Anthony: Hello. Welcome to Capes on the Couch where Comics get Counseling. I’m Anthony Sytko.
Doc Issues: And I’m Drue.
Anthony: This is issue 169 and as our present level patron, Janine does a lot of work with animals. She’s had a bit of a recurring theme, whether it’s her patron exclusive trade paperback review, or the lantern month election.
Now, We’re getting things nice and fun and fuzzy. We’re gonna be talking animal sidekicks, so it’s characters, but also theme. So it’s, a bit of an amalgamation of a couple different things. This is gonna be a fun one. Yay. Certainly a lot lighter than last week’s episode, by the way, in case you missed.
We released a linear cut of the Kang episode a couple days after the main feed dropped. Doc and I had some discussion and we also got some feedback from our listeners that they understood and appreciated what it was that we were going for and sort of playing with the order of the segments. But it can be a bit daunting, especially for any new listeners who may not be familiar with.
Standard pattern of how we do things. So I said, you know what? Let’s just cut this one, like a normal episode like we recorded it. Having said that, the skit was always going to be non-linear because we constructed it that way. So either way, hope you got some stuff out of there. Hope you enjoyed it, doc and I will be dropping.
Recap episode of Quantum Mania at some point very soon. It’s gonna be a mini episode. It’s gonna go in the main feed. It’s not really gonna replace an episode, but we’re, we’re looking forward to it. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.
So even though this isn’t a singular character episode, we’re still gonna focus a little bit on the background. So Janine presented us with four characters to discuss, and each of them have their own little parts that we’re going to get into. So we’re gonna start off with Lockheed, and he was created by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith in the uncanny X-Men number 166 February, 1983.
He is an alien dragon of a race called the Flock, and he. Sidekick to Kitty pride of the X-Men, but he actually considers her to be his pet. So there have been one story and maybe a handful of references here and there that he has the ability to speak English, but otherwise he’s presented as only understanding it, but makes animal noises.
And Lockheed is a very capable fighter. Is he’s single-handedly responsible for destroying, I don’t know how many Brooded members. The, the brood. Oh, yeah. As a race, they are terrified of Lockheed. They see him coming and they do a 180 and just get the hell outta Dodge because Lockheed does some damage to the brood.
But I like the dynamic that he has with Kitty Pride because it’s very much. I don’t wanna say that they consider each other as equals because I did say that he sees her as his pet, but it’s, there’s a lot of affection there. And Kitty does view Lockheed as sort of a, a voice of reason, keeping in mind, of course, he’s not actually capable of speaking, but he serves as a conscience, a sounding board, a confidant.
He plays a lot of roles in addition to his offensive capabilities. Yeah.
Doc Issues: And just a warning to anyone, I’m not a veterinarian, I am not a pet psychologist. I can only go so far with this. So I’m gonna have a little bit of fun. But Anthony touched on exactly what this is about. Part of the reason why we have pets in general is because we as humans, Long, long, long, long, long, long time ago, recognize that we may not always have other humans directly around us at all times, but we still are very social creatures and we want that level of companionship.
So what do you do if you don’t have exactly what you want? You find the next closest thing. And thank goodness we have the ability to have animals in our lives. We are able to put at the forefront and develop significant relationships that is such a boom to our ability to process some very difficult things in life.
So it’s great when a person has a pet like that to really talk to, and I know I’ve had patients sometimes. Be scared to tell me that they talk to their pets because they think that I’m going to start considering that as a psychotic symptom or something. And, and that’s really, really far from the truth.
Now, don’t get me wrong, you can go wild and say, you know, son of Sam, but that’s, you know, that’s definitely not what we’re referencing. It’s just the idea that it’s always good to have a sounding board. And because we often don’t know exactly how we. Going to handle new information as the day progresses.
It’s nice sometimes to be able to come home and talk to someone about what’s going on in your day or when you’re starting the day, wow, I’m looking forward to this, et cetera, et cetera. Some people do it by journaling. Some people do it by talking on the phone. If you have a pet, it’s great because there’s also one other benefit.
