This is MJ. I'm an author, I'm an artist, I'm an analyzer. Welcome to Red Panda Report.
Buckle up for two-fisted pulp action as I talk about the terrific two-spin of Toronto.
Welcome to Red Panda Report. I'm talking about Red Panda Adventures, episode 36, and I'm going to practice my powers of ventriloquism right now as I read to you the copy for this episode.
So here is the copy for Red Panda Adventures, episode 36, The Field Trip, written by Greg Taylor, who is, of course, the voice of Red Panda and the writer and director of All the Red Panda and Blackjack Justice.
In his own city, the Red Panda calls the shots, and he doesn't tolerate any interloping from other mass do-gooders that aren't soft and squirrel-shaped. But when an investigation leads the terrific two-spin of Toronto all the way to New York City, already teeming with huddled masses of mystery men, superheroes, and mass vigilantes, a lot can happen on The Field Trip.
So, this was a really fun episode. Everything's all coming together. Last episode, I mean, over the course of this season, like, really the last half, I would say, or last, yeah, leg of it, things have been coming together.
We now have, you know, spoilers for the episode, of course. Kit and Red Panda have made contact, and we know that a relationship is coming with them, and it'll be interesting to see how this affects the rest of the show, the rest of their story going together.
And you can look back, this is the season three finale, so, for better or worse, Taylor did 12 episode seasons, which I think is actually pretty brilliant. It's enough to really get somewhere with the stories, as there are, like, you know, 23 or so many episodes.
But it's also, and it also mimics like a comic book, you know, 12 releases, 12 months a year, and it's also not too much. So, but it's enough to leave you wanting more. So it's just really, it's just really happy medium of, this is what you're getting, and it's a lot.
There's a whole arc told throughout each season, but it also has an overarching story throughout, and it builds, and there's lore added, and there's all this stuff textured and layered in there, and it's really satisfying.
I don't know if it was this, that, the romance here, and then how it proceeds, that cemented, this was one of my favorite superhero stories ever, but it didn't hurt.
It definitely did not hurt. And I think what I like about this so much is it works on so many levels. Like, I was thinking about, I listened to the episode a second time because I listened to it last night, and I thought, man, it was a really great episode.
I can't believe, you know, we're here already, and it's happening at the end of season three, you know, big finale moment, and we had kind of two finales. I'll say two finales for sure.
We get the affirmation, the confirmation that Professor Friedrich von Schlitz is a, I don't want to edit myself so everyone's hit.
He's a rat mustard, you know, Nazi scientist, super villain, and that's cool. Another cool villain to have in the show.
And we heard that, you know, Red Panda would one day regret when he dismissed the threat that Friedrich von Schlitz was, and he hasn't because he's smarter than that.
He's humble enough to know that he could be wrong, and he's sharp enough to know, and he has the survival instincts drilled into him to, sorry, now I'm thinking about Arrow, season one, like early on in the episodes, survive.
Anyway, he knows enough to keep his head on a swivel, to keep looking around for threats and to see what's coming and what could develop and how he can protect himself and others from it.
And he's a hit specifically in the whole city and the whole world, you know, as it turns out.
So that's nice. We get to see his humility. Where's that finale? The finale is we're finally seeing, yes, von Schlitz is a full enemy. We know that.
We know he was behind the Melchior thing. He knows that Red Panda is an enemy of his too. And like we have the establishment, the, wow, I didn't even know about it like this.
It's the establishment of the rivalry. What's really interesting is if you go back to the silly Red Panda, original Red Panda universe, I think, I guess that's what he calls it.
It's like it should be called Panda Patrol or Panda Division, but we'll talk about that later.
If you go back and listen to those episodes, you'll know why I'm saying that. But they kind of apex with Black Panda, but really, no, I think Von Schlick is a big deal.
