The Smark Avengers - Vol 4, Ep 4: The Smark Avengers! (Minus One) Talk About Recent Cancelled X-Men Books

Episode Date: March 21, 2025

The world of comics is full of relaunches, new status quos, and brand new eras and the X-Men certainly are not immune. After the end of Krakoa, the X-Men have returned From The Ashes... however not every phoenix makes it to the sky. Join Corey and Dylan as the Smark Avengers discuss the From the Ashes era of the X-Men and the first books sacrificed to the cancellation gods!

Yeah, put in the comments. Nuck if you buck, as the saying goes. What? You ever heard of Nuck if you buck? What are you saying? Fair enough. What is that? What does that mean?

Nuck if you buck? What? You haven't explained it. You buck. Buck? Yeah, Buck. Like it's, you know how like sometimes someone say, are you feeling froggy? Like you want to like you want to get up in someone's face?

Oh, yeah. Buck kind of like a horse. So, knock a buck. Oh. I don't like that. You don't like it? No. Take it back.

Cut this book. Got this bit out. Hi, everybody. Well, Spark of Injuries. My name is Corey. With him is Dylan. And John is not with us. John is doing stuff.

He's with us in spirit. Always in spirit. Well, his face is on the screen like it always is. Yeah. You know, you know, I was going to say, like, for the thumbnail for the last episode, he should be dressed as Daredevil because he told me that Daredevil is like one of his top favorite characters. And I feel like we should.

Yeah, yeah. I see, that surprised me too. Huh. I was like, oh, yeah, do you read a lot of Daredevil? He's like, yeah, I'm like, 60 issues away from like having the entire Daredevil run. Like, the entire run. He's like, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, John's a huge Daredevil fan is why I learned from last week. Also, he's blind. John is blind. Yeah, he has to read all the comics. He owns, like, all. him but he can't read him. Yep. It's a shame. Yeah. It was a real gift of the Magi situation.

Like he's like, oh man, I can't read, you read all these comics with my eyes. And then he lost his eyes in an accident. Yeah, I just dropped his eyes on a well, you know. And then the eyes were found by a comic book. And the comic book is like, oh, man, I'd love to read something with these, but I can't because I don't have comic book to read. Yeah, because I am a comic book? Yeah.

just like Gift of the Magi Exactly like that thing That you said All right Anyway Today we are going to talk about One of our favorite topics Talk about

And that's the X-Men Dylan You love the X-Men Do Corey, do you love the X-Men? I do Do you love the X-Men more than Sonic the Hedgehog too?

I do Oh Don't ask it to me Don't ask you Okay I don't know the answer. Even though we're an X-Men podcast. We're not an X-Men podcast.

So, Dylan, you are aware, well-aware of all the Carcoa storylines that ran for like five years at Marvel, a big push to, we're putting the X-Men in a new setting where they're basically in a utopia, which is not the actual utopia. They did that previously. This is a living island where they could do. declare themselves a sovereign nation where they didn't have to worry about getting ill or dying and they terraformed a whole fucking planet to also live on and it was all sunshine lollipops and rainbows for the mutant population in the Kirkcowa era correct nothing bad ever happened nothing that ever happened and they all lived happily ever after exactly until uh orcus and sentinels fucked it all up.

Wow. The Sennels will do that to you, man. Don't ruin you. And Prokowa is gone and now the X-Men are back in a world that hates and fears them. Probably because for about five years they were kind of lording the fact that

like, hey, guess what? We don't die now. And we also have plants that can't cure, any illness in the world. You can't have any. Well, no, they're like you can have some, but your government has to agree to sanctions that they will not attack us and stuff. Yeah. So yeah, no.

So they still have those plants? Those plants? I don't. I don't think they do. That's going to be difficult to negotiate with it. And the five, which are the five mutants who, when they combine their powers, could resurrect people effectively. Well, at least one of them is dead for sure. We know that.

So that ain't happening either. And one of them is maybe dead? Who's the one that might be dead? Egg. Oh, egg might be dead. I'm just making it up. Honestly, though, if your power was just I can make egg, I feel like you don't have a lot. high survival rate.

I am flabbergasted that they were like, we're going to keep this guy around for as long as we can. This one fucking guy, this stupid gold ball. Goals deadly enough. He's going to be sticking around forever and ever. You know, it is really horrific when you think about, like, when they were resurrected, they were busting out of eggs. Yeah. It feels weird. Well, you think chickens do it all the time.

Yeah, but would you want to be birthed from an egg? I would just feel like it was kind of like, remember in the, uh, the Matrix, like when you first get woken up and you're in the big, like, fluid sack. Yeah. I remember being the fluid sack, Corey. There you go. I remember that a lot. I'm just saying, what would you rather be coming out of an egg or just dead forever?

Hmm. Think about it. Hmm. Hmm. Well, anyway, so the good times did not last forever. And the Marvel world kicked off a new era. of the Mutants once more with from the ashes, a series of books that came out

intermittently through the following months after the Krokoa era ended. So, this was the synopsis of this event, of this launch. Over their 60-year history, the X-Men have been many things, outcasts, teachers, revolutionaries, heroes, above all, there are species, and the future is still theirs for the taking. Crocoa showed the world what Homo superior is truly capable of, And now the X-Men have to fight harder than ever to keep Professor X's dream alive.

The three-core series will approach the X-Men's vital mission with distinct and relevant perspectives while remaining faithful to the storytelling power of the mutant metaphor. This is only the beginning. So from the Ashes kicked off a whole bunch of series. The first thing that came was like an online exclusive comic X-Men from the Ashes Infinity, which I think was just detailing like how Gene Gray got the Phoenix back. She got it through the post. Yep, got it in the post. Meal. You guys would say mail.

The mail, yes. We would say the post. I don't know why. Well, it's kind of like where you, like we say gas and you say petrol, even though like petrol makes maybe more sense than gas. Because when you think gas, you think of the element. Yeah, you think of like that the element of it, not necessarily the fact that it is a liquid that is going into your vehicle. It is weird where they're like, yeah, they're just pouring gas in the. your car. I'm like, I don't think you can pour gas.

Yeah. Well, honestly, they probably should just call it by its full thing of gasoline, but we have a really nasty habit to try and to abbreviate things. Why don't I just call it Olean? There you go. That sounds way better. I can go put some Olin in my car, you know? Sounds great. Well, there you go. Get this to catch on, guys. There we go. So that was in June of 2024. In July of...

Did you read it? Yes. The online one? No, I don't have the Mar- Marvel Infinity service. I don't have that Gobbins. But we have that website where we can read. No, we don't have that website. No, we don't have any websites. But if we did, you could read it there probably.

Whatever you do, don't say I'd lie, whatever the name of that website is. Because we don't know what it is. So yeah, From the Ashes appears to just be kind of bonus content kind of books. Like I'm looking at it right here of like there's some Gene Gray and Cyclone. and Xavier's storylines. Omega Red had a storyline through it. Some girl that's gold. She's there. Bird.

Bird has a big story for himself. We all love Bird. He's Bird. Bird. Beak. Beak? He's called Bird? Well, I don't know. I just thought him as bird for some reason, but his name is beak. Wait.

