Hello.
My name is Jason Caonceepsion and I'm Rosey Night and welcome to x ray Vision, the Crooked media podcast where we dive into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
In this episode, in the air look, it's a big mail bag. Baby, canna answer real questions and a no doubt guess what? It's another question and we're gonna answer.
Let's get into our bag.
We're stepping out of the air lock and into the mail bag to answer your questions. Swatty asks what are you reading and loving? Always love hearing your recommendations for books and graphic novels.
Rosie, what do you read?
I have been reading many great things. I recently wrote an entry for Polygon's Best Comics of the Year so far. Oh and it was for a self published comic by a graphic novelist and cartoonist who I love called Olivia Stevens. And she's most well known. She did a really cute
younger reader's book called Artie and the Moonwarf. But she has published on gum Road and it on yeah, basically online you can find it and it's She's published a book that is called Darlin and her other names and it's like a black and white adult horror western romance werewolf comic, and it is just like the coolest, most atmospheric, beautiful, Like it's eighty eight pages long, but you will read it really quickly and then immediately read it again. And
that that really blew me away. I thought that was really great. I'm also reading a really scary novel cool but a God in It's Yeah, which I love. I love a scary but I called A God in the Shed by JF. Debou and it is like really scary.
It's kind of like a cosmic horror meets true detective about like a small town that's next to a forest where there's been all these serial killings, but a young girl kind of starts to realize that it's not necessarily what it looks like, and there's might be like this kind of elder god esque monster in their mist. And that's really I've really been enjoying that. I love a good I love a good cosmic horror story, especially if it's like really scary and kind of grim, And this
is that good small town nowari horror. So those two have been big on my list.
Did you have any scary woods.
You know what.
Growing up, I.
Lived very much in the city, but there was a forest that you could go to called Epping Forest. I have to say I always found it quite magical. You had to go quite it's what felt like quite far, but I could. I did often think about like getting lost in the woods being quite a scary experience. What about you, did you have a scary wood near you?
I also lived a very urban and suburban on the edges of urban existence, but I had a couple of sort of nature areas that were quasi magical, or at least places where in the in the Steven Spielberg sense of things, like kids could be kids.
Yeah, kidshit.
One was so there was a there was a like a three acre four acre abandoned lot next to creepy next to the middle school called all the Kids for as long as anybody can remember, called the cornfields.
There was like crash cars there.
There was like some kids over the course of like two months built like a BMX track, like just shovels and stuff, and it was totally like wooded over. It's where we would go and like watch fights.
Yeah yea, yeah, just go through the field.
Go to the cornfields and watch someone get their head caved in, but it was It was also like full of rabbits, which was really cool.
I thought it was awesome and very magical realism, just like an unexpected bunny.
When we were like turning, you know, hitting our teens, but not so we weren't like, oh, this is not cool yet, but we were kind of yah had more agency in our childhoods. We would go there, especially at night and when it was raining and like quote unquote explore the cornfields with like flashlights, like I said.
Yeah, yeah, we used to do that, but it was just like a normal It was a park called clissl Park, which was right in the middle of the neighborhood where I lived, like Stone Newington. It was like opposite my school. But we would go there at night and it would
be like terrifying. Our parents would always be like, don't go and hang out there at night, and we'd be like, yeah, of course, We're just gonna hang out our friend's house and tell one friend just hanging somewhere, and one friend you're hanging somewhere, and then you end up well just meeting in the park and like nothing nefarious ever happened, but the threat of it was definitely always there in the in the dark woods.
And then I grew up across the street from a sump. Do you know what a sump is? I do not know what a sump is a sump. First of all, the word sump was a word that I just thought.
Was a universal word.
I didn't realize that it's maybe a made up word, or it's certainly maybe maybe a regional word. Sump is a large basin in which collects like rain water and stuff, but like huge, like the size of like two football fields.
They have these all around Long Island.
I guess to you know, collect water that I guess then gets one would hope filtered.
Somehow to a drinking water spot.
I lived right across the street from this, and we would sneak into it pretty regularly when we were kids and like build a little forts and catch frogs and like set very very controlled fires and stuff. But one summer, so there's like a dead possum.
Like at the entry.
There's a big, big, like rain collection tunnel that you could go into like a pretty far ways and I don't think I ever went in more than like fifty yards, but like you could go you could go in it, and there was this like dead possum there, and it was like somehow that became like the most interesting thing to like observe for months was just this possum decomposing.
Yeah, very Stephen King, Well, yeah, it's like your child and you're on the edge of like life and death and understanding like mortality, and it's all taking place in like a natury space that the book I got in the shed it actually has that is kind of the opening space is very much in that like stand by me space before it kind of switches into this really dark thing.
Okay, so gosh, what am I? I've been rewatching Deadwood? So after a secret and I was like, I need great dialogue. I need you, like I need some of the best TV writing to ever that's ever happened.
So I uh.
I burned through all three seasons of Deadwood plus the movie like in such days recently, and then just because I couldn't get enough, I went I've been I have a subscription to newspaper dot com, which is an archive of newspapers from all around the world that goes back
to like the the early eighteenth century. Like we can find like broadsheets from like seventeen sixty in there, and so I just like started reading newspapers from uh, you know, the late nineteenth century that mentioned like characters from Deadwood, and I found some really really cool ones, Like it's the Philadelphia Times April seventh, eighteen ninety five, and it has a very very long and well written feature about called the Deadwood Coach, and it's all about like the
history of this stagecoach which was now coming to an end over in Deadwood that was used to take gold which was being mined on illegally mined on indigenous land at the time, and taken out to you know, places in the country quote unquote the actual nation of America where it could then be you know, transferred to a bank or whatever. And this thing ran for fifteen years or whatever, you know, under threat of various road agents and raiders and.
