The End of Wonder Man?

Intro Sketch

Rex (00:00:00 - 00:00:03): Let’s go! The True North Nerds are about to start!

Ryan (00:00:03 - 00:00:06): I know! I’m trying to find the signal!

Brent (00:00:06 - 00:00:08): Thank you, Monster Nerd!

Ryan (00:00:08 - 00:00:10): No, that’s the wrong one.

Brent (00:00:10 - 00:00:16): Move over! Let me do it! If I don’t go to this nerd school, I’m gonna lose my mind!

Ryan (00:00:16 - 00:00:18): Come on, come on!

Jen (00:00:19 - 00:00:21): We can’t go against that guy! We’re nerds!

Brent (00:00:21 - 00:00:22): We’re gonna miss it!

Ryan (00:00:24 - 00:00:27): My fellow nerds and I will retire to the nerdery with our calculators.

Jen (00:00:27 - 00:00:27): Wait!

Ryan (00:00:28 - 00:00:28): I got it!

Theme Song

Kirby Crackle (00:00:29 - 00:00:47): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]

Kirby Crackle (00:00:48 - 00:00:58): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]

Welcome and Opening Chatter

Brent (00:00:58 - 00:01:24): Welcome, loyal listeners, to another episode of True North Nerds.

Jen (00:01:24 - 00:01:24): Yay!

Brent (00:01:26 - 00:01:45): This week, no Kevin. He is out with his family. Well, he may join us later. Depends on how long this show runs on and when his dinner is done. But in the meantime, we are going to talk a little bit of Wonder Man, a little bit of news, and a little bit of other stuff. And we have Jen.

Jen (00:01:46 - 00:01:47): Hi.

Brent (00:01:49 - 00:01:50): And Ryan.

Ryan (00:01:51 - 00:01:54): That’s me. I thought maybe we were having technical difficulties over here.

Jen (00:01:54 - 00:01:55): Why was that funny?

Brent (00:01:56 - 00:01:57): Because there was a long pause.

Jen (00:01:58 - 00:02:00): No, there wasn’t on my end.

Brent (00:02:00 - 00:02:00): Oh, there was.

Ryan (00:02:01 - 00:02:02): It was on our end.

Jen (00:02:02 - 00:02:05): Oh, there was absolutely no lag on my end.

Brent (00:02:06 - 00:02:10): All righty, uh, let’s start with the news, Ryan.

News: Trailers, Project Hail Mary, Toy News, and James Van Der Beek

Ryan (00:02:11 - 00:02:27): Oh hey, that’s me. That is, um, let’s, let’s see. Okay, we got a bunch of trailers, so as always we’ll start with those. Um, did you guys— I know Brent did. Jen, did you see the Spider-Man or Spider-Noir trailer with Nicolas Cage?

Jen (00:02:29 - 00:02:38): I don’t think so. You send me these trailers while I’m at work and then I forget to watch them when I get home. You have to send them after 4:30.

Ryan (00:02:39 - 00:03:19): Um, or send me a reminder. I’m not sitting in front of a computer. I, I, I look at this stuff on my lunch break and on my breaks, and that’s when I send it out. But, um, so yeah, we’ve got a full trailer for the Nicolas Cage starring Spider-Noir series coming to Amazon later this spring, I think. Spring, summer this year. It looks interesting. It looks like he’s going to Nicolas Cage the hell out of this, which could be great. And it’s available in black and white and in true color. What’d you think, Brent?

Brent (00:03:21 - 00:04:06): I found it interesting that they’re doing the two different versions of it. Well, at least in like color. Aspects. That actually quite felt like, oh yeah, this confirms that Nicolas Cage is involved with this. I don’t know. I’m interested, but it’s one of those things outside of like his appearance in the Spider-Verse comic book and Into the Spider-Verse, the animated movies. I don’t have much of a connection to the character. That’s all I’ve ever seen him in. So this could be not comic accurate at all and I would not have any idea.

Ryan (00:04:08 - 00:04:17): Same. My only other connection or exposure to him is in that one video game that came out years ago.

Brent (00:04:17 - 00:04:19): Oh yeah.

Ryan (00:04:19 - 00:04:20): I forget the broken dimension.

Brent (00:04:20 - 00:04:26): Web of Shadows? Shattered Dimension. Uh, I know which one you’re talking about.

Ryan (00:04:26 - 00:05:11): Dimensions or something. But yeah, you played as Ultimate Spider-Man, Spider-Man 2099, Spider-Man, and Spider-Man Noir. Hmm, it was pretty cool. Um, but same, I think as long as it’s an interesting period, like that style of, of series with— and that it’s shot well and that it’s interesting, that it’s a good story then it’ll be good. If it’s good, it’s good. Um, like you said, I have no real preconceptions other than how the character’s been portrayed in the, in the animated movie. Yeah, really, because even in the, uh, the Spider-Verse comic, I don’t— it wasn’t a big part of it.

Brent (00:05:11 - 00:05:25): No, he was like, yeah, and because he was like one of the multiverse Spider-Men that we, we knew was around because of that Spider-Man Noir miniseries from late— like, even at that point, that would have been a couple years old.

Ryan (00:05:26 - 00:05:31): Oh yeah, because that, like, the original comic series is what, early 2000s?

Brent (00:05:31 - 00:05:32): Yeah, something like that.

Ryan (00:05:34 - 00:05:40): Early enough that that video game came out in the, like, 2005 maybe.

Brent (00:05:40 - 00:05:41): Yep.

Ryan (00:05:41 - 00:05:42): Or, or earlier.

Brent (00:05:42 - 00:05:48): I remember my friend, uh, Brandon, the year that that video game came out, dressed up like that guy for Halloween.

Ryan (00:05:49 - 00:05:49): Oh, nice.

Brent (00:05:50 - 00:05:56): Yeah. He did a really good job with the costume though. Like for like a homemade, like Halloween costume, he did an excellent job.

Ryan (00:05:57 - 00:06:08): Well, if you can get a good trench coat and a good fedora, you’re halfway there. But yeah. So that’s coming. I think it’s great. I’m going to watch it in the black and white first for sure.

Brent (00:06:09 - 00:06:13): And then maybe watch it in color, like, or at least watch an episode kind of to see the difference.

Jen (00:06:13 - 00:06:17): Yeah. Yeah, you kind of have to watch it in black and white.

Ryan (00:06:18 - 00:06:53): Well, exactly. It’s fitting that way, especially with the way his story was in the cartoon movie and Into the Spider-Verse there, or Across the Spider-Verse, whichever one that one was, where his world is black and white and he’s amazed when he sees color, like the Rubik’s Cube, right? So he brings that back to his world and it’s the only color that’s there. Should be good. Oh, Jen, did you see this trailer? Then we got a full— another full trailer for Project Hail Mary.

Jen (00:06:54 - 00:06:56): Yes, I did watch that one.

Ryan (00:06:56 - 00:07:31): Yes. Where they right off the bat, right off the start, showed Rocky. Yay. And even— and the— I’ve heard a lot of people online, big fans of the book, saying, you know, they kept talking around Rocky. And his appearance and him being there. But the author of the book himself is in some versions of the trailer, starting in the trailer first saying, hey, this is as much of Rocky’s movie as it is Ryan Gosling’s character’s movie. It’s not a spoiler to show off Rocky.

Jen (00:07:32 - 00:08:23): So yeah, because when I— so before I read the book, when I first— when I saw the first trailer and we just saw basically Rocky’s hand, and I didn’t know anything about the book. I was like, oh, crap. It’s going to be another Aliens movie where he’s hunted and he’s going to have to fight this alien and blah, blah, blah. And I was really not— I was like, whatever. I’ll see it because it’s Ryan Gosling. Then I read the book, and now I’m like, holy crap, I love Rocky. So I was really happy to see him in this trailer. And yes, he is— I like the voice that they picked for him. I pictured him much larger in my head. Than they pictured him. But it makes more sense the way he moves around Ryan Gosling’s ship to him, for him to be that the size he is in the trailer. But I pictured him more like a Geodude, like a larger guy, like, but like spidery.

Ryan (00:08:25 - 00:08:25): Yep.

Jen (00:08:27 - 00:08:56): So I’m really— I mean, I’m already looking forward to this movie. It’s definitely one of the most anticipated movies for me of this year. So I’m really happy that they got to show off Rocky. And you can actually see that it’s not a Us us versus them movie, which I love, which is one of the things I loved about the book. It’s a story about friendship and working together to solve a problem that affects more than just us. So that’s why I like the book too.

