The Smark Avengers - Crocodile Characters and Other Shenanigans

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

While Jon is away, Corey and Dylan will play… and in this case playing means talking about their favorite Crocodile/Alligator/Reptilian characters… or try to. At first Corey and Dylan discuss the Batman rogue Killer Croc but then the topic verges off into how to identify a crocodile’s sex, Lana Del Ray’s regular every day bloke husband, then they go back to Killer Croc but then verge off the path to talk about Mary Jane Watson and Venom. Don’t worry, they get it back on topic… or try to before they start talking about animal-based monster characters. 🐊 Topics discussed include: - Copperhead from Batman: Arkham Origins - The Lizard from Spider-Man’s rogue gallery - Manbat from Batman’s rogue gallery - King Shark from the Suicide Squad - Leatherhead from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Their feelings on the “Watch-A-Long” videos they’ve put out in the past - The Rhino from Spider-Man’s rogue gallery - The tendency of Spider-Man to have villains replace other villains and then those original villains to come back - A brief discussion on IP and movies - Characters named after animals versus animal-based characters - Chip Zdarsky’s Batman run and the “Failsafe” storyline - James Tynion IV’s Batman run and creating new characters that didn’t stick The lads then tie it together by inventing their brand new character “Cool Croc” to add to the lineage of crocodile/alligator themed characters. Join Corey and Dylan as they dive headfirst into the animal kingdom as it relates to monsters and comic books. 💬 Join the discussion: Who are your favorite animal-based monster characters? Did Corey and Dylan miss any big examples of one? 👍 Like the video if you enjoy comic book related discussions and humor 🔔 Subscribe for more comic deep dives, reviews, rankings, and debates Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/ Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f Also be sure to check out New Number Ones posted every week on the Smark Avengers YouTube channel!

Should we do something to make it fair for John? Because John is like $100 less than we have. Yes. We should take $100 away from him. Take another $100 away from him? Give it to us equally. So he'd have like $30. Yeah.

I was wondering if we should do like Bowser Revolution and we just add up the money we have and split it evenly three ways. Oh, let me think about that real quick. Does I know? Oh, I like that idea. He tried to screw me over with the Deadpool. Oh, let's flip it. That is true. That is karma. That is karma.

If I had spent a lot money on Deadpool and you went up to John and were like, I feel like we should split it three ways. See, John is difficult because I feel like John has a demeanor to him that suggests that he's all about fair play. But then he does some underhanded shit like that, you know? That's what I'm saying. And if you asked him, like, should I split it so that we all have equal money? He would have been like, no, he knew what he was getting into by bidding for Deadpool. So, like, well, that's the game. That's the game.

That's true. That's true. I suppose John should be the victim of his karma. I don't make the rules. He tried to do something underhanded to you, and it came back and bid him in the ass. Exactly. You know, if he doesn't like it, they'll play the game better. Yeah, there you go.

I mean, I'm sorry that sounds harsh, but, you know, that's part of the game. part of the game. Hi everybody, welcome to Smart Avengers. My name's Corey. With me is Dylan. Oh. I thought it would be a fun open. We were just discussing like whether or not John deserves a shot at redemption, but I suppose he does not. That's going to make it sound like I was throwing John under the buzz. And let me clarify, I definitely was. But Dylan, welcome to the show. As you could tell from the fact that we did throw John under the bus, he's not here to defend himself. Yeah. He is away doing things. he's in my part of the world isn't he

I think he's coming home same ah well that's if we let him go back yeah it might have deported was he here for the World Cup yeah wow that's depressing I'm sorry to hear that for him well well you know other people travel to your horrible country as well so that's what I'm saying I feel bad some people weren't even allowed in

some people that were part of the World Cup weren't allowed in yeah you guys should maybe like do something about it's your country. We got another, what, two years to try to figure something out, I suppose. Don unless he dies. Well, if he doesn't, we just hand it over to J.D. Vance, and I don't know if that's anything better for you or not. I think probably, yeah, because at least Trump has, like,

the allure, the illusion of, like, charisma, whereas J.D. Vance doesn't. So you're like, oh, this isn't going to last. No, that is. a man who has somehow failed upwards. It's kind of, like, to be truly, I think that is kind of the American dream to somehow fail upwards. Do you think the American dream

is to be Jady fans? I think, I think, like, there's something to be said about being a mediocre author that somehow became a senator and the vice president of the United States within, like, a handful of years. And he fucked a sofa. And he fucked a sofa.

Yeah. So he's got everything going. Do you think you put a condom on? no i think he intentionally tried to get that sofa pregnant i just feel like the carpet burn between the on the sides of the shaft to be rough what kind of soap it was that's also very true we should stop talking about this uh i don't know what we're talking about though dylan because you said that this was going to be something you were going to spring on me yeah what what is fun about this i like the ones where like it's quite

off the cuff and we're just kind of you know it's all a surprise But it also means that you would have had no time to prepare for whatever this episode is. There's a really good chance that why I'm about to spring on you is just not good content. All right. Okay. We're like a pretty high chance where you're like, this is going to last us the guts of 10 minutes. But, you know, we could just do a 10 minute episode and then call it a day. Just kind of vamp for 50 minutes.

Oh, I'm sure. I mean, like I said, it's usually like, we call them relaxed fits, but that's what they are. It's just vamping. There's no. I'm usually on, like, bleeding cool and like, is like, what the fuck is going on that I can talk about? I think we're pretty good at vamping. You know, I don't want to brag, but I think we're pretty good at like filling time. Yeah.

