Issue 14: The New Guardians

This week, we're taking a look at The New Guardians! DC's short-lived attempt at a topical superhero comic is... look. Just strap in. This is one of the wildest comic rides you'll ever go on. 

----more----

Episode 14 Transcript

 

Mike: [00:00:00] Y'all need Satan.

Mike: Welcome to Ten Cent Takes, the podcast where we cringe at cursed comics, one issue at a time. My name is Mike Thompson, and I am joined by my cohost, the taskmaster of trivia herself, Jessika Frazer.

Jessika: Ooh, it is I. 

Mike: How are you doing tonight?

Jessika: Oh, pretty good. How are you? 

Mike: Uh, you know, I, I can't complain the week is coming to an end, so it's, something I'm looking forward to is this weekend and just chillin’ out.

Jessika: Thank goodness. Yes, my BFF is in town, so that's, I'm very excited. She lives in Maine, so it's like very, very exciting that she is here. She's from around here, but just like visiting right now. So yes, I’m excited. 

Mike: That's rad. If you're [00:01:00] new to the show, the purpose of this podcast is to study comic books in ways that are both fun and informative, hopefully. What we like to do is we like to look at some of the weirdest, strangest, silliest, or coolest moments in comic books, and then talk about how they are woven into the larger fabric of pop culture and history.

Today, we are going to be looking at the New Guardians, one of DC's stranger and more interesting maxi series that they produced from the 1980s. All right.

Jessika: I’m vigorously shaking my head, as you were saying. And I'm just like, here we go.

Mike: That was not a face that said my body is ready.

Jessika: No, it's, it's not ready. Like, I mean, there's no lie. 

Mike: I, I don't know. I, I don't know if anybody can truly be ready to talk about the New Guardians.[00:02:00] 

Jessika: Are we going to have to put some sort of a warning? We're absolutely gonna have to put a warning on this episode. Like if you have little ears, please, I don't care what other episode, like we throw the F bomb around if that's your thing. That's fine. Most episodes are probably okay for that. But this one, please put the little ears away. Because I’m not holding back.

Mike: We're going to have to do an extra swearing warning is what you're saying. 

Jessika: Yeah. Like we'll have almost a content warning. I mean, we're getting into some, some heavy content this episode. 

Mike: All right. Before we do that, though, we should talk about one cool thing that we've read or watched recently. So why don't you take it?

Jessika: So knowing full well that I'm very behind in my media consumption. I watched the first episode of Star Wars’ the Bad Batch. 

Mike: Oh, nice. Yeah, that looks like a really cool show. 

Jessika: It's really good. Yes. I [00:03:00] really, really liked it. The first episode was legit, almost movie length. It's 70 minutes long. 

Mike: Wow.

Jessika: And I wasn't really expecting that. So I was, as I was watching it I'm like how long if I've been watching this show? Like, I mean, it was really good. I was involved and everything, but at one point I was just like, how long has this been?

And I did the little button and I was like, oh, that makes sense. So it just was kind of. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: I love how the show is recreating the bits that we don't get to see about the rise of the empire and what that looked like from the inside of like the empire itself, which is so fascinating. And the computer animation is really neat. The 3d appearance gives it like some realism and depth. 

Mike: Yeah. And from what I've seen is that animation style that they kind of started with 15 years ago with the clone wars series. That's kind of continued on, right? Yeah. I've only [00:04:00] watched a little of that, but that stuff has gotten so cool with all the different things that they've done with it. 

Jessika: It really has. So yeah, I'm excited. I'm gonna watch some more of that one. And what about you? What are you checking out? 

Mike: Well, Sarah and I watched the Suicide Squad last weekend and we really enjoyed it, but I want to talk about that later on. I started reading a new comic series that I picked up at Brian's Comics in Petaluma over the weekend, it's called Nocterra, and it's from Image comics. It's written by it's written by Scott Snyder and it's illustrated by Tony S Daniel.

And it, it gives me similar vibes to Undiscovered Country, which is another series from Image and Snyder himself. I'm only one issue in, but the core concept is that it's this post-apocalyptic world a couple of decades after something called the big PM. Basically that is permanent night’s settled over everything and all of these spooky monsters that they, they spiritually feel a little bit like the xenomorphs from Aliens, but they don't look like them.[00:05:00] 

They reside in the darkness and they can only be kept at bay with bright lights. The comic is following Val, who was a young girl when the big PM hit as she has since become a ferryman, which is, she's basically a big rig trucker, but she's transporting cargo and that can be people, or it can be other things between the different outposts of humanity.

And the first issue sees her getting hired by this mysterious guy who is all of a sudden he shows her that he is sporting a fresh sunburn. And, and that's kind of where it's going from there. It's interesting. I'm really curious to see where it goes. So, yeah, I'm gonna head back up to the shop and pick up the other issues that they have.

Jessika: Very fun. 

Mike: Yeah.

Mike: All right. Are you ready to actually do this?

Jessika: Uh, yeah. 

Mike: All right. 

Jessika: There was pain in my voice, but we’re here. [00:06:00] You gave me an out earlier to be totally, to be totally fair. 

Mike: I did. Okay. So, this episode is happening because you were the one who sent me a TikTok from Nikhil Clayton, who, first of all, he is absolutely delightful and he has a series called What the Fuck Comics, and this particular video was focused on a character called Hemogoblin, who is literally a white supremacist AIDS vampire.

And then if you want to do a. I feel like we need to play this so that our listeners can hear the delightful summary of how batshit this character was.

Jessika: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Goodness gracious. 

Hello, and welcome back to What the Fuck Comics, the show where we discuss old plot lines and characters, and ask the ever important question. What the fuck? So good news, person, right now. This little monstrosity behind me is the Hemogoblin.

