**NOTE* This Transcript still needs to be reviewed for accuracy. Thank you for your patience - Neal**

Corey 0:05
So I had to take the notes in Notepad tight, so they're just, they're just raw text.

Neal 0:10
Is it just one long line too? You know how notepad

Corey 0:13
No, I did put line breaks. Okay, put line breaks though, but it doesn't turn so some of them wrong.

Neal 0:18
Okay. That's fine. I like that. I like that about notepad you can just do one long line forever. Dude, it's ice cream day.

Corey 0:28
It is ice cream day.

Neal 0:29
What? What do you do on ice cream day? There's not why is that not a fucking link? I guess it's pretty self explanatory. It's just Yeah,

Corey 0:35
what do you want him to say? Man?

Neal 0:36
Right. I don't know, man history of ice cream. How? How been met Jerry. I don't know.

Corey 0:43
So, I have a question. That's gonna sound like it's coming out of absolutely nowhere.

Neal 0:49
Okay.

Corey 0:50
Um, how familiar are you with variants of chess?

Neal 0:58
I, I know. I've heard of Chess Boxing.

Corey 1:02
I don't know that one. That sounds crazy. And that's Are you familiar with things like hetero coalescence? Chess, or no weak? Or Brownian? Motion? Chess? No, baby. 2d Fruity chess.

Neal 1:18
These are gum. These are ice cream and gum flavors.

Corey 1:20
What about chess on a really big board? It's the real name.

Neal 1:24
The wizard is that wizards chess like in Harry Potter? No.

Corey 1:27
But there is something called the way of the knight which is sort of ropes of d&d characteristics into chess.

Neal 1:32
That sounds pretty fucking sick. Honestly, I do know that I've said, Okay, I know one one major variant of chess, which is chess combat from Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance.

Corey 1:42
I'm so glad you said that. So all of the chess variants I've just listed to you. We could also talk about strange relay chests, sure. Double conversion chests, Cassandra chests. All of these androids are all of it doesn't matter. All of these are developed by Ralph Betsa. He is an fid II master of chess, and also a developer of a whole boatload of chess variants.

Neal 2:12
Yeah, dude, now Omicron.

Corey 2:16
The last chess variant that he made. Yeah, according to Wikipedia, in the year 2002, is called the game of Nima

Neal 2:28
Roth, the game of Nemo rough,

Corey 2:31
it is the most complex chess variant that there is as far as I understand it. Now, on the chess variants.com, there is a Scriven by Ralph Betsa. about the game of numeroff. It is written by Ralph. Okay. And I want to read it, it is important to say we are not going to get to the part that is subtitled official rules of NEMA wrath. We're not going to get there. But I want to tell you a bit of a story about numeroff Because there was a reveal later on in the explanation that I think is relevant to our interests. It's gonna take me a minute so that listeners strap in maybe at some tea. Yeah, wait till it's dark out. Can I start reading this and you just react as I go? You can start reading this. Yes, this is the game of Nima Roth by Ralph Betsa be ETS at a

Neal 3:34
ETS Zed a quarry. Before we jump into this please post the URL in the discord so I can Oh in the episode description. I won't Oh,

Corey 3:43
I will. Also I was reading this with my roommate the other day. Okay. And I want to preface this with in no way am I making fun of this. I think this is fucking awesome. Okay, good. And we had a great time reading about like, this is so flushed out. It's like this chess variant is based on a fantasy world that this man had to create.

Neal 4:03
Oh, boy. Okay. Incredible. So he built he built a world he did. worlds within worlds. In

Corey 4:10
fact, I am realizing I may be able to skip chunks of this. To get to the point that we need to get to just follow your heart. On a recent moonless midnight, a shutter screeched as it opened and closed again and again. Open and Closed though there was no wind. And in my dream the screeching became the voice of a spirits that whispered to me the following tale. In NEMA rock a game called chess was played. The rules they used were not the rules we know for numeroff thrive when the world was still being built. Indeed, it was in the herper of Nima Roth that the moon was made in the city destroyed by accident when Aluna was floated up into the sky. Jesus in numeroff. One did not play chess with crude figurines of plastic or wood. Instead, the actual creatures were moved about on a vast playing field. So spended in the unfinished filament Oh dude, I've actually skipping the subtitles to add reveals Are you good? Are you good? Any thoughts so far?

Neal 5:14
This is the greatest story ever told for starters

Corey 5:16
on each player's royal square is a bass Liske it may retrieve one square diagonally, or it may advance in the most forward manner up at night. Always do it. This is not even the good part. All right, okay, always to an empty square and the squares to which it may move are also the squares that can see any piece which is seen by a bass Liske be it Friend or foe is instantly thrown into a piroxicam of torment and petrified.

Neal 5:47
Of course massless

Corey 5:49
schools, she's petrified pieces continue to see and continue to suffer their torments, as evidenced by the dim glow of fire that can be discerned deep within the Malakut forums. Jesus Christ on the Royal Consort square, each player has a Ghast g h a s t, okay. This creature is so dreadful that no other piece neither friend nor foe may voluntarily approach within two squares of it. Any friendly piece within that distance if it chooses to move must flee the guest. Any enemy piece within that distance is compelled to flee. The gas moves by jumping two squares diagonally and must land on an empty square. To flee means that the piece must move further away from the gas that it was at the start of its move. Compelled moves mean that the player does not have a free choice of moves. Instead, the player must move a piece which is compelled so long as there's a square to which it may voluntarily move. Should multiple pieces are compelled, the player may choose any of them. If some pieces are compelled, but none have legal moves. The game is lost a note here is that this game cannot be lost in a stalemate. That's part of the chest Marian angle. It which I think is kind of interesting. Actually. I don't know a lot about chess. There's a lot of like, interesting chess stuff going on here. Sure. Amid the incredible lore we are primarily

Neal 7:06
from some deep cut Magic the Gathering mechanics are making their way in. Oh, yeah, it feels like it I don't know. I'm more just

Corey 7:15
sometimes it is possible to make a saving move with one piece with some other piece than it compelled one I should say for example, suppose that your Vassilis has been pushed onto an occupied square, and so was compelled to move off but has no legal move. If you can engulf your own Vassilis with a leaf pile, you have removed the condition causing motion is there for you to save the game? Neal, I need you to scrap the fuck is what I am about to say, Deal? Deal. Deal. Deal. I need you to get ready. I need you to be ready for a deal.

Neal 7:49
Okay. All right. All right.

Corey 7:50
We're getting there. We're actually we're like we're like five subheadings away from the important part. Okay, it's gonna take us a while to get through this. All right, all right on the square where chess players expect to see a bishop. Instead we find a pile of leaves a fucking pile. Hang on. This is so important. Okay, a common place site in the autumn when the deciduous trees have shed a friendly sight and inoffensive viably. However,

Neal 8:19
oh shit. However, the dread pile of leaves,

Corey 8:24
you're more right than you would expect. However, I'm gonna try to say this without laughing I'm gonna try so hard. All right, because it's awesome. Okay.

Neal 8:34
Okay, because I

Corey 8:35
read it last night without laughing and it was it was good. Yeah. However, this pile of leaves is animated, animated by a spirit so evil and so ancient, that there are no words to describe either it's malignant nor its ancient See, Jesus fucking Christ. The leaf pile moves one square in any direction and if the square to which it moves or is moved is occupied, engulfs every occupant of that square Friend or foe, and when it moves on after engulfing, it leaves a single hideous mummy of such terrify aspect that no other piece will ever voluntarily occupy the same square as the mummy. There are still leaf piles on Earth, but whether any are animated is a question No one dares to investigate. A piece that has moved into a leaf pile is engulfed in mummified

Neal 9:22
buck.

