The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 41: The Smark Avengers Talk Best Comic Book Deaths

Episode Date: December 6, 2024

Sometimes a victorious moment is, in actuality, a swan song. Sometimes saving the world means sacrificing everything in return. Sometimes when things are at their darkest you go out with a blaze of glory! Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as the Smark Avengers talk about the best deaths in comic books!

But I got these crisps, chips for the Americans, but crisps for proper people who speak English. The Queen's English. Well, she's dead now, please. Corey, have some respect. Please. He's fresh in the grave, man. I got these crisps that are pigs and blanket flavored. Oh. Now I want to ask John first and then Corey what pigs and blankets are.

Because I know what they are. Yeah, I know what they are. I have heard that Americans have heard that Americans have a, they think it's something else. And so I want to, I want to double check. So John, I'm going to ask you, what are pigs and blankets? Shouldn't you be asking Corey first? Yeah, I shouldn't.

I be first to show how wrong I am. Okay, okay. Well, let's do that thing. Corey, what do you think pigs and blankets are? Um, it's some sort of like a sausage that's inside of a, like a dinner roll, right? You, okay, Americans think that pigs and blankets are sausage rolls. Yeah. Oh.

Like a sausage roll, but not like a sausage inside of a lot, right? Sausage meat inside, like kind of pastry. Yeah. That is incorrect. That is incorrect. John, talk about what a pig of blanket is. A pig in blankets are, uh, sausages wrapped in bacon.

Correct. Oh, interesting. That is correct. That is correct. The best thing about Christmas. The best thing about Christmas. 100%. Everybody fucking loves pigs and blankets.

Think about it. Sauses just wrapped in bacon. Well, I mean, this is a good episode for this then because this is releasing the first Friday of December. There you go. up to Christmas. And we're all about the festive season over here on whatever the show

was called. The Smart Avengers? The show we've been doing since March. I drink a lot, Corey. So, yeah, that's Christmas, sort of. Pigs and Mike, Corey, this Christmas, get some sausages, wrap them and bacon. Try them up, see how good that is.

It is top notch, man. Everybody, welcome. to The Smart Avengers. My name's Corey. And with me, it's Dylan and John. Guys, how you doing today? Good, man. Thank you. Excellent. Well, last week, we spent an episode talking about

what we thought were the worst comic book deaths. So this week, we're going to do the opposite. We're going to put on our hats of positivity. And we're going to talk about what we thought were the best comic book deaths. So we're going to keep the same rotation. we'll go John, Dylan, and then me. Ideally, I think we should all have three in mind,

but, you know, we might have some leftovers at the end of it. John, you want to lead us off? Sure thing. Well, for my first one, I wanted to go for one, which I just thought had some of the coolest artwork of a death in the comic. I'm not sure if it's necessarily, like a great death especially as the character who dies literally comes back nine issues later but um it's one that

like it's it's just one of my favorite comic books uh i've ever read and i think it's just really well done so uh for my first pick i've gone for electra's death in daredevil 181 Frank Miller. That's a good, I was looking at that one. Yeah. It's basically, it comes in the aftermath of Electra was the king pan's like assassin for hire. But she's got this sort of history with Daredevil. And I think the Kingpin doesn't really trust her.

And then you got Bullseye who wants to be the number one assassin. And so Bullseye basically goes after Electra. And they have a big old fight across the rooftops of New York. And yeah, like a balsai manages to sort of incapacitate Elektra by throwing an ace of spades and like hits her right in the throat. And she's sort of knocked down and out. And then he takes one of her own sighs and just stabs her straight through the chest. and you get the iconic panel where you can see like the point of the knife going through her body,

but if for whatever reason it's not piercing like the stretchy material of her costume. But yeah, so she gets stabbed and then that's not quite the death, though. She crawls all the way over to Matt Murdoch's brownstone as she's like bleeding out. and dies in her arms all while Bullseye watches on in like a crowd of people with like a big old grin on his face and it's yeah

it's just iconic artwork really I love it. Yeah I think so it looks cool as hell man hell yeah yeah really does that's a good pick man I was thinking about doing that one just because of that visual

you know And it's sad that she died. But, yeah. Like I said, she comes back eight, well, nine issues later,

so. Well, that is the issue. If you think about it, though, yeah, if you think about it, though,

that was for Daredevil readers, that, that, it did take nine months to get there. I guess, yeah. So,

I mean, you know, it was a little time, not a ton, but, you know, a little. Yeah,

yeah. Yeah, but then, like, we were talking in the last episode about, like, Wolverine being dead.

for like four years. Yeah. That's, that feels like it's a jet. Even though we're all like, it's Wolverine, he's not going to be dead forever. And also we have all these other Wolverines.

But like, you know, a couple of issues doesn't really feel like that even nine months. You're like, it's not that much. You know,

but I think that. There was a baby that was born within that period of time. So a baby was born At the same time, Electra was reborn. Yeah, yeah. Was it a baby juggernaut?

Oh, that's the lore. Baby Jogginot was born. The exact moment that Elector returned to life. Baby Jogginot was conceived whenever Electric got stabbed in the chest. Yeah, around that time. Born when Electric came back to life. Yep.

Was baby Chugginot conceived because Electro was stabbed to the chest? Yeah, maybe Chuggarnot's parents were a bunch of freaks. They got really turned on because they saw that cover. Somebody read that book. Like, dude, come on. We got to go. Right here, right now. I have never been this excited.

My God. Seeing that woman get stabbed in the chest. That's not what you want to say to your wife, is it? Seeing this woman get stabbed in the chest made me really fucking horny. I would run away from that man. And once again, we are talking about semen. Not really. Not really, but in spirit.