He [00:07:00] was a doozy character from the 1980s, and if his name gives you a bad feeling about where we're going with this, you're probably right. He was the creation of a white supremacist group with the ultimate goal of getting rid of all non white people. How? The same way Reagan was going to do it, with the fucking thing AIDS epidemic.

Yeah, this guy is an AIDS vampire. He's got all this classic vampire powers, but with the slight exception that when he bites you, you don't become a vampire, you just get AIDS. And I stress again, the he debuted in the 1980s. This was DC's attempt at being topical. Now, thankfully he was only in a handful of issues, so he didn't have a very big effect on anything, but wait, what's that?

Sorry. Nevermind. He killed someone. Specifically this guy, Extrano. Extrano was a wizard superhero whose name may or may not have translated directly to strange. Who also just happened to be openly gay. And yes, after a fight with the Hemogoblin, he contracted AIDS and eventually died. And what happened to everyone's favorite personification of mocking tragedy?

He also died. Of AIDS [00:08:00] Because what else was going to happen? DC, what the fuck? 

Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. So, uh, you sent me that video, 

Jessika: Yeah, I did. 

Mike: What was your initial reaction to it when you first saw it?I'm curious.

Jessika: At first I thought, okay, in no way, can this be real? But we all know how awful people are. I was mouth agape in shock, honestly, and I did, I did immediately think of you. I sent it to you within a minute of seeing it because I was like, fuck, do you know about this? 

Mike: This is, this is the, the pinnacle of our friendship is that, that you saw something that terrible and you send it to me.

Jessika: Oh, [00:09:00] 

Mike: But yeah, because as soon as you sent this to me, I was like, fuck, do I know about this? I wrote about it! And I got really excited to tell you all about the New Guardians and Hemogoblin and everything else terrible about comics.

Jessika: So yes, every one I did, I opened this can of worms. So either, I'm sorry, or you're welcome, however, you're taking this.

Mike: It's a little bit of both. I mean, I'm not going to lie. I was so excited at the idea of talking about how completely bad shit this entire thing is. So.

Jessika: Oh, well let's, let's plow on. This is something. 

Mike: Yeah. Hemoglobin appeared in a comic series from the late eighties called the New Guardians, but in order to talk about the New Guardians, we needed to actually take a step back and talk about Millennium, which was this giant DC crossover comic event that the team spun out of.

So, Millennium took place [00:10:00] in early 1988, and it was the company's third crossover. Before that they had Crisis on Infinite Earths and Legends. And you, and I've talked about Crisis briefly in the past. We noted about how it was this giant crossover thing that streamlined DC’s, rather convoluted comics time.

And it created something coherent that wove together, not only classic comic characters, like the Justice Society and the Charleston comic characters that DC had recently acquired like Blue Beetle and the Question and Peacemaker, who is now in the DCEU as part of the Suicide Squad. But it also made, it made all those characters, a coherent part of the timeline with the modern DC characters, like the Justice League and Superman and Batman, et cetera, et cetera.

Crisis is still this like widely acclaimed storyline, a lot of critics and readers still feel that it is [00:11:00] arguably the best crossover ever. I've read it. I like it a lot. I think it's groundbreaking for what it did, and as a result, I think it deserves a special place in comics history.

Legends in term was Legends was fine. It's passable I've re-read it several times., and I always forget the main story except for a couple of random plot points, including that, that was what introduced us to the Suicide Squad.

And then after that we got Millennium. Millennium was written by Steve Engelhart and he's this pretty prolific comics writer who has been in the industry for a while. I think he might be retired at this point, from the seventies through the nineties, he was pretty prolific. He bounced back and forth a lot between Marvel and DC during the seventies and eighties, but the seventies is arguably when he did his best work.

He wrote a really well-known run on Dr.Strange for a couple of years from 74 to 76. And then he also co-created Shang-Chi with [00:12:00] Jim Starlin in 1973, which we're about to get a movie of. It also sounds like he did a lot of drugs during the same period. , and he's talked about it pretty openly. There's this collection of interviews and essays from across the industry called Comics Between the Panels, and he gave us this amazing quote.

Jessika: Oh, goodness. We'd rampage around New York City. There was one night when a bunch of us, including Jim Starlin went out on the town. We partied all day, then did some more acid than roamed around town until dawn, and saw all sorts of amazing things, most of which ended up in Master of Kung Fu, which Jim and I were doing at the time. 

Mike: Yeah. And master of Kung Fu is what Shang-Chi’s original series was called.

Jessika: Got it. Oh, wow. 

Mike: This little quote has absolutely nothing to do with our overall discussion, but it's such a wonderful, weird little detail about the [00:13:00] guy that I felt we had to include it.

Jessika: It gives me a really good idea of why this was as drug-addled as it was. Well, there were other reasons. 

Mike: I'm gonna show you the cover of Millennium’s first issue. And I'd like for you to paint us a word picture.

Jessika: All right.

So in red with yellow behind it, it says Millennium week one, Millennium, DC. 75 cents. And then it has all of the DC superheroes, kind of like that portrait in the Shining, like they're all kind of stacked up, back there and they're looking at something, it's called The Arrival at the bottom.

So my guess is they're looking at aliens, which is such a hot topic, every DC superhero that I can recall is in this picture. 

Mike: It is a veritable who's who? Of DC characters, 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: But I mean, they all look [00:14:00] horrified. 

Jessika: They do, they look horrified. It's all in gray tone with a little bit of green splashed on it.

Mike: Yeah. It promises something that it doesn't really deliver on. Millennium was, it was interesting because they basically were dropping every issue of the core series, I believe every week, so that's how you were getting week one, week, two, week three. Because the core series ran for two months. But it also features this really complicated plot.

