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55 - Kitty Pryde & Wolverine #1-6
98 Plays5 days ago
There comes a time in every little girl's life where she must shed the follies of youth and grow into a super-cool secret ninja assassin mutant with her big hairy friend Wolverine. And this, for Kitty Pryde, is that time.
Matt and Pat dig into the 6-issue miniseries KITTY PRYDE AND WOLVERINE from 1984 and are pretty damn stoked about it.
Topics Discussed:
Family-owned banks. A sumo wrestler in a fine Italian suit. The dumbest we've ever seen Kitty Pryde. Two bank break-ins. SHE REEKS. Wolverine's sweater crop-top. "Yes. We shall do crimes together." Ninja baby. Best Kitty costume yet! ITBTIAWIDBWIDBIVN. Boning on the rooftops. STINK BOMB! Logan covers himself in trash. Does Yukio care about dying? "STOP HANGING OUT WITH YUKIO!" How do you stab Wolverine in the heart? Whiny Carmen Pryde. THE RETURN OF THE UPDRAFT. Logun. Share the bridges! Rocky IV. Thor Winter! "Agghhh! Ghost!" Wild genes. SHADOWCAT!!! Mariko's Mariko wig. "SURPRISE SUCKER!" "screwed her on the roof."
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 - Intro
6:35 - Pat's Email Corner
24:45 - X-Men Related Things
28:55 - Background
31:50 - Issue #1 "Lies"
45:45 - Issue #2 "Terror"
53:48 - Issue #3 "Death"
1:03:30 - Issue #4 "Rebirth"
1:19:20 - Issue #5 "Courage"
1:31:22 - Issue #6 "Honor
1:49:38 - [REDACTED]'s Steals and Deals
1:54:05 - Goodbyes!
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Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Mutant Menace Podcast
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.
00:00:38
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Aucamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Daniel. welcome welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:50
Speaker
Patrick, how the bastard are you tonight? um' yeah I'm doing alright, Matt. I'm a little tired. I just took the longest nap in the world. out Patrick, this comic book ruled.
00:01:05
Speaker
Yo, absolutely. I'm so excited about what we are getting into today. Do you want to tell them the name, Matt, in case they ignored the title on
Discussion on 'Kitty Pryde and Wolverine' Comic Series
00:01:14
Speaker
the episode? Yeah, we read episode the 1984 six-issue limited series Kitty Pryde and Wolverine. It is about a ah little girl named Kitty Pryde her big, tough, hairy friend, Wolverine.
00:01:29
Speaker
Yeah. yeah i There's a few other characters in here as well that I'm i'm really excited to get to. I love... Carmen Pride. Carmen Pride. Kitty Pride's father. He's kind the biggest wiener we've seen in X-Men comics thus far.
00:01:47
Speaker
He is. And they they that's intentional. They want him to look like a wiener. he is He's got a heavily receding hairline. He's got... ah like the most ridiculous clothes like just he's made to look like a middle-aged out-of-date man he's you know he's ah he's a he's the definition of a dip nords i think yes yeah i think that is the perfect word for it now and real dip norts and he and he acts like a dip norts the whole pretty much the whole time he he's doing a lot of yelling but there's because that's all he can do with the situation and drinking i guess he does a lot of drinking so you do you love this as much as i did
00:02:35
Speaker
I did.
Art Style Critique: Al Milgram's Work
00:02:36
Speaker
i had such a good time. i didn't remember loving this as much when I first read it. I know. When you described it to me before we read it, you were like, yeah it's...
00:02:47
Speaker
Fine. You know, it's a kind of weird little self-contained story. It'll be easy to to read through and reading through it. i I was prepared to fight you over that. I think it's Al Milgram's art that holds me back. I think the art is oh pretty not just like I think it's bad.
00:03:08
Speaker
I think it's actively bad. Al Milgram does a thing. We've talked about this before. He does not with Al Milgram specifically, I don't think. But he does a thing that we both don't like with faces where like all the features are always too big and they shift around a little bit. And also the faces are inconsistent from panel to panel, right? he He draws ugly people, but not in a way that's like...
00:03:35
Speaker
Seems like it's trying to mock them or be like a It doesn't seem like an artistic choice as much as yeah this is just... He draws faces ugly. i But the action in this, I think, is brilliant. The way that the...
00:03:50
Speaker
the fight scenes all play out and even the like, there's some sneaking around scenes in here as well. ah I think that tells its own story. And i my but felt it came alive on the page for me.
00:04:05
Speaker
I think he is a good inker. i think he is a, you know, passable bronze age writer.
00:04:18
Speaker
Right? Like, when Al Milgram writes a thing, you're just going to get, like, a Bronze Age-ass Bronze Age story, right? Yeah. you It doesn't go super deep. ah But, yeah, as a penciler, not ah not a fan. I know he will he will be the artist on Secret Wars 2. Okay.
00:04:39
Speaker
ah And... Yeah. ah Yeah. Not, not a big, not a big Al Milgram guy. I disagree with you, Matt. And I got to say, as you read through the recaps here, you may end up complimenting him more than you mean to.
00:04:54
Speaker
Hmm.
Listener Emails and Comic Art Styles
00:04:56
Speaker
So anyway, this is the miniseries where this is sort of a follow, one of the many follow-ups to the Wolverine miniseries. um Claremont will spend, you know, 10 years writing various follow ups to the Wolverine miniseries in various in various ways. And this is one of them. it is also sort of the Kitty Pride grows up. And i I will want to talk about this. I have no idea what the fuck possessed Chris Claremont to do. it Like, clearly he had a very strong intent.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Much like his intent to turn Ileana Rasputin into magic. He was attempting to turn Kitty Pryde into Shadowcat.
00:05:37
Speaker
And I don't fucking know why. And I don't know if it's a good thing or not. I know. It's like it. It's like it struck him one night where he's just like he shot up in bed and said, i need to make Kitty Pryde an adult now.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yes. Enough. yeah And I need to change her from a relatable audience surrogate to like an otherworldly assassin character.
00:06:09
Speaker
Sort of. Yeah, we's we'll get into it. But i I I like the character that comes out the other side, like the ah the ultimate result that is Kitty Pryde at the end of this or Shadowcat at the end of this spoiler for the end.
00:06:28
Speaker
All right. Well, before we start talking about this damn comic. Yeah. What should we do before that?
00:06:46
Speaker
Matt, I know exactly what we should do now. I was just about to answer. Get into Pat's email corner. We got a yeah ah slim inbox today. Let's talk about it.
00:07:00
Speaker
Talk about the slim inbox. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll talk about the first email in this i guess box from weapon. Jason. Oh, weapon. Jason. He's responding to episode 53 demon bear saga. He says this was a fun podcast and I appreciated you exposing yet another person to a weird, excellent slice
Punk Culture Influence on Comics and Society
00:07:20
Speaker
of the X-Men universe. They likely would never have sought out and read on their own.
00:07:24
Speaker
And this is a particularly weird slice. Yeah. The art kicks ass, but I'll be honest that when that first issue landed in my collector box, a wild concept that Island Fantasy, the local comic shop, had, I was initially not impressed. wow Everything looks scratchy and wrong and weird and felt hard to follow since it wasn't using the expected language of comics.
00:07:46
Speaker
Panels don't seem to flow and are uneven and things feel incomplete. And then I hit that page with the giant bear towering over Danny with those claws and it clicked.
00:07:57
Speaker
I think this is probably the thing that happens to people at a lot of different eras of comic books. Comic books start to develop, yeah, a language.
00:08:09
Speaker
And you, as the reader, start to um intellectualize the small distinctions between how different people speak that language. And so when somebody comes in speaking a completely new language...
00:08:26
Speaker
you kind of think they just don't know how to do it right. You're like, okay, maybe some of this looks cool, but where's the big heroic pose? If I don't see the heroic pose, how do I know that it's the hero, right? Or whatever. Yeah, yeah.
00:08:39
Speaker
Your mind just kind of immediately rubber bands back to what it understands, right? And it it happens with so many of these sort of like smaller, maybe niche characters comic runs that people consider that comics people consider foundational where like you recommend something to someone that's a famous arc because it changed the art of comic books forever. That person has to start by looking at something that is trying to change the art of comics forever. Like it's not immediately appealing, but if you, if this, if the story of it clicks or the, I don't know. I i keep wanting to call it the game, but that's an improv term. If the the idea clicks for you, then that's when it becomes a a piece of art. And so that is cool, it's especially that ah that one demon bear towering over danny frame that it it had that impact.
00:09:47
Speaker
The more I think about it, the more I think Sienkiewicz's art is what's going to inspire all the crazy dark art of the nineteen eighty s that you see in like Doom Patrol and Shade the Changing Man and like the Vertigo series, right? Like Sandman and Swamp Thing, right? Like clearly that was all inspired by older comics too. That was all inspired by like horror comics and Bernie Wrightson stuff. But yeah.
00:10:14
Speaker
ah I don't know that they would have had the... the chutzpah. Yeah.
X-Men Team Dynamics and Historical Comparisons
00:10:23
Speaker
To get so dark and so ink heavy and so um conceptual had Sienkiewicz not done this in a mainstream book.
00:10:33
Speaker
Yeah. Because it's yeah cause it's within what? Like three, four years? that That dark vertigo, like DC vertigo art style starts... becoming well super popular.
00:10:47
Speaker
So weapon Jason actually compares it to citizen Kane in the sense that like coming out. Yeah, it was revolutionary, but looking back at it, you might, you know,
00:11:00
Speaker
you might say like, what is the big deal? It's just, uh, some kind of funny drawings, not understanding. Like this is, this is comic books. Now this is just what I understand is comic books. Sometimes people do experimental art.
00:11:14
Speaker
i think he says it much more concisely and I was trying to paraphrase. I think we're going to have to reckon with that again when we hit the nineties and like the Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane. Yeah, sure.
00:11:28
Speaker
um That whole era happens because it's going to suck, right? We are going to... Because that was an experiment that failed, right? Like, that was an experiment that made ugly comics for, like, four years. And...
00:11:43
Speaker
and Led to a different style of ugly, right? Like as when people started growing out of it, they started growing into the like Joe Madureira, Chris Boccolo thing, which Joe Madureira and Chris Boccolo were good. But every comic was trying to mimic that overly, that nearly cartoony, over-exaggerated style. And the like, these that came along with the new coloring technology too, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:09
Speaker
Which everyone hated at the time. I remember that. I remember i remember in the mid-90s, everybody complaining about, oh, everything's colored with computers now. It's like, but kind of kind of always was. Kind of always was. still kind of hate it, though. um But that spun out of the Rob Liefeld kind of thing.
00:12:31
Speaker
And... It was a failure and we're going to look at it and we're going to see it as the failure failure that it was. And we're going like, look, this art is so ugly, but we will have to try and think of it as like, this is somebody who is doing something new.
00:12:45
Speaker
yeah Yeah. If we can find appreciation in it. I might just be a hater about it, but yeah we'll see when we get there. He wraps up here. Weapon Jason says, lastly, in my memory, the punk aesthetic in the 80s was 100% coded as violent, anarchist, dangerous, and criminal. I know we've been i know we've been joking about Kenny's reaction to Storm's haircut. But getting a Mohawk in the 80s or wearing spikes in leather was not just a fashion choice. It was signaling rebellion and rejection of societal rules in a way that was aggressive and scary. Yeah, if you're fucking square.