You know, so what's, so what are we doing? Okay. Corey, I have a question for you. Okay. I would like you to answer that question in some manner, because that is the show, I suppose. Okay. You could just nod if you wanted to,

but then there would be like 50 minutes of silence, and I don't know if the people want to hear that. It'll be really easy to edit that. Wow. I think it's a podcast, yeah. I wanted to know. Corey. In regards to comic books,

is what we talk about a lot on this show. Yeah. What are your favorite alligator slash crocodile characters? Alligator slash crocodile characters. Yes. No, I... Okay. I was, you know, trying to be, like, quite specific about alligators.

But if you want to, we can have a little bit of leeway in there. For example, lizard. from Spider- He's a lizard. He's not really crocodile, is he? Yeah, it's adjacent. He's a lizard.

He's not really a lizard because appearance-wise, he's closer to a crocodile. Yeah. The argument is there for the lizard. You know? So I think, listen, we might get no views on this.

Fair enough. But I also think that this is an area of comics and nobody talks about it. So are we talking about sort of just like reptilian character? characters in a sense. Exactly. That kind of deal, but like,

you can judge that however you want. Okay. In terms of, like, so obviously, like the lizard is a reptile. A lizard is quite scaly, got the jaws and shit. Sure. It looks like a crocus. You know what you mean? So how far do you want to take that?

That's up to you. I just thought, let's just talk about crocodiles and alligators. Okay. Sure. So obviously the first one that comes to mind is a DC concept. comics guy is Killer Crock from the Batman world. For sure. Waylon Jones is his birth name.

And originally he was just a guy with a skin condition that made it look like he had scales. And Killer Croc was like his freak show Carney name. But then like as time went on, they like they kind of so like you know how like Beast kind of they change his appearance. And sometimes they give it an explanation and sometimes they don't. They just like, this guy's just going to draw a beast looking like an ape for some reason, despite him being a lion. The monkey one I didn't get, because you're like, the beast, going from beast to lion is like he's getting sleaker and stuff. You can see that. And then he just became a monkey.

Like, how did that one come about? Monkey fit into this. Yeah. A lion was cool. I wish people had drawn him as a lion more. I really liked beast lion. Quietly did a good job with that lion art. Then they made him crazy.

I'm like, guys. Well, this is not. Then they were like, let's just bring back a clone of him that hasn't advanced past the mid-90s. And people are like, I'm fine with this. Right. Again, then they're missing out the lion. Yeah. Well, but then you have white beast who's the evil beast.

This is like lion erasure, which I don't like. Yeah. Well, we could do lions as well. But let's, we'll do cry. Are we just going to talk about like a me, a million or amylillion creatures? A million. Did you make that up? I don't think so.

I'm not sure. It doesn't sound like a real word. I don't think it sounds like a real word either, but I feel like I've heard it somewhere, but maybe it's just in my own head. But yeah, so like, so going back to Killer Crock, for some reason, like at one point, they gave him, like, they just made him more crock-like. They gave him a snout, and they gave him a tail.

And then they did away with the tail and the snout, and then he was just a big guy covered in scales again, like big mouth. Then they was like, They made him a cannibal for a while. And I'm trying to think, like, what was the last time I saw Killer Crock and something? I remember in the Suicide Squad comic in the Rebirth era, they paired him up with Enchantress, and they had, like, a little love story where he in, where he wasn't in love with Enchantress. He was in love with Dr. June Moon. So whenever June Moon wasn't the Enchantress, and she went back to her, like, other personality and not the evil witch that possessed her body.

they were like a couple okay so that they did that for a while and i think he got married to kill to uh killer whale orca so like killer crockam already killer whale yeah yeah because she's like a woman that got turned turned into a killer whale monster woman hmm so she have she has legs she has legs she i think she has a tail she's got breasts as well which i think is really funny just like a real killer whale. Because you know, because everything has breasts. You know,

it's not like it's a mammal specific thing or not. How do you know if it's a woman or not, unless it's got titties? If I'm not mistaken, I remember watching this on a reality show in the late 90s. To judge the gender of an alligator or a crocodile, you have to insert your finger into their rectum

because you can feel for their genitals in there as well. there's like a hole on their underside that is sort of like a rectum that you can feel their genitals through if you put your finger in there. Sort of like a rectum. Sort of like, I mean, it's a hole, you know, like what's... There is a hole that human beings have decided to insert things into and they thought fine. Yeah, yeah. Because I just remember it was like some weird Bayou guy to teach these people and he was like, all right. And he like, and he like licked his fingers before he did it.

I thought like, oh, I shouldn't be seeing this. Have you, you know who Lana Del Rey is? Well, yeah, I know who Aladalry is. You know she got married, like some swamp guy? I heard about that, yeah. Pop star, Harry, just like a regular weirdo. This fucking swamp guy. And there's a video of him, like,

because we were like, why would, maybe he's just really handsome. And you see him, he's like, just a swamp guy, right? So not what you would call, you know, no offense. swamp guys out there. Not super handsome. And then you're like, well, maybe he's got other qualities.

And then you hear him talk because he's like talking about little baby alligators. And I'll have to find the video. It's so funny. His voice also not attractive. And the way he says, talking about the baby alligators, and he goes, oh, you got these baby gaitos? I'm like, you're a grown-ass man.

He's marginalized by the right. Hey man, love is blind sometimes I can say. You call him Beatles? Come on. Love is blind. Love is blind. Jesus is fucking crazy.