Yeah, well, yeah, technicality. You know. Look, you guys start the show right. I like our job starting up the show right. You know what I mean? Yeah, that's a strong picture start with. He knows what the people want. Yeah.

Sex and violence. every time that's what it is man that's the shirt that's John John's the Larry Flint of the Smart Avengers Oh boy oh boy All right

All right Dylan's your turn Joe want to talk about something that isn't Seaman related Yeah Preferably Well Here we go I was going to try to like

Spragile of it but I don't have any. It's, it's, it's really isn't about semen. So, sorry to disappoint anybody. But let me talk to you. But Dr. Octopus,

have you ever heard of such a gentleman? I have. You, you, you, you're aware of the, the, the octopus doctor.

That's good. So, technically, kind of like, my, technically, he died once before in the 90s

because Kane broke his neck which was a really good way to put Kane over as a bad guy. Yeah, then they became the mayor of Knoxville. Whatever the fuck. I don't know. Knox County.

Knoxville. What's the difference? I don't think there is a difference. And then shook hands with Donald Trump, you know. What a villain. What a real ass. So he died But then he came back to life A couple, I don't know, a couple years later I would say

After his associate stunner He made a deal with the hand To resurrect Dr. Octopus And that was a bit messy But he came back to life And after he came back to life Many years after this He realized that boy, he could do a lot of stuff

But he couldn't change the hands of time. His body was deteriorating. He didn't know what to do. He made a lot of interesting... I think it was downslot, wasn't it? Yeah. This...

I really liked this, Ron. I didn't like all the downslot stuff. I really liked his Dr. Octopus stuff because he ramped Dr. Octopus up to like crazy levels of like... Of intensity. He made him a big deal. He made him like...

He did a lot of stuff. which I really, really like. Because Dr. Octopus is one of my old favorites. I really like him. And just see him get that kind of respect that I think he deserved. It was really cool. What I really liked, and I don't know, in retrospect, like now we've had time to pass and stuff.

I don't know exactly what people thought on this are. But I really, really liked the idea of Dr. Octopus becoming Spider-Man. and in the course of things Dr. Octopus's body is finally dying. He can do no more, but in the course of things he has been able to trace Peter Parker with his octobots and finds a way to take his own consciousness and then put it into Spider-Man's body and vice versa. So Dr. Octopus, his consciousness is now in the virile body of Spider-Man, And Peter Parker's consciousness is now in the dying and decaying body of Dr. Octopus. Dr. Octopus has now got the final victory over his longtime foe.

And some shenanigans happen. Spider-Man tries, he breaks out of prison, he tries to get a way to switch his consciousness with Dr. Octopus again, but Dr. Octopus has figured that out and doesn't allow it. and it really appears as if a doctor activist's body finally dies and spider man is gone spider man is within peter parker is within dr octopus's body and he's gone forever dr octopus is now in spider man's body and he is free to live as he as he so chooses and i really liked how it all played out and again it's one of those comic book things we're like they're not going to be stupid enough to just make doctor

Dr. Octopus, the new Spider-On for good. That's not going to happen. But the fact that they did such a crazy shake-up, I really liked because they did it in a really good way. It was really interesting. It had clear ramifications. I love that. I love that whole thing.

The problem I had with it was the resolution of it. I didn't really like because we all knew that Peter Parker was going to get his bottom. back at some point. And the way they kind of did it was like, only Peter Parker could beat up the Green Goblin. You're like, I don't know. I don't know with that. But at least the lead up to it and the,

the term, the actual part of it were Dr. Octopus became Spider-Man, and Spider-Man seemingly died in Dr. Octavis's body. Was some of the best Spider-Man shit we've seen in a long time? in my opinion. I really, really enjoyed that.

I'd say that's a good pick, to be honest. That's, there's a great storyline. Dan Slott, like, his run wasn't perfect all the way through,

for sure, but like, this was probably the high point of the entire thing, I think. I think so. Like, he wasn't afraid to shake some stuff up,

and try stuff, and it felt fresh and new and interesting. And, you know, I liked it. Corey, did you like it? Yeah.

It was very well done. So we're all in board. I don't really know like now that time has passed. Do people still like it? Because you know what people are like. People will have an opinion on something and then 20 years later like, oh, this always sucked. I'm like, did it suck? Or like the flip side.

Like, oh, I always thought that was great. Like, did you? Did you think that was great? You know what you mean? It's hard to tell. I don't really know what the public opinion is on that. But I liked it. I still like it.

Off we go. Off we go. All right. So for my first one, I'm going to talk about the DC Comics event, Crisis on Infinite Earths, because there are two deaths in Crisis and Infinite Earths that were considered incredibly iconic imagery and legacy for what comes after. So that will kind of give you a hint at what my second one will be. So the first one I'm going to talk about, though, occurred canonically first. and that is the death of Supergirl.

So when crisis on Infinite Earth started, it came about because DC wanted to simplify the continuity again. So they had this whole angle of, you know, Superman's the last son of Krypton. And then you look around, though, at the time of the Silver Age, you also had Kara, who was from Krypton as well, and you had the bottled city of Kandor. You had the Phantom Zone prisoners,

like General Zod. You had Crypto the Super Dog. So you have all of these characters that are also from Krypton, and it kind of takes away that special factor, that Superman is a stranger in a strange land. So they had decided that Supergirl has to die in order to, A, make Crisis on Earth seem like this is not a standard comic book story, which Comic Deaths didn't really happen that often in the 70s and 80s.