00:13:23
Speaker
yes I'm sorry, weapon chase, but as somebody who grew up among, it' and granted in the 90s, not in the 80s, but grew up among Mohawked folk. i It's not, it takes 10 seconds to learn that somebody with a Mohawk is almost, I would say 75% the time,
00:13:52
Speaker
is a pretty nice person. i think we, yeah, I think, um,
00:14:00
Speaker
I don't entirely blame Weapon Jason for this because it was part of the thing to... Like, part of the punk thing was challenging this being like... Like, intentionally coming off that way to like, just kind of shake people out of what where their comfort zones were.
00:14:18
Speaker
yeah. yeah An old-fashioned freakout, the hippies would call it. But, like, punk stuff was... Yeah, I don't know. It it was so harmless, like not harmless in there are plenty of harmful punks. And there are i was so and Granted, we grew up in the Hot Topic era, so my I very vividly recall my stepdad telling me a story of having to go into Hot Topic to buy me a birthday present or Christmas present or something, getting visibly uncomfortable by the clerk, and then being shocked by how kind he was. but
00:15:04
Speaker
And then from then on would like start conversations with people with bright purple hair and then brag to me about it. Are you talking about me Are you talking about me? Your dad used to talk to me.
00:15:15
Speaker
It very well could have been you at one point, ah but at the same time, because he acknowledges a lot of this is probably media depictions in the time. You have to remember that this is also, this is the year Terminator kind came out where. Yeah. Yeah.
00:15:30
Speaker
yeah plays a blue spiky haired punk that tries to kill the Terminator just for being a naked guy. You know, and again, just to speak in weapon Jason's defense a little bit, that's how punks wanted to come across, right? Like...
00:15:52
Speaker
That was part of the thing. We're supposed to look dangerous and scary, but they weren't really. And that's, I think, the thing we're reacting to about Kitty Pryde and ah Storm. Like, she knows Storm.
00:16:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. This isn't a new person. This isn't suddenly a criminal. And Chris Claremont chose to write Storm dressing this way. And Chris Claremont is like, and it makes her a violent, mean guy now.
00:16:22
Speaker
In truth, punks are just nerds. Punks are just nerds that found a different outlet to... And I mean this is as a high compliment, but found a different outlet for their nerdery.
00:16:35
Speaker
The movie SLC Punk, I think, is a good distillation of that. like It might not be the best distillation of what um it it was like to hang out in punk circles, but...
00:16:47
Speaker
ah It is a good distillation of ah this is just another kind of nerd nerd.
Professor X and Historical Mentors
00:16:52
Speaker
It's the same idea of social rejection and coping with that while being. Particularly smart in very specific areas. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:17:04
Speaker
To to to so to speak like a Internet guy. ah Tell us you haven't been to a punk show without telling us you haven't been to a punk show. I hated that, Matt. I'm on weapon chasing side now.
00:17:19
Speaker
ah Up next and last today, Matt, I told you it's a slim inbox. Daniel. Listener Daniel, we got to get this guy a nickname.
00:17:32
Speaker
Look, we're going to think really hard about it. We're going to get this guy a nickname. Yeah, we'll read through. Let's remember at the end of the email this time that we still owe him a nickname. Nickname Daniel? daniel um No name Daniel. No nickname Daniel? No, that's not good.
00:17:47
Speaker
He sends us a lot of thoughts as he continues to catch up through episodes. He's arriving days of future past just now. Danny ketchup. Danny ketchup. No, not good. Danny ketchup is not quite there, but we're in the right vein. We're getting close. Okay. We'll keep turning it over.
00:18:08
Speaker
Those comments about past issues are just for us. He does have a few comments about the 20 minutes that he listens to of each episode to hear our intros and Patsy milk order. Sweet Douglas, he might be reaching out to you somehow to talk about the similar places you're on in your X-Men and Mutant Menace journey. he says, after listening to the beginning bit on Jim Shooter in your Secret Wars episode, I now understand why you make so many snarky comments in your past episodes.
Listener Feedback: Jim Shooter and X-Men Team-ups
00:18:43
Speaker
ah But yeah, I'm not sure who that is. He's... he's never heard of the guy yeah yeah you asked what team up pairings would absolutely suck for the x-men and i have to say the thunderbolts i think he's absolutely right here that like the early eras of the thunderbolts and the x-men teaming up would be a disaster yeah yeah that'd be bad would they would just they're two teams that it's not hard to get under the skin of and that aren't restrained from reacting to that.
00:19:20
Speaker
Yeah. And teams full of like what might be loose cannons if they weren't in their proper context. Yeah. So just having a bunch of people yell at each other and start fights with each other and not do like that would, yeah, that would be well. So there's the,
00:19:34
Speaker
I mean, there's the Dark Reign era that kind of explores this a little bit, but in very specific way. All right. Yeah. All right. That's true. We'll talk about that in seven years. Yeah, yeah. i You made a comment about the X-Men playing D&D, and I have to agree that characters like Kitty, Pride, and Beast would totally be into it. But there's actually a small artist that does a small artist. uh there's actually i got a picture for you but there's actually a small artist that does comedy comic strips of the x-men playing dnd and i feel like you guys would love it i don't know the artist and i'm too lazy to look it up now so feel free to find it in the wild if somebody finds it fucking tell us i don't know how to look that up what about not helpful daniel
00:20:24
Speaker
ah that's That's pretty close. That's good. Let's keep thinking in that. Still out there, but yeah. yeah ah Finally, Professor X not living up to people's idealizations of how he acts as a mentor figure and revolutionary idol kind of lines up with how real revolutionary idols have behaved in history, such as the infidelity rumors with Martin Luther King and sexual assault accusations with Cesar Chavez.
00:20:48
Speaker
I will say... Infidelity rumors with Martin Luther King, any rumors with Martin Luther King, I chalk chalk up to being a an FBI fabrication.
00:21:00
Speaker
Well, i also, and i'm I'm not going to sit here and say I know Martin Luther King was a fully stand-up guy in all aspects of his life. I
Portrayal of Punk Culture in Comics
00:21:12
Speaker
don't know. Fucking, I never, he he was long dead before i was alive, but I don't fucking care about infidelity rumors. Not Yeah. ever in any context i don't know shit about people's marriages and like i know there's a gen z kind of thing about like equating cheating
00:21:32
Speaker
to like ah i like high treason ah to like a cancelable offense and that's just the biggest bullshit that i've ever fucking heard like you don't know what's going on in people's relationships Yeah, it doesn't, in that isn't, that doesn't invalidate the work that anybody's doing.
00:21:52
Speaker
No, and it doesn't even necessarily say something. It doesn't necessarily say something bad about a person's character because you don't know. you don't know what their marriage was like.
00:22:03
Speaker
And nobody should. And you don't like it's so easy for somebody to go say online and say my boyfriend cheated on me or my girlfriend cheated on me. And everybody's going to turn on that person. What a what a fucking piece of shit. Right.
00:22:16
Speaker
You don't know how badly. they might have been treating their partner and their partner might not have known how to break up with them. Right? Like it might, there's a million things that could have happened that are more complicated than you realize. And I fucking hate, sorry, this is this is a rant that I go on sometimes. yeah yeah I really hate the, I really hate the ah demonization of infidelity as a, as like a cultural virtue. I think it is a personal thing that can be horrible.
00:22:48
Speaker
and But it's none of your business. It's none of your fucking business, right? Like, if, yeah, if if my best friend's partner cheated on them, I'd be really mad at that partner, right? Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
But that's just amongst our friends and our
Comic Store Experiences and Listener Interaction
00:23:02
Speaker
business. And part of my brain would also hold space for, yeah maybe but who knows? Maybe my friend didn't sleep with them in five years, right? Like, and maybe there were other things going on in that relationship I didn't understand. it Like, I don't know, whatever.
00:23:19
Speaker
And again, i'm not I'm not saying he was infallible, but most of the negative things you hear about Martin Luther King were made up by the FBI. Same with like this shit you hear. Same with when you hear shit about ah Malcolm X or Fred Hampton or any of the yeah black revolutionaries of the 60s and 70s.
00:23:39
Speaker
Cesar Chavez stuff sucks. That sucks. That's horrible. That's real. that's ah That's pretty awful. Yeah, but i I will never defend anything like that. Okay, he bids us farewell, but he does mention that he stopped in Phoenix, Arizona and wants to shout out Dreadnought Comics and Samurai Comics. He shows off some of their collections. Seems like you're somebody that likes ah original printings of issues and signatures on those original printings. They have a wealth of them. He's got some really cool. Oh, yeah. Real cool pictures. Yeah, yeah. So thank you, Daniel. Thank you, Daniel.
00:24:14
Speaker
And i don't know, did we think of a nickname for him or? Nope. Fuck.
00:24:27
Speaker
I had a thought about that too. And you'll have to remind me next episode because we can't talk about it. But yeah, yeah. That's the end of Pat's email corner. But I'm going to want to. Yeah. Remind me next episode and we'll get you that. We'll get you that nickname. Daniel.
00:24:39
Speaker
um Patrick. Yeah.
00:24:48
Speaker
That's how Wolverine answers the phone, by the way. Did you do anything X-Men related this week? Did I do anything X-Men related? In fact, as I did, Matt. Oh, okay. did matt oh oh okay i got, i I would call it maybe a long-awaited Christmas gift or an early birthday gift from ah the co-host of an X-Men podcast I listened to called Mutant Menace. That motherfucker, oh, okay.
00:25:15
Speaker
Matt Allcamp. If you had said Jay or Miles, I would flipped the fuck out. No, it was you, Matt. You.
00:25:24
Speaker
gave me a gift that you bought for me back in September based on Pat's Steals and Deals from episode 25. It is the banana, the Chiquita banana walkie-talkies.
00:25:37
Speaker
How we saved the universe with our banana talkies and got back to tell about it with our banana compasses. i couldn't. I didn't get you have a banana compass. I'm sorry. find the compass. But you did get me two walkie talkies with the belt clips. Each of them have the belt clips, which, if you remember, cost extra.
00:25:55
Speaker
i I extremely grateful, Matt. Thank you for these wonderful walkie talkies. Yeah, yeah, of course. They're huge. They are like three times the size of an actual bin. That's what we talked about in the episode is like, it's supposed to be like...
00:26:15
Speaker
Oh, I secretly, oh, you don't know I'm talking on my walkie-talkie. You just think I'm holding a banana. I'm just grabbing a snack. I'm just holding a giant banana. With an antenna sticking out of it. ah ah Did you try them yet? Do they work?
00:26:31
Speaker
No, I haven't. I have to pick up nine-volt batteries, but I will keep you posted. Do they still make those? I don't think so. yeah Those were a product of the 80s. I think they discontinued them. Went out with the 8-track.
00:26:44
Speaker
ah How about you, Matt? Have you done anything X-Men related this week?
Weekly X-Men Activities Recap
00:26:50
Speaker
I've been reading some X-Men. um You know, actually, I've been reading, ah um i mean, the Excalibur run, the Alan Davis Excalibur run, the one after Chris Claremont leaves in the early ninety s And...
00:27:04
Speaker
It's really good. It's so funny and it's so charming and it's so sweet. and ah And he introduces so many bad new characters in the midst of this really cool run.
00:27:16
Speaker
So there's like Kailun and Theron and Micromax. Hmm. But like, it's just it's just dumb, good fun. And it's it's it's almost like a sequel to his... ah So Alan Davis did Captain Britain with um Alan Moore around now, around where we are, I think.
00:27:39
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, yeah. And then when Alan Moore left... for a while alan davis wrote andrew captain oh okay and this almost feels like a sequel to his captain britain run okay so it's interesting it's just i don't know it's interesting alan davis following doing incredible art and then following as a writer when incredible writers leave the books he's on yeah
00:28:11
Speaker
Interesting pattern. He's the he's the Roy Thomas of his day But yeah, I actually I am completely unfamiliar with Excalibur. So I'm excited for us to get to that. Do you know did you know do you know of its existence? Do you know that there's a team called Excalibur?
