The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 26: The Smark Avengers (Minus One) Talk About Whatever

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

The thumbnail for this video may seem to be Corey preparing a lovely meal for Jon but don't let that fool you! This is another Smark Avengers (Minus One) episode where Corey and Jon discuss the state of comic book news media, British superheroes, and much more!

It'll be weird to ask Dylan to do the thumbnail of this. I'm kind of curious, like, do we're going to tell him something that we talk about? Are we just going to let him use his imagination and see what happens? I think we should let him use his imagination. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Smart Avengers. I'm Corey. And with me is John.

This is another one of the episodes. I guess we're going to kind of call the Smart Avengers minus 1. But this time, we are without Dylan. Yeah. He's gone to watch Deadpool. Wolverine. Oh, see, normally Dylan comes up with a fantastical reason why you're not here. Like, do you, do you know the reasons why you've not been here?

Do you want me to fill you in? I actually did listen to the first episode I missed the other day. But I was quite drunk at the time, and I can't really remember anything except for laughing a lot. Yeah, so you've been in a submarine? Oh yeah, that's right. And I'm tempted not to tell you the other one yet. No, let's let's just surprise, yeah. Yeah.

Surprise yourself with your own past. So, yeah, Dylan's not with us. He is having ice cream. With Joe Biden. So you've been going to a lot of festivals and things as of late. Mm-hmm. What's the best one you've been to so far? I mean

so I've been to two festivals in the last couple of months which was Glastonbury and a local festival called 2000 trees Glastonbury is definitely the more mainstream of the two and I was going to say

more eclectic but I mean it's more sort of indie based and sort of poppy and commercial sort of stuff with a bit more like random bands thrown in like yeah

there's all sorts going on there whereas 2000 trees was definitely more rocky there was like hardcore punk and metal and all that kind of jazz which is honestly it's more my kind of thing

and I think because of smaller scale of it as well i kind of really enjoyed that whereas glastonbury you're basically walking 40 minutes to get from one side to the other uh 2 000 trees you basically roll out of your tent and then 10 minutes uh you you can get to any stage in the entire uh festival site so that's really cool but yeah well and i you know when you say one's a little more punk and a little bit more metal. I will tell you, I'm going to assume that the one that did not have Shania Twain there is not the punk and metal one. You would assume correctly, yes. So what is the best actor you've seen so far? You've seen a lot of

bands at this point, I'm sure. Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, for me, I always go back to Iron Maiden. I've always loved Iron Maiden and they always put on a proper show as well. I don't know if you ever seen them but the mascot Eddie ends up being a big part

of the show like appearing in backdrops or like I've seen just a giant Eddie head like coming out and trying to eat them basically or like a guy in a massive Eddie costume just stomping across the stage

and that sort of stuff going along with the music as well as always pretty awesome and I know they're sort of like commercial or dad rock nowadays but like the food fighters are always good value for money as well

just for a good old sing along in a massive stadium with thousands of other people can't go wrong with that is speaking of the food fighters Is Pat Smear still playing rhythm for him? Yeah, he is. That's it, man.

He's been around for fucking ever. I know, man, yeah. It's impressive. I was going to say earlier this year, I watched that punk documentary. Is it the downfall of Western civilization or something like that? Oh, yeah, yeah. Part one, part two? I think I watched part one.

Yeah, it's the one with the terms. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And yeah, he's in that, obviously. But yeah, he still looks pretty much the same. Yeah, just kind of weird. Yeah, he, so decline of, Decline of Western Civilization is a great documentary.

If you've never seen Part 2, please do. It is so fucking, it's funny, which is kind of weird because, like, so Decline 1 is, is, really informative, I think. Because you get to see, like, you get to see, and it's such a weird version of black flag that's in there. The ending with fear playing in L.A. and like antagonizing the crowd is fucking great. I don't know. I love fear.

But so that one's fine. That Darby from the germs, and you get to see what a train wreck he was. Then you find out he died young and you're like, that's not a surprise. Yeah. decline to outright fucking funny it is so weird like the thing about decline one everybody is so weirdly aware of where they are when it comes to their music and their appeal and who they perform to decline to not so much everybody it's like that's the hair metal one so yeah i have seen yeah you ever seen the yeah so the footage of like as yosborne pouring a glass of orange juice

just completely missing the glass because he's so fucked up from years of drugs and drinking I fucking love decline two decline three is depressing it's okay that's yeah that's the one about the street punks

so it's not even really so much about the music as it is just about like the culture and it's just basically a bunch of homeless punk kids and like kind of showing how much their lifestyle fucking sucks but like like how they're all like either completely aware of it and are fine with it or like think that

it's the coolest thing ever yeah yeah yeah yeah but um that's the first time i think i ever heard the phrase keep a keep a punk drunk because they're panhandling from people in los angeles oh yeah yeah oh yeah no decline too is so great there's so many fucking fun scenes of like you know people are like oh yeah i've been unemployed for seven years like what do you do What are you doing? I've never heard of this band. What are you talking about? And I also think my favorite footage is there are two things about that that get me.

I can't remember the gentleman's name, but there is a guy being interviewed. He is absolutely wasted on vodka, and he's floating in his swimming pool while his mom watches on. Yeah, yeah. He's come out and talked about that, and he said, like, it was not a great time for them to do that. Like he had just come back from tour and he was like decompressing from being on tour. And that's when the documentary crew showed up and they were like

well this is the only time we can record and he was just drunk enough to say fuck it, let's go. So like he said like if it had been any other day would have been completely different. And then of course my favorite is Paul Stanley being interviewed from a

aerial shot of him laying in like satin sheets with two women just with him. you're just like wow paul really got to lay it in you're still getting you're still getting ladies that's nice that's nice so i'm glad that you all turned into the smart avengers to hear us talk about you know the decline of western civilization it's a great documentary if you ever want to watch him they're fun i mean we're as bad as the cbr website just not actually covering the stuff that we're supposed to be covering Yes.

And that was the moment that we realized we should be recording. Because right before we did, John and I were talking about comic book solicitations. And like, do you ever like go ahead and read ahead when they announce them? Because there's always, you're always going to get spoiled to a degree when you're looking at future solicitations. Because these come out months in advance. So right now we're recording. It's July 25th. The solicitations for Marvel's October comics are out.

So you're a couple of months ahead. And, you know, I was always going to bleeding cool to review them, which is a pop-up written website that will make your fucking phone and your computer crash all the same time. Because, you know, and John, you mentioned that you used to go to common book resources, which is not called common book resources anymore. Now it's just cBR.com. And that's where I used to go, like in 2008, when I was. I, when I started getting back into comics from being a little kid, 2008, I was still in college. I went to see comic resources. They had a forum.

