The Ringer-Verse - ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ Instant Reactions | The Midnight Boys

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

The Boys are back, and they’re reuniting with Peter Parker and giving you their thoughts on one of the most anticipated movies of the year: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day.’ They dive into the main plot points of the film (spoiler warning!), Spider-Man’s transformations, Tom Holland’s performance executing them, and the cameos from other Marvel characters in this film. (0:00) Intro (3:59) Spoilers ahead (6:55) ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ instant reactions (1:44:51) Midnight Meter: ‘Spider-Man: Brand New Day’ (1:49:16) Outro Hosts: Van Lathan, Charles Holmes, Jomi Adeniran, and Steve Ahlman Producers: Aleya Zenieris, Devon Baroldi, and Jamie Yukich Additional Production Support: Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome into the Ringiverse. This is, of course, the Ringers' Nexus podcast fee for all things. Fandom, we are, Steve, the architect, the builder, and Tigger of things. Jumme to explain your dinner on. You've got questions. He's got answers.

Old Man, Van, here of the receding resurgent, hairline, Coke, baby Chuck, the 24-carrier closer. Together, we are known as, I'm the Midnight Boys. We bet right back after this. Okay, files on socials at the Midnight Boys pod on Insta and TikTok at Ringerverse on

Insta, Twitter, Facebook, TikTok. We're on YouTube, like, comment, subscribe, share. You can watch every Midnight Boys and House of our episode on YouTube.com backslash at Ringiverse and also on Spotify. Jummi, what's up? We were trying to take a picture last night, you know? People like to get, people like to get excited when they see we were about to cover a movie they were excited about.

And you didn't want to take the picture. I'm getting sick of it. It helps the pod. Yeah, there's no, there's no evidence. There's no evidence. How about this? Provide me a shred of evidence. Well, if the Wi-Fi worked at this,

provide me a shred. No, no, no, it helps the socials. Provide me a shred of evidence that it helps the pot. People see that we're either at a place or we're covering a thing. They like to see us together. Not only that, but they go,

oh my gosh, I can't wait to listen to this pod that they are either like. The main team. And I just want to shout out, I will just say this. Shout out Sony. Dog, the ringer runs deep. and I don't know what was happening

at that screening it's the craziest screening I've ever been to crazy screening we've ever been to I think we had too many people there I think next time we should probably trim that a little bit it was just like it was a it just I'm real deep

here's the thing motherfuckers is getting pissed they were like yo they cut it I'm like hey yo if you're not going press me on it I'm gonna let my ringer colleagues through 19 19 is probably too many and who got left out of our row what you mean who got left out

There was, we got, we got everybody, remember you guys, people got there early. They reserved a row for the ringer people. Shout out to those folks. And there were 18 people in our theater and one person wasn't in our theater. I can't remember who you're talking about. Sean. Oh, yeah, but he got assigned a signed a different thing, though. He got assigned.

They had two theaters, one and then they had an overflow theater. I think he got assigned the wrong thing. It's not like he got left out because he got. It's just like we give out one theater. They were checking your ticket. Normally when you go to these screenings, you go in there, I'm not telling, I'm just for you guys, like, you go in there and when you go in, no one checks your ticket. They might look at it. But if you're there for the screening.

They check it one time. One time. They kept being like, take it out. You got your time. I was like, damn, bro. You're gonna send this stuff. They don't want to know Steve Lacey shit happening. We were all together, but there were two different theaters.

So being that there were two different theaters, Sean got sent to a different. theater. I think Voss was in that theater too because I didn't see him in our theater. Yeah, I think boss was in that one. Voss was in that one as well. So I think they had a different experience, like a different experience. Now, everybody brought the plus one. You, like, usually somebody was like, I don't need the plus one. This was I was like, yeah, everybody got. Everybody catches in the plus one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it was a, it was a crazy, crazy, crazy experience. Disclosure Day was crazy. This was crazier. I can't think of a screening that I've been to. Maybe, maybe. Maybe. No way home. No way home was pretty.

But even the Odyssey was nothing like this. Not, not even close. Not even close. Not honestly wasn't even close. All right. Programmer reminders! All right, stay tapped in to Talk to Thrones every Sunday. Every Monday, the Midnight Boys give you their House of the Dragon reactions.

Today, the Midnight Boys give you their instant reactions, obviously, to Spider-Man brand new day. Long, long time coming. highly anticipated sequel to 2021's. No Way Home? No Way Home? So you guys, there's a lot riding on this movie. We'll talk about how well the movie wrote it.

Now, before we do any of that, we have to let you know, we're going to spoil a lot of stuff. This is a spoiler review. This is not a non-spoiler review. I've seen those. I've seen people review movies with no spoilers.

It is a talent. This is hard to spoil this movie without spoilers. It really is. It is. You got to spoil some stuff, so Steve, give them the spoiler warning. We're getting ready to talk about Spider-Man. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming.

All right. To begin our reactions, though, I have to put you in the know. Maybe you've seen it, maybe you haven't. Recap done by Chuck. It's called the Midnight Manifest. Chuck, take it away. All right, these are Midnight Manifest, brand new day directed by Daniel Destin Cretton, written by Chris McKenna and Eric Summers, starring Tom Hald, Zendaya, S80s, John Vernthal, Mark Ruffalo from El Tomin.

I'm sorry, y'all. This is a two and a half hour movie. This will be among the longer manifest. Four years after the event is Spider-Man, Dr. Strange's spell is still in effect. The world and Peter Parker's friends don't remember that he's Spider-Man. MJ and Ned have graduated MIT, and Peter's only friend is the Punisher, which tells you everything you need to know about his social life. Overwork, isolated and grieving the death of Aunt May, Peter fully commits to being Spider-Man 24-7, but after seeing MJ and Ned move on without him, Peter's spider mutation starts to go haywire. With the help of Bruce Banner, Peter develops a chip that neutralizes his out-of-control, organic web shooters, and mounting rage. Unfortunately, trouble comes Peter's way when a mysterious character begins mind-controlling Spidey's villains and peers.

Spidey, along with the help of Punisher, Elena Belova, damage control on the police, uncover a new telepath, roaming the city. Spoiler alert, it's Gene Gray. Gene goes after Spidey and MJ forcing Peter to confront the feelings and powers he's trying to suppress along with the ethical implications of mind wiping MJ and the rest of the world. Gene mind controls the Hulk and Punisher

before she's taken down by the wall crawler. But Peter's moral Spidey Sense tingles and he realizes that Bill Metzger, the leader of damage control, is behind everything. Bill kidnapped Jean's sister to experiment on her because she also had telepathic powers and he wanted to use those for evil. Spider-Man teams with Punisher to save Gene

from imprisonment by damage control, but in the process, Almost dies from a bullet fired by Frank. Peter wakes up to a city that celebrates their favorite son. Gene rides off to upstate New York and most likely Westchester. And Peter realizes he needs friends like Ned. That has been your midnight manifest for Spider-Man Brand New Day. So maybe we do this one a little differently.

Before we get into our instant reactions, do we kind of just want to talk about the story? A little bit. And like how, because there's a lot of movie here. A lot of movie. A long movie Long movie moves pretty quickly almost a movie in three different parts

Yeah Checking back in with Spider-Man as a solo superhero What a lot of people have been asking for From the character Then you get into the main Kind of part of Spider-Man Getting Back with Ned

And you see Hold on Spider-Man's mutation His secondary mutation That we talk about Is really just a manifestation Of his grief And his loneliness

Then that's a manifestation of his grief. Yeah. part of the movie takes hold. And then once Gene is released as Gene, uh, or revealed as Gene Gray is said in the movie, it becomes almost like a Gene Gray origin story as well as a Spider-Man story. So like really three different parts, depending on where you guys want to start and like how you guys think even that structure worked. Well, what I found interesting about this is that the first three Tom Holland Spider-Man movies is a high school trilogy. And I was like, okay, is this going to be him going to Empire State?

Is this going to be a college movie? And very, very quickly, they're like four years have passed. So they age Peter up. And this is almost a reboot in a lot of ways. It's not Batman Begins level, but it is Tom Holland fully transitioning into adulthood being Spider-Man. I think what they did brilliantly is like the first couple of minutes. of the movie are almost a montage of giving Tom Holland

a rogue's gallery. We see boomerang we see tarantula, we see Scorpion, he's working with the police. He is essentially they are making... Tom Holland's like the Iron Man now. It very much felt like oh, you are the center of the MCU. It's weird because

the de facto name of this movie is we're starting over and the starting point of this movie, while complicated and to the uninitiated or even like, hey, it's been a minute since I checked in on Spider-Man, it could be pretty confusing. But to know that this is essentially like two movies smashed together with the Gene Gray

Origin story and Peter more so resetting the clock on what it means for him to be Spider-Man and evolving into this other version of himself. I think the balance, while at times a little wonky, is ultimately really, really good. I think this is the best Spider-Man movie that Tom, has starred in that I've liked the most, and I can really see his passion for doing this character on screen the most in this.

I think the strength of the movie is that, like, to you guys' points, there's a lot of stuff going on with Gene Gray. Like, this is a Gene Gray origin story movie. This is also a Spider-Man movie. They've got all these villains and all these themes and motifs with Spider-Man's relationship with Aunt May

and Ned and MJ. But the movie still works. And so, like, a credit to Dana Disincredton and Tom Holland, everybody behind this movie because it easily could have been overstuffed. It easily could have left threads in the plot loose. But ultimately, everybody who needed, everybody who was in the movie had a reason of being there. It wasn't just, oh, look, that guy's there.

Look, this person's there. They all served a purpose to the story and to the plot. And that's, like, really impressive. Did you guys feel like they rebooted the character in this movie? I definitely do. And I... Hey, I'm just going to say, not only is this my favorite Tom Holland Spider-Man movie, I think Tom Holland killed it because this was a moment where you've made fun of Tom Holland in the past.

We're being Spider-Boy did it enough. So have you. All right, yeah. Yeah. I've thrown a little, but this movie, I do feel like not only rebooted like Peter Parker, but Tom Holland where it's like, okay, not only are you a young adult, but the themes of grief. and how they use the other storyline of him mutating out of control and him trying to suppress this literally with like a chip,

but also just emotionally, there was something in this movie that I thought was just more adult and so needed. I thought Tom Holland, you're almost seeing him become a movie star. Yes, he was a movie star before, but you were seeing him do more in this movie. To me, he's the best part of the movie. Everything revolves around him,

He just has this charisma and he always had it. But I think there's a difference between teenage charisma and, like, I'm a 30-year-old, man. I just did The Odyssey. I kind of know he's looking at Matt Damon. I kind of know what it takes to hold the center of the screen. I don't need Tony Stark anymore. I think part of that is like obviously coming off the Odyssey, right? You know, you get a little bump doing that being like not, again, not being the man on that set.

But obviously, like, you're up with Matt Damon, you're up with Ann Hathaway, you're up with Robert Benson. And I'm sure there's some juice you find after that, right? The second part is that normally in those, like, so they always, like Iron Man in the first one, Nick Fury in the second one, and Dr. Strange, the third one, he'd a little homie, right? In this movie, he's the big, like, like, Frank is like the big homie,

but he's like, yo, Frank, man. I'll say Joe like that, you know what I'm saying? Like, that part is different. This is the first time they tried it. This is the first time I even tried it. In any of the other Spider-Man movies, They didn't even try to make a movie that was from his perspective. They made a movie where he was immersed into a world

where a lot of things were happening around him and he had to figure out a way through them. This is the first Spider-Man Ford film that they made. Like every other movie is, you know, he's away with his classmates in Europe and something's going wrong. And Fury's telling him what to do. And Mysterio's telling him what to do.

