First Strike: The Invasion! Podcast Ep.22: Invasion #2

We’ve finally reached Invasion! Book Two, folks! Battleground Earth has Earth’s heroes finally going on the offensive in a massive 80-page giant, and Bass and Siskoid are your war correspondents!

Listen to Episode 22 below (the usual filthy filthy language warnings may apply), or subscribe to First Strike: The Invasion! Podcast on iTunes!

Relevant images and further credits at: First Strike ep.22 Supplemental

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24 responses to “First Strike: The Invasion! Podcast Ep.22: Invasion #2

  1. Congratulations fellas, you made it! Well, not quite, but this is definitely a milestone for the show.

    I remember that Deadman reveal being really sweet. It also took me aback as one of our heroes made a guy commit suicide. Certainly the means justified the ends in this case, but it’s interesting that Deadman makes Batman kill Devil Ray on JLU later and it’s big bit of angst on both of their parts.

    Wasn’t a big fan of Giffen during his pseudo-Maguire phase. It was better than his elongated head/heavy blacks phase, but I call this his “fat head” period. Everyone looks like they are scrunching their heads down into their necks. I lamented the loss of the early Legion Giffen.

    Looking forward to the “aftermath” period of the show.

    Chris

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    1. While I did encounter Giffen in that earlier Legion phase (in DCCP 59 which I apparently can’t shut up about, and post-Darkness issues of LSH), I became aware of him through his Ambush Big mini-series, and liked the experimentalism from day 1. I appreciate how he changes his art style every so often (from the obscure 9-panel grid, to Maguirism, to Trencher, to Ambush Bug’s last mini), but to me, the true Giffen is his late 80s work as seen in Ambush Bug, 5YL Legion, etc., not his slick Lightlesque early work.

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  2. Two Queen songs?!! Are you trying to curry favor with me, Siskoid? Try a deep cut and we’ll talk!

    This issue has a pretty badass Aquaman drawn by McFarlane. I do wonder how our esteemed Mr Kelly feels about this.

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  3. I do wonder how our esteemed Mr Kelly feels about this.

    I’m not sure what my Dad’s take is, but I think you can guess what my general feelings are, considering the comments I’ve made about TM’s work in the past. No one looks like they have any bones, they’re just bags of mush. Though I do enjoy that if you look closely at Aquaman in the group shot, it would appear he’s got yellow gloves. How did the Golden Age Aquaman end up in INVASION???

    I have never understood why or how Bill Pullman’s speech in ID4 has become so iconic. Every time I’ve heard it play, it sounds so incredibly lame. Though since that movie’s charms elude me, maybe that’s understandable.

    Related, I am never sure how I feel about anyone re-appropriating the Iwo Jima memorial for a commercial venture. Sometimes I think I’m being too stiff, other times it seems offensive. IDK.

    You guys did a great job covering a mammoth book in a very listenable running time. I will point Shag towards this particular episode when he needs pointers for synopsizing comics.

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    1. Invasion still has Crisis hiccups, like the non-Hawkworld Hawkman, Hawkwoman and Thanagarians. That explains the yellow gloves.

      While I dislike ID4 and all things Emmerich, I knew I was going to use that clip for this issue since the very beginning. It plays fine in isolation despite the shmaltz.

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    2. I get RKelly’s reservations about the Iwo Jima appropriation. It’s not that historically sensitive to have three fictional heroes and Firestorm “recreating” that event.

  4. What a fool I was to think I could view the scanned pages you posted from this issue and presume to identify the three characters with the Suicide Squad that you couldn’t name. Best guess? The artist just made up three random designs to fill in space.

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      1. A good guess seeing as he had just joined (been drafted?), but that’s not his mask, gloves or cape design in silhouette, and I don’t think he’d learned to fly yet.

        1. imo the Squad just needed to grab some grunts quickly, and Waller didn’t know anything about what special skills would be useful on this mission against barely-known alien combatants, so there are indeed a handful of randos who got squished by Khunds seconds after the panel ends. This rush and ill-planning also explains why Ambush Bug is still wearing a prison jumpsuit. Also why he’s there at all.

    1. I think the blonde flyer is The Yellow Peri. I’d say Firefly for the moth-like one, and for the last, hm. it is McFarlane so maybe Obsidian? (If it was blacked out in post, maybe it was Major Victory originally?)

      Killing the Omega Men was pretty unnecessary and gratuitious. They never really were galaxy-scale police forces like the Green Lantern Corps had been or L.E.G.I.O.N. and Darkstars would go on to be in their absences, they were just a space opera set in the sprawling Vega system, and L.E.G.I.O.N. would never end up doing anything in Vega.

  5. Could Deadman be at the summit? Look at the scientist at the bottom. He is has a glow around him. Thoughts?

      1. it (very mildly) annoyed me 30 years ago that there was apparently enough thought to set that up, but not to drop another set-up panel later in the issue for the payoff to work better. I’d been staring at that technician / scientist for ages, wondering if he was meant to be startled, or getting an electric shock, or radiation. Then when the (great) Deadman reveal happened, I was bothered that he hadn’t been listening to the summit per se, and might have fucked up an important process while in the technician’s body

  6. Hey guys, Australia reporting in. Things were pretty hairy down here for a while but we were able to rebuild. In Melbourne a Café was erected for every person who died. Kudos to Siskoid for pronouncing Melbourne correctly once this ep.

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    1. So do I pronounce it badly every time, and this one I mispronounced it so that I pronounced it correctly? This is going to keep me up at night. Or at day, from your perspective.

      Glad you’re okay though!

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      1. “So do I pronounce it badly every time, and this one I mispronounced it so that I pronounced it correctly?”

        As someone who noticed the “correct” mispronunciation too, I bet this is indeed what Hix meant.

  7. My favorite Giffen is the Munoz period, but I’m also fascinated by his earlier Kirby/Perez mash-up. The Maguire “fat head” period and his 5YL stuff was alright, but I hated the squiggly, sloppy Trencher period (which oddly enough also debuted during a crossover event Bart Sears drew part of, Eclipso: The Darkness Within.)

    I must concur with Mr Kelly that everything about ID4 was lame, including that speech (but especially the doggy outrunning the tunnel inferno.) I am however fine with the Iwo Jima appropriation/homage. Can’t really cry “too soon” after 44 years, and there’s a subtle political statement in using the U.N. flag that I endorse.

    I don’t want First Strike to end. Can’t you guys just spin it into a L.E.G.I.O.N. indexing show?

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