The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 27: The Smark Avengers Talk About Jean Grey

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

deep breath SCOOOOOTTTT! She can pick up stuff with her mind, read YOUR mind, and consume a sun and a planet containing billions of lives - she's Jean Grey aka Marvel Girl aka the Phoenix aka the Dark Phoenix aka the girl that lived... wait... no. Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they talk about Jean Grey and wrap up analysis of the original 5 X-Men members!

Just so you're being recorded. Thank you for that. We've not done that bit in the minute. Yeah, it's been a while. It's been a while. Yeah, but it's it never gets old. No, no. It's always a classic.

Speaking of it, ever getting old. Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Smart Avengers. My name is Corey and with me are Dylan and John. And today is a momentous day. And that is the day that we finally wrap up our deep dive into the original five X-Men. Over a year ago, we started with Beast. Then we had Angel. The show took a break for about a couple of months, by a couple months, mean most of a year. And we came back, we tackled

Iceman and Cyclops, and now we are finally at Gene Gray. I will be honest with you, I have not been looking forward to this one. That's not the right attitude to have. Yeah. Yeah. So Gene Gray has a very ravenous fan base. We'll go ahead and address that right now. And it is a character I've simply just never cared for. So I will tell the Gene Gray fans who are listening to this, these are all just matter of opinion.

We'll be reading, you know, what we will be covering is just the facts itself, except for moments where we are clearly kind of making our opinions known. But yes, I'm not a big Gene Gray fan. You're going to get us trouble with the Gene Gray stands, Corey. If that's a badger to get trouble with, I'll be honest with you. Yeah, they're going to come out of us. They're going to edit their Wikipedia pages, and we're going to look really silly. Yep.

They're the comic book Swifties. Probably. Yeah, that's, I don't know. I don't know if people really, I think you're putting a lot of faith into how much people seem to like Jean Grey. I don't know if this is true. I'm a veteran of the Connick Book Resources message boards and I can tell you right now,

yes. We'll get to it, but the prolonged period of time where Gene was dead and before she was resurrected, it was a very adamant community about bringing her back. She died?

Come on. The Phoenix? Yeah, that's odd. John, anything thing that you would you like to make your feelings on on uh jean gray aka a marvel girl aka a k a k a the phoenix a k a k a k a dark phoenix um she's never had a really good code name has she marble girl is not a good yes phoenix is good dark phoenix is pretty cool you know yeah marl girl yeah stan and jack weren't on there weren't on their element on that one no not a girl

not super good. Feels a bit lazy. Yeah. She's a girl that she was created by Marvel. Yep, there we go. Done and done. Well, that's about as much thought they put into her personality, too, when they were originally writing her.

But so yeah, let's go ahead and get started. Of course, Gene Gray debuted in X-Men number one by the legends that are Stanley and Jack Kirby. And at the time, Gene was filling in that special role of default girl that seemed to be on every team book, whether it was the Invisible Woman in the Fantastic Four or the Wasp and the Avengers. Most of her characterization was essentially acting like the team mom who would chastised and or take care of Angel, Iceman, Beast, and Cyclops, as well as be the love interest for

everyone. To be fair, I think she did the role of girl very well. Yeah, someone would say she was born for it. Yes. By the way, that love interest did include Professor Charles Xavier. Yeah. So, it's a bit problematic. Any bit.

There's a panel from X-Men number three, and this was put out in 1963, where Xavier's lamenting in his thought bubble that he dare not tell Gene that he loved her, not while he's the leader of the X-Men and confined to his wheelchair, because those are the only two barriers that are making it inappropriate for a grown man. And to tell a 16-year-old girl that he's in love with her. But also, isn't she a telepath? Yes. Although at that point, yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I have a feeling, but we're really going to get into that. So, so Gene was 16 years all the time. And Xavier at this point is a renowned geneticist, psychologist who had traveled the world, been engaged to Moyer and McTaggart, separated from Moyer and McTaggart,

had a loved child that grew up to be Legion, met and fought Nazis and Hydra with Magneto, fought an alien named Lucifer, and then fought the Shadow King. All of that before meeting Gene Gray and developing these romantic feelings towards her. Yeah, but she's really pretty, though. Yeah.

So. So as you were alluding to you just a moment ago, Jean was originally just telekinetic and could just move things with her mind before she gained a small level of telepathy under Xavier. This was recondo later that Jean has always been an incredible telepath, but just couldn't control it. So her parents had Xavier put a psychic block on her powers. Oh, yeah, I remember that.

Yeah. Because I think the origin was her powers triggered because she saw her friend getting killed in a car accident. At least she got hit by a car and died. And like she connected cycle like telepathically with her friend at the time of her death and it messed her up. Mm-hmm. So. So, yeah. So as we kind of alluded to you, there's not a lot of really interesting storylines of note here.

Because Stanley and Jack Kirby didn't really do dynamic storylines for their female characters. So like Gene was the weakest character on the team. Kind of like how the invisible woman was in the Fantastic Four because she could only really turn invisible. And the wasp and the Avengers because she could only shrink really small and zap people. Imagine being like the worst written character. And a comic book which has Angel and Iceman in it. Yeah. Like, that's rough.

If you're getting less storylines than Iceman. We got Beast here. We got Beast here. And Beast's only powers that he had big feet and big hands. Yeah, he could jump. So, like, you think about it, the only X-Men with any sort of substantial powers for the most part were Cyclops and Iceman. Because, like, Angel could fly. And Beast could, like, was really good at gymnastics.

because of his big feet and hands. Yeah. Yeah. People called him a free for. Yeah. Like you do. So anyway, after graduating from the X-Men, Gene and the other original X-Men were abducted by the living island of Krakawa,

which forced Xavier to create a brand new lineup of X-Men to rescue the originals. And after they were rescued, Gene, Beast, Angel, and Iceman left the team, leaving Cyclops as the lone founding member of that group. So that is essentially the nutshell of Gene Gray pre-Claremont. Not a lot there for the most part. She was there as kind of the lone female character who the boys had a crush on. Claremont, however, was really drawn to Gene Gray. And when he got the book, he wanted to use her pretty proactively.

but the previous writer at the time Lynn Wayne had already established that she was leaving the team so Claremont had to finagle some things around to explain why Gene was still going to be there. So he did that by simply just having Gene in a relationship with Cyclops. So she got to stick around in the book in a

tertiary role despite the fact she was kind of retired from adventuring. But due to her proximity still with the team, she ended up forming a sister like relationship with Storm and she met Wolverine and develop their star-crossed romance thing.

