Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
18 - X-Men #94-100 - The Chris Claremont Era
63 Plays5 days ago
Matt and Pat cover the entire first year of the legendary CHRIS CLAREMONT run on the X-Men. From Moira MacTaggert to the fate of Thunderbird to Steven Lang to Polaris’s new name to the return of the Sentinels to the fate of Jean Grey. It’s a wild ride as the comic book gets truly, utterly good.
Topics include:
The issue number is a LIE. NAAD. Joe Harris’ button thing. “I love a man named Gort.” Thunderbird punches a jet. A very respectful death. The narrator taunts Cyclops. Why is there a cairn there? Getting to KNOW Moira MacTaggert. “Hey man, this is crazy.” They blew up Keirrok’s cookie jar. Why is Eric the Red back? Is Wolverine’s hair shaped for his hat or his hat shaped for his hair? Peter Corbeau’s harrowing, pointless, off-panel journey. “Oh my god.” Nightcrawler can’t stop making friends. Matt’s Grand Theory of Mutancy. The Q*Bert Kids. Jean Grey becomes a character, finally. 100 IS A FRAUD. The First Fastball Special. Skin-Beast. “You little—!” FREE BOOK!
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Mutant Menace
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:33
Speaker
Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Aukamp. And say it with me, Pete. well Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:44
Speaker
You're a little slow, Pat. I got so good. You were that's really slow. Well, I was waiting for your cue, so if anything... was waiting for Pete's cue. You could cue me a little sooner,
00:00:56
Speaker
p Yeah, Pete, cue us a little sooner next time, okay? Anyway, welcome to ah Mutant Menace, a podcast about the X-Men.
Embarrassing Moments and Comic Changes
00:01:06
Speaker
Matt, how are you, buddy?
00:01:08
Speaker
Doing all... I'm doing all right. How about you? I'm good. I'm turning my air conditioner off, so I'll probably get progressively worse from here. As we probably all know, probably everybody listening knows, you know, everybody knows. I had, like, a pretty harrowing experience this week.
00:01:25
Speaker
So... well what matt what happened you you know you know what happened all right i guess for the listener's say i guess you're not i guess you forgot or something but for the listener's sake um i was out uh i guess it was wednesday night i was seeing my favorite band i was seeing my favorite band with a close friend Okay.
00:01:57
Speaker
When suddenly Coldman front person Chris part prep chris Martin chris mar man chris mar man turned his little camera on me. And i Look, I wouldn't have been embarrassed to be seen with my friend.
00:02:18
Speaker
But... Her shirt got a little rip in the back and I was trying to hold it closed for her. And then she saw she up on the camera. She was afraid it was going to tear out, fly open.
00:02:32
Speaker
And everybody was going to see her Metallica tattoo that she has right in the middle of her chest. So I helped her duck and then I ducked away so she wouldn't feel alone.
00:02:43
Speaker
And now everybody on the internet is freaking out about it just because she's my HR guy. Well, it's just not fair. But besides that, I'm doing okay.
00:02:56
Speaker
Any publicity, Matt, is good publicity. How about you? How are you? Timeless comedy, folks.
Weapon Jason's Insights
00:03:03
Speaker
We'll look back on in years and remember with fondness.
00:03:07
Speaker
I'm doing all right. I've had a ah stressful week, probably brought on by the change in tone of the X-Men comics I've been reading. Yeah. Yeah, it's hitting you that it's hittting you that hard No, I just... yeah. It's okay, thought ok Pat. I thought it would be funny, but then you pressed me on it. Now I'm... Now I feel like a liar.
00:03:31
Speaker
Well, that was a... it was I was yes-anding you, and um it's all right. Look, we could start this whole podcast over again from episode one if you wanted. If this intro isn't good enough for you, I'll start from episode one if you want.
00:03:45
Speaker
We... Do you want to start... do you want to start the episode over again? No. Hang on. As the music indicates, we do have a couple emails from pat's email corner, both of them from Weapon Jason. And I am going to paraphrase a bit here, but he provides some very helpful information.
00:04:07
Speaker
ah Hi, Matt and Pat. Skipping that word. It took me this long to realize you all have rhyming first names. The whole full names in the intro does a really good job hiding that. That's an interesting note, right?
00:04:20
Speaker
ah Yeah. Well, yeah. Thanks, Jason. I hadn't noticed. I think the word Pat was looking for instead of sommelier, wine advisor, was consigliere, mafia boss advisor. And he's absolutely right.
00:04:34
Speaker
Which is the Robert Duvall role in the two Good Godfather films and the George Hamilton role in the not as Good Godfather film. I think he's referring to... Donnie Brasco. Jason, Weapon Jason, goes on to say, you really enjoyed the recap episode. i came to these early X-Men comics once I discovered back issue bins in the early 80s. And of course, the various Marvel Origins reprint books, being able to read these now via Marvel Unlimited or the Essentials Collections, or just owning a few very beat up copies found in the 25 cent bins feels like a luxury.
00:05:06
Speaker
He then goes on to argue that Angel deserves a little credit for being the one that really wants to be a superhero out of the original X-Men, which fair point. i And then a few compliments for us, which Matt and I are not good at accepting, so I'm not going to read through them. But Weapon Jason also followed up to comment on our giant size X-Men number one episode where he said, I was a very young boy when this issue came out and ended up in the stack of comics my brother and I were reading on a road trip that summer.
00:05:39
Speaker
The cover had captured his in my eye and we convinced the parents to, quote waste the extra 25 cents on this thing. Unfortunately, the issue did not make the return trip with us, but back then I was definitely not aware of the concept of collecting comics were transitory objects.
00:05:55
Speaker
You want to know how I know Weapon Jason is a big freaking liar pants on fire? ah Why is that? Giant Size X-Men cost 50 cents!
00:06:06
Speaker
Weapon Jason! That's what he's saying. They wasted extra 25 cents. Damn it. Yeah. He's got you. You got me again, Weapon Jason. You come for Weapon Jason. You best not miss.
00:06:20
Speaker
He does also... i Jason, it seems like you are a fan of Angel, which is fine. i think we're we're going to dig in a little more as his story goes on. But he argues that i maybe he wasn't wearing Magneto's costume since the Magneto costume incident and instead just had a replica of it made for himself.
00:06:45
Speaker
All right. Yeah. And fucking and maybe Magneto was just didn't actually make the costume and sap his life energy from him. Maybe he was just pretending and they were all doing a big joke together.
00:07:01
Speaker
Anything
Marvel Way and X-Men Readings
00:07:02
Speaker
could be possible. Weapon Jason. Sorry, I'm right. i I tried to come at you and then it turned out I was wrong. And so now I'm mad at you, but I won't be by the end of this email.
00:07:15
Speaker
Yeah, folks, I really hope everybody understands that when we yell at you for the emails that you write us, it is because we feel that level of comfort with you. mean we wouldn't We wouldn't be like this with folks that we didn't like. So please understand. Do I We want you to email us at menacepod at gmail.com.
00:07:35
Speaker
Do I yell at people when they email us the first time? Or do i do I tend to have to get comfortable with them to start yelling at them? I honestly don't know the answer to that question. we We've gotten comments on it from the last two um in the last two episodes during Pat's email corner, but they are from our... Regular emailers. Our regulars, our officially named emailers. Highest honor we can bestow.
00:08:02
Speaker
Is to yell at you. Or to name you. Oh, sorry. ah
00:08:09
Speaker
Um... well He also goes on, there is one compliment I will pass along ah to say that Alex, Alex Goldman was in excellent addition to the podcast i and really enjoyed his contribution. he loves when we ah have guests.
00:08:27
Speaker
Thank you, Weapon Jason. um And I actually have a lot more to say to you, but it turns out. Oh, yes. are yeah That is the end of Pat's email corner.
00:08:38
Speaker
Matt, I'm going beat you to it. You tried it, but you're not going to get there. Did you did you do anything X-Men related this week? Shit. Damn it.
00:08:46
Speaker
In fact, I did, Matt. oh okay There is a wonderful thrift shop in Philadelphia. If you, the listener, ever
Chris Claremont Era Begins
00:08:54
Speaker
find yourself in Philadelphia, it's called Philly AIDS Thrift, and it has just about everything. it also supplied the props and costumes for the years of comedy shows Matt and I did together.
00:09:08
Speaker
um swang by the other day, and for $1.99, was able to pick up How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way by Stan Lee and John Beshima.
00:09:20
Speaker
Holy shit. Yeah. This was like a 15 minute read if you just sit down and read it. But it it really does encourage you to like go step by step, learn the process. And I thought it would be a lot cornier than it actually is. It is pretty. It's a pretty dynamic guide to drawing Marvel comics. It's it's really neat.
00:09:45
Speaker
That's awesome. um That sounds good. Now we can finally start that X-Men comic we keep talking about.
00:09:52
Speaker
We're we just, if you do enough episodes of an X-Men podcast, you're allowed to do your own X-Men comic and you don't have to get permission. So that's what we're just aiming for that number.
00:10:03
Speaker
So we can, we can do that. Right. We, uh, we won't tell you what the number is because we don't want competition. So we don't want around five or six hundred episodes. Stop it. Don't tell them.
00:10:19
Speaker
i Matt, did you do anything X-Men related? A little bit. Yeah, I've been reading the X-Men and not just that in my personal read.
00:10:32
Speaker
I wonder if listeners are invested at all in my non-podcast personal read. We've gotten some emails about it. I just got to, and this is really, really fitting for this episode.
00:10:46
Speaker
i just got
Claremont's Storytelling Techniques
00:10:47
Speaker
to the end of Claremont's run. Ooh. That is a lot of comics. So i'm I'm in my personal life finishing Claremont's run while in my...
00:11:03
Speaker
professional life yeah yeah i was gonna say you can't call this our professional life we we lose money and we lose we we make zero dollars and we lose the costs of hosting this podcast i spend my vast fortune yeah it's true but yeah well on this podcast i'm starting the claremont run so it'd be an interesting little comparison give us give us a taste matt we are starting the claremont run today i overall how what do you think
00:11:33
Speaker
I think it starts out exceptionally strong when compared with the 66 previous issues, right?
00:11:46
Speaker
um Like in comparison, it's very strong. ah And then around the time of John Byrne, it gets, really it gets like legitimately, if, if it was standing completely on its own, no comparison, incredibly strong.
00:12:03
Speaker
um I named my D and D character after John Byrne. What is it? John a door fighter. Okay.
00:12:16
Speaker
Then he's picked up on it yet. I think, and then it stays pretty strong for a while that it dips a little bit in the eighties. ah He seems to lose his way. And he also ah just a little, he seems to not quite know where he's going for, for just a, just a, just a, just a kiss.
00:12:34
Speaker
And then um during the Outback era, there's some very bizarre issues um where it's like, I can't wait.
00:12:45
Speaker
It's like he just, he it's like he lost interest. And then he'd come up with one week, like, Oh, you know what? I want to do a story on and and then would do Like there was a lot of standalone stuff and there was a lot of just really frenetic stuff.
00:13:00
Speaker
We'd like, what the fuck? What is he doing now? But then it all pretty much comes together around 1990. ah so I don't know that that's I don't know that that's ah look, I'm going to have more detailed and intelligent ah things to say about all this stuff when we do our, you know, in-depth readings. But right now, I guess what I want to say is there's ups and downs.
00:13:26
Speaker
But it's mostly good. So on a scale 1 10, to sum all that up. Yeah. 8.5. eight point five
00:13:39
Speaker
I think the X-Men will hit higher heights in the 2000s and 2010s, to be honest. Ooh. I know. It's controversial. but ah like i think But not by not by far.
00:13:51
Speaker
And they not not all being written by the same guy. like That's that's the the achievement factor of Chris Claremont is off the charts. eleven 11, 12, right?
00:14:02
Speaker
Can we move on... ah Yeah, is I was really i was just after like a letter grade. But ah thank you.
00:14:15
Speaker
Do we want to talk a little bit about Chris Claremont before we I would love to talk about Chris Claremont. Do you start dipping our toes? ah sos So I have this book called Comic Creators on X-Men.
00:14:30
Speaker
um ah And I have two Fantagraphics actually put out two X-Men companions in the 1980s. I have those as well. So I have a little bit of background on Chris Claremont um besides just fucking Wikipedia or whatever.
00:14:47
Speaker
ah What do you know about his early life? but Was he an athlete? No, he wanted young athlete. He was trying to be an actor. Oh, right.
00:15:00
Speaker
He might have been an athlete, but I don't i don't i don't know. I'm sure I'm thinking of someone else. um He was born in England and then moved to Long Island when he was ah like eight years old.
00:15:13
Speaker
And then he was trying to be an actor. His friends had some contacts in the comic book world, like Al Jaffe. o Who introduced him to Stan Lee. And so anyway, he's he picked up a part time job at Marvel in ah like 1973.
00:15:32
Speaker
As just like. What he called a gopher, right? Like just yeah running around like just ah like an intern. um And then he became an assistant editor. Right under Len Wein, right?
