Halo Premiere + Comics Legend Grant Morrison

and I need help help me. Continuing our coverage of the Batman, we're joined in the Hive Mind by the legendary comics writer Grant Morrison discuss their iconic career in nerd Out, a audience member tells us about Final Fantasy for Free Enterprise, and in the endgame, we rank our top three video game adaptations to do all of that. Joining us today is writer Comics Encyclopedia, brilliant creator, Rosie Night, Rosie, how are you?

announce it now. They're finishing up final work on the cover and it is a forty page one shot and it is.

ish of July, we hope. And as soon as it is really available and we have a link where you can order it and stuff, I'll make sure that we put it in the show notes and people can have a look, and hopefully we'll talk about it more because all of us are is like, so incredible and definitely just go follow him on Instagram Oliver oh No, And it's just so exciting and I'm really happy that this is the first place I've gotten to talk about it, So thank you for asking.

back in like Halo three days. Halo three had an absolutely incredible promotional campaign that was like these really grounded action vignettes of Master Chief in his apocalyptic war against the Covenant alien races and it was really really cool. And it was around that time that people were like, Oh, Halo movie, It's gonna happen. Who will it be? Will it be Spielberg? Will it be Neil Blong, Camp of

District nine? Who will be? And this has been We've been waiting for it, waiting for it, waiting for it. I had forgotten about it. I stopped playing Halo. I started playing Halo again. I stopped again, and then I started again. And now here we are. The year is twenty twenty two, and the Halo television series has now aired on Paramount Plus. We'll have it aired by the time you were listening to this, and we are going to recap now. Episode one of the Halo series, title Contact,

written by Stephen Kine and Kyle Killen. The year is twenty five fifty two and first of all, congrats to the human race for making it that far. I didn't think it wasn't I didn't think you were going to get there. To be honest with you, sitting here in twenty twenty two, I'm not one hundred percent convinced that you're going to get there. But in this fictional world, you got there, and I'm kind of proud of you, even though you still be colonizing. But that's okay, okay.

the state of affairs today. Magical is a planet rich and exploitable resources, populated by a diverse body of very restive human colonists. The ueg's relationship with its outer colonies is very bad for anyone who read the first Halo novelizations by Eric Nyland, you'll understand where we're coming from with that. When the colonies act up, when they insurrect, when they rebel against the UEG, the UEG sends in the space Marines, the UNSC United Nations Security something something

I forgot what it was. Marines end the newly kind of newly created elite force of specially trained and equipped warriors known as the Spartans. They are widely feared throughout the colonies, and they are a subject of much propaganda by the UEG. So Kwan Hall is a colonist. She and her friends are exploring the landscape of Madrigal, where the various plants are rich with heavy hydrogen, which is very useful apparently as an energy source and also for drugs.

Quan sees something strange in the woods. She follows it. She sees an alien ship near a cave where there's clearly some sort of mining activity taking place. Quan is like, okay, like, let's return to the outpost. We have to tell everybody what's happening, and her friends are kind of like, oh no, let's not do that, which is crazy, like why would that is there's an alien ship here, I think we

need to go back. And then in that moment they are attacked by the Covenant, who are We're going to find this out of the course of the series, So minor spoiler, but this is like available information if you've ever played a Halo game, which is probably likely. The Covenant is an alliance of alien races who have bound together for religious reasons, and they are extremely adept and militaristic, and they have plasma weaponry and you don't want to

fuck with them. Quan sends up a flare warns the outposts. The colonists, including Quan's father, swinging into action. They arm themselves with like this was crazy, with like assault weapons like from the twenty first slash twenty seconds, like three hundred year old guns, which I get it. If you're the UEG, you probably don't want your colonists having like really good weapons.

just melt people. They easily brush the colonials aside, and just as the colonials are being completely wiped out, the unsse and four Spartans Sorein riz Kai and the Master Chief John one one seven arrive and they are bad ass. So they managed to check the attack. Uh, and it's it's another victory for the Spartans, minus the fact that every single colodial has been massacred, except.

The device activates with this green light of sending out these interesting lines and patterns, and suddenly inside Chief's mind something unlocks and these long buried memories start emerging, and he sees like snippets of like some other plant, a dog, like some kind of crashed ship and then Chief snaps out of it. A cloaked Elite sprints out of the cave, knocking down Kwan, who has already been through so much today, and now Quan's knocked unconscious buying fleeing Elite, the elite escapes.

Chief is like, hey, take this alien drop ship back to Fleet Command so they can look into it. I am going to go after the Elite to see where he went, and that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to get that artifact back. And that's what we're doing. And the Spartans are like, are you sure, that's kind of like not procedure. He's like, don't worry about it.

I'm the Master Chief. I worry you'd do this. On Reach, which is an important United Government world ten and a half light years from Earth, it's the home of UNSC Fleet Command, we meet doctor Catherine Halsey, who is a brilliant super genius behind the Spartan project and the secret programs of which we will soon learn about. And if you have read the Halo novelizations are played a Halo game,

you probably can figure out where this is going. She sees something in the way that the artifact reacts to the Master Chief. She's watching like the security footage of this that interests her. Admiral Paragowski arrives at Halsey's lab and she is like the big muckety muck at Fleet Command and she arrives and she's like, listen, Security council might just cut your funding because of this magical debacle, Like it doesn't look great. Yes, the Spartans defeated the Covenant,

but like all the colonials did. And Halsey's like, forget about the colonials. We don't care. We literally don't want to talk about them on anymore. Let's talk about this artifact that that we found on Madrigal. And we learn through this conversation that the ug has been fighting a covenant for a long time, but apparently most colonials don't really they think the Covenant is like a myth. And also, after all these years, the UEG has no idea what

the Covenant want. They have no idea what they want, so maybe this artifact will tell them what they want. Is the first time they've got any kind of indication that the Covenant wants something, so they know that they have to get this artifact. Halsey tells Paragowsky that listened, the artifact needs to come to my lab. It should not go to the lab of doctor Miranda Keys, a rising figure in the unsc and spoiler alert kind of well not really they say it in the episode, so

I'll just tell you doctor Halsey's daughter. On her way out, Paragowsky tells Halsey to get rid of that, and that turns out to be some kind of clone, some kind of clone, probably for the Kortana project, but perhaps like trying to restart the Spartan project. What do you think that could be?

kind of strange thing here. It could be something more intimate about trying to cure a sickness that's often like a sci fi thing, you need to replace yourself so your work can go on, or I think most likely because of the show and how much they're gonna it seems like they're leaning into the like conflicted nature of master Chief and the kind of realities of the Spartan program. I think it's like gonna be a spin off or a continuation of the Spartan program.

