The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 17: The Smark Avengers Talk About the Most 1990's Characters

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Shoulder pads? Check. Pouches? Check. Absurd guns in both size and quantity? Check. A mysterious backstory? Check. That 1990s "in your face" attitude? Oh you better believe it! Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they hop into a time machine and discuss the most 90's characters they can think of!

Are we at that point in our lives where there's like the 90s nostalgia tours where it doesn't matter if the genre is even remotely the same, which is like, yeah, they were a successful group in the 90s, put them on. Stop. You're not allowed to talk like that. You're fired. And speaking of us getting old, it's been remarked on a couple of times we were children of the 90s. And that means that according to some people, we are busted and old. So we thought what a better thing to do than to focus on those 90s characters. that were so prevalent in the comic book industry.

So, by the way, in case I forgot, which I totally did forget to introduce us all, you're listening to Smart Avengers. I'm Corey, and with me here, Dylan and John. Hi. Hello. So, well, real quick, before we go on anything, John, which should move a count out?

So last time I sort of guessed what it would be, and it turned out I was spot on. Hey. So I'm like 339 for the year. Well done. We're getting close to that midpoint. Yeah. What is the record for most movies you've watched in a year?

Oh, it's about 151 or something like that. All right. You're not on pace for that yet. No. I'm getting up to June as well where I'm going to be doing stuff, basically, going to festivals, going abroad, going to gigs. Yeah. So that's going to.

slightly throw me off course even more so you know it's easier he's going to watch the films for you and then tell you what happened yeah I'll tell you what happened in regards to going back to the 1990s um that was sort of a

a beautiful period of time in comic books where there was just a lot of stuff getting put out and we've talked about it a couple times before but the major emphasis of that was somebody sold an original copy of action comics that the debut of Superman and made several millions of dollars so because people are rational normal human beings they didn't just see the well I mean it's the first appearance of Superman it's

from the 1930s which at that time was like 80 years ago like of course that's going to go for a lot of money they then started to think that every comic book was eventually going to go for that much money people started to buy out stock in comic book stores like and the publishers absolutely went with it you know like death of Superman sold millions of copies because people thought like oh they're really going to kill Superman and so like you got the black a little bad the issue came inside of a black plastic baggy with like uh the bleed the bleeding Superman logo on the front and like you can see copies that people still have them in that black bag because they bought so many copies thinking they were going to put their kids through college in it um real quick I'm going to actually pull up eBay and I want to

see like how much a Death of Superman comic goes because I feel like that is John we're going to have to place our bets what do you think? Oh geez I'm optimistic I'm going to say it's going for

$150 so we're talking in the black bag right in the poly bag okay you said 150 I was going to just off the bat just guess 75 all right Well, here's the thing. So they put out a platinum edition version of it.

That one's going for $200. But that's a platinum version edition. I am seeing $10, $20. This one's $60. I don't know why it's $60, but it is. And these are just what people are asking for. So these are people who have it on hand. And they are not that optimistic about what they're going to get in return for.

this so they're going 20 bucks so i was close this really yes so i think actually what it might be is that they did they put out a 30th edition like 30th year anniversary edition of that that is like going for like that $20 mark because it was just like a special thing DC did recently to honor that storyline but like yeah i mean i'm seeing people who are requesting a lot of money for it and i'm seeing people who are not requesting a lot of money for it so that's kind of of an example. People really thought that these comics are going to be worth a ton of money, not realizing that

value is based off scarcity. How much, incidentally, how much does it cost to send a child to college in America? $20? My niece goes to the University of South Carolina, and I think her tuition was like for the year,

maybe just maybe the semester or the year was $80,000. Holy, mother of God. that's yeah that's why John that's why our country's in the state that it is in god I we monetize that's why I don't think that's the reason

I don't know we'd say we monetized education but uh but yeah so college is pricey so oddly enough the cost of college actually increased and the value of the comics did not increase in return because it didn't used to be $80,000 to send a kid

to school that's for a damn sure maybe we just need to wait another 80 years and then that comic could be right you know yeah and like in 80 years time everybody's nobody's gonna go to college so yeah yeah it won't be a planet anymore

yeah we'll be dead it'll be worth loads yeah this will be a you know just a husk of a meteor just floating around in the sky or the space all the species aliens are going to come on and we're like wow look at this little comic in the black bag it looks raddice shit. I will give you 60

glorp's for it. I don't know what the currency is. I'm going to just guess. I don't know what their currency is. So because there was this, yeah, because there was this big boom in like people buying all of these comics,

it afforded a lot of really interesting opportunities. A lot of those opportunities were like, well, we have all of this money. People are buying all of these books. There's a demand here. Let's start making a bunch of other books. And so that's where you start to see stuff like they're really weird, eclectic that's kind of well known, like the James Robinson's Starman, like Vertigo's Sandman, like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol and his and their animal man.

So like a lot of really cool artie books got made benefiting from the fact that there was just so much money to throw around and they were just like, fuck it, they're buying everything. Just keep making stuff. Doesn't matter. So on the opposite end of the spectrum when it comes to all of these books that were really unique and eclectic coming out, there was just a lot of just stuff coming out. And it was stuff that was sort of like cashing in on what the subculture was at the time. So the new generation of these characters that were introduced in the 90s or they were rehashes of traditional characters, they all had a lot of things in common. More often than not, They were snarky and cynical and kind of dark and gritty.

Like anti-heroes became like a huge thing. And we talked a little bit about anti-heroes in our characters we find overrated episode because we talked about Venom. Venom became a huge fucking deal in the 90s. There are certain little items that you could call out as like, oh, that's a very 90s character. So I thought it would be fun if we dedicated a whole episode of talking about 90s. characters. So to kind of give you guys an idea of what I'm looking for, when I think of a 90s character, I think of somebody who, A, may have been drawn by Rob Leifeld at one point. And if you do not know who Rob Leifeld is, listeners, Rob Leifeld is sort of the artist who became like

the touchstone of comic book art in the 90s for some reason. And he's characterized by women having unrealistic proportions, people having just rinkething. random lines on their face, massive unrealistic looking guns, and a not really wanting to draw feet. Yeah. Like that was a huge thing with Rlyfeld is like he would find a way not to put feet in his pictures. And if he did, they were like weird little diamonds in the background that you like, key characters are always running forward so their feet look small. So other things were leather jackets, sunglasses.

spikes and or really unconventional and impractical weapons. And if I'm missing anything that you would think of as a character, like you would characterize. Usually it's like the cooler version of another character. Yeah, just like cool and dark. Yeah. You know, broody, mysterious, but also cool so he can inline skit, you know. Yeah, like the rollerblades.

