Hello. My name is Jesu Gitzempsiode and I'm wensday Night, and welcome to x ray Vision of the podcast where we dive into your favorite shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Coming to you from my Heart podcast where we're bringing you two episodes a week, every Tuesday and every Thursday.
In today's episode, in the previously on we're talking everything DC. What about that Superman taking a long time to put on his boots? What do we think about it? You're gonna find out in the very cool airlock interview. Today we have Josie Campbell, who is the showrunner of My Adventures with Superman and also the writer of anew My
Adventures with Superman comic for a lovely chat. And in the back man, we're gonna chop it up a little bit about DC Live Action versus DC Animation and kind of superhero movies and their trajectory right now.
But first, previously on.
X Men ninety seven, Tolerance is Extinction Part two drop last week, and we simply must talk about this, Rosie Jason, because you know, my friend Aaron Edwards posted on the social media platform known as x that before Magneto finished his speech he would have been standing next to him when you know he basically said, Okay, which side you want Charles or you want me? I have to agree.
And I also have to applaud X Men ninety seven for not pulling any punches in showing just how naive Charles is has been is in the comics and continues to be amazing episode.
Your thoughts, Yeah, I mean it blew my mind because one, they have a che so much in this season. Now I'm not gonna lie I have I will put one caveat in. I think they did such a good job in the previous eight episodes that Magneto's turn hare felt a little speedy to me. I felt like Magneto had been such an invested, interesting, incredible, empathetic character that has kind of turned to the bad side here. Took me a little bit by surprise, even though I knew the comics.
But I love I love Asteroid m I love all these outrageous kind of moments we get some direct from the comic book moments here. There's also a very interesting thing that I noticed that Rogue is kind of a stand.
In for Colossus here.
Yeah, because Colossus was really a big part of this storyline, and we even get this moment where she's attacking them with this kind of column, and that's directly from you know, Colossus in the comics.
Also, obviously, it ends.
With that shocking moment that in our discord we had a lot of people saying like this isn't for kids, Like this is such a scary, horrifying moment.
They did it with the with the I've been stabbed in anime effect too, Yes, big.
It was very invincible.
So so the episode ends with another one of classic Charles worst plans.
I have to say, this is a problem throughout comics.
This is a problem in this this is a problem in the Blooming X Men movies from Fox. Charles, why do you send a man with metal bones to fight Magneto? Put him on the other team. And the cool thing is we did get the Blue and Gold teams here for the first time, which we've never had in the comics before, like named like that. But I do think Charles should have put Wolverine on the other team, not the Magneto team. But I understand why you want to recreate that incredible Adam Kuberc cover.
You know, it's it's terrifying.
I have this to say about Magneto's turn to the quote unquote the bad side and Charles's speech in general. I would push back on Magneto turning to the bedside. I'll say this Charles, as Charles sees himself as a centrist right, he is trying to corral these two war parties, the humans facing them and his own really militaristic war party in mutantdom like and try to corral them and bring peace so that millions, if not billions, won't die.
And I think that's a very commendable thing to do, and I think under certain circumstances that would make a lot of sense. It really would make a lot of sense. I think the issue is that a state of open warfare already exists between humankind and mutant. The mutants have been working so hard with the X Men, trying to keep mutant terrorists, mutant militants, etc. Who want to provoke
something in check. That's their whole mission statement over these years, like keeping the Juggernauts from doing crazy shit, and Black Magneto and the Brother of Evil Mutants and Mystique and the Blah, all of them keep it being like don't start a war. The humans have all their militaries, they have the Avengers, they have all these super teams. Not one of them has ever stepped up to be like, let's stop the Sentinels from killing the mutints. I not
stop all of our trask from doing anything. Let's and now that Genosha has happened, and the human governments and the Avengers are like, we sat that one out. I don't know, we missed it. You have to if you're a mutant, you have to say the humans have declared war on us. Magneto did something, turned off all the electricity of the world because they were about to get wiped out. The Bastian box were running wild like it was happening, like mutans were dying that very minute, and
he had to do something to stop it. And in order to turn on the electricity, I say, because I again saying that a state of war exists, I think you have to negotiate that. That's not just we turn it on. That's what are you gonna do about Bastian What are you gonna do about the Sentinels? What are you gonna do about these high ranking figures in human governments that are actively working towards the extinction of mutants
before we turn the electricity on. Let's talk about that, because what Charles miss is is he's no longer a centrist. He's on the far far, far left. And Magneto, to borrow a phrase, is correct because he's been he's been saying all this time, fight fight, fight, fight, fight, defend mutants, and now because a state of war does exist, he is the center. He's the center party. And so, Charles, you've been away.
With your girlfriends exactly.
You need to wake up and smell the coffie about what's going on here. You can't just drop in and be like, hey, I'm back. Acts like yeah, act like you didn't miss everything that's been happening. So, Charles, his hard is in the right place, but he doesn't understand the chessboard as it currently exists. Magneto, sadly is right, and before we turn on the power, we need to get some concessions from the humans.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
I think you're right.
I mean, this is the ultimate Magneto's Right show. I feel like they're very much in our like in our wheelhouse. Also, I will say people who have been away for a week. The funniest I love that moment where Storm and Gene have this like connective moment.
