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Aug 18, 2019 1 hr 11 min

Elseworlds Exchange: Worst Comic Team Runs

from Elseworlds Exchange Hosted by ComicPop

Sal and Joel talk about some of the worst runs in comic book teams history! See more at http://youtube.com/comicpop and help ComicPOP keep the lights on (and catch a super-secret Patreon-only podcast) at http://patreon.com/comicpop.

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Elseworlds Exchange: Worst Comic Team Runs

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This episode is brought to you by Patreon, specifically the Comic-Pop Patreon. Go to patreon.com.com.com and find out more about how you can keep the lights on here at Comic-Pop. And don't worry, we've got plenty of fun rewards, including early access to videos and weekly updates about what's happening here at the studio. That's patreon.com.com.

Alright, let's get on with the show. Waiting down upon the underworld to smash ganglin' guns, a friend of the unfortunate enemy of criminal. In a serious, all powerful character, a problem to the police, but a crusade of a law. Before we get started with today's episode, I'm sure you're very excited for it.

Welcome back to all, by the way. Hey, always happy to be here. Hey. But yeah, so we launched a mini series.

It's a comic book role-playing game, which we shot here in the studio with a number of people you may be familiar with from here on Comic-Pop. I myself then Tiffany's the DM, and of course, our bonus guest player, Peter, with a fan-favorite Batu. If you are familiar with the show, the second episode literally dropped yesterday. Hopefully you caught it.

If not, catch it. If you are not familiar, you should definitely check out the first and second episodes which are now available here on the channel right there on the main page. Just go there and watch it, because it's a lot of fun. We put a lot of work into it.

We tried a lot of fun ideas. And hopefully you really enjoyed it. If you enjoyed enough, we'll make another season. I'm a fan.

Thank you. I'm glad you dig it, man. That's like where we make it for you. For people who dig comics or people who like RPGs, if you like Critical Role, Aquages in the Corporation, Harman Quest, you're going to enjoy the show.

That comes back soon. Exactly. And especially if you like comic books. It's set in the DC universe.

It's playing with the DC Adventures RPG Handbook, which is kind of variant on the mutants and masterminds, which is a super-sail-down version of what you'd expect from the indie. So it's super easy to follow. Hell yeah. So yeah, before we jump into it, I wanted to also mention the top of the show.

The show is supported by viewers like you if you're watching the show right now live. Please feel free to generously use the super chats and you can organically leave yourself into the show. You have a question, a comment, a suggestion. You can air it right here.

We'll read it on the show and then, you know, and then they'll be a little tit for tat. You use a little bit of scratch. We read the question. That's how it works.

It's just a way of helping to keep the lights on here and keep us continuing to make this stuff. Because like, I wouldn't have time. It was actually working both times. Either of us would.

No, it would be like one show and one live show and that'd be it. So anyway, again, welcome back to the show, Joel. Oh, happy to be here and did we pick a good topic this time? Yes, we did.

Worst eras for some of the best teams. What does that mean? I mean, more or less, what it's basically saying is like some of your more celebrity teams, they have some incredible highs. If you're an X-Men fan, you know, you love like probably or at least appreciate like this current run right now from Pikmin.

You've got the Grand Morrison run. You've got some of you may even really like the Joss Whedon run. I know, I certainly did. You're Claremont of course.

Claremont's run, of course, which one? Exactly. But the idea here is we're going to talk about those eras where like they slipped a little bit. Oh, yeah.

Maybe it wasn't so great. Maybe like Chuck Austin was writing the X-Men or, you know, maybe the X-Men were canceled for a time. And I'm not even talking about the recent time. In the 60s, X-Men debut and booked in the Cell of the Cancel book.

Hard to believe now, right? One of the most profitable, most well-known superhero series got canceled. It's first go around. They were like, well, cancel X-Men, Sam, get these stupid mutants the hell out of here.

They're still the mutis out of here. It is a nice lesson though to like, hey, don't give up the first time and also, hey, in the world of comics, nothing is written in stone. Sometimes it just takes a different slant or a different creative team to make something take off. And that's the things.

Like, all you need, you know, necessity is the mother of invention. If you want to sell X-Men books, you got to do something radical, crazy, new, and that's the case for most of these periods. I know Fantastic Four, another example. Great series, has some very big highs.

Unlike the X-Men, it's first run, probably one of the most celebrated. Everyone loves the Kirby era of the Fantastic Four. Oh, yeah. Some great runs though.

No, not really. In fact, hey, people forget that before it went away, and before they're like, look, we're going to stop making these until we get the movie rights again, it had been canceled even before that. Yes, oh, no. They canceled it before there was someone at the highest echelons of the company who were gunning for the series, because the book just couldn't sell, and I think the only reason why I couldn't sell is because, frankly, it had bad teams on it.

And it's not even like they had, yeah, it was because it's not even like they put bad writers on it too. It was just people who didn't gel. James Robinson was the guy who got it canceled, and James Robinson is great. Yes, great writer, not the best pair for the Fantastic Four.

No, it was the era of the ugly Red costumes. Remember that? It's true. Oh, yes, yes, those Red costumes.

Woof. Although, I think there's probably a worse era for the Fantastic Four. Oh, no doubt. Then even Robinson, because at least the red costume era was like, it was trying things and it had modest sensibilities, but there was also that period when Susan Richards had the boob window.

Ah, yes, of course, the 90s era. Yeah, you're going to find there's a lot of those. Oh, yes. A lot of that decade coming up in our discussion, because frankly, the 90s was a period where they were just going to do whatever they're doing over there, or at Image, yeah.

