The Smark Avengers - Vol 4, Ep 28: Relaxed Fit: Death in Comics, Writer Pet Characters & Endless Events

Episode Date: September 5, 2025

📚 Welcome back to another Relaxed Fit episode of the podcast! This week, Corey, Dylan, and Jon kick back and dive into some of the biggest (and weirdest) recurring issues in comics. Why does every Spider-Man, X-Men, and Daredevil run need to lead into a massive earth-shattering event instead of just letting characters breathe? Does death in comics really mean anything when everyone eventually comes back? And what’s the deal with writers clinging to their “pet characters” no one else cares about? From Marvel’s obsession with constant crossovers to DC’s never-ending cycle of resurrections, we’re pulling apart the state of modern comics while keeping it funny, laid-back, and brutally honest. 👥 Topics we hit in this episode:The problem with endless comic book events Why death in comics has lost its meaning Writers and their “pet” characters (for better or worse) The need for balance between event storytelling and a “new normal” If you’re tired of gimmicks and just want good character-driven stories, this one’s for you. 🔥 Don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more deep dives into comics, superheroes, and the weird world of pop culture storytelling. Click the link for Dylan's radio show!: http://www.bouncedigitalradio.co.uk Click the link for Dylan's Twitch stream: http://Twitch.tv/spookylaroux Click the link for Jon's Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/bigjonbowski/ Click the link for Corey's project "Henry's Usual": https://www.tumblr.com/henrysusual Click the link for Corey's show "Large Old Cup": https://open.spotify.com/show/2YHMppnl9inQevwLIxR64f

Is that the show? At the intro? Oh, I think you meant to end of the show. That, yeah. That's the tail end of the show. Dylan and John explain cricket to Corey. All right time. Cricket is bullshit.

See you later. 1,700 films this week. Oh, boy. All right. Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Spark Avengers. My name is Corey. And with me is Dylan and John.

How's it going, guys? Good. Good. Yeah. So this week, we are going to kind of just do a talk about whatever we want week. We had something in mind. I've been way too busy to really put any good planning behind it. And it's one of those things that if we're going to do it, it needs to be done the right way, I think.

Yeah, we count half acid. I don't really want to happen. Well, I certainly will. Well, so that being said, how are things going? is you read anything new in comics these days? Anything exciting? I mean, there's been some interesting news bits. I haven't read anything yet, but as of this recording,

I plan on actually going out to buy a comic. Oh, yeah? Ooh. Yeah, surprising. So I don't know if this dates the show too much. If this pulls back the curtain too much, you can cut this bit out. But this week, the first issue of that Scroogebook.com comes out.

So I think it's out like tomorrow. Nice. I'm not sure. It's out sometime this week. So like I'm going to go up to the big city on Saturday to see if I can find a copy. Because how could I not buy a copy of a Scroogemic.com in 2025, you know? That's amazing. So I haven't been.

reading a whole lot of comics, but I actually, for once in my life, plan to go out and buy a new comic. I'm going to pull up the app that I used to track my comic purchases. Yep, Uncle Scrooge, Earth Mighty is Duck issue number one out this week. Yes. Very nice. He's a, he's a Mike's Duck. There's like Donald Duck is frozen in Carbonite behind him on the cover. But the carbonate's gold.

Excellent. You see that? Yeah. I think I've seen that cover One of the covers looked really cool I don't know if it was that one It had like a bunch of like Varian covers I wonder if I can get them

It would be neat We actually looked at the variant covers In an episode that got lost to time Yeah Yeah basically I found out there's a A cutoff point when we share screens And record on screen sharing That shit just breaks down

So like Yeah If you watched our watch along for the Roger Corman Fantastic Four, you'll notice that we do not come back on camera after the movie ends because it was just nothing but still frames that would change every like

45 seconds. So it would be like... And someone's mouth would be open. Which is stark contrast from what this podcast normally is. Right. We're well known for our fluid movements. We are certainly. We're very active

people. So we had done an episode. so where me and Corey looked at I think it was the new comics that were coming out in August, wasn't it? It was, I think, yeah, I think it was August solicitations. August.

We spent a lot of time, like, going through all those covers with a fine tooth comb. We were very, very, very strict about it, and then the episode didn't work. We did throw it away. Which is like,

to our credit, I think it's only happened about four or five times in the year and a half we've been doing this which is yeah bad well the thing is like that stuff used to happen like john whenever we would do our show a smart event no this is the show we're doing not but um what was it russly doesn't make sense um there was a couple of times where like i would listen to the audio back and like it's fucked like it's just straight fucked like i don't know what or how or why but There was a couple of times we had to record an episode over again

and there was a couple of times we were like, just fuck it. Like it's dead. We'll never get that magic. It's gone. Do you think it was a Skype thing? Yes. There was some issue where it sometimes

were like it would just corrupt the audio. Yeah. And it was just unfixable. And I know for there was some, I don't know if it was like a pay-per-view review. I think we did one of them over again,

but there was some other episodes where it was just like general, you know, talking about gold dust, whatever. I'm like, oh, it's just fucked. Like, I don't know if it can be ours. It's all right if we've, like, got notes or whatever. Sometimes we would do ones like today where we're just making stuff up. We're just chatting and spinning into rest and show talk. And you lose one of them, you're like, well, it's gone.

That's it. Yeah. You know, we can't, we can't do it again. It's lost it. that happened a couple of times and we were doing that show for like four years right I think so that only happened like what less

I would say less than 10 times do you miss doing that show sometimes sometimes when they watch for us and I'm like this would be good to talk about it like the Vince McMahon thing I think that was number one for me is that when the Vince McMahon thing came out

I'm like we could have made like three episodes with this. Because that was one of the things we would talk about on the show. That was like a recurring theme was that we would talk about. John used to say if a show would be better if Vince McMahon died.

He came close. He's in that car accident recently. Which was his own fault. What happened was Vince McMahon left and then the show did get good. And then Vincent Van came back and the show got bad and then Vinceigman left again. And we're like, well, John was right. I knew it.