What have you.
Very interesting article. So I did that, and let's see what am I reading.
I am reading.
I'm still reading The Revolutionary Spring and History of the Revolutions of eighteen forty eight, like Justopher Clark, very good, super super interesting, and kind of it kind of steals the hope from you, Rosie, because it's like all the
shit that we're concerned about right now. Are these exact same issues minus like climate change that people were concerned about in eighteen thirty, eighteen thirty five, eighteen forty eight, in the various German principalities, and it's all throughout Europe. And it's that part of it makes you a fuck I guess we're fucked, Like we're just trapped in this matrix loop and we're never going to be able to get out of it. But it's very interesting and it's
and it's it's illuminated. It's been illuminating to see like the early evolution of some of the political terminology that is so readily today, Like what did liberalism mean in eighteen thirty eight?
What did conservatism mean?
And then I've been reading this Elmore Leonard novel Freakydky, just from oh yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. We're about a bomb plot run by kind of these aging hippies. It's set in like the eighties, so it's like hippies we are now in their thirties and maybe they've messed around with some of the kind of like alt leftist Weatherman's style politics of the sixties and now they're turning that into how can we get money by building a bomb or pretending to build a bomb, or threatening someone in
the bomb. It's you know, if you like Elma Leonard, and you should, it's just it's a wonderful.
Right, yeah. Oh you know what you actually inspired me was there's a book that I've read it a while back, but I always recommend it to people. We haven't spoken it about on here, and it's very relevant right now
with the strikes and everything. There's a really great book written by Kim Kelly, who's a brilliant music journalist and labor journalist, called Fight Like Hell, and it's like an untold history of American labor organization and it's just so good and it gives you so much insight into again, how a lot of the stuff that we're fighting for has always been fought for. But it has an inspiring bank because it's like, look what it's achieved. Like if
we organize, look what can be achieved. So I've been really thinking about that a lot, and I think a lot of people who are on strike at the moment, or who are supporting the strikes in the entertainment industry would do really well to read it because it's great, and it kind of reminds you that what we're fighting for is what everyone's fighting for, just at like different levels, and people have actually achieved incredible stuff through organizing via labor.
I should add quick strike update. The MPTP has reached out to the WGA and said let's talk this Friday. So the ninety day we'll be listening to this. The negotiations theoretically will have restarted in the now near one hundred day strike of the WGA against the AMPTP.
Will be very interesting to see what happens there. And now, on a completely different page, Tyrannosaurus Greg asks, if you were going to be given the super Scroll treatment and could get powers and abilities from only four characters like our classic Super Squirrel cut, who would you pick. They can be from any fandom, not just comics, but one only one from each. Jason, this is a huge question. What would you What would you do?
Okay, I would do one.
I would uh kitty pride phasing powers and walk through walls, that kind of stuff. It just is very efficient, a lot easier if you know, of course you could there are numerous illicit activities one could achieve with this, but I'm also, yeah, I'm not gonna do any of that. Then I would take oh gosh, let's keep it X Men. I think Jeene Gray's telekinesis. I'm in the process of moving, and the thing that's terrible about moving is like actually
doing it. And I can't tell you how many times I've just been like, I wish I could just like imagine all my stuff in the other place and just make that immediately happen. Then I would do, uh, okay, hot take Doug Leman. Director Doug Leman, I think has pound for pound maybe the greatest IMDb in terms of quality. Okay, maybe in recent movie history. I don't let's just talk about his movies. I don't actually think he's made a
bad movie. And with regards to that, I would then take the powers from his two thousand and eight film Jumper.
Oh that is a good one, especially mixed with the Kitty Pride powers.
Yeah, so Jumper is about it's kind of like Highlander meets X Men, where Hayden Christensen discovers that he has this power just just spontaneously teleport to anywhere in the world world. Uh, and I forget actually limited. I think he's got to see a picture of it, or yeah, you've.
Got to have seen it at some point, but it can be a picture, it can be a postcard or something like that. And then he runs it. There's like a secret community of people who.
Have like this is the Highlander. That's the Highlander aspect of it, where there's actually like these people and there's two different sects, like the Paladins and then the other ones who are trying to stop them, and then this like war of Jumpers has been going on for like centuries. Anyway, I've always been like, fuck, that's a cool that's a cool power to just be like, I'm gonna go to see it. I'm going to Paris, I'll be I'll be back in five minutes.
I'm gonna delicious soft cheese.
Yeah, I will return with some soft cheese, some wine, and some salted meats. Okay, So and then you know what, I'm gonna go back. I'm gonna go back to the X Men once again, and I'm gonna go Doug Ramsey, ah, who can understand any language.
Yeah, that's a really sick power.
And I just feel like this isn't it like a cool like utilitarian power that you could have when you would just like under whether it's coding languages, sign language, a living island that is like speaking in very very low frequency murmurs, or any like human based language, you would understand it. I just feel like that's one of the coolest powers ever underutilized. I would add, yes, I agree for me in the in the I think I.
Mean, imagine like the the Wonder Woman Acquest, she's like a diplomat, Doug Ramsey would be like the ultimate diplomat or the ultimate spy. You could have an incredible Doug Ramsey story somebody pay me and Jason will Riott like we just paid it. Well, Doug Ramsey was gonna be on my list because ever since I was a kid,
there were two things I always wanted. If I imagine like a genie was going to give me something, one of them one of them would be like one of my wishes would obviously be to wish for more wishes. That's so that's out. And then the two other wishes I would have that wouldn't break the genies rules was to learn to not be able to speak every language and understand every language and write every language, and then just to be able to be really good at skateboarding.
