The Short Box Podcast: A Comic Book Talk Show
Can’t make it to your local comic shop? The Short Box Podcast brings the comic shop experience straight to your headphones!
Join your friendly neighborhood podcast host: Badr Milligan, every Wednesday for news, reviews, and interviews about comic books. Learn how your favorite comics are made, with the creators who make them, and celebrate comic culture with other diehard fans. Whether you’re a longtime collector or a casual reader, The Short Box is essential listening on New Comic Book Day, and a must-listen comic book podcast for all fans.
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The Short Box Podcast: A Comic Book Talk Show
Manga Hunting in Tokyo, Travel Tales & X-Men ’97 Reactions w/ Drew (Unlocked Patreon Episode)
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[UNLOCKED PATREON EPISODE] Every month, I record an exclusive spin-off show (with Drew) for SBX Patrons called Save For Pod—and today, we’re unlocking the latest episode for everyone
Enjoy a laid back conversation as Drew and I play catch-up on life, including the top moments from my trip to Japan & Sri Lanka (click here for photos). I talk about culture shock, manga hunting in Tokyo, and the comics I picked up overseas (click here for photos). To wrap things up, we share our unfiltered reactions to the first three episodes of X-Men '97 Season 2 (Spoiler Warning)
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The Short Box Podcast is recorded live from Jacksonville, FL.
IntroBadr Milligan
Yo! Short Box Nation, hello again. Welcome back and thanks for pressing play today. If you're brand new, welcome to the show. I'm your host, Badr Milligan, and this is the Short Box Podcast, the comic book talk show where we bridge the gap between the panels of your favorite comics with the people who put their blood, sweat, and tears into making them. Or in today's case, hey, kick back and enjoy a chill conversation between me and my best friend. He's my best friend, he's a co-founder of this here podcast, a longtime co-host as well. Ladies and gents, on mic number two, I'm talking about Mr. Andrew Torres. DJ Dingeling. DJ Dingle. DJ Dingaling T-Rex is here. And uh we uh we we've got topics to talk about, but uh we're gonna keep it kind of chill. I just came back from vacation, a two-week vacation. I went to uh Japan, it's Tokyo specifically, and Sri Lanka. And your boy had a great time, but I also came back very sick. So my apologies if you if you hear any coughing, sneezing, sniffling, all of that. I'm getting over this this cold, whatever it may be, but um I got a lot to talk about from this trip, and my boy Drew wanted to hear about it all. Alright, I also brought back some comics. We did some comic shopping, got stories to share. We'll also talk about X-Men 97, uh, episodes one through three. So if you haven't watched those, just be aware of that. And uh, we're just gonna catch up, right? And with that being said, Drew, what's up, man? This is um, this is our second conversation, full conversation since I've been back. I'm super sick. I got sick. You got you got sick there or you got sick here? I think I I got sick here after my body was like, oh, we're home now, we can relax. Psych head cold. Stuffy nose. Fucked up sleep schedule. Welcome back, bitch. I'm back and I'm and I'm at 50% power right now. Um but regardless, I was like, nah, I gotta I gotta pod with the homie Drew because when we talked a few days ago, I was like, let me save all the good stories. Yeah, yeah. I was like, hey, SFP, save for pod.
DrewHey man, how are you trying to like shut the fuck up? I made you sign an NDA before you got here. I was like, holy shit.
Badr MilliganAnd here we are. Uh Drew Farr, we get to talking about uh obviously I'm gonna tell you about the the trip to Japan. I'm gonna tell you about my trip to Sri Lanka, all of that. But um how are you doing? Uh let's talk about you. How are you doing? How are you feeling? Give me some life updates before we get into all the nerdy comic book talk and all that. Give me some life updates. What's new with you?
DrewUh dude, no, Denver's still cool. I'm still uh working. Yeah, yeah. Surprise. Uh, dude, I just bought a bike. Like not a motorcycle, but like a metal bike.
Badr MilliganYou're like fully accepting your new role as a as a resident of Denver. Is it a mountain bike or uh what type of bike?
DrewIt's a it's a hybrid fixed, it's a fixed gear. It's a fix-y.
Badr MilliganI just want to punch you in the face for saying that. It's a hybrid fixed gear. I wish you would have gone even deeper. It's a five-cycle. Good.
DrewNo, no, go for it.
Badr MilliganNo, I ran out of it.
DrewI should have added a bunch of stuff to it. Yeah, it's a 23 Mike 24. So it's about Mach 2 if I press this button here. Yeah. So can you imagine a bike going Mach 2? That'd be great. Dude, I'll tell you right now that like the electric bike scene here is pretty big. And like people here have like the like have you seen electric bikes now? Bro, there's electric bikes downtown at Jack. I can just Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like have you seen like people, the ones that you can buy for like a like a thousand dollars?
Badr MilliganNo. Oh no. Oh, so you're saying this isn't like um because you know, like in New York, you could rent like the electric bikes and yeah, yeah, yeah.
DrewYou can do like the city bikes.
Badr MilliganBut you're saying people are buying their own electric bikes.
DrewNo, no, no. I was like when you get on the train, like when you get on the train, because a lot of these trains they have like um bicycle cart cars.
Badr MilliganUh-huh.
DrewBecause you'll see a lot of people you can bring your bicycle and like kind of put it on the train because they have like a like a longer Yeah, like a bike rack. Uh bed or whatever. So you just see a bunch of people some bikes fold up and shit. You're like, damn, that looks crazy. But like the ones that are really, really cool are ones that kind of look like a dirt bike, but they're e-bikes, and like you're allowed to fucking like ride them in the park and stuff. And they go fast, right? You see, oh man, yes, they go fast. They don't go Mach 2, but they go Mach 1. They go fast. These these actually go pretty fast too. Like the there's three different versions. The ones that you can run in Colorado. Did you get one? No, absolutely not. I got the Fred Fullenstone model. Bro, seat power, bro.
IntroI gotta use these bad knees to power these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, bro.
DrewI'm telling you right now, I got I had a taste. I got a taste because, like, you know, in the parks, this was I would say really, really cool. Is now I'm like, I'm comfortable now to where like I'm like, okay, let me go explore around here, this area. So I just get on on one of their city bikes and I'm just like cruising all like all around and seeing like graffiti and all these different types of architecture, and it's just really cool.
Badr MilliganIt's like, oh man, this is really, really fun. There's something about ride being able to ride a bike through like uh like a downtown or a city, or just riding a bike in general. I know when um uh I mean you know this, but maybe other people don't, but when COVID happened, I really got into bike riding, where that was my main form of exercise for months on end. After work, I would just go, and I had just moved into a new neighborhood here in Springfield, if you're familiar with Jacksonville um uh locations. Um, so I would ride my bike everywhere, and it was it was a new area of town, so I was like, every day was a new adventure. And there's something about being able to just be closer to you know, being able to like go down certain streets with a bike that you can't with a car necessarily or you just don't feel like walking. For sure. I think you get a different perspective of any area of a bike.
DrewIt's the freshest air ever, too. Like it's the freshest air I've ever received, especially like when you find like a good hill and you bomb that hill, bro.
Badr MilliganIt is just can I say I get I am so conscious about self-conscious about going downhill on a bike or going too fast. I think it's because I, you know, just trauma from childhood, falling off my bike, chipping my tooth, and then living with a chipped tooth for 20 plus years. I refuse to live that again or go through that again. So I get super conscious.
DrewYeah, yeah, yeah. I know it's like you're like, you know what? Like, we'll just take that.
Badr MilliganThat was a long way to say I'm a fucking pussy when it comes to like going really fast downhill.
DrewI'm like, please go slower.
Badr MilliganAll right, so so you picked up biking, things uh you're still working in the bar doing great things. Uh give me one more life update. What's new?
DrewOh man, uh dude, I have no idea. Like, um, like I I've honestly just been reading born on like the I've I've honestly just been trying to like get my bike um up to where I can take it to parks and just like I know it sounds actually like the parks here are so nice that you just want to like lay in the park, just take a blanket, you know, take a bike ride, freaking make you a sandwich and do stuff like that.
Badr MilliganSo you're finally you're finally maximizing living in in Denver now. You're outside, you're riding bikes, you're going out trails.
DrewYeah, I'm definitely utilizing all that stuff, and I got the shortest shorts ever, like after like force gun. Like these are like I got bicycle shorts now.
Badr MilliganOkay, not not to extend this any longer or make it boring, but yo, what's the weather up there right now? Or or where where you at right now? Oh, because when I saw dude, it bro, it is jumps a fucking I mean I this is uh true for everywhere, I think, in the US. Just the US in general is going through heat waves everywhere is experiencing everywhere is experiencing crazy heat waves. Bro, when I tell you coming back to Jack's after being in like ideal tropical weather in Sri Lanka, and and then Japan wasn't, I was told Japan was going to be super humid and muggy. Bro, I could live that all day. I could do Japan. If that's their definition of humidity, at least at the in the five days I was there, give me that anytime. Being back here, I am that's how we were greeted at at the air at the Jax Airport.
DrewThey gave us the ALS bucket challenge, but it's Florida.
IntroIt's like yeah, they just threw humidity on us.
Badr MilliganThey were like, and they slapped us across the face with a pair of uh swamp ass underwear. Like, welcome back, bitch. Oh my nasty. I don't miss it. It's been nasty, I don't miss it.