But Storm doesn't know about Madeline Pryor, so.
She doesn't know that like the person she actually like, her sister is like gone, and now it's Gene.
So like, let's get it.
If you leave the X Mansion for like a week, you are losing.
Okay, So before we finish talking about this, we have to talk about the moment there's obviously leading up to.
So it's giving.
I will say it's giving Age of Apocalypse. I do think that could be season two instead of Cricola. But finale, let's.
Talk about the likelihood of onslaught.
Because Charles took over Magneto's mind, Scott randomly kind of stopped him when.
It seemed like that wouldn't. That ended up leading to.
Wolverine getting his magnionetic metal pulled out of his body.
Thanks Charles.
So are we gonna get an onslaught in this final episode?
I believe? So do you want should I explain quickly what onslaught is?
Yeah?
Yeah, okay, I think you're right explain it.
So in comics, there was a very unpopular nineties series that was a Marvel editorial edict because they wanted to restart these heroes as part of the legendary return of the Image comics guys. And basically what happened was Magneto ends up in a coma after Charles wipes Magneto's mind, but from going into his mind, he's gained all his
evil thoughts, hiding Magneto's evil side within his brain. And then Xavier begins taking on like more and more violent behavior, more aggressive, becoming more like the output inverted Comma's worst side of Magneto. He transforms into this monster called Onslaught, and then he kills the X Men. He kills I think the Avengers too, because heroes reborn needed to rebirth them, so it's very controversial.
Very infamous. I think he kills the Fantastic Four as well.
He's just killing everybody and it's basically Xavier turning into a crazy, giant monster. I do think we could see Onslaught happening in the finale.
Along with there's been a lot of Phoenix nods.
Do we think the Phoenix is show up? Like, what are your guesses for the finale?
I think that we are going to get some version of Onslaught. I think that we're going to have this whole season has been kind of the heel turn of Charles Xavier. The death of the Dream. Oh, that's such a fradulity of the Dream, and I think we are going to a place where by the end the X Men will have largely lost their confidence in Charles, and I think Onslaught is a good way to do that.
I think we get some version of Onslaught and maybe some legacy virus stuff, but I think that's where we're going.
I love your idea that this is actually all of it's been Charles's heel turn, so Onslaught just makes sense.
And I do think see we talked about Kroka for season two.
This looking at where they're taking from the comics that there linen to, I do think we could be getng age of Apocalypse, which would be really exciting, and I think they'll make a lot of sense.
But yeah, I'm just so stoked for the finale. I mean, what a season.
Who knew the best show, well, one of the best shows of the year was gonna be that X Men ninety seven.
I didn't dare to dream, but here we are.
One more question is do we get Wolverine on the sidelines for the rest of the series or do we see bone Claw Wolverine sometime this season.
I think we will get bone Claw Wolverine because something that I think they did that was really clever here is Wolverine's kind of been a side character throughout all of this, which makes sense because in the nineties he was the biggest character ever. Famously, he was in you know, two hundred issues of Marveling in a year or something, and they were like, oh God, we got to get
rid of this guy. So I think like sidelining him when people expected him to be the center is actually very smart, and then he got to have this huge moment that was directly taken from the comics in episode nine. So I think in the finale we will get bog Claus Wolverine.
Okay, up next news, First up, James Gunn has shared the first look at David corn Sweat Mister corn Sweat as Superman, uh, and people had takes about it. I knew the memes were coming, folks, But your thoughts Rozy mister corn Sweat.
Okay, First of all, I do think he looks like Superman. I am a fan of name this casting when they did it. I think it's good that his name is corn Sweat. I think that's a funny name for somebody playing Superman. I think the suit looks cool. I personally am a fan of a fabric suit. I don't think you need armor when you're Superman because your body is indestructible. But that's just me, so you know what, I know we're always gonna get a bit of an armory.
Look.
I like it kind of looked like he just pulled it on. But I am off the mind along with the internet. Why does he take it so long? Why there's literally like a brainiac esque I out there. Maybe it's Solaris, maybe it's Lex Luthor, maybe it's a Green Lantern battle. But look, I feel like this guy can get across the world to pick up Lois Lane when she falls off a building in like minus two seconds, and he's just like taking his slow time with his boots.
I understand that it's trying to tell us something about the character, but I don't necessarily I feel like the questions that it raises could have been seen by anyone who approved that photo.
So maybe that's the point, But what were your thoughts?
But my thoughts were so one to be fair to a Superman and mister Gunn, you know, Alvi's Superman moves faster than a speeding bullet. I guess there's if you want to get like meta about it, maybe the photo was taken at like one one huntry thousandth of a second, so he actually is going really fast, only the picture
is it's a frozen image that we don't know. And then secondarily, I think this was a clear nod to the iconic image of Superman from All Star Superman, where he's you know, sitting kind of gazing with that optimistic, kind of a bright kind of look on his face. And I think that they were kind of going for that, like this is not the Superman that you've seen before. There's a different kind of guy. He puts on his
boots one boot at a time. I love the idea of him being like, lois have you seen my other boot? Where is it at? But that' said I agree. I knew when I saw it that the memes were gonna happen. They were just gonna and they did meme.
