0:00

Hey guys, this is Kenan Thompson. I

0:02

have a problem with you. Yes, you.

0:04

None of y'all told me that AutoTrader

0:06

has millions of new and used cars

0:08

that I can shop from home. I thought

0:11

we were friends. I put smiles on your

0:13

face, but I'm not smiling. No

0:15

one told me that with AutoTrader, a dealer

0:17

can deliver cars to my home or

0:19

that I could shop by price on AutoTrader.

0:22

No one.

0:22

Consider this friendship that you just learned

0:25

we had officially over.

0:27

Finally, it's easy. AutoTrader.

0:31

Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

0:33

up and bagelize. Get your taste buds

0:36

ready for McDonald's breakfast bagel sandwiches. Now

0:38

just $3 only on the app. Choose

0:40

from a delicious steak, egg, and cheese bagel, bacon,

0:42

egg, and cheese bagel, or sausage, egg, and cheese

0:44

bagel. Just $3 when you order ahead

0:46

on the app. Hurry and seize this breakfast

0:49

steal before it's gone. Offer valid 7-17-2023 through

0:51

8-13-2023 at participating McDonald's. Valid

0:56

one time per day or per person or any other

0:58

limitation. Must opt into rewards.

1:10

Hello, Marvelites. You're listening

1:12

to This Week in Marvel, episode number 615. I'm Ryan Penagos,

1:15

aka Agent M.

1:16

And I am Angelique Rochette.

1:19

What up, Ryan Penagos? What up? It's

1:24

not deathly hot in August

1:26

here in New York City, and I'm okay

1:28

with that. All right. Rub it in. Yeah.

1:31

Anyway, this is the official Marvel

1:33

podcast where you get to talk about all of

1:35

the things happening this week in Marvel.

1:38

That's right. We are here to talk games,

1:40

comics, books, toys, movies,

1:43

TV, or honestly, whatever we're excited

1:45

about and whatever you're excited

1:47

about

1:48

this week happening in Marvel.

1:51

And, Ryan Penagos, yet

1:53

once again, we have a gift for

1:55

the listeners. Yeah. Marvel Insider

1:57

Code later on in the episode. You go there.

2:00

You get your points. We have a lot of stuff. We

2:02

have a great guest this week. We're talking

2:04

to Erika Schultz about her work on

2:06

Hollow's Eve, the upcoming

2:09

What If Dark Moon Knight comic

2:11

that's coming out, and the upcoming Daredevil Gang

2:13

War limited series that she's doing.

2:16

You're going to hear from her in a bit. Oh, I

2:18

can't wait. It was such a good conversation.

2:20

And I'm really excited about Daredevil

2:23

Gang War and where this is

2:25

going.

2:25

And it's just, oh,

2:27

it's going to be so good. On top

2:29

of that, we've got some big

2:31

news coming up before we get to the interview. And

2:34

we're kicking it off this week. Some

2:36

big, big, big congratulations and news

2:39

for Marvel Studios. Ms. Marvel,

2:41

they won a TCA award for Outstanding

2:44

Achievement in Family Programming. And

2:46

honestly, yes.

2:48

All the feels. Love

2:51

the show so, so, so, so much. If

2:53

you're following our socials or checking out

2:55

marvel.com, I'm sure you saw that. And

2:58

for those who don't know, like, earlier this week, the

3:00

Television Critics Association, the

3:03

TCA, announced that Marvel Studios, Ms.

3:05

Marvel, won the TCA award for 2023 for

3:07

Outstanding Achievement in Family Programming, which

3:09

means a lot. And I think, you know, it

3:12

says a lot about how

3:14

much people love this show, right? For

3:16

those who watched it, you know,

3:19

but for folks who need to go watch

3:21

it, season one of the series introduces

3:23

Kamala Khan to the MCU and gives

3:25

an incredible look at her life, her

3:27

family, her backstory, as she tries to navigate

3:30

school life and her newfound superpowers,

3:32

because

3:33

what else would a teenage superhero be

3:35

doing all along in

3:37

Jersey City and some other places around the world

3:40

also? If you haven't had a chance

3:42

to see the series, all episodes available

3:44

streaming now on Disney+. You

3:47

can go, like, see it, like, right now, after you listen

3:49

to the show, obviously. And if you're looking

3:51

for more Ms. Marvel, check out Kamala

3:53

alongside her idol, the one, the

3:55

only, Carol Danvers, aka Captain

3:57

Marvel, and...

4:00

My girl, Monica Rambeau. In

4:03

Marvel Studios, the Marvels coming

4:05

to theaters November 11th, just in time

4:07

for my birthday. Let's talk about the

4:09

new season of Marvel Snap, which is called

4:11

Big in Japan. You

4:13

can go to marvel.com, see the article, you look

4:16

in the game to see all the details. There is

4:18

a

4:19

wild video that

4:21

the team from Marvel Snap put together for

4:24

this season. It's got old

4:26

school kaiju

4:29

movie vibes in it. I

4:30

was like, am I watching a trailer for a

4:33

movie right now? Bonkers. Very

4:35

ridiculous. A lot of fun. But let's get into

4:37

it, because the new season character

4:39

is Dokken. There's

4:42

going to be a whole bunch of characters in here. There's

4:44

a whole bunch of stuff in there. The

4:47

season pass card that you get every

4:49

season that starts up has

4:52

one card that you get. And then

4:54

there are new cards released. The card that everybody gets

4:56

who takes the season pass is

4:59

Daken.

5:00

Is Dokken. I've always said Dokken, but they say Daken

5:02

in the video. And I was like. I always said

5:04

Dokken. Yeah, me too. Rocking

5:06

like Dokken. But let's get into the Dokken

5:09

card. It's a three cost,

5:11

four power card. But on reveal,

5:14

he adds the Muramasa shards

5:17

to his hand. Muramasa is the mythical blade.

5:19

It could basically kill Wolverine, or

5:21

folks like Wolverine. Do

5:23

some nasty stuff. Dokken had taken some

5:26

shards, put them on his claws. Big nasty

5:28

boy. But he

5:30

does the on reveal, gets the shard in his hand.

5:33

When that shard card is

5:35

discarded or destroyed, it

5:37

doubles Dokken's power. So he

5:39

goes from four to eight. And in

5:41

the video, they show like, oh, you could use Moon

5:43

Girl. You could do this. And

5:45

just sort of like turn Dokken into this

5:47

crazy powerhouse, which is really, really cool. On

5:49

top of that, we've got a bunch of new cards that will be releasing

5:52

throughout the season. X-23, finally. She's

5:55

coming in there. Yeah, baby. One

5:57

cost, two power. When X-23.

5:59

23 card is discarded or destroyed,

6:02

it regenerates at a random location and you

6:04

get plus one energy next

6:06

turn. So it's kind of like the

6:09

Wolverine card but not. It's a little bit different

6:11

so that's pretty cool. Then Silver Samurai, 4

6:14

cost 5 power, on reveal

6:16

each player discards the lowest power card

6:18

from their hand. So you could have Silver

6:21

Samurai

6:22

but maybe you're also playing one of those

6:24

Mira Masashards, you start doing

6:27

all kinds of fun stuff. And then finally the

6:29

last new card of the season is Lady Deathstrike, 5

6:32

cost 3 power, on

6:35

reveal destroy each card

6:38

here with less power than this.

6:40

So if you just got like

6:42

some stuff in there on whatever

6:44

you know location

6:47

you're at, go slice

6:49

them up some stuff. So that's pretty cool.

6:51

Also new locations coming this week,

6:54

two of them here, first one is Yoshida Base

6:56

which at the end of the game destroyed the last

6:59

card to get here which is a really

7:01

interesting strategic move. There's

7:04

different ways that that could work out so I'm excited

7:06

to see that one. The next one is going to be the wild

7:08

one. Valley of the Hand, after

7:11

turn 5 your destroyed cards

7:14

revive here. So you could end

7:16

up destroying a bunch of cards

7:19

and leave that empty and then at the end

7:22

you've just added a whole bunch of cards to that location.

7:25

That one's going to be interesting.

7:27

There's also coming

7:29

this season 40 new variants including mech variants,

7:31

artist variants like Dan

7:34

Hip, Scotty Young I saw in there and

7:36

many more. There's a Stegron

7:38

Kaiju variant coming and

7:41

tons more.

