Here's another show you can enjoy in the True Story FM Family of Entertainment Podcasts. Ever wonder where the devil got his horns? How about those clove and hooves? For that pitchfork? Listen to me, an angel? No, he was a snake. No, he's the Great Red Dragon. No, he's the beast. He's the prince of this world. Prince of darkness. Well, he's the prince of dark. Good morning, Star Lovelies. One of my names is Lester Ryan Clark. And I sometimes go by Keenan Deus. And we're the hosts of the brand new podcast, The Devil's Details. What comes to mind when I say Lucifer? How about Satan? What about just The Devil? How did the big bad of the Western world end up with so many faces? Join us as we dig up, decipher, and deconstruct the devil's many forms throughout history. Take a guided tour with Dante through the nine circles of hell. Or revisit Satan's angst to bad boy years in Paradise Lost. Learn the ins and outs of a Faustian contract. Easier than a 1099, but with a hell of a lot more fine prints. Lither on over to The Devil's Details on True Story FM. And join us in the diabolic discussion. Love and hisses. Mwah! Didn't Alpha Chino play him in a movie? I sure that wasn't Robert De Niro's one. It was Tim Cuff. That was Elizabeth Hurry. Didn't he go down to Georgia and something? Hello, and welcome to this episode of Superhero Ethics. Today, myself, Matthew, and my co-host, Ricky Hayashi, are talking about the question, when should a hero hang up the cape? And there's an interesting story of how we got to this particular question, because it kind of came from two different directions. The first one was a question that I've often thought about, and it really came to my mind when I watched X-Men 97, is when does a hero get to say, you know what, I've done enough? It's time for me to have the spouse and family, or just go and travel the world, or just go sit in my backyard and read books, because I've been putting my life on the line for however many years, and it's time for me to stop. In X-Men 97, two of the characters try to do that, and are somewhat successful, we get a lot of pushback from some members of their team. So, guys, I'm thinking about, like, should heroes be able to put their own personal interests above what other people think they need to do? And then the second thing was, I can't imagine why this is in my mind recently, but I've been thinking a lot about when should people decide that they need to step down and let someone else take up the reins of leadership or the hero-ness or the fight. Again, not connected to anything in the news recently, but this topic, I think, is one that also comes up in comics, in fantasy, and all these things all the time, is when does the older generation need to step aside to make room for the next generation? When does the hero realize that he's actually not able to win the fight anymore, that he might even be causing harm? They might even be causing harm by staying in the fight, and they need to be able to train their replacement or step down or something like that. So, these kind of things both come to this question of, when does the hero hang up the cape? And we're going to talk about some of the factors that go into it before discussing the exact questions, but Ricky, I just want to give you a chance to introduce yourself and say kind of your overall thought on this. - Yeah, when you brought this topic to me, for me, like the angle I approached it from was sports, because athletes get old and their productivity declines, and they're often at the end towards the tail end of people's careers, there are discussions of, should they retire this season, like should they keep going, et cetera? So that's definitely like what I thought of. In terms of the question of heroes, like X-Men, superheroes, comic book heroes, I do want to say that the cynic in me says, "They never retire because of the publisher." And in fact, when we're talking about Cyclops and Jean Grey, the story that was based on, like them getting married and having a kid, they actually did retire, the writer, Chris Claremont, wanted that to be the end of their story. - Right. - Wanna have that to be the retirement for those characters and then have the newer X-Men characters he was writing take over the mantle, and Marvel Comics is like, "No, they're very popular, bring them back." So that like, to me, you cannot separate the business from the art, unfortunately, in comic books, because one of the other prominent examples is Batman, right? You have seen media like 50 years in the future where Batman has retired, but any quote-unquote current story with Batman, he is still, I don't even know how old he is, but he's still going strong, no matter how old he is, I guess. - Oh, for sure, and so I think for this, my angle is more not about the comic book, but about some of the on-screen media where maybe in one particular comics run or the like, where in one particular story, the character does you hang up the cape maybe because they want to cap in the MCU movies, I think it's a great example. And as you kind of refer to Batman and Batman and beyonds, but also I think in a number of other stories, and I also say I really liked the idea of sports that you brought up primarily because I do agree that the kind of idea of the aging superstar who maybe is still very popular with the fans, but maybe their ability is fading or maybe the fans are, you know, that there's all these factors going in and are they still helping the team and are they kind of unbenchable because of how big a star they are? And is their south, like how much did their salary mean? Hey, well, it's kind of stuff. But I also think even for the kind of more Scott and Jean Grey question, I look at someone like Andrew Luck who was the quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts, very successful. I think he had like a seven or eight year career. And then while he had a bad injury, but then he came back from it and then was like, no, you know what, I'm done. I don't want to be hobbling the rest of my life because I destroyed my knees playing this work. I'm, you know, I have kids, I want to spend time with them. I've made enough money to be comfortable with the rest of my life. I'm just going to retire. And a lot of Indianapolis Colts hands are very upset. And a lot of people, other folks are like, no, he gets to do what he wants to do. So yeah, I think sports is a great metaphor. And we'll probably go back to that a number of times as well. So let's talk about what are the factors we think that go into responsibility because I do think a lot of this question is kind of the flip side of that old, you know, Ben Parker quote, Uncle Ben with great power comes great responsibility. 