They memed fantastically the Internet.
They fantastically meaned. Now, I guess you could also say, well, that's good, isn't it, Like, because I want this image disseminated far and wide in the community to play with it. Overall, I'm gonna I'm gonna not make any kind of rash decisions based off one image other than to say I can't wait to see more and I'm glad that, I'm glad that we got this.
Look. I'm gonna say this, and to me, this is not derogatory, and I will be bringing up this network many times during this previously on, but like, it look very.
Cub to me.
Now that's not derogatory because I actually enjoy the cub but I can see how for some people that might be a negative to me. The bright colors, the kind of the in camera but with the with the kind
of crazy background, that's all very cub. And I think there's actually a lot that James Gunn seems to be taking from there, which again I say, for me, is not bad, but I'm definitely in did to see more And kind of how they choose to introduce the other characters, will they also be in those slice of life type moments? Is that just something we'll see with Superman where we get a forecast that I'm interested to see.
Next up, James Gunn announces that mister the eight, the Easeless Frank Green is the actually playing Rick Flagg Senior in the newest season of Peacemaker and also in animated form in Creature Commando's live action animation crossovers. What are your thoughts?
Very cool and once again I did one you but the cub you did do it first.
Matt Ryan.
Matt Ryan played Constantine and he also voiced constantin He did a great job in different animated and live action projects.
But I think this is really cool. I think DC needs to be doing more of this. I'm interested.
I loved the last Suicide Squad movie. I loved Joel Kinneman's performance as Rick Flagg. I thought it was so good, really moving performance, and I'm excited to see what Frank Grilla does with this. I also really want to see Creature Commandos so like, I love those animators. I hope you're all getting paid and having a good time and taking your time, but also hurry up because I want to see it.
So yeah, I think this is cool. I think they should be doing more stuff.
Like this, and I'm glad James Gunn doesn't seem to be afraid to blood those lines, and not just that he knows how to make it something that gets people talking.
Frank Grilla is fifty eight.
Unbelievable.
He was fifty.
Also, I was going to say, another fun person to add to our who's been in Marvel and DC. That's right list, which is always fun because obviously he's crossbones.
In the MCU.
New trailer news, we got a grip of new trailers, a new Joker file, a DO trailer. The Penguin Teesser, of course, is out there in a Justice League crisis on Infinite Earth's Part three trailer. Your thoughts on these.
Out of all of them, most excited about the Penguin trailer, I think it looks really good. I think it looks very cool. I think Colin Farrell absolutely smashed it.
In that role.
I usually am wary of anything where it's like, well, even without Batman, it would still be a good story, because then I'm like, well, what's the point It's not a Batman story. But actually, I think in this case, they made such an interesting character with the Penguin and the Underworld life with like Carmi and Falcone and the cast is amazing and I want to see it, and I love the way that they had this kind of Sopranos esque monologue. Just generally great stuff. Justice League, Christ
On inf and Earth's Part three. I love the DC animated movies. I do think this Moreovers has been a bit harder to get that cohesiveness that the DC au used to have that we were all such fans of in the zeros and kind of really to now. But I think this looks great. I love that they're bringing in all these different characters. One of my friends, Jules, who writes with me at DC dot Com, who is like the resident DC expert, he loves these movies. He
thinks there must watch if you like Crisis. So yeah, this is very cool. There's three of these movies, so if you want to catch up with them kind of interact with a different way of enjoying Crisis on Infinite Earth.
This is a good way to do it.
It is quite a different story, so it's interesting to navigate that and kind of compare it to the comics.
So I think that looks great. The animation looks beautiful. Joker folioda. Guess what. I didn't like it shocking everyone. It's not like I'm gonna stay positive.
I'm very interested. I'm very interested. Like that it's a musical. I can't believe it's a jukebox musical that feels like they're trolling me. I just I what are they may be singing? I too feel trolled. Like, yes, I love a big swing.
I think we all love a big swing, especially in a in a space the IP space, comic space, where there's very few stories or types of stories that you haven't seen before. At the same time, I feel like they're, man, this could be so crazy, and maybe it's just me, Like I love a musical, but it just feels like a joker musical. I don't know, anime, I have no idea what to think of this.
If you haven't seen The Brave and the Bowl cartoon, which is so good, they actually have loads of weird wild swing episodes, including a music Meister episode where they where it's all musical right and it works so well and you can totally imagine a joker musical in that style. The things that really stood out to me in this right one old timey music, which I definitely saw coming kind of.
Like, don't rain on My parade.
They're all singing like that, you know, they're putting on the rits all that kind of stuff. Fine, probably rather that, I mean, okay, but I do what are the odds.
That Joker is going to sing creep at some point by Radiohead?
I think it's high. I think that is like, very high. My biggest issue that I have with this trailer, aside from the fact that this is absolutely not made for me, is that it seems like they're just skipping out of the whole They're skipping the whole thing of like Harlequin being a PhD and now she's just in there, and I think that kind of stuff. It just I get that Arthur Fleck isn't really the Joker, so this is.
A different world.
But I'm also just like, that's a really interesting part of her personality, and I would probably rather see that than some kind of one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest kind of knock off.
