This week Luke does a live show at the Columbus Podcast Festival but with Devin gone, he’s going to need cohosts and brings on Tim, Katie, and Abby to help him cover Marvel 1985 with a trivia contest!

Universes and Comics Covered:

• Earth-1219 – Marvel 1985 #1-6

Check out the image gallery and notes after the jump!

Marvel 1985

 

International Youth Year, the Domain Name System was generated, Ronald Reagan begins his second term, Madonna goes on her first concert tour, New Coke comes out,Back to the Future comes out, the wreck of the Titanic is found, Super Mario Bros is released and later on so is the NES, Calvin and Hobbes debuts.

 

Marvel 1985 – 2008

Writer – Mark Millar, Art – Tommy Lee Edwards, Letters – John Workman

 

Earth-1219

 

Question 1:

Can you name two movies based on comics by Mark Millar?

Wanted, Kick-Ass, Kick-Ass 2, Kingsman: The Secret Service, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, Logan, Fantastic Four, Captain America: Civil War

 

We start off with a recap of Secret Wars, a comic that ran from 1984-1985 that was mainly written to sell toys for Mattel by being a series that would feature all the heroes and villains – and it proceeded to also mess with comics, stories, and designs because literally a big extradimensional known as the Beyonder takes a bunch of heroes and villains and is like “I am from beyond! Slay your enemies and all that you desire shall be yours! Nothing you dream of is impossible for me to accomplish!”

You get a mix of characters for heroes like Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, the X-men, Spider-man, and then you get villains like Doctor Doom, Doc Ock, Klaw, Ultron, Molecule Man and Galactus – the big purple guy who eats planets. That will be important.

 

Question 2:

One of the big changes here is the discovery of a new costume – which character gets a new costume here?

Spider-man.

 

The recap is coming from Saul the owner of the local comic shop trying to get our “hero” Toby Goodman (you like like if you want to be a hero you need To Be Good, Man) to buy the series. Toby is around 13. Meanwhile Saul’s coworker Damian is dismissive of supporting Marvel over indie comics and he immediately drops Love And Rockets and Cerberus which are both still pretty popular. Anyway, if there is one thing Mark Millar seems to actively disdain, it’s comic fans. We get one more moment where Toby noticed a toy of HERBIE, which is something that was never made.

 

Question 3:

HERBIE which is an acronym means Humanoid Experimental Robot B-Type Integrated Electronics which appeared in which cartoon before showing up in Marvel comics?

The Fantastic Four

He was made to replace the Human Torch, not because they thought kids would light themselves on fire, but because the Human Torch had a movie option that never actually happened.

 

We find a bit more about Toby, about how his parents got a divorce, he got depression and fell back into comics. When he gets there, his dad Jerry is there with his stepdad, only known as Mr Hart. His dad looks like the Dude and Mr. Hart looks like a thinner Peter Serfanowicz. Mr Hart got a new car and Jerry had to sell his because he is out of work. Jerry and Toby head into the woods to see the old Wyncham House, this massive weird looking mansion and Jerry talks about how he used to be friends with Clyde Wyncham who ended up getting brain damaged and ended up in a rest home. When they get there, they meet a mysterious short man with thick glasses who end up giving him a collection of comics they found. When they mention some of the titles, the man particularly responds to the mention of Fantastic Four (because he’s the Mole Man) and Toby notices Red Skull is in the house.

 

Question 4:

Red Skull appeared first in which Marvel Cinematic Universe Movie?

Captain America: The First Avenger

 

Yeah, he’s a Hydra Nazi. One time Magneto, who you may recall was a Holocaust survivor, just tossed him down a mineshaft to die. Comics!

 

The next day Toby tries to tell his friend Darius who doesn’t believe him, and is troubled that he can’t remember where he knows Mole Man is from. We find out from Julie that Jerry had MoleMan to go into town for a fair price on the comics which netted them a small fortune while on the news there was a report of a man dressed like a green bird who Toby recognizes as The Vulture. He tries to convince Darius about this but he doesn’t listen so Toby heads out alone to try and investigate. When he gets to the Wyncham Mansion he sees Doctor Doom getting angry about having to live in the house and everyone else being controlled by a mysterious master and he lights the house on fire before noticing Toby who runs into the woods and bumps into the Hulk.