Brent (00:08:57 - 00:08:58): So exactly.

Jen (00:08:58 - 00:08:59): I like this thing.

Ryan (00:08:59 - 00:09:03): They haven’t really given away what the problem is in the trailers yet either.

Brent (00:09:04 - 00:09:05): So we won’t either.

Jen (00:09:06 - 00:09:09): I’m curious how they’re going to explain it in the movie because it’s kind of complicated.

Ryan (00:09:12 - 00:09:38): You see some of it in the trailer. If you know what it is, you see what you’re looking for, you see it. But yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m looking forward to seeing this movie. I love the book. And The Martian has been on TV a lot recently, which is by the same author. So I’ve been watching that since it’s, you know, it’s on TV. So it’s just, oh, Martian’s on. Okay, I’ll watch this. So yeah, looking forward to seeing that one.

Jen (00:09:38 - 00:10:09): Yeah. And now that I’ve read Project Hail Mary, I kind of want to read The Martian because again, I’m not a big fan of reading sci-fi. I like watching sci-fi because, you know, they explain all the mumbo jumbo and I can just like, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But when you read it, you feel like you have to actually understand it. But now having read Project Hail Mary and seeing how the author writes, I’m like, okay, I bet The Martian is probably written along the same lines and it’s probably pretty easy to understand. So I’m like, now I’m going to read The Martian.

Ryan (00:10:09 - 00:10:20): Yeah. It’s a well-written book as well. And there’s a lot of stuff that they saw, a few sequences that got cut from the book, cut from when they made the movie.

Jen (00:10:20 - 00:10:21): Yeah.

Ryan (00:10:21 - 00:10:21): Yeah.

Jen (00:10:21 - 00:10:31): I haven’t seen the movie in a long time, but yeah. Anyway, all this to say, you should read Project Hail Mary before, if you want to, before you go see the movie.

Ryan (00:10:31 - 00:10:42): If you think you have time to read it, great. Otherwise, I would say don’t read it right now. Watch some of the trailers, but just go see the movie. And then if you really liked it, check out the book afterwards.

Jen (00:10:42 - 00:10:46): Oh yeah. I forget that it takes people longer than 2 weeks to read a book sometimes.

Ryan (00:10:46 - 00:10:56): Yeah. I just remember the last time I read a book right before I saw a movie was Goblet of Fire, Harry Potter.

Jen (00:10:57 - 00:10:57): Oh yeah.

Ryan (00:10:57 - 00:11:27): Because that was one of my favorite books from that series. When the movie was coming out, it’s like, oh, I took the time to read it again before the movie. So I went into it with it fresh in my head and there’s so many differences in that movie from the book that I kind of didn’t enjoy the movie at the time. I thought it was good, but it wasn’t as good as it could have been. And now with more time in between since I’ve read that book and I’ve seen that movie now more times than I’ve read the book, it doesn’t bother me as much and I can just enjoy the movie.

Jen (00:11:28 - 00:11:28): Yeah.

Ryan (00:11:30 - 00:11:31): Did you see the trailer, Brent?

Brent (00:11:32 - 00:12:44): No, I’m, I’m in a weird way starting to be like, fine, like Kevin, where I’m like, I kind of, if it’s a movie where I know there’s going to be like surprises in it, I don’t want to watch it beforehand or read the book for that matter. Um, I, I know I’ve told the story a lot that, you know, when the Lord of the Rings movies came out went and saw the first one, and then all of my friends went out and either bought or picked up off the shelf the other books, right? And started reading them before the other movies came out. And I decided not to because I’m like, I haven’t read these since I was a teenager. That way it’s only like vague, like the movies are going to be close in my head. And then like, so when we go and see the second one, all my friends are like, oh, well, they didn’t have this and this didn’t happen. That way, and that didn’t happen that way, because they had all read the book, so they had that recent comparison in their head. So yeah, I’m looking forward to it, and I’m glad you guys are looking forward to it, but I’m going to kind of avoid some of the things from now on.

Ryan (00:12:45 - 00:12:45): Yep.

Jen (00:12:45 - 00:13:36): Yeah, fair. You know what, Lord of the Rings is a similar story. I had never read Lord of the Rings when that movie had come out. Like, I owned it, I had it sitting on my shelf, and I think I’d read The Hobbit, but I just, I could not get into Lord of the Rings, the books. I just wasn’t my type of fantasy at the time. So I didn’t even, I had never even read it by when the movies came out. So then I purposely refused to read it until after I’d seen all the movies, and then I went back and read the books, and I could appreciate the books more because, let’s face it, They’re good books. I’m not denying that. They’re a little dry at times. So, but having seen the movie and knowing what was coming, I could kind of get into the books a little bit better. So, you know, it’s, you know, whatever you feel is your way of enjoying both types of media.

Ryan (00:13:39 - 00:14:00): I tried to read the first book before the movie came out and I didn’t get far in. I was like 200 pages in. And I went and saw the movie and then I was like, yeah, I’m not going to finish reading this because that 200 pages is maybe like the first 25, 30 minutes of the book, of the movie.

Jen (00:14:00 - 00:14:23): Yeah. Yeah, no, there’s Lord of the Rings is one of those diehard fandoms and fair enough. Like it’s a good book. It’s a good movie. I’m not going to argue that, but Like I said, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s dry. It’s hard to, to really get into. So I don’t fault people for not reading it.

Ryan (00:14:26 - 00:14:42): Um, okay, I know I’m almost certain you guys both saw this because I’m pretty sure we all commented on it. Uh, so during The Big Game, we got a, uh, short The Mandalorian and Grogu trailer clip. Yes, thing.

Jen (00:14:42 - 00:14:43): Was that a trailer?

Ryan (00:14:44 - 00:14:53): Well, that’s what they were calling it. I personally, I don’t even think that’s in the movie. I think it was just a take on the Budweiser Clydesdale commercials.

Brent (00:14:53 - 00:14:55): That’s exactly what it was.

Ryan (00:14:56 - 00:15:06): But it was great just seeing Grogu in The Mandalorian with, uh, you know, on a sleigh being pulled by some, uh, some, some wampas.

Jen (00:15:08 - 00:15:08): Tontons.

Ryan (00:15:09 - 00:15:25): Tontons. Sorry. Wampa’s the snowman, the abominable snowman. Tontons are the ones that smell worse on the inside. With the whole passing of the reins and the voiceover by possibly— crap, what’s his name?

Jen (00:15:26 - 00:15:26): Pedro Pascal.

Ryan (00:15:27 - 00:15:29): No, that wasn’t his voice.

Jen (00:15:29 - 00:15:31): Oh, I forget. I’m just guessing now.

Ryan (00:15:31 - 00:15:32): Oh, Brent.

Brent (00:15:33 - 00:15:33): Sam Elliott.

Ryan (00:15:34 - 00:15:48): Is the guy you’re looking for. Yeah. But yeah, so that was fun. Did you guys watch that trailer that Rex shared with us? I believe it was Rex for the Young Sherlock Holmes series.

Jen (00:15:49 - 00:15:50): Oh, I think I shared that one.

Ryan (00:15:50 - 00:15:51): Oh, did you? Sorry.

Jen (00:15:51 - 00:15:57): Yeah, I don’t share very many, so I remembered sharing that one. It looks cool.

Ryan (00:15:58 - 00:16:18): Yeah. It’s coming to Amazon Prime March 4th, so not too long from now. We see a young Sherlock Holmes at his, you know, going to some private school and he becomes friends with Moriarty and there’s a mystery to solve. And it looks interesting.

Jen (00:16:19 - 00:17:04): So here’s talking about books I’ve never read again. I have never read any of the Sherlock Holmes books, or I don’t really know much about the deep lore of Sherlock Holmes. I only know it from movies that I’ve seen and the TV show with Benedict Cumberbatch, but I really— and maybe this is true for actual Holmes lore, which is what I’m getting at— but I really like the fact that Moriarty and Holmes are in a school together and are friends. It’s kind of giving me Xavier and Magneto vibes, which means that, like, you know, they’re friends to a certain point, then they have some sort of fundamental moral deviation where one of them has to go one way, the other has to go the other way. I don’t know if that’s actually part of real lore.

Brent (00:17:05 - 00:17:06): I want to say no.

Jen (00:17:08 - 00:17:09): I like the idea.