DrewIt's been nasty. Dude, sorry. It's been uh it's been awful, bro. Like awful, like in the morning. Yeah, in the morning when I wake up, it's like 60 degrees. Oh, okay, not bad.
Badr MilliganI'll take that right now. I'll take that. All right, stop. You fucking you know what? You have become soft, okay? You have become soft and delicate, and and you're complaining too much. This is not a show about complaining. I'm just I'm just now hear me complain real quick for a minute. Okay, um, my life updates. I'm sick. I'm I'm getting over uh I think a head cold. I'm sick, but besides that, your boy had just finished a two-week vacation to uh I was in Tokyo for about five, six days, and then I was in Sri Lanka for another five, six days. The other days were a lot of traveling, a lot of traveling and car rides, long car rides, long flights, a bunch of layovers, a bunch of transfers. I think I shared with you, but the the return flight home was 27 hours total in terms of like flying transfers, all of that. It was Drew, when I saw I would have cried.
DrewI would have I was close to crying. I was like, babe, I was like, there's 24 hours in a day. We are doing 27 hours, like, holy shit, bro.
Badr MilliganI'll talk more about it. But I always find it insane that that is how you end a trip, right? Like, I had an amazing life-changing uh trip, right? It was like it was an incredible, one of the best trips and travels I've ever done. Being in Tokyo and Sri Lanka back to back was truly incredible, but I cannot emphasize how tough it was just physically and mentally at times, in terms of like just like I said, just being in a car for so long, being in the trains and just having to be on the go. It was it was pretty fucking tough. But the trip definitely made up for it. Um, I definitely got sick, uh, which doesn't surprise me. It was a lot of physical, uh just being exerted and exhausted a lot. That said, um I guess what I guess where do you want me to start? I don't want to just like I I can just dive into something.
DrewA lot of the stuff that I have that I've like all the stuff is kind of like related and bounces off of the things that you've you've done. Okay.
Badr MilliganWell, let me go ahead and just give you uh uh at you and everyone listening, just a high-level overview of of what I did. And this feels weird to just like only you know, I'm so used to interviewing someone, so being to put the spotlight on me right now. Isn't so feel free to jump in with any questions or anything. I'm just gonna give you a high-level overview because we do have other topics. I want to talk about, give you a trip recap. I want to show you some of the things I bought in Japan. Maybe I'll start there.
DrewWhy did you drive? Why did you guys go so far from America just to eat at a 7-Eleven? Why did you guys go far from America just to eat at a 7-Eleven? People just want to know.
Badr MilliganBecause that shit is life-changing.
DrewBro, when I tell you, when I tell you You're saying that 7-Eleven has life-changing food stuff.
Badr MilliganYo, gun to my head, right now, if someone took me to the 7-Eleven on Main Street and put a gun in my head and said, You're gonna eat this egg sandwich from this 7-Eleven, I'd be like, Can I at least call my mom and tell her I love her? Japan, I'd eat that egg sandwich off the floor. Damn. Bro, the it, everything, and I don't want to sound like an echo chamber for all the different um tropes that you see online. I feel like right now Japan is having a great, Japan has has had a great PR moment in terms of like being the spot to travel to. It feels like everyone online uh has something to say about Japan. And they all seem like similar things too. Everyone's gonna talk to you about the 7-Eleven and the gas station food, everyone's gonna talk to you about the yen and and shibu. You know, like it feels like everyone has had a lot of these shared experiences. And I think I kind of went into this trip with a little bit of like, man, we'll see if this shit lives up. You know, everyone talks about it so highly. It almost feels like the millennial midlife crisis is like, yo, we're going to Japan and we're gonna come back and be evangelized by it. And I gotta say, the one thing they did, one thing they did get right. He said evangelized, bro. Okay. The food at the gas stations, not even a gas station, because I the ones I went to, it was like a solo 7-Eleven, but the corner stores, the convenience stores, whatever you want to call them, are incredible, bro. The 7-Eleven sushi in there, bro, like better than some sushi restaurants here in Jack's.
DrewIt's one of those things where you're like, you come back, you want to come back to the places that you ate and just be like, what the fuck have you been serving us? This is trash compared to what we've eaten. Like you were feeding us dog shit.
Badr MilliganIt is. I mean, we ate there was a period, a stretch where every morning we went to 7-Eleven to get breakfast. Meaning, we got egg sandwiches, we got sushi rolls, we got I do have a question.
DrewI have a question. Did you get to try any of those crazy soda milk hybrid things?
Badr MilliganNah, only because I don't mess with milk that much, but I mean, we did try a lot of the different sodas there. Um, nothing like really sticks out in mind. I think I think what impressed you have fruit? I had way more fruit in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka blew Japan out of the water in terms of fruit because it's like Sri Lanka is like a tropical island. Like they've got, you know, coconuts growing on every single palm tree, more palm trees than I've ever seen, even compared to Florida. Like coconuts everywhere, the the biggest, ripest mangoes you've ever seen. Like fruits that even Google was like, bitch, I don't know. Like, ask Sri Lanka, Google. I don't know. Um, but now Japan was um, I guess let me tell you what I what I did. And I specifically stayed in Tokyo. We didn't get to go to like Okinawa or Osaka and a bunch of different places. We just spent our time in Tokyo. I ate a bunch of sushi, a lot of egg sandwiches from 7-Eleven. We attended a baseball game uh between the uh Yomi Yomi Yuri Giants versus the Chunichi Dragons, the Giants being the local team. That was incredible getting to see like uh a baseball game there. I think you might know this, but baseball is huge in Japan. It's got a massive following. Everyone is extremely respectful. Like there was I didn't I heard not one boo. Everyone chants, like there's different chants for every single player, like, and everyone gets involved, and they all take turns. So when it's the opposing team playing or bat up for bat, the other team stays quiet. You know, they're not yelling, they're not booing. The other team gets to do their chants, and it's all dude, and it's like there's a person playing like drums, and there's horns, like there is so much entertainment value.
DrewCivilized, this is what it's like to be civilized, and the food is great too.
Badr MilliganI had we ate we were eating fucking like fried octopus balls at this baseball game. We were eating like really, you know, beef bogi, it was like something like a beef bogogi, but like it was like you know, rice and chicken and and all these different hell we could have had sushi there. Um, the merch game was super good too. Um, so yeah, baseball game, very fun. I I highly recommend this. Is now my second time going to a big sporting event in a different country, and I think I'm gonna continue this train. I did uh um luchador, I attended a luchador wrestling in Mexico, baseball here in Tokyo. I think I'm gonna try to continue doing that because I think it gives you a good idea. Yeah, you know what? In Sri Lanka, that's their big sport is cricket. Um did a ton of shopping in Tokyo. Drew, when I tell you like the shopping there is uh almost overwhelming, especially when you go to Shibuya, where that is where it is like six and ten story buildings and malls every corner. Like one square mile in Shibuya had maybe more shopping than we have in like half of the town in Japan like it's just so many shops. And you will just be walking. The first day me and Blive got to Shibuya, she was looking for um, she was doing she downloaded this like stamp app in Japan where it's like, hey, it tells you locations of all these like stamps that you could find at these uh train stations. But sometimes they would even show you special edition stamps going on at pop-up events or different stores. So we get the Shibuya, she's like, oh, the app says there's a special stamp here around here. So we go looking for it, we find this like building that was six stories, and we're looking. She's like, it says that it's taking place at this like one piece pop-up. I'm like, what? Like, I'm like, oh, we got it, we have to find this shit now. It happened to be on the sixth floor. Dude, we happened to be on the sixth floor, and it was like a oh just a random one piece pop-up. And it was like that in so many different places. We would just be walking, and you're like, oh, there's a a Pokemon center here. You know, like you you just never knew what you were gonna find. One particular um experience we had in Shibuya was we we went there twice because the shopping was so crazy. We were like, okay, let's go back and try to, you know, let me go. Uh I went record shopping in Shibuya, um, bought some like books in Shibuya. We went to this one mall in particular, and it's hard for me to call it. It's like a build, it's it's a mall, yes, but it's like one dedicated, it's a is uh it's building after building, and every floor is a just a different shop. Like clothes here, uh you might find books here, stationary. So you're like, it implores you to just walk into random buildings and to see what they have. So we found we were looking for the Nintendo store. Little did we know that on the same floor of the Nintendo store was I kid you not, I I I got off the escalator and I'm like, oh, I think I found Nerd Heaven. Because you could stand in the middle of this floor and you could do a 360 and you will see Nintendo store next to the Capcom store, next to the Shonen Joe store, next to the Godzilla store, next to the JoJo's Bazaar Adventure store. You're like, there's a shop dedicated to just Jojo's Bizarre Adventure. It was like anything you wanted, it was there. If you had any interest in any type of fandom show, anything, it was there. We went to a we went to an eight-story stationery store and bought the nicest fucking pens and notepads I've ever owned in my life. You know, it's like holy shit. It's like, what are you into? And then Tokyo is going to show you what the most absolute extreme is. And I think that was my one of my big takeaways is that it's like a lesson in like the absolute best. It's like we take things so seriously about being the best, but while at the same time being really reasonably priced. You're like, oh, this is quality. So I want to put time and effort into the design, the functionality, um, you know, how it works. Like it doesn't feel cheap, and I'm not being ripped off. It never felt like, oh, they're maximizing profit for this. It's like a eco, I don't know, man. It was it was impressive in that regard.
