MOVIE REVIEW: Predator: Killer of Killers

Hey, this is Scott Snyder, the writer of American Vampire, Barnstormers, Witches, White Boat, and Batman, lots of other comics, and you are listening to the best comic podcasts around, the Oblivion Bar podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 196 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. I'm your host that never leaves his home without his 18th century pistol and a yowch to Codex Chris Hacker.

And joining me is the soldier that taught the Predators how to laugh, my co-host and BFF Aaron Knowles. I want to put in the Alan Salvestri. All right, everybody. This week on the show, we are talking about Dan Trachtenberg's latest installment in the Predator franchise Killer of Killers. Now, Aaron, this was a little bit of a Dylan audible. You son of a bitch. Here's the thing, everybody. This was a little bit of an audible.

You know, Aaron and I and I'll say this truthfully, Aaron, much more of a fan than I am. But I think we were both, I would say, decently to very big fans of the Predator franchise. I've been on record and I stand by this, that Predator 1987 film is my favorite action film of all time. It's actually not really close. I think that first Predator movie is It's quotable. It's badass. It's amazing. Everything about it just works.

It's, I think it's maybe Arnold Schwarzenegger's best film and I, that's including T2. So, you know, I just absolutely love it. then Aaron, I'm let you speak on sort of your level. I'm let you finish. Beyonce had the best album of all time. I gotta ask real quick. Have you ever seen Arnold Schwarzenegger's The Running Man? I feel like I have, you know, those action films kind of blend together. would, you would, you would know that one.

Okay. Sure. But yeah, like I said, absolutely love this franchise. Aaron, tell the people a little bit about sort of your love of Predators and actually why we're talking about killer of killers this week. Well, I grew up on, you know, alien films. I've always had a massive crush on Sigourney Weaver. I asked you to talk about how much you love predator and the first thing you say is aliens. I'm to that. I'm getting to that. Okay. I know it's just funny.

Cause I'm wearing an alien shirt right now. People may not be able to see it, but I'm wearing an alien shirt. Chris is wearing a Predator shirt. It just happened to work out so perfectly like this. But I say that because I grew up on aliens and Predator, the franchises, like the titles and not just the movies. Like I went hardcore into it as a kid. I started reading Predator novels. I started reading Alien versus Predator novels and I started reading Alien novels. And that's all I read.

I had a huge collection of them and I read them like multiple times over and over again. The SD Perry uh novels from back in the day from Dark Horse. Yeah. Yeah. I have some of those. am like, I still have all of mine from like when I was younger and I refuse to ever give them up. They're just such good books and they go into the lore of again, like the Yowches like history and how they like are because they're they're they're a pack species. They're hunting packs.

And it's just it's so incredible to get that little background and then to see it. A lot of it actually applied into some of these films, but it's also a little irritating because and we'll talk about it. There's some there's some things that are occur. in this film that don't really line up with that lore with what we know biologically with predators. And so we'll get to that. again, like that's how big of a nerd I am.

I can point out when something is not necessarily biologically possible with the predators. Okay. based on previous Canon, right? Because we're seeing a lot of this with Star Wars as well. Obviously there was a long storied history of Star Wars Canon in between the original films and then eventually the prequels in the 2000s. what Disney did when they bought Star Wars was basically take bits and pieces.

You've got like Thrawn, you've got some of the Mandalorian backstories, some of the old Republic stuff. They bring that into a sort of newer refurbished Canon. And I think we're seeing a similar thing with Dan Trachtenberg and sort of his new heading of this not only Predator franchise, but Aaron, sort of alluded to it and I sort of made fun of you for it, but also the Alien franchise.

think they're very purposefully and very naturally, and I think for fans like us, very appealingly combining these two histories together. unfortunate thing is like the, and I'm just gonna say like the non-super fan, the people, like you can be an absolute fan of just like the Predators from the film, like just like the franchise, but there's so much more that goes into it.

Like a lot of people just don't understand that there has been a connection much like decades before, you know, watching these Predator films and knowing that they battled the aliens, you know. Right there too, as you see. Yeah, and that was just kind of technically like an Easter egg, but it actually alluded to the depth of their relationship in so many ways that just like, oh, that's a cool Easter egg. No, that's actually like some historical shit right there.

Like fucking tighten your belts, friends. Well, before we get right before we get into killer of killers, we got some news and notes. We also want to briefly put this on your radar. If you haven't found out yet, we've had many interviews this week, Aaron. We talked to a lot of creators. Up first, we had Jake Williams and Tim Sealy from over at the Kai Se universe with Godzilla. That was what an amazing conversation, man.

very fun to talk to both to Tim and Jake about that brand new shared universe over IDW with Godzilla. Again, another huge fandom corner of Aaron's. also kind of slightly like it a little less than Predator and Aliens, but I do like Godzilla. So Aaron was definitely nerding out with that conversation with Tim and Jake. Highly recommend that conversation. We also recently talked to Aaron talked to John Kissi, the creator of Dr. Risby, the Tales from the Deep.

And Aaron, I'll let you speak on your conversation with John, because unfortunately I was not there. he was, he was what a sweetheart, man. Like he missed, like he was like very sad that you couldn't be there, but we had like such a great conversation about like, you know, Dr. Rigby volume one and how like amazing, cause I literally, you know, I read through it so quickly and I, He was nice enough to send us the entire first. Yeah. So thank you, John, for that.

Absolutely. And I went back, I think I've read that thing probably at least two times and I just loved the vibe of it. I love the art. I love the, the style. I love the, the horse like sci-fi slash like there's like this like Gothic horror, but you know, it's like Cthulhu. If you like things, A little bit of Cthulhu, uh The guy who hosts the Twilight Zone.

just, it hits so many, like if you like Warehouse 13, if you like the show like Eureka, if you like weird science, if you like any of this stuff, like this is a series for you and I highly recommend checking it out because it is so much fun to read. again, John is, he's so talented. He's so like just stoked about people reading these stories and the fact that he did it all by himself, which we go heavenly into during the conversation. Man, just, had such a good time.

like, had, we had such a good time chatting together. And it was like, that's just, that's how I want to approach, you know, creators because when they're like cool and down to earth like that, and we can just shoot the shit over what they've made and they genuinely love it. And they, they're excited for people to read it. It's not because they want to make money. It's not because he wants to make money. He just wants people to see what he thinks is cool. And I admire that a lot.

Nobody gets in the comics to make money. I'll tell you that. Yeah. And listening to that conversation and editing it together, I could tell that it was a lot of fun to be there. And John seems like such a nice guy. Very sad that I couldn't be there that time, but I will definitely be there the next time. but Aaron, one conversation I was there for, one that I'm very excited that people have found a lot of enjoyment in.

I've heard a lot of good feedback from is our conversation with Christopher Priest, the legend in the comic media, the gentleman who essentially reformatted Black Panther for today's audience and sort of brought it into the non sort of brought it into the new day from Don McGregor and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby's runs from the Jungle Action stuff into the Marvel Knights era and early from the late to mid 90s.

So uh love talking to Christopher Priest and we even got some Superman lost questions in there. And if you've been listening to the show for long enough, you definitely know that Aaron was a huge fan of Superman loss and had a little bit of trouble sort of attaching himself to a Superman comic, which I still find a little crazy.

I'm not here to judge because I know there's a ton of Superman comics and tastes vary, but any entry point, Aaron, as we always say here on the show, any entry point you can find into the love of a character and find that sort of value in a character is important. And if it was Superman Lost for you, that's amazing. that was a really cool moment to hear you guys discuss Superman Lost along with the Black Panther conversation we had with Mr. Priest. So go check those out.

Before we get into our news and notes, Aaron, will you please let the listeners know again? I know we've been talking a lot here in the opening, but it feels like we haven't done like a real normal episode in a bit. We did the Thunderbolts a couple of weeks ago, which we'll talk about here in a moment. But besides that, it seems like we haven't done like a normal episode in a long, time. But before I get into that, just want to throw my two cents into the Christopher Priest.

We get these particular individuals onto the show who have such a uh deep like thread wound into the history, the historical tapestry of comics like him. is honestly like it's like an honor to be able to speak to these guys and to get their truth from them about their experiences in the comic industry.

Dealing with certain titles dealing with you know certain uh IPs like it is so eye-opening because you get this little peek behind You know, we already talked to a lot of creators So we get a peek behind the curtain But when you get that peek behind the curtain that's behind the curtain, it's even more special for us And so it's it's again.

It's just an amazing opportunity to really get to Get into you know what you call the nitty-gritty of the the the industry and the process of comics and their creative process so I just feel exceptionally grateful to be able to have that opportunity and talk to him about his experience in the comic industry. so again, I would love to send a shout out and say thank you to Christopher Priest for Mr. Priest for coming on the show and just being an incredible guest.