7:42

And then they did put a

7:44

note in there that this year there's

7:47

kind of like I guess now the biggest video

7:50

game conference in the world is Gamescom

7:52

that happens every year in Cologne, Italy.

7:55

Marvel Snap is going to be there, they're going to have some cool stuff

7:57

in store, they want you to go buy and say

7:59

Hi, if we are anybody who's going to a Gamescom,

8:03

go tell them we sent you. Let's get down to business.

8:06

I am excited because my

8:09

girl, Monica

8:11

Rambo, AKA

8:14

superhero, so many names, and

8:17

Vox are going to be hitting Marvel

8:20

Contest of Champions. That's right. She's

8:22

finally coming. We've been talking about this

8:25

as suggestions for years, but Monica Rambo

8:28

is coming to Contest of Champions and I could

8:31

not be more stoked. She's

8:33

an awesome character. I'm happy to see her get more

8:35

shine and I'm happy for folks to know a lot

8:37

more of her. Also, for

8:40

those who aren't Monica stands,

8:43

how dare you? The Vox, they

8:45

are superhuman, super inhumans

8:48

built by the Krede Sin, one message

8:50

to the inhumans of Earth. Join

8:54

or die. Each

8:56

fox is reconstructed out of a brainwash

8:59

in human and possesses a deadly collection

9:02

of their combined abilities.

9:04

Yeah, good stuff. Spider-Man

9:06

Reign 2 is coming and it's teased

9:08

in Amazing Spider-Man number 31, which we're

9:11

going to talk about in a few minutes.

9:13

Pick up Amazing Spider-Man number 31 today for

9:15

a preview of Kari Andrews Spider-Man Reign 2

9:17

coming in 2024.

9:19

It has got gnarliest kingpin

9:22

you're ever going to see. Oh, I

9:25

love me kingpin. Yeah, he's a big

9:27

boy. All right. Spider-Woman

9:30

is ongoing. Yeah,

9:32

this is super cool. We announced that we're

9:35

getting a brand new Spider-Woman series coming

9:37

this this year. That was

9:39

announced at Comic Con. It's going to be written by Steve

9:42

Fox. Wonderful. And then

9:44

with art by Carola Borelli, which

9:47

is very cool. Going to be awesome. This

9:49

week, it was revealed that

9:52

it's going to be an ongoing. So not just

9:55

limited series. Bing, bing, boom. It's

9:57

very, very cool. More Jessica Drew, more Jessica

9:59

Drew. More Jessica Drew and also

10:02

an amazing spider-man number 31 out this week We

10:04

get a little tease of where that

10:06

series is going and it is. Ooh It's

10:09

an intense one. I had heard

10:11

about what's going on and I was like Y'all

10:15

are monsters Yeah,

10:18

I mean speaking of intense because I feel like

10:20

that's just where we're going For

10:22

the rest of the year in Marvel Comics into 2024

10:24

is intense and dark um

10:29

We got some news on some Matt Murdock

10:31

back in black and Daredevil black

10:34

armor Yeah,

10:36

yeah, I'm ready. Yeah, DG Chai Chester

10:39

longtime Comics writer had written

10:42

a ton of really great Daredevil

10:44

stuff which now is finally starting

10:47

if not fully in Marvel Unlimited. There was a long

10:49

time where That that run

10:52

that DG Chai Chester wrote

10:54

wasn't in there for whatever reason So now I think we've

10:56

been pulling those in so

10:58

it's written by DG and drawn

11:01

by nether Diaz and JP Meyer it's

11:03

a four-issue limited series and it's it's

11:05

like throwback to taking place during

11:08

the That original run

11:10

that DG Chai Chester did so

11:13

pretty cool But like

11:15

the the thing here is he's back in

11:17

that black armor I was a sucker

11:20

for that armor as a kid. I was like give

11:22

me more of that. He looks so cool Yeah,

11:26

there was the like the fall from grace storyline

11:28

in particular of that era was really

11:31

cool

11:33

Ooh Angelique the century returns

11:36

this December the centuries back and all new

11:38

limited series by writer Jason Lowe

11:40

who we love and artist Luigi Zagaria

11:43

who has done some great work on Midnight Suns

11:46

and this one is is different because Bob Reynolds

11:49

He gone. He did wait. Do

11:51

you were you about to say killed in action? I

11:53

love the fact that you were like About

11:56

to like put an acronym out there. Yeah,

11:58

he he he he

11:59

He dead did. Well, he's

12:02

comic book dead. So who knows? True.

12:05

Facts. But the truth is right now, he dead.

12:07

And so who will be the new century? Ordinary

12:10

people all over the world suddenly manifesting

12:12

his powers and experiencing snippets of Bob

12:14

Reynolds memories. But not everyone

12:16

can be trusted with such responsibility. There's

12:19

going to be violence and conflicts and all

12:21

this to control the century's legacy and powers

12:24

and weee.

12:26

Weee. Again, that's

12:28

disambar. Is

12:30

that not? That's a thank you Scrooge McDuck.

12:33

I appreciate you for putting that out there. So

12:36

besides that,

12:38

Good Sir, Lunella Lafayette,

12:42

she back. Moon Girl and Devil

12:44

Dinosaur, Wreck and Roll, written by

12:46

Stephanie Williams, illustrated by Asia

12:48

Simone. It's gonna

12:50

be so much fun. It's gonna be on

12:53

sale this April. Yo,

12:55

it is an all new original

12:58

graphic novel starring Marvel's

13:00

most brilliant, the Lunella,

13:03

the most brilliant Moon Girl,

13:05

aka Lunella Lafayette

13:08

and her pet dinosaur. I

13:10

always think of them more as partners

13:13

than a pet dinosaur. I

13:16

feel like Lunella would be like, no, no,

13:19

no, we're like 50-50. We're equal in this. We're

13:21

brains and bront.

13:22

Like, it just makes sense

13:24

to me. But I'm really excited

13:26

because I really love the Moon

13:28

Girl animated series.

13:31

It's been on Disney

13:34

and following that debut, Lunella,

13:37

again, the smartest person

13:40

in the Marvel universe, fight

13:43

me, gets her own

13:45

original graphic novel. Obviously,

13:48

she's gonna be skating it up. It's

13:50

gonna be up to Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur

13:53

to take to the streets and put a stop to their

13:55

crime spree while making sure

13:57

to bust a few sweet moves

13:59

along the way.

13:59

the way because Stephanie Williams would

14:02

have it no other way. All

14:04

of this is set on the backdrop of New York

14:08

in the lower east side. I'm so

14:10

excited because I know it's gonna be funny.

14:12

I know it's gonna be gorgeous.

14:16

And you know they say it's for kids but you know

14:20

and this

14:22

is mean I'm not gonna read it. That's right. It's

14:25

interesting because it's the first original

14:27

graphic novel tied to the

14:30

Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur TV series.

14:32

It's not an adaptation. It's original. It's

14:35

very cool. I like it. Support

14:37

that show. There are 90 pages

14:39

of comics in this issue

14:41

this week. It's got a giant

14:44

main story with a wedding that

14:47

I was thinking about this. The wedding surprise

14:50

doesn't go super perfect.

14:53

What wedding in the Marvel universe has

14:55

ever gone super perfect? Exactly.

14:58

Wedding is just code for everything's

15:00

going to explode. Yeah.

15:03

Love is hard, Ryan. Love is hard.

15:06

But this one is this one is it's a really great

15:08

one. Beautiful art by

15:10

John Maynard Jr. and main story by Zeb Wells.

15:13

And that in and of itself is

15:15

that's like 40 pages of story

15:17

give or take right. Then

15:20

you go into a whole

15:23

bunch of things because it's Amazing Spider-Man number 31 but it's

15:25

also legacy numbering 925

15:30

and they wanted to blow it out and do a big thing.

15:32

So there's another like 40 odd 50

15:34

pages of story little snippets

15:36

here and there.

