GMBC ep09 - Zombies vs. Superheroes: The Ultimate Mashup of Ex Heroes by Peter Cline

The podcast dives headfirst into the intriguing blend of superheroes and zombies presented in Peter Cline's *Ex Heroes*, where the remnants of humanity grapple with their undead counterparts in a dystopian Los Angeles. As returning game masters Roger, Alex, Chris, and David form a formidable team, they explore what makes this mashup not just entertaining, but also ripe for tabletop roleplaying adventures. They ponder the unique gaming experiences that arise from the tension between heroic ideals and the grim realities of a zombie-infested world, while simultaneously engaging in some light-hearted banter about their favorite villains and gaming systems. Throughout the episode, they recognize that even a book may not shine as high art can still offer valuable inspiration for gameplay. Listeners can expect a thoughtful discussion laced with witty remarks, as the hosts dissect the potential for crafting compelling narratives in a genre where the stakes are both fantastical and frightening.

Takeaways:

• In this episode, the hosts explore how Peter Cline's Ex Heroes creatively blends the zombie apocalypse with superhero lore, showcasing the complexities of both genres.

• The discussion dives deep into character dynamics, emphasizing that a superhero narrative isn't just about powers, but also the relationships and moral dilemmas faced by the characters.

• Listeners are reminded that even if a book isn't critically acclaimed, it can still offer valuable inspiration and ideas for tabletop roleplaying games.

• The hosts each share their favorite game systems that would best suit the mashup of superheroes and zombies, highlighting a range of mechanics that could enhance storytelling.

• The conversation touches on the unique setting of a besieged film studio, which serves as a backdrop for exploring themes of survival and interpersonal conflict among heroes and survivors alike.

• Lastly, the episode reveals the importance of character flaws and limitations, illustrating how these elements can enrich gameplay and storytelling in superhero settings.

Companies mentioned in this episode:

• Ex Heroes

• Peter Clines

• Rising Phoenix Game Convention

• Avengers

• Walking Dead

• American Heritage Dictionary

• Incredible

• mcu

• Legion of Doom

• X Men

• Champions

• Cipher system

• Marvel Heroic Role Playing System

• Claim the Sky

• Stay Alive

• Red Markets

• Hebanon Games

• Metahumans versus the Undead

• Marvel Zombies

• World War Z

• Immortal Hulk

• Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots

• Seanan McGuire

• Mira Grant

Speaker A

00:00:03.520 - 00:00:31.520

Welcome to the Game Masters Book Club, where great fiction becomes your next great tabletop roleplaying experience.

Returning game masters Roger, Alex Goudreau, Chris Grannis, and David Clarkson form a super team up as we enter the dark future of Ex Heroes by Peter Kleins, where legions of the undead walk the streets of LA while superheroes fill the skies. What sort of gaming experience can a mashup of zombies and superheroes make for your table?

Well, tune in true believers as we get into the conversation. Excelsior.

Speaker B

00:00:33.500 - 00:00:46.780

So, Ex heroes touted by Ernest Klein as Avengers meets the Walking Dead. Legions of undead walk the streets of Los Angeles while remaining superheroes protect an enclave of people in a film studio.

Speaker A

00:00:46.780 - 00:00:48.460

Turned fortress called the Mount.

Speaker B

00:00:48.620 - 00:01:05.390

But there is a darker enemy hiding among the ravenous zombies and a few within the walls of the Mount as well. Peter Kleins, the author mashes zombies, supers and dystopia to create Ex heroes. The the first books of a five book set in a zombified Los Angeles.

Speaker C

00:01:05.790 - 00:01:11.230

It's wonderful. Oh, you guys gonna. You guys gonna poop on my book?

Speaker B

00:01:11.550 - 00:01:16.990

We are. But before we do that, let's get everybody introduced and we'll start with Chris today. Go ahead, Chris.

Speaker D

00:01:17.229 - 00:01:30.280

Hi, I'm Chris Karenis. I am a longtime gaming nerd, former editor of the American Heritage Dictionary. That is my literary claim to fame.

And yeah, I read a lot of books and play a lot of games.

Speaker B

00:01:30.600 - 00:01:37.240

And since today is our superhero day, will you tell the audience what is your favorite super villain or villainous organization.

Speaker D

00:01:37.560 - 00:01:43.079

For this particular podcast? My favorite super villain right now would be Syndrome from the Incredible.

Speaker E

00:01:43.079 - 00:01:43.520

Ooh.

Speaker B

00:01:43.520 - 00:01:44.040

And why?