Brent (00:17:09 - 00:17:18): I could be wrong though. I read a lot of Sherlock Holmes when I was a teenager. I went through this phase where even probably when I was 12 or 13.

Jen (00:17:19 - 00:17:21): Really? I didn’t know you did that.

Brent (00:17:21 - 00:18:07): Yeah, there was a brief period where I wanted to be a detective. So that’s where all my detective things have come from. I don’t think they do, but I think that’s— I think that’s like one of those things that like has been added on like over the years, like in other media. Like, I don’t think it’s in the original lore kind of thing, but I think it is like something that like has been used in certain things. And like, hey, if you’re doing a young Sherlock Holmes, you kind of need some sort of attachment to it.

Ryan (00:18:08 - 00:18:13): Yeah. Some kind of force, you know, because you’re not going to have Watson in it if it’s a young Sherlock Holmes.

Jen (00:18:14 - 00:18:15): Well, we’ll see.

Brent (00:18:15 - 00:18:16): But you shouldn’t.

Jen (00:18:16 - 00:18:17): But we’ll see. Yeah.

Brent (00:18:19 - 00:18:43): Although, have you— do either of you remember the Young Sherlock Holmes movie that Steven Spielberg produced? I believe Robert Zemeckis directed it. It’s one of the— it’s brought up because it’s like one of the first times CGI is used to animate like a character because there’s the stained glass like robot thing.

Jen (00:18:43 - 00:18:45): No, I definitely don’t remember that.

Ryan (00:18:46 - 00:18:46): Yeah, no.

Jen (00:18:47 - 00:18:57): I do remember Young Hercules though, because again, Ryan Gosling. Anyway, back to Young Sherlock Holmes. Yeah. What were you going to say, Brent?

Brent (00:18:59 - 00:19:03): Who is in it? Nobody.

Jen (00:19:04 - 00:19:05): I’m just looking it up.

Brent (00:19:05 - 00:19:33): Oh, it was directed by Barry Levinson. It was written by Chris Columbus, who went on to write the Home Alones and stuff like that. I’m pretty sure Yeah, it was— Amblin Entertainment produced it. So, okay. Yeah, some— is it like— in my head it was fun, but like, it— like, I could be completely wrong, you know what I mean? Like, watching it now, it could be like crap.

Ryan (00:19:33 - 00:19:59): Um, so yeah, like I said, that’s coming our way March 4th. So another reason to subscribe to Amazon Prime, possibly. Um, and then, uh, another Supergirl clip/trailer. Um, so the last one we saw was an extended look at Lobo, and then this time we get to see when she first meets and finds Krypto.

Jen (00:20:01 - 00:20:09): I don’t think I’ve seen either of those because, like Brent was saying before, I’m gonna go see this movie. I don’t need to watch all of the trailers and teasers and stuff.

Ryan (00:20:10 - 00:20:17): Oh yeah, I’m pretty much at that point with this movie too. But you know, it’s part of my job on the podcast is to find this stuff.

Jen (00:20:17 - 00:20:23): So that is true. I guess technically my job was to watch it, but why start now?

Brent (00:20:26 - 00:20:31): It was also— that was apparently— that was used as kind of the introduction for the Puppy Bowl this year.

Ryan (00:20:32 - 00:20:34): Oh yeah. Okay, I don’t see that.

Jen (00:20:35 - 00:20:41): Fun fact, the Puppy Bowl got more views than, uh, Uh, then Kid Rock’s halftime show.

Brent (00:20:41 - 00:20:47): Yeah, yeah, Kid Rock’s, uh, lip-syncing extravaganza.

Ryan (00:20:48 - 00:20:55): Yeah, yeah, that’s the one. Um, okay, so in some news headlines, um, you know the game Baldur’s Gate?

Jen (00:20:56 - 00:20:56): Yes, yes.

Ryan (00:20:57 - 00:21:07): Uh, apparently it is getting a TV series, uh, possibly, or at least there’s one in the works at HBO. From the co-creators of The Last of Us and Hasbro Entertainment.

Jen (00:21:08 - 00:21:09): Yeah.

Ryan (00:21:11 - 00:21:13): So yeah, that’s interesting.

Jen (00:21:14 - 00:21:15): Have either of you ever played Baldur’s Gate?

Brent (00:21:17 - 00:21:17): No.

Ryan (00:21:17 - 00:21:27): It is one of those— that new— the latest one that’s out is one of those games that I do check every so often when there’s like, you know, Xbox sales to see if it’s come down in price.

Jen (00:21:28 - 00:21:35): Yeah. Is that the one that— I don’t know if you watch the clips that Stinky Dragon posts. Is that Baldur’s Gate that they’re playing?

Ryan (00:21:35 - 00:21:35): Yes.

Jen (00:21:35 - 00:21:37): Ah, that’s what I thought.

Ryan (00:21:40 - 00:21:47): Yeah, I’ve heard nothing but good things about this, about that Baldur’s Gate game. So one of these days I may pick it up.

Jen (00:21:47 - 00:22:00): If it’s cross-platform and I can play it on my computer while you guys play it on your Xbox, we could have like a True North Nerds Baldur’s Gate party. I can play with you guys.

Ryan (00:22:01 - 00:22:27): Yay, that’s fun. Um, so Toy Fair is this weekend, and Ed and I are probably going to record this week and talk all about it. But there was, uh, one headline that came out of, I think, just before Toy Fair that I had to bring up here today with you, Brent, because We now know the new home of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that is with Mattel.

Brent (00:22:28 - 00:22:28): Yes.

Ryan (00:22:30 - 00:22:31): Um, so go for it.

Brent (00:22:32 - 00:23:01): Yeah, so, uh, we knew because Playmates had announced, uh, a while ago that they were losing the license, which seemed, uh, like in a weird way it’s the end of an era because there has not been Turtles with out like in the public mainstream consciousness without Playmates. Like they were there on the ground floor. Like the comic was out and they helped. They basically, with the toy line, helped with the cartoon, right?

Ryan (00:23:02 - 00:23:05): Yeah. And they’re responsible for creating a lot of the characters.

Brent (00:23:05 - 00:25:09): Yes. And a lot of weird looks and stuff. Um, yeah. So it’s, it’s kind of interesting that, you know, now I’m not sure how long the deal was when they, like, if the toy deal was still in process when Nickelodeon bought the property, but they, like, they obviously went to market and shopped it around, uh, and it is, Mattel has picked it up. Now what they’re going to do with it, that is yet to be seen because that doesn’t start till 2027. But a favorite of all of ours on YouTube, Pixel Dan, talked to the main guy at Super 7 because Super 7’s been doing Turtle stuff all over the place for the last little while. And they’re not the only ones. And Pixel Dan asked him in a nice way, point blank, so what does this mean for you? And he replied back with, don’t know. More or less, they basically— he laid it out in like the most diplomatic of terms you can possibly do of, you know, Mattel has what they call like the master license. Everybody else will have to follow what Mattel does and does not want to do with that license. So if Mattel just wants to focus on the upcoming sequel to Mutant Mayhem and like figures and stuff that way, then the other guys will probably be allowed to do other things like the cartoon series from when we were kids or that 2016 show or the live action, all that sort of stuff, right? It basically depends, or Mattel goes, no, we’re doing all of it. And then everybody else is like, gets to do what they can until their licenses run out.

Jen (00:25:10 - 00:25:11): Everybody else is SOL.

Brent (00:25:12 - 00:26:03): Yeah, they basically have to follow what Mattel doesn’t want to do, for lack of better terms. But I’ll be curious to see it and the form factor. And also, yeah, and to see like you know, what they end up like, who, what they decide they want to do with it, and who is no longer going to be doing anything with it. Because that’s the other thing is like, well, Playmates had what they always described as the master license for it. The, you know, Playmates had Turtles figures, NECA had Turtles figures, Super 7 had Turtles figures.

Ryan (00:26:03 - 00:26:05): McFarlane’s had Turtles figures.

Brent (00:26:05 - 00:26:14): McFarlane’s had Turtles figures. Uh, what, Loyal Subjects? Is that the ones who were doing the, the best action figure? Yeah, they were doing a line of Turtles figures.

Ryan (00:26:15 - 00:26:16): Mattel did Turtle figures.

Brent (00:26:16 - 00:26:48): Mattel did, uh, Turtles of Greyskull. Um, yeah, so it’s going to be interesting to see how that gets pulled back and what their take is on it. Um, I’m curious. I like, you know, Mattel is pulling on a bunch of licenses this year and I’m very curious to see how it goes. Like, because they also have like they have He-Man obviously and they’ve got this and their DC license starts towards the end of this year as well.