Mm-hmm. So again, not too much going on there, but that did lead to Stephen Lang, the manufacturer of the mutant-hating automaton's, the sentinels, to abduct her, Xavier, Wolverine, and Banshee, and take them into space. And in the course of that event, Gene had to pilot a spacecraft back to Earth while being bombarded by radiation. So knowing that she was going to die, Gene was approached by a cosmic entity known as the Phoenix, which is not going to be the first by far, or the last by far reference to the Phoenix we're going to be talking about. But anyway, this cosmic entity offered to help save her and her friends in exchange for basically her body.

So Gene gave herself willingly to the Phoenix, and the team made it back to Earth. So Gene Gray was the weakest member of the X-Men because she could just, she was telekinetic and had some low-level telepathy. that obviously changed in a very big way because she got an upgrade in power by being the the avatar the host of the phoenix so her telekinesis and telphe got an upgrade she gained the ability to travel freely through space she could control fire she could teleport she could cause force blasts and absorb energy and then a whole bunch of other flash like powers including things like the ability to control life forces and atom kinesis. Of course.

Why? Yes. She can control things on a molecular level. And as the Phoenix, like she was able to go like toe to toe with Galactus, you know, like big time power upgrade. So when so when she took on the mantle of the Phoenix, she joined the team full time, she saved all of reality, much less the world, and Gene went to, like I said, become the

strongest character in the book. So it was Claremont's intention to make her the first true cosmic hero in all of Marvel and potentially get her to get her to the point where she could cross over and join the Avengers on the same level of, like, Thor.

So, like, that was the objective. And I think that, like, I think he hammered that in really really devastatingly. that she was going to be so fucking powerful. The editors, though, weren't a big fan of this, and they felt that Phoenix was now taking up too much of the focus for what was supposed to be a big team book.

So Claremont was given another problem, and that was he had to remove Gene's powers, so he ended up working with John Byrne to come up with a plan. And this plan, however, did have some unintended consequences. those. So before we started recording, I had said that like, kind of like in professional wrestling, sometimes the most interesting things about a story is the stuff that happens behind the scenes. In my sort of research on Gene Gray, that kind of came to be the case here.

So like he said, Chris Claremont really wanted to write a strong Gene Gray character. Claremont was, I mean, he also introduced Kitty Pride and made Kitty such a big prominent part of the book. So he was kind of the opposite of the Stanley Jack Kirby female characters that were just kind of there as window dressing. And in Claremont's books, they became basically the main character. Any disagreements on that? Not really. Okay. So we're going to talk about a villain by the name of Mastermind.

A mastermind was an OG X-Men villain that got an invitation to potentially join the super secret club for villainous perverts called the Hellfire Club. We all know the Hellfire Club. You dress up like a regency character except for the women that are in lingerie. We know this to be true. So he had to earn his membership in his preferred method. of trying to earn that membership was he was going to recruit the long time his longtime enemy jean gray by using his powers of illusion and manipulation to change her unfortunately for mastermind it worked a little too good and with the taste of that now delicious villainous lifestyle gene flew up into space devoured an entire sun and the five billion inhabitants of one of those sun's planets so that's that's not good i mean it's not it's not great, especially if you're, you know, vying for a rule on the Avengers. You know, like, I kill a lot of people there, dude.

But really hot, so come on in. Like, Xavier's like, I know, right? It's not weird, is it? It's totally normal. She's old enough now. I'm not as interested as it used to be. No, yeah. Kitty pride's here now. Oh, no. From the Friday of the X-Men where she kept hugging him randomly.

Oh, those wacky X-Men. Is that why she turned around and said, Professor Xavier is a jerk? Yes, exactly. Got a little handsy. Yeah. So Gene returned from space to Earth as the dark phoenix and threatened to kill everyone.

But then Professor Xavier was able to keep her under control and help her, help will herself back to normal. So the, she was able to control the dark side of the Phoenix. Cyclops proposed to her and happy endings for everyone, right? Yeah, I guess. Seems like it's wrapped up pretty nicely, so. No, no. See, there's this thing in space, it's an empire.

It's called the Shiar. They're kind of big deals. They didn't much care for the giant flaming bird. They ate a whole ass star in the planet and a planet. and so they had arrested Gene for genocide. Which I admit much. It's a bit far. Tiny bit.

Yeah. Tiny bit. So the Shiar Empire has like a real fun like old school style of justice where instead of like having a formal trial they did trial by combat. And so the X-Men had to fight the Shi'a, the Shiar Imperial Guard to decide Gene's fate. And Claremont and Brayorne. Byrne, this is where their ending was leading up. So they, like you said, these are like the two iconic classic X-Men writers of all time. No one will ever be as good as them.

So do you want to know what in an ideal world, this is how Chris Claremont and John Byrne resolve the problem? Yeah, we go for it. Okay. Gene gets a space lobotomy to remove... gets a space lobotomy to remove her powers and return her to normal. She would then have a scene where Magneto would offer to help her get her powers back, but she turns him down feeling that the Phoenix would return to her if she did regain her powers. Thus, Gene Gray goes off into retirement.

That was the proposed ending that Claremont and John Byrne had in mind. Space Lobotomy. why do you think they didn't go with space lobotomy? I think I know the answer, yeah. Isn't it because one of the editors pointed out, hang on, she's just killed like 5 billion people. There needs to be some consequences so that more than just space lobotomy. Not just any editor.

It's Jim Shooter, the editor-in-chief. There you go. The head of the table. the OTC, if you will. He was not a fan of this plan, and he basically equated Gene being responsible for the deaths of billions and getting away with it by removing her powers

would be like letting Hitler be free to live in Long Island because the Holocaust took place in Europe. So Claremont and Burns stated that they viewed the Phoenix as a separate entity and that by removing the Phoenix, it absolved Gene from being a mass murderer. However, in a sort of a committee meeting between the creative and editorial teams, they ultimately agree that Phoenix had been depicted as an inherent and inseparable aspect of Jean Gray, meaning that the character was fully responsible for her actions as Phoenix. So, like, Byrne and Claire, like, Claremont essentially had not done a great job of establishing that the Phoenix was this thing that just lived inside of Gene.

like he was just writing like this is just gene like you know Phoenix going to go into the store getting her getting her eggs and milk like it's not like there are any heart to hearts where you know the two were represented as separate characters and ultimately that's what doomed him

so as a result Jim Shooter told Claremont and Byrne they had to rewrite the ending to explicitly place in story a consequence and an ending commensurate with the enormity of the phoenix's actions.

