The Smark Avengers - Vol 3, Ep 8: The Smark Avengers Talk Overrated Characters

Episode Date: April 19, 2024

Ugh! This guy again? Why does he have so many powers? Why is she the only character that can beat that villain? Why is this guy in EVERY single book plus his own mini-series, plus his own elseworlds title, plus his own original graphic novel?! Don't the publishers realize that they SUCK?! Oh... wait... they don't? They actually make the publishers a lot of money? Huh... ain't that a bitch? Anyway, when have the Smark Avengers ever let something like logic get in the way of a good time? Join Corey, Dylan, and Jon as they talk about over-rated characters and why they hate them!

Yeah, yeah. Well, you'll see. Yeah, it'll make sense. You'll see. Sometimes I like just to hit the start recording button because I do enjoy like just it's starting and we're in the middle of a conversation or something like that. I feel like it makes us authentic. Like in the theater of the mind, if the listener is like walking into like a comic book store, they're walking into something mid-conversation.

Right. could you imagine us trying to script this stuff? You know what I mean? We've written scripts before. I'm sure we could do something. Yeah, but it's all, you know, it all comes. Most of it's so fucking off the wall and nonsensical, but you're like, imagine to not to write this.

Well, hello, everyone. Welcome to the Smart Avengers. My name is Corey. With me are Dylan and John. And we had a conversation. about some stuff that you're not going to hear because we're going to cut it all out. So just imagine what we were talking about instead. Something magical.

Yeah. You know, though, because I said we cut it out, people are going to think it was like racist or something. Well, then you shouldn't have said any of this. Probably this bit I do. No, no. People, they've been with us for, if you count the last volume, they've been with us for over 10 episodes. They should know us by now. You say they.

Like it's a big audience. guy from Poland should know us by now. Approximately the same audience as AWRampage. Yep, exactly. Which means we can theoretically get on TV at 10 o'clock on Friday night. We could fill a quarter of a stadium. So anyway, thank you for joining us. We've had some really interesting episodes as of late.

And I think this is going to, you know, we've not done one of these in a hot minute where we kind of just pick some random stuff with a common theme. So we've done stuff like who's your favorite C and D list villain and like what's your favorite like weird superpowers you've ever encountered? And those were like vaguely positive. But you know, not everything in life is positive. Sometimes we have bad days. We have dark days.

We have days where maybe we don't feel like getting out of bed anymore. And when I think of that, what makes me feel better is when I talk about characters that I feel are fucking overrated. So that's the gimmick this week. We're going to, Dylan and John and I have picked out a handful of characters that personally we find to be kind of overrated. We have not told each other what those characters are. So maybe we will have some disagreements along the way and that should, you know,

make for a good time listening. So does anyone have a preference as to who would go first? I mean, can I do one? because I have like a load. I have loads. Yeah. Go ahead, Dylan.

So the one I alluded to off microphone earlier to my colleagues here was one that it'll make sense when I said outlawed. And I feel like we kind of need to talk about this guy

because we've talked about him in the past. He's appeared on the show. I feel like we need to talk about how overrated the Flash is because after doing that flash episode, I'm like, you gotta be fucking kidding me. They bend over backwards to give this one fucking guy

all of this stuff. Like, that's ridiculous. Can I ask you a question as to which flash in particular you're referring to? The fact that there are so many flashes and they all are incredibly overpowered and nobody seems to mind kind of speaks for itself, doesn't it?

Well, I will counter that and tell you that until I went through those list of powers, I think both of you just assumed all he did was run fast. Right, but don't you think that, like, having this one character, like, why, why would they put all that effort into putting so many different,

um, powers and stuff like this into one guy? Unless they either, A, we're really trying to like make them overrated or B, couldn't think of a better way to get out of the story they'd written. than to just invent a new power for him to have. And I assume that the people were talking about a professional,

they wouldn't half-ass a storyline and just make up something cheap in order to get out of it. So the other possible possibility is that they just kept adding stuff to this guy because they really wanted them to be a big deal. And it didn't catch on with the people, but the creators themselves tried to make this guy, the fact that they kept pushing him, Can I overrated in my book?

Can I counter argument of you for just a moment? I guess. All right. So Jay Garrick, the first flash, when he was around in the 1940s, he literally only had like two powers. But when they bump,

when they bumped him back up into the main continuity, they, that's when they started giving him the other shit. Because at that point, all the Flash's powers were the equivalent. And it was like, well, we can't just have this guy's thing.

He runs fast. We got to get, we got to make him on part because he's also called the Flash. They could though. I don't see why they could, but they didn't. Right, exactly. I want to blame Jeff Johns for that personally, but I just like blaming Jeff Johns for stuff. Why not?

The other thing I want to counterargument with is, no, you're absolutely correct in that. It was the second thing of we're coming up with new powers for him to get out of whatever the storyline is. And this was all back in the Silver Age in the 1960s because the writers then were really big on like baking little science facts. and stuff. So, like, they would introduce something in physics. And then, like, the Flash would have to break physics in order to, like, save the day or something. But, but, yeah, no, I agree on that thing. It was absolutely the latter of, we're going to invent a problem and then invent a power to get out of the problem because it's the 1960s.

But that's it. Like, there's no reason for it to be the Flash. Like, they could have used that storyline for somebody else. It would be better suited for that. But no, they just kept going with the Flash. really trying to make the flash a thing. Then he had his TV show that apparently he was really good, but the guy in it was a

dick, and then they made a film with the dick guy, and that didn't go over well either. It seems like they're really trying to push this flash narrative on me, and I'm not happy about it. I think the guy in the TV show wasn't a dick. It was just the guy in the movie. Grant Guston.

Yeah. Yeah, he seemed okay. He seemed like a good kid. Anyway, the flash sucks. Yeah. So your, your overrated character is just the concept of the Flash, it sounds like. I think he is overrated. I don't see why they put so much effort into this one guy. Yeah, I, you know.

I wouldn't have, like, even considered him for this until we did the Flash episode a few weeks ago. Yeah. I would let it slide. I mean, I'll tell you. I'm like, he seems like a real piece of work. I, uh, I like Wally West. I think he's a very fun character. Like, he's really written well.

and I don't think he his full extent his powers are really shown all the time but it is frequently usually mentioned that he is the fastest flash I like Bart Allen he can breathe underwater you can talk to insects they didn't do that stuff

he's also the one that was the Intergalactic Space tag team champion with the Omega Bam man oh okay they put a title on this guy and he's not overreated come on man they put him up they strapped him up Can't get a guy over

just by putting the title on him. No, I mean, the problem is he keeps staying home and they come up to him with ideas and he goes, that's not going to work for me, brother. John, you want to go next? Yeah. So my guy is another guy

who you're probably going to disagree with Corey because I've gone for... This feels like bullying at this point. I went for Superman. Oh, fuck off. Yeah. I mean, I should probably preface this by saying I've never actually read a Superman comic.

Like, I've read him in other stuff. So maybe this is just, you know. I will tell you, read Josh Williamson's Superman run that is out right now. I've enjoyed it immensely. And I feel like it's a good representation of the character. But go ahead and go ahead and. you know, make an enemy of me by a continue thing. Well, just from the outside looking in,

he feels like such a boring character. Like the big boy scout, with all these powers, like he's practically invincible or faster than a speeding bullet. Uh, he can fly. He's got x-ray vision. Can shoot lasers out of his eyes.

