak.

And John John Houston, the great uh director, is the lawgiver that that tells the prophecy or the you know, the the scrolls of of Caesar's advent, and so it was foretold that Caesar would lead his people.

And it's just got that wonderful voice that John Houston always sid and the man is just in the oranguting makeup and stuff him.

And lou Eyris was the guy in charge of all the weapons.

And he's an old character director.

He was Doctor Kildare back in the forest.

Yeah, that's so funny.

Was that the catchphrase?

Yes, calling Doc?

And of course Richard Chamberlin played him in the early sixties in a great TV show.

These are I mean, these are great characters.

I think I think Zayas in particular, he's the one that really I think Saya's is one of the most complex and interesting villains in sci fi.

Well, and that's the opportunity I think you have with this story because he knows the secrets of the Forbidden Zone, and he knows the the history of man, and but it is his job to maintain the order which is keeping the knowledge from his people.

Yeah, and he's fascinating.

He's such a fanatic about it too, you know what I mean.

Like he's he's very really he's very smart.

He's incredibly intelligent, very reasonable, but he's willing to do the dark things in order to maintain this the illusion of ape society of the order.

Yeah, no, I agree.

And Mary Seven's my god, what what are a performance in the two movies?

I mean, really, and really, I'll say, fans, we're very fortunate to get these these great actors of that caliber alongside all the young people in the newbies.

And and you know, I'll be honest, man, I love John Chambers makeup, the original makeup.

I mean that was the thing.

Like Burton was really like, oh, you know, our makeups more superior.

It's like, yeah, maybe, but your story isn't.

At least when they do the full makeup in the classic movies, it looks great.

But when they do the rubber eight mask in the background, you're like, yeah, this movie doesn't need to be remastered.

Maybe because you can see the clothes tags.

Oh yeah, that's no, that's a really good point.

Absolutely, that's so funny, you know, for Halloween.

Gabe Hartman and I and company we do a movie podcast, and we did this early seventies monster movie Gargoyles that was a TV movie, and one of the younger coasts like, well you could see the zipper on the back, and I'm like, yeah, but you gotta understand this was made when you know, I had one of those terrible Panasonic nineteen seventies televisions that didn't.

Have HLS able to see that.

No, absolutely not, man, And I think that's why some of these things and the special effects of the seventies and eighties, even the nineties, they're kind of afraid of putting them on HD because, yeah, you're going to see every flaw that you could trick away with a less resolute TV.

So they did this with the Star Trek X generation.

There was a problem with some of those remasters because you could see the painters tape and things that they were doing to keep down the and it's like, oh, they did those mad Men.

Did you see that about the mad Men getting upscale?

So they remaster it.

It's a similar problem they they've pulled from the original masters.

However, some of these shots were had they paint out elements that are that it would be that wouldn't belong in that era of the sixties, right, and so they painted out but when they pull from the Masters, the special effect shots aren't included, and so you'll see like a car that's like, oh, that car should not be there, like it immediately catches your eye.

But they say they're fixing it.

It just came out last week.

It's on streaming, so maybe hold tight or by the DVDs or something.

Is it on a MC plus.

Where's it streaming?

It's on it.

It just got an HBO Max.

I think as well, oh it's not Max.

Great.

Yeah, I love that show.

I think it's one.

I think that's probably the best show in the past ten twenty years.

No, I completely agree, it's certainly one of them.

And yeah, what a cast.

Absolutely and when great performance is great, right.

And there's a great there's a great moment in Madman where Don's having a bad day and he takes his kid to watch Planet of the Apes.

Yes he does, Yes, he does.

Well if for a modern day he would go buy a copy of Planet of the Apes.

Absolutely mental breakdown and reading Planet of the Apes versus Fantastic Four.

So again final cut off everybody January fifth, and in the meantime too uh catch up on Aquaman yo ho ho u yo ho.

Hold on to your took your hold.

On your hook?

Yes, yo ho, hold on to your hook.

Absolutely very I can't.

Take credit for that title.

I will say that the pun the pun masters at DC, they always they always one up themselves.

All those anthology books to prove Valentine's Day or summer again.

I I really they're fun, They're inventive.

So hats off, well done and wain to go.

Dude, I'm really glad that the run continues again.

I enjoyed your Blue Beetle run, and these are two great stories here.

Let's see a final comment.

Don lends the ladies and gentlemen.

Josh seems as big a fan as he is, a top flight addition to Fantastic four Planet and Aquaman history.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

I I you know I I live in the long boxes too, so I love I love this classic stuff.

It shows, Josh, and you're doing all of a job.

Keep up the great war continued success.

Come back when you have something new and well further the conversation.

But yeah, thanks a lot for playing in I men, everybody, thanks for watching and listening.

Thursday's gonna be very busy.

I'm doing a double feature Art and Franco and I will do our Ayah Holiday special.

We'll be talking about some of our favorite Christmas memories and various things, and then later a scene missing episode with Gabe Hardman.

We're going to be exploring the film and television work of burl Ives.

Yes, the Snowman form Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer, but Academy Award winner for a fantastic Western that you can watch on too be called The Big Country with Gregory Peck among others.

Charlton Heston also in that movie, and a young Chuck Conners great movie Grey Western, and a few other things including his television show The bold Ones where it was one of those NBC wheels like the Mystery Movie with Colone Bowe and macmillan and wife of McLeod.

And in this one he was it was part of a lawyer's show and he was the senior lawyer Burro Lives.

So it's gonna be really fun talking about Burrowlive's career.

On seeing Missing your so two shows tomorrow night.

You're around Word Balloon Live join us.

Then until next time, everybody, stay safe, stay happy, stay healthy,