82: The Boys Read The Boys Part 3 - Good For The Soul

The hosts discuss Volume 3 of The Boys comic book series, Good for the Soul. They delve into a discussion about faith and religion, highlighting the portrayal of Starlight's struggle with her faith. The hosts compare the comic book to the TV show adaptation and discuss the use of ableist language and excessive exposition.  The episode concludes with a preview of future episodes and upcoming content. Everyone has a new favorite and least likable character this month too!

Chapters

00:00 Introduction and Podcast Updates

03:03 Recap of Volume 3: Good for the Soul

11:03 Positive Feedback on Volume 3

25:26 Comparisons to the TV Show

28:42 Garth Ennis' Writing and Art Inconsistencies

29:05 Ableist Language and Excessive Exposition

33:04 Trust in Relationships and Negative Portrayal of Superheroes

34:26 Discussion about Garth Ennis

35:00 Phonetic Spellings of Letters

36:03 Confusion about the Meaning of 'Crassus'

37:07 Questions about Compound V and Superheroes

39:20 Portrayal of The Seven in the TV Show vs. Comics

41:13 Discussion about Huey and Starlight's Hookup

43:42 Outrageous Moments

50:15 Favorite and Least Likable Characters

54:53 Wrap-up and Future Episodes

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Original Music by Alex Productions
Show notes include some AI generated content

Transcript

Dave (00:02.884)
Welcome back to the Comic Dudes, a podcast about comic books and comic book related things. With me as always, my co-host Matt. Matt, how you doing?

Matt - CDWA (00:13.806)
I'm doing good Dave, how about yourself? That's great.

Dave (00:16.176)
Doing great, thank you. Also, this week, since it's a Let's Read episode, we have our side piece, Eric. Eric, how are you?

#1 Twiiggy Fan (00:25.709)
I'm also doing well and not even mad to find out I'm the side piece.

Dave (00:30.184)
This is the second time on the podcast I've referred to you as our side piece. I think it's going to, I think so. Yeah. That's the plan.

Matt - CDWA (00:31.434)
Yeah, you first.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (00:34.621)
Yeah, I think it should stick. Yeah. But you have to start calling Matt your main bitch.

Dave (00:41.904)
We'll workshop that offline. So I sometimes forget to do this at the beginning of the episodes, but I'm getting better actually writing it in my notes. You can follow us on Twitter. All three of our Twitter handles will be in the description of this episode. Eric won't know if you follow him, but we'll know and that's all that matters. Also, our new Instagram will be in the episode description.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (00:43.09)
Okay, all right.

Matt - CDWA (00:43.127)
I'm sorry.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (01:00.763)
the

Dave (01:07.36)
As well as our tick tock we put content on tick tock and instagram that is not on the podcast We had a banger tick tock on saturday for us like over 200 likes like it did really well Um, so you should go check that out and go follow us there because we'd appreciate it helps the podcast grow

#1 Twiiggy Fan (01:22.113)
And when you watch it, make sure you like that shit.

Dave (01:25.424)
Yeah, like it, interact with it, share it, bookmark it, comment, say something nice about us, tell us how handsome we are, I don't know.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (01:34.229)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (01:37.014)
I think you need to do a TikTok explaining how to TikTok for boomers like myself that just watch the content. Okay.

Dave (01:42.136)
Absolutely not. Bro, Google's free, figure it out.

It's not my responsibility to educate the older generation that doesn't know how technology works, even if they're younger than me like you.

Matt - CDWA (01:52.77)
Hehehehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (01:53.621)
Man, imagine the absolutely impending day when Google is no longer free.

Dave (02:00.712)
That couldn't have.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (02:03.405)
Imagine though, they could do it.

Dave (02:05.744)
Dude, I'll just use Bing. I don't have any shame. I won't pay for a search engine. Let's go Microsoft.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (02:11.913)
Man, I got, I'm not going to comment on that.

Matt - CDWA (02:16.883)
You're...

Dave (02:17.572)
Yeah, that's fair. Disclaimer time. In this episode will be potential spoilers for the boys TV show. Also real spoilers for the boys comic book. Also, if you're uncomfortable talking about things like fucking and menstruation and ableism and homophobic slurs and of course a little bit of racism, now is the time to leave because Garth Ennis will not give us a moment's rest.

Matt - CDWA (02:39.559)
Hahahaha

Dave (02:45.42)
Every every month is an exercise in my mental fortitude and probably Eric and Matt's as well. If you can't hack it, get out of here. This isn't for you.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (02:57.781)
thought maybe this time.

Matt - CDWA (02:58.166)
Alright, see you guys later!

Dave (03:01.283)
Hahahaha

#1 Twiiggy Fan (03:03.641)
I like that he sort of like sucker punched us with it this time. I was like, oh, this is going to be cool. And then I was like, oh, fuck, he got us. He got us.

Dave (03:07.899)
Yeah.

Dave (03:11.368)
Yeah, he sure did. He sure did. So quick reminder for those that are still here, how a Let's Read episode works. I will tirelessly recap what we've read, hitting the high points in the story and leaving some stuff out. So if you do decide to read these things for yourself, there'll still be some newness there for you. We'll talk about the things that we liked, the good, the things that we didn't, the bad. And for the boys, it's a little bit different than the normal.

of a Let's Read episode because we talk about the outrageous things that happened, of which there are never a shortage. Also, there's generally not a lot of good either. This is just more like, I don't know, I don't have a good analogy. I'm going to move on before I say something stupid. Let's get into the recap, shall we? Volume three of The Boys, Good for the Soul. Now, this was split into two four-issue stories yet again, so.

Good for the Soul was the first four issues. And we start with what is probably my favorite issue of the series so far. We get a Starlight story and a Huey story. We also get to see Butcher giving it to the director of the CIA yet again. Starlight talks to God in a church. She's talking about what she's done and how she's so alone. And Huey is asked by Butcher to go and kill Blarneycock again because he has returned from the dead.

The superheroes that Vaught American has made are so jacked up on V that when they die, they don't stay dead They come back to life, but they're not very smart and They're sort of zombie like and also some words that I won't use To describe them at the end of this first issue Huey and starlight both find their way to that same bench in Central Park where they met and Huey asked starlight out on a date after they do some chatting

Huey then does some surveillance on teenage kicks to try and see Blarneycock for himself. While this is happening, Butcher and Mother's Milk are also spying on a meeting of the seven because they still have some surveillance footage or surveillance cameras there from way back when. Throughout this, they learned that the vice president is going to give a speech at Vod American and tell people that the American...

Dave (05:31.76)
Government should be using superheroes in their national defense efforts and the president does not know about this Although he soon will because butcher tips them off This issue ends with starlight drunk at a bar and Huey doing the right thing and sending her home in a cab He then goes home to jack off instead very upstanding citizen that Huey We get more Huey and starlight they hook up but it's

Something we'll talk about later for sure. After the VP cancels his appearance in speech, Vought figures out that they've been bugged and who it probably is. And at this point Blarney Cock goes to get his hamster back from Huey's apartment. We also get a tiny sliver of mother's milk. And I think what happened was he got a shot of V from someone named Mama. And he was like super like,

#1 Twiiggy Fan (06:05.933)
I'm going to go ahead and close the video.