He can, he's got like a freeze breath or whatever. It's like Jesus Christ. It's like the flash. He's basically, basically too overpowered. But yeah, and like I say, he's just, because he's such a sort of do-gooder as well.

Like there's no other side to him. There's no sort of, nothing interesting, at least from my point in view, to like grab onto. He's just like, okay, yeah, he's an alien. Like, it's the immigrant story, like coming in and landing and then a alien land and kind of having to, you know, build yourself up and acclimate to his new surroundings and stuff. But I don't know, he just comes across as such a dweeb. You know what?

I entirely agree. A hundred percent. So this feels like these are two Marvel guys who are just going to talk shit about DC for an hour. All right. Whoa, whoa, whoa. we're talking shit about the two most overrated carriages in DC and also let's be honest here we definitely have some Marvel guys on our list

but put a lot of money on that but like you look at a guy like Superman again he's just he's invincible you can't shoot him of bullets you can't hit him in a tree and he could fly he could breathe under water he could do everything right and then you're like well and I guess it's a testament to a lot of writers who have been able to do this but like a lot of it just like John

From the outside looking in, you're like, how do you do a really good, compelling story with a guy where you know he can't really, there's no real jeopardy here. Yeah. You know, he's going to always, it's like, you know, to be smarty again, it's a John Sina thing. No only is John Sina Superman. Superman is John Sina. They're one of the same. And they're both good, but like, are they that good? Can I can I

Can I give you the counter argument now? Uh, okay. So, so this is going to be the big difference between Superman and the flash. Superman does have stated weaknesses and it's not just kryptonite. One of the other weaknesses is Superman is entirely dependent on radiation from a yellow sun. If the sun is blocked out for whatever reason, he starts to get weaker and loses powers.

The other thing is because Superman is not of earth, he has a weakness to magic. So that is always a big problem for him. That's actually a thing going on in action comics currently is that Bizarro, because he is the opposite of Superman, actually has a predilection towards magic and is figured out how to use it. So because of that, he's been able to basically make Superman's life hell by converting Earth into a new Bizarro world. So by magic. That's all I do, dear. Yeah, it's magic.

I mean, how does Dr. Strange do shit? Magic. He doesn't just, like, suddenly turn the world upside on. No, no, but that's kind of the thing. It's like he got access to this magic. He had no business getting. And because he doesn't understand the limits of it, because Bizarro is functionally a moron,

he, uh, he over, he basically went too far and was, uh, fucked things up because he didn't know what he was doing. Okay. It's like if you give like a toddler a handgun, if they don't know it's a real gun, they're gonna shoot it and like they're, this is an American problem, obviously, because there have been many stories of people getting killed by toddlers with guns. Who would ever do that? Who would ever give a toddler access to a handgun?

So, so yeah, that's kind of like, so that's the other, that's one aspect of this. The other counter argument is that a lot of Superman's storylines involves control because he is, so powerful. That is an aspect of his character is that he has to keep things in check. And that kind of pressure of like having to be perfect all the time and not letting his emotions get the better of him because

if he does, he causes a lot of destruction. That's why there's so many evil Superman stories of like what happens to Superman gets angry and loses control. Like he fuck shit up really hardcore and no one can really do anything about it. I mean, you're making a compelling argument,

but also like they give way too many powers and it's annoying. So I will tell you, this is an actual true statement. Superman, when he first started out, did not have as many powers as he did. So he could not fly. That's why the statement of able to leap tall billings in a single bound. He could just jump really high. He got the power of flight because Fawcett comics at the same time was putting out Captain

Marvel, aka Shazam, and Shazam had that ability to fly. So they were like, oh, we have to stay competitive. We can't let this character be seen as more powerful than our character. So that's when Superman started to get those powers is they were trying to compete with Fawcett comics over the Captain Marvel story. Because Captain Marvel got to be more popular because Captain Marvel was a kid. And we were talking about like when the Robbins episode about the wish fulfillment and having an author avatar be like the little kid who's going to read Batman because they can identify as Robin. Fawcett did it like 100% by having the little kid. could be able to turn into the adult superhero.

Right, but I also don't think it's a good model to say this guy exists purely because they were just trying to make the most powerful superhero they could. And then they did and then didn't know what to do with them after that. You know, like, because that seems like what happened. They were competing against these other people. And they're like, oh, yeah, well, our guy could shoot lasers and can fly and there's bulletproof. And then after a while, once they've listed all the stuff we can do, they're like, fuck, now what do we do? There's a ton of Superman stories.

What are you talking about? He's existed for like almost 100 years. Yeah, no, I know that. But they made him and shelved him. I mean, but you were saying that they were competing against Shazam. Yeah. And they were adding more powers to him until they got to the point we're like, well, now he's super powerful. He is the most powerful superhero of all time.

And now they're like, well, fuck, now we've got this guy who's this crazy powerful. Marvel and yeah it's not invented the they invented kryptonite for that exactly they invented they were like they invented they created a problem and then created a solution that made sense of like what's he weak to he's weak to this thing from his home planet and then there's like well what else what else can he be weak to they're like oh if you fuck with the sun or you put him in deep space he loses his powers because he needs radiation from a yellow sun and you also run into the problem of like well magic comes from earth

because it's all about like the natural things that are going on in the planet like the elements and energies there like he's not from earth so therefore he should be weak to it i i still think it's a bit of a stretch to have because because then again you're saying you know the the major major um issues with this guy are going to be either kryptonite or somebody fucking with the sun which I'm going to be honest with you, dude, doesn't often come up that much, even in comics. We're about to have a solar eclipse, damn it.

So then whenever you have Mr. sunfucker coming along, you're like, okay, this is going to be a Superman problem, I think. The sunfucker. The man who fucks the sun. A lot of burns on him. That's going to be a tough one to draw.

The thumbnail. I just want to imagine It was like the thumbnail is just us looking on in horror and like the silhouette of somebody Humping the Sun. Somebody fucking the Sun. And the Superman's like, I ain't touching that. I don't know. That's out of my.

That's out of my jurisdiction. That's my one weakness. Sun fucking. Like, well, I don't know what to tell you, man. You got all the other powers, but you can't be immune to somebody fucking the son. That one took a quick turn. Yeah. It did.

It always does. Yeah. This does. Yeah. So, so, uh, my first one,

I feel like will be controversial, uh, but this is a character. No, no. It's, it's,

it's certainly not Superman. Um, uh, my first person that I find really overrated is Kitty pride. Okay. Mm-hmm. That's it to say. I think Kitty,

kitty, like there's so many authors that have like this love affair with her. That the only thing I can think of is that when they were teenagers, they had a crush on Kitty because she was like the teenage member of the X-Men. Yeah. Because like at the end of the day, Kitty Power's, Kitty Pride's powers is she can walk through walls. And then they modify it's like, oh, well, you know, she could do other stuff like, you know, put her hand through people and whatnot. And like, I get it.

