The Smark Avengers - Marvel, DC & Indies: The Best Comics We Read This Year

Episode Date: December 26, 2025

What comics were actually worth your time this year? 🤔 In this episode, Corey, Dylan, and Jon break down the best, most memorable, and most surprising comics they read, spanning Marvel, DC, and indie publishers. From the surprising depth of Scrooge McDuck comics, to the chaos and fun of Batman vs Deadpool, to reflections on the Krakoa Era of X-Men, the guys dig into what worked, what stood out, and what they hope comic publishers do more of going forward. They also discuss: 🕷️ Miles Morales: Spider-Man and where the character shines 📖 Mad Cave Studios and why their indie line keeps turning heads 💥 The state of big crossover comics 📚 Long-form storytelling vs event fatigue 🔮 What kinds of comics they want to see more of next year Whether you’re looking for comic recommendations, a year-in-review discussion, or just want to hear three lifelong fans talk shop, this episode is a great jumping-on point for new listeners and longtime viewers alike. 💬 Join the Discussion What was YOUR favorite comic this year? Did we miss something you loved? Let us know in the comments! 👍 Like the video 🔔 Subscribe for weekly comic book discussions, debates, drafts, and watch-alongs 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 project "Henry's Usual": https://www.tumblr.com/henrysusual Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f

Um, so that's why I wrote that. Oh, I, I hope none of that is the intro. Yeah. Be a very long intro if that was the case. Including the space jam bit. Maybe, maybe he puts a space jam in if you want. I remember we were like half an hour already, so. Okay, well, you've got play.

of options. Yeah. I might just start, the intro might just be going, I hope that wasn't the intro and then the intro. Then nobody knows what all the other stuff he says. Everybody, welcome to Smart Avengers.

My name is Corey. And with me is Dylan and John. How's it going, guys? Aye. It's going good. Glad to hear, glad to hear. So if my math is right, and by math, I mean my ability

to look at a fucking calendar, today is December 26th. it is the day after Christmas. So happy Happy Yule to you and yours. Thank you. And to you and yours.

Yes. And also, in case you've not noticed it, we've added it and not addressed it. We'll go ahead and address it now. Recently, it came to my attention that we have hit 100 episodes of the show.

So hooray for us. This is technically episode number 102 if we're using legacy numbers, which we'll figure out if we're going to throw those in there somewhere in parentheses or what have you. But happy 102 episodes. Thank you. Let's celebrate. We should. We should celebrate. Dylan has... I think we should. Yeah. That is 102 episodes of baby juggernaut and killing random characters, jokes about syphilis and turning people into babies. Watchalongs that nobody watches. Yeah.

Auctions that sometimes work. Auctions where sometimes some of us get a little bit heated. Yeah, damn. Chargers. You know, but it's good. You take a chill, pal.

Listen, I think you're fine. I'm already very chill. I'm just waiting for Carnage to turn up on the Avengers auctioning. again because thanks to stuff technically the Eddie brought carnage as an Avenger

because of being a member of the new Avengers. Right, but like, I don't know if I want that carnage on my team. You don't want Pimp suit carnage? Oh, don't think so. Ah, boy. You could have that one, Joe.

Yeah, it's easy. He's all yours. It's rough right now. It's hard out of it. It is hard out there. So. Sure. because it's the end of the year

I thought it would be an interesting idea I think actually Dylan you proposed it that we talk about stuff that we've read over the year that we've enjoyed and kind of making this a bit of a free form flowing episode for that reason so is that something you're still interested in doing I hope so otherwise we're going to have

it's going to be really hard fill in the rest of this or if we're not going to do that that's true although I think we can do it oh yeah I heard somebody say once their favorite movie was Space Jam Well you know what Whoever said that has got

Good taste in movies Not as good as terminated too though That's debatable and I will debate that As we have known I will doubtedly What a hundred percent debate that Dylan just so you know There is a Space Jam comic book

Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha Oh, is it like a trade paperback? Can I buy it? It's, well, it's from DC Comics published in November of 1996. Oh. I don't know if it was an ongoing. It does say space jam number one. But there's a whole entry of it on Comic Vine.

Wow. This might be something I have to invest in. Because it would be an investment, I believe. right yeah let's see how much of investment it'll be i'm gonna hop over on to ebay real quick you know i buy a copy of this and then put it in like a safe deposit box and 20 50 60 20 years from i could be worth a lot of money you know what if it's just the same plot as the movie though like people could just watch the movie they wouldn't need to read the comic book yeah but no it's flatter.

So, this might not make the cut, but I look up space gym comic on eBay, and the first thing I got was straight up just a smutty picture of Lola Bunny. That's not, that's not Space Jam number one. But can you make that out? Do I mean you turn of the brightness at all?

Are you good on that? I don't know that. I wouldn't say that's a bunny. She's got the ears. they want $34 for this or best offer what do you think the well if I offer one of my pictures of sonic the headshot what if I show him the uh Moodock picture there you go what do you think oh like this what what what I was thinking I was getting on here to laugh fucking laugh and I laugh for a different reason but this is a somebody sent this to get graded

and their issue of space jam which is not it's not it's not an ongoing it's a one shot but their issue of space jam is a 9.8 quality whoa and uh they want $329 for it so that's basically just $100 each

when you think about it if we all is to spit it you know there's another funny picture of Lula Bunny is it better or worse than the first one hold on here's another here's a 9.6 graded um

a 9.6 graded space jam but this one is autographed by Jim Cummings and Billy West whoa which is that one they won 500 for this one I would pay 500 pine for that

that's fair Jim Cummings and Billy West like that's pretty impressive these are like oddly enough the graded ones they want so much

money for them as well it's an investment see there you go we can invest in space jam if only I'd invest

in space jam when space jam came out I can just get you a used pre-owned non-graded copy of this for $14

though if you'd like or even 14 just for one fucking comic well I mean it's it's it seems like it's a light trade. Like, it's got a spine to it.