Barnel Bull Husk. Yeah, but. Didn't he get the part at them day? Well, yeah, no, but he got his powers back as a result of Krakowah shenanigans. To how that works? Well, so here's the fucked up thing. We'll talk about that. We won't, I've been really respectful of John, like, reading it.

So we just will have to tell John, hey, don't maybe listen to this episode. Because I don't know how far along into the X-books he's gotten. And we talked a little bit about it yesterday. And he's a little, he's for, he's pretty far along. I don't know how committed he is reading everything, but I know he hasn't touched X-Force at all. Okay. And I thought that was wild because X-Force is one of the better-written ones.

Yeah. He got all of Excalibur. He can't read it. Remember, he doesn't have many eyes. Yeah, exactly. He puts his hand on the page and feels the little bumps from the ink. Is that how that works? Probably not, no.

Anyway, so in July of 2024, they officially launched these books, The first four came out in July, and that was the X-Men, Volume 7, and that is the Cyclops-led team by McKay and Stegman. There is Phoenix, Volume 1, which is a first time for that character to have her own book. So that's a Volume 1. We have NYX, Volume 2, and we have X-Force, Volume 7. Shortly after that, in the month of August, 2024, we have the Uncanny X-Men, which is the Gail-Simone, led X-Men book, X Factor.

And they counted this as part of it, but Storm joined the Avengers in issue 17. So they kind of rolled that into, because it did have part of the, from the ashes, is Storm becoming an Avenger. Okay. Your thoughts on Storm as an Avenger? Is she still an Avenger? Yes. Okay.

I mean, I like Storm. I guess it was my thoughts. Okay. I like Storm. In September of 2024, we got the exceptional X-Men, which is the Emma Frost Kitty Pride book, Wolverine, and Wolverine Volume 8, by the way, that's how many volumes of that has been. Well, here's the thing. You said, like, X-Force is on, like, Volume 7, and Wolverine's on Volume 8? You would think that Wolverine would have way more than X-Force.

Honestly, I think it's because, like, the Wolverine books of the 90s didn't relaunch as often. As you get like into the 2000s and 2010s is where we start seeing relaunches happen. Every time they relaunch with a new number one, it's a new volume. So X-Cars has relaunched considerably the last few years. Yeah, they just can't find a good lineup that they like. Well, and they don't want to continue the numbering because number one's sell. As we know. Speaking of number ones, yep, we certainly do.

This is episode four volume, episode four volume four. So our first limited series of the launch is Dazzler, Volume 3. It's a mini. In October of 2024, we get the Storm Solo book, the miniseries Sentinels, and the miniseries Mystique. And then in November, we get the last of this round, essentially, which is Cylok number one, which is focusing on the Cylok that's on Cyclops' team, which is the Japanese Ninja Kwanen. not the British Betsy Braddock. Is she Siloac as well? Yes, yes. So they are both Silo.

They both call Silag. Yes. Now, what's confusing to me is the Excalibur book made a big deal about how Betsy became Captain Britain because her brother Brian was no longer worthy of wielding Excalibur. Because of all the crimes. Because of the crimes. I bet it had to do with the fact that he sided with Harry in the royal feud. They're like, what, he's not for the queen? Get rid of him.

He's no longer our captain. That would make sense, actually, because if they love the queen, even though she's dead, they still love her. Yeah, they love her more than Charles, who might be dead soon. Who knows? He doesn't look healthy. That's true. He's got a weird face. That's not.

that's just he can't do on the bite that he just has a weird face well that means it's just the imbreeding I mean that's what happens those royal lines they got to stay pure they just love their own cousins that's what they

like you know and they know what they like they like they like stealing stuff from other countries and then putting it in their house and go look what we got but when I do it it's a crime that's true So, Dylan, of these books that we have mentioned, based off of title alone, are there any that sounds interesting to you that you would read?

I want to know what the Sentinel wants to provide. That's a good question. So I remember when they announced Sentinel and thinking, like, okay, that's certainly a choice. So Sentinels, I'll read you the solicitation for it. It's about Sentinels. Thanks. Pretty much, honestly. who are the new sentinels the original sentinel program was human supremacy and fear coated into circuitry

but now their legacy falls into the hands of mutankind powered by cutting edge nanotech this new generation of sentinels protects a fragile piece between mutants and humans but when being a sentinel is your job your life is it possible to stay human so the sentinels are being piloted by people yeah yeah they are these are characters their names are they're all brand new characters lockstep Voivod sawtooth shell back and drum fire those are the

Sentinels Drumfire Drumfire Sounds pretty fucking scary I want to stay away from that guy Stay away from drum fire You don't want to be You want to be playing with your band

And you look around the drum kits on fire That's like what the butthole surfers used to do They'd cover a symbol and gasoline and light it on fire and hit it and, like, shoot flame balls up in the air. Yeah. Do you like the bubble surfers? Oh, they're right. I like them. Good.

Yeah. Well, that was our butthole surfer podcast. It did not last as long as we thought it would. No. Not as much you could really say it without, like, really going into the details. We like to keep it light and breezy. That's what we're well known for. That's exactly what we're going to do.

Not going into details. So anyway, tell me some more details about the details. X-Men colleagues. Sure. So, like I said, a lot of these are mini-series that ended shortly. I know they've also launched a couple more books recently. Like, Magic has her own title right now. That's, it's not considered part of the From the Ashes.

I think the From Her Ashes was just kind of this initial launch. But really, the three main books, the three heavy hitters that the main thing that, that synopsis that I read at the beginning is X-Men, Uncanny X-Men, and Exceptional X-Exman. Each of them are supposed to embody an element of what made the X-Men the X-Men. The regular X-Men title is like a strike force team. They go on missions. The uncanny X-Men team is sort of more of that slice of life living in the Xavier Institute kind of thing, like focused on the relationships. And then the exceptional X-Men is all about teaching the new generation of mutants.

So the student-teacher aspect of it. So those are the main books that kind of like encapsulated it and then they just threw in some other books because, you know, can't help ourselves. So the reason that I thought we would talk today is the solicitations for May of 2025 have been making the rounds. And in it we have our first wave of ongoing canceled from the Ashes X books. And these are the books that did not do well and will not make it past, I think issue 10 all of them are going to be ended on. that's not good yeah so i thought we'd break down you know one at a time read the main solicitation go over the characters and kind of see if we could figure out why people just didn't really want to read it so didn't want to read it because um and one of the issues quen inquire tries to

kill colossus by putting that bag over his head choking him at death and then um poised on his throat people just weren't into that they're like this isn't believable you know it works so Colossus always seems to be wearing his outfit which is the little red trunks

all the time everyone's like everybody else is wearing regular clothes and he's not and so it's really awkward like why is he not dressed yeah well he's made out of metal yeah only when he wants to be wow

so anyway Dylan we have NYX which had two volumes we have X Factor with five volumes and X-Force was seven. So which of these would you like to dive into first? Let's start with what was the first one? NYX. See that one.