Well, think about it, man. In like two albums time, we're going to be hearing an awful lot of breakup songs with that fucking guitar guy. He left her, though. Yeah, for like a fucking killer whale with heads. Yeah, there you go. Going back to Killer Croc,

did you ever see the absolute design for Killer Croc? Like, I'm not sure how, like, how how in tune you are with the absolute universe. I'm not a big fan of it for the most part. I've been reading Absolute Green Arrow because he's been killing like pedophilic billionaires and that's kind of fun to watch. But yeah, absolute Killer Croc is a design choice because he's got like the Killer Croc body where it's all long.

But his face and head is at the front of the snout. And the rest of his mouth goes like halfway down his body. it's the most peculiar looking thing I've ever seen I think you showed us pictures of that didn't you I showed you pictures of absolute bane because absolute bane is like 12 feet fucking tall and absolute robins and they're like mech you know

they they drive like mech suits yeah because those are cool yeah but yeah the absolute universe character designs are fucking something else and I feel like they're gonna fuck that up quick oh yeah because they already announced they're doing an absolute Batman animated series or something. And I'm like, ugh.

Let's let us cook a little bit longer before we start doing stuff. I know it's successful, but. No, that's like fuck it up as soon as we can. Yeah. I mean, you start to do too much with stuff out the gate. I feel like it's a problem. So we got our giant,

we got our giant monster alligator, killer crock. You know, he's sometimes a cannibal, sometimes not. Sometimes he has a tail and a snout, sometimes not. he's well enough you know they seem to want him make him a bit of an anti-hero sometimes to make him sympathetic which i guess i can see i know that that narcom asylum uh his boss battle was probably the most stressful one i've ever been in in my life you think it's a good idea to make a cannibal crocodile uh anti-hero i think that that there's a period of time where like people who like make a suicide squad comic get tempted to view them as anti-heroes. And I feel like when you do that, you fuck it up

because, like, that's not the point. Like, they're the point is that they're bad people who do good things because they're forced to. Yes. Like... Well, it's like, when they meet Vanham an anti-hero, because, like, Venom spent his entire life beating the shit out of Peter Parker

and threatened him to eat people's brains. Yeah. And being, like, a really, like, horrible, vicious character. But then they're like, oh, but he's got a sense of justice. And so he's an anti-hero. Lethal protector. No, I actually saw something recently. I think it was in this like the most recent issue of venom.

Mary Jane confronted the venom symbiate about like the bullshit it did to her. Like you attacked me disguised as Peter. Like what the fuck? You know, like why do I need to like have a complete 100% trust in you? And like I think the venom symbiate revealed it's still in love with Eddie. So it's sort of like, I don't know. They kind of, I felt that was a little, that was a little much to, to give the symbiate feelings as if it has a sense of love and, like, romantic love. It's a fucking symbiate.

It's a fucking parasite. I was fine with it being goo with, like, an emotion tied to it. Like, if you weren't careful, that emotion would, like, overhaul your emotion. Right, because the emotion was violence. That's why Spider-Munk got rid of it because it made them, like. Yeah, I made him angry all the time. Yeah. And that's why it fit Eddie Brock perfectly because Eddie Brock was such a fucking bitter, twisted, horrible person.

Yeah. And when they got together with venom, it's like, well, why would we, why would you go anywhere else? This is a perfect team. Yeah. It complimented it perfectly. And once again, we find ourselves talking about Venom. But, uh, but, uh, yeah. So like, so let's go back to our giant animal monster man.

Um, yeah. So we, we, Killer Croc. That's a big one. for me. I can't think off the top of my head, aside from Kurt Conner as the lizard, any other big lizard guys that also aren't like, because I always think of like the serpent society, but they don't really look like snakes for the most part. Copperhead from DC is somewhat there, but it depends on what design you're looking at. Like if you're looking at the Arkham Knight version and it's that like the sexy like body contortionist

woman, that's not really, she doesn't really look like a snake person. She has like snake eyes, but you know. It's actually body contortionist person. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If you... Yeah, yeah.

I mean, you know. You can bend over backwards. She like wraps around you like a snake. Yeah, that's hot. That's super hot. Yeah. It's the kids are spine. Yeah.

It's funny pretty long. Yeah. But she doesn't really look like a monster. She's just a contortionist. Well, I will say this, but But, Cairnors, and I'm sure we'll probably do like a bigger episode about

Kirk Cotter's because I quite like it whenever we just do random ones about strange. Well, I was going to say, like you kind of have a series of talking about Spider-Man villains. We'll probably do the lizard at some point because a very popular character. When the lizard started, he,

in a similar vandikiller crocodile, to give him his full title, he also had no snout his face was it was scaly but it was flat he didn't have a snout and a lot of the later pictures of the lizard

did show him with the snout and so he looked more like a kind of crocodile character which I really like I think that's a better design I think it's really creepy to see just a man with like a regular face but also just covered in scales Yeah.

It's just quite unsettling. Yeah, like I said, I mean, Killer Croc was a birth defect, essentially. Yeah. It doesn't look right. Yeah. If he's going to be, I'll give him the crock, it's not like, you know. Yeah, so like, so the DC equivalent of the Kurt Connors is Kirk Langstrom, who's man-bat. And sort of the same deal of like, mad scientist guy experiments on himself turns to a giant monster as a result of it.