DrewA fair trade system.
Badr MilliganYeah. So did a ton of shopping. Um, we visited a couple temples.
DrewDid you see any other Americans over there? Like, did you run into Americans? Yes, but also no. Did you do you acknowledge other Americans and go, oh, I don't like it?
Badr MilliganI see too many of y'all back home. Yeah, yeah. You know what I found interesting? You know what I found interesting is that the amount of American wear that um uh the the locals were wearing. You know, like I would see Japanese people wearing a shirt that just said Oklahoma or Air Force, uh uh like Air Force Academy, but clearly I could tell they were not in the military. Like Johnson Family Vacation 87. Yeah, yeah, like you know what I'm saying? Which is you you'll see it here too, right? Like people just wearing, you know, other brands or shirts. But I just found it interesting that I could tell they were thrifted. It was thrifted clothing that was very like Americanized, you know, like Joe's Crab Shack here in Florida, you know. Someone, you know what I'm saying? It's like huh.
DrewYou got like the the Daytona uh October festival. Yeah, Harley Davidson. And I saw that a lot.
Badr MilliganSo I I I think there's maybe something going on there with like vintage American apparel and things like that. So we went to a bunch of parks. Uh, we went to a really dope fish market called Tsukiji Fish Market, which was five minutes away from the hotel.
DrewDrew, when I tell you this fish market walking or like walking, or do you think take a 10-minute walk?
Badr MilliganBut so worth it, dude. It was like just stalls of stalls of stalls of seafood. Sushi. Wagyu beef, I think just grows on trees in fucking Japan. The amount of Wagyu beef that you could just get. I got this one Wagyu beef skewer. It was like a spicy Wagyu beef skewer. I still think about that shit. And it was like, dude, and it was affordable. I don't, it was like 5,000 yen, 4,000 yen, which is uh what is that again? Let me see. Let me see if I could pull that up quickly. I hope it's like $8. It was something cheap. I uh uh hold on, let me let me try to pull up because now I'm very curious. What was 5,000 yen? Okay, 5,000 yen. No, that's $30. That's way too much. It was not that much. Uh, I think a thousand yen. Yeah, like a thousand yen. I did not, I did not. It was way cheap. A thousand yen to put in perspective is six USD. So it was like stuff like that. It was like a thousand yen or less, or two thousand yen. But when I tell you we had some of the best sushi at this fish market, we had we had like crab legs that look like they killed like a Kingler, like a Pokemon. It's like, did y'all inject this with steroids? It's like, no, they don't inject anything with steroids here. It's all fresh. It was like just the most insane looking seafood. Being sold on the street. It was incredible. We also went to Tokyo Disney C, which is the theme park and uh at the Tokyo Disney resort. By the way, speaking, uh by the way, you know who hit me up? I posted like a picture of me and Blaif um there. And you know who hit me up about being at Tokyo Disney? Who? Hold up. Let me here. Uh, let me see if I could find moving along, boys. You saw my mom? Your mom texted me. It was like, I know you didn't just go to Tokyo Disney and not tell me. She was like, I want to hear all about it when you get back. It was really cute. Tokyo Disney C, I think I can compare it more to Epcot. It's just a really bigger Epcot with dedicated rides. I I think Epcot, our Epcot, beats them on the food category, which is surprising because everything else was good. But I didn't find the food to be that great. But when I tell you they're animatronics, do we went on this frozen ride? It was a frozen dark ride. It was one of those like you get on the boat and it's like, you know, you go through the ride and like it's different scenes from the movie and they're singing. Drew, when we got to the big epic let it go. Um shit, how did it go? Let it go. Yeah, it's like let it go. When we got to that moment and the animatronic, I swear to you, it looked like an anime came to life. Like shit. And also they sang it in Japanese, like everything was in Japanese, so it only gave it more of that anime feel. It was one of the dopest rides in animatronics. Like the animatronics are so good. It's it's you're like, yo, is that someone in a costume or is that a real life cartoon? Super dope. Uh, I went to a Pokemon Center, which, dude, nothing will make me feel like a kid again than being around Pokemon, but specifically the original 150. We went to this Pokemon Center, and the love that they showed the OG 150, it's like, yo, you can't fuck up the OGs. Dude, the amount of other that's where I saw the most Americans without the Pokemon Center. It was insane how many people were in that bitch shopping. Everything. It was like, yo, they got fucking card sleeves. I want it. They got mystery boxes, I want it. They got, they even put a limit on how many uh deck of cards you could buy. Because I guess like they have a problem with people going in there, buying them all up, and then scalping them and reselling.
DrewYeah. Yeah, yeah. They're taking the fun out of collecting and making it like, yeah, yeah. It's one of those things that we never get around Lincoln Play.
Badr MilliganI saw more security at the Pokemon Center than the entire trip of Tokyo trip.
DrewThis is the only time I ever saw a gun. This Pokemon Center.
Badr MilliganShit, what was that? Someone tried to steal a Gengar plushie and got gang gang. Dude, it was like, I kid you not, it was like eight security guards. Just like, you know, like patrolling this Pokemon Center, you know, like making sure no one was stealing. And I mean, it was it was calamity in there. It was calamity. And I quickly became one of them too. I just I let I let it get to me too. I'm like, I need it off.
IntroGive me that. Big too.
Badr MilliganOh my god, yeah.
DrewThe face you made was perfect.
Badr MilliganWell, yeah. Um, I do want to emphasize just how much how much is sushi we ate. And um, and also, are you big into highballs? Because their thing was I drank a lot of centauri highballs. Like that was my drink.
DrewSo actually, um, I'm into centauri highballs because of that. And we're um because of Centauri is very famous for like it tastes good. Oh, smooth. Because a highball is literally just whiskey and ginger. Well, that's it.
Badr MilliganYeah, is it whiskey soda water or whiskey ginger? Highball is come on, Mr. Barton. No, I think it's just I think no, I think it's just whiskey salt. Oh, you're absolutely right. I I think I think I might have some places you can do ginger and stuff like that.
DrewYeah, yeah, yeah. No, it's just because um the essential part is that it's just gotta be in that tall ass glass.
Badr MilliganThat's right.
DrewWell, yeah, it's it's essentially, yeah, it's essentially yeah, it is gonna be in the tall ass gas, but essentially what it was was you know how when you went to Mexico and you were drinking their tequila lime stuff? Like, yo, those are all classic cocktails, and you're just drinking a classic cocktail in Japan, but that is just like their that's like that's their sweet tea.
Badr MilliganYeah, I will also uh uh note too they the amount of anime that is on just on their regular TV. Let me see if I can pull up my notes. I I took a bunch of notes while I was there to share here, but um, let me see what I got here. The amount uh have you ever heard of an anime called Glowing Dawn? No. Okay, that was an anime that was on uh because I would I I'm always curious what's on TV in another country. And my my you know, my personal anecdote was I just came across a bunch of like game shows. The amount of game shows that just airs that I was watching on Japan and in Tokyo in the hotel, and I had no idea what you don't know what the fuck is going on. Not at all, but I know it's weird. I know it's weird, and they're talking in baby voices a lot. But the amount of anime that would uh uh that would play, there was one in particular called Glowing Dawn that caught my attention. It was very you remember that scene in the Simpsons episode where they go to Japan and they're watching the anime and it's like flashing lights and they all end up having seizures.
DrewYeah, yeah. And then Homer just goes, meh.
Badr MilliganYeah, he joins in on the fun. It was like even like their commercials were very anime inspired. You know, it's like if it if it wasn't like an anime itself, it was very anime inspired. And I will say their appreciation.
DrewYou're not getting just a burger, you're getting you're getting a whole five-minute short story.
Badr MilliganAnd it's like I saw, I wrote a note here. I saw a commercial for a con Konami soccer game. I saw a commercial for a game called Tales of Eternia. There was a new Digimon game, video game that was airing. You know what I'm saying?
DrewLike I felt like I was I was like, I can't remember the last time I saw a video game.
Badr MilliganCommercial commercial when I tell you, I can't remember that's I thought, okay, I'm glad you said that because I was like, do we get this many commercials for video? I know I see them on YouTube all the time. YouTube, I think, is look for them. But yeah, it was just, I guess how open and embracing they are of like anime and manga. Like, even like the in the train stations, the signage would be drawn in a in a manga style, like a cartoony chibi style. It's like that was just common for them. I saw a ton of people on the train reading um like manga. Like, I don't know if it was showing in jump or what, but it was like people on their phone just scrolling, reading manga. And I was like, damn, it's really kind of an embraced here. It's a little more openness, a little more everywhere. Um, which I thought was really cool. Yeah, I think it was yeah, that you can go and like read that math amounts. Now, one of my favorite parts, I think this is uh uh I was burying the lead, but one of the big things I got to do comic book-wise in Tokyo was go. I didn't do a lot of uh uh shopping for comics. I I saved it for one day in particular, and I was getting a chance to shop at Japan Book Hunter. Are you familiar with Japan Bookhunter? Only through you. Okay, for anyone that might not be familiar, it is uh you can find them on Instagram. They also have a website, japanbookhunter.com. They are a boutique seller of all things manga. So art books, manga volumes, taco bonds, uh original art, like anything dealing with manga and Japanese comics, they are the source. And I've been following them on Instagram for a while. I've even ordered a few things off their website. The thing is, the shipping can be very expensive. So he sells things at a good price, but you know, sometimes the shipping is pretty expensive. If you want to shop with him in person, uh he's like a 40-minute train ride from where I was at in Tokyo. He only does appointment only. And it just so happened in line, and I've communicated with him on Instagram a few times. I told him I was gonna be in uh Tokyo. I was like, hey, it'd be a huge honor if I could go shopping. And he was like, let's set it up. So I saved all my coins for this particular day, and I picked up a few things. Drew, I want to show them with you if you don't mind. Hell yeah, please. And uh for anyone that uh I know you know this is an audio show, but I will be posting these to Instagram. So by the time I think this episode comes out, I'll have posted all this on Instagram so you could see all these things in person, but I'll do my best to describe these in excruciating detail.