Okay. So NYX first, like I said, that's going to be ending on issue 10 in May. And here is the synopsis for the series. This is NYX. This isn't a book about X-Men. This is a book about mutants living past the end of their world and into a new beginning. This is Miss Marvel, embracing her mutant life in the neon streets of the Lower East Side. This is a knoll trying to keep his head above water. This is Wolverine in the shadows

of Bushwick protecting her own. This is the prodigy, not the prodigy, that'd have been fucking wild. This is prodigy writing history as it happens, and Sophie Kuku finding her own way. The news reports are bleak. The streets feel dangerous. There's something lurking underground. Evil coming from every direction, but they're determined to make it. This is mutant community. This is mutant pride. This is NYX. You delivered that very, very well. Thank you.

I really, I really bought it. They should have got you to read that advert because then everybody would have been like, dude, this sounds awesome. Really? I'm glad that you thought that it was awesome because it sounds like readers didn't care for it too much if it's ending on issue 10. What was the thing that was on the grind? The thing that was underground, I believe if memory serves, like the big antagonist in the first few issues, I think it just now got resolved. Big snake.

Well, no, there was a new mutant terrorist called the Kirk Cohen. Yeah. Yep, the Kirk Cohen. And with the reveal that he was a former student of Xavier's former student of him. Frost named Helian who had gone bad and decided that you know the guy called Hellion went bad get out of time yes guy named Hellion nice boy when I saw him a church he seemed like such a nice boy so Helian um his powers are telekinesis and he was in like the new X-man and young X-Men books in the 2000s and like his character trait was pretty much that like

he wasn't he's an arrogant kid that was of the firm belief that because he's a mutant, he should be superior to everyone. So he has an ego. He's got an attitude. And he took the name Hellion because he was originally assigned to be tutored by one of the regular X-Men professors, I think maybe Rogue. And he turned it down and transferred to Emma Frost's group instead because Emma, Emma kind of enjoyed the students that were a little rougher around the edges. So he took the name Hellian as a kind of tribute to her letting him join. Aw.

Yeah. Yeah. So the main characters of this book are Kamala Khan, Miss Marvel, who I mentioned earlier in a group chat that we're in that Miss Marvel is kind of this character that Marvel will not give up on.

Yeah, they're really high on her. They really want to push her. They really want her to get over. Good, God bless them. People just don't seem to bite. No. So real quick, Miss Marvel was introduced in the storyline where the inhumans unleashed the Tarragon mists and it activated the inhuman gene in several regular everyday humans. And Kamala Khan was one of those people who had an inhuman gene in her and she got her powers to stretch and change the shape of her body and size and what have you, kind of like a teenage Mr. Fantastic. and she took the name Miss Marvel

because she was a Miss Marvel fan girl and through several books, whether it was her own solo or champions, she came to be a beloved and respected character. She ended up getting killed in the Spider-Man comic of all things and they were able to resurrect her in Crocoa because it turns out she's not been in inhuman

this entire time. She's actually been a mutant. Now, I need someone to make sense of that to me because the big problem with the inhumans versus X-Men storyline was that the Terrigan Mists killed mutants. Like that was a big that was a big part part of that. Yeah, that's how the Eclipse was killed. So, um, so yeah, somehow like the Terrigan Mists activated her inhuman gene, but didn't kill her despite the fact she's a mutant. I don't know. But anyway, uh, she got put into the X-Men book for a while that Jerry Duggan, I think, was writing towards the end of the Kakoa era.

And NYX, I mean, she is featured front and center of the comic. So she is the main character for all intents purposes. The other characters are Sophie Kuku from the stuff for Kukus. Anul, who is one of the new X-Men, the Lord Kenny X-23 Wolverine, Prodigy, who is also of the new X-Men? And there you go. It's not really like the most exciting of lineups, is it? you don't really see all those guys and go god dang and old's in this one guy gotta get in here you know like if they're like your lead guys you're not a lot of them aren't really like

obviously they're pushing miss marvel and wolverine is wolvering the name alone gets her over but the you know the rest and we're kind of like are is that going to get people interested you know well are you familiar with the first NYX comic no really. Okay, so that was 2003. So it's been like 20 years since the original NYX. And that was a miniseries that was about homeless teenage mutant characters. They were Kiden who had the ability to freeze time, Tatiana who could shape shift, Bobby, Bobby who body shifted. His little brother named Little Bro, who I don't think they have revealed what his powers were until later on. X-23. That was one of her first early appearances. And then this other character who was just a human

named Cameron. So it was a very, you had a big cult following. A lot of people really love teenage characters, especially like teenage mutant characters, especially like on the online spaces. So I could see them thinking like, let's recapture this magic by, you know, putting these same kind of characters in the book. Because this will be a weird thing to say, but we'll say it. A lot of these characters are also of also gay or bisexual or members of the LGBT community. And that, you know, there is a very large fan base for people who are super supportive of those characters. So like a knoll and prodigy definitely are. I don't know if Sophie or Laura Kinney or Kamala Khan are though. I hadn't heard that. Okay. So I don't know, you have liked the Stepfords,

right? Yes. Okay. So the villains of this series are called themselves the Quiet Council of Crocoa and it's Impath who is an OG Helian. The Crocoon who we mentioned is Helian and also the other step for cuckus, Celeste, Mindy, Phoebe, and Esme. Oh, right. They're all back again now. I forgot. Yep. All of them are back again, Crocoa. Yeah. Yep. So those are the villains of the run.

So like I said, this was sort of like the slice of life kind of teenage characters, which those books always are very popular online, but I have to admit, like, as an adult man, I don't know if I could write a book like that. Have you ever, have you, do you, have you ever read like the young, like books focused on like the younger characters? I don't think so. So, like, you've never read like Young event. or like books about the sidekicks or anything? No. Sidekicks? Why are I reading the books about the sidekicks when I can be reading the main event?

You know what you mean? There you go. Who wants to read a book about fucking sidekicks or whatever? I mean, you do. You like Robin. Yeah. He's a psychic. Yeah.

I think. Well, Nightwing isn't, but yeah, used to be. Yeah. You know, you know what I'm talking. Well, let's not get about that. It's a whole other. Yeah, it's a whole other kettle of fish. A lot of Robbins.

I'm not going to be. end of that. So anyway, so this book obviously, like I said, did not go well. I know that it was revealed very recently that Helian was simply in over his head and he wasn't actually killing people. And because he had an X-23 had a romance from her previous solo series, which I don't know if you've ever read that one, but I think you might like it because Gambit plays a really

big part in it. So it is a, it's a Laura Kenny's solo book. And it's, I think it takes place concurrently as the X-Force run where it was the Kill Squad. And Gambit is sort of acting as like a big brother to her because it's like Wolverine had resigned himself to the idea of like, she's a clone of me, she's exactly like me, she doesn't need a mentor, she needs stuff to kill. And Gambit's like, that's a teenage girl. She needs somebody to look out for her. So yeah, that was NYX based off. of the synopsis and some of the characters involved,

like, why do you think this book failed? Well, because guys, nobody cares. You know what I mean? Like I said, I don't think a lot of those characters are,

like, super interesting to lead a book. They're great support guys, but like, if that's, if that's your X-Men team, wouldn't you look at an X-Men team like that and be like,

a little overwhelmed, you know? It's a bit. Yeah. I think just honestly, I think that's what, this people just you know it's it it it feels the kind of thing we're like if they had one good story to tell they could make that into like a mini series and then have that team pop up from

time to time or whatever but to try and make that like a long running series with i i don't really i don't i don't buy that and obviously nobody else did yeah well like i told you like in our separate chat it's you know they are very determined on making this marvel a thing and it's like it's another it's another series that she was in gets canceled early you know yeah i mean again to go to something that we had talked about off mike the you know as that happens a lot wouldn't you look at those signs and think maybe we need to change something or would you just be pick-headed and go nope there everybody else is wrong we're going to keep doing we keep doing it and it's going to be great you know i i i i don't care but miss marvel you know i have no opinion one way or the other

she seems like a nice character but you know if people aren't digging her they're not digging her you know and they've counsel like you know more popular characters on that they really have so uh well would you like to jump over into x factor or x force okay xx Factor is that we're familiar with X Factor yes the prior the prior versions of X Factor this is the fifth incarnation of X Factor X Factor volume one was the original five X-Men posing as mutant hunters while secretly like rescuing saving mutants volume two is the Peter David run yeah volume three was the Peter David run starting again with Madrox as the main character as opposed to havoc.