But like, I feel like she's so like overused. So like what I mean by that. And I'm not going to count it against Claremont because he invented the character and, you know, he can do whatever he wants. but like Brian Michael Bendis had a big love affair with her Jerry Duggan absolutely had a big love affair with her Jason Aaron when he was doing Wolverine and the X-Men same deal and probably

this went in hindsight really kind of problematic Joss Whedon for Astonishing X-Men where she was essentially the main character so like I just find Kitty to be really as a character kind of uninteresting And I feel like it's that weird Warren Worthington thing where we were talking about how they kind of just kept giving archangel new powers. They keep giving her like new stuff. So like she was trained by a ninja master and she's actually an expert assassin and she's also a pirate queen and she like has a ship and a crew and they just keep giving her more shit.

And like that's a that's a life lived. if like, yeah, I was the teenage member of the X-Men. Also, I became a ninja. Also, I became a pirate. Also, I got trapped in a giant speeding bullet across the universe, you know. And she was in the guardians of the galaxy as well. Yeah. She was dating.

She was like going to get married to Starlord or something. Yeah. She was going to get married to Colossus. That's what I was going to say. Also, I fucked the big metal guy, you know. Yeah. So, like, there's a lot. So, Corey, you're saying that it's really irritating when some blind character

gets loads and loads of added powers in top of them. No, I think it's kind of like the Flash of Superman. When a bland character gets a lot of of lot of storylines by a lot of different writers in a team book. The thing is,

it's not like The Flash at all, right? Yeah, no, I agree. I'm not arguing against the Flash. You've been overrated the Flash. Superman's the first fucking superhero. They wouldn't exist without him. I'd say with Kitty though, at least like we've witnessed her growing up. Like when she was introduced, she was a teenager and now she's sort of progressed and

like she's still like finding her role, I guess, to a certain extent, which is maybe why she's gone down all these different paths and tried all these different things, trying to see what sticks. Well, I think that's kind of Corey's point is that like I agree with her growing up and we, you know, we see her going on the paths and stuff. But then also, like Corey said, she's been around for so long that, like, if she hasn't found her proper path yet,

you know, like, what are we doing? We're just making stuff up to suit the storyline again, you know? Or at some point, she needs to have, like, a defined character.

Otherwise, you just, you know. I don't know, because, like, then you don't want to keep it static. There needs to be changed.

There needs to be evolution. There needs to be, There needs to be like some sort of forward momentum. Like you can't just stay the same forever. Although, well, in theory you can't, but then I guess there's lots of characters that do do that. Superman, for example. I'm not engaging in this conversation.

I've already blown up. Oh, this is my favorite episode yet. Oh, dear. But yeah, no, like you said, that's just kind of my opinion on Kitty Pride is I feel like she's a character that gets like a lot of opportunities in a team book. And there's so many X-Men characters out there. And for a long time, it felt like, so it went like Kitty Pride, Jubilee and then they kept trying to find like Wolverine's new kid sidekick. And like it feels like Jubilee just kind of got left behind entirely. And then Kitty Pride was popping up and like she's the most important X-Men now.

like even like the storyline now or previously to before they started like wrapping up the Kakoa stuff like all the X-Men for the most part got fucking wiped out on Kerkoha and she's one of the few remaining and now she's like a cold bitter assassin and sneaking around because she's going into her ninja training it's like she was a Mowdy fucking pirate not even two months ago right couldn't they kind of just keep her being a pirate You know, would not be cool? The story called for it and it was the same writer. Like that was the really irritating part.

Jerry Duggan did that. That was his decision. Yeah. Okay. I mean, I get that. I get that. Maybe not the wisest of moves. Not really.

So, so Dylan, you want to go up next to your second? Yeah. Speaking of, of Kenny Pride, I'm going to pick Wolverine. Really?

Yeah. I think Wolverine is probably the most overrated X-Men ever. He's everywhere. He's just all Wolverine. It's just, I don't know why. He's just like a small Canadian dude. And they're like,

no, he's cool because he's got claws. And I'm like, it's pretty easy to be the most kick-ass member of a team whenever most of you is made out of metal and you can't die. You know what you mean? Like, of course you're going to be the one in there

in the middle of a fight because you're, the easiest one to put into that fight. You know what you mean? I think he's like super overrated and I get you know in a way where you're like Kitty Pride is kind of like bland

and Fiasis doesn't really have an identity if you think about who Wolverine is he's like this gruff kind of you know no nonsense you know character and he has there's no only Wolverine is that character

you know what you mean only wolvering gets to be that kind of guy whenever you know surely somebody else would be a little bit of a gruff angry loner um and then like you said he always seems to end up being the one the guy who's like a hundred years old always ends up being the one hanging out with like really really young girls and then he's like no i'm going to take this like 16 year old kid off around the world for an adventure don't worry about us they're like oh that's totally fine. He does that all the time. You know? Is this, is this okay?

I mean, I get why he does it. I get why the other writers have to do it. Because the character is antisocial and it's like, oh, see, here's like his, like, he has like a soft spot for like helping out like, you know, like young kids. He's given them practical advice. Like, he's not just like mothering them or whatever. But like when you keep going to that well, it does start to feel a little weird. Right. And so like, I don't know how or why it was a Wolverine out of all the X-Men, but the one everybody was like, he's the best one.

I, to me, I think, like, if you talk to anybody in the street about the X-Man, good, good money says, well,

the first one they're going to say is Wolverine. I'm like, why? Like, what, just because he's got metal claws, you know? There's,

like, different aspects to his personality as well. Like, like he's got his mysterious past, which for, a long time he wasn't sure of like you know like what memories were real and what were fake and implanted in his head um but then there's like his sort of berserker rage as well like uh he's constantly trying to um like sort of you know stop himself going back into like uh a pharaoh state

basically um and yeah like in the fact he's like this like this like loner character as well but he's in a team book basically with the rest of the X-Men he's got to try and reconcile you know those two aspects of his like his life

as well constantly hitting on his teammates wife in front of him yeah like hanging out with all these teenagers and then also be like I really want to fuck this lady right here

the lady can read my mind and knows absolutely 100% that I want to fuck her I want to fuck her she doesn't really shut me down either. Yeah, and I'm absolutely going to tell Cyclops who is fierce that I want to fuck his wife. Oh, yeah. I think it's a pretty good, pretty good point, pretty good kids. Yeah, well, I, the Wolverine stuff is like, is fine. I think people just really liked a badass rebel, and that's why he started to get so much, like,

attention in his own solo series back in the day. And, like, the mysterious backstory left so many opportunities for storylines and stuff to come about. So, I mean, I get why people were, like, using him a lot. but I think the worst I think the worst thing they ever did was they tried to give him a definitive origin why why I like that

ruins and why would you waste that so as well he's been more like over exposed and overrated like the amount of books he was in was just ridiculous at one point and he was the main character of the first Wolver like the first X-Men movie like X-Men a team book and he's like the only one

that was presented is really mattering right see overused overrated doesn't warrant all of the I agree with like the amount of solo books

Wolverines had you like he's getting a lot of attention right now you know you couldn't pick another one of the 300 X-Men to you know

talk about it's got to be Wolverine why are people so intent on reading more stories about Wolverine you know

how much more shit can we make up and there's a guy he's like, oh, he's a ninja too, and he is one eye and he is a barman and, you know, all this other fucking stuff. Just, I don't know. I think it's unnecessary. I feel like, and I feel like when they introduced Gambit, he like, to me, he took over that like, oh, this is the cool loner kind of guy. He's like, he's Wolverine with charisma.