And can he use his genius and stuff to keep his head above water? He doesn't know what's going on in the movie until the end. In the first one, he's coming to terms with all of these new powers. And the fact that he had helped Captain America, is he Avenger? Is he a not an Avenger? Blah, blah, blah. And then in the third one, once again, he's overwhelmed.

But there are three older, two older Spider-Men that are helping him through it. This is the first one that is looking at his character, putting his character central, Central and making everything downstream of that. So his sort of pain triggers the mutation. We see him alone figuring stuff out doing the whole deal. This is the first Spider-Man movie that they made. And there was no way that the character could have been the portrayal that we wanted before because the story didn't dictate that.

And they got to this point and then like that is what they did. This movie, even at the end of it, He figures out. At the end of the film, she says, can I jump into your head? And he says, go ahead. He allows Gene Gray to come into his mind because he knows that he can talk to her,

that he can get through to her there. He actually brings her through all the stuff that he's been through. Like his life experience is the thing that gets him through to the end of this story. And they just didn't try that before. I mean this as a compliment.

What this movie reminded me of is two things. First, I think a lot of times when people were talking about Superman, James Gunn's Superman, they were talking about how much it reminded them of the comics. And I think this was the first Tom Holland movie

and the first Spider-Man movie, live action really, that felt like rendering Spider-Man's world where it's like, they did something genius with all of the villains where I'm like, oh, you're following Spider-Man

through a really tough week. And that's what it feels like reading like six issues of an art where you're like, he's fighting this. villain, he's trying, he has these allies, Punisher is popping in. And I was like, oh, this is fascinating. And it also reminded me of playing like Spider-Man too, the PlayStation games.

Oh, yeah. In the greatest way possible where you're like, oh, I feel like Spider-Man from the way they're shooting, how he's swinging, how he's fighting, where it's like, oh, shit, I got to go stop this bank robbery. Oh, fucking Punisher's trying to help. I got. And it was just such a kinetic film. The tank sequence is straight out of the video game.

Yeah. Yeah. The tank sequence there is a part in the movie where a tank is barreling towards damage control. Spider-Man has to stop this tank right before it gets there. And that is straight out of the video game the way you got to take the turret off the tank and do all of that stuff. Like the action was phenomenal in the movie and very true to the character, maybe the truest action scenes that we've seen to the Spider-Man character of any time Spider-Man's been on screen. Even aesthetically, I feel like, shout out to the director, Daniel, everybody, cinematography. This one also felt different.

I feel like the first three Holland films, rightfully so, they wanted to be like the breakfast club. It's very nostalgic. It's very warm. It's very bright colors. And this, when you're watching the movie, it's a little overcast where you're like, you were going through this journey of grief and depression.

And it was interesting where they invert the relationship where it's like, okay, now Spider-Man is the Tony Stark to Gene Gray's Spider-Man. And I was like, I think we'll talk about the mutants and the X-Men what we felt about that reveal and how it was handled. But I did feel like it was very interesting to see Tom Holland now being the role where he's trying to get a teenager to realize something about herself. And I thought that worked beautifully. I thought, because like, we'll talk again about like maybe like some notes or some nitpicks later. And at first I was like, I don't, I had the third act, I was like, ah, you know, I liked it like emotionally. but I wanted some more action, this and that.

But after sleeping on it, the fact that, like, Aunt May is this, like, you know, beacon in Peter's life that he can now use, again, they threat that scene with her trying to get into his head and up May in the room. And we see, like, she tries, she sees a vision, and it cuts back. And then we see it again and while, before he mutates, and right before she's about to say something important, it cuts, it cuts all. And then we see the full scene, but instead of Peter being there, it's Gene, and we're like, yo, this is what Spider-Man is all about. Peter Parker, after he's been, everything has been through can still use everything that happened to him with Aunt May, with MJ and Ned, losing all, like having all that pain and being like, yo, I've been where you've been.

I've sat in that same seat. We don't have to live like this. We can do better things. We can choose a better path. I'm like, yo, that's great. Let's talk about Gene Gray. Let's just get there right now. So there are points in the movie.

Going into this film, you feel like you know that Gene Gray's in a movie. There's been so much talk about it. Oh, there's a fire stars, whatever. We knew that it was Jean Grey. However, there were points at the movie where I was like, that cannot be Jean Grey. Because there's a point of the movie where she's jumping from by it, using her telepathic ability.

And then there's a point where she jumps into somebody and then a cab hits the person. And I'm like, at this point, okay, so we're setting Gene Gray up as just like a sinister killer of innocence, right? And that actually was smart, storycraft, because it threw me off the trail of that actually being

her. I thought for a split second it might not be. Then they do the reveal. It is Gene Gray. She is the first. I guess, X-Man that we've seen in the MCU in this way. We are officially in it. How you guys feel like they handled it? So I think I'll attack this from two points.

I think Sadie Sink is a perfect Gene Gray. I thought her performance was amazing. I, to your point, I actually did like the reveal that, no, we're staying with this. This is Gene Gray. She's doing all this horrific shit. But I think everything that her sister, went through and every, I was like, okay, I buy this. After I slept on it, I was a little bit like, yo, you're moving, you have to move a lot

of pieces. Yeah. To make this make sense because they don't reveal Professor X. The only other mutant in this movie is her sister, Sarah, and I might be wrong. I don't know if there's any, like, actual comic book. Like, Gene Gray has siblings in the comics, but to reveal that her origin story is essentially like her and her sister run away from their parents. and foster care and that

Tramel Toman's character who's heading up damage control basically kidnapped Sarah who was teaching Gene to use her telepathy. I didn't care in the moment, but when I was trying to do the math a little bit, I was like I like the end of this

but how you got there is a little bit messy. Is that fair? No, it is. I think it stumbled a bit because of the fact that like once Gene is captured by damage control, it kind of then becomes her show for about a good 20 minutes because then she's captured and then she has to

realize like the extent of her power and everything but the drip feeding of the mythology of like the central conflict that is the X-Men of like being self-accepting and not suppressing things about yourself while Peter is actively doing that to himself is setting up the philosophy between Professor X

and Magneto so beautifully like I see the central conflict that mutants will have forever now in this small part of this movie. And I'm like, this is brilliant, but I think it's just a tad clunky, just a little bit. So two things. Number one, damage control is another important part of that, because damage control is experimenting on mutants. Right.

Right. And so being that damage control is experimenting on mutants, Gene Gray's first experience with organized human action surrounding mutankind will be the people that killed her sister and also experimented on her and kidnapped her, right? And then triggered this next mutation that she had. So that in it of itself will set up kind of like you guys are talking about the distrust and the entire tension between Magneto's way

and Xavier's way that will probably grow. around the Mutant Saga in the MCU. So that was like awesome writing. The Gene Gray thing as far as it being clunky, I kind of, I'm trying to, I've heard a lot of people say this. I'm trying to understand the criticism or the no, I'll tell you why.

Like, they changed her origin in this and they also changed Spider-Man's. Yeah. So like, it's like, it all depends on where it goes. Like they change, like, this is a Spider-Man with no Uncle Ben. No, yeah, yeah. Right.

So like, we got three Spider-Man. movies before the seminal moment of Spider-Man Spider-Man's creation happens. With great power comes great responsibility and then he loses a parent figure. Right. Which then changes Spider-Man.

So while I understand that like there's a way that people think that Gene Gray or anyone should be introduced, like the way Black Panther was introduced, a grown Black Panther that already had the mantle with his father. We see that like we don't see black. Black Panther, like, learning.

There's no Black Panther origin story in our version of Black Panther. There's no origin story. Like, he's Black Panther, and we watch what happens to him. He's already basically fully formed. Not as the king of Wakanda. Right, I think the story of Black Panther is actually his origin as a black man more than anything.

But I do. I think he wasn't black at the beginning of that movie, and then he was black at the end. I legitimately think that. But, yeah, so with this, they're doing stuff that hasn't been done before, but Marvel's kind of always done that. It's less that.

The thing that it was like, when I was like, I woke up today and I was still, I was like, oh, what was it about that that felt clunky? I think it's more so that the movie never actually explains mutants. I don't even think they use really the word. They don't. So you're left being like, okay, Jean's not the first mutant technically.

We've seen Miss Marvel, but at this point, like the Marvel family has kind of been jettisoned from the MCU. So you're kind of wondering, you're like, oh, wait, did the mutants just pop up? Was there something that happened? Like has any of these, whether Shield's not around but damage control,

have they been like, oh, there's more meta humans popping up around the world? Yeah. What's happening? It never really explores that. Explores that. So you're kind of like, I'm always wondering, I'm like, wait, does Gene know that she's a mutant?

Does she know, she knows that she's different, but did she know that there's other movements out there? You feel like this is the movie for that? Well, that's the thing. It shouldn't, it's not supposed to be, but they dip so far, like, not too far, but far enough to where you're like, well, in order for this to truly make sense, we have to go farther into this and pull this thread. What do you mean?

But, like, to understand what, like, the actual plight that Gene is going to be going on, and after this, like, you had to stop the movie and give us a whole scene with her sister and to explain why she's doing what she's doing. Or if damage control has other mutants. Yeah. And like that idea is great, but it starts to take up a little bit too much oxygen in the transition of the second to third act. I mean, I'm not upset that they changed things. Well, I mean, to me, there's a couple of things.

Number one, like when Aunt May is talking to Peter, she sits down, she goes, before you got these powers. Number one, we know how Peter got powers. Of course. It's never shown in any of these movies. They haven't shown it. Right. They expect you to know that he was bitten by a radioactive spider. They never show any of that stuff, right?

So as far as the MCU doing this, like, we live in a world with powered beings. Like, there are powered beings in this world. And if you have powers, I'll put you like this. So the X-Men, the way that they get their power, is fundamental to the story. Yeah. Because they are different types of human beings, right?

There are different types of human beings that not just people that have happened upon powers. They're different types of human beings. And that different type, different race of human beings is specifically like discriminated against. So that matters. I don't think the Spider-Man movie is the place to get into that. Right.

Because I think, number one, it blows it too much. we live in the world with powered people she has powers she's a telepath Scarlet Witch has powers different people have powers that people that have powers in the fucking shit

and then the X-Men movie will be the place where they kind of explore or maybe a different movie what a mutant is and all of that stuff I just don't know if this story had time for that

Yeah does she know she's even a mutant right like she does know I mean she's got it she said like remember when they talk about her mother Right

and then like when they got the powers And then when they got the powers, they left. I don't know if she knows what a mutant is. That's what I'm saying. But she knows that powers just spontaneously developed in her. Right. But there's like, to your, I guess it kind of is to your point. There's no bigger universe for like the mutants in this movie.

It's just her and her sister. And I think that's fine. I think, I mean, Kevin Fagin has talked about it. Like after Secret War, streamlining the universe. I think this is just a taste. It's like, yo, guys, we got the X-Men. They're here. And then once we, you know, collapse all the universes into one,

mainstream my universe, then we can see like the Gene Gray and all the other X-Men characters. I mean, I think the thing that does work about the Gene Gray reveal is that this is, and it's funny, I'm like, Tom Holland's making a movie about puberty when he's fucking 30, but this is like the central plight of the X-Men, not the central, but one of the plights to Van's point is that these are powered beings that get their powers at 13 or when they hit puberty. Right.

So I do think actually it is very strong. smart to show that Spider-Man, like, the symbolism is fucking right there with the organic web shooters, basically now being an ally through Gene Gray of kids who the minute they become teenagers are, have power and now need to be taught the great responsibility. I just, and once again, like, we were talking about Kerm. Kerm was there at the show. Kerm is a huge X-Men fan. Them diverting from the source material like this actually did not bother me.

that much. It was more so I just had questions of, okay, in the MCU now, does the world know that teens are starting to get powers? Because that to me is interesting where it's like, Captain America is one thing. Thor and Iron Man, all these people are one thing. A bunch of 13, 14, 15 year olds walking around being able to, like, Gene in this movie essentially kind of handicaps a whole borough of Manhattan when she gets angry. That, to me, is. And they still nerved her. Man, I'll tell you. They still nerfed her to me.