Volume 4. No, actually, no, that's still continued volume 2. Volume 3 is, there was this like run where X Factor was owned by this corporation and like Gambit and Quicksilver were members. It didn't last very long. Shame. Volume 4 was the, in the Kerkowa era where they were like detectives, but like one of the main characters was Eyeboy, who is gimmick as he's covered in eyeballs.

Yeah. Great game. And then this is, so this is volume five. Mm-hmm. So it's kind of a mesh, you could say, of it in a weird way. Yeah. What do you mean like the detective thing? Well, I mean the characters for sure.

Okay. So well, here's the synopsis. Fame, fortune, mutants. From the ashes of Krakawa, a new mutant arms race sweeps the globe. International governments are building their own mutant armies, but only America's X-factor has the most. powerful, the most patriotic, the most marketable mutant heroes to stone the tide and make the world safe for democracy. Join them as they go from one death-defying mission to another.

Who will die? Who will fall in love? Who will be the first to sell out? Who did die? Um, jobbers. Who did sell out? Uh, I mean, Firefist died. I don't know how you feel about Firefist. I feel like I This is the first time I've ever heard of his character He was in he was in Volume 1 What does Firefist do?

Well it would that seems apparent Huh? That's really what he does Pretty much Pretty much Well it's hard to come up with your characters Yeah Yep yep yep yep yep

Like I don't know This one's got Fire fist Okay, what will we call him? I don't know. Fire fist? Great. Draw that. So the fire generation, fire manipulation, heat generation, and fire and heat immunity for his powers. You would have to be immune to fire if your hand is on fire. Yeah, you would hope. Now, I talked about this before, but one of the best X-Factor stories was in their private detective era where a woman was worried that her husband was like having an affair. and then she found out that he was having like a telepathic affair while he was sleeping at night his subconscious was going and like having a psychic thing and when she found out she got so angry her power you know she she lost control for powers when she burst into flames like the human torch but did not have the fire immunity like the human torch classic bit classic bit uh feral uh was also in issue one and she died okay and uh those those are you

your two deaths. Great. Heavy hitters. Heavy hitters. Yeah. Real emotional stuff right there. You know what you mean? Yep. So basically this X-Factor run was treated like the suicide squad, where the United States government was like, we're going to have a mutant team, and we're going to just

throw them that shit. And if they live, they live, and if they don't, they don't. So, like, the main characters of this book, and this is I told John, like, I'm going to get through just some of their, uh, some of their powers in the Dylan, or some of these characters in Dylan's just going to roll his eyes and be done with it. So our main characters, by the way, there's another character who dies. His name is Cameo.

He died. Cameo? Yep. Camio died. I know you're torn up about this. What does he do? If also Firefists. Yeah, he can shape shift.

Oh. So, um, so here's the characters of X Factor. Angel Yep You have lost you Lost you lost you Uh oh A new character name is Ziber

Zyber Zyber Zyber Was that person I haven't even got to the best one yet But we'll take a quick We'll take a quick little foray into Ziber I think I think we should

All right Ziber Real name is he has ElectroKinesis Okay Yep so angel cyber

havoc frenzy uh Cecilia Reyes okay who is um yeah

she doesn't really have a superhero name but she can you know she's a she's super tough she has a bio field that like acts like a force field around her

yeah some garbage like that whatever yeah sure Pyrro is a member Firefist Yep Exactly he replaced Firefist They needed a fire guy on their team They did they were like

Ah damn we lost Firefist What did they're gonna do And Granny Smite Yeah that was You let that one last a purpose Granny Smite had a house With her husband Freddy When her mutant ability first blossomed

The house burned down Killing Freddy Six months later she brought her son And his family to Florida And they were killed in a plane crash leaving her to discover her mutant ability on her own. She is immortal. That is her power.

She's 87 years old and she has the power to not die. Well, that's nice. Yeah. So that's your X-Force or your X-Factor team. I know that Forget Me Not showed up in a recent episode, but a recent issue as well. Really? Yes.

Yeah, it was a big, he played a big part in it with his ability for people to forget that he's there. Hmm. Again, the real heavy hitter is coming up. for this show. Yeah. So your heavy hitters on this team, for all intents and purposes, are Angel and Havoc. Angel, who we have said is of the five original X-Men, probably the weakest until the Archangel power up.

Yeah. And it's specific. He is angel in this. He is not Archangel. And also Havik, who is the weaker of the Summers brothers. Yes. True. So yeah, Dylan, why do you think X Factor failed?

I mean, pretty much the same reasons the last one did, right? Nobody gives a fuck about any of those characters. Angel, we talked about how Angel's not an interesting character. I don't think you can have an interesting X-Men team led by Angel and Havoc. I don't think anybody looked at that and goes, well, that's going to be a classic, you know. And then you were running off some of those names. You're like, who fucking, what is this? you know, why would you want to, why would you be interested in any of this?

I am, I'll be honestly, I'm really tired of, uh, suicide squad knockoffs. Yeah. I just, that's what this feels like. It feels like a suicide squad knockoff. And too many of those. Way too many of those. So, yeah, that's why, uh, X Factor went the way of the Buffalo that it did. Now, here's the one that I thought was the fucking shadiest of them.

X-Force. This is the seventh volume of X-Force. X-Force is the book that gets relaunched the most. So here's the synopsis for X-Force. A new path forged. The world is fractured. Forge uses his power of invention to devise the only fix. And all new, all-different X-Force. Forge leads a custom-made hand-picked team of mutants, racial Summers, Betsy Braddock, Sage, Surge, and introducing tank. In off-the-book's mission so dire, so integral. To the fate of the Marvel universe, there's no time to stop for permission.

As Forge detects increasing threats across the planet, he will recruit a specialist for each target. First up, that regenerating degenerate Deadpool. Be here for an X-Force like you've never seen them before. Stick around to see who joins, who lives, who dies, and uncover the mystery of Forge's discovery. Okay, well, who dies? It's not in this issue. It happens later on, but it's surge. They kill the young, they kill the young teenager girl. Wow. We've all been there.