So when it happened, it was a big deal. And also it was to basically clear the board for what Superman was going to be after Crisis on Infinite Earth's ended. So in the storyline, the villain of Crisis on Infant Earths is a being known as the Anti-Monitor, who has the ability to essentially erase entire universes. So Superman is fighting the Anti-Monitor, but is knocked unconscious and is at his mercy. but Supergirl rushes in and fights off the anti-monitor long enough for Superman to be retrieved. And in the middle of, you know, holding back, you know, this incredibly powerful being, Supergirl is struck dead. So there is a public memorial service for Supergirl that takes place in Chicago, and Backgirl delivers the eulogy. And this was considered a really big deal because Supergirl was a really big deal because Supergirl was

incredibly popular comic and character. But for DC to figure out what they wanted the new world to look like, they had to make some sacrifices, and one of them was taking Supergirl out of the game. So her death was the first kind of sacrificial lamb to show that the new big bad or new event is super serious business. I mean, that makes sense. Doesn't it?

you have to, you have to, if you have a guy that's as cosmically powerful as the anti-monitor, you need to make him, there needs to be some kind of like ground purifications, right? Mm-hmm. Don't you mean? Stuff needs to happen. So I get that. That makes sense. A lot of, there was other depths in that run, though.

Yes. Are you going to be touching on them too? there's only one more from crisis that I'm going to bring up for my second one I suspected as much yes I suspected what is interesting they did by the way like treat the last son of Krypton very seriously in the reign of the Superman none of the people that were posing a Superman were true kryptonian with Connor Kent being a clone when they did bring a supergirl into the 90s by peter david he was revealed that she was not a cryptonian and did not really have anything to do with Kara, but she was actually a fallen angel that was taking on the appearance of a super

kryptonian character to blend in. I'm guessing the original Kara came back at some point, though. Yeah, yeah, Peter David ended up bringing her back a Supergirl in, I think, 2003. So that will be my first one. you were up again. Some tough choices to make. I will go

for Scourge the executioner who was a long time Thor villain often paired with the enchantress. He was sort of the muscle while she was the sort of the brains

and beauty of the combination and yeah basically during Walt Simonson's run there was like an adventure into the depths of hell where Thor and Boulder were looking to rescue a bunch of

souls that had been stolen by Heller and I think the enchantress and Scourge had been sort of paired up with Heather at this point, but then he kind of got fed up with like the entrantress just using him all the time and not sort of reciprocating the love that he felt towards her. And so, yeah, when it came time to like escape from hell with all these lost souls, he decided to help Thor and Boulder out and basically hold off the entire forces of hell. So like Thor and Boulder are getting these souls out there and scourge is left behind with a pair of machine guns,

which he's like blasting away all these skeleton forces before using the guns as clubs to sort of beat. them off and, you know, like take them all out. And yeah, he goes down while he's fighting all these hordes of hell off. And yeah, it's just like pretty cool death for a sort of not a major character, but it gave him way more sort of personality and made him way more interesting in that one moment than he pretty much. ever been in his entire comic run up to that point. And it's, again, like really iconic art as well. Walt Simonson draws the hell out of him wielding those machine guns

and basically, yeah, going crazy on all these skeletons. So pretty cool. Fuck those skeletons, man. No one likes skeletons. Who likes a skeleton? I mean, I do like Skeletor, but there's a difference there. I like Jack Skeleton. I like that as well.

He's kind of, he's got like a, it's kind of a skeleton. Yeah. But not really, though. Because he wears clothes. And most other skeletons don't really wear clothes, do they? I mean, the skeletons that Scourge was fighting off wore armor. Yeah.

They were like fallen like warriors, right? Yeah, yeah. Right, but they wore armor, but they didn't wear like a jacket. No. they weren't wearing like they weren't wearing pants yeah they didn't have shoes on yeah exactly so like

they were wearing in class spats yeah and that shit just wore an arm or whatever where'd your clothes go

you know there's not the perverts in hell not just in hell no anyway that's a good call like that's an interesting one isn't it

did they replicate that in the MCU movie with Carl Urban by chance Kind of, yeah He had like I think his whole role in that Was sort of based off The yeah That sort of moment in the comic books

Like he was originally sort of Heller's sort of lackey And then Yeah it basically turns good towards the end And tries to hold off the forces of hell whilst all the Asgardians who are remaining like trying to escape. So there you go. I mean, it is the iconic scourge moment.

Mm. He hasn't had too many of them to be fair. No, exactly. But it's good to give that kind of character something. He redeemed himself, you know? Yes. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like something cool to like hang their hat on, you know?

Mm-hmm. I think of something like that's pretty cool. that's a good shot Adela, what's your second one? All right, well, this is one we've definitely talked about in the past because as we mentioned before, we did a whole episode about the clone saga. If you listened to last week's episode,

you would have heard us talk extensively about the John's clones. But we're not going to talk with that today because it's a tucky subject. But I wanted to talk about something One of my favorite comic book deaths is Ben Riley. The original Ben Riley. Not the reborn Ben Riley where they just couldn't give a fuck about any of that stuff.

Where they killed him a billion times and brought it back again. I'm like, I don't know. This doesn't make any sense. None of that. The original Ben Riley here. So Ben Riley, to recap people, was the clone of Spider-Man, Peter Parker, who in the 90s came back whenever it turns out that they thought Aunt May was going to die for the first time. This is a complicated issue that I will talk about later. but Ben Riley came back.