Corey 9:24
Now, the go away, hold on begins the game.

Neal 9:28
Sorry, was that implying that? Well? Yes, in this realm. leaf piles are nemiroff in the Roth leaf piles are all possessed by evil spirits and are so

Corey 9:37
evil and so old. We literally have no idea. Right?

Neal 9:40
In Earth. There are leaf piles, but nobody knows whether they're haunted or not. We haven't checked, we haven't checked nobody's thought Well, look,

Corey 9:47
we haven't checked all of them. Okay, like you can make a leaf pile at your house and it's probably not possessed by spirits so evil and so ancient, that we can't even describe it.

Neal 9:55
But if we just sort of come across one in the wild in the woods, perhaps Obviously

Corey 10:00
you just have a really good line coming up far.

Neal 10:03
I'm just making sure I'm on.

Corey 10:05
I have a mortal kombat reason to be talking about this. I promise. Okay. All right, cool. The Go away begins the game on the night square and moves by jumping to squares, rook wise to an empty square, or by stepping one square diagonally.

Neal 10:20
Jumping. All right, okay, I think

Corey 10:23
rook wise. Sure. Instead of moving, it can stay in place and make every adjacent piece whether Friend or foe, flee one square straight away from it. Uh huh. Okay. A colony of go aways still survives on Saturn

Corey 10:49
we're almost there. I promise. That's correct. Now, Saturn famously in Earthrealm

Neal 10:56
just gonna make sure, yeah, that's one of our planets. You know, the wounded fiend

Corey 11:01
begins the game on the rook square, okay, and moves rook wise to empty squares. But of course, it may never approach a gas too closely. And if it attempts to cross a square seen by a basket Liske it will be petrified. Of course, the wounded fiend was given its painful wound by a magical sword. Maybe it happened in Defenders of the Realm. Sponza wound continues at all times to ooze copious amounts of feted acre, which drench every square it lands on or crosses, no peace, neither friend nor foe, will dare venture upon an acre a square until the acre evaporates. Five moves later, so many games were played in numeroff and so many wounded fiends pushed off the board to fall forever that the tracks of Acre left by the falling fiends can be seen even now in the sky. Neil in our ignorance, we call it the Milky Way.

Neal 11:56
Oh, shit. The Milky Way was created by way of the Eben rule

Corey 12:02
and a series of wounded fiends.

Neal 12:04
Yes, Jesus Christ. Each player begins with some shit, I'm sorry, man.

Corey 12:12
Each player begins with a row of humans on his second rank. Oh no. Okay, the human moves one square in any direction to an empty square, but a VSO has been laid upon it so that it may not retreat. Upon reaching the eighth rank a human becomes a zombie Jesus and Nima Roth the pieces now called humans had a different name but that was so long ago that the name for that piece even the creature it was named for are now forgotten

Neal 12:35
fuck and he just we're all just pawns man, we're just pawns in this game of chess played by the gods of order and chaos. The

Corey 12:43
zombie does not feel fear, nor can it be petrified. It moves one square in any direction and destroys all pieces even petrified or mummified pieces on its destination square. acre destroys zombies zombie, which is involuntarily moved to an acre of square is dissolved. Now, this subheading I'm going to read it says winning the game. Okay. Surely you cannot imagine that a mere mortal could win this game nearly by playing it. You have consigned your spirits to the Nether depths where all the unspeakable horrors dreamed up by the Elder Gods will be visited upon you what? Oh, no. But if you insist on playing at least try to deprive your opponent of all legal moves. He who has no legal moves, loses in all senses, while the other player at least manages to feel the taste of an evanescent and hollow victory. Wow. So all of that's to say I think the one being made the numeroff

Neal 13:46
Yay. Yeah. What's the guy who wrote this? Ralph Betsa Ralph Betsa. Okay, so Ralph, but so the one being spoke through Ralph better to lay out the rules

Corey 13:56
of lest we forget, the screeching became the voice of a spirit that whispered to me the following tale,

Neal 14:00
right? Yeah. Yeah, that's the Okay, so that's the voice.

Corey 14:03
Yeah. So through space and time, the one being imbued Ralph Betsa. With a ancient and cosmic tale of games truly larger than life, building the universe around us in the realm influenced specifically by the elder gods. And I think that is a really untapped piece of potential.

Neal 14:29
Yeah, dude. Boy, that is turns out that probably is the story behind chess combat on Mortal Kombat Deadly Alliance.

Corey 14:36
It probably is. I have no doubt. And I mean, this is earnestly as humanly possible that I really do think that some level of the idea for MK chess maybe came from like a fantasy tinged chess variant idea there's more of those than you would think.

Neal 14:53
This is incredible dude.

Corey 14:55
Ralph Betsa has invented a shitload of chess very ants they all have incredible names. I'm going to bring a few more to the table. Okay. Biological Warfare chess. Sure. Liars chess,

Neal 15:08
ah, Cooper chess as a Mario chess,

Corey 15:11
Ghost Rider chess.

Neal 15:13
That's a ghost writer, chess,

Corey 15:15
very Scottish chess

Neal 15:27
is there also Scottish chess? And then there's very Scottish,

Corey 15:32
one can only assume now I have one more thing that I learned about chess variants, which is that there is a class of chess piece called Fairy chess. Those are pieces that change the rules, okay, essentially.

Neal 15:47
All right, they turn it into like a Jumanji situation. Well, they just work

Corey 15:50
differently. And I just wanted to name what a couple of those are. Sure. So if you go to classification on fairy chess piece on Wikipedia, you see simple pieces leapers those pieces that jump when they move. This goes along with other games. Like, there are a lot of chess variants that invoke a game called shogi. Also, Shad Raj, which I'm probably saying wrong, but it's a Persian game. That's sort of like chess. shogi is a Japanese game was kind of like chess. Anyway, I'm gonna give you the categorizations of four different kinds of jumping pieces. Are you ready?

Neal 16:31
I'm ready. You're not I'm probably not. thermos.

Corey 16:36
F er Zed furs. That icon is an upside down Bishop. All right. So was the one for owl fill. Owl fill? Yeah, okay, then there's was here was zere. All right, and my personal favorite upside down rock that can jump to spaces, dibaba. If you think if you think I'm lying, there's a Wikipedia page to devise a whole

Neal 17:04
Wikipedia page for that, Baba.

Corey 17:06
God damn fucking right is. Now for the record. dibaba is a real word. I didn't know this when I laughed at it really hard the first time that I heard it,

Neal 17:16
or let you just fucking pranked me into doing just now. Because

Corey 17:20
it sounds funny. It sounds like a baby talking. Dammit. It means tank in Arabic. Okay, now we're learning pretty cool. Sure,

Neal 17:29
but I don't, but tanks are known for jumping.

Corey 17:32
It's it's chess mechanics. Alright, anyway, dibaba kind of got me. That's a very fun Oh, dude,

Neal 17:39
you know what tank is known for jumping, go on the Metal Slug from Metal Slug.