15:38

So then we get Spider-Man

15:40

and Ms. Marvel

15:42

talking post her resurrection

15:44

post her joining the X-Men in a story by

15:46

Zeb Wells and my dear friend

15:48

David Lopez. And it is so

15:50

good. It's like revelatory. It

15:52

is sweet. It is sad. It is like Kamala

15:55

getting

15:56

more information about what happened to her

15:59

why things do and like.

15:59

Like her yelling at Spidey, her freaking

16:02

out, her being like an awesome superhero.

16:05

That's a good bridge into the Ms.

16:07

Marvel, the new mutant story. Then there's a little

16:10

short about Doc Ock

16:12

hanging out in the bar with no name. And

16:14

that

16:15

leads us into the new superior Spider-Man

16:18

stuff. So it's a little prelude

16:20

to all that business.

16:21

Then we've got

16:23

a story in here, which really

16:26

lets Mary Jane lean into

16:29

her new superhero identity of Jackpot, but

16:31

it's also so excruciatingly

16:34

sad in some ways. Yeah.

16:37

And it's got Black Cat in it, but it leads

16:39

us into what's going on with Mary Jane

16:41

and the current comics and what's going on with her.

16:45

Then

16:45

we get into the Spider-Woman story that's also

16:48

set in the bar with no name. Everybody,

16:51

I feel like the bar with no name is finally getting its

16:53

due. That leads us into the Spider-Woman

16:55

number one series we've been talking about. Then

16:58

we get another story written by Dan Slott with

17:00

art by Paco Medina, which

17:03

leads us into the Spider-Boy series.

17:06

And then we've got

17:08

a really fun story about basically

17:11

a civilian dude who

17:14

just likes to be saved by

17:16

superheroes. Like that's his kink. And

17:20

it's called The Case of Perry Thomas, a Spidey

17:22

Situation written and drawn by Albert Montes.

17:25

And it was so fun.

17:26

And then Angelique,

17:29

we get a Spider-Man two pager

17:31

with Spider-Man and a goose. Did you love that story?

17:34

I was about to say, I love

17:36

everything about this book and your description

17:39

has been amazing, but I have been

17:41

waiting for you to get to

17:44

the point where you say Spider-Man,

17:48

Lucy Goosey. I know. Because

17:52

it is perfect in

17:54

its simplicity. Yeah. And

17:57

then we get a... a

18:00

story by Zeb and Patrick Gleason,

18:02

which features Queen Goblin and

18:05

Craven the Hunter. And they're having

18:08

a party all night long,

18:10

to say the least.

18:11

And then to wrap up

18:13

this giant issue

18:15

in Amazing Spider-Man number 31, there is

18:17

a little preview, sort

18:21

of prelude for Spider-Man

18:23

Reign 2 by Kari Andrews.

18:26

And- Little? Yeah.

18:30

The kingpin in here is... Ugh.

18:33

Yu-ja. I

18:36

know. I know. Yu-ja.

18:40

That's why I was like, little? Are you sure? Yeah.

18:43

I don't- I can't wait for this. Can't wait for

18:45

this. That was all in one comic book.

18:47

But we gotta get two more picks, Children of the Vault

18:50

number one, which is- Yes. Like,

18:52

I was reading this, I was like, I can't wait for Angelique

18:54

to read this, because it's-

18:55

It's just chaos, man. And that's what I

18:58

love about Children of the Vault, is because like, you

19:00

just always knew it was gonna be chaos. Yeah.

19:03

But it's a cable and bishop team-up book,

19:06

and they hate each other. To me, it's

19:08

like, a little bit like Tango and Cash,

19:11

one of my favorite 80s movies. It's

19:14

so good that like, they have to work together to deal

19:17

with like, this big problem. It's a blast,

19:19

it's part of the fall of X. The Children of the

19:21

Vault are basically

19:23

very evolved beings and

19:26

they have wanted to destroy mutants

19:29

and humanity, and now they've got a new agenda, they're out of

19:31

the vault, because of all the things that have been going

19:33

on with mutants and chaos ensues. And

19:35

then Cable and Bishop are like,

19:37

two of the few mutants out and about doing

19:39

stuff, and you follow their path. That's rad.

19:43

Third of the three picks of the week, Ghost Rider Wolverine, Weapons

19:45

of Vengeance Alpha, number one, it is a dirty,

19:48

nasty horror book. It's a

19:50

team-up, a crossover, a

19:53

little bit of business between Ghost Rider, Johnny

19:55

Blaze and Wolverine Logan, and

19:58

it has got a little kid who turned out to be

19:59

a people into spires of

20:02

meat and it is awful and

20:04

gross. Yeah, it sounds

20:07

right up your alley and Miss

20:10

Minute variants that are popping

20:12

up this week. So

20:16

check those out, they're all actually quite adorable

20:18

even on the most monstrous of stories.

20:22

Those are the comics this week. Don't go anywhere, we'll

20:24

be right back with

20:26

Erica Schultz, which is coming up.

20:36

Hey Lovebirds, it's

20:38

your girl, Punky Johnson, and I'm here with my BFF

20:41

and co-hosts, Dicy, to spice up your love

20:43

life. On Love Thing, my new advice

20:45

podcast on Kevin Hart's LOL Radio. I'll

20:48

answer your wildest questions about sex,

20:50

love, and everything in between, and you're gonna learn

20:52

a lot about me and my relationship. I

20:54

think six months in a relationship is too early

20:56

to know about erectile dysfunction. I'm hiding it.

20:59

I'm giving y'all some highly unqualified

21:01

advice. So if you wanna join in on

21:03

all the fun, come and get dirty with us on

21:05

Love Thing. Listen and follow the show on

21:07

SiriusXM, Pandora, Stitcher,

21:10

or wherever you get your podcasts to listen later.

21:15

Just in and so good.

21:18

Thousands of fall deals at your Nordstrom Rack

21:20

store, starting at only $30. Score

21:23

denim, boots, sweaters, handbags,

21:25

plus updates for the family and home.

21:27

Check out new arrivals from Ragenbone,

21:30

Joe's, Doc Martin, Cole Hahn, Travis

21:32

Matthew, and more at Nordstrom Rack. But

21:34

hurry, rack your look for fall with great

21:37

brands and great prices today. Get

21:39

first dibs on the season's best from just $30

21:42

at your

21:42

Nordstrom Rack store. What will you find?

21:46

Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

21:48

up and bagelize. Get your taste buds

21:50

ready for McDonald's breakfast bagel sandwiches, now

21:53

just $3, only on the app. Choose

21:55

from a delicious steak, egg, and cheese bagel, bacon,

21:57

egg, and cheese bagel, or sausage, egg, and cheese bagel.

22:00

Just $3 when you order ahead on the app. Hurry

22:02

and seize this breakfast steal before it's gone.

22:05

Offer valid 717-2023 through 813-2023 at

22:09

participating McDonald's. Valid one time

22:11

per day or per person or any other limitation.

22:14

Must opt into rewards.

22:18

Hey, y'all. Of

22:21

course, you are listening to This Week in Marvel. I'm Ryan

22:23

Penagos. I'm Angelique. And see, we

22:25

came back. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

22:27

We are here. We are joined very

22:30

shortly by Erica Schultz, writer of

22:32

tons of great comics. We're

22:35

going to talk to Erica about

22:38

a bunch of them, especially and including

22:40

the upcoming

22:41

What If Dark Moon Night

22:44

book, where she gets to create a new character

22:46

and play with some fun stuff. But

22:49

yeah, it's a good chat. Let's do it.

22:54

I'm literally so excited because

22:56

we have Erica Schultz on the show today. Hi,

22:58

Erica. Thank you. Hi. I'm

23:01

like nervous and excited and bouncing

23:03

up and down.

23:04

Yeah, we love that. Nervous energy bouncing,

23:06

bouncing, bouncing. We got a lot of stuff to talk about.

23:08

You've been doing some really fun comics for us, but we got to start

23:11

with the eternal question. What is your Marvel

23:13

origin story? How did you first become connected

23:16

to, associated with a fan of just

23:19

exposed to Marvel characters?

23:21

It would probably be

23:23

from my older brother. So he

23:26

used to get pretty much X-Men and Spider-Man

23:28

in the mid to late 80s, 90s. So,

23:32

you know, Claremont Byrne, Austin Lee, and

23:36

you know, definitely Michelini and McFarlane

23:39

on Spidey.

