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36 - Uncanny X-Men #159-160, Annual #6, Marvel Team-Up #100 - Strange Tales
91 Plays14 days ago
Folks, prepare yourselves for some truly Strange Tales as the X-Men hold hands with Dracula, take a quick trip to Limbo, and ignore time and space! We even get some incredible Spider-Man and Fantastic Four action, with the debut of a brand new mutant! Plus, some very impressive creative teams! Join us!
Topics discussed:
Bill Sienkiewicz! A very rude entrance. Harmony Young. Brothers blastin. Indiana Jones. Dracula?! Wolverine - NOT a christian. Jim Stupid. Divorce. ZARK! A Van Helsing! Big slap. Why Wolverine’s cool. Lilith! Very silly stuff. Stupid questions. Cripes! Limbo! Belasco! Bloodstones and an amulet. Creepy Nightcrawler. Old Storm. Time and space. Waving skeletons. Cerebus. 7 years in 2 panels! Karma! She possesses people. Frank Miller! Spider-Man & The Fantastic Four! So, so cool.
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
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Transcript
Mutant Menace Introduction
00:00:12
Speaker
I'm Trish Toby with WARC reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Podcast Hosts and Format
00:00:48
Speaker
Hey, yeah I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Orkamp. And say it with us, Pete. well Welcome to Mutant Menace. Holy cow. We are getting so good at this.
00:01:02
Speaker
When's the last time we even messed up an intro? 1987. Matt! What? Welcome to Mutant Menace, man. Thank you. how you doing today?
00:01:15
Speaker
You know, actually, i'm doing okay. a little tired because this is the ah the third? Today's the 13th.
00:01:28
Speaker
No, it's the third episode. Well, this is Pat's email corner. i What I probably should explain is that this is, i think, the third recording we've done this week. So...
00:01:44
Speaker
i We are a little off schedule on our emails here. I'm going to dive into just one that we received since recording our last
Avengers Recap and Discussion
00:01:55
Speaker
episode. This one is from crowd favorite Weapon Jason. Oh, I like him.
00:02:01
Speaker
Who very kindly and eloquently recapped the events of Avengers Annual Number 10 for us.
00:02:11
Speaker
You must feel like a freaking idiot right now, Weapon Jason. You must feel so dumb. You must be so embarrassed. I bet you're... you're This guy... This guy must not have ah gotten the episode 35. Hey,
00:02:30
Speaker
yeah ah hey we hit a memo in episode 35. It looks like you didn't get it in
00:02:40
Speaker
i It is very kind to you, Weapon Jason. Thank you for filling in this gap. Had we missed it? ah But... It's so funny. Like, we have relied on him for this exact thing so many times. Like, it is it is so reasonable for him to have assumed that this was his responsibility. Yeah, yeah. Keep up the great work. Please don't lose any spirit that Sorry, weapon but Jason. ah We beat you to it. But does he have any insights about it that are interesting to share? You
Nutella, Sherlock Holmes, and Mystery Novel Ideas
00:03:11
Speaker
know what? He closes it out with more or less confirmation, Matt, of some of the stuff you were saying says Avengers number 200, which is the one that Avengers annual number 10 corrected for. Yeah, it's absolutely one of the shittiest comics written and you can blame you know who.
00:03:27
Speaker
This annual was Claremont's attempt to recover the damage and reclaim a character he clearly had affection for. The art is amazing, and the story is so full of Claremontisms, it's like eating straight Nutella off the spoon.
00:03:42
Speaker
i think word for word what you said, Matt, but you were mad about the Claremontisms. Yeah, yeah, but I did say the thing about Nutella. You just hate Nutella. Right.
00:03:54
Speaker
That's actually true that I don't love. I don't like Nutella. I couldn't when everybody got really into Nutella in the what? Early 2000s, mid 2000s. Something like that. Yeah, I just couldn't fucking understand it.
00:04:08
Speaker
Oh, I love it.
00:04:17
Speaker
And that's the end of Pat's email corner. Matt, I got to ask. Quick one. Have you done anything X-Men related this week? Well, Patrick, um this is the third episode we've recorded this week.
00:04:31
Speaker
Sure. Yeah. but you that You haven't already mentioned. but Okay. Well, I guess it's X-Men related to really wear yourself thin. No, the reason we've recorded three episodes is I'm going to London in like two days.
00:04:47
Speaker
You might ask, how is that X-Men related? Well, the X-Men go to London sometimes. They go all over the place. They do? yeah they travel. They go all sorts of places. I don't think I've been to London with them yet.
00:05:00
Speaker
We've not been to London with them? Well, I'm sure they'll go to London eventually. Are you going to visit, I i know I've asked you this a hundred times off the podcast, but the only place I care about in London is the Sherlock Holmes Museum. And you got married in London, and yet the only place you care about in London is the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Well, that's for me. I'm not going to recommend you go to the park that I got married in.
00:05:27
Speaker
Yeah, no, I'm definitely going to go to the Sherlock Holmes Museum, because I'm going there for an adventure game convention, so it's it's like kind of thematic. To go see Sherlock Holmes Museum. And maybe there'll be a mystery. More than Sherlock Holmes. Maybe there'll be a mystery for me to solve there. What if I. Oh my God. Could you imagine.
Gaming Obsessions and X-Men Activities
00:05:46
Speaker
If. All right. You're a mystery writer. Yeah. You need a cool place to make. To set your next mystery. You have your detective. Visiting the Sherlock Holmes Museum. And somebody gets murdered. At the Sherlock Holmes Museum.
00:06:02
Speaker
that's Make a movie out of that. Yeah, exactly. yeah You can option that to Netflix real fast. I love Sherlock Holmes. And then you find that the person that was murdered was to cover up conspiracy because Sherlock Holmes hid, the real Sherlock Holmes hid something in his museum that was valuable.
00:06:23
Speaker
The real Sherlock Holmes who was still alive when they turned his house into a museum? yeah he was Yeah, so real Sherlock Holmes, he was still alive. They started turning his house into a museum. He's like, I better hide this real quick. Now time to go die.
00:06:39
Speaker
And so he's the murderer? Well, yeah no, no. He's dead. This is like 100 years later. so this is it in the future.
00:06:51
Speaker
Like when Sherlock Holmes...
00:06:57
Speaker
when When was Sherlock Holmes? when What was was the era? i That was like turn of the century. I think it was okay early 20th century. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Okay. His he his last appearance was in 1927. So, yeah, this is two years from now.
00:07:13
Speaker
Somebody goes to the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Sherlock Holmes had faked his death. No! Sherlock Holmes is dead! And he's been dead for 100 years. Right! What?
00:07:27
Speaker
Sherlock Holmes is dead. After 100 years, the lock on his valuable thing finally opens. And one person knew this. And no two people knew this.
00:07:40
Speaker
And ah his ancestor, which is how they start solving the mystery. and Moriarty's ancestor. And Moriarty's ancestor killed Sherlock Holmes' ancestor to steal the thing. And that's how our detective starts unraveling it. And he's like, wait a second.
00:07:58
Speaker
These people were all real. And then he discovers the thing. And it also, let's see. The thing can also, the thing can, it turns out the Moriarty guy was good. And the Sherlock Holmes guy was bad. Cause the thing was valuable. Cause it can end the world.
00:08:11
Speaker
The thing is there. no with the, the, the, the MacGuffin and MacGuffin was there. um i pet Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
00:08:24
Speaker
Well, now I'm thinking about my own Sherlock Holmes story. where All right, let's hear. he fakes his death. okay Okay.
