The Smark Avengers - Midnight Marvel Madness

Episode Date: September 4, 2026

A few months ago Marvel Comics announced a new horror imprint “Midnight Marvel” and three new titles that would be debuting this October: Midnight Fantastic Four, Midnight X-Men, and Midnight Spider-Man. The objective is simple, let’s take three iconic Marvel comics and put them through the horror lens to see what happens! Whether it’s cosmic horror with the Fantastic Four, vampiric horror with the X-Men, or body horror with Spider-Man it looks like Midnight Marvel has something for every fan of horror to enjoy! With Jon unavailable to record, it’s up to Corey and Dylan to wade through the initial solicitations and covers for these three upcoming Marvel tales to see if you can judge a book by its cover! 🧟 Sit back and relax as the Smark Avengers (minus one) dissect Midnight Marvel:Are the uniform covers strong branding or bad design choice if placed on the new release wall in stores? How strong of a premise is the Fantastic Four encountering unspeakable cosmic horror? Is Hickman’s X-Men versus vampires original or is it too surface level for the mind behind the Krakoan Age? What separates Midnight Spider-Man from the other horror takes on Peter Parker? All of this and more! 💬 Join the discussion: which of the Midnight Marvel titles have your attention? 👍 Like the video if you enjoy comic book related discussions and humor🔔 Subscribe for more comic deep dives, reviews, rankings, and debatesClick the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylarouxClick 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 this same channel!

That's it. Like, if you got something like that, you want to show it off. I get it. I understand. Like, fair play. Like, don't, don't restrict that. You know? How much about are you going to have to beep?

Oh. Why not? It's like an arm. Yeah. Like, it's like a small child. Like a child? No, like the size of a child. Not like a child.

Yeah, he just hasn't. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the ThumbraVindgers. My name is Corey. With me is Dylan only. John is not here despite rumors. Oh. I don't know how much enough sticking in. I might surprise myself on that one.

Who knows? Anyway, yes. Welcome to the show. As you can tell John is not with us because you don't see the big Wobowski underneath us. John, I, the time of this recording, John very recently had a very busy week. He was running an acclacted by-election against Nigel Farage yesterday,

so he's taking a little time off for that. He got 9,000 votes. He came second. Oh. I don't know anything about the population over there, but 9,000 coming in second doesn't sound like a lot. Corey, you don't know what I'm referencing. I don't.

I can explain to you now or explain to you after the show but it's a fascinating story and I hope that by the time this goes out this won't be like old news and people will understand what I'm referencing. Do you want me to explain it now?

Real quick? Sure. Yeah. Okay. There's a crooked politician over here called Nigel Farage who was the MP for a political plaque which is on the seafront and he recently

was being investigated by the parliament because he accepted a five million pound gift, which was clearly a bribe. And he didn't declare it on his governmental, you know, earnings. So he thought the way to get around that is to step down as a PM, because then once he's no longer a PM, they can't investigate him. And then reapply to the job that he already had to get back in under the pretense of letting the people decide whether or not, him getting five million points, my cryptocurrency guy, is legal or not. And he was trying to do this under the eyes of sticking it to the establishment,

a.k.a. the other bigger political parties. So none of them decided to run against him because they're like, this is a fucking joke. We're not going to take part. And the only person that did run against him was a character that we have over here, well, Count Binface, who is an intergalactic space warrior who has a bin on his head and routinely stands against other parliamentary people as a bit

as a joke to say that democracy is so wonderful that you can just vote for anybody you want including a man with a bin on his face and the guy with a bin on space came second and you've got 9,000 votes

and you're like so that they Nigel Farage is trying to spin this as like a real big win for him and I'm like you beat a bin and it was surprisingly close you know what you mean

9000 people thought a bin was better and then when you look at their manifesto's and shit the bin was like would have been way better like he actually turned up Nigel Farage didn't even turn up to the thing that he won

the bin did and that's because I'm going to break all of the illusions here our co-worker John is count bin face and that's why he never shows his face on camera

because he obscures it with exactly we can't let people know that count bin face is John to be security risks he's going to be our next Prime Minister I would assume so that's what John was doing

last night he came second to Nigel for us and what I would say was a very good showing for content face. Fair enough. So that being said in an effort to for once try to be ahead

of the news as opposed to being a month behind the news, Dylan and I are going to be talking about horror comics a little bit because October's around the corner. And I believe when this episode comes out it will be September. So that's just

next month. It's almost Christmas. Almost Christmas. just it's another year has gone by don't I don't like that no don't do that no anyway anyway normally like what I mean we're going to talk about horror comics

we're going to talk about very specific horror comics a couple of months ago Marvel had this big announcement that they were going to unveil a new parallel universe else worlds setting or imprint

called Midnight or Midnight Marvel and I think it's midnight yeah and a lot of people are saying this is in response to what DC Comics has been doing

for the last year or so with the absolute universe so quick kind of rundown of that the absolute DC universe setting basically is through the events of a big event Darkside has been shunted

away from the primary DC universe and placed into a brand new one where he is a out and out God. And he has decided that with these new powers, he's going to alter this universe so that all of the people that have trapped him there are forever miserable. So absolute, you know, absolute Superman didn't grow up with the Kent family. Absolute Batman, his parents, you know, or his, I believe his mother survived the shooting in crime alley and he's no longer like a millionaire uh and basically a lot of it is is that all these characters are sort of darker and a bit edgier now uh with so he he was like i want all

these people who annoyed me to have a terrible time yes and didn't think like i'm gonna just get rid of all these people that annoyed me no he's like no they can exist he he's torturing them essentially like absolute batman is a miserable character i mean he is he's like we we joke around about him because like the sheer scope of him is ridiculous yeah he he is legitimately like the character is seven feet tall and jack to the fucking gills and uh but like commissioner gordon committed suicide in front of him uh through the effects of the absolute scarecrow uh i think he just killed absolute tim drake in his uh encounter with the robins so like it's it's a darker setting in time like he his friends are all like

the Batman villains and he's like turned his back on all of them after his actions led to them being called being all crippled and weird so he's like yeah so he's like actively like his presence is actively making people worse so it's like dark side just kind of you know hanging back and watching this shit unfold now he's not a presence in the comics of course you know it's not like you just see every like every other panel dark side going huh which would be actually pretty great if they did that um would like that better yeah you know it was just like like looking like looking like looking like He would tell us. Yeah. Oh, like, he'll watch you the watcher. He's just up

on the moon. Watcher's going, yeah, just be like, ah, fucking dick. There's some great panels from,

there's some great panels from back in the, I think it's the 70s or the 80s of dark side just sitting on someone's couch. And it's like a very jarring image because of like

how mundane it is and the gravitas of the character dark side. I kind of just want to mention that. He's just watching all of this from like the comfort of a living room somewhere. But anyway,

way, yeah, long story short, the characters are all miserable and everything's dark and gritty. And it's been very, very successful for DC. You know, I think they just announced that absolute Batman's getting his own, like, animated series or something like that. His comics are routinely selling out and are like number one top sellers. Every absolute comic that they've debuted originally under the guise of it being a six issue many gets extended. So, like, Martian, absolute Martian Manhunter was a six issue mini. It got extended to a full year. and a lot of people are saying it's like one of the best critically acclaimed like 12 issue runs of all time.