23:40

And I just did what any self-respecting

23:43

younger sister would do, which is breaking his room and stealing

23:45

stuff. That's the rule of little sisters.

23:48

I have to give, and it's not, it doesn't matter if

23:50

there is a brother or a sister

23:53

that you have that is older than you. Your

23:55

job is to want to be

23:57

like your older sibling. And so they're... you

24:01

have to do recon and

24:04

research, which requires

24:06

you to go. Exactly. And still

24:08

said comics. Absolutely. Absolutely.

24:12

You have this like huge,

24:14

even outside of Marvel, like big

24:17

swath of work that you have done. I'm a

24:20

workaholic. That's what

24:22

it basically comes down to.

24:25

I mean, and you're good at what you do. Thank

24:27

you. And so

24:29

for you, there's always a step where

24:31

it goes from I'm a fan. I love comics.

24:34

I love Marvel. I love telling these

24:36

stories

24:37

to my friends and then

24:39

suddenly, oh, this is what I do

24:41

for a living. And

24:43

you've kind of been all over the industry since, you know,

24:46

the 2010s, but for you,

24:48

like, how did you get into this work?

24:51

Like, what made you say I can make

24:53

a living? Oh,

24:57

well, I started working at a studio at the

24:59

end of 2008 and they were doing

25:03

the Astonishing X-Men motion comic gifted.

25:06

And I had been previously an art

25:08

director at an ad agency and I

25:10

had known the studio, it was continuity studios.

25:13

And I had known them because

25:16

they were a vendor of our

25:19

of our agency. So when I got laid off

25:22

and I was looking for work, they said,

25:24

you know, we're we have this huge project. We

25:27

need people who can do digital art, can do

25:29

animation. So let's bring you on.

25:32

So I started doing the Astonishing

25:35

X-Men motion comic.

25:37

And that was like my first Marvel work,

25:40

but it was through the studio. So it's, you

25:42

know, I don't really consider it my

25:44

Marvel writing work because I wasn't doing anything writing.

25:47

We were just adapting the Joss

25:49

Whedon, John Cassidy first

25:52

six issues of that story arc. And

25:55

it was kind of one of these things where you kind of had

25:57

to learn how to do a little bit of everything.

25:59

So. I was doing

26:02

balloon placements, I was doing inking, I

26:04

was doing digital backgrounds, I was doing

26:06

physical inking on board and

26:09

things like that. I will say

26:11

one of my favorite things would happen was I would come into

26:13

the studio and there would just be a pile of comics

26:15

boards on my desk and I would have

26:17

to do, fill

26:20

in all the areas that were just solid black

26:23

and I would just like go and just look at this

26:25

pile and I'm like,

26:26

you know what, this is a good day. I'm

26:28

like filling in the sort of, I guess, ears

26:32

horns of Wolverine or

26:34

whatever it was. And I

26:36

learned, I mean, I was there for almost

26:39

eight years. I mean, it was like going to art school.

26:41

So it was a huge education. Before

26:44

we go any further, I wanna clarify for anybody

26:46

who doesn't know Continuity Studios is Neil

26:48

Adams, one of the legends of comics.

26:50

So you said you learned a lot, like I

26:52

can only fathom how much you were able

26:55

to gleam from that experience. Thinking

26:57

about all that work, the time that you spent

26:59

there and then, you know, having, you're

27:02

doing that, you're working on inking and

27:04

lettering and all those things. What

27:07

was it? Was there any specific thing or was it

27:09

just as a whole, all the different

27:12

like pieces of storytelling

27:14

that you're absorbing sort of pushes you

27:16

into writing comics more focused?

27:19

I basically, I

27:22

mean, I had always written,

27:24

when I was a kid, I majored in English

27:26

in college and I had always

27:29

wanted, I always liked telling stories.

27:32

And I had had notebooks filled with sort

27:34

of nascent ideas about short

27:37

stories, whether they were prose or

27:39

poetical. And so

27:41

I had, but I had never thought about

27:44

even being a fan of comics, I had never thought about

27:47

telling a story in this visual medium.

27:50

And when I was working in advertising,

27:52

I was speaking I was telling stories

27:54

in a visual medium, selling people Advil

27:57

and ClearSill and things like that. But

27:59

we were doing.

27:59

it visually with storyboards and such. So

28:02

I started thinking about the

28:05

idea that, you know, there's some stories that I

28:07

have that maybe would work

28:09

in a visual medium.

28:11

And I started taking

28:13

the stories and I started writing scripts. And the first

28:15

book that I had done was a comic called M3.

28:18

And one of the other artists at the

28:20

studio of Vicente Alcazar, who was

28:23

known for doing Moon Knight and Conan at

28:25

Marvel, and doing Jonah Hacks

28:27

over at DC, he was working

28:29

at the studio and I gave him one of my scripts.

28:32

And he said, I love this idea. Let's let's

28:35

do this. And then we ended up doing 12

28:37

issues over about three and a half, four years.

28:40

And I love the transition was just like, oh,

28:42

you should you should just do this. It's it's

28:45

it's no question like, this is a natural

28:47

transition. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

28:50

Go write something. And it's kind of now

28:53

turned into an award winning

28:55

career for you. I don't know where

28:58

to start. Like, for

29:00

me, there's obviously the work that

29:03

you've done on Moon Knight,

29:05

Black, White and Blood number

29:08

three, but also like, I'm

29:10

kind of curious, is there a particular type

29:13

of

29:14

story you like to tell?

29:16

I

29:19

in terms of genre, I really don't have a

29:21

specific genre. I like I like telling

29:23

a story that

29:25

has a good balance between character

29:28

and plot.

29:28

I think that there are some stories that

29:31

are like so character heavy that

29:33

nothing really goes on aside

29:35

from these like very sort of pensive

29:38

internal moments. And then

29:40

there are stories where so

29:42

much is going on that

29:44

you really don't take a moment to see how

29:46

the characters are feeling about it. They're just more

29:49

like reacting

29:50

to all these these external factors.

29:53

And I like to try and have

29:55

a balance in between like there's this

29:57

great line in in the. movie,

30:00

High Fidelity, where he talks about making a mix tape.

30:02

Like, you got to start up here, and then you got

30:04

to go higher, and then you got to bring things down a little

30:07

bit. And that's kind of how I think

30:09

about writing. Especially

30:12

with superhero comics, you kind of have to

30:14

start off with this sort of dramatic moment. And

30:17

then you can play

30:19

through some of that and then go to the quieter

30:22

moments. But I try

30:24

and find this good balance. I like telling

30:26

stories about

30:28

found family, because

30:31

that's something my friends are and my family. I

30:34

always joke about people being my, I

30:36

have a brother and a sister, but I always joke about this

30:39

much larger family that I have, because

30:42

my friends really are very close with me.

30:45

And I think that that's

30:46

something that is very relatable to a lot

30:49

of people as well.

30:50

So I like telling stories about that, because I

30:52

want the audience to be able to

30:54

sort of catch on to something

30:56

that

30:57

they have in common with the protagonist

30:59

to be able to then say, oh yeah, I

31:02

want to see what they would do next to see if it would

31:05

line up with how I would react to that situation.

31:08

Yeah. I think a lot of what you talked

31:10

about really shines

31:11

and makes a lot

31:13

of sense in having just read through,

31:16

I think we just wrapped up Hollows Eve, the series

31:18

that you've done for us. Thinking

31:21

about the family aspect, especially

31:23

as Janine and Ben are going

31:26

through everything and Janine's

31:28

mission. It's like there's a very clear idea

31:30

of what she's doing and why she's

31:33

doing it and how she does it. And then things

31:35

just spiral out of control and the masks are everywhere.

31:37

And she's got crazy people that she's dealing with

31:39

and she finds some cool

31:41

allies and everything about that. But thinking

31:43

about Janine, who's

31:45

been around for now, this is

31:47

almost- 94, I think. Like almost 30 years,

31:50

but only recently having a

31:53

really cool turn as a

31:56

super villainy superhero

31:59

anti-

31:59

hero business as Hollows Eve coming

32:02

out of Dark Web.

32:04

Tell us a little bit about how you

32:06

got brought in to sort of really give

32:09

a lot of life to Hollows Eve

32:11

and what Janine's gone through out of this.

