The Smark Avengers - The Smark Avengers Become Marvel Comics Editors-In-Chief?!

Episode Date: August 14, 2026

A number of weeks ago, Marvel Comics made a major announcement that CB Cebulski would be stepping down as the acting Editor-In-Chief and would be replaced by Steve Wacker. Of course this means a potential major shift at Marvel Comics as a new EIC means the possibility of massive changes in the status quo. For months the Smark Avengers have been stating that Marvel needed to do something big to shake things up and this seems like the very thing they need to get back into competition with the Distinguished Competition at DC Comics. The question is… what sort of changes can be made to make up ground? This week Corey, Dylan, and Jon take turns playing armchair quarterback as they go around the horn and reveal what sort of changes they would make if they were given “the pencil” at Marvel Comics as Editor-In-Chief! ✏️ Grab your notepads and your red ink pens, true believers, as the Smark Avengers discuss:The surprising history of the men who acted as Marvel Editor-In-ChiefWhat they think makes a great EICTheir opinions on the current state of MarvelWhat big changes they would make if they were the new EICThis is a great episode for Bat-fans and trivia lovers alike! 💬 Join the discussion: What changes would you make if you were the Editor-In-Chief for Marvel Comics? 👍 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 the Smark Avengers YouTube channel!

And let me tell you, from what I've heard, those perverts will pay a lot of money. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Mark Avengers. My name is Corey. And with me, Dylan and John. How's it go, guys? Why does it always be saying something really, like? How did you not know it was coming, though? How did you not know?

Do you know, some days they do, and some days it happens, and I'm like, oh. To quote Tom York, you do it to yourself. So, how's it going, guys? Good. Glad to hear, glad to hear. So, of course, in traditional Smart Avengers fashion, when we talk about this, this will be old news. But this last weekend, three or four weeks ago, if you're, of course, watching this live, Marvel made a big announcement that CB Zubolsky, who has been their editor-in-chief, has been replaced by Stephen Wacker,

who will be the new Marvel editor-in-chief, while C.B. Zubolski heads to head-up Marvel's offices in Japan to help integrate more manga and what have you, I guess. I don't really know what they're doing over in Japan these days. With the introduction of a new editor-in-chief, that of course means the potential for major changes coming over to Marvel. And that's something we've kind of been talking about has been needed for quite a while. I mean, we've had several episodes over the last few months that have been sort of like, hey, Marvel's kind of fucking up right now.

Like, it gets really boring. like there's nothing of interest happening in Marvel comics at the moment and all of that has been under Sibbolski's watch. I'm sure that we'll get into talking a little bit about some of the decision making that was happening under C.B. Sabulski, as well as kind of get to what this episode's going to be about. But I decided to do a tiny bit of research before we got started today and I thought would you guys like to know the history of the editors in chief at Marvel? Of course Because a weird factoid is Sabolsky was like the third or fourth longest running editor-in-chief they've ever had

Which is weird to think about Two months Some of these about So of course Marvel's first editor-in-chief Was of course Stan the Man Lee From 1961 to 1972 Um

Okay It's you would think he would have done it long because he is such a fixture of Marvel comics. When you think of Marvel, you think of Stan. But no, you know,

he ran until 1972. Of course, he saw the big switch from Timely over to the Silver Age of Marvel, the introduction of all their iconic characters,

et cetera. After Stan stepped down, his successor was Roy Thomas. Roy Thomas was editor-in-chief at Marvel from 1972 to 1974, so only two years.

Uh-oh. Yep. Yeah, I will tell you that's going to be a running theme, because some of these are not very long-lasting. After him was Lynn Wayne. And Lynn was the editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics from 1974 to 1975, only one year. After Lynn was Marv Wolfman, who I did not realize Marv Wolfman was editor-in-chief at Marvel at any point, which he might not either, because his run was from 1975 to

1976, another one year run. Then we have Jerry Conway after Marv Wolfman, which was just 1976. He was perfectly encapsulated in that one part of the year, because he was replaced by Archie Goodwin, who was editor-in-chief from 1976 to 1978. After Archie Goodwin, we have Jim Shooter. Jim Shooter, of course, we all know Jim. He was the editor-in-chief for the second longest run. from 1978 to 1987,

so he almost got 10 years out of it. After Shooter, we had Tom DeFalco, we had 1987 to 1994, not a bad run in comparison to some of these others. And then in 1995, Marvel just didn't have an editor-in-chief. When DeFalco stepped down,

they did not have a single replacement, so instead they had five editors working concurrently, which was Bob Bootyin-Sky, Bobby Chase, Mark Gruenwald, Bob Harris, and Carl Potts. Bob Harris apparently impressed people the most because he was the editor-in-chief from 1995 to the year 2000. After him, we have our friend Joe Kasada, who, by the way, I misspoke Jim Shooter,

was the third longest-running editor-in-chief. Joe Kasada was 2000 to 2011, so we got 11 years out of it. Okay. So we all know Joe Kasada, he was the editor-in-chief for the Disney merger. he oversaw a lot of the big shifts in Marvel, the big swings and misses, the Ultimate Universe, the brand new day, Avengers Disassembled. A lot happened under Joe because previously under Bob, Bob was very X-Men focused and everything else kind of fell to the wayside. So after Casado, we had Axel Alonzo, who ran from 2011 to 2017.

and then of course we end with Sibboski who went from 2017 to 2026. So another almost 10 year run. So that puts it around to tie with Jim Shooter for third longest running editor-in-chief. Here's the thing, though. I cannot remember too much interesting stuff that happened under Sibulski's run.

Because everything I've been thinking of big Marvel moments since the 2000s were Joe Cassata or actually. Alonzo. Only thing I can think about with Sibolsky was Crocoa. And you can't think of

Krokoa without also thinking about how Krokoa ended and then from the ashes and all of the middling X-Men run we've had since. So like, great, great X-Men run. Yeah.

Because like even then, like, Sobolski's big thing was Axel Alonzo was a very, uh, contentious editor-in-chief. Axel did not mind fighting with people. And Axel was the guy behind the Jane Foster Thor run,

Sam Wilson becoming Captain America, Kamala Khan being introduced. Axel was very big on shaking up the status quo because he sort of was like under the tutelage of Cassata and Cassada did the same thing. Like, let's shake things up. The difference was that a lot of people kind of liked what was happening under Joe Cassata in certain instances. And a lot of Axel shake up. were really alienating for some people. Like, people didn't like that Thor was now Jane Foster.