I think that's right.

Machi and in fact downright derisive towards her. More interestingly, we know that the Covenant has a nickname for master Chief. They call him a demon. Maki would like to speak to the cloaked Covenant warrior who escaped the cave and witnessed the entire incident and saw that the artifact reacted to master Chief with it, which the Covenant find very interesting.

not gonna sell out like that. She says that if she were to record such a video, she would just say, hey, you know what, the Spartans slaughtered everybody. What about that? That's what they did. And if you don't want me to do that, here are my demands free magic goal from UEG control and Miranda Keys is like, well that went badly and hangs up. We go back to Reach

where Halsey is a studying Master Chiefs vitals. Everything here's you know, how your iPhone or your device gives you now hopefully gives you the option to like opt out of all your information being like sold to various places them onlier Armor does not have that. You can't turn

of everything. Everything gets sent to unsc fleet Command and Halsey is studying Master Chiefs vitals and she notices that whoa, this artifact really did something to the Chief, like his biology is different somehow, And she notices that curiously Master she is not mentioned that he's feeling weird or anything. So that's a note of concern. She speaks with him, asks him about it. He says, listen, I touched the object and I saw stuff I saw visions of, like

maybe my childhood. I saw a dog. And it's clear that Master Chief is very troubled by this. On Reach, doctor Keys talks with her dad, Captain Jacob Keys. I'm just gonna call Captain Jacob about Miranda's unsuccessful attempt at diplomacy, at diplomacy with.

depth to this first episode. But I think it's really cool that they essentially took something that a lot of people just know as kind of like a shoot them up, kind of like fast Pass sure, and I like, here's like a Star Trek level in depth exploration of this world that you've never seen. And let's talk about what it means to be colonists, and let's talk about what these government aids just sees will do to survive.

that's a different show. But still it's got all my you know UI and all the interface stuff in.

I remember that. Yeah, the orders were to kill the leader, but then in the middle of it, the orders changed and it was to kill everyone who is there. And by the way, that is, I might be remembering this wrong. It's been a number of years since I read Reached, the first book in the Halo series, but that is like the opening actions of Eric Nyland's Halo Reach, if I recall correctly. Anyway, master Chief and the rest of the Spartans to paraphrase him, were basically just following orders.

UNSC headquarters. Halsey tells Paragowski and Captain Jacob that she thinks that Master Chief is accessing old memories, which Paragowsky is like, oh shit, like do we want our ultimate weapons suddenly being going off script and being like, hey, where did I come from? What have you done?

arrives in Reach space. But Chief is tough and he can somehow just like brute force himself through oxygen deficiency, and he like wakes up and tweaks the atmosphere controls in the ship and now everybody's able to breathe. Paragowsky orders a full military response to meet the Chief when he lands, but Halsey very very very very mischievously superses the order directly to the Spartan squad. She tells the Spartans, Hey, new orders for you guys, protect Master Chief no matter

what whoever's trying to harm him, doesn't matter. You protect Chief and they're like does that mean like UNSC marines And Halsey's like figure it out, genius, and they're like okay, yeah, what do you think? Back on the ship, pulls a battle rifle on Chief, my favorite weapon from the Halo video game series, as I'm sure I'm not alone in that, and Chief is like, listen, I like the I like the Moxie, but that thing's not even going to scratch me. I'm like under an energy shield. Under that is like

multiple layers of titanium. Under that is some other fucking futuristic shit. There's no way you can even hurt me with that, so stop it. Then he takes off his helmet and he's like, this is my face. You may have recognized me from season two of The Wire on the Docks.

cannons knock the Condor out of the sky. The ship is surrounded by marines and spartans. They're about to break into the ship. But then Master Chief here he goes again. He's just obsessed with his artifact. He can't stop thinking about it. He looks at it on the ground and he touches it, and more memories come to the four. Now he sees people's faces, different things, snippets of rooms, and more stuff, and the artifact releases a pulse and

Fleet Command loses power. But interestingly, the Condor gets powered up and master Chief snaps out of it. He says, buckle up, we're out of here, folks, and they fly away and we're off into episode two. So, Rosie, your thoughts on episode one of Halo.

so for some people that they don't. And I actually thought that it was really interesting and weird and slow Bernie, and also as well, like the production value was really great.

like Reach looks incredible. Yeah, High Charity looks incredible. Like all the stuff looks amazing.

and the green of master Chief and stuff. But this, there's so many we get that classic opening, Like the opening is kind of very Star Wars Star Treki where you really get the feeling of the colonists before you

see them being massacred sadly. But I just thought they actually did such a good job of showing all these different worlds and spaces and they all looked so different and were so visually easy to follow that even though when you're describing it, it's like then they're there, then they're there, but you know, from the cinematography, from the production design, you immediately know where you are once you've been there one time.

I definitely like that this. This is not as funny Starship Troopers is, like Hilario, Yes, but I love that this has that same intention of examining the idea of like a militarized action show and what it means to be a militarized force. I think it's it's a really interesting and unexpected Yeah.

that you created to destroy other people? To destroy? This a you know how many you know, we're talking about video games, like what about you know, I'm not saying this is the route that this is going to go, but I love the implication of like that kind of Did you ever play at PlayStation one game Shadow of the Colossus? Oh? My right, so the whole time, Yes, of course I knew A.

