The Ringer-Verse - James Gunn vs. Matt Reeves, Plus Superman Mailbag | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: June 18, 2025

The boys are back to answer your call-in questions for all things coming up in the summer of content! They discuss James Gunn, Superman, the new Batman, and much more! They also answer questions like "Is Marvel hiding 'Ironheart'?" and "What are your favorite movies, games, and comics?" Intro (0:00) Spoilers Ahead (11:02) Nerd News (11:35) Mail Bag (24:06) Outro (2:00:13) Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Producers: Aleya Zenieris and Steve Ahlman Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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This is course the Ringer's next podcast for all things, fandom. We are... What the hell is that sound? He's old... It's an old, nigga. I'm stretching, nigga. Damn. Knees clicking like their glow sticks. You got to stretch in the morning.

I don't stretch after workouts. You got to stretch after workouts. We are Steve, the architect, Almond, the builder, and tigger of things. We are, Jeremy the explainer aditor on. You've got questions. He's got answers. We are, Oman, Van.

He of the receding research and hairline. We are. Cook Baby Chuck, 24-carried clothes. Together, we are known as. Midnight, boys. Follows on socials, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, Jimmy. Guys, I just want to thank

everybody who's out there liking, following, and most especially commenting on all our stuff. It's crazy. People are really engaging with our content, and it's only going to be more with this summer, right? Starting next week, fellas.

We're on a hot street. Ironheart, Jurassic World, Superman, Fantastic Four. We're here. This is it. You guys don't seem as excited as I am. I'm excited. You guys.

It's a big summer. Look, it's a big summer. It's a high-levered summer. But I think I'm like the rest of the people and the industry where there's excitement. There's a little fear. There's a little nerd. There's a little nerves in the city. The vibes in the city are crazy.

There's some nerves. There's little nerves that they need these movies to come through and hit. And after the Recession of Thunderbol, some people are wondering what's going to happen. So I'm very excited, but this is a big summer for Hollywood. It is. I mean, wear your chips because I think I'm putting my chips on Superman, just in terms of success, Superman might do more than Fantastic Four.

Oh, it is definitely going to do more. Probably. The tracking is out of the world, out of this world for Superman. I think Superman has, well, the character's much bigger. But at the same time, much bigger, bigger, much bigger, much bigger, much bigger. It's the biggest comic book character ever. I also think that Superman has the one thing going forward that Fantastic Four doesn't is Superman has not only the interest in the character,

but the divisiveness that's needed to fuel something on social media. The Fantastic Four has a lot of intrigue. Maybe more intrigue than Superman. It's a new iteration of the team, the story, like how they're going to do it, Franklin Richards, all of that. So people are wondering what's going to happen. You know what I mean? How it's going to happen?

But for Superman, it has that Floyd Mayweather love, hate thing going on, where there are some people that are going and hoping that the movie is tremendously successful. And then there are other people that are going to be able to have something to make fun of. Yeah. But it's also, it's pitching the audience on something new where Fantastic Four is pitching them on a return to four, which I'm like, it's always going to be easier to pitch somebody like, this is hot new shit. Like get on whether you hate it or love it versus we're trying to course correct. Interesting.

I feel that. I'd be interesting to know what you guys think. We're going to get into the show, which is kind of litigating all of this stuff. I think those things are kind of a little maybe the same. Yeah. I mean, well, no, in terms of Marvel, it is a course correction for Fantastic Four. You're definitely right about that. But don't you think the movies almost have to do the same thing, which is take these characters

and say, oh, the past iterations of them sucked, we're reinventing them and giving them to new people, and you're going to love what we do. If you liked, we're going to love our Superman. You're going to love our Fantastic Four. What are your thoughts there? I mean, I think James Gunn is, like, almost opening up a new restaurant

where it's just like, this is actually, to me, the first official thing. I know we've had other, where we're like, this is where we're going, which is, like, to me, the intrigue is super, just like, I'm, like, interested whether, like, it soars or flops. Whereas Fantastic Ford doesn't feel like a new restaurant.

It almost feels like, all right, under new management, we're reopening business. Like, we fixed all the recipes. We know we were skimping on the ingredients. Are you saying Kutja Commandos was a soft opening? It was a soft open. Peacemaker, too? Peacemaker, soft open. But this is the real, like, Carby opened a shop.

The reviews are coming. Interesting. Got Coca-Cola braised beef. If you're watching this right now, which you should be, we're on YouTube. Like, comment, subscribe, You can watch every Midnight Boys and House of our episode on YouTube.com backslash at Ringiverse and also on Spotify. Programming reminders, tomorrow the House of War will be giving you the top 10 speeches

of the century so far. Interesting. Speeches. Yeah. Speeches. Speeches of the century. So Luton wins, right? Yeah. I mean, he's there. He's got to be. Is Obama?

Wait, I mean, so these are speeches in Vietnam. Election night, Obama? You know? Yeah. We are the people we've been waiting for. all the ones we've been waiting for, that was a fucking speech. I mean, like, God damn,

the niggas. What's been the best or worst award show speech? Adrian Brody last year. That's the first thing I thought. I got to be up there. That was pretty bad. Yeah. In terms of fandom speech is obviously,

I think Luthens is probably number one. But like, I'm trying to think, do you give like Thanos at the beginning of Infinity War? Yeah. That's a pretty good speech, but you also have the one

at the end of end game where he's like, couldn't live with your failure. Couldn't live with your failure. Where did that bring you back to me? Like, Bain is number one to me. Bain.

Bain. I don't know if does Joker have a speech? I mean, I'm sure they're a speech. No, no, no. The Scars one where he walked into the story. Joker's more like a lines guy. But the Bain speech was transformative

because you just felt so bad for bad news. It sucked out there. I'm like, I'm watching my fucking guy get fucked over. I was like watching Kobe shoot the free throw. with the one Achilles. Yeah. You're like, my niggas is cooked.

Victory has to feed him. And it was worse, too, because not in Hathaway watching my man get the shit slapped out of him. I was like not in front of them. That's how you know she's a true freak though. All right. Because she was into that. That's when she was a little.

After that, she was in, after that, she didn't have to watch that? She didn't have to watch that? She got the whips in the cross. She got the whips. Hold on. First of all. let's not they she's a it's a very sexualized character I think she got turned on watching Batman get the shit kicked out of him

because she's sitting there and she didn't have to look at it she watched the whole thing like oh daddy and so she's watching the whole thing and then they get together after that as a matter of fact when they when you see when Alfred sees them and they're hanging out it's a little cuck situation he's like looking at them like yeah she's probably like I see

she probably dresses up like Bain breaks his back. I know, somebody's getting their back, though. You know, braces back the whole nine. She liked that shit. She was looking, why did she stay there and watch the whole shit? Because it's the money to say. Because he's like, oh, snap, that's Bruce Wayne.

He's been Batman this whole time. Oh my God. Bade is putting the beats on this guy. Oh, my God. After the first couple of shots, you know how it's going to go. We had to watch. We paid. Right?

We paid. So we had to watch. She didn't have to stand there. Number one, she could have got. But if in the real world, But your girl's not staying after that. Like, if I get my ass handed to me by Bain and my, like, girl watching it, she's not like, oh, I'm turned on.

She's like, damn. Didn't she have to stay because they promised her something? They already given it to her. They didn't give her the clean slate. They, she did that so she led Batman to the thing so she could get that. She led Batman to the thing so she could get it. Is she going to stay there? What I'm saying is, she might have to been in the area,

but she didn't have to stay there and watch the fight. She got to turn around? Look, my thing is this. I think she liked it. and when she looked at him when the thing closed she can't give him a little look like what you got can you beat this motherfucker

and the answer is no so Bain Luthin a couple other people who else Trying to think Green Goblin I know he might be a Lions guy too though I don't know if there's a memorable green Goblins

It's not as many species as you think There's 8 million people in the city It's not as many pieces as you think I'm interested to see this show This is going to be a good show Yeah It's not as many speeches as you think because a lot of these, I feel like Captain America has one somewhere.

I don't think Captain America has a ex-Gusy. He's got good bars. He's got good bars. I mean, he's got the, I mean. It's too quippy. Everybody's real quip. Oh, you know when Kilmonger wasn't saying shit? Oh, right. Oh, yeah.

In the museum. I feel like Cap has the one at the end of Winter Soldier when he's talking to all of Shields. I think that's a pretty solid one. I will say this. Oh, that is a good one. That's a great one right there. I know Mal and Joe, you're listening. You're watching your big fans.

if Optimus Prime is not on your list. You got to come see me. We are looking to the star. We are looking. Come on. You can pick anything at the end of Transformers 1. Transformers 2. When he looks at Megatron in the eyes,

and Megatron's like, what would you do without me, Prime? He's like, time to find out. Come on. Who writes Optimus Prime speeches? Michael Bay. Yeah. You are being like, is it Bumblebee or some shit? I think he's in the lab, right?

Because I think he's, he also has, like, the thing about Optimus Prime, he's got like undiagnosed anger issues like he has problems right and the only way he can do that is by fighting and the only way he can keep himself calm when he's not fighting is he just right and just dialogue and like you know

just like oh yeah this is this is just going to fire in a fight or something like that so that's how he'd be handling this I wish one of the audubons be like shut the fuck up and and in the middle of the optimist problem was out there fight seven deceptic cons by himself and being they asked that's the boy you want the best with? I don't know.

Optimus Prime. Just don't get fucked over and be out of the movie for like 45 minutes to an hour. Okay, but I know exactly what you're talking about. He gets fucked up and then all the Autobots get fucking, fucking just trash. Because he's, it's literally 07 Brown out there.

Every single movie. He's handling, he's trying to do with the whole thing by himself. You can't, you find eight decepticons by yourself. And you, you are being their ass, but at some point one's going to come behind you and stab you in the back. The Autobots literally. have one other good thing.

That's it. And that's it. Did they ever put hot rod in these movies? I don't think so. I don't think so. I don't think so. No, because, wait, actually, they have three. Jazz.

Jazz got a whipped in half at the, the beginning of the fight team. I'm talking historically jazz got busy. Not in the fucking Michael Bay movies. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. They suck. On today's show, we have some nerd news and our first mailback

in a very long time. even in the intro to this podcast, there are a lot of questions that we were asking and answering. I feel like the fandom, the mob, the riders, have a lot of questions that they want to ask us.

Jomi has collated these questions. Put them together. Mailback form, voicemail form. And now we will be answering these questions. You guys run your podcast. How are we going to do this, Chuck?

Start with nerd news. Nerd news. Well, I think this kind of dives into a lot of the questions we got surrounding Superman. James Gundy did an interview with Rolling Stone conducted by one of my former colleagues, Brian Hyatt, talks about the status of Superman,

DCU. He says some spicy things about what? He called Matt Reeves slow. Okay, he didn't call him slow. Well, he did. His process is slow. What he was probably saying is that Matt Reeves

works slow. He writes slow. His process is slow. What he said was verbatim. Matt is slow. which is insane. They definitely got a low smoke. Fellas, people are like, man, this movie, can't wait for it to come out five years after it released.

Man, I don't see it, man. I got to be honest with you. I don't see it. The movie made $773,000, like, $773 million, right? It's one of the most popular comic movies that's come out in, like, the last, like, five years. That shit almost made a billion. It almost made a billion.

Like, it's literally one of the most popular things we've seen a minute. You fast-track that sequel. That sequel gets made within two to three years max. And I'm like, ah, it might come out in five years. It might not. Who cares? Who knows? I don't really see.