But he felt more fun, though. Yeah, he was much more likable. Yeah. He was a little skamp. He was. He was a lovable scam. you know and that's what I always would say about gamut and Wolverine like people gamut's my favorite X man but everybody else who picked Wolverine and I'm like listen man who's more hardcore

in a fight you know you're going up against fucking 70 foot robot that shoots lasers out of its hands and you have a metal skeleton and you can't be hurt obviously you're going to do pretty good but how badass is it if you're just a guy in a big transcoat and your weapons are a stick and a pack of cards going to fight that robot. That's fucking, that's ballsy. You know what you mean? I mean, everything you touch, you can explode. That's pretty handy, you know. It's cool, you know. The bigger the item, the bigger of the

explosion. Yeah, you know. And yet he chooses a pack of cards just because he's really, he just couldn't give a fuck. You know what you mean? That's the kind of guy who Gambit is. I admire that, you know. So, either of you guys pick Gambit, by the way, I'm going to go to your house.

John, go ahead. So my second pick is Gambit. No, I'm only joking. My second pick is the Punisher. Oh. You know, I mean, in theory, it's an interesting character. Like the sort of veteran who comes home and then like sees his wife and kids killed in front of him and then decides to wade. a one-man war on crime to get revenge.

But then, like, the closer you look at it, the more sort of, like, yeah, like, there's only one, one punisher story ever. It's always him just, like, going after criminals and, like, killing them, basically. And it's like... And he was introduced as, like, a Spider-Man villain, too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's like the weirdest part. That's the thing though.

He's become sort of like this anti-hero over the last 40 years or whatever. Probably 50 years now. But yeah, he's become like such a symbol for the wrong reasons. Like he's seen as such a cool character because he's going around murdering people all the time. Did you see any of that stuff they did with the Punisher and Frank Castle? I saw they made him

into the leader of the hand at one point and then I don't know how that resolved itself. So they brought his wife back from the dead. And then his, ruin his motivation. So then his wife, yeah, then his wife found out

what he'd been doing while she was dead and like was horrifying. Why did I call you the punish her? Like, don't worry about it. Well, and then she revealed that she was actually going to divorce him. Like, they just straight. up character assassination on Frank

Castle they're like everything about this character you think is cool, fuck you, we're undoing it and I think he's like now like on an alien planet and like he's totally given up the name Punisher and like the symbolism and he's like helping kids out on this alien planet. He's Mr. Sweetie Pie

now, that's his new name. That's really funny. I like how you're like everything that you thought was cool about the Punisher is gone like the one, there was one thing that people thought was cool about the Punisher. And that was gone. That was the only thing that people thought was cool about the Punisher. It was just he had guns.

Like literally, that's, right? I always love it, though. It's that of the cool. Well, I always loved it when people fucked around with the Punisher and like how angry his fans would get about it. Like, do you guys remember Frankencastle? Yeah, yeah. Oh, boy, that was awesome to see people freak out about Franken Castle. Do you know that story, Dylan?

vaguely it sounds kind of familiar I think have we talked about that I feel like we have talked about that I don't know I don't think we did we've never talked about it so like it was during the dark rain and Dockon like fought

fought Punisher and cut him up into pieces yeah and then like people like fucking weirdo monster people like put them back together and he was like this undead corpse

called Framian that was referred to as Frankencastle. I mean, it's a fresh twist on an old character, right? It is, but boy, if I fucking Punisher fans only want what you said, guy with gun. And if you mess with that formula, boy. But that's the thing, like, a guy with guns who just does the same thing, like for 30 years, like, at some point, there's no, there's no, you know, what are you, what are you reading here? It's just a guy

He's got a gun He shoots somebody Next issue You know The guy with a gun He shoots somebody else Like you know what he mean Like there's no

He's not like a fun guy Like Deadpool or something like that Who had stuff he could do And stories he could tell Punisher was always so straight list And And And

Like one dimensional That there wasn't really A whole lot of other stuff He could do And yet people are still buying that shit Like why Yeah You know

So I agree with that With that That was But once you meet your key, you're like, you know what, I agree with that, you know? Did you ever see the comic where Spider-Man fights Punisher and basically, like, beats the living hell out of him and reveals, like, I've been taking it easy on you every time that we fight, every time.

And, like, if I wanted to, I could fucking end you. But he could, though. Yeah, it was, it reminded me of when Peter Parker fought the kingpin and just beat the hell out of him in front of all the prisoners in that, that jail. I didn't like that, though. I didn't like that. Because I feel like the kingpin, like, you know, in comics lore, really, Spider-Man could absolutely beat the shadow of the punner.

Because like we said, the Punisher really just is a guy with a gun. If you take away his guns, he's got nothing. But the Kingpin. But the Kingpin is just a big guy. But that was part of his gimmick was that, like, he wasn't just a big guy. He, like, it wasn't just fat, it was muscle. Like, he was a strong, tough dude to take down. I am so surprised to hear you say this, despite how big a Spider-Man.

fan you are. Because like, Spider-Man has enhanced strength and durability. Like, yeah, he's a big dude with muscle, but fucking so's rhino, you know? Yeah, and it's tough for Spider-Man, I think Rhino-9, too. Yeah. So... I feel like that's always because Spider-Man,

unless, like, enraged is always, like, checking his punches, you know? He's not trying to kill anybody. Uh, well, that's why, maybe he should. Maybe you should take a leaf out of the punishes book. Spider-Man with guns. Spider-Man with guns.

Yeah. So John, did you have any other thoughts about the Punisher before we move on? I know that Dylan and I got to talk to over you a good bit on that. No, no. I mean, yeah, I pretty much said all I need to say about him, really. He's one of those guys who I will never really understand the appeal of. Like, beyond the basic concept. Like, yeah, he's just he's just to one note for my, like.

King. I would agree. Yep. So my second one is one of the many green lanterns that are out there. And we talked about this before. In a green lantern lore, there's like hundreds, if not thousands of green lanterns. And each sector has their own one green lantern and like a backup green lanterns. lantern and um sector 2814 is the sector that contains earth and for whatever reason um we have the most green lanterns to get so it's one green lantern and then the backup and so we have hal jordan guy gardener John Stewart, Kyle Rainer, Simon Baz, and Jessica Cruz. To give you an idea, sector 2814 contains over, looks like over 30 planets, including our solar system. And all of all six of these green lanterns come from Earth. So, so that's a thing. But the green lantern I'm going to pick out as who I think is overrated is Hal Jordan, who is the green lantern of the silver age and the bronze age before he went crazy with power because his hometown got nuked off the face of the planet.

And he killed all the other green lanterns and became the parallax. But in the same kind of realm where we're talking about how certain characters is just kind of boring, Hal Jordan to me is kind of. kind of boring. Like he is his gimmick before being a Green Lantern was he was a test pilot and his whole deal is being like trying to live a life without fear because his father died in an accident and how he's kind of a irresponsible guy and, you know, has relationship woes and whatnot. And a big part of the Green Lantern aspect is you have your ring and your ring can create constructs of whatever you can imagine.