00:28:29
Speaker
Yes. And my you understanding is they're like British X-Men. But that's like that is the extent of my understanding or misunderstanding of them.
00:28:40
Speaker
Then this will be interesting. It'll be interesting when we get there. And ah folks, something to look forward to. All right. Well, I see no reason why we should put this shit off any longer.
00:28:54
Speaker
What?
Kitty Pryde's Solo Adventure and Crime Syndicate
00:28:55
Speaker
What shit? I'd love if we could talk about Kitty Pryde and Wolverine, the miniseries from 1984. Oh, my God, Matt. Yes, this is exactly what I want to talk about, too. Do we should we catch up a little bit from ah I don't think there's much to catch up on. But yeah, go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Tell tell us what context you feel like people.
00:29:17
Speaker
need this miniseries yeah there's so over in the x-men i the last few issues since secret wars have mostly just been them catching up going on wacky little adventures they fought a dragon they fought uh yeah mostly like wrapping lean weird loose ends of secret wars Yeah, yeah.
00:29:39
Speaker
Notably, Kitty did not join them for Secret Wars. She was kicking it with the New Mutants at the time. Peter Colossus did. I think it's because ah Jump Shumpy does not like Kitty Pryde.
00:29:52
Speaker
yeah We're pretty sure, Yeah. yeah Peter, however, did Colossus went to Secret Wars, fell in love with a cat eyed woman, came back. She died, but he came back and broke up with Kitty.
00:30:04
Speaker
Kitty was devastated, h left the school, left the mansion, returned home. That's the last time we saw her. I think about halfway through our last X-Men episode, she she ran off crying.
00:30:21
Speaker
Yeah. Understandably so. It was a shitty breakup, ah which Wolverine and Nightcrawler taught Colossus a ah valuable lesson with Juggernaut's help. This. Yeah. So this kind of picks up where that leaves off. ah Kitty's like, I'm going back to see my parents. And that's that's where this that's where issue one starts. So this comic was released.
00:30:50
Speaker
Monthly from August 1984 to January 1985. Ooh. Covered November April was big year, April Matt. We are scratching up against my first rebirth.
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah, you're still dead at this point, but you are almost not dead anymore. That's right. Chris Claremont is the writer for the entire series. Al Milgram is the artist for the entire series. though It's lettered by Tom Morzikowski and Joe Rosen does issue three.
00:31:24
Speaker
Louise Jones and Ann Nocenti co-edit issue one, but then Ann Nocenti is the sole editor for the rest of the series. And then Chimp Suitor is the editor-in-chief. So, Pat, why don't you kick back...
00:31:37
Speaker
Put your feet up on the microphone. ah ah take Take your jacket off and let me read you all about Kitty Pryde and Wolverine number one Lies. Lies.
00:31:52
Speaker
Chicago, Illinois. Kitty Pryde wraps up an ice skating session at a local pond and reflects on her situation. She took a hiatus from x Xavier's school after Peter broke her heart and has been staying with her dad ever since. She decides she decides to visit him at the family-style bank he apparently owns to express her gratitude, knowing she should return to x Xavier sometime soon. This bank.
00:32:19
Speaker
A couple things, yeah. yeah Family banks just don't exist anymore. no yeah that is That is, I'm sure that back in the 80s they still were around.
00:32:30
Speaker
and But what a concept. That is, i think the thing here is like, she's talking about how, oh, this used to be a family bank, but now it's getting bought by corporate interests or whatever. And i mean like, yeah, yeah. This is the plot of every film in the 1940s is like a family bank, a family savings and loan, the Knickerbocker savings and loan ah is being taken over by corporate giants and they're kicking everyone in town out of the dang houses. Yeah, this, this is,
00:33:04
Speaker
In no other sense is this like, it's a wonderful life, but here's here's the one similarity. nor Nor is it like going my way. there's no There's not a nice priest and a mean priest.
00:33:17
Speaker
um well another Well, Wolverine is the nice priest and Ogun is mean priest. Depends on your definition of priest. i The other thing we don't really have anymore is ponds that people ice skate on. Like just...
00:33:33
Speaker
nice public maybe is where i guess on the east coast where we're coastal elites so maybe towards the midwest in the chicago area that's a little more common but i don't think that's something i've ever seen in my life do you think that's because um so many movies in the ninety s had a subplot where somebody was skating on a pond and fell through the ice and either died or almost died.
00:34:01
Speaker
i think that's a legit, maybe it's the legitimate danger of that happening is the reason it's done. Um, this bank, the bank's hours are 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah, she gets there. It's already closed. That's another ah bygone era, right? Banks are open, for people who have jobs have jobs yeah who can't just leave work to go to the bank ah so when she arrives there so as pat so as pat says it's close but it's no problem for kitty she just breaks in and wanders down to his office where he's clearly in a meeting she she just breaks into a bank
00:34:46
Speaker
phases through yeah yeah you can't do that you're not allowed to do that kitty pride the security guard even sees her and she's like hey and he's like what what are you doing here um she hears yelling in the sound of a slap from behind the door and demands to know what's going on she's greeted by an intimidatingly large bodyguard who is commanded to let her in. Her father, clearly sore from a slap across the face, introduces her to a collection of shady men that he explains are from the organization that recently purchased the bank.
00:35:23
Speaker
Among the names are Shumai, who is a large bodyguard, and Mr. Ogun from, quote, from the main office. Hmm. Shumai is ah a large balding man with a ponytail. Extremely large. a little but Now, we'll learn that he's an ex-sumo wrestler and that makes it all click. But when he's wearing like a fine Italian suit and ah you can't necessarily tell that he's Japanese from the art, he just looks like
00:35:55
Speaker
A big man with a tiny ponytail. He looks like like comic book guy from The Simpsons at first. Yeah. And I love this. I love Kitty being introduced to a bunch of gangsters and them being like, ah hey, boss, it's a little girl. Right.
00:36:09
Speaker
And none of them knowing that with us, we'll find out the exception of one of them. This is a fucking little girl who could kick the living shit out of all of you. Yeah, they all have this like sense of gangster superiority and they have no idea. Like they are looking at a girl who would end them.
00:36:33
Speaker
Anyway, her father's been asked to leave for Japan immediately by these men for urgent business.
Kitty's Transformation Under Ogun's Influence
00:36:39
Speaker
It's urgent business matter time. pat so gotta go he gives kitty some cat fare and asks her to just go back to xavier's ogun offers to have kitty come along but her father snaps clearly out of fear demanding she stay out of japan stay out of japan so of course she heads right for japan she takes a cab to the airport and phases on to japan air flight for tokyo this is a very pre-9-11 move
00:37:10
Speaker
um Once they're still in her ice skating outfit and with about $4 American in her pocket, she looks up the name of her dad's new boss, Shigematsu, and phases her way into his building.
00:37:25
Speaker
She finds herself about 25 stories up when the jet lag finally hits and she decides to take a nap in an empty office with a couch in it. When security finds her and shoots first, she leaps out the window. Ugh.
00:37:39
Speaker
and It's kind of wild. So as she's she arrives at this skyscraper, a storm starts and lightning starts shooting down from the sky. And she holding a pair of metal skates, holding a pair of metal skates, decides to start air walking.
00:37:57
Speaker
25 stories up in the air. She's making herself the highest point of anything around her in a thunderstorm. Yeah. Yeah. Very smart. Bad my move. This is the dumbest we've ever seen Kitty Pryde be, and it will be for the next...
00:38:12
Speaker
half an issue right sure yeah yeah um he's a series of bad bad panicked choices yes cold wet from the rain tired and a little lost kitty starts to panic security will be all over the property now looking for her she needs the heat to die down but has no place to stay no money and hasn't eaten since she left chicago reluctantly in a moment of desperation she phases her arm through an atm and pulls out a wad of cash yes kitty good job kitty Second, second time she breaks into a bank in this issue.
00:38:47
Speaker
ah Alarm sound. The police immediately shows up. She fucking kitty. She drops the cash. The only reason you're in this. at like just I know you can see it happening though, right? Like it's not.
00:39:01
Speaker
It's a bad choice that she makes, but you can see her just being like, yeah I didn't, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't. Yeah. Throwing the cash on the ground and running as fast as can. I didn't take any. I didn't take any. Look. She drops the cash. She runs. She phases through the ground below ah her to escape and lands in the sewer.
00:39:17
Speaker
o She rides the current to safety. It is. The current is rapid. This current of pee and poop that she's riding in. hear it. I was looking this up and apparently Tokyo does have a big underground combined sewer. But like that you see this in movies and media all the time. This like idea of like a sewer with walkways on either side and big arches above and like a stream of shit, piss and rainwater running down the middle. Yeah. Yeah. And criminals lurking around every corner. Those are kind of real.
00:39:53
Speaker
Yes. This they're rare. There's a big flooding problem in Japan. Right. So it makes sense that that that they have these big and sometimes rushing underground sewers. I don't.
00:40:05
Speaker
is it Is it true that it is a combination of rainwater and wastewater in certain parts of Japan? okay Yes. But most of the time, like in most cities that have these big underground sewers, it's They separate the rainwater from the sewage, especially in more modern cities, right? Like they have the wastewater all goes into a pipe and it's just rainwater that goes through these things. And more often they they look more like ah like in The Fugitive where they're just a big round pipe. Which
00:40:41
Speaker
usually small stream of water running through them exactly they they usually don't have these like big walkways and like like you could live down there um but some do like these aren't these aren't i i was all ready to take the the piss and shit out of this comic but no it's real we Either way, I would say for our purposes, for the rest of this comic, Kitty is covered in poop and pee.
00:41:10
Speaker
Yes. She stinks. I don't know when. Well, we do see her get a bath eventually, but it's not for like four issues. Not this issue.
00:41:21
Speaker
for the rest of this issue, everything she does, you just have to imagine she fucking reeks.
00:41:31
Speaker
Uh, after a night on the streets, Kitty is cold, regretful, and starting to get sick as the sun rises on Tokyo. She's finally desperate enough to call the X-Mansion for help, but when Wolverine answers, Wolverine answers in the weirdest outfit I've ever seen in my life. He's wearing blue jeans,
00:41:49
Speaker
And a like a crop top sweater vest. A sweater. Yeah. yeah Or a sweet sleeveless sweater that stops just below his nipples. Yes. It's clearly a sweater. It's sleeveless. It's a crop top.
00:42:04
Speaker
I don't know why you would do that to a sweater, but he's he's so cool. Yeah. um When he answers, she just hangs up. She's a criminal now. They'd be so ashamed if they knew. What's worse, the ATM she robbed at a security camera, and her face is on the frigging news.
00:42:25
Speaker
She knows she has to turn herself in. But has to explain to her father first. Once more, she phases into this Shigematsu's building and this time locates his office only to find her father agreeing to do crimes for him.
00:42:37
Speaker
A big crime boss. Oh, no Yes, Mr. Crime Boss, I will do crimes with you. Yes, agreed. We'll do crimes together. She screams in terror at the thought, alerting everyone to her presence to be continued. this said She goes, Dad!
00:42:57
Speaker
Like, how could you? He's like, yes, I will do some crimes. No! And that alerts everyone to her presence. Yeah. Yeah, again, the dumbest we've ever seen Kitty Pryde. Yeah, I feel so weird about this comic.
00:43:14
Speaker
She's, on one hand, the thing about Kitty Pryde was she was just a normal girl, like the audience surrogate being pulled into this crazy world of the X-Men. And we were supposed to kind of be like, like Kitty Pryde was our entryway into it. She was our way to say, oh, this is what it would be like if I were, yeah I'm a kid reading, if I were in the X-Men.