It looks incredible. The suit is like.

team up. It's a hero's journey. And and Yarinha is so good, like when she was she's great doing this great Quanha did this, like when she does the the speech to the doctor and she's saying, she's like, you know what, I'm just going to tell them that you did it, and she's so unhinged and angry, and You're just like, yeah, I wouldn't even blame you. Like they have their propaganda and you have yours. So I think that this added an unexpectedly kind of human element that

I wasn't. I don't think that that would have been the story that got told if this show.

and then kill them. And killing them involves like following this like pattern of button prompts like uh, circle, ye, yeah, it'll be like circle, triangle, triangle, circle trial, try, and it'll be that these these strings of patterns for minutes and minutes and minutes, and you're like, why am I doing this? Why is this so hard? Like why is this boss fight like this? The reason it's like that is the game is making you complicit in the murder of these.

And then it's basically like a really simple but really really tricky game where you can play it kind of like Tony Hawk, where you can get a number of points, but you've always got to finish the course. So that and then I was like, okay, well I've played that a lot, and I love indie games. I'll always go back to it. And I was like, I'll get Elderly and then if you have the Switch Online expansion pack, which obviously I got for Animal Crossing because I love

Animal Crossing. I'm a big They just uploaded I think, like, well, they uploaded two new sets of Mario Kart courses that have absolutely new for Mario Kart eight, which is eight new track. So that's it. That's just my life. I absolutely love it. I love Merica, and I was like, why weren't they make a new Mario Cup. But now I'm like, oh, because they can just keep making new tracks for this, and I will happily take.

so hard. It's so hard, Rosie. It's like everything can fucking kill you. Little animals are beating your ends. And here's the thing so that this game is it's extremely popular and it's great. What do I love?

You can't beat them. Maybe if you're a veteran Souls Born player, maybe you can beat them, but like one hundred percent, you can't fight this thing, and so your only option is to go off and explore, and through that exploration you can level up and eventually be able to fight these various bosses. So it's that kind of

feeling of what else is there to explore. I'm like, I don't know how many hours I'm into this game, but there has I'm there's still a whole section of the map that I haven't online.

power set like work better. But that's not explained to you. And so this is a real feature of these kind of games. And also like players can leave little messages for you and here there's like a secret passage here, and sometimes those are fakes. So what's been interesting is there is this whole discourse. Some publishers, some of the people the devs that worked on another game that got released it is also very good that I'm not going to talk about. But they're in America. We're like, uh,

you know, why do people like this? Why is this? It's so weird like taking shots at this game kind of like at a not directly, but at a weird angle, being like, oh, it's this huge landscape, but it's so empty, and like the UI is not good, like you don't it doesn't tell you all the stuff on the screen.

And I agree with that to an extent. But the thing this game does, and this is a hallmark of the kind of not to like not to bundle all Japanese game devs together, okay, but like similar to Shadow of the Classes, there's a thing that elden Ring does that is kind of like this, uh, where they use the mechanics to kind of like enhance a philosophy. And the philosophy is, from my perspective, ask the other people playing how to play, yes, and so that's what the

philosophy is. Don't ask us, ask the other players, create this community and through that you will discover how to play and I And whereas the more western style is here's everything you need right, and also like, if you need more stuff, you need to be better at it. Here's what you can might do micro chans. Oh yeah, you can pay, you can pay. They give you this Eldering gives you everything you need.

Vaa t I v I d Ya. And this person like has a ton of content like dealing with bloodborn with demon souls and now elden Ring, and this person creates truly beautiful content that like really enhances the mythology and the wonderful like magic feeling of exploring the game. And the fact that that elden Ring the creator, velden Rings the from software, the publisher and Bandynamco like the fact that like they are empowering other creators to create

this stuff around it. They are saying, hey, go and seek out these people because they will help you play the game. I think is really cool and it's part of what I find so magical about this game.

extra lives. You had to have the friend who knew what the cheat code was for the specific really weird nichee again, and you always had that one friend or you know, you would you would have the one friend, or you'd all chip in to buy the Giant Game Guide, you know, and then you know all the difference she

had exact place, And I kind of love that. Yeah, I didn't really know that was such an active part of Triple A games until Death Stranding, where they were literally allowing people to build new objects, and I just I love It's like what we talk about with comics

all the time. I love the conversation between creators and fans and fans and fans, and that's actually what keeps this stuff alive so to me that just I love that that's an aspect of the game, because I actually think that's the joy of it is.

ones of the more finished build. It looks great. It looks triple A. The magic system looks really cool. That said, Yeah, Rosie, I don't know how you feel. I'll say how I feel. I because of Jk's history of transphobia, semi recent, you can't even get history doing this. She's been doing this for now, for several years now. I just I can't give her any more money. That's a. That's it's really that simple. Like I've given her a lot of money. I've i have been part of a community of fans

that loves these stories. But I just can't, in good conscience give her any more money. And I've got like a lot of games that I could do that I could easily play. Whatever other people want to do, that is their business, but I don't. I just feel like I can't.

think for lots of people. Yeah, Like it's it's one of those things that we are both people who not only have we like loved Harry Potter, have been part of amazing communities, but like that's part of why we get to do this because yeah, Jason's won my one's back there, Like this is part of why we get to do this for our job, which is amazing, is because that was something that we spoke about or we talked about or we kind of shared with people, you know.

But I'm the same. I can't. I don't get any now, not only ethically do I not want to support, but I don't get any love out of it. I can't ignore it. I can't separate it really hard.

beautifully told, wonderful art, great music. Try it out. Uh, next up, let's talk. What do you say we talked to the great, the legendary Grant Morrison.

guy who got me into the occult later. But he had this huge family and cats and dogs and rabbits and stuff, and they had comic books about all the all the time, So it was it was the Flash was the one that always remember, I mean, the first the first comic I remember from when I was like

three years old. Was actually a marvel Man, a British thing, you know, that the one that Alan now eventually did that became Miracle Man, But it was the very early stuff with Mcanngelo marvel Man, and I remember that was it was marvel Man beats Baron Minchausen and it was

just this mad no, it was this mad story. I love that it's got like, you know, there's he ties his donkey to this kind of hitching post and then in the morning all the snows melted and the donkey's hanging off the spider the local steeple, and it was just it was all these weird, these weird Barren moonshous and stories, but with marvel Man involved in it, so that that was the one that stuck in my mind.

