Comic Book Men s03e14 Episode Script

Do you think that The Avengers' standards have slipped a bit? What I can't understand is those z-list characters who make it, like Starfox.
What was his power again? As vague as it was, wasn't it to give pleasure to people? Yeah, he could tap into your pleasure center.
- Oh, it's a guy? - Yeah.
Oh.
Well, still What about us becoming honorary avengers, like Rick Jones? He had no powers.
I'd like to hang out with The Avengers.
What do you bring to the table that Ming Chen is allowed to pal around with The Avengers? I don't know, I mean Hummina-hummina-hummina.
There's just nothing, I guess.
Well, no, you put it that way, it's like, I mean, yeah, you gotta be - I am pretty useless.
- I guess Starfox looks more deserving than you.
He could be like Starfox's apprentice.
Walking around, knocking on doors "You guys need any pleasure? No? You're good? All right.
" Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Comic Book Men, the only show that giggles and blushes whenever somebody says, "the dark knight rises.
" I'm your host Kevin Smith.
- Bryan Johnson.
- Walt flannagan.
- Mike Zapcic.
- Ming Chen.
Okay, man, somebody had to have come through the doors this week.
The stashes had been visited by some pretty famous vehicles in the past.
Yeah.
We've seen the Batmobile come through, the general Lee came through.
Another vehicle came in this time, but not with four wheels, though.
- How you doing today? - How are you? - You guys need any help? - We have a Batman item that you may be interested in.
- Got it on you? - We actually have it outside.
- Wanna go bring it in? - Uh, we can't bring it in.
We'd have to take you outside to show you.
You're piquing my interest.
It's something large, huh? - Won't fit through the door.
- Wanna go outside, - check it out? - How can I not? Come on.
You may wanna see this, ming.
They got something big outside.
Oh, my God! - The Batcycle! - That is so cool.
Holy! Holy crap, it's gorgeous! It's even got the side cycle! Robin's little go-kart.
They had this, uh, this Batcycle pimped out to look exactly like the '66 version.
- Oh, with the side car? - Yeah! - Get outta here! - The exact replica of the Batman TV show Batcycle.
Which you didn't see too often in the actual show, but the Batcycle captured your imagination as a kid because you're sitting there watching the TV show, you're like, "I'm too little to ride the bike, "but I could sit in the side car right next to Batman and go fight crime with him.
" Oh, my God, this is, I think The most badass motorcycle in all of TV history.
It's one of the most badass vehicles on TV, in my opinion.
I'm impressed with how liberal the definition of badass is for you guys.
It's absolutely gorgeous, man.
I'm falling in love with it.
And you brought it here today 'cause you wanna sell it? Yes.
Well, how much you looking to get for it? We're looking to get 7 grand for it.
I know there's no way my wife's gonna let me buy a motorcycle.
Don't tell her.
- What? - I like that logic.
I don't have a motorcycle license do you? - I don't.
- Do you? - Yeah, actually, I do.
- You do? - Yeah.
- I know you do.
But I don't wanna tool around as Robin whenever I wanna go out in it.
Could you imagine your wife hearing that? Not only does she not know you have a stake in a motorcycle, but you're playing Robin to his Batman? You just summed it all up right there, man.
I'm gonna have to say we probably would not be interested in it, but I mean, since you brought it all the way down here, I mean, I'd love to say I at least rode in the Batcycle.
You think we could take a ride in it? - Absolutely.
- Absolutely.
You guys are awesome.
Aw! Now, you're a motorcycle fiend yourself.
You've had various bikes and hogs.
When you see this, is this impressive, or is this like nerd bait? Uh, it's kinda nerd bait because the, uh, the bike itself is small, the engine.
I always thought it wasn't the size of the engine, it was the size of the guy's heart who's riding.
Yeah, you thought wrong.
How's it feel? Are you gonna be able to handle this? Yeah.
Yeah, I got this.
You ready, old chum? Ready, Batman.
You look like The Great Gazoo.
Yeah! - Hey, dumb - Dumb, let's go! Here we go.
Whoo! This is cool! I never seen red bank from, like, a side car.
Ha ha ha! Do you feel ashamed sitting in the Robin seat? Naw, I feel good.
You gonna go home and tell your family? Absolutely not.
You know, now I know what Robin felt like, man, the wind in your face Oh! Oh ho ho ho! Whoo! Hold on tight, all right? I'm gonna pop a wheelie.
Don't even screw around like that, man come on, man.
I think my niece's motorized scooter has more juice than this thing.
We built some speed here.
No, no, not over 20.