Speaker D

00:01:44.120 - 00:01:57.050

Because I find him a very intriguing character who basically should have been a superhero and was kicked out. And I like the whole anti hero villain trope.

Speaker A

00:01:57.050 - 00:01:57.850

Why I like them.

Speaker B

00:01:58.090 - 00:01:59.450

On to you, Roger.

Speaker E

00:01:59.930 - 00:02:20.090

Hey, everybody, I'm Roger. I have also been gaming for decades. Got lots and lots and lots of fantasy gaming in my history, but not a ton of superhero.

I've dabbled with a few games. I'm sure anybody who gamed in the 80s will remember the acronym phase RIP. I certainly do. But yeah, looking forward to talking about.

Speaker B

00:02:20.090 - 00:02:21.690

This book and your villain.

Speaker E

00:02:22.250 - 00:03:10.070

Yeah, sorry. So I think I would go with Thanos from the mcu.

I'll admit I didn't read a lot of the actual comics that were the source of material, but I like his presentation in the mcu. I think he's an embodiment of the writing ideal that the villain thinks of himself as the hero of his own story. Right.

He is out to save the universe in a drastic and draconian way. And just, He's. He sees himself as making the hard choice, just like in the Watchmen. Right.

The idea is that there's some drastic, terrible thing that must be done to destroy a whole lot of people in order to save the rest. And so I just. I love that dichotomy, that tension. The person who does terrible things for good reasons, that's a pretty good villain.

Speaker B

00:03:10.070 - 00:03:13.830

Go ahead, Dave. You can tell us who you are. And who's your villain.

Speaker C

00:03:13.990 - 00:04:09.610

My name is David Clarkson. I guess my gaming claim to fame, other than also gaming since the.

Since the early 80s and having dug into a number of superhero games, I guess I get a game cred by being one of the owners of the Rising Phoenix Game Convention, which we just had in our successful fourth year. And I'm using this as an unparalleled shilling opportunity. My favorite villain organization would actually be the.

You know, the Legion of Doom from back in the Super Friends. It was pivotal in my growing up, probably the first introduction I had.

And I like them because it's a clear representation of the biggest weakness of villains when they try to get together is the fact that they're villains and they don't get along.

And I think they do a good job of showing the fact that these villains argue, fight, have differences, and certainly that's their core weakness that hopefully the heroes can exploit.

Speaker B

00:04:10.250 - 00:05:08.830

Excellent and absolutely true. My name is Eric Jackson, and I have also been gaming since the Pleistocene. And along with that, I run this podcast, so that's pretty good.

Other than that, my villain for the week is going to be Magneto from the X Men.

I think Magneto is just an incredibly complicated character who, much as Roger pointed out, is the hero of his own story and does a great job of being ruthless with a cause. And sometimes what he does is terrible. But there's still something to admire about his dedication to his cause.

His cause is taking care of people to a certain extent. Of all the villains, Magneto is the one that I'm. I'm most fond of. We'll switch from villains back to heroes, or ex heroes, as the case may be.

Peter Klein's ex heroes. Before we got started on our little introduction, there was some noise about how we felt about this book.

Speaker C

00:05:10.430 - 00:05:12.270

I know this differences of opinion.

Speaker B

00:05:12.670 - 00:05:13.230

Absolutely.

Speaker D

00:05:13.230 - 00:05:14.110

Little trash talk.

Speaker C

00:05:14.510 - 00:05:17.950

No, it's fair. It's not. It's not high art by any stretch.

Speaker E

00:05:18.030 - 00:05:21.090

Yeah, well, this isn't a book critique club, Right? We're talking about gaming.

Speaker C

00:05:21.090 - 00:05:22.450

But yeah, you're Absolutely right.

Speaker B

00:05:23.330 - 00:05:40.650

And in fact, to a certain extent, I think part of the great thing about this club is that you can take a book that isn't necessarily the best book in the world, but then still talk about what it can give your game. Because even books that are not the best book can still bring your game something really inspired.

Speaker E

00:05:40.650 - 00:05:42.930

Oh, absolutely. Yeah. You can find good ideas.

Speaker B

00:05:43.090 - 00:05:44.290

Let's see if we can do that.

Speaker C

00:05:44.450 - 00:06:13.820

Yeah. And that's actually one of the things I liked because it exposed the archetypes. I kind of like that part of it.

The fact that you didn't enter into this book with baggage.

You saw the basic archetypes of the hero, the various types of heroes that you could possibly use in your games if you wanted to build up heroes, you know, the crime fighter with gadgets and skills but no superpowers, the superpowered paragon. All those things were portrayed in a different light. So that didn't have all the baggage that everyone knows about from Superman or Batman.