So, the arrival that is advertised on the cover basically occurs when a Guardian of the Universe, the guys who run the Green Lanterns named, and I'm not making this up, Herupa, Hando Hu, all H’s, starting. And then the female equivalent of the Guardians, which I believe they are responsible for the Star Sapphires, which are the pink color, the pink equivalent, and they're all about love. Because the Green Lanterns, at this point they've established that [00:15:00] there are different rings for each color of the emotional spectrum.

The Zamoran girlfriend is Nadia Safir. Herupa and Nadia are on this quest to unlock the super potential of 10 people on earth, who they deem the Chosen, they say that these people will become immortal and they're going to guide humanity into its next stage of evolution.

But they're really vague about all of that. Essentially these people are destined to become the next group of the Guardians and kind of take over running the universe, since the Guardians and their girlfriends have decided to kind of peace out to another part of the universe and then enjoy some debatably well-earned retirement after a few billion years of running things.

Jessika: This is your problem now. 

Mike: Yeah, exactly. 

Herupa and Nadia show up to all these superheroes and then announce their mission, and then they do it in a way that's not even remotely dramatic. Basically they show up, they tell the heroes what's going on, and then the heroes agreed to help find and protect the Chosen [00:16:00] and everyone starts making plans to do so.

And then meanwhile, this plan is opposed by a group of robots that are known as the Man Hunters. The Man Hunters were the original version of the Green Lantern Corps. They were the beta test. They basically doled out justice for about half a billion years, and then they went insane.

And then the Guardians replaced them with the Green Lantern Core. I think part of the established insanity honestly just involves nursing a grudge for 3 billion years, because that's how long they've been around. And they like to hang out and just basically sulk on their hidden planet, which is apparently undetectable, and then ruin the Guardian's plans whenever they can.

Obviously they decide to wreck Herupa’s plans because they're still pissed off and they have a bunch of double agents on earth who are androids, or mind-controlled people, or traitors, who help attack the heroes and basically try to kill the Chosen.

Jessika: Wow. That's like a new level. Like, that's next [00:17:00] level petty. 

Mike: I mean, they’re, they're an entire robot race of that shitty dude who can't get over the fact that his ex has moved on and is dating somebody else.

Jessika: Oh no, we've all met that guy. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Ugh. If you haven't met that guy, you are that guy. I hate to tell you. 

Mike: Yeah, right? So the Guardians shitty robot exes wind up being a little successful. There were originally going to be 10 Chosen, but by the end of the series, only six are actually still around to receive their powers because it takes a while before they're granted their specialness. One of them was senile when the series began.

There's another guy named Janwilheim kroef. I think that's how you say his name, it’s Afrikaans, so I'm sure I'm butchering it. He gets kicked out because he's such a racist asshole from Apartheid, South Africa that nobody wants anything to do with him. [00:18:00] And then I think two of them are murdered over the course of the story, but we don't see it in the core series. 

Cause there's like 30 tie-in issues and I haven't read them all because I have shit to do. But yeah, the final roster of the New Guardians includes Jet, who is a Jamaican woman who, when we meet her is living in fascist Britain, which I think is just Margaret Thatcher's England, I've never heard it referred to as fascist England, that was a new one. 

Also she has a written accent that I'm going to call comically offensive.

Jessika: It is so, it is, I, yes, that is a great description of what that is. That's how I felt about it as well.

Mike: We also get Ram, who is a Japanese businessman who then becomes a walking computer and can talk to electronics. Gloss is this woman from the People’s Republic of China. Who can suddenly command dragon lines while showing this insane amount of cleavage. And she keeps on flirting with Ram too. It's really weird and creepy.[00:19:00] 

Betty Clawman. She was an Aborigine who eventually wound up living in the dream time. She's not really a presence in the New Guardians, but she's still officially a member. There's Extrano, who was noted in that TikTok video, who was a Peruvian gay man who develops magical abilities.

Extrano’s an interesting case, because at this point in time, the Comics Code Authority would not actually allow publishers to acknowledge his sexuality. But this dude is so flamboyant, he insists on being called auntie, and when the Guardian first shows up to announce that he is one of the chosen, he kind of flirts with him?

Jessika: There's also that part where they're talking about sex and God, I don't know why they would be having such an overt conversation about sex, but Harbinger says something about, oh, would you want to go have sex? [00:20:00] He's like, not with you, honey, or something like that.

Mike: Something to that effect. Yeah.

Jessika: To that effect, yeah. And it was like, okay. 

Mike: Yeah. No, he's very flamboyant. Like there is, I mean, come on guys. You're not fooling anyone.

Jessika: He like points his toe out in a lot of the comics, like in a, in a way that they only draw females doing like a lot of the way they have him standing is very feminine, which is interesting. Not always. 

Mike: His outfit originally, it's almost like a unisex series of magical robes, where you could see it on either a male or female character. And then his hair is very flamboyant too. He has in a lot of ways, very effeminate features, which then changes later on when they give him that costume change.

And we'll talk about that later on but you know, he's this kind of nebbish little guy and he's very flamboyant, and, if you grew up in the Bay Area, you knew a lot of people like that. So, the final, one of the Chosen, [00:21:00] if I remember right, is Tom Kalmaku, he's one of Hal Jordan, the Green Lantern’s friends, he's a mechanic for Ferris air.

He's been around since the sixties. And eventually it's revealed that he has the power to “bring out the best in people”, but, it's really vaguely defined and we don't really know what it means. And then he winds up declining to go with the team, cause he doesn't want to put his family at risk, but he's still a part of the New Guardians storyline overall.

And then after that, they were joined by a longtime villain called the Fluoronic Man, who he's got a bunch of powers over nature. And then Harbinger, who was one of the main characters during Crisis on Infinite Earths, and she's been kicking around the DC universe afterwards, but she wound up being another main character during the Millennium storyline.