Corey 17:43
So that's true. But just to put a pin in this because I know we do have to move on. I fell down a rabbit hole about chess variants the other day. And I was reading the game of numeroff by Ralph Betsa to my roommate, Sean. Okay. And when we got to the Elder Gods part, I literally made a note that I needed to tell you about this because it's award. And this is maybe the most tangential and ephemeral relationship we could get to Mortal Kombat. And I want to double down just by saying, This is awesome. I'm not mocking this. All right, like the fact that a guy spent 30 years coming up with chess variants and gave several of them deep, fantastical war is so fucking cool to me. It's It's unbelievable. Like,

Neal 18:35
so yeah, it's very cool. I'm a little worried about the guy.

Corey 18:41
He's doing great. He's like 70 something. Sure. But it

Neal 18:45
seems like Okay, are you have you read? Much Kurt Vonnegut? No, I've

Corey 18:50
never read Kurt Vonnegut. Okay, well, I'm

Neal 18:52
not gonna go on to a whole. What are we at 20 minute spiel about Kurt Vonnegut.

Corey 18:57
But Kurt Vonnegut, Ralph, Ralph went somewhere and I had to take you with me.

Neal 19:01
So he had a few recurring characters, most notably Kilgore Trout, probably the biggest sort of a part of that guy's self character for Vonnegut himself. But when Vonnegut was getting up in years, it was right around the time I think it was breakfast of champions. He was writing breakfast of champions, and he felt so bad for how awful he treated his characters in particular Kilgore Trout that he felt it necessary to insert himself into his story to directly apologize to the man within the text of the

Corey 19:34
book himself. Kurt Vonnegut his access to

Neal 19:37
Kurt Vonnegut was present for many of the events that happen in breakfast of champions and had a conversation with Kilgore Trout basically, more or less saying listen, I'm sorry. I've been treating you like shit because you're kind of a stand in for my dad. And my bad homie. Like, I feel like this guy reached that Kurt Vonnegut level of hated his own creations to the point where he had to like, invent, like tortured mythology. Like, I think this is a man who hates chess at this point who is putting the bishop and the rook through so much

Corey 20:14
games, so different from chess that like,

Neal 20:18
yeah, that he's like he needs to do another like he needs to do a back to basics he needs he needs a chess piece of himself that can go into this game and heal the zombies and unfreeze. Well, he

Corey 20:31
didn't do anything by the back. So Liske I think he missed the part where

Neal 20:35
this was whispered to him, right. I understand it was was written by other gods. Sure. Yeah.

Corey 20:39
And that, you know, like in numeral one did not play chess with crude figurines or plastic wood instead of the actual creatures like this happened in the past.

Neal 20:47
I understand. Yeah, I surreal. I get it. He didn't do it. Okay, that's all right. But let's say he did. I think, I think that the man needs to, needs us to do a little bit of healing. That's all.

Corey 21:01
I will say. I did read if I understand correctly, that this is the most complicated chess variant. It's fun. It seems like it when I found out though, is that like you still play it on a normal chessboard? Sure. Yeah. And you can use the pieces that you have, they just do such radically different things. And there are so many different levels here.

Neal 21:22
Yeah. So you did all this all of this chess variant reading research without stumbling across chessboxing.

Corey 21:31
Oh, yeah, I was too busy reading about Sonic the Hedgehog chess and then Sonic the Hedgehog chess advanced.

Neal 21:36
And you don't know. Okay, advanced. That's pretty fun.

Corey 21:39
I will say I'm very upset. I scrolled down to references. And there is a thing that says this game was not inspired by this story, but you should read it anyway. And there's a hyperlink and it just goes to yahoo.com Now it's broken.

Neal 21:53
Oh, damn it. You tried the Wayback Machine on archive.org. Oh,

Corey 21:57
no, i Oh, my God. I haven't. Okay. Oh, Neil. I know that we have to do a podcast give me literally two minutes. Yeah, yeah. Because I know what year he wrote this, so Okay, all right. Dude, if I can find out what this is. Yeah, dude. Fuck yeah, I got I hope this got logged. God, please.

Neal 22:19
I mean, it would it would suck. If it didn't like it did. Do boo, baby. Thank God is why I give them $4 a month. Wow. It's basically the same. Do I give him $4 A mile? I'm pretty sure I'd donate to archive.

Corey 22:33
God. Please do. Wow. What did it it's on a chess website still. Okay, the this written fiction is on a chess website. This is written fiction about chess.

Neal 22:45
Hang I love I love chess nerds Jesus Christ.

Corey 22:48
The following story was originally published in electronic tea notes August 17 1997. The story was part of a series of articles about learning a new open a new opening using ChessBase software. This short story was my means of working a really bad chess game at once played into a series into the series in a creative manner. This story is a parody slash pastiche of the horror stories of American writer HP Lovecraft. It's full of inside jokes and Lovecraft references. You'll find a list of these elsewhere on this site. See how many you catch it before looking them up? Oh, no, I'm sorry. This is a Lovecraft parody about a bad chess game.

Neal 23:24
This means there's gonna be veiled racism in it's quite

Corey 23:27
long. So I'm afraid I will not be reading the per quarter by Steve Lopez right now

Neal 23:33
could just be outright racism. Also,

Corey 23:35
I feel like I can sleep knowing that I know what this story is now.

Neal 23:39
Thank God, we've put that mystery to bed. Course I

Corey 23:41
wish I knew anything about chess. You know what else is sort of like chess? You know, it's a little bit like chess, Chess Boxing,

Neal 23:46
which I'm going to tell you about right now. Corey, this is a hybrid sport, where two combatants play alternating rounds of Blitz, chess and boxing until one wins by checkmate or knockout.

Corey 24:00
That's a fun idea.

Neal 24:01
Yeah, it's a very real game. And obviously, the best variant of chess. It was invented by French comic book artists and key Bill owl, and adapted by Dutch performance artists lip pay rubingh as an art performance subsequently grown into a competitive sport. Popular in the UK, India, Finland and Russia. Do you want it? Yeah,

Corey 24:25
that's where I would think that would be the most popular.

Neal 24:27
Don't do some chess, Chess Boxing.

Corey 24:29
Yeah, I'll fly to Florida for that bucket was

Neal 24:30
you and me. Let's go. He learned chess on the plane.

Corey 24:35
Anyway, really quick. The link to the game of NEMA Roth will be in the description. Thank God. God, dude, it's a really fun read. Yeah, up until up until you hit the even when you hit the specifics of the rules. Like you still get sentences like writers cannot cross square seen by Bass Licks but leaping pieces can sure Yeah, cuz they're leaping the only writer in the game is the wounded fiend, et cetera. Quality unreal stuff humans are worth very little true. Sure, just like in real life just

Neal 25:10
like in our realm.

Corey 25:12
Anyway, shout out to chess realm name Earthrealm and my man Ralph Betsa that brought me so much unbridled joy.