Like, I never heard of no 33 foot barrier. I see, like, you know what I'm saying? But she's still learning how to use her powers. Well, I don't think the 33 foot thing, I think they used that because they're, because they didn't even give her telekinesis for most of the movie. And I'm like, yeah, this was the real Gene Gray. She'd be piece. Yeah, she was.

I mean, I like that, though, because she's, she's an omega-level telepath, not an omega level, like telekinesis use. Yeah, yeah. Right. And so, like,

her, like, discovering the telepathy first and being like, like, not OPE, but like being, like, crazy with that. And then through the anger

of finding out her sister was gone, discovering the telekinesis, I was like, oh, that's, that's, that's smart filmmaking. And I also, what I,

what I enjoyed about the story as well, is that this story in, in not the most subtle way, interrogates what happened in no way home. which is what happens when one human, aka Spider-Man, mind wipes the entire world. And there's this moment where Gene Gray goes into the mind of MJ, kisses Peter, and Peter kind of has to be like,

hey, sorry, I know you didn't remember that. I thought you were MJ. And you're like, you're getting the story of like, Gene is almost essentially doing what Peter did in the last movie, which she is going into people's minds. without their knowledge and without their permission because she thinks like the ends justify the means. And to me, that was a very smart way to connect these characters

of Spider-Man realizing what he did not only to the world, but to MJ and Ned specifically, rob them of something that was so important to their lives. But he did ask him, he did tell them he had to do it. Right, and they did, like at the end of the way home, they did say, yes, we got to do it. Yeah, he did tell them that he had to do. And I think that's important too because I think even their bargain was kind of Faustian.

Like, when you look at them and the movie does a good job of this, they're having fun, but it does feel like something's missing in their lives. It feels like there's a third part, like something's not there. And they are not like burdened with the knowing of what happened in the past, but it doesn't mean like, is still searching for Spider-Man. He feels like he needs to know why. He's still trying to find his friend. He's like he's looking for Spider-Man. These are the two guys that I think could be Spider-Man.

That was very funny scene. But what he's really doing is trying to find his friend. He knows that he's been a part of something. It's in there somewhere. And she kind of knows it, which is why maybe she can't. There's an awesome little scene where it shows she can't fully connect with her boyfriend. She can't fully connect with her boyfriend. Her boyfriend says that she's withholding.

Like, that is what Peter had to negotiate with her and get to a place with her where there was no withholding. She's not there with her boyfriend yet. He doesn't know how to deal with it because he's not really her person. Really her person is somebody, you know, that's swinging around. Was Tom Holland dirty Mackin? He's a hater. Like, he was sitting there on the computer and was like,

hey, yo, boyfriend sounded like an asshole. He was like, hey, nah, dude. He was stalking them online, like, for a long time. That was crazy. Yeah, he's a hit her. It was also, it was one of my favoritesies because it was so funny. when MJ is like bad as shit at him and then she comes back

and she's like, hey yo, could you take me home? Give me a ride and he has to like swing back and he's so fucking mad I'm like dog. But that's the stuff that really works about the movie is that like this film you keep thinking this film is going to give you the version of

the cathartic version of the reconciliation between Spider-Man and Ned and MJ that you want but it just never does. It's always, awkward, there's always something missing. Even when they come back and they're playing together, that's Spider-Man

playing with Ned and not Peter. Yeah. Right? She knows what's going on and she's still detached from it. They seem to be back together, but they're really never back together. There's just too much that's happened. That relationship, especially between MJN

and Peter, was like the strongest part of the movie for me. I thought that seeing him just live his life without them and like watching them from a distance. There's a scene at the party when, you know, they meet each other again for the first time. He's like, my name's Maynard or whatever.

And then the boyfriend, as he's credited in the show, in the movie, comes and kisses MJ. And he's like, yo, forget this, man. And he's swinging with the tears in his eyes and the rain, bro. Yeah. And I was like... His mutation is a crash out. Like, literally, he crashes out.

And then he's like, his body starts changing. And I was dying. That whole sequence when he goes, he's swinging home. listening to the future. He's so fucking pissed. He wakes up. He's like, what's happening? I was like, dog, they're killing this shit.

They had him in the mud. Let's get into the comic book stuff. The second mutation is a big, big, big part of this story. It's really the, it's us meeting Gene. And the second mutation of Spider-Man that is like throwing his world off. At the beginning, it seems like he has a good handle on his world. Yeah. He's by himself, but he has an accomplice and the detective that's helping him fight crime.

Crime is going down. Being Spider-Man is working. Being Peter Parker is not. But being Spider-Man is working. The movie doesn't let him be just like that part of himself because the more Spider-Man he is and not Peter Parker, he's not talking to his friends, he's not having a life. No. His body actually rejects that. His body rejects that existence.

in the second mutation where he can't control his powers. He's mean. He's got the web fluid coming out of his body in all kind of crazy ways. How did that stuff work for y'all, the second mutation? As someone who hated it in the comics, because I think the movie- Why are you like in the comics? Dog, this was when I was like, I must have been in like middle school, high school. I think it was called the other where not only did they give Spider-Man organic web fluid,

Do y'all remember they gave him like these fucking bone like splinter things? I do remember that. Where he could like, and when I was reading the comps, I was like, man, Spider-Man has the fucking web shooters. This shit is whack. But it worked so well in the film because I think it's been too easy for Tom Holland Spider-Man. He's become Spider-Man. He gets the fucking like billion dollar suit from Tony Stark right away. His life kind of sucks, but his life don't suck

like Toby McGuire's life sucks. And to me, this movie was the first time where it's like, okay, we've all been through grief. Grief is something where it's like your body just starts acting in weird way. Can't sleep, can't see right. You can't see right, you can't sleep right. You have aches, you have pain.

Muscle twitches. Yeah, cortisol sourcing through your brain. For years, it's just like it changes something molecular about you and to me using the other storyline to show that by denying himself and not dealing with his grief

by isolating himself and not having friends, not having companions, that being something that manifests in his rage, the black eyes, him almost beating fucking scorpion half to death. I was like, no, that works. Because we've never seen Tom Holland

really get like that. Maybe in no way home, when he was fighting Green Goblin after he kills Aunt May. But it gave Tom Holland more range. And that's what I liked about it. Where I'm like, if you can take something that's kind of whack in the comics, but it makes sense in a movie and gives an actor more things to do, I'm always going to sign off on it. So I ended up being like, no, the organic web shooters are kind of fucking sick.

Him, even when he's fighting the Scorpion, getting to see Spider-Man be like strong. Like, yeah. It was incredible. Yeah, yeah. Like, we always talk about power scaling and stuff like that. We're nerds. But, like, watching Spider-Man, who we know is just a much more powerful character that he's ever actually given credit for, have to contend with that power,

especially this version of Spider-Man, was awesome. By the way, I completely agree with what you say about him not having it hard enough. Think about it. He's gotten all of this tech, became an Avenger. He's had two of the most sought-after bi-racials in the entire... I think about it. Been on the Avengers payroll. This nigga going crazy

as far as the biracial. Think about it. You got to think about it at the beginning of movie in the elevator. When he was coming out of elevator, that white man was like, so you live here around here?

He didn't even get there. Oh, man. Ignored that one. It's not on my mind, man. So you live on my floor? He's like, that's in color. No,

no, not for me. I'm not really on the white women like that. A little dark and he'll ever talk about that. What? This Spider-Man is basically Robert De Niro, man. He's got preference.

Like this, he is. We don't ever talk about that. He's too, we've seen him with two ladies. But look, he hasn't gone. He's from Queens, you know. He's from Queens, nah. Come on, huh. He from Queens.

We haven't, he hasn't gone to full way. We haven't seen him with, like. But the dark skin said, he ain't shooting a shot with Shurie. With Shurie. Now, we haven't seen that. But as far as the thing is, you know, he like a little bit. He liked to be out there a little bit, man. Ryan Coogler, if you're listening, please.

Put Spider-Man in Black Panther 3. I need to see the panel where Spider-Man goes to what kind it gets the corner. Speaking of that, you're trying to get people in trouble. Speaking of that, I'm sure we'll talk about this on higher learning. But you might have to put, did you guys see the pictures of David Johnson leaving Mr. Child? Yo, TMZ caught him lacking. What? What is this?

I don't know what this is. Our new Black Panther was leaving Mr. Child. And he was taking a milk bath. We don't know. No, wait, wait, wait, wait. No, no, no. First of all, I'm not even dissing. I'm not even dissing.

This is a good moment for him. Hey, we've all, I can't throw stones. I'm not in a glass house. There's no, there's no stones to throw. His life is his life. But this is a good message for him because the lights are a little brighter now. Yeah. We got a microscope on you.

Everybody was making fun because they, They was pulling up Dams's photo with the Pog shirt. And I was like, y'all laughing a little too much. I'm saying, everybody, like, the lights are a little brighter now. Just pull him to the side. One of the O.Gs in Hollywood. Pull him to the side. Denzel after the floor.

Like, yo. Anthony Mackey shirt. He got caught a couple months ago. Do your thing, but you're going to need a Keisha in there. A couple Keishas or else is going to look back. Oh, you want to know who could teach him? Yo, Aaron Pierre guy. Ha.

He got him a Tiana. Taylor just to be like, I know that there's secret black Brit meetings of actors in Hollywood where they talk. Hey, David, we over the moon. And it's funny because when you looked at the comments, people weren't even down on him. Nobody was like dissing.

People were like, oh, man, we just going to need to let him know that there's a way. It was like there was a, we're just going to need to let him know. But I'm going to be honest with you, man. Tom Holland never had that problem. Never had, like he never had that problem On the movies and in real life. Yeah.

Tom Holland kept it real. I like it. Oh, right. Hey, man, you hate it. I'm not hating at all. You hate it. How am I hating? Like, love is love.

I have no problem with this. I just think it's funny. I think it's funny. These are your brothers at TMZ. They knew what they was doing. That was actually bad grade that got that. I'm going to say that. Okay.

Because it was stills. That was actually backgrade that got that. But it was funny. But Tom Holland, to be honest with you, he has had it pretty easy. He always had a fake-ass mentor that was doing, and he had the baddest of biracials, okay? Best tech, he already been to space, been back.

They, like, so you're right. You know what I would say this, too. This is how I know Tom Holland got that jungle fever. He's in the, he's in the, he's in the bath with Elena Belova, Florence Poochee. Like, take all that shit off. He's like, get out of here, bro. Didn't try one thing. He just put his feet up.

That's not what he into. He's like, Hello Ring ofverse fans. I regret to inform you that due to the initiation of Deep Shadow Protocol, this bit had to be edited out of the pod. I know. I'm just as disappointed as you are. Thanks as always for listening.

And the Midnight Boys, PooPew, Poo! We'll get back to you shortly. I'm telling you. I'm going to be. Come on. Hey, man. Come on, man. Wait, well, oh, you want to say?

Well, no, because this is really funny, you guys bringing this up because Thomas thought about it on the press store. We was like, yeah, man, people keep coming up to me. People say, yeah, man, we happy you in the bum, man. We happy you're down. You're like, y'all don't want to see me, Sean. Like, what's the big deal? Y'all love seeing a Spider-Man who ain't got nothing. That's part of the character.

Yeah. I mean, and by the way, just, you're not wrong. That's like just another thing when we talk about how these characters are introduced. We're just now getting to that part of Spider-Man. And look, I guess maybe that's a fundamental part of Spider-Man. Spider-Man having to use because his genius is really in his resourcefulness and stuff. Steve, you've been wanting to say something. Well, yeah, I don't know.