It goes to make a fun of Space Jam Comic, but clearly it's where the money is. A lot of value to that. Maybe next year, when we do like an episode where we talk about what we read next year, and I

pull out the Space Jam comic. How great would that be? What a moment that would be. Go full circle. Nobody would remember what it's referencing. I would have forgotten, I could be do it next year. I'm like, why the fuck have I got this space job coming? And it's, but it's the, it's the smutty Lola Bunny one I just showed you earlier.

Yeah, it's not, it's, right, it's like, the, the space jump cover, and then the inside is just all Lola Bunny pictures. Nude photos of Lola Bunny. Yeah, uh, it's a lot. It's a big book. That's going to absolutely fuck up my eBay algorithm, by the way, so I'm glad that I get to make that no sacrifice for the group. Hey, you clicked on it

You didn't have to click on it I just thought it'd be a good gag It'd be a good gag I just didn't expect that to be the number one result And not actually an issue of Space Jam That is good to know That you can just look for Space Jam When that comes up

You don't even have to type the incriminating stuff in No, I didn't I just literally put Space Jam comic book And it's the first result All we're gonna do if you're So if you're top tip guys, if you're looking at Lola Bunnyport, don't even search for it. Just search for Space Jam

and it'll probably come up. Yeah, don't worry about it. Yeah, Google History's fine, you know. You won't get the good stuff, though. I don't know, man. You'll probably make do with that if you ever the right mental space. A lot of this, I imagine, is getting

cut out. Likely. Oh, boy. Anyway. So, So I didn't get a Spacem comic, but we have all read plenty of other comics over the year. I would imagine.

I have some of them assembled here. I think I have all of the ones I have assembled here. Yeah, so I can show them off. John, you feel free to show off your comic collection as well. Oh, yeah, I'm waving them in front of my camera right now. There you go. You say so.

The reception is kind of fuzzy. I can't really see it. It's a bad weather. There's a lot of bad weather right now. Yeah, exactly. I'm messing with a signal. I have loose stuff, so I'm not going to pull that out, but I can speak on it pretty comfortably, I think. Cool.

So, yeah. Do you want to get us started? Well, are we going, like, individually? like we all go do our bits or because it'd be weird to be all just like here's one comic no you cori and then we just tag around we should just do one guy just does this whole hall right i mean this is kind of free for and we can just do whatever we want man that we often do yeah so yeah okay i'll you know i'll jump in when necessary i'm sure john will feel comfortable doing the same we tend to do that anyway mm-hmm okay

No. I historically, I've usually been more on the John's side in terms of trade paperbacks over, like, single comics. I like the trade ads a lot. I don't really buy single comics. So a lot of the stuff I have to show is going to be traded paperbacks. But there are a couple of single issues, like actual comics. and I think we should talk about that real quick because we do a comics podcast

I was very fortunate this year to be able to find out that they were making a Scrooge McDuck comic which started in August I believe yeah and I was a big duck deals fan and so I was very excited like I have to buy this comic right

we have them here I got I literally got whenever I was going drinking on Friday I got the last copy of the Screech McDuck comic so let me see

that's the first one the last one or the latest one like is that the last of the series there's only four yeah okay so that's the first one and then that's issue two

in the money bin very nice and that's issue three We're Scrooge is looking at all his past selves. And then that's issue four. That was the last one. The most recent one. So that has been a fun little read because, like I said, I love Duck Teal.

So for me to get some Scrooge McDuck goodness was great. Now, when I went up to the comic shop to get my Scrooge McDuck comic, I had said, I don't want, like, they made a pull list for me, but I'm like, I don't really care about comics of the Scrooge McDonk, as I think has been made very clear on this show. Yes. I said, hey, if there's like a Deadpool one coming out next year, stick me down for that or whatever.

And then he's like, oh, have you seen the Batman versus Deadpool? Deadpool versus Batman comics that have come out. And I'm like, no, I haven't. So they're one shots as well. And so I bought one of them. but one of them. So this is Deadpool Batman.

Oh, you got one of the very big covers. Yeah, well, will you see the second one? So that one, the only one they had in was this, this one with like Wolverine Lobo. Because I showed this to somebody

under like, is that Wolverine? Why is Wolverine on a Batman Deadpool comment? That's an extra question. I did not show them this one. which was also a variant cover. This is the Batman Deadpool one. Lola Benny.

You're not that far away. It's kind of anime-looking Captain Marvel versus Wonder Woman. Yep. That was the cover. I have both. Hold on. I'll show you the actual, the other covers. But real quick before I do that, did you also know, Dillon, there is another Scrooge McDuck comic out now.

What's that called? It's from a publisher called Fantagraphics. It is officially licensed Disney, but it is just called Uncle Scrooge. Right now, it's five issues in. The synopsis for that is, fandom asked and fantagraphics answers. The legacy Disney comic book returns to comic shops and Scroooghub conducts ruthless rival, second-richest tycoon, Flintheart Glomgold returns to Duckberg, claiming he's reformed for good and inviting Huey-Duey and Louis to his luxurious New Island estate. since when was glom gold such a good guy or a big spender soon a trail of deadly trouble ensnars scrooge and donald duck pointing them to the amazon in the legendary lost city of z where the thrills and chills will only begin so who did you say made that so this is fantagraphics is the publisher but here is the cover for that okay so it might be worth looking into it's a it's a marvel

And the writer is Jonathan Gray, who, this is like his big book right now, is this Uncle Scrooge book. But I have heard, I've heard good things. It's pretty rated highly on the site that he used to track comics. Okay. I will keep an eye out for that. That looks very interesting. Yeah. Issue one was 4.3 out of 5, very positive.

issue two was the same three has not been reviewed yet because it just came it will not come out until the third so only three issues are out so far okay so that's worth looking at i'm going to grab my deadpool wolverine covers you work away because i think so obviously i bought these just in the shop i didn't know that this is the thing i know who wrote it he drew it i had no anathan i just bought these two comics because Deadpool was in them and then obviously this one for the cover. Yeah, yeah.