We've all been there. He's just a big bat. Yeah, which is a novelty in the DC universe. Not a lot of giant monster men for the most part. I'm trying to think of other ones, but... Parasite, yeah, parasites aren't really an animal. It's a parasite. King shark.

King shark. I mean, that's a good one. King shark. Yeah, he's a giant shark. He's a, he's a, he's the descendant of a shark god. Okay. Man, he's just a giant shark. He was interesting.

introduced in the 90s Superboy comic, and then he got put into the limelight a little bit with the James Gunn Suicide Squad movie. Yeah. To the point that he got featured pretty regularly in the Suicide Squad comic at the time. And I think now he's a part of like Aquaman's kingdom in his Emperor Aquaman comic at the moment, where he's sort of accompanying Aquaman to these alien planets. Okay. He's a shark. He's a shark. How does he get to the planet? Well, so like the planets are, so they're all connected through because in Aquaman, there's a very long history of sorcery and magic.

So like there are these things they call them lighthouses that magically connect all of these aquatic worlds together. And so they're kind of going through magic like portals. I mean, Aquaman. is sort of the closest thing to a sword and sorcery comic right now at DC. So like, you know, there's, it's a king, it's a queen, there are knights, they fight giant monsters with like martial weapons like tridents and stuff. It's a, it's a sort and sorcery book. It sounds like, uh, bullshit. Well, you don't like magic stuff for the most part. No, but I also don't like Acoa.

That's true. But you liked his water hand pretty well. Yeah, and they go rid of it because they're fucking cowards. They got rid of it because he got turned into a giant underwater monster, and then he died. And then when they resurrected him in Brightest Day, they resurrected a younger version of him. It's not sound like a satisfactory explanation to me. No, see, I was a big fan of the harpoon hand myself. I thought that was pretty cool. No, Magicam was cool.

No? Okay, I want to throw a N.I.T. Good for it. I'll be honest with it. This might just be the end of the list of crime. I'm thinking about it. Marvel's got a ton of animal-themed villains and stuff. Well, yes, it does.

Of course. I mean, Spider-Man's villains are like... Spider-Man alone's got, like, a market cornered. Yeah, it's just like all animals all the time. But I want to throw you a curveball. Okay. Because I'm going to throw a character at you that is from neither Marvel nor D.C. Oh.

As far as I'm aware. Okay. You know who leatherhead is? Oh, from Teenage Junior's Turtles? Yeah. Yeah. I'll be doubt for a surprise appearance. Well, I mean, if we're going to include the Teenage Juniors and Turtles, that opens up the field because most of the Teenage Junior Turtle characters are animal people that were transformed by

ooze. We're talking about crocodiles. Specifically. Now here's the thing. My knowledge of leatherhead does not extend

much further than I think he's like from the bayou and I remember the toy. I don't get anything else. It's a toy? Yeah,

there's a leatherhead toy. Fucking teenage weed ninja turtles. Yeah, in the 90s, in the 90s, man, they made tons of toys. Yeah,

they made a lot of toys about that particular franchise. It was pretty popular as I recall Ninja turtles they have several several of them it looks like are you looking up well I don't

you look up leatherhead or you're looking up boys of leatherhead I'm looking up leatherhead because this could be our only chance I would imagine to actually talk about leatherhead oh I don't like that does that help yeah that that's what his toy look like

from the 90s Yeah He has a pump shotgun And a bear trap What else do you need How would you kill Ninja Turtles Shoot him With a bear trap

And a pump shotgun I think that's pretty fair enough You know what you mean That's how I would get rid of some ninja turtles This is a more Up to date leatherhead by the way He has a fucking He has a fucking missile launcher

Yeah rocket launcher And some snazzy jeans Yeah he's got some jeans on? Got some car hearts. He's real pimps. He's got like hiking boots on too. Look at that. How does he get supposed to fit? Yeah, where does he get

shoes that fit his crock? He's wearing lobsters on his belt. Yeah, this is what I'm saying, dude. I think this is a very underrated character. When else are we going to talk about Leatherhead? I can't imagine us doing a Teenage Meat Ninja Turtles episode. Well, do you want to see Leatherhead

from that most recent Teenager Ninja Trolls movie that had like a bunch of kids voice acting. Okay. Look what they did to your boy. Look what they did do him. He's wearing night vision goggles. Why? What all small his feet are?

That is not as cool as the other one. That looks like a fucking parody. That looks like a children's drawing of what somebody described letterhead to them. And they drew that. That is ridiculous. That's rough. That is rough right there. If you're listening to this on Spotify, go to the YouTube clip right now.

Just to look at the leatherhead toys. Fuck me, dude. That is a terrible design. You just showed me two designs of the same character. I showed you three designs of the same character. Well, one of them where you were like, that's fucking coup. And the other one was like, geez Christ. That is exact opposite.

That is what the world of Teenage Ninja Turtles is like. that was for sure. Depending on the year and who has the rights to make the stuff, it's either going to be kind of cool looking or it's going to be the dopeiest looking thing ever. That was some real dope right there. But not not a cool kind of dope. Like, oh, yo, that skateboard trick was dope. I only know one person who unironically says something is dope if they think it's cool.

To me. Really? All right. I know two people. Because every time she would say it, I'd be like, all right. She's like, man, that's dope. And I went, okay. Sick as fuck, dude.

Do I know him? You know him. I'm not going to say names, though. Okay, cool. That's fair enough. Well, yeah, I do that too. That's because I'm a skater kid from the 90s. Hell yeah, brother.