Peter Parker and Ben Riley looked the same because they were clones. At some point, Ben Riley became the new Spider-Man while Peter Parker kind of drifted off in the background. Norman Osborne came back and revealed that the whole thing was a hoax to just fuck with Peter Parker, which, you know, I admire. I got to say, I like that guy. I like that kind of just vindictiveness. you know so obviously peter parker and ben riley end up having a big fight to get to

norman osborne osborne beats the shit out of ben riley and lays the stage for an epic showdown between peter parker a spider man versus norman osborne as the green goblin it's a wonderful epic fight they're on top of the building i think they're on top of the daily bugle i'm not a hundred percent sure yeah yeah i think so yeah so they're ready to fight And at some point, Norman Osborne, that tricky trickster that he is, has a little trick up his sleeve where he calls his goblin glider to come and try to impel Spider-Man, Peter Parker, on the front of it. The way he tried to do it years ago, ironically, it's a good callback. Ben Riley sees this and jumps in front of the glider himself, takes the brunt of the damage, ends up falling off a building because of a building. Peter Parker beats the shit out of Norman Osborne,

goes to see Ben Riley right before he eventually dies. And, you know, they share some words. But it's quite clear that Ben Riley at this point is 100% the clone. He disintegrates because that's what clones do, I guess. They just disintegrate. But it's such a wonderful... I always thought that it was just such a wonderful... wonderful way to put a cap on the Ben Riley thing.

You know, they did them right. I have been vocal on the show, but how much I love the clone saga. I know it gets convoluted and very silly sometimes, but I really love it. And Ben Riley's death was such an impact to me. It was such a real, like, wow, you know, that means something. and then they brought it back and fucked it all up but to their credit

they did leave it a long time that was that dance thought again yeah I think it might have been oh he come on I was just singing his praises earlier than he went and fucked it all up but like we said not all of his run was perfect

and for for a glimmer in time it felt like Ben Riley might have been one of those permanent deaths in comics. And it was a wonderful thing because it gave you enough. You could reminisce about that character without being too vocal about bringing him back. People were vocal by bringing him back. But like, you know what I mean? Like you had that nostalgia for him, but you're also like very happy about how things ended.

It ended in a very satisfactory manner. Yeah, yeah. So that one, that one always ranks pretty highly for me. It's another one as well, where the art is fantastic. Wonderful. John Romitin Jr. Yeah. Oh, so good.

Mm-hmm. His run in the 90s, the Spider-Man is phenomenal. Yeah. Just wonderful, man. His run in anything in the 90s was fucking wonderful. Mm-hmm. But that artwork really does help. Like, it saves a day.

That's a good one. All right, so I ended out earlier, but Crisis Infinite Earth is famous for another important death, and that is a man that we have attempted to kill ourselves, but did not have as much luck as DC.

So here is the official cheat sheet guys on how you kill Barry Allen the Flash. I mean, I feel like we did actually kill him, so I mean, this is like the official way. Ours is pretty official. Yeah, no, it's just as valued. It's just not the, it's just not done the way that the instructions that came with the box said. Okay.

Fair enough. So in Crisis on Earths, there is a being called the anti-monitor who has decided that all of these multiple universes got to go. It's too chaotic. It's too weird. We got to get rid of them. And so he has a device that is an anti-matter cannon that he effectively uses to blast these alternate Earths away. And so because the flash, Barry Allen, is the only character who has the capability of running fast enough he can go through time and visit other, basically other dimensions using the speed force, he gets captured and imprisoned on the planet Quad in the anti-matter universe. Barry is able to free himself and begins to dismantle the anti-matter canon by running faster than he ever has before to generate enough velocity to push back the energy that's generating by the cannon into itself, overloading it, and triggering a massive explosion.

The panels for this scene are really harrowing because you can see the flash wither away. And once the device has exploded, all that's left behind is Barry's costume and his ring that the costume was kept inside of. But this was a major moment in crisis. And if it Earths, it's basically what stops the anti-monitor from achieving his plan of wiping out all of the different parallel worlds. And estimates Barry Allen as a hero. Barry stayed dead for like 30 years. Damn. Pretty good.

Yeah. St. Barry became a thing, mainly because when the new continuity launched from crisis, Wally West became the Flash, who was the Kid Psychic Kid Flash for years up to that point. and his whole run was about proving himself worthy to take up the mantle of the flash and honor his uncle best friend in law kind of thing Barry Allen was his aunt's boyfriend essentially so not really uncle uncle situation I see but yes so that was the the death of Barry Allen It basically ended the crisis on a ever-earth storyline. It was honored for decades, and it was only undone by Jeff Johns, who at that point had kind of made it his thing because he didn't like 90s replacement heroes to restore all of the old Silver Age characters. I thought whenever you were talking about that storyline that this would come up.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like you said, there's two big deaths in crisis. One is Supergirl just for the iconic cover of a grieving Superman holding her limp body. And then Barry Allen literally fading into the speed force as he's saving the day. Yes. Yeah. And so it is pretty iconic. You know.

Mm-hmm. So. Oh, go ahead. Well, that's just the flash. You know, he can't beat that guy. No, can't. He has to beat himself. Yeah, the only way to kill the Flash is just hope he kills himself.

Make him run really, really fast until he just stops existing. Just put him on a treadmill? There you go. Well, no, if you put him on a treadmill, he's going to go back in time. Why? Because that's a cosmic treadmill. It's a device that the faster he runs on the cosmic treadmill, it will send him to other dimensions or back in time. So does that work on any treadmill he's running on?

No, no, it has to be a special treadmill. okay so we can just put up on a special treadmill and just make him run to death pretty much hmm all right john why didn't we write that in our well we know for next time we already killed him yeah but he's gonna come back everyone comes back he always goes back i mean the flash is a hundred percent going to come back are you kidding me he's travels through time uses the speed force wherever the fuck you know John, what is your last person?