So as a kid from the 90s, my favorite green laner is Kyle Rainer. And Kyle Rainer was an artist. So Kyle Rainer would have these elaborate constructs, like super creative, super wild looking stuff. And Hal Jordan's best thing he could do is like he can make a big hand and a baseball bat and maybe like a catcher's glove. And he could play baseball against himself. He played baseball against himself.

But that's kind of the thing. So when Jeff Johns brought him back and redeemed him and he was a hero again, he started, he did the flash thing where suddenly Hal Jordan was able to do all of this other elaborate Green Lantern shit that was kind of biting on Kyle Rainer's style. And I just think the character's pretty boring. The only person who I've ever wrote a compelling Green Lantern story for me was Grant Morrison. and Grant did a lot of really fun things with him,

including trying and failing to pitch to DC that Green Lantern should be pansexual because a lot of his relationship are with aliens and like, who's to say that the aliens fall under the gender binary of like human beings? So like why would you consider him heterosexual or straight or whatever? I mean, that's logical, isn't it? Yeah, I thought it totally makes.

says. Yeah. And Hal Jordan had a really kind of creepy relationship with another character. Her name was the sunfucker. No, unfortunately not. Arisha Rab, who for all sense of purposes in her, despite looking like a an adult woman or, you know, not, you know, and she is an alien. I think in her species she is like technically 13. Oh, oh.

Oh, dear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're a Wolverine situation going on. Yeah, yeah. So, Rishabab is like technically 13 years old. And she, she had a thing with, uh, with Hal Jordan. Why?

Why do they have to go? on that road. What's wrong with these comics writers? What's wrong with these guys? Yeah, 13 years of age, despite looking like an adult woman. Because, you know, aliens being aliens. But the reason that Halal Jordan,

and in my opinion, is overrated is because he's constantly pushed as, like, the greatest Green Lantern of all time and, like, the most just and the most, like, important and whatnot. And I just, you know, it just, even though he turned here and destroyed the city.

Yeah, yeah, no. He, well, he didn't destroy the city. He freaked out because the city got destroyed. But then he killed every other green lantern and took their rings and became super powerful. Yeah. But don't you think that that adds to his character though? Doesn't it make him more

interesting? He's not as bland as he was because then he was great as a villain for that reason. Yeah. I liked him as a villain. I just when they when Jeff, again, Jeff Johns, when Jeff Johns brought him back it was like St. Hal, Hal Jordan, he's redeeming himself

by being the most bland, boring guy in the world. Okay. He just had that like standard 1960s, 50s job of like, oh, he's a test pilot. And I will appreciate the Green Lantern series that's out right now, did kind of address that because

he's on earth. And test pilots aren't really a thing anymore. So now he like flies drones. Fair enough. Yeah, I just like you said, every other Green Lantern of Earth is infinitely more interesting. You know, Kyle Rainer is an artist. John Stewart is like an architect and a, was in the military. Guy Gardner is, you know, just a loudmouthed dickhead. You have like Simon Baz and Jessica Cruz and they're both interesting in their own ways. And then there's Hal his character is white guy.

Yeah, but other white guys really love that character though. They certainly do. They do. That was Kyle Rainer had a lot of a lot of heat in the 90s because he was they went away from the Green Lantern Corps because Hal Jordan killed them all and Kyle got his ring because a guardian just said basically like oh you're the first human I see you'll have to do whereas other Green Lantern is like chosen by the ring itself. So like they did a lot of really fun things with Kyle Rainer. Unfortunately that did include killing his girlfriend and stuffing in a refrigerator but you know. Oh, that was that one? Yeah, that was Kyle's girlfriend.

That major force killed. Not so good. No, no. No. But I mean, it is, it did kind of, you know, lead to Gil Simone, becoming a prominent figure in the comic book industry. Well, yes, which, you know. I mean, you make a compelling argument.

I got to say, I, I'm not super familiar with Green Lantern, but from what you said, like, I kind of. see why that like you said there's loads of green lanterns and for them to keep using that that one there and whatever he seems to be like one of the most bland not just like the most bland green lander but like one of the most bland characters is is is is is is a strange choice yeah well and like you said you know i don't know if we'd ever do a the smart avengers kill green lantern but i will tell you it's not going to be as complicated if you separate him from his ring he's pretty much as the dude.

And then the Punisher shoots him. The Punisher shoots him. Guy with gun. Don. Dylan, we're back around to you. What you got? All right. So I'm going to kind of go off the theme of the Punisher-ish, if you think about what the Punisher was,

which was a guy that was brought in as a villain that ended up being strange anti-hero, despite being a total dick and not a very good character. I'm going to go this one might cause a little bit of controversy with you guys I'm going to go with Venom I like I like Vanham but like

I never thought he was like that amazing of a character no I fucking hate him I am fed up to the back teeth with symbiate shit I just can't I'm just fed up with it but Venom was like a really interesting character

that I think they you know they they were trying to capitalize on a sudden popularity whenever was he the 80s and even in the 90s I think again like they went way too far with it they had way too many solo

series and mini series and they put him in Abbeyware and then they made him from like a hot like because venom is the whole point of venom is he's a fucking asshole he hit Spider-Man and then they turned that into like he's a guy with his own set of morals you know and then

they tried to do something with him but that I didn't think they needed to do with him. You know, he's, he's supposed to be just this horrible guy that he hates Spider-Man. Because he has like, the gimmick of venom is great. Like, both the symbiate and Eddie Brock

fucking hate Spider-Man. It's perfect. You combine the two of them. They're raw hatred and combats against Spider-Man's like natural goodness, you know? And it should be like this really interesting intricate kind of thing. There should be loads of stuff.

And to be fair, the early venom stories were really good. But then once you start taking them away, we kind of touched upon this in this, when we talked about Venom the film, if you take Venom away from Spider-Man, it doesn't really make any sense. And then because Venom is specifically designed to really just hate Spider-Man.

You know? And you can try and, obviously you have to give more character development and make them a more interesting character. But I feel like they went way too heavy with it. You know, like I said, too many new many series and too many different ideas and stuff. Like there were a ton of solo series and stuff of Vandem in the 80s and 90s. And they tried to make them into this anti-hero which, you know, kind of like in Brassy whenever they talk about like the tweeners of the cool heels or whatever.

you're like, what you mean is you don't know how to write this guy, right? That's what this means. It's not a real term. In comics, the whole point of it is you're supposed to have good guys and bad guys. If you have a bad guy that is good or a good guy that is bad, you're like,

well, they're one or the other, you know, like this. And Venom as a guy that's supposed to be like a horrible, vicious murdick, he used to eat people's brains. That was his thing. And then they're like, oh, that's fun. Isn't it a funny thing for him to say? you know

I think that venom is just way too overhyped way too overreated and especially no I don't know what the fuck

they've been doing with them like I said the symbiate stuff is just it's just unreadable to me it's just garvins yeah

Bill and Brock yes he is Venom now and then Eddie Brock has become the new

King in Black I believe which is yeah basically he's the god of symbiates now but I mean I will say because I was considering

putting venom on my list but then I thought I quite like the fact that like over the last five years or whatever they have tried doing something different with venom and like expanding on

the mythology of the symbiates and like creating like a whole new corner of the Marvel universe out of it. Like it shows some progression and even though it is like admittedly a far step away from like where the character started and I get why if you fell in love with Venom in his original carnation how it can be quite off-putting to see him now, you know, sprouting wings and going off into space and stuff. I mean, yeah, okay, it's very different, but I don't know.