And that idea of the costume the Superman, you know, seemed kind of intriguing, but it was the it was the Flash for me really. I found these ones when I was starting to get a bit more, you know, a bit older as a kid, like six or seven,

and the Flash comics just really fascinated me. They were just so wild and psychedelic and colorful, and I just loved the idea that you could move at super speed, and of course if you moved at super speed, you would wear that costume, you know, and it's like the best, just the best costume and comics, the best boots ever invented, you know. So I kind of esthetically I loved the Flash. I loved the rounded buttocks of the Flash and the runners muscles, you know, and just this the sleekness of

the whole thing. And so that that was it. And from there it was kind of I remember things like leading the superheroes and stuff. But it wasn't until I was twelve years old and I was in hospital for an appendix operation and my aunt Aina, who was Billy's wife, brought me in a big ton of comics and that was it. I became hooked for at that minute. And they just they kind of got me through that whole

hospital experience and I was just so into it. I remember it was Action comics, Superboy and Flash for the three that really did it for me. So that was my kind of origin. Then I became just a classic

fan boy, you know. I visited every store in Glasgow meet and my friends would sort of get together and we'd just do these like super like like forty mile walks, you know, to find every comic store and they be sinning because we didn't have dedicated stores back then, so you would have to go to every local news agent or you know whatever, a drug store or whatever you'd

call it, and they all had different comics. Because the distribution was so spotty, we just we just kind of got whatever came in on the ships, so you would find all kinds of different versions of that month's comic books, and it was really it was kind of exciting. You know, you walk for miles and come home with this call, and sometimes it would be really boring, and sometimes you just get some of the best comics ever. So that

was it for me, you know. Once I was a teas I got really into the whole collecting and fan boyish kind of aspect of it, and then just came about the notion of I always wanted to write. I love drawing, so wouldn't it be great to do comic books. I'm kind of trying to pursue that. Unfortunately, I was young at the time the British invasion happened, and the American editors were coming here to kind of find people

to do their work. So I was in the right place at the right time to do something I love to do.

the director tells you what to do. You know, you're taking through the two hour movie. It's it's a fifty minute drama and you kind of have to stay with it, you know, it's possible to stop and start, but not in the way with a comic. It's super integrated. You know, the experience that the writers and the artists bring to it's tactile. You're holding it, you turn the pages, you

can go backwards and forwards. You can if you've stuck in a bit of the store, you can go back and really stare at an image in a way that you don't do with any other format. So for me, that became the interesting thing is the actual the physicality, and they did the actual reality of what is Superman. Superman is that collection of thousands of thousands of pages that,

when assembled, creates this concept of a character. And even though that character's personalities changed radically, and in the eighties of so years he's been around, I think everyone still agrees there's something about it that we all understand to be Superman. It's not just the sign, it's not just the costume of the colors. There's an essential character that is somehow I created over all that time. So I

became fascinated by that. That not in the way that you know, I think some of my peers would be interested in telling stories, but what if it was real? You know, what if the Marvel universe actually existed, but it's six one six, you know, it's over there somewhere, whereas to me, it was never over there. It was right here. You could hold it. You could collect all those books and have the entire Marvel Us in a room if you wanted. And that was the real Marvel universe.

It was physical, it was touchable, it's tangible, and it developed through decades, and it took like hundreds or ye potentially be now thousands of people who would give up their time and their creativity to sustain this hyper object. So for me, that honestly became the fascinating thing, and it was to take it super literally and to then think, what is what am I doing here? I'm not necessarily

telling stories. Although I am telling stories, the stories also have to take into account the fact that the characters exist as these bizarre thought forms that have outlived me and will outlive you know, Scott Snyder, and will outlive you know, Frank Miller. It's like they're bigger than us, and in port way are they bigger than us? So the stories also then had to kind of address that, and I think what you see in my work that

people call meta fiction. Baly, you think it's meta fiction is a much more concrete, tized attempt to grapple with the object and the way the characters expressed themselves through these specific objects, and how we relate to that. You know, It's a lot going on that we took for granted just just reading comics, you know, and the exchange of information and the way we allow people into heads who may have very different politics or ideas, but we just let them straight in there. So as you can see,

that became a huge field of interesting of exploration. For me, was just that relationship, and it meant that they were real because I couldn't deal with them. I didn't want to just write fantasy stories of what would it be like if you lived in the New York Spider Man was there. That's meaning it's meaningless because I'm never going

to go to New York Spider Man's there. It's utterly meaningless as a concept that we have created internally inside our universe, a simulation with Spider Man who's played out this immense over decades, and he's adapted his continuity in order to constantly seem fresh and going, what the hell is that? What is that organism? And then that was

that was it? So I mean long answer, like sorry, convolated, but that's how I came at it was trying to actually have a relationship with it that was very real, and that they treated the characters as real, as treated the ideas and it as having a longevity that was beyond human And so what did that make them? You know, put them almost in the realm of gods or of ideas that have outlasted generations and going on for hundreds

of thousands of years. And that was That's always been my kind of point of contact and what I wanted to explore.

they would think this was like the Iliad. I would think this was this huge human story that had been going on for So what was it like for you as a fan and a cartoonist and a writer when you started, when you had that realization that you were adding to that mythology and you were kind of part of that ongoing puzzle.

I lost all interested in that very quickly. So no, and it's not I mean, I'm not trying to be rude about anyone. And people have explored that.

clothes and I'm doing this. The first page you see me, I'm on my chair doing this kind of Cossack Russian dance. It's amazing. So but this was, this was this little thing I sent in there, and it was what a later came to call a fiction suit, and it was the idea, well, okay, these characters exist, but I can create a representation of myself and actually talk to them, actually going to have dialogue. And even though it's like their responder, obviously i'm writing animal's words, but I'm trying

to give it that as much autonomy. In my head, I'm thinking, Okay, if this guy is real, I've spent twenty five issues establishing a personality. He's got a family, is into this kind of music, he likes this kind of food. What would his answer to this question be?