And they're different. And that's not even talk about, like, the Batman of the, like, James Gunn's DCU trying to set that up. I don't really see where they're like, yeah, we'll just have two bad men coexisting in the same world while this one is doing his thing and this one's doing other thing. I mean, because James Gunner says he doesn't want to do. a campy, more fun Batman. He's working with a writer to get that movie on track, not the Batman,

right, DCU Batman. Right. Also working on Wonder Woman. And then he was also honest that he thought that Marvel kind of shot themselves in the foot, or at least the top brass of Disney by forcing them to flood the zone with so much Disney Plus content. So my question for you then,

before we get into the Midnight Mailbag, is this what you want to see from James Gunn? Because it seems like he's kind of puffing out his chest he is turning into the Fige more and more of D.C. in terms of like he's almost to me more front-facing than Figey is. He's at a lot of these interviews. He's promoting the movie. Too much dip on his chip, or is this exactly what you want to see

from the architect of D.C. before his movie comes out? Well, there are two things. One, he is the only known quantity that exists in the D.C.U. right now. Yeah. So beyond Creature Commandos, there's no product to look at. I mean, you have his past movies. You have a peacemaker.

But as far as going into the promotion of the film, you have a crop of new stars and you have James Gunn. So right now, if I were doing an interview to promote Superman, if they were to give me anyone that I wanted, any person that I wanted for here on the Midnight Boys, I wouldn't choose corn sweat, wouldn't choose Braznan, I would choose James Gunn

because he's the most important part of that film right now. So the reason why what he's saying feels like it's more important is because it is more important. Like if this were a situation where, shit, I don't know,

Brad Pitt was playing Superman, you'd want to talk to Brad Pitt. Obviously, that would be a terrible Superman. But if you wouldn't want to talk to Brad Pitt. But that's not what's happening. And typically with Superman, you're never going to get somebody that's able to outshine the character anyway.

So so much of the curiosity around it is going to be in how we're going to make this guy fly, how we're going to make this guy fight, how we're going to bring this character back to the center of American culture and consciousness. So you're going to have all that stuff. Secondly, he's doing something in these interviews, in my opinion, which is creating value for his process.

The Marvel process, despite what any of the, has said recently was very successful. Yeah. And it all came from one guy. And because of Disney Plus, we saw the limit of that process. We saw the limit of having everything come out of Fagie's brain. So when he's saying, look, we're trying to realign how we make these movies from this model where we don't need finished scripts. because somebody has a finished vision in their head,

and they can articulate that vision to a bunch of different people, a bunch of different productions simultaneously, and all get them to the same place. He's saying that's no longer tenable. Can't do it like that. He's also saying that's not how we're going to do it. So if you are talent, if you are audience, if you are a cultural critic,

don't expect us to go start a movie with no script. So if you're wondering why we don't have the Batman ready, it's because we're not going to start shooting for a month or six weeks when we don't have a finished script. And our writer doesn't write microwaved screenplays. He's anuteur. So the way that he does that is to have a full screenplay, a full vision, and then write it.

Those types of guys haven't really worked in comic book fair before in the big universes. Nolan maybe. He was able to get us, what, three Batman movies, three years apart, each movie? Yeah, relative. I think there was like, yeah, two years. It was 2005, 2008, and 2012. 2005, 2008, 2012.

Okay, and between eight and 12, he was able to give you a, what, an inception. So, come on. But I think what's interesting to me is James Gunn is almost breaking from the foggy mold, where to me, and correct me if I'm wrong, for years, to this day,

to me, foggy is very, like, removed. He's not online. He's not on Twitter or spaces. He's not answering fan questions. He's not really talking about the state of the superhero movie and scripts and process. And for me, I like that James Gunn is kind of being like, hey, yo, no, I'm going to be honest. If somebody asked me a question about like the state of superhero movies or the product being stepped on, I'm not going to, like, it's part of my job to kind of like talk about this. He's almost an ambassador where it's like, five,y from a position of strength for so many years. He told the company line.

Even when they release a bad movie, you never really heard Figey talking about it that much. It was always kind of like, I'm going to be out here, I'm going to show you the slate, what we're working on. And it seems James Gunn is, and I could see the benefits of that. And long term, I could be like,

damn, this works for you the new person. The first time we get two or three bad movies in a row, do you want to be, can you be that honest with the audience? Well, none of that stuff was necessary. for Kevin Feigke. Yeah. Number one, he was creating proof of concept

for the existence of a Kevin Feig. There had never been a Kevin Feigy before Kevin Feigy. So there was no other way to do it. What he did was he spoke about the films always in anticipation and insight. Hey guys, you're going to be so

super fucking stoked to see the inhumans. No matter what it was, he spoke with anticipation, and excitement. And the movies were good for the most part. But there were some bad ones, but it didn't even matter. Through the Dark World, bad.

It doesn't matter. Boom, Avengers Age of Ultron is coming out. Like all of these different films or whatever followed the Dark World. We have these big, huge things that are coming up. And even when they show you, oh, my God, we're doing Civil War. Oh, my God, we're doing the Infinity War. like Thanos, he was able to sell excitement, and he didn't really have to litigate in any real way

the state of the superhero movie or blockbuster culture. Those are not even questions he was asked. James Gunn is going to get asked all those questions because he's living in a post-Fygie, post-Marvel golden era space. So the questions that he's going to have to ask is not how excited people are for Superman, But why are you even making this movie? People don't even want this shit anymore. Like, how are you going to make this different

than the types of films that we've gotten over the past two, three, four years? He has to regain trust when Fagie wasn't having to regain anything to your point. He's building something, the foundation of it. So all those years, it was just like, oh, yeah, Fagie could just, like, walk out at Comic Con and be like, this is what we're doing at all, like, yeah. And now even with, like, James Gunn, I'm like, they're slowly taking shit off the,

like the plate. Like there's like slow, like there's certain movies where it's like, this is getting pushed. They killed a project. He announced in the thing that they killed a project.

Which one do you think they killed? So I'm looking at the list right now. Obviously Wonder Woman and Brave and the Bull are probably safe. But you have Bannon Deathstroke, Sergeant Rock, the authority. It's almost certainly the authority.

Probably the authority. Like, I think, I think it could be Sergeant Rock. It's not Green Lanterns, obviously. It could be Sergeant Rock, because they do have a

character from the authority in Superman. That's fair. So that one might be going, but I almost certainly thought it was the authority. I think it's probably the coolest. That would be the coolest

fucking movie if they made it. That would be the coolest movie if they made it. It would be such a fucking awesome movie if they made it. They're such cool characters. Wait, so the authority and then we got to get to questions.

You know what I would scare me about the authority though? If I'm at D.C. and I look at Thunderbolts, which is a movie that I'm just like, we all enjoyed, and I think it's like a good Marvel movie. I'm like,

damn, they could barely sell that. And they named that shit the New Avengers. Are people really going to be like, damn, the authorities, especially in a post boys world, they probably really worry. Well, the only thing, look, I can't tell you about

whether or not people would go see the movie. I can tell you that the fact that the characters are so cool and they're so, you know, off-kilter that the movie would be cool. Thunderbolts was a cool movie. People don't want them to go see the movies anymore. They don't have to. You know what was interesting now? When I was looking at the lowest grossing Marvel movies ever, you know what movie is up there? The first Captain America. Yeah. Oh yeah. And so, I mean,

obviously if you ingest for inflation is probably more successful than the Thunderbolts was or the New Avengers or whatever the fuck the name of the movie is. But the fact that the fact that that movie was not a huge success. Didn't even matter at that time. No. Because the movie was important for the formation of the character. So there is a part of this.

I'm not in any way taken away from the struggles that Marvel has had recently. Not at all. But there is a part of this that's oriented around expectation. Because if you go back and you look at them, they did have some bumps. They did have some misses. And humans was a disaster. We don't give the heroes enough time to become heroes anymore.

Like, we don't, we're never, I don't think there's ever going to be another character like Chris Evans, who we get to in real time find Captain America. Like, watch him growing to it. Like, watch him, like, even, like, I don't even think he has a full grasp on it in the first Avengers. Like, he's good in it. You're just like, oh, I see it. And then finally you get to, like, Winter Soldier. and you're like, oh, like, he's, same thing with fucking Thor. How many fucking Thor movies did we see?

Do we feel like that we're never going to really get a full-throated, like, origin story for superhero films ever again? Not from characters that we really know. No. X-Men is, to me, not going to be an origin film. Like, they probably are just like, teen. Yeah, not from characters that we really know. If we really know the characters at this point, I don't think the audience has the stomach to watch, like, Batman's parents get killed again. I mean, Superman is what?

He's been Superman for three years. I think James Gunn said at this point. This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows winter is the MVP and making a mess. You don't need Weather Tech floor liners in the summer unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer.

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may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. 100 free events. 6,000 kids, one mission. Clinic Kids is using sports and evidence-based wellness coaching to help kids build confidence, resilience, and the tools they need for life's challenges and opportunities. Up through August 2026, they're running 100 free sessions for school

and community-based organizations near you. Learn more at clinickids.com slash 100KK. That's Clinic with a K. Clinic Kids is registered 501C3 nonprofit. But what's our first question from the mailbag? So we got a lot of questions from a lot of people. We were like, it was a big summer ahead of us.

What do you guys want to ask about the summer content? We got a whole bunch of Superman questions, a couple iron R questions, some Jurassic World questions, and then some like miscellaneous stuff. So we're already talking Superman. So let's dive into Superman. I think the G's got one.

Yeah, that's a good way to start there. All right, what's up, guys? I got a question, flash take. I don't know why in 2025, Superman is still highly regarded. Like, it just feels like he's from an era where, like, Americans wanted perfection in, like, that exceptionalist era where, like, people weren't had no flaws. Like, faster than a speeding bullet, stronger than a locomotive, jumping over buildings. You know what I mean?

Great looking, in shape, nice to women. Like, he checks off the boxes. we don't need that in 2025. What's your take? What do you think? Wait, nice to women, we don't need that. We definitely do that always. I get what he's saying, but honestly,

we loop it back to what we were saying about Captain America. I think people were saying the same exact thing about Captain America movie and that character at that time where it was just like, he runs around with a flag on his chest. He's called Captain America. He's this Boy Scout. who's going to give a fuck about him, he's outdated.

And I do think that, like, I actually don't think that that question, like, he's wrong in terms of just, like, the reason people have a lot of trouble with Superman and adapting him especially to film is, like, yes, he brings up a lot of things that are hokey and maybe we're past or we're just too jaded about. But I do think that there is something about the movies and comic books where I'm just like, you can still tell a compelling Superman story. You can still, like, yeah, it's a little hokey, but I'm like, all this shit is. Like, Captain America Winter Soldier is a perfect example of how you can take a character that we envisioned as a Boy Scout and that started with Ed Brubaker in the comics and Steve Epting and really be like, all right, what does this character mean to America now? We have to do that. They do that with James Bond in England.

Like, it's like, we always have this. So sometimes I do, I get what the question is saying, but I think James Gunn is smart enough to realize like, hey, do this every fucking couple decades. We have to figure out who Superman is in the 2020s. That was your favorite. That was your first superhero that you thought Yeah, I mean, you know, I was having a conversation

with somebody at CNN and they said to me brag about it. They said if Superman existed for real, he wouldn't be Superman, he would be homelander. And it's always interesting to me when people say that because the cynicism surrounding someone that has that much power sometimes is devoid from the context of the character.

So Homelander was raised in a lab and was tortured his entire childhood. His entire childhood he was tortured. He was tortured and taught that he was the most powerful being in the entire world and that everybody should be under his thumb. And he was never really loved or nurtured or cared for in any way. Therefore, human beings are meat sacks to him. and like not actual people. Superman is totally different.

The character matters. The character is somebody that was a godsend to his parents. The first miracle that happens is that a woman who cannot have children, after she's been trying to have children, is blessed with a baby from the stars. So she loves it and her husband love it like it is the blessing that it is for them. Superman, the first people that Superman say are the kents. And so then they notice, oh my God, the kid can fucking pick up a truck.

How do we do this? We love him more. We show him more that the entire world is an anthill. And he has to be gentle. He has to be patient. And every question that he has, we answer it for him. The question about Superman is not whether or not the character can exist like the character is anymore.

It's whether or not we do that anymore, whether or not we're patient, whether or not we're nuanced, whether or not we invest into people. Because there used to be a time where you could believe that. But now, every time somebody does something wrong, we say that's who they really are. Every time somebody has a take we don't like,

we cut their legs, their legs off. Everything is a fight. Everything is weird like homelanders. like we're the people that are trying to dominate and destroy and like hurt everything around us that we don't agree with or that we can't live with. So the reason why we can't see Superman as a character anymore is because we don't see it in ourselves.