IntroOh stupid popcorn. All right.
Badr MilliganFirst up, I ended up buying these uh Japanese Thor volume. What? Okay, so what these are um during the I think the 70s, 60s, Marvel licensed uh some of their comics to be printed in Japan in Japanese, and they they printed them in these uh Tonko Bond editions. So they did uh there's actually um an ad in the back for the other stuff. So there's a Captain Marvel. Oh they did Captain Marvel, Captain America, and then uh I think a lot of people are familiar with the uh the Japanese Spider-Man manga, which was a separate thing. But what I have in my hands is the Thor volumes that they collected, and it doesn't say which issues they collect, I could probably look that up, but these are all like very early Thor. So Kirby think the Kirby Thor era. Oh my god. So and they're all in black and white, Japanese text, and flipped?
DrewNo, does it go left to right or right to left?
Badr MilliganOh, that's a good question. I think this goes left to right because they're really.
DrewOkay, so like traditional.
Badr MilliganYeah, okay, okay. And I mean, it just looks dope. This was like yeah, this was just an easy pickup. It's like, oh, Marvel done in a Japanese style. Apparently, the some of these volumes are very expensive. Like he had the two volumes of Captain Marvel, but they were way more expensive than this one. He also had the Captain America issue or uh two. I mean, come on, man. Kirby art in black and white with Japanese character text on it. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah. Bro, you can't beat that. That's pretty good. Yeah, and like in just a nice little format. Exactly. It's like I I think I picked these because one, I think Kirby's Thor is probably my favorite Kirby. Um is that you or me? That's definitely you. Denver's got some problems, man. We're right next to a hospital. There's crime fighting out there, but yeah, I think Kirby's Thor might be some of my favorite Kirby stuff. So it's like I probably don't need, I don't really need to read. You know, I don't I don't need this translated in English because the images do so much of the heavy lifting and in artwork. So I picked that up. You know I was gonna pick up something Street Fighter, and I can't wait to show you this. I picked up this book right here. Um this is a street, it's just titled Street Fighter 2. I I don't know what the other characters say, but it is a book that collects a bunch of Street Fighter gag comics. And I think what's dope is the vertical nature of it. It's like a bunch of short, you know, it's basically like comic strips. Street Fighter comic strips, uh comedy, street fighter comic strips, Sunday funnies, Sunday funnies. So every story is like on a different like there's a Dalism little comic strip, there's an M. Bison comic strip, there's a Guile comic strip.
DrewAnd Okay, cool.
Badr MilliganI love like the long, like kind of like this the this format. It's like longer than it is wider.
DrewI like the the way that that looks like a VHS.
Badr MilliganYeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think what's dope is that every single I mean the artwork in it is I don't know how much of that you could see, but the art is so good. It's black and white, uh, six strips.
DrewDude, I like the way they drew a Kuma. They drew like a demon mask.
Badr MilliganYeah, the art in this is super good. So um, this is one that I might actually use Google Translate to kind of uh read through it because I am curious like what some of the jokes are. Uh okay, I picked up the Street Fighter book. Okay, this next one I know you'll appreciate. I had to pick up, he had a ton of like shown in jump magazines, and one in particular jumped out at me because of the spine only. Oh, let me first of all I saw that 1989. I was like, my birth year, come on, baby. And you look down the spine, and then all of a sudden it's fucking gyver. Bro, that's fucking sick. And here's the cover.
DrewDamn. So is that is that the guy?
Badr MilliganYeah, so he uh uh and his name's Sean, by the way. Big shout outs to Sean, uh, who runs Japan Book Hunter. He is apparently a huge Gyver fan. So he was like, hey, I have all the Shonen jumps that have Gyver in it. And if anything, this makes me want to really find an English translation version of the Guyver model.
DrewOh, okay.
Badr MilliganLike, dude, that looks like a Zaku, bro. Guyver is something that I know I've always thought looked cool, but I've never went far enough to like Did you ever watch the TV show? Or not the TV show? Did you ever see the movie? No, you're talking about the one with um oh my god Mark Hamill. You know that that is a movie I'm sure I have, because I think they show that on uh the sci-fi channel a lot. Yeah, yep.
DrewUh sci-fi a lot. So you've definitely probably seen it in parts.
Badr MilliganDo you I mean are do what do you know about Guyver?
DrewAre you a big guy fan? Nothing. I I know nothing about it. So I always thought that the Guyver was the same character as the samurai santai. Um oh my god, it is I I got him confused with another Japanese character because it's uh it's not the common, it's not common writer. I'm just gonna talk in circles, but no, uh, I've seen the Gyver movie. I know that there are Gyver comic books, but I have no lore to me. To me, that is like in the hard boiled Judge Dredd era.
Badr MilliganOkay, I see what you mean. Yeah, so I mean it's it's a Sean Jump book. So there's a ton of, you know, it's an anthology of a bunch of other comics in here. Some of them I'm not familiar with, some I no, actually, I'm not familiar with anything other than Gyver. There's one at the very end I think looks cool. It's called Mi Roku. Look at that. Okay. I don't know, it just looks dope. Some of the, you know, it's like, all right, obviously, like Trad Moore. The chances of me Tradmore? Yeah, the chances of me reading any of these and actually understanding it are very slim to none, but at least the art is so fucking dope. Yeah, um, you know, speaking about Trad Moore, one thing uh Sean was telling me is that a lot of American comic book creators will go to Japan and shop with them. So he was telling me, like, Daniel Warren Johnson's always here, Jeff Doro has been here. I think Trad Moore is someone that comes and shops with so he was showing me like all the books that they buy, and I'm like, oh, I totally I get why. I'm like, okay, I can see how this would influence them or appeal to them a lot. Yeah, yeah. Essentially the way they draw and stuff. Yeah. And then I think the crown jewel of my um purchase, I was like, man, I gotta get something Akira while I'm here. Because he's always posting some of the dopest Akira books and things like that on his Instagram. So I was asking him, like, hey, what do you have for Otomo Katsuhiro? And he was like, actually, this just came in. And he was like, if you don't buy it, I'm gonna post it and it'll be gone like that. But it's this colossal posters book by Otomo Katsuhiro. Dude, it is just a giant book of all the different poster illustrations he's done.
DrewOh, bet. Okay, cool. Damn, I didn't know he did the Steam Boy one. Dang. Yeah, there's okay.
Badr MilliganThere's like things in here I've never seen. And this is, you know, I I think I was going for more graphical. I was like, I need, I'm not gonna understand the language unless I do Google Translate, and sometimes that could be wrong or incorrect. But this was like the perfect. Oh, come on, look at the secure one. Hold up, dude. I just as soon as you pull it up. Yeah, okay. Yeah, obviously. Like it's got some of the dopest secure images you've ever seen in your life. And that's a coffee table book, too, right? I don't know. I don't think I'd put this on the coffee table. I was out of all the things I bought, and I bought some records too, I was most um most protective about this with my suitcase. Because he was telling me he was like, hey, this is a really nice copy. And so he wrapped it up extra nice. He was like, I don't see one this well, like this well preserved, so please take care of it. So I was like, all right, bet. Damn, okay. Oh yeah. And then okay, okay, and then while I was in Sri Lanka, I did I did go looking for comics, but not as hard as I did in in uh Tokyo. But in uh Sri Lanka, I found this bookstore, and the only comics that they had were Asterisk and then a a uh display for a bunch of Tintin books. So I bought two Tintin books, uh Tintin Land of Black Gold, and then Tintin The Blue Is it the Blue Lotus. Okay. And out of all of them, during the trip, I ended up reading one of these Tintin books, and I'm like, yo, I've been asleep at the wheel. Like, what do you know about Tintin?
DrewUh he has a movie.
Badr MilliganOkay.
DrewUm, and like he's like the only thing I know about Tintin is like he is like a precursor to like like he's a kid that goes on adventures with his dog and gets into trouble. But like it's usually like history related. So like if if I had to put him in the same realm as like Uncle Scrooge and Donald DuckTales, uh, adventures in Tintin's up there.
Badr MilliganYou know what I'd also compare it to is Detective Conan. You know, like that the uh the anime about the the the young kid that solves crime. He's uh it was yeah yeah which by the way was everywhere in Tokyo. I saw so many posters and uh advertisements for just various things about that series, Detective Conan. Um, but that's what it kind of reminds me of is like Tintin is a world explorer, he solves crime. People, you know, he works with like the police, he's a fucking snark, and he solves crime. Um like very like Carmen Where in the World is Carmen San Diego kind of bias.
DrewDid you ever see the movie that came out?