I realized you could just teach yourself how to skateboard. I'm still not really good, but I can skateboard. Learning every language not as easy. So I will take that power okay as well, and then maybe just be with Doug Gramsy power. We're just gonna be globetrotting enjoy. Also, you you've get a good point because now you're now you're a jumper and you can speak every language. Yeah, you cause that's imperfect. You can just be living life. I'm going to take the green Lantern power of like
having you know, what does that mean? Like in the super squirrel sense, Like would I need to wear the ring all the time? Would I just have the willpower? But I love the willpower. I think it is also underutilized, even though green Land is one of DC's biggest characters. I feel like everyone always just imagines like a girl or a giant fist. I could be imagining so much stuff,
cool stuff. I just go around, imagine people are house, Imagine myself a mansion, imagine a spaceship, go to space, imagine all my things being moved to my house, and like make a moving van and make like little moving Greenland and will power things to move things. I hate moving, So you really inspired me with that on. So yeah, Greenland and powers, Doug Ramsey powers. I'm still playing a lot of Diablo Force, so I'm just taking those necromancy powers. Hold on.
So the necrovitive powers are very There are a lot of them, which specific Okay, Necroo, would.
You take if I am taking? I want the power where if I kill people as I do on a regular basis, I can just raise them up and make them evil skeleton monsters, like if I'm a super scroll. That seems like it would be a useful power for me. So even though I wouldn't use it in my day to day life, that would be my one offensive power. Poor Doug Ramsey doesn't have very many offensive powers. Why I was often seen as one of the weakest New mumans uh and my last power I was also gonna.
I was also thinking Jean Gray because obviously we're like extreme X Men stands. But you know what it's like, it's so annoying to be a telepath. If you look at the X Men cannon like people are always hearing people's voices. You're hearing too much, stressful stuff.
So this is why I specifically only wanted the telekinesis.
I just want to like stuff.
You just want to I don't want to read minds.
I don't want to read. Are your telekinesis that has a good power? You could also get it from Carrie or Matilda. You got so many telekinetic options.
I don't quite well, I don't want to get it from Carrie, just because I feel like those are a little curse powers.
Matilda she had the powerful telecanesis, but I would probably go for storms powers just because they're really cool I want. And also you could do a lot of good if you can like go around making it right, you goodself crime JS. Why isn't she doing that? Let's think bigger guys.
Well, she lives.
She's like thinking about colonizing the GLEX. You're not even She's like, she's like, I'm dumb my lakehouse on Mars.
She's like, I'm overrat.
Just quickly let me go through Doug Leeman's AMDB getting in I've never seen I don't know nineteen ninety six, Swingers, good movie, nineteen ninety nine, Go really good movie, Sarah movie, outrageously good movie. And I think for my money, one of the most accurate on drug scenes I've ever watched in any movie. Uh. Two thousand and two The Bourne Identity. Already, that's an incredible run. Swingers Go The Bourne Identity two thousand and five. Mister and Missus Smith, I mean we
were just hot. Two thousand and eight Jumper underrated. I understand why it didn't do that well.
Haynen Christiansen.
Maybe not the not the box office.
People definitely got like a cult following now.
But I enjoyed it quite a bit. Fair Game, Uh, you know, not not my favorite. Okay, there's a miss twenty fourteen Edge of Tomorrow. Wow, Stone so classic.
Somehow I'm still underrated even by how much people like it. Somehow it's still it's so good also.
Then, okay, so that run from from ninety six to twenty fourteen is just epic.
That is what I and that's one of my favorite things actually is like I remember this was always an old Twitter, in the old days when Twitter was like a pure place where people would just be like, what are like, what's this cool thing that you can quote tweet with a fact or something. One of them was always like which director has the best like three movie run where it's just like boom boom boom, and there is truly some great ones, So that Doug Leaman one is pretty great.
It's it's very good. Swingers Go the Borne id Any also a collective run, very very eclectic. X Ray Vision will be back.
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And we're back next. Jacob asks, do you think it was a good idea for the MCU to leave so many stingers unresolved in Phase four? Unlike in Phases one to three where they created forward momentum, It feels like none of these Phase four singers have led to anything Yeah, interesting, you know what.
I think? Or Rosie, what do you think?
Yeah, so I think it's about so. I think it's a mixture of two things. I think that the original phases of the MCU were very definitively planned, so it was easier for the stingers to be like, oh, Colson's there with mol near that means we're going to meet thor you know, it was like it was, it was
very simple. I feel like now we're in both the blessing and the curse of being in the weeds of the comic book world, where they're doing something that's a bit more like comic Bookie, which is they're just kind of letting the people who make the movies do a cool stinger that they like the idea of that that opens the door to something. So you're talking about like a stinger with star Fox and Pip the Troll, characters most people have never heard of. But the promises like
cosmic stuff. It promises Adam Warlock, you're talking about that really cool? And now okay, I'm going to talk about then are there eternal Stinger? But like the Stinger where you have you know, Black Knight and the and the Ebony Blade, and you have the voice of Blade, and it's kind of like, is it going to be like an m I three like Supernatural team up story? And I do think that it has weakened the impact the hercules real at the end of thought, I do understand that.
I do think it has weakened the impact for people, not even just casual viewers, even for me, like there were stingers there that made me really excited. And it does feel kind of jarring to not immediately see where they're going or see them come to fruition. But I think it's it's I do think they've been sowing cool seeds. Think about like the shang Chi ten rings. You know it's a beacon. Where did that lead to?
Yeah?
So I understand where Jacob's coming from. But I do feel like with the right person or people in the future, those things will be easy to tie together to feel like they're leading somewhere.
Yeah.
I feel like, you know, the issue is that the tail has to go where the dog goes, and the dog right now doesn't quite know where it's going exactly.