Speaker D

00:06:14.620 - 00:06:17.260

They were really apparent, though.

Speaker C

00:06:17.980 - 00:06:20.620

They were derivative. These characters were derivative.

Speaker D

00:06:20.620 - 00:06:24.460

There's very little hiding who they, you know, who the Superman and the Batman was.

Speaker C

00:06:24.540 - 00:06:29.100

But it exposed the fact that it wasn't just Batman. It was something. It was a type.

Speaker E

00:06:29.340 - 00:06:50.100

It was also a very simple and straightforward story.

Like, I think for the first half of the book, like, half of the chapters were flashback, like, exploring how things developed as the apocalypse was happening, which was okay to a certain extent. I kind of get sick of, like, hey, enough. You know, the backstory. Just give me the current story. But there wasn't a lot of that.

But what was there was straightforward and easy to run a game around.

Speaker C

00:06:50.100 - 00:06:52.180

I think you could definitely build a game around this.

Speaker B

00:06:52.340 - 00:07:02.180

Definitely a great premise. But now the question becomes what game would best bring that premise to life?

Dave, this was your pick, so why don't you start us off with your game system?

Speaker C

00:07:02.500 - 00:08:04.580

Well, the game, and this actually is my favorite game system right now that I'm playing around with, which is the icon system by Steve Kenson. I've been enjoying that because it's not highly crunchy, but it's crunchy enough.

It also has a strong mechanic for leaning into the tropes of weaknesses and strengths of good guys or bad guys.

And it has one of those mechanics where you basically, you can get a point that you could use to alter the plot by playing into the weaknesses of the bad guys or by the GM playing into the weaknesses of the heroes. And I think that's an important part of experiencing the whole superhero story to be able to see that played out.

And I certainly like the fact that you don't have to dig into a lot of tiny mechanics.

I've had plenty of superhero games like Champions, which very nicely had all sorts of ways for you to build your hero down, you know, from the, you know, minutia from the atomic level. But I don't know that that's necessary these days to tell the right story. So that's the one I. I like to play around with right now.

Speaker B

00:08:04.900 - 00:08:09.620

Excellent. Chris, would you like to go next and tell us about your superhero system?

Speaker D

00:08:10.050 - 00:09:04.160

Now, the superhero system I would run this in would be Masks.

Actually, the Powered by the Apocalypse game, because this is very much like most zombie stories and my favorite types of superhero stories about the characters, not about the powers. It's all about the interrelationships of the characters with each other, varying different power levels.

We were talking about our Superman versus our Batman versus our Flash and throw in Jubilee and she can do some sparks and is still useful to the team. I know I'm mixing my Marvel and dc, but that's the kind of stories that I can get out of masks.

And I think that is something that you could easily run a. Hey, zombies are going after them, particularly when you have playbooks like the Doomed. So we know what's going to happen to that one.

It's entirely intentional and it's about the story.

Speaker B

00:09:05.120 - 00:09:08.080

All right, Fantastic. Roger.

Speaker E

00:09:08.560 - 00:12:55.240

Well, those who've heard me on prior episodes will be completely unsurprised when I suggest the cipher system as, as. As a system to use for this story in particular. Because as looking across my shelves at the books, there are two.

Given that this is a genre mashup book where you have superheroes and zombie apocalypse.

Looking at my books, I see a superhero book from the cipher system entitled Claim the Sky, and then a horror game book in the cypher system entitled Stay Alive.

And interestingly enough, it just so happens that the superhero book is all about the players, about the characters, and Stay Alive is much more about running horror games. And so it suits this combination of these two books, suits the genre mashup for this book perfectly.

And so the thing I like about the Cipher system is it is designed, as I've said before, right, to work in any genre.

You define your character in a single sentence, to define sort of the core, you know, what's the core attribute, what's their core type, and then what's their focus. And so I was thinking about a couple of the characters in the superhero book, because superheroes think can sort of.

They bring, to use the term used earlier, they bring a certain amount of baggage. Right. We have a bunch of superheroes mythology that we're accustomed to. And so we think about superhero archetypes.

Arguably we do the same thing in like fantasy role playing games or Warrior wizard, etc. Etc.

But claim the sky layers on some extra guidance for players about how to take a superhero archetype and then think about them and express them in a number of different ways within the rule set.

And they start with some very popular characters and say, for example, if you wanted to create a character like Black Panther or Iron man, here's how you would do it. And so, for example, like Cerberus, be a powered armor hero archetype, obviously, right.