And that would have been vindicated to like do an episode on that because we would have been like, we were right like fucking four years ago. We got it right. And there was a bunch of other stuff where we would we would get stuff right. And it would be nice to go, well, you know, that we told you so. Well, not just that, though, but like, towards the end of doing the show, like, we were just super negative about everything because, like, just modern wrestling sucked at that point. And there wasn't a lot to get excited about. But then, you know, things have obviously changed in that front. And, you know, it would have been nice, I think, to be able to talk about, like, stuff that's happened in the, like a positive light for once

and get back to, you know, that sort of positivity again, but hey-ho. That's one... The reason we stopped was because it was just, both of us were like, this sucks. Like, the show was so negative. And, but wrestling at the same time

was so fucking awful. This was like... We sat through the whole pandemic, and we reviewed everything in the pandemic. That's rough. We were like this... sucks. And then 2021 came around. I'm like, it still sucks. Again, this is an arresting podcast. Yeah, we're in biggest territory there. Yeah, we'll scale back a tiny bit.

We'll go into the world of Spider-Man because you guys are big Spider-Man readers. A big spoiler regarding Venom hit the internet not that long ago. It's about a month old now, but at the time, this is breaking news. uh do you care to know what that spoiler is john and dillon i think we might have already talked about it sure i think we did so what i think we're yeah and mary jane has broken up with paul peter parker is spider man so yes mary jane has broken up with paul and peter parker has spurned her advances because he's a fucking hang on was it advances or was it it just her?

Because the way I heard it was was Aunt May is worried that Peter's on drugs because he's like always disappearing and then cheering up with bruises and flimsy excuses and stuff and so she asked Mary Jane

to just check in on Peter and then Mary Jane figured well I'll use this as an opportunity to kind of you know reveal this big secret that I'm I'm secretly venom. And then Peter just basically blows her off and it's like,

I don't care and walks into his apartment and leaves her hanging. I think if your girlfriend came up to, well, not your girlfriend, like a former girlfriend of yours, came up to you and said, hey, I'm the new venom. Especially if you had a lot of history with the old venom. And may have technically been venom, you might have been a little bit more interested. Right?

Yeah, but then I guess this is playing into the fact that Peter's just kind of worn down and done with this shit. Because I think in this same issue, he's basically hung up webs again. He's like, he got beat up by a new character who just like wiped the floor with him. And then he's just like, yeah, he's like, okay, maybe I'm done with this shit then. maybe I'm not good enough or you know it's not worth it I can't remember the character's name it's some sort of supernatural character I want to say it's like called like hell mouth or something like that some bad name hellmorth is not a great name yeah it's definitely not hellmouth but it's uh I'll see if I can

find it. Who's probably Spider-Man at the moment? Is it still Joe Kelly? I think it's a idea, yeah. Okay. He's still in a lot of, like,

supernatural stuff with Spider-Man. Which, I don't know if I'm cool with. Now, is that... Are you a traditionalist in the sense that you want Spider-Man to be street-level? Yeah. Well... John was quick to answer.

I think the guy's name was Howell. Gate, so I was not that far off. No, you're... Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Spider-Man should be Street Devil. That's

sort of his bread and butter. And then when you start giving him too many otherworldly threats and whatnot, then it's like stepping in someone else's sandbox, and that's sort of, you know, Iron Man's issue to go deal with, or the Guardians of the Galaxy, or the Avengers, or whatever.

It's like... Yeah. Spider-Man is the guy on the street, the bank robber, that you know, the guy in prime, basically, not trying to take over the world. Yeah, I think so. Like, I don't like it when Spider-Man

goes to space or against all of, like, mysticism or the hell region. Like, that's not, Spider-Man doesn't need to do that. And he seems like out-class. Like, it seems like a weird matchup.

It seems weird to match Spider-Man up with, like, some kind of mystical demon. Like, that, you know, that doesn't really make sense. But I guess street level in a sense, like, he can get a bit grandiose, but, like, there's a point where, like, he's getting too, you know, he doesn't need to go this far, you know. I guess I missed, like, the old days of, like, the wacky, not wacky, but, like, the fun. uh, rogues gallery and stuff Spider-Man. Like he used to have loads of fun village

interesting villains. We kind of talked about the lizard a little bit, but like that's one character with a good interesting backstory and Dr. Octopus and the Goblins. Like there's there's good fun stuff in there. But then who was like the last

great new Spider-Man villain they introduced? You know what you mean? Yeah, that's a good question. You're probably talking about Morlin and that's 20 years old. Like, there really hasn't... I didn't like Morlin as well.

So there you go. I like Morlin when you started. But again, they made it really grandiose and, like, unnecessarily complicated. And the Spider-Verse was fun the first time, but like, it's not the kind of thing you can keep doing. Because that doesn't

feel like Spider-Man. You know, it's more fun than Spider-Man's more grounded and more just I guess street level you know it's not the same kind of character well they um and I think that's

an off of Spider-Man for a long time because in Marvel comics in general they've done a big push to make everything bigger and crazier and more grandiose and the storylines are bigger and more bombastic and yada and they don't really have time for like the more simplistic and straightforward

and grounded and um stories like that that Spider-Man used to be really good at. You know, they don't do that anymore. Everything has to have some kind of bombasticness to it or grandiosity. And I don't think you need that with Spider-Man. You can just have them, like John said, just plunge a bank robber in the face, you know? Like, if I was writing Spider-Man, I would do a lot to just reverse all that.

I would just make him, you know, you used to go off the shit. You know, the Nazis fight games. I mean, that's kind of what's going on with the movies, right? I saw a lot of people reacting to the new Spider-Man costume that has been spotted during the filming and being like, oh, this looks terrible, it looks so low rent. And it's like, well, that's kind of the point because after the events of the last movie, he doesn't have the backing of Stark Industries anymore. Like, he's an unknown. And he's, you know, for the first time in their particular universe is now doing shit alone. doesn't have the money, doesn't have the backing, doesn't have the tech.

