[SPEAKER_01]: Well, hey there, be you mutant to a flat scan.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're here to introduce you to the soulful sounds of the hypno-hustler this evening, ladies and gentlemen.
[SPEAKER_01]: You ready to hypno your hustle, do, do, do, do, do, do, do.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let me introduce you to the mercy killer himself.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cameron, Edward is here with me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Cameron.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the YouTube channel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then Patreon channel, how are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: Good.
[SPEAKER_01]: How are you?
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's fun to have you on.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hey, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's going to be Black History Month.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, and I'm very welcome, Lane.
[SPEAKER_01]: We are recording this in December.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's going to be coming on February.
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are jumping into the crazy today with the hip no hustler, which is just going to be a time.
[SPEAKER_01]: after NYCC I hosted a little cocktail evening in New York City for the show and friends Cameron came.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, we've been friends online before but Cameron came.
[SPEAKER_01]: We immediately started talking about characters we wanted to do and we landed on the hip no hustler and Cameron was very ready to jump into the deep end with Eddie character that we're
[SPEAKER_01]: That is such an honor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cameron, tell everybody a little about yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: You should pronouns.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd love for you to share a bit of your story, your ex-man fandom.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then let's talk about the HIP-Dohus later, Dave, my friend.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so I'm Cameron Hebron.
[SPEAKER_00]: 28, he himpronounce.
[SPEAKER_00]: Basically, I'm a community organizer right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm pivoting from health care check of the education sector.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do a lot of volunteer work.
[SPEAKER_00]: for my local health department, my local civil rights committee.
[SPEAKER_00]: So whenever I get a break that someone civil rights related, but insane, like the hip-no-hospital or really niche characters, I go for it.
[SPEAKER_00]: As far as comic scripts, I'm mostly a wee bout heart, but I also collect some really obscure bad characters.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think his name is Kiva Notay now in DC, but he had a similar name to Gray Crow and Marvel.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, also Jonah Hacks comics.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love those because they're also horrific.
[SPEAKER_01]: When you say horrific, talk to me about what that means.
[SPEAKER_00]: No, for comics that came out in the 70s, you would think they would be less of this like racialized like love of the south or fear of people of color, but considering all the political stuff going on at the time, like even in the 70s, a lot of natives were getting pushed off there.
[SPEAKER_00]: land, so that's also why characters like I'm probably probably shouldn't have saved a slurred, but Tijuana today and Gray Crow, like they came out of that period, same with a lot of these black exploitation characters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and for where you might want more education there, you may have heard the John Proud star episode that I did with an all Native American panel, a very educational in this space.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fascinating looking at retrospect like that, even the PR that
[SPEAKER_00]: wasn't amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: So seeing companies like Marvel and DC acknowledged this past, but also not hide it is really important to me and even having evidence that like no, this was the attitude of the time it wasn't that long ago, but it's really fascinating.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so let's jump into, we're going to start serious, but today's also going to be real silly for those of you that have followed the show for a long time, I did an episode featuring Necra and the deadly night shade a couple of years ago and by education jumping into all of that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was the guy that wrote the profiles on Necura back in the handbooks back in the day, and I've always loved the character, but I had no idea what the fuck I was talking about.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, doing the deeper research even in my 40s and these last few years has been an entire education.
[SPEAKER_01]: I read a ton of books, and I watched probably 30 Blacksploitation films.
[SPEAKER_01]: I had never seen a single one before, but ranging from Black Yola to Sugar Hill to shaft to coffee, too.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's so many great ones.
[SPEAKER_01]: In these stories in the mid-1970s, which was post civil rights era, post Black Panther Party, political assassinations happening right in left, there's a ton happening in the country and this kind of post Vietnam generation, there was a reclamation for Black people telling their own stories in film.
[SPEAKER_01]: in all kinds of different genres.
[SPEAKER_01]: There is camp, there is action, there is horror, and a lot of them are just crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: But even in stories where there's a lot of like really heroic characters and like very powerful women, there's a lot of implications of like rape, there's a lot of characters that are quite stereotypical, like there's the pink character, there's the the lazy character who portrays the other guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you're reading like Luke Cage or Misty Knight or Black Goliath or Falcon comics in the 1970s, you see a lot of these different types of tropes of characters and some of them you're like, oh no, that of a character is not really great to read 50 years later.
[SPEAKER_01]: But others, you're kind of like, oh, that was kind of fun and that was kind of impressive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hit no hustler.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a problem, but God is he a fun problem to have in a in a necker kind of way, every necker appearance.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, hustlers very similar.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think he falls into that same vein of like the deadly night shade as well Where they're just a fucking good time anytime you read them had you ever heard of this character before we went back and forth with names No, not at all and in a similar way to like gateway You clocked my team with this one because I was like wow, this is actually amazing cosplay
[SPEAKER_01]: For modern, of course, we're all modern fans.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's been recent news and I don't know where this lands that Donald Glover was talking about making a hypno-hustler movie a couple of years ago.
[SPEAKER_01]: What I would love to know more about Donald Glover's connection to this character because of how he's everything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I remember I think that was like right after enter the spider verse came out.
[SPEAKER_00]: out and there was a lot of this hype around Miles to Marales.
[SPEAKER_00]: I do hope he gets a chance to write hypnosis later because there's a lot of potential with his character.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you put some major restraints on him so he doesn't break the law that.
[SPEAKER_01]: A couple of years ago there was a run on powermen in iron fist told by people of color where they were just using a bunch of like old 1970s black super villains.
[SPEAKER_01]: as kind of like aging the guys living in Brooklyn and there's a whole like society.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a bunch of these weird characters ranging from like rocket racer to cotton mouth to Mr.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fish.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's this whole era of like black villains that are just kind of great and hypno-hustler is certainly unforgettable.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's he's at the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: He recently got a Marvel Legends toy which is crazy after you and I decided to do this episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: They made that and
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to begin with hypno-hustlers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look, do you want to talk to us about the classic costume?
