FH Mini 131 - Hostesses with the Mostesses

Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse Mini.

As you all know, if you're listening, probably.

The Flophouse is a podcast where we talk about bad movies normally.

But in this case, we're going to do something a little different in that it's an off week.

And off weeks are when we do our Flophouse minis.

And for this mini, I wanted to combine something that Elliot loves with something that he hates and watch them fight it out in his brain.

Fried chicken and Kokomo?

Close.

Marvel Comics and Fruit.

Because in the 70s and 80s, hostess did a series of comic book ads for their fruit pies.

And of course, these ran not just in Marvel Comics, but also in DC, Archie, Gold Key, and Harvey Comics.

And some of the ads were for non-fruit treats like Twinkies.

But I'm going to be focusing on Marvel and fruit pies.

And the premise of these ads were usually that superheroes were foiling crime with the strategic deployment of fruit pies.

Yeah, the fruit pies would distract the villain often, and they'd go, I don't want to steal these millions when I could have these delicious fruit pies.

Yeah, that makes sense.

Take that Thanos.

And so we're going to take that Fin Fang Foom.

Yeah.

Thanos is like, I love death, but even more, I love cherry pies.

Finfang Foom.

Would a fruit pie be enough to even interest that guy?

Well, the thing is, Fin Fang Fum can only be put to sleep by a special herb.

so So if that's one of the ingredients in hostess fruit pies then it would be good to the drink yeah um anyway we're gonna look through some of these ads and obviously this is not just for elliot it's also open to stewart but i especially wanted elliot's insider knowledge of uh of comics and i'm just here to keep him honest yeah you're you're yeah

and i wanted to uh we're gonna look through these things i wanted to rate each of these installments on a scale of one to ten in two categories the first category of course fidelity to the material how much does this feel like a regular adventure that these heroes might have?

You know, how on model is the characterization, et cetera.

So this really ties into our The Garfield movie episode just last week, which was very off-model for that category.

Yeah, that's true.

And the second category, of course, is how well do we think the pies would work in this situation?

Is this a plausible deployment of pies as weapons?

What's the score rating?

It's one to 10 on each of these.

Is 10 the best or worst?

10 is the best in this case.

Yeah.

Just like quick Edwards.

Sorry, what's the question?

That was a solid 10 joke, Dan.

And you gave him nothing.

I'm so distracted by seeing whether I understand how to share my screen.

Dan's like, I'm confused by the rules of my own game.

The ultimate jigsaw.

That's working right, Elliot?

No, I can see nothing.

You can see nothing.

I mean, I can see you guys.

You can't see your doctor.

Okay, well, hold on.

Let's see.

We're going to go back down.

Yeah.

My eyes, the guys, do nothing.

Oh, now it's sharing.

And I'm seeing a very small window.

Well, I'm going to maximize it.

So chill out, dude.

I'm sorry that I was accurately reporting what I was seeing to you.

I feel like there's no better podcast than hearing middle-aged dudes fiddle with technology.

Get mad.

Here we go.

So, of course, this first one,

I got to move this screen sharing thing out of the way.

We've got.

If you press the play button on the top of that, it might just show

the image and not the whole

thing.

At the top, it can go to left.

Good tip.

And there you go.

Okay, so.

Thank you for bearing with us.

This one is called the.

Because there's no way to edit any of that.

It has to be shown in real time.

Yeah.

You know, I think that part of the charm of our show is how ramshackle it is.

At least that's what we tell ourselves.

Yeah, it's convenient that it means that we don't have to do as much work.

Now, anyway, this one's called Thang and the Ultimate Weapon.

And we have, of course,

the thing.

Sorry.

The the was hidden in the T.

Of course, the thing from Fantastic Four first steps

is here in theaters soon-ish.

Yeah, maybe already in theaters.

Some

purple-hooded fellow has the thing under a hydraulic press and says it is the power to push through a planet.

It will certainly keep this strange-looking human in his place.

He calls it an automic hydraulo press, which is, I do approve as an unnecessary complication of what it actually is, which is a hydraulic press.

Yeah.

And, of course, in the grand tradition of villains, he narrates what's going on.

He says, look, his hands dig into the metal as if it were paper.

And this art is by Sam Keith, right?

Yeah, because the characters all have huge hands and feet, phone cord

threads coming off their clothes, and Wolverine is naked.

Yes, yeah, exactly.

Then

pushes this press off him.

He comes at this electro man, this robot man,

and the robot says, it is time for the ultimate weapon, Torgo.

I guess this is Torgo from Manos, the Hands of Fate.

Yep, Torgo, the assistant to the master from Manos, the Hands of Fate, the man with goat legs.

Yeah.

Here portrayed as a kind of somewhat Kirby-esque robot.

Yeah.

Thang is not enjoying this.

Sheesh, just what I need another challenge.

They fight, you know.

The thing is not interested.

He's like, oh, fighting is boring.

Here, here's some hostess fruit pies, apple, cherry, peach.

And the robot.

despite being a robot, is eating this pies and says, these are very good.

And the thing says, do you like the light, tender crust and the real fruit filling everyone does everyone including metal men apparently but not

the metal men of course dc characters uh so we don't know if they like fruit pies but this this is a generic metal man torgo yeah so but uh torgo says you're right this is better than fighting uh

and i this what someone's i guess the hooded purple guy is a different guy he says uh there's two of them now oh no there's always two so there's there's two in the first panel it's just hard to make them out yeah oh okay yeah i couldn't tell that was two in the first.

But he says, they're more to the strange human creature than Braun.

I would only wish that we too could enjoy some hostess fruit pies.

Sigh.

I mean,

it seems like if they went into the room, they could just get some of these pies.

You know, part of it is part of it for them is the kink of watching them eat pies.

Yeah, yeah, they're pie cucks.

Yeah.

So, you know, first off, you know, my question: fidelity to the,

you know, is Torgo a known Fantastic Four villain?

or is this a to my knowledge this is not an original uh Fantastic Four character this is an addition these these two hooded characters who are just kind of vaguely perhaps alien villains one of them has kind of a green hand otherwise they look like orko a little bit from uh masters of the universe they kind of look like uh like the tall man's henchmen that have been shrunk down when he puts them through the tuning forks yeah uh as far as i know torgo is is not a character that that thing has encountered before or any marvel character before but the name is but he's the ultimate weapon he is the ultimate weapon.

Torgo is, he looks very ultron-ish,

and Torgo certainly is the kind of name that a lot of Marvel characters from the old timely monster days would have had.

Googam, that kind of stuff.

I do love those like Kirby-style metal lines on his body.

That's just sick.

I love that.

So, okay, maybe the villain's not

close to the comics, but what about the characterization of Thang here?

He seems to be the thing we know.

He says, there's no overgrown toy is going to keep this blue-eyed pretty boy boy tied down against his will.

It's been established.

It's canon.

He does have blue eyes because he's ever-loving blue-eyed thing and Petunia's favorite nephew.

And when Torka comes out, they go, sheesh, just when I need another challenge, that sheesh is very thing.

So, yeah, he's on character.

This is on brand for him.

Now, normally he would just keep punching the robot instead of offering the robot food.

It seems like

the third act.

Yeah, that seems like more the kind of thing that Reed Richards would come, Mr.

Fantastic, would come in at the end and be like, wait, my electro spectrometizer detects that this robot loves loves fruit pies and gives it to him, you know, but but I think, you know, thing, he's, he's a man of the people, though.

So he would certainly share his pay his fruit-filled pastry rather than be selfish about it.

You know, does he have to ingest like a shitload of calories because he's the thing?

You would have to assume so.

He must burn so many calories just carrying the mass around.

Yeah, who eats more,

the thing or concrete?

So do they ever talk about how much concrete eats in those stories?

They must, right?

It's the kind of thing that concrete stories would totally mention.

Yeah, Dania Faulk Chadwick's number, right?

Yeah, okay.

I mean, it's similar to concrete, you have to assume that all the floors in the Baxter building are reinforced because the thing weighs so much, you know, much as concrete's floors had to be

reinforced, you know.

Yeah, so in uh,

there should certainly be a fake concrete crossover.

I don't know why there hasn't been.

If there hasn't been, they should do it.

Yeah, I'm going to call it realism, even though obviously there's no realism to be had, it's a superhero comic, but realism will stand in for, you know, fidelity to the source.

What's your realism score, would you say, for this one?

I'm giving this, in terms of realism in the Marvel Universe, I'm giving it a 10.

This is the kind of story Thing would have found himself in in issues of two and one, the comic book where Thing would team up with a different other hero each week or each month, and often with a B-list hero having a B-list adventure with a B-list villain.

But so I'll say in terms of fidelity to the original source, I'm giving it a 10.

In terms of would this really work?

I'm going to to give it a 1.

I think that the robot would not express interest in the fruit pie.

It's possible that if you can get it to eat it, it would gum up the internal works and break the robot.

But I don't think it would be that you would convince the robot to love fruit pies rather than fighting.

No, I have to agree with you.

I don't think that these footed figures, presuming they're the ones who made the robot, would have programmed the robot with taste bud technology.

No, TBT.

Yeah.

So, okay, well, that's

okay.

Number one onto this.

Oh, This one's called Daredevil's Dare Double.

I put the question mark in.

It actually has an exclamation point.

Yeah.

An exclamation point outside of the quotes around Daredevil.

It's quote dare dash double quote exclamation point, which is an interesting way to, I guess it says daredevils, daredevil is the whole phrase.

And it's an exclamation point at the end of that.

Okay, I understand now.

There's sort of an explanatory

box in here that says, Ron Rainey, known to film buffs as the man with 999 faces yikes i like that has retired from the silver screen but not from his love for disguises and he's admiring himself in the mirror saying egad i look perfect wearing this daredevil costume i can steal anything and daredevil will take the blame that's actually a really good plan yeah i mean it's a great plan assuming he doesn't get caught in the act as someone without daredevil's powers or fighting prowess it's very likely that he would get caught in the act of stealing the money and then he can't say no I didn't do it.

Daredevil did.

Because again, he would be the one holding the money in a Daredevil costume.

Otherwise, a great plan.

Well, also, I mean, fortunately, he has Daredevil's impressive physique as well.

He's a very muscly guy.

But it seems to be working.

There's, you know, newspapers are saying Daredevil goes on a rampage, crime wave, et cetera.

There's an anchor saying that Daredevil has stolen

millions in two weeks, which is very successful robbery.

And so Foggy is reading the paper.

saying Daredevil's best friend and law partner, Foggy Nelson.

Yeah, he's saying, Matt, I can't just believe this about the Daredevil.

And Matt says, neither can I, Foggy.

Of course, he really can't believe it.

But he has a plan.

He has a hunch that the fake Daredevil won't be able to resist hostess fruit pies.

And Dan says that as if he's describing it, but Daredevil literally thinks to himself, I have a hunch the fake Daredevil won't be able to resist these hostess fruit pies.

What's this hunch based on?

Just the quality of the pies, you know?

Specifying that, yeah.

um

yeah and and sure enough uh that night uh daredevil fake daredevil is stealing other stuff from the storefront yeah is that so this the store so it says the storefront legal services which is daredevil and foggies at that time oh their legal company they they had a storefront law office you know because they wanted to help people stealing legal files i guess

he's loving it he's laughing

it's hard to tell from the sack what's in there, but he's clearly the fact that he chose to steal something from right next to or in Daredevil, the actual Daredevil's office.

Hell's Kitchen's pretty small.

Yeah, it's pretty small.

It's a bad stroke of luck for him.

Again, if you want to steal millions, at the time, Hell's Kitchen was not the place to go.

Yeah, you gotta watch the movie How to Steal a Million.

Yeah, that'll tell you.

Yeah, that's real up to date.

Yeah.

Daredevil, you gotta find that Brewster guy.

Take his stealth.

He'll help you steal the millions because he wants to get rid of it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There he is, right on time.

Thanks, Daredevil.

All right, you phony.

You've got the pies.

Now I'm taking on.

Okay.

Okay.

He was there stealing pies.

Oh, so he said a trap

offices.

So he seems to be.

So, okay, if I'm understanding this correctly, I misunderstood that.

In panel Five Pot, guys.

Daredevil seems to be putting out boxes of fruit pies.

And then in panel Ford, the fake Daredevil stealing them, if you put boxes of fruit pies on the street outside your office, it is no longer stealing.

He put a sign that says not for stealing.

But it is a trap to catch a thief to catch him that's true because that's true he is the chris hansen's waiting around the corner and in the last pat the last panel uh daredevil magnanimously says but i'll let you finish that hostess cherry fruit pie before i uh before i do before i take you in and uh and

uh ron rainby the man of 999 faces has a has a look of mania he's taken the mask off and as a way of acknowledging you know when i'm not the real daredevil i'm i'm i've been sunk you know Yeah.

And

he's enthusing real fruit filling, light tender crust.

Maybe curtains for me, but what a delicious exit.

So, okay.

Now, what do we think of the Fidelity?

The realism.

Realism.

Now, I like, they've got, so this says on the side, copyright 1976.

So this is pre-Frank Miller Daredevil.

Daredevil was pretty goofy at that time.

So I kind of, the storyline of someone pretending to be Daredevil in order to rob places, that's a very Marvel comic storyline.

That's how Chameleon Chameleon first came into the comics, who's pretending to be Spider-Man to steal things.

There's Bullseye has pretended to be Daredevil.

Craven's pretended to be Spider-Man.

Characters are always pretending to be the heroes.

And so the, so I'm going to say Red Skull at one point was in a cloned Captain America body, and I think he was wearing a Captain America costume at one point.

So I will say that's good fidelity to certainly 70s Marvel 2, a hero dressing up as the bad guy in order to commit crimes.

The other way around.

Once again, it's hard for me to believe that he loves fruit pies so much that he is going to show up in costume,

in his felonious costume,

to take those fruit pies and then stop to eat and then be like, you got me.

He's already got millions, but he doesn't have those main pies.

That's true.

There's no way to get those pies with millions.

There's just no way.

And so the fact that he doesn't try to run away.

and continue to take the fruit pies, but it just stops.

Maybe he just knows that.

The taste of a pie that you steal is so much better than the taste of pie you pay for.

That's why all those hobos, you know, like float on the air when they smell a pie.

Yeah, and they don't float into stores and then give, you know, give a couple dollars.

Yeah, they just steal them from a house.

Float over to an ATM.

Well, I mean, these are unhoused people.

But we're thinking of cartoon hobos.

Yeah.

And also it's pre-ATM time periods.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

These are these areas.

These are cartoon hobos.

As opposed to the real unhossos.

A few

few top hats.

Back in the day where ATM just stood for ass-to-mouth, like Dan always tells me.

Yeah, that's what he says.

Back he calls those the good old days.

But you're right, Dan.

We should make clear

not talking about real life unhoused people who float along pie scent to where pies are.

Yeah.

So I'm going to give this, again, a 10 for fidelity to the original comics, and I'm going to give it a, I think I'm going to give it a three for because again, he's a human for it.

It does make a little more sense that this

fellow would be distracted by a box of pies.

And like, as an as an actor, maybe he doesn't have a lot lot of time.

In his busy career, he hadn't had time to eat pies.

And now that he has access to them, he's been so worried about his physique that this is a real treat for him.

That, like, he gets to have a taste.

I mean, at the very most basic level, he needs sustenance and he also can taste things, as opposed to the robot Torgo, who neither of those things are true.

We're assuming cannot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now, guys, you brought up Frank Miller before.

This one in my research is purported to have been done by Frank Miller.

It's the human torch in the human toitch.

The human toitch

in the Ice Master Cometh.

Okay.

That's a very Marvel title.

They love to do puns on

or plays on kind of like titles of things, famous titles, but also Cometh was a big thing for them.

You know, it was always, you know, or Low, a something, you know, that was big.

So I'm got them points for that.

Yeah.

A little

box says, The city is in the middle of a deep freeze.

And the human choice, what does he say?

Yeah.

He says, the Ice Master is living up to his threat to put us into a new ice age.

And we see the Ice Master.

He looks kind of like,

what's the ranking bass character?

Like a Jack Bros type?

Mr.

Freeze Master or whatever.

I don't know.

The Cold Miser or whatever.

He looks like the Ice King.

There's a Wizard of Oz comic

where they deal with an Ice ice king and he looks like that yeah and one of shadowers uh wizard of oz comics they're really good

even you're not hot enough to melt my heart of ice flame face interesting the wizard of oz comic is also about someone melting a heart of ice interesting okay it's funny this has flame face specifically when the whole body is uh inflamed it's just meant as an insult yeah Spidey is often called the web head when his whole, again, he has webs over his arms as well and his feet.

Yeah.

The human torch says he's right.

His power is not just ice.

It's life-stealing cold.

And,

you know, he flies off.

The Ice Master taunts him, saying, Leaving me cold, hot shot.

And he says, Getting me something that will warm you from the inside out, Ice Master.

Hostess fruit pies, which he tosses.

Oh, for me.

I assume they're warm now.

Yeah, a flaming hand has been holding them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And again, a lot of waxing poetic about these pies.

The Ice Master says, what crust so light and tender?

And I'm warming up to the real fruit filling.

Guys, real quick,

was this during a period of time where people were really concerned that the crust wouldn't be light and tender enough?

I guess so.

I mean, that's always the concern with pies.

You want it to be very light and tender.

And certainly a packaged pie with a shelf life.

You know, you want it to be

mushy, you know.

But, you know, we

already see the human torch flying over the no longer frozen city saying, things are warming up again now that the Ice Master has warmed up to the goodness of Hostess Fruit Pies.

Underwhelming, an underwhelming adjective, just goodness.

Well, I like how it implies that there's something healthful about them,

which is not.

I do like that the panel where the Ice Master is eating

the pies,

he's like starting to melt.

Yeah.

Like, in that eating the pies are is killing him.

Oh, yeah.

Now, so I'm going to, I'm going to say this is this, in this one, the human torch is being a little generic.

He doesn't feel like himself.

I feel like I'm not getting a lot of human torch from him.

He doesn't seem like Johnny Storm

that thinks, yeah, exactly.

Hothead, a kid, like the youngest member of the team.

Well, I assume this is very accurate to all the other times.

The Ice Master show.

Oh, sure.

Big deal.

Ice Master, huge villain.

Huge villain.

You'll see him in the new movie.

Yeah.

I will say, if this is Frank Miller drawing it, I kind of believe it, if only because of the panel placement, there are some vertical panels in here, and that's something that Frank and some very

much wider than they are tall horizontal panels.

And that's this kind of stuff Frank Miller would be experimenting with quite a bit in his Daredevil run.

So I believe it.

And the character, the character art, the drawings don't look too different from his earlier stuff.

But I'll say, yeah, this one is a little bit less...

In fidelity to the characters, I'm going to give it more of a five.

You know, they didn't give the Human Torch any powers he doesn't have or anything like that.

The Ice Master is a new addition to the Rogues Gallery.

But in terms of winning over the bad guy, I'm going to give this an eight.

You know,

the Ice Master, I totally believe this guy has never had a fruit pie, and

it would blow his mind.

Yeah, it would fucking rock his day.

It does look like this was drawn by a guy with an affection for Fedora hats

and ninjas, yeah, and complicated political views.

Complicated?

Yeah, I guess you're right.

If anything, too simplistic.

Yeah.

Oh, look.

This next one has our old friend Iron Man.

He is our old friend, isn't he?

Yeah, we go.

He's the savior of the MCU here.

Yeah, he says, Steal Jesus, they call him.

Iron Man versus the bank robbers.

So just kind of tired of your favorite villains.

I mean, they have dope-ass outfits for having such a generic name.

Yeah.

But again, Iron Man's Rogues Gallery is pretty crappy.

So

I totally buy it.

Yeah.

When you're making your second Iron Man movie and your villain is Whiplash, then you know you're not dealing with the best rogues gallery.

We get kind of an unnecessary explanatory panel up at the top just saying, like, you know, robbers are holding hostages at the bank.

We can pretty much see that from the drawing.

But meanwhile, outside, Iron Man cleverly is saying, we need a diversion to give us time to get through the door before the bank robbers harm anybody.

Now they're demanding that food be sent in, says one of the SWAT cops.

They'll get no food from us.

That's the hard ass

negotiator, I guess.

Now it's time for me to throw some tear gas at protesters for no reason.

Iron Man says, wait, that may be our big break.

Iron Man's always thinking, you know, that's classic Iron Man.

Sure, yeah.

And wasn't he always drinking too?

Making a drinking picture.

Not always, not always drinking, often, but not always.

Now, here's the thing.

Iron Man, next, next panel, he says, send in these hostess fruit pies.

I believe Iron Man eats fruit pies.

It's one of the few foods that will fit through the mouth slit.

That's true.

They're slot-shaped.

And, you know, someone like Tony Stark, you know, he probably eats soylent.

You know, he just, he doesn't care about food.

He just eats something he eats stuff in his face.

It's just sustenance.

He's a tech guy.

He thinks he's going to evolve his body past physical needs.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

He's going to be doing crimes of the future.

Now he's chomping down some plastic.

This is interesting.

This is a new wrinkle on the fruit pies thing.

He says, I'll listen in on their conversation with my cyber helmet receiver.

So he's bugging the fruit pies.

That's kind of a new wrinkle.

It makes me less eager to eat a fruit pie, knowing that it might be helping Big Brother keep their tabs on me.

I do love this next panel.

Yeah.

Well, why don't you describe it in a second?

Okay, so the bank robbers have received a cart filled with fruit pies.

They are tossing their guns aside.

They say, hey, hostess fruit pies, give me that cherry one.

I'll take that apple.

They are.

the plan is working all too well.

Just throwing their guns away at the mere sight of it.

And having heard the guns clatter upon the ground,

with his cyber helmet receiver.

I'm assuming through the wall.

Yeah, he says, now's the time for a little heavy-handedness.

Yeah, and he's pretty blasting these teams while fruit pies

scatter about.

And

the bank robbers put

their finger on their fatal claw and say, ooh, we never should have put down our weapons.

Truer words have never been spoken.

But another one says, but who could resist the real fruit filling and the light tender crust?

Yeah.

It's actually like light tender crust.

Each one says a different thing, Huey Dewey and Louie style.

So what do you, what do you guys say?

And then there's a little flag that says you get a big delight in every bite of hostess fruit pies.

Yeah.

Now, again, I'm going to jump in here.

I'm going to say in terms of Iron Man characterization, I'm going to to give it an eight.

He is a tool.

He's a total tool.

He's a total, he's on the side of authority.

He really, he's always going to be helping the man keep down these

people who just want to rob a bank.

Okay, I will say they're bank robbers.

They're not good guys.

But I would totally see him working with the cops, whereas Spider-Man would stop these bank robbers.

The cops would be like, hey, you stop.

We got some questions for you.

And he'd be like, sorry, more fruit pies.

And he'd throw them to them.

But

again, I think it is difficult to believe that they couldn't eat the fruit pies pies with one hand while holding their gun with the other hand.

But

you want one in each hand.

Yeah, but if these guys, they can't even come up with a cool name for themselves other than the bank robbers.

So I'll believe it's going to happen.

So I'm going to give it an eight all around.

Eight for character representation and eight for this plan would work in stopping these bank robbers.

Yeah, that I buy it.

You buy a hostess fruit pie?

I mean, I have in my life.

Not for you.

You truly have lived, haven't you, Dan?

For decades.

It's more of like I've been known to buy a fruit pie in my time.

Yeah.

Yeah.

In high school.

Anthony Bourdain over here.

Hello, this is Alex.

Hello, this is Katie.

We host Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, and this week we released our 250th episode.

250 D, D, D.

Every episode stands on its own.

And every episode is about a seemingly ordinary topic.

We reveal the history and the science of stuff like salt and clouds and your computer mouse.

And episode 250 is about the word hello.

Hello.

You know that word.

You're ready to go.

So let us say hello to you.

Find Secretly Incredibly Fascinating at maximumfun.org.

Hi, is this Brennan?

This is Brennan.

This is Ben Harrison.

I'm the host of the greatest generation and greatest track, along with my buddy Adam on Maximum Fun.

I am calling because you, Brennan, have been named Maximum Funds member of the month.

Oh my God, I'm so honored to be the Max Fun member of the month.

As member of the month, you'll be getting a gift card to the Max Fun store, a special member of the month bumper sticker, and a special priority parking spot at the Max Fun headquarters in Los Angeles, California, just for you.

That's a perk that I don't even get as a host of shows on the network.

This all sounds fantastic.

I'm to have to figure out a way to use that parking spot.

Brennan, you have to do it.

Just to rub it in my face alone.

Have a great day and

live long and prosper.

I don't know how to do this.

That works.

I will do my best to live long and prosper.

Become a MaxFun member now at maximumfun.org slash join.

We got another Daredevil comic here.

Oh, okay.

Our old friend Daredevil's back again for another item of that pie.

Daredevil versus Johnny Punk.

Now, of course, we all remember Johnny Punk.

Classic Marvel villain.

What do we got here?

Johnny Punk is saying, in the next set, we raise the decibels to mega pitch.

The high-frequency sound waves will lock their brains.

They'll do whatever I command.

Now, that's just science.

Johnny Punk, I'll say this.

That is science.

It is Punk.

Johnny Punk, I love this character's design.

He's got a classic punk mohawk.

It's not a tall one, but it's kind of, it's like more of a Travis Bickle one, slightly taller than Travis Bickles.

From the neck down, he dresses like American Flag.

I think the character Ruben Flag from the American Flag Comics.

And I love that outfit.

Leather jacket.

He's got a little shoulder.

Neck tie, which is also got a tie.

Dan, there are plenty of punks that wear ties.

No, it's true.

I guess it's just

different ideas.

Exactly.

Exactly.

He looks cool.

He looks cool.

And the name Johnny Punk, that's a cool name.

That's super cool.

Daredevil is hanging from a building outside, and he says to no one in particular, my hypersensitive hearing picked up Johnny Punk's little plan, and it's not my idea of crowd control.

Good one.

He's just snarking to no one.

I do like the sign says,

you can see the marquee.

It says, tonight, Johnny Punk.

Yeah, so he's already a headliner,

unless he's a villain that announces where he's going to be.

Very Batman.

And Daredevil.

Sorry, go on.

I like this next panel.

Daredevil goes in, and the sound guy who works for Johnny Punk goes, hey, look who's horning in.

That's a good joke.

Daredevil has horns.

Oh, right, right, right, right.

That's what he says.

And

Johnny Punk says, back off or I'll blow the roof off with sound.

First off, using off twice, unnecessary.

And then with sound, I like that.

Yeah.

Daredevil again,

he's thinking to himself, this is an internal monologue this time.

My radar senses enough electric potential to do just that.

Gotta think.

He has to tell himself to think.

How about hostess fruit pies before you turn on the juice?

And Johnny Punk says, sure, I sure dig the real fruit filling.

Now this is very not punk.

So you dig something.

Come on.

What is that?

Yeah.

Daddy O.

Apple and Cherry.

That's a dynamite duo.

Johnny Punk has to give it up.

He says, sharp move, Daredevil.

You've got us, but we've got the goodies.

He really

didn't seem committed to this plan.

No, well, he's saying they've kidnapped the British sketch group, The Goodies.

And could kill them if Daredevil doesn't let them go.

Yeah.

And Daredevil says, better a hostess fruit pie than the fruits of crime, Johnny Punk.

And he swims away saying, and thanks to hostess, I don't have to listen to his music anymore.

Wow.

A real

James Bond dissing the Beatles moment here.

I will say, I will say, though, again, okay, there's a couple things in here that I think are very Daredevil and some are not.

I don't buy Daredevil as a guy who listens to punk.

I would believe that a guy who is a lawyer with a deeply Catholic kind of faith and sin and redemption background is probably not keyed into the punk lifestyle or necessarily the punk sound.

But when he says, so I'll give him points for that, I don't think Daredevil would listen to punk.

If he was like, now to sit back for this Johnny Punk show, I'd be like, no way, Nark, you don't like this.

But when he says, my radar senses enough, my radar senses enough electric potential to do just that.

This is, I don't think that he can do that with his radar sense, that he can sense how much electricity is in there.

It's really more of a second sight for him, you know.

So

I'm going to say it's a mixed bag for for Daredevil in terms of characterization, but I feel like Johnny Punk is the character find of 1976.

So,

yeah.

I could totally see, I could see he's a punk.

He probably hasn't eaten that much lately.

You know, he's going to go live in a squad after this.

I think he would end, he would stop his crime for

free food, you know.

So, good scores all around

for this, other than maybe some deductions for the realism.

Oh, the thing's back.

Boy, the thing.

The thing has returned.

This one's called The Thang in Earthly Delights.

Oh, weird.

So there's sex in it.

And

so we're inside a New York deli, and sexiest place on earth.

There's a UFO outside.

Aliens are coming in.

And the deli owner or proprietor or what he says, I've seen everything, but never,

and someone says, they're after us.

And helpfully, the alien explains why they're here.

He says, our appetite for earthly delights will soon be satisfied.

Prepare for uplift.

But the thing crashes in saying, not so fast, Bub.

You're not taking anybody anywhere.

And I'm not sure what the thing is doing here.

He seems to be

taking the energy ray that they shot the people with and using it to tie up the aliens.

Yeah,

this is confusing.

But then the thing says, if it's early delights, there's some real story problems with this ad for hostess fruit pies.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Early delights you want for your trip.

Take these hostess fruit pies.

Cherry for you, apple for your friend.

No, he's got them in a big box.

Yeah.

Their tastes of fruit pies for sure.

You look like a cherry man, he says.

And their countenances changed entirely.

They are nothing but smiles.

Yeah.

Later after the thing is, untie the space invaders, and

they're again covelling over these pies.

That's very nice, Dan.

Wow, yeah.

Thank you.

Take those

in honor of Ben Grimm there.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And the deli, yeah.

Taste the light, tender crust and the real fruit filling.

This must be what Earthlings call delicious.

Yeah, it's a real mitzvah, right?

Yep.

Yeah.

And they zip off in their ship.

Yeah, thing is knock us over the whole thing.

Yeah, yeah.

The deli owner says, I always thought hostess fruit pies were out of this world.

Now they are.

So, yeah, again,

so they were scrolls, Elliot.

These are not scrolls.

They seem like kind of your generic aliens.

They've got a little bit like they've got pointy ears and kind of bald, pointy heads, so they look a little like scrolls.

They look a little like the impossible man, who is a Fantastic Four character.

He's from the planet pop-up.

But yeah,

they're pretty, I feel like Thing is getting the short end when it comes to the bad guys he's dealing with.

So

they were totally going to have sex with these two guys, right?

It's unclear.

They just say our appetite for earthly delights as they take a man in a suit and fedora,

or maybe it's a pork pie hat, and the proprietor of a deli.

So I don't know if they're going to have sex with them, if they're going to eat them both.

I don't know.

You make a good point.

That does seem to be.

Whatever unearthly, unholy appetite was about to be sated, thing

has done that with fruit pies.

So I'm going to give this one low marks all around, I think.

Realism?

Yeah, I think, I mean, Thing does say you're, y-e-r instead of your uh so that's kind of like him but he just kind of comes out of nowhere uh the plot i don't see why the aliens also how is he tying him up with lasers yeah how does it he's he's super strong but he's not so strong that he can bend a laser with his fists so yeah this is this is pretty low marks and give it a two for is this plan gonna work is

as strong as the hulk the thing is not as strong as the hulk and this is one of the enduring wonderful things about the thing is that he is not the strongest there is.

He is very strong, but he's not the strongest there is, but he never gives up.

So there have been a number of stories where he fights the Hulk.

He pretty much always loses.

But the whole point of those stories is he can't, you can't really be defeated because he's never going to give up.

And there's a great story, a one-issue story where this character of the champion comes down to earth and he tests, he challenges all the

strong guys to a fight.

And Thing is the last one.

And Thing goes like 90 rounds with this guy until he's almost on death's door.

And Thing says, you can keep, you can kill me, but I'm too stupid and I'm too ugly to give up.

I'm still going to keep fighting you.

And the champion is like, I won, but I have so much respect for you that I'm going to spare your planet.

You know, like

what you showed me today.

So that's the thing is not as strong as the Hulk, but he's got more heart, you know?

So that's the thing's real superpower is heart.

I think we're closing in on the end.

I've lost track on how many we've done and I accidentally closed the window that shows how many.

Okay.

But this one, for the first time, we're seeing our old friend Cap, Captain America in Fury Unleashed, because Nick Fury is also here.

Although, ironically, Fury is not unleashed in it.

He's in danger, and Cap has to save him.

Yeah, Cap busts in through the metal door.

He punches it open.

He says, the Trapster's at it again.

One trap leads to another.

Now, this is.

Elliot's bouncing his seat.

He's left.

Already, I've got an issue with it.

I mean, the Trapster is a villain, but he really just uses a glue gun to get.

It's not like he comes up with different traps.

The Trapster, as you know, used to be Paste Pot Pete.

And

he had like magic glue that was super strong.

And eventually he changed it to a glue gun.

And one of the fun things about him in the comics is he'll show up and say, the Trapster's here.

And they'll go, oh, hey, Paste Pot Pete.

And he's like, that's not my name anymore.

It's always very fun.

He just sets up different traps.

How does the Trapster feel about the fact that Spider-Man invented like web fluid and shit?

That's like basically his whole deal, but he's also a Spider-Man and a kid.

I don't know that he, well, I don't think he knows that Spider-Man invented that when he was a kid.

Oh, okay.

But I, you know, there's different, you know, there's Oreos and there are Hydrox.

You can have them both.

One's more popular, but it doesn't mean Hydrox is not around unless they've went out of business and I don't know about it.

Anyway, here

Fury explains the deal, even though we can see it

in the drawing.

Fury says, better not come any closer, Cap.

The Trapster's goon has me by the neck.

Okay, I'm going to stop.

I also will point out that I love the classic buccaneer boot design of Captain America.

I wish Chris Evans had buccaneer boots.

The things that I wish they would do in the movies, I wish he had buccaneer boots.

I wish he had the wings actually sticking out of his head.

I like at least that they're painted on.

He's got those gloves that have a little bit of extra opening, like they're a little loose.

It's just very flowy.

I love it.

This goon, here's, I got two issues with this.

Let me just talk about it.

Okay, damn.

Let me, can I finish?

Can I finish, Dan, before you continue on with this?

Is that the idea that Trapster has goons?

trapster is a is a b or c lister he he's not hiring goons he's working for somebody else he's probably working for the wingless wizard or something like that you know um as part of the the um frightful four but this goon he also looks so much like nick fury's villain baron von strucker all he's missing is an eye patch and i saw at first glance i thought this was baron von strucker and i was like von strucker is working for the trapster that doesn't make any sense it should be the other way around no it's a guy who looks like him fury probably made the same mistake when he saw him, you know.

But it's just the idea that the trapster is kind of hiring people to do things.

Maybe in the 70s, he was doing a little better.

Maybe he was riding high and he had the money to do that.

But usually the trapster is the guy who's like, you know, working for somebody else.

Well, I mean, Elliot, in this version, he's riding so high that he can afford to not be in the middle of the action.

He is watching on a monitor from a different room.

He chuckles to himself, ha, we'll see how Captain America solves this dilemma i mean it's not really much of a like dilemma or a trap it just like the goon has nick fury by the neck but anyway

cap says my strength and my shield won't solve this mess but strategy i don't know why the strength and the shield wouldn't solve this mess all he has to do is beat up the guy who's choking nick fury

the thing is his shield immediately is involved in his plan yeah that's true he says okay you big overgone goliath i can't bet i bet you can't can't wait to get your hands on these hostess fruit pies.

And he throws the shields like a serving platter with pies on it.

You know, I would think that that would mess up sort of the aerodynamics of it.

Tape them to the fucking shield.

Yeah, that they would

shoot off with centrifugal force.

Maybe he found the Trapster's adhesive and his super adhesive and he attached them that way.

I don't know.

Maybe.

But the goon is, again,

he's loving it.

What is Fury compared to this great taste?

Real fruit filling, light tender crust.

And Fury compliments Cap as they run away.

Hostess fruit pies.

That was using your brains, Cap.

And Trapster curses fate.

He says, hostess fruit pies curses.

Captain America is as smart as he is strong.

So, yeah.

Yeah, I get her.

Yeah.

I guess sometimes

I guess sometimes he uses other traps too.

This one, I feel like this is a, the idea that

Nick Fury couldn't deal with this goon, I think is a little out of the ordinary.

I think this one, I do like that Captain America has a smile on his face in Panel 4.

That's something I miss.

The character used to smile a lot, and now he very rarely does.

He's always kind of gritting his teeth in anger.

But yeah, this seems like the fact that they just run away and Trapster's like, curses, foiled when he's still on the loose and they're still in his hideout.

Yeah, I think there's some real issues with this one.

Not as many issues as with the Thing Alien story, but still, this one fails to pass the smell test for for me.

What, a five, would you say?

Yeah, I get like a five for all around.

Yeah.

Okay.

You know what?

I'll say a five, five for characterization, maybe a seven for whether the fruit pie plan would work.

Yeah, he's a goon.

He doesn't need to eat a lot, probably.

Yeah, he doesn't seem committed to it.

Delicious.

And this is just a job.

If you're a goon working for Trapster, why not stop for a fruit pie?

Like, come on.

This is not, you're not, this isn't a great job.

Okay, here's the, this is the final one.

I remember this one being an oddball adventure.

Interesting.

It's called The Incredible Hulk and the Green Thumb.

And there's a lot to take in here.

I'm going to move

the picture a little closer because there's so much stuff going on here.

This art style looks really familiar, but I can't put my finger on who it looks like.

I don't know why this went down.

Is it Charles Burns?

Yeah, it's probably Charles Burns.

It's probably Charles Burns.

Yeah.

So

there's an explanatory note up top.

It says the Hulk has been befriended by Cousin Betsy, the plant lady.

And also

the sign on the window for her shop identifies her, too, as Cousin Betsy, the plant lady.

It's odd.

You can see it correctly

inside

the shop.

It's not backwards.

Are they inside?

They might be outside, and she's got a lot of plants on the outside, a lot of flowers.

It could be a lot of

outdoor display.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, she says, now, my dear green thing, I'm only too happy to take you in.

Sorry, take you in with all my other,

all my vegetables and plants.

And Hulk is dazed, as he often is.

Hulk says, Hulk, no remember how he got here, but Hulk happy.

Finally, find a place where Hulk can find peace and nice, cool shade plant to sit under.

He's just like, no.

And Betsy explains to these sort of plant creatures from Lawnmower Man?

Yeah, that one.

yeah.

She explains to these plant creatures she has all around her: oh, my beautiful plants, my own little gang, what fine specimens you are, Rhoda, Mary, Artie.

I want you to meet the Hulk.

That jade giant is going to join us.

Artie is clearly an artichoke, Rhoda is probably a rhododendron, Mary's like a marigold.

This is good stuff.

This is good.

Yeah, it's good.

That jade giant is going to join us in our next robbery of diamonds.

Can't say diamond robbery and other precious things.

What a specimen, and so green.

green.

And Hulk immediately rejects this.

Hulk no joined strange plants.

Hulk no like people or plants.

Hulk want to be alone.

Now it's funny.

He clearly liked that nice cool shade plant earlier.

Yeah.

He doesn't like plants.

I mean, there's one thing I know about Hulk.

He does like to be alone.

So that's true.

That was the Hulk's famous, Hulk's famous slogan.

Hulk want to be alone.

Yeah.

I do remember that first issue of The Avengers where Hulk is dressed up as a, what, a clown robot or something?

The circus is pretending that he is a robot, strong clown.

Yes.

Yes.

Very odd.

This was in the first issue of The Avengers, the basis for the hit film.

That would have been a good thing.

He was juggling elephants.

Yes, I want to see that in a movie so badly.

So he's a clown and a robot.

That's how he's so strong.

Because he's clearly the Hulk.

Betsy says, I warn you, Green Gargantua, join us or else the Artic choke chokes.

Go get him, Artie.

And

Hulk doesn't like this.

She continues.

See, Green Goliath, when I talk to my plants, they listen.

Something like this, there's a lot of text.

Yes, a lot of text.

Hulk always winds up saying, double-crossed, first by puny humans, now by puny plant.

Now Hulk's mad.

Oh, you don't want to get it.

You don't like him when he's angry.

And he gets stronger.

Yeah.

Now, this is very strange.

Hulk is not supplying the hostess fruit pies in this one.

Hulk turns artichoke upside down and shakes her

and

you know diamonds and fruit pies fall out of, I guess, between the leaves of her artichoke.

That was originally the title of the Prince song, by the way.

Diamonds and fruit pies.

And Mary says, forget the diamonds, save the delicious hostess fruit pies.

And Artie says, with the real fruit filling and the light tender crust.

Yeah, we get it.

Oh, the apple, cherry, lemon.

Yeah,

she stored these fruit pies in her head.

And then they're being led away by cops, a criminal gang of plants that love juicy hostess fruit pies.

What next?

Yeah, next shit.

And in the distance, we see Hulk jumping away as he does, saying, next, Hulk, go find peace in city, far away from green things.

You never get too far away from green things.

Yeah, at least the best of them.

This is by far the best of them.

We have got the other ones, they're like, yeah, you know what?

This is a pretty basic superhero story, pretty basic marvel story there's a bad guy the superhero is gonna stop him he stops them with fruit pies this one this main character is so perverse and the way we find the information about her is so strange that she's like join me hulk join me with my other plants and then so casually in the second one by the way we also rob diamonds like okay i guess so that she says it right in front of hulk and he gets mad that the fruit pies are already hidden they've also also been stealing fruit pies i guess or she just buys them and stores them in the artichoke and that's what they want to save and then by the end, it's not even like he stops.

I don't know how the police get there.

I don't know how they know.

I guess they're just called because someone says the Hulk is fighting a plant monster.

Go deal with this.

And the Hulk could not care less that they've been stopped with fruit pies.

Yeah, he's not offering them with anybody.

He's oblivious.

Yeah, it feels like

he and the fruit pies never interact.

And the straightforward version of this would be.

Bruce Banner is getting mad and he starts to turn into the Hulk.

Another hero gives him a fruit pie.

It calms him down because he likes it so much and he turns back into Bruce Banner and he still likes the fruit pie.

That's the straightforward version.

Anyone could tell that story, but some genius stepped in and said, No, I want to try something different.

I want to challenge the basic narrative and I want to do it in a way that leaves the reader with more questions than answers.

The only answer, and maybe that answer what they'll find will be inside a fruit pie, but I don't know.

They're just going to have to look.

And I feel like they also wanted to soft-launch their cousin Betty and plant robbers gang.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Maybe they're ready for the big time.

Look at Betsy and 36.

Yeah, they feel like such, they feel like DC villains, too.

So it's almost like Hulk jumped into a DC comic in the Silver Age.

Understandably mad.

Yeah.

I love it 100%.

Shazam gang.

Yeah.

And you mentioned

the song that came to my mind through it was, of course, Diamonds and Fruit Pies by Joan Baez, later covered by Judas Priest.

What a, you know,

what a song.

We both know what memories can bring.

They bring diamonds and fruit pies.

And so, yeah, I'm going to give this one 10 for the Hulk.

He does not want to be a part of anything.

He loves sitting under nice, cool shade plants.

And then he jumps away, does not care about fruit pies.

And I'm going to give it, yeah, of course this plan works.

It's not even a plan.

Well, that's the thing.

And things just happen.

Because that's life, Dan.

But you make plans and things just happen.

Yeah.

Yeah.

For you make plan.

Like, this does not sell fruit pies as a, as a, as a crime fighting tool.

That's what I love about it.

It is an ad for fruit pies, in which the fruit pies are almost negligible.

Almost not even part of the prostate.

Because it's not even in the other ones, it's kind of assumed the only way I can solve this problem is the fruit pies.

Here, the fruit pies, they're just a side element to Hulk beating the crap out of this plant and then jumping away.

This one admits that there are some problems that can't be solved with fruit pies.

And I appreciate that.

I appreciate the honesty of that, that not all problems are fruit pie problems.

Because I'm sure there's a version of this story where they're like, okay, so Hulk is fighting these plants and he has to give them fruit pies to stop stop fighting him.

And they're like, but Hulk wouldn't give a shit.

Well, so plants wouldn't want to eat fruit pies, right?

That's

not plants.

That one plant says, save the delicious hostess fruit pie, and Artie Chokes, with the real fruit filling and the light, tender crust.

He's so obsessed with it.

He's saying this out loud while he's being held upside down.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, it's a, yeah, it's a, this is,

here's the thing.

Sometimes someone takes kind of like a junk art form and makes art, what's been called termite art, you know?

And in this case, we've seen a lot of craft go into the other ones.

I think there's less craft in this one, but there's more art, if you understand what I'm saying.

Yes.

I do.

Yeah.

Well, thank you for joining me for the most educational mini we've ever done.

I'm just glad we've done two minis in a row now

telling people about the Marvel universe, you know, which is, that's great.

I don't mind it.

Equally important corners of the universe.

Well, when that Hulk and the Green Thumb movie comes out, people will know what it's all about.

Be ready.

Thank you for listening.

Thank you to Maximum Fun.

Go to maximumfun.org to check out all the other great podcasts on Max Fun.

Membership of listeners like you in MaxFun is what keeps us going.

Thank you to Alex Smith.

He goes by HowlDotty on the internet.

You can check out his music, his Twitch streams.

He's got a podcast that I've been enjoying very much.

It's a very very strange concept.

It's just a man and his giant possum friend talking about stuff.

It's funny.

Check that out, too.

What's the name of it?

I believe it's called the Big Howl and Possum podcast.

But for the Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

I've been Stuart Wellington.

And I've been Elliot Kalen, not enjoying these delicious hostess fruit pies, but it really makes me wish I could.

Wait, with the real fruit filling and the light tender crust?

You know it.

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