Yeah. But also he's got a mysterious past. Yeah. And he's got big guns. Yes. And knives. Yes. Guns and knives attached to themselves.

He probably listens to nine-inch nails. Who doesn't? So we have all gathered around and put together a list of characters that we define as very 90s. And I am not expecting a lot of depth and granular breakdown of most of these. characters because a lot of these books, and this is another kind of spoiler for the comic week industry and what happened to it in the 90s, a lot of these books flopped real hard and almost blew up the industry because the bubble eventually popped and people stopped buying a shit ton of comics for the sake of trying to put their kids through college.

Which in retrospect is a really stupid reason about comic. Speaking of choices, we'll jump in. I think we all have like more than three, so we'll have some honorable mentions if time allows. Does anyone want to go first? Can I get the obvious one out of the way first? Let's get the obvious one out of the way. Cable? Yep.

Everybody knows cable. We're like, we're pretty confident we got that. We know exactly who the obvious one is. So if we get the answer, right, we'll make a noise. I didn't even put him on my list because he was that obvious. My list for a long time was just the word cable. But then I was like, well, you know who else was incredibly 90s and goes along with cable?

Strife. Well, I was going to say Deadpool. One of you is correct. Stripe is basically cable, so, you know. Oh, he's a clone of cable. We've already named dropped him. But I was, yes. He's a clone of cable, but he's covered in impractical body armor.

Yes, but he's the same. Except he doesn't have a robot arm. No, he's not as cool. He has full access to his powers. But he's not as cool because cable has a robot arm and shit tons of guns. Have you seen what his robot arm can do these days? He's got like an AI in his arm that takes on the form of like tattoos. And they talk and the AI talks to him.

So it's like this little like buxom lady on like a torpedo like talking to him. It's so fucking weird. I hate comics, not you. I don't want to. I don't want to. Yeah. So I said, I went cable Deadpool because they make a good sandwich together. But also, Deadpool's an incredibly 90s character to me because he's also like, you've got the guns.

You've got the mysterious backstory, which when they tried to make it less mysterious didn't quite go so well. He's got the swords. He's cool. But also, he's got that very 90s kind of like snark to him. You know what I mean? Yeah. He's really annoying, which is a character trait that I don't think a lot of people realize is like very 90s. You know, for example, we watched Generation X.

A lot of those characters were very 90s and very annoying. Yeah, it's that sort of irreverent attitude about things like things being ironic, being cynical. That was another staple of the 90s Generation X slacker stereotype. Yeah, all the shit you see in media when you look at it now, you're like, this is really stupid, I don't like it. And not that

I don't like Deadpool, obviously I do, but, you know, on the flip side, if you were in the world of comics, you would find Deadpool dreadfully annoying. Yes. Just unbelievably annoying. And most characters do. Yes. I mean,

they to this day they still do so he he's always seemed like a real big like 90s character to me because of not just the guns but also like that snarky attitude well and this goes back to point number one invented right by rob lyfeld same as like the adaptation of cable that we all know yes um so here's something about Deadpool i'm not sure if you guys know or not because i know you're not huge DC people um do you know how Deadpool came into being Yes. Basically, Rob Blyfeld wanted to make, well, he wanted to be over the Teen Titans book,

but DC would never let him. So when he jumped to Marvel, he just made his own death stroke, The Terminator, and that's Deadpool. Yeah, because his name's Slade Wilson, right? Slade Wilson.

And then what did he name Deadpool? Wade Wilson. Clever stop. The creative depth that is Mr. Leibfeld's writing. Yeah. And people wonder why his work at Image Comics didn't stand up

to the test of time. Probably political correctness, that's what it was. Probably. All those woke people. That's what dead is. Liefeld is a guy who became a punching bag for like the worst of like 90s comic stereotypes and stuff.

And yes, he did play into a lot of those and is responsible for a lot of them. I almost feel kind of bad for like jumping on them for it. But I mean, you know, the whole like, you won't let me write Teen Titans so I can make death. stroke, fine, I'll make Deadpool, and his name is Wade Wilson. But it's different. He's a different guy. Yeah, totally different guy. Well, and you know, again, a lot of Deadpool's characterization comes from writers and

creators after Rod Laifeld, too. So, like, Deadpool was just kind of meant to be like this mysterious mercenary that he didn't really get a lot of his, like, more notable stuff until afterwards. They're like we didn't really touch on one of the most important. factors which make them two of the most iconic 90s characters as well, which is the sheer number of pouches they both have on their costumes. Absolutely. We forgot to mention that. Well, we've, we've, we pouches have come up previously because it was my favorite thing to joke about on Scarlett Spider in when we were talking briefly on the Scarlet Spider episode is he has ankle pouches. Yeah. So he got his pouches are wrapped around his little feet.

his little feet little feet little baby feet that Rob like I can draw yeah so we got so yeah no you're absolutely correct they are covered in pouches

cable has the largest shoulder pads ever known to man um faces that are just covered in lines it's astounding absolutely astounding well that's Deadpool for you and cable

yeah I like cable too I do like cable but like there's definitely some examples of early cable artwork where you're like what the fuck is this

well yeah and it's like how does this anatomy work because he'll have like a tiny head and then like he will be built like a barn like just broad shoulders and tons of vessels and you're like he couldn't wipe his own ass

if he had to But then he'll have like just this stupidest looking gun. Like this insane looking fucking tank on his shoulder. And they look nothing like a gun. Yes. Are you like what the fuck is it? What am I looking at? It's astounding like the whole what can you get away with that is not technically a gun.

Yeah, it's wild. Cable has it. Oh boy. Anyway, that's my pick. Cable and Deadpool, that's starting strong. That is starting strong. Well, we had to get it out of the way. We did.

