The Smark Avengers - The Greatest Comic Book Couples of All Time

Episode Date: June 26, 2026

Behind every great superhero is... sometimes another superhero. In this episode, Corey, Dylan, and Jon take a look at some of the most iconic romances in comic book history and discuss what makes certain relationships endure for decades while others fade away with the next creative team. ❤️ Featured relationships include: Peter Parker & Mary Jane Watson Clark Kent & Lois Lane Scott Summers & Jean Grey And many more of comics' most famous couples and pairings The guys discuss which relationships have stood the test of time, which ones helped define the characters involved, and why some romances have become just as important to comic book history as the heroes themselves. Of course, not every hero is lucky enough to find lasting love. The conversation also turns to characters like Daredevil and Nightwing, whose love lives seem destined to be reset every few years as new writers introduce new relationships, new status quos, and new romantic drama. Why do some comic book couples survive editorial changes while others disappear almost overnight? 💘 Topics discussed include: The greatest marriages and romances in comics Why certain pairings resonate with readers The importance of supporting casts in superhero stories Characters trapped in endless cycles of short-term relationships How new writers often reshape a hero's romantic life The role romance plays in modern superhero comics Whether you're a fan of classic comic book marriages, superhero romance, or just enjoy debating which characters belong together, this episode is packed with plenty of opinions, nostalgia, and spirited discussion. 💬 Join the discussion: Who do you think is the greatest comic book couple of all time? 👍 Like the video if you enjoy comic book history and character discussions 🔔 Subscribe for more comic book podcasts, rankings, retrospectives, and debates Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/

Hello. About the intro? Okay, sure. Optimus trying to fucking a washing machine. It should just be that with like no context. It should just be all saying Optimus trying to fucking a wash machine. That's it. And then we drop in purple Lamborghini by Scrillx into the cut.

What context could you possibly have for Optimus Prime fucking a wash machine? Even with context, it probably doesn't make it any sense. or make it any better. So, you know, we should just start with non-sequiturs like that at all the time. We do tend to start with non-sequiters if you listen to them out of context. Like, see, you guys have, like, the benefit of, like, saying it, but I watch it back, and then I edit it, and I watch the episodes back as well. Like, every episode that we've ever put out, I've at least listened to three or four times.

It's not a half. I got to have to, and also, like, it's just good quality assurance to see, like, all right next time don't do that kind of stuff and sometimes i lose the context of what we were saying and this is also very true so my therapist apparently stumbled across one of the clips that i made for the show which was just one of our cold yeah it was just one of our cold opens and it was just the cold open was just silence and then me me asking john if he's ever seen a dead man's penis and John just saying I'm looking at one right now

and that was the intro and I went well I'm glad my therapists saw that that's cool love that for me I'm totally I don't even cover that conversation oh boy our cold opens are fucking something else sometimes

that's all I got to say hi everybody welcome to Spark Avengers name's Corey with me is Dylan and John guys how's it going great apart Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

He is. Well, you know, speaking of weird things to discuss, I was going to quote Princess Bride, but I don't know the whole monologue. Do you guys know the, does anyone know the marriage monologue that they can recite? Uh, no.

All right. I know of it. Yeah. Mowage. That's all I got. Awesome. That made just clip back. There you go.

Throw it in there. If I was a more, if I was a more, like, invested editor, I would put in more clips, but I don't want to do that. Don't think it, don't think it warrants it. Don't think there's juice, enough juice in the squeeze for that one. Okay.

Interesting. Trying a phrase. Well, you never heard that turn of phrase before about there not being enough juice in the suites? I don't say I have. Oh. American thing. I must be an American colloquialism.

Yeah. You either are always squeezing stuff. Trying to get the juice out. You can get the juice out. You know what I mean? You don't get to squeeze stuff to get juice out of it. You know those old Florida orange juice commercials where you just jam a straw to an orange and that works apparently?

It doesn't. I'm going to say that me and John don't know those commercials at all. Oh, you don't get those exported over to you? Weird don't we don't get the local Florida network on, you know, BBC 2. Oh, just orange juice? It's orange juice. That's all it is. Yeah, but I don't, we don't know what the adverts are. Oh, I'm just saying. I mean, it was an old one from like the 90s.

I don't know if it's up to date. Do you guys have? What orange juice do you guys have? Do you have Donald Duck Orange Juice over there? Oh, no. Oh, Dylan, you're missing out. You'd fucking love Donald Duck Orange Juice. I don't even know if it's still real.

Of course I would. It was like a subdivision of Disney and it was just the cartons of orange juice that had Donald Duck on it. And then there would be like a little Donald Duck comic strip on the side. Why wouldn't I love that? Exactly. You love the Duck Tales. I cannot First of all

This I don't know what you John This is the first time I've ever heard about Donald Orange Yeah What's the connection there? I'll have to look it up now Holy shit

Famous fictional Duck and Sailor Donald Duck It's been around It's been around since 1940 American Donald Duck is a popular American brain of orange juice

it comes in both frozen and refrigerated forms owned by the Florida Natural Growers brand a company that makes Donald Duck Orange Juice has changed its name of the years blah blah blah yeah okay yeah Donald Duck Orange Juice Okay Can we I don't know about you guys

Can we just like not do what we're supposed to talk about We're going to start the episode over we've gotten so far derailed Because I'm talking about it Yeah Listen, we're not going to have a lot of stuff to talk about with Marages. We'll just tack this on at the beginning, and it'll be fine. It'll be grand, you know. We can do this.

In 1987, the brand was the subject of a lawsuit between Citrus World and its rival tropicana products, which alleged that Donald Duck, quote, fresh and natural brand was being marketed deceptively as fresh-squeezed juice when it was actually made from concentrate. So there you go. The controversies of the Donald Duck orange juice. which there are many he was a controversial

duck Disney branded juice drink website oh apparently this is not a safe connection we can wait thank you for waiting no problem can you can you see this well enough or do I need to turn the volume

let me turn the I can see Donald Duck Donald Duck yeah oh there you is I've never seen that before I've ever seen that before I was about to say like

that's really weird so we have not We have stores that specialize in like international foods and stuff. Like in Cincinnati, there's this place called Jungle Gems. It's this massive grocery store that's broken up into different countries essentially where you could just buy like food and items from those countries. And I'm curious if we had something, if you guys had something like that in the UK, like what American things would you have?

And I feel like Donald Duck Orange Shoes staff to be one of those items now. We do have like American stores. A lot of it's just like tweets And they call it American County stories Oh okay You get a American candy and chocolate and stuff And cereal You get a lot of that

I would imagine you have that We have that a lot over here Does John have that? Not really I don't I don't see Emma out and about I see them There's like a ton of them

There's a couple of them in Belfast for sure like these specifically just American shops that seem to have nobody in them and yet there's loads of them and that's bizarre because there's so much you know real estate's very expensive this is

we can cut this at any point this is fascinating real estate in like a big city is in small times it's very expensive so for big cities to have to be able to like open up a building of a decent size on the main street

or adjacent to the main street is very expensive. If you to be able to just sell a load of American products, that nobody seems to be buying. And you're multiple of these stores, different, not chains, just independently. How are they still in business? I've seen a video, I never watched it, but there was like a YouTube video that's talking about this. I'm like, this is all very clearly upfront something else.

I'm like, well, that would explain that because otherwise, none of this makes any sense. What you mean? Yeah. I try to remember, like, what did I get from? the United Kingdom section of the store. And I just remember Ironbrute and Bob Roll. Bogro. Bobrel.