 

Question 5:

Name two actors who portrayed the Hulk/Bruce Banner/David Banner. Yes, Voice Actors Count

Max Ferguson, Paul Soles, Bill Bixby, Lou Ferrigno, Michael Bell, Bob Holt, Ron Perlman, Neal McDonough, Andrew Kavadas, Mark Gibbon, Gabriel Man, Fred Tatasciore, Travis Willingham, Jesse Burch, Kevin Shinick, Mark Ruffalo, Edward Norton, Eric Bana, Ken Kramer, Bruce Jonson, Rick D Wasserman

 

Luckily this version of the Hulk has the mind of Bruce Banner in control because that switches off pretty often – but he’s in a fight with the Juggernaut in the woods so Toby runs. Meanwhile Jerry has gone to visit Clyde to tell him “oh yeah I told these people they could sell your comics” and Clyde is non-responsive and he has to leave. He finds Toby waiting for him and they go to the site of the destruction and Jerry is a dick who is like “a storm could have uprooted these trees” and it’s like “Jerry, if there was a storm with the intensity to knock down trees that is in walking distance you would have heard it. Toby is upset that his dad won’t believe him and his dad asks him to keep quiet.

Toby goes to the comic store where because his dad helped them get the sale, Toby gets a 10% off on whatever he buys which is frankly ridiculous because he got the store several thousands of dollars in sales. That night at dinner, Mr. Hart got a job offer and is considering moving them all out to England and Toby gets upset. He knows his mom doesn’t want him to end up like his dad and meanwhile outside, Stilt Man shows up. Stilt Man is a man who wears a metal suit with giant stilt legs to do crimes, these crimes rarely net him enough to pay for the suit. Stilt Man is wonderful.

Meanwhile Dolores, Clyde’s nurse, and her partner Edgar get attacked at home and presumably killed by Sandman and Electro.

 

Question 6:

Both Sandman and Electro are Spider-man villains who have appeared on multiple iterations the same team of Spider-man foes. What is this team called?

The Sinister Six

 

We get a few flashbacks to Clyde and Jerry when they were younger reading comics, and then Jerry meeting Toby’s mom, mentioning he’s had a thing for Jane Foster and women in uniforms which is creepy in a way, and then back to the present where he’s dating a police officer who got called in to investigate the murder of Dolores and Edgar which confuses them.

Jerry meanwhile has bought a used ice cream truck for $100 and as they drive they see a massive crowd of people walking into a lake and not walking out – controlled by MODOK who is an evil giant head with normal sized arms and legs in a chair.

Meanwhile more villains start to show up – Mole Man and his Moloids who are a race of subterranean people steal the children from a playground, Ultron the evil android is just murdering people and this is a big problem with Millar who can go to try and be a shock artist at times.

The police meanwhile are trying to handle everything going down and Fin Fang Foom who is a giant dragon who sometimes wears tiny purple underwear shows up.

At this point the national guard has been called in and Jerry can’t deny that these are comic villains coming to life. As they decide to save Julie, the Lizard, a spider-man villain who is a giant lizard attacks their car as Toby wonders if he is the cause. They are able to shake the lizard off but crash the car in the meantime only for the lizard to capture Toby. Jerry pleads for his son’s life and luckily the National Guard comes in and saves him.

We flashback to 1964 at the Wyncham house where the entire town has gathered outside and Mrs. Wyncham starts freaking out, realizing that Jerry is doing this and all of a sudden a knock comes at the door as the previously dead Mr. Wyncham returns.

Back in the present the guard tries to corral people, preventing Jerry and Toby from getting  home until a tanker is thrown causing a distraction and Jerry tells his son to stay behind. Being a protagonist, Toby doesn’t listen, tries to get help from the other nerds and meanwhile there’s more scenes of chaos.

Like the Blob eats people and also a bus? Sauron shows up and the descriptions are just ridiculously gross.

 

Question 7:

Sauron is an X-man supervillain who is a humanoid form of what type of creature?

A pterodactyl.

 

Yes, and not only that – he is a psychic vampire pterodactyl man who usually wears cutoff shorts and decided to name himself after the Lord of the Rings villain.

Also Hate-Monger shows up who is a super clone of Hitler and it’s more scenes of pointless chaos.

Toby reaches the Wyncham House where he sees the Melter melt a dude but he gets inside and finds a locked doorway that he enters, traveling into Earth-616 which is the main Marvel universe which raises a LOT of questions because almost all the villains are now on this other Earth and apparently people haven’t noticed yet.