Neal 25:18
Shout out to Ralph Bakshi Sure. Yeah, Mortal Kombat battle wave issues four through six. Cory Are you ready to dive into this fucking mental last chess game that Shao Kahn is playing? Yeah, I'm ready. Okay, am I ready? Yeah, I'm ready. You know what we're not editing this podcast. I've decided just now with that throw clear standing. That's ominous issue for of Mortal Kombat battle wave is titled Days of Thunder. Nights of pain. I guess you won't get my notes. It might be good. I'm gonna go through the credits while you do that, while you're out and open Notepad. This issue was written as all of these work by Charles Marshall. The man the myth, the legend, wonder if he's ever created any chess variants. Perhaps one where all the pieces have to state their own name before moving fuck. Pencils by Patrick Rolo inks by Richard Imani Joseph Allen on lettering Joan Igawa on colors. Salvador mancha as the color editor and the interior colors done by the Wolfpack this cover the cover of this issue? I don't think we give enough credit to the covers of these things. The cover is Goro and Kintaro. Fighting, and it's drawn very well it's a very cool cover for a story that doesn't really happen in the main part of the issue just sort of happens at the back end. As like a backup story. Corey, how long ago did you read these? So you read these? Like over a week ago at this point, right? Yes, sir. All right. So I'm gonna have to kind of guide this on time we have to guide Yeah, get it to guide this plane.

Corey 26:58
I feel like I remember. Issue six pretty well

Neal 27:02
sure. Because nothing happens it really so when we last left, everybody. So remember Sonia had been captured. She's on Shang Tsung Island. Jack's got beat up by Goro. But now he's on an airplane with Johnny Cage, Liu Kang and Bo, who was Johnny Cage his bodyguard or like, just gonna go off and try to get back in our world. That's kind of where we left everybody. Right. So this opens on the plane with Jax and Johnny Cage being attacked by smoke and Jade. Right. Which is exactly where you should three left off. cliffhanger ending. Everyone's fighting, right?

Corey 27:48
Yeah, this lasts for about four pages.

Neal 27:51
They're making sick as hell jokes and references right somebody says Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn I think that was probably Johnny Cage. Because he makes movie references a lot.

Corey 28:01
Yeah. And meanwhile, it is worth mentioning that Jade when reintroducing them is sort of like Team Rocket and is almost speaking in rhyme.

Neal 28:08
Ah, yes, that is important. Do you remember what the rhyme is? Is it just like I am Jade. You're about to get slayed.

Corey 28:15
I'll pull it up. I have it in front of me a second ago.

Neal 28:17
My boys smoke is no joke.

Corey 28:19
It is we are the emissaries of disaster, the prophets of doom. And now as surely as we have slain the power poor pilots of this craft. We shall destroy you. And then smoke says toasty.

Neal 28:32
toasty. And then Jax is like hey man, no smoking on the plane. Yet it lmao love it. And then I think Jack's couch

Corey 28:41
is already so muscular and it's got so many lines on it. I kind of forgot. Everybody's so crunchy looking

Neal 28:47
bro, there's some shots later. We're like Shao Kahn is standing next to Sonya Blade where you're like his hand is like as light could wrap around her torso. It's kind of nuts. Anyway, Jax punches a hole in the airplane. And smoke who's in Smoke form gets sucked out of it. And Jax makes it Gone With the Wind joke, which is very good. And then Jay just sort of jumps out of the airplane with a parachute. Right? She's

Corey 29:14
by lmao see? They were just like we needed to wait long enough to make sure this plane crashed

Neal 29:19
pretty much. I mean they so I don't know how the fuck they got here. Did they get here like immediately after the raid and then Kaino like two pages they were on there just like teleporting in and out of places. Doing nothing and fucking leaving. Like they. They suck. Right? Like they every time we've seen them they've just been shitty. Whatever they were doing except for that time they like beat up that nurse. That was the only time they actually did I think like Jaden smoke just fucking suck in this comic.

Corey 29:50
They're due to ask. Yeah,

Neal 29:54
but damn it, the plane is going down. out and then Rayden like Superman catches it just comes out of nowhere and like rescues them and like flies the plane

Corey 30:07
holdfast mortals Rayden has you and the God of Thunder shall not fail like he forgot he

Neal 30:12
Rayden was right smart. Yeah, god of thunder, the thunder, the lightning, fucker, whatever it is. And he like, through force of will breaks through the barrier into Outworld with the airplane. Like that's the implication here, right? Like he's he flies the plane like carries the plane and the boys in our world. Meanwhile, we cut to someplace, quote, high and cold and very far from civilization. Right?

Corey 30:40
Earth shatteringly hilarious? What is what you're about to say? Was in

Neal 30:45
the fucking mountains and Lukang and Bo are they're climbing a mountain or some shit trying to find a secret portal entrance to Outworld

Corey 30:53
they're climbing a mountain in like the Arctic for all that matters. And Bo is still in a suit for this hike and in like shades. Yeah, he's still iced out at Taja which I wrote. Yo, Bo you only bow once. I don't know why I wrote that. But

Neal 31:15
well, you did write it. Did I? So they get to like this like high cliff right? And I guess the portal like you have to jump off the cliff to like, get through the portal, right? And Bo's, like now dude, I didn't fucking sign up for this Lukang and looping is like, not cool. Like, you don't have to come to Outworld This is my my job to do it right? And Bo's, like me, I'm kind of afraid of heights, so I don't think I'm down. So looking jumps and then bows like, Fuck it fine. I will go and then he jumps. But something happens as they're going through this portal where he just gets like caught by a fist or something. I don't exactly remember or understand where this is happening. But the bottom line is whatever this portal process is, it's been interrupted by fucking sighing seeing we never settled on that did I think we should seeing seeing seeing is back in pug for right Finally, he like punches bow in the middle of the air or something and he's like, You have found danger. You have found death you have found seeing dudes, dudes back. Nobody cares. Then we cut to Outworld where we know Sonia has been kept as a prisoner in the fortress of the dark Emperor right and she's sneaking around archways and shade in a very cool like muted colored page spread when she's attacked by Molina and reptile who were like a duo in this you know? It's weird how they like like to pair up like the palette swaps, right? Like we've got Millena and reptile that's like a couple right? Yeah, a team and we've got smokin J that's like a team. And then over on the good guy side we've got Kitana and Sub-Zero as like a team so like everyone's got a little paired off. You know, Ninja, right? Except for Scorpion who's just kind of I guess he's just got his army of the undead.

Corey 33:07
the reveal of seeing is like a parody of muscles by the way. Yeah, it is unfathomable

Neal 33:14
I don't think it's as bad as the cover the smoke and Jade cover for battle wave issue three. Have you given that a look recently?

Corey 33:21
Recently? No.

Neal 33:22
Yeah, go take a look at that real quick if you're not always pretty sure I can maybe drop it in the discord

Corey 33:26
no Siyang is saying is worse than that saying is worse. You thought I think it is then that smoke arm Yeah, that's smoke arm is fucking Siyang again.

Neal 33:35
Alright, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

Corey 33:37
Like really? Take it in.

Neal 33:39
Oh, you're fucking right. Do it. See? It's like, he's got like, they look like they're filled with pus or some shit like they're gonna first dude. His arm looks like Freddy Krueger is face.

Corey 33:55
To face. fucking gross.

Neal 33:57
You're right man. Jesus Christ. It's like his arm is made up of like 1000 Baby arms. sick dude. And not in the good way not unlike the sick dude. way right? Anyway, Sonya sneaking around when she's like, attacked by Molina and reptile. And she's fighting and pretty good for a while but they get the upper hand and the reptile reptile is like Shao Kahn has special plans for Sonia in like he does like he's just he's got plans. Shao Kahn got plans for you, Sonia. Well, I'm not gonna do the reptile voice but I am leaving that in the episode. And so when he's like, No, I don't want I don't like that. I don't want Shao Kahn to have plans for me like I want to get out of here. And then bear in

Corey 34:43
mind this issue is already almost over and we it feels like we've been talking about it for 35 seconds.