They said Bogrel. I'm like, that's his toy. That's just one of the world. I used to work with a girl. She came up to me one day. Like, do you want to have some meat juice? Like, excuse me? I got this meat juice.

I got this meat juice. It's amazing. You've got to try this meat juice. So I'm like, listen, I'm going to tell. a tail is at a school here. But I've lived a long life, my friend. I've experienced meat juice. And then she's like, oh, no, it's this.

It's Bobberle. I'm like, oh, meat juice, I see, because it's juice that tastes like a meat. I understand now. But she called him meat juice, which was, he was telling everybody. And everybody was like, no, of course I don't want to drink meat juice. What are you fucking kidding? You should get the chocolate. Our chocolate's way better than your chocolate.

That's what everybody says. It doesn't matter what country. They're from. The explanation is always like, our chocolate is way better than your chocolate. And I'm allergic to chocolate. So that means nothing to me. Oh, yeah, you're allergic to chocolate. You can't have any. I'm sorry. I forgot. That's okay. Well, alerted up. Yeah, I had that. I had a, when I was in the emergency room last week, I had to have that question a couple of times of like, what are you allergic to?

And I went, hold on. Let me read out the list. And I was like, chocolate, speed newspapers. Pretty much. I mean, hopefully they weren't trying to treat you with chocolate. Yeah, I just kind of, yeah, I kept saying, like, I don't know if this is necessary because, like, you know, because I said like, oh, you know, I'm allergic to nuts. They're like, peanuts or pine nuts. I want kind of all of them. And they're like, okay.

And they're like, what about peanut butter? Because that's different. I'm like, yeah, that too. That difference is the same. It's still peanut related. Yeah. They have to put away the peanut butter sandwich after they, that you told them that. Exactly.

Yeah. They're going to inject me with it. Yeah. Yeah. Because, like, that's how you solve all ailments in America. Give him a sandwich. Yeah. Like Robert Kennedy is like this close to just be like, everybody's problem is not enough peanut butter.

And that's because Donald Trump invested like a billion dollars into peanut butter stocks like two days before that. He visits into Peter Pan peanut butter because Peter Pan's eternally a child. Yeah. And very fuckable. Don't make that open. So, guys, welcome to the show. Hi. We are going to be discussing today something that's kind of been on the,

the list for a while. For those of you who don't realize it, we don't just pull stuff out of our ass occasionally. We do have a list of like topics that we're going to get around to covering at some point. And so this is one of them that I thought was kind of a kind of an easy one, but I think also has a potential to go in a couple different directions. And that is the notion of comic book marriages. Because very famously, if you want to sell a lot of issues, got to have a wedding issue. Superman and Lois had a wedding issue back in the early 90s, early 80s, Cyclops of Gene Gray got married and the X-Men. Did Peter Parker and Mary Jane have a wedding issue?

I imagine they would. Absolutely. They did indeed. So they have them all the time. And then of course, you know, we can't allow stuff to be good for too long. And then they decide to break up for one reason or another, right? It's a comic book.

You need conflict. Yeah. Yeah. So it's kind of very famously, if we want to just kind of dive head first into this, the most famous example, that actually I think was kind of tongue-in-cheek referenced by DC Comics in a recent issue of Superman. Mary Jane Watson and Peter Parker, very famously got married, we're together for a very, very long time. And then old Joe Cassata was like, you know what? I don't like this anymore. Yeah.

We're going to have Peter Parker's septuagenarian aunt get hit with a fucking elephant rifle and turn into a fine mist. And then Peter would be so upset that she died because he had unveiled himself as Peter Parker to the world during the Civil War storyline that he makes the deal with the devil to resurrect his septuagenarian aunt in exchange for his marriage. Which for the record. Yes. For the record, I have to point to side because I talk to. with this whenever we did worst deaths. Yes. Comics have to clarify

that she didn't actually die. No. No. She was on death store. She should have dead. So we don't know if she would have survived. We can't guess that she would not have survived, but the fact is, we don't know if she did or not because Peter Park was like, I'm not even going to

wait for my old lady to die. Who will die anyway. I'm just going to preemptively make a deal with the devil to stop that. According on this, very equation. Just a casual, just a casual death, you know, a casual deal with the devil. We all know how those go.

That's still, like I said, when we talked about that at the time, I kept remembering, like, no, no, she should have been dead. Because, like, the guy the Kingpin had hired to kill Peter Parker had to have been packing some shit. Because if you're going to shoot a superhero, you're not just going to shoot with a standard bullet. Like, he's packing an elephant round or something. And that would have absolutely obliterated a seven-year-old woman.

something we talked about at length which is about how stupid that storyline is is that if you're intending to shoot Spider-Man plenty of people have tried in the past 70 years shoot Spider-Man with very little success you would think the guy you've hired to kill

and you think Pinkpin would fucking know that if you're going to hire a guy to kill Spider-Man it better be half decent at his job and he's not and he couldn't even kill an old leady which is weird because yeah like you think about it who was

was it a named character who tried to assassinate? It's just some dude. Because I would say it was like, was it even like crossfire, you know, like lower level mercenary in Marvel side? I don't think so. Like it was a guy. It's wild. All right. So, so that

being said, so that being said, um, obviously the topic of should characters in the DC and Marvel world be be allowed to have long-term relationships and get married is a point of contention for some people. Because they made that decision previously with Peter Parker and Mary Jane.

And then like 20-some years later, the editorial staff at Marvel decided that actually it's not a good thing. And we need to undo that because now Spider-Man's unrelatable for whatever reason. So, D.C. kind of did something very similar when Tom King was writing Batman. And John, I think you read this run, if I'm not mistaken. mistaken. Yes, the run where he and women, yeah, like get into a relationship and then eventually get married. Well, they don't though.

So they tease a wedding like for year, like the whole buildup is Bruce Wayne is finally like committing to this relationship with Selena Kyle. They're like working together as a unit. And then like they put out I remember they put out like all of like the art for like, this is catwoman's wedding dress and they're actually going to do it. They're actually getting married. And then like hard shift at the,

you know, catwoman leaves them at the altar essentially for all intents and purposes. So, you know, there's obviously some characters that they're fine with letting be married and some characters they're fine with them not. And I'm kind of just curious like, what are your thoughts on that?

Does it depend on the character? Are you fine with it? Like if they want to make that kind of. run? Do you think that once they make that sort of decision it should stick? What are your thoughts? Very broad, I know. I think a lot of the time they want to do stuff which is going to like attract attention and like you say sell like issues. Like the big marriage issues tend to be big showy affairs which they can kind of make into a special occasion type comic book which hopefully

will sell more. But then the, like, temptation is always just to go back to the status quo anyway. Like, with Peter, Peter Parker, like, and Mary Jane, they, you know, they got married and

that sort of aged Peter up a little bit. And I think the thinking behind Joe Cassada wanting to split them up was, you know, it makes Peter younger and, I guess, more relatable or something if he's like still the kind of you know photographer for the daily bugle who's

um living paycheck to paycheck and kind of you know unreliable and kind of screws up all the time the park of luck and all that kind of stuff but it's i don't know that that's kind of static storytelling in a way like there's no progress no growth or anything Whereas, like, I thought the marriage with Mary Jane in particular was, like, something that kind of pushed both characters forward and helped them grow. So, yeah. Yeah, I don't really understand why we kind of keep pulling the rug out from these relationships. I think it depends on the characters a lot. So, like, if you look at, I mean, obviously, maybe either we're wrong or do you say it was wrong.