 

Question 8:

Toby is getting chased by the Trapster, a man known as Peter Petruski but what was his original nom de crime?

Paste-Pot Pete

He was a Fantastic Four villain.

 

Toby escapes in a taxi and heads to the Avengers Mansion where he meets Jarvis the Butler to the Avengers who brushes him off and tells him to go to the Fantastic Four since the Avengers deal with Robots and Monsters and alternate realities are what the Fantastic Four deal with. And then he gives Toby an Avengers pin to try and keep him, like the other kids who would be lying, from hopefully becoming supervillains.

He heads to the Baxter Building next, the home of the Fantastic Four who tries to make him fill out paperwork until he remembers the Daily Bugle where he knows he can find one specific superhero working there.

 

Question 9:

What superhero does he expect to find at the Daily Bugle?

Spider-man.

 

Toby pretends to be the little brother of Harry Osborn and Peter finds him standing on the ledge ready to jump and confronts him that he knows he is Spider-man and he tells Peter all the stuff that he knows and mentions he has all of the comics.

On a level finding out you are a fictional character should be disturbing but why might Peter not be phased by this?

They print Marvel Comics in the Marvel Universe.

 

Anyway a bunch of pigeons knock Toby off the roof and Spider-man saves him.

 

Question 10:

Jerry meanwhile made his way to save Julie only to see the Wendigo out there. Wendigo famously appeared in an issue of the Hulk that introduced what major Marvel character?

Wolverine.

Wendigo is loosely based on the Algonquin folk creature where if you eat human flesh in the Marvel Universe within the confines of Canada, you become a Wendigo which is a giant white hairy beast. Sometimes with the power of friendship they become pro-wrestling dads.

 

More villains are on the attack destroying the town and Jerry explains that he knows all the villains are from comics and his knowledge of comics is the only thing that will save them since he knows the weaknesses and here’s the kicker – there is a character who has this as her premise.

 

Question 11:

She is not just Gwen Stacy as Deadpool. What is her name?

Gwenpool

 

Yep. Her actual name is Gwen Poole and her series which ended is a lot of fun, I recommend picking it up. It’s about learning the value of all people, empathy, and doing hard work when it all seems hopeless with a big meta-textual element.

 

And then Galactus shows up and if you don’t remember, he’s still at this point a big purple guy who eats planets and he’s going to destroy the Earth.

He starts building his elemental converter to suck the energy from the Earth, and the van he stole gets surrounded by all the villains who know about him through their master. Doc Ock pulls Jerry from the car but he’s saved by Captain America as all the heroes appear with Toby who cries out Avenger Assemble. With the villains distracted, the reunited family goes off to the Wyncham Manor.

We flash back again to Mrs. Wyncham who was going to attack Jerry and Clyde reveals he was the one with the powers and so she clubs him in the head with a candlestick, freeing the people, killing Mr. Wyncham and leaving Clyde severely brain damaged.

Jerry meanwhile runs into the manor with a box and finds Clyde and the Red Skull and it turns out he stole the comics that the villains had sold because the nurses left the comics behind? It’s a very dumb thing. Like the villains that Clyde brought into the world sold the comics that he was upset about not getting. They could have brought the comics to their master.

Anyway, Jerry pleads for Clyde to stop, the Red Skull shoots Jerry and this angers Clyde who banishes the heroes and villains alike back to the 616 including Galactus. Julie pleads for Clyde to return Jerry to life but he won’t because he promised not to.

We then flash to 2008 where it all gets covered up. The comic store lost all the comics because Jerry stole them, the Wyncham house got leveled, the Elemental Converter was broken apart and taken by the government, Clyde went back to the 616 where his powers could be contained, Toby moved to England with his stepdad, graduated and then dropped out of college and became a writer and then ended up getting to write Marvel continuity where his dad ended up in the 616, alive, and got to presumably at least date Jane Foster which is weird and a bad look. Comics are bad. Don’t write comics where your dad gets to go on dates with his favorite comic book character. Unless it is Garfield in which case, please add me to your newsletter.

 

Question 12:

In current continuity or semi-current, what superhero identity did Jane Foster assume?

Thor.

 

And as Jerry looks out on the Earth-616 sunset, he just says Excelsior.

 

Bonus Question:

Come up with a pitch for an alternate universe.