He's just a guy doing it, doing it. He actually looks like Spider-Man as well. He looks like Spider-Man. Took five movies to get there, but by God, we got there. But also, like, you know, by that point, he's got all the experience, but he's still a kid. He's, you know, he doesn't know I'm going to make his own costume. And like you said, he had a lot of stuff handed to him. So he's Spider-Man.

because he's got the experience of being Spider-Man, but when you see him, like, putting his costume together and stuff, he's, you remember, he's just, he's still just a kid, you know?

And it works. It's part of why I think those Spider-Man films have worked so well. That Tom Holland has that baby face, like, he's just a little baby Peter Parker, kind of like, which is what they, they keep trying to bring back in the comics,

and they can never do it right, because they don't, they don't get the balance right. They want this, like, every man. They want every man Peter Parker that goes and fights demons from hell and fucking whatever. Like, well, you know, what are we doing?

Well, do you think it's like they keep wanting to go back to this like young, um, I don't want to say carefree, but like stripped of like obligation Spider-Man? like that's why they broke up the marriage in the first place and why they always wanted that. Well, yeah, that's the thing is like it's you can't put. the genie back in the bottle, you know, like you have so many years of that being a thing. Like, Peter's, you know, married to Mary Jane. They're in a very committed, loving relationship. She knows the Spider-Man.

Like, you can't just take that away when DC tried it with the new 52. And ultimately, it had to be reversed because it wasn't, it was succeeding at first because it was new and shocking. But then it just gave up. Because, like, that was one of the big changes was, Lewis and Clark had been together for years at that point. And one of the big first things they did in the new 52 is they weren't a couple anymore. And they put Superman with Wonder Woman instead.

Ew. That's like, that's why the clone saga happened was because in their heads, they were like, okay, Peter Parker has become too, you know, he's mixed up with too many things. He's got Marys, all this stuff's going on. It's too much. What we're going to do is. is we'll do this clone saga bit where the real Peter Parker turns up

and the Peter Parker you've seen for the last couple of years who's got so convoluted and tied up with stuff we don't like. We'll just say that was the old clone version and then we'll cut him out of the comic and focus on the other Peter Parker we've just seen

and just started fresh. That was the idea behind the clone saga and then they fucked it. They were royally fucked making it, ironically making it more convoluted the Peter Parker had been up to that point. That was the idea. They were like, we're

going to do a fresh start. The way we're going to do it is just use this clone Peter Parker as the real Peter Parker. And the one you've seen, who has a very convoluted storyline, it was a fake Peter Parker, so it doesn't kind. We could start it up fresh again. It's been like, what,

like, yeah, did he debut 62, something like that? So there's been, you know, like over 60 years worth of Spider-Man comics and even going by like this lighting kind of tail of time in Marvel comics like he can't stay young forever like he's been through too much had too many

adventures too many like triumphs and tragedies like it's only natural for him to kind of you know get older and kind of evolve that way So to try and stifle that just seems like, I don't know, like it's not natural in a way. Like you see other characters. You've had kids in the comics and got married and had relationships. It hasn't had an adverse effect on like Luke Cage and Jessica Jones or Mr. Fantastic and The Invisible Woman. Like, you know, it's just like a natural part of life.

I mean, if anything, Luke Cage is probably going on to, like, be bigger than he was, right? Yeah. Luke Edge, yeah. Although they don't really do a whole lot with him nowadays, but certainly, like, 10 years ago, he was... Pretty big, yeah. He was, yeah, massive. Yeah, so, like, you know, but that's part of it. Like, you can evolve these characters and make them go through stuff.

And then have that stuff that they go through, impact their life later, as opposed to Peter Parker, who goes through stuff. And then just it resets every couple of years. And he's back to Wise Crack and Spider-Man. And then the most, like, earth-shattering stuff will happen to him. And he'll be devastated. And then he'll just go back to being Wise Crack and Peter Parker again. So, like, okay, there's a lot to grieve.

avoid stuff. So deposit something, right? Because it seems, I want to say this is a Marvel problem. Because they do the same thing with the X-Men. Like they quite literally, they create a safe space for mutants where mutants can be mutants and we'll create a mutant society. And all the mutants will get to do their own thing. And then they'll destroy that for the sake of returning to the status quo of mutants

are feared and misunderstood. Daredevil is kind of the same way. Matt Murdoch has to be. miserable all the time. We'll give him some successes, but we'll have to return him back to that standpoint where Matt Murdoch hates his life, you know? Do you think like that's just,

that's just comics being comics? Or do you think it's a situation of like, Marvel keeps allowing their writers to do these big bombastic things or these characters that you can't walk back from easily? Because I was trying to think of like in, in the DC world right now, like, yes, the continuity reset about five or six.

years ago, but there's not been really any massive changes that they've not been able to also walk back from easily. I mean, there's some of them, like, there's definitely been some stinkers, that's for sure. Like, they made a big deal about how Batman and Catwoman were finally going to get married, and then she, like, left him at the altar, you know, and it's like, that was months of just building that up, months of building that up for nothing. And then there was, like, Wally West accidentally, like, killed a bunch of, of characters. characters because his powers were

freaking out. But then like it's fine, they're okay now. But I think for that one, it was just, it was such an unpopular decision amongst readers to let that happen. So like he used his powers and brought everybody back from the dead. It's fine. Don't worry about it. It was just act like none of that shit happened. I hate the flash.

Yeah. But yeah, I was like trying to think like there's the only big one right now has been Brian Michael Bendis aging up John Kent. But aging him up in a way that was just bad all around. So, like, John Kent was, like, a 12-year-old kid.

He went off to space with his granddad, ended up getting trapped on Earth 3, and was tortured for four years, comes back after only being away from his parents for, like, 10 minutes, and suddenly he's 16 years old. But, so, like, they've not managed to walk that one back yet, but what they did do is probably Michael Bindis acting like trauma wasn't a thing.