But yeah, if you want to support the Oblivion Bar podcast, if you want to help us have some more amazing conversations, consider checking out our Patreon. For your support, you can gain access to bonus episodes each week called The Grid. behind the scenes look at how we prepare each episode with our transcripts. We do Patreon polls. We do a lot of interaction with our Patreon community and we love it.

We just did a grid recently where we had one of our most loyal patrons send us some voice messages and we discussed what he was talking about. uh So you guys can go check that out. You can even check it out with a seven day free trial. Mm hmm. Go to Patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod or there's a link in the show notes. Another thing that we do, we give a ton of free shit away. Like we just love giving out and treating our patrons the same way they treat us with love.

And, know, just, you know, we appreciate them being here. And also the other way that you can support the show is just by giving us a five star review on Google, on Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcast, a review would help. It'll get us into the specific algorithms and it's a free way to support the show. So thank you so much for, you know, for listening. All right, let's go ahead get to our news and notes.

and notes. Alrighty, News and Notes segment is sponsored by Oni Press. If you're craving for comics that defy the ordinary and a publisher that not only allows it but encourages its creators to tell their story the way they want to, look no further than Oni Press, the loudest thing in color since 1997. Check out their upcoming titles over at OniPress.com or and or follow them on social media at Oni Press.

Aaron, first up here for our News and Notes, we have DC Studios announces an animated series for Mr. Miracle. So, You already know if you've listened to show long enough, we are huge. Tom King and Mitch Garrett's shills. We love both of them individually, but also as a team, we've had them on the show together. We've had Tom on the show, I think three times or maybe possibly four times. He's been on with Elsa Chardier. He's been on with Mitch. He's been on twice by himself.

yeah, four times total. So this is incredible news. And Aaron, if I can take you back. You and the listener both back a couple years. 2017, I was really getting into comics in a serious way. This is like Wizard of Oz wind that's happening right now. No, it's just like it's that's the ambient sound when you time travel Okay, got it. I thought it was like, doctor who, who, Bum 2017 I'm getting really into comics. And anytime. I get a chance to make sounds. I'll fucking do it. I'm sorry.

My wife hates me. needs a soundboard? I have you just make noises. OK, real quick, do do what's the one we do for Battle Royale? The slipping noise. Oh, there it is. Yeah. OK. All right. No more. Twenty seventeen. I'm getting into comics in a real way. And Mr. Miracle played a huge part in that. It was, you know, I'd read comics that were sort of genre defining and were more than just your casual funny book.

you know, they weren't your typical superhero story, but I think it was Mr. Miracle that really drove me in a certain direction of, and Aaron, I've talked to you a lot about this, where I no longer follow stories based on character, I follow them by creative team. And I attribute a lot of that to Tom King and Mitch Garrett, Mitch Garrett's on Mr. Miracle. I'm so happy this is happening. So let's get into it.

So based on the multiple Eisner award winning 12 issue comic by good friends of the show, Tom King and Mitch Garrett's, this new series will bring one of DC's most psychologically layered characters. to the screen in a bold way. Tom King will also serve as executive producer and show runner. That's exciting because not only is he working on that, but he's also working on the Green Lantern live action show for DC Studios and Max. He's a busy guy. uh I think we should still see him.

I mean, I would hope so. People who don't are in the know. We represent him as a creator for the company that we both work for called Comic Sketch Art. And Tom, feel like is at every show. I think I've maybe been to like one show in the last five years that he hasn't been there as well. He loves conventions. So I hope that he still goes to these. So he'll be working on this. He's working on Supergirl, the movie, the live action Supergirl one of tomorrow. He's working on again, Green Lanterns.

And then I think he is working on Superman or at least he was in some capacity. So he's busy is what I'm trying to say. Uh, now, Aaron, I want to ask you really quickly before we move on, have you ever read Mr. Miracle? Has it even been of an interest to you at all? It absolutely has. only because of, you know, when we work with CSA, I've always looked at Mitch Garrett's pages and I love, I love his art. I love what he's done with Mr. Miracle and the realness of him.

And also of course, uh he is married to one of my big crushes. I need to get like I need to get like a like a commission of just big bar ah life-size No, I actually I own one those pages there and I own a page from issue nine of Mr. point. I do want to read this and I'm actually really shocked at myself right now because that might be the next thing.

just might bump that up to the front of the reading list because I just, you know, after many times suggesting it, I just read through all of the what's available of what I know is available of local man. so this is perfect timing for me to get into Tom King and Mitch Garrett's Mr. Miracle Run. Yeah, absolutely. I highly recommend it for people who haven't read it and for Aaron here as well. The story sort of based around Scott Free, who is Mr. Miracle.

He is the greatest escape artist in the universe. Time and again, he has thwarted Darkseid's forces from invading Earth and new Genesis and his nail body exploits have made him a celebrity. But beneath the fame, his perfect marriage and a seemingly perfect life, something is eating away at him, making him question whether he can pull off the ultimate trick, escaping death itself. Now, I will say without major spoilers, of course, I want everyone to read this with next to no information.

What this story I think sort of centers on is Scott becoming a father. I think that's the central pillar of this story is that him and Big Barda have finally decided to take that next step. And I know personally that Tom has said that he wrote this while he was becoming or sorry. No, I think it was actually Mitch was drawing this as he was becoming a new father. So I find it really, really interesting and really compelling.

Not only that, but sort of understanding your significance in a young person's life, but also when you become a parent, it becomes so central to your personality and your focus and everything around you becomes second to being a parent. It's all just, it's really beautiful stuff. And it's funny because if you follow Mitch on social media, you can see how much he loves being a father.

And it's very inspiring because he is such a, just like everything is like, if it's not about, you know, supporting artists or supporting, you know, his comics, whatever, like it's about supporting his family and being a father. I've just, it's so inspirational and it's so like, just, I don't know, it evokes like some just really warm feelings. so, ah I'm excited to read this and then I'm excited to talk to him about it and be like. We're going to have them on the show.

We're going have these two on the show. Absolutely. 100%. Yeah. And I want to say just really quickly without doing too much ass kissing too much fart sniffing here in the middle of show is that I absolutely love Tom King and Mitch Garrett's. I will take zero slander from either one of those guys again, either separately or as a team. Tom gets a lot of hate for his Batman run for some reason, which if it's not your cup of tea, read the other 11 things that Tom King has done extremely well.

And I have never met anybody who said they don't like Mitch Garrods, either as a person or as an artist. So I will take zero slander. I will not accept it. You will get full fists from me. Moving on here, we have the project marks the second adult animated series from Gunn and Saffron led DC studios after creature commandos. Aaron, have you caught up on creature commandos? You son of a bitch. It's really good. uh Which has already locked in a second season. So Aaron, you catch up for season two.

Over on the newly named, which we have not talked about somehow. HBO Max went from HBO to HBO Go to HBO Max to HBO. Now Max and then it's going back to HBO Max. I don't know if you heard this or not, but it's going back to HBO Max. uh Other animated projects currently in development at DC Studios include Starfire, My Adventures with Green Lantern and DC Superpowers. So again, very excited for this. Can't wait for this to come out, get more details on this.

If Tom and Mitch are involved in some way or in a large way, I. doubt that this will not be incredible. So Aaron, let's move on here. think it's funny that there's like a show. I don't think it's on HBO Max or anything, but there's a show where it's like they gave a personality or like AI personalities to like all of the bat vehicles. It's just so it's like cars, but it's all the bat like the bat vehicles. It's a kids show. Let's see.

So, yeah, let's let's get into the other side of the fence with Marvel, shall we? The other big the other one of the big two. So the Thunderbolts. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. Bumper. included. We've reviewed it here on the show. We liked it. Yes. Yeah. I mean, Did right. Correct. Yeah. And being framed by Disney CEO Bob Iger as the poster child of Marvel's quality over quantity comeback.

The film is now officially set to not break even at the global box office. So we're six weeks in and Thunderbolts has only pulled in about three hundred seventy one million worldwide. That's a million. And to break even, it needed to hit around four hundred and twenty five, which is I think 18 above where the eternal's lit. Yeah, we discussed not too long ago how the eternal somehow made more money than this. COVID.

The production budget was trimmed to 180 million and the marketing spend capped at 100 million, which was lower than Marvel's usual blockbuster budgets. It also didn't help that the film was in theaters for less than a month in most markets, which is weird because I feel like that's not a Marvel choice, like a Disney choice, unless it was very intentional for some reason. Honestly, I feel like that's most theaters now.

Most theaters only create enough space for a certain number of big box office hitters. coming out. They don't have time to keep everything in for months at a time like they used to. And also, think it's also pre-planning because majority of these movies, depending on how well they do or don't do, at some point they'll bring them right back. Right. Yeah. We just saw that recently with Snow White how it bombed during the beginning part of the year and then it bombed just recently.