And I went to the forum and was just seeing like people talk about stuff they were reading, what sounded interesting. Like, and that's how I got back into comics. I was seeing what was out there and getting caught up on stuff. And that was back when they had articles like, hey, we interviewed this writer and he's picking up like thunderbolts. And this are his plans for thunderbolts. Or hey, here's like the top 20 X-Men that we think are all. timers. You know, like the stuff we were talking about when we were doing the Ice Man episodes and we were reading all those weird polls that he always was unusually high in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So a lot of those used to come from CBR. And so I went to the website just now, and I got, I scrolled halfway through the page before the first actual comic book article came up because everything else is either talking about a movie or a TV show. Yeah. And even stuff that isn't technically comic related as well. It's just basically tapping into pop culture in general now. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so the top four articles, as of right now, is an article on Kevin Figi talking about Kang the Conqueror,

a studio jibbley movie that's coming to HBO Max in September, an article about the House of the Dragon TV show that's Game of Thrones related, and then a poll of the, best 80s Disney movies of all time. You know, and like, I can see why they change their name from convict resources to CBR.com. Mm-hmm. And I understand it.

Like, I'm not going to say that they made the wrong move. They are in the business of making money. This is how capitalism works. And there are way more people interested in, like, seeing, well, what about Kang the Conqueror or what is the best 80s Disney movie? I don't know who's thinking about the best 80s Disney movie. all time. I really don't. I don't know where I was going with that. But regardless, I get it. I understand. They're trying to make money. I don't have to like it though. No. I actually used to go to Newsorama and I feel like Newserama is at least a little bit better because I've seen a lot of stuff talking about the Deadpool Mulverine movie. But that's a little more understandable because it is just now coming out. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah. I mean, I get it. But if you go to Newser it's not even Newsorama anymore.

They got bought out by Games Radar. So it's like a sub-website of Games Radar now. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah, so if you go to Newsorama, the URL is gamesradar.com slash newserama. Huh.

Jeez. Yeah. And then, like I said, if you go to Bleeding Cool, your shit's going to crash. There's no good place for comic book news anymore is what I'm getting at, gang. No.

What are we supposed to do? Where are we supposed to go? When I was a kid, you used to be, I used to be able to at least see comic books on like the turners, the turn racks. Yeah. At CVS Pharmacy.

And they would also have some comics at like the grocery store. And they do not do that anymore. I also remember the bookstores here. So I used to work at a bookstore for a period of time in like probably 2007 maybe. And when I was in the working in the bookstore, we had a spin rack that had like new comics that would come in like every week. We'd get new comics to put out. And it's like single issues. But they don't do that anymore either.

So like it has really like so being able to read single issue comics is completely now either you buy it online. you access a digital copy of it online or you go to a specialty store. So, like, of course, you know, I can go to the convict store and they have tons and tons and tons of graphic novels. But I can also go to Barnes and Noble here and they will have a bunch of there too. They don't get as weird, though. Like, you don't get as like the more niche stuff. Yeah, yeah. I think that combined with like the prices as well.

Like, I find if you go in store, like the prices just seem to jump up so much. Like, that's why it's so much easier to order online. Aside from the easy factor of just you can order and it will show up at your house, like it's almost inevitably is more cheaper than going out and actually, you know, finding a store and finding a book physically. So it's no wonder why more people are doing that than actually going out and going to stores and stuff. Yeah, I've found that too of like it does seem like the price of graphic novels has increased pretty substantially. Oh, yeah, massively so.

Yeah, yeah. So I'm on, I'm looking at solicitations for, for October. This is the Amazing Spider-Man Omnibus Volume 6. It's a hard back, so, you know, just factor that into the price. This is collecting issues 181 to 205 plus the annuals 12 and 13 and spectacular Spider-Man annual number one in this thing. So we're looking at, what, 20-30-ish different comics into this one book? $100 American

I mean that's that's sort of what I'd expect for an omnibus like that I bought some of the X-Men omnibuses

like years ago this was like the first three volumes of it I think which each had about 50 odd issues in and, you know, like lots of extra stuff as well, like the letters page and things like that. So like you got a lot with it, but I was paying around about 90 pounds for each of those, maybe a bit more. Okay.

So, yeah, they are expensive, but you kind of do get what you pay for as well. So I have I scrolled down a little bit further in solicitations. I move past the omnibuses. So this is Doctor Strange by Jed McKay, volume three, the Blood Hunt trade paperback. Collecting issues 11 through 18. So seven issues, $25. Yeah. American.

That's a joke. So here's a bit, but here's another one. Here's Avengers by Jed McKay. Same writer, volume three, Blood Hunt. same tie-in, but these are the Avengers issues. Collecting issues 12 through 16, so only four issues, $16. Mm-hmm. It is interesting.

What I'm learning of this is that, because I'm seeing way more Blood Hunt trade paperbacks, they need to calm the fuck down with all these tie-ins if they're going to release them individually. I mean, $20 for a trade, though, is not terrible. It's not that. I mean, I've just looked up that Blood Hunt Avengers version on Amazon UK and it's coming up as

12 pound 31, which honestly is a pretty decent price for any trade paperback over here. Like usually I'm paying more towards like 17, 18 pounds. Sometimes it's like

over 20 pounds. So, yeah, that one seems pretty decent. Well, what I'm looking at, though, is it doesn't look like he's actually covering that many issues, though. Maybe that's why it's so cheap. Yeah. So, like, here's Spider Woman by Steve Fox, volume to the assembly. It's collecting issue six through ten. And material, not even a whole comic, just says material from Web of Spider-Man number one, $18.

So you're getting, like, four and a half, f you're lucky. 4 and a half issues for $18. Which I get it if you were to buy them individually, it's going to be more than that. Because like Marvel Comics, I think on the low side, a single issue is $3.99. Wow. Yeah. So like that's that's another problem, a single issues are so expensive. It's probably why I get so picky about what I actually read anymore is because of how pricey single issues have become.

I mean, you know. obviously they're trying to like build the comic book industry back up again and I think that's we've talked before about how like they're trying to tie the movies and the TV shows more into the comic books to kind of um you know like broaden their audience sort of thing but when you're talking about prices like that like it makes it difficult to draw people in and keep people coming back when everything is so expensive. So this is going to be a weird thing to say. I think the quality of the materials is what's driving the price point. I understand

they're also adjusting for inflation and what have you. But like comics used to be on newspaper like print paper. And like yes it's not as durable and yes it ages faster because when newspaper oxidizes it turns yellow.

Mm-hmm. But, like, they're put, like, now they, like, print on, like, magazine-style paper. And I think, like, the cost of the materials are also definitely have to play a factor in. It's why usually variant covers are more expensive because the covers usually, like, are a card stock as opposed to, like, that same sort of magazine paper. Yeah, yeah. But, you know, I'm not, you know, I'm not an expert in the field or in what drives the prices. I have a, I took microeconomics and macroeconomics when I was in college, and that was over a decade ago now, which was, that was scary sentence to say. And my microeconomics professor, the very first day of class, looked around the classroom and said, by midterms, half of you won't be here.