[SPEAKER_01]: He is in skin type white head to toe, head to toe with some pink acutraments along the way.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I could wear white, I would 100% try and cosplay him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm unfortunately too chaotic for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's skin type.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like a remnant from the disco era, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's super fit.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's skin type white.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like almost, it's almost something you would expect dazzle or to wear, except it's a real black man.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got big white gloves.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got these goggles that, of course, do the spinning hypnosis thing given his name.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a gorgeous black Afro on top.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he's got like a pink guitar, pink microphone.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like just some like gentle pink accessories, but it's very, it's very late 70s disco sucks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Kind of era, it's really delicious.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanna hear this man perform some songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: No joke Cameron, as we were gearing up to record today for the last couple of hours, I've just been listening to like movie soundtracks from like old black exploitation films to get like to like get in the mood for this character.
[SPEAKER_01]: and it's just like deep soul and lots of guitar riffs and like it's it's a fun era of music for sure I was actually watching Foxy the Blacksploitation V2 prepare for this too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Foxy Brown?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, Foxy Brown's amazing I find like that entire genre just fun problematic but it really fun to watch
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, go watch everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you haven't seen a Pam Greer film, go watch Shaft, go watch coffee.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a really crazy one from the 70s called Black Mama White Mama about a black woman and a white woman who escaped prison together and their handcuffed together.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's it's a whole commentary on gender in recent 70s.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a pretty good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's Marvel has a lot of 70s comics that are in this era though.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a number of black characters who are introduced in the 1970s that are just a pretty good time and hit the hustler definitely stands out.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, before we jump into like the history of this character, do you want to comment on a disco or black exploitation or just this kind of era of reclamation?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, actually with the disco genre, which had a lot of like black culture and its formation, you saw this a lot of white youth started to get into disco and then there was this anxiety that oh, you're going to corrupt our youth by listening to this music.
[SPEAKER_00]: And hypno-hustler is a result of that anxiety.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's an excellent YouTuber, her name's Intellectual Media, like not Intellectual Lex, like Ali X is in there, but she does a lot of deep dives on black culture throughout the decades, and she did one on the 60s and 70s, and really got into like the racial anxieties of integration and how that relates to a lot of the anxieties around black music
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any favorite, uh, discourse?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, unfortunately, no.
[SPEAKER_00]: Does Kylie Monroe tell?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I don't even know just not.
[SPEAKER_01]: But disco is certainly a whole thing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Ripple will celebrate disco once in a while.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you guys watch Drag Race, but there's a number.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, if you've ever heard of Donna Summer song, if you have a Gloria Gainer song,
[SPEAKER_01]: Look up Phelma Houston, look up Evelyn Champagne King, look up Shaka Khan, Diana Ross, George McCray, Teddy, Pendergrass, Grace Jones, Patty Lebel, like there's a bajillion artists that have really great music that really gave birth to things like cool in the gang and earthwind and fire and the jacksons and all kinds of things that followed the really great era of music.
[SPEAKER_01]: might not be attuned to your modern ear, but for the time, it was very different.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, sometimes I'm asked if I could time travel when would I try to have a time travel to?
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think I would want to spend a month in New York City in late 1970s, just dancing and gay clubs with Giscuit just go before the AIDS crisis went crazy and just have at it.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_01]: That's such a good time to be.
[SPEAKER_01]: Go watch Saturday night fever, but then like, you know, that's its own.
[SPEAKER_01]: The problems at the same time, really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a fun character to jump into.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're gonna begin today with Spectacular Spider-Man number 24.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is 1978, which is the year I was born everyone.
[SPEAKER_01]: I am old, I recognize that you don't have to tell me.
[SPEAKER_01]: My hair is almost gray.
[SPEAKER_01]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bill Mantlow and Frank Springer are giving us clear play on Saturday night.
[SPEAKER_01]: fever and Spider-Man is taking on the hypno-hustler and the cover alone gives us this pink electric guitar, pink microphone, energy and there are three backup singers for the hypno-hustler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who I believe are being mind-controlled is my understanding.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're not willing accomplices.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's
[SPEAKER_01]: There's three women, one is white, one is black, one is brown.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are called the Mercy Killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's hypno-hustler and the Mercy Killers, which is an amazing bad name.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a disco ball and a busy club full of patrons.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cameron, you are launching in.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm assuming this is the first issue you read with the hypno-hustler.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: See this cover, what are your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_00]: Definitely she's a Diana Ross and this is,
[SPEAKER_00]: influence there.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, I hate that they're being mind-controlled because they look amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: The implications there are like yikes, but it was overall a fun story, and we'll see it doesn't get that spooky until you realize what his powers do.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and it's not even powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like this guy in a performance, you know, they show him is very eager to just rob the crowd, which is of course, you know, any time you've got a super villain with hypnosis powers, the ringmaster from the circus of crime, that's his entire gimmick, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: ever sings a song.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the guy that comes out on stage.
[SPEAKER_01]: It strikes a couple poses and the music is playing that you know the guitarist is going the drummers going But he just talks into the microphone and like a deep soulful thing and he'll go on for like several minutes like ladies and gentlemen It's me
[SPEAKER_01]: look at the sex appeal up on here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's doing a lot of like really slow build up and then there's that guitar thing and then he starts doing a couple signature movies.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's there's some hip swings, there's some flexing, there's some there's some movement and then he starts to sing and as the crowd it goes into it.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's when the the googly goggles go.
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like you really likes the attention long before he robs you and makes you forget he was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now that you mentioned it, the performance is kind of, because I read that just as dialogue beforehand not necessarily as part of the performance, but modern year, I guess.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it kind of reminds me of Gilles Scott Heronsworth.
[SPEAKER_00]: when you say it's like more talking and then instrumental behind it like that's spoken word poetry is like another remnant of civil rights era.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I want to feel like he has like a deep like James Earl Jones voice on yeah that's how I picture this character in my mind so like when he sings it's like that deep bass like moving up into barretone but I don't know maybe he's just a really terrible singer too and he just
[SPEAKER_01]: But this man could not.
[SPEAKER_01]: He does not have to get on stage to hypnotize you.
[SPEAKER_01]: He could just walk into the crowd.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a way to get your attention.