Yep. Yep. Yep. So, yeah, there you go. So I thought this was dubious because issue one of X-Force, front-centered Deadpool. Oh, you think that that's... Front-sitter Deadpool. And he's only in the first story, and that's it. Yeah. Well, he's a busy man. You know, he's everywhere. He doesn't have time to, like... Was this X-Pol? Because he was in X-Force before.

he was yeah he well officially in yeah he was in some of the kill squad versions yeah the original x-force no he was a enemy of it yes yeah like the volume one that spun out of new mutants yeah I think like volume four three or four or something he was staffing in that

yeah so so yeah that's society didn't want to do it anymore like no I'm not I'm good Deadpool doesn't need this money anymore. He's doing a while off on his own. Yeah, what does he do? Like, does he make...

Because whenever he was a mercenary, he made money because he was a mercenary. He doesn't do that anymore. So we can talk about it in a bit, but there's another mini-series that launched very recently called Weapon X-Men. And in that book, the very last reveal of the pay of the first issue

was that Deadpool was on the team as a double agent, and he had been tasked with bringing Wolverine to Baron von Stucker for pay. So he is in his mercenary gig still. Good. Because I feel like a lot, you know, sometimes people forget that. That's what he does. Well, I mean, the Merk with the mouth, right?

Yeah, but that's what you mean. It's a shame people forget his fucking nickname. People say that, but then you're like, well, you know, half the time you see him, he's not really doing like mercenary stuff. He's just like making pancakes or whatever. Yeah, we can making pancakes. Get some bacon and you put it in a pancake. I'm familiar with bacon pancakes and how to make them.

That's good. I'm glad you are. So, yeah, this was a book that very forge-heavy. It kind of played to this idea that the rest of the team wasn't really sure what was going on. And only Forge really knew the answers and he wasn't sharing it because it was way too much or what have you. And, yeah, there you go. that's X-Force for you and I think so why do you think X-Force also failed not enough Deadpool well yeah I would say so I can I don't line up is real weak it's it's not great

yeah I think maybe like there's some heavy hitters there I like Forge as a character I think he's kind of like underutilized a lot of the time. Yeah. I think like there's stuff you could, especially like nowadays and the world we live in, it's so like, you know, um, industrial and it has a lot of like inventions and machines and stuff that we use in our day to day lives. A guy like Forge would be perfect for that. You can tell stories there.

I don't think they are telling those stories. Maybe because they haven't thought of them. And that's why Marvel needs to talk to us again. And they're like, guys, you. You've been writing this forge thing for ages. We haven't seen any of the forge stories. Can we see what you've been writing? Oh, you've been doing Baby Juggernaut again.

Well, you have to stop doing that. Baby Jaggernaut is in X-Force. They use him as a weapon because he's indestructible and unstoppable. So they do like the speedball special, but they use Baby Jaggernaut like a shot put. Yeah. Exactly. Well, but how do you lift him? I mean, you still have to have a superpower person.

And I mean, every now and then Colossus is able to pick up Juggernaut, you know. Oh, really? Yeah. Oh, yeah, I know. Don't, yeah, I think I don't know. I'm totally, I'm just verifying for you. Just verifying. Okay.

That's good. Oh, who were the other ones? So, okay, the lineup of X-Force, Forge, Sage, Captain Britain, or Silock, Rachel Summers, Serge, and this new character name. tank. Rachel Summers is a pretty you can do something for her, you know, Betsy Braddock siege I don't know about it. So anyway, yeah, that's the lineup to X-Force. Again, it's really weak

on paper. You have Rachel Summers, who is a kind of a weak version of Gene Gray. You've got the Betsy Braddock, Cylock, who is not nearly as cool as the Kwanen Silak. But she's Captain Britain, so that's cool. Yeah, so everybody loves Captain Britain. Nobody in Britain loves Captain Britain Yeah, I know I've read the history of like how those comics failed They're like we'll make our Captain Britain and that'll get over huge in the UK and like nobody cared

Couldn't go fuck mate couldn't couldn't care Sage and Forge in my opinion are too similar for my own liking I think so I just felt like they stepped over each other like sage was really good in the last volume of X-Force that Ben Percy was writing because she was kind of like that control person that was like I think what they were wanting to do is a big part of the tension at X-Force was she always kind of had a feeling something was going on with Beast

when Beast was in his heel days I think they wanted to recreate that kind of tension between her and Forge in this book yeah but yeah that's that's X-Force for you that's it yep so the three things these books have in common is that they are very weak on paper oh yeah they're very week on paper. The two heavy hitter books are, of course, the X-Men book and the Uncanny X-Men book. I've heard nice things about exceptional X-Men, but I don't think people are holding them in that same esteem.

And I sent you guys like a meme somebody had made about Gail Simone's uncanny X-Men and some criticism that people are having towards it. So, you know, the teams for X-Men and Uncanny X-Men, we've talked about it before, but in X-Men, it's Cyclops, Quintonquire, Siloac, Magic, Beast, and Juggernaut, as well as Magneto and Idy. So these are all characters that have done shady shit in the past. Pretty much, yeah. Uncanny X-Men is Rogue, Gambit, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and Jubilee, which everybody was excited for, because that feels like a classic X-Men. Classic, classic stuff. But most of the book so far has been focusing on these four new student characters.

that have been created called the Outliers. And their name are, I think their names are Calliope, Ransom, Jitter, and Death Dream. It's hard to come up with these characters. It's true. Well, that's your girl, Gail. Listen, I haven't read it,

so I'm not going to cast aspersions. Who are the Outliers? But yeah, they're just these teenage characters, and it's been fine. It's been fine. Calico. Calico, not Calico. Calico. Calm down there with that. Do you want to know what their powers are? One of them's got a fire fist.

Close. One of them's an old lady. Close. All right. It's really hitting in to me now that they really did a comic where one of the characters was just an old lady. Like, that's it. Granny smite.

Yeah. An old lady with the ability to not. die. Right. So her thing is she just gets older. It's not a great power to have, is it? Yeah. So, okay.

So here are the outliers, which is the name of this group of young characters. The first is Ransom. Ransom has, these are his powers. He has a black hole instead of a heart. Which doesn't make any fucking sense. Yep.

He has superhuman strength, though, because I guess whenever his be kind of like um kind of like bishop whenever he gets hit he can convert that energy back out so I don't know why they felt they wanted they needed to do that instead of just say like oh his power his powers like bishop but they were like no no no he has a black hole for a heart because that's what black holes do yeah notorious for sucking up something but then putting it back out yeah so that's fine you know so death death dream his name is Hotaro, he is from Kyoto, Japan.

He died four times when he was born, so that's fun. I don't think he did die four times when he was born, because he was either he's dead or he's born. You know, what do you mean? So death dream, he has a death state where he can put himself in a state

that is neither life nor death. While he is in his undead state, he has necromancy powers, and he can summon spirits that he can possess and fly, and he can resurrect himself from the dead. He also has an accelerated healing factor. So that's death dream. He's kind of spooky, obviously, and he says goofy shit, like Edge Lord kind of stuff. Like, oh, I think of autopsies, you know, kind of weird shit. then there's then there's jitter

jitter has hyper focus so she can acquire any skill that she wants but only for one minute so for one minute she could be amazing at everything anything she wants so like in a recent issue

death dream was brutally attacked by these sentinels that were like dogs yeah dogs You keep you keep saying this. This is your girl, Gail. This is your girl, Gail.