So that is the TLDR summary, which is already too long, but whatever, but now we can actually talk about the New Guardian series. Like how would you describe [00:22:00] this series? If you had to sell it to someone with an elevator pitch, like, what would you say.

Jessika: Overall the New Guardians have been chosen to be Earth's protectors. They are from around the world with the obvious idea that there is a global participation and representation, their main arc is against a white supremacist who is causing all of the destruction, seen in the comics due to his desire to rid the world of all other races.

They are basically world social justice warriors who take a very active role in change. 

Mike: First of all, that's a very succinct summary of that comic. The series was originally written by Englehart, he was continuing on, and it was drawn by veteran artists, Joe Staton. Cary Bates took over writing duties with issue two and pat Broderick, who is the guy who created Tim Drake, AK Robyn, number three, eventually finished out the series as its penciler. Here's the funny thing, the series isn't [00:23:00] really all that well known or remembered by the general public, but it's kind of notorious within the comics industry and among certain collectors because its villains were so fucking bonkers.

Like in the first two issues, we get Hemogoblin who is a vampire that he's sort of a vampire. He looks like count Orloff from Nosferatu he's got the same face and everything, but he was created in a lab by Janwilheim Kroef’s scientists like Janwilheim Kroef has apparently just, I don't know exactly how he has access to all the super doomsday science, but somehow he does. So the vampire winds up coming to the United States ends up attacking the group in a dance club. If I remember right or no, right outside a dance club, that's what happened. And then he bites Jet, who is, I have to state this one of the [00:24:00] first black, super heroines in DC comics history, and also attacks Extrano.

And I don't think he bites him, but he scratches him, but he gives both of those characters HIV. 

Jessika: Mmhm. 

Mike: And then he winds up dying because this system burns itself out. Thanks to his accelerated form of aids that he has. And Harbinger it's weird. They don't quite explain how, but she's almost like cosmically sympathetic to Jet’s being. And so she winds up developing the same wound as Jed and then also developing HIV. But that goes away. 

Jessika: Yeah, they had some symbiotic link. It was very strange. 

Mike: Yeah. Symbiotic. That's the word I was looking for. It's very weird. Um, and it's, it's not really explained for a comic, for a comic series with so much exposition, there's a lot that is not well explained or defined.

Jessika: There's one point where they're obviously making [00:25:00] fun of their own exposition and they're like, hey, I know this is a lot to listen to. I appreciate you being. I was like, oh gosh. Yeah. Don't you know it. 

Mike: Yeah. Hemoglobin winds up dying from AIDS because of course he fucking does. And, and then the next issue, whisks is off to Columbia where we get to meet Snowflake, who I love Snowflake. How, how would you describe him? I'm curious.

Jessika: Oh, man. Just your way. Cause I have so heavy. He's basically just a really coked up weightlifter. 

Mike: Fair. 

Jessika: Yeah. Apparently it has something to do with the power of cocaine, heavy quotes, coursing through him that gives him his powers question, mark. I have to read this description of himself because it is just something. And he says this at one [00:26:00] point during the comic. 

Mike: Yeah. And he is also a pyrokinetic, we should note, so this quote has like extra weight to it.

Jessika: Exactly. Every cell of my being burns with the white hot ecstasy. Cocaine is my god, and I am the instrument of its will. 

And he has all these coked up people that are basically just zombies doing his way. But like nowhere, does it say why he's the instrument of drugs and not his fellows? 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: Maybe he was the only one that could afford to buy a fancy spandex suit and spend all of his time getting yoked. Maybe that's it. They're like, oh yeah, this guy, this guy with privilege. Pick him. 

Mike: Well, and he, like, he like really beats the shit out of the New Guardians too. And then he gets randomly thrown into a shed with a bunch of chemicals and then it explodes and that's how you get them. It.

Jessika: Yeah. He died in [00:27:00] what was basically a drug shed explosive. 

Mike: Yeah, I'm okay. I'm sorry. But if this was a horror movie and the monster died that way, it would just be like, okay. So we're obviously going to have the guy come back in the next movie and I was waiting for that, but we never get him back again.

Jessika: I was waiting for that, also. I was waiting for that like Ninja Turtles, like here comes Shredder with his hand out of like the rubble. 

Mike: Nope. 

Jessika: Oh my gosh. So what did you think of that guy’s like Fabio white hair. That was like a point of pride, but you know, it had to take some constant maintenance, so.

Mike: Well, I mean, he had that much cocaine, what if he just sat there and used that as his like dry shampoo?

Jessika: Oh, oh that's, that's awful because the, I, yeah, that’s awful. That's awful. It's really funny too. Cause it's like they're mixing up their drugs, if they think that coke is going to cause super strengthened agility. [00:28:00] Like, what they should have had was a coked up guy that just talked really fast and wanted to party and have a bunch of sex. And like, that was his super power. 

Mike: Right. 

Jessika: Like that's, that's what I've always seen portrayed in the movies and shit. People don't get really strong. That's PCP, when somebody is really crazy on like PCP or something, that's always been what I've heard, but like, that's always in very rare instances when somebody goes off the handle or something and you hear about that, but it was so ridiculous. I mean, you could literally smell the war on drugs, undertones. They were palpable.

Mike: Oh yeah. 

Jessika: I could taste them.

Mike: Reagan? Papa Reagan, is that you?

Jessika: Are you listening? I am. Oh, I mean, all it all, he was certainly memorable. I mean, maybe not for the right reasons. 

Mike: All right? [00:29:00] Well, I'm going to break this to you. Snowflame has actually like infamous in comic book history. Like I, I was looking up his first appearance today just to see what stores are selling that issue for.

Jessika: I'm sorry is for you mean like in this issue, was he in more than just this? 

