The Ringer-Verse - New Comics You Should Be Reading | Mint Edition

Episode Date: January 29, 2024

Steve and Jomi are joined by their producer Jonathan Kermah to discuss the latest in the Marvel comic book world, including Issue 1 of Jonathan Hickman’s ‘Ultimate Spider-Man’ (15:00), Benjamin Percy and Victor Lavalle’s ‘Wolverine’ Issue 41 (35:00), and ‘Marvel’s Voices: Avengers’ no. 1 (49:00). Later, the boys highlight some of their favorite personal comic recommendations (57:15) Hosts: Jomi Adeniran and Steve Ahlman Guest: Jonathan Kermah Producer: Jonathan Kermah Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Did Don Draper really buy the world of Coke? Did Tony Soprano really die? Or just order more onion rings? The finalees of our favorite shows can make us argue, make us cry, and make us crazy. From Spotify and the Ringer, I'm Andy Greenwald, and this is Stick the Landing, a new podcast where we'll be telling the story of modern TV backwards, one fade out at a time. Find Stick the Landing on Wednesdays on the prestige TV feed, on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start.

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Visit weathertech.com today. Hello and welcome back into the ringer verse. The ringers nexus podcast. For all things, fandom and welcome to Mint Edition. The once in a while podcast about all the latest fandom that you just can't live without. I'm Steve Alman. I'm Jimmy Dinner on.

And he's the greatest rapper that the ringer ever knows. Oh, relax. Listen, we got to talk about last week, buddy. last episode you set the ringer verse on fire oh man just again though something like don't

don't gas that no I will guess that but he's not a rapper though I'm not a rap but he's not a rapper I am not so stop rapping at him okay

don't meet dinner on's here we got a lot going on this week lots of great things happening on the ringerverse last week we're coming at you on Monday last week

The Midnight Boys had the Royal Rumble. It was a great time. Chalels was on one, on several. We've had a lot of great feedback from that. We'd love to hear from you. The House of R is back on the Percy Jackson beat. Last week they caught you up. And this week, Joanna is going to be giving you an extra special interview on Tuesday.

And this Friday, the House of R is going to be giving you their deep dive into the finale of Percy Jackson and the Olympians. but before that, don't forget, the Midnight Boys are back on Wednesday as well. But where can we find all of that on the internet, Jomey? We can find all of that on Twitter, TikTok, Instagram, specifically at Ringiverse. Make sure to follow, like, and smash that subscribe button. No.

But not, man, you know, follow. Appreciate you guys. Yeah. Jomey's making all the kinds of TikToks. I'm getting called out for taking. my glasses off and close-up shots. It's great. It's really fun. It's really like you can argue about continuity, but again, we're

not, you know, we're not making a best picture. Listen, we're, yeah, no, listen, we were snubbed at the Oscars once again. We're not doing anatomy for all over here. No. Best visual effects taken, snatching the chain. No. It's not on that. Bro. I will say this.

The Charles' hairbrush spin combo is insane, yo. The fact y'all let him get that off is crazy. So here's the thing. That's like top tier light skin shit right there. That's all I'll say. It was his idea.

So, you know, you want, you want the talent to feel comfortable I was there and he's like, wait a minute, let me take that again. Let me get the brush. He's like,

Lord, let me get the brush. Hold on, we need to do this better. Yeah, I got another one in me. Crazy. I said, say no more, man. I saw you, man. Do your thing.

Do your thing. All right. Well, coming up next this week, the Midnight Boys return on Wednesday. And the House of our will return on Friday as well. but today we have a very special episode

to discuss all of the latest comic books that we think you should be reading right now. Yes, that's right. We're not short on content when it comes to the Wednesday Warriors and joining us today is our very special in-house X-Men Radical and Expert himself.

It's producer Kerm everybody. Hey, what's up, guys? Feels good to get the guest spots today. I appreciate y'all. Very, very welcome. So, today we are going to be taking a trip into our local comic book shop and talking about some three

big comic recommends that we loved this week and we thought that we wanted to share with you guys. So pretty much generic spoiler warning for everything that we're going to be talking about. We're only going to be talking about single issues this week. But we easily recommend that you guys pick all of these up beforehand. We had mentioned these briefly on the Midnight Poys.

We are going to be talking about Jonathan Hickman's Ultimate Spider-Man number one, Wolverine number 41 by Benjamin Percy and Victor Lavel and Marvel's Voices Avengers number one So generic blanket spoiler warning for this And some plot details for surrounding comic books and stories Kerm's going to be walking us through a lot today

As not exactly a Wednesday warrior I am or Jomey is But to start off Guys What is your relationship to your local comic book shop How often do you read comics? Jomi, what's been the latest thing that you've been reading so far? And why did you want to talk about comics this week?

Man, the hub of online, I was on the Twitter, like most people are. And everybody was talking about, oh, Spider-Man, Spider-Man, Spotify, Man. I was like, what's going on? And I had to do a little research. And they're talking about this ultimate Spider-Man train. I was like, yo, hold on. I see the vision.

I might have to lock in. I'm usually not a somebody who locks in on stuff. At least that's releasing week to week. That's not how I am. I'm an omnibus type of man. You know what I'm saying? I'm a collectible gentleman, you feel me? Like it when it's all done.

You like a thick spine. I like a thick spine, brother. You know what I'm saying? Pause. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I was supposed to go rock with, bro. We would just go power. That was a five. thing to say. That's a fine thing to say. That's a fucking at all. Dude, I mean, like, I've got the invincible omnibuses. I've got the, uh, I'll talk about it later, talk about the Fantastic four omnibuses. Those things are thick, bruh. They don't come in pamphlets. You want to talk I haven't even opened this one. Hold on. We have the complete, there's no reason to actually make something this big. Why the last man omnibus? Look at that thing. Every single issue.

Well, see, they spent invincible in three. They spent invincible in the three. They spent invincible in the three different different joints. So, I mean, even then it's still pretty big. But no, I'm not like a week to week type of fella. So the gas was nuts. So I was like, man, I might have to break my streak and check it out. And that's why I got it.

I was like, when I was there, I was like, might as well pick up this Wolverine joint too, you know? Like, why not? And I'm locked in right now. What about you, Steve? So I'm kind of with you. I don't really do single issues or week-to-week month-to-month reader, only because I really just like a completed story.

And it's so quick to read a single issue for me that I'm just like, I want more. It's a simple thing of just like, I just want to keep going. I want to read the story. I want to finish it. And like I hate something that's incomplete. Shout out to Georgia R. Martin,

Winds of Winter coming real soon. I don't think that there's, been anything that's really grabbed me as far as like a single issue hype that's come and we're going to talk about Hickman's run for Ultimate Spider-Man in a second until now. I've been buying trades. I've mainly been like wanting to read like fully completed stories and then we get to something like what we're going to be reading today and it's just really refreshing to like go into a store

look for the thing that you want. Know that you can't. can't buy it because it's been sold out for weeks and weeks and weeks and nobody can actually find it. That's real fun. And then you've got to read it digitally online because it's completely sold out and that's still fun and it's fine. I kind of enjoy the hunt and I could see the appeal of this thing. So Kerm, you're our Wednesday warrior here.