Godly knows, I mean, like, people talk about the big two, you know, like Marvel DC. These are the big two, the major players in the comic industry. Image shows up and becomes the number two publisher. So like, that should give you an upper perspective about how DC was doing in the 90s.

So obviously, I'm going to bring them up again as well. Well, we'll use the word extreme a lot in these discussions, no doubt. Yes, but I got to, by the way, I've just got to lobby or lobby, rather, the blame on the boob window era, Fantastic Four, Tom DeFalco, right? DeFalco, by the way, again, like you said, good pairing, meet with a good property, you can get magic spider girl, Tom DeFalco creates her nose, but to do with an army parker boom, tell me Smogas is a biggest fan in the world.

He definitely has a reissue that Tom DeFalco does, given Fantastic Four, maybe not some great. No, no. No, not to get it, though. He was an editor-in-chief, even the boob window, while that was a problem.

You don't know what I'm talking about. Google, Fantastic Four, 375, and you'll be fine. It's easy enough to find. But yeah, whoof.

Anyway, that was the also, they also had like, they had the original costumes, but they like added stuff to them. Oh, yeah, not good. No, no. It was the same kind of shit you'd expect from a Fantastic Four book, a run-of-the-mill unremarkable Fantastic Four story, but with these 90s bullshit attachments.

Needless flare. Literally for Richard's usual, like, one suit with a vest with pouches for no reason. Well, he's got to keep his fantastic keys there to the Fantastic Four. Exactly.

The thing, Ugly Rock Monster, what if we needed Mugglier, and Wolverine slash him in the face, while he was on the short-lived team, The Secret Defenders. Hey. Now he's got to wear a mask. Because right now.

So, yeah. This is the kind of thing we're going to be talking about, ladies and gentlemen. Strapped on it. Right?

So before we jump in to more, I wanted to read some of the Super Chats, because a lot of these people have already done so. Adam Groves, we're finally getting our first comic-con in Nashville. Hey. Congratulations, Nashville.

You guys have a broken party, so I'm sure it'll be a great show. Send us some barbecue, please. Seriously. The Iceman, afternoon guys, had a great topic.

I feel like this will be unpopular, but I hated New 52 Justice League. Wait too much emphasis on making Cyborg happen. You're not alone, man. I don't know if I would call Justice League from New 52 with the worst era of Justice League, but maybe one of them.

It's certainly the most unremarkable. I didn't read the first half of it. I didn't read it until, what is it, forever Evil started when it actually dumped most of the heroes and became about Cyborg and the Metal Man trying to stop all these evil heroes, and then I just kind of stuck with it it from then on out, because then you got Evil Lex. I think I thought it got more interesting in its second half.

That's the thing. All it needed was innovation and good ideas. And instead what they did was they were just like, I don't know, make it a Michael Bay movie. It was the most superficial analysis of the Grant Morrison era of Justice League or JLA.

When Grant Morrison's like, hey, how come the main players aren't on the Justice League anymore? Exactly. Everyone who sucks off the team, and then he's going to write these crazy stories, the stories that couldn't happen to any of their single books, but also could only happen to that team. And then they were like, well, what if we just kept it going, but also made it kind of like, we'll make Dark Side the Main Bad guys that way we'll start 11.

We can never do better. We can never beat anyone. Or if we are defeated by anyone who's lamer than Dark Side, it'll look really bad. Also everyone's horrible.

Like really like to pass a whole Batman. They really are. Superman sucks. It's just a wolf.

Because everything's grim and greedy again in the New 52. And also we'll be sure to distract from the stories and spin way too many plates trying to maybe answer questions about why the New 52 is different and what time line we're in. Yeah. That's just what you want to do, by the way.

When you like make a line-wide initiative is not playing, not setting it all up. And then spend most of your time in real time, in the pages of your comic, trying to explain it and hope you come up with a good idea along the road. And ultimately the clone saga. And ultimately not a bit matter at the end too.

Nope. So you really don't need to reread any of those New 52 Justice League stories. I don't know even who would. Likewise.

Right? Like I definitely looked back at them a couple of times, like to do back issues or whatever. And I'm like, what a forgettable, unremarkable period of Justice League history. Oh yes.

Psycho Red says, or Fizz Co Red says, the JLA team that fought Tuesday is awful. Yes, the 90s era Justice League. Mm-hmm. And parroted the mantle from, I guess, Legends.

Yeah. That was rough. And like, hard to make fun. Definitely.

No good. I was gonna say, I see that Justice League team, but I actually think I have a worse line up of a Justice League team. No doubt. Oh, the Justice League, I feel bad because like, for as long as I remember as a kid, the Avengers were like the uncellables, the lamest team.

But at least I read those with Justice League. I was like, no, no, I'm not reading this. Not doing anything for him. What a Lamer team, then the 90s era booster gold, Ted Kord, Maxima, Justice League.

The 1983 Jerry Conway hand Justice League Detroit, when they lived in Detroit, Aquaman was the leader and their base was a warehouse. Yes. Now this is not to be confused with Justice League international from Team Ateons and Giffon, which also, I believe, took place in Detroit. Yes, it gets confusing, doesn't it?

Yeah, where they were just like, it's a fun team book. It's gonna be about the character interactions. It's basically gonna be like, new Avengers, but like 30 years before the book comes out. Exactly.

Well, actually, it was apparently at the time Conway mentioned in interviews that the reason he put this team together was actually a reaction to how good Teen Titans was doing with Wolf and Impressed. It's like, okay, so people wanted to be a down-to-earth soap opera where the Justice League deal with real problems. Oh, Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, the other way to import to come and hang out here. Flash is retired at the moment.

