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Everybody. Welcome back to the Captioned Life Show. In this episode, we're reviewing

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the Marvel Comics series events, Secret Wars from 2015 to 2016. And joining the show to help us review is Matt and Lauren from Hops Geek News.

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our spotlight for this episode is the local gaming store Valkyries Vault that's located in greater Indianapolis area.

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they sell anything that's gaming related from board games to trading card games to roleplaying games.

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And they also sell pluses, collectibles, apparel. They even host learn to play knights as well as league events at their store. Check them out. And Brownsburg, Indiana,

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let's get started.

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Hi and welcome to the Capsule episode for the most casual and dedicated fans of comics in a member of the comic Watch family, I'm your host. Sean joined me and discovers what the world of comics and graphic novels have to offer from one on one interviews with industry professionals, roundtable discussions with passionate fans, and reviews on the latest comics, TV shows and movies.

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Let's dive right on in.

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So today we are doing a comics review and commentary episode and we're going to talk about the Marvel series events, Secret Wars, a nine issue series published from 2015 to 2016. It was written by Jonathan Hickman, illustrated by Isadore Beck, Colored by IVs for See Now, which I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, and lettered by Chris Ila Paulos.

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As you may know, I selected comics about the review by taking the recommendation from our guest host. So please welcome to the show from the Hops Geek News podcast Lauren and Matt

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What a It's the beauty, the Internet baby. That's just a random Internet ad looking for people who are like beer in one to just like post pictures about beer to Oh, no, it's COVID. You guys just want to do a podcast too. Hey, you guys, this is a beer podcast. Why don't you, like, talk about geek stuff on your own show?

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Oh, yeah, I am. Yeah. So right now I'm like 45 minutes away from Boise, Idaho. But thank God I'm moving back to, like, the East Coast. So I'll be in Virginia soon. Oh, God, no. I'm from literally right outside of Boston, Massachusetts. So to come to Idaho, it's like, Oh, man, it's it's like I was transported to a whole different planet.

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Oh, man. The fact that I have to drive 45 minutes to go to a movie theater or like anything, because I'm not used to I used to be able to, like, go to Dunkin Donuts within 5 minutes or hey, there's six grocery stores within 5 minutes to, Oh, jeez, you got to hop on one long stretch of road for like 45 minutes.

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They let food. They like to they name like their towns, like No Hope, Wyoming and things like that. It's it's kind of funny if you ever find yourself driving through because I had to. And then the first words my wife said to me, like after we parked the car, because we get off and she's like, I want a divorce.

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And I was like, You know what? I will. I'll drafted the paperwork. It's fine. They love the fact that there's like, no people around are like, Good, We don't want people around people. What? Oh, yeah, yeah, I'll, I was just kind of say I wanted, like, the most unhinged story that you could possibly get, and then, you know, it's, it's kind of a hot topic conversation.

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It's coming up soon anyways. So it was a good excuse for me to kind of revisit the story because I first read it back when it first came out and I was like, Man, I don't know what's going on right now. It wasn't like in the comics as much as I am now, so it definitely was a fun reread.

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Yes, if we're lucky. No, it was Oh God, I wish I was still in high school in 2015. Mad, but I was too. Yeah, well, that's at first. It's like because they had the one from 1984 and then this one. Yeah. No, I just happened to see it on the comic book shelf and I was like, Oh, I love Hickman.

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Let's see what this is about. And so I kind of read it issue to issue, but I honestly, in a move, I lost all those issues. So it's good that I picked up the, the book anyways. And I was like, Oh, this has like every character that this is because I kind of got back into comics like 2012 and I was more of DC at that point.

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And then so when I saw like all these Marvel characters on the cover, getting them all together and I was like, This sounds awesome. And then after reading, I was like, I'm not sure what was so secret about this. Oh, yeah, I guess. I guess that makes sense. But yeah, I was like, I don't know what was so secret about this.

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And then, yeah, that's just based on my origin was just finding new, fun, exciting things. And it's like as many characters as possible. They'll let's see what this is about. Ooh, I would, yeah. Pretty much say that two worlds collide. And out from the ashes we have doom's a god and a lot of heroes who have survived this event are basically doing his bidding.

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And from there it's just cameo. After cameo, people just I don't even know. That's it's really it's kind of hard to accept that, like fully describing what happens. I think I was 61. Yeah they turned him into that. They banished him into the sun. Like what? I had no idea. You missed, like, one thing that's. Yeah, you turn of the dust kind of is how I took it as you.

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Just like, boom, you're vanished.

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I was like, Yeah, he's. He's always hungry. Is that you got food? No. What the heck, man?

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The undoing of God is a hamburger. Yeah, I. This. He's that hungry. All right, look,

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not a whole lot of battles go on. I mean, doom steals, reads, girl, and all that stuff. So you can see where it comes down to it. Yeah. Yeah, you would think so. Yeah. It takes until, like, the middle of the book before you really start to understand what's going on.

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And then you're like, Oh, okay, now it makes a little more sense, but in the beginning you're just like, What? He just kind of disappears. It's not my favorite. I definitely agree. It's it's a good story, but it's not one that's like, Oh, wow, this is a must read over and over again. It's more of like, All right, maybe I'll pick it back up around the time that the movie releases again.

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But I'm not going to sit there making an annual reread like I do some of the other bigger stories. That's right. Yeah. There is not one. I'll be honest with you. There's not one that I was like, Oh, this really stands out to me. They were all just like, Of course it's Alex Ross, right? It's very stoic in the way that he portrays these characters in his artwork.

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And so, of course, I took a minute to be like, Wow, this is incredible. But at the end of the day, there was not one particular thing other than like just the cover to me, always kind of just generic, you know, there's a lot that stands out. But I didn't have one that I was like, Yes, this is it.