Neal 34:47
Right and nothing happens in this and then yeah, so then Shao Kahn shows

Corey 34:51
up and he looks just on unconscionable.

Neal 34:56
I do have plans for you Sonya Blade and those plans are that we are going to get It may very

Corey 35:01
well. To be continued,

Neal 35:06
that's the main stories from the issue. But we do have a backup story called when Titans clash with a khaki plan really quickly. Yeah, you can? Of course you can.

Corey 35:14
Why does it have to show spoilers every issue ends with a few pages hatched of like a random interlude. So you can't tell me that they earnestly thought that this marriage subplot they came up with was worth three entire issues of a comic book because that's not even what they did.

Neal 35:33
They couldn't even dedicate that many issues. No, no, there's nothing to it. And they crammed all this other stuff in with these backup stories that is mostly uneventful some of this stuff like and then by the time we get to the last issue of this series, they're referencing stuff that didn't even happen in this series that must have happened in like the one shots or something that we didn't even know about until the backup stories and these issues revealed it is just getting real fucking complicated like needlessly so and nothing is happening. And I'm this is I'm gonna say it now. Like, I am not enjoying this back half of these comics nearly as much as I was the front half like, well, they need under blood, blood and thunder and Goro prints of pain. We're like, the peak, right? The peak of these and it has kind of been fucking downhill since dude. Like, yeah, I'm not. I'm not I'm not jiving with this like I was, you know, I don't know,

Corey 36:25
man. No, I mean, like, the biggest thing and we'll get to this but like, I was willing to take a 20 minute game of Nima Roth interlude because like four things happen. Yeah, yeah. Over the course of three entire issues, and they set up a variety of these things as being fairly significant. And then they're either brushed by the wayside or entirely irrelevant, mostly that mostly entirely irrelevant as as are the interludes like this Kintaro Goro interlude feels like you're okay. They talk a little Yeah. Cool. Thanks.

Neal 37:00
Yeah, so it's called when Titans clash written by Charles Marshall pencils by Brian O'Connell colors by Moose Bauman letters by Joe Allen.

Corey 37:09
Okay, Team rockin prepare to fight this is.

Neal 37:13
So we had so we had Luke king in the last issue looking for a secret portal into Outworld. And then we had Rayden flying through a secret portal into Outworld I think somewhere around where Shang Tsung Island is now we've got Kintaro in Outworld waiting at a secret entrance portal from earth realm. We're gonna see Sub-Zero Talk about a secret portal, like a secret Lin Kuei a portal into our world like there's just secret fucking portals and outward all over the place. And everybody has access to one. It's it's kind of a cop out. You know, like, it's just an annoying trope that this comic book is leaning hard on, but it doesn't matter. There's one Goro back secret portals Kintaro is just hanging out by one waiting for Goro to return to Outworld so he can fight him. Now he had no idea Goro was returning he's just been like camping out waiting, I guess. For days, weeks

Corey 38:05
for as long as Goro was gone, because we don't really know. A

Neal 38:09
very long time Goro was gone because like we saw him like, beaten up Lukang in a penthouse office like a few weeks ago and like bullying Jack's at the gym. Right? So anyway, it doesn't it doesn't fucking matter that Goro shows up through the portal and they start throwing lots of hands because they each have lots of hands right? And Goro was like hey, I can tell you're such a fucking was in the like, beats the shit out of him and Kintaro starts like spitting blood. In Qatar. I was like, Well, I'm not trying to be you. I'm just trying to show my worth as a warrior to the emperor or whatever. Goro is like cool. Yeah, tight. We're friends. We gotta stick together shits about to get real. That's it. That's the whole the whole point of this backup story is that Goro is now back in Outworld I guess. Yeah,

Corey 38:57
pretty much Yeah,

Neal 38:58
nothing nothing nothing just nothing.

Corey 39:00
It's nothing these three issues you could skip them

Neal 39:03
there's kind of nothing honestly like Issue five the Killing Fields once again written by Charles Marshall

Corey 39:13
was That's not funny. I was clicking through to remind me what some of it was like it I got to the ascertain reveal page. Okay,

Neal 39:21
let's see. All right. Pencils by vinten T hook inks by David Maori letters by Teresa Davidson color design by John Igawa covered by the Wolfpack with Salvador Mancha. This is a good cover. This is just like a Shao Kahn drawing where he's got like red energy and like lightning coming from his like hands and his eyes. Because remember, the first part of battle wave we learned that Shao Kahn has laser eyes in this unit first relevant Yeah, sure. So just some nice nice cover art. I think the covers are the strongest part of Most of these comics certainly have these three the covers of the strongest parts if you wait reptile apparently has a power where he can just hypnotize people into doing whatever he wants, apparently, yeah, it just sometimes it just takes a lot of time for him to like really wear him down, I guess. But yeah, he's just hypnotizing Sonia into agreeing to Mary Shao Kahn, which like she's resisting at first. She's like tied to a chair like cartoon style. Right. And quinoa and Molina are there with him and cane those like, maybe we need to rough you up and convince you to and she's like, No, I'll never marry Shao Kahn and reptiles like, Well, I'm just gonna hypnotize harder. And then she's like, Yeah, I'll marry Shao Kahn. Like it's one page. Right? And she's gone from resisting to like, yeah, yeah, you win. I'm gonna marry Shao Kahn. So yeah, it's time to start planning a wedding, I guess.

Corey 40:54
Yeah, I guess like, that's the whole like, it's that's the whole issue. Kinda. That's the whole issue. Like some people fight. But like,

Neal 41:03
yeah, that's, I mean, that's certainly all of the marriage part. Yeah. But we do get this pretty cool. Two pages where we see Sub-Zero Like scaling the walls of the dark fortress of Shao Kahn. Right?

Corey 41:16
Right. This is a hey, I'm Sub-Zero. And I'm here to say, yeah, and

Neal 41:19
he attacks in freezes a guard. And then they do a little flash. He's like he's like the linkway attempted to storm this fortress in the past to no avail. But nothing will stop Sub-Zero. And then we get a little flashback because Sub-Zero has to think about his whole life before he can read show.

Corey 41:40
Dewey Cox needs to think about his entire life before he.

Neal 41:47
So it flashes back just briefly just to remind us that Sub-Zero teamed up. Like with Kitana. Kung Lao and Baraka against Shao Kahn, and scorpions undead army. We cut back to Sub-Zero who's like but this is no time for introspection. And then he immediately gets like, punched in the face. By a Shokin fist. We don't know who's right. You can tell it's like a MIDI Show. Can Paul the Paul Paul? Paul speaking of Paul Paul show Paul email

Corey 42:18
where he's all commercial?