00:15:46
Speaker
When he just kind of grabbed a bunch of teenagers to be his assistant editors. Yeah, I think he started working there right before Len took over. But yes, he worked right underneath Len Wein.
00:15:58
Speaker
And he wrote some shit. Like, he wrote some shit he didn't get credited for. And then ah he ended up writing Giant Size Dracula and War is Hell. Ooh.
00:16:09
Speaker
Then for our purposes, Len Wein gets sick of being editor in chief and cuts his the amount of books he's writing down from like, I don't know, some astronomical number to just like four or five.
00:16:23
Speaker
Right, because Stan Lee and Roy Thomas were both expected to write about half the books that Marvel was putting out. I guess. I don't know. I guess that was it. Or it's just like the editor-in-chief writes any book that they can't find another writer for. or maybe it fucking saves the company money if you don't hire other writers.
00:16:41
Speaker
But
Contrasting X-Men Writers
00:16:42
Speaker
X-Men, who was so which was supposed to be a quarterly book, like we talked about last ah episode, Yeah, these first two issues we're going to read today were supposed to be giant size X-Men number two.
00:16:54
Speaker
And it was supposed to be quarterly. It got bumped up to a bi-monthly book. And Len Wein was like, ah fucking give it to the kid. ah It ended up being, you know, it ended up being Chris Claremont.
00:17:08
Speaker
Len Wein held on to the Hulk theme. Instead of the X-Men. I guess he just loved writing the same story over and over and over again. Yeah, baffling decision.
00:17:20
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And then, yeah, Chris Claremont, his whole idea was he loved the Neil Adams, Roy Thomas stuff. He wasn't a fan of pretty much any of the other X-Men stuff.
00:17:31
Speaker
And he loved the new characters. And so his thought was like, I'm just going to tell the life story of these characters. And his initial his plan was eventually to just have them sort of rotate out. They would go move on with their life. They wouldn't be X-Men forever.
00:17:45
Speaker
They would move on yeah with their lives as the X-Men continued to be an institution. Which solves that dilemma we keep talking about where they've graduated. are they doing now?
00:17:57
Speaker
Exactly. was probably shortly after or maybe even during the issues that we're reading here is when he and Dave Cockrum sit down and just plot out the next like 10 years of the X-Men, right? Yeah.
00:18:11
Speaker
Is it that far? I don't know the exact length of time, but they they draw out this long plan. And we'll see as we go in here that this is a thing Chris Claremont likes to do is just seeding stories that won't pay off for issues.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes sometimes years Yeah, yeah. Sometimes a decade. Like, when we get to, like like, the new Mutants era, there's shit that is...
00:18:39
Speaker
set up in issue one, maybe not issue one. There's shit that's set up that isn't paid off for like 30 issues. Yeah, yeah. And then we just get a shit ton of titles because its his ideas, the all the ideas he had couldn't be supported by one monthly book, right?
00:18:56
Speaker
ah Right. I think he was, we'll we'll talk about this as we get closer to it, but I think a lot of the a lot of the extra titles were forced upon him.
00:19:06
Speaker
And he was like, I'm not letting anybody else touch the X-Men, so I will do a ah second title. It'll be called New Mutants. And then later it was like they had to sneak X Factor by him.
00:19:22
Speaker
Okay. We'll talk about it when it happens, but it was like he learned about their plans to start X Factor on a Friday before the office closed. And he was told about it over dinner far enough away from the office and late enough at night that he couldn't get there and quit. Oh, my God. And so he had the weekend to calm down.
00:19:44
Speaker
it's It's a wild story. um That's crazy. Yeah. The other thing I know about this Claremont run is, i mean, Giant Size X-Men number one is a huge hit, and the X-Men doesn't really cool down too much from there. It becomes this huge selling title. It's extremely popular, and...
00:20:02
Speaker
Marvel the company in a bit of crisis. They go through a lot of editors in chief in this time. They go through some sales at this time of the the company itself.
00:20:13
Speaker
ah Nobody touches the X-Men because it is the cash cow for Marvel for the next 10 15 years. And it's going to be really exciting. like i the the The thing i am worried about, Pat, is I don't think we're going to have the problem this episode because these these issues are pretty silly.
00:20:33
Speaker
But my worry is that we are going to run run thin on joke material. Yeah, you're not going have goofy things to make fun of. Exactly. It's going to be to us just in awe for a little while. This is a trial of our come ah comedic skills.
00:20:50
Speaker
Can we make fucking Chris Claremont's ultra drama funny? Other X-Men podcasts have tried. Here's okay. Here's an interesting thing.
00:21:03
Speaker
Here's an interesting thing that we'll see through this run prior to this podcast, this episode. In fact, I really hadn't read much Claremont. I read extension agenda, which, uh, which I just finished, uh, this past week.
00:21:19
Speaker
I think was a bit of a slog to get through. Whoa, really? Okay. Yeah, i is and I wonder if it's going to be different in this context when we reach It will.
00:21:30
Speaker
It will because... It is the reuniting of all the mutants who have been either separated ideologically or unaware of each other's existence because they hadn't they thought each other were dead. Like it is the reuniting of ah several different teams of mutants for the first time in like six years.
00:21:56
Speaker
right i I basically hopped in at the end of a book. Like I'm yeah reading the final chapter without reading. This is the same thing that happened with the fucking Harry Potter movies.
00:22:08
Speaker
Um, the other thing, aside from like single issues here and there, the only other Claremont run that I've read is his like mid aughts extreme X-Men run.
00:22:21
Speaker
oh boy. Yeah. It's not good. It is it's not extremely boring. I made it through it's one and trade paperback collection and Gave it back to Filiate's thrift, actually. I'll say. Salvador LaRocca's art is great in that.
00:22:39
Speaker
um And I like the the introduction of the character of Sage is cool. But yeah, it's it's awful. It's bad comics. It's a tough read. We'll get there, I'm sure.
00:22:50
Speaker
Oh my gosh. ah In... The year 2030. Okay, Matt, should we finally get into this damn comic book run?
00:23:03
Speaker
Yes. All right. X-Men number 94, the Doomsmith scenario. Plotted and edited by Len Wein, written by Chris Claremont, draw Art Dave Cockrum, Inc.,
00:23:17
Speaker
Bob McCloud, Colors, Phil Rachelson, Letters, Tom Orzakowski, released on June 10th, 1975.
00:23:27
Speaker
Pat, I also want to point out, we are about to basically do the first year of Chris Claremont. Yes, we are covering several issues. Because it is the... it is the ah They are bi-monthly at this point. So um we will basically, yeah, just be covering his entire first year.
00:23:46
Speaker
Let's go. Professor x Xavier has called a meeting of all his 13 X-Men to discuss their future plans. Sunfire gets mad for no reason and leaves. while Storm and Wolverine agree to stay.
00:23:59
Speaker
Banshee, after some reservations, is convinced to stay, while Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird kind of just don't answer. hit they're They're pondering it.
00:24:10
Speaker
They're wondering, do I want to be at a place called the School for Gifted Youngsters?
00:24:18
Speaker
I'm 35. Then, to Xavier's surprise, Angel tells him that the original X-Men are all quitting the team. Lorna, Marvel Girl, Angel, Iceman, and Havoc all quit, while Cyclops stays up all night tortured by the decision, but ultimately decides to stay because of his ding-dang eyeballs.
00:24:41
Speaker
His burden. He and Gene share a very loving and sad kiss. Kiss, Pat! They kiss, and they say I love you. They say love you for the first time.
00:24:54
Speaker
They are truly in a relationship. signifying that we definitely won't be seeing her again in like two issues and every issue afterward for about five years. Because otherwise, why would they have this really touching goodbye, Pat?
00:25:07
Speaker
After their
Military Themes and Emotional Depth
00:25:08
Speaker
farewells, the X-Men begin training. After Thunderbird initially underestimates the danger room, we get a full-page montage of several weeks of drills.
00:25:18
Speaker
There's a very funny panel where, or two-panel sequence where Thunderbird's like, shut up, this room is nothing, I'll walk from one side to the other, and you just see him disappear and then get thrown out to demonstrate that it's more dangerous than we think.
00:25:35
Speaker
Who says Chris Claremont doesn't have a sense of humor? Me. I said that. Yeah, you said that earlier. The scene ends when Thunderbird, again, tired from too much stress, gets injured by a laser and argues with Cyclops before storming away.
00:25:51
Speaker
Cut to a North American Air Defense Command Base. nor norad they call it pat nad north american air defense i believe that's i believe that's nad uh the base is called valhalla it's in the colorado rocky mountains joe harris whose full name we're told for some reason gets a weird button in the mail and instantly pushes it
00:26:23
Speaker
Why? So we're yeah you're underselling it a bit, Matt. This is clearly a high up in the military. This is like InfoSec 101. Don't just take some weird flash drive that somebody mails you and stick it in a computer. He gets an envelope.
00:26:42
Speaker
He opens the envelope and it's a button that says, press me. His colleagues are watching him. And he's like, oh, I bet this is a prank. They know it's not because they didn't do it. Yeah.
00:26:52
Speaker
They should say, whoa, don't touch that. And so it's it's so funny because so not only do we hear about NORAD, we also get like a lot of talk about airplanes. Yeah.
00:27:05
Speaker
And it sort it starts this ah long tradition of Chris Claremont being so horny for aircraft. aircraft Oh, man. He really loves... He's done his research. There were... he's okay He loves Jets?
00:27:22
Speaker
I feel like there were two types of nerds. There were like the sort of strange, artsy, probably a little egotistical, or even just straight up nerdy ones. And then there were the military comic book nerds. Oh, my gosh.
00:27:38
Speaker
loved guns and aircraft and weren't comic book nerds they would read like tom clancy novels and shit yes yeah yeah yeah and so chris claremont as far as i can tell is one of those yeah i think he's one of those uh but he he writes a pretty good team of weird misfits so like we can forgive him So when Joe Harris pushes this button, I will see Joe Harris again. I'm sure of it, Pat.
00:28:06
Speaker
ah He opens a portal that five animal human hybrids leap out of The frog guy. The cat guy. ah The cat guy. The bird guy Do not like a bug bird guy.
00:28:18
Speaker
The gorilla guy. Gort. His name is Gort.
00:28:24
Speaker
Is he your favorite? I do. I love a man named Gort. Yes. i love I love the frog guy for reasons that we'll discuss later.
00:28:36
Speaker
Did I say cat guy? You said cat guy. You missed dragonfly girl. Bug girl. Her name is dragonfly. She's she's a bug. um They beat up everyone in the room to make room for Count Nefaria.
00:28:49
Speaker
Patty's back. No. Oh my God. He tells us how he escaped from prison, made some animal men, and now he's going to take over this air force base. So he walks over to a computer and presses a button, which fills the base with gas, knocking everyone out.
00:29:06
Speaker
Pat, why do they have that button? and so yeah That was already installed in their control panel. They they already eat it with knockout gas.
00:29:18
Speaker
The person who designed NORAD was like, ah we, okay, before we, before I okay this, I need you to install knockout gas vents throughout the whole thing, and we need to put a button in Joe Harris's office that can deploy the gas!
00:29:35
Speaker
And this is a guy that just presses any button that's handed to him!
00:29:41
Speaker
maybe he's so used to getting buttons because like that's that's the test they keep sending him buttons and they're like they're like he pressed it again all right that's going on is that's going on his record he's not getting a raise this year we might not be able to trust this guy with this knockout gas button let's do let's test him again he's just getting a new button once a month Of course he's going to press it.
00:30:06
Speaker
And he's always pressing them. And he's never getting a raise. And every performance review, they're like, you have to stop pressing buttons. We can't keep you near the knockout gas button. If you keep pressing the buttons, he's like, okay, no, I understand. No, you're, this is good feedback. Thank you. And then three days later, they send him a button. He starts pressing it.
00:30:26
Speaker
i know he's yeah I know he doesn't fight the X-Men, but is this a loser league candidate? yeah but Joe Harris, the button presser!
00:30:37
Speaker
Oh, man! We'll have to discuss his induction into the Loser League. All right. So, meanwhile, while all this is happening, Cyclops is deep in thought, tortured by the failure of his responsibilities, which led to Thunderbird's accident.
00:30:52
Speaker
When Nightcrawler comes in to comfort him, Pat, this scene is so good. Oh, my God. The storytelling here just slows down. Like, we take a moment to...
00:31:06
Speaker
see Scott sitting in a chair pondering and with no thought balloons. Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no like excessive roy Thomas, Stanley dialogue or like, yeah, dialogue and captions.
00:31:19
Speaker
It's like, he's sitting there thinking and we, the reader are supposed to like, if you're watching a movie project ourselves at like, what is he thinking about? For someone who's typically very wordy,
00:31:33
Speaker
Chris Claremont knows when to shut the hell up. but um And then Nightcrawler comes in to just try and talk to him. He's so fucking cool.
00:31:44
Speaker
Everybody he meets, he just instantly ingratiates himself to. He's just like his power. He's got the power of friendship. At that moment, Professor X calls them all to the briefing room. We're Beast.