And like I said, if you if you heard me talk about the world next door, which was I think it's season two, and then you heard me talk about how some of these things are developing related to the world next door and then you would know or you'd get what I'm talking about, where I'm coming from, where in a lot of ways the Panda Division, original Red Panda universe.
There were silly ideas that were thrown out there and Taylor says, you know what, let me take these silly ideas or it seems as if Taylor said, let me take these silly ideas and expand them and build up to them and make a real lore and make something really good out of this.
So I'll just tell you spoilers. We never get like a Black Panda and I was sure I was so sure we were going to get a Black Panda and it would be super tragical to quote in Shelby.
But we didn't. And that's okay, because we did get and we don't quite get Von Schlick, but we do get something similar with Von Schlitz being this great rival and this great foe and enemy for Red Panda.
And it's super interesting how like the lore from the Panda Division world creates or establishes or sets up what Taylor ends up doing here, especially because it was a funny silly thing that he just kind of threw together.
And I'm not saying he didn't do hard work or it wasn't good because it was good. It's a lot of fun in its own right, but it's ridiculous. But he takes the background and everything for that ridiculous world and he expands it into this in the Red Panda universe.
Or the Red Panda Adventures universe. So anyway, you have the culmination of that rivalry. You have that Batman Joker, that Spider-Man, Green Goblin, that I don't know any other superheroes, Captain America, Red Skull, whatever. You have like that dichotomy, that arch rival situation set up by this episode.
At the same time, you get the love interest thing climaxing and coming to its fullest whatever. It takes precedence and it becomes something important and it's something that has this real turn to it and that's incredible.
The way that relationship has been building up and the way that the flotation has been happening and the way that the transparency that Kit really is in love with this guy and she's going to stick with him no matter what.
Even if she never gets to be his love, even if she's only ever the woman who saves his life, the woman who has his back, the woman who watches out for him and tries to protect him from himself and from others, which I just described to wife.
Maybe just my wife, I don't know. But I really like it. It's really satisfying. It has this great emotional hook to it and other than the fact that I don't hear people kissing, like living out here, people kissing.
It was this great moment and honestly it made me warm and the fact is this couple is married in real life. I don't know if they were married at the time of this or if it was after. I think they were already married here, but I don't know.
Anyway, it's kind of sweet and it's kind of lovely and it's kind of beautiful and I appreciate it.
We have this really neat author owned, author directed, single auteur superhero story being told, which I talk about all the time.
I talk about it again and again when I talk about Red Panda because it's the truth of what Red Panda is.
Kind of like a manga or invincible or whatever, which I haven't read invincible, but that one dude did that whole book, that whole series.
And it's fascinating to see what one author will do with the story and how he'll take this character that he loves, you would presume.
Maybe he loves Kit more than he loves Red Panda. That's debatable.
It's fascinating to see what he does with that and what he's able to do and the things that he's able to put into the story.
And it was a good superhero story. It was a fun romp. We got this lore about the, whatever they're called, the Not Justice League.
And how he kicked them out of Toronto. How it's his policy to keep only the one, him himself and Flying Squirrel in town.
And he puts everybody out. How there's no magical people in the New York team. That this guy, it's cool because when you get to the, whatever they're called, the Schmucks, the superhero Schmucks.
He basically, Taylor, in the writing of the conversation and the dialogue, he sees so many things. Molecule Max used to be a cooler guy.
He used to be like a more of an independent thinker and he had more of like a stance where he wanted to do his own thing.
But then he ends up getting in this relationship with Lady Luck and that kind of changes him.
And it makes him a little bit less sort of a version of himself. We hear that he's like a Hulk guy.
I think he's like Hulk and Thor if they were combined together. He's called, what was his name? I can't remember his name.
Oh, Ogre. Ogre, that's right. You have Ogre who apparently has gone on this arc from being a guy who could only say Ogre Smash to a guy who's saying we have to follow all the rules or else we're just like the criminals.