Fun story. Like I said, sorry, I didn't know who like wrote any of these. Yeah. Pick them up. You know who the writer for Batman Deadpool is? Who?

Brown Morrison. Yep. I'm like, I didn't know that like got home with it. I'm like, I was going to buy it anyway. And then it turns out, boy, Grant Morrison, he's just too good. So good. I haven't read this one yet.

I read the Deadpool Batman one. I found that one was fun. I like the art in it. And it has a bunch of like, so there's like a main story. And then there's like three or four like backup really short stories in them. But I haven't read Batman Deadpool one yet. But that's on the list. It's on the list.

the comics everywhere where do they leave everything yeah do you have those covers so this is the Deadpool Batman one if I'm not mistaken this was the first one that came out okay so in this one we have

is so basically it's a for those uninformed this was the first time in like 20 years that Marvel and DC came together to publish something together so it is a team up books of their biggest characters so the main story is called the dead of night which is written by Zeb Wells and Greg Capulow on art.

So this is the Deadpool Batman story. The backup stories, we have Captain America and Wonder Woman called The Gun and the Sword, written by Chip Zadarski and art by Terry Dotson. Then we have the story Catch, which is a team up between Jeff the Landshark and Crypto, the Super Dog, written by Kelly Thompson and art by Guru Hiro. then we have the red and the green which is a daredevil green arrow team up written by Kevin Smith with art by Adam Kuvert then we have Al Ewing and Duke and sorry Dyke Ruin

on a rocket raccoon and green lantern team up called Rocket Raccoon has a green lantern ring now that's what's called we have that's what's spoiler with art that's what happens yep we have the story showdown which is a batman Man, the Dark Night Returns, teaming up with Old Man Logan, written by Frank Miller, who is also doing the art. And we have Logo, which is written by Ryan North and Ryan Stegman, and Logo seems to be an amalgamation of Lobo and Wolverine. So that's the first one.

And then we have Batman and Deadpool, so this is the cover for that one. Wait, can we, hang on. Just do comparison? Can we compare? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is... No, not that one. Yeah, yeah.

The Batman versus Deadpool, I think we need to compare. All right, so this is Deadpool versus Batman. This is Batman versus Deadpool. All right. What do you guys think? What's the better cover? I mean, clearly it's the women who are, like, thrusting at each other. Yes, men of...

They really are. They're going to time, I got to say. Men of a certain age I certainly feel of things. You know? I'm sure that plays a lot into the story. But in Batman Deadpool,

the main storyline, as you mentioned it, is called the Cosmic Kiss Caper, written by Grant Morrison with art by Dan Mora, which I love. Dan Mora is probably my favorite artist going right now. Okay.

And then the backups for that one. John Constantine and Dr. Strange team up in a magician walks into a unit. written by James Tinney and the fourth Josh Williamson and Scott Snyder with art by Hayden Sherman Nightwing and Laura Kenny Wolverine team up for Styx and Snitsk written by Tom Taylor with art by Bruno Rodondo that's a good team up there they just got a came off a very long Nightwing run together Tom Taylor and Bruce and Bruno we have Harley Quinn and the

Incredible Hulk with Harley and Hulk smashing Saturday written by Mark Mariko Tamaki and Amanda Connor on artist. We have Static teaming up with Miss Marvel for New Friends and Old Places by G. Willa Wilson and Dennis Cowan on pencils. So those are those two teamups. Very interesting. So I haven't read the Batman Deadpool one,

but I read the Deadpool Batman one. It was fun. I liked it. so those are the single comics that I bought and then I also bought

some places waterstones and some other places have started doing DC trade paperback collections that are smaller and already

like 10 pound so I thought hot down let me get some of that so I bought two of them on the waterstones and then one of them I bought while I was buying comics

at the comic shop the other day because god damn it I just got paid and I'm like I gotta spend a lot money real quick I just pissed it all the way so the first one I bought get this is All Star Superman by Graham Morrison once again

Frank Whiteley doing the art does beautiful artwork I really like that book I like that one a lot I bought Watchman Alan Moore have I think I'm on like the second

chapter have not got very far into it it's interesting I don't know if it's amazing but it's interesting Have you ever seen And then the third one Have you ever seen Alan Moore's script styling

Like how he writes out the scripts to his books No It is He is very very very thorough Like he will outright tell the artist What to write and how to write it Or what to draw and how to draw it Like, it is meticulous, to say the least.

Certainly not like... Certainly not like the Stan Lee style, that is for sure. Yeah, we're like, just draw whatever. Just draw whatever. I'll make sense of it. The things are. And then the last of these little compact comics, and this one will surprise you,

is We Three by Gromars. One of the most depressing books ever. I've only read the first part. There's three parts to it. And, yeah, it's something. Break your heart. It's something. That's classic.

I never even heard of that book. Never even heard of that book. You've never heard of We Three? No. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's classic vertigo. So it's about these three animals. There's a dog.

There's a cat. and there's a bunny, but they're inside, like, Mac suits because they're, like, creating government killers. Yeah. So that's, I don't think we should say any more than that. That's pretty much all you need to know, I think, right? What I'll add, basically, is, John, is, like,

they are still very much animals. Like, they're able to communicate because of the stuff that's been assigned to them. But they're not, like, speaking eloquently. Like, they're animals. They're concerned with, like, their needs and their, their desires. to find safety and love somewhere. And like you said, don't break your heart. But yeah, yeah.

