'X-Men ’97' Season 2 Finale Instant Reactions, Plus Rob Liefeld! | Midnight Boys

Endless Summer Escapes start here! Travel the worlds of Netflix IRL. Inspired by fan favorites like Stranger Things and Squid Game. Brave the upside down. Face off with the front man. Play leveled up arcade games. Shop exclusive merch. And enjoy themed food and drinks. Beat the heat. Play, eat, and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas. Bring your crew and save. Get your tickets today at Netflix.com/House. This episode of The Ringiverse is presented by Searchlight Pictures. More than ever, America needs a laugh. Enter Super Troopers: To The Rescue. The cult comedy classic returns with the most offensive installment yet with Super Troopers 3. A debaucherous bachelor party, an over-the-top wedding, and a dangerous drug smuggling ring all threaten the troops' future. Fill your liter of cola and roll up to the multiplex for Super Troopers 3. Meow playing only in theaters. Get tickets. Meow. Welcome to The Reverse. This is, of course, The Ringers' Nexus Podcast feed for all things fandom. We are Steve, the architect, architect, builder, ticker of things. The only thing he's playing at dinner on. Shucky. You've got questions, you've got answers. Old Man Van. You have the receding resurgent hairline. Coke, Baby Chuck, the 24 karat closer. Together we are known as The Midnight Boy. We'll be right back after this. I can go all those. Man, why don't you put Tracy on Madea's college reunion toast? Put Chris Ryan on the Minions. Put Chris Ryan on Minions. Put Chris Ryan on the cartoon. I could do the cartoon. I'm throwing my hat in the ring. Shout out. Skip Bayless of the big picture. Third chair. I'm coming for it. You know what? How about this? Fifth chair. Let's see one of you guys. Wait, skip fourth? Come over here. Come to the- Let's say you guys go the crucible. Come through here and sit down because we have Rob Liefeld on the show later on today. Hell yeah. And was one of the best fifth chairs we've ever had. We've had- Oh, dude. I will say Rob was one of my favorite guests ever, but Rob Mahoney versus Rob Liefeld for the fifth chair. Rob could be- The Rob Wars. The Rob Wars. You could throw Rob in there for the big picture if you wanted to. Why do niggas hate on Rob? Rob is the best. Nobody hates on Rob. Rob's the man. Mahoney's the best. Mahoney's the best, man. Mahoney got 100% approval rating everywhere. Rob is the Nikola Jokic of the ringer. Efficient. I put a bowl in biscuits. Numbers. Winner. Doesn't want to do anything outside of the thing but ride his horses. What is CR? Huh? Is CR the brawn? Nah, CR probably the Steph. Oh. Bill is the brawn. Bill is the brawn. CR is the Steph. Led GM. Led GM, yeah. Yeah. Led GM. What's Sean Finnegan? The Brunson. The Brunson. You're not just saying that for the Knicks connection. Because of the Knicks connection. He's probably the Brunson. Championship. He probably won the championship. Sean probably won the championship of this recently. Probably won the championship. Yeah. Unfortunately, I'm the Embiid. Okay. You can stay healthy. Well, maybe. Yeah. I go off. I don't know who I would be. Who would I be? Who's the most hated player in the league? Oh, man. But can- Oh. I'm KD. But you- No, because you're super efficient. Super efficient. Super efficient. I'm definitely not efficient. No, but it's like this process. You two are one. Because you know when Vantage- I'm two on one. I'm the KD. You have to get off Twitter. You and KD off Twitter. Wow. And by the way, I accept that because I think that KD is now overhated, y'all, on KD too much. KD is a phenomenal player. I'm definitely the KD. Are you got Burners? You and Group Chat's like, man, Steph is talking- Burners. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I jump in the fucking Reddits. Right? Yeah, you do. I'm the KD. I fuck with it. Fuck it. Fuck these. Get online and tell these people what the fuck you think, man. Go out there and get a bucket. I also bring championships, though. All right. Look. That's enough. Maybe, you know. I think that was a good comparison right there. Good stuff. Okay. We're on YouTube. Like, comment, subscribe, share. You can watch the Midnight Boys and House of R episode on YouTube.com, backslash, at Ringverse, and also on Spotify program. Reminders, this Thursday, Buttmatch returns with Marvel's Wolverine and Star Wars. Zero Company previews. Yes, sir. And this weekend, the Midnight Boys will be giving our reactions to the D23 Entertainment Showcase. Okay? We have a mega episode today. Yeah. We're going to start off with X-Men 97, and then I was thinking, before we get to the Rob interview, let's just do a D23 primer, because we need Vision Quest. What are we expecting with that? Black superheroes are down bad across the board, especially. We got to talk about what happened with Wonder Man, Blade, X-Men. News. Waller. You see how this looks. We knew this shit wasn't going to happen. Like, yeah, you're right. So, we'll run it the way Charles says. And then the Rob, stick around for the Rob interview. Oh, my God. It's probably my favorite interview we've ever done. Don't leave for the Rob Liefeld interview. The creator of Deadpool, the creator of Cable, the guy whose mind legitimately conjured so much of the stuff that you're watching right now. Rob talks about his relationship with Marvel. Very candid. He talks about his relationship with Marvel and Disney. Why he rides so hard for creators, the creation of Cable, the creation of Image Comics. I mean, Rob goes for, like, 50 original sketches in the new years. We're supposed to only have him for 30, and we spent nearly triple that time just talking to him about his experience creating these characters and creating these worlds. He was getting his shit off, too. So incredible. It was amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Okay. We have to talk about X-Men 97. The season is over. Spoiler warning. Please, Steve. We're getting ready to talk about X-Men. You're listening to a reaction podcast. The spoilers are coming. All right. To begin our reactions, I don't know what manifest you're doing because we have- I was just going to do a manifest for the finale because I feel like we're going to talk about the whole season, but probably the finale first. The finale. Okay, cool. To put you in the need to know, Chuck Wagon, Midnight Manifest. All right, here's your Midnight Manifest for X-Men 97, directed by Chase Conley and Emmett Yonemura, written by Brian Ford Sullivan. Our three X-teams are in a deadlock. X-Corp, led by Scott and Gene, want to save Gambit. X-Factor and X-Force turn forces to kill Gambit and put an end to Apocalypse for Good. Rogue, Beast, and Nightcrawler make it to the Celestial Shrine, where Rogue asks the Celestial to give her powers to stop her ex-boyfriend. Eson is like, I got you, girl, but you're going to have to die for it. Cable gets trigger happy and shoots Gambit, awakening the dormant Apocalypse. Sleeping within him. Before Gambit, Apocalypse can kill all of his friends. Rogue saves the day. But before she dies, her brother Nightcrawler sacrifices himself and takes Rogue's place in the afterlife. That has been your manifest for the season finale of X-Men 97. So do we want to talk about how we felt about the season first or how we felt about the finale first? I'm going to start with the finale. I think I enjoyed this finale. I did. I'm just bear with me on this. The season as a whole, I think, is different from the first season in the sense that like there's like the straight line narrative, right? Last season, like they take us through what Jubilee was up to and what Storm and Forge were up to. This season, it's like Rogue, Nightcrawler, Gambit. Like those are like kind of our main characters. We're rolling with and Cable, obviously. We're rolling with them. I think this finale kind of like was the, you know, coming together of all of that, especially. Especially with, you know, Rogue going in and thinking she sacrificed herself to save Gambit. But eventually it was like, no, Nightcrawler went and took that for her, right? I feel like if you're going to make Apocalypse the big bad, actually make him the big bad, right? Like let's have them fight Apocalypse at the end. And so like that was a little disappointing in the sense of like, I like see the X-Men take on Apocalypse like in this new show, in this world. But other than that, I think like it was a little disappointing. It was, it was a, it was a serviceable finale. I thought Cable was going crazy. I love, like, I kind of feel like if you Cable, your parents like, hey, calm down. You're like, nah, I'm going to just beat the hell out of you. That's kind of crazy. But I thought it was a, I thought it was a good finale. This show has been able to really nail the quirkiness and the dramatic nature of the X-Men. The X-Men's got a lot of drama to it. It's the soap opera element of the relationships between the cast. And these. Characters are odd. They're odd and they're weird. And their portion of the Marvel world is odd and weird. A couple of times characters from outside the X-Men world show up in this, like Captain America shows up, Black Widow shows up. They seem so normal when talking to a guy with that, you know, has claws coming out of his hands, you know, and looks like a wolf. Right. And so I think that's the thing that X-Men 97 gets right. And it gets it so right. That is difficult. It's so difficult not to love the show, whether or not the narrative of the show is operating on like 100 or whether or not it's operating on 85. You feel, at least I feel, immersed into the world of the X-Men in a way that no other property has ever been able to quite give you. And that is, even if you read, even if you watch an episode and you didn't like it, it feels more like a comic that you didn't like than a television show that you didn't like. A comic that you didn't like. I saw whatever. They'll make it back up in the next one. Maybe the last panel gets you or something like that. But a TV show feels like a failed, dramatic endeavor. I say all that to say that I liked the finale. I thought using Gambit in this was smart. Although I would say that, like, there wasn't as much connective tissue from the death of Gambit in the first season to the return of Gambit. The show is so scattershot that it has. Problems sometimes building on even, like, really dramatic things that happened before. Because it's almost like, new episode. Well, now we're fighting the danger room. Now we're doing this. Now we're doing that. In that way, it does feel like a comic book. And comic books sometimes are, like, bad at that, too. I think the, this was an uneven season. To me, the perfect, the perfect version of X-Men 97 was the Weapon X episode. Where I was like, there's everything I love. Where you throw Wolverine, but then a bunch of weird characters. Yeah. Together. And there's the brood. The brood. And Mort's relationship with Wolverine. I was like, all right, this is a 10 out of 10 episode. This is why I love the X-Men. And when I got to the finale, I'm gonna be real with y'all. The celestial bullshit. The fucking rogue getting powers. Gambit, like, being apocalypse and then looking like him. I'm like, all right, this is where. you get a little lost in the sauce with me. where, like, the Polaris, the Polaris bishop shit all season loved. Yeah. Like, I thought it was great. It was just sometimes I was like, I'm going to be, I don't know if the Apocalypse shit worked this season. Like, whenever they went back to Egypt in Apocalypse, I was like. I don't know. No, it was strong in the beginning. In the beginning. Really beginning. When Magneto was there. Yeah. When he kills Magneto. Once they kill Magneto, I was like, all right, this is. I think that's fair. It was a really, really, really strong start to this season. And a pretty solid middle. I really like the finale, honestly. Probably because I think the last two episodes, Dead Man's Hand and this, featured my goat, Nightcrawler, getting it in. Oh, man, he went crazy. Piecing up, like, the entire team. And they had that sequence where he's, like, bamfing. First person, pow, pow. First person. That was cool. That was cool. Yeah, no, no. But I think the relationships that I have with certain characters in the X-Men, everybody gets that moment. And, again, Nightcrawler being one of my favorites. Him having several great moments in the finale of this is, like, kind of perfect to me. I loved that a little bit more than everything else. I think the way that this ends, it doesn't really. Not that I'm looking for too much of a setup. Because we have the mystique intrigue of what could be coming around the corner. But it ends very, very quickly after, like, the resolution of, like, okay, well, the sacrifice. This play is now made by Nightcrawler. I think, overall, this is pretty good. But, again, not as strong as the first season. I mean, I thought that while it might not have been as strong as the first season, to me, this season was proof positive that this show is real and can be around for a long time. Oh, for sure. Because it has something to say and a very distinct way of saying it. Gambit coming. Going back, maybe it wasn't as emotionally resonant. Resonant? Resonant? Resonant? Resonant? Resonant. As emotionally resonant. Mushrooms. As emotionally resonant as it should have been. But Gambit as the bad guy was pretty fucking scary. When I thought, like, when he, like, a horseman, right, in episode eight, I was like, I see it. I can, like, feel it. In episode nine, when he's like, it's Gambit apocalypse, I'm like, all right, bro. Gambit apocalypse, whatever. But when he's the horseman. When he's the horseman, and he goes back home, and the thieves in the Assassin's Guild is there, and he takes them over, and he's fighting them. He is a pretty, pretty fucking, like, formidable villain. Then, of course, Rogue goes with him, which was interesting that, you know, he's doing all this stuff, and she still goes with him. She wants him back. That's true love, baby. I guess true love. Gray skin and red eyes. She got no loyalty. The minute he dies, she switches up with Magneto. Magneto gets pieced up. She back with Gambit. She switches up on Magneto. When he was alive. Yeah, at the end, though. And I'll tell you about Magneto. There wasn't enough to me. Once again, it's just like the comics. Somebody goes, they move on pretty quickly. But the drama, the dramatic weight, the anguish of Professor X and Magneto's relationship, and Magneto being killed by Apocalypse, was such a gigantic thing that worked so well to me. In Sabanor, worked really well. All of that stuff worked really well. When he becomes Apocalypse, you have the same problem that you sometimes have with Apocalypse in the comic book, which is you don't know what to do with Apocalypse because Apocalypse is so fucking strong. Like, what do you do with him? He's going to be around forever. You beat him. You put him back. You contain him, whatever. The show went through that same thing a little bit for me. It was the Apocalypse. It's not that I didn't like. I like Apocalypse as a character. The massive failing of Apocalypse to me is the same thing that happens when Galactus is there, where it's like, well, Galactus's power is to consume worlds, but if he consumes all of Earth, the story ends. And Apocalypse's whole reason for being as a character is like, I'm ushering in a new era where only the strong survive. But if I do that. That's why Age of Apocalypse. And the comics works, because you're like, okay, they're in a new world where we get to see what happens when Apocalypse makes good. In this season, it's like, oh, he never really gets to do the Apocalypse thing. Well, I mean, Age of Apocalypse also works because you stay there for a while. So they create a whole new narrative inside the Age of Apocalypse, and that becomes your world for a while, and you read that saga as long as it goes, and then you come out of it, right? And you're so happy to get out of it. The question is. Watching X-Men 97, do you want the Age of Apocalypse for like a whole season? Do you want it for two seasons? Do you know what I mean? Can I ask. And this was something that. Because it works sometimes, and then it doesn't with others, where X-Men 97 does this thing where they pull from so many classic storylines, but sometimes I'm like, oh, it feels like you're not lingering on it enough. They don't at all. I like the Danger Room episode with like when the Danger Room becomes danger and everything. But I was like, damn, I could have used two episodes of the setup because I'm like seeing like all of the mutants that I love, whether it's Quentin Quire or Sink or all of these new characters. And I'm like, oh, shit, they're going to do danger. And then they kind of dispatch of her like immediately. And I'm like, fuck, you guys could have. But see, that's kind of the thing that I like about the show. Yeah. What I like about the show is, hey, you go, oh, my God, it's over. It's like. But like you freak out when Morph becomes Spider-Man for two seconds. It's over. They get right back to it. That is the breakneck pace that the show is operating with. And I did not think that they would continue to do that after the first season, which is why I was really, really on edge about what an X-Men 97 second season would be. It's not quite as good as the first season, but this was really good to me. I liked it. Oh, you think it was? I think. I think the highs of season one are better, but this season is more consistent. Oh. Because. You think this is actually a better season? I don't think it's better. I think the highs of season one are better. There's more consistent season. Think about it. Season one, you get the Jubilee episode, right? Whack. And then you have like the. Let's be honest. And then you have the Forge storm stuff. Whack. Whack. Right? Terribly whack. That wasn't that whack. It was kind of whack. Those were like three episodes. And you're like, all right, bro. This season, you have the first four go crazy. And then you have the Weapon X episode. And then you still have another Jubilee episode. And then. I mean, the Jubilee episode is the X-Force episode. The X-Force one. Which is cool. I like the X-Force episode. I enjoyed that. Then you have the Danger Room episode. Like, all that stuff, like, that works for me. So I'm like, I'm watching the season. I'm like, the Magneto stuff missed. It's the apocalypse shit. That, like, I was like, every single time they have motion where I'm like, oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit. X-Factor, X-Force, hell fucking yeah. They go back to a. I was like, god damn it. But I will say, we have to. I'm going to put this out here. I'm not trying to hate. If this is too saji-saji, you let me know. Does Jubilee suck? Like, this show wants me to believe in Jubilee. They're really trying to make it a thing. We've been asking this question since, like, 1987. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like. I always liked Jubilee. Jubilee's relationship with Wolverine, I always liked. There was one time where Jubilee. Got super busy against the Reapers. The Reavers. Got super busy against the Reavers, and it was like, she's cool. They've always been able to make her cool in a pinch. I never had that much of a problem with her, but there are people, since I've started reading the X-Men, and every time she shows up in the panel, they go, what the fuck are they doing with Jubilee again? So, because here's the thing. In the comics, Wolverine always has a sidekick. At first, it was Kitty Pryde. Then, every other sidekick after, just. to me is like whatever because you have jubilee armor and they try to do it with pixie i'm gonna be honest kitty pride is is the one jubilee is just like lesser dazzler and dazzler already lesser death lesser death that's that's a drag apologize to jubilee man apologize to jubilee better than fucking jubilee they both suck though wow what that's a perfect charles compliment jesus christ name some male characters that suck in the x-men yeah maggot oh you don't like maggot who's the who's the bone nigga oh that's merrill spike it's merrill spike from evolution he was from x-men evolution sucks yeah uh havoc sucks oh havoc havoc sucks yeah every single every single time havoc shows up he is the fed he's always on the side of the i mean well you know we have other people have been members of x-factor before as well i never liked x-factor i mean x-factor was some of those books were fun but like they work for the government if i if i'm being real i'll say this i think there are more x-men there are more x-men in the male category that suck than women well because claremont came through because you have june gray emma frost psylocke storm hitters rogue hitters like literally just hitters yeah hitters going crazy yeah going crazy but once you get out of once you get out of like the big ones like wolverine cyclops colossus night crawler You start getting to the. Do you like Beast? Beast sucks. Do you like Gambit? Gambit sucks. No, Gambit sucks. No, no. Gambit sucks. No, no, no. I'm saying shit now. It's okay. Well, you're on a roll. Name some good Gambit comics where Rogue's not in it. Gambit is cool because Rogue is cool. Hey, hey, hey, hey. Rogue works as a character on her own. Gambit needs Rogue. Gambit is legitimately one of the most awesome X-Men. Gambit wouldn't even make the top 25. I think it's tough. Gambit won't make the top 25. We did a list of top 25 X-Men. Gambit would not make the top 25. I mean, 25 is like a lot of X-Men. Gambit is awesome. That's too many X-Men. Yeah, that's too many. Gambit. If you said like top 10, maybe. I might give you top 10. He's in 25. I might even give you top 15. Not top 25. Gambit's in the top 25 X-Men. Come on, let's be for real, man. Okay, do this. Since you said that. Jack Harlow the fucking mutant? Name 25 X-Men better than Gambit, bitch. No, we're going to pull out the list. All right, off the top, we can go all the original five better. Angel? Angel is better. Archangel is way better than Gambit. Archangel is not better than Gambit. Come on, man. Come on. Come on, man. I might give you Iceman. Iceman's better than Gambit. Guys. Archangel is better than Iceman. Guys, guys, guys. Maybe Iceman. Wait, wait, wait. Rick? Maybe Iceman. Rick Remender, Uncanny X-Force. All that was Iceman's second mutation probably got Gambit, but like, come on. Okay, keep going. Literally all of the giant-sized X-Men. Is Beast better than Gambit? Yes. You're not serious. If we're talking about characters with good storylines who are fundamental to the X-Men, Beast has way better stories than Gambit. Yeah, you're calling right now. He's calling Kerm. Oh, God. He's like, Beast is not better than Gambit, bro. Beast is better. No way. Beast is way more interesting than Gambit. Hey, yo, Kerm, man. You on the Midnight Boys right now. I got a question for you, man. Are there 25 X-Men that are better than Gambit? 