But you know what, I'm going to keep my mind open.
I'm hoping it's like a cat's level wackiness, because I love cats, Like I make.
People watch cats all the time.
I'm always introducing people to Cats the movie.
It's absolutely deranged.
So like they if they do that, if they go that weird, I'm into it. I honestly can't wait to see it, which I didn't think I would say about a Joker sequel.
Fans of the Nintendo Switch rejoice. Nintendo finally admits that they are making the Switch, to which we always knew.
We knew it, we knew it.
But Nintendo's always kind of been moving. They move at their own pace. Let's just say. Nintendo president Shintara Frukawa officially acknowledged that the successor is coming and said, in part quote, we will make an announcement about the successor to Nintendo Switch within this fiscal year. Nintendo's fiscal year ends in March, so we're thinking March twenty twenty five, end of their very exciting. I can't wait.
I'm very excited. I also love that he dropped this news in a tweet.
He was just like, he just posted a tweet in the middle of the night American time, and was just like, it's happening, guys, just like, shut up. I can't wait to see it. I love the Switch. I trust Nintendo for a long time. All the fans were like, when will you make Animal Crossing for the Switch? Oh, you're never gonna do it, Please make it, And then it became one of the biggest games of all time. So I trust them, let them take the time, and I cannot wait because my Switch is my favorite console.
Next up in the movie news, Oh, Robert Bob Iger.
Who we all know now Rubbie Bob both Robbie Bob Old.
Robbie Bob is back at it again. Sam has said he said that Marvel released no more than three movies and two shows per year. This is at odds with Marvel's twenty twenty five calendar, where four films were slated for release Captain America, Bravety World, Thunderbolts, Fantastic four, and Blade.
And of course this is in a reaction response to the fact that I think everybody acknowledges that Marvel kind of flooded the zone with too much content in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four, leading to the audience is essentially saying, with their dollars and with their reviews, were kind.
Of tapped out right now, Yeah, I am very interested in this. I'm not gonna lie.
I actually think three movies and two shows per Yes, sounds like.
A law, even if someone who has still sound like a lie.
I enjoy this stuff like a lot, but that still to me sounds like maybe you're not drawing back as much as you should. But you know what, I got a refresh this year. We had Echo, which we loved. We have Deadpool, which is the only movie Wolverine Deadpool, and then if Agatha still comes out, the Wondervision spin off will have that. And we'll have the animated Spider Man show, which I know we were really excited about, which I believe used to be called Freshman Year, but
now it's called Your Friendly Neighborhood spider Man. So it's gonna this is gonna be a good reset year. I'll be interested to appas next year. Obviously doesn't feel like Blade is coming out next year with all the production issues, though it is still slated for next year, so it'll be interesting to see.
But yeah, I mean Bobby Rob brought you up to him.
He says they're gonna be leaning more, leaning more on sequels rather than originals.
I don't know if they're learning the best lessons from that.
Actually, but you know what, we'll give it a try, and we will be here obviously to report all the news and talk about all the movies and TV that don't make it to the screen.
And then, finally, on a recent WB Discovery early call, WB Discovery CEO David Zaslav mentioned that the company's financials took a pretty big hit because of quote the disappointing release of Suicide Squad, the much ballyhooed Suicide Squad game from rock Steady Studios, which has lost reportedly in the realm of of two hundred million, a two hundred million
dollars hit to the company. For various reasons, I think central among them is a problem that is pretty unique to the video game space, which is triple A releases of games that aren't finished. I think this game suffered from that. The disappointing, Yeah, the disappointing release of Suicide Squad.
I think it's really disappointing.
I think another big issue is these companies wanting to like the corporations, not that people may in the games, wanting to kind of jump onto trend of video games. So I know that when when the first trailer in gameplay release of this came out, people were just really pissed off because they thought it was gonna be a kind of Arkham esque puzzle game story game, you know, with first person shooter elements and stuff, but instead it was kind of this.
Very heads up heavy shooter.
But in the case of this game, especially as like a Triple A game, I think you're right not being finished, but also not trusting rock Steady to just do what they usually do, which is make really great, intricate, incredible games and not give them enough time. And I think Suicide Squad killed the Justice League that promises so much potential for one of those sprawling stories.
I still play the Arkham games now.
I mean we're always banging on about them, but I love those games so much, and I think this felt like it had that potential to be another one of those games you'd be playing ten years later, and I think the ultimate outcome was that it didn't hit that way.
Yeah, I think that there is a feeling in games when when you don't get a product as a gamer that feels finished in terms of story, in terms of narrative, not just like the mechanics and the gameplay and the way the game plays, you know, the game kind of went from a coherent story to this kind of like ongoing story chapter kind of thing where you you know, this live service angle where the story would unfold through DLC,
through updates. It feels as if, as a gamer, what's happening is, well, they're just trying to extract money from me, like all the time, so I can't. I'm paying for this game and I don't even get something that's finished, and I think that's very disappointing. And it's not a problem that's unique to rock Steady or this project. It's not something that happens, you know, across the board, and that's it's disappointing, but coming up something that's not disappointing.
Our conversation with Josie Campbell Day.