Ryan (00:26:48 - 00:26:53): So yeah, that could be a big year for them where I—

Brent (00:26:54 - 00:27:14): the one thing I do see since they have the DC and have the Turtles license, is I can see them revisiting the various Batman Ninja Turtles crossover things. Oh yeah, they have both license and in-house. Why wouldn’t you? Yeah, like if you can, if you’re allowed to do it, do it.

Ryan (00:27:15 - 00:27:23): I could see them doing more, uh, wrestling crossovers with Turtles again too, since they did those ones. Yeah, with the guy, the wrestlers.

Brent (00:27:23 - 00:27:25): I had completely forgotten about that, but you’re right. Yeah.

Ryan (00:27:25 - 00:27:33): Because yeah, like WWE figures is probably one of their larger boy action figure toy lines right now.

Brent (00:27:34 - 00:27:49): Definitely. I would say probably their, their 3 main brands of toys, period, would be Barbie first. Barbie’s probably— I, I’m— this is just me guessing. I’m imagining Barbie is probably their biggest toy line.

Jen (00:27:50 - 00:28:31): I did read something recently that they’re not— they’ve lost— not lost money, but Barbie hasn’t been doing as well as they, I think, hope that or hoped it did or anticipated it would, whatever the term is. I didn’t actually read the article. I was just skimming headlines. So, you know, take this with a grain of salt, but I kind of believe it because honestly, the quality of the dolls is kind of crap. I like to collect like the ’80s and ’90s dolls and even the early 2000s dolls because like the past couple years, like the dolls are crappy plastic, the clothes are basically plastic. It’s just—

Brent (00:28:31 - 00:28:34): you’re talking about like the general retail ones, right?

Jen (00:28:34 - 00:29:55): Yeah, yeah, not the collector dolls. Some people are arguing even the quality of the collector dolls are going down. So the most recent one that I really want to buy, um, because it’s Goddess Fortuna and, you know, I like Roman goddesses, um, they were comparing her to the Greek goddess line that they did a couple years ago, maybe more than a couple years ago at this point, decade ago. And like, they’re saying that the clothing, it’s not— again, it’s, it’s not actual— it is cloth, but it’s like not embroidered cloth, it’s just like screen printed. And you know, the, the jewelry is like, it’s okay, it’s almost like the cheap plastic, uh, like AliExpress type of jewelry. Um, it’s not a new face sculpt and it’s not a new body pose, so it’s basically like they took an old doll and buster up, and then they’re charging $150 Canadian for it. So there’s been— not all collector’s dolls are like that, but this most recent one that’s come out, people have been criticizing it a little bit on it. So like the quality— and the thing is like the quality is going down, but the costs are either staying the same or going up, so people aren’t buying them as much. And then Mattel is like, why aren’t people buying our dolls? Yeah, like, yeah. Anyway, so I still want to buy it, but I can’t— again, I can’t justify the $150 cost for what the doll is. Yeah.

Ryan (00:29:55 - 00:30:09): So I don’t know, maybe it’s just because I’m also not the target audience for any of the Barbie, but is there any kind of like media right now for Barbie? Like when the movie was a few, like a couple of years ago now, is there a cartoon?

Jen (00:30:10 - 00:30:13): I honestly don’t follow Barbie media that much, so I don’t know.

Brent (00:30:14 - 00:30:23): Um, to be fair, there hasn’t really been a lot of Barbie media, period, right? Like, there was straight-to-DVD movies.

Jen (00:30:23 - 00:30:24): Yeah, yeah.

Brent (00:30:24 - 00:30:39): But like, it’s not like— she’s not a lot— it’s not like He-Man where there was like a cartoon and then a movie and like, like a, like a cartoon that we all remember. Yeah, like that. Like, it’s not like a series, right?

Jen (00:30:40 - 00:31:32): So that really depends on when and how you grew up. So I was never into animated Barbie movies, but the 2000s, there’s been a ton of Barbie CGI movies where the dolls are super popular. So there’s Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses, which I think— I don’t know if that’s the most recent one, but the princess’s name was Princess Genevieve, so I had to buy that doll. There was the Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus. People love those. Fairytopia. Like, there’s been— I’ve never— I’ve not seen any of these. There’s a whole mermaid one. Um, so people really got into the movies, um, and especially if it was like the movie you watched as a child, even though they were never had some sort of like full release. But I’m trying to look up to see— oh, Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses was 2006. Yeesh. Like, this was way before.

Brent (00:31:33 - 00:31:43): I know my fake daughter was on a stretch there where she was watching them, and I believe she was doing it ironically because they’re not very good.

Jen (00:31:44 - 00:31:44): Yeah.

Ryan (00:31:45 - 00:31:47): So she doesn’t strike me as the Barbie type.

Jen (00:31:48 - 00:31:56): It looks like the heyday of it was until about 2015, and then it started to go downhill. I’m just looking it up on Wikipedia.

Brent (00:31:56 - 00:31:57): Yeah.

Jen (00:31:57 - 00:32:36): Uh, it looks like there was movies as recently as 2025 according to this Wikipedia article, so they are still making it. But I feel like the heyday when, uh, they really got a lot of tie-ins with the movies and the dolls was like petered out around 2010, maybe 2012. Oh no, 2015, let’s say. Yeah, because now when I’m doing my I’m not going to say research, but when I’m looking around for dolls, I don’t see a lot of— other than the Barbie movie, I don’t see a lot of movie tie-ins. I see more of the older stuff that was a movie tie-in.

Brent (00:32:37 - 00:32:39): Yeah.

Ryan (00:32:40 - 00:33:24): Well, speaking of movie tie-ins and toy companies, Hasbro has announced their Hasbro 40th anniversary apology tour. That’s happening this summer where they are apologizing for killing Optimus Prime 40 years ago. It’ll be 40 years ago this year that Transformers: The Movie came out and, you know, and scarred a generation of children. I was scared by it. I was fine. It sucked. Optimus Prime died, but that meant we got Hot Rod. That’s awesome.

Jen (00:33:25 - 00:33:26): And I’m not one of his tribe.

Ryan (00:33:27 - 00:33:29): No, he became Rodimus Prime.

Jen (00:33:30 - 00:33:32): I know, they should have called him Hot Rodimus Prime.

Ryan (00:33:34 - 00:33:46): But so yeah, so as part of the reintroducing the movie into theaters, hopefully we get a showing at a reasonable hour on a good day up here so we can go see it again and have fun.

Brent (00:33:46 - 00:33:50): I was going to say, we’ve already seen it on the big screen at least once, if not twice, haven’t we?

Ryan (00:33:51 - 00:33:59): Once for the 30th anniversary when the Blu-ray came out. We went and saw it, a bunch of us. That was great.

Brent (00:34:00 - 00:34:06): Maybe we can make that a Big B movie or a triple.

Jen (00:34:08 - 00:34:08): Yep.

Ryan (00:34:09 - 00:34:09): Tighten.

Brent (00:34:09 - 00:34:11): Yeah.

Ryan (00:34:11 - 00:34:35): Get a crew together. But that, yep. So that’s coming out this year as well. Um, and then my last little bit of news that I’ve got is some sad news. Um, actor James Van Der Beek passed away this week at the age of 48. Uh, he had been battling cancer since 2023. He is survived by his wife Kimberly and their 6 children.

Brent (00:34:37 - 00:34:58): And it sounds like his GoFundMe is already— which we should also point out, like, I don’t know what his financials were like, if he spent a lot of his money beforehand, but like the The fact that, you know, his cancer treatments kind of made his family broke. Yeah, we’re talking about the guy from Dawson’s Creek, people.

Jen (00:34:59 - 00:35:14): And he was working up to 2023, I think, was when he had to stop. So it’s not like he was— or maybe 2024— it’s not like he was diagnosed and he was like, well, I’m done. Like, he was still actively working while battling cancer.

Brent (00:35:15 - 00:35:16): Yep, as much as he could.

Jen (00:35:16 - 00:35:17): Yeah, as much as he could.

Brent (00:35:18 - 00:35:34): Yeah, of course he had to bow out. We knew things had sort of gone awry when there was that like reunion, cast reunion or whatever, and he had to like bow out basically.

Jen (00:35:34 - 00:35:38): Yeah, but he sent a video. Did you guys see the scene?