00:43:34
Speaker
But now suddenly her family is being brought to Japan to join an international crime syndicate. like So this is where I, for me, i can su suspend suspend my disbelief of like, okay, yes, he just happened to fall in with the Yakuza. That kind of that happens in this universe. Yeah.
00:44:00
Speaker
So that part I'm not so concerned about. And I think they at least do a good job of saying like, yeah, she's being stupid here because she's panicking.
00:44:11
Speaker
She like, it becomes a theme for the rest of the mini series where she has to calm herself down. She's doing the wrong things when she's panicking, but when can she can center herself is when she starts winning. And this is all impulse. It's all panic.
00:44:28
Speaker
Yeah. And so there, It's a thing that, yes, Chris Claremont is kind of doing that very well. he Like, he's he's keeping Kitty a child. And she would, right? Like, if she if her dad got sucked into this world he's not ready for, unbeknownst to him, his daughter is a little ready for it.
00:44:49
Speaker
Like, clearly not ready enough because yeah yeah she's being and insane. But, like, she's ready enough that she would follow him to Japan, right? And he has no idea. Like, my daughter's a superhero. Yeah.
00:45:01
Speaker
the The part that I struggle with here a little bit is her not calling the X-Men right away. i Her decision to be like, oh, this is personal. This is my... And granted, she hasn't been back in a little while. It's clearly been a few months since she left the mansion. But i I still feel like she would be like, hey, can somebody come help me beat up some Japanese crime lords? Well, and Pat, Storm has a mohawk now.
00:45:28
Speaker
She could call storm and Storm could be like, oh, I'll join them. I'll join the but crime guys. she' She could call, but what if Storm has a mohawk? No, they sorted all that out.
00:45:41
Speaker
They squashed that beef. Matt, why don't I please take us into the next issue of this miniseries, Kitty Pryde and Wolverine number two, Terror.
00:45:56
Speaker
Okay. Kitty Pryde's Yelp prompts the gangsters to open the door and all of them, especially her dad, are shocked to see her standing there. How fucking wild would it be? How fucking wild would it be? You go all the way. You're at the top of a skyscraper in Japan with these, like, businessmen who you've just met.
00:46:16
Speaker
And you open the door and your daughter is just there. Yeah. yeah Foreign
Ninja Battle: Kitty vs Wolverine
00:46:22
Speaker
country. Yeah. The boss, Mr. Shigematsu, commands his bodyguards to capture her, but she's an X-Man.
00:46:29
Speaker
She handily topples them all and runs out of the room. Instead of chasing her, Shigematsu has a short conversation with Ogun in which Ogun agrees to take care of the girl for the small price of her life.
00:46:43
Speaker
Shigematsu agrees, but Kitty's dad is like, what the fuck? And Ogun twists his arm and tells him to consider his daughter dead. She is now Ogun's forever, and there's nothing he can do.
00:46:56
Speaker
I forgot to mention when Kitty, just stepping back a second, when Kitty ah is fighting, this is a more Al Milgram, me not liking Al Milgram's art. When Kitty is fighting...
00:47:08
Speaker
all the the bad guys the way she knocks down shigematsu is she just like goes horizontal and poses and seems to horizontally fly sideways into his stomach with her like her butt hits him imagine drawing kitty pride jumping in the air yeah and then imagine a man drawing a man being knocked over and then turning the Kitty Pryde drawing sideways and putting it over top of the man falling over.
00:47:44
Speaker
I could see how it could work. i think I think this could happen. This is physically impossible. Kitty is rapidly phasing down through each floor of the building, regretting every single thing she's done for the past 24 hours.
00:47:58
Speaker
By the time she reaches the basement, she decided that she has to go to Mariko for help. However... At that moment, she's accosted by a man in a devil mask who breathes some gas into her face and she collapses.
00:48:11
Speaker
Oh, Now, this, Matt, is where I was like, oh, shit, Al Milgram rules. Okay. This rendering of, like, the Japanese demon mask that he's wearing in his ninja costume is so cool to me.
00:48:26
Speaker
The demon mask is cool. The demon mask is fucking rad. Yeah. ah Meanwhile, Logan arrives in Tokyo and after some hassle with a metal detector, sets off to find Kitty. Pre 9-11 world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very cute little interaction. Kitty wakes up, standing in a dark room, all alone and paralyzed.
00:48:50
Speaker
A light switches on and a sword slashes out from the darkness. Systematically, the sword cuts through her clothes and hair and pokes her throat, stopping her from talking. Eventually, she's reduced to feeling as if the killing blow will be a mercy, but it doesn't come.
00:49:07
Speaker
The man in the devil mask instead fills her vision. She feels herself regress in age, and that guy Ogun reveals himself. In a strange sequence, she grows from baby to toddler to to young woman alongside Ogun.
00:49:24
Speaker
who teaches her how to be a ninja and use ninja weapons and stuff. It's so weird. It's so weird. She's like a little baby in a diaper. yeah. Swinging a sword or whatever. And then all of a sudden, like, and then she just just like grows up.
00:49:38
Speaker
It's supposed to simulate the experience of a lifetime of this training, like starting from as a toddler, she was being trained as a ninja, but it's all happening in her head. It's the same way Ileana learned magic. Kitty is learning to be a ninja. It's just this is not in a magical realm where time has no meaning. This is this is all metaphorical.
00:50:00
Speaker
Exactly, yeah, yeah. Which is strange, which strange. It's not not something we've seen in the comics very often. It's like a a sequence physically in front of us that is fully metaphorical.
00:50:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. It's a good choice. It sounds like you're a fan of Al Milgram's choice here, Matt. I didn't say it was good. I think it's strange. I said it was strange. She finds her old thoughts fading away as she begins to think only in Japanese and living to improve her skills and impress her new master.
00:50:32
Speaker
The sequence ends when she puts the devil mask on herself.
00:50:38
Speaker
Best kitty costume yet. her in the The black robe and the devil mask. Fucking sick. Meanwhile, again, Shigematsu enters his Tokyo office to find that the lights don't work.
00:50:52
Speaker
His bodyguards spread out around a mysterious man sitting at the desk. The bodyguards attempt to take the man out, but he disappears. and two sets of claws reveal themselves in the dark of the room.
00:51:05
Speaker
Logan beats some bodyguards ass in record time and demands Shigematsu give him kitty pride or lose his damn life. This is so cool. Come on.
00:51:17
Speaker
He is sitting in Shigematsu's chair. The back of the chair is to if facing him and his bodyguards. He's lighting a cigarette with a match as they shoot at him.
00:51:30
Speaker
Right. And then they see the match falling with it. So, you know, I don't think here. OK, here's what I'll give you. I don't think Al Milgram is a bad storyteller. Right. um I think Al Milgram.
00:51:46
Speaker
does good layouts and direct the comic really well. ah It's just that his actual artwork, like the it's the his final product, his finishing is just really bad. Everything looks ugly and not ugly in a cool, interesting way. Ugly in ugly I'll give you that.
00:52:10
Speaker
um There's also just, to me, nothing cooler than when, A badass when you turn the lights on and a badass guy is there smoking, ready to kill you. In your in your chair with his back to you. And he turns yeah around and he's like, the call comes through to Ogun's remote compound. Just as Ogun is finishing up his conditioning of Kitty, a cadre of ninjas at his command attempt to kill her and find themselves quickly disarmed and knocked to the ground.
00:52:39
Speaker
As she's closing in to kill one of Ogun stops her, removing her devil mask. Removing her devil mask, she wants to know if she did her sensei proud. And he, calling her a daughter of the demon, says that she was better than he at her age.
00:52:55
Speaker
Ogun returns to the phone and asks Shigematsu to arrange a meeting with his old friend Wolverine for the next evening. Old friend? Right. He then issues Kitty a command.
00:53:06
Speaker
There's an enemy, gaijin, that must be dealt with. Kitty promises that man is as good as dead.
Action-Packed Sequences with Yukio and Wolverine
00:53:15
Speaker
To be continued.
00:53:20
Speaker
Sorry, i got scared. I got scared. i'm scared for Wolverine. This is, I'm hooked, dude. Right here is where I was like, oh, this rules. I cannot wait to open the next issue. Yeah, it's very good. It's very good. It's but way better than I remembered it being. I don't even know what to say. I think it's all here on the page, right? Like, yeah there's not even that much subtext to go into. It's just here. It's just right here.
00:53:47
Speaker
Let's keep rolling then. Kitty Pryde and Wolverine number three, death. Wolverine stands on a rooftop along this Tokyo skyline, blasting Sigs and monologuing about his relationship to the city. he drops ah He drops the classic, I'm the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn't very nice.
00:54:08
Speaker
Yeah. Or, as I like to refer to it,
00:54:20
Speaker
That's right, Matt. ITBTIAWIDBWIDBIVN. Otherwise known as ITBTIAWIDBIDBIVN. That's right. Everybody starts saying it. I'm the best there is at what I do.
00:54:37
Speaker
But what I do isn't very nice. A small feminine figure draped in shadow sneaks up behind him, hopping rooftop to rooftop with the speed and grace of a ninja. She attacks. Wolverine senses it coming and deflects her flying kick, but she turns around quickly and throws three familiar metal spines at him before tackling him and forcing a passionate kiss on him. Oh?
00:54:59
Speaker
It's Yukio! They bone on the rooftops. right there yeah it just says clearly do it's just like later and they're like they're smoking a cigarette and yeah cuddling they bone on the rooftops then they get down to but they they get down to business pat and they get down to business with eggs yeah like they get down to business both ways Logan explains why he's here and ah Yukio agrees to help find info on Shigematsu's dealings while Wolverine figures out how the heck he's going to find Kitty.
00:55:29
Speaker
He starts by contemplating in his favorite rock garden, but someone is waiting for him there. Before he can sense it, a stink bomb launches down on him from the roof. Oh no. He says, stink bomb.
00:55:41
Speaker
Stink bomb. Stink bomb.
00:55:47
Speaker
Get down! yeah Everybody, I'll handle this! I'll throw myself on top of it! The ammonia dulls his sense of smell. A volley of arrows follow, one striking him clean through the thigh. He deflects some shuriken flying towards him and hops off to find a place to recover.
00:56:06
Speaker
On nearby rooftop, Logan pulls the arrow out of his leg and waits for the healing factor to start doing its work. No time for that now, though, as a black-robed ninja in a red demon helmet emerges from the shadows and stabs him.
00:56:20
Speaker
He parries, pops his claws, and takes a killing stab at the ninja. but Did his claws just pass right through or no? He must have just missed, right? The surprise throws him off balance long enough for the ninja to kick him off the roof.
00:56:35
Speaker
he scrambles through alleys for a place to regroup when the ninja's poison dart starts to kick in from the stab earlier he can't fight it's brutal yeah he like you get the impression that wolverine is losing this fight yeah he can't fight he needs to go to ground until he can heal so he dips behind a dumpster and covers himself in trash so now for the rest of this issue wolverine stinks Yeah, and it's possible. We don't know if Kitty's ah showered.
00:57:07
Speaker
So a person who smells like piss and shit is fighting a person who smells like trash. Well, Kitty's changed her clothes at least. She's wearing the that's the ninja robe. She's just got piss and shit in her hair.
00:57:20
Speaker
Yeah. um Meanwhile, Yukio is deftly broken into Shigematsu's office. She discovers Kitty's father, Carmen, drunk and asleep. and then beats the ever-loving shit out of Shumai. That's the sumo guy from earlier.