How long have you been going to comic book shops and how long have you been kind of on this trail for you, for yourself? I think the more recent stuff for me, it's become kind of like a pandemic pickup type of thing. I got the Marvel Unlimited subscription, so you have access to the digital library of Marvel Comics back to like the 60s, goddamn. And what ended up happening was I became very X-Men obsessed very quickly to the point where I was burning through, I burned through like the Grant Morrison run. I burned through a lot of different runs. Then I got to the Jonathan Hickman, Krikkoa era.

And I just burned through all of it to the point where I was like, oh, the new shit's dropping next week and it's not showing up on that anymore. So since like 2021-ish, I've been just going to the comic book store every Wednesday. Now my apartment looks crazy because I just have stacks of single issues just sitting around at this point because I'm just, I very much love these stories that I'm following and it gets you kind of hooked and almost addicted to just kind of picking up the single issues. So that's where I've been at the past few years. I'm very curious. What has been like one of your most memorable like Wednesday Aquinas? of this like, I needed this issue. Like, this is the one that I've been waiting for.

It's like a different arc. Like, whether or not you even like, that you were waiting on an arc, you caught up to something. And now you're finally on a week-to-week basis. What was like that next big hit that you remember taking out on Wednesdays? Off the top of my head, the X-Men versus Eternals versus Avengers' Judgment Day crossover, that was right around the time while I was playing catch-up. And specifically X-Men Red Al Ewing, who I'm going to,

praise later on in this podcast did just such a fabulous job with telling the stories of Magneto and Storm. So when I got to, I believe it was issue number six, that still might be my favorite issue of a single issue of a comic I've read in the past like two-ish years. I remember that day specifically getting to the comic bookshop

and just being so happy that I could get that issue. That's probably the first one that pops up in my mind. It's a beautiful thing. Beautiful. It's funny. Steve alluded to it earlier, but Steve couldn't find the Spider-Man joint. It was easy for me, brother.

I went into the thing. I got the last one. That's tough, dog. Was it an original cover or a variant cover? Dude, I mean, a variant. But again, I don't. See, there you go. See, here's a thing, Steve.

You got a, you got to be honest. I don't care. It's not. I feel you on that. I love a good variant cover. Yeah, very, it's cool. Like, at the end of the day, what they go on? You got the thing.

Yeah, I got it. I mean, I, I think, I think, like that's another question for you, Karm? Like, we're just doing like overall comic stuff at this point. But like, does it, does it matter the variant versus the OG? Again, I'm probably not the person to ask because I am not necessarily a comic trader yet. Like, you're not sending things into the CGC. You're not really like doing anything like that.

Right now, I'm looking at this as like an investment of, you know, if I have kids one day and they need a college fund, I bring out like a thousand comics and flip those for like minimum 10K. Like that's the game plan here, you know what I'm saying? Like if at the bare minimum, because I don't know the value of comics today compared to like, say you have like an original Chris Claremont X-Men comics from the 80s. But I'm assuming I can at least get me $10 back, right? And like a decade for these. Like I would hope. Wow.

That's a lot of getting investments back by. We're just like if we can at least get our money back. That's what $5.99. I feel like, but I feel like they're going to at least raise a little bit like in a decade, especially like, you know, this era of X-Men stuff. Like it's still buzzing. Like this is kind of the most X-Men comics they've put out at a time before. Like there's so many individual comic runs going on at the same time as like their main runs. So I can see a world where they can at least double to $10.

I could do that. Like I'm fascinated because I feel like, do you personally feel that like the X-Men gas and the X-Men like fervor in the world of comics is kind of prevailing because we kind of have we still have like an unanswered IP in the MCU that we like, need like a main canon thing for. So we have great stories that are like obviously there are millions of great stories in comics and any

Marvel canon or any Marvel character. But when we really, really want a good X-Men story, we keep going to the comics because we haven't had like that one hit for a while. It's a, what a Drake said, combination. It's a little bit of both and the fact that I'm sorry, I had to, I had to.

Did you have to? Did you? I felt it in my soul I needed to get that one out. worry. I'll have Anita Max Wien sometimes. Yes. Yes. Where we go. That's the energy we need right here, man. But I think it's a combination of both and the fact that, yes, like, for me, the reason I got so deep into

the X-Men comics is I was fiend in. I was like, you think I'm really going to watch that shitty new mutants movie on Disney Plus? I'm good on it. I'm not that interested. And so it led to kind of diving down the rabbit hole, but also what they did in the Skrkoa era is making, you know, taking the X-Men

in a place that's never been taken before. and the idea of solidarity through all mutants, good and evil, to, you know, create their own island nation. Like, yeah, they had utopia where they were kind of off, like, the coast of San Francisco, but not at this scale. And I think that plus the cohesion between, like, the writers that Jonathan Hickman and the Marvel team brought in was impeccable. Like, I felt like all of the stories bled together in a way that the history of X-Men comics wasn't always like that, where it felt like all of these stories were went a hand in hand. and step on each other's toes. And the way it was playing was just, you know,

it was marvelous. And I think that's really that paired with the fact that we didn't have the X-Men movies made it shine even brighter. And that cohesion in that continuity throughout different writers and different iterations, it really can only come from something

like long foreign comics writing. And that's really where the beauty of this comes. And like, that's why we get all of these massive omnibuses, these big trades. And even if we read from week to week, Like it's still just as fulfilling as some of the best stories that we've ever read. And that's why we kind of want to talk about the ones that we're going to talk about today. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business.

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Restrictions apply. Service is not available in all areas. So let's get started with Jonathan Hickman's Ultimate Spider-Man Number 1, published January 10th, 2024, penciling by Marco Shoshetto and another highly

highly anticipated run from Jonathan Hickman. It follows a Peter Parker that was never bitten by the radioactive spider as a teenager and he feels like something's missing in his life and with a living Uncle Ben in league with Jay Jonah Jameson they strike off to make their own newspaper

as if that's still a valid thing in 2024 Jesus Christ people lost their jobs Steve you're not wrong we'll talk about it hey it's it's the new media era all right times are tough too soon too soon too soon listen guys what did we think about this

this is like again I don't know Kerm, you can help me out here. I don't know if the gas has been as high as a new Jonathan Hickman Spider-Man run as this sold out in multiple stores. Again, just for you, for you.

Okay, again, a lot of people are saying that this was... It sold out like hotcakes. Like, if you didn't get it within the first 48 hours of it drop it, you probably wasn't getting it. It was like a PS5 dropping in 2020. Like, it just, you're not getting it, day one, you might as well count yourself

a loser. It's not happening. People were hawking that on eBay for like, you know, almost three figure sums. Like it was it was gas. That's insane though. That's they ended up on you because like, come on now. That's it's still a comic book that just came out. Listen, people want that. People think that this is going to be a legacy run from Hickman

and this is what we've got. So what did we think about this first issue? You want to go first, Jome? I thought this thing started off really, really well. You know, the The entire thing of Spider-Man is that his life is terrible and is sad and it's depressing at all times. When something can go wrong in his personal life, it will go wrong.