John, do you want to go next? Okay. Cable. Yeah. I will say, for my first one, a gentleman by the name of Marshall Evan Stone, the third. Oh, dear. You guys might know better.

as random. Okay. It was like a big white-skinned mutant with a red bandana, always wearing sunglasses, his arm turns into a massive fucking gun. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't get much more

nighties than that. I think he was a bounty hunter as well when he was introduced. So, like, you know. because he kind of like changes forms like you said his arm can turn into a gun so also his arm could probably turn into like he doesn't need parches

because he can just turn into pouches basically yeah apparently his skin is some sort of protoplasm which kind of yeah can transform and change shape and whatnot so

why not turn into pouches yeah so that way you know, he's got the guns, he's got the pouches covered, you know. Does he have a mysterious backstory? You fucking right he does. Nobody knows where he came from. Exactly. The first sentence, if you go to his Wikipedia

pages, the complete origin of random is unclear. Boom. Check that off. On the list. That's it. Mysterious backstory. So mysterious. They couldn't even be bothered to come up with it. He showed up in the Dark X-Men miniseries they put out about a year ago,

and he was in one issue. and he basically fucked off. He was just like, I don't want to be part of this anymore, and he left. Like, all right. Hey, do you know that random was ranked 91

on the Let's Rank Every X-Men Every List from Entertainment Weekly in 2014? 91's pretty good, considered that there's like 400 X-Men. Yeah, I didn't even think he'd actually been in X-Men as well. Yeah. Well, I mean,

the counted X factor. That seems to be the case. I mean, he does have a, a big arm gun. So pretty cool. He's a cool guy. How can we leave him off the list? Cool bandana. I think he's got a five o'clock shadow

too. Jesus Christ. Save some pussy for the rest of us, man. Well, the thing about that is, right? If he can ship shift, he would just like ship, shift his face to have that. Yeah, right. So he could just be clean sheep and if he wanted to. Be like, no, I'm just going to have the lazy ass fucking look,

you know? I don't know if there's anything else you want to say more about random. is there much more to say about him? I don't think so. Not a whole lot to be fast. I think that's honestly the kind of thing that's in common with a lot of these. Yeah. Is that there's not a lot to say about him.

It just exists. Honestly, like I've read a couple of stories around the minute. He's never really been like the main focus. He's just kind of there. He doesn't really have a whole lot of like, you know, sometimes they, because they have to try. God, God loves a tryer. but it doesn't always hit the mark because you're like, well, why would I care about this guy?

Like, what is there to care about? It's a weird design all around, you know? But I feel like that was, to our point, that's kind of like a 90s thing as well, where they're just like, well, let's just try shit. You know, like you said, it was a comics boom, so they're like, well, we'll just try stuff then. People will buy it.

People love X-Men. Here's some fucking weird X-Men, right? and good Lord, there were some plenty of weird X-Men. I think there was more effort put in to trying to make him look cool than actually like making a cool character, like giving him enough of a personality to be cool. Yeah, which again might be like a 90s trip where they're like, you know, the design is more important than the execution of the idea.

So keep that of mind for the rest of this list. Yeah. Yeah, so I will, because that's kind of, my kind of thing to do is I like to bring the world of DC Comics into play. You guys know who Dr. Fade is, right? Yes. You saw, you saw Black Adam. You saw Pierce Brosnan as Dr. Fade. Did I?

I did, unfortunately. Yeah, there you go. So, yeah, you know the look, the helmets and the big yellow gold cape and blue body suit and stuff. Yep. I want you guys do me a favor. Look up Jared Stevens, Fate. And if that doesn't do it for you, you might want to just put DC Comics in there as well, because the 90s was a transition period, and DC had an idea of how to make Dr. Fate cool for the 90s.

Wow, he looks, it does it cool. Right. Whoa, look at this guy. Yep, yep. When I first thought of this list, this was the first name I thought of. So the famous Dr. Fates were Kent Nelson and Inza Nelson, and they were like sort of these like wise ancient sage. Jared Stevens is just a smuggler of artifacts. He's just a criminal.

And in the process of trying to steal a bunch of shit, he gets mortally wounded and he gets possessed. And in return, he has a glowing onk shape over his right eye to show the symbol of order with him. in him. And so he didn't like the helmet and he didn't like the cape of Dr. Fate. So he just wrapped the cape around his arm and it became like this thing that he could use to manifest weapons and stuff with. And the helmet, he melted down and made knives and throwing stars. What makes him a 90s character? Aside from, they just took like a very old concept, because Dr. Fate's from like the 1930s and 40s. What makes him a 90s character? Well, he has a cool red streak in his hair.

That's cool. The onk over his face is like a face tattoo. That's cool. He wore t-shirts instead of like a superhero uniform. And some of his t-shirts said things like, Buy it, fanboy. And it should have been Ringo, which I thought was really mean-spirited towards Ringo Star.

I find a picture of this guy where he's smoking a cigarette, which is cool. And he has a t-shirt on this. says eat kish. Yep. So. It's that a reverent sense of humor that he's known for. Pretty fucking cool.

Also, he's snarling into the, well, I was going to say into the camera, but you know what I mean? He's looking at the, oh, he's got two earrings and one ear. Yep. Cool guys. He's the coolest, right?

And let me tell you, this is how you know he's a great 90s character. Jared's personality was one of stubborn defiance. He resented authority and being told what to do. I mean, I can't, I don't need to read the rest of this description of him. That, I mean, the quintessential 90s character. They took a tried and true tested character that had been around for, I think, close to 50 years at that point, completely disregarded everything, put all of his powers onto a two-bit criminal who was an asshole and, uh, just made him

super cool and badass. Can I, did you see the cover for fate issue number one where he snarling and has no lips. That's another 90s art thing for me. Yeah, they love a snarl. Yeah. Moving forward. Dylan, we're back to you. Wow. This is where my list starts to dip off considerably. I want you guys to look up a character called.

No, you're going to have to write the word Marvel after this in Google. Okay. Because first of all, he's got a really awesome. 90s name, which is Bloodshed. So you have to write Bloodshed and then like brackets, Marvel, close brackets. Otherwise,

if you just write Bloodshed, you're going to get some unpleasant images. I see so many spikes. Right. Look at this guy, right? Doesn't he just look like he was from the 90s? I just saw a panel and he just says, call me Bloodshade Ricky. Yeah.