Like, his genius being in his resourcefulness is absolutely part of it. But I think the thing that I liked about the fact that this one was so down in the mud was the fact that he's always kind of plagued by the fact that he's not a better person when he's still a great person. And he can always bring out the best in other people. Because every time that he's like talking to Bruce Banner or even, even, you know, and Jean Gray as well. Like, everybody is, and this is to Tom Holland's credit, like, you could see his other scene partners kind of stricken with how good of a person he is and how like compelling

of a soul that Peter Parker is. And I think only Tom Holland can do that. I think that's probably the best when we see him with Zendaya. Like you could tell that that's his wife in some scenes because when they were like, like, she was on the bed and he was like working out something on a desk and like they were like not looking at each other but trying to look at each other. That's the kind of stuff that always makes a good Spider-Man story to me. Yeah, and I also think she sees him differently

a little bit. Like she, even in this movie, uh, like she knows him so well. She doesn't know that she knows him. But she challenges him almost every single scene she's in with him.

She challenges him. She, like when she picks up the letter, um, she goes, like, were you ever going to tell me about this? Then she goes, did you leave this here for me to read? Did you do this on purpose?

Right? And he doesn't know how to answer that question because the answer is yes. Even if he doesn't know that the answer is yes. The answer is yes. The answer is she's there. He didn't go through a whole thing to hide that because a part of him wanted her find it.

He wanted that moment and he was hoping that it went differently. And that scene right there was like amazing that she just looked at him. The spell worked. Yeah. It's like, I don't know you. I'm not in love with you. Like, we're going to have to do this the hard way, which is how Spider-Man does it.

Emotional gut punch. Like that whole sequence with them and Franks Bunker, like the bed scene, the Dirty Macon, it's funny and all that. But the scene where she's like, take the mask off. I want to hear Peter Parker. I want to see Peter Parker say this. And she's like, yeah, man, I guess we did all these moments. But I don't, I don't love you.

I don't know you. and all this time like Peter all's Peters ever wanted since the spell is to have MJ back in his life as you know as she was and for her to tell him like

yo that's just not going to happen I'm a different person I can't get there I can't meet you where you are and like they don't cut they don't cut to her it's him and his face and you can feel him

realize I'm like yo it's it's over like everything that I've wanted everything I've ever thought I could like, how I could fix this, it's unfixable. I mean, one of the things that I think this film does so well is that there's a problem in the comics that they've never been able to kind of fix ever since Bendis put Spider-Man on the Avengers is that when the Avengers know that Spider-Man is Peter Parker, then MJ knows that he's Peter Parker and Aunt May, it takes a lot of the tension out of the

character. And I think in those first Tom Holland films, once his aunt and Ned and MJ and Tony and everybody knows he's Peter, you don't get the drama that comes from the best Spider-Man comics, which is I'm trying to juggle being a reporter, being a good, being a good son to A Mae, trying to be a good boyfriend, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And this is the first Tom Holland movie where we get to see like, oh, you can't have it all as Spider-Man. You're going to, like, if you over-correct in one area, this is what suffers. And to me, that's why people like the character, because being a teenager and being in your early 20s

is navigating, how much can I tell a lover, how much can I tell a friend, how much can I tell my workers, what does it feel to fail? And that's what I liked about this movie. It is a comic book movie, and there is a hell of a lot of comic book shit in here. Let's go through some of it. We talked a little bit about Black Widow, who pops up in the movie, legitimately surprising to me.

It's great. Hulk, Punisher. Yeah. We'll get back and maybe do a little bit more on Gene Graber. Which character you guys want to start with? I think Punisher because, you know, John Bernthal's been getting some criticism lately just for maybe his acting becoming very, I would say one note. I think his chemistry with Tom Holland and this was perfect. Like just, once again, this was Tony Stark bossing up on Peter.

This was Peter holding his own with another. superhero that's just as formidable and dangerous and there's just something of they've been on the press store tom holland and bernthal whenever they're together you're like oh there's just something that you two have where it's funny um i thought even the scene when they're fighting the hulk incredible incredible shit it's some of the best stuff we've seen in these movies i thought bernthal he knows his character so well and i like the fact that they sat they sanded down the edges but he still gets to be Frank Castle. He's still an asshole. He's still trying to curse.

I thought Punisher was great. You know what's funny about the fact that they sand it down the edges? There's two ways to look at this. One is that, because they did, one is that this is a completely different version of his Punisher that we haven't seen with him and anything else. We just watch his Punisher

One Shot movie where he kills a bunch of different people in the most savage ways. That was so savage. Then we've seen him with Daredevil just killing and Daredevil going, Frank, stop, right? We've seen them before. We've seen all of this.

Is it fair to think that to your point or to the, to your point, that Spider-Man brings out a different side of him? Yes. A thousand percent. Which was kind of shown in this movie. The goodness and quite frankly the power, because Spider-Man can fuck over him. But just the aura of Spider-Man makes Punisher want to stop. slightly be a better person. He's not in a killing contest with him.

They're not dark vigilantes operating in this sort of desperate area of New York, cracking bones and all of that stuff. Spider-Man is trying to save people while doing the least of minor damage. Punisher doesn't care about the damage that he does, which is why he's the Punisher, right?

So, like, that relationship between them to where it gets to the end of the movie and Frank Castle actually almost does the ultimate damage because of who he is, who he still has to be, which is almost killing Spider-Man, right? And him realizing how lucky he is to have boundaries. Like, at the end, he's so happy that that didn't happen, and he's lucky that he has boundaries,

that Spider-Man provides him with boundaries, and it makes Frank Castle a little bit more human. There's an arc in this movie for the Punisher. which you would not think what happened in a movie where he serves, should I say, like as a team up partner. When I'm, when promotion coming out, you finally punishes in the movie, you're like, oh, cool, he's going to meet a couple scenes, they're going to fight, they're my team up, whatever.

Like, you don't think that there might be an emotional art for him. When they're in his little Heidi Hall and he's like, you can't even take your mask off to get coffee, like, I got to protect all this thing. He's like, bro, look at your life. Yeah. You think this is, you think, I want to. I live like this. I don't have to, I live with this.

If I had mob people out there, I would be there. You got to, like, you got to figure something else. Something's wrong with you. I'm like, is that emotional depth from Punisher in my Spider-Man movie? Oh, my gosh. I was like really, again, like I said at the beginning, they give so much, like, so much emotional weight to all these characters. We'll talk about Hulk later.

Like, it's just, they didn't have to do that for Punisher in this movie. It's like that they did. And it worked. And it was just. Just amazing. I mean, also, one of my favorite moments for Punisher in the comics comes from Civil War, where he comes through, he's holding Spider-Man, and you realize Punisher has such reverence for Captain America. And what it reveals about Punisher in that moment is the Punisher knows he's a monster,

and he looks up to a hero like Captain America or in this movie, like Spider-Man, because that's actually who he wants to be. he just thinks he's not good enough or deep down, that's past him. No, he says it in the movie. He says this is a sentence. His obsession is something he can't control not to cut your wish.

No, no, and that's what I think this movie does so well is, and what I want to see from the MCU, which is like, even if Steve Rogers wasn't the biggest, even if it was Iron Man's kind of franchise, Steve Rogers was always that moral center of these movies where it's like, and even in the comics, he gives you something to believe in. And to me, in that, in what Spider-Man helps Punisher to get to, I'm like, oh, the MCU is missing this.

They're kind of missing that moral center that when that character is in frame, all of the heroes feel like they can be better versions of themselves. Even with Yelena, it's a little bit of a joke. But even she has a small character arc where she's like, it's small potatoes, the small potatoes. Everything you're doing with New York is beneath me. I'm an Avenger. and she starts by the end of the movie helping Spider-Man out. And it's like interesting that like Black Widow and Punisher,

two of the worst killers in the MCU, in Peter's innocence, they're like, no, we see you're sad, we see this mutation, you're better than this, you need to be above us. I love that. Yeah. And, you know, you can throw, we'll talk about Hulk now,

you can throw characters in movies just so that we buy tickets or you can give them something to do in the movie. Like, there's utility for Black Widow in this. She has access to a lot of information. She is and has been in her past, not this Black Widow as much,

but someone that was, knew how to get information, had a lot of information, was involved in espionage and stuff like that. And so, if you needed to know something, and since all these superheroes seem to like be in New York, and who protecting Cleveland?

I mean, that's how it is in the comments. I'm just saying, you want Spider-Man to go to Cleveland. I'm just saying, bro. Like, who's- Ron didn't go back to Cleveland. The second time, third time, I guess. Hey, bro.

LeBron James treats Cleveland like Jenny treated Forrest Gump. Wow. Wow. That's, come on. He does. LeBron James treats Cleveland

like Jenny treated Forrest Gump. We talk about the love story in Forrest Gump, man. Not really. It's a forest gump and Jenny was together. And then Jenny went,

it was all up and down in the West Coast, going crazy. Hey, Sex positivity here. I'm not saying y'all always do that. Did I say there was anything wrong with it? No, she was doing a thing.

That's great. Right? She was like, you want to ride to San Francisco? Jeannie was like, I'll go. Jenny on the streets of LA, cool, doing her thing, about to jump off the fucking building while fucking Fleetwood Mac playing the background, whatever.

It was actually Freebird. I love that record. Well, can I ask you guys, honestly, LeBron is treating Philly like Cleveland. That nigga living in New York. They say he lives in Florida. He's hell of California. But like, when I'm saying,

is like the person that's like staying there and being pure and waiting for your life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get. You never know what you're going to get. Yeah, I know what you're going to get. Philly, nigger. That's what you go get.

Miami. L.A. That's what you're going to get. Wait, so your, which hero do you think should be protecting Cleveland in the M.C. No, who do you, who would you send? If you're the GM of the MCU and you're just like, oh, like Cleveland

gets, gets its own team. Now let me tell you something about Cleveland real quick. Okay, rock and roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Yeah. Cleveland got the calves. They got the Browns. Cleveland is a real, the Guardians. Cleveland is a real working class American city, a black city.

We could send a Red Guardian down there. I don't think we're going to see Red Guardian. I'm telling you who I think I'm a sin to protect Cleveland, man. The Falcon. All right. The Falcon to protect Cleveland. He is going to be. The Falcon Protector of Cleveland.

That's, you know, Captain America. Captain America Falcon. Alston, Captain America. You're right. I apologize. Well, there is a Falcon. Do you want to send the actual Falcon?

I want to say, Danny Ramirez. I said Anthony Ramirez. Anthony Mackey to Cleveland is crazy. By the way, Can I tell you something real quick, just let you know. If Hulk became Captain America, he would still be the Hulk and Captain America. Okay, he would be Captain America. All right.

Let me ask you this. If they, I don't know, if Jacob Allardty becomes the new Captain America, you're going to call him Captain America because he's white. Yeah. Well, no, no, actually, I would. To me, don't get me started. Like, Captain Americas, and I love Captain America, Steve Rogers, okay?

Steve Rogers can be black? Steve Rogers, I mean, you could make anybody, whatever the fuck. Like, Steve Rogers, Captain America, Tony Stark, Iron Man, Tehawar, Black Panther. Osmeris, you know, is in there now. But what I'm saying is, my overall question is this. We did, man, New York, Hulk,

they fucking got Gene Gray was in that bitch. Everybody's in New York. Yeah. The whole Thunderbolts in New York. Yeah. Yeah, because it's a great. Fantastic Ford. Fantastic for everybody in New York.

X-Men are in, Upstate New York. Man, who's looking out for Seattle, bro? How much? The West Coast Avengers? New York doesn't have it like that. They got the Great Lake Avengers? This is something that D.C. does better than Marvel, because the Flash.

is, what is it? Everybody's got their beat. Everybody's got their beat. Like, all of this stuff. But I wonder sometimes, niggas is going crazy in Miami. Baton Rouge, we definitely need a superhero. Please send somebody down there.