32:13

It's really a boring answer.

32:15

The boring answer is Nick Lowe

32:18

reached out to me about a week before

32:20

New York Comic Con.

32:23

That's the boring answer of that.

32:26

I had been working with the X

32:28

team and Edgar Salazar and

32:30

Carlos Lopez on the

32:33

X-23 Deadly Regenesis. Just

32:36

before New York Comic Con, Nick had

32:38

reached out

32:40

and said, you know, we have this character that we're

32:42

going to be announcing

32:44

in, I think November

32:46

was when Janine

32:49

made the first appearance as Hollows Eve.

32:54

We really want to break out with this

32:56

character because then it's going to go into Dark

32:58

Web and all this other stuff. I was like, okay.

33:00

I kind of had to wrap my head

33:03

around Spider continuity, but

33:05

then also this idea of like, okay, this character's

33:07

been around for a long time,

33:10

but really we know so very little

33:12

about her. We know her tragic backstory,

33:14

which let's be honest, so many women

33:16

have this assault backstory,

33:18

which is

33:21

kind of frustrating, but I get it.

33:24

I get why it's such a

33:26

used thing. It's because you have

33:29

to shorthand show that this person is broken

33:32

for lack of a better term. I went

33:34

and I read Lost

33:36

Cheers and Clone Conspiracy and

33:38

everything and been on his motorcycle

33:41

in Salt Lake City. I

33:44

like the way you gave it the affect.

33:47

And you know, Janine was working as a waitress in

33:50

a diner, not a cocktail bar, but

33:52

you know that thing. I

33:54

appreciate the fact that my brain also

33:57

went there. Continue. we

34:00

love each other. And

34:02

and so and

34:04

you know, I I saw the personality

34:06

that they had given her that JMD Mateus and JRJR

34:08

had given her. And it was it was surface.

34:12

But you could see that there was a lot more there. And

34:15

then I read what Zeb Wells was doing.

34:18

I had read a bunch of the scripts that Zeb Wells had written

34:21

to get more into her and this idea of

34:23

like Ben is her ride or die. No

34:25

matter what

34:26

has happened. She can always count on Ben.

34:29

And and that was something that I really needed to sort

34:31

of latch onto. So I mean her whole

34:33

mission is.

34:35

I want to be able to get

34:38

Ben and be anywhere but

34:40

here. And we don't

34:43

want to bother anybody and we don't want anybody bothering

34:45

us. You know, if that means go to a secluded

34:48

island or you know someplace

34:50

where nobody knows us,

34:52

that's that's perfect because

34:54

we just want to be together. And

34:57

and she has that singular focus. And if somebody's

34:59

standing in her way like a security

35:02

guard just doing his job at a bank, she's

35:05

going to go through him because her focus

35:08

is I want to be with Ben. I need to

35:10

break him out and we need to get

35:12

somewhere where we can both be safe and be together.

35:16

Yeah, and I love that because

35:18

there's still the superhero,

35:23

super villain. Part

35:26

of it all right like, you

35:28

know, there are a lot of unanswered

35:30

questions around her powers

35:32

post post dark web and how,

35:35

you know,

35:38

she would go forward, right? Because you

35:40

kind of talked about the fact that we didn't know a lot about

35:42

her personally, previously,

35:44

even though she had been occurring in the comics

35:47

since the mid 90s. So you're already fleshing

35:49

out

35:50

her character in general and

35:52

more of her backstory. How did

35:55

you kind of take the step forward

35:57

to continuously now flesh her out?

35:59

a super person and

36:02

talk a little bit about the nuances of her powers.

36:06

Because I feel like we still don't know everything.

36:09

Yeah. Nick and I had

36:11

a very long conversation about

36:13

the idea is, is Eve

36:17

magical or are

36:19

the masks magical? If

36:23

Eve is magical, then any mask

36:26

should work. And I had this quick

36:28

scene of her breaking into a spirit Halloween.

36:30

And

36:34

so Nick was

36:37

just gathering up these armfuls masks.

36:40

And Nick was like, no, I think it's the masks

36:42

that are magical. And I was like, okay, well, then

36:45

that takes us to another side where

36:49

will the masks work on other people? But

36:52

it's also, I mean, it's limbo magic, so

36:54

it's chaos magic. So things are

36:57

not always what they seem. And

37:00

we'll see in

37:02

the Halloween special that's

37:05

been announced that when

37:07

Janine reaches into her bag to

37:09

pull out a mask, sometimes the

37:11

mask that comes out is not the first one that she's

37:13

thinking of.

37:15

So we're going to see some cool

37:17

stuff with that. I will say this. I

37:20

loved working with Julian Shaw on ASM,

37:23

on the

37:26

excuse me, on the annual that just came out. But I will

37:28

tell you that working with Michael Dowling has been fantastic

37:31

because over these now six

37:33

issues that we've worked together, we've sort of gotten

37:35

a shorthand. And he draws

37:37

a very handsome Ben who I have been

37:39

swooning over this entire time.

37:43

Knowing that this is some character you're

37:45

going to write is great. Like having those

37:47

things at your fingertips is wonderful. But knowing

37:50

that you're being able to tell a story with a character who

37:52

is then going to be taken by someone like Michael and

37:55

really freaking cool looking comics to your

37:57

name, it's got to be fun.

37:59

It is. And, you know, one

38:02

thing that that is so important that everybody

38:04

needs to remember about comics is this is

38:06

a huge collaborative effort.

38:08

And

38:10

a script is only as good as

38:12

the the artist that you

38:14

are working with. And, you know, and I've

38:16

said this a million times, it's like making

38:19

good comics is like making a good sandwich. Like

38:21

you've got a good story. You've got a

38:23

good script. You've got a good artist.

38:25

You've got good colorists. You've got good lettering.

38:28

You've got good editing and just

38:30

like everything works. You take a

38:32

bite and you get a little bit of everything and everything

38:35

works. I mean, this was

38:37

a jackpot,

38:38

you know, and and my whole thing is like, OK,

38:40

you made it. So now you're never going to do anything

38:42

ever again. It's

38:45

like it's like, you know, you've been the Oscar at age seven.

38:47

Then what, you know, I think it was was

38:50

Tatum O'Neill won the Oscar at age seven or something

38:53

like that. So it's like, then what then what do you

38:55

do?

38:55

I mean, it works out for some people. Hailee Steinfeld

38:57

is doing OK for herself. She wasn't

39:00

seven. I think she was like 13.

39:02

Anna Paquin still doing

39:04

pretty good. So, you know, I'm just saying there

39:07

are more things for you, Erica.

39:10

This is really just about me

39:12

wanting you to continue to shoot

39:14

for more Oscars. Well, I think that's why

39:17

I do why I do some of the

39:19

editing and things like that is because I try

39:22

and flex a little different part of my

39:24

brain, you know. And

39:26

I think it's always good to I

39:29

think it's always good to know what everybody

39:31

else is doing. I think if you're

39:33

going to focus on writing, but you've done

39:36

background art, you've done inking, you've

39:38

done lettering, you've done all these other things, I think

39:40

it makes you a better writer, because

39:42

now when I'm writing a script, I

39:44

can visualize

39:46

how much space those balloons are going to take

39:48

up.

39:50

And I think that that that

39:52

helps extremely well when it comes

39:55

to, you know, some times you really

39:57

have to have these very like,

39:59

you know,

39:59

expository scenes where you have somebody

40:02

just like,

40:03

you know, word salad everywhere

40:05

telling you what's going on because there's all this complicated

40:07

stuff going on in the story. And

40:10

I can sit there and be like, okay, this is how I would

40:12

do this. This is how I would letter it.

40:15

Okay, I need to cut some of this out or

40:17

I need to move this to the next panel because,

40:20

you know, the art is great. And here

40:22

I am destroying everything by

40:24

just word balloon on top of word

40:27

balloon, you know? Yeah.