No, I mean that's really fact.
That's really the kind of issue is. You know, there were several There are a lot of structural things happening as you transition to phase four. Many of the legacy stars are moving on, don't want to do it anymore. You have to build up new stars to carry the h to carry the series forward, the universe forward, and you have to do that transition without quite knowing what's going to pop, what's going to resonate. It's the overall story. We don't have the story plus COVID all that other stuff.
So it has been difficult, and I think the knock on effect has been that they don't really have a place where where they're sure they're going. You know, Thanos from moment one was going to be the big bad. They were going to get there somehow.
And that was also like six heroes at the beginning. You know, that's like a very few pople and you link them together. Now you're in a world where there's like hundreds.
Yeah, and and we're only in phase five, although it you know, we are two movies into phase five, and it feels as if we've been treading water. And I think the the Stingers are kind of a symptom of that. I agree your overall the overall issue is that we don't quite have a place we're going in.
We don't know.
Obviously, the Kang stuff is up in the air now too, what is the overarching story? Who is the team that's gonna fight the bad guy? We like, all of this is still up in the air. And it's no surprise then that the Stingers would feel kind of disjoint fluous to that.
Yeah, and yeah, I will be as an armchair person who watches told us. I also do think that some of that comes down to, like the amount of TV shows, because that has kind of spread the storytelling, yeah, kind of of the MCU even wide. And when some stuff so like for example, when Adam Warlock was announced to being got into Galaxy three, I was like, oh, well, that's obviously where you'll see Star Fox and Pip again. You know, those are characters that are all really deeply connected,
but those things aren't coming together as smoothly. And I think that a lot of the storytelling at the moment is quite scattered, which I think is normal for something that exploded in size and popularity and now we need that streamlining event. I will say something I do think me and Jason have been right about that. I do think most of the stingers and storylines that feel un grounded and kind of a drift have been leading to
is this like Battle World's version of the MCU. We had some people in discord recently talking about it again, like where rather than it being multiple different universes that are combined together, which could be quite a hard fix, It's probably going to be these different secret societies and different factions within the MCU that are going to have to kind of fight together in the lead up to as part of SECREWLS. So I think it will come together.
But at the moment, yeah, they don't. They don't know where it's going, and it is not as streamlined and simple as it was with that original you know, ten year plan for the MCU.
Do you have a favorite Phase four singer?
I think my favorite Phase four stinger surprising nobody, I really I do. I love the the Black Knight Blades stinger. I think is great black Night casting. I think they did so I was not. I did not see that one coming, so I know, Wow, that's what I'm saying. I love the Ebony Blade where it's kind of like pulsing and it felt much more horrory than the rest
of the eternals. I love the hint of Blade and this kind of idea that Blades going around like helping people who were connected to the supernatural or warning them, like kind of putting together a team. That to me was the one where at the end I was most excited. Also it was phase five, but I did lose it about the Victor Timely thing only because that is a ridiculous character that I own all appearances because he's in like six things. So it always kind of exciting when
they throw something out there that's really deep cut. But then I think a problem with this era of the MCU is like doing that and then not necessarily delivering on that promise. So we'll see what happens. What about you.
The Ebony Blade is my technical favorite, but my emotional favorite. And this surprised me is it's true. Is Eddie Brock, oh my gosh, no way home, getting transported back to his universe but leaving a little dollop of symbiote like on a napkin.
That one.
I like that one.
That's really also, I will actually say, in a great context, that's a great answer because in the context of Jacob's question arguably the hugest impact that has not been followed up. That was years ago. Now, guys, we literally could have a venom or a symbia or a version of it in the MCU now, and that's how long that's been stewing.
So I agree. I thought that one was really fun, also really hilarious to have that big reveal that he's gonna end up in the MCU, and then he's just not in the fight, he has nothing to do with it, and at the end he's just like chilling in a bar and it's like, you're back, your back.
Baby's so good, so funny.
Josh asks, I will say, Josh asks, but also argues very well for this point. So I'm curious whether either of you believes that Rainie would have been a better option to send to storms End instead of Luke. My initial thoughts on why Raynise would have been a better option, Oh, let the Blacks know that they have an offer out at storms End already, so as stronger and misery than Luke to challenge the Greens offer. Her mother was a Barathian,
so stronger blood connection than Luke allegedly has. Rainice has more experience navigating the realm and interacting with high Lord's no question, no question, Malise is an older and larger dragon compared to Arak. So it seems to be a bad use of Rainie to go to storms End and then patrol the Narrow See rather than going directly to the Narrow Sea. And it seems like they missed an opportunity to play a stronger hand at Storm's End and keep Luke in the fold.
I think, I mean, Josh, you nailed it.
Yeah, I think the issue.
I think the issue is.
This is now twenty twenty hindsight, I understood while it looked it obviously it looks terrible in hindsight considering what happened. But I understand what Raniera was thinking in that here is a less like if you send Rainie and Mallies that is aggressive, yeah, and you know maybe a fight would start. And now the war's here, right, and at this point in time, Raniera is thinking avoid the war, avoid the war? How can we avoid the war? And so sending you know, sending Luke.
I think was.
It was smart in the sense of, you know, he wouldn't be out and out attacked so young.
His dragon is not a threat.