Keep it under 20! Come on, knock it off! Hold onto this for a second? For what? Hello? I'm serious, man, I'm not feeling right.
If you gotta throw up, throw up that way, not this way.
Oh, hey, ma.
I'm on the Batcycle.
The Batcycle! Take it slow, take it slow.
Come on, you can do it.
Lay in this sucker.
Thanks.
You were an excellent Robin.
Thank you.
You got some skills, my friend.
- You did great.
- High five.
Got something here that might pique your interest.
Oh, wow! I had this game as a kid.
Why do you think so many child stars fell prey to such, like, horrible lives later on down the road? They don't realize it's just They have a limited shelf space, so they think, I'll spend every dime I get, 'cause I'll always be in demand.
" I love how you're judging the thought process of four-year-olds.
"They brought it on themselves.
"What'd they think was gonna happen? People don't really love them.
" Were you ever envious of those kids? I had my shot.
My mother took me to an agency for a screen test.
Get out of here.
Your mom thought she saw something in you, huh? She said, "my boy's got what it takes.
" She said that, but the agency said, "no, no he doesn't.
" Yeah, she ga up pretty quickly.
- So you're a never - Was? - Yeah, I aspire to a has - Been.
Hey, fellas, how you guys doing? I have something here that might pique your interest.
- Oh, wow.
- Amazing Spider-Man - I remember this.
- Fantastic four.
It's a board game, right? - 1977.
- 1977.
- I had this.
- Did ya? I had is game as a kid, man.
Yep, when I saw it, I told my mom I wanted this game more than anything.
Kinda recall it not being all that exciting, as I remember it.
You wanna open it up and take a look? - Definitely.
- Here you go.
Look at that Steve Ditko art, man.
Oh, gorgeous.
So there's not little figures, but you got little token pieces over here.
Wait, so you don't even get to be, like, Spider-Man? No, you don't even play as Spider-Man.
You choose one of the fantastic four guys you wanna play as.
It was the ultimate in disappointment.
Well, you wanna play it now? - All the pieces are here.
- Oh, yeah.
I'd love to play a quick game.
- Awesome.
- What's the goal? When both pieces get in here, the game stops and whoever's got the most points wins.
Okay.
I love how there's not even a picture of somebody's face on these cards, a logo.
Look at the name of the villains on some of these.
It's really ghetto.
Lion face, not even a real villain.
I assumed that the game pieces would be little icons Figurines of the characters.
Of Spider-Man, the thing, Mr.
fantastic, the human torch.
While I'm not playing the game, ma, I'll be able to play with the little figures.
You know, it'll be great.
It'll have so many purposes.
It'll be the best buy this family's ever made.
I'll be Mr.
fantastic.
- Would you like to be the invisible girl? - I mean Again? - Again, all right.
- I'll be the thing.
- All right.
- You can be human torch.
- All right.
- Pick up a card.
It says, "move two spaces.
" Go one, two.
I landed on the web.
And now I have a villain card.
That's some of my points.
- This is thrilling.
- Oh, my God.
"Move three spaces.
" So, one, two, three, and then there.
Sure, you won.
- Did I win? - Yeah, you won.
Oh, nice.
Did you have, like, family game night at your house? Board game night? As a child, yeah, I definitely had it.
My mom would try and my sister would play.
I tried to bring that into the, uh When I had children.
But as the kids grew older, they became less and less interested.
What you find out, man, is, like, all those commercials lied.
'Cause they always show dads involved in the game.
But even when I was a kid, my dad never played the board games.
And even as an adult, as a dad myself, like, I could've corrected it, but I'm, like, "board games? Let's just go to a theme park," or something like that.
"Let's go eat," that's what I would say.
The only time my dad played was when it was "rock them sock them bry.
" You're wrong again.
What are you looking to get for it? I'd like to get 65 out of it.
- 65, wow.
- Yeah.
But you'd be happy with it? I'd be miserable if I have to give you $65 for this.
How about 10 bucks? That's quite a ways from 65.
Uh, would you go 50? No, I couldn't do 50.
Um, how about 25? That's probably the best I could do.
All right, we can do 25.
- Do 25? - Yeah, we'll do 25.
All right, sold.
- All right, thank you.
- Thank you very much, - gentlemen, it's a pleasure.
- All right.
- See you later.
- Take care.
Thank you very much.
Are you interested in Marvel Comics history? It's my favorite type of history.
Then I have something that I think you will like.
Oh, yeah, man.
Hey, man, we got a guest this week.
Been working in comics for 25 years, and one of the best Batman illustrators on the planet - Greg Capullo, man.
- That'd be me, yeah.
Look at the guns on that guy.
That's from drawin'.