Or Bloodshed Ricky. Who's Ricky? Ricky, I think is his brother. Oh, man. um yeah what would you do if your brother came to you in this costume and he was like call me bloodshed dylan be like well i support you and and and whatever it is you want to do with your life if this if this is what you're into these days then you know we're still family and i still love you so that's fine i support you yes but also it's kind of weird it's kind of stupid you got to admit call me yourself bloodshed Like, are you going to go and kill people?

Because I don't want to do that. I don't want you to get in trouble. So what's this? What's bloodshed's deal? That's an excellent question, Corey. I assume you want an answer for that question. I would love one if it were possible. Well, what have I said?

He had a mysterious backstory and then moved on. That's all we got to do that, huh? He's one of those guys, like you said, were like, they kind of brought him in. They're like, look at him. But there's no. real substance to him. He was a Spider-Man villain, but he just looks like a regular

Spider-Man villain. He was involved with, like, the mob somehow, and he was like, an enforcer or like a guy that would, you know, beat people up to get their money back. Yeah. So, he had to, like, he ended up, like, testifying against

the mob to protect his brother, Ricky. Mm-hmm. I think. And then Spider-Man had to help protect. him, which I think probably could have been a good storyline. Like, they've done something similar to that before where you're like, this guy's a bad guy, but no, he needs Spider-Man to protect him because Spider-Man's got a good moral code. He has to do it kind of thing.

But you're like, well, he gives a shit of my bloodshed, right? What fucking he cares? Kill him, you know? So he's got durable skin that's capable of deflecting bullets. and other stuff. He has super strength. And, uh,

that's, oh, he's got retractable bladed weapons on his suit. So. Yeah, of course he has. Knives. No guns,

but knives. So that's still a good, you know, still a point for him. So I think what we should do is, we need to call out when we go over these, what year they came out in and who was responsible for creating these characters, AKA they should be shamed a little bit.

Oh, okay. So, have you fine bloodshed? I have found everyone we've talked about so far. So we'll start from the top. If we count Cable as Cable and not as Nathan Summers, the baby, Cables first appearance was in 1990. Okay. And Louis Simmons and Rob Leifeld were credited for creating him.

Yes. If we go to Deadpool, Deadpool is 1991, though it technically came out in 1990. And they were created by Fabian Nassizza and Rob Leifeld. That's two. We're shaving them twice so far. How many more times will he be on the list? It's hard to tell. We'll go with Random. Random first showed up in 1993, and they were created by Joe Cassata and Peter David.

And we have Fate who came out in what year was this? This was 1994, so far the latest one. And he was created by John Francis Moore, Anthony Williams, and Andy Landing. It took three people to create that guy. Yeah, it took three people. So in Bloodshed is 1991 by Kurt Busek and Stephen Butler. Classic lineup. Yeah.

So is there anything else about Blood? that you would feel like discussing honestly we got more to bloodshed than I thought we were going to Fair enough all right John Okie-doke well for my next one I can't give you his real name because apparently he doesn't have one so I'll just say Sugar Man oh sugar bear The weird, grotesque, like, giant head for a torso with four arms, including one which has like a heart tattoo with the word sugar written across it.

He's always wearing suspenders for some reason. I mean, boy, howdy, this guy is Nike's. Sugar man's best. Prime Sugarman is like the most impossible thing in the world. It really is. You don't really, I mean, we found the thumbnail art at least. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. It's going to be a picture of Sugarman.

Just a comic panel of him. Not even a drawing. As soon as you said, Sugar Mountain, I'm like, that's it. I'm drawing Sugarman. Oh, boy. All right, so when did Sugarman first make his appearance? 1995 in an issue of Generation Next. Yeah, this was during the age of apocalypse crossover.

And yeah, he was like a bad guy in the age of apocalypse. Well, he's not going to be a good guy. What, he's like sugar. You can't be that bad, surely. Does he? I mean. So he was created by Scott Lobdell and Chris Bachelo. And he was one of the few characters that they brought over from the age of apocalypse into...

Right, he made the cut. Six and six. Yeah. All those characters. We like this guy so much. We got to keep him around. We got to keep the most grotesque monstrosity that has ever been put on Bieber. We got to keep bringing this guy back.

He's funny, you know? Why not? To Sugarman, every time we see a picture of him, he used. usually has some kind of weapon in his hands. So, like, that's a point for gun slash knives. I don't know about pouches. He clearly has a mysterious backstory, so that's another point. Mm-hmm.

You know? I think his weapon of choice was a hammer, actually. I thought he had hand axes. Oh, yeah, he might have done. It's people with a hammer. Can I, all right, I saw. Oh, boy. All right.

When I'm pulling up Sugar Man, because Sugar Man was a character that I saw the action figure of before I saw anything else. And I went, what the fuck is this guy's deal? I'm like seven years old or whatever, just perplexed. Look at his happy face. Yeah, he looks delighted to be there. Look at his happy face, which is like 90% of him. That's like 90% of his body. He's just a big face with arms and legs.

He's just all fierce and arms. Oh, boy. Sugarman was a great call. That was a great pick. Yeah, that's so good. I always find Sugar Man to just be one of those characters where you're like,

it's fascinating and also like, it's just impossible to look at, you know? Like, you want to know more about him because you're like, what the fuck? But then also you don't want to know any more about him

because what the fuck, you know? He's like technically considered a mutant so it's like, did he always look like that? Or was he somebody who, when they got their powers at their teenage years, they just,

that's what they turned into. Yeah, because he experiments of people, right? So, like, did he experiment on himself? Did he willingly turn himself into that? Or did he accidentally do it and go, well, this is what it is? This is me now. I guess I'm no, Sugar, man.

You know? I don't want to judge a book by its cover as well, but he doesn't really look like a scientist to me as well. I mean, you can judge it by its coverage on. That's fine. He's got massive teeth and he's always grinning and, like, sticking out a massive tongue. stuff.

It does. Yeah. What kind of science is this guy doing? I'm not sure I trust it. I think it's pretty clear from his Vizage that it's bad science he's doing. Yeah. Not good is coming in from this.

