The Smark Avengers - San Diego Comic Con News

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

For decades now, San Diego Comic Con has been the closest thing to Christmas morning for comic book movie and television fans around the world. Big announcements, surprises, and appearances steal the headlines for days after the convention comes and goes and this year was no different! Dylan is out this week but have no fear as the remaining lads Corey and Jon sort their way through the big news stories out of SDCC as well as discuss their own insights and opinions on the next slate of Marvel and DC offerings for the big and small screen alike. 🎭 Sit back and relax as the Smark Avengers (minus one) discuss:Ryan Gosling being cast as the MCU’s Ghost RiderThe Avengers Doomsday presentation and the next phase of the MCUBlack Panther 3 and the new Black Panther actor The new trailer for the DC Comics’ Clayface movie More details on the Lanterns HBO Max seriesMarvel’s new Indiana Jones comic book seriesThe lead-up to Iron Man’s 700th issueEddie Brock’s return to the Venom symbioteThe Punisher joining the Avengers line-up in 2027💬 Join the discussion: What was the biggest news from Comic Con in your opinion? 👍 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!

We're just a trio of good Christian boys. Exactly. We're just setting a good example for the rest of the world. Ah, that feels like a good place to start. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Spark Defender's name is Corey. And with me is just John. Dylan is, he didn't give us a reason why he wasn't going to be here.

He just said, I'm not here. You do something on your own. I think he's gone to the moon again with Katie Perry. We have a lot of hot dogs up there, apparently. Yeah. Oh, boy. well that being said as we always strive to be topical here in the smart Avengers uh sandy go comic con was about a month ago

by the time this airs so that being said um we're gonna i think just because it's the two of us we're just going to kind of have like a laid back look at the high notes of what was unveiled at Comic-Con. Now, in recent years, San Diego Comic-Con, and by recent years, I mean like the last 10-15 of them. Not a lot of comic book news really comes out of San Diego Comic-Con. It's mainly like movies and TV series. Did you find that to be the case this year as well? Yeah, pretty much. I think most of the big headlines are about the movies and TV shows and stuff. But there, I mean, there was some comic news that came out of it. So I figure we can kind of cover that as well.

Well, I, my, my fingers are so far from the pulse that the only, I only saw like two pieces of news and I'm sure we're going to cover them. So, John, you're going to be leading this one. So by all means, kick us, kick us off. What is the most recent, or I guess, well, what news story do you want to start off with? Well, how about we start off with Ryan Gosling being announced as the new Ghost Rider in a movie that's apparently coming in, I think, 2028. Okay. With Sean Levy directing it, who, him and Gosling are kind of working on the new Star Wars Starfighter movie, which is coming out, I believe, next to. year. So they've got some history together. Sean Levy also directed

Deadpour and Wolverine as well. So yeah, like he's got some Marvel pedigree too. I was going to ask, has he done anything in horror? Because I always think a ghostwriter, I feel like you kind of have to embrace horror a little bit. Yeah. I don't. He's more known for being like a comedy director than anything else. Okay. Like he's kind of done some sort of fantasy stuff with like Night at the Museum. But that's that's like it really in terms of anything remotely close to.

horror or like even then I wouldn't say that's horror but it's you know more fantastical stuff going on well so he's so he's collaborated with Ryan Reynolds on free guy the Adam project and Deadpool and Wolverine uh he was uh yes this is Ryan Gosling yes uh he was also an executive producer for the Stranger Things series so we could say that's a little bit of horror pedigree considering the supernatural element of that show. Mm-hmm. Do we know anything about Ghost Rider, though, aside from the director in Ryan Gosling starring as the titular character? At the moment, we don't know a whole lot.

Just that Gosling is the one who kind of, he's been talking this up for many, many years now. specifically that he's got like ghostwriter yeah he's kind of dropped it into conversations in interviews and stuff for a while now and I believe it was him who pitched the idea as well like to Kevin Feigey and he has a weird connection to the original Nick Cage movie because he's married to Eva Mendez who was co-starred in it as well yeah she was the female lead So... And yeah, I believe he's playing the Johnny Blaze version, but... Yeah, that was gonna be my next question, because there have been multiple Ghostwriters over the years, the main two being Johnny Blaze and Danny Catch.

Yeah. Is Ghost Rider, like, one of the only Marvel characters that has not been affiliated with the Avengers Doomsday? Because, like, they've been... The X-Men have been brought into the fold, and you know we saw Blade come into the Deadpool movie with Wolverine. Is there a possibility that you could see Nicholas Cage's ghostwriter in Doomsday? I'm not sure about it.

I would say the one thing that makes me think possibly is that Nick Cage did technically cameo in the Flash movie as like the Superman, the Tim Burton Superman, yeah, that never was. So, I mean, it was like a CGI version of Nick Cage, but if he was willing to sign his lightness

away for that, maybe he'd be willing to, you know, pop in against Dr. Doom and you know, give him a penance there or whatever. Oh, that's, yeah, I don't know if we want to do that. I, because I feel like they're building up Doom to be such a big deal immediately.

like one of the running gags in the uh there's a subreddit for marvel comics called a marvel circle jerk uh appropriate you know great name um where it just talks about how the pennant stare is like the most nerfed ability in marvel comics like if you want to show that somebody is a big serious threat you have ghost writer give him the pennant stare and then they no sell it because i think he's done it to heartage i think he's done it to uh Thanos i mean i He just doesn't care. No one cares about the Pennant Stair. Yeah.