All right, so when you're drawing Batman, what's the very first thing you draw? Cowl, symbol, boots, cape, where do you start? It's all about shape, you know, the silhouette, the monolithic thing.
But, uh, my favorite part is and to me, what makes my Batman is the way it ties in a big fat neck that goes into the traps.
And so, that's always my starting point, to get that big, wide sweep, that you just go, "wow, look at that shock absorber.
" So that's my move, that's my move.
Don't copy it, 'cause I'll find where you are and I'll kill you or something.
Other than Batman, who's your favorite supporting cast member to draw? Well, I really love the character Uh, the character guy, so it'd be a toss-up between Alfred or Gordon.
- Right.
- I love drawing those guys, the caricatures of people.
'Cause you make them an amalgam of people that you know in your own life.
And it's a little more fun than, you know, the mask that you can't see in the face as much, so yeah, I love that stuff.
So Gordon or big Al.
If you guys got invited to an elegant cocktail party, across the room you notice that Bruce Wayne has taken a shine to your wife You can tell he's charismatic.
He told a joke, it might be It's definitely funnier than anything you've ever said.
- She's laughing like crazy.
- Ohh.
Yeah, that's a tough one, right? Yeah.
It's like indecent proposal.
I don't think that it goes You know, I go over and I join them.
How about that? She introduces you as her friend.
- Then I'm screwed.
- All right.
What about you, ming, do you just give up? No, I wouldn't give up.
I would fight back.
But, I mean, at some point, like, how much can you fight? Billionaire, charismatic.
Deck is stacked against me in that case.
How about your wife leaves you for Bruce Wayne - Okay.
- Alfred dies, and they throw you a pity job? You can now take Alfred's place.
There you go.
Except now I go even lower, and I'm Bruce Wayne's Butler.
You gotta wash their sheets.
Oh, man.
I'd probably just give up.
I wouldn't wanna see any of that.
But you know what? If Tony stark's at that party - Oh, yeah.
- Forget about it.
Forget about it, bro.
It's over.
You're not even getting a job out of it.
- Have a great day.
- You too.
- How you doing? - Hey, how are you? Good.
I have something kinda cool that I think you might be interested in.
- All right.
- Are you interested in Marvel Comics history? That's my favorite type of history.
Excellent.
Then I have something I think you will like.
Have you ever heard of Foom? - I have.
- Friends of old Marvel.
So the cool thing about these is that when you signed up, you'd get 'em in the mail.
And, you know, this is pre-web.
This is before the Internet.
Oh, yeah, man.
And, Walt, was this how you got - your, like, inside scoop? - Yep.
Yeah.
Today's kids, you know, they have to run to the Internet and the comic book sites are updated hourly with breaking news, but back then, I mean, news traveled a lot slower.
When I was a kid I couldn't find this anywhere, and I thought it was sold on the rack, so I looked for it all the time.
I never saw it.
I didn't realize it was by a subscription service only.
You had to mail it in.
It was $3.
It came in this wonderful hulk envelope and there was all kinds of stuff that came with it: Stickers, membership club cards.
- The official club card, man.
- Yep.
And it came with a poster by Jim Steranko.
This is gorgeous, man.
No pinholes.
Even when I was 12 years old I decided to keep things in pristine condition.
I'm a freak collector.
You were one of those kids, huh? I am.
I was an oddball.
Yeah? Takes one to know one.
It does.
Sometimes a customer walks in and I can immediately tell that if we grew up on the same street, we probably would have been best friends.
You are the creepiest retailer on the planet, man.
The guy's sitting behind the counter going, "me and this chap, we could have been buddies once.
" This guy didn't hang up the poster.
He didn't put tack marks in the poster.
He didn't write his name on the membership card.
He had no fun with it whatsoever.
He bagged it, boarded it, stared at it on a shelf, just like Walt would have done.
How thrilling it must have been for him.
There's one thing I wanted to show you in here.
It's kinda cool.
A nice, long-standing phrase Stan Lee.
Oh, yeah.
This is better than Shakespeare.
"Stand tall.
Thou hath reached the peak "and plucked the proudest prize.
"Hang loose.
Thou shalt flee from fear no longer "nor suffer pangs of doubt.
"Face front.
"Thou hath joined marveldom assembled.
"Thy name hath been inscribed now and forevermore in the blessed book of Foom.
" Wow.
Did you just tremble right there? - That's Stan Lee for you.
- Whoo.
Take that, Hemingway.
That's who Stan Lee has always been The ambassador of comics.
Here was an adult that made you, as a kid reading comics, feel like, "this guy, he vouches for it.