Do not trust that scientist. So it's becoming quite frankly apparent that there's going to be a lot of X-Men characters on here. And I swear it's not because like all three of us are big X-Men fans. Oh, we did X-Men again. Yeah, pretty much. But what it comes down to is like the 90s were

like the heyday of the X-Men. So there's just a lot of X-books coming out and they were just doing all sorts of fun weird shit. So that's why there's so many X-Men characters turning up here. And I say that because my next character is somebody who I have joked around a lot about

but it's Adam X or Adam X the extreme or Extreme, who is so 90s, it's in his name. But with the latter X. Yes. Axe stream.

Mm-hmm. X stream. You guys don't remember, but this is a very important thing that happened in the 90s where people would just use the letter X. Yes. A lot. A good bit. Yeah.

So Adam X. The Extreme is, he sounds like such a Mary Sue character. So hey. He's out of like the extreme. Like the extreme watt. Like no, no, no. Yeah.

Just the extreme. Um, so his, he, Dylan, we're going to check off some boxes. Mysterious past. Yep. He is literally covered in blades. Bingo. That's a knife. He wears a backwards baseball cap.

Oh, that's not going to not go with any of his, doesn't go with anything he's wearing, just a backwards baseball cap. That's another point. He is poochie. He is poochie. Well, and so, all right, so Adam X was created by Fabian Neseza, Greg Capulow, and Jeff Johnson, and he first made his appearance in 1993. He was, and we've mentioned this before, he was intended to be the third summer's brother with his mother,

having him with Deakin, the Shiar Emperor, who is Lalandra's father as well. And, yeah, he was supposed to be the heir. to the Shiar throne and stuff happens and he gets stuck on earth and his mutant powers are still so fucking wild to me. Basically, the reason Adam X

the extreme walks around covered in blades and throwing knives and like little handsticles and stuff is that his mutant power is he can basically let your blood on fire but he has to be able to see it first. That's one of those powers where you think like how did he find this out to begin with?

How did you acquire that knowledge? Yeah. Well, also, wait, wait, wait. So he burns people's blood? Yes. I mean, that's a very... Those are... That's not all of his powers, though,

because the most 90s things are... You have to have way more powers than that. Oh, yeah. So I'm going to... Real quick. Agility, fire control, heat generation, stamina, super hearing, super sight, super smell, super speed, super strength.

Swordsmanship, tracking, unarmed combat, and a weapon man. master. Good. Yes. So he's like Pyro and Wolverine. Yes. And also Shatterstar with his multiple swords. And he's got his cool baseball cap on and he's got cool little braids in his hair too. He's just the coolest. We all love Adam X the extreme. Does that

baseball hat give him powers? Like Mighty. No. It does not give him the Mighty Max powers. However, I would have enjoyed it much more if he had like a wise old chicken man with him. I know, right? Oh, that was awesome. Oh, that's a deep cut. And they never explained it. He's there looking like a badass. And then there's this weird talking chicken thing beside him.

And it's like, that's just part of it. Yeah, that's just part of the deal. Only when he turns a hat backwards. Yep. The chicken man only appears in the hats backwards. And his hat is always backwards. So, yeah. So the chicken man's always there and he's really annoying.

So that's another point, but the 90s thing. We should have written this guy. I actually was going to put that guy on my list. But I remember you talking about him. And I also think he was maybe the catalyst for this episode. He was the galus. And then you're like, we got to make an episode of it. So I'm like, all right, Corey's going to talk about him.

I'll talk about Deadpool instead. There you go. John will talk about random. We're talking about Sugar, man. The Sugar Man. Jesus Christ. I feel like Sugar Man is going to be the new mascot of the show. Well, no, he's perfect.

He's perfect for the team up with Armus Tiger. because Sugarman has four arms. He's got enough arms. Exactly. And they both have big teeth. Yeah. And they're both responsible for the upbringing of baby juggernaut. My two dads with a twist. The mother and father. Baby juggernauts, Armist Tiger Man, and Sugar Man are a family.

I was funny. I want to make this super clear. And they're all, all three of them really are probably the mascots of they show. Yeah, at this point. at some point we're going to finally get an official logo and it's just going to be the three of them. Yeah, I'm going to stop drawing pictures of us eventually and just start

drawing pictures of Do you remember back in the day when the cover of like the X-Men comics would be like the heads of the characters that were on the team at the time? Yeah, yes. We need to incorporate that. It would be like Armus Tiger Man, baby Juggernaut,

uh, Sugar Man. But Sugar Man's going to take up a big chunk of it because he's all head. He's all head, so it's just his entire body, basically. Yeah. Can I talk with Sugarman again? He's awesome. All right, I wanted to, listen, even though 90% of the ones we've talked about so far have been X-Men related. Yeah.

Bloodshot was it, I guess. Bloodshed, I already forgot this fucking name. That's a bad sign. Bloodshed was Spider-Man. and then Mr. Fiat or whatever is it, Dr. Fiat, Fiat? He just Fiat. He didn't have his doctorate. No, well, look at him. He doesn't need a doctorate. Look at him. He's fucking cool as hell. Yeah, he got kicked out of school at 16.

Well, he's a bad boy is what he is. Yeah. You know, mysterious. Oh, I like how you said that. He's a bad boy. Yeah, well, he is. He's got a 90s attitude. He's got the in-your-face attitude the kids love. Because he's poochie. Everybody knows this is poochie. Cable equals Pucci.

Yes. Cable is known to disappear back to his whole planet every now and then. Now I've changed the Dumbial Art. Now I wanted to be Cable equals Pucci. Just cable dressed as Pucci. Has amused me significantly. But I'm going to go back to the X-Men real quick. Because as Corey covered, what the fuck, right?

you know, in the X-Men it was a novel idea at first and then people were like, we'll just make loads. There was a point where they were just like, let's make loads of characters who have cool powers, you know, and then you got loads of, you know,

plenty of X-Men that came after the original five. And then at some point in the 90s, they were like, fuck, we ran out of all the powers. What do we do? So they created Maggot. Are you guys familiar with the mutant known as maggot? Yeah, they actually just put out a maggot action figure.

What? Yeah, yeah. I'll send a link to you. You keep going, I'll send you a picture of it. Oh, every time you send me a picture or something, it's sugar, a sugar man level is a bad. I thought you like sugar metal. I do, but as I've covered, it's hard to look at him.