Like, please. Hawkeye for you, brother. Hawkeye for you, brother. We would love Hawkeye. Bro, we would love Hawkeye. We would be in the club. He'd be like, this is amazing. Hawkeye go to shenanigans.

Shoe game. And be, like, waiting to go to upscale. Bella Noce. We would love, by the way, you know who else would love? Hawkeye in Baton Rouge, the white people of Baton Rouge. We got a white boy with a bow just clipping niggas. So can you imagine this little Hawkeye movie in Baton Rouge? He's just like, Tuck, Tuck, Tuck.

These are the things up at the bottom up in a, like right in North Baton Rouge and Dixie just, you know what's crazy? People would be like, that's the arrow, bro, man. We could take him, man. We go. That's the thing. They're going to press him. They'll try him every time.

Brug, niggas from around the way in Gardier, they're going to think they could beat their hark eye up. Hawkeye going to kick them in the knee and then beat them up with the boat. What I also like about D.C. Is that D.C. do got this problem where it's like, if you look at the Flash's Rokes Gallery, I love them. But, you know, they're not really doing too much damage. Superman Metropolis.

Not too much damage. Gotham is the city where I'm like, no, that's New York. They need everybody to be in that way. They need five robin justice league. And back girl and shit like that. But if I lived in Gotham, like, if you go to, do you just go to the club? Like, so if you live in Gotham and you go to the club, like there's like a 15% chance that you go to the club and the Joker has poisoned all the Hennessy. Yeah.

It's just like crazy shit. Not even all the Hennessy, though. You can't even shower. Can't even use the water. Water supplies always fucked up. Scarcrow. The scarecrow. The scarecrow.

The scarecrow. You leave. And it's a real. in the sky. And they're like, you can't even turn their ignition on your car if you can't solve this. It's just like crazy shit going on. Do you think it's when they see the bat signal? Like, you know, the black name's like, all right, we're going back inside.

Probably. But you know what else? If I was a regular criminal in Gotham, like, let's say I was like sticking up a 7-Eleven. And then Batman showed up. I'd be like, what are you doing here? You got bigger fish to fry. Are you fucking crazy? Are you fucking joking with me?

You about to, I'm about to get $300 from this. You see that light, right? What can I be like, what are you doing here? And that's probably the deterrent. Like if he beats up one robber out of 7-11, not that many people are going to try it knowing that he's beating up poison. I'm still doing.

These niggas taking his chances, bro. I don't know if you know, Steve. I probably don't. No, here's what I'm really afraid of. I probably don't. At least Batman going to pull the sponge. If I'm robbing like, fucking Quiky Mart,

a Damien just pops and I'm like, because you were the knife. Hey, man, you got it, man. All right, so. What do we feel about, dog, the Hulk scene, when he goes Savage Hulk and Spider-Man is like, dog, I didn't know you could get this big.

I was like, God, damn. So, listen, you know, we talked last night after the movie about everybody's, you know, somebody told me that they should have had Deadpool in the movie and not The Punisher. Who said that? Who said that? Oh, was that?

Oh, that was A-O. All right, we got to talk. A-O you got to, bro. I'm like, what are you talking about, A-O-Brah? That's a lot. I'm like, what are you talking about, yeah. It was like, Venom's in this movie. I'm like, come up.

Oh, yeah. Why didn't they make one of her kids miles? I'm like, all right. Like, what, Ails like, that should have been deadpool. I'm like, come on, eh, man. We just got out the movie, bro. We was at the con all week. We tired, dog.

What you doing? What you doing? Standing in lines all day. But no, the Savage Hulk is in the film and we're not going to, you know, it's very easy to talk about, like, how powerful the Hulk should be. if the MCU is dedicated to a super powerful Hulk, I will say that the usage of the Hulk in this movie added to the film. It didn't seem like just something that was just there, there.

It's also there for the Sega being there. It's great to know that Mark Ruffalo still loves playing the Hulk. Yeah. Because there's more Hulk, there's more stuff for the Hulk to do. But to see Banner in this movie as someone who uses his genius to help Peter and then also see Gene being able to take control of the Hulk, not the Savage Hulk, but of the Hulk, and then unleash this onto the city of New York.

I thought that was fun. But I will say my one critique, we needed more from the Hulk scene. I was expecting we would get Spider-Man really having to go toe-to-toe with the Hulk, and I feel like they kind of was like, he just out smart-stop. I don't think they know how to do that. Because we talk about Falcon having a bad,

When lost record in MCU, the Hulks is terrible, too. That's very true. I mean, the last time we saw that version of the Hulk. So the Hulk lost to Thanos. Yeah. You could make an argument that, I mean, he lost the Thor. Lost to Tony. When did you lose to Thor?

He lost the Thor and the Avengers. To me, he lost to him. To me, he beat abomination. He beat abomination. I don't know if that counts, but yeah. Why would have that? That was a long time ago. Yeah.

That was, it wasn't even Mark Ruffalo back. To me, he loses because he loses to Thor in the Avengers. I score that for Thor. Maybe it's not a clear victory. I scored that. And Tony beats him two in two. No. In Ultron.

Kind of? No, not really. With the Hulkbuster? That's kind of. He's right. Okay, what about Ragnarok? Yeah, he beats up the bridge. He beats up the bridge. But once again, he loses to Thor again.

When they fighting in the pit, he kind of loses. Or does he beat Thor? No, he beats Thor. He beats Storr. He beats Stor then. It seems like he beats Stor then. But we kind of don't get a resolution to the fight. We're going to go back and do this.

You know what we're going to do? We're going to do a pod. We should do a pod where we go back through the MCU and look at the win-loss record. The win-loss records and 1v-1s. The Nerfed pod. The Nerved pod. The win-loss record and 1V-1s. Like, Ant-Man kind of slick got a good win-loss record.

He's slick. Like, Amman got a wins over Falcon. Falcon got some really high profile losses, which is got to say. That's true. Even I heard, like, I saw what we was at Hall H. Anthony Mackie, tried to get a little joke off because they put him right next to Paul Rudd.

I'm like, hey, Fige, you set him up. You set him up. You can't be putting them both together on stage like that. Come on, bro. Yeah, so, like, we're going to do the one v ones, but in this one, they did have Savage Hulk, which I felt like, to your point, was going to be more of a problem for Spider-Man.

And they kind of just let it fizzle. little bit. They, they, they always have to write around that. I'm not sure that they really want the smoke and the problems of what a Hulk or a savage Hulk. Because that whole building's coming down. Also, it's not, I will say, it wasn't a loss for Hulk in this because if we remember, he was about to squeeze Spidey's head like a fucking grave. That's true. And then Spidey did the shit that I hate when he didn't get real low. He's just like, but we're friends. And I'm like, that To me, that doesn't count as a win because he's like Hulk realized

dog, I'm not trying to kill the homie. He did a he lullabyed him. There's a lullaby. That's a question. Lullaby is a loss? Is a lullaby a loss? I don't think a lullaby is a loss. That would have to mean Black Widow because, you know, Mark Ruffalo

saw Scarjo and he was like, you know what? I don't even need it. Yeah, he did. You're right. I just remembered that. He did. He basically lullabied him. So you can't really count this as a loss.

But Spider-Man was doing Spider-Man stuff on the Hulk's back. sticking to the hole, all of that. I really enjoyed that entire, it's a good pause. I really enjoyed that entire sequence. Although I don't know at this point what we're expecting from the Hulk.

I, the problem with the Hulk to me is the same problem with James Gunn's Superman, which is like, to me, David Cornswatt was a great Superman, but what are we here after that movie? Ah, man, Superman's fucking weak. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

He was getting his ass kicked. And I'm like, yeah, but the, if you don't make a character, that's vulnerable, you get fucking Henry Cabell where you're just like, wait, what can really hurt him? Is this even interesting anymore?

So sometimes I'm like, for story purposes, comics are different from the movies. In comics, Hulk can do whatever. In the movies, if the Hulk was really the Hulk, we wouldn't even have this shit, he would have just leveled half a fucking Manhattan.

Yeah, the whole building would have come down. Because even in the building, I was like, dog, this building is not. It's like, the Code can not handle the Hulk. I thought, I mean, we talked, like, the action of that sequence is also great. When Punisher comes through, we saw that, we saw the beginning of that

scene in Hall-H when Punisher is, like, just shooting him with the gun right there. Like, all that stuff was incredible when they're, like, he's pulling, he's pulling Punisher and, like, Hulk is, like, coming the other way. Like, it's just, like, the way that Daniel Desincredin, like, directs the action for the entire movie, but this sequence,

specifically, incredible stuff. It was great to see, we haven't seen a Hulk in, like, what, since 2018? Like that version of the Hulk or since Affinity War. We saw them, we saw Savage Hulk in, not Savage Hulk, sorry, Smart Hulk in Endgame, and then in She Hulk,

it was Smart Hulk again. The Hulk wasn't in Infinity War, was he? Beginning. Yeah, very beginning. Thanos. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then that was, that we literally have not seen that Hulk in freaking eight years.

I don't even think that was the Hulk that was in there. I think Savage Hulk is bigger because he says, I don't know you can get this big. Well, I mean, he also hasn't, I guess maybe he, like, watched the film. Yeah. But he, like, literally only knows Smart Hulk. He's never met that version, Hulk. Like, we know Hulk can go crazy.

He's never seen that version. But, yeah, like, the fact that we had Bruce Banner, we had the version of Smart Hulk that Gene Garry was controlling, right? And then once the inhibitor came off, and he was like, yo, hey, you got a, you got a dip, bro. It's about to get crazy here. And we see that Hulk. They ever see in a minute.

Can I do a quick quarter flip? Oh, now at the end of this movie, we end with Peter realizing he needs friends. He goes up to Ned. Okay. He does the Dap, and we get a, Ned is like, oh, I remember you. Now, MJ, who is his girlfriend, don't even, she's like, I got no memories of you, partner. My boy, Joe said, do you think it has to do with Ned's magical abilities? Could.

Oh. It could be Ned's magical abilities. He's secretly a powerful wizard. He's secretly a powerful wizard. wizard, there could also be something else. What? Ned and Peter engaged in something physical

that made Peter, or made Ned remember Peter. It might just be that maybe MJ and Peter need to engage in something physical. They need a handshake. They need a handshake. Slight Zag.

Not a handshake. They need a handshake. Not a handshake. They need to shake something else. Maybe if they, you know, because... What are we going to say, Steve? It was more so, like, it would have been more intriguing if

MJ did remember and she's just lying. No, she's not lying. No, she's not lying. It happens a lie. I said this last night. I was just like, hey, yo, your girl, once you got a new man, yeah, she might forget about you, but your day one homies ain't never. Yeah, that's not, I mean, that's your trauma.

I'm choosing to read that scene as, because remember, when he's leaving, he goes, she calls him Peter. And then he's like, you just call Spide by the man Peter. And so when he introduces himself, Now, the handshake is a little, like, I do kind of question like, well, where do you remember that from?

But I think it's him realizing, oh, my name's Peter. Peter, you're a Spider-Man. I think that's how I wanted to read that scene. It could be, the handshake's a little, yeah, but that's why I read that. Because it's interesting. I thought about that as like, if you forget Peter, would you forget the handshake? Does he remember? Because everything else they remember except just Peter being there.

So the handshake is still a part of his muscle memory, but who he did the handshake with is gone. He might have never done that handshake with anybody else. And now he remembers it because that's still a part of his makeup, right? Right. Because remember, Happy forgets Peter, but he remembers Aunt May. Yeah. Right?

So there's still things around Peter that you would remember, just not Peter himself. I'm not convinced at the end of the movie that Ned knows who he is. You don't think so? That he just pieced together that Peter Parker is Spider-Man. That's all that he pieced together. He introduces himself as Peter.

