MOVIE REVIEW: Thunderbolts*

Hey, this is Brian Michael Bendis, the co-creator of Miles Morales, Raby Williams, Jessica Jones, and the Jinx World line. And you are listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 192 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.

I'm your leading scorer on the West Chesapeake Bay Thunderbolts Chris Hacker and joining me is the dark void of President Thomas Whitmore, my co-host and BFF Aaron Knowles. We will not go quietly into the night. We will not vanish without a fight. We're going to live on. We're going to survive. Today, we celebrate our Independence Day!

I a little Bill Pullman there in the beginning of the show uh for obvious reasons, Aaron, because this week we are talking about the thirty sixth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe Thunderbolts Astric. Is it is the Astric actually part of the title or is that just a marketing thing? just a marketing thing. It's a a it's a little twist. Little nipple twist at the end of the movie. Little nipple twist. Yeah, you love that. We get we get why there's an asterisk, right?

But then it actually well, we'll talk about it. We'll talk about it here in just a bit, because again, this week we're going to be talking about Thunderbolts. And you're probably wondering, Aaron, Chris, why did you do a Bill Pullman quote there at the beginning of the show? And it's because Lewis Pullman, his son, you know, star of Bad Times at the El Royale, Aaron, star of Top Gun Maverick, also named Bob, is in this film. No way. Are you just now realizing that that's Lewis Pullman?

just now realizing that that was Lewis Holman. Caught up. saw both of those. Okay, we're all here. We're all here. all here. All right. Yeah. We're all present. Speaking of being present, Aaron, we're on the way to episode 200 here on the Oblivion Bar podcast. 200. keep a real 200 110 % no which 100 % which we've talked is actually not even really true. We passed 200 a while ago because. Yeah, we've done some bonus episodes here and there.

We're like legacy number 241 currently, but officially it'll be 200 here in a couple of months. But, you know, for episode one, 92, it's exciting to be back in the MCU because if listeners remember Aaron, just a couple of months ago, we discussed Captain America Brave New World and we had varying experiences with that film, I will say. uh If people remember, highly recommend people go listen to that conversation between Aaron and I, because I don't think we have disagreed on a film more.

Can we take a step back? I feel like we jumped really quickly from the 200 road to 200. A little bit. I just want to like I want to I want to ruminate. I want to simmer. Yes. Aren't we doing like something special? We should save some space, you know, for 200 because this is an important time. Yeah. I don't know what we're doing. Maybe. I don't know. Why are you asking me? I mean, who would know? Right. Like, who would know if not?

My dark void would know he's not here presently because I'm an aloof nerd. Negacris. No, we'll do something special for 200. We just don't know what it is yet. And Aaron, just like we have over the last five years here on the Oblivion Bar, because it was our five year anniversary on April 16th, uh we will figure it out two to three weeks before that episode drops. Yes, because we are nothing if not consistent. Yeah. We're inconsistently consistent. Consistently inconsistent. There we go.

But again, back in the MCU, ah we're going to get into some news and notes and other things before we get into this review of Thunderbolts. Give me a brief teaser on those thoughts. Okay, you ready for it? Yeah. Deep sigh. deep side. All right, fair enough, fair enough. I'm gonna give a, hmm. um Oh, pretty concise.

I wish you guys listening could see his his his voice or is not as I mean obviously can't see his voice his face right that's what I meant to say is give me the sound again hmm hold it no I wish I could have but like he just looks so innocently like I'm not sure like you ever look you ever like told a kid like you ever lied to a kid and like You're probably not a terrible person like I am but if you ever lie to a child and they

have that face for a second where they're like I kind of believe you but I'm not sure that's his face their intuition hasn't fully clicked yet as a human being. So like I've been implicitly believing you my entire life, but now I sort of second guess that. Sure. Yeah, as we all should be right. That's what we should all just be skeptical.

And, know, you're going to have to just wait a little bit, everybody, or you could check the show notes because I put time codes in there if you want to just go ahead and skip to that review of Thunderbolts. But Aaron, before we get to our news and notes, before we get to that review of Thunderbolts, we please tell the people at home how they can support this crazy shit that we do here.

The easiest thing that you can do if you want to support the show, the Oblivion Bar podcast, is consider checking out our Patreon. We say it every week, but for your support on the Patreon, you gain access to bonus episodes each week called The Grid. Absolutely. uh Behind the scenes look at how we prepare each episode with episode transcripts uh and Patreon, Patreon polls. Patreon polls. We don't we don't fix this stuff too much, but Patreon polls as well as we just constantly give shit away.

We constantly give free stuff away. Chris sent like a hundred and something dollar package to New Zealand. out to fucking Matt, because we love we love Matt. I like to make the argument when you say free stuff, because yeah, I mean, guess it is kind of it's like when people say, I'm going to go watch a movie for free on Netflix. You know what mean? Like, yeah, you're not really watching it for free because you're paying for it. But yeah, you know, you're goodies.

Very, guess is probably the best way to put it. Here's the thing. I want the amount that the Patreon costs, whatever tier you're at. Right, one, two, five and 10. The items that you get when we send out giveaways is, I mean, it generally pays for it. 100%. Yeah, you will definitely come out on top. I mean, most of time I'm sending out like the variant covers and full blu rays and all types of stuff like we sent one of our patrons, Brad, Brad Bell. Shout out to Brad Bell.

I sent him a sketched Usagi, Jimbo cover from Stan Sikai. So and I promise you that will never happen again, by the way. Just letting you know that I'm never going to do that again. But that's how much we love Brad. And that's just kind of, you know, a taste of what we like to do for our page. We all are patrons. We love each every single one of you and we appreciate you because you help us continue to do what we love doing and that's how we're going to treat you.

So anyways to check that out go to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. You can even give it a seven day free trial. I mean, I don't know. don't know. Free trial. Yeah. And to get that you can check out the link in our show notes or you can just go to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. All right, enough of that silliness. Let's go ahead and get into our news and notes.

and notes. Hey, hey, new sponsor, everybody. Our News and Notes segment is sponsored by Onypress. If you are craving for comics that defy the ordinary and a publisher that not only allows but Aaron encourages the creators to tell their story the way they want to look no further than Onypress, the loudest thing in color since 1997. Check out their upcoming titles over at Onypress.com or follow them on social media at Onypress. Shout out to Onypress. What do you say? Oh, well, it will.

OK. I don't know. Aaron, what's our first piece of news here today? Oh, it's disappointing. had so much hope for this. DC Studios Clayface solo film is reportedly undergoing a page one rewrite. oh If you guys don't know what a page one rewrite is, imagine taking something that could, we have no idea how good it was, how bad it was, and just chucking it in the fire. Yep. Yeah, it's gone. It's it's a control a delete. Just kidding getting it off my hands.

Okay back in February horror director James Watkins uh Eden Lake speak no evil was tapped to bring clay face to life from a script written by Mike Flanagan We were all we were all rooting for you It's kind of a weird juxtaposition really quick just to start from the top there, because you've got James Watkins who he'd like. Not too bad. Speak no evil, Aaron. I think we were both pretty vocal how much we didn't like that remake.

Right. But Mike Flanagan, I mean, Mike Flanagan is like a bona fide star in the horror world. think most notably people know him for his uh Doctor Sleep movie from 2019, but also the haunting series on Netflix. Hill House, Bly Manor, Midnight Mass, the Midnight Club, all the things. So that was exciting. And like you said, it's slightly disheartening that it seems like they're just going to scrap all of that. But let's let's hear what old James had to say about this.

According to industry insider Jeff Snyder, the project may not be as far along as we had hoped. We revealed that Mike Flanagan only wrote a skeleton script for the movie, noting that Flanagan's attention has now shifted to his Amazon slash MGM Carrie TV series. This comes off the back of Colin Farrell's Sergeant Rock film, which was supposed to begin filming this summer in England, which has been halted indefinitely rumored. It's actually rumored to be scrapped due to the budget.

think they were trying to get like Daniel Craig, Colin Farrell. They just couldn't get anybody to stick to it because obviously this is pretty much in development hell as of right now. DC Studios president James Gunn told Deadline, as I say all the time, everything here is about, I want to make sure we have the screenplay that works perfectly. That goes above and beyond anything else.

You know, I'm glad that James and James Gunn has said this as he says here, he has been saying this from the very beginning since he and Peter Saffron took over DC Studios. The script comes first, right? We want to make a good movie and then we'll figure out how it fits into the universe, because as we know, Aaron, the DC universe, but specifically just comics, comic book characters, these types of worlds are pretty flexible. You know, you can work them in together.

A lot of people thought that you could never do a live action Thor and Captain America and then Whoa, let's put them in a movie together like how's that ever going to work? Shocker. It worked out really well. So I believe in James Gunn and not to mention he also took five wild characters and put them on a team together called it the Guardians of the Galaxy. And I think it's probably the best corner of the MCU or it was for a long time. So I trust James Gunn and an association.

I trust Peter Saffron. And if they don't think this is good, I'm fine. I'm not clamoring for a Clayface movie. I know you were excited because you like Clayface. And I'm excited. was excited because Mike Flanagan was attached to it. But if Mike Flanagan is barely paying attention to this, I really don't care. Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's let's continue on with. on. I want to see what your thoughts are. What were your thoughts on all this? already know my thoughts. You just said my thoughts. know.

No, I'm fucking disappointed. OK, I'm this is I was excited for this. Clayface is one of my favorite Batman rogues. And you know, I want them to do it right. I want them to. This is like he has so much potential. Like go back to one bad day. The one bad day series that they did, I think it was last year or 2020. Jackson Lansing. Yeah, they did an amazing one like one bad day.

single issue of Clayface and just kind of it, for lack of a better word, humanized him and his and his strife and his plight. So it's just like it can be done. It can be done beautifully in a few pages. It could be amazing on a large screen. You got me ranting here now because you want to hear something. But all I'm saying is I'm disappointed, but I just want them to do it justice.

Like this is take like the Batman, you know, and give a dark seedy, dangerous version of this and like almost make it psychological. We already kind of saw this with Penguin to write like people thought that why are we doing a Penguin show like yeah, Colin Farrell was great in the Batman. We get it. He was awesome as a character. He disappeared into that role. But we're all I think most of us I'm almost positive you and I were very skeptical about this HBO series.

And then holy crap, it would just happen to be maybe one of the best crime dramas of last year. So, you know, it's one those things that I and it sounds like we're possibly still going to get Clayface. It looks like Sergeant Rock is dead. As you said, Daniel Craig was initially attached to it. Then Colin Farrell takes off the nose and the body suit decides he wants to play a hardened soldier from the forties, which he can totally do.

He's a chameleon, but it sounds like they're reworking this thing completely. And they're not just scrapping it like they were Sergeant Rock. oh be surprised if they just make it into like another series like like the Penguin or something similar. Like I wouldn't even be mad at that. Like do it justice. Give it give it the time and it because he is not Penguin himself is not a simple villain. We've seen that Clayface even more so is a complex psychological psychologically driven villain.

Like so I'm excited for them to do something better with it. Yeah. All right. Let's move on to Jeremy Renner turned down Hawkeye season two over Disney's low ball offer. So one of the OG Avengers is that mincing words when it comes to why Hawkeye has not returned to the MCU in a candid interview with the podcast, High Performance, Jeremy Renner revealed that when Marvel approached him to reprise his role as Clint Barton in the second Disney plus season, the deal was, quote, insulting.

He said, They asked me to do season two. They offered me half the money. What made the offer even more frustrating for Renner? was the sense that his 2023 near death accident might've played a role in the pay cut. He says, he continues on here. says, I'm like, I'm sorry, why? Did you think that I'm only half the Jeremy because I got ran over? Maybe that's why you want to only pay me half of what I made in the first season. This is not Marvel, mind you. This is not even really Disney.

This is just the penny pinchers, the accountants. So he's, and it's funny, if you watch the actual video, it kind of seems like he like off the cuff from the hip is like. No, they didn't pay me. They didn't come correct with that Brinks truck. And then he was like, Oh, actually, hold on. I actually want to play this character again at some point. Let me back this up. Not Marvel, not Disney. It's the the suits. Right. That's who's making the issue here.

Yeah. So on January 1st, and this is for people who maybe don't know what happened to Jeremy Renner and why he really hasn't been in any movies and hasn't really been in the spotlight uh as of until recently on January 1st, 2023, a fourteen thousand pound Snowcat plowed him over while he was helping his nephew during a snowstorm near Lake Tahoe.

The actor suffered massive injuries, eight ribs broken in 14 places, a shattered right knee and ankle, a broken left leg, tibia ankle, a busted clavicle and more. And if you've seen videos of, know, Jeremy directly after that incident, it was scary. Like I think a lot of people, they like to poke fun at Jeremy Renner because he is like, he's hitting his midlife crisis right in front of rise. Like he's like singing, learn how to sing and play the guitar.

And he has like he has his own app is like cringy app for a while that you could keep up with Jeremy Renner and what he's doing. And then like I say all this, but to say like truly he is like one of the more endearing actors working today. I feel like I like him in just about everything that he's in. And again, as I said there, he's an OG Avenger Hawkeye is always welcome. And it's always like a nice, warm and fuzzy when he shows up these movies.

You know, it was a big bummer when it when it showed that he was hurt the way he was it was almost concerning to the point where we thought he may never play the character again or live. mean, or live. Right. More important. Yeah. It's I mean, I'm that's it's unfortunate they're treating him like this, but I feel like the I feel like they'll turn it around because I think you're right. I think he is one of the more uh apt staples in the MCU right now.

You know, the stuff that he's touched and been in has been the successful, you know, property. So keep him around. I mean, he is genuinely one to be protected. You know, it doesn't help that Haley Steinfeld stock is like skyrocketing currently. So if they really wanted to move on from Clint in the universe and just go straight into Kate Bishop, I think they probably easily could.

Because I think of the many like incel idiots that just yell on the Internet about the MCU and Haley Steinfeld seems to be the one it's like Haley Steinfeld and Yellenobelovah, or Florence Pugh's Yellenobelovah that people really like and like don't really have many bad things, if any bad things to say about. So. Aaron, speaking of Hailee Steinfeld, what's next? What's the last piece of news we have?

Yeah, so Sinners is doing fucking gangbusters at the box office, Crossing $185 million at the global box office and have its third weekend in theaters. Sinners has managed to pull in many box office records, including one of the lowest second week weekend drops at just 6%. It's also a huge win for Warner Brothers and Ryan Coogler as Warner Brothers now has two of the biggest films performing well at the box office.

The other including a Minecraft movie and Coogler making a buttload of cash from his deal giving him first dollar gross participation. Basically, he earns a large percentage of box office revenue immediately. How do they keep getting away with this? Remember that scene from Breaking Bad? You can't keep getting away with it! Warner Brothers, they just keep doing it. And they're like one of the most dysfunctional studios ever.

We didn't talk about it much during the James Gunn Clayface section there. But like behind the scenes, I've heard of like massive horribleness happening behind the scenes where like James Gunn is just skipping whole executives and going straight to Zaslav because he can't because Zaslav doesn't know how to fucking run a studio. And but they I mean, last year. What were the two biggest movies of the year? Oppenheimer and Barbie. This year. What's the two biggest movies thus far?

I mean, it's crazy. It's just crazy. They keep doing this. Yeah, and then the other thing is pretty interesting is they're also the ones that are like getting in the most heat for like just getting rid of films like just completely pretending they weren't made ever Batgirl, you know Batgirl, but also like last year, you know what the lowest grossing film, well, not the lowest grossing, but the lowest profit margin of a film last year was Joker Folly Ado.

So not only did they have the two highest grossing films, but they had the least, like the least successful film of the year. uh You put enough shit out there. You're to get all the awards, right? with centers reaching 185 million at the global box office with the total consisting of 135 million domestically and 39.7 million internationally. This puts it on track to hit roughly 300 million worldwide on a $90 million budget.

Yeah. Kugler's box office worldwide fruitvale station from 2013, 17.5 mil. Creed 2015 174.2 mil Black Panther in 2018 1.334 billion Black Panther Wakanda forever 2022 859.2 million almost almost a billion sinners 2025 186.4 billion with a net total of 2.571 billion Bob. Bob Bowie. uh As we talked about during our review of centers and warfare with good friend of the show and co-host of the comic book couples counseling, Brad Gullickson, Ryan Coogler is now the mouth dork.

If you're nasty, ah this is I mean, right. Coogler is like far and away the most successful commercially black director of all time. ah Not only that, but he's also and you see this a lot during the press junket. Because everyone's asking like, what's it like being the most successful black director? And Ryan Cooler to his credit is often like, I think I'm just like one of the most successful directors period.

I don't think we necessarily need, I mean, I get it because he is the most like he is number one. It'd be different if they were like, you're one of the most successful, but no, he is the most successful commercially. So guess that holds a little bit of weight, but yeah, I mean, he is like, he's not even 40, Aaron, he's 38. Like he's five years younger or older than I am. And somehow he's making billion, but a billion dollar movie. Hey, more power to him, man. That's right. em All right.

Well, that'll do it for our news and notes this week. Once again, thank you, Oni Press for supporting our news and notes. Thank you. Thank you. We'll go ahead and get into our Thunderbolts review here. But before that, but before that, go ahead and take a quick break and we will be right back. Tony Press presents a monstrous new milestone in the immortal legacy of the one and only EC Comics with blood type number one this June.

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So. All righty, let's get into our Thunderbolts review, Astric review. Aaron spoilers. You can spoil everything from here on. OK, say a spoiler right now. uh Iron Man dies That was like six movies ago, but yes, you're so right. from this movie. yeah. Century has a dark side. Yeah. Call the void. Also. yeah. ahead. You what? Yeah. Oh my God. I was. What's the spoiler? What's the spoiler? Taskmaster dies in the first 10 minutes of movie. OK, there we go. What the fuck? Oh, wow. What happened?

What the actual fuck, man? I've been waiting to talk about that. What the fuck? Why? Every fucking advertiser. out, time out. Initial thoughts, initial thoughts on Thunderbolts. Disappointing. Oh. Wow, whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on. Hold on to your big brush and britches. Why was it disappointing? Okay, slightly, I'll just get, I'll adjust it. Slightly disappointing. I just want to say like the things that I was hoping, I don't even know. hear, okay.

I know I'm fucking stammering here, but it's because I've been waiting over a week to talk about this fucking movie with Chris. And part of it is because I don't understand what went wrong. I don't understand like how the stuff that we saw in the trailer in the trailers was so good.

And this movie was just kind of like, eh, you know, like, yeah, mine's like, the thing that bothers me the most is like when I was leaving the screening or the screening for this movie, people were like doing the little Marvel Disney, like, like vignettes thing where they were talking to the camera, saying, this is the best movie. In the MCU, the action was amazing. Let's fucking go. And I'm just thinking like, I'm sorry, but this holds no candle to some of the greatest scenes in the MCU.

When Thor was getting his ass beat by Thanos. And all of a sudden we see the Mjolnir raise up and you got Stormbreaker and Mjolnir being held by Captain America. Well, just that's me on here. But yes, I get what you're saying. He like he does at one point and then the words like Yeah. But I'm just saying the fact that we knew he could wield both of them, like that whole moment right there from the fight from him getting his act.

Like there are moments like that that are so significantly, significantly amazing in the MCU. And you're telling me that Thunderbolt is the best MCU film you've seen. Fuck out of here. Yeah, there's like no nuance anymore. I think just and I know that's not like a hot take for anybody like that's not even really a nuance take anymore to say that there's no nuance like everyone is like this is the worst movie ever. The MCU needs to be canceled and all that.

And then like other people like this is the best movie ever. This like it goes like Thunderbolts and then like distantly second is in game and Winter Soldier. You know, I am like so in the middle. I said this. to Olivia, my partner, Olivia, the other day or yesterday actually, cause I just saw it a couple of days ago.

Enough went right to where I had a good time and couldn't like the cracks in the wall were so apparent, but this is just like far and away, way better than like Captain America, Brave New World. And what else we've gotten from the MCU recently? Like I very vividly think of like Guardians of the Galaxy volume three, Agatha all along, Deadpool and Wolverine. and thunderbolts like that's kind of.

Like the way you describe this, you make me feel like I like, I'm not saying you, but I, in general, I feel like maybe I'm the problem. It's me. Maybe I'm expecting too much of like Marvel films because like I'm still expecting like again, Avenger size fights. I'm expecting like Avenger size powers and, and obstacles and issues and, and not.

Talking down the bad guy with words, you know, See, that's the most surprising thing about all this, Aaron, is that this movie tugs on like the villain that is trauma, right? Yes. And this is something that I feel like more so than anybody else in my life seems to, if not have a great tackle on this, but also like understands the ebbing and flowing of that trauma. Right. And like, I kind of like the idea that there wasn't just a big blue light in the sky.

And I mean, it was like, it wasn't a big blue light in the sky. It was an entire city in black, which is still this like very glossy, kind of broad sort of muddy third act, you know, but like it's different enough. And I love that. Like you just have all the Thunderbolts traversing different traumatic events and they're all like Looney Tunes style running from scene to scene, trying to get out of this world. Let me clarify something.

I'm not saying that I did not enjoy this film because I did enjoy it. I didn't. I'm sorry. I'm going to reframe how I'm talking about this film because I don't want people thinking I'm not rewinding. I'm reframing. Okay. Okay. I did enjoy the movie itself. I am just slightly disappointed with it as well. Hmm. Parallel. We're going to discuss where it sort of slots in in phase five, because this is actually the last film of phase five.

So I am curious to sort of just discuss where this sort of lands and we don't have to like definitively place it somewhere on a rank. But like, I'm curious just like where the quality level is for you. And again, you sort of hinted at this. We've talked about a couple of times now. And before we get into the summary, I just want to ask you, how did you see the movie? How is your crowd? All the things. So I saw this, uh, in a screening.

was an early screening, uh, through Fandango and it was, it was IMAX. I said you lucky lucky minks. Uh, was, yeah, I IMAX AMC IMAX in, I want to say Kips Bay, which is not exactly, it's in the city, but not in like downtown Manhattan.

So, uh, and then it was really cool because they gave us again, like I showed you those popcorn boxes that were the Wheaties boxes with the Thunderbolts on them, which had like a bunch of like little like funny sayings and like the ingredients were like 10 % loyalty, you know, have like the crosswords and things on the back like normal cereal boxes. No, so it's got it's like on the side. It's like 100 % whole pain per serving.

So not the whole grain nutrition facts about six servings per container serving size one Thunderbolt the cat there's hundred and twenty five thousand eight hundred and twenty calories in a box or per serving. So like it's funny because it's like fairness six percent optimism two percent lethallness ninety nine percent loyalty to be determined. You know, so it's got a little fun bunch of things on it. this was like a fun project for some marketing, like some senior marketing associate.

Yes. Some kind of some very talented intern, which I think real quick, before you move on, I just want to say like broadly the marketing for this movie was excellent compared to again, I'm to keep comparing it to Brave New World because it's the only movie other movie we've gotten this year. And I guess we could compare it to Fantastic Four because I think that marketing has been pretty excellent thus far too. But like Thunderbolts, the you know, the quote a 24 trailer they put out.

Obviously the Wheaties box, the multiple posters, just all the trailers in general, we're all really good. And it doesn't hurt that the majority of the cast has at least like an Oscar nom each. So that helps, but continue on. Sorry, I cut you off there. No, I was just going to say the crowd was good. It was quiet. wasn't like there was not a lot of like there was no interruptions. Like, like, think I actually might have been at one point the loudest person at the theater. Let's go.

No, I'll tell you. I mean, we can talk about it right now. There's a scene where when the century comes out and he's just like fucking like poofing people into black dust, like the little girl when when uh who is it? Red Guardian like saves her. Yeah. And all of sudden he's like, it's OK. Go to your family. And all of a sudden.

Yeah, I'm just like holy shit and Carly was like It wasn't kind of a shot like this movie is not afraid to pull his punches, which I really appreciate, which again, let's do a summary and then let's talk about Taskmaster.

Okay. Insnared by a death trap together, an unconventional team of jerks, Yelena Belova, Bucky Barnes, Red Guardian, me, Ghost and John Walker embark on a dangerous mission that forces them to confront the darkest corners of their paths while having to rely on someone other than themselves. how is that for Red? that was great. I'm so glad that you can do a Russian accent, I'm probably going to ask you to do it again at some point.

The sort of the setup of this movie, the opening scene, obviously we get the normal Marvel Studios intro, except for this time, there's not the normal fanfare. It's actually sort of a play on the older Marvel fanfare, where it was the flipping of the comics. It was obviously a bunch of normal Thunderbolts comics. I saw a lot of century in those in those comics as well. And then it slowly blackens to that void sort of aesthetic. Then we get a voiceover from Yelena Belova.

So we're talking about how she's not feeling fulfilled. We get sort of a catch up of what she's been doing since the end of Hawkeye season two or excuse me, season one. We already established we're never getting a season two of Hawkeye. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Re-negotiations. pay Jeremy Renner. ah And I think this movie really kicked off. I think I officially established in my brain that like, OK, I'm on board. I can trust this movie at least a little bit when we get to that sort of vault.

She gets this task from Valentina to go to this, go to this fall, pick up some, you know, Tyson loose ends up and we end up meeting up with Taskmaster, with John Walker and with Ghost, obviously in Yelena as well and Bob. So tell me a little bit about sort of your reaction, not only to that fight, but also what ends up happening at the end of that fight.

oh as a proponent of like good mental health, as somebody who is like constantly like dealing with it, but also trying to help others with it and just trying to be, you know, like a meaningful person in the community to help with mental health. This movie was something like, soon as I started watching, I'm like, okay, the theme here is mental health. is emotional. is, it is, we're looking a little bit deeper because these are just people. I'm okay not being okay. Yeah, it's okay not to be okay.

It's a struggle. All of these people are struggling in their own way. They're not like, again, God-like superheroes that can just go and like blast to another planet and be like, I'm going to drink my stuff to death. you know, like, so for me, was, I already was on board with the movie itself. I think I was just kind of still hoping. And there was some moments in there, but like, like, let's say when we get to the vault, the vault was, was cool.

The vault, the vault was a fun idea where they had that first fight and everybody's kind of like, You know, like, they're they're pinging off each other because like this person is after this person. This person's after this person. This person's after this person. And it's a big old trap. But to me, like it started getting a little bit silly when they were trying to escape the vault.

And it's like the old like there just happened to be one trap that was designed to stop the one person that couldn't get out of. But the rest of like, but they could just crack into the engine or the the the generator of this thing to shut it down. Like it did not seem like it was thought well thought out. You notice that John Walker, when he is going over to smash that machine, he goes on your left. Did you. I didn't, I didn't, missed that. That's cool.

Yeah, I really, really enjoyed that opening scene there with the with all of the team when they're after each other. Like, I remember thinking when they're like catching each other's knives and like blasting each other and you've got Yelena using her her widow bites and you know, you've got a ghost phasing in and out of the quantum realm. It's all working for me at this point in the story. I'm really liking it.

And then as we sort of established already, we sort of already let the cat out of the bag is that John Walker just come up comes up and domes Taskmaster at one point in this movie. I'm sorry. Is it is it John Walker? Is it ghost? OK, as I say, it's John Walker, who we already know as a fucking psychopath. We witnessed him do this live and on TV in Falcon and Winter Soldier.

This is the endearing part of Wyatt Russell is that I think through everything that he did in Falcon and Winter Soldier and even in that moment where he shoots Taskmaster, who truthfully, let's be real, everybody, sort of a nothing burger of a villain, even in Black Widow. And we get like four minutes of Screen time in one face reveal in this movie.

I was like, okay It sounds like this is sort of a collateral for him for like a longer journey for John Walker Like at this point in the story He is still very much the John Walker that we left at the end of Falcon and Winter Soldier And we see that progression as time goes on but yeah, I don't know.

I just I didn't have a problem with it I actually sort of appreciated it Aaron's pointing currently at Taskmaster on the way Why is taskmaster so much in any of the advertising for four fucking minutes, man? Yeah, that's true. She like she even gets her own poster, like multiple posters. That irritates me so much. I like, I like taskmaster. wanted, I wanted some development from taskmaster. I wanted some, some autonomy.

I wanted some, some interesting, because again, we don't even see like the potential of her fighting prowess. Like that would have been a great thing to have going against Sentry to see if there was any, even any way that she could have, you know, like, like learn and counteracted. Like there's, would have been a great challenge. Like, shit. Like this is the one person or something like, I don't know.

I just feel like there was a lot of potential there and it didn't need to be just such a uh four minute character in this movie. maybe that was a rewrite. I don't know. It could have been cool. Yeah, I mean, maybe. I mean, there's a point in this movie where someone says it might have been John Walker, maybe Yelena. That's like we all shoot and punch hard or something like that. Like that's all they do. That's all any of them do.

So and that's just what Taskmaster did, except for she can mimic your moves a little bit better than like say Bucky. But like Bucky could probably do a similar thing. Point point is, that like I think there had to be a little bit of collateral in this movie with a roster of folks who are all like objectively bad, you know, like It uh all have their own objective and at some point they at points they become they come together and they realize that it's all like a mutual objective together.

one thing I really enjoyed especially was in the development of those relationships was the little little pings a little ratatat, you know, the little like at one point during the fight, they're like, I have these little like, you know, widow bites thing. He's like, I got a gun, you know, and they're like showing off their weapons like that's a big gun and like, know, like they're like kind of Yeah, it's a little long, like making fun of each other and like all of that.

He has like the helmet that the whole discussion like it's great. It's great. Like like dialogue, you know, it's not derivative. It's not boring. It's like quippy. It's fun. It's like it's what a bunch of like misfits would probably talk about. They're going to make fun of each other and they're going to like they're going to have fun at each other's expense while still trying to get the job done. Marvel loves their quips, don't they? I mean, there's no more Artie J who was the king of the quip.

But like, yeah, everybody's a quick machine, but it doesn't really bother me in this movie. Like it has in previous installments because it wasn't done well. But I think what this movie does especially really well is it gets the small moments really, really. It gets it right. Like I think very specifically of like Yelena and Lewis Pullman's Bob character in this movie, like those two specifically, I think are like really they bounce off each other really well. I almost like.

really wanted them to like get together. You know what mean? Like I, kind of love that. both of them are really fighting an uphill battle in their trial and their venture through trauma. I don't know if they've confirmed that like they're going to like, what do you think? Like was there romantic chemistry there? Or do you think it was mostly just like Yelena trying to help Bob through his shit? think there's potential for chemistry.

think it was like there was a little bit of a glimmer, like a little spark, you know, but I think I don't, think it was, innocent to the point where it doesn't have to be like a, like a staple in any other, like any other storyline, you know I mean? Doesn't have to be like a sub subtext storyline of, of that romantic involvement. one thing that I enjoyed though, again, it was the, the whole, the, the quips are definitely a cover for the insecurities and the sadness that we feel.

when, and it makes sense that a lot of them are at each other's throats constantly with these quips and the knives, because they're trying to hide like the things that are going on with them.

Like again, like the whole thing with, you know, John Walker and, you know, us agent and his wife and child leaving him, you know, they don't really talk about like they it's things are not like revealed about their personal lives or personal things that are going on unless it's like, a really like a good moment for it.

think the only one we didn't really explore too much of her background or her trauma necessarily, because I mean, we got a lot of it in, you know, Ant Man 2, Ant Man and the Wasp was Ghost, you know, we you. You literally took the words right out of my mouth. Like if there's one character that I think didn't everybody gets a moment in this movie, except for, think, ghost. She's the only one that doesn't.

And let me pitch you something here real quick, Aaron, because I don't really like ghosts as sort of point in this movie. Like she obviously has like a reason to be in this movie. She does a lot of important things throughout it, like getting them out of the vault, for instance. Yeah, that's about it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she also like drives. She gets the truck. Right. That's true. Yeah. But you know, you know who I would have really loved in this movie? This is a crazy thing, everybody.

But hear me out. I really wish they would have substituted Ghost for Star-Lord. I feel your pain. I feel your pain as well because, I mean, it's not a competition, but I've been through a lot. My father killed my mother, and then I had to kill my father. That was hard. Probably even harder than having to kill a sister. Plus, I came out with both my eyes. Because talk about trauma, that dude has been through it. He has watched his mom die. He's had to kill his dad. He had to.

He had he watched his girlfriend die like he's done all the things. So I just think he and him being like he is the ultimate sort of poster child of this thing we're talking about where they quipped their way through trauma and through like pain. That's what that's all he does is joke around. He's a man child. Like he's the reason why Thanos ended up succeeding in Infinity War because he couldn't hold his temper back. So like I just think he would have been a really.

Interesting fun inclusion here and he would have done something slightly different from everybody else Like Ghost is really not that much different from like Taskmaster and Yelena and even Winter Soldier They all kind of like shoot and punch that's I mean she phases and you know Winter Soldier has his arm and like they all have small things but like Star-Lord He's a guardian of the galaxy. He's a fucking he's a celestial apart celestial at least but he's also human he's He was he was a heart.

He was the he was the Star-Lord. He was like You know, he's reformed, of course, but like, he's not a good dude. oh on Earth. So he has no reason to be indebted to somebody for whatever. But let's let's get into some some interesting tidbits here. One particularly uh tell me about Ox. Yeah, the mysterious Ox group throughout this movie.

Yeah. First appearing in 2023's Thunderbolts, number one again written by our good friends of the show, Colin Kelly and Jackson Lansing, a relatively new group in the comics was a company technically founded by Valentina's life model decoy in that comic. you know, speaking of prior to that vault break in, we have Yelena visits Alexia, his home. The Red Guardian is watching old footage.

from a Soviet Union parade where he's shown standing next to Stalin, which again, sort of, you know, who might be we'll talk about during the cast, but I think maybe both of our favorite people in this movie or favorite person in this movie is probably Red Guardian. And yet he is standing next to a fucking dictator at one point in this movie.

uh Ghost is referred to as a shield reject, referring to her past that she worked as a covert agent for shield again, first mentioned in 2018's Eight Man and the Wasp, which you talked about earlier. Let's talk about the director here Jack Schaeffer. He directed paper towns in 2015 Shout out.

That's a that's a great movie and it was authored by John Green who's here from here in Indianapolis And then also he was the creator and showrunner and also directed all six episodes of beef over on Netflix. Did you ever watch that? It's excellent. It's basically it's about Stephen Yuen and Ali Wong and they just get in this like weird stupid fight in a parking lot and they just end up going at each other. It's like a road rage incident and they just end up. It just escalates.

It just keeps escalating, escalating throughout each episode where they're like almost about to murder each other and like threatening each other's family. It's like this weird, stupid fight, but it's so interesting. And like the way that they maneuver through each other's lives, it's really good. I highly recommend it. Yeah, it's great. Also speaking of which, Steven, you and which we'll talk about here in just a bit, but I just think it's an interesting spot to say this.

He was supposed to play century in this movie. was like widely rumored and then almost confirmed at one point that he was supposed to play century in this movie, but had to back out because of scheduling conflict. So we ended up getting Lewis Pullman last minute, which is great. I think he's getting this movie. So. Well, the budget for this film, 180 million. Yeah, a little bit below the normal, right? These MCU films generally sit around around 200. Yeah. And I think it looks good.

Like talk about a movie that is so wildly better looking than Captain America, Brave New World. Like, can we, I know you liked Captain America, Brave New World, but like, can you agree? They're like, you're right. Yeah, it looked it looked really good from from the century in his costume to like the scenes where he's just flying. Even the scenes where he's just this when he is the void and he's just like like this floating black mass. It's almost like a nega bob, you know?

You know, that sort of figure of the void could have very easily looked cheesy and bad. Exactly, exactly. But they made it look ominous and scary as fuck. Right. Not even just the CGI moments. I think there is sort of like a cartoony looking group shot where they're all trying to fight century. Like when they're all jumping at century, they all they look a little cartoony in that moment.

But I think overall, the CGI looks great, but also just like the lighting of the movie and like the way the shots are set up and like all of that is just wildly better. I'm just like, know a lot of people are gonna be like, why didn't he just fucking like decimate them? But like you could tell there's a little bit of, of, know, he even explains it like he doesn't want to necessarily kill them, right?

Like he doesn't need to kill them because they're not bad people, you know, which I think is amazing because like, God damn, like he just, he kicks the shit out of them in that fight scene in, in, in Avengers, formerly known as Avengers tower. Uh, now the watch tower. mean, I mean, is he just like far and away the strongest MCU character now?

It seems like he is literally the like like a god oh maybe like like maybe Icarus who I think flew into the sun at the end of eternal's but point being is that like maybe he stands up to this. I don't even think Thor is is like unpenetrable is what century is that currently. There's also like that weird uh shape shifting character from Secret Invasion. But I think we're just looking the other direction currently. We look over there. Don't look over there. Don't sit with us at lunch.

Let's talk about the box office. We talked about the budget being 180 million dollars Thunderbolts was initially projected to earn around somewhere between 70 million to 75 million in its opening weekend, which would place it between Shang-Chi and the Eternals, speaking of which. So, you know, middling opening weekend, I think it would have been really, really. I mean, again, we're recording this on May 2nd. So Friday hasn't even hit really the box office weekend yet.

But I think if this movie makes. Anywhere between 70, 80 million, 80 million that will be considered a win for Marvel, especially with centers still currently in theaters, especially with Minecraft still in theaters. At the time of this recording, it has earned approximately eleven point five million from Thursday night. That's preview night for here in the U.S. This figure is slightly below the 12 million earned by Captain America Brave New World during its Thursday preview.

So that's sort of I mean, that's expected. Like there is no world where Thunderbolts should outperform a Captain America movie. That should never happen. oh Even if Captain America was, in my opinion, not anywhere near as good as this, but you know, just like on the projection side of it, Captain America should always do better. So let's get into the cast here. All right. You got Florence Pugh. uh As Yelena Belova or Black Widow. Sebastian Stan James Bucky Barnes, Winter Soldier.

David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov. Shostakov. Red Guardian. uh Wyatt Russell as John Walker, US agent. Hannah John Kamen as Ava Starr or Ghost. Who gives a shit about Olga Kurylenko as Antonia. She got Antonia. Drakov taskmaster. I wanted her to be in this more. So sad. my God. And I'm just remembering now that that picture of US agent writing his tacos shield. uh We're going to talk about that in credit scene because I have questions.

you got Louis Pullman as Robert Bob Reynolds, century Earth's mightiest hero, a power of 1000 sons, golden guardian of good. Julia, Julia, Dreyfus is Valentina Allegra, Dave Fontaine, not the secretary of fence, the secretary of defense. Geraldine, Geraldine, this one-a-thon as Mel, I liked Mel as the secretary. did a great job. Um, kind of becoming a Bucky's. uh You know informant. Yeah in the mix, so I really liked her character.

Yeah Florence few actually jumped off the and forgive me here everybody the Merck DACA 118 in the Kuala Lumpur Malaysia in the opening scene, which is the second tallest building in the world at 2227 feet tall No CGI or stunt double there and she's pulling the Tom Cruise and just doing doing her own stunts willy-nilly She apparently had to beg Schaefer in order to do that herself Like he really really needed her to do a stunt use a stunt double and she's like no I want to do it myself

So Hannah John Cayman and Wyatt Russell previously worked together on the Black Mirror episode play test from season three. Have you seen that one? Black Mirror fan. I am. I love Black Mirror. You may have. that one. It's from back in like 2013, if I'm not mistaken. It's the one where they put the video game in 2016. They put the video game in Wyatt Russell's head. Remember that one? It's it's really good.

It's basically he like playtests an augmented reality game in London and it and like it's a horror game and it like starts to weave itself into his real life. my God, I need to read. need to watch this because I don't, it's like, it's escaping me and I know I've probably seen it. So. It's great. And I think it was really, it might've been why it Russell sort of, you know, jump onto the scene.

Like people finally stopped being like, uh, you know, why Russell's only here because his dad is, is Kurt Russell. They actually like saw his potential here with that, with that episode. So Mel is shown wearing a bird necklace supporting the popular fan theory that she's the MCU's Melissa Gold, aka Songbird, an original Thunderbolt in the comics, which would be really cool. Aaron, what do know about Songbird? I know nothing about song. That's okay.

Honestly, I songbird is I mean this respectfully to all the diehard songbird fans out there, but she's sort of a barely see list character uh She sort of ebbs and flows between good and bad But she basically has the powers to like deploy sound based Like who's the X-Men that can like yell and it creates like sound like shriek. Yeah, basically that it's just that basically It's like black canary knockoff from Marvel Gotta love those. Yep. Pastachios as you'd call them.

Yeah. We already talked about this but Steven Ewan was originally cast as Robert Reynolds Sentry but after filming was delayed due to the SAG after strikes in 2023 that's when he dropped out due to scheduling conflicts. of last minute replacements Geraldine Viswanathan replaced Io Edibiri after she left due to scheduling conflicts as well. Yeah, you like the bear, right? Yeah. Yeah. She's the she's from the bear. I think it's the. Yeah, yeah, I really liked Geraldine in this movie.

She's sort of a fun presence, sort of a nice equilibrium, someone who like will put up with Valentina's bullshit and like maybe grounds her a little bit to or at least will going forward. She had sort of a hard time doing that in this movie, but I think going forward, she'll have a little bit more pull. uh It seems like by the end of this movie, which we'll talk about here right now. Valentina is kind of up against it. Even though her plan worked, she is sort of no longer.

She doesn't have that leverage that she's used to having, at least not currently. I'm sure she will at some point. That's what these characters do. So let's sort of talk about, well, where do you want to go from here? I mean, we could sort of talk about the finale. What else is there to really discuss there in the middle? I mean, I really liked the interaction when Red Guardian shows up in his limo. my god, that was so fucking funny.

Yeah, again, it just sort of adds to our pledge of, you know, Red Guardian being a true highlight in this movie. Is he your favorite character in this movie, Red Guardian? He is absolutely my favorite character. He just has all these moments where he is the father figure for the for the he's he's like, you know, what's his name? Speed racer's dad. You know, he like runs the garage. He's like the he gives the sage advice.

He is such the dad character that I love it because he's like unapologetically a cheerleader for each of these characters. No matter what. And it's so fucking wholesome. Yeah, he's like, what's super soldier serum? Did you get and Bucky's like, I don't know, like the original one. I don't know what it is.

Yeah. He's like, I got I got the I got the Russian one, uh which is funny because it seems like from my count in this movie, there are three characters that get like a Captain America knockoff super soldier serum. Yeah, you got a guardian, a Bucky and US agent. Well, and so and Bob to Bob was part of this sort of recreation of the weapon expert or weapon program. Weapon X would be Wolverine.

But like there are so many characters in the Marvel universe that get their powers from people just trying to fucking recreate Captain America. And like, I don't think people realize this. Captain America doesn't actually have superpowers. OK, he is as strong as the strongest human. He is as fast as the fastest human. Note the running scene in Infinity War where it's he and Black Panther running ahead of everybody else.

The fact that really the only like bylaw on that is that he holds Thanos's arm for like a second in Infinity War, which I still think is a true red herring in sort of the lore of Captain America's powers. Like he's not like advanced strong. He is just like very strong. I mean, but they also like in this scene with, know, Wyatt Russell, right? was, was the US agent that holds that, that wall up.

um You know, and that didn't really seem like somebody with normal human shrink could probably do that. I also didn't love when a agent tries to jump out of the hole and he does this like cartoonish giant leap up into the hole and then crashes down. I don't know. There's just something optically weird about seeing a relatively normal looking man jump that high. I don't know. Like I just feel like I don't even think like Captain America could do that.

think that in these moments though, don't think that like any of it really, like this movie was making you look at and think about so many other things than just like thinking about them and their powers, which I think is probably a very positive thing to say about this film because you're not thinking about them as superheroes. You're not thinking about them as their powers. You're looking at them in their struggles and in their And they're false.

So I think that this is something that that movie did very well. I think that's an excellent point. think that like, yeah, you're you're so right. This movie is definitely showcasing where these people are in their lives currently and in this universe. And like the superheroing definitely takes a bit of a backseat in certain instances. But that's not to say that when they do do a punch and a kick, it's not excellent.

Like, again, as I said earlier, the fight scenes, the choreography of everything, it looks great. Like there was maybe one scene. I think Yelena's hallway scene at the beginning was a a little rough and then they sort of picked it like when she first walks in the room, she does like a preplanned move and a dodge and that looked kind of bad. But then like as the camera starts to pan over top and has like an aerial view of the fight, I think it looks pretty great.

So ah let's move on here uh again. Going into the third act, we've got the void out doing a doing a shadow over New York. The only the only thing I can think this entire time is where the fuck is Spider-Man? Where the fuck is Daredevil Punisher? Where are all these New York based heroes? Because like I can sort of suspend belief when like they're in Ohio or upstate New York even like, of course, we're not going to be able to get there very quickly. But like we're in Manhattan.

We're like we're like on 39th Street in Hell's Kitchen during this during these scenes. We I mean, who knows? Maybe we'll get an answer because maybe they're on Battle World. Maybe like brand new brand new day is the new Spider-Man movie coming. Maybe like in that at some point he like sees the shadow overtake the I don't know. We'll see. I guess I'm going to bet you a silver nickel that they don't approach it and talk about it at all in that movie.

But I will tell you what we will talk about, Aaron, is the new Avengers, which is what we basically by the end of film, everybody gets a hug. Trauma no longer exists. Right. It's gone forever. Q. Ferell's because I'm happy, happy, kept along all the things. Valentina is scrambling. They're all like, we need to go punch this 50 year old woman and she escapes through a drape and they all like, OK, come here. We're going to punch you, Valentina. And oh, hey, look, we're at a press conference.

You know, we're at a Trump style press conference where the media is all like, oh, my God, Valentina, way to go. You saved the city. And she goes, everybody, look, it's the new Avengers. Aaron, were your thoughts in that moment? I was like, well, we all knew that we all kind of knew that like that's you didn't need the asterisk. Did you like the execution though? Because I felt myself being slightly tickled by the way they announced that this was like the Avengers team. I did.

Yeah, I did enjoy it. It was like a fun way to just kind of like shoehorn it into the film. Again, you don't really know when it's going to happen. So during this film, you're kind of distracted by everything that's going on, the faults, the fights, the issues, the errors, the mistakes, blah, blah. And then all of sudden, bam, you get this press conference. Like, okay. That was pretty smart and smooth. Good job, Valentina.

I want to go back very, very briefly before we get into like the New Avengers of it all, because the two funniest parts of this movie, I I wanted to ask you about this because one of them deals with the the sort of traversing of trauma in the void. At one point, they're all being attacked by the chicken that, oh, God, is he's the the sign twirling chicken and Red Guardian's like, why did you punch me? And Bob, like quick pans over to Bob and Bob's like, I was on meth. Yeah. So that was great.

And then towards the beginning of the movie in the vault, when I forget who, it's, Bob versus uh John Walker. Yelena is trying to get them to split up and she's like, all right, put your two dick showing. What's the dick showing joke that she says? She's like, let's, let's stop the dick showing contest and get over measuring something like that. That made me chuckle. And then whenever Yelena's having her breakdown there, when they get their ass beat by century.

And she's like going around and telling everyone how much they suck. She gets a John Walker and John's like, it's my turn now. uh Like it's just the comedy really works for me. This movie, I think it like the quips are quipping, I think. And I'm really happy about that. Yeah, I mean, it just goes to show like this is a movie where like nobody's holding back the shit that they're talking about each other because that's what you get in this.

Then this Thunderbolt slash New Avengers team where the other one it's like, oh, you're the Hulk. You're Thor. Oh, you're a God. Wow. But these guys are like, you're an asshole. You're just a bunch of a bunch of assholes like I don't like you guys. And, you know, I really liked again, there was the we see it in like the trailer, but it's, you know, like Red Guardians talking to. Yelena and he's like, believe in you. She goes, okay, that's what's really good. And I'm like, that's cute.

Like again, just he gives off total like daddy vibe. He's the total heart of this. mean, like you could make an argument that like it's either Yelena or maybe Bucky as the leader of the team. But like Red Guardian is the heart. And yeah, he says in that moment, he's like, when I look at you, I don't see your mistakes. I see I see you for the good. And, know, that's that's that's how we should see people. We should stop looking at people, you know, by their worst elements.

Let me ask you one more question before we get into the New Avengers. What was sort of your read on Bucky in this movie like? How did you feel about his role? Because I found myself not this is not my favorite Bucky role in the MCU. So it's slightly annoying to see him trying to be this election elected official. He's a congressman. He obviously doesn't know what he's doing. presenting your section of the New York.

I was like, I don't know why like why would who would elect this guy like first off like who ran the campaign? How did he get elected? Like this is crazy ah I mean, it's definitely not the weirdest person to be elected. Like it's definitely like, yes, I agree. We should not elect a former Russian spy super soldier into the office, but we currently have a reality star dipshit as our president.

I mean, hey, and also we just like a red Hulk just destroyed Washington, DC four months ago in this universe. So. Yeah, I mean, and we got an orange one wrecking it now. ah So sorry. I normally don't get involved, but I couldn't help. I won't. I should have Harrison Ford was orange. Right. So it's a giant angry. ah Yeah. So it's like, I forgot my whole point, but Bucky did not need to be an elected official. It didn't really fit him.

You could tell that he was just itching to get back in the action. So good for him for hopefully, you know, resigning and being now at, at the watch tower, you know, Just like, he keep his contribution? Like all the campaign funds that he occurred? What was his running topic? Like what did he run on? What did Bucky run on, I wonder? Justice. don't know. I don't know. history back in the schools. Yeah All right, let's talk about the new Avengers. So Aaron, go ahead.

saving her own neck at the end of the film. know, obviously Valentina is in the press conference. She declares the Dunderbolts to be the new uh Avengers explaining that the title's asterisk was also making the group another classic comics team entirely. uh Although this was originally used in Brian Michael Bendis and Mike Deodato's 2009 Dark Avengers run, the team is then on full display for the world appearing before the public as the new Avengers.

uh Alan Silvestri's classic Avengers theme can be heard as the movie cuts to the credits. Aaron, have you ever been interested in that Brian Michael Bendis, good friend of the show, by the way, uh Brian Michael Bendis, Mike D'Addato's Dark Avengers run. I'm curious about it because now obviously I want to know who some of these characters are, maybe go a little bit in depth. I see this picture that you've included in our show notes. And I see, you know, we got Red Guardian.

I'm assuming that's... I'm sorry, not Red Guardian, but Century. We got Century, but I'm not sure who's... Maybe that's Star Fox? Who is that to the left of Century? He's in a green and white and gold outfit. So basically, here's the team. OK, so in the middle, you have Iron Patriot, which you're never going to guess who's in that Iron Man suit. Norman Osborn. That's right.

This is the time in the Marvel universe where the Green Goblin has like somehow it's like one of the many times that he's been like corrected internally. But then this is around the time where he's like, is he cured? Like, is he actually a good guy because he's in charge of shield? That's how he gets to form this Avengers team. This is after Civil War in the comics. Spider-Man is actually Matt Gargan, who is Venom at this point in the story.

uh Matt Gargan, people may know he's actually Scorpion generally, but for some reason he had the venom symbiote at this point in the story. Yeah, you've Hawkeye who was actually Bullseye who we just recently saw in Daredevil. Oh, so they made him Hawkeye in this and they gave him the classic suit, which is funny. You've got Miss Marvel, AKA Carla Safran. She's actually Moonstone in the comics. she Moonstone. describe Moonstone. Not really important.

She, she is essentially just like playing the Carol Danvers role in this, in this story. no, um, she's just like kind of an evil captain Marvel. That's the easiest way to put it. She's just got like generic space powers, right? Uh, you've got, Wolverine in this is, and it looks like Wolverine. It's actually his son. Dragon. Yep. Or Deakin.

think it's actually, think You have and then to your to the left there as you were talking about there of century is No var who is uh Captain Marvel in the comics. He is a Marvel boy Grant Morrison wrote a really excellent Marvel Knight story about him but he's sort of all over the place in terms of his morals and such and then you have Ares who is essentially playing the Thor character on this team Who as we know Ares we actually saw Ares at the end of Thor love and thunder.

He is the son of Zeus. He's a real dickhead, too, by the way, just out of nowhere. But OK, we're going to talk about the end credit scene. But I want to ask you really quick. We talked we sort of touched on this a little bit. The end credits. Did those look a idea? I didn't notice anything AI-ish about them. I mean, I couldn't say I didn't. I liked the art on them, but I couldn't say if they were AI or not. Yeah, that's kind of the bummer is that like I like them.

I like what they were doing in terms of like recreating classic American homages throughout history and such and magazine covers and such. You got like John Walker on the on the boat with everybody going across the Mayflower and all that. Yeah. Or the Hudson River, excuse me. But like they have that weird texture where it almost looks like kind of feathery that emulates A.I. generated art. That's why I was wondering. I don't even know. There's no way of knowing. And maybe it'll come out later.

But like, I think we just really need to police this shit. We need to be on top of this. We cannot let these big studios or really anyone. And it's naive to think that they're not ever going to use AI, but like, don't know. What are your thoughts here? You know, like I hate being hyper vigilant about this stuff because it's annoying. I'm sure for some people who don't care about this, but I just know that there's someone out there that could have made this and made it better.

I until we find out if they were or they weren't AI, I mean, we can just only hope that they did the right thing. I would agree that, you again, as I've said before, as we said many times in the show, uh if you could easily get some no name up and coming artist who just needs to make some money, who like who can do incredible art, find them on DeviantArt, find them on something. And have them do like these credits and be like, holy shit, I get to do a credit scene.

I are piece of art for Marvel, for Disney, you know, and that would be amazing. But, you know, until we get a, you know, a definitive yes or no, we can't really like, I, to me, I didn't, I didn't see that generally. I'm not like so struggling to see if it's AI or not. It's pretty, pretty substantial when you first look at it. And to me, I didn't, I didn't think about that when I saw them. So I would say, I don't think they were. It almost like it struck me today, too.

I don't know if you saw Fantastic Four through, I think, Regal Cinemas or maybe Cinemark. They're releasing a five pack of trading cards and the silhouettes of each Fantastic Four family member looks a little AI. I just don't I just don't trust these. I don't trust Marvel because they've already tried to do it with Secret Invasion. You know, I I just don't I don't like it. And also, like what you were saying there, there's so many people out there that could do this well.

I I'm thinking of like Severance. Have you seen Severance right over on Apple TV plus? You know, Ben Stiller and those guys, they found the people who did that opening sequence. It's an iconic opening sequence now. There's only two seasons of this fucking series. And yet this opener for Severance is already like one of the best. And Ben Stiller and crew found the creator, which is his name's extra wag or Oliver Latta. They found him on Twitter.

Like he just like was posting on Twitter and they're like, Hey, do you want to do the intro to our Apple TV plus series that is now maybe the best TV show currently like That can happen pretty easily, I think. So ah let's move on to the end credits. Aaron, you teased this before we actually, before I was able to see it again, you saw it many weeks before me. You were teasing that like these end credit scenes are pretty great, specifically the post credit scene.

Go ahead and talk about these end credit scenes. Well, the first one is the mid credit scene, is a red guardian at the, the grocery store. Uh, just looking pretty slick, looking pretty dashing. And he's trying to get this lady to be impressed by the fact that there, that she can't tell. She doesn't care that he is on the Wheaties box with the new Avengers. And so it's funny to see him like, it's me, you know, I'm on, I'm on the box.

Yeah. uh Small peeve, Aaron, if I can say, I hate that Red Guardian looks different from like he looks different from the end of the movie to that scene. And then he also looks different from that scene and to the post credit scene. Like I don't like and then the passage of time and like I'm sure they just like got David Harper in for like a day for four hours to film this scene, I'm sure. And they just gave him like the the shiny teeth and all that. But yeah, I don't know. I just.

He looks too much just like David Harbour in this scene. It's a funny scene though. And then the, and then the post credit scene, is obviously in the new, in their new watch tower layer, new logo. And, uh, it's funny cause like, I guess they're talking about, um, Sam Wilson suing them for the Avengers, like name and copyright lawsuit. so, uh, red guardian, he has these jumpsuits made that looked really stupid. And he just, he's like, I have an answer.

Put it Avengers with a Z. Adventure is no copyright, you know, and so like Johnny Storm from the Chris Evans with all the patches like or like who's the bad guy in mystery men? Amazo man or something. Amazing with all the all the different like. uh Yeah. And then there's then they they mentioned dealing with a space crisis. Yeah, well, real quick before we move on to the space crisis, because that's sort of the big thing is that like looking at because they say it's 14 months later.

Looking at everyone, I'm getting like weird vibes from like everybody's look. They've all got like blown out hair and brand new suits and they all look a little too clean and pressed. I don't know. What were your thoughts when seeing everybody because like Bucky got a new suit. His suit looks almost like an upgraded version of his Falcon and Winter soldier suit. Yelena's got a new look.

ah Even Ghost has sort of a different hairdo and style and... I feel like it's my thoughts are that it's a like they're trying to use them constantly as like publicity. So they want to upgrade them. They want them always. So they probably like whenever they do something, they get like they have like makeup. They have people around them. So they're kind of like, you know, prift and you know, and prettied and puffed and all these things. Yeah. You know, to look good for maybe they just came.

I don't remember what they were talking about. Maybe they just came from like, you know, some kind of meeting or. Yeah. public affairs events where Valentina has them talking to kids, like make a wish or something. Who knows? Like, yeah, you're probably right with that. OK, so moving on, we get this space event. We hear a ping. Well, they said that was before the ping actually, I think that they're talking about they've been dealing with this space event.

So this is before the alarms go off and say that there's something going on. So I'm curious about what space event they're dealing with. I have theory. uh Galactus? Maybe or I think we're just we're back to the incursions thing. You've got whole universe crashing into each other like we had in multiverse of madness. I think that's happening because from my understanding, this, you know, doomsday is supposed to be taking heavily from Jonathan Hickman's. uh What's it called?

His Avengers run leading up to secret wars was called running out of time. There it is. It was on the tip of my tongue. During that, it's the Avengers team. Reed Richards. Tony Stark, Black Panther, all these folks are getting together trying to figure out why whole universes are just colliding into each other. And it's because you have the ultimate universe, which at that time Marvel had the ultimate universe. They had the normal books.

These universes were crushing into each other and they were destroying both of them. And I think that's what's going to happen with Dr. Doom and the Fantastic Four. know, Reed figures out how to get over into and again, I've talked about this many times. I hate the fact that the MCU is called Earth 616. because that's the Marvel Comics universe. Point being is that they find a way over to 616 and that's like part of the space issues that they're having.

Yes. And so then leading to the klaxon, the alarms going off and all of sudden that the, say that they can see something in this, there's a satellite image or whatever. And so they tell them, Hey, pull up a satellite image. And I knew it as soon as I saw the image, I was like, Oh, fuck. I knew it. And all of a sudden like, It turns and it has the four symbol on it on the side of the ship and it's fantastic.

Yeah. And like all of a sudden, like the rest of the, rest of the audience goes fucking nuts, but I'm already like, holy shit. As soon as I saw the ship. but yeah, so it was, that was kind of my let's go. Let's fucking go moment. Cause I was like, I was like pretty pumped that I saw that. um I'm wondering if like Nick Fury and the sword crew can see what's going on. Remember in the Marvels, he's up in space doing some shit.

So I wonder if like maybe he's tracking what's going on right now with the Fantastic Four careening into the planet currently, you know. And, know, again, and this is think the last thing that we can say about the movie is that like, yeah, I mean, we knew the fantastic for going to show up in this universe at some point. And I assume that what's going to happen in Fantastic Four first steps is that. Galactus is going to come to Earth.

Silver surfer shallow ball is going to be like, Hey bro, you got to get out of here. Cause like I got this guy, he's going to eat this thing that you live on currently. You should probably scoot. You've got four days. Yeah. You need to, you need to skedaddle. You need to kick rocks because this guy he's like cosmic, cosmic, cosmically mad. Okay. So you've got four days do it and read puts the other plan.

He's like, Hey, guilt and sadness, but hey, we got to jump ship because our planet is dying or is about to die. And they do that right before Galactus, you know, eats the planet. And that's where we pick. feel like it's almost going to be something along the lines of they're going to try and approach him. They're going to try and figure out how to fight him.

And then maybe even at the last moment, you're going to have Reed Richard to maybe even like tricks the rest of the team into like, says, Oh, we're going to go fight him or we're going to go do something. And he tricks them and then takes them to like, takes them through like, like all of sudden, maybe like a portal shows up or like there's a conversion and he uses that or he figures out, know, like I could see. cause that I always feel like there might be ethical or moral drama.

The dilemma that gets created by him leaving their earth behind. And he's like, well, I did it to protect the child, you our child. Yeah, frankly. So I mean, I think it's it's been announced already that like Franklin will be born at some point in this movie and in first steps. And like at this point, he has to think about someone other than him and the family is think about his son. Right. I love that idea because, yeah, Reed is a real son of a bitch.

Like he will do shit willy nilly because it's either for the betterment of existence. You know, he'll like the Council of Reads is like just a group of assholes that like. are big braining this whole thing and just like have zero morality and like really just like who gives a shit if we kill these seven planets because this eighth planet right here has the cure for cancer. You know, like that's the way they think, which is like objectively right, but also like really fucked up.

So anyway, Aaron, last thing actually, where does this sort of sit in the pantheon of phase five? Again, this is the last movie of phase five. So let me list off the movies in the TV series and you sort of. I say one thing real quick. Yeah. Just so you know, this is the longest post credit scene in MCU history. Yeah, it kind of feels like it. three, nearly three minutes.

I bet you this is going to be like a, do you remember at the end of Ant-Man, the post credit scene or is it no, it's civil war actually. No, no. Yeah. It's Ant-Man at the end of Ant-Man, the post, one of the post credit scenes was just a scene from civil war. was when Bucky had his arm underneath that weight and you've got Sam Wilson and Captain America coming to me like, Hey, are you Bucky or what's going on here? You know, like that whole thing. okay. Movies.

And we've talked about Everyone no, you know, it's funny. The only movie that we did not talk about are the only two movies We didn't talk about here on the show Were guardians the galaxy volume 3 and Deadpool Wolverine, which I think are the two best movies in phase 5 But we did talk about Ant-Man and the lost quantum media the marvels and Captain America brave new world. So of the movies Where does thunderbolt sit for you? Number six is Ant-Man and the Wasp, quantumania. Resolve.

Yep. Number five is the Marvels. Number four is Captain America, Brave New World. Number three is Thunderbolts. Number two is Guardians of the Galaxy and number one is Deadpool and Wolverine. Okay. My number six is Captain America Brave New World. My number five is quantum media. Excuse me. My number four is the Marvel's. Yeah, the Marvel's. And we like the Marvel's like like we we enjoyed it. uh It's mid. It's mid. It also made no money.

Also remember we were talking earlier about Follyadoo that the Marvels like barely made more money than Follyadoo and it probably cost more to be honest. But uh number three is. Yeah, it's Thunderbolts. Number three is Thunderbolts. Number two. Gosh, this is close, everybody. Guardians three is really, really good. But I think it's not as good as Deadpool Wolverine. So I'm going to put Guardians two. Our Guardians three at two and then Deadpool Wolverine at one.

We actually I just showed Olivia Deadpool Wolverine the other day because we watched The MCU all the way through up to endgame and I said to her if you just follow me through the infinity saga You will just watch whatever you want after this So we went straight from endgame to Deadpool Wolverine.

She don't want to watch any of the crap in between that So we'll probably end up watching Guardians of the Galaxy volume 3 at some point but Okay of the TV shows though, and if you scroll down there a little bit there, you've got secret invasion Loki season 2 what if season 2 and 3 Echo, Agatha All Along, Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man, I still haven't watched, Daredevil Born Again, and Iron Heart, which hasn't come out yet.

Like where's Thunderbolt, you don't have to rank those, but like where is Thunderbolt at in that, in phase five of the TV shows? So I'm just going to say right off the right off the back Loki is my number one. Sure. All this. And so I would say more than likely ah the Thunderbolts is probably between Loki and Daredevil. No. OK, we'll see how you feel about it when you get to the end.

I want to say, yeah, Loki season two and then Thunderbolts and then Agatha all along and then miscellaneous from there. So, OK, cool. So it's like better than better than like average. I think it's like good, not great. OK, well, that's a good transition into our final thoughts, Aaron. Final thoughts on the Thunderbolts. I that I needed to change the, like, I needed to re- Again, I've been saying reframe.

I need to reframe how I thought about this movie because I realized that maybe I was anticipating, uh again, uh another Avengers level, like, fight film with powers, things like that. And this is just more of, again, an emotional journey, a growth journey, uh a redemption story, if you will. And, you know, I appreciate it for what it's worth.

And I appreciate especially the focus on Like the heavy focus and themes on mental health and how important it is for us to like really like support each other. Even if we're not the greatest people, we can still find people that will support us, you know? Yeah, I mean, to go back on what Red Guardian said earlier, it's not what it's not the bad that we do. It's the good. That's how we should be. So we judge ourselves. So we just judge it to people is like that's what's valuable in this world.

ah You know, this movie is kind of messy in parts and like it's not perfect. But I think the things that it does really well, it does like really well. And I think this is like sort of a return to form. That's such a played out tropey fucking saying. But like it really is like this feels like sort of a phase two Marvel film. And I appreciated it for that because again, I have not had a good time with a lot of these Marvel movies and just properties in general.

We'll get go back to what we just said a moment ago with our rankings. It's like Guardians of the Galaxy, volume three Thunderbolts and Deadpool Wolverine are really like the major hits of the last three years in this universe. So yeah, you know, I had a good time with it. Like I kept trying to like trick myself into thinking I didn't like this movie as much as I did, but I did.

I just I just I had a good time with it and It's a movie that I'm actually excited to see again, actually of the face five, because I don't really consider Guardians of the Galaxy volume three super rewatchable because it's a real gut punch. It's a real kick in the deck. So like, I I still haven't gone back and watched Guardians three since seeing it in theaters because and I loved it, but like I don't need to cry.

So of like phase five besides Deadpool of rain, this is probably the most rewatchable. Of those of the of the entire phase. So out of five David A. Weiner's Aaron, what are you going to give? Thunderbolt Asterisk. I'm going to go with ask you to give yours first because I think that I give mine plenty of times first and I think it's your turn. Okay, I'm going to give it a three point five. It's good. It's good, Aaron. It's just not just not like excellent, you know.

Yeah, I'll give it a I'll give it a 3.5. I'll give it a 3.5. Yeah. All right. It is rewatchable. It's definitely rewatchable. It's definitely a good, a very good hearted film. It's got a lot of heart, you know. So, yeah, I like it. I think it's a good film. I think it's a 3.5. You know, for a movie that's tackling a lot of serious things, it's pretty breezy and that's good. Yeah, I agree. I like light on its feet. Yeah. It's a little toe-tapper, you know?

Little Bob, Bob, you know, a little bobbing around. You know, speaking of bobbing around, though, we need to get over to a section that we haven't been to in quite a while. It's been, I want to say, a couple of months now since we've been to Aaron Aaron's arcade.

It's time for Aaron's Arcade. Welcome to Aaron's Arcade sponsored by nobody at the moment. ah It is sponsored by the oblivion bar pods Twitch channel, which is twitch.tv forward slash oblivion bar pod. So make sure you go over there and drop a follow. We will be probably streaming no man's sky again until what I'm going to talk about today is what I'm super excited about. I know I'm not playing it just yet, but guess what?

We've got less than two weeks until the next installment of the doom franchise releases and I've already started getting my pre-ordered items from it. got my play mat with the medieval doom Slayer on it. I've got the helmet, which is the replica of his new helmet from his new armor. I've got, even just ordered a new three, uh, Xbox three 60 controller. That is the doom, the dark ages. I'll post some stuff over on, uh, Instagram. this on Xbox 360. No, but I can use the controller on my PC.

Oh, it's I don't even know if I'm going to use it. This thing is sexy as hell. Like it's got the spikes from his armor. It's, awesome. But again, yeah, no man's sky is kind of my current obsession, exploring the universe, doing what a, little Aaron, when he was a kid wanted to do, which was go into space and just explore and be free. And again, it's like Minecraft in space. So I, I, I love the fact that, you know, Chris would probably enjoy this game if it weren't so complex. I'm just kidding.

I'm kidding. It's a joke. the do I don't doom the dark ages is the prequel to the critically acclaimed doom 2016 and doom eternal that tells an epic cinematic story worthy of doom Slayers legend uh in this third installment of the modern doom series. Excuse me. Players will step into the bloodstained boots of the doom Slayer in this never before seen dark and sinister medieval war against hell.

So this is technically a prequel that is going back before time was time going into we're going to hell again. We're getting uh new realms. We're getting new weapons. There's a fucking shield that has like a saw on it. It's like some crazy ass new weapons. I'm so excited about. ah He's the other thing is some demon crushingly cool like Mecha's like there's a fucking like Doom Slayer Dragon Mecha that we get to write on at some point in the game.

It is like Did you like peer into one of your wet dreams and go, OK, let's make a game out of this. I swear to God they did. And this is why I love the doom series. is everything that like they have again, robot Mecha's dragon Mecha's like, ah, I'm so excited. Are there like orc women in this game too or no? DLC, Aaron DLC, it's just She-Hulk skin. a, yeah, it's like a, uh, like a dating game. You know, like a, like a dating SIM, for ork women.

need that game is if anybody knows of a ork gate dating, uh, SIM game, let me know. Uh, I'm totally down for it. Uh, if you aren't a fan of the doom series, now is the time to become one. And if you are grab a friend strap the fuck in cause it's time to rip and tear, doom, the dark ages drops may 13th. I ordered the collector's edition, which comes with like the statue, the key card, like the steel case. It's going to be. Bat shit crazy. I'm excited. I'll do some photos once it gets here.

And yeah, that's it for Aaron's arcade. ah Once again, please go over and check out twitch.tv forward slash Olivia and bar pod. Drop us a follow and we'll be streaming on that Tuesdays and Thursdays. And then with that, like, let's get to my favorite part of the show, which is Chris's corner.

It's time for Chris's Corner. Rippin' in the Tarrin', Aaron, the Rippin' in the Tarrin'. You love that, right? especially after Taco Bell. oh ah Welcome, everybody to Chris's Corner. This week, we are talking about here's the thing. Real quick, I tell you what I actually picked this week. I think one of my favorite things about being a comic book fan in twenty twenty five is that I've seen this creator go from a relative nobody to now probably maybe the biggest creator in the medium.

At one point, Daniel Warren Johnson was known by a couple of us through Ghost Fleet. and space mullet and a little book called extremity. And then all of a sudden out of nowhere, he became like a household name. And part of the reason why he is such a big name now, I mean, I think he was already becoming one before, but now I think and it's my pick this week. is transformers. The first book actually just came out and it actually has issues one through 12 of that series.

It was mostly written and drawn by Daniel Warren Johnson, but then also in chapter two, Jorge Corona takes over for art, which is like equally as good. Like Daniel Warren Johnson is obviously the goat, but like Jorge Corona is very excellent as well. So here's the thing about this series, though, Aaron, is that I've been collecting it sort of on the side because of course, Daniel Warren Johnson. But like I haven't been keeping up with it. I haven't been reading it.

So this is like as we were saying earlier, this is like sort of the new fun trend that we like to do is we like to wait until a bunch of issues have backed up and we can read it all in one big binge. And I'm excited to do it. This is a beautiful hardcover from Skybound. They did a is a credible job. This is actually believe it or not, Aaron. This is me being a little braggy asshole is that this is the DM variant of Book One.

So you can only get this purple sort of metallic glossy version from your local comic book shop if you ordered it. Like if you go to your comic book shop and Aaron, you can see it in the transcript. It's this blue normal version. Yeah. Yeah. And then this one obviously has our star scream here on the front cover of this book one. So very excited to catch up again, if you're not familiar with the Transformers, Energon universe, the Autobots and Decepticons have renewed their endless war on Earth.

And the one thing is immediately clear. The planet will never be the same. New alliances are struck. Battle lines are redrawn and humanity's only hope of survival is Optimus Prime. We do the do the Transformers. Nice as I can do. Okay, so, as I said, Danny Warren Johnson do a power bomb or a corona. He worked with Scott Young over on Middle West and of course, Mike Spicer on colors.

So I'm imagining that most people listen to most people who listen to this are already either tracking the Daniel Warren Johnson's on Transformers or reading it. And like Chris, you're an idiot. Why haven't you been keeping up? Well, I'm going to now. So Transformers book number one. is Chris's corner this week. Aaron, have you been keeping up with Transformers? Yes, I avoid rivals, transformers, all of them. It is, I am just anticipating every issue. It's so good.

Real little slut for the Energon universe. I am absolutely a slut for the energon universe for uh some of the nacelle universe. Some of the massive, not, not, not, what is it? What is it? Not the black. What is that? Radiant black, not the radiant black. Cause that's the massive versus that. Yeah. I, I, when I say massive verse, mean like the massive comics verse had their, um AstroBot series and I want them to bring that back. uh But yeah, it's like I'm more for some of their stuff.

oh Well, I'm really happy that you're a huge slut for the inner John universe, Aaron, because next week on the show for episode one ninety three now it's sort of inner John universe adjacent, but kind of a big deal. Everybody next week we are joined by the creator of The Walking Dead of invincible of outcast of oblivion song of void rivals. Thank you, Aaron. Of Marvel zombies. We didn't even talk about that at all in this conversation.

Robert Kirkman will be here on the Oblivion Bar podcast and Aaron, I'm setting it up. You're getting ahead of me here. You're jumping the Optimus Prime Autobot gun that's on his arm. He's he's he's not alone, Aaron. I'm not going to cut it out, but you didn't say that was going to be there. Who's going to be there? And do you want to know who's going to also be there with Robert Kirkman? Tell me. OK, yeah.

So he was the artist on one hundred and twenty seven of one hundred and forty four issues of invincible. He was the one the only. The one and only yes. He also was the artist on Amazing Spider-Man with Nick Spencer and he was the artist on the Hulk run with Donny Cates where he wrote the last six issues because Donny Cates disappeared into a void. Not the century void, not that one. But yeah, actually probably closer to that than whatever. Ryan Otley was he joined us here on the show as well.

Yes, Robert and Rodley. Ryan Otley joined us here on the Oblivion Bar podcast. How did we do it? I don't know. Was it a good conversation? Yes. Yeah. It was a short conversation because we were, we were stuck into a little box of time. Yes, sure you don't fuck up. like, Chris, Aaron, we know what kind of shenanigans you have over there on the Oblivion bar. This is Robert. This is the Robert Kirkman. Please don't mention muscle mommies. But yeah, that's next week on the show.

Episode one ninety three will be our conversation with Robert Kirkman and Ryan Ali. Genuinely a huge honor. A gigantic milestone here on the Abloving Bar. What a pleasure it was. And we're excited to share that conversation with everybody. So, Aaron, that'll do it for episode one. And you to take us out of here. Subscribe to our podcast, whatever it is. Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeartRadio, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, we'll be there.

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Most of that land is a little that's not even where you like. If you're not living on the southeast coast of Australia, you're in like hell. Sorry to any Australians that are listening. We know nothing about Australia. calling the middle of your country hell uh was inconsiderate. So on behalf of the oblivion bar pod, we apologize. know, the government of Australia also lost two separate wars to two separate animals. Kangaroos and I think was ostriches. So, you know, when the shoe fits.

All right, that'll do it for the Oblivion Bar podcast, everybody. Thank you so much for listening to episode 192. We will see you next week talking to Robert Kirkman and Ryan Otley during episode 193. But until then, see you later.