So trying to give him as much autonomy as a character of thinking, Okay, I'll just accept if Buddy's mad at me, then I'm going to deal with That's if he questions what I've got to say I'll deal with that, and again trying to always give the characters the dignity of outlasting me. You know, I was twenty seven where I did it. I was younger than him. Now now I'm a Rumbly's age and he like, give me the bastard. It's like, are you danswer my grave? So what am

I talking to there? What is the scale of the creature of the entity express through the pages? So again I keep bringing it back to the esoteric. But that's what I was going with, and I know man was quite a simplistic way of doing that. It was like sending a little drawing of yourself and talk to the characters and make him understand that you're aware of your spatial, geometrical dimensional relationship to them, but that you're not necessarily

privileged privileging yourself in relation to them. And see what happens, you know, see what happens, and then have animal I can see you, And I think that moment is still powerful, Yeah, because it's real. It's a real moment. I wrote him to really see out of that comic book, so that actually happened to that character and he had that moment, and that that's what makes him who he is.

that not a lot of people had thought about. What was it that made you decide, Okay, animal Man, That's that's the character I want to explore right now at this stage of my career.

Jack Kirby's sand Man does sand Man? You know, they were kind of realizing that we knew what we were talking about. So but as I said, the vogue goes very much to can you take a character from our catalog that just hasn't worked for maybe twenty or thirty years in d see any potential in that? So I knew that was I knew that's the way they were coming to it. And I always had this fascination with animal man. I just am I love animals, the big

thing about animals since I was a kid. And here was this actor who could do this, and it seemed a very unique power that a lot of other characters didn't have. It was really specific, it was easy to understand, but he hadn't really made a big splash. And I also loved it because he started as a my greatest adventure story, so it wasn't even a superhero story, just so just this dude who goes out one day and gets animal powers. So I kind of loved that as well. Mate,

it grounded them a lot more. Maybe you can you could imagine the movie that one. You know, I only just put on a costume, So going into it was just, yeah, I've got an idea about that, And I don't think you know Karen Berger or Ditchio Danna or Jeanette Canibell have even heard the name of animal Man in the last twenty years. You know. It's like when Neil Neil walked in with Black Black Orchid and they said who

Black hartckead? So they I think in a lot of ways they didn't know what kind of characters they had and as long as they heard their interesting pitch. Then at the time, the desire for novelty was such that weigh down really good opportunity to do these things. So yeah, I just I pitched them on that, and I didn't have the so called meter fictional aspect at that time, but also the secondary thing that I loved with the

animal rights thing. And again but again it was part of the old thinking because Swamp Thing was very much an eco comic and I love that aspect of it. So I thought, well, let's do this specifically because you know, I'm an animal liberation frunt supporter back in the days before it was illegal and all that, you know, Hunt Sabatur stuff, the whole thing. So I thought, he's my chance to do what Alan's doing with swamp Thing, you know, the ecal thing, but I'll talk specifically about animal rights

and all this stuff I'm kind of involved in. So that was the secondary big thing with Animal Man. And as I say, it was only when I got tissue five and I thought, I just don't want to do this eco swamp thing kind of poetic caption stuff, So what can I do? And that became like, let's just do it. And I thought, people, people will hate this. If you put yourself in the comic, they're going to hate it. They're going to just you'll spoil the magic. I just knew that was that's what I wanted to

talk about it. And I thought, what I'm talking about is the actual reality of this yeah DC universe. And I think ultimately that people will find that interesting, and.

But then like a year later, you you were like doing Batman with Arkhamisira, So like, what was it like to go from this one of the you talk about the kind of godly nature, the immortals of comics, these kind of new mythology. What was it like from basically getting to introduce a generation of people to Animal Man to taking on someone who's one of these three kind of icons of of DC comics and comics in general.

what I'd love to just write about. But Archiemasilam had been in my head for years and it been plotted out, and I had talked over with with a good friend of mine in Glasgow who was just obsessively into psychology and symbolism. So we went through this whole kind of process long before that. I've hold you do with Batman? How would hope would be a Batman story? And Lenn Wayne, who's probably my biggest influence in comics, had done a Who's Who in DC entry about Archem Asylum and he

just had to invent this stuff from whole clause. So he talks about, you know, I'm as Arkham was the founder. The guy committed suicide, or I didn't commit suicide. He kills one of his patients after the stock market collapse. But there's just a line that says, after finding his wife and child, murthered and he commits suicide because of the stock market collaps And I said, well, well, let's back track. He's surely finding your wife and child. Bud might have

tiggered the suicidal response. So but that one line was just like, Okay, let's tell that guy's story. That seems interesting. And I think I've read Arkham quite recently and I'm going to write a big piece about it again because I think it's been very misunderstood over these But I think that whole story of Ammade's arkm is really interesting, and that's what gives it the real Gothic Underton.

German expressionism. And we thought because I was, I was going to the cinema a lot to see kind of weird like you know, with my adrends messures of the afternoon and a lot of John Cocktails stuff which we loved as well, and fed into Batman, and we thought, can we do a Batman? It's like a Tarot card, that's like an exploded Tarot card. So then we took the idea of that the Moon Tarot, which was trumpeteen and it's a it's about trial and initiation, it's about

illusion and intoxication and madness. So we took that. So what if we do it's almost like a Taro card folded out with Batman going on their journey through all the symbolism that Tarot club and plugging the villains in and so what I think people people after things like Killing Joke and after Dark Night. They were looking for another big, cinematic kind of American Batman, and we did. We did this euro Batman and himself. But it was also it was like that because they said to me like, well,

the new Batman is he doubts his missions. This is the new way we're looking at him. This is the grounded, gritty way. So I thought, let's let's talk about that. But for me, it was always this was this was a dream that Bruce Wayne would have every week maybe and he would wake up from this. It was Alice in Wonderland, and it's structured like Alice in Wonderland. It's

got Alice, it's got Carol coats at either end. So the whole idea was to do something was much more kind of left brainy or you know, poetic or is it left being a right brain remember, but you know what I mean. It was like we wanted to do this euro puppet, thea to Crag Silouettes kinder version of Batman, and I think it was constantly compared to things that were much more cinematic, much more Hollywood, much more blockbuster versions of Batman, which in themselves would not love these books,

but it wasn't what we were doing. And I've rarely seen it critiqued, and in that, you know, I've never seen it critiqued as what's it like the cocktail, what's it like? What are they taking from Yan Schrankmeyer here? What is it? You know, it's like it's always critiqued in the ways that it's not like killing Joke a Dark Knight.