Mike: No, as far as I know, that's his only issue.

Jessika: Oh God, you scared me. I was like. 

Mike: No. So, but yeah, like it's funny because people still talk about that one villain. They don't talk about the New Guardians, but they will talk about Snowflame because they, I think they find it charming, basically the, you know, just how ridiculous the villain is. But his first appearance, like is going for 50 to 75 bucks at a lot of stores these days.

Jessika: Oh. Wow.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think the fact that his powers are fueled by cocaine is just, it's kind of charming, honestly, like people just sit there and like, oh, that's cute. If only we knew then what we know now. 

Jessika: Right. [00:30:00] 

Mike: Like, I don't know if you got told this growing up, but, but I was part of that DARE generation.

Jessika: Oh, Absolutely. Cops in the classroom and everything, which no, don’t do that. 

Mike: Yeah. And I remember every time the cops came to DARE and they were telling us about all the drugs, they would tell us cocaine is the worst drug out there.

Jessika: Which, lol. 

Mike: Yeah. Like I could not help, but think of that when I was reading this issue. And I mean, I guess it makes sense. Cocaine was pretty prevalent during the eighties and crack cocaine was really starting to become this huge epidemic in cities across the country by the end of the decade. But, you know, cocaine was the drug that white people knew better.

So it got focused on a lot in media, like, you know, in TV shows and comics and movies, all that stuff. And then even though Snowflame died and never came back, apparently, the issue after also deals with [00:31:00] cocaine, because like the villains are, they're like a gang of child soldiers in LA and there.

Jessika: I'm throwing my hands up because I don't even know. 

Mike: Yeah. Cause they're referred to as kids at one point, but like some of them have a lot of facial hair and it's very weird. And they stage, an attack on the New Guardians’ bungalow hotel that they're staying at. Because I guess being the Chosen if humanity doesn't pay enough to afford an Avenger’s tower, but this gang is also paid in cocaine by Snowflame’s people. 

Jessika: It is implied that they're children, But it's like, come on. You're not going to be overtaken by like a gang of children, like this is, this is not the Newsies. Like, you’re fine.

Mike: No, but the other thing is like, you know, in the eighties, that was really, again, part of the whole gang panic was the eighties and nineties. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Like, you know, that was a huge thing where, news [00:32:00] media at the time was just painting teenage gangs out to be the scourge of the country.

Jessika: Yeah, well, and they've got both the gang aspect and the drug aspect that they're like, oh, watch out every one don't want your kids involved in this. 

Mike: Fuck, yeah, they were really beaten that horse well past the point of being dead. 

Jessika: God. It was. So it was so obvious. My cheeks hurt a little bit, cause it really smacked me. 

Mike: Yeah. Well, those first three issues are really kind of the most fun, I felt because after that, the series just kind of limps along. And Jet keeps getting weaker and weaker due to the virus, progressing from HIV to AIDS, because I don't know Hemogoblin had some accelerated form of it or something.

And then she eventually dies when she sacrifices herself, helping fight off an alien invasion. She sacrifices herself because she ran out of energy because she had AIDS. 

Jessika: [00:33:00] Yeah. Yeah. And then it's not lost on me that they choose the one woman of color and the gay dude to both get AIDS out of everyone or HIV at the very least. 

Mike: Yeah, it is. We’ll, we'll talk about that later on, but it's not great.

After this point, Janwilheim Kroef becomes more and more of the central villain as the story progresses. Eventually he has his plan revealed and it's kind of weird, it's like to make white supremacy go global, which, I mean, first of all, it was already global, but he's basically trying to turn it up to 11.

The comic is not at all subtle for drawing parallels between him and Nazis. And then, I mean, it's just, it's so over the top that you almost hit that point where you feel like you're disconnecting from it, because it's just beating you over the head with this message. For the last few issues he's running around and he's got a military uniform with a black arm band and he's [00:34:00] throwing up his hand while he's talking.

And, you know, speaking about the inferior races and how he's going to unite the world under his banner of hatred. It's uh.

Jessika: Oh, yeah. he does a whole, like, you know, leader, speech, propaganda situation. I mean, it's, it was really heavy handed. 

Mike: Yeah. And then he does the thing where he kidnaps Tom Kalmaku’s girlfriend, and then she's pregnant. And he wants to surgically experiment on her unborn child. But it’s very nonsense and nothing really comes from it other than eventually he gets a hold of Tom, and then thinks that he killed him by throwing him into a pit of minorities that he's surgically experimented on or something and turned them all into cannibal mutants. 

Jessika: Get a but like, can we talk about how fucking macabre that whole fucking situation was them? [00:35:00] The fucking, like they were talking about dissecting fetuses and stuff. It was fucking wild. I mean, they had a fetus that was hooked up to stuff, like in a thing when he was in like having a dream. And it was just like, it was insane. It was a lot. 

Mike: It was really a lot, but at the same time, it was kind of boring. Like it was really gruesome and horrifying in concept, but then when they put it on the page, it was, it was all delivered with so much exposition and it wasn't actually. Moving in any way, like I was just bored.

Jessika: No, it wasn't, it wasn't, but I guess it was just, it was shocking to me that that was where they were going with it. You know what I mean? That, that, it just was a lot. And for me, I could kind of tell that it was written by men. 

Mike: Oh yeah. Totally. 

Jessika: It's just, that was just something that I wasn't really expecting, to be honest with you. 

Mike: Yeah. And I had forgotten about it up until the point where I was rereading these issues. I don't have the sales data on the series. [00:36:00] I get the impression that this was a series that was not doing well, sales wise, and the writers were just trying to do what they could to get people, to pay attention to it. And I don't know if that's the case. It's a feeling that I get in my gut, I could be way off. 

Jessika: The vibe, I hear. 