So that does remind me of the big push for DC next year is they're bringing Vertigo back, and they're bringing back Vertigo proper where it's like no superhero books. Like, Vertigo is going to be horror and crime and anything that is not superheroes. Crime can also be superheroes. Oh, yeah, yeah.

I mean, like, you know, kind of more grounded true crime kind of stuff. Yeah. I got you. So we're almost at the end of my run. So then we get into the tree of paperbacks that I bought. There's a couple upstairs that I didn't bring down because I forgot about them until right now. But one of them was District X. I think, Corey, me and you talked about District X.

ages ago, which was a comic that came out, I would say 205, maybe, which is a bishop as a kind of in mutant town. And I had the first volume of that. And I didn't realize that there was a second collection of it. So I only bought that really recently just to see what kind of plays out. And I found that one to be a lot of fun. very interesting i like that that was good i got domino hot shots very recently i only finished reading that today i love the art i adore so um david baldion i believe is the artist have you heard of david baldion i i don't know if i'm pronouncing that name correctly doesn't ring a bow

I think the art in it's wonderful and I would I would like to read more where this person is the artist on it I think it's a really cute style that works really well for this book that was fun deadpool yeah he's done a lot of stuff Avengers

X-Men Scarlet Witch John he's he gets around okay sounds like I need to check him out so this is going to be a spoiler for I assume next

episode if we ever do it I don't know if he will do it but I bought the Kang Dynasty yes look at this fucking look at this that's massive this fucking Bible

you know it's a big it's a big old book I have I have some things to say up but this and I feel like John will also have some things to say about this so there will be a future episode where we dissect the Kang dynasty significantly but this is my last one while I was on my Kang Dynasty adventure Google or Amazon or whatever it will like hey if you like that you're probably like this uh which is Citizen

Kang it was on a Kang trip so let's just get Citizen Kang this one ooh I hate that name didn't gang okay I have a feeling that they came up with the name first and then when they were like fuck it let's just we have to justify this

but yeah I don't know if they did I don't know if they did but they gave it a go it doesn't really seem to have a purpose as a story so I find that to be

yeah it's just bang's gonna it's weird i mean i could i could tack this on to the end of the the citizen kang one i guess but it's like the avengers all go to find kang and then he captures them and then somebody else like kills kang and then the avengers are like you just go home i guess that's it like it's deeply unsatisfying and also because you're like that's the kang's not dead that's the end of kang like this isn't this isn't what happens so that was a shame but other than that like a lot of good stuff this year a lot of good stuff um i kind of went more heavy on buying stuff recently but yeah i got a lot of good stuff

there so that's my go nice thank you john would you like to go next sure you're working though like i did yeah oh i do actually real quick dillon i do want to ask you a question when you get with watchman would you want to do like a watchman episode because like i read watchman back when i was in college and re-read it a couple of years ago i want to say and i'm sure john's read it before and i think it'd just be interesting to like you know pick your brain as someone who's never read watchman before now i think that would be a really good episode i haven't like i said i'm only like i think two issues into it take your time but um because there's a lot there's like a lot of extra i don't know if this is in the actual watchman

but like at the end of every issue there's like stuff yeah yeah yeah it's yeah of it yeah like fucking yeah more yeah more writing

like what do I do I have to read that too it's been analyzed to death as well don't worry okay but yeah I would I would because I think that would be a good episode you know

I'm jumping on the the well it's been bandwagon at the right time 20 years too late but it's like well you think that's bad we'll hear our space jam one all right john

uh so i like started the year basically just reading all of the crocoa stuff like i've been collecting the the trades for a number of years now but basically since it started um i didn't want to really dive into it until like the whole event had finally finished, so I jumped into that early this year, and it's a bit of a mix back yet. Some books were good, some not so good, and some books started off good, and some, you know,

didn't turn out so good as well. Like the Marauders was the one that kind of stands out as the one which had the biggest drop-off of quality when like it was good when Jerry Duggan was working on it I thought and then there's like a second volume where Steve Orlando takes over

the book and your grief it's hard work then like I don't know like a lot of the stuff I thought as well sort of getting towards the end of the Kuroan age

just wasn't great like it felt a bit sort of a bit rushed like the whole fall of X thing and like it kind of petered out a bit as well I thought the Cricone

stuff was most interesting when it was sort of focused around Mr. Sinister which like a lot of the immortal X-Men book was and that kind of fed into the like the sins

of Sinister storyline they had going on as well um but yeah like once they started moving away from that a little bit uh yeah it just kind of lost its way a little bit for me so at least i've only read it so tom brevert became the head editor of the x-men in two thousand twenty four and that coincided with the push for the end of crocoa and from the ashes that that that's what they called the the the launch of the books that are out now is from the ashes.

Yeah. And I don't know if it was due to like dwindling sales on a lot of those tie-in books or just like Marvel being like, all right, we've, we've explored every conceivable angle of Kroa, let's stop isolating the X-Men and getting them back out there kind of deal. I don't know. It's interesting to me. But that was like you said, you're feeling a little rushed. I think they were rushed because I think like that was the, when Robert became head

editor that's when they started to move away from crocoa they always felt like as well that they'd kind of painted themselves into a bit of a corner with the crocoa stuff because they'd gone so big and so uh like bombastic with some of these ideas of like oh you know here's 10 years in the future here's a hundred years in the future here's a thousand years in the future and it's just like you know maybe dial it back a little bit guys but they let Hickman get ahead of his skis on that one it sounds like yeah he loves to world build to create stuff

he does and he you know for the most part he's pretty good at it but then he kind of left the Kokoa stuff like sort of halfway through because I think he had planned to end it a lot sooner than Marvel wanted to originally

