What If Marvel was Real?

In this episode:Mike and Ed continue their discussions on what the original Avengers are doing in their post-Avengers lives. For instance, Thor now seems to be working for the American military in Vietnam. Was he drafted? Or did he consider deserting to move back to Asgard? Will super-powered individuals become the next weapon of war? Will heroes sell their services to the highest bidding country? Is there a way to stop the escalation, or is this just the new way of the world?Behind the issue:Stan had Thor appear in Vietnam, but never had him coordinating with the US military. Comic books in the 1940s were practically US-propaganda, and the heroes were expected to be fighting against Hitler. But in the 1960s, the writers mostly kept the heroes out of real-world conflicts. It wasn’t until the modern era that writers considered the possibility of heroes fighting in Vietnam.In this issue:Thor is spotted in Vietnam and shot by a hunter. The hunter then comes across an ancient temple and, through the machinations of Loki, the hunger takes over the Destroyer armour with his mind. The hunter pilots the Destroyer in a fight with Thor. Meanwhile on Asgard, Loki is imprisoned.This episode takes place:While people are still adjusting to “Cap’s Kooky Quartet” - and missing their “old” Avengers.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering what Thor was doing in Southeast Asia.Full transcript:Edward: All right, Mike. Continuing our, where are they now? Series. We now know where Thor has been for the last couple of months.Michael: Yeah. He's decided to take his retirement to Vietnam.Edward: Vietnam, you'd think with his hair like that, he would've been a conscientious objector, but no Siri, don't stereotype Thor. He is right there with the military. Right in the thick of things.Michael: All kidding aside, it's pretty wild that this man, or this being Thor, who's associated with, the American military and the military industrial complex has gone to Vietnam, clearly on behalf of the Americans, and intervened in international affairs. Clearly as an agent of America, or at least on America's interest. Yeah, for sure. Doesn't that make it a little more complicated over there? Is that what we wanna,Edward: I think it makes it less complicated. ANCO was clear before that the Avengers were an American superhero organization that had American interest at heart. Their leader was Captain America. It's pretty clear that they were into America and hey, they were supported and run by, stark Corp, who are like basically a big American company. They're an American team now, Thor leaves the American team that he leaves the Avengers.What does he do next? He doesn't go back up to Asgard. He goes and works for American interests in a non Avengers way.Michael: It seems a little, isn't it? I don't know. I find it uncomfortable that we would entrust, international diplomacy to, well, it's costume adventures.Edward: Well, it's not diplomacy. He's not negotiating peace treaties. He's swinging his hammer and like on a hitting North Vietcong.Michael: But this. But there's consequences to that though. Like aren't you worried that that's gonna lead to say, other Superpowered beings that might be drafted in by the Vietcong to fight American soldiers overseas in,Edward: do the Viet Cong have a superhero?Michael: Not yet. Well, there you go. Not yet, but there you go. But you don't think the Chinese might have an interest in this. Have a say in it.Edward: That's, that, that is true. We know the Chinese do have their own superheroes. Radioactive man. Radioactive man. So, you're saying it's an escalation of the conflict. And maybe this means China sends in radioactive man, but China is not like US is directly involved in that war. China is only indirectly involved, right? They have plausible deniability. If they send in radioactive man, there goes their plausible deniability.Michael: Well first of all, there hasn't been a military briefing or any kind of official report in that Thor is going there on the direction or in service of the United States. So, I think the United States is trying to do this if they're doing it under some kind of plausible deniability scenario, and China could do the same thing, like we don't control radioactive man.He's just a guy who believes in our values and that's why he is fighting. He's just showing up and fighting. Showing up and fighting, and that's why he is fighting the Americans in Vietnam.Edward: But there's no Chinese soldiers in the vie, they're supplying them with weapons and stuff, but they're not supplying them with people I don't think. Here's the question. That's an ex escalation though. Here's, here's the question. Was Thor just drafted? Maybe he was just part of the draft.Michael: I don't know. Well, he might have been, but thatEdward: his number came up and he off he went.Michael: He, had to go.Edward: He had to go. He had no choice.Michael: He was gonna fly away to Asgard. But No, but I'm still thinking about deescalation,Edward: other deserters run to. Canada, but not Thor. He heads to a whole intervention, flies to another, another realm, a mystical realm. Yeah. But he knew he wanted to come back to America. So he knew that if he abandoned us, we weren't gonna let him back in.Michael: So if I look at it and you look at it, the Vietnamese will probably look at it and the Chinese look at it that America has sent a superpowered individual to fight a battle on their behalf.Clearly that what has happened. So I would think that the natural response would be that the Vietnamese through some kind of connection have one of their own. And then now we have, are we having our superpowered heroes and villains or people fighting each other?Not just fighting each other, but fighting regular powered humans? Well, I think so. It's like if they think if they we're getting to a different era, I guess,Edward: but I think, these people have powers and they're outta capabilities. It's almost like, if we had a really good tank, let's not use it because the other guys might bring in a big tank.We have airplanes, let's not use airplanes cuz the other guys might have airplanes. We have an advantage over the Vietnamese right now because we have superheroes and they don't. Not using them, I think would be irresponsible. Americans would die if not for Thor. Thor is probably saving American lives right as we speak.Michael: Yeah, but Ed, right now, America could use nuclear bombs in Vietnam, but they're not gonna, they're not, not,Edward: we're not gonna use nuclear. But nuclear bombs have all sorts of like side effects that a lightning bolt from Thor, there's no radiation when he fires a lightning bolt and blows up a, nothing like a depot.Michael: Lightning, basically Radiation?Edward: No, it's, no, it's not radiation any more than the light is radiation.Michael: Not basically, but I'm sure there is radiation that comes off of, there's certainly the light part of it and that part of the spectrum.Edward: Yeah, but there's no radiation. It's not radioactive.When you get hit by lightning, you're not gonna cause cancer when you get hit by lightning. Now you may die when you get hit by lightning, but it's not gonna cause future cancers.Michael: But my point is that America could use nuclear weapons, but they don't because they don't, they know that that could lead to an escalation.So isn't sending a superhero in kind of similar thing?Edward: It's more than an escalation response. Yes. Yes. I think it's a big, we should not be using nuclear weapons. We don't want to go down that route. But a superhero is not a nuclear weapon. We use superheroes all the time. We use superheroes all the time for, we use superheroes when stilt man attacks New York City, we're not gonna drop a nuclear weapon on Stilt Man.Michael: No, but the difference is that there's a difference between fighting crime in the city and then going to another nation. To affect foreign policy through, excessive force similar to a nuclear bomb sending, I think a superpower person's gonna do the, achieve the same result.Edward: I feel that the Vietnam War is already at the excessive force stage. We're, we're not like, this is devastating. Let's have a, let's have a very stern conversation with them. Like there's people shooting at each other there there's war happening, there's helicopters and bombs and Tanks and so why shouldn't Thor be involved to, to help put an end to this thingMichael: But this is a devastating next step. I mean the fact that you say it's irresponsible for them not to use Thor means, cuz you know, he's gonna be particularly effective. Much like individuals are bombed. Yeah, I think so. Why don't, so doesn't this lead to other nations around the world saying like, well better get some more superpowered individuals and then it gets into a bidding war. We've already talked about how the Avengers used to be a bunch of strangers who kind of got together very powerful and they've basically disbanded. And now it's like a bunch of former villains, you know, who are now with Captain America, which is pretty bizarre to say that they,Edward: Maybe this makes even more sense now, right? If you have these people like. Quicksilver and the witch and the Hawkeye. And your choice is, hey, bring them onto the Avengers and make them part of our team. Or let them become free agents and join the Soviets. Maybe that makes the most sense that we brought them onto the team.Michael: Maybe, but are we not getting to an era? Mercenaries, the superheros turning to mercenaries. What keeps them loyal to one particular ideology over another? I don't know, like is the American structure better than, the American democracy better than other forms of political philosophies in governments? You talk to every American I've ever spoken with, they'd say, no, it's the best. But other nations have different approaches to, policy, politics, and governments and structures and say, no.Edward: We had this in World War ii, right? We were the most attractive there was a lot of scientists that said, oh, you know what? Let's help the US build the atomic bomb because we want them to have it not the other guys. And those, a lot of those scientists came from Germany, but they said, no. Mm-hmm We wanna work for America. Or they came from Soviet Russia with, no, we wanna work for America because we think that you guys. We are freedom loving and as problematic as the US has been over the years doing many, many things they probably shouldn't have.The alternatives seem to be a lot worse and superhero superheros are lining up behind that. They're realizing that better to work for America than work for the other guysMichael: for now. But what happens if , For instance, let's just pick our neighbor to the north, let's say in Canada. They just decide to say up the ante to get a superpowered individual that could lead to say, battling other nations. So they became more war monering because you know that America's, you know, mightEdward: Canada becomes the, the war Moner. Yes, the war moner. You can call me either their hockey sticks, you can call me captain. Boring. That'sMichael: not boring captain, but they go. But my point is that, is that any nation.If they for the right price could get a superpowered individual who might think, you know, I like their philosophy too and we know that American might has led to American, financial benefits as well, right? I mean they, people don't just think America's great and that's why America does so well financially.No, we're great because they make great movies. Make great movies and actually use their money and their might to influence world markets. And so who's to say that the long plan might be like, say, great Britain might just start building up their SUPERPOWERED individuals so that they can basically go and effect world affairs through the superheroes.That that would then lead to increasing their financial, um, that's, that'sEdward: okay with that. Take America with that. They're not gonna take out Amer London is gay. This is not the American Revolution. America. If Britain, Britain, Britain is our ally, if Britain is more successful, now's good. That's good.Michael: Thor just, Thor just got sent into Vietnam. I'm just saying that we're on the prey, I think of changing how, international affairs are structured and how disputes are resolved if we're getting into sending superheroes to other nations. To fight on a base, on an ideological basis against other nationsEdward: superheroes, adjust the next technology.I feel like Mike, you'd be against using the airplane in World War I. You'd be like, no. If we use the airplane, maybe they'll use the airplane. Oh no. That'd be terrible. That'll be planes flying everywhere. That'll be the end of world order. No, as long as we make more airplanes than they do, we'll be fine.And we're making more superheroes than everybody else in the world combined.Michael: But I think one of the main things that came out, the difference between World War Well, sorry. World War I, what was a game changer was the machine gun, right? The mechanized instruments of slaughter and death and destruction.Edward: Well, now you're just giving the machine gun a bad name.Michael: I. Who would, right. But like, and it, andEdward: it, it think of all the good the machine gun did, could like, butMichael: it affected the world. It definitely affected the world and you might say, well, it's better. I don't know if it is, but it certainly changed it. I'm saying that we're the press p where we might be getting outta control because now wars are, so, the reason why we don't get into a war with the U S S R right now, is because it'll be so destructive. Because we've evolved our technology to the point that we could just destroy the world many times over.Are we not just pivoting towards superheroes where we could destroy the world many times over through them? Frightened dead. I'm frightened.Edward: All right. Well, I think it is what it is though, Mike. I feels, it feels like, just like we couldn't hold back the machine gun in World War I, I don't think we hold back superheroes anymore.I feel like the cat's outta the bag or the Thor is out of the. Helicopter.Michael: The hammers outta the clasp towards bellsEdward: the hammers outta the clasp. It's the new catchy phrase, and you heard it here first.Michael: Kids. Kids these days and their sayings. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

Thank you for staying with us as we missed another week last week. Edward is traveling with his family this summer, making recording difficult. We still have a half dozen episodes recorded and we will trickle them out over the summer months, but there may be a few weeks this summer without an episode. But we have some fun ones coming! This one made me laugh while I was editing it… Enjoy!In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss Daredevil’s recent loss to Stilt-Man. Does Daredevil even have any super powers? If not, is he just a crazy man who swings from building to building with a grapple hook? And what’s up with Stilt-Man? Did he choose his own name? Why doesn’t he have extendable arms as well? Is this all a joke? And if so, how did the “joke” defeat Daredevil? Behind the issue:This is the first appearance of Stilt-Man, who goes on to try out names like “Stilty” and “Daddy Long Legs”. By the end of the issue, Stilt-Man is defeated and shrunk into nothingness. That does not stop him, though, as he comes back to be active in the Marvel Universe through to the present day (he is killed by the Punisher at one point, but his clone continues to use his stilts for villainy).In this issue:A new villain appears on the scene - Stilt-Man - and he starts his career of villainy by robbing a helicopter mid-flight. Seems complicated for a heist, but there you have it. In any event, Daredevil tries to take Stilt-Man down after the heist, but does not succeed. Back in his civilian guise as Matt Murdock, Daredevil takes on a new client, Wilbur Day, who hires Matt to sue his boss Mr. Kaxton, who has stolen his patent. As the case goes on, Stilt Man continues his crime spree. It is eventually revealed that Wilbur is Stilt-Man. He goes on the run from Daredevil, and eventually, he is hoisted on his own petard when he accidentally turns his shrinking ray on himself, shrinking him to apparent nothingness.This episode takes place:After the short reign of Stilt-Man comes to an end.Assumed before the next episode:People did not really think much about Stilt-Man.Full transcript:Edward: Mike Daredevil is not dead, but he has been pretty badly injured, and I think this is what you get when you have someone who's just a vigilante with no real powers trying to take on super villains.Michael: Well, wait a minute. I don't know if he's spoken about this before, but is he a normal guy?Just in a funny costume, like he seems fine. He define seems similar.Edward: Well, define normal. You say normal to what does normal mean?Michael: Okay, so Spider-Man isn't normal, right? We know Spider-Man. Spiderman isn't normal. Climb balls and he's swinging from building to building. But what do we know about Daredevil? He fights on rooftops and kind of swings down from rooftops. Like, I could not,Edward: but he swings on a grappling hook. You could swing at a grappling hook.Michael: No, there's, there's a, there's a zero chance, even in the best shape of my life, would I use a grappling hook to swing from one building to another without a net?Edward: I'm not saying is something, I'm not saying it's a smart thing to do, but I'm saying you could do it. I think if push came to shove, I have faith in you, Mike. I think you could swing from a building to building. It's in a rope. You could, all you have to is hold onto the rope. Just hold onto the rope.Michael: Ed, have you ever gone to a cottage on a lake in the summer we're gonna a swimming hole and there's a rope? Yeah. And the rope it's tied to a branch overhanging in the water Sure. And the rope. And you grab the rope and you swing out. Yeah.That is still scary. Cause if you don't let go in time and you go back to shore and you let go, then you land on the rocks. Yeah. That's bad. As opposed to the water. So would I swing like that without the water? No,Edward: well, I'm not saying you would do it because you, cuz you have more sense than Daredevil does. Are you saying Daredevil's superpower is he's unafraidMichael: The man with no fear. I mean, he is. Pretty fearless, I suppose. But my point isn't that, that's what you would say is his superpower, is my take is that he, I think he has, he must have a superpower. He can't just be a regular guy in great shape who's like, no, cuz like, it seems like swinging from building to building isn't necessary to do what he's doing either.It's like, you know what I mean? It seems like, it seems like almost like an add-on, like gratus gratuitous s**t. Gratuitous. Yeah. Like, and it would be exhausting, think about Ed. I don't know the last time you tried to do a pull up or a chin up, but imagine that andEdward: I can do pullups and chin-ups.I can do that.Michael: Okay. They're hard cause you're lifting your full body weight up. Now imagine you're doing that a few times through the evening and then you fight. Super villain. I mean, it does seem that's,Edward: I'm saying he's making poor choices with his life.Michael: Okay. Okay. So either he's making poor choices and he has no fear, or he's got some kind of superpower. So anyways, you and I were talking about that, but you mentioned Daredevil andEdward: yeah. And then you went off on how superpowered he is and I don't know if he actually is, I think Thank you. He, he clearly has exceptional abilities, right? Whether those are super abilities or not, it feels like he's in the Captain America style. Then Captain America some sort of super soldier. Yeah. But, but he's not, he can't breathe fire. He can't fly, he can't stick to walls. And I think Daredevil's in the same class, he's Clearly very athletic. But man, is he athletic take on super villains. What's just happened is he was very soundly defeated by, basically a guy in battle armor with really long legs.Michael: You know what? They're calling him, ed,Edward: they're calling him the stilt man. The villain, the stil man.Stil man.Michael: It's just, it, it's just, it's just ridiculous. I don't mind, I love, and you and I, obviously we have, we have a show about this. I do love how humanity is evolving in these new things we're seeing, but, Doesn't it seem like we're scraping the bottle of the barrel for the influences, where you're naming yourself and your whole persona, your super villain persona is based on, in this case, stilts.Edward: Well, did he name himself stilt matter or did the media name him Stilt Man? Well, I don't know, but they, but that's what he has. He wasn't having a press, he wasn't having a press release. He was just going out and robbing things and the poor guy got labeled as a stilt guy. Well, okay, but we got it. It should have . Called him, I don't know. Armor Battle man.Michael: It'd be better, but he's clearly got some kind of body armor. That's fine. Yeah. And bullets, power bullets off him. Right.Edward: And he can got that he stole from a helicopter. He used his well, his stilts to extend upward and then, stole from a helicopter that the helicopter thought they were safe.They're like, nobody can get us up here because there's no such thing as a flying villain. Oh, wait a minute. Or a stilt villain that just came up and sell.Michael: It's just, that's the defining. Feature of it is that whatever you wanna, like stilts is what they are. He has these extendable stilts and it just seems so stupid. It's just, I don't know, for all that technology, first of all, it's impressive. It's an impressive engineering feat to say if a helicopter is 500, a thousand feet in the air, To basically be able to extend your stilts up a thousand feet and not fall over.Edward: And then, and then, yeah, balance.Look at the balance on that guy.Michael: It's incredible. It's incredible technology. It's just thatEdward: I would argue he probably more impressive than a grappling hook.Michael: I would give you that, but The Thing is, but why would you do that? Why would you spend all that engineering, why would you direct your energy towards that engineering feed where he could have created something else?Except, unless he's just going for the sort of the whimsy of, I'm a guy that has stills. I'm like really tall.Edward: He built like these hydraulic extension things that are, I think are really if you built this hydraulic extension technology and you decided you wanted to go and use it for crime? What type of battle suit would you maybe I'd have extending arms too. I'd have like extension arms to go.Michael: The arms are way more practical. Yeah, but the think with the power you'd have. Bam.Edward: But they can do the same thing with his legs. He just kick people with like his big extension. Legs and kicks are more dangerous than arms.Michael: He's not, he's extending the stilt so that he can perfectly time getting in front of a helicopter and hoping the helicopter doesn't just turn around or just,Edward: if it does, he can, can chase after climb. They go fast. He can run, his steps per minute could be very low and he could still achieve very high velocity.Michael: We haven't seen any film of this, and I'd like to because that would be interesting. But anyways, the point I'm making though is I hate it. I hate the idea that we've gotten to the point in this marvelous age of heroes and villains and super scientists and aliens and gods, and it's like, you know what? We've kind of run our course. Let's have. A stilt based hero or villain? Villain. Villain. Like a psychic ladder. Ladder boy. Like any, you know, like tall guy.Edward: I think you can be cynical on his name, but clearly Daredevil has a better name than stilt man, but like this guy defeated Daredevil. And so whatever superpowers you think Daredevil has, apparently they were not powerful enough to defeat this poor villain that you're mocking.Michael: Oh no, I agree with you on that. Even though I think the daredevil must have some powers, powers are not, he's probably exhausted by the time he flipped around and grappled through the city to then fight the stilt guy.Edward: But he has to grapple up the stilt man. You can't even get to him with those grappling hook that grapple is doing a lot of lifting,Michael: silly. Whether you're defeated daredevil or not. I just find it so silly. And I, maybe I'm okay. Don't take this the wrong way, but I feel like you and I put a lot of energy into our show talking about these amazing people, good and bad, and then along comes still, it kind of just undercuts everything we're talking about where that's what it is.It just seems so silly.Edward: He's not undercutting anything. He's way up high in the sky. Everything is below him.Michael: I just like to take his legs out cuz it just bothers me.Edward: Take his legs out. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss life after being an Avenger. What are the responsibilities? What are the privileges? Do they get top secret briefings? Are they like ex-Presidents? Or like ex-FBI? Who pays for the damage they cause when Giant-Man decides to grow to 35-feet in the middle of the city and starts knocking down buildings? These are unprecedented times, but someone has to figure this out quickly!Behind the comic:This is the first adventure of Giant-Man and the Wasp post-Avengers. The story continues into the next issue, but at that point they “retire” and the title converts to dual stories of Namor and the Hulk. It turns out Giant-Man just wasn’t that popular. It didn’t help that Tales to Astonish had consistently been one of the weaker titles for the previous few years. Something needed to change. Also in this issue, the Human Top, who was originally introduced as a “normal human” who just happened to be able to spin quickly, has now developed the ability to fly…In this issue:Giant-Man and the Wasp are practicing just outside the city. A plane intentionally flies into Giant-Man, and the pilot, the Human Top, considers killing him but does not have time before Giant-Man wakes up. The Top splits, and Giant-Man returns home. Giant-Man practices his growing ability in downtown Manhattan. The Human Top then returns and battles Giant-Man and the Wasp, and Giant-Man is enraged when the Top leaves with a captured Wasp.In the Hulk story, the Hulk saves Major Talbot from dying during the Leader’s attack. Then, when the Hulk has turned back into Bruce Banner, General Ross places him under arrest for treason. The leader sends his humanoid minions to the base where Banner is being held, and while they attack Banner, he turns back into the Hulk and battles them but is knocked out as they steal an invention of Banner’s for the Leader’s use.Assumed before the next episode:People are fed up with Giant-Man leaning on their buildings, carelessly causing damage.This episode takes place:After Giant-Man has leaned on one too many buildings.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, what do you do when you retire from the Avengers? What's next? What's next on your plate?Michael: I don't know. It's hard to go higher in the superhero community, but it's also harder to get a better job in even the military or that kind of like super diplomacy communityEdward: and super diplomats.Michael: Well, that's what they are, right? Like they're like, I don't know, like Warrior Kings in a way. Right?Edward: Thank you for your service, giant man. I'd not like you to be the diplomat in charge of Poland. Over there with the wasp. You can help us deal with geopolitical situations in the Eastern Republics.Michael: But that's what they've been doing though. They've been acting asEdward: the last time giant man went into the Eastern Europe, he was crashing through the Berlin wall. It's not diplomatic, it's not known for diplomacy.Michael: No, but his actions, whether they're clumsy or not, were actually affecting international relations. So that's what I mean, like the general sense of whatever they are.Edward: Yeah. So causing diplomatic relations is not the same as being a diplomat, just cuz they both have the word diplo in them.Michael: No, no, no. I'm not saying that they're, I'm not saying that that's the job. It's just that what have the Avengers been? They've saved the world. They've battled villains. They have taken upon their self to go to other countries, to act in America's interests.And then at times we've found that they've acted secretively to the same extent, further in the interest and theory of America. So I don't know what you want to call them, but they're not regular. And so you're, they're not regular. And, and your question at the start was like, well, what do you like, what do you do when you retire?Well, it's not unprecedented, but it's unusual. And so it's a good question.Edward: And so what's unusual, you're saying retiring as a superhero is unusual or retiring as an avenger is unusual. What's unusual?Michael: Retired from the Avengers is unusual because, well, yes, it's Avenger.Edward: Avengers have only been around for a couple years. No one has retired until now. But now we've had, now we have three retirements, sorry, four retirements, 1, 2, 3, 4, all at the same time.Michael: Yeah. And my point is that it's unusual. We have an experience where someone with that much power who's had such a fascinating role and influence on world affairs, is now no longer in that position? I think there's a qualitative difference between being on the Avengers and being the go-to team for. Pretty much any big problem to be on their own. Are they still on the payroll or at least getting the status and the influence they had on Avengers?Edward: I wouldn't think so. If you're not, you can't be like, not on the Avengers, but still getting all the Avenger privileges.Michael: That's right. So that's what I mean. Somebody that tied in to International affairs in such a highly visible way and such an influential position, I would think that they don't just retire and, then our intelligence organizations are like, that's cool.I guess you just. Have all this knowledge and this know-how, and you just go off and do what you want. So I'd imagine that there's something that must tie them closer. Oh, I see what you're saying. It's like maintain them and to be still being sort of a post adventure, but still in the family. You know what I mean?Edward: Got it. You're a post, you're not in ave anymore, but now you're a post a event. It's like a presidents. When presidents retire, they still have the secret service. Follow them around everywhere. They still get paid. Right., if you're an ex-president, you still get a salary.Michael: I think so. Or some kind of pension, I don't think they'd wait till like they're, you know, like most of 'em seem to be quite old when they're president, when they retire. I don't think they, they have to wait long before they get the stipend. Right. Which makes a lot of sense as well, cuz you don't want them to Go out and say, I've been the president of the United States for eight years and now I'm interviewing for this job at General Electric.Or I might go, I think I'd like to go work in Hungary. You know what I mean? I don't think that they're gonna be like, what's next for me? As if it's just like anybody in the world. They're just not. And so I think get to pay them enough to keep them on the bench in a way, and still get to know-how and the benefit of the expertise and still have them available to contact them.I would think.Edward: Okay, there's an ex-presidents club. You think there's gonna be an ex Avengers club where they all get together and come back together and talk about, I dunno, I guess the new Avengers can ask the old Avengers for advice the presidents do that sometimes. Yeah.Michael: I think so. I mean, I'd like to think so because the alternative would be that the Avengers, so somebody who's been so tied into our security and the intelligence organizations, but also our military and our political affairs is just suddenly like, huh. Well, I gotta make a living not an Avenger anymore.Edward: Maybe I'll go rob Banks,Michael: right? Or maybe I will go maybe work for, another country. I mean, like they could, and it's unusual, like the adventures started as this voluntary group, but very quickly became integral to our security intelligence organizations, et cetera.but I bet that there are those types of organizations and associations already. I bet they just attach that type of structure over to the Avengers to make sense.Edward: Paul, you're saying there's other structures like the Avengers out there?Michael: You used presidents ex-president, as an example.I think there has to be some kind of process they can follow to say, time.Edward: But the difference is the presidents, like that's part of the constitution, like that's built into the fabric of our country and there are rules and regulations that go back. Hundreds of years. The Avengers are a couple years old.We don't even know exactly how the Avengers are affiliated with their government, how they're affiliated with Stark Corp. They're all part of this military industrial complex, and I don't think we understand what's going on. It's definitely not the way we understand what happens with the president.Michael: Well Ed, I'm not saying I'm cool with it. I find it to be the most weird you know, and people that listen to our show know this. I've always found it to be the weirdest thing that the military, the government, our intelligence organizations are like, I don't know, better get the adventures involved. I've always found it to be strange, but whether it's strange or not, they're tied in and they have this connection and they have this. Powered authority in our society. So just to have them float off and possibly just what, decide that they want to, take what they know and not do anything with it, or,Edward: yes. You're basically say we should bribe them so that they don't do that. We should have tax dollars go towards paying giant man and Thor and Iron Man in the wasp and tell them, Hey, here's a hundred grand. Uh, please don't work for the Russians.Michael: I think, I wouldn't use the word bribe, but I think it's incentivized, I suppose, but's be honest, let's be honest. You, I've had shows where, where your solution is like, I guess we gotta kill them. Or lobotomized them. I'm like, no, I'm just following your well trod path on this one. Like probably need to pay them is the better alternative than like, Like, where I know you want to go on these things where it's like, too dangerous of your life. See you later.Edward: You know, I'm gonna tell your wife about the things you've been doing, unless you give me an incentive to not do thatMichael: well yeah. It's, like, protection, money protection.Edward: I'm not gonna, uh, bust into your shop, but, you know, I need some incentive to make sure that it stands up. Okay.Michael: But Ed, you wouldn't characterize it as bribing that you say, Let's say Kennedy, who's a young president, let's say. He hadn't been assassinated and he continued on, and he retired after, let's say he served two terms. He would've been in his early fifties, you wouldn't have considered bribery to pay him a pretty healthy pension.Edward: No, you're, right. It's not bribery to have to pay someone to do their job.Michael: It's a role.Edward: It's an incentive pay. It's an incentive. So that you go and do The Thing that we we're paying you to do. I think bribe, connotates something illegal, right? Or something underhanded. What's what's going on here though, is, it kind of is underhanded, because it's not public, it's not well-known. Is Stark Corp paying their post avenger salary? Is it the government? That's to me the, big question. And the other thing is that well at least giant man is still active. We haven't heard much from about Thor Iron Man, but, it's Giant man is out there. Experimenting and doing more stuff. Like the latest things on Giant Man is he can now grow to 35 feet tall. He's getting bigger and bigger, so his power levels are increasing. And he's doing it right in the city. He's damaging buildings, he's doing practices. He weighs tons with tons and tons of weight, and he's walking through the city causing damage.And so in the past when that happened, the Avengers had some sort of fun that paid for that stuff. Is there a post Avengers payment fund now too?Michael: That's part of the reason why I was thinking about this, there has to be some kind of structure in there. Not just about the idea that they have information that would be damaging, to our interests if they went somewhere else, for instance.But also if giant man is practicing growing in the cities, and holding onto buildings so he doesn't fall down. He's causing damage. And in the past, it's still irresponsible them to do that. But at least there is some kind of recourse for the regular person or insurance companies. He get some kind of, kind of like, you know, fix, fix the masonry on this. You know, likeEdward: fix, it's like an irresponsibility reading. As an avenger you can have a 10 on irresponsibility, but now that you're post Avengers, let's bring that irresponsibility level down to a six or a seven.Michael: And he hasn't, you know what I mean? Practicing growing around buildings when you wait tons and could knock one over if you just tripped, is not responsible.Edward: And also grabbing, grabbing onto the edges of buildings and like having bricks fall off. It just seems a little dangerous.Michael: It's super dangerous. So that's why I think that there must be something in the way, some process or some similar continuation of coverage.Really. Like I know when lawyers retire, we have mandatory insurance and then when you retire you can have runoff insurance, which would cover you. So you might get a claim, there's only so long you can Sue your former lawyer there's limitation periods and then you'd wanna make sure you cover. So if you did get sued,Edward: the insurance covers you, not for the time that you were a lawyer, but the insurance is covering you for right now. Like, for example, if you stopped your insurance today, And you got sued for something you did yesterday, the insurance wouldn't cover you.Michael: No, so insurance covers terms, so as long as you have occurrence base and claims based policies, but the most common policy would be like if you get into a car accident, you have insurance policy with company A, and then you get sued two years later. B, you no longer are insured you by that company. You're run to another insurance company. It's the company that was on risk that would cover you. And so I'm saying for, Lawyers when they retire, they wanna make sure they've got insurance and coverage, to continue a bit longer. I see I'm diving into stuff. I'm not a hundred percent sure I'm far from retirement, but I just know that there is coverage up.Edward: There's something, there, something, there's something's something there that's a giant man probably has some sort of insurance policy that's covering him post Avengers, some sort of runoff policy that lasts for some period of time.Michael: Or you just have the Avengers have so much money at their disposal. They're either self-insured in a sense, or they just have money to pay. But whatever it is, I think that you don't have these retired Avengers running around causing damage and then not, and then what you're gonna Sue giant man, you're gonna find out where that guy, who he really is. Or do you still follow the process that is in place that we we're aware of where they could make a claim. Because of the damage that the Avengers caused, which I think is a way that's kept people kind of okay with them in general.Edward: So if he has to have this coverage that keeps lasting, like we're kind of paying for giant man for the guess for the rest of his life or for some time period.Does he have responsibility then too? This is like reserves in the military. I think we can call back up giant man if the Hulk was rampaging through the city and we're like, you know what? The Avengers are a little weak right now. We need some, uh, we need some more bench strength.Can he be called in?Michael: I don't know. I mean I would think so. I would think that's part of the deal. Like we said at the beginning, it's unusual and unprecedented about what they are in our society, but they are unusual. They are unprecedented is so, you and I are just trying to speculate about what should make sense.And I think what makes sense is that if they're out there, Having information or abilities that could harm us if they were no longer on our side. I think that there's a built-in incentive to have them close to home, really. But also if they're out there doing activities, and they're more or less government agents, which they have been.I think there should be some kind of recourse for regular people. Otherwise people would not be as keen about Giant man doing his calisthenics in the middle of the city.Edward: Like you're sounding more and more like the Avengers are like the mafia. Once you're in, you can't get out. You think you're out and we pull you back in.Michael: I'm not saying that they're not like that. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the shocking loss of scientific skill among the country’s top scientists. It clearly seems purposeful, but what is the purpose? Aliens trying to keep humanity from developing new technologies? A domestic test to take away targeted abilities from exceptional people? Will they be able to take away superpowers next? And if so, is it ethical? If we can’t keep someone in prison, is the choice really between lobotomizing their abilities or capital punishment? What is the ethical choice? Ed and Mike disagree!Behind the issue:The after-effects of this issue result in Giant-Man unable to shrink smaller than a normal human for the remainder of his time in this title (which is ending soon and will be replaced with Namor. More on that when it happens!). Otherwise, nothing special here. In this issue:A guy is driving around town while being directed by a man in a hidden laboratory in a funny costume named the Supreme One. When the driver sees Giant-Man, he decides to zap him in a green ray, which causes Giant-Man to grow weak. This is because the ray is designed to steal power. The Supreme One becomes obsessed with stealing Giant-Man’s power, as he was unable to do that the first time he had someone try. To that end, he has his minion drive around town bathing scientific geniuses in the green ray, stealing their next-level scientific abilities, i.e. a top physicists forgets everything he knows about physics, etc. Giant-Man and the Wasp investigate, eventually tracking down the Supreme One, who escapes in a spaceship (turns out he is an alien).In the second story in this issue, the Hulk fights the army in a foreign nation, and when he turns to Bruce Banner, he is captured by some locals. Major Talbot is sent in to rescue Bruce Banner, and the episode ends on a cliffhanger - will Talbot and Banner fall to their deaths as they escape? Tune in next week!Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering what is happening to all the smart people. They are getting … less smart? How does that make any sense?This episode takes place:After people learn of the de-smartening that is happening.Complete transcript:Edward: All right, Mike, we're gonna change it up this week. We're gonna change it up a little bit because I have a story I think we should be talking about that's not, well, maybe it is superhuman. The scientists around the world are losing their scientific abilitiesMichael: right?Edward: So these are top physicists who are losing the ability to do physics or top geneticists who can't do genetics anymore. Top chemists who can't do chemistry anymore. And their brains can still do everything else. They can still have conversations, they can still love their families, but they're losing their scientific abilities. And so I think this is a super thing. We don't know who's doing it or why, but it sounds superhuman.Michael: Okay, before we get to this superhuman, if they're superhuman. Not saying that what you're saying is thatEdward: No, I'm not saying human. It's a superhuman, some sort of superhuman thing. I don't think we know any scientific way to remove parts of knowledge from someone's brain like that feels like a superhuman thing.Michael: Right. So you're saying that there must be a purpose to it. This phenomena that's only targeting extremely intelligent and highly accomplished and specialized people like physicists. They're being targeted and their abilities are removed, which. Yeah, it doesn't sound normal.Edward: Um, well, it's never happened before, so therefore it is by definition, abnormal. Although it's abnormal, it's happening more and more now. So is it becoming normal? It's becoming normal. It was not normal, but now it is.Michael: It's normalized almost, and so normalized.So I guess the first question is, what's the purpose of it? So your first thing is that you're thinking that there's a super villain possibly, or an alien or something that is doing this for a reason. Right. In that it's making humanity weaker. It's making our ability to defend ourselves worse. Worse. Is that where you're kind of going on it,Edward: it sounds that way. Like, oh, you're right. Maybe it's a villain who's doing blackmail, but it seems purposeful. If it was a virus, That was just spreading around, right? And causing brain damage to people. First of all, that'd be terrifying, but secondly, it feels like that viruses don't work that way. The viruses wouldn't go and attack just the most intelligent top scientists in the world and just attack their scientific knowledge and leave everything else untouched. So you're right, it seems purposeful.Michael: And that's alarming because we know that in the last few years, in addition to what appears to be naturally occurring superhuman abilities and extraterrestrial or, paranormal, superhuman abilities, we have seen that there's been greater advances in technology, in science that have allowed humanity to reach new levels. So Iron, Man and other, you know, giant. Giant man have been able To create things that are just impossible they're fantastical. It's basically modern magic, the science that they've been able to wield so is this a preemptive attack, a taking away the ability of other people to create such modern miracles?Edward: Oh, you're right. Yeah, it could be stopping the creation of new superheroes. We know, if you look at the superheroes that are out there, a handful of them, like the X-Men seem to be that this people who are born with this weird gene that's being activated by something.But for most superheroes out there, or, super villain for that matter. It seems to be either, Some sort of science that science is doing it. That's right. Captain America is experimented on and turned into Captain America, like the Reed. Richards took fantastic four up into space and space stuff turned them into the Fantastic four. Sandman was like atomic research, whatever turned him into Sandman. So it feels, or to your point, Iron, Man and Giant Man was actually, or the porcupine, they're actually building technological wonders. And so if our top minds, the people who can like do the engineering, the people who can understand the atomic science are losing their ability to do that.Hey, maybe it is aliens. Maybe aliens are trying to put humans in their place and say, Hey, stay on the planet Earth. Stop leaving and stop developing powers.Michael: It's wild. It sounds paranoid, but at the same time it's starting to make a lot of sense. This will fundamentally weaken humanity. By taking our top scientists off the board. That's right. Quite frightening. That's right. But then the other part of it is leaving side the motivation which is alarming and I'm hopeful that say the Avengers or the various federal agencies are on top of this, you gotta wonder how they're doing it. Like how is it that they're doing almost micro lobotomies. Is it a technological basis for it or is it magical? How exactly are they doing it at all.Edward: You're right. Clearly, it's not something that anyone has done before, but someone has found a way to go and do, lobotomy is a good word. It's a very, it's like a targeted lobotomy. Because what's fascinating about this is it's not like these scientists are coming in with other brain damage. They're able to continue on their lives. Normally. They are still able to, whole jobs. Not even like they can't do normal stuff. They can do all the normal things. They just, it's like this piece of knowledge. They're cutting edge brain power and I don't even know if their intelligence was affected so much as their knowledge was affected. So if you're a scientist who's like really brilliant and spend 40 years of your life diving deep into physics, you're not gonna be able to spend another 40 years we just don't live long enough.Michael: It's quite a violation of their autonomy too. I don't want to discount that, but, however they're doing it, it's wild. And you gotta wonder if it's not some extraterrestrial kind of thing or some kind of super thing. What if it's actually a, just, it's something more domestic? We talked before about, What do you do with these super villains that you capture and have these amazing abilities? Like say, let's say Sue Storm turned into be a bad person and she has force fields and can turn Invisible. Like how do you deal with that and make, and IM prisoner if she was a villain, is this. Some technology that somehow got into the world where they've been experimenting on how to turn off abilities and it's got into the wrong hands and they're using it to turn off the abilities, for lack of a better term, of regular humans.Edward: If you're right, maybe it is just an experiment then, and they're testing to see if they can turn it on and off before they say, Hey, let's turn off the superpowers of. Sue Storm or Reed richards. Let's turn off the brain power of some physicists and you're right, if it doesn't work and they can't turn it back on again, that would be really bad. But not as bad as if we like turn off the superpowers of the Avengers because hey, that's irreplaceable.Michael: It does lead into to a consideration of like, how if this is like a deliberate thing that might be done by people on our side, say a government kind of project that got the wrong hands, that tells us I guess I've ever thought about the idea that turning off, say, superpowers is akin to a pure violation of a person's autonomy, right? It's more relatable in a way to basically make a very intelligent person, less intelligent in a particular area that is actually, it's so remarkably unethical, cuz it is effectively targeted Phlebotomy.Edward: Clearly whether it's just happening to Random intelligent people, it's unethical. But if we did this to get against the guy who was building the porcupine suit or the wizard who is like notoriously committing crimes and breaking outta prison and committing the frightful fore attacking the Fantastic four, if we just reduced his intelligence and stopped his ability to go and create these fantastic suits, I dunno, is that still unethical?Michael: I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It, definitely is it is a version of lobotomizing those intelligent people. We don't do that right now. There have been super intelligent people in history and if the choice is to build a better prison or to lobotomize somebody, you would choose you should choose to build a better prison.Edward: That's fair. And I guess I feel like we haven't really. On that route, far enough. We still are building these terrible prisons and allowing these criminals to escape again and again. But I guess let's go further. Remember there was the vanish. Do you remember the vanish, right?Yes, I did. So that's, yeah, so the vanger had the ability to teleport and, I'm not sure how he was dealt with, I assume, like we assumed at the time maybe that they just killed him. There was just a extra, judicial murder to take this guy out because otherwise what do you do?You can't put in prison someone who can teleport outta prison. He was teleport into the Oval Office. He was threatening the president. You, can't stop someone like that. And so if we had, if for the vanish or. Let's say what they had this ability to turn off his power. Or, and along the way it also turned off his ability to do complicated differential equations. It feels like that's a better alternative than allowing him to go free or a better alternative than murdering him.Michael: Yeah. But it's the same, you know, The Thing with ethics is that they're not relative. This goes to, the question I suppose, is the ability to have like a superhuman power, and you, if you remove that, is that the same as effectively doing a version of a targeted lobotomy? And I think the answer is yes. I mean, I think that the Vanger, even by basis of just looking at his name, He identifies, that's a core part of who he is.Edward: He enjoys vanishes, and if he stops vanishing, then who is he anymore?Michael: Well, exactly. And so to remove that from him,Edward: it's, I'm the talker. If you take away my, if you make me mute, who am I?I can't, I can't, I can't do The Thing that I do.Michael: But it, but it's the same thing, like, so it is the same thing removing an ability for somebody to solve differential equations as a top physicist is the same as taking away a person's ability to, in this case, do a unique thing, which is the ability to,Edward: so I'll grant you that, but the difference is, is that the guy doing the differential equations isn't trying to murder the president. It feels like that. Like that's the difference. You're right. I don't think we should go and find everybody who can teleport and then go and take away their abilities. That seems like a draconian a totalitarian government that would do something like that. But if there's somebody teleporting around murdering people, I think by all means we should stop that person. And if that means taking away their ability to teleport, I think so. Be it.Michael: I guess the question is, what is a worse and more abominable crime towards an individual or harm that you could cause them? Is it one to give them effectively a brain injury so that they are not the same person as they were before, because that's what you're doing if you turn up abilities. I think it's similar to making somebody less, less intelligent to like solve differential equations either argues the same as turning off their ability to do what they're born to do, which is teleport. So it's a better termEdward: to murder. I was born to murder precedents.Michael: Wait, so you either give them effectively a brain injury, so you actually violate what they are as a human at who they're as a person. Their core being or you killed them, is what you're saying. Or you build a better prison. Yeah. Yeah. And you're saying you handled a better prison. It's only two choices.Edward: That's right. That's right. So I think we are all agreed that if you can build a better prison, you build a better prison that feels like the right thing to do, I think. Mm-hmm. When you can't build a better prison, when you have someone like the vanish or the absorbing man who can, if you put him in a prison, whatever you. Put him in, he can absorb the strength of that thing and bust his way out. And so what do we do? The absorbing man, they set him into space to drift aimlessly for eternity. Like that seems worse. It feels like if you had a choice between, that's the worst one. Drifting through space for all eternity, or losing the ability to absorb the strength of materials around you. I think most of us would give up the ability to absorb, even if our name was the absorbing man. It feels like you can get a new name.Michael: Hey. They sit him down and say, listen, here are the two alternatives. We've been up all night thinking about the options here, and one is that we turn you into a race that'll float through the empty space forever, or we give you, effectively we change your brain chemistry. And I think that, historically, it's a pretty slippery slope when you start messing around with people's brains and changing who they are. I don't know what the right answer is, ed, but I have to say youEdward: really don't know the right answer. You really think that maybe the right answers to have 'em drift through space for all eternity.Michael: I don't know. You're forcing me to say that. I think it'd be better. I think it would probably be better to actually like, uh, And I'm against a death penalty. But that seems to be preferable to actually really lobotomize againstEdward: sin. Bomb the ball. No, no, no, no, no, no. Listen, imagine. So let's put you in that, those shoes. Okay? Now, Mike, you now have the ability to fly. You are flying, man, and you could fly around and so on. But you know what? You used that, you used that flying power for evil, and you started killing presidents. And so now they're like, Mikey, you need to go to jail. Unfortunately. This metaphor is falling apart because we could put a flying guy in jail. You,Michael: you put a, the ceiling solved the problem, ed.Edward: Okay, Mike, you have the ability, we're gonna use this vanish again. You can teleport Mike, you can now teleport everywhere and you're murdering people left, right, and center. Because you know what, maybe the teleporting also meant your brain go, went crazy, and the government comes to you and says, Hey Mike, we have two choices.We can take away your ability to teleport and you'll go back to being old Mike. Or we can murder you. Are you really, are you like, have you given that choice? Like you think the right choice is to murder you?Michael: Uh, it's, it's just such a hard It, it is. It's not hard. Murder. Murder is a problem. The slippery slope stuff is terrible.Eddie, you're actually,Edward: yeah. But one of them, one of them has a slippery slope. The other one is a giant hole of death.Michael: You know what I think because,Edward: you can recover from a slippery slope, you can't recover from a murder.Michael: Eddie, I'm a lawyer. I'm not a judge. I'm not making that call right now. But you're, but clearly I know where it goes with you. You'd be like, take away my ability. Give lobotomize me so that I don't go out and vanish anymore and I'll live the rest of my life.Having you having fundamentally changed what, who I am as a person? Yes. Yes. How is that any different than Lobotomizing people that. The state didn't, consider to be, desirable?Edward: Well, we've already, I think the difference is, is we've agreed that you are only doing this as a last ditch effort. We're not saying, Hey, you're a murderer, a normal murderer who like walks around with knives and guns. We'll just take the knives and guns away from you. Even though you call yourself gunman and you define yourself by using guns, we're gonna take away the guns. And then, and you're like, oh, but I can't be gunman without guns.Well, too bad you're no longer gunman. You are now just man, and we're gonna put you in a jail. And that jail is not gonna give you access to guns and that's the preferred choice. But if you can't, but if you can't put them in the jail, you need another choice. And the second choice should not be killing them indiscriminately.Michael: So I guess the problem and hear me out on the slippery slope, but like if the technology is developed and you can use it on these, in these extreme situations, my fear is that you use them. Even if you could rationalize that, you would use them in more mundane situations where all prisoners, all people convicted of violent crimes are now gonna get, effectively get a lobotomy because it's safer.Because you can't keep them in prison forever. Or if you do, the prisons are unsafe, et cetera. There's gonna be a rationalization for actually using this technology to effectively lobotomize them too. So it won't be limited, I'm afraid to this very unique situation that. The teleporters of the world. I wish we know there's one. And it could extend and it could, it would extend what I consider to be an abomination throughout. Oh, again, you're worried Our society.Edward: Well, maybe we just put in rules in place that the person needs to choose to have this. We just get to a certain point where it's like, Hey, you can choose to be lobotomized or murdered, and if you prefer murder, we can do that for you.The state's really good at murdering people.Michael: I think it's what, I think one of those, that's what they consider to be actually not a real choice. Ed, I thinkEdward: know that's the point is, but like, we're stuck at this point where we have to choose the choice. We don't give them three choices if it's not like we can take away your powers, murder you or put you in a jail that you can escape from in two seconds. Which do you choose now? Well, clearly the guy just escapes from jail and so that's not an acceptable choice for our society. We need to stop the vanger and people like him from murdering people. And so far it seems like what we're doing is we're just murdering. We murdered the vanger and we sent the absorbing man into space. And this molecule, man, we don't know what happened to him. These people who are extremely powerful. They seem to just be disappearing and we're not talking about it. That is the slippery slope. And so this is a way to reduce the murdering this against villains.Michael: Well, if I had to guess. I suppose the murder's been working out. At least that's what's been happening and I think it's unfortunate. I think it's horrific. And so what I hope will happen is that maybe if the government is secretly funding this research into this technology, maybe they should direct their attention. Towards better prisons that would solve the problem and avoid these thorny issues. That, that you're pushing on me.Edward: Teleportation proof prisons. That's the next scientific achievement. Read Richards. Go do it.Michael: Send them to Asgard Ed. We know that they must have their, they're superpowered.God's like Thor. They must have the technology up there to deal with strange, unique powers. Let's, let's, let's start talking about that.Edward: Vanisher, get off Earth. Go murder Odin. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

Next week is our 200th episode! It was fortunate timing that it ended up landing right on our episodes about Avengers #16, which was one of the most important issues of the era. If you are enjoying What If Marvel was Real?, now would be a great time to spread the word! Thanks for your help in getting our little show out there, and for all the listeners who have been here from the beginning.In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the surprise announcement that Hawkeye, the supervillain, will be joining the Avengers as a new member. The Federal Security Agency has given Hawkeye a thumbs up, but how is that possible? What do they know that we do not? Do we need to talk conspiracies again? The rumors are that Captain America and Thor are out of the organization. If true, we will only be left with heroes with technological powers - have the people behind the technology (and masks) been replaced? Is this the end of an era?Behind the issue:This is one of the key issues of the mid-60s. The Avengers were originally Marvel’s answer to the Justice League, whereby the publisher put all the heroes from different titles into one book to get the readers excited and turning over their hard-earned cash for tales of camaraderie and adventure. But the individual hero titles continued, and Stan had to keep his developing Marvel universe consistent. He had to juggle the storylines in, say, the individual title Tales of Suspense with what was happening in the team title Avengers. If Thor had been called away to Asgard, then how would be be around for an Avengers adventure that same month? Making it all make sense every month was challenging for Stan, and he wanted a solution.The answer was to take most of the heroes with their own titles off the team. He kept Captain America, and maybe rationalized it by knowing that the Captain America stand-alone stories could be set back in World War II whenever he wanted them to be. Then he filled in the rest of the team with supporting characters from other titles - characters who did not have their own books (and would not get their own books for many years, i.e. Hawkeye did not get his first solo title until 1983; Scarlet Witch, with Vision, until 1982; and Quicksilver until 1997).In this issue:The issue opens with the Avengers once again emerging victorious over the Masters of Evil in New York, with Captain America defeating Baron Zemo in South America. It continues with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp in New York having a team meeting and deciding to take a break from being on the team. At the same time they are having the meeting, Hawkeye breaks into their headquarters and asks to join the Avengers. His beloved Black Widow has been murdered by her employers behind the iron curtain, and he has had a change of heart on his line of work. The team decide to take him up on the offer, and on top of that, seek out new potential teammates, with the papers reporting this initiative. Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver decide to apply to join the team, and they are admitted to the ranks as well. By the time Captain America returns, the team has been completed reconstituted, with Iron Man, Giant-Man, and the Wasp out, and Hawkeye, Quicksilver, and Scarlet Witch in as their replacements.Assumed before the next episode:People are excited, and a little nervous, that the Avengers roster has been changed so completely.This episode takes place:After the announcement that Hawkeye will be on the team, but before Captain America returns from South America.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, I told you that Hawkeye was a superhero. I told you. I told you. You were like, oh no, he's not that good. He can't even fight anybody just as Arrows. Oh, go back to the 14th century. But no. Now Hawkeye is an Avenger. Mike. He's an avenger.Michael: Yeah. I guess the Avengers, they already had a man who's basically a one man rocket and can shoot energy from his fists as an Iron man. They needed to get somebody who could. Arrows on the team.Edward: Hey. The last time Hawkeye faced Iron Man, first of all, last time he faced Iron Man, he was a villain. We should talk about that. But when he did, yes, he defeated Iron Man, right? He blasted him with his energy discharge arrow and took him out. So, hey, this guy is versatile. We've had this debate. We don't need to debate it again. I think you are against Team Hawkeye. I am on Team Hawkeye. I think that it's absolutely fine from a power perspective that he's on the team. I'm not sure from a, ethics perspective, he's the red venture.Michael: Well, okay, let's break into, those two points then. So from a powerless perspective there must be something to him that he brings into the team, right? I can't imagine that it's solely just really good aim. There must be some other, maybe he's got some other ability that like he's, um, some kind of likeEdward: oh, maybe his really, maybe his really good eyesight. HawkeyeMichael: In the name, I mean alone, but he's got, there's some kind of, maybe, I'm just thinking maybe this is a signal that the Avengers are going from less, overt action to be more in the shadows.Edward: And nothing says sneaky like a purple costume carrying a bow and arrow.Michael: It's a dark purple ed. It's a dark, dark purple. No, but there must be something to it. Like he did take on Iron Man. He did seem to defeat him. So in a skills-based contest and maybe he's. Like you notice that Captain America wasn't at the press conference when they announced Hawkeye, so maybe he's a replacement for Captain America's, who's also similarly strategic and stealth based in a lot ways.Edward: There you go. There you go. Cause the rumors are right now that Captain America and Thor are being replaced and Hawkeye is the first edition to the team, but there will be,Michael: and your second point was the ethics. It does strike me as being a little odd that there's a guy who's worked with a known terrorist. The Black Widow. Correct. A Russian agent and he's fought Iron Man a few times. And, I would imagine in the course, Committed some crimes may, maybe he did, maybe technically he didn't commit any crime.He's justEdward: He did. No, I just did. I think they were doing something robbed. They were robbing Stark Corp or something. Yeah. They kidnapping somebody he was doing bad stuff.Michael: They kidnapped, they kidnap people. Yeah. Yeah. That seems a bit much to sweep under the rug.Edward: That's right. Where I come from, kidnapping is a crime, Mike. It's a crime. But come from planet, but not according to the federal security Agency. The federal security agency has approved Hawkeye as a member of the Avengers, says that his record is clean, that he is totally allowed to be on the team.Michael: Well, I know when I became a lawyer there is a requirement of good character to become a lawyer and. I think that there's a lot of lawyers, soEdward: I think the bar should be higher for the Avengers. Shouldn't the bar be higher than the lawyers?Michael: I think it should be. I think it should be. It should be higher than the bar for lawyers. The bar for superhero should be much higher and it turns out that it isn't. And let's be honest, the Avengers are the super team that people are in, are interested in, and it that are called in as the heavy hitters. So this seems like. Quite a promotion for somebody who, as you say, committed the crime of kidnappingEdward: That's interesting. Let's go back and talk about your issue with, Hey, lawyers have a high bar. I think part of the reason why we can hold lawyers to a high bar is that the supply of lawyers is really high. We're graduating more lawyers every year, and if there's an unethical lawyer, we can say, no thank you. We don't need you. We can replace you with an ethical lawyer. I wonder if the problem is, People who are powerful enough, superheroes who are powerful, super people who are powerful enough to be Avengers. There's not an excess supply. There's a handful of these people. Mm-hmm. There's like a few dozen maybe on the planet. And so if you're looking to augment that team and your bar is high from a power perspective, maybe you have to bend a little bit on the ethics perspective.Michael: Or maybe, if you believe in rehabilitation, which I do, maybe there's a steep rehabilitation curve? Because as you say, demand exceeds supply. And so if we need to have, Superpowered or super skilled people either we're willing to turn a blind eye or we're willing to go through the process that hopefully allows him to achieve rehabilitation. So behind the scenes there's been this sped up process. Yeah. Because we need to have this person. I know what you're saying. It does seem a little fu butEdward: it does. I'm stretching a little bit, trying to make sense of the fact that we have a known super villain on the team. And not just on the team, but specifically signed off by the federal government, the federal security agency has come on and said, Hey, this guy is clean. He's totally, totally legit. Now, and maybe the other possibilities that maybe the whole villain thing that Hawkeye was doing before was a misunderstanding, like the, the Avengers declared martial law on America. Turns out it was a mistake. Right? It wasn't actually them maybe and we're okay with that because Avengers do good, Avengers do. We'd say, oh, the bad was a mistake. We're all good. And Hawkeye just didn't do the good part at the beginning. He was just doing much of bad, but then like, oh, nope, we are okay with it. It was a, it was kind of a mistake. It was a misunderstanding. He's actually a good guy and maybe we just have to accept that.Michael: I guess, and the fact that it's Iron Man who he's fought, who's come forward and vouched for him, must mean there's something to the idea thereEdward: that's assuming Iron. Man is Iron Man.Michael: I know it's the Iron Man with whomever that person is has come forward and voast for him? For, for Hawkeye, andEdward: well, no, no. Let's say a Iron Man has come forward and Vos for Hawkeye. Yeah. But that's a whole other point. We've talked about this conspiracy. Do we know that the Iron Man inside the Iron Man suit is the same as the Iron Man who was in the Iron Man suit fighting Hawkeye. Maybe the Iron Man inside the suit. The individual inside the suit has been replaced and now he's like, I was an enemy with the old guy in the suit. Let's bring on some more of the people who are also his enemy onto the main team.Michael: So a hostile takeover, Eddie, like you got. This Iron Man. That's not real. Who's recruiting a villain and who's left on the team? Who are the other people on the team? Ed?Edward: Well, we know that I think giant man in the WASP are still people on the team, and so, hey, we, know that giant man in the wasps, their powers come from technology, right? We know this now too, right? There's some sort of helmet or pills or something they take and they wear masks. We don't know who they are. Maybe they've been replaced at the same.Michael: It's Wild Day, so the three members of the team of the Avengers, who are technology based, Iron Man, giant men in the Wasp are still on there and they could be swapped in. And interchangeable. For all we know. Thor isn't exactly interchangeable.Edward: That's right too. So the two people that are not, that looks like they're being replaced are Captain American Thor and Thor is, that's right. Clear. Like whatever. Thor is magical, powered, mutant. We don't know exactly what he is. We know that he is not an armored suit. He's not taking a pill. And turning to Thor and Captain America we know is some experiment from like the 1940s during World War ii, who is Un aging and like super strong. And he's a super powerful individual. He's physically fit and he's not replaceable either. He's not like, you can just put someone else, put the,Michael: there's footage of him going back to the forties as well, so maybe hard to just replace him. Whereas you have the, you're right, you have the only three members of the Avengers left are one second, easily be swapped out, and now they're. Pac a villain, or at least a criminal.Edward: I think somebody should be taking photos of the lower half of Giant Man's face and matching that up to previous photos. I guess you could still replace him with someone who's lower Jaw looks the same, but maybe they didn't go to that much trouble. I think someone