Uncanny X-Men Number 159 Summary
00:08:35
Speaker
1927.
00:08:36
Speaker
And then now, 100 years later, two years from now, i there's a murder in the Sherlock Holmes Museum. Our books are going to be very similar. it's going to be it' so we Oh, and we released them the same day. Yeah.
00:08:53
Speaker
In my book. The killer is 135-year-old Holmes. looked 80.
00:09:04
Speaker
eighty I don't know. He wasn't, I think like in his 30s to forty s in turn of the century, London is see it old. Well, hold on. There's two deaths. There's two ending stories to Sherlock Holmes. Number one, where he, I think he like falls off a waterfall or something while fighting Moriarty. Number two, where he goes off to the country and becomes a beekeeper.
00:09:30
Speaker
Hmm. So I don't know how this is going to tie into your story, but like I want to hear what you're saying. So which one's the real one? I guess is the question. i any Anyway, that and Madame Tussauds.
00:09:49
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, I do want to see Madame Tussauds. Tussauds? Tussaud?
00:09:55
Speaker
I don't know. I'm not following Madame Tussauds. So did you do anything X-Men related this week? You know what, Matt? Just because we've talked about it on the podcast before ah for my wife's birthday, I got her Stardew Valley and she is hooked.
00:10:13
Speaker
It'll do. Yeah, man. If you start a girlfriend, I know a wife is kind of like a girlfriend. Look, I've had many girlfriends. You've only had one wife. Let me tell you something. Yeah, yeah, please. yeah If you start a girlfriend Stardew Valley...
00:10:29
Speaker
It's over for that girlfriend. They are going to play it nonstop forever. Oh, not over like. No, they're not going leave for my relationship to all of mine. if i me But it wasn't it had nothing to do. It wasn't because the story. No, no, it's because of my odious personality.
00:10:46
Speaker
If you are in a relationship and you've both successfully gotten into Stardew Valley and stayed together, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com, please, please let us know.
00:10:59
Speaker
While you're there, talk to us about ah X-Men Stardew Valley, because I still want to hear. i just want to hear. I don't want to have to design it in my head. I want to hear beautiful ideas about what an X-Men version of Stardew Valley would be.
00:11:12
Speaker
i Anyway, aside from recording a bunch of episodes of Mutant Menace back to back, that's all I've done really X-Men related this week. Okay, well, good.
00:11:27
Speaker
I don't know where we go from here then. ah From here, Matt, we're on a roll. We're moving real fast. I can hop right into Uncanny X-Men number 159, Night Screams.
00:11:40
Speaker
Okay, yeah, I want to hear about it. You ever get those night screams? ah That's ah when you wake up in the middle of the night and it feels like something is screaming into your chest.
00:11:54
Speaker
Oh, Matt, you should get that checked out. you look oh You think it's like a shadowy figure, but it turns out it's just, ah you know, hypnagogic illusions.
00:12:08
Speaker
Or a heartburn. What you're describing sounds like heartburn. ah Chris Claremont, author Bill Sankiewicz, guest penciler. Is that how you pronounce it?
00:12:22
Speaker
I think so. Sankiewicz? Sankiewicz. I always pronounced it Sankiewicz. Sankiewicz. Oh, yeah, that makes sense. if Anyway... hurt but he rules matt who who is bill's sinkovich well bill sinkovich or sinkowitz is from pennsylvania and that's all you need to know about hell yeah i love it when we find a guy who's from pennsylvania even abby denton would like that fact ah
00:12:55
Speaker
Rest in peace, Abby Denton. She was ah murdered by a ton of Philadelphia. Angry Philadelphians. Angry Philadelphia sports fans who ah found her in Los Angeles and raided her home.
00:13:07
Speaker
ah She'll be missed. Except for not in Philadelphia. um So Bill Sienkiewicz, he started in comics at at age 19. He was like in art school. And i guess probably one of those things where sent his portfolio out and somebody was like, you got you got talent, kid. Oh, yeah, yeah. um And he got hired. So I think he worked at DC for just a very brief time and then got hired at Marvel.
00:13:34
Speaker
He did a couple random things. Like he did 10 issues of the Fantastic Four, which seems like a weird fit for him. Yeah. um But he was still, you know, at that point, he was just kind of like he he hadn't kind of developed his real style yet.
00:13:48
Speaker
He did a Tomb of Dracula. He did Tomb of Dracula number ah six, I think, in 1980, which is relevant to our interests for today.
00:14:02
Speaker
So ah when he started developing his his real style, and this is what he's kind of known for, is this sort of experimental, sketchy, um dark style, that that like mixed mediums.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. he He often uses painting and charcoal and ah pencil and ink. And then also just like photography and collage all in superhero comics, which is like a revelation, right?
00:14:32
Speaker
yeah um It's so good. He started that in Moon Knight. Oh. And then it really came to life when he was ah his sort of career defining run on the New Mutants.
00:14:47
Speaker
And I fucking can't wait for us to get to that. Yeah, we are very excited to get to that. He also does, he and Frank Miller team up for an Electra run that oh my gosh yeah the art is just like revolutionary on.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's Electra Assassin, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I've never actually read it, but i I've seen art from it and I know that it's, yeah, again, just like his new mutant stuff, like people, it changed it changed people's brains when they saw it.
00:15:19
Speaker
Okay, Bill Sienkiewicz, Bob Wyachek, Inker, Matt, who is Bob Wyachek? I don't know. Tom Worsakowski, letterer, Glynis Ween, colorist, Louise Jones, editor, and Jim B. Jim.
00:15:32
Speaker
Oh, sorry. It's getting stupid. i Yeah, we got we we still have to make fun of whoever that is, but we've got to we've got to start simplifying our mockery. Yeah, yeah.
00:15:45
Speaker
Jim's stupid, editor-in-chief.
00:15:50
Speaker
Release date April 6th, 1982. Cover date July, 1982. When the issue opens for some reason, the X-Men are bursting into Misty Knight's apartment in a big cluster in full uniform.
00:16:03
Speaker
What the hell? Unfortunately, Misty is not home and they scare the hell out of her new roommate, New York fashion model, Harmony Young.
00:16:14
Speaker
Bro, even if they were home, this is not fucking... It's not appropriate. It's not appropriate. You can't do that to your friends. They do. They apologize to Harmony and they're like, she told us to just come by whenever. Yeah.
00:16:28
Speaker
That's not this is. This is not how you come by. You don't charge in like an army. what if you're phasing through the wall? And Kitty is pointing at Harmony Young. They're like, who is this? And Kitty is just like, finger all the way out, stretch pointing. Oh my God! Like, dude.
00:16:47
Speaker
Dude, this is about as rude as you can be as a human being. true, not sure yeah it gets worse. After explaining themselves, hitting on her, and stealing beer from the fridge, Harmony helps Kitty and Storm dress for a meeting with Kitty's parents, and they leave.
00:17:05
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Yeah, so Harmony Young, I guess, was a supporting character in Power Man and Iron Fist. She was introduced in 1978, so just like four years ago, by... Well, if she's appearing in the X-Men, I'm going to guess Chris Claremont. Chris Claremont and John Byrne, of course. Yeah, this guy.
00:17:26
Speaker
I don't know why. He keeps getting away with it. I don't know what's weird about it, but there's something really weird about him doing this constantly. There's something. This is maybe a little conspiracy-brained, but if he saw the future of comics, and let's say yeah somebody in a nod to the comics wanted to create Harmony Young as a like a tertiary character in that movie.