It's hard to say. I mean, it's obviously him because we're never wrong. But in terms of like Peter Parker and Murray Jane, like consistently throughout that book, even whenever he was going out with, you know, Gwen Stacy, there was the spark between him and Murray Jane. This is like a historic thing. It's been running through that comic for ages. And they went out. It was amazing.

Then they got married and it fit. It suited them. Right. And for them to get divorced, I think the real reason that everybody got annoyed with what happened. happened was it just seemed like so out of character. They were such a good couple that like John said as a team they benefited being together more than they did being separate and history has proven thus far especially at Murray Jane's point of view the separation hasn't really improved either character more than had they have been together so I'm sure we'll circle back to Peter Parker

in Murray Jane. But to me, like, that's a couple that got married and should have stayed married because the benefits of them being like way the negatives. Together, they make a very good couple. And I would also, so like all the stories you can tell would be with them as a couple and they would work really well together. I want to also bring up another point, another married couple, which was Black Panther and Storm, right? Which again, they seem like a really good couple. seem to work really well together. But as a writer, you would know that there's probably more mileage,

eventually, with both of those characters separately. They can have a run as married people together for quite a while, and they were a great married couple. But I feel like with that kind of couple, the natural story arc is to meet, to get together, to get married, put up again, go their separate ways,

and then have, you know, have growth that way. Does that make sense? I feel like the potential for that marriage is more in the marriage and the divorce, whereas with Murray-Gian, I feel like the potential is of them as a team because they work so well together. And it says a lot of a joke is say that

a lot of people at Spider-Man, for them to just ignore all of the 20, 30 years of writing that established Mary Jane and Peter Parker as a great couple. And it also says a lot where those people can't recognize what a great couple looks like. So here's a weird thing to, I guess, point out.

And this is mainly just because I'm familiar, like there have been plenty of, I don't want to call them Ellsworlds necessarily, but like May Day Parker, Spider-Girl, that was established that she is Peter and Mary Jane's kid, right? They've done a lot of stories where Peter and Mary Jane were married and had kids.

Like the most recent Ultimate Spider-Man was that, was a married Peter Parker with Mary Jane and their children. It is interesting that, like, obviously that that sort of mileage was there for years and years, and then that was a decision of, like, oh, we need to refresh the character, separate them. Did it seem like the characters took a step backwards? Because, like, I don't know if you, like,

if you read the Mary Jane Watson that is being written now as Venom, so to speak, or before that when she was jackpot or when she was in her random like team up comics with Black Cat, is that the same character that was in the 90s with Peter? Or did the character take a step back on a maturity level? For me, I feel like it took a step back

because I haven't been reading the recent Spider-Man books, but I have read after Ronnie Day or whatever. And their insistence to bring Peter Parker back to that and of every man down to that kind of character that he was means that whatever way you slice it

they have just reverted back to 20, 30 years ago they have just turned him into the character that he used to be and have kind of ignored all... Because they did, they just ignored all the personal growth he had went to. They just built it up again for like a new generation. They're like, well, I've seen all this.

You know what I mean? It's like watching the new Spider-Man film where they shoot Uncle Ben or whatever. Like, I've seen this like three homes. I know we know he dies. I don't want to see it again. It's already happened. Yeah. They lose a lot of good faith that way

because they didn't do anything new with Spider-Man. They just did the same thing they had been doing with Spider-Man. They didn't do a whole lot with Mary Jane either. It didn't really justify either of them being split up. It kind of had Peter Parker go in a couple of different relationships with people, but it was never like, you could tell it was never going to be a long-standing thing because the fans still really wanted them to get back together with Mary Jean.

So I think as well they did try and like mix things up with Peter down the road because eventually you know they did the whole kind of Tony Stark route with him where Parker Industries got really big and then he became sort of this rich

and famous you know industrialist kind of thing and then I don't think people really like that and enjoy that with, you know, Peter basically being a Ironman rip-off, like

traveling the world and having gizmos and stuff. So, I don't know, it's like a hard thing though, because I guess this is the thing with comic books is you want to, like, you know, push these characters in new directions and,

you know, do something new and interesting that might, you know, create some buzz, but at the same time deep down, I think people do want to see like the stuff that they're familiar with or the stuff that they grew up reading, even if it means that, you know, like the characters end up sort of stuck in arrested development. So that's, I'm going to ask a question really quick in regards to, um, to kind of, we'll, let's kind of move back away from Peter and Mary Jane in particular and let's look at another

set of characters. Cyclops and Gene Gray. They were attached at the hip from basically the 1960s on. They kill off Gene for the Phoenix saga. They introduced Madeline Pryor, who just looks exactly fucking like her, because Claremont was like trying to get rid of Cyclops as a character, and they just brought him back for X Factor anyway. Anyway, they put him back with Gene Gray,

and then Morrison comes in and rattles the cage, separating Gene Gray and Cyclops in a very like way that's usually done that characters don't get back together, which is affairs and cheating, whereas Cyclops cheated on her with Emma Frost, and then they broke them up, and then Cyclops is them afrost for a very long period of time, until post, I mean, was it, post the Phoenix saga, the Phoenix Force Five, as people refer to them as, where they separate them again, separate Psych, Cyclops and Emma, and now he's back with Gene and implied that they're married again, which I don't understand how that works necessarily, because they got married in the comic, and then I assume, I don't know if they officially got divorced before Gene died. So because Gene died and came back, but when she came back, Cyclops was dead, and then he came back, their marriage, I guess, is still in place, technically.

I think if you both die and they both come like alive, the marriage resets. It resets. So that way, I mean, if anything, good on them for saving on legal fees because getting married costs money and I think that's funny. Yeah. But yeah. Like, listen, if you want to get back together, we both have to die. Cyclops is like, all right.

I guess I'll just tear again missed myself or something. Trouble with that, though, is that technically, you know, Cyclops was married to Madeline Prior before he married Jean Grey, so she died, but then she came back to life. So I think Cyclops is technically a

bigamist, is that the right one? Cyclops is looking at all the telepaths going, yeah, boy, this is me. Is Emma Frost now going, should I kill myself? No, she was, well, she was married to Tony Stark for a hot minute. Right, but that's one of those things you're like,

what the fuck is the point of this? That is still very much. what the fuck. Yeah. I still don't really understand. And I think in her recent mini series that she was in, I think they had her like almost pining for that as well. Like,

don't try to make the marriage Tony Stark seem like it was something genuine. Please don't. She was with Cyclops for so long and they never got married. She saw what happened. There were his ex-wives. And then she just up and marries Tony Stark for no reason. No, there was a reason. It was a it was the thing to do with

They weren't going out Like it wasn't it wasn't real No no She was posing as his He was posing as his like assistant Yeah Tony Stark and his But I think that's a really good point too

Let's set aside the Madeline Pryor thing for now Which is what I feel like Marvel has done We're setting a lot of things aside Just so you know Yeah That aside for now If you look at Cyclops and Gene Gray That was a relationship that a lot of

people thought was like kind of set in stone and was like really you know um unperturable if you will although with x-man of course we know nothing's untouchable and then the thing with grant marism happened and of course some of the people in this show might disagree with graham morrison and the stuff he did but i think that i think he did that in a magneto though well that's fine then and this is this is really pertinent that um i think he did it in a really like a kind of smart way that had like a lasting success that was another one of those things he did that shook things up but also had a lasting impact because cyclops never frosted were together for a long time and people but people bought into it it bought into it because of the

way it was presented even though before that cyclops and jean gray seemed like such a really great, wonderful character. I mean, if you are going to make Madeline Pryor to this, this counts because Madeline Pryor was the sound to be the same as Gene Gray. You can see why Cyclops had a thing for a particular kind of lady, a.k.a. somebody that is or looks exactly like Jean Grey. And for him to go for somebody completely opposite than that, this bitchy, blonde, horrible person.