Ryan (00:35:38 - 00:35:39): Yeah, he did.

Brent (00:35:39 - 00:35:41): He did not look rough.

Ryan (00:35:41 - 00:35:41): Yeah.

Jen (00:35:41 - 00:36:14): No, I was like, oh no. So I mean, it was definitely not a surprise to hear this news. It was very sad. I mean, I didn’t watch Dawson’s Creek. I don’t know why. I was probably the prime target. I think I was watching more Buffy than Dawson’s Creek. That’s just how my interests went. But obviously, I’ve seen James Van Der Beek in a ton of stuff. Most recently for me, I was watching Don’t Trust the B in Apartment 23, which I love. That was a great show.

Ryan (00:36:14 - 00:36:15): It was a good show.

Jen (00:36:15 - 00:36:44): He plays himself, which is great. He was so good at comedy. My friend, when he passed away, posted on Facebook a Kesha video that he was in, which I didn’t know about. And even that, he was— it was a ridiculous video and he was doing some great comedic acting in it. So like, I can’t say that I was a super fan, but like still genuinely upset also because he was so young, but still genuinely upsetting to hear that he’s passed.

Brent (00:36:46 - 00:37:18): Yeah, yeah. The, um, one of the interesting stories that, like, you know, like, none of us have met the guy, so I, I can’t say for certain how nice a person he was or not, but I saw a, a video posted by Eric Andre, who’s a comedian. Um, you, you guys, uh would basically recognize him more from memes and, uh, 2 Broke Girls than anything else.

Jen (00:37:19 - 00:37:22): Oh yeah, yeah. So I was trying to place the name.

Brent (00:37:22 - 00:37:26): So he was in the— that, uh, what, what’s it called? The, the bee in—

Jen (00:37:27 - 00:37:29): oh, Don’t Trust the Bee in Apartment 23.

Brent (00:37:29 - 00:38:26): Yeah, so that was his first real, like, acting job. And he was saying, like, he ran into James Van Der Beek, or Vander— James Van Der Beek, like, ran into him, like, and he was obviously nervous about working with all these, like, you know, professional actors since he’s like, you know, while an actor, he had done mainly comedy and stuff like that, like, just like stand-up and sketches and stuff like that. And basically James went up to him and is like, like, just remember, all of these people auditioned for this part and you got it. And it wasn’t by accident. And he has kept that with him ever since. Like, just, you know, just something reminded, like, you know, like, I— this isn’t a fluke that I got this. It’s because I’m good.

Jen (00:38:28 - 00:39:20): But I think you need to take that advice to heart too sometimes, Trent. Yeah, I mean, obviously we didn’t know him. I don’t recall ever hearing anything scandalous or anything bad about him. Even I read his former wife— so before he married his current wife, he had obviously an ex-wife— and even she was saying wonderful things about him. I mean, I know nothing about their relationship, how good, bad, whatever, but like he was She was— usually this is when, you know, the stuff comes out from between the cracks and people are like, ah, he’s gone, I can take this opportunity to really— but like, I haven’t heard anybody say anything bad at all or disparaging or anything at all. So I mean, I feel like he was a genuinely good person.

Brent (00:39:20 - 00:39:39): I hope, um, it could definitely poke fun at himself. Like he’s played himself in a bunch of things. So there was that show. He plays himself in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back and then reprises that version of himself in the Jay and Silent Bob reboot movie.

Jen (00:39:40 - 00:39:48): Oh yeah, I think I saw a clip of that and I was like, I haven’t seen this movie, but this is funny because it was him and the guy from American Pie. What’s his name?

Ryan (00:39:48 - 00:39:49): Yeah.

Jen (00:39:49 - 00:40:02): Yeah. And they were at the clip I saw was them at Comic-Con, I guess, San Diego Comic-Con, and the American Pie guy was just like, this movie is crap and it’s awful, and James Banderas is like, just calm the hell down, American Pie.

Brent (00:40:06 - 00:40:14): So yeah, yeah, no, genuinely, apparently he made an appearance on The Masked Singer in 2025.

Jen (00:40:15 - 00:40:26): Oh, and he was also on Dancing with the Stars. Like I said, he was working Like after receiving his diagnosis, he was still working. I mean, fairly hard for somebody with this type of a diagnosis, I think.

Brent (00:40:27 - 00:40:40): Also, like a reminder to all of you that cancer don’t care how much money you have. It will come after you if it can. So, you know, keep an eye on things and get things checked out.

Ryan (00:40:44 - 00:40:46): Well, that’s it for my news. You guys got anything?

Brent (00:40:47 - 00:40:54): No, other than— so like, just on that side note, his GoFundMe has raised over $2 million.

Jen (00:40:56 - 00:40:57): Oh, good. That makes me happy.

Brent (00:40:57 - 00:41:09): So it’s going to cover essential living expenses, pay bills, and support his kids’ education. Somebody anonymously donated $50,000.

Ryan (00:41:11 - 00:41:11): Wow.

Brent (00:41:12 - 00:41:26): So I was looking at my guess is that might be the, uh, that might be the, um, donation from, uh, uh, a certain Iron Man actor because he, he was promoting this a while ago.

Jen (00:41:26 - 00:41:39): So, so I fell down a real, uh, a whole reading about his career and his life and his, his family. And his kids are flipping adorable, like they are Absolutely adorable children.

Brent (00:41:39 - 00:42:23): And what did his wife do? Was his wife a model? I don’t know, because that’s sometimes what happens is it’s the— it’s, you know, when you’re a good-looking person and then you marry a good-looking person, you have good-looking kids. You don’t necessarily get like good-looking people, but you have a higher than good odds for it. Yeah. Oh, it doesn’t say. Yeah, I can’t see what she did, but yeah, good on them. All right. Wonder Man. Oh, go ahead, Jen.

The Sims: Royalty and Legacy

Jen (00:42:23 - 00:42:31): Oh, I was going to say, I don’t know if it counts as news, but I knew there was a new Sims expansion pack. If anybody cares about Sims expansion packs.

Brent (00:42:32 - 00:42:33): Well, you do.

Ryan (00:42:34 - 00:42:34): I do.

Jen (00:42:35 - 00:45:14): It’s called Royalty and Legacy. And this expansion pack is again, uh, there’s been getting a lot of like mixed reviews because there’s been a lot of, um, so with the whole EA buyout thing, that’s still up in the air. Creators, a lot of the content creators have left the, what they call the EA Creator Network, which is when Basically EA would give different creators free access to upcoming packs for review purposes, right? Which is actually really smart because this is how I judge if I wanna buy a pack, cuz I watch the reviews on YouTube and then I’m like, oh, okay, that sounds cool. Because I know that it’s going to be the actual gameplay and not tailored, like designed by the company. So anyway, ever since that happened, a lot of the like larger creators have stepped away. And I find the smaller creators are not very diplomatic. They are very quick to point out all the bad things and not necessarily weigh that with the good things. So there’s been a lot of talk about how there’s been a lot of reuse in this pack of items from older packs, like chairs and tables and plants and stuff. And I’m like, okay, yeah, okay. But you know, it’s hard to design these things. So fair enough. Anyway, I bought the pack because it was my Valentine’s Day present to myself, so I’ve not been playing with it that much, and it’s really neat. So in this one, you get to basically be like modern royalty. So it’s not like medieval, but it’s like present-day royalty, and there’s a new career where you get to be a noble, and you can work your way up to being basically the queen or king of the world. And you do that by like basically either being a good monarch and like talking to the commoners and working your way up, or you could be kind of evil and use scandals and rumors and other things to basically knock your opponents down a couple of pegs and then take their spots. So I haven’t played with it too much yet, but so far I really like it. My main argument probably is that the worlds are big and empty. Which is kind of annoying. Like, they’re beautiful, but there’s not a lot to do in them, which is really frustrating because in order to go from one lot to another lot, there’s a loading screen. So you kind of want to do as much as you can while staying on your home lot. But that’s kind of true for the last couple of Sims worlds. But overall, I like it. I was going to wait until it went on sale, but then they offered you a deal where you could buy two— you get two kits along with the expansion pack. So I was like, I did the math and it worked out that It’s cheaper to do it this way.

Brent (00:45:14 - 00:45:28): I would just like to interrupt for our listeners who are wondering, the cat you hear in the background is getting old and senile. He’s perfectly okay. We’re not abusing him. He’s just yelling at clouds, essentially.