And the remaining half, half of you won't be here by the finals. which was true. That class was very, very hard. And I looked like I was going to be failing it. And the professor told me, if you stick around to the final, you'll pass. And then I went, okay, fair enough, I guess. Kind of moving on beyond that and kind of sticking to, kind of just looking at solicitations, because that's what kind of drives it.

I was curious, John, if you wanted to talk a little bit about solicitations. I know that you're a Marvel person, primarily. Yep, yep. And these are the Marvel solicitations. There's a couple of titles that I was kind of scrolling through that seemed like they'd be interesting to you if you've not heard about them first. Okay. Well, first off, we have Storm and a solo comic. So that's good for Storm.

I'm not familiar with this creative team, but, you know, they're taking a lot of chances in the X-Men world right now with single stuff. And I guess that'll be my lead-in to another kind of thing talk about. The lead editor for X-Men did an interview recently, and people were asking, so it's Tom Brevard. Yeah, yeah. And they're asking people who are asking questions about these new titles, they're coming out. Because for years, we've had the Krokaoa storyline where all the mutants were at play all at the same time. Death isn't a problem. Everybody's active and around.

And now that they've ended the Krakowah story. saga officially now at this point. We have a new X-Men number one came out with Stegman on art and McKay writing, and it's, we're past Krakowah. It's a brand new world. So people are obviously curious because I mentioned this previously. I think it was in regarding to, like, we were talking about like hydroman and stuff. No, it wasn't about a hydrant.

I was talking about a character called Blue Jay from D.C. And I seen somebody online talk about this character and how excited they were that they were going to be used in a storyline that ultimately saw them getting killed in the first issue. Yeah. It was that kind of like moment of affirmation because I always heard the expression is everyone is someone's favorite character. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like that's not, it's more true than otherwise in the X-Men world because I feel like the X-Men characters are so diverse and there's so many of them that there are people who have like really weird off-the-wall favorites. So somebody had done, you know, we have a brand new world, brand new series, and people are asking, you know, where is my favorite character, you know?

And one of the topics that came up were future characters are not going to be around for a while. Because I guess they're trying to make these new comics digestible for new readers. So, like, because somebody had asked about a character that was introduced in the Kerkowa era. Rasputin who is sort of like a genetic, a genetically engineered mutant who has the aspects of Colossus and magic. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the one. Yeah, Rasputin 4.

So people are asking about that character, and Tom said, nope. And then he further basically said there's going to be no more future mutants, including Cable and Bishop. Because you, you know, when you have like these characters that are the future, you can't really do a lot of storylines where, like, something big and bad's happening because these characters would have already known about it theoretically. Right, right. So, like, Cables being, is going to go M.A. for a bit.

Bishop's going M.A. for a bit. Weirdly enough, Rachel Summers is sticking around. She's going to, she's part of the X-Force book. She's not necessarily from a future. She's from an alternate timeline. But, I mean, if you're trying to make it digestible, that's a lot of, that's a a weird thing to use because it's like my dad is the leading this one X-Men team and we're roughly the same age yeah I yeah remember I was talking about like in the the the death of

Superman episode like the new 52 and how like it's a whole new clear brand new start no nothing everything's brand new and then like they're like well we want to keep grant morrison stuff because it sold really well and we want us to keep Jeff John stuff so it's selling really well so this timeline where there's been like only five years since like Batman's been Bamming. He's had four Robbins already. I feel like that's kind of the situation here where they were like,

hey, this is a brand new X-Men run. We're going to make it clean and digestible, except for Rachel Summers. We're keeping her around for reasons. I don't know why. You say before she's like in a relationship now with Betsy Braddock. So

yes. Maybe that's like the soul connection keeping out here. I guess. But I mean, that's a whole other, to use an expression, I never heard it before you and Dylan, a whole other kettle of fish. Because that also brings up the question of like, we have two characters who are technically Cylok right now.

Yeah, yeah. So you have on X-Foress Betsy Braddock, who had been being referred to as Captain Britain for a while for a few years. years. So she's on that team with Rachel and Forge and everyone. And then on the X-Men team that is the Cyclops team, you have Silok that is Kwanen, who is the Japanese assassin that Betsy Braddock's mind was trapped inside of for a good period of time. Now, boy, I'm just going to be all over the place on this one, and I apologize for that. Just because I keep stuff just keeps like jumping out at me. remember how

weird that was to like discover about Cilock like oh she is a Japanese woman but in reality she's a white British woman who's trapped inside of her body and then Cuanan was inside at Betsy Braddock's body for a long time

but you didn't really see Quannon a lot though in the comics it was it was all yeah it was all Betsy inside of Quannon's body yeah because Quentin had her own name. She was like Ravanch or something like that, wasn't she? That rings the bell, yeah. I was going to say, does it mean revenge in another language?

Apparently it doesn't. It just says a usually political policy designed to recover lost territory or status, which I guess if you think about it, like her body got stolen by Betsy Braddock. So now she's stuck in Betsy's body and is going by that. That's not a great name. I can see why we now have two characters who are going by Siloak now if in fact Betsy Braddock is not going by Captain Britain Now I have a question to ask you though because you are of the UK Is Captain Britain a big deal over there? No, it's a simple answer

I don't think I've never really been a huge fan of her, like the Excalibur series that came out, you know, a few years ago, like the Croco, adjacent one. I wasn't a big fan of that either. Like, you have to go back to sort of the 80s where it was Brian Braddock and the Excalibur run by, was Alan Davis who's doing it? I believe it was. Yeah. Like, I think that was sort of the peak.

And, yeah, obviously, that was a long time ago. And there's not much of a remaining, like, cultural impact from that as well. So, yeah, I don't really care about him. So I was really, I was just kind of looking at the Marvel UK imprint. So I remember, like, I remember hearing about that, that Marvel had, like, its own UK branch that focused on you know, reprinting American stuff, but then also like having their own stuff. So

1985, the first issue of Captain Britain Monthly came out by Jamie Delano and drawn by Alan Davis. It lasted 14 issues. And that was Marvel UK's last major new title for several years.

So, yeah. It looks like Grant Morrison was writing Zoids, which looks to be a a toy that Grant Morrison was responsible for breaking in.

Yeah, the name rings the bell. I bet if I found a picture of it would probably unlock something. Yeah. Oh no. I don't recognize that at all. Everything I'm seeing here, it looks like it's all tie-ins

to like Ghostbusters and Care Bears and it looked like it was like Doctor Who, and it looked like Marvel UK, was mainly like other people's IP that they were putting out for a period of time. But then you brought up Excalibur, which also featured Captain Britain quite heavily. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw Union Jack has a miniseries as part of this Blood Hunt thing. Is Union Jack a big deal?

