X-Men Next Dimension with Lex W (Wednesday Toast)

comic property and how well it represents that source material. Today, we get to prove that I am either an idiot or a hack and a fraud because we're looking at X Men Next Dimension. We'll get into more of why that proves that I'm horrible about this later. But first, I am here talking to Lex from Wednesday Toast, formerly from the Wednesday poll list, but I like toast better than poll lists anyway. So I think that's a good change. Lex, how are you today?

Lex W: I'm doing well, man. Thanks for having me. Chris Osborne: I know. I've been looking forward to getting you on the show for a while, so I'm glad that we could finally get this one worked out. Lex W: Yeah. Same. Chris Osborne: So when you looked at the list of games here, instantly jumped at 2. But the one Uh-huh. That I heard first, I think, was X Men, specifically Next Dimension. What was it that drew you to an X Men game?

Lex W: Bro, I have a complicated relationship with the X Men. I have been known to, not be a fan of the X Men movies or not as much of a fan as the majority of the old X Men animated series. So it's strange because I do it sounds like on paper that I don't like the X Men, but in fact, I do. And specifically, the whole video game era of the nineties early 2000, I was obsessed with the first two versions of this game, Mutant Academy 1 and 2. And I just remember playing

it for hours, and and and the same with Next Dimension, but mainly with the first two. And so when I saw the list, it it just immediately pulled out to me because it had me just taking back on getting my butt kicked numerous times by this fighting game. Because I'm terrible at fighting games, but I love fighting games. So it's a double edged sword. Chris Osborne: Welcome to the boat. Lex W: Yeah. Right.

Chris Osborne: The movies, I can understand not being a fan of. The cartoon, are you just a monster or what? Lex W: Alright. I love the cartoon. There is a lot of things to like about it. I made the mistake of watching it recently, And I don't know. I think maybe it's because everyone loves it so much that I watched it with a, this isn't so good. But the real reason is that the last season is so bad. They shipped off the animation, and it it's just an eyesore, and it ruined the entire

experience for me. But I do still in enjoy it for the most part. I just like to play contrarian, I guess. Chris Osborne: I can totally understand that that last season. It's certainly a thing that exists. Lex W: Yeah. For sure. Chris Osborne: What is it that has drawn you into the comic side of X Men? Lex W: I think that it it definitely was sort of my first Marvel or DC book. I mean, Spider Man for everyone. Everyone watches and reads Spider Man, but x men were the first books that I really

dove into on the Marvel side. I was always a huge Ninja Turtle fan. The terminology of mutants was an ease as a, you know, as a kid, it was an easy, like, oh, well, I like these mutants. This is what they have to offer. I'm gonna pick it up because they're also mutants. And then it just sort of carried on through the years, probably boosted from the show that I that I like to bash so much, but, definitely, it was of my main Marvel reading in the nineties and early 2000.

Chris Osborne: Currently, I'm basically grabbing a bunch of the side books and not the main book because I'm a weirdo. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Chris Osborne: I don't know why, though. Like, it I don't really have anything against the main one. It's I think it's mostly just because my poll list is way too big, and some of the people working on the side ones are amazing.

Lex W: I'm I'm currently the same way mainly because I fell too behind on big Krakoa era stuff. And, a lot of the side stuff, while it is tied into it, it's still more, I wouldn't say newer reader friendly, but more of the, like, casual reader friendly. Like, you could still if you have if you understand the gist of what's going on in the Krakoan age, you can jump in on a tie in book and enjoy it for the most part. Chris Osborne: So which books are being your favorite right now?

Lex W: Oh, right now? Anything to do with, like, I love sync, so I pick up anything with that character in it. Yeah. And and a lot of the X Men books are at the bottom of my to read pile because it's like, I'm not gonna get to that right now. It's just there's too much. I'm waiting for the reboot. I'm waiting for it to reset. So, usually, if I see something that's syncing, then I'll pick it up, and that's really the the main X Men reading I'm doing right now, not a than before I

really think about it. Or if I hear, like, a you know, if I see a coverage, total cover buzz, trial of Magneto, all of that stuff with the resurrection of Magneto. That picked all that up just because I'm a huge Magneto fan. Chris Osborne: According to this before Ultimate X Men comes out, but it'll probably get released after. So maybe editor Chris will pop in and do a little update here. But you've seen the covers for all those. Right? Lex W: Uh-huh. Yeah. Peach Momoco covers.