It's morbid time. Let's see. Marvel dominated the Infinity Saga era with 19 of its 22 films crossing the $500 million global mark. And now only six of the 13 multiverse saga entries have done the same. Yeah, that's not good. mean, and to be fair, Aaron, we've said it here on the show and I don't think it's really, we're not breaking news or we're not making a hot take here. The multiverse saga has not been as good. I mean, just top to bottom.

mean, I think a top tier multiverse film like a Deadpool Wolverine or a Guardians of the Galaxy volume three is still a like an upper tier infinity saga, but barely like it's like Black Panther, you know, um, age of Ultron, um, You know, that tier of Iron Man tier of film, it's not anywhere near as like Winter Soldier or Endgame or the first Avengers film or any of those, right? Guardians of the Galaxy one and two.

I recently rewatched, uh just for the shits and giggles, uh know, Deadpool and Wolverine. And again, just as amazing as the first time I watched it. think I could literally watch that movie back to back and still find like entertaining things about it. Whenever Olivia and I went through and watched the Infinity Saga together, because she had never seen most of, if not all of the original MCU films, those first 22.

After we finished them all, I was like, we do not have to watch any other MCU films. We don't have to like continue on that same path. Anything you want to watch afterwards, totally fine with me. The only movie she wanted to watch was Deadpool Wolverine, and she loved it. You know what I recently showed Carly? Galaxy Quest. Nice. I've been trying to do it. I've been trying to sneak it in there. God, my God, she loved it. And it's so funny.

We should just do, I'm telling you, we should do an episode on Galaxy Quest. I think that would be great. I think we should do that. I need any excuse. I need any excuse to re-watch it over and over again. Wilson's birthday, let's watch Galaxy Quest. eh So what's next for the MCU, It looks like Marvel's done playing it safe with B-tier characters and the studio's upcoming slate is... Stacked. Um, with heavy hitters, the fantastic four first steps comes out next month. Are you ready?

Avengers doomsday and Spiderman brand new day are coming out in 2026. And then we'll see Avengers secret wars and a mystery installment, which Did you see that? No, the way, they randomly put a secret installment after Secret Wars in the fall slot, which they haven't really, know, know, Kevin Feige comes out and does that big slideshow of like all the films are going to put out for the next five to seven years. They haven't done that since the beginning of the multiverse saga.

So there are rumors that either they're trying to purposely keep this a secret or we could be getting a reboot, which I think is sort of the prevailing theory at this point is that by the time that we get to Doomsday and then eventually Secret Wars. This will be a soft reboot for the MCU. We'll have a new Iron Man. We'll have a new Captain America, all those things.

What if they just redid, like exactly as it was, redid the first installment, like the Infinity War saga, but just was shot for shot new actors? That's America's ass. I can do this all day. But it's just Orlando Bloom or something. It's Tom Cruise as Iron Man. Wow. As in Captain America. Well, here, let me ask you this. Can B-List comic book characters, you mentioned how like Marvel's done with the B-List characters. Do you think that a B-List character can carry a franchise in 2025?

Personally, think yes, if done correctly, if they don't, okay, so they are shoehorning the wrong characters into wrong levels of entertainment, wrong levels of medium. So yes, WandaVision. Now, WandaVision was a great show. I'm not gonna lie, great show. But I don't think that they necessarily are, and you know what, I'll leave it at that. They were a great show, but they should not have done Multiverse of Madness with The Scarlet Witch.

Yes. um I think that, and then like the other side of that is uh like Agatha, like Agatha all along. I don't think that that should have been like a whole series. I think that maybe should have been like a streaming movie or something, you know? uh those feature presents ah things that they did with like the werewolf by night. think that's an incredible opportunity. exactly. then, again, not Guardians of the Galaxy, but Thunderbolts. Thunderbolts, break it into a season.

Yeah. You know, because you could have told way more background for some of these, given a little bit more depth. And I mean, I don't understand it because a lot of the quality of what they're putting in the theaters is the same quality they're putting on the streaming services. So break it down. Show us a little bit of, mean, I mean, visually, not story wise. I mean, I would even argue visually like Moon Knight looked pretty horrific. uh Parts of She-Hulk looked pretty bad. was great.

I love Loki. I think that the lot of the Disney plus shows, they were, I think they were bad in quality of see of like actual story and of visuals. Like they did the two things that they're supposed to do well. What are these movies? I mean, I know Martin Scorsese said this as a slight, but it's kind of true. These are roller coasters. We should go on these things as like a fun romp.

And if we're going, if you're going to do that, which I think that's the only way you can do this is you have to, you have to make them visually appealing and appetizing. Yeah. don't use AI for the credit. Yeah, absolutely. And, know, we've already talked, I totally agree with you too. Be list characters can succeed in 2025, you know, guardians of the galaxy is the, is the obvious example peacemaker. These are both James guns sort of bread and butter.

He loves propping up be list characters and putting them or even see list characters like Look at fucking vigilante who even knew who that was before last year during peacemaker. Well, yeah, I mean those are the differences though, because you could have like, okay, so there's like the the series, like Penguin. Penguin was absolutely perfect. Things like She-Hulk can be like a half an hour, like a full season of like half hour episodes.

The way they did WandaVision, where it was like longer episodes, but fewer of them, was great. So it's based on like the character, like the development level of the character, where again, like a She-Hulk base who's kind of just like, I mean, to be honest, I love She-Hulk, you already know that. I love her as a character. I love that she breaks the fourth wall. So, mommy, she could go either way with being like, again, longer episodes because there's more to talk about.

There's a lot of lore and a lot of history. But sticking at that like 30 minute, 30 to 35, 36 minute episodes, it's 40 minutes max, you know? And then if you did something like the Thunderbolts in like a show, like a mini, I'm not gonna say like a mini series, but I guess like a limited series. where those are like longer episodes, like 45 minutes to an hour per episode. That's how you break them up. So you're saying don't try to put a circle in a square. Exactly. Right.

Like some of these characters vary. Depth varies. Like we don't need Moon Knight to be an hour long when we're really just trying to sort of get in the head of Mark Spector and sort of the multiple personalities and all those things. Whereas like Daredevil, maybe that requires an hour to tell the full story because you have Kingpin and you have Punisher and you have Matt and you have all these different people. So I totally agree there. uh Let's move on here.

Aaron, a little bit more sad news from the comic book world. Uh, you know, people who've been following the show know that I had this long standing beef with diamond and I feel vindicated here. And I'll be honest with you. I feel like this totally proves my point from the very beginning. And I'm going to totally take my victory lap and I'm going to jog very slowly during this. No, I'm going to go through this quickly because I've seen, seen bits and pieces. yeah.

Man, there's this episode where Commander Holt or Captain Holt, goes, vindication. Yeah, that's you right now. So, yep. Well, the saga of diamond doing diamond things, Aaron, continues on because many things have happened since the last time we talked about these guys. I think we started talking about them back in January when they filed for chapter one bankruptcy. And I'm going to give you just a quick rundown of what's happened since January.

So diamond sold to Alliance Entertainment, all of its assets for around 72 million dollars. That didn't include diamond UK. And I should say really quickly as well for people who just for some reason, if you don't know. who Diamond is. They were the biggest distributor of comics for a very long time.

Since the spectator boom of the nineties, Diamond was the end all be all monopoly of distribution until here recently during, I would say during the COVID timeframe where things started to falter, things started to go badly for them. And it opened up a lane for people like Lunar and for Penguin Random House to get in there and start taking some of that work. So then we learned that there was a joint bid between Universal Distribution and AdPopulum.

that came in second and was named as a backup bid with a bid of 69 million with Universal getting Alliance Gaming and Diamond UK and AdPopulum getting Diamond Comics, Diamond Toys, Diamond Select Toys and everything else. So at this point we have two bids, one for 72 million from Alliance and then one for 69 million, nice, from Universal Distribution. So here's where things start to take a turn and here's where Diamond starts to show themselves, starts to their ass a little bit.

The debtors had chosen that they had chosen the backup bid from Universal. and add populum instead of Alliance. Despite Alliance having a way bigger bid, no reason was given. And actually we still don't really know exactly why that happened. There could be some back door handshakes happening. Back, what'd I say? door? Back room? Yeah, you just open the back door, shake real quick and then close it. Alliance then filed a lawsuit because like, Hey bro, I gave you about six more million dollars.