The Nicholas Cage Ghost Rider movies, memory serves, they weren't terribly well received. I remember being really surprised they made a second one. And in the second one, it sort of like captured some of the more insane

Nicholas Cage, like stuff. Like, there's a scene of him pissing fire, for example. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was really, really surprised that they're going to go ghost writer, mainly because when they were doing agents of shield and whatnot, they brought in the fourth or fifth ghost writer, I guess, Robbie Reyes. And that was completely unaffiliated with Johnny Blaze or Danny Catch. So, like, I guess this is a two-part question, like, part one, were you, like, what were you feeling? on the previous presentations of Ghost Rider

and then two, what do you think would make what makes a good Ghost Rider like story or movie in your opinion? Well, it's hard to save the second question because I am traditionally not like a big Ghost Rider fan. I've not read any of his own comics or any of the versions of Ghost Rider's like own comics.

He's only been with, and he's popped up elsewhere that I've kind of read him. So I don't have a huge sort of fandom for Ghost Rider. I do think Ryan Gosling as an actor is fantastic. Like, I'm a huge fan of him. I think the other guys is one of the funniest movies of the last, like, 20 years. And it's largely because of him. so I would definitely recommend that

but in terms of like the the original movies like they weren't great but I mean I'm a huge fan of Nicholas Cage as well so

you know seeing him mug for the camera is my kind of thing so I you know I kind of got like a perverse enjoyment from watching them, even though you know, I don't think they were the best

representation of the character or like, you know, necessarily good movies as well. Yeah. But, you know, it is what it is. That's fair. Yeah, I watched the first Ghost Rider movie and was, like you said, was not, was not terribly thrilled by it. I didn't think it was, I didn't think it was that good.

Mainly because, like, Nicholas Cage is somebody who, you got to get him just right. And that was not one of those moments. Uh, other aspect of the question of like, what do you think makes a good ghost writer? I've read a lot of the 90s ghost writer with Danny Catch. Danny Catch is like,

my favorite version of the character and I think like you have to embrace like the horror element of Ghost Rider dealing with demons and the supernatural and what have you so I do know that's kind of the spin they go with it

there's a great Danny Catch villain name I believe is Blackout who is a vampire that I've always wanted to see like a live action take of plus Ghost Rider has their own version of scarecrow called Scarecrow. That's, you know, if you really want to fuck with people, two scarecrows out there in the comics world. So, yeah.

So I'm, I have a friend who recently watched Project Hail Mary and they've become obsessed with Ryan Gosling. So they were, they were very pleasantly surprised and happy with the reveal, especially because he kind of sold the reveal in his sort of quirky way of kind of looking around like he was just as surprised to be standing on the stage. and I know that they were really a big fan of him as Ken and the Barbie movie. So I've seen a lot of fan art already of a ghost writer wearing the Ken pink and rainbow hoodie that says I'm Kenuff. So the fan artists are very, very quick, as they always see. But yeah, no, I'm curious to see more details as it comes out. I'm sure if he's a big fan of the character, it's going to be the Johnny Blaze version, for sure.

He does have the better origin story. You know, a stunt motorcycle driver who sells a soul to save his dad's life. That's a great origin. Danny Catches is sort of like, he just kind of stumbles into it in a way. So he has like a, there's like the,

to transform into ghost rider. His motorcycle has like a crest on it that he has to touch. That like kind of, It appreciates the transformation. So like you said, I like Danny a lot, but I feel like Johnny would be the better choice to put in the movie for sure. So you mentioned that weird, as we're mentioning, you know, Nicholas Cage is the possibility of Doomsday that leads into the next story that we can talk about. Yeah. I mean, it's hard to say if this is like a story on.

not but it's it I mean doomsday had a full blown trailer released in the run-up to comic con and like it's our first full look at like

the doctor doom in action and how all these you know multitude of characters are coming together and stuff and there was also like a slightly different trailer that they played as well in the actual presentation,

which featured some extra dialogue hinting it, Dr. Doom's tragic past, fueling his actions in the movie. So, I mean, we're getting more and more hints of what to expect with Doomsday. There's been like a lot of sort of, I'm not sure if you'd call them fan theories or like people claiming to you know yeah I'm not sure how much credence I would give those people

claiming that kind of stuff but a lot of it is kind of looking kind of accurate at the moment so who knows but one of the things that did happen at Comic Con which kind of got a lot of press

was during the panel Ryan Reynolds showed up in Deadpool costume, which has got the rumor mail going. Once again, that Deadpool could be involved in this movie, even though he's not been announced. And I mean, I think there's a very distinct possibility of that happening.

Just like I think there's a very distinct possibility that there's other characters going to be involved as well, which haven't been. announce just because, you know, they want to keep some surprises back in their back pocket. So the, I actually saw a little bit more of that. Ryan Reynolds spent the entire day in Deadpool costume just walking around and interacting with like, like, hands and stuff.

So like that was, you know, that is, we're kind of talking about Ryan Gosling being a fan of ghost writer and pitching for that. Ryan Reynolds has like been the ultimate Deadpool fan for like, 20-some years now. So I saw the interaction. I thought it was fun. You know, of course it was. I imagine he's going to play off Robert Danny Jr. very well if they get the opportunity to go back and forth.