So when the X-Men battle the Shiar elite guard, it triggered the Phoenix to turn into the dark Phoenix once more. Gene understood that she would never be able to fully control the dark hunger inside and sacrificed herself. Thus, the X-Men lost one of their original founders, Cyclops met Madeline Pryor who looked exactly like Jean Grey, and the world moved on, right? Yeah.

I mean, already, whatever you go okay so Cyclops lost his wife and then were they married at the time? No no not yet okay so it lost his long time girlfriend who

and then he finds somebody that looked exactly to see him as that woman who we've already established had like incredible cosmic power who was called the Phoenix.

Yeah. And then he saw somebody that looked exactly like her and was like, that's, this is, this is normal. This is fine. That was like, that they did,

they did illustrate that, that Cyclops being like, is that Gene? Is she back? Like, what the hell? And like, Claremont went out of his way to explain that like,

no, Madeline Pryor is a different person entirely. And like, we'll talk a little bit more about Madeline. We did a lot of talking. about Madeline in the Cyclops episode and like Claremont's intentions for the character

and stuff, but like just note, this was this was Claremont's attempt at getting Cyclops to move on. So in the world of Chris Claremont, if you get your heart, if you, if you are a widower or a widow, it's best if you find someone

who looks identical to your lost loved one and move on. Seems like a loss of way to exercise its grief. The only way to get closure is to go out with somebody exactly the same. Looks exactly like him. Right.

I mean, when Madeline Pryor was brought in, despite the fact that she looked identical to Jean Grey, like her role in the story now was to be Cyclops' husband, which to go back to your earlier point of the original X-Men and what Jean Grey's role in that was, okay, to be the woman, this is pretty like circling back to that pretty accurately. now we have Gene Gray being the woman, but it's not, it's even easier because it's not even Gene Gray. You know what you mean?

Madeline was, she just existed so that Chris could write Cyclops off of the team, which he did do. Yes. So like that was the intention of the character. It just feels like a really weird way to go about it because like Cyclops had in story dated other women before. Like I think he dated another like hero character. I think didn't he. Holly Dazler? Maybe.

Ice man. Yeah. So I mean, it's so weird because like, yeah, yeah. Cyclops said that it's so those characters are just bound together. And I feel like that was just something that was manufactured in the last like 30, 40 years. Because like again, we and we talk. about this in the Cyclops episode. And if you want to hear more about that, go listen to it.

This was, Madeline prior was just to write Cyclops out. But we are not talking about Madeline. We're going to go back to Jean Grey, who is dead and definitely not coming back. Because she committed genocide on a cosmic level and is gone forever. Except she wasn't gone forever. So she wasn't dead. So Kurt Busiak, legendary writer, and a big fan of the original 5Xman, didn't really like the Phoenix story because it ended in Gene's death.

So as a fan, not even as a writer, just as a fan, he started just coming up with various storylines that would have met Jim Shooter's requirement that, like, she had to be punished. Like there had to be a punishment. and one that would allow Gene to return to the X-Men. So eventually he shared some ideas with Roger Stern, who mentioned it to John Byrne. And Byrne was writing and illustrating the Fantastic Four. And both Bob Layton and Jackson Geiss were developing the X-Factor comic. And so the X-Factor comic was the team of former X-Men. So at the time, it was Cyclops Beast, Iceman, and Angel.

And they needed a fifth member. And they had been kind of leaning on maybe dazzler. But then when they heard about, you know, the ideas that you see what was kicking around, they said, all right, we'll do a Gene instead. So Bob Layton and John Burns made the idea to Jim Shooter. Jim Shooter approved it, liked it, said, all right, cool. This gives her the punishment. and it also will allow you to bring her back. So Gene Gray was revived in a crossover plot between the Avengers under Stern and the Fantastic Four under Burn and the X Factor under Layton.

So how did Gene Gray get resurrected? Do you guys know? She was found in like a bay in New York, in a cocoon, I believe. where I think the Phoenix force basically left her and then manifested a copy of her body to do all of her Phoenix things. Correct. So, yes, Gene was put in a cocoon. So the spacecraft that she was piloting in went down into Jamaica Bay. The Phoenix created a duplicate body, and Jean was put into a coma inside of the cocoon. to heal herself. So when Phoenix died in space, it sent fragments of its of its essence

into the universe until it could be restored. One of those fragments went inside of Madeline Pryor and the other and it had originally tried to go into Gene, but Gene was in the bay and it just Gene refused it because in her unconscious state wasn't didn't know what it was. So it found Madeline Pryor because she was a duplicate of Gene that was created by Mr. Settister. Gasp, shock, or Mr. Sistner, the man who just can't get over his obsession with the Summers family. Anyway, so the Avengers and the Fantastic Four found the remnants of the spacecraft and Gene at the bottom of Jamaica Bay. Gene Gray was back with no memories of the Phoenix or anything that came along with it, thus absolving her of genocide.

If you don't remember doing it, it doesn't count. If it wasn't technically your body, but just your lightness, it doesn't count. That makes sense. It's a legal gray area. A green gray area. There you go. So the decision to revive Gene Gray was controversial among fans, because some people really appreciated the return of the character, and others felt like it weakened the impact of the Dark Phoenix saga ending. Busek has gone on the record stating that the idea,

for her to return. It was merely him sharing ideas with his friends as a fan and that he was not formally pitching anything to anyone. But he did get credit for it. So they did give him a credit. Claremont was very dissatisfied with the retcon. To interview in 2012, he said, we just gone to all the effort of saying Jean's dead, get over it. And then they said, ha ha, we fibbed. So why should anyone trust us? That's the difference between being the writer and being the boss. So essentially, in the comics having been fully established as a separate from the Gene great copy created and taken over by the Phoenix Force, Jean was absolved of all involvement of the atrocities of the Dark Phoenix storyline, and she was allowed to return in the first issue of X Factor. So X Factor was a little weird.

I don't know if even, I'm sure if you guys have ever really read some of that first run X Factor, but like there's like a living spaceship and stuff. You know, that's where Archangel gets metal. wings, beast turns blue, you know, a lot goes on in that one. Well, I think they start off the run as, like, their cover story is their mutant hunters and, yeah, they sort of

betray themselves as like bounty hunters almost like going after mutants, but would that be in the cover story where they're really just trying to find mutants and rescue them from dire situations and whatnot. So, It's sort of a weird setup. Dylan, do you have any experience with the old school X Factor?