25 better than Gambit? Yeah. Let's play the game. Fuck it. 25? I'm thinking of, like, you can think of, like, deep cut, like, Sink. You got to put Sink over Gambit. Sink? Sink over Gambit? All right. Hang on. Hang on. no way bro no way bro so i so as a character as a character as a character nobody yeah obviously canvas top 25 characters yeah top 20 yeah so there are 25 x-men better than name them charles charles is trying to name 25 characters that are better than five everyone who's on giant size okay kitty no no no no no no no not everybody that was on giant size colossus is not better than gambit colossus is better than gambit he's not yes he is no no no bro not everybody that was on giant size no not crawler better than gambit no colossus better than gambit storm better than gambit i'm trying to jump in here iconic joey like yeah gambit's gotta be top 25 he's just he's an important character to x-men is it mostly because of rogue absolutely absolutely rogue carrying it for that nigga but you gotta put you gotta put gambit on top you gotta you gotta do it so i don't i honestly don't think that rogue is carrying it for rogue he's carrying gambit i don't like legitimately i don't i don't think that rogue is carrying gambit i don't i don't think so at all i think if so i think that i just gotta be honest like i play old nigga shit man is old y'all were y'all were young when gambit took the world by storm man gambit was the one like gambit was the man in louisiana too yeah gambit was the gambit was the man to charge a playing card throw that hoe talk like funny worst staff worst fucking superpower ever no kinetic 90s bullshit they needed to give somebody a power they like bishop oh he got some energy shit gambit give him some cards energy worse than giving everybody uh telepathy yeah yeah but here's the thing it's like okay they get the second mutation where it's like oh you got which is telekinesis nope but andrew diamond oh we giving you fucking knives that's cool we're giving you knives gambit has a staff he can also charge he's a fucking man a staff sucks just like tim drake's staff sucks no niggas in a line of fucking weapons it's like all right i want the bow stand that's why you hate donatello too man yeah crazy bro we go we go one day you know what midnight boy's gonna write one of the most gambit was one of the most we will we will gambit was really one of the most popular x-men of the 90s and then and here's the thing he had he you want to know what gambit's the jaw rule of the x-men he had a crazy run i like some jaw rule nigga i'm not putting a whole jaw rule album on my web but if you're talking about the rappers of that era of that time you can't tell what jaw rule is one is jaw rule a top 25 new york rapper yeah a top 25 new york rappers 25 is a lot 25 is a lot what are you talking about yeah dog 75 percent of the wu-tang clan would make it and that's like if you just talk about yeah that's like if you if you just wait if you're just talking about gambit had one good era we need x-men who've had multiple eras beast has had multiple eras beast has not had most beast never had an era nigga what are you talking beast was an avenger he's never had an era bro beast was an avenger he had his ape form he was going crazy in the morrison run there's evil fucking beast from the age of fucking apocalypse what are we talking about he got busy in the fucking movies all of that stuff is cool that nigga ain't got that nigga ain't fucking gambit y'all are judging gambit off one good like he had a five-year stretch can i can i just give you something i just i just i just asked gemini this oh god this is van's ai of the week first it was claude okay okay okay okay okay listen to what gemini had to say family who can't drink water because of this because it is right here yeah yeah it costs one of these just throw this away bitch look that's bad for the environment right there just shut up right right right the most popular x-men characters include i iconic heroes and anti-heroes like wolverine storm cyclops magneto rogue and gambit come on suck me the minute you pulled out ai you lost that's true i know i know y'all use claude no no no no i like to do my damn they got maggot at 100 okay so entertainment entertainment weekly entertainment weekly route okay so can okay i can't no ai no ai you guys are too woke for that you can um can i use entertainment weekly's list no go for it we're gonna make our own way we have to make our own way it is gonna be our own list they got bishop at 63 that's crazy to me wait who do they have at 60 bishop bishop at 63 oh that's too high you're gonna have siren at what 12 yeah like you're gonna have siren at 12 banshee at uh 15 polaris at 9 wolf's bane at uh 23 see y'all y'all so entertainment weekly has this is this is the entertainment weekly 25 25 is jubilee all right 24 is shatter star 23 arty and leech 22 sidelock 21 legan um 20 the age of apocalypse edition magneto 19 merrill 18 kitty pride 17 the multiple man 16 emma frost the white queen 15 husk 14 mystique 13 xavier okay okay all right 12 havoc 11 colossus 10 blink 9 deadpool 8 gambit then beast beast they got beast ahead uh then beast then cable the night crawler the rogue and storm and cyclops and then number one wolverine this is the worst list you like this is kind of but i'll tell you that list is blink at 10 is is multiple man even in there oh what are you talking about see y'all wasn't around at the height multiple man had a fucking hive bro multiple man no peter david i think it was peter david's x-factor run with a multiple man bro siren m strong guy wolf spain y'all not y'all wasn't really in the field like that so according to this list the the only x-men that uh there's there's gambit hating the word he is the 90s vision of cool like they were saying that he is the man and gambit was the night all right i can't i literally i cannot respect that list so so it says so according to his list though beast cable cable of course nightcrawler rogue storm cyclops wolverine outside of you know what was uh what was gina jean gray yeah let me see it i can't watch y'all she's in there oh shit that's a lot of scrolling I'm seeing That's a lot of scrolling See That's a lot of scrolling For Gene man Don't be bringing up Entertainment Weekly I was thinking about it Where's Gene at Oh she's 30 30 Yeah no Damn No Nah bro Damn No EW You can't tell the story Of the X-Men Without Gene The Phoenix Soccer They just talking about The top of all time Hell nah They talking about The top of all time See y'all Y'all going through this Listen you realizing Like damn There are It's not 25 people Better than Gambit Cause even if you took All of these people Cyclops Wolverine Gene Storm Magneto Professor X Iceman Beast Angel Cannonball Cannonball no Magic No No You got to like 8 or 9 Cannonball Sunspot I love Cannonball Sunspot no Kitty Pryde No No Even if I let Kitty Pryde Slide that's like 9 or 10 Rogue Rogue is better than Magic Psylocke Magic Ileana Rasputin You're bugging She kind of She having a moment right now She is She is having a moment right now Magic She is great Magic is having a moment right now She might be having Magic has better comics Magic's great Hey guess what we're going to do This is what we're going to do We're going to We're going to solve this We should have did this with Rob But we're going to bring somebody else on We're going to bring somebody else on And we're going to solve this Who should We need Simon on the pod Kimberg For the top 25 Yeah Kimberg could do it But Kimberg going to do the top 25 In his movie universe Alright Okay Nah we need the comics We need the comics We probably need the comics Simon knows a lot about this Simon knows a shit ton about this But I think if we were going to do the movie universe It would be better to bring Simon on Which we should by the way We do an X-Men movie ranking Because Rob Liefeld was very Complimentary of the Fox world Which is what Simon was And they're coming back on Doomsday Yeah But yeah we need Who could we bring on Who could we bring on Oh this might be a time for us to collaborate With our friends over at the Nerds The Nerds at the Cool Table Who have been asking to do this podcast For a long time How many people are we going to have on It'll be like 10 niggas This is going to be the Joe Budden podcast Bring a couch in Did you say it's going to be like the Joe Budden podcast There's like 80 people on that podcast Yeah it's good though Yeah it's good The more the merrier So like This will be an opportunity to do this But we're going to do the definitive We're going to put a lot of thought into this Wait so should we do top 50 then We'll just do 50 We don't need to do 100 It's not 100 Fucking 100 niggas But this is going to be the definitive list Honestly This is the definitive We got the website too We want you to put this on the website too Midnight Boys The Midnight Boys The definitive top 50 X-Men list And before we even get into the list We need to come up with Criteria A criteria and a metric That puts all of this stuff together So because I think it's like It should be relevance Like cultural relevance Honestly how cool the character is I think we should even put What's their best like moment Best comic moment Like a run or just Like single issue Like it could be a single issue It could be a movie or whatever What's the defining thing Because y'all be bringing up Gambit And I'm like alright Drop the Gambit stories I can't believe they got Gene Gray at 30 Gene Gray at 30 is insane That's nuts That's crazy That would be like Alright I'm ranking NBA players I got Luka Doncic at 30 I mean I think that Gene is too important To be at 30 Gene sucks a little bit But I do see how people I mean you gotta put her like top Top If she's not the best She's certainly one of the most important She gotta be top 10 I'd say top 15 Top 10, top 15 I'm telling you right now But one thing we do know is You put Blink over G Who? You put Blink over G Alright Blink ain't even making my Blink? They got Blink at 10 What are we doing? They got Blink at 10 But also we Here's the thing If we're doing We also When I say 25 You have to realize I'm also counting villains So it's like Magneto Is better than Gambit Mystique is better than Gambit Apocalypse Yeah Mr. Sinister to me Is better than Gambit I mean first of all I don't really I'm not really counting those people I don't really count them as much But I really would not put Some of those characters Those characters aren't even involved In enough stories They're not around enough To be better than Gambit I mean Sinister is around But Sinister's gone for Like runs and runs You only pull on Sinister When you need Sinister Do you think like Mystique Is more important than Gambit? I mean Sure Maybe I think she's a better character Yeah I mean Mystique hasn't Sure Sure I just I honestly think that Maybe Gambit's heyday Was over By the time you guys Really got into this shit Nope Gambit was a big deal Gambit's heyday As a kid I was like Man Gambit's the coolest Motherfucker ever And then I started Trying to throw cards I'm like This is whack Oh so you Just because you couldn't do it Just because you couldn't do it That's the hatred That I'm talking about The hatred of your heart Alright we got sidetracked Now Gambit Gambit time Alright back to the show Let's look forward Alright I think that we all Pretty much enjoyed Parts of what we saw I enjoyed the entire season I thought it was good Yeah There were highs There were lows With the way that they tell Their narrative There's always going to be What are the legs On X-Men 97 Cause what's about to happen Now right This weekend We're gonna be in Anaheim Yeah D23 D23 And when we're in D23 What's gonna happen Is they're probably Going to announce A new X-Men cast Alright Cast for the X-Men movie What you're Probably gonna see guys Particularly post-secret Wars Is the MCU Become the X-CU The X-Men world Is so big And so deep with lore And so lush That it was almost In the 90s Almost Marvel And then the X-Men You could just be into the X-Men And never give a fuck About nothing that was happening With the Avengers Maybe you would get Spider-Man And you would get X-Men Spider-Man At a point When the When the Ultimate Carnage Series run happened I remember a lot of my friends We reinvested Even into Spider-Man I started recollecting Spider-Man Through Ultimate Carnage And stuff like that And all of that Spider-Man is never Gonna be a character That goes away He's a bellwether character For a comic books period But the X-Men Were all encompassing They have We were talking to Rob About it It was X-Force X-Factor Excalibur Was kind of in there In the movie Mutant World And everything that was going on It felt different Than everything that was happening I remember the gold And blue team I remember X-Men gold X-Men blue Like going against each other Fighting against So much stuff Was going on And I Even if you think Past that 90s run I remember when Ultimate X-Men dropped And that gave them Another fucking boost Where it's like Yeah Astonishing X-Men Fucking new X-Men God damn So if The MCU decided If they were to decide They were gonna That they could That they wanted to get Knee deep into the X-Men And kind of let that Be the world for a while They could do that I'm not saying that they will I'm saying that they could do that There's a random question Do you think Storm gets a solo movie? If Black Panther does what he Like Black Panther's gonna do What he needs to do But is Storm a character Where you're like Hey we couldn't get Blade right We did a job but I mean do we I mean I guess it's different I mean you think about like Solo X-Men movies No Hold Calm down Damn Calm down You Oh man They cast Jamie Lawson in a movie Where she the main character She's Storm I'm not gonna be their front row And watch it a thousand times What are you about to say Do we what? Right But like a solo movie If it's like Storm Doing her thing by herself I'll be there Obviously But like This is a big universe This is a massive world If we throwing people in there Then Is it still a Storm movie Or is it just like a Like an X-Men joint You know what I mean Like Hey Jomie You know what you're doing right now? Calm down Just listen I'll tell you what you're doing right now You could But you could've been like Can I tell you what you're doing right now? It could've been anybody Is it okay? No I'm not I'm not letting that slide I'm not letting you get this off I'm not letting you get it off Jomie please can't No Am I allowed to talk? No How about that? You could've said anybody You could've been like Do we need a Wolverine movie? Do we need a No like Obviously like I don't know Are we past this though? Jomie I know that Jomie The man is trying to set you up Did Jomie just say that we're past kneeling? Y'all see what I got to deal with? Did Jomie say we're past? Jomie said They be like Oh Jomie changed Oh Jomie different He lied on me Jomie said we past kneeling Dog he heard it After we was gonna get a solo movie Hold up Jomie's like Do we need this? Oh shit That's funny I lost consciousness for a second That's funny Do we need this? That's funny Do we need this? So look Put the X-Men in the X-Men movie We're getting solo X-Men movies I don't know what to tell y'all Really? Yeah we absolutely are You think so? I think they could probably be a bit more interconnected Like they're the main character of this movie But they'll definitely be interacting with other people I don't like when we get solo X-Men books Like I like Storm to me works the best When she is a part of a team Not because she's not a great character But it's like the X-Men The only X-Men who can really Have his own book To me Is Wolverine The rest of them kind of are like Name me another solo X-Men Who can like really really carry a book Wolverine's book was good Just because of the nature of the character I used to always love his book And collect his book Wolverine as a guy Who was going all over the place Searching for his past He had To me the most lore surrounding his solo character. - Yeah. didn't know who he was he was part of this gigantic government experiment experiment he's trying to figure that out his like at one point wolverine's book was kind of like almost like the mandalorian being that it was like uh adventure of the week type of structure and it always worked for him just because of the mystique around the character itself it would be harder to do that with some of the other x-men who have all of these like uh relationships and stuff like if scott's going well what is gene doing well gene would have to be in every single scott book and these characters are very sectioned off and they're connected to the goal of what xavier has going on now having said that storm um in all seriousness would be one that you could do some different shit with because she has a lot of stuff in her past and can go different places you could be bouncing around wakanda or whatever you could also do like the corny version of the storm movie where like you know storm goes to a place where he's like oh i'm gonna go to wakanda and he's like oh i'm gonna go to wakanda and he's like oh i'm gonna go to wakanda and he's like oh i'm gonna go to wakanda and he's like oh i'm gonna go to wakanda and he's like oh i'm gonna go to wakanda and he's like oh where's a bunch of niggas and it hadn't rained in a long time and she makes it rain and then she gets niggas out the hood or some stupid shit like that she cleans up the hood or something which is probably what they'll do they'll probably do storm like in south baton rouge and there's environmental problems and stuff like that and the people need help she gotta fight the epa and then it's like yeah she gotta fight the epa it's like oh an angel has come down and helped us and like she's actually a mutant but people didn't know they went to church they prayed for an angel the angel came in and it was storm and storm helped everything and like i had hate whatever the cliche damn the niggas need water and that storm was like the version of storm movie they make is like you know it's like hey man we need somebody to come in and storm an angel no we don't know what mutants are blah blah she's got power she helps us all but doing it all of a sudden she flies off at the end of storm that's why i don't mind like that like people have been talking about this like in black black panther 3 and then it's kind of like uh gene grain spider-man spoilers uh and then it's like set up for this wider universe like that i can get with but like yeah i don't really i don't need a solo psychops movie i don't need a solo no we don't need no i don't need no i don't need none of that i don't need none of that what we really need is x-men x-force x-factor nah them niggas is kind of whack you think an x-force movie you're into that i think if you do a deadpool cable x-force movie that is more like not like the ryan reynolds like the second one like we're actually going to show you like x-force even if they want to do kind of the remender run where it's like all right we're gonna have wolverine and fucking deadpool and all these people and i think that that could work so my question was going to be now that we're going into a greater x world is there room in this for x-men 97 absolutely yeah yeah sure spider-man comics uh comic book shows have existed for eternity because people this is like at least for me was my entry point into this universe was watching um justice league unlimited and spider-man so it's spectacular spider-man and all these things uh batman animated series like x-men 97 is like an elevated version of this but like kids can watch x-men 97 i would not be surprised and this gets to our d23 of it all there have been rumblings and reporting out i think van and i we