'Cause in some ways, I think that's the whole heart of it is what is your responsibility both in terms of when do you get to decide I no longer want to fulfill this responsibility and when do you have to accept I'm no longer able to fulfill this responsibility. So let me first start by asking how much do you think the way in which a person becomes a superhero or a superstar or whatever it is and how much agency they had over that goes into these factors into their retirement. Well, I don't think very much, I don't know. I know you have some ideas on this. I would like to hear your thoughts. - Sure. So I gotta lay down some different ways in which someone can become a superhero. One is where they actively choose that they volunteer or they create the circumstances themselves. Something like Captain America or Tony Stark. Sometimes where it's an accident that they didn't want but it's of their own creations like the Hulk or other kind of like, I think a lot of other heroes have that kind of like, they're a mad scientist and they kind of made this all happen. Some were kind of chosen by fate or destiny or genetics like Luke Skywalker or Aang, the last Avatar. Some were, it's just kind of random chance of genetics like the X-Men and others where someone else kind of forced it upon them like Luke Cage. And the reason why I didn't think it matters is as we'll talk at the end of the day, I think this more matters for the first side of the question that the Scott and Jean Grey kind of a thing, but it matters for both. But I think the main way it matters is that I do think as we'll talk about more, for the most part, I'm always gonna be supportive of a hero wanting to step down, particularly if they've helped create a situation where someone else can take their place. But I think I feel that especially for people who didn't want to be heroes. Like there's a kind of like, there's always this, I feel like a kind of unfair tug, a push and pull between the hero and the people they're saving of, you know, someone like Luke Skywalker, he's a bad example, he wants to go save it. But like someone like Aang, he's a kid throughout the whole show. But especially in the early part of season one, he doesn't want to go and fight the fire kingdom. He doesn't want to go and do all these things. He wants to go play with the penguins and fly in a sky basin and do sledding and things like that. But there's a sense from a lot of others, that some say directly of you have this great power that no one else does and so you have to step forward. And so I guess to me, I always feel like in some ways that's kind of unfair to the hero. And sometimes there's a kind of like, there's an existential threat. I don't want to be utilitarian about it, but I do sometimes feel like, look, if millions of you are going to die and there's no other way, then I do expect someone to step up. What I think that, I think it's worth acknowledging that that's really unfair in some ways and that people should be able to say, I don't want to have this fight. And to me, someone like Aang or someone like Luke Cage or even maybe someone like the Hulk, it's not that I don't think someone like Tony or Cap should be able to step down, but someone who didn't want this to begin with, to me there's even more of an impetus there of, yeah, when you say you're done with a fight, I'm totally understanding. - Hmm. Yeah, I mean, when you were saying that the thing that came to my mind is Superman and not specifically like when does he retire, but Superman has this problem, I'll call it a problem, where because of his super hearing, he knows when something's up, something's wrong. - Right. - And so I was reading a Superman book recently where he talks about not listening, like having to have like personal time where he just like shuts out the world, like doesn't use a super hearing so that if something is going on, like he doesn't hear it and he doesn't go to hell. And that's his choice to make. And, you know, that's not retirement, but you could see like how that segs into retirement where he just like turns it off for good, right? So I don't know, like people should be allowed to do what they want to do ultimately. Like when it comes to this, whether you're talking about fictional heroes or real life heroes, you know, in some capacity, you have to honor the individual's wishes. - Right. - So I take a very, you've retired when you tell us you want to retire stance on things. - Right, I think it makes sense. And I think the sports metaphor you brought up, I think in this one regards one area where I don't think necessarily applies to like superheroes, 'cause if you're a sports star, you're getting paid. Like there's a specific, if I do this thing that people want me to do, I will get these rewards. And that money, its fame, it's, you know, guest appearances, it's advertising, all these kinds of things. And yet we know Peter Parker could barely pay the rent even though he's in the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. A second one of the factors that I think is really important and I think especially with Superman, to me the question of are you the only one? 'Cause I think one of the things that I think becomes really important here on both sides of this is if you're thinking about retiring because you just want to, like you said, at the end of the day, I'm never gonna say like, you have this power and so society should put a gun to your head and force you to save them. Like that's not how this should work. But to me, I think it's really, with someone like Scott and Jean Gretzay, yes, they have unique powers as mutants that nobody else has. But there is this whole bigger team that can step, that they can step down and say someone else can step up and take my place. Superman, until we get to the Justice League and even under the Justice League, doesn't have that. There's no one who's anywhere close to his level of power until you get like a super girl come along or, you know, his clones or his children or whatever. So you see, what factor do you think it has in terms of whether or not someone else can take their place? - For me, like again, like for me personally, like no factor because I think that, to some like Superman being that extreme example, like it's so funny in a lot of Justice League stuff, it will be like this thing where some call it minor crime is happening and, you know, like Batman and the Flash are on the scene and they're like trying to stop a bank robber. - Right. - Right. - It's fairly minor in the Justice League scheme of things and they're like, we're Superman, it's like, oh, they're like a volcano erupted halfway across the world. He's helping that. - Right. - So there's that aspect of it where, yeah, like only Superman can deal with the volcano, right? So like it's up to us to deal with these bank robbers and if Superman retires, what happens with the volcano? I don't know, like, but I don't know, it's too much. For me, that's too much to put on Superman, it's too much to put on anyone. But because of this conceit in the storytelling, when a hero retires, it is often because of some kind of catastrophic event, either like something with their body, right, like they lose their powers is a common trope, an injury like has happened or a loss. Like the personal loss, you know, like super, Lois Lane dies and Superman like gets depressed understandably and like flies off into space. - Yeah. - And is gone. And yeah, I mean, that is a way to move that narrative into the retirement narrative. I hate it because, yeah, I think these