Nope. Fair enough. A lot of apocalypse, a lot of Calabac, a lot of Cameron Hodge. There's some classic X-Men villains in that. I've been tempted to give it another shot. So, anyway, in X Factor, Gene got to have some weird encounters. First off with her daughter, Rachel Summers, from an alternate timeline. So that's great.

you just come out of this cocoon having no memory of the last few years that have passed and like, oh, hi, I'm your daughter from an alternate reality. Wolverine, because he couldn't stop himself, popped up to remind her about all their unresolved romantic tensions. And for a while, Cyclops tried to hide the fact that he had, that he was married and had a kid, because he wasn't sure how to bring that up. Because her last memory of them were they were together. It is a weird thing to try and explain, isn't it? Yeah, by the way, while you're out, I married someone who looks exactly like you and have a child.

Yeah, but can we still be a thing? Pretty hot, right, Xavier? And he's like, yeah, I told you already. Leave me along. Psychic thumbs up from Xavier. So Gene and Cyclops eventually resume their relationship after Cyclops has led to believe that Madeline had died, which led to an awesome and messy encounter with Madeline Pryor, who was driven mad because Cyclops had seemingly abandoned their family to lead X Factor.

And I see seemingly because he just outright did. He just dipped. Didn't call for a while. Sinister sent the fucking marauders after her, and that's why he thought she was dead because, like, their house was fucking wrecked. Kid nowhere to be found, and a redhead woman was found in a river, and he assumed it was her. and B, she realized she was the clone of Jean Grey that was created by Mr. Sinister. So she didn't have a great day.

It's kind of like the Ben Riley stuff, you know? So anyway, Madeline Pryor ends up making a demonic pact and becomes the goblin queen. And in the middle of this confrontation, Gene gets the fragment of the Phoenix back from Madeline and gets to learn about all the fun things the Dark Phoenix did with her likeness. So that's cool. So X-Factor disbands and Gene rejoins the X-Men as her and Scott do get married. So they finally are married. And that awesome, that great.

And I'll be honest with you, I kind of feel like there wasn't too much of note that happened in the 90s for Gene. I mean, there was the Inferno storyline, but that was really tied into the Madeline Pryor thing where she tries to sacrifice Nathan to demons. and then like Nathan gets sent to the future and there's like a whole mini series where Cyclops and Gene are in the future or in like an alternate timeline where they're raising him until he's 12 and it's a whole thing.

But for the most part, I think like we talked about like the whole storyline where Siloac was like flirting with Cyclops all the time. That was like one of the few notable storylines I can recall from the 90s for Gene. Yeah, she didn't. much going on.

So anyway, Gene learns that she can still touch part of the Phoenix and that she's considered an embegal-level mutant, which is great. We cover a lot of information that happens from here with Apocalypse taking over Cyclops and the tensions that it created. So we're going to fast forward to the Grant Morrison era, which is, you know, after Cyclops is saved from being possessed by Apocalypse. Cyclops of Gene Return the X-Men as part of the teaching staff of the exam. Institute. And while Jean finds she's slowly able to tap into the powers of the Phoenix force again,

her marriage with Scott falls apart. Jean and Wolverine finally addressed their long unspoken mutual attraction, deciding it's best not to act on those feelings, while Cyclops grows further alienated from Gene due to her growing powers and her responsibilities with the school. And he ends up starting a telepathic affair with Emma Frost. Again, we talk a lot about this in the Cyclops episode, so we'll fast forward a little bit. Gene ends up realizing that Emma Frost does truly love Cyclops and ends up like kind of letting go of their relationship. But, you know, ends up dying at the hands of Zorn, aka Magneto,

a.k.a.a. Zorn, depending on what version you true you want to believe in. Where it was in the Grand Morrison run, it was revealed that Zorn, this new mutant. It was actually Magneto the whole time. And then people who recondit said, no, it was a Magneto. It was another, it was actually

Zorn pretending to be Magneto for reasons. So anyway, Gene dies. And she assumes complete control of the Phoenix force before she does so. And in her dying breath, she tells Scott to live. that's the end of Gene Gray, right? Wrong.

What? What could they do? A little thing called N-Song, where the Phoenix Force tries to reanimate Jean's body while her spirit keeps trying to, like, get it to leave her alone, essentially, and return to the white-hot room, which is this sort of, like, interdimensional space where genes conscious and the Phoenix kind of reside. So that, you know, that's a thing for a bit. Hope, the mutant Messiah turns up.

She's a redhead kid that looks like Jean Grey. That attracts the Phoenix Force back to Earth. Beast and Wolverine lose their shit and Beast brings the time displaced X-Men to the future. So we got teenage Gene Gray running around and she's kind of a brat. Phoenix Force comes back again, you know, comes back again. The spirit of Gene tries to communicate to her younger self. And, yeah, Phoenix Force comes back again, tries to resurrect her again. But this time she's able to tell her to leave it alone for good.

And yes, Jean gets brought back, tells the Phoenix Force to fuck off. and she she's around for a hot minute before Krokoa. So I just whizzed through a whole lot there, like a good 20 years almost, but it kind of is going over and over and over again of like this period of time between Morrison and present day where Gene's dead, she's dead, she's not coming back, she's never coming back, Phoenix comes back, teases bringing her back, goes away, we're back to Gene's dead, she's never coming back again. And we get the red herrings like, like you get hope, who a lot of people at first thought was like a reincarnated Gene Gray. And then you get, you know, the time displaced X-Men with the young Gene Gray who is like kind of dealing in this future where it's like, oh, yeah, wow, in the future. This boy that I like ends up killing our teacher.

I become like this superpower cosmic entity that commits genocide. You know, all of my friends, you know, well, most of these adults who know me as their friend, I also have like a weird martyr thing about me. And, you know, she does a lot of really questionable stuff like, you know, out Iceman. Now, John, you read a lot of the time displaced X-Men stuff from what I remember. call. What was like the main characterization of the young Jean Grey? I think she was just sort of a bit like you say bratty and sort of a bit messed up by coming to the future and finding out like what her future holds basically. So yeah, even though She basically kind of assumes like leadership of the time displaced X-Men.