Me personally, I know plenty of guys, plenty of people that I would be like, yo, if I could touch him with something and make him like or her this amazing all-powerful being that I would do it to. Like plenty of people, plenty of mentors and people that I have in my life that are already Superman.

So, you know, the cynicism that exists that surrounds Superman is not in the character anymore. It's not in we can't believe that a guy would exist, is that we don't really see it in ourselves. And maybe even when we saw it before, it wasn't true. But that's why Superman is in a lot.

idea. He's like a, he's, what if, like, there was something that was that powerful that all they wanted to be was a human being. I think the thing that, you know, with injustice and with the boys and with Armymen, yeah, like the whole thing is kind of diluted the waters a little bit. The thing that makes Calell, Clark, Superman special isn't the flight. It's not the laser eyes. It's not the super strength, it's his compassion and his kindness and his willingness to be there for people no matter what. Just a good dude.

Just a good dude. He's a guy from Kansas. That's what makes him him. And to your point, we've kind of lost that in society these days. So he kind of... Yeah, we're very... The better somebody is, the more we start asking what the fuck is wrong with that? What are you hiding?

Yeah. Well, can also, in terms of just like, as a movie going public, this is what I want to see more from movies where I'm like, Can we have the ability to go to a movie, especially a fictional one, and see Superman or see Luke Skywalker? And the first thing we do is not like the internet pill thing where it's just like, this isn't realistic. Where I'm like, I don't fucking watch a new hope or empire strikes back and be like, Luke is too great of a person. I'm just like, yeah, it's something to aspire to. It's a story where I'm like, we've got so many homelander and Omni Man and these type of like evil Superman, evil Batman stories.

where I'm like, sometimes I do think it's okay for us to just like sit down, see something to aspire to on the screen, and then not do the thing where it's like, well, that wouldn't happen in the real world. I'm like, that's not the fucking point. I'll tell you what's coming from the sky. People are flying. I'll tell you what's not realistic.

It's not realistic is that loop would learn that Han was dead. All right. So we got a new question. We talked about some little bit. Not even take one fucking scene. From Cameron. Nah, if you talk over me, whatever. Like, not even take one fucking scene of remembering Han.

or thinking about Han or why he's trying for Han or having one fucking scene where he cares that Han is dead. After legitimately putting the fate of the entire galaxy in peril and jeopardy to go save Han, so Han gets killed by his fucking son. It's a good movie!

That's not realistic to me. That's the only thing that I find unrealistic. You're part of the problem. man next one. The citizen of the internet. Can we talk about us a little bit, but Cameron's got a question about Superman. What's up, Midnight Boys?

This is Cameron, calling from Virginia. So Jay's gun came out today and said that Superman is going to be beatable. Are you concerned about that? Because obviously in the trailers, we've seen him absolutely getting worked. Or you like to open-minded idea that he's beatable and has to kind of maneuver

his way through it. Appreciate for all the coffee you guys give up. So he's asking about how we feel about Superman basically getting the ship beat out? He can get to, this Superman can get touched. Yeah. I'm cool with that. I mean, that's what

they had to do it, right? Sure. Like, it really the thing that his biggest weakness is his humanity, is his love for humanity, but that doesn't play anymore. So they're going to have to probably, I think I saw him using his heat vision and it makes his eyes rent.

Yeah. I like that shit. I kind of like stuff like that. Like if you're going to do a take on them, if you depower the character, a touch, I don't have a problem with you. Oh.

I also, and this is like, I don't know if we got any Snyder questions, but this is something where I'm like, we got almost a decade of these are gods, especially super people. Right.

That shit to me visually did not. And it's like, I liked Manist's deal. I like certain parts of Justice League. Like, parts of Batman and Superman. But there is something about like, and I don't know how I'm going to feel about the entire movie,

but I'm just like, yeah, let fucking Superman get touched a little bit. It's more entertaining to me. It gives, also I'm interested, because I feel like we've never gotten a Superman movie where there's room for him to grow. Where it's like we got it on Smallville, which is like why I really enjoyed the first couple seasons of Smallville. I'm like, oh, like, there's somewhere for the Superman to build to

where it's like I'm interested in a Justice League movie, where I'm like, by the time Superman gets to the Justice League, he could be Superman. You know, he's not fully fleshed out where it's like, part of my problem with the Justice League movies, I'm like, fucking Harry Cavill was like fucking beating all to Justice League. I'm like, why the fuck are they even here? Yeah.

It's the same cynicism with power that, like, the Snyderverse carried for Superman all those years. And now we have somebody who's maybe not as powerful as Cavill as Superman, but carries himself with the idealism that actually maybe Superman deserves. a bit more. I like Caval Superman a lot, and there are certain scenes that stick out. Like when Batman was using

the kryptonite mist on him, and Superman was vulnerable, he was punching. And then all of a sudden, and then Batman kind of backs away slowly. That was great. And then the saddest thing about the Snyderverse to me,

and we're going to talk more about the Snyderverse in the coming weeks, is right at the end they found a character to me. Yeah. At the end of Justice League, for some reason, I'm looking at him

and Cavill, while he was kind of mopey and whatever before, I enjoyed him as Superman, but at the end of Justice League, they found the character. They found how Superman looks at things. They found almost,

almost the version of Superman that was resurrected feels like an awesome kind of swaggy, swath, confident version of Superman that I kind of gotten into. But yeah. If we rewind, do you think it's better if we would have gotten Man o'Steel, Ben Affleck gets his own Batman movie,

we get Batman versus Superman, and then we get Justice Sleep? Do you think it was like almost too compressed where it's like to your point, by the time Henry Cavill find Superman is like, shit. Well, do you even put Wonder Woman in Batman versus Superman?

No, I think that was, they should have done. Right. I don't think they should have done Doomsday either. No, it was too much. That was a way too bloated movie. Yeah, that was going on. It's log on on.

So what's a Batman versus Superman? Do you just make that the Lex Luther? Do you just be like, he's a villain, throw with somebody else, maybe a death stroke, don't do the fucking, like, take out Wonder Woman.

So my hot take on that movie Is that not hot take My take on the movie is that The vision should have come from Snyder But the filmmaking should have come from someone else That if Snyder would have turned that over To shit, I don't know Like he should have been a fig-esque figure

Where it's like he's got the eye in the sky But I think another director and another I don't think he wrote Like I think he co-wrote But like I think another director Writer should have makes a better movie. But, and it's not a slight to him.

Zach had so much on his mind. When you look at what was happening with that movie or those run-of movies, he wanted to do the death of Superman. Flashpoint. He wanted to do the Dark Night Returns. He wanted to do injustice. He wanted to do so much

that I think he got a little bit bogged down in his own ambition. And that's why having a couple couple of other creatives that could maybe flush it out and go back and forth with him would have made the vision that he had maybe a little bit more achievable. Because look, I enjoyed those movies. I'm not a Snyder versus hater.

I'm not. You guys know that. I enjoyed those movies for the most part, particularly in their final form. But it was just too much. It was too much. And Superman got lost in it. Yeah.

Yeah. We got one from Chris. It's a long one, but I think it's worth it. Yo, Midnight Boys, this is Chris. I am a day one midnight writer, and I love you guys. When I think of Superman, I am reminded of a conversation that you guys had maybe three years ago. And son of Calais, older gay man in fandom, which can sometimes be a weird, 51. Here, you know, four straight guys to have a conversation like this, I'm like, oh, God,

All of you spoke beautifully and eloquently and were so supportive. And it was just so meaningful to me. I played it for friends and students. And it was just awesome. So I think it's just important for you to know as much as we all come to hang out with you and laugh with you. You know, new midnight court when this work that you do is so meaningful as well. I love Tyler Hecklin's. take on Clark and Superman.

So I know, even though it's a wildly different version, that's going to be in the back of my head, watching this new movie. But I'm just curious what everyone's sort of Superman baggage is that they bring into this. I really hope it's good. Love you all. I have some Superman baggage.

I don't know if it's baggage. The one thing that worries me about this movie is I feel like we never really, especially in the movies, we never really get into like the Superman War lore. It always feels like we go back to the same thing which is like Lex Luther, Kryptonite which is all like

the building blocks of it. But like when I was into comics and reading Superman I want Brainiac. I want like fucking like I want that weird stuff. I want the bottle city. You know what I'm saying? I want the different kryptonites and the different sons and like

I want like the fan like not like the like bitch made like Phantom Zone like the real once I'm saying. You know what I'm saying? And I feel like we never get like the wet because like even though I feel like Superman don't got the Rokes Gallery that Batman has, I feel like

toy mask. It's just ugh. Like sometimes I want them to do the actual weird, weird, weird shit. I feel like anybody's going to bring Toy Master in it's James Gunn. Yeah. Fancy. Here's the thing about like going full on nerd with Super

right? I feel like, I mean, we don't even do this now with a lot of these superheroes. But with Superman in particular, he's so different. He's like, again, like a beacon. He's supposed to be this like

person in the sky you can call to any time, whatever. We're not, we don't have time to mess around with like pink kryptonite, right? Come on, man. I mean, yeah, but like, we can't get the bottle city of candor? I mean, not that quickly.

We can't. Movie one. Yeah. we're just talking about, like, maybe this has too much and not enough suit. Brainiac? Brainiac. I can see Brainiac. I can see they made them the villain of Justice too.

We can see Brainiac in live action sooner rather than later. But for like mass audience type stuff, they always got to dump it down. There's a reason why the X-Men didn't come out in 2000 with the yellow suits on, right? They all had them in leather because that would look nuts. Now, we've kind of gone like a little closer to making things more comic book accurate, but there's still some stuff. I don't know if the folks are ready for that. The folks at home might not be there for that.

We can't get parasite. I think they're ready for anything. Really? I'm ready for my Red Lantern Corps. How about that? I think they're ready for anything. No. We are not putting the Red Lantern.

No. We're not doing Red Lantern. The Bottle City of, come on, man. I think the MCU proved that the fans are ready for anything. I hope so. They didn't know who Thanos was. Did you all see the, the fucking moleman shit from

Fantastic 4? Yeah, I mean, Gigantor is going to be in a fanter. The fans are ready for whatever you can make compelling. They've had to make some of these B&C list characters and B&C list villains

into big enough deals for them to like be in the movie. They're making a Clayface movie. They just cast play. I think the fans, the Super Euro still has been broken. And so you can do whatever now. You know, some of that stuff D.C. always takes it to the max

in terms of walkiness and sometimes cookiness. So I'm sure there's a line. I mean, we haven't seen the Lazarus pit in live action, have we? I mean, there was like the metaphorical Lazarus pit and rises. Well, we didn't see it in Batman begins,

but they painted at it. Yeah, it was like a metaphor because it was just a prison that was a pole on the ground. That's for me and you. That's for us. But once again, Bain. Bain made for a super cool. fucking villain. But it takes a cool filmmaker to go, my God,

there's more meat on the bone with that character. We can make that character into something amazing and have a take on it. You got to have a take on it. Like a take on Bane or Thanos or the rest of this. You have to be, oh my God, this is, you ever, when Michael Shannon,

because Michael Shannon's Zod was amazing. That was actually awesome. That was a great job. Michael Shannon, I knew that he would play a good Zod. And this is not to come at Terrence. Stamped Zod, who is one of my favorite movie characters of all time. Terence Stamp looks at, it was actually very subtle in the juxtaposition between Zod and Superman. Very subtle.

Superman's all human or whatever, and he's accepting all the frailty of the human beings. Zod looks at Lex Luthor, he goes, why do you say this to me? when you know that I will kill you that's great why you're like that's great Lex is giving his thoughts and saying this stuff like that

and Zod is like who what fuck are you talking to when Superman just lets you say whatever the fuck you want to say to him like Zaz you're a lower life form why are you speaking to me this way but Michael Shannon Zah was like they asked him about being a villain

and Michael Shannon goes no he's not a villain it's not villain at all he's not a villain he's not a villain he might be the villain of this story, but this guy is not a villain. And then you watch the movie and you go, shit, he's not a villain. He don't give a fuck about human beings. I will find him.