And really that's the way it almost did play out, if not for the fact that the other side just flat out lost control of their dragon, Like they just lost control of the dragons have a mind to their own. It did. It almost worked, and I think you're right, You're obviously right. But at that point in time, you know, Raniero was thinking, how can we avoid war, maybe you know, by sending by sending my son, I'm kind of one signaling I'm looking for peace. And also look how important
this is to me. I'm sending my own blood to carry this message. The issue to me was that they just didn't prepare Luke Yough like he should have had like hard orders. If you see another dragon, you turn around, you come back, then we'll send a raven. We'll deal with it that way. Two, it may come, it may come to the point where there's like a marriage deal
being thrown around. Here is what you are allowed to bargain, you know, like here's here's here are the terms that maybe we could we could kind of like soft handshake on rather than just Luke being like, oh, I don't know, I can't really do that, and I guess I gotta go back and ask my mom, and like just headed over there with like a set of positions already that he can deal with. And then again, number one thing is like have you seen another dragons? Just turn around, fly back?
Yeah, just turn around, fly back.
Like we lost, we lost the race to get there first, and if you lose the race to get their first, turnaround and come back.
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I also think it was like an emotional decision rather than a strategic one, Like it was coming from the heart and this idea of that there was still a way to end this war and men this rift, and Luke was a representation of that. But I think you're right also it was like playing four D chess, but without thinking about any of the absolute wild card parts of that, like the dragons, like teenage boys, like all the kind of horrible things
that ended up going wrong. But yeah, on a strategic level and a hindsight level, I'm sure that Raniera probably thinks every single day that she should have sent Renie.
Yes.
Absolutely.
Next Camilla asks, if you had to choose only one of each, what's the most interesting book or comic you read, TV show, movie you watched last year?
Oh?
Wow, Rosie what do.
You whoh oh man, oh yeah, you know what I'm gonna pick. So I watched this was just a movie that I just really loved and I thought it was so good. And it's an old movie, a really really great old movie called Purple Noon, and it just really impacted like everything else I was thinking about this year that I've watched since. So it's Elaine Delon in his
first major film. He's really really great. Oh well, it's directed by Renee Clement and it's basically like it's an adaptation of the talented mister Ripley, but it's like a French sixties noir movie and it's so good. And the way that they adapt it and make it into a movie about the process of how and why he is so good at stealing people's identities really impacted a lot of the way I was thinking about film and TV
as I watched it this year. Like Secret Invasion, we were talking about how like you never really understand the spycraft or the scrolls, or why they do the things they do, and that's part of the reason why it kind of didn't really work, whereas something like Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning, so much of it is about the spycraft, about the gadgets, about the plans, and that really works. And I was thinking back to Purple Noonla also just like an achingly cool movie where people are kind of
lounging around in the hot Mediterranean sun. It's incredibly homoeroic, just like the American version. Also, very interesting kind of theme throughout this year of things that I've watched has been like realizing that a lot of things that are adapting a source material are really adapting versions that have come before. So like I had this realization with Batman movies. Basically every Batman movie is really just kind of adapting
Batman nineteen eighty nine. They're never really adapting the comics. A lot of them share the same beats, something like The Batman, which I loved, and then rewatching The Dark Knight. The Batman actually has a lot of the same emotional and narrative beats as The Dark Knight. The Dark Knight has a lot of the same emotional narrative beats as nineteen eighty nine. So like kind of realizing a lot of times that when films are made, they're sort of
remaking that other film versions rather than the source material. Itself, and that is very much the case with Purple Noon and the American talented mister Ripley, which is really great and enjoyable, but that movie, so much of it is actually HARKing back to this really gorgeous, funny, weird French film.
And the coolest thing about it is like the movie kind of opens as like a broad ribold comedy before it takes this kind of darker turn, and I feel like that's something that a lot of American movies can't really do. Like the talent of mister Ripley is just this really straight down the line, like scary crime thriller with like these kind of undertones of homo eroticism, which is really great. But Purple Noon is like really expensive at times, it's like a vacation movie. At times, it's
a romance, at times, it's a thriller. At times it edges on the horror and it's but it's kind of funny throughout. So that's definitely interesting and kind of impactful on the way. I was looking at other things that would be mine for the Lost, for the Lost, Yeah, what about you.
I'm gonna pick Gosh for a movie, I'm gonna pick an old movie too, So you know Oppenheimer of courses in theaters. You might have seen Oppenheimer star Cillian Murphy uh inside the Criterion closet late talking about the movie Lahine, which he shared his kids recently. Wow, and I owned
the I own the Blu ray. I remember seeing it at a some at the Indie theater in the late nineties when I worked at the When I worked at movie theaters, we had like a a deal with all the movie theaters in town where you could get a discount to go to like the Art Movie Theater and see various movies. And I saw like Run a Little Run there, I saw Lahyne there. I saw a lot of stuff there. And I remember so Lahyne by Matthew Kassovitz,
who's also an actor. You might have seen him in Munich as the bomb maker nerdy guy and that kind of like Spy Group. He directed a movie Calledahan came out in nineteen ninety five, and it honestly feels like it could have come out yesterday.
Yeah, it's unbelievable.
All the issues that it deals with France is dealing with still to this day. There's same exact issues, the same exact complaints, and it just feels like an incredibly visceral, vital movie. It opens with this wonderful play on you know, the the Travis Bickle taxi driver You're talking to me scene that has this wonderful I don't want to spoil it, but like one of the great like in camera tricks where the guy's looking in the mirror.
Yeah, and and.
You know, I don't I don't want to spoil it because it's just an amazing shot. You know, James Cameron has also stole that for The Terminator, Like it's just like one of these wonderful like in camera tricks, and it's all in black and white, and it's I would describe it as like it's just a it's an unbelievable movies was the nineties in that it has that kind of you know, lost aimless youth, quick cut kind of
energetic style. But it's just fucking great. And again it feels it really feels like it could have come out yesterday.
Well literally, I think the riots that were happening recent most recently in France, they were about the death of a young black man at the hands.
Of the place exactly.