Jen (00:45:29 - 00:45:43): No, he’s meowing at his reflection in the window. Hamlet, come here. I would go pick him up, but I can’t move from my chair because I’m wearing headphones. Hang on, I’m going to take off my headphones and get the cat. You guys talk. That was my review of The Sims.

Ryan (00:45:43 - 00:45:46): Now that she’s gone, we can talk about her.

Jen (00:45:46 - 00:45:48): Come here, Hamlet.

Brent (00:45:48 - 00:46:06): So, Ryan, Wonder Man, we have all watched the final episodes. Yes. Spoilers may abound for listeners. I really liked it other than the final moments of the last episode.

Wonder Man Wrap-Up

Ryan (00:46:08 - 00:46:13): You mean you didn’t like it when he used his powers to fly away? Nah, I don’t—

Brent (00:46:13 - 00:46:25): I didn’t mind it. It was just like, it was like, you know, it was almost like they were like, oh shit, this is a Marvel show, we gotta make it more superhero-y, let’s do it in the last 10 minutes of the show.

Jen (00:46:27 - 00:46:29): Oh, you didn’t like the part where they broke him out of jail? I like—

Brent (00:46:29 - 00:46:51): I thought it was okay, but it was just like, yeah. I kind of thought there would have been maybe a little bit more impact if he hadn’t, like Trevor is actually like, you know, paying for his crimes. But other than that, I think we can all agree Ben Kingsley is the best part of that show, right?

Jen (00:46:51 - 00:46:52): Oh, absolutely.

Ryan (00:46:52 - 00:46:52): Hands down.

Brent (00:46:53 - 00:46:57): And like nothing against the gentleman who played Wonder Man.

Jen (00:46:57 - 00:46:58): Simon.

Brent (00:46:58 - 00:47:05): Yeah, uh, I don’t— I just don’t want to pronounce his name wrong.

Ryan (00:47:06 - 00:47:51): Yeah. Um, I think all the acting in this was great. Um, but yeah, he does stand out for sure. Um, I like that we get to see more of the— or a little bit more of the, uh, Department of Damage Control and the, you know, the politics behind it, where they’re at this point they’re like, well, we’ve got this giant prison that we’re paying for And we’ve got nobody in it, so we have to put people in it to justify our jobs. Even though he hasn’t, you know, so he’s like doing all this, and he’s more or less, he’s trying to set Simon up. He’s trying to get enough on him because I guess they have suspicions that he’s got powers or they have without the proof and say, well, he’s got power, so clearly he’s bad.

Brent (00:47:51 - 00:47:51): Yeah.

Ryan (00:47:51 - 00:47:52): And we should put him in jail.

Brent (00:47:57 - 00:48:00): Jai Abdul-Mateen II.

Ryan (00:48:02 - 00:48:03): That sounds right.

Brent (00:48:03 - 00:48:15): I’m just going from the pronunciation that they put on his Wikipedia page. He was also excellent in The Watchmen miniseries from HBO.

Ryan (00:48:16 - 00:48:17): Who was he on that?

Brent (00:48:17 - 00:48:19): He was Dr. Manhattan.

Ryan (00:48:20 - 00:48:21): Oh, okay.

Jen (00:48:22 - 00:48:22): Yeah, the naked dude.

Brent (00:48:23 - 00:48:23): Yeah.

Jen (00:48:24 - 00:48:26): Okay, now I kind of want to watch that show.

Ryan (00:48:26 - 00:48:30): He’s not naked until the end, like the last episode.

Brent (00:48:30 - 00:48:35): That show is— we should watch it, Jen. You would like it. It was very good.

Jen (00:48:36 - 00:48:36): Yeah, okay.

Brent (00:48:36 - 00:48:49): Um, but, uh, and amongst other things, he was also in the, the last Matrix movie, The Matrix Resurrections, uh, and, uh, he was in Candyman, like the, the 2021 version.

Ryan (00:48:49 - 00:48:53): In Matrix Resurrections, was he the new Morpheus?

Brent (00:48:53 - 00:48:53): Yes.

Ryan (00:48:54 - 00:48:54): Okay.

Brent (00:48:56 - 00:49:14): Which I haven’t seen that movie. I’m just going by his, uh, jeez, actually, you know what, his like filmography is pretty short. Like it starts in 2017, but there’s some like pretty big movie. Oh, he was Black Manta.

Jen (00:49:16 - 00:49:16): In what movie?

Ryan (00:49:16 - 00:49:18): In Aquaman? Oh, geez.

Jen (00:49:18 - 00:49:22): Didn’t he just have a big sphere on his head? Or not sphere, a big disc on his head though?

Brent (00:49:23 - 00:49:24): Kind of, yeah.

Ryan (00:49:24 - 00:49:25): Not the whole time though.

Brent (00:49:25 - 00:49:26): Yeah, not the whole time.

Jen (00:49:27 - 00:49:29): That wasn’t a great movie. I don’t really remember it too much.

Brent (00:49:30 - 00:50:11): Yeah. He was in The Greatest Showman, Aquaman, Us, which was really good, Trial of the Chicago 7, which I haven’t seen, but I heard good things about. He was in the other Aquaman movie. Um, oh, uh, he is in that, um, The Adventures of Cliff Booth, which comes out this year. That’s the, the sequel to, uh, Tarantino’s Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Yes, that Tarantino has written, but David Fincher is directing, and it’ll be on Netflix. Which I have more interest in it than I did the actual movie.

Ryan (00:50:12 - 00:50:16): Yeah, you know what, and I think they just put a trailer out for that this week.

Brent (00:50:16 - 00:50:27): Yeah, but, uh, yeah. So Jen, any, uh, any thoughts on your part about the, the end of Wonder Man? Did you enjoy the series on a whole?

Jen (00:50:29 - 00:52:22): On a whole, yes, I really did like it. I, I liked— honestly, I liked that it was an very power-centric. I liked that it was more of a reflection of what’s currently going on in the world, especially in America, with having to basically hide who you are in order to survive, whether that’s your powers or your race or whatever. And sorry, I got cat hair in my mouth. I liked the ending. I liked that To me, I feel like Trevor’s sacrifice at the end was— I was like, no, no, Trevor, no. I love that he was able to do that. And I really love that line of like, Trevor was the act, I’ve been the Mandalorian the whole time. I’m like, that was cool. Um, and I love that he did that. Mandalorian? The Mandarin. Um, and I love that he did that for Trevor because he obviously— like, their friendship, like, again there was good chemistry between the two of them. And again, because Ben Kingsley is amazing. And I really like that this is how he felt he could— the only way he could redeem himself and make sure that his friend got his dream. And then I did like the end. Like, I liked that then Simon decides to put all of his dream and everything at risk, basically, to save his friend. And just like, His friendship ends up becoming— he didn’t squander the gift by rescuing him right away and basically saying, oh yeah, I know, I’m not going to be Wonder Man anymore, I’m not going to do the movie, I’m just going to rescue you and be done. But he took the time to, you know, figure out who he was and, you know, figure out how to do it without basically what he’s been doing the whole movie, which was just basically running into things. Or movie, TV show. So I really liked it.

Ryan (00:52:24 - 00:52:32): Yeah, it’d be interesting to see if we get anything more with the character, and then what that would be, what it would look like.

Jen (00:52:33 - 00:52:41): Yeah, I’m wondering if they’re going to do a season 2, what that’s going to be like. Does Wonder Man have like a villain that they could introduce? I know nothing about Wonder Man.

Brent (00:52:42 - 00:52:45): Doesn’t he become a villain?

Jen (00:52:46 - 00:52:49): That wouldn’t surprise me. His— well, although his brother did say nice things about him.

Brent (00:52:50 - 00:52:57): Yeah, his brother. Yeah, his brother in the comics is his main villain, and that’s the, uh, the Grim Reaper.

Jen (00:52:59 - 00:53:00): What?

Brent (00:53:01 - 00:53:02): Isn’t that his name? No.

Ryan (00:53:03 - 00:53:05): Yeah, something like that. It’s like Reaper or Grim Reaper or something.

Brent (00:53:05 - 00:53:07): Where’s Kevin when we need him?

Jen (00:53:07 - 00:53:08): There you go, Hamlet.

Ryan (00:53:12 - 00:53:17): But I almost wonder if they did a season 2, would it be like them on the run even?

Brent (00:53:17 - 00:53:19): Yeah, which would also be interesting.