You know, we're no better than them. And it's really fascinating because you get to see like Red Panda rejecting bureaucracy.
Him having ownership of his actions and Flying Squirrel's actions and how he keeps Toronto self-contained.
And that's a contrast to, oh, look at the superhero team that has fallen into bureaucracy and has become silly and kind of like beckons itself with the way it runs on regulations and things like that.
And it kind of it offers it brings that up comedically and it kind of softly puts forward the contrast and the suggestion of what do you want in a superhero?
And, you know, is this group of superheroes less heroic than Red Panda and Flying Squirrel because they become trapped in their own success or because they become trapped in like this almost comfort and ease that they might have because there's so many of them versus these two.
It's them against the world and these two, it's a bunch of them against the world or against New York.
And that's different. And it doesn't really go into it as hard as it could. But it's not that's not the focus. But it is interesting because it brings up that idea of like, huh, yeah, these guys are losers because they're all about regulations and doing everything by the book.
And Red Panda and Flying Squirrel are kind of renegades. And she points out at some point when they're in the museum trying to take the item that Von Schlitz is looking for that, you know, isn't this a crime that we're doing?
She says, and he says, yeah, it is. And the reason he's okay doing the crime is because he it's because of the knowledge that he has. It's because of what he's trying to prevent.
It's because him committing this them doing this B&E is a smaller crime than allowing Von Schlitz to get this thing and turn it into an opening for a wide channel of dark energies that the Nazis will use to dominate the world.
So, yeah, do you steal this trinket in order to stop this guy from creating a nuclear bomb, essentially, that he'll use to selectively blow up people he hates?
I think, yeah, you do. And is it against the rules? Yes. But are rules meant to be broken? No, no, they are not. Is there a hierarchy to law? Yes, there is.
And there is a hierarchy to to law and to morality and to justice. And I'm I hadn't thought that before, but I'm saying that in the moment.
I think I can justify that upon greater scrutiny. But that's a conversation for another time.
But it's cool that that's the kind of conversation that you can have from this throwback, you know, pulp radio show that doesn't matter.
And it's just about a guy and a girl getting together and being superheroes and beating people. But that's not what it is. You could if you want to, you can reduce it and you can minimize it and try to squeeze it down and make it insignificant because you don't like superheroes or you don't like radio drama or you don't like whatever.
But your personal preferences and your tastes prejudicing you against something do not make it bad in and of itself.
And perhaps if you're like me, you look for the good in everything and you can find reasons to elevate and to amplify the good qualities of something and really bring something out of it that either the author didn't intend or the author didn't intend and he can't control the audience.
So if the audience lets it go and doesn't look at those things and just enjoys the bone breaking and the fighting and the banter, that's OK, too.
I'm not telling you how you should enjoy your media and not telling you that you must have the same opinion as me on this.
I'm just saying this is what I think about it and this is how I think about it. And like the fact that Red Panda kind of lives in my head rent free is part of why I wanted to talk about it and part of why I wanted to get back into it and why I wanted to share it with people and try to make it more widely known.
Because it's a really fantastic story and it's a lot of fun and there's a lot of depth and there's a lot of juicy meaty stuff that you can dig into if you're so inclined.
And I think you'll be rewarded if you do. And if not, you just come for the fun. That's also great, too.
But I think all throughout these first three seasons, Taylor's done a really good job.
Maybe I'll do this at the end of every season. I'll try to hold out these kinds of comments until the end of the season and then I'll kind of recap it and talk about it in a broader way and talk about why I appreciate it and whatever.
Maybe why you should be listening to Red Panda. That's a fun idea.
Anyway. But yeah, that's about it. I love the back and forth. Shut up a minute was great.
The yes boss backing and forth or back and forth thing is fantastic, too. And golly, I don't know. I just I loved it. I loved it so much.
That's a lot of fun. A lot of fun. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Red Panda Adventures as well. And I'm going to close out by talking about something important for me.
I've got grow bug books, calm, GROB, UGS, calm up and running.
I am slowly working to get my information put up there so that when you go there and you can sign up for the newsletter and you can get bonuses and behind the scenes type stuff and you can be alerted for when the book goes on sale.
But more importantly than that, I'm writing the book. I have worked on it for 12 hours after I did my outline. I was like 35 hours in.
I was done with the outline and all the development back and forth of like world building and lore and you trying to figure out what people look like, what are their names, where they live, all that kind of stuff.
Like really like, you know, in the guts of the story. And I plotted the book because I thought it would be a good idea, which, by the way, the pitch for this book is basically was 11 year old boy who his family runs an arcade and he comes in and he's like, oh, I'm going to do this.
And he kind of like he's a pretty good family, but he doesn't want to deal with them. He just wants to play cool video games.
They're in the middle of this renovation when they his favorite video game series from his favorite video game company or studio or whatever comes out and his dad's gotten it for him as a surprise.
And he kind of regrets it because the kids being a punk and the kid keeps finding excuses to play this game and he really likes it, but it's glitching.
And then these repairmen technician delivery guys from the company come back and they fix it for him. And while his family's gone doing something, getting lunch or whatever, he's playing the game and he gets transported into the game.
And it's everything he's ever wanted. He loves it so much. What he doesn't know is this is part of an evil plot to brainwash him and have him be taken over, have his body taken over, have his mind left in the game or destroyed, whatever one of the two.
But effectively he'll be dead because he won't be able to live in this virtual reality world forever while somebody else is going off in his body growing up and influencing the world and doing whatever.
And he has to want to leave the game. And if he doesn't want to leave the game quickly enough, and if he doesn't find the will to do it and to overcome the obstacles stopping him from leaving the game, then he will be stuck in there forever.
And he'll just be a sad, lonely video game boy in a video game world all by himself with a little magical bug friend who's there who's trying to get him to come out of the game and trying to encourage him to return to the real world.
Because the bug has the sense that he's supposed to help this kid get out of there, but he doesn't remember anything else because his memory is all foggy from something.
And that's the pitch for the story. Basically it's the longer pitch than I wanted to say. It's not the blurb, which I have written short but I need to practice it and get used to it.
But that's what it's about. And I think it's a really cool story. I think the family. So I wrote a prologue after going back and forth and I have six chapters written.
It's supposed to be 34, 35 chapters long. Including or not including the prologue, I can't remember.
But as I'm building it, I'm liking the characters more and more. I feel really good about the family dynamic that I've built.
You can see why he would be upset with them, but you can also see that they're a loving family.
And you can see where he's being a punk, but you can also see where the kid just wants to enjoy what he wants to enjoy. And that should be okay to some extent.
And now I'm delving into he's in the video game world and what that's like. And that's a large section of the story and it's a lot of fun.
There's a lot of cool stuff going on there. It's a cool adventure, but then when the adventure is over, what does he do? Where does he go? What does he choose?
Will he set the game down and walk away and go back to his regular life or will he just try to stay in there forever?
And that's kind of the conflict for this kid. And anyway, I'm working on the book. I'm writing about a chapter a day.
It's taking me longer than I want to write each chapter, but I'm feeling really good about it. And you can find out more about it over at grobugs.com.
Sign up for the newsletter, sign up for an early release notice and different things like that. And anyway, I think it's a really good book.
It is. It has super level stuff to enjoy, but it also has a depth to it, just like Red Panda Adventures.
And I hope you'll check it out and I hope you'll come back for the next Red Panda Adventures or Red Panda Report, I should say. And that's it. Thank you.
I hope you enjoyed that. Like, share and subscribe. I invite you to comment, ask questions and share your thoughts with me.
It's always more fun when you're part of the conversation. Until next time, be well and hold high the lamp of justice.
Visit MJMunoz.com for more of my work and help me build up the Fortress fiction.