Badr MilliganNo, but now uh I I was told several times when I shared this online, I'm trying to find Tony Auppy. Big shout out to Tony. He reached out, he was like, bro, you are you are entering a very fun world right now. I'm trying to find what he said, but he basically said that um Tintin is like was like a big influence on people like Mobius and a lot of the early artists that started heavy metal. Oh, here it is, right here. Uh Tony had had hit me up when I posted this. He said, These are all legit comics. Wait till you read Tintin in America. It's so wild. Franco, Franco-Belgian comics are on another level. European storytelling, pacing, and art hits in a different way. And Herge, the uh creator of Tintin, was a super influence on Mobius and Droulette and all those dudes who would create Metal Herlant. Dang, okay. Dude, the art is great. The um, I think because it's translated, some of the uh I think some of the the words and the phrasing can be a little uh clunky at times, but the art, the coloring, the pacing, the jokes are pretty good. And there's like so many, you know what I'm saying? Just on the back of this, there's like 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 different volumes, you know, just on the back of this one magazine.
DrewI like the design of it. Like those covers are cool.
Badr MilliganYeah, no, it's very well designed. But um, yeah, man, that was uh I think that's like for the most part, that's what I did in uh Japan. Sri Lanka was a completely different vibe. It was like I went from like cityscape to tropical island. I'm talking like humidity, it was hot. We were by the beach, uh, palm trees everywhere. We attended a traditional Sri Lankan wedding, which was very interesting. Um, uh I got to ride a tuk tuk everywhere. You ever you know what a tuk tuk tuk is?
DrewIt is like a I know what it I know what a tuk-tuk is, but I've never ridden a tuk-tuk.
Badr MilliganThrow any concern for road safety or car safety out the window and just live life, baby. Seat belts, ha, we ain't got time for that. You gotta get to the grocery store, and I'm here to deliver. Yeah, tuk tuk, man.
DrewIt's like a Flintstone car. It's not for the Flintstone car.
Badr MilliganIt's not for the faint of heart. But but I'm gonna tell you this much. I didn't see one accident. You know what I'm saying? It's like if we had tuk-tuks in the state, there'd be an uh unfortunate death every single week. But there, it's like it just it just flowed, bro. It was like, god damn, these drivers are good. So I got to write a tuk-tuk. I spent hella time at beaches and it I spent the most time on a beach or in a car in Sri Lanka. We did so much fucking driving because you have to drive, it's a long distance between things. Uh, I think I told you I saw a hella elephants in Sri Lanka. I ate more fruit and curries than I've ever eaten in my life in Sri Lanka. Drew, I want you to look up. I want you to look something up because I think you'll fuck with this. I ate a lot of like Sri Lankan street food, and my favorite one is called egg hopper. Uh, I think it's like a just a traditional street food breakfast item. And not only did like the hotel goose.
DrewDamn! What is this beautiful piece of like China? Like this craftsmanship. This what is this?
Badr MilliganSo it is made out of um, it is made out of a rice, put it uh, I don't wanna I don't wanna say it incorrectly.
DrewBro, this sounds like every meal that me and you talk about on the daily basis, but you ate it like it's rice and eggs, right?
Badr MilliganAll right, it's it's made out of a rice, flour, coconut yeast mix, and they put it in this bowl to give it like that dome shape, and then they put a throw an egg in the middle of it to cook. So now it the best way to describe it for audio only is imagine a a pancake, a flat pancake that is you know made into a bowl shape with an egg in the middle, and then you can top it any way you want. So if you want to just eat it as is, it's great. You could literally you know rip the sides off and like dip it into the egg yolk and all that, or you can go ahead and throw some curry on there, like different curries and chutneys, and eat it that way. And it was, dude, I had one every at least every morning, and then I tried to like finesse my way to get one like in the afternoons. We liked it so much when we came back. We specifically looked up bowls for egg hoppers, and you can buy egg hopper bowls on Amazon for like $30. Very tempted. I will say uh the food in Sri Lanka was was different. In the sense of it was like way more flavorful, way more spicy, like it just colorful? Colorful because everything's like a bunch of curries. You know what I'm saying? It's like uh there's a lot of um uh um similarities to like Indian culture and cuisine. What was the hottest thing you ate? Oh my god. It wasn't a thing, more so as like it was like this um what I thought was like sauce for this thing for another dish, but it happened to be like a curry that was like made out of magma. It was like I think it translated to like lava lava curry. It was crazy. And uh the amount of wildlife too. We went on a safari, as we got to see bison, we saw monkeys, we saw, we saw so many elephants. I stopped being like impressed. I was like, all right, great, a fucking elephant. Dumbo. Like, get out of here. Oh and I think too, the it was interesting to for the cultural difference where in Tokyo it was like really reserved, it was very serene, very quiet. People aren't messing with you, they're not loud. Like Drew, I'm telling you, I was in a packed subway car in Tokyo several times, and you could hear a needle drop. People just are just, you know, they they don't make a big scene. Like it's just very much like, hey, we're all in here together. Let's be peaceful, you know, this and that. In Sri Lanka, different vibe, boy. It was like, you know, people are outgoing, they're very expression, they're very, and then too, I don't think they get a lot of like American tours. At least like when we were there, I swear to God, I was like, this is what it feels like to be an outsider. Because we got so many stares for being like Americans. So people were either very interested in us and very like forward going, or would just stare at us. It was like literally, like I told you, we went to a wedding, and I swear to you, I think this photographer filled out a 200 terabyte memory card of just photos of the table I was at with like, you know, Blythe and her family. It was just a completely different vibe. And um, yeah, I gotta say, it was one hell of a trip, bro. That is awesome. Enough about me. Are you ready to move on to another topic? Yeah, yeah, let's go, bro.
DrewMove it along, boys.
Badr MilliganAll right. Um, let's talk about X-Men 97. Because that was that was uh one thing that we both decided.
DrewHey, I I've got to like my favorite thing you said was Joe Madeira. You're like mad Joe 97.
Badr MilliganYou I asked you, hey, if there's one thing that I need to catch up on so we could talk about on the pod, you were like very adamant, very you were like X-Men 97. You gotta watch X-Men 97. So I ended up catching up with episodes one through three last night. Um the the new episode, episode four, came out today. I have not watched that, have you? Are you fully caught up? No, I have okay, good.
DrewNo, I'm not fully caught up.
Badr MilliganSo we're both on the same page. All right, yeah. Then I think with that being said, let's go ahead and give a spoiler warning to anyone listening. If you don't want episodes one through three of X-Men 97 spoiled, fast forward by a lot. Well, just fast forward, right? Give me like five, ten minutes at the most. I'm gonna keep it, try to keep it at five. But X-Men 97. What how do you feel about the season so far?
DrewI like it so far. I feel like they're moving so fast, like there's just so much happening that I'm just like, ooh, why are they trying to like do all this stuff? But I'm definitely interested in um what they have to offer, and then and they gave you the new logo change. I lost my mind.
Badr MilliganYeah, no, I I felt the same way when it was uh X-Force popped up and they did their own intro. I was like, come on, like still I was like, This is why you don't skip the intros.
DrewIt's like X-Men 97, come on. No, you don't, dude, 100%. So, you know, like I'm all for it. I really do like the direction of uh what they're going. Um, I feel like everything's on the table. I mean, I I know with the apocalypse stuff, the apocalypse stuff I want to talk to you. I mean, I can talk to you online, but I also want to talk to you and Walt about it because he's having a whole resurgence pun intended.
Badr MilliganI think what threw me off jumping into this season is how much importance they're putting on apocalypse. And I was like, did I miss something last season that he was like the biggest threat? You know what I'm saying? Like the way that this season paints him so far is that he is like the ultimate threat. And I I mean there's you know, you can make an easy case that he he definitely is maybe the X-Men's most important villain, or you're you know, maybe like the most dangerous one they have. But I don't know. I I was like, huh, was the first season setting up a lot of this stuff? But what I'll say is I do agree with you. The pacing feels like yo, we hit the ground running. Even with episode one of this new season, I was expecting maybe a little, because it's been like uh, you know, a well, close to two years since the last season ended, like a year and some change. Yeah. But I was expecting a more like thorough, like previously on X-Men, or hey, here's what you missed on X-Men. We're gonna give you like a pretty detailed. I found the recap to be like very much like, and that's what happened, here's where we are now. So I I think I was mentally playing a lot of catch-up, like, okay, wait a minute. The last thing that happened, I think it was like Asteroid M. Oh, that's right, they all got sent through time. But what happened before? You know, I'm trying to figure out like small details. So I think that's all on me. That said, watching these three episodes, I uh like like you alluded to, the art direction reminds me so much. I feel like I'm reading, I'm watching, sorry, watching a Joe Madora X-Men comic from the 90s, early 2000s, come to life. Yeah, 100%. Like it's Joe Madora and that time. Uh, you know that artist Joe uh Quinono is. Uh you've seen his art a hundred times. He's done uh like Batman 89. He's like the artist for that. Did that ring a bell at all? Oh, okay, okay.
DrewI know who you're talking about. I can see, I can see the artwork.
Badr MilliganYeah, it's like very kind of lifelikey. It's like kind of like it looks like it's airbrushed a little bit. So between him and Joe.
DrewSome of this is the the animation is so smooth, it feels like I'm watching Archer.