[SPEAKER_01]: Look at my, look at my tight skin tight costume and my pink guitar and now I'm going to steal all your shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the title of this issue is Spider-Man Nightfever.
[SPEAKER_01]: We open on some thugs slapping an old woman across the face.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're stealing her purse on a dirty subway.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a very stressed out pewter Parker is there to kick their asses.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in the subway station, among the posters taken out by Jay June of Jamison that declare Spider-Man on Metas, there's a poster of the hip-no-hustler appearing tonight at the beyond forever disco, and I just want to go party, it sounds like a good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Commander, are you a Spider-Man fan?
[SPEAKER_00]: More a recent convert to Spider-Man, I'm kind of more of a fan of the villains than I am any of the heroes in Marvel.
[SPEAKER_01]: And DC for that matter, who are some of you favorite Spider-Man villains?
[SPEAKER_00]: So, I would say Mysterio definitely had a massive crush on Sandman as a child.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I was going to be like a Craven the Hunter head.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, Craven the Hunter is insane, but I'm only because of what did we read Avengers 59.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my first.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, those are your first open open chest, nipple lasers, skin tight cheetah pants.
[SPEAKER_01]: he looks like a bad idea like if I saw him I would be like yikes that is a good project to work on if you want a good academic panel I did the trial of craving the hunter early on on my show it's a pretty fun time you could go listen there's a lot of conversation about nipple lasers it's fun
[SPEAKER_01]: So Peter Parker's friends are gonna take him out, disco dancing.
[SPEAKER_01]: They dress him up in a white suit.
[SPEAKER_01]: They call him a regular John Travolta, which is very Saturday night fever.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, if you've seen Saturday night fever, it's a good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spider, a John Travolta is dressed all in white in that classic suit.
[SPEAKER_01]: The pants are a little too tight.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the flared bell bottoms.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, are the Vika chest with the chest here.
[SPEAKER_01]: He looks pretty good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Clause at a homosexual John Travolta.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm allowed to say it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go backstage at the disco, and we find tonight's entertainment robbing the manager's office, just like pulling every dollar bill out of his safe, one at a time, very grinch who stole Christmas.
[SPEAKER_01]: And Cameron, if you'll read the hypno-hustler here, the manager says, hustler, what are you doing back?
[SPEAKER_01]: My safe!
[SPEAKER_00]: Looks like you caught me dead to rights, Bernie.
[SPEAKER_01]: Why you, you huddloom, give me a chance, Bernie.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said, let me play beyond forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: You said, in grade, I paid your expenses.
[SPEAKER_01]: Got you publicity, and this is how you pay me back.
[SPEAKER_01]: What more do you want from me?
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, it's important to note, Bernie's white.
[SPEAKER_00]: I want everything, Bernie, I want it all.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as the hypno-hustler, I got the power to take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look into my eyes, Bernie.
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I can't think, Dizzy, that music.
[SPEAKER_00]: Go with the flow, Bernie, the song's called Blood From A Stone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Man, and you're just, you're just the first to get squeeze penny list by my mesmerizing melodies.
[SPEAKER_01]: and concentric circles are flowing out of the swirling circles on hypnohustlers, goggles, as Bernie falls to his knees and hypnohustler holds a stack of dollar bills that are each the size of his forearm, like they're just bizarrely huge.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then he says, oh yeah, Bernie, you took me off the streets and I thank you for that.
[SPEAKER_00]: But there's disco dude got plans, and if it takes some grand larceny supplementing, my music to put me over the top, well, I can dig it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Actually, I kind of love this set up for him so in walk the three backup dancers the mercy killers should be keep singing hustler No, my lazy ladies your hypnotic rendition of my music has accomplished its purpose.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was the disco magic the day I discovered that soothing civilians of a little known backup band called the mercy killers perfectly complimented my mind numbing hypnotic abilities
[SPEAKER_00]: We are inseparable dear ladies, and tonight we clean up.
[SPEAKER_00]: So soon the DJ gives us an estimate.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Beyond For Rabbit Brothers and Sisters.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now get down to the beat with our special live show.
[SPEAKER_01]: They hip no hustler and his mercy kills.
[SPEAKER_01]: And you just got to picture the
[SPEAKER_01]: music that's going to build from here.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is guitars, it is soul, it is jazz, it is synthesizers and keyboards.
[SPEAKER_01]: The music is loud.
[SPEAKER_01]: Incessant tells the narrator.
[SPEAKER_01]: It washes over the dance flooring waves of sound.
[SPEAKER_01]: It carries with it the will, the consciousness of the dancers and recedes with the subtle insistence of the edging tide.
[SPEAKER_01]: And everyone in the crowd is mesmerized under the disco ball, is it like projects all the lights and swirls around with only Peter Parker's mind remaining free, of course.
[SPEAKER_01]: Plugging his ears and shrugging his clothes off, Peter thinks music, the hustler's voice, flashing lights, everything contributes to the hypnotic effect.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's almost overpowering.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gets his costume on, and he stuff's a webbing in his ears as the hypno-hustler walks out among the mind-controlled crowds saying.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fair ladies and gentlemen, so glad you could come tonight.
[SPEAKER_00]: You're already grooving on my first set, a little tune called sweet surrender.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't think you'll mind if the ladies and I take a little break to relieve you of your hard earned cash.
[SPEAKER_00]: You may proceed ladies.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think our guests will only be too happy to cooperate.
[SPEAKER_00]: So we've got two of his songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is blood from a stone.
[SPEAKER_01]: One is sweet surrender.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm kind of guessing their bangers.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I don't know, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I like to love these songs.
[SPEAKER_01]: It sounds like a good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: The patrons just start handing over all their belongings because mine control, but look up Spider-Man is gripping the disco ball, which is just a great gimmick for a disco club.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I've seen enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're a crook hustler with an interesting angle, but the party's over.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spider-Man, you can't stop me, not now.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Spider-Man has weapons in his ears, and he can now hear the hypno-hustler talking.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spidey tries telling the hypno-hustler he's nothing special, but hypno-hustler hits him first with a laser blast from his belt, so we have a laser belt, which is also an amazing riff on the nipple lasers, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's coming right from the pelvis, which is amazing.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he prepares to stop him with claws that come out of the bottoms of his boots, which is giving very dazzler with roller skates, somehow.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he fires gas out of the front of his boots.