I won't find him. But he's not a villain. He has a point of view about the future and the present of Krypton. And that's what his duty is. Yeah. And Jorrell looks at things differently. He's not a villain. He's just not human.

and that made the character interesting. So I feel like even that character who is obviously a bigger deal Superman villain than anyone else, I think they could do that with other characters. Yeah, I'm just tired of like going back to like Zah. Like basically in what? Superman movies we've got in Lex Luthor, Zod.

Doomsday. Doomsday. That's it. That's the, that's it. Fucking Superman. Not a beat bench. Nuclear man, which I loved. Oh, sure, man.

Then we got Richard, Pryor and who played the guy? The really well-known older actor who played the villain in Superman 3. Oh. He was a computer guy.

You guys don't remember Superman 3? Not really, no. You guys have never seen Superman 3. Why would I do that? What was the character's name? What was the character's name? Like, how could you have not seen Superman? Huh?

What was the character's name? I can't remember, but Richard Pryor was a computer guy. Yeah. And this dude. to Gus and this guy, Richard Pryor, was funny and it was Superman and Richard Pryor. Ross Webster. Yeah, and then at the end, like,

that Superman's kicking rockets, and at the end the guy becomes, the computers attack him, and then he, whatever. Yeah, but we like that, though. I like, yeah. He was, he was cool to me. But the coolest thing about Superman 3 is that

it happens in the movie that Superman is he goes bad and he becomes a bad version of himself and Superman starts trying to y'all never saw this this is hilarious I do remember the scene in the bar that's what I remember where we have like the iconic thing where he's drinking and he's flicking the peanuts

they do something to Superman I haven't seen it in a while they do something into Superman and Superman goes back and his suit gets dirty he starts trying to holler at holes Stop. I swear. I believe you. Like ladies of the night?

So there's a woman in the film. It's been a while since I've seen. You got to see it so many times. Not Lana. Lana's in there and Lois is in there. But there's another woman who works with the computer guy. And Superman flies to her. He's trying to get it in.

He's trying to get it popping. He flicking the thing like he's flicking. He's at the bar drinking. Is it La Lola? Yeah. I think it might be. He's drinking. And then there's this gigantic fight between Clark Kent.

Clark Kent splits off from Superman. They're two psychies split off. You're a fucking whack. That's a lot of zip on the chip in Superman 3. Their psyches split off. And then there's a fight in a junkyard. Oh, yeah. I've seen that.

Between Clark Kit, he's dressed up as Clark Kent. And the dirty, fucked up Superman, he's throwing entire. over Clark Kent, he's doing the whole thing, and then Clark Kent wins, his suit becomes clean, he flies away. Superman's back. It's a deep metaphor. Do you guys remember that scene from Smallville

where Clark is getting bricked up in class? Yeah, and he starts shooting a razor and his lasers start shooting out of his eyes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's great. That's funny. That's great. Honestly, that's when I stopped fucking with Smallville. Really? Because I was doing, before we get to Smallville, actually

asked the no-name questions. I think this is it's right on the okay okay all right what's up in our boys pu-p-poo-poo I just want to see what your guys's thoughts are on

which Superman movie TV show best fits your vision of Superman what's your favorite version of Superman it can be animated or live that show

by the way real quick did we even ask answer that gentleman's question that he had before. Yeah, what was our baggage? What was our baggage? We're talking about like villains, you know, fulkingness, stuff like that. Yeah, shout out Chris. My favorite Superman, obviously, is Chris Forie's Superman.

Right. I was watching Smallville with my sister. That was, like, my first intro in the Superman. And so to your point, like, I'm watching him like find himself, find to his powers. And that scene in class was like, just

some of the most, even at my like small age, I was like, all right, man, what are we, let's go? on here. Yeah. They kind of did lose the, kind of did lose the dip on the chip later, you know,

like I would look. I'm not going to let you. You was in a little kid. Like, Lana Lang was a good. I was, I was team Lana, bro. I was before,

I was like, hell yes. Who's lowest, bro? I didn't know who lowest. Fuck, I was not a leg. I'm just like, eh,

I was not a leg all the way, bro, come on. That was, that was my first iteration of Superman. And so, like, yeah, it did get a little crazy,

but like, in his prom, smallville, special TV. I will say, yo, the Superman show that they made, there was like Batman the animated series and the Superman. That show was great.

That was just, I think to this day, that's my favorite lowest lane in anything. I think that lowest lame betrayal is amazing. I remember there's like, I haven't watched that show in decades, but like when fucking granny goodness and apocalypse shows up, Dark side and all that shit,

I was like, what the fuck is happening? How is Superman? To me, the animated series, I think, I feel like they've never really captured that in the movies. That kind of like time period and aesthetic and regleness and Superman being like a boss and you can't fuck with them but also having that tender side. And there would be moments when Batman shows up and he absolutely fucks with Superman. The episode where he's still animated Batman was still like, nigga, you ain't. He came and like put it on lowest dog.

It was so great. out there like, hey man, what you doing? It was like, hey, man, this is a big ball of business. This is not for you. It's not for the little niggas. Animated Batman was a dirty Mac and mom. This is my favorite thing about their relationship is you don't really get

a concept of how insane Batman actually is until Superman's right there. Yeah. Batman's fucking crazy. He's nuts. Okay? Batman doesn't give a fuck about anything at all. He is taunting Superman.

He's taunting him. Most powerful being on the, he's taunting him. Like, I can fuck with you. And, like, doing crazy little shit. And, like, even in, even in, uh, Batman versus Superman in the movie, like, fucking Batman is popping this shit. And I'm like, who the fuck are you talking to? Are you out of your mind? Have you lost your, and he, and once again, he's like, he has.

I don't give him. I don't fuck this guy. But what I like about it, though, is just, like, think about it. that shit would happen. Like, Clark, that motherfucker was raised in Smallville. Like, values, whatever. Just the sweetest guy ever. The quintessential city boy.

Yeah, like, he's like, dog, that's like, imagine if fucking Superman saw Chief Keith at the idol, like, at the peak of Los Angeles. He's like, damn, yeah. Like, he'd be like, shit, really? Like, that's Batman to him. He's like, damn, you can't tell this little nigga, nothing. Nothing.

Can't tell him nothing. And he got some shit figured out. I will say that second to Christopher Reeve is Superman and Lois, which to me shows you that you can take the character and give a contemporary portrayal of the character and succeed. I actually think we're in a golden age of Superman portrayals between that and my adventures with Superman, which is also a show that comes at Superman through a different lens,

with a different aesthetic, with a different story, storytelling style, but still gives you a compelling version of the character, which if I don't have to lose Superman and Laws, which had a shit ton of heart, which had a shit ton of reverence to me, and even ended in a brilliantly heartbreaking way, and they're going to give me this new Superman flying around with red eyes from the, they just got, they better get it right. All right, man. I don't want to hear nothing about you being like, oh, man, James gone fucked up, this thing.

the CW superman. Like, I mean, I enjoyed the show. And James Gunn came along and said, hey, no more show. There can only be one Superman on the black. Only one Superman, but multiple badmands. I mean, he has no choice. He's going up against another big swing of dick

when you talk about Matt Reeves. Or maybe he's not. Or maybe he's actually, James Gunn could be conning the entire fandom. What is, and running off the clock on that. This is like a Travis Scott Pushing T situation with James Gunn.

at Matt Reeves, you know what I'm saying? Where, like, Matt Reeves is harmless? I don't know. It's just starting to seem like there's a little bit of a beef situation going on. I don't think his beef, man. I just think he's waiting. He called that man slow.

That is crazy. He's calling another man. Here's a thing. So, and the slow thing to me, like, as disrespectful. This is a screen right? Yeah. Yeah. We know, right?

He takes his time. If we're going to take it, like, is disrespect, whatever. But remember, Matt Reeves went up to the world. was like, yeah, I got the script. Huh, yeah, we locked in. It's good. And Gilman was like, hold on, player. It's not really.

We're not really, we're not really done yet. You might think it's good. But then Matt Reese come back and be like, yeah, we're still like tying it up some things. But, you know, we're right there. That was however long ago that was. And they're still like, ah, we haven't seen enough, this and this. Like, I don't know how much longer you can act like they haven't been working on this movie for nearly three years. If I'm Matt Reed, you can't tell me shit.

You can't have someone who I can't have someone who I. feel like is like all my level as of here like you're not like you're not my boss yeah you know what I mean he could he I mean he could he he could shut his new management right well I thought maybe if James gun decides that that super that Batman movie is not getting made that Batman movie is not getting made I thought that no you might be right I thought when I was originally like reading like when James Gunn was appointed that Matt Reeves Batman is still under um Abdi and Luca, like that. It certainly is.

But if James Gunn goes, you know what, guys? He doesn't, if James Gunn decides right now, you know what, guys, I don't want that movie to be made, it's not getting made. They gave him the entire free reign of that universe. That universe. If the only reason why he wouldn't do that, in my opinion, is because he doesn't want to blow back from the fans.

That is, yeah. But if you go to them right now and goes, and I guarantee you if that first film didn't do as well as it did, then we wouldn't be having this conversation. Not at all. And what would happen then is Matt Reeves goes, you know, I really wanted to make the Batman 2,

but then James Gunn said, I don't want to make the Batman 2. Also, it's a Snyder of a situation all over again, where it's just like, I think James Gunn also knows, no matter how good his Batman movie might be, if they canceled the Batman 2, you always have the thing

you're back in my like, you robbed us of that. How good would that be? Yeah, exactly. So he's walking the tightrope, to me, that has more to do with PR than whether or not he could stop the movie. Agreed.

So interesting that the optics could possibly determine whether or not that movie's even. I mean, that's the game, in it? Yeah, it's nuts. We got one last Superman question from our guy, Jose in Dallas. My name is Jose from Dallas.

I wanted to know when it comes to Superman, if it does become a failure, does this mean that the DCU is over? I mean, I wanted to succeed, but, you know, I want you guys' opinions and takes on it. Appreciate taking my call. I don't think there's any world where Superman is a failure at this point, just based on where it's tracking. Now, I still think it could be underwhelming in terms of, like, if critics shit on it, and let's say it doesn't make as much. money is they're projecting yeah but like at this point i think it's going to be one of the biggest movies of the year i just think this is all when we're talking about failure to me what james gunn has to prove with this movie is that like all right i sold you on superman

did i get you enough did i get you excited enough to check out super bowl did i get you excited enough to check out peacemaker season to all the ancillary stuff that's what margall was really, really good at. The success of Iron Man was like, all right, shit, I'll give Thor a chance. I'll give Captain America a chance. I think that's the real test with Superman. It's a failure. If they can't convince us, this is a universe where I want to spend all of my time. Well, also, something else that Marvel had going for it is the intrigues surrounding those characters is that we had never seen them before. Yeah. So we

hadn't seen Thor on the big screen, of course. Thor was in, Purple Hulk movie from the 80s. You guys don't want to watch it. That's fine. The devil was in. The devil is a troll. The man is old. That's fine.

You don't want to see it. That's cool. Whatever you guys. But we hadn't seen these characters. It was like, oh, my God. Huge big Captain America movie. Huge big Thor movie. They're doing Doctor Strange.

They're doing fucking the Guardians of the Galaxy. We had never seen these characters before. These D.C. characters, we've seen them. seen Green Lantern. We haven't seen Mr. Terrific, which is very interesting. I'm interested to see how Mr. Terrific was.

Some of these characters seen these characters. Oh, we've seen Mr. Terrific in the great Arrow series. Oh, wow. He was in Arrow Series. It's true. The Arrowverse, shout to the Arrowverse. Arrowverse was, don't laugh.

All right, you like Agen's to Shield, Jomey. I know you're not fucking laughing. Some of the Aeroverse was good. Some of the Air Force was cooking. It was good. A little bit of the Flash show was good. The first couple seasons of them shows were good.

