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The 116th episode of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST is now available for your listening pleasure! THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST is the official podcast of FIRESTORM FAN and THE AQUAMAN SHRINE.
This week Shag and Rob discuss the ongoing Firestorm storyline on The Flash, followed by a brief chat about Aquaman‘s new, post-Convergence creative team!
You can find the 116th episode of THE FIRE AND WATER PODCAST on iTunes. While you’re there, please drop us a review on the iTunes page. Every comment helps! Alternatively, you may download the podcast by right-clicking here, choosing “Save Target/Link As”, and selecting a location on your computer to save the file (33 MB).
As always, thanks to my co-host Rob Kelly, Sea King of THE AQUAMAN SHRINE, for doing all the post-production on these episodes! Opening theme, “That Time is Now,” by Michael Kohler. Special thanks to Daniel Adams and Ashton Burge with their band The Bad Mamma Jammas for our fantastic original closing theme! This episode brought to you in part by InStockTrades.com!
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Thanks for listening! Fan the Flame and Ride the Wave!
Shag, you didn’t catch the Conway reference? Even Cindy caught that!
Someone said they name-dropped Mal Duncan? I missed that one.
I said it here on Firestorm Fan earlier, but I really liked how they explored the deeper implications of two people merging, which is something I never knew them to do with Ronnie and Martin, anyway.
I’m more of a Flash guy, so I’m interested in those subplots as well, but the Firestorm stuff in this episode was indeed far more compelling than Barry being preoccupied with a girl he had 1 and a half dates with. The city was about to explode! C’mon Barry, get your head in the game! I really enjoy this Flash series, but that type of “all subplots accounted for” (copyright, Michael Bailey) drives me a bit nuts.
The Aquaman switch-up is a headscratcher. Parker has been writing a lot of the Batman 66 comics, which I enjoy, so I hope he sticks around there. It’s FUN comics! Who’da thunk it.
Rob, your theory on DC not cancelling Aquaman reminds me of Blackhawk’s situation in the 80s. Legend has it no less than Steven Speilberg had an option on making a Blackhawk film, so DC dusted off the property and ran it several years under Mark Evanier and Dan Spiegle. It was a great run, but I was surprised to learn later it only existed to promote this movie that was never made.
Chris
Chris-
That Spielberg/Blackhawk thing is entirely true. Mark Evanier has talked about it, and said because DC did not care about the book other than as a movie tie-in, they let him do with it what he wanted. He and Dan Spiegle ended up producing some superb comics, it would make an amazing trade.
Seconded! That Evanier/Spiegle run was a welcome, back-to-basic approach to the Blackhawks. There was an amazing lineup of guest artists including Pat Boyette, Howard Chaykin and Alex Toth doing short stories in some of those issues.
A now hard-to-find paperback novel came out around the same time, too. Though it resulted in some damn fine comics, it’s a shame this marketing push was all for a film that was not to be.
Another great podcast as always gentlemen!
I agree completely with Rob about Aquaman. I’ve loved Parker’s and Pelletier’s run and am a little concerned to have the creative team change again so soon, but I’m remaining optimistic and wish the new team the best.
Like Shag, I had also read that the reason for the convergence event was due to the two months needed for the relocation to California.
I must say I’m pleased to see Aquaman featured prominently on the Justice League America cover and even more excited to see Mera prominently on the Justice League cover and she is featured exclusively on the alternate cover of Justice League.
Have a great week guys!
Darrin
This is Ruth and I just want to assure the two of you that you do have another regular female listener.
I look forward to your show every week and I’m especially pleased when it is a review episode, Who’s Who episode, or an episode with lots of news like this one.
Rob, I’m hoping that interest in Aquaman will grow with the upcoming movies so there is even more news to cover in the future.
And hopefully more female listeners will join especially if Mera is featured in the new movies … and hopefully in her own solo comic as well.
And Shag, you should know that I had little interest in Firestorm until hearing this podcast and meeting you at DragonCon. Now I look forward to hearing your “classic” comic reviews and consider Firestorm and his rogues to be the most interesting parts of the Flash TV series.
Your “female” fan, Ruth
Hey fellas, enjoyed the casual conversation about Flash (Firestorm) and the new Aqua-team. Flash started on shaky ground for me but somewhere around the fifth or sixth episode it suddenly became a total blast for me – I look forward to this show each week. I am more a fan of the Flash plots than the Firestorm ones so far, I’ll admit, but I think the Firestorm plots are advancing nicely and as they gel more with the Flash stories I think we’ll wind up with a Firestorm that’s a bit closer to the one(s) we know from the comics. Victor Garber is amazing in everything he does and that flashback scene with Barry on the train was my favorite scene of the episode. It was so well acted by both actors and much subtler than your typical CW scenes. Good stuff all around. I think this show reached a high level faster than Arrow – which I think happened in season two during the Deathstroke storyline – but it’s reminding me of how great that show became last season when it really hit its stride. Now unfortunately I think Arrow’s regressed a bit, but Flash is really firing on all cylinders right now.