In that scene? I'm not convinced that he remembered. I think he remembered the shake. You could read that as a beginning of their relationship. As a beginning of now I'm going to tell you this stuff and you have reason to listen to me. You can read it like that, or, I mean, he could talk about it, or you could just read it as, you know,

he remembers. It just depends on, like, how you look at it. I don't think he remembers, because I think, Jay Garry's pretty clear about brother, there's nothing about you in here. Like, it's all gone. Yeah. And so I think it's just, I think it's them relearning,

like kind of meeting for the first time again. All right, let's talk about something that Jomey was very interesting talking about last night. You know what I mean? Your one critique of the movie, your big critique of the movie was that you felt like the movie needed a villain.

In this movie, it's pretty clear that throughout the movie Gene Gray is your villain. Does Gene Gray work as basically the central villain of this movie? Metzker is your top villain. In one of the weakest

parts of the movie, anybody, a three-year-old, could have seen that that guy was bad. Yeah. Like a three-year-old. I don't even think they were trying to hide it. Like, he's just lying to it.

It was just like from the beginning of it. A three-year-old could see that that guy was bad. But did the movie need a better villain? Did he have a villain? I, this movie to me, follows the trend of MCU films where they struggle with villains. And if I had one big critique of this, I feel like if you are not a comic book fan,

it will probably bother you. you a lot more than it did me because it's like, I love dumb villains like Scorpion and Boomerang. And even if you see him only for a moment and we haven't talked about Spider-Man versus the hand, that stuff just like zaps my lizard brain. And I'm like, dog, this is fucking dope. Who cares about the villain? But to me, it would have been a stronger movie if the Tremel Tillman character was a better villain. Like, I was just like, who is this guy?

What is really his motivations? because we haven't even talked about it. Essentially, Peter has a Tony Stark Ultron moment where he creates technology that will almost certainly be used against mutants. Yeah. And if you have a villain in that role that is better suited

to kind of walk you through the ethical lines of that, to me this movie just bumps up a whole other level. Yeah. They skirt around that, right? She talks about it. Um, Hull talks about it like, yo,

are you sure you want to build this thing? This could, like this, even, uh, MJ is like, yo, you know,

like suppressing this stuff is like, really important. Like, you could really like, mess, mess yourself up. I just thought like that was going to go somewhere. It did it.

And Chabelle Tillman is an incredible actor. Like, this is, I don't think this is, this falls on him. It wasn't his one of them. Yeah, this falls on him.

But I'm like, okay, if you're the big bad of the movie, you gotta, like, stand up, you know what I'm saying? Would Stryker have been better in terms of like if Stryker was in charge of damage control?

We know that like Weapon X is a thing. Obviously there's a history of them like experimenting on mutants. It would have been a bit more high profile. But like again, if it was that's still that level of involvement in the story, it still would have been muted. I mean, how do we know that they want, we don't even know how they want to how they want to position Stryker yet. It's like, it's crazy because it's like, yeah, Stryker would have been better because it would have been like ooze and Oz. And Stryker is a much more interesting character than. Bill Metzger.

Brian Coxman, Brian Coxburn? I would love that. That would be sick. That would be so sick. Tom Holland and Brian Cox on the screen would have been hilarious. But like, we don't know what era of the X-Man that they're, what we do, but we don't know where Striker fits into that.

We don't know where what's plus fits into that. So if you go with Stryker, and that's another thing that these stories are kind of doing, is if you go with Stryker, you kind of lock yourself into one specific type of storytelling. You're going for like, there's a lot of structure to that. Yeah.

They want to kind of leave that open-ended. It would seem like they do so they can give writers, not a Gene Gray's, in this, a way to cook up their own version of the mutants. Those old X-Men movies didn't have to contend with any other continuities.

So they could do like whatever they wanted. And they did a lot of shit too. They had an original, because we talk about all the other stuff, the original X-Men roster of that was all off. Like they didn't do it. it right. None of these movies have done this stuff like in a comic accurate way. Yeah, like buy the book. It wasn't Iceman, Beast, Angel, Gene, and Cyclops.

But do we honestly even think that the MCU movies will do that? Because with the success of X-Men 97, are they going to do the original five or they're like, nah? They might, but I think it's completely unnecessary, right? I think the more important thing is to build the world, right? Which is what they MCU has really done. The MCU has built like the worlds in a way that's like the right way. A lot of times like the debuts of the characters don't aren't like right in line with what's represented in the comic books.

Gene has a villain in this was interesting. It's funny. She plays almost in the movie as a pretty typical Spider-Man villain from what we've seen in these movies. Yeah. Like if you look even the first three Spider-Man movies besides, you know, besides Topher Grace, in the church praying for God to kill Spider-Man. I love that, see.

It's amazing. That's really, that's real eight. That's real, like God, one thing, don't take away my burden or anything like that. Please kill Spider-Man. I'm like, what? Like, crazy. But if you look even at, let's say, Dr. Octopus or Green Goblin, these are, gifted, tortured villains.

These are people that aren't just like Lex Luthor who you can't reason with or even the Joker whose philosophy is so twisted that it's so nihilistic that it takes human beings out of it. In a way, she's kind of like one of them. She's a lot closer to them in terms of Spider-Man villains that we've seen. Even Vulture, who you kind of understand,

Mysterio's a little bit more like whatever. But when they brought back all the other villains from the other continuities for Spider-Man No Way Home, it was kind of the same thing. He's a bunch of people that, like, you can see the good end. Right. Why did they use, like, a Mr. Negative, though,

who basically, I was like, you guys are using, like, the Mr. Negative storyline from the Spider-Man 2 game, but it's Gene Gray instead? Because even when they were talking about, she can only jump 33 feet, I'm like, that's a Mr. Negative power. That's not really how Gene Gray's

telepathy works. Yeah, right. And I think the thing that, like, really, like, cemented that thought for me is I thought the scene with him fighting the hand was great. It was not a bad scene at all. Again, we've talked about how much we love the action. However, in these movies, man, Spider-Man 1, him versus Green Goblin. In Spider-Man No Way Home, him and Green Goblin, that fight again. Spider-Man 2, him and Dr. Octopus, even in his first movie with the Voltra, I thought, was a really good scene.

Like, these movies and with him, like, putting B-T-Eathe. on a villain, you know what I mean? And we didn't have that. It's kind of like, dang, like, to your point, if it's just him and Mr. Negative, jook it out, he realizes, yo, I can use both sides. I can be Peter Parker and ass by the man.

And he does it to like one specific, like the main villain in the movie. That's what I will, that's like the one thing I would love to see in this movie. And it makes more sense with his mutation and his rage and the emotions of it all. Metzker is just kind of like, he's fighting the feds? Like, what?

Yeah, I think what he was, you know, he was finding something. I understand that, by the way. I think he was fighting something much more profound, but it's not always going to work for people. You want that space at the end of the movie for Spider-Man to, like, realize how powerful he is. It's like, it's kind of lizard-brainy a little bit. And take the villain down.

I thought he was in so much danger in the entire movie, danger from himself, danger from her. she was a scary villain. I thought it was a clever way to do something that Marvel has to do, which is get us into this world. And that's what they used to do. What they used to be able to do

was to take a character in the movie and get us into a new world. Like almost, you know, evangelize a new world force. I thought they were able to do that. But, you know, for people that still want to see this Spider-Man up against a more classic rogues gallery of Spider-Man stuff,

I can see where the Gene Gray being the villain might be a little underwhelming for people. Was the post-credit scene bullshit? A little bit. Yep. A lot of it. Do you think that there is going to be one that they, do you think that they held one back?

Because sometimes with the press, like you guys got to, I think, see the Eternals teaser when I was living in New York. I didn't. So sometimes they hide it. Do you think that they're hiding one? Or do you think this is it? I hope not, because that would be rude.

But, man, I lost so much sleep thing about that last night. Sounds like, what could that mean? It really, I think it always, could only be Venom, right? Because I don't know if we'll see him Spider-Man before Secret Wars comes out. And the famous thing about the first Secret War story is that's where he gets the black suit.

And so I think that's really just a tease for the next iteration of, I guess, his version of Spider-Man 5, I guess. Oh my gosh, that's crazy. Spider-Man 5, some of him coming back with the Venom suit and dealing with that because that's the only thing it can mean, like, to me. What are the most...

Have these movies, have the Spider-Man movies ever had good post-credit scenes. I was thinking about that last night. The first one has the one with... Captain America comes out. But there's also the one with Michael Keaton. He's in the white. Yeah.

Michael Mando. Right. He's like, I heard you knew who Spider-Man was, and he's like, nah. And he keeps it pushing. That was a Scorpion one, right? That was the Sinceristic. Like, what were the post-credit scenes really from?

What was the one from home? Far from home. I don't even remember that one. I don't know. I think, guys, you know what? I think that I don't know why I feel this way. I have no reason to like feel this way. I think that might be like a Sony thing.

That could be. I think it might be maybe that like they don't want to get too deep in you. Because even that Scorpion one, that Scorpion one is like, that's kind of like, I don't know, we saw those characters and those other Sony movies and stuff like that. That might be like a, like a, I just can't. Oh. Oh, J.K. Simmons comes back. And it's, oh, no, that was.

That's where they do the they go, he's Peter Parker and then the one to the end we find out that Maria Hill and Sam Jackson, Nick Fury, I've been Scrolls. So that's probably the most MCUE one. Right.

To where it pushes the the, it pushes the story for it. That's probably the most MCUE one. But when you think about other MCU storylines, it's like at the end of what was it, At the end of, at the end of which movie does Nick, does Nick Fury, like, disintegrate and then he called?

Oh, that's, uh, Infinity War. At the end of Infinity War, right? Like, these movies are like in the middle. But I don't know that these have ever, Spider-Man's always kind of walked that line. I don't know if these post-credit scenes have ever been. I expected this one, I expected this one, I'm not shooting Bell. I expected this one to be much, much, much more. Oh, yeah.

Because of Doomsday and stuff like that. I don't disagree, but, like, I thought it would be more X-Man. but then I think about it, why would Sony lead into that? Why would they do them a favor? I tell you when Sony was really bold, do you remember the Venom post-credit scene? With J.K. Simmons?

Yeah. Like that was, like, we were legitimately, we had like a whole half of a pod dedicated just to that post-credit scene and what that could mean. Nothing. Nothing. But this post- there was no mid-credit scene.

There was a post-credit scene, and it seemed to be like just kind of bullshit. I mean, it means something, but nothing like really, really, really coming from it. We're going to get you off. Do you, and I'm not, it's the funniest video I've seen in a while, the woman being like, hey, yo, Steve Lacey,

what's your favorite part of the film? Don't spoil nothing. He's like, Gene Gray. And he's like, yeah, she's a villain, but not really. I'm using Steve Lacey as a way it to be like, do you think fans will be disappointed that there's not more big surprises of this. Whereas like,

G. Gray wasn't a surprise, but that is kind of the only, like, reveal of the movie. It's more of a confirmation bias than it is a reveal at that point. Yeah, I mean, we've been talking about this. We did a pod at the beginning of the year, right?

Odds, you know, like, over unders. Is she going to be Jean Grey? And we were like, it's got to be Gingray because Rachel Summers, Firestar, like, it doesn't really make much sense for her to be anything else. So really, I mean, in the theater, they say, like,

movie doesn't, like, pause to do it. If movie goes, this person, she's here, she's here and her name is Gene Greene. And we were, yeah. Like, that's, that's good. That's what it's going to be in all the theaters across the world this week. And people are excited to see the X-Men, like, properly in the MCU.

I think that's just going to kept to carry it. It's like, it's a movie with Spider-Man and Gene Gray on the screen together. This movie had Spider-Man, Gene Gray to hold the Punisher all in the same fucking way. What does Sean say? Sean said, or not Sean. Like, we never thought, like, we would see those carriers.