And, like, oh, he's just happy to be home. me, he doesn't care that he was, you know, spent four years in captivity. But yeah, do you think that's... Do you think it's just Marvel needs to pull the reins back on their writers and be like, hey, quit fucking doing this big stuff because we've got to put the toys back in the toy box. Well, I think in... I would say with the Cricola thing, I think that was always going to be the end game anyway. Like, I feel like the X-Men do this every couple of years where they have a big thing

and then it just resets anyway. you know like utopia yeah and then now they're on Kakoa like it felt to me that like this was never going to be a permanent thing

they were going to find a way to reset it anyway so I think that that was always just a big storyline but and I will say that I think that the capacity of the storylines

I don't know how much of that is the writers coming up with that as opposed to Marvel saying to their writers every year we need a big crossover event or we need a big thing

or we need something big to happen you know I don't think it's always a case of the writers coming to Marvel with that I think part of it is Marvel coming to the writers and saying we've got to do something like I'm pretty sure that happened with the X-Men I don't think

it was Gil Simone's idea to do that crossover thing oh yeah that was editors for sure right So I think that there is, when it comes to like those big events, it's Marvel doing that once a year with their popular comics to try and like drama of interest. But I do see your point in that Marvel have a habit of circling back to what they think was popular. And they do it with the X-Men in terms of the characters you see in the X-Men. so

I think we had talked about this in a different episode but when you think of the popular X-Men we three usually think of the X-Men

from the 90s cartoon exactly because we saw it on TV and that was they were our X-Men but if you look at comics now

all of those X-Men are still the X-Men there's very few from from the time period from that show started to now, very few

the newer X-Men that have been introduced have stuck around and been on the team. And I think part of that is just Marvel insisting on circling back to the students quote. Like there's been four or five times when

Cyclops could have walked away from the X-Men and retired and nobody would have batted eyelid and that would have been great for his character and it would have set up an opportunity for somebody else to step up as a leader but instead marvel continually go cyclops is a leader you know wolverine's the badass um colossus is a heavy like as beast is a smart guy and sometimes a bad but they back to the smart guy you know like they they do have a habit of circling back to the status quo a lot with the x-men and

And in some ways I like that because, like we said, we like those characters from the TV show that we watch. Why don't take them away? What are you going to do? Replace it with a girl that can talk to a horse? I don't think so. Yeah. But at the same time, whether it's by design or not, a lot of the other X-Men that get introduced, don't seem to stick her on, you know?

So I do think that Marvel have a problem with, um, circling it back to the Cetus quote with their big ones like X-Man and Spider-Man. It happens to Spider-Man a lot. Yeah. So that's a very interesting point because like they'll take these big swings with X-Men and Spider-Man and Daredevil.

Because like those are the ones I think of like, Daredevil has like become a member of the hand. He went to prison. Like, he had his identity exposed like Daredevil has these big cataclysmic things happen to him the X-Men are constantly

having their status quo shifted Spider-Man is constantly getting fucked with but then you look at like the Avengers and they don't do fucking shit with the Avengers like I cannot tell you a reasonably big Avengers story that has occurred

in the last maybe 20 years yeah I don't know. I mean, the whole Captain Hydra thing was pretty big. I want to say that's more of a Captain America thing than an Avengers thing. I would say it's more about the American thing. Yeah. But I, sees, I thought that too.

I thought that too. And I was like, that's, I, that wasn't like a massive statistical ship for the whole Avengers. But also, I think about the Avengers. Like, the Avengers is a team of ship. Like, they've changed a lot. multiple times. And that's, you know, it would always circle back to the

CEM, you know, the original Avengers, right? So who's in the Avengers? No, it's probably Captain America. But is it... They have a new Avengers now, if I'm not mistaken. You know, but is it the same lineup that we've seen before? Because, Corey, you wanted to do an episode where we're talking about

the 90s Avengers, which is very different. But that's what I mean. A lot of the lineup of the Avengers has changed and is fluey- would and they're willing to take the chances and and change up the team lineup and see what happens you know like rogue's been a member of the Avengers and there's been different like lineups and stuff like that they perhaps because they're not taking as many risks storyline wise they're able to make more creative choices like their lineup changing and will not so

worrying too much about it. I think the Avengers line up right now, like it's Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Vision, and Iron Man are members of that big group. There's a new Avengers lineup right now as well, and that one was a book that was pitched as Thunderbolts, but then last secondly,

Tee changed the name because they wanted to make it seem like the movie. And that one's got more of the kind of oddball lineup because it's like Laura Kinney, Wolverine, uh scar uh well no it's not scar uh namor clea winter soldier black widow carnage is a member of that one the eddie brought carnage but see that's exactly what i'm saying like they'll take big swings with certain characters but they always kind of weirdly in in some instance we'll just always bring it back like how many times has dr strange lost the title of sorcerer supreme why not just in the last 20 years it feels like it's been a bunch of it's it's been a bit yeah and you know like

Currently he doesn't have it. That's like Doom has it. And that's another big thing, this big one world under Doom thing. Inevitably, unless, like, Dr. Doom is, like, taken off of the board for, like, 10 years. Like, how are you just going to go back to status quo with Dr. Doom after he's done this the whole deal? And it's like, this is also happening at the same time. Or it's ending around the same time as, like, the age of revelation and X-Men's going on. So it's like these really big sweeping event things.

And I think it's really what's kind of turned me off for reading a lot of Marvel. Like, I'm down to one Marvel book right now. Squidswick talk. I'll be up to two Marvel books from now on. Honestly, Dylan, I will grab the first issue of that this week. We can compare notes. Yeah, we'll jump.

We'll be in this together. We'll be like Thelma and Louise. Our next episode, wait, we got to jump off a clip. We're going to drive off a cliff. John's going to be the brand hit to her, to her Susan Sarandon. John's the car. John's the car.