No, again, like, he's, I'd say, culturally speaking, even less of a big deal than Captain Britain, really. Do you remember in the 2000s there was the Captain Britain and MI13 comic series? I always heard really good things about it, but never read it. No, I can't say that I had any idea that was going on at the time. Why do, why do, why is the UK like not into their own heroes? I don't know. like we're such a weird country when it comes to patriotism it's you either get the people who are hardcore into it who are just like flag waving uh like thugs basically um or you get most people who i know

at least who are just like eh don't really care like there's there's no sense of national pride aside from you know watching england play football and even And then that's, like, tainted by so many years of disappointment that it's more, like, misery watching than actual kind of, you know, like, is any pride or joy connected to it. So, yeah, we're in such a weird country. That's fair. That's fair. I'm just, like, looking over the, so Captain Britton and MI 13 was by Paul Cornell and Leonard Kirk. It ran only for a little over a year, May 2008 to July 2009.

I always heard really good things about it. But I'm looking over these characters, and you have to tell me if any of these characters just jump out at you. So Captain Britain, which would be Brian Braddock. Dane Whitman's Black Knight. Yep. Spitfire, who I, character I'm not terribly familiar with. no i'm pretty sure i've she was one of the invaders apparently yeah i was gonna say in a captain america comic i'm pretty sure i've encountered her before uh pete wisdom uh i'm aware of pete wisdom like he's a mutant isn't he yes yeah yeah he like produces like like these like burning blades out of his hands yeah he's like on throws um john the scroll who is a scroll who takes on the shape of John Lennon.

No, I can't say I'm familiar with that one. That's fair. Dr. Faisa Hussein, who is the present wielder of Excalibur. Oh, no idea. And Alistair Stewart, who apparently is their science officer. I'm pretty sure Alistair Stewart was a news reader over here as well. Oh, there you go. But I guess Merlin showed up as well. I mean, yeah, you'd have to really, wouldn't he?

You'd hope so. So I know for a fact that, like, I know that Cornell and Leonard Kirk, or at least I know that, yeah, Cornell is British, and Leonard Kirk is Canadian, or he's American. Is it weird? Yeah, no, Paul Cornell's the writer. Kirk was just the artist. Is it weird for that kind of stuff to be, like, so leaned into heavily? Like, if I had to be honest with you, if I was in your position and you were asking me about, like, is Captain America a big deal over there?

Like, that would feel really weird. Yeah, but you've got to remember as well. Like, I'd say, you know, the comic book scene in America is way, way bigger than the comic book scene over here is. Like, I think it's grown a lot, especially in the last, you know, 20 years when we've had all these, like, Marvel movies and stuff coming out. And that's increased, like, the, like, the presence in people's mind about all these characters and stuff. But in general, it's still almost considered like a nerdy thing, like a nerdy hobby to. have to collect comic books or be interested in that kind of thing. So I think people just turn their nose up at it a little bit.

I mean, that's that's fair. I know that I know that we were kind of talking about this previously that I live in Columbus, Ohio and our soccer team just won the championship for the MLS. and it is like two different worlds here. There's the world where there are people who are super into soccer and they were all about it. Like I said, like apparently Will Ferrell showed up and like took over a bar like down the street from where I work during the championship like playoffs.

But like then there's the other side of the world that is much more interested in Ohio State University football that did not know nor care that that happened. Yeah. And so, like, that's kind of like we were talking about that previously about this is what I think most Americans know about, like, the UK. Football is really big over there, but not the kind that we like. You've got Doctor Who. Yep. And the Beatles came from there.

And, and, yeah, and like Harry Potter. is big. But I feel like I have a feeling it's probably bigger here than it is over there. I would think so, yeah. I mean, there are a lot of people in our generation that have not grown past their love of Harry Potter.

Yeah. I watch a whole video on it. Oh, geez. The thing is, like, there's a whole generation of kids who grew up with that, like grew up almost alongside Harry Potter and all the rest of them. Like, yeah,

the same age as the books are coming out and stuff. So you can understand why they have that connection and why it's still such an important part of their lives and stuff. Yeah, I do sort of wonder now, like, if it's the same for, you know, like kids coming up and reading it now, do they have that same connection with it? Or is it just like a book or a movie that they can stick on? or it's not like their whole lives, like some of these people.

Yeah. Well, and that's like, that is so weirdly true because when I was a little kid, before they started putting out the special editions in the late 90s, no one cared about Star Wars at all. Like the version of Star Wars that I saw

were tapes that were recorded that when they aired on television. Yeah. And then like if it was on like TBS. Mm-hmm. So no one cared about Star Wars at all. And then what I think happened is those special editions came out and then like Phantom Menace and those movies came out.

And so like the people that were kids then are now the people that are in charge now. And that's why they have like they're putting out so much Star Wars content on Disney Plus. something that I didn't even know existed. I found out there was a whole show called Star Wars Acolyte. I don't know what it's about. But I saw an article on fucking CBR or talking about the 10 most surprising moments from Star Wars Acolyte.

And I was just like, is it something like, is it something? It wasn't very good, to be honest. I'll just say that. It was a bit of a... I mean, there's a few moments in sort of the middle part of the series where it looked as if it was getting interesting. And then, yeah, the finale sucked. So I wouldn't recommend it.

You're not missing that. Going back to, we were talking about SILOC originally. And like Scyloc being in the, you know, the original Sialok who is Betsy Braddock being a UK character. And now she's Captain Britain. And there was that big moment. So this happened in 1993 when it was when X-Men was being written by Fabian, Nassizza and Andy Cuber. Fabian DeCeza keeps coming up. And I used to think I really liked Fabian DeCesa,

but the more I've looked back, I don't know if I didn't anymore. So in 93, that's when they did the body swap where Betsy Braddock went into Kwanan's body and Kwanen went into Betsy Braddock's body. And that character was really controversial for a period of time

because of, there are a lot of people who thought that it was yellow face. You know, and if you don't know what yellow face is, you know, it's black face, but with Asian characters of like, here's this Japanese character. And instead of presenting a Japanese character who is Japanese, they said, oh, actually, no, she's a British, you know, she's a white woman inside of this woman's body. And, you know, it was weird. So it got undone during Krakawa. And it was like largely handled off camera, if I'm not mistaken. I can't remember how they ended up resolving it and finally put in the back.

I think what happened is you found out an Excalibur. Because like when the Corcoa stuff first started, Betsy Braddock was an Excalibur when they revealed that Brian lost the ability to wield Excalibur. And Betsy, Betsy had it instead. So Betsy became Captain Britain because her brother, no longer be Captain Britain. And Kwanen was in the Fallen Angels comic that they were putting out at the same time

with X-23 and Young Cable. So, like, that's how you found out. They were just like, all right, yep, they're back in their original bodies. And you would think, like, it would be a bigger deal. Maybe they were just brushing it under the carpet. Because it's something that they should have taken care of a long time ago. I mean it's what like 30 years almost since that initial swap was made there's no reason why they shouldn't have done this years and years ago

yeah exactly it makes no sense why they did I'm like looking back I cannot understand the justification for it because it wasn't like they weren't using the Betsy Braddock look because like I said she had a even though she was quannon inside of her body she had a whole old code name even though it was dumb you know and a whole costume is I remember

reading I think like I think why they didn't do it John is they killed Betsy's body because didn't she die from the legacy virus oh yeah I could be right yeah yeah I don't think she just I think they didn't

because she didn't have a body anymore so Betsy and Ceyla and Betsy and Quannon's body was totally fine but Kwanan in Betsy's body got the legacy virus and died. Okay. Well, that sort of makes sense, and I guess.