And to have them stick around. And that dynamic is really fun too, the dynamic between Cyclops and Emma Frost was totally different than they did between Cyclops and Greg. It was fun. It was always well written. It was fun to read.

That kind of stuff is important too because, again, that's not the stuff they did with Spider-Man. They didn't have him move on, essentially. They didn't stick with it. They just kind of like, we'll just come up with a bullshit reason why they're not married and you have to live with it.

Whereas in the X-Men, they kind of had the balls to like actually make things happen. Yeah, make Cyclops look like a dick. Yeah, right, but he, it actually added a lot to his character.

Yeah. It really did. You know, it made him like, it added stuff to him. It got rid of like the Boy Scout, you know, he wasn't,

yeah, the goody good, like blanket, here I am kind of guy. It was, it was more layers to him. It was interesting. So,

X-Men relationships in particular Ebenflow. Because as of right now, the big married couple and the X-Men, we're not going to count Cyclops and Phoenix, it's Gambit and Rogue, who have been married for a hot minute now, and they got married in a misdirection wedding issue where it was going to be the marriage of Colossus and Kitty Pride. But then Kitty Pride left Colossus at the altar, Gambit and Rogue are like, fuck it.

Priest right there, let's do it. And they did. when was that I think of my it's been almost 10 years I want to say they've been very yeah I would say so yeah

I've had a couple of miniseries together I guess were sorry go ahead I was gonna say because before that uh rogue was

fucking around with Magneto in uh the Kieran Gillen X-Men legacy comic mm-hmm well how do you feel about that uh

you know it is what it is as precedent for it. It goes back to like rogue and Magneto being in the Savage Land, I believe it was. So it's not like it was out of nowhere

to pick it back up again. I think Rogue and Gambit more of a classic couple anyway. Yes, I think they've had that history for so long, but and again, that's one of those things in comics were when they finally do get married, it's very satisfying because you've seen them for so long,

be together and see this on and off relationship to finally see them get together. It's satisfying. You feel like, you know, and I say this is obviously a huge mark for Gambit and Rogue. But it's a really good kind of conclusion to like that part of their story that you've seen for so long, 20, 30 years of them flirt with each other.

And now they can move on to like a second part where it's going to be like, hopefully, 20, 30 years of them as a married couple until one of them makes a deal with the devil to see of their horse or whatever. Gavin might already be there. He's turning into a dragon monster. Well, Gail Simone, she, me and her think of the similar way. So, there's actually a new number, speaking of Gail, there is a new number one coming out next week that I might be getting written by her. It's about boxing. Yeah, it's about boxing. Interesting. Yeah, I'm curiously if that works out. Anyway, kind of going back to it, though, like, you know, like I just, I mentioned Colossus and

Kitty pride. The X-Men is full of these sort of like couples that are like cursed with teasing on again, off again, whatnot. You know, no semblance of permanence. Like Storm and Wolverine's a very popular one. Storm and Forge is a big one. Wolverine

and, um, right. Yeah, yeah. So like the X-Men are like any like preteen woman that comes along. Well, it's Oops. I mean, you could say no, but also he goes away with him for

adventures for like months at a time. Like, that's a little sauce. Moving on. Anyway, he did it. He did. I didn't do it. Technically, he's way older than everyone as well, so the age gap there is massive. The problem

of Wolverine is his age gap is so big. It's like impossible to like logistically run it back. He's got an age gap with everyone. Exactly. If he's a He's gonna go by those strict rules. Who is he gonna fuck? Do you know?

He's got to have somebody for him. Top being Wolverine. Captain America, I guess. Closest. Yeah. Even then it's still a pretty big age gap. Sabretooth? Sabretooth?

Yeah. Then, depending on who the writer is, you're like, is this incest? I don't know. Oh. Yeah. It's a sticking, that's almost a sticky situation right there with saber tooth. We should probably leave that well enough alone.

But yeah, no, like I said, they're full of him. I mean, and X-Men, for example, they just established very recently with the marriage of mystique and destiny in a wedding issue that many people were pointing out as kind of fucking weird when you think about like Captain America attended that. And you're like, hey, Cap, she's a terrorist. She's committed a lot of crimes. Like, maybe it just seemed like, I think there's only one character in the comic that was like pointing out. Like, why are we celebrating this? They're both terrible people. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah. 100%. Because it's a marriage. You got to go. You got to buy them a George Foreman grill. You got to do the whole thing. That's the law. Yeah.

It's the law. We don't make the law. We just break it repeatedly. So let's, okay. So we've. We've mentioned a couple of examples there. To kind of throw one over to the D.C. side real quick. DC had a thing that happened in the early 2010s,

a little something called the new 52 caused by Flashpoint. And before that happened, D.C. had a lot of very long time established relationships. Clark Ken had been married to Lois Lane for a very long time. Barry Allen had been with Iris West for a long time Wally West had been with Linda Park for a long time Oliver Queen had been married to Black Canary for quite a long time there were a lot of very established relationships

and the New 52 was sort of an excuse for them to just blow all of that up and that was one of the big things that they did was like when they first did New 52 Superman he like Clark Kent was such a loser that Lois Lane just kind of looked her nose down at him for all intents and purposes.

So Superman kind of had an unrequited thing with Lois Lane until coincidentally enough over on the Wonder Woman side they got rid of Steve Trevor and suddenly you can pair up Superman with Wonder Woman and that was a thing for a while in DC that was very confusing for some people and some people liked it and yeah.

But that was, was a big thing about that was it kind of undid a lot of these relationships. I remember like people like I think Dan Didio who was kind of orchestrated the whole thing was like oh well now we've opened up storytelling. No one no one has their hands tied anymore like you can have like Superman like having you know like having a relationship with some new character and not be held down by Lois Lane not realizing that a big appeal of Superman was sort of like the fact that he did have a Lois Lane like he did. He did. to have this person that he was absolutely dedicated to. And removing that removes a core aspect of his character. It's kind of like, like another thing that New 52 did, I'm a big green arrow fan. They took the politics out of Green Arrow and he became like a high tech archer. And like that's not Green Arrow. That's Tony Stark with a bow and arrow.

But when you take away that that Oliver Queen is a loudmouth liberal left wing, you know, asshole who has no problem voicing his opinion, you remove a huge aspect of his person. Well, these days, you're not allowed to have a comic book political opinion anymore because of it woke. So you just have to... Oddly enough, Ollie still is. That's one of the things they do well over at DC is that Oliver Queen is still very much Oliver Queen.

He is still very opinionated. I really agree with you with what you said about Superman and... Lois Leyen because the thing about Superman that is core we've talked about it before was that people think that like Superman's just all like a big strong guy with lasers but it's kind of

like this like very well-meaning very innocent kind of like outsider alien coming to Earth and like just being like a really like bastion of good you know just standing out especially in like fucking

metropolis or anywhere in America by just being like just a genuinely good person and the thing about him getting married to Lois Leyen is like well they obviously had like a very cute relationship

going on there and you know that they're going to work really well together so for somebody to go oh well now the Lois Lane and Superman aren't a thing together Superman go fuck whoever he wants you're like well that

that's yeah that's not really his thing correct that this is the point he seems to the kind of sweet guy that would settle down but just somebody that he genuinely he cares for. Why would you rewrite history to go, well,

now he can just, now he can fuck Spider-Man if he wants. They cross, you know, Spider-Man's got nothing going on. It's just a weird, like, again, like,

kind of like a, like a misunderstanding of the character. You kind of go, no, he can sleep with anybody. Like, that's not really what Superman's body.