So for my last one, I have gone for a gentleman by the name of Craven the Hunter. So this came at a period in his life where he had basically become depressed and sort of lost his sanity as well because he'd been beaten by Spider-Man so many times. and I guess being the ultimate hunter that sort of bruised his ego a little bit so what he decides to do is basically replace Spider-Man and show him that he could be a better Spider-Man if he really wanted to so he hunts Spidey down

he shoots him and then buries him alive and then decides to wear a copy of the you know, the iconic black symbiote style costume and goes out and captures a villain called Vermin who Spidey needed the help of Captain America to defeat previously. But Craven shows how great he is by doing it all on his own. But yeah, in the meantime, Peter eventually manages to crawl out of the grave and goes to confront Craven. who then sets a vermin on him to give Peter a chance to kind of, you know, show that he can do it on his own. But he's just basically crawled out of a grave, so he's in no real shape to do that. So yeah, Vermin basically escapes.

Spidey goes off to try and recapture him. and Craven sort of takes that as him having proved how right he was about how great he is and how Spider-Man isn't as good as him. And now that he's finally at peace with himself, he grabs a shotgun and kills himself, basically. Jesus. And yeah, that was in Amazing Spider-Man 262. and he stayed dead for a long, long time afterwards. Yeah.

Not until, I think it was our good friend, Dan's lot brought him back. He just can't leave well enough alone. Nope. He's just fucking with it, isn't he? Yeah, man. His fingerprints are everywhere. Mm-hmm. He had a big run, though, so fair enough.

Yeah. He had to do something, you know. I think when it comes to classic Spider-Man stories like Krivenz-Hunt is like right up there with everybody

that reads Spider-Man. They're like that's one of the best ones. I always loved Vermin as a character because I love well to a point because

when you saw him they always treated him really well they had this weird like visceral like he's one of the only guys that really give Spider-Man a problem that

would recur through his appearances which I really liked and I it's very hard to explain but I love that kind of character like this one weird guy would be the one that causes Spider-Man so much problems.

And I feel like as time went on, that kind of got lessened a lot. Vermin is no longer the big threat to Spider-Man that he used to be, which I think is a shame. But regardless, I think Craven Lost Hunt did a great job

of showcasing that and showcasing Craven the Hunter as just this wonderful character. Yeah. You know, this is real, like, because, again, a lot of the other characters in Spider-Man are wacky, like, oh, I'm a scorpion. I'm a rocket racer, you know, and I'm the big wheel. Like, this is wacky, like, silly characters. And then the Craven the Hunter storyline comes along and just, like, humanizes what could have potentially been a very wacky character.

Mm-hmm. I feel like he was still quite grounded compared to a lot of the other, you know, I'm a doctor and an octopus, you know what I mean? Craven the Hunter in comparison, much more grounded. And that was such a real storyline, a real surprising, interesting storyline. And of course, you know, like you said, they brought him back and they fucked it up. because they always do but again they give him a lot of space but that was in the 80s I think

I believe so I believe that yeah his death was in the late 80s I would say the 80s and his resurrection was before 2010s yeah definitely so you're talking the guts of 30 years yeah

that's not bad you know and they tried to bring him back with like different his sons or whatever and you're like well whatever but it's not the same but then they brought him back

and then what irritates me about the concept of bringing back characters is don't bring it back in this you have them have something to do what's the point of bringing it back for no reason right

so they brought back Craven the Hunter and then what did you do in their fucking thing what's the point like if you had him come back to make a storyline happen, fair enough.

But if you just had him come back for the sake of that story and then he's forgotten by it, it's a waste. Whereas the original story where he did kill himself was so impactful, so important,

that people still talk about that. Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah, yeah. What anything, Corey? Never been a big Spider-Man person. But I know that. I know the Craven the Hunter storyline very, very, very well because of how iconic it is.

It really, it was like really, really well written out as like a farewell to a character. And like having him succeed and like as you said, like there's all these like weird super powered villains, but it's just the dude who knows how to hunt wild game that gives him such a hassle. Yeah, you know. Just a fucking guy. Yeah, just a dude. Yeah, it's a regular fucking guy. Except for the Aaron Taylor Johnson version that can now have animal instincts or something bullshit like that. He gets some sort of magic thing from what I've seen the trailer.

It gets muddy sometimes. You know what you mean? A little bit. Yeah, it gets kind of silly, which is a shame. But it's hard to write a guy like that, you know? Yeah. So. All right.

My final one. actually no Dylan, is it yours? Yeah, yeah, it's you. When you guys start talking Spider-Man,

I forget who's saying it. Well, funny enough, a lot of my picks have been Spider-Man, you know, in this episode, in the last episode, it's been like

a lot of Spider-Man. You know, my two picks so far, Dr. Octopus and Ben Roddy, Spider-Man. And in the last episode, there was some definite Spider-Man issues as well.

So, you would probably expect me, me to cap it off by going with Spider-Man again. But I decided to go with a curveball because I'm that kind of guy. A real maverick, you know what you mean? That's what they say about me.

And I decided to go with not Spider-Man, not Marvel, not really DC, technically DC, but not really. I went for Morpheus from the Sandman. Yeah. Neil Game of Saman. Have you guys both read the Sandman?

Yes. I have not. Oh, dear. John, you got to get on that vertigo train there. Bringing it back. Well, yeah, I know. John, I hate to spoil things. But he dies.

But, but, but, but, but, but I thought he was the endless, isn't he? Or wasn't that something else? He is one of the others. Yes. There are many. It's more of an idea than a factual statement. They explain it in the book. They do explain it.