00:31:58
Speaker
that Hey, buddy. He's with the Avengers now. He is. He tells them all about the situation at Valhalla, but the Avengers are too busy to help.
00:32:12
Speaker
Stupid Avengers. They're probably all hiding in a tree waiting for Black Widow to get back from her date with their devil something. um
00:32:21
Speaker
ah Despite a quick argument about whether or not Thunderbirds should come along, they all take off in a brand new jet, which Chris Claremont claremont is again horny for, ah and will get wrecked in like two pages. Yeah.
00:32:34
Speaker
This is SR-71, right?
00:32:39
Speaker
ah do Do they use that terminology? i think... Yeah, they call it a Blackbird. And I think the Blackbird is the SR-71. Sick. When they approach the base, they are briefed by their old pal, General Fredericks.
00:32:52
Speaker
Pat, you remember General Fredericks? Uh, not at all. You don't remember? They talked to General Fredericks when they were discussing Vanisher's plan to kidnap the defense plans.
00:33:05
Speaker
The Vanisher? This is this. OK, first of all, we remember him from issue number two. Yeah. And second of all, this is the guy that was like the vanisher says he'll come back and steal our plans. Let's leave them here. But add men with guns. Yeah.
00:33:25
Speaker
ah The guy refuses to move the plans. The very last time we saw him was in X-Men 17 where he so this is a Stan Lee, Jack Kirby creation. General Fredericks.
00:33:37
Speaker
It's a deep cut. ah last The last time we see him ah is when they defeat the Sentinels in the big like hidden mountain. Oh my god. And he's like, and he says, and he says, ah we owe the debt the X-Men a ah debt of gratitude or whatever he fucking says.
00:33:55
Speaker
Like, that's General Frederick's. if That is an incredible pull because he looks at Cyclops and says, oh, I remember you. It's like, that's just like, hey, it's been a long time. It's so good.
00:34:11
Speaker
It's so that dry Cyclops uh, wit, not even wit. It's not even wit. It's just a kind of concept condescension. It's like topping from the bottom.
00:34:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I know you don't like me, so I'm going to, uh, guys make give you a reason. Yeah, yeah. um ah So, General Fredericks tells them they only have 52 minutes to cancel the Doomsmith, a weapon system which will fire automatically regardless of Count Nefaria's attempt intent to just use it as a threat and destroy, like, everything. So...
00:34:49
Speaker
General Fredericks, aside from putting four men with guns around the world, the United States defense plans, whatever those are, he also chose to put a knockout gas button in Joe Harris's office.
00:35:01
Speaker
And he also chose to create eight a it's kind of unclear, a feature in this base that either launches missiles indiscriminately everywhere or blows up the base or both.
00:35:16
Speaker
it see So my read on it was anytime, like this is a this is a last resort. ah But if it appears that a supervillain is going to win and successfully take over the Earth, what they can do, or there's an automated process to send all the nukes out and just destroy the world.
00:35:42
Speaker
General Frederick's military mastermind. yeah Life under Magneto would be so bad that we might as well just destroy the world. I guess I'll just die. It's the mimic.
00:35:56
Speaker
ah Yeah. I guess we'll just die then. um Nefaria sees the X-Men coming and blows up their shiny new jet and the lifting body that ejects from it. Whatever that is. Some Chris Claremont.
00:36:11
Speaker
he knows something about air. It's an escape pod, uh, leaving the X-Men plummeting to the ground to be continued pattern. Are they going die?
00:36:24
Speaker
I love the issue ending here because you know, That next man issue that opens with them plummeting to the ground is going to whip ass.
00:36:37
Speaker
It really is. It is. I'm excited how Cyclops comes up with another plan. Like this is the second time he's had to plan for, okay, me and all my friends are falling from an airplane.
00:36:48
Speaker
How do we, how do we not die? Oh, boy. what he What an ah entrance, Chris Claremont. I know, I know. i This is still ah Len Wein plotting.
00:37:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, which is why we have Count Nefaria creating own animal-themed man instead of... hiring animal themed uh bee villains it's it's funny because it it feels like lenween is like oh yeah i'm just oh yeah i'm just supposed to do the x-men right oh i know how to do the x-men you just bring a villain in and yeah have them go go after the villain the x-men fight them Right. And Chris Claremont was clearly thinking like, well, no, this is about, you know, the evolution of these characters and the supervillains are sort of a gateway towards character development.
00:37:43
Speaker
And that I think that tension is really apparent here in the difference between like in Len Wein plotting and Chris Claremont scripting. Yeah, yeah. There's a lot more poetic narration than you might expect for a Count Nefaria issue.
00:38:00
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. I mean, even Chris Claremont's first text boxes are like, it begins with an ending. It is... Such a little thing sometimes, but sometimes the littlest things are the hardest to bear. He's just starting out with the Shakespearean like, okay, we know it's the beginning of an issue.
00:38:22
Speaker
ah I know I'm going to get so sick of it, but yeah right now it is drawing me in. I am hooked. i i I mean, the only thing that makes me happy is that clearly he's resisting the urge elsewhere, like ending the issue with with endings are like small deaths that occur with all of us in all times. They happen
Teamwork and Sacrifice
00:38:50
Speaker
when a day closes. They happen
00:38:53
Speaker
when a meal is fully eaten. like I like his restraint because clearly he wants to be doing this constantly. ah Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:04
Speaker
Couple of very good moments for this issue before we move on. Number one i the whole system the of creating animal men that Count Nefaria comes up with is apparently...
00:39:20
Speaker
Magia science. And I have to stress, because we talked about this last time, Magia is just like a mafia outfit. They're just his henchmen. He hires thugs. And now I guess he found one knows how to splice jeans.
00:39:39
Speaker
and Or maybe he found a scientist and was like, I can't give you a supervillain outfit because I'm kind of past that. But what if I make you one of the Magia?
00:39:52
Speaker
but Another great moment is when the beast appears on the monitor and like when the other, god all the X-Men come in and he's like, hey, what happened to the X-Men? And Professor X is like, these are the X-Men. And he's like,
00:40:09
Speaker
And he's looking at a room of yeah Thunderbird and Storm and Wolverine. And he's like, uh, okay, if you say so. That's...
00:40:21
Speaker
That's what's written in the issue. ah Okay, if you say so. if yeah If you say so, buddy. Very good stuff. Can't wait to find out what Count Nefaria is up to.
00:40:33
Speaker
Tell me! In X-Men number 95, Hunt. word. Yes. it's one word yes Chris Claremont, writer, Len Wein, plotter, Dave Cockrum, artist, Sam Granger, inker, Karen Mantlo, letterer, Petra Goldberg, colorist, and Marv Wolfman, editor. Ooh, goodbye Len Wein.
00:40:55
Speaker
Hello, Marv Wolfman. Hi, Marv Wolfman. Thanks for coming. Released July 1975, cover date October 1975, the X-Men are plummeting to the ground.
00:41:08
Speaker
While falling, Cyclops tries to form a plan and then has a detailed conversation about physics with Nightcrawler, describing how his momentum will remain if he teleports and so he can't save himself.
00:41:19
Speaker
Yeah, there's like two panels where they shift into conversational stances as they're falling to their death. It's like they're having a whole dialogue about about how the physics of this all works.
00:41:33
Speaker
And the narrator is counting down. He's telling us like ah T minus 63 seconds until you we hit the ground. In fact, the first thing Cyclops does, because we're opening with the X-Men plummeting to the ground, is he thinks about how they got there. And the narration makes it clear that he takes exactly 10 seconds to remember all the events that led up to this moment. Yeah, goes from 100 seconds to 90 seconds. And then he talks to Kurt about physics for a while.
00:42:07
Speaker
then it drops down to 63 seconds. And then he he comes up with a plan. it's with it You can argue with the process. You can't argue with the results. Pat, can you, could you, I'm not asking you to.
00:42:20
Speaker
Do you think you could explain inertia to me in 27 seconds? I don't think I can explain inertia to you. I guess Nightcrawler is just, I guess he he took some pretty good science classes in rural Germany.
00:42:35
Speaker
ah Yeah, he just well, maybe he's tried it before, but he knows he can't save himself. So Storm carries Wolverine and Nightcrawler. Colossus, fucking sick as hell, turns to steel and plummets to the ground. He forms himself into a bullet shape to get there as quickly as possible.
00:42:56
Speaker
Yeah. i Banshee carries Thunderbird and they all just leave Cyclops to fall to his death only to be snatched up by Banshee at the last second. i If you note, in these the artist actually makes a point of showing him kind of Cyclops spread his body out to slow his fall to give Banshee enough time to reach the ground. And then and then we also watch him accept his death.
00:43:22
Speaker
Right, right, because he's about to hit a branch. I love that that is what Dave Cockrum chooses to use for this. It's like, oh, he's getting closer and closer to these branches.
00:43:34
Speaker
Colossus waves jovially from the giant crater he left in the ground as everyone appears to be okay i The other thing about this is they let Cyclops fall, right? Right.
00:43:46
Speaker
But Wolverine knows, no one else knows this, Wolverine knows his skeleton is made of adamantium. He knows he would be fine. Yeah, and that he would heal, any damage that he sustained would heal pretty quickly.
00:43:58
Speaker
Exactly. All his internal organs, his head, they might bash against his skeleton or skeleton, right? But they're not going to be, you know, splattered on the ground. They're going to be protected.
00:44:11
Speaker
And then he's going to heal and he chooses to let Storm carry him in Nightcrawler and not Cyclops. It's with we don't know this yet. Do we don't know it? Do Claremont mean or Chris Claremont know?
00:44:26
Speaker
I doubt it. Yeah, I doubt it. It might be a little plot armor a little later down the road. ah Yeah. And I mean, I think ah Wolverine's healing factor increases in intensity over time, too.
00:44:40
Speaker
So I bet at at this moment, can conceivably, he would have died if he hit the ground at this moment in in at this moment in his development. Sure.
00:44:51
Speaker
We're on the ground. Cyclops has Nightcrawler teleport inside the base to do recon, and he is immediately attacked by a frogman. Nightcrawler beats his ass and drags his unconscious body away to interrogate him.
00:45:04
Speaker
But the frogman escapes when Nightcrawler looks away to open a hatch into the base. It is. This is so fucking cool. This is a guy. This is a great. no i The frogman.
00:45:20
Speaker
calls Nightcrawler mutey. Yeah. You're a frog You're a frog So I think this is one of those Claremont inserts where it's trying to set the tone of like, cause the, the frog man does address it. Right. He's like, I know I'm a freak, but I'm no mutant.
00:45:43
Speaker
this yeah When, when night, cause he's mad that Nightcrawler called him hair frog. Yeah, that's that that's German for Mr. Frog. ah Thank you. Thank you.
00:45:57
Speaker
Frogman escapes while Nightcrawler opens the hatch into the base to let the X-Men in. They make their way through the base using their powers to overcome a toxic glass, toxic gas cloud and a squad of hypnotized soldiers. I don't know when that happened.
00:46:11
Speaker
Before finally facing the animal men full force. They're called Animen. okay Thank you, Matt. Yeah, of course. Finally facing the Animen in full force as a countdown clock ticks away.
00:46:26
Speaker
The X-Men actually employ teamwork, defending each other and beating some animal ass, through though Banshee and Thunderbird are knocked out in the process. With nine minutes to spare, they find a self-destruct terminal and impotently try to shut it down. You wonder what they're doing, right? like You just kind of look at hands on hips like, yeah that clock's going down pretty fast.
00:46:52
Speaker
Also, I love, sorry, going to jump back just a second because... Cyclops. Okay, do you remember when Bobby Drake came into the X-Mansion and was like, guys, I just got attacked by a robot outside. And they're like, yeah, sure, Bobby.
00:47:10
Speaker
Whatever. Looks like somebody's been eating too much ice cream. Okay, Bobby. I also found all of your clothes outside. That's right. And at this time, Nightcrawler comes out and he's like, I just, I just fought a talking frog man. And Cyclops is like, oh, okay. Yes.
00:47:29
Speaker
I am. Yeah. He very sincerely believes him. Just immediately believe, it like he, he respects this blue man. He just met more than Bobby Drake, who he's known for 10 years.
00:47:44
Speaker
Okay. ok Meanwhile, Banshee and Thunderbird, having been knocked out, wake up and are feeling pretty useless and down about it until they spot Count Nefaria fleeing the base in a fighter jet. he leaps Thunderbird leaps onto the jet and starts punching it while Banshee chases and tells him to let go because his sonic screams could take care of it easily. Yeah.
00:48:08
Speaker
cut back to the X-Men hammering at the computer when Professor X pops in to be like, yo, well all the computer stuff was destroyed, you idiots. What are you doing in there? go save Thunderbird.
00:48:20
Speaker
Right? I love... This is such a good moment. Professor X is like, why are you guys doing this? It's fixed. as Number one, you never told us it was fixed.
00:48:34
Speaker
Number two, how would we just assume that we smashed into enough computers and stuff that the whole thing would be over? It is so wild that the entire problem, the entire reason the X-Men are here, is just, it's fixed to now.