Badr MilliganWow, yeah. That's good. I I see your point there, yeah. So I think the animation looks even it's like I don't know how y'all made it even better, but there's a scene in episode one where young cable is putting his, he's getting his his arm, right? Like he finds ship and it's like, hey, I'm here to like help you out in your you know in your future. And he puts his arm through some sort of circle thing, and then his new arm comes. And the way that animation happened felt like a really dope anime movie from the 90s where it was like very smooth, very detailed, like there's just a lot of transition was it was a it was a very flawless transition, yeah. And I've noticed too that they're leaning in on like a video game, cables, eye makeup, yeah. They're really the mascara for everyone is crazy.
DrewBro, that dude, his whole that I really want them to explain why his eye looks like that, why he has that black kiss kiss makeup on. Like, I'm just like I was like, that's a choice. I feel like that is not a scar or nothing. Like, you wake up every day, you're like, I gotta get this.
IntroIn the future, in the future, Prince is a god, and they're like, Yeah, Raspberry Beret is a him, not a song, it's a him.
DrewDude, yeah, I realize how much I hate this. It's so crazy to me that cable is so popular. I can understand why he's so popular. But if we can talk about his designs, his big bulky, larger than life design is very distracting. And it is like, I realize that is the stupidest design I've ever seen. I know people like hard.
Badr MilliganI think a design that works in comics better than than uh than a show. Because then it it's so I I think it contrasts against the others too much, where everyone else is a little more sleeker. Uh, granted, like, you know, a character like I think I think Cyclops has got some bulk to him, but everything everyone else seems pretty much, you know, compared to cable, everyone looks like slim and and uh much sleeker. Yeah, cable looks kind of my issue with cable. I don't want I don't want to turn this negative.
DrewLet's complain. Let's complain. It's not negative, it's just like yo, it's just a little bit you.
Badr MilliganJust a little bit, just a little bit you just a little bit. That never hurt nobody, right? Yeah, I'm let me just say this. I'm a little bit loving the season so far. I do think the pacing does feel like we are running.
DrewYou know that uh we are doing a quicksilver speed run, bro.
Badr MilliganYeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's exactly how it feels. You know uh that scene in X-Men, is it the third movie where Juggernaut is crashing through the wall uh the wall? That's where you feel this season is going. It's like, god damn. We're just going through every single room. Can we take a moment to appreciate the art on the walls?
DrewFor uh for uh, it's just like come back. Fucking I want to know, it's crazy. Forge goes back in a time, and then Storm has her long, luscious, beautiful hair back. I'm like, okay. And then he's like, you gotta go leave your son now. I'm like, You kind of have a party kill, bro. Yeah. Yeah.
Badr MilliganForge is like, shit, I thought I was coming to save y'all. I'm over here ruining the party. I think out of all uh these first three episodes, my favorite one has been episode one with Forge and you know, they're in the future, the Ascani, uh Gene, and Cyclops trying to, you know. Back to the future. Yeah, Guide Cable. That was my favorite one. And then the X-Force episode in episode two was I loved the difference. I loved like they didn't just completely switching it up, catching you off guard, getting to see Archangel, getting to see fucking Sy. You know how excited Blythe got when Silock showed up? And I'm like, first of all, I think we've talked how Blythe is team X-Men all day. All day. Yeah, yeah. So I guess for me, sometimes it's surprising to see how who are her favorite characters. She obviously loves fucking rogue. That is her girl. She loves Phoenix.
DrewA Southern Bale? A Southern Bale is.
Badr MilliganAnd then when she got hype for Psilock, I'm like, damn, you fuck with everybody. Female. Like, girl, power open this motherfucker.
DrewYeah, yeah. She was like, I would have looked at my ring and like did this. Yeah, yeah.
IntroMy ring just started glowing. It's like, this is why you married her.
Badr MilliganUm, so you know what I'm saying? Like, I love the getting to see X Factor. Yo, when X Factor shows up and it's like havoc, Polaris, more uh uh multiple men, strong guys, and they're all in their OG outfits. Something about the way that they're shaded and colored looks, I mean, it's like chef's kiss. The only thing that threw me off was the tonal difference from episode one to episode two, and how cable is treating Apocalypse like he is who in the world, where in the world is Karma San Diego? Like the whole noir detective vibe, it just threw me off. I'm like, he is approaching this like a hard-boiled detective looking for yeah, I'm like, this feels kind of weird.
DrewThe scene where they're all like, we're looking for the target. There he is.
Badr MilliganLike, like, okay, and then also, all right, I gotta say, you're telling me one of Apocalypse's horsemen named War of all of them. Is that just having a night in the town? Like he's going to a bar and that's where they intercept him.
DrewWe don't know what type of we don't know. Listen, for all we know, Apocalypse has like a whole system. Maybe he has a payment system, he has a whole vacation, like maybe he treats it like a whole business. He's like, if you join the apocalypse collaboration, you cure like maybe like I don't know, every pay pay period, it's like something crazy, like 20 hours PTO. And then he earned himself a little business.
Badr MilliganI don't know. That episode felt like I was watching a Nicolas Cage National Treasure movie at times. Oh, okay. I don't know how to explain it other than like it just felt just so I was like, oh, okay. I can see why he would cable is recruiting all of them. It's just the way his characterization was. Like he even was wearing the navy blue no logo hat that Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers. Steve Rogers is so weird.
DrewSteve Rogers, but bro, bro. My thing is it's like I understand why you would want everybody on the team and stuff like that. But it's just like Jubilee, this is uh this is covert. It's like, yeah, can you kind of turn down the lights on the room?
IntroLet's go recruit the loudest motherfucking X-Men. Now can I say this was Blyth's words, not mine. She was like, damn, they really trying to, she was like, they really trying to sell us on Jubilee. Anything I was like, yeah, why is they do Jubilee doesn't need the rest of the team.
Badr MilliganShe's out here whooping everyone's ass by herself with fireworks. She's jumping in. And I love fireworks. Yo, I love fireworks. I love fireworks. But you telling me, I don't know. I was like, well, what's the point of having the rest of the team? She is a one-man army.
DrewYou don't need anybody. She's team gold, blue, red, yellow, like whatever fireworks.
Badr MilliganDrinking game, drinking game. Take a shot every time they say the 90s. Do you know how funny it was that they said twice in episode one? We gotta go back to the 90s.
IntroI get it. I get it. This show is X-Pen 97. I get it, bro. The 90s were great. I lived through it.
DrewYeah, yeah. My favorite part of the whole thing was just like just how fast the time travel thing happened. He's like, Yeah, I just I woke up and then I made this time machine. He's like, You're not gonna test it out first? He's like, nah, we're just gonna go for it. Yeah, come on. He's like, I made these.
Badr MilliganCome on, Bishop. It's not like we have a lot of black characters that we could just like, you know, we probably should take care of Bishop. You know, there ain't a lot of um Can I say two? All right, and then episode three is uh now we're going back in time. Uh what is it, 3000 BC, uh ancient Egypt with the um Charles Xavier, Magneto, and then with in with Insabanor. Um that episode I did enjoy a lot, specifically the Magneto, Magneto Apocalypse relationship, where Magneto is like, Charles, we can, you know what I'm saying? He's the first of his kind. This is our opportunity to get in on the ground floor.
IntroIf we can get him to be good, like he was giving him like a like a MLM pitch, you know?
DrewIt was like bro, he's I just wolf wall street. Like, here's the idea of Wolf of Wall Street, and when like Leah was doing this, like Magneto's like, yo, if we can get him to But I I thought that was an interesting approach in that kind of where Charles is like, yo, we cannot fuck up the time stream, don't change anything.
Badr MilliganAnd Magneto's like, no. Literally, he is the he could be the first X-Men. You know how much we could change if we could like get him uh uh to believe in the dream and help us out. I was like, oh, that's a really cool approach. It kind of feels like that um, I don't know, like that scenario, right?
DrewLike that uh that scenario back in time and you can like raise like if you go back in time, would you kill Hitler as a baby?
Badr MilliganOr would you like, you know, is it nature versus nurture type thing? Yeah, that's what I feel like this season so far has is kind of like touching on. It's like, hey, do we kill this guy that eventually becomes our ultimate threat in evil, or do we try to reform him while we can? So it's I think yet to be seen. But um, another cool uh con uh aspect of that episode, would you think what do you think about um Ramu Tud? I don't know. Uh like what do you think? Like I have I have no feelings. I feel like you just use uh what is that Yu-Gi-Oh card? Mirror, mirror force, yeah. Mirror force. You didn't just send that a question. No, I'm trying to think of like Ramu Tudor. What do you think? Mirror force, what do you think, Mr. Villier? Um, I think I think it ties in really cool. I think in the comic books they've got like a relationship with Ram. I I appreciate having just finished this all the Marvels book and reading about Ramut being in the early issues of X uh Fantastic Four, sorry, and how they you know tied it in with uh Kang and Kang being Ramu Tut and um what is his third form? There's Ramut, there's Kang and then Amortis. You know what I'm saying? Okay, that's what that kind of trendy. Um I thought it was cool. Ramu Tut look, Ramut fits into the theme. They're in ancient Egypt, he's a pharaoh, he's got space technology, and he ties directly into Apocalypse's origin. Because I believe this ship, this pyramid that Ramu Tut has found that he's gonna exploit is an externals, uh, or I'm sorry, it's a um oh my god, it's a ship from the externals or like one of the gods. I I I'm drawing a blank now.
DrewThat's where it gets like really confusing with me on some of that stuff. Like even the time travel.