Chris Osborne: How do you make a decision? Lex W: I know. I'm I'm really interested in it. It seems so out of left field compared to the other ultimate books that we've gotten so far. So I'm really, really interested in in what they're gonna do. It seems like armor is gonna be the focus, and I just don't I just don't know. Yeah. I really just don't know. I have really enjoyed the ultimate book so far, so it's definitely gonna get a read, but I really don't know.

Chris Osborne: My cover decision for that series, at least for the first issue, is yes. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. It's been a that's been a dangerous problem for a lot of these books so far. Spider Man that first Spider Man came out, and I was just like, one, if you can find the cover, if you didn't preorder every single one of them, finding them was the real challenge. And then

2, it's like I how do I just pick 1? I want them all. So definitely with Peach Momoco doing, the main covers, that's an easy buy for me, but it's really, really a slippery slope getting into the variant covers. I always tell myself I'm not gonna do it, and then I leave with more than I planned on getting. Chris Osborne: I think that's a curse that we're all falling victim to these days. Mhmm. Nominally, at least,

this game is coming off as a sequel to Onslaught. More specifically, it's coming off as a sequel to Operation 0 Tolerance. Lex W: Mhmm. Chris Osborne: That's something that, number 1, I realized way too late. Out of my sources were just saying not anything. Lex W: Yeah. Same. Chris Osborne: But are you familiar with that storyline at all? Because mostly, I'm just familiar with Onslaught being a a giant clusterfuck.

Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. See, I was I loved the character design of Ocelot when it came out. This was late nineties, I'm gonna say. And I was obsessed with because I love Magneto, so I was obsessed with the actual character design. But when I go back and read the story, it is a huge cluster. And, you know, everyone knows that it was to try to boost sales or for some of their underselling characters. But operation 0 tolerance was cool because it started this little bastion era started

before on to lot, and then carried over after Ontellot. I don't know how you successfully did. I don't know if I don't remember if they did or not, but it was cool. I liked Bastian as a villain, and, and it's just the it was the same old X Men stuff. You know, he's having his version of sentinels. He's having his plan to eradicate them, you know, from there were takes pushed them to the brink of extinction. It's the just a rehash of classic X Men turmoil.

Chris Osborne: Of course, it gets into all of the fear and hatred of mutants, which you can turn into an allegory to social issues and stuff, which, hey, guess what? The Mexican were doing that in the nineties because they were doing that in the eighties and the seventies and the sixties, so nothing new

there. Yeah. As you go through this, I read the first like, 2 of the first three issues because finding so I didn't anything from just adjective list X men on Marvel Unlimited was a little more than my brain could handle earlier today. Lex W: Yeah. It's a lot. Chris Osborne: Reading through that, it seems like something I'm definitely gonna go finish. I can go through and read all of these recaps and stuff, but I started it. I wanna finish it.

Lex W: Yeah. I get that way too. I thought about doing this morning, but then I was like, I don't really wanna get into the rabbit hole, especially because I wanted to watch the cut scenes from X Men Next Dimensions. And then that turned to me watching the cut scenes from X Men Mutant Academy and X Men Mutant Academy 2. And then I was like, how do I play these games again after all these years? And so then it went down a rabbit hole of getting on eBay and trying to find these old

games. So, I ran out of time. Chris Osborne: At least that's productive. I'll give you credit for that. Lex W: Alright. Chris Osborne: Who has been your favorite X Men character? Lex W: So I really like as I mentioned earlier, I really like Sink. Sink is a character that was introduced in generation x in the nineties. He's just a completely overpowered character. They didn't they didn't really start using him until recently. So if I had to say, like, throughout my X Men