But I mean, this is comic books. You could just bring them back. Everyone gets brought back eventually. Yeah, now I'm curious if that's really what happened or not. I'm going to take a quick little look here. Oh, my God, this is terrible to read. I'm like, I'm just seeing names of characters I've never fucking heard of. Yeah, okay, legacy virus.

Okay, yeah, all right. I'm not going to read any further than that. Legacy virus, good for me. So this is apparently how she got her body back. During the hunt for Wolverine's storyline, Silak is absorbed by the Sapphire Stix, leaving her body dead. As Silo's soul escapes,

Stix's body explodes, and she instinctively reforms a new body identical to her original British body through Stix's soul power. Later, Quannon is revealed to be return to life in her original body what i don't know it's comics don't worry about it yeah because then like it's it's fine the crocoa stuff immediately happened and it's fine i don't know what any of that has to do with a hunt for wolverine storyline though yeah there was there was like about four different books as well

related to that and I don't think it was really worth four books no no no because I remember one of them were like all of Wolverines like children and nemesisuses I do it was called like weapon X or something like that and it was about all these characters related to Wolverine doing something or other yeah we talk about the X-Men a lot because I feel like the X-Men are so interesting and so fucking messy at the same time and there's a lot going to on with the X-Men. That's true. But you know, here's something else that's going on.

Apparently there's a big Venom storyline that's still going in to October. Okay. Venom war. So is it another symbiate war then? Like, we've just had, well, just, but like, it wasn't that long ago where carnage and venom were clashing. It looks like this has to do with. Eddie Brock and Dylan Brock.

Fighting over who gets to be the host for Venom. Interesting. Because I don't know how familiar you are with it, but Eddie Brock basically, when he killed Null, the symbiate god, he essentially took his place. And he's pretty much the god of symbiates now,

and you can inhabit symbiates all over the galaxy, basically. And in the meantime, his son, Dylan Brock, has basically taken over his venom on Earth. So, yeah, I don't know how this all fits together. But I'll probably buy it and find out. So we were talking about new X titles. It looks like they're going back to mini-series a little bit. Because I'm seeing the mystique comic

they announced is actually a five-issue miniseries. There's a book called Sentinels. That's a five-issue miniseries. Dazzler is a four-issue miniseries. Oof, didn't even get five. Nope. Although Dylan will be happy to see that apparently strong guy plays a part

in the Dazler miniseries. Phoenix is an ongoing, NYX isn't ongoing. It hasn't been decided if the Siloac comic that's coming out is going to be a miniseries. If it isn't, I would be genuinely surprised. There's a Deadpool team-up comic that Rob Liefeld is writing and drawing. That's going to be a five-ish miniseries.

I'm surprised they haven't done more with Deadpool over the last few years. Well, I think it's because they did so much for a while. Yeah. He had so many books. everywhere. And yeah, like you say, he was in all kinds of different books as well. But they just went

from like 100 to zero like really quickly. Like it just went, oh, here's Deadpool, he's everywhere. And then all of a sudden, no, he's completely disappeared. But I guess now we've got a Deadpool movie coming out that

I guess it's the right time to bring him back. So speaking of other mini-serie, that you might have an interest in. You remember what was that Spider-Man story where he's an old man and it's revealed that he killed Mary Jane with his sperm? I think it's it's Spider-Man Rain. Spider-Man, too.

We're back, baby, old man, radioactive sperm, Spider-Man, back to another one. Oh, no, who's he going to kill this time? Um, it looks like Venom might be involved and Miles Morales is involved, which Miles Morales was not around for the original reign. Hmm. Uh, but here's one that you might be interested in, John. Kazum, Curse of Kane, a four-issue miniseries. Uh, it looks like it's going to be Ben Riley versus Kane. Well, there you go.

Is it the old school classic cane, though, or is it? Nope. Uh, it's svelt. Uh, Scarlet Spider Kane. Boo. Yeah, I know you like the, the big haggard looking guy. Yeah, the one who looked a bit like Kane from WW. You really did, didn't he?

Uh, so Ultimate Spider-Man's. So, have you read anything about the new Ultimate stuff? Not really. Like, I've seen a few images and I think when it was first, release like I did read a solicitation for the first issue but I haven't paid any attention to it since then okay I know very little about it I know ultimate Black Panther is the thing that's that's fun ultimate Spider-Man is definitely a different take on the character in the sense that the original Ultimate Spider-Man

he was still like a teenager yeah this ultimate Spider-Man he's a grown man complete with beard and children and married to Mary Jane. Mm-hmm. There is Ultimate X-Men that is completely and radically different. It's all by Peach Momiko. So all of the characters, so I think it's like an all-girls school in Japan that the X-Men are. Okay. And I have no idea what's going on with the Ultimates, but I do see that the new Hawkeye they revealed is Native American.

So they have a Native American Hawkeye, which, you know, that's cool. Yeah. And it looks like Dr. Dooms, a member of that team? Oh, yeah, I did see that a while ago, yeah. We talked a little bit about this. I'm surprised about how weak the Avengers books have been at Marvel. Yeah, for a long time now. Yeah, you would think that they'd be, like, they'd put their fucking A-game on that stuff, but they really don't.

And that's not saying anything bad about Jedd's. McKay who has been writing those books but I cannot tell you the last time there was a good Avengers run since Hickman yeah I mean the run before Jed McKay um the Jason Aaron I think yeah that I had high hope so because I'm a big fan of Jason Aaron like his Thor run was amazing um But yeah, it was, it's just one of those books where they sort of went big in terms of like uprooting the Avengers a little bit, like putting them in a celestial in the North Pole. And that was their base of operations. And then, yeah, a lot of the storylines that he came up with didn't really tie together and feel satisfying either. So, yeah, that whole run was pretty disappointing.

Like you say, you have to go back to Hitman, really, for where it really felt impactful. And, like, sort of had, like, lasting effect on things as well. So this might be a controversial statement. And I'm curious if you would agree with it or not. Every now and then you, I've always come across the expression, everyone has at least one good story in them. do you think that's the case with Jason Aaron? Because I just looked at his, like, writing credentials. I can tell you that he's had other great works.

One of them very criminally underrated and should be talked about more. But aside, I don't think anything has come close to Thor. Like, that Thor run, I mean, I feel bad for him because I think when people think of, like, some of his work, and now it's going to be kind of tied to Marvel's biggest mistake of letting Tyco with Titi have. a little too much free reign when it came to his creative vision. Yeah. I love Tycoe Watiti, but I don't think that was a good move to let him just, you know, why don't you just be you with Thor?