should at least investigate.Michael: Or get his dental records, or photos to get a sense of his teeth and then compare them to old photos and say, aha, aha, I can see that that front tooth is shifted over quite a bit. That's not the same giant man.Edward: He's like, but I was punched in the face. I'm an avenger. I can punch in the face a lot.Michael: Uh, maybe wouldn't be the best one. But the nose, even like noses are pretty distinctive. Or even ears that they pot. Well, I don't think ears pot though, butEdward: his ears are covered. We don't, we don't know what his ears look like,Michael: but this all goes through our fundamental problem is that we, as a public and as the fifth, the state, have a hard time, Getting a sense of who these people are or possibly being fooled because they wear masks. And I guess, if we see that the Avengers as basically a very public facing, paramilitary organization that's to some degree manage or governed by the government say the Federal security agency in this case, then I guess there must be some safeguards. I good, good guess, but it's hard to say.Edward: And even if there are, it feels like, it's not the first time that you can imagine some corruption within the government, right? Maybe it's not even, a giant corrupt thing that we're talking about, but maybe that giant man in the wasp, our agents of the government, Iron Man is an agent of the government and somebody in charge. Whoever we don't know who that is. Someone in charge decides to bring on Hawkeye, and let's say all five members of the team are. Forget it. We don't want this guy on the team and the government guy's like, no, no, no, no, no. We've done the checkup. He's totally fine. He's totally legit. But they're like, no, we, we all quit. And so Captain American Thor are gone. You can't replace them, but you're like, oh, well hey, you three, you can't quit. You can quit if you want, but whatever. Tom Jones and Bob Smith can quit, but a giant man and the Iron Man in the was, they don't quit. They just get replace.Michael: Yeah, this deserves investigation. This deserves further inquiry. There's too many moving parts of the story to just let it sit. It's easy to be distracted by a new member of the adventures for the public, it's the first new member that they've added since they formed,Edward: no, no, no. That's not true. That's not Captain America came on. They, and he joined the team. Wonderman came on and he joined the team. Now, Wonderman died almost before we knew he was on the team. But he was an official Avenger for Okay. Some period of time. So this is the third new member of the team.Michael: Okay. It's still relatively unique though, let's just say that it's a big deal. Like Captain America is a new Yeah, it's a big deal. So it's, but it's distractingly. Interesting. And so other people, other journalists, and if I don't think we would consider ourselves journalists, but maybe we should, in this instance, should be asking these tough questions. And then I would think if they are truly a paramilitary organization, there is an interest, a public interest in perhaps knowing their identities in the same way that you would of any kind of, Government agents, unless they're spies, which the adventures aren't.Edward: Okay. Can we talk a little bit about speculation? We've done this conspiracy stuff, but now we have so it's true the Captain American Thor are off the team. I think your argument is that Hawkeye kind of replaces Captain America and I can buy that, right? Like they're both extremely talented individuals in some way, shape, or form. Both of them have projectiles that they incorporate one arrow and one a shield. I would argue arrows. More effective than shields start in terms of projectiles. But so that leads Thor. How do you replace an as guardian thunder God?Michael: Maybe with a Hulk. I don't know. Like, I mean, like what?Edward: Yeah, that went well last time.Michael: Maybe. The Thing, maybe.Edward: Oh, maybe The. Thing. Oh my gosh. That's a great call. Great call. Maybe it's time to shift things up.Michael: Yeah, I mean like maybe he's tired of being I wouldn't say that the fantastic four second tier, cause they aren't, but they do serve a different niche right, than the Avengers. And maybe that's true. Maybe Ben Grimm who was in the military. His interest might align better with a paramilitary organization rather than a more adventuring kind of organization. Fantastic.Edward: That's a great idea. Now, here's another theory is that Hawkeye was a villain that they got over to the hero side. Why don't we look at the list of villains out there? Radioactive man. Radioactive man from China. They decide to he's gonna defect and join America and join the Avengers. Because I would argue radioactive then wasn't evil. He was just serving the wrong master. And people have defected from China to America all the time.Michael: I mean, it'd be hard to get notice to him over in China, but Sure. He does have a skillset. He is extremely powerful. Similar to, I don't think he's the same strength level as Thor, butEdward: hasn't he battled Thor? Isn't Thor and radioactive man, aren't they arch.Michael: It's hard to tell. How many battles do you have to be an Archie enemy? I think you need a few, but,Edward: Just a regular enemy.Michael: Yeah, he's an enemy. Well, how about, okay, there's two. I'd say if you wanna go straight on, as guardian to as guardian, it would be the executioner. Executioner, yeah. Or Loki. Are the, oh Loki. If you could rehabilitate in the way that they rehabilitated, Hawkeye presumably, but I'd imagine rehabilitating an ancient immortal being that it might be a little tough. Tougher it. A little tougher to serve the interests of America or the world.Edward: No. You've been focus, we've been focused on like strength though too. Mr. Hyde is another strength strong guy. Yeah. Right. Maybe Mr. Hyde. But I wonder Thor is more than just a strong guy. He's more than. Pure muscle, the guy can fly. Remember we talked about how fast he can fly across the ocean?Yep. So do we need a guy who can fly? Like how about the wizard? Can we bring the wizard back?Michael: Yeah. But it's not like he's made a couple mistakes. Like you suggested maybe hot guy. He's a career criminal now. He just broke bad. How about, how about that guy with the, the wings from the x.Edward: Oh, angel Fly. Angel could fly Fly Angel. Yeah. Angel. Angel could fly. Yeah. You know, I think the point is it's gonna be hard to replace Thor cuz there's people who are strong that we could find. There are people who can fly. We could find, but trying to find somebody who can do both, that's a pretty unique spot. I think maybe there, there were, they made a mistake to let Thor go.Michael: Like I say, it's a developing story and I'm still distracted by the idea for lack of a better term, a super villain. Hawkeye is now in the Avengers, seems kind of funny. For a couple reasons. And then longstanding Avengers are just, I just disappeared. The only ones that remain are ones who are basically, are suits, where power suits seems kind of strange. Yeah. Yeah. And I wonder what's happening. You know, we gotta get into this.Edward: There's also the point that we, this is all speculation too, because they did not say the Captain American Thor off the team. There was questions asked, and it was all just no comment. No comment, no comment. We're not gonna talk about it. What did he, he said something about the lives of Avengers are private citizens. We can't comment on them. Like, it was a definitely a very sketchy statement of we're not gonna go there.And so, hey, I guess stay tuned is the answer. More to come. More to come. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the end of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The X-Xen claim that Magneto and Toad have been kidnapped by an inter-dimensional being, Mastermind is dead, and Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch have retired to Eastern Europe. Are any of those things okay? Should there be an investigation into Mastermind’s death? Should there be a rescue mission to recover Magneto (and Toad)? Are super-terrorists just allowed to retire? Is that a thing? Mike and Ed have some divergent opinions. Where do you stand?Behind the issue:Clearly this is not the true end of Magneto. He returns in X-Men #17 (February 1966) and it is eventually revealed that he escaped from the Stranger by stealing a spaceship and returning to Earth, whereupon he immediately tried to kill all of the X-Men.In this issue:The X-Men detect a super-powered being of unknown origin, and seem a little nervous about it. Meanwhile, a tall man with a shock of white hair moseys through the city, walking on air and through walls - he is clearly the super-powered being and is ultimately referred to as the Stranger - until he finds Magneto and his Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. The Stranger battles Magneto and his team, overpowering him. He turns Mastermind into a solid block of matter, and then the X-Men burst in and start battling the Brotherhood too. Ultimately, the Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver confess to the X-Men that they are quitting the Brotherhood, having repaid their debt to Magneto. The Stranger then kidnaps Magneto and Toad, flying off into space with them, with the X-Men powerless to assist.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering whether they are more safe, knowing that a super-powered alien can overpower Magneto and take him into space.This episode takes place:After the Brotherhood has been disbanded in a very unorthodox manner.Full transcript:Edward: Michael, it's the end of an era. It's the end of the brotherhood of evil mutants. They are no longer a brotherhood. They're done.Micheal: problem solved.Edward: I'm sure there'll be other problems out there, but it is nice that one of the big super terrorists hanging over the head of our country is no longer an issue anymore. The X-Men have reported that Magni and the towed, the leader and one of the members of the brotherhood have been kidnapped, detained by some sort of alien being. And, the three remaining members, two have retired and one is apparently dead.Micheal: So there's a bunch of stuff that comes out of it let's. The X-men at their word and say that, what'd they say? An alien took Magni and towed awayEdward: some sort of alien or interdimensional being someone who's not from here, it was you who said that. How do you define an alien? An alien is someone not from Earth? And it sounds like this guy's not from Earth.Micheal: So let's just call him just for sake of convenience. See, this alien is taking magni and towed away, so that's okay. Fine, but. Do we just leave it at that? If say a kindly grandmother and her,Edward: wanna hear where you're going with this,Micheal: kidnapped by an alien, would we just be like, oh, well, aliens, you know, aliens, they just, they just kidnap peopleEdward: I think. I think, well, I think, well, hey, I think there's a difference between a grandmother and a.Micheal: But why is there, I mean, the point is like there isn't actually likeEdward: no, there's no if, if, wait a minute, you're arguing. There's no difference between a terrorist and a grand.Micheal: But not certainly.Edward: Who is your grandmother?What is your grandmother like? Michael?Micheal: I loved my grandmother's. I did, but what I'm trying to say, I'm not comparing, I'm not saying that you've gotta treat your grandmother like a terrorist, but you probably need to treat terrorists as human beings. I mean, or criminals or accused. Criminals still have the same rights as the, as the rest of us, and so,Edward: Do they, do they do They have the same, right?Like do,Micheal: of course they do.Edward: Like I have the freedom of movement. I can go around and I could go to the grocery store, I can visit my mom, I can visit my grandmother. But if you're a terrorist and you committed a crime, we put you in jail. You don't have freedom of movement anymore. Let's, we take that right away.Micheal: No right's been taken away. There's been no trial of Magni in towed. Like right now. Right now, they are men that might be accused it's been allegedly committed crimes, and if they're convicted of it, then sure, some of their civil liberties will be taken away restricted. My point is that if, the X-men come and say, don't worry guys, an alien stole these two people and took them away, what's the response like? We're now not alone in the universe and we know that and, so we must be considering. There could be these alien abductions and we need to have a response to it. I'm sure if your grandmother was kidnapped by aliens, you'd want to have some kind of response. You'd want Reed Richards to get into a spaceship and chase down those aliens and rescue your grandma.Edward: Absolutely. Well, lemme put an asterisk. I think that's true. Unless my grandmother was a terrorist, in which case, you know what, I'm okay. You can leave her. It's a terrorist exception. Terrorist exception to grandmother kidnapping.Micheal: Don't think there is an exception to it.So I'm saying that the public sympathy might not be there, but if, let's just make it more earthbound. If an accused terrorist was in a boat that caught the wrong tide and the engines out and it's going out to sea, would you expect the Coast Guard to go rescue that person?Edward: I think so,Micheal: yes. You wouldEdward: yeah. You'd want go and capture those. You wanna capture them. I wouldn't want the Coast Guard to rescue them. You. I want them to go and capture them.Micheal: I know, but, the law works that you actually would have to, you have an obligation to try to rescue them. I think you do have an obligation to do that. How you treat them after you re rescue them is another matter.Edward: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's correct. I think the difference is a little bit is. That the amount of resources and effort it would take to capture a boat floating in the ocean is a little different than the amount of resources it would take to capture an interdimensional kidnapping. There are a lot of Coast Guard people that can go and help a lot of people who get trapped in boats. Mm-hmm. I think we have to be, we have limited resources for capturing interdimensional, kidnappings. We have like what, four or five people on the planet that can do that for?Micheal: What did Reed Richards go to space for recently? Didn't he go for some kinda personal reason, like,Edward: well, it was semi-personal. It was, his father-in-law had been killed by the scrolls and he went and negotiated a peace treaty with the scrolls as part of that peace treaty, the person who this individual scroll, who killed his father-in-law was put to justice on the scroll home world.Micheal: Yes. So personal. So, okay, got it. So anyways, what I'm trying to say is that I understand your point, we're not gonna bankrupt the entire Earth to save Magni, but the question has to be asked, to what extent do we actually extend ourselves with respect to not just leave inside the terrorist part, which is hard to do, but leave it from the, what is, what is the extent to which we will actually take steps to address interplanetary crime or aliens. Now we don't have to worry about just bad guys on earth doing bad things to people, but people from other dimensions or other worlds doing bad things to our people. So what's our response? And I don't know what it is yet, but right now it seems to be.Okay. It's too bad. See, later Magnis. See later tote, you're going to another planet or another dimension or something.Edward: So, hey, maybe the answer is, we put it onto Reed, Richards to-do list and he can prioritize it versus all the other things. If there's a bunch of grandmothers but that been kidnapped, let's get to the grandmother's first. And Magni can be somewhere further down the list and maybe somewhere on his list. Getting flying cars to the masses. And personally, I'd rather have flying cars be a common consumer purchase product than save Magni. Like, that's my own personal priority list.Micheal: Typical, typical capitalist and socialist kinda conversation. But anyways, to move on to the next point, so let's assuming that the X-men are telling the truth, right? What if they aren't? How do we know that aren't the truth?Edward: You and your, decept, you think not everyone's a lie. Like why would they be lying about this?Micheal: Well, because they've been fighting because Mag's been trying to kill the X-Men. And so then they come back and say, Hey guys, uh, what?Edward: To be fair, to be fair, Mag's been trying to kill everyone. That's not just the X-Men,Micheal: but they've been in hand, hand combat with him and they have, so the X-Men come back and say, Hey, hey guys. Uh, yeah. So anyways, you know that guy that was trying to kill us? Yeah. He's gone. Oh. Oh, really? What happened? Ah, An alien took him away. Oh, okay. Problem solve. There's no recourse or ability to investigate to see whether they're telling the truth. The expert aren't the good guys,Edward: but, but hold on. Even if they did, so let's, let's say they were in battle with Magni. If they told us, Hey, we were in battle with Magni and towed, and in the course of that battle they were killed. Well, that seems like a defensible position as well. They didn't need to make up this alien abduction thing. They could have just said Magda was trying to kill us with his magneto powers, and in the process we blasted him to smithereens.Micheal: I think that if the X-Men came back and admitted to killing Magni and Toad, let's not forget about Toad admitted to killing these two people.Everyone does, but you know, I dunno what his power is.Edward: He's like a rounding error. Hey, to Toad was like the first public he was the first public mutant. Remember back in the day, he was the one that tried to cheat. He was cheating in the track meet. And that's how we knew about mut.Micheal: Okay, so he's not doing so well in being a valuable member of society, I guess. But my point is that if they came back and said, we killed these two people, it is different than saying we had nothing to do with them until this disappeared. I think that there is a world of difference between how the processes that have to be followed you know what I mean? SoEdward: I don't knows happening. Yeah. They killed the world's most dangerous terrorist. I don't think people would be that upset with them. And they can be reasonable as from a self-sense point of view, because we know that Magda was trying to kill them.So they have a self-defense. I think the, the, also, also, also, one of them is dead, right? So they, the mastermind, one of the brotherhood of evil mutants, the X-Men have reported he's dead. No one seems upset about that particularly.Micheal: I know I'm asking questions cause I find it weird. I find it to be the weirdest thing that people are just like, oh, well, oh well, oh, well the X-men say that these people are gone or disappeared or stolen away or are dead.Oh, well the X-men say it, these people that no one knows who they are, but you know, goodbye me. But it's okay.Edward: But it's not that. It's not, oh, well it's, congratulations. Congratulations. You've eliminated a threat. A threat. But my point is, if they're gonna lie, why wouldn't they just. All three of them got taken away by an alien.What would they say? Two got taken away by an alien. One was killed, and two retired to Eastern Europe.Micheal: Super criminal Mastermind Ed. I don't know. I'm not saying they're super criminals, but look, if a police officer shot somebody in the street, the special investigations unit would be involved. Sure. And it'd be a whole process. I think there should be no different than if a mass vigilante part of a group that may be associated with the government. Kills somebody that there should be an investigation as well, and it should be public.Edward: Yeah. Look, this is different than, this is more like a soldier kills, another soldier in combat.And so there's no crime scene investigation when that happens.Micheal: I'm, that's because the rules of war applied. I mean, there's been an act.Edward: This is the war, war with this brotherhood, people.Micheal: We aren't No, no. Right now. It's right now if there're terrorists and it's crimes that they're committing, it's not actually a war.So I think the laws, the laws also to apply. Yet there has to be an equal application.Edward: They're terrorism laws.Micheal: Yeah, but those are different. It's not the same as being at war with the terrorist. That's not how it works. There's still is be, if you shot somebody. He was a terrorist.Edward: No, no. Yeah, but it's, you can't do it after the fact. You can't just go start killing people and calling them terrorists after the fact. I'm talking about these guys are identified terrorists before the fact, and they're committing terrorism and we know that they are. We need to go and shut them down somehow.And I think the X-Men did that. So, and it wasn't like they were, they weren't like totally brutal about it. Like two of them retired. Can we talk about that for a second? How come they retire? Talk about is is retirement from terrorism an option? Is that a thing?Micheal: Okay. Before we get there, that's a really good question. But before I do, I just wanted to finish up this one point. Just say what you're basically saying is a toad who looks kind of like an odd guy. And he's just goes down to the grocery store, you get a bag of chips and someone sees him and says, Hey, he's a terrorist, and he shoots him.That'd be, that'd be fine, is what you're saying.Edward: No, that wouldn't be, that would not be, because the problem is that there'd be too many mystique identities. People be, start shooting random people and being like, I thought you were to. It's not my fault. I'm sorry.Micheal: You're just an ugly person that seems to run fast.Edward: He looked like a runner. That's why I shot him. Look how he jumped over that aisle. Like that was the end of him.Micheal: Or they, or they shoot, they shoot Magni. It's like, why? It's like I saw the silver War move around him and I thought he was like, instead it was just, you know, this like tremor.Edward: There's, yeah. So that, that to me, that's the bigger issue is not that toad is dead. It's that I don't want people using that as an excuse to go and kill track.Micheal: Right, because you want, because you want equal, equal application of the law. That's the whole point, of having, being civilized society.Edward: I know. All I'm saying is I'm not sad that Tow and Magnier were gone and that Mag Mastermind is dead. But can we call, can we talk about the retirement? No, neither. Can we talk about retirement now? Nevermind. So Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch apparently said, Now that we, the rest of my team is gone, we're not gonna continue in our villainous ways. We're just gonna move back to Eastern Europe and what Hang out. Like that's it. We're done. Like, is that like we're hired for terrorism. That's, we're done.Micheal: I, another odd thing, it's like, oh, well, you know what, and I don't think they even said we see the air of our ways.They're just kind of like, I'm done with t. My boss is dead or gone. So, uh, anyways, uh, I'm just gonna go hang out at the beach or just not be arrested. Like, like, I mean, isn't this the right time for say the Avengers or the X-Men to go over and arrest them if they have the power to do so?Edward: Yeah. You think so?Micheal: Most of their team's gone and then they committed crimes.Edward: Yeah, we've had this issue before, right? Where are these people even like presentable, like quick Quicksilver is like so fast. Can you actually hold them anywhere? The Scarlet Witch apparently has witch powers is able to like, Be witch things like can we actually hold them and maybe we can't hold them.Maybe the answer is like okay, we have two choices. We can take them at their word that they're done committing crimes and let them go do something or we can murder them. Are those the two options?Micheal: Yeah. So we're treating them like, like what? Like an angry elephant. You know what I mean? Like, just, just stay away.Like That's right. Antagonize the elephant. They might trample, you know, your tent, but if, uh, you know, the elephant doesn't seem to be interested in us, let them walk on by the whole pride of elephants or whatever. What's it called? It's a pack. Pack of elephants.Edward: Pack of elephants. Herd. Is it a herd of elephant?I don't know. I don't, these are, these are questions that people wanna know, but we had a herd of mutants a herd of evil mutants murder, a murder of mutants, a murder of mutants. And, now there are two, but apparently we've done, and look, I guess I question whether or not that's actually true and whether these two are gonna come back and cause havoc in the future. And so I don't know what, what to do at this point. Like, I, but I think you're right. Like murdering them seems like a little overkill given the fact that they. Said that they're not gonna do any more bad things.Micheal: So shouldn't the priority then be like, I as, you know, I don't lean towards imprisoning people, but I guess the priority should be about figuring out ways to do that, right?Because I don't think it's consistent with my view about equal application and being equal before the law. I don't think it's a good idea for society to allow people to commit crimes and just let them walk away because they say they're done committing those crimes. I also don't think it's good for society just to murder them or let aliens kidnap them. But I do think that maybe you could have a system in place to imprison them, keep them away, and hopefully rehabilitate them. But like you say, I don't think we have the capacity for it, just.,Edward: that's Mike. Just, just sitting on the fence. You won't murder them and won't let them walk away.Micheal: Classic. Keely just refuses. Refuses to kill people. Unhappy about them getting away with their crimes. What?Edward: Can't make a decision.Micheal: Can't make a decision. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss when it is appropriate for a regular human to get involved in super-conflict. If you can’t help, you don’t need to show off - just run away and call 911! Also: Are all Asgardians super? If they are, why wouldn’t all of them come to Earth where they could be super powerful? Or is that just beneath their dignity?Behind the issue:This is the point where Stan has decided to take Thor “off the table”. He is going to leave the Avengers, and more of his stories will involve stuff happening in Asgard and the politics of the gods, rather than fighting villains of the week on Earth.In this issue:Thor and Loki are engaged in battle in a faraway land, at the behest of Odin to sort out who lied to him. This all came about because of a trick that Loki played on Thor and Odin. Ultimately, Odin realizes that Loki lied to him, and that Loki had put Jane Foster in harms way as part of his scheme. Meanwhile on Earth, the Enchantress and the Executioner kidnap Jane in broad daylight, and a bunch of pedestrians intervene in an ill-fated attempt to rescue her. Back to the faraway land - Loki escapes, leaving Thor stranded.Assumed before the next episode:People watch footage of the pedestrians being unable to take down super-powered Asgardians and realize they probably shouldn’t try that.This episode takes place:After Thor is stranded in another dimension.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, it is kidnapping week here on the show, ,Michael: and I didn't even mark it in my calendar, but you're right. Every year it creeps up on me every year. Kidnapping week, you know, I just think really it's kidnapping week. It's been that long. Oh gee.Edward: Yeah. Yeah. It's time for the friends and family of our heroes to be put at risk where the villains come in and, use them as leverage to. I dunno, I guess to get the heroes to fight. Why, they couldn't have just got them to fight before, it feels like most of these heroes won't turn down a chance to fight with these villains. Like I think the kidnapping part is a little unnecessary.Michael: It does seem unnecessary and maybe that's why we're taking a little jaunty view of it, where yes, they're being kidnapped, but it usually works out , no one's really injured. It makes it seem almost like a juvenile game between the super villains and the superheroes.Edward: And in this particular case, two of the top people at, Stark Corp, pepper Pots and Happy, I'm sorry, I don't know Happy's last name. Happy Hogan. Happy Hogan. Yeah. Happy Hogan. We're kidnapped. Everyone can, Breathe easy. They have all been rescued. Iron, Man has rescued them from the kidnapping. So they're back at home. Happy is now happy. And meanwhile, Sue Storm from the Fantastic Four, the actual superhero Sue Storm, has also been kidnapped by the Frightful four. And she's not yet been returned. So that the case is still out. Although with her powers, she's gonna be much easier to protect herself than Pepper and happier.Michael: I guess, we'll see how it all shakes out, but on a more serious note there is a concern about these connections with these superheroes that leave them exposed to risk. You gotta wonder about what they're doing to protect themselves in the case of Iron Man, no one knows who he or she is. It's just that there's a person in a suit of armor and they just associate, butEdward: he's associate, yeah. He's associated with Stark Corp. And so That's right. People know that Iron Man is Tony's Stark's bodyguard more than that. He's like the bodyguard for the company, the face of the company. And so, clearly if one of the top people at the company is kidnapped, Iron Man is gonna come to the rescue. And that's exactly what happened.Michael: But I think sometimes about say a royal of family or a distant relative of say the president,, if your cousins with the president, are you worried about getting kidnapped? And do you get a security detail? And the answer is no. And if you're 20th and line of the throne. Do you need a security detail because somebody kidnapped them, then it would be news. But I guess there, there is some cold comfort for people that work at Star Corp is that they're that far removed and they're not really at risk, but then again, maybe their career's not going so well, if they're not, if they're not exposed to kidnapping.Edward: That's right. This, this, you've been promoted and also kidnapped.Michael: Yeah. And they're like, thank God. Finally, you know what? They gave me a corner office and that was great and all, but it wasn't until I actually was reporting directly to Tony Stark that I was kidnapped. I was kidnapped by a Russian spyEdward: I've made it. I've made it. Mike . My career is finally taking off, and I'm a prisoner in Russia.Michael: Keep my bonus kidnapping and take me Siberia. .Edward: Is that like, I wonder if that's like a bullet on their resume for their next job was kidnapped four times. Therefore, it must be important.Michael: rescued by Iron Man three times and once by Thor. It was great. You know, recommended five stars.Edward: Yeah so this time, I dunno, we should probably cover both these kidnappings, but the first kidnapping of, pepper and Happy, was I guess a former Russian agent called Black Widow. And, someone called Hawkeye. And, Hawkeye apparently dangerous cause he did significant damage to Iron Man's Armors, Iron Man, managed to recover the two kidnappings. Black widow and Hawkeye did escape, but in the process, Iron Man's Armor was severely damaged. So this was a real threat.Michael: It is, but it's super weird, right? So Ironman's basically a living weapon. He's a rocket gun, you know. The way I understand Hawkeye is he fights with a bow and arrow and while I accept the fact that he somehow used the bow and arrow to get acid on costume. I don't think the operative part was the bow and arrow. I think it was the acid that just could eat through the suit. And my question,Edward: The arrow was a delivery vehicle for the.Michael: You could get a water gun for that , you know, especially,Edward: I'm pretty sure the wa like, I dunno if you, so I have some young children and they use water guns. Water guns do not shoot water very far. Okay. Whereas a bow and arrow, you could shoot that very far. Like maybe not as far as a sniper rifle, but a solid bow and arrow. You can shoot that thing a long wave.Michael: I know. Okay, I get that point. But I guess what I'm saying is that it seems like the only thing he's got is a bow and arrow so if he's truly the marksman, why is he not using a gun? Not that I wanted to use a gun cuz he's a bad guy. But wouldn't it be more effective in a fight if you had a gun and an earring? AccuracyEdward: Depends who you're, you're fighting against. I think if someone brought a gun to fight Iron, Man, those bullets would just bounce off his armor. But instead, well, he fired an acid arrow at him that melted his armor and practically took him.Michael: But I guess. Up your game, Hawkeye bring a rocket launcher. You know, or like, it's not gonna get bone arrow. It just the acid arrow. How it seems like the only thing that might've helped again, and in a fight between Hawkeye and Iron Man, like what else, what other arrow could he have?Edward: Maybe he has,, I could imagine many arrows, right? I can imagine. Many imagine he had like an emmp arrow that knocked out electronics. Clearly he didn't have one of those. Cause if he did, he could've taken out Iron Man with one. But he even, but maybe he should get one for next time.Michael: A projectile, like a gun. He could use, he could shoot like a little disc or something.Edward: Don't arrow guns don't. Guns don't have e emmp blockers. They don't have, there's no such arrow bullets. There's no acid bullets. These arrows do. These arrows do. Why not? Why not? ,Michael: I just think it's, Silly. I just think it's silly. It seems like he's committed. He's like, you know what? I like, I like being an archer. And they're like, hold on a second, the 17 hundreds called, they want their weapons back. And they're like, yeah, forget it. I'm sticking with it. No, it's not even the 17 hundreds, like the 14 hundreds, there's been advances in technology Hawkeye. And if you're really good at aiming things and shooting things, invest in a little. You know, gun workEdward: Well, here's my theory is that Hawkeye has some sort of incredible superpowers that'll, that give him the ability to shoot these things the same way we talked about the green goblin being able to balance on that, right? On his, on his hoverboard. I feel like Hawkeye has some sort of advanced superpowers on firing arrows. And he's combined that with incredible technology that provides these arrows that do incredible things. And I think, just because it seems silly to you, Mike, doesn't mean it's not.Michael: No, I, acknowledge that. I just, I guess I'd like to, again, like many of these superheroes I like to talk to and say, just so I understand this, have you thought about something different? Just like, explain to me why this is the process, if it's not just a shtick that you have because you like looking like, a bad Robinhood Halloween costume.Edward: I think, this is a case, Mike, where you are sitting here being the critic, right. Going and arguing against these guys, whereas he's out there risking his life actually doing this stuff and, and like I, the bad guy, I'm, I'm gonna, well he's doing evil, but at least he's doing something. He's, he's stepping up and he's, and he's taking action and he's making things happen in the world. And I, feel like sitting back and critiquing it. We should be trying to understand it and let's understand what he's doing and why he's doing it that way. But to, wave your hands and say what he's doing is dumb and stupid, man. I wanna see you go out there and fight Iron Man with your rocket launcher .Michael: I'm not, but I guess, okay. I guess I was, I just still find it silly. But no, I'm ed you've really made it, you've made some headway in this discussion. Yes. Okay. Iron, Man, keep it up or no, Iron Man haw. Keep it up. Keep it up. See how, see what happens. But I'm just saying to you right now, in a year's time, he is in jail, , and it's like, and I'd be curious. And they take away his arrows. . Yeah. I'd be curious. He says like, yeah, you know what, you know what my mistake was? I used a bow and arrow in a modern world to commit crimes instead, I should have. A gun or a rocket launcher, or a flame thrower, or even a water gun. that shot.Edward: Hey, speak. Speaking of other options, let's, let's move on to our second kidnapping of the week. So Sue Storm, kidnapped by the frightful four. All four of them, I guess, got together and took her out. Usually the fight for four are battling the entire Fantastic four. And this case they focus their efforts on one individual, on the team, kidnapped her, are now demanding the other ones come and fight them. So far nothing really exciting in the news, but I think what's interesting, maybe interesting is that, two of the dreadful four, are, if not new then rebrand.Michael: I think they're definitely rebranded, and I find it, again, I guess the theme I'm having is that it just seems kind of silly. So like, do you know what the name is?Edward: Like we talked about the silliness, . Let's give these guys some credit. They're battling the Fantastic Four. These are not clowns,Michael: not silly people. Okay. Okay, let's go through this. Okay, so we know about what's his, um, what's his real name, the Wizard's real name, uh, bent. Whitman Bentley Bettman? Yes, that's correct. Okay. Okay. So he goes from Bentley Whitman very intelligent person knowing the world over to calling himself the wizard cuz he's like super smart and he wants to out Fox the Human Torch who's a teenager. And then he's rebranded himself as a Wingless wizard cuz he's using is, he's still using his anti-gravity suit, which he had before. And my first. Who are you talking to about the branding? Like boy, the wingless part is not the interesting part of this. We already know you're the wizards so you're flying, but you and I Ed are wingless. This isn't the win the Wingless radio show. You know what I mean? I'm not the wingless lawyer. You're the winless dad of your children. The Thing.Edward: If he was, if he was armless, maybe he should call that out. But you're right, a human who is Wingless doesn't seem to be The Thing that you care about.Michael: No, it's not. It's not like, woo. I'm really intimidated. He's wingless. Watch out. He's wingless. .Edward: You can imagine all these other characteristics he does not have . The claws.Michael: Claws, you know. I don't know, like the finless, like, I guess you wouldn't be good swimming. Like it's just dumb . So it's not just, it's not just silly, it's kind of dumb.The guiltless, the guiltless wizard. , what I hope, what I hope, because he's a bad guy, he's doing bad things and he kidnapped somebody recently is, I hope that he paid a lot of money to some consultant to say, what am I missing? Why, why are people thinking I'm a bad guy, just cause I do bad things? They're like, you know what it is? It's because, you know, the wizard is so intimidating. Let's just say, to soften you up and say like, here are things you, you aren't, you're, you don't have wings, so we're gonna call you wingless and that, and everyone likes alliteration. You're the. You're the wingless wizard now. That'll be $5,000 here. Thank you very much. Goodbye, Lee. I just think it's not very good.Edward: Okay. I think we can agree the Wingless wizard was a misfire when it comes to branding. But. The other member of the team who's come up with a new name for themselves, paste Pot, Pete, which I always have a hard time saying, and yeah. Frankly, might be the worst name in the superhero business, . And it was about, it was about time he changed and he did change to what I like. Well, it's not a worst name.Michael: The Trapster. The Trapster. You know, I think the irony here is that they're on the same team and the Wisher goes to a worst name with alliteration and Pace Pot pete goes to a better name, and eliminates the alliteration. . Yeah. So it's no longer Pace Pot Pete, which is kind of like, again, pace Pot is not like, Ooh. Oh no. They might. Something sticky on me. The trapster is a little more, nefarious, right? And I think it's more intimidating if that's what you're going for as a super villain. And it just seems that maybe. Pete Trapster should go over talk to Wing Wizard and say, you know what, ,Edward: as much as we all love the alliterations, it's, they're unnecessary these days. You can, like, they're, yeah, don't, you don't need to li you don't need to put yourself in that box wizard. You could call yourself the box less wizard.Michael: Yeah, but he should say something like, Hey, I was like you before where I thought what people needed to know was have in my name was have descriptions like Pace Pot. You know, Pete wasn't enough, had to be Pace Pot, and you had to be winless, but you don't need it at all. Just go right to the name, the Wizard, and I'm the Trapster and you're Wizard. So you're smart and you're devious, and I'm. I'm gonna trap you with my pace Pot , but I'm not gonna say that part because it's just gonna happen. It's just like I'm gonna trap 'em,Edward: talk, talk, talk, talk about what you achieve, not how you achieve it.Michael: That's right. And I won't be tied down to the PACE pod cuz I have more than glue, not much, but I have more than glue I might have like genius plans.Edward: I can trap you with whatever methods I choose. .Michael: Yeah. And I might just talk to my friend, the Wizard who's super smart. He's gonna help me figure out how to do these plants and I'll just, I'll do it. Sometimes it'll evolve pace, but I'm not tied down to it. And you know what, you might just float away. But no one needs to know why. just do listen. Just do. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the trial of the century! Namor the Submariner is on trial for vandalism, which seems like a minor charge for the head of state of an empire that attempted to take over the world. He is represented by celebrity lawyer Matthew Murdock. Murdock, who also represents the Fantastic Four in real estate matters and is accordingly well familiar with super-powered individuals and their super-powered issues. But regardless of client base, can one lawyer really understand civil AND criminal law? Is Murdock too specialized … or not specialized enough?Behind the issue:Namor continues to be one of the only “anti-heroes” in Marvel Comics at the time. He is self-righteous and impatient, but he is also honorable and motivated by more than taking over the world and being “evil”. Stan Lee clearly liked writing this character, and he will soon get his own monthly feature.In this issue:Namor, as leader of Atlantis, wants to find a peaceful way to take over the surface world. He visits Matt Murdock and tells him he wants to sue the human race Murdock says that’s impossible, and Namor leaves in a huff. He then causes a ruckus in New York City, causing wanton property damage, leading to his arrest after battling Daredevil (who is secretly Matt Murdock) in the streets. Murdock then represents Namor on the criminal charges brought against him, and countercharges the human race (which is quickly, and correctly, thrown out of court). Namor is then informed of a rebellion back home, which causes him to just leave the jail and attempt to return home. Daredevil battles Namor again, and does quite well, but ultimately Namor wins the battle and returns to his life below the waves.Assumed before the next episode:Matt Murdock rethinks his approach to the practice of law after this disastrous experience.This episode takes place:After Namor returns to the sea.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, does this mean that we're defendants? Are we defendants because we're part of the human race? ?Micheal: Short answer, no. , no. But it's a surprising turn of events in,Edward: is it though, is it surprising? Is it actually surprising?Micheal: I guess we should, we should never use the word surprising when it comes to superheroes and New York City. But, the recent news. Not surprising, but unfortunate from a lawyer's perspective about the abuse of the legal system and the justice system. I would say,Edward: Mike, you can handle it when they tear apart our cities, but when they tear apart our legal system, that's when you get upset.Micheal: That's a long too far. Ed. That's just a, just, it's too much. It's outrageous. It's outrageous. I'll say that,Edward: So, hey, what I'm talking about here is that, Namo, the Submariner, the Prince of Atlantis, was charged with what, with vandalism. He's going to jail for vandalism, ,Micheal: pretty penny anti stuff, like causing a ruckus in the city and causing damage. And then he hires a pretty wellknown lawyer. A lawyer we've talked about before, Matt Murd.Edward: Yeah. Matt Murdoch. So he represents the Fantastic four. He also had some notoriety in the past. He came forward and said that made this big claim that he could prove that Daredevil and the Matador were the same person and it turned out that that was not true. , that Daredevil is not the Matador. And, he got a little bit of egg on his face for that one, but now he's back, he's back in the public eye. Probably the most famous lawyer in the world, right. .Micheal: Yeah. So, I've always found it confusing when I've read about Mad Murdoch, cuz I thought he was mainly a criminal lawyer. So it's odd that he would be on retainer or have anything to do with a Fantastic Four. But here at least he, it started out as being a criminal matter like NAR was charged with an offense and had to appear in criminal court. But what was confusing? Which causes me to question Matt Murdoch. As a lawyer is that he filed a counter charge. You're gonna see entire human race. No, no. Like what's, that's, that's, that's ridiculous. Like, likeEdward: so, so Mike, in your legal opinion, he can't do that.Micheal: Yes, yes. That's my legal opinion. Like there's, there's just no way to describe it other than the criminal court involves, there's prosecutions in the simplest way, the state lays a charge against a person for an offense and that's what happens. Like the person who's been charged with the offense doesn't get to claim against this. The state , if you like, we have a whole system, we have civil litigation for that purpose. If you want to say as an individual, Sue, the United States. You can advance a claim, I guess if you're the basis for it, or Sue you, or anybody.But you don't,Edward: could you, could you Sue the, is the human race one of the options? Can you Sue the entire, no, not a person. But what, but what if the human race has done me wrong? What if the human race has, I don't know, killed my dog, can't I? Can I file a claim against the human race for doing that?Micheal: No. No, ed, I'm just telling you I'm gonna entertain this. Other than like, you just can't. You can't. If you've got a problem with the human race, I guess, you know, then you should. Talk to like a therapist or something. But if you have a claim for damages that you want to advance in civil court, it would be against entities such as United States. It could be the state of New York. It could be, any number of companies. It could be any number of people. But this concept of the human race, uh, isn't, uh, a, a viable party.Edward: How small a group do you have to go to? Like the Native Americans were treated very badly by the European settlers when they came to America. If there is a leader of the Native American tribes, can they counter Sue against the American people, the American government? Is that possible?Micheal: I don't wanna get into that, that's a whole conversation about indigenous rights but you're talking about a group of people who have been mistreated in the past. It's not like you could just Sue a group of people you need a definable defendant. You can't counterclaim against the human race when you've been charged criminally and that's what Matt Murdoch did. And the question is why would he do that? Because he's obviously not a moron, but that's a moronic thing to do, like and it,Edward: it's, you're not stupid, sir. But that was a stupid question, .Micheal: That's right. And it's so why would he do it? He's not an idiot, so he knows that he shouldn't do this, and the only person that benefits from what he did is himself. For the notoriety, because we're talking about it right now. Naor doesn't benefit from it because he's, first of all, he's paying Matt Murdoch for this service, and it's a service that he can't really discharge, which is. To represent him properly in a criminal dispute where he advances a claim that they'll be dismissed right away.Edward: Unless Namir is just doing it for publicity as well. Sure. Matt Murdoch's getting a ton of publicity from this, but so is Namir. I think everyone is talking about the fact that he believes that. Humanity owes him something. And I think that talk has happened. Clearly the judge shot it down. There's no counterclaim happening, but, we're still talking about it. Maybe that's what he wanted.Micheal: As it relates to Murdoch. I think that he acted contrary to the duty that he owes as a lawyer, because you're an officer of the court and you can't knowingly advance something that's fundamentally inconsistent with the justice system. There is a time and a place to advance a claim, a personal claim. It's not a criminal court. And Murdoch knows that such a complete waste of time and a complete waste of judicial resources. And he shouldn't have doneEdward: but, but Mike, yeah. But it was one sentence he said in his corner or that was shot down immediately? No, no, no. As far as