Dave (06:31.396)
Ramped up and like wanted to hurt somebody it was a very weird insert into the issue that we never talked about again But uh, it happened good for the soul wraps up with Huey going back into his apartment because he forgot his phone and he finds a blarney cock trying to take the hamster That he had before in his ass back Uh, what?

Matt - CDWA (06:49.654)
Okay, thank you. Okay. I was just making sure, was this an ass hamster? Okay, and you just answered it for me, so thank you. Thank you, yes.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (06:52.949)
Yeah.

Dave (06:55.256)
Yes, yeah, this is yeah and Huey named him Jamie. This is from when Huey first killed Blarney Cock Which is a fantastic segue because they tussle Huey is like apologetic and upset And then accidentally kills Blarney Cock again The deep Goes to the Flatiron building and he asks butcher if the truce is still on Because of the tip off to the president Um, and homelander knows that he's the one that tipped off the president

Matt - CDWA (07:01.93)
Yeah.

Dave (07:26.016)
Volume 3, well the first story of volume 3 rather, wraps with Huey burning Blarney Cox's body in a metal drum and he and Butcher walk off together. The second half of this trade is a story titled I Tell You No Lie GI and this is a lot of parallel path stories. The first of which we see is the legend, our Stan Lee stand-in.

giving Huey the history of Vod American, dating back to World War II, and their attempts to be a defense contractor that really went all the way through the Vietnam War. At the same time, Butcher is also having a tense meeting with Homelander, while the rest of their teams kind of waited out awkwardly below them. They're at the wreckage of the Brooklyn Bridge, which we'll find out why it is the way that it is by the end of this trade. We also see Starlight and A-Train.

having to clean out the chamber that Lamplighter's reanimated corpse lives in. It is full of shit and filth. And he is also in the same state that Blarneycock was in, back from the dead due to all of the compound V in his system, but pretty much a worthless husk of a human. In the second issue, we really just get more of the same three stories intertwined. I won't go super into the details there, because I know some of those we're gonna talk about after this.

We then learn that Vod American has been working the government, uh, really just like all military defense contractors do, uh, buying people through lobbying and, uh, doing this sort of slow play style throughout the years with their eventual end goal, uh, being, they want superheroes in the military or as our primary defense in place of the military. Um, we also learned that they manipulated the events of nine 11.

to try and show that the Seven are in fact capable of defending America. They didn't do so great. The legend recounts how badly the Seven fucked up saving that plane, which was headed for the Brooklyn Bridge, or New York City rather. They ended up killing everyone on board and thousands of people where it crashed, which was into the Brooklyn Bridge. Marathon, a member of the Seven who A-Train had replaced,

Matt - CDWA (09:31.31)
Okay.

Dave (09:52.544)
also died during that event. We also find out that Vic the VP is the one who set all of that up, but Dakota Bob the president covered it all up. The arc and the trade end with the legend finishing up the story of Vought's history for Huey. Huey and Starlight see each other to patch things up. She thought that he never wanted to see her again. He thought that she was mad at him because she wasn't returning his calls because she was embarrassed about the time

which we'll talk about later. The last thing that happens in this issue or trade is Butcher sitting down to continue watching the surveillance footage of the seven that they've had for years, that they're just now going back and reviewing to try to find some dirt on them, and stumbles upon the Starlight blowjob incident, and his interest is peaked, which I can only assume ends very poorly for poor Huey. And that is good for the soul.

Matt - CDWA (10:53.226)
I want to tell you one thing Dave, that recap was good for the soul. I learned a little bit there, some things that I missed. So that was good for the soul.

Dave (10:59.324)
I'm glad. I'm glad.

That makes me happy.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (11:05.777)
Oh, Matt is like raring to go right now.

Matt - CDWA (11:07.478)
Boys, can I go?

Dave (11:07.876)
Yeah. Yeah, please, please. I'm struggling to move my Word document around so I can see the two of you. So someone start talking.

Matt - CDWA (11:15.41)
Oh, you're good. You're good. You're good. Guys, I really enjoyed this trade. I'm not gonna lie. I really enjoyed this trade. Um, yes, yeah, there's a little racism. There's a little homophobia. There's a little all the good stuff that we love. But I feel like it was just not as offensive.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (11:18.2)
Matt.

Dave (11:26.491)
Wow.

Matt - CDWA (11:41.73)
Tell me if I'm wrong, was it as offensive as the first couple? I feel like it was toned down just a little bit. Or I'm just desensitized to it at this point. Okay, alright, well then I'm losing.

Dave (11:48.508)
Hmm. It's the latter. I think you're disqualified.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (11:54.205)
I had the same question and I actually have a note as I was writing, I'm like, oh, wait, way less homophobic slurs and stuff. And then as I got to that second arc, I'm like, oh, ableist slurs, racist slurs. Oh, there's the homophobic slurs. Okay.

Matt - CDWA (12:03.79)
Oh yeah. Yes.

Okay, so we pack it all in the back. Okay. I actually thought.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (12:11.442)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave (12:14.212)
I do agree with you. I do agree with you. This was probably my favorite that we've read so far.

Matt - CDWA (12:19.538)
it, awesome. All right. So I'm not completely crazy. Like it was just a lot more readable. Like I definitely missed some things. And that's, I was like, that was a great recap, but I actually like, could understand this a little bit more. And it didn't seem as much of shock value. I think part of that is being that I was a former history major in college. Like I really liked all that stuff with the legend, like explaining.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (12:19.679)
I'll also agree with that right now.

Dave (12:24.636)
Mm-mm.

Matt - CDWA (12:45.95)
And I like weird alternate history kind of stuff. So like, I like the legend talking about like Vaught in World War Two and how they made this horrible fighter plane that just got people killed. And in Vietnam, they gave people these horrible M16 like guns and just botched things. Like I liked all that exposition because like, I haven't really seen the show. And I know that this deviates obviously from the show we've talked about that in pretty drastic ways, like Eric has highlighted, but

I have like no concept. So like to actually understand, okay, this is what Vaat really is. And in this context, like I really appreciated that. And like, I can see kind of what some of that history stuff that like Garth Ennis is like one of the masters of like world war II, you know, like that kind of like even as Punisher stuff history. Yeah. Like, so like, I can see some of that in this. Um, I really liked the legend character explaining all this. Like.

Dave (13:33.444)
Yeah, he's a big like war comics guy. Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (13:36.461)
Mm-hmm.