[SPEAKER_01]: This man spent a lot of money on these boots.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's gimmicks.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then he hits the caro with a guitar like it's a baseball bat, just whammo.
[SPEAKER_00]: wrong wall crawler.
[SPEAKER_00]: The hustler is different from anyone you've ever fought.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm all new, unique, and I got an obligation to the gang in Corona Park to keep on keeping on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I spent months rigging this suit up special, but guys hustler, don't be a chup.
[SPEAKER_00]: This can only add one way.
[SPEAKER_00]: you sound like my creepy true and officer webhead, what's it just take to finish you?
[SPEAKER_01]: So this man's been in trouble with the lab before, clearly, if he's got a true and officer.
[SPEAKER_01]: So while thinking of the group as pikers, which frankly, I don't even know what that insult means, Spider-Man Yanks off hit no hustler's headphones, bereft of the narrator tells us, bereft of his protective headphones, the hustler's left wide open to the mesmerizing song of his own compatriots in crime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So,
[SPEAKER_01]: The merciculars have been projecting all the music, but now that his headphones are off, he's hypnotized himself, which is like getting Medusa to look in the mirror to turn herself to stone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And in turn, Spider-Man realizes that the singers are under the influence of the hypno-hustlers hypnotizing goggles.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Spidey webs their mouths closed, which just seems unnecessary for these poor women.
[SPEAKER_01]: He wakes up the crowd and they find the hypno-hustler webs to the disco ball on display,
[SPEAKER_01]: In seemingly unrelated events in this comic, the Majia is also stealing a bunch of uranium from a truck that's conveniently loudly labeled clear materials right outside, which is crazy to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts on the origin of the hit no hustler?
[SPEAKER_00]: They squeeze a lot of tropes in there and I'm not super upset about it, especially him taking care of his community.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was like a one a throw away line, but he also like does explicitly say like, oh, he got he has a gang back home that he needs to take care of with the money he steals.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some redeemable qualities there.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a dazzle comic, if I don't know if you're a dazzler fan, dazzle or not.
[SPEAKER_01]: She fights a white kid named Johnny Guitar and he is like jazz saxophonist who's a black guy named Dr. Sax.
[SPEAKER_01]: These characters are not used, but I feel like this whole genre of like musicians who are trying to steal your shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's complicated actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: They should do another one of those like black hero cook out pictures, but instead this time with all the villains You know that picture that was circulating in a couple of years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I don't know a lot about Karona Park.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know Karona Park is an area of New York City next to like flushing meadows, but we see the hypno-hustler refer to like Owen some people in Karona Park.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm guessing he's a New York boy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and Queens would also be Spider-Man's Burrow.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, sure, sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: At the disco ball usage, I think is excellent.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spidey webbing himself to the disco ball and then leaving the hypno-hustler, like suspended from the disco ball and then the poor mercy killers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, which is your favorite of the hypno-hustler's gimmicks?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it the gas boots, the boots spikes, the guitar as a baseball bat, or the hypno-gonnels?
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, once I saw the boot spikes, I was like, come on, you can't fit that much in a boot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was obsessed with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: These boots are like a foot off the ground, so literally in the bottom of them.
[SPEAKER_00]: tombstone was at the start of this book, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: I love tombstone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, so his presence at the start of this book with him being institutionalized was a very like clear message and then also the use of an older inmate calling him punk on page nine was like very intentional punk in especially southern black communities and older black communities is like
[SPEAKER_00]: a gay slur.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's like saying we have slur.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, Tim tombstone is like the creepy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's he's got that like necrothing where he's a little bit albino He whispers he's got the filed teeth, but he's also like the foil of Robbie Robertson from the daily bugle, which is really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like tombstone a lot actually.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would love to do the trial of tombstone one day tombstones are fun character especially now that he's in friendly neighborhood spider man
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that added a lot to his character too.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you think hypno-hustler is more classic disco more fun or more like psychedelic soul?
[SPEAKER_00]: He feels more fun, but his design is clearly more disco.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, no, I agree.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he, yeah, I think I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think you can have a home music genre out there that we don't know about.
[SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, it's a money and he's sick of the white audiences.
[SPEAKER_01]: So why not?
[SPEAKER_01]: I get it.
[SPEAKER_01]: We support wrongs on this show and when there nobody's doing any harm.
[SPEAKER_01]: He came in with a gimmick and then that funky superhero head to show up and to ruin everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck you, John Traulta.
[SPEAKER_00]: If they just specify he's not like Saber 2, I would be fine with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: If this whole issue were animated, I just want to listen to the soundtrack more than anything.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: Dean is excellent.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be so good.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, we don't see hypno-hustler again for years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not until 2002 in Spider-Man's tangled web numbers 16 and 17.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, have you ever read this book before?
[SPEAKER_00]: no not before this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So Spider-Man's tangled web was it looked like what happens when the villains got released from prison and kind of like it felt very much like a street-level Spider-Man book which a lot of people are missing nowadays.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just it's a fun book.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's like a trope in the early 2000s where they're telling a lot of stories from the villain perspective.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is a two book by Daniel Wei and Leandro Fernandez, which kind of features tombstone in jail, trying to form his own criminal gang.
[SPEAKER_01]: He, it's racial, he's forming a gang with other, uh, 1970s villains who are all put away including, uh, the rocket racer and Big Ben Donovan and the hypno-hustler.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's like, we got a fucking take out that white guy, the kangaroo over there.
[SPEAKER_01]: If we want to get some street cred in this prison, it's like, okay.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's very speak English you Aussie that like that's one of my notes from this one that is so me
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a full black exploitation gang, which we see often, especially when writers are like writing Luke Cage or Misty night.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, let's put it together and group these 70s villains.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll call them some 70s name and then we'll, you know, like, launch it.
[SPEAKER_01]: God, I don't know if you've ever read Black Panther comics from the 70s, there's a title called Jungle Action featuring the Black Panther.