So to see a Spider-Man who's like happy, you know, he's again going through like a transitional time of his life, but Mary Jane is his wife. He's got two kids. Uncle Ben is alive, you know. Jay Jonas Jameson is nice to him, you know. It was something that I was like, oh, this is, this is nice. You know, there's something lurking in the back, though. Like, you know, in his head, things are turning, things are moving. And it's not until the last few pages.

You're like, oh, you know, between, even without the Aunt May Memorial thing, Iron Man came to him last night. I was like, hey, man, you're supposed to be superhero. You're not, I kind of need you to be a superhero right now. can you can you help me out like that would mess with me too you know and so to see to know what i know about the spider-man character in the sense of whenever he gets the great power and the great responsibility things start to go wrong and chuck supposed that with the life he's currently living which is somewhat happy i'm like oh boy we're in for some we're in for some good stuff right

here, man. This guy's going to get tested. And so for, again, for a first run or a first issue, that was awesome. I thought it set up the stakes really well. And I think, again, like everybody else, I'm really excited to see where this goes. I agree with a lot of that stuff, Joe, me. The only thing I would have a slight pushback is like what I love is while he has the family, he has all that. I don't think the happiness is there. There's something missing. It is that that call to action, that feeling of, you know, changing the world. He couldn't articulate it, but he knew something was there that was missing. And another thing I really love about this issue is they switch up. We don't get the great power, great responsibility.

Uncle Ben has this amazing quote to him. He's like, if you're walking around half asleep, anesthetized by your own life, then wake up. And I was like, damn, that's, that's bars, my nigga. Like, speak on it, Uncle Ben for real. But I really enjoyed this issue as well. Like, I love the world building within the ultimate universe, how, as you pointed out, Jumme, how it's So it's similar yet different. Like the idea that, you know, Uncle Ben is best friends with Jonah Jameson. I really loved how it reflects the world of journalism today, even if it's not the most exciting, you know, things when, you know, you're looking around in the world they hand right now with L.A. Times layoffs. Pitchfork being absorbed by GQ.

Them all cash up your favorite journalist. But the fact that they kind of really highlighted that within the issue of, you know, how the world journalism is faltering where you got these rich motherfuckers at the top that. don't necessarily care about the service of journalism in the same way that those that are in the trenches doing the reporting, doing the hard investigating are. So you get kingpin as that figure. I think that's beautiful work by Jonathan Hickman to reflect our reality back at us. The other thing I really like that differs from the original, you know, Spider-Man story, as we know it, is this is more of a call to action than like, oh, fate decided your Spider-Man. You know what I mean? It's the fact that Peter, he has the choice here.

Like Charles was kind of hating on that yesterday in the Midnight Boys and I kind of have to push back on that because I think it makes it even more powerful and brave to see Spider-Man make that leap in the same way. Like Miles Morales makes that leap in the into the Spider-Verus movie. To make that choice makes it just that much more impactful. So I really like, you know, where it started. Sure, would I love to see more actual Spider-Man in it? Maybe, but you know, you got to set the world first. So I really like how they did that. What did you think, Steve?

I completely agree. I think this is a great, great premise. and great setup to prime the palette for what we're going to be getting here because a lot of Spider-Man's characters, a lot of the things that are surrounding his orbit, and a lot of the things that kind of make the character what they are, like, we're very

familiar with this with, say, the lore of like, into the Spider-Verse and pretty much everything that's come with these most recent Tom Holland movies. And a lot of like the cultural impact that Spider-Man has, we all know and turning almost every aspect of it on it on its head while still being slightly familiar to us all is very nice and very refreshing. I love that the idea of having this alternate future where there isn't a there isn't a thing inherently wrong with

what's going on in the world, but there is something underlying in Peter's mind that he is not particularly complete. Also, I love how innately dumb Peter Parker is by immediately thinking that it's something wrong with his marriage because he's just a dumbass every time when it comes to that. I love the idea that he needs to be Spider-Man. Right. Like, it will always come back to this thing that he can't shake and like a borderline addiction to being this thing that he can't be otherwise. And even out of time and even pulled out of something that he knows is not there for him. he'll still come back to it and it'll still think that it's what he's supposed to be.

I love the idea that Uncle Ben giving this sort of like life lived and an inversion of his philosophy after Aunt May dies and then the impact of what his life is with Ben's Aunt May is. It's very interesting because he has a lot of like father-like role models in his life while still not really being in touch with the thing that can make him whole. That really is cool to me while still having a lot of these familiar characters that were like, like, Harry Osborne's just like kind of living the life of his father and not really, uh, stirring the pot too much. Matt Murdoch is just a priest now, even though, come on, like, come on.

Come on. What is he supposed to do? What even was he supposed to do? Like, that's the, like, that's the thing. that's the utopic version of Matt Murdoch where he's just a priest and he's just minding his own business It's not a utopia

I don't believe that for a second Because people died You know he was there People died Steve so it's not really Utopia but you know Mine as well You know

Hey Father Murdoch Do your thing brother I am mad at it They could have been more creative About his career space But I mean he was always going To you know The chapel and his days

As Daredevil So I get it But to know that like He's like the renowned Neighborhood priest That will give the speech at the thing. I'm like, okay, first of all, you got some, you can have some deacons in the city. You don't need

to be like, oh, hey, we got Matt Murdoch here. I'm looking forward to seeing how they expand this ultimate universe. They originally broke out this universe through Jonathan Hickman writing Ultimate Invasion, where the maker, who you guys may remember from like, I think like the Ultimate Universe,

Fantastic Four, who's essentially evil Reed Richards, they brought him back and essentially he bust out of jail and goes on this mission to like get rid of all superheroes. So I wouldn't be surprised if Daredevil is coming down the pipeline. I know they got Ultimate Black Panther coming in February, which is Black, they know what they do. Interesting.

Yeah. You know, I was like, what you mean about it? I know what you doing. Then they got Ultimate X-Men coming. So I'm assuming Ultimate Daredevil might be down the pipeline. And I'd be interested to see how they flip that now. How do you go from being, you know, Father Murdoch to beating the shit out of niggas wall, wearing a devil outfit.

I'm very interested to see that switch up. But yeah. I mean, that's a perfect cover, right? You know, hey, I was a,

I'm a priest. I'm not out here. I'm a blind priest. What do you mean? Well, we've seen that art of him that it's like a mashup of like the like ninja cap while he's also wearing like the cloth.

Which is very, very evocative. I'm not quite sure about that. But what I've liked to do, what I've liked to like to like to like to like to like to like, to talk about, like, before we wrap up and move on to our next one, is, you know, Hickman, obviously a renowned author and renowned voice in this space to kick off this sort of ultimate universe with multiple spin-off characters and a multiple, like, sort of like, new riffs on

familiar storylines. Where do we want to see this go? What do we think that this is going to be in, like, kind of the legacy of Hickman's run with, like, revitalizing the X-Men the way that he did? what do you think he's going to do for Spider-Man? I think he's going to do good things, man. Things are going to do good things. I'm really excited, again, I'm really excited to see where this run goes. There's a little, like, gobbie, you know, tease in this thing. So Spider-Man's already got to lock in on one of his biggest foes.

You know, where does the- Goblin right now? Who is, right? Who that? I'm assuming it's hairy, man. It's got to be, right? Like, you don't be, but it could not be. Because there's no way.