Matt - CDWA (13:43.07)
Yes, he's Stan Lee, but like, he's also, there's also a lot of Jack Kirby in there as well too. Like, he honestly, to me, is more Jack Kirby than Stan. Definitely Stan's personality of like, all the lore, but he looks like Jack Kirby. He's smoking a cigar, and as someone who like, appreciates Kirby, I like that. And then also like, two other, two quick things. Like, I had, I'm just excited because I had some good for once, because normally I'm just like,

Dave (14:11.05)
Hehe

Matt - CDWA (14:12.886)
I'm like, normally I'm like, oh man, I don't know. So my last two points, issue 19. I think the concept of the superheroes is kind of weapons of mass destruction, right? You think they're gonna take over, but like I think Ennis portrayed it how things would actually be. In most fiction, it's like, oh, these Kryptonians are gonna come here, they're gonna take over the world, they're gonna do everything. No, if these superheroes were raised here, they wouldn't wanna take over.

They just want to maintain the status quo, but be in somewhat of a position of power. And that's how, that's even more sinister than just like these aliens coming over and taking over. It's like, no, they're in government. They are, you know, the protectors of the planet. Like that to me is a little bit more sinister. And then my last thing, as a person of faith, I consider myself a Christian, not gonna beat you over the head with my Christianity and do any of that. I believe in...

gay marriage and all that stuff, but like I am a believer in Christ. I believe in that. This whole starlight, that starlight arc with her at the beginning, if you've never questioned your faith, in my opinion, you're not truly a Christian. So like that really resonated with me. I've always been taught that you need to question your faith. And to have that whole arc, I really, that really hit home with me personally. So I'm done.

Dave (15:39.048)
It's actually that's a really interesting take, actually. And I was I was raised Christian. I was actually raised like Roman Catholic. And, you know, we were taught like you never question your faith, like blind loyalty to God and like you move forward and like all the bad shit that happens to you. That's just part of the plan. Like deal with it, chief. Like no one cares. But that's also there's a lot of Catholic guilt at play here. And like Catholicism is pretty down and sad.

Matt - CDWA (15:41.878)
What's up?

Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (16:00.61)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (16:07.57)
Well, yeah, there's I'm a Catholic and yes, there's a lot of Catholic guilt, but where how I was raised like we were Explicitly taught like faith and reason and that's the problem It's so much faith that you don't use your head ever and there's no reason so like That's kind of a constant battle and I know that's not like a normal probably Christian

Dave (16:09.064)
thing.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (16:27.946)
Hmm.

Matt - CDWA (16:33.138)
upbringing that a lot of people have is just like you said, it's blind will to the crown and it is what it is. You don't question anything. You don't that. That's not how I was raised though. So.

Dave (16:43.56)
I mean, not to get into like a philosophical discussion around like faith and Christianity, but I mean, at its at its core, faith is or Christianity is having a personal relationship with God and believing that like God exists and created all of this and Jesus's son is our savior. And however you rationalize that or however you

Matt - CDWA (16:46.645)
Yeah!

Dave (17:09.724)
Whoever you build that faith for yourself, your relationship with whatever that is, that is what faith is, that is Christianity, that is belief, and it is not the same for every person. So, I actually expected you to not really super enjoy that, so I'm really shocked to hear that that's on the good for you, but also, I think that's just a really interesting, that's a really interesting perspective, and I don't think I've ever heard any Christians say out loud before, I love that.

Matt - CDWA (17:15.76)
Absolutely.

Matt - CDWA (17:19.968)
Absolutely.

Matt - CDWA (17:38.826)
It's not about the religion, man. It's about the spirituality. But don't ever put me in a box, Dave. You know don't put me in a box. I am elusive, baby. I'm a chameleon. You do not put me in a box. But I'm good. I'm gonna shut up. I had, I'm positive. I got some negative. I got a little bit. But I'm more positive here. I don't know.

Dave (17:49.128)
I'm out.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (17:50.57)
No.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (17:56.557)
Ahem.

Dave (18:03.345)
I like that.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (18:04.553)
All right.

Matt - CDWA (18:05.162)
I surprised you guys tonight. I've been waiting. Ha ha ha.

Dave (18:06.63)
You did.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (18:07.488)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (18:12.186)
Eric, you're up. Day for Eric, one of you is up.

Dave (18:13.169)
Yeah, I'm a little Eric. I'm a little Eric. Yeah. Eric, we go.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (18:13.265)
Oh, I'm up. All right. All right. Uh, I had a lot of actually good things to say about this one as well, because I think that this is the first volume, where some of the, the things that I guess I didn't realize were threads in the first two volumes are picked up on and our story threads that I'm like, okay, this makes sense. Because I'm reading this, I'm

Why is there so much focus on Vic the Veep? Is there no president? I don't understand why this guy matters. In this one, that gets explained and you're like, oh, okay, there was a plan for this all along. I loved the take on superheroes coming back from the dead. It's very meta commentary on modern superhero comics. It's probably the best type of meta commentary we've gotten from the boys about modern comics. It might be the one that's the most straightforward, but I really like how

Dave (19:05.533)
I agree.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (19:10.461)
they approached, I guess, when you do kill a character, and then you sort of undo that by bringing it back. It's never the same, right? It's, it's sort of a shambling corpse of what it once was. And I love that parallel that they built. I thought that was kind of cool. And then in the whole second story arc, I really liked how they drove home the power that Vought has and how they use their

lobbyists and sway and money to essentially control the government. And I think that's really interesting. It's the first volume that I think is really meaningful so far to the story. And maybe it couldn't be meaningful without the first two volumes. So this is sort of an invalid point. But it was the it was the one that I read and went, Oh, okay, I got something out of this versus the first two. And I also liked there was a bit less of the British slang.

The biggest thing was Huey saying, nah, which is an O instead of not, which I repeatedly read as no and then had the Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying. And then I this is not to get to be confrontational, Matt, but I well I do. Okay. I think the legend is a composite character, but they really leaned into the like Splendidio, which is clearly an Excelsior like thing, especially when he's like writing, writing like the

Matt - CDWA (20:32.301)
Yeah

#1 Twiiggy Fan (20:36.801)
the post book stuff about like signing off with Splendidio and things. And I was like, that's cool. But uh, yeah, I thought overall, outside of some of the really unsavory language and Garth Ennis is really damaged views about gender roles. I thought that this was a pretty interesting volume.

Matt - CDWA (20:59.676)
It's like outside of 90% of his work so far.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (21:03.312)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dave (21:05.896)
Well, you know, that's the thing about Garth Ennis. So he's he presents in stories like the boys, like the Howard Stern is it was a toothed data of a reference. But, you know, the shock value of Garth Ennis is kind of what draws people in. But then all of a sudden you're like, damn, this guy can write like he's really good. It's kind of annoying because like I want to hate him so much. But he he's when he nails something. God, he fucking nails it.

Matt - CDWA (21:23.518)
Yeah, that's-

Dave (21:35.94)
Like I am I am so hooked on this comic now after reading this volume. Like the layers that we now have and we got so much. We got so much interesting backstory. And like to your point, Eric, about how things that we thought were just randomly inserted in the first volume are now coming to rethread themselves into what's going to go forward. And there's a really there's a really adept world building happening here.