Josie Campbell is a Los Angeles based television writer and producer, an alumni of Emerson College and the Upright Citizens Brigade Theater, which she will talk a little bit about more in
our chat. Josie's ran some of our favorite shows, including camp Cretaceous, She ra Princess of Power, and most recently, she was the head writer and co producer for the animated series My Adventures With Superman, and she's also written a smagus board of DC movies and TV, and she's here today to talk about her amazing career and the upcoming My Adventures with Superman comic book series.
Start with hot, Start with hot with glass?
Why Why is your Clark slash Superman actually hotter with glasses?
You know, Clark Kent has always been hot, That's what I say. Uh, I like glasses. Uh, I mean, uh, it sounds funny, but we did have a rule on the show, and like the artists would laugh and we're like, no, we're dead serious. Like everybody is cute and hot. Every single character who shows up, Ma, She's cute and hot. Clark, He's cute and hot. Like, uh, Jimmy cute and hot. Just everybody is just the cutest, cutiest little petuity on the show, and we need to draw them that way. Uh.
And absolutely, and it delivered, you guys, delivered on the cute petuti.
Ruleing my office is right next to Jake Wyatt, who's a kosherrunner and Koe p and uh. We would just every now and then I'd hear through the wall, no hotter, Yeah, yea. I looked at like as he's like giving wrong over instructions of people. They were like, yeah, that's that's right, that's right, Clark Kent Superman He's great.
Yeah, I love guy. I love the idea that off camera, like not in a scene. Off camera. Lois and Jimmy were like, you know, gosh, I think Superman kind of looks like Clark, but like a less handsome version.
So we're going back now.
Something we always ask people here is like, what's your comic book origin story? Like, what's the comic book or the character that made you fall in love with comics.
So my comic book Orgiester. I'm old enough that I remember when comics were still being sold in CBS's so like pharmacies. So yeah, so as a kid, we would go to the local pharmacy.
Uh.
And I was a kid of the nineties, and my first comics were like a Wonder Woman comic and the Death of Superman are and those were the things that made me fall in love with comics because I was just so like, I was just kind of I didn't know what was going going on. I was just picking up a comic and coming in right in the middle of this. I'm like, what is happening, and I was so intrigued. And then you know, on TV, I was watching anime like Sailor Moon had just come over to America.
Drugon ball Z had just come over to America. I found out those were comics too, So basically, like DC Comics was my introduction slash Gateway Drug into comic books, and I was just enthralled. I love superhero comics, I love fight scenes, I love big emotions like I love the soap opera nature of comics, like just all of that from like age like seven onwards.
I was hooked.
So we kind of touched on it. But tell us a little bit more about the iteration process for the character designs. They are so winning, so charming. You've got Lois with the short hair, super hot Clark, super hot everybody, and I personally love the way that the animation style elevated the core characteristics of all these characters. Yeah, but tell us a little bit about that process.
Yeah, I mean so like, so much credit goes to our design team, so much goes to the artists working on the show. But then also you know to co showrunners and coep's Jake Wyatt and Brendan klawher like I was. I was actually when they first started developing the show, I was working on DreamWorks. I was the head writer for Jurassic World, Camp Catacious, and I had known Great Thank You, and I had known Brendan from Shira and
we were pals. And so he and Jake like took me out to like lunch, and we're like, we want you to come work on the show with us, and I was like, I don't know. And then they're like, here's Jake and brendan' shrawing some Clark Lowis and Jimmy and I was like, Okay, yeah, never mind, I'm in. But yeah, but like the very idea of our show
was let's do something that both feels original. It feels very much like this is the core of this character, this is who Superman and Clark Kent is, but at the same time, do it in a way that people haven't seen before. And that was really the mandate all throughout every part of it, like writing the show, designing the show is Okay, what if we take this character that people know and make a slightly new version of them,
It's still the same core person. You know, Jimmy is still getting kidnapped by gorillas and obsessed with like silver age stuff. Lois is still jumping into danger and getting herself kidnapped on purpose. But here's sort of the version of them we've never seen before. Here's the version of Lois who like, you know, for our modern audience, here's
her gumption, here's what she looks like. And then once we started the show, we had such a strong design team, like Jane Bach was our art director, Dohanng was our like one of her character leads, and just every time we would write in the script, are like, okay, like here is Slade Wilson, here's like comics with his appearance. And then they'd be like, what if he's a bashonan pretty boy and he's just running around And we're like, yeah,
you know what, I have never seen that before. Yeah, yeah, you know, the same thing of a lot of care like heat Wave, Live Wire. They're like, okay, what if they look like this now though, and we're like, yeah, we've never seen that version of them before. So you know, Brendan and Jake set the set the bar high, and then our incredible design team would just go go ham They just go off and they'd come back and they're like, here's seven designs for heat Wave, and each one she's
like bigger and musclier than the last. Which one do you want? We know which one we want.
You're like, the bigger, the bath, bigger, the better. Yeah, exactly.
So what was your journey to getting into animation, because this isn't your first foray into d C. You've also done. You wrote Legion of Superheroes. I think we chatted about that for DC dot Calm. You work on some other DC animations. So what was your journey of getting into animation, Getting to kind of herald these incredible characters from Jurassic World. You know, I love that show so much with my children that I would die for to, you know, getting to do my adventures with Superman.