They didn't like the Captain America was now Sam Wilson. They didn't like Kamala Khan getting like pushed in all of these books. These people... I mean, there was definitely some stuff that Jokicata did that people were not a big fan of. Oh, absolutely. We've talked about some of them. For sure. For sure.

A lot of them. A lot of the X-Men stuff getting like downplayed. Or the Spider-Man thing as we're talking about. But I think that's part of it. That's part of it. Like, as that editor-in-chief, you kind of have to take those risks. Yes. Because that's how you print money.

Like, if you don't, then it's just a really samey book that nobody remembers, which I think is Corey's point in that-siboski. This last guy didn't do a fucking thing that anybody remembers. So, Sobolski's big push was marrying the classic Marvel with a lot of Axel's changes. So you have what I kind of always think of as the DC Comics problem, which is we have, you know, we have a middle. million green lanterns. We have two guys that call themselves Robin. We've got two green arrows. We've got like multiple versions of all these characters. And when Savulski came on, Sam Wilson is still Captain America, but Steve Rogers is back. You know, Jane Foster is still around sometimes as Thor, but Thorodinson's back. You know, like that was kind of his big deal was trying to bring both worlds together in a have your cake you need it to kind of way to kind of.

middling success in the sense that like, like I said, this era of Marvel that we've been in for the last few years has been really boring. So I don't know how familiar you guys are with Steve Wacker. Are you familiar with Steve Wacker? The name rings a bell. Did he used to be an X-Men editor back in the day? Yes. He has a very long list of editing credentials behind him. He was editing 52, which was the big Grant Morrison, Mark Wayser. DC comic storyline where they told like a weekly comic for a year that led to all these big changes. He is the editor for It's Jeff, which we all know the lovely little Landshark creature. But yes, no, he has a lot of editing credentials under his belt. He's also kind of like Axel Alonzo and he's not really afraid to rub people the wrong way and get out there.

And Sibulski, for all intents' purposes, a lot of people say it was just a really nice guy. as we make the Akira Yoshita jokes that we do. Sobolski has a reputation for being a really pleasant person. That's nice. The long as he's a nice guy. Kind of, yeah. It's, I don't want to,

I don't want to say it's the Tony Khan thing, but it is definitely like when he left, a lot of creators were like, oh, what a great job of Simulski did. He's so fun. And it's like, Jim Shooter,

I think when he left, I think people were actively celebrating when Jim Shooter still was, removed his editor-in-chief. Like, it seems that, like, to be, to be an editor-in-chief, you kind of have to be an asshole a little bit. I would imagine so.

Like, it's a hard job. Like, it has to be hard. You can't just have a- No, no. I mean, because you're in charge of the line, basically. Yeah, you're in charge of, like, the whole comic thing. Like, there's a lot of... Because I mean, we talked up a lot of people with a lot of the chain.

I mean, we talked about brand-new day, obviously. And Axel followed up. and kept it going. But yeah, I mean, Cassata was not afraid to rub people the wrong way,

including long-time readers. So all of that being said. He felt love. Oh, yeah, I'm sure, yeah. Against the green, against the grain on that one. But it's the worst. Rob somebody.

No, you don't want to go grinds the grain. Anyway, yes. So not a lot of really interesting stuff happened under Sibulski, which ultimately led to this kind of era of nothing really excited.

happening in Marvel. Like, you know, we're having like these kind of, I don't want to, it's a big swing, but it's not a good big swing. Like you have Mary Jane as Venom, for example. That's a huge swing if you think about it, but it's not a good swing. It's sort of like, why? And we've talked enough about Mary Jane as Venom to say that. Like, why are we doing that?

It doesn't feel like a big swing as opposed to, like you said, it feels like a very weary kind of this is what we're doing now kind of swing it doesn't feel like earth shattering like game changing you gotta read spider man because if I don't even admit a lot of people go I don't want to read Spider-Man now

this doesn't sound appealing it feels it feels kind of weird and like there was this the short period because I think it's Jed McKay who's been writing Moon Night for a few years now and there was this period where Mark died and there was a new Moon Night

for like six or seven issues. And there was the big reveal that, you know, like, oh, who's the new moon night? And it was just some other street level character that didn't really amount to anything. It's like, that's not the reveal that you want. Like, if you're going to do that, it has to be a big deal. It has to be something either like completely out of left field in a grandiose way or something that makes sense for the character. when they did the first from the ashes,

one of the first books they announced was X-Force, which is like the Forge team, and there was this big masked guy, and it's like, who's this guy? And then in the final issue, because this series got canceled, they revealed it was Colossus.

Why? Why was he wearing a mask and going by the name Tank? He could have just been, you could have just said, hey, Colossus is on the team, and it would have done nothing different than what they had him to do with the book. It's not even that the Colossus had done something

that he had to hide his identity from. It's just that suddenly Colossus is wearing this mask and calling himself tank for no reason. Do you think that the other people on the X-Men book saw this guy who was wearing a mask and also a thick, was mean of a metal. Talk of the Russian accent. They're like, it could be anybody. Manchi? Is that you?

It could be. It could be Jubilee. We don't know. Oh, boy. We don't know. So it's like, so yeah, you have. all these like little things like that but it's like it's not

it's not anything exciting they made this big like when they tried to make Ghost Rider relevant again and they're like oh the new there's this new demon that's on earth the spirit of violence and it's like all right well we have the spirit of vengeance who's the spirit of violence it's like oh it's Danny Catch's sister and you're like oh

Danny Catcha sister who died in like the like first half of like Howard Mackie's ghostwriter in the 90s like that's not that's not that's not like big or earth shattering it's like okay i i guess that makes sense but that's like what they did with spider-man with uh they brought ben riley back again and then they made him an evil person and they meet him chasm yeah he like hangs up goblin queen and you're like okay cool but like bringing these two characters

back like in the long even in the short term you're like nobody thinks that this is going to have any kind of like long-lasting catastrophic um like happenings throughout the Marvel comic. This is just a storyland that happened with characters that you thought would be fun and kind of shocking to bring back. But nothing of any consequence will happen from this.