It's got a weird face. and by extension, rest of body. But Magid was a 90s ex-may character. I believe he was introduced in 1997,

so he might be the latest one so far, I think, if my calculations are correct, which they frequently aren't. I already know the whole, like, the whole story of a Magid is

something that Magneto find him and then helped him and then because he did that, Maga was in dad to Magneto because of a mysterious backstory. And his power was he had, well, first of all, his skin was blue, right? Yeah, it has nothing to do with anything else.

No, fucking no reason for his skin to be blue. Second of all, because you might think, well, maybe the blue skin relates to his mutant power, right? Well, his mutant power was he had two big slug. that would just eat stuff and then they would go inside his body. Yeah, of course. That's his part.

So obviously when the slugs eat stuff and they went back into his body, that would give him like a boost to his strength because, you know, whoever created Magid obviously didn't stay in school. He got kicked out because he's a bad boy and didn't realize that slug ingestion doesn't equal. whatever the fuck Magid is. And none of that makes any sense. But that's pretty much it. They introduced this guy.

He looked weird. He had a weird power. And that's another keyist of them not knowing what they're supposed to do with this character. Because you introduce a character like Magid to the show. Like, he's so, he's got such a very specific mutant power that you're like, well, how do you work this into the story? It's one of those things You're like if you've introduced a guy this specific It's either because a

You have a storyline in Pleia said you're gonna tell Or B, you just got bored You just thought I'll just write this this'll be funny You know and so because of that it was really hard for MAGA to actually do Anything he didn't really stick around I think they did bring it back like for Krakawa because that was that gimmick Yeah, like, fucking everybody else came back, so here's maggot. But again, like, he couldn't really do anything. So he doesn't have any knives or guns or pouches.

He does have a mysterious backstory. He does have a fucking mental, inexplicable, weird power, you know? So I'm thinking he wore sunglasses. So, like, that's pretty cool. Yeah, he's got sunglasses. So here's two fun facts about him real quick. So 1997, created by Joe Maguria and Scott. Lobdell so I think it's our second Scott Lobdell

appearance of the day and also the maggots had names I meanie in Meenie correct yeah yep yep I sent you a picture of the maggot action figure by the way oh thank you for doing that oh wow

did you see it? Yeah hey I gotta say that looks way cooler than any picture I've ever seen a maggot yeah I do like that action figure. How much is it? Let me see.

2599. That's a seal. Look how happy he is. You guys can't see this. I realize this is an audio show. With the people listening. Can't actually see what we're seeing. Maybe Corey will put that into the show.

I don't know. He probably won't. It won't make any sense if you listen to this to Spotify anyway. Well, just Google it, right? I don't want to be that guy. just like, oh, just fucking Google it. But seriously, though, I can't even describe it. He's like a big tall blue guy

where he's got to be a strong guy, kind of tough to hair in the front. He's got a big coat and two slugs. That's, that's it. But he's got a big smile on his face. He's a happy boy. So I want to know if his, like,

little insects are slugs. Why is he called maggot? Right. What the fuck? That doesn't make any sense. That's not what a maggot is. Yeah. They're different creatures.

And it's never, the slugs are never described as anything other than slugs or like slug-like. They're never called maggots. Why didn't they just do that from the beginning? It's a good question. It doesn't make any, it's a mysterious backstory. See? I guess, yeah, there we go. Yeah, he's a mysterious guy.

So that solves that problem. I like how whenever there's a problem in any of this, we can just say. say, oh, mysterious backstory. It's a mystery. And then we get away with it completely. Some people will call it bad writing, but not us on this show. No, no, no, sir.

Just leave it for a future writer to fill in the blanks for us. Or a future writer will kill off Maget and forget about it. Yeah. Which I think they did. I think he died. All right, I've had enough of talking about Maggot. Let's move on. All right, John, are you next?

So I thought I'd break the X-Men theme for a little bit, only because I was going to do Magut as well, and then beat me to him. So I'm gone for Phil Ulrich as the Green Goblin. Yes. Which... We talked about him last week, didn't we? We have talked about him. A little bit, yeah.

I think we talked about a little bit in the Cyclops episode. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. The thing is, it's just such a weird concept to me, like, bringing back the Green Goblin and, like, trying to, I guess, rehabilitate the name for some reason. Like, if it was, if you'd stumbled upon one of Harry Osborne's Goblin Hideouts and all of this goblin equipment and stuff.

You wouldn't think, oh, yeah, this is a good idea. I'm going to be a superhero called the Green Goblin, and everyone's going to trust me and love me, and it's going to be great. The Green Goblin was a crook who killed people and, you know, killed Ben Stacy. He had a bit of a reputation. Yeah. Uh-huh. The costume is pretty sexy, though.

Woo! I mean, yeah. They had the whole, like, sort of topless look with the ripped pants, I guess. guess or not sure. Yeah, it's kind of wild looking. He was like, what if I was the green goblin, but also kind of slutty? Yeah, but it works for him. Well, I say it works for him.

His series only lasted 13 issues. I mean, did he, you know, impregnate Gwen Stacy with twins? I think not. Well, as we've established, none of the Osbournes did. So, Oh boy. So yeah, this kind of, John, this does seem like it's an example of like,

well, I mean, it's the 90s. What can we do? Yeah. But like, but, but the very idea that they would go, the Green Goblin who has been Spider-Man's like Arch anime for,

what, 40, 50 years now, we'll make him a good guy and we'll pick a guy that the audience barely knows and then we're going to give him his own fucking comic. Yeah. Like, how did they think that was going to go

other than being cancelled in 13 issues? 13 issues, by the way, is it fucky, there we got lucky that they got that. Yeah, and that would not have gone 13 issues these days. I don't think the Red Goblin series got that much. And that was Norman Osborne, wasn't it?

Yeah. No, no, that was Normie's kid. Yes, yeah, yeah. He's basically, I mean, his name is basically Norman Osborne. So I would I would kind that. You know? Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know my... Because I read some of that stuff too. And I was confused when I read it. It just... I didn't understand it. It seemed like such a weird. One of his powers as well was it's called a lunatic laugh

where it was like a sonic attack where he just laughed. maniacally and it would hurt people. Like, how is that like a good guy kind of thing? But also, he was the only goblin that could do that. Yes. I think that was only through, was it through his mask or? It was the mask.