It’s usually direct instant gratification because you have a no. Negative connotation here. A captive audience. You have someone that is willing to listen to everything you say because really that’s, that’s what they’re there for. And that’s totally amazing. So it’s really cool to, to have pets and, and in that context.
And really, I, I don’t really know how much more I can pad this out, so
Anthony: I won’t. Yeah, my mom had a very close relationship with our dog Missy and Docu. You remember Missy a, a wonderful dog, and I know everybody says that they have the best dog ever, but she truly was just an amazing dog and they were very much in sync with each.
And when Missy died, and it’s going on, gosh 10, 12 years now, at this point. It’s, it’s been a long time. My parents still have not found a pet to, to succeed her. And at this point now, I don’t know that they ever will because now it’s been so long and the legend has been built up. But to your point, yes, humans.
And animals, pets, primarily dogs, cats, but you know, other animals, they have that connection. And it is been proven scientifically that there’s benefits chemical benefits and dopamine that gets triggered when, when you’re petting the, creature and when you’re snuggling with them, the animal feels a connection.
There’s brain activity that goes on in the. With that kind of a connection and it’s, it’s wonderful. And the relationship that Kitty and Lockheed have goes, some of it depends on the writer, but it goes so far beyond that because again, there’s that added level of sentience that Lockheed has that pets that, that you and I can.
Don’t, don’t carry that level. Dogs and cats have a certain amount of understanding, but they will never be able to fully understand what it is that we’re presenting to them. And so it’s just interesting and we’ll get into this as we go through the, the different characters, the ones that are higher levels of sentience versus those that are not quite so capable.
It’s, interesting to see the relationship between the animals and their, their people, their handlers, their best friends, et cetera. And I think that the Lockheed Kitty relationship has always been used as one that is very important to Kitty. Lockheed means a lot to Kitty and vice.
And Lockheed played a role, I believe at one point when, when Colossus was going to marry someone else, Lockheed was like, whoa, this is I, I have to step in here and try and play a role. That’s what I meant when I said earlier that Lockheed kind of plays the roles of Kitty’s conscience because Lockheed is so important to Kitty that when he’s not around, it changes who Kitty is and how she interacts with others, and.
Almost like a safety blanket with wings, if that makes sense. That when Lockheed’s around, she knows that at least she has someone in her corner. Even if that someone is purple, doesn’t speak English much has wings and shoots fire, which you know, is pretty cool. That’s that’s pretty badass. If you have a dragon the size of a.
It follows you around and and shoot fire at people who piss you off. I think that’d make anybody pretty confident. Yeah. So the next one, the next character that Janine has suggested is vastly different but also similarly colored at purple blue-ish in that, that vein, depending on the artist, and this is Gleek.
So Gleek debuted in the all new Super Friends Hour on September 10th, 1977, the TV show, and then made his first appearance in the comics the next month in Super Friends, number seven, October, 1977. And he is a blue alien monkey who is best friend to Zn and Jayna, the Wonder Twins, the much maligned. Form of water, shape of bucket characters in the cartoon, so bleak, similar to Lockheed can understand English, but he’s really only capable of Chittering.
Now, Lockheed is the trusted confidant of of Kitty. He has offensive capabilities and things of that nature. Gleek is very much just there. I know the whole Wonder Twins are there just kind of as the audience avatar and they’re there, you know, kids and, oh, these kids have superpowers and stuff, and let’s give them a monkey sidekick, because it had been done with, Ja, Ja and Jason, Jan.
And what was the, the monkey from? Was it race? Bannon? Yeah. Yeah. Or yeah.
Doc Issues: I’m not even a space ghost. I know somebody I know, but I’m not, I’m not even coming close to trying to recollect all of that because it was
Anthony: all terrible. Fair enough. But my point is, Lockheed is cool, bleak is annoying. Comic relief.