Matt - CDWA (21:39.906)
Hmm

#1 Twiiggy Fan (22:05.973)
Yep.

Dave (22:06.892)
It's very, very good. I don't have a lot more on the good that you all haven't talked about before. I did have a note around Starlight's chat in the church with God. I can get behind the methodology of what she is saying from a logic standpoint. I'm a very logic-driven person. I'm not a person of faith. It's a very well thought out.

Anti-religious diatribe that doesn't come across as mean-spirited or confrontational or um, you know, I think a lot of times when people that aren't christians Want to have a take that is like well, this is why I don't believe in why you shouldn't either It comes with a lot of insulting Tone and a bit of a put down at the end or in the middle or at the beginning or in all three points And he manages to not do any of that

because you're getting this through Starlight. I thought it was just a very well-written few pages. And I also love the way that the hypocrisy of her old team of Christian heroes was kind of put on display because that's one of the reasons why I'm, you know, I sort of lost my faith over the years is that there's so many just awful Christians in the world and so many awful things done in the name of Christianity.

Matt - CDWA (23:19.575)
Yeah.

Dave (23:31.886)
It can be really sickening and I love that he kind of like put that in our faces, too

#1 Twiiggy Fan (23:36.117)
You know, I wanted to bring that up and I'm glad that you mentioned that the way you did, because I've now done a bunch of research on Garth Ennis and found out that he is somebody that came up in a somewhat religious surrounding and turned very much against it, lost his faith, he's very anti-religion. And I realized in reading these, actually all three volumes, that of all the characters in this, Starlight

is the most obviously representative of Garth Ennis, of him being taken advantage of by the comics industry and the superheroes. Like it's a very direct, like that scene is kind of him being fucked by the comics and the superhero stuff. And then him questioning his religion and questioning his loyalty and faith to what he's chosen to do with his life in comics and stuff.

There's quite a bit of him in Starlight if you look at some of those notes.

Dave (24:39.656)
That's a very interesting perspective. Guys, do we, do we like Garth Ennis now?

#1 Twiiggy Fan (24:47.253)
He's not on my least liked character this month, so.

Dave (24:51.76)
Not on mine either. We might like this guy by the end of this. By December, we might be like, dude, I wanna have a Diet Coke with this guy because I don't have a beer with him because I don't drink, but. Matt, you could have a beer with him.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (24:54.218)
I don't know.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (24:58.761)
Yeah. Well.

Matt - CDWA (25:02.406)
It's just like, yeah, I mean, honestly, if I was reading this in those first two trades, I would have dropped the series. So I'm like, I'm glad we stuck with this because at the end of our last episode, I'm like, man, I don't know how much more of this can we endure as a group. I don't even know. But then we, yeah, exactly, endure. Ninja, whatever, Ninja Blade. Ninja Blade, baby.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (25:10.518)
same.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (25:21.773)
agree.

Dave (25:21.98)
Press X to endure.

Dave (25:26.776)
I know Eric gets that reference, he played that game.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (25:28.992)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (25:29.91)
But like we read the first issue and I'm like, oh, this is like actually pretty good. And this trade, you know, so yeah, I don't know. We did a lot of good guys. I don't know.

Dave (25:39.568)
Yeah, so I got I got two more quick good ones. I think Starlight and Huey's connection is really sweet. I think it's not like it's not Mark Grayson and Adam Eve sweet, but it's still the nicest thing in this comic so far. And Huey is Huey is very much the element of the boys that you are supposed to relate with.

Matt - CDWA (25:42.262)
Yeah, go ahead.

Dave (26:08.524)
as he is the one that has moral qualms and tough decisions to make and is kind of the only one with a love interest that you get to see unfold and a love interest in movies, TVs, comic. Those are always some of the more relatable aspects of them. So I just think that one, it's Garth Ennis showing that he's not like a complete monster because we all thought he was. But I just think it's a nice.

I think it's a nice little thing. I appreciate it.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (26:39.241)
I mean, judging by what we've read so far, I have zero doubt that in the coming volumes, something is going to happen to make us go, Oh, fuck, why, why did we trust him?

Matt - CDWA (26:51.074)
bait and switch.

Dave (26:51.312)
Yeah, probably, probably. And then my third good, and this is a deep cut, but when the legend and Huey were talking, throughout the course of that entire four issue story, there were several moments where the legend would like stop and say, and I bet you can guess what happened next, or I bet you know who did that. And there was one time where Huey guesses correct and the legend says, oh, you get a no prize for that one.

And that is such a cool callback to Marvel Comics letters columns from back in the day where readers would find something hidden in a comic that they weren't supposed to find or whatever, and they would win a no prize from the editor in the letters column. I just thought that was a nice little nod to Marvel. And also maybe Garth doesn't hate the big two as much as we think. He does, he probably does. I'm just really, I got rose colored lenses on this month.

Matt - CDWA (27:25.367)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (27:49.597)
Maybe. I think he still does. I think so. Oh, so this isn't bad or good. But I wanted to bring up that compared to the last volume, there were I think three things I identified that are in this volume that have parallels in the TV show, even though all of them play out different.

Matt - CDWA (27:49.609)
Yeah, we're feeling real good this month.

Dave (28:11.696)
Yep. And they happened in like season one of the show. Two of them did. Yep.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (28:14.449)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was interesting that I was like, oh, there are other things other aspects that they pulled from later in the comics that made it into the show and stuff, which makes me think that the writers and producers for this show must have sat down and read it all and just went, okay, what's the what are the few things we can actually use here?

Dave (28:37.936)
Yeah, for sure. For sure.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (28:40.749)
Pretty neat.

Dave (28:42.684)
So let's move on to the bad. I had two. The first, the Ableist language, the first time we've had Ableist language, I didn't appreciate the R word. And then Homelander using the hard R N-word in the plane scene, that also was very bad for me. Did not like that twice.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (28:52.358)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (29:05.165)
twice. And in sort of a Tourette's sort of way, because it just seemed random.

Dave (29:12.347)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (29:13.842)
It was sacred.

Dave (29:15.032)
Yeah. Well, I mean, the it was I mean, the deep is black.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (29:23.521)
Well, he's got a helmet on and his face is shadowed, so I wasn't sure. Oh, well, that makes it worse. You're you're taking away any growing acceptance I had for Garth Ennis.

Dave (29:25.22)
Yeah, yeah, he's black. He's black. It does.

Matt - CDWA (29:39.234)
That used, the ER was not used as a turn of endearment for his colleagues. That was not.

Dave (29:43.736)
No, it was not. No, no, it was not. That's it. Those are my two bad. Everything else I've bucketed into being outrageous.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (29:44.715)
Ugh.