it's an interesting one to me. I think it's it should be looked at from a different angle, maybe because I bling it's new did a lot of great criticism over the year.

into the latest Batman movie. A lot of that kind of tone and molic referential nature.

dirt is in your face. When it came out, and people, people were very you know, the reaction was that was was quite negative, I think from generally from within the comic book community and not so much from outside. But I mean, honestly, what Dave mc keen did, I mean, looking back, is that that's exactly the way the book should be. And that is why that's why filmmakers still

love that book because of what Dave did. It's like he just took it to a level that I think, you know, anyone who's in the Batman comes in and that's one that's beyond all the others. That's the weird one. That's what all of you read after we got to that one, you know. And I think, honestly, all that Dave, and it says why I've gone back and I've been studying. I'm kind of loving it again because I was so

anti that the negative reaction was so strong. I really was like, oh no, honestly, nothing to do with me, folks. You know.

would work. It's like that is and that's why I think it draws, like you know, it draws filmmakers, particularly directors. You always hear them that's the favorite, but that's honestly, that's Dave and it's Dave's staging. He was just like, that was like getting the best director I could have hoped for because my vision for it was too small.

of stuff would easily fit it. Like it's show these you know, spank mass Alice and all the early stuff. It's it's amazing. Yeah.

under control, say Chinese health authorities. And this is two thousand and seven. And it's interesting because when people talk about your work, they often talk about this kind of far flung almost predictive quality. And at the same time, I think if you look back, you're just drawing very logical, rational lines from things that were happening at the time. How do you feel about that stuff? Now?

He's not studied those particular patterns. So it's just onnest. It's just a case of here's the pattern, here's what it's obviously going to play out, here's how it's played out before in history, and here's how it's likely to play it again. Because these things tend to fractal in the same ways, and this is what it's likely to be like in ten years time. So it's not hard. But like I said, magic sometimes looks like magic to

people in the same way the weather looks. Weather looks like, well, how do they know what the weather's going to be in LA And yet they can tell you to the minute. They tell you the clouds will pass at twelve eight. Oh wow, the clouds just passed. So it's it's just it's just observation, you know, and seeing where the strands are going to play. And that's that's why I'm very concerned that I live four miles from NATO's number one nuclear target. Yeah, I'm in I'm in the red zone,

the actual red bit wherever thing is obliterated. So yeah, think about that.

was it like for you? You take your DC Batman like that you've done that pillar. What was it like for you to take on the X Men, who have this again, that is a mythological amount of space to play with and stories to add to. What was your kind of approach there and how did new X Men come to be?

do with XHn? I hate the kind of the persecuted thing, you know. I thought it was time and it seemed like time again. It's like the nostalgia, the poignancy of the past. In about two thousand, you know, everyone thought we're really doing it. Here's been ten years since the follow the Berlin Oh wow, globalization is a good one, not a bad one. You know. There was this sense like there was a potentially the twenty first century it come and then everything really changed and it's got just

more and more of Bussett. But The X Men was kind of coming after the Invisibles, and the Invisibles had been very topian, and I began to see the different strands that would the utopian vision might not be you know, that might be a bit sixties, a bit you know, you were taking a lot of extacy. Of course, everything looked wonderfu so there was that sense of where where's

it going to go next? And but what I did want to do, like I say, was I really saw the eyes of Greek culture so that there was going to be superhero films. Now there's going to be a retreat into almost infantilism, where culture would back off from the future because the future was suddenly scary. It was we don't want to go there anymore. It's like, oh no, it's it's dystopia. They used to be Star Trek. Now it's it's the Walking Dead. And even though there was

Walking Dead, wasn't around that time. But that's that's my man. These are my two polarities, you know. And at that time, it was like, oh, let's let's not face the future. Let's let's talk about the past. So you get in music recycled. Everything was recycled, and children's comics from the sixties were being turned into blockbusters. So it was about that and I thought, well, that's the it's the idea of the Greek culture. And they had culture, the underground culture.

Goss all of us who were alternative suddenly get exposed to the light, you know, and said of Clayboy bunnies, suddenly it's suicide girls. It was like the alternative was sexed up and sold and so that was annoyingly but I thought, I have to kind of reflect the fact. And in a way that means wy we poisoned them, we colonized them. So but we never knew what to do with what we've done. But yeah, they you know, it's true our food, they watch our movies, they love

our characters. So we we won, but we kind of they were creepier and weird doing us, so they kind of messed up. But X Men was about, well what if they won? Because I was fed up with the persecution, the effort. I thought, what if humanity finds out tomorrow that we have an extinction gene. It's done it's like, you guys are like a cancer. It's been nature just

shut you down. And the reason Homo superior exists is in order to carry this forward in the same way that you carried it for from Neanderthals, whatever your story you tell yourself is. And it became I thought, the others this potential there, because then you can create the idea of mutant culture and notion like because the idea of humans fighting mutants, I thought, it seems a bit like punching down if the mutants are just a persecuted minority.

But I thought, what if they become like they're coming for you. They are your children, they are the future, and all the things you believed are abit to be overturned by these beautiful young freaks. And so it was kind of like I said, it was me talking about what was happening at the time, but it was like, so what if they suddenly you found out you are it's over? And it was because to me, that's the reality of growing older. It's like there's other people coming,

move on. And so rather than the next men being like, oh, they're under the thumb, and it's the sentence, it's more they're winning that would really make the war intensify, and I thought that what gives it more drama. You know, It's like humans are now reacting to potential extinction, but we can imagine that the nice mutants will probably figure a way to save so you have this great drama.