Now, because the Sandman is a very multi-layered story, for me to try to explain it, I can't. I will try to explain it, but it won't make as much sense as just reading the book. The truth is, you just have to read the Sandman because it's really good. To try to put a bit of a pin on things, there is a woman called... Lita Hall, L-Y-T-A-L-Y-T-A, L-Y-T-A, or Lider? Yeah, he's Lita. Lita. Lita Hall.

She has a son with somebody who in D.C. comics used to be the Sandman, way back in the day, classic Age of Comics. So Neil Gaiman wrote it into his storyline where... Lita Hall and the old Sandman were in the dream state where they thought that they were still the real Sandman. And she, Lita Hall was also like a, a superhero called The Fury, I think. So in the dream state, they still lived their lives and had a great time. And she was pregnant. But the problem with that is because they were in a dream state, they just dreamed it.

And her pregnancy didn't really ever come to pass. So they were in that dream state for about two years until Morpheus came around and pulled them out of the dream state. Lita Hall went back to reality and gave birth to a son called Daniel. But because that son was conceived and raised, gestated in the dream state, he was. considered part of that world more than the living world. So at some point, Daniel Hall, the son, goes missing. He gets kidnapped. And Lita Hall thinks that it has something to do with Morpheus,

who, as we've established, they have some kind of history with. And so she goes insane. She wants her son back. And understandably so. So she, because she was the fury, she had the powers, or she had a connection to, the three witches from the Shakespeare's different uh he would Shakespeare first introduced the three witches

you're familiar with three witches the or the oracles yeah yes the oracles oracles or they're called the furies the kindly ones etc the three witches she has a connection with them and they make a deal with little little hall to say we'll find your son will will revenge you by killing Morpheus and so they

ravage the dreamstead they ravaged the entire dreaming establishment that Morpius rules over. And he comes to the conclusion that the only way to stop them is to give them what they want, which is him dead. So there are different, I think, seven different endless. There's dream, there's death, there's despair, desire, destruction. Two others. Destiny and

Derek. Fuck. Who? Derek. Derek. You could have me. Can you about my name. You didn't do it too late. And so

death and dream are very close in the book. They're very very close. And so it's a very easy case for Dream to make contact with death and say let's do this. The only way artist is me to die.

And so that happens. And when that happens, it kind of pulls Lita Hall out of her you know, enrage state. The furies give up because they've got what they wanted. The Sun,

dream is able to find the sun and bring it back into the dreaming. But because he was conceived in the dream state, he ends up being the successor to Morpheus. So it all kind of plays out in a very logical way. And if you read Sandman, there's a lot of hints and just subtle clues about how this could possibly go.

Morpheus seems like a very angsty, kind of depressed character who doesn't like talking to people and doesn't really like what he does and him making this decision to kill himself to save the dream world probably could have been solved

way before this. There are mistakes he makes to get to that point that if he didn't make those mistakes this would never have happened. And I think that all of it is just incredibly, incredibly good, incredibly well-written, incredibly like subtle and interesting and fun.

And to kill off your main character in the book about this character is a brave move. And there were issues after that that he died. They kept, they kept it going for a little bit after that. And they just explained stuff. And it's so refreshing to read a comic like this. Do you what I mean? Corey, you've read it so you know what I'm talking about.

Like it is, it's just fun to to see a writer kind of play around with stuff and understand things and, and just have it come out in the words.

It's really good. John, if you haven't read Saman, I would just save up some money buy the whole omnibus on eBay and read out.

We, so we did. We just bought the books one of the time so we had the whole class. it's it's so worth it's a wonderful time all I mean you know and you know to address the elephant in the room no game and has been in the news lately for some not fun things but you know don't necessarily let that dissuade you from reading

sandban in history we've seen a lot of art artists that might not be great people make great art my last one is going to be one that you guys may or may not know about, but it is an important death because it is the inciting incident of the story. So are you guys familiar with Starman? David Bowie. Yes. I love that song. So Starman is an OG character from the 1930s in DC. And basically, he is a scientist that invented a gravity rod that can shoot laser beams. And the idea that it was that Starman was a comic to reach out to the kids that were like into space because, you know, we were trying to figure out what space meant and there was a fascination with aliens and stuff. So anyway, Starman fought crime and like was a member of the Justice Society and fought Hitler and shit.

And was one of those characters that kind of just disappeared because in Earth 2, the world that he was from originally, the heroes were allowed to age. And so he had already retired. And when Crisis on Infinite Earths happened, his world got left separated from the rest of them. So there's this event in the mid-90s called Twilight Hour, where Hal Jordan has a lot of. now turned heel and is going by parallax and has amassed all of the green lantern energy and is attempting to remake the world to one that is better for him. And in the course of that, he opens up this sort of pocket dimension and all of the old heroes come back to the main continuity.

So like the golden age flash, the golden age green lantern, you know, the old men from the 40s essentially. So because Star Man is still an old man, though, in Twilight's hour, you meet his two sons, David and Jack. And David being the older brother, steps up and volunteers to take on the mantle of Star Man. And Jack is fine with it. And you see a difference in the two brothers in the art immediately. David is like a sensible young man who's dressed very, you know, properly. And Jack is, uh, got shaggy hair and a goate and a leather jacket and like a band shirt. So you're meant to see Jack as the screw up.

So David's career as Starman is very brief. He stops a mugging and he, you know, stops a drug deal and a car theft. And while he's patrolling the city one evening, he is shot and killed by a sniper rifle. and that is the first issue of Starman is Jack finding out that his brother is dead so Starman is a book about the relationship between fathers and sons and grieving families

so Jack is the screw up of the family he's not interested in science like his brother and his father were he ran a junk store because he was obsessed with like weird, rare vintage knickknacks and stuff. And Jack had no desire to be a superhero. But when his brother dies, he ends up taking a old prototype version of his father's gravity rod that looked more like a staff. And he went off to find his brother's killer, which was a man named Kyle, who was the son of Starman's oldest foe, the mist.