Mike: The other thing is like, aside from being really kind of gross and horrifying, this whole plot about Kroef and what he's trying to do, it just, it's kinda nonsense. It doesn't make sense.

That's the only way I can describe it. Like, I dunno, he wanted to figure out how Tom got powers or something like that, and so he was going to experiment on the baby, but then the baby was totally normal. And so he just decided to blow up his mountain base and then throw Tom into a pit to get eaten by mutants.

But then Tom developed his own super powers at the same time that Kroef was developing his and Kroef is all about.

Jessika: Latent fucking super powers. Jesus. 

Mike: Oh it’s dumb.Yeah. And [00:37:00] Kroef finds up developing the superpowers to basically bring out hatred and other people and also make them serve him while Tom becomes. 

Jessika: Which, also, unexplained? 

Mike: Yeah. And then Tom is basically Jesus and Buddha combined. He has that aforementioned like “bring out the best ability”, where he just kind of sits and meditates and then appears to people in visions and can literally hand wave away anything that he wants to it’s.

You know, viewing this through a modern lens. I'm like, oh, so he was that be best campaign by Melania Trump just made manifest. 

Jessika: Yes. Yes. Yes. 

Mike: It sounds simultaneously wholesome and absolutely incomprehensible.

I don't know how else to describe it, but yeah. And basically Tom saves the day at the very end of the series. He rescues the New Guardians from Kroef who is like mind controlling them or something. And then halfway through, they also gave Extrano a much more masculine costume [00:38:00] and he was suddenly jacked and he ran around with a crystal skull, which he would use for magic again, not well explained, whatever.

Jessika: Yep. I was what I, it felt like he got more jacked. And I was wondering about that. 

Mike: Oh no. He, 100% started to hit the gym and take his creatine.

Jessika: I was like, did the skull contain protein powder? I.

Mike: Right. 

Jessika: He was actually at a GNC this whole time. 

Mike: Well, you know, you had a side hustle. Cause superhero-ing doesn't pay the bills.

Jessika: Oh, no. Has he gotten involved in a multi-level marketing scheme? Do we need to save him from that now? 

Mike: Yeah. Probably Beach Body.

Jessika: It worked for me. 

Mike: Ugh. If you become my downline, I can get you shredded and castin’ spells too. [00:39:00] Yeah. And you know, it's, it's funny because all of the New Guardian's powers are really vague and, you know. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: It’s funny because, Extrano, when he was first announced, he's like, I'm a witch. Cause that's, that was his thing. And I'm like, okay, cool. So you’re a magic user. His magic is really, it’s not well explained what he can and can't do. It seems like half the time he's just casting illusions. And then, you know, suddenly he's able to generate a force field and levitate everybody around and whatever. Okay. 

Jessika: He's basically the plug for the leaks in the team.

Mike: Yes. Yeah. Whatever they might be. 

Jessika: Filling that void. Yep. 

Mike: What was your overall impression of this series?

Jessika: It went from goofy to intense to, it just was like, you know, we already talked about the fetus dissection conversations. Obviously I got stuck on that because holy shit, that was [00:40:00] extreme. Okay. So I did like that there were a balanced amount of women and that there was a global representation, which was definitely something I had been whining about in our last episode. So thank you. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: But the women just had absolutely nothing on, you know, Gloss’ outfit literally cut down to her pelvic bone. I mean, there was literally like two, it was two inches from her couch. 

Mike: Do you remember that dress that J-Lo wore to the Oscars like 25 years ago? That was super scandalous at the time? 

Jessika: I know the one. Yes.

Mike: Yeah. No. It's the superhero equivalent of that Oscar’s dress.

Jessika: It sure is. Yeah. Like how are you even supposed to fight when you think you're going to slip a nip or sneak a cheek, like really how? This is a prime example of those types of comics where they look like they were drawn by a 12 year old boy. 

Mike: Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. And it's funny [00:41:00] because, if I remember right, in Millennium, because she's part of the People's Republic, they're all wearing like the same kind of like very nondescript kind of burlap sack style clothing that, I mean also problematic in its own way, but it's just, it was really interesting to see her go from a very kind of almost asexual character to being this horned up Asian woman stereotype.

Jessika: Yeah. It was really intense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there were at the very beginning, a few times where I was like, oh, what's going to happen next issue, but it did like, it dwindled. You know, like you said, towards the end and it just got really manic and crazy and just like, felt like a drug-induced fever dream. 

Mike: Yeah. It, I found myself comparing it to US 1, the series that we did a couple of episodes ago.

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Where that was another batshit shit series, but it was fun, and [00:42:00] I never found myself really getting frustrated with it because it never felt boring. And this one, I got bored a lot.

Jessika: It was a little bit of a slog. 

Mike: But I mean, especially when characters, either the villains or the heroes were sitting there and recapping their backstory for like the 10th time, you know, it, I just don't care. Like, come on guys. You've already got me. You really think that the person reading issue number nine is not going to know what's going on. Come on.

Jessika: Yeah, exactly. 

Mike: Yeah. And I got to agree with you, you know, you have to give the series a little bit of credit because the New Guardians was a diverse team and they had some interesting abilities, but everything about it just felt really cringey, for lack of a better word. It's like somebody took a list of the current social issues at the time, and then just like focus grouped the hell out of them.

And then they created a superhero comic around it. [00:43:00] And I don't know, you can tell it's hard as in the right place, but everything about the comic itself just gets more and more painful. It's kind of akin watching someone trying to be especially woke, but you're sitting there really hoping that they're going to reign in their efforts by about 50%, by the end of it.