Jen (00:53:23 - 00:53:30): Yeah, but I don’t know if that could be because you could argue that the first season was them on the run because they’re hiding from the Department of Damage Control.

Ryan (00:53:31 - 00:53:34): Basically wasn’t really hiding from them yet because he didn’t know they were chasing him.

Jen (00:53:36 - 00:53:37): Yeah.

Brent (00:53:38 - 00:53:49): Like, for all intents and purposes, other than like the costume in the movie, this character is very different than the comic book one.

Ryan (00:53:51 - 00:53:51): Yeah.

Brent (00:53:55 - 00:53:57): I was just looking, trying to find out what is—

Jen (00:53:58 - 00:54:01): Ryan, did you say what you thought of it?

Ryan (00:54:01 - 00:54:03): Yes, I started. I thought I enjoyed it.

Jen (00:54:04 - 00:54:07): I missed it because I had to take off my headphones to rescue my yowly cat.

Ryan (00:54:07 - 00:54:08): Yep.

Brent (00:54:08 - 00:54:08): No.

Ryan (00:54:08 - 00:54:25): Now, do we think that he’s a mutant in this, in the MCU? You know, with his accident with the stove, air quotes, accident at a young age, it’s like that age where mutants power up.

Jen (00:54:25 - 00:54:44): Puberty. Yeah. You know, because he was like 13, 12. I think so. And I think actually Brent and I were talking about this when we we’re watching it because they’re going to introduce mutants into the MCU. So this is a kind of a good way to do it. And then I went on my usual rant of how we’re getting every mutant in the book except for Squirrel Girl.

Brent (00:54:44 - 00:54:47): Is Squirrel Girl an actual mutant?

Jen (00:54:47 - 00:55:01): Uh, I don’t think so. She doesn’t— so the, the, the Squirrel Girl parts that I’ve read, so I guess the, the most recent one, is basically she just says she’s not a mutant. She’s just been born— she was just always like this.

Brent (00:55:03 - 00:55:05): That’s a mutant in the Marvel Universe.

Jen (00:55:07 - 00:55:10): No, but she didn’t have an accident that gave her squirrel powers or—

Ryan (00:55:10 - 00:55:14): Yeah, but mutants don’t have accidents that get their powers. They just are born that way.

Jen (00:55:14 - 00:55:14): No, I know.

Ryan (00:55:15 - 00:55:16): Their powers manifest.

Jen (00:55:16 - 00:55:20): But I don’t think her powers manifested. I think she was literally born with a squirrel tail.

Ryan (00:55:20 - 00:55:24): Oh, I don’t want to know what her parents are up to.

Jen (00:55:28 - 00:55:35): Although distinct from mutants of Marvel Comics, Doreen has a genetic anomaly which gives her the ability to communicate with squirrels, according to Wikipedia.

Ryan (00:55:37 - 00:55:44): Yeah, she’s like, don’t label me like one of the mutants just because I’ve got a big squirrel tail.

Jen (00:55:45 - 00:55:58): Yeah, that’s why I was like, I don’t know, I kind of assume so, but I feel like That’s how they explained it in the show. Oh, and Hamlet’s back to be meowy.

Ryan (00:55:59 - 00:55:59): That’s okay.

Brent (00:56:01 - 00:56:01): Where did you go?

Jen (00:56:01 - 00:56:02): He’s back up on his perch.

Ryan (00:56:06 - 00:56:17): So I guess our next Marvel show is Daredevil Season 2. Brent?

Brent (00:56:19 - 00:56:26): Yeah, yeah. I was just looking through. Yeah, I think so. Unless there’s— I found something else in there.

Ryan (00:56:29 - 00:56:31): And then this summer, Spider-Man.

Brent (00:56:31 - 00:56:31): Yeah.

Ryan (00:56:31 - 00:57:24): And next winter, Doomsday. Oh, so I saw something. I didn’t put this in the news, but this works into this. There’s a lot of speculation we could be getting our first real trailer for Doomsday on today, Sunday. Tuesday the 17th. Apparently, you know, embedded in the codes of the movie trailers that we got, or blah blah blah, there’s a code and people cracked the codes and it’s got a date and a time that means that’s when we’re getting the full trailer. And yeah, internet sleuths, this is what they think they’ve figured out. So look this week for a possible Doomsday trailer. I’m still waiting for a Spider-Man trailer that apparently has leaked a bunch of times, but I haven’t seen it yet.

Brent (00:57:27 - 00:57:28): With all the villains in it.

Ryan (00:57:29 - 00:57:30): Yep. All the villains.

Brent (00:57:30 - 00:57:31): All of the villains.

Jen (00:57:31 - 00:57:32): All of them.

Brent (00:57:32 - 00:57:36): They’re all in there. I think even Mr. Burns from The Simpsons is now a Spider-Man villain.

Ryan (00:57:37 - 00:57:43): Yep. Now, did you see some of the, of course, merchandise that could potentially be spoiling characters?

Brent (00:57:44 - 00:57:47): No. No, I haven’t, to be honest.

Ryan (00:57:47 - 00:58:05): There was— I saw there was like a backpack that had a Spider-Man backpack, and in the background there’s like, uh, an image of like the Hulk and, uh, Boomerang and a few other people. The Boomerang one was the one that threw me off. I was like, oh, that’s an interesting character to add to the movieverse.

Brent (00:58:06 - 00:58:22): You know what, it’s too bad they didn’t add him earlier. Yeah, because like, he— like, they have that, like, living in their apartment with Boomerang.

Ryan (00:58:23 - 00:58:27): Well, they’re at the— no, but adding him now, that could be the perfect time to do something like that.

Brent (00:58:27 - 00:58:32): Yeah, where he finds out that he’s alive. Yeah, or at least kind of a villain.

Ryan (00:58:33 - 00:58:37): That they’re— that— yeah, then that’s what he finds out, that that’s his— yeah, he’s living with Boomerang.

Brent (00:58:37 - 00:58:38): Yeah.

Ryan (00:58:40 - 00:58:46): Anyway, sidetracked. Yep. Wonder Man was good. If you haven’t watched it yet, go watch it. Yeah.

Brent (00:58:48 - 00:58:55): Well, we’re coming up on the hour mark, so maybe we should go into shoutouts and geek picks.

Squirrel Girl Follow-Up

Jen (00:58:55 - 00:58:56): Hang on, I got one more thing.

Brent (00:58:57 - 00:58:57): Oh, okay.

Jen (00:58:58 - 00:59:02): So I was reading while you guys were talking. I was reading the Squirrel Girl Wikipedia.

Brent (00:59:04 - 00:59:10): So actually, when are you pushing your glasses up your nose while you’re doing that?

Jen (00:59:10 - 00:59:46): Well, actually, yeah. So it says here that Doreen discovered she could communicate with squirrels when she was 10 years old. She suffered a modification in her genes for unknown reasons that granted her squirrel-like abilities, which manifested predominantly as a prehensile tail. When her parents consulted a doctor, it was determined that Doreen was not a mutant, even though she believed so for a long time. So I don’t know what that means, but technically not a mutant. Anyway, apparently starting in January of this year, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl received a Webtoon adaptation. So there’s new Squirrel Girl, I think. Or is it the old one? I have to look.

Brent (00:59:46 - 00:59:58): There’s only 5 episodes. That might be just that Squirrel Girl is now available digitally because Webtoon is now the delivery service of digital comic books.

Jen (00:59:59 - 01:00:19): Yeah, it is, because now I’m reading it and it starts with her singing a version of the Spider-Man theme song to Squirrel Girl. [Brief Squirrel Girl theme-song quote omitted.] I won’t read the whole thing anyway, so if you want to read Squirrel Girl, it’s on Webtoons.

Ryan (01:00:20 - 01:00:20): Nice.

Jen (01:00:22 - 01:00:24): Okay, now you can go back to shoutouts.

Patreon Shoutouts

Brent (01:00:29 - 01:01:42): Alrighty, if you would like to help the show out, patreon.com/truenorthnerds, you can give us $3 a month. And with that, we pay for our theme song, which the payment is about due, so I should do that shortly, and help like with gear and replacement stuff and all that sort of thing. And for that you get some shows exclusively, or sort of exclusively, on Patreon, including Listen to This, a music nerd show with myself and Alex, and the hopefully coming soon Kung Fu Island 2. Nate and I have talked and we have a tentative plan set forward. So yeah, and you also get shoutouts. So shoutouts go to Drew, Karina, Alex, Team Woods, who also does our fabulous landing page of truenorthnerds.com. Mike Hammond from Maple Printing, and our good friend Rex, who has also taken over production duties on Listen to This, and he’s doing a much better job than I was. So yeah, thank you everybody. And now we go into Geek Picks. Anybody want to go first?