So this
Doc Issues: gets to something that I, I wanted to talk about. I know the topic is animal sidekicks and I get it, but I’m just gonna keep talking about pets. Okay. I’m sorry. That’s just the way my brain works. So there are many different ways that a person can handle having a pet and what we were talking about for with gleek.
Nice. What we were talking about before with Lockheed is the idea that you have an animal that is devoted to. And you’re reciprocating the feeling, you’re grateful that you have that connection as opposed to the way sometimes people have pets because they think pets are cool. Like the concept of having an animal with you is okay, but all of the other steps that would be necessary to make that a true bonding, emotional relationship are secondary.
And so you can end up with a bit of a disconnect. Where on one hand the person recognized, especially with with domesticated pets, that this creature is response is, is reliant on me to make sure that it stays alive for the most part, but I’m pretty much willing to do that part, but not any of the other things that would, for example, increase obedience, make sure that there aren’t messes around the house, et cetera, et cetera.
So, I wanna make this clear. I’m not knocking anyone in terms of saying that those animals are neglected or, whatever. I’m saying that they’re being taken care of. But when, let’s say someone that doesn’t know the dynamic enters the household, they may say like, okay, clearly you have, you have a dog, or clearly you have a cat.
Like, I see the stuff, but like, you know, what’s going on. And you know, everybody has that work in progress with new pets, we. But there are some people that don’t ever seem to exit that phase, and it can be incredibly frustrating for them and for the pet because maybe they’re looking for something more and they’re, and they’re not quite getting, and, and, you know, it’s, it’s not always great.
And sometimes that leads to conditions where you gotta make a choice. Now, in Glee’s case, yes, it’s all for fun. What I’m getting at is there are some times where you really have to recognize you. You put forth your best effort and it’s just not working out, and you may have to make a decision and say maybe someone else would benefit from this relationship compared to me, and I just need to find a better fit.
It’s okay to do that. I think sometimes people use the sum cost fallacy, like, because I got this am you know, because I got this dog, or I got this cat, or I got this, whatever. I now have to continue to do things the exact same way and make sure that everything goes perfectly smoothly even though it’s giving me too much anxiety or I don’t have the time necessary for this particular breed or what, whatever I’m, I’m making it as loose as possible because I recognize we’re not just talking about dogs and cats.
Cause that’s what I’m more familiar with. I don’t care if you have snakes au gus if you have goldfish or, or you build the coy pond or whatever. It’s, there’s a certain amount of dedication and effort that’s necessary. And if you’re not finding that fit, it’s best to acknowledge it and move on rather than just holding onto whatever it is you’re thinking.
So in, in the real world, if you had someone like Gleek, it would be more like, dude, why, why, why? You got a monkey. You, you know, fully, well, this wasn’t gonna work. Just,
Anthony: just, just,
Yeah, Simeon have proven to be not always the best companions as pets as that woman from about 10, 15 years ago. Can attest when the chimp just decided to up ball half of her face off. I’m not saying that a dog can’t go. And attack you. I’m not saying a cat can’t go feral and lose its mind and scratch you, but there is a galaxy of difference between one of those animals going wild and and attacking and a chimpanzee or other.
Maybe if you have like, you know, a capuchin that’s kind of on the smaller. But you got a big ass monkey. You’re gonna have some big ass problems. And again, bleak. It’s just annoying. It’s my personal bias. And I fully admit, I know that there are people out there that enjoy the wonder twins, that like bleak.
It was very much a product of its time, late seventies, early eighties that kitschy. Over the top just clear pandering to kids and that demographic. First off, it came out before I was born, and then by the time I discovered it, I was far too old to be in the target demographic. Maybe if I caught reruns when I was six or seven, I’d have thought it was cool.
Also, when I was seven, the Michael Keaton Batman movie came out. So at that point, comparing Michael Keaton Batman to the Wonder Twins and the blue monkey had been like, forget that. I wanna go Batman. He’s cute. So yeah, again, I, I think this draws a, a nice comparison and a contrast between Lockheed and g.