Matt - CDWA (29:49.866)
Yeah, those are-

Matt - CDWA (29:57.038)
I inconsistent art at times. Like, you know, I bang on the artists, but their work was pretty good here. I didn't hate it, but like there, I think there were some failings. I didn't check credits, but there was just a few art inconsistencies I didn't particularly like. And then my other thing was like, I did like all the history, but there was a lot of exposition at times. There were some issues that went.

really quickly. Like I was talking to Dave offline and he's like, yeah, you're going to get through some of this really quick. And then there were other issues that were like really dense. Like we love invincible, but there are some issues where Dave's like looking at, we're reading invincible. We're like, Oh my God, like there's just so much exposition.

Dave (30:39.964)
So I told you that before I started the second half of the trade and that was when it was just like wall to wall. I was actually reading. So I was off work this afternoon. I had a doctor's appointment. So I just took the afternoon off and I was laying in bed finishing up the reading. There is one point I had to actually get up and walk around the house because I was about to fall asleep from all the reading. There's too many words, man.

Matt - CDWA (30:44.906)
Yeah. Yes.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (30:49.163)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (30:53.344)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (31:00.397)
hahahaha

Matt - CDWA (31:03.394)
I'm going to start earlier and not wait for like a week ahead of time. Like I'm going to kind of space this out and take notes just so I remember.

Dave (31:08.836)
We've all at some point we have to get to trades that don't have eight issues in them because the series only went like 65 issues. So the math ain't math and they can't all be eight. That'd be 96 issues.

Matt - CDWA (31:13.294)
I know right? Yeah I'm gonna check the next one.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (31:15.373)
Hmm

Matt - CDWA (31:19.746)
That's true.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (31:22.538)
Hmm.

Matt - CDWA (31:24.738)
But yeah, those are my main two things on top of, in addition to Dave's two things. Yeah, in addition. Yeah.

Dave (31:29.649)
In addition to the things that I said in addition to the other bad things

#1 Twiiggy Fan (31:31.054)
Yeah

#1 Twiiggy Fan (31:35.145)
Well, in addition to the same thing that you said, I actually have some things in my bad that aren't necessarily bad. They're things that I either thought were kind of funny, maybe unintentionally so maybe intentionally so or were sort of like thought provoking, like I had to stop and think about like one of them is Holy Mary's mask and costume. And I was like, this kind of like

Dave (31:37.509)
Hehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (32:01.253)
is giving warrior nun, Ariala a little bit. If you've ever read that comic, but also the mask is just freaky creepy and I don't like it. And then I was thinking about the deeps costume as well. Cause I, on the surface, you would think this is like an Aquaman name or thing, but like he can fly and his costume kind of has some doom vibes, but with like a diving helmet, it's so goofy.

Matt - CDWA (32:15.796)
Ehh

Dave (32:24.085)
Well, Aquaman and Namor can fly.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (32:26.845)
Aquaman can fly? I guess I haven't read much Aquaman.

Dave (32:28.36)
I think so.

Matt - CDWA (32:31.063)
Yeah, I think he can actually. Namor can definitely fly. I think Aqua may.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (32:31.809)
Can Aquaman fly?

Dave (32:34.732)
Namor can definitely fly. Even though I learned last year that it's pronounced Namor, I ain't saying it that way. Sorry.

Matt - CDWA (32:42.578)
No more. That's that movie. Ha ha.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (32:42.673)
If you watched that second, if you watch the second Black Panther movie, they say it no less than three different ways throughout the movie.

Matt - CDWA (32:47.35)
No more. I said that to David for like a week. No more. Namer, I call him Namer. Namer, you know that's how I call him. Namer.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (32:52.053)
Nemoore. Namor, namor, whatever. Yeah, that's perfect.

Dave (32:58.18)
Namer. Hehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (33:04.377)
I like Starlight and Huey's relationship. However, I do think it's weird that after what she's recently been through, she's willing to just trust a random dude she's seen in the park twice. I'm like, whew, you're very trusting. I guess, I guess so. In this universe, and I talked about this before, everybody reads comics and they blindly accept them as the guiding compass for what's true and real.

Dave (33:19.221)
She's got the faith, man.

Matt - CDWA (33:28.17)
Yeah, that's it.

Matt - CDWA (33:32.107)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (33:33.781)
It's funny that he's making comics basically the news. Like, you know, it's kind of a funny thing in that way. It's also weird that if you're a soup, you're a piece of shit. You're a bad person. You do horrible things. And for whatever reason, Garth Ennis decides, you know, what you do is bad. Whether being gay is bad or whether doing drugs is bad or whether killing people is bad or whatever, you're bad.

Matt - CDWA (33:38.036)
Yeah exactly.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (34:02.421)
There's very, the only exception so far is Starlight. There's no other good superheroes.

Dave (34:06.896)
Let's tie that back to the comment you made earlier where we feel like Starlight is representative of Garth Ennis. Now we have a narcissist on our hands, fellas.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (34:14.061)
That's yeah, that's a good that's a very good parallel.

Matt - CDWA (34:19.042)
Hehehehehehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (34:20.529)
that you know that tracks it kind of tracks and then there's

Dave (34:22.853)
Yeah, I guess.

Dave (34:26.881)
I do truly hope Garth Ennis never listens to this podcast because...

#1 Twiiggy Fan (34:31.069)
I'd love to get him on here. Let's talk to this guy.

Dave (34:34.203)
I think you'd want to hit me if you saw me in public.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (34:37.525)
That's fine. Here's not a bad thing or a good thing. There is one thing that I want to have like an actual conversation about. But there are two points where he uses phonetic spellings of letters to spell out words. And one of them is when Yeah, sh it is one of them. And then there's another there's another one later that I actually wrote down as I read it.

Dave (34:53.828)
Yes, that fucked me up.

Dave (35:00.04)
That one was easy.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (35:05.445)
C-H-R-A-S-A-S hash. Crassus? What is that? Does that mean something?

Dave (35:14.869)
I don't know, I have no idea. I couldn't figure that, that was the one that made me mad.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (35:19.185)
And it is the hash like a hashtag or is it supposed to be an H because like in the UK they say H instead of H. So is it crap? Is it meant to say crash but there's an extra AS in there?

Dave (35:28.598)
Oh, yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (35:36.973)
crash? I don't know. Okay.

Dave (35:37.276)
Dude, I don't know.

Matt - CDWA (35:39.242)
Yeah.

Dave (35:41.325)
I did the same thing you did, but didn't take it as far. I thought it out in my head. I imagined the letters and then I went, this sounds like gibberish and I moved on.

Matt - CDWA (35:49.44)
Blah blah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (35:49.694)
It kind of is, however, I'm starting to see that things that seem like superfluous random elements come back later and do have meaning, so I wonder if that will. I also

Matt - CDWA (35:55.587)
being so.

Dave (36:00.357)
That was right when they were going in, her and Atriaan were about to go into Lamplighter's prison cell, basically.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (36:03.465)
Yep. Yes. I also blew up and screenshotted the newspaper when the legend is telling the story and I sent it to you both in discord and I thought there would be some secret message. But did you see? Did you see what it is? It's not gibberish.

Matt - CDWA (36:15.138)
Okay, yes.