Why the hell am I not getting this company? Diamond declared business as usual for retailers and such, but the court is threatened a chapter seven bankruptcy, which I actually don't know the difference between chapter 11 and chapter seven. Aaron, do you? Okay. uh With financial knowledge, what did that, what did our, our not our parents, our preceding generations did not do a great job of teaching us financial terms. Okay. Yeah. I don't even know what my credit score is right now. Just kidding.

do. Let's see here. So Alliance sued Diamond, because of course they should, claiming fraud. Sale of Diamond to Universal and AdPopulim was approved by the courts. So that didn't work. Alliance didn't get that uh winning bid. AdPopulim paid more than we thought. So apparently it wasn't 69 million, but according to the actual court documents, it was 69 million. Layoffs started to begin to happen over at Diamond because of course they do. Diamond Select Toys officially closed down.

no more diamond select toys. Courts withdrew that chapter seven bankruptcy threat. So seemed like things are starting to cool down a little bit. It seems like Universal has officially earned the rights to own diamond. Diamond starts assuring comic book stores that everything is going to be fine. I'm being totally honest here. Totally believe me, everybody. I'm Diamond Comics. I've always been very truthful with you. Don't even worry about it. Everything's cool.

Then very shortly after they started to send letters to publishers that looked like it wasn't actually fine. And that now that they're looking for more money, than they were originally asking for for their products and that they were also no longer to pay back the money they owed some of these comic stores that had been asking for money back during this acquisition because that was part of it.

Part of the deal was is that if you were a distributor or a comic, excuse me, if you're a retailer and you wanted to move your business over to say lunar or ping random house, you had that option. No, if answer butts about it, diamond would pay your money back. Apparently that's no longer the case. And now they're getting sued into oblivion. Not here. Not here. Yeah, not, at the oblivion bar, another oblivion, the worser of the oblivions.

Uh, dynamite actually was one of those publishers that was like, Hey, I need a million dollars because you guys have been screwing us for a long time. There was a lot of back pay from diamond, to dynamite. you had Unon and manga classic have now canceled all diamond orders, which are two of the bigger manga distributors here in the U S you had, um, ping and random house starts to close their special retailer joining offer.

So that meant that if you were trying to make that switch over from Diamond to Ping and Random House, that window has closed officially. Ping and Random House is no longer accepting that. Diamond gets a fourth wave of funding and deadlines. Massive distribution, who we've actually had here on the show, expands their distribution with Lunar, which is funny because Diamond once owned Massive. Big thing there. And I'm glossing through a lot of this, everybody, so I apologize if we're going quickly.

There's just been a lot that's happened since January. There have been problems with ad populums. First payments, so. now that universal owns diamond, these payments that were going out to these retailers that would that back pay we were talking about were not those cash, those checks were not cashing. All right. I need my money on time. All right. Awkward. Awkward. uh Add populum sues alliance alleging breaches of confidentiality and staff approach approaching.

So after the layoffs were happening, apparently alliance was usurping a lot of these bigger higher ups at the previous old diamond. And Adpopulum said they used that in when they had that purchase set in stone that Universal came in and took. They're saying, oh, well, during that timeframe, you were taking some of our people and now we want to see you. Adpopulum is still ghosting publishers. Publishers are not hearing anything from Universal at all.

Bankruptcy timeline actually revealed that it began in July of 2024. So it didn't happen in January. It looks like Diamond actually filed for bankruptcy in 2024, in the summer of 2024. And then Diamond ends. cash on delivery sales.

So that means that when you buy something from Diamond, you don't have to pay until it's delivered to your store, which is a buffer for the comic retailer so that if you don't get something that you paid for, you can go, hey, listen, here's a list of all the things I didn't get that I bought. I need those things or I want my money back. Diamond is no longer doing that. Now, Aaron, you're probably thinking to yourself, Diamond is kind of shitty. they're kind of a piece of shit company, honestly.

A little bit. uh Honestly, they shouldn't be in charge of distributing comics and I don't like them and they're a bunch of assholes. And Aaron, you wouldn't be wrong there, but there's also more. There's a little bit more that Diamond's been doing here recently as of last week. So Diamond sent out a letter Friday, this Friday. So we're recording this on June 14th. So this was on June 13th, literally yesterday, that retailers no longer have a no cost return.

Their policy is gone with the no cost return. Now, Aaron, we've talked about this before. This is absolutely. a direct hit to the direct market and to comic retailers because for a long time, comic retailers could order a ton of venom verse number three. They could order 70 copies and then they could send back 40 for a, let's say 70 % return. You would get like a certain amount return and it helped diamond and it helped the retailers. It was sort of a win-win for everybody. Exactly.

It allowed retailers to take a little bit of a chance on some of the bigger two books. I even think that like Image and I think Boom Studios for a long time did this as well. Where like, if you ordered a number one of a new book, you would have a no cost return policy immediately. Order a hundred copies of this book and if they for some reason don't sell, return them and we're fine with it. Well, uh as we talked about before, this is a big thing, right, for retailers.

And basically says that all of this back stock that retailers now order from uh Diamond, if they continue to stay with Diamond. It's basically unsellable. It's unsellable backstock. If you've ever been to one of those big retailers, you know that some people just have an insane amount of backstock for whatever reason. I don't really know why. So not only that, but this no cost route could also act as a consignment route for larger retailers.

So we're thinking of like Mile High Comics or Downtown Comics in Indianapolis or Midtown Comics in New York. All of these retailers that have a ton of stock, they could order a bunch of stuff for their store, but then not have it delivered. Because if you've ever been to Midtown Comics, you know that that's not a big store. at least not the one in Times Square. So they could just keep it at the warehouse and then have it shipped when they needed it. That's gone, all right?

No longer available to those retailers. Now, if they want to get a bunch of stock, a bunch of toys, a bunch of Beta Ray Bill statues or spawn trading cards, sorry about you, it's not happening anymore. have to, whatever you order, you have to take. Last thing I'll say before we move on from this is that Diamond's net worth has dropped quite a bit in the last four or five months. I was originally worth $10 million is now worth negative 5 million. So down with diamond.

I'll continue to yell from the mountaintops. Aaron, anything you to say about this? Like what, what does your read on this as someone who's not really privy to a lot of this stuff? I don't think what are your thoughts? Honestly, they just sound like a huge bag of dicks. Yeah, I think you nailed on the head there. And I wish them nothing but the worst and a uh quick removal from the industry and a slow descend into oblivion. Yes. Uh, they are officially the winners.

only in June, but, uh, I don't know if we're going to have this award come December for last call awards, but biggest assholes of the year would undoubtedly go to diamond this year and the previous five years that we've been here on the oblivion bar podcast. Cause I've again been vocal about it. They suck. Diamond has sucked as someone who's worked at a comic shop. They are not great. They just are the worst to work with. They would never get orders on time.

Things would come in broken or you would get one in 100 variants of Moon Knight number two, that would be just destroyed. It's just a horrific route for comic retailers. And I hope that while this isn't great, again, Aaron, we've talked about how like sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't. I'm hoping that after a little bit of struggle, because it's undeniable, this is gonna hurt a lot of comic retailers.

A lot of stores are going to fail because of this, because they have invested so much money, because they had to. They had to invest so much money into the success of Diamond. Unfortunately, some of those stores are going to close, but I hope for like the larger picture and I hate to sound sort of broad and uncool about all this, but hopefully the comic industry is in a better place after the destruction of Diamond and whatever's left of it.

So Aaron, anything else before we move on to our main topic? No, that's a bit heavy. you know, again, I said what I said, but I just, you know, I hope that the businesses that are affected by this are, you know, are able to, to last as much as they can are able to bounce back, are able to recover. Cause I know it's going to be a hard process, a hard journey. ah But I, know, obviously we shopped local. This is why it's so important to shop local.

So they can still stand on their own feet while having to deal with big business bullshit like that. 100%. Well, once again, thank you so much to ONI press. uh Again, one of our favorite small publishers. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for supporting the news and notes segment. Aaron, let's get into the next installment in the Predator franchise. But before we get to that review, we're to take a quick break and we will be right back.

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Alrighty, let's talk about Predator Killer of Killers, the latest installment in the Predator franchise, the latest and actually first animated movie from this corner or from this franchise. Excuse me. Gosh, Aaron, what a bummer about Diamond. I can't stop thinking about it, but it's time to get on. It's time to get over it. All right. It's time to talk about the Yautja. Is Yautja. Am I saying it Yautja, Yautja, Yautja. Yautja. Say it with me. Yautja. Yautja. Okay. All right.

Cool. Aaron, initial thoughts on Killer of Killers. Again, the subject matter expert here on the Oblivion Bar podcast when it comes to all things predators and aliens and Terminator and uh Kaiju, Transformers, uh Muscle Mommies, what else? A lot of things. The weirdest stuff here on the Earth. Weirdest concoction. Spoilers ahead. Yes, spoilers ahead for everybody.