00:48:54
Speaker
And he's so mad they're trying to solve problem. You just it, idiots. Yeah.
00:49:03
Speaker
To be fair, though, they are just still trying to destroy it as the countdown clock goes. Like, their hands are on it, and it's like, what is he what is he even doing?
00:49:15
Speaker
what is he He's just pressing buttons at random. He's punching it. Banging his head into it, I bet.
00:49:26
Speaker
They all run outside just to see John Proudstar smashing into the cockpit, while Professor X, Count Nefaria, and Banshee all yell at him to let go.
00:49:37
Speaker
Even the villain is like, let's go! but what are you doing? He does not let go, and holds on as the plane catches fire, plummets into the side of the mountain, and explodes.
00:49:50
Speaker
The X-Men, having saved the day, sadly walk away from the wreckage as Professor X collapses on his desk in tears as John Proudstar, Thunderbird, is dead. That's the end of Thunderbird.
00:50:05
Speaker
This time it's not a joke. I know a lot of times we say, and then that character died, and that's the end. Now he's legitimately dead. That's really what's happening here. Yeah. ah You know, they introduced a character very respectfully.
00:50:19
Speaker
Very respectfully, they gave him a ton of respectful dialogue and respectful character moments, and then they let him go out in a very respectful manner. They stick with the noble savage thing. So now there's consistency there at least, but it's this, um it's the, ah the pride as a fatal flaw trope where like,
00:50:46
Speaker
Yeah, this is somebody that you would think of as a savage, but they're actually extremely prideful about who they are. In fact, they're so prideful that it's probably what's going to end up killing them.
00:50:59
Speaker
This is Professor X's fault. He... Expand on that. Thunderbird only joined because he said, perhaps what they say is true. Perhaps the Apache are all frightened, selfish children.
00:51:13
Speaker
So right Thunderbird is still trying to prove, not just not just prove himself, but prove to the X-Men that his entire nation is brave and heroic.
00:51:32
Speaker
I guess we're all a little better off. Yeah. with John Proudstar being removed from the X-Men comics. yeah It seems like they do not know how to use this character in a in any sort of sensitive way.
00:51:48
Speaker
And yeah everybody else, like, Chris Claremont has this thing that Alan Moore has made fun of where, where, you know, when Colossus is talking, he's like, by the, by Lenin's conception of the motherland. And where, when Kurt's talking, he's like, mein Gott, the, uh, you know, the,
00:52:09
Speaker
Steel Eagle of... No, he probably doesn't say that. That's bad. No, no, no, no, no. And everybody's constantly referencing their heritage. Referencing their homeland. Yeah. But everybody else has these full characters where John Proudstar, his like whole character was based around these...
00:52:26
Speaker
Native
New Story Threads
00:52:27
Speaker
American tropes, and like you said, no noble savage tropes, and this one idea of Professor X calling him a coward. That's his yeah yeah whole thing. Calling his cowards. Yeah.
00:52:41
Speaker
Do you know why they decided to take Thunderbird out? I don't know. ah It's just because they had two grumpy men on the team. There wasn't room for Wolverine and Thunderbird on the same team is legitimately the reason.
00:52:55
Speaker
Wild. Because that was ah that was what sprung while Wolverine's popularity in the first place. was He was like the dark course through dark and violent type.
00:53:06
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know that he had that popularity yet. I don't know that he gets it until like around John Burns run. But they liked Wolverine more than they liked Thunderbird. um Because Wolverine's a character and Thunderbird was ah a racist stereotype. Yeah, yeah.
00:53:23
Speaker
ah Wolverine gets a really good moment here where he really good Wolverine moment where he calls Gort the Gorilla Man Road Company Hulk.
00:53:35
Speaker
Very much like, OK, if we take the Avengers on the road, go town to town in a traveling show, this is the guy that would play Hulk. In this issue, they talk about the Doomsmith as just a self-destruct.
00:53:48
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's, I think, we okay, there's probably a few functions here, right? There's the... It shoots a bunch of missiles and half of them come back and hit itself.
00:54:01
Speaker
Oh, yeah. So I think there's the ideal option, which is you press the button and it blows up... the specific thing you want to blow up there's the fail safe option which is it just automatically blows up the entire world if a super villain wins and then there's a third option in case of a villain takeover where you self-destruct the whole thing the irony being that the villain is the one that uses the self-destruct yeah say he does it by accident though
00:54:36
Speaker
Yeah, the machinery here is stupid. what do you like better, Doomsmith or War Hunt?
00:54:43
Speaker
Yeah, man, I wish I felt more emotional about the death of John Proudstar. Yeah. i know it'll affect the X-Men forever, but fuck, this moment is stupid. I mean, it is literally, you know what it is It is the kid with, ah the kid running with a knife YouTube video.
00:55:02
Speaker
One of all-time favorites. What do you got there? A knife! And it's if that video immediately, like immediately after he was running with the knife and she yelled no, he stabbed himself in the face and died. That is what this is. It is a kid running with a knife. It is him. They're like, everyone's like, stop punching the airplane.
00:55:23
Speaker
And he's like, no. Like, what are you what do you doing, Proudstar? I'm punching an airplane! No!
00:55:33
Speaker
We just for what it's worth, we synced on a knife way better than we've ever synced on Welcome to Mutant Menace. Say it with us, Pete.
00:55:45
Speaker
i i The other thing about his death here is just like if you remove the racism, please remove the racism. But if you remove the racism from it.
00:55:56
Speaker
He just doesn't earn it, right? He comes aboard yeah two issues earlier. He hates everybody. He's trying to pick fights with anyone that talks to him and then just goes off and dies.
00:56:11
Speaker
Dies like a toddler. Yeah. And dies, I mean, somewhat heroic. Like, i get he's sacrificing himself. Like a very heroic toddler. He doesn't have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah. It's just, it's not earned. There's no emotion here that really, like...
00:56:26
Speaker
There's no attachment for the You know what's worse is that Count Nefarious survives this. I don't think we ever see him again in the X-Men. Yeah. but Maybe we do. I don't know.
00:56:38
Speaker
ah But he becomes like a regular Marvel villain while John Proudstar is fucking dead. Like he's gone.
00:56:50
Speaker
So, yeah like, I don't know. ah I don't know about, like, recent years, but he's at least dead for, like, 50 years. So, almost 50 years. 40 years. Which is wild. Who dies for that long?
00:57:04
Speaker
Let's keep going. On to issue 96. Night of the Demon. wo Written by Chris Claremont, drawn by Dave Cockrum, inked by Sam Granger, lettered by Dave Hunt, colored by Phil Rachelson, edited by Marv Wolfman, with a plotting assist from Bill Mantlo.
00:57:27
Speaker
Interesting. Released on September 1975. Cyclops! is wandering through the forest in mid-autumn, ruminating on his guilt over Thunderbird's death while the narrator taunts him about it Yeah, he's he's going back and forth with the narrator.
00:57:45
Speaker
ah In response, he unleashes a massive optic blast, leveling a portion of forest and cracking some weird mystical cairn, which he doesn't seem to notice.
00:57:57
Speaker
It starts to glow. how Okay, we'll get to it. He does. He calls himself Mr. Here, which is he goes know he's just really going through it.
00:58:09
Speaker
ah Wait, do we want to get to it now? Why does he not notice the fucking glowing cairn in the middle of an empty, destroyed forest? It's the only thing left standing. Why is it there in Westchester, in the woods of Westchester, New York?
00:58:23
Speaker
I don't know.
00:58:27
Speaker
It's the most bizarre setup to a plot ever, which we'll find out. Okay. Back in the danger room, the X-Men are training when Wolverine gets mad and tries to legit kill Nightcrawler for laughing at him.
00:58:40
Speaker
Wild. Yeah. He needs to. That's why he's here. He's got to control his temper, his animalistic nature. Yeah. ah But nobody's like.
00:58:53
Speaker
Nobody's like, hey, ah this guy actually tried to murder our best friend. um All right. x Xavier tells Banshee he's worried about Scott, but is interrupted by his new mysterious housekeeper showing up.
00:59:09
Speaker
Banshee answers the door thinking to himself that it's going to be some shrewish old woman, and but he opens the door to find a young, tough, hard-talking Scottish babe named Moira McTaggart.
00:59:23
Speaker
Moira McTaggart. Moira is here. Fucking Moira McTaggart. Moira McTaggart. Dream dreamw woman. Dream woman. Hey, you're either a Mary Jane guy or a Moira McTaggart guy. And he's, she's a housekeeper.
00:59:41
Speaker
That's interesting. I didn't know that's how she got her start. Oh, yes yeah. Maybe she's. Yeah. Do you think she's do you think that's what she's doing here is keeping house? Well, Professor X said it, so it has to be true.
00:59:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah Cut to a secret installation in the Adirondack Mountains where Dr. Stephen Lang is arguing with Colonel Mike Rossi about Project Armageddon, an illegal billion dollar project Lang has been working on for six years.
01:00:10
Speaker
to kidnap and study the X-Men, intending to carry on the work of bola Dr. Bolivar Trask. What, do you have a problem with this, Pat? Fucker.
01:00:21
Speaker
Rossi denounces the project as a witch hunt and storms off to have Washington put an end to it. As Lang watches him walk away, he vows Rossi will never reach Washington alive.
01:00:33
Speaker
And a familiar, perfectly sculpted, sexy purple leg frames the panel. Sculpted ass, just out of frame. Damn it.
01:00:45
Speaker
That night, back at the mansion, the X-Men are getting familiar with Moira McTaggart. I didn't mean to say it that way, Pat. there They're knowing her.
01:00:58
Speaker
Yeah.
01:01:01
Speaker
okay They're just talking to her. They're just talking to her except ah because Professor X reveals that he's going away and leaving her in charge. Fucking did he not learn his lesson when he did this with the changeling?
01:01:17
Speaker
The man says, here's my housekeeper. Everybody get to know her because I'm leaving, but she is in charge. I'm leaving. None of you.
01:01:29
Speaker
The new housekeeper that I just hired. The woman that I called a housekeeper. The woman that's here to, like, clean the house. i She's in charge. And also, she will keep your secrets to her grave.
01:01:44
Speaker
Well, it's it's worth saying. a lot they don't They're hanging out. They're like, hanging out in the foyer or whatever, like, the den. and in full costume still. also yeah they just wander around the mansion in costume um so all of them except for bance banshee sean cassidy um and he is actually asking moira out on a date when cyclops flies through the wall all fucked up what the x-men but barely have time to get their bearings
01:02:21
Speaker
Before a giant pink monster with one eye, wings, talons, and a forked tongue burst in, calling itself Kirak, the Shatterer of Souls,
Character Dynamics and Internal Conflicts
01:02:30
Speaker
Kirak, the Slayer of Men, Kirak the Damned, and telling them he wants their souls.
01:02:36
Speaker
ah He starts smashing people and tells them he's at Ngari, one of the Elder Gods. guess Claremont been reading a bit of Lovecraft at that moment or something.
01:02:48
Speaker
The X-Men all fight him one by one until Wolverine kills him. So it's all fine. End the issue. No! right He reforms, sucking the life energies from everyone in the room, and they all suddenly look old. It's very funny.
01:03:04
Speaker
which Wolverine turns to Cyclops and says, Hey, man, this is crazy.
01:03:15
Speaker
And then, yeah, in the next panel, they all look old and sad. And we see ah Cyclops' saggy nipples. Professor X tries to probe Kirok's mind, but gets all fucked up trying, so Banshee tells the X-Men to run, and Sonic screams the demon guy. Moira even gets in on the action, emerging from the armory.
01:03:36
Speaker
From the what? Oh, the armory? The armory? the Xavier mansion armory. but Yeah. remember when they all used to go, you know, the X-Men used to grab their guns from the armory and shoot blob.
01:03:50
Speaker
just rocking double pistols would have made warren a lot more effective oh my god but and he didn't have to he's been shooting ping pong balls this whole time when all the all the while there was like an ak-47 in the armor and nobody this is one of those doors that scott summers was like i don't know what's in there but i'm not opening it i'm not allowed in there
01:04:16
Speaker
And for good reason, because moira emerges with a machine gun. yeah Professor X eventually figures out that Kirok cannot be destroyed directly. So he has Storm fly off to the cairn and destroy him at his source of power. He came from the cairn, if that wasn't clear.
01:04:34
Speaker
um A bunch of demons leap out and try to pull her in, triggering some traumatic memory of being buried in rubble. Wonder what that's about. ah So she flips out and destroys the cairn from the inside out.
01:04:49
Speaker
Kirok turns into dust, making him a loser league candidate immediately. o two in one episode. Because he comes out and he tells that he's got all these titles for himself.
01:05:01
Speaker
He's like, I am the eater of souls. I am the destroyer of man. I am the shatterer of the world. And oh I'm dead now. Like, that's so loserly. Oh, you blew up my cookie jar. Guess I gotta die.
01:05:19
Speaker
ah Before the issue closes, we get one panel of a crashed plane with somebody screaming that Colonel Mickey Rossi was dead in the wreckage.