40:30

Well,

40:30

and I think it's interesting because

40:32

that's a perspective that

40:34

allows you to have a little bit more fun, right? Because

40:37

you can write the mask and you can

40:39

write the powers, you can write the fight scene,

40:41

you can write that, but then

40:43

you see it. And it's just like, I can

40:46

only imagine going

40:48

either that is more than I ever

40:50

could have imagined or, oh my God, you're

40:53

in my head. And I, you know, I'm kind

40:55

of curious. Do you have a favorite

40:57

mask? I

41:00

do have a favorite mask.

41:02

I do have a favorite mask. The favorite mask that I

41:04

have is I really love the

41:08

mummy mask because it

41:11

has spider similar

41:13

properties where you can like throw out your wraps,

41:16

but it makes you have brittle bones.

41:20

So it's, you know, it's

41:22

got its little magical consequences too.

41:24

But I do like the mummy masks, the mummy

41:26

mask, because it also like, you can like

41:29

basically flip up people, you

41:31

know? Would

41:34

you say that she's wrapping it up? Sorry.

41:37

I'm going to see myself. Well, considering

41:40

the fact that it did happen in the fifth issue

41:42

of the miniseries, which was the last issue of the miniseries,

41:44

she did wrap it up. There you go.

41:46

Yeah. There's

41:49

the masks that are so fun. Is there, were

41:51

you able to bring all your ideas for masks

41:53

to life? Were you holding some out for future appearances?

41:56

Are there some that Nick somehow was like,

41:59

come on, Eric?

41:59

We got to hold it

42:02

back a little bit. I mean, there were some, I had

42:04

made like a list. I do everything

42:06

analog and write everything down

42:08

in notebook and I had made this list and I was

42:11

just thinking like, what would the

42:13

powers be of these masks? And

42:16

I wanted to, you know, like a pirate mask, which

42:18

you end up with a peg leg and a parrot,

42:21

you know, or.

42:24

But does the parrot talk? The

42:27

parrot, maybe it's the parrot that's actually

42:29

magical. I mean, who knows?

42:32

You know, I had had, you know, like

42:35

a skeleton mask and she like throw bones at

42:37

people, you know, that kind of thing.

42:40

Or like a dog mask. Does

42:43

she turn into like, you know, and I was like, no,

42:45

that's too close to the werewolf. And, you know,

42:48

so it was this, it was a lot of back and forth.

42:52

The witch mask, I think, is really interesting

42:54

because it has a lot

42:56

of potential and I kept trying to use

42:59

the witch mask and Nick was like, stop using the witch mask,

43:01

OK? It's turning into like a thing like you've

43:03

got to do a new mask. I'm like, OK, because

43:05

I was like, oh, well, she could just, you know, use

43:07

the witch mask and say a spell. And, you

43:09

know, and he's like, yeah, you got to be a little

43:12

more creative about that. I was like, all right, fine. I'll

43:14

do my job.

43:15

So our producer Jasmine

43:18

and I were having the exact same thought, started to think about

43:20

all the masks you haven't used. And I was like, does

43:23

she will she ever have superhero masks? Because

43:25

like then like the possibilities

43:27

therein of having like

43:30

a Hulk and or like what

43:32

you get a galact she's like, I have a Galactus mask.

43:35

What does that mean?

43:37

Yeah, so that's where our brains were going. And you

43:39

started talking about this. The character is so

43:41

much fun, Erica. What Ryan doesn't

43:43

want to say is that he hopes that one day there

43:45

will be a modoc mask. That's what he's not

43:48

saying. Oh, my

43:50

God. That sounds that sounds like a fun idea. I

43:52

mean, we'll see where we take her. You

43:56

know, can't can't does you

43:58

know, can't divulge everything.

43:59

but there's a lot of possibilities

44:02

with her. So the

44:04

next time that we see Hallows' Eve, we

44:06

just had Hallows' Eve in the ASM

44:09

annual, and we

44:11

get to see her and Ben again, and a little

44:13

back and forth with Spidey and

44:16

Maddie Pryor, if you're a fan of the Goblin Queen.

44:19

And there will also be a Halloween

44:22

special coming out, I

44:25

believe the 25th of October, that

44:29

last Wednesday in October, where you can see

44:31

Hallows' Eve and some new masks

44:33

that she puts on. You had some previous short

44:36

story work for the eyes are nominated, Moon Knight,

44:38

Black, White and Blood number three, and

44:41

now you've got a twisted little moon

44:44

tail, and what if Dark Moon Knight number

44:47

one?

44:47

So I got a...

44:51

It's not saying that you like

44:53

dark stories, but you

44:57

make a twist. I do like a

44:59

twist. I do like a twist. I

45:01

will say this, that my

45:03

dad drove a cab in New York City in the

45:06

early 80s, so Jake Lockley

45:08

has always been very near and dear to my heart.

45:11

And when David Lopez

45:14

was gifted to

45:17

me for this story,

45:20

he drew such a handsome

45:23

Jake that I was just... Be

45:25

still my heart.

45:28

That story I thought

45:30

was fun because it

45:32

didn't get into the DID, it

45:35

didn't get into anything

45:37

overly complicated. It was just, here's

45:40

Jake, a very capable person

45:43

who is just in

45:45

the wrong place at the wrong time, or maybe the right place

45:48

at the right time. But

45:50

either way, he was going to have

45:52

a little fun.

45:54

He was going to have a little fun with them, and

45:57

he did. And I even got to throw in Detective Flynn.

45:59

at the end.

46:02

But in terms of work, I mean,

46:05

I love Moon Knight. Moon Knight is one

46:07

of my characters that has

46:09

been on my bucket list for a really long time because

46:12

he has, you know,

46:14

all the way back from the beginning from, you

46:17

know,

46:17

Werewolf by Knight and, you

46:20

know, then when he got his own series,

46:22

I think that they've really played

46:24

with the character a lot and

46:26

they've retconned him, they've gone back

46:29

and forth. I mean, like, Chuck Dixon and Sal Valuto

46:31

had the Mark Specter Moon Knight where they didn't really talk

46:33

about the DID and, you know, it's

46:36

been sort of all over the place. So I think that he has

46:38

a lot of potential because he's

46:40

been

46:41

sort of malleable as a character. And then

46:45

in What If, we,

46:47

you know, we got to play with

46:50

this idea of, you

46:53

know, what happens if

46:55

Mark did lose against Bushman? You

46:58

know, like, what happens if in,

47:01

it's actually Mark Specter Moon Knight

47:03

number three, Chuck Dixon and

47:05

Sal Valuto,

47:06

what happens if that giant

47:09

fight that they have

47:11

ends up, you know, taking

47:14

Mark's life? What would happen there?

47:16

Who would take his place? Because there always has

47:18

to be this type of avenging angel in

47:20

New York.

47:22

And whether that's Daredevil or, you

47:24

know, somebody else, like

47:26

who's gonna take that place? And we

47:29

had a lot of fun. I got to

47:31

work with Edgar Salazar again, who was

47:33

the artist on X-23. We had a lot of fun

47:37

really bringing out this

47:40

anguish. Like, I

47:43

mean, the reference that I was putting

47:45

in this book of, like, you know, moments from, like,

47:47

Citizen Kane and, you know,

47:50

and things like that, I was, I did

47:52

a really deep dive on this one. But

47:54

this character of Luminary that

47:57

we're gonna be

47:58

showing is just...

47:59

She's really going

48:02

to take people by surprise and I'm

48:04

really excited for her to sort of see

48:06

the light. Well

48:07

played. Luminary is so cool. I

48:11

finished the book and I was like, man, where

48:14

the hell have we had Luminary before? Because

48:17

she felt like such a

48:18

classic Marvel character. Like, oh, this

48:21

must be a different interpretation of a character.

48:23

I just don't remember all the top of my head. And I was

48:25

like, oh, this is a fresh brand new

48:27

character who feels she feels

48:30

such a part of the Marvel universe

48:32

in the one story that you guys tell. I thought that

48:34

was such a great way to introduce

48:37

something that could

48:39

eventually pop up anywhere else, which was so

48:41

cool that like being able to

48:43

play with and then create characters has

48:45

just got to be super fun, whether or

48:48

not they're alternate universe or in mainline.

48:50

It's like you're still bringing to life

48:52

something very cool, which eventually

48:54

would turn into a cosplay or maybe

48:57

an action figure.

48:58

I'm waiting for the action figures.