00:57:36
Speaker
She tosses him out of a 60-story window, but takes mercy on him. After pumping him for information about Kitty, she pulls him back up. no At this moment, though, Carmen wakes up and demands to know what's going on, giving Shumai the chance to toss Yukio out the window.
00:57:52
Speaker
He throws Carmen out, too, just out of annoyance. Yeah.
00:57:57
Speaker
Also, it's kind of cool. Shumai already knows Yukio's name. Like, she's clearly such a well-known figure in this. She's got reputation. Yeah, yeah. Carmen screams, but Yukio's having a great time. She grabs his hand, grabs hold of a window cleaner's rig hanging from the side of the building, and swings them both back in through a window several floors below. She gives a similar, like...
00:58:19
Speaker
oh, savor this experience. You'll never have another thing like it. I love Yu-Gi-Oh so much. she So Wolverine tells her he's got to help Kitty Pryde because she got caught robbing a bank and she says, Bravo, there's hope for the child yet. i In this moment,
00:58:38
Speaker
Carmen is screaming because he's plummeting from a 60 story window. And she says, oh, hush, silly man. Savor the experience while it lasts. You'll probably never have another like it, which is absolutely true. If you know that you're not going to die, what a thrill that would be. Yeah, yeah.
00:58:57
Speaker
And then finally, they land a few floors below and she looks up at where Shumai would be and calls him a mountain of suet. Yeah. You know, good I think i think that there might be some... I might i' i i might disagree with what one of your um interpretations of what Yukio is saying a little bit. Because I don't think she's i don't think it's if you don't know if you know that you're not going to die. I think for Yukio it is if you are plummeting to your death, hey man, you only plummet to your death once.
00:59:32
Speaker
Like I think that is her sort of... attitude on it i just so i know that she like she doesn't necessarily care if she dies because she's having fun but at the same time at the point she's saying it she knows what her next step is to keep them from dying i agree that she knows they're not going to die here but i think the point she's making is like is the same that she's made to everybody that she's met right which is hey if we're about if we're about to die fucking enjoy it man you only you only again you only like plummet to your death you only get stabbed in the face like whatever it is she's facing you only do it once and and I think
01:00:15
Speaker
it It would be so fucking funny if Kitty's dad got a mohawk. Like when Kitty saw her dad next, he had a mohawk and he's wearing a leather jacket. It's just like a Storm. It's just everybody that Yukio spends time with starts to feel her influence.
01:00:35
Speaker
Stop! hanging out with yukio everybody i hate this lady please stop turning my friend and family into scary punks ah okay so across town we see the demon skull ninja identify wolverine's pile of trash and shove a sword through it now fuck ha he's dead but he's not there yeah surprise sucker he got better
01:01:06
Speaker
Does he? Hold on. His words. he Yeah, he says, surprise sucker, I got better. Surprise sucker, I got better. Surprise sucker, I got better. Now it's my turn. ah Logan watches and follows the ninja to a nearby train yard, and the two engage in a colorful, action-packed six pages of pursuit and combat. One problem, though, Wolverine's got a sense of smell back, and while he refuses to believe it,
01:01:30
Speaker
He knows who's behind the mask. When the ninja finally tires, he removes her mask and is forced to face the truth. This is Kitty.
01:01:42
Speaker
The momentary shock of this is all she needs as she plunges her sword straight through Wolverine's heart, just as Yukio and Carmen find them. To be continued. oh Wolverine's a question dead. Yeah. how How do you get a sword straight through Wolverine's heart?
01:02:02
Speaker
ah Very carefully. Now, I think you'd have to aim between you're maybe if her sword is like sideways so that it can fit between the slits of his ribs.
01:02:16
Speaker
Yeah, cause he couldn't go because you couldn't go through his breast bone. Right. It's covered in adamantium. You could slide through his ribs, but that you'd have to kind of go in through the side to do that.
01:02:29
Speaker
So you could go from below upward. But then it wouldn't be able to come through the back because it's still...
Kitty's Identity Crisis and Growth
01:02:36
Speaker
Well, you'd just avoid the spine. Yeah, but there's still like, you've got ribs in your back.
01:02:43
Speaker
What's, all right. This goes through his chest. Skeleton. Let's look at it. We can chalk it up to an artistic license, but. Yeah. Yeah. She didn't cut through adamantium there. It must. Yeah. It must slide through her back. What do we call those back ribs?
01:03:01
Speaker
Yeah. The back ribs must slide through her back. The baby back ra ribs. It's rough, man. ah okay.
01:03:12
Speaker
right, so remembering that Logan is covered in trash and stink bomb. He's got stink bomb on him, too.
01:03:24
Speaker
We can move on to Kitty Pryde and Wolverine number four, Rebirth. o Thank God. Oh, so I guess well number five is going to be Afterbirth, then?
01:03:37
Speaker
Ew. What? I'm just trying to say. now I don't want to read that one. All right. ah Yukio's red convertible spins around the sharp turns of a twisted mountainside through the heavy rain.
01:03:51
Speaker
According to Carmen Pride yelling from the back seat, they've been driving for hours with his daughter tied up in the passenger seat and a dying Logan next to him in the back. it's kind He's just complaining the whole time. He's whining at the top of his lungs. so Why is this man dying next to me? Why is my daughter tied up in the front seat? Where are we? You're driving too fast. We've been driving for so long. You're crazy. yeah it really is. It's really, yeah.
01:04:23
Speaker
So when Yu-Gi-Oh screeches to a halt and gets out to beat him up, Kitty giddy makes a run for it. But still groggy from the drugs that Yu-Gi-Oh poisoned her with back at the rail yards, she quickly gets knocked back out again.
01:04:38
Speaker
this fight This fight is interesting because it it it shows two fights happening at once. It's flashing back to after Kitty stabs Wolverine, Yukio attacks her and drugs her, right? um But also, in the present, Yukio is fighting this drugged Kitty on the mountainside. So each each panel is bouncing back and forth.
01:05:04
Speaker
But we got... It'd be like cross-cutting in a film. We got Chris Claremont fucking doing the updraft thing again. Yes. Jukio leaps off a cliff knowing that the updraft is going to push her back onto the cliff. And then she can kick Kitty in the back.
01:05:24
Speaker
Very good. Yeah. Creative use of the natural updraft.
01:05:32
Speaker
He loves these updrafts, man.
01:05:37
Speaker
Yu-Gi-Oh! is concerned that Ogun's ninja magic is going to prove too strong and that Kitty could be lost to them forever, but still takes the gang to the Ishida stronghold to recover.
01:05:48
Speaker
By the time we get there, Wolverine is up and about. Now, what's really interesting here is The first two issues are narrated by Kitty. It's a Kitty POV. It's the first time we get that, which I think is cool. ah Third issue is narrated by Wolverine. Fourth issue, also narrated by Wolverine. So they just don't narrate anything while he's unconscious. Yeah.
01:06:13
Speaker
There is just no narration here until he comes to. Yeah. And then it kicks in. Very cool touch. Yeah. Very cool. By the time Kitty wakes up, her regular personality has emerged once more.
01:06:26
Speaker
She's relieved to see Wolverine by her side until she remembers what she did to him under Ogun's influence. Oh, Oh, God. did ah Oh, no. Did I stab you in the heart? Damn it.
01:06:39
Speaker
She tells Logan about mo all that happened. I'm doing that to people. Such an idiot. Since she left Chicago. And Logan tells her about Ogun. Oh, Logan and Ogun. Now get Oh, yeah.
01:06:53
Speaker
Ogun used to be a sensei. And what's more, he may be an immortal Ronin as evidenced by an old story that goes like this. Okay. Matt, you want to take us through this fucking and awesome story?
01:07:06
Speaker
ah All right. I'm just going to read it exactly as Claremont wrote it. There's a story people tell of the greatest swordsman in Japanese history, Miyamoto Musashi, of how one fine morning in those younger days when he still wore steel instead of wooden swords, he came to a bridge only to find his path blocked by another samurai.
01:07:27
Speaker
The way, honored sir, is wide enough only for one. Why are people always doing this in old fucking stories about bridges? Robin Hood did this too. Yeah, just take turns. yeah Yeah. There's no bridge that is only wide enough. You could just scooch past. Bridges are for everyone. What if what if in this story it was it was it was instead, and the the noble samurai Miyamoto Musashi said, Ooh.
01:07:54
Speaker
ooh, let me just scooch by ya real quick. Or if Robin Hood said that to Little John, ooh, let me just scooch. Yeah, just gotta scooch by ya.
01:08:04
Speaker
The way Arnestore is only wide enough for one. it is only fitting that the lesser man step aside to let the better one pass. Agreed, my friend, says the other man. If you'd be so kind as to do so, I shall be on my way. You got him.
01:08:20
Speaker
Miyamoto says, it appears we have a difference of opinion to which the other man says that only our blades can settle. The other man is Ogun. And Ogun throws down the gauntlet and as one with blinding speed, two gleaming katanas leap from their lacquered scabbards.
01:08:38
Speaker
For one minute, the men stood poised, their eyes locked. And then they sheathed their steel, bowed, and went their separate ways never to cross paths again. Ooh.
01:08:52
Speaker
Yeah. Logan explains here that both men recognized each other as equals. They sized each other up in those in that minute. Like, in that minute, they they were looking at the way each other was standing, the the way they were holding each other, the swords, the look in their eyes and realizing... general resolve.
01:09:11
Speaker
We are... We would be a... doing doing basically the whole fight in their head and being like, oh, it's a draw. Yeah, no one would win in here. Remember that episode of Pete and Pete where they all got calculators and instead of actually playing tag, they just sat in the yard and and calculated a game of tag. Calculated who would win and so what one kid would be like, oh, my game and they're like, oh, yeah yeah, yeah. They came back to their calculators. Yeah.
01:09:43
Speaker
Logan, still injured, needs rest, but he's concerned that every moment since Kitty's brainwashing is a moment that Ogun's influence becomes stronger. So, against Yukio's advice and his own good sense, he starts training Kitty himself immediately.
01:09:59
Speaker
They're not sure if it's ninja magic or psychic powers, but Ogun can apparently create a psychic clone of himself inside others' heads that slowly takes over their entire personality.
01:10:10
Speaker
They can't rely on Professor X because unless Kitty beats Ogun herself, he'll just keep coming back. Over the next few days, Logan puts Kitty through all kinds of extreme conditioning and training.
01:10:22
Speaker
Holding the Ishida honor sword at arm's length, swimming a freezing cold river, running through a blizzard. It's very evocative of Rocky IV. But Rocky IV doesn't come out until November eighty five maybe uh claremont got an early draft yeah maybe this is where they got that uh oh maybe you could also they got it from this you could also argue that uh it's evocative of rocky three but or that both of them went through the snow in that one or that both of them have taken this from a trope that's existed for a really long time but sure also the reason they're in a blizzard is because so weird or has turned the whole world to winter
01:11:08
Speaker
I don't know, man. But we'll see this in all the comics we read for the next, like, few episodes. And it doesn't it doesn't change anything. It's just... Somebody is clearly like, can you can you make sure this takes place in the middle of a blizzard, please? And everybody mentions it. Everybody's like, yeah oh, this is because of that thing I heard about with Thor, huh? Oh, this is because Thor made everything winter forever. ah thor may Can you imagine living in a world where you had to do that?
01:11:35
Speaker
Yeah. Like our podcast had to start with. guess I'm shoveling snow tomorrow. our podcast would start with shit like that where we'd be like, Hey everybody, hope you're doing well. Uh, getting through, so you know, Thor's winter. Um, ah yeah. Have you done anything X-Men related this week? Uh, sort of a ah demon Lord set my block on fire. yeah Hey guys, it's our first episode since the whole Galactus thing. I hope none of your houses got crushed by his big, big feet.