people, these heroes should just be allowed to say like, I don't wanna do this anymore, but that's really not how it works, unfortunately. - Yeah. Well, I guess somebody's at that flip side to me, where this question of is there someone else there? Could I think you're right? Like even if there isn't someone else to just to deal with the volcano, like I don't... - There is an extent to which, and I think some of the Superman stories now have explored this, of when you have that one heroic figure who will always come to the rescue, does that stop other people from remembering how they can help themselves? You know, and think like that. - Exactly. - To me though, the most important part of the, is there someone else to take your side, is on more of that other side of when should someone recognize that they need to step down? - Well, let me just, if I may. - Go ahead. - Regarding like, can anyone else step up, right? Like one of my favorite scenes in the first Avengers movie, in the Battle of New York, when Captain America is directing some New York police officers to help people, and he's like, go to like, evacuate those people from that building, like make sure like this road is clear of any danger, and it is normal, you know, unpowered people, helping other people, and doing what they can, even though like in front of them is, you know, the Marvel version of a god, you know, superhero, is like fighting the aliens, and it's like, what can we normal people do? And showing scenes like that in superhero media, I think carries a lot of weight and a lot of power, because, you know, even though we wanna enjoy these stories and watch the superhero fights, we also wanna feel like we can not necessarily be a hero, but step up and contribute when something bad happens. And that's important. - Very much so, in Captain America Winter Soldier, they're just the non-powered humans who are in the control centers of the Trescalians, and, you know, they don't want to go along with what Hydra is saying. V for Vendetta, one of my favorite movies, I often talk about how one of the most important thing that V does is inspire the normal people to rise up and fight back. The other direction that I was gonna go with the, this whole question of, you know, is someone else ready to step up? Is that I think one of the things that makes it harder for a lot of people to step down is ego. And I don't mean it, like, I think we sound say ego in a very negative way. I don't just mean like, oh, they're conceded, they're arrogant. But I think in order to be a hero, like, you often start by convincing yourself, I'm the only one who can do this, so I have to do it. And then it's very hard to let go of that. And I'll tell you a harsh little story. When I was, when I went to grad school, I went to grad school to become a pastor, but specifically, you know, like, you know, social justice, very focused way, and that's what the school was all about. And on the opening day that, you know, on the opening day, it's a commencement and all that, the dean of the school got up, and he said, look, all of you are here because you want to make the world a better place. And all of you are here because you think that you need to help make the world a better place. Please take a look to the students to your right and the students to your left. And then he said, each of those people wants to do the same thing you do, and they're gonna be just as good at it. So it's okay to sometimes take a break. And I was 24, I was ready to go, you know, fix the world. I was utterly convinced of my own ability to do this. I had a lot to learn. And that hit me hard because part of me was like, no, like I have, not that I'm necessarily better, but I have a unique talent that no one else does. I'm sure all these people do, but the world needs me specifically. And the idea that someone else could take my place just was unthinkable to me. I mean, until you said that, then it really challenged me. And I was like, oh, okay, I don't want to say that I should ignore the guy, I completely listened to him. But I think that that has to be even more so true here when, you know, you have in a one point told, you're the only one, we need you to do this. And then later people realize, okay, maybe I just want to step up. So yeah, I just think it's a very important part in the whole question of like, when can you step down? Some part is also being able to, can you let go of the thought? Like can everyone, maybe it's maybe this is about just the same question from intuitive directions. The first part is, can everyone else accept that they don't need you? And the second is, can you accept that they don't need you? - Yeah, this is why for me, like the sports metaphor speaks. So much, my favorite basketball player of all time is Tim Duncan. He was a great power forward for the San Antonio Spurs. I pulled up a stat page. He was a two time MVP back in the early 2000s and won multiple championships with the Spurs. And at the end of his career, towards the end of his career, the Spurs got some younger players, Tony Parker, Modern Genovale, Kawhi Leonard, I believe, was also overlapped. And Tim Duncan accepted a lesser role in the offense. He got the ball less, he shot less. He set more screens. He was helping his teammates rather than being the focal point, because he had lost a step. He was older. And he, I think they won another championship like in one of his final seasons. Yeah, I'm looking at him, like he scored eight, 8.6 points a game in his final season before he retired. And this is a man, like that's the only season in his career where he scored less than 10 points a game. And it was an intentional choice by him, and you know, the coach, Popovich, and the team, to do that and structure their offense differently than it had been in the past with Tim Duncan as the center piece. And that selflessness, like that's why I admire him. Like he was always that kind of player and had that kind of team first mindset. And that to me, when I thought of this topic of like, how do you, you know, not just retire, but also ramp down your role potentially because you don't have the skills and the tools that you're used to. And actually a great point that we discussed until now, that it's not a binary. It's not either you're out there fighting volcanoes and bank robbers every single day or you're at home with Lois Lane, ignoring everything. There's definitely this middle ground of can you take a reduced role? And I wanna talk about how that plays out in some of the superhero stories, but I also have my own sports story about this. I'm a huge baseball fan, I just know you. And the team that I grew up watching, and so will always be my favorite, is the mid '80s New York Mets who won the World Championship in '86. And probably could've won it a couple more years, but had some very, you know, well-known drug problems and other problems, which really are very chaotic mix of players, as well as some bad general manager issues and all sorts of stuff like that. And I also really love baseball simulation computer games where, you know, you get to make the decision of like, when