I haven't read it, so I can't cast any aspersions on it. Your face is doing a lot of it, though. Well, if you listen to on Spotify, then... They won't hear it. No issues. They'll just hear you be a big individual scoff. It'll come out through the microphone. You'll just hear a...

At least he didn't invent an old lady. That's true. So anyway, uh, Jitter for one minute made herself like an expert nurse and was able to stabilize death dreams wounds. Okay. Like you can see how that like it's a great functionality thing. Yeah.

Like you can you can gimmick that to tell stories with. Like that's a good. In terms of like X-Wan the way that they run, you can use that. You can make that into a character, you know? Yes. I don't hate that. Sorry, then there's Calico. He's a cat.

Calico is, she has psychokinesis, which allows her to form a telepathic bond with her horse imber. So she, Yep, yep. So she can create psychic constructs, basically creating like armor and weaponry for herself and her horse. Why? And then there.

Yeah. And Ember, because of Calico's powers and how they're linked together, ember can shape shift and fly. Shapeshift. Yeah. Where would the horse shape shift? Into what? Calico wants them to.

A gun? Like what else? It's already a horse. Other flying creatures, like a Pegasus. That's still a horse. That's still a horse. Listen, I'm not, I didn't write down what the power sets were. I'm just reading them.

Do you mean? Oh, the ship shift into a horse or a winged horse or a unicorn. Ah, the possibilities are endless. Yep. That's smaller horse, you know. Again, you're bad mouth than your girl, Gail. No. I haven't read it, so I can't cast this version.

But I am allowed to gently mock it. I think that's fair. Can I tell you that of these new characters, Calico is probably the most interesting? Like she feels like she like we don't know really anything about jitter. Ransom is just like standard tough street kid from New York kind of character. Death Dream is like a weird edgy character who's like a who's like he seems like he's Eeyore at the same time. Like he's Eeyore if Eeyore for Winnie the Pooh also talked about like death and dying and decay.

He does. Like a goth Eeyore. Yeah, he does. He talks with that. Yeah. He's a depressed guy. And Calico though, Calico is she grew up a rich kid, but her mom sheltered her and made her convinced that mutants were actually filthy doubles. So she refuses to acknowledge the fact that she's a mutant for a while and like there's a level of self-hatred there.

I went, oh, that's interesting. And then it got resolved in like three issues. And I went, oh, way to blow, way to rush through that. you could have stretched that for a while is an interesting character dynamic with the other mutants. You would think of all the horsebeast stories they can tell now that they've got that out of the way.

So many horsespeas stories. All that took was one conversation with Gambit and that girl was like, you know what? Maybe being a mutant isn't so bad. See, Gambit is really good to talk to you if you're a young girl. That's probably bad. When you think of what it's a little question.

I'm hanging out with the young kids a lot. Like, is he all right? he's fine he's just gambit you know so yeah that's the that's the criticism I've been seeing towards uncanny X-Men has been that you know

people are wanting the book to focus on the X-Men characters and not these teenagers okay but counterpoint doesn't it make sense and this is what they've done with other like you know when they introduce new X-Men or new characters of X-Men into the fold

doesn't it make sense to use the veteran guys to put over the new kids that you want to establish rest and wires. You know what you mean? Like, I'm not opposed to that. Obviously, people want to hear by Gambit and Rogue and them being cool and stuff. But they're always going to be there.

They're always going to have something to do. You know, even after this book, Gambit and Rogue and Wolverine and whatever, they'll be fine. They'll be okay. If you're introduced to new characters, absolutely use those older characters to put some shine on

on you guys and that's the thing I feel like this happens a lot with whenever they introduce new X-Men a lot of them are always like really hit or miss you're like some of these aren't going to stick around because they're just not interesting or they're not good so you know you need to like put as much shine on them as you

can while you still can to see if other writers will be interested in them in the future. I don't I don't think that that's a bad thing. But I think that the part of the good thing with that was that she got it. She got the right X-Men for her team. Do you know what I mean? We're not talking about Angel or fucking old lady.

Yeah, I mean, she did really well in that regard. Yeah. And I think that because of the criticism of the last three books we talked about was nobody cares about them. I know even if a lot of the focus is on the new kids, people still can't. care about, you know, Rogue and Gambit and Mulrin. They're still going to buy the book because they still want to see, and they're still going to do stuff in the book. It's still.

There's not the main focus, yeah. Yeah. So I will say that, like, that is a great idea in theory, except that book already exists and marketed as such, which is exceptional X-Men, which is the Emma Frost Kitty Pride book that Iceman is also a part of. Because that book is Kitty Pride goes to Chicago, fed up of all the mutant stuff. wanting to start her own life. Emma Frost shows up and goes,

nah, you've got to be a mentor to these kids. So they introduced three young mutant characters in that book, who their powers seem to be a little more... Horse-based. Not horse-based. So in that book, you have... What are their names? Melee.

So, melee... is a young mutant character who is, can make herself intangible and make herself invisible. So that, that mentorship with Kitty Pride obviously makes sense there. Someone else who's dealing with the same problem. There is also bronze. And bronze is a young girl who can turn her skin into a bronze-like metal that's almost as strong as adamantium. And her braids become, are like extending retractable cables like Omega Red. So she can like turn herself into like Colossus like a bronze Colossus with tendrils essentially.

And then there's Axo and Axo's powers is he can make people confess their biggest secrets and vulnerabilities and can read their moods. So he's like a high level empath and his skin changes colors like he's a big mood ring essentially. So you have three new characters there with three very unique different visual power sets to the outliers that are a little more like power. I'm telepathically bonded with my horse and I have a black hole for a heart, whatever that means. So it's like you already have one book that the main focus is like mentoring these kids and getting them up and running.

It feels weird to also be doing that with the other uncanny X-Men book too. Yeah, okay I can I can see that But You know Isn't a good thing To try

To make some new Faces To make something different To put like a horse And people have the same for years We need a horse We're a worst A worst body armor

That's invisible Yeah that's I mean You know And finally Gil Simone listened to us when we were fagging for this horse and then she gave us what we all wanted and now if you're changing your chain and you don't want it

you're going to have to start taking it up with me and Gilzamone you know and we'll fight you she's scrappy man she I said she killed a guy I saw it it happened so so yeah I guess that's like he said she never hears this I don't know she might be amused by that but she might be very how do you know

Was he there? How did he know? I will say that, like I said, that's the big premise behind it, but the attitudes are a little different. Like, Rogue definitely has like a mama bear kind of personality about these kids. And, like, Jubilee is, like, also really hardcore into taking care of them, too. Do you remember a Jubilee had a baby? No. Okay.

So it was... Well, okay. So, basically Jubilee found a baby. and started taking care of it. I would say, Jubilee having a baby and Jubilee finding a baby are different.

Very different. So, yeah. I could find a baby. Yeah. Anybody can find a baby. We know somebody who found a baby, we think. If you go to the hospital,

there's fucking loads of them. Fresh out of the incubator. You know what you mean? Like, loads of babies. You just got to know where to look for them. So the baby's name is Shogo. and yeah basically there was a meteor that killed this baby's family and Jubilee just took the baby in and started being a mom.