I am hoping that I'm hoping that Doom is more like doom and not just an evil, Tony Stark. I would like to see that, you know, because Robert Day Jr. is a critically acclaiming. actor, he's got range. We don't have to just have like Tony Stark again, you know? Well, from what we've seen so far in the trailers, he's, he seems a lot more serious than yeah, Tony Stark. And he's got the accent going on as well. So he's, it's not just like phoning it in by the looks of it.

From the tiny, tiny snippets we've seen so far, he's going the extra mile to kind of give Dr. Doom a different presence to Tony Stark. Yeah. I guess the problem or potential problem with that is maybe that kind of neuters some of his natural charisma if he's, you know, trying to play it too serious or whatever. But I mean, we'll see, I guess. Yeah, I just don't think you're going to, I don't think that would be a problem because there's already a lot of people in it. And if you just have Robert Dynia Jr. as Tony Stark 2 in the scenery, like he tends to do in most of those movies,

then you would get lost with all the other characters that are there and interacting and stuff as well. So I think like having him be a more serious, you know, take on the character wouldn't be a terrible thing. It would open up a lot of that quipping space for other people. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've already, I saw in one of them, I assume Red Guardian is in like a full, like, sponsored track suit, like a NASCAR driver. in like one of the screenshots I saw where it seems like the new Avengers are talking to the Fantastic Four.

Yeah. Some of the footage I've seen has been very interesting. The Gambit and Shang Chi fight, you know, was interesting. No, the question is, you know, because they showed Mystique transforming into Black Widow, their Rebecca Remain's version. She's just Rebecca Remain.

She's been Rebecca Remain for like 30 years now. I'm just kidding. Yeah. But yeah, so Rebecca Remain transforming into, you know, Yelina Bilova, is that actually Gambit or just another transformation? Because I don't think we see who she's fighting. I think she is fighting Black Widow. So it's like Black Widow playing itself. Yeah, yeah.

So I will say that from the trailer that I did see, it is very interesting. and kind of cool to see all those different characters interacting. Because I think, like, the, I didn't have that same feeling with Infinity War, uh, in game, because all of those characters had been interacting previously. So this feels like there's a lot of new blood interacting with each other. That feels a little more exciting to me. Yeah, I can totally get what you're saying there. Like, I think the fact that it is bringing in, what is it now, almost 30 years worth

of movie history into one big epic crossover kind of gives this a special feeling. But whether they can pull all those threads together is what worries me, because I've heard rumors of like them struggling to kind of, you know, like chop the movie down in the get it sweet and get it into a coherent, like, you know, ban-pleasing state in time for the release in December. I don't think you want to give the five-hour Snyder cut in theater. Oh, no, definitely not. I feel like with that many named characters, you could.

I think a lot of people are going to, it's going to be weird to say, I learned a long time ago in comic books. in particular. Every character has a fan. Every single fucking one of them. Like, I used to go to the comic book resources message board in the 2000s.

And there was this one person. And if you're, if you happen to be watching this, this is kind of a shout out to you. They were the biggest fan of this character named Blue Jay in DC Comics. In Blue Jay was a person who their power was they could shrink down to the size

of a Blue Jay and they could fly. And they were a massive fan of this character. And like every day they'd have some sort of a post or a topic that they would come up with to just find an excuse to talk about Blue Jay. So that being said, I do feel like there's going to be some very disappointed fans when their favorite character doesn't get a lot of screen time or heaven forbid their favorite character gets killed off to make Doom look like the big bad threat. that he is.

Yeah, yeah. So I think that's going to be an interesting balancing act, and I'm not going to name names, but X-Men fans are notoriously very fickle. And I feel like if something happens to the X-Men, they are not going to be terribly happy. Well, the thing is, like, they basically announced that, not like properly announced, but...

Kevin Feige, yeah, he's dropped it into conversation during an interview that the next phase of the MCU is basically going to be the mutant saga. So they're going to go all in on the mutants after Doomsday and was it Secret Wars next after that? Wars after that. So yeah, so basically, you know, get ready for mutants coming out the Ying'an. So that means there's not going to be any room for the old mutants, I guess. Yeah. Well, and one of the big rumors is that in the Spider-Man movie is that the big bad red herring is played by Sadie Sink, who is playing a certain red-headed mutant.

because the whole mind control thing that we're seeing characters, you know, being forced to do things they wouldn't normally do. So I did see some, a quote, leak about the upcoming Spider-Man movie that heavily suggested that. But that was also something a lot of people said is, you know, we see all these other X-Men, but we don't see FAMCy Jensen as Gene Gray or Phoenix in any of it. So yeah, I could see them not wanting to necessarily bring back the old Gene Gray and introduce a new Gene Gray within six months of each other. Yeah. I guess, I mean, well, as we record this, Spider-Man is coming out like, I think tomorrow maybe over here. Oh, okay. So, yeah, all right.

We would have already known then. Yeah. We're going to look real foolish when it turns out that she's actually playing Blue Jay. Yeah. Well, in more MCU news, though, we found out that there's going to be a Black Panther 3, and we have a new actor stepping in as Black Panther. This is a gentleman by the name of David Johnson. who's had like a couple of pretty good years.