[SPEAKER_01]: And every villain is like, really crazy, like, black trope.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's actually really fun still, even though you're like, oh no.
[SPEAKER_01]: So, uh, Tombstone takes over the gang.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives them a bunch of orders.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, they want to take down or they want to take over the power.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hypno hustler says, how are we going to do that, baby?
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't nobody respect us in Tombstone.
[SPEAKER_01]: He always whispers, so I'll just give you some ASMR, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't nobody respect you.
[SPEAKER_01]: And for good reason, I seen your costume you disco reject.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rocket Racer calls hypno-hustler Bootsie Collins.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll tell you more about Bootsie Collins in just a moment.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tumstone wants them to beat up the kangaroo who's got a blade.
[SPEAKER_01]: Not me, says Rocket Racer, nope says a big Ben, and hypno-hustler says knob, baby.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I got to some Vaseline, which I don't know if it's that one.
[SPEAKER_00]: even in 2020, I feel like this is not the year for that line to be read because Jesus Christ.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, but it's really funny.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's like, and also does that mean he's queer?
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I can talk to you about this, but it's hinted not directly stated that tombstone then uses the Vaseline to sneak a pair of scissors up his ass in order to avoid a guard search.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's implied in the comic book.
[SPEAKER_01]: So then they have the scissors, there's an attack on Kangaroo, but all of the villains end up getting the shit beat out of them.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the quick story.
[SPEAKER_01]: Crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Daniel Way writes a lot of Deadpool in the Sarah, but Daniel Way writing a gang of black criminals getting their asses kicked by the Kangaroo in prison with these kinds of jokes.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, oh no, I don't know what you look at this.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of been my experience.
[SPEAKER_00]: This entire read through up until later comics because it's like, Ooh, this is problematic, but this is funny.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, one's really fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: This one I'm like, oh no.
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, Bootsie Collins is a real person, still alive.
[SPEAKER_01]: Bootsie Collins, real-name William Collins, was born in 1951, American-based guitarist singer, songwriter.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is literally from the Wikipedia article.
[SPEAKER_01]: Rising to prominence with James Brown and the early 1970s before joining the Parliament Funkadelic Collective Collins established himself as one of the leading names and innovators and funk with his driving baselines and humorous vocals.
[SPEAKER_01]: He later formed,
[SPEAKER_01]: his own P-Funk side project called Bootsie's Rubber Band.
[SPEAKER_01]: He was a frequent collaborator with other musicians from a variety of genres.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dance music, including if you've ever heard a Delight's groove is in the heart.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's played in that.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did the electric big beat song with Fatboy Slim called Weapon of Choice and the Joker.
[SPEAKER_01]: He even did alternative metal with Praxis.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, he's pretty, he's pretty popular.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also considered by Rolling Stone in 2020, number four in a list of the greatest basis of all time.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got a crazy, cool visual if you look up Bootsie Kai, listen to some of his music and preparation for this.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a pretty good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I, that's, this is the soundtrack that I picture for my hip no hustler read.
[SPEAKER_01]: He gives you almost flavor-flave energy.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's known for all that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, Jasmine, I have a flavor of flavor because- He's known for, like, giant S sunglasses.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're, like, three times too big with, like, huge symbols on them, like, crazy hats and head gear and feather bows.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's giving almost Elton John, like, massive, like, bajool top hat, like, rings on every finger and diamonds and, like, stickin' his tongue out and, in, picture, like, crazy, crazy funk.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's one image of him online with, like, a
[SPEAKER_01]: had that has balloons on it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got some really fun visual style.
[SPEAKER_01]: You're just like, holy shit, who's this guy?
[SPEAKER_01]: I really like him a lot, actually.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he thought it's on Booty Collins.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we see where flavor of love, the flavor of flavor got it.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I feel like this look has been parody to a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: And just like we didn't land on, Play Miss Rock, Play Miss Rock landed on us.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of those quotes that you don't realize that's so much significant.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it just gets paraded a lot in a lot of popular media.
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when you finally do the like two seconds of research, it's like, oh, there's more to this.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we see hypno-hustler very briefly in a two panel appearance in Spider-Man and limited volume three number 12, where all that happens is he's inspired by Stiltman and Jail and decides to go back to crime.
[SPEAKER_01]: So after some time in Jail, he's inspired by the Stiltman and hey, look buddy, if that's where you get your inspiration, I'm here.
[SPEAKER_01]: Then we go
[SPEAKER_01]: a weird marble starts doing digital comics.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a very odd comic in the early days of this called the Finfang for Return.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a group of like silly classic monster villains and like a humor parody world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's canon.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the digital comic number four for the Finfang
[SPEAKER_01]: And he's shown in a prison cell where a bunch of weird criminals are hanging out in the break room and full costume.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always weird to me and Marvel where they let the criminals like wear their costumes and that's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's
[SPEAKER_01]: and the chairman and all of these characters are awful parodies of something.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's also a guy named Ralph G. Fake, the legal eagle.
[SPEAKER_01]: Big Wheel is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a big fan of Big Wheel.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a guy named Jackson Wheel who rides around in a giant wheel and just runs over shit.
[SPEAKER_01]: Great character that I would love to talk more about.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a larceness little, the fly, photo man, the human computer, hot shot, and junjitsu.
[SPEAKER_01]: And a hypno-hustler, if you want to read the dialogue here, it's the welcome my funky metal brother.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cause he's talking to electrodes.
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome my funky metal brother.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm the hip-no-hustler, the disco devil incarnate.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's no jive.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is S-wing, but the cool cats call it S-wing.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where all the old Spider-Man villains get dumb.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I love he just is talking 1970s, he's just trapped here.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm the desco devil incarnate.
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's no jive.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're the sling, but we call it swing.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're cool, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Electro says, who is Spider-Man?
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, come on, man.
[SPEAKER_01]: No one's that unhip.
[SPEAKER_01]: And chairman, whose his friend is like a sentient chair wearing a suit.
[SPEAKER_01]: And hypnosis, they're says, that's the chair, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's been stuck like that for years.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fourth legs, and he still can't do the hustle, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's severe punishment.