If you haven't seen this go watch on Hulu right now and Disney Plus depending on where you're at in the world Okay, so initial thoughts. Entertaining, fun, cool, a little anticlimactic. oh Interesting. Okay. So maybe slightly disposable from your end. Yeah, I mean important. interesting, but not riveting I can see that. It's definitely, um it's definitely entertaining. My initial thoughts are that I really enjoyed watching this.

It did feel like there was a big something missing and I feel kind of slightly stupid by not knowing exactly what that is, but it definitely felt without somewhere. I do really like Dan Trachtenberg and like in charge of this universe. seems like I remember at one point watching this and I think it was maybe halfway through the sword bit of the film that was like, gosh, I'm just really happy that Dan Trachtenberg is in charge of this universe.

Yes. He clearly is a like we were talking about earlier at the beginning of the episode where you said you're a fan. You've been a fan for a long time. You read those SD Perry comics. You read them, you the old Dark Horse comics and all the things clearly. So has Dan Trachtenberg because he's taking important parts from that universe over into this new 20th century continuity.

Yes and no, there, there are some things that I have issues with, but at the same time, and I'll explain why, because it what can I ask you really quick? Is it issues that it's not sticking to that previous continuity or is it that you don't like the changes that he's made? If you introduce certain examples of a society, like the background of a society, without context, people are just going to assume that that is the way it is for the entire species, right?

If you see a dog that you've never seen a dog before, you see a dog that's like sniffing a fire hydrant, you're like, dogs really like fire hydrants. But if you see a dog sniffing a cop car, and you'd be like, oh, dogs find cop cars really interesting. I'm going think all dogs think cop cars are interesting. is an interesting analogy, but I get what you're saying. Yeah, and that's the way it is for this.

And I'll explain once we get a little bit more into the kind of the premise of the movie itself. this, I will just say this, uh for me, this absolutely should have been a show. Yeah, this would have benefited from six episodes. Yeah. Right. Like I would say one episode for each person or I would say even five episodes or four episodes. Give me four episodes of this. Three of each person and how they fought each of their individual predators.

And then one full, I'll say 30 to 40 minute episode where they have to escape the finale of this, of this whole movie. I think that I absolutely agree with you. That would have definitely been much, a much better route. ah Let's get into our summary here, Aaron, again for the uninitiated. some reason, spoilers ahead if you again are still listening. If you haven't seen the film, go watch it. Or if you just want to listen to us talk about Killer of Killers.

Aaron, let's go ahead and do the summary here. All right. The shield, the sword, the bullet. Three of the fiercest wayers? Question mark. In human history, become prey to the ultimate killer of killers. That's right. Well, and that's pretty basic again. And I hope that this doesn't sound super pessimistic because I will say just at the top. I enjoyed this. I had good time with it. I did too, I did enjoy it, but you know. Yeah. But, and we'll get into that but here.

And I think part of it is, Aaron, my slight, not full satisfaction with this is because of how great Prey was. Right? Like Prey, if you remember when that movie came out was so like such a breath of fresh air, sort of a totally out of left park, just like incredible uh work from Dan Trak. was an undisputed banger because nobody anticipated like just what we got and it was great.

And that's what you're and I can already identify and I'm just gonna throw it out there because you said it felt like there was something missing. What was missing was the one thing that we get in every Predator film, which is the real like visceral fight to the death with a major predator. we did like we got deaths of predators But there's no like motivation to why like they're like, so again, this, just, I'm just going to say it because I got to, I got to get out of my system.

What we know about predators, at least what I understand about predators is they go cyclically to, and it's, every hundred years they go to, they come to earth or other planets and they send unblooded younglings or pups that are adolescents of the predator species, of the Yautja species. They send them to wherever they go earth. for example, and they go on the hunt and they have to find a worthy adversary.

now, true, could they just go and kill something and bring a skull back and say, this is a worthy adversary? Everything is recorded and transmitted from their helmet back to their Yautja Prime, which is the name of their home world, to be studied and brought into the species to make the entire species better.

But and I also think that they're like very, I mean, if you've seen any of the films, I'm thinking it's very again, specifically of the first one, they are a prideful species that like, even if they weren't being recorded or whatever, they would do it for themselves. It's the honor code. Their entire society is built on the honor system of these hunts. so that's 100 % correct, Chris.

So for me in this movie, you're telling me that the only reason that these guys came to this planet is to kidnap these like prime candidates? Like that to me is kind of like, that's odd. And that's not what we know of the predator species. However, The predator, the Yautja species was not always known as the Yautja.

They are originally known as the Hishi and the Hishi were a less progressive species that were actually forced into like slave labor by another species where they eventually rose up and took over. part of the reason that they hunt now as part of their honor system is because that's what the species, I think they're called the Imegi, they made them hunt for sport and for entertainment and they adopted that. when they when they wrote revolted against their captors. I want to see that story.

want to read that book because that sounds amazing. can I, can I get like a big gripe out of the way from the very beginning, not just about killer of killers, but I think just like as the predator franchise as a whole is that, you know, the outshout are like known as these ultimate warriors. They are the warrior in the universe and this universe specifically, but I think just like in pop culture in general, you know, like they are the warrior species.

They're getting their ass beat in every movie by like the most, by the most unequipped. Untalented people and I know we see a lot of you know, we got the the shield the sword and the bullet in this movie And I think that those are all capable folks I digress. you want to add a little bit there? I want to say the sword and the shield are capable. Bullet, what the fuck? Okay, he's not a fierce warrior. like Batman in Justice League. He's just running and...

Yeah, he got, he got, mean, to be honest, he's, yes, he's smart, but he's not like some, like he, didn't, okay. The only thing he did was like kind of take advantage of an opening in this battle. He is not like any other fierce warrior that killed a shit ton of people and then was, then was hunted by a predator. And then like he killed the only person he killed was a predator. Yeah, that's it.

I just, it's, it's, have the same complaint about like Galactus in the Marvel universe or dark side and DC's universe. they always writers will put up folks, superheroes, whomever against these other worldly, extremely powerful beings. And I'm thinking again of the predators in this universe, they put them up against these people to show how they can overcome adverse. But what you do is you end up diluting the power of these characters that we know to be the most powerful, right?

Like If we constantly see the predators getting their ass beat, we no longer find them that compelling of a fighter ever. Well, let me ask you this, in this movie, okay, well, we gotta go into a little bit more detail, but in this movie, why would a lone predator take a ship and just start decimating other aircraft? Yeah, it seems really out of character for what we know about predators. But again, I think it's important to know and I'm not saying that it's right.

I'm just saying that this is a new universe, right? Like, I think from prey on, I don't think they're really even acknowledging predator or predator to outside of the gun or predators or any of it. Like they're not even alien versus predator. None of it is currently in canon officially for this 20th century universe. Whoa! I think it's proven though with prey because that gun that Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like that makes all of it.

The only thing that we haven't recognized necessarily is like Predators and the newest Predator. Yeah, those other two seem like the other Predator films seem to be definitely alluded to, but these ones do not. So, uh And but I will say at the end of this conversation, we will talk about a theory that I think maybe connects the first film to this. So a little teaser for that. this film, Aaron, was actually animated by Unreal Engine.

It was one of the first feature films to do so and drew some stylistic influences from Akira, which we talked about not too long ago here on the show during a Midnight Rewind segment. And then Netflix's Arcane. Now, have you watched Arcane? Are you familiar with that? Do you enjoy it? really want to watch it. It's another thing that's on my list of things to watch. uh I don't know. It's like it's from the League of Legends uh franchise and I've heard it is amazing and I do want to watch it.

just, again, it's because of my lack of connectivity with League of Legends. It's not something that's like screaming out to me. Uh, and I've heard good things about it. all right. So this sort of speaks on what we were talking about earlier. The opening epigraph, marks the first time the species was actually called Yautja. this was used, uh, in our, this is the first time it's been used officially in a predator film.

So even in the first predator predator to alien versus all those, they don't refer to them as that is the first one. Uh, the term is actually introduced in the expanding verse, as we've talked about many times here thus far by Steve Perry's 1994 original alien versus predator. comic series. That was the first time they were referred to as Yautja.

So Aaron talked a little bit about our director here who we've already said his name Dan Trachtenberg talk a little bit about what he's done here recently. Yeah, so Dan Trachtenberg obviously uh Predator Prey, but he did Predator Badlands, which is the upcoming, I think that's a show, is it not? That's a good question. actually think it might be a film, but you continue on.

And then you and then pre so so prey was 2022 the upcoming predator Badlands is 2025 but before that back in 2016 which I did enjoy the movie was 10 Cloverfield Lane, which was Yeah I mean, debatable between Cloverfield, I think depending on what you're really wanting. Yeah, definitely not paradox for sure. was cool. I enjoyed it. It was just like a silly cool. Okay, yeah, Badlands is, it's gonna be a film. We've already seen trailers for it.