I feel like it has to be. If you have Harry at the, like at the, you know, the ceremony for all the people that died from the ultimate invasion stuff, right? You can't have him showing his face like that. And then like a couple pages later, oh, there's this new green goblin. Like that's what they want you to think. Fair enough. They might, you know, they might be like Ben Riley or some shit somehow. I don't know.

What if that leaked cover for issue three is like, what if King Ben is just a good guy? What if King Ben is just like a, like, you really wants to like get into new media? And like, you know, we're going to pivot to video. We're going to pivot to video. We're going to take all our, all our news is pivoted to video. No, I mean, it's probably hairy. But, you know, it could be the relationship between Ben Parker or Ben Parker, between Jay John and Jameson and Jimison and Uncle Ben, I guess his name is Ben Parker.

I'm an idiot. You know, because you never, you know, he dies. You never used to that dude being alive. He's Uncle Ben. And he's usually dead by now. So the fact that he's still alive is tripping me up. No, the relationship between Uncle, Uncle Ben and Jay Jonah Damison, I think it's something like I wasn't expecting, but I'm interested to see how that goes along. See how their, their newspaper does in 2024.

But not, seeing a grown man learn how to be Spider-Man is going to be fun. It's going to be fun. So I really can't win. He's going to take to it pretty quickly. No, man. I need six issues of them falling off buildings. And learning how to build. That's exactly what I don't need.

I learn how to build the web shooters. I don't need Peter on tutorials when he's 35. You think there's like a Spider-Man, How to be Spider-Man YouTube video. I bet Tony Stark will give it to him. Probably. It's going to look nuts. The idea you work a full-time job,

you got kids and a wife at home, then you're going out and fighting these niggas at like 1 a.m. I know your back hurt. I know you're going to hurt. Like, in a way. Well, let's see what the radio action spider can do for him. Because I bet you that gets rid of back pain once your superpowers come in. I don't know, man.

You at that age, your knees already kind of messed up. You know, again, your back's not the same. It was. You know, I just, it's got, it's got to be tough. The first couple swings, first couple nights on patrol, it's going to be a little hard on the old body, man. Before, before we go to the last question, I just really hope that they do keep, like, Peter's, like, family life intact. I would really hate the idea of, oh, the second he becomes Spider-Man,

like all this, you know, his situation when Mary Jane changes. And, like, I mean, Mary Jane specifically says to him, do you feel like this is going to affect her marriage? She's like, nah, she's like, go get him, Tiger. Yeah, and, yeah, Peter Parker's never been wrong when it comes to that. Right, right, right. Everything's always worked out for Peter Parker. Yeah, it's always been great.

It's never once gone to hell. You know, he always has his family by his side, no matter what. The only reason he has a stable job. and a wife and kids is because he isn't Spider-Man. True. That's why. It's definitely wishful thinking, but it's like, that's what I love about, like, you know, the Miles Morales run where it's like he keeps his family intact.

Like, his family knows he's Spider-Man and it all works out. But I know it's just wishful thinking. Like, I just, the dude isn't, he's in his mid-30s. He's fighting for his life now, doing it all. Like, don't make him lose his family, Jonathan Hickman. Like, let's, let's give him a, throw him a bone. That's all I'm asking him. it's jover

it is jover jover last one before we move on how do we feel about Tony Stark's plan to just basically leave canon events

in whatever superhero's lives and just hope for the best and walk out in the middle of a battle like is that lazy of him or is it like okay well

you got this agenda against Tony man I don't know an agenda I'm just more like how do we feel about the plan lazy what is he supposed to do

his world is dying. You're like, hey, man, here's all I can do, bro. I need you to take this spider. I have done all the work. You just need to let it bite you, start saving people, and in six months, I'm going to be right here. I'm going back. And we got to go, what he's supposed to do?

What do you want from him, Steve? I'll say this. I'm not blaming, I'm not blaming Tony. But I'm just saying, if that was meto and you just gave me a random radioactive a spider, you think I'm just immediately going to save lives? I'm hitting licks. I'm hitting licks, bro. I don't know what you talk about.

I'm not going to get this radio like spider and be like, great power, great responsibility. Nah, I got to get this. I got to get this money up. I have,

I have a good job. I have a wife. I have two kids. And for some reason, I don't think that's enough. Nah, I need more. I need more.

We living in the penthouse. And then a future man comes to you. Here's the thing, though. Imagine a future man came to you and said, Jonathan, Steve, you are destined for more. There is,

in every universe, there is one of you, specifically one of you, and they are a superhero. They're the best of a goat. In this universe, you're not, but you can be, and I need you to be in order to save the universe. That would mess with my head, too, I'd be like, yo, what am I doing? Like, what's going on with? You know what?

If I'm destined for greater and I'm already married to Mary Jane, I'm fine with missing out on destiny. See, you're not like that. No, that's real shit right there. I'm going to put my Hotep hat on real quick. Like, the way we've been treated in the past couple of decades, my brother, you think I'm going to put this suit on and think great power, great responsibility.

I'm going to save everybody. Fuck out of here. You think a white man's going to be telling you what the... Come on now. Thank you, Steve. You get it? Like, fuck out of here. I'm going to do what I want to do with this suit.

White man's telling me that I'm destined for more. Come on, I'm the master of my own destiny. Steve, a little too much dip on the chip there. whatever like. We're getting close. No, Jomey, you radicalize me.

Hey. Hey. Hey. February is on Thursday, bro, you got to chill. All right. You got to chill. You're getting too close.

Flying too close to the sun now. I mean, it's Peter Parker, though. Like, that's, this whole thing is, ah, man, I got to do better. Like,

it's ingrained in his DNA at an cellular level, right? Every single, for the most for every single Peter Parker, it's like, ah,

got to do the right thing. And so like we're probably different, you know, I don't think I could, I'm not getting on my wife and kids. For no. What the. Bray. No, y'all got it. Y'all got it. I'm happy.

You got a good apartment. Right. You know what I'm saying? And so, but for Peter Parker, it's like, no, man, I got a, it's always, there's always a need. There's always a feeling of, all right, I need to do the right thing. And so I'm sure I'm an man banked on that. And ultimately, like, yeah, it worked. So that's going to happen.

I'm just like, why did he need to know to go to the roof? to do that. Why did he have? Like, how did you innately just go to the roof to get bit by a spider? It's like you knew that you were going to jump off that building and start swinging already. What if he turns into like a spider in his living room? That's kind of weird. That's the thing.

He didn't even say that he was going to be Spider-Man. He just said, hey, get bitten by the spider. See what happens. Yeah, you got to. Come on, man. That's actually nuts. The idea that you just, you just trusted this dude. I don't even get a briefing on who I'm supposed to be.

I'm just like, hey, just get bit by the spider. It's all going to work. out. I kind of hope he got like, I hope Iron Man gave him like a suit or some, like some web shooters. Probably. Because I mean, Peter, I mean, I'll be, Peter Parker's got really good intellect. So he popped, but I don't know if you ain't got enough time to be, again, like, you He doesn't have a sewing machine at 36. He definitely gave him the suit. That wasn't

the dialogue. They didn't mention the web shooters, but I guess we got to just assume because like, what are we doing here? If he puts on that suit and he doesn't have webs, like that's not Spider-Man. Let's just, oh, hey, hold on, hold on. Toby McGuire had the natural webs. You know, Flip-thli-th-wit. True. It's a different universe. We don't know.