Matt - CDWA (36:19.97)
gibberish, gibberish. Oh, it's his name. Is it the create, is it the creative team? Yeah.

Dave (36:24.196)
Did I didn't see it? When did you send that? Oh.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (36:27.945)
Yeah, just their names over and over and over.

Dave (36:30.553)
Oh, that's actually really funny.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (36:32.49)
It is pretty funny.

Dave (36:36.456)
It also does support my narcissism theory, so I like it.

Matt - CDWA (36:39.042)
What the hell is this?

#1 Twiiggy Fan (36:39.625)
that. That's true. So here's the here's the I think this is bad, or maybe it's only bad because I feel unclear about it. And one of the two of you might have read this and had a much clearer understanding of it. But as we are learning about soups and V and the different types of soup, there are some explanations given here about there have been soups around since the 40s and

Some are not strong, some are super strong. The ones that are built by Vaught, the seven, and then the other teams are like crazy strong. And if you take V, you're stronger than most of the other superheroes. So the things that I wasn't clear on is if you get a shot of V, do you have powers forever in the comics? And if the boys are more powerful than 80% of superheroes because they took V, do they, are they technically now Supes? And

Are there soups that are naturally occurring that did not get there because of compound V like the ones back from the 40s that are not very strong? Those are the things that I was like, okay, wait, I don't know if I understand all that.

Matt - CDWA (37:50.518)
definitely unclear on that as well too, because I feel like in one of the readings it was like people were injected with compounds and then like their offspring were then superheroes. Like I feel like I had read that at some point. I wasn't entirely sure on like the seven. So like it because they talk about Homelander landing, give his whole origin story and everything. So then are they like experimenting on him? And that's how they got the seven. Like

#1 Twiiggy Fan (37:52.694)
Okay.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (38:03.073)
Hmm.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (38:15.573)
He never really landed. It was a setup. That was fake. They actually, he was a test tube baby that they implanted in vitro into a woman that had signed up for tests, and it killed her. And they kept him locked away for years and years and years. And then when he was ready to come out, they staged the whole he crashed like Superman. Yeah, yeah. Well, they talk about the fact that

Matt - CDWA (38:18.149)
Oh.

Matt - CDWA (38:22.446)
Well... The- Okay.

Matt - CDWA (38:35.382)
I completely missed that. Okay. Alright. Yup. I like that better. But okay.

I completely missed that.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (38:44.405)
They tried to do a team of military superheroes in the 40s that clearly didn't turn out well. And that because the boys have taken V, they are stronger than four out of five supes, which makes me wonder how the other supes got to where they are if they weren't given V. Or maybe they were or a different kind. Okay.

Matt - CDWA (38:48.031)
Yup.

Dave (39:05.008)
I don't have the answers.

Matt - CDWA (39:06.23)
Maybe we'll get a legend, maybe that'll be volume four. Cuz I feel like there's just a lot of things kind of unsaid in previous volumes and maybe we'll learn that I guess next month hopefully.

Dave (39:18.506)
Yeah, I hope so.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (39:20.797)
Yeah. The other thing that I had, and this is maybe not good or maybe is good, but in the TV show, the seven are sort of cold and calculating. They know what they're doing. And in the comics, we're learning that they're kind of idiots.

Matt - CDWA (39:35.906)
Yeah, they're.

What portrayal do you like better? What do you like better?

#1 Twiiggy Fan (39:39.03)
Like...

Dave (39:39.196)
They are.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (39:42.005)
Well, that's why I said I don't know if it's bad or good. I think the TV show dumbs it down for you and makes it clear who's good and who's bad in some capacity. And in the comics, it's power corrupts and it's not as much, and some of it is, these people are being thrown into situations they're not prepared for. They are not meant to be doing the things they're doing. And it's the irresponsibility of Vought more than it is the supes are running the show, if that makes sense.

Matt - CDWA (39:43.862)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (39:49.255)
Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (40:11.03)
Yeah, that makes sense.

Dave (40:14.732)
I agree. Yeah, that's super accurate. I don't know what I like better either. I feel like it's been so long since I've watched the show. I'm starting to lose. I'm starting to lose touch with what the tone of the show is. The more we read the comic.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (40:21.609)
Yeah, I don't know either.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (40:30.325)
It's been a while. We need to do a watch along.

Matt - CDWA (40:32.749)
We do I actually really want to watch it at some point like now after talking

Dave (40:33.04)
We can't.

Dave (40:36.752)
But that would mean we have to go back and re-watch it.

Bro, I don't have that kind of time.

Matt - CDWA (40:43.19)
Hehehehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (40:44.957)
You neither.

Dave (40:45.776)
That's, I mean, that's you're talking like a 10 hour commitment.

Matt - CDWA (40:50.743)
Yeah, he is.

Dave (40:50.992)
per season.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (40:51.043)
Yeah, we can do one 10-hour episode for each season.

Matt - CDWA (40:54.608)
Hehehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (41:01.315)
Okay, deal. You talked me out of it.

Dave (41:04.756)
I can be very persuasive.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (41:06.525)
Yeah. Yeah, you just were. Yeah.

Dave (41:08.516)
Yeah. Are we moving on to the outrageous?

#1 Twiiggy Fan (41:13.213)
Yeah, and I feel like we all are gonna have at least one of the exact same thing on our list, but

Dave (41:17.188)
Yeah, for sure. Should we just start with that one?

#1 Twiiggy Fan (41:20.63)
Yeah.

Dave (41:22.14)
So maybe this is me being very presumptuous, but I'm assuming we're all gonna talk about Huey and Starlight's hookup. Look, we've all done this.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (41:32.073)
Yep.

Dave (41:37.852)
We've all done it.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (41:41.468)
I have a similar note that says.

why is everybody automatically like, oh, relationship ender? I'm like, shit happens, things happen. It goes that way. But also, I'm like, man, how did starlight not know she's going to start a period? And how did Huey not notice in the midst of it? But also, it's like, chalk it up to a that's how life goes.

Dave (41:59.9)
These are great questions.

Dave (42:04.808)
She didn't know, she's very inexperienced. It's not her fault. I don't know, man, leave Starlight alone. We're pro Starlight this episode.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (42:07.301)
in being a human being, I guess. Okay. Yeah, we are.

Dave (42:16.068)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it made for a funny running joke to make fun of you with.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (42:22.495)
It did.

Matt - CDWA (42:25.262)
I think at one point all of us were avid gamers on a Microsoft platform. I titled issue number 17 of the boys, the Red Ring of Death.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (42:36.563)
haha

Matt - CDWA (42:40.503)
That is all I have to say on that matter.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (42:41.45)
haha

#1 Twiiggy Fan (42:45.901)
clever. Here's one for you. And it occurred to me late in the trade in the in the yeah I

That's a gerbil, not a hamster. Do you know how fucking big a hamster is? Hamsters are huge.

Matt - CDWA (42:59.274)
Hahahaha

Dave (43:01.849)
I'm out.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (43:05.269)
There's no fucking way!