journey, weirdly, Havoc is up there for me. He's probably my favorite if I'm if I'm not taking the, you know, Magneto. Everybody loves Magneto. I would have to say Havoc. I loved him in the second game. I loved his nineties suit with with the jacket. It was such a cool character. And he's like, he was the opposite of Cyclops. I I like Cyclops. I know a lot of people think he's a boy scout. I think he's a very complex character. But Havoc was just cool. He was like the

cool summer's brother compared to the quote, unquote boy scout of Cyclops. And so he's always been a favorite of mine. Chris Osborne: For me, it changes up a lot. Right now, I'm really feeling rogue. I honestly have no idea why, but it's a good choice. I'm gonna stick with it. Lex W: Yeah. She's a cool character, man. Chris Osborne: Just something about having to stay away from each other, but not wanting to stay away from

other people and get too close. It just hit it's hitting with me right now. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I get that. And she's definitely a cool character. Chris Osborne: Well, with this giant roster of potential picks we could have had in mind, We're gonna take a break so I could drop some promos for a few other shows, and then we'll come back and talk about the game.

Scott Niswander: Hey, everyone. Thanks for checking out this podcast. It's probably Not. Aliens. This is a podcast where we talk about ancient astronaut theory and the show Ancient Aliens, and we talk about how exactly right they are about everything that they propose. Right, Tristan? Tristen Johnson: Yeah. Then I go insane and try to show why it's not aliens, but it is extremely interesting history and archaeology that you'll definitely find interesting.

Scott Niswander: Yeah. Okay. So basically, Tristan's job is to ruin our fun by teaching us about history and interesting facts about ancient civilizations. Tristen Johnson: Sorry about that. Scott Niswander: My name is Scott, and my job is to sit here and be a surrogate listener like yourself taking in all this information and occasionally making jokes that people groan at.

Tristen Johnson: You will definitely groan, yes. But we do have a really fun time. We do learn a lot about this amazing world we live in, and we sometimes get really sad about the injustices of the world. So if that sounds like your bag Scott Niswander: No. Don't don't lead with that, Tristan. We it's a very fun podcast for sure. Absolutely no sadness here. Can't can't think of a episode that ended that way.

Tristen Johnson: But if you wanna check it out, we're gonna be on iTunes and all the other places where podcasts happen. Scott Niswander: Yeah. Please, please subscribe. Please follow. Do all the things. We have new episodes every single week, and we get to talk so much about the aliens that once visited us and left clues for us to solve their alien mysteries. Tristen Johnson: So come check us out, and remember, the truth is out there, probably.

Ryan Drost: Welcome to the world of Stealth Hammer, an all ages superhero adventure comic set in a world of high-tech gadgetry and supernatural mythology. In issue 1 of the comic series, we learned of Stelthammer's origin. In issue 2, we discovered her legacy. Now in issue 3, we find how an elf from a faraway land helped in her journey. All issues are available on Kickstarter now just search for Stealthhammer. Available through May 7th.

Chris Osborne: Those are some great shows to check out, but first, let's finish up with this one. So, Lex, as we've said, we kinda spoiled the surprise here, I am a dummy, a hack and a fraud because this is kind of the 3rd Mutant Academy game. Lex W: Yeah. It was weirdly, like, if I remember correctly, it wasn't marketed as that, but it was it feels the same. It it looks the same, relatively upgraded graph graphics for the time, but

it wasn't called Mini Academy 3. I'm not sure why, and I don't know if you did. Chris Osborne: Because they're weirdos, I guess. I don't know. That's the only thing I could come up with. Like, it was a couple years after the previous one. They didn't have a movie to tie it to. Ones

kind of were. It's just kind of a game out there by itself, which is fine. I wish more places would make a game that's not tied to a movie or a comic arc or anything that's actively happening because then they have to worry about timing a couple of things from very different mediums. Lex W: Yeah. Chris Osborne: This is a game released in 2002 on the Xbox, PlayStation 2, and GameCube, put together by Activision

and Paradox Development. Except on the GameCube. It was also Exact Entertainment, I believe. Oh, they ported it over. It happened weirdly with a lot of things back then. They would super specifically make it for 1, probably get it handled the same team to a second console, then a third one just kind of does their Lex W: thing. Yeah. Chris Osborne: But I think the obvious first place to start here is the roster because this is a pretty stacked roster of characters.