We don't know. If Ultimate Spider-Man has the goop wrists, I don't like that. What if he can, like, turn invisible? What if they just make them like Miles and Rialis but white? No, issue one will be my last issue, brother. Grand opening, grand closing. Sorry, Hickman, that was it. The second I see the venom, anything that made Miles, who Miles is, yeah, shut it down.

Shut that shit down right now. Mass sell-outs at all of your comic shops, episode two. Close it. Oh, boy. Close it. Bankrupt. Get him out of here. put them in prison.

Golly. Not enough. Well, hold on, on a scale of 1 to 10, how excited are you guys for the rest of the run, man? This is,

uh, this is an eight. This is, this is cooking. Like, I love a good premise. And it's more so like, all right,

now you got to execute. Now you got to deliver on something that I haven't seen before. And by all accounts, it seems like it's going to be doing so. But, uh, you know,

nobody knows. Yeah, you had a ride in the head, Steve, eight out of ten for me, too. I'm not trying to give it the, the,

the Hickman gas and just make it 10 out of 10 off of his namesake alone, because I'm be honest with you. Gods, that came out earlier this year, wasn't for me. Wasn't for me. So I'm not going to just believe in Hickman just because I've loved plenty of his work before. But he definitely, I'm interested. I'll say that. So 8 out of 10.

Yeah, I'm with you guys, 8 out of 10. It's money. This episode is brought to by Viori. When it comes to close, that score high in both comfort and style, Viori is my MVP. Sunday Performance Shoggers, Oh yeah. They have the perfect.

I could watch a game and then go out to dinner vibe. And the MetaPant, that's my number one. I need to look like I tried option. Get 20% off your first purchase at Viori.com slash Simmons and discover the versatility

of Viori clothing. Exclusions apply, visit the website for full terms and conditions. All right. Moving on to the next one. We got issue 41 of Wolverine by Benjamin Percy and Victor Lavelle. Published January 10th,

2024, penciling by Corey Smith and Jeffrey Shaw begins the Sabretooth War billed as the most violent Wolverine story ever told. And I know that because it was written on the cover. They weren't lying. Sabretooth brings an army of his own

kind to wreak havoc on the heavy hitters of the Marvel universe, and Wolverine is here to step up. Guys, what do we like about this story? Jomi, what do you think? Start us off here. I enjoyed this one.

I, you know, I love me some good, you know, council of, Council of Sabretooth type action,

you know what I'm saying? I've seen all of them together. There's a whole bunch of, you know, all the same, but all different, you know what I mean? We got a Captain America Sabretooth.

We got a pretty boy celebrity Sabretooth. I like that one. I like that one. I like that's right. The one that can has Mystique's powers, but even further,

where like, they can copy the scent of other people. Apparently, like, everything about them, he can mimic them in like almost reality warp other people's minds to believe it's them insanity i love i love the the council's favorite two stuff but that's what you were saying sorry no it's good now because i rock with that too the wolverine's like like there's a cageyness to because

i'm not familiar with the storyline right but as i'm reading i'm like wolverine seems pretty nervous like he's not all there you know i wonder what i wonder what i'm not what's going on. And I'm thinking, oh, it's probably because his home he got done in by the, by the Wolverine or by the Sabretooth crew. Oh, Quentin Quire earlier in this year? Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Oh, yeah. Well, he didn't even know about the Quentin Choir stuff yet at that point. That's what I'm saying. Like, so he's nervous about the, the Quentin stuff. Right. So I'm thinking about it. But I'm also like, he's, he knows something's going on. Like, he's got to know something is happening.

And then the issue ends. with happy birthday. Yeah. With his homies limbs like spread out spelled that way. I was like, nah. Sick work. It's messed up. That was shocking, bro.

I was not prepared for that. I was like, come on, bro. What? Sabretooth and Wolverine have this like long history going back to I think like the 80s of where every birthday Wolverine is probably getting somebody, he's losing somebody in his life or he's getting fucked up by Sabretooth. That's just like the history of them as enemies, frenemies, whatever you want to label it as. Like boyfriends, I'll call it boyfriends. Low key. Like we keep it in a being, there's something there. There's some tension there. I don't know about

y'all, but I don't kill my boyfriend's family on his birthday. Listen, I didn't say that it was a good relationship. It was some toxic. Definitely toxic. But yeah, it like dates back to this, what's the character's names? I think her name's like Silver Fox or something like that. Even like they depicted in X-Men Origins Wolverine where they kind of play on that where they fake her death in that movie. It's just, it's just common. I love how they kind of played on that. And this was supposed to be like the 50th anniversary of Wolverine as a character. So like this arc is supposed to end on the 50th anniversary date.

Yeah, man, I'm loving this stuff. What do you think of it, Steve? I liked it. The violence is really. Oh, it's a lot. It's a lot. It's a lot. Even though, even in the beginning,

where he just like messes up Cyclops and just splits him in half. I was like, even then I'm like, I've seen people split in half where I was like, you mean biclops? It's a terrible joke. It's the greatest inside joke though, because in the Crocoa era,

they've been like flirting with that for like years because Cyclops Gene, they have a house where they also share it with Wolverine and the way the rooms are set up. Like Wolverine's room is attached to jeans and Cyclops is attached to jeans. So it's like, what's going on there for real for it. Oh.

Yeah. So that, was kind of like a wink-wing nudge-nudge type of joke there. Hey, I don't know they move like that. I wasn't familiar with this game. In that in that X-Men universe, people are insidious. They'd be, hey, they'd be living, bro. Yeah, in the Quiccault era, everybody's fucking everybody, apparently.

Like, that's kind of one of the... If I was sent out to slander the X-Men, if I was like some anti-mute, if I had some anti-mutant agenda, I'd just be like, okay, they're all just... They're all in this, like, sex cult. I just make, the X-Men are just a sex cult. That's what they've been saying on the Twitter, man. That's what they've been saying. But more about this issue, like, I really love the fact, like,

the reason they have two writers on it with Benjamin Percy and Victor LaVal is, Victor LaVal was responsible for the Sabretooth run in the Kukoa era, where, like, the second Krakawa became a thing, Sabretooth with his, you know, dangerous, toxic, loki rapist ass, like, immediately got excommunicated from Krikah. Kroa banished and went through this whole journey where he was kind of treated like an animal by the X-Men's greatest enemies, orcists, like this fascist group and tortured and all that. And so he's gone through this journey where he's blaming all of this on Krakawa and Muntankind hating them while Wolverine in the entire Krakawa era was very much the guy where like I think he's loving the sense of community he has. But he was always kind of like that JZ meme where he's like looking up to the sky doing that where you're not really.