Like just very creative and very unique. Now, that's really what I want to stress here is that it's not that all these comics are like gritty and dark. It's that the creative teams have a lot of freedom to do what they want to do. And they are getting paired up with really fantastic artists. So like these are really well done books that have a lot of freedom that major DC comics or Marvel comics don't have. So it's sort of like the old guys of the ultimate universe in a funny roundabout way where it's like, hey, these are characters you're familiar with, but they're different. So that's what DC's been running with the absolute stuff.

It's been very, very successful. Marvel has been struggling in sales, as we've talked about several times over the last few months. And this is Marvel's attempt at kind of developing their own absolute universe with Midnight Marvel. So any thoughts on that before we take a look at the first. three releases from the Midnight Marvel imprint. I want to see, like, seven foot tall, Jack to the deck, Spider-Man. I've seen the image of Spider-Man.

It is certainly, it's interesting, to say the least. But, yeah, so the reason we're talking about these now, or these issues are all scheduled to come out in October. So these are issue ones of Midnight Marvel X-Men, Midnight Marvel Fantastic Four, and Midnight Marvel Spider-Man. the three big ones the three big ones yes so we're going to go ahead and i'm going to switch to a full camera view that way dylan can see the solicitation the creative teams and the cover art as well

welcome back if you are joining us still from the split second it took for this transition to occur we are on league of comic geeks this is a great website an app that i use to track what i'm picking up i also leave reviews here for the new number ones that i link to the videos in YouTube as well because we're trying to get that sweet, sweet crossover population. Anyway, that being said, we're going to take a look at the Midnight Fantastic for Number One solicitation. Look at the creative teams and the cover art. So if you're watching us on YouTube, you should be able to see this as well.

And if you're listening to us on Spotify, you'd like to see this. By all means, you can watch the YouTube video. But I don't think it's a necessity as checking out like when we do that for the slide shows for villains and stuff, right? Yeah, you want to watch the YouTube show for that. Yes, definitely. So anyway, this is scheduled for release on October 7th of 2026. Midnight Fantastic Four number one.

Our solicitation first steps into darkness. An obsessive scientist delves into the secrets of the universe, perhaps best left unknown to humankind, leaving himself and three others warped in strange and horrifying ways. What horrible secrets lie in the new dimensions they've discovered, and can humanity survive the discovery? from the twisted minds of Benjamin Percy, Wolverine and Punisher, and Kev Walker, Infernal Hulk and Dr. Strange, comes a tale of existential dread and secrets best kept.

I guess maybe left untold. Why are they telling them? I don't know. But yeah, Benjamin Percy, he does a lot of work with Wolverine, Punisher, Ghost Rider. He had a good Green Arrow run, D.C., big fan. Kev Walker has done some really fun stuff with you know the Infernal Hulk stuff because that that series is all sorts of just body horror which is phenomenal

but um that being said Dylan thoughts on this idea of taking the Fantastic Four Marvel's first family and essentially giving them the old Event Horizon treatment uh well first of all I don't know what Event Horizon is you've never seen Event Horizon uh this is where we need John So Event for Horizon is a science fiction horror movie about a group of astronauts who discover a rip into another dimension that they are not meant to see and it's rumored to be a dimension of hell.

So essentially, this is like cosmic horror. I'm not sure how familiar you are with the notion of cosmic horror, but it's like stuff so unspeakable that you can't even speak on it. Have you ever read, have you ever read H.P. Lovecraft? No. I'm aware of HP. Well, everyone should be of the blatant racism that takes place in some of his work. H.P. Lovecraft also is one of my favorite writers in the sense of horror because literally some of his descriptions is like, it's just too horrible to describe.

So that's how you get around describing, like, how horrible the thing is. As you say, it's too horrible to describe. And the reader goes, oh, okay. I guess it's too horrible for to describe. One of my favorite traits in writing. Is it just go, just imagine it. Imagine it. You know, just imagine a horrible thing.

I'm imagining that. Oh. And it's the president of the United States? All right. So we're looking at the cover of it. We've got, I assume this is our Reed Richards up front. And I assume that's going to be Susan Ben Grimm and Johnny in the back there. You would imagine so.

So I do see a gateway that does lead credence to the whole, event horizon. So here's some more. We got some very gross-looking Reed Richards. He's very, I would say, cancerous. Bubbly?

Lots of tumors. Yes. Yes. We got a really face thing over here kind of deal, or his face is kind of collapsing. Quite cancerous. His teeth are falling out.

He's got a lot of lumps. Here's a thing. Right. I don't want to be that guy. I would imagine if you're exposed to a lot of space radiation, what would happen is you're probably just going to like get loads of tumours and die.

Sure. But how fun is that to read in a comic book whenever the alternative is you can get big stretchy powers and do stuff and fight villains? Isn't that fun and whimsical and great to read as a comic?

As opposed to like reading a comic where every page is like, my face has more tumours. What am I going to do? Yeah. You know? Like crazy? No. I mean, no. See, here's the thing that I knew this one would be kind of the worst one for you, and that's why I wanted to

address it first. You don't like space. And I don't know how you feel about horror. So I feel like space horror is not going to be high on your list. That's what I was going to say. two things that I think are pretty fairly well known about me in terms of like fiction one of which is you accurately pointed out

we've mentioned many times in the show one is I'm not a big fan of space and two is I have a limited interest in horror so it's almost as if they picked like the two genres of fiction that would appeal the least to me

and we're like, let's just put Spider-Mine and not. I'm like, cool, you're really not sad enough for me, dude. So Event Horizon is interesting because I think as we speak, there is an Event Horizon sequel comic that's getting put out as well. So it is kind of funny that there is an official tie-in to Event Horizon getting Conocoque Treatment,

and then we kind of have Marvel's ode to Event Horizon is what this is giving me the feeling of. Does the man from Event Horizon get loads of tumors on his face? He pulls his own eyeballs out. So it's same. So yeah, this is like, by the way, this is like a movie from the 90s. So it's like Sam Neal, Jason Isaac, Lawrence Fishburn, if I'm not mistaken. It's got some heavy hitters in it.

Or? Yeah. By the way, this movie, this horror movie cover right here is oddly enough not Event Horizon. it's a tribute to John Carpenter's The Thing. Okay, because that's a very Cthulhu-esque, isn't it? Yes, which is also a trait of cosmic horror is Cthulhu. Here's a fun image of our Sue's storm disappearing except for her bones and organs. Hey, man.

Listen, nothing hotter to me. The woman he just turns invisible like step first, skull as not organs. That, to me. Wasn't that in the Venture Brothers, where they had the analog to The Fantastic Four? and the Seas Storm, like, her skin would just turn invisible, leaving her exposed muscle tissue. I haven't seen that show. Oh, wow. You really should probably watch that.

I feel you would enjoy Venture Brothers. I should do a lot of things that I'm not going to, so. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Sort of a classic Fantastic Four-S kind of pose, group here. It doesn't really say too much about the book. It does look like you're somewhere.

out of all the covers that's like the most fantastic four ask but also like the least um that would represent what they're trying to do with this yeah run if the whole issue is that they're trying to do these weird horror ethic like things that was just four people standing like like this is closer to that now you can see like the it's not the same fantastic four you're used to you know there's these great stuff happening below john Johnny Storm is just Johnny Storm, it looks like. I mean, everyone looks pretty bog standard, save for Reed Richards here,

who's specifically just made his arms real big and beefy. The thing looks like Rockslide from X-Men. He does look like Rock Slide from X-Men. Yeah. But that's the thing about Mr. Fantastic. And then we got this thing in the background, whatever the fuck that is. That's probably Dr. Dove.

I don't. Yeah. Well, maybe. It hasn't, the association didn't mention anything about it, Dr. Doom. But like, go back to that other image real quick. Oh, it's galactus. It's galactus. Oh, okay.

That makes more sense. Which the tentacles are, go back to the other image. Go back to the other image real quick. That, whenever you knew that Mr. Fantastic could, like, stretch his body and do all that shit, doesn't it make sense that you would stretch your body to make,

like, give yourself big muscles and, like, all, like, fucking Rob Liefeld, you know? Well, that's what that Marvel, rivals game or whatever, like, his abilities are a lot more. Like, they presented Mr. Fantastic's abilities differently than they traditionally did in the comics, and a lot of people really dug it. So I wonder if that has an element to do with it. All right. I just wanted to point that out.

Sure. So, yeah, we can go back to Galactus exploding out of his head, I guess. Uh, yeah, his eyes all blacked out and inky looking, which, you know, given that Galactus definitely has a Cthulhu-esque vibe with the tentacles. for i do i do appreciate the the more like take of his helmet as like a squid head makes sense yeah again very good thing louis yeah that's just that again loves squids love squids love that's coming soon so those cover those cover images aren't standard but this is the this first one we have which is mostly black save for this little sliver of detail this is like

the cover image which i'm not not sure how I feel about it. Because I don't know if that's like a good stand out on the newsstand kind of deal. You know, I know that people don't really. I don't know if a lot of people go and buy comics off the wall anymore. I do all the time. Like, when I'm like picking out new number one, that's what I'm doing is I'm going down the wall and I'm grabbing whatever grabs my interest.

So I would, this would not grab my interest. No. So I think it's very bold attempt from them to like get some branding in that sense because all of the cover, all of the standard covers look like this. artistically it's a nice look in terms of like the layout of it sure but in terms of like being a comic cover like an eye catchy and like you look at that cover and you want to buy that book it's not phenomenal because it doesn't really again like we said that's just four dudes well it's kind of ominous with the last one with the giant gate i mean they are definitely they're really well it is

though, because they're traversing down into this dark area. Like, if you look at that picture, it just looks like a door is open because it's just birds in the sky. Well, yeah, yeah, but they're moving down the staircase. It's implied movement. There's a very famous,

there's a very famous HP Lovecraft story about these two archaeologists and this line of tether and like a radio. And one of them is traversing down the stairwell and checking in every now and then. And eventually, gets to a point where he says,

close the doors. Like, whatever's down here needs to stay down here, close the doors. And I think this is what it's feeling like a bit of an homage to, because the Fantastic Four were always sort of like given off that they were the explorers. You know, they were the challengers of the unknown to use the DC equivalent. So for them to be

like kind of taking that homage of like exploring this dark, cursed place and obviously seeing something, if you know, the person up front who had the very worried look on his face is Reed Richards, it does give this impression of like we have found something we were not meant to see. I just don't like the,

I don't like the 90% of the cover is black. Right. Again, it's a stylistic choice. It's a stylistic choice I feel like is not good. No, exactly. Like,

it's a good poster, but it's not a great cover. And especially because like the number, the number one and the writing credentials are about three-fourths of the page down. So if you're like looking at a standard comic wall, you only see the top portion of it. So, like, if on the wall at the comic store that I go to,

I would only see to about where the Johnny Storm character's feet are. So I wouldn't even know what comic this was, because I can't see the fucking title. Right, you'd be like, I don't want to see fucking bird comic. Yeah. You know, like, that's not... Door with maybe eyeballs in it. Yeah, but like somebody just says a weird hoist, whatever.

Yeah. Like, I don't think it's a good comic cover. It's a, it's a... Again, though, it's like you said, I don't know. It's like with albums, the way you used to make an album, like a musical album, the front cover mattered because that's what people saw when they went into a record shop. They saw that and then they would judge their, you know, purchase based on how cool your cover was because the cover reflected what was inside the disc. But now, because people don't buy that kind of stuff anymore. the covers don't really matter as much as they should.

And I feel like because a lot of people find this stuff out, people who want to buy Midnight Marvel or Midnight Fantastic Four, by now, already know that they want to buy Midnight Marvel. I don't think that they're really attracting a whole lot of new to prize people. So the cover doesn't necessarily make a difference because a lot of the people that would be buying the comic are going to buy it anyway. I don't think that they're trying to, I feel like they're trying to appease their existing fan base instead of trying to gain more of a fan base. Yeah.

You don't? Yeah, I think we'll, we'll come back to this once we look at all three, the other two books as well, because I feel like this is overall going to be the topic of conversation. But yeah, no, I just, it, it definitely is like, we're going to choose branding over, like, historical practice. Yes. Yeah. But anyway, so that's, that's fantastic for, like I said. Yes.

Real quick. Sorry to interrupt, but that, that picture of Reed Richards on that cover. Yeah. Is drastically different from every other picture of Reed Richards we've seen. Well, in that slide show. So those pictures of Reed Richards are from the other cover artists. If I'm not mistaken, this is the main artist that's doing the cover. So that's what Reed Richards is going to look like is that image there.

But the other ones have a similar, I don't know if they collaborated or whatever. I think they probably got it. Well, yeah, they're all wearing the same uniform. I think they all got the same idea of what the uniform is going to look like. I think if you look at that picture, that's a 20-year-old man. Sure. Well, we don't know anything about the same. setting. We don't know if he's going to be younger or older.

If you look at that picture of that character, he looks like a 20 year old man. But if you look at all of the other ones, he looks like not just if he's a tumor, but he looks older, he looks wizened, he looks, he has the same haircut, he has the same stylistically. They all look to see him.

I don't know. You're just pre-year-old in this one, too. It's hard to tell when his head's exploding. Yeah. What I'm saying is like, I think that, I think that the other cover artist just got like, here's what the uniforms look like go. So I don't, I'm not going to trust like the cover, the cover artists for what the art's going to look like necessarily.

Okay. Sure. But our top comment from League of Geeks is most promising of the three books in my opinion, fun premise and a great team. That's probably a bad sign. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like I understand.

I get the concept, like I said, you know, space radiation will fuck people off. that's easy to understand. I don't think it's space radiation. I think it's, again, this is going for more like cosmic horror. Like, we're encountering things that we were not meant to encounter. What is, isn't that how they get their powers? Well, that's how they get their powers in the main continuity.

We're dealing with an elseworlds again. So it's going to, you know, who fucking knows? Right. But this is what I mean. Somebody was like, it's a great concept. I'm like, well, I don't know what the concept is. Well, again, It's the premise of like, we'll take the Fantastic Four for and we'll put them in cosmic horror.

That's about as in depth as the solicitation is. And for this person, that was an easy enough sell. Because if you're going to say, like, we're going to take some of Marvel's most iconic characters and we're going to put them through the horror vibe. Then like, yeah, Fantastic Four, Cosmic Horror is the one that makes the most sense. That's how they got their powers was in space. So, yeah. That's not. That's not ready a premise.

So it's not. It's a part. It's a, we're not going to debate some. person on this site using a word incorrectly. I want to pick a fight with this guy. Who is he? What's his name? You can see.

Reiker, you're fucking idiot. Yeah, it's not a premise. It's not a premise. You know, it's basically a genre. It's a genre and a title. Yes. So far as the show, the premise is just that. Yeah, I mean, the premise is that they went into space and found some stuff they weren't

supposed to find. That's the premise. which I would argue is also kind of what the Fantastic Four is anyway. Yeah, for all tons of purposes. It's just like now instead of being like an adventure comic, not just a horror. They weren't supposed to find, you know? Yeah.

Not a million miles away from like regular Fantastic Four. Can I tell you we've spent more time on the Fantastic Four than I thought we were going to? Well, he had a fucking weird head. All right. I'll love to be dealer's choice. Dylan, do you want to do Spider-Man or X-Men? We'll do X-Men because I feel like Spider-Man will disappoint me the most. Okay.

All right. So here is Midnight X-Men also being released on October 7, 2026. Our solicitation, an all-new, all-disturbing universe begins here. The clock strikes midnight, and it's the dark dawn of a new era. The shadows of New York City are stocked by vampires and the mutant empires. The sword of Damocles hangs over the piece between these two species. and the factions within them. And outright war is brewing and the unturned will be caught in the crossfire.

Blockbuster comic writer Jonathan Hickman returns to the X-Men with a hunger for blood as this new world terror reimagines the heroes of the Marvel universe. So we do have Jonathan Hickman on writing. Like you said, Hickman, we all know, great at world building. And our artist is Matteo Delafonte. Hey, can I real quick just point out the picture of Corey Pratt right there? What's his name? Corey Petit.

Yeah, is he okay? I think he's just trying to be funny. While he tried. My professional headset is me being funny. He's a letterer, which by the way, shoutouts to letterers. They don't get enough credit, even though we're going to make fun of your picture, apparently. We're not making fun of his letter work. No, no.

His letter works immaculate, but his picture needs work. All right. Well, were you ready to look at some covers for Midnight X-Men? Or do you have any thoughts just based off the premise alone of Hickman's back in X-Men? And he's putting vampires in there. Just a great premise, man. I'm just excited about the premise. I will say this.

Whenever they were like, sort of Damocles, I'm like, wasn't that fucking Kang spaceship in that fucking Kang dynasty shit? He's back. I'm like, is it they're going to do it to me again? 50 episodes of Kang, but like, oh, woo, who. let's see what happens, you know? Yeah. And then fucking Wonder Man escapes prison or whatever. Like, I don't know if I can do that again.

No, I will say this, Dylan. We have gone on the record for you being very upset with X-Men and vampires previously would Jubilee getting turned into a vampire. We have done that. We have done that. Based just off of the solicitation, what are your feelings on the X-Men getting mixed up with vampires again? I would say we definitely were a little bit intrigued as to why Dracula turned up in the X-Man at some point.

So... Well, he's back. Maybe. Huh? He's back, maybe. I could do that as in Dracula, my X-Men. Nobody reads the X-Men. You know what this needs?

Fucking Dracula. Christ. I don't... I like, Empires, I assume, is that something to do with Empliate? No idea. I wouldn't be surprised. My guess is

my guess is that Empires, I don't know if that's like mutant vampires. They just decided to get their own name. Empire sounds like an empty vampire. But like Amplied vampire is just Ampliates, right? Because in the future that Bishop

came from wasn't like his wasn't like, wasn't the bishop feature? The world empire is an archaic or alternative spelling of imperial, meaning fiery, formed of pure fire or light, or pertaining to the highest heaven. Okay. Well, that, I would argue, hasn't cleared Anakin up. No.

So unless the, well, I mean, as we could see from the first cover, just based on the screen, we do see Nightcrawler looking like a Catholic priest. So, you know, heaven, maybe that is intentional. Maybe this is. So again, obviously, that's supposed to be. Storm's head behind him in a kind of like stylistic like you know perspective comic book cover but again that cover yeah like does not look appealing at all especially because you've cut off storm's head like well yeah again i think i think the i think the full image is maybe one of the

alternative covers but yeah again there's that you know 90% of this is just black and you see a sliver of nightcrawler and that's it this cover is worse than the fantastic Fantastic 4-1. Yeah, the Fantastic 4-1 looks like it was designed intentionally with this in mind. And this one less so. Because they're all in the line. Yeah, they're all in line. And like I said, you had the little bit of storytelling with the open doorway and then moving down the stairwell.

Like, this doesn't say anything. This is just tiny night crawler in front of giant half of storm, or not even half of 5% of storm. Her hair made nice. Yes. Her storm's hair. Yeah. All right. Well, let's look at the alternative covers real quick.

so we have Cyclops here blasting the shit out of somebody that's a cover yeah that's a comic book cover right there if I saw that cover I'd be like all right what the fuck I'll I'm interested

that seems cool isn't it yeah yeah they look kind of like revers definitely with all the metal components get infused their skin but they're like mutant revers or vampire revers also Cyclops in the

Grant Morrison gear. Yeah, the big X jacket. He's also got a beard. I don't know if that's significant anyway. Probably not. Probably not. We got a very Catholic Nightcrawler praying in front of some stained

glass. Okay. Yep. Whatever. Yep. Here is our homage to classic horror with a fright night cover with it looks like Vampire Storm her homage over the X-

mansion. Is that to suggest that Storm will become a vampire? I think it's implying Storm might be the leader of the vampire, the mutant vampires. So it's Nightcrawler on his team against Storm. Based off of just what we've seen cover image so far, we've seen Cyclops not being a vampire. We've seen Nightcrawler being a big old priest again, and we see a lot of implications the storm is a head vampire. Who do you think is in the faces and the clouds here?

Is that like, is that like saber tooth? I don't know. It's kind of hard to tell. There's not a lot of descriptors. It all looks like beast or saber tooth. Yeah, they all look very, like, feral. Yeah, that's, that's hard to tell. And especially because they're vampires, it's going to be, yeah.

That's racist against vampires, Corey. Not all vampires look to see them. All right. Next up, we have, yep, we got Storm as a vampire. Okay, yeah, I think. I think she might be the head vampire based off of, you know, applications. Yeah, looking at, you know, I'm just going to hunch. Yep.

I'll tell you what, though, cool gear. Yeah, not a bad look. Love it. Not a bad look. Saxy vampire. Sexy vampire. Next. Yep, we got Storm.

Still looking rather vampiric. We got Cyclops and Nightcrawler. Okay, so neither on a team. Yeah, we don't really know what it is because they're implied that there are factions of the vampires. There's mutant sex of it and vampire sex. There's like a piece between them. Maybe the idea is that it's mutant vampires

against regular vampires. Right, but like Storm, we thought Storm was the bad person fighting against Nightcrawler, but here they're clearly on the same team. Unless Storm is about to suck the blood out of Nightcrawler, he just doesn't know. But I

don't think that they would spoil out on the fucking cover. No, again, I feel like, again, I feel like the cover artists are just given like, here's what the characters are going to look like, go, you know. So there's the... We've seen that one. Seen that one. Here we got Magneto with Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch there in the background.

Okay. That's fun because now we're like, well, where do they fit into it? Mm-hmm. And they're blowing bubbles for some reason? Those are Magneto's giant metal balls. I really sad that John... I was about to say the same thing. It's a shame John's not here.

Because he could show off his... is Jared's metal balls. Oh, boy. All right. We got a very vampiric gambit. Hey, who it is? His whole arm is like on fire. His arm is cards.

His whole arm is cards. No, no, no, no. His hands right here. His hands right here. Oh, he's doing, he's like this. He's like popping the cards up. Yeah. Okay.

Where his fingers were, I thought that was sick. This part of the arm had exploded. Yeah, yeah. With cards. there you go I would say that's a perspective issue yeah is Gambit's tiny

withered hand remember yeah everyone remember is Gambit's tiny withered hand but yeah so that is yeah Gambit has a wind hand there you go so yeah so what we know about the X-Men and the

vampires is we don't know who's on whose side which maybe is part of the point of you got to read the comic to find that out. You know, I will say this. Yeah. I feel like the previous commenter was incorrect in that there was no real premise for the Fantastic Four one.

Whereas this does have some sort of premise. This is like, well, there's vampires and there's empires and the X-Men. There's like a truce between them. but also this doesn't sign at all appealing to me i would rather read the fantastic poor one yeah i got to be honest with you like hickman is really big on these big creative swings and i just feel like x-men but vampires on a surface level feels really not hickman yeah i'm waiting for there to be some other hook for this one to be honest with you it feels like he's keeping something for the end of the first issue.

Yeah. Thunderballs. The more to it, but I don't feel inclined to go and read it. All right. Well, our last book that we're going to talk about of the midnight line before we kind to talk about it overall, I suppose. Midnight Spider-Man number one. Also coming out October 7, 2026.

Interesting choice to put all three books out at the same day. There's a lot of days in October. A lot of Wednesdays in October. They could have put one out every week, but decided they were going to put all the same time. All right. All right, solicitation. A young Peter Parker is transformed to a hideous spider hybrid by the ruthless OzCorp Corporation in their pursuit for eternal life. When Oscour begins to use the secrets unlocked by his mutation to create more human animal hybrids, Peter embraces his grotesque new form to stop them.

That's a synopsis. So our writer is Philip Kennedy Johnson, whose work I'm familiar with over in the world of DC. And the artist is Cytronic, or Citronk. I've never heard of before. I think that signs the most intriguing to me. Fair enough. I thought Spider-Man was going to disappoint me, but, like, that sounds like... Well, it also justifies why Spider-Man has so many fucking animal villains, right?

They're all coming from the same place. They talked about that years ago in a comic in the real... Is it that Totem one? I don't know if we talked about... Yes. Yeah. We've not talked about it, but I had a feeling. I think we will talk about that at some point.

But this book, like this Spider-Man book has the most, like, intrigue to it. It sounds interesting. Like, there's a premise. There's, like, consequences. Like, you already know how the book is going to, well, not how the book is going to go, but, like, you know what you're going to do. get whenever you get it. Yeah.

You know, the Fantastic Four one was just like, it's a Fantastic Four, but weird. Like, what does that mean? And then the other one was like, X-Men, but vampires, you're like, well, what does that mean? Whereas this, you're like, okay, I can see the story. I want to see how it plays out. That's fun. I know they've done like mutant, you know, a spider X-Man or Spider-Man before.

But, you know, this seems like a more permanent thing. Like, if you're going to do a horror thing. like that, like fucking go for it. Just really make it weird. I think this song is like the most interesting to me. Again, not a founder cover. If you looked at that cover, you wouldn't know that that's like a different Spider-Man cover.

Yeah, I think. Yeah, I think some of the other covers might show the body horror aspect of this a little bit better. Let's move forward. Yeah, there you go. It's starting like a tumor that's in his chest that's kind of like making the veins pop out

into like the spider symbol. But that's still like ripped Spider-Man. Like, that's not... Mask doesn't look... Crazy. Mask doesn't look crazy enough. No. I don't think so.

Let's go here. We got just Felicia Day. Or not Felicia's Day, but Felicia... Why is her cat? But why is the cat dead? I don't know. Well, it's Peach Momiko. They kind of just let Peach Momiko do whatever she wants.

Listen, I love Peach Momiko. Yeah. Not dissing her at all. I'm just like, what the fuck is this going to do with what we would just read. Like I wasn't mentioned at all. Here's our horror homage. I believe this

is an homage to alien with the mutant spider hybrid coming out of what appears to be, well, it looks like is the silhouette of the famous alien egg. Mm-hmm. And here we go. That's another look at what the costume

is going to look like. So Spider-Man... Just Spider-Man. So the Spider-Man just has like a hood and pants. And he just bare, foot. They were like, yeah, they were like he's going to turn into a grotesque, horrible

mutant. That's just a man with a mask well, yeah, we don't know what he looks like under the mask though. That's a very valid point. We can see his chest's all fucked up, but we don't know what his face looks like. This is not, if you read the phrase, Spider-Man could retive it into some

kind of fucking weird-ass freak. I mean, you saw that picture. That's better. That's what I'm talking about. Yeah, let's see some of this shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He just had the really gross spider. out of them. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Yeah, there's... That's great. See, if I saw that cover, I buy that book. Yeah, okay, there's a better look at this deal of the situation here. Well, it appears that the mask is bandages. Are you there? I don't like it. You don't like it?

Yeah. I just don't like this cover. Okay. Oh, it's there it is again. Yeah, yep, that's it. Not a lot of images on the Spider-Man front. I feel like this. that one has the most premise.

I'm hit or miss on the covers. But I'm intrigued with that one. Well, so the joy of this coming out when it did is that we can look at issue two because the November solicitations are already out. So let's see maybe of the solicitations for the Midnight Marvel movies for issue two is enough to inspire you to want to check out number one. All right, so Reed Richards,

haunted by a past. He could barely run. recall and a scientific breakthrough he can barely understand begins as tenuous working relationship with Sue, Johnny, and Ben at Storm Systems. They're about to test out one of their theories, a theory they will revisit and redefine the perils of the atomic age.

Well, I mean, that does that's more of a premise. Correct. That's what the first one was missing there. Boring is how again, that cover I don't like the, I mean, I like it, the

statistically, but as a cover, the black being like 70% of the image. 70 is not enough. It's 90. Birds. Why are there so many birds? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. So that's the association for Midnight Marvel or Midnight Fantastic 4-2.

Over on the X-Men side, it just says eat prey love. That's all the, that's all issue too is Hickman's like, I gave you enough. That's all you need. But we do get a better look at Cyclops. We get a glimpse of Angel Beast, and I assume that is going to be Gene Gray there. Yeah. Can we see more?

No. You got a bloody ice man. Let me see Bloody Iceman. Yeah. There you go. Bloody Iceman. I don't know if that's ice. It's definitely Iceman, though.

Yeah, but if it's blood, is blood? ice? No, I mean, he could freeze liquids, right? I don't know. All right, and then for Spider-Man, we have... Water can be ice. Can blood be ice? I guess. And for Spider-Man, we have,

Where is Peter Parker? A new OzCorps employee is missing, and NYC teaching assistant is missing. In Queens, and municipal services tech didn't clock in this morning, and for some reason, Oscourt defense contractors are scouring their building security tapes for a spider. So we have... That doesn't sign.

So that looks like, Felicia. But like, it's not, yeah, so obviously Black Cats focused on this, but they don't mention her in any of this synopsis in this. Yeah, Peach Momiko with another cover that features her prominently. Let's see this one. What on earth?

See, that's fun. Doesn't say anything, but it's, you know, Peach Mamaco, man. She can do two months. But it's intriguing, isn't it? You see that cover? You're like, what's going on? Well, again, it's a variant. So it could have absolutely nothing.

to do with the book as well. That's the problem with, like, when we're judging covers, we can only judge the official cover. Everything else are variants. You can't do that. One of the black cat isn't in this issue at all. Fantastic Four, by the way, does not have any variant covers there already. Beach just really wanted to draw black cat and they're like, yeah, knock it out of the park.

Well, I mean, again, it does, you know, there is a white-haired woman on the very, on the official cover. So maybe she is part of it. Again, the artists they're doing the variant covers are getting more information than we are. So maybe Alicia is a big part of it. They haven't mentioned her. In the solicitations. No, they haven't mentioned her at all. It's supposed to be, but if the idea is Peter Parker got an experiment on by Oscorp and turns into a grotesque monster and then gets his revenge, that's a premise.

How does Black Cat fit into that? Is she, well, again, again, again, you, we don't know that because the official issue one cover is just that spider, vainy spider symbol on a chest. That's the official cover. Yeah. The Peach Mobico, again, is a variant. And it's a store variant, meaning that they only get it. I think they only get it if the store, you know, well, it's one of them. So yeah, they only get it if the store pre-sells so many copies of it, then the store can get this one that they can charge a more expensive price for.

Because it's rarer. Yeah. Yeah. So we do know that we do know that as core is involved. We know that they're experimenting on people. It sounds like that one's going to be a slow burn. If issue two, they're talking about searching the building for a spider. So it sounds like issue one isn't going to see a full-fledged body horror Peter Parker quite yet.

Which is a shame. Yeah. And again, we're judging this based solely on solicitations and cover art. Oh, wait. What are the comments saying? one for spider-man? Yeah. Well, the person that you

wanted to pick a fight with says, these announcements have potential, but man, I was really hoping this line would be more focused on actual underused horror characters and such as usual, Spidey, X-Men,

Fantastic Poor stuff we always get. Not super exciting so far for me. I feel like with Spider-Man, especially, we already have a plethora of horror takes over the years, doesn't sound that fresh. Dude, you just said the fucking Fantastic Four won't sound cool.

And now you're saying, none of these sound cool? You're a fucking liar, Moonreicher, we're coming for you. We're going to punch you in the dick. I think that I think he does bring up a valid point that there is a plethora of horror-related

Marvel characters that they could use. But instead they're like, let's take these other characters put it through a horror lens. It's like, well, you have Ghost Rider and Mephesto and Son of Satan and Yes. Weirwolf by night and Man Thing. You got a lot of horror characters who could use.

I think third point in that a lot of these seem like retreads of older stuff is correct. And like we said, the Fantastic Four one just sounds like the Fantastic Four. We've already seen vampires in the X-Men. And we've already seen Spider-Man being turned into some sort of grotesque spider freak. These have happened before. Obviously, they picked these three because they are like some of their big heavy hitters. But just from cursory glibly, glances and from what we've seen,

what they're trying to advertise to people to get them interested, to get them to buy the book, hasn't really been super mind-blowing in terms of what they're showing off, what they're telling people to get invested in. I think the one with the most potential is a Spider-Man one.

Okay. Let's get off screen shared. We'll keep this going. So, yeah, like you said, those are the three offerings by Midnight Marvel, their new imprint, which is sort of like, let's take three of our most established franchises,

run them through the horror filter and see what we get. So you get body horror experimentation with sort of in the homage of the fly, we're Spider-Man. We get a vampire trope with the X-Men, and we get cosmic horror with the Fantastic Four. Well, I would also argue that a lot of these that we've mentioned aren't the most original either. No.

These are, no, I mean, like, yeah, I mean, it sounds like the Fantastic Four one is sort of a mix of like HP Lovecraft story and Event Horizon, which like we went too far and we found stuff we had no business finding.

I don't like the use of the word existential, though, that was used in that premise. Because like existential is not horror necessarily. Existential just means like pondering the meaning of life. It's a philosophical thing. It's not, it's not a shodder of horror.

people know that we come to comics for our philosophy. Who else is a more modern-day philosopher than the comic big industry? Hey, Stanley used to pull that shit and Silver Surfer all the time. Yeah, so anyway, that's what Marvel is offering with their Midnight line. We're getting horror through the lens. The creative teams aren't bad. I mean, Ben Percy, Jonathan Hickman, Philip Kennedy Johnson, all really good guys, all fantastic of what they do.

So, I mean, the talent is definitely there. I just don't think there's enough. There's not enough there that made me interested in it. I don't read any of the absolute books except for absolute green arrow. And I'm only three issues in absolute green arrow. Yeah. And that's because I'm a green arrow fan. And they killed him before the book even started.

Yeah, the premise of, yeah, the premise of absolute green arrow is the main character is Black Canary. And they're trying to figure out who Green Arrow is. because he's going around killing all these billionaire pedophiles. Or if only somebody like that existed in real life. Oh, well, you know, who knows? That being said, though, and I think we kind of hinted at it. Let's outright ask it. Are there any of these Midnight Marvel books that have your interest that you would actually read?

In terms of like, if you made me pick one of the three? No, I'm talking about vote with your wallet. Oh, fucking no. God no. Okay. Just being honest. Absolutely not. If I had to pick one of the three, I would say, Spider-Man, because out of the three, that seems them was interesting. But in terms of, like, the comic premise itself,

none of the synopsis is synopside, I don't know, seemed interesting to me, except the Spider-Man one, but not enough to make me want to pick it up. It just seemed like a gimmick they're going to do, and I'm like, I don't want this. I just want to read like a regular Spider-Man book. I'm so fed off of like multiverse shit. Yeah.

This is a different universe. It is. Just tell a story in this universe that doesn't involve the symbiotes. Please, I'm bagging. It is bold. It is bold of them to put out yet another elseworld spider-man book. There are so many Spider-Man spinoffs and tie-ins and else worlds that it is bold to be like, all right, new universe, new Spider-Man, let's roll it out.

the problem with that is is that Spider-Man is now like their de facto number one yeah you know we've seen that the movie did well it used to be and it became the X-Men and now it's uh Spider-Man

and so they're just going to ride Spider-Man like as hard as they can because they did this with Deadpool whenever Deadpool was hot like a while ago before the first film came out which really annoyed me because I'm like if they had any sense they would release Deadpool at the time but like before the Deadpool film went there were like five or six like ongoing yeah dead bull books many series or whatever but like there was like five or six

Deadpool books like Deadpool and then like Deadpool core and then Deadpool and Spider-Man Deadpool team up you know like yeah it was team up uh Deadpool and black or whatever like Deadpool and Wolverine I think was going on like there were so many so I'm like this is this is when released the film and then they released a film like two years later i'm like well you fuck that up but Deadpool was hot at the time so they did the best they could to capitalize on that spider-man film wise culture wise like um pop culture kind of wise is very popular but the i would argue the comics have haven't been this disinteresting in like and 20 years so it's it's it's quite It's stunning that they're pumping all of their money into Spider-Man, but again, it's an easy sell.

People will buy Spider-Man. That being said, like, there's an obvious book missing here, which is, like, Midnight Avengers. There's an Avengers movie coming out this year, and there's not, in the lead-up to it, another Avengers book to promote it. I don't know, maybe if they're just trying not to saturate the line, because they're putting a lot of momentum behind Jed McKay's Avengers' book that's launching soon, and they're like, We don't want to muddy the waters for that, but like, if we're going to cash in with the movies, cash in with the movies. I don't know. It's just weird that they went Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Spider-Man.