Yeah, I mean so, I you know, I went to school for theater. Actually, originally I thought I wanted to be the next David Mammott, and I was like, gonna write serious plays, and then like my first semester, I got into like a TV writing a class and a a comedy troupe, and I was like, never mind, I'm
gonna do like comedy and TV. And then you know, the entire time, like I've loved animation since I was a kid, Like I was like the teenager who'd come home because I had to watch Justice League Unlimited, like I needed to hit Tunami, like I needed to like watch all of that stuff. And you know, when I went to college, I met a bunch of friends who were also into animation. Like some of our sketches we would do for a comedy troup would be like limited
animation we did ourselves, or claymation. And then when I moved out to Los Angeles, one of those friends got a job working for Alan, who is the producer famous producer of Batman and the animated series, and put us one of my scripts in front of him, and Alan called me and it was like, I really like your work, like pitch me things, and so Alan gave me my first job. It was like pitching Scooby Doo and then Justice League, Action stuff, Pinicula just sort of like everything.
And then from there I just kept going. You know, I became the head writer of She Run the Princess of Power over at DreamWorks, head writer of Jurassic World Camp Cretaceous, and then yeah, basically Brendan and Jake were like, no, you want to come and work on Superman. I'm like, you're absolutely right, I want to do that, And I came over and the three of us, you know, Della the show a little bit more and wrote the pilot and got the green light and it's been a it's been Metropolis ever since.
What is it like for you to have that journey from being a fan from your first comics being you know, Death of Superman to now getting to reshape this character for a kind of new generation.
Oh, it's it's huge. It's like both really lovely. It's it's extremely excited and also occasionally daunting because.
You know, I love this kid.
You know, I love this character so much. But when you're you know, in the creative process, what you do is what you feel is right. Like it's you know, when you're being creative, you're like, Okay, what would I like to see or what I what do I think would be like engaging or what's most satisfying to me? And it's it's hard because you don't know if that necessarily will resonate with other people. You just know it
resonates with you. So to have our Superman get out there and to see it resonate with so many people and have so many people you know, come up to me and say, like, you know, this is the Superman, Like I've been dying to see for like a decade, Like I missed the Superman has been really really rewarding and then daunting again because I'm like, oh God, I hope you like season two. I hope we can keep that feeling going.
I think one of my favorite things about your show is that Superman is Clark. That relationship is you know, different every time you see Superman with different creative teams. Sometimes Clark is just like a preceding chapter and the entire stories really about Superman. But this Superman is Clark. Tell us about creating that tone and that vibe of really unifying Superman and Clark.
Yeah, I mean again, it was. It was both something that we hadn't seen in a while and something that felt core to the character that you know, there's always, you know, in those Geekee debates, there's always like who is he? Is he Superman and Clark Kent is the masker is Hee Clark and Superman's the mask And you know, for I think a long time, we've seen Superman is the real one and Clark is like the put On persona.
You know, I love the Donner movie, but you've got that, you know, the most recent Snyder movies are definitely that. You know, I'm excited to see what James Gunn has
to offer. But for us, you know, Clark is the interesting one because he's the human one, Like he is a kid who like he showed up on Earth as a baby and was raised in the Midwest like my mom, like he you know, to us, the most interesting version of this character is what he is is most human and he's trying to fit in and he's scared that he might superpower break something, and he's holding himself back
and then like learning to embrace who he is. And a big part of that came out of what we started with in the pilot in the first two episodes, which is one of the biggest chances you want to do, is we didn't want him to get that like Crystal that tells him everything about his origin.
Like you said that in a lot.
Of movies and a lot of media where they're like, Clark, you are my son, and you are Superman and this is S stands for hope, and here is your powers, and we wanted our clerk to not know any of that he is discovering who he is and what he can do along with the audience. And that also feels very relatable to us and also very modern to us, that here's this person who hasn't quite figured out who
he is, but he's slowly getting there. And it's just it gives us the potential for so much story where you know, theoretically you've seen this character before, you've seen a million iterations of him, but you don't know where this story is going because you don't know what Clark's about to discover about himself next, or discover about the world next.
Yeah, and you're not not only do we have season two coming up, which we will talk about in a minute, but you're writing My Adventures with Superman the comic. So what was it like to get to you know, not you mentioned you had this success, People come up to you, they tell you've been waiting for it. What was it like for DC to then come up to you and say, well, do you want to make it a comic?
Like?
Do you want to translate this back into the format that it began with?
Yeah?
It was really it was really great and Aws so I'm like, hey, I get to write a Superman comic. Like, that's not something I thought i'd ever scratch off my like Bingo card. So no, it was really exciting because you know, I love the show. I love working on it. I'm so glad people like it. And then yeah, when DC approached us, approached us and approached me, they're like, hey, like, do you have like you know, we'd love to do something like or like a spin off or something like that.