He doesn't feel comfortable. He's like nervous. He's a little like, I don't know. He feels like, you know, Krikawa had made mutants almost like soft and kind of just like they got too comfortable. So this kind of collision course is perfect for both of those arcs kind of coming head to head where Sabretooth, he needs that lickback. And it's his oldest rival who he hasn't seen in essentially two,

three years of the Krikawa era. And Wolverine, the second the Krikola stuff falls apart, he's already lost Gene. This happens on his birthday. Like it just, it's a magic. made in heaven. And honestly, the Wolverine run in the past year has gotten kind of stale to me. Like they did a lot of like guest appearances, which was cool with like Hulk having an issue, Spider-Man, Black Panther, Captain America, all of those. Like, well, it gave me cool covers and stuff that I'm happy that I have. It wasn't really scratching that itch of like substance.

And so now we're getting, you know, his greatest enemy ever finally after delaying that beef for three years. Real cinema. Real cinema. I'll say that. Real literature, I should. say. I do love seeing them and I think when it as it reflects the character of Wolverine like of any sort of comics or arcs that I have known it's just like okay how much hell can we put Logan through how much suffering can he withstand and then he'll probably come out on top and maybe but probably not earn some sort of redemption or peace. Yeah. Do you think that an arc like this is actually going to be coming out like, you know, good for Wolverine?

Because like every, at every arc or turn, like, I'm just like, okay, it's death, destruction, and then Logan stands at the end of it. That's more or less what I've known him to be. Do you see any sort of like kind of not even like redemption, but like, I guess happiness in this. Because like, oh, fuck no. As fun as it is, like, I see nothing but a bad time.

Yeah, oh, fuck no. I think especially, it's definitely going to get a lot worse before it gets better. One, he already lost, he lost his son, who they, They tried to make it feel like they had this like close bond in the issue. Wolverine did not give a fuck about his son in the past three years, but they had to, they had to, you know, they had to make you. He was a mid-dad. Are you telling me that a mass murderer isn't exactly a good father?

Not the best dad, definitely a mid-father. And then the relationship with Quentin Quire, I think that was probably stronger. Like, even though Quentin's origins as like essentially like a right-wing mutant, um, wanted to kill humans turned now good guy isn't a fan favorite character. but the bond he formed a Wolverine in the Krokoa era has been that very much of like big lion cub type of vibes. So I think there's only the start though. Like the fact that Sabres has a whole army of them niggas and they're at the X-Force base, I think we're going to watch some other X-Force members die,

especially with the preface of it saying this takes place after X-Force issue number 50, which currently they're printed out, I think, issue number 46 or 47 dropped. yesterday. That means, yeah, a lot of them niggas, they definitely dieing. They definitely going outside. Black Tom's going out sad. Sage might be going out sad. Wait, what's his day? Black Tom Cassidy, real name. He's got like tree powers or whatever. But a lot of those guys that have been kind of fan favorites within Benjamin Percy's X-Force runs the past couple of years, it might be sign-oriented. Pack your bags. Get right with God because it might be over for you, niggas. I think everybody's dying except Wolverine. That's the vibes I'm getting out of this one.

So I don't think it's going to be happy, but we know who's winning at the end of the day. Let's say that. I mean, it's got to be tough, right? Because there's a whole bunch of saber tooths and only the one ovarine. Either he got to go get his own game or he's going to do it solo, dolo. And that might be, that might be too much for him, no? I got a pretty good feeling it's going to be solo, Dolo. I mean, probably.

They're at the X-Force base. So I think X-Force will be involved in this to a certain extent, but I think it's going to be very quickly. his soldiers are dying fast and it's gonna end up being Wolverineverse. I feel like that's where we're headed with this. But who knows? Who knows? Maybe I'm wrong.

So, Kermm, you're our ex-band expert or like I like to say expert. Ha! Wolverine as a character. I mean, this is, you know, issue 41. Yeah. Like, he's, you know, they've got a whole thing going down over there.

Over this run, in the past 40 issues, how is he grown, how is he changed, or how is he like become the man he was in the first, or this first issue that we're doing? Yeah, I think they did a very good job of trying to balance, you know, Wolverine the solo guy and Wolverine the team guy. Like there was jokes in previous eras of X-Men where it's like, this thing is on every team,

but he's supposed to be like a solo guy. It doesn't make sense. But this run with Benjamin Percy writing both X-Force and the Wolverine solo series, It's been a great kind of balance of that. And I think the biggest thing, especially early on when he was a heavier presence in X-Force, you see him really bonding with, you know, the younger mutants around him, whether that's Domino, whether that's a Quentin Choir, you know, this arrogant, like, teenage telepath that he pretty much looked at him as one of his sons.

So I think that was the biggest thing of almost like, Wolverine has never not had a heart, but like almost giving up that heart a little bit more. this era of Crocoa because he was more able to be at ease, even if he didn't trust that that was a forever thing. And specifically, like, not having Sabretooth around, I think that plays a big factor into it. So we've seen him become, I don't want to say softer, but more of a loving human being. He also had his, but also at the same time in his solo run, he was still, you know, you still got the animalistic version of Wolverine as well and his beef with beasts and stuff like that. So it's very interesting getting all the way to this point and seeing, are we going to

wash away all of the progress that was made in X-Force? What's coming next for him? I'm not really, I'm not really sure how it's going to change him as a character. Well, that provides great context. He's becoming softer. He's opening his heart, way more to people. And that's great for Sabretooth, because that's more people that the gang can go around and start killing to hurt Wolverine. That's perfect context. And that's the biggest weakness. The more you start caring, the more Sabretooth can kill.

Man, the lick back that Wolverine going to get is going to be special. Legendary. It's going to be special. Some Halo streaks like a Killianaire, 10 Sabretooth in a row. Kill Tacular. Killamajaro. Double kill. Triple kill.

All that shit, dog. All right. Well, last thing before we move on to our next issue, just give me your favorite saber tooth. For me, I really like the idea of a Captain America Sabretooth. Like, that's just nuts. With all that we have is the history of Sabretooth being just a complete degenerate, as I said before, canon rapists, like all of these things, like a terrible human being, the idea that he could be a Captain America.

It doesn't make sense, but it also kind of does if you think about it. If you think about it enough, it kind of makes sense. I am a camo, a camo favorite. it, that is kind of nuts how you can mimic the smell. That's crazy. That's nuts. That's attention to detail. That is mystique

times 10 times 10 times 12. Very, very, very powerful. So that's all that. I was like, oh, you're going to kill a woman right here. Oh. Oh. You know, so yeah, I got to go with Camel. What about you, Steve? I love my funny pretty boy Sabretooth. That was just great.