01:12:09
Speaker
Uh, There's a scene here where, you know, Kitty's holding the sword out at arm's length and she's like, how many hours was that? And he's like, it's been five minutes. There's, you know you wouldn't know. how on Come on. It's not that extreme. Yeah, you wouldn't know that. you would This makes when ah her dad was like, we've been driving for hours. That passed doubt on that. Oh, it's genetic. The brides just don't know what five minutes It's.
01:12:42
Speaker
In the midst of all this training, Logan learns about the death of Guardian and a recent tragedy that we'll eventually read about in X-Men. Spoilers! For anybody, except for me, I guess. That spoiled you. I'm sorry. i It's also, way he gets the news from Professor X. Professor X calls and Logan's like, hey, Charlie, I figured you'd figure out where we were. Please mind your own business. Bye.
01:13:09
Speaker
We'll be back.
01:13:12
Speaker
Uh, eventually Kitty's training takes a leap forward when she finally decides to do it for herself and not for Logan. Yeah, it's, it's an interesting, it's like, it's the Wolverine style of Zen, right?
01:13:27
Speaker
Where she says, I was making such an effort to hold the sword. What if I just do it? And then she does it. Right. There is something there that I find really interesting. And I, I, I think about this all the time when it comes to not to get this way about shit, but when it comes to mental health, because, you know, you can do all the things in the world, right? Like you can, um, eat right and take and get your mental health medicine and you can,
01:14:00
Speaker
ah go to therapy. You can read a self-help book. You can do everything that people say. and at the end, you're still going to be mentally ill, right?
01:14:11
Speaker
Right. The only way through any psychological problem. is to simply just do it. yeah And you can use all these things to help.
01:14:24
Speaker
But your last step is like, oh, if I'm depressed because I'm not making my life better or I'm waking up every day feeling sorry for myself, your last step, the last step, and and again, I'm not putting down all these other methods, I think. These are steps that help your journey. But your last yeah step legitimately always has to be, okay, I'm just going to feel better.
01:14:46
Speaker
I'm just going to do the thing I can't do. I'm just going to not feel sorry for myself today. I'm just going to not hate myself. Like, it's the same.
01:14:58
Speaker
You can't do anything unless you do it. Yes, it's the same concept, ah keeping them from just going back to the X-Men, right? And having x Xavier fix this psychic imprint is Wolverine's like, hey, yeah, you could do that. He would come back. But then that's Charles Xavier handling your problems for you. If you want me to help you with this, then you're going to fix your problems for you.
01:15:26
Speaker
And it's, it doesn't take away all the training that she has to do to get to a point where she can face her problems, but she goes through that training. She Wolverine gives her the therapy and the, the medicine. He just runs her around in the snow, but leaves her, leaves her there. she When she falls, cause she twisted her ankle and he just walks back by himself. much But I mean, yeah, in our world, we don't have a professor Xavier, right? Like,
01:15:54
Speaker
But I think there's a lot – there's a real strong tendency people have especially um with the – and I think therapy is good.
01:16:06
Speaker
I go to – I'm between therapists right now, but I generally go to therapy. I yeah yeah believe in therapy. I support the concept of therapy. But I think we um over – can miss pod at gmail.com if you have a therapist rec for Matt. But I think we lionize therapy in this way that people think of it as like this cure-all. It's not.
01:16:26
Speaker
It is a It's a tool. It's a tool that you have you can use to, at the end, exactly like Kitty says, simply just do it.
01:16:39
Speaker
And I think that's... I don't know. I think that's kind of powerful.
Kitty as Shadowcat: Transformation and Humor
01:16:42
Speaker
Yeah. I... But... With no explanation. That night, she leaves the honor sword by Logan's side as he sleeps and takes herself to the Tokyo airport to give up and return home to the X-Men.
01:16:58
Speaker
But at the last moment, she changes her mind. Instead of running, she must face Ogun herself. huh No. To be continued. She'll die couple quick things about this ending. Number one.
01:17:12
Speaker
She takes the sword out of its sheath and then leaves it by. It's very rude not to return the sword in its sheath. Yeah. leave it lying out on the floor. That's dangerous. I get, I think, okay.
01:17:26
Speaker
wolf What if he wakes up to pee and steps on it? Obviously what they're doing here is trying to make us think she might kill Wolverine. Right. To give us that second of doubt. But I think maybe he's also trying to say like she is pushing herself right up to the I'm going to kill Wolverine edge just to just to make sure to prove to herself she's not going to kill Wolverine. Yeah, that's fair. I. Yeah.
01:17:55
Speaker
yeah In that vein, I actually had a different read on this ending at the airport than what I just read. oh wonderful whatever i just said understand that i disagree with that i think please it's supposed to be a misdirect where like we hear the speaker say direct to new york and then we hear the speaker like two panels later say ah direct to tokyo ready to board and in that whole time she's saying like
01:18:30
Speaker
I should just go back to the X-Men. I've lost this fight. There's no way I'm going to meet beat Ogun. I should just go home. But... I'm actually getting on this plane to Tokyo.
01:18:44
Speaker
Okay. Like, it's her saying, I know this isn't the right choice to make, but it's the only choice I can make. And all along, she was headed for Tokyo. That would have been cool.
01:18:57
Speaker
It was cool. But... She says, this time tomorrow I'll be with the X-Men. And she looks down at a ticket in her hand that says USA on it. Hmm. Well, agree to disagree, Matt. want to ah ah Kitty Pryde in Wolverine number five, Afterbirth. Oh, sorry. Courage.
01:19:23
Speaker
and In Tokyo, Shigematsu freaks the fuck out when a black masked ninja phases up through his desk and attacks. he He goes, there ghost.
01:19:37
Speaker
The ninja tackles him, grabs him by the throat, and lets him know he'll be returning control of the bank back to Carmen Pride. If he ever comes near the Pride family again, she'll be back.
01:19:49
Speaker
The ninja phases through the wall and air walks down to the ground. And if you haven't figured out by now, it reveals herself to be Kitty Pryde. There's a funny moment where a police helicopter spots her as she's air walking down to the ground. And they don't know what to think. One of the pilots goes, uh, uh, uh, but it's still in the brackets. The brackets. You know that it's translated from Japanese. Uh,
01:20:19
Speaker
just so She says that she she's a mutant because of her wild genes. She says, I have more of those than the normal person. So this is Claremont kind of saying, huh, not that there is a singular gene called like whatever is the X gene or whatever.
01:20:38
Speaker
it's called in the future yeah yeah it is that there is something within mutants that causes them to have way so many mutations so many genetic mutations at once that they have powers interesting so it's not the idea of just like part of your genetics being replaced with mutant genetics it's the idea that you have an extra group of genetics Well, or yeah, instead of, or rather than just like one locus on your DNA in of your DNA is flipped or something. It is that yeah all over it, there's mutations. It's like the way that we are a combination of our mother and father's DNA.
01:21:22
Speaker
And then on top of that, so there are random mutations that happen with most in most offspring right she's saying the thing that sets mutants apart are that she has a ton of mutations that happened oh she dons a new outfit and some eye shadow i hate the eye shadow by the way i like the outfit hate the eye shadow Outfit's fine. The eyeshadow is weird because it is extremely heavy. It's like a like a panda bear.
01:21:52
Speaker
yeah Yeah, it's panda bear. She does it all the way around her eyes in a big circle. Strange. It's a strange choice. um She catches a ah So she does the eyeshadow, hops on the subway. She catches a glimpse of herself in the train window and starts retracing her choices.
01:22:09
Speaker
Why did she come to Japan? Hell, why'd she even join the X-Men? yeah She's spiraling a little bit. But she never would have had a normal life. The real problem is that she doesn't feel like Kitty anymore.
01:22:22
Speaker
She's faced some harsh realities on this trip and grown from it. A kitten is a child. She's a cat. Shadow cat. Whoa. New name. Shadowcat is here. Shadowcat.
01:22:37
Speaker
I think it's so funny that we've seen so many adult versions of Kitty Pryde now. We've seen like yeah three. And all of them feel like they have to feel like they have to reckon with the nickname that they have as a kid. be like, I'm not a kitty anymore.
01:22:53
Speaker
I'm a cat now. All of them do it. They're also up into her 30s. She's constantly being like... I guess I have to move on from being a child. Yeah.
01:23:07
Speaker
There's also some funny things here when she's air walking. She at some point loses concentration and falls from the sky. oh right. And the way Al Milgram draws her regaining her concentration is like she skids to a halt in midair like a Looney Tune. It's like...
01:23:24
Speaker
was just thinking so hard about it. Drawing her like straining every facial muscle. Yes, it is like Wile E. Coyote running off the cliff and then skidding to a halt in midair and trying to tiptoe back before he looks down. Oh, and the other thing that I noticed is is that Chris Claremont It's like, because now that Kitty's got short hair, she's like, right cutting the cutting my hair wasn't my decision.
01:23:49
Speaker
I tried a wig the other week, and I hated it. Or I tried a wig that made my hair this length, and I hated it. It's just because in X-Men 183, John Remeder drew her with short hair.
01:24:02
Speaker
And Claremont's like, we gotta explain this. Oh my god. You fucking dork. You did not have to do that. okay So back to the story.
Mariko and the Shadowy Threat
01:24:14
Speaker
Across town, Mariko Yoshida arrives home at her 60th floor penthouse greeted by Kiko. the child that wover akio The child that Wolverine rescued and agreed to raise as his own. Remember her?
01:24:28
Speaker
yeah i do she now her name is a kiko but casually she goes by kiko kiko yeah cute she's cute kid they're just kicking it when mariko swears she heard a noise she checks a few dark rooms but there doesn't appear to be anyone there there is like the outline of a person yeah yeah it's a neat creepy uh sequence up in the air logan carmen and yukio take a private jet to tokyo wolverine lays it on carmen thick he may have had good intentions but he's devolved into a life of crime and now his daughter's life and soul are in danger as a direct result he's laying the guilt on here he's like you need to feel like a bad person right now you right
01:25:16
Speaker
and he's like, my daughter is, he's like, too bad, man. You fucking did this. Yeah, yeah. He needs to find a way to accept responsibility and face consequences because Kitty will either die by Ogun's hand or become his apprentice and die at Wolverine's.
01:25:32
Speaker
Oof.
Ogun vs Kitty: Disguise and Battle
01:25:33
Speaker
In Japanese, Logan reflects on how important of a mentor Ogun was to him, like a father, a brother, a best friend, but now one of them.
01:25:42
Speaker
Wolverine and Ogun, not a father, a brother, and a... Yeah, yeah. One of the two. They must die. They must die. One of them must die. Wolverine or Ogun. are you Are you guys getting this at home? It's either Wolverine or Ogun that's got to die. Okay, let's back up.
01:25:56
Speaker
Which one of them? Either Wolverine or Ogun. And Ogun is like a father, a brother, and a best friend. It's not like just one of those things has to die. It's either Wolverine or Ogun has to die. He's going to kill his father. No, Pat. All right, let's back up.
01:26:10
Speaker
All right, back in Mariko's apartment, Ogun shows up. We just came from Bariko's apartment. What if I really did back up and start explaining the story over again? Wait, we were no we were just up in the air.
01:26:24
Speaker
Ogin shows up in Mariko's apartment in his demon ninja costume and brings his sword down on a sleeping Mariko, but the blade goes right through her? That's right, it's Kitty in a wig. oh she likes wigs now.
01:26:39
Speaker
We get another four pages of colorful ninja... and Why did Mariko have a Mariko wig in her house? Anyway, we get another four pages of colorful ninja combat where Kitty finds herself trying to go for the kill, but not coming close.