The movie is about the same thing, and also Vincent Cassel is in it, like probably his breakout roll, like
such an unreal movie. This is one of my most This is one of my most rewatched movies, Like when I was kind of like when I was like an angry teen and I was living with like a bunch of friends and stuff like, this was the movie that we felt like it kind of even in like that would have been in the early two thousands, twenty years after the movie, ten years after the movie came out, that felt like it still captured the way we felt about things and that kind of anger and that like
that bubbling like fury of like living in a really unfair system. And yeah, like you said, it's it's I'm not surprised that he bore out because it feels so relevant now just as it could be, like just as it was then. So another one of those things where you're like this is so great, but like nothing's changed.
Yeah, nothing's changed. We have not moved nothing. We've not moved forward even an inch. Everything feels exactly the same. And then for books, I would say Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle seven book is Sneaks up on You.
I don't want to spoil it, but it's kind of through the lens of of different styles of video game narratives, and there's one about two thirds through the book where everything comes together, the plot, the characters, the story that particular little conceit of this like video game lens and it just hits so hard, wonderful, wonderful, very surprising and good book. And then I've talked about it. I think
I've talked about it previously. But probably the most like eye opening, like nonfiction book that I read this year is Chris Miller's Chip War, The Fight for the World's most Critical Technology just about how now I'm going to sound like fucking Kramer on CNBC, but like, but how micro chips are basically oil. That's yeah, the twenty first century oil really really interesting and it puts a lot of the things that are kind of like happening in the news in context.
Good books. Yeah, one of the for me, the book would probably be So there's this author called TJ. Cloone who wrote this book called The House in the Cerulean Sea, and it's basically it's one of my all time favorite books now and that book was like a revelation when I was reading it, kind of like tomorrow, Tomorrow and Tomorrow. It's like, you know what's going to happen, but the way that you get there and the outcome is very different.
It's essentially like what if you crossed Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy with the X Men. So it's like it's about a guy who works in a kind of dystopian future where kids who have powers are put into orphanages, and it's kind of this Douglas Adams esque like very so it's kind of surreal but in your own word, very bureaucratic, very boring life. And his job is to investigate the orphanages and check whether they're taking care of the kids. But he's more of like a box ticker
than anything else. And he gets sent to an orphanage run by a man who's very like controversial and scene as, very outside of the system. And the orphanage is in like a small seaside town and all the kids there are like unbelievably kind of dangerously powerful, and it's this beautiful, like coming of age story, but coming of age in like your fifties, and it's a romance and it's queer and the characterization of like the kids and the powers
are so unbelievable. It's such a wonderful book. And then I've read his other books that he's really since are just equally in that zone of like supernatural, cozy, queer, but just never really read anything else like it, Like it's so good, And every time I recommend it to someone, they'll just text me the whole time they're reading it going like what the fuck? Like this is so good.
So that would definitely be my book. And then my comic one, which I've talked about a lot on the pod, but I do think it kind of changed the game, and I've been happy to see it is. Jamilla Rouser and Robin Smith wrote made a book called wash Day Diaries, which is like a slice of life book about black friends in Brooklyn and their haircare regimes and kind of their life through the lens of that and their friendships and their romance. I feel like it was rightfully very acclaimed.
It's beautiful, it's so sweet, But also I feel like it kind of opened the doors now to be having more slice of life comics, having more romance comics, having more comics that are more in the vein of what manga has been doing for a long time, what indie comics have been doing, but putting it into that publishing market. So if you have still haven't read it, just get a copy because it's like really lovely.
X Ray Vision will be back.
And we're back.
Danielle asks what comics, arc, universe or characters would be best served by an animated adaptation.
Well, this is kind of a cheap, but I feel like almost all of that, I'd like anyone you could think, No, I agree, I feel like that if if you do, feel like the target is a lot bigger with animated, and if you nail it, it's going to be wonderful. And you can do so many things that you know, reported directly from whatever your source material is and can be essentially like they are in the source material without having to do sets or CG or any kind of
big you know, explosive stunts or whatever. And I think most of the honestly, most of them would probably be better served. And the harder version is the live action. No, I think sense the harder to do.
Well, Yeah, I think you're totally right. I think there's a reason why animated adaptations are so beloved and it's because they can adapt something so singularly but also so expansively because it's much simpler. I won't say because the amount of work that goes into these things is immense, but you can your imagination can be a lot bigger when you're doing an animation. I think about that's why people love like Batman, the animated series, That's why they
love X Men ninety two. That's I was just thinking about Spawn. If you've never watched the HBO Spawn series, it's unbelievable. It's like one of the few Western R rated animated shows. It's really scary. It sums up everything that the comics did well. And I love the much
maligned Spawn movie because it's totally fun. But if you put those two next to each other, you can see the difference in what you're able to achieve in animation and what you're able to achieve in the space of like a live action movie, especially in the nineties, when you're like, don't have necessarily the effects or the budget to do what you want to do. If I was going to pick, like, you know what, I just want to see more X Men stuff, and I know that
we're getting X Men ninety seven. But in my head, I just that's where I immediately go is, like I want to see an X Men animated movie that gets a cinema release. I want to see like them adapting really incredible. You know, there was a Star Wars comic called Droids and that was tied to like a cartoon and everything. But like I would love to see like a Pixar Droids movie, Like I want to see right,
you can imagine it immediately. Like I would love to see an Ardman kind of adaptation of something like Super Pets or the you know, the Pet Avengers. Like I think there's so many spaces and I'm hoping with you know, Mario being a billion the first billion dollar movie of the year. I'm sure Turtles is gonna do super well.
I would love to see studios investing, oh obviously Spider Verse, Like I want to see studios investing more into that space because I do think it should be we should be getting the same amount of live action and animation adaptations of these things, especially in comics where illustration and animation are so intertwined.