Do you have any ideas? And the is actually sort of based on this idea we kind of had in the writer's room, but just there was never a place for it in season one. So the comic. The comic takes place in between season one and season two. It's not gonna spoil anything for season two, but like some things will like it'll like connect a little bit better
tea up. But yeah, it's kind of an original story that we came up with based off of the Amazo Tech robot that's in suits that Doctor Ivo was making and takes place during Christmas, So it's also our basically fake Christmas episode and I think it's it's gonna be a lot of fun, like very additive, like you can watch season two without it, but if you watch season two and read the comic, I think you're gonna get a lot more out of like especially like Clark's like
relation to like Krypton and his powers and stuff like that.
Yeah, and visually it looks so much like the show.
Like the artist, it's such a brilliant job bringing the tone to life.
Oh yeah, No, Pablo is the uh is the artist, is the line artist, and he's just incredible. And you know, we talked Andrew is my editor over at DC, and we talked about, like, you know, well, how do we like approximate like the look, and like one of the big things is, you know, we're all, you know, everybody working on the show is a kid of the nineties, two thousands. We're all very influenced by anime. Like, so we're like, okay, for the comic, let's have somebody who's
very influenced by manga. So, you know, Pablo comes in and he's doing an amazing job. We got him like a bunch of backgrounds and a bunch of like of the design work in art so he could like look at it and like approximate it in his style. But then he goes above and beyond kids. He's like literally applying screen tone, like like handling everything like you would in a manga. So I think it's just like a project that everybody who touches it gets excited to dive
into it. So I think, yeah, me and Pablo are thrilled to have people read the comic.
Season two of My Adventures with Superman debuts me twenty fifth on Adult Swim. What can you tell us about season two?
Oh, I know, I'm trying to think of like what doesn't give spoilers. So season two, you know, you think people can see from the trailer there's gonna be a lot more villains, there's gonna be some new characters showing up, including perhaps a specific female character. But like, I think the biggest thing, you know, the season two sort of picks up like basically that very next year, their first
year reporters. They're no longer interns. They're starting to make their mark in the city, and I think a lot of what we're going to be doing in the season is sort of testing those bonds, Like you know, they were so bonded to Jimmy, Lewis and Clark were such a team in season one and now their dreams are coming true. But that's a little bit more pressure. There's a little bit more question of like what their future is going to be. So I think you're gonna see
those relationships tested a little bit. And then yeah, and then like I think we're going beyond just Metropolis. There's gonna be some characters people are gonna see showing up. I think again, it's it's of the core of them is the same, but the way they look is going to be very different, and some of the ways they act is gonna be very different. So and we have Michael Emerson this season, so I'm excited.
Yeah, I mean that must be one of the most exciting things is getting to expand this. So I was gonna say, just before we go, what what's the kind of hero or villain that you'd like to write most next Not necessarily in the show.
It can be in a movie and in one of the comics.
Oh man, that's hard. I mean Superman has been like my top tier for like years, Like, I absolutely love Superman, I love his villains. Man, that's a really hard question. Like I think I'd love to like do something completely different and like write something in like the Batman universe, like like a Catwoman like Mini or something like that would be fun. But like it's it's hard when you've hit Superman. It's hits hard Superman. Yeah, brain like lex Luthor, like all of that is hard to top.
Well, Josie, thanks so much for joining us.
Yeah, thank you, guys, thank you. In today's back Matter, where we dive a little bit deeper into a ongoing topic or conversation or something that we think you might like to know a bit more about, we're going to talk about animated movies for superhero comic book adaptations versus.
Live action movies, and specifically in.
The DC realm, because yeah, the reality is that for a long time, DC animated movies were seen as the gold standard for any superhero movie, like in the nineties and the Zero's pre.
MCU, even after the X Men and Spider Man.
I will say, a lot of people would say, nah, Crisis on Earth too, that's the one, Like these are my movie, like the Mask of the Phantasm.
You know.
So DC has always had an incredibly strong economy of animated subero movies, which is kind of why it's funny that for a lot of people they felt like their live action movies didn't live up.
Now, I personally will say I do.
Think that the live action movies that DC has put out, I think there's a really interesting variety to them, but they've definitely never had that consistency of those those DC animated movies. Do you remember the first time you kind of discovered that that treasure trove of those films?
Oh gosh, it would have been after you know, the classic Batman the animated series and then going into them. It was I mean, there was a period of time, I would say ten to twelve years ago, as the MCU was spinning up and was beginning to take over the world in DC outside of the Nolan Batman movies, was kind of like, what are we doing? Where all
my DC friends and they're completely correct about this. We're like, well, why don't they just take the creative teams behind the enemies right and give them the keys to start producing these movies? And they're absolutely correct. I think you're right, Like that has been the gold standard for a while. The adaptations are wonderful, and there's something else too, like I almost feel like, I don't know, having seen the
perfectly good Blue Beetle, the most recent Aquaman movie. I almost feel as if there's like a cyclical thing happening where DC movies chase the marvel tone of this kind of laughy stuff. Right now, it almost feels like, yes, the audiences are wanting the previous DC live action tone, which is the grittier tone. So I'll be interested to see how that changes DC's approach. But I mean, what do you think, what are if you were going to recommend some of the best DCAU stuff, what would you say?
I would obviously I would definitely say start with you know, Mask of the Phantasm, which actually technically isn't under that DC Universe Animated Original Movie banner, but it is like one of the best movies that DC's ever made, and it regularly still plays in the cinema as well, like at least once the year they'll kind of re release it. But if you're looking at like the kind of actual ac DCAU as they called it, Superman Doomsday, it's really good.