01:05:34
Speaker
This is our first full Claremont issue. No Len Wein. yo full whiplash on this right yeah uh count nefarious unleashes an army of frogmen in the len ween issue and then we get chris claremont full creative control and we go into ancient demons emerging from the woods and uh eating souls
01:06:08
Speaker
And this is what's so fucking cool, Matt, is they start hinting at Lang and the return of the Sentinels.
01:06:20
Speaker
That doesn't come up next issue. This is the first seed that we're seeing planted here, as well as the stuff like Storm's trauma. I think there's another good moment here that kind of refers to clearly story that they want to tell at some point in the future.
01:06:35
Speaker
Well, Moira McTaggart. Yeah, Moira McGaggart, we don't learn anything about her. Like, they're not closing any loops here, but they are they're not leaving loose ends. Like, the writing here leaves you confident that, oh, this is a thread that needs to be unraveled at some point.
01:06:53
Speaker
Also, why is Professor X going away? That's another thread. Yeah, where the fuck is he going? if um this is a This is a good Wolverine issue.
01:07:06
Speaker
He kills... He does what he does. He plays. He plays tic-tac-toe with himself ah ah on a on a table that he's scratching in with his own claws.
01:07:20
Speaker
Pretty easy to win that way. He yeah ah he says your favorite catchphrase. Oh, i I'm so disappointed. Why don't say don't say it.
01:07:31
Speaker
i He says holy Hannah. i um And this is also a great Cyclops. show Here's the thing. Cyclops already, right, were two issue three issues in into Claremont, and he already has way more characterization than he's had the entirety Claremont.
01:07:50
Speaker
the previous what, uh, 12 years, see some issues. I think this entire issue is this sort of metaphor, right?
01:08:01
Speaker
of Scott Summers. He unleashes a demon that almost destroys the team. By losing his temper completely. This entire time. It's been this stupid dumb shit.
01:08:13
Speaker
Like okay yeah Cyclops has these. Destructive powers. And he thinks he's going to kill his girlfriend. By accident. yeah Like ah he's always so tortured. Because he could destroy everything.
01:08:24
Speaker
And then and Chris Claremont. Has him actually like comes up with a way. That it makes sense for Cyclops. To actually do it. So we learn. That this whole buttoned up.
01:08:37
Speaker
emotionless cyclops thing is because he has to right as yeah as a leader if he doesn't keep his emotions in check people will get killed like like what he's upset about at the beginning of the issue like what happened to thunderbird and as a mutant if he doesn't keep control of his emotions he can wreak havoc on the world Yeah, I mean, on a more surface level, he's got to fight his demons on this issue.
01:09:07
Speaker
That's true. Also, literal belief in demons that we saw hidden that we saw like 10 years ago. Yeah. Is validated here. Yeah.
01:09:23
Speaker
ah Yeah, that's true. One last comment on me. one last comment about me. One last comment from me on this one. ah We haven't talked about Dave Cockrum's art very much. It's very good, but he's also doing some Don Martin level onomatopoeia here.
01:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. i Unbelievable. If you have the issue open, Matt, can you read a few fun Oh my god. Okay, so when ah when Moira fires the ah machine gun, it goes BRRRRP.
01:09:59
Speaker
um When Nightcrawler hits Kirok, it goes BRAP! KRUMPH! Yes, that's the that's the good stuff. That's what I'm talking about. When ah ah Colossus hits him, it goes, Katakoum!
01:10:16
Speaker
Katakoum! yeah Zrakow! Is when Cyclops bursts into the room. What if I... yeah Cut that up so that you're just saying the sound of things. capel Pat, neither of us should ever cut up each other's voices to take our words out of context.
01:10:37
Speaker
our But. oh What? But. Stop. Take that off the soundboard. Pat, why don't you tell me about ah the next issue?
01:10:49
Speaker
Uh... okay
01:10:55
Speaker
I'm very excited to X-Men number 97, My Brother, My Enemy. Chris Claremont, writer, Dave Cockrum, artist, Sam Granger, inker, Annette Kay, letterer, Don Warfield, colorist, Marv Wolfman, editor. i Release date, November 25th, 1975. Cover date, February 1976. 1976? That's right, Matt.
01:11:17
Speaker
Welcome to Bicentennial. We're in the future. like that's right matt welcome to the bicentennial we're in the future We open on Professor X having a weird nightmare and freaking out about it.
01:11:29
Speaker
He's apparently been seeing some space battle in his dreams for months and waking up in a cold sweat. He makes his way downstairs and confides in Moira that he thinks he's going mad.
01:11:40
Speaker
More fucking Claremont. The Bard of Avon said to sleep, perchance to dream. Just say sleeping. It's fine. Meanwhile, Alex and Lorna are back in their little house in New Mexico where they've apparently been just kissing and studying for their doctorates for six months for them.
01:12:02
Speaker
when i like When Alex leaves, some shadowy figure knocks at the door and then shoots Lorna with a blast. What the when Alex runs back, he finds her holding a brand new costume and calling herself Polaris before blasting him.
01:12:15
Speaker
Polaris? I know. She's Polaris now. i didn't, I never clocked before that Polaris was like her villain name and she just keeps it.
01:12:26
Speaker
Yeah, but it's a sick name. It really, uh... It fits. Yeah, I'm glad Roy Thomas didn't come because he would have called her like. Meg, he would have called her me Yeah, I was going to say he would have called her Magnesia.
01:12:40
Speaker
Three days later, Jean Grey and some of the X-Men are seeing Professor ah ah Professor X off at the airport into a StarCore airplane. Wait, where have where have we heard that name before? Yes, StarCore.
01:12:54
Speaker
Anyway. Kurt, by the way, is using an image inducer from Tony Stark that makes him look like Errol Flynn, which the professor criticizes him for. Yeah, yeah. Stop doing that. It's very cute. Well, he tells he tells Gene to tell him this. He's like, can you tell Kurt to stop doing that?
01:13:12
Speaker
We didn't get this to look like movie stars. Just look like a normal man. Anyway, suddenly Havoc and Polaris show up and start blasting Gene and saying they're after Professor X. The StarCore airplane takes off as the X-Men change into costume and attack their former friends.
01:13:33
Speaker
Havoc is about to shoot the plane out of the sky when Nightcrawler tackles him and makes him blow up an empty 747, which seems to snap him out of whatever hypnosis he's been in. As Cyclops grabs his brother and starts screaming at him, Eric the fucking Red- What?
01:13:49
Speaker
Steps out and attacks them. Boy, that is- Cyclops, I thought. That's what Cyclops says. That's Cyclops' is sexy outfit. Where did whoever this is get Cyclops' sexy boy outfit? It seems like Eric the Red put on pants this time.
01:14:06
Speaker
But other than that, yeah, this is sexy Cyclops. I hate Eric the Red. He is my least favorite X-Men villain, whether he's... No matter who he is, because he's so many different people in so many different times, and I always hate him.
01:14:19
Speaker
How the fuck is this happening? What... Okay. Storm tries to fly the unconscious Jean to safety, but Polaris flies after her using the same gravity canceling shtick as she did to Kokoa.
01:14:33
Speaker
Yeah. After almost dropping Jean, she Storm puts her on. Remember, sorry. Remember last episode when I said wait, so then it also doesn't make sense to me why she can fly.
01:14:46
Speaker
i wasn't just like, so apparently I wasn't just making that up in my memory. They do use the exact same logic. Yeah, yeah. So that must be the logic as to why Bang Nito can fly? Or no, he can fly because he has metal in his clothes, right?
01:15:02
Speaker
Yes, I think he controls... Maybe he has, like, little metal balls in his hand that he... And he's got really, really good forearm strength. Yeah, he's got two marbles and he's just... Hey, uh, wonder how he got... the whole time Wonder how he got that forearm strength, Pat. Yeah.
01:15:20
Speaker
After almost dropping Jean, Storm puts Jean down on a roof and then goes after Polaris, blasting her out of the fucking sky. Nightcrawler and Colossus, meanwhile, beat Eric the Red's whole ass, knocking him unconscious too.
01:15:36
Speaker
Nearby, Alex tells Cyclops he's under some kind of mind control, and while trying to fight it, he sees Lorna collapse, which breaks his focus. He blasts his brother point blank and runs to her.
01:15:48
Speaker
Eric, the red wakes up just in time to see Banshee and Wolverine show up in some dorky jet. Yeah. He grabs havoc and Polaris and flies away. I think it's the fantastic car that the X-Men have a little ripoff. They have. Yeah. I think it's that it looks like that. i Wolverine yells at Scott to blast him out of the sky calling him a coward when he can't shoot his own brother. so Cyclops backhands him.
01:16:16
Speaker
It's so good. Knocks him straight to the fucking ground. Yeah, yeah. That man knows how to deliver a backhand. Wolverine pops his claws out, but is cowed by Storm.
01:16:29
Speaker
Yeah, I think this is the beginning of sort of this Wolverine storm, like this respect that Wolverine has for Storm. Because she's just like, you are not going to do that or you have to answer to me.
01:16:40
Speaker
yeah And he just puts his claws away. He eats it. ya Yeah, yeah. Then we pull back to see this all being watched on a black and white TV screen Stephen fucking Lang. What?
01:16:52
Speaker
Who is himself being watched on a color TV screen by... who knows? Whoa. it's It's like a red hand with kind of like... it kind of looks looks like Spider Woman's costume, but on the forearm...
01:17:08
Speaker
lot of forearms. Oh, yeah. that's a That's an interesting way to describe it. I don't... I honestly don't... I honestly don't know who that I've read this and I don't know who that is. Like, i've read I've read all of these issues. I've read the entire Claremont run. I don't know who that is. We have to... So what we have to do, Pat, in the next several issues is keep a real close eye for that pattern. Because I don't think anybody ever really addresses it straight up.
01:17:39
Speaker
Interesting. What, for the the who that hand is? Yeah, who's watching Stephen Lang watching the X-Men? Okay. What did you think? This issue's pretty good. I don't know. i It's got the Professor X nightmares, which are kind of wild.
01:17:57
Speaker
ah don't like Eric the Red. Sure. um but it's got some cool characterization. It feels like a middle issue. It feels like it's it's it's it's going somewhere.
01:18:10
Speaker
Well, the thing that drives me crazy here, in I think in a good way, is we just opened up three more threads. You didn't close three of the threads from last issue that you left open, but you opened three more here with i with why is Eric the Red here and why is he Who the fuck is he? And who's he? Why is he after Charles x Xavier?
01:18:36
Speaker
Why is he mind controlling Havoc and Polaris? Who, by the way, second time Polaris gets mind controlled. Yes. Number one. Number two, everyone calls him Havoc with a C in this issue and it pisses me off.
01:18:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's stupid. I hate it. i We have the thread of Professor X's weird dream where an alien bug man is coming for him.
01:19:01
Speaker
And then we have some we have somebody watching Lang, the open thread from last issue. There's just another level of complexity to that.
01:19:15
Speaker
um And we don't know if any of those, like some of those might be tied together, but we don't know at that point. If you are reading this, it's like me playing blueprints. You're just writing down question after question after question.
01:19:27
Speaker
And you're like, i I hope I eventually can solve these. That would be terrifying though, right? To just keep having the same dream every single night where you're in some place you've never been.
01:19:38
Speaker
Matt. Yeah? What, Pat? You and I just talked about this. I have been dreaming of the same location over and over again. That is true. It is pretty crazy that, yeah, we were literally just talking about this.
01:19:55
Speaker
No, there's no bug alien men in my dreams usually, but. What makes you think it's a bug alien man? I like, that's just my word for humanoid shape, which is what I see it as. Stop looking at me like that. Uh,
01:20:17
Speaker
ah But yeah, i've i am i this is something I can't get over where a i have different dreams every night, but they're all taking place in the same strange area that I've never been to.
01:20:29
Speaker
If you know anything about this, if you've dreamed of this location, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Well, describe the location real a phenomenon. Uh, it's sort of like a, I'm staying at a hotel sometimes or no, it's not my house. It's distinctly not my house, but half of the hotel is also my office, uh, where I work, which I work remotely. I don't actually work at an office, but in my dreams, this is my office. And then down the street, there's a little like shopping center that has a coffee, a hip coffee spot.
01:20:59
Speaker
So if it's kind of a hilly area. It's kind of beachy maybe, or mountainy. So if any of you know of a hotel that's near beaches or mountains that has a hotel in it and a coffee shop or has an office in it and a coffee shop down the street, to email mutant men is pod at gmail.com.
01:21:16
Speaker
Please. If you've, if you've seen this location or if you've experienced this phenomenon where you're always dreaming in this specific place, please let me know. We'll connect.
01:21:27
Speaker
I've, did you, I've had that, but not with not somewhere that I haven't been. Did I pick up what? Did you pick up that i Banshee is spending time with Mrs. McTaggart?
01:21:43
Speaker
I know. i So you put this note in and I immediately went back to her introduction because i was like, does he say Mrs. McTaggart? And he does. He does. Professor Charles Xavier says Mrs. Moira McTaggart.