But the Captain American Sabretooth was one of the takers. How? Like every once in a while, I will just say the phrase silly comic books bullshit, and I'm like, this is some silly comic books bullshit, and I like it a lot. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphaya offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Tramphia is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required. Tramphaya is a prescription medicine used to treat adults with moderately to severely active Crohn's

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Our third and final issue that we all read, Marvel's Voices, Avengers, number one. Now, this was a bit older, but we have a certain special place in our hearts for this particular issue. This was published on December 6, 2023, written by Christina Ireland, Robbie Thompson, and a little known colleague of ours, Jason Concepcion. Have you ever heard of him? Have you heard of him, lads? Another entry in the Marvel's Voices series as a collaboration and a springboard

for some of the best and new emerging names and talent in the world of comics. The Marvel's Voices series has more or less been a great onboarding for new talent to get their stories across and really represent a lot of underrepresented writers and artists. And it's been a, widely celebrated run, not just for the Avengers, but the Marvel's Pride series, as well as many,

many others. This is a great collection of sort of like little vignettes by a bunch of different writers that highlight some of the best Avengers that we know. And there's small little stories about Tony Stark going and do an AA meeting and a ghostwriter and a lot of other great, great little stories. Guys, what did we think about this? I really enjoyed, I mean, enjoyed the entirety of it all, you know, like the story of Cap going to the museum and being an example of what it means to be a hero. You know, you don't have to have a shield, you know, but if you're doing something to help, that is, that's good enough, right? Love that story. You know, the, the photon story going out, like, hey, remember when I got a, had to hug that slimy slug and to help, you know, the nuclear Reactor, you know. That's a fun story. And obviously the Tony

A1, I was like really powerful. The Ghost Rider Joint meant some to me for a lot of reasons. You know, like Jason's my guy, one of the best people I've ever had a chance to work with and know. But even with that, it was just a cool comic to read, man. Like the juxtaposition of Robbie Reyes telling his brother the story. And, And it's just like you tell your homie's story. Yeah, I had to go to the store and the cashier was being really like annoying and, you know, like that.

Except that's not at all what happened. Yeah. He went to hell, fought some demons, and was killing folks. They had to go to the head demon. And he's telling his brother like, I should break it or dangle. You know what I'm saying? Like the just musician of the storytelling and the action I thought was honestly like really. smart and really inventive and made the comic so, so much fun. And I thought he killed it.

You know, it was awesome. Shout out to J.C. The entire thing is great. But I mean, obviously, when he started off a story with, man, like the Lakers game, I was already locked in. I was already there. You know, me? So, no, but it was, I thought it was great, you know, plus, you know, Robbie Reyes, a ghostwriter from season four of Ages of Shield, baby. Do we get the box score for that Lakers game? Yeah, I assume it's because the alternate universe, they won by 50, and they've won 82 straight games. Right.

Like they're going 60-0 in the finals. Just 80, 80, 96 and 0 undefeated. Okay, so this came out in 23. Is this a universe where the Westbrook trade actually went well? No, this is a trade. They didn't trade. Or did the trade never happen? They never trade.

They never traded Westbrook. Never. Never let Caruso go. They instead let Thto go, right? And they still made the trade. They still had the AD. Yeah, they won eight straight chips, basically. They became Bill Russell.

Even though it was how many chips between that and the rest book trade? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Exactly. Absolutely. They found a way to win eight. It was that many in-season tournaments. That was great.

Hey, we do what you can. Mm-hmm. Wonderful. No, I, I really like a collection of stories, especially when it's short. sweet and you only need to know you need to know very little and it's really just a little flex and a writing exercise for these great emerging writers to sort of get their

stamp on a character and have a little sort of playground to get things right. I was really touched and moved by the Tony Stark story about going to an AA meeting mainly because I love the idea that when Tony kind of like again faces his demons if to lack of a better term, and wants to actually impact people from his perspective, I really like that, because we always see that character as this sort of like brash braggadocio, not really

caring about many things other than himself for the greater good, but when he takes time for the little guy and makes it a bit more personal, I really, really enjoyed that. And I thought the art was really fun. We have that little spectrum story as well. I think that there was a lot of great stuff that came from these small intimate stories. And we have little snippets from these authors about what making these stories meant to them. And I think that that's a really, really cool onboarding for these great writers. And I hope that we get to see a lot more from them. Yeah. I echo a lot of what you guys said. I really love just how low stakes all of this was.

You know, I think with the other two issues we read, it definitely feels like the start of something major, so it felt good to kind of have just that, you know, breather of just let's have some fun with these characters a little bit, even with the Ironman issue, you know, very serious topics, but not world-ending topics. So I echo a lot of what you guys said on that. I really enjoyed.

Jason's was probably my favorite. The Monica Rambo story was fun. I felt like that was almost too fun compared to the other ones. Like I felt like there was like no real stakes. She's fighting a slug. Come on. The one black woman story.

She's gonna fight a slug. Like, come on now. But it was still fun. All fun stuff. That's all I got to say about that. It was a great time. A genuinely fun time and like a light and easy read for pretty much anybody that I could recommend this to anybody

even if you do not read comics that often. It's an easy pickup and a great fun little read. Yeah, man. did you guys do the Yavnfor rebel-based word search? No, I did not. How did you do? I didn't. I was just wondering if you guys did because...

I mean, if they got a crossword, I like crosswords. See, because the thing with the word search is, I hate on the words are backwards. Like, they can do anything else, when the words are backwards. Why would you do that backwards? That's so annoying. That's what I'm saying, right?

Like, nobody reads back, you know what I'm saying? Like, it's not... No. I'm going to find a word if I got to look forward backwards. It's got to be left to right. I guess. It's not going to be this way. Left to right, diagonal.

down, you know what I'm saying? But if you got to like, you know, go up backwards, like that, that's even worse. You know what I'm saying? And so, you know, it's just, it can be frustrating. I tell you what, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get back into this. Nothing makes me feel more dumb than playing Wordle. I'm terrible at Wardle. I think I'm getting into connections this year. I think I'm going to get into. Connections is fun. Connections is fun. Because I was seeing TikToks and I'll be like, y'all are dumb. My friends on Wardle TikTok and those people are nuts the way they strategize.

I'd be like, all right, so I get two, like, I get two right off the bat, and they'd be there, it's a two minute TikTok, they'd be sitting there for like 90 seconds going, I don't know, fellas, I don't know. They're like, have an existential crisis. Yeah, I'm like, we're done. We're cooked

here. If I couldn't get all the vowels with audio, we're done. I'm just here like, yeah, y'all, yeah, y'all not serious. Y'all not really. Y'all not grinders like that. You're not outside, clearly. Clearly. All right. before we wrap up today

we wanted to also shout out some of our own personal recommendations in a light little non-spoilery type of list that we could run off and the things that we think that you should also read this could be from any era any time that we've wanted to read but something that really stuck out for us and that we really enjoyed Jomey would you like to kick us off I can kick you kick you off

alright goodbye Steve I'm just playing a little play on words a little pun there a little pun action tomato tomato tomato tomato I just hate him because my mind worked cool the Hickman Spider-Ban run

got me thinking I should probably finish the Fantastic 4 joint that's been in my house collecting dust for like to us right and I finally I finished the first

Omnibus and there's an issue in there I'm not going to get a non-spoiler that I was like wow this is what it all means this is what it's all about that's why we wake up in the morning that's why you put your shoes on that's why you go out there and you work hard is it three is it the issue three like that's the title of it not the number oh no i mean but it's i mean that's that's the same one right we're talking about the same joint yeah like those that was

great it's fantastic and it's i mean you know it's a lot of reed getting selling I mean, like the whole thing is very interesting, but that specific comic, I was like, wow, this is, this means something to me,

man. And so, if you, again, if you got like the Marvel Unlimited joint, I know the Omnibuster are a little expensive, but if you've got the Marvel

limit joint, go please check it out, because it was, man, it was awesome. It was awesome. What about you, Steve?