maybe talked about it briefly at san diego comic-con how brisk they were when it came to even mentioning something like vision quest and i think the disney plus streaming service is in a different era where i'm not sure we're gonna get that many tv shows if any at all until kind of like secret wars kind of puts a bow on this and i could see i think the problem with x-men 97 is they might be like hey we want to do a disney plus x-men series like something like that what do you mean i would say stay the fuck oh i'm not saying it's a good idea i'm i'm saying you don't think that there's going to be some type of mutant post that movie where they're like oh who could get a series who could get a i genuinely don't know if any major marvel tv thing is on the table at all because of the way that they're scaling back tv right yeah i think new lakers owner bob eiger is moving away from all of that stuff i think i mean we'll talk about the wonder man cancellation but i think that era of marvel and disney plus using like a lot of that stuff i think that era of marvel and disney plus using like a lot of that you know long form storytelling in uh tv form is dead yeah or at least like dying i mean aren't we all kind of over it a little bit i've been over it yeah i'm never on it so then so then if that's the case then the x-men if the x-men are going to um we'll do this later we'll maybe talk about this which x-men properties could live on television it's impossible if that's the case uh then x-men 97 would be the x-men's footprint on television right and it's but it's a good footprint the we love the show like we not you but for the most part we enjoy the show like the like what it took like a year off however long it's coming back yearly now this is something that we're going to enjoy year after year and they've got there's so many x-men comics they could tell the story for god knows how long yeah but i was on the i was scrolling today because uh obviously the finale is out it seemed like people were having trouble with the finale really like i i was seeing some rumblings just a little bit but i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing i think it's a good thing about like did i don't think there's that big of a gap between season one or season two but i've seen a lot of people being a little bit like why doesn't this feel like season one why why is there so i think the thing that i actually love about it is that they're not afraid to do x-factor x-force new mutants whatever of course if you're a casual more casual x-men fan i could see how season two was a little bit like who are these niggas yeah i mean there was there's so much of that i was watching i was watching the finale but i was like oh my god i'm not gonna do it i'm not gonna do it with kai and we're looking at uh the x the x kai kai grady kai grady you don't know all right okay yeah we're like we're trying to name like again so many characters are on the screen and like that that's got to be sorry that's got to be banshee no that's siren my fault yeah it's like they just be like and i love i love that about the show right like maverick shows up in the um i like this maverick shows up no one knows he's like who the fuck is this guy who you great voice i i don't know whoever it pitched perfect like the voice i was like who's that by the way just to let you guys know for a while maverick was some of the hot shit on the streets all right people what for for a second all right man i know i can't be having an x-men conference we talk about maverick was hot on the street i'm telling y'all his name rings out for a second people was fucking really fucking with maverick some of these characters they made splashes and then they didn't they didn't do anything they didn't do anything they didn't do anything they couldn't mean they couldn't swim so they sank but like maverick for a second was some hot shit in the street people was fucking with maverick for a second when i'll admit when wolverine said i'm getting the band back together i thought he meant alpha flight and i thought i was gonna like scream yeah fuck alpha flight hey but can i tell you something though you mentioned cannonball and i just missed cannonball before a second cannonball was the man our fucking dope like cannonball was the man for a second people was really fucking with cannonball remember cannonball fucking found out he was an external people was really liking it oh you didn't like cannonball in the in the in adventures i loved cannonball cannonball was a cool character i like i was like bro these they got good comics yeah but they're not fucking with gambit is the point though cannonball is better than gambit no he's not chill all right so what is this i want to know like how are you guys feeling about the status of black superheroes well we should we do midnight meter first and then get into it oh yeah yeah go for it all right midnight meter y'all know what it is one to twelve one is obviously the worst eleven twelve reserved for true game changers i'm gonna start with the men boys show me what are you giving x-men 97 season two i think i probably i get the first season of 12 you know i'm gonna give this one i'm gonna give this one a 10 i'm gonna get this one a 10 you know nah i i enjoyed i enjoyed the season crazy again first season at higher highs but this season was consistently uh good i enjoyed i enjoyed every episode i had a great time it's a 10 for me i think i think it's a solid eight for me like it again occasional stumble tiny tiny stumbles but overall awesome i'm gonna go nine little baby that's lower than i thought it would be i'm gonna go i'm gonna go nine i'm gonna go nine nine twelve to nine is cool right the third season will be the one where it reclaims some sophomore slump always kind of a thing like but uh but i really thought it was great tv so i'm gonna go nine five anyway uh d23 what you're doing you never you've never liked the show okay we have rob on and i love what he's saying he's just like hey yo sometimes it's okay if stuff is just good no it's good it's okay i would say five is not good five is not good hey charles we're post freaking out at charles's rankings you have your own way you go your own way and there is his way and i and i and i respect it respect is five five tough yeah i mean what do you mean tough well we hey hey that's chuck wagon baby yeah pure and strong yeah shoot from the hip i fuck with it um okay so you were talking about d23 yeah d23 just really quick before we get to rob's interview i wanted to go over some stuff with y'all what type of x news a is there gonna be x-men news b what does it need to be because for right now we have officially sadie sink as jean gray kit connor is cyclops samara weaving as the white queen rumors is kaylee spainy is rogue and then we've gotten some rumors about who's playing professor x i'll start with you van d23 do they need to give us a cast and kind of like this is where we're going start the clock for time to start the clock enough bullshit enough bullshit start the clock we'll be in 27 next year that'll be two years out sometimes marvel likes to start two years out i say start the clock now yeah start the clock now maintain the momentum that spider-man brand new day which is the most popular movie of all time bro i'm sorry bro people love this fucking movie they do yeah it's kind of crazy like people are loving this fucking except for uh uh except for who rough rob who mahoney lifel oh lifel yeah he said it was good that's why i fuck with it yeah so so um maintain the momentum of this into you can this is what they should do you can ride this d23 x-men momentum into your re-release of uh in game then ride the extra seven minutes or whatever that is into uh i'm going back to see that bitch we're gonna do an episode about it i'm going back to see that bitch again what are you talking about like i'm like it and ride that momentum into doomsday charles you got it charles we have to do it what are you talking about they're re-releasing doomsday we're not gonna watch it and we're not gonna part on it no i mean we will just god damn nigga god damn what what sorry just give me the extra seven minutes god damn what i don't need to see god damn what how i say it we're gonna buy your ticket and then walk in three hours later with the shit i'm not with the a yo nobody believes in us anymore unless then dayan and tom holland in it so we giving y'all scraps man fuck you what do you wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait what do you read okay the nobody believes in this gimmick is funny coming from marvel considering like everything yeah however and we let's not lie we've been like it's over we've been like it's over for years yeah we told him that we told him it's over so you can't be mad at them for doing the nobody believes in this gimmick when we've sat on this podcast and be like it's cool i definitely can they talking to you they are they think they talking to me they're just like you know what's gonna get charles let's put an extra seven minutes on end game that'll really get excited nigga no no it's not gonna change the film but like you can't be mad at them for doing the nobody i can i can they like damn we don't got no imax screen but you want a little infinity vision now did you like the trailer that you saw at the uh at um comic-con did you like that trailer the trailer did you like it i when they started with that shit i literally was about to be like oh yeah yeah cowards did you like the trailer no so you didn't like the trailer with the sentinels in it oh i thought you were talking about the end game no no no no the doomsday trailer that we saw at comic-con did you like it you didn't like it when when he can't say that when dr doom wow when dr doom resurrected the sentinels i'm like keys jangling the keys jangling he did say that he did like come on you didn't think okay charles let's let's let's say the kayfabe is broken the kayfabe yeah no wait do you guys want like mask off what i really thought of that trailer yeah go for it of course right now it just seems that they are searching for any type of light at the end of the day the tunnel and they're like yeah well if robert downey is dr doom and their sentinels here and we got the 60 year old geriatric x-men they they gonna feel something and yes was it better than the other trailer we got yes but it's still just a them throwing a bunch of shit against the wall to see what stuck and it's like after spider-man i was like hey not a perfect movie but at least there's like you could see the life you could see people who care about it she's so so this is my thing all right so i'm not gonna argue with charles's opinion because it's his opinion but i'm gonna contend with it because i think that it represents something that exists outside of the movie all right so let's take the cynical look at brand new day oh the cynical look at brand new day is that hulk is in the movie for no reason the punishers in the movie for no reason all right for no reason no and therein lies the genius of the movie the genius of the movie is sure you could know that it's key jangling to have the hulk and the punisher and all of these other villains pop up in the movie but all of this is keys jangling all of this stuff is here are the people that you've read about doing cool shit the question is if you can make them do cool shit that also means something to the story now in that trailer i think a lot of people talked about him resurrecting sentinels with green eyes and it's time to get busy against thor thor's fucked it seems like but more than that i think what people liked about the trailer was that the trailer besides the other one and i know people haven't gotten a chance to see that because a lot of you weren't at comic-con i don't know if it's if it's leaked or not definitely as leaked okay well in that trailer they craft the world that doomsday will have to exist in yeah it seems as if that trailer was telling not just it wasn't showing all of these characters back together again was telling the story of victor von doom which is the single story that they're going to have to tell in a compelling way to make the movie good right yeah and at the end of the trailer where they're telling the story of victor von doom where it feels like you're getting a sense of who he is you see visually through like filmmaking craft just how dangerous he is so it tells you how broken he is which is the line that i didn't really like they they tell you how broken he is what was the line the line was i didn't know i know victor was this but i didn't know he was broken i don't know man let's fucking get out of here like this guy's like i don't like that type of shit like that but like um it's like they tell victor that uh they tell about then you see just how dangerous this broken man is so if he in fact has nothing to live for because everything that he's done is he lives for is dead then he can raise sentinels from the ground then there's no reasoning with him you have to beat him and you might not be able to do it that is kind of the thing that you do to orient a villain that has to like undergird an entire movie and they did not even try to do that first trailer the the first trailer was like oh my god that's keys jane that's all of our friends are back together but like we still know what this is about the second trailer is not only are is this about something it's about the movie it's about the movie it's about the movie it's about the trauma but also we're fucked right and so that's why it worked for a lot of people so but the i will say the thing that interests me about a character like a dr doom or a magneto i don't necessarily give a fuck about the feats that dr doom can can achieve with his magic or science or whatever he's always been the most interesting to me when it is a philosophical debate with him versus mr fantastic or another hero the the deep brokenness of the man behind the mask resurrecting sentinels or what magic i was like i don't but you're reading that that's different the philosophy is is is they're like you're talking about rob talk rob will talk about how comics is a visual art form and that's very very true but it you're reading a book on screen the they have to show you the danger no but what i'm saying is from from these two trends trailers the thing that i was missing was i was like okay but why am i supposed to care about dr doom like the ms and maybe we will get that i hopefully we will get that in the movie they just have not shown me anything where like emotionally i'm like like i can see visually oh the avengers are in danger but the avengers are always in danger it's more so i'm just like hey we care about doom because the character of doom works and there's there just hasn't been enough yet for me oh i care about him as a character we'll see just i would say for everyone the only thing that we ever talk about is whether or not we still have an open mind charles doesn't i have an open mind liar joey doesn't want a storm movie joey doesn't have an open mind storm and i saw that for the first time to black women to african women african women oh i know why she's kenyan damn there's no beef between if she was if she was nigerian if she was ruba god if it was olu oluyu storm oluwa storm oluwa storm if it was oluwa world if she was then he would be fucking with it this is the shout out to the 154 africa podcast a lot of people are wondering right now i gotta say this by the way because the 154 africa africa podcast put up that uh they i have them going on the podcast and they put up the advertisement you know to get me on whatever they posted it and they were like you know van lathan south louisiana man with nigerian roots and so a lot of my fba people are like what are these nigerian roots you're talking about we're basically talking about shout out to 154 we're basically talking about the fact that you know i took the ancestry test and it said that i was 19% nigerian and they wanted to just talk about that but when i was they were talking about my experience with nigerian culture i actually talked about jomi because that jomi is has been my experience with nigerian culture nigerians were checking you they're like what's those roots where you know people like people hit me up like what are these roots that that they are talking about and i'm like i think that because they do a podcast where the people that are on the podcast are supposed to be african they wanted to make a connection between me and you know i don't know if people know but i'm black so there is some african origin there okay yeah yeah you know what i'm saying you see actually you got african origin too you got african origin we all have african origins oh well yeah what you don't believe it no i do i do i know what you're saying now oh special daddy what do you think life originated from steve jomi tell steve who the original man did right yeah tell steve who the original man yeah africa cradle civilization the nubian man the original man what's that if it wasn't for yakub you wouldn't be here in the first place all right we don't have we didn't bring him to the new studio speaking of blacks they can no longer have superhero shows okay they got waller out of here they got wonder man out of here waller out of here wonder man out of here we might not cover here i'm seeing your mother your mother and mother that's i'm going to see the shit phenomenal i'm going to see the shit i'm going to see i'm going to support him yeah because they jerked him around for the blade situation are we in the dirt oh you don't think you don't think another jomi all right wow you gotta give us a shit you gotta get to our muslim brothers and sisters let's calm down damn you in church what they saying in church every sunday oh you relax he's like i'm nazi nah man don't do that don't do that assalamu alaikum we with you you know what i'm saying wow this is not right this is not correct don't do that don't do that uh it is a christian muslim thing though no all right if you like i did the readings last night like all the hard to report of stuff all the deadline stuff and it's a little bit of push and pull between i think there was like foggy and ali i think foggy wanted to make a movie and ali wanted to make a different movie to the point where he like brought in his own people they did a page one re page one rewrite the whole thing and i just think those two ideas were incompatible right and so i feel like there's a little bit of it's a little bit of both sides to why the thing didn't work now mahershala had the uh interview like what a week ago two weeks ago where he was like talk to them while they're like oh my god i didn't work out you know and we're like you know it's like because what foggy went on uh the happy sad confuser he wanted to right it was like it's a shame that we didn't get blade like i feel like it's my responsibility this and that and then ali had the thing where he was like yeah x them like it's yeah it's interesting that they make concessions for certain stars and not uh oscar-winning black man though oh talk about it steve talk about it steve that's that's that's all there is talk to your boy talk to your mint boy i don't know if you if you got if you got a team maybe you get you get the brink's truck oh that's okay well that's i mean they was letting tom holland run that whole shit yeah it's off ryan reynolds got a writing credit robert donnie jr but when it's a black muslim man you see how this looks right you know i mean changing up whole scripts people doing all kinds of different shit but when ali said i want to do blade differently the question what we we there's a clip okay from like we were back at the old studio beckett studio bill we're like hey man how hard could it be to make a blade movie it's just a do a flip fighting vampires by all accounts that's the movie feige wanted to make that's not the movie ali wanted to make see this is this pr spin maybe maybe maybe maybe because i'll just say this you know if i'm mahershala i'm looking at the output that that's coming out i'm looking at the decisions being made i think for where was at in his career what he accomplished you should have a little bit of power to be like oh no we're not signing off on this he's gotta wait to throw around come on yeah i mean look here's the deal i saw moon knight do you guys have do you guys have do you guys think should i say is there any truth to the notion that marvel is dropping the ball on black led projects we should just marvel or is it is it an industry-wide superior thing industry-wide whatever so we waller is getting canceled that was black female led right paradise lost it was female led it was the wonder woman situation if i remember correctly um and then you have the cancellation of wonder man after having being green lit uh it's lots of different stuff blades gone a lot of stuff not around yeah uh i think it's a new one my take if i'm gonna be real is we are just in a different era where spider-man can make 2.5 bill batman can make billy everybody else kind of got to sing for their supper and what happens is a lot of times it is black characters female characters asian characters that get chung chi whether you love the movie hate the movie or whatever that movie made a lot of money he didn't get a second at bat i do i think that this is all like racial and misogynistic because how