This is maybe why I'm so annoyed about the Murray Jane is Venom thing. Because you're like, it's a shitty idea that's just not fun to watch. But I also feel like it's going to have like no consequences. It's going to go back to Eddie Brock and then they're going to tautil on at least with

with at some point. There was an element of like, all right, well, maybe, maybe he's a new venom now. They stuck with that for a while. And they integrated him into Thunderbolts

and then Dark Avengers. But they also had Eddie as anti-venom. And he's like, oh, cool, there's like a thing going on here. Consequences are happening. Things are moving on.

But Murray-Dia's venom just feels like a really long, like, gap between Venom becoming Adi Brock again. Yeah, there's just like, it's like, it's time to get the rest of media, you know what I mean?

Yeah, there's just been a lot under Sibolsky's watch that like, just don't, doesn't, doesn't feel like it, it amounted anything or it fizzled out. With one of the big things that people got really excited for was like this new ultimate universe that they said, well,

I mean, it's ending, so don't get too excited about it. And then it ended and people were bummed out because it's like, well, this was exciting. And they were like, well,

yeah, but if we kept it going, then eventually you would have gotten tired of it. It's like, well, then just, okay, because like, that's what happened with Kerkah. It's like, no, what happened with Kerkah is you kept pushing it along when it was done. Like Kerkowah had an endpoint that Hickman had in mind as well. And I understand we were like, well, it's going off, so we got to keep it going. Keep it going, but you kept it going too long. Like a lot of those other books that got released, they didn't, like, there was so much, there was a lot of good that came out of Kerkahua.

and I know John, you've been reading a lot of Kroa, so you can attest to some of it. The first Marauders book. A lot of people really like, second Marauders book, not so much. No. Excalibur, Knights of X,

don't know anyone who really enjoyed those books. Fallen Angels lasted for like four or five issues. I quite enjoyed that one. Yeah, just didn't go. They only went like four or five issues. Yeah. So it's like there was a lot of stuff like X factor like came and went,

you know? like for as many books as they put out only some of them were really good and were worth sticking with and that happens with when marvel does these big lines like they do too many books and the quality is just not there i mean i remember xcore did you read xcore john i believe i did is that the one with uh angels like the CEO angel and and mona st croix as CEOs of the ex corporation where they're making pharmaceutical drugs. Right, Dylan? Out of...

Out of the weird flowers that Kerkroa grows. Oh, and a lot of people are like, we want to see this. Yeah, I mean, they made a book. Yeah, they sure did. Yep. Yes, they did. So, yeah, and like, Avengers has been, it has felt kind of like a middling title. It's, it's, Subolsky's run has been kind of boring.

At best, it has a good idea that goes for a little bit. and at worst, it's boring and fails. Because, like, the books getting relaunched after 10 issues, that was under Sibolsky's watch. You know, like, we talked about it. Like, how is Iron Man, who is, like, arguably one of Marvel's most popular characters based off of the fucking movies? How can Iron Man get canceled at issue 10? But Poisoned Ivy at D.C. is on issue 43. Again, Sibulski's watch.

Like, you have to hold him accountable for stuff. Like, why is it that, like, you have your marquee players and you don't have the talent on it that is putting out the ideas that make them the big sellers? And, I mean, because, like, ultimately, we talked about, like, how the cosmic line fell apart. I'm not going to hold that against Sibulski. It's cosmic Marvel. It's always a crapshoot. Orie. Exactly.

It's a, it's a crapshoot. Sometimes the books are really well received, but they're never going to have a big readership. Yeah. But, like, Iron Man. should. Well, I agree with that. But I feel like one of the things they were doing that we did talk about in a different episode, maybe it was the Cosmic Marvel one.

But there was an episode where we were like, they were announced on all these books that were going to come out. Yeah. And they went to like issue 10. Some of them went to like issue seven or whatever. Six. Before they got canceled. Yeah.

Like you're not sticking with whatever plan you have, which I must be a nightmare for the the team that are writing those books because if you're the editor-in-chief and you're you have all these books going on you've commissioned all these books to happen yes it's your it's your it's your it's your call whether or not these books happen you let them happen you have the team in place and then you arbitrarily say no we got to cut this off at the at the roots that was part of the problem with kokoa is that they were just like no cut this off right now it won't have the space it needs to read that's an that's that's an editor issue that's that's his call so that was happening a lot where these books were getting commissioned that were supposed to have like 10 issue runs or or more and we're

just getting cut off before they got started that's an editorial he made that call he was the one that was like we're got to cut this off night but he was also the one that was like we're going to make these books in the first place yeah if you have no confidence that those books are going to sell then you shouldn't be giving them the promise of a 10 issue run and then cutting it off at issue 6 because then whatever story they were going to tell will never get told

or will be like compressed and it would be horrible anyway. You're going to get a bad story. You know, it's either something that people don't want to read that you have no confidence in or it's something that people haven't had the chance to fully flesh out and therefore

will feel rushed and horrible. Either way, that's a bad look. because that seemed to happen a lot under the last guy these issues and stories that were coming out that would just get cut off all the time and that's gonna be like the readers can't be having a good time the writers can't be having a good time can you imagine the artists like art takes a long time

if you have this all this shit done and they're like no these are you're not gonna get paid for all the art you might have started sketching out forget that it's not happening like that that's gonna be a fucking pain in the ass you know and that It can't be a healthy working environment. No, imagine it's a lot of uncertainty and a lot of stress, I imagine.

I would say so. I can't imagine that would be a good time. So what we're getting at is that Steve Wacker has a lot on his plate. I imagine he's going to want to come out strong with a lot of ideas to, if some people are not maybe as cynical as we are, write the ship, so to speak. but you know at least make his his leadership and his idea of what marvel should be felt yeah you need to take like an imprint yes so anyway Steve Wacker has a lot on his plate obviously and so we kind of got the idea of playing fantasy booker a little bit to use an old internet wrestling adage the booker being the

person who you know decides what's going to be on the show and how it's going to happen we're going to do kind of fantasy editor-in-chief. If we were the ones who were offered the editor-in-chief role at Marvel after Sibulski, what are three changes that we would make? Or, you know, two or three changes that we would make first day. So I don't know if you want to do, like, one each,

and we just go around the horn a couple of times or if one person wants to do all three of theirs. We'll probably go right. Yeah, let's just go around the horn then. Yeah. So my first thing that I would do, and this will be very unpopular for the very reason that Dylan you just discussed, that Midnight Marvel imprint that they just announced a few months ago,

where it's like the X-Men are going to be vampire hunters and the Fantastic Four have cosmic horror and Spider-Man like a radiation monster man. No, we're pulling the plug on that. We're not putting that out. That is too much like chase it, like the dog chasing its own tail. That is, it felt very reaction. to what DC's doing with Absolute over on their end where it's like, we're going to take all of our iconic characters and do dark stuff with them.

