From The Rooftops is a podcast about superheroes. Join Corey, Clay, and Talen as they talk not about specific issues and individual stories, but rather about the mechanisms of superheroic storytelling, what it lets you do, and where it can fall down as they shout about what they love, from the rooftops. This episode, we look at the role of the Mastermind, and manage to not get too waylaid by Homestuck.

Hey, this one was thanks to a listener asking questions, and we avoided mentioning Heidegger. But other Nazis who can bus off into the sun get mentioned!

But not really! This week we’re going to talk to you about reboots in comics!

You know what you need? you need two former churchboys who dealt with apocalypses talking about the way comics handle the idea of gods and their presence in the world. Why not hear Clay tackle the phrase ‘Modern Myth’ and Talen bring up ‘lusury attitudes?’

What do we mean when we mention ‘mercenary?’ It’s not just someone who does something for themselves. This privatised personalised military force is something the superhero setting is filled with, so it’s probably best to get a good handle on how they work and what they can do in a story.

We talk about gangs as used in superhero comics, with some talk about real world racism, the role of the gang and what causes them to flourish and even some of that fancy-pantsy academical stuff! Also, Clay goes the whole episode forgetting that Blood Syndicate exists, the silly.

In this episode, we talk about the big spooky dude out of space, the ruler of something, This is where we talk about the ways a story can use a powerful external force, with a different ideology, and what you can use it for in a story!

Hey, by the way, there was a tiny bit of audio problems, Talen’s mic was set up wrong, so he’s kinda echoey and weird. Sorry!

And we’re back, with a single day turnaround and technical issues hopefully sorted! This week, we talk about characters-within-a-character, the idea of the Passenger. This covers characters like Hulk and Venom, but also Moon Knight, and of course, Moon Knight. Passengers can be helpful or mendacious, proactive or uncooperative, and we talk about them as a story tool and what you can use them to do.

Holy heck does this even work any more. Clay and Talen talk about superheroes and their fundamentally creative nature and how refusing to use a superhero name reflects that.

Holy hell we’re still here! With a few weeks of preparation to get this one solved, after some DREADFUL technical issues, Clay and Talen talk about The Karate-Man as a superhero comic archetype!