Like, it's a weird, weird interpretation to look at Superman and go, that guy should be fucking somebody else. Yeah. I think what's interesting is, like,

when you run into those characters that do have like multiple long-term established like romantic partners. Like if you ever want to like have a fun time, head over into like any sort of nightwing related message board and pick a fight between the Starfire fans and the Barbara Gordon fans. Because they will fucking fight. That doesn't sound like a good time to me. They will bicker over who is the better suited partner for Dick Grayson. Right. Yeah, the same could be said for Bruce Wayne between Selena Kyle and Talia Al-Goole or even some of the other characters that Superman has been with over the years. That's what I was going to say.

If you were thinking about a guy kind of like happy enough to kind of go from a relationship to relationship, that already exists in D.C. and is insanely popular. That would be Batman. You don't have to fuck around with Superman. Batman already has that kind of freewheeling bachelor-esque. I'm a millionaire. and then therefore a free pass to have sex with whoever I want kind of thing you can already tell that shit like that's it's already there like you don't even have work for it and he never

has like he's never as far as I know he's never really got married like properly he's never really been tied down like he's the kind of got to spin a yarn where he does go out for somebody for a couple of years and then just breaks up with him that's there you can do that yeah i mean elseworlds he's been married to catwoman on a couple of different occasions various else worlds, but that's about as, it's about as good as they get. Yeah, like that's, you don't have to mess with Superman.

Or Batman. Oh, yeah, no, sorry. I agree what you're saying. You don't have to mess with Superman whenever you can't just tell that story with Batman. It just seems like, again, it seems like people are reading comics and not really understanding the comics of who they are reading.

Yeah. You know? It's definitely interesting. And what's, I remember, like, what are your opinions on like so john you're a big daredevil fan obviously um-huh daredevil has multiple like established long-term partners yes do you have a preference

when it comes to what character he has shown with that's my first question I have a follow-up question for you okay I mean I don't really have a preference like I guess Electra is the one which kind of sticks out the most because

you know their relationship kind of goes back to his earliest days as Daredevil and then it has like that sort of Star Cross lovers almost tragic kind of

history to it as well but then to be fair Daredevil pretty all of his relationships have ended in tragedy anyway. So that probably doesn't narrow it down for him. I don't know. I think Daredevil kind of benefits from the fact that he has had all these different relationships, but then they've all kind of gone pretty badly for him and the people he's been in

the relationship with as well. So my follow-up question of that is, when you're reading a Daredevil run, and they introduce a new female character that is implied to be a romantic interest. In your head, are you already going, how are they going to write this character off? Pretty much.

And that's not meant to be a joke implying that it's a daredevil book and they're going to kill her. Because I had the same thought about some other books that I was reading and they introduced a new character. I'm like, how are they going to work their way out of this one? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It does seem a lot like, how are they going to kill this one? Are we going to kill this one?

Daredevil. Well, they might not kill her. They might, you know, make her go crazy and then end up in an insane asylum. Yeah. Yeah. The Doomsday Clock is starting to tick down, in other words. Exactly. I remember there was a Nightwing run where they introduced this character.

I can't remember her name. But basically, like, every Nightwing run usually starts with them trying to establish a civilian identity for him because you try to separate Nightwing from Batman as much as possible. And one of the easiest ways to do is to give him a job. So Nightwing has been a bartender. He's been a cop. He's been a cab driver.

And in this particular bartending, well, he was a bartender at a cop bar. A cop bar. That was a cop bar. But anyway, he was working at this like, recreational center and the recreational center had a meetings for a support group of like characters who were minor villains

and like of course he like knew all of them and in it the girl that was running it was like the villainous kid's sidekick of some art theft person I think like pigeon or something like that the pigeon and she was like a graffiti artist that was the pigeon sidekick pigeon.

Yeah. The reality of... No, that was not made up. I believe that was a character's name. But anyway, so, like, he meets her, and they get to chat, and, like, you know, she's, like, a cute alt girl. And then they established that Dick Grayson's in a relationship with this girl. And she knows that he's Nightwing. And, like, they even did a...

They even did a pregnancy scare issue with them where, like, she thought she was pregnant. And, like, Nightwing's having to, like... like deal with that internal monologue. Very weird issue for a comic book to write about. But like the whole time I'm reading that, and I'm like, all right, cool, I get it. But at some point, this character will not be around anymore. And eventually, like, it's,

they do like the comic book misunderstandings. He's late one too many times. She's got to go do her own thing and she leaves him. And another nightwing character was when he was Rick Grayson. he met he yes we talked about it's where he got shot in the head and he got amnesia because he got shot in the head so he yeah yeah he got shot in the head you get amnesia right what happens yeah so when he so when he decided he couldn't remember who he was so he was gonna make he was going to be his new person and he renamed himself rick grason um he made he ended up like

dating this bartender at this shitty little bar that he hung out with and then like the whole time you're like at some point he's gonna get his memory back and he's going to have to break up with this girl because Nightwing's not going to just be dating some random bartender. So sure enough, he gets his memories back and he goes, oh, I'm not that person anymore. I don't feel that way about you anymore. Maybe I can give you a shot. And she's like, you're not Rick Grayson. You need to leave.

And he's like, got it. Cool. It's like, it's always interesting. Nightwing always comes away unscathed in these breakups where it's like the other person has to do the breaking up with him. And he just gets sad about it for a couple issues for like, not even a couple issues, a couple pages. And then, like, next issue, he's moved on already. But it is interesting when, like, there are the characters that you strongly associate with certain characters,

and then there's the characters that feel like you're just wasting your time. Right. And I don't know why. And that's, what a bizarre problem to have? Because, like, as John was saying, you don't want it to feel stagnant. Like, you know, hundreds of issues of Dick Grace and Dave. dating Barbara Gordon. You need to break them up at some point

so that you can write them getting back together and make everybody happy again. But does it feel weird to introduce characters that you don't feel are going to have like a long-term staying power? Not just as like a relationship thing, but like the second Nightwing stops dating this girl, you're never going to see this character again.

Yeah, I think because a lot of that is very, I would say a lot of that kind of thing is very intentionally written to be a timed event right. If Nightwing meets somebody that we don't know we've never met before and goes out with her that seems very much like this is either

going to last until the end of this current writer's run but the beginning of the next writer's run like it doesn't seem like this character has been introduced to be a long term like investment kind of person. It's going to be nobody's favorite we could talk about that very recently with Paul that we did. I was actually thinking about just now. That was a guy that was introduced that nobody who read those comics at all bought into.

They thought this is a very short-term investment. This is going to be either the end of this guy's run or the beginning of the next guy's run. And it's still Joe Kelly, has it moved on? Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's still Joe Kelly. Was it? that introduced Paul? Yeah. Okay, so during his run, he introduced a guy, went out with Murray Jane, that was very controversial, nobody liked, and then he killed him off either to go along with this storyline or because of the fact that nobody liked him.

We don't know. Like, whenever he was introduced, nobody was like, that's who Murray Jean is going to be going out with. Sorry. Paul, Paul Rabin was created by Zeb Wells, not Joe Kelly. Oh, sorry. Was that the guy before? Joe Kelly. Yes, because I think Joe Kelly was before, and when Zeb Wells took on the book, he was the one who introduced the Paul character.