Lex W: That's yeah. I didn't remember it. I also didn't remember it being so forge heavy, but, he's, like, one of these is the focus for the beginning of the game. But, yeah, this is a huge roster, and I think there was the only one Xbox exclusive character, which seems like such a weird character

to have for Xbox twos and just a weird exclusive character. I don't know if that would be a pull for me to be like, I have to if I have an Xbox now, I have to get it because pyro is specifically in this game. Chris Osborne: Yeah. If anything, I would go the PS 2 version or I'm sorry, the GameCube version that has Spider Man because most of your heavy hitters, everybody you'd expect to see in the game are in this. Lex W: Yeah. So I didn't even know Spider Man was in it. That's crazy.

Chris Osborne: It's really weird because you see his grave right there at the beginning. Lex W: Uh-huh. I remember that. You get to you see Tony Stark, Spider Man, Ben Grimm, and then there's another one. I can't remember who it was. But, yeah, that was pretty cool. I always love little teases like that in games. Chris Osborne: Yeah. It doesn't matter because it's just a trading simulation anyway. Right? Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Cool Easter eggs.

Chris Osborne: But as you're rolling through this game, of course, you've got Cyclops and Wolverine. I mean, I'm not gonna go through and list everybody. You can check the show notes for that. But Lex W: Yeah. Chris Osborne: Seriously, everybody that you would think would be in a game right now is in this game, and it's maybe professor x because having him fight for a wheelchair would be a little weird. Lex W: Yeah. Was he ever in any of the fighting games?

Chris Osborne: Not that I have noticed. Lex W: Yeah. Maybe it was a mod that I'm thinking of. I'll have to look that up. Chris Osborne: Oh, he's in there, like, as an NPC a lot of the time Yeah. Not as a playable character. Lex W: Yeah. Chris Osborne: This being a fighting game, it has a story. The story basically doesn't matter, and we find no fault in that here because it's a fighting game. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Weirdly, I loved the weirdly back then, I would get these fighting games and

be completely invested in the story even though the story is usually nothing. But I would be completely and I think this one even had, like, an alternate ending, depending on if who you lost with in the end. Like, there's, like, 3 battles at the end, and depending on who lost, there was an alternate ending. Chris Osborne: Yeah. Exactly. I think this game had a lot of nice touches. It had that. It had a story mode

where just the same character throughout the entire thing. You had certain battles where you had to be a certain character. I think that's a nice touch because it's always kinda weird when it is fighting a battle that really should be Storm, but it's not. Lex W: Yeah. I didn't realize this roster was so stacked, man, but it it really is. You got characters that you wouldn't even think would be in the game, like Lady Deathstrike. And just that's it

was stacked. I can't I'm looking at it now, and I'm just like, god. Now it's all coming back to me. Chris Osborne: In a lot of ways, you know, it it's a fighting game that's coming off of Mutant Academy, so there's only so much you can say. Also, it's X Men, and it has so much packed into it that there is a ton of things to say with it.

Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And especially since they I don't remember if it was marketed as being a sequel to this, comic book event, but it feels like a miss misstep if it did if it wasn't. And coming off with something like that, that that seems like a cool attempt to, like, bring it back to comics when the first two games were loosely based or loosely connected to the movies or based off the movies.