do you put in this picture, you know, when do you pitch hit all these things? I love them. And I'm playing with them right now, I'm playing a mid '80s New York Mets team, but I'm realizing that there's one player who the computer has no idea how valuable he is. And that's Rusty Stobb. - Is that a real player? - Yep, that's a real player. As he was a rather large fellow, he was a red-headed, maybe that's also part of why I love him. He played Montreal for many years, was known as La Grande Orange. And, you know, he was never gonna be a Hall of Famer, but he had a solid career, he was a good hitter. - Oh yeah, 23 year career, wow. - Yeah, he was around for a long time. And by the time he got to the Mets, he was almost never gonna be a starter. He was mostly a, you know, late inning spill-in in the outfield and a lot of times a pinch hitter. And he was a pretty good pinch hitter, but far and away. And I read a lot of books by Mets players and also a lot of journalism about them. One thing that they all constantly say is that as chaotic as we were, we would have utterly fallen apart if it wasn't for Rusty. Because he was this older experienced player who, kind of like you're saying with Tim Duncan, but even more so, he's playing even less, as a player on the bench was constantly talking to players about like, okay, well, I'm seeing the pitcher do this kind of thing. So you should adjust this way or, hey, I'm noticing this thing in your hitting stance. You should change this. Or just, hey, even going to a party in the last three nights and I can see it affecting you. Like, you know, he was kind of like the uncle or, you know, that father figure. - Like a player coach, almost. - Yeah, very much so. And no statistics are ever going to show it. And he didn't get to do what he used to do, but he was a player coach and he's a perfectly described it and was an essential part to the Mets winning the World Series in ways that will never be recognized in the statistics books. And that couldn't have happened unless, as you said, he was willing to say, you know what? I would hurt the team. That's how I was a starting player. So I could retire, but also I could take this reduced role and then do something else. So let's now actually bring it back to some of the other shows because one of the examples that I've been thinking about most is it as a character who retired, and I realize actually doesn't, he does exactly what we're talking about is Batman and Batman Beyond. Do you know the story, do you know that show well? - Yeah, absolutely. - So do you want to give us like a little introduction to like why does the Batman decides to change his role and what happens there? - I actually don't know why. I mean, he's old. - Okay. - Like Batman, Batman Beyond takes place in like, I don't know, 2050, 2060, something like that. Like the future. - Yeah, it's hosting about like 30 to 40 years after Batman in the end, I mean, it's serious. It's very much in that continuity. Kevin Conroy, so literally the voice of Batman. So I think it's like the 2020s, but because it's like 40 years in the future from the 1980s, 90s, by the other 2030s. But he's still trying to fight via his physical skills had a period. He's not able to do the things he needs to do anymore. And he gets into a fight and winds up picking up a gun because it's the only way he can get out of a difficult situation. Like not his gun, but there's a gun lying around and he picks it up and uses it. I don't think he fires it, he picks it up in order to like threaten the bad guy so that he can like, take them down or whatever. And it horrifies him because, you know. - He's forgotten that. - His whole idea is always, I don't want to use guns. I will never use guns. And the fact that he was no longer able to do it without picking up a gun, makes him realize, wait, I can't do this anymore. And then at the same time, there's this other character who comes along who is able to, who is able to do all the physical things Batman used to do. And so he becomes Batman. And Bruce Wayne becomes the man in the chair. He's also called Batman, but he's the person sitting at home on the computer, directing the new Batman, telling him what to do, telling him, you know, okay, there's like an empty room this way, you know, this kind of thing during the research. It's a phenomenal show. I think it's one of my favorite Batman shows. But it's really about this idea that, like a couple of our listeners, when I asked about this topic, wrote in suggesting people like Zorro and the Dread Pirate Roberts, where the whole thing is based on the idea that somebody will retire and you'll not only pass it on to someone else, but you'll train them to take your place. And this feels very much like that. I feel like they're kind of establishing that like Batman doesn't have to be one person and any one person can step down and say, yeah, I'm no longer gonna be Batman. - Yeah. Do you know about, you've seen the Justice League epilogue to that? - Yes. (laughs) Yeah. I think I don't like that. - That's fair. - Yeah. - I won't spoil it, but yeah, we've actually done a couple of episodes about that and it might, actually, you know what, I think that's gonna be our bonus content today from members. We'll talk more about that. Wait, no, I haven't seen it in too long. We're not gonna do that. Oh, I'll take a hold on, let me just write. Yeah, I can see that. Paul and I actually did a whole episode about that that I'll see I can put in the show notes. It's from a while ago, I'm not sure I can find it, but I will definitely, definitely, you can probably search for it. We need to take it one more time. Yeah, Paul and I actually did a whole episode about that. Folks can definitely find it. This is her turn for Batman Beyond, but also, yeah, you know, I should talk about that at some other point. I haven't seen it long enough. I don't remember the details, but I'm sure there's a lot to discuss there. So when you mentioned the man in the chair, I had already been thinking that, and to me, one of the most important examples of a, like not a retirement, but a transition in role was in fact, in my opinion, the original person in the chair, Barbara Gordon Oracle, that girl to Oracle, you know, she was shot by the Joker in the killing joke and paralyzed and could, like, would have legitimately been okay to retire from superheroing at that point, right? She chose to stay on and became the character Oracle, who is, like, the archetype of the computer genius who's, like, directing the traffic and on the comms with all the other heroes of the back family. And, like, not, again, like, I'm pretty sure, like, that she set the archetype, or at least was, like, the most popular version that led to a lot of other similar characters like her. And that's, again, like, she could have retired, but she chose, I'm not, I'm not even gonna say, like, diminished role. It's a different role that was essential and needed at the time, because we, like, as a society, was also transforming into a digital society. So it was a good way to incorporate that into the story as well. - Yeah, I think that's so true. And I'll