Matt - CDWA (43:08.718)
That's great.

Dave (43:09.248)
Yeah, I mean, yeah, fair.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (43:11.106)
Yeah.

Dave (43:13.38)
Did I call it a hamster in the? I did, didn't I? Yeah, yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (43:15.265)
they call they call it a hamster in the book. That's the that's the thing because there's like the zombie groaning and mumbling that like slowly comes into focus and it's I want well and now they're starting another one with lamp lighter because he's mumbling something too and we'll figure out what that is. But it's all it's all hamster and I'm like, not a hamster.

Matt - CDWA (43:16.584)
They caught a hamster though too in the book. Yeah.

Dave (43:23.02)
Oh yeah, I want my hamster. Yeah, I want my hammer.

Matt - CDWA (43:24.026)
F's.

Huh.

Dave (43:38.45)
That's fair.

Dave (43:42.176)
Uh, well, I, you know, I think it, it was only a matter of time before we started in with the ableism, I felt that was pretty, that was pretty outrageous, but also expected given the timeframe, I'm surprised it took this long.

Matt - CDWA (43:42.658)
That was all I had, yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (43:56.401)
I wasn't prepared for it. And I especially wasn't prepared for it the way it was used because it was used in a very pointed and direct way not flippantly calling somebody the R word, like which you might have done in the 90s or 2000s. But I was like, Oh, wow, that's really wasn't prepared for that.

Dave (44:17.2)
Yeah. Also, this one was actually, I think, I thought this one was really funny. Like this, this got a laugh out of me, like an LOL, like I laughed out loud by myself on the bed while I was reading this. But when they were trying to save that plane, and Homelander rips the door open and that kid fucking flies out.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (44:28.845)
Hehehe

#1 Twiiggy Fan (44:38.446)
I went back to that panel multiple times and I'm like, Oh, it's his feet. I see his feet going out of the frame out of the panel. It just immediately happened to like the set. That was it. Moving on. It's funny.

Dave (44:45.272)
I Just love that no one tried to save him they were just like fuck him. He's gone. It's over. Yeah

Matt - CDWA (44:47.618)
No.

Dave (44:55.256)
Yeah, I love that. I absolutely love that. And then my only other outrageous that I have written down, and I don't remember when this happened because I wasn't smart enough to write the context down. I just have two words written down and they are little woppy.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (45:12.699)
What?

Matt - CDWA (45:13.963)
What?

Dave (45:14.129)
I remember I remember I remember I remember when Frenchie was trying to save the female from Being a mob hitman. He went to go see the boss and he referred to His territory as little Wapali and they got very mad at him. I remember

#1 Twiiggy Fan (45:21.948)
Oh yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (45:26.477)
Oh, that's, that's a yeah, I mean, there was some creative, like ethnic and racial slurs in this one, including that one. So yeah.

Dave (45:35.524)
Yeah. Yeah, I feel like that one you can get away with that one a lot easier. We'll find out, won't we? Because I just said it like three times.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (45:39.917)
Maybe. Yeah. I guess so. I guess so.

Matt - CDWA (45:43.611)
Yeah.

Dave (45:48.676)
That's all I had for outrageous.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (45:51.185)
Yeah, I mean, I, to me, I brought up the hamster thing, but the whole premise of Blarneycock coming back from the dead to get his ass hamster gerbil back was about as over the top as it could get.

Dave (46:06.984)
fair.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (46:07.685)
That was, that was as in he came back from the dead and his only guiding force was get his ass durable back.

Matt - CDWA (46:14.23)
Yeah.

Dave (46:15.28)
Yeah, he just wanted to put something up his butt, man.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (46:18.433)
That's awful.

Yeah.

Dave (46:21.66)
Don't knock it till you've tried it.

Matt - CDWA (46:23.081)
Yeah, I was like, eh.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (46:23.917)
No, I'm you know what? I'm gonna knock it and not try it. Oh, oh, yeah, no, that's fine. I'm just I'm not putting any live animals anywhere that they don't want to be. Yeah. OK, good. I'm.

Dave (46:26.8)
Not with a live animal, I mean, not with a live animal, just in general.

Matt - CDWA (46:26.83)
I'm out.

Dave (46:36.796)
Same. Except sometimes I have to take Dusty to the vet and she doesn't want to be there, but she has to go. Yeah. Yeah, she needs, she needs her allergy medicine. That is, you know.

Matt - CDWA (46:41.215)
It's different context.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (46:41.681)
Oh no, that's fair. That's one of the few exceptions. That's one of the very few exceptions. Yeah. I'm glad we're on the same page with this, though. Good. I feel better about being on the show with the both of you.

Dave (46:50.969)
Yeah.

Dave (46:56.085)
I'm glad.

Matt - CDWA (46:58.498)
We'll talk offline.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (47:00.409)
Oh, Matt's like, Listen, I've got something I need to tell you guys. And it is a hamster.

Dave (47:00.859)
Hehehehe

Dave (47:04.924)
Hahaha

Matt - CDWA (47:09.397)
You're the first.

Dave (47:10.98)
Matt, do you have any Outrageous or Eric? Any others?

Matt - CDWA (47:12.586)
Nah, I just had the red ring of death, man. That's it. One of the...

Dave (47:16.059)
Alright.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (47:16.873)
Yeah, it was, it was, it was, those were the two big ones, which is amazing because I think it speaks to the fact that we both were like, oh, there's more content and less like edgelord for the sake of edgelord here, that there are not nearly as many over the top and outrageous things that came up.

Dave (47:31.504)
Yeah, yeah, this our conversation was. Wildly different than the previous two this month in a good way. Maybe not a good way, just in a different way. It's very different.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (47:37.726)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (47:42.753)
I feel like Garth Ennis was like, look, I'm going to put you through the wringer and I'm going to test you and I'm going to make sure you're really committed to this before I give you the story.

Dave (47:54.628)
Um.

Dave (47:58.032)
Favorite and least likable?

Matt - CDWA (48:02.926)
I mean, it has to be Huey or Starlight. I feel like it was, I gotta go with Huey this month, just for like, when he didn't take advantage of her, like I'm like, all right, he's a standup dude. Like, and their whole relationship is super cute. I'm waiting to be heartbroken later down the line when something horrible happens, but you know, for right now, Trade 3, it was pretty good.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (48:29.067)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt - CDWA (48:29.466)
And also like there's just like one really small thing, like not my favorite character, but there was a good moment with the butcher that I liked after he, like Huey had like killed Blarney Cock and was like burning his body or whatever. And like the butcher was there and he was watching him and Huey like knew he was kind of there. So he like turns and he's thinking like the butcher's gonna make fun of him like he always does. But like he did it and he pretty much told him like, yo, like you gotta handle this however you.

you can and like, I'm not gonna make fun of you for it. So like, there is some goodness in the butcher. And like, in that moment, I also thought about like, the boys, like just kinda boys in general, especially when we were younger, like we're hard on each other sometimes, but at the end of the day, like we always have each other's backs, like with a friend group. So that kinda made me like, I was like, oh, like the boys, like that kinda made me think of that. Like I was really digging.