Chris Osborne: I can kind of understand them not wanting to tie it to an event that it started about 5 or 6 years ago, and it was 20 issues across multiple books, so it wasn't that long. But also, you had another X men movie coming up, so this really could have easily been a bridge between the two movies and spend more time tying it to the previous games. Lex W: Yeah. That would have been really cool. Ryan Drost: I mean, the they I think they

Lex W: did something like that with the X2 game, X2 Wolverine's Revenge. I can't remember which one that was. I might be making that up. But I thought they had a a game that they try to do something like that with that kind of bridge the 2 movies or 1 of the 2 of the movies together. Chris Osborne: It's been a long time since I've seen any of the movies. And at this point, like, the games I haven't played anyway, I'm kinda waiting until it's showtime to play them. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Osborne: Activision had worked on a ton of games so far. Basically, if it was a Spider Man game or an X Men game, they had a hand at it as far as things that have worked on the show before. Paradox Development, the only thing they had worked on that we've looked at here is those Mutant Academy games. I didn't even think to look up Exact Entertainment. I I can't imagine they've done much. I haven't heard their name for anything.

Lex W: Yeah. No. Me either. I don't know. I'm actually looking at it right now, and there's only, like, 10 games on here. And they're you and they're all either GameCube ports, Wii, or for the iOS is their 2 most recent games. So not much. Chris Osborne: It sounds like they found their niche though. Port things over to Nintendo stuff at Apple. Lex W: Yeah. Right? Chris Osborne: As you're going through this game, I had to watch playthrough videos as most of my stuff is

still packed up. I have a copy of this game somewhere. I can't remember if it's GameCube or PS 2. As you're going through this game, the main complaint I was seeing from everything is just how slow everything moves. Ryan Drost: Mhmm. Lex W: Yeah. I could see that. It looks like it, like the character models look like an upgrade from the previous 2 games, but it did look way slower than even the even the second one or the first one.

Chris Osborne: Which kind of breaks my heart a little bit because the PS one wasn't dead yet. You still could have put it on there. Like, Xbox didn't have anything older. You weren't really gonna get this on 64. Could have had a really well refined PS one version of this, and it just never happened. Lex W: Yeah. I guess it came out at a weird time. Because I was still playing the first 2 probably the first two versions of this game. I mean, I was obsessed with these 2 games, with the first

two games. So it would would have been a really, really well polished PS 1 game, like, one of their last ones. That does suck. Chris Osborne: Refusing to go look up PS 2 release dates right now, I know that by the time I graduated high school in 2005 that I went to college with so they could have the DVD player and the game console. Lex W: Mhmm. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I graduated the same time, and I definitely that definitely rings true. I remember people doing the exact same thing.

Chris Osborne: What are the other things I noticed with this game was just the environments that they get you in. Having all those interactable environments versus just, like, a skin on a background, I think, is a really nice touch for this kind of thing. Lex W: Yeah. It had the the breakthrough, like, super moves in this one. Right? Where you could do, like, a hard punch, and it would knock you into another, another map or another fighting area.

I've always loved that in games, especially when they first really started doing it. And to the reskin, it just gets boring. And you I'd like to think about these games at the time, like, not compare them to games that come out now. But at the time, I remember just anytime they would add any sort of, improvement to the environment, little things like that would just would just take the cake for me.

Chris Osborne: All of the special moves that people had, just having Wolverine be able to heal himself during the fight, having Cyclops be able to shoot all the way across the screen with that optic blast, having Nightcrawler be able to teleport around, it's all just so perfect. Mhmm. Lex W: Yeah. And it goes back to, you know, what you're saying. The it seems like they put a lot into the game, especially on the character level, and it does suck that it may may have, hurt the

speed and fluidity of the game. But you can definitely tell that there was a lot put into it. And and I don't know if it was a product of the time that it came out or they just had to to cut where the focus was, but you could definitely tell there was a lot of focus put on the characters. Chris Osborne: It's an unfortunate thing that happens at the beginning of every console's lifespan. You have

developers trying to figure out what they can do with that console. Not wasting their time on the older console because everybody wants the new thing instead of being able to use what they know works. Lex W: Yeah. True. And sometimes at the beginning of those new game eras, sometimes the studio is trying to do both. So they're trying to make a game that works on, you know, not PS 1, but having a lot with the PS 3, PS 2, PS 4, PS 3 is where they tried to have a game with both versions. So

they were trying to make it to where it works on the PS 2 and on the PS 3. Obviously, they would have I Chris Osborne: I think the PS 2 and PS 1 crossover there should have been easier. Lex W: Mhmm. Chris Osborne: PS 2 could play both. Lex W: Yeah. Chris Osborne: It's just a missed opportunity, I think. Lex W: Yeah. I agree.