[SPEAKER_00]: He also says face it dude.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all washed up.
[SPEAKER_00]: No one digs us anymore.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're just sucking up air waiting for judge duty to come on Which is a fair assessment of prison, but buddy they gave you your guitar and costume It's also feels like a really restorative justice program like restorative program
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're in the S-wing, man, they're forming some bands, they're in that costumes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So Electoral breaks them all out of jail, but the guards then put them all to sleep with sedation foam.
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, every villain here is new, except the big wheel and the hypnoha slayer.
[SPEAKER_01]: And these are all characters, by the way, from hostess fruit pie ads.
[SPEAKER_01]: So if you go back to the 1970s and early 80s, Marvel had one page images of like
[SPEAKER_01]: Spider-Man Captain Marvel, the thing fighting a gimmick villain in order to get a fruit pie.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is a collection of fruit pie villains from these one-page ads that I think are kind of delightful.
[SPEAKER_01]: And this firmly puts them in the 616.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm fine if I never see chairman again, however, that's a weird, that's a weird character.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a sentient chair, I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: other than chairman becoming my new hyper fixation.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's good that these guys are getting the help they need in prison.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think a restorative justice program like this is necessary, especially since they get to keep their identity, their belongings, I mean they're very evil still, but they're not trying to leave.
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's some interesting things here because all the it's implied never stated But all the white super villains like the fucking vulture and Dr. Octopus they're out the day after they get put in jail But hypno hustlers been in jail for like 30 years
[SPEAKER_01]: which is like really good retconning for him not appearing so long.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's just been stuck there forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to come back to the Vaseline everybody I promise.
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a big note.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get there.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to jump a little more forward.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're now in the 2010s in amazing Spider-Man 645.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hit no hustler runs into a police station for help he's out of jail because Spider-Man's going
[SPEAKER_01]: Crazy, Diablo, the Spat, and Overdrive all get tossed in after him.
[SPEAKER_01]: They're all webbed up in one big ball.
[SPEAKER_01]: Don't worry about it, quick appearance.
[SPEAKER_01]: We jump to a Vinging Spider-Man, numbers 12 and 13 from 2012.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is by Kevin Shinnick and Aaron Cudor.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hypno-Husler's back in jail, he wants out of jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he hires Deadpool claiming that he's found a way to kill Deadpool, and Deadpool really wants to die.
[SPEAKER_01]: So because he's been hired, Deadpool hypnotizes Spider-Man, and then Spidey is guided through a terrible dream like high school nightmare.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as he's like going through this, it's almost like he's being, I mean, he's being mind-controlled.
[SPEAKER_01]: The heroes actually fighting armed guards and thus breaking the hypno-hustler out of jail.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this gets Spidey on camera fighting guards.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the hypno-hustlers teammate is the tinkerer, who is that old man who likes to build super villain technology.
[SPEAKER_01]: So the Tinkerer has helped the hypno-hustler improve his mind control tech.
[SPEAKER_01]: He activates it, amps himself up in an image that makes him look like a rock and roll legend in Pink and White, wearing what he calls super funk jewelry and singing, a bully man, that's what I am.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, he'd do whatever I can.
[SPEAKER_01]: Right there in the jail, he starts kicking Spidey's ass.
[SPEAKER_01]: While his goggles are giving spinny hypnosis circles and he yells things like, feel the funk fool and that giant ain't cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he just, he can't get out of it.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's stuck in the 1978 forever.
[SPEAKER_01]: He turns out that he helped the Tinkerer with a hypnosis session that helped the old man stop smoking.
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is the Tinkerer's way of getting back at him.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a much better use of your powers, hypno-hustler.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's playing more songs like Jive talking and do the hustle, which are all real songs if you would like to look them up.
[SPEAKER_01]: He bookies into the guard station to get back his possessions, including his costume, and also in his box of possessions are a mood ring, a pet rock.
[SPEAKER_01]: These are all 1970s, socks with toes, and a poster of Fanzi for President from Happy Days, which is for
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if I should throw this item.
[SPEAKER_01]: Deadpool appears to kill Spidey.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hypnohustler goes, jump and jackflash it worked.
[SPEAKER_01]: He pulls off his goggles and then gets kicked in the face, because deadpool turns against him.
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we get deadpool in a weird, rocky horror show, montage that's so disturbing.
[SPEAKER_01]: I hate when they put deadpool like, let's
[SPEAKER_01]: draw him as gay as a way to just make fun of everything.
[SPEAKER_01]: Mandy Martini has some big opinions on Deadpool written by straight writers as queer stereotypes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It really bugs her so much.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's rough.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's an image of Spidey's head breaking open and egg is leaking out because you know hypno crazy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have thoughts on the avenging spider-man to powder?
[SPEAKER_01]: It is hypno-hustler in his like juggernaut form.
[SPEAKER_00]: The reveal in issue 12 of him being there was really fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you said this, it was also really good that he got the Tinker Ritchie stop smoking, using his perv power's for good.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also, the dead Spider-Man fake out was fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: Also implies that they changed, like they share costumes often, which I know that's like a lot of people use that on the DC side of fandom to justify while he was in the Pied Piper dating.
[SPEAKER_00]: You've got DC knowledge that I do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big Marvel head, but I don't know a lot of DC stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just like, I'm fascinated by DC.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love Marvel too, but with Marvel, I tend to stick to like X-Men very rarely branch out to non-X books with DC.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like reading everything now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I did Marvel.
[SPEAKER_01]: I just read everything for, you know, decades and decades now.
[SPEAKER_01]: I fucking wrote the handbooks, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, that's my bag.
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, I'm going to jump through the rest of the history quickly and then let's talk about some of the tropes with this character So Marvel Knight Spider-Man volume two five He briefly appears in a montage of like every verse person fighting spider-man during the inversion event If you guys remember when all the good guys got turned bad and the bad guys that got turned good is like when carnage joined the Avengers
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, in Axis Hobgoblin number two, Hobgoblin is a hero.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's been inverted.
[SPEAKER_01]: He turns like all his selfish motivations are now like noble.