He's up. He's good. We're right in piggyback. Yeah. John, we're going to have to get inside you. I don't think that that's a problem. Is it? Just open up your chest cavity and we'll pop in. Let me cut that one out if you want.

Put that one on my bleeper real. The blooper reel. John, John, you're going to have to get a copy of Screege McDuck as well so we can do an episode where we all talk about. Chris McDuck. Okay. Well,

I'll see what I can do. Don't sound too excited. Yeah. I'll see what I can do is always the most passive-aggressive way of going, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not doing that. I'm not fucking doing that.

How much get a comic possibly cost? I think it's like five bucks. Yeah, that's another thing that is the price point. is real rough these days. I remember about 10 years or so ago, D.C. had this ad campaign calling, keeping the line at 299,

where it was like they would not charge more than $3 on a comic, and I think they're now at $4.99, $5.99. $5.99. Yep. So 6.6. You could get like 2.5 comics for the price of like a pack of, like, a pack of, Sausages.

Yeah. No, that's two packs of sausages. Actually, it's about to do it now because one pack of sausages is like one comic. So, you know, you got to make these hard decisions. Am I going to read a comic book or am I going to have five sausages? This is another thing. Like, why? Do you over here, sausages come in packs of eight?

Because they know if you buy sausages, you want lots of sausages. You're going to eat sausages. You can eat that, no problem. No time at all. Pork sausages. I don't love sausages. What if somebody else wants a sauce? Yeah.

Too late. I've only been for sausage. And see? I'm happy. I'm happy we work that in there. I'm very proud of you for that. Hey, I'll be waiting. What's my time?

Looking for a gap. I can always do it. Anyway, to get back to what we were talking about. Yes. I kind of agree, like, well, I haven't really been reading a lot of comics recently just because I just don't like the bombacity of a lot of the recent Marvel stuff. Yeah. I just don't, especially with Spider-Man. Like, X-Men, you can get, because they have history of going to space and fucking around with that and like, you know, meet my demons.

There's like, you know, sorcerer X-Men and stuff. that's fine but with Spider-Man it always turns me up when it gets to there's a point where it'll get too silly and I know that when Joe Kelly was doing his run

did this whole thing with Ben Riley and then he dies a billion times and there's some kind of demon that comes back from hell yeah it comes up and then the goblin queen is involved and I'm like what does any of this have to do with Spider-Man

and I like Joe Kelly I think he's a great writer is Deadpool run was really good and I was really excited to see him on Spider-Man because I'm like his deadpool room was good and it was funny spider-man's funny character he can he can do well with this but just all this stuff it was just not not my bag at all I give him some credit though he's brought back the Hobgob gobblin as one of the like main villains in the series who is it that's the classic Roderick Kingsley

Oh, is he not dead anywhere? No, he's never dead. Never been dead. Never been dead. They never killed. I thought they... Kill his brother. Oh, okay.

His brother, he's a brother that looks very, very similar to him. They're not... I've learned they're not identical twins, but he has a brother that looks very similar to him. So if you want to hear more, if you want to hear more hobgoblin talk, we do have an episode where we talk about the hobgoblin at length. It's about a year.

check the playlist on YouTube honest to God me and John could probably do another episode of my thousand Goplin'clock It is funny Two people listen to the last one though So maybe let's not do that again I was about to say

Like it is funny Like I'm sure like I feel like you would get more content out of making A Hobgoblin episode If we instead had gotten like Hey let's talk about Green Goblin I feel like that would do that for 30 minutes Well it's a lot to talk about with the Green Goblin

Well I was just going to say you have more genuine interest in the one particular hobgoblin than all of the green goblins. I was going to say this earlier. You brought up a point by Dr. Doom and you're like, you need to take Dr. Doom off the board.

And it reminded me about how for 30 years they took Norman Osborne off the board. Yeah. They had him dead and he was dead. So that when he came back, people were like, oh, fuck, what?

You kidding me? And that was amazing. Like that was a big shock. And then Norman Osborne and the Green Gouldman did some stuff. And it was amazing. And then after that, it got kind of muddy, not as amazing, I felt. And then you're like, well, was the shock of bringing him back and having a couple of runs after that that were really good worth having storylines where they're not as good when you could have just? kept him dead and kept that mystique about him.

You know what you mean? And not to them saying we should kill off Dr. Doom, but like if he did that and kept him dead for like 20 years, when he comes back, people are going to be like, whoa, fuck, Dr. Doom's back. So I think at this point, though, they can't do that because Marvel have got to the point where like nobody is dead. Everybody comes back. It's like in.

here comes to Smark, but whenever the WWE did the summer of punk, punk disappeared for a week and he came back. If he had disappeared for the whole summer, that would have been awesome. Well, so here's a... You know? So I was going to say,

so to use the wrestling metaphor again, do you think the problem has to do with the fact that most comic book writers in the last few decades are comic book fans whereas previously a lot of the writers that were doing those kinds of things

like the writer who killed off Norman Osborne for example like he probably wasn't a comic book fan and I apologize for not knowing the particular creative team who did it off top my head there's a lot of people I know who've written Spider-Man I don't want to make the wrong I don't want to say the wrong thing

you could look that up okay well we'll look that up then I'm gonna put okay we'll continue your point Well, so the point is, like, for the most part, a lot of people say, like, wrestling has not been as exciting as it was in the 80s and the 90s because the people who are, or maybe they don't look as believable because the men who became wrestlers were people who had, like, bombed out of professional sports. So, like, I got a career-ending injury in basketball, so I can't be a basketball player anymore. So I guess I'll try out this wrestling thing. And that's why you have these very big, larger-than-life people, whereas now there's a lot of professional wrestling. who are about our height

because our height is considered average and the average fan you know the average wrestler these days were fans at one point so do you think it was a situation of that that like the people who were making these stories and killing these characters off and not bringing them back within a year or so were just people who like

they didn't give a fuck about Norman Osborne that was just a character they had and there's another character they can create anyway but it was it was Jerry Conway who killed off Norman Osborne. Thank you. But he was, what, like 21 years old at the time?