Badr MilliganThe celestial, sorry, I'm thinking of celestial, celestials. The ship that he finds is a celestial, sorry, has celestial technology that Apocalypse takes advantage of, and et cetera, et cetera. So it is cool that they are kind of following his origin story in the comic books or a version of it, but I do feel it's like wow, these episodes are going very fast, but they're resolving things very quickly, and some of the characterizations are like just kind of like condensed for one episode. Like that whole cable uh episode, the first one. I'm like, this should have been a whole arc, like it should have really showed him like coming into his own and then accepting his journey or his destiny. It felt like it's like, all right, and he's accepted his destiny, you know, his whole character arc done in one uh episode.
DrewAnd that was just so we're on the same page, that's Rachel Summers, right? That is Rachel Summers. Yeah, or it's supposed to be. That's what I'm saying. Did that like I'm so when it comes to apocalypse, that's why I have like a question about apocalypse, because I don't know much about him. Like he's actually a person that I kind of like stay away from, like, except for Age of Apocalypse, which I thought was cool, but when you really think about it, he didn't start. Age of Apocalypse is just because of what Legion did. Like Apocalypse only came into power because of that. Because the absence of um what was it? I think it was Charles. Yeah, Charles dying was the reason why Apocalypse came into power.
Badr MilliganWhat what comic series does this have you had the urge to read any X-Men or any anything X-Men related?
DrewI haven't. I've been reading the powers of X, House of X, Fall of X. Nice. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Apocalypse. Yes. Because like it just I was like, oh, they made Apocalypse a good guy. Like Hickman was like, all right, let's take all these bad guys and just make them good guys. We'll make some of them still evil and stuff. But Apocalypse was one of those ones where I was like, I was like, Hickman took this dude and made him really cool and then made him a good guy.
Badr MilliganLike, just made him very like what he was able to do is like he just uh eliminated the good guys, bad guy mutants. It's like, hey, just one species. We are all mutants trying to, and and our biggest issue, problem, adversity is survival.
DrewOr those Homo sapiens right there. Like, I can use a lot of things.
Badr MilliganI think this makes me want to read um Age of Apocalypse, not only because of the show and all the references, but also I want to see if it still holds up because I remember getting I remember my dad introduced me to Age of Apocalypse and it being the coolest thing in the entire world. Like I wanted to know so much about the lore. I think it was my first introduction to like an alternate reality story, and it was like, oh whoa, the X-Men are like why Cyclops only have one eye. What happened to Wolverine's hand? So I want to see if that lives up to it. But so far, I gotta say, uh, I guess in closing, what would you rate these first three episodes of X-Men? Say I don't want to count three. One, two, three, eight. Yeah, eight out of ten.
DrewYeah, yeah. I was like, yeah, eight out of ten for sure.
Badr MilliganStill enjoyable. Absolutely. This made me think, I think I won't lie to you. I was the first season, it took me a while to get fall in love with the last season. I think it wasn't until the Genosha episode of the first season where I was like, oh, the stakes are real. This is like okay, they're getting serious. So I'm not going to I was gonna ask you a question.
DrewBecause X-Men, X-Men has such a rich lore and has so much anthology series, like X-Men, I think, has a lot of good stories where you don't need it. Like, you know how Disney did Star Wars Visions and and did like, hey, we're gonna give you a lot of things. No, like anthologies, do it like an anthology that I I think the X-Men, even though they're keeping up with the 97s and doing a good job of like, all right, there's just so much good, rich X-Men history. I think if they wanted to, they could have just made like an X-Men anthology where they just do like, hey, we're just gonna take we're gonna animate these three issues into two episodes.
Badr MilliganI would love a X-Men anthology series set uh similar to Star Wars Visions, because I think you have enough characters, you've got enough lore, like you said, enough stories you could adapt, even like maybe two episode series, you know, like instead of just one episode. I am enjoying the the uh the sheer amount of characters we're seeing so far. Like I said, Silock, Archangel, uh X-Fact, you know, like it's just I'm like, damn, it just these these these three episodes have reminded me, you know. It's like, damn, this is such a rich Quinton Choir was in this.
DrewThat's what I'm saying. You know, they already, yeah, that's it. Like, yo, when they showed all the kids that they were rescuing, I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. So it's just one of those where I'm like, I I realize this X-Men is doing their own version and they have their own characters and stuff. I'm very excited to see who's gonna show up and who's gonna stay, but it seems like they're just gonna keep the same character with maybe like one or two revolving.
Badr MilliganYeah.
DrewBut it's like like we're gonna get into the age of apocalypse. I don't know, like I haven't seen it, so I really don't know what characters are gonna show up. But I'm pretty sure they're not gonna introduce Nate and like both Nate's.
Badr MilliganI really wanted I thought they were gonna show X-Men. Like for a minute, I was like, yo, if X-Men shows up, I'm gonna lose my mind, even though we've got plenty of psychics.
DrewLike, yeah, yeah. That's always like, yeah, because like the more I think about the uh the Summers family tree, that is a very that like Maury would have a field day of trying to figure out who's the father and who's not the father. Like it would just be perfect for them. All right.
Badr MilliganWell, look, listeners, uh, if you've got thoughts to share on X Men 97 season two, would love to hear you chime in. Um I think that's all we're gonna say about it and get into our final segment of the show.
DrewTime to wrap this shit up. Sorry.
Badr MilliganSorry. Drew, what have you been reading?
DrewOh. Dude, so uh besides being on my X-Men grind and um my like getting getting back into manga, I finished I reread volume one and now I'm doing volume two Master Keaton of Master Keaton. So I did that re-watch. Or no, uh that reread of the first one. Stupid dumb. This one right here is really good. Still has that Indiana Jones vibe, and then um Game of Thrones, a seventh what's the name of that night one? Night Knight of the Seven Kingdoms. Oh, you're reading it. I've been doing that, yeah. I've been doing the audiobook. Nice. How does it compare to the show?
Badr MilliganB B loaded questions.
DrewThere are some things that the show added, which I understand because you have to like make it a whole season, which I'm not mad at, but dude, it's more or less like you um you get like inside of his head and stuff. Okay, so like a first yeah, like you like a lot of stuff he'll say like either internally or he'll talk and stuff. Bro, he is probably one of the best written characters. Damn. Yes. I yeah, bro. He's like one of my favorite prick people in the whole world. He is genuinely like a well-written character. Um yeah, like I like I was just like blown away at how much I enjoy uh this version. Okay, what do you think? Broken down into three acts.
Badr MilliganCan I say I read a book? Um, so I here here's what I read on that entire trip. I finished the Marvel Art of Mike Del Mundo art book. Can I say, tell me if you've done this before? I'm on the plane, I'm like, I I want to read something, but I don't really want to read something because I had just been like on my iPad a lot. And I was like, but I don't want to listen to music. CDC cool shit. Yeah, yeah, yes, thank you. So I had my headphones in and I had a couple of songs downloaded to my phone, and they were mainly just like beats and and stuff like that. So I had that going, flipping through the art book.
DrewAnd when I say a tsunami time, a tsunami time, bro.
Badr MilliganCan I just can I just say, can I just recommend to anyone that one, you go buy the Marvel Art of Mike Dobundo book, because it is genuinely one of the dopest art books I've ever read. And I have such a new, even though I have always like you know, I that's one of my favorite artists. But Drew, speaking about X-Men, his covers for X-Men Legacy, all the Legion covers, some of those covers are are just so fucking impressive in terms of like, you know, like the composition, the story, like just art. But to read, go through the rest of the book, because I had finished half of it for the interview, and then I was like, oh, I still got like another 50 pages to go through. Flipping through that book with like Dilla Beats playing in my head. I had like Mad Lib, I had like some Jay-Z songs downloaded, was sounds awful. An incredible experience, you know, because it's like I don't have to focus on reading words or anything. It's like I'm just taking in the pictures, taking in this visual story. Highly recommend that if you've got art books, throw on some music and vibe out to it. I think it can elevate the um experience.
DrewNo, yeah, 100%. I agree with that 110%. Like, would this ever make you want to go to an art gallery and just put on headphones and bargain?
Badr MilliganYeah, yeah, yeah. Maybe take a little bit of uh maybe take a I can't even say it out loud. Take some extracurricular activities and do that. No, uh I definitely think a music and music and art just go hand in hand. Um the reason I interrupted you was because you mentioned audiobooks, and I think audiobooks, I don't know how I'm tying this in, I'm shoehorning this in. But I ended up finishing the rest of that book I've been reading, All of the Marvels: A Journey to the End of the Biggest Story Ever, written by Anthony Walk. I think I've mentioned this on the podcast, but it is uh Anthony Wolk, the being the author, um, read over 27,000 Marvel comics. It was either 27,000 Marvel comics or 27,000 pages. I think it's 27,000 Marvel comics. And he wrote a book called All of the Marvels, basically taking you through like just like in chunks, like, hey, here is what I learned from reading all of Spider-Man, here's what was going on. He kind of gives you like a very high-level timeline of like, here is everything that happened through to Captain America throughout the years. But he also talks about what was going on at Marvel at the time, what was going on in American culture. Like, so he's able to tie it in, like, hey, here is how Marvel changed throughout the years to keep up with the times, to also keep up with the business. And here's how the stories reflect that. So it's like a really dope kind of like prism into American culture through Marvel. And one thing that I still cannot get out of my head is the way he described it. He said that Marvel is the longest continuous, self-contained work of fiction ever created. When you consider that it is started in the 60s, it's still going on. Hundreds of different writers and artists have all touched the tapestry, have contributed to it. And for the most part, it's one, you know, granted, there's relaunches and you know, uh retcons, but it is one massive continuous story. When you look at Marvel at Marvel Universe as a comic, as a story, it's like crazy to think of it that way. So I ended up reading, I was reading this book. I have a copy of a soft cover copy here. I didn't want to bring the book because I was like, eh, I gotta be smart about packing and any space I can save, you know. So that's why I brought the iPad and loaded it up. I ended up buying this book again on Kindle, and it's the first time I've I read a book using Kindle. Bro, I think I'm a believer. I didn't like, you know, like I didn't know that I could change the font size. I could do a highlight. You could like highlight shit in the Kindle app. You could even look up words, you know what I'm saying? Like all these things that I normally do. Like, I'll have my phone.