What do you recommend? I have a quick, quick three. I'm going to, I'm going to just fire these off. My A number one recommend is Human Target by Tom King and Brett Smallwood. This is a limited series in the DC universe. It's basically a body double for hire gets poisoned,

and he asks 12 days to solve his own murder. The Human Target is basically an adaptation of a long, old-standing comic series based in the DC universe, and all this kicks off because he was part of a fake assassination tempt as a bodyguard to Lex Luthor. And when he wakes up in the hospital after this failed assassination attempt, he realizes that he's been horribly poisoned

and has about 12 days to live. And now he's got to figure out who poisoned him and why. And he's working with, like, slightly off of Lex Luthor's back and then some of his old friends in the Justice League to sort of like figure out this mystery. And it's like a nice,

sleek, like 1950s style Archer-esque sort of palette. It's really, really classy, really cool, very clever and great. I think it's

some of the most fun that I've had reading a comic in a while. Like, it's really good, the human target by Tom King. Steve, let me borrow that,

big bro. Let me get that. Yeah, it's real, real real good. My boy. And then Catwoman Lonely City. I've mentioned this before,

but I've got to mention this again. Selina Kyle basically goes to jail for 30 years after the death of Batman and she is let out and now has to solve a 30 year old murder

of Batman after a Gotham that she no longer recognizes and she's got to basically find her old contacts see what other people around Gotham know about what Batman was and kind of find a legacy of being a hero herself and it was fucking awesome. It's a great

great short read and then the I'm not going to spoil anything but if you like horror and you really like some spooky reads. The Ice Cream Man from Image Comics by Maxwell Price. It's a great anthology series about this ethereal, think of Penny Wise the Clown, but he's a ice cream man.

And it weirdly gets into great commentary about like the opioid crisis and a lot of really, really, really, ass drawings. It's really, really, really good. Am I up? Yes, please. You're up. Y'all know how I get down, man. Like, there's few things I consider myself an expert.

at the ringer, you know what I'm saying? Don't ask me what I thought of Oppenheimer. Don't ask me about succession. I don't got shit for you, my brother. I don't. When it comes to this X-Men shit, I live it. I live it for a for-oh. To this day.

To this day. So I'll start with this issue just dropped last Wednesday. Start with the resurrection of Magneto. Al-Uing, I think, has been him and Karen Gellon have been like the anchors of, you know, the X-Men. universe of the past. Ever since Jonathan Hickman left that team, they've been carrying it alluing with X-Men Red,

which elevated both Storm and Magneto to my official favorite two characters, probably in the X-Men universe past Nightcrawler, which I didn't think was possible, just with the way he's built this universe of them kind of terraforming Mars and making it this mutant planet where things are going crazy.

So, Swallow, Magneto dies, and X-Men Red issue number six. So this issue comic, The Resurrection of Magneto, is Storm essentially going into mutant heaven and trying to grab Magneto and bring him back. And it's just got some very trippy artwork, just beautiful stuff and shows that Storm is, she is who she says she is. She is a goddess. She is the ultimate Omega mutant. So that's my first recommendation. Second one, it's kind of a joint pairing. the uncanny Spider-Man run with only five issues and X-Men Blue Origins where Nightcrawler is in a Spider-Man suit.

So if you like Spider-Man, you like Nightcrawler, perfect combination. He does that street level of crime fighting like Spider-Man would, but you know, he's maybe not as quippy, but still pretty funny while trying to be as punny as Spider-Man is, while also having like a sword and shit. That was kind of cool. He was like a soul sword. And then with this X-Men Blue Origin story, it rewrites the origin of Nightcrawler as we know it, changing who is really Nightcrawler's father and who his mother is. I won't spoil that there, but truly worth copying if you're a Nightcrawler fan.

And lastly, issue one of the fall of the House of X. It's, you know, grand opening, grand closing of Kroa. This issue is, it seems like it's brewing. towards essentially mutant versus fascist warfare. And I really love the way they kind of kick things off through the lens of Cyclops, who has been, you know, imprisoned for the past couple months of, you know, the fall of X-Ark.

So it's really brewing something special. But, yeah, those are my recommendations. Anything X-Men, bro. Get out there, read that shit, because I don't know when we get in that movie. Let's just keep it a being. I don't know when it's coming. So you might as well do some research.

My guy, Jomey's watching X-Men Evolution. Do what you got to do to get that fix. Do what you got to do. I got to run that back too. If I got to have another recommendation, X-Men Evolution, great. Gina Scott, man, going, it's crazy. Professor X, you know. Professor X isn't a piece of shit in that.

He's great. He's a good dude. He's a cool. He's a cool. Nightcrawler, Kitty Pride. It's all funning games. Every time Spike show up, though, I'm like, ah, it's time to get out forward. Here's the thing.

So I genuinely do love X-Men Evolution, and a lot of people give it flack, but I feel like it's that perfect response to the late 90s like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, like teen angst drama type of show that we definitely got in this. I absolutely

love that show. And for all of its weirdness, I can't help but love it. Like it's a perfect, perfect companion to what a modern era X-Men was in the early 2000s. Absolutely. It's like none of it is canons, comic books at all, but it's really a good time. The Spike stuff, I feel you, Jomey.

We got to, we got to point out the fact he was a made-up character for that show only. I hate that that's the way they went for the diversity route. They're like, you know, let's just make like this black dude that got like spikes. But we'll make him a skater. So, you know, he's not, he's not stereotypical. Clearly, he did not make it back to the comics while X-23 did. X-23, her origins are actually an X-Men evolution. Yeah, because Craig Yost and Chris Kyle were locked in, right?

And those guys have been... Oh, this is awesome. Well, I mean, not. I mean, they created X-23 in the show, and they have extensive comic, you know, platitude. They, like, they know they, they know what they talk about. They brought her to, like, the X-Force runs in, like, 2009, I believe. And, yeah, now, ever since, Laura has been just, like,

canon, one of the best X-Men characters. Mm-hmm. It's awesome. Shout-outs. That's it. That'll do it for us on Mint Edition. we hope. This was fucking great. I love this. This is so fun.

It's awesome. All right. We love talking about comments. Be sure to share some of your comic book recommends with all of us on Twitter, Facebook, and anywhere that Jomey needs his job to be saved. TikTok. Make it happen. Save Jome's job. Save it always.

That is a wrap for us. Don't forget that the House of Art is back on the Percy Jackson Beak. Last week they caught you up. And this week, Joanne has given you an extra special interview. And on Friday, the House of Our is going to give you deep dive into the season finale of Percy Jackson. And then before that, on Wednesday, the Midnight Boys are back as well. Thank you, Junior Mintz, once again.

We are produced and joined by the Great Kerm, as always, with production from Arjuna Ramgapal. Jomi, any parting words? Hey, thank you guys to listening. We enjoyed reading and sharing our thoughts with you. As always, shout out to the OG, number one out here in Nice, Greece, you feel me? our great producer, Brian Kermis Bendis. And we will see y'all next time. Flip the whip.

Snick, what's the, what's the night caller? Bamf. It's bam. Like, I know it's bamf, but in the X-Men evolution is. Yeah. I like better.