Having, like, you know, been involved in the book business for about five years already by that point. So I think it's safe to say he was a fan. Okay. Of comics and Marvel in particular. He even had, like, a letter

that he'd written into the Fantastic Four like posted in the page when he was 13 years old so yeah he was a fan but I think maybe I don't know I think it was just like a different area back then where dead was dead in a lot of cases

like Norman died Gwen died that was it they weren't going to break their own sort of rules to bring him back but then as the years have gone on and like you know there's value to be had in these popular characters, they keep finding ways to bring him back.

And so it's the same, like, if they did kill off Dr. Doom, they would never have the patience to keep him on the shelf for more than, like, five years at the most. Because, yeah, they would want him back. They would want him back by the time Doom's Day comes out. Right. But that's...

I was going to say, like, Wolverine, they killed Wolverine off and had him dead in the comics of years but even then they got around it by having like Old Man Logan and then they introduced like the ultimate universe Wolverine as well in some

comics Jimmy Logan or whatever his name was who has since been completely forgotten about and ignored and it's just like yeah they'll always find a way to kind of still you know be able to

use those characters even if they're not technically around anymore because they've got comics to spell basically how long was Jean Grey gone like do you think that that's

it's an it's an impatience issue yeah I think can see that with progressing where people want to get to the end of the story without watching the buildup and they don't realize

the buildup is the story but they want to pay off as quick as they can get it and it's the same of comics like is that the editor's and the writer is just trying to like, oh, we sell more comics when the Green Goblins alive,

let's bring it back? Or is it a case of the fans going, oh, we like the Green Goblin, we're seeing, let's bring it back. You know, I miss the Green Goblin. I want more Green Goblin. Like, is it a mix of the two, or is it one or the other? It seems like an impatient thing. Or, I mean, or like you said, it's more like a money thing,

whether they're like, we know that we can sell comics. with Norman Osborne in them so let's just keep putting let's make him carnage let's make him venom let's make him whatever you know let's just keep him involved but I think there's more my lease to be had in the idea of the story the buildup the intrigue like if you kill them off obviously the problem they have now is they can't kill Norman Osranov because they made it very clear that that fucker will never die. So he's here for the long run. But somebody liked Dr. Doom and

you know, like her play for them for killing up Wolverine for five years because that's longer than we thought he would be dead. But even then, five years isn't that long. It's not long enough for people to forget about him. The trick where this stuff is, you need people to kind of move on. Yeah.

Before you bring it. People are still like, we gotta get Wolverine back. They're still, you know, they believe he's coming back to, you know, you haven't fooled them enough. You haven't dragged the wall over their eyes yet. You need to get past that point before you bring somebody back. And I just think people don't have the patience for that anymore. They just don't, you know, things, culture has moved on. And we've seen it with pro wrestling, we've seen with other stuff.

You see with Netflix, people, you'll be. We used to watch TV shows once a week, and now people watch the TV shows in one night. They'll just sit and watch it all on Netflix. I actually had that conversation with someone because they were upset that they loaded only half of the season of Wednesday. And not the whole thing. I'm like, man, do you remember back when you would just have to watch it week by week? You watched it when somebody else told you when to watch it. Yeah.

You didn't get a choice. Friday, yeah. You watched it. If you wanted to watch it, that's when you were there. This day and this time, and if you don't watch it, either it gets repeated later on the week or you're fucked. You've missed it. That's why we used to have tape recorders, you know? I think it's just a culture that everybody's so impatient and they want everything, like immediately.

And I don't know if that's because they've been given everything immediately or if people are just, becoming more and more impatient as a society but you see it in comics a lot I think I think that's a problem is that people just want stuff you know and I also think and this is a resting thing as well I think that people the the creatives the writers take too much stick in the fans opinions you know they listen to that too much. They go, oh, they want this guy, so we should put this guy in it. Because I think that you, as a creative, can't rely 100% on what the audience wants from you.

You have to give the audience what you think they want. I think that's a really important thing. And I think that that is maybe disappearing in just all of popular culture these days. people aren't being surprised anymore. They're being given what executives think the people want and what the people seem to be crying for. What I think in terms of popular culture, people don't know what they want until they get it.

You know, like, if you go back 20 years from now, 20 years ago, would you have said that society was clamoring for a show like Game of Thrones. You know, they weren't. Yeah. You gave them a show the Game of Thrones and then they loved it. And they wanted more Game of Thrones.

But the creatives had to make that choice first to give the people that and then the people made that decision. Seemed of breaking bad. If you went back to the year 2000 and go, do you want to see a show that the cunt from Malcolm in the middle is doing drugs in a caravan in the desert?

You'd be like, no. What the fuck? talking about I don't want to see that show but then they meet that show and it was amazing people were like we want more shows like breaking bad and I think that's part of the problem too is that people are getting behind in creative when they should be getting the head you know I think it comes down to nostalgia a lot of the time as well like we're in such a heavy like nostalgia like influence era right now like if you look at some of the movies that come out it's all sort of familiar IP and stuff which people are already kind of invested in,

whereas it's much harder to kind of do something new that kind of grabs people, because it's almost too much of a risk. And I guess it's the same with comics as well. That's probably the reason why they keep going back to the status quo, keep going back to, you know, like the 90s X-Men that we all grow. it's like that's just the easy thing that like people will you know naturally gravitate towards so that's the weird thing though right there's been a generation beyond us there's a generation uh z kids or the generation the generation z kids just not read comic books because if that was the

case would they not be the ones that would be pushing more for well actually no fuck because i was thinking about that because you were mentioning it but i remember there was that period of time where like the X-Men lineup, like astonishing, looked a little more like a Claremont, you know, lineup with Kitty Pride being the main character, you know, and it being Cyclops. And instead of, you know, Gene Gray, it was Emma,

but it was a smaller lineup about four or five characters. Because I was just thinking, like, because that was also that period of time that they brought back Green Air, they brought back Oliver Queen and Hal Jordan and Barry Allen as the, you know, the Silver Age version of the characters who had been replaced by 90s versions. of, you know, Green Lantern and Green Arrow in the Flash.