01:21:57
Speaker
And two panels later, Banshee refers to her as Mistress McTaggart. He's just, he's putting the question in there. It's the secret. If you, and if you meet a married woman that you wish was single, you just manifest, oh, she's not married and she'll stop being so.
01:22:21
Speaker
um I think there is an explanation for this eventually, but yeah. One more thing before we move on. Yeah, yeah. This is also the second time. So remember when Havoc sees Lorna get blasted and so beats like, so then just ah absolutely wrecks Scott immediately.
01:22:39
Speaker
This is the second time this has happened to Scott where one of his best friends has seen Lorna Dane get hurt. And then fought him immediately. like immediately was like, I have to fight Scott Summers about this. It's the same thing. Bobby Drake was the first, right? yeah Exactly. One of the... Havoc, Bobby, Drake, they don't like each other, but they're more similar than they know.
01:23:06
Speaker
It's gonna be a Pavlovian response where Cyclops sees Lorna Day and, like, get a get a splinter. And he, like, cowers. Don't beat my ass!
01:23:17
Speaker
Don't beat my ass! He sees her trip and he says, I'm not a baby. all right.
Holiday Chaos and Sentinel Battle
01:23:25
Speaker
X-Men number 98. Ooh. Merry Christmas, X-Men.
01:23:29
Speaker
The Sentinels have returned. ah No, not on Christmas. Chris Claremont, writer, Dave Cockrum, artist, Sam Granger, anchor, Joe Rosen, letterer, Janice Cohen, colorist, Marv Wolfman, editor, released January 20th, 1976.
01:23:45
Speaker
Christmas time is here. Oh, we get a beautiful opening splash page of the Rockefeller Plaza at Christmas. It is like the, uh,
01:23:58
Speaker
i the rendering of it is just really beautiful. It is yeah ah very scenic picture. Dave Cockrum took some time on this and clearly he used a photo reference. Um, and it's like working into the art. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:17
Speaker
And he also, uh, snuck Nick Fury into the bottom right corner of the page. And, uh, Dr. Doom, uh, is ice skating in the skate, ice skating rink. Ooh, good catch. The X-Men are out of costume.
01:24:31
Speaker
This the first time we see Wolverine with no costume on and his hair is shaped like his ears. like His mask. like That's why his mask is shaped like that.
01:24:42
Speaker
So it doesn't mess up his hair. I really, for years and years, did think that that's why Wolverine's mask was shaped like that, just to accommodate his funky haircut.
01:24:53
Speaker
I think I, when I was a kid, I thought it was that because he wears that mask all the time, it's like hat hair. Like his hair turned into that shape. Or he just gets his hair cut that way because it's easier.
01:25:10
Speaker
Patty does not look 19 here. I'll say that. That's true. So dropping the teenager stuff here. The X-Men are out a costume enjoying a snowy holiday in the in a big apple on Fifth Avenue ah I don't know why it says that. It says they're in a big apple. and they ah Clearly they're in New York City. It doesn't make any sense.
01:25:32
Speaker
Gene is just another one of those threads left open.
01:25:36
Speaker
Chris Claremont came up with this idea that all of existence is inside a big apple, I guess. I don't know. They're in New York. I know where New York is. Let's get past the second sentence of this recap.
01:25:49
Speaker
Gene is teasing Aurora and Scott for being too dour on Christmas. Kurt and Peter are catcalling two women One named Betsy and Pat. The other one is named Amanda.
01:26:01
Speaker
A strawberry blonde woman named Amanda?
01:26:04
Speaker
Pretty common in New York. we'll see We'll see if we ever see in ah of a strawberry blonde Amanda in this comic again. ah Sean and Moira are seeing the sights of New York.
01:26:15
Speaker
Wolverine goes off to s sulk alone and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby complain about Scott and Gene kissing. That actually happens in the panels of this comic. This has to be...
01:26:27
Speaker
Either Stanley or Jack Kirby saying something either privately or publicly about a kiss appearing in the comics, right? Oh, and they're making a gray area for the Comics Code Authority.
01:26:40
Speaker
And then they're making fun of them. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's got to be. All this is hastily interrupted when the Sentinels return. Gene and Scott having much stronger powers than the Sentinels are programmed for.
01:26:52
Speaker
Blast one's ass before another gasses Gene and flies off with her, leaving Scott hanging from a collapsing antenna Luke Skywalker style. They've got that same knockout gas.
01:27:06
Speaker
Yeah, they still knock out gas era. But other than that, they look super different. They don't have the numbers on their head. They're bigger and more imposing. They like this is just like this interesting thing where Claremont just keeps taking these old concepts and tweaking them to make them ah just just subtly tweing tweaking them in little ways, but making them a thousand times better.
01:27:27
Speaker
Like their ass is a little less defined. Yeah. It literally is. There is a scene with the sentinel ass and it kind of just looks like round. um Seeing the falling sentinel, Banshee, Wolverine and Storm leap into action.
01:27:43
Speaker
Storm zaps a man who calls her, quote, black chick with a lightning bolt as she flies off to save Cyclops and absolutely thrash the remaining sentinel's ass with a hurricane. and This is where Cyclops is like, he gives just this quiet.
01:28:01
Speaker
Oh my God. Yeah. Yeah. look is in Yeah. um Which is such a fucking good moment. um Cyclops tells her that off panel, a bunch more Sentinels took Banshee and Wolverine and immediately worries about Professor X. ah Daddy's boy much.
01:28:22
Speaker
um Meanwhile, Professor Charles x Xavier is off fishing and talking about his alien dreams with Dr. Peter Corbeau of StarCore. That's where. Yeah. Okay. You're in a StarCore boat.
01:28:38
Speaker
ah Oh, God, is Dr. Peter Corbeau the... Never mind, I'm not even going to say it. Corbeau is telling him that his dreams are just dreams when a sentinel bursts from the water.
01:28:49
Speaker
like Xavier repels him with a mind blast, but then is struck by another waking alien dream, leaving him unprepared for a second sentinel to smash through the boat. The sentinel kidnaps Xavier, leaving Peter Corbeau stranded in the ocean 200 miles from shore.
01:29:09
Speaker
Four days later. i love that he keeps doing this. Telling us how many days it's been. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, Stephen Lang visits the kidnapped mutants chained to slabs in a laboratory.
01:29:23
Speaker
The computers have been getting strange readings from Wolverine, who's by the way, shirtless and gloveless. I think this is intentional. and Show off his rock and bod.
01:29:34
Speaker
Maybe. But they're all pretty sure he's still a mutants. And besides, his chrome alloy bonds are unbreakable. Nothing to worry about. However, when Gene calls Lang a Nazi and a, quote, sad, pathetic, screwed up little man.
01:29:52
Speaker
Fuck. Yeah, Gene. Yeah, yeah. Lang slaps her. Which makes Wolverine pop his claws from his actual forearms. Not his gloves.
01:30:03
Speaker
His hands. His arms. Yeah, yeah. And starts carving through Fools trying to get to Lang. He takes out a whole sentinel by himself. And then frees Banshee and Jean. Banshee is shocked that Wolverine's claws are actually a part of his body and not his gloves. Yeah.
01:30:20
Speaker
So is Len Wein. Nice. The three of them, unable to free Xavier, carve their way through about half a dozen Sentinels and out through the wall of the lab. They're they're they're home free, Pat.
01:30:34
Speaker
But they made it. They broke out the lab. Yeah. But Banshee's scream cuts off suddenly for some reason. don't know. Back at home, Cyclops has been up searching for his missing teammates for four days with no sign of them anywhere on Earth.
Space Adventure
01:30:50
Speaker
Kurt tries to get him to take a break. Again, adorable Nightcrawler. well But they're interrupted by a man climbing over their garden wall. That man, it turns out, and we'll have to talk in depth about this, is peter Dr. Peter Corbeau. And as they warm his freezing body up, he tells them that it makes sense that Scott couldn't find the X-Men anywhere on Earth because...
01:31:13
Speaker
We cut to Wolverine, Jean, and Banshee floating in the void of space because they're not on Earth at all.
01:31:25
Speaker
All right. What a twist. corvos for yeah Before we touch on ah the Corbo stuff, which deserves its own in-depth analysis. It deserves own fucking podcast.
01:31:36
Speaker
What a twist. This really got me the cut to the final panel where yeah, Banshee Wolverine and Jean are just floating in space as,
01:31:47
Speaker
i the caption carries over Peter Corbeau's dialogue that they're not on earth at all. This was what, ah what a final panel twist. Yeah.
01:31:58
Speaker
Really, really, really good. This whole issue fucking whips ass, dude. ah Yeah. yeah Even though it's instead of just the Sentinels flying or whatever, they all have to tell us they're doing ultra linear leaps.
01:32:12
Speaker
<unk> Right. um Okay. Peter Corbeau. His boat gets smashed he left in the middle of the ocean, right? And he says, looks bad, chum, you're 200 miles from land, and if no one heard your mayday, it's going to be one long swim.
01:32:27
Speaker
When next we see him, he's climbing over the walls of the x Xavier Mansion. Nude and still wet.
01:32:35
Speaker
He's got a hat on and some, and he's he does have clothes on. But if you were just... If you had just driven here in a cab or something, number one. Okay. fucking all Fine. All right. If you had just driven here in a cab or something from your house, right?
01:32:51
Speaker
You would, no one would put you in a blanket and give you a cup of tea to warm up. Right. You just, right. Second of all, why wouldn't you just come to the front door? Why climb over the wall at all? Why is he climbing the fence? Why is he climbing the fence?
01:33:07
Speaker
So the fact that they're warming him up makes me think that he's wet under those clothes. so we might So my only assumption that I can make here is that Dr. Peter k Corbo swam 200 miles to shore and then walked all the way to New York stealing clothes and a hat on his way.
01:33:26
Speaker
And like, Westchester is pretty far inland. So he's still dripping wet somehow. Walking all the way to Westchester, New York in stolen clothes. Like, that's the only anyone he can call.
01:33:43
Speaker
Even then, why climb the fence?
01:33:51
Speaker
ah This guy's goofy. How do you get charge of Star Corps? It kills me that he's got a Star Force fishing boat, too. It's is the official fishing boat of this military operation.
01:34:04
Speaker
He founded it himself, I guess. yeah Good for him. All right. All right. Should we move on to X-Men number 99, Death Star Rising?
01:34:15
Speaker
Are they allowed to just... I said the same thing, but we're actually about a year from the release of Star Wars. No fucking way Chris Claremont, author, Dave Cockrum, artist, Frank Chiara, inker, Irving W, letterer. That's not a prank. That's a real person, Irving W. They must have for a long time been like, sorry, we can't hire anyone.
01:34:37
Speaker
And then Marv Wolfman was finally like, we have to end that because this is this is the 1970s. A lot of Irvings are applying. ah Michelle W. Colorist, Marv Wolfman editor.
01:34:52
Speaker
Release date March 16th, 1976. Cover June 1976. Banshee, Jean Grey, and Wolverine are quickly pulled from the vacuum of space back into Stephen Clang. Back into Stephen Clang. Stephen Clang.
01:35:07
Speaker
Back into Stephen Lang's space station by Sentinels using... Did you see what they call these little orbs they shoot around them that provide air to them?
01:35:18
Speaker
Atmospheres. God, this was Roy Thomas calling Chris Claremont every single night and saying, I've got one, I've got one, I've got one. And Chris is like, no, I'm not going to put atmospheres in my, fine, fine, if you'll stop calling me.
01:35:35
Speaker
Fine. I'll call them atmospheres. I'm not doing any of this other shit. i No robo boots. and No propellotons. I already did ultralinear leap for you.
01:35:50
Speaker
Cyclops and Dr. Peter Corbeau are doing some research, discovering that the Sentinels have taken their friends to S.H.I.E.L.D.' 's orbital platform. Weird. Meanwhile, the news informs us of anti-mutant riots, unusual solar activity, the firebombing of the home of Judge Chalmers. Jesus Christ.
01:36:10
Speaker
And a sudden StarCore space launch. It's so much. Well, first of all. Pat Geraldo Rivera is here. He is. He's reporting that that's problematic.
01:36:21
Speaker
Geraldo Rivera's in this one. um as a He was a prominent journalist at the time. it wasn't until later that he went on to be incredibly racist.
01:36:33
Speaker
And Chris Claremont loves to put actual journalists in his books, mostly NPR people. But yeah, I was going to say, I'll bet we'll find some more canceled journalists.
01:36:48
Speaker
I, yeah, it is wild how on this one page they set up so, so much just from one news report. Aboard this space shuttle with Dr. Corbeau, Cyclops, Storm, and Colossus battle their own anxieties, while Nightcrawler is just goddamn thrilled to be there.
01:37:07
Speaker
ah cyclops is afraid of losing gene storm is having some sort of mysterious anxiety and colossus is panicking thinking of his brother mikhail who died during a failed shuttle launch years ago i missed that too in my first reading of this and uh that is very interesting colossus has a brother named mikhail mikhail Presumably Rasputin.