Yes, so Zeb Wells was before Joe Kelly. No, I think Zeb Wells is current. Is he not? Is he? Have I got that backwards? Did Callie introduce him? I thought it was Joe Kelly on the book now, but... I thought it was Joe Kelly in the book. If he's writing now, then yeah, it's Joe Kelly.

Kelly then that's but Zeb Wells is the person who created Paul right so then previous writer wrote it in Joe Kelly ran with it and then killed him off that's what I mean like whatever Callie inherited this character did he think all right this is

gonna say this guy's gonna last forever do you think I'm gonna write a really convoluted story evolving the shocker somehow in order to kill this guy off never forgot whatever we said a pull a tax on the thing this is never forget for the YouTube but it seems like that kind of thing where

if you introduce a new character to have a relationship with an already established character a lot of the time that character isn't seeing it through more than two runs and that happened with Spider-Man whenever they did split Murray Jam and him up he would go out with people some of them were new people

some of them weren't but those people would just last a run or maybe not even a run Like they, they, and it was that kind of thing you were saying where you're like, I know this isn't going to stick around. You're just waiting for Peter Parker, like you said, to miss one too many days because he's Spider-Man. Yeah. Or whatever. Like, they seem hackney cliches. At least whenever Peter Parker and Murray Jim were together, they didn't have to worry about that shit.

It was frustrating, but they could like understand it. Like they weren't, they even did like episodes where they went to therapy and stuff. as Mary Jean was frustrated that she was trying to explain this to a therapist without trying to to admit. No, to admit that she's going up with Spider-Man. Oh.

So she's trying to be like, oh, my husband is always like late all the time and he's a lot of work commitments. And the guy's like, well, you should really, and she's like, well, I can't because his job is very important. And, you know, so like the therapist can't really give her advice

because her situation is so incredibly niche. I'm like, that's fun. You can do that. You can do something like that, you know, but they were like, no, fuck that. We'll just bring in Paul instead. So this is going to be a weird question to ask, but kind of just around the room,

what is an established, like, couple that you absolutely go to bad for? That, like, that, in your perfect run, those are the characters that are together in the run. Well, for me, it's either Peter Parker and Mary Jean or it's Gambit and Rogue. And I'm sorry if that sounds like I've said the same thing for every single podcast we've ever done. But like, to me, those guys are like the perfect couples. Even like with Rogue and Gambit before they got married, Married, they were still like the perfect couple. And that you seem like they felt like they were meant for each other.

Married or not, they were like, they should be together. And Peter Park and Mary Jane are like, that's, I'm still got it that they got rid of that because it's just, it's perfect. Although I will admit that the Clark Kent and Lois Lane, like, you just see like the way they wrote those books back in the day. That's like a perfect couple, really, you know. So just as a quick aside before John gives his answer, I always think it's really funny how they put Lois Lane and Clark Kent back together. and that they didn't. So when the new 52, the new 52 had a really like hard launch and a soft ending

because they did this thing called rebirth in D.C. Where basically it goes back to Dr. Manhattan to follow up on our watchman episodes where basically he kind of broke continuity using his powers. And in doing so, merged some of the universes together. And so what happened was, It was revealed that while the New 52 Superman and Lois Lane were doing their thing,

the previous continuity Superman and Lois Lane were also on Earth, but they were just living a quiet life together in Smallville. And like there was a threat. The New 52 Superman was turning into like a doomsday monster from this degenerative disease that was killing him. New 52 Lois Lane had she like got superpowers and then, converted into raw energy and dissipated. And so there they went. And then you have just Superman-Aloos lane back.

Like, nothing happened. Just, you know, it was very much a, when rebirth started, it was a, let's clean up the mess as quickly as we can and just move forward. Well, well, they did that. They certainly did. I know the only issue, the only thing they did is they had an issue of Trinity, which was a comic that was focused on Superman, Batman, and Wonderworld. woman where Superman and Wonder Woman had to have a heart-to-heart conversation because that

Wonder Woman had been dating Superman and now she was like seeing a different Superman and he was like, hey, I know I look kind of like your boyfriend, but I'm not that and I'm already a married man. Sorry if this is awkward. And slowly but surely, they've just acted like the current Wonder Woman was the original Wonder Woman, not New 52 Wonder Woman as well. Like they have just pretty much done. everything to just gradually make like go none of that happened

don't worry about it. Good? Yeah. Anyway, John, floor is yours. Well, I mean, where I look at it is in comic books there's not really that many like marriages or relationships

that go the distance really. Like it isn't exactly like if you're a kid reading comic books you'd feel pretty doomed like kind of grown up like oh man I could you know have a girlfriend but we're clearly going to split up because

no relationship lasts thanks to these comic books telling me this but there's one I'd say there's real quick sorry to that point it's comic books and also pro wrestling

of terrible marriages and that's the two things to be specialised in yeah yeah which is why we're both not married but yeah I was going to say there's one relationship that I can think of in comics which has gone the distance

and you know there hasn't been any of those kind of breakups and get back and getting back together and that is Reed Richards and Susan Storm who you know they got married in I believe it was the fantastic four annual three

back in 1965 and here we are like 61 years later still together got two cute kids they got their family around them still stronger than ever so you got I don't respect that. There is a weird revisionist. There's a weird revisionist history people have with Invisible Woman and Namor in particular where they act like she's always been super into Namor and I find that to be so interesting.

It's like, oh, I can tell you guys haven't actually read any of the mainstream comics. You've just been reading like ultimate stuff. Yeah. That's really funny because for the longest time, this is another DC one. the longest time, a lot of the JSA relationships were super long-term.

And I think it's because a lot of like, I guess writers didn't feel like you could break up, like, the little old men and their little old women wives. Until very recently, D.C. did that with Alan Scott. Are you familiar who Alan Scott is, by the way? Is he the original Green Lantern? He is. He is the Golden Age Green Lantern, whose lantern was magic and not from space. and his weakness was wood. So the ring would not work against anything would. When they did the new 52, weirdly enough, one of the books that came out was Earth 2, which was written by James Robinson.

And one of the things James Robinson did was he was like, all right, in this continuity, in this setting, Alan Scott's a gay man. And we'll have gay Green Lantern. Let's roll with it. And, you know, some people really liked it. Some people really didn't like it. Some people are like, well, it's not really Alan Scott.

It's this new 52 version. It doesn't matter. And then sure enough with rebirth, Alan Scott came out as a gay man and divorced his old woman wife and is now a single old gay man, which is kind of cute in a way because when he came out, he came out to his children who are superheroes in their own rights, Jade and Obsidian. An Obsidian was an openly gay character in the 1980s.

So in a really odd back and forth way, a little old man came out to his son. but yes, that was a long-term marriage that was undone by DC in recent years. Cool. Yeah. So, so anyway, I guess what, like, to answer my own question, I mean, you know, kind of the Superman-Lews-Lane one, I think that's just a whole aspect of the character that you can't really, I think, get away from. Even in the movie, and they're not married, the most recent James Gunn movie, Lois knew that he was Superman the whole time, you know, and like, it implied they'd been dating for three months. which is probably the most Superman fucking thing in the world that he would be unable to tell his girlfriend that he was actually Superman or that Lois Lane is just that good of an investigative journalist. She figured it out.

It's pretty good. Yeah. Fair. It's pretty good. All right. So let's throw it out here. Are there been any, like, are there any current canon relationship stuff that you don't care for? I know that Paul and Mary Jane was one for a long time, but we don't have to worry about that at the moment.

