Did you know Mike Myers was accused of stealing one of his characters at Austin Bowers, Or that Gene Davis chose Brad Pitt over George Clooney and Thelman Louise good choice for the Abs, Or that Tom Cruise had a clause in his contract that he wouldn't go topless in Top Gun. He went topless, So we need to find out what the issue is here. If you're curious to hear more film facts, then you should listen to the Unspooled podcast. Well you'll learn something fascinating that you thought
you knew. Join comedian and professional movie talk about Her Paul Sheer and New York Times writer Amy Nicholson as they unspool famous films to see if they are truly all time classics or just remembered that way. New episodes have unspooled every Thursday wherever you get your podcasts. Warning, this podcast contains spoilers for the MCU, including some spoilers regarding the Galaxy Volume three, but they're light in the nerd out section and in thee you section of the mailbag. Hello,
my name is Jason Concepcion. And on Merday Night and welcome to x ray Vision, the Crooked Media podcast where we dive deep into your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture.
In this episode, it's gonna be all mailbag, Mailbag, mailbag, mailbag, E mailed us all questions. We are going to answer those questions in the mailbag segments, which will take up almost the.
Entire podcast, apart from a No Doubt.
Which is going to be Evan pitching us a theory from Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three.
Oh I love it. I love to hear it coming up, mailbag folks, Let's jump into the mail bag without any their delay. First, let's start here. Jordan asks, if the MCU were to reset, no copyright issues, no corporate issues, no corporate trademarks, no weird ownership of IP stuff going on, what are the five comics slash heroes that we would start with to build the first phase? How would we do it? Whoo well question, It's an incredible question.
Do you want to start?
It's such an exciting question. I do have to say. I will put the classic disclaimer. As someone who loves this stuff and is so excited that we get to talk about every week, logically I would change nothing, because the MCU does not exist. If you don't start in that exact space. Now, if we're not talking about that,
it would just be X Men. I think that that is how I would start any if I had Jon Favreau with no issues, no Fox licensing deals, no almost bankrupt Marvel that had to be saved by toy Biz and Avier Ard, I think it would be a giant size X Men style launch. I think that would be your big Poul. You have Storm, you have Cyclops. You know, you have Charles, you have Gene, you can bring a
night Crawler. I think that that, especially at the time, like in the two thousand and eight, it would have changed the trajectory of how we do this stuff, but obviously it was not the way.
That it went.
If I was going to try and replicate the MCU but with out iron Man, I would probably do something like that, but with weirder characters like New Mutants or X Force, or you.
Know, have like a Chamber movie.
You know I love Chamber, but definitely for me it would it always goes back to those Mutants, and I think it would be a very interesting old union of us. If Marvel Studios had been able to launch post blade with the X Men.
I agree with what you said in that logically, reasonably, the rollout for Phase one was so perfect you can't it'd be silly to change anything logically, uh, And so I would just pitch a haircut. I also, of course, like I love the Mutants as well, and so I
would I might start with a Wolverine story. I mean, this is sounding now perilously close to X Men origins, but I would start but I would start like in the sixties, right, I would start like in the sixties or seventies, like Vietnam era Wolverine or you know, somewhere
like a Wolverine brainwashed. It basically be the Weapon X story that would get us into the Super Soldier's story, and then you could just launch Captain America from that as as a project that was related to and part of the Weapon X project, which is just really a much more and more underground version of the Super Soldier story. So I would like tie those things together, and then from there Phase one would proceed like on a binary track, on a binary parallel track, right, So you go from
Captain America right to Iron Man. This is even though I'm kind of reversing stuff, right, So you go from Captain America to Iron Man, and then you'd go from Wolverine to like giant size X Men. So you do like Avengers and X Men happening at the same time, but like in different little pockets where the X Men are doing stuff much more underground because they don't want anybody to know they exist, whereas the Avengers are emerging
at the same time. You know, they have the big they would still have the big Battle of New York and all these other things that announce their existence to the world. And it would be that existence that would basically shake up the mutant line of my proposed MCU, where you'd have all these other mutants saying, well, why are we hiding?
If these people can be out, like.
Why can't we just and so that they would do that, and that would bring them into conflict with the Avengers and then they ultimately get together to fight off Thanos or whatever. Big bet.
Yeah, I was gonna say, in that version, is your Avengers movie or is your later on like a civil war before you get to endgame? Is that your Avengers versus X Men movie? In that world, No, I would.
Do it later because I think the way if I was going to do it this way, right, then all the mutants are together originally like Magneto, everybody no Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. There are maybe more extremist mutants, and there are more piece nick mutants, you know, but everybody agrees that it's for the best that they keep quiet.
And when the human superheroes emerge, you have the more extremeist voices being like, well, why are we We should just come out like this is insane that we're hiding, and then that would cause the split that would create you know, mystique in the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants or Magneto going off and deciding that he's going to become a domestic terrorist or whatever, you know.
And it because they're reacting to.
The emergence of the human superheroes who everybody fucking loves, and they're saying, well, why can't why can't we have a.
Life as well? And then you have those things converge. I think you'd have.
I think you probably do Avengers versus X Men, like Phase two, and then Phase three would be your big Okay, we need to all twoin together to beat whatever the fucking thing is.
Yeah, I love that.
I mean, you make a really great point too, because the reality is even then in the mid Zeros to late Zeros, Wolverine is still one of the most famous characters in the world, not only thanks to the comics in the animated series, but thanks to Hugh Jackman. So really that would be a very good place to start, and I would love to see that. I mean, hilariously, Marvel, don't steal this. The WGA is on strike.
Your idea is.
Definitely something that I think we could actually see come to life even.
Now.
You know that idea of like the reality of human heroes being in the world for like twenty years has caused that conflict within like underground mutant sex like the Morlocks, even if they didn't want to go full you know, gifted Youngster's school.
Kind of route immediately. So yeah, I love that. And you know how like.
There was the you know tm X before Wolverine pre x Men, when he was on a team with Saber Tooth and others. Right, you could do that, Bucky and just have like all the brainwashed like superheroes in the seventies and eighties they're doing secret government shit. You could kind of reccon it so that Bucky is part of that. You could introduce I mean, you can even make Steve a part of that if you really wanted to.
Yeah, more of a nomad style, like he's not no mad.
Style, but he's I mean, what if you did it this way? What if six one six? If we're calling this MCU exists, right, we relaunch, but it's a parallel universe, and it's the one you know, it's like the one Steve escaped into. So there's like a Steve running around.
Oh that's really I mean Steve.
Yeah, I mean I Marvel call us after.
The second often call us when the strike's over. We'll picture somebody is. We've got some pis matt osks.
How do you think all these Marvel shows will be combined into a singular movie? I will add parentheses or project when that stylized so differently, Well, she hold.
Dropped the fourth wall.
When she's in a team up film, even though that's so unique to her. Miss Marvel was a very different vibe than Falcon and Whin still just stylistically, So how do we think those things are going to kind of come together? Oh?
Wow, that's a great question. I think honestly, very organically. These are issues that pop up in the comics as well. Yeah, the comics have been dealing with for decades this entire time. You know, she Hulks breaking the Fourth Wall in the eighties, and when she shows up on Avengers teams or Fantastic Four teams, it's the same personality, the same character, but you fit the character inside the frame of what the
particular title is. So depending you know, if it's a She Hulk in an Avengers movie, then you would fit it to the sensibility of an Avengers movie, depending on what the director's taken his take on it as well. I actually think it's not that it's honestly not that big a deal.
Yeah, I agree.
I think if you look back to the comics and remember what we all love so much about the comics, and I will say what really kept people engrossed in the MCU was when it branched out of the kind of ottomous inspired originality of the you know, the first phase and instead, you know why is Win a Soldier one of people's favorite movies, because it felt like it was bringing a new tone to the MCU. It was
this spy espionage style genre. So I think that it will be a delicate balance, but I would love I think you could have she Hulk, especially the version that they did in the show, which I thought was so great. I could see a pretty serious Daredevil show, for example, where she turns up yeah, and they still managed to build that in in an Avengers movie. She also gives you a great narrative tool. She could be your in character.
She could be your narrator almost, and you could have a really fun time making the audience complicit and more involved in the story than they've been before, even when stuff's getting wild and.
They do Yeah, I would almost guarantee they do a fourth Wall joke and whatever Avengers movie emerges from, Oh, definitely, like you'll have a moment where she's talking to the fourth wall, but maybe not to camera and Spider Man or somebody's like, who the fuck are you talking to you?
Yeah, yeah, they'll do a flea bag yeah yeah. I definitely think as well. Like one of the things that I could see is the amount of times that those tones are used. Like, so I think that in quite a serious Avengers like Secret War style movie, she probably won't be cracking wise the whole time, and she won't look at you when an alien does something wild. But if there's a Schwama esque kind of in joke that they know the audience is gonna look to, you could get a gym office.
Style look to camera.
I think it's all about those kind of stylistic choices. But yeah, I think it's going to happen because really that interconnectivity is what has always made people really care about the MCU. So I think that even though the vibes are different. I mean, if we look at Miss Marvel, especially in the comics, one of the things that was so great when she was first introduced, she was obsessed
with these really rugged heroes like Wolverine. So that kind of fun of seeing that joyous, joyful fan energy from Kamala, who's also incredibly powerful buck up against you know, meeting someone like I would love to see her meet Bucky or something, but you know, even someone like Falcon who is now you know, Captain America Sam Wilson. I think that that's actually going to bring a lot of joy
and kind of enjoyment to the MCU. Those juxtapositions are going to be an additive rather than a challenge.
I reckon.
I think that's right, Jack asks, after seeing Guards of the Galaxy volume three heads either of your opinions about the mc model shifted. Are you looking for more self contained stories, whether it be standalone stuff like a movie trilogy or a special or does the interconnectivity still create the world we know? I'm curious how you feel as the scope of the MCU gets wider. Yeah, I think it gets more Obviously, it gets more unwieldy as it gets wider.
I also think.
The I think a lot of the feel of kind of less focus to the post endgame phases is simply a lack of a focusing villain, you know, like you had Thanos pretty much from Jump driving things forward post of you know, like certainly post Avengers, everybody understood that was where we were going, Whereas you know, there's significant confusion about, like especially post issues with Jonathan Majors, what the kind of focal villain is going to be in terms of for me, like the I think it's just well,
it's interesting, you know, because we say, as we've been saying, so much of this stuff, parallel stuff that happens in the comics Guardians has always benefited and Cosmic marvel in general has always benefited from the remove from the activity to the main storyline of Marvel comics, like you can
just do more. And I think I would argue that, like, you know, some of the weakest cosmic Marvel is the stuff that intersects with like earth bound heroes, like when they're just out there on their own annihilation, war of Kings, that kind of stuff, and they can just blow up into our galaxies. You know, then that's the best stuff. And I think part of what made Guardians so good, or at least so easy to position as a real,
like contained story, is that it's in space. It's removed from the rest of the stuff that's going You're not worrying about like, hey, where are the events?
Is what happened to them?
What's going on with the blip? You know, my bakery got evicted to the blip, but now somebody else moves. You don't have to do all that.
Kind of stuff.
You can just do the story that said.
I don't.
I think the interconnectivity is kind of is necessary. Now maybe you can maybe you can not tie it as tightly to things that are going on. Maybe that's a way to go. Is not like be beholden to all these tie ins and callbacks while still acknowledging that it's part of a shared universe. But I think the interconnectivity is vital.
What are your thoughts.
Yeah, I think you're right basically, and I think you summed up something I think is really interesting. I think part of the reason why this Guardian's movie is hitting so well, you know, a cinema score, even if the box office wasn't crazy, We'll see what.
That hold was.
I think Guardian's Galaxy Volume three feels very akin to the early MCU in that fact that it feels quite separate, but there no odds to things that have existed in easter egg form, not in big exposition dumps or this is how this all works, but in here's a little thing you've seen before. Oh, here's a character you know that's very appealing. That's what made people love these movies. I personally am always excited for things that can exist
in that world, but also standalone. I think that you know, the were Wolf by Night Halloween special was just so brilliant, and I'm really excited to see them do stuff like that. I also think it's one of the few strengths that you can objectively say that the DCU has, which is the way that they've let directors just make weird movies. That's how we got Batman, That's how we got Aquaman, That's how he got you know, Kathy Ynn's incredible Harlequin
and Birds of Prey movie. I think that there's a lot of fun and freedom that can be had from going with big swing, weird ideas, especially when this franchise has like thirty movies at this point and millions of
TV shows and blah blah blah blah. It's always going to get im wieldy, But I think the interconnectivity always has to be there, and I think in a sense of getting people really excited, that's probably going to have to come a little bit more to the forefront than it has been, even if it kind of As comic book fans, we're more used to the weird explosion of stories that you get before you draw it back in for that slim down, you know, multiversal battle.
And I think like, as a general principle, the stakes need to be in the movie. Like the thing that makes Guardians three so good is you worried who's going to die? You are absolutely distraught over the horrible things that have happened to this beloved character Rocket. It that the steaks are in the movie. You want the high evolutionary to pay. You'd like, you just want it with some of the Phase four and Phase five, which I
love because I'm a sucker for it. But one of the things you could say is the stakes come from outside the movie. Yes, it's stakes that carry over from another project, or it's built in from something else, and it's not native to the story itself self contained in the story, and it dilutes the power.
That's a definite challenge that I think that the interconnectivity element brings because people have to be extremely invested, like Infinity War endgame style invested to want to know all those different things to feel like it's an event. My friend William did a great interview with James Gunn at Esquire. I'm you basically incredibly smart cultural critic that you are. You summed up how James gets people to care about these things. He said, it's always about like, it's not
about the end of the world. It's about like saving the dog, you know, that was his experience, and in this movie, it's about Rocket it's about that journey, and you do these little things that make people invested in the journey that you are on in that movie. That is I think, think about Tony Stark, think about Iron Man. It's about that movie, and then the teas of what
else could come is so exciting. But I will say, even as someone who, as you know, love I love a lot of Phase four stuff and Phase five, I'm very chill with it. I love to see these movies. I love to know that they're based on these comics I love. But I do think it could easily be argued that the teas has become the primary part of a lot of those stories, rather than that steak that keeps you in in the center of the story before wondering what comes next.
And about the steaks, I also think that more characters should die.
Not I will say, I agree, maybe not problem, yeah, maybe not die.
Because of course, like you know, one of the spoiler and spoiler spoiler Guardians three, spoiler, one of the surprises of Gards.
Three, he died. That was actually a very good subsion.
This is of course, like you know, Rip to Floor and Yolah, and.
Yes, no established characters before this movie that we were expecting to die hit fucking hard. That said for.
Characters that you were getting flash back like that was those deaths hit, but there was turn. It's almost like a death in the sense that people left the team. People were like this part of my there was an advice is over and and you and you you have to leave this wonderful group of friends behind. Essentially because people are leaving, people have left. That feels like part of life. And I feel like, you know, whether it's you know, you pick any story that that we've had in these phases.
I think that.
If it's not death, there needs to be, like it were, vocable rupturing of relationships that happen because of these stories. I guess you could say in Chunk Chi, it kind of happens, right, even though like it's only secretly that like Shan's sister becomes like the head of organized crime.
I want to see that happen. By the way, that was like one of my favorite post credit scenes.
But I really enjoyed it as well, but like to the more. And this is because I've rewatched the movie and I've been thinking about it, but like, imagine how much to me, I feel like wouldn't that hit harder emotionally if he knew that she did?
Yes, exactly. I totally agree with you, and I think you are really.
Summing up one of the bigger issues that post end game MCU has had. And obviously, as we say many like this is all coming with love, we're always in there on the.
First time watching it.
Yeah, so it's like we are not out like this is not so much of saying that this is a failing, But I do think it's something that's very interesting post endgame.
We all thought that was going to be the end of that generation of heroes, but that decisive, irrevocable thing never really happened yea, and those heroes have kind of stuck around in these different ways, whether due to COVID, like Black Widow coming out late or Hawkeye being in the Kate Bishop Show because they wanted to do the incredible, you know, comic book version that we'd gotten from Matt Fraction and David Aha.
But it's very interesting.
That that guillotine of stakes and a true ending it never really came down, and I think that has kind of left this feeling more of a transitional phase than people expected.
Because you leave the stories at the end of them, with the characters more or less in the place that you met them at the beginning.
Of the story.
You know what kind of Forever as an example, a movie I actually quite enjoyed. Yeah, I think there's a world in which you how many people died in the attack on Wakanda, Like you would have militant voices really voicing their displeasure with the way the country is run. And so what if you left that story with that feeling of, yeah, you know, whatever else has happened here. You know, we lost to Challa, of course, but we also lost a lot of citizens of this nation, and
nothing will ever be the same. He's like, I want to leave each movie with and nothing will be the same?
Yeah, what I mean?
Like, and I think that feeling has maybe not been as strong as those feelings in phases one, two, three, where you left each movie going, oh fuck, like Tony and Steve really hate each other now, oh fuck?
Yeah, Like Steve literally beat up Tony because his best friend killed his parents.
Yeah, and he just like beat the show of.
Him on the concrete fool.
That still blows my mind when I think about that sequence, Like, I totally agree with you. I will say I did feel like I felt like Eternals offered that up and I'm.
Sorry just saying that. I'm just saying those are fucking celestials. I will never be the same.
But like, but again, I understand that as much as I enjoyed that movie, it didn't leave general audiences with the scope and scale of what that change was, and that in itself means that it wasn't as effective even if I loved it and felt like things had changed. And that to me stands as a great example of letting somebody do something in a completely separate space that can be connected but doesn't have to be connected.
But I totally agree with you.
I think that that is something that any studio would struggle with when you're thirty movies in, you know, with multiple TV shows, et cetera. So yeah, I think it's going to be very interesting to see, but I think basically the interconnectivity will always be there. I would love to see more kind of stand alone, own ish stories, and I'd love to see them learn some stakes lessons from James Gunn, because I think you're right, he knows how to tell those intimate stories. Even on this hugely
cosmic scale, but who knows. I mean, this is a this is gonna be a wild time for the MCU for the next couple of years. I mean, the fantastic formant to be coming into the MCU next year, which just feels like.
It would change everything.
I mean really crazy. So I mean I look forward to a world in which the MCU and DC are growing movie for movie and forcing each other to raise their level. That's what it is in the comic space, and I'm hoping we get there in the movie space. Up the next more Mailbag.
We're back in the X ray vision crypt with more mail bag questions, and now we're moving on to the galaxy Far far Away. I love the galaxy far far love that galaxy. I'd go there even if it's far far away. Okay, So Hayden asks rank. This is a really good question. This is a tough one question.
I've been thinking about this getting it ready.
Rank your top five Star Wars projects since the Disney acquisition, Film series, games, comics, shorts, etc.
Can be any of those. What's your favorite? Okay, I'm going to go.
The Disney acquisition was twenty twelve correct rebels Oh Rogue one and or yep, Star Wars on Marvel Comics Jason Aaron and then like Kuran Gillan, the Darth Vader run.
Oh man, that run is so fucking good.
Yeah, the whole thing Sewel Gillan Park now it goes. It's interesting because Gillan's happens chronologically after Suels despite time, right, but that is it just fleshes out the characters so well, and it's some of the best times I've had with Star Wars.
So those are my answers. Are that's really good?
I am going to say I am a sequel trilogy, stanky, I'm gonna I'm putting Force Awakens at five. I love Force Awakens like I delightful. It was one of my best cinema experiences. I saw at midnight in the cinema where I used to run a cocktail bar, and it was just like the wildest read like the exact kind of screening you want where everyone when when they pull off the sheet and it's the falcon like, everybody screams.
I love that, So I'll start with that for you know what, that Darth Vader comic is really there for me. So I'm gonna I'm gonna jump on that one that was on my list, especially because it was one of the few comics where when I was reading it, just every week that I got the issue, I wanted to talk to someone about what.
Was going on.
It's great and obviously like doctor Afra, like getting to meet these incredible new characters like the evil R two D two and C three po.
Who I loved.
I'm gonna go and or at three because I think you're right. I think it's like a masterpiece. And then for me this is kind of a cheat. Apologies, but I'm gonna go for it.
I think the.
High Republic line is a high point. Oh yeah, So the especially the new stuff. I have a wonderful friend Wren, and they really encourage me to get back into it with this kind of like second phase and there those books are just absolutely they blow me away every time. If you're a fan of Charles Saul, he was a big part of establishing all of this. There's great comic books.
There's incredible middle grade comics. I know we have a lot of people who have kids who love this kind of stuff, but the core books, like at the moment i'm reading it's path of Deceit, and then the newest one is Cataclysm, and they are just like out there sci fi storytelling that happens to be in this Star Wars world.
So I just cannot I cannot hype it enough.
And then coming in controversial as always number one for me, last Jedi Banger, unbelievable, it is there. I would never take it back. I think that movie is amazing.
Come on, I think it's so good.
I love it.
It's so good.
Honestly, you know, hate to give to an evil corporation, but like, it has not been the dire situation that I think many fans worried about since Disney took over Lucasfilm, you know, in that merge. I feel like there's actually been It's hard to pick five things because there's actually been an incredible amount of brilliant creative ingenuity in those spaces we didn't even talk about, like visions or you know, all these other different fun things.
Books.
Yeah, there's a lot of stuff we didn't we didn't talk about. I mean, we can talk about the video games. I also believe that the on balance, the Disney acquisition has been this era has been good for Star Wars. It's been a great era for Star Wars period. Yeah, Russell asks of all the characters in Star Wars, who would you be most and least concerned about if they happen upon the one ring on the side of the road. For me, Chopper getting his hands on the watering, I'm.
Saying, for the galaxy?
Really very quickly, what do you think?
Now?
Let me ask you this because I've been thinking about it. Can a droid wield the ring? I?
Can a droid wield the ring? I don't know. Could chop A find a way to wield the ring? Yes?
I think the Galaxy's most powerful mass matter, I suppose I suppose it.
Wonders is it just about sentience?
Because in that case, I would say most of the droids have enough sentience that they could be impacted.
But is it also about having a soul or something?
Also about Is it also about like metal on flesh, you know what I mean? Or like because do you have to have an organic body to do this? I don't think sourn like. Honestly, you'd be a mind blower for Sourn if you ever brought a droid to him, he'd be like, holy.
Shit, and then he'd be making well I think the biggest worry is that in this hypothetical scenario he would essentially create a one ring that was chopper, you know, a shiny gold chopper that anytime it goes near people wields the power of the ring because they can forge this incredible metal.
So surely they would be horribly inspired.
I just think it took. It was such a It took so much effort to make the ring, and it's so fucking small. I don't know that he could make a chopper level droid out of like that was one ring material.
I think it would just take. It would just be too long, too big of.
A project for him. So other than chopper, do you have a least.
About least worried about? To me, it would just be like any e Wok. I think they're relatively chill wicked. Let's say they're eating folks down there, I will say them, I will say, if we're talking about powerful people in the galaxy, yeah, look up the root Return of the Jedi went the Ewoks.
They are powerful, they can defeat things.
But I would say generally, I don't feel like they're particularly like greedy or jealous. I don't know if they have that within them. I think they just kind of want to chill in the forest. So I'd probably be least concerned about an Ewok most concerned.
I mean, really just any of them. There's so many. I wouldn't give it to a Jedi. I wouldn't give it to a Scyth. I wouldn't.
I feel like the one Ring is essentially going to amplify any kind of dark side tendencies that you have, so it's a lose lose game.
Actually, I'm just like imagining a Ewok putting ring on and then you know, like glad reel this explosion of and a really like powerful and dreadful voice going yup.
Now, and then the musical sequence. Yeah, they're just hits with these really pounding drums.
I go the other way. I actually think that if Palpatine had the ring, it would be really I would it would be fascinating because I think it would be a I think it would be I think they would. I think it would be Sourn versus Palpatine because of the I think Palpatine is not going to be able to let go of the Sith philosophy of the move too right. He's going to the way He's going to perceive it is here is this ring of power. It is linked inextricably to this immensely powerful being. I need
to sever it from him. I like it like you would.
Use Palpatine's sith philosophies to destroy Say, well, I.
Don't know who would win, but I just know they would come in the I think it would bring them in the conflict. And then I think you're like, I think if they Yeah, I think if he. I think if Palpatine discovered the ring, it would bring him in
like irrevocably, into into conflict with with Souron. And I think if Darth found the ring, it would also kind of be the same thing, because I think Palpatine would perceive this as like someone's trying to steal my accolyte, Like this other person is trying to steal my accolyte. And I think that too would bring Palpatine and Souron into conflicts. So I think, weirdly.
It would.
I kind of would want to see what would happen.
You're like, You're like, which one would I watch on a paper view the galay?
Like, I want to see what happens if Palpatine finds the ring because I'll tell you he's not going to He will not He would not simply accept that he has this immensely powerful weapon that is linked to this immensely powerful being that is also affecting his mind and his thoughts and is trying to seduce him. Like, he would not want He would not want that. He'd want the weapon without any entanglements. And Sauron, meanwhile, would be like, no, like you, I'm going to make you, you know, my
greatest fucking nasgul. You know, Like that's the thing about Saren is he's so laser focused on you know, why is there the eye of Saren? I love that metaphor because he can only look at one thing at one time, Like he's only ever thinking about one thing. So if he's ever if he comes in a conflict with Palpatine, it's just going to be that. Like you would argue that Middle Earth would probably benefit from Souron's laser focus being something other than conquering Middle Earth. Yeah, and who
would I be? And then like like I would be actually really worried about an e walk getting it. I would give it's a Palpatine.
But you know what I don't, I don't disagree ewoks de chaoic, but I love that.
I don't I think like anyone from a more like from a less worldly culture.
I don't know.
I think ewoks can be power mad too. I'm very worried about I would worry about it personally. I would worry about it. I'd worry about almost anybody.
Yeah, I would worry about anyone too.
I just I'm trying to think if there's anyone who I feel like is vaguely neutral.
I feel like Chruebacka is like one of the chillest people. That would be fun. What would it be interested?
That's what interesting?
I think, Like what would they do with it? Yeah? Should we do with it? Maybe he'd just chill and wouldn't do anything. I think that's kind of your dream scenario.
He'd win its space chess.
Yeah, oh my god, that's it. That's all he wants. That's all he wants to do is like constantly win it. He's just.
He's like banging the most like minimal credits, and everyone's like, oh, he's doing really well.
As soon as he starts to.
Lose, he puts the ring on.
The hollow nasgules, like yeah, choreosks I feel like this is the kind of question we all dream about.
If you could see.
Slash read I like this definition there because some of them obviously you can't really be touching him up. But if you could see or read an original copy of any comic book ever, what would it be?
I can't pick just one i'd want to. I obviously I've seen.
The digital and trade versions, the reprint versions of you know, all the classic comics that I'm interested, But I would love to hold like I would. I mean, I'd love to hold a giant sized X Men number one.
And how crazy is that?
Read it that that's one of them now, right, because that's definitely up there for me.
But that doesn't feel like it's highly graded. Oh, giant size on number one definitely grand plus.
Yeah. I I've been lucky enough.
I went to the DC Archives, so I have seen some very old comics.
But I would, I would love to. If we're talking about.
Hypothetical dream world, I mean, obviously I want to flip through like an Action Comics number one, just so you can say that would be cool that you did it right right, like the Detective Comics twenty seven, Like there's the big the big big Boys. Yeah, yeah, Do you own any of your like favorite key issue kind of Pig.
Talked about this before.
I have I have my first comic that I ever bought with my own money. X Men two twelve. It's part of the mute mess. Oh yeah, Wolverine for saber Tooth round one, it says on the on the cover, I have the follow up issue to thirteen, which is the actual you know, the to twelve like teases the fight with saber Tooth and Wolverine, but it doesn't really happen. And then to thirteen they go fucking all.
Out all uh and it's so cool.
I have, Uh, I have X Men uh oh to future past the fucking that's the good stuff.
I I love that I have the Yeah, I've I've got that.
I've got one of my other favorites, you know, Jean Gray on the cover with with like Cyclops, you know those uncanny issues are like the best. One of my favorites that I own, which is not even really that expensive but I always want it, is the the Cyclops Storm Fight issue.
The cover. I love that one. For me. The bigest white whale that I ever got was Love.
I have Love and Rockets number one, the magazine size fantagraphics one. I got that years ago for like no
money in Brighton. But before that, the Hernandez Bros. They released like a zine version that was like a self published comic, and I managed I'd always wanted one, and I managed to buy one off Gilbert at San Diego, I think because he'd found him and his wife Carol had found like a box of them in their garage, and it was like, and so that is like the one that that one made it pretty much any other comic I would like to have it, but that was the That was the one where I was like, if
I want a piece of comics history, it's that. But I mean, I would like invite extra vision to any of those archives.
We would love to see.
And enjoy any old comic because it's just magic.
I would also love to hold, even though I've read it and it's not that great.
The early Avengers run.
The early Marvel's run. You know, any whether it's X Men or Avengers, stuff is a little lumpy and it's weird. That said, what is it? Avengers four or five? Captain America lives again. They sought him out and he joined the Avengers and it's so it's Captain America iron Man with the horned helmet. Oh yeah, yeah, hank him as Giant Man and the Wasp and also sub Mariners in the issue. That was a fun one. Yeah, I would love to leave through that.
I would love to see. I think you're right, like there's something so magical. Yeah, obviously amazing Fantasy fifteen, Like who doesn't want that?
I would love that.
The Galactus trilogy, you know, the old Fantastic Four stuff from sixty six, which was like issues forty eight to fifty, very good place to start with any Fantastic Four stuff,
But those issues, I love them so much. Like if I was gonna if I got rich and I wanted to buy something that Kirby had worked on and that was my like White Whale, and I would actually bother to buy like a good graded issue that I would immediately break out of the CGC box because I don't agree with grading on a moral level, but I would Those are the ones that I'd like drop the big money on.
That's so fucking good.
Next, Cameron asks, this is an a I think an important and interesting I love this question. What do you do with your comics after reading them, some might want to reroot in the future, but I can't keep them all any suggestions. Yeah, I I do this very irregularly, but I will call down like I'll be like, Okay, here's the runs that I really love, here's the ones that I'm less that I care less about, and I'll just give them away. Yeah. Do I have friends that
have kids? Do I give them to my nephew? I could donate them.
To the library.
Yep, there's a million things. You give them to your comic shop and they'll just resell them. Like, there's a million things you could do with them. But it basically for me comes down to I just give them away.
Yeah.
I think that is honestly one of the greatest joys as a comic book fan. Look, you can sell in your comics, your back issues, even if you have ones that are worth like five or ten cents. Probably most shops will do you a good deal if you take them a box, because you're giving them stock that they can sell back issue stock. But yeah, I read a lot of comics. I keep a lot of comics. I am no longer a completionist, Like if I love a
contemporary run of comics. I am far less likely to buy every single issue unless like the art is really beautiful and I really want them in that format. I buy a lot of old comics, weird dollarbing comics, old reprints of manga stuff like that. That's what brings me a lot of joy, and that ends up with lots of culling. For example, I bought a really huge collection of Powerpack from my local comics shop.
Because it's just a weird thing. It was like team created by a woman and their kids comics. But those will be ones where I'm probably gonna take them to the library.
Popa got into something, they got into legitimately legitimate, wild wild stuff that the characters that are in these issues, like it's like issue like three to twenty five or something.
There are some wild characters.
There's a bunch of great teams like Louise Simonson, who I love, who created them with Jim Brigman. There's a bunch of great wheezy issues. But that's something where I'll probably select like five of the twenty that I bought to keep after I've read them all a few times. And then yeah, libraries are great charity shops like thrift stores. Because they always sell really well in there and they kind of can make some good money for the you know,
the whatever cause they're supporting. But yeah, giving them always it's great. I don't know how these are in other places where it's not always as hot, but LA area has a lot of little free libraries where people just put up libraries outside their house or a restaurant or whatever, and you can put comics in there. So I do
that quite a lot. Yeah, I think giving them away is just like a really great joy And if you need it a little bit of extra cash, you can sell in your comics in a kind of job lot to your local comic bookstore and you'll be helping them and they'll usually give you a great deal.
X Ray Vision will be back, and we're back, Michael Asks. I've been reading Marvel comics for years, but I've never been able to break into the Fantastic four side of things. It always felt so dense. I never knew where to start. Do you have any suggestions on where to start or how to break into that area of Marvel?
Rosie?
So I did just reference a very good place to start, which is easy to collect. There is many collections of it. You can get trades, you can read it on Marvel Unlimited. That is the Galactus Trilogy, which is the three issues that introduced kind of that cosmic aspect of the Fantastic Four, which was in Fantastic Four.
The early days. I believe that the issues were I literally just said them.
But of course now I remember, yes, forty eight to fifty, and you're not gonna find those issues in a back issue being because there worth thousands and thousands of dollars. But there are many collections. I will also say, go for a trade of any comic is a great place to start.
There are so many good.
Fantastic Four stories, and a lot of times Marvel will do an omnibus.
If you like the art, just pick it up. You're never gonna.
I should not say that. Many people do this, and I have so much respect for them. It is unlikely that you're ever gonna read any comic arc at this point of a character from the first ever issue that came out now eighty.
Years ago to now.
That's not the way that comics, luckily for all of us, have been made. There are many different great stories, other really incredible stories that you know you can check into. Is there is a Stanley and Jack Kirby did over one hundred issues consecutive on The Fantastic Four, so any of that stuff is good. One of the stories that
people really loves, I love the Galactus trilogy. But one of the stories people really love is this Man, This Monster, This Monster, which is really about you know, Ben Grimm and the Thing and you have so many icons there, Joe Sinner and Artie Simmes, such a.
Stage for Ben Grimm is a tragic character. Is that literally marvel grounded stuff that really gets people excited.
Another one that I really like is I really like anything what Simonson did, but he often he's him and him and Wheezy are like one of my they're my all time favorite, some of my old time favorite comment creators. He did one called Into the Time Stream, which was part after Avengers.
He ended up.
Moving to Fantastic for him and because he'd never gotten to put for you, didn't sue on the Avengers like he wanted to. And there's a lot of Kang's a TV's a storyline. Yeah yeah, yeah, Big Ultimate Nullifier can the TVA and it's just what it is, like brilliant. He's a great cartoonist. He's a great writer, So I think that's really fun. I'm not the hugest Ultimates fan in general in hindsight, as I find it all a bit dark, but I do know a lot of people love Ultimate Fantastic Four.
It's good.
If I'll say this, it's good if you want a very definite starting point. That said, it's like, uh.
Read Richards is evil. There's no other way to put it.
Yeah, he's kind of evil, and so that will.
Color your may color your perception of the came.
Oh there's also like a weird Grant Morrison Jay Lee Fantastic four book one, two, three, four, it's very visible z, very mettery. So I just think the good thing is with these characters that have been around for like eighty five years, you know, like a really long time at this point, there's gonna be something for everyone. But I do think Fantastic four is one of the few Marvel heroes where I really do think you can find something
to love in the earliest stuff. Like you were saying before, Jason, like a lot of that stuff can be kind of clunky or like very racist, more so in DC, but like the early Fantastic Four stuff that there really is interesting, cool, weird, incredible sci fi shit there because that is what Jack Kirby was best at. So you can really get some very special stories there, and the joy of comics, a
lot of them are just too three issues long. So if you have a Marvel Unlimited account, you can even just search those titles, the Galactus Trilogy, stuff like that, and it should recommend you those issues.
I agree with everything you said. I would add if you're looking for contemporary entry points, you know Mark Wade's Run, and then I would start there because that takes you into Jonathan Hickman's run. But you could just start with with Mark Wade's Run, which I think is like early two thousands to mid two thousands and is a good entry point with all the kind of weird stuff, weird galactic stuff, family drama that happens within the kid Fantastic
for the kids. And then if you want something that's kind of like adjacent but not the Fantastic Four is ff by Matt Fraction and Mike and the wonderful Mike Alred Zenie illustration style is always really really appealed to me, and it's kind of like an adjacent you know, it's the Future foundation. So it's like an it's fantastic, were adjacent and is really fun, And like Mike alread anything he draw us, I'll.
Just yeah, anything, I will literally pick it up. Also, I will just finally say adjacent stuff. Any Silver Surfer comic, but especially like the Ron Limb Silver Surfer stuff from the nineties is really really great, and Silver Surfer is very fantastic for adjacent but not necessarily like really into the FF. That's kind of how I got into Marvel. The Marvel's First Family was really more through that Marvel Cosmic era. So I think that's a great tip Jason.
You can find your ways in that aren't necessarily just the Core four and then.
John Byrne run you know, if you want to go back maybe and do something that's like maybe maybe it feels like less. I'll do this sometimes where I'll just like I'll pick an arc from the Silver Age or something like that from the eighties or seventies because there's just a less to keep track of, you know. Yeah, it was just like less continuity back then, and so the John and stuff is a good entry point and there's a lot of fun changes, you know, like she
hulped joins the team. There's a lot of like fun stuff during him.
Yeah, that is worthwhile.
Oh, it's the DCU. It's time for the DCU. We're moving, We're moving universes. I I really love that this is the singular Camilla asks the singular question about the DCU, and I think right now, with the state of the DCU.
I think that's fair and I think that's good.
And she asks the kind of question that we absolutely love to theorize about. Please know, studios steal our ideas again WGA's on strike. Camilla asks, thinking about James Gunn's statement regarding a potential Marvel DC crossover in a future Oh, the crowd goes mad. What would be your dream crossover in case this could ever potentially happen?
Do you have a pitch? Do you have an in the pocket pitch that you keep there wait in in case James gun and Kevin Fage ever give you the call?
Well, it's hard, right, because there have been several crossover.
Yes, in the comics.
There is an established its precedent of this happening.
It's and the stories are always like, not great, but it's like that fun and teams.
Yeah, the movies would be a cash grab too. I think you would have.
To just like.
The heroes are ostensibly teaming up because like, of course they'd fight a little bit, but that's like not that fun.
Because Benja's bessus Justice League. But the fight is really between that.
Because nobody can really win, Like it's just you can't actually have anybody win. So I think the thing to do is you have the villain's team up to, like you know, so it's like it's like that it was a dark side, Yes, exactly together.
It's especially fun if you do it with characters that like which one was real? I need?
This is so you get the villain. I think you make it a villain team up that that is the motivating factor for the heroes teaming up. That's what I would pitch. I would make it villain centric. I'd start with the villains and then work to the heroes because I think it makes the heroes. Yeah, that's that's how I would do it. And it would be like something like you know, I guess it would have to be
like the destruction of some entire universe something. It would have to the stakes would have to because it is really in the comics. It is such a cash grab it.
I mean, come on, like, and you sometimes get brilliant awest like George Perez, what can these things?
You know? So mine?
This is and and this here is why I will likely never work in these industries in any serious way, because if I did actually get asked to pitch on this, I would absolutely go there and be like, let's do a swamp thing and Marvels giant sized man thing crossover, and like nobody wants.
That, and I would be like, but I want it.
I think you could do something really cool with the weird I think you sum up the biggest problem. You can't really have Captain America and Superman fight each other one. They can't put up way too many questions.
Superman is a god.
The mythology aspects of the DC heroes ostensibly make them way more overpowered than any of the Marvel heroes. No matter, even if you haven't a mega level mutant. It it becomes very messy, very quickly. And I think that you would really need to have a long term, like two year long story arc to cut that kind of chop that all up. So I think the weird stuff is going to be the best stuff. I love your villain call. I think that would be great. I'd love to see
like the Joker and Magneto and how those interact. That would be fucking crazy right, Like would be cool.
I think that's the kind of stuff.
So I think for me it would be like I would love to see DC's occult characters like swamp Thing and John Constantine teaming up with like the Marvel cosmic characters, because the reality is Marvel doesn't have as deep tradition of occult storytelling in the like who are you going to do, Doctor Druid? Like nobody even knows who that is apart from me, Like, so yeah, I would be going for the weird shit. I want to see swamp
Thing and man Thing team up. I also still blows my mind that Marvel did like a big contemporary man Thing in an official.
Way before DC did. It's so cheeky.
I love the DC swamp Thing show. Everybody knows it. But yeah, that would be mine. I'd go for the weird stuff because I think you're right. To really make it hit, you have to go deep cut. You have to bring together characters that complement each other, that have this kind of Metatech's Dark Side and Thanos. That's so much fun these kind of Jim Stalin, Yeah, it's so much. It would just there's so much fun to be had
with it. And I think that while we know that when we do get it, it will be Justice League versus the Avengers, i'd love a world where that wasn't the first one.
Now I said that no one can really win. They do kind of win, like you know, when nay More fought Aquaman, I think Aquaman won.
Like there were winners.
Yeah, it was like but but it was also it felt very like you.
Win one, then do I win? Exactly?
You win one, then I win one, then you and and there was really no kind of there's no juice to it. So you want them to fight like a really good collection of villains, and honestly, like as you said, the DC and Marvel villains teaming up, that's the thing that we don't really that's.
Kind of never been done.
You know, it would be so much especially if you did it as if you had it more of like a phase of the movies, so you could really team up weird characters together who worked really well together and kind of really get to explore what makes them tick, and how how somebody like Lex Luthor who fights against Superman differs from you know, someone in the Marvel universe like Kingpin, and how he goes against the Devil. I
would love to see those interactions. I mean, it's the dream sandbox, and I do think that's probably a large part of what DC was interested in James coming on because he already has that established connection with Marvel.
If these movies keep.
Moving further away from the billion dollar mark, we could be seeing a Marvel DC crossover sooner rather than later.
I mean, it would be a cash bonanza.
It would be the first three billion dollar movie if they did it right. Let's be real like that shit would be in cinemas longer than Avatar, Joe My God, James Cameron's JLA Versus Versus the Avengers.
WHOA what a time?
A asks? I can sometimes be burnt out from surfing the waves of the big ip content ocean. Oh can't We all would love to hear what we think are some of the best standalone original story genre films and shows that may have gotten lost in all this plethora in the last few years. I need a little bit more appreciation.
I mentioned this book before on a previous pod, but I loved Christopher Buelman's The black Ton Thief.
Oh ma'am our discod went crazy for her. It's so good. After you recommend that, it's.
So good good, and you know, the world building's fantastic. It's just the right level of world building where it informs and enriches the story. And the story itself is heartbreaking and adventurous and swashbuckling. Are really great, And it concerns a thief who is working off a debt to
the Thieves Guild. The Thieves Guild is a one of the very very powerful kind of organizations in this world, along with the Magicians Guild, and in fact might be more powerful than many kings and rulers in this world, suspect.
And so this thief is, because of.
The debt that he has to work off, is given a mission that takes all kinds of twists and turns. And this all takes place against the backdrop of several devastating wars against against these like orc like beings that have essentially devastated various kingdoms in the world. And it's just really really good. It's really really fun, really really well written. I started reading his other story Between Two Fires, which is more of like a medieval kind of like
true crime story. But that's the one that immediately jumps to mind. Oh and if you're if we're talking about like TV shows and stuff, The Peripheral, which was on Amazon Prime was super undertalked about and I really enjoyed it.
For All Mankind is a great, great show on Apple TV Plus that is like, you know, explores a world in which the Soviets get to the Moon before the US and all the twists and turns that takes, you know, like the essential like the log line is basically like how does Starfleet start?
Right?
That's what what the show is about.
And it's really great. Those would be the ones that immediately come to mind. What about what About You?
That is so One of my favorite movies from the last few years is this really incredible Canadian zombie movie called Blood Quantum by indigenous direct called Jeff Barnaby, who sadly passed away this year. Are super bummed out because he's a really great guy and just incredible filmmaker. But it is set on a reservation and the essential short pitch is like what if this native community was immune and everybody outside was not. And it is brutal, it's bloody,
it's incredible practical effects, it's super thoughtful. I think it's like one of the best horror movies over the last ten years. It's so brilliant. I believe it's probably on Shudder. I think that was where I saw it. I think it's from twenty nineteen. Just such a joy. Jeff had another really great movie too, which you can see called Rhymes for Young Gruls. Those were the two movies he got to make. And Blood Quantum I just think is so great and I think it will go down in history as like a.
Really really brilliant film.
Yeah, it's so badass, and it's really cool, and it's short and it's snappy, and it's a great gory horror movie, if that's what you love. But it has a lot of interesting shit to say too, like all the best horror I loved. If we're talking about TV, I loved Poker Face obviously very much in the tradition of Colombo and those kind of you know, the fugitive, those kind of story of the week shows. But I thought it was really exciting and interesting. They bought in great guest cast.
Every episode is super fun. Natasha Leone is great in the main role. Just a really fun watch. It didn't necessarily hit in the same I'm a in case you didn't know. I really love a certain kind of storytelling that kind of has a radical imagination outside of the police. And even something like Colombo, which was so deeply inspired by, has its own strange moral compass about the wealthy and who Colombo goes after, and it's very interesting to kind
of pick into. I didn't feel like poke Face necessarily had that, but it did have a ton of really badass cast, an incredible set of murder mysteries. Ryan Johnson and Natasha were behind it, and obviously Ryan's like killing it with glass Onion, which I loved, and all those kind of murder mystery things that he has done before, like Brick. So it's just really fun. Just some of the best made TV that I think has come out in the last year. So both of those very high
on my list. Totally different vibes, but just really enjoyable.
A couple more genre things. You know, as I read a lot, so Patrick Hoffman is one of my favorite crime authors to emerge in recent years. His third novel, Clean Hands, is out and it is If you liked Michael Clayton, you will like this novel that kind of delves into counterintelligence, but from a private angle, like corporate private intelligence, the lengths that corporate powers and the wealthy will go to protect their business dealings.
What happens to spies when they are no longer working for the government.
Who do they sell their who do they sell their skills too? And it's all kind of tied up in this very very sleek, very very brutal crime suspense narrative that is really fun. I love his style of writing. It's fantastic. Not necessarily a genre book, but definitely part of the theme of like wealth and.
The way that.
The perspective of powerful men kind of dominates the public conversation. Is a book called Trust by her Nan Diez. It's three books in one kind of It begins with a book that is a book within a book. It's this purported to be this biography of a rich industrialist capitalist guy. Right then comes the second part of the book, so that's like the first hundred The second part of the book is the autobiography of the actual capitalist industrialist.
He says this book that this.
Other person put out about me. I hate that fucking book. I set the record straight, and so like the second part is this industrialist like setting the record straight. And then the third part of it is from the perspective of the writer, the industrialist hired to ghostwrite his story. Is all the truth of it, all the things that got hidden away, the relationship that this capitalist had with his wife that is definitely not.
What was presented to the public.
And it just kind of like unveils itself very very steadily and with gathering power. Uh. And is a book that I've like not really been able to get out of my head since reading it, really really.
And I just won the Putt Surprize.
Did it just win the And it just so listen, if you're a tults are Head, if you're a Putts are Heads, a completionist, then uh then uh then you will like this book. This was recommended to me by Greta Johnson, who I co host the House of the Dragon podcast with. And it's really really just fucking great. Knocked me out. It's just a book that really really really knocked me out. As you're playing each other in a three verse three basketball game, the winner gets a
Greek island with their brother in law. What succession characters are you picking as your other two teammates. We know they'll play dirty or Marvel characters. If you think that'd be more interesting entertaining, well let's go with succession.
Yeah. Do you want to do a draft? Do you want to start first?
To you draft?
You get a player and then I'll play a player. Yeah, my first player.
He's tall, he's dangerous. Oh interesting you, I'm switching it out.
I'll take he is what is he six ' three in real life? Six four?
It's a nice collection of baseball basketball trainers.
Alexander scarsguard height six foot four, absolutely like so real NBA height. That's a great pick. I okay, So with the first pick in the succession draft, I am going to pick greg the Egg, who is played by Nicholas Braun, who is I believe like six ' seven.
Yes, he's very, very very tall.
So we got the tall guys off off the board.
Now I will say.
I scars guard, though he's given up like three inches. If they're gonna play in the pit, these guys are gonna be guarding each other. Scars Guard is obviously much beef here much beef.
He's very a much.
Stronger individual than the kind of willowy Nicholas Braun, who just kind of get thrown around like a like a stalk of wheat.
No, Nicholas Braun is a good pick, though, because well, Greg is a good pick, I should say, because Greg's just gonna do whatever you tell him.
Yeah, it's like, Greg, go set that pick.
Okay, Okay, I don't really I don't really want.
To set the pick, but okay, and you just be like Greg fucking go set the pick, and you just you would have to do it. I mean that's true of almost any of these characters. They're all like, with the exception of I guess the Roys in general, like all the non Roys are very obsequious, even Tom.
Even Mass and to a point because Shiv has been kind of puppet monstering him, yes throughout, So I think you're right, the Roys are the only ones kind of stubborn enough.
Okay, Lucas Matson and Nicholas Braun are off the board.
Your next pick, oh manum, my next pick would be My next pick would be Roman Roy.
He is incredibly sneaky. He knows how to rap fuck and you know what, every soft and a short. You know, Kim comes into the game every soft and and changes it out.
Maybe it's gonna be Roman Roy.
Also involved, like in the sports space, already a sports team owner, so he understands the understands.
The game, you know, you know what it's like to be a working man.
Yeah, he understands professional sports and the culture therein. Okay, for my next pick, I'm gonna go Brother for brother, I'm gonna go I'm gonna go Ken because Ken has the shoes.
Madison's trying to have the shoes, but Ken has the shoes.
Ken has all manner of like of bespoke, like seaker drops.
This guy has so many sneakers. I remember that.
Was It season one where he like goes to meet the women who created the app and then he throws his sneakers.
Like out the window. My god, the sneakers.
I have so many Ken, and not only I'm gonna Ken because I feel like I need a guy who is not afraid to shoot. And Ken will take the shop. He will take the shows a lot. It would also shoot.
He will shoot, and it would also psych me out because I hate him, so it would.
Work on that level, it would work.
I would not be I would not be at top basketball for him as I usually am.
I think it's on the field.
I also think of you, Mike, Ken and Roman and just have them like their trash talk as they're going back and forth, would be so good.
That would be ten out of ten, like biggest hit on broadcast TV. If you just played that, I mean you could find it your.
A second pick in the succession NBA draft.
Man, this is so tough, you know what. He would be pretty useless.
But I'm going back to picking based solely on hype. I'm going for Tom. He'd kind of do whatever we wanted. He's on the bench, Like, could he come in and do something at the end. Probably not, but he would Just Tom is a survivor. He sticks it out no matter what. He is a striver as shifts so insulting we call him. I don't see that as an insult in this case, I'd I'd go for Tom.
Tom mattis in a Roman is horrible. I would love to see it.
For my third pick, I am picking the lady Caroline Collingwood of your mother, the mother of Kendall Roman, and should because I need someone fucking mean in there.
You need someone gonna tell that door you should not be a mother.
Yeah, I need someone just fucking vicious and mean to be like dirty where Ken's not gonna want to get his hands dirty. You know, Uh, Greg is soft, let's just be all about it, like Mattson will be absolutely killing this guy on the inside. He's you know, Greg's got more of a of a you know, a silky kind of.
Like smooth game.
I need somebody who's just gonna be throwing daggers. And so I'm gonna go with the lady Caroline Collingwood. She's also independently, like she doesn't need None of them need the money, but she doesn't need any of this in general.
How often do you think she would foul out? I think she'd foul.
You know, I don't know that we would really have to have significant leverage over her to get her to play. I think we'd have to probably hold out her like her steaks in the family trust that we're given over to her as kind of like an addendum to the original divorce settlement at the end of I think it was season three by by Logan. But I just think she's an X factor, and I think that she will really fuck with Roman. Yes, it would fuck with Roman's head.
I like that.
And furthermore, I think if you could somehow like get her to cook food for the other team, for your team, I think that would even be because as we as we saw with the fucking absolutely lethally caustic England scenes from what was it season two or three where you first meet her, she's like cooking the crazy like quail legs and but like bad It's.
Just the craziest stuff.
So I'm that's my pick, Lady Caroline Collingwood, your next pick.
My pick is gonna be call because nobody wants the island.
More than so. He's gonna do he wants.
He's gonna do whatever he can to get the island with the brother in law, Like he doesn't know I'm keeping the island, but I'm gonna tell him he's got a chance and he's gonna do anything it takes.
He will be coming out. People are gonna be going crazy. They won't believe it. It's gonna be like Lonnie Walker in the fourth quarter, Like people are gonna be like, wha. He really wants to be remembered this is the car game. This is the game where Carl got the island.
Okay, so we've picked three. So it's us, it's basically us and like three others, and one of those will be a bench player. Should we pick a coach.
Oh my god, please pick a coach. Okay, I will pick a coach. My coach.
I am going to pick gil Evis, whoa politician, gil Evis succession version of Bernie Sanders gil Evis, because I think you need somebody in government with that gravitas to be able to like reach you know, you need the regulatory threat to get Ken to play the right way and do the right things. Same thing with Greg who you know who could forget how shaken Greg was when testifying for the Senate Select Committee when he's just like, if it must be said, then it is.
I think he also says, no woman, no.
Chrisier h Greg And so I think that that's the person that would have that kind of like authority to really command my team, other than Lady Caroline Collingwood, who's English and wouldn't yeas shit, but I think the rest of them would listen.
Who would you be your coach? Mine would be Jerry that's great.
I mean, one because she's one of the few competent people in the entire show. Two because Rayman is on my team, so if I want anything to get done, Jerry will be that. And three because Jerry is about to come into an immense amount of eye wateringly large financial security, so she's gonna have the time to commit herself to the team.
I like it.
I think that's great.
Jess asks, with Tiers of the Kingdom coming out on May twelfth, the day that you may be listening to this podcast, what is your favorite installment of the Zelda series or just favorite Nintendo game of all time?
Oh?
Wow, it is Breath of the Wild. Same and also Majora's Mask those two, but Breath of the Wild by far because of the sense of adventure and exploration and how just the feeling I first had like logging into the world and seeing how big it was and how little direction you're given. It's just walk in a direction, and very few games have given me that feeling of satisfaction just from walking around, just from exploring, like Eldon
Ring kind of I did that recently. But Breath of the Whild for the adventure, the storytelling, the sheer amount of content in the game. You like, it's just the way it looks, the characters that you meet, the music, like, everything about it to me is fucking perfect. And that kind of cell shading ESK style is.
It looks like you're watching an animated movie.
It's so beautiful to me. I just think it is. I think it's amazing. It's probably my favorite Nintendo game of all time, along with you know, I mean this is somewhat cheating with the Mario kard series, also the h and also the Metroid series, and also the Caslovenias.
But Nintendo so many good games, I mean, blow your mind, there's so many.
Yeah, what about you?
Yes, so I would say I'm the same definitely.
Like when I was a kid, I kind of struggled Zelda and Pokemon both were quite hard for my brain to understand, and that old school visuals and the layout of the game. But the Majora's Mask three DS remake was up there for me for a very long time as the best seller game and also one of my favorite games. But Breath of the World is definitely my favorite.
I love the.
Freewheeling nature of it. I love the way that you feel that you're living in the world.
I love cooking.
I always talk about this, but a Breath of the Wild, like finishing it is nearly impossible for me because I just spent all my time cooking and riding my horse like.
I love that shit. I love how you can just fight things and shoot things and.
Do all kinds of fun monster hunting. I absolutely love Breath of the Wild. I think it's the best Selda game. I can't wait to play the new one, but I just don't see a world where.
I tops it.
My other favorite Nintendo game definitely, I love Mario Kart. I play Mariocart probably more than any other video games.
Animal Crossing as well.
For me.
Crossing also a perfect game.
Yeah, it's so good, both New Leaf and New Horizons I adored. Most influential game on a Nintendo for me was probably Donkey Kong Country.
I had a second last Super Nintendo when.
I was a kid, and I played Donkey Kong Country like so much. I can play that game, probably blindfolded all the way through. The same with that with Crash Bandicoot from the PlayStation, the original Crash Bandicoot.
You know, if we're talking, like the most addicted i've ever felt about a game on Nintendo, then it's probably a Golden Eye on the Nintendo City.
Oh my gosh, that game is so so sick.
I did not have a console during the time that I just didn't have access to video game at that particular time. And I've told this story before, but like I legitimately had a friend that I did not care for personally, who I who I had a relationship with simply because he had Nintendo sixty four at GoldenEye and I wanted to play GoldenEye. That was the other Like I didn't like this guy, but I pretended I liked
him because I needed to play GoldenEye. And so that's the furthest I've ever like, I just even to this day, Like the the the music when you boot that game up, it has a Pavlovian effect, like the goosebumps go up on my on my arm, like running around the facility level in the events, like shooting the guy in the stall, like all of this stuff, playing a short round in multip and split screen multiplayer, getting in arguments with friends because like you're looking at my screen, like all of
that stuff is like was just so so so fun and I think not one of my favorite games, but when it was current, probably the most as into a game as I've ever been.
GoldenEye.
I was so into it, probably because I just couldn't play it whenever I wanted to.
Yeah, and if you have a Switch Online account, they actually recently did the n sixty four addition, so you can play GoldenEye. And also they have the Snares and the NAZ and I play Donkey Kong Country on there a lot.
Still, thank you so much for your questions. We sorry we couldn't get to them all, but we'll try to answer them in some other format, maybe on the discord or somewhere else.
Up next, nerd.
Out Ye Mini spoiler warning, spoiler spoiler, but like a mini sized one, like a gull of as travel sized one. This nudout contains spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy volume three. In today's that out where you tell us what you love, am why, or a theory that you're excited to share. Evan does the latter, sharing a theory on Guardians of the Galaxy volume three.
Evan writes Herosi and Jason I was thinking about the stinger at the end of Guardians three and how it states that star Lord will return but does not necessarily mean that it is Peter. Do you guys think it's possible or likely the studio can introduce a new Guardian's Team with another character taking up the mantle of star Lord. Of course, it makes me think of one of my favorite Guardian's rosters when Kate Pride was leading the team as star Lord. Yes, said Captain Missouri or something. Would
love to know what you guys think. All the best, Evan, I think that that's likely.
Actually I felt like that too.
Like the further away I got from this stinger, the more I felt like this idea of the legendary star Lord would return makes it feel like it's more of a mantle, because you could say Peter Quill would return. If you're going to say that, I would you know where X Men fans here, Kate Pride fans. She's had a lot of great story arcs in recent years. I
would love to see that. I believe they have already peaked with T'charlie Staralord, who sadly you know we won't be able to get in live action, but I think the idea of a different star Lord could be really really cool.
I think that would be I think that would be super cool. And and you know, as you mentioned, there have been a lot of Terran characters to go into space and run with the Guardians. Certainly in recent years, Tony Stark had a notable run up there, Kate Pride, I do I think it's going to be someone else that's going to be I think it's gonna be someone else that takes up the mantle of Star Wars.
I think that that's probably right. Do you have a favorite, like pick that you would pick out the characters who were here MC.
Not like based on the comics or like just if you were going to pick a character, who would you want to see take on that mantle?
Who are doing it? And at what about? I think Bucky would be good. That would be so interesting.
You'd have some fun with the arm they've both been through, they've had they have similar histories, right, Yeah, and I think they could bond over that. That said, is it time for a human maybe? This is also doesn't mean that if you are Star Loard you're leading the team. I think it is Rockets team.
I think it's Rockets team.
I think Starlold may be more of a rogue space hero kind of on their own missions. Who checks him with the the Guardians rather than you know.
And also we didn't see Pete's.
Helmet in the new movie, so somebody could find that in on.
Nowhere, you know, in his desk drawer.
I believe James Gunn said it was placed. So I think, yeah, I think we could really see some cool stuff bene that.
My second, my backup pick would be the Symbiote. I think the Symbiote also has been into.
Space, love that Garian's galaxy.
And I think is in world and it would be fun to watch the Symbio like explore their cosmic history.
Where does this? Where do I come from?
You know?
What am I doing here?
That would be a fun adventure. Ten out of ten would watch your picks.
Ah, my picks.
Currently this is kind this kind of a cheat because they're not in the MCU, but I feel like they're so close to being into it.
I would love to see like a beta ra Bell star lord, you know, like a cool alien cosmic star lord. I think that.
Realistically, it feels like we'd be seeing a character that we already are very established with in that space a Valkyrie star Lord could be cool. I would like to see that. You know, she's kind of tired of the bureaucratic nature of it all, so she takes that star Lord Nebula. Actually, I think if I was doing a odds on bets, I think I could see a world when Nebula takes on that mantle and really gets a hero arc. That would be very cool to see, especially
with her rad new arm. Yeah, I would love this question. Evan has made me very happy. I would love to dream of a world where it is no longer Peter Quill and he stays at home with his granddad and does the lawn mowing or whatever else, and we get to see other characters take on that mantle.
I think that would be so cool. Thanks Evan.
If you have series of passions you want to share, hit us up at x ray at crookad dot com.
Instructions in the show notes.
Well that's it for us. Rosie and he plugs.
You can find me Rosie marks at letterbox and Instagram. My Instagram stories are all about WGA strike. You support those writers. None of the stuff we talk about sis with about them. Jason is in the WGA, so support him. You can support them through the Entertainment Community Fund. You can support them by showing up to picket. You can send food, donuts, pizza, all kinds of cool stuff like that.
Yeah, hey, twice a week.
I'm also going to plug the WGA strike. Because of the strike that we're on, writers members of the WGA, like myself aren't promoting any of the projects that they have. So if you're wondering why I'm not promoting any of the projects that I have coming up, it's because of this, and it's an important everybody right now who is on strike is sacrificing something. We're not the people that were associated with Premo on the show we wrote on Chai Serano,
the creator. It's based on his life. We're not promoting it, not going to the premiere. We would love to be able to say, hey, watch this thing at a date that I'm not going to mention, but we're not doing that because it's important that everybody knows that we're all in this. There are writers who are who just got their first gigs and now we went on strike and
they are her all the way up the chain. Everybody is giving up something, and so just support the writers who are really getting who are getting a tough deal getting squeezed in this economy as many of us are, even as ceo pay skyrockets.
You know you can.
David Zaslav made two hundred and eighty some odd million dollars in his first moves creative moves were to shelve a bunch of projects and fire a bunch of people, and for that he was richly rewarded. And I and you know many of the other CEOs are the same. All the writers are asking for is two percent of the profits as raised. They're not asking for some massive amount of money, just two percent, which comes out to less than you know, the CEO pay for the eight
of the major studios. So that's it. Support the writers. Catch the next episode of X ray Vision on Wednesday, May seventeenth.
For more market moves and yellowjackets.
Subscribe on YouTube where you can watch full episodes of the show. Check out our Twitter at XRV pod, and make sure to join a discord to meet and hang out with tons of amazing fans and listeners plus me and Jason.
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Thank you so much for this wonderful pod. Thank you, Bear grez Plase, wonderful review. X ray Vision is a Crooked media production.
Show is produced by Chris Lord and Sal Rubin and executive produced by me Jason. Concepts You and Our Editing and sound design is by Lucillis Vertopoulos. Video production by Delon Villanueva and Rachel Gayeski.
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Thank you to Brian Vasquez for a theme See you next time, mm hmm