And so might choose like a mechanical adept who wears power armor as your cipher system descriptor for your character. And then zap. Right. He's an energy master. Right. So maybe like a helpful speaker who rides the lightning, something like that.

And Dave mentioned, you know, a mechanic for letting the GM interfere with the players or the players directing plot using plot dice. Right. And so the cipher system includes GM intrusions, which is a way of doing that, or people XP in exchange for making their lives more difficult.

So cipher system definitely, I think, provides rich material for exploring the mashup of these genres and running this game.

And then because I always come with a backup, though I haven't played a ton of superhero games, I have had a lot of fun playing the Marvel Heroic Role Playing System by Margaret Weiss.

And one interesting thing is that for those who are interested in sort of more mechanics where the cipher System is a D20 mechanic, the Marvel Heroic System is a dice pool mechanic. And so you assemble a dice pool based on your character's powers and a bunch of different things and things going on in the environment.

And then your success depends on the result of rolling a bunch of dice. One thing I really like about the Marvel Heroic Role Playing system is they have this concept of solo versus buddy versus team.

And each character is best in one of those. You're either best on alone, best with buddy, or best in a team, and you get a die, depending on what you're actually in.

So, like, if you're a solo, if you're best as a solo, but you're forced to operate in a team, then you're not as effective. And it's a really cool mechanic. I like to sort of add a little flavor to the type of hero that you're playing.

And then, you know, the GM has the Doom pool. Right. Which is dice that the GM uses to roll for all of the villains.

And it can grow out of control and really provide a great way for the GM to mess with the heroes.

Speaker B

00:12:56.200 - 00:12:59.920

Okay, that's all right. That's what we're here for. No, that's great. Go ahead, Chris.

Speaker D

00:12:59.920 - 00:13:03.160

I'm assuming that's well beyond the phase rip. Marvel superheroes.

Speaker E

00:13:03.160 - 00:13:03.880

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker D

00:13:04.280 - 00:13:05.960

I remember from back in the day.

Speaker C

00:13:06.280 - 00:13:09.960

Is that the one that's Cortex based? That the one I played before with Scotty?

Speaker E

00:13:09.960 - 00:13:10.360

Yes.

Speaker C

00:13:10.760 - 00:13:19.880

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I thought so. Yeah, that. You've got an excellent point.

I do like that dimension that you can define your character on that you know, they're better in a group versus being solo or vice versa.

Speaker D

00:13:20.040 - 00:13:24.040

I do have a backup as well. After. After you've spoken there are.

Speaker C

00:13:24.040 - 00:13:25.800

You're going to say aberrant, Chris, you're going to say.

Speaker D

00:13:25.880 - 00:13:30.440

No, I can. I can say aberrant is being terrible. But no, I have a good one. So.

Speaker B

00:13:30.840 - 00:16:22.910

Okay, I'll say mine because I think yours will be the better one to end with because mine's. I think, a little outside of what we've been talking about, where you folks have talked a lot about the superhero system.

I've played a couple superhero games, but the zombie part I thought was really the meat of this book. And for me, most of the tension filled parts where all the conflict was in Ex Heroes really wasn't in the superpowers or the zombies.

It was in the internal negotiations between the people who were in there and the heroes who were protecting them. And I went out looking for a game that I thought might be interesting.

And I found in my pile of things that I picked up and have never had a chance to play a game called Red Markets by Hebanon Games, which is the economy of zombie apocalypse.

Basically this is about going and getting stuff in a zombie area and then bringing it back so that you can survive, which is a big part of the first plot in the book. But more important than that, there are a couple of mechanics that I thought sounded really interesting.

You roll two dice and the first one is a red die, and that becomes the target die for the action. And then the black dye has to beat the red die.

You can make some modifications based on skills and stuff, but basically you have to be in the black to survive or to get a success. But also, if they're both even, it's automatically a critical success.

And if they're both odd, it's automatically a critical failure, which makes the game really swingy and kind of unpredict predictable. Which again, I thought that the book kind of had that, oh my God, that one thing happened that can't happen. And now it's happened.

But the most important mechanic that they have is a sanity score that is called humanity, which is broken into detachment, trauma and stress. And if you get 5 damage to any of those scores, they can cause a permanent damage or regret.

So there's this whole system of just being beaten down by the zombies. And that deterioration that was happening in the book was pretty evident.

And I thought this game system, based on what I was looking around really captured some of that zombie feel.

I don't know how it would interact with the superheroes, but I think that basically, you know, maybe superheroes get, you know, two black dice so they can do stuff more quickly, but then they can still get a super critical or something or a super, super, super fumble. But I thought that system would be different. First off would be interesting and second would be different from anything you guys suggested. So.