49:01

I'm always excited

49:04

and interested as to what

49:07

the thought process is when you get to create

49:09

a new character and what role you

49:11

think this character is going to be able to fill. Is

49:14

there anything that you can tell us without

49:16

spoiling anything about Luminary? I

49:21

can tell you that she

49:24

does not work with Konshu. Konshu

49:28

is kind of persona non grata in

49:31

this particular storyline

49:34

because he

49:37

is blamed for Mark's death.

49:39

He brought Mark back to life and that's

49:42

what created Moon Knight. And so many times

49:44

Mark has been hurt and been healed

49:46

by Konshu. Why didn't you heal him this

49:48

time?

49:50

So Konshu is like

49:52

sort of relegated to

49:55

the back seat and

49:57

another God comes and decides

50:00

to maybe

50:02

take advantage, maybe not, you know?

50:05

Because the gods are always, and

50:07

I think any pantheon you're talking about, I

50:09

mean, there is no real

50:12

altruistic god out there when you're

50:14

thinking about it. I mean, they've all got their own

50:17

little machinations

50:19

going on. So

50:22

when someone is in such deep

50:25

emotional pain, they're so

50:27

vulnerable, and they are

50:30

basically willing to agree

50:33

to anything to help alleviate

50:36

and assuage this guilt and pain that

50:38

they have inside of them, you know, fill

50:40

that hole.

50:44

Thinking about what if for a second, as opposed

50:46

to just the moonlight of it all, I'm a big

50:48

fan of what ifs are like my favorite thing.

50:50

I'm very much of the same timeframe

50:53

as you, Erica, growing

50:55

up, and those were books that I read a ton, and

50:58

the what ifs that I always love hinge

51:01

on like specific moments. What if this

51:03

thing happened instead of this thing? And you mentioned,

51:06

you know, Mark Spector moonlight number three, and then

51:08

what if something happened to, like

51:10

what if Mark died there, sort of

51:12

like that hinge moment?

51:14

And there also these dark issues are

51:16

all so wonderfully brutal, and

51:18

you get to just like do horrible

51:20

bloody things with their, as creators.

51:23

It's a lot of fun. Were you a fan of what if growing

51:25

up? If so, did you have any

51:27

faves? I was, and it's

51:30

funny because I loved the, you know, what

51:32

if Jane Foster was Thor?

51:34

And then you have Jane

51:36

Foster as,

51:37

you know, the mighty Thor.

51:40

And so I always thought that that was

51:42

kind of funny when that became a thing,

51:45

because I was like, yeah, that was like a great

51:47

what if that everybody talked about 25 years

51:49

ago, 20 years

51:51

ago. So

51:53

that was one of my favorites. I also, there was

51:55

an interesting one with, it

51:59

was, the Fantastic Four and it was Namor and at

52:02

the end Sue decides

52:04

to stay in Atlantis

52:07

because Namor has created this chamber

52:09

that will turn her into an Atlantean

52:12

basically and she comes

52:14

out of the chamber

52:17

and she can't breathe of course she can't breathe because she's

52:20

no longer in the water but once she's in the water she

52:22

sort of stays and as the Fantastic

52:24

Four is leaving you know Johnny's

52:27

upset and frustrated because you know

52:29

it's my sister why are we leaving her and Reed

52:31

just has a sort of like well she's made her

52:33

choice kind of you know

52:35

moment and it's like wow

52:37

Reed like way to fight for

52:40

your lady okay sure. Reed

52:42

the worst.

52:45

Yeah Reed is pretty bad. Erika

52:48

we got a little bit of info on

52:50

on gang war but can you what can you tell us now

52:52

I know this is coming out in a couple months what can you tell

52:55

us about what Daredevil is up to in

52:57

the big gang war story really quick on what gang

52:59

war is so people get excited.

53:02

Basically gang war is

53:04

Spider-Man and Luke Cage are fed

53:06

up with New York City

53:08

just deteriorating into these

53:12

little factions of criminality

53:14

and they have

53:16

more or less

53:18

divvied up Manhattan

53:20

and the boroughs and said you know

53:22

this group feels like

53:24

they're taking over this we got to send

53:27

a group of heroes out there so

53:29

everybody sort of picks their their

53:31

spot on the map and Electra

53:33

obviously gets Hell's Kitchen. The

53:36

Daredevil gang war is in

53:40

concert in coordination one of

53:42

those words with

53:44

what Saladin and Aaron are doing. I think

53:48

is the formal

53:50

accurate terminology for that.

53:53

That works in cahoots I

53:55

thanks Saladin very much for for having

53:57

a very long arduous

53:59

phone. call with me where I was I had like a whole

54:02

list of questions for him and

54:04

I was just like oh what about this and he's like oh yeah

54:06

we could do that and I was like I'm sorry I'm taking up

54:08

so much of your time but basically

54:11

you know it comes down to every one

54:13

of these heroes has their

54:15

own little neighborhood that they have to defend because

54:18

the the villains are

54:20

just like it's winner-take-all and

54:23

you know no honor among thieves

54:25

and Lu Cage is still mayor at the time so

54:29

we'll see what happens. Very

54:31

exciting it's it's good there's a classic gang

54:33

war story and seeing how everybody updates

54:35

it now is gonna be a lot of fun.

54:37

Erica this was a

54:39

blast thanks for coming on the show.

54:41

Thank you so much for having me it was great to

54:43

chat with everybody and yeah

54:46

I mean long live Marvel.

54:49

Thanks Erica. That

54:54

was our chat with Erica Schultz. It

54:56

was so much fun.

54:59

Actually I could have talked to her for another

55:01

hour. Yeah that would

55:03

have been a delight

55:04

of course what if dark moon

55:06

night number one comes out next Wednesday

55:09

August 16th get it at your

55:11

local comic shop or wherever you get your digital

55:13

comics. Yeah

55:14

and stay tuned for all the rest of her dope

55:16

writings that are coming up later

55:19

in the year and early next year. Alright

55:21

now it is time for this week in Messages,

55:24

our community section here

55:27

on the show. Next

55:29

week we are joined by Steph Soretti who is

55:31

the visual effects supervisor for Marvel Studios

55:33

Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3. I've

55:36

talked to Steph a couple times he just friggin

55:40

fantastic

55:40

and did a lot of really great

55:42

work on the film. Now we're probably

55:44

gonna talk a lot about Rocket and Groot and stuff like that

55:46

but we were thinking

55:48

as our question of the week for next week. Alright

55:50

so if you lived on counter-earth

55:53

what kind of humanimal would

55:55

you be? Of course the humanimal or the

55:58

animal humanish

55:59

hybrids that live on counter. Ryan,

56:02

I need your answer and I need it now. Like

56:07

a, like a, like a,

56:09

like a Liger. I'll be a Liger. You

56:11

would be a Liger. Yeah. You

56:14

know, Tiger, Lion, Hybrid. You didn't have to

56:16

explain. I knew exactly, I knew exactly what,

56:18

yeah, no. They exist.

56:21

You know what? Then my answer is a unicorn. Hey,

56:25

Ligers are real. But

56:27

you know what? With, with the kind of engineering

56:30

that can be done, maybe you could be a unicorn

56:32

humanimal.

56:33

I just, you know, my first thing was

56:36

like, can I get wings? Like

56:38

this is my always thought is like, if I'm going to be hybrid,

56:41

why not fly? For

56:43

sure. Can I have wings? And

56:46

so a unicorn seems like the safe

56:49

one. Sky's the limit though, y'all.

56:51

Y'all tell us what you would do because I feel

56:53

like we are also going to be,

56:56

you know what? They don't have to, they can

56:58

be a Liger. You can tweet your answers

57:00

using hashtag this week in Marvel, email them to TWIMpodcast.marvel.com

57:04

or send a message to our Facebook page at

57:06

facebook.com slash this week in Marvel.

57:08

Please make sure to tell us it's okay to read TWIM

57:11

on the show so we can read it next week on

57:13

the show.

57:13

And now it is time

57:16

for your answer from the last week's question, which

57:18

was, which three plus,

57:20

because we left it open for you, heroes

57:23

would be on your ideal Avengers

57:25

squad. Yeah.