I quite like it. I've quite enjoyed the series I've been reading. So if I could ask a question, if I could ask a question, Dylan, is it just Eddie Brock that you dislike? Because like, there have been other Venoms recently. There's Mac Garden, Flash Thompson. I hear it. Because again, the whole point of Venom is that Venom is the symbiate and Eddie Brock. That's what Venom is.

Because when the symbiate was with Spider-Man, it was Spider-Man. And then it moved to Eddie Brock, and that became Venom. And then they got the idea that it's the Venom symbiate. I'm like, well, how come when it moved to that guy, that's the name they capped? Surely if it goes to Matt Gargan or to Flash Thompson, it's a different thing. Well, to their credit, they did call Flash Thompson Agent Venom. I don't think that's to their credit because they made Flash Thompson Venom. I don't know, I like that series

with Jeff Lemire. I thought that series was pretty good because it didn't like there was some pathos with the Flash Thompson character and like lying to do his wife about what he was doing because we had to keep it a secret. It gave us that sick ass version of Jackalantor and this is like recurring villain.

Yeah, I don't know. I dug Jeff Lemire's agent venom. I didn't really like any other venom. I just, because again, I think it's just them capitalizing on this neum again and I'm like

it's more overhype it's more you know overreideness for this this one character like why why would they think it's a good idea about the scorpion to become venom you know I was also kind of confused about that

because I feel like it made venom lesser for it because it's like it's Matt Gargan for God's sake it's gibberish the only thing what I did like was um later on they did an angle where Eddie Brock became

he got already sick and then he became anti-venom yes and so that way you had Venom as Matt Gargan fighting anti-venom as Eddie Brock

I'm like well you know what that's interesting that's taking some kind of turn and it seems like because anti-venom would kind of cancel out Venom and I'm like, oh,

there's an angle there. There's a story to be told that you feel has a definite conclusion. If you want to get out of Mac Gargan being Venom, this could be the answer to that. And I don't think that's what the answer was. Honestly,

I'm not 100% sure how they got the Simbyt off Mac Gargan. They probably just half-assed it if I was the hazard, I guess. They just one day were like, he doesn't have it anymore you know but no I've never been a big fan of like anybody else being Vannum because like I said I don't see the point it doesn't make any sense so yeah I think I think Vannum's pretty overrated well that leads me to my third one which is carnage and this time I'm not joking I mean after what they've done

my boy recently. I'm like, I'm not going to argue any too much. Because it's sort of a similar story, I guess, in terms of where he started to where he is now. Like, he was pretty cool origins, like the whole being imprisoned with

Eddie Brock and then the symbiates of reproducing and Cleas Cassidy, you know, bonding with this alien monster, which heightened his like serial killer like prowess I guess

like it made him even more deadly and more deranged and yeah he was basically just like an agent of chaos he's like the Joker basically in the Marvel universe but yeah I mean that's where he worked best I think on that sort of level but then we've

seen him sort of powered up a little bit too much like he did the whole thing where he was going for the dark hold and trying to resurrect like an ancient god as well and then obviously the stuff would know where he became like his avatar on earth and was stealing all these codexes from other people for reasons I still don't quite understand how it was going to help know, like, come to Earth or whatever. If I could interrupt with a question, this is the second

time that we've been, or maybe even the third time, where we've been talking about the symbiates and the word codexes were used. Yeah. What's a codex? Excellent question. It's basically like a tiny little bit of a symbiate

which is left in anyone who's like worn a symbiote. basically. Yeah. So it's like, I think it's got all the memories of the symbiate and maybe even like the people who wore it as well. I don't know.

Yeah, it seems to just be like a little sliver of the symbiate that's left in somebody who's had the symbiate or any, who has had any symbiates to them at some point. Yeah. Even if you think the symbiates been taken out of the body, it leaves a little sliver of them behind. So the idea is if Carnie's gathers them all together, he'll absorb like the memories and the powers of like the full symbiate. Something like that. But again, not very well defined. Oh, God, no.

Definitely not. Okay. So, John, you mentioned the Joker. Mm-hmm. I would agree with that. because the Joker is a character who works best when you don't use him as often.

Like since the 80s and the 90s and up to the present day, Joker has escalated and escalated and escalated. Like it used to be more like puns. And like there was murder. Like Joker's like first appearance back in the day in the 30s was like murders. So he's always been a murderous character.

But like he works best when you don't see him as often. And like lately DC's been having Joker series, like a mini series. And some of them have been good. Like there was one Joker series where actually the main character was Jim Gordon. And the whole thing was like him trying to find Joker. And Joker was kind of like, um, kind of like Jaws in, you know, in the movie Jaws. where you would see him right before it was too late. Yeah.

And that's, I agree that that's how carnage should work. Like, that's a character you do not need to keep putting out in front of people. It's more impactful when you go stretches a time without seeing him. And then he, then he appears. Because I remember being a kid in the 90s and maximum carnage.

And like that was this big storyline. And they even made a fucking Sega Genesis game for maximum carnage. I love that. I love maximum carnage. But that's exactly to your point, though. Like, that was a big moment that made carnage seem like a big deal. And it was okay for him to take some time off after that. You didn't need to see Carnage come back three weeks later because that doesn't make any sense. And I feel like recently, they really have just been ramping it up.

You know, the last couple, both symbiates, really, they've been ramping it up to like a ridiculous degree. that they didn't need to. Like, I love Carnage to Dad, but I don't like any of this stuff. I think it's just way too much, you know. It's, it's, I feel like they have lost a lot of, like,

the real kind of fun and identity. I say fun when referring to a serial killer. But, you know, that kind of, like, character that Cleadiscosity, that Carnage used to be, like, that's that's a that's a long jump away yeah i mean once you get ripped and half by the century as well

as you know that was insane as well yep sorry john i got you off there we were saying before as well how like you know talking about kitty pride and all the different like evolutions and stuff that she's undergone like you know you want to see a character evolve and change but you still want it to feel like the same character it was to begin with. Like in some way, like, it still have that connective tissue. And I don't really see that anymore with Carnage. Like, it's some of the stuff that's gone on with him is just too far removed. Yeah, I agree.

I think so too. But also, I feel like a guy like Carnage, honestly, that's the kind of guy where, like, if he never changed a bit, like, he's still, like, that character still works. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you said, if you just see him sparingly, the point of carnage is he's a major threat when he turns up. Just by himself, he's a major threat. He doesn't have to change because everybody knows he's a horrible, incredibly powerful psychopath that's really hard to beat. That in itself is a threat, you know?

Like that you could tell those stories. You didn't have to ramp him up into whatever the fuck he is now, you know? There is this, I talked on this before. And I think it's worth like repeating here because I think this is an opportunity to remind people. I think there is a thing as being too creative or wanting to be too artistic and not having the right medium for it. So like I equate like DC and Marvel to like getting fast food. Like you don't always like I'm not. going to McDonald's looking for like a prime rib.

I'm going to McDonald's because there's, you know, it's a wopper. You're not Wopper. That's Burger King. Regardless. The fast food analogy is there. I don't get a lot of fast food. That's an indication. But, but yeah, so it's like DC and Marvel is like your standby.