And I think she was still technically a vampire when that was happening. Oh, boy. Vampire mom. So anyway, in Crocoa, she was part of the Excalibur team that went into Otherworld. And whenever they went into Otherworld, their appearances, changed. And so when the baby went to other world, it became a dragon. And the baby loved being a dragon to the point that Jubilee decided to let the baby stay in other world so it could live out its life as a dragon. Well, that is a great way to get rid of that dangling plot point in it.

Oh, I know, baby loves being a dragon. So bye, you know. Yep. Yep. I don't. We got to get either of us could have came up with that. It's a lot. That's for sure. How do we get rid of this baby? Find it a loving home? No, we'll just let it be a dragon.

No, people are going to get upset by that. Oh, we'll just stand into a different world and it becomes a dragon. All right. Yeah. Big sense to me. What else would we do with it? You know, that's,

I love the idea of somebody, like, like the editors or the higher-ups are like, dude, Jubilee needs to have a baby. And then he's like, okay, I'll write this. And they're like, all right, now Jimli needs to not have the baby. And he's like, oh, all right. Well, what about this? I like to imagine like they're in like a boardroom somewhere. They've been there for hours.

Like, you know, everybody's ties are loose in. Their shirt sleeves are rolled up. They're like sweating profusely. There's like one light that's like one bulb swinging from the ceiling on an exposed. closed wire and they're just in front of a marker board going like, gotta get rid of this baby. I've not seen my wife and kid in three days. We started to wonder where I am. We got to fight.

We got to find a way to get rid of this baby. We got to fucking do something with this baby, dude. We've been here. Listen, nobody leaves until this baby turns into this. This baby has to turn into something. And they're like, ah. There's this one guy in the back that's like, God damn it. Just make it a dragon.

Brilliant. You're hired. also how'd you get in here and then they look over and he's not he was never there he's never there at all it was the ghost of Jack Kirby it's what he would have wanted

and then it turns out he was a horse and like ah that gives me an idea you know Jack Kirby was a horse this whole time Jack Kirby was a horse write that one time that's a good one so anyway yeah that's like

like I said that's the uncanny X-Men there are people who are like super into it. Gambit's great at being a big brother figure. Wolverine's always adopting some child. Roads playing. What is it? What is going on with children over there? Like what's this time, though, it's Wolverines take an interest in ransom and not like the 14 year old girl that he's going to teach karate for some reason too. We know what the reason is. Yeah. So yeah, no. So like everybody that's on there are like super into being a mentor. But I think a lot of

people were hoping this was going to be a more traditional like ex book in a different way. Because then you know, like you said, the other book is the Cyclops team and they're like on missions and strike forces and like making shit happen. And then the other like there was a plot point where like the new kids went to a shopping mall and they got attacked by sentinels that are dogs. Okay. Dog sentinels. The shop crawler. Then crawler painted a house with some young girl and then a woman showed up to give him German baked goods because he saved their daughter. Oh, that's pretty nice.

Yeah. See? It's nice. Yeah. Gapin Roe on a date night. Yeah. That's great. I think it's...

It doesn't sound bad. What's wrong with people? No. No. It doesn't get delightful time. Like I said, there's just a lot of people. I feel like they thought it was going to be a book centered on these other characters and not the teenage characters they were introducing.

And they're not. they're not happy about it. Well, and I guess a lot of people can just shut the fuck up. There you go. That's how we do with criticism around these parts. What do you think of that, be pricks? I'll fucking fight you. Yeah, me and Gilson-Ovon, we'll fuck you up, but she killed a guy.

I saw it. So, yeah, like you said, that's kind of what's going on in the X-books. There's a lot of solo books right now, Storm as a solo. siloch has a solo Gene Gray has a solo Which slybba Yes Which silog?

Quanan Good silog Yeah the The one that's the most aesthetically pleasing Because she's a fucking ninja And it's badass Hot sylok Hot silok

We'll call him Yeah yeah To give her her birth name Hot silok So Which it begs the question I think we talked about it like when Silak came back, like when they separated their bodies back to what they were, like 30 years after they did it.

Yeah. Do they ever like they, I feel like they've had to at least had a couple of awkward conversations about it. Yeah. Like is it weird for like Angel to be like, hey, remember when we were like in a long relationship for a very wild time and you looked like her? But she had your brain. That's got to be weird. And they're like, no, that's not weird at all. Yeah.

What part of that do you think is weird? I guess when you put it that way, it's totally normal thing for people to go through. Yeah. You've all been out with somebody like that. How many where it turns out their brain was actually in the different person's body, and then they get their brain switched back, and then you see them again, and you're like, it's awkward for me, but the women don't seem to find it awkward at all. You know, because we're not used to that, but it's not used to that.

No, no. I mean, like you said, that date with Shabbat, I went. I thought it was going pretty well, but they took his brain out and put it back in, and we'd just not been able to connect sense. On the date. On the date. It was, yeah,

it was really, and there's a doctor sitting behind you, like scooping his brain out with an ice cream scoop. Like, I don't think that that's, I'm trying to watch the film. And you don't even. He took it and got some of that.

He took it and got some of the extra pop burn butter on it and then put it back in. You know, we don't do that over here? Oh, you don't? That's probably for the best. That didn't seem like it's, it doesn't seem like it's,

I don't seem like it's actually butter, does it? I feel like butter should be that color. It's such a weird. Like I've only seen that because you see it in like Movies Simpsons or like pop culture or whatever. Like they get the popcorn, they squish the thing. The butter comes out. Like that's not real.

Because over here they go, you want popcorn? And you go, yeah. And you go, you want sweet or salted? And you go whichever. And they just scoop it out of a thing and put it in the box and give it to you. And they don't squirting off on it. And let me tell you this. I feel better living in a country that doesn't score it anything.

onto my popcorn. So you said sweet. I don't think we do that. At least, sweet popcorn's the best. You got to get the sweet popcorn. It's so good. Sweet popcorn.

If you, okay, whenever you move over here, take it to the cinema, we're getting you some sweet popcorn. And then while we're watching a film, a doctor will operate and you take your brain and I,

while we're in the cinema. And I'm like that's fruit, but also I'm watching the film. It's part of the process. You got to get into it now. That's just what I do. I do them, like, every first day they go on. What makes it sweet popcorn, though?

What do they put in it? Sugar. But he's put sugar in it? That's interesting. I don't know. Sugar is sweet. Well, this is like, you get to. There's the thing people do here where they'll put like M&Ms in their popcorn.

So the M&Ms get like hot and they melt a little bit. And then you have like chocolatey popcorn. Well, I'll do that. I'm allergic to chocolate so I can't do that. America is notoriously. help us. Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

We all know this about America. It's the one thing. The liquid butter that the liquid butter that's like hot orange. Yeah. Yeah. And then we put like bitter ass chocolate into it and then watch the chocolate melt into the butter. So this started this was just talking about slylock. Yeah.

Yeah. Anyway, hot sily. Going back to hot sily. Yes. So it is, uh, it is a solo. series that is taking place concurrently with the X-Men book that she's a part of. And I won't lie. Like, that seems like that seems like that is the ex-c right now because that's the book

where stuff's happening. Yeah. Yeah, but there's no horses in that. There's no horses in it. I'm telling you, man. We got Magneto and Xavier's chair floating around still wearing his helmet. Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, yeah.

the reason they've explained that they haven't really dove into it but the explanation is that Xavier that a Magneto like developed a rare disease due to the resurrection protocol. Yeah. That like his body's breaking down. So that's awkward for him because there's nobody to resurrect him now. Uh, wow. Yeah, you'll find a way. They'll always find a way.