Brent, Guston. And so was my show. But y'all don't want to give my show any look at respect. The Arrowverse was on an completely different level of the agent's show. There is no season of any of those shows that's better than season four agents and shit. I'll take that right now. I'll take that right now. All right. Cool.

Well, I haven't seen season four agents of Shield, so I can't say that. This is what? I'll tell that right now. Facts. There wasn't an Agent of Shields verse. There was an Arrowverse. You know what I'm saying? All right, bro. I mean, sure. Whatever. Yeah, yeah, cool. I'm just saying the level of- Did people watch that Captain Carter show, no.

The level of respect that y'all show for those shows versus Asian Shield. It just seems very targeted and pointed. I just kind of feel like if you're going to, like, it's crazy to disrespect that and be like, you know what it was cool? Arrow Season 6. Well, that's not that. That's crazy.

I mean, people really liked it, but I don't know. I was still watching season 6. I was locked in. I think the line of demarcation for me, whether success or failure for Superman, is really, really, like, low. I think the floor is so, low for this movie. If people

like it and it makes money, great. It's just because it's the beginning of the DCUs for rent to theaters like the first time people are going to see this, like this movie universe on screen. So as long as people show up and people go, hey, that was cool. Then you can have building blocks. You can say like, here's where we go from

here. So it doesn't have to be great for you. It doesn't have to be great. It doesn't have to be great. I think if it is great and then it goes makes a billion dollars, then James Gunn could start swinging his dick. He might just be like, I'm going to cancel the Batman movie. Y'all like Superman, I can do whatever I want. Bob, blah, this and this, whatever. If this movie makes a billion dollars,

I do think that's James Gump. Nick and guess what? Yo, Batman is a mom a universe. I don't know if this makes a billion. I don't think it has to worry about financially failing. I don't, like, it's not going to not make money. I think the main thing that has to worry, like you said, like is carry over to any of the next properties.

Like, if critics don't like it as much, then it's going to be a pretty tough. sell to be like, all right, well, next up is Supergirl. The Supergirl movie to me is going to be a hard sell. It feels like as we keep getting deeper in the DC bench and we don't have a Wonder Woman movie and we don't have a new Batman movie

if we don't have a rock solid Superman movie to start it off with, that's going to be a harder sell to be like, well look forward to Clayface. Like as cool as I think that movie could be. It won't be a movie for everyone. I understand that. But like as hard as the sell as it is to get a lot of people to

a Clayface movie, that is 100% getting made and will be probably happening sooner than we see a Wonder Woman. See, the Clayface movie only has to be good. Yeah. It doesn't have to make, if, I'm going to tell you straight up right now, if they go and spend $150 million on a Clayface movie, they're stupid. Yeah, that's like 40 million maybe. The Clayface movie, oh, you got to spend more than that, but the Clayface movie only has to be good.

Sure. It legitimately only has to be good. You need that movie to be a marginal success But it has That movie has to be good Yeah Because that's a character That nobody really gives a fuck about

Sure You have to That movie has to You have to go into this movie Going, why did they make that And then come out on the other side Going, oh, I see Where that character

And that portrayal fits into this universe And to this larger storytelling We'll tell you this though We're acting as if We're living in a world where these superhero movies don't hit a billion as much as they used to. I guess we are.

However, Deadpool and Wolverine made a shit ton of money. Yeah. And so there is a world where looking at Deadpool and Wolverine together being a much, much bigger property than Superman is a little chilling to the Warner Brothers people. Yeah, yeah. And Water Brothers is desperate for a hit.

It's like they, they, Superman needs to be good, but this movie needs to make some money. It doesn't have to make as much as that money because that movie because those characters were so well established in film and all of that stuff. But it would be great if the movie could make a shit ton of fucking money. So, but this is also my thing about why I think you shouldn't put Robert Patton in this universe. I think what they actually need, but is the hardest thing. is they need to find their Batman

who can play the Robert Downey Jr. They need to find that character. They need to find their Wolverine where it's like, hey, Spider-Man, They need their charisma machine. They need their charisma machine. And I don't know if Superman is the character or Cornsouet is the actor,

and that's nothing against him. Who is that person in the DCU when everything is failing? He's going to get you a bucket. Well, you're not really sure about this. could never be Batman. Hmm? The character's two...

The question, okay, I ask you this. Let me not say that. That's... But the animated series did... That is where they got it, where it was like Batman was the backball. Justice League. He doesn't mean, like,

actually Robert Downey Jr. and his clippiness... The character is so dark, though. Yeah, but it just needs somebody who, like, can come in... Your anchor points. Yeah, like, whether it's, like, either performance or his films...

I mean, basically, it was that try. Right. But every time he comes... through, you're like, oh, yeah, this guy's going he's going to put up 15 or he's going to put up 30. Can it be Superman? I don't know if it, I don't know if they actually can.

Is Superman the type of character? To me, even though Superman is so popular, Wolverine is like different to me. Wolverine outsell Superman in terms of like comics. People still want to read X-Men and Wolverine comics in a way. People don't really want to read Superman comics. People don't really want to play Superman games. Same thing with Spider-Man.

Same thing with a bad. To me, Superman is a heart. Like, he's a more, he's the most iconic of those characters. But it's like, you do need someone in the DC universe who is a Wolverine or a Spider-Man, who can kind of like, wherever you play some. Just a badass. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I get it. That's hard. Yeah, I mean, you can't want on. What if Nathan Phillyans guy Gardner is our charisma machine? I love it. I love it. Honestly, Green Lantern, I think, could have been that type of character.

He could have. He could like a Hal Jordan type. Honestly, like a Wally West. Like, I'm remembering who Wally was in the Justice League cartoon of just like, like a very quippy, funny character when he's around. He's the heart of the team. He doesn't take too much away, always adding some more. But yeah.

I also, do you remember that moment? I think it was the Justice League cartoon where I think it was like Lex Luthor swapped bodies with the Flash. And he goes into the Badge and he's like, all right, you're about to find the Flash's secret identity. He takes his mask off. He's like, I have no idea who this is. That's a good one.

That's a really good one. All right. Do we have any other non-Sperman mail back? We got some, we got a question about Ironheart that I think I want to hit on. I think this is from AC. AC, yeah. Disney plus dumping that shit. They give them the tunes.

Well, stay tuned. What's up, y'all? The question is, is especially after what they did with Echo drop and all that at the same time. It seems like some nasty to me. It seems like some nasty words. So I wanted to get y'all in and some other things when it comes to this. Is there something? So I've become cynical in this entire debate.

How so? Because I can't articulate the importance of watching these things. Because like if I say, I'll go back to this argument that we had on the, on higher learning. Remember they put the same. sex kiss and I guess it was Buzz Light Year. Right. And so they made a big deal about the movie and everybody was talking about it. The movie comes out. The movie doesn't do that well. Well, now Disney's going to be like, okay, well, what's the purpose of doing it? Now, if you look at it and you go, Disney should make that movie with those characters because it's the right

thing to do. It's just a losing argument. It's a losing argument. There has to be something in it for the corporation. There's not a group of of people sitting together at Disney going, let's make the choices that are best for shaping society in the world. No, what they listened to were people who outwardly said with loud voices on social media that we want diverse characters, we want different stories,

we want a deviation from the straight white male orthodoxy of comic book storyteller. And then people didn't watch the shit. And so if you're, it's, you're criticizing them on the backside for, either, we can't exist in a state of perpetual criticism when it comes to this stuff. There has to be activism in the way that we watch and cover this stuff. We have to watch it.

because it's a young black girl. We have to watch it because it's women, because it's gay. We have to watch it for those reasons. And we have to watch it for those reasons, even if it's bad. We still have to watch it. If we're going to be activists in the criticism,

then we have to be activists in the participation. You can't just criticize the shit because they're dumping it and then not have a specific point of view on the way you interact with the content. Now, look, we didn't have to

go and watch Black Panther in that way or some other characters in that way. I get it. I get it. But look, it puts too much pressure on each individual product to be stellar.

And the actual actual quality of the product to me is secondary to the consumer saying we want a realignment of the way these stories are told. Because and last thing I'll say, if you

take all the movies that are being made, the percentage of good to great movies is always going to be buried by the movies that are just okay or that are bad. The difference is not who's able to make good movies. That's not the difference. The difference is who's able to make bad ones.

And that's always been the thing in this town. Who can make a bad movie? Who can make a movie that people don't like and then get another chance? Or still get people to interact with it. Or still get people to be like, well, we can kind of see what's in. Who can make a bad movie?

That's who denotes who has the, ability to really make stuff and the freedom to create. What people are seemingly saying now is everything that we get female led is, or everything that we get women of color led or everything that we get character of color led is bad. It's bad. It's bad. So we don't want it. It's bad.

You guys got to do better with it. Well, they might make a second season of Obi-Wan, but they're definitely not going to make a second season of the acolyte. Right. Right. So it's like when I hear it. the criticism, I understand the criticism, but there has to be the will

from the consumers of this stuff to want different outcomes. Like, we have to cover Ironheart just because it's a young black girl. We have to cover it. Well, but can I can I ask this? Because I do think, if I'm being so honest,

I think it's a bunch of factors that are converging. A? Because I feel this way. I can't talk from the perspective. perspective of a woman or a woman of color, obviously. But to me, nerd spaces aren't safe in general. Just in terms of like when you look at the demographics of our show, of these movies or whatever, typically it's very, very, very white, very, very male, a lot of times a skews conservative. So already that's an uphill battle in terms of just like the ceiling on any property that's led

by a woman, directed by a woman, is going to be lower just because you're dealing with a pocket of society who does not respect with me. I think you think that's blanketly true. Huh? You think that's blanketly true? I think in terms of just like if you're Disney and you're looking at the data of what people support, you're probably seeing like

oh, if we put a black person in this, if we put a woman in this, if we put any person of color we see it. I'm not saying that that's right. I think there's another thing that happens as well where it's like, I agree with you. Zach Snyder can make a bunch of shitty fucking movies and it's like, or even if I don't call him shitty, like movies that don't make as much money as they need to, critically,

whatever, he's going to get to make more movies. Nia Dacosta, to me, Marvels ain't her fault, but it's going to hurt a Nia Dacosta way more than it's ever going to hurt a Joss Whedon, Zach Snyder, that's just the role we like. But I also think the thing that is unfair, when we talk about something like the Marvels, when we talk about Miss Marvel, She-Hulk, Echo, or whatever, all of these women are getting this chance, they're getting basically like,

you know, the fucking leftovers. They're getting characters that are a little harder to do. They're at a time when Marvel is at a low. Everything that they're going up against historically is like a mirror of what it's like to be a woman in Hollywood. So I think when we're like... This is why they need you more. No, I understand that.

But I do think that there just is a reality of have these corporations has culture, nerd culture in general, especially when it comes to the MCU, D.C. Star Wars, has it done a good enough job historically and in modern times making it a space where women even want to come into it to support this shit? Or is it like, dog, why do I even want to open?

Like sometimes with these actresses, I'm like, why would a black actress even want to be in Star Wars at this point? Like, besides the money, because anytime they enter it, you're entering into a culture war where it's like, dog, I might as well have not even done it. And I don't know how to fix it, but I don't even know if,

I don't even know quality is actually the point. You fix it with your support. The only thing that the only way to fix it is with your support. You fix it with your support. That's how you fix it. No, no, no. But like honest, when I'm talking about on a structural level, where it's like, okay,

was there ever knowing all we know now was there ever a world where something like Echo or Agatha or Ironheart or She-Hulk was ever going to do what their male counterparts did probably not because they're on Disney Plus

the budget is lower the story did da-da-da they were set up to fail from the beginning in a way where I'm just like that's like what those directors those writers couldn't really do anything. The nuts on you to bring up Agatha in this situation.