long did it take those characters to get their first step exactly and i think that there's like it's not plausible or believable to me but there's like a level of deniability from the powers that be in the studios that were like well we're scaling back all those things in the first place we're not exactly as powerful or as uh influential as we used to be we've got to save money we got to make sure that the heavy editors are going to be the ones that actually get us money we need a surefire thing and season two of moon and the night isn't a surefire thing i mean season two of moon night i mean moon night is failed yeah right so i mean moon night failed from the standpoint of moon night did not capture people's imagination and interest in the way that they thought that it would and moon night is not something that people are clamoring for a second season they have to probably the wrong take on moon night if you ask me interesting thing about the black leg characters at marvel in terms of the movies though um i mean you have black panther and then you have captain america brave new world right so you have one movie that was one of the gigantic hits for marvel not just in the dollars culturally you have another film that is a testament to the dysfunction that existed in the intelligentsia of marvel studios uh when it came out like when black panther came out everything was operating on all cylinders for marvel right everything the narrative the filmmakers the momentum the everything captain america brave new world came out everything was in dirt in terms of what and and you could also put that in is forget about captain america brave new world talk about the marvels the captain marvel movie comes out once again she comes out in the middle of uh marvel's golden era like a billion dollar franchise a billion dollar movie in the middle of everybody caring about this the sequel to that movie comes out in a different era and it fails it fails from a creative standpoint because they didn't seem like they could all get on the same page and also from a business standpoint so it seems to me that as much as these characters matter it seems like the structure of marvel probably matters more and what it is that they're doing uh so when i look at that i don't know if it's if the decision's being made to cancel some of these things are led by anything more than them responding to the fact that 80 of the stuff that they was putting out was bricking and also the the industry is different where wonder man critically was a success for them yes when they're looking at the books they might be like this is less a wonder man decision and this is a more do we want to keep investing money in these type of series to change it yeah and i think wonder man was just that weird coincidence of they're like oh people really love this and then but that not being enough because this isn't just a superhero thing across streamers you might have a critically acclaimed series and they're like financially it just doesn't but in the past though if things were going well that wouldn't have happened right in the past if wonder man was a companion piece to another show that was doing great on streaming or to these box office turns that were crazy that's why it's interesting to see wonder man getting cancelled after spider man had done so well do you think that's just more illustrative of the fact that marvel really doesn't care about awards and acclaim i really only care about the thing that because they definitely care about that it would be hilarious if wonder man goes on to win the emmy and that's what i'm saying like no i think what it is is that they don't have a plan for wonder man is that maybe the plan that they have for wonder man as a character to show up in doomsday or whatever or they have more of a plan for him maybe there's a wonder man movie coming or something you can make this same conversation conversation have the same conversation around armor wars which was going to be right right like which was going to be a show in a movie yeah did a movie and then all of that stuff now it's not so much that they don't want don or they don't want roadie they don't know what they want out of the character out of the world and so part of that dysfunction is another reason why some of this stuff is is is being is being ripped apart but it's tough because it's like it's predominantly happening to black-led superhero shows and movies and uh female-led superhero shows and movies like that's the unfortunate part but here's the thing and this is the the failures of those when the movie is a success well marvel it's the system it's whatever when the movies and the tv shows are a failure well black people didn't show up women didn't show up and i'm like but was the product good how come when it's when it's successful the genius of feige and marvel and everybody yeah but when the marvels does does bad it's like well women didn't show up well well here's some real talk you cannot criticize them for not making a sequel to a movie that you didn't go see the first one but a lot of women did go see the marvels what i am saying is that the marvels did not make a lot of money yeah i don't know what the demographic breakdown or whatever i'm saying in general the question that i would have for the people that are complaining about or bringing up i don't want to say complaining that are bringing up the fact that all of this stuff is getting canceled the question i would have is did you watch it and if you did not watch it if you didn't go see captain if if captain america brave new world if him if captain america being black wasn't enough to get you to go to the theater they're not gonna care when you complain if they don't make another one i mean i'm just being for real but and you and you can because you can't have it when you when you talk about having it both ways you can't have it both ways you can't stay home or not engage and then be upset if they're not making the stuff you are voting with your abstinence from it that that is how they make it they could make a terrible movie right if that make if that bitch make a billion dollars they're making another one they can make a terrible movie if that bitch is profitable they're making another one if they make a great movie and you didn't watch it whether it was black or female led or whatever it doesn't matter how good it is they're not gonna make another one but here's the thing wonder man was maybe not the biggest show ever but this this is where the nuance happens where wonder man i think overperformed where it was like we were like damn they're burying it they're barely promoting it blah blah blah it gets all these emmys and this critical did not so i get what you're saying but i don't know if it's that black and white because a lot of times black-led movies or women uh women-led movies or all this stuff does overperform and they're still like but it's not enough i don't know i mean i don't know necessarily what i'm saying is that if wonder man was a critical darling and marvel was healthier it would have gotten a second season yeah right it would have gotten the second season because you believe that the critical darling that you had could blow up some of these shows that you're talking about that we're talking about like that everybody loved that first season they wasn't all that the wire throughout its entire run throughout its entire run there was always wondering if the wire was going to be back because the wire never captured the type of audience that the sopranos and stuff did it's very healthy the show's reputation went on to buoy it after the the run of the show was over in a lot of in a larger guard right so but hbo was an incredibly healthy enterprise and it had a show that it knew was one of the best shows not on television but of all time so it that show can continue to go these shows to me just have to have healthy structure and backing to them for for them to exist and be successful i mean in a healthier enterprise like market on your bingo cards or your free space but age of the shield got seven seasons got 130 something episodes um from 2013 to 2020 when we were like really into the show and we were like we're gonna do this stuff right toward like to your point on the wire like from like season four on we're like well they might give us another season they might not who knows right the last like two or three seasons only 13 episodes each from like 26 because the like it was just like we gotta go smaller we gotta go smaller we gotta go smaller and a healthier ecosystem we were getting season seven of like whatever we're getting this season of whatever now it's kind of like does this model work for us does this model work for us does this model work for us does this model does the disney plus model work for marvel television like let's be honest does it actually do you guys think it works probably not it doesn't seem like it is this is what i'm trying to say i'll boil it down to this if they have a responsibility to make it because it's black or because it's female-led you have a responsibility to watch it because it's black and because it's female-led you cannot bro like you're setting yourself up for failure you cannot bemoan the fact that all of these black female-led things are being canceled and you're not going to be able to if you did not watch them now if you watch them all and you know that they were great and they were all of this stuff and then they come along and then they're gone well why is our stuff getting cold first echo's not coming back like there's a whole bunch of other shows that aren't coming back we have what we heard about a new season of miss marvel all of this stuff is not coming back there's a chance that a lot of these shows should have never been made in the first place i mean there's a chance but she all not coming back like a lot of these things are not coming the fact of the matter is it's funny to me that people still recoil when our stuff is the first stuff that doesn't that doesn't make it but the way we talk about these things the way we critique these things the way that we support them and watch them they're gonna be like okay well they don't even like the shit anyway they're not watching it get rid of it blah blah blah and then on the back side we tweet about it when what you could have done for wonder man or any other stuff is just ran play on it played it in the background of your shit and then on the back side like you could have you could have you know i'm saying so i mean that's tough for wonder man because people i mean i don't know like the numbers wonder man cop is because i'm like wonder man overperformed and they were still like so once again with wonder man i get it like with wonder man what i'm saying is i wonder how much if they have different plans for the character if they announce a wonder man movie if they announce if if or or if they just phase i don't know what happened or even if we take something like ironheart i don't actually think that that is i can't put that on the audience i feel like a lot of black um a lot of black fans a lot of women fans did try to support it but it wasn't we remember how they released that shit it was a very much like did you like the show i'd not like the show but i watched it i know you didn't like the show like you you watched it a lot of people like the show they didn't so what i'm saying is that like i want to be artful in what i'm trying to say but like don't be surprised if a show that wasn't good doesn't get a second season right right i agree with you i agree with you you know what i mean so like i actually thought ironheart was pretty cool for what it was was it cool enough let's be honest was it cool enough to you where you're like i'm super invested in a second season i wasn't i was like in a healthier ecosystem remember like i still think it could have done well as a movie i think if they gave it the iron man the iron man movie treatment sure i think a lot of people would have been like oh i'll woman is going to be the next iron man i ticky when it's it's on a streaming service you're a little bit like there is a ding where you're like oh this is kind of less it feels ignorable yeah same thing with falcon and the winter soldier a tv show i liked i feel like that set up a black captain america to fail because he debuts on a tv show versus a like i loved that show no but what does it cut through as much as a movie can but we were ready for it then we were we absolutely like we were we were excited for it then which is another thing is some of these lessons are being learned just about what works on television yeah and what doesn't work on television i think i think the math that they said was that the disney tv stuff is cutting the product right the movies are where it's at when you put the stuff on tv i mean they learned this this is like the star wars thing movies and it was movie only you put it on tv and people go ah star wars they thought they thought that they was gonna be able to have a whole universe of stuff on streaming and that that would make disney plus compete with netflix they gave us obi-wan they gave us boba fett we was like hey so the season two though you know i'm saying i'm i'm into soca season two i'm into all right at some point are we ready guys we've been part of for a while are we ready to get into the rob interview into the rob yeah talk to rob guys i know a lot of times y'all see that there's an interview on a podcast like do i need to listen to it do yourself a favor listen to the rob interview he's hilarious endless summer escapes start here travel the worlds of netflix irl inspired by fan favorites like stranger things and squid game brave the upside down face off with the front man play leveled up arcade games shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks beat the heat play eat and shop on repeat at Netflix House at Galleria Dallas, bring your crew. and safe get your tickets today at netflix.com slash house tammy regularly hauls stuff to her kids at college that's why she shops at bj's wholesale club saving up to 25 off grocery store prices beef jerky microwave meals laundry pods even they can't screw up have you met my kids and with bj's gas she gets there for less they call me the road warrior this is your home road warrior mom home of the save join for just 20 at bj's.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months open soon limited time offer new members only bj's home of the save who says halloween only lasts one day with wayfair one night of halloween becomes a whole season at home from larger than life yard decor and moody lighting to festive accents for every room in the house wayfair has what you need to make halloween feel like magic all in one place because the best halloween memories aren't made in just one night they're made all season long shop halloween decor now at wayfair.com wayfair every style every home okay guys we have talked about the finale of x-men 97 in that finale cable plays a very important part and if you guys notice there's a fifth chair to the midnight boys right now a guy who knows a little something about cable might have even created cable might have created deadpool as well two of the most relevant comic book characters right now in all of comics culture we are joined by a legend and a pioneer rob liefeld joins us today oh my gosh you guys i'm so excited to be here i'm so excited i can't believe it this is like an out-of-body experience those you gotta do for us then if you're excited you gotta give us on three one two three i do it at home all right so you know rob let's just start off talking a little bit about cable cable figures very prominently in this season of x-men what do you guys think what did you guys think of how he was in the season i loved it he was the man i mean when he throws okay spoiler alert when he throws his parents around i'm like oh damn they showed like because for like several episodes they keep going don't make us you know spank you son right and he's and he always kind of looks at him like i'd like to see a try like and then it was like i'm gonna take you out i'm gonna take you when he's deflecting cyclops and he's like i'm gonna take beans and then take cyclops out and then it's like gene gray i'm gonna put you in the floor with my you know telekinetic powers i'm like oh my god like honestly you guys i was it was an out-of-body experience i was like what what am i watching and then at the end of the episode i'm like are they really gonna let him walk up to gambit they're gonna he's getting closer okay the gun's coming out is he gonna what is he what what just happened i'm like that is pretty violent for a cartoon right of course big moment big moment and i i was just shocked so i was flying home uh from being overseas vacation with my family and right when we got into the wi-fi range because that x-force episode where they had their own credits yeah and and that is something that i discovered along with the rest of the world and i'm like hot damn it's x-force with the now do they come to you when when the creators of the show are going to involve x-force and cable do they come to you no okay uh they just they hate the fact that they got to write the checks to uncle rob so they don't they don't even like talking to me okay you know so my tenure with them is i would say over i mean i think there's there's burning the bridge and then there's setting a nuke to the bridge it can't be that burned if they're still involving your character that speaks to the the look that speaks to the characters and i am super fortunate that these characters took with the audience and and you know guys when i go uh uh two weeks ago i jumped over to balt uh baltimore in long island two places i haven't been in 20 years and i'm getting families these guys are uh coming up to me and introducing me to their 10 year old nine year old daughters sons their wives and they were you know 15 12 when they were buying these books and it is like a tidal wave of whoa like and they're like i just want my family to to you know see like you know the the guy who made the comics that and created the characters that i love so much and it is it is super humbling overwhelming and and yet it's like these guys what i tell the studios as i i'm like my fans have the amex cards okay they grew up and i met like i met one of them 25 years ago two of them three of them five of them and now they're executives at their positions they started at low level management now they're upper management i'm like my fans have a lot of credit and they charge those cards when they go to the store they're buying all the comms they're keeping stores they're buying tickets to the movies they're what so so it's just a testament to the characters if you get a character and the character hits um it's a special relationship so so no they don't call me they don't need to call me i just expect that it you know i get my compensations which makes me like there's a version of me that doesn't have that that's the most miserable mofo on planet earth right like i'll be one of those guys like wine wine wine but i'm always like yeah you gotta get paid but since we have you here you know the fans didn't get mad at us because i think i as i was like yeah why is he named cable like was it we have you here we have a creator so both in universe but as you were creating what was it about the name cable prepare for disappointment okay i'm gonna i'm gonna these answers i'm sure are not gonna land first of all like when they first revealed um wolverine's name logan logan's cool name like my wife and i on every one of our kids names we had it out for months there's a list she has a list of names that she has a list of names that she has a list of i have a list and we're like no no cross out cross out no no you know like you i i canceled your name my kids luke and chase and olivia like like those were battled for and especially with the boys you want cool names yeah and at the end like we were down to the last name and i said chase manhattan bank that's a big ass institution we're gonna call him chase he's gonna be important because i think i knocked out like some southern name she wanted i'm like i ain't having no kid with that name but um so with with cable first of all it's a care it's a name i had for a tough guy because he sounds like if cable walks in the room and he's 90 pounds you're like i'm so disappointed but cable needs to look like alan ritson but also here's the thing that arm of his has gears and wires and was exposed from the first minute so i thought like it also reflects like that he's a technological kind of being cable with cables and gear it was better than gear um and and so so cable sounded cool but it also would cover up his true identity for at least two years because i needed that i needed them not like to know but the pitch was there when i went to pitch him and i had a great editor and you know i bang on bad executives all the time i believe we don't spank them enough we don't call them out for all their horrible terrible decisions that give us crap and and knowingly crap and and we should praise the good guys and there was a great executive named bob harris who before anybody realized it like honestly i look back he started calling us and the x-men was the number one family of comics except for the new mutants was the lowest on the totem pole but he uh he called