[SPEAKER_01]: And he gets one page fighting the hypno-hustler at a high school.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the hustler's trying to hypnotize some kids into stealing cash for him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hobgoblin frees them and beats the hypno-hustler up.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, but he don't, don't go to teenagers.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not my favorite story for you.
[SPEAKER_01]: We go to Power Man and Iron Fist Volume 3 number 2.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is the story where I talked about all these old 70s black villains are back in hypno-hustler and rocket racer are discussing cases in matching bathroom stalls comparing notes while pooping next to each other and you know, good luck for you buddy.
[SPEAKER_01]: These guys were in prison together so they're very comfortable with this.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sharing this intimate space and in 13 we see him at the funeral of Piranha or Raymond Jones finally an iron fist volume five number seventy four he's in a crowd seeing there's a bar fight in amazing spider man volume five nineteen dot each you this is the craving the hunter story where they use the weird suffixes.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in a crowd scene at the bar with no name and then lastly in Marvel Voices legacy volume two number one Luke Cage and Misty Knight defeat hypno-hustler with a double punch.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is black exploitation in your face So this is kind of the main appearances for this guy.
[SPEAKER_01]: Tell me some of your thoughts on the hypno-hustler And then I want to talk about this man's rich interior world around our man and ironfish to the
[SPEAKER_00]: Number two, that one ended up making me feel like this character restarting to turn around.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of parents felt less like they were trying to force him into it more like this is a character with a rich enough history that we could just play off of.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I feel like this is this appearance and then future and says it's really where, well, these just can't beOs for the rest, but I feel like they have something there that they could go back to.
[SPEAKER_01]: other thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this a fun character?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Is this a character that may need some like weird diversity, reboot, like a junk band or something?
[SPEAKER_00]: Probably.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like no matter what you do with this character going forward, there's also going to be someone that's like,
[SPEAKER_01]: Hmm, a little problematic, but he's also like, they did a lot of good rehab on his character and later appearances.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he does appear in some other forms of media.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's in House of M in a single game, just like in one panel in a crowd shot.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also in an alternate reality, but called Spider-Man Rain, by Karen Andrews, if you've seen that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hypno-Hustler is an elderly supervillain here, who now sympathizes with Spider-Man.
[SPEAKER_01]: Spider-Man is coming out of retirement as an old man, and hypno-Hustler tries to help with some hypno music to help distract.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's got a hypno boom box here, and it loses battery power, and then he gets killed by the police, which is not my favorite.
[SPEAKER_01]: We almost got a hypno-hustler film in the same genre that we got a madem web and Craven the Hunter film and maybe it's good that we didn't
[SPEAKER_01]: He shows up in a single event years episode.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's also an assist character in the Spider-Man Web of Shadows PlayStation game.
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a fun character, and I wanna talk about some of his characteristics.
[SPEAKER_01]: First of all, his real name, I think if you're pronouncing it correctly, the last name is spelled D-E-L-S-O-I-N, but I think his name is Antoine Del Swan, is the way that I would pronounce that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you like this name for this character?
[SPEAKER_01]: Antoine Del Swan.
[SPEAKER_01]: It works.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like someone just put like jammed a black name and a big Lee French name together, but
[SPEAKER_01]: And then this character does not have a lot of key relationships, but he's in a lot of crowd scenes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So he has a place in the black community at Marvel, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Characters like the Rocket Racer and Big Ben Donovan and Tombstone as his allies.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's an interesting place for him to occupy.
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that he gets black stories.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, I don't necessarily, I don't know, Spider-Man's is most frequent villain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck dead pool every time.
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, like,
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts on his connections to other characters?
[SPEAKER_00]: He works really well as a cameo character because he's recognizable especially if you have him in the outfit in the costume.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, yeah, I do a lot of people got flack for the black Coke out the picture from years ago, but I do think works with the black villains as they all have very similar motives.
[SPEAKER_01]: uh and then what are like this character's personality right he's greedy i think he has the potential to be generous and kind of loyal to who he chooses there's a lot of if you watch black exploitation there's a lot of like fuck whity kind of energy from a lot of the black characters and i very much think he falls into that like fuck whity like i'm gonna rob whity why
[SPEAKER_01]: Why, like, this guy's going to listen to Malcolm X talk, I think, and like, just really lean into, like, we're going to live rules on on our own terms and fuck the rest.
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think he also really likes music, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's some interesting pieces to him that make him more than just the stereotype of Booty Collins, if you will.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, and he's sorry, I think when you talk his power set in a vacuum, it gets very pneumatic very fast, but if you're getting his publication history and all of his appearances, doesn't seem, I'm hoping, I'm hoping it would go that far.
[SPEAKER_00]: But like, I mean, the mercy can only appear in that one first issue, first appearance.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm wrong, but it seems they quickly realize, oh, this had look and now seeing him on his own, it's at least little problematic.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we've got the Vaseline in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this care gay?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's certainly implied that he's gay.
[SPEAKER_01]: But prison sex jokes are always uncomfortable to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really dislike them every time.
[SPEAKER_01]: However, it's subtle enough.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, then we have the scissors up the ass thing with tombstones.
[SPEAKER_01]: So maybe not.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not it's not well done.
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts?
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, sexuality though.
[SPEAKER_01]: We've never seen him demonstrate any kind of attraction to anyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, feel like when I read the word punk, my reading immediately shifted to queer, both care, but that's also because I come from East New Orleans and I come from a black family.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, it's like, have say antiquated slurs are kind
[SPEAKER_00]: and talk about like the little prison rape of it all a prison culprit.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just it's a part.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how to talk about this like tactfully.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's both very problematic and consent in those spaces, but it's also been used in the past to depict black queer relationships.
[SPEAKER_00]: way too often and there's obviously no coincidence that like black queer friendships also are as captive like this is problematic but wouldn't pay a feeling of him.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the initial appearance of this guy I think has the most fun and the most potential
[SPEAKER_01]: Hypno-hostler in prison is not a thing that I need a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: I would it comes to prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a lot of complications around police violence and you know You're regular representation of people of color in prison systems and like unfair unjust systems If you have a consensual relationship with an inmate or a person in prison I'm fine, but all the jokes about prison rape and about oh you wait till you get to prison You're gonna meet a man with a bar a soap like that shit makes me mad every time I really hate it
[SPEAKER_01]: The Vaseline joke is in poor taste, but I kind of like the idea that hypnosis gave, though, too.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I him volunteering that without any protein is just a little bit crazy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Anybody got a blade?
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I got some Vaseline, which is, well, like, okay, I'm on.
[SPEAKER_01]: But it ended up being useful because it allowed them to hide the scissors and try to take down the kangaroo.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: In a similar way, I don't know what the show was.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a very clearly depicted like relationships, but seeing one in prison, it's just like yikes.
[SPEAKER_01]: It is inevitable that I do a kangaroo episode on this show.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's going to happen at some point in the future, but I got to get the right Australian guests for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you're an Australian listener, the kangaroo can lead Patreon.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reach out, I would love to talk about the kangaroo with you specifically.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, so what is this character's potential?
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you like amping him up as a supervillain?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like they did with, uh, you know, the tinker giving him upgraded powers.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you want to see him more reformed and using his powers for good or do we just like him as the tropey disco guy that shows up once in a while and gets his ass kicked?
[SPEAKER_01]: What are your thoughts on what you'd like to see for this character?
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like keeping him as the trophy disco guy and as a villain is great.
[SPEAKER_00]: When they did that with Sabre II, so I was happy.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like sometimes characters could just be bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: But at least for now, they're going to need to keep him as a cameo character because I feel like you need a writer that actually has the right eye for someone like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot could go wrong if you write him in a problematic way.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I want to see him be more than just a joke.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, you can keep the joke up, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever read Squirrel Girl, like using these characters but giving them a little bit of life, you know, Dazzler puts on a show and it's a benefit concert with hypno-hustler doing, you know, backup vocals.
[SPEAKER_01]: And they made sure he's not robbing anybody, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, I do not want the reveal at the end of that story to be that he's the villain they have to fight.
[SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Sachsen, John and guitar, they're actually John and guitar died now that I'm thinking about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: But like a group of villains, like reforming, even him, I don't know, being like a sponsor for people in prison.
[SPEAKER_01]: And like I
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there's a lot of ways to treat this character with some care that get away from the joke and make you actually care about who he is and give him more of an interior world.
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think he's interesting and he's a hell of a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_01]: The visual alone is a really good time.
[SPEAKER_01]: I really want to hear Donald Glover's thought specifically on this character because I think watching a Donald Glover hit in a hustler movie would make my whole fucking year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I love the idea of that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like he would fit really well as a dozer villain, like even if it's just like if he were in that, um, what was it?
[SPEAKER_00]: The battle ends thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, she does.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got all the bands with Luna snow and yeah, all that stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: I feel like that would have been a really good, like even a regular appearance for him, like him, or could be a fun dynamic there because they're both a little messy, but I feel like Dazzler's whole sound to light thing would definitely help her out in
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and this is a little akin to for those of you that have heard my episode on Black Mariah with Demanda and Haram Scare and we talk about let's great to see a plus-sized woman of color but then every story just becomes about her being fat and that's not like well that's not but we don't want to just lean into the trope we want to let these characters be more than just what the gimmick is but I had a good time with a hip-no-hustler I have I have to admit he's he's the rocket racers another character I would love to talk more about he's he's a lot of fun too I think
[SPEAKER_01]: Any final thoughts on the hit, no hustler?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, those appearances in jail were yikes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the words are used in my look notes were he's got the anxiety of his period.
[SPEAKER_00]: He's from and also it's a very real look at what happens in the prison industrial complex.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the work I'm right now is with an immigrant rights group and a lot of people here in New Jersey
[SPEAKER_00]: and no one really thinks about like commentary or how long people are being put in these facilities so for him hustler to be like thrown away in jail for 30 years and for a writer to come out and say that it's more significant than you would think just reading it through and it really shows like wow this is messed up
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, again, we got to let this character be more than that, but listeners, I would invite you to do two things at the end of this.
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to create joy in this world.
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have never seen a Blacksploitation film, please go watch Cleopatra Jones or coffee or shaft or
[SPEAKER_01]: Easy, she's a lesbian villain and it's it's so over the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, they're not problem free, but it was a whole different cultural expression And then go read yourself some early 70s comics read some early, you know, misty night or Luke Cage or Black Goliath comics and see what you think But also who back in read some Marvel host is fruit pie ads
[SPEAKER_01]: 70s, 80s.
[SPEAKER_01]: Let yourself smile a little bit.
[SPEAKER_01]: We can recognize the problems and still enjoy the material.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful for friends.
[SPEAKER_01]: We get to do some major hanging out in January before this episode comes out.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have any fun?
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought you want to share with listeners and then tell people where they can find you online anything you want to plug.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, so I haven't been posting as much as I probably should be, but you can follow me on Instagram at cam.hebron coming up in January and February.
[SPEAKER_00]: I have some new rights campaigns going on.
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I'm also, oh, we actually just got an immigrant trust I passed or town.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, a lot of political been on my end, I just, I lag when it comes to posting.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, he guys, I will get post on my story, so.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, and then lastly, I'm Chad Anderson, follow Grimalk and underscore land on Instagram for regular updates.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to be ending with the trial of brother Voodoo and Black Talented at the end of this month.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cameron's going to be joining me for that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm super excited.
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to have a great time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And the next episode coming out on the Patreon immediately after this is going to feature the character, Tonsamati, if you recognize her from the thieves and assassins guild.
[SPEAKER_01]: So we're jumping into the world of Gambit talking about a woman
[SPEAKER_01]: who's a mother figure to gambit and rogue, who is a black mutant female, who is really special act.
[SPEAKER_01]: Darryl Thompson and Erica Schultz are going to be joining me for that one, so everyone stay tuned.
[SPEAKER_01]: Cameron, thanks for hanging out with me today.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, Chad.
[SPEAKER_01]: All right, everybody.
[SPEAKER_01]: Keep on hustling in 2026.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll see you back here next week on the Graham-Occane Lane Patreon channel.