And before then, DC was doing deceased and other kind of like horror-based books. And for Marvel to be like, we're going to do a horror-based line. Well, you did Marvel Zombies, which is iconic, but also, as someone who reads a lot of like stuff, but that's from the smaller publishers this day, the market on horror is well. covered. And just because it's Spider-Man in horror and just because it's the fantastic 4 in horror or X-Men in horror, I just don't

think that it's worth it to take up shelf space and put those creative teams on something you're going to get something a little bit more out of than that, personally. Also, does anyone actually read Spider-Man to see him in horror situations

or the X-Men against, like, horror characters? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, And the only absolute book I've been reading is absolute green arrow. And in absolute green arrow, the main character is Black Canary. Because Green Arrow is this masked serial killer who's going around killing billionaires and CEOs, which is in line with Green Arrow being a very left-wing leaning character. It's like, all right, we'll take him to his logical extreme.

He's now so far left-leaning that he's actively killing pedophile billionaires and is getting celebrated as kind of a hero. for it in a weird dark way over in the absolute universe. So it makes sense in that line. But it just feels like the X-Men as vampire hunters is like, I don't know. Don't know. But that's my first idea. I would do exactly what DC Comics did when they said, hey, Dan de DO's idea for 5G, no, we're not doing that.

Get rid of it. It's going to cause some pain. These people who have been working on stuff, they're going to get paid regardless, but their stuff's not coming out. and that sucks for them, but we're not wasting time. Dylan or John, would you like to go next? What do you think, John? I'll go next.

So I wanted to, like, going back to what we were sort of talking about with these sort of failed runs that kind of get cut short and stuff, it sort of connects to that a little bit, but I would like to go back to the legacy numbering and just like rather than keep splitting books up into different volumes where it sometimes doesn't feel like there's much continuity between each volume as well where like every single one almost seems to start

with like a new status quo where you know like things change and whatnot from the previous run like if you go back to the early days of my like for the first like I don't know like 30 odd years or whatever it all felt like it was running continuously like if you've read iron man there was like some sort of progression from issue one through to issue 300 but like now it's sort of all split up and and a bit more stilted so I think like getting back to legacy numbering and trying to keep continuity in a way between each different runs when like different writers come in or whatever would just make the books feel a bit more you know like it's the same book even if it's a different writer yeah and it kind of embraces a history of like the numbering as well like I think you know Spider-Man a thousand is

coming out pretty soon and that should absolutely be celebrated that's an amazing achievement and like do that for other books as well like i know a lot of i don't think any other marvel book is really coming up to a milestone like spider-man is but uh like you can still absolutely do that and celebrate like fantastic for 800 or whatever so embrace it i i have to say i've never been a big fan of the idea that large numbering scares people off. I don't know where they get this. Like, I feel like a lot of industry professionals have this weird negative opinion on prospective readers.

Like, case in point, DC has been doing their legacy number for a while now. This is Detective Comics issue 1,110. Oh. Beautiful. Yeah, exactly. And it's like, yeah, and it's, I don't know. I've never been afraid of jumping on points. We talked about that in the Daredevil episode.

but yeah I'm of the agreement with John I feel like legacy numbering is not this big scary thing and I think when you see a bunch of number ones each and every week someone who does a whole fucking show about new number ones and I have to wade through

the Marvel and DC ones because I'm not reading those it is like there is a lot of Marvel and DC number ones that get put out and it just doesn't need to be actually because they're going to get canceled after issue 6 typically yeah so what's the point it's so cynical as well

like putting out a new number one just to get that initial sales boost yeah the book just write a good book for fuck sake it's also Iron Man you know if you have a good story on Iron Man people are going to read Iron Man it's fucking Iron Man you know

it's rock like it's not that complicated it's not like you're trying to sell them on like an obscure character like I get if you want to relaunch Guardians of the Galaxy or something or even then that's a stretch yeah yeah but yeah no I well that's funny you would say that Corey because my my first thing as editor-in-chief which might also be my last thing as editor-in-chief is listen why don't we make Tony Star connected to heroin no I We already know he's a very addictive personality

because he's addicted to alcohol. He's also like a narcissist. He's addicted to fame and like, um, applause, right? That's not talked about it, but we know that as Tony Stark, he loves the line light. Exactly.

He's got a very clear addictive personality. That's not just like superficial. Like, it's very clear in his personality. but I also think that the addiction thing brought him a lot of vulnerability whereas being addicted to fium is just obnoxious which is part of Tony Stark's character for sure but it grates on you for a while if you went back to him being an alcoholic

you'd be like they've already done this but if we give him a new thing to be addicted to for example heroin and that's something fun he would be sleeping when he's driving the suit Jarvis is always on autopilot Really funny

There's this He just go A little nap We were talking about like Marvel and horror I remember there was a Marvel horror story Where like Iron Man's suit was like killing him slowly

Yeah Like he couldn't take a suit off Because he was just like essentially like Meat and Bones in there now I do like this weird idea that like he's so fucked up that he doesn't realize that he's actually like fighting crime because AI like it's just Jarvis

like autopilot and like automated defenses and stuff the whole time and just like Tony's just like passed out in a stupor inside the suit the whole time right so you can do the heroin and the AI so he's still Iron Man but he's also wildly addicted to heroin so nobody notices for a long time and then it becomes like an even because that's a that's a big topic of conversation that people aren't willing to talk about

I know we laughed about this a minute ago heroin addiction is actually a very serious condition it has affected so many of the celebrities we grew up on watch them enjoy as as youngsters right up until the the current day so I think that that's a very important thing that nobody's already talking about in that kind of of let's explore this topic more kind of light you know I do want to see an emotional breakdown I thought like, no, fuck it. Let's give him a different addiction. Like you were saying,

yeah. Nobody's reading Iron Man anymore, but if he gave him a reason, the book, why is it a heroin addict? Let me see this. They're going to flock to that book. I would like there to be an emotional moment in the book

where like Tony Stark hears under the bridge by the Red Hot Chili Pepper. He's like, the song makes so much sense now. He is. I too am under the bridge right now. I think it's funny or if he listened under the bridge, by the Red Hot Chibbubber.