That was a good show. Right. You know what I'm saying? Agatha was great. That was a good show which you refused to finish watching. And so I didn't like I get it. What I'm saying is that was actually a good show. Like what I'm talking about right now is, look, everything that you are saying right now,

I get all of that stuff, right? Everything that you were saying, I get it. The way that you combat all of that is to cover these performers and these people in your support. And that support is both rhetorical online and stuff like that. That support is both rhetorical online, but it's also in the way that you engage. I think you guys are both making good points with your support and just how these things get done nowadays. but I think the thing that for me is like kind of like bothering me the most is that like the decisions are to make right Bob Iger came out this is from an interview with CNBC he did and it's like the bottom line is that infusing messaging as sort of a number one priority in our films and TV shows is not what we're up to they need to be entertaining and where Disney the Disney company can have a positive impact on the world whether it's you know fostering acceptance or understanding of people of all different types great.

But generally speaking, we need to be entertainment for an entertainment first company, and I've worked really hard to do that. So Dave heard you guys and said, all right, here's your echoes, here's your iron hearts. Watch them or don't. That statement, I ought to name this. That statement is him punting,

and let me tell you why I say this. What, well, there's a difference between a message and a character. Right. Right. If we're watching Iron Heart, and Iron Heart is building her suit, and she goes, I can't tell you how hard it is to be a black girl

from the South Side Chicago, a genius. Did you ever be watched the show? Yeah. And no one even appreciates your genius because so much of the world is up against you, everywhere you look, people are trying to, that's being heavy-handed with your messaging. Having a character that wants to save the world that happens to not be male and white in a

universe where so many people want to save the world is not wokeness. No. That's not wokenness. That's not wokenness. That's existed in. I think that there's been some heavy-handedness. There's two things. Number one, there's an agenda to make every character

that's not male and white a woke character. Just like there's an agenda to make every leader that's not male and white a DEI hire. Either you believe that or you don't. If you believe that your plane is going to crash because your pilot is black, I'm not going to have an argument with you. There's a psychosis there that I can't connect with.

You know what I'm saying? but that's not what we're talking about here. What we're talking about here is Disney is taking a cue from the consumer that's not engaging with the content and saying, okay, they don't want this stuff, so we're not going to make it. And then we're saying they should make it, even though, even though, we're not watching it.

My question, though, is because, like, I can only talk, I feel this way, and this is why people think I'm going to ask them for a lot of reasons. I think we have a thing that we do in my, minority spaces where we tell people you got to support everything, which I agree. Like if like a black person is directing something or writing something, my, my heartstrings do get tugged. I'm like, damn, I got to support. But I can't get up on a platform and be like the mid was incredible.

And a lot of times as I feel like as cultural critics, as podcasters, we do this thing where I'm just like, hey, yo, y'all are like, Disney's here to make money. If Disney makes something and it's shitty, I'm going to be like, hey, yo, this didn't rise to my level of like, I can only be honest. We can't always lie as well. Like, we have to have two conversations where we're like more people of color, women of color, women in general need more opportunities.

But I do think that we do need to, like, I think it's belittling where we're like, sometimes we give people a password. I'm just like, hey, yo, this shit didn't work. And it's fine. Sometimes shit doesn't work. Like, it doesn't have to be like, you're a misogynist or you're racist

or you're this or that for being like, hey, yo, they tried. Didn't work. Like, we hope more people get an opportunity. And you got to watch it, though. Like, that's, like, this is the way I feel. And this is the way, this is what it comes down to. I don't waste my breath and criticism

in anything that I'm not willing to be involved with intellectually or structurally. I'm not going to, I'm not about to tell you that if there's something that happens in Miami right now, then I'm about to get on the plane and go, and go protest in Miami. That's not what I'm saying. Right.

What I'm saying is if I'm willing to have an opinion on that, I'm willing to sit down and read about the case. I'm willing to do the work. I'm willing to platform people to talk about it. If I'm willing to go do all of that stuff, if I say that it matters to me, action in some way has to mean that it matters. This isn't about any one specific show

or any one specific thing. You are right. Queen of Slim's up. It's up. That move. broke me. That movie was the move. I'm being for real. I don't doubt it. That movie was the movie

where I'm like, I can't pretend like this shit was good. I won't do it. And whatever that cost me in the town or I can't pretend like this movie was a good movie. This movie was an abomination for many different reasons. I'm sure they had the best intentions in making it. And whatever, you asked me about two-distance strangers. That shit is all right. Just all right.

We wanted to say what we said and we said it. but that's not a world beater of a film. But we executed what we needed to execute. We got to where we were going with it. And that's what matters. Anybody who doesn't like the movie, it's more than all right to me. But I get how people, anybody that doesn't like the movie,

that's fine. That's okay. I'm just asking that if me and my homies get together and self-fund a movie about the way that we feel in this particular moment, being black that y'all just watch it because y'all gonna go

that's just watch it because when the shit comes out and it's Timothy Shalame as Bob Dylan y'all going to go see that I couldn't give a fuck less about that but I just got to see the art so that's all I'm saying

I'm not really even it's like I get his question he's like are we burying women led things the question is not are they burying them the question is are we bearing?

And if we're doing our best to get out and support this stuff and watch this stuff, then cool. Then we'll just get white stories. And that might be where we are. We'll get Steve. Steve as Black Panther son. Black Panther son.

Dog, that was crazy. They really make it black Panther son. I love it. Let's go. But see, but you know what they knew, though? Yeah. They knew that was get the niggas going. They're like, what?

We wasn't picking up BlackBeth the cops report now, but they weren't. We weren't watching them. They knew that that will get the niggas going. My bad, Steve. I talked way too much in this. No, no, that's fine. And I think the naive thought process behind, like, the three-episode dump into the next three-episode dump is like, okay, well, maybe Disney and Marvel isn't exactly proud

of the projects that they put out in this way. So they hope that you can just, like, all right, we get it over with if people like, liked it great and if they didn't it didn't last too long yet they would still drag out a secret invasion for like six weeks or whatever the hell that they have and like to the point of the matter it is like yeah echo wasn't that great we didn't rock with echo as much as we would have loved to it still should have been given a fair enough shake that say a daredevil did or anybody else did but instead they decide to bury it in a way and yes i agree with you that like it is on us to still support those things if those things really matter if you care if you really

If you don't care, then that's cool. But then the consumerist naivity is like, well, I can't just go to a restaurant because it's owned by people that we know. And if the food's bad, I can't just keep coming. I'd start doing that with black-owned. Like, I was in my bag and then I'd start going. I'm like, all right, you got to get it. This is such an interesting thing because I do do that. You kind of have to.

But you get two visits for me. If it's fucked up on both visits. I get what you're saying. You know what? But it's people that come up to me all the time, man. Van, would you support this, retweet this, do this? I care about, I care about black people being able to fail. Sure.

They should be allowed to. Right. I care about them being able to fail. So I go, hey, yeah, I'll support it. Yo, Van, how was it? Man, y'all got a lot of fight on the oxtails, bro. Right. I'm going to be honest with you.

Can you post about it? Now, I can't post about it because I can't really send, I can post about it saying that I'm going there. If somebody asked me how it was, I got to be really, I got a lot of fat on the ox stills. You probably need some better ox deals. But I have to go. And like, it's such a, man.

And it's such a fucked up thing to be like, okay, well, if they fail once, then you don't have any other shots. Whereas, again, the people in those industries that like see. I do give black people more of a, because I'm just like, hey, yo, like, for a white director, I'm like, you probably know, 10, 50, 20 motherfuckers in the industry. I know Black people, I'm like, you,

nine times out of 10, you had to get it out the mud, blah, blah, blah. But what I want to ask is, if we take sinners, for example, are we almost past the point where we should even be trusting the MCU, trusting DC, trusting Star Wars with, with these things? Or is it like, I'm just like, hey, yo, y'all really not going to tell the good stories? I think that's actually a great kind of like deception of podcast. pop culture and capitalism where you think that like the stories that they put out have to matter to you in order for you to need to support them. We're like, yeah, a story like an Echo or an Iron Heart could exist otherwise.

Maybe she's not wearing a big robotic suit. Maybe she's not doing certain things like this, but it's not going to have as high of a platform or it's not going to have as many eyes on it if it isn't part of the MCU. The difference between, I would say, an Echo and an Iron Heart and some of these other things is that, Those characters, let me speak more to Ironheart. Ironheart's, in comic books a lot of times, you don't just get characters who can do cool shit that are black. There's talk about Aaron Pierre being James Bond. Really, James Bond really could be anyone.

because James Bond is a guy that's a fucking orphan from Scotland or whatever he's from that whatever Is that guy probably white? Yeah. But he doesn't have to be. However, the prince of an African country

he probably got to be black. Well, not if it's South Africa. Not if it's South Africa. Well, the prince, the South Africa is that's going to be the fucking oppressor. But the prince or king of an African country, they write these characters because they came from a time where these characters were answering other questions. They wrote these characters as black.

They wrote Luke Cage Black. They wrote Rui Williams black. They wrote her Black. She was Black on purpose. And so I get sometimes that you have to infuse into these stories, both some cultural messaging and the whole thing. And people might not like that. Cool. I get that.

People might be like, I don't want to learn about the black experience while I'm fucking doing my, I understand that. However, they're lying because the acolyte, that ain't got nothing to do with her being black. She just is a character. That could have been, she just happens to be black. And you didn't like that either. They don't like to see black people and women in no spots, whether or not there's cultural messages. in it or not. They're lying. But my question, even with the Acolyte,

where it's just like, if we just take our feelings on the Acoly, I'm like, the Acolyte wasn't good. Now, I think the Acolyte was a lot better than a lot of Star Wars shit we're getting. It's better than you remember it, though. Yeah. No, no. But here's the thing. Whether, more so

when we're talking about the Ackleit, I'm like, we can have two conversations. There is the Star Wars fandom that is burying it because they're misogynist, they're racist, whatever. And there's a reality that I was just like, oh, should the Ackolite can I see why the act like didn't get a second season? I'm like yeah, they're probably like, shit, the TV show didn't work.

It was very expensive. It's very expensive. Like it didn't. And like when I brought up like something like a Sinners or Atlanta or even like Reservoir Dogs or whatever, I'm just like, there actually is shit out there that reaches a quality level where I'm like, yeah, do I trust the MCU to get black characters right or female black characters right? No.

Do I trust Star Wars. What? Reservoir Dolls was canceled. So my thing... Reservation. I thought they finished. I thought they finished it. No, they finished.

I thought they finished. I thought they finished. I think it had three, like, he just finished it. So I'm like, all I'm saying is I'm like... Leave that in. By the way, shout out to reservoir dogs. I didn't we... Reservations.

I meant both reservoir dogs and reservation. Shout to both of them. Great show. But all I'm saying is I'm just like, yo, as a fan right now, I don't know if I trust... And also, I'm not going to Disney for my politics. as well. I don't actually think that

a lot of these shows are actually moving any needles. You know what I'm saying? Like, they're in this to make money and at a certain point where it's like, yeah, you could put a black person in your Disney shit. Is that helping the cause? Not really. And that's where I kind of feel, I'm like, I think capitalism kind of only puts you into a cause so much, if at all.

Like, I like it. Like, here's the thing, I like Black Panther. If I'm looking back at it, I'm like, damn. did Black, did Black Panther do anything for our liberation? Nah, I agree. But let me tell you something

I'm using it. We spent a lot of time. Put the coofy on this, right? We spent a lot of time on this, right? It's a black podcast. But let me, let me give you the only counter example to this. I'm a little loud to it.

I'm going to try to be less hyper-bobost than I've been. So Obama was elected president. And I was doing a mentorship program. And the funniest thing in these mentorship programs or when you're mentoring kids because sometimes like one of my friends we would go coach basketball

and we would do basketball with the kids and they'll go out there and coach basketball and you start trying a little thing you start talking to kids and you ask them what they want to do. These are your little black kids and they go, you know, I want to be an actor. I want to be. They're in L.A.