the sales were really too good for them to let it go is kind of we I think we mentioned it's it's kind of similar how you guys describe the clone war the clone saga for Spider-Man he was selling too well yeah yeah we don't want to end it but we need to keep it going but they also by that point

we're like we don't know how to end it yeah so we'll just spin our wheels for two years and then end it in the deeply unsatisfying manner well I say that I like the clone saga I like the end into it as well but yes so well some people didn't. People really didn't like

that I think the sidebar a little bit what I really like was at the beginning of the clone saga they were like, here's the deal whatever happens, the bad guy is not Norman Osborne, he's dead, we're not bringing it back, and then at the end but they got a new editor and he was like, fucking

bring back Norman Osborne. I'm like, interesting. He had like, fucking who gives the fuck? It's Norman Osborne. I'm like, all right. there you go anyway speaking of spider-man that was basically what i followed up after reading the x-men uh going for the uh the zeb wells run which was like right after nick spencer and the whole kindred saga and then there was like uh spider-man beyond after that with like i think a bunch of different writers working on it but that's where ben riley kind of took over as spider-man for a little

bit um but this is like picking up after that where peter and mary jane have not just broken up but mary jane suddenly has like uh like a new partner and two kids as well and peter is uh kind of starting from scratch almost like kind of without a job without a flat and just like kind of you know back to the status quo of him being a bit of a loser but like the run was pretty interesting like I think what they did with Tombstone in across these like however many like 50 odd issues or whatever

it's the most interesting Tombstone has ever been in the comics where he's like he's you know making waves to become the big crime boss of New York and everything, but then there's like the complications of his daughter, who's like the new version of the Beatle, and her relationship with Robbie Robertson's son, Randy, as well. And then there's other stuff going on, like, this is after the kindred stuff, so Norman Osborne has had his sin and purge from him, and he's trying to, like, redeem himself.

and he like tries to like prove himself to peter and like offer him a job and uh it like completely adds like a new wrinkle to their dynamic and you know adds a lot of interesting beats and stuff like eventually in the book that you know the goblin sins kind of come back again um uh but they sort of infect peter so he turns evil and then it's sort of down to Norman to try and save him but yeah I thought it was a pretty good run to be honest certainly better than like the book that came immediately

after that which was like the eight deaths of Spider-Man but he's like chosen as like the sorcerer Supreme's like champion basically to fight Citerac and all of his like kids and stuff

and it is absolute dog shit just a complete waste of space that was Joe Kelly who I think is I guess it technically is but then I think he sort of started fresh when he

like gave it a new number one and you know I'm not sure how much of it is carried over from the eight deaths of Spider-Man into his latest run but hopefully not much because it wasn't good okay so not advised not recommend

but then you know I've read a lot of like Miles Morales Spider-Man this year as well there's like a great team up book as well with spectacular Spider-Man where it's Peter and Miles who like they make a commitment to like meet up once a week

to kind of shoot the shit and kind of see what's going on in each other's lives and it just does like a really good job of creating like this cast of characters in the coffee shop that they get to know who like have stuff happen to them which like you know the Spider-Men have to get involved with

to kind of save the day like one of the regulars gets powers and they have to take her under their wing and kind of teach her how to use them and stuff. And yeah, it was just like a really well put together book. Only like three trade paperbacks as well, so I guess that works out as about like, I don't know, 15 issues maybe.

So not a huge commitment. I would say it's well we're checking out. And then after that, I've read Venet, and carnage as well so this is like post king and black post absolute carnage and everything

I think the Venom run was written by Al Ewing and it's a bit of a mixed bag as well like this is there's a lot going on with it because you've got Venom or Eddie Brock who's kind of the new

king in black and then he's like off in space and they're off in the future and all this stuff, but he's left behind his son, Dylan, who's in the present and kind of, you know, trying to figure his own shit out, even though he's just still like a young kid, basically, left on his own. Well, Eddie Brock was never well known for being a fantastic father. Yeah. No.

He's definitely not in this. Well, we did talk a little bit about how, like, Dylan's supposed to be, like, 15, but like he's drawn to look like he's in his 20s. Yeah, it's, I don't know. The time scale is a bit weird. Like, especially Normie as well. Normie Osborne is, like, in the book. And he, you know, there's no way he's...

He's supposed to be, like, 10 years. He's supposed to be, like, less than 10 years old. Yeah, right. He looks way more than that in this. I think it's just because it would make you uncomfortable if you were drawing, like, a child getting smacked around by Grey Goblin or something. Yeah, yeah. then don't that idea

don't make them that young well exactly just don't write that yeah if you don't want to see kid getting beat up by a goblin don't write kid getting beat up by goblin for somebody else to draw

oh I mean the book itself was it sort of won me over the longer it went like I wasn't doing out with it to begin with then like the whole sort of secular nature

of like what Eddie was going through like he was in the future in this uh like garden of time where he kept uh meeting it with these other kings in black and it turns out they were like future versions of himself where like kind of tragedy and kind of events turned him from like what he was into these other versions and then like he was trying to break free from the cycle but couldn't um so it was like it was well all put together, but I didn't

love it. I didn't love the ending as well, like a Venom War where that was, I think we may have talked about it, where he was... I was going to ask, is this the one where they have the big wrestling matches? Yeah, basically. It wasn't great.

Speaking of wrestling matches, I keep seeing people talk about the absolute Batman, that it's absolute Batman versus a bunch of like racist police officers and he's doing a bunch of wrestling moves to them like he strip like hits one of them with a one wing and angel and then another with like basically in the absolute universe batman is kenny omega like he does like the v trigger and stuff too

oh geez yeah i want to people like oh that's so cool i'm like no it's lame wrestling that's like bad that might be the least cool thing that batman has ever done yeah it looks so lame Just have him punch a guy. Jesus Christ. All right, anyway, sorry. He's really good at that. Bob Man's really good at just punching people. I don't know why you won't make him do that.