So I was, like, wondering, like, well, does that mean at some point in the next coming years, we're going to see, you know, I push, we're going to see, like, the young X-Men, the all-new X-Men taking over lineups? Because, like, the generation, like, our generation that grew up watching the 90s X-Men cartoon, we will have effectively aged out, and the next group after us would be, like, oh, finally, we can have a comic with Rock Slide and Dusk, or Dust. either that or it's like that in a circle though like if people grown up reading those astonishing X-Men comics where it was like the lineup from the Claremont era then it's just going to repeat itself over again in like 20 years time or whatever I will say I am looking forward to the day that we do our deep dive episode on Kitty Pride because I cannot wait to talk about how much I have always despised that character no I think Kitty Pride is one of those boring characters

the fucking world and I don't care how many man crushes you know Claremont and Joss Whedon and whoever else had on her I do not care for Kitty Bride do you care for it Like are you talking about like from an X-Men front Well

female because you were talking about people helping crushes on Kitty Pride Well yeah that was the reason why Claremont and Joss Whiten and stuff like they make her like the central focus character Jerry Duggan did the same your old girl. Yeah, Jerry Duggan was also, well,

Josh, that's Josh Whedon, though. Yeah. There are stories. He was allowed to be alone with Michelle Tractonberg. Listen, to me, I don't want to defend what you just said, because that's going to make me look really bad right now. But, we can't keep having any conversation. He started off, right, and then he put her in the bullet

and then fucked her way off in the space. Yeah. He, like, he got rid of Kenny Pry. Yeah, but then. that was him. He left the book shortly after did he not? Yeah. Yeah. That could be a sign of him like not trusting Marvel not to fuck with her after he left. He got rid of Kitty Pride for a long time.

She was away for a while. Yeah. But yeah, that's what I'm saying is that sounds like, so for example, like, right, James Robinson wrote Jack Knight's Starman. And part of like his work with Starman was he has an agreement with DC. They will never use that character again

unless he gives them permission to. I wonder if there was a period of time where that was kind of the same deal with Kitty Pride. The Joss Whedon was like, hey, don't bring her back. Maybe I'll come back and do that for you. I don't believe that. I don't understand the point you're trying to make that,

like, you're defending Joss Whiten's use of Kitty Pride and that he didn't favor her because he effectively removed her from the book at the end. Because to me, that reads as, I don't trust anyone else to write Kitty Pride, aside for me. So I'm going to take her off the board until I decide I want to come back. Okay, because to me, it says, Here's Kitty Pride.

I'm just going to get rid of her, and then that's, then she's not here anymore. But he got rid of her after and making her the main character on the book for multiple, for like how many years? Was she the main character in the book? She absolutely was the main character of Astonishing. He was a very big part of it, yeah. Okay. I didn't read the whole run.

I read the first. what was the first one? Is it Danger? Yeah, I think it was... Well, Danger was definitely one of the first ones, yes. I read, I know I read Danger, so I read whatever the first run, and I think I read the second run,

but I don't remember Kitty Pride being like, fucking big boss, whatever. Well, it wasn't... Anyway, whatever, this... I also had a problem with her beating, like, beating up Emma Frost in a fight. I understand she got the jump on her and everything, but, you know, high-level telepath

and also could turn into a diamond. It just felt a little, you know, scuffed. That I think was good. Yes, I think Emma Pross as a character is a much more interesting and better written and more fun character than Kitty Pride. But to go back to your question. Kitty also did get trained as a ninja by Wolverine.

Of course she did. Because of Claremont. Wolverine trained all of his young protégion. I used to be ninja, so that's not, you know. But yeah, yeah, what I mean is, like, so to answer your question, like, female character X-Men-wise, Emma Frost, Magic, Silo. And I'll be specific, I prefer the Quanan version of Silo. I'm not a big Betsy Braddock fan.

Okay. I like Jubilee. But Jubilee's good, sparingly. You don't want to use too much of her. Rogue. Yes. I would have said Rogue or I would have said Cylock but the quantum version not the

best of the question. Yeah. I agree with you. I know the other thing. Okay. Oh, Storm. Storm. Yeah, I'll do. I enjoy Storm. Big Final Storm. I think of great, like, female characters that are well written. Not a Gene Gray person. Huh? I'm not a Gene Gray person. Gene Gray, it depends

from writer the writer. Yeah. I think. A lot of that, I will say, absolutely. has to come from the animated series where for the longest time her characterization is she gets a headache and yells out scott's name and passes out that happened a lot there were two things that i remember from no you know what there were three things i remember from the animated series one was cable would like come back in time and do something they go back for in time and goes nothing changed my son is still dead all the time yeah uh the second thing was bishop like when he would go through time, he would, like, fall through, like, a big, squirty portal. Yeah. Do you remember? Right?

Every time. And the third thing I remember is that, like, every, every single episode, Gene Gray would use her powers, sparingly, and then go, oh, I've got a headache. And I'm like, she doesn't seem cool, man. She seems like a real boss. They really did her a disservice, I think, for sure. Because if you need the comics, she's the exact opposite. She's the most fucking power from the telepath in the world.

and in the TV show she couldn't do a fucking thing I think that's because the writers of the TV show were like if we make Jean Grey be the most powerful telepath in the world she'll just fix all the problems immediately by being the most powerful telepath in the world And also makes Xavier look like a weirdo because he's just also there It's like I can do what you can do but not quite as good

Yeah like she would just Like whatever the problem is she would fix it Because she's the most amazing telepath So they had to like weaken her somehow to make her like on the same level as all of the other peons in the X-Men um but that's like one of the things i remember the most is like every episode oh my head i'm like oh you you've done this for years dude john what are your jean great did you ever see the um i was going to say did you ever see the tumbler by an artist called max yes i think where he or he i'm not sure uh their pronouns but

They grew, like, all these little comics where Dean was, like, using her powers really, like, sort of passive aggressively and just, like, an absolute bitch, like, the whole time. And fucking with people, and they were still funny. Like, I highly recommend checking them out. They're still on Tumblr. Okay. What's it called? Yeah. Hold on, I'll like, I'll put one in our group chat.