01:37:29
Speaker
Does that... ah well I guess we'll see if that comes back up. We'll see. As the X-Men blast into space, we cut to a small village in Ireland where a man mails awful letter to Sean Cassidy only to be shot dead by a blast from a shillelagh four panels later by someone claiming to be Banshee's cousin.
01:37:49
Speaker
um man. i believe he names himself here, right? ah He does. he he Oh, it's Black Tom. He calls himself Black Tom. Do we also get a name? Oh, yeah. The the the other, the guy, who the solicitor Flaherty.
01:38:06
Speaker
Yes. Solicitor Flaherty. Yeah. Two panel, twoma two panel lifespan. In space, the X-Men approach Lang's base and are immediately attacked by Sentinels, causing Storm to get sucked out into space through a hole in the hull.
01:38:22
Speaker
Wait, Pat, yeah, that's all true. I'm not arguing with any of that, but... Thank you. Dude, that's another thread that's getting added. Absolutely. Who the fuck is Black Tom?
01:38:33
Speaker
Yeah. Back in space, the X-Men approach Lang's base and are immediately attacked by Sentinels, causing Storm to get sucked out into space through a hole in the hull. Colossus, who earlier ripped his spacesuit to shreds, is apparently suffocating, so they ram into the base and leap out,
01:38:50
Speaker
fucking up like five sentinels real quick. Yeah. We learned that these sentinels aren't shit compared to the old ones. Yeah. Outside, Storm learned she can control solar winds.
01:39:03
Speaker
Well, which, yeah, Pat, as we all know, are streams of charged particles emitting from the sun, not currents of air, meaning she now, I guess, can direct solar energy? Right.
01:39:15
Speaker
What? I guess. um Just because it's called wind? Yeah. It's a type of weather, Matt. It's space weather. She can control space weather as well as she can control Earth weather.
01:39:27
Speaker
If her weather powers have nothing to do with the atmosphere, then what the fuck? Okay. She's very powerful. This actually feeds into a theory I have, which is that mutants, ah their power is... Because so much... So many mutant powers make so little sense, right?
01:39:46
Speaker
Yeah. um Scientifically. so they It must be a psychological thing, right? Like a mutant power must be this ability to control all energy and matter, right?
01:39:59
Speaker
That just, if you're a mutant, you can do anything. But you have a psychological block that forms early on that determines for you what the limits of your power are.
01:40:10
Speaker
And that's why you do things like, oh, it's called wind. I can guess I can control that too. No, you couldn't.
New Characters and Powers
01:40:17
Speaker
If your power was to control weather. But if your power is to do anything, but you think your power is to control weather and you think of this as weather, you can.
01:40:26
Speaker
That's so interesting, Matt. I just, i mean that sincerely. I hope that didn't sound sarcastic. That is a, that is a very good theory. Uh, we're getting really far down. We're just off the path here, but, uh,
01:40:42
Speaker
Mark Waid, his ah series Irredeemable, which is essentially Superman Goes Evil, right explores this concept of Superman's not actually super strong. He's not actually super fast.
01:40:59
Speaker
With all the things he can do, his power is actually just to manipulate matter in any way that he wants to the extent that like, he can even manipulate space and time.
01:41:10
Speaker
And he just hasn't realized that that is ultimately his power. All he sees it as is punching real hard and flying. I've never read Irredeemable, but that's the only possible way to make sense of most superpowers, I find. Yeah, yeah. As if the only thing limiting you is your own psychology, and you actually have, like, a god-like power.
01:41:32
Speaker
So, with this power, Storm is able to blast a Sentinel off into space before rejoining the X-Men in the space station. Colossus...
01:41:43
Speaker
loses his shit with joy and almost hugs her to death. So good. Right? Like another thing, this, this friendship between Colossus and storm already forming um,
01:41:55
Speaker
um friendship between Nightcrawler and everybody already forming, the respect that Wolverine has for Storm already forming. This is so good! I'm gonna cry!
01:42:06
Speaker
There's also, not a spat, but a disagreement here between Colossus and the rest of the team about, like, Storm's out in space, we might still have a chance to save her ah while the rest of the team is saying, hey, we're here on a mission. we have It's very Colossus to yeah i to think about it in such a personal way.
01:42:26
Speaker
It is not Colossus, though, to say ah you act even as if you do not even care. Will Colossus care? It's very unlike Colossus to refer to himself in the third person. Yeah, let I hope that goes away soon.
01:42:41
Speaker
Gene sends Cyclops directions telepathically and he orders everyone else to go save Banshee and Wolverine and while he and Dr. Korgbo go save Gene and Professor X.
01:42:53
Speaker
Scott finds them and nearly beats Stephen Lang to death before he's shot in the back by a familiar Zack. Moments later, the new X-Men come face to face with the five original X-Men.
01:43:07
Speaker
What? To be continued. Wow. And here's the thing about that, Pat. That's a cool ending. And you can only do that once.
01:43:22
Speaker
What do you mean Oh, ah you know, so pitting the new team against the old team like this. You can only do that once. Yeah, yeah. You can't go back to that well. No, you can't.
01:43:33
Speaker
You can't. It would be absolutely absurd for them to do it a second time ever. Right? Like this. Yeah, yeah. So I don't know why I'm even talking about this, but you can only do that once. And that's just what I think is interesting. I was just thinking about that.
01:43:46
Speaker
Yeah. Well, if this is the one time they do it. This is... They nailed it. Yeah. Another fucking sick just splash page. Again, we haven't spent too much time talking about Dave Cockrum, but he is he So character-wise, he's putting more detail and emotion into their faces than we've ever seen. He's also depicting most of them as, like, a little dark and brooding all the time.
01:44:09
Speaker
ah But he I think... A friend of the podcast, Alex Goldman, mentioned it last episode. His backgrounds, especially in space, are very Jack Kirby.
01:44:21
Speaker
um Just very colorful, very complex, a lot of sharp angles in sort of a psychedelic format. it's really yeah It's really something to behold.
01:44:33
Speaker
You know, I think Dave Cockrum is this perfect bridge between ah the old way of drawing comics and the... ah And then, like, the Silver Age way of drawing comics and the Bronze Age way of drawing comics, right? Like, he is equal parts Jack Kirby and John Byrne. he's got He takes clearly a lot of inspiration from Neil Adams.
01:44:55
Speaker
And... You know, in some ways, he's kind of like ah the ah missing link between like Sal Buscema and John Buscema or like. OK, yeah, yeah. Or like um Joe Kubert and the Kubert kids, right? Like he's almost like he's stuck in this middle generation is. From the Atari game?
01:45:17
Speaker
The Kubert kids? Yeah, that was my favorite. ah That's my favorite ah cartoon show growing up. Yeah, I think it's interesting because he does these full figures the way that and and these sort of like poses the way that Silver Age comics do. But he does these cinematic shots the way that Bronze Age comics will. Yeah, yeah.
01:45:37
Speaker
He also loves breasts. Hey, ah me and you, same team. One thing i meant to mention this actually last issue, and it's very pertinent in this issue too. Jean is really getting some characterization here. She yeah standing up. She tells Wolverine to like get his shit together. She's essentially leading this little group, is separated group of X-Men.
01:46:04
Speaker
She's the senior member here. Yeah, she is. And she's not even on the team right now, but she's the one that's that's commanding Wolverine, who listens up and respects her and and Banshee, who is smart enough not to argue.
01:46:18
Speaker
But they give her some real independence here. they' She's she just takes. over leadership unfortunately they make her do it in a miniskirt which wolverine rips wolverine just yeah slices her dress off at the he doesn't even slice it he doesn't use his claws he grabs it with his hands and rips it but he's an animal he's just yeah he's no different than spider-man at this point though that's fair people just their shit around jean gray i guess
01:46:53
Speaker
When Storm wrecks that Sentinel, they say that the Sentinel screams like a man. What's going on there? I don't fucking know, man.
01:47:05
Speaker
All right. X-Men number 100. What the fuck? Pat, we've done a hundred issues of X-Men. No, we have not. This is a fraud.
01:47:16
Speaker
There are 28 numbered issues here that are just reprints. Yeah. Greater love hath no X-Man. Chris Claremont, author, Dave Cockrum, artist, Annette Kay, letterer, Bonnie W., colorist, Marv Wolfman, editor.
01:47:32
Speaker
Release date May 18th, 1976. The issue opens with the five original X-Men in their pre-Dark Era costumes.
01:47:44
Speaker
and Professor X, squaring off against the new recruits Wolverine, Nightcrawler, Storm, Colossus, and Banshee, with Stephen Lang, head of Project Armageddon, watching on a screen and laughing maniacally.
01:47:56
Speaker
the In a two page splash page, the fight is joined by Havoc and Lorna as Xavier calls for blood and Storm and Nightcrawler discuss trying to reason with the aggressive ex-dorks.
01:48:10
Speaker
The two teams seem to be in extremely even match for each other. Pat, do you want to discuss some of these, like, fight highlights? Because I was just going to skip over this whole fight scene because it's just a fight, but, like, there's some cool shit.
01:48:24
Speaker
I mean, number one, we get the introduction of just an iconic move. Yes. Right? This is the very first Fastball Special, Pat!
01:48:38
Speaker
And they've already named it that. It is perfect. They use it on Angel. if you i I would say the first sign that something is off about these original X-Men is that Angel wins a fight.
01:48:55
Speaker
Actually, he... ah yeah he beats a banshee like that's the first thing he does uh and then he threw yeah then he throws wolverine into colossus colossus takes a full-on blast from havoc holy shit dude he's he survives well he said well he says like this is this hurts holy like he's like i couldn't do that again i'm sure he says holy hannah somewhere but he says oh stop come on ah I think it's Nightcrawler versus Beast is a really cool matchup.
01:49:29
Speaker
Oh, yeah. And Nightcrawler's got a pretty solid internal monologue through it. Yeah. Yeah. Like he's like, oh, my God, it's it's his speed, his agility. It's unlike anything I've ever seen.
01:49:42
Speaker
This is Skin Beast, too. Not Fur Beast. Yeah, you're right. Skin Beast. Yeah. Which is what I call my... ah Xavier, at some point, stands up and punches Wolverine to the ground. Right.
01:49:58
Speaker
And he's wearing a really wide tie. Xavier, come on. It's the 70s. Yeah, you're right. The other thing is Storm is the first one to recognize Jean as an imposter.
01:50:11
Speaker
Right. She is like... This is not my dear friend that I've known for my whole life. Which is interesting because then she immediately gets knocked out. So she doesn't really have a chance to tell anybody that she discovered this.
01:50:26
Speaker
When the fight comes to an abrupt end as Wolverine plunges two claws into the chest of Jean Grey. Everyone's shocked. Yeah. and they're pits Like Banshee is fucking pissed.
01:50:40
Speaker
Only to be revealed that. in the next two-page spread, that these original X-Men were robots. now What? Lang howls in fury that his new super X-Sentinels were supposed to be unbeatable and tells his origin story, which is boring. He's basically a government guy appointed to appropriated funds to secretly use Trask's research with the intent to kill, not control, all mutants.
01:51:06
Speaker
As he rants, Scott bursts free from his holding tank and frees the rest as the new X-Men tear these X-Sentinels to bits on the monitor behind him. ah Lang gets in a dorky Dr. Robotnik gun craft, but Gene makes it fly into the screen and explode.
01:51:24
Speaker
Now, we're going to have a really important thing to talk about at the end of this issue. So now's the time I want to talk about um Lang's ex-Sentinels. First of all, he had to program a lot of dialogue into those motherfucking things.
01:51:37
Speaker
they talk just like the original X-Men. Right? How did he sit there? And he was like, oh, oh, I remember them saying this once. yeah they They like to call each other wise guy. i remember that.
01:51:51
Speaker
ah that this Honestly, bouncy one talks a lot. the To Claremont's credit, though, he really... ah Nails it. He nails it. For all the Shakespearean poetry that he writes, he's able to just be like...
01:52:08
Speaker
cool down dork here tin head catch is what angel says when he throws yeah um but also if steven lang can replicate the X-Men's powers perfectly.
01:52:23
Speaker
He can come up with Havoc level, Havoc power level blasts that can make ah Colossus feel pain, right? He can create telepathy that penetrates Wolverine's brain.
01:52:37
Speaker
What's the point of the fucking X-Men? What's special about them? He can make a robot as fast and agile and strong as Beast. i was So it is explained by the new X-Men that know the original X-Men that they're not quite as strong. They're a little weaker.
01:52:55
Speaker
Well, they're little. And the X-Men do make short work of them when they're ah when they're a full team. Well, I want to say the genes telekinesis is a little little weaker and Scott's beams are a little weaker.
01:53:08
Speaker
But that's true anyway. Claremont has made it very clear that both Cyclops and Gene have leveled up their powers. And that's remember, like, that's why the Sentinels couldn't handle them because they were just a little stronger than they expected.
01:53:23
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway, all right. That's all I want to say about that. Just then. ah So just as Gene kills Stephen Lang, the new X-Men rush into the room and warn everyone the space station is about to explode.