Neal 42:20
This is fuck I close the tab. So bad doing podcasts? No editing. So the subject line is marriage. Hi, Neal. And Cory. I think Tracy Douglas and Adoni Maropis would both very much like to marry you, Neal. You could probably ask it Donnie directly. Also, I'm always listening. Always Kind regards, Paul. All right in if you heard us say that in the middle of this episode, see if you really are listening if you really are Paul always listening. Anyway, Sub-Zero got knocked out. Right? Boom. We cut to Liu Kang and Bo. I guess they made it through to Outworld. Right. And Luke King is unconscious. And Bo is trying to wake him

Corey 43:05
up. And then Siyang is like don't worry about

Neal 43:08
seeing is like your I'm gonna give you that desk grip, right? I'm gonna set the very life from you with my death grip. But then Rayden shows up with Jax and Johnny, and they'll start to fight seeing and seeing like, yeah, you can sure you can beat me up. But can you handle that death grip, but it doesn't matter. Because he's like outnumbered now, because like 18 to one Bo Rayden Johnny Jax and Lukang is now conscious. So like he has no choice but to chill out. And Luke kings like a Hey, Hey, bro. What happened? We thought you died. Right? So just to catch the listeners up Cory what's seeings? Hold deal.

Corey 43:52
So they're saying and saying? Uh huh. And they were white lotus warriors. Yeah. Who could fuse together into Siyang?

Neal 44:05
If they fuse, go G to style.

Corey 44:07
They fuse go G to style. They fuse Vegito style.

Neal 44:12
Sure. Yeah, that too.

Corey 44:13
They fuse. A go tank styles.

Neal 44:17
Go Go tank style. That's a fusion.

Corey 44:19
Okay, cool. Cool. That's all those are the two that I have.

Neal 44:22
I mean, there's all the ones that are are are just like do like Gohan and videl. Like fuse Ryland

Corey 44:27
style somehow. I live my life trillions.

Neal 44:33
Quarter mile at a time. Yeah. So they were so they were fused in back in blood and thunder and they fought Goro and Goro rips them in half and like unfused them right. So what we learn is that after that happened, they choose not seeing woke up near death, but a woke and found his brother saying dead but still was able to merge one final time with him. So He's just like half dead, I guess, but looks the same but he like did it out of desperation to like, try to save his dead brother's soul or something like that I don't really understand and I don't think Charles Marshall did either. But things back are seeing his back right and now the dumb part. Apparently to earn redemption Siyang went to Outworld to face Shao Kahn but Shao Kahn use some new MacGuffin that they're introducing now in Issue five of the six issue arc called the Death stone.

Corey 45:31
Yeah, and honestly, who fucking cares to take

Neal 45:35
control of seeing and turning them into an unwilling servant? And Luke King's like alright, well, one way or another you're coming with us so let's boogie. Meanwhile, in Shao Kahn Palace sewn here is in like a traditional, like wedding dress, like an earth realm, like an earth realm wedding dress with a veil and a bouquet. Like, like, like a sitcom marriage wedding dress, right?

Corey 46:00
Yeah. And then the funniest panel in the History of Mortal Kombat comics happens.

Neal 46:04
Tell me about it.

Corey 46:05
So I don't know if you know what this guy is this guy a bit of a sorcerer type? Sure. His name is Shang Tsung name is Shanks so he's back and younger younger than ever.

Neal 46:20
Younger, hotter Shanks

Corey 46:24
picture we need to post this I think but it's it's youth youthful exuberance. Shang Tsung. He's got a little black hat. He's got a black cloak. case situation. Golden black suspenders ripped to shreds pencil mustache. And he's ready to be best man at this one.

Neal 46:51
is ready to be best man at this fucking wedding. Shao Kahn best man. Yeah, this is Mortal Kombat to look in Shang Tsung

Corey 47:00
but funnier than you could possibly imagine.

Neal 47:02
With a weird weird chin.

Corey 47:06
And uh, yeah, it is rubbing his hands together. Like he knows he had to do it to him like,

Neal 47:10
it's really funny just to see like, because it's like Molina reptile, Kaino, Shao Kahn, and Shang Tsung. And they're all just like chillin like planning a wedding, Sonia's in a wedding dress. It's just it's so fucking weird, dude, the whole thing is weird.

Corey 47:25
And then you flip the page to the short story and then you flip the page again. And those pages include the second and third funniest things that you've ever seen.

Neal 47:31
Yeah, man. So this one has another backup story as well. This one called the gift. This time the art is by Thomas Cisneros. And the colors by Mike Heilemann. The rest of the credits are the same as the rest of the issue. So just it's Canelo trying to like steal some big Black Jewel out of like a scepter or something. Right? Well, it's

Corey 47:55
the death stone.

Neal 47:56
Yeah, he doesn't know that yet. Well, we know that though. But he touches it. It fucks him up, and he Scorpion Scorpion

Corey 48:03
viciously can towards his body. And he's like, yeah, like, he's like really straight. He's like really shrieking it's more like it's more like that. Yeah. That's the face he's making his arms are all over the place. It looks really funny.

Neal 48:17
But and yeah, it's the fact that

Corey 48:19
the desktop pages so good. How did I forget about this Scorpion page? Scorpion

Neal 48:23
page? Yeah. Foster Scorpion shows up and Scorpion is like, Hey, dude, that's not for humans. That's the death stone. It was a it was a gift for me.

Corey 48:33
Hey, that's my death zone.

Neal 48:36
It's how I give strength to my undead army, who I'm going to use to kill Kitana Kung Lao baraka and my mortal enemy Sub-Zero And then yeah, there's this the spread that you must be talking about when he's like and then I will march my undead army throughout world and earth

Corey 48:54
it's the picture what it looks like Scorpion is dancing swaying pendant around in the entire background is just headshots of skeleton ghouls.

Neal 49:02
He's that's exactly the page. He's doing like a like a

Corey 49:05
like it's contorting and fucking up his body to but he can handle it because he's not a pussy like Shane.

Neal 49:13
He's on Yeah, he's on dead. He's, he's got a dancer's body. Really, if you think about it, not have a dancer's body

Corey 49:18
Scorpion. It's got like a Broadway body

Neal 49:21
scorpions, like a gymnast. He's like he's like 15 years of ballet etc. And yeah, and then the background is just like yeah, just fucking zombie skull heads with different helmets.

Corey 49:31
It's so funny. It's it's in a row it's three of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Neal 49:38
It's a great it is the most fun out of any of the these issues for sure. But yeah, he's basically like, I got the death stone. It's mine and it's gonna make my army strong and they have the best leader and then Kintaro comes in is like, Oh, you think you're the strongest? Yeah, I heard you boasting and I'm the strongest dead ninja and Kintaro walks in holding Sub-Zero unconscious body because that was the first we saw knock him out there will be no payoff for this

Corey 50:08
not there's no payoff for any sure there must be the wedding is completely irrelevant by the time that we get there spoilers right

Neal 50:18
there must be stuff that happens in the one shots which we're going to be tackling next that like fill in because like

Corey 50:24
they're fucking better be Jesus Christ

Neal 50:26
we just saw Kintaro drag Sub-Zero unconscious body to Scorpion who has the death stone and then in issue six Sub-Zero is just fine and scorpions like How did you escape? Something must have happened that we didn't see yet. And so like that's what I'm saying like the way they're unfolding these stories is such like, Why wasn't that like why just why? The story is so spread out in these that you can't like get a whole picture of what's so spread

Corey 50:52
out but nothing's happening either. Yeah, there's just not enough material here.

Neal 50:59
It's just get like our time is just being wasted. Yeah, I don't know man. So on to issue six man, it is the wedding you hoped you'd never see.

Corey 51:11
No weird. Can we talk about that for a second? What do you mean? I had never thought about it once in my life. What do you mean the what I hoped I would never see.