So they know some people. They might be from Compton. and they can see Anthony Anderson. They can see something like that. I want to be a rapper. I want to be a ball player. And all of that's fine. Because as long as they want to be something, then you can push them along their journey

to kind of figure out what their skills are and what their interests are. And maybe realign some of their expectations and where they're going to go. Because you can say, hey, you know, you can be a basketball coach. And you can be five, foot seven, five, foot eight, and coach basketball and be around basketball for the rest of your

life, making money, doing all kinds of things. There's a lot of things you can do. You can be a G. You just want to expand their mind, but you want them to realize that there's something that they can be. Obama is elected, and one of my kids goes, you know, how do you become the president? And I was like, I had never gotten that question. I wasn't in the program for that long, but I had never gotten that question.

And I'm like, well, if you want to be the president, you know, Obama went to Harvard. he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review. He's a professor at the University of Chicago. Like Obama is in his books. So I can't have you not showing up the class, not going to school. I can't have you not get into your work. Like you would have to be the most excellent. He is the most excellent.

He exhibits undeniable excellence. And he goes, you know what? He goes, I want to be excellent like that. Like that's why I want to be excellent like that. that. I want to be like him. And so for me, I'm looking at that and I'm like, yo,

it's, it's like, you, they have to see it. Right. And if they don't see themselves as heroes, they just won't think that is possible. Yeah. And so the shit

doesn't matter on a corporate level, but it matters for a little black girl to see somebody hitting flips. Man, even the hair sometimes. Like, to I'm growing up, I'm seeing all of these characters, and I'm seeing, they got curls and they got curly hair. And then it's a nigger with a Caesar and a line. And I'm like, whoa. Like, just the face of heroism and achievement has to change.

It's a siop. It is a siop. It's a siop. This is a direct siop. You have got to say, you can pick up a mountain. You can do this. You can do that. Like these characters to me, Riri Williams matters.

Tachala matters. Like, it would be nice if we had a black American one. Lou Cage matters. Like, these characters matter. Like, hey, you don't have to, you can dream into yourself. Yeah. And so at the, it is just comic books. It is just comic books.

It is. But then sometimes it's not. Sometimes if generation, after generation, you get the same type of person running shit, both in the real world and every time you open up the pages of a comic book or read a book,

you go, huh, that's how it's supposed to be. And there's something, there's something to it. It's like, we joke about Falcon, right? We do. A lot, actually. And they fuck over Falcon.

And we can't ignore it. But the question is, why they do them like that. I think that's what Charles is getting to. I think the question is if if, if we know that

Captain America is black, let's give them a run of 10 straight wins in the fight. But they just can't do it. They got to let this nigga get his ass kicked in his own movie. There's something there that it seems like we can't get to.

When a black kid, when my nieces and nephews see Miles Morale, it's a different thing because it's like they don't got to imagine that there's a black Spider-Man Spider-Man is black

to your point and he's cool! Yeah. Spider-Man is black. Like, Spider-Man is black and we could sit here and we could talk a million times and I'm so happy for the question

we could talk a million. We could talk around this and around this and around this we could be, but it just does matter. When we're at the Star Wars convention, there is a difference between say what you want to will about the sequel trilogy.

I know you got a lot to say. There's a lot of fucking rays now. Where I was Princess Leia. I was the Princess. I'm the Princess. I'm the Princess. And Princess Leia is cool. But to be like, no, I'm the Jet. Like, I'm the Asoka. I'm the Jedi.

Yeah. You know what I mean? And we Finn makes Windo. Kit Fisto. Jarbeats. Long way to go. Long way to go. There's a lot of game left, fellas. Lando.

Lando. Like, Lando. Lando. Oh, so I said Lando. Vindoo. I don't know I love Lando but I've been watching

that movies he was on my back He was We can move on because we We run it up against it

But I will say this That's why I needed solo To work Even more so Because I wanted to see Donald Glover D'ando

He was He was supposed to get a show He was having sex With a Would you guys Fuck the Millennium Falcon? I mean That's probably a way

To make happen? Yeah. Yeah. The question is if you had to fuck the Millennium Falcon had to? I definitely, whoa guys, if I came in next episode and be like, guys, gosh, what? I had sex with the Millennium Falcon. It would be, like, you'd be like, what happened?

I'd be like, yeah. I would be, I wouldn't have a problem with you. I would have a ton of questions, but like, I wouldn't be opposed to that. Yeah. You're telling me if you were presented, like she had the, she had the nice bad bitch voice in that all being, I'm just, more logistics than it is. It was the robot that was the robot that was the accommodation.

the shit. Wait, wasn't it the consciousness that they uploaded to the Millennium Falcon? Yes. Yes. The funny thing about that was like when that happened,

that didn't quite connect with me and I was watching the movie like, yo, am I supposed to be sad about the fact that this nigger's sex dog was killed? He was crazy. Like her body outside I'm like, oh, this is supposed to be a moment.

The character was cool, though. That's a good movie. Wait, if you had sex with any vehicle, which one would it be? Oh, that's a good question. That's a great. Great question. Delorian?

Speed racers Mach 5. Well, that's You're big Wachowski, so that makes sense. What about a, uh, what about like a VW bug? But that's,

then that would be Herbie. Like Herbie? Herbie. I don't know about Herbie. I'm not trying to fuck her. Not Herbie. Talk about Herbie fully loaded. Herbie fully loaded.

Herbie fully loaded. Oh, boy. Herbie had like a, uh, a female counterpart. That's right. He did. He did. He did.

I didn't see the Herbie movies. I would have such a crush on Lizzie Loing. Dude. She had a run. early 2000s Lizzie Lohan you kids don't understand Parent trap

get a clue confession of a teenage drama queen mean girls Fricky Friday Just a life size special One of the

Odd women That lost it When she got a little bit more controversial Normally you get controversial We like host some Lindsay Lohan Actually

Normally when you get a little bit more controversial It makes you hotter But Lindsay Lohan is one of the rare cases to where getting a little bit controversial didn't make her hotter.

Like the Lindsay Lohan that people like, it's the wholesome version of her. Well, she was tired of rumors starting. Okay. So we got a, I mean, how many more do you want to get you? Just one more. One more. Oh, boy.

What do you think, man? You want to do... Let's end on a phone one. Mount Rushmore? Mount Rushmore. Let's do that. See, on Rushmore. Dan, Charles, Steve Jomey with South fellas.

This is Pat. I love the pod. I feel like we're boys, even though we've never met, which tells them into you guys being good at your job. You all know what's a favorite everything. I think you can tell a lot about a person based on their favorite stuff. So I'm asking you guys to give me your favorite movie,

TV show, comic, and video game. Sort of a Mount Rush more of nerd media, if you will. Does that be the best just your personal all-time favorite? I'm going to stay in the genre, so I'm not going to go all over the place. Wait, should we stay in the nerd genre? I'm saying the genre, yeah. All right, why don't we do instead of everybody giving the four,

let's all do our movies, then we'll do TV. Okay, okay. So what's your movie? The Matrix. The Matrix? Yeah. Does the Matrix count? Yeah.

Of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah, the Matrix. If we're just doing, like, personal favorites, then I got to go the original Avengers 2012. Yeah. Can I say spirited away?

Yeah. I'll say spirit away. Yeah. Ooh, I didn't realize we could do Miyazaki. Fuck, but in terms of just like, nerd, if I had to go nerd honestly the dark, I remember where I was. The dark night was actually where I was just like,

we could actually reach a level of competition. It's so crazy that I can like remember like my emotional state when I first saw that movie. I remember the exact seat in the theater. I can like, what the fuck is, like, because I never, I love the Matrix, but I never got to see Matrix in the theater. So I don't have that.

I only saw Reloaded in the theater. I mean, I remember I was, I saw it, Avengers at 930 at the Dolamo 16 at the near the crib and I can just remember my life when they're doing they're all in the circle like man this is everything it's not just something this is everything so nerd TV show fandom TV show

Wanda Vision Wanda Vision Wanda Vision now Rushmore Yeah Wanda vision but I think about all of it together it would either be Wanda vision or Daredevil Wow the original daredevil I love Wanda Vision way more than I should.

Really? Wow. I mean, it's a beautiful show. Beautiful show. I'm going to sag here. I'm Asian Shield, obviously. All right, man. Very much.

See? See, what is this? It's just crazy. We talk about the Mount Rushmore. My personal route, much more. The brand is so strong. It is strong. God forbid.

Steve? Batman the animated series. That's my favorite. This president of the moment. shit, but I, if we're talking, oh man, it has to be, and it, to me, like, God damn. In terms of, like, nerd, I change my shirt.

Like, here's a thing like, and or got to be the one where I'm, I didn't even think about it. Because here's the thing I'm like, oh, Star Wars can make me feel like this again. Andor probably the greatest television show ever made. It's pretty amazing.

All right, comic book. It's got to be, I got to, nah, it's personal. I got to stick to Wanderers. It's your personal choice. Andrew is better than WandaVision. I just want.

I can doers better than ages of a shield, but like, that's the thing when I was a kid. Is it you, though? Yeah, it's you. All right, so, comic book. Oh, um, shit, bro, that's tough, bro. Maybe actually personal.

Don't pick, like, watchmen or... Personal. Like, don't do, like, you know... Yeah, if it's run or just book or graphic, it's probably the Dark Night Strikes Back. Okay. Oh, wow. Dark Night, not the Dark Night Returns.

the sequel? Really? This shit we never talk about. I'm like both. Why the sequel, though? Because, so the Dark Night Returns is better. Yes.

Then the Dark Night Strikes Back, it's better. Why Strikes Back then? It's crazy. Some reason connected with, Strikes Back is definitely inferior to the first one, but I just connected to it.

It's all over the place. It's chaotic. It's like a lot of shit. shit happening. I just would like... Doesn't Carrie become like cat woman? Yeah, I would just like get into the book a little bit more.

I don't know why. Was there a crazy Robin in that as well? Well, there was a crazy robin in like both of them. Well, not crazy robin, but you know, the lady robin. Damn, that is crazy. All right, Joe. I think I got to go with the OG,

the Spiderverse run from 2014. Gant slot? Yeah. I think that, like, that was one of the I watch, you know, you watch the YouTube recaps, comics explain, Autumn. And I was like, shout to Rob. I got to go get me. I got to go get me some of these books, man.

I was locked in. I think, like, that's, that's all my personal round best one. This is going to be very pretentious and hoity-toity of me. But it was, I read this runnin book in high school. And it kind of like rewired my brain. There's a comic by Chris Ware called Jimmy Corrigan, the smartest kid on Earth. It was, it's like a really.

originated from Chicago and he's one of the greatest artists I've ever seen in my life. And it's the most emotionally devastating and saddest story I've ever seen. Like, across media, it breaks my heart and it's so beautiful and like mathematically perfectly drawn that it's

one of the best things I've ever read. Is Jimmy White? What? Jimmy White? Yes. Is he in v. slavery? No. No. But it's basically like a exercise of like through this man's consciousness through time and heartbreak. And like it's so incredible. and it's like very like surrealist and it's so beautiful so so beautiful as the midnight boys

Tyler Harrow do you believe in history do I believe in history yes it does it does it does not believe in many people but it does I do believe in slavery do you believe in history before in 1950 yes I was going to say that my favorite Superman was the max fly shirt version what a fucking moron that too funny because he's doing this on a stream right and all one of the one of the two guys had to do was like so cool How do you feel about slavery? How do you feel about World War II? Wait, what was this again?

Tyler Hero got on a stream. You've been Charlie Chaplin. Oh, right. Yeah. He was also like, how can you believe that like history is right? I'm like, we've had cameras. And rocks and fossil records. Like, I'm just like, what are you?

What do you mean? What happened? The Civil War and Civil War? Yeah. What do you thought about this? Yeah, what do you thoughts about the American Revolution? Tyler Hero. The Constitution.

Did we just make that up? Like, 70 years ago? Obviously, the Constitution is big, though. Could be. It absolutely is. Comic book, it's time for Weeb Corner. One Piece changed my life. One piece is like, I'm in a reread right now.

One piece is the greatest comic book of all time. Bigger than Batman. I love it. What are they, they're the Dallas Cowboys, right? All right, what's the? All right, video games. We don't even. Yeah, it's not funny what it's you is.