Yeah. Yeah, but what if he had a horse though? What if he had a horse? What if he had a horse? But yeah, no, like you said, there have been some other books that have some solo characters in there. There's the Weapon X-Men book. There's another, they had their first big crossover between the two X titles, the assault, the raid on Grey Malkin, where the Xavier School for Institution for learning and what have you. They have been, it's been converted into a prison for mutants.

And Xavier is one of the prisoners there. Oh, the irony of it, yeah. And there are several mutants, like very big name mutants who are trapped there also that have been outfitted and turned into like mutant hunters against their will, like blob and siren. But yeah. So they had that storyline where basically Beast, Jubilee and Calico were all kidnapped by this group and put in the prison. And so both teams of X-Men attacked to break them out, got into some conflict with each other because Cyclops going, what the fuck you brought these kids in and Rogue's like you're teaming with Magneto for God's sake

and there was the big reveal that Xavier was one of the prisoners there with Rogue like we got to break him out and Cycle was like the fuck we do we are free we need to let him stay there so the next big crossover is I believe it is called

Manhunt where Xavier has broken out of this prison and now it is across multiple titles of you know people trying to find him Yeah. What do you think he is? I think he is in Istanbul, not Constantinople. I think he's at the cinema. Have a popcorn? He likes it.

He likes... He got his brain taken out and put in with Red Skull's brain. That's true. So he knows. He knows the deal. Yeah. And it's going to happen again. well we know what the thumbnail art's going to be in this episode don't we I thought it was going to be a horse honestly I was I really thought it could be a horse

maybe the horses in the movie theater with us what if the horses they would offer me a lot of it well there you go I don't know how we're going to top that there are several characters that of course missing that a lot of people are surprised by no hints of what's going on with the new mutants except we know what's happened with Doug Ramsey. He is now Apocalypse Jr. And it's sad looking.

Because you know every time they've done Apocalypse Jr. It's worked out. Every single time, man. It's like when they make a new horseman of death. You were like, a horse man of death. See, horse is still... Only, yeah, maybe that's what's going to happen

to Calico's horse. It's going to be turning to the horseman of death. He's going to be a reverse centaur. Horse upper body, man back legs. Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Because that would make it hard to operate, though. Would be.

Because he just have to use a hoos. Just duct tape the operating tools on the hoops. Yeah, which I think is dangerous. A little bit, but I mean, he did go to medical school, so you got to give him credit for that. Did he pass, though? I mean, he's got his doctorate. Does he or does he just operate on people?

fun. We don't know. I think he enjoys it. You got to read the book to find out. Yep. And then Marble like, guys, what is this? Like, we don't even write a book about X-Force.

And this is like, what the fuck is this horse operating shit? I'm like, no, it'll make sense. Just trust me. So that being said, it took 20-ish years for them to make another NYX title. Fucked it.

So, yeah, so I doubt we're going to see another NYX title anytime soon. But X Factor and X-Force are two books that have a lot of weight behind them due to previous long runs. So I'm sure we will see another X-Force and X-Factor. Dude, we're absolutely going to see another X-Force. You kidding me?

They're not going to start until it's double digits. They have to. They have to keep going with X-Forse. You know, it's everybody loves it. But the trick is bring Deadpool back for real. Yeah. I mean, that seems to be. I mean, what we've learned is that.

that it kind of reminds me of a little bit, and it's not been confirmed or anything, so I don't know if it's the truth. But I remember I told you that you guys after they did a crisis on Infinite Earths, and they were redoing everybody's origins at first, where, like, Superman and Batman and Wonder Woman, they were all going to be in their own books, and they were not going to interact with anyone else.

We're going to start over from scratch. And then they had, like, Keith Giffin and J.M. DeM. DeM. DeM. We're like, hey, we have Justice League. What characters can we use? And DC went, that's a great question. Here. Have booster gold and blue beetle and Guy Gardner and black canary.

Old lady. And there's an old lady. And they kind of had to make it work. But the difference is that Giffin and Demodis approached the, approach their original idea, threw it away and decided to make a comedy book. And Justice the International was a very popular and very successful series for a long time because of that. And it seems like something like that tried to happen where I think these creative teams were given a list of these are the characters you're going to use. And I think some of them tried to make some magic happen and ultimately it fell short.

So that happens. It happens. It happens all the time. So I will tell you that right now John is at 180 something on his movie reviews or his movie watching for 2025 so far. 180? 180 something that seems kind of low for him well it does until you think

like he has almost watched 200 movies in the first two months of the year so if he keeps at that pace he's looking at 1,200 movies by the end of the year he could hit that he could he didn't hit it last year though he ended up in the 900s

I believe in him this year okay well if you're listening to this and you want to see where John is currently sitting at his movie watching he's very very good at updating his letterbox you can find it at Big John Bowsky at Letterbox. Dylan, what's going on to the world Captain Exploity?

I don't know. Okay. Something to do with a horse, I guess. What about what's going on in the world of Dexter Fistington? That's one of my favorite names I ever came up with. I was so. You're pretty happy with that one. I think I wrote that into a story that I really liked.

I don't think it's in the book. I think it's going to be. be in like the second book that I'm writing, but it's a classic. You know, when you read it, you're like, wow, Dexter Fistington. What a guy. What a guy.

What a guy. I play with Red Dwarf. I love Red Dwarf. I do too. Big fan of Red Dwarf. I went as a hologram for Halloween one year. Great show. Yeah, I was thinking of Ace Rimmer. What a guy. I thought that's easy

said that I'm like, I know exactly what you're talking about. There go. Anyway, I just have my other podcast, Large Old Cup. It's a spoken word, storytelling, stream of consciousness podcast. It's whatever it is, and I'm doing it. So it's been fun. We are not on Instagram anymore. We are not on X ever.

We are on Blue Sky, so that is a social media platform. It works kind of like Twitter. It's been seeing a little more activity as the months have gone on, is the owner of X slash Twitter has making his presence known in many other ways. Like are people like looking at us on blue sky? We're getting some activity. Is that because of the profile pictures? Probably.

Because like in blue sky, you can post, you can link the video and people can just sit and watch the whole video on blue sky. Like you don't have to watch. You don't have to go to YouTube to watch us. You can just watch some blue sky. Oh, so you don't link to YouTube, you just upload the video. No, no, no, you link to YouTube and it will put the YouTube video in the post. Oh, yes. It plays. And you can't just watch the whole thing.

But that kind is like a play on YouTube. I believe it does. Good. Good. Good. All right. But until next time, we are the Smart Avengers. We'll see you guys later.

Goodbye. Goodbye. You're going to do the jump. You got to do the jump. I'm not going to do the jump. Oh, bye. That's pretty accurate. Was he good?

I think he'd be pretty happy with that. That's good. I aim to please, John. Well, we all do. And he's a hard man to please. And if you don't please him, he will kill your dog. Oh, just the dog. I don't want him to kill my dog.

John, don't kill Dylan's dog. For real, though, seriously. This isn't a bit. Don't kill my dog. Don't fucking, do you dare. All right. Goodbye. buddy