I own it on DVD. That's a great one.
Justice League the New Frontier, which was absolutely fantastic. They did All Star Superman, which I think a lot of people loved. Justice League Doom is another really good one. It's really interesting because they basically adapted like many, many, many of the most famous DC comics. So if you love like the Killing Joke, there is an adaptation of it that one wasn't necessarily for me. Batman Gotham by Gaslight, I love that one. That was one of the later ones.
And Batman under the Red Hood is another really good one. My nephew's really into Jason Todd right now, so that's like a big thing.
I mean. The good thing is there's basically all kinds of great.
Movies that they've managed to bring their own tone. They don't often ape the art style, which I do think is interesting. I found that really interesting watching The Dark Knight Returns one. It doesn't have that Frank Miller Lim Varley art style. But the cool thing is you can literally just google DC Animated original movie and it will come up and there's like thirty or forty movies.
And I think one of.
The things, and this is another thing I wanted to ask you about. One of the things I think is most interesting about this is like it's that question of why does live action sometimes struggle where animation doesn't. And I think it's because they can do more in animation that would cost so much more money to do in live action.
Like think about so recently.
We had Spider Man Across the Spider Verse, and we had Teenage Mutant it was new and Mayhem. Both of those were huge smashes in a time when people were like, oh, well, there's comic book fatigue.
You know, there's comica move tigue. Both of them are comic book movies.
But there's something there where they can bring a style and a tone and a vibe and ambition that I think you can't always get in live action. And I do think that's like one of the pros of keeping the animated comic book movies going.
Yeah, I think that there is, you know, an authenticity to the kind of action that you imagine. You know, when I when I read comics every sin sorry as a kid, You're seeing what's on the panel, but I'm imagining the action as it takes place as well. And you know that the Batman and animated series was so good at translating that into the thing that you and the X Men animated series was so good at translating the action that I'm imagining into something that I'm actually
seeing to your point. I think it's just easier. It's easier to nail the tone. There's something about animation that says that that speaks to the way you interpret the form when you first pick it up. You know, it's not adult, Uh, it's not. It frames the story, no matter the kind of emotional or plot context, in something that feels natural to comics. So you can get as serious, as gritty and as violent as is necessary, but it
always feels tonally correct. And when you take that and you put the kind of violence that you see in animation into live action, what you have often is like harsh, Like it's just it can be horrific.
Think about Invincible, you know, yeah, how there's so much but even that moment, I'm so glad you brought up X Men ninety seven actually because obviously we're living in a renaissance of Marvel animation right now with that show.
But like, think about the ending.
Of the last episode spoiler alert, put your ear muffs on. You know, Wolverine having the Adamantium torn off his bones.
They managed to.
Do so much blood, so much fear in his eyes, But that would have been an R rated movie if you put that.
In a movie, it'd be horrible.
Yeah, so I think you make a great point.
That's another thing is you can translate some of the darker stuff in a way that's more accessible and kind of like easy for people to swallow than if it was in you know, a scary R rated movie, which obviously we don't get a lot of those when it comes to superheroes.
It's just not something we get.
We always like to end the show with fast paced segment and this time we're doing Who's Who, in which we are gonna select our favorite deep cut DC weirdo Rosie who you got?
Okay? Detective Chimp? Is he that deep cut anymore? I don't know.
I feel like people maybe know him, but he's a chimp, he's a detective.
I love him. He's an old school character.
Another one of my favorite characters, this is very in the Doom Patrol Realm. I love flex mentalo O, created by Grant Morrison and Richard Case. If you've ever read an old superhero comic and you've seen in the back a Charles Atlas ad and it's like you can become strong just like send us, you know, five dollars and we'll teach out to become strong.
Flex Mentalo is.
Essentially a guy from one of those adverts that comes to life and and is this incredible meta take on superheroes. And Frank Quietly and Grant Marrison did a great flex Mentalo mini series that you can read and it's yeah, those are those are two of my all time faves.
What about you?
I want to stress that favorite is not what I'm going for here. It's me. You're going for weird about this weird? I'm going for weird, truly weird. Josie was talking about nineties comics and there was no weirder period maybe in the history of comics. So I'm going to pick a true product of the nineties, cod piece who
appeared to control in the nineties. It is a villain, clearly a villain who was created in order to mock some of the trends that were popular at the time, the over use of armor and huge pockets and knee pads and all these different kind of like military esque accouterments on characters, costumes, codpieces, a villain who is It's exactly what you think, folks, It's exactly the the the piece of this character's costume that is overemphasized is the one that he is named after. Yes.
Extreme in every way.
Yes, and one of the weirdest things that's ever happened in.
Its nineties comics Baby, That's an episode we have to do one day, the Extreme era.
What a time.
On Thursday's episode of x ra Vision, we're diving into X Men ninety seven after the season wraps, and we'll be joined by the incredible Me and Queen and X Men Superman Stephanie Williams. And then on Friday, we're dropping a mini surprise episode for you webheads out there. Until then, Thanks for listening by x ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kitsumsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman.
Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi
On Discolled Moderata