They never get there. It's not funny, what it's you. Oh, what? Video games. So, basically, you can choose any video game. You're not going to choose Spider-Man. I could. I mean, you probably put the most hours into that.

It's probably my favorite video game, but the most important, if I was going to put a model Rushboard, it would be Super Mario Brothers 3. Three? So I've said that that's canonically a play, right? That didn't happen. That's two.

That's two? That's okay? Mario credential. Is that or I could be wrong? I don't know. Oh, no, you're right. Yeah, because it opens with the curtain on the stage. But doesn't two open with a curtain on stage as well?

I'm fucking true. Which Mario Brothers is a point. There's definitely, it's either one. No, it's three. It's three. It opens with the curtain. And like the entire like bottom part of the screen is a stage. Yeah.

And then you go into the thing, the whistles. It blew my fucking mind, bro. It blew my mind. Bear suit, frog suit, Tenookee suit, like fucking the wings. When you could fly. It blew my fucking. mind, I couldn't believe that that was possible. And then the game itself was such a big

game. It was a massive... You saw the Tinoogie shit and you was just like, it's bad. I swear to God, bro. It blew my fucking mind. It is so funny though. I do think kids are so spoiled now because I don't like... I try to tell I'm like, bro, I remember playing a second Genesis. We got Shaq Fu. That nigga was doing... You did not play Shaq Fu and like...

You did not play Shaq Fu and like... That's a lie. You did not play Shaq Food and like it. You just like that Shaq had a video game. I love Shaq. Shaq Food was good. Sonic 2 was my game too. Sonic 2 is amazing.

Dog Spiro, Crash Bandicoot. I remember it all. SS tricky. I used to play this, a Star Wars game that they had for the Super Nintendo that was so fucking difficult. Some of these games were difficult. Maybe it was, I can't remember the name of it.

But I used to play it was so difficult. Like a super difficult game. It was called Super Star Wars. Oh, Super Star Wars. Oh, that's for the SNS. Yeah, you played a loop? Yeah, it's super hard. Yeah, it's very hard.

Anyway, I think for me, I'm trying to see what, like, I have the most hours in on my, on my PS5. But I think if I'm just going off, like, the game that, like, for real, to change my life in a way, I think I probably say Halo. I think getting in a Halo was something that, like, completely, like, re-exam. engineered how I thought about not only video games

but just media in general and being able to like create and so I think like because I got in a halo then I got a red versus blue and then like that's just like a snowball effect that like let me and like what's red versus blue? Oh man it's not have enough time to get it. Red versus blue is culture I'll say that. It's

a machinima web show started by it was created by Bernie Burns Rooster Teeth. Rousseer Teeth, rest in peace and that was the show that I got into Rootsy Teeth, and they essentially were, uh, uh, content absence not the right word, but a literally production studio that made a whole bunch of other stuff that essentially I found them in college and I discovered that you don't have to go, you don't have to be like a Hollywood director or a Hollywood writer to make content that people like.

It's so crazy because like the early internet creativity of like just people like recording video games and like making a show inside. of that game and then just putting that on the internet. And like early, early YouTube shit was probably some of the greatest internet and content I'd ever consumed. It's, and it's tough today because we're so in due to all this. Everybody wants to be. What the fuck y'all talk about. It's okay. It's not for you.

The mint boys are some real dirt. Like, like, I know we all nerds here, but everything y'all talk about, I'm like, what the fuck is going on? Do you remember the first viral video that you ever saw where it was like the okay go music video where they were on the treadmills? You remember that? No, I remember that nigger that was unforgivable. Oh, my God. Are we talking about the chocolate rain?

No, unforgivable was that guy in the woods where he's just like, went on a date with this girl. Oh, yeah. I remember him. Yeah. I remember that nigga. My early internet members was the unforgivable nigger. I remember him.

I remember the nigger who tried to, the dude who tried to do the backflip and he busts his shit. Yeah. I remember him. I remember that you know who did. This is early internet too. Who's the, I want to get his name right. He's the funniest thing ever to fake Mario. You a player two ass niggins.

To me, my internet was like, like, I'm the juggernaut bitch. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, all of that shit, that shit was the funniest shit in the world to me. That's what the internet should have been. Like, there's this weird place that we're in now where it's just like, okay, we have content creators. We have, like, a TikTok star. We have people like doing TV shows like the Drewskys of the world. Like, and that's awesome.

And that's interesting that the internet grows into that. But like sometimes it just begins as like people fucking around in their basements and like making jokes. That era, like, you too do you understand? Like kids don't realize. I'm like, the internet was so neutralized. I vividly remember some parties we would go to because we just pop over YouTube. And we just watch stuff. We just watch stuff.

The whole genesis of the entire thing was that they were just friends. who used to play Halo. They made a show in Halo. Now they started a production company. And like, you know, Oh, that's Red versus Blue. Red versus Blue. With Ruby and Achievement Hunter,

the whole thing I consumed all of it. Even the strangerhood, I was so locked in. And it taught me that I can do this without like being like, you know, somebody who learned it about it. But yeah, the internet's different now, man.

People try to go viral on purpose. And it's not the same. Uh-huh. And so you just hope that McDonald's corporate comments on your thing. Right. Like, it's not the same. Steve?

Shadow the Colossus. That was a... Oh, shit. That was a formative time. That shit crazy, bro. That was... I had to play that shit for fucking, for Cybernet. Oh, yeah?

The show that I was working on at the time. And I ended up, I ended up, like, playing the end. That shit was crazy. That's an emotional journey. That's a beautiful fucking game. Yeah. How can we all talk about Shadow of Colossus? Did they make a bunch of them or no?

No, just one. So the creator of that, they've done, like, some spirit. successful successors to that game. It began with the game called Iko, where you play as a, like, a boy, like, rescuing this princess and, like, a castle. And then there was Shadow the Colossus. And then he made a long gestating project that came out. Oh, my God, I can't remember the name of it. But, like, you play as this little boy who has this, like, this gigantic, like, fox pet that, like, runs around. You got to escape this castle. And they all have, like, the same, like, kind of, like, architecture that you see. But, like, there's no reference to the rest of that world or that series or anything. like that. It's incredible. Why can we play more video games? I know. Shadow Colossus was fucking amazing. I never played Shadow Colossus. Oh my God. One of the greatest twist endings of a game

ever. Spoilers. All right. In my heart, it's Slay the Spire, but I gotta go. Hey, hell yeah. Slay Aspire is my favorite game of all time. But the real thing is like, this actually broke my brain. Dog, when I got the first Pokemon Red, bro.

Oh, right. We didn't, my family had one game boy, so I wasn't even playing the whole game. It was like my brother would get 30 minutes. I get 30 minutes. I had Charmander. Dog. Did you ever have a safe file fucked with? Yes. Yeah.

Not only that. I don't know if people remember, you used to have to get like if you wanted to get the real shit, like you wanted to get you. There was like the missing number shit. Yeah. All that shit. Like, dog. What is Pokemon? You've never played Pokemon.

I play Pokemon Go, which I used to be walking around the parking lot at TMZ. So wait. Wait, you've never played Pokemon Red or Blue. No, what did, no, I don't know. So, like, the whole cultural, like, surge in the, in the late 90s of Pokemon, like,

completely lost on you. You were how old at that time, like in 99, 99? 98. 19. Can you name 10 Pokemon? Go. No. You can name 10 Pokemon. No, I can't.

10 Pokemon. You know, I'll give you one, Pikachu. Pikachu? There you go. That's the only one I know. Charmander? Charmander. I can't have no Charmander.

Bobesore. Nope. Squirtle? Nope. You too? Nope. Damn. Blastoyce?

Nope. Damn, I have remember the Pokemon wrap. Nope. Dog, wait. Evie? Charmillion. So if he saw them, I think he would say that I've seen this thing. Some of these, you had to go catch on Pokemon Go.

Yeah. All of these, you have to catch on Pokemon Go. So I played Pokemon Go, and he got to the point where I was going down to Santa Monica to try to get water Pokemon. Right. Yeah. And listen, man, Pokemon Go was a quaker. crazy time. It was crazy time.

That was the closest you've ever been to world peace. Ever. But it was mad people because TMZ was in, remember I'm a 35, 36 year old man.

You're just driving down. It was mad people. TMD is in Playa Vista. So it was mad people, I will go on my walk and mad people just like walking around and then sometimes you walk by somebody

and they would be like, there's one up there. Yeah. And then you go trying to get it. Like some parks would be absolutely flooded with people just with their phones out. I would be.

You've seen this before. Why they would be walking into the hood? I know, yeah. What was that? That's... You know who Charzard is. Do you don't know who Charzard is? You don't know who Charzard is?

You've seen it. Show me some more Pokemon. I've seen them. But I don't know the names of the Pokemon. Like, he doesn't know, like, Cario is. Pikachu is the most famous Pokemon. Do you know Evie?

Who is Evie? It's like the little like... I'm not fucking around. I swear to God, I don't know what, like, You didn't know any of the Pokemon you would sketch you? No, I actually, the game, the Pokemon, see, I don't know him. I don't know him. Wait, show him the racist Pokemon.

Have you ever heard of Jinks? Oh, man. No, Google original Jinks. Original Jinks. They got a racist Pokemon. You know how Mr. Popo from Dragon Ball Z was racist as fuck? Racist as fuck. They got a racist Pokemon.

I didn't know the dude. Let me show, let me show. Original jinx is crazy. Hold on. Let me try to get this. Let's see. Oh, hell not. Oh, fuck no, bro.

This was on a children's, this was on a children's show. Yeah, yeah, man. Children's show. Oh, hell no, bro. Oh, my God. That's not right, bro. Yeah, that's nuts.

1990. This art was different. You never saw this. You can still catch this Pokemon. That design is, since changed, by the way. Show me the new one. It's a little less.

She's purple now. She's purple. Let me see. She's purple. Okay. It's still kind of nuts. It's still kind of nuts. It's still.

Purple. Yeah. No, I don't know. I don't know. Charles, what's yours? We got, we got. No, I said Pokemon. Okay, so we done that.

We got our. We did it. I mean, we left a lot of questions on the table. Thanks for everybody. No, thanks for all your questions. Thank you. That was amazing. Great questions.

We love y'all. Yeah, we had a whole bunch of fun, you know, answering your guys this question. So thank you so much for a minute. It means a lot. All right. We got to get out of here. I'll tell you all something right now. This content summer is about to be a big deal.

It's a lot. They work in us, it's about to be a deep. You're going to be here, man. We're about to get into it. All right. That's a wrap. This week on the regular rest feed, tomorrow the House of our will be giving you their top ten speeches of the century so far. I'm not going to miss that podcast. I really want to hear what they come on. Optimus Prime.

And next week, we'll have our own Ironheart premier thoughts please let Ironheart be good this is one one this is one nigga wait honestly we should think of something before Ironheart to celebrate the women

because after we had that long talk about that you know what fuck Disney fuck these corporations we support in our girl we support in our black queen bruh Sarah had a question we didn't get to what was like our favorite women led or women directed projects whether in the Nervverse or outside the Nerveverse.

And so maybe we should think about that. Maybe we do a Mount Rushmore? Maybe we do a pod of that. Maybe around our heart we orient the backs. I don't want to say we orient the backside of it because we're talking about women. Okay, don't orient anything. How about you?

It's why it's so hard. It's so hard. Why? We had a great conversation. We nearly. Backside and it's so hard. See what I'm saying? We can't really do it.

But I'm saying it's not. Maybe we talk about our favorite female-led. Maybe like a Mount Rushmore, maybe. Yeah. Female women. Women-led. Yeah, we can't say. Nobody likes females.

We can't say. Females is bad. Females is not. Female. Women are later. To all our midnight sisters out there, we try. You can see us fumbling. No, no, you have to try.

We're crawling our way past Shottie game. Don't let me get, let me get, uh, let me get a cell factory, Steve Almond, Alea, De Nair's Zomi Adir, Jomi Adironeron on social. Hashtag backside, johmi. Ah, daddy. Backside. Edition production from Arjuna Ramcapap. Chuck takes out.

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