So in the course of the fight, Jack ends up killing Kyle to avenge his brother's death. And now he starts the path to reluctantly become a hero and the protector of Opel City. That's not where David's story necessarily ends because once a year, I believe, there would be an issue that was Conversations with David. And Conversations with David was a kind of a. black and white comic except David would be in color. It was basically David's ghost visiting Jack and his dreams talking about the events in the comic and like what Jack should be doing with his life. So David's death was really important for the comic to happen. And you still had that like how it was impacting Jack. Because it impacted his relationship with his father because David was absolutely the

favorite. It impacts like how Jack, you know, doesn't want to be a hero. but feels like he should be and kind of hammers hole in the point of family, which is the whole thing of Starman. So that's my last pick is David Knight, aka the very short-lived star man. Interesting.

Very interesting. You like that kind of like bait and switch, don't you? Yeah, so it was like kind of a bait and switch. It's kind of like the first screen movie, all the advertising featured Drew Barrymore, because at the time she was probably the largest named actress associated with it. But like Psycho, she is killed off in her first scene.

So, you know, you lord people in with a bigger name celebrity and then they get shocked. But it looks good though. Yeah. It gets a good look. Like it subverts expectations. You know what I mean? I kind of like that to get people interested, to get people to read, you know, I say read the comic.

So that is, did you guys have any, did you guys have any characters that were kind of your honorable mentions? I have one, I think. I have a couple. Okay. I only have one as well. So, Dylan and I can go first, John,

and you can go through yours. Yeah. Okay. Dylan, do you want to go first? I'm eating crisps. I'll go first So my honorable mention is Hellboy

So Hellboy came out in the early 90s As a comic With him being the main character And Mike Magnola Put in so much work and so much effort To establish Who the character Hellboy was

His big personality How he interacted with people And And what happened is in the events of his storyline, he ends up quitting the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense and goes off on his own. And I've talked about this before, but the story of Hellboy is essentially like the story of an unavoidable apocalypse. And very soon you realize that the Earth is doomed.

So Hellboy is operating independently. And as the story begins to wind down, he is being pursued by, for years, actually, this character named Naimu. And Naimu is an incredibly powerful witch that I believe goes by the Blood Queen. And she is tempting basically Hellboy to, you know, turn against his own morals and instead align himself. with her and they could bring hell to earth and rule over it together because hellboy is the son of Lucifer but of course he's against it so at one point Naimu turns into she ends up getting possessed by Ogdrujihad which is the name given to the lovecraftian cosmic horror that's in this other dimension that the worshippers of Agu Jihad are trying to bring to earth

So she ends up becoming possessed by it and turns into this giant dragon. And Hellboy fights off the dragon with like a magic sword. And he ultimately kills her. But as her, these spirits come up from hell begin to drag her away. She decides she does not want to go alone. And she pulls Hellboy's heart out of his chest and drags him to hell with her. So that is like a huge moment in Hellboy because even though like there's the BPRD comic that's still going off on its own with the other characters.

And at the time, there was an Abe Sapien comic book as well. Like, Hellboy was like the marquee. You know, he was the stuff everything built was built around. And now he's dead. You know, we know the apocalypse is coming. And the only thing that potentially stood in a way of stopping it is now no longer here. So really, again, laying into the fact that this is a story of a doomed earth. And Hellboy's story does continue, however, in Hellboy's story.

does continue however in hellboy in hell where he is navigating the the afterlife and his father's kingdom so yeah that was my honorable mention was the death of hellboy but fair enough i think you know if if you think that i mean it's science pretty impactful i had a feeling you were going to bring up hellboy after Dylan was talking about Morpheus and how like, you know, the lead character of the series got killed off, but it still continued for a bit longer.

Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. Dylan was your honorable mention. Yeah, I've stopped eating crisp so I could talk. Okay. Mine was going to be

Mysterio. Shooting himself in the head. Funny enough that me and John both went for a Spider-Man villains who shot themselves in the head. But, you know, we're just those kind of people. Mm-hmm. Just what we like to see.

You know? I always thought that the idea of a mysterious just shooting himself in the head was just such a weird and wonderful conclusion to that. Because a lot of people would not have done that. you know, Mysterio was such a weird and wacky, mysterious character

that if you were to like come up with a death for him, it would be so like extravagant and, and interesting. And Kevin Smith was like, no, to shoot him in the head.

Fuck him. You know, I don't care. Just to be so, but I think that adds something to the character of Mysterio for him to just be so fed off. with his own bullshit.

Didn't he have cancer at the time as well? I think that was it. And he was trying to, he was fighting with Daredevil. And he was trying to get one up over Daredevil. And I think at just some point he was like, I'm just done. And that adds to it too.

Like that kind of like weariness. Do you know what I mean? Like he's just like, I'm done. I can't do this anymore. And to do it in front of Daredevil is, interesting because Daredevil can't see him so the impact I feel

is kind of lost if they had done that in front of any other superhero that would have made a lasting impression on them but Daredevil would be like what was that noise? Somebody doesn't have fireworks what happened but I always I just I always liked that

and I was very disappointed when I saw what Kevin Smith did the two Mysterio on his other run on Spider-Man which was not at all as interesting. But I thought that Mysterio shoot himself in the head might be a little honorable mention. And John, did you have two more? Yeah.