DrewSo you have to like go on the side, get to see. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Badr MilliganI usually have my phone by me to be like, oh, what does that word mean? Oh, what is this reference he's making? So did like be able to do all that in the Kindle app. I know I'm like 40 years too late to this, like duh on it. Welcome to fucking Kindle, you dumbass. But I just want to make a note. I finished the rest of that book reading it via Kindle, and it was a really cool experience. I probably will still stick to just buying the physical books because I like holding a regular novel or book, but not a bad idea to finish a book in Kindle. So I finished that, and then I ended up uh reading the uh I've told you I've been in me and Blife have been a huge Anthony Bourdain kick lately. We've been watching a bunch of um No Reservation. No reservation. Uh, what's the other one? Furthest place.
DrewOh my god. Why am I talking about reservations? I know. He's got three shows.
Badr MilliganYeah, I know I know he's got three shows. Okay, no reservations, parts unknown. That's the one. And then he's also got a cook's tour. Um, but we've been watching a lot of parts unknown to get us ready for Sri Lanka. We watched it when we were getting ready for Mexico. We watched the Tokyo episodes. Little did I know. I was three weeks ago, years old, when I learned that he did a comic series called Get Jiro that came out uh years ago on Dark Horse. Are you familiar with that at all?
DrewNo, no. Um I know I've seen the artwork. I know that he Anthony Border wrote that comic book, but I've not read it.
Badr MilliganSo it came out in 2012. He co-wrote it with uh another writer named Joelle Rose, and it was illustrated by Langdon Foss. At least volume one was. Volume two is illustrated by someone completely different. Um, I'm gonna just say it straight up. I tried to read volume two, I stopped after three pages. The art compared to Langdon Rose in volume one, it's like, yo, y'all went backwards. But Get Jiro is about a um, here I'll just read the solicitation. In a not too distant future of Food Obsessed LA, where master chefs rule the town like crime lords, and people literally kill for a seat at the best restaurant. Jiro is a renegade and ruthless sushi chef who arrives in town with strong ideas of his own. It's a bloody culinary war of epic proportions, and in the end, no chef may be left alive.
DrewSounds like like this would be in John Wick's world. Sounds cool.
Badr MilliganIt's like Mad Max meets John Wick, meets like the chef, or like uh our food a food network show. It is gruesome, it's bloody, it's it's like commentary on like food and uh uh capitalism and you know to society in in general. It's way deeper than you think, but it's like it's also written by you know, co-written by Anthony Bourdain. Like he's gonna talk about this stuff. But when I tell you the art is stupid detailed, bro, I don't I Langdon Floss was not on my radar prior to this, but if you're a fan of like Jeff Doro or Steve Scroos or anyone that does very heavy detailed artwork, dude, when I tell you, he draws some of the best fish in the world, like the foods that he draws in this, because it is so food focused, obviously. Like it's insane how delicious some of this food looks.
DrewI need to fucking like, babe, we gotta go back to Japan.
Badr MilliganSo yeah, uh, that was something I read. And then uh this is not something I read, but I did play. I started playing the Zelda Orc Arena uh time 3D. So the the re-release uh uh for the 3DS that came out in 2011. Dude, can I say my three, my oh which by the way, I don't have a 3DS, I have a 2DS XL. I fucking dude bringing in a handheld on vacation with you, come on. That's like that was like my back, that was my second backpack. You know, that was my that was like my um, you know, like that was the primary entertainment source I had. And this is a game I've owned as for as long as I've had this uh this DS, which is years. Yeah, yo yeah. We've talked about it. I missed the boat on Zelda Orcarina time. When we had an N64 as kids, we had no interest in that game. We only had an N64 for Super Smash Bros. and Mario Kart. That's that is it. That is it. That's it. That's it. You know, so we missed I missed the boat on Zelda. So I've never been like super into Zelda. When they announced a couple weeks ago that they were re-re they're gonna remaster it for the Switch 2, it finally made me go, all right. I think it's time I finally see in True Potter fashion, I just needed 30 years to be like, let me see what everyone's talking about over here. Yeah. Because I mean, what what do you know? I mean, I how do you feel about it? Are you have you played?
DrewSo there's a there's a bunch of Zelda games. I know Zelda games are like the pinnacle.
Badr MilliganSome people consider this one of the best games ever made.
DrewYeah, it is. It is like it is a very long game. They consider it one of the best games ever. I've seen people play it all the time. Like, I like bro, I've seen people with the tattoos, I've seen people.
Badr MilliganOh my god.
DrewYou know what I'm saying? So can I say real quick?
Badr MilliganWhen we went to the Nintendo store, there it was kind of like it was one store, but there was like, here's the Mario section, here's the Donkey Kong section, here's the Kirby section, here's the Zelda. I've walked by that Zelda section so fast, but now I fucking regret it because I'm like, I could have bought me a massive sword pen. I want a fucking high rule shield, you know. Like, yes, I I I think you're you're got I think you you know it in the same way I know it, where it's like I know people that swear by this game, this this um franchise, obviously. I've played some of the recent ones for Switch, but I've never beaten a Zelda game. I think we even own like Wind Waker and uh the Diminish Cap as kids. Like my brothers played that.
DrewI was always like Wind Waker. I've always played Wind Waker. I love the goofy cartoony looky of like looking of that. That would be the one. Correct me if I'm wrong, isn't like a recon Italian, like aren't those the ones where they do symphonies? Oh, yeah, yeah.
Badr MilliganThe music's so damn good. Yeah, the music is really I mean, you are literally learning how to play like songs on the uh Oak Arena. Yeah. Like, I will say I'm enjoying this game a lot. And I keep, yeah, you know what playing it now, and if you compare it to games now, you're like, oh, okay, it's sort of like this. It's like, nah, I think I I keep putting myself back in. Like, hey, when this game came out, I can see how it was revolutionary. I can see why it's and it still holds up. It's a really fun game, it's still challenging as hell. Like, it is not a game that force feeds you like clues and where to go. Some of this stuff I've literally been lost for hours, and then like it just clicks. You're like, oh, this is what they meant by that. Oh, here's the clue I needed. So yeah, it's fun. So now it's got me curious. Um, I'm uh I'm going to buy, I'm gonna look into this Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess manga, which I've seen at in comic shops before, but now I'm like, I kind of want to see if the manga hits with me too.
DrewIs that the one with the werewolf?
Badr MilliganYes, yeah, the wolf on the cover.
DrewThat's the one, bro. Zachary loves that game. Zachary loves that game. You know why?
Badr MilliganBecause Zelda is a little brother, it's a prime little brothers game. It is. My little brother Ellis loved Zelda. And I was like, yo, shut up, Dork. Go get lost in a dungeon.
DrewYeah, go play in traffic, nerd.
Badr MilliganI bet if I slap you upside the head, I get like 20 rupees. Anyways, in closing, that's what I've been reading. Um, all of the Marvels that I finished that book. Uh, I'm playing Legend of Zelda. I highly recommend Get Jiro if you are an Anthony Bourdain fan or just want to read a really dope comic. And the Marvel art of Mike Del Mondo is a fantastic art book. Woo! I didn't think we were gonna go. I was like, oh I we probably got an hour. I'm not feeling that the best. I can maybe do an hour. I'm so sorry.
DrewI see you sweating right now on the thing, and I'm just like, whoa.
Badr MilliganYeah, that's the last bit of energy I got. And I think I think that being said, we can wrap this episode up. Drew, as always, brother. This is a pleasure catching you. I'm so sorry that you're gonna be. No, no, no, dude. Yo, for the short box nation, I will fuck rest. I'm just talking to Drew. Yeah, I'm just talking to Drew. I'm just talking to Drew, baby. All right. Meanwhile, as soon as I stop as soon as I stop hit record, I go into like uh.
DrewThat's not funny.
Badr MilliganYo, was it worth it to hear Vaughn talk about his trip? Yes, yes, it was. Short rock nation. I hope you enjoyed yourselves. Thank you guys so much for your patience. Um, if you got uh any thoughts to share, if you want to chime into the conversation, you know what you gotta do. Hit us up via email, threwbikejacks at gmi.com, or or or text us. You can text us fan mail. Uh, there's a link in the show notes. Uh you can email us, you can even leave a voicemail if you want, all right? Hit us up, let us know what you thought about this episode. Thanks so much for hanging out with us. You guys take care of yourselves and and go read a good comic book while you're at it. All right, there's plenty out there. Yeah. Peace, y'all.
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