As we know, Al Fanning is playing a synthetic in that. So clearly there's a, if it's not connected to the larger Predator universe, the previous one, it is definitely connected to the Alien universe, which I think we all kind of already assumed anyway. So moving on here, and actually we talked about this recently during our Thunderbolts review that Trachtenberg actually directed that 2016 Black Mirror episode play test, which stars Wyatt Russell and Hannah John-Kamen.

Aaron, that's- Remember that one now. the one. Yeah. Where he is stuck in a video game simulation where it like is in your brain. It's I think it's probably one of the better black mirror episodes. Definitely recommend that. And then in 2013, this Aaron, as you know, this is this part right here really spoke to me.

Dan Trachtenberg was announced to be the writer and director of Brian K. Vaughan and P. Aguera's comic series, our comic series adaptation film adaptation of Why the Last Man Trachtenberg eventually left the project and Why the Last Man was converted into a television series over on FX. So Did you watch any of that? I did. And I liked it. definitely was a bummer because it came out around COVID. And I just don't think that people are really wanting to see something like that at that time.

Because Why the Last Man is very sort of post-apocalyptic with just women at the helm of the world, plus one guy in his appersand. yeah, anyway, it's good. And again, Why the Last Man is incredible. I absolutely love it. It's one of my favorite comic series of all time. But I kind of understand why it wasn't renewed for a second season. So. Kind of like the, was it Tomorrow World with George Clooney? It was a little too in the face at that time. Right.

Yeah. Timing is very important for a lot of these, a lot of these type of films and such. So, Aaron, let's talk about the cast. And I will say just sort of before you get into it is that the cast not incredibly important, but there is like a couple of tidbits that are pretty interesting for like Predator fans in general.

So you got Lindsay, Levenchi as Ursa, Louis Ozawa as Kenji and Kyoshi Kamakami, Rick Gonzalez as John J. Torres, Michael, I think it's Bean as Vandenberg or Vandy, uh Doug Cockle as Einar, Damien Haas as Anders, Lauren Holt as Freya, and Britton Watkins as the Predator Warlord dubbed Grendel King. The uncredited animated likeness of Amber mid thunder as we see there at the end of the film was featured representing a frozen Nauru.

She is one of the Comanche hunters from or she was the Comanche hunter, the main character from Prey as we talked about. So still alive. going to say this since we just kind of talked about this viewing, this reveal, I'll call it a reveal. This would have been much better placed post credits or mid credits. I get what you're saying. Absolutely. It does kind of act as like an end credit scene because it's like the film has essentially ended and they're showing Ursa being taken off.

She's back in cryo stasis and you just see a Nauru in the background frozen as well. So uh is Hutch back there somewhere? uh I mean, did you not see that there was like a blonde male that was a little bit shorter in the, the, in the pod before Naru? So that's who I was kind of thinking that it could be. Sure. And then I want to ask you really quickly, and I don't know if we actually get to it here in the transcript, but for the Grendel King, this is like your big bad predator.

Do we ever see a version of him in any other media? Have we seen anything like him? Not that I'm aware yet. And that's the interesting thing. His design was very unique because I am not aware that their dreadlocks now if to me that looked like it was his dreadlocks like that instead of just like a cape. If that was not a cape and those were his dreadlocks, I have not seen any notes.

Okay. Little, I guess inside baseball or background information would be predators can live up to potentially thousands of years. Like we don't know their lifespan. They're not officially in adolescence until they've hit about 60-ish in human years. And so that's when they become like the unblooded like younglings that get ready to go out on their first hunt. But I have never seen or heard of anything in the lore of Predator that says that their dreadlocks grow as they get older.

So to me, that was kind of like a weird thing. Interesting. Yeah. I mainly wanted to bring him up just because he's obviously bigger than most of the other ones. But to me, it kind of looked like Xenomorph tails. Did that strike you at all? It did a little bit. I was, cause I was looking at him like, this is, this is interesting. Yeah. be really cool if it is. And I think that they've been asked about that. Dan Trachtenberg was asked about it and he didn't really confirm or deny.

I think he even sort of said like, we're to leave it up to the fans to talk about that, which means that they didn't plan to be that. But yeah, I think that that would be a cool sort of connectivity between those two. And we talked about that pistol earlier and we see it in Prey. We've seen a version of it in Predators 2. And Aaron, I said earlier that we don't I don't think that these films are connected to that. Those previous films is because the name on the gun.

is different from Predators 2 to Prey to this film. Now, Prey and this film are the same, but Predator 2 has a different name. And part of that reason is... you sure? Yeah, 100 % positive. Because the original was... The name was for the colonial officer that a predator killed. That officer gave his gun to the... This is from a comic series called 1718. And that officer gives a gun to the Yautja. The Yautja takes it.

And then eventually he gives it... to someone in the arts, it's sort of uses a trophy and predators to. just looking at it right now and it says the flintlock pistol featured in Prey is the same one that appears in Predator 2. I think people assume that because they look exactly the same and the names are similar, but the names are different between predators to prey. uh Do your own research.

While you're looking up COVID conspiracy theories, look up the gun from predators too, because the gun that we see given to Nauru and prey is a different character than the one that the gun was given to in 1718 comic series that is referenced in predators too. Okay. I do. The pistol is represented to hair is presented to hair again by the predator as a trophy engraved with the name Raphael and Alini in 1715.

Uh, the same pistol appears in prey, which is set in 1719 as a weapon used by the protagonist, Nauru. I'm going to do some fucking research. I'm going to send you some pictures later. I don't want to, I don't want to, uh, detract from this conversation. So, um, so Michael Bean, uh, plays Vandy.

uh Taurus's commanding officer, who in obvious nod to Bean's role as Hicks in Predator's sister franchise, Vandy's demise in this film means that Bean is the third actor alongside Lance Henrikson and Bill Paxson to have been killed by a xenomorph, a T-800 and a Yautja. Yeah, that's right. All those, all those actors have been in alien film and a terminator film and now in a predator film. So that's pretty cool. You want to hear something interesting?

Actually, it's not really that interesting, a xenomorph, like the regular xenomorph that we know, that we've seen in a lot of the Alien's films is uh their designation by the Yautja is uh like species XX121. Why is that? there any particular reason why? Is that why it's not interesting? Cause there's no reason. no real reason. It's just I thought it was neat. Louis Azawa previously played the character Hanzo in Predators from 2010. That's that.

I don't know actually who directed that, but I actually don't mind that. That's the one with Adrian Brody. Yeah. And Walton Goggins, isn't it too? He's actually got a pretty good cast. it's, oh Spider-Man's in it. No. grace. Toe for grace. Yeah. Eddie Brock, I'm sorry. It is like, I feel like I remember not really loving that movie back in the day. And I've recently rewatched it. It's not bad. Like, I don't hate it. I think it's a totally serviceable Predator film.

There's like this scene where they're like when they hide in the ship and the predator is like on the ship like trying to get inside and it reminds me exactly of the artwork that's on your shirt. that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So everybody that and we sort of referenced it earlier, Aaron and I were talking about our different shirts. My Predator shirt is the cover of the comic from 1989. It's the the Paul Chadwick cover from from back then.

So it's honestly I, Aaron, I think it's one of the best comic covers of all time. That's no hyperbole. I think it really is that orange background. It's so incredible. So as the movie progresses, we get an idea how you actually use chain weaponry evolves from each segment. So At the beginning, that first one during the shield, we see how the Yacha becomes inspired by the idea after Ursa uses it, uses a chain and anchor to kill her opponent.

And then in Japan, the Yacha in that era utilizes a chain weapon as a long range weapon. However, its flaws might not capture the exact target and the chain would still need to be retracted, which of both Kenji exploits in the defeat of his enemy. And then in the Atlantic during the bullet segment, the Yacha fires a honing missile that seeks out its target.

It's the targets heat signature and then it doesn't return to the welder until it's it's prompted essentially Taurus tricks one of the missiles into hitting the engine instead which as you said earlier is kind of his trickster way of defeating the out to there so Aaron we can we sort of talked about it. We have the shield the sword and the bullet Is there anything in particular? Which of these three segments was your favorite? I feel like I might know what it is.

But just tell me for my own interesting. Okay. I was wrong then I thought it was the sword No, it was the... This uh is a weird, weird confession. ah So the shield, when there's a part in the episode where, or I guess episode, in that portion where Ursa, like they open the gate and she goes in to kill whatever, Zoran's people, and she's just like, she's got the two shields and she's just fucking people up with the two shields. I was like, I fucking love her!