Yeah, Phil asks love the part. I mean really relatively new comic book reader. I'm looking for recommendations for omnibus reads, a format I enjoy because they can be so thoughtfully constructed. My favorite so far is Grant Morrison's Batman Volume two, Can't Go Wrong. Yeah, I loved how it jumped between Grayson and Damien's story and Bruce Wayne's incredible jury through time. Do you have any recommendations for a well constructed omnibus story, Rosie.
Oh, I mean, this is like such one of the best things about being a comics reader right now, when comics are so popular, when they're inspiring the biggest movies on as is, we are getting so many good collect editions. I have two that I always go to that I think are really easy. I obviously Grant Marson's Batman Iconic, So my two would be, if you liked that, get a new x Men collection. Morrison and Frank Quietly's New
x Men. Such good, weird stuff, and it will grip you from the opening double page spread, which is just absolutely bonkers. It feels almost like an introduction to the X Men, So I think you can read it and never really needed to know a lot about the x Men, though it will color your experience of the x Men going forward. For me, it's the best, most interesting version of Cyclops, but it's totally different than any other version.
So I think the Morrison quietly and many many other artists X Men run is a really really great read that is just such a joy. Also, they now have a very affordable, very enjoyable Young Avengers collection, the McKelvey and Gillan and Matt Wilson Young Avengers, And I think that is like one of the most readable singular stories that you can really feel like you've just read a graphic novel, you've read an omnibus where the whole thing
fits together and you get such a satisfying read. So those are my two that if I'm in the comic shop and I hear people saying like I don't really know what I should read, I always pull those two out if they're around and kind of goho you are. This one's good.
I will add on to that. I'll say that Uncanny X Men Omnibus Volume one, which is basically the giant size X Men, the Chris Claremont era, isn't I mean you go right directly to the to the vein with that one, Like it's just fucking great. It's great from beginning to end. You don't get all the way through the Phoenix saga with that one, but it will certainly we wet your appetite and it's just like mind blowing storytelling. David es Squier was with us last week talking about it.
I would say, for something, you know one that I don't know if it's underrated, but to me, Annihilation and Annihilation Conquest, there's an omnibus for each event are two of like the best crossover events that Marvel's done in like the last twenty years. Huge steaks, entire galaxies getting destroyed, like war throughout the Galaxy, just really really fun formation of the of the modern Guardians of the Galaxy team happens there and it's just a swashbuckling space adventure par excellence.
And then you know what, the Invincible Omnibus.
Oh my gosh, it.
Omnibus is fucking great.
Now.
It's like massive, it's.
A ton It's massive and really good. Now, be warned if you are new to Invincible and you're really into the show, the story that's in the show is basically done by like one fifth through the Eyes.
You will spoil yourself.
You will spoil yourself for the future if you pick it up. But it's fantastic. It's fantastic.
I'm gonna so the last two. I'll say one is one hundred percent, like, go to your comic shop by it because it's one of the best collections. They just reprinted it. And I will also say the Hawkeye, the Matt fraction David a half. That's it's a beautiful looking trade. You're gonna be really happy with that when you read it. They did a new version of it. Reach it's great. I will say, as an out there one, just because it is one of the greatest collected omnibus formats of
all time. Try Akira. Look, it's totally out in it. You're noon the comics. I get it. It's like a really intense thing. But those those phone book style Akira omnibuses are so enjoyable to read. Yeah, there you are, Jason's got you can get them. They are like they were a staple of our childhood. They're so beautiful, that art is unbelievable. They're black and white. You can buy the hardcover ones Dark Horse Died, or you can walk into any comic shop and probably bookshop and just pick
up the first one. It's worth a try. It's really dense, it's really crazy, but the art is beautiful and it was It really feels like it was just made to be read in these formats. So there's a few that you can pick up. Let us know what you think about them. So Sergio asks, and I think it's a great question, because I think a lot of people are
kind of thinking along these lines. For the past two years, I've been writing a TV show in my free time, and even though the chances of it ever seeing the light of dare slim to none, I never stopped doing it because something I truly enjoy. Now I've checked the guidelines on the WGA website and I think I'm in the clear since I'm not part of the guild or currently trying to pitch to any studios, which he mentions
he wouldn't even know where to start. But I wanted to know if it will be frowned upon if in the future people pitch stuff that they wrote on their own spare time during the strike. He says, he just wants to be sure, and he thought we were the best people to ask.
So what do you think I would say? Uh, well, how I guess the question would be like, how are you pitching, you submitting, or you like sending in a script. I would just wait until the action is over, just to be safe. Now Animated is a different union that isn't necessarily covered by WGA guidelines, but I would say just to be safe.
Just wait, just wait, because then you're in Souldari. Also, I think Sergio has a fear here that like, because he wrote it during the strike, would that mean it was ineligible or some way scabbing? But no, that's like you're a personal project that you're writing. We all have comic books or pilots that we work on in our own spare time. This is about not giving the studios who are struck content in the place of the stuff
that is being held from them. So as long as you're not pitching or anything until the action is over. If you're writing something your TV show, you finished writing it during the strike. If you wait until the action is over and pitch it, it doesn't matter when you wrote it.
I would also say, yes, that's right. I would also say for other you know, listen, I'm a very new TV writer as well, Like I hesitate to give advice, but I would say you know, one of the things that I've found most useful is one thing about your script. First as a way to show people like I understand character, I understand story, and secondarily and only like a very very lagging second of being like, this is a thing I can sell, because really the best way in is
to show folks you can write. Start writing other shows, other people's projects, get a job writing, and then when the opportunity to arise is try and pitch the dream project. And then I would say, like as a third thing, it's really is, of course, really hard to break in. If there's a TV like wherever the Portuguese television market, wherever that's located, wherever the center of the industry is like in your country, try and go there and meet people.