01:26:54
Speaker
She's overcome Ogun's psychic imprint, but that means she's also lost all the skills he gave her. So what was the point of this whole story? Anyway, she only has a few weeks of Wolverine's training to rely on. Enter X-Men training. Ogun toys with her, explaining his plan to draw Wolverine here and... I have a plan to draw Wolverine. What do you think of my number four pencil?
01:27:17
Speaker
I have a plan to draw Wolverine here. yeah
01:27:26
Speaker
He's going to draw Wolverine here and kill him. And he compliments her skills while invading evading her entirely. Suddenly, a scream rings out. Ogun must have found Mariko. Kitty phases into the room she and Kiko are hiding in Only to find that they're perfectly fine.
01:27:43
Speaker
Uh-oh. Uh-oh. She realizes it was a trap too late as Ogun comes crashing through a window. She's like, oh, I fell for the oldest trick in the book. He he mimicked her voice. So Ogun was just in a room going, ah, I'm Mariko, no.
01:28:08
Speaker
ah Kitty phases them through to the floor below and tells them to run, leaving her once again face to face with Ogun. He offers her eternal life. All she has to do is join him, but she refuses.
01:28:19
Speaker
He tackles her through the window and onto a window washing cart outside and starts beating her, but she still refuses. He manipulates her up onto the roof as they spar the spot where he plans to kill Wolverine and shows her how outmatched she is. He stops toying with her, knocks her to his knees and starts to use the full power of his sorcery, forcing his way into his mind her mind, but still she refuses.
01:28:44
Speaker
This is another cool like panel by panel. The demon mask is getting closer and also getting a little more like contorted in a way where you think it's just like for dramatic effect until the final panel when it's fully. Yeah, it's fully like shattered and enveloping the the whole panel. It's wild. Another yeah another thing that's that is um purely symbolic. The mask doesn't actually shatter, but we see it shatter. So, shocked and impressed by her will, Ogun accepts that he can't control her and instead raises his sword to kill
Final Duel: Wolverine vs Ogun
01:29:20
Speaker
her. But before he can bring the blade down, i wouldn't do that, bub, if I were you, rings out.
01:29:28
Speaker
Wolverine, sig in mouth, meets Ogun's eyes, and the two get ready for the inevitable. Okay.
01:29:37
Speaker
Wolverine here is standing in such a way that both the backs of his hands are facing forward. They're down by his sides and facing forward. It it is like when a child draws a superhero.
01:29:48
Speaker
It is really, really bad. But the moment is still effective. Yeah, yeah. He smokes so many cigarettes in this run, and every time it's it's cool as hell. He's not like, you know how there are social smokers? He's doing this to, like, just at the cool opportunities. Yeah.
01:30:08
Speaker
If it's if it makes sense to be cool smoking a cigarette, he'll have a cigarette. And um a cool thing Al Milgram does do is ah he has the the smoke is just pure white and it ks and it like intersects with the gutters between the panels.
01:30:26
Speaker
So yeah yeah where the smoke hits the side of the panels, there's no line. It's just, there's yeah, it's like Wolverine smoking the gutters of the panels. Um, when Ogin tries to stab Mariko and it turns out to be Kitty, she yells, surprise, sucker.
01:30:44
Speaker
she picked that up from wolverine's yeah she's still the kitty we know right like she's still he was like and then and then you're one of your surprise sucker and yeah yeah that it there's like a there's patter course in his four weeks of training and he's like surprise and she's like surprise no no no no no you gotta surprise surprise yes exactly surprise sucker Surprise, sucker. Surprise. Suck her.
01:31:15
Speaker
Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. No, no, no, no. no no no
01:31:21
Speaker
oh All right, you want bring this baby home? Yeah, let's take it home with the concluding Kitty Pryde and Wolverine number six honor. Oh. Can I... Now that we're the last one, can i you can I say one thing that I do really appreciate here is every issue ends by saying up next.
01:31:44
Speaker
And then the actual name of the comic that comes up next. ah So many cases when they're like up next, Death Bird. And then we get to the comic and it's actually like air the behold the master. This is actually saying like up next.
01:32:03
Speaker
honor Honor. And then the next issue is titled Honor. Wild. A rare sight in comics.
01:32:13
Speaker
Ogun pops off his mask and stares Wolverine down across the rooftop. He recalls the story of Miyamoto Musashi as they size each other up. But instead of walking away, they charge.
01:32:26
Speaker
Notably, Ogun is the one that runs forward. He's the one that says... We are not equals. I am the better man. Oh, yeah, that's a good point. um Also, this is this the first panel is the last of this issue is the last is these exact same moment as the... Yeah, yeah. Same line and everything. Yeah. but And it's still Wolverine standing there with both of the backs of his hands facing forward. But he's in he's he's lit by the moon, so he's in shadow.
01:32:57
Speaker
what al milgram does here that's stupid is the uh wings on wolverine's boots you know how wolverine has like two wings on either side of his boot yeah yeah like that that that come up they are like they're like the size of his entire chest they are just here huge huge just looks like two big spikes coming out of his leg he would be He would be walking like a little kid in rain boots.
01:33:25
Speaker
If like this were like when a little kid wears big rain boots that are too big for them. Ogun seems to have the better of Logan in the fight. So Logan turns and runs to draw the demon away from Shadowcat and give himself time to think.
01:33:40
Speaker
Mariko and Akiko flee the building just as Yukio and Kitty's dad pull up in her hot rod. Seconds later, the car explodes as the sumo guy from a few issues ago from a few issues ago steps forward.
01:33:54
Speaker
shuba He blew it up with a rocket. okay Anyway, he's here to kill Mariko and Carmen Pride. But Yukio stands in his way. Shuma. Hell yes. Yeah.
01:34:06
Speaker
I'm so glad we're getting a rematch after he like screwed her on the, uh, through throwing her out the window thing. Yeah. Were you going to say screwed her on the roof and then realize that she did get screwed on the roof? It's another point of the series. yeah I couldn't say it.
01:34:24
Speaker
and Someone else. Shadowcat watches all of this from the roof and decides to test Ogun's poison. She seems to have gotten her phasing powers back, so she leaps off the roof and comes to a stop in the middle of the sumo guy's body. Oh, yeah, I don't think you mentioned that last issue, but she's also poisoned. oh oh so yeah that was my fault that was my fault i should have uh i should have mentioned it when i was off the cuff recapping the uh what happened last issue this shocks him enough to give yukio the upper hand and she lays the dude flat in the snow shadow cat air walks off to confront ogen sounds like we're talking about a dance that she does
01:35:06
Speaker
then There's another great moment here. Shadow Cat, ah as she's phasing through him, she's like, hi, Yukio. And Yukio is like, hey, kitty. And then they just go on about their business. Bye, Yukio. Yeah.
01:35:21
Speaker
Ogun, meanwhile, is fighting with Wolverine ah in a pachinko arcade and he's got him on the ropes. Wolverine continues to flee, hiding out in an elevator until Ogun cuts the cable.
01:35:34
Speaker
Wolverine hits the emergency brakes and cuts his way out into the elevator shaft cutting and climbs his way to the roof. There's a stupid moment here where Wolverine is like, maybe you can teleported to the bottom of the elevator shaft. And now the elevator fell on him.
01:35:49
Speaker
He's just.
01:35:55
Speaker
He laughs at his own joke and not a joke. Man, it'd be so funny. Like if they had him that so then he climbs up to the roof. It'd be so funny if he was just like still chuckling when he got to the roof. Like when you yeah yeah when you're tickled by one of your own jokes. he's like Ogun's like, what's so funny? is like Sorry, I was just thinking of something from early.
Kitty's Growth and Wolverine's Internal Conflict
01:36:17
Speaker
Also, Ogun has a gun for a little while here, which is ridiculous. It's not. It doesn't do anything. It's just to extend the action sequence a little. but And it doesn't look threatening. Like, it's not.
01:36:30
Speaker
it just It's like a cartoon gun. It looks like a Roger Rabbit gun. yeah It's so big. It's bigger than his head. i mean, this is just Al Milgram again, but still, like, it's just like, it's ridiculous. Anyway.
01:36:42
Speaker
Meanwhile, Kitty's dad thinks long and hard about responsibility and honor and decides to turn himself into the police. right. Good for him. Good. he He does mention like, you know what? I'm not scared of going to prison anymore. You're not scared of going to prison after double crossing the Yakuza. He's he's dumb. You have to remember, Pat. and They have set him up to be the dumbest man.
01:37:11
Speaker
Back on the roof, Kitty has just arrived only for her phasing to give out again just before she reaches it. A hand pulls her onto the roof and it turns out to be Ogun. Hold on. I have to say it something else about Kitty's dad that that I've been holding in this whole time. okay His hair is just fucking scribbles like a Charlie Brown character. It is. It's very, if you if you remember the first season of The Office where Steve Carell is like slicking all his hair back. Yeah, yeah, And like it's, there's, you can see all the thinning up front. But imagine drawing that, imagine Charles Schultz drawing that. Yeah. Because it's it's just scribbles. It is just back, a pen going back and forth scribbling.
01:37:57
Speaker
that's his hair all right sorry he's also he's wearing a ridiculous sweater for most of it once winter kicks in once thor's winter kicks in he puts on he puts on a a charlie brown again charles schultz he puts on a charlie brown sweater but just different colors it's a green yellow and it's it's obnoxious this guy sucks So Kitty meets Ogun on the roof. He tosses her across the roof where Wolverine has just appeared.
01:38:28
Speaker
Kitty is exhausted and scared. Logan is sure he can't beat Ogun. Nevertheless, he charges his former sensei and drops into his berserker rage. i thought This is something, this is a Wolverine thing that I always find is stupid. Like it it has its purposes, right?
01:38:47
Speaker
you need You need to find that bit of strength. and Like it's that thing that Spider-Man does where he's like, I have to think about all my friends and family. And and in within deep within, I find the strength to do the thing I couldn't do a minute ago. yeah yeah And um also it gives us the chance to have like Wolverine prologue prove that he's not an animal. He still has this animalistic side of it of him, but he can control it.
01:39:16
Speaker
Danger, but without it being ever present. But what I hate about it is when comic book writers in Claremont does this, even just now, treats it treat it like a ah ah feat in D&D.
01:39:32
Speaker
I turned on my berserker rage! it It leaves me my, it just subtracts three points from my defense, but it increases my attack by five.
01:39:44
Speaker
And also we know, or I guess we deduced at one point, i this is actually a remnant of Claremont's original idea that what happened to Jean and Dark Phoenix could happen to any mutant, that any mutant has this potential to go like next level, lose their mind and be unstoppable.
01:40:05
Speaker
This is our theory. this is This has been my theory for a very long time because of the Storm story. When Storm was trapped in Doctor Doom's house. Yeah, yeah. But it also it happens to Colossus. Oh, yeah, it happens to Colossus that one time where he's like, I'm super Colossus.
01:40:23
Speaker
So it's like, i this is the, we haven't seen it in years, but this is like that. ah <unk> We're just making it a little more silly. This is actually a dead idea coming back to life. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. ah But it does the trick. Logan finally beats Ogun, holding him defenseless against a girder for Kitty to end him.
01:40:44
Speaker
She grabs Ogun's sword and slashes down on his head, hu but stops short. She can't kill him. Her mercy is what convinced Logan that Kitty's broken Ogun's brainwashing.
01:40:58
Speaker
God, so, like, if she had done it, he would have just killed her right there. Yeah, he would have been like, all right, you're not Kitty anymore. Yeah. Fucking wild. What if he mistook her turn into Shadowcat? What if he was, what if she was, like...