Like, I mean, even the villains are topical. Like, the three that we talked about, we've got Janwilheim Kroef, who was part of the Apartheid government in South Africa. And this was in 1988, which is right when the apartheid was really getting put under the international media’s microscope. Basically, the series was running right before Nelson Mandela got released from jail. And then we already talked about Snowflame and how he was relevant to the time. And then Hemogoblin it was topical because the AIDS crisis was really starting to take off in America at this point in time as well.[00:44:00] But yeah, it's a. It's a cringey read.

Jessika: Yeah. I've just been shaking my head this whole time. The listeners can't hear that, but just know it was happening. 

Mike: Yeah.Yeah. You know, and it's funny cause DC doesn't really talk about the New Guardians, or the crossover they originated from, that much. Like, they acknowledge Millennium happened. They actually collected it into a graphic novel a few years ago, but it's only those core eight issues, and it really doesn't make a lot of sense because in between each issue, there is all this very crucial stuff that happens.

And so those core eight issues are almost like the recaps and the setup for what's going to happen next. So it's, you know, it's still technically canon in terms of DC lore, but it's not really discussed in polite company. And I mean, case in point, Tom Kalmaku is I think still around in the [00:45:00] DC universe, 

Jessika: Really. 

Mike: He's a long time cast member of the Green Lantern comics.

I know, I read a couple of issues that had him show up in, I want to say 2010. It might've been a little bit earlier than that. But I know that his character was even in that Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern movie.

Jessika: Oh, you know what? No, you're right. You are right. 

Mike: But his powers, as far as I know, are never mentioned again, like they just kind of were like, no, that didn't really happen. Or we don't, we don't talk about that. And then, you know, it's the same with the New Guardians. They occasionally pop up individually, but they never really get the band together.

I think they were still a team in Green Lantern comics, but then there was a villain named Entropy who wound up attacking the headquarters that they were operating out of. Cause they were hanging out in the Green Lantern headquarters on earth. And then it was assumed that they all died.

So that TikTok video was saying that, Extrano died from HIV. [00:46:00] He might have, but as far as I know, what happened was everybody assumes that he died during that attack, and he still had HIV. But I don't know at that point, I'm not as familiar with the Green Lantern and storylines from that era. 

Jet somehow reappeared as the leader of the Global Guardians, Extrano had a recent cameo in Midnighter, and he was a supporting character, and he actually was like much more normcore this time around. But he was actually openly gay this time around, which was kinda cool.

Jessika: Oh, good. 

Mike: Yeah. And then other than that, like most of the New Guardians spend a lot of time dying. So, yeah, as I mentioned, the entire team was absorbed and presumably killed by the super villain Entropy before Flash point rebooted the DC Universe, gloss was hanging out with Jet for a short while, but then she got killed by the villain, Prometheus, like, she got to decapitated. 

There's like, yeah, it is not subtle. And then Ram [00:47:00] was, again, it was one of those cameo things, but he was shown in passing as a victim of this villains' superpower death matches where it was like a super power fight club kind of thing, and it was shown that he had died, I think. But yeah, so yeah, that is the New Guardians and their, their wild ride across the DC Universe.

Jessika: Wow. I'm going to, I'm going to put on a face mask after this. I'm gonna soak my feet, gonna decompress. 

Mike: And as far as I know, there is no collected version of this maxi series, like, so, you know, basically you have to buy the individual issues, at least what I've seen, which I mean, somehow I own, I think I found the entire series as like a bundle. You know, at one of the local comic shops and they were just like, whatever, like 12 bucks get out.[00:48:00] 

Jessika: Please take these and leave. 

Mike: We will pay you to take it out.

Jessika: Oh God. It's like when stores want you to take cursed items home, they're like, we just don't want this in our possession any longer. 

Mike: Yeah. But I mean, like that said, you can find some really fun stuff in those bundle boxes. Like that's how I actually came across the whole series of US 1was at Flying Colors Comics the last time I was there. I found the first issue of Brian's, but then they had the complete collection at Flying Colors. So that was exciting. 

Jessika: Nice. 

Mike: I recently found the, I think it was the complete series of Ren and Stimpy, you know, for 30 bucks, which was fun.

Jessika: Nice. And in the bundle boxes, they do like a full series? So whatever you pull it's like the whole thing?

Mike: Or, they'll, do a full run of like a certain like, you know, set of issues. 

Jessika: Nice. Oh, that's cool. 

Mike: That's why I always liked to collect for, as I like to collect for the things where it's like the fun stories or the weird moments in comic history, or just, kind of cool, interesting moments.

[00:49:00] And so you can find that stuff. If you're looking for just fun stuff to read, look at the, they used to call them like the quarter bins. I think they're now like dollar bins where, you know, they're the issues themselves are kind of ratty or they're worthless, but you can find a lot of really fun stuff, no, it's a great way to just enjoy comics if you're not collecting them to basically appreciate like your stock portfolio.

Jessika: Very cool. 

Mike: Yeah. 

 

Mike: All right. Well, I believe it is time or Brain Wrinkles, which is that one thing that has comics or comics adjacent that we just can't kick out of our noggin. What is stuck in your gray matter this week?

Jessika: Well, we've got another addition to the letter mafia. 

Mike: Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. 

Jessika: Ooh. So per DC cannon Tim Drake, our current Robin has. A whole mission where he gets to go save a [00:50:00] longtime friend, Bernard from the villain du jour, and during which point, Bernard confesses his feelings for Drake, whom he does not know his Robin. So he's like confessing his love and hoping that he has a chance for love. And then it ends with them going on a date. 

Mike: Yeah. 

Jessika: I love it. 

Mike: Yeah. It's really interesting. 

Jessika: He’s bisexual, canonically, everyone. 

Mike: Yup. I'm very curious to see how this is going to play out in the future. I know a lot of right-wing shit heal comic sites and prevalent voices across the web are mad about this. And so I'm automatically overjoyed just to hear that this ruined their day. 