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Well, I feel like with his artwork, like it's it's almost too good in like, there's something about it almost that. Well, that's I'm saying like it's almost to like, oh, this doesn't fit a comic book theme, you know, air quotes around that because a lot of people think of comic book artwork to be one thing. But his he takes that.

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But it's almost like really, really refined. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's amazing art. I could never in a million years do this, but I think that's kind of why for me as well. Yeah, it is. It's all in the back of the trade. Yeah.

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And then he gets blown up.

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I was. I was too. I was too.

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I was like, wait, wouldn't he have known? But then again, my thought was like, Oh, it's been eight years. Maybe this these kids popped up afterwards. I don't even know there's a couple. So of course, like the low hanging fruit is obviously the one frame that everybody shares when talking about doom. And how powerful is doom? How does this it's the scene where he's, you know, turning Thanos to dust by grabbing his spine.

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He just reaches inside and poof, Daniels is gone. So that was always yeah, that's always like a really fun, you know, panel. But I think probably my favorite moment was T'Challa getting the Infinity Gantlet like him anymore. They get the gantlet and then that's when T'challa's like, All right, game on. And he starts, you know, taking it to Doom.

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And they have a kind of good fun battle and T'Challa still at the end like he goes down swinging and just kind of laughing when he doom's like, what are you laughing about? And then that's when the whole thing kind of culminates. And so that was probably my favorite thing is just showing because to me I'm still connecting.

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Know like the Black Panther character in real life to Chadwick Boseman. And it's like, we're not going to kind of get this. Unfortunately, in the MCU. So it was like, I really just love how that whole thing played out for me. Same right? Oh, yeah, Yeah. Or Cyclops gone. I personally love at the end, after everything kind of the dust settles, you have like Peter and Miles just standing of top New York City.

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And Peter's just like you. You're on top of your homework. You finish your homework. He's like, You wanna go fight bad guys? And he's just like, hell, Yes. And they just have that scene of them swinging off together to meet that. I love that scene so much just because I have such a love for the Miles Morales character due to that being like my son's first introduction into comic books and his favorite characters, I was like, That's just classic because I didn't really give them too much to do in the story, so I'm glad that like at the end we kind of get to see them still just be Ambrose Yep.

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And have pockets. Oh my God. They kept cutting his head off. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. Lauren No, you just gave yourself Lauren Pretty much. I would like to probably say that mine is just the I like the beginning segment where the hero's you of Iron Man who's trying to do a bunch in the city like they're just that's the classic feel of just trying to save the city.

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You don't know what's going on. You're just thrust into whatever the heck is happening. But the heroes are just like, Nope, we got to stop this. And then they can't, of course. But to me, that was that was like my favorite. All the heroes kind of collectively just working together because it really felt like that old school style.

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Yeah, agreed. I admittedly, I don't really care about the Fantastic Four too much, but I do. I do enjoy how it happened. I just I'm always I don't kids don't care. Like Reed Richards doesn't have to be the center of every universe. So when I it like that to me, I was just like, uh, fine, we're back to the status quo.

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Whatever. Oh, yeah, Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. Oh, man. It's the first one's not bad. The second one, just the. Yeah, there's. There's two. They made two. They made two. I don't say that. That's a good point. Maybe Beavis Gone 60 seconds is the prequel. We never knew we needed. That's fair. Yeah, I was going to say a seven just for, like, you know, there's a lot of really good artwork within it, a lot of good, like, fun team up sequences or things, you know, interactions that you'd normally wouldn't probably get.

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But overall, it's just like it's not this grand standing like, whoa, that everybody kind of makes it out to be. Oh, yes, yes. Right. Oh, without a doubt. My wife. Yeah, that's my wife's favorite. She even has like the one of the characters like that framed up on the wall. Me, I'm with you. It's just kind of like, Yeah, yeah, it's not bad, but I'm not reaching for it.

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The first thing and that's not my first recommendation for anybody to to read right off the bat. It's just me. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, weird, like there's creatures and then, like, there's a general, and he's got the television for the head, but then, like, it's about these two who had, like, forbidden love almost amidst this war. And yeah it's, it's interesting.

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It's a different story with different characters than, you know, if you're looking. Yeah. So I've been reading the Darth Vader Red, white and blue, like that's the it's the black and white Darth Vader comics. I always get the name mixed up for some reason, but it's it's yeah, it's like the Moon Knight has the red, white and blood as well.

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So I was I was like, it's a tongue twister for me. But the most recent issue came out like Mark Bernardin had a story and it's kind of like a combination of a few different writers and artists within it. So like David proposed had won in the second issue, Daniel Warren Johnson just had a story and one as well.

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And it's just fun. It's like you get to see Darth Vader. He's very ruthless, very brutal. He's obviously one of my favorite characters to read comics about. So if I had to, like, recommend anybody read anything, there's only three issues of this one out right now. I would definitely pick that up. And then the last one I would just recommend is the The Riddler Year one written by Paul Dano.

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That one's been a lot of fun. The book five just came out and I just picked that up yesterday. Yes. Oh, yeah. Call me by my middle name. Oh, nice. Yeah, I think that'll be a lot of fun. Oh, definitely. That's true. That is true. Yeah. Mm. I haven't, but I love everything image puts out. Mm. Oh nice.

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Yeah. Just go ahead and search hot stick news on any podcasting platform, any social media platform. It's pretty simple. That's where you can find all of our stuff and the links to all of our fun, fun things. Unless you're right, it's, you know. Yeah. Jeez, you can't see anything. Oh, absolutely. Thank you so much for having us. And we'd love that.

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wraps up another episode of the caption in Life.

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