01:41:14
Speaker
Don't call me Kitty anymore. Call me Shadowcat. And he was like, that's fucking Ogun's influence. Here we go. ah ah The two turn to leave, turning their backs on Ogun, but he refuses to be beaten. He grabs his broken sword and charges them from behind.
01:41:33
Speaker
Wolverine turns and yells to Kitty to phase. He goes, pride phase. It's so cool. It is good. It rules. Through her body, the sword enters Logan's chest, but his claws enter Ogun's.
01:41:50
Speaker
Ogun falls over dead. Logan's chest is fine, but his heart is broken. ah He didn't want his former sensei, whom he loved, to die. He looks at the demon mask and wonders if he, Logan, is truly a monster himself.
01:42:07
Speaker
But Kitty assures him that when he let his berserker rage out, he controlled it in the end and left Ogun alive. He's a man. Again, no man every Wolverine miniseries has to end with him making the same exact realization.
01:42:24
Speaker
He also, so the action plays out where Kitty phases, Ogun slashes his sword. It hits Wolverine's chest. Wolverine stabs his claws through Ogun.
01:42:38
Speaker
And then as Ogun falls to the ground, Logan says, he forgot about my bones. ah Oh, man. Everyone's always forgetting about each other's bones.
01:42:54
Speaker
ah Wolverine crushes the demon mask into powder. Flaky in his hands. yeah They must have been there for a long time with him just grinding the whole thing into a fine dust.
01:43:05
Speaker
And they walk away from the corpse of Ogun. Next, we see everyone. They're seeing Carmen Pride walk out of the U.S. Embassy, having just revealed everything about his criminal dealings to the authorities.
01:43:18
Speaker
He's probably going to jail, but so may also Shigematsu be. And his conscience is clear. Kitty is once again proud of her dad. Yukio, upset to see Logan with Mariko and Akiko, takes off.
01:43:33
Speaker
But the rest of the gang head to an ice cream shop and eat a big sundae. The end. Oh That is how it this ends. It ends with Kitty Pryde eating a big sundae. Okay. It ends on a shot of Kitty Pryde looking directly into the camera and smiling as she eats a multicolored ice cream sundae. And Akiko is like hand head hands like, wow, she's going need all of that. now can't believe she won't share that with me.
01:44:02
Speaker
I think the the point here is like Kitty is still Kitty. And I think that is that is the that is what makes that moment effective. Yeah, yeah.
01:44:12
Speaker
That doesn't and she stop it from being kind of silly. She's definitely grown up. But... Well, there's there's it's not like your childhood just leaves you when you take that next step.
01:44:27
Speaker
I think I think there's there's something weird about this. Like, why did Claremont decide now is the time for Kitty to become a ninja?
01:44:38
Speaker
Like a ninja assassin lady. Like, what what was it about? Like, I get sometimes when characters like I get that Ileana he just, he wanted a cool magical character and he had this idea. Oh, I'll take somebody that is beloved by one of my other characters and put them through this gauntlet. And then that can fulfill my idea for another cool mutant character.
01:45:02
Speaker
That'll, that'll help me reveal Ileana's mutant power and also make her old enough that she can join like a team. Cause I, whatever he liked her name or something. Yeah.
01:45:14
Speaker
Um, But what what was the purpose of doing this with Shadowcat? Like, what's the function here? I think, I mean, i obviously I don't know what the future holds for us right now, but ah it it sounds like we're ending the podcast. I don't know what's going to happen the next time Kitty appears. We will never end this podcast.
01:45:38
Speaker
But I can only imagine that, like... Yeah, this is a next step for her. um Why did it have to involve her becoming a ninja, though?
01:45:49
Speaker
And then why take those... well and then Further, why take those ninja powers away? So that she can go through the Wolverine quick quick ninja course.
01:46:02
Speaker
And like now she's not... An unbeatable ninja assassin, but she's got those fighting skills and like if she wants to go out on her own, she doesn't necessarily need somebody next to her to fight. It's very Danny Moonstar, right? She has a power that's not necessarily offensive, but she can also kick fucking ass.
01:46:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. ah It would be cool if she was a full ninja assassin and still wearing that demon mask, though. Like that's that. would That was her new superhero costume is always wearing the demon mask.
01:46:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yes. But also phasing through walls is like. that's a pretty incredible power for an assassin to have, right? Yes. Why wouldn't you go into the assassin business? And I think they show that here. Like she's in the middle of a fight and phases through like a sword or whatever. Like I think that's a, yeah.
01:46:57
Speaker
And she breaks into two banks.
01:47:00
Speaker
Two banks. Three if you consider Shigematsu's office since he owns banks. Yeah, you're right. I want a big ice cream sundae now. I know. What do you think is the green ice cream with the red topping?
01:47:14
Speaker
So initially I was saying like, oh, that's just mint ice cream, but they're in Japan. Very possibly matcha matcha ice cream or green tea ice cream. Yeah.
01:47:26
Speaker
Oh, watch ice cream with like a ah ah ah sweet cinnamon topping. I'm not crazy about matcha, but I do like green tea ice cream. Oh, green tea ice cream with a ice cream with a sweet cinnamon topping.
01:47:38
Speaker
Why don't they have that? Why don't we have like a sweet, sugary, like cinnamon topping? Why don't we have that in front of us right now? And then what do you think the blue ice cream with the white goop is?
01:47:53
Speaker
i Sherbert.
01:47:57
Speaker
like blueberry sherbet, blue raspberry sherbet. Yeah, yeah. And see that when I look at that, oh, that's like really tangy. Putting sherbet in an ice cream sundae bad. But what's the white stuff on top of it?
01:48:11
Speaker
whipped spit spit up she she ate too much ice cream and spit up and then just went right back to it boot and rally how do you feel about this uh arc pat uh this fucking world i i loved this story itself the way that it uh played out i thought it was like the perfect length i yeah um And it moved.
01:48:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I really loved the art. I know that you are hot and cold on it. There are a few places where you agree it's very good. But did I think the full thing, especially the action, like just the mid combat scenes or like the pursuit through the rail yard. I just thought that was that stuff was yeah very cool.
01:49:03
Speaker
Again, I think he has i think now Al Milgram has a sense of pacing and um framing. It's just, he's I think he's bad at drawing characters. I think he's, ah yeah, I think i think he's he's he's kind of just like sloppy and his stuff is a little ugly, a little amateurish, a little... ah Yeah, I agree with sloppy and ugly.
01:49:29
Speaker
And like a little a little thoughtless. I like agree. That's my name for you, by the way. Hey! agree with you, sloppy and ugly. Got an eye out of stuff that you could buy out.
01:49:40
Speaker
If you had time machine that you would like to try out. Matt's.
01:49:48
Speaker
Okay, everybody, welcome to Matt's. What happening? Here's the thing. pat This, look, we have to be honest. When you were putting, when you were spending your vast fortune on every X-Men comic and you were putting together all your X-Men comics, you couldn't find the Kitty Pryde Wolverine miniseries.
01:50:09
Speaker
Right. I searched up and down. Yeah. Yeah. You ended up having to, well, I do have the original comics is the thing. And you ended up having found them. Well, you had to, you bought every copy. So yes. So specifically, so I wouldn't be able to find it. He's reacting this way because this is what he said to me or like, he's reenacting what he said to me earlier. The way he read these comics is by FaceTiming me. And I turned the pages for him. I also did the voices.
01:50:37
Speaker
Um,
01:50:42
Speaker
So this is so this week we're doing Matt steals and deals. And have I found have I got a deal for you, Patrick? Oh, I mean, you know, I'll buy anything. This this deal is a steal at only two dollars. It is a giant, a scary, giant size alien eye creature.
01:51:04
Speaker
Oh, my goodness. Pat, here's the thing about it. It's seven feet tall and it obeys your commands. It obeys. my No, hang on a second.
01:51:16
Speaker
Yeah, what's wrong? In what way does it obey? me It obeys your commands for only two dollars.
01:51:25
Speaker
So I can say, like, attack my neighbor
01:51:30
Speaker
Seven feet tall. this giant floating eye, which, listen. Seven feet tall. It abays your commands. We get a photograph of this thing. It looks pretty cool. I don't know what the fuck it is. It's like, I think it's like a an eyeball balloon with, like, streamers hanging off of it.
01:51:45
Speaker
It must, hang on, read through this copy, because... This thing from another world acts as though it were alive. Imagine how scared and amazed your friends will be when they see this thriller chiller floating down towards them with its tentacles reaching out. Rises, jumps, darts, floats in the air. Make it obey your commands from as far as 50 feet away.
01:52:07
Speaker
Made of durable polyethth polyethylene, satisfaction guaranteed, or money refunded. What the fuck is this thing? Now, hang on. OK, so it seems like the commands you can give it are rise, jump, dart, float in air.
01:52:23
Speaker
um but how?
01:52:30
Speaker
So. The thing that's baffling me here is the extremely grainy photograph, black and white photograph we get. Suggests that this thing is flying in the air.
01:52:44
Speaker
That it's like a big eyeball, seven feet in the air with a bunch of tentacles hanging down. Yeah. But I know that they did not have the technology to make this thing fly. So my best guess, here's purely speculation. Yes. Seems like there's maybe an extending pole that you can remote control that it sits on.
01:53:12
Speaker
Wait. Oh, you're talking a mic stand. Here's the thing. My I assumed this is a balloon with stuff hanging off of it, but you would need helium for it to float like this. And then like like like it obeys your commands being you have a string.
01:53:28
Speaker
Right. but Oh, but you would need helium. You would need helium for it to float like this. Yeah. Maybe buy it flat and you have to take it to your local balloon shop. Oh, your balloon men.
01:53:42
Speaker
It is made of polyethylene, so it is like ah if you put helium in there, it'll stay in there. So $2. two dollars Would would you you buy this thing? Yeah. Hell yeah. $2, dude, of course. Sold.
01:53:56
Speaker
got an eye out of stuff that you could buy out. If you had time machine that you'd like to try out, it's Matt Heels. Matt's.
01:54:07
Speaker
Oh, Pat, thank you so much for hanging out with me and talking about Kitty, Pride, and Wolverine. And listener, thank you for being here and hanging out with us while we talked about Kitty, Pride, and Wolverine to you. What just happened? Guys,
01:54:20
Speaker
guys If you enjoyed the show, go go talk about us on social media, please. And, you know, rate and review us on iTunes or Spotify or any any pod podcasting app or YouTube where you can find us and some videos that we post at youtube.com slash mutantmenace.
01:54:46
Speaker
Yeah, you can also support us on Patreon. We have a free tier. We have a pay-what-you-want tier. Patreon.com slash Mutant Menace. We have bonus content for you. We have early access to bonus episodes, outtake reels, fun little podcast fun little side podcasts that we do. Please join our Patreon. We also...
01:55:10
Speaker
Accept emails. Mutantmenacepod at gmail.com will put you on Pat's email corner. And if you email just your name, no subject in the subject line, we will ah read your name at the top.
01:55:23
Speaker
ah And you better at home be saying... You need to say it along with us. Well, as soon as you hear your name. Yeah, you need to say it. Otherwise, you say it with us you have betrayed us and we will hunt you down like Kitty Pryde hunting down Ogin. I want to say thank you to Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby. And I want to say thank you to Krils Wilson for all of our wonderful music.
01:55:48
Speaker
What else? would Do we have anything else here, Pat? Just our famous sign off that we say every week, Matt. Folks, always remember, you're too tall and too darn ugly to be Yoda.
01:56:02
Speaker
And folks, as always, you're too tall and too darn ugly to be Yoda. We finally did it. We did it!