I think it was through the mask, yeah. Well, and I know in the original run, it was through the mask, right? Yeah. Because when he got rid of the mask, you couldn't do it anymore. But then when he came back as a hobgoblo and he could still do it. Oh, yeah, that's true. Okay, so both the Green Goblin, he stole Harry Osborne shit.

So Harry Osborne's Green Goblin mask could do it. He just never did. And then Roder Kingsley's Hobgoblin mask could do it, but he never did it either. Like, what? Why was he the only one that could do that? Can I tell you something that's going to bother you both immensely because I know how you feel about this character?

Is it about Sugar Man? No, it is, unfortunately. not. In 2021 screen rant included Phil Ulrich in their 10 best Marvel legacy villains who lived up to their predecessor. So apparently he did just as good a job

as both Kingsley and Norman. Is that what I'd say? No. They're talking about him because he was a good guy when he was the Green Goblin. So they're talking about him as a legacy villain being the Hobgoblin. And I think me and John can both agree on the fact that he was

not about John Roder and Kingsley. this. Hell no. It's a hobgoblin. No fucking way. Not even close, man. Didn't Kingsley kill him? Like,

yes. I know I'm speaking. So this was... I gave me as good as that guy that killed him. Like, come on. So this was Terry Kavanaugh. He's, this is a first and,

I'm going to assume only appearance of Terry Kavana on this episode who created the full Ulrich Green Goblin. That's so strange, like for them to go like, oh, we'll try to do. a heroic green goblin and when that didn't fail

fuck it villainous hobgoblin yeah but we're going to keep it being a goblin yeah that's the shit that worked you know what you mean like in their head is he's definitely goblin he's been a green goblin the hobgoblin the goblin the goblin knight and the goblin king yeah he's got his money's worth I just have to say that costume was still fucking wow

to me I didn't know this is the thing that happened and I'm just looking at it for the first time going to wow that was a choice. Let's move on away from this, this guy. All right. So remember how I said in some of these, it's an instance of like, here's a character that was like a cooler version of an existing character.

So like some people would say Venom is the cooler version of Spider-Man. Well, then in the 90s, because Venom had already been established, they're like, what if we made a cooler version of Venom and we made carnage, right? Mm-hmm. Follow my path on this one.

So in the 90s, Howard Mackey got the Ghost Rider series and he created a whole brand new ghost writer in Danny Catch and like the ghost ghost writer looked entirely different because Johnny Blaze's ghost rider was wearing like a motorcycle stuntman outfit so the Danny Catch ghost rider was like leather jacket covered in spikes

and chains and shit like really hardcore really 90s but I'm not talking about ghost writer talking about vengeance if you guys know who vengeance is besides scary yeah all right so vengeance

is another spirit of vengeance as the name would suggest and vengeance's deal is that he was tricked into thinking

that ghost writer was actually Xerathos who was a demon in hell may or may not have been a supreme lord

for a cup of coffee Dylan to follow up on a previous episode strong guy yep and Zarathos

killed this guy's family because Michael Battalino is vengeance. So he killed all Michael's family. And he's the only person left. So he got this medallion of power that he was able to activate and make himself into this demonic force known as vengeance. Now, I describe what Ghost Rider looks right, right? Mm-hmm. So vengeance is. covered in even more spikes than Ghost Rider.

And he's like bigger, like muscular wise than Ghost Rider. And he's got bones wrapped around him. And he's like the flaming skull, but his flaming skull is purple and it's got these long fangs. And this Mohawk made out of bones. And, yeah. And so he started as an anti-hero in Ghost Rider because he was, he was, he believed that Ghost Rider was actually the evil demon that he was after. And then eventually they would

team up together. And to kind of give you an idea of how fucking cool he was, there was a mini series of vengeance teaming up with venom. And yeah, they're really cool. And he

ended up dying. And they brought him back to life and I think he died again. So there you go. That's vengeance. So vengeance died was like 1993 And that was also Howard Mackey, Ron Wagner, and Adam Cubert

His first appearance was in Ghost Rider number 21 Bad to the Bone Because I'll say you know he's a bad guy Yeah 92, sorry I think Anti-hero was a big thing in the 90s too Absolutely

Boy, they love that shit You know what you mean? He doesn't play by anybody's rules but he still got morals at heart, kind of. But he makes his own morals, but he won't kill the children. So that seemed to be like the line. You know, a real villain would kill a child,

but venom and vengeance wouldn't. So that's why baby Juggernaut beat the shit out of them. We've all done three. Dylan technically did four. We're not going to hold that against him. But we should, we'll do a little bit of a, lightning round on our remaining people. Because we don't want that this doesn't warn a two up

two parter. He doesn't God no. So we'll just do kind of rapid fire. Name the character. The brief description of them and what makes them 90s. I would you like me to go first to set the pace? Okay. All right.

Villain from the X-Men world. His name is cyber. He was an enemy of Wolverine. and cyber was basically like what if like we made an even deadlier version of saber tooth because he had adamantium's skin and each of his fingertips were a different like weapon that could be like poison and stuff and yeah i got nothing else to say about cyber unless you guys do he's thick yeah he has a massive neck i was going to pick cyber too so that's a good call It's a good one. I remember seeing him all over the place in the 90s, and then I haven't seen him since. Because like I said, someone was just like,

what if we made an even deadly version of Sabretooth and just took away any of the things that made Sabretooth interesting? Also, mysterious past and was with Wolverine World War I. So, yeah, basically, Sabretooth. Yep. But in the 90s. Yep.

So Dylan, you want to go? I went for El Guapo, who I believe we've talked about before, slash most of ecstatic because that whole run was pretty 90s. It's beautiful. Was it even in the 90s? I think it was. No, it's true. It was like late 90s, early 2000s. Okay, so we just about got in there.

But Al Guapo, so one of the things that was big in the 90s, skateboarding? Yep. He had a skateboard, so obviously cool. But the skateboard was a Santian skateboard so it could like talk to him and like do stuff and move on its own. and then because the rule

if ecstatic was most of the characters would die at some point his own skateboard stabs him in the back quite literally he gets appealed by his own ski apport that's how he dies that's all guapo for you

I mean he's he's a character that I one of my friends talk about a lot just of how just completely absurd it is that this man with this sentient skateboard he also had a hat which I believe he wore backwards. I've got nothing.