What if Aquaman led it with vibe and Commander Steel and Gypsy and Vixen, who ironically are way more popular characters now than they were when this was written? Oh, yeah. No, back then. They were just like, well, who do we have left?

Now it's like, well, if you want to write a Vixen story, you better have a damn good Vixen pitch. And for the most part, people who want to write those characters and have a damn good pitch, it's worth being published. Otherwise, it's just kind of like a nepotism. But like, yeah, no, the Justice League have had their ups and downs since their inception.

I will say though, about this Detroit era team, there is weirdly a bunch of nostalgia around this team because they've revisited this concept several times. Even during Convergence, they did a whole Justice League, which was just that era and just that team. I think John's is legitimately a fan of that era and that team and thinks much like how I kind of think that if you did this concept now with the same lineup, it would actually sell better. Yeah, I think you're right.

Well, I mean, we've proven that it can because down to Earth teams that work together and deal with real problems, that's like your bread and butter nowadays. That's where you get people to enjoy Fantastic Four Avengers. It's why I'm not reading Avengers anymore. I just couldn't.

I couldn't care less. They're like, oh, they're going. I literally read a solicitation of the day. It was like, they're going into space and like, look at this shit.

But Star Brand South, something with Star Brand. I remember, yeah, I said this a number of times, but like I was reading new Avengers at the time. I remember picking up Avengers after the relaunch and you know, still Bendis and I think John me, they was drawing it and they had two teams. And I was like, this is kind of cool.

It's fine. You know, the thing with the hood, the deal with the video outlet. And then like a couple of issues down the line, Vision was rebuilt. And I'm like, oh, it was at the beginning of the end.

You know, the unrelatable robot is going to get back on the team. I couldn't care less. You're literally just replacing them with the people that made the team unrelatable and interesting. Ironically, of course, Don King would write like my favorite vision story of all time.

That hell of a thing. Even that vision hasn't really appeared on the Avengers. It's more like, no, he's in his own little bubble in that book. Yep.

But yeah, by the way, you mentioned the Titans, Wolf. Yes, they've had a number of bad, bad eras. Hell, even I mean, like, people who did their due diligence, people who gave you like the Judas contract, Marvel of men wrote some pretty horrendous stuff for the new Teen Titans. Sure did.

Titans, I guess you can. Oh, yeah. I was going to say, where do we go with that? Do we go with the era where they also completely got rid of everyone you knew and replaced them with brand new characters?

Oh, man, that was the Dan Jurgens era of the Teen Titans. You know, it's funny. I was actually talking to Mike Zabstik from Copa and literally about that the other day. And kind of amazing that they got away with that.

So true. If you did that nowadays, people would flip their shit. I mean, I'm sure they flipped it back then, but there was no Twitter for people to readjust do they discuss. No, it's true.

They did write letters though. But like, the Jurgens was like, hey, here is a team of what four new characters have never heard of them and invent them. And then I'm going to do this whole thing with these characters. Then I'm going to have them fight the original Teen Titans to show the show their dominance.

And during that time, we're also going to like organically create the young justice era where you don't you are totally, you are wholly irrelevant. Oh, yeah, it's the craziest thing. And then we never saw those characters again. The last time we saw something even vaguely connected to them was the fire guy on that team.

His name escapes me. I don't know. At the moment, it's a swahili name, I do believe. He was one of the dead guys and heroes in Christ.

And I'm like, really, you brought that guy back after like almost 30 years just to kill him again. Wow. That's cool. Argent Joto.

Joto. Yes, that was the guy. There you go. Okay, good.

Joto was his name, but they had to actually change it because in another language, it's like a derogatory term for gay people. Yeah. Risk and prism. Yes, those were the other ones.

Thank you. Honestly, I can't even speak to it. I didn't read the damn thing. I remember it coming out.

I have a wizard that proves it. And I was like, Nah, I'll put it this way. Like everything we've mentioned, I'm sure there will be fans and defenders. I have never met a fan of those Teen Titans.

I will say this. It had shades, 90 shades, but still shades of the, what was that? Like the black or the dark matter universe era? Oh, yeah.

Yeah, I see that. Yeah. Well, maybe what they should have done instead of being like here is like eight new characters and they all have their own books. Make a team called them the dark matters.

I don't know. They can have a theme song through the dark matters. Yeah, workshop that a little bit. But otherwise, maybe that was the way to do it.

Intruthm all at once and then not hit somebody off. That being said, you know, there was one good character from that. Will I am golden the nineties were rough for every Sandman. There was two blood wolves or heroes or boys.

Yeah. Heroes of born was kind of like its own thing. It might be one of the worst eras for all the characters that were in it. That's fair.

Like the worst era of the Avengers might be the time when Rob Liefeld and Jim Lee were drawing them. Yeah. The worst era for the Fantastic Four might have been when Jim Lee was writing the Fantastic Four. The worst era for what was it Thor and whoever else was in that nightmare of a book.

Oh, Captain America. Yes, that's right. Captain America easily. Easily.

No question. Yeah. But the most famously bad art ever with his chest out to here. Yeah, which is impossible to find by the way, like organically, like I can't find it in a book.

Oh, really? I think it's like a solicitation. Oh, they scrubbed that from history is that them trying to rewrite shit. No, I really mean like the only time you saw that like horrible like gigantic boob profile of Captain America was in a like solicitation or preview of the series in like a wizard magazine or on like Oh, wow.