You go, you go expecting the thing and you want the thing. I'm not, I'm not coming to be challenged necessarily. And to do like the challenging stuff, you should look more. like Image Comics or other independent publishers where you can be super artistic and such. And I say that from not just the artistic standpoint, but just from the credit standpoint. Because if you do super innovative, interesting stuff with Marvel and DC, as the writer and as the creators and the artist, you do not get to reap the rewards of that. That becomes the property of Disney in the case of Marvel or the property of Warner Brothers.

if it's the property is in D.C. So, like, doing all this, like, we're going to try to reinvent Carnage. It's like, you really don't need to. And it's probably better for you as a creative person to not do that. Like, take what you want to do with Carnage. Slap a new name on that and take it to fucking Image. And Image will make that book and you'll get full credit.

Right. But like you said, you really just don't need to do that with Carnage. No. There's no need for this at all. Like that character writes itself. Mm-hmm. You know? And they're like, no, no, no.

He has to be a fucking sorcerer or whatever the fuck. I don't, I don't fucking know. It's too much, you know. Can we just say both the symbiates or just symbiates in general? Yeah. So my last one, I don't know how much discussion it's going to spark. But it's John Constantine. Oh, okay.

Yeah. I just feel like John Constantine is the opposite problem of carnage in that I feel like nobody does anything different with him. Like he doesn't have his own book for the most part anymore. He gets like miniseries and stuff every now and then. But like so you'll just be reading a book and it's like, oh, we got some magic nonsense. And then you just hear, I don't know, mate. And he's smoking like a cigarette acting like a cool guy. And it's like, all right, here's John Constantine again here to solve the problem by being a dick.

head and no one magic. And I guess that's just like he's a character that a lot of people super into. He had his own TV show for a while. It was so popular. They brought the same actor to play the same character in the CW show. And they also had the movie with Keanu Reeves, but that was an interesting adaptation because they changed a lot of stuff with him. But he's just a character.

Like, I feel like there's no depth to him aside from British and smoking. and known magic. And I feel like that's about it when it comes to John Constantine. I have a question about John Constantine. Yes. Could he beat Superman? He could because Superman's weak against magic. So Superman, the most part of a being of all time, could be beaten by this fucking...

Yeah, because again, and like the Flash, he has an established weakness. I don't know how I established that is because neither me or John knew what that weakness was. Because you guys

have to read Superman. No, why would we? He's really boring. Yeah, you've already is. You've critiqued a character

you know nothing about. You critiqued a character you know nothing about. What you both did was you pulled your pants down and exposed yourself for conmen and charlatans. Oh, dear.

It's the best thing to make money. We're supposed to be experts in our field. Subject matter experts. Whoa, whoa, whoa. We can't read all the comics all the time. No. There's a billion Super Mike comics. I don't know which ones talk about magic,

but it's not any of the ones I've read. You apparently read all these shitty carnage books. Not all of them, clearly. We stop when it started getting shitty. I'm still reading them now. And you called him, you picked him for overrated. I know. That's because he's fresh in my mind.

Oh, this is fun. Oh, yeah, no, this is a good one. So I don't know. That's a, that's a brief choice. I wouldn't have, but, but is he overrated, though? Like, I think he is because he's, he's, presented as being like the premier magic user in DC, like on par with Zatana or maybe even better than Zatana because he gets more cameos in other books than she does anymore.

But is this the case of them just like not figuring out how to use other magic characters? I do you feel like to them, he's just like he's the easy identifiable because like I said, he's a dickhead who smokes cigarettes and is British. Yeah, is it just like an easy eye for them to like, I think it's easy out. For DC, they're like, oh, we've once again written ourselves into a corner. I don't know what to do. Oh, I know. John Constantine, done.

Pretty much. Because in Batman, they would at least, they would bring in Zatana most of the time in Batman because, like, it's established they kind of had a fling at some point. And they can play into that. Yeah. But most other times, it's like, let's just bring Constantine into, you know, fix the problem. What if they had John Constantine have a fling with Batman? Well, John Constantine is established as bisexual.

So that is more realistic than you think. So we could, so we could do this. I think it's also implied that John Constantine fucked King Shark. Yeah, no, I think that's absolutely a thing. Implied. Yeah, but so John Constantine is established as bisexual. So yeah, no, him, him making a move on Batman, I think is very well established. And that would be a fun storyline.

Would be. You'd read that? I'd read that. Yeah, so maybe he's not that overrated. No, no, he is because he just showed. up in his British and smoke cigarettes. They would never do that. They would never have, like, Batman having a fling with Constantine.

They ain't going to do it. But that says... They seem getting married to Catwoman for, like, two years, and then she left him at the wedding because he was married to the city of Gotham and vengeance. That's not illegal. There's not... You can't get a marriage certificate for that. I don't think that's legally binding, you know?

Yeah. But, again, like, a lot... I feel like a lot of that's just kind of, like, leasing us on the... part of the writers like yeah no no it's always it always is it's easy out so i will say i know that we had some alternates in mind and we won't go into the depth of them of course but dylan you i know you said you picked a few like who are some people who almost made the cut so i have two alternates do you want to say them yeah go ahead are we are we are we saying them with no discussion or am i saying them and then you guys are going to be like what why didn't you say them already we would have

If anything, the discussion will not be long. We'll restrain ourselves. Okay. Well, I'll try to make a point for both them real quickly. One of them was Cyclops, because I feel like that character kind of, I feel like Graham Morrison had the perfect way to write Cyclops out of the books and have a fresh new leader, a fresh start, because they've been running that bland Cyclops thing for a while. And instead of that, typically Marvel were like, nope, we're going to reverse.

you did and keep him on in exactly the same way that he is. And then no only that they keep him being a bland motherfucker, but then they made him into this like martyr for mutants and stuff like this. They start adding more stuff on them. Whenever, at heart, he's just a really bland, boring person.

So I feel like he gets overrated as a de facto leader of the X-Men despite the fact that nobody else has really had a chance to be the leader other than more interesting characters like Storm or stuff like that. I like psychologists. Yeah. Yeah.

I like Cyclops. You can like him, but he's also like overrated, right? I don't think he's overrated because like when I think of like an overrated kind of character, I feel like, yes, he is used, but I feel like he doesn't get, he doesn't get the spotlight so much that when he does, it becomes like it's notable at that point. They've been using them pretty consistently for a long since he started and like, really that guy? Like Mr. No, you put him on a team book and you put Kitty Prize. on the team book, Kitty Pride is going to get a lot more focus.

If you do Wolverine, Wolverine's going to get a lot more focus. Like, I feel like he's used well in the aspect of a team book, even if other writers do not use the rest of the team book well. Okay. What do you think, John? Yeah, I sort of agree with that. Like, he's never the star of the show. He's always a supporting player, even if he is like the captain of the team or whatever. but I think as well

he's like had a pretty good evolution over the years like in terms of how he started becoming more like hardline militant and like taking more of a magneto's path than Professor X's

for a time and yeah so I think and I'm not sure because they killed him off at one point and then brought him back and I'm not sure they've really done anything too spectacular with him since they brought him back. He had a few moments in the Krakawa era. Like I think the two that I remember is like faking his death because it was it like got out that mutants had figured the resurrection.