Like cable cable and maggot with my other two. So yeah. So we'll stay in the X-Men world for a little bit longer. Shatter Star. He's got hollow bones and a lot of swords. He's got

a mysterious past and he can like hop dimensions. Was an ex-force with rival I felt and Fabian DeSizu who are regular offenders on this one. Is that three for both of them? I think. I think so if not a little bit more for lifelt because i got another one coming up okay yeah libel might be for suspect it's so so far like the repeat offenders we've had are fabian de cza uh scott lobdell

rabeufeld which makes sense because they were like three of the heavy hitter guys in the ex world in the 90s so that absolutely tracks all right dillon your turn i have one i was going to say this guy earlier maybe i should have because a a i wouldn't have stolen maggot from john and b he's such a weird character anyway, but have you guys ever heard of a character called the Max? Yes. Okay, so he's this big Hulk and Brute of a guy, mysterious backstory, and I know he's got big weird

teeth, but like he's such a, is this, and I think this was like a, this wasn't like Marvel or DC, I don't remember what imprint. I don't think he was, was he? No, maybe he was. The Max had a cartoon show. Image comics. Image comics.

So he was just a weird guy. But, like, he looks very 90s. If you look at, if you look at the picture of the Max, he just, his look is very 90s to me. You know what I mean? I don't imagine this guy being created at any other point. But like a lot of those characters, it's so, like, it's a great picture, but it doesn't really seem to inspire a lot of good stories. Like, what do you do with this guy? What's the gimmick?

What's going on here? So, he goes on a TV show at some point, like an out of minute show. Yeah. But again, that kind of got forgotten about two. So that's all I got to say about that guy. So here's a real thing. This is at some point we might do an episode on like Image Comics just because it would be wild to do and kind of how they came about being and whatnot where they started to where they are now. But this is like quintessential and Image Comics problem.

The Max ran from March of 1993 to August of 1998. It only put out 35 issues. Image got to be known for long delays is what Image. got to be known for for a period of time. Oh, dear. So that's cool. John, have you got any of you want to say real quick? Spawn.

Wow, good one. It's a great one. Yeah. Thank you. He's pretty 90s. He's pretty 90s. You know, the look, the scary backstory, like all that shit. Mm-hmm.

Yep. He's one of those guys that I feel like really epitomizes like 90s comics. But not necessarily for like the comic side of it. just like he's just a recognizably 90s character. Yes. Again, going back to more about the look than the actual gimmick of the character, you know. I don't know. I think there's a strong gimmick in Spawn.

I think there is not, but people don't really know what it is. Like a lot of people just know Spawn as they know the character. Oh, yeah, yeah. They know. Yeah, they don't have the quintessential like, you know, Peter Parker, Radioactive Spider, Spider, uh, Batman, parent shot in an alley. Superman came from outer space. No people are going, Spawn.

got tragically killed and made a deal with the devil. Yeah, like I bet if you showed a lot of people picked you to spawn, they go, I know who that is. And then if you ask him

to tell you what his deal is, they'd be like, I don't know, I don't know anything about him. You know? What do you think about that, John? Yeah, I mean, my spawn knowledge

pretty much begins and ends with the movie they put out in the 90s. The John Ligazamo? Yeah, yeah. He was great. Bye later. Yeah. Or clown. Both names, really.

Father is a great name for a bad guy. I got two more, Dylan. How many were you got? Oh, I've done ages ago. All right, fair enough. The last two. This is a ghost writer, villain, also from the Howard Mackey run, Blackout. He's a human demon hybrid who creates light canceling darkness fields and has vampire-like abilities enhanced by metal fangs and claws. He's a vampire. Why metal? Because he's not really a vampire.

He's just part demon. Okay. He's got something like sharp enough to punch into someone's veins. My favorite part of him is he tried to bite Ghost Rider's neck and fucking Hellfire just came out. Because of course. He doesn't have a neck. Exactly. He's a flaming skull.

Why would you look at that guy going to eat that neck? All right. And my last one, this is the final appearance of Mr. Rob Liefeld. Have you ever heard of the comic book series Youngblood? Yes. So Youngblood was again, Rob, Eiffeld being still mad that he wasn't allowed to write teen titans. So he made Teen Titans for Image Comics.

And the character I want to point out is currently called Bad Rock. He's a 16-year-old boy who drank his father's mysterious serum, take that however you want. And it turned him to a giant rock monster man. So he's a giant rock. He's a giant rock monster man with the mind of a 16-year-old boy. But anyway, his name is Bad Rock. It used to be Bedrock until Image were worried they were going to get sued. bedrock slash bad rocks catchphrase was yabba-dabba-dum.

Oh, my God. And on that note, we will end our episode. Oh, yeah, leaving a high, right? So that was our list of characters that were the 90s, as you may have realized a lot of them had things in common, like mysterious backstories, powers that seem convoluted, leather jackets, and knives or spikes, and, you know, either Rob...

An image, but like no backstory to go with it. Like a cool luck to it, but like nothing else of any substance. So, folks, if you have a 90s character that you think of or if we've inspired you to look into some of these 90s characters, by all means, let us know in the comments. Remember to comment, submit her marriage on a Limpisket video today. Hopefully, I want it to completely... block up the comment section for their cover of behind blue eyes.

Do you think we can do that? Well, the problem of that is, is if we did that, that means that that video is going to get lots of views and lots of comments. And I don't think that video or song deserves any likes or comments or views whatsoever. I had a feeling you'd have a strong opinion about that. I certainly have a strong opinion about that. Correct. Listen to us on Spotify or watch this on YouTube. If you're doing one and not the other, go ahead and do the other.

We could use the help and support. And, you know, we love you. And we're bringing you all of this great free Sugarman, Armist Tiger Man, baby Juggernaut content. We're not asking anything. It's the family you needed. With the one you deserved. Exactly. It's a family you deserve.

And also, they're very sweet. I mean, one of them literally met at a sugar, kind of, not really, but he says he is. And the other one's a baby juggernaut. Yes. And who wouldn't like that? I've been Corey and with me with Dylan and John. We'll be back next week with an interesting, new and exciting topic, but thank you for joining us. Goodbye.

Bye. Hello.