And that contrast is gonna be further amplified when we get to the next character who is Lock Jaw. So Lock Jaw created by Stanley and Jack Kirby in the Fantastic four, number 45 December, 1965. Lock Jaw is a giant dog with a tuning fork on his head, in his head, part of his head. He is the transporter for the Inhumans.
And you can go back and we’ve done a couple episodes. Various Inhumans, we, we did Medusa, we did Black Bolt. We did crystal, we’ve spoken about them as individuals. Lock Jaw is treated by the Inhumans as a pet, but he is a loyal and well cared for one. There was that brief thing where they tried to say, oh, no, he was actually a person.
But then it turned out that Ben Grim was just playing a joke on Johnny. Lock Jaw is the first character where it’s clear he is a pet. He is essentially a service dog playing a role. He’s very well cared for by the inhuman Royal family, but they do not view him maybe outside of Crystal cuz she has a very close connection with Lock Jaw.
They don’t view him. And equal whatever, it’s lock jaw is our pet. He’s a damn good pet, but he is very clearly the pet. Yeah,
Doc Issues: and you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned service animal. And what I was going to talk about with this was the idea that pets, depending on what kind they are, are capable of amazing things with.
And training is simply conditional responses that are shaped by whatever, actually, that’s the whole point of the term carrot or stick that you’re using to shape what you want to happen. The most extreme examples are things that you see in the circus, but that’s, that’s not really what I’m getting at.
What I’m getting at is animals are heavily invested in those people that care for them. As long as they recognize that they’re going to survive better. So once again, you use the proper terms a well cared for pet. How far can you take that if anybody’s ever been or watch the Westminster Dog Show? My goodness.
Some of those dogs have, dare I say, better lives in terms of comfort. Humans. It’s, it’s incredible what what people are willing to do. And I know we’ve also seen the stereotypes of the chihuahua in a bag. I mean, I, I’m not trying to cast aspersions. People can do what they want, but what I’m also getting at is, and you can go down every YouTube rabbit hole about all of these things, is sometimes you’ll find people that simply are just.
I don’t know if it’s because they have the spare time or they just enjoy it as a hobby, but they will breed, you know, different pets to do things around the house and sometimes they do actually make it so that those pets can serve even some basic chores with some of the modifications that you could.
Like to get things from the kitchen or to go up and downstairs so that a person doesn’t have to, or you know, and of course we have seeing eye dogs, like all sorts of things that, that we know the idea that dogs can sniff out cancer. I mean, there, there are just so many different things that we have learned that are above and beyond anything that we thought were true just even a couple decades ago.
So the sky’s the limit when you invest in animals. It’s the backbone of our society for the longest time. And I think sometimes we forget that because of all of the automation and industrialization and technologies that have come about over the past couple of centuries. But I mean, before that we would’ve been stuck
So I just want to give a shout out to the fact that animals are capable of doing, And making our lives that much better. Not just emotionally, but but actually in terms of production in
Anthony: society. Yeah. And we’ve shown that with not just pets, but animals in general. You know, beasts of burden and things of that nature.
If you look at horses and livestock and, and oxen and you go to sections, You know, Southeast Asian, they have trade elephants for certain tasks and things of that nature. It really speaks to the ingenuity of humans that we have been able to adapt animals for our purposes. Now, the flip side of that is of course, that if you are very pro animal, you’re gonna say it’s manipulation, that it’s abuse, and things of that nature, and there.
That segment of humanity that views animals very much on an equal playing field. You know, whether it’s it’s veganism, an animal rights activist, and things of that nature. So I would be very curious to see, following that kind of train of thought, how those animal rights activists would view lock jaw.
Would there be protest? Against Adelan for making lock jaw transport, black Bolton, Medusa, and et cetera, you know, from one place to another. Would there be claims that he is worthy of, separate living quarters and things of that nature, like special and or preferential treatment because of that?