You know, like on an inside comic poster or something. Interesting. It just didn't work. And like I would love to find the page, but I regret to say I have all the issues.

I've looked through them and I know where to find it. Oh, that's disappointing. I very much would like a piece of that original art for Liefeld to sign for me. He'd be spending coddling those because he charges out the ass for signatures.

Like does it. Almost got him to sigh. I have a full like gourd. I have these great posters from a confiosaur.

It's of the 90s era for like X-Force, X-Factor, X-Men, and Excalibur. It's awesome. And a new mutants and his team of X-Force, I guess, is his drawing of like his basic like pitch for X-Force. And I was like, I brought it with me.

I'm like, oh, I'll get him to sign it. I think it was like $45 or something. That's absurd. And I'm like, never.

Well, then I guess I'll never have a signature from Rob Liefeld because like I don't care. I'm not a big like I'm not the world's biggest Deadpool fans. It's not like I have new mutants 98 and it needs to be signed, but like I don't know. I am a fan of irony though.

Oh, yeah. That's why I would get I would have it unironically in the back of me just like, oh, yeah, it's my sign to a real life-old work right there. Right, exactly. And maybe the time I don't think there was ever a time to get it signed because I don't think it was ever appeared in Rob Liefeld wasn't charging for signatures.

That's true. I guess he just started never stopped. Yeah. Cam says everything from heroes were born and it screwed all agreed.

And then they brought it the freak back like recently. Remember heroes' return or something like that? It was like, on top of returns, I think, and they got right out of control. Crazy.

Just madness. Robert Corr did just like Dark go off on a bad start in the new 52. I know some people really liked it when it started. It wasn't my favorite because you had Zatane in the bad costume.

You had Constantine as we don't really know how far we can take this character yet. There was a lot of stuff I didn't like about that when I started. Some people like the second run with Jeff Lemire when there was like Frankenstein, Agent A Shade and a bunch of other stuff in there. I didn't really know a lot of it.

No, neither did I obviously. I'm not a magic guy on the team, but like I do remember when just like Dark launched and I got to say like it's funny how short a period just like Dark has been around for it to have a bad run. Yeah, but I believe it does. I think the people definitely, I think after the 52 was like what the hell are you doing?

And now it's actually having such a good run. Now it's great. It is legitimately good by the way. Check it out.

It's one of the best team books on the shelf right now and maybe one of the few actually know you got to read this at DC right now. Usually, we're asking you know what, I feel like the episode could just be going through every book right on the good about the ugly, which is true. We've we've done a number of books Curse of the Small and Worst Run, I guess. No, it's hard to say.

There's no really good run of Curse of the Small and but like, you know, there's a lot of books in our that we've designated as like, Words of the Words and Echoes in Special Box. I'll have to think about that for a little while, but like some of them were just like Rob Liefo Captain America's in there. Here's a here's another one that the art is actually fairly decent and everything but just the idea is so what the hell were you thinking? Yeah, everyone knows I'm a fan of the invaders right and again the invaders right now in Dershitzdarski really good telling maybe one of the best stories they've told in a long time.

One of the best name more stories in decades. Certainly. But here's the thing people forget that once upon a time they had their own teen Titans as spin off the young allies. No, I've thought about the young allies and forever nor has anyone here's the thing the invaders themselves are a hard enough pitch just on their own to have a sub team under that to have the junior invaders squad.

That's a tempting fate. Well, I mean like to be fair the young allies was a team that like I mean there were junior invaders there was Bucky there was Toro like but I think you're not talking about them you're talking about like that period with like Orrogia. Yes, that's the one where she had the best in everything in the white shirt and the big glasses that's the one who was that that was Stee or no Sean McEever. I don't even know who that is.

Exactly it was a brief six issue run no one remembers this. It's ironic about that team by the way not to like you know tighten what we just said but young allies debuted in onslaught unleashed. Really? Oh, she is the resurgence of that horrible period of Rob life though being at Marvel.

So it's all connected man. It's all connected hashtag it's all connected everybody. All the money or no money in this case because it only ran for six years. Yeah, arguably young allies was never like a great team but at least it had a legacy at the very least they didn't try to like oh uh let's let's make up a new team and not I guarantee you by the way what happened was they were like well people really like that young justice team over at the same time.

I mean it's 2011 so it wasn't like it came out recently but yeah they're like we have young justice it's called the young allies it was dude dude you're a 1947 or whatever like let's do it let's do that we'll just put all the characters people forgot about like a brand young gravity and like whoever else um that'd be great yeah so there was a there was a precedent you know who's really lucky this new run of champions books they're lucky they weren't called young allies. I think the only thing that kept them from being cancelled until now. I'm sure that was on a whiteboard somewhere okay what are some team names we can use again no I can't do the young Avengers they can never hold a book for too long young allies oh no that's just way to add side baseball. Champions was a team and arguably the young hero champion team is better than the Hercules Iceman team that preceded it so there you go so it's funny to think in that situation the old champions is actually the bad champion the bad lineup as composed of the you know like hip new young actually pretty popular resonating with young people team that came later.

Exactly I can't believe that they were like that they didn't go with new warriors. Oh yeah I could talk about another team that cannot stay alive to save its life as art as Christopher Yokes will try and keep it alive. Poor man. Mr.

Votta what about the heralds of Galactus Surfer and Nova? Surfer's had his own book what about like the worst eras in Surfer history? Has Surfer had a book long enough to be I mean like he passed the real book from like I think the 70s onward. I'm sure that there are a duds in Silver Surfer's history.

Oh there's got it. But I also couldn't for the life of me name one because I'm number one not a heap of silver fanned but also like did he really have like that bad around I mean like what can you expect. Did they ever like break the mold with Silver Surfer like make him extreme like what have we got with the surfboard made it more like a like a snowboard or something. Yeah yeah I don't know what if he was like Chocobra on his surfboard what about that and he would be in like in the Dexter's lab spin off a monkey and yes I remember that now that's a good one.

If you're not familiar there's a actually I think was it even him I think it was like I'm thinking of Thor being like if you haven't already watched it there's an old shokal text there's a side show called Emphile in for monkey and they were like let's make other like superhero parodies out of that and one of them was like they made Thor into like a like kind of like Stoner Rock guy. Val Hallan. Yeah Val Hallan thank you very much and he like he was yeah he's kind of the one I was thinking of I feel like I must have been a Silver Surfer character. Yes there I think there was in the Galactus episode but I think the thing is they couldn't keep showing that Galactus episode because there was like a couple adult jokes that got that one pulled from rotation right and I only know because I went back and watched that recently and I'm like wait a minute I don't remember this one only to research it on Wikipedia it's like yeah they didn't play this one a lot.

I mean here's the thing for me it's like you either like the 60s era Silver Surfer or you like the Dan Slott run. Yeah from just recently where it's Doctor Who. Yeah where it's Doctor Who. I remember a lot of people complaining but no one really saying that it hated it so.

And also it ran for a long time too so yeah Jeremy more Titan to the 90s no connection to the originals yes we just talked about those amazing characters and how no one read them or cared about them I should grab those I keep going through like a dollar bin this weekend and I could not find it but I did find a couple of gems but yeah I got to go pick that up the new Titans or whatever. Or one out for Johto. Yeah poor Joe. I brought him back just to kill him.

Yeah Christian Baraza says I do not like Snyder's Justice League that's a bold statement let's continue. Whole bunch of high concept dribble baseless retcons and strange narrations not a fan of his role at DC. Dig is prototype James Titan IV though. Yeah it is I mean that's your opinion man.

I hear you. Listen if I were to tell you that I'm still reading Justice League I would be lying and if I were to tell you that I didn't get bored of the series and quitted kind of like wholesale I would also be lying. I mean that as it may. I kind of like understand what he's going for and I appreciate that he cares about what he's doing.

It's not like he's just like oh it's not like when they asked Jeff Loeb to ruin Marvel ultimate ultimate ultimate marvel it was like yeah Snyder's like I have a pitch I have this idea that this concept he calls like he calls me a game and you know and gaming could have easily been like I think that sucks and no but like you know does perpetual fit in this universe not really but that's not his idea kind of. I don't blame him for that I blame the weird state of DC and their continuity right now where they're just letting every creator do whatever they want and they seem to be afraid to say no that's exactly what it is well they're just like we have we're afraid to tell our highest profile creators know and we're also afraid to declaratively decide what happened what didn't and what the current state of our company is yeah and I mean look if I got to absorb one person's you know version of events be it's Tom King be it's not a pick Snyder all day every day when he says happened happened that's exactly right. Also if you don't want to do it clearly just like you know don't like you know if you don't want to follow their book just don't do it that seems to be the d love the Gordon period for back and we're surprised by how like interesting it was. This is the advent run you're thinking of by the way that like that was like Titans Hunt or something like that it was like the Forgotten Titan.

Oh yeah yeah well hey that actually brought back a lot of shit that ended up giving us the Titans we want it until they ruined it again now by making them a junior suicide squad exactly because you know that's that's what I think of and I think of the Titans as a junior suicide squad absolutely they need to own a gulag Damian needs to be torturing more people that's what that's what we need to that's what the kids are really into now or murderers speedsters please more murderers speedsters please that's absolutely what we need man it's so weird that champions was a better spiritual successor to the Wolfman Perez era of Titans than the Titans book that's actually going on. Full bizarre yeah absolutely and I'm sure Adam Glass is like oh no no I'm definitely targeting this book at kids but you know the kids who pull wings off flies and you know right angry things on your Facebook wall yeah that was the fun characters yeah yeah very relatable you might say let's undo all of Damian Wayne's actual development and just happen to go back to being a little psychopath. Well why not his tethers gone yeah Devastee Schmopter says loving harbor patrol thank you very much. A logo is dope as hell and already saw multiple times.

They can very much design by the way so hopefully we'll get shirts made soon. She really knocked that one out of the park I saw that and I literally did like a little fist like yeah but I used to like yeah exactly no it's dope. I guess my pick for a team would be Teen Titans that book hasn't been fun to read since Infinite Crisis ended. I quite enjoyed the Benjamin Percy era but again they threw him off that book and then wiped away all of his hard work.

There you go yeah Titans have had a very spot he has to be lately let's put that I mean let's see that. As if he had help but it's not very much thank you very much. Eric Clapton's window service says hey everyone Jonah Hex was sent into the Mad Max Period. Yes Hex I do remember that very short lived but yes yes I do.

Was that cool is that a good era for Jonah Hex or a bad era? It's a bad it's a bad era but I love that it's so bad and I love that they keep referencing it they don't hide from it Jonah's like to happen to the future. And it sucks. They make it part of his character it's like I've lived an interesting life.

Yeah was that is that's not like are you talking about like the 85 series or yes Hex. Okay yeah okay I mean he's come to a future a bunch but yes the 85 hex let's just make him the road warrior. Like literally starts dressing like Mad Max. It sucks.