Well, I mean, Dylan talked about Ben Riley's death and how it sort of mirrored Norman Osborne's death originally. and that was my pick basically. One of them was Norman Osborne's seeming death in Spider-Man 122. I suspected that would be. Yeah. I mean, it had to be rainy.

But yeah, you know, so Norman had snapped again. He'd the previous issue, kidnapped Gwen Stacy, took her atop the George Washington Bridge, and threw her off and then Peter tried to save her and then in doing so snapped her neck accidentally and then yeah basically the next issue in a fit of rage he comes after Norman they have a big knockout knock down dragout fight and he's on the verge of beating the Green Goblin to death

but then sort of comes to his senses at the last minute but the Green goblin being the green goblin is not going to go down without a fight so he like remotely activates his goblin glider and tries to impair spider man from behind only to have spidey dodge out the way and then uh yeah norman gets uh hoisted by his own batard um uh and yeah it was a a really good death, I thought, and one which did last for, you know, something like 20 years or something like that. Yep.

Until he's brought back in the clone saga. But it had weight to it. And it sort of felt like, you know, Norman was getting his just desserts as well for, like the heinous. actions he committed that led to Gwen Stacy's death. So yeah, that's one of them. And then just the other one, again, going back to like the artwork.

This was basically Aries getting ripped in half by the century during siege. like both were members of to go back to Norman Osborne again his Dark Avengers and Norman basically manipulated them into attacking Asgard but then

Aries sort of learns during the battle that Osborne's motives are perhaps a little less pure than he was making them out to be so he vows to kill Norman Osbourne and Norman sends the century after him and yeah it's just one of the goryest panels in Marvel yeah comic book history just it is wild it is wild to think that in a Marvel comic book and not like a Mac series or anything like that oh I know it's so graphic like

there's blood, blood, bones and organs being, like, thrown in the air as he's ripped apart. It's pretty gnarly. Well, folks, we have talked about the worst deaths and we have talked about the best deaths. I know that there are some ones that we probably should have mentioned but didn't. But I know a lot of those are really, I don't want to say cliche, but I think they're obvious. You know, like, I feel like a lot of people are going to say, like, oh, you know, Bucky blowing up or Jason Todd. you know, his whole deal or Colossus sacrifice is going to solve for the curative legacy virus. There's a lot of really great impactful deaths. There's also been a lot of really stupid deaths as well.

So if there's something that you feel like we missed or that we should touch on, feel free to leave a comment by saying that as well. If you are watching us on YouTube, check our Spotify account and vice versa. John, we asked what your movie count was at last week, but we immediately started recording this episode. Uh, let's, let's theorize how many movies are you going to have watched by the next episode? Uh, well, I'm going to say, uh, let's say 735. 735. Yes. I will make sure that we look at that later.

John, John. Did you watch Beetlejuice? Did you build this film? I did. What do you think about it? Uh, I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was different enough from the first one that it kind of stood out on its own. But at the same time, I did think it didn't really do a whole lot with Jenna Ortega or like her character.

Like it felt like they were just banking on like people knowing her from, yeah, from being like the goth girl in Wednesday and other stuff. like I think she was in scream as well, wasn't she? But yeah, so it felt like, yeah, there were certain parts of it where it could have been a lot better. Same with Monica Balucci as the bad guy who's... Yes, that's what I thought. Given no role whatsoever. There's nothing for her to play with, but...

I really liked the film. It was funny. There was some good stuff in it. Michael Keaton's amazing. That storyline with like his wife that comes back. And then never gets fucking resolved properly. I really didn't like that. Because I'm like, well, why I introduce it?

I'm making a big deal at the first half of the film. And then have no payoff to it whatsoever. The only thing I could think is they had to have Beetlejuice be desperate. And they had to give Lydia a reason to be desperate too. I really appreciated the twists with the boy that Jenna Ortega's character meets. Yes. Because they got two over on you real quick. Yes.

so well done on that part but no I agree Monica Balucci is Tim Burton's current partner do you think it was just like let's get her a paycheck you know yeah potentially yeah it did give us that peek into the

beetle juice origin though yeah that was kind of interesting I'm not sure we needed to know that probably not but it was interesting yeah yeah like you were saying earlier but the comic books and stuff sometimes you don't need to delve into somebody's

that much, you know what I mean? We don't need this. Yeah, we don't need all that. Dylan, is there anything you would like to promote? I think we just did this last episode. Well, now this is two weeks where we've been talking about our t-shirts that we haven't made or have made

and are available. Yeah. We don't know. You don't know whenever you look at the description of the podcast. If there's the link to the T-public. Yeah. There might be a link to t-shirts.

There might not be. If there is, congratulations. Please buy them. We have so many T-shirts. Oh, Spider-Man's radioactive jizz. Oh, baby Juggernaut. Almost Tiger Man. Almost Tiger Man.

Well, the other ones? We must have, like, a shit ton of. Gun Bunny, she came up. Gun Bunny did come up. Yeah, you were very eager to add her to the Pantheon. We did talk about gum. We have to talk about Gun Money some more. think.

Yeah. You know what I mean? I feel like that. Do we make a t-shirt that says, like, I blew up my, a fireball into my own face? It's just a t-shirts as glancing blue. I mean, I do want to make that, but I don't think that that has anything to do with this podcast. No. It doesn't.

Again, I love references. No one's going to get. Well, we should do one for just for our own amusement. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly. That one's for you, one for us. Yeah. But if you do make sure, so, yeah, I've got large old cup podcast that is a stream of consciousness.

It's a good time sometimes. All right. So that's going to do us here. We will see you all next week where we'll talk about a game or killing a character or our worst or best, you know, the regular stuff. But until then, we'll see you all later. Goodbye. Goodbye. Oh, boy.