As for the new Aquaman creative team, I agree with Rob and most who felt saddened over the departing team leaving the book. This is one of the best runs in the character’s history – and one of the best written and drawn Mera’s we’ve ever seen (my God Pelletier needs to draw either a Mera solo series, mini-series, or a series of pin ups of her or something – anything!) – so it’s natural we’d all be bummed by the news. However, while I know nothing of the incoming art team, I do know a little of Bunn’s work. I’ve been meaning to read The Sixth Gun, I’ve read a few issues of his Marvel work along with the entire year-long run he had on Fearless Defenders. Rob, I hope you really did order that trade – it’s a fun series. It’s filled with wonderful character work on some Marvel b and c list characters like Misty Knight, Valkyrie, and others. I picked up all twelve issues at my LCS last year for 10 bucks and blew through it in a matter of days. Absolutely one of my favorite series of recent years. So that alone gives me high hopes for Bunn on Aquaman. Also, I heard he’s going to write a spooky, supernatural-tinged four or five issue arc of Moon Knight starting in a couple months. I’m excited for that too. So everything’s turning up Bunn lately!
I may be the odd man out here, but I’m ok with Parker leaving Aquaman, less so with Pelletier. I’ve enjoyed Pelletier’s art, but honestly the Parker stories have left me less enthusiastic. As a long time Aqua-Fan I tried, but I just couldn’t get into it and sadly, several months worth sit unread on my nightstand. We all have our favorite runs and teams (for me that would be Peter David and Jim Calafiore) and we’re all sad to see them move on, get cancelled, or traded out with no explanation, so I feel for everyone that enjoyed Parker’s run…but I look forward to what happens next with Aquaman! I guess it’s like the old saying…you can please all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.
Just want you to know that I’m a bit sad that Bunn is taking on Aquaman, but only because he’s currently writing two books I’m enjoying very much (Sinestro and Lobo), and I’m afraid of losing him to Aquaman. Aqua-fans have nothing to worry about. Bunn’s writing is excellent, creative, and fun. It’s good news for fans of the series.
I finally got caught up on THE FLASH so I could listen to this episode. By now I’ve seen the episode that follows this podcast where Firestorm is fully merged and embraced, and it was fantastic. In fact, the Firestorm subplot that has run through the last five or six episodes has been one of the major high points of an already terrific show. I realized halfway through ARROW’s first season that the way to enjoy these CW shows is to accept the changes in characters, because every once in a while the showrunners demonstrate some astounding adherence to the spirit and iconography that blows fans away.
Perhaps the craziest thing is that these Firestorm appearances on THE FLASH have made me a bigger fan of Firestorm than I was. I could never imagine that before, but I now see the character as far more versatile. That isn’t meant to be a knock against Firestorm; I’ve always thought the character could carry a film–I fan casted and outlined a Firestorm trilogy years ago. But to see him on the small(er) screen stealing the show from Flash has been remarkable. When the CW teased that they were potentially looking at another spinoff, I assumed it would be ATOM, to piggyback on the shrinking gimmick that ANT-MAN will popularize this summer. Now… I don’t know. A Firestorm show. Looks pretty damn good.
As for the costume, I can see a version of the classic red/yellow suit making an appearance. Barry’s suit is dark red, and something like that would look blackish against the flame projections. They could also build a partial cowl so only the top of his head sprouts flames instead of the whole thing.
Wasn’t “Sun Devils in My Hand” a minor alt-rock hit in the mid-to-late ’90s?
If his run turns out to boost sales and spirits, will Rob start referring to the writer as Cuddle Bunn?
I’ve been DVRing Arrow since hearing about Ray Palmer showing up, and I may have to actually watch some of them before Beth from Walking Dead shows up. Couldn’t care less about her character until the middle of last season, but she really shined on the road with Darryl and at the hospital. Now I’m all like “why couldn’t it have been Maggie… And Glenn..?” The Bug-Eyed Bandit makes more sense once you realize The Atom’s Silver Age rogues gallery came up to three or four dudes if you’re feeling generous. Ryan Choi had a better lot of villains in two years than Ray’s had in half a century, and they weren’t anything to write a comment on a blog about, either.
I neglected to DVR The Flash, because it stars the Flash, and also Firestorm. Victor Garber and especially Clancy Brown as General Eiling are making me feel pangs of regret. Well, some regret. What’s, like, one-eighth of a pang? Also, what’s a pang? Is it like a ping or a poke? We’re talking only one-sixteenth of a poke.