Chris Osborne: Everything about this game to me screams, we know our history, and we want to make a good game for the fans to them pulling moves basically straight from Marvel versus Capcom for some of the characters. So you got to use things that you are familiar with. You have the multiple endings that actually make sense with what's going on with them. Like, this entire game is just a labor of love from people who couldn't quite pull it off.

Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I always think, like, what these games would look like now, and I I know they would probably make them too complex. But I don't know. You can like, we talked about it. You can tell that they put a lot of care into a lot of the aspects of it, but it just didn't pull pull, you know, pull together at the end. I don't know. I don't remember I'm gonna look down the side

real quick. I don't remember what the reviews for this game were. Like, do you know if it was generally well received or was it sort of middling? Chris Osborne: Midlane is what I'm remembering, like, around seventies somewhere sticking in my head. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yep. I got it pulled up. That is right. Pretty much middle all the way through. That makes sense. Chris Osborne: Which honestly seems a little bit crazy because if you have a game that's like that, you've

got a game that is pretty solid. Not a ton of things wrong with it, but everybody sees that 70, 80 score and completely freaks out because they think it's a super horrible game. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. It's such a weird thing with rating systems. Yeah. I don't remember personally having any real problem with it. You know, those the the graphics at the time, like I said, for me,

was a upgrade. This was the games that I loved, but it looked better. I don't remember it playing super slow, but now that I, you know, I've watched some playthrough today and definitely looks like it does. And I haven't played it, and I couldn't even tell you when the last time I played this game. But I want to. Chris Osborne: I'm definitely gonna pull mine out of the box. Lex W: Yeah. Watching all the videos and stuff made me wanna play it. So it wasn't like I watched the

playthroughs and the cutscenes, and I was like, blah. No thanks. I still I would actually play it right now. Chris Osborne: This is definitely a game I think that you have to experience, and the reviews just don't do it justice. Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Chris Osborne: Normally, I'd ask here what this game got right and wrong compared to the comic, but I feel

like we've really been upfront with that the entire time on here. Is there anything else to you that jumps to mind from either end of that spectrum? Lex W: You know, I think the only thing I'll add is is that I think that again, I think it's a cool concept to make this sort of a sequel to a comic book event as someone that was reading a lot of X Men at the time. You know, and maybe that's, you know, part of the problem. I can't remember.

It wasn't so heavy, though. It wasn't so, tied to the comic that you had to read it to know what was going on. I think it's cool that they tried to do something like that, and, it wasn't you know, it wasn't detrimental to where you have to pick up x men dimensions to know what's currently going on in comic books either. So, I really dug it, and it fit, you know, even though we you know, as you mentioned, the story isn't anything of in-depth or that you even really

need in this sort of game. But, I I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it. I think it did a really good job as a companion piece. Chris Osborne: I wish more things would follow this example and do something directly related to a comic run. Lex W: Yeah. Same. Chris Osborne: Do something a little older side plot kind of thing, because I would hate to have I I would think that a writer would hate to have to write around a game that may or may not actually happen the way that they're being told it'll happen.

Lex W: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so it's so up in the air as far as the games throughout their development life that it would be probably be a nightmare to try to focus your run around that. It would have to be like a yeah. I agree. The doing it off of, like, a well known older story would serve it better. That would be cool. Chris Osborne: Ignoring every other X men game that exists, if you knew somebody who wanted to get into X men, would you hand them this one as a bit of a primer course?

Lex W: Probably you know, honestly, I think it would work. You know, I was gonna if I'm ignoring the rest of the games, I think it would work because it's not so tied to I don't even remember if it's tied to the first two games at all. I think they tried to make it a standalone thing. And you can jump in without played the first two or actually reading operation 0 tolerance. You get the the plight of the X Men. They're wanting to be or people wanting to exterminate them.