So when he died publicly, when they resurrected him, he created the identity of Captain Krakawa to kind of fill in that spot. I thought that was unique. Yeah, no, I just I agree on that end. I think like he quit. the quiet council so that he could lead the X-Men and have an X-Men team like on like in America and kind of like try to build that establishment like he he's had some good moments nothing like super seeking the center of attention but he's had good moments okay well I think he's

boring and then the other person I was going to say we we mentioned briefly earlier is um I think we kind of covered the points a little bit earlier but the Joker. Because I think the Joker, like you said, is a great character used at the right times. And at some point, and maybe like the late 80s, kind of early 90s,

they were just like, all Joker, all the time. He's Batman's main villain. It's Joker, Joker, blah, blah, blah. And they've really diluted that character into just a fucking loser, right? Because there's no, like, there's no fun in them anymore.

It's just, you can guarantee that if somebody's writing a Batman book here comes the Joker. Again, it's the same, same thing. And you're kind of diluting that character. In a way, I kind of feel like this about Norman Osborne as well. There was a time where like at some point, like every time there was a new Spider-Man Ryder, like here they're going to do a Norman Osborne bit.

They have to. And like, you can just use them at the right points and let it breathe, you know. And so I feel like that way more with the Joker. I feel like just every time somebody has a Batman. Ron, it's like, here's a Joker. He killed some people. I'm like, okay, it's hard to tell a really good story if we've just seen a really good story. Well, not even a really good story.

You know what I mean? Just a Joker story, you know? I feel like they need to let him breathe more and they don't. So I will tell you when it comes to Joker. I think the most harm that was done to him was Heath Ledger in the Dark Night. because I feel like at that point they stopped treating Joker with any sort of like

focus on like the puns aspect of the character or like the crime boss aspect of the character and then they just started like, I'm an agent of chaos, I'm just a mad serial killer. I'm a dog chasing cars and I feel like that's when he got really vulnerable.

They tried just like really like he's dark and twisted. And they're like, no, he's a fucking clown. right that's part of it like like this this weird like insanity is fun like that was what was fun about him you know the unpredictability instead they were like no we're gonna make of a serious threat like you're fucking it up like he already is a threat in his own way you know but i don't think people really capitalize too much on that uh john did you have any backup characters uh yes and funnly enough, related to the Joker,

the Batman who laughs. Oh, I would agree. Fuck that character. Yeah. Is that Scott Snyder? Yes. Fucking Scott Snyder. I'll give him credit.

Like, he looks pretty cool. And I think that's maybe been like a big part of why he became so popular so quickly. It's just like a weird and different looking guy but yeah i mean he's just like an old world bruce wayne who has been jokerized uh and then for some reason he's like traveling the multiverse and ridiculously overpowered and agreed uh yeah

you know yeah i'm not a big fan absolutely agreed cannot yeah scott snider also gave like to me did that worst uh did one of the worst joker storylines in the last few years, which is where Joker got his face cut off by another villain. And then he like stapled and like wore like a strap on thing to keep it on his face. And it was just like it's just to me it's another like here's Scott Snyder introducing. This is an interesting element. He's not going to know how to fucking finish the story. But here it is.

Which is a controversial take because I got into it with somebody about that because Scott Snyder just put out a book through dark horse called Canary. and I was like, yeah, the first two books were great. And then the last issue, I didn't know what the fuck he was trying to do. Oh, man, it's good they sticks to form, though, isn't it? Yeah, right. He's so consistent with this inability to finish the storyline in a satisfying way. Yeah.

I mean, it would be weird if he did one day. Just make it. Yeah, exactly. What the fuck? Is this the same guy? But no, I would agree with Batman who laughs. I, the second I saw him. I was like, oh, fuck this.

This is a stupid. So mine, I feel, is very much in the realm of Wolverine. And it is also a character that I have read a good bit on over the years, over my lifetime, really, is, I think Batman, I think, is, he's progressively gotten more and more inconsistent and overpowered. Okay. I could see that. Yeah. Yeah, just, you know, he's in, in the main. Batman book right now he's kind of getting the shit kicked out of him and he has a metal hand

and then in detective comics he's on like a weird spirit quest in a in a weird magic desert place and uh and in Batman and Robin he's like trying to be a good dad to Damien and then there's a bunch of miniseries that he's in and it's just that that Wolverine level of like over exposed and there doesn't seem to be any sort of consistency in what he's doing right like none of the the the the three seem to relate to each other. And I think part of that as well is like, you know, like we said with other characters, you can totally like advance a character

and make them progress and change. But like at some point, if you just make them like fucking totally different from what they're supposed to be, then it's just not fun reading those comics because you're like, well, this isn't really what this character is, like or this isn't how he acts or this isn't what he does, you know?

Yeah. Which I feel like that's probably something like Batman these days because they're like, again, to your point where people are always trying to reinvent the wheel and you're like, Batman's like the easiest guy to write for. Yeah. You know, you don't have to reinvent the wheel with him. He's just a billionaire that dresses up like a bat. Like you can you can tell these simple stories and not go fucking crazy with them.

But people are. They're trying to be like the seminal Batman writer. You know, they're trying to, like, big their mark. We definitely talked about this before, where people are trying to go bigger and bigger all the time, and we're like, the best way to do it is to just tell good stories.

Just be good at what you do. It does not be overcomplicated. Just do a good story, and people will like it, you know? I think that this honestly might be their easiest outro that we ever do, and it's just as simple as if you disagree with any of our picks, go ahead and let us know in the comments. Oh, they're wrong. That's fair.

Yeah. Fuck you. So if you disagree with any of your picks or you feel like there's a character you feels even more overrated than ones we've discussed, by all means, let us know in the comments section. As a reminder, if you're watching us on YouTube, we're on Spotify. And if you're listening to us on Spotify, we're on YouTube. So it really depends on, like, how you prefer to digest your media. But this has been the Smart Avengers talking about overrated characters. guys you have any final remarks that you want to make trying to think of some way of like crowbarine

superman and do it again fuck you do i was going to say fuck superman fuck off you were you just like riled me up i think is the issue you were doing so well lovely composed serious lovely archo and then i'm like how could i how could i how could i put it can i ruin this yeah that's that's that's my life that's fair that's fair so do you guys have any idea what you want to do i have a suggestion for our next episode because i've been really excited about it since we made that discovery a couple of weeks ago and i say a couple weeks ago because this is in game a couple of weeks ago but in reality it was like last week um i would love to try to do the watch along of the generation x pilot okay so i will dylan i want to hear your reaction to this so bad

Okay. Now, I have the question for you, though. I think there's a version with commercials and a version without commercials. Do you have a preference? Preferably the one without commercials, so we can just watch it straight up, you know? Okay, that's fair. I just wanted to see, like, sometimes I just enjoy watching old commercials because I think it's, you know, it's a good time. I feel like we'll have enough to laugh at.

Oh, I feel like you would be right. So, folks, tune in next time where we might be watching the Generation X pilot or something along the lines of something where to go horrifically wrong. But I've been Corey and this has been John Dylan and we're going to go ahead and let you escape this madness. Goodbye. Goodbye.

Bye-bye.