time wasted, like there was not that much time was.Micheal: No, no. Ed, I know that he says he, he wanted to file that, but he had to actually file written papers. The other side being the state would've to respond to it, to dismiss it and, advance an argument. But what I'm saying is that Murdoch, if he truly wanted to discharge his duty, and he would've the same notoriety to be honest. If he could have, assisted na more as a head of states, I suppose, to navigate diplomatic world, to advance grievances, I guess between one state and the United States and perhaps advance that the United Nations or. Consider how to advance a civil claim for damages with respect to say, I don't know, the ocean or something and how the United States is interfering with their homeland. There's things that can happen countries have disputes through different processes and treaties throughout the world or on the world. You could advance these claims, but to do it in this, it's abusive of the system of justice and it's also just counterproductive and it didn't really serve what apparently name or aims are. And I think as a lawyer you have to do your best to serve the interests of your client, even if it's telling them, great idea. We can't do that. , and here's why.Edward: Well, this is why that you're not his lawyer. Mike, if you, if he came to you , you'd be like, no, go, swim in an ocean Naor. But Murdoch was like, Hey, I'll take you for your word and we'll go and we'll actually do it. Even though to your point, it was a bad decision to do. But what of the things you touched on there, I think he's worth exploring is Nair's, a head of state. Are we allowed to charge the head of state with vandalism when they visit our country? Is that a.Micheal: I, have limited understanding of that, but the way I understand it's that if a head of state is here on official business, I think that they have some kind of protection against prosecution, right? Because otherwise there could be some mise, I suppose, about visiting heads of state in foreign lands with different laws to what?Edward: Yeah, like it was, it was only otherwise applied to them. It was only last year when craven, this international hunter came to New York. Craven is not the head of state, he's just a foreign national. He came into our country and then proceeded to hunt a human being, and, we didn't charge him, we just, deported him. So why was he deported? Whereas Namo. While he did many bad things, didn't hunt a human, and, uh, say what you will about namir.Micheal: Say what? You'll about namir. He didn't hunt a human. He didn't hunt a human one bit. Not at all. .Edward: Yeah. He just be broke down. Some, some walls and stuff caused some damage. Why does that go to court at all? Why is it happening? Does the US even have the ability to do that? Are we allowed to? Well, clearly we are. Cause we did. But is that a.Micheal: Yet another failing of Matt Murdoch. I mean, youEdward: shoulda dismissed. You shoulda had dismissedMicheal: right off the bat. Yeah. I have a feeling, I have a feeling that Mr. Murdoch may run up against, a complaint at the bar, if not by name, more than perhaps by other participants in the justice system for just this complete dereliction of duty. I would say as a lawyer, just outrageous, but ultimately, maybe he doesn't care that he keeps his license. He's like, so, He has, like everyone knows who he is. He can say he's got the Fantastic Four and now name, where as his clients. And there might be, there's probably, an appeal to a lot of, clients to having a famous superhero adjacent. Lawyer and maybe Murdoch is trying to get away from the criminal work to get into the civil work or the commercial work to make more money.Edward: I feel like we've been talking about this it's come up again and again where you keep having this idea that we need to have like specialty, specialty right people for the superhero space. Well, here, Matt Murdoch has done that and instead of specializing in insurance or criminal law or family law, Whatever else you lawyers do. He said, I'm gonna specialize in superhero law. And he's representing the Fantastic Four in I don't know, real estate contracts and he's representing Namo in criminal court. And he's like, I can do it all. As long as it's like, as long as it's superhero adjacent, I can cover across all the different legal verticals.Micheal: Yeah, I think that, I thought, a bit more of a narrow specialty ed, like, I act for insurance companies, but it's not like Civil and commercial disputes. But it's not if, say that one of the executives was charged with murder, they would hire me to do the murder trial. Like it's just like that's a specialty, that's a unique set of, are you saying specialized area?Edward: You are a specialist in insurance murders.Micheal: No, . They need a murderer lawyer. They don't need a, they need, they don't need like an insurance lawyer just cuz they work in that industry. So I think that, I think Murdoch is being, I would, I'd use the word irresponsible.Edward: I would use the word opportun.Micheal: and you do some other op opportunistic lists. Right? But I'd imagine that he could seek, I'm sure he could specialize in doing, superpower criminal work. And maybe he could have a law, join a law firm where there'd be other people that work in that as in that field, or they service the superhero community. But a specialist does the real estate work for superpowered people. A specialist does the damages claims for superpowered people.Edward: I think the problem, Mike, is that the insurance industry is a much bigger industry than the superhero industry. Mm-hmm. , there's just, there's, there aren't like, I dunno how many people. Work in insurance in America, but I'll bet that number is much higher than the number of superheroes there are in America. And so it feels like they need more legal support. And so there may not be enough work out there for a lawyer that specializes in like superhero real estate or superhero insurance or superhero accounts management.Micheal: No, no, I get it. I think though, I guess what I'm trying to work out here for Murdoch , his problem is that I think what I'm seeing is that you could still be the go-to person for when, as if you're a superhero who's charged with a criminal matter. You could be the go-to person because you to that community and. would lead to more regular business. Like when I started out, I did some work at a criminal law firm with a very famous and well-known, criminal lawyer. And I, didn't want to be a criminal lawyer after that experience, but I definitely saw the business model where this lawyer serviced like very high profile cases. He serviced that industry where people would go to him. Rich and famous people if they were charged with an offense. And he did that. He acted as her lawyer. But the bread and butter wasn't that work. The bread and butter was more the regular assaults and fistfights and whatever that criminal lawyers do. So, by extension, I think that someone like Murdoch could. Service the superpower community to bring in the rest of the work. Just like a commercial. He could do the same thing, you know?Edward: Got it. So he goes and represents the superheroes in their fights and their battles, and their disputes becomes famous, and then spends his time representing normal criminals.Micheal: That's right. And so that way, it drives in the business what I think the irresponsible part is that he's being too broad. I don't think that you can say you're a specialist for the superhero community, but I think you can see I'm a specialist in criminal law and I've acted for these, superheroes, that's just the marketing thing that he's.Edward: Maybe, we should take our show and expand it to talk about non superhero stuff. We bring people in for the superheroes, , and then we just talk about normal everyday things that are not as interesting. But you, you already lo know and love us, so you stick around for the other stuff.Micheal: Come for the heroes, stick around for the, um, stuff, other stuff. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss the increased police presence in the city and how that is affecting both real and perceived crime. Is this because police have less to do as a result of the superheroes helping out? Is the presence of superheroes itself causing criminals to give up lives of crime, and maybe even become heroes? More to the point, is that what happened with the Green Goblin - he was inspired to become a hero? If so, why has he not changed his appearance? Does he want to be scary, or is what he truly looks? And how the heck does he balance on that glider - does he have abs of steel?Behind the Issue:This is the third appearance of the Green Goblin. Clearly, he does not become a hero. Steve Ditko and Stan Lee decided to keep the Goblin’s identity secret, but behind the scenes they were debating who he should be. Lee wanted him to be someone from Peter’s life, but Ditko wanted him to be a stranger. The disagreement meant that the Goblin’s identity remained a secret from the readers until Ditko left the title (the Goblin’s identity was revealed in the first issue after Ditko was replaced). Oh, the drama!In this issue:The Green Goblin tries to take over the New York City underworld, and while they are not convinced, he is definitely scaring them. Meanwhile, Peter Parker notices that former reporter and criminal Frederick Foswell is back at the Bugle. Apparently, the Bugle’s publisher J. Jonah Jameson believes in redemption, or at least the value in giving people a second chance. Peter is not convinced that this is a redemption story, though, and he tails Foswell, whom he notices speaking with a thug. Foswell turns over information to Jameson that the thug had on a crime boss, who in turn provides this information to the police. The Goblin is overjoyed with these pieces falling into place - he has set this whole thing up to help him with his hostile takeover of the world of crime. Peter then changes into his Spider-Man outfit and tracks the Goblin, who tricks him into conflict with a mob boss and his lieutenants. Spider-Man basically does the Goblin’s dirty work, taking out the gang and leaving them for the police. Realizing he has been played for the fool, Spider-Man finds and attacks the Goblin, who gets away. It’s not all roses for the Goblin, though, who is disappointed to find out that Spider-Man did too good a job when he took down the mob boss and his entire gang, with the result that the Goblin had no gang to take over.Assumed before the next episode:The Green Goblin is going to need to rethink his whole gang takeover strategy.This episode takes place:After Spider-Man took down an entire gang.Full transcript:Edward: Feeling safer these days? Mike?Michael: No. ? No, I wouldn't say so. ,Edward: I feel like, like there's increased police presence on the streets. They're putting some crime bosses away. Is New York not a safer place than it was even a few weeks ago?Michael: Oh, well I guess that's standard than maybe, but I definitely have noticed a greater police presence in the last little while, certainly since the, a. Population of superpowered individuals on the scene. Do I feel safer before buildings could be captured and kidnapped and brought into space? I wouldn't say so in, you know, multiple invasions in New York City, butEdward: so, so, so, so clearly. Life is less safe now than it was in 1960 before.Michael: RightEdward: buildings. Were getting torn away, but I'm just talking about recently, like recently it feels like the superheroes are out on the streets. There's a bunch of them now. It feels like they're covering the ground around the monsters and the super villains, and that's freeing up the police to go and take out the normal villains.Michael: Well, I think so. I have noticed that there's more police for sure. I, don't know what element of that is performative and what element is that the costume vigilantes that we speak about every week have been in addition to attacking gods and monsters and aliens have also been attacking street level crime as well. There is no doubt that Ant-Man and now Giant-Man and Spider-Man and all the insect related heroes, I suppose are trying to deal with some street level justice, which probably is freeing up some time for the police to focus on other things, other elements of society that require policing. That's my guess. Or, is his performatively they're just trying to show that maybe they shouldn't be ignored. Yes, there's people flying through the air, but we're the police, darn it. And we're in the. Keeping you safe, .Edward: Yeah. That, that, that is something, right? If that performativeness makes us feel safer, it could also make the criminals feel less safe and drive the criminals back into the holes they came from.Michael: Maybe. It could, but I still wonder if it's just performative. It's almost just trying to get attention, if you know what I mean. Like it's like everyone's talking about Iron Man, but don't they know we're the real heroes, , and it's likeEdward: the, the every we have, we need more, less kids. Dressing up as Iron Man and more kids dressing up as everyday police officers.Michael: That's right.Edward: Let's have more realistic dreams. Kids. . .Michael: Yeah. Unless you are a super science genius, can invent your own costume, you should probably apply to the police academyEdward: don't expect to be superhero. Just be a regular, everyday hero.Michael: Yeah. And that's good enough. But no, but seriously, I guess I haven't made my mind up. I'd be curious about the statistics. let's just call it regular crime and whether police are being freed up to deal with more of the regular crime that's why we're noticing it. And if they aren't, if there's no real change in how much, in the impact of like regular crime and how it's being policed, then I think it is performative. And it just seems like they're just trying to get some of the attention. I have a mixed mind, not when it comes to the police in general, it's just they're not there to tell me what to do and not to do they're there to investigate crimes and well, and,Edward: and they've, and they, so they've had some successes lately, right? So, lucky Lobos basically says whole criminal enterprise got all swooped up. The Frederick Farwell, a former crime boss himself outta prison now working for the daily bugle, put together a. Basically did investigative reporting figured out where all of Lucky Lobo's financial records were kept and, blew it out to the police. And they shut down, not just the head of the family, but basically shut down the entire operation and that's gotta reduce crime. ?Michael: Well, yeah, it would, I think, I'm not saying that there haven't been some recent successes, it's just that I'd like to see that's more anecdotal. Or at least there's a recency effect here. I'd like to see what has been the impact? I guess I'd express it this way. What has been the impact of having superheroes and super villains out in, say, New York City on the ability of police to police regular crime? If there has been any impact, so is it that the superpowered individuals are taking care of that and a little bit of regular crimes such there's more effort being put into a policing regular crime or if it's just no impact at all. And it's just for show, I don't know.Edward: It's interesting when I was in business school, one of the studies that we looked at was about crime in cities. And clearly like when crime goes down, real estate prices go up. And so we, well, we cared about in business school was money Mike and how forget about safety, but how safety affects money. But the point was, When you could, one way to drive down crime and drive up real estate prices was to basically do us like a spike of policing. Because if crime was at a relatively low level, that meant the police that you had on duty could identify any new crime that happens and shut it down. But if crime is at a really high level, the same number of police can't handle all that crime, and crime goes unenforced, which then encourages more crime, cause you can get away with it. Your chances are getting cock down. And so you need to drive it down to a low level and then keeping. At that low level is a lot easier than getting it there to begin with. And so I wonder if this, like the spike in policing that we've seen, the performative nature of it, the fact that we have these superheroes doing stuff. Has that driven crime down to a level now that it's gonna be easier to maintain at a low level. And it's driving even super villains to become superheroes like so the Green Goblin, for example, now he's gone from being a villain to like apparently being a hero. And maybe that's because crime doesn't pay anymore. let's switch to the other side.Michael: Before we get to the Green Goblin, I understand the point you're making, maybe, I mean, again, but I think as a business person, you would like to see the data as would I, but I'm a little confused. Why are you saying the Green Goblin is, is acting like a hero?Edward: So Green Goblin was involved in this whole shutdown of The lucky Lobo criminal gang, he helped take them on and he was seen battling them and taking out the crime bosses. He's working for the good guys.Michael: Yeah, Goblin's always worked for the good guys.Edward: Are you saying? Saying maybe if he's gonna switch sides, he should change his name too and become like the green? I don't know. Green Elf, .Michael: I don't know. He is got this goblin mask, he looks frightening on purpose. So are you sure he's on the side of the angels now, ed, you don't see that maybe taking out a whole. Might be in the interest of someone who's previously acting like a villain and attacking the city.Edward: Oh, so you're saying that he's just taking out his competition?Michael: Well, I mean that's, yeah, I mean, cuz The Thing is, okay, how about this? Previously he was acting like a villain, dressed up like a goblin, and he's frightening. He's on this glider, he is throwing bombs. at a, I think wasn't at a TV state. At a, at a tvEdward: Wait, at, at, the fan event, the Spider-Man fan event. He was like terrorizing people.Michael: I think it was being filmed too, but whatever it was, it's certainly at a fan event. So that's a criminal? Who should be locked up? And so do we have such a short-term memory that he just is still wearing the same stuff with the same equipment? And he's like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm good now. Well, he reallyEdward: yes and no. So we assumed he was a villain, but we also assumed that Spider-Man was a villain, right? There was a lot of assumptions flying around with these people, and it's not like Spider-Man and the Human, Torch haven't had public battles in Times Square, like the go what did the Goblin really do in his past event? He basically tried to attack Spider-Man, but like, it feels like everybody wants to attack Spider-Man. Maybe he's just like a guy who like has a grief with Spider-Man and now he's like trying to do.Michael: Wasn't he throwing bombs at crowds of people?Edward: Wasn't the Human Torch throwing like fireballs at crowds of people?Michael: I don't think he, no, I don't think he was at crowds of people, but I don't know. But may I assume you're right.Edward: They were in New York City and there were fireballs going around and there were people in New York City. Now nobody got hurt, but I don't think anyone got hurt from the goblins bombs either, did they? .Michael: I don't know off the top of my head, but I think there's a difference between throwing a bomb into a crowd of people and then actually being engaged in a fight. But anyways, I don't wanna make that go down, that so far cuz then we get the whole idea that you're right, they shouldn't be fighting in crowded places, but let's, okay, let's assume he's the go, the green goblins now a hero. You're a business guy. Is this good marketing? Like should he, what if he just got a new costume?Edward: Fair enough.Michael: He's truly on the side of angels and just changed it. So he looks like, I don't know, the,Edward: well, here's the other thing. Do we know it's a costume? Patel? Maybe he's like a Defor. Maybe he's like, that's his face. Like do we know it's like an actual mask? Maybe It's like, like, I dunno, like the Hulk looks kind of weird and stuff like there, there's all sorts of villains.Michael: I think it's a rubber mask. I, I think that the reporting shows it's a rubber mask. It's not like as a skin texture, but,Edward: maybe his, I think he, like Mike, we live in a world of monsters and aliens. Maybe his face just looks like a rubber mask, , and the poor guy can't change his face. The poor guy is like this ugly. Deformed thing that was driven into crime because it was deformity and people were making fun of him, mocking him, people like you. And now he's trying to go to the side of good and we're still mocking his like ugly.Michael: So you heard it here first, folks, ed, nevermind humanitarian, , goblin, goblin, defender,Edward: . I'm just, I'm just saying that not enough people defend the ugly people. People like there are focus groups and there are groups that help all these different people who have a tough time in life, but there's no group of like the Association of Ugly people that helps people like,Michael: Ed, I think that you've got the organizational skills. I think you're the person that should do that. But I wanna talk about one other thing before we go on to your pledge drive to help the criminally ugly people in the world. But what do you think about the green goblin? And I was, I was kind of thinking about this for a while. Like, what do you think about the fact that he is flying around on a glider like technology that doesn't exist? Right? He flies through the air at fantastic speeds. On the one you think, he must be a genius to invent that. But on the other hand, don't you think he would take some special training in order to manage that? Like I as a kid found a skate. Challenging, you know what I mean? as an adult,Edward: many people can use skateboards. Michael , many people use skateboards.Michael: It's, yeah. But to really use it like, to do tricks and whatever and to go down the street. But as an adult, I think I would find it impossible. But what do you think, but what kind of skill level would it take to properly manage that glider? I mean, we've seen it. We've seen it in action. It's incredible what he can do with it.Edward: Clearly, clearly the goblin has some skills.Michael: Some skills, but where do, where does he get the skills? So he gets it from, is he actually a military trained operative who's now broken, bad or good? Depending upon your view of him. Is he like,Edward: maybe, maybe he's just a really skilled skateboarder.Michael: really skills skateboarder . But what if he's a foreign national scent here to just ferment descent? I mean, I don't know, but that's the first things that jump to mind, right?Edward: Yeah. Yeah. So , it's po It's possible maybe I'm a foreign national here to do dissent. Who knows. I think jumping to the conclusion just because this poor man is ugly, that therefore he is a foreign national Michael. Like, like they're, they're ugly people Are, they're ugly Americans as well,Michael: what I'm saying. Forget the, you're the one calling him ugly, by the way. I'm not like, I've never called the,Edward: you said he's so ugly and he must be wearing a mask that no human can look as bad as this poor man looks .Michael: I think he's wearing a mask. I definitely think that, but you're the one that calls it ugly. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make though, is that to talk about what is where do you think the green goblin's from? Right, and I think the ability in and of itself to fly in that glider tells me that he's had some training.Edward: Or, or maybe he has like superpowers, like other people do. Like Spider-Man, I dunno. Like spider, I'm pretty sure Spider-Man doesn't climb walls and fly on webs cuz of training. He's not like some foreign national or military guy. He has like some sort of superpowers that give him like the powers of a spider. Maybe the green goblin has like the powers of a goblin. .Michael: Yeah. He's got like an amazing core, . so strong, and he's like, he's like, his quads are unbelievable. Just like the power of like standing crouched like that and flying at like standing upright, well, flying through the air at 50 miles an hour. The amount of strength that takes.Edward: He's, he's ripped man. The man is ripped. So all you women out there that are worried about his ugly face, but he's a ripped body. You know, this is the trade off that sometimes has have with men. But I think Spider-Man for example without any, I think additional training could be riding that glider, captain America could be riding that glider. Right. We, we have a lot, we have a lot of these superheroes that have special abilities. To me, it makes sense that the goblin has these special abilities too, and the fact that he, and, maybe he didn't invent the glider himself. Maybe Tony Stark invented the glider and gave it to somebody who had the superpowers to be able to use it. .Michael: I'll tell you what I think that the Green Goblin, if he's listening to our show, should feel comfortable coming on our show because , hi,Edward: because it's a radio show and it's no video, so he doesn't have to worry about his ugly appearance.Michael: no, I never said he is ugly and he is clearly gonna offend and Ed, who thinks he's a good guy? So, come on the show Goblin, but leave your goblin pouch outside with the bombs. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss how to pronounce “Madam Macabre”. Is she a villain or just a Giant-Man competitor? Can we trust Giant-Man on this? How fast will growing/shrinking technology proliferate? And why is everyone with a superpower a hero or a villain? Why not just use your abilities to save some money or become an entrepreneur?Behind the issue:This is the first and only appearance (so far) of Madam Macabre. Part two of this issue is a Hulk feature, which is not covered in the podcast. The only public fact of the Hulk feature is that Bruce Banner is in the Soviet Union, and it is unclear if he is defecting or kidnapped again.In this issue:Giant-Man and the Wasp storyMadam Macabre is able to use technology to shrink inanimate objects. She is envious of Giant-Man’s ability to shrink himself. And so she sets up a meeting with Giant-Man. She explains at the meeting that she was mentored and tutored by the supervillain the Mandarin. She then makes the pitch for Giant-Man to quit the Avengers and to partner with her in some vague plan to take over the world. Being the hero that he is, Giant-Man rejects the offer. She returns to her lair and schemes to defeat the Giant-Man. The step in this scheme is to kidnap the Wasp, which lures Giant-Man to her lair. He is trapped in a shrinking room, but the Wasp breaks free and rescues him. The Wasp then successfully defeats Madam Macabre and frees Giant-Man.Hulk storyThe Hulk is trapped in the Soviet Union. A kindhearted Soviet scientist helps him out, but he is killed. This causes the Hulk to become very angry. He goes on a rampage at the Soviet base, where he is stuck for a while, and eventually escapes.Assumed before the next episode:People are starting to wonder about all of the superheroes and supervillains with similar powers.This episode takes place:After Madam Macabre has been soundly defeated.Full transcript:Edward: Mike first there was giant man, then there was the wasp, and now is there. There is mad. Mc, oh my gosh. I can't even say the word. You can't say it, eh, I can't say it. Madam Mc mc macur mebrak. Madam. I can't, I can read the word Mike. I just can't say it out loud.Micheal: I think you need to start watching some old films. Macra describes like some old classic film noir, if I'm thinking of it correctly, but certainly it's a word. MaccaEdward: Mac. But here's The Thing. You should do so. So say the. First person who can shrink ant man, first person that can grow. Giant man. Very descriptive names. The wasp also like descriptive as in small animal. You'd think that Spider-Man could also shrink, but no, he doesn't. But this new person who has the ability to grow and shrink things, Madam Mak, uh, has nothing to do with, with changing size. Like what type of name?Micheal: Well, it's not descriptive, but, I would award points for originality. I think the intention behind calling yourself Madam Mac is that you're suggesting some malhi days. You know, you're suggesting some mallin, some malicious intent. Right. And, certainly some, darkness to her. And she was according to giant man, she was, Villain who could shrink. Just like him, right?Edward: And according to giant man, she was like stealing something that, like a art gallery or something. She was breaking in and stealing stuff and they caught her. To be fair though, we only have giant man's word on that. We have No, I don't, I dunno if there's any evidence that she was actually doing that other than giant man say so.Micheal: Other than name, other than the word of an unknown vigilant, master vigilante who happens to have captured someone with the exact same power set as him. It seems, if I was being cynical, I would say that I would question whether a giant man is trying to take out the competition. But we know he is, he's been a hero. It's just that, that he's also human, I think, and so maybe he just felt threatened by having somebody with the same power. Being out in society?Edward: I would think so. You can look at the timeline of it, right? So the timeline was Madam Mebrak. I'll look at that. I can say it now. Thank, thank, thank you for this education. Madam Macabre, she becomes semi-famous. So she's in the papers. Mm-hmm. , she has this special ability, she's not committing crimes. She's just advertising her ability to say, Hey, I figured out this technology. I too have the ability to grow and shrink. And then shortly afterwards, giant Man comes out and. . Yeah, but she needs to go to jail cuz she's a criminal. So the timing is a little bit suspicious in terms of him shutting her.Micheal: Yeah, it is. And the adventures have all had, they've recently had some issues that we've observed when they appear to be acting in their own interests after a few years of acting heroically. So we just don't know what to make of it. And I would assume people will find out more at the criminal trial, but much like any trial you need to have, you need. Evidence for witnesses who could be identified. And so Thank you. I would imagine she go, she might go, she might go free, you know, like, cuz it's just the word of a vigilante. So an Avenger's,Edward: an official, he's an official vigilante though. He's working for somebody. We're not exactly sure who, but he's working for somebody. We think he's like at least semi-official. I think what, to me, what's interesting about this is two things. One is that, sooner or later this technology is going to get out, right? We know, we've seen from other evidence that giant man's powers don't come from the fact that he was experimented on or some sort of magic radiation, it's some sort of pills that he was taking, and so mm-hmm. , it's a technology that he has that's able to go and do this. And we know from the past that once someone has the technology, it gets spread, right? Like the Americans were the only ones with the nuclear bomb in 1945. And like by 1950 there was at least four or five countries with the nuclear bombs. And so, it feels like this technology is gonna get out there. Once we know it exists, someone's gonna be able to d.Micheal: But I don't think there's any evidence that, Madam MCC Abra had got the technology. You know what I mean? It's more. I wonder if it's just it's more the idea that gets out there.Edward: That's right. That's right.Micheal: Where she learns that somebody can shrink through some kind of process and so she creates it or duplicates it in her own way because there's historical precedent for that as well. At least when it comes to people, meeting challenges and surpassing.Edward: Yeah, I'm not claiming that she stole his abilities. And as far as I know, giant man isn't even claiming that she stole his abilities. And so, no, he has reason to claim that she is and he's not. So it suggests that no, she came up with it independently. But we've seen that happen again and again in different technological situations like both in scientific theory and in technology, right? So, like Isaac Newton is credited with inventing the theory of gravity and calculus, but if he hadn't, there was, there were a number of other people that were waiting in the wings who would be publishing the same things soon afterwards. It's very rare that a scientist is doing it, and if they weren't around that nobody would've ever come up. .Micheal: And it suggested inevitability to the scientific process, but also even just with respect to humanity and people. Remember that people thought the four minute not be run and then as soon as Roger's Banister, broke that record, ran the four minute mile, what was it a month and a half later, someone beat that record and then people thereafter continued beating that record, just suggests that as soon as people could see that it was possible, it became possible for.Edward: That's right. It was Landy or something. It was 46 days after Banister broke the four minute mile. It was, John Landy came out and beat it. Mm-hmm. and, and, and, and, and banister just barely beat it. Like he was point happened to be half a second faster than the four minute mile. And then Landy came in and like blew past him, was Two seconds faster, like a few days later. And since then a number of people have break broken the four minute mile. I think it's interesting before Banister did it, doctors were saying that anybody who's going to be able to break, anyone who attempts to break the four minute mile will die. I think that was the quote. They will die. It is so hard on the human body. If you ever run that fast, you will die. And now we've no, absolutely not true. And other people are training for it, and they know that it's possible. They know that it's something that you can achieve. And now we know shrinking the human body down to the size of an ad is something that we can achieve.Micheal: That's it. And I think that's the take home message really. And the question lends itself to whether other superpowers are gonna be, duplicated and we're gonna start seeing more. But you gotta wonder sometimes, have we. I don't think we have, but have we hit maximum powers? You know, we have people that can grow large, they can grow small, they can get strong, they can uh, theyEdward: can fly. We talked about Thor last week. He'd fly really fast.Micheal: They can fly really fast. And I are we gonna see a lot of different powers, you know what I mean? Or is this just that we've hit the max powers and our, we're gonna see versions of it come out, with more shrinking and whatever.Edward: Could be, could be, I dunno. But it feels like we're still seeing a significant amount of variety happening, right? It wasn't that long ago that Sandman popped up and he's, the ability to turn into sand like that seems pretty unique and different from everybody else. Spider-Man's power different than other people. I guess some things, like he being really strong or flying seems to be common, but we're also getting we're still seeing lots of variety. Just because we have somebody else shrinking doesn't mean that this is it. It's not the end of, it's not the end of the beginning, Mike. This is just not even the beginning of the end.Micheal: We're continuing on. Here's the other question that I had though I have to admit, it's been bothering me. So, you know, when you, when youEdward: tell me your therapist today,Micheal: my therapy session, so Dr. Ed, here's what's been on my mind, and it might just be because it's unreported, but it seems that when people developed a technology or developed powers, they go one of two ways in quite a binary sense. They either become superpowered Adventurers or they become criminals, and you know what, I'm just like, well, wait a minute, isn't there like a third path where let's say for instance, I was inspired to develop technology, to learn how to grow taller or shrink Maybe I wouldn't decide to quit my job as a lawyer and become an adventurer, or certainly become a criminal. I just decide well, I gotta reach that can, on the top shelf in my kitchen, I'm just gonna grow. Instead of grabbing, going in the step ladder or I, I move in, I decide like, you know what? I wanna maybe downsize a little bit. Literally, I get a smaller apartment in New York and I can fiddle up more furniture, or I can get around more easily in my own apartment. It just fiddle. I don't know.Edward: It's like that you have like a very spacious apartment. All of a sudden. Your television is enormous. You have the biggest screen television in the whole world.Micheal: You know, or maybe I wanna save on food and maybe, I dunno if this is how it works, but I shrink cuz I, I could just order small portions everywhere, and just like nibble away for like a week on something. You know, this loaf of bread, one loaf of bread fills me up. Maybe eating a lot of bread isn't a good idea, but you know what I mean? , and so, but I just gotta wonder. And there's not just, there's other technologies. Like if I had the power to turn Invisible again, would I join a super team or break into a bank or would I more likely turn Invisible so I can, when I'm walking home in the evening, I don't want to pop,Edward: I don't wanna hear who you're spying on. Mike, I don't want to hear, I don't want, this is not time replace . Hey, I think, I think you're coming onto something right? Of like, Hey, you have these, if you had these abilities, if this technology was out there, you don't have to go and fight criminals and you don't have the best way to help society is not necessarily to go and help criminals. Maybe if you had this power to grow and shrink instead of stealing art, you could just start a moving. Imagine how efficient your moving company would be. They could just, you go to someone's house, you're like, no problem. We'll just shrink your whole house down. Bang, we'll throw it into an envelope. We'll ship it to the new place and then we'll just grow it again. And we can be the most efficient, fastest, we can charge a much lower rate and make much higher margins. And like all of a sudden we have a nice little business going.Micheal: Yeah, exactly. Or what if I could be like a Human Torch, I could just, save money on my heating bill every month.Edward: so like, here's The, Thing, . Every time you get a power, you're looking for a way to, to save some sense. I think the better look for growth opportunities. Look for ways to increase your revenue. Don't just cut your cost. You can't shrink yourself into success, Mike.Micheal: You know what? That's a good point. And this is why we're buddies. So this is, I'll bring the pessimism. You bring the optimism . This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

…and we are back. For those waiting patiently, sorry for the hiatus. Mike and Ed both had great holidays, and are now back on track with weekly episodes. Both this one and next week’s were a lot of fun. Enjoy!In this episode:The rumors of Tony Stark’s death were greatly exaggerated. After three months of absence, the titan of industry has returned, and Mike and Ed have opinions! Iron Man was apparently a terrible replacement boss while Stark was away. What makes anyone think a superhero would make a super boss? New joke: How are superheroes like doctors and lawyers? Tune in to find out!Behind the issue :This ends the four issue storyline of Tony Stark being stuck inside the Iron Man armour, and the challenges that created for his personal and professional life. The second half of the issue is a re-telling of the origin of Captain America. Recall back in the 1960s, getting access to character origins was a lot more difficult than today, so many readers would not have known Captain America’s origin, and regular reminders were important to the mythology.In this issue:Iron Man wanders into the office and acts like a real jerk to Pepper and Happy. They think that Iron Man let Tony Stark get killed, and as such, they are not thrilled to see him anyway. Iron Man/Tony gets to work behind closed doors at fixing his chest plate so that he can live without wearing the whole Iron Man suit, and figures it all out. Now out of his Iron Man costume, Tony struts out of his office like nothing happened, causing serious confusion to Pepper and Happy, and the world at large. He explains that he was caught up in a secret love affair and is engaged to be married. People seem relieved that Iron Man will no longer be at the helm of the company. Meanwhile, the Phantom is attacking Stark facilities, leading to unsafe conditions for workers that causes union bosses, and the government holding the Stark military contracts, to put pressure on Tony Stark to catch the Saboteur. Iron Man ends up catching the Phantom, who turns out to be a jaded Stark employee.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering how stable Tony Stark is, after disappearing for months on a love affair with an unnamed woman.This episode takes place:After Tony Stark has “returned from the dead”.Full transcript:Edward: Out with the new and in with the old Mike, the old guard is back.Michael: Well, I'm sure that the market responded favorably to find out that Tony Stark is indeed among the living .Edward: Yeah. It turns out the laser from space that destroyed his residence and we all thought he died. He wasn't, he was, he just wasn't there. He was off having a gallivanting with some woman that he's now engaged to.Michael: Yeah. And so I, think. Leaving aside our interest in the SUPERPOWERED community and the Avengers, I think that there's a lot of questions that arise just for the head of one of the most important companies in the world. Just, disappearing for months, for a fewEdward: weeks, months. At a time. For months now? No, it was it months. How long was it? Months. It was months. It was, it like when the,, I'm trying to think of the exact date when the laser hit, but it was back in January or something. We're in April now. Like that's, that's a long time to be like, oh yeah. The, whole world is freaking out. The, stock is plummeting. Iron Man is running your company and, just. Did you not just read, check the news? Is he not just looking at the morning news and be like, you know what, I should probably correct the record.Michael: Well, it's not just the idea that he owes an obligation to his company, his employees, his shareholders. How about his personal life? I mean, ed, if you were reported dead and just disappeared for months at a time, I'd be worried and I'd be quite upset with you.Edward: Thank you, Michael, for caring about me. .Michael: Well, yeah, I'd be worried. And, just like with Tony Stark, there'd be, funeral announcements and it'd be articles written about it. I dunno if you get the same treatment. , I would notice and the have you come back from the dead would be, shocking that you, it'd be a shock and it'll also be disappointed that you'd treat your personal relationships like that.Edward: Oh, can you imagine? And not only that, you probably, we've, you love replaced me on the show. There'll be some new, new host for, three where a helmets , where your helmet, because that new host does not want to reveal his identity.Michael: No. Exactly. And then, and then just turns out, it turns out that you were alive all the time. This whole time you just decided to take a break from life, have a fantastic old time, just gallivanting a around, well,Edward: not just Galvan, he dropped back into life, not just Galvan. He was so, he dropped out of life. He didn't drop out, he dropped out of his professional life, but he accelerated his personal life. The guy's engaged to get married. .Michael: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think that's,Edward: that takes focus, Mike. He couldn't be distracted by things like running his publicly traded company. He couldn't get distracted by maintaining his relationships, couldn't be distracted by informing the public of what's going on. He was focused on this woman like that. That a hundred percent focus.Michael: So you're saying that maybe the key to Tony Stark's life and his success has not been that he's a multitasker, but he's a uni tasker. He's a uni tasker. So he can only focus ,Edward: the ultimate uni tasker, .Michael: Yeah. So it's just like, okay, you know what? I'm going to, uh, be the leader, a captain of the industry, and then I'm gonna take a four month break and devote myself to wooing this one woman. And then what happens now doesn't bode well for the engagement, I must say, not his return to taking the reigns of Star Corp.Edward: Yeah. Like, well, yeah, I guess now, now he's gonna be focused a hundred percent on Stark Corp. And this woman's gonna get left in the dust. And, hey, my prediction. Prediction right now is that this wedding doesn't happen. He's so distracted now by running the company. He can't do two things at the same time.Michael: Well, that leads to the next point that we have is that, so, we've discussed before how odd we've found it that a man, or we think it's a man in an Iron Man costume operating under a pseudonym, has been running one of the most powerful companies in the world.Edward: Well, Mike, if, Iron Man was a woman, don't you think they would call it Iron Woman?Michael: Um, they could, but who knows? We don't, we don't know what's under the mask though, ed. It could, it could very well be a, woman who's in a man's costume, but, but, um,Edward: oh, that, that would be the ultimate trick, right? Like she calls herself Iron Man, but she's really a woman. And then now everyone, no one, no one suspects the woman under the mask.Michael: exactly, but whoever it is. The reports have been coming out now since Stark has taken the reins that I don't think that Iron Man was the best boss, or at least the most well liked boss. And, and maybe it's not a shock for a few reasons, right? Like number one, you didn't know who it was, who are you talking to? Who's giving you the, these orders? It's a massive,Edward: he's like, he's like, look, look, look me in the eye, or like into these little holes that you get. You, you, you, you assume there's eyes.Michael: Yeah. Like, you just don't, it the unsettling to work for someone who you didn't and you didn't know their, real name or what they even look like, what they were like, I mean, you know,Edward: or, or, or facial expressions. Like so much communication is facial exp Like, I tell my boss, like, oh, I wanna go and do this. And they don't say no, but you see it like in their eye. You're like, oh, maybe I, that was a, that was a, I shouldn't have told them that. I shouldn't have said that. It doesn't, you know what I mean? Like, you can, we can read these signals. You can't read any signals from an Iron.Michael: No, it's unsettling. And I think it really is a counterproductive to developing a proper workplace and or a happy workplace.Edward: Mike's rules for man, Mike's rules for management entail, uh, show your face, .Michael: Show your face and tell them your real name. I mean, those are, to me, those are deal breakers and they should have done, he should have done that, but he didn't. And the stories that are coming out like show that just wasn't well liked. And it's, again, it. unsurprising because of the reasons she just said. But also because you know, we've speculated, you and I have speculated openly on this show, did Iron Man have something to do with Tony Stark's disappearance?Edward: Well, turns out, no turns there. There was suspicions about that, but turns out Tony Stark did it all by himself. He was off like . This woman, this woman is to blame not to not Iron Man, unless this woman is Iron Man. Wouldn't that be a twist?Michael: Whoa. Well then, yeah, then we got a whole other, other episode on this. But no, it's, I think the reason why people might be unhappy with Iron Man is because they thought he might have been involved in the disappearance of Tony Stark, and maybe they're annoyed now in retrospect that Iron Man must have known all along that Tony Stark, someone that the, company grieved and the workers grieved for months is alive. So maybe that's why, it's another reason why they wouldn't be that happy with, with Iron Man. Now.Edward: Well, well, hey, let's count the reason. So, number one, they thought that he killed the old boss. That's a way, that's a reason not to like your boss. Number two, he's wearing an Iron mask. We don't know his name, a reason to dislike your boss, but here's number three, which is , how much management training do you think Iron Man? How much experience do you think he has managing people? His specialty The. Thing, he's really good at is, being a mighty hero who saves the earth from aliens. That does not necessarily mean you're gonna be good at managing one-on-ones. .Michael: Yeah. It doesn't translate into, reviewing reports and giving feedback to people that are working for you and saying, you know what, maybe we should work a little, harder on this, on this marketing plan. Jerry .Edward: Let, let's, let's, let's set our priorities and you know, what my priority is saving the planet. What? What's on your list? What are your OKRs this week? What are you planning to get done? I just don't see Iron Man being particularly good at that. I mean, maybe he is, but if he does, it's uncorrelated with his ability to save the planet from aliens.Michael: Well, yeah and let's say this, I would suspect that Iron Man might be connected with the military, and I said that because he's acting as a superhero, and works with the Avengers who are connected with the American military. So I'd say that in the best case scenario, from a management perspective, iron. Man may very well be a military person. I don't know if military command structure translates very well to corporate structure. Right. Okay. It might be a little more severe.Edward: Yeah. Yeah, that's, that's fair. Although there is, there's lots of successes of people coming out of the military and having very successful careers in corporate America. So I think that if he was trained by the military and if he has a lot of military training and being able to, the military, the military's different than the Avengers. Avengers is five people. The military, if you got to any degree of seniority, you're managing, overseeing hundreds of people. And if you have the skillset to do that, you probably have, it's very similar to the skillset of running a big corporation. Not the same, but there's overlap. There is no overlap, in firing a blaster and like shooting off in rocket.Michael: Realistically, yeah. No matter where Iron Man came from his, yeah, his skillset was dealing with extraterrestrial, and interdimensional threats. It's funny because he was one of the most popular people in the world, one of the most popular heroes in the world. It saved,Edward: We've done episodes on that, on how well he managed his PR for so, .Michael: Yeah. But it turns out maybe being a superhero doesn't make you a super boss. It might make you a terrible boss. Oh man. The world's the world's greatest hero. The world's worst boss. .Edward: So they've done studies of salespeople, and you take your salespeople and you take your best sales. The best salespeople tend to get promoted to being sales managers. And when they do that, it turns out that the best sales people aren't the best sales managers. In fact, if you look at the people who are promoted to sales manager, it tends to be. Of the people who are promoted, the worst performing sales people who are promoted tend to be the best sales managers. And so Iron, Man being one of the world's greatest. You know what? Given the fact that the most popular hero becomes a terrible boss, maybe we should look at the worst heroes out there, the least popular heroes, and give them the promotion.Michael: Spider-Man is up and down. , you know,Edward: Spider-Man, spider boss. Spider Boss.Michael: Well, it's funny because I know that when it comes to I work in as a lawyer and this is no secret on lawyers and law firms, but, as lawyers, we're not trained in running a business. Number one, we're trained in the law, but if you're in private practice, you run a business. And number two, we're not trained in management necessarily. Of the very successful lawyers that I know, they're driven by their personality to some degree, and a lot of them operate as solo people. Even if they work in a firm and to go from that to managing a business is, it would happen later in life, in your career and I've seen it, not necessarily across the board, but it's challenging for the people to make that leap. And I've heard the same thing about doctors. Doctors, might be excellent doctors, but not great business people.Edward: I think what we're saying is there's two types of people out there. There are people who are good at managing and there are doctors, lawyers, and superhero.Michael: That's good. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss Thor’s battle with Crusher Creel, “The Absorbing Man”. Thor has used his own power against him by turning Crusher into helium and banishing him into outer space for an indefinite period of time. Thor claims that there are special laws and enforcement for “powerful people”. Who gets to decide who is powerful, and what the consequences are? Have we put too much trust in our heroes?Behind the issue:This is the first appearance of Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man. His powers as demonstrated in these issues allow him to gain the strength and abilities of whimever he is fighting. That power will later be retconned into just the ability to gain the strength and abilities of the materials he touches. Also, don’t worry about Crusher - he later escapes from his life as an amorphous cloud of helium floating through the solar system, returning the bedevil our heroes again and again.In these issues:Journey into Mystery #114:The issue opens with Thor battling another super-science criminal. While in the midst of battle, Thor’s brother Loki cast a kind of spell to harm Thor, although Thor spoils his plan, not knowing that his own brother was trying to kill him. Enraged, Loki comes up with a new scheme. He searches the Earth and finds a brutal man named Crusher Creel, who has been imprisoned for his vicious crimes. Loki adds an enchanted potion to Creel’s drink, which gives him the amazing power of being able to assume the properties of anything he touches. He uses this amazing power to escape prison. Thor learns of the prison break and confronts Creel, who proves to be incredibly powerful, and potentially a match for Thor, all witnessed by a newspaper reporter. Thor is spirited away in the midst of battle to Asgard, as Loki has kidnapped the woman he loves, Jane Foster.Journey into Mystery #115:The issue opens with Thor battling Loki for the life of Jane Foster. Meanwhile back on Earth, Crusher Creel has broken into the house of a young couple, and is basically terrorizing them. Back on Asgard, Odin breaks up the fight between his two sons, and after some back-and-forth, Odin agrees that Thor can leave the battle to finish his fight on earth with Creel. Thor returns to Earth and engages the villain once more. Crusher Creel again proves to be a potential match for Thor, using his powers in creative and effective ways. Thor is finally able to defeat the villain by tricking him into absorbing the quality of helium gas, causing him to leave the planet in the ethereal form of an amorphous cloud of helium.Assumed before the next episode:People are wondering if superheroes have assumed too much power and authority after learning that Thor acted as judge, jury, and executioner of the villain Crusher Creel, the Absorbing Man.This episode takes place:After Thor has banished Crusher Creel to his own personal hell, floating in a ghostly form through space for an indeterminate period of time.Full transcript:Edward: Mike, I wanna start off today with a quote. Can I do that? We've never done this before.Micheal: Proceed.Edward: Okay, Thor recently battled a new villain. This new villain that's just popped up called The Absorbing Man. And after he defeated the villain, he was speaking to a reporter, and I'm just gonna read it verbatim what he said to the reporter.He said that this absorbing man person, "Crusher Creel has become lighter than the air and is swiftly being drawn into the atmosphere as I planned. In this gaseous state, he can survive indefinitely. I shall allow him to drift through space until the unearthly power he possesses is about a useless forgotten memory. Only then will he return to earth and assume his rightful form." So that seems really terrible.Micheal: That's a chilling quote because we know that Crusher Creel is the absorbing man, and he was a bad dude who's in prison, but suddenly he got these powers and Thor's solution to him is to let him. So I guess people should know, I don't really know this, but it's been big news. I thought that the absorbing man can turn into anything like which he touches or something like that. So Thor somehow tricks him to turning into helium and floating away. Isn't that hellish? ,Edward: You think? So?Micheal: He's turning to a ghost.Edward: We know that putting somebody in jail is a punishment. Within jail if you wanna punish the person further, what you do is you put them in solitary confinement where they basically aren't allowed to interact with other inmates. You know what's worse than that is floating through space for eternityMicheal: Yeah. Or however long a thunder God decides you should. Thor talks about returning to finish his prison sentence, but only after he's lost a sense of who he is. So it means it could be an eternity. You could be going for eons through space going mad and you're right when you reference solitary confinement in prison. That's inhumane, right? I have a very strong view on this. It's inhumane and because as humans you do need social interaction. Basically turned into a ghost and float away is cruel no matter who this person is.Edward: And solitary confinement, I think you're still allowed to read books. I think you're still having some sort of interaction with the broader world. If you're a gas helium, you went to a Cassius Helium floating through space, you don't have any interaction at all. Even if you're in solitary confinement, you can look at the bugs in your room, or you can look at the shadows that are changing. This guy's just floating through the vastness of space as helium.Micheal: Yeah. So he's been sentenced to an indeterminate punishment, right? Like an indeterminate number of years by a thunder God, who may forget about him, be honest. But even if he doesn't. Thor doesn't forget that he has basically got a prisoner floating through space in a gases form. It's still, it's chilling that a well regarded superhero would choose this type of punishment, and you gotta ask why.Edward: And it feels like if Thor had killed him, just murdered this guy, we would be having a conversation. There'd be people, a lot of people up in arms that these superheroes would just take the law into their own hands and murder people who they feel free to do that to, but instead what he's done, is it worse than murder? You could argue it is worse than murder and there's no up roar at all. In fact, the reporter who reported on this non ironically called Thor, the bravest, most self-sacrificing crusader he has ever known.Micheal: I don't think he fits that description by doing that. This is an ungodly punishment for this person. It's hellish. The human equivalent here on earth of imprisoning somebody so they couldn't move and just kept them alive. If that happened on here on earth, if people are doing that, and certainly if police forces were doing that, our governments were sanctioning that we'd rightly denounce that as being torture. So that's what's happened is that it's clearly an avenger is committed torture.Edward: He's committing torture and we just write it off. I think partly because it's a villain that he did it too, and partly because we can't see the impact. I think your point of if he had been frozen where he's in the middle of Central Park as a frozen statue and we know his mind is still working, but he's not able to move or communicate or do anything. I think people would be offended and mad, but because he's like off in space somewhere, it's like, oh, you know, we can't. We just, we'll just ignore it and, and call Thor the bravest, most self-sacrificing. How is self-sacrificing? What did he self, did he sacrifice anything?Micheal: Nothing. And this skips over and I don't wanna skip over the idea that this is actually a punishment without a trial. It's imprisonment as a ghost without a trial. It just offends all notions of justice and liberty.Edward: And, and it was premeditated too, it's not premeditated murder. It's premeditated extra-judicial torture intentions. Torture. Yeah. Like before this whole thing happened when, when Creole was happening when he was like causing problems and before Thor was able to deal with him, Thor also spoke to the reporter and told him that, what was it? What did he say? He said that, that crusher is too powerful for regular law .Micheal: So that's it. Right? So is it that, would people be more accepting of what's happened here because Thor has determined that, nothing else is gonna work. We gotta deal with this trust me on this, guys. This is somebody I can't defeat and therefore, All the rules are, there's no rules and he's throwing the book out. It's just coming up with a new way of dealing with it. I don't think we can accept that.Edward: It feels like there's a few things going on. One is the fact that there's some sort of bar above which if anybody is above that bar, they are so powerful that we stop falling the law. Like the fact that we create that bar at all. Should there be some level of power that we ignore the law, it feels like as you get more powerful, that makes the law even more important to follow.Micheal: It would render the law meaningless, to be honest, because this is why the Lords back in the time of the Magna Carta went to King John and said, we need to have rules here and that they wrote out the world's first, or the West, sorry, not the world's, but England certainly wrote out the rules that should apply, the laws that should apply, not just to people that the king feels they should be applied to, but to the king or queen themselves. It's my sense of the Magna Carta in my headEdward: There was an ammendment to the Magna Carta that said that it applies to all people, including the king, but not to very powerful super villains.Micheal: Oh, that whole, the, well, that's the first amendment to the Magna Carna. The first Amendment. That's now...Edward: And even if we gave them that, even if we said, you know what, okay, when someone gets so powerful, the only way to deal with them is to ignore the law and just allow Thor to be the final arbiter of everything. Even if we agree to that, then the question becomes is how powerful? Who decides how powerful that is? Is there a certain... Hey, you know what, Human, Torch law applies to him? Cause he's not that powerful. But, you know, The Thing, he's so powerful that the law starts up, doesn't start applying to him. Do we have some sort of ranking of power levels of individuals and if you are a villain, your goal is to get as close to that top of that bar as possible without going overMicheal: It's frightening. And what about this? So what if Thor didn't have good intentions? What if Thor just decided that, you know what, this guy's more powerful than me and I like being the most powerful, strongest superhero out there. And so he just decides, actually this new superhero that's out there, superpowered person, he's more powerful than me. So we need, we needed to deal with him right away cuz he was, he was doing bad things. Trust me on that. That's kind of what happened here. We know in this case that Creel was a bad person and he'd done bad things.Edward: He was in prison before this whole thing happened. He should be put back in. Even if he committed no crimes, he still needs to be put back in prison for his old crimes.Micheal: That's right. But so in that case though, so we know he is done bad things. I don't say he's necessarily a bad person, but he is done bad things and he is battling Thor. And that's enough for Thor to decide because he's so powerful. I'm just gonna be judge, jury and executioner.Edward: Judge, jury and torture.Micheal: Torture in chief. And how do we know that Thor couldn't just with that new power that he has this authority, he could just do that whenever he feels like if somebody is threatening him. Like what if there's, I don't know hercules comes around , right? Hercules might be stronger than Thor. If the Hercules exists, if the Greek myth, He says, no, no, no, no. You guys don't know. I know Hercules. He's a bad dude. He's stronger than me. And so I battled him and I and I killed him, or I turned him into, I don't know, I tied him into healing blooms and he's floating through space forever, whatever.Edward: I made him hold the earth for all eternity with a raven plucking at his liver. He's not what God's do.Micheal: Yeah, that's, that's right. So it is troubling and if we allow this to happen, if we allow this to continue, then we're accepting the fact that the laws don't apply equally. And that we're also allowing superpowered individuals to write their own laws and write their own rulesEdward: Effectively there's two laws out there now. There's the laws that apply to everybody unless you're a threat to Thor.Micheal: I don't like it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com

In this episode:Mike and Ed discuss Reed and Sue’s engagement party. Why were only superheroes invited? Was there another non-superpowered person party that was kept secret? Also: the Wizard has recruited Paste Pot Pete, Sandman and Medusa to become the “Frightful Four”. Why did he stop with four villains? If he really wanted to defeat the Fantastic Four, he should have created the Terrible Twelve or the Amazing Eighteen. Why are the villains fighting fair? At least they waited until the party was over.Behind the issue:This is the first appearance of Medusa, who is clearly tied to Greek Mythology at this point. Later she will be retroactively changed to being the noble Queen of the Inhumans, but there is no sign of that at this point.In this issue:The media are abuzz, and falling over themselves, with the news of Reed and Sue’s engagement. Meanwhile, the Wizard has gathered together three other super-powered people to create his own Frightful Four - the Sandman and Paste Pot Pete, who happened to be flying by the Wizard as he floated through the atmosphere weightlessly after his last misadventure, and Medusa. The newly formed Frightful Four attack the Fantastic Four at their headquarters after Reed and Sue’s engagement party (which was full of superheroes) and nearly defeat them, although they are ultimately defeated, with the Frightful Four mysteriously disappearing from the fray.Assumed before the next episode:People are more interested in who attended the party than the FF’s battle with the other FF.This episode takes place:After the Fantastic Four have seemingly defeated their apparently evil counterparts.Full transcript:Edward: I don't think any journalists were invited to this engagement party. Mike, did you get an invitation?Michael: No, and I was looking for it. But sadly, no.Edward: Reed Richards and Sue Storm are now officially engaged. I think they were unofficially engaged before, but now this is like a, kinda like they're coming out big party and a big, big giant celebration at the Baxter building.And, well I say big, but it was probably more intimate in that it was really only other superheroes that were invited to this party.Michael: It's sort of funny you'd think that they would've parlay, I mean, the superheroes, like the Fantastic Four are the most celebrity focused kind of superhero, I think the most media friendly superheroes.You'd think that that would lead to them parlaying that celebrity into connecting with other celebrities outside of their particular field. Because you look at Hollywood parties, it's not necessarily that rock musicians only hang out with rock musicians when they throw parties. All forms of entertainment types seem to gather. So it's sort of funny that superheroes only invite superheroes for their big party.Edward: Seems that's even weirder than that. You think about if, Reed and Sue, presumably like they've not been superheroes for that long, we're talking about a few years now, four years, did they not have any friends or family from prior to them being superheroes that, maybe would wanna invite to their party? This engagement party was such a publicity event okay, so some rockstar gets, I'm sure like celebrities know celebrities and some rockstar gets married to some other rockstar. They invite a lot of rock stars, but presumably they also invite their brother and their I don't know, their, friend that they had from when they were a kid. These people have these entourages doesn't look like Reed and Sue do it looks like their only real friends to invite to this party were the X-Men and the Avengers.Michael: Shows they have a complete dissociation to their past life. It just seems odd. Maybe this, actually, I've been thinking about this this whole time.We're talking, what if this is just the public one?Edward: Oh, I see. They're having another oneMichael: This is a celebrity one, right? The photos. That's true because the media we're there. I don't know, maybe let's play it out this way. If you are Sue storm's cousin, would you really want to go where there's all these nosy tabloid photographers because there were a ton there, right?Edward: More than that. We know that every time these superheroes have some public event, they're attacked by super villains and see, do you want, do you want your cousin to show up and be attacked by the wizard?Michael: So maybe what they did here was. Okay. At first I thought was just weird, but now it kind of, it makes a little bit of sense. Okay, we're gonna have this, and we know that the tabloids would rather have a picture of say the Human Torch standing next to Thor. You know what I mean? So we'll have, we'll throw that and that that'll give the tabloid. Reporters and photographers a chance to write their story and take their photographs and that's the public one.And then there's more personal and intimate one that's with their friends who aren't in the game. And that way you don't put them at risk. That's true actually, that makes a lot of sense to me.Edward: Does make a ton of sense. It's interesting cause I say there was only superheroes invited, There were, there were two non superheroes invited to the party. One was Professor Xavier, who's an expert. The mutant genes. And how these mutants are happening. And the second was Bruce Banner, who was the, the guy who saved the world , from the alien invasion a couple years back. So I guess when you, save the world from an alien invasion, you're an honorary superhero.Michael: Yeah. And they didn't care about the safety of those two guys, I guess, . Wow. Well, they're very smart. They can, they can figure, they can respond.Edward: I guess the other thing around safety is , we know that, when Spider-Man shows up at his fan club, they, get attacked. And when Reed Richards goes and talks at his alma mater he gets attacked, but in this case, you had to be a pretty ballsy superhero to go and attack the Fantastic Four and the X Man and the Avengers all in the same place at the same time.Michael: So maybe it could have had Aung Pentunia show up, but I don't know. It doesn't seem to make, I think I can see why they split this up.Edward: It's interesting that I talked about, these, villains attacking, the Baxter Building was attacked by super villains, but I guess they waited until the party was over. Let's wait until Thor vacates the building before we attack Reed Richards.Michael: Smart. They're getting smarter Ed. They're just getting smarter. .Edward: Well, the Wizard is one of the, the smartest, villains. Well, one of the smartest people in the world. Right? He was known as well before he became a villain. He was one of the smartest people in the world didn't, he still hasn't been able to defeat the Fantastic Four using, incredible brilliance.But he has been able to recruit, a more substantial team. He's realized that trying to take them on, on his own is not the way to go. And so now he's recruited, uh, pop. Yeah. How Pace pot. Pot pee., yep. Who he's worked with before, but now he's also recruited the Sandman and this new, super villa villains super villainous, named Medusa, at his side.And so, I guess four on four is probably, better odds. And as far as, as far as we know, it was kind of a stalemate, right? So they, they, they did not successfully hurt the Fantastic Four, but they also escaped fairly unharmed.Michael: Well, yeah. It's interesting though, it seems like the wizards figured out, like you say, he might have stand a better chance if he has a team of his own, but it seems like incredibly personal, his whole purpose of his team seems to be to match up perfectly with the Fantastic four, apparently they're called the Frightful Four , and it's justEdward: He's just trolling them now. He's just trolling them with that.Michael: He's trolling them. Like, I mean, like I, I took issue with, there's been some unimaginative team names, like Fantastic Four is one of them. It just seems like it's aEdward: Terrible trio. Remember the terrible trio?Micheal: Yeah, that's right. But they're just trying to like, No, no, no. I'm not looking about world going for world domination anymore. I'm just doing this because I'm a better, smarter person than read Richards, it seems to be what seems to be what the Wizard's trying to go for itEdward: And clearly getting, getting four of them together is, gives them better odds and trying to take him on like one on four. But it's funny that he can go further. Like why? Why stop at four? And then why even limit yourself with your branding, the Frightful Four? Why not be be like the terrible 12 and that that yeah, your odds are gonna be a lot better.Michael: Yeah, exactly. So maybe, maybe the wizard isn't as smart as he thinks. .Edward: He needs a few more. He needs a few more. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.superserious616.com