He's, like, as old as my dad and he's treating this seriously.
" He was a huge cheerleader for not just the Marvel characters, but the idea of comic book fandom in general.
He was embracing you to a club that not a lot of people were back in in the '70s.
I mean, it was a very exclusive club.
'Cause nobody could figure out how to join it.
Why'd you bring 'em in here today? - Not just to show off, right? - Well, you know Well, that's part of it, but I have got so much stuff and I have to clean out.
I've collected since I was a little kid.
What are you looking to get for it? Uh, 150? Will you take 50 for it? How about 75? How about 60? I can't argue about that.
- All right.
- Absolutely.
- Thank you.
- Excellent.
Hey - It was a pleasure.
- Real pleasure.
- Thanks a lot.
- All right, thank you, man.
I'm a huge, obsessive - back to the future fan.
- Wow.
Ming, have you ever wondered what the I don't wanna say lame, because he is the greatest superhero of all time, but Superman has been written with some pretty wacky powers.
How about Superman 2? He threw that big plastic "s" onto Zod? - Yes, the cellophane, handi - Wrap "s" was a bit odd.
Even I was just like, "I don't remember that from the comics.
" Even worse was at the end of the movie.
You remember the super lips? Super lips? No.
What's that? Superman kisses Lois Lane at the end, wipes her memory.
- Oh, the super kiss.
- Yeah.
What are you talking about super lips? - Yeah, you said sup - They were super lips.
Only you would call it super lips.
But they were.
But, I mean, were there ones in the Comic Books? Right off the bat, you have super ventriloquism.
- He threw his voice? - That's hardly a superpower, I mean, because there are people who can do that, right? Did it show him in the comics like, "wow, he's not moving his lips.
" Like, he's "Wow, look how great he is.
" He's not moving his super lips.
He's not moving his sup How you doing? - Hey, guys, how are you? - Good.
You guys buy, like, signed movie memorabilia and things like that? What have you got? I, uh, got an "outatime" back to the future license plate signed by Christopher Lloyd.
Christopher Lloyd, huh? Such a great movie.
Oh, it's my favorite.
Your favorite movie of all time? - All time.
- Yours? Easily top five.
What about it makes it in your top five? The scifi, the crazy characters, it got me into time travel.
What about the love story? Maybe not the love story itself, but, um I mean between Marty and his mom.
That was hot.
I mean, he is right though.
I mean and when you look at that movie, Marty's mom basically tried to, uh I mean, she was assaulting him.
She was not taking "no" for an answer.
Like, I feel like I would do it just so I could come back to the present and rub it in my dad's face.
I love the back to the future movies.
It's weird in the second one when all of a sudden his mom has implants and whatnot.
In the dirty Vegas future world Dystopian society.
But what's cool about back to the future 2 for a comic book fan was it's like days of future past - Oh, yeah.
- For back to the future.
Like, suddenly you're in this Dystopian society where everything's wrong and he has to kind of solve it all.
It's very comic book-like.
You know, I mean, just looking at you're holding it - Yeah? - You look a little bit like Marty Mcfly.
He was kind of short in stature.
He had the same kind of haircut.
You could be the new Marty Mcfly.
I could be biff? Mcfly.
Hello, Mcfly.
You have Calvin klein underwear on? Actually, yeah, I do.
- You're kidding me.
- No, I do.
Let me see.
No, I'm not gonna show you my underwear.
Just just the, uh No, I'm not He's your boss! Let him see! Dude, Marty Mcfly was cool.
- He was cool.
- So so am I.
Do you feel the power of love? Do you hang around with an old man, get in his car with him? "Ming, put your hand here!" "We're going back to the future!" Why are you selling it? I'm a huge, obsessive back to the future fan, but I'm kinda segueing into comic collecting, so I wanna sell it and get some money to beef up that collection.
All right, what are you looking to get for it? Well, uh, I want 5 for it.
- 500? - Yeah.
All right, well, um, I do think it's cool, but I'm afraid I'm gonna have to pass.
Yeah, that's a little bit too pricey for us and Yeah.
- It's it's unfortunately, um, not the kind of stuff that we we actually bring into the stash.
You have no interest in this? I mean, I don't wanna insult the guy.
I do think it's worth a lot, but I think it's just too pricey for us.
- All right, guys.
- Sorry, guys.
- Sorry we couldn't do it.
- Thanks.
- All right.
- Take care.
Okay.
We gotta get out of here, folks.
For Comic Book Men, I'm Kevin Smith.
- Bryan Johnson.
- Walt Flanagan.
- Mike Zapcic - Ming Chen.
May the Schwartz be with you.
Good night.