Oh, back over to you Chris for your second chance.

Speaker D

00:16:22.910 - 00:16:25.230

That's a good call. That's a. I've heard good things about.

Speaker C

00:16:25.230 - 00:16:25.630

Yeah.

Speaker D

00:16:25.630 - 00:16:27.070

As well though have not played.

Speaker B

00:16:27.070 - 00:16:32.030

Okay, great. So I'm. It's not just me picking up one weird game actually. People have heard of this. That's fantastic.

Speaker D

00:16:32.110 - 00:17:51.260

No, the one I was thinking about just in terms of superhero is a game called Spectaculars, which is a cool box set where you are building your world. And the. It is a card based and percentile based game. So you get your cards with your powers, you build a character there, you build a world there.

It's a strangely crunchy light system. You know, you roll under your power to. To use your power but you determine what that power actually does.

So you know, hey, your energy blast does this. You roll low enough and go through it and blast them.

Or there's piles and piles of cards with powers there that you can either randomize or pick semi randomly. You get your archetypes and all of that. And it is creating your whole world across the different eras of superhero Dom.

So you can have your silver age characters, your golden age characters, your 90s too many pouches characters, that sort of thing. And the world that you create bounces back which works very well with this book's flashback type pieces there.

So you can go forward in time and go, hey, that happened way back then. And play the superhero part before the zombie apocalypse and then the zombies afterwards. I liked it. It's a good system.

Speaker B

00:17:52.060 - 00:18:01.990

All right, let's move on to our next super section.

What are the set pieces that you guys feel would be excellent to just drop right into any superhero campaign that you might be running based on this book?

Speaker C

00:18:02.230 - 00:18:41.830

I certainly love the confined location the Paramount a lot. The fact that most of the action takes place there. That's the base of operations.

And it's kind of an interesting turn on the idea that superheroes have a base. But in this case it's the base where all the survivors are for the zombie apocalypse. So it's an interesting mashup of those two ideas.

I would love to see if I could run a superhero game that's in a more confined location for reasons it wouldn't just because, you know, they. They all hang out there, but because there's something keeping them there.

Maybe they're on an island for, you know, some particular purpose or maybe they're in a space station. But to, you know, see those interplays have to have to play out in a small confined area. Might be interesting.

Speaker B

00:18:43.029 - 00:19:13.690

And to add to that, just to call back to the Red Market system, one of the ways that you can heal damage to your humanity is by having dependence. Who then can, you know, basically emotionally care for you when you're recovering.

So I think that game also has that feeling of the reason why the superheroes haven't gone crazy and just destroyed everything or, you know, left their sanity is because they have a job to do. They need to take care of the people at the Mount.

Speaker A

00:19:13.690 - 00:19:14.050

So.

Speaker B

00:19:14.530 - 00:19:21.650

And also the closed setting is very horror oriented. You're alone in the cabin in the woods kind of a thing.

Speaker C

00:19:21.650 - 00:19:24.980

Oh, absolutely. Trapped in the house. You know, whatever the case, I was.

Speaker D

00:19:24.980 - 00:20:24.080

Going to say, I definitely agree with Dave that the setting, the Paramount lot is a solid win. That is something that I like the whole idea of.

But to pick something different, I would actually say the villain in this story or one of the villains in this story, the one who controls the zombies by his mind, you know, by his superpowers and is keeping his people safe.

Giving those heroes the choice of, oh, hey, this guy's really bad and really going to take over, but he's protecting a whole swath of people that you can't protect. How about that?

How are you going to deal with that, that sort of moral dilemma there, which they didn't dwell on nearly enough in the book, I'm going to say. But I can definitely see that, you know, the.

This is the guy who has good intentions or at least good outcomes that just don't match with your morality. How are you going to deal with that? Are you going to defeat him and let loose zombies on the innocents that he's picked up there as his gang?

Speaker E

00:20:24.480 - 00:20:50.610

I did have the Zombie Master on my list, so sorry for stealing it. No, not at all. And I too loved the besieged movie studio set a great bit.

I think looking at my list, the other thing I would pull out is sort of the idea of the interesting limitations that were built into the characters. Like a couple that come to mind are.

I forget the name of the healer character who, you know, he went from being able to heal anything to now he can't heal anything because he's too busy fighting off the zombie infection. That is.

Speaker C

00:20:50.610 - 00:20:52.730

That was the regenerator, I believe.

Speaker E

00:20:53.050 - 00:21:36.140

The regenerator, right. So he has to find new ways to contribute to the defense of the. Of. Of the people.