up myself jim lee wills potashio he's like i want to do a changeover i want to do like a class changeover in the x-men office and if he doesn't make those calls and see like that the x-men i don't want to let them get stagnant they weren't but but they might have like maybe lost their juice and they were like i need to replace all these guys and you know i was on a panel with mark sylvester at san diego comic-con which which is why i couldn't go to your guys panel because i'm like i have a panel i have a panel you can't know our panel no no i tried um the the uh mark was up there going i lost my job to jim lee he said that in front of you know 5 000 people in whatever the hall was and i'm like oh man mark's still feeling it but they gave him wolverine because they thought like he'd be happy on wolverine but uh so picking picking us was bob was acting like a great gm and look look at you guys loved jim lee's x-men you loved will's portacio you loved larry strowman's x-factor and that is because that one guy bob harris was like i need to change it up he came from editing the hulk and gi joe and so when i pitched him the new mutants i said bob because they offered me x-factor i couldn't do it no way am i following following walt simonson who's one of the all-time greats and also i'm just those characters don't do it for you you don't like the original five that's a hot take you yeah you guys yeah you may like what's your take you have a good autumn yeah what would you say so so the original original x-men and and i'm gonna tell you right now there's a reason they went into reprints in the mid-70s for five years marvel just reprinted old comics because they are temple touchers and arm casters they come into a room xavier and they're all like stop stop okay i kick it and then and then and then warren worthington the third flaps in like i got my wings i'm a bird and you're like in the age of the avengers when i'm buying avengers around the time avengers 145 george perez just gets on the avengers has this incredible squadron supreme storyline the fantastic four is banging at the time the defenders is cool with dr strange i would as a kid go these characters are boring like i got i got a dude in a wheelchair i got a girl who looks at people i'm seven you gotta chuck i'm seven years old i'm giving you the five of a seven you know so so so when i'm nine i see star wars and i see this old man who looks like a prophet my dad's a elijah coming down and he's like oh but i have a laser sword i want weapons i want i want stuff and the x-men were like everybody stop and like i told you giant size x-men number one they're taking wolverine from the hulk appearance that that epic two issues he was in and now you got a guy with six six knives and he's just stabbing you boom boom boom stabbing stabbing and you're like i like this and then colossus is like i am a strong man that can throw buildings at you and then storm is a babe who controls the weather and shoots lightning and and can fly real high a little bit of the arm caster but super hotness yeah and then you got um that's it and then jean gray i mean i guess but uh the thing is then you got nightcrawler who looks like a demon with a tail are you worried about the x-men movies going with the more traditional five you guys you already you already know my I'm too old for this i'm too the x-men i'm gonna be 61 when that comes out there is no way i care i just have to get on come on you're gonna be all right you're gonna be come on bro i will be you're gonna be front row rob it's not seeing the x-men movie van if you're gonna see me up i'll see you with you i'll get you you'll come to the screen but my thing is guys guys like like samara weaving is fantastic she is exactly the white queen but um i i love first class and and like you guys if you've been watching the agency you just go why didn't we get my more fast bender in everything including magneto we we have somehow forgotten what a badass magneto in first class when he's like using his magnetism to throw like impale people with fences and like knives in the in the restaurant and you're you're like he's got like wolverine like rage and he's using that power but uh i mean i i just go guys i just it really is a a byproduct of age and so i will applaud but like with x-men 97 like just make that roll cameras show live action you live action the last three episodes that's a two billion dollar movie so people were concerned about the run of x-men 97 whether or not it would be able to live up to the highs of the first season did it for you well yeah and clearly and i know you guys have scratched this itch but clearly uh there was some lawyering going on because i see bo's name on everything right yeah and clearly uh because that i think i think he has like baldoni's lawyer i think that's who who was representing him and eventually because i know this marvel loves to do this and then you go hi here's my attorney let's talk this out and then eventually like there you go um because i'm like because his name is like writing these episodes he got just because i was like oh his name is on the the producing right and then a lot of writing so i think they did build around his vision now now going forward i know his vision didn't go beyond um and i was talking to him and then i was like oh he's like oh he's like oh he's like oh he's like he's been dark for a year he just went completely he's gone yeah uh and and there's no communication because i was thanking him in season one like dude this is great for any x-men fan because here's the thing we can talk about cable till we're blue in the face i'm a wolverine guy wolverine like is the reason i'm in comic books he is my favorite character i he i will die that he is my favorite character and i think like when those characters are gelling because wolverine made scott and gene more interesting because obviously scott's going wait you got the hots for this little runt with all the hair and gene's like i can't kind of deny as a kid i'm 10 years old i'm drawn into the soap opera like i think gene has the hots for logan so i think the cartoon did a great job just just i i know i've read people now like dissing on season two so you tell me i loved it i thought it did a really great job i do want to come back um to the creation of cable yeah because you brought some stuff with i did and i cannot believe that you brought this this is amazing i got this out of the safe this is the original uh cable this is my ballpoint pen this is like 30 i don't know how many years old this is 37 1989 um but this this is when i was starting to build him out you can see the proportions you can see all the different gear i'm giving him the the explain to us where cable came from like what was the vision so like i'm growing up so if it's 1987 88 i'm 19 i'm 20 okay and i'm going to see everything uh you know people forget about red heat and all the other lesser schwarzenegger movies but man those those were like appointment me and my buddies we would go see every action movie whether it was uh stallone schwarzenegger von dom all those guys and people you guys know i mean uh the rock was starting to kind of uh like form a career around what schwarzenegger did but that schwarzenegger run is one for the ages because he worked with such incredible talents like cameron and i mean mctiernan these guys predator is like an like does not get enough run the original predator is like an a plus plus plus plus 10 and i remember just looking at all that and going this is what the x-men need and look i here's here's a great thing i nailed it new mutants was was barking like a dog they said rob why would you want the new mutants this book is about to get canceled you'd make such better money on x-factor and i'm like and i'd never work again if i did x-factor because you don't ever want you don't want to be the quarterback that follows the hall of famer right so you're like you're not going to be the quarterback that follows the hall of famer that's a thing in comic books and in entertainment you got to know one to say no right okay this looks good there's some money there that's not going to do it for me i'm going to step away and uh with new mutants it was just i can bring this new guy in who's going to cause a lot of chaos he's going to create a lot of questions and he's going to look at those kids the way i look those kids in the comics and say you're all a bunch of i'll just say sissies i'll keep it g-rated you're all a bunch of sissies and you're embarrassment you're an embarrassment to the and make you warriors for the battle that is to come and he's like you know when he tells him i'm from the future i know shit uh and and i know how things are going to play and this is what i said to editorial and van they just said go with it let's do it what else the book x-men was selling about 500,000 copies new mutants was selling 100,000 there is a giant gap between them and my proudest moment was new mutants 100 no gimmicks no scratch and sniff no acetate cover sold a back to press there's all these different the silver print uh the silver version the gold version they had to keep going back it was just a comic it was just a comic that now we have shed new mutants and created x-force because the other thing i was like new mutants is hard to say say it five times fast you're gonna bite your tongue new mutants new everything else is x x x x i'm like we got to get x in this title and we got to get x in this title fast and so finally they turned it over but uh i showed on social media the other day the cable trade paperback went back to four different printings a trade people now go my comic book's going back to press i'm like my 20 trade paperback kept going kept selling out new printing and they're delineated by green foil purple foil blue foil like orange foil they just kept making different versions and it's like this was people forget what a big deal cable was right but i think this yeah i am a am a man of a certain age 46 years old this was my wheelhouse when you were discovering characters in the mid 70s and it was you know giant size x-men this was the x-men that i was discovering and i remember one of my cousins went hey this dude right here this is scott and gene's son from the future yeah but he got powers but this is his power and it was the big guns and the leadership man i had strife strike file when it had all the different cable strife all of the what was strife's team name it was the uh the mlf liberation front liberation front like i had all of it that entire x world was what immersed me into this entire thing from a comic standpoint what aesthetically why because you guys it felt like punk rock where you push the aesthetic so far absolutely bigger than life just massive like you're breaking all the rules that that marvel and dcn at that point had had for how you draw heroes see you know i was just telling my family the other day i go it's it's been 35 years but it feels like yesterday i mean i can access these memories where i'm sitting where i'm drawn and look we i was drunk on mtv if i woke up mtv went on i draw all day long it's what i do with the podcast now the ringer is now the mtv i just listen all day long and in mtv people forget man david fincher was making those videos and uh michael bay was making those videos and like video was this kick-ass language and they were exciting and there was again great visuals coming from that i think we just were the younger generation and we represent we all came in in our i was the youngest of them but everybody was in their 20s and i think we just had a different vibe than what was going on we also they they call it this is embarrassing that they called us this because but but there was the you know west coast rap thing and so they called us like the west coast they called us the west coast artist mafia and like don't call us that that's not that's that's that's that's that's that's that's not good that's not good that's why i've never said it until now i'm embarrassed i said a bunch of guys in new york would call us because suddenly we're not in new york coming into the offices and we're all uh jim's out here in san diego i'm in los angeles mark mark's in los angeles um every eric larson's in san francisco everything's on the west coast i think we just brought a different energy i was personally into just younger stuff and i i would look man i say this all the time go back go back and look at those new mutants before me it's 1989 and boom boom is dressed like madonna in 1982 i'm like she took the bow out of her hair in 82 like and she doesn't and and richter was dressed like billy idol in 1989 And I'm like, the Rebel Yell period is over. Why are these, like, you could tell that like older men were drawing these comics and not, and they weren't into the stuff that we were into. So having Strife, so New Mutants 87, page one, the MLF, you get 10 new villains, then you get Strife, add onto that, and then you get Cable. And it was kind of an announcement, like this book is changing. And like I said, I'm just so fortunate, blessed that they let me do whatever I want. And because the sales started going up, by the time I introduced Cable, Deadpool, the book's at 700,000 copies. Like we have in one year just jammed. And so at that point, they were like, whatever you want, Rob. I said, hey, I'm gonna have this domino. And yeah, whatever, whatever, it's working, it's working. So it was working. And so now seeing it move and seeing Cable kick everyone's ass in the season finale is like, yeah. And he's dressed, that is his gear. From X-Force 1, the green straps, the buckles. I'm like, damn, that's my man. - So I have a question. So you're having all of the success with Cable and all of these other characters. You have an ascent going on at Marvel. You've said before that like secret to success is also knowing when to say no. Is it getting harder to say no to the things when things are kind of getting thrown at you and all of these things are, nobody's saying no to you. What are you saying no to at that point? - Well, the first run of X-Force is great 'cause it's just, we're connecting, we're connecting. And the readership is great. The readership is digging it. And you feel it, especially, I was booking a comic book store appearance every week, no, every month with every issue. And I'd go to Pomona and I'd go to LA and no matter where I went in the Southland, there was larger crowds and more enthusiasm. And so, you know, like the people like what I'm doing. So they're literally like giving you feedback in real time. I didn't know about the mail for Deadpool for about a month, but they said it's the largest amount of mail that they had received on a new character in over 20 years. I think they said, since the Punisher. And you're like, wow. And they sent me the mail and I've told you, I've said this on different like podcasts and stuff. I thought they sent me like a washer dryer. I thought like, well, Tom Cruise gets a Porsche for his big movies. They sent me an appliance and instead I open it and it's all letters. - Right. - I read those letters like this, a box tall, way taller than this table, but about that is suddenly delivered to my studio. And I read every letter. And you're like, wow, that's back when people wrote letters and it was fun. But then about at the end of year one, they're like, we want to kind of control some of the direction here. And you're like, what? And that's when you're like, maybe it's time for me to exit. - Say more about that though, because this leads to a revolution that's like now legendary in the history of comics, which was the formation of Image Comics when you guys became, for the first time, you guys became rock stars in your own right. Young creators that had changed the aesthetic of comic, books that had brought new characters. And you guys decide we're going to do our own thing. And you leave and you go to Image. - Yes. And everyone thought we were crazy. Like I can still remember. And when I forget one of my other guys, somebody will talk to us at like San Diego Comic-Con and they'll leave and I won't say who else is. That guy said we were going to be out of business in three months. Don't forget that Rob. And I'm like, oh yeah, I forgot that guy. Like everyone said, you're lunatics and you're going to fail. You're never going to get along. It's not going to work. And the fans had something. It was something different to say, but literally like Todd's told his story. They started editing his art and saying, you can't put the sword through that guy's eye. And that was Shatterstar. He's printed it. Shatterstar, Todd called me up and said, let's do a Spider-Man X-Force. I knew the fans would dig it. So we did it. And Todd had Shatterstar put a sword through Juggernaut's eye and it's fantastic. They edit it. The version you get is completely not what he drew. They edit it because they thought it was too violent. And that's when Todd, I saw a statement from him the other day. He said, that's when I knew it was, I'm done. I'm out of here. How much, you know, commerce have I created for these people? But now they're starting to meddle. And for me, things suddenly, I'm like, they're like, Rob, can you come to a creative meeting and jam with everybody? And I'm gonna tell you why we didn't do that. 'Cause everyone's gonna steal your ideas. They're like, you have to, the reason I didn't tell anybody who Cable was, I'm like, I'm not letting any of these people know what's up. 'Cause they'll steal it. They will absolutely steal it from me. And so- - Inside the building. - No, in the building. - And it's happened before, I'm assuming. - It's, dude, creators are just like musicians. - Damn. - And everybody else are like, oh, I heard that riff, but I can lay that riff down maybe three months earlier and I'll own the riff. So, I mean, the thing is I, especially the competitiveness at Marvel Comics was crazy. But we became friends through it. Like myself and Todd and Eric, they were the Spider-Man guys and then Jim and Wills. So we were very competitive. And look, if you don't think that there was huge brushback within the building, there was, because it's like, we were the punks. We were called the punks. And I think they thought we had these giant egos when we were just excited. That there's, I am exactly who I was at that period. Just excited. But, and I'm like, shouldn't, I didn't, I never said this, but I'm like, Todd did. He said something like this. Shouldn't you guys be thanking us? Like we took your sales to the next level. We like, for a book that you turned down three times and I've shown it online, the head of sales sent me a fax. I still have it. I've showed it on my social media. I'll certainly show it. Whenever this airs. And he says, Rob, we're going to stay with it. I know they've turned us down twice to change New Mutants into X-Force, but we have one more shot. Then I'm like, oh, I'm getting nervous. 'Cause our window's closing. Our window is closing. And so we finally, and I think what happened is they looked at the sales and I'm like, we can't deny that this, like, this used to sell a hundred thousand copies. Now it's selling 700,000. And X-Force was the little like surprise. It just wedged right in there between Spider-Man and X-Men and sold 5 million copies. And I did fall off my chair. I was like, what? What is this? This is crazy. But you would think they'd be like, let's make things easier and more. But suddenly it became more of a grind because they wanted to take that control. And it's very much, right before I got here, Amazon delivered my last Kings of Hollywood book. And we are not Spielberg, Coppola and Lucas. We are not. Because comic books don't have the bandwidth that movies do. But that's kind of what we were doing. What happened when those directors changed the film is what was happening with us. And just like the studios were very eager to take back control and not let the auteurs run the place, it was happening to us. So we decided to band together. Now, some guys took a little more convincing. Jim Lee took a lot of convincing, but they loved him the most. We shared this at San Diego. We found out from Jim, and good on you, Jim. Todd and I were like, oh, damn. They flew out like a contingent to meet with Jim and said, please don't go with these nutbags. Please. And Jim's like, did you fly and meet Todd and Rob? And they're like, no, those guys are lunatics. We want nothing to do with them. - Tough. - Tough. - And they're like, but we love you. You're special. And I think Jim was like, I really should. I think that was like, they're scared. He even said, he goes, I could see how intimidated they were by the idea of what image was happening. And you guys, when the sales kept coming in on "Youngblood," preliminary numbers, half a million. We're up to 700,000. You're breaking a million. And you're like, what is this? What is, like, we didn't see that happen. I told my dad, God bless him. He came to me because he had seen like the success. And he had been kind of sidelined by a lot of cancer and a lot of illness. And he was super proud of me. And he would come to me and he's like, son, I'm concerned. Like, you're doing really well at Marvel. What are you thinking? I feel like you're, and I said, dad, I've done the math. I believe I will sell 100,000 copies on my own. I am leaving a book that's selling a million a month in X-Force, but I will sell 100,000. But if I keep all of 100,000, then I'm making more than I am making five cents, you know, a royalty, whatever. And he's like, okay, well, I did the math for him. And so then you're like, oh, I did not have it on the ledger that I'm gonna sell a million copies. Like, and Todd, and then, and trust me, I think that may have been the exact time Jim's like, I'm doing image. 