He was one of the best parts of Alien Romulus. Oh, okay. He was very, very good in the Long Walk as well, the Stephen King adaptation. And they've basically said he's going to be playing the son of Tachala, who was introduced at the end of the second movie. but he was introduced as sort of a young kid. So I...

Maybe some aging. Yeah. Maybe some tiny, whiny shenanigans based off of Doomsday and Secret Wars, I guess. What does that mean for the actress who played Shuri, though? Well, she was on stage for the announcement

and has, like I saw an interview with the after the fact as well, saying how much she was looking forward to David Johnson stepping into the role and how great she thought he was going to be at it. So it doesn't look like there's any sour grapes there, even though it looks like a bit of a demotion for her. You would think there would be, considering it is like, you went from the main character to the second movie, and now you're back in a support role.

Hmm, yeah But I mean, who's to say she's even going to survive the events of Doomsday? Yeah, they could be in the next one. Yeah. So, okay. It is really funny. Those Black Panther movies do so well. Which, by the way, I was, when I saw some of the Doomsday stuff, I saw Prince Namor,

and I totally fucking forgot that Namor was in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. already. I was like, oh shit, that's right. Namor is there. I was a little disappointed. They got rid of a lot of his sort of South American, like, ancient tribal stuff. Like the

hashtag Incan vibe that he had in Black Panther 2 seems to be gone. Yeah. Looks like it's going more for the kind of... Like comic book. You know, the bloc. Yeah, yeah. It's fair enough. Yeah.

You know, I think I might be the only person that is going to talk about Namor McKenzie in the year 2026 at this point. That and my friend Layla, that's my friend Layla, who remember I said every person, every character has their, has their fan. I have a friend from college who was a super Namor fan. Oh, nice. Yep.

That was one of the weird things I'd ever heard in my entire life. Like, really? The Submariner. Fair enough. Anyway. So yeah, no, that's very cool. They're going to do with their Black Panther movie. Like I said, those always do really well.

I do wish that that translated better to the comics for Black Panther because it always seems like they're going through various relaunches as well. But we've talked about that that's just a Marvel comics issue right now that, you know, hopefully won't be an issue much longer with the new editor-in-chief. Well, see, about that, I guess. Yeah. It feels like, I don't know if it's the editor-in-chief, or if maybe it's Disney itself, which is calling the shots there, but whatever the reason, it's not working.

Isn't Fikey kind of over it now as well? I'm not sure how much he, like, involvement he has on the comic book side of things. I wouldn't have thought much of anything. I think he must have his hands, with like the movies and the TV shows. Because one of the things I did see is he said that they have movies planned out to 2042. Jesus Christ.

Yeah. And at that point we're almost 40 years of making Marvel movies. Like under the disease. In 2042. Holy shit. Yeah, we're not even out of the 20s yet. And they've already got the 30s figured out. So. Oh, man.

Yeah. Remember how he said that like, I'm still very firmly of the opinion. that I think you can judge the superhero bubble on the performance of Spider-Man. Just because Spider-Man, when I think of Marvel Comics, I think of Spider-Man. I'm not the biggest Spider-Man fan, but he is their guy. And if a Spider-Man movie underperforms, I feel like that's sort of the canary in the coal mine. Because it happened with Spider-Man 3 and Sony, and then it happened with Amazing Spider-Man 2 with Sony. So we will see what happens with the fourth Spider-Man movie?

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I will say, like, I have not read any of the reviews, which has started coming out today, because I don't want to spoil the movie for myself. But the little sort of log lines I've seen have basically said it's going to be, it is like the best Spider-Man movie since Ramey's Spider-Man 2. and it's like the most street level and authentic to the comic books that it's ever been as well. So. Yeah, I will say that that was something that kind of deterred me from really getting into the MCU Spider-Man was the connection to Tony Stark. I didn't care for Peter Parker with, you know, infinite gadgets and what have you. Yeah, it felt like just not who Spider-Man.

is at all. He was basically Iron Man Jr. at that point and it's like, well, we already have an Iron Man. We don't need a junior. But they seem to have course correct it and you know, given him

his own thing now. So, you know, I'm very much looking forward to it. I'm going to go watch on Friday morning. So, you know, I might report back next week and let you guys know how I feel about it.

A month later. Yeah. After the movie's been in the theater for a month, we will get you the review. Oh, our time scale sucks. Yep. Always on the verge of breaking news a month later. But it's good to say.

We talked a lot about Marvel. Do you want to talk about some DC side of things as well? Oh, boy, I will tell you, DC in the movie side of their, business is it's been a constant state of dread for me

since year 2000 probably 1997 maybe like you said I'm the DC guy I love DC comics that's my publisher but boy oh boy

they really struggle with the whole movie thing considering they've been owned by a fucking movie production company for like 40, 50 years. Yeah, yeah. Oh, boy, all right. Yep, let's get into what James Gunn has planned for the DC Cinematic Universe.

All right. Well, it didn't really touch too much on upcoming movies aside from Clayface, which is, I believe, part of the DCU umbrella.

Like, I don't think it's in else worlds or like you know in else worlds like the matt reeves apparently is going to be tied into the larger DC plans excellent okay well they did release um a new trailer I believe I think there was one a while ago and this new trailer is kind of uh shown a lot more of what the plot is going to be with uh you know Matt Hagan getting disfigured by a local mob boss and then being, you know, promised a miracle cure from Naomi Aki's character. And that then causes his flesh to turn into this, like, unstable clay. And it very much looks like it, you know, brings about his descent into madness as well.