Honestly know that that’s ever really been addressed in any of the Inhumans books. A again, full disclosure, I haven’t read every single run on Inhumans that’s ever been written, so if I’m wrong, please feel free and, and correct me. Maybe I’ll throw that out on social media as a discussion. But this idea that to your point, you know, you.
You look at the Westminster Dog Show, I, I never watched Westminster. I do watch the Philadelphia Dog Show every year though, cuz it follows the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. And I just like the sound of John, no Hurley’s voice. And yeah, those dogs are very well taken care of. But the flip side of it is, ironically, I would say that a lot of what they go through, I would consider to be abusive.
The training and the detail that has to go into the diet and the coats and so much hampering goes above and beyond for an animal. Now I will be the first person to cry out against animal abuse. I don’t wanna see anybody. Kicking a dog. I don’t like to see people hitting animals, but abuse takes many forms and for me and my dollar, some of that stuff really kinda pushes up against it.
So I don’t know realistically where you would put lock jaw on that spectrum because you pamper him too much. Versus abusing him. I don’t know. It’s just like there’s a lot of ethics to be considered here for, for a character like Lock Joe and it, and frankly, because of his role as the pet and the transporter and stuff like that, it opens up questions that we didn’t really need to discuss with Gleek and, and Lockheed.
Yeah.
Doc Issues: You’re absolutely right. And if we flipped it to humans and talked about things like, you know, instead of calling them dog shows and called them beauty pageants and, you know, talked about child athletes and all sorts of other things that have human direct corollaries. We could really go down a rabbit hole, but you know what?
I don’t think we need to do that right this
Anthony: moment. Yeah. I’m, I’m with you there. 150% on the child beauty pageant and stuff. But again, that’s getting wildly off topic for, for this particular episode.
Doc Issues: Well, they are sidekicks, just saying, oh
Anthony: boy, . So the last character that Janine suggested. Is an interesting one, is Krypto the Super Dog, created by Otto Bender and Kurt Swan in Adventure Comics.
Number two 10 March of 1955. He is a Kryptonian dog, who is Superman’s loyal pet and companion throughout the various DC continuities and reboots. He either was sent along. In a different rocket. Before, before Jor sent Clark out as kind of like a test. He was like the, the Laika of of Krypton
There’s a deep cut. There’s a reference I never thought I’d have to make on this show and the Soviet dog that they just sent out in space Oh my. To see whether or not Sputnik would work. Yeah. We go all over the place on this show, folks. He has sacrificed himself a few times in the various continuities to protect his master and save people.
He attacked Mongol once he, he bit kryptonite man to save Clark. He, he died of poisoning shortly afterwards. And in one story, turns out Krypto was actually responsible for the Great Chicago fire of 1871 because Red Kryptonite turned him into Mrs. O’Leary’s Cow. I’m not making this up folks. I swear to God.
You can look this up online, but Krypto. Kind of walks that line. He is viewed as a pet, like lockjaw, but he also does his own thing and he’s very much trusted to be a superhero and fight alongside Clark and Supergirl and Power Girl in the various other 30 11 other Kryptonians. So he’s a very interesting.
Mixture of the pet and superhero in his own right. So we’re talking about police
Doc Issues: dogs. Is that, is that what we’re doing? I, I’m sorry. I’m not trying to be sarcastic. It’s just, I think, ingrained in me to respond that way. So I apologize if anybody was offended by that, but no, really, I, I’m grateful that we have, I know this goes back to the service dog thing, but, but in a much different way because there is a, Protectionism and direct response to threats that isn’t always asked of other pets.
And for those that are trained to do that
I, I really don’t know how I feel about this one. What I mean is I recognize that. I have a bomb sniffing dog going through, or, or just any type of sniffing dog going through things and making sure that everybody in the area is safe. It gives the sense of comfort that something’s being done. At the same time, I, I admit, I have my own thoughts and limitations of okay, but you know, there have been some examples that there have been drug sniffing dogs.