So, fair enough. I really like the second design that we saw the leatherhead look coolest out. So he's just a big cross. crocodile character. Yeah, just a big crocodile guy. But like... The thing that's pretty common with him, because even the dopey-looking one,

he had a pump shotgun and bear traps. So the trapper character is very consistent, at least, amongst all three versions. The last one didn't seem to have anything... Oh, he did? I just didn't zoom. I just didn't pan over to him. Oh, he still had a bear trap?

He still had a bear trap and a pump shotgun. Interesting. Are there a lot of bears in the swamp? not historically what's the fuck not historically usually more known for mountainous areas bears

what's it using trapping what the fuck I thought the lobsters were appropriate on the second one a lot of the bear trap to catch lobsters inefficient no ah you fucking you ruin them you didn't even get to bring it home to boil them exactly snap them in half

what a what a waste you know But if he's a crocodile, would he take him home to boil him or would he just eat them? Ah, that's very good point. It depends on, like, because he's mutated and evolved, did he evolve to wanting the human palate of, like, food tastes better if it's cooked? Do alligators eat lobsters? I don't think they do.

Again, I don't think lobsters are typically in the swamp either. I think crayfish? Crafish, absolutely. Yeah. or crawl daddies, if you will. Crawdaddy. They were really big, though. Yeah, no, those were lobsters.

Those were not crawled ass. 100% were lobsters. Those were not crawdads. Those were lobsters. I came really close to trying to find more cartoons for us to watch because we've not done a let's watch in a long time ever. Yeah. But the last one was so fucking disastrous because I think it was like, we watched like toxic

Avenger and stuff and it was just real rough. Yes, I remember Toxic Avenger because of the fucking fog guy No, that was Swamp thing Oh, the Toxic Avenger Was that the one I fell asleep? Yeah, you were asleep for that one.

That was the one that we'd ended the show And then 45 minutes later You started to end the show And I went, Dylan, we've been off the air For a hot minute, brother. Like I said, that was the Battletoads episode where you came in drunk, so I was like, all right. It's right off the bat,

man. Yeah. You had to be prepped properly to be talking about battle toads. Yeah, I was not prepared for anything. I probably shouldn't have done it. No, to be fair. You know, I thought it was fun.

That's a piece of history, no. Piece of history. Peace of piss. I mean? Yeah, well, that it certainly was. Yeah, maybe, maybe, well, also like the watch along once are top because nobody really watches along with them. They do make for really.

really fun chaotic listens though. I hope so, because they're fun to do. Like, when we did the two Spider-Man episodes back, or the two, yeah, the two Spider-Man episodes back-to-back, where we watched two episodes of Japanese Spider-Man sober, and then we did two episodes Japanese Spider-Man, like, drinking. That was a good time. I got very sick.

You were sick? Oh, I'm sorry to hear that. Not physically, but, like, you know. Oh, I know John's, like, I have to work tomorrow, and this was a bad idea. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it was a terrible idea in theory. But,

well, no, in practice, I suppose. And execution as well. Yeah, yeah. Like, you know, on paper, great. And I think more people should watch that drinking games,

Japanese Spider-Mine, and do it themselves. Play it with your friends and your alcohol. And you'll see how much we had like 20 different things there we had a lot of rules we had a lot of rules so it made it

very quick well yeah there were like there were 20 different things to like look art for this every time he does this straight every time he does a weird little run or he does like climb is the same building well he jumps up and then like webs and then a net falls over like four

people um that happened um there's something to do with the robot at the end I don't remember what it was, but it could happen. The giant Jaguar robot that was somehow related to spiders for some reason. Well, anyway. Unless you don't need to make that like sense, you know. Yeah, absolutely.

So speaking of Spider-Man and going back to our topic of animal-based characters, there's obviously rhino, but he's not really a rhino guy. He's a guy stuck in a rhino suit. Yeah. Now, is that, is that origin still there? Because I remember I was reading at one point, he couldn't get the suit off. He was just trapped inside of it.

That's still the case? I don't know. Because the thing is, they brought that up as if that would be like a major plot point for that character. Yeah. But it doesn't really, not really a big deal.

I remember that there was like an issue of Spider-Man where he was like on a rampage because he couldn't feel anything. Like his whole body was numb. And then like the big climax to it was like, he was in water and Spider-Man basically just took two power lines and like electrocuted him and he like felt it and he thanked Spider-Man before he passed out and I went okay is that going to be a problem again in the future or like was that enough

I think that was it because again like that that never came up again and this would happen with some Spider-Man villains but they're like because I think that happened to the Scorpion couldn't get the suit off yeah didn't take a suit off but like we know that he can take the suit off has taken the suit off so like that kind of thing just gets for it that's like such a minor plot point or some characters so they just forget about it. They're like, well, what, what story benefit does that really have?

What is that going to, how are we going to take that plot point and use that in a further storyline? The answer is we can't. We're not going to. Yeah, I was going to ask, like, so we might be getting off topic, but there was, it felt like there was this period of time where

Spider-Man villains were getting replaced by new versions of the characters. There was a different rhino for a period of time, right? Yes. Didn't he kill the first rhino? No, he killed the first rhino's wife. Okay.