Like she's not a proper leader and she makes a lot of questionable decisions and choices and stuff. And at one point she even like develops some new powers as well, sort of combining her telepathy and telekinesis, which I still don't fully understand how it works or what it was effectively doing. And it's never really been brought up since then as well. So like, I guess, who cares? But yeah. Now, she got like, didn't she she, she made like telepathic armor, essentially, if I remember correctly. Yeah, I get the feeling she she could like, turn her entire body into like this sort of purply uh teleconnect kinetic energy or something and she was able to go toe to toe with gladia. Yeah, I don't know what the specifics were. I've noticed if that they kind of took Cylac's bit from Cilock because they think they even mentioned that like Cilac was like training gene on how to do some of the stuff. But like,

Like, so Cyllexwell deal was like she's able to create like weapons out of like telepathic energy. And then Quinn Quire has like a telepathic shotgun. That's like his big thing. So it just seems like someone realized, hey, being a telepath is actually kind of a boring power set for comic books. Can we jazz this up somehow? Can we give him a gun? Yeah, give me a gun. But not a real gun.

A psychic gun. Yes. A pink gun that shoots pink bullets like Quinn Quine. wire. But Dylan, do you have any thoughts on basically the last 20-ish years of Gene? I think I covered this in the Cyclops episode, but I really like the whole, obviously I like the Grand Morrison run. I've talked a lot about how much I like that. But one thing I loved about it was it shook up the dynamic between Cyclops and Gene Gray and made them both. more interesting, I think.

I think I did a lot for Cyclops and I did a lot for Gene Gray as well. It felt like it was a good way to kind of resolve that and end it. You know what you mean? I feel like he knew that maybe, you know, she's a phoenix.

She should, she already came back once, you know, maybe she should die again. So, Claremont had, oh, sorry. Well, it's just because she'll just come back again because he's a phoenix is what I'm saying. Yeah. So Claremont had kind of gone on the record saying like he, we mentioned before, he didn't like the resurrection because he said it was just kind of made them dishonest.

He also didn't like the resurrection for what it did to Cyclops's characterization because it like, he's like Cyclops is kind of like this noble good hero. But then the second Gene Gray comes back, he completely abandons his family to go chasing after her, essentially. Yeah. And so, like, we were mentioning, like, you mentioned, like, the, you like what Grant did because it made Cyclops and Gene's stronger characters. I would agree with that. I think, like, they have always been so tied so closely together that it's those periods of time where Gene's been dead that Cyclops has kind of been at his most enjoyable. I'm not a fan of that relationship pairing because it feels kind of like we got to do it because they were they were in love when Stan and Jack were writing the book. You know, like they're together because like that's how it's always been.

Right. That's it felt like tradition. Yeah. There's some characters you do that with and some you don't, I think. Right. I like that he shook things. He shook a lot of things up. Yeah.

That X-Men run. And, you know, almost none of it stuck, funny enough. Well, that's oddly enough, that's the thing about, I used to work at a bookstore. And the manager, I was told when I started working there, because one of the, when I co-workers was speaking in comics, he was like, oh, who's one of your favorite writers? I mentioned Grant Morrison. And he said, don't mention that to the manager because the manager is upset that Grant, quote, ruined the X-Men. so like yeah yeah apparently apparently my old manager mike did not appreciate magneto like killing a bunch of people in new york with a massive title wave and didn't care for cyclops

cheating on gene gray and didn't care for beast getting mutated further like there's a whole whole to do about all the various things that my manager did not like about grand morrison writing Right, but then like we said, they fucking changed almost all of it anyway, so. Almost, I think they changed all of it. I think the only thing that at this point, I mean, what's stuck? Because, I mean, they've undone the Cyclops and Mephrost really ship, and Cyclops is right back with Gene. Mm-hmm.

You know, I don't think anything's stuck. I guess the Genosha, like, massacre. Yeah. He kept the terrorist attack. 16 million people died. Yeah. Got the massacre. Yeah.

But yeah, so to kind of go back to the Gene suffering now. So in the Kerkowa era, Gene started to dress like Marvel girl again for reasons. I don't know. Her costume was reverted back to the 1960s. She became a member of the Quiet Council. was in a Thruple relationship with Cyclops and Wolverine depending on who you ask because some of the editors say no that wasn't a thing and then the people who read the books are like

well how come when in Hickman's book where they showed the summer's house there's a bedroom there's a door that leads from Wolverine's room into Jean Grey's room and then from Cyclops room into Gene Gray's room and then there's like a whole thing where Gene and Wolverine had like a hot tub night together Is you sure that they're in the threat that they're not in the thing? That wasn't very popular. There are some people who really liked it and a lot of people who didn't. And yeah, so right now, after the Kerkowa stuff has been resolved and ended,

Jean is once more of the Phoenix and has her own solo book where she's out in space. And her and Cyclops are now doing a long-distance relationship as he is based out of Alaska leading one of the X-Men teams. So that's where we are Gene currently, right back to being the Phoenix. So Chris Claremont finally got what he wanted by making Gene Gray a cosmic superhero then. Yes, she has her own solo book. However, Storm, I think, is going to be a member of the Avengers. I think that's been what's been hinted or gestured at now.

So. Interesting. We can't have everything. Nope. So that is kind of the history of Gene Gray. as succinctly as possible. Because, like I said, a lot of Gene's stories are very kind of reminiscent to a much greater degree than Archangel in that. It's just a lot of, like, Phoenix is coming back.

Here's the Phoenix. And it's gone. You know, like, I remember there was the joke about, like, Gene Gray does nothing but die. But I think, canonically, she's only died once. Well, I think there was a period where, um, not a period. but like a story where Wolverine had to keep killing her when she got possessed by the dark phoenix. I think it's, yeah, is that not in song? Yeah, I think so.

And she just kept getting resurrected, no matter how many times he killed her, basically. Yeah. So, so, you know, that's, like I said, I'm not a big fan of Gene Gray. She kind of has, like, a saint, uh, attitude amongst us. fans that think that she's, you know, one of the top tier characters of all time. She was the leader of the X-Men Red book that launched before Krokoa. I don't nothing about that book. And like most of everything that I was reading and researchers didn't even mention it,

aside from the fact that when she got resurrected, she got put on that book. So, yeah. Now, obviously, I'm incorrect because the Internet has told me so. very similar to how when we were going through Iceman and we were shown how wrong we were based off of the various rankings that Iceman was put highly in would you guys like to know some of the accolades of Miss Gene Gray? Yeah.