He goes, what's this shit? I'm not a fan of the funk infusion of the Red Hot Chilli covers. I love why you used to love the Red Hot Chilibber is. Like most people. The Reef's stuff has been pretty, well, their newer stuff

has been pretty, I'm going to say garbage. And when I say newer stuff, I mean, from Stadium, arcadium onwards, has been fucking awful. Right back in the order. I am going to, I would break Marvel into bubbles. They already do it.

but they're not defined enough bubbles. Like there's the X-Men world and there's the Spider-Man world and then they just kind of have the rest. Right? So I would very, I would very quickly denigrate and have like, we're going to have this Avengers bubble. The Avengers bubble is going to be our main Avengers book, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor, and then a couple, like, maybe two wild card characters. And wild card characters, I mean, like, they have to have MCU presence because that's what we're going for for sales. So we're going to go with

maybe the Thunderbolt slash New Avengers characters with like, you know, Yelina Belova because like, you know, she's becoming very prominent. My other bubble characters are going to be like I said, we're going to have the Spider-Man world.

We're going to limit that down a little bit. We don't need all the Spider-Man spinoffs. There's way to me Spider-Man spinoffs. We're going to call the herd a little bit. We'll do two Spider-Man books, Amazing and Web of. We will do, a Venom book.

And it will be Eddie Brock, because we're going to go iconic. And we will, again, we'll do one wild card character. And it will be, I will, I'll take the writers, I will break a pool cue into two pieces. And it could be the Gwen Stacy

characters against, like, the other random symbiate characters. And you guys fight it out. Whoever wins, you get the fourth spot. Like, we need to get really, what I'm getting at is that we're going to pair the line down, into defined little avenues. And once those are established

and there's room for growth, we can expand those bubbles a little bit bigger, but we're limiting them down because there's too much stuff out there and it is watering down the line. Okay. I'd even do a Marvel. I would even do like a Marvel Knights bubble

with like a Moon Knight character, a Ghost Rider character, like the darker ones. But yeah, I'm just saying we got, like we're going to par it down a little bit. There's too much weird stuff out there. There's way too many Spider-Man spin-offs. There's too many X-Men spin-offs.

There shouldn't be that many. That would be my other thing as we're cutting the line. So, John, next. Similar sort of theme, I guess. I think it ties back into my first one as well about legacy numbering, but just cutting back on the sheer number of events that seem to happen year by year. And this is probably going to be like the. worst choice I could make in terms of

you know like sales and whatnot but like man have we ever been oversaturated with like events in the last 15 to 20 years yeah yeah like just going back like off the top of my head we've had but at the moment we've got Avengers Armageddon I think we got the Queen in Black

as well we've just had one world under doom blood hunt which is an X-Men fantastic series. We had the AXE Judgment Day crossover. We had devil's reign, empire,

King in Black, War of the Realm Secret Camping. I mean Jack and Black. There's so many events. And like I say, going back to my first point as well about the numbering,

A lot of these kind of volumes of books just get interrupted constantly by having to tie into events all the time. Like there's no... It makes it harder to tell like a coherent, contained story when like all of these big things are happening

and the characters getting dragged into them and like, you know, the stories that the writers are trying to tell are getting knocked off track because of having to play into whatever else is going on. So, yeah, let's get rid of those. Maybe limit it to one or two major stories a year at most. I agree with you completely in that I think they do way too many. They try to do events all the time and like an event once in a while is a really good thing.

but honestly like I want to just take my go to do this but if I was Marvel blah blah blah which I will be in a moment um I wouldn't do it once a year no because people are

expecting at least once a year expecting one big Marvel crossover that's why they do it is because Marvel have conditioned people to expect there to be at least one big major blah blah blah blah blah happened and then fucking nothing again no consequence nothing comes of me i mean the 2010s was that that

was a prime example every year there was the big one story year it was like it was like every summer and it was so like the most consequential stuff i remember being is like oh shit now nick fury is the watcher and it's like what does that mean yes it just means we have an excuse to have nick fury junior show up yeah but that's the thing like all this stuff happens and it's so inconsequential and you know they're doing it to create a big event that crosses over loads of things. But if it feels like it has no weight to it, then you wonder why anybody would do it to begin with. There's no substance to it. And then if people know there's no substance to it, people probably aren't going to buy the book.

I would love to see what the numbers have been. They're big crossover books. Are they that much bigger? more books that they've done. And to John's point, wow, it's so fucking irritating. Be reading a run. And then you were like in the middle

of just some other fucking storyline for like three issues. And then back, and you're like, well, fuck, that's got a crowbar. That's going to ruin everything for your flow. You just have to fucking jump into this garbage, you know?

So this is one we've talked about recently, but it was right after from the ashes started, which was the big X-Men line after Karkoa ended. I think it was three issues, and they had a crossover between all of the books. And it was like, they haven't established the dynamics of the teams yet under these new creative forces. Yes.

And it was a lot of hope. Wasn't it? It was about they had to get it out of the way because Hickman was going to use Xavier in the Cosmic Marvel relaunch. So they had to get Xavier off of Earth because his character was being held in prison in the Gray-Malkin Institute. so they had to get him off earth, and they needed to do the story to get him out there because Hickman's story was going to start up soon. So they wrote themselves into a corner with, like,

we have to have an event to justify why Xavier's not here for the event that he's about to be a part of. And it turns out it didn't really justify it at all. No, it didn't justify it. People were out of character, and then Hickman's Cosmic Marvel wasn't as well received, and a lot of people thought it was boring, and we talked about it.

All those books that they announced got canceled after like five, five, six issues. and go nobody gives a shit about nobody cares about cosmic Marvel I feel like that's pointed at me at this point it's pointed to whoever's listening

my other um decision as as Marvel editor-in-chief is the first one was clearly controversial will the second one be yes

we're going to get rid of all the symbiates oh That's surprising for you. All of them. Every fucking one of them. Wow. Even though. They're all gone.