Well, exactly. Leave the wrestling to wrestling. And even then, you're like, I don't know if you should leave the wrestling to all the wrestlers. That's part of the problem, surely. Yeah, yeah. But anyway, anyway, yeah. Sorry, you mentioned, like, yeah, that it just came to mind. It went, oh, my God.

Yeah, and then, like, the most recent book I read, which I finished today, was Deadpool, like, starting with his stuff during the Crocoen Age where he, like, because everything has to involve a symbiate. He, like, a mutant called Harrow basically implants a symbiate in him, like a cloned piece of the carnage symbiate to try and... grow it because she couldn't grow it on her own so then he gives birth to like this symbiate daughter slash wolf which he calls

princess and now she's like a recurring character in the book which is I mean it was sort of well done and then the most recent part of it as well like after that storyline they got a new writer in Cody Ziegler where it brings in Deadpool's daughter again where now she's got

sort of Deadpool powers like the healing factor and stuff and so Deadpool and Taskmaster start training her up to be like her own version of Deadpool basically and that's I thought that's been pretty good so far I've only got the first two volumes because I don't think the third trade is out yet and I've liked what I've read so far who's pretty much a writer for that Cody Ziegler

who I believe was the writer on the Mars Morales run I was reading as well Cody Ziegler it's a fake name it's like that guy watching the WDWF that long ago

you mean yeah Ziegler I didn't Ziegler is not a surname until I heard about Dolb Ziegler and neither this guy

is called Ziegler I'm like you're not this is a fake name I mean it's spelled slightly differently so it's spelled Z-I-G-L-A-R rather than

the double G L-E-R okay we'll give him a pass for that anytime you look at like a WB spelling of a foreign name

like remove the logical way that that would be spelled and apply for like phonetically like Seamus in the way they choose to spell that. Mm-hmm. Well, that's difficult because Irish has a historically very complicated way of spelling and pronouncing things.

So I understand that they might want to make it as clear-cutter. Yeah, I'm just saying, like, yeah, Ziegler is the same way. Like, the German spelling of Ziegler is not going to be Z-I-G-L-E-R. It's crazy they call that guy Dolb Ziegler and he's not German at all But that paroxide blonde hair Though he looks quite Aryan It's a fucking guy in California or whatever

What the fuck? Obviously Dolph, are you kidding me? America is owl pie Anyway, sorry It's okay So what about you, Corey? What have you been reading this year? Well, I've got my

poll list up And it's because I read monthly stuff. I'll throw in a couple of stuff in here that's not officially on the pull list, but stuff I'm grabbing. Action Comics is currently being written by Mark Wade, and the focus is on teenage Clark Kent set in the past in Smallville, like, and his kind of coming out as Superboy and the government being a little too interested in what he's up to. So that's been fine. I've also been reading the current Batgirl run that focuses on the Cassandra Cain version of Batgirl.

Much like there have been five Robbins, there have been three Batgirls. And my favorite is Cassandra. Maybe one day we will talk about the different backgirls. But Cassandra is basically a girl that was raised to be an assassin by her mother and father and ultimately gets adopted by Bruce Wayne and uses her abilities to fight crime as Backgirl instead. The big things about her is her parents did not teach her. her how to communicate properly. So she reads body language, and it makes her a very deadly

hand-to-hand fighter. So her story in her ongoing has been basically trying to answer for the sins of her mother, who is the lady Shiva, who is the world's deadliest assassin in DC Comics. Basically, like, if Shiva challenges you to a fight to the death, like, all right, well, I guess I'm dying. And usually, like, people survive by some sort of a gimmick to get around it. I think Bruce made like, like he had to kill someone in his challenge and like he just made the guy's part stop long enough that he could be revived. And I think Tim Drake showed up like drugged her because he was 15 years old. And she's like, all right, fight to the death. And he's like, uh, so he like drugged her in the middle of the night.

So yeah, she was a bad, she was a bad lady and she's dead now. And this is all about Cass going through her mother's life and reconnecting with family. family she didn't know existed how did she died did somebody kill her she did she did uh it happened in the book it's it's actually one of those things it's kind of a non pan like non not on panel death so not even sure it's 100% that she's dead or not she was also very conniving so it's also like this seems like a face turn on her part by trying to protect her daughter but she has also fucked over her daughter many many times it seems a bit suspicious that a woman that will absolutely like

ass kick anybody in front of her. They're like, oh, she's dead. Don't worry about it. Like, I feel like we should be, if somebody could kill her, I would be worried about that guy. Yeah, yeah.

So basically that's the plot is there's this group of these monks that here were like underground worshipping this like opioid flower that give them enhanced abilities. Shiva fucked them over a long time ago and they came back and killed her. And now they're like,

we got to eliminate the. entire Cain bloodline, and that means Cassandra and now her half-brother that she just met. There's Batman, which is kind of in a weird space right now, because I've not read Matt Fractions Batman, even though it's three issues in because I'm waiting for Jeff Loeb's Batman to end, and it's not scheduled to end until March. So that one's on hold at the moment. I'm just kind of piling up the issues. Batman's Superman World's Finest is another book that's written by Mark Wade,

It's sort of a team-up book, Batman and Superman. It's been going now for close to three or four years. It's been a pretty long run for modern-day standards. I mean, it's in the 50, I think it's an issue, but it's the next issue out. Issue, yeah, it's in the 40s, which is, like, difficult to do these days. Yeah, yeah. So it's been really good. It's been kind of elseworldy.