I reckon she's going to do way better than Iceman. Well, she's ranked number five by Newsorama in their best X-Men members of all time list. Wow. IGN has her rank sixth in their top 25 X-Men list, her dark X, her Dark Phoenix persona, ninth in top 100 comic book villains of all time list, and 13th in their top 100 comic book heroes list.

Now, I will tell you to take IGN with a grain of salt because historically they do click bait based off of trying to piss people off. Notably, they were like the only review place I saw that had anything negative to say about Deadpool and Wolverine. The Daily Dot has Gene Gray ranked seventh in their top 33 female superheroes of all time. Very weird number to do. Collider has her ranked eighth as their top most powerful Marvel Mutants list. GameSpot has her ranked 10th in their top 50 most important superheroes list.

Comicbook.com didn't think that's highly as her because they put her 16th in their top 50 most important superheroes list ever. Entertainment Weekly has a rank 30th in their Let's Rink Every X-Men Ever list. The AV Club has her rank 60th in their 100 Best Marvel Characters list. Slash film has her ranked first in most powerful X-Men characters list.

The Mary Sue has her ranked first in their top 10 most powerful X-Men of all-time list. And because there's always a Comic Buyer's Guide has her ranked third in their 100 sexiest women comics list. By Charles Xavier. Sports Kida has her rank sixth in their 10 most overpowered superheroes in the Marvel Universe list. So they're haters. Screen Rant has her ranked first in their top 10 most powerful members of the Summers family list.

And fifth in their 25 most powerful mutants list. Not to be outdone, outdone. Comic Book Resources has her ranked first in their X-Men, strongest members of the Summers family list, first in their all of Marvel's Omega Level Mutants list, second in their 10 best female X-Men characters list, second in their 10 most attractive Marvel Heroes list,

third in their 10 strongest female villains list, and fifth in their 10 bravest mutants in Marvel Comics list. Bravest mutants. so brave whenever she killed all those people. Yeah. Yes, the bravest mutants list. She ranked real high on that one. I don't, that's such a weird, I don't know how I,

I get it. It's tough to come up with new articles to write every day or whatever, but the bravest, I don't, they're all superheroes, right? They're supposed to be brief. I don't okay whatever curious who else is on that list now

yeah who else what number was she she was uh she was fifth in their bravest mutants list so four people are more brave than she is you want to see the whole list

oh absolutely yeah for 10 is Bishop because he survived a a terrible dystopian future. Well, Bishop, because he tried to kill hope and chase cable through like thousands of different universes. That was pretty brave of him. Nine is Rachel Summers because she had the worst torment being from her timeline and

she never was corrupted by the Phoenix Force. She was a long-time host. Eight is X23. Three, seven crack me up because it says Sabretooth has done a lot of horrible things, but he's definitely brave. What? Not really the word I'd use to describe Sabretooth. Oh. Brave and terrorist quite frequently, exchangeably turned. Well, it takes guts to kill all those people.

To rip people's guts out. Six is miscellaneous. Steak, who has made a habit of being fearless. Five, was Gene Gray, who's... Five, Gene Gray, because she's been facing the terrors of the mind for years. Four is Cyclops. Three, Magneto, who survived the Holocaust. I don't know who's doing better than Magneto for surviving,

quite literally, the worst thing that the human race has ever done to itself. Storm. She faced her fears many times. Yeah. She's the Holocaust, though, her claustrophobia. I was going to say, she doesn't like small spaces, which is, you know, arguably more brave of than surviving the Holocaust. Yep. And number one, the Wolverine, who has never met a fight, he didn't like.

Again, though, would you call that bravery? This is David Harth, who wrote this. This came out in 2021. on David, you are getting real close to the new Paul. And you don't want to be the new Paul. Let me tell you. Author details.

David has a beard, two kids, and a pretty impressive collection of books and comics, which apparently he doesn't read. Christ. So, so yeah, that's where the Gene is our fifth bravest mutant. Somehow, I'm still more upset the fact the Magneto came in third.

third surviving the Holocaust. Got the bronze on that bad boy. That's going to be embarrassing. Oh, boy. All right. Well, did any of that surprise you? Anything you want to comment on with all of her various rankings? Yeah, the Magneto thing was a bit surprising.

Yeah. Yeah, right. I don't know. Like, some of it seemed to check. I did figure that, uh, She would do better than ice man. I actually thought she'd do better because, you know, you were really big in her up at the beginning of this episode, Corey. You were like, she's, everybody loves her.

She's not even not bereaved, apparently. So, whatever. Only fifth brief. Yeah, it's ridiculous. You got to up your game, dude. I mean, she came in third and 100 sexiest women in comics for comic buyers guide. Can we figure out who we have You were?

I'm baffled by why we're having sexiest comic book character list when these are just drawings. These aren't real people. What are you talking about? Oh. I

unfortunately, it doesn't look like this link exists anymore. Oh, they took it down. Although it comes from apparently it comes from a book this was a book you could buy I've looked it appears to be the case this is not like an online article that I could see that no never mind found it boom thank you comic vine so yes gene great gene came in number three how this is a hundred characters 100 characters so in um in professional football the last person that gets drafted is uh called mr irrelevant

So the Mr. the Miss Irrelevant of the 100 Sexiest Comic Book characters of all time is Molly Main Scott. I've never heard of this character, so that's a very fitting title. Do you want the top 10? Or do you want,

or do you just want the top three? I mean, why not do the top 10 when out of the way? Yeah. Molly Maine Scott, by the way, apparently was a villain of Alan of the original Green Lantern

and Alan Scott. Okay. There you go. All right, top 10, number 10, rogue. There's no, by way, most times you see a list, they'll have like a description and an argument. I'm thankful there's not one of these for this one. It's just names and numbers. I'd hate to see the arguments.

Number 10, rogue. Number nine, power girl. Number eight, Venus, who is, yep, the Venus, the Venus, the god. goddess of love. What? From Marvel. Yeah. Seven is Sarah Pizzini.

Do you know who Sarah Pizzini is? Nope. Yes. I've read the comic book and didn't like it. I can't remember what it's called, though. Is it which blade? There you go. Yeah.

But is she hot, though? Oh, she's 7th out of 100. Yeah. It's pretty good. She's naked throughout most of that book, too. That armor. Her armor is alive. Okay.

Six is Wonder Woman. Five is Emma Frost. Four is Zatanna. Three is the aforementioned Gene Gray. Number two, death from Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Man, that's a good thing to know about death when you do cross. You get shuffled off the mortal coil. At least you got a smoking hot goth girl waiting for you, I guess.