Just a, I don't know, like a Luigi's Mansion vacuum or something sucks them up. I don't care how you do. It's fucking, like, because I know they've, they've tried it through the dirt. Like, it's not fun to read. I loved Carnage in the 90s. But you look at Carnage in the 90s, you even look at Carnage in the 90s. You even look at Venom. in the 90s.

Look at him now. You're like, what the fuck is this character? Like, what is this? I'm not even just talking about Mary Jane as Venom, but when fucking Eddie Brock was Venom,

like that came black shit and all that null. There was a part where this was kind of interesting. And then fucking Eddie Brock's son became venom. And then his dog became venom.

Now Mary Jane is Venom. And then his son is a different symbiote and Clitus Cassidy is whatever. And then, fucking Eddie Brock was carnage but now he's not carnage. Like it's so convoluted

and stupid and horrible. I'm like just X-Man it. No more symbiates. It's fucking just blanket wipe them and then we don't have to foot up with this shit anymore. Then we won't spend ours of this show every week of me complaining about

Mary Jane being Vennon. Unwiped. We can talk about something better. None. Nobody has to worry about shitty symbiot story. of which there have been more shitty symbiate stories than there have been good symbiate stories. I can tell you that the symbiates have changed a lot over the last 10 years. I can't think of a single one change that's been good.

Like whether it's recreation of null or the symbiate planet that they discovered in Guardians of the Galaxy or the various people that had it, I can't think of a single one that was like, ah, that really changed the game. the symbia planet was a thing from the 90s well i just mean that like they went to the symbiate planet in guardians of the galaxy that uh flash thompson was a member of the team for

sure well again in my my issue no flash thompson is venom no fuck that he's back to haven no legs good let him crawl around the streets he's done they're all done you know and then they can go to like a little like re-haping had thing where they're all like, I used to be venom, you know. Some of them might actually have to, because it seems like it's a very addictive thing.

Apparently so. And then... Apparently keeps some of them alive. Wow. Yeah. All symbiotes cut, Don. John, what are your thoughts on Dylan's plan to remove all the symbiates? I mean,

as someone who's read a lot of the venom and symbiate-related stuff over the last 10 years, I don't mind it. I know you have your issues because of where it's, you know, where it started and where it's gone to. But for me, like, it hasn't all worked, but it's part of the parcel of storytelling is to kind of grow stuff out and not just do the same thing over and over again. So for me, they tried something new, tried something different, tried to make it bigger and better. and yeah like I say it hasn't always been successful but I don't know I don't feel it's been that

bad a run to be honest some of the stories though I feel like a chief you're fired yeah I feel like a lot of the stories could have like they could have pushed it more because it feels like everything they did were like almost half steps half measures like if you look at null for example there's nothing exciting about that character design at all, you know, like, I just, it just, if you say, like, this is the god of all symbiates, like, this is the fucking man. And he just looks like a different costume for Marvel's Dracula, you know, like, if you put him right beside Dracula, there's not much the way of difference. It just feels, like I said, it just feels like, I have, of the opinion that you should take

big swings, right? because that's where, like, he said, the most growth Marvel had was the big swings. Like, Avengers disassembled, completely shook up

what the Avengers meant. You know, because Avengers' words is dead in the fucking water for years, right? For better or worse, Spider-Man got shook the fuck up

by Mepisto deciding that, for whatever reason, he really liked the idea of them not being married anymore. Because, again, it's not even like he kept

Mary Jane as his own bride or something, which you could have done a story with as well. I'm just like, I'm just satisfied knowing you two aren't going to be married. Mephisto, Hater of the Year. What a day.

But yeah, like, you know, you could take big, like, take a big swing, take a big swing. And I just feel like a lot of the ideas are they just weren't big enough. They weren't risky enough. They weren't grand enough. Because even stuff like, oh, we're going to make Mary Jane Venom. It's like, we're just putting the symbia on another person. We've done this before. It doesn't, right.

Because it's Spider-Man's girlfriend. Yeah, that's different, but like, is it different enough? I don't know. Well, I reserve judgment because I haven't got around to reading it yet, but I kind of like the idea of making Mary Jane, like, the main character in her own book rather than the supporting character in someone else's book. Like, given her some proper impetus as a character isn't necessarily a bad thing. but again, I need to get around reading it to see what the actual execution is like. I think the thing is, if you're going to do that, she can never be a supporting character again. Because it's just going to be a demotion.

You know, I feel like she would have to, she would have to permanently be capable of being a main character in her own book. Or a main character in a team book or something along the lines of that. Because if you do that and then you step her back down to just being like, Peter Parker's girlfriend or the girl that he's chasing after or even just his wife, like that's, it's sort of like, you can't go home again, you know? Like, once you go on the hero's journey,

the hero's forever altered at the end of the journey. He's not the person who started that journey anymore. And we have now started Mary Jane on this path. She can never go back to just being Mary Jane. Yeah. But it's comic. So, you know, they'll just have some writer go, yes, she will.

And that's just it. just how it works so but yeah yeah Dylan you're getting rid of venom carnage anti-venom red goblin you're getting rid of

toxin toxin what's the the cimbia that is part of boomerang now like whiplash or something it's yeah no idea yeah boomerang's got a symbia but it's a different one

I think that if you go out to the point where boomerang has a symbion, we have fucked it up. That's what, yeah, that's what I was getting that. Like, we're just putting the symbion on a different person. It's like, that's not a big enough idea. Not that I hate boomerang, but I'm like, come on, man. He's going to be in that new Spider-Man movie. So, don't make a venom. That's true.

I can't wait to read about that boomerang character. Oh, he's a venom now? Oh, great. Well, now I care. Nobody cares. No. All right. Well, my third and final idea,

get back into genre comics. It's risky. DC tried it with New 52, where DC was like, hey, we're going to have superhero comics, but we're also going to have some mystery comics, and we're going to have some horror comics, and we're going to have some war comics.

We're going to have some Western comics. Like Marvel, but like before the transition to Spider-Man and stuff Marvel had a lot of success in the realm of romance comics, war comics, Western comics, etc. As an experiment,

see what happens. You know, because I feel like the, the ideas that I have had and presented are very safe ones. Like, get rid of, get rid of this thing. Let's bubble these things up. Let's try some genre comics and see what happens, as my experiment.