And I feel like that was maybe not a great idea because a lot of people were really hoping like more of that like big fantasy epic and instead they got, you know, Tyco Watiti doing when he does, you know, what we do in the shadows and such. Yeah. I mean, that last Thor movie was just trying way too hard to be funny. Yeah. And, you know, like usually in his movies, the comedy feels really natural. And like, it just, yeah, it hits you.

Whereas this one, it was just, oh, dear. They're not telling jokes. They're basically trying to say funny lines. And, yeah. So you are kind of our movie guy. Like that has been well established now, which I guess while I'll go ahead and ask like what's your movie count out right now? 434.

Crispin Glover is one of my favorite people. I find him to be infinitely interesting and fascinating. Just a weird, brilliant artist. He's also in a lot of garbage. And he has stated on the record multiple times that he, just does things for the money so that he can fund the things that he actually wants to do. Do you feel like there was a little bit of that in Thor, Love and Thunder, that this was just Tycho Watiti, just taking the big money contract, so, you know, he wasn't going to really put

his effort into it. I mean, yeah, maybe. Because, I mean, you look at, like, Jojo Rabbit and stuff, you know? Which is one of my favorite movies of that last 10 years. Yeah, so it's like he's capable of really great. stuff and like yeah it needs to give a shit but then you've got to wonder

as well like was there any sort of you know Marvel interference because you hear a lot about directors coming in to direct a Marvel movie and then basically getting it almost taken away from them because they've got a

you know like basically film it to the mandate of Disney slash Marvel and they have to bring in this character or do this or do that. And it's, you know, maybe the creative decisions get taken away from them a little bit. So I don't know, maybe, I don't know, maybe that kind of happened with Tickett for Love and Thunder. But like you say, like it's sort of got his fingerprints all over it with the, like comedy aspects. maybe not.

Yeah. I mean, I always think of like when I hear that, it's not Marvel, but it's Star Wars, how the solo movie had a completely different like direction and director before Marvel or before Disney pulled them and replaced them with Ron Howard. So instead of like having a, you know, young blood with a new creative vision, they got Ron Howard, who, nothing against Ron Howard. He is very much an established person who's been doing this for a very long time. So, so kind of going back to all that, though, with Jason Aaron, do you feel like, do you know of any of his other work that you feel is like on par with that Thor run?

I wouldn't say on par. Like, I mean, he had a pretty decent run with Wolverine back in the day. I'd always heard good things about Ghost Rider Yeah I don't know if it stands out Red is no I don't know I don't know I think he wrote some of the Star Wars comics

I've read as well But again I don't think it was Especially good I don't think it really stood out that much So yeah I think Thor is definitely the one That will be remembered and just

So yeah, I remember he The book the the the the the run of his that I remember was his career own series from vertigo scalped Have you never read scalped? No Scopped is good It's a it's sort of it's modern day or modern day as of like you know 2008 when it was coming out But it is a it's a story about this reservation in South Dakota and like sort of it's like a Western crime

drama and it's about like organized crime and poverty and alcoholism and politics and like these people who are trying to keep their cultural identity their own thing do you remember this is early 2000s do you remember the Marvel architects Marvel Archite

text. Yeah. This was like a big thing that Marvel was pushing really hard. A group of writers. Yeah. Yeah. Do you remember them? Well, if it's early 2000s, I'm guessing. Yeah. Let's see if you get some. Yeah. Ben, this is one. Ed Brubaker. That's two. How many are there? There are five So you're about halfway through I know that you probably will know

I think you'll know another two If you know the last if you know the fifth one I would be surprised because I don't associate him With superhero comics anymore Okay I'm feeling stumped after two To be honest Okay

So Jason Aaron is one of them That's what made me think about it Yeah yeah yeah Another is somebody that we both think very highly of, which is Jonathan Hickman. Of course. And then the last one is Matt Fraction. Who Fraction's been writing Indies for a long time.

Yeah. I mean, his Hawkeye book, great stuff. Absolutely. Phenomenal. But he had a run on Iron Man as well, which was the drizzling shit. And Thor as well, where it was just. It wasn't good. So I pulled up the original article that Marvel put on their website,

December 6, 2010. December 6 to 2010, I was out of college and living in Ohio on my own. Well, I wasn't on my own. I was with people for, I think that was like my fourth month living away from home. So that's how far That's how fucking longer ago this was So yeah

They put out this And I'm curious I'm gonna mention Some of these titles And you tell me if you still Think of them in high regard So Brian Michael Bendis Writer of Avengers

New Avengers Death of Spider-Man The upcoming moon night And an upcoming secret project I Really enjoyed his Avengers run To be honest I thought

Avengers and Mighty Avengers like fit together really well didn't mention Mighty Avengers it's just that Avengers and New Avengers Oh I'm sure he did Mighty as well at some point oh yeah I know he did he did because I remember that it just is weird

they didn't feel the need to call that one out Death of Spider-Man though that was him killing Peter Parker in the Ultimate Universe right Oh yeah of course I was like scratching my head when you said death of Spider-on like what the hell? But yeah,

that was pretty good as well, to be fair. Like, he wrote that entire original Ultimate Spider-Man run from start to finish. So, you know, he, there was continuity there and it felt like

because of that, it had weight as well, like when, when the moment actually came, like, it was pretty impactful. So fair play to. Yes.

I'm not a Bendis fan. I've made that known repeatedly. The fact they mentioned upcoming Moon Night. I remember getting that book because I really liked Moon Night. And I fucking hated it after two issues. Because it just came apparent to me like, wow, Bindis has no idea who this character is. He heard certain words and went with it.

So, like, in that book, Mark Specter is in Los Angeles working as a movie producer, which, A, yes, one of his secret identities, Stephen Grant, one of his multiple personality, Stephen Grant, is a movie producer. That's established. But Mark Spector is not Stephen Grant.

And instead of having multiple personalities, his multiple personalities are just the are just these sort of ghosts, personalities that live in his head of Spider-Man, Wolverine, and Captain America.

So yeah, I fucking hated it. I hated it so much. I got two issues in. I'm like, wow, not only has he no idea who Moon Knight is, but he also has not accomplished anything because it's the Brian Michael Bendis Gilmore Girls dialogue where nothing happens and everything gets extended for a year. All right. So Matt Fraction, writer of Thor, which you've already made yourself your feelings known on. Invincible Iron Man, which you've already made your feelings known on. And a top secret upcoming. event. Do you remember what that event was? Was it the one where all the secrets got revealed? Oh, what the fuck was it called? Original sin? Original sin, yeah. Was that the one?

