Mike Carlin

what you've said is really interesting because I'll get into what's moving forward in a second, but Mark, your thoughts first.

No, Mike said it.

I mean, you know, if you're going to compare all the movies, yeah, Star Wars is the, you know, the best in the sense that it was the first and greatest, but the Empire Strikes Back was a bit, was a better, was a better movie.

In other words, it was, it was, it was a better production, better film.

If you're looking at Superman 2025, it was this big bombastic, you know, fun thrill ride.

And now this one is going to be like, okay, we're going to, first we're going to reintroduce the characters.

Once we do that, then everything, like Mike said, everything's going to go to hell, you know, and who knows what's going to happen.

We're going to find out that, you know, Brainiac is Clark's father, you know? You never know.

I know that.

And 10-year-old Mike's brain somehow made that, that this was just another issue.

of Superman.

Like it was just another, like in the continued adventures of this character.

As far as that being your first new issue of Superman, that is a weird issue of Superman to have as your first new issue of Superman, I have to say.

Because it's the birthday celebration of Julia Schwartz.

Nine, ten-year-old Mike could not make heads or tails of it, but I still read the thing from cover to cover.

So I was just like, this is just another origin of Superman.

[upbeat music]

Hello, everybody, and welcome to Tabletop Throwdown, Gaming Trends tabletop podcast where Mark Streed, Sean Brown, and myself, Mike Dunn, chat with game designers, game publishers, and other gaming adjacent folks about, well, games and other nerdy pursuits.

Spoiler, sometimes we get a little silly, and I can almost guarantee that the conversation will veer into whatever we are geeking out about at any given moment during the last half of the show.

Uh, so this week our guest is Danielle Reynolds.

And we actually had an argument between do we do like these little kind of micro expansions of like 50 or 100 cards, maybe we do like a fantasy one and then like make them thematic, or do we just do like a whole new standalone ... version because we actually have had enough people, including in my own life, that I had to whip out additional drawing boards to play at, like, obscene numbers.

And so we're like, you know what? We're gonna make another standalone.

Players could either buy their own copy, so maybe, like, Mike if you have one, but maybe your cousin that's visiting doesn't, can have a separate one.

Combine them, separate them.

Collector Ken Brzenek.

And editors Mike Carlin and Frank Berrios.

nicholas scratch contemplates the lifeless body of senator halivan when his devil-faced henchmen enter his dressing room and tell him about a costume freak who knocked them out and prevented them from killing halivan as the original plan was conceived scratch told them that it didn't matter anymore as the senator was dead and now scratch was planning to blame somebody from gotham city for the murder i wonder who that's gonna be Asriel listened to Scratch's plans, and he decided to stop him from doing more harm to anyone.

Scratch talked to Asriel and told him that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, for he was Nicholas Scratch, a renowned superstar, and he, Asriel, a freak in a costume, and that the police would for sure blame Asriel for the murder.

Actually, the rest of the people that I've come to respect and make friends with from our era of reading comic books, they're like the coolest people, and I don't have a problem with anything they've ever done, say with the exception of killing Superman.

Thanks, Mike! I will take care of that.

I didn't realize that Mike was also in on that.

I always blame Dan Juergens for that idea, but it was Mike that put it through and said, yeah, okay, let's do that.

Thanks, Mike Carlin.

Mike's the nicest guy you could ever meet, so I will never...

Anyway.

Back to Mortal Kombat.

And unfortunately, they just never had the runway to get that story out, unfortunately.

Yeah, thank you, Mike Carlin.

Oh, yeah, yeah,

yeah.

If this podcast has a villain other than Vandal Savage, unfortunately, it's Mike Carlin.

On that note, let's go to our sponsor.

In the most elegant segue ever done, let's go ahead and talk about InStock Trades, folks.

Like Jim Shooter was tough.

Mike Carlin was tough.

These guys were tough.

I appreciate that, though, because I wound up being a newspaper editor myself, and I am a complete asshole.