Geek Picks

Ryan (01:01:43 - 01:01:45): I’ll go first.

Brent (01:01:45 - 01:01:46): Okay, you go first.

Ryan (01:01:47 - 01:02:49): So I said, just started watching a new season of a show I enjoy. It’s got a new season on Netflix, and that show is called The Lincoln Lawyer. It is another legal drama mystery. Usually there’s, you know, he’s a lawyer who works out of his Lincoln quite often, hence why he’s got the name of The Lincoln Lawyer. And but each season there’s a big mystery usually surrounding whatever case he’s working on. In the newest season, which is season 4, he’s been framed for murder. So we start the season off with him in jail. and, uh, he’s trying to, you know, trying to get him out, trying to work the case, see what’s going on. Um, I’m only like an episode and a half into it and I’m enjoying it. But, uh, yeah, if you’re looking for something new to watch, it’s on Netflix now. There’s 4 seasons of it, The Lincoln Lawyer. Uh, there was a movie made because I guess it’s all based on a book or Jonathan Grisham book, the guy who wrote The Firm.

Brent (01:02:49 - 01:02:50): And I think it’s a Jonathan Grisham book.

Ryan (01:02:51 - 01:03:09): I think so, something like that. One of those names that when they see it, they created by, you know, it’s a familiar name. Um, but the original movie, oh, who was in the first, the original movie? Was it, um, oh crap, I can’t think of it. Anyway, it’s good too. I found it.

Brent (01:03:09 - 01:03:14): Well, Michael Connelly. Sorry, I was, I got the wrong legal lawyer. Okay.

Ryan (01:03:15 - 01:03:20): But, uh, Yeah, Lincoln Lawyer. It’s on Netflix right now. Go give it a watch.

Brent (01:03:20 - 01:03:22): Matthew McConaughey was in the original movie.

Ryan (01:03:22 - 01:03:33): That’s what I thought. Okay. I thought so, but then I was like, “I don’t want to say the wrong name.” So there you go. Next.

Brent (01:03:34 - 01:03:34): Jen.

Jen (01:03:36 - 01:03:54): I can’t remember what my original geek pick was going to be, but now it’s Squirrel Girl on Webtoons. Go to webtoons.com and then search for Squirrel Girl and you can see the first 5 parts, I suppose. I don’t know how it’s broken up.

Brent (01:03:55 - 01:03:58): The return of Squirrel Girl to our recommendations. It’s been a while.

Ryan (01:03:59 - 01:04:01): Julian will enjoy that.

Jen (01:04:01 - 01:04:22): Yay, Squirrel Girl. I’m going to reread it because now it’s on my computer. And also, I mean, I could reread it because I also have it all in floppies, but they’re totally buried under a pile of stuff. Up. So this is more convenient. So yeah, you can reread Squirrel Girl or read it for the first time. Either way, Squirrel Girl’s on Webtoons.

Ryan (01:04:23 - 01:04:27): Well done. Thank you, Brent.

Brent (01:04:28 - 01:08:07): Um, it’s not entirely a recommendation, but I did kind of want to give it a little bit of a shout out, is, uh, myself in the, uh, occasionally mention fake daughter went and saw Iron Lung on Thursday. It is a movie made that is kind of a science fiction fantasy kind of movie that is directed and written by Markiplier, who is a YouTube personality. I know this just from reading about him. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything that he did. The movie itself is not like the story isn’t particularly great, like that it’s lacking in a lot of ways, but the production of the film, like it looks really good. I do not know what the budget of this thing is, but I’m pretty sure it looks way better than it has any right to look between like the effects and the set design and like, and how the movie is shot. He did an excellent job, especially since he also stars in the movie. Like it’s pretty much like a one-person film. So I wanted to give that a little bit of a shout out. The other thing is I just have to look up who wrote the book that I’m reading right now because I want to give them credit because it’s pretty good. Ah, there it is. I’m just like 100 pages into a book called Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Native’s Wildest Festival. This is like an oral history of the Lollapalooza Festival. I’m into like the first concert basically, and it is really well done because they talk to everybody, not just like performers on the show. They talk to managers and promoters and like crew and stuff like that. Like really, there’s some fun parts in it too. Like Gibby Haynes from the Butthole Surfers used to start their set by firing a 12-gauge shotgun of blanks into the air, you know, frightening the audience to death. And they mentioned the— one of the members of the band mentions that, oh, Gibby was pretty sad when they confiscated the gun at the border when we were coming across for the Toronto show. And then he goes like, we have no idea how Ice-T and Body Count got their guns across the border. And then he talks to Body Count’s guitars. He’s like, yeah, we just kind of hid them with our guitars and stuff and nobody looked. Which was also kind of scary that like, you know, they were basically smuggling guns across the border. But hey, uh, before 9/11. Um, if you are a child of the ’90s, I love music, I really feel this might be a book worth reading. So Lollapalooza: The Uncensored Story of Alternative Rock’s Wildest Festival, written by Richard Bynescock or Bynescock and Tom Bijour. So yeah, that’s it for this episode. Join us again in 2 weeks. We will be talking about stuff. Before that, there’ll probably be an episode of Tales of the Collectiverse out, right, Ryan?

Closing and Collectiverse Update

Ryan (01:08:07 - 01:08:11): Yeah, here’s hoping. Ed’s traveling today.

Brent (01:08:11 - 01:08:15): So tomorrow is recording possibilities of maybe.

Ryan (01:08:16 - 01:08:26): Yes, because he’s supposed to be coming home from being at a farm show for 2 weeks. Yeah. I think the last time I spoke to him, he figures he was going to get home tonight sometime.

Brent (01:08:26 - 01:08:27): Ah, okay.

Ryan (01:08:27 - 01:08:36): He did stop in Detroit today. If you look on his social media stuff, he went and took a picture of the RoboCop statue.

Brent (01:08:36 - 01:08:38): Oh, you went to the RoboCop statue? Oh, now I’m jealous.

Ryan (01:08:39 - 01:08:46): Go check out his social media, Snowhawk Cosplay. He’s got pictures on his Instagram and stuff up there.

Jen (01:08:46 - 01:08:46): Sweet.

Ryan (01:08:46 - 01:08:48): Some little videos. Yeah.

Brent (01:08:48 - 01:08:52): Well, so maybe not before our next episode comes out, but around that time.

Ryan (01:08:53 - 01:08:57): Yeah. Yeah, we want to talk while Toy Fair news is fresh.

Brent (01:08:58 - 01:09:34): Yeah. So yeah, so we will be back in 2 weeks. Ryan will have a show out somewhere in that time period. Who knows? Maybe listen to this. We’ll hopefully have a show up at some point. It may just be me because unfortunately Alex’s computer went bye-bye. So, oh no. Yeah, it had a catastrophic failure of sorts. So, and while he, it can kind of work well for him for work purposes. He doesn’t trust it for recording purposes, so we may work something else out. But yeah, well, I’ll come up with something.

Ryan (01:09:35 - 01:09:37): I have an idea for you, but we’ll talk off air.

Brent (01:09:38 - 01:09:50): Oh, okay. That being said, thank you very much for listening and your support. Make sure to tell your friends about the show if they like nerdy stuff. And as always, abomastay.

Jen (01:09:51 - 01:09:51): Bye.

Brent (01:09:52 - 01:09:52): Bye.

Kirby Crackle (01:09:53 - 01:09:54): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]

Outro

Rex (01:09:55 - 01:10:03): Thank you for listening to the True North Nerds. You can find us at truenorthnerds.com, on Facebook, X, and Instagram at True North Nerds.

Rex (01:10:03 - 01:10:08): To contact one or any of the nerds, email them at truenorthnerds@gmail.com.

Rex (01:10:08 - 01:10:10): Theme music provided by Kirby Crackle.

Rex (01:10:10 - 01:10:23): You can find more of their music at kirbycracklemusic.com. If you’d like to support the show, please consider becoming a patron at patreon.com/truenorthnerds, or go to your podcast app of choice and rate and review.

Theme Song Outro

Kirby Crackle (01:10:35 - 01:10:52): [Theme song lyrics omitted.]