'Cause he's like, I'm gonna sell a million too. 'Cause again, we'd all look at each other. One guy won't say which was like, we're gonna reset this. We're gonna reset the hierarchy. It's not gonna be you and Jim and Todd anymore. So, you know, it wasn't Jim or Todd or me who said this. And I remember the guy left the room. Todd goes, oh, it's not getting reset. It's staying the same. And I'm like, yeah, I think so too. But like, there was this, you know, on our own, we'll reset it. We didn't, it just continued. I'm talking too much. You guys talk too much. - No, no, no. - The question for you is, is it, are you honored or is it bittersweet? Where it's like same in music, the 90s are back. When I look at something like "Absolute Batman" or the "Absolute Line," I'm like, this is them taking what worked at image. Like when I see "Absolute Batman," that is a Rob Liefeld inspired, he's jacked, he's big. Are you honored? Or is it like, damn, there is this level of like, fuck. - Totally honored. And every 10th person will say that, but there's an entire group that goes, we can't say that this is Rob Liefeld. That's to me, I'm like, that's a little damn head, big shoulders, giant pecs. I see myself all over that shit. And I love it because I think what Nick Dragota is doing is fantastic. It's big, it's loud. No, no, no, man. Game respects game. - It's just stabilizing too. - And, and, and one thing I'm not bringing into all of this is I am a manga crazy kid. We had a Korean market near my house. And if you don't think I was dining out on a healthy diet of apple seed and Ghostbusters, Ghost in the Shell and because your art reminds me like fist of the north star yeah it's just a huge fucking but if you go look i wear my influence on my sleeve you go get apple seed that was the best of all of them and you look at apple seed and you'll be like i see every x-men i see every x-force and young bud like influence right here shiro was one of the best there was bubblegum crisis uh later on there was one called bastard that was fantasy i mean manga was my complete like i didn't understand why everybody else didn't love it as much it seems like absolute batman especially the joker their version of the joker and bane like i love the bane is 20 feet tall like that's rad like 10 foot batman needs a 20 foot bane um no even wonder woman it's great she has a huge sword now there's yeah there's all it feels like the 90 it feels like image and it's like i do see like kids online thinking like it's not a continuum of a history i'm like dog i remember buddy yeah i i if i could come over there and hug you right now thank you for saying it because we see it but we're like it's so weird to chill like like i think i used to as much as i get excited like there's just a calm that you go like this is great i'm so happy for them that that's happening because absolute batman is good for the business um and you're the legend now you're the george perez well you're the dave cockrum you are the guy that like we are the old men of the sea and we're happy but we're also hungry too man i love getting out there but see here's the thing with absolute batman and stuff like that and and when people are like do a absolute batman that would be i don't have uh much more time i i've seen the guys who are my age and and past a middle 60 the drawings aren't the same the eyes the hand coordination starts falling so right now i really like where my work's at i still i still feel like it's very strong and it's it's it's it's connecting but um i need to pour all that into my stuff and be able to um you know look young blood uh has has completely over achieved there was no demand for it it was gone for six and a half maybe seven years and when i brought it back i i didn't know if people would dig it but now we have four action figures out this year we got art editions trade paperbacks uh young but number one was the the number one book for image comics in november our hundredth issue was the number five book because i'm up against robert kirkman who i i loved your interview with him um and and he just rules that that that chart and image comics so the fact that you can even wedge in there is like a a giant success but like that's the kind of stuff you know calling up working with the toy companies the video game companies and be able to deal with work with other talent and take your stuff to the next level as great as absolute batman is when they close the doors at night it still stays on the warner brothers lot it doesn't go in the car with them and drive home with them and that's where you when you create something that's yours and you can manage it and that that's exciting it's an excitement and and there were guys before us who we saw do that too neil adams and and other seminal talents that had that had shown us frank miller sin city was out about a year before image comics and i'm like sin city's doing like crime noir i mean uh frank miller's doing crime noir holy crap and he's cutting people's heads off like he was taking it to the x r-rated level so we were just following the great example so if we're setting an example that's awesome i mean your legacy i mean we have cable we have deadpool right i mean we haven't really talked about deadpool like when you're creating that character you're creating that character and you're creating that character what's the thing that like when it all when did it all click for you like this is what this character is going to be this is what it's going to sound like we all need to go back it's a great question i appreciate this let me tell you man you go back with me in a time machine okay what is todd's number one influence when he's doing spider-man when he breaks out and does his multi-million dollar spider-man he is super influenced by frank miller like we all were and what did frank do the batman he turned him dark and dark and dark and and so todd's like he literally you can see even the amount of black on the page the heavy shadows the amount of he suddenly even though he the way he draws spider-man in the regular spider-man book is totally different than how he was doing a more open and poppy in amazing and then he's got like craven guts are coming out the lizard there there's voodoo magic there's people with their heads being chopped off spider-man is bloody it's dark and he and mj are having marital problems he's going out dancing at night going if you don't got time for me the boys at the club do and and he would do like mary jane and her like kind of mini skirts and fishnets and you're like man mary jane's grown up and uh and and then like you know and then like he's getting like he's having marital problems he's having uh job problems like and i'm like this isn't the spider-man i grew up with spider-man i grew up with was like fun and bouncy and an asshole and would like say funny things when he was punching you and that's not really where todd was going with that and so i felt like and also todd mcfarland that tim miller uh the director of the original deadfall said to me he goes if you tell me this spider-man story one more time i'm gonna think we need to give a special credit to todd mcfarland um because todd would call me up and he would do his taunt and and he loved it he's like about six seven years older than me so he thought it was a funny uh little punk and he'd be like rob how you doing with the new mutants and and uh and and drawing the eyes and the nose and the mouth and the ears and the hair he goes uh i just i just drew spider-man took me 10 minutes i'm done for the day he said he said i did a big splash full page big eye big eye big oval webs done have fun buddy and i'd be like and he's like i'm never doing a team book again and i'm like damn he's got something so when i i said it's time for me to write they told me when i took over i could write the book and uh so they finally let me write the book and i'm like i'm gonna do it i'm gonna write the book and i'm like well this is a lot of pressure cable has put a lot of pressure on me so that's why when people say why is like three new characters introduced and i'm like well two out of three ain't bad i'm like deadpool domino gideon okay two took one didn't okay the guy with the ponytail didn't exactly uh no no i do too but but but deadpool and domino so i said and and it took until this last year i put it on my socials as well a guy said rob this is what's in the letters page of new mutants 100. the fan saw it i pitched him i said hey deadpool is going to be a mercenary because i love boba fett i love mercenaries and i and look i've told people cable is han solo there's a character named toliver that's hired deadpool he's job of the hut deadpool is boba fett he's been here he's he's come to retrieve but i said he's spider-man with guns and swords he's funny he's he's going to be like an asshole and and again like he's black and red deadpool like if i were to start drawing webs on his costume i'd be like oh my god he's going to be a mercenary he's going to be like oh crap he he really is spider-man adjacent and so he just doesn't have webs he has guns and swords and in the the first letters that they printed for new mutants uh said i love this new deadpool he reminds me of spider-man with guns and swords i'm like damn i nailed it that's exactly the bitch and and and i've watched over time his legend morph and i'm like oh i guess uh he was based on deathstroke which had nothing to do with this character but like so that's not true dude so we just not even you are a fan of dean titan is it in the back of your mind you're just like deathstroke is so cool right i i i would tell you i i i could not keep it from you i look and and i'll give you a picture of death deathstroke number one is coming out yeah uh from marvel the same month new mutants 98 and he is bigger than alan richson mike zek of punisher fame does this cover with deathstroke badass he's got one foot up on the on the ledge and he's got this giant gun and he looks meaty and big and thick and i'm like yeah these characters deadpool even moved he jumped around he bounces around in the air doing kicks and stuff that you just didn't associate deathstroke honestly i think slade when you take his mask off i think he's closer to cable i think he's more of an influence on cable than he is on on deadpool but it's cool to say that deathstroke and i'm like i you know look my one of my friends his name is chase and one of his best friends is jace okay names that sound like peter parker two piece okay um bruce banner two b's wade wilson was ww but of course it was slay like i've dealt with this and i don't care like it doesn't it doesn't affect me i it that was my way it gets tossed my way but i just walk through it like if that's like i can't go to every single person and go look at intervention no spider-man like but but but he just tell me he just took off he just he was the right character at the right time and you cannot ever discount right place right time i think you say that you say you're not gonna be at the movies the x-men when x-men come out they put spider-man and deadpool a movie together you'll be there i'm gonna be first in line are you kidding me i want to see tom holland and ryan heck yeah when to see deadpool um and now you know obviously you got cable and deadpool in the movie but to see deadpool become a character that legitimately has gone from being a character that was an a-list comic book character for comic book fans to now being an a-list superhero period yes a billion dollar a record-setting superhero first of all financially how does that sit for you it's all good it's all good it's all good i bet he's not gonna believe this but did you know when the first movie because like people forget that first movie it took ryan and co a long time i remember they had to test video did you know because you were the creator you're like yeah they get this right it's gonna be huge so they showed the first script And it really is what you want. that you see in 2016. Rhett Reese, Paul Warnock were the only writers on the script at the time. And they sent me the screenplay and I'm like, they gotta make this as fast as they can because it was so, the way that it's told in a non-linear way, it kind of really screamed to me like the Quentin Tarantino superhero movie. I mean, you just go to that first movie, the non-linear, the jokes, the action, the violence. And so Tim Miller, I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't know if they've like, you can go back, Edgar Wright turned it down. Robert Rodriguez turned it down. The director of "Zombieland" turned it down. We were like dealing with nobody wanted to make this movie. And Fox was definitely very hesitant. And so Ryan went on and made all these other movies in the in-between time waiting to see if Fox would green light it. Tim Miller comes on late 2010. And I am, a co-coach to my kids like flag football league. And I get this, you know, 818 number. I pick it up, say, hey, Rob, name's Tim Miller. Got your number from Jim Lee. Wanted to call and introduce myself. I'm gonna be directing "Deadpool." I'm like, hot damn. And he's like, there was a DC video game that had come out. And my kids were super into video games and we had it. And this incredible super members of Lex Luthor all, Tim had directed that and his company had produced it. And then he tells me, I did all these "Knights of the Old Republic" like video game, like shorts as well. So I'm like, wow. So this is gonna be his first live action thing. Tim is the most generous, like just a welcoming guy. Says, come on up to my studio, to Blur. And so I went up there and I started hanging out and I saw the storyboards. I saw that leaked footage get filmed. - Yeah. - I was there in like at Blur. And then it just sat and sat. And I'm like, why aren't they greenlighting the movie? Like you are not kidding when you say that they just would not, they just did not believe that it would break through. "Guardians of the Galaxy" 2014 was a huge, huge part of it. And the president of Fox said, "Rob, that Monday we had after "Guardians of the Galaxy" 2014 made all the money. We had a meeting and said, maybe we need to put Deadpool back. - Yeah. - Into consideration. And so I really believe "Guardians" was key. A lot of humor, a lot of music. And I think it, 'cause all the music in Deadpool is in the script. Now the script got chopped down. They probably cut $15 million in the budget. I remember right before casting about, about five weeks before they were going to set, Tim goes, "Rob, Garrison Cain has been cut from the movie 'cause Cain had these two giant battles with Deadpool in the original script with all his cybernetics, and giant action, but he did not survive the budget cuts." And I think the, and I'm like, like my wife says, "Suck it up, you know, cry on the inside like a winner." And I went, "It's okay, Tim, I'm okay with Cain, okay." And I'm like, "Shit, I love Cain." But I'm like, getting the Deadpool movie made finally, just cheer it on, cheer it on. - Being the creator of the character, the character coming to the big screen, what is the role that they have for you? Like, do they use you as, you know, as a character? Do they counsel? Do they come back when they're stuck in a what would Deadpool do situation? How do they work with you on that? - So, over the 10 years, multiple emails, "Can you tell me more about this character? Can you tell me more about that?" I was everybody's Cliff Notes. I got, I got, I can, I pulled them up the other day. I pulled up Ryan's inquiries, Rhett's inquiries, Paul's inquiries, the studio's inquiries. And look, I had a really special position there. The president, his name was, I call him Jimmy G. It's a, Gianopolis is the guy who was running the company at the time. And, and, and he replaced Tom Rothman who was, God bless Tom, but he, he is the one who was not gonna make Deadpool under any circumstances. He's part of the reason it didn't. And, and he's a funny guy. He came up to everybody at a party, an industry party and put his arms around Paul and Rhett. And Tim was right there. Ryan wasn't in the room and Tom goes, "See, I told you guys it wasn't ready yet. You should thank me. It wasn't time. It wasn't time." And everyone's like, "Go away." - Get the fuck out of here. - Yeah, so, so, so, so the thing is, everybody would always ask me, but Tim was a giant, when I went to Blur Studios, Tim has a floor to ceiling, giant, like one of those bookshelves you'd see, like where the dude has the giant ladder that pushes on the wheels down from one end. It's all comic books. It's all comic books, no books. It's all comics. And Tim's like, "Oh, I can grab this here." And he is a legit, like super, you'll have him on the show one day. He is such a comic book fan. And, and I think he was able to really fight for all the rights, all the responsibilities. And I mean, again, I was, I was on set for all three movies and was able to watch the magic come to life. And I would get in trouble on the first set, 'cause back then, you guys, 2015, when they're filming it, $60 million would be a big opening. And I'm like, I'd see the dailies. And I'm like, "This movie's opening at $60 million." And they're like, "Shut up. You're not jinxing it. You're jinxing the movie." And I'm like, "I did, 'cause it opened at $118 million instead. I did jinx it. I made it better. No, I just, it's, so I was, they could not have been more inclusive, especially when they brought in Cable and Domin on the sequel. Man, I, they were having me up. I was able to go to, like, marketing's like, we're inviting you up for the marketing, you know, meetings. And I'm just, I can't believe I'm sitting at this table. This is so fun. And also, I knew it would all end 1,000% when Disney bought fine. I'm like, "Well, that trip's over." - We'll say more. We're here. - Wait, so I do have to ask this, 'cause some news dropped today, and I'm a comic book nerd where they announced that they're breaking the glass. "Star Wars: Avengers: Marvel" is crossing over. And I'm just gonna give you the floor, 'cause this is, I think this is maybe the fear that I had and maybe you had when Disney bought Marvel, where it's like-- - No, you tell me. I don't wanna hear me. I wanna hear you. I'm with four fans. Tell me what you thought. - I think, in my opinion right now, Marvel has lost their way, the comics, creatively, because they let the MCU lead them. - Yeah. - But in the beginning, the great thing about the MCU was like, no, no, no, the comics are leading. - Yes. - They're taking these great stories and we are adapting them. And I'm just like, yo, putting "Star Wars" in this universe isn't gonna fix it. Reinvesting in the creators, reinvesting in the stories, being more daring is where you get the awesome movies. It starts in the comics. - So I need, come on, everyone's gotta weigh in. - I mean, to me, obviously it's a bad idea. I mean, like-- - Hey, come on. Star Wars has its own lore, its own galaxy, its own everything. It'd be like, you know, "Lord of the Rings," you put the Terminator in there. It's not-- it doesn't work right. - I thought that-- - Oh, my gosh! - "Avengers vs. Aliens" was good. - That's fine, but the aliens, to be honest with you, is a very, actually, versatile-- - They be putting aliens in everything. - It comes around. - "Aliens vs. Predators"? - It's different. Obviously, it doesn't work, but when we get to late stage, whatever, whatever, this is kind of the kind of shit that you get. - That's the stuff that sells. - Right. - People are going to see "Star Wars" and "Avengers" and "X-Men" all together. They're going to buy the comics. That's what I think it is. - I mean, that's what they think. - I think it's an abomination, but-- - I mean, I don't disagree, but they're like-- they're-- like, they're kids, man. They're going to see "Luke Skywalker" and "Wolverine," and they're going to be like, "Oh, man, it's so crazy." - Come on, I got to hear it. I got to hear it. - It's going to be to the point where it might not mean anything because of the fact that they just think that these are things that they can just mash together in hopes to make something that's appealing but not good. - I mean, I don't know if it's going to be good or not. It's going to be hard for it to be good for me because I just don't like that type of shit. - Yeah, it's creatively bankrupting. - Yeah, like, but if it's entertaining, then it's entertaining, but I'm a purist when it comes to stuff like that, so. - See, the "Star Wars" fan in me, because I'm an OG nine-year-old, 1977, what am I just watching? What am I watching? I mean, across all the "Ringerverse," I see all these old cats come in, and I'm like, I'm as old as that dude. Me and Tracy Letts, I'm that dude. I was nine years old, I went to "Star Wars," I saw the commercials, and it babysat me. If you don't think, I bragged to everybody that fall on my, I saw it with every single friend and family member umpteen times, 35 times the summer in 1977, and my parents could not have been more happy to let that movie babysit me. And we would go with our friends, like the whole neighborhood. I had, well, my best friend's name is Mondo, and then there was Eddie, and there was two Craigs. And we would go and be like, "All right, you watch the left of the cantina, I'll watch the right, and you watch the center, and see what we're missing." 