say, not every Oracle episode or issue was perfectly done by any means. But overall, I felt the character was also a huge step for disability representation in a way that I love, because it's exactly that. It's, and, you know, there's a joke that a lot of people use that's kind of, I think there's a lot of truth, too, that's not 100%, but it's that all of us are only temporarily, sorry, all of us are currently, it's that all of us are temporarily able-bodied, meaning that some of us might be able-bodied or entire lives, but the overwhelming majority of people are gonna become less physically able, and, you know, maybe to a point of that, you consider it disabled, I'm not gonna get into, like, where the line is by any means or if they're even in the line. But, you know, many of us are not gonna have the abilities that we have at a later point in our life. And so, her being able to, and for her, it's not 'cause of aging, as you said, it's because of a traumatic wound that she receives. And so, for her to say, okay, I no longer have the abilities to do the things I used to, but I still have these abilities and I can do other things, to me, that's, again, a great example of what we're talking about, you know, the ability to kind of recognize, like, hey, I can't do the job anymore but I can still do something else. But also, as you said, if, like, you know, a year later, she was like, you know what, I'm still having nightmares about when Joker shot me or just I met someone cute and I wanna focus on them or, you know, wanna go hike in the map? No, or not, hike, you know, yeah, well, hike, yeah. There's much, you'll share hike routes. She wants to do any of those things. That's probably a good trip. It doesn't have to because of the trauma. - Mm-hmm. And yeah, like, she definitely sets up the Batman beyond version of Bruce Wayne. - Actually, she's in that story too, right? She becomes the police commissioner, does she? - Yeah. - In that future? Oh, dear. - Yeah, she has an Israeli antagonistic, kind of a fun three-way dynamic routine. Her, Bruce Wayne and Tony, I believe is the name of the person who takes over with, you know, both of them being kind of parental figures too in the Hollywood and different directions. So, I think that was Batman. - Batman is Terry McGinnis. - Terry McGinnis, sorry, not Tony is Terry. Thank you. So, I feel like the two big questions we started with were pretty much on solid agreement that a hero should be able to retire whenever they wanna retire. That, like-- - Please do. - Great power comes with great responsibility, but part of responsibility is also to yourself and to your family and that you have to figure out how to, you know, superheroes get work-life balance just like anybody else. And, well, I think there's some truth to the idea of sometimes like there is this existential threat or whatever, and if you don't step up, maybe no one else will. But also a lot of times if you don't step up, someone else might. You might even know, or how can you train that person. So, let's talk to the other side of when maybe, so let's turn to the other side of when the hero should be stepping down but aren't necessarily wanting to. But just in general, like why do you think this would happen? Like, if a hero wants to put their life at risk, even if they're not as good at it as they used to be, why is that a problem? - All right, okay. What do you have an example of this? Because again, like it's, we're at the whims of the storyteller and it's like why would they be telling the story? I guess is my question. - Right. - And when have they done so? Because like I struggle to think of a story like this. The Batman Beyond thing, like he's so old in that, right? Like it's obvious to everyone that he should not be Batman. But where's kind of our creaky like midlife crisis, like feeling a little creak in the back? Bruce Wayne. - We got a little, we got an interesting bit of this in Spider-Man, what was it? No way home, right? When we get the Tobey Maguire and the Andrew Garfield Spider-Man came in and they were talking to each other about like, yeah, like my back's bothering me now. Like I can't quite do it. Like, and I guess from Spider-Verse, Peter B. Parker is a kind of like he's older and also becomes a father. - Yep. - Although he's still super heroic as a dad. - Right. - But I think like that's kind of a character maybe that is like maybe it's time to hang it, like right at that point where it's like you should start thinking about hanging it up. - Right. - Is like the middle aged Spider-Man. - For me, I think one of the examples that comes to mind is Professor X in the movie Logan where he is getting older and some of the mental issues that can set in for people. And I don't know what the binds are between just aging and mental fading versus dementia versus like other things. I don't wanna like use medical terms but just for many people, mental facilities can start to fade. And in Professor X's case, not only does it make him less able to help but he causes harm. And there are times where he can't control his powers anymore and lots of people die in that movie. To me that's kind of one of the most and part of the movie is him still wanting to help and Logan having to help him understand like you can't do this anymore. So I think that's one of my first examples. I don't think many other examples come up in like MCU and DC stuff 'cause yeah, they don't want to retire that hero. - But I don't know. - Well, I can say I do think that in a lot of often the origin story of our originally of our hero is often about the older person having to realize that they need to step down. And so that's why I think we see it there. But also you feel like I'm (indistinct) - Well, I was gonna say I like what's going on in the MCU because they are superhero stories but they have to deal with the reality of the age of the actors portraying them. And then aging out of this range where it's realistic for them to be playing this hero or even like for them to be doing the physicality of some of the stunts perhaps. Chris Evans has definitely commented publicly about not wanting to keep his body in this ridiculous shape. Like the superhero physique shape that is forced upon him by media and that is absolutely like his right to not do that anymore. I think in general the, you know, like women have been dealing with this for a lot longer like the supermodel body. But men now like we're getting more stories of the lengths that they go to to have like the six packs and the packs and stuff. And they shouldn't be forced to do that just because we want eye candy. Like we can have like realistic strong looking bodies. - There's some action star from the '90s. I can't remember who it was possibly Dolph Lundgren. I'm not sure, actually I don't think it's him but who, you know, was known for like being, you know, very muscled in these movies and then kind of just stopped. And I remember an interview with him where someone asked him why is like, you know what? I remember how much I love cheeseburgers. And I just wanted to eat what I wanted to eat instead of having this like very exacting diet that he used to have. And yeah, I think that's another great example. And I think with me though, in terms of like we're talking about the harm that folks can do, I think Batman's case and Batman Beyond it's a real question of, you know, he's feeling like he can't hold to his own personal values anymore. In some of the other cases I've seen, I think some of the other factors that come up is like, are you actually doing harm instead of helping? Like are you not, are you respect, are you just not able to do the job in a way that like because you're the one trying to do it, it's not going to get done. And that's really a problem. But also, I keep thinking that's a question of younger generations, you know, of when older people stay in those roles for so long, how much does it prevent the next generation from actually being able to take over from them when they're ready to step down or just get killed or whatever it is? - Yeah, I mean, this is the, this is important like for storytelling, but also for like setting an example for real people, right? Because again, like the MCU right now is in this transition phase of the original seven, six, like are gone and we had endgame and they all, you know, died, retired, et cetera. And now in theory, like we should be getting the new Avengers or the young Avengers, whatever like their configuration is going to be. And it's like it's kind of taken a while to see where this is all going. But it's so important because A, like yes, the real life actors are too old to keep doing this. But for the story as well, like we want these new characters and these new heroes to have a chance to do their thing and the actors too, like Iman Velani is a treasure as Ms. Marvel. And yeah, I, and it sets a real life example for people to make this transition, right? To have Steve Rogers pass the shield, literally, to Falco. - Yeah. - Yeah, I think it's so true. And I think that, I can't say that I remember this really well because it was, as the own actor has pointed out, very, very bad. But I think it's the Ryan Reynolds Green Lantern where, you know, it's not that, it's a listener's help right in because this is a trope that I know that I have seen in some like "Nah's Hop" but in a couple of superhero movies where the movie starts with the hero not being able to do what he used to be able to do and that's why he reluctantly has to pass it on. I know in some of the Zoro movies, this has definitely been the case. I believe he has the "Indone Obendaris" one. At first, Anthony Hopkins does not want to stop being Zoro but he has to realize like he's not able to do it anymore and he's causing harm so that means he has to have trained the next one. - Yeah, I mean, Green Lantern rings are literally passed on but in that story, Obend Sur dies. Like he crash lands on Earth and dies and that's how Hal Jordan gets the ring. - Right. How did John Stewart get his? - John's, I think John Stewart, his, I don't know, the early days of like each of the lanterns, I believe like Hal Jordan's ring goes to John Stewart and it could be like when he go died or retired or something but for a while, like there was only one Green Lantern on Earth, now like there's four or five. - Fair, fair. - But it used to be like a direct line of succession between them. - And I think that's good. - Well, I was gonna say the only one like I remember definitively is Kyle Rayner gets his ring because Hal Jordan becomes a villain. He becomes parallax and like can't that the last guardian is like you have to be the one to carry on the legacy of Green Lanterns. So that one I know is not specifically Hal Jordan's ring. - Yeah, nice sense. I also think there's example, we've mostly been talking about physical infirmity but I think there's also lots of examples of where someone realizes that they're now starting to do this for the wrong reason, you know, where it's actually that instead of trying to fight for good, they're now trying to like get vengeance on the bad. And I think that's in the, actually one of the best examples on a lot of these is the TV show Titans. Teen Titans are gonna have a popular TV show and I think that's more about training them to be fight alongside the adult versions. The TV show Titans, which is at times incredibly cheesy and sometimes has awful storytelling but at times it's really, really brilliant and has great acting. It's all about like those teen Titans now as adults and they're all the young 20s and it was the CW show. So of course they're all dating each other and they're all wearing incredible outfits and they all, you know, things like that. But also a lot of what it's about. Like in that one, the character of Batman is having trouble recognizing that he should hang it up and it's part of why Dick Grayson has really kind of drawn away from him. There's another character who I think is Green Arrow but I'm not sure who is recognizing that he just actually is very distracted with his family life but isn't willing to admit that yet and isn't willing to say like, yeah, I'm not able to do this anymore. And so like the younger arrows are, 'cause they go to two are chafing under that. So yeah, I think there's a lot of stories there but Ricky, I know for this particular question you actually went to sports again. Same more like in a case like Tim Duncan, like yeah, it was great that he could take a different role, other players were tired. But what's wrong with a player wanting to play as long as they want? - I mean, I don't know if I can say wrong but a player hanging on too long because there are resources, right, in sports. - Yeah. - There's a certain number of roster spots you can have for players. And so if you devote one to this person like that's one fewer spot you have and playing time as well. Like especially, you see this a lot in basketball when the older player retire or like is in their final season but they were a superstar, right? Like a Michael Jordan or a Kobe Bryant type in their final season, they're still Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant. They still wanna shoot like 30 times a game, 20 times a game. - I don't know, a lot because you mentioned earlier the ego, right? It's hard to put that aside. I think Tim Duncan, like that's why I admire him so much is like it was such a different end of career trajectory to a lot of legitimate superstars when they're in their decline phase. In basketball, like I think LeBron James right now we're seeing the end of his career. Like he got the scoring title like the all-time scoring title. And there's a question of like whether his pursuit of that and his need to keep scoring points at his age was a detriment to the team. Like winning to development of the next generation of players, right? Like they're not getting as many looks. Like all the ball is constantly going to LeBron like the thing, but it's also a business and fans want to see LeBron James, especially if it's his last season. Like that is a legitimate thing that leads to ticket sale bumps. It's like, hey, come, this is your last chance to see LeBron James. I wish I had taken the opportunity to see each year of Suzuki in baseball