Or Kevin Feigie. Oh, Jesus Christ. You confused Sean with Kevin Feigey. Oof. That's your goat, man. Shout out to Fantasy and the big picture of all the work y'all doing over there. You did, like, wow, that's your goat. That's my goat.

You know that's my goat. You know, that's my ghost. Sean got a kind of Kevin Feige thing going on. I could see the cap on. Put a cap on. A little jacket. I can see Sean up there. A little 15 deep at Comic Con.

I can see Sean up there and Hall H. Like, you know, this is what we're doing. Yeah. The original Lincoln, or extended universe? Mm-hmm. was Kevin Faggy bullshit and in that interview

when he's like, yo, the fans kind of got it messed up. There wasn't that much buildup. Oh, shut up. I was a little like, all right,

fuck you don't play in our face. Kevin Faggy is one of my favorite. He got the LeBron Gine. He's one of my favorite generational liars. Kevin Faggie's really great. Lying. You'd be looking at stuff he's talking about the past

like about movies and things like that. The thing is crazy. Brother, he was in all these movies. The Infinity Stones has been laid across this universe. Don't, most of guard, not most, a big part of Guardians of the Galaxy is his daughters hating each other because of their father.

I, like, I do agree that like, yes, I think over the years, maybe we thought we got more Thanos than we did. Yeah. But like, bro, that was the entire backbone. He was a known quality of several movies. He showed up in 2012 or the first time we saw him as 2012 and be layered for six years throughout either mentions or actual appearances. Mcuffings.

Yeah. Well, we didn't need as much. like outright Thanos because the stones were there. By the way, the Avengers, that's the Chitari attacking New York City. Like that's, Thanos is his army.

Like, so, so like it, it's, yeah, that's not true. That's also, that's both a lie and also,

it's not like he was in every movie lurking around the corner. There are times where we just forget about him, but man, the reality stone was in Thor. Thor, Like, we got the, the Tessarac was the main, in, what do you call it? It starts with that. Yeah.

It was in Thor and Avengers. It starts with that. So, like, all you really need it after a while is, you know, when he goes, I'll do it myself. And he grabs the gaunt. We're like, now we're ready to go. And we don't seem for another three years after that. Do you, do you guys stay, I was thinking about this, do you guys think the general populace gives a fuck about Dr. Doom?

Where it's like we know, if you've read comics, you know, like, Dr. Doom is a way more fascinating villain. Yes. Than Thanos to me. But do you think someone who's just gone to see Fantastic Four films and shit? Actually, he's like, oh, Dr. Doom is here. Or they're just like, oh, the nigger with the mask. That's the wrong question. Because that's never been a question with the MCU.

It's so interesting where we are. Like, the answer is no, but they didn't care about none of it. The General Populist didn't care about Thor. the general populace didn't care about Ironman the general populace didn't care about Captain America they knew them but they didn't care about them the question is can you make them care

that's the thing that they've lost it wasn't white when people were like oh they're giving a shank she and shit like that they gave us Dr. Strange is a character that people know but ain't nobody with nobody the question is not like even Black Panther man

like Black Panther is a gigantic fucking Marvel superhero now. Brough, in 1995-96, it was an X-Men world. People weren't going crazy over Black Panther like that, right? They weren't. That wasn't a thing. People have always loved Black Panther.

Don't get me wrong. We always knew Black Panther, a long-running comic book character, but the MCU was able to make people care. To me, the answer to your question is, no, not really. Everybody know who Dr. Doom is, but they don't, nah, not really. And then you add the layer on top that he's getting played by Robert Dinah Jr. It's like, why? What does that mean?

I think people are going to be excited no matter what. But like the question would be can they make them care? Because that's what they used to do. They used to make you care about Black Widow. They used to make you care about Hawkeye. They made us care about Loki. Yeah, like nobody knew. Loki became a good villain.

Like the movies would make you care about these characters, even if you had like even like a subtle knowledge of who they were. Everybody knew Thor from the kind of like people know but nobody cared. These were these were A minus really B plus list comic bookie.

People care about Superman. They care about the Joker. That's what they care about. They care of that that's a care. If we're doing like we're doing like tierless about like these characters and people, it's Batman, Superman, Superman, any X-Men like S-tier.

But they, oh, are we going to put X-Men in that? Yeah, yeah, you've got to put X-Men in that, right? And then after that, it kind of, I want to say falls off a cliff. There are characters that, like, different levels to that. Fantastic Four, you might, you know what I'm saying? That's why those rights got sold off in the first place, because those are popular characters. X-Men, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, because those are people buying those comics, they were like, people want to see these movies.

Those had X-Men, or Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, just going to have to be. for Marvel. Brother, Guardians of Galaxy, you said B-Lis, brother. Nobody knew who the Guardians was. Nobody knew who the Guardians was. But you could you can make people, you can get people involved with story and all of that stuff.

It started to fall apart. Well, our expectations changed, right? Yeah. And after they made all the Avengers into big stars, then we were like, okay, all right, well, you got the X-Men now, so let's do that.

Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. And then it was like Shang Shi, the Eternals, all of that stuff. But if those movies would have worked better, Shang Shi and Internals are fine movies. Like, you know, Sean Shee better than the, whatever, bro. I think, but something this movie does, to bring it back to like the Kevin Foggy, Sean, the thing,

like seeing Hulk, Punisher, Spider-Man on screen together, incredible. We never thought we see that. And in this movie, Yelena's in there. Like, you know, he put a Bolcher Spider-Man villains in there. the world feels full, the world feels later, the world feels like lived in. And we haven't gotten that in a lot of these movies. We talk about it all the time.

Like, Sean Chi, yeah, like Wong shows up and at the end credits you have, what it's called? Captain Marvel, the Hulk. Yeah. Right, like, where was that kind of stuff throughout like these last couple years, right? I mean, frankly, we should,

people like Shang-she. We should have got a Shang-Chi too, probably. Right? And then you continue to layer these characters into these films. So when we get in Avengers, we go, oh my gosh, look at all these characters I know and love that I've seen over these years. This is great.

That's the thing that they haven't done over this last couple of years that I feel like I've kind of lost us as fans. Also, the quality is also kind of taken away there. The quality's been there. Look, there's been all kinds of pressures, right? There was pressures to have more diverse characters, which is good. But I think I do really honestly think, and this is just not with Marvel.

I think this was a lot of companies. I think they thought the diversity itself was enough for people. I really do. I think that people were like, hey, there's no Asian representation in Marvel. They go, okay, we'll give you Shang-She and be happy. It's like there's not enough women in Marvel. Okay, we'll give you some ladies. Be happy.

There's not enough black women in Marvel. Okay, we'll give you some black women. You'll be happy. I think what they found out was that people always are going to want diversity. They're always going to want stories that come from a lot of different places. but that's not going to be the thing that is going to be enough. That's not going to be enough. You need a good movie.

You have to take care of those characters. Black Panther, like Black Panther and to a lesser extent, but still I put this, Wonder Woman are good movies. They are not good movies because of the representation, but the representation adds to the fact that it's like when you watch that movie, you're like, oh, somebody had a vision. They're taking care of this world. I feel seen.

I think they thought when they was doing Marvels, they're like, hey, yo, you like Captain Marvel. We're going to put two more marvels in there. And I'm like, that's not going to move the people like that if the movie sucks. Right. And also you got to give the creators in that situation an opportunity to cook. All right. So before we get to the ranking and to the midnight meter,

it's looking like this bitch about to go crazy. All right. So I could not find anywhere that I necessarily trusted that said this movie is going to do $800 million. I know that graphic is. I would not be surprised if it did. 800 worldwide one weekend would be nuts, bro. That's insane. The first, the last one did what?

6.35 in one weekend. So I have the numbers for just domestic. Deadline is reporting that this movie will make between $18, $1.90 million domestically. Box Office Pro is at $2.30 to $250. $250. It'll be nuts. Domestic?

Yeah. And the first weekend will be crazy. And then. But how is it getting that $8? How is it getting to 800 then? Global? So it's going to be... 600 will have to...

600 global, yeah. That's crazy. It might... It might... It might... It might... It'll depend on China as far as that number is concerned

and how it opens over there. But, like, it... 800 will be nuts. I think it could do it. 800 puts the movie... The reviews are going to be pretty good on it, I would say. Like, where is it's in right now,

not rotten tomatoes? Probably, like, it's probably finished like 85%. The movie is going to be a well-review movie because it's a really, really good movie. I think it's going to be a crowd pleaser. I think we'll be happy with this. I don't, I mean, I don't think we've had like our nipics.

We've talked about like stuff we didn't, like, you know. I thought it was mostly perfect. I love this movie. People are, like, I know. I know that people have nipicks and that's cool. I thought the movie, like, struck all the right chords, but I can understand, you know. Emotionally action, the characters. This movie does so many things so well at such a high level that even if you're like, I don't really, I don't really, like the stuff that it nails everything that it needs to.

So, all right, let's do a real, real quick. Let's do, let's do a top three. Does this make your top three Spider-Man movies? Do we want to do live action and Spider-Vverse or just live-action? Live action. Yeah, it does make my top three. It would have to. I think Spider-Man 2 is still number one.

Yeah. Yeah. I think this might be number two. Wow, you think this is better than the original Spider-Man movie. Say your peace. Say you peace. All right. No, I'll put Spider-Man 2.

your original Spider-Man and this one. So what I would say is I put Spider-Man 1 and Spider-Man 2 is a dead heat tie, basically. And then I will put this second. But if I had to rank them and I couldn't use those two movies as a tie because I really do put those movies

as almost exactly the same quality. I know people prefer Spider-Man 2 to Spider-Man 1. I don't really think that there's a difference. Honestly, I think Spider-Man 1 is slightly better. Understandable. I think Spider-Man was slightly better. I'm not even going to argue because I think there's probably more, no, because Spider-Man 2 got the train scene.

We were at Margaritaville. And it was on the screen when we were just eating. I think we were about to leave and I was like, whoa, let me just watch the whole train series. We got to, I mean, not to interrupt the rankings, but remember, we got to do, I don't know if it's a draft or a ranking or whatever, but we got to do the episode where we talk about like memorable movie moments from Superhero movies. The best superhero movie moments, the train scene. So, yeah, it's, to me, it's Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 1, and then I'm slotting this one in at number 3. Yeah, I think there's a, I don't, because I think the thing for me, I think those are clearly the best three movies.

But are Spider-Man 1 and Spider-Man 2 a tier above this movie? And honestly, I don't know. I don't think so. I don't, like, on first viewing? I don't think so. On first viewing, I could almost make a three-way. On first viewing, I don't think so. Those movies are so iconic, though.

On first viewing, though, I don't think so. It doesn't have a Willemdiffoe performance, you know. That's probably the thing, yeah. Alfred Molina, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would agree with Charles's ranking, but I also kind of agree with yours where I'm like, if S or S plus is Spider-Man 1 or 2, I would put this at, like, A, the highest of A tiers.

This is definitely, like, a top 3 Spider-Man movie. I would probably put Spider-Man 2, 1. I'd probably put Spider-Man 1 at 2 and then put this at 3, but it's not, it's not far away. Why do you think Homecome is not there? Because, like, to me, Homecoming has been the best. Tom Holland won. What do you think it is about this movie that just makes it better than home?

It's just deeper and richer in every way. It looks better. The fights are better. I think Homecoming has a better villain if you're looking at Vulture is a great villain. But I think this is more of a movie about the character for it. It's a more mature take, it's a more serious movie. it's funny, it's got emotion, it's got hard, it's got all of that.

It's just a better movie than Homecoming, to me in every respect. Yeah. I agree. It's Tom Holland, that motherfucker killed it. Now, before we get to our rankings, my last question for y'all is,

I think we are almost guaranteed that we are going to get two more Tom Holland Spider-Man movies. If he wants to do them. But no, he said that he was due, he'll do it forever. Okay.