'Cause it was, for that time, that was a jammed, you know, what do you call it? A lot of stuff in the frames, right? And we were just, oh man, and we just lived for that movie. And so now I go, huh. Now I'm gonna tell you, like, they've been taking pitches on this for two years. And I'm gonna tell you, like, I actually, right before I came here, I read more of the article. I'm like, I was kind of just holding back. I'm like, the "Star Wars" characters are coming to Earth? Oh, this, like, that's nasty to me. And I'm gonna tell you something, my buddy's pitch, I'm not gonna give out, who this brilliant writer had told them that his pitch began with Tony Stark in the Iron Man armor, but holding his helmet, stumbles into the cantina, and goes up to the bar, a little disoriented, and asks for a drink. And people think he's possibly a Mandalorian. And I'm like, that is a great story compared to this. They're gonna come to, like, Marvel, the unit, like, I'm so unnerved by it. - What happened to a galaxy far, long, Long, long time ago. So you think that it can work? Look, here's what I thought you were going to say, so I'm going to say it. It's going to sell millions and millions of copies because it's the FOMO book of a lifetime. I got to have it. I got to have it. Did I – made me make plans to order 1,000 copies of the Deadpool cover? Yes. I'm like, oh, oh, they put Deadpool on it. So you're not out on it. I can't be. You know what I mean? People are going to, like, ask me to sign that book. So I'm like, that's – my daughter's in nursing school. Hello. So Deadpool and Obi-Wan? I got to be realist. Deadpool and Obi-Wan. You know? Wow, we're here. That's wild. And he's being spooked by the Jawas on the covers. Like, they're like – See, this is how they get us. This is how they get us, bro. I am not looking forward to it at all. I cried on the inside. But you did it like a champ. I'm doing it like a champ. Like my wife said, crying on the inside, that's what winners do. She got that from a movie, and she says it to me all the time. But the thing is, I just – I'm so glad you brought it up because I got, like, just a sad face. I'm like, we're here. It's happening. But comics have been here before, and I think – Not with that. What I notice about y'all is it feels like Marvel kind of said never again. We are never allowing what happened with Image to happen where it's like, you guys had the power. You realized it. You took it into your own hands. Spawn. Youngblood. Like, and it just seems like it's harder. Like, Robert Kirkman is the only other – Yes. Creator I can think of who's been able to say, I actually don't need Marvel or DC. Yes. I'm going to bet on myself. How do we get the direct market in superhero comics to a place where we can have more? I think there's more right now. I do believe that the comic book industry is waking up, and there's incredible success. I do want to mention, because I was so excited to see Robert talking to you guys, because like I said, I watch all the episodes, and I'm like, oh, damn, Robert's on. When you guys interviewed him at San Diego, and Robert, when I first – I first met him, there was about eight issues of Invincible out, and I had no idea who this guy who came out of nowhere was, and Corey Walker, spectacular, came out of nowhere. Who are these names I've never heard of who are so refined? And he came up to me at a Chicago Comic Con. It may have been 2003, and he said, hey, I'm Rob Liefeld. I'm Robert Kirkman. I'm like, what? I stood up. I got so excited. I'm like, I can't believe I'm meeting the guy who does Invincible. It's one of my favorite books. He's like, get out of here. We then spent, I think, the next 48 hours together. We ate together. We ate together. We went and saw movies all weekend in Chicago, and eventually he says, New Mutants 100 is a giant book to me. He goes, when Strife takes off his helmet and it's an older Cable, he goes, I freaked out. And you know, Jeff Johns, another genius, brilliant writer who I think we're going to see all his influence on Lanterns, said the same thing to me. And that's when you go, A, I feel super old that you're telling me this, but I was also like just in my early 20s, but like just bringing it full circle with Cable. Like that, the stuff that we were accomplishing, and I've seen people freak out over just Todd Spider-Man, like that is the greatest Spider-Man of all kind, of all time to them, right? So what I think is going on, the fact that Image has stayed around for 30, we're entering our 35th year. I just got to, the publisher sent me this great idea for Image and the 35th anniversary right as I was getting in the elevator. And I'm like, oh damn, this is a good idea. Because now everybody's kind of thinking like, this is time to party. This is time to celebrate. So outside of Absolute Batman, you've got a guy named Brett Bean who put out a fantasy book called Dork. I love Dork. It's so great. It's so fun. It's fresh. It's completely creator-owned, creator vision. And then there was, there is one badass cat in the business named Daniel Warren Johnson. And he did the, he just won an award for Absolute Batman in the annual. Yeah, that's it. And I thought for sure Marvel or DC was going to gobble him up and they were just going to show him the greens and get him to go. And he's doing his, he's staying in the independent world. And I think his comic that's coming out called Chain Cotta. And, and it was the hottest book to get. So, so just, just like Wednesday night, preview night, San Diego. I have to pay just like everybody else. Cause that's not my book. The money goes to Daniel. I was at the image booth right before five o'clock. I said, where's the Chain Cottas? And they said, they're right over here. We haven't broken out, you know, we haven't put them out yet. I'm like, I need one. They're like, good. Cause you can only sell, buy one. And they brought me the reader. I swiped my card. I took my Chain Cotta. I double bagged and boarded it. I probably take it out of my bag three times a day to look through it because he's now influencing me and showing me like. Yo, you're getting influenced by Daniel Warren Johnson. That's what I'm saying, bro. Cause he, he, I see him looking at manga. I see all, I see him looking at Frank Miller. I see him. So, and, and look, man, there's a, he did a signing for Transformers when it came out and he has an X-Force shirt on. He has my X-Force and I'm like, oh damn. But like we old dudes need the young dudes to stay. Fresh, you know, you know, I mean, it's, it's, uh, you know, I mean like it's, it's just, like I said, sports, fresh new guy off the bench, great new rookie, great new quarterback. And suddenly you don't think those are receivers are like, damn, we've, we've finally excited Chicago bears. You don't think they're like, wow, we have an A plus plus plus class quarterback now. Like they're just so excited and it juices the whole team. I think the line's like, I think I'll block for this guy. Right. Let me ask you something. So on Twitter, a lot. A lot of times, Rob, you be going at the MCU and Disney. Yeah. All right. Let's get into it. Let's talk about this. Hell yeah. This is my guy right here. I fear no one. What is, what is the crux of your criticism of the MCU of your criticism sometimes of Kevin Feige or every criticism of Disney? Where's it come from? Kevin Feige and Disney do not treat the comic book creators in the way that they should be. And you know what? This isn't about money. It's not financial. So that's a different lane. That's a whining that probably. Shouldn't be brought to light. But I've told you guys, and I said this on my, uh, the first time I brought this to light was on a podcast and I had to wait till I, I did not feel, although I felt this way the last two years I was at Marvel, I wanted to be out of Marvel before I said anything. I think it's disrespectful when I'm doing work with them, work with them day in, day out. So about two months after I was no longer there, I decided to tell, share my feelings and the original, uh, Superman movie, which my dad took to me in the pouring rain, Christmas 1970, 1978. And there's a big names, Jerry Schuster, Joe Siegel, man, they come right at you full giant font along with all the other important, that's a company that says, we're going to honor the guys who put Superman here. Uh, Downey Jr. Is not putting on the Iron Man suit without the people that created him. Ryan Reynolds is not wearing a Deadpool costume without the guy that created him. Um, so on, so forth, all through the land, you know? Benedict Cumberbatch, all these guys, uh, we have created roles that are transformational to these talents and have brought them a tremendous, uh, notoriety and success. And yet the creators are like, you know what guys I've been in about 10 X-Men 97 scrolls. You don't see me share those all crumbled together where like, I need to get like the fricking inspector gadget, like mag, mag, uh, magnifying glass. Is that my name? Is that my name? I'm printed like yay big and I got a big ass TV screen and it's still this big. Like you're like, oh, I'm so excited to be lumped in with everyone. Here are the, all the people that we took ideas from treat us better. And you know what? It's not going to get done. And I realized I'm the sole guy in the wilderness. Cause let me tell you, who's not going to do that. The people who are doing the X-Men right now, aren't going to be like, we would like to be treated better. Cause they need that check. They need that check that comes from writing the X-Men and Daredevil and Spider-Man. So they're not going to do it. And the DC people aren't going to do it because they want to get hired by Marvel. So all the people in the work for hire, it's true, man. They may be right in Green Lantern right now, but they have slipped a Spider-Man proposal across the table. So no one's going to talk about it. So then the creators talk about it. And guys like myself and Todd are not afraid of the brushback because what am I saying? That's wrong. Treat creators better. Increase the size of our names. Okay. Remember. Why do you think? Because Kevin Feige likes hanging out with actors and stars and, and doesn't give the same. Okay. So here's the, here's the famous story, right? I've told this on, I think this is the funniest shit that I'm going to tell you and you can go back and source it because it was shared in, in, in, on social media. So I said at the time that at the Deadpool Wolverine, I was told that my family and I could not attend the after party and none of them, not only that, who cares? You know, my, my, my kids are awesome. They're like, dad, we don't care. Let's go have fun in New York city. We were all flying back to San Diego the next day because the convention was the next day. So I'm like, my family's so cool. Cause I didn't want to let them down. I thought maybe this means something to them because they've been to a lot of these and we were, we were treated, uh, much different by Fox, which was nice. Not, I never demanded it. It was just, they just did it. They were polite and kind and wonderful. But, uh, so it wasn't just that it was at the premiere. Not one Marvel person came up and shook my hand and said, Hey Rob, Hey Rob. Like this. This movie doesn't exist, but for me, and this one isn't just dead bull. You got lady dead bull in the dead bull core. Like you took me and went to the, cause like that is macro Liefeld stuff is all over this. Now they, they gave me the storefront. I approved it. They called me. They said, well, you approved this. I said, I, a year earlier, so I knew it was coming. I thought it was fun. But, uh, when I went and said this publicly on my podcast, two of the people that have worked on dead bull said, we were. - You were literally they said it like, well, we were invited to the party. What does that say? And then they should have just shut up, but they went further. And they're like, we were on a sectioned off area where we couldn't interact with the talent. And he's like, I went to the restroom and I saw Sean Levy washing his hands, but I was scared to say hi to him. And I'm like, okay, you were in a segregated area for, you're not really that important. Don't look at us. You can be in the room. Don't look at us. Like telling me that you're in a roped off area that you can't interact with the talent. That's just insane. That's like, it's like, we're going to, we're going to do this, but we're going to do it. Like, like that tells the creators we're kind of icky. We're not icky. We're the dreamers. Like I've said, like, and I look, maybe the greatest thing I ever did was hang out with Jack Kirby. When he said, Rob, I'd like you to come to my house and have dinner with me and my wife. And I'm like, all right. And I'm like, oh, that was an hoax. Shit. That's two hours from my house. Started the car. I started going all the time. And I'm like, I'm sitting at the foot of the greatest comic creator of all time. And he's telling me war stories, comic book stories, and I'm just drinking it in and I'm just drinking it in. And he shows me his art in the different drawers, but Jack was sad. He was sad. He had a sadness because of how he had been treated by Marvel. And so this is kind of, kind of what they have done the entire, if you're talking Jack, Jack Kirby, you're going 60s, 70s. So think about how long, what culture it is. And here's the thing. I know I see the Kirby family. God bless you guys. You're at the premieres now and you're so happy, but you sued them for 20 years. You sued Marvel for 20 years. Steve Ditko's family sued Marvel. The guy who created Ghost Rider sued Marvel. And so like, these are just facts there. You can Google it. You can follow it. Marv Wolfman said I should get something for Blade. He sued Marvel and, you know, got blacklisted for a while. So getting completely uh, you know, I, I consult. I'm like, so I don't have like a, a, a clause in here that I can't talk about this. And my attorney's like, nope. I'm like, okay. Cause I don't want to, you know, put anything in danger, but I just think, why don't you treat the people that created, uh, the, the, the, the stories that you used to be very faithful to? Why don't you treat them better? And there are some guys who make, who air this and they, they attach a financial component to it. And I understand that's then a different matter of business. Mine's easy. Just, just put our names in the front. Like, like the Superman creators were like, just treat us a little better. And, and I think, look, somebody like me doing this, they either double dog down and like, we're not going to not do it because life owns out there, which is fine. Um, and I know it's cost me, uh, some relationships, but what do you think it's access? And that's fine. You know, it's, it's, it's, uh, like I did a panel this last weekend at a show with the producers of the X-Men and I'm like, are they nervous to be next to me? Cause they're Marvel right now that Marvel signs their checks. That's their gig. I don't, I don't do anything with Marvel. And I, I think they were nervous and God bless. They were super sweet people. But, um, but I even said, I'm going to say something about executives here. I don't want to make you nervous. And they're like, Oh, they literally like physically went, Oh boy, here he goes. But it's like, like, it doesn't matter. See when I go and I set up a movie. So I had a couple of movies that never got made because in the nineties, they'd get you right up to the threshold and they'd be like, The only thing that works is Batman. I was told that so many times as were about a dozen other comic book creators. But when you got Tom Cruise and Steven Spielberg and Will Smith saying, Hey, come over to the house. Let's jam on these ideas. Let's work this out. Here's the storyboards I've done. Like, and you're like, these people are so cool. They're so not scared to be with creative people, but then you get these executives. And I'll tell you one of the other reasons is they, if they open the door for one, they got to open the door for it. And I'm telling you, I think Feige's like, I want to touch these people. I don't want to be anywhere near these people. Now, now that the new cast of whatever, I want to be around them. These are the people who I assembled and created. And I'm sure in his mind, he is the savior of Robert Downey Jr. But how do you exclude Iron Man from that? And there's a CBS this morning interview with Stan Lee that I keep going back to. Uh, he did maybe 2017 where he's like, you know, I don't have a good deal with Marvel. That's why I'm out in the road signing, you know, autographs all the time. And you can see that that turned out very badly for him. So it's just, it's sad. It's sad to me because you know what? Um, we do have voices and with the advent of social media, we are connecting with people more than ever, and you're not going to silence us. And I like this. That's why I like this show. You guys just talk. You just talk the truth. And it's so fun. And it's so refreshing. Don't worry, Marvel. Don't like that Bobby talking the truth. But no, but I do think like, I grew up loving comics and when I would read books about the history of comics, I was like, yo, it ends the same for so many creators, whether it's curvy, whether it's Ditko, whether it's the Superman family having to beg and plead Batman, where I'm like, okay. Oh, excuse me. Not Bill Kane. I was always like, damn, these are the creators who made it. And it's almost like once you, once the companies ring everything they can, they're like, get the fuck out. They just, like I said, we're just, I guess we're not sexy enough. We don't matter enough now. Look, if it changes, I'll call it a day. I'll call it out. You know what I, you make a good movie. Like I thought Spider-Man was good. I didn't think it was great. It was too long. My opinion, new movie, the sweet spot of the movie. Look good. Why isn't good? Good enough. That's what I said to somebody the other day. Good is crazy underrated. Good is like, good is good. Great is, is, is aspirational. What was the gap? The movie's too long. And I did not love the Jean Grey stuff. I didn't love it. What did you love about it? I, I don't that the entire movie was about a character that he's never had any interactions with, but suddenly she was the, uh, the catalyst for everything that was going on. I, I love, look, the reason I enjoyed it so much is we haven't seen Spider-Man move like that. Yeah. And, and, and look, Tom Holland and the chemistry he has was Zendaya is fantastic. I, I love him, him and, and Bernthal and, and Ruffalo, Hulk, Punisher. That's the sweet spot of the movie. Come on. You know, that's when you were most excited. That's when, I know, I do agree with you. It should have been a Hulk, Punisher, Spidey movie. But, but so, so let's go on record. I said the movie was good. I'll even go very good. The movie was good. Rob Liefeld. But people are dragging me online saying, you can't say it. Well, if I don't feel it's great, but it's good and good is better than most of the other stuff that's been coming out from Marvel. It's good is an achievement. Okay. And so, um, All right. So we, we've had, I have to ask this question while we have you, because Go. You've worked on X-Men, grew up loving Avengers. Yes. This happens a lot. I want you to go power set, cultural. Who's more powerful as a team or culturally important, Avengers, X-Men. Even with the success of the Avengers, having those big track records, X-Men's been bigger, longer. You are the number one comic book in. What are you talking about in a fight? No, no, no, no. I'm talking about both. No, first I'm, I'm first I'm answering culturally, then fight. I here's the deal. Who's on each team is going to matter. Okay. Well, Rob, I will, we want you, we want, okay. So, cause we're going to do this, but you tell us which Avengers team you would face off against an X-Men team. So, so Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, especially in the Marvel MCU, you got Ruffalo. Um, uh, so Thor, Iron Man, Hulk, Scarlet Witch. I'm going to say Captain Marvel. Captain America for his leadership acumen. And, uh, and who, who am I going to round out? Iron Man. You know, you already said Iron Man. D2 more. You don't do hockey. Oh, I have to do, I have to do seven. Did I do, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Thor, uh, Hulk, Iron Man, Cap, Scarlet Witch. Uh, I'm, I'm going to go, uh, uh, Hmm, I'm, I'm going to be honest. These five can take the rest of the X-Men cause. That's all right. Okay. Xavier and Jean Grey are your two like Omega level X-Men. Iceman. Iceman. Storm. Storm. Okay. Uh, Storm and Thor. I believe Storm is not as powerful as Thor. Thor, Thor, Thor at his apex in the comics has not now, now I understand Jonathan Hickman had her re-terraforming a planet. So you're right. Like there are now power scalings. The teams that I, I grew up with, I'm just giving it to you. And some, and look, here's the deal. When Hulk goes off, he's going to cost you three to four people. He's