So it all looks very, like, Cronenberg-like. You know, David Cronenberg. Oh yeah, very much so lots of stuff with like his eye being kind of like you know stuck over basically

so he has to kind of rearrange his face to get it back again and all that kind of stuff so are any signs that he will be turning into a giant mud monster man there is a very slight hint at the very end of

the trailer where he is you can just see just over his shoulder basically and then Naomiaki is in front of the camera reacting as this shoulder seems to grow in size and mass so it feels like we are going to see the the monster like clay face that we all know and love at some point in this movie so we've we've talked about clay face recently with the when we were talking about the golden age Batman villains and and the Silver Age Batman villains, is Matt Hagan in this movie a movie star? Like, are they just, are they combining the origins?

Yes, I believe so. That's what they did with, um, the animated series as well. The Basil Carlo, it was Basil Carlo as, you know, was the clay face. But then it was the disfigurement and the clay cream that made him

transform. which is like the Matt Hagan style because as we talked about the original Basil Carlo was just wearing a mask and stabbing people. So it is interesting that we were still kind of combining the Clayfaces.

And it was interesting they went with Matt Hagan. I would have thought they'd go on with Basil Carlo considering even in the comics right now Clayface is Basil Carlo. Oh really? Yeah. Been Basil Carlo for a while. He said I think the last time

Hagan was seriously used. I think he was killed off post-crisis. And I think they, they've never shied away from the fact they've had multiple clay faces, including a lady clay face. So, so yeah, it is, like I said,

it's interesting we're going with Hagan as the main character, even though he's seemingly going to have the Basil Carlo actor background. It still blows my mind that we're getting a clay face movie before we're getting a Batman movie. We haven't even cast a Batman. we not even cast a Batman, but we got Clayface and we got Creature Commandos

and we had two seasons of Creature Commandos, two seasons of Peacemaker, a season of lanterns, two Superman, three Superman movies, essentially. Yep. And then we're going to get Batman, which is so weird to think. Because normally, like, you know, I love Superman to death. but much like when you think of DC and you think of Spider-Man or Marvel and you think of Spider-Man, most people would say they think a DC and they think a Batman.

Or it's usually like a neck-and-neck with Superman. So it is really odd to think that we still have no, not even a rumor as to who could be Batman. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was that the only bit of DC news to come out was just the update on Clayface? Because I have a feeling that I think they know. know that Marvel was going to come out swinging. So like we're not going to try to, we're not going to put anything big out and bury ourselves.

Yeah, they, they didn't really announce much else. But they did have, um, uh, I believe like a lanterns panel. And they did show a new kind of trailer for the, the series as well, which kind of hints it like a bigger kind of, kind of world than the first trader did because this is all about

kind of how training up the new green lantern but they're doing so in like sort of I believe Nebraska doing like a sort of murder mystery in a small town type thing

which you know feels kind of low stakes and stuff but But this new trailer kind of shows more of the space side of things. It shows how Jordan visiting Sinestro in prison confirms that Nathan Philean's Guy Gardner is going to be making an appearance. And there's rumors as well that there may be hints in there of the Red Lantern Court

coming into play as well and we did find out that the man hunters are going to be by the sounds of it the main villains in this or at least a big part of the story that's unfolding who were like these robots who were the first cosmic peacekeepers

before getting replaced by the Green Lantern Corps so it could be interesting What I've seen from that, I did see the scene with Sinestro speaking to Hal Jordan, with Hal, you know, basically admitting that he doesn't think that he's training John to be his backup. He's training him to be his replacement, meaning that the guardians of Oa are looking to have him removed. Because that's like a big thing about the Green Lantern Corps is that it's ran by the Guardians of the Galaxy, which is not the, you know, not the, not the, not the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the

little, little blue men with big heads and white hair. The guardians are, you know, they basically run the lantern core and they're the ones who created the manhunters. And when the manhunters went rogue, that's when they got rid of them and crafted the, the, the power rings out of the central battery. Um, but they are the most paranoid beings in there. They're very cold, very logical, and constantly fucking things up because they think they know best. So it's kind of like a recurring storyline of like the Guardians did what they thought was best,

and it kind of just made a mess for everyone else. So like to see that, you know, Sinestro, because Sinestro and Hal Jordan, you know, they were former partners before Sinestro turned and, you know, crafted the yellow power ring. and inevitably founded his own core, the Sinestro Corps. But he and Hal have a level of weird respect and admiration for one another that even as bitter rivals, they still kind of, it's a little, a little bit like Xavier and Magneto to a degree. Yeah, yeah.

So it is interesting to see that they're already playing at the idea of like, you can't trust the guardians with, you know, how basically going, yeah, I think they're trying to do me in. Because that also is, you know, kind of pushing that I saw some people theorizing that Howl's going to maybe go parallax in the first season on the show. And that being like the big push for John Stewart as the main Green Lantern at that point, because Hal would have turned. Which if that's the case, that's, I mentioned X-Men fans being fickle and weird.