And then Cerberus, if I remember correctly, like, she routinely lamented the.

You know, the fact that her machine guns were missing and they were taken away because they just couldn't trust her not to just use them until they melted her armor down. You know, someone just so enjoying the firepower that she can't be trusted to use it and then adding onto the regenerator.

While I personally would not have chosen to reveal the source of the zombie apocalypse in the first book of the series, having that secret be sort of like hidden within the PC group I really like. That's a great twist for something based, you know, player to player role playing on.

Speaker C

00:21:36.140 - 00:22:01.000

Yeah, that was a fun twist. And if I can add to the list, one of the things that I loved, the Empedocles did not dwell on it very much in this book.

I know he does go into it in some of the other books in the series, but the brewing us versus them with the survivors and the superheroes, you guys are safe, you guys are fine. You could just leave anytime you want, you know, why would you stick around? That type of conflict between the two groups.

It was kind of fun to see it starting.

Speaker A

00:22:01.240 - 00:22:06.480

As for portable things I could bring into another superhero game, I'm always looking for cool powers.

Speaker B

00:22:06.480 - 00:23:02.160

And as far as interesting superhero powers, I liked Gorgon. I think he was the most interesting superhero who seemed the least derivative, maybe.

But also I like the idea that he could borrow other people's powers or at least borrow power from other people in order to make himself more powerful. I thought that was a real interesting. It would be a pain to run that character.

I think he would actually make a fantastic villain or an NPC who can come in and Deus Ex Machina. If your superhero game is going off the rails, I liked that particular power set.

The last thing, of course, is we're going to talk about other books and media that we think are reminiscent of this particular book and perhaps in the series going forward. Dave, I know you might be able to speak more about some of the other books in the series. So, Roger, why don't you take point on this and lead us off?

Speaker E

00:23:03.020 - 00:24:12.800

Okay, so I will confess that I'm not terribly familiar with a lot of like, superhero zombie mashup media. So I decided to wander off into the world of Generative AI and see what that it might recommend and do some poking around yet.

Turns out the whole all the story about Generative AI hallucinating is real. I went and asked. I asked for a set of, you know, sort of examples of superhero zombie mashups across various types of media.

It gave me a list of like a dozen things and I think I've been able to find two of them. I mean, all credit to the, to the LLM. It did find the X Hero series by Peter Klein's, so congratulations to the model there.

But a couple things that I did find that looked like they were truly real mythology called Metahumans versus the Undead, which is an anthology of stories about superhero versus zombies. And then also in the. In the graphic novel category, Marvel Zombies series where the heroes are the undead.

And that reminded me of the what if TV episode, right, with the zombie Avengers. So a couple of suggestions there.

Speaker B

00:24:12.800 - 00:24:13.520

All right, Dave.

Speaker C

00:24:14.000 - 00:24:52.830

To be honest, this book drew me in because I thought it was something that I hadn't seen before when I first encountered it years ago. And Roger's right, Marvel Zombies. And I know DC had a property that did zombies too. And yeah, this is all due to the Walking Dead craze.

They looked at Walking Dead money and said, how do we cash in on that? And they just wanted to get a piece of it. But trying to put horror and superheroes together, I'm fascinated by the idea.

But this ex Heroes is the thing that really motivated me to say this would be a fun thing to do to see the horror of heroes. I actually stole some of the characters from this for a game I ran, which I think Chris played in.

Speaker D

00:24:52.990 - 00:24:54.230

I did, yes.

Speaker C

00:24:54.230 - 00:25:22.180

Which was where the heroes get shunted in a time travel.

You know, basically one of those typical adventures where they time travel and they end up in the future in a post apocalypse from a Cthulhu and apocalypse where there's a bunch of Cthulhu and creatures basically Running the world. And they're the only. They're the superheroes that show up that maybe they can do something about it.

Because it's a fun thing to play with heroes and horror if you can find. Find a way to mash it up. But yeah, as far as media, it's. It's been thinned from what I saw. I don't know what you found, Chris.

Speaker D

00:25:22.340 - 00:25:37.380

I was going to say, you know, you, you mentioned it. The, the DC one is deceased, which is superhero. Yep, yep. They all. It's it. I think it was more a reaction to Marvel zombies being popular.

Like, oh, we gotta do that too.

Speaker C

00:25:37.700 - 00:25:39.940

Oh, D.C. being derivative of Marvel again.

Speaker D

00:25:40.340 - 00:26:22.670

I mean, they're, they're derivative of each other. That's the whole point of it. I am surprised DC actually does have a decent horror contingent.