They go to different dimensions. They go back in time. It's just a feel-good book. you know, all the problems get resolved at the end of the day. It's set in the early career of Batman and Superman teaming up. So, like, Dick Grayson is his Robin. Mm-hmm. There's Detective Comics, which I'm not going to lie.

I am, I've fallen off the plot on that one right now. I have to figure out what's going on because I've not read it recently. I have been also subscribing to, there's a new company called Mad Cave Studios, and they have been getting the rights to various odd kind of characters and putting up surprisingly good books with them. So, like, I've been reading Racer X by them, so from, like, from Speed Racer.

Because they have a Speed Racer comic, and Racer X is a spin-off of that comic. And it is sort of a high-stakes kind of crime drama book where, you know, Racer X is concealing his identity and trying to save his, you know, keep his brother safe while also staying one step ahead of this crime organization that, you know, basically tried to kill him. So this is a good little thriller.

They've put up The Phantom, which you guys may be familiar with the Billy Zane movie from the 90s, but the Phantom was like one of the OG 1930s characters. Of course. He was one of the defenders of the Earth as well, wasn't he? Exactly. So he, that book is also out by them. I haven't had a really chance to read it yet, but I have pulled it. And they have been putting out for the last two, three years a Dick Tracy comic that when most people think Dick Tracy, they think of like the Warren Beatty movie where like the top like looks and stuff.

This book started with a mass murder of machine guns. So it is very much a gritty crime noir book. But everybody is still in like the bright canary jackets, the exaggerated facial features and stuff of like prune face and big boy caprice and stuff. so it's been it's very it's a very interesting book so like mad cave has been doing some really been doing some fun stuff on their end of things uh i've been reading green arrow which i'm bummed out it's going to be ending i believe this month on christmas eve will be the last issue of green arrow um it got pulled due to low sales sadly despite it being very well reviewed uh it's a great boon though for marvel because chris condon who's been

writing it is going to be Marvel exclusive moving forward. So I would look for anything that Chris Condon does on the Marvel side of things because I've been a big fan of what he's done with Green Arrow. They haven't announced him as like officially writing for a book yet, just that he's going to be for Marvel. I saw that he was going to be considered Marvel exclusive by I didn't see any books that he was tied to. Okay. I've been reading Green Lantern, but mainly for the B story because it focuses on a bunch of characters I like like Super Bowl. and Kyle Rainer and stuff. The main green arrow story has been about these other colors and other emotions getting rings.

Like there's this, like the big, the big one is there's this guy that like when the book opens, Hal Jordan is trying to get back with his on again, off again girlfriend, but she's moved on to another guy who's, she's engaged with. Circumstances happened. She ends up leaving the guy and breaking off the marriage. And he goes into a great deal of sorrow. and ends up becoming the first sorrow lantern or gray lantern where he gets his powers I was going to ask sad I was going to ask what color the sorrow lantern would be yeah

they've added a whole bunch of other ones like it's an interesting book in like it's it's definitely giving big space story but I've I've been so burnt out by different color rings and the things they do over the years I'm not sure like if they decide to wrap up the storyline with Kyle and Superboy I will probably move on as well we do an episode where we come up with colors and then try to assume like assign a motion

to that color and then call this and you can you know what if I what if I do that if I just tell you a color and you tell me what emotion you believe it's assigned to yeah and that yeah this is much better way so it's a game show okay a Green Laner game show

what what you You do a color? I'll give you a color and you tell me what emotion and you'll either be right or wrong. Yeah, sounds great to me. There you go. Sounds like a psychological test. Yeah. You'll learn some things about yourself.

Nightwing's being fun. It's had a longgoing storyline where kind of Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo just finished up a really long run on Nightwing last year. Where everybody said this book was really fluffy because it seemed like there were no stakes and no matter what happened. Dick Grayson was coming out okay. This story has been kind of the opposite, where Dick Grayson's losing, like, the trust of the city. He's losing the trust of his half-sister, who is the mayor.

He's, like, in a bad spot right now. It's very stressful. So it's been fine. Also have been reading Supergirl, which has been the, just a pleasant little fluffy read. They had a whole issue dedicated to the various animal side. kicks that hang out with her, and it was lovely. Which is low stakes, goofy. Superman's been a good book.

It's probably been one of my favorite storylines going on right now. It's all leading up to Darkside's return at the moment. But that's Joshua Williamson, who is going to be hitting 35 issues in February, which is, again, pretty good run these days. And then, of course, the only Marvel book I have on my poll officially is the adjective-less X-Men, which I have not been reading because it's not been getting pulled because of the age of revelation event. So there is no adjective X-Men book out right now, and it will not be back until January 7th is when it will return. Last issue was out in October, it looks like. So that's

what are the ongoing stuff, the stuff I've been reading this past year. I will read anything that is a spinoff of Hellboy through Dark Horse Comics. So they're have been various Hellboy and Love series, BPRD series, Frankenstein New World series, all good, all good reads. I just enjoy the lore, enjoy the artwork. It's been around for almost 30 years, I think, if not past it. So, love it. I have been reading a lot of Star Trek comics as well. There's not a main Star Trek book out right now, but there is a Star Trek horror comic that just wrapped up recently called Red Shirts. That's sort of, Sort of like a slasher storyline of a bunch of red shirts get stranded on a planet where they are not welcomed. And you meet all these cadets, and they all get unsanctimoniously chopped up bit by bit. What publisher is putting that out, then? IDW. Okay.