It sucks. Who can blame for that? Michael Fleischer. He worked on Spectre Batman.

I mean I can understand why you would pitch it. It's like hey the kids love the road warrior and we're doing nothing with these cowboy characters. That's true. Yeah why not Hex.

Yeah so yeah there you go. Tim McCall days thank you very much Tim. Cam says every time Loeb wrote the Ultimates was the worst era in the Ultimate's History. Yeah I can argue with that.

Fair. Yeah I mean like here's the thing if you if you're a big fan of the Ultimates you know I'm sorry then you liked you know then you were a fan of Mark Miller's run and that's it. You were a fan of what two volumes before it went to Hell's? Straight to Hell exactly.

That being said the book did continue like they did do other Ultimates books. It's just like Jeff Loeb made it so that no one wanted to read it anymore. Yeah so yeah absolutely. Ouch.

I got a good one for you here. Remember DC's Millennium event from 1988? Who doesn't? I'm trying to get a copy of it.

Yeah. Well maybe one of the shortest lived eras in comics one of the shortest lived forgettable events but here's here's an amazing thing from it. They tried to launch a bunch of new teams off the back of them. One of them was the new Guardians and people only probably know the new Guardians not because of the characters that were on that team but because of the villain they fought.

Snow Flame. Who's a meme now? Is he really? Yes he's the human embodiment of cocaine.

Snow Flame. Oh I think I know who you're talking about. Well now I'm thinking of Marvel there's another one called Snow Blind or something who's like whose power is also cocaine. Two characters very simple.

Yes Snow Flame again Google him if you must. He's got this ridiculous red and white suit with like this weird like domino mass painted on and he does nothing but just talk endlessly about how much he loves cocaine and how cocaine gives him power. Yeah I think I know exactly what you're talking about he looks like a he-man villain. Yes my veins burn with a white hot power of cocaine.

Awesome. I think they brought him back to. They really should because I character that meme worthy needs to return. Right also like yeah listen cocaine never went away so we can warn the kids about the dangers of cocaine.

Matt you bring him back now and you make kind of like a black label book where it's like I'm the power of cocaine oh but I'm not nearly as strong as I am. Oh my new arch nemesis Fentanyl man is stealing my power. I must defeat him and bring cocaine pure uncut cocaine to the world. Right is is Wood Method Man's suit we made Meth Man.

Oh shit I don't know how's he doing right now. I don't know but I know I was thinking about you know it's funny I'm wondering of course of Bloodlines. It's another DC event that I'm trying to get a hold of because I only read like a couple of the annuals but like Bloodlines some of those other things where they were like okay DC Metal here's all those new characters. Bloodlines same thing here's I don't know 20 new characters.

Yeah and they didn't really form a team which is too bad although I think there was one team but it doesn't matter but they were never like an original team so it doesn't matter like we can talk about like forgotten teams or teams that didn't ever work but Bloodpack is not a team that was cool and had a bad run. Bloodpack sucked and the less not a better because their name is Bloodpack it's already a bad pot. It's true. Good pull from Lenny by the way.

That is good one yeah. Oh for some other funny ones here. Oh I mean really we said we talked about all the extreme teams. What about extreme justice from 1995 Booster Gold in his worst armored monstrosity suit Blue Beetle was there too but they weren't funny.

Nope yeah Blue Beetle yeah Blue and Gold bros before heroes fart. No but that team did not yeah well because the people working on extreme justice did not give crap. No about what they were doing they were probably being given a direct mandate that's a don't do anything like what like they were doing before these characters don't sell by the way I think Booster Gold's suit was so crappy because it was destroyed by doomsday. I think this is like the readable character no okay Dan Vayno by the way is on Twitter oh shit and he apparently has like a vested interest in slave labor graphics which is a combo company his bio says I wasted my entire life on comics.

Well Lisa's being honest so good call on that one. Yeah at least he has a sense of humor good on you Dan. Tell us more about extreme justice I think I think they kept maxima Captain Adam was on this team but one of the several failed teams Captain Adam was on poor Captain Adam he never gets his due even if he's in the deceased universe. Who is amazing man I don't even remember amazing man.

I don't know amazing man but yeah I got a Google ish shit right now. Like I'm pretty nerdy and I like to think I know my obscure comic book character but I have no fucking clue but oh that's a bad costume. This is a joke right he was a parody. Amazing man he said yes he was also on the All-Star swadren.

Oh no I love the All-Star swadren and by that I mean I don't I just love that they existed but if you're interested in seeing amazing man I'll throw him up on the screen. Oh he's like a 1940s throwback that I guess they tried to you know hardcore up in the 80s. Oh yeah there he is his one cover him kissing maxima on the cover of extreme justice. Nice as you know maxima was of course desperate to find you know a suit or a male suit or you know Superman would do but you know in a pinch you can get amazing man.

Oh he's a legacy too he's like a family legacy. Oh when he was in the new 52 for a minute too seriously in that in that o-mac book and he was a zombie in blackest name. Oh he said amazing man had a longer more interesting history than I thought he did. Wow you I guarantee you there'll be a k-jole video coming up soon.

It's about amazing man. Remember amazing man? No. I do a show I gotta bring back called secret identities where I look at legacy heroes dude that's episode four right there fucking amazing man.

Jesus Christ. Which man I'm sure geoforce from the outsiders looks at his costumes and says hey man you stole my ugly color scheme. Right? Man can we talk about the outsiders too?