Neal 51:21
Charles Marshall is anti interracial marriages apparently,

Corey 51:26
well, if they were happy I'd be fine with it. But sure, but I guess like shots weddings don't rely on hypnotism.

Neal 51:33
It's true. This is like some Lex Luthor marrying like Lois Lane shit.

Corey 51:38
It's just like that. Did they do that? I'm sure they did.

Neal 51:41
I'm sure they fucking did. Certainly back is here. They did like a whole lot of laying Lex Luthor run in Smallville, which made no fucking sense. I only want to talk about it. This is a good cover though. This is a fun cover. It's like Shao Kahn with his like arm, his hand. It is on her entire

Corey 52:03
torso.

Neal 52:04
Her entire torso. Like it would like my note says hip and I was looking at it. I'm like that's not hip that is every

Corey 52:09
it is hip. It's just also the rest of it.

Neal 52:12
It's hip ribs. It's all the way up to like armpit. It's like whole torso. Yeah. And she's in a wedding dress and there's like roses falling from the sky. And you can see Jax and Johnny Cage like with shackles around their necks chained in the background.

Corey 52:29
Yeah, it was just patently is just not what's happening. Yeah, but it's a good good cover. I will say that first page that we get is one of the best drawings of a vacant dead I'd expression I've maybe ever seen

Neal 52:41
they really did fucking nail the hypnotized Sonia,

Corey 52:45
also either tiny Shang Tsung is a little baby boy.

Neal 52:51
This issue is called titled death moves. Written by Charles Marshall penciled by Vinton T hook inked by David Mallory letter by Joseph Allen co designed by Moose Baumann color by interior colors Corey by Gone Fishing Yep. And color edited by Ruth and Charlene. I guess they must be part of Gone Fishing. Just gotta call out the funny the funny color team names every chance we get. Yeah, dude. is also is is Shang Tsung wearing like a skirt with tights underneath?

Corey 53:30
Um, I don't. I mean, it certainly looks that way. I imagine it might not be a skirt because it seems like maybe the thing around his like waist is also just like wrapped there. Sure. Could be a continuation of that. He looks like a fucking pirate villain. It's he looks like a guy Zorro would fight.

Neal 53:48
He does. It's the cape that fucks up the look right like

Corey 53:51
the cape is too much fit is the fit is poppin but the cape is shot.

Neal 53:56
Well it's like that thing where it's like once you get dressed, you'd have to look in the mirror and like remove one item, right? Like take an accessory off like he should have looked in the mirror before we went to this wedding and been like okay, like you can't you can't have like a like a lapel pin and a pocket square. Like he's like, Okay, I can't have like the the waist Wrap and the cape. One of these has to

Corey 54:15
go and what's funny about it is you see that like golden thing holding the Cape in place. And we didn't see that because his hands were in the way. So you think he's accessorized a normal amount and then you realize it's a little bit too much?

Neal 54:26
Sure. I think that is what's throwing it off. Yeah. Anyway, dude, it's waiting. It's it's wedding bells time, right? Then there's some kind of like, you know, writing in here about how Sonya like, well, we've got a she can't she can't stop herself from walking down the aisle. She's trying to but like she's like, she can't resist

Corey 54:47
now and we'll fill you in with those. And will you indulge me for a second? I will. Here's all the guests. We've got reptile Molina spoken Jade. Yeah, King Gore back ruler of the subterranean show cane realm. Uh huh. toasty. And then Goro Kintaro and then the funniest sentence a human man has ever written. Even the earth criminal Cana why have we Why don't we now have described him as the Earth criminal?

Neal 55:14
Because everybody needs is everyone needs a title, you know?

Corey 55:17
Yes. Okay. No, he's a criminal. Where's he from?

Neal 55:20
Or? Yes,

Corey 55:21
he is the, the,

Neal 55:24
the earth criminal. Maybe it's more like the crimes he commits are like environmental in nature. The earth or that? So? Yeah, he's like an earth criminal. You know? I don't know. He like I don't know. Blows up rare rocks. Right?

Corey 55:45
Sure. Yeah, sure. I can know this issue so dumb. It is.

Neal 55:51
We're gonna fucking blow through it. Like we learned that the reason I guess it's pretty fucking obvious. Shao Kahn wants to marry Sonia. Because once they're married the barrier between earthquakes marriage laws. We've talked about this disappear like smoke, like it'll just poof be gone. Like, just,

Corey 56:07
it's this. It's the Citadel rule.

Neal 56:10
It's this intel rule before the Citadel rule, right? Like, this is another I'm not going to hit the button. I'm gonna tap it big. Okay, where they got this. This seems like it's eating into future Mortal Kombat lore and like a weird, twisted, fucked up way. But also, it's all tropes to write like, the order and chaos shit is like, tropes and the marriage to join kingdoms is like a trope. So like all of that stuff. It's all just tropes. So I don't know that I can really say that they took the idea from this for the Cinderella thing, but it is just interesting that it happened, you know, in canon in a different way. I don't know dude, the wedding gets interrupted pretty fucking quick. When Lukang shows up by everybody. Luke kings like, aren't you supposed to ask if anybody objects to the wedding? And then Yeah, everybody's there to all of them. Rayden Johnny Cage Jax Bo Liu Kang seeing all of them are there eventually Sub-Zero Kitana baraka and Kung Lao also show up and everyone just fucks around and fights a little bit. The one thing like I mentioned earlier, when Sub-Zero shows up scorpions, like how did you get free? Like that's not something we saw because last we saw literally like six pages ago and the previous issue was Sub-Zero captive, right. And in that same story, we saw the death stone intact. And now we've got seeing saying the death stone is destroyed. I am now free. And Goro saying like nah, I've got a little tiny piece. I still own you bitch. So like somehow between these two issues, all of that stuff happened and we just didn't see any of it. You know? Yeah, it's bad. It's bad.

Corey 57:56
It's bad lighting is bad presentation. It's confusing presentation.

Neal 57:59
Right? I understand if that's that's all explained in like the baraka one shot Great. Put it in this series, though, you know, like quick pull in a Marvel Cinematic Universe and putting the important scene for this movie in that other movie that I don't want to watch

Corey 58:16
also, right? Does everybody you need to give a fucking arrival speech and get name tags again?

Neal 58:23
Yes. Yes, this is a mortal kombat comic book.

Corey 58:26
Ah.

Neal 58:30
Anyway, I don't know. While this is happening, Sonia regains her like, Will, right. Yeah. And takes her wedding dress off to reveal her fight and clothes underneath. Just

Corey 58:41
hate them. Fight and clothes. Yeah. And

Neal 58:45
then she. She goes to attack Shao Kahn, like as Shao Kahn is having this weird realization that like, there's no way that the two realms can merge. Like that's, I think that's what he was saying. Right? He's saying like, these two forces are earth realm and that world can never join in any union. So he's talking about conquering, he's talking about like, peacefully, anything's like, we can't join. You know, it's going to ruin both of our worlds if we do. And Sony keeps, like kicking Adam and stuff, and then he gets this idea. Now, I don't fucking understand this. Corey, I do not understand this. He gets this idea for one final. Like, I don't even know what to call it. One final challenge between the two realms, right? Basically seeking a goal of Shao Kahn choosing like two teams just going after something that he chooses in some kind of a weird game. That's all the explanation they give us. Game of Thrones. They don't tell us why. No. Why he has the power to issue.