Image has been tied up with Universal Monsters, and they've been putting out some really fun takes on the classic Universal Monsters. I really like the Frankenstein series they put out because the kind of gimmick of you would get flashbacks to the lives of the various body parts that went to make up Frankenstein and the main character was this boy who saw Victor digging up his father's corpse and recognizing his father's hands on the monster

there was a love story that was kind of tied in from the angle of the female protagonist for the mummy that was pretty good and they just put out this one shot of Dracula that was really well done art-wise and then the last thing is I haven't read it yet but spirits of violence

through Marvel which is another ghost writer series I love Danny Ketch because he was the ghost writer of the 90s so this is a story about him and his sister and Johnny Blaze and also Nova Centurion just started up and I I am a fan of Nova and Marvel and as a character I would like to get more opportunities to tell stories with.

So, that's what I've been up to. Out of the stuff you guys have been reading this year, what's been the best? For me, I would say, the Superman by Josh Williamson and the world's finest by Mark Wade. I'd probably say the spectacular Spider-Men, or I'd probably go back to Immortal X-Men as well,

even though it's, you know, kind of an older comic now. But those are probably the two series that I kind of had the most fun with this year. Nice. so um did you read anything that you were like oh tried this didn't care for it you know because i think we we kind of mentioned that but there were any like big misses for you things that you wished were better than they were um i'd say the carnage book i read was a bit well i the thing is i think I maybe missed part of the

storyline to begin with, because the last I remember Carnage slash Julius Cassidy being in the books was at the end of what was it called? Was it absolute carnage? And then I thought he died

at the end of that. And then all of a sudden there's like the Carnage Symbia is alive and then it is in it's like trying to achieve godhood it's separated from

Cletus Cassidy so then it goes and bonds with like a random prison inmate and basically turns him into a clone of Cletus and then then it kind of hunts down the real Cleas and

they have a fight and he well the Carnage Symbi basically cuts open Cletus's head and kind of absorbs all of his memories and personality and stuff and puts it into this clone version that he's created.

It's like, there's a lot of stuff going on in there which I was like, well, I don't know what the point of this is. Why don't he have to do that? Well, who knows? I think the real Cletus maybe was older and sort of starting to, you know, die or something. something and maybe he wanted like a replacement where it was still cleats but sort of young and um you know not dead yeah ideally yeah um he's a symbiote after all he would he would appreciate

if the thing he was speaking off wasn't dead yeah yeah yeah fair enough that's a shame well we've talked about this before but symbiotes. Yeah. Something in the water of a Marvel, but it's kind of seem to get them right.

Yeah. Well, that was our basically our year in review of what we've read. We can only hope that in 2026 will have much better luck.

So. Hey, I got screws book dot comics. I'm doing all right. And you found out about yours. That's exactly it. We're going to get that space jam comics, so.

Well, we'll play it by here. Okay. Let me know, I'll put in a bid. We should, for real, though. We should put a bit in, though. That would, honestly, I would, I, I, there is a part of me that does get tempted to, let's buy something dumb for the show. Yeah.

I think we'll do an episode when it arrives. It's just for the show. We're only doing it for, like, purity for the entertainment part of it, for the show. The only reason any of us would ever want that comic. Yeah, one day I'll go on eBay, I'll go on eBay and I'll share my screen and then we'll buy something together as a group.

Well, your laptop's going to love that. Certainly will. Well, no, that should be fine. I can share the screen as long as there's not, like, a lot of shit going on, and the wheel is a lot of shit, apparently. But there's that a little funny card comic, there's going to be a lot of shit going on.

Oh, yeah. A lot going on. Hey, John, speaking to SpaceGM, we already know what your feelings on the movie is, but what does your movie count at? I think this might be the next to last week technically in 2025 for the viewers,

but we'll go a little bit longer, I know, into next year for you. Yeah, yeah. So, currently I am on 1,110 movies for the year. That's a lot of ones and zeros. Yeah, well, it's more

ones than zero, but yeah. So what was the last thing you watched? I actually watched The Apprentice, which is the Sebastian Stan movie about Donald Trump. Yes.

Interesting. Uh, well, you know, I heard good things about it. And it's, you know, not exactly a such movie, but then Donald Trump isn't really a subtle person. So it's, it was kind of interesting because you kind of expect, you know, Trump to avoid, like, an arrogant sort of, uh, asshole, basically. But, um, like, there's flashes of humanity in him. to begin with until it you know it's like a villain origin story basically he turns into like the worst human alive and you can see it happen over the course of two hours i mean we're still watching it happen now well yeah exactly doesn't get any better so we're they uh for the audience

to get more on uh your thoughts of this where can they go to find them They can head to Letterbox and find me at Big John Bowsky, for one word. And Dylan, what do you're up to this week? Probably going to be doing a lot of research in the space job, it seems like, you know. Keeps coming up. A lot of hard research, but, you know, I'll put the time in. It's because I love the source material. But when I'm not investigating Space Jam, I do a radio show on Monday nights, 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock, UK time.

It's on BounceidigitalRadio.com. You can listen to it wherever you are in the world. Underwater, in a volcano, it doesn't matter. If you get Wi-Fi, you can watch the show, listen to the show. And we play all sorts of music, Pearl Jam, Sign Guard, Allison Chains, Beck, Stundable Pilots, Kate Bush, Florence the Machine all sorts of cool music and I

stream sometimes on Twitch where I draw pictures or stuff at Spooky LaRue on Twitch and then I animate those pictures and put them on YouTube at Team Crows on YouTube if you search for that you should be able to find it

so please watch our videos it's the same on TikTok now because everybody's on TikTok, so it's the same on Tech Talk, go watch her shit on Tech Talk. There you go. All right, well, I've got stuff as well. I don't want to get into it because we don't know where we are on those things right now. It's been a bit since I've updated either of them, so they might be going through some changes. But if you're interested in seeing another podcast I have, it's called Large Old Cup.

It's a link in the bottom as well as a writing project called Henry's usual link in the description as well. but until next time where we may or may not be talking about the King Dynasty we'll see you guys next time goodbye goodbye bye bye