00:17:53
Speaker
Right. Yeah. He's got creator credit now. So if infests his most popular comics with all the lower tier characters that he's that made he created, he's getting payouts for everyone.
00:18:07
Speaker
this it You know, even if he doesn't see that, there could be a money thing here, right? there's There's a bunch of, like, I don't know the legalities and the intricacies of this stuff, but like...
00:18:23
Speaker
There's it's got like you just convinced me. It's got to be even running scams on Jim Shooter. It's got to be some kind of money thing. Right. It's not that he just loves.
00:18:35
Speaker
Like Harmony Young so much. Right. He might. He might be that pure of a writer that every character, every panel is his precious sweet baby. Yeah. yeah Meanwhile, in Rio Diablo, which I guess is in New Mexico in the Marvel Universe. Yeah, there is a place called Rio Diablo in Texas.
00:19:00
Speaker
And there's a movie called Rio Diablo. But yeah, it's that's in the Marvel Universe. Like, this place doesn't exist. Okay. Scott and Alex Summers are walking through the desert talking about growing up as orphans and blasting rocks with their powers.
00:19:17
Speaker
While Lorna makes dinner back. Brother shit. Yeah. While Lorna makes dinner and entertains Corsair back at the fuck shack, they all sit down to dinner and Corsair talks about how unfamiliar Earth feels and how he'll eventually return to space.
00:19:32
Speaker
But he's not sure whether he'd want Alex and Scott with him. He's also everybody has changed clothes except for him. It's been days, man.
00:19:42
Speaker
Yeah, he's just still wearing a space pirate uniform and his headband, too. Yeah, that thing's got to be so gross. Well, remember, i think it was last, it was like last issue or two issues ago.
00:19:55
Speaker
He was walking around New York with Storm in this outfit and people were like staring and pointing at him as he was doing it.
00:20:07
Speaker
He just loves the attention. Interesting conversation between Scott and Alex here too as they walk through the desert blowing up rocks. Yeah.
00:20:17
Speaker
Brother shit, man. If you and your brother, neither of us have brothers, but if you and if you and your brother both had blasting powers, you guys would just walk around blasting shit together all the time. Yeah, that's true. Challenging each other, one-upping each other. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Me and the brother I always imagined having.
00:20:38
Speaker
ah If you're gonna imagine a brother, it's gotta be a brother with blasting powers. You might as well also imagine superpowers. ah ah But they're talking about like their relationship to Corsair and how it still kind of feels weird. And Alex...
00:20:54
Speaker
Kind of cruelly says something to the effect of like, well, least I had adoptive parents to love me and and raise me right. You, though, you had nothing. well it sounds it comes off of really catty, really passive aggressive of like, oh, poor Scott.
00:21:14
Speaker
Like he's trying to be empathetic, but instead he's just he's like just rubbing his face in it. Because remember how bad your life has been? Remember?
00:21:25
Speaker
and mine has been like actually pretty cool and great. Yeah. Despite the circumstances, this i this must really hurt for you. I spend all my time ah fucking Lorna Dane out in the desert. And and what happened to your girlfriend? yeah I wasn't there.
00:21:46
Speaker
We cut back to New York where a bored kitty calls Misty's house asking to speak to Aurora who left the Pride's house hours ago. Yeah. Nightcrawler is gripped with fear as Aurora has not returned.
00:22:01
Speaker
We see a brief glimpse of Aurora lying in a dark alley, blood dripping from her neck just before we're pulled into St. Vincent's Hospital where the police and EMTs are rushing her to intensive care.
00:22:13
Speaker
Pat, did she die? Well, she's lost a lot of blood and they're not sure she'll survive the night, but she's still alive. i oh So they pull a phone number from her wallet and soon Logan and Peter are bursting in through the emergency room doors.
00:22:28
Speaker
Guys, this isn't your friend's roommate's house. Yeah. Just wait for the electric door to to let you in.
00:22:39
Speaker
A Dr. O'Hara tells them that despite their initial diagnosis, it seems that Aurora is probably fine. While they were struggling to match her unusual blood type for a transfusion, it seems she sat up and was cognizant enough to give the police a full statement.
00:22:56
Speaker
She doesn't remember anything that happened, but besides the wounds on her throat, she wasn't harmed in any other way. When they get to her room, Aurora is on her feet, ready to leave the hospital, against Dr. O'Hara's advice.
00:23:10
Speaker
She thinks to herself that staying might bring more attention to the X-Men, and besides, she feels strangely drawn to the night. Out of the window, she thinks she sees a pair of glowing eyes, but disregards it, and the X-Men go home.
00:23:24
Speaker
She assures the X-Men she's fine, and as they tuck her into bed, But the night is a rough one. She can't sleep. She's drenched in sweat. She tosses and turns until she finally rises and opens the window.
00:23:35
Speaker
As the fog rolls in around her, she invites a figure off panel in. Does it ever fuck you up that you could just leave the hospital? Yeah. let's see i Yeah, you can. You're an adult. You're allowed to do whatever you want. But if I was laying in a hospital bed, there's 0% of my brain would be like, I could leave.
00:23:57
Speaker
I don't like being in hospitals. And I haven't been as a patient very often. Usually it's as is a a visitor. But I am worried that like I would leave the hospital and be like, yeah, I just can't take it anymore. got to I got to get out of here. Thank you, sir. You are currently having a heart attack.
00:24:17
Speaker
I have a right. I have my rights. Yes, but you are currently you are. I'm telling you, you're dying. Okay, give me some medicine. i'll i'll pick it up. CBS.
00:24:29
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, I've been in the hospital just a few times and not for very long. But yeah, it getting up and walking out is so crazy.
00:24:40
Speaker
And you can just do that. I might someday. Let's find out. Okay. All right. Now it's Sunday and Kitty's home from her parents' house. Her excitement is halted, though, when she sees the X-Men sitting in the living room, pouting.
00:24:57
Speaker
Turns out Aurora has been getting worse throughout the weekend, refusing help and losing the will to live. Refusing to accept this, Kitty rushes through the wall and opens the curtain, letting sunlight into the room.
00:25:09
Speaker
However, in case you didn't pick up on what's happening yet, The sunlight hurts Aurora. She looks old, drained, tired, pale.
00:25:21
Speaker
Kitty comments on a new scarf wrapped around Aurora's neck, and she tells her it was a gift from an admirer, but looks at the fancy D monogram and becomes confused. The visitor was was only in her dream.
00:25:34
Speaker
Just then, Kitty's Star of David necklace glints, and Aurora flinches in pain, pushing Kitty out of the room. but Pat, what could be happening here? I don't know. this is so strange.
X-Men Annual Number 6 Discussion
00:25:46
Speaker
I'm freaking out.
00:25:49
Speaker
That night, we finally see what we all and Kitty already guessed. Storm rises from sleep and lets Dracula himself into her room.
00:26:02
Speaker
It was Dracula. The the Dracula? Like, did it have to be Dracula?
00:26:13
Speaker
Like, maybe I could have taken this story a little more seriously if it wasn't the Dracula. Kitty Pryde. Bursts into the room, sporting an Indiana Jones hat and a golden crucifix. So fucking cool. Attempting to ward him off. She looks like Indiana Jones because we have seen Indiana Jones hold a crucifix up. Yeah.
00:26:37
Speaker
Since Kitty is Jewish, though, it doesn't work. But when he grabs her by the throat, her Star of David necklace burns his hand. Dracula, in bat form, and Storm flee through the window and Storm tells Kitty to forget she ever existed.
00:26:53
Speaker
Okay. The X-Men don't do that. Oh, what if they were like, oh, okay. Oh, all right. It's her wish.
00:27:04
Speaker
For the third time this issue, they burst through the door and Kitty tells them what happened.
00:27:11
Speaker
Bill Sangevich loves to draw people bursting through a door. Wolverine tracks them to Belvedere Castle in Central Park, New York. Dracula lives in Central Park.
00:27:22
Speaker
He just goes, I mean, wherever he goes, he's got to find a castle. Yeah. He's like, if I'm going to live in New York, you got to find me a castle. Dude, there's only like one castle in New York and it sucks.
00:27:37
Speaker
it I'm, nope. i If you don't give me a castle, I'm not coming. All right, fine. Immediately, Dracula attacks, of course, summoning rats and dogs to his aid as he punches Nightcrawler in the face.
00:27:54
Speaker
After they definitely kill some dogs. They kill some dogs. they They just ignore the rats, and it makes you wonder why they even include them. There's no rats in the rest of the issue.
00:28:07
Speaker
There's off-panel Colossus is just stomping on Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha! After that, Colossus fastball specials Wolverine at Dracula, but he shifts to fog and Wolverine Charlie Brown face plants.
00:28:23
Speaker
Colossus tries to punch Dracula, but he catches his fist and throws him across the park. They seem hopelessly outmatched until Kurt fashions a cross out of twigs, but Dracula counters with a deadly bolt of lightning that begins following Kurt as he teleports rapidly through the park.
00:28:40
Speaker
It's yeah I like this. We learn how just how faithful Kurt is in this moment. Right. Like I think we've gotten a hint that he is a Christian, but this is right after Wolverine tries and it fails.
00:28:54
Speaker
Yeah. Wolverine makes a cross out of his claws and Dracula is like. ah So it's a nonbeliever already tried this. Yeah. I love this decision. Wolverine is decidedly not a Christian. Yeah. Yeah, he is is ah canonically a heathen. It's great.
00:29:18
Speaker
Yeah, it's so good. Meanwhile, in all this chaos, Kitty has snuck off into the castle. She pours holy water in his coffin, but gets slapped through a wall by storm, now fully vampiric. That's going be the worst prank. i like Vampires do that to each other, like, oh, poured holy water in your coffin. was thinking the same thing. Even as she's doing it, she's like, well, this isn't going to kill him, but he'll be pissed. Where's he going to Got it.
00:29:49
Speaker
Exactly. i butt i bet vampires do this to each other all the time. Just like, no, you got me. And then she gets slapped. Poor Kitty.
00:30:02
Speaker
ah She and Storm him square off, Kitty with a steak and Storm with her powers. But Kitty drops the stake. If Storm wants her dead, then so be it. Bad move, Kitty. Tactical misstep.
00:30:17
Speaker
it is Never to sacrifice yourself to your opponent. That's the first rule of fighting.
00:30:27
Speaker
Don't give up.
00:30:30
Speaker
Don't give up and tell them to kill you.
00:30:38
Speaker
In the park, the X-Men go down and Storm arrives on the scene looking hungry. But surprisingly, she turns on Dracula and attacks him. After a short chase, he tries to command her as she's still in his thrall. Amazingly, she resists and grabs a steak.
00:30:56
Speaker
But Dracula grabs a hostage to stop her. Just some lady off the street. Yeah, and he does, she does chase him into a restaurant. So I mean, would when we say steak, we do mean the wooden steak. Not a not a beef steak. A slab of beef that she just waves at him like, ha!
00:31:14
Speaker
You can't eat this. You can only drink human blood. Storm declares that she'll never kill for him and that she'll hunt him down to protect the innocent. Dracula concedes.
00:31:27
Speaker
She is one of the most impressive women he's ever met, and he does not wish them to be foes. He cannot force her to be his queen, so he will leave. If they ever meet again, it shall be at a time and place of his choosing.
00:31:41
Speaker
yeah it's very like he's threatening her but he's also like hey I respect you and this is I mean this is what fucking Doctor Doom did right like yeah yeah it's just villains just do this to Storm now like like hey if you want to be evil we could get married but if not look I think you're hot so you keep doing you and maybe we'll meet again but don't come bother me unless you're ready to get married That's the thing that Dracula says. And this will be important later because Dracula is like, I, if the world is a big place.
00:32:17
Speaker
You will never find me. You could never find me. I could be anywhere. You could look for your whole life and never find me. We do. There's only so many castles out there. Yeah.
00:32:30
Speaker
yeah It's like, oh his one weakness. He has to live in a castle. He's just redefining what a castle is.
00:32:38
Speaker
Storm flies back to the X-Men in the daylight and they reunite happily. However, there's a call at Misty's house. It's Moira. Oh, great. Now they're using her phone too. We called the mansion. No one was there. So we thought we'd just call Misty's house and see.
00:33:01
Speaker
It's Moira. ex Xavier has taken a turn for the worse. To be continued. Whoa, I can't wait to get to the next issue when they follow up on that con on that cliffhanger. Right.
00:33:19
Speaker
One thing, i think the one thing I took from this is that Kitty, with all her knowledge, knows vampire lore up and down.
00:33:31
Speaker
yeah She knows every detail about them, including how to kill them. Yeah, she's an expert on these guys. And Dracula specifically, too. Yeah. Which isn't, I mean, for a young teenage girl, it's not unusual to know an unnatural amount about vampires.
00:33:50
Speaker
Just like we knew an unnatural amount about the Bermuda Triangle when we were kids. Or the Loch Ness Monster. Or the X-Men. Okay, fair. um I have two notes. Number one, they start calling ah Storm Windrider in this issue. A bunch of people call her Windrider.
00:34:09
Speaker
much better than Weather Witch. yeah Yeah, a little less derogatory. Yeah, like I like Wind Rider. Wind Rider. Second note, okay, I kind of, i think I maybe kind of understand.
00:34:24
Speaker
Okay. But why the fuck were they at Misty's house in the first place?
00:34:30
Speaker
You know what? With everything going on, I hadn't even asked that question. They don't they don't mention it. They say something about it They kind of imply they're there to hang out while Kitty goes to see her parents.
00:34:47
Speaker
Right. Seems like maybe they they go to the – they're dropping her off at the train station. But then why are they – are they hanging at Misty's house all weekend until – But they're – yeah, we know they're not, right?
00:35:00
Speaker
Are they just stopping by to say hi, maybe? Do we see them on the island after that? You know what? We did establish this rule a long time ago, pre-Dark Phoenix. Okay. We found out that when the X-Men go to New York, they have to stop at Misty Knight's house. That's true. That's true. It's like um it's like a supernatural curse of theirs. Yeah, yeah. They will burn if they don't. well They get back from Japan. They haven't been home in months. haven't even been home. There's alarms going off at the x Xavier Mansion.
00:35:34
Speaker
They still have to stop by Misty Knight's house. Because the mansion's gone, right? Yes. We might have even used the words the mansion in our recap, but the mansion's gone. So maybe they are just staying at Misty's house the entire time waiting for Kitty to be done.
00:35:51
Speaker
It seems like they have maybe a second mansion, maybe a smaller mansion. There's definitely, they have an HQ. Yeah. Outside of that weird. eye I think depending on where we are in the story, the artist is forgetting exactly like they're they're living circumstances well this is this is the thing with bill sienkiewicz is for all his the for the the skill he has at style and the technical skill he has he's not great at continuity there's a lot of people who change locations or outfits or just like
00:36:31
Speaker
ignore word previous issues and the rules that they set. ah Yeah, in within an issue drawn by Bill Sienkiewicz. And he doesn't need to, right? like it does I don't think it subtracts all that much. it's worth it.
00:36:43
Speaker
But when you read the X-Men this close, as you were never meant to, you notice it. Well, that was a good issue, I guess. what what do you How do you feel about...
00:36:59
Speaker
You know, and I want to talk about this more when we get past the next issue. So I'm going to tell you, Pat, about X-Men annual number six. Oh. Blood Feud.
00:37:11
Speaker
A title that makes sense. Chris Claremont writer Bill Sienkiewicz. Again. Again. Penciler Bob Wyacek.
00:37:22
Speaker
Anchor, Tom Orszakowski, letterer, Glynnis Ween, colorist, Louise Jones, editor, and ah Jump Stupid, editor-in-chief. Release date, July 27th, 1982. Cover date, November 1982. We're jumping ahead in time a little bit here.
00:37:39
Speaker
Bard College, New York. Rachel Van Helsing finishes up a day of teaching anthropology. A vampire girl after my own heart.
00:37:53
Speaker
And heads home, reflecting on how lucky she is to no longer have to hunt and fight Dracula anymore. i don't know what's going on in like the Tomb of Dracula series, but I'm assuming... You know what I'm going to say.
00:38:08
Speaker
But as she enters her house, she's greeted by the man himself, Dracula. What? What did I do? Tonight is the night that he ends her bloodline. Cut to the X-Mansion.
00:38:21
Speaker
What? A short time later, Kitty is throwing a tantrum as everyone in the house tries to calm her down. Look, if by July they don't have the X-Mansion back, we have to call bullshit on this. Yeah.
00:38:33
Speaker
It is an annual, though, so maybe it takes place out of sequence. Yeah, but it's still, this has to have taken place after Uncanny 159, right? Yes. So, okay, but let's give him like a year.
00:38:47
Speaker
If in a year the mansion isn't back to normal. Okay. Or if there's some major change with one of the characters that makes it so that this couldn't have happened. This could take place at any time.
00:38:59
Speaker
Well, no. Because the characters do change in some ways. Anytime. Anytime. yeah All right. Cut to the exit mansion. Short time later, Kiddy's throwing a tantrum as everyone in the house tries to calm her down. Her parents are getting a divorce and she blames him herself for being away from home.
00:39:18
Speaker
She even tells off Aurora, storms off to her room, throws her framed picture of her parents at the wall, shattering the glass. Filled with emotion, she cries herself to sleep, failing to notice the dark shadow enveloping her room. This is... Yeah.
00:39:36
Speaker
This is really, really well done. the art here. There's like, it's Sienkiewicz starting to play with his sort of abstract style, uh, just to display Kitty's temper tantrum. There is a yeah panel of her just screaming, like, I hate them where right the, the color is just radiating out of her. And she's got, it's, we it's, it's just, it's it's emotional and it's really, yeah
00:40:08
Speaker
expressing itself through more than just Claremontian dialogue. Yeah, yeah. but Anyway, she wakes up and calls herself Miss Crybaby 1982. So, midnight, Miss Crybaby 1982 wakes up, reflecting on her outburst and regretting the way she spoke to Storm.
00:40:26
Speaker
Storm enters at that very moment, but something's off. As Miss Crybaby notices the lifelessness behind her eyes, Storm grabs her violently and pulls her toward her mouth, which opens to reveal a set of fangs. Oh no. Storm bites into the Crybaby's neck, leaving her dead on the ground and proceeds down the hall to repeat with every other X-Man.
00:40:49
Speaker
It's told like a storybook, too. They have, like, calligraphic, like, yeah lettering. and She runs to her room, transforms into a huntress, and flies off to a remote cliffside where Dracula is waiting for her.
00:41:04
Speaker
They make passionate love. Implied, but they do. Yeah. Suddenly, Storm wakes up. It was all a dream, wasn't it?
00:41:16
Speaker
This is funny because Storm dreamed that Kitty called herself Miss Crybaby 1982.
00:41:25
Speaker
ah She runs down the hall and confirms that Kitty is okay, still asleep. This was more than a dream, though, she realizes. This was a summons from Dracula, who must still have some vampiric hold over her despite pledging to release her.
00:41:42
Speaker
That son of a bitch. Who would have thought Dracula would lie to me? As she departs to confront him, Kitty is awake and watching, seemingly expecting all of this. The game is afoot, she says.
00:41:54
Speaker
Pat! Sherlock Holmes! I know, it's my favorite phrase. It is weird. you You are like, why would Kitty speak like this? She's like, aha, I know what's going on here. It's very it's it's very weird and out of character. Yeah, yeah.
00:42:11
Speaker
And even the way her face is drawn is weird and out of character, too. Right, it looks... I hate to say this because... God, this is what the artists want us to feel at all times. But it looks more adult.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And with a little, like, yeah, the innocence behind her eyes is gone. Which is a crazy thing to be able to draw. yeah That is true. Yeah, Sienkiewicz really nails it here.
00:42:37
Speaker
Seeking help for whatever the hell she's up to, she tries to seduce Peter. with But he rejects her advances, presumably because she's 14.
00:42:49
Speaker
Behind a closed door, though, we hear Peter struggling against her and then screaming. ah but yeah It becomes clear later what she actually does to him behind closed doors here. it is not forcing herself upon him.
00:43:05
Speaker
in Sure, but it is... making you think that in a way that i don't want a little bit yeah yeah i don't want to you've said it that's not what happened if we keep harping on this it's going to be all we talk about so we do have to let it go at some point but it is this this one's pretty overt yeah storm flies across the atlantic Jesus. And arrives in an old manor in Cornwall, England. Pat!
00:43:35
Speaker
They're there! They're in Cornwall. you're going Are you going to Cornwall? No. Having followed her impulses, she blasts open the door with lightning and enters, demanding audience with Dracula. But instead, Dracula's consort enters, Rachel Van Helsing, with red eyes and fangs!
00:43:55
Speaker
What? and invites her to enjoy the feast they've prepared. They've been expecting her.
00:44:02
Speaker
Chills. Dracula eventually enters and expresses his admiration for Aurora before explaining that he re-engaged his hold on her to a list enlist her help. He would not have asked under other circumstances.
00:44:16
Speaker
Oh, so it's fine to manipulate people if you need something. Yes. Yeah. He's not just doing it for no reason. He's doing it because he needs something. So, and I think that's true. Guys, listeners, don't manipulate people unless you need something from them. And then it's fine.
00:44:38
Speaker
Kids.
00:44:42
Speaker
She has no interest, but he explains that regardless of his hold on her in life, she will rise as a vampire in death and serve him after their last interaction. Holy shit.
00:44:53
Speaker
He reaches for her throat. She sees blood and then collapses to the ground. Rachel and Dracula, don't let her die, though, and we soon learn why. Why? Well, because, Pat, there's a mystical book held in the abbey of the town of Pandero.
00:45:08
Speaker
That contains a spell that can destroy all vampires. do Oh. And they haven't they haven't tried to use it before?
00:45:20
Speaker
You'd only have to use it the once.
00:45:26
Speaker
ah The abbey it's held in is a hallowed ground having been chosen by Rachel Van Helsing before her death. So vampires can't enter. Storm. knowing she can only either choose to help or be hypnotically compelled to, agrees. And Dracula promises that this time he'll really release his hold on her once she's done, except for the turning into a vampire after she dies part.
00:45:50
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The part he just revealed to her. Inside the Abbey, Aurora uses her mutant powers and skills as a master thief to bypass any traps that may have been set to further protect the book.
00:46:01
Speaker
What she doesn't notice, though, is a silhouetted figure holding a crossbow and eventually firing right on her. She falls to the ground to see Kitty wielding the crossbow, threatening to kill her for serving him. She manages to push Kitty aside with a gust of wind only for Colossus to burst in, armored up and in a rage. When Storm asks him why he's doing this, he can only explain that he serves Kitty.
00:46:26
Speaker
Storm's too clever for Colossus, though, and is able to freeze him in place for the time being. But in the heat of battle, Kitty had snuck off and stole the very book Storm was sent to retrieve. She calls the spell the Montessi formula and vows that Dracula will be dead before the night is over.
00:46:45
Speaker
Damn, she's on a mission. You know, he's really actually Dracula's monster.
00:46:54
Speaker
The crossbow wound is having more impact on Araro than she initially thought. She's too weak to pursue Kitty. She pleads with Kitty instead, but realizes that she's not actually speaking with her.
00:47:06
Speaker
She's speaking with an entity wearing Kitty's body. oh Oh, that explains all this behavior. Yeah.
00:47:18
Speaker
I thought it was just a lash out at her parents divorce. It's like, well, then I'll go kill Dracula. Dracula. that'll teach him yeah that's that is the people people in my life that um i knew who got divorced when i was a kid that is mostly what they did got into vampire sling killed dracula i was too young when my parents divorced to to get into yeah i was like i was like eight i think maybe nine so i i tried but i kept falling i kept tripping and falling i couldn't i couldn't hold the crossbows too heavy
00:47:53
Speaker
and Kitty phases out as regular security finally arrives. Guns blazing. If you're gonna arrive late, you've gotta fire. As a security guard. You've gotta fire wildly into the air.
00:48:06
Speaker
They're not even cops. Who gave them guns? That's not... This is They're just wearing street clothes. You're not... These are... Guns are illegal.
00:48:19
Speaker
Ugh. Storm jumps out of the window, nearly passing out from loss of blood as Batform Dracula grabs her and they fly off. We cut to the central bazaar of Cairo where Storm is reliving her childhood memory of losing her parents.
00:48:36
Speaker
But as an adult, ish as she screams herself awake, she finds herself in a coffin with Dracula lifting the lid. he apologizes. He forgot her claustrophobia. No.
00:48:49
Speaker
And he also doesn't have much in the way of beds. Storm checks her teeth for fangs. Judge somebody not on the standards of your life, but on the standards of theirs. Right. It's a nice coffin.
00:49:04
Speaker
Storm checks her teeth for fangs, but she still appears to be human. Dracula and Rachel explain their new plan. Kill Kitty. And Aurora again refuses to help.
00:49:16
Speaker
This time, Dracula is ready to turn her into a vampire to serve him, but she's stopped with a sharp ZARK!
00:49:24
Speaker
As Cyclops and Wolverine burst into the room. okay It's clear just through process of elimination who would have hit him from the distance of the door, but ZARK... Yeah.
00:49:39
Speaker
Along with just no... There's no drawing of, like... an optic blast. yeah It's just an impact with a strong Zark. And so if you're an X-Men fan, you're supposed to go, I know that Zark. I know that Zark anyway.
00:49:54
Speaker
ah Reacting quickly, Dracula grabs a spear off the wall and hurls it right at Scott, and something beautiful happened. At Scott's command, Logan jumps in and deflects the spear with his metal claws right into the hands of Kurt. Kurt teleports himself right on top of Dracula, stabs the spear into his chest, and bamps away immediately, bringing Dracula to his knees. They fucking beat dr Dracula's ass in, like, five seconds. Yeah, they and it's... It's in response to an attack from Dracula.
00:50:23
Speaker
Cyclops just has to say Wolverine, go. And yeah boom, they he's down. That's how good these fucking guys are. it It rules. It's one of the best fight scenes we've seen from the X-Men thus far, I think.
00:50:38
Speaker
And they've had some pretty good fight scenes. Rachel rushes in, turns into mist, and tackles Cyclops, but when she transforms into a werewolf to lead in for the kill, she doesn't account for Scott's eyes, and she gets blasted in the face.
00:50:52
Speaker
Hell yeah it's so so she turns The reason that it works is because she retakes corporeal form, but yeah the way it plays out, it sounds like werewolves are vulnerable to optic blasts. It's like, ha ha, you should have turned into a werewolf on top of me.
00:51:10
Speaker
Yeah. Although we got, we got Dracula. We got a werewolf. If you had ah Frankenstein, we got a monster mash going.
00:51:26
Speaker
um Adding to the camera. Heading to the chaos, Peter and Kitty burst through the wall, ready to kill Dracula. He knows that something is very different about Kitty, as if she's older and more violent.
00:51:41
Speaker
Seeing himself and Rachel ceding ground, he rushes off to the catacombs to use the darkness and familiar territory to his advantage. Dracula loves to run away from the X-Men.
00:51:51
Speaker
He does. He also loves catacombs. Because we haven't learned that through X-Men, but through other stories. Oh, yeah. Which Dracula story did you read that he was in the catacombs?
00:52:05
Speaker
Dracula? You think in the book Dracula, he goes into catacombs? Yeah, yeah. He hangs out. I might be mixing it up with some of the movies I've seen.
00:52:18
Speaker
Kitty phases through the secret door to follow him, and as Peter follows, Wolverine tries to stop him to ask what's going on with the two of these two. He literally says, hey, Pete, slow down.
00:52:30
Speaker
What's going on with you two? Peter slaps the shit out of him for asking and explains again that he's here to serve Kitty. How many times does he have to say it?
00:52:42
Speaker
He rips the secret door off the wall and walks right into a booby trap. A large metal cube falls on him. that's i don't know if you can call that a booby trap. It's just a large metal cube. know.
00:52:57
Speaker
Fucking Wolverine's face when Colossus slaps him is like... This is the thing Bill Sienkiewicz does is his art is so realistic, but every now and then he knows he knows it's a comic book. So every now and then people's faces turn cartoonish with their like in their reactions.
00:53:13
Speaker
so colossus slaps the shit out of wolverine and he's like o like his eyes go wide and his mouth forms an o and he's like what cartoonishly humbled is how i would describe the look yes by the time that scott can pulverize it peter is already gone they can find their own way into the catacombs though as scott in a classic cyclops move Blasts a hole in the floor. We haven't seen him do this in so long. I know. It was, it felt good.
00:53:45
Speaker
Felt right. Storm uses her wind to float them all down to the ground and Wolverine's like. He says, he says nifty. And he's just got his arms crossed. He's doing like a pencil drop.
00:53:56
Speaker
And his legs crossed. Yeah. Like he's like, like he's leaning on a wall trying to look cool, but he's being dropped through a chasm by a wind witch.
00:54:08
Speaker
Kurt's also striking a pose. Yeah, they love this shit. Even Wolverine, he's pretending he doesn't like it, but you wouldn't you wouldn't look like that if you see if you weren't imagining what it looked like to other people.
00:54:23
Speaker
They rush ahead to find Colossus and Dracula in a brutal fistfight, which Wolverine gleefully hops into. It's about time. He underestimates Drac's power, though, and gets knocked out by a strong punch, giving Dracula the chance to bite his neck.
00:54:39
Speaker
Logan quickly comes to and follows Dracula's order to attack the X-Men. Oh, no. Meanwhile, Storm and Rachel battle, and when Storm has the opportunity to shove a spear through Rachel's vampire heart, she declines.
00:54:53
Speaker
She knows that some part of Rachel's humanity is still in there, and as a van, Helsing, she has the power to fight Dracula's control. The real Rachel does come to the surface, begging Storm to kill her and end her vampire curse.
00:55:08
Speaker
But Storm cannot. Have you started saying vampire over the course of these stories? Dracula watches gleefully as Colossus and Wolverine fight each other until Kitty starts reciting the Montessi formula, remember, from behind a curtain.
00:55:25
Speaker
And Dracula begins to feel himself burn. Before she can finish the spell, though, Kurt appears and knocks the book from her hand. He explains that that book is the Darkhold, an unspeakably evil grimoire that claims the soul of those who use it. How does he know this, Patrick?
00:55:43
Speaker
i His religious background, i i would assume. He's got a high enough score in religion when he rolls the check, it doesn't matter what religion, he just gets to do it.
00:55:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Kitty grabs Kurt by the throat in a rage so quickly that he can't react. Storm speaks to whatever is possessing Kitty, demanding it let her go. Dracula, hearing that Kitty is possessed, realizes and announces that this is his daughter inhabiting her body.
00:56:14
Speaker
No. With her cover blown, Kitty transforms from herself into a black haired young woman clad in red and black, demanding that the X-Men kill Dracula or she'll never release her hold on Kitty.
00:56:30
Speaker
Before she can react, though, a spear flies into the room and pierces Dracula's heart. It's Rachel! She's still a vampire, but no longer under his control, which she explains as she pulls the cross from her bag and, burning her own flesh with it, walks it over to Dracula.
00:56:46
Speaker
His skin dissolves, leaving only a skellington, but everyone knows that you have to cut off a vampire's head to truly kill it. Of course. There's no time for that now, though. The whole building is collapsing.
00:56:57
Speaker
The X-Men and Rachel run out just in time to watch the entire cliff castle and all collapse into the sea. So if a skeleton was in a castle that collapsed into the sea, there's a good chance that that skull is going to separate from that. head just like falls off. Yeah, or gets crushed or something, right? But if it doesn't, Dracula can come back.
00:57:22
Speaker
Nearing Dawn. The X-Men stand along the cliffside with Rachel Van Helsing as she prepares to die. Sun death is rumored to be agonizing. So Wolverine kindly sticks her in a heart with a wooden stake instead. It's actually very Wolverine. Look, I know this whole thing is silly and bullshit, but there is a moment.
00:57:45
Speaker
There is this moment that's this is like character defining for Wolverine, right? She's asking Storm to kill her. And Storm's like, ah okay, I'll do it. And Wolverine's like, no, no, no, no.
00:57:56
Speaker
And grabs her hand and takes the stake. And it's like, you're not a killer. this is This is for somebody like me. yeah but yeah Let me take on this burden. And that is what so that is when people ask, all right, there's a lot of times, as a big X-Men guy, i had girlfriend once that said, X-Men are like your religion.
00:58:17
Speaker
She's not. She wasn't wrong. a big X-Men guy. People often ask me that question. Like, who's your favorite X-Man? And I'm always like, okay, but the I know how this is going sound, but it's, it's Wolverine.
00:58:32
Speaker
And i have to explain, like, there's so like, this is one of the things about Wolverine. Yeah. He's got this like nineties, like, Oh, I'm a bad-ass. I can kill anybody. And I got, I got so many knives on my hands. You better not come near me. But It's shit like this, right? Where it's like, yes, he's a killer, but he's not just a killer because it's cool.
00:58:54
Speaker
He's a killer because he wants to spare other people from having to be. He knows he lives in a world where sometimes, unfortunately, killing has to be done, and he'd rather it all fall on him than be spread out and, ah like, amongst other people, people who otherwise wouldn't.
00:59:14
Speaker
Yeah. It's... He and Rachel even share an embrace as he does it, too. It's very heartwarming is the wrong word because it's tender.
00:59:25
Speaker
This woman is a ah vampire and her bloodline is ending. But tender is, yeah, they're probably the right way to go. They share a somber moment, but in true X-Men fashion, their grieving and is interrupted when Kitty appears, mocking them for their empathy.
00:59:40
Speaker
She transforms once again into Dracula's daughter and introduces herself menacingly as Lilith. Do you know about Lilith, Pat?
00:59:51
Speaker
Okay. Frasier's ex-wife? Mm-hmm. Yeah, she's the devil. She's a she's a vampire, all right. So... Frasier would have said something more clever.
01:00:04
Speaker
Lilith is like a very... strange mythological figure in like the real world. Yes. Okay. She is a... ah In Jewish mythology, she's like a um demon woman who was banished from the Garden of Eden.
01:00:23
Speaker
Okay. do You know the... I think this is why it's called the Lilith Fair. Oh. Feminist. um Because it's one of those things where like, oh, it's the demonization of women who think for themselves. She was banished for like disobeying Adam.
01:00:40
Speaker
But... Lilith also appears in the Gilgamesh cycle. Oh, like within the Epic of Gilgamesh, they're sort of like this. um I don't know this like sorceress, but she's also a ah serpent, but she's also like a, I think like an owl or something. She, she is in one of the stories and there is, there are like reliefs that were found in Babel ancient Babylon, which,
01:01:11
Speaker
That depict like a serpent bird woman. No shit. That they assume is. Supposed to be a willow. So then she appears, you know, in the the the Hebrew ancient Greece, like ancient Greek myths seem to refer to a Lilith as like as some sort of like demon s thing. And I believe um Lilith is a figure in Irish mythology, but I don't know that much about that one.
01:01:46
Speaker
i like I could be wrong about that. ge she's like a She's like the dragon where just every culture seems to have some sort of story about her because she probably exists. And they fucking call her ah Lilith.
01:02:02
Speaker
You know, it's so many of these goddamn... That's wild. Yes. I really thought it was like a supervillain coming out and saying like, did they call me Peter.
01:02:20
Speaker
so It's... some Yeah, no, it it has... She has deep, deep mythological origins. There's also... In, like, Arabic folklore... Okay. She appears, but likely that's just from Islam, which also came from, like, the Judeo-Christian cycle. Yeah, yeah.
Bill Sienkiewicz's Art Style
01:02:41
Speaker
ah Every culture that I'm mentioning has connections. So, likely... they all Lilith has a common ancestor that has branched out into all these types of folklore right like this isn't like ah the fact that vampires appear in Native American myths and they appear in old European myths and they appear in African myths like it's not like that this is like this could be a folklore tree right yeah but it's still fucking so cool
01:03:16
Speaker
And she's a Marvel Comics character. Anyway. of course. And in Marvel Comics, she's Dracula's daughter for some reason. She explains that she orchestrated the whole situation knowing how her father and the X-Men would react, hoping it would ah finally kill her father.
01:03:30
Speaker
She knows she can never control them all for long because of their strong willpower. So instead of turning them into vampires, instead of turning them into vampires, she gives Kitty her body back and explains that Aurora and Logan shouldn't be affected by Dracula's curse anymore and won't turn into vampires when they die.
01:03:48
Speaker
Da Is this... So is this the end of the Van Helsing bloodline? Are they just... Well...
01:04:02
Speaker
I mean, certainly not in DC comics, right? Do you want to know where I first read this story? Sure. I had a little novel that my parents got me when I was a kid. Had Wolverine on the cover. He was yelling at me.
01:04:18
Speaker
o It was called Marvel Chillers. Okay. Bloodstorm, I think it was called. And it had this comic in black and white. and No, it had some of this comic in black and white in the back. It had the the X-Men issue that we read earlier. Okay. In black and white in the back. And then behind that, it had like some excerpts from this annual.