One of the most active grandmas in history. I don't know how old she is exactly, that is a good story. think that totally killed. Michael is second. I think is that my favorite is the sword, uh, the fuel Japan where you've got two brothers who basically want to find the love of their sort of emotionless dad. And one of them, they, they basically decide that they're not going to fight each other. And then one of them decides to do it. And then, uh, I think it also has the best action.

I think the bullet is by far the weakest of the three stories, but didn't hate it still. I think it was fine. The sword was really cool because of Kenji like leaves because Kyoshi is obviously like set to become the new like samurai type guy. um And then Kyoshi leaves, Kenji leaves, sorry, and becomes like a ninja. So it's like ninja versus samurai. And there's like when he is getting into the compound, into Kyoshi's compound, and he's like, he's trying to stop the guys from ringing the bell.

And he's just like, when somebody on another tower rings the bell, he's just like, fuck. and he just drops the dude. I was like, this is great. Like that, that was by far like personality wise, my favorite, but fighting wise was the shield for sure. Absolutely. Now, does this mean now that we've got the, mean, technically Earth has been captured by the Yacht-Ed per the end of this film, but does, and this includes Nauru from Prey. Does this mean that we're going to get a team up?

Is this going to be like a Avengers style team up in the next film you think? Maybe not in Badlands, but in like a future film where we these four together? So again, I feel like this was left so open-ended that it's preparing for either an ongoing series or at least a sequel or two, maybe even a trilogy type thing with each of these characters. Now, what's interesting though is, again, I feel like they should have done a little bit more to kind of set the timelines apart differently.

What I think would have been really cool is, if they had done like the, if they would have kind of like had the, there'd been like a filter on each of the stories to kind of fit their like timeline. Can you imagine like a black and white, almost newsreel for like the World War, for the one in the Atlantic? And then have kind of like almost like a Sapia-ish for the samurai versus ninjas type thing. And I don't really know what you could do uh for the shield version.

But I just think that that would have been really cool to kind of like set them apart as far as their storylines. then, and then at one point just kind of like bringing them all together and it's like in full color. Yeah, I think that'd be really cool. think it'd be fun. It'd be a fun storytelling method to sort of showcase how each era is different. Yeah. And I think really my big bummer in this movie is that we just didn't see Nauru at all.

But and I don't think we're to see her in Badlands for my understanding. But I know that uh Amber Mids, Midthunder has said that she wants to come back to the franchise and that I think she has every plan to. So I think that regardless of how they put this team together, which I fully anticipate that they're going to, I think it may be a little naive not to think that.

in some capacity, this team will get together and fight a team of either the Grindelking or someone else is that Dutch is not a part of this team in some way. I think that it's almost undeniable that Arnold Schwarzenegger will come back to this franchise either as a voice or uh something, maybe not as a physical character, I think definitely as a voice actor. would not be surprised.

Absolutely, especially I guarantee he's gonna be interested as best after what he did with secret level Oh and his episode there, which was great.

By the way, didn't think he was gonna be a good voice actor um But I agree like again, I feel like this is I mean to me this this became kind of like low-hanging fruit once they didn't wrap it up the way that they should have like with any kind of real climactic of like battle mm-hmm, this was the Pokemon battle that ash loses before You know, he loses and then manages to escape before. It's like a montage, you know, something like that, because I guarantee you it's going to happen.

Guarantee you what's going to happen is there's going to be something where they narrowly escape. They go into hiding potentially some kind of like intergalactic, like, you know, hunt for these characters. uh Kenji is going to get a new arm. Yeah, you know, there's going to be. Yeah. And I think and that's they're going to go and they're going to want to rescue Ursa.

I absolutely think that that's going be the next movie is I'm going to save her probably recruiting Nauru, like I said, and then maybe again, if my theory is correct, if our theory is correct, that Dutch will bring into be brought into this film either in the middle of that second film or eventually in that third film would be my guess.

and then speaking of Dutch and Aaron, you sort of alluded to it already in the cryo tanks there towards the end of the film, there's a mysterious man in one of the tanks looking closely at this fogged cryo chamber. The figure remains to be indiscernible other than to be a muscular blonde military man.

This could possibly be Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dutch from the 1987 film, being that he's one of the champions that beat the Jautja in that first film, and that they're collecting these warriors, it seems to be that that could possibly be it. Yeah, because they're have to have like, you know, Danny Glover. They're going to have to have Adrian Brody. They're going to have to have Arnold Schwarzenegger. And that just seems like the obvious way forward with this, you know, this this team.

Now, I'll say this, the thing that kind of uh I did like about this was the fact that it would finally give us an understanding, because I think that they tried to say what happened to Dutch during the uh Predator, like the new like that newest one. But I don't think it was, I don't remember. I'd have to go into it a little bit more in depth, but if they didn't explain it there, then there was never any explanation to what happened to him.

Yeah. Yeah. When he took off in the helicopter and survived, like there had to been, there should have been, there should have been more to it. And they don't even think they talked about it in predator. Well, there's an opportunity there. There's an opportunity to eventually connect those dots down the road now that they haven't explained it. So, ah Aaron, anything else you want to talk about before we go into our final thoughts? Did you like the animation style from this Unreal Engine?

Were you a fan of how it looked just overall? Yeah, I mean, I can't say that I honestly didn't have any complaints to it at all. I think it was very well done. I think the action uh followed the scenes very well. I think the the camera work, if you call it that, like how the digital camera work was was phenomenal. Like, again, the the sword fight was incredible.

Yeah. And the way that they took it into like, you know, they took so much detail and consideration during the battle that I really enjoyed that. Now I just remembered that I did say that I had an issue with something that I did not talk about yet.

And that's one thing that I wanted to bring up was I understand and people are, you know, if you care about predator, all our predators, this species at all, you may argue with me, but there is this, there is an idea because it's never been founded that we don't know much about their biology, that they are cold blooded because they live there. Their world, Yautja prime is split into two biomes. One is a, is a, um, jungle, like a humid jungle, and the other is like a desert scape.

And that's what we saw with the Grendel Kings kind of area was that was more of like a desert kind of uh landscape. And that would obviously mean that they are somewhat, because again, they see in heat. And they don't necessarily, again, the helmet gives them the ability to see in other, uh what would you call that, like frequencies or modes, but they do see in heat.

Basically when they take the helmet off the helmet just amplifies what they're able to do like glasses up till now It's been believed that they are cold-blooded which means that if that predator Coming from that kind of environment into Norse Timelines, whatever as soon as he hit that water. He would have gone almost into like a comatose state Yeah, yeah, absolutely. That's a good point.

um You know, I think it's important to when it comes to these films, it's important to just sort of take them at surface level because again, as I said earlier, I don't I have sort of a weird problem with the fact that we keep having folks beating these, these predators. Like I think they need to win at some point in order to can, you know, like, I also attribute this to like the prequels and Darth Vader, you know, for many people who are younger than us don't remember, I barely remember it.

that for a long time, Darth Vader was the villain, right? And it wasn't until the prequels that people started to sort of, and I think people look at the prequels now slightly differently, but for a long, when they first came out, people were making fun of Darth Vader and Anakin Skywalker and all of that because of Hayden Christensen's portrayal in the films and all the things that George Lucas was doing. I hate, I don't like sand, it's coarse. All these things.

It's almost like the more you know, the less interesting they become. And I think, I kind of feel like that slightly with the Predators a little bit. Like, I think what made them so interesting in that first film is that you know nothing about them. that's one of those things that you have to understand also is that these predators that are coming to earth are not battle tested. are, you know, and they do come. That's the other thing is like they also do come from different.

So there are there are, you know, the concrete predators. They are the jungle predators. You know, they are kind of like the different tribes. Yeah. So again, it's like. Yes, they are these big bad monsters. Yes, they kill a fuck ton of them, of humans, but at the same time, uh it takes one highly resourceful, highly intelligent, highly strategic human to use the same thing, to use, you you're on my turf now, bitch, and like to take them out.

So true, we are seeing them being beaten by heroic and smart and, I mean, I wouldn't say agile with Danny Glover, but you know, Again, like fierce warriors. I would say everybody that's faced the Predators, the Yautja so far has been a fierce warrior except for this Torres kid uh who I'm just, again, I'm not super happy with that being introduced into this.

But again, I think that that's something that we just have to remember when we're watching these things because if you want to go back to the original like Predator versus Alien, they did win. The Predator did win. Yes, with the help of a human, but they did win. Right. Yeah, that's true. Until they got chest bursted in this. And then the second one happened. But point being is that uh I think that'll conclude our conversation about killer of killers.

Aaron, uh what are you to give killer of killers out of five David A whiners? Three. Yeah. I can recommend it, but I'm not like in love with it. Yeah, I think three sounds really good. I think three I'm to give it a three as well. I think it's recommendable. If you like the Predator franchise, definitely give it a look. You're not going to be listening to us on that front. I think if you were a Predator fan, you were excited for this movie.