Jessika: Yeah. Yeah. 

Mike: Overall, the sentiment seems pretty positive to it as well, which I think speaks volumes about where we are now compared to when I started reading comics.

Jessika: Agreed. 

Mike: Yeah. I'm pretty jazzed about it. I'm curious to see where they go with it [00:51:00] and the one thing that's been really interesting is I saw the BBC was asking what this meant for movies, and I was kind of sitting there. It doesn't fucking matter. Like they're not going to put it in a movie. 

Because here's the thing that a lot of people don't quite get, is that inclusivity for the LGBTQ plus community and movies is very fleeting because major movie studios, these days have recognized the power of the international box office and they thus need to put in stuff that they can edit out for the Chinese and Russian, and a handful of other smaller markets.

So it was a big deal that in the last Star Wars movie, we get to see two guys kissing, it's a second and, you know, whatever that's going to get edited out in certain regions because they want to be able to make their millions.

Jessika: Yeah, arguably edited out in the places that matter [00:52:00] most. 

Mike: Yeah, exactly. But I am glad to see that we're getting more representation and especially bi people in particular are getting more representation in meaningful, thoughtful ways. 

Jessika: Yes, well, and bi men. There's always been that boring trope of like how amazing it is that women can be bisexual, but it's often looked upon with disgust or completely disregarded when it comes to men. And I, quite frankly, there's no difference people, like. 

Mike: Yup. 

Jessika: It's just, it's just people hating. And it's the toxic masculinity of, you know, if you're a man, you do certain things and it's just like, come on guys, you need to back the fuck off. This is why you're as, as harmed as you are in your lives, because you had all these stupid us standards you had to stick with, and couldn't fucking talk about your feelings.

And now you're just a ragey asshole. So here we are. Here we are. How do you feel? Oh, you won't tell me. [00:53:00] You don't even know. 

Mike: Yeah. God. 

Jessika: Let’s see how mucho of that I cut out. 

Mike: Yeah.

Jessika: So what about you? Um, what's wrinklin’ and around in there. 

Mike: Yeah. You know, I can't believe how much I enjoyed The Suicide Squad. I keep on thinking about it. And I mean, I knew I was going to like it because I have yet to see anything by James Gunn that I haven't liked. I've been a fan of his since he did the movie Slither back in 2005 ish, which also had Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker in it.

Jessika: Ooh. 

Mike: Yeah, you know, he makes entertaining movies and I was not prepared for some of the things that happen in The Suicide Squad. It is absolutely wild what a [00:54:00] course correction that movie is, especially when you compare it to the first one. It kind of reminded me of Shizam and Birds of Prey.

It was just this absolutely delightful blast of chaos. And, you know, it was fun. It was refreshing. And if this is where we're going with the DCEU, as opposed to the fucking Snyder cut, then I'm fully on board with this, like, sign me up for 10 more movies. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Just no more Jokers, please. 

Jessika: I'll actually watch this one with a gusto, you know.

Mike: No. 

Jessika: Probably sooner rather than later. 

Mike: Sarah wants to watch it again. 

Jessika: Oh, okay. Now that's a shining review then. Yes. 

Mike: Yeah. I'm really excited to talk with you about how batshit it is, and like the stuff that they do with it, which is really in a lot of ways, it’s really brave, like what they did. They also, they kill off a lot of characters. 

Jessika: Ooh. 

Mike: I was not prepared for how many characters they were going to kill off. I knew they were gonna kill off a couple, but like. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: It's, it is astounding. [00:55:00] The choices that they made. 

Jessika: Damn. Maybe, I don't know everyone. What’s up, y’all, we might need to do an episode about this one. 

Mike: I think that that would actually be pretty cool. 

Jessika: Yeah. 

Mike: Especially we could talk about how they got started, how they appeared in comics and then also how this movie in certain ways reminded me of their DC animated universe appearance.

Jessika: Yes. Okay. I, if, if it compares to that, which, you know, I love that. 

Mike: Yeah. There's a, there's an episode of Justice League Unlimited called Taskforce X, which is a really great Suicide Squad story. Like I, yeah, that'd be kind of fun. We should, we should talk about that. 

 But next time, our next episode, we are going to be starting something new. We're going to do, well, I guess it's like a book club.

Jessika: I would say it's a book club. Yeah.

Mike: Yeah. So we're going to read through and talk about the Sandman series by Neil Gaiman, the core [00:56:00] Sandman series, ahead of the Netflix TV show, which is coming out supposedly sometime this year, but I'm really excited about it. And we may actually have a couple of guests as guest hosts or maybe just one who knows we'll find out.

Jessika: To be decided. 

Mike: But yeah, we'll be back in two weeks and until then, we'll see you in the stacks. 

Jessika: Thanks for listening to Ten Cent Takes accessibility is important to us. So text transcriptions of each of our published episodes can be found on our website. 

Mike: This episode was hosted by Jessika Frazer and Mike Thompson written by Mike Thompson and edited by Jessika Frazer. Our intro theme was written and performed by Jared Emerson Johnson of Bay Area Sound. Our credits and transition music is Pursuit of Life by Evan MacDonald and was purchased with a standard license from Premium Beat. Our banner graphics were designed by Sarah Frank, who you can find on Instagram as @lookmomdraws.

Jessika: If you'd like to get in touch with us, [00:57:00] ask us questions, or tell us about how we got something wrong, please head over to tencenttakes.com or shoot an email to tencenttakes@gmail.com. You can also find us on Twitter, the official podcast account is tencenttakes. Jessika is @jessikawitha, and Jessika is spelled with a K. And Mike is @vansau, V A N S A U. 

Mike: If you'd like to support us, be sure to download, rate and review wherever you listen.

Jessika: Stay safe out there.

Mike: And support your local comic shop.