Talk about another team that's got a cult falling but I don't think has ever had a good run. Right no no you can I think you're not gonna piss off everybody by saying that the outsiders never had a successful or at the very least good run. They're a fun concept and people like the team enough that they keep bringing them back. Young justices written all around this season all around outsiders characters and they make it work mainly by great relief reimagining and reinventing every one of the members.

Right. They're like ah halo so nothing about you makes sense or is interesting we're gonna literally start from the ground up with you. Now you're a mother box. You're a mother box that interfaced with human.

There you go. Awesome. And I'm like that's way better than anything halo from the comics. Exactly.

Yep. I know I know Dan Vato from other things. Oh well anyway Iceman during all the three Avengers team. One football team.

I like three out of four of them especially Uncanny Avengers. What about you guys? Yeah by that point I was like there's too many Avengers. This needs to stop.

Uncanny Avengers I think was the book for me but I was still reading the other Avengers because like out of like kind of like habit. Yeah yeah. So yeah Uncanny Avengers was great at that time because it actually tied together a bunch of other stuff that the writer was doing that was dug in yes I want to say dug in right back. Okay so he tied together his Hulk book and his Deadpool book and several other things into that book and eventually Cable joined the team and it actually ended up being the best X-Men book that you could read for a while.

Exactly. No it literally was a self-ex book. Yep it was. Remender by the way.

Remender that's right yeah it was a stealth X-Men book and it was pretty good. Yeah. Also Pimtron fought then before he fought the regular Avengers. Yeah yeah that's a really good story too.

Yeah right. I think Pimtron not even fight the Avengers until that friggin event. Secret Empire yes even then it's even then it wasn't a fight they sat down and had a dinner. I love that scene.

That was the best thing about that book for me. It's the thing everyone loves about it and in fact he's still not gonna fight the whole Avengers team. He's coming back now to fight Iron Man in the slot and sub thing that's what the next arc is gonna be. Ah good.

Yeah makes a lot of sense. The right and great stuff with Joe Costa in that book right now so I'll be excited to say. Exactly. Let's see what else we have here.

Robert Corse has new Fantastic Four in 2017 or new FF and Ghost Rider killed the book. I don't even remember that. Are you talking about the team with like Scott Lang and Medusa? Right the matte fraction thing.

Or because I know that was the FF. Yeah the FF still has a bit of a cult following because fraction wrote it. Exactly well and who doesn't love it. Yeah he knows what he's doing.

But otherwise I don't know if I remember that. I remember the FF and I remember the new FF. Yeah I need a why. And Ghost Rider kills every book he's in.

Like I don't know if you're aware but like it truly is the spirit of death. There's like almost no good Ghost Rider era. There really isn't. Like ever.

Which is fair you know. I mean if you just look at the pictures and don't read the words it's fine. Right exactly. No he's a cool looking book and character.

I still hold up that the Robbie Reyes stuff was actually probably the best written but even then it didn't last. No it didn't. And then they changed it up. Made him lame.

That's because Jason Aaron don't have time to read that believe based mr. Which is really weird because like Jason Aaron pays attention to a lot of stuff and tries to make homage although he does make homage to his own stuff. So it's kind of a. I mean I love that he killed the eternals.

Yes he did. Practically off camera. In arc once. Like oh no the eternals are dead.

Is this bad? I don't worry. We're gonna resurrect them time for the movie. Can you imagine Marvel being like um what the hell are you doing?

Whatever I want. Because you just killed this team. We need them relevant right now. No you don't.

You'll just bring them back anyway out of obscurity being dead and being insecure basically the same thing for super teams. Literally what that's what they do. Like the eternals come back to life. Like that's their main superpower.

Yep and that's what they're probably gonna do and they'll make a big deal about it. I'm sure the Avengers will all have handling mention. Hey didn't you guys die? Yeah that's a thing.

Yeah that's what we do. Who cares? Read our new book please. Yeah jumping back in the super chats.

Mr. Savage because it's savage but with an accent. I like Savage oppressed. Will Sam Alexander ever find his dad?

No he got his helmet back though before they cancel champions he got his helmet back and he's probably get his helmet back but they gave him a rad new costume design. Yeah okay was that knew it had been so long since I'd seen all that. Is that new now? Is that bulkier?

Yeah it's new. It's more complicated than lame. That's the last issue right? That's the end of the book.

No they got to finish at 10. Okay they got two more after this which is a shame because you know they're not gonna be able to wrap up this mofiss. No storyline this miles Morales feeling guilt for making a deal with the devil and the devil knowing that that would tear apart the team. Yeah no but not gonna do that.

Shane the sub wrote his ass off lots of big ideas in that one I wish you could have finished it. I know. They also said don't worry the other team's coming back in 2020. Oh really?

Yes which scares me though because he's like you know I haven't been involved in any of the conversation but Marvel has big plans for the team in 2020 and I'm like that. We was worried whenever they say we've got big plans for X team. Yeah I got big plans it's like a threat. Yeah a big plan.

Oh trust me that the plans I have they're huge. Mm-hmm cool. That's worrisome. Yeah I was trying to find this book for Dr.

Strange because there was like oh uh oh is the one where he's got like the shitty spond costume. Yes it is. It is. It is the one.

Um and I think it's written by David Quinn but I can't confirm and David Quinn did a lot of like crap. That's what I thought. Okay yes. Uh okay I was reading an old issue of wizard and uh there was a big thing about like how no it was even wizard it was hero illustrated.

Oh okay so like they didn't know what to do with Dr. Strange. They had Dr. Strange the source supreme book was was selling like shit and they were like I don't know what to do so I guess I'll just give it to somebody who like knows stuff about anything but has never written comments before.