But like reaching maybe, but like that was like, yeah, like you might be hard on your friends, but as soon as someone from the outside tries to mess with your friend group, like, oh hell no, like we're not having that. So that's just something I thought of.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (49:39.521)
All right. I had initially written down still the female because I, I looked at it and I went like, she has the best shitty to badass ratio of all the characters. But I think realistically for me, it's starlight because I love that we are starting to see that character arc. She's starting to make choices for herself. She's starting to learn. She's starting to stand up for herself and do the right thing.

Dave (49:41.407)
Uh,

Matt - CDWA (49:44.771)
She doesn't say anything.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (50:08.425)
Again, Garth Ennis parallels here in writing these comics. So I think I'm gonna go with Starlight.

Dave (50:15.3)
I also went starlight. Starlight's definitely my favorite.

Matt - CDWA (50:18.09)
And she also doesn't want to be them. Like that was, she's not trying to lower herself to their level. Like I like that, that line in there. She's like, I don't want to be you guys.

Dave (50:27.412)
And that happens in the show to starlight is also like probably the most likable character in the show and it happens a lot faster in the show than it does in this comic. So much so much slower, in fact, that in episode one of this, I picked her as my least favorite because she was so like caricature ish in that first volume that I was. Gross, but now I love her.

Matt - CDWA (50:29.229)
Okay.

Matt - CDWA (50:38.434)
Mm.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (50:52.65)
Yeah. Yep.

Dave (50:55.292)
We're back, we're back, we're back on Team Starlight. My least likable is A-Train. Even though we didn't talk about what he did, and I'm still not going to, he did a very horrible thing, or attempted to do a very horrible thing. And also he's just like a whiny little bitch of a character. The show version of A-Train is a lot more tolerable, because he's at least like self-absorbed and sort of like in like celebrity mindset, and that's easy to...

#1 Twiiggy Fan (51:02.556)
Mm-hmm.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (51:13.898)
Yeah.

Dave (51:25.068)
is easy to ignore or at least understand why he might be the way that he is. But in the comic, this guy's fucking insufferable.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (51:33.213)
Yeah, I like that in the show, they use him as a parallel. He is. He is and they use him as a parallel for a pro sports player. Very much so. And I think that that's an interesting dynamic that does not exist in the comic. He just sucks in the comic.

Matt - CDWA (51:33.586)
He's got that smooth black charm. He's got any black dude in the show, he's got that smooth black, yeah. Yeah.

Matt - CDWA (51:45.386)
Yeah, that's what you're...

Dave (51:47.163)
Yep.

Matt - CDWA (51:54.582)
got that sports coolness. Yeah, I mean, I was gonna say a train as well too. And as someone who also like tries to be a logical person like Dave, like he's just impulsive. Like, and I know that's like the speedster trait, but he's just always doing like stupid shit flying off the handle. And like, that's like the exact opposite of how I like to live my life. So it's like, I just, I can't handle this dude. He's just out of control. He's all over the place.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (52:24.733)
Uh, I picked a different member of the Seven, and it's a character that I want to like, but so far I've been given no reason to like, and I'm hoping that like Starlight, at some point we start to see that arc develop, we start to see this become a dynamic character. But as for right now, Queen Maeve just sucks. She is a one dimensional, only exists to be a piece of shit character.

Dave (52:28.936)
Mmm.

Matt - CDWA (52:49.526)
Hahahaha

Dave (52:51.58)
Fair. That's fair. Honestly, I hadn't even considered her, but the, as you were setting that up, I knew very quickly who you were about to say, uh, but because she's so one dimensional, she just shows up randomly to like drink a martini or a some sort of cocktail and like kind of be unbothered by everything that's happening around her. Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (53:01.599)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (53:14.141)
super dismissive and unsupportive. Yeah.

Dave (53:17.336)
Yeah, I think potentially it's the apathy that really turns me off and like makes me just ignore that character.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (53:22.985)
Yeah. But, and I, the first two volumes, I wouldn't have said or thought this, but after reading this one, I do think that we probably will start to see, like, I think that's intentional. I think the way we feel right now is the way we're supposed to feel right now. And at some point, that's going to be used to make us more dramatically feel the other way for this character. That's my hope. And I do think it'll happen.

Matt - CDWA (53:34.315)
Yeah.

Dave (53:47.504)
Yeah, I do too. I do too. Well, that's it. That's a wrap. The boys part three, a big plot twist for the three of us where we actually really enjoyed what we read and had a pretty good discussion about it. So thank you both for sticking with this, particularly you, Matt, who I will remind everyone again, chose this for all of us.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (53:54.092)
But yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (54:00.541)
Yeah.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (54:12.844)
No

Dave (54:13.116)
This was this was your idea, so I'm glad you're starting to come around to it. This is great. This is great news.

Matt - CDWA (54:19.126)
You've learned some things about me today and gentlemen, it was our cross to bear. But.

Dave (54:21.456)
Yeah.

Dave (54:27.129)
Well, on that note, we'll be back next month with hopefully another really great let's read episode for the boys. And by great, I mean, like we enjoyed what we read in two weeks. Matt and I will be back with a movie review episode. We haven't watched a shitty comic book movie and talked about it in a while. So we're going to punish ourselves for all of your entertainment in two weeks.

Matt - CDWA (54:35.978)
Hopefully.

Dave (54:53.88)
And then we'll be back in four with Eric and the boys part four.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (54:57.789)
Is it a secret? Do people already know what you're watching? Okay.

Dave (55:00.284)
They don't know.

Matt - CDWA (55:01.422)
Let's not talk about it.

Dave (55:03.448)
Yeah, it's a secret. We'll tell you. We'll tell you as soon as I hit stop on the recording.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (55:07.165)
Okay, I mean, I've watched all the shitty comic book movies, so I can't wait to talk to you about it.

Dave (55:09.316)
Yeah, I know you have. Thank you all for sticking around and checking out this episode. If it was your first, it's a weird place to start, but thank you. And if it's not your first, we appreciate the support. Thank you. We'll see in a couple of weeks. Until then, my name is Dave.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (55:19.853)
lol

Matt - CDWA (55:28.182)
And I'm out.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (55:29.491)
I'm Eric.

Dave (55:30.78)
Take care of yourselves everybody. Bye bye.

Matt - CDWA (55:33.154)
Peace.

Dave (55:36.68)
It's just a thumbs up. They can't see you. Oh.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (55:38.837)
That was to you, as unlike we did it, we completed the episode.

Matt - CDWA (55:43.466)
We did it!

Dave (55:44.656)
We did, we completed it. Okay, bye.

#1 Twiiggy Fan (55:45.929)
But also, I was up to the people that can't see us. Fuck you all.

Dave (55:50.264)
I'm cutting that out.