Green Lantern fans are about the same. There's so many Earth green lanterns out there. Like we're going to have three Earth lanterns already. Mind you, sector 2814 is not just the planet Earth. It is a part of a larger galaxy that two lanterns get assigned to. And so in this entire galaxy, they picked two lanterns and a backup out of Earth.

You know? Yeah. And then we're not even factoring in like, Kyle Rainer, Simon Baz, Jessica Cruz. I can't remember the other girl's name. Joe, something. But yeah, there's a lot of Earth lanterns is what I'm getting at. But I do like the idea that Guy Gardner was originally the backup lantern.

And I do like the idea that he has just been running around on Earth as a member of the Justice gang, kind of like throwing his weight around, knowing that Hal is like off world doing important lantern shit and he just like gets to claim that he's the lantern. So that really fits in with his character a bit. But yeah, no. I think it's going to be, I think lanterns has, it has definitely faced a lot of scrutiny from Green Lantern fans. There were a lot of Lantern fans that were upset that Hal was not the main character.

They were upset that Howell is being played by an older actor. They were upset that, I think he'd grant him. Orson got in on it that the costuming is not terribly green. It's very dull looking. And like when you think of green lantern, you think of bright fucking green. So it has faced a lot of scrutiny that if you were to ask green lantern fans, are you excited about lanterns? I feel like you would get mixed responses.

I think there's definitely a camp that's excited and there's a camp that is going, man, I just hope they don't fuck it up like the Ryan Reynolds movie did. Because we were talking about green lanterns. They were fucking green in that movie. All green seats. Everybody looked basically naked.

It feels like it is trying its hardest to do the exact opposite of what that Ryan Reynolds movie did. So it's definitely leaning into like the hard rating as well or the swearing

and whatnot so you know I don't know that feels like a weird choice to me as well like these are essentially comic book movies which you know you'd think it's sort of aimed at kids as much as they

are adults but you know you're sort of cutting your audience in half by going that route when you don't need to really. And it's also weird when you think about like the two companies. Like Marvel has always been like the

company where the characters are considered the most relatable. Because all the characters were based off of Stanley's various neuroses. You know, his, you know, it was his angry issues and the Hulk, his sort of, you know, down on his luck kind of bitterness at times being in Spider-Man, his existential dread in Silver Surfer. So you think of Marvel being the one with like, these are like the relatable characters and DC being like the kid-friendly ones because of the whole, you know, they're the modern day myths.

That's always the way that people have viewed the DC characters versus the Marvel characters. Marvel characters are supposed to be the relatable ones. And DC is supposed to be your modern day mythology of like bigger than life heroes facing bigger than life threat. threats. So it's definitely curious that Creature Commandos was basically was rated R. Peacemaker was rated R. Lanterns is going to be a really hard rating by the sound of it. And then you kind of have the Superman movies, which were not rated R, but, you know, it's curious.

It's very, very curious. Yeah. I don't know if that's just James Gunn doing those rated R movies just because he can. Yeah. Just James Gun doing James Gun? Pretty much, which makes you think how long is this whole DCU thing going to last under his, you know, leadership? If the movies aren't performing as well as they should do because, you know, most of the audience can't get in to see it. So, yeah.

but that's not been a problem with the movies. It's all been the HBO Max series that have been like the harder ratings. Yeah, yeah. And it's, you know, like, yeah, I mean, it's an excellent point. Our first thing for James Gunn was an animated series that had like killing Nazis, swearing and fucking in it, you know, like, the first, right out the gate. We're going to have an animated series that's not intended for children whatsoever. But that is what it is.

We've definitely talked about how James Gunn has definitely been making choices as the showrunner for DC. What with, like I said, I mean, doing Clayface before we do Batman. You know, and it kind of started with Suicide Squad, you know, kind of being the test run. And that movie being really bombastic and really violent. And, you know, most of the characters not making it to the end. Yeah. So that being said, anything else that came out of San Diego Comic-Con that you feel like's worth a mention? Well, I think there's some more like comic-related things that we could talk about quickly.

Like Marvel have announced that they're going to be making a five-issue limited series Indiana Jones comic, which feels. crazy to me considering, you know, Disney bought Lucasfilm back in 2012 and there's been Star Wars comics pretty much ever since then, but they've not tapped into

Indiana Jones as like a resource to use. So how it's taken them this long to delve into that, I don't know. But I'm interested because it's basically set right after the the first movie.

It's promising the impossible return of an arch enemy and it's like a quest for an artifact that apparently Marion Ravenwood has got a hands on

so it's going to involve lots of the globe trotting that you'd expect and it's written by Jason Aaron as well who I have a lot of faith in as a writer. So Okay. You know, my, my hopes are up for this one.

So, yes, the Star Wars books have been very prevalent with Marvel for a bit now. They're constantly putting out new Star Wars books, like one ends and another begins. I think they've had, like, a reoccurring, like, I think they have at least three or four series going on at once. And as soon as one ends, another one starts up with, like, I think Dr. Afra being, like, one of the longest runs that are current in Marvel, or if it hasn't ended recently. But they did, I mean, when they got the rights to Alien versus Predator,

they rolled those out rather quickly too. I mean, I read the first few Alien series they put out. So it is really interesting that they went with, you know, like you have your science fiction with Star Wars that they were able to kind of get into almost immediately. And then they got their horror side with Predator, an alien and they got into that rather quickly. But it feels like the

adventure side with Indiana Jones, like, it's been over a decade and they're just now getting into it. I don't know if it's just because I don't think I don't think that's the kind of book Marvel puts out. I feel like they don't really have adventure books in that sense.