So he killed the first rhino's wife, and then he's like, I'm rhino now. Yes. And then I think the first rino killed him. Okay. Because of the aforementioned wife killing. And then there was a second Electro that was a girl. Yes. and then Electro came back but he took his funny mask off and he just had like blue marks on his face that look like lightning bolts

yeah why did they do that they just realized the Electro mask was kind of goofy looking well when he came back he took his mask off but he didn't have to blue marks on him and then I think he came back a different time and he had no mask but he had the blue um which is redundant um there was a lady scorpion Yeah, I remember I was going to bring up Lady Scorpion. There was a Lady Octopus. Dr. Octopus. There was a lady. Someone else.

There's been a couple. There was a lady. I'm listening. There is a lady. Yeah. There is a lady. Stop the podcast. I know my knowledge of ladies.

but in terms of like other characters taking over well there's been you know how many hobgoblins have been how many green goblins have there been do you mean yeah that kind of deal there's been has been there's been three green goblins i want to say i think there's four or maybe five i'm gonna say four it was norman osborne harry osborne Ward Hamilton who was like the therapist to Harry Osborne

okay I don't know that one and then there was another one who like was unnamed they didn't name him but he was around Harry or Norman Osborne as a kind of like

see I'm not the Green Goblin how could I be that guy is the Green Goblin but I don't think they ever revealed who that guy was so that's that's four so far

you know I just remember there was the one that the second one who wore the loincloth and had the laugh that could drive people crazy Oh, that was Phil Earth Eric, yeah That's five

So there's been five green goblins Green goblins, yeah They gotta protect their IP a little bit better Well, listen, at the moment The green goblet isn't even the green goblin He's like fucking He's golden goblin But yeah, some fucking garbage

I don't fucking know Yeah, I just read an issue of Iron Man that he was a guest star in and it was great yeah it was fine he said I feel like the Iron Man comic right now is like just mediocre it's fine I don't think what you write comics I don't think you want your audience to reading go

I think you're looking at modern day Marvel though yeah I think modern day Marvel is stuck in a state of that's fine I was talking to somebody by that today I think we talked about this on the podcast before but it's a kiss of like Disney and Marvel being so big but like they don't care

because they don't have to care no so if we look at Marvel as not even like the Disney bit but we'll use the Marvel bit and we had talked about Spider-Man but how Spider-Man has him a good in like 20 years but like particularly the last five or so years have been like just not interesting

there's no good storylines no like nothing fun is happening all this weird shit's going on is because Spider-Man is still Marvel's most popular character. He's got a new movie coming out and everything. Spider-Man will sell issues so long as Spider-Man issues continue to be made. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if the stories are good or not. They just have to be there.

You just have to be written and then illustrated, and then people will like Spider-Man comics. Spider-Man is too big to feel. It's the most popular IP. It will just go on forever and ever and ever. therefore they don't have to try and because if they put a lot of time and effort

into making a great Spider-Man comic or if they just half-ass and put out any old shit the result is exactly the same which is people will buy Spider-Man comics yeah then you'll why bother putting time and effort and energy and money into something like that when you don't have to and I feel like that's been their MO

and it seems like it's Disney's MO as well because if you look at Disney Disney used to be like the like the the figurehead, the lynchpin, the go-to for Western animation. It was the absolute

like the best of Western animation. And it got so big and so popular on that reputation that at some point it just was like, well, we don't have to do it anymore. Like when was the last really good animated Disney film? you don't know you have to think about it

but it used to be they would do one every year or two they go that's the best one or this is the best one look how great this one is how money they had in the 80s and the 90s it was phenomenal yeah well they don't have money more because they don't need to no because it's not a buy every time they do something it's like the I mean I have everything they've been putting out has been met with really just mediocre results they don't have to do it they know what's going to sell

because it's Disney. Or like if you look at how they remade a bunch of live action shit, like Aladdin. Yeah, live action Moana is coming out soon. Right. Mawaz is maybe 10 years old. Do ask for that or who cares. The answer is nobody,

but that doesn't matter because Moana was really popular. It's an IP. If you put out a live action Moana film, loads of people are going to go see it. It doesn't matter if it sucks. It's going to suck. It doesn't matter. People are going to go see it.

And they're going to make loads of money off a film. they've already made. They've already made Moana. So you already know it's popular. So you know people are going to like it because it's the same. Like the Aladdin one is, it's not as good as you're as in the Latin, but it's the same story,

same characters. It's just not as good, but it doesn't matter because it's not as time consuming as animating. So here we go. And people will go watch it because they like the old Aladdin. Yeah, I feel like they, I feel like, they've been getting so many like

diminishing returns on. I remember like the snow white one was met with such bad reviews and stuff. That doesn't matter. No, it doesn't matter to them. I mean, right now, like the big push for Marvel is this Marveled Midnight universe thing. They're starting in the fall, I want to say. And it's like, oh, it's horror based. And a lot of you're like, oh, this is just them kind of responding to D.C.'s absolute universe, which the absolute universe was in itself a response to the ultimate universe.

Right, which they got rid of. Yeah, which they got rid of. And I've seen so many takes on that. Like, was it a good idea for them to end this new ultimate universe? With some people going, yes, it was a great idea because we've seen what happens when we let stuff drag on too long. But then you also are like, no, it was a bad idea because people were genuinely very invested in a lot of the stuff happening. Like, that Ultimate Spider-Man was getting so many really great reviews. Yeah.

And, yeah, so, I mean, I don't know. It's just weird. It's just Marvel being Marvel. But I guess, like, going back to the whole, again, our topic of animal-based characters. Yeah. What are your feelings on characters that have animals as part of their name, but not part of their appearance? Like, the penguin is a short, squat little guy, but he doesn't actually look like a penguin. He doesn't really have any penguin treats.

