Hey, this one was thanks to a listener asking questions, and we avoided mentioning Heidegger. But other Nazis who can bus off into the sun get mentioned!

From the Rooftops

Episode 36 – Utility Belts

But not really! This week we're going to talk to you about reboots in comics!

Episode 35 – The Time Force

You know what you need? you need two former churchboys who dealt with apocalypses talking about the way comics handle the idea of gods and their presence in the world. Why not hear Clay tackle the phrase 'Modern Myth' and Talen bring up 'lusury attitudes?'

Episode 34 – The Deity

What do we mean when we mention 'mercenary?' It's not just someone who does something for themselves. This privatised personalised military force is something the superhero setting is filled with, so it's probably best to get a good handle on how they work and what they can do in a story.

Episode 33 – The Mercenary

We talk about gangs as used in superhero comics, with some talk about real world racism, the role of the gang and what causes them to flourish and even some of that fancy-pantsy academical stuff! Also, Clay goes the whole episode forgetting that Blood Syndicate exists, the silly.

Episode 32 – The Gang

In this episode, we talk about the big spooky dude out of space, the ruler of something, This is where we talk about the ways a story can use a powerful external force, with a different ideology, and what you can use it for in a story! Hey, by the way, there was a tiny bit of audio problems, Talen's mic was set up wrong, so he's kinda echoey and weird. Sorry!

Episode 31 – The Space Tyrant

And we're back, with a single day turnaround and technical issues hopefully sorted! This week, we talk about characters-within-a-character, the idea of the Passenger. This covers characters like Hulk and Venom, but also Moon Knight, and of course, Moon Knight. Passengers can be helpful or mendacious, proactive or uncooperative, and we talk about them as a story tool and what you can use them to do.

Episode 30 – The Passenger

Holy heck does this even work any more. Clay and Talen talk about superheroes and their fundamentally creative nature and how refusing to use a superhero name reflects that.

Episode 29 – Say Your Name

Holy hell we're still here! With a few weeks of preparation to get this one solved, after some DREADFUL technical issues, Clay and Talen talk about The Karate-Man as a superhero comic archetype!

Episode 28 – The Karateman

Fandom, boy, I don't know. It's a beast of a problem, something that we use to connect ourselves to our world, things that give us metaphors and common spaces and also, at the same time, something some people use as a reason to hate people. Good news, though, we solve it forever in this podcast (we don't).

Episode 27 – Fandom

Now, it's time to count up your sins! Since there's a recent groundshaking event in superhero fiction - ie, Talen watched a Toku series - we felt it's time to talk about it! There's something about hoppers.

Episode 26 – Kamen Primer

Oh, we know you're reading this. There are a bunch of characters in comics who play with the fact that they are, in fact, in comics. This time, we talk about them! Sorry it's late, the editor was busy!

Episode 25 – The Meta Character

Superhero media isn't limited to comic books and movies! Clay and Talen have played a LOT of games that let them make and play superheroes, so in this episode, we talk about our conception of superheroes as you can express through play!

Episode 24 – Games!

Hey, what if we talk about the kind of comic book thing that is like, just another term for 'something happened?' We talk about the way comic books try to structure the 'idea' of an event and compare it to Movies and whether or not there's any There There.

Episode 23 – The EVENT!

Since we talked about rogues, and villains, in true City of Heroes style, we wanted to add to this and talk about Vigilantes. The nature of the Vigilante is as a character who can push the story in different directions than a hero or villain might, recontextualising villians and opponents. But at the same time, the Vigilante can be handled badly, and often intersects with uncomfortable things about the way cultures regard violence. As a content warning, we do discuss some elements of modern news with guns, and the idea of arming teachers.

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From the Rooftops

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