Jean Grey's Sacrifice and Conclusion
01:53:38
Speaker
They run back. Here we go again.
01:53:42
Speaker
They run back to Peter Corbo's space shuttle, but he warns them three things. One. The flight control computer is damaged, so the craft must be piloted manually. Two, there's a hole in the hull and no pressure suits.
01:53:54
Speaker
Three, there's a massive solar flare that will kill anyone who tries to pilot them back to Earth, even if the hull is repaired. So the X-Men are duped, like they're dead.
01:54:06
Speaker
There's no way home. Until Gene steps up. She takes the knowledge of piloting a space shuttle from Corbo's brain and declares that with her telekinesis, she's the only one who will be able to pilot the shuttle to safety before, as she says, like inevitably dying. The solar flare will kill her, but she's the only one who can make it far enough by protecting herself with telekinesis and by sealing the hull.
01:54:37
Speaker
Cyclops tries to stop her, but she knocks him unconscious. Yes, she does. I don't want to ruin the drama of the moment, but Cyclops grabs her by both shoulders and says, but how will you survive the solar flare, you little?
01:54:54
Speaker
And then gets cut off. What was he going to call
01:55:00
Speaker
i You little m-minx. You little m-minx. You little minx. Love her? Of mine. But you'll die, you little minx. But you'll die, you little my girlfriend.
01:55:15
Speaker
i I'm so glad. Like, he's probably going to call her a racial slur like he did to those people in the desert. Anyway, back to the drama of the moment. Yeah, yeah. This is serious. She knocks Cyclops unconscious. conscious Wolverine then tries to stop her, but she yells at him so bad that he quietly sits down.
01:55:33
Speaker
yeah She is in charge. Only Storm seems to accept Jean's decision. Jean seals herself in the cockpit, seals the hull with her telekinesis, and begins piloting the shuttle back into Earth's atmosphere.
01:55:50
Speaker
Cyclops struggles frantically against the grip of Nightcrawler who cries as he attempts to console his friend. As the solar flare begins to break through and Jean Grey begins to die, the issue ends.
01:56:07
Speaker
And like legitimately, we we close the issue knowing Jean is not coming out of this one alive. To be continued.
01:56:19
Speaker
This is crazy. The last thing she shouts is Scott's name. No.
01:56:26
Speaker
It's crazy. the It is such an emotional, what is it, two, three pages of her number one, deciding that she's going to do it. Number two, explaining it to everyone and getting them to accept it. And then number three, actually ah piloting the ship and and yeah keeping everyone safe.
01:56:46
Speaker
The dialogue does it the art does it the faces on these people the the emotion on their faces it's ah it is like heart wrenching like you know it's coming you know it's gonna happen right like yeah yeah there's no there's no getting out of this and yeah this will have consequences that exist till today yeah this is ah for all intents and purposes this is gene's death
01:57:17
Speaker
It's a very big moment in ah in Marvel history, right? Yeah, absolutely. Not just X-Men history. Absolutely. I do want to say, so this these last this last page, as she's facing the solar flare, like she goes into Technicolor, and like instead of black, you know in what would normally be inked black, it's like bright orange, and there's all sorts of colorful swirls around the...
01:57:43
Speaker
around her and around the spaceship. And then she's engulfed in what looks like apps just fire. Like her body is being burned. And that's literally what's happening.
01:57:54
Speaker
Her body, the the radiation is frying it. Dave Cockrum adds a little Easter egg here. I don't know if you noticed it. As it's happening, a sound effect happens. And it's taca-taca-taca-taca-taca.
01:58:08
Speaker
That is the exact same sound effect that happens when the fantastic four are bombarded by cosmic rays.
01:58:18
Speaker
Oh, that is so interesting, Matt. Finally, you said something. No, that's wild. I did not realize that.
01:58:29
Speaker
I didn't either until I read an interview with him. um So like, We've been with Jean Grey for this whole podcast so far. And she she had just so she had so little characterization.
01:58:44
Speaker
And now... She's doing these last fucking five issues. Yeah. And then... She dies. Yeah. And I mean, it's like she just started started kissing Cyclops and saying, I love you.
01:58:58
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Like their relationship just came to fruition. That tearful goodbye. And then she just came right back like what?
01:59:07
Speaker
And ah this moment of heroism that these moments of taking charge. Yeah. She's mastered her powers. In so few issues, her end Storm have become super close friends, I guess off panel because they talk about it.
01:59:24
Speaker
Sure. She has gained Wolverine's just utter respect. It's fucked up. It's like a really sad moment. Yeah, yeah. they really They do her justice. They give her a really good send-off here, but eesh.
01:59:40
Speaker
Yeah. Anyway. Well, I don't even know how else to eulogize Jean Grey. Like that's it's it's it it's a little like it's like losing a friend that you didn't get close enough to.
01:59:53
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. Yeah. right. Well, anyway, so that's how it ends. So we'll see what happens next issue. Yeah. Do the rest of the X-Men survive? Who knows? ah have Goofy. Make a joke, Pat.
02:00:10
Speaker
How about Pat steals and deal? Bring things back up, folks. We do have an exciting one this week.
02:00:21
Speaker
It starts off. I'll read it this way. Free book. Yes, I'm in. Got it. Steal in a deal. It's free. Yeah. Doesn't matter what it is. 2100 unique ways to make money.
02:00:34
Speaker
Okay. All right. i It's pull all right. This is the world's most unique money making book. There's plenty of money making books out there, Matt, but this one is unique.
02:00:45
Speaker
And it's free. Okay. Is it unique because it tells you all the different ways you can pay them money? You can start at home. Be your own boss. All right. It's a pyramid scheme.
02:00:55
Speaker
Yeah.
02:00:57
Speaker
ah Please send 25 cents for postage and handling. State your age. State what? State your age. State your age! I think you're probably very right that this is a pyramid scheme and there are certain ages that they don't want to get or get involved. Or like if you're 10, it's like, oh, sell candy bars for us.
02:01:19
Speaker
And if you're 20, it's like, sell Avon for us. And if, well, 20, it's like, sell... Tupperware, I don't know, Tupperware. And then if you're 50, it's like Selayvon for us.
02:01:32
Speaker
It is. i These comic books are chock full of pyramid schemes for young people. So I'm not surprised. I wouldn't be surprised if they're just trying to grab as many people as they can and then segment it by age.
02:01:47
Speaker
Pat, I want you to tell me, you don't have to tell me the actual address, but like, what is, what, who, who is this address to? i success department. but I'm sorry.
02:02:01
Speaker
Yeah. And they are located on eight mile road in Detroit, Michigan. Tell me, tell but send 25 cents and your age to the success department.
02:02:14
Speaker
And we'll tell you how to make money. Incredible stuff. Wow. Free book. Free book. All right.
02:02:26
Speaker
What are your final thoughts about this whole thing? I know we usually, sometimes we usually do that before Pat's deals and deals. Maybe I don't remember. I don't remember. I'm so fucking thrown off by Jean Grey dying.
02:02:37
Speaker
What? holy shit and and we covered what seven issues here so the first year of claremont yeah we did a good bit of reading but if i was a hungry x-men fan over the last five years yeah at this point i am full yeah wait pat you fucking were you were that a hungry x-men fan yeah i'm always a hungry x-men fan
02:03:04
Speaker
It's going to wallah after this. There are so many threads being opened in a way, like I said, that makes it clear they'll be followed up on. And I'm sure there's going to be some that go by the wayside, but like they are setting up for more than a year's worth of stories that are all interconnected. It's very clear.
02:03:23
Speaker
ah The absurdities of the old X-Men age are actually addressed here. There's i a moment where Scott just like flips out on the X-Men. Peter Corbeau, turns to him and is like dude you're kind of out of line here you're really flipping out whereas in the past it would have just been like oh that's scott uptight so uptight slim yeah there is the moment where their escape pod pops out of the jet uh when count nefaria blows it up and there's it's ah very funny two panels where scott is like
02:03:56
Speaker
it's our last chance. I hope he didn't see our escape pod pop out here or else he'll kill us. And then it cuts immediately to Nefaria going, ah there you have an escape pod.
02:04:08
Speaker
In the past, that escape pod would have ah made it under the radar and maybe just blown up through some weird force of nature to have them falling to the ground. This is all just so well thought out.
02:04:20
Speaker
How pissed do you think Roy Thomas was reading this? Like a guy who's actually smart, a guy who actually ah is ah has like a lot of literary references that work, even if they're dumb.
02:04:35
Speaker
like they still They work, unlike Roy Thomas, who is like, what if what if Frankenstein was ah with a robot had lasers? yeah and Chris Claremont said, the Bard of Avon said to sleep, perchance to dream.
02:04:53
Speaker
It's off to such a fucking kick-ass start, dude. It's so... What is so refreshing about this is just the actual... Like, obviously, it's still comics, so it's still absurd. There's all sorts of absurd shit happening. But the actual characterization happening happening here is fucking...
02:05:10
Speaker
fantastic really brilliant we've got nightcrawler who is immediately making friends immediately being compassionate with everybody he sees and immediately just full of this love of adventure like so much about nightcrawler it's just there he is coolest character in comics he he gets a swashbuckling moment that we kind of skipped over where scott is even like dude you gotta stop showboating but It's so cool. He's just so fucking cool.
02:05:39
Speaker
He's cool. ah Then you got Wolverine, who's we we don't see much Wolverine yet, but he's got this attitude. He's a killer. He's like, um we don't see his noble side yet, but we do see him cowing to some of the stronger women. Yeah.
02:05:54
Speaker
which is interesting. I think we're going to see more from Wolverine. Like, I don't think these are Wolverine's strongest issues yeah yet, but again, Cyclops, finally a character, right? Banshee, just this happy go lucky womanizing dude who can fucking, when the chips are down, he can really mix it up.
02:06:15
Speaker
He can keep himself together and really cause some chaos, like cause some damage. Right. um When they were like up on that space station, yeah Yeah, Oh, Wolverine even then shows himself at that point like, I am fine when he was beating up on me.
02:06:30
Speaker
But the moment he touched Jean Grey, he fucking crossed a line. There's a real Wolverine moment. Yeah, yeah. You got Storm, again, already commanding the respect of several people on the team. Colossus, who is growing this instant affection for the people around him. and um Not in communicating it the way Nightcrawler is, because he doesn't have that level of social skills, but communicating it through his actions and his heroism.
02:06:58
Speaker
Like, oh, I'll protect these people. well wol While Nightcrawler's more like, I'm going to take care of these people. Fucking... God damn, it's good, dude.
02:07:10
Speaker
Man, Nightcrawler also probably has the most beautiful voice right and we mentioned alan coming doing it in x2 and i think he does it very well the german accent ah speaking english i think is very beautiful i think what a lot of people ah assume is the german is german accent is actually an austrian accent because they're used to hearing ah arnold schwarzenegger and hitler but ah The actual like German accent speaking English is beautiful and melodic. And i just picture Kurt being so damn cool.
02:07:49
Speaker
I love this guy. He's so cool. I mean, there's a lot to be said about like he is he is already the emotional core of this team. And he's been in the fucking comic for six issues.
02:08:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. We talked a couple episodes back about action figures, I think on the bonus episode. Nightcrawler is actually the first X-Men action figure that I bought. I remember my mom taking me to the toy store.
02:08:13
Speaker
I remember buying it just because he was a cool looking dude and the X-Men was a show that had just started on television. And then I remember learning that he can teleport up to a mile and asking my mom what a mile was and learning what a mile was.
02:08:27
Speaker
Was it the Nightcrawler action figure where you could put the Excalibur in his hands and it would complete a circuit and Excalibur would light up? No.
02:08:37
Speaker
i have yeah have I still have that one up there. He had little pirate swords. Okay, yeah. I had the Excalibur Nightcrawler. I still have it upstairs and it rolls. Nightcrawler is so cool.
02:08:49
Speaker
Yeah. If there's anything you're coming away with at the end of this episode, it should be Nightcrawler is so I don't know. I like my thing about Colossus versus Nightcrawler's character. It's fine. Whatever. No, it's not. And the death of Jean Grey, too.
02:09:06
Speaker
Oh, boy. Well, everyone, thank you so much for listening. This has been ah the first year of the clare Chris Claremont run. and um I'm really, really excited to keep getting in deeper and deeper into this.
02:09:18
Speaker
We're finally reading good comic books. What a relief. All right, everybody, if you want to reach out to us, you can email Pat's email corner at mutantmenacepod at gmail.com.
02:09:31
Speaker
Please, please send us an email. We love you guys. We love ah Weapon Jason and email Michael. but and every And all our listeners that wrote in.
02:09:43
Speaker
But it would be cool to hear from some new folks, too. Not instead, but in addition. ah You can follow us on Instagram at mutantmenicepod.
02:09:54
Speaker
Big thanks to Krils Wilson for the opening theme. Big thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby. And Matt. Yeah. As we say at the end of every episode. Sure. Please use Atmosphere to provide mutants with a temporary environment.
02:10:12
Speaker
And remember, okay, freaks, the party's over.