Oh yeah, yeah, perfect. But yeah, there's like a whole bunch of them where she's just like really fucking with Scott and making him like go to the fridge to get like a can of beer or something because she's got a headache or he's getting like some premonition of like oh the shiarra coming oh please get me a beer. It's got like it's just over there It's good fun You got that comic really quick I'm familiar with it for sure They're really funny

Do you ever saved? No, I just knew what to look for Right Well Yeah, that was pretty good I was gonna say like I mean that sounds like we should probably Knock this one on the head

before we go any longer. We've been on for, at least in our, right? Yeah. We can keep going and cut the wrestling talk out, but, you know. Do we have any good thoughts and whatever the fuck we talked about today? We should kill off Dr. Doom. I think maybe, like, and I think this is for both companies, everyone would benefit if just for two years,

you just let the writers write stories and not have to worry. about giant event books or earth-shattering, you know, changes. Just let the characters exist so that when you do these things, they mean more. Because I reckon that's... This also, I think, it ties into the clone saga as well. Was it like they were about to end the clone saga, and then they got a new editor who was working on the X-Men books, and the editor said, hey, man, I know you want to end the clone saga,

but I'm about to do this big multi-universe onslaught book so I don't want that to tie in with the same end as the clone saga so can you like extend your thing for like six months and the Spider-Man guys are like we've been working on this for two years yeah why can we do it for another six months but that's the thing like once they start bringing in these big across of redatorials

it starts to ruin the individual books because then you're like, now I have to time my story that I have plotted and written into some other big cacophony that you've just concocted yourself that I was not privy to.

Like, there's a lot of that. I think if they did cut that down a lot, they try to do it once a year or more, if they just did it once every couple of years and let, or didn't use all the characters in it, and that the writers just write the stories they want to write without having to fix stuff. every six months to put it into a big fucking galactic story

I agree I think that would be a much better idea John do you have any closing thoughts you like Kui Pryde I mean I do I like Kittie Pry but I have just finished reading like the second volume of the Marauders

from you feel about that you know correct good grief is one of the worst comic books I've ever ever read. Yeah, Jerry Duggan. Wow. Jerry Duggan is somebody who I think outwore his welcome. Oh, this was Steve Orlando, I believe.

No, Jerry Duggan, who wrote this one. So this is after Orlando. Yeah. This was after Duggan. Okay. Yeah. Duggan didn't do himself in the Frives on the X-Men book. I kind of enjoyed his run on the Marauders, but like, yeah, this Steve

Orlando book was fucking wank, where they basically went back in time and kickstarted like a mutant race which happened like billions of years in the planet's past like before mankind even existed it's just like this is who thought this was a good idea this makes no fucking sense

but ehio we'll save that for another episode another episode uh john what's your movie count at for the year so far uh let's see I am currently up to

690 That is a good amount there Not bad What was your most recent one? It was a Charles Bronson movie Called Messenger of Death Where he didn't actually kill anyone Which is like a first for a Charles Bronson movie

At least that I've seen Yeah So yeah It was all right It wasn't it was like sort of a mystery thriller except the mystery was pretty obvious from the get-go, so... There you go? Yeah, never mind.

All right, John, where can they go to find your more in-depth review of that Charles Bronson film, whose title I just completely spaced on? A view to kill. They can go to Letterbox, and I am there as Big John Bowsky, all one word. Dylan, what are you up to these days? Well, I do a radio show. Sorry, I just, I crashed there for a second. That's good.

I got to reset. I do a really show on Monday nights from 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock UK time. It's on Bynchidigitalradio.cote. You can check it out in the link in the description, I would imagine. I play a lot of cool music that you might not have heard before. And some music you have heard before, if you like grunge music from the 90s. So I played out

Pearl Jam and Sun Garden and Red Hot Tilly Peppers but also stuff you haven't heard of before such as if you guys heard of the band called Bad Nerves You can't say that happened. The name rings about. I actually saw them live last week and they were really great.

But there's other bands they play last week in terms of recording this episode, you should say. So I do a lot. Check the show out if you want 9 o'clock to 11 o'clock UK time on Monday nights it's great

a lot of fun and then I also stream on Twitch at Spooky LaRue it's a lot of art stuff so I draw animations and stuff and try to finish

animations it takes a long time that's by stream it so you can see how keenstakingly along the animation process is and sometimes to draw our thumbnails on

the live as well so that's something to look forward to. Yeah, I don't know if we've ever established. I mean, I think we've talked about it a little bit. I don't know if we've ever formally established all the thumbnails are designed by you. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, here's the thing. You can cut this, but I'd want. Like, a few weeks ago, Mr. Beast did this thing where he had this new AI technology where, like, you could go to other people's thumbnails

and put the link into this AI thing and then give us something. prompts and it would try to copy the AI would copy a version of that artist's thumbnails for you okay I thought a wouldn't it be really funny if this AI computer copied my shitty drawings as thumbnails so I put our address into the thing and it didn't recognize it so I'm like did I break did I break the mystery Beast AI thing. It just couldn't.

It just refused to copy our thumbnail. So I'm like, that's an anti-AI software. Nobody can copy us. There you go. Unique. There we go.

I think the one thing you can't say with the thumb-nails is they're unique. They are certainly unique. That's why we love them so much. As for me, I have another show called Large Old Cup. I have another thing I'm working on that you might hear more about in the future. We'll see. But until next time,

we'll see you guys later. Goodbye. Goodbye. Bye.