He's not really penguin. No, no. Even at his worst, he's just somewhat deformed. Yeah. Penguins do already have, is his nose supposed to be a beak? Because that's not really like... Well, and then so he had us...

This was a period of time in the comics as well, where his character was temporarily replaced by his son, who went by the name of Emperor Penguin. And he was, like, tall and handsome. And he had, like, kind of the, uh, Ilya Drogonoff here to use a wrestling reference. I think he was introduced as a potential, like, love angle character for back girl.

Yeah, yeah. Hmm. But anyway, yeah, so there was Emperor Penguin for a while. And then I think he got killed off and with Penguin take, you know, resuming his proper, his proper spot. Yeah, we'll just got to kill all the Penguins. That was a big, that was a, oh boy, that was a, oh boy, that was a, a big nothing burger of a story as well.

So when Chip Siddarski came over to DC and he was writing Batman, his big storyline that he did was called failsafe. We're basically like, you know how Batman always has a contingency plan for all of the other heroes and villains? Well, does Batman have a contingency plan for Batman? And that was revealed to be this thing called failsafe. We're basically like Grant Morrison introduced the idea that Batman had undergone training to slip into a psychotic state, where it was referred to as the Batman of

Zerun Ra, which was a take from the Silver Age, Zerun Ra was a planet that Batman and Robin visited and met like this extraterrestrial version of Batman of that planet. And it was symbolic of like the red chest piece, the yellow arms, the purple cape and stuff. So in the proper continuity, Grant brought it back as a like a mental state that Bruce could slip into that was supposed to make him impervious to like, uh, psycho, like a psychokinetic or telepathic manipulation. So he, Bruce would go into this meditative state, let Zer out and Zer built the contingency plan, which was basically this robot that knew how Batman thought. So like, no matter what could, no matter what Batman did, fail save had a plan for it.

And it was to kick off the moment that the news broke that Batman was direct. reckless responsible for the death of someone. So in the comics, Penguin faked his death to A, get back at Batman, and B, slip away to Metropolis for a while. And they even did like a little mini series of Penguin and Metropolis running a flower shop,

if I'm not mistaken. Yeah. But it kicks, but unbeknownst to Penguin and everyone else, including Batman, it activated Failsafe. So as a sudden, Batman's getting pursued by this robot that, like, is trying to kill him. right um that was like a big big long thing that a lot of people felt like wasted a lot of time and did not earn ship zadarski any love at dc that like when it was announced that he was coming off of the book a lot of people were not broken up about it

that's a shame yeah considering he's like considering he's like dc like marvel's big guy right now writing Batman or writing Captain America now writing The Avengers. Yep. The Watts's name. New Captain America. Yep. David Colton. David Colton.

Classic character. Much like Failsafe. Mm-hmm. Yeah. That reminds me of when James Tyne in the 4th was the big writer for Batman for a very brief period of time. Before he realized that he actually just wanted to focus on. doing independent horror comics and just quit. But he made this big effort to introduce all of these new characters

because he was like a student of Scott Snyder's. And Scott Snyder was like really big on introducing characters as well. So he introduced Mr. Bloom. He introduced the Court of Owls. He introduced the Bluebird character Harper Row. So James Tynan the 4th introduced Ghost Whisperer. clown killer Miracle Molly

and Punchline with Punchline being the new Harley Quinn character and he introduced all these characters and no one has proceeded to do a goddamn thing with any of them because they're possible doing anything with yeah I mean they were not

I mean like they were they were not Ghost Whisper was a character that was like oh see he's someone who's secretly from Bruce's past he trained with all the same people that Bruce Wayne did and they were rivals, but I don't fucking care. And clown killer was like a kid whose parents were killed by the Joker. So he had a vendetta against all clowns. I can relate.

Miracle Molly was supposed to be his like shade of gray hacker character. And then again, you know, punchline was supposed to be this modern take on Harley Quinn. And they were just like, well, we already have that. It's called Hardy Quinn. Yeah. It just none of it was, yeah, whatever. Yeah, we don't need this. It kind of reminds me a little bit where we just did a, the episode that we just

recorded about romantic relationships came up. Yeah. And we were talking about how like some writers will just introduce a new love interest. And then like we'll be all in on that character. And then the second they leave the book, the next writer's like, and you're gone. Yep. That kind of felt like that's what happened is when James Tynne in the fourth announced he was leaving D.C., DC was like, all right, we're going to put Ghost Whisperer and Clown Killer as the main

characters of Batman Inc. And when that book fails, no one can say that we didn't give it a shot. What about Punchline and Miracle Molly? Who? Yeah. Miracle Molly, God bless her. Not the best name. Not a very interesting character either.

No. That's hard to make a character like that. It's not interesting. Oh, she's a hacker. Yeah, Big Whop. and stuff, you know. But if she was some sort of crocodile creature, that would be fun to draw,

and people will be invested in it. That's all I'm saying. Basically what I'm saying is, we need more crocodile characters. We need more crocodile characters. In comics, because we don't have a whole, it's like, what we name, like three? I'm like, that's it, that's all we get.

Like, why can't we have cool crocodile characters? Do you mean? They're fun to draw. He sound vicious and angry. Like, do we have a cool crock? Cool crock? He has a cool crock.