I don't think that was him. It might have been him, but I think the one they're referring to is the one where everybody gets Thorhammers. Oh. See? not wasn't siege no event that uh killed loki and had to do with century yeah no it turns out original sin was jason Aaron and that sucked as well uh do do do yeah that one did suck with uh oh god what was it um was the orb was involved

yeah the orb was involved and Nick Fury killed the watcher and then became the watcher so they could introduce Nick Fury Jr. who looked like Samuel Jackson to tie into the movies

oh it was fear itself fear itself yes that one was fraction yeah and also a garbage event wasn't good I remember the comic quick store I was going to at the time when original sin came out though they were giving out glow in the dark bouncy balls that looked like eyeballs and on the back it said it had like the

marvel logo and original sin so there you go yeah i'd happily have one of those uh so ed brewbaker writer of captain america secret adventures and a top secret upcoming new series I don't know what that top secret new series was. I can't remember. I can't remember, no. I didn't think he stuck around Marvel that long after his Captain America run came to an end. I don't think he did either. He didn't, because he did, what did Ed Brubaker do?

He did Captain America. He did War of Kings. A versus X. Yeah. Yeah, you had to run on Daredevil as well. Yeah, yeah. Winter soldier. Was it Winter Soldier?

Because like his, yeah. No, no, no, it wasn't. This is 2016. Winter 16. This is like, they're talking about like 2010. And regardless. Brewbaker, I think we've established his Captain America run was second to none. I don't think it's been a good Captain America run since.

Yeah. to say it, but I 100% agree. I don't remember his secret offenders, though. Apparently it was really good. I remember hearing a lot of good things about it back when it was coming out,

but I don't think I've read any of it. Maybe I's one to go back and look up. I'd be. So Jonathan Hickman, it mentions Fantastic Four and Shield, and it says an upcoming new series. I'm not even to bother the upcoming new series because I have no memory for the most I do know Fantastic Four that Hickman is said to have done the quintessential Fantastic Four storyline because like that actually it might be future foundation the upcoming new series they're referring to yeah yeah probably because that was like he killed Human Torch and they ended Fantastic Four and started a future foundation instead which was just the Fantastic Four but more of an emphasis on the human torch.

and they ended Fantastic Four and started a future foundation instead, which was just the Fantastic Four, but more of an emphasis on the kid characters and Spider-Man filling in for Johnny. Yeah, yeah. They brought in a bunch of different, like, smart young characters who were basically taken under the wing of the Fantastic Four. And yeah, yeah, that was pretty good.

Yeah. But, I mean, it's Hickman. I, you know, he's amazing at everything. He had the best Avengers run in recent years because it all tied in together. So he had the Avengers storyline where he introduced all of these oddball characters you would never in your life think to put on the Avengers. And then he did the, was it Secret Avengers or New Avengers? That was essentially just the Illuminati characters. Yeah, it was the New Avengers.

Yeah, which gave us that great tension between Black Panther. and Namor. Mm-hmm. Now, he was really firing all cylinders with that. But again, Hickman's great at almost everything he does. I can't think of a bad Hickman run right now. That rat bastard. Right.

And then, of course, it mentions Jason Aaron of Wolverine, Astonishing Spider-Man and Wolverine, which, was that a title? I think I may have bought that, but I can't remember. It ran for a year, which is surprising considering both of those characters. So those were the Marvel architects. The gimmick being is that they're the top writers that were going to drive Marvel comics forward. And aside from Hickman and Aaron, the other three aren't there anymore. Bend has jumped to DC and ruined a very fun part of Superman.

fraction has done mainly creator-owned in Indies and Brubaker has been doing the same thing as well. Do you think a lot of that has to do with just like creative freedom and the rights to their material?

Oh, 100%. Yeah. Because whenever you're with Marvel or DC, you're basically just playing in someone else's sandbox with other people's toys. So there's only so much you can do with them or so much you can do before someone says, we have to go back to the status quo again. Yeah. Well, and that's like, that's just kind of the weird thing about.

So I remember somebody saying that save your good ideas for your independent stuff. Because if you do stuff, like you're not going to get it. I mean, Bruebaker, from my original, I don't think he was even going to get a credit in the Captain America Winter Soldier, you know, movie. And he invented the fucking Winter Soldier character. Because before Brubbaker, Bucky, Bucky had been dead since the 1960s. Mm-hmm. Which is wild to think he'd been dead for like 50 years before he brought him back. And he did it in such a great way.

Just like I said, that Captain America run was just perfect. because I remember the run that replaced it was Rick Remender doing the Captain America's trapped in an alternate dimension with Arnhzola's child storyline and had John Ramita Jr. on art and I fucking hate John Ramita Jr.'s art.

Ready? Oh, I do. I hate it. I think everybody looks blocky and sometimes you can see when he gets lazy on drawing people's faces. I mean, I think he's been doing it for a long time, but man. It's so unique looking that I kind of really dig it. But I can see why, like from a traditional point of view, like, you know,

it doesn't look at all like anyone else's art. But I don't know. The thing is, like, it goes back to my love of the Hobgoblin as well. Because I think he was the guy who first drew the hobgoblin. And like the very first splash page reveal of the hobgoblin is just such a great piece of art. Well, I mean, I think that we've always kind of, you know, I know that you're a big Spider-Man person. And I know that that's going to be a big factor in really liking. honor me to junior because he mean he was spider man you know like he was doing the art for a long time

yeah yeah and his dad did the art too if i'm mistaken right indeed yeah so it's like a family business i get it is there a creator that you just can't get into i got because i got a weird hot take uh i'm sure there must be but i can't think of anyone off the top of my head who's your one then garth in us yeah not a fan not a man not I'm not a fan of Garthanas. I understand a lot of what he's doing are like critiques of things. But I'm also not a big fan of like really over the top violence and stuff. And that's like kind of his bread and butter.

Because I like I think of a preacher and his Punisher Max and the boys. And I am one of those people. I've just never cared for the boys. Didn't care for it as a concept for a series. I get tired of the superhero deconstruction. It's kind of like all of the various storylines that do, yeah, but what if Superman was evil? And it's like, you keep doing this. It's we don't need everyone to do what if Superman's evil storyline.

There's so many out there already. Like from top of my head, like there's the boys with Homelander. There's irredeemable with the plutonian injustice had a whole, you know, like that was the whole point with Superman was the big bad. And then like, you know, they also just did the suicide squad kills the Justice League. where, you know, again, you, you know, you have to deal with an evil Superman. Yeah, yeah. But no, I've never been a big fan of Ennis. I don't like Mark Miller.

I remember an interview with Grant Morrison not that long ago, where somebody had asked about, like, Mark Miller, and Grant said that Miller is near where they, I think he, like, he lives in the same city, and he's like, yeah, I hope the next time I run into him going 100 miles per hour. which is weird because like I feel like Grant Morrison doesn't have that energy towards many people because I know Alan Moore fucking hates him but I don't think I've ever heard Grant Morrison say anything too negative about Alan Moore and also who is another oh I don't really care for Neil Gaiman yeah I've not really read much of anything that Neil Gaiman's written to be fair because he's got Sandman

and that's it Mm-hmm You know there's that He did that story like whatever happened to the Cape Crusader But I didn't think it was that great Mm-hmm And my favorite Book that Neil Gaiman

Was responsible for Was good omens But half that was Terry Pratchett Yeah yeah Oddly enough the parts I really like for the Terry Pratchett parts But yeah Like I read American Gods didn't care for American gods at all

and then I saw they adapted to a show yeah I got weird opinions on American gods yeah yeah no is there anybody like that for you that you see their name and you're just like I'm not going to even bother with that not especially

like I'm so not picky when it comes to runs like I will buy like you know, like graphic novels of Spider-Man, regardless of who's writing it or how poorly received it's been. Like, I will buy it just to, you know, have it and, like, keep my collection going.