Maybe not horror comics, just because I'm canceling a series of horror comics. I'm not putting out. Yeah, you already said art comics are not going to do that. We're going to go, it's going to be war comics and westerns. We're going to do, well, it's not DC. We're going to do Sergeant Rock

and the unknown soldier. Two gun kid. The two gun kid. There you go. Classic Avengers character. Yeah, Jimmy John bit on him. Everybody loves... Money. well spent.

There you go. Just like Deadpool. All right, John, what is your final big idea for your role as editor-in-chief? My final idea is to make deaths matter again. Oh, okay. Because I think, you know, like, there's been too many instances. It's always been a thing in comics, but, like, it just seems now to be even, more egregious.

I found a few examples. Like the century died during King and Black back in 2023. And then he came back to life again in his own series. Like a couple of years later, Dr. Strange died in

a book called The Death of Dr. Strange in early 22, 2020. And then was resurrected in October of that same year by Claire. Yeah. Yeah.

Like Dr. Doom dies at the end of One World Under Doom. Spoiler alert there. I should have said. But he sacrifices himself to save Valeria Richards. It's like a noble kind of end. And then he shows up again in the latest volume of Captain America, issue 12. And like, you know, I guess the most egregious one was Miss Marvel.

dying in Amazing Spider-Man and then being resurrected in the Hellfire Gala like literally weeks later. Yeah. So a quick question on the Dr. Doom and Captain America. When I was reading that Captain America issue one, it was set in the past with Captain America being assigned to go to Latvaria. Do we know that that book is still set in the past or is at present day? I think it's present day now. I believe, yeah, they're like going back. I think there's been some like civil war in the aftermath of Doom's Fall after World Under Doom.

And it's sort of about like, yeah, trying to bring about some order to Latv area. But yeah, like in terms of deaths, there hasn't been like some longstanding death really. since I would say probably the last one we had was Wolverine's death in 2014. And then he didn't return until 2018. So it was four long years where he was out of the picture. But well, kind of out the picture because there was still old man Logan and Laura Kinney, Wolverine as well. A good guy, Sabretooth. Yeah, yeah.

I think that in terms of that, it was quite brave of them to keep Wolverine dead for four years because everybody knew Wolverine was coming back. So the idea that they would be like, no, he's really dead. It's quite admirable. But I think that underlies the bigger problem in that the popular characters will not die. Yeah. It's not going to die forever or Daredevil or Wolverine or. the characters of people want to read,

or aren't going to die. And that is an issue because it eliminates a little bit of the risk factor involved. Well, if Spider-Man's not going to die in a situation, then,

you know, how risky could it possibly be? That's fair enough, though. Like, no one really expects Spider-Man to be taken off the board for years on end. but like if it's a lesser character like even the century

buying and King in Black and then coming back a few years like it's like it fucking brought Ned Leeds back yeah exactly what are we doing so there was

there was an expression back in the day and it's really funny when I say this out loud when you think about it but like the only deaths that the only deaths that never come back are Uncle Ben Bucky Barnes and Jason Todd and Jason Todd and Bucky Barnes are not only back,

but they're most popularly they've ever fucking been. And Uncle Ben has been teased and came back like multiple times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's a fine line, Uncle Ben. So, yeah, that's just really funny when you think about it in retrospect like that. But yeah, no, it is. I mean, for God's sakes, that was like part of the,

I will always find any reason to talk about Peter David's X-Factor run. but his second X Factor run in the 2000s where they did the throwback to examinations where the team was getting therapy from Doc Sampson, Siren was in complete denial that her dad was dead. She was like, oh, yeah, no, he's going to come back.

They all come back. And he's like, well, what if he doesn't? She's like, no, he's an ex-man. They always come back. And you know what? He always come back. He did. He did.

He absolutely did. He's around now. Mm-hmm. And thankfully, he's representing Arridan. Yep. In the online X-Men series that ended, it had like a four-year run. I was like, there was the whole series where he was the main character of his online-only comic. No idea.

So kind. So kind. I don't know. I'm for it. Like I said, I love Banschey, but that's just the Generation X fan in me. Hmm. So, Dylan, you have the honors of having the last official. act as editor-in-chief

for Marvel being represented by the Smart Avengers? I would bring Uncle Ben back in the dead. And I would also give him superpowers, and he hates Peter Parker, and he tells him who Peter Parker is, that he's Spider-Man, and then Peter Parker has to beat up the one person that he truly loves, which is Uncle Ben,

and he can't do it, so then Uncle Ben, like, jabbed him in the throat with a knife. you know you know that I mean you're joking about this but there's a new character being introduced in the 1,000 issue a new bad guy who's to say it couldn't be Uncle Ben under

the mask could be could be power comes great responsibility and now I'm responsible for kicking your ass I thought up like a third thing and I've already forgotten what it was because I was so determined to do the Uncle Ben bit which is quite

frustrated on my part because I I was like, this would be good. This would be really funny. Hoisted. And then like, no, do the Uncle Ben bit as like a bit and then circle back to the real idea. No, I forgot what that real idea was. One of them was going to be, there's too many X-Man.

We should do like some sort of event where we like get rid of a lot of the X-Men. That's estimation, some would say. I mean, that's a bit much, but sure. There's something like that. You know, one of them was to like delist a lot of the Avengers because as we know, there are way too many Avengers. We've drafted a lot of them. ridiculous.

We drafted all but three of them. Fuck them. There's no need for that to be so ridiculous. Like we need to focus on. Oh, I remember what it was not. This is what I was going to do. Is Marvel have a really annoying thing where they try to synergize their comics

with the MCU. And it never works because they're different entities. But every time they, and I understand why they want to try to do that. but what they should be doing is if a new Spider-Man film is coming out, then that's when you have the killer Spider-Man story. This killer Spider-Man story shouldn't just align with whatever happens in the film. For example, whenever the Tobin-Maguire films came out,

they did the storyline where Peter Parker now has organic webbing because that's what happens in the film. Nobody wanted that. Nobody wanted that. You know, there's loads of stuff like that where they're trying to be... The comics and the films are very clear. different universes, very clearly different characters, which gives the films a good blank slate to kind of like, well, we don't have to be a one-to-one to the comics, we can do whatever you want.