And that that was it. So I thought, I always my favorite X mem was just the whole Chris Claremont John Burns thing when I was a kid, so you know, that was the one. It was just like he was hitting every note and it was very progressive for the time. So I was looking back at that and I thought, and in the way that the Justice League was the kind of mythology it was like folk tales of larger than life figures. The X Men is is soap opera. You know, it's always about soap opera. So I thought,

it's got to have evil twins. It's got to have. It's got to have the Joan Collins bitch. It's got to have, you know. It was just all I had built it like dynasty, you know, like dynasty, and that was where I thought, So it's got to be Soper was good, constantly falling out affairs and like screaming matches so yeah, so that that was where it came from,

and I just built tied that. And then the weirdness of kind of almost predicting what in ninety eleven that we had that issue that is not like but you can feel it. You can feel it like I see the weather, you can feel it coming. So there was that, and then it was kind of became this post ninety eleven, you know, here is the future. How you deal with it?

finish somewhere higher. And you said something very interesting, tapping into the kind of feeling at the time, late nineties, early two thousand's, pre nine to eleven, the idea that Western capitalism is won, we won, Russians are done, Communism is done.

let's make them the League of Minority again. I just thought, well, you know, and then that scarlet, which wonder, my wife, this is the vision you're talking to this plastic monstrosity as the vision. No so, and then she just like waits Morow again, which was a weird, but it's what you can do. And that's what happens if you're living in a fictional universe you never reality and or someone could just say no more mutants and all that story potential disappears as.

you don't get it. I don't get it. I'm sure they feel exactly the same because it's all it's all interpretation, So you have to remember that it's just it's like a role like I had Batman, you know, with with Dick Grayson was says, it's just a role you've got to play, you know. Being the X Men, you take on that role for a few years and you hope that your version of your portrayal of that is remembered fondly.

But there will be other portrayals that seem to to you know, to kind of contradict that, like the difference between Jaquin Phoenix's Joker and you know, the other boy what's his name, I've forgotten Jardtime as well. They're all very different, and I think you just have to in long running superhero universes and continuities, you have to understand that everyone's got to take in some of the teakes. You'll go, you don't, don't we all get it. You

haven't read that book. You don't understand that that game meant that when he said that, what she meant that when she was writing. So you kind of just have to. I tend not to read them afterwards because it is a bit like, you know, it's like you know, it's just seen someone else getting out of your yes, your love you go he okay, I'm wish you guys all the best.

are talking about multi verses, different versions of the same characters. Yeah, you know what, what how does that feel to you to be living in this space where people can imagine the things that you've been saying and the way that you understood it as these different characters living alongside each other. And it's kind of like, what's it like to see that become real in this kind of modern day space.

like coking up kit cat. They love to take a basic idea and then just smear it out across a spectrum of possibilities that is quite limited, and so they love the notion of the multiverse. It's seen as I'm sure, quite a limited potential, but you can have you know, here's your red Supman's, your blue Man's, here's your here's your original cocapila, Here's They love versions of things to sell you the same rubbish over and over again. So I think the multiverse definitely appeals, but higher in a

higher sense then that. I like the idea that the notion of the multiverse is becoming accepted because I always think when a concept starts to become accepted, the walls of reality becomes thin, and that concept maybe actually starts breaking through the possibilities for it being real, maybe start to be noticed. The next thing I think we'll hear is, you know, our telescopes have discovered a weird dark matter fluctuation that suggests the close by universe and that's all

we can hope for. I think the fact that people are getting into it is something coming as a notion of this, this absolute fragmenting into all possibilities, which I think could be you know that my might break down a few categories when we expanded every possibility.

basic shape. It's like a coral that keeps the same because there's only so much you can push it before it's the Marvel Universe or before it's it's Archie, you know. So it's a higher p object basically in that sense that I first described it as. It's distributed so widely that it's hard to see it as a singular thing.

corporate aspect to it. Do you feel like there's a way that it's actually expanding people's understanding or people's access to these kind of stories and thoughts.

substance that could all to the universe. People have been asked to accept really weird things, you know that rob but then the junior could actually survive the impact, And that's you know, it's so Yeah, as I say, I think the boundaries of imagination have been pushed much wider, and not just by by Marvel movies, but by by everything that people are consuming right across Netflix shows. And they know it's vampires, it's it's God, it's demons, monsters.

It's that there's more demand for that. I mean, there's there's way less of anything, though there is a niche for it, it's way less event It's like say seventies oh two cinema. But there's a lot of stuff that was once the province of comics and of geeks and of of you know, of people arounto. Genre material is is way wider now, it's much more mainstream. So I do think that people's imaginative envelopes have been stretched, you know, but they're still there, are still fed at a limited

diet of particular things. But it's it's way more than back in the day when people would have thought, what's it's a show but aliens, no way, I'm not watching it's about magic. It's about that's the people would't even have those conversations there. They would just watch it if it was cool, and it was you know, you could binge it.

shouldn't be optimistic. So I'm very guarded about it. Honestly, I've always been optimistic, even living four miles from number one target should world go free break out? I just I don't. I don't know. It's like maybe it's just me. I don't know about what about what I don't know about the best in us triumphing, about the fact that we keep writing this story because we know it's true, And when are we going to just like play it out? Why we're writing what? We don't need to write that story?

You and I know there's lots of other stories, but fundamentally, the other story is doning serve us very well moving forward. So was the forward momentum and the fact that so to me think that's the kind of duty of fiction. And it's where I kind of depart from people who think that fiction should show what life is like. You know, it's like it's kind of shit. You'll kind of be

end up disillusioned. You know, comics will break your heart, kid, and all of that's true, But that's not the truth because even within that, I notice that we always, we always look for something to keep going, you know, we always, we always favor magic. Nihilism is beat out by magic because at the bottom we always find meaning. We even find meaning and nothingness. So our desire to find meaning

continues to make it positive, if that makes sense. And we always no matter what you do to people, what you bring them down, and they'll look for meaning, They'll keep finding a reason to tell a story, they'll keep finding something in it. And I think that ultimately is like if we could just if we can just expand that, if we could hold onto that little flame that Promethean moment and expand that, like we can make meaning with us.