Yeah. there are any others that are sticking out to you i don't already know a lot of modern comics anymore i am struggling to think of a recent one is there one kori knows of or can i ask a different question well so the one i always think of is um so a couple years ago there was a writer named Megan Fitzmartin and she got a short story in a book called I think it's Batman Urban Legends which was like a real a little thick book that was like a collection of mini stories every issue I had the whole run it was pretty good it was pretty good run just great variety of

characters creative teams and art styles is really good anyway I'm not a fan of Megan Fitzmartin and I'm not exactly a fan of the way they did this but they were writing this story about Tim Drake who's the third Robin and that Tim was having these, you know, like he was having identity issues. And a lot of people have assumed it's because he was sharing the Robin moniker with Danian. So there's two Robbins in DC continuity. All the other Robbins have assumed different identities, you know, Dick Grayson became Nightwing, Jason Todd became Red Hood.

Stephanie Brown is one of three Batgirls. Didn't really help her cause, but she's a Batgirl now. But Tim and Damien are both just sharing the Robin moniker. And that's what a lot of people, I think, at first. thought the whole story was going to be about. But in reality, it was a story about Tim realizing that he's bisexual. And in this story,

Megan established that he had formed a romantic relationship with a character named Bernard. And Bernard was a side character from an early Tim Drake Robin comic in the 90s and 2000s that is

dull as dishwater. The character is just really boring and there's not anything to him. And there are a lot of, like, there's a lot of Tim Drake fans who are very upset about this relationship. That because before that, he had a very long relationship established with Stephanie Brown dating back to the early 90s. And there are some people who aren't exactly crazy with the fact that they decided that

Tim was by. But as somebody who is pan slash buy, if you want to, if we, if we, want to just, you know, group them all together for my sake, or the sake of the comparison. I'm absolutely fine with the fact that Tim has a male partner. I just wish you had a more interesting male partner. Like, it's, it's just like, to me, Bernard is really boring. And the fact is in Matt Fractions Batman run, Tim Drake has retired being Robin because he wants to have a normal life with Bernard.

And it's like, now I can't even read Tim as Robin because he's, he's in this relationship. with this guy who is the human equivalent of washing paint dry. Bernard's just a rich kid. Like that's it. Right. Like, don't you think that's a big part of like a lot of it too? Like whenever Moritian was going to out with Paul,

he's a nice guy. I'm like, this is a comic book. This is the most, he's a lovely person if he was real, but he's not. He's just really boring to read. Yeah. I would, you know,

that's part of it too. People don't seem to understand that. You can show healthy relationships in comics, but healthy relationship doesn't always mean just the most basic character you can think of. Like we were talking about with, like, Lois Linne and Clark Kent, they worked really well together. So that doesn't mean either of them were boring. They had a great relationship. Also, they had their own lives and opinions and things to say and do.

They weren't boring, you know? Yeah, well, essentially, like, what it comes down to is, like, again, we talk about how... Content or conflict creates content, right? Mm-hmm. So, you know, Lois Lane and Superman are opposite characters, you know, and they, James Gunn illustrates that in his movie in a scene where they're having a heart to heart. And Lois is like, I question everything and, you know, I don't trust people. And you trust everyone you meet and you think everyone's beautiful. And that's sort of like the crux of it.

Like, Lois is a force of nature in a way that Superman is not. So you have to have something about the character that's interesting. Like a lot of people that really like Storm and Wolverine, for example, it's because temperamentally, they're polar opposites. But it's something that when the characters come together and writers play with that, you see how that contrast and how they bring different aspects of each other out. And that's interesting to explore. Tim, Tim Drake is my favorite Robin because he's the inquisitive one,

and he is the detective of them. but if you were to strip away the Robin moniker from Tim, then you're like, he's a really smart rich kid. And his boyfriend is a rich kid that is just, and there's nothing there. Like, I have no desire to see them.

Like, as any scenes with them at all. It's just not interesting. And kind of like Paul, Paul is kind of was created. A lot of people have made the statement that they felt that Zeb Wells had created Paul as an insert for himself. And that's why Paul was perfect.

Paul, like, even Peter can't be mad at Paul, you know, that kind of thing, you know? And that nobody wants that. And I think people picked up on that. It's like, we're being told this guy's perfect and wonderful, but like, I don't care. Right. Why would you? Like, there's no reason in the story to care. What this character?

Yeah, I mean, you want fire and ice, right? You want people that are going to create, you want people that are going to have sparks like John, Daredevil, and Elektra, you know? Yeah. Exactly. It's more interesting that way. Catwoman and Bruce Wayne, very much the same way. Rogue and Gambit, you know, rog's way more hot-headed than Gambit is. And that's kind of like the thing about them.

They have the sort of the Pepe Lepeu and the girl cat vibe to them where he's, always chasing after her trying to prove himself to her but yeah no i just i don't interesting i just always thought it's kind of interesting question if there's anybody that stood out that you're like i kind of wish this dynamic would would just be over with and it seems like you guys got your wish with uh paul and paul and marvel and i'm kind of hoping that fraction decides to bring tim back in some manner because they created a whole new costume for Tim at the beginning of this book. That seemed like Tim was going to be a big part of it, only for him to be, like, written out of it by issue six.

Yeah. So, yeah, we'll see. Let's see. Yeah, that being said, is there anything else that we could talk about with this, I suppose? You guys remember whenever Dr. Octopus almost married on May? Yes. I was going to bring this up as well. Here's the thing.

I have to say this. Dr. Octopus is a man of eclectic tastes. Because if I'm not mistaken, when he was in possession of Peter's body, he was dating a little person, right? Yes. Man's got a variety to him that a lot of people can attest to. He also, I think, wasn't he? I don't know if they officially did, but he was having a thing, or they handed a thing with Stoner. Right? I don't know if they ever officially did that, did they?

Yeah, I think that was hinted at. I'm not sure if it was ever official, but... I know that she clearly pined after him. I'm not sure if they ever officially did something, but I feel like, you know, they probably did, because as we've established, talk to Octopus, quite the player. Well, the reasons for him wanting to marry at me as well

is absolutely hilarious. You should establish that really quick, shouldn't we? Yeah, I mean, so apparently he was wooing her for the sole benefit of trying to get his hands on the nuclear power plant that she had just inherited on a remote Canadian island. Because that's something that gets passed down between people, when people die, is nuclear power plants. Tell me about it, dude. I have six of them. Yeah. I don't know what to do with them.

I don't know what to do them. Give them Dr. Octopus? Take them. They're all yours, dude. I don't care. Give me some money. That's it. You don't have to marry me.

I don't know if you want to. It's kind of funny as well, though, even though the marriage didn't go ahead and the relationship wasn't real, uh, Otto has always had like sort of a soft spot for Aunt May and like treated air as like, uh,

like, uh, I don't know, someone he almost cares about, which is kind of weird in its own way. But also, don't you think that that issue, where they're like, Dr. Octopus and how may are going to get Marri, like, seems like a really iconic kind of memorable Spider-Man issue? Because it's so weird. Also so very, like, it's so very Spider-Man at the time. Yeah. Why wouldn't Dr. Octavis and that may get Marry?

Of course. So, um, that, to me, again, that's. sounds out like very much like one of those pro wrestling weddings where it's very much like, I watch the show to see what happens. And then at the end of the show it's like, well, it turns out nothing happened. So we got pushing us some cake.