So, yeah, I think this would be a solid jumping on point. Chris Osborne: I think it's those cut scenes that really make it for me. The slowness of it might actually be a good thing at that point. Lex W: Agree. Chris Osborne: Get somebody who's not really good at fighting games, and they don't have to be so super fast with it. Lex W: Yeah. So, yeah, that was me. Chris Osborne: I just get my butt kicks. I mean, I I love them, but I can't go online and play at all.

Lex W: And, like, when PlayStation 2, PlayStation it was really PlayStation 3 for me getting online, and and I thought I was good at fighting games before and then getting online and realizing that wasn't true. So I now I just put them on easy and enjoy them for what they are, unlocking all the extra skins and alternate, you know, learning all the super moves and get the joy out of that and call it a day.

Chris Osborne: If you had somebody who wanted to get into X Men, what would you show them as a different comic, not from the X Men universe at all, to tell them, you know, X Men is kinda like this? Lex W: That's a good question. I would do something like, I would say, Umbrella Academy for me, would be a good comparison to what it is. You know, not exactly like it, but if you were to read Umbrella Academy first and read X Men, I think you would be able to sort of put the 2 together or Doom

Patrol. But Doom Patrol gets way wackier than the X Men do. So I don't want people to some people get kind of turned off by how zany the doom Doom Patrol can get. Chris Osborne: I can see both of those, though. Lex W: Yeah. Chris Osborne: Just all of that people forced into being together and forced into being a team like that. I I think both of those will work really well. Alex, it has been great talking to you about this

one. I have a feeling we're gonna talk about something else soon enough. Until then, if people wanna hear more from you, where else can they find you around the Internet? Lex W: I am usually so we have our social media accounts for our show, but that's usually just, like, update stuff. But if you want to connect with me, I am simply Wednesday poll on all the socials, and you can check out our show. It's called Wednesday Toast, a podcast about comic book stuff

where we talk about all kinds of comic book related stuff. So check it out if you get a chance. Chris Osborne: That's a nice big umbrella there. I'm assuming it's on purpose. Lex W: Yeah. So our our old show, as you mentioned earlier, the Wednesday full list was strictly we would read a, comic book trade, and then we review it. And then it got to the point where we were just it didn't feel like a job, but it was sometimes, instead of just enjoying a book for

what it is, we would have to, like, find points of contention. We would have to find things to, like, oh, we didn't like this because x, y, and z. And we didn't wanna do that. And anytime we would wanna review a game or a movie that came out, our, you know, our numbers would dip. So we wanted to create a new show where we just talked we just this is it. If we talk about

all kinds of comic book related stuff. So if you're coming to listen to the show, it's gonna be something, Whether it be a comic book review or a game review or we're talking about a topic that was funny on social media that week, we just wanted to open it up and have a little bit more fun with it. Chris Osborne: It's been a fun show so far. So everybody who hasn't listened to it, you should fix that and go listen to it. Lex W: I appreciate

Chris Osborne: that. As always, if you wanna hear more from me, you could head on over to playcomics.com, and there's links to all the social media stuff and blog posts for these and show notes that I really wish people would read. Please go read the show notes. I I I actually work on those. If you wanna help support the show, then you can leave a review on some place like Apple Podcasts or Podchaser. You can tell a friend about it. You can just shove it into their ear holes with consent

because you're not a monster. Or you can be like O'Nola class or Dan McMahon or Karl Antonovitz and give money to the show because doing this does cost money, unfortunately. Although, it is cheaper than therapy, so that's cool. Don't forget that Play Comics is a part of the gun and geek dotcom network, home to such wonderful shows as Legends of Shield, where you get to hear me talk about xmid 97 for a few more weeks and get super excited about that. We were getting

super excited. I'm trying not to let the excitement overspill here because it's a lot. If you like the music that I'm rudely talking on top of here, head on over to soundcloud.com/best dash day to check out Best Day's music. But most of all, just grab a game, grab a stack of comics, and go find yourself a new favorite character.