01:04:44
Speaker
But it starts with a novel, like a kid's novel, about Dana Van Helsing. Who? At Miniver Prep in New York City. you know Dana spent most of her time trying to fit in with the other kids, but these kids sure weren't anything like the friend she left behind in Wisconsin. I don't know. It's like ah it's like a teen romance about her being in love, but also like maybe being a vampire, and she runs into the ninety s X-Men, and they... What? Yeah, they help her to fight Dracula and a bunch of vampires.
01:05:22
Speaker
Goddamn. Yeah, it's like Psylocke and Cannonball and Wolverine. I loved, I had a Spider-Man novel when I was a kid and yet wish I could find those again. that's It's so cool.
01:05:34
Speaker
I actually found, like, while I was researching this episode, I found this Marvel Chillers, just like a PDF of it online. What? What?
01:05:45
Speaker
What? i didn't I didn't say anything. You did. You were podcasting. I'm pretty sure i didn't. um Yeah, no. It was interesting, but something about it, I don't know what, left a bad taste in my mouth. And since then, I've never liked X-Men vampire stories.
01:06:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean...
01:06:09
Speaker
even without that trauma this is is this is so silly it wants us to take it so seriously but it is so silly yes the art is sick the art is next level and i can take that very seriously but the story itself is so goofy does it make you fucking stoked for um 10 15 or whatever issues into new mutants ah
Uncanny X-Men Number 160 Overview
01:06:37
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, I am very excited for Bill Sankiewicz to just go nuts.
01:06:43
Speaker
Yeah. So
01:06:47
Speaker
there's a thing that we we we often we get this one side of the Dracula mythos that like pervades culture, right? This idea of just like a scary man who can show up and But your neck and turn you into a bad guy.
01:07:05
Speaker
But really that story was about. The agency of women. And the oppression of hypersexual men.
01:07:20
Speaker
Yeah, sure. Bram Stoker's Dracula. So I think it's interesting that that is a theme that Chris Claremont seems to stick with here. It's about Dracula ensnaring Storm and making her feel helpless.
01:07:33
Speaker
And then he chooses to have Lilith do the same thing to Kitty and Kitty do the same thing to Colossus. Yeah. It's very Chris Claremont to pull like the the right themes out of a piece of literature and ah apply it to...
01:07:48
Speaker
something that has no right being there right i don't know that he does like the feminism of it correctly obviously brand stoker didn't do the feminism of it correctly he was he was old as hell but well anyway so i honestly could talk about the metaphor of vampires forever ah But there's no time for that now.
01:08:13
Speaker
That's right, Matt. We got to get to Uncanny X-Men number 160, Shoots and Ladders. Oh, I love games. No, Matt. What?
01:08:24
Speaker
There is a box of text. It's not the narrator. It's not a dialogue. There's a box of text on the very first page that says, this is not a game. For the uncanny X-Men, however, it isn't a game. Dude, you so you called it that. You named it that.
01:08:42
Speaker
don't look Don't yell at me Chris Glearmont's script, Brett Anderson pencils, Bob Wyacek inks, Tom Orszakowski letters, Glynis Ween colors, Louise Jones editor, and Jump Stupid editor in chief.
01:08:57
Speaker
Release date, May 11th, 1982. Cover date, August,
01:09:03
Speaker
ah Why is Storm attacking the X-Men? I don't know. not following Storm. Oh, I am following Storm. Yes, you are. A demonic hand strokes a golden amulet with a pentagram inside it and asks himself this question.
01:09:17
Speaker
But he's dumb because they're just training like always. yeah Luckily for him, there's an accident with a fastball special because it takes the X-Men's attention away from Peter Rasputin's little sister, Ileana.
01:09:30
Speaker
He calls to her and lures her forward, to paradise he claims this is it is so stupid that he's watching this and he's like why would she attack her teammates does she want to kill them is she does she wish them dead oh i see it's just a test it like is this guy is is all of life so foreign to this dude that he's like Why does this man attack the sandwich with his teeth? Does he hate the sandwich? does he Does he think it lives and he means to kill it? Oh, no, this is just a bodily maintenance it's routine.
01:10:08
Speaker
Why is this woman feeding that child? Does she plan to fatten it for eating? is she trying to choke it with the food? oh no, she wants it to live.
01:10:22
Speaker
They are. It's also worth pointing out. They're still hanging out on Magneto's weird little raised kingdom. yeah I'm uncomfortable with this place. i don't know where it came from still.
01:10:35
Speaker
And they admit themselves in the comic that they've left like three quarters of it unexplored. Get out of there, you guys. have no idea what you just got attacked by vampires do you not realize like this is a dangerous world also i think it's funny brent anderson it's perfectly fine comic book artist he'll do some interesting work over time not my favorite but He does the thing that all comic book artists do. where He absolutely fails at drawing a child.
01:11:08
Speaker
Oh my God. There's this one, there's this one panel with Ileana. It's two panels in a row. It's a panel with Ileana where she looks too like she's holding her teddy bear. She's turning around. She's got cherubic little cheeks and an upturned nose. it looks like Cindy Lou she looks like a child, like a baby.
01:11:25
Speaker
And then in the very next panel, we see like her full body. And she looks like nine. Yeah, yeah, she's significantly older. Still a child, but.
01:11:39
Speaker
Yeah, it's, it's, fair and it's ironic given what this story is about. Yeah, yeah, what is, or how it ends up. Yeah. ah Kitty sees Ileana wandering off deeper into the island by herself, so she follows her, calling out her name until she finds herself alone in a dark, creepy temple.
01:11:58
Speaker
Kitty is frozen, a disk of light appearing beneath her feet. She screams for help. And the next second she's gone. We should say here ah also because i I don't want to have obscured it.
01:12:11
Speaker
Ileana is six years old. Yeah, yeah. She is. since we Since we can't look at her and tell what age she is, it helps to know. Back on the training grounds, Kurt suggests Aurora rest a minute and take a shower as she's been going nonstop since Dracula.
01:12:29
Speaker
So Storm gets instantly nude right there and summons a rainstorm.
01:12:36
Speaker
It's great. Chris, Chris, settle down, my dude. During this, pet there's no story reason for it to happen either. During this, Peter notices that Kitty and Ileana are missing. So at Storm's orders, they all begin searching the island.
01:12:53
Speaker
It's not long before they're in the temple, shrouded in darkness, and disks of light swallow them up. We get everybody's famous exclamations here. Storm says, goddess. ah Kurt says, aullit before he's cut off.
01:13:10
Speaker
Colossus says, by the white wolf. And Wolverine says, cripes. yeah
01:13:20
Speaker
I'm so used to reading cripes. I didn't like it. It hasn't dawned on me maybe ever how ridiculous it is. Cripes. Ah, cripes.
01:13:34
Speaker
Kitty, meanwhile, she makes a ring world reference here. and Not even a reference. She just like, like more than that. She's like, oh, it's just like Larry. ah She finds herself in a weird land made of bones and stone.
01:13:49
Speaker
But not to worry. Nightcrawler is here. She throws her arms around her to hug him, but recoils in horror almost immediately. She phases and Nightcrawler's hand passes through her chest out of her back.
01:14:04
Speaker
How could her friend, the kindly Kurt Wagner, grope her like that? And why is he dressed in jewelry and a tattered skirt? Kitty runs, denying that this person is Kurt at all, until she trips and finds herself at the throne of a demonic-looking man who calls himself Belasco.
01:14:23
Speaker
It's really fucking disturbing. It is. