THE FANTASTIC POUR
Brett welcomes The Monitor Tapes’ DC Dave to the Fantasti-Lounge for a new edition of the Fantastic Pour as we talk Superman in the Silver Age! We enjoy a Lemon Drop Martini and read Action Comics #335. Join us in the Fantasti-Lounge as we discuss: Did Superman break the bro code? Re-starting the universe. Practical types of Kryptonite. And much, much more!
Secret Pour-igins: Lemon Drop Martini
Cocktail: Lemony Luthor
Ingredients (per drink):
- 2 oz vodka of choice
- 1/2 oz Cointreau or triple sec
- 1/2 oz fresh squeezed lemon juice
- 1/4 oz simple syrup
- 1 twist of lemon
Sugar rim
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- Zest from 1 lemon
Instructions
- Add sugar to a plate, then add zest of a lemon into the sugar and rub into the sugar with your fingers until tinted yellow and fragrant
- Moisten the rim of a chilled martini glass with the juiced lemon, rim the glass with lemon sugar and set aside
- Fill shaker with ice
- Add vodka, Cointreau, lemon juice, and simple syrup to the shaker
- Shake well and strain into martini glass
- Garnish with a lemon twist and enjoy
Comic: Action Comics Vol.1 #335, DC Comics, 1966
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DC Dave is the co-host of the Monitor Tapes. Listen here: https://brickcrisis.com/
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Before I comment on other stuff and forget: BIG co-sign on Dave’s “No billionaires” rule. Except, maybe, Paul McCartney? He seems pretty chill.
“Do You Make Life Hard On Yourself?” YES!
While I can enjoy the no-frills plot mechanics of a 60s DC comic, my sweet spot is (unsurprisingly) the 70s, when more characterization was mixed in with insane goings on of the DCU. But I nonetheless appreciated Dave picking something from this era.
Supposedly we are FINALLY getting Brainiac on the big screen for Superman 2. It’s only been, uh, 60 years?
Always love another episode of “The Pour.” (I’m cool now, right?)
Thanks, Rob. I give Sir Paul a pass as well. And remember, you’re cool as long as you think you are.
Thanks Rob! I had a blast recording this. And as dictator of DaveWorld, I’m willing to give Sir Paul a pass. “A broken clock is right twice a day” can apply to billionaires, too.
Add me to the “no billionaires” contigent as well.
Otherwise, great show featuring another conversation that did not, in fact, require an alcoholic beverage to make it go down easier. Even though, like Rob, the ’70s and ’80s is where I feel more at home with comics, I’ve read more than my share of Silver Age Superman tales thanks to the DC digests and generally always found them entertaining if nothing else.
On the question of why people were depicted smoking in comics back then, the answer is pretty simple: smoking was far more common back then and its ill-effects on health were still not publicly discussed to any significant degree. Growing up in the 1970s, I recall how many people still smoked back then and you would sometimes even see guests on talk shows smoking on camera.
And yes, DC’s Bob Hope series was still chugging along in 1966 and was only cancelled in early 1968. Meanwhile, the Jerry Lewis series continued until some time in 1971.
Thanks, Edo. Yeah, I remember flying to California with my family when I was little and the plane still had the ashtrays in the armrests.
Wonderful coverage of a story new to me.
I am always amazed at how many of us, at least in this little comic community, tout Superman from the 30s to the 70s as a big part of their fandom. I got mine from Santa as a kid and still have it. It is where my love for the Sand Superman concept began.
I had to laugh along with you on the artistic flourishes of the characters in the book. The painted faces on the bombs. The Brainiac/Luthor effigies. Brilliant.
I listened in the car so can’t remember all the Fantasti-questions but I would give one Kryptonite answer.
I am a fast walker and I can’t stand when people mosey in front of me, right in the middle of hallways so you can’t pass. Also, I think slow walkers travel in packs and walk abreast to make things worse. Frustrating !!! So I would create magenta kryptonite which would cause searing pain in slow walkers unless they sped up the pace. And I would make a ring out of it so it’s aura would surround me allowing me to walk around them, or with them at their encouraged speed. I swear if they had to cut off my hand after years of fast walking, I might say it was worth it!
Thanks, Anj. I can only imagine the pile of slow walking senior citizens left in your wake.
Really enjoyed the show and the Superman discussion.
I’m jealous of all you guys that got to read Superman from the 30s to the 70s and Batman from the 30s to the 70s growing up. I saw ads for them in comics and wanted both volumes but could never find either. Back then, it didn’t occur to me to order them through the mail.
I discovered Silver Age Superman through various places,…the Tempo paperback and digests mostly. It is a fun time to visit. The stories are so crammed with ideas and so much fun. Be forewarned, though. They are addictive. I bought a copy of Lois Lane 58 because of one panel I saw online. The bigamy panel. “That can’t be real,” I told myself. “The comics code would never have approved that. It has to be doctored.” So I ordered the issue on eBay. Turns out, the panel was real….and now I have over 100 issues of Lois Lane. When I got going, I just couldn’t stop. While I am a Superman fan, I consider myself a Batman guy first and foremost.
I would like to offer a theory on how you guys ended up with the issue. Back in the day, Superman family back issues weren’t very expensive. He was the best selling character back then, so there are lots more copies of his comics than other characters. I’m sure you probably liked the idea of getting such an old comic at a good price. I have Action and Superman issues from the 60s, too, and didn’t give a large price for any of them, other than Parasite’s first appearance.
Thanks, Gothos, I feel your pain. I have bought several random issues of Lois Lane based purely on the cover. That series had some of the best/ridiculous covers in comics.
Silver Age Superman sure had his moments Even though it looks like Luthor and Brainiac were definitely the villainous version of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble in this story. buds to the end. I’m not sure Superman broke the bro code but I have a feeling that Hal Jordan would have left Lex and Brainiac on Lexor and told them not to come back. I also had the Superman and Batman books you mentioned as well as one on Shazam from the forties to the seventies all three were awesome. Also can easily picture Mister Mind selling Lex and Brainiac that spaceship.
Thanks, Nate. I think Hal would’ve sent them back to earth and tried to make time with Ardora.
I listened to this and fire water team up back to back and bin reading TMNT comics . And the link in my mind is Jack Kirby . There is even a Kirby figure in the Necca tmnt line .
The character is called Kirby .
Here’s the fantastic question:
If Jack the king Kirby came in to fantastic lounge
And ordered something what do think he get and if said he would pay by making you a custom drawing of you with either character he worked on or created on and signed it who would choose and where would you hang it ?”
Bucky, this may be my favorite question ever. First, If the King came into the Lounge for a drink, it’s on the house. If he still wanted to do a custom drawing, I think I’d have him draw the Thing then I’d hang it right over the main bar by the top shelf liquors.
Really enjoyed this episode, which is not too surprising considering that my two favorite characters are also Superman and Captain America. Hence, my posting name. I love Silver Age stories, especially those featuring Brainiac, Bizarro, or Mr. Mxyzptlk. Silver-Age Luthor never clicked with me. He became a favorite villain when Byrne made him a super-smart, super-rich, super-influential enemy instead of an evil inventor type.
‘,
I don’t know about black kryptonite, but a recent issue of Supergirl did feature some pink kryptonite, which had the effect of making Supergirl fall in love with a guy she had just met. Online discussion of that story also alerted me to a Peter David Supergirl story that I have not read from the early 2000s that contained some pink kryptonite that apparently changes a character’s sexual orientation.
Also, glad to hear that DCDave also has good taste in music. I’m an Erasure fan and Vince Clarke is a musical genius.
Thanks, Super Captain. You and DC Dave should hit an Erasure/Depeche Mode concert. Stop by the Lounge for some drinks first, of course!
Looking at the gallery images, the Lexophone’s exact shape is a little hard to be sure of because we don’t quite see it clearly from directly above or below. If the top/bottom facets are hexagons the figure as a whole would have 20 sides, making it an irregular icosahedron (as opposed to a regular icosahedron, which gamers will be familiar with as a d20).
Alternately, if the top/bottom facets are octagons, then the object has 26 sides, which would make it an irregular icosakaihexahedron – although the “kai” connector is semi-optional (not everyone uses that format for complex polygon/polyhedron names) so you could just call it an icosahexahedron (which rolls off the tongue a little better in English).