We’ll literally contact anything and identify it as positive because the actual verbal feedback of Go get it, go get it, you’ll find, you know, is enough to make them elicit a positive response, even if there’s nothing else there. So there’s some manipulation there for you. The idea of the ultimate sacrifice, if you have a, any animal, I’m not even limiting it to dogs, but if you have any pet.
Is willing to alert you if there is an intruder that can be a positive thing. I do not have a randomized, you know, double blind placebo controlled trial to indicate what I’m about to say. But I have plenty of people that I’ve talked to that point out either their, you know, their pet responds to everything and it’s just very NOIs.
Or will just not do anything, even if someone completely random comes in, if anything, they’re even more friendly. So those types of examples, like, all right, unless you, it goes back to the idea. Unless you are making a concerted effort to get a result from a pet, more often than not you’re going to get random chance.
So to bring it back to what humanity has been, I’m saying thank you because I think that’s the proper thing to do because it, it’s important that we do everything we can to find alternatives to sacrificing human life for the sake of conflict that can’t be resolved any other way. I wish that it wasn’t involved with any life related to it, and I specifically say this because even the idea.
A dog is getting in the way to save their, to, to, to save their owner or save their master. That, I don’t know. There’s something about that that just doesn’t sit well with me. I don’t know what that says about me, but so be it. It’s out there .
Anthony: Yeah, it’s, it is interesting. There was one story where, it doesn’t happen often, but there was one story where we.
The captions that explain Krypto’s thought process as he’s doing things throughout the day and he’s, he’s helping folks and he basically, someone was attacking Superman and it was in that broken English way that we kind of understand dogs. Think and speak that that trophy way that we understand it was something like, you know, Krypto love, man, this, this person hurt man.
Krypto protect man. Aye, good boy. You know? And it was just those, those rare instances where you get that insight into Krypto’s mind and how he think. And Duane Johnson is nowhere near any of this. It’s heartwarming and it, it speaks to the bond We were speaking earlier about the bond that people can have with their pets.
When that bond is between a superpowered dog and Superman, who is the best among us, the best version of humanity that’s. You gotta think, Clark is really going to do everything he can to treat Krypto with the utmost respect and, and love him and dot on him and treat him very much like a, a solid member of the family, a good contributor.
And I mean, you want to talk about pampered and, and being treated well. You gotta think Krypto really has it made in the shade if your owner is frigging Superman, even if he didn’t have superpower. Clark would still treat that dog astonish. And I think that speaks just as much about Clark, that as it does Krypto, that I, I truly do believe Clark would treat a non-powered dog no differently than he treats Krypto.
He would still show it the same amount of love and affection and that dog without powers would. Go after Mongol would still go after anybody who tried to hurt Superman because he would be instilled with that level of devotion and love for his master. So again, I think the Krypto Clark relationship speaks volumes, not just about Krypto as a character, but also how we perceive Superman.
And it gives a different angle to. To Clark because of that nature in a way that is different than how Clark interacts with other humans slash humanoid characters. Yeah. You know,
Doc Issues: actually you, you, you brought something up that I element we didn’t explicitly say. So I’ll, I’ll say it now. The number of times that a pet will have.
Relatively speaking, have the personality traits of their owner or the family and seem to incorporate that in terms of how they interact with each other. I, I see that a lot. I know I’ve experienced it for myself, so I, I’m sure anybody that’s, that’s had a pet can, can relate to that when it happens. I mean, it’s a special thing.
It’s a magical.
Anthony: Yeah, I know plenty of people who use their, their dogs, specifically dogs, because cats are judgmental assholes. I say this owning two of them. They will use dogs as a judge of character and they’re like, if my dog doesn’t like you, I don’t trust you, because that bond between human and pet is so strong and because they understand.
What the animal is thinking. They understand what their pet is thinking, and they believe truly in their heart of hearts that their pet has their best interests at heart. That my dog loves me and my dog wants me to be happy. Not just that the owner wants the pet to be happy and to take care of the pet, but that the dog wants the owner to be happy.