Thinking Swamp Thing, I'm thinking Constantine and Hellblazer and all of that does deal with horror and zombies and superheroes mixing it up. So that's where I was going. As for books, I don't see or read many superhero type books.

Oh, and they did Werewolf by Night for your Marvel Media piece there, which has man thing in it and all sorts of other horrors going on there. Not specifically zombies, but definitely superheroes versus horror creatures in prestige TV black and white.

Speaker C

00:26:23.550 - 00:26:35.710

Yeah, I was gonna say I think the sub genre has opportunity because I don't think it's been delved into tremendously. I'm not sure why, but you know, maybe just people haven't taken to it.

Speaker E

00:26:36.120 - 00:26:49.080

Chris's comment sort of made me think like I was searching on superhero and zombie apocalypse particularly. But yeah, your, your observation, Chris, that if you broaden that to just superhero and horror mashup, there's a whole bunch more options out there.

Speaker D

00:26:49.240 - 00:27:09.350

Dc, DC Dark, DC Dark, Justice League Dark.

I mean, they did, if you go through, you know, honestly, the post apocalyptic superhero shows, DC did the Justice League Dark movies, which are cartoons and such, but pretty dark. Not the best in my opinion, but definitely superheroes and horror.

Speaker B

00:27:09.590 - 00:28:25.290

I think part of the problem is that superheroes are so much about the individual and the zombie is so much about the not individual or the taking away of individuality, which you would think would make for a great duality. But I agree there isn't a lot out there that definitively hits this. In fact, all of my stuff is just hinting around this material.

I think this book feels the most like World War Z by Max Brooks, which does not have superheroes in it, but has that siege mentality zombie piece going on. And there's a whole thing about in World War Z where they're defending castles and there are swords.

So I think it has a little bit of that feeling of holing up in a place and defending yourself. So in that regard, World War Z, I think, is the same feeling.

I was provided with a horror superhero mashup from my critical chat at Rising Phoenix Game Con this past April, in April 2025, just to plug Dave's con and the con that I was at. So when I was speaking to Dan Collins, he actually has his own podcast, the Wandering DMs podcast.

Speaker C

00:28:25.290 - 00:28:25.970

Oh, it's great.

Speaker B

00:28:26.480 - 00:30:35.430

Yeah, he's a great guy. He talked a lot about the Immortal Hulk series.

It's a series of comics where if Banner is killed, he dies, but then the Hulk rises from his dead body and when he dies, gamma gamma stuff is released and people get sucked into the Hulk body and get pulled out. Wow.

I have not read this series, so I may be I'm speaking so secondhand, but the Immortal Hulk series seems like it's not about zombies, but it's got the horror and the superhero. So if people were interested, that'd be a great place to go.

Last, but certainly not least because I do read quite a few superhero books, but I will mention because one, it does involve some creepy horror, but only in part of the book Velveteen vs. The Junior Super Patriots by Seanan McGuire.

For those of you who are familiar with Seanan McGuire, she also writes under Meera Grant where she does zombies and horror. So it makes sense that her superhero might have a tiny bit of that horror tinge. And her main character in that is Velveteen.

She is a superhero who can animate anything with a face. So as a teen superhero, she animates dolls and hence the name Velveteen, Velveteen Rabbit.

But the darker aspects of this are explored at a later time in the series where they visit an alternate universe where she is not Velveteen but roadkill, and you can imagine what that means for her superpowers and what kind of turn that's taken. So those are the closest ones. That's the one I've read for sure. That definitely has horror and superheroes.

Immortal Hulk, which I haven't read, but I think is more closely match to our superhero horror theme, but no zombies. And then World War Z by Max Brooks, I think, has the same feel of the caught in the mount in the space with zombies feeling, but no superheroes.

Speaker E

00:30:35.910 - 00:30:59.510

Your comment about World War Z having that sort of like defending against the siege of undead put me in mind of a totally different movie where it inverts that trope where the PCs, admittedly no superheroes, kind of have to sneak into the fortress of the undead to get what they're after. And that's army of the dead from like 2021. Dave Bautista and so on. Mixed reviews, but I enjoyed it when I watched it.

Speaker B

00:30:59.590 - 00:31:06.470

Oh, no. Not a great piece of film literature, as it were, but. But a really darn fun film. Absolutely.

Speaker C

00:31:06.550 - 00:32:08.390

Yeah.

Now, if I can pivot off of something you said, Eric, you talked about the juxtaposition of superheroes versus the zombie survival apocalypse as being individuality versus versus a group thing.