So, yeah, in that regard, I'm a bit of a sucker for punishment. I was going to ask you, so I know that there are some people that are, you do you read for character or do you read for the creative team so are you are you more of a creator or more of a character reader a hundred percent yeah like i've even got uh like spreadsheets of all the uh like individual issues and like how many i've got collected with my graphic novels and stuff. Like I'm really sort of like I would love to have like a whole run of a major book like, you know, like Spider-Man or Captain America or anything like that. But at the moment, I'm, you know, way off a lot of them. I think I'm just bringing it up. The closest I am is Daredevil,

where I think there's 673 issues of Daredevil which have been collected in graphic novels and I have 633 of them in the ones I've bought so

yeah I'm getting there so that's interesting because I'm I can be very I can go both ways I'm a very big green arrow fan. So I will usually

read a Green Arrow like storyline. Because Green Arrow doesn't get a lot of, it doesn't get too many ongoings. Like there are stretches of time where Green Arrow will have an ongoing and then there are times we're not. Like right now, the current series that's been out was originally going

to be a mini series, but the sales in reception were so good. They just kept it going. I feel like fucking rare anymore. But I also remember when they launched the new 52 and they put out the new 52 version of green arrow, I got about three issues in and said, I can't do this.

But I think that's a special thing because, like, the whole point of the new 52 is like brand bold new takes on the characters you know. And like for me, that was that was too much because they were just making Iron Man, but he's got arrows. Yeah, yeah. But I also like Mark Wade is one of those people for me that I'll read anything Mark Wade does. that daredevil run with Mark Wade was really really really good yeah yeah because it was him and what Chris Samney on art

I believe so yeah God Samney was good I mean he's still good he's still with us for God's sake I'm not he's not yeah I remember there was a Captain America and Bucky series for a while that Sammy was on art for And he just fit that sort of retro vibe of like 1940s era, period. So I guess I'll ask you, and we could probably wind it down after this because we've been recording for a little bit. Of all of those Spider-Man runs you've been reading, Spider-Man notorious for having long stretches but the same creator,

is there a run that you did not care for? Like who is like the Spider-Man writer in the last few years that you just were not terribly into? Um, I don't know. This is a tough one because I wasn't a huge fan of the, uh, the Spider-Man run in the early 2000s by, uh, what's his name? Uh, the guy who's like a writer in general, he wrote like a TV show or something, a sci-fi TV show. God damn, this is going to annoy me. Was it, um, J. Michael Strasinski? Yes. Oh, yes.

JMS, yeah. Which I think this is the third time JMS has come up on our show in a negative context. Because I had brought up the Wonder Woman with Pants storyline. And Superman walks across America. All were his ideas. Yeah. Yeah. I also heard he absolutely hates comic book fans.

I saw somebody was talking about how they went to a convention and if you came up to talk to him about Babylon 5, he was really nice and would engage in conversations but he was trying to get him to sign some Spider-Man comics and apparently he was not having it. Jeez. Yeah.

What you were saying about J. Michael Strzinski? Yeah, like that his run just did not appeal to me at all. Like I say, that 9-11 issue was pretty powerful and impactful, but like the rest of his run, where that sort of introduced like Spider-Man getting bit by, not bit, but like turned into like a physical spider. Oh, was that the totem?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He brought in like Morland and all that kind of stuff as well, which is. aspect of the comics which I have no love for whatsoever so when they did all the Spider-verse stuff it's like oh good we're going back to this shitty character again

but yeah that that was probably my least favorite Spider-Man run now I know I said that we'd wrap this up but that does bring up an excellent point what is your opinion on the weird it feels like there's been so many miniseries and events based off of Spider-verses in

multiple versions of Spider-Man interacting with one another and doing things? What's your opinion on that and why do you think it's so prevalent right now? I don't know why it's prevalent. I mean, I guess it's hard to say

like I guess it's just all the different versions of all the, you know, different Spider-Men and stuff. Like usually it's just basically mixed mixing Spider-Man with a different character and to get like some sort of weird amalgamation between them. But I don't know. Like I just, I've never really understood those books or those storylines or why they are so popular.

It's to me, it's just, you know, oh, look, it's a bunch of Spider-Man again. Yeah. Because it just keeps happening. Yeah. Do you think it's, I know it absolutely has to tie into those movies. It's probably one of the big reasons they do it. Marvel, I feel like, is more guilty than DC of like trying to get movie viewers into their comics by, you know, basically making things as much like the comics or the movies as possible. Hmm.

Well, I mean, saying that, like the Spider-D. versus predates the movies. Yeah. Like they did it. I want to say sort of the mid-2010s and then brought it back a couple of years later again. But again, that was still before the very first Spider-verse movie came out.

So, yeah, it's one of those weird things. Like the only time I've enjoyed the Spider-verse is in the animated Spider-Man cartoon from the 90s. Well, that was only like two episodes. Yeah, but then that's perfect. That's all you need. Well, I think that's an all right place to end up. I feel like this was quite informative, and we covered a lot of ground,

which is always fun because I feel like the minus one episodes, we kind of don't really go in with the plan. Well, yeah, I mean, that's pretty evident, I'd say, from this one. We've gone all over the place. Oh, you need to listen to the last one I did with Dylan then. Oh, I can't wait. Yeah, it's something. So the people listening, that was, it was not last week, but it was two weeks ago.

That one took some turns. But yeah, no, it's been great to having you, John, especially by yourself. Like I said, a friend of mine who was listening to this said, like, oh, John just sounds fed up with you guys. So hopefully they're listening and we'll see that you don't hate us. No, that's just my normal voice. I sound fed up with everyone. All right, folks. John, if you want to follow John in Letterbox and read his reviews of the 430 some movies he's already watched for the year, you can find him at what is at John?

At Big John Bowsky, all one word. If you want to watch Dylan, who should have his YouTube channel up and running by now, apparently he's recorded multiple episodes of him playing Pickman. You can find him at Explodey plays. And if you want to listen to me, ramble on my own for about 30 minutes at a time, by all means, please check out Large Old Cup on Spotify. But we're the Spark Avengers. If you are listening on Spotify, check us on YouTube. YouTube, checks on Spotify. We're in both places at the same time.

It's concurrent. We like that. but until next time I've been Corey. This has been John. We'll see you later. Goodbye. Oh, boy.