#333: Josué and the crew talk about examples of fusion in media, including combined identity, shared goals, and power imbalances.

Marc Cuiriz 0:11
Welcome to GT radio on the Geek Therapy network. Here at Geek Therapy we believe that the best way to understand each other and ourselves is through the media we care about. My name is Marc Cuiriz and I am joined by Josué Cardona.

Josué Cardona 0:24
Hello,

Marc Cuiriz 0:25
Link Keller,

Link Keller 0:26
what’s up?

Marc Cuiriz 0:31
And Lara Taylor.

Lara Taylor 0:33
Hi.

Marc Cuiriz 0:37
That was very anticlimactic right there.

Lara Taylor 0:40
Yeah.

Marc Cuiriz 0:42
I mean, it’s kind of hard to beat Link’s energy honestly.

Lara Taylor 0:44
It really is. That’s why I didn’t try.

Marc Cuiriz 0:49
All right, Josué, I believe it is your turn this week. So what is

Josué Cardona 0:52
it is my turn. So I was reading comic books, because I do that sometimes. And yeah, I may have mentioned once or twice that I, I am a fan of Mark Waid. And when I found out he was writing, the Batman Superman series, or world’s finest, there’s many different iterations of this. It comes and goes as a series. It’s been, I really, really like it. There’s something about a Superman and Batman. Seeing their inner thoughts about each other is always really funny, if they’ve got a hell of a bromance. And and it just, I don’t know, the only only those books tend to really go deep into that. And so I saw a Tiktok, where they showed something that happened, and I could not believe it. So I watched, I watched, so I read the comic book. And there is a moment where Batman and Superman in the middle of a battle. Thanks to magic. They fuse into one being. That’s the that’s the reason why I wanted to see this and it looks badass. I don’t know, I like the look of it. Like, the moment they make a statue of that or an extra for your whatever. Like I’m, I’m I feel I feel it in my pocket. And I’m I love that fusion stuff. I think that that was such a cool part of Steven Universe. I love it in, in Dragon Ball, of course. And it’s one of those things that the the way it comes up in in these shows and is also the point in, in, in this comic book is that to like the sum, the sum is greater than the like, this new thing is more powerful than the sum of its parts, right? So it’s like, oh, we can’t we’re both fighting. And we’re both doing this, but we can’t do it as individuals. What if we come together and we become this new thing, and it’s always like an exponential level up. Also, Voltron Power Rangers like anything, I think those count too. one of my one of my favorite things from like, the original Power Ranger series was like, of course, you had like the main, the main Megazords. And they would the main swords, right. And they would form and make this Megazord. And then later on, like, they introduce the Green Ranger, and he’s got this dragon. And once he turns good, it’s like, aw naw, he also adds to the to the thing, like they would bring in more people and it was like, more fusing just more stuff. And I love how Steven Universe did that too. It was like, we can

Lara Taylor 1:06
we can all fuse!

Josué Cardona 1:54
do it too. Yeah, why make why just two, fuse with anybody. And they have different names and personalities. And anyway, I’ve always loved the this example and even just the thought exercise of, of two things fusing together of two people, right like and think about how if you could fuse with someone else for you know, what would that be? What would we be called? What would it you know, what greater abilities would you have? I almost I wanted to propose and we can still do it after if we want. One of my favorite episodes that we’ve done was the spidersonas one where we each drew our spider says it’s I was going to invite everybody here to design a fusion of themselves with anyone or anything else. Link you drew a fusion of a cat and an ant earlier in the in the pre show?

Link Keller 4:44
You should specify that it’s Garfield i think it’s important for our listeners to know it’s Garfield

Josué Cardona 4:53
was a specific cat and nonspecific ant

Link Keller 4:55
Garfant.

Josué Cardona 4:55
Garfant. You did your homework Yeah, so again, I think there’s, there’s there’s something really cool about this idea in media of this, like, joining together of powers, but just not not just like, Oh, it’s a team. It’s like no, what if we, what if we could fuse and come together and become this new thing? And I love that stuff. And and I don’t know that having like Superman and Batman do it was it felt novel even though it’s something I’ve been seeing, you know, in other stuff for years. There you go Western media catching up with with anime and manga. So, so yeah. So how do you feel about fusion? And what are your favorite fusions? I’m very, very curious. Do you know what fusion is? Marc?

Marc Cuiriz 5:46
I, I may have I might have a couple of of ideas of what fusion is. I

Josué Cardona 5:54
here on Geek Therapy’s official Dragon Ball podcast.

Marc Cuiriz 5:57
Yeah, that we’re, you know, Geek Therapy is official Steven Universe podcast. So I might I might have dabbled a little bit in the idea of fusion here. So for me, I have a whole wide like a lot of the fusion stuff that kind of comes to mind is obviously Steven Universe. But as I mentioned last week, been really on this whole Dragon, Dragonball Z train. So it’s all like right there. I actually think one of my favorite fusions in Dragonball Z at least and this is a, this is an answer that I’m sure nobody’s really expecting. But it’s actually Piccolo. Because here’s the idea with Piccolo, like you have kind of like in Dragonball Z, you have Kami. And then you have Piccolo. And at some points, like, like before, like Dragon Ball even began, they split apart, or the original Namic had split themselves in two because there was this more corrupted more evil half and then there was the good half, the good half became Kami and the other half became the original King Piccolo, and then Goku then defeats King Piccolo and Dragon Ball. But then he like splits. Yeah, split, split, splits on an egg that becomes the piccolo that we see throughout the whole show. And then during the Android slash Cell Saga, they come together and realize that if they were to rejoin and become whole again, then they would have this exponential power that, you know, in as I’ve as I’m rewatching they even said like, nail as he was dying. And before he fused with Piccolo said, if you guys were whole, you would be able to take on Frieza no problem. So that like says a lot about how this is like more of a reconciliation between

Josué Cardona 8:01
Yeah,

Marc Cuiriz 8:02
the like, there’s the darker side of of who we are as people and the sides that we, you know, maybe present or the good attributes of ourselves. And they learn to coexist, and they come together to make you whole again, and then once you are at peace with those things, you have this giant power up this giant power boost. And that’s why I think piccolo or the Namic that has long since forgotten his name is probably one of my favorite fusions of Dragonball

Josué Cardona 8:37
I love I love the fact that you use the word reconciliation. And and basically you’re describing things like Carl Jung’s integration of the shadow. That’s a great way to kick off a conversation.

Marc Cuiriz 8:52
I surprise people sometimes.

Josué Cardona 8:54
That is a good ye...