But if you like our Predator fan for some reason, you haven't already seen it and you listen to this entire conversation. Definitely go give a look on Hulu. And not to mention if you have Hulu or Disney Plus, why not? You know, it's only an hour. It's like right at an hour, I think. Okay. Yeah, that's right. Hour twenty five. So Alright, that'll do it for our review of Killer of Killers. Let's get into my favorite segment of the show, Aaron's Arcade.

It's time for Aaron's Arcade. Hello, hello, hello, welcome to Aaron's Arcade where I just talk about what I'm reading, playing, doing, watching, blah, blah, blah. I'm gonna make this real quick because this game that I'm playing right now is a real quick game. It's called Summoner's War Rush. If you've played Summoner's War, if you know anything about mobile games that are competitive, Summoner's War is probably a game that has been on your radar at some point.

This is another spin-off because they've made millions of dollars and billions of dollars from Summoner's War. So this is more of your idle RPG type like AFK type game. away from keyboard against Summoners War Rush. It basically combines like tower defense, monster collection, uh all set within that Summoners War universe.

Players can collect and upgrade familiar monsters, battle in the sky arena, use them for automated battles, strategic tower defense games, which that's what I've been looking for is a fun strategic defense tower game because there's Tower of Tense Game. Yeah, there's not a lot that are just like free and simple to play. this is really fun for me. Like I said, I'm going to make this real quick. So I'm just going to give you the highlights of what I like about it. It's super fun.

It's easy to get into. There is not a heavy learning curve because pretty much in this one, kind of they've put the they put they put like an easy button into it. Each character, each monster or mon that you summon from the scrolls has under the profile like certain hashtags and they can be recommended for certain uses within the game. So instead of guessing and trying to build a team, they put it right there in the Mons profile. The combat's engaging. The stories are kind of fun.

I just skipped through it because I've heard all the stories in a little bit of the lore before. just want to get my Mons super powerful and just kick some ass in the arena. Exactly. Trying to defend that tower, baby. ah And that's the end of it. if you, again, ah I think I, again, I don't usually spend any money on games like this. I paid, I did. This game was free, but I put $10 into it in order to get rid of all of the uh advertisements.

Which I'm so glad I did because it gets you a wealth of stuff every day and it's a one time $10 payment. other than that, I wouldn't spend any money on it unless you're a whale as they call it. And that's all I'm going to say because I wanted to keep this Aaron's Arcade short. So thank you for your time. Check out Summoners War Rush, hashtag not a sponsor. And now it's time for Chris's Corner, which is my favorite part of the show.

It's time for Chris's Quarter. All righty. This week for Christmas Corner, we're to be talking about the materialist. This is the brand new A24 film from Celine Song. It stars Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans and Pedro Pascal. Aaron does not like Dakota Johnson. I like her. I don't, you know, I think she's fine. I think she's for a while, Aaron. I'll be honest with you. Her and her bad times at the El Royale era, like very briefly after 50 Shades of Grey era, I was a big Dakota Johnson fan.

I'll be honest. And she's fine in this movie. think I want to call it. Madam Meh. Erin has a very strong Madam Webb prejudice against Dakota Johnson, which is fair. I get it. I totally understand it. She's better in this movie. I'll tell you. And then she's up against uh Captain America and uh Mr. Fantastic because this is a film that follows a love triangle set in the backdrop of New York City's luxury driven dating culture. Now I actually saw this last night with my partner, Olivia.

We both really enjoyed it. uh It is, I think one of the more realistic modern updates. to dating. And I think that if you're someone who is still single in 2025, it's probably really hard out there for you. I totally get it. Aaron, as you know, and as listeners may know, had a long time listeners of the show know that before I met my partner, Olivia, I was like notoriously and copiously and cripplingly single. And it's hard.

get it to be, you know, your late thirties, twenties, early thirties, single person out there, especially in New York city. Aaron, I know you, you don't know what that's like cause you're happily married, but like I can only imagine how difficult it must be for people to find someone of substance that you connect with in a large city like New York City. Celine song, she was the director of past lives, which is a real punch in the heart. If you've ever seen it, that's incredible.

And this film, she, and she, she wrote and directed that film. She wrote and directed this film, highly recommend it. If you liked past lives again, from a 24, one of my favorite films of 2023. watched that yesterday and it was past lives. Did you cry? I was very close. Yeah, I was, I was in a theater by myself. Well, actually I had one other person in theater and I cried. I honestly, I'll be honest with you guys.

It was, it's definitely a heartbreak heartbreaking film and just to sort of contextualize a little bit and I hope it's okay that I'm putting her business out, but Olivia was crying during this film. it is definitely, I think a very, it's not like mind numbingly incredible, you know, like I gave it a four out of five. It's very, it's extremely well shot and directed and written. And I think that Dakota and Chris and Pedro all play their roles really well.

You've got Pedro Pascal, who's sort of this like a ritzy financially advisor, rich guy who's obviously classically attractive. And then you got sort of a down on his luck equally as attractive ex boyfriend, Chris Evans. And she has to sort of decide, you know, what sort of life she wants to live based on her partner, because in today's world you have to take in, you have to take finances into effect and sort of keep that in mind. anyway, materialist. Highly recommend it.

It just premiered this week on uh Saturday or I guess on Friday, June 13th. So I highly recommend it. would, I would say that if you are looking for something to watch this weekend and have you already seen how to train your dragon and ballerina, I would highly recommend the materialist. So Aaron, that'll do it for episode one 96 next week on the show, big, big bucket list. Earlier, we were talking about creators that we've had on the show recently that were incredible conversations.

This is one that I've been excited for, for a long time. And also I've been purposefully not.

Inviting onto the show because I wanted to wait until a very special moment and we have found it Jeff Lemire will be joining the show the oblivion bar podcast to talk about his memoir over at Dark Horse comics called 10,000 ink stains You know Dark Horse has graciously reached out to Jeff and his team to have him on the show to discuss this very excited to been a long time fan of Jeff Lemire not only his creator on work, but things

that he's done over at Marvel and DC and Aaron how familiar are you to Jeff Lemire and sort of his career? thus far outside of let's say sweet tooth. Uh, is there anything else that you've possibly read from him? um I started, I read a couple issues of, was it fish floss? yeah, of course. Yeah over at Dark Horse Yes. And then there was monsters. Little monsters. Little Monsters. Yeah, him and Dustin Nguyen. Yeah. Are you a fan of his Absolute Flash run? yeah. Yeah. Duh. Yes. Absolutely.

Yeah. didn't. I it's. Is it's so like his is it's all he's all over the place with his writing. It's so weird because every time I see like Jeff Lemire, absolute flash, I'm like, yeah. Yeah. It's like I keep forgetting. Yeah. Yeah. That's him. that. I also really liked his Swamp Thing run from a couple of years ago called Green Hell. If you've uh ever, you ever want to read a cool modern Swamp Thing book. He also wrote a question story as well.

And long time listeners of the show know that when we had our exclusive variant cover from, uh, whatnot, we chose Phantom Road, number one from Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walto over at Image Comics. So, uh, what a pleasure. Of course we're to bring that up, Aaron. We cannot not bring that up at some point during the conversation that we have. our exclusive cover through him uh and his work. So next week on the show for episode 197 will be Jeff Lemire.

Excited to discuss all those things with Jeff and 10,000 Inkstains. So Aaron, that'll do it. Take us out of here. Right, that's pretty exciting. Mm-hmm. It's pretty exciting. You gotta admit that's pretty exciting I'm excited. You are? um I'm kind of excited. 11. One was being excited. It's like 11, 11 D and a half, think. Was it a, don't they call 11 1d1? What? Why? No, I'm just, saying that's a question. Oh, can't have one T one.

Um, that's 11. Um, so subscribe to our podcast, Apple podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, audible, I heart radio, wherever you listen to your favorite podcast. That's where we are. Thank you to our Pat patrons, patrons. I don't know why. Thank you to our Patron. We should just say thank you to our programs. Yes, thank you to the programs.

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He's at KXD Graphics on Instagram. Thank you DreamKid for all of our musical themes. Thank you DJ Skyvac for our grid theme. And last but not least, as we say every single episode, do not forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more. Or what's gonna happen, Chris? The Yautja will find you. The Yasha will try to find you and they'll try to take your skull out of your body and take it home to their. We didn't really even talk about how awesome Alan's Levesque score was. It's incredible.

It's one of my favorite scores of all time. All right. That'll do it for this week. to my girlfriend the other day. said, geez, you got a big pussy. Geez, you got a big pussy. I didn't. We can say that at end. fine. No one's listening at this point. Yeah. All right, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to the Oblivion Bar this week. We will see you next week with Jeff Lemire for episode 197.