Corey 59:49
why we're so why are the people in the room subject to his desire to do

Neal 59:56
this? Yeah. What gives him the power what elder

Corey 59:59
God rule demands that we all blindly aim.

Neal 1:00:04
The only thing I can think of is because all of this fighting is happening in our world. If this is like somehow like invasion rules, technically,

Corey 1:00:14
but I don't think I daggers even care. I don't think Charles cares.

Neal 1:00:17
I don't think Charles cares and Charles was over this at this point. Meeting we're gonna get an answer like in tournament addition to I'm not even sure they'll clear it up. I think they

Corey 1:00:28
will be we're just gonna get to a big challenge. I will say really quick. There's a really funny line here. I cannot fathom how my well laid plans fell apart so utterly and completely

Neal 1:00:38
Jesus Christ dude has never seen Mortal Kombat conquest because his plans always fall apart. The note

Corey 1:00:43
that I wrote was that quote and then a law say my guy. I also don't know how this happened. Shao Kahn

Neal 1:00:50
plans fall apart 100% of the time, so to Shang Tsung plans. So to Quan Chi plans that's what the plans do in Mortal Kombat world. Yeah, dude, I don't understand it. But that's like the end of the issue. Right. That's the end of the main story of the issue. There's we got two teams right Shang Tsung and the boys against Sonia and the boys. Right seeing on Shang Tsung side reluctantly and Sonia back on the boys the Lukang side or whatever the Rayden side I fucking

Corey 1:01:20
care yeah could not care less about these comments. I'm over it.

Neal 1:01:23
There's going to be a they're gonna have fumble around chasing a football or something. And I would

Corey 1:01:28
literally rather watch them play calm. Don't even tell me what the rules are.

Neal 1:01:33
But there is a backup story in this one called Every dog has its day a mortal kombat interlude. No idea when this takes place in continuity sometime in the past who the fuck knows?

Corey 1:01:44
He's gonna take you back to the past

Neal 1:01:47
written by Dan so he's been penciled by Keith Conroy inks by Jack Snyder. Letters by Dave Lamphere colors by Scott Sava interior colors by prism riot and Andy Walton prism riot is my favorite riot girl punk band. This one takes place in Palos Verdes California. Probably said that wrong don't care. Johnny Cage is trying to convince Sonia not to leave California and she's like no, I gotta go. We flashback to two weeks earlier Johnny Cage and Sonia seem like they're on some sort of mission like breaking into this underground bunker. Johnny Cage beats up three dudes playing cards. Well, Sonia like rescues, Mr. Secretary, well, the missus Well, kidnappers

Corey 1:02:37
Well, hot diggity I sure am glad the taxpayers money actually pays for something worthwhile. Every now and again.

Neal 1:02:45
This is Mr. Secretary, Secretary of the Treasury perhaps who was kidnapped here complaining about the tax dollar. As they make their escape out back they realize they're safe and Sonia and Johnny smooch. But oh, Record scratch a movie dude. We hear somebody else

Corey 1:03:08
oh my god, that's so fucking funny. So that's good. No, just beep All right, we'll see. We'll see how I deal with that all time. Slip that.

Neal 1:03:24
Cut print. Anyway, it was just a fucking movie. It was a movie and then they don't get together. The movie. The movie was called Every dog has its day and then we fast forward back to two weeks. Johnny's like no, come on.

Corey 1:03:37
He got that dog in him.

Neal 1:03:38
But he's like yeah, he's like being shitty in this. He's like, come on. Didn't all that time we spent together on set and all that kissing mean anything and so he's like, No, it was literally fiction. I was acting I was fucking acting you like you asked me like a thing? Is this a thing? Johnny Cage does like this thing Johnny Cage does like he gets women to like be in his movie. So he can like put the moves on him. Yeah,

Corey 1:04:00
it's a little fat boy piece of shit. Anyway,

Neal 1:04:02
he absolutely did that to other women. But Sony wasn't having any of it. She's like peace. I got special forces shit to do. The end of that fucking waste of time.

Corey 1:04:14
The end of my interest in these comics whatever was left like that

Neal 1:04:17
story had less stakes than like an Archie comic. Honestly, like, anyway, that's it. That's uh, that's the end of battle wave six. You can tell Charles Marshall is just out of ideas. Right? Like

Corey 1:04:29
yeah, they sure art this was clearly like a contract and can contractual obligation. There's a formatting

Neal 1:04:34
problem with these with everything divided up into one shots and mini series as if it was just like one continuous ongoing books so that you're getting every step of the story in one comic like that. That would be better, right? If you were really seeing this stuff like unfold chronologically. Instead of just being divided up in like one scene happens in this book. One scene happens in that book and this doesn't fit in anywhere. I don't know, man. It's just I can see why the comics don't last past this era, right?

Corey 1:05:09
No. And they have all sort of felt like this. But this is the most they have absolutely felt like this. Does. I know that sentence doesn't have a lot of specifics in it. But you know what I mean? Like, yeah, this is the most nothing these have felt. And they've all felt a little bit like that.

Neal 1:05:27
Sure. But you think you think you're getting introduced like you're reading blood and thunder, you think you're getting introduced to the world more like bond or you're building something like you're building towards something, but then when you get this deepen, and nothing has changed, you're like, Okay, I'm just, I'm just wasting my time. More like, like, toll wave my patients, my patients is worn out. And I was hyped on these at the start, like, and I still am pretty hyped about like the first half, but this second half has just been like, since the Special Forces to issue thing. It's just been a slog, dude. Yep, we're almost we're almost Defenders of

Corey 1:06:03
the Realm style slog.

Neal 1:06:07
We're almost done though. We are going to do in terms of comics. Before we get to Tournament Edition number two, we are going to do the three one shots, the baraka, Kitana, and Molina and Kung Lao one shots and working on getting some friends lined up to talk about those with us. So scheduling on those might have to be a little kind of fluid, definitely doing a commentary next week. And then we will be tackling the remaining four comic book issues. One at a time. Soon. And then it'll be over. Cory will be the comic books will be over. Nice. Yeah, we'll only have one more thing left to read. And then we don't have to read anything ever again. Just just the Jeff Roven novel. Yep. Yeah, man. But for now, you want to go do some Chess Boxing?

Corey 1:06:54
I would love that.

Neal 1:06:54
Yeah, let's do it. Cory. What do you got going on? Oh, gosh, I

Corey 1:06:57
want to make this fast. I got two other podcasts. One of them is about sequels and movies and reboots and remakes of movies and movies, and you know, that kind of thing. We're gonna do this fast. Yeah, it's called they made another one. That's what it's called. You can look that up and that's what it is. And then on the other show that I do called strat to short for the strategy word, the word strategy we talked about before the whole one over there, strat to f1 miscarry price on Twitter. These conflicts are sapping the life out of me. I'm gonna

Neal 1:07:28
happen. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at final Neal. follow my Instagram account at final Neal retro. I have another podcast called crew expendable all about the alien Film and Comic Book and book franchise. Crew expendable dotnet. Find links to that podcast. We recently did an episode on Archie vs Predator issue number one, so go check that out. That's a good comic book. These are bad comic books. You can follow this show on Twitter and Instagram at MK pod quest. Our website MK pod quest.com has links to how you can support the show our YouTube channel, how to get in touch with us, et cetera. All the subscription, you know places to find the show. So go there and do that rate us five stars give us good reviews. We will be back next week to talk about something bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai