The Smark Avengers - Relaxed Comics Chat: X-Men Fallout, Avengers: Doomsday & DC’s Next Big Event

Episode Date: February 13, 2026

Corey, Dylan, and Jon kick back for a relaxed fit episode and talk through everything happening in comics right now — from massive event fallout to status quos that just aren’t landing. This episode is all about free-flowing comic talk, hot takes, and connecting the dots across Marvel, DC, and pop culture. Topics include the post–Age of Revelation X-Men line of comics and what the future of mutantkind looks like, DC Comics’ upcoming Reign of the Superboys event, and Dylan’s growing frustration with the current Spider-Man status quo. The crew also reacts to teaser trailers and early buzz surrounding Avengers: Doomsday, debates how wrestling moves translate into comic book fight scenes, and veers into plenty of unexpected tangents along the way. If you enjoy laid-back comic conversations, big-picture industry talk, and passionate fandom debates, this is one you won’t want to miss. 👍 Like the video if you’re keeping up with modern Marvel and DC 💬 Comment below: What do you think of the current X-Men and Spider-Man status quos? 🔔 Subscribe for weekly comic book podcasts, deep dives, brackets, and chaos 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

Yeah, you are doing that, aren't you? Is that intro, some cat butt? Sure. There will be more. He's fascinated with... You should just, like, hold up the cat to the camera at some point. I don't want to expose him like that. I don't think that's a crime.

Yeah, but, you know, let the guy have some modesty. He's only five months old. Yeah, you're only five months old. Yeah, I wouldn't do that with a five-month-year-old. Yeah, but animals are different. They walk around naked all the time. Babies aren't allowed to do that. No.

I mean, that's what I've heard. That's what you've heard. Hi, everybody, welcome to Smart Avengers. My name is Corey. With me, it's Dylan and John. How's it going, guys? I knew that was going to be the intro. Damn it.

You always wait until I'm saying something. It could be taken out of context. Yeah, I think the DC Heroes one was talking about, like, was actually the jury duty conversation from last time added to it was like talking about how there's a dress code for jury duty and how it was like oh yeah you know I can get dressed up you can only put you know make so much makeup on a pig before it becomes untenable and you were like but you can still fuck them it was like and that's the end up

but also it's not incorrect yeah saying it's still pause possible. Anyway, whatever. Hello. So hi, folks. We've had a, we, the last few weeks, we have, uh, despite being like the holidays and, you know, notoriously, it's like kind of when people phone it in. Uh, we've been kind of busy. We've had multiple episodes of our bracket. We finally have our final four settled. Um, we have had two episodes talk about the King Dynasty. And we kind of thought that we would just, you know, now that it's, I believe, the second week of February, we're going to kind of, um, um, Relax a little bit, you know, kind of have a laid back episode, kind of have free form, just open conversation and see where that takes us. Sounds lovely. He's having a, sorry, he's having a party over here, and I'm just kind of waiting to see what he inevitably breaks. You could let us see it, too.

All the microphones on the way. He's just kind of hanging out here. Yeah, he's like kicking the desk and, like, fighting for stuff underneath it. Yeah, like, there's a lot of this going on. he's just having to be nap I wish he was taking a nap no this is this is the prelude to something I've referred to as baby tiger

where he just starts running around and diving at things he is like perfected wall running so like he will be on the floor and he'll run and like run along the back of the couch by sinking his claws into it and just like using that to propel himself

so he's he's an interesting little guy do you think if you grew your fingernails out you could also perfect that technique no I think it's a body weight issue I think okay do you think because he weighs six pounds

so yeah do you think if you were able to lose some weight to become six pines would you be able to do it the human head itself I believe weighs eight pounds so that it's I don't think it's possible we can trim that we can like scrape some of the bone off

you know maybe i don't know we can figure it out we'll do a tiny little body or just a big couch yeah just a massive couch yeah maybe that's the key yeah change the size of the couch that reminds you of is then that wolverine origins movie the scene where uh leave schreiber's savertooth is chasing down like teenage cyclops and he's like running on all fours that just have a weird mental it would be attempting to do something like that. Yeah.

Don't you think that would be cool? They thought it was cool and they put it in the film. I don't think it would look cool. I think I just end up hurting myself in some way. Think about all of the other cool things they put in that film. I just turned 39, by the way, so I'm old. My body's breaking down. You're not old.

No, I know. No, I know. I just like a young weapon. People like to be very dramatic. That to me. About that. Because, yeah, John's 65. Exactly.

That's why he doesn't show John doesn't show his webcam because it's a portrait of Dory and Gray situation If someone else were to see an image of him They would like John would begin to rapidly age In real life Well also I'm so old I don't know how to work technology as well and turn it on

That's just the joke I was going to make So Oh boy Because I am also old Yeah We're all old I'm 102 Yeah

So yeah Comic book stuff wise The age of Revelation is officially over I just read the first post age of Revelation comic They're about to Kickstart a whole new series A mini series for the X-Men A brand new X-Men series

That's going to revolve around Emma Frost Opening a school Because of course, why wouldn't they open another school. DC is announcing some new titles. They have titles for Batwoman, Lobos, Zatana, and Firestorm. Now they're coming out. Plus, we talked about that rumor of Emperor Aquaman,

where he's going to get like cosmic powers and shit. There's a lot of weird stuff going on in the comic book world at the moment. Is there anything interesting that's kind of come across your radar? Not really. As is quite. typical for me. I don't really pay attention a lot of modern comics. I read

some stuff from a recent Spider-Man run. This Joe Kelly run, I don't know what the fuck's going on. I like Joe Kelly a lot. I like Spider-Man. I don't know if I like any of this. It's so just not Spider-Man. You know?

Like, this guy comes down and from space and just like beats a shit out of Spider-Man, like, repeatedly. I don't remember the name of the guy, but he just, like, John, you know who I'm talking about? I think his name is it Hellgate or something like that? It's something like that. So he beats the shit out of Spider-Man,

and then he's like, I'm not afraid of you. And then he, like, fucks off. And then the comic I read the other day was, they're in space now. So Peter is, like, trying to chase down this guy or something. And he's in a spaceship of Rocket Raccoon and a bunch of other weird-looking fucking people. And they go to this guy's planet.

And then the guy beats the shit out of him again. And I'm like, what is this? And then the comic ends with Rocket Raccoon crashing his spaceship, like, into the bad guy. And then they get on a different spaceship and, like, escape. And I'm like, what? Remember Spider-Man used to punch, like, the lizard in the face

like what fuck is this I am no fan of like space stuff and I'm not a big fan of as we've talked about grind level people getting to above their station

you know if this was a fantastic four you'd be like yeah this makes sense but there's been so little explanation about what's going on here and also like so little reason to give a shit about what's going on here that I'm like thoroughly confused

but I have no inclination to find out what it's about you know what I mean I would rather just wait for this run and then do something else it's like the kindred thing at first I was intrigued actually the kinder thing was better because at first

I was intrigued and then they fucked it to the point where you're like well I don't care how it ends it doesn't matter how it ends it's going to be a disappointment this feels like that in that I don't care how this ends. I just want it to end because I don't want to see this shit anymore. I want him to go.

Remember the comedian? Yeah. He was great. Let's go back in. The last time Spider-Man fought the Rhino. You know? Remember the shocker? Straight up, he's just got shocking gauntlets.

What's wrong with that? Jim Cummings played him in the Spider-Man TV show. Didn't he? I think he did. I think so. It sounds about right for Jim Cummings. I believe in Jim Cummings. Yeah.

It just, it seems like a lot of what's going on in the Spider-Man world. Well, Marvel's just kind of fucking weird right now anyway, because like, there's that. The Scarlet Witch is now Sorcerer Supreme. Dr. Strange is fucking around in Asgard. It's like it just seems sometimes it just, yeah, it just seems like they're just like, let's shuffle the status quo for the sake of it. And it's like, you don't always have to do that, you know? Like stuff can just be what it is for a while. Because like not, I mean, like, Mary Jane is still venom as of the time of this recording, you know,

and that's still weird to wrap your head around. Like, how is this still a thing? Like, surely that's one of those things we're like, you get three issues out of it, max, and then off we go. It's, it's like, who's, who's still reading that?

I can't wait to see how it happens. Nobody cares. Yeah. But, what the fuck? And then, like, you know, and then like, Marvel, like, they reset the X-Men after a big period of time where they're in the Krokoa stuff. And then immediately like, all right, cool, we're going to sideline this for three months as we do a Elseworld story, basically. Yeah, a weird decision.

Yeah, and like, you know, now they're, you know, we're dealing with the repercussions of that. But it was also weird sort of just, you know, jettisoning, yeah, jettisoning. Yeah, that's the word. All of the Krakawa stuff. And almost like pretending it doesn't exist as well. Yeah, I mean, aside from a few, like, mentions and, like, a couple of odd things, like, it doesn't. I will say this. I think of the books I've read, the ones that I see talk more, like, deal more with the Krokoa stuff is Jed McCay's X-Men run has been dealing with it because that's, like, Magneto is still, like, fucked up from the regeneration process.

and like he's wheelchair bound and uh be like crocoa beast evil beast is seemingly now one of the big bads in that book and uh and i think it's sort of weird that magneto is sorry yeah it's sort weird magnetos uh feeling those effects though when he didn't even get resurrected through the like crocoa protocols he came back another way and i've completely forgotten what it was but it definitely wasn't through regular Crocoa resurrection. Yeah, unless he was like an off panel thing because I know there was like a thing in the X-Force book

where they were like, yeah, Wolverine and Quentin Choir have been resurrected the most out of anyone because of, you know, doing the black ops stuff that they've been doing. But yeah, no. So he's dealing with like Magneto's doing dealing with that because he's kind of acting as an advisor for Cyclops.

I did. So yeah, I read the most recent issue. there's another issue that comes out this upcoming week. But this was mainly like, hey, this is what happened in the regular continuity while the Age of Revelation books were going on. We're basically the Cyclops of the Age of Revelation's mind was put into the cyclops of the current era's body. And he immediately tried to kill Doug Ramsey.

And was confused because Beast was supposed to be there with him. But Beast wasn't there. Like, it was just still regular beast. It wasn't like the beast of age of Revelation. And he's the one who confronted Magneto and he's like, you know, like, you have to do this. We have to kill Doug. Like there's no other way around it. He's going to fuck up the world as Revelation.

He cannot be trusted to do it. We got to get rid of him now. And he's like, why aren't you helping Magneto? And he's like, I'm kind of, I can't because my powers are all messed up. And like, no, the timeline's wrong. This doesn't make sense. But yeah, the big reveal was that, uh, the beast of the future, when he was sent back,

he was put back into the body of one of the 3K big bads, which, by the way, that's my prediction for how they're going to fix Magneto, is he's going to get put into one of the Joseph clone bodies, because one of the members of 3K is that woman who was obsessed with Magneto and cloned and made Joseph. So she's made, there's another Joseph around. So I'm going to guess they're just going to put Magneto's mind in that guy's body

and call it a day. that sounds like the kind of bullshit that they would do yeah yeah yeah and then they'll just like well this is magnino now you're like you sure because it sounds like he died like doesn't sound like that's magnito no no this is magneto yeah

and we'll never because he's been drawn reference it again yeah he's been drawn he looks really frail and like sitting in like the little Xavier wheelchair essentially and then like but the Joseph is like big and buff with like long wavy hair and it's like, yeah, this is how they're going to de-age Magneto again, I'm guessing.

They can just get older. I guess you kind of have to there, don't you? Because, like, if Magneto's whole backstory is centered on him being in... Yeah, yeah. He's 100 years old now. We've got to get to that point where he's connotally 100. It would be like Dick Van Dyke. I mean, I think Dick Van Dyke could be a good Magneto.

Sure. Do you imagine? I've seen his, I've seen his daily exercise routine. that keeps him so youthful and spry at 100 years old. Can you imagine Dick Van Dyke as Magneto? Imagine this. The X-Men are in Avalon. They're about to fight Magneto and his accolades.

And Magneto just starts tap dancing. He says, but he was on the big cockney accent. He had in Mary Poppins. Hello, mate. It's me. The master of Magnetism. It's me. You're all Pat Magneto.

You want to see me do a little shuffle? And he starts They're like, what the fuck is this? And then he pulls the adamanty him out of Wolverine. But he's like, makes a cane out of it, does a little number with the cane. And they're like, Magneto, we're about to die and you've killed Woolwry.

He's like, oh, I'm just how put on his show, mate? I don't know what accent this is. Is it English or Australian? I don't know. John, you're from there. John, you're from there. How was our cockney accents? I mean, no worse than what's his name's. So, yeah,

you know, did well. You forgot the name of Dick Van Dyck to be just sad. Yeah, like literally. I'm old. What can I say? My memory shit. He's old. He's old. Yeah, Dick Van Dyke's old. He doesn't remember my name. Fuck him.

Magneto. Speaking of older actors playing Magneto, I keep seeing screenshots of some Doomsday trailer that went out.

Is that AI or not? No, there's like a bunch of mini teaser trailers. Yeah, there's one, the first one was

Steve Rogers like returning to Peggy's house and holding a baby and like putting away a costume. the second one was Thor

who after his last movie he's kind of hung up his hammer and he was looking after was it Gore the girl yeah Gore's daughter yeah his daughter and basically like praying to Odin

to give him the strength to go to war again and then the third teaser was the X-Men one where we have like Magneto and yeah yeah and uh cyclops like it closes on a classic like sort of cartoon slash comic uh sort of pose with cyclops ripping off his mask or his visor and just like shooting and uh uh i blast into the air because he's you know he's tortured by something it's implied And then the latest one just got released. If I'm not mistaken, it's implied that they're like

Doom Sentinels or something. That's what I heard the implication was. Yeah. Anyway, so what's the new teaser? The new one is involving Shuri as the Black Panther. And like a crossover with like the Fantastic Four as well.

it has the thing talking, uh, talking to Embaku. I think that's his name. Yeah. Um, that yeah, it's not particularly interesting. Not as exciting as the other ones.

It sounds like it. No, no. But it's weird that they still are holding back from sharing like Dr. Doom and giving away more of the plot and stuff. So, so the question I'm going to ask

are you excited for this? Yes. Okay. I think, well, I mean like the whole idea of the different movie versions, like crossing paths and stuff is something that kind of, you know, ticks a lot of my boxes. It was cool when they did it in the Spider-Man movie. And it worked to like a certain extent in Deadpool and Wolverine as well.

Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, I think now that Marvel pretty much own all of their IP again, why not do stuff like that and take advantage of it? Because it takes a lot of sort of nostalgia boxes for a lot of people. So, yeah, go for it. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not as, I mean, I'm not really looking forward to it for some of them. I'm into it just because I wanted to see how they pulled it off.

Yeah. So I remember whenever Marvel had to pivot away from Kang and Jonathan Majors, and they said, oh, it's going to be Robert Dunning Jr. as Magneto, or not as Dr. Dome. I was like, okay, cool. I can understand how you could get there. And then, like, it felt like everybody else was like, what the fuck you? How can you do this? I'm like, you don't at all see the connection between Iron Man and Dr.

Doom, like, you guys idiots? Like, it doesn't it make sense that in a different timeline, a different dimension, Iron Man could become Dr. Doom? I don't think that is the biggest strategy. The thing is, though, it's like, it's not Tony Stark has become Dr. Doom. I think he is playing, like, Victor von Doom in it, which is like, oh. Yeah, it just looks like Tony Stark. Yeah.

Is that true? Because in my head, I'm like, it makes sense if there's an evil. version of Tony Stark who becomes Dr. Doom. I can see that. If it really simply on Doom, you're like, okay, do you have face surgery to look like Iron Man because you look like Iron Man, dude? But I am excited because Marvel, when it comes to them getting a lot of their big headers together, they usually do pretty well.

You know, I know a lot of people have been a little dying on some of the more recent Marvel films Like John said that Spider-Man one Was a big highlight Because it had a lot of heavy hitters In one film It all made sense And it all came together

So I am excited to see it Because it feels big And they haven't done a big film like this In a long time Again I think Spider-Man's probably the last one Was it 2016? Yeah

I think it was after 2016 but yeah i think it's like 2019 when end game came out that's probably closer but even then it was 2019 what's that five years six seven years like seven years ago yeah

they needed something big and I feel like this is big it's interesting it's it's gonna get people talking it's gonna get people interested so I'm interested in it I saw the tree I saw two trailers I saw the Thor one on the

the Captain America one. And those ones didn't really, you know, inspire me to go see the film more because I'm like, whatever. Oh, I'm Captain America. I want to save people. We get out of time.

You know, I'm sort of. I'm going to do my best to beat that guy up. Like, what is this? You know, I know. I know. I haven't seen the X-Men one. I'm intrigued by that. I like to see that.

but I don't think those teaser trailers would have changed my mind about going to see it because I would have went to see it anyway, I think. I don't know. I just, for some reason, it's not doing anything for me. It just, but I feel the same way. Well, no, I mean, I feel the same way about the DC stuff because, like, the lanterns is coming out and Supergirl is going to be coming out. And they're talking about Man of Tomorrow and they announced the actor who's going to be Brainiac.

and it's like that seems like a big deal because it's going to be the first time like every Superman movie has had Alex Luther but they have never dived into the other villains in the Superman like world you know like it's been Luther and Zod and that's been like every iteration that they've done to Superman movie is either Luther or Zod and so now like oh we have this new one coming up and it's going to be Brainiac I'm like oh that sounds interesting I don't but it's just like again, like, yeah, I don't know, I'm not a movie person, I suppose. Because I think I've discussed this enough over the years, like, we've been talking about the movies of like, I like the continuity of the comics, and I usually don't care for a lot

of the changes they make for the movie versions. But it's a different continuity. It's their own continuity. Well, that's what I was saying. But they're making changes to something I already know, and I don't really care for them for the most part. And that's fine. I'm not judging them.

I'm just saying I don't care for it. Well, isn't it the same as like the absolute Batman or the Ultimate Universe shit? Yeah, but I don't. The Ultimate or the Ultimates either. Right, because I don't. I never read the Ultimates. And everybody's like, oh, it's pretty good. I'm like, yeah, but I like regular Spider-Man.

Like, that's what I like. I will tell you the Ultimates does not hold up. If you're going to go back to the old Ultimate Universe, the only thing I'd recommend is Spider-Man. Spider-Man. Everybody says Spider-Man. Yeah, everything else does not hold up. it aged terribly, with the Ultimates being

some of the worst. Just Mark Miller at his most unchanged. Well, we've talked about Holt going into a rampage because he was a gay. Anyway. I mean, you can apply it.

Yeah. You know? Anyway, I hear good things about the new Ultimate Universe and a lot of people are bummed out that they are like, yeah, we're ending it, you know, soon.

It wasn't going to be an ongoing thing. It was going to be a short, run. And a lot of people really bummed out about it. And a lot of people are also like, well, I mean, that's good though. It's not going to last too long. Like, you know, Ultimates three was miserable. And then they went into ultimatum and they killed off like most of the world. The ultimatum storyline was one of our first episodes where he talked about like just the ridiculous kill count in that and like the absurd way a lot of those characters were killed. You remember the thumbnail for that was, was it me being eaten by the blob? Yeah, I think it was you being eaten by the blob. I think that was in the beginning of you drawing yourself really small as well. So you could fit in the bottom. No, I think I was, I think I was big for that one because the blob was eating me.

Okay. I think the small one was Japanese Spider-Man. No. Because you two are on a cart and I was a little gentleman. Yeah. Yeah. No, we're watching a big TV. And you two are on a sofa, like,

and then I'm on the floor, like really small on the, floor like looking up at the TV. I think that was the first time that I was a small character. And it's, you know, it's, it's, it's endearing. Well, I like it better because you can tell, you can tell the difference. You don't want all three of us, look, because we're all three of us have, you know, glasses, murder nerds, whatever. It's, it's better if one of us is just, you know, a little gremlin.

So would you like to hear some of the upcoming expo? that are, I think, starting to come out, I think, this month in January, February. Sure? Yeah. All right. Well, there's a Cyclops miniseries. It's a five-issue run. The storyline seems to be that Cyclops is alone in the Alaska Tundra without his visor being hunted down by the Revers.

We have a Generation X23 that is going to be the Laura Kenny book. mixed in with her sister Gabby. In glorious X-Force, there is a Magic and Colossus miniseries. It's going to be a five-issue run. There is a Danny Moon Star series. It's going to be a five-issue run. There's a rogue miniseries.

It's going to be a five-issue run. Storm Earth's Mightiest Mutant is going to be... Now, here's the thing. I have seen it being advertised as a five-issue miniseries, but I think the author has come out and said that it's not a mini-series. It's ongoing. So there you go. Uncanny X-Men still is picking back up after the Age of Revelation with Gail Simone still behind it.

Wolverine is picking up where it left off with Saladin Ahmed still behind it. We have Wade Wilson Deadpool written by Benjamin Percy. Jed McKay's X-Men is going to be continuing on. Ryan Stegman is no longer going to be doing art for it, though. he's moved on. And then we have X-Men United, which we talked about moments ago, which seems to be replacing the exceptional X-Men book by being focused on students with Emma Frost being a big factor behind it. I know a lot of folks are a little weird about it because I think it's like Cyclops as opposed to the idea of them doing a school again. And Cyclops fans are notoriously

kind of sensitive about him being portrayed as a jerk. He's a jerk, though. now like Charles Xavier who's up in space still well he can blame him have you seen down here he sucks

he's got his wife back he's got a kid back I think this kid well it's his kid with La Landra yeah what's that kid Wolverine

would not be a twist oh dear McDito Imperial Guardians is like the Guardians of the Galaxy book that's going to be running. And that's a line up right there. It looks like it's Captain Marvel,

Gamora, the Amadeus Cho version of the Hulk, cosmic ghost writer and Dark Hawk. Wow. It's going to be pretty hard for me to give less of a shit about that book. It's Dan Abnit running it. And like, Dan Abnett was one of the architects of the old cosmic Marvel back in the 2010s, 2000s. So it's going to be good.

I mean, that's the guy behind, like, the King's Conquest and Annihilation War and stuff. But, like, that's a lineup right there. I like Gamora. But yeah, they are... I like Captain Marvel. They're recruited by Maximus of the Inhumans. He's kind of the person who's sending him on missions. Why?

Just when I couldn't care less, you had to bring in the inhumans. Brought in the human. I've only, I'd brought, if it had been the Eternals, without have been worse, or... I mean... I would say, I'd fight the same. Because Starlord, like, is evil now, if I'm not mistaken, right? Wasn't that, like, the fallout of...

Why? Really? I think so. I think, like, he had a big twist happen at the end of that storyline that Hickman was doing. And I thought it was he became evil. Let me see if I could find out real quick if that's true. I saw very incriminated with being full-page spread. Just him shooting tracks of the head.

Repeatedly kicking him in the dig. Star Lord is the new king of space in imperial twist. What does that even mean? He is the new ruler of the StarTax Empire. So he is he has become a villain. Yeah, he's taken over from his father, Jason of Spartax, and has assumed the role of emperor of Spartax and is now a villain. But what's the impetus for that?

I don't know. Why was he like, listen, I've saved the galaxy on so many occasions. No, I think I deserve to own all of space. What are we doing here? There's a galactic union that is being. ran by the Hulk, Black Panther, and Black Bolt. And it was discovered that

Black Bolt's in humans through the galaxy into chaos to basically have a coup to launch and assume this kind of power. And Star Lord is cool with it. I guess he's now one of the main rulers and had a

falling out with Nova about it. And that kind of explains Nova's status quo is kind of this kind of getting by, do an odd jobs thing that his current comic is about. Cosmic Marvel is really weird because it feels so neglected that they can just do stuff and then nobody reads it. Well, what I was going to say was, you know, in Rast's, whenever they turn a guy heel for no reason. Yeah.

I mean, like this, like, everybody loves, like, Austin at WrestleMania, everybody loves this guy. Nobody wants to see him a heel. Like, why have you done this? Nobody's going to like this. Yeah. Nobody's going to buy this. Why would you turn Star Lord heel for no reason? And then whenever you said, oh, Cosmic Marvel, you know, it's been so untouched for so long,

like people can just do whatever they want and nobody gives a shit. Then I was like, okay, it's less like Steve Austin turning heel. And it's more like the WCW in the year 2000, which is like nobody's watching. So who gives it fuck? Here it is. Yeah. Do you like it? Do you not like it?

Just talk about it. Please say something about it. It does seem like they were just like trying to shake everything up with like resurrecting Lelandra and having her and Xavier go to space and do stuff. Because from I understand that decision is what fucked up some of the X-books originally because Xavier was supposed to be, I think, central to maybe the uncanny X-Men plot with him being imprisoned at the Gray Malkin Institute. Because they had that whole storyline of rogue wanting to,

break him out of prison and Cyclops being like, no, he needs to fucking stay because every time we let Xavier have an inch, he takes a mile. And then like, he just fucked off and went to space anyway. Because that was another thing, like his powers were out of control, but he got him fixed and went to space immediately after. And he was just like, all right, you guys have fun being on Earth. I'm out. Not wrong. No. Like, if you could fuck off in the space, be with your girlfriend, you probably do it. I guess. You know what I mean? You resurrected your girlfriend and your daughter. I probably, yeah, that was like the thing is like there was one last croakow and egg and it was revealed that little, I think it was real Llandre was inside of it. Yes.

That's what it was. What a reveal that was. We were all on Tenderhugs. Yeah. And then we got it and we all went. Ah. All right. Yep.

That was the thing. What about, uh, yeah, I just, yeah. On the D.C. side of stuff, they just announced. reign of the Superboys is going to be a thing they're doing. That signs. Yeah? Like a really terrible poem. I'm kind of curious to see.

Yeah, I'm kind of curious where it goes because like action comics. We know where it goes. We know where it goes. Thank you. Action comics for the last like several months, last year maybe even. Mark Wade has been writing it, but it's like takes place in the past. focusing on like Clark Ken as a teenager, like being superboy for the first time. And a lot of people are hoping that this is going to be them undoing Brian Michael Bendis,

aging up John Kent from 12 years old to 16, 17 year old, where they had, they, you know, tried to get a lot of attention by saying he's the main Superman right now and he's bisexual and has a pink-haired boyfriend and Fox News lost their fucking mind. didn't like it didn't care for it and honestly it did not many people seemingly read those books either it was like the same creative team as the nightwing book but I didn't hear as many good things about it

I just a lot of what I did hear about the book was sort of like there was a lot of weird performative social justice things on it like like you know John and his his partner like leading protests against like wage disparities or some such like that, like, about equality. Like, they were trying to, like, touch on, like, you know,

the early days of Superman back in the 1930s, he was kind of a social justice figure because he fought against, like, corrupt, you know, like tenants and stuff, like, you know, landlords and shit, corrupt government officials and stuff. And like, oh, we'll go back to the roots and have him, like, be that way in the modern day with a modern sensibility. But I think a lot of people just didn't really care for that. Well, you can't really do that right now because people who,

do like if you did Superman fight in all these people people like oh superman's woke now they did that with absolute Batman though they like absolute Batman a couple of months ago just put out I think their their annual is him beating up a bunch of proud boy white supremacists

because that's the one where he did a bunch of fucking wrestling moves and like I had to just I saw people online go wow Batman did the one winged angel that's so cool I'm like no it's stupid Batman did the one winged angel yeah that's the the one he went with.

The one that takes an insane amount of set up to do. Yeah, yeah. Just, fuck. So, yeah, you can look at it. If you look it up,

you'll find it. It's just, it's just, I'm not doing the muscle buster. Yeah. Like, just fucking kick him in the dick, you know?

I think, yeah, yeah, I don't know if it's just because, like, they're really trying to play up that partnership between Warner Brothers and AEW while it's still there. But,

yeah. That can't be it. That can't be it. They're putting up. I mean, they're, putting out the AEW comic. It's a DC

DC Comics AEDW crossover. But some pissy-ass AEDAW-2-issue comic book and then a Batman some kind of continuity with watching A.W. Those are two different things. So, way, way, way, way, way. He's like seven foot tall and like

jacked to the gills. I don't know why they have him doing Kenny Omega's moves. He wouldn't push him in AEW. They wouldn't push him in AEW. He'd be doing jobs. no they wouldn't they squash him repeatedly but the he puts the trio's belts on on five years later and then he moves and goes to you know a different company he has to have surgery to repair what about brian kage is he still there

right kid is still in a w yeah he's probably hurt though i mean he's brian cage is kind of what he does like didn't he like he was used like dirt for ages and then didn't he sign another contract to be with a w and like nobody's seen him and like i'm like i'm like i'm like a year. Well, they put him with the Don Callas group. Is he still with him? Yeah. They've got like, I think so.

Is it? Yeah, is he? I think he's injured. I, boy. Does he do anything? I just don't, I don't fucking care about wrestling at all these days. I don't have to look this up. Brian Cage. Injury?

Getting really tough sometimes. You know what I mean? It's not an easy path. A little bit like comics. We're like, It should be easy, man. Just do nice, fun things that we like. Yeah, he discovered an issue with his right knee implant,

which didn't grow into the bone requiring another surgery to fix and correct the problem. That was late 2025. Discovered an issue. Yeah. He had to have knee surgery again. Yeah. Yeah, it just got the implant. And they're like, we got to do it again, man.

We fucked it up. We'll give you three knees this time to make off for it. That's fair. Yeah, it works out well. Does it? Yeah, I don't know. I don't fucking know. Yeah, like you said, I just don't care about wrestling at all these days.

I was at a bar not that long ago, and they were like, they had like, it was just me and the bartender, and he had it on AEW and he was just sitting and watching. And then somebody came in, they're like, oh, I've heard of this show. And he's like, yeah, it's not very good. I thought that was fun. He's like, yeah, it's not very good. Like, you could see how many people aren't there. Why would he be watching it then? I'll fucking know, man.

I didn't hang around. I was like, I would rather be anywhere, but here at this moment. That's the problem with AW. People watch it, and they don't even know why they watch it. Anyway, we're not a wrestling podcast. Anyone. Yeah. Well, let's go back to the X-Men.

Okay. I know an X-Men podcast, either. No, we're going to have an expert podcast. No, we were talking about Superman, because I had a question. Yes, you had a question about Superman. Yes, you were talking about Superman, and then at some point they kind of showed him as a superboy. Yeah. My question is, at what point do you go from Superboy to Superman?

Is it the turning of 18? I think it's when he moved to a server. I think it's when he moved to Metropolis, to be honest with you. I think it's like when he moved out. What are you doing? Well, he was like, he went. to, he graduated high school and left home. I think that's what it was.

It's like him leaving, like, no longer living with his mom and dad is the transition to Superman. What, so like, roughly, like, what would that be? Would that be 18? That's probably 18, 19. Okay. So that is. Yeah. Even in Superman terms, that's still to see him like, yeah, you're a man now.

Yeah, I would say so. Okay. Because I think he's like, so before that he was. Yeah. He had like a little hat with a wee Colorado. No, no, but he is getting, so the way that they're illustrating him to represent him being young in this book is instead of boots, he's wearing red Chuck Taylor's with his Superman outfit. And he has like the shaggy, he has the shaggy hair that is popular with kids right now. Listen, I'm sure all of us know this, but we all know people who still wore Chuck tailors.

Oh, yeah. No, I know tons of people who still wear Chuck Taylor's. I don't because I'm old and I have issues with my body wearing Chuck Taylor's would murder me. We're all old. Yes. I don't have that issue. Fortunately, like, it's still wear sneakers and have a great time. I work exclusively just skid shoes.

It's converse like all the way down, you know. Yeah. They're comfy. They're so comfy. But yeah. So one of those things that in that rain of the Superboy's thing they're doing is Superman and the main Superman comic is being replaced by Superboy Prime. And this is a character that I would like to talk to you guys about at some point because

it's sort of like, it's kind of like a weird route. So Superboy Prime is, is Clark Kent from the Prime Earth. Prime Earth is the Earth we inhabit. So we are on Earth Prime right now. Okay? Let's follow me on that. Mm-hmm. And in Earth Prime, he is basically just, he's a big comic book fan and he just happened, his name happens to be Clark Kent.

And then one day he realizes he has powers. And like this revelation kind of breaks him and he becomes a villain and he's super powered because he is the Superman of the real world. So he has the ability to break continuity. and it was illustrated in Infinite Crisis by him punching the fourth wall and breaking it. And he...

They illustrated him punching the page like as the reader and then panels breaking. Yeah, it's Jeff Johns. Anyway, he became sort of a straw figure for internet fans, essentially, like fanboys because basically Superboy Prime hated a lot of the characters because he thought they ruined what he loved. They ruined, you know, the comic books that he read back on Earth Prime

and that he was going to fix it by getting rid of them. And so, like, he, like, killed a bunch of Teen Titans. He killed, like, the clone Superboy from the main continuity. He was supposed to originally kill Nightwing, apparently, but that was part of the Dan Didio hates Dick Grayson and wants him killed off for whatever reason that was a very important. that was a thing for years. But anyway,

they have kind of been bringing him back as this sort of redeemed lovable scamp kind of guy. Like he's the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, Deadpool of DC at the moment in that sense that he, you know, talks about, like, he was like talking about,

like how when someone freaked out when he's like, oh, no, no, you haven't read, I'm redeemed now. I had a team up with Superman. We're good. We're like, I'm a hero now again. It's cool. So it is weird.

because DC already has those fourth panel break, like those fourth wall breaking characters. Like Harley Quinn has an element of that these days. And Ambushbug, very famously, was the first one. And Dylan, we talked about ambush bug when we did that Keith Giffin, retrospective with Justice League International. So it just seemed... I remember that.

So it just seems weird that like, I'm curious to see when this starts, like, how it's going to go with, like, having the main character of the book, be Superboy Prime. But yeah, it's weird. It sounds weird. Yeah. I don't really, like I said, I don't really know what the point of this reign of the Superboy's storyline is going to be because it's also

going to feature, you know, the clone Superboy. There's a character called Man of Tomorrow. That's going to be brand new. And a lot of people are trying to, like, it's a mystery of who he is. But yeah, I don't know. It seems weird. Sounds like there's way too many super characters. there is a lot of super characters at the moment

um off the top of my head there's superman super boy super boy super boy his son um there is super whoa whoa blah blah blah blah super boy son no no super boy super boy superman

super boy okay I wanted to make sure that's the super boy the third this is super boy that is related to this Superman. Yeah. And not, Superboy didn't have a son that called him Superboy.

Hold on, Dylan. Hold on. So I'll, we'll start at the top again. There's Superman. That's Clark Kent. Then there is Superman. That is John Kent, who I refer to as Superboy, because I have a hard time

still calling him Superman. So there's Superman that's Clark Kent, Superman that's John Kent. There's Super Dash Man. That is a Chinese version of Superman. That's a product of the Chinese. Chinese government testing. Yeah.

Yeah. There's Super Boy, that is the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor. There's Supergirl. There's Power Girl, which is Supergirl from Earth 2. There is Super Woman. That's Lana Lang with some weird electro-like powers. There's Steel. That's John Henry Irons.

There's Steel, which is his I think niece. I think it's his niece. I think it's his niece. But his niece, who is also steal, there are these two kids that he, that Superman

adopted from like World World that have like Kryptonian powers, kind of. I think they're called Philosians, though. I'm on a fingers. Then there's somebody, oh, there's crypto, of course, so there's the super dog. And there's Streaky, the Super Cat. The dog doesn't coin.

Streaky, the Super Cat. Animals don't call. And, oh, God, I feel like I'm absolutely missing someone. I don't, oh, like, there's been a couple of occasions where Lois Lane has had Kryptonian powers for a short period of time, and she was also Superwoman. Is she a venom? And she was not Venom. No.

And yet, everybody else is. There's a lot of, so, like, D.C. is really big on, like, embracing the family dynamics of the characters, because D.C.'s always been, like, the sidekick company. So there's like that And you have the Batman family The Green Arrow has a family of characters And if you want to talk about some redundancies And that's going to get me a lot of hate

If Green Arrow fans hear me say that There's a lot of fucking archers That have some relation to Oliver Queen Some way or another Like a lot of them Like you think that like Batman having Four or five Robbins and three Batgirls is a thing Like Green Arrow has Arsenal

Speedy Aeroet red canary red arrow like speedy yeah speedy was his OG sidekick from back in the 1940s yeah so yeah no there's a lot of there's a lot of families the Flash family also full of redundancies we talked about them just cut that there if we'll just yeah we're the Flash the Flash impulse Max Mercury

Jesse Quick Jesse Quick. Yeah. Jesse Quick. She's from the Justice. Mr. Run Fas. Yeah, I can't, can't. I think there was one character

at one point named Accelerate. But yeah. Eels? Sure. Because his name is Miles per hour. There you go, Miles per hour. So Heels gets into that. He can always find a way to get Sonic

into the DC place. Jesus. All right. Well, yeah. Like you said, there's a, DC loves their family characters. And, you know, and they all, every single one of those characters have their devout fan base that will go to war for that character. Much like Sonic the Hedgehog.

Much like Sonic the Hedgehog. Biggs the Cat. He's a member of the Flash family. No. No, he isn't. He's not. Okay. I love Big the Cat.

I just love us sucking Sonic's toes. Bring that back. Part of the Flash family. you want that i don't love that's that but big the cat he stands on his own two feet no and yeah which is good because if he's not standing on him then he just all those going to be sucking on him i hope that that never happens to big the cat because i don't know why that makes me laugh so much that idraselba in particular that that's an issue he has but it just amuses me for like some people like that yeah like i said it's right now like i guess a lot of the comic book stuff is

just, I feel like the Marvel's just in a really weird place because they're also teasing like a big thing with the Avengers where it's being equated to disassembled where it sounds like going to kill off a bunch of characters. And Spider-Man's a mess, which we touched on.

The X-Men stuff is rebounding for a major revelation with a whole bunch of miniseries that are weirdly five issues. It just seems like five issues such an odd number. Like do six, you know? but uh five five yeah exactly five is probably because it's like a perfect trade like number like five issues is what you'd usually get in a trade paperback so maybe that's it yeah i thought four or six is i think six is i thought well i mean five's the middle ground isn't it so there you go that's

fair enough he's got us there it's mass baby there you go uh can't argue with the facts yeah and like like you said, DC's kind of just trucking along. I don't think they're, aside from the DC-K-O thing that's going on, that I've not read at all, and I don't feel upset about it. Like, I've skipped that event entirely. It did inspire me to make our tournament, which I've been enjoying doing with you guys. Yes. Considering.

I mean, our final four is Scarlet Witch, Apocalypse, John Constantine, and Parallax. Which is, like, way bad. better than what they could have done. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like, it sounds like Aquaman is, the rumor is Aquaman's winning. This is typical, like,

um, WWE push the guy that they like and who gives this shit? They like Aquaman. Yeah, he's going to win, like, he's going to beat the NACTS. He's going to beat Randy Orrin.

He's going to beat Triple A, he'll beat that Undertaker. not a wrestling mania obviously but at some point he'll beat the under digger when he finally when he finally does when he finally does lose he's gonna like tap out with a smile on his face and people are going to be

angry about it but he's gonna feel okay with it yeah the story made sense that's what matters it does I don't hear that by the way it's fine I just people are being weird about it he lost he put someone over on the end I think people would be weird about it the guy who never gives up Gives up, got in sometime, man.

That's inevitable. But that's the gimmick. That's why it's impactful. The guy that never gives up did give up. Like, that's why that makes a fucking difference. That's incredible. People are just, I, people got really upset about that. I'm like, you didn't see him win for the last 20 years.

Yeah. What the fuck are we talking about? There was a point where Johnson did nothing but win. And you're upset that they lost one match. Yeah. think so. You know, how about what the fuck up?

Well, John, how far are you into your movie watch for 2026? So far, I have watched 69, dude. Hey-oh, sex number. Was it a porn?

That's the right number, right? no it was not it was the erotic adventures of Zorro hey it did have Idris Alba in there what was he doing he was not sucking on anyone's toes but he did play a villain in it

which it's kind of a rare thing for him I guess these days I was saying that this came out like 12 years ago, so, you know. So, John, if, what, I don't think, did you say the title of the movie? No, I don't think I did. I think it was called No Good Deed.

No good deed. So, John, what did you? Oh, Edges Alba sucks off how many toes? Well, no good deed. You got to watch it. My night. Exactly. So, John, what did you give that on letterbox?

How many out of five toes Did you give that? I gave it generous two toes Out of five. Oh, he could get a lot of toes. Yeah. It was like a schlocky

thriller where he played a serial killer who like escaped prison and then terrorized a woman and then got killed because of course he did. That's what happens if you suck toes. Learn a lesson, kids.

There you go. Don't say we never did anything for you. All right. Education on podcast. John, where can they find you on letterboxed? They can find me at Big John Bowsky, Oamud. And Dylan, what are you getting up to you this week? I do a radio show every Monday night.

It's on BountDigitalRadio.com. You can go and listen to it online. if you have access to the internet. Every Monday night at 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock on, it's at UK time, so you can adjust your clocks accordingly. I play a lot of rock music, a lot of grunge music, a lot of fun stuff.

When I'm not doing that, I will draw pictures on Twitch sometimes. It's spooky l'roo. And then those animated pictures will go up online on YouTube at Team Crows and I. I think a lot of the links are down there. We put up another video. forget when this video is going to come out.

So I'm going to say, we put up a new video last week. I don't know. The second week of February? I think this would be going out? By that point, I hope that I would have put another video out. So, yeah. I'm going to say, yeah, that that happened. But check it out.

Please like our videos because I want people to like that. There you go. Hey, that's all you need. That's it. I got stuff happening. we're still putting stuff together in a bit of a rebuild on some things. I'm going to play around with some other stuff before I go. But by the time you're listening to this, there's been hopefully a couple more.

But, you know, timeline-wise, as of right now, the first edition of new number ones has been posted. The first episode is like eight minutes long. Future episodes will probably be way less than that because, A, I'm not introducing the premise of the show. And I'm also only doing one book at a time. but also you already know by this point because this is in February yes you already know that those episodes are shorter so they're like three minutes maybe anyway yeah so you can you can find those exclusively on YouTube we're not I'm not going to put those out anywhere else so if you want to just see me talking about some random you know new number ones for stuff that's not DC or Marvel by

all means check that out additionally I have my other show large old cup which is you know going through a bit of a rebuild and figuring out what I want to do with that moving forward um until then we will you know next time we'll see you then goodbye bye bye bye bye that was a very spooky one it was it's the season yeah st valentine it is yeah february baltys day it's a scene