And number one. Red Sonia. What? Chain mail bikini. Yeah. Fucking nerds. Was there somebody that you were expecting to see but didn't, Dylan? Not really.

I just wanted to see what everybody else thought. And you know what? I don't think, I'm not disappointed, but also in another way, incredibly disappointed. Do what I mean? I think the idea that this article exists at all has disappointed me. I can, I'm curious. Yeah, interesting, interesting, interesting, interesting. Is there an author associated with this?

Not that I can see. I didn't want to sign it, Stridge. And nobody wanted to, no one to put their name on that bad boy. So anyway, we should also, you know, of course get into another aspect of these characters. When we discuss them, let's speak about the other. media appearances of Gene Gray. She is an OG X-Man. She has been in multiple movies, multiple animated series, multiple video games.

Very famously, she is portrayed by Fampke Jensen in X-Men, X-2, X-Men the Last Stand. She shows up as a spirit of herself that haunts Wolverine and the Wolverine. I think she's also in Days of Future Past. Yep. Sophie Turner plays her in Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Mm-hmm. So we talked a bit about these movies previously with our X-Men movie, or X-Men movie episode.

But any comments on FAMCII in her portrayal of Jean Grey and Sophie Turner and hers? Do you feel like they did the character justice? Do you think the material, like as actresses, they were great, but the material wasn't good, opposite around, you know, what do you feel? I think the first two X-Men movies, she was portrayed really well. And then the third one where they pull the dark Phoenix card is where it sort of goes off the rails a bit. Like they didn't really treat that whole storyline very well. And it's funny because they basically had a do-over in the Dark Phoenix movie with the Sophie Turner version, and they still fucked it up.

So I guess it's a hard storyline to transfer to the big screen. Any thoughts on that, Dylan? Nope. Honestly, a lot of those old X-Men films, I remember watching at the time and thinking, it's pretty good. And then I just don't remember Anna's Nobite them. Yeah, I never thought much of the character in those other X-Men movies either. She always came across as kind of weak in X-Men and also an X-2 for me. And then I didn't even bother with the last stand.

I just have always felt like Jean-Grey's a boring character. And then like I had no patience for them to even do the storyline with the Phoenix. It's her best, her biggest storyline ever. So she, let's talk about the animated series. She was a main character. Well, I will say a main character in X-Men the animated series, because, again, they didn't really focus on Gene so much as a character, aside from a few episodes.

In the 92 X-Men series, she was in X-Men Evolution. She was a teenager in that one. In Wolverine and the X-Men, she was kind of the... beginning of event of that book that or that that cartoon that took Charles Xavier off the map and forced Wolverine to assume leadership of the X-Men and then of course X-Men 97 where we got the Madeline prior storyline after the yeah would of course with some changes though am I right John yeah yeah it's not a direct adaptation but they managed to combine it with a couple of other storylines as

well um but yeah it worked out really well i thought uh i will say that i did enjoy the phoenix saga in the x-men cart soon i think they did a really good job with that in the 92 probably the best version of that 100 percent yeah but i said to get really close to the comics they did uh i i think giving the trial by combat with the imperial guard, you know, which you can't, you know, obviously they can't have the phoenix fly off into space and destroy a sun and a planet full of people in these movies because that would, you would have to, you know, it would be a, if you give a Musa Muffin situation where you have to introduce the whole concept of the X-Men going to space in the first place.

But how do they, how do they explain the Phoenix in these? I know that in the last stand, it was sort of like, when she was young, her powers were so uncontrollable. That's when Xavier put the block on it, and that the Dark Phoenix was essentially just like Gene's powers were just uncontrollable. Yeah, basically. It was almost like a split personality type thing where it was her repressed, like, darker self, which, like, you know, say Xavier had put the mental blocks on or the psychic blocks on for years and years. And then she sort of sacrifices herself at the end of X2 to save the team. And doing so is what sort of, you know, breaks the psychic blocks and frees this alternate personality.

I can't remember what the deal was in Dark Phoenix. I literally watched it just a couple of weeks ago. and I've completely forgotten everything about that movie. Nope. They go space. Yeah, I'm looking at it. I just clicked it up there. Yeah, they went with a space route that she got while they were doing some,

the president called the X-Men to save some astronauts, and during the rescue, Gene got struck with some energy. So she shows up in some video games as well, but I don't feel like there's a lot as much very interesting things to talk about in the video games. stuff unless Dylan or kind of a resident video game person has anything about it? Nothing really stands out.

It's pretty similar in that she's just like a regular character in a lot of those video games. She's not even like, her power is also not one that's very easy to replicate in video games. For example, a lot of the other, especially the older X-Men video games

for like the SNES and the Mega Drive and stuff. You have guys where you can understand the powers, like Cyclops, you can see the lasers. Wolverine, you see his claws. Storm can make, like, a tornado or whatever. What was Gene Gray to, you know, like, does move stuff around with her head? Like, that, that doesn't translate it super well

to, like, video games a lot of the time. I think she was in, like, what was an X-Men game that was, like, Marvel Ultimate Alliance? Was it just, like, X-Men legends or something? Yeah. I think she was in that. She was also in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 as a playable character. Because I think that was like a fan vote one that she got in on.

Because Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 is all about Civil War. And the X-Men very famously did not have a ton to do with Civil War because, yeah, they were like, you've been trying to get us to register for the government for fucking years. Like, we're not helping you in this. Right. But yeah, I don't think Gene Gregg has a big, like, there's a big. there's going to be video games she's in, but she doesn't have like a huge

role in a lot of them because it's like I said, it's a difficult power to try and replicate visually, you know. Yeah. But yeah, so that's that, I mean, any closing thoughts

on Jean Grey, she's got a new book coming out. It's going to be all her in space on her own doing cosmic stuff. No other X-Men around because part of the edict with with Tom Brevert now being over the X-books has been like back to basic X-Men. So we're back to small teams, world that fears and hates them. You know, storms off doing her own thing in, I guess, wherever.

I know she got approached by Captain America to join the Avengers. And I think I saw teased. And Gene is often space and communicating to a path that we were Cyclops about like, hey, how are things going? It's been a while. Hope things are well. Love you. Bye.