Was Eric Bischoff, you know? Now, not glad it's going to be mad. You know? But but it's still very memorable. I thought that we should, we couldn't do an episode about wedding, weddings and comics. talking with that one.

I'm just like now looking back and I looked up Stunner when you mentioned it. I'm like, man, octopus had some range. Oh yeah. Like all over the place. Age height. Ladies,

ladies, man. Lill-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-l-lid. Polygit. Just get with his fingers. There's so many of them. Just a lot of them are like metal and they plank.

They're really cold. Cold. Cold. is. Hold on, let me warm him up for you. Christ. All right. Does that the note we end on?

He sure has an internal heating system for his arms, right? Why would he? I don't think he would. I don't think he cares. This specific purpose. Do you think that Dr. Octopus is a considerate lover? We know he's got a variety of love, but how, that's the quality of that love.

He's definitely, like, thinking about how he's gonna have sex out May. He's, like, considering that, for sure. He's running the math. No, exactly. He's floating around his head. 100%. I think he's an efficient level.

He'll get in, do the deed, and get out so he can get back to trying to kill Spider-Man. As we all do. Baby, it's been weeks. Oh, that's fine. I'll do it. But then Spider-Man. All right.

You know what amazes me? When we did the Watchman episode, we did not talk about like the Silk Specter, Dr. Manhattan sex scene where he makes the duplicate versions of himself. And she's like, oh, this is weird. He's like, I thought maybe this is something you would want. We're talking about that at all. We did not talk about it at all.

We also, by the way, I'm proud of us. I recently edited that episode. Not one time did we actually talk about Dr. Manhattan's penis in the movie review. Oh, wow. Yes, we didn't bring it up at all. We're so mature. In the movie review. In the movie review, we didn't talk about it at all.

We talked about it in the comic review, but not the movie review. I think we did, you just come out of eye. No, we didn't. We absolutely did not. I think we spent 30 minutes talking about the ending of the movie, which we absolutely did spend half the episode talking about the ending. And we just didn't give ourselves time to get back around to it, I guess. To be fair, the end of the movie was the worst part.

yeah didn't have didn't have an opportunity yeah it just it ate up a good bit of time yeah it deserved like i i would have just done the whole episode about the end of the movie do you mean we could have i i cut it off because i was like we got we got another two hours and 45 minutes to talk about like i said the rest of it was just comic accurate for the movie's part so i guess let's put a bow on this before we move on uh towards the end of the show when it comes down to Um, sort of character relationships in comics. It seems like, does it just kind of come down to the character? Does it like, I don't know if you want to pin Batman down and say, here's his consistent one and only relationship like you want to do with Superman.

Like Wally West, the Flash is one of those characters as well. Like, a big aspect of the Wally West character is his marriage to Linda and his two children, Jay and Irie. Like, that's a huge aspect of the Wally West character is he's a family man. but like do you don't want to do that with hawkeye i guess you know right right i agree i think it's a character-based thing you know we look at like you said superman and batman you clearly very different characters you should have two clearly very different defined relationships with people our kent should be going out with our like our marie too loosely and batman should be living a playboy lifestyle that makes sense seem like iron man

yeah and if you look at ironman and captain marga Doesn't Captain America seem like the kind of guy that would just settle down and have a nice picket fence and a kids and white? And doesn't Iron Man seem like that Playboy kind of the Rompter-Vist kind of guy that would just go out and play the field and media of the hearts for his secretary, but still kind of go out with like different people. Well, I mean, but that's, you mentioned that. You mentioned that. But when I was reading Captain America, like, I'm a big fan of the 80s and 90s Captain America run. He didn't have a consistent partner. And the most consistent was like Diamondback.

in that period of time where she was like trying to leave the serpent society. But that was a weird thing. Doesn't that seem like the kind of character that would, or at least what that's absolutely why they wrote him that way in the MCU? Right. You're still carrying a torch for a woman that, you know, was 80 years old or dead. Well, it's a fine line. You know.

Between 80 years old and dead? It's very, very thing. Yeah. Fine line. talk to us doesn't matter I'll fuck him you know but that's what I mean is I think it

I think it depends on the character a lot don't don't clicking and clacking yeah you put that in the another every time you do that just put the click clack noise in

I think it depends on the character like heavily you know. Anybody we're talking about Daredevil. Like, Daredevil doesn't seem like the kind of guy that just because of the way his life goes and the character he is, doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would realistically be able to hold on a long-term relationship. What's he going to have Catholic guilt over, you know? Get that a lot. John, final thoughts?

I think, like, just being a superhero in general probably isn't conducive to being in a long-term relationship. the fact you have to run off and get the drop of a hat to go save the world or stop some bank robbers or whatever that makes it hard to kind of keep consistency in a relationship I guess and reliability and stuff like that so

the fact that even like some of these relationships which are even between like two people who are both superheroes don't work out because there's always stuff to do like worlds to save people to save

things like that so maybe it's just superhero marriages and relationships which are doomed but us regular folk we can you know like have lasting relationships so it's not all doom and gloom

yeah we can learn from those guys It's true Learn what not to do None of us are Spider-Man As far as I know I'm staying quiet John That's why we can't see your face

Yeah He's not wearing his mask John real quick What is your movie count at For the year I am now on 576 movies For 2026

Very nice And what was your most recent one It was a movie called A Biggest Flash by Luca Guadagnino. The guy you did like Challenges and Call Me By Your Name. Okay. It was pretty good. Like a rock star played by Tilda Swinton, who's on holiday with, you know, her younger lover.

Then her old bow comes and crashes the party with a woman who might be his daughter but he isn't sure. And basically Ralph finds plays the guy who's come back

into her life. He's kind of a train wreck and he's trying to get back with her. But yeah, it was good. It was I enjoyed it the second time a lot more than I did the first time. So there you go. So, John, where can the folks read your review of a bigger splash?

They can find it on Letterbox at Big John Balski or one word. And of course, that is linked in the description of this video. Dylan, what do you get up to during the week? Well, when I'm not getting married to Dr. Octopus on his sexy arms, I do a radio show every Monday nights at 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock on Bount Digital Radio

That coded UK You can listen to it on your web browser Across the world, wherever you are So long as you're there at 9 o'clock on Monday at UK time I stream sometimes on Twitch at Spookilyoo Where I drop pictures And I animate those pictures and put them up on YouTube At Team Crows NI

On TikTok at Team Crow Studios So if you guys could follow all those accounts so that would be super cool. And that is it. All right. And of course, I have my other show, which I kind of referenced earlier, called New Number Ones,

which is also here on this YouTube channel. Simple Gimic is that every week. I try to buy a new issue number one from the local comic book store and decide whether or not it's a series worth checking out full time. The last issue I just did was the life and death of Lucas Dreamwalker

by R.L. Stein of Goosepump fame. Yo. Yeah, that was, it was, it was not a really, it was not a good pick for new number ones because it turned out to be a one shot. That was basically just a collection of shorts from a horror anthology that Boom Studios had put out. But it was very interesting.

And Franco, Francesco, Frankavia did the art, which if you're familiar with his art, it was very much in line with what he normally does. A lot of blacks, oranges, greens, and reds. Okay. Yep. So it was, it was an interesting read. I also have my other show, LargoCup, which is a spoken word stream of conscious storytelling podcast, where I have 28 minutes to talk about whatever's off the top of my head. It's always a good time, except for when it's not.

And then it's a good time. But, yeah, that will do us for now. Guys, any last words where we say goodbye? I think that's it, right? Mm-hmm. All right. Well, goodbye. you later.

Bye-bye.