Went for years. I think that's what we're going for in that they were like, we were talking about this. Like, or we're going to talk. Sorry. Yeah, you're fine. Well, I was going to say for years, X-Men and the Fantastic Four were sort of like the bastard stepchildren of Marvel,

where they weren't getting any pull or any push because, they didn't have the film rights. So it's just weird that suddenly, like, because now, like, those books are actually doing a crossover story soon, which it's called DNX, where it's going to be, like, it's going to be, like, I guess it's going to be how they resolve the 3K storyline over in,

in the adjective-less X-Men book. Or? But yeah, it just, it just seems weird to that these are the three they're going to go with. And it just, I, I'm really hoping the creative teams do a lot of heavy lifting, because I do feel like on a surface level, this feels really weak,

especially for someone like Hickman who does like these big swings in this world building, he's like, yeah, but let's take the X-Men and let's put it with vampires. You know, like that seems real surface level for him.

There has to be more to it. Has to be. It feels weird to me is that like Hickman was on the X-Man and me had like the most revolutionary X-Men book we've seen in decades. And then left because they obviously didn't like his creative

vision. And then he was like, yeah, I'll do the X-Men again. Like, don't you think this is going to happen again? Well, I think the gimmick is, I think the gimmick is that the creative teams have been given a lot more leeway because these are elseworld stories. I just don't know how you would trust Marvel again because we've talked about how Marvel have a half button issues off or like in things or having these editorial issues. And Hickman has already gone through that with the X-Men already. But I know this is an office.

shoot. It's just in the 616 X-Men. It's like a different thing. So he should have his own. But what's to stop Marvel again? Just going, ah, fuck it, it caught it. I mean, that's very true. But also, Hickman has been given preferential treatment the entire time he was there. Like, yeah, they took his legs out from under him on Kerkowa. Because he wanted to end it way sooner. And they wanted to keep it going. But they also gave him gods, which was his like attempt at re-visiting and revolutionizing how magic works at Marvel and that got

canceled after eight issues and then he did the Empire storyline which was going to be his attempt at revitalizing cosmic Marvel and that fell flat on its fucking face so like despite that Hickman still gets a lot of leeway because he's Hickman you know he's been very loyal to Marvel aside

from his creator own stuff that's what I'm saying like why would somebody who has had his legs cut out of him what less like four times now I don't know if his legs got cut out of him. I just think there's just no, there wasn't as much interest in gods and empire, you know? I think that was the issue.

I think that is people are going to get into this. Yeah, I think, I think that they were, I think that, I think maybe Hickman, they realized that Hickman's name on it doesn't mean it's automatically going to sell. No, because just giving him shit that nobody reads doesn't mean people are going to read it because his name's on it. Yeah. It's just more shit that people are going to read. you know,

yeah, I'll have to bury them in the desert. So he's right back on X-Men, you know. Is that a reference to Atari E.T. just then? Yes, correct.

Fantastic. Well, speaking of, speaking of movies, John's not here to do his movie count, but he's got to be getting close to 700 now, right? He's probably up to like 8,000 right now. Probably.

You know, he's got, between running for campaigns, there's a lot of time where you're on that campaign bus and you're traveling from town to town and you're, you know, shaken babies and kissing hands that you realize that you can watch a lot of movies.

He should stop shaking babies. But yeah, that being said, John watches a lot of movies. If you want to keep up with how many movies John has watched, by all means, go to letterbox.com slash big John Bowsky to see not only what he's been watching, but his thoughts on it. For my understanding, there's quite a snobbish click over at Letterbox stuff of people trying to out obscure one another and leave snotty reviews for classic films. I don't think John's a part of that group, though.

Well, he leaves classic reviews for the minions. He does. He does. I just, I can't remember what movie it was. We were talking about something. He's like, I left quite a favorable review of that. I'm like, well, what would we give it? He's like, three out of five. Like, oh, middle of the road. Not that favorable. That's what we love him. Anyway. Probably like, you know, doesn't Keen? Yeah. Ruud of you.

Three out of five. three and five not totally good it wasn't a bad view it was a view though anyway Dylan what do you get up to

Dylan what do you get up to during the week on Monday nights I do a radio show on buying some digital radio dot code of the UK you can listen to it anywhere in the world I play a lot of cool rock music it's at 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock

UK time so if you click the link somewhere you can check that out make sure it's Monday, make sure it's 9 o'clock at UK time. You'll have a great fun experience. I sometimes stream on Twitch at Spookle-Roo. And I draw pictures and animate them. I put them on. I got to remember.

TikTok is Team Crow Studios and YouTube is Team Crows and I. There you go. That's it. What I do. As for me, I have my other show, Largewell Cup, which is sort of a storytelling spoken word thing, where I kind of talk about life in general. It's my tempter philosophy, like the great Einstein and Shakespeare.

And I don't know if this. That will make sense. I don't, yeah, we might just leave that out and just leave that as it is. I think we should. I think modern day philosopher, Albert Einstein. Modern day philosopher, Albert Einstein. Yeah. We built the bomb to stop the war.

Oh, fuck, they used it. What if I make the thumbnail just us hanging out with Einstein? and you caught out like every single Bryson's type is the fucking thing and it's like there's Markov Andreas talk about Spider-Man like what? There you go the other thing that I do is

new number ones which is on this YouTube channel as well so every Sunday I post a about five to eight minute long review of a new issue one from a three-party publisher which is very fortuitous we're talking about horror comics because the one I recorded for last week, which is now a couple of weeks ago, was the accessories from Panic Entertainment

written by David Dasmalcian and Leah Kilpatrick, who are two horror writers and actors. So, pretty fun read. Premises basically Igor, Renfield, and a character named Mrs. Hyde, leaving their abusive masters behind and striking out on their own.

Three and a five stars. I think I gave it four and a half out of five. I like it. I liked it. I'm a little concerned about the pacing because it's only four issues long and the first issue was just entirely Igor's like world. If they do that for Renfield and this Mrs. Hyde character, then that leaves one issue left. I don't know if that's a great idea, but we'll see how it turns out. Anyway,

that's going to do it for this week. We'll see you guys next week where maybe John will be back with us and can tell us how things have been on the campaign trail. He didn't win, but he tried his best. And that's what's important. All right. We'll see you guys later. Goodbye. Goodbye.