57:27

Yeah. Yeah. First up, Super75

57:29

at Super75 said, my ideal Avengers team

57:32

would be the Wasp, Janet as

57:34

the leader, Monica Rambeau, Moon

57:36

Knight, Franklin and Valeria Richards,

57:38

and She-Hulk because reasons.

57:41

Okay, just let me have this. You can have it.

57:43

That's a really interesting, cool team.

57:46

Wow. I don't know. I was,

57:48

I wasn't expecting Franklin

57:50

and Valeria Richards. Wow. All

57:52

right. Mel at X Chasing

57:55

Clouds. My ideal Avengers

57:57

team would be Iron Man, Thor, Captain America,

57:59

Hulk.

57:59

Spider-Man, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Wasp,

58:02

Shan-Chi, and the Filipina super

58:04

heroine, Wave slash

58:07

Pearl Pagan as their newest

58:09

recruit because she deserves more love

58:12

and recognition. Wow.

58:14

That's a lineup. Hell yeah. Also,

58:16

I love Wave. All right. Jordan, the witch

58:18

at Mutant Savior 11 tweeted, My

58:21

dream team of Avengers is She-Hulk

58:23

leading Rogue or

58:26

Black Widow as her right hand. Invisible

58:28

Woman is their tactician. Shuri could be the brains

58:30

of the group. And I also feel Wasp

58:33

could shine on this team. That's

58:35

a good team.

58:36

So No Man's Sky Unity

58:39

at Big Bob is

58:42

here. 197.

58:45

My Avengers team would be Hulk to smash

58:47

things up, Thor

58:48

to slice up everything, Captain

58:51

Marvel to light

58:53

up things, and what's a barbecue

58:56

without ants. So there's Ant-Man

58:58

and to tie everything together is Spider-Man.

59:01

You know, sometimes you do have to get your insect

59:04

themed

59:05

heroes there because they are mighty.

59:08

Yeah. Let's move on. Dolphin Pants

59:10

at Dolphin Pants tweeted, My ideal

59:12

Avengers squad would be She-Hulk, Scarlet Witch, Captain

59:14

Marvel, Ms. Marvel, Spider-Woman, and Jessica

59:17

Jones. I love all the She-Hulk

59:19

love in these answers. Yes.

59:22

That is like the thing that is sort of like

59:24

shining through. Hell yeah.

59:27

That's a lot of power on that team,

59:29

though. Like actual physical

59:32

power between

59:35

Jessica Jones and She-Hulk. Well played.

59:37

We got a couple emails too. So we have an email from

59:40

Michael Saramento. Hi.

59:43

I'm always looking forward to each this week

59:46

in Marvel. Thank you. For

59:48

me, I'd go with Captain America because

59:51

of his awesome fighting skills, good leadership, and

59:53

because he's basically the moral compass of the team. Next,

59:56

I'd get Iron Man because we need our favorite

59:58

billionaire, Playboy Philharmonic.

59:59

philanthropist but also he could

1:00:02

give the team cool upgrades and finally

1:00:04

we need a black widow because every

1:00:06

team needs a super spy

1:00:08

Who better than Natasha Romanoff sincerely

1:00:12

Michael Saraminto. Well done. Um,

1:00:14

I'm you know, he picked three You

1:00:17

understood the assignment. Yeah,

1:00:19

well balanced We got an email

1:00:22

from autumn autumn says for the question of the week.

1:00:24

Here's my Avengers roster It is a heavily

1:00:26

1980s based team led by Henry Peter Gyrick

1:00:32

with US agent Reed Richards Star

1:00:34

Fox, dr. Druid and she-hulk. All right Look,

1:00:37

I like that autumn gets into this like Wow Give

1:00:40

me the explanation Gyrick has

1:00:43

brought the team fully under government control positioning

1:00:45

himself as the leader of the Avengers He keeps the team

1:00:47

under a strict six-member limit to Clint

1:00:50

Barton's annoyance. He isn't selected Yeah,

1:00:53

so there's you got guy Rick who that's

1:00:55

a that's a nasty one then a mr. Fantastic

1:00:58

Gyrick make sure to feed his ego enough to keep him

1:01:01

loyal He doesn't argue and read starts acting

1:01:03

like the team leader, but he makes sure remains in control

1:01:06

Then you got US agent as Gyrick's

1:01:08

trained attack dog Star Fox

1:01:11

to keep things calm between everyone

1:01:13

dr. Druid in his classic late

1:01:15

80s form toilet-loof kind

1:01:18

of pointless, but also and

1:01:20

that was it that was the thing and then

1:01:22

she Hulk is our Very

1:01:25

shady very shady and

1:01:27

then like how she deals with everything. Yeah, that's

1:01:30

that's a really interesting

1:01:32

crew Also,

1:01:35

I just enjoy anything that says

1:01:37

heavily 1980s Avengers it's

1:01:39

just it's like yep Yeah,

1:01:44

y'all correct And

1:01:46

then we got a an answer on Facebook from Joe Hoffman Joe says in answers

1:01:48

to the question of the week some of the Avengers

1:01:50

who would be in my dream team are Captain

1:01:53

America Steve Rogers captain Marvel Carol

1:01:56

Danvers Wolverine and Ms.

1:01:58

Marvel Kamala Khan as they are some

1:01:59

some of my favorite Marvel characters, and I think they

1:02:02

would make the nucleus for an awesome assemblage

1:02:04

of Earth's mightiest heroes.

1:02:07

I love it. And as we mentioned earlier in the

1:02:09

show, we have a Marvel Insider code

1:02:11

for all of you. That's right. You can

1:02:13

go to marvel.com, go to Marvel Insider,

1:02:16

and then you're going to type in that code, which is

1:02:18

spider-gwen

1:02:19

in the

1:02:21

This Week in Marvel activity. And you

1:02:23

will be able to get some sweet, sweet

1:02:26

points this week.

1:02:28

Awesome. Thank you all for all those answers,

1:02:31

and thanks for listening all the way through to this point in the

1:02:33

show, because that's the end of this episode of This Week

1:02:35

in Marvel. It's produced by Jasmine Estrada, Isabelle

1:02:37

Robertson, Ryan Penagos, and Anjali Kroshek. Hi,

1:02:39

our senior manager of audio production and development

1:02:42

is Brad Barton. Jill Duboff is our director

1:02:44

of audio. And special thanks to everyone

1:02:46

for willing She-Hulk to lead an Avengers

1:02:49

team. I feel like, with all the mental energy

1:02:51

we've got here, who knows? I'm

1:02:53

Ryan. I'm Anjali. This

1:02:56

is Marvel.

1:02:57

Let's go get your universe.

1:02:58

Oh, man. We've got a new universe. We've

1:03:00

got a new universe. We've got a new universe. We've got

1:03:02

a new universe. We've got a new universe. We've got a

1:03:04

new

1:03:04

universe. And we've got a new universe. He's going

1:03:07

to be your universe. Hey, guys. This is Kenan

1:03:09

Thompson. I have a problem with you. Yes, you.

1:03:11

None of y'all told me that Autotrader has millions

1:03:14

of new and used cars that I can shop from

1:03:16

home. I thought we were friends.

1:03:18

I put smiles on your face.

1:03:20

But I'm not smiling.

1:03:21

No one told me that with Autotrader, a

1:03:24

dealer can deliver cars to my home, to

1:03:26

shop by price on Autotrader.

1:03:28

No one. Consider this friendship

1:03:31

that you just learned we had officially

1:03:33

over. Finally, it's easy.

1:03:38

Autotrader.

1:03:38

Time for a quick break to talk about McDonald's. Wake

1:03:40

up and bagel eyes. Get your taste buds

1:03:42

ready for McDonald's breakfast bagel sandwiches. Now

1:03:45

just $3 only on the app. Choose

1:03:47

from a delicious steak egg and cheese bagel, bacon

1:03:49

egg and cheese bagel, or sausage egg and cheese bagel.

1:03:52

Just $3 when you order ahead on the app. Hurry

1:03:54

and seize this breakfast steal before it's gone.

1:03:57

Offer valid 717-2023 through 830. 13, 2023 at

1:04:01

participating McDonald's. Valid one time

1:04:03

per day or per person or any other limitation.

1:04:05

Must

1:04:06

opt into rewards.