So they hired uh Brian Yuzna. Mm-hmm do I know that from somewhere. He worked on uh the reanimator series and uh okay. It's like a Silent Night Deadly Night 4.

So shlocky horror movies. Exactly uh and I believe he also had something to do with a comic book slash movie called Faust. Oh shit uh you don't say. If you're not familiar with Faust you gotta see this movie slash read this comic and by that I mean beautifully insane literally just google it because you never should look at it.

No what's some of the worst it's like the horror equivalent of tarot witch of the black rose. Yes yes it what's the full title it's not just Faust it's Faust's love in something. Yeah uh for the love of the damned. There you go.

But yeah check out Faust's love of the damned. It's basically Wolverine and spawn and they were like hey uh you write Dr. Strange. Yeah you can do it.

And he basically farmed out the work to somebody else but he came over the concepts and it's just the worst and you can talk and it was so great to read the interview about it because he was talking about it. I was like Dr. Strange is a crap character nobody cares about him so I can really do whatever I want. And like and so he did and so like if you start with Sorcerer's Spring number 60 and to go to like the next four issues or whatever you could read the worst period Dr.

Strange is. Nice famously short run that's an episode right there we got to talk about what are the shortest comic runs in history for whatever reason. There's a lot of n diagramming there sections with this. Mr.

Roblotto has got to say the next generation of superhero's team Youngblood who will make it a movie still. Still right. Yeah um Youngblood has never been good yet has a weird amount of staying power. Yeah well like people refuse to keep buying it which is the wrong problem.

And I think the issue is there was never a good time for Youngblood but Alan Moore did write it so you do have Alan Moore's run on Youngblood. So technically I guess Roblotto's run is the worst. I guess so right. Speaking of crazy extreme teams I mean we got to mention extreme X-Men right.

Oh extreme X-Men yes I have a number of issues in that book. They're red suits everything's a lot of red. It's not great. No it is.

But it's not great. No but it's definitely like a codifier of the time it was written. Yeah oh it's the most 2000s book you'll ever look at. Certainly is.

And I mean hey we got to talk about it because it's the cover for this very episode but we got to talk about Force Works. Force Works um yeah Force Works it's hard to say whether that was they ever had a good run. Because they were never good that's the whole point that's why they're the worst run on a team because it was a bad idea from the get-go. Yeah but if Iron Man had his own team of users.

I have a great trade which an amazing member of the population sent over to us. The trade is called Avengers Iron Man Force Works. So even Iron Man at the time wasn't strong enough of a selling Avengers up top in Force Works at the bottom. Yeah no it's like it's like each one is a subheading like Avengers Iron Man Force Works.

Force Works. It's just really quiet like written in really fine for in Force Works. Just trying desperately to distance themselves from you know the Avengers brand. They were in the cartoon though which blows my fucking mind.

Well cartoon is you all talking about well actually Iron Man cartoon from the 90s and you will see literally Force Works in animation who you get. You get great characters like ghosts I guess and bathing suit Scarlet Witch and Hawkeye who's just a guy. We needed another guy because West Coast Avengers didn't work out so. Wow from West Coast Avengers to Force Works.

At least West Coast Avengers gets revivals every sub-op in Force Works. They have not even gone back to this team ironically. No which is really weird. Because everything comes back ironically.

Death's Head has a book. Yes which is actually pretty good from what I hear. It's pretty dope. Never have they ever.

Oh of Julia Carpenter Spider-1's on that team. That's right I knew they had a Spider-1 person but I forgot which one. They sure do. In a black costume which will really just fucking confuse anyone who tries to watch it now.

Totally. Plus like I think US agent was on that team and the cartoon it was like three or four but like including I think I just like a hail to play or Jennifer hail to play Julia Carpenter in the animated series. Best voice casting I got for that show. Sure was.

Yeah Force Works. Wolf. They gotta go back to that now. We gotta write and sub and slot me like look guys you need you need to have Iron Man start up a new team maybe to defeat a pimp trom when he comes in he needs to recruit he needs to get the band back together.

The fact is diplomacy is not going to cut it. The only thing that will succeed Force Works. Force succeeds Force Works. Yeah Force Works.

We can't we can't respond with diplomacy we must respond with force because it works. Absolutely. Force Works. Like someone really needs to write even just a parry thing like okay what expendable loser heroes can we send in it doesn't matter if they get killed.

Well you can come all on there I mean like Julia Carpenter is like I don't know if she's dead I know she's mad and web. Oh yeah mad web US agent Wonder Man hell you know you probably think I can really at this point again. Wonder Man is more interesting now that he has been just because he with again he's staying power. Yeah.

Yeah. That'd be cool. Can't get rid of me I wonder man. I like that idea just taking a whole bunch of characters who are drastically different from what they used to be.

Yep. And put them on a team that they would rather forget because I was overly embarrassing it is. Oh those dynamics would be even funnier now if you got John Walker US agent in there. It's like okay guys got to watch this Alex Jones video then we'll go save the world.

Mr. About us says last one Thor core which needs to come back. Thor core core practically did with Secret Wars. Yeah it did and then also too in War of Realms near the end they basically got the Thor core back together.

I know you couldn't have gotten the frog. Now they uh Thor core great great team. I don't think it ever had a good run. I think it was just kind of stupid.

I remember the Thor core and no. Even in the Secret Wars it was kind of tongue and cheek where Aaron was like literally having fun with it's Thor but it's a cop procedural. Right. Great idea though every single one.

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This episode was published on August 18, 2019.

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