One of the things that's always inspired me about the post apocalypse, particularly zombies, is, of course, the theme that gets plumbed a lot is that individual choices make a big difference. Often the villains are the survivors who are making a terrible choice.

Like, no, we gotta go and get into that truck and go out of the mall and go someplace else. And they have a conflict between one individual and another individual. And that's almost like some villains disagreeing on something.

That individual conflict in a zombie horror has always been something entertaining. Certainly George Romero was a big one for that. He was kind of the one that kind of dug that up and made that popularized.

But I always enjoy that when I see it. As opposed to a big mass of faceless survivors facing a big mass of nameless zombies.

Speaker B

00:32:08.470 - 00:32:22.710

That brings us to the end here, where we get to plug stuff.

So, oh, my goodness, at this moment, which we're recording this in May, Dave is not currently plugging his con because I don't think it has a date yet. But.

Speaker C

00:32:22.790 - 00:32:28.150

No, no, it does. And I can plug it because I'm the one that makes the reservation at the hotel.

Speaker B

00:32:28.310 - 00:32:30.070

I am proven wrong. Go ahead.

Speaker C

00:32:30.310 - 00:32:46.610

Yes. Rising Phoenix.

Our fifth year going to be our grand fifth year is going to be on the 23rd to the 26th of April, April 2026, at the same hotel, the Hilton Hotel in Milford, Massachusetts. I encourage everybody to come.

Speaker E

00:32:47.330 - 00:32:49.290

I am putting it in my calendar now.

Speaker C

00:32:49.290 - 00:32:51.250

Thank you, Roger. Love to see you there.

Speaker D

00:32:51.650 - 00:32:55.810

I was going to say thank you for once again scheduling it on my birthday. So I have something to do then.

Speaker B

00:32:55.810 - 00:32:56.370

Thank you.

Speaker C

00:32:56.530 - 00:32:59.890

We always have long debate about that, Chris, and always land on your birthday.

Speaker D

00:33:00.050 - 00:33:02.210

I appreciate it, Roger.

Speaker B

00:33:02.370 - 00:33:04.130

Anything that you're plugging these days?

Speaker E

00:33:05.180 - 00:33:29.820

Not a lot. I'm still working on revising my first novel, which is neither a zombie apocalypse nor a superhero novel, but instead an epic fantasy novel.

But if folks want to drop by my website@RogerAlexGodrow.com you can check out what I'm working on, where I'll be various writing related events coming up this year and that site will get more active and there'll be more content as I write more stuff.

Speaker D

00:33:30.060 - 00:33:44.020

And Chris, I have nothing to plug for myself but in novel news I can plug my wife's novel which hopefully will be picked up soon. It's called the Plague Ship. It is a sci fi adventure or Sci Fi horror.

Speaker C

00:33:44.020 - 00:33:45.100

Sci Fi horror. Wow.

Speaker D

00:33:45.100 - 00:33:51.260

Cool. Yes, we're hoping for the right agent. That's what we're looking for right now. So any agents who really want a.

Speaker B

00:33:51.260 - 00:33:57.140

Really good book and you're listening to this podcast because we all know only the best agents.

Speaker D

00:33:57.140 - 00:33:59.100

Yes, exactly.

Speaker C

00:33:59.100 - 00:34:03.310

Agent Smith, we're looking for you. Oh wait, that's not the agent you want?

Speaker D

00:34:03.310 - 00:34:08.430

No, no. I mean if you can get a contract, you know, we'll even go with that.

Speaker E

00:34:09.630 - 00:34:12.510

I mean that is a science fiction horror story.

Speaker A

00:34:13.150 - 00:35:14.480

And that's our discussion of Peter Klein's X Heroes, the first book in the five part X Heroes series. You can find a complete transcript of today's discussion as well as links to all of our podcasts@k-square productions.com backslash square.

You can learn about upcoming episodes on our social media, on bluesky, at gmbookclub, bluesky social, on Facebook, @gamemastersbookclub and on Instagram gamemastersbookclub. You've been listening to the Game Masters Book Club brought to you by me, Eric Jackson and K Square Productions.

Thanks again to our super game masters, Chris Grannis, David Clarkson and Roger Alex Goudreau.

Be sure to check out our next episode when Roger returns with Colleen Noctrib and meets with author Melissa Caruso to discuss her book the Last Hour Between Worlds. Continued praise and thanks to John Corbett for the podcast artwork and Otis Galloway for our music.

Later, gamers and to paraphrase the great Terry Pratchett, always try to be the place where the falling angel meets the rising.

Speaker B

00:35:18.010 - 00:35:27.170

Sam.