So if that dog is growling at somebody, then maybe. I don’t wanna mess with you. I’m just talking about dogs. And the first time I came up to my wife’s apartment and the cats came right up and started snuggling with me, especially Bruce, who’s not generally historically been affectionate to a lot of people.
She told me later on, she was like, the fact that Bruce came right up to you, like as soon as you walked in, and he was like, oh, I think I, I think I wanna pet you. She was, it wasn’t like a guaranteed green flag, but it was just a, huh. Okay. So I talk a lot of smack about cats. I love my two jack asses.
As I was telling Doc before, they’re both super, super drugged right now cuz my wife brought them to work with her. And they’re, they’re stoned in very, very different ways. Jackie is the, the tube is the paranoid one who thinks, oh my God, they’re out to get me. I’m just gonna run around and bug. And Bruce sits and stairs at the wall.
Drooling Also. He’s drooling cuz he had a lot of teeth removed. So there’s that too. Anyway, the crux of this is that, and I guess the takeaway from this is, Those of us fortunate enough to have our own personal animal sidekicks, understand the relationship that these, these creatures can have and the impact that they can have on us and conversely on them.
And I think that’s why so many characters have been written with animal sidekicks because it provides a shorthand for the character themselves. It provides a different angle to demonstrate facets of the character and their interactions that we wouldn’t normally get with them. Just having a conversation with other humans or again, humanoid characters.
And it’s just fun because animals are cool, they’re fun. Again, it gives you just a lot of, a lot of shorthand and things that you can do. If you see somebody petting a dog, you go, okay, they’re cool. If you see somebody kicking a dog, that means they’re an asshole. Like it’s an instant shorthand that we use animals to judge humans against other humans.
I’m kind of going all over the place. It’s late and I’m very tired. And also this theme for this episode kind of allows it to be a little more freewheeling and a little less structured. I know last week we really messed with the structure, but this week we’re still trying to keep somewhat linear. We’re also providing a little bit more room for, for discussion.
So those are the four that, that Janine had suggested before. Start to wrap things up, doc, do you have any other animal sidekicks that, that come to your mind or anyone that that pops into your brain? I know you’re probably gonna say Ace the bat Hound .
Doc Issues: Okay. I did have that, but instead I’m going a completely different direction.
So this is just an anecdotal story. My wife’s aunt, she used to have us dogsit. Whenever they were out of town and one particular dog was very temperamental, I’ll, I’ll just leave it at that. We actually dog sat for that dog very shortly after she first got her.
And I remember on my way to. I’m trying to remember if it was medical school or residency, but either way, the point is I was leaving the house at the time and the dog is just barking her head off and I am trying to be calm and I say I have to leave now. The dog, I swear to you, the dog stares directly through my soul, lifts up her leg and pees on the carpet right in front.
As if to say, oh, you think you’re going anywhere? Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. Who’s the pet here? And it made me realize that I do not have as much power in society as I think because I wanted to make sure I cleaned up after this dog, cuz I did not want anybody mad at me for wrecking their house, even if it wasn’t directly my fault.
Anthony: They do find the way to do the thing that you don’t want them to do. And it’s always at the most inopportune moment where they’re definitely like, oh, okay. Oh, the, oh, you, you’re looking for convenience. Nah, nah, we’re, we’re done here with this. So, yeah. I absolutely get it. It, yeah,
That’s funny. Oh, you’re already running late. Have fun now. Yeah, they’re good for that. That’s, we keep ’em around anyway. Even if they go to the bathroom where they’re not supposed to, like on the steps leading up to the litter box instead of actually in the litter box. Not that I’m speaking from experience or anything, not that I’m bitter about the fact that my dog got skunked twice in the span of about three weeks.
, you’d think she would’ve learned the first time. Oh gosh.
But the only other, the animal that comes to my mind is as far as sidekicks, and this is very much in the role of a pet and just used as a shorthand, is Ozzy Manus. Oh, that thing.
Doc Issues: BUAs, I believe it’s called. Once again, not even pretending to remember, but I know, I know what you’re talking about.
I remember the thing. It’s just, yeah, I don’t remember
Anthony: the. Yeah, I, I wanna say it was BUAs just again, very much the shorthand of, I’m going to genetically create this creature that’s going to be exotic and whatever. And it told you so much about Ozzy, Manus as a character, not to mention,
Doc Issues: spoiler or alert for a book that old, just using it as a trap.
Anthony: Yeah, that, that too. But again, that gets back to the whole thing of how people treat animals. Tells you so much about. What’s, what’s that expression? The sign of a man’s character is defined by how he treats those who can do nothing for him. Hmm. Yeah. There you go. Something to that effect. Yeah.
You know, it’s, it’s along the same lines of if he’s rude to the waiter, if they’re a jackass to the mm-hmm. , the bank teller. Ah-huh. . Like, if, if they treat those kinds of people with dis. Then that’s red flags, generally speaking. So all this to say, don’t be, don’t abuse animals. Don’t be addict to people.
Just be cool man. Snuggle with a pet. Get a pet, snuggle it, love it and hopefully it will treat you well. Yep. So recommended reading Lockheed and the Pet Avengers maybe. Which we did the Patreon exclusive trade paperback review with Janine. Again, she loves her animals. She does work with with a shelter. So again, that explains why she’s got a recurring theme for that running through some of her selections.
So just go find a book about some animals or go read some Krypto. I mean, I’d say at least of the characters that we referenc. The any book is going to be family friendly, all ages appropriate. Lockheed the pet Avengers certainly is largely any story that centers around Krypto is going to be all ages friendly and appropriate.
Bleak by virtue of the whole thing is gonna be friendly, maybe, maybe not lock jaw centered, cuz some of the inhuman stories can get a little. Go read books about animals and so upcoming episodes, we’ve got Clairvoyant, the original Black Widow created in the forties who I knew nothing about until we started doing research for then, because I’m going on vacation.
We are going to release to the main feet and interview a creators on the couch. That was Paton exclusive. It’s, it was a Patreon exclusive for quite some. We interviewed Megan Fitz Martin, who’s been writing the Tim Drake book. So we sat down with her a while back to talk about that story and some of her other work.
And I believe she just had an animated movie, a DC animated movie that’s coming out that she worked on. I wanna say it’s like Legion of Superheroes or something, or mm-hmm. , one of the, the 31st century teams. Anyway, she worked on, So that’s gonna be hitting the feed. And then he’s got an animal name, but he’s definitely not family friendly.
We’re talking the penguin. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Oswald Cobblepot himself. So we’ve got some good and very diverse episodes coming up so you can find all those episodes and all the other stuff we provide on our website, capes and the couch.com. You can also find. Proud numbers of the Gonna Geek Network.
You can go to gonna geek network.com and check out other awesome shows. Doc was recently on play comics with our friend Chris and I would’ve been on there, had Chris’s audio functioned properly, so I have to reschedule the discussion we’re going to have about the ninja Turtles. Cowabunga Collection
So go to gonna geek network.com and, and find yourself some new shows to check out. You can also find us on Instagram, Twitter TikTok and Facebook at capes on the couch. You can shoot us an email capes on the couch gmail.com with your thoughts. And if you really like what you hear and you enjoy the content, you can subscribe and support the show.
Go to patreon.com/capeson the couch and support us. You can get early Access Uncensored material, and various other exclusive content. For your listening pleasure. And I think that’s about gonna wrap it up for us on this one. So Doc, so
Doc Issues: unfortunately it’s all a mess in my head because on one hand I have something telling me, have your pet spade or neutered with like,
while on the other hand, I have someone telling me that just for pennies a day I could. So many animals.
Yeah. So either way, I think those are both good things and yeah, I’ll leave
Anthony: it at that. Absolutely. For I’m Anthony Sytko.
Firf sit. Ubu sit. Good dog.