when he retired before he retired. I never got us a chance to see him play live. So if they had announced like this is each year of his final season, like at the time I should have tried to go see a game, right? So it's a weird balance between what the player wants, what the franchise wants or needs and what the fans want. It's not like a one answer if it's all. - Yeah, I think that's all really true. And I think that we've talked about this being ego, but again, I think it's not that we're necessarily talking about people being arrogant. I think it often comes from a very good place of, you know, when earlier in your career as a superhero or a politician or a crime or a sports star or anything, you know, it gets into your head and everyone around you is telling you, we can't do this without you, we need you. And yeah, it's probably great. You probably have a lot of personal interest in it. And you know, it feels great to be the winner. But like, you know, as a hero, you are doing good for other people. And whether it's, you know, winning championships that just brings a lot of joy to your fans or, you know, like saving the world. And so I think that like ego, I wanna kind of more positive, but still like understanding why it's a problem word. Because yeah, it's basically that idea of like, maybe it's ego combined with a very legitimate responsibility of I don't want the world to fall apart. And up until now, I have been the one who had to save the world. So accepting the idea that not only can I not save the world anymore, but someone else could do it better than me, it's, I don't know, even though it's like a really, it's a challenge to yourself image, you know? Like I wonder how many of these heroes, especially I know we have this happens in sports a lot. And in other fields as well, you know, your sense of self becomes I am the person who saves this. I am the person who hits the game winning shot. I am the person who fight the volcano. And so when you have to realize maybe someone else is better able to do that, it's really hard because then you have to ask who am I instead? - Yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with calling it ego. And whether you think of that positively or negatively, you cannot have like this caliber of player without ego. - Yeah. - Like the thought process of I am the best. You know, I can beat this person on the dribble or whatever. Like I can hit a home run off this picture. That is part of the psychology of sports. And if you don't have that, like there are so many talented players in my opinion that don't reach maybe the heights that they should because of psychology, because they have self doubt and that leads to them not trying, you know, something or whatever. So I think it's absolutely ego and it's fine. Like there can be positives, there can be negatives. - Yeah. - And I want to throw out like the final thing, the final player for me that I thought of in all of this was John Elway. He was a quarterback for the Denver Broncos. And he, at the end of his career, he won back-to-back Super Bowls with the Broncos and then retired after the second one. - Yeah. - And he was at the top of his game, probably could have played, you know, a couple more seasons. Who knows like how good he would have been, but he was like, that's it. Like it doesn't get better than this. - Yeah. - And it's like, there are some examples of that where it's like a storybook moment and it's like, yeah. Why don't we just call it here before we see that decline? And maybe he was already like feeling it. I like physically or like just mental fatigue. He was like, why, what, I just want two Super Bowls. Like, why would I want to keep doing this? - No, I think you're right, especially 'cause I would say as a New York Jets fan, because my team keeps signing these people, you see examples like Brett Favre and I'm afraid Aaron Rodgers, but also a lot of others who don't get to that point and they keep trying and they keep trying and they get worse and worse. Joe Montana eventually had, Joe Montana, you know, I think it was an argument that he's the best quarterback for all time. He's certainly in the top three or top five. Everyone want to do it. We're not sports guests, don't write in. Yeah, actually should write in whatever you want. We're not sports guests. - We could be. - You know, if I remember like he had to be benched eventually and that was a really hard thing in part because he was so popular with the fans again and he was such a big name. And I think he did retire with some amount of grace but there definitely been some others who it's really hard for them to step aside and to realize that it's not the time anymore. So, and I have to, good. - I do not blame, let's see. I don't blame the players. I think you can put some blame on organizations if they, you know, maybe like give too much money to a player or the contract is too long or you just like, you know, they already have a viable replacement. It's like, why are you delaying the promotion of the replacement type of thing? - Yeah. - But for the player themselves, again, like similar to the hero thing, like they can choose when to retire, they should be allowed to choose, you know, like, yeah, when they retire. It's like, if they want to keep playing, they should be allowed to as long as they are physically able. I mean, there was a pitcher named Jamie Moyer who pitched, I want to say until he was like 49, his final season and he didn't have it in the traditional sense. Like his quote, unquote fast ball was like 81 miles per hour when like pitchers are throwing 90 to 100, right? But he was, he had that smarts, the wily like controlled pitcher. And again, like he could have retired any time like after like 35, it would have been fine. But he loved it and he was still effective enough for what he was doing. And why, why, like it's a lovely story. I love seeing stats for him of like the oldest player to do X, oldest player to do Y. - Yeah, it's just a good story. - Especially because it kind of underlines, you know, if you throw 80 mile an hour ball, if you throw the ball at 80 miles an hour and most of the time, you're damaging your arm at a much slower rate than if you're trying to throw at 100 miles an hour every single time. - Yeah. - But also, I think that brings up the last good point here, which is the question of who you're accountable and who is going to tell you the hard truth because in this situation, like what we're talking about here, I think I agree with you. In part, because like I said, like I don't blame Brett Fard and Aaron Rodgers for taking the money from the idiotic GMs that my team has. I blame the GMs for giving them the money. And who knows? Maybe Aaron Rodgers is going to carry on my team to a Super Bowl and I'll be incredibly grumpy about it when I'll love it because my team has never won a Super Bowl in my lifetime. What? - But again, it's a business decision too. And that's part of their calculus is no doubt. We can sell some percentage more tickets because people will want to come to see this player. - Well, and I guess what I, yeah, that's totally true. - Or Jersey sales or whatever. - You know, Pete Rose declined a lot in his later years, but people wanted to go see you like, when is he gonna break the hit record by Ty Cobb? And then what's gonna happen next? And you know, and he was a player manager and all this kind of stuff. But what I'm getting at here is that in the most of the fields we're talking about in our own world, not all, there's someone else that person, there's someone else who gets to make the decision or at least strongly encourage them to say, "Hey, you're great, Joe Montana." But Steve Young is here. I mean, you just don't have the skills you did five years ago, so we're not gonna start you today. And I think that, you know, who's gonna say that Superman? In the early Super Bowl stories, no one. Maybe Lois Lane. In later stories though, Batman, I wonder woman. The others who are kind of like on, actually, and the Superman's bad example, 'cause I think you would have listened to Jimmy Olsen or Lois Lane about that too. But, you know, I think it's why superhero teams, I think are so essential. It's why superheroes feeling like there's others they listen to because then there's someone who can point out that hard truth to them. You know, I think we see in our own world that when you just kind of, how many like celebrities have put out, you know, sports stars have put out these like a paulingly bad rap videos or something like that because everyone around them is just gonna say, oh, you're awesome, you're awesome, everything you do is awesome. And I say this as, you know, my favorite team in the world put out, let's go Mets, which is God awful. But yeah, I come to that point all the time, but I think with this especially, that question of, you know, just having other people you're accountable to, both that you can say, having other people you're accountable and having them go both ways. So that Wolverine should be able to say, Scott and Jean will miss you, Jean especially, but yeah, go take care of your baby, I get it. And also that the people can say, hey, Professor X, hey, whoever it is, you've done a great job, but it's time for you to step down and let someone else do it. - I mean, Wolverine is an interesting one. Let's talk about that real quick because we all thought Logan was the final like Hugh Jackman Wolverine. And now we are weeks away from Deadpool and Wolverine coming out prominently featuring Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. A variant of something, you know, weird timey wimey stuff. - Yeah. - And now there are questions and discussions of, should the MCU just cast Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, like for the next 10 more years? Because people think he still has it. So I don't know, like if he wants to do it, let him do it. I think like they should bring someone else in, someone new in, but it's like ultimately his decision to make, it's Marvel Studios decision to make. - In some way. - Whatever direction they go in is fine. - I haven't seen any of the previous trailers, but my sense is just from a little bit of, I've known, I also want to know about Deadpool. This is kind of Hugh Jackman's oracle days, not that he's physically unable to do the fighting of Wolverine anymore, but that like he's not coming in to play the super serious Wolverine that he did such an incredible job of. He's coming in to flirt with Ryan Reynolds and to create as much fan fiction as he possibly can and to have fun being kind of almost a parody of his own character. As everything in Deadpool has always been. So I, but yeah, I think it's interesting that yeah, he has come back in a different way. Can we find a set? - So I want to go back to Jamie Moyer. He did pitch his final season, he was 49 because two years prior to that, he had Tommy John shoulder surgery. So I believe he is also the oldest player to have Tommy John surgery and then pitch again. - Wow. - Just unbelievable career. And there's like statistically there's no way he's a Hall of Famer, unfortunately, like get voted in. But, you know, people talk about the Hall of very good. There should be some kind of hall to honor him and his story in the game. I just, I love him so much. - Oh, just a quick math. Yeah, no, I think it's great. The Mets in the, for a couple of years in the 2000s had a pinch hitter again, Julio Franco, who also played it in the '49. And he was just amazing and it was just so much fun watching that. It's one thing I'll say about baseball, one reason I love it is, you know, I could work all my life on my basketball skills. As I think it was, I remember who said this, but you can't teach tall, you know, I'm never gonna be big enough or athletic enough to be a basketball player or a football player. But when, oh God, what can I remember his name? The Fat Met who, he was on the Indians for a long time and then his picture. - Bartolo Colone. - When Bartolo Colone stepped up and for the Mets, I was in my 30s, he was a couple of years and I was gaining weight already. I didn't feel great about my body. Bartolo Colone was older than me and was significantly heavier than me. And like you could see his beer gut like every time he pitched and yet he was an amazing pitcher. And in one of his, like his last season, he hit his first home run ever as a pitcher while he was batting and it was just such a great moment. So. - Bartolo Colone retired after 2018 at the age of 45. So he also had like a long, long career. And he's like a borderline Hall of Famer, I would say. Yeah, 247 career wins. - Yes, when is he on the ballot? - If you retired in 2015, it should be, I think it's five years. So he showed him that. - 2018, so was he on the ballot last year? - All right, I think we're now wandered pretty far from the point. So we're gonna have a bonus section where Ricky and I are gonna talk about baseball a little bit more. I think it's probably if you're live that great, if not, we'll have better budgets, maybe again. If you love that great, if you're not right in with other ideas you want us to have for bonus content. A lot of times we have really good ones. So I'm not forever this week, we've booked them, we're crazed and able to come up with one, but we also just wanna talk about baseball. But Ricky, any of the last thoughts on this topic? - No, retire, retire when you want, whether you're a superhero or an athlete or anything. I guess normal people can't retire until they have enough money, unfortunately. - Yeah, and I have a little, I think if it's, you're retiring when you still can do it because someone else can take your place, great. If you're no longer able to do the job, listen to the people who are telling you you need to step down. That's where I come down on. Ricky has always this fantastic conversation. Listeners, let us know what you think. Of course, try to become a member. It will be only $5 a month, $55 a year. You get bonus content, you get full bonus episodes, and you help us keep the lights on, help us do all things we're doing, and you're gonna support a great podcast. So on behalf of myself and Ricky, thank you all so very much. We have spoken. ♪ When are you okay ♪ ♪ When are you okay ♪ You