There’s actually a wiki page on the subject of naming conventions for 2D polygons and 3D polyhedra.
FWIW, the octahedron you mentioned is another familiar shape for gamers, better known as a d8.
Thanks, Rich, and welcome to the Fantasti-Lounge! I can’t wait to try to pronounce some of these words in feedback.
Nice one on getting DC Dave on board, Brett, and how lovely to hear discussion of a Silver Age Superman comic, that’s just my bag and this is one I’d not read previously. Such fun! I love Lexor stories, I wish DC would put them all in a trade. I don’t recall Superman telling Ardora Lex was a baddie on Earth, I need to find that one.
I do remember the wacky story in which Perry White became a senator, and went off to Washington DC in a morning suit. There Van Benson was a silver fox, rather than a wishy washy brown-haired fella as here.
So far as new varieties of kryptonite go, I would invent a very unique glowing rock which would mildly slap anyone using the phrase ‘very unique’. It would be green to ensure it was very unique.
Still on K-metal, I would like to try Dave’s black coffee version because it’s not only Kryptonians who get no buzz from coffee, to me it’s just a nice drink.
If I could make a change to the end of Crisis on Infinite Earths it would be to keep the Infinite Earths – we don’t need the JSE-ers on Earth One to provide legacy heroes, they already had them on Earths One and Two. Having the JSA debut before Superman diluted his significance – wasn’t one of the big ideas of the Superman relaunch that he had to be, er, very unique? Well, he was when he was the first hero to debut big time on Earths zone, post-Crisis, not so much – ‘first big hero of the new heroic era’ doesn’t cut it.
Brett, I agree about the horrible use of Superman in Dark Knight Returns, that was just one of the reasons I didn’t like that book – talk about overrated.
Thanks for your very unique perspectives, Martin!
Grrrrrrrrr.
Great discussion about “how could post-Crisis have been managed better”. Based on the Nightwing/Robin dilemma and similar issues, probably no solution would please a majority of readers.
For my version of “Lexor” which would be named “Brianiac’s World”, some requirements:
1. No body of water would be more than 5 feet deep. (I’m a terrible swimmer and short) and none of it would be saltwater. (What kind of a planet would have so much undrinkable water?)
2. It would be shaped like a 12 sided die from role playing games
3. Gravity would be 50% of Earth’s so if I fall off a tall building, I can do the Batman style parachute trick he does with his cape and still survive the fall.
4. Most everything is edible. Not just the plants but also the dirt and rocks. And most animals can regenerate body parts so if I ate a chicken wing or a turkey leg, it would grow back.
5. Also, no billionaires.
Thanks, Brian. Wouldn’t kiddy-pool oceans make it a lot easier for the sharks to eat us?
Once again I enjoyed listening to a new episode of the Fantastic Pour while shoveling snow in my driveway. (Curse you, Wisconsin weather!) I enjoyed the banter as much as I enjoyed the recap of the issue. I used to proudly proclaim that I could name “all” the different types of Kryptonite and all their effects on various people and things (thank you, Who’s Who!) but sadly I can no longer do that from memory. Maybe it was some of that darn Amnesium? I had something else I wanted to say, but now I just can’t remember…
Thanks, John. I used to know Interlac, so we’re all losing it. And it always makes me happy when I hear that someone was listening to the show to make a bad situation slightly better. Also, be careful shoveling snow!
Great episode as always! As I have grown older, I have come to love those silly Silver Age Superman stories. It was fun to hear you discuss the issue, especially since Supes gives Luther a bit of a break.
I agree that the John Byrne reinvention of Luther is the best version. I highly recommend the backup story in Superman vol. 2, issue 2, where Lex torments a poor waitress in a truly diabolical way.
Also, Black Coffee Kryptonite is a brilliant idea.
Thanks, Sean. Love that story. Luthor is such a prick!
Sorry I am late – but great episode as always! Great to hear DC Dave! Perry White was briefly a senator, he was appointed to finish out a term by the governor as I recall. Not sure why they bothered with that to be honest. Silver age Superman is one I can take only in small doses but always a hoot. And I actually may try the lemon drop! Sounds interesting!