But even Kevin Faggy and Amy, Pascal, you know, I've been on the road promoting, and they say, like obviously Miles Morales is coming. So you think the next movie is going to be Venom, introducing Miles, and maybe the third movie is like the baton pass.

You know what the funny thing is, bro? Maybe, but if you're going to introduce Miles Morales, you might want to let him get a little older. Like, we might be clamoring for Miles Morales, but they might think we do Miles Morales when he's like 35, so we can kill Peter Parker. Yeah, I think that's the baton pass. You know what I mean?

Like the original comics where in the ultimate comics, Peter dies and then. Miles takes over. Yeah, I mean, I don't, like, look, here's the deal. Like, Tom Holland is the Peter Parker in his world, right? So if you do perpetual Peter Parker forever, and you replace them with somebody else, that's one thing you could do that.

But if you're going to bring Miles Morales in, the most natural way to do it would be to kill Peter Parker, bring Miles Morales in, let Miles Morales cook. Think about it. You kill Peter Parker. You have like an older MJ that Miles Morales that might still be around and stuff like that. You could really deepen the world if you take the swing.

Yeah. And then after Miles Morales run is over, you reboot Peter Parker at some point down the line. Death of Spider-Man movie would be. Be nuts. If they were really about it, they would have done that here. Because, oh, now you can't do it.

Because the math in that universe is, because that's the ultimate universe, right? Where Peter Parker dies and then Mazzarrales become Spider-Man. And then when Secret Wars happens, they merge universes. So Earth 616 merges with the ultimate universe and Mazzarales because he gives a cheeseburger. A hamburger to Mo Man. Yeah. Or molecular man, sorry. Monacoal Man.

Monaco Man. Maw Man. Gives him a hamburger. And he's like, oh, cool. You can come and enjoy this universe. with everybody. And then he, now he gets his Peter Parker. Now Miles and Peter Parker share universe. We could have done that. I think, I don't know if you, I don't know if you kill Peter Parker, but I do think there is a world where you get to Secret Wars and Miles is

there or for whatever reason when they merge those timelines, we see a Miles with Peter. And I think like him teaching him to be Spider-Man would be cool. But also, I just thought of this, a fantastic 4 ain't do what they wanted it. Do you think they might do the Jonathan Hickman run where Spider-Man officially joins the Fantastic Force? You kind of get a like, you get that bump with that franchise where they're like, hey, yo. Let me say something right now, man.

I'll say some right now. If they do, if I go to any movie theater and it's the Fantastic 4 sharing the screen with Spider-Man, I myself will spend a billion dollars. I need that. I need that. I'm telling you, they're going to give Spider-Man the same Tony Stark arc.

Yep. And you're going to say goodbye. It's going to be tough. Motherfug's going to cry. He's going to cry. Can't die again, man. Everybody loves going to be the same. I am going to be holding his arm, no.

Either that or like, either that or he rides off into the sunset. He retires. He gets depowered or something like that. But then they got to kill. Yeah. But yeah, so we'll see. We'll see. We'll see how they do the Miles Morales thing.

And we'll also see just, you know, how the business side of it and all of this stuff works out. All right, man. Because Sony might want to hold on to my. Miles Morales or they might want to sell Spider-Man to Disney. No, we were not talking about this at Margaritaville. This shit makes $100,800 billion first week. Sony, like, you know what?

We'll keep it. You just going to keep this. Yeah. Maybe. Maybe. Come on. 800. Like.

They might. They're still not doing these movies and solo productions, though. And they weren't able to establish their world. And it's a heavy lift. I'm not speaking for Sony. It's a heavy lift to have to make these movies in the way that they have to make them. Think about it now. so they're still making the films

and they'll have Spider-verse coming out but then after that they got to go again they got to make one every couple of years Marvel is not going to be on the timeline to make a Spider-Man movie that quickly and they've burned through all of the

all of the characters that you they made a Craven movie to keep this shit going that's expensive when those movies don't make money Craven, Madam Webb fucking Morbius Morbius.

Are all of those bombs worth the big payout of a big Spider-Man movie. Just to kick the can down the road. But I mean, at the end of the day, you're, with the way that they've renegotiated the business with Disney already, it's really the movie stuff

more than anything else. And maybe you're breaking even, maybe you're making money. I'm sure you are with everything else. But there's money on the table, yeah. But like, those are expensive movies. And you got to make them. You also have to hire those actors.

and then you also have to take the prestige and the reputation hit that your studio takes by putting out bombs. Every single film that you put out during that year is a part of the studio's yearly bottom line. Like, yeah, sure, in this year you reap big benefits, right? But in the year that Morbius came out or the year that fucking Madam Webb came out, those movies hurt the bottom line of your studio.

So I'm sure you make it up on the back end and all kinds of stuff. it might not they're never going to I don't think that they're going to do I don't think that Sony's going to go and do a Spider-Man movie and a sole production

without the MCU at this point they still have Miles Morales they still have Miles Morales they might be like fuck it like we and also like we all know this hey yo if I'm Sony I'm just like that's Spider-Man game damn near

like underwrites a bunch of those failures just because like when a new Spider-Man, like it just, those are some of the biggest games of all time. Yeah, it's true. They're selling consoles. Like, you have to think about it. Spider-Man to them at this point is like,

he helps ourselves hardware. Yeah. I would, what I would suggest people do is, because this is us going back and forth, but do the reading on it. Like, there's a lot of stuff out there that's been written on why Sony might want to sell Spider-Man.

Like, do the reading on it. And obviously, Spider-Man is a profitable, character for them. Them selling Spider-Man is essentially getting out of the superhero game. Yeah. Yeah. Which this might honestly change that. But there is a world where they go $5 billion.

$7 billion, we're done. And then, you know, that's a shit ton of money. That would be more than what... They paid for Star Wars. Oh, that's going to at least be $5 billion. No, no, I'm agreeing with you because here's a thing. Spider-Man and Batman as characters are... honestly more important, sometimes

more important than their universe, just as singular characters in terms of like the money they can generate. Yeah. Yeah. But remember, Warner Brothers straight up owns Batman. Yeah. Yes. So they they can go right now, we're not making another Batman movie

for fucking 10 years until we get the right director. Now they still gonna make them bitches, right? Sony has license this so they got to make Spider-Man and stuff or it reverts back. And it just, it has been recently, even with Noah at home, like a thorn in their side as far as that's concerned.

But it would be something interesting to really do a deep dive on and talk to people about it, like, what to deal with. All right, midnight meter, Chuck. All right, y'all know what the midnight meter is. One is reserved for the worst. 11 and 12 is for true, true game changers. I'll start with you, Van. Where are you going?

11. I got to go 11 because of the box office. the box office is about to be so crazy that I got to do 11 now I only gave the Odyssey of 10 I've had the same thought that's yeah that's that's totally gave the Odyssey of 10 but God damn it's me

it's van this movie not better than the Odyssey to me it is hey oh all right what you mean to me it is it's not a better what let me put you like this and this is something that's interesting we have to say number one

no is this movie a better, is this movie, is there better craftsmanship filmmaking in this film? No, it's Christopher Nolan, it's the Odyssey. No, is there a better crap? No, it's not, not at all. Not at all. But like, if you're asking me right now, I have one ticket to go back and see something, what am I going to go back and see this or the Odyssey? I'm going back to see Spider-Man again. If somebody gives you an I-back ticket to the Odyssey,

right now, you're like, I'd rather go see Spider-Spider. I'll go back to Spider-Man again. So what I'm telling you is, What I'm telling you is, I'm not going to say that this is a better movie than The Odyssey. The Odyssey has the top of the industry making it, producing it with a once-in-a-generation autort. So everybody that's listening and willing to jump on that, like it's this big reveal, whatever. No, it's not better in that regard. It's not better.

There's a lot of movies that this is not better than in that regard. Smaller movies, movies that made 15. This movie is not better than City of God. Yeah, right. I get what you're saying. Yeah, it's not better. City of God is better. City of God is one of the best movies

ever seen. But like it is. It's not better than City of God. However, if you're telling me right now, what you want to go spend movies, spend time in the movie theater is Spider-Man the Hulk and Gene Gray. When it's done really, really, really well.

So that's what I would say. And also I, sometimes like this is how I think of the Midnight Meter. There's a difference between like my Midnight Meter score and my Letterbox score. The Midnight Meter to me is like a VICE. It's a fandom. ranking vibes where it's like,

I get what you're saying where it's like the Odyssey isn't better it's a masterpiece but if we're ranking it on fandoms there is just like Kalika was making fun of me just like I know you like this movie

like why she's like you click and your heels at the time. I was just like there's just something that's like in the hands again all right Jomey where are you going?

I'm also going to give it 11 with the caveat that my Odyssey ranking is going to change. This is that's this will be It's going to be recessed. It's going to be recessed.

But I got to give. This movie was incredible. Like, just, I don't want to say, like, I don't want to get too crazy. But, like, so much fun in the theater. Seeing all these things on screen happening. The emotions, the arcs. Like, everything came together in a package that, like, again, we talked about it's 2.30.

You don't feel like 2.30. Man, the movie is moving. The movie is grooving. Had a blast, man. It's 11 for me. I will give this a 10. I enjoyed this a lot. I was wildly.

impressed with the things that it was attempting to do and pulled off. I had quibbles, but again, like the theater-going experience negates anything that I could ever possibly have wrong with it. Yeah, honestly, like, if to me, Spider-Man 1 and 2 are like 12s, and I walked out of this movie being like, this is an instant 12, now I slept on it. That was funny. But, no, that's how I think that's what these movies at their height can do, where they just transport you when they talk to just like that child and you.

I can't give it a 12 yet. This is what Mulligan's is for at the end of the year. But I'm going to follow Steve and give it like a really, really strong 10. I just have to see. I have to watch it another time before I can really call it a game changer. But you said that I think it's the first thing you said to me after we saw it, which is like this is the best that they could do with this version of Spider-Man. That's what they could have done.

Like that is not a-slip. This is the fourth Spider-Man movie as Tom Holland in what? Live action, this is. night? Yeah. This is, they got really close. I think this is a 10. I love this movie so much.

All right, guys, it was a jumbo-packed episode surrounding Spider-Man brand-new day. No more at home stuff. We're out of the house. Spider-Man is out of the house. Spider-Man, jump out of the house.

That's going to be, everything's going to be day. Everything's going to be day. After tomorrow? Next Spider-Man. Day after tomorrow? Spider-Man Friday after next. Spider-Man.

We can bring Jake Jill a whole house. I'm just doing all back. Because they did have Day Day Day. They had Day Day and Madam Webb. He was it. Spider-Man Day Day. Spider-Man Day. Put Day in it.

Spider-Man next day. Next every day. Spider-Man Day of Time. All right. So they tap down to Talk to Thrones every Sunday. Every Monday the Midnight Boys are giving you their House of the Dragon reactions. Every Monday. Season's heating up.

Season's heating up. It's almost over. It's almost there. Oh, wait. We have two more episodes up? Two more left. God. Then after that, you know what we get into, right?

Lantern, nigger. How about lanterns? How about we're excited for lanterns? I can't wait for lanterns. The fucking lanterns. The lanterns. I'm so excited about lanterns. I fucking knock this whole fuck out.

Knock all these cameras over. I kick everything down. I'll set this whole place on fire. Okay. Our producers today are Alainz and theirs. Jacob Cornett, Devin Baroldi. Join me a dinner on on social. Hashtag mind control dirty Mac.

Ooh. Joe. He is a dirty Mac. He is a dirty Macon. Yeah. Those are long. Those guys are long. long past. Now you do it. We've seen it.

Additional production from Arjuna Ramgal Powell. Chuck takes out. Brand new day was a blast. That spidey merch is flying off shelves. And I do think at midnight mulligans, this might be a 12. Boo!