But like. Call me back. coming back to Lathalie. So, yeah, like I said, Gene's future in the Axe world is kind of bright in the sense that she has her own solo book. And it's announced that it is a proper ongoing. It's not a miniseries. Now, will you, will either of you be reading the Phoenix book? Nope. So, yeah, I don't know, because I've ended up buying pretty much all of the, uh,

X-Men books and all the spin-offs and different teams and stuff from the Kro age and I've ended up just getting way too many so I don't know if I want to do that again and I might just stick with the main X-Men lines but at the same time if it gets like good reviews and stuff and it sounds like there's actual important stuff going on in the book then I'd probably be more tempted to invest. Well, it's about Gene Gray. She's really hot. Come on, John.

Third best. Yeah. According to, person, not brave enough to put their name out there. And how could you not trust that guy? And it's Stephanie a guy. Absolutely. Watch it be like, it was a committee. And there was like a pool.

Of all guys. John, I just don't want to let you. know, I understand that feeling. When the Kerkoa books started coming out, I picked up everything because I was so hyped for it. And in retrospect, it was like, fallen angels didn't go anywhere. Excalibur felt bad. X-Corps was short-lived. I didn't even bother with X-Factor because as a premise, I didn't care for it.

X-Force was really good, and it felt like it was consistent. The only downside to X-Force was it introduced the evil beast storyline and then completely resolved it in two pages in the very last issue, and that was a bummer. But yeah, no, I understand that. I got sucked in. I came really close to, like, jumping on board with these new X-books that came out, but, like, I resisted the urge to buy the Stegman, X-Men with the Cyclops leading the team out of Alaska. And I've heard really good things, though, Dylan, about the first issue of Uncanny with Gail Simone. I heard really good things. Are they already?

Yeah, yeah. I think it just came out last week. Okay. But yeah, I've, I understand that urge, because like I said, I jumped in and bought a bunch of stuff, and then I was like, oh, boy. It seems apparent that they're giving Gene an opportunity to see if she's a standalone character.

I think one of the things that Marvel's had a problem with is that Marvel has never found their Wonder Woman. They've never had their... This is the most important female character in Marvel comics. They tried it recently with Black Widow, but Black Widow just does not have, like, the powers for it. And they've been trying with Captain Marvel for years, and it's been no return on investment on that so far.

Like, her books are constantly getting ended and then relaunched with new number ones that end up getting ended. And then the movies with Brie Larson have it done nearly as well as the other books. To the point that she kind of got, you know, if memory serves, she did not really have any impact on Infinity War, right? I was watching a review and they were talking about how, like, she just fucked off to space at one point because there's space stuff going on. Yeah, she covered space stuff. That's because she can fly in space. Mm-hmm.

So it makes sense to do the space stuff. So, like, right now with these new X-books, you have a storm ongoing. You have a Gene Gray ongoing. There's a Silak series coming out. There's a mystique mini-series coming out. It does seem like, from an outsider's perspective and a theory that maybe Marvel is leveraging the fact that they have so many dynamic X characters out there that outnumber all of the various Avengers they have tried to put over over the years. But I don't know. I see this as an opportunity to see if they can make good on Claremont's hopes of making.

Gene a super important cosmic character. What about his killer. And resurrect your... John, real quick. What's your movie count out? I am at 481. What was the last film?

It was the Nun 2. Okay. Which is a spin-off of the conjuring. Oh, okay. And apparently I watched the Nunn one when it came out years ago, but I have no recollection of it whatsoever. So, yeah, this one wasn't very good, to be fair.

I feel like this isn't the first Nunn movie you've watched this year, not necessarily of the horror franchise, but like, wasn't there some sort of a comedy that you had watched about Nuts? There was. I haven't watched it this year. There was one with Aubrey Plaza in, which came out a few years ago. I don't know if there was one this year, though. Yeah, we'll just have to get it. We'll get on a nun streak with you. We're just going to watch this track one and two. Why are people making so many films with nuns?

You know, I had a friend who was almost a nun. Almost. Oh, wow. Almost a nun. Yeah, yeah. She went through the steps and she spoke with one of the, mothers and they said, you know, have you ever had a boyfriend? And she said no. And they're like, well, we recommend that you at least go on a series of dates to, because once you make this

commitment, it's a commitment. And so she had her friend just hook her up with the first like blind date that her friend knew. And that's how she met her husband. So it's a pretty funny story, actually, I think. That's probably one of the best meet cutes I've ever heard. but that's a shout-out to Rachel and Scott you guys are wonderful I don't know if you listen to this but I hope you do anyway Dylan how are things going in the world

of Exploity Place slowly but I was actually recording some stuff recently by recently by the time this goes out I mean three weeks ago but I really want to get some stuff put up soon because the episodes I did record went so badly

like it's amazing. I think it's like episode 15 or something where like everything goes wrong. It's... Oh, don't worry. We just had one of those episodes ourselves. No, we didn't. No, we didn't.

Unless it goes up in which case. Yes, we did. But it's just like, I mean, like in the game, everything goes wrong. Like, it's, it's just, it's amazing. Because I didn't see a comment. So now I'm like, well, I have to finish the show.

I have to put it up now because that was a and it was all very perfectly timed you know in an accidental way couldn't have written it so there will be episodes of Pickman going up at some point soon hopefully I'm even for September at the moment

which is funny because I've even for June, July and August so far but September I got a good feeling about you know All right. So this, by the way, this episode will be coming out the very last week of August. So that's how far ahead we are currently, which is appropriate that we're recording the Gene Gray episode now because the episode's coming out this upcoming week that we're recording is our auction episode. So if you want to know how, well, you already know how Jean Gray went in the auction. if you miss that episode,

by all means, listen to that episode three weeks ago. Yes. Yeah. But, so John, you mentioned your letterbox.

Where can they find you at? That would be at Big John Bowsky, all one word. Big John Bowsky. Dylan is on YouTube at Exploity Place. Dylan, is there any other things

you want to pitch to? No, really. I mean, I'm barely on YouTube, so. I just put up an episode of Large Old Cup recently where I talked about my week of dealing with a cat diabetes diagnosis and some embarrassing tales of hypochondria. So, you know, list of a Large Old Cup, if you want to hear me, just be completely and brutally honest to uncomfortable degrees. But this is the Smart Avengers. If you're listening this on Spotify, check us out on YouTube.

you're on YouTube, check us on Spotify. We're also on a bunch of other platforms, but those are the two main ones. We're not on Apple. We're not on Apple music or iTunes or whatever, though. I don't want to deal with that. I don't know if people still use that anymore, do they?

I don't think so. No, I feel like it's Spotify and YouTube 9. Yeah. Let's feel like the big two. Yeah. Well, folks, we'll see you around. Goodbye. Bye.

Bye.