I think one of the things in this era, the era of the internet, that can you feel like you're connecting with people because you meet them online and they reach or stuff and maybe they put you know, will point to something you rote, and you you're creating this network of people. But like, nothing really beats meeting someone in person, showing that you exist in the in the meat space, like you're a real person in the world.
There's just it's just a difference, and some a certain kind of alchemy happens from that because you just it. It's hard to really feel like a person exists unless you meet them in person. And once you meet them in person, a huge part of breaking into any kind of creative community is are you like do people perceive you as like a good hang?
Are you a person?
Talent often is like again a secondary priority. It's like, can I spend eight hours a day in a room with this person? You cannot want to kill him.
Vibes?
Yeah, And and that can only be transmitted in person. So if you can spend time wherever the center of the Portuguese television industry is, for like a week or a couple of weeks, if you can figure out a way to do that, try and do that, Try and do that, and try and meet people.
I say that's absolutely true also because those opportunities are afforded to people who are in those spaces a lot of times. And like I never thought I would be a full time writer, let alone a podcast host, let alone. Just before the strikes began, in a few months before, I'd been approached because I lived in LA because I was known by other people about pitching for an animated show. So I got to script my own. I got to submit my script to the WGA to have it, you know,
kind of have them know that it existed. And obviously then the strikes happened, so I didn't know what happened with it. But that wouldn't have been something I could do if I wasn't in La. Yeah, you know the fact that you're here and you have those opportunities being close and in proximity and sort of meeting people and being like, hey, this is what I'm into, this is what I do. That's a really good way. So I love that because I've been thinking about it a lot recently.
It's it's really really important, and I understand that it's also like not easy to listen. I dropped five figures to move to Laws with my own money and like, yeah, crashed my savings.
But it was the right thing to do because.
You just need to People need to see your face and catch your vibe and understand what you're like, know that you're around, and then the thing that will happen is, oh I know that guy assert you.
Oh yeah, I know him. He gave me one of his things. I wonder if he's any good. He's like a good hang and stuff.
Will strive to come from that. It won't feel like anything's happening for a while, but that's part of putting in the work. You're doing the important part the writing to get it out there. You've got to get yourself out there. So try and do that if you can.
Yeah.
Up next not out Cool.
In today's nerd out, where you tell us what you love them why, a theory you're excited to share, or a quick question we can answer. Corey has another comic book question very appropriate for today. Hey, Jeson and Rosie, you have all really inspired me to start reading comics and graphic novels. I just read Vifa Fender and I loved it. I also really enjoy companion style pods that
discuss the media I'm consuming. Do you have any recommendations or chit tips for finding people talking about classic comic book runs?
Wow, Rosie, do you know of anything?
So I would say, you know, Jay and Miles explain the x Men if you've been reading any x Men. That's a real classic one that people love most. I have a lot of x cerebrodcast that's another space where you're going to hear people one of the ones that I love. Now it will all be all Marvel, but it was recently announced it's coming to an end. Me and Jason have actually both been guests on it. But Marvel's pull List is really great because it's incredibly eclectic.
Each episode is somebody different talking about a different Marvel run. So if you're reading something and you go on poll List, you can just search the episodes and see if somebody's spoken about it. So I think that's a really good space. Even though you'll only get an episode about each one, those podcasts are out there and there's a lot of fun stuff. Jason, how about you.
I Serebercast as well. I listened to quite regularly. It's less, it's more current, and there's more reference.
You know.
There's like a lot of references through the very particular voice of that podcast about storylines and arcs from the past, but it's mostly about like what is what is currently happening again? And they'll have guests on talking about like their favorite character, you know what, like fat Man and Beyond Believe It or Not, like has had some the Kevin Smith Pott has had some good moment, it's Jane
Miles explaining the X Men. Yes, y, Yeah, definitely one of the leaders in terms of what you're asking for. I think is the most on the nose version of the thing that you're asking for. And then like if you want to uh, the pullist is great as a way to kind of get into Marvel centric now just like classic runs. Yeah, people's your your favorite, person's favorite. The only thing is it's it is obviously quite blinkered because it's just gonna be Marvel stuff.
Yeah, thanks Corey. If you have theories, passions or quick questions you want to share, hit us up at x ray at quicker dot com. Instructions are in the show notes.
That's it for us. Rosie and he plugs keep.
Supporting the strikes. Has been really cool to see everyone coming together and doing it. It's very hot out there, so see if there's any way you can support people on the picket lines. For me personally, I have a book that I contributed to that's coming out called Screen Traveler's Guide. It's a super cool like place where you can find all the information about where your favorite movies were filmed, and that's really cool. The production design on
the book is beautiful. That's coming out from DK, which is somewhere I always wanted to write. So I'm stoked about that and you can pre order that now.
Catch the next episode Wednesday, August ninth for tmn T Mutant Mayhem Te Turtles are Back.
They're back, baby, and you can watch four episodes of the podcast on YouTube. Also check out Twitter at XRV pod and our discord to hang out with lots of cool fans.
Five star ratings, five star reviews we need and we got to have them.
You gotta give them to us.
Here's one from tinker Bell three, my go to for so so much. You're both amazing and I love all your coverage of my top faves. The Batman commentary is perfection. I can't wait for your Lord of the Ring podcast, and I love the new.
Things you introduced me too.
Thank you, tinker.
Bell, thank you so much. Xtra Vision is a Crooked Media production.
The show is produced by Chris Lord and Solrubin and executive produced by me Jason Concepcion. Our editing at sound design is by Fiscillisftopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and Rachel Gaieski social Media by Awa Oklatti and Caroline Dunfie. Thank you to Brian Basquez for our theme music.
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