Magic is just making meaning. It's just like why is it not other than why you know, why can't you do that? Why you try it out with it? Why they way that person five and kill them? You know anim will live? Why don't you? And it's that's all. I'll go off and the line you know, I'm just an, I'm just a person just thinking about it.

but it's pretty linear. Members come and go it's at times, and he bounce from one mission to another. The story is about as straightforward as you can get when your story involves a giant robot and flying a whale to the moon. That's where Final Fantasy Iour Free Enterprise comes in. You start with the Airship Enterprise, which opens up the entire world. Bosses, key items, treasures, and quests are randomized,

allowing for millions of options. You can hunt for the crystal you need to defeat the final boss Aromas, or you can set yourself to earn it through completing objectives. Along the way, you get to revisit the characters that made the game so compelling in the first place. The dark knight Cecil who knows that he must save himself to save the world, the spoony Barred Edward, the Twin

Magic users, palam and Porum, and so many more. Free Enterprise makes quality of life improvements like the ability to toggle random encounters, but the charming sprites and art, the Spirit and Heart, and the Killer Yuimatsu's soundtrack remain. I came from the nostalgia, but I stay for the endless customization and replayability. Anytime is a great time to roll yourself a seed and give it a try. But now

as a perfect time to join the community. The spring speed racing tournament, the adam And Cup, runs from early March through May. Races are broadcast on Twitch dot tv slash free Enterprise. All the information needed to get started and to join one of the most inclusive communities on the Internet is at f F four f E dot com. Thanks Jason, Thanks x ray Vision, and remember wish everyone.

great manga adaptation. Alyssa Milano is in it. Scott Wolf is the is the brother of in hilarious fashion, and it's like it's one of the funnest things because now it's twenty twenty two, but the movie's from the nineties and it's set in two thousand and seven when.

is like a great movie. Also, apparently the story was by Paul Deani, which is just why I know, like unexpected Paul Dany Batman Animated series creator like one of our favors. We talked about him a lot. So yeah, it's just it's this is a bunch of fun. This is like one of those things where I'm like, just go and watch it and you will have fun. If you think it sucks and it's badly made, you will still have fun watching it, but you might find it's like a it's like a solid B movie.

directed by Stephen Desuza. I really love this movie. I rewatch it all the time. It's so funny, it's really silly. It doesn't lean enough into the supernatural. I think there's a it's you know, Jean claud van Dam for some the they always do this with this, the characters they choose to be the main characters. You're like, why would you do this? Like Kenna Layu first of all, the guy they cast as Ken, that is like one of my most annoying I'm still annoyed about that casting, you know,

twenty years later. But like Ken and Ryu are comedy, they're comedy relief. In this movie, it makes no sense, like why would Nothing about it makes any sense, but it is like so fun raw. Julia plays m Bison and he is just unbelievable, and he he choose up all the scenery and he did the movie because people were like, why would you do this movie? It was so trash, and he did it because his kids loved Street Fighter and he wanted to do something his kids

would love. And he has this like on real line where she says to him like it's him and Chanley and and she says she's asking him if he remembers when he killed her family, and he's like, you know, God, the day I graced your village was you know that was the most important day of your life. But to me it was just a Thursday or something. Jesus, it's so good and it's so fun, and you know Kylie Minoga's in it. Also there's like a there's a yeah, Kylie Minoga's in it, as Cammie I think.

do that? But Byron Man plays He's wonderful. But there's a really famous interview that's going around at the moment virally again with Stephen Desusa, the director, where he talks about how like Jean Claude was just like coke out of his mind the whole time, and when you watch the movie, like you can see it and one of my favorites. This movie is not in my top three, right the Street Fighter is, but Street Fighter Legend of

chan Lee is not. But I will say that movie has an unbelievable bathroom fight scene and a very famous cocaine fueled performance by Chris Klein, so it continues the legend. But yeah, Street Fighter nineteen ninety four another movie that you'll have a lot of.

at like the way the game is. So for instance, in the episode one of Halo, when Master Chief touches down on Madrigal and starts slogging away against the Covenant, there's a moment where like you go into his visor and you see the first person view of him aimings gun the whole thing, And if that happens in Arcane, I have no idea. I don't know. I just know that it was great and I really enjoyed it. I thought the art was amazing, the characters were really great.

I just really really liked it. It looked almost too real at times like that.

to scope? Is it two D? Is it CG? They use so many formats, it feels like it feels a bit like the first time you see spider Us.

that I love. This soundtrack is full of unbelievable bangers, Like it's so good, and it has every great character you know, it has oh yeah, carry hiroy Key Togawa as a shangsung and that's such popular casting that they actually bought him back for one of the video games recently because it was like so iconic Annah. And I also, I would say I also did enjoy I think this is this was on Netflix, but I think it's on HBO Max now. And I did enjoy the new Mortal

Kombat if you want a more R rated one. Also another great lu Can casting there. And yeah, I just I love Mortal Kombat. And this movie is like probably one of my most rewatched movies because it's just so much fun.

It's a it's a story about a kid. It's a story about an alien, a genocidal alien war where the very very very hail Mary last option of this dying up against the wall alien civilization that's about to be wiped out is to create a video game and send it to I guess like all the inhabited planets of the galaxy, but in particular Earth, and that video game will like search for talented fighter pilots and if they are good enough, if they beat the game, that means

they are skilled enough, and they will then be picked up by a Starfighter like this unique, very very last high tech, super top secret Starfighter the last hope of this alien civilization to defeat the enemies. And it was it was like it's super fun, like you know, as a kid, it was like any kind of story that was like actually, like if you get good enough at video games, it's actually really good, Like it's actually beneficial.

on Disney Plus. Wow, I'm really surprised at that. So the Last Starfighter, I don't know if it's problematic again, it came out in nineteen eighty four. It might be, and I'm sorry, but the Last Starfighter that's gonna be it because I just loved it.

I've seen in a comaic for a long time. So just good, good stuff. That's gonna be a big one.

Last week, Rosie did a really, really unbelievable and incredible and well worth your time video on the impact of Glynn Barley and Richmond Lewis to women that helped create a unique visual style of Batman in the Dark Knight Returns and Batman You're One and Don't Forget Star ratings wherever you get your podcast, rate us with the five star ratings on Apple Podcasts on wherever it is. X ray Vision is a Crooked Media production. The show is produced by Chris Lord and Saul Rubin. It is executive

produced by myself and Sandy Gerard. Caroline Ruston and Carlton Gillespie are our consulting producers, and our editing and sound design is by Vasili's Photopoulos. Thank you to Brian Basquez for our theme music. See you next time.