He has a skateboard and sunglasses. A hat, but he wears a hat backwards. Baseball hat. Yeah, and he has like a Blink 1282 t-shirt. Yeah, yeah,

yeah. Now what era of Blink 1282? Is it from the like, take off your pants and jacket era? Or is it like more modern Blink 12 like what were you thinking? I should have one. Which I would say is all of blink one eight two,

but I know a lot of people would disagree with me. But I have only really like gone back and re-listened to one Blink 282 album. And it was the one before Travis Barker joined the band. Dude Ranch, I think is like a good album still. I think you could like, if you accepted it for just like kind of of the era pop punk, not a bad, not a bad little album. I was never a big fan of pop punk.

and then I heard Blinkwood A too. I'm like, well, I'm not a fan of this at all. You weren't a fan of Green Day? No. Not surprising year. No, never a big fan of Green Day. The Odie Pop Punk band, I kind of like The Offspring. And even that, I'm like, are they pop punk?

I don't know. I am not a fan of the Offspring, so there you go. They're like from that era of like 90s punk music that I think the Offspring have like, two good songs and I can just do away with the rest of them. What are the two good songs?

Come out and play, obviously, and self-esteem. I don't think there's anything else worth a damn. Yeah. Don't think there's anything else worth the damn. You would not consider yourself to be pretty fly.

No, in fact, that was kind of the era I just liked them the most was the 2000s era because they were on like TRL with that album, that song, and then like, they had a wasn't they had a song of like get a job or something yeah

yeah they have you ever played crazy taxi yes that's another reason why I don't like offspring because you don't like crazy taxi or because you heard it too much of it from playing crazy taxi first of all crazy taxi

okay crazy taxi the whole soundtrack was the offspring and bad religion and that was it I don't know why. We got two bands. That's all we need.

But fuck, that was a great game. The fuck we're talking about. Oh, what was he called? Cool crock. Is that what we called him? Cool crock? He's one gold tooth. Yeah, one gold tooth.

It's a big pointy one too. Yeah, one of the big ones. Yeah, it's bigger than the other ones. It show off. it's also like uncomfortable for him to close his mouth because there's one big tooth it's like sticks out all the time um what else is cool uh you said well do we mention he has to have a skateboard yeah he has a skateboard yeah yeah he has a backwards hat he's got a leather jacket he's got a blue 282 t-shirt on now jean rip jeans are we going rip jeans are we going like the full

like 2000s pop-punk thing and he's got like those really long like Dickies shorts and tube socks. No. I mean like regular jeans, but like the knees are cut out. I mean? Not the big baggy jeans that were like early 80,000s. I just mean regular janes, but like the knees. Well, he did seem like a kind of prick that would be wearing

the baggy jeans. So maybe. I'm just, I'm describing cool crock for my own benefit because this is what the thumbnail will be. Yeah, so we're going to draw a cool crock. This is, this has become like the one of the weirder. relaxed fit episodes, I think. Well, it's weird to put any of this.

Well, I mean, we've just kind of been all over the place, but we keep coming back to the crocodile, which I think, which I appreciate. It's the touch base. Is this weirder than those talking about Kitty Perry? I don't think so. No. So is, no, what kind of skateboarder is he? Is he, like, avert skateboarder?

Or is he, like, a street skateboarder? How much skateboarder vernacular do you know, Corey? Or is this going to be the end of it? I mean, I played my fair share of Tony Hawk Pro skater. Okay, I would say he is a street skater Because he can't He bother to build his own half pipe I think

Okay Out of necessity He likes skateboards and like church parking lots Yes, he goes into a car park And just like tries to jump off the curb Yeah Yeah, yeah, yep, yep, yeah But he's cool, he's cool, cool, cool, cool crock

I like cool crock I think we could put him on T-shirts maybe he would definitely be right up there with baby juggernaut. Yeah, a new mascot for the show. We need a new one. Yeah, we'll tell John all about it next episode. What do you think you'll listen to this, I would assume? Well, we'll see him before he listens to this, I think.

What do you guys talk about? You have to check it out. Otherwise, the t-shirt you're about to see won't make any sense. There you go. So John is not here to do his movie recap, but if you're interested in seeing a, John has watched anything while he has been on his way to or from the World Cup. You can definitely check out the link below for his letterbox,

which is letterbox.com slash big John Bowsky. Dylan, what do you get up to during the week? I skateboarded my friend, Colcrock. We go to the church car park and we smoke a lot of really cheap weed. Oh, we're cool. A lot of stamps. And let me tell you, it is cheap. But when I'm not hanging out with Kuok-Krook, getting up to all sorts of wacky adventures,

which you'll be able to read about in our multi-page comic that will be available very soon via our Patreon. You can listen to me. I do a radio show every Monday night, 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock on Byncedigitalradiocco.uk. Available down there somewhere. I draw stuff sometimes on Twitch. I haven't for a while, but I do it sometimes on Twitch. And I pick those drawings and make them with the animations that are available on YouTube at Team Crows, N-I, and TikTok at Team Crow Studios. And obviously, there will be a cool crock animation slash comic book in the works.

There you go. There you go. As for me, I have the other show that we do here on the YouTube channel, which is called New Number One's, where I get a new number one from a smaller publisher. review it and let you know whether or not I think it is a good opportunity for you to hop on to a new series. I also have my spoken word podcast, Large Old Cup, which is sort of a philosophical kind of thing. I don't really know. It's always changing and evolving, but it is what it is. The link for that is also in the description as well. But until next time, we'll see you guys later. Goodbye.

Bye.