And to that point, the comics shouldn't be like, well, we should do a one-to-one and copy the film. That's bizarre and bananas does make any sense. They should just try to stay as separate as they can, but still, whenever a new film comes out, at least try to put up a big, like, oh, Spider-Man, the film is coming out. let's try to do a big Spider-Man story. Or Avengers, like Dr. Doom is covered. Let's do a big Doctor Doom story. Something like that.

Like synergize, but don't copy the cinematic universe because that's a waste of time and you're going to lose both sets of people. The benefit of having the films is you're getting people that aren't comic readers who might jest into the comics. And the same of the comics, you might have people who might not always go see that film.

They might, because it's got somebody involved with them, and it's a different story. to make the two of them to see him defeats the purpose. I think that would be a fun episode to do would be like what are some of your least favorite examples of synergy between comics and the movies and television? Because like as you were saying that, I was just running through the Rolodex of things that have happened in the comics I was either confused by or couldn't stand because they were just doing their best to like, this is how it's like in the thing that you

watched. So you should read the book too. and uh we can make that an episode oh i easily like i said i got fucking two on top of my head right now um okay and they're both dc yeah they're both dc so it's not even marvel and marvel's worse in my opinion when it comes to their synergy stuff wouldn't it be cool if the rock was black adam that'd be awesome you know they never actually made black adam look like the rock which i had to say i can appreciate they didn't make them they didn't shave his head they didn't make him simoan turns out in the long run

correct choice they were like yeah all that happened was they made black Adam a member of the Justice League for like a hot minute and then that didn't last ah well you know what are you going to do but no I yeah no I'm with you there I think

the attempts at synergy just feels it feels it feels pathetic it feels pitiful it's like begging like hey you want to read us too right you like this You should like this too. Just do your own thing. I saw so many fan theories, by the way, that just speaking of synergy of like people going the opposite direction, there's so many people who are like wanting that Ned Leads character to turn into a hobgoblin.

And I feel like, I feel like if if the first time you get like a cinematic portrayal to Hobgoblin and it's that particular version, I feel like that fucking John will revolt. we would be we've i would say i would say we'd be very upset i saw i saw someone do like a photoshop of what it would look like and i went that's even worse yeah just just they put a yellow filter on it which felt bad to begin with and then they made his eyes red and i went hmm i don't like this i don't like this at all no sir all right no i i agree i guess i'm not a big fan of the synergy stuff johnna what are your what are your feelings on synergy? I can understand the desire to kind of, you know, draw potential new eyes to the comics and stuff and say, hey, look at this, but I don't know, I don't think it benefits the comics itself.

Like, again, it's sort of forcing things on writers trying to shoehorn stuff. in like with the events as well where maybe this isn't necessarily their plan and then now they've all of a sudden got to squeeze in a story with boomerang because he's going to be in the new Spider-Man movie.

It's like, I don't know, man. Yeah, exactly. That's it. I feel good. Well, I think it would be great CEOs or whatever. We could be CEOs too, but others and Dave, like clearly we were fucking good at this, you know?

I mean, Dylan, you could... I mean, don't trust this with the finances. No, probably not. It would be... I took a bunch of accounting courses in college as a business student, and I wouldn't recommend I do it. I could probably do it. Yeah, okay.

Dylan, you could be the CEO, the CFO, the C-O, the C-O, the H-BIC, the E-I-C, and the Young MC of Marvel Comics. Not enough titles, any more titles, please? All right. Oh, boy. Hey, speaking of, I have nowhere to go with this. John, what's the most recent movie you watched? The most recent movie I watched was the Village of the Damned.

Okay. Tell us a little bit more about the Village of the Damned. So this was the 1960 version, not the 1995, remake by John Carpenter. But it was you know, like sort of quaint British horror from back in the day.

So lots of creepy kids with their like bleach blonde hair and glowing eyes using their mind control on people. And yeah, it was kind of fun. Didn't overstay its welcome. I think it was like

about an hour and 17 minutes long. Good hour 19. Love it. Yeah. Just gets in there, does the job, gets out. Perfect. That's what I want from a movie.

And a lover. That being said, John, what is our movie count at for the year for you? So, Village of the Damned was number 738. Very nice.

738. That's not bad, considering you're in the middle of June, I think officially now, but for those, it's probably like beginning of August, I think. Middle of August, I'd want to say, probably if you're watching this now. I love our

weird time scale. That being said, John, if they want to see your thoughts on Village of the Damned and any other damned things that you watched this year, where can they go to find that? They can head to Letterbox and find me at Big John Bowsky

Auburn Wood. And, Dylan, aside from advertising your only fans where only brush your hair. Yeah. What are you up to you during the week? I do a radio show on Bounce Digital Radio. It's free. You can listen to it on your web browser.

Every Monday night's 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock on Bounce Stitch Radio. Just click on the link at 9 o'clock UK time. You can listen to cool music and questionable banter, which is fun. I stream sometimes where I draw pictures at Spook of the Roo on Twitch. And then I animate those things and put them on YouTube. at Team Crows and I and I put them on TikTok at Tim Crow Studios and that's it

I listened to your radio show a little bit yesterday while I was drunk in an airport in Detroit did you like it it was very enjoyable thank you what did I was drunk in an airport in Detroit Michigan I just remember that I was listening to your voice

aw that's so sweet thank you you're welcome And if you want to listen to my voice, I have another show called Large Old Cup, which is a spoken word podcast that I'm, well, might be playing around with in the future and doing some different things with that will be very personal and potentially very ugly. And I'm kind of excited about that from an art standpoint. So Large Old Cup, you can find the link to that in our description. It's on Spotify as well in other podcast platforms. I also have New Number Ones, which is our sister show here on the YouTube channel, where I find a, a new number one.

And this last week, it was banana number one from Bad Idea Comics, which left a very big impression on me because of how the shift between story one and story two, I keep saying it, but it was whiplash-inducing and very uncomfortable.

Like I recorded the episode immediately after reading it. It was great. I, by the way, another review that I read for that book said, utter dog shit. So, you know, Tale of two cities on that one if you look at it that way.

Wow. Yep. But you can find new number ones here every Sunday on this very YouTube channel. Aside from that, I think it's going to do it for today. We'll see you guys later. Farewell. Goodbye. Bye.