Like, I could see, I could see like Mad Cave Studio. I could see Dynamite Comics or IDW putting out like an Indiana Jones adventure comic because they have characters like that that they've used before characters that are based off of like old serial, you know, acts that used to air before movies. But yeah, yeah.

I don't know. It's interesting. I do not have the same level of faith in Jason Aaron that you do. I don't dislike Jason Aaron. I just feel like he's had a lot more misses than hits for me lately. Remember when Dylan and I were even that Scrooge McDuck comic? Oh, yeah, yeah. Didn't really have the most satisfying conclusion.

And that was Jason Aaron writing it. But, you know, also maybe just comedy's not his forte in that sense. But, hey, you're actually talking about ghost writer and trying to get into it. Jason Aaron's ghost writer from the 2000s, I would give that a look if I were you. You might really dig it. I know a lot of people really dig it. I will add that to the list. So, yeah.

So we got Indiana Jones coming out through Marvel Comics. could be very interesting, could be the beginning of a new series of genre comics that they get into. Yeah, yeah. They also announced the plans for Iron Man leading into his

700th issue coming out, I believe, towards the tail end of this year, or maybe it's like early next year. But it's basically they're going to be running two stories in parallel, like issue by issue heading towards this issue 700.

One side of it is going to be the incarcerated Ironman, where Tony Stark has been centered the vault for some reason, and so he's locked up and I imagine trying to get out. Well, the other side of it is going to be a storyline called War Machine, with Rody basically, you know, stepping up in Tony's absence and forming his own strike team of, like, armored warriors. I thought Rody was dead. Oh, man, I've lost track of how many times he's died and come back. Yeah, I'm about to say, I thought I thought Rody died, but okay, that's great news.

I've been reading the recent Iron Man series, so I can definitely see where we could get to Tony. start getting imprisoned for sure there's been laying on this sort of ground this foundation of advanced idea mechanics trying to create their own Tony Stark and yeah finding someone that has now become the new scientist supreme but they're definitely laying the ground level because there's that and then there's Citizen V which I we talked about in a previous episode the mystery of who that is and it's somebody who's connected to Tony and like definitely

pointing like pointing out there there's some stuff in the in the background that's going on that is not the best so yeah so yeah definitely I can definitely see where the groundwork is for that and that's great because we also talking about very recently

Iron Man should be a very big marquee character for Marvel Comics and he has not been able to continue having an ongoing in recent years so that's yeah that's good they're getting a renewed focus. And hopefully, the legacy numbering sticks as your request as Marvel's new editor-in-chief

would have been. Yeah, exactly. So, do you have any other comic book news? Because there was something that I saw that I thought was fucking bizarre. I have just one more comic book, slice of news. Yeah. Well, this is something we've kind of talked about recently, I think. But basically they've announced that Eddie Brock is going to become Venom once again.

No, I don't actually. So starting in October after Queen in Black wraps up, he is getting his own series again. And it's basically they're hyping it up as going back to basics with Charles Sol as the writer. and in the meanwhile, Mary Jane, without the symbiate, is going to get her own series called The Friendly Neighborhood Mary Jane that sees her resume her Hollywood career as a producer and apparently butt heads with the chameleon. Okay. So. I have thoughts. Yes.

I have thoughts. Thought number one. Um, so recreational marijuana is legal in Ohio. And I live across the street from a dispensary. So when you say the friendly neighborhood, Mary Jane, that is basically across the street for me. It's our name for the book. Uh, in two, so she's back to no powers, no nothing. I believe so.

Okay. All right. Well, again, we, we talked about that as well. well because I mentioned that, you know, you can't walk back to hero's journey. You have to be forever changed after you start it. So we will see how that goes for Mary Jane Watson as a non-powered producer of things. The second thing, I really resent the fact that they felt the need to announce that because I'm not saying that Mary Jane's venom has been, you know, lighting the world on fire.

I mean, we've definitely talked about it a good bit just because of how, like, bizarre it is. But doesn't that just shoot the series in the fucking foot? Like doesn't that just make like if you are like a fan of Eddie Brock and you've been reading Venom hoping he turns up, you're like, all right, cool, I can just not read this until October. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel like that just, that just neutered the book. They do that sometimes. I don't know. Maybe the sales weren't good to begin with and that's why they've kind of jumped onto this plan and made the announcement just to try and

you know, stir up a bit of interest heading into October. I mean, it's a good, if you're going to bring Venom back, you know, Venom proper back, October is a good month to do it. I mean, DC's been really embracing a lot of its 90s aesthetics and in such with some characters like kind of going back to basics and what have you. So I mean, like Lobo, for example, Dead Man being kind of weird and kitsy. So, so yeah, maybe this is a good approach for them and Venom. I'm sure Dylan might be interested in maybe resuming reading Venom at that case.

I will say, I do have a bit of news that you didn't mention that I saw, and I'm thankful that our Avengers auction is over, or we would have to add another name to the list. I don't think this came from San Diego Comic-Con. I could be wrong, but I did see it online. I believe they have announced that the Punisher will be joining the Avengers. what exactly i don't know if that's let me make sure just real quick if that's true um yeah the punisher joins the avengers

the punisher will join marvel's avengers in the wake of uh avengers armageddon wow so in twenty twenty seven during the red line the second arc of chip sidarski's new run Yes, it does definitely seem that the Punisher will be joining the Avengers. I don't know how I feel about that. I know that the Avengers have had some killers on their books before, but to me, I think the Punisher loses a lot of what makes The Punisher the Punisher the when you put them with the rest of the Marvel universe. I feel like the Punisher kind of needs to be sequestered in his own little dark world where he's just dealing with gangsters and stuff.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It definitely feels weird to think that he's going to be in a lineup with like Captain Marvel and, I mean, Daredevil makes sense. You know, I think maybe that's probably wise people are really digging the Punisher Daredevil, you know, encounters on the shows. But it does seem, it does seem a little weird. that Zadarski did say that Marvel said that he had like carte blanche with the Avengers and he could do whatever he wanted to do with it bringing in this David Colton

character that he created and giving him like century level powers and then bringing in Frank Castle as a member of the Avengers proper. We talked about need to take big swings and I feel like those are pretty big swings but I don't know if I like them.

Yeah, it sort of reminds me of Brian Michael Bendis coming in on the Avengers and kind of shaking things up and putting together his own team. That is exactly what it has been compared to. When that news article came out when Zadarski was pitching Armageddon or when they were promoting Armageddon, he did, it was basically compared to disassembled that basically Marvel said, here's the Avengers as is, do whatever you want.

And I saw Brian Michael Bendis, you know, he turned Scarlet Witch Heel and killed off some long-term members and we're seeing Zadarski basically bring about, you know, this big traumatic thing with the Red Hulk. Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's, like I said, that's the thing that I saw that I was like, oh, okay, Frank's doing in the Avengers, I see. It would make sense. I mean, he has been, he's, he's, he's in that, he's in that Spider-Man movie.

He is, but, I mean, I. I think isn't this Avengers number one coming out way after the, uh, the Spider-Man movie is in the cinema, so. Sounds like it might be a good lead into a future episode where we talk about synchronicities. Yeah. Might be a little too late for that one. We don't know.

We don't know. But, um, that being said, that being said, we have the Punisher joining the Avengers. Um, I, I, I, Is there any other big comic book news coming out soon? I know that I think they're already teasing a big X-Men shake-up, but I don't know much about it. No, I don't know much about it either. Fair enough. Well, we'll probably cut that too.

So with the news that the Punisher has been, is going to be joining the Avengers in 2027, which is just a few short months away. I know crazy to think we're already a year Another year gone by John, speaking of years going by And accomplishing things in years And movies John, what should really count after the year?

I am now up to 762 movies for the year so far Nice. Are you past like your big festival season? Yes. I've got one sort of holiday coming up in September, which might kind of throw me off for a little bit, but I think it's plain sailing now for the rest of the year, pretty much. There you go. So what was the last movie that you watched? It was like a psychological horror movie called The Innocence from 1961. one.

Okay. Sort of loosely. You've been delving into a lot of 60s horror lately. Yeah. Well, I mean, I've been, Edgar Wright, the British director, put together a list on letterbox of his

1,000 favorite movies years ago now. And I've been slowly but surely ticking off a bunch of movies from that list. So a lot of my stuff, recently has been, you know, based on his sort of influence. And this was one of them. And yeah, I very much enjoyed it. It was, I mean, like I say, it's like loosely based on the turn of the screw.

With, like, a governess looking after some kids, some very creepy kids in, like, sort of Gothic mansion estate type thing and then stuff happening which kind of throws you off kilter a little bit but I mean for a movie made in

1961 especially like some of the stuff that happens in it and like the effects and stuff is is you know really good at creating like this

creepy atmosphere which, yeah, I appreciate. And what did you give it out of five stars? I gave it four stars out of five. Very nice. So, John, where can they go if they want to read some more of your thoughts on the innocence? They can head to Letterbox and find me at Big John Bowsky, onward. All right. And even though Dylan is not here, we would love to promote Dylan's other projects.

every Monday at what, 8 to 10 UK time. I know it's 4 to 6 East Coast time in America. Dylan hosts a radio show Bounce DigitalRadio.co. UK. We actually just mentioned it a little bit earlier ago.

And also Dylan is part of a group of animators called Team Crows. And also he does stream his animation on Twitch every now and then. I believe it is Captain Exploity. But there is, links to all of this in the description. I have my spoken word show Largell Cup that I do every

Sunday. That is sort of just according to Google AI, I am a conversational documentarian, which is interesting to say. And addition to that, on this very YouTube channel that we have here, I also have new number ones, which is another every Sunday thing, where I grab a issue one from a third-party publisher and kind of run it through a gauntlet of what I think a good number one is. Usually episodes are about five, six minutes long, so it's a very quick watch. Last week, I did Siko from Ignition Press that was written by Teeny Howard, and I was very pleasantly surprised because I was not a fan of Teeny Howard's work in the Crocoa-era X-Men. I think she definitely works better without Marvel editing constraints.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah, that is all for now. I guess we will go ahead and get going, but we will chat later. Sorry, the cat just stab me in the leg. Thank you very much for that. It's right in the knee. But yes, so we're going to get out of here for now.

We'll see you guys next time. Goodbye. Bye-bye.