What connects indie comic book movie adaptations from the ‘90s and early ‘00s? Why they’re all about demons, of course! Today, Chance and Noah dissect the gross, weird, often incoherent tendencies of 1994’s “The Shadow,” 1997’s “Spawn” and 2004’s “Hellboy” in a round-up of the lesser-known Hollywood superheroes. Joining the guys to add superhero context is novelist Adam Nemett, whose debut WE CAN SAVE US ALL chronicles a group of Ivy League undergrads who form their own sort of Justice League to stop the threat of global warming. The three discuss Alec Baldwin’s prosthetic nose and how a dagger is the real villain of “The Shadow,” the sick campiness of John Leguizamo in a fat suit, and Guillermo del Toro failing to pick between sand Nazis and Rasputin for Hellboy’s Big Bad. Look at the size of that whammer!

Check out (and then buy) Adam’s wonderful novel here.

BE REEL is brought to you by the MFA in Writing Program at California College of the Arts in San Francisco. Their two-year program has launched Molly Prentiss, Adam Nemett, and Julie Lythcott-Haims. Write with them! Learn more about CCA’s den of poets, raconteurs, playwrights and novelists at cca.edu/writingmfa.