just going to, people will get caught, knocked unconscious. Colossus fist to fist is going down. Okay. Phoenix. You think Hulk can beat Phoenix? No, no, no. Hulk is not a factor. Scarlet Witch and Thor are, are the two most powerful people. And I'm not going to, okay. Tony Stark is going to figure when they enter, he is going to emit a sonic disruptor that, that the waves get, get in the way of Xavier concentrating and Jean Grey. And, and while that's happening, Thor brings the lightning down. Okay. Summons the thunder of Asgard. And then I really Scarlet Witch. So people, I grew up with one of the greatest Avengers writers, Jim Shooter, and the Ultron was their most formidable foe. Iron Man, Thor and Cap could not dent him. And then wandering into the room. She'd been bound and gagged because Ultron knew how powerful she was. Wanda raises her hands and she starts breaking the wall. And then she starts breaking the wall. And then she starts breaking Ultron. He starts adamantium starts to break and he drops to his knees. And even they go girl, like, wow, they leveled up her power. And I think a fully engaged, not, not wacky, crazy. Wanda fully engaged. Wanda can bring the X-Men to their knees. she's a mutant she is a mutant and she's the daughter of magneto and she's extremely she is an omega level power that's my take i can but but the thing is you could convince me that there are moments that the x-men just sad bro you create a cable deadpool and you like i'm like scarlet's packing them up scarlet which is is sick like sick level you go get avengers 167 and you tell me like and there are other times along the way she's taken all of them one year before dark phoenix john byrne same artist does dark scarlet witch it's that incredible cover she is her name is sithon c-y-t-h-o-n in this dark form and the entire avengers team is upside down behind her she's got iron man vision captain america she's subdued all of them and like it is a reality warper yeah i mean so yeah she is the x-men got a reality warper who well no you got to go to dark you got a dark phoenix huh professor x's son oh you're talking about legion proteus you're talking about proteus no you're talking about legion okay legion does not get to fight for the x-men if legion walks in the building he's like i'm killing all he's like oh he's like i hate you i hate you i hate you got too many his personalities are like like but we're talking about people who can go but my man dark phoenix ate a planet okay there is no when i was a kid i'm like she just ate a damn planet and that that's when like when they suddenly show up and go she has to be brought like to justice for her crimes you're like things got real um like dark phoenix is a different dark phoenix i believe can wipe them all out but is she going to activate dark phoenix go crazy because if that happens she's wiping out the x-men too she she she's wiping right now but if she's left standing technically x-men win if the dark phoenix comes so so we're just going and at that time it scorched earth and who won i think it's a cultural war really because you know i think it's a cultural war because you know i think it's a cultural war because avengers you know co-workers you know at the end of the day they go go home to their families and live their life x-men those that's a family man i'm in the trenches i want family if you do omega level mutants then you're going outside of what is on the x-men team then you're putting franklin richards on there you're doing all kinds of stuff but we're talking about people because really with the avengers i mean you could put hyperion on the team you could do all kinds of stuff if you're doing all kinds of stuff you're doing all kinds of stuff if you're doing all kinds of stuff if you're doing all kinds of stuff if you're doing all kinds of stuff if you want we're just doing classic yeah avengers gonna win yeah it's it but this is gonna be very controversial rob before we let you out of here i want to say one thing i'll ask you one thing you we've talked about your present we've talked about your just incredible past the future yeah what in this industry what with your characters with more what do you still want to do so as i think i mentioned i've been around the country and and you meet these people who who are there for eight and a half hours and and and whatever and and every single person uh says when do we get an image comics movies when we get an image comics movies yeah so so i was on the phone with my agents yesterday and i i haven't tried to sell anything for two years i i because here's the power kevin feige had and i and i say this with all due respect he convinced the industry if it's not marvel don't try because only we can do it right dc helped that tremendously all right you gotta get off their necks bruh this is crazy i have gone to bat for dc okay i have gone to bat no no no i i that that movie i'm like that's crazy but like i am legendary for not moving on my off my position oh man i can't believe they did cavill is dirty i can't believe they did cavill is dirty i can't believe they did cavill is dirty as they did but you know what i was one of those guys i'm like i'm here for the superman movie i'm here for james gunn um probably following it up with supergirl was exactly not the best idea that we all kind of wondered but look guys lanterns no i haven't really good but six o'clock my wife knows five fifty nine five fifty nine and a half six o'clock boom hbo pacific time we're watching we we every sunday that we got locked in but you were saying um i just believe that dc didn't help matters by having as many stumbles as they did and and i could have gone and cheered them and argued for them but ultimately the audience just just just kept favoring marvel and feige convinced the business only we know how to make marvel movie only we know how to make comic book movies successful and that's and i mean because you go why haven't there been all the i mean young blood has a giant audience penetration millions of those weren't being flipped those were getting into the hands of people spawn dragon um and and and and so i talked to my agents i said i think it's time i think there's i think there's uh there's a window for this because again the fans of this stuff uh want this very badly they want a spawn movie they want a young boy movie series whatever and so as this happens i've had two studios call and been like we want to make blank and so i'm negotiating with blank and also for some other stuff and we'll see how it goes nothing happens until that green light is given and that is a long journey but again having a catalog that's now 35 years old that we continue to add stories to uh is pro it it feels very promising it feels uh very exciting there's just a different uh i think there's been an executive turnover as well i think there's fresher younger people who are willing to take these on who grew up with them who like them um because there's only so many and now with marvel again publicly saying we're going to pull back wisely uh on on you know the amount of movies that we're making and make them more quality right i mean i think feige said that last week and and so and and if dc can just dc has great stuff the patents and batman is going to be double the last patents it is going to do to do the dark knight heath ledger type business it's going to go from batman returns to no no what you saw with brand new day is coming for the second patent i couldn't agree more hell yeah that that that is going to because batman is spider-man batman are the two biggest in the in business there's nobody who can touch them i love superman but even i know he just doesn't have i feel like if they do it right could get could get around there spider-man and batman they are yeah yeah even with with this now like you kind of can't yeah yeah spider-man and batman are just so yeah van but but bottom line is i'm gonna keep making comic books i love getting up every morning and filling a blank page with storytelling and uh you know interactions drama those those page flips uh we're i think doing comics i've truly it's a disease i've talked to kirkman and others about this it's like you can't shake it you're sick with it i i don't i do not get up to make comics for a living i do i get up to make comics because at this point i just i literally go there's going to be a day where i can't do it anymore and i want to do as much as i could while i could and it is an absolute passion and my wife knows man she goes i can tell you got some good pages in today back from the colorist or a good because i'm so much more happy i'm like oh my gosh and i i've like said the my family you don't understand when a page comes together that's like ask me anything you can have extra today you're like like i'll be like okay i'll sign that lease for you in new york city okay i'll i'll do that um but but man if my heart's struggling with me don't talk to me i don't want to talk to you don't ask me for shit i'm the bank is closed today good comics business is open okay before because we gotta let you go but i talk a lot no you're a legend for the creators out there comic book creators who want to make comics for a living i don't want to talk to you i don't want to do what you todd jim did like can you give him any words of wisdom yes i do it all the time thank you so much social media has opened the door you know i had to drive eight hours not a big deal to go to san francisco to wait in line to get my portfolio to get to get hired i i saw it in a newspaper oh my gosh there's an ad 1987 i'm going up there it's april um do you know that every other publisher wouldn't even take my samples i said not hiring not hiring my i was crushed i'm like i i had slept slept with my uh i had an aunt and uncle i slept the night over there got up there the night before hit the hit the show uh all these different comic companies they're not they're not around anymore but they all uh we're not accepting we're not they wouldn't even look and the one guy from dc said he chased me down he said give me a packet i'll take it with me but i'm not doing anything at the show marvel was reviewing portfolios and i was about to just get i said they're never going to hire me and my friend said go stand in line what do you have to lose you have nothing to lose come on you and so i stood there and the guy looked at my it was young a young that i had drawn and he stood up and he put his hand across the the table and i'm like what's going on here he goes welcome to marvel comics and i felt i remember i think i put my head out of the window because my friend drove like with my my tongue out like a dog for eight hours just letting the wind hit me like i'm in comics i'm in comics you don't have to do that anymore you can load up all your crap all your great stuff uh good stuff is crap um i'm just talking the content you can facebook you can see this is what i do um right now the guy who is drawing my new evangeline comic i discovered online the guy that is coloring i discovered online the guy that is drawing my bad rock series that's a spinoff of youngblood i discovered him online we are looking all the time i'll go i'll look at that guy's work i'll message him but you got to do storytelling if you want to be a cover artist show your work show what great single images you can do be loud get them out there push them in front of eyeballs that's what we didn't have so i think the advantage of being a cover artist is that you're not going to be a cover artist you're going to be a cover lies with the talent that they can expose themselves on a map. macro level across all these different platforms now, um, which is different than us having to wait till Chicago con San Diego con, you know, to go and show our portfolio portfolio. So online is your friend, get your work out there. Um, as a writer, I tell everybody, get an artist, cut a good deal, share the proceeds, share your vision and go make the next saga or the next walking dead or the next invincible, you know, Robert Kirkman, he's a, he's really good cartoonist, but he's not like publisher publishing level. Cause he hasn't really focused on that, but I saw some of his drawings, but he went and got great Corey Walker and he were buddies and they made invincible and it has become a phenomenon, but if they don't get together, they don't have that incredible success. And we don't have these great stories and this great show. So I just, uh, you know, it's different rules for everybody, but writers were, this isn't novels. This is comic books, comic books rely on visual, the visual component of storytelling. And, and so you got to get an artist. And that's my advice. Hmm, man, man, Rob Liefeld. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thank you. I can't believe I'm with the midnight boy. I literally can't believe it. The legend, bro. I appreciate you. Wake me up. Rob, class act. That was awesome. Genius. Amazing guy. Dude, the cable, dude, the original cable. Come on, we'll throw that up there too. That is so cool. Insane. Also, Rob got to get off, uh, got to get off DC's neck. That was so fun. That was so funny. That was so funny. Is he wrong though? Did he lie? Hey, you see. Yeah. All right. This Thursday, Bud Mash returns with Marvel's Wolverine and Star Wars Zero Company previews. This weekend, the midnight boys will be giving their reactions to the D23 entertainment showcase. We're going to be there at D23, all the way down to Anaheim. Our producers are our layers in there. It's Jacob Cornette, uh, Devin Baroldi. Join me at dinner on, on social. Don't do that hashtag. I missed it. Okay. This is my hashtag. The perfect storm. Hashtag #ThePerfectStorm. Jamie Lawson, if you're free, call me. Yeah. Jamie Lawson. But don't be in a movie. Um, an additional production from Arjun Aramgopal. Chuck, take us to the house. Rob is a legend. The midnight boys party is going to be groovy. And unfortunately, Jomie doesn't think black women should have movies. Woo-hoo! So, this is the boat. What's the boat? That's the boat. Okay, that's still a big-ass boat. That's a, that's a big boat. That's a yacht. That's a small cruise ship. It's got a light boat on it. It's a small, it's a very small cruise ship. That bitch don't look crazy like that. It, it, it's a small- It can fit 200 people in it. What's the inside look like? I'll, I'll put it to you this way. Would Logan Roy go on a yacht? No, hell no. Exactly. I mean, he would take like a, he would take that with like- He would take a boat that size with 8 people. Okay, now how much do you guys think it costs to go on here? Oh, ooh. Like for three nights? How long, how long is the, how long is the trip? So, they got, they got 12 days and they go different places. Right. They got 12 days in the Greek islands. Uh-huh. They got 10 days island hopping in, in, um, they got 10 days island hopping in seashells. Okay. That's fucking really nice. Yeah, that does sound nice. Uh, eight days in the French and Italian islands. Yeah. And then they got 10 days in the Caribbean. Yeah. with the cruise like are there shops like what type of shops apparently inside the cruise ship they got special fucking nice bars and different shops yeah yeah the karaoke bar stuff like that i'm gonna say caribbean elegance barbados st lucia and the grenadines i'm gonna say like 15 grand okay so the the most expensive one is the greek one and that's ten thousand dollars okay per person yeah that's my dad's way cheaper than i thought my dad's a huge cruise guy and that's like around 10 10k is not cheap but i thought it was gonna be more yeah and me and kalika went to greece and that did bust a nigga i was gonna say about the stairs like crazy like we bust a nigga that no i'm just talking about like so so compared to what you did in greece that's that's pretty reasonable yes what the the my question is how do you how do you get here like yeah you gotta fly so you gotta fly there okay so then you gotta add that on to it like you're not gonna fly what you want to do because my dad likes doing this is door-to-door cruises is like you pay for a certain amount and they pick you up your plane your plane is paid for they fly you you go to the cruise you do the cruise they fly you back and drop you off at home that's real wealth wow wow but look if you do this one though pensioner if you do this one shout out to him that didn't work for it if you do six days caribbean elegance barbados st lucia and the grenadines that's that's three grand three only three grand that's three grand all you gotta do is fly spirit to miami i'm about to say is there corner can i get corner on like you can yeah that's three grand and then the the red sea wonders of the ancient world that's that's in the middle east i don't know if we're going there but that's like 500 fuck that they put you i need a helmet hold on this is the thing about the red sea wonders of the middle they don't put the country yo come on man they don't put the countries on this bitch tell us which countries we're going to what are you gonna do right now every other one put the countries on here uh tell us what the what the country what the countries is go in there you get fucked up um but but yeah so these this is supposed because they have them these emerald cruises feel like they're the affordable brand because ritz carlton also does these cruises right i'm sure this is the new way to do a luxury cruise because this is what people about to start paying because let's be honest too many niggas is taking the cruise ships i remember that i remember that discourse when they were like they cut the what they discourse there was a huge thing where like carnival cruise cut off something i can't remember what part of it he's he's locked in no he's not locked in he's on the emails i'm not on the emails too many niggas was taking cruises bro you ever wonder we've been talking about that in the group chat me and my dad used to talk about this my dad would be like how how all white people know to complain about niggas the same way it's an email list for real it's an email list that goes out it's like today in white news but black people have taken over cruise ships they be wearing a falling dance line they got the talking points level three threat assessment on carnival cruise line but jeremy your people go on cruises we go on cruises uh family cruises they're never that expensive right but i mean it's a good time with with family man i don't i can't with it i gotta ask my god it's kind of it's kind of sick though because like you just you're just partying with your homies you're drinking all for a week io loves them io was talking about the fact i love the cruise we have a good time you know who you know who doesn't like the cruise which one is the name that's my yeah my sister yeah you're not you're not with the cruise like that that do they be like why do they be on the cruise of course they do who's they who are you talking about his sister no no no i'm like you're going with the fam is like is io getting it in like oh is he meeting everybody oh right i mean i mean i don't know about all that you do you be there shooting absolutely easy you got a boat man you know you see you got dancing you got drinks you got dancing you got drinks man we like it's not like a club club but you go to the the spot every night with the music man you see somebody chop it up they got a club yeah of course yeah of course what what what liner do they do they cruise on uh uh so no so we did carnival the first two times and i don't know if you've ever been on a cruise carnival the first two times and i don't know if you've ever been on a cruise the last time no not carnival sorry um which is called norwegian or real caribbean we did work for even the first time that's my dad's breath it was good i just will say i could see you know some nice cougars on the carnival come on come on now we're not we're not doing like the problem norwegian that was the wackiest cruise we went on and that was the cruise that nathan went on for the first time that's why i can understand why you wouldn't want to go back because that cruise was whack we all were like man i wasn't that wasn't the same you know so we got to figure it out for the next time you know so we got to figure it out for the next time you know so we got to figure it out for the next time you know so we got to figure it out for the next time you know we might just do some all-inclusive go to mexico some you know whatever but that was that last one was whack i'm mad at him endless summer escapes start here travel the worlds of netflix irl inspired by fan favorites like stranger things and squid game brave the upside down face off with the front man play leveled up arcade games shop exclusive merch and enjoy themed food and drinks beat the heat play eat and shop on repeat at netflix netflix house at galleria dallas bring your crew and save get your tickets today at netflix.com house hank joined bj's wholesale club the day he became a father of 30. i coach football now coach hank saves up to 25 off grocery store prices 30 pounds of pasta three cases of protein bars 75 sports drinks and that's just pre-game he knows teamwork and bj's knows savings this is your home Coach home of the save joined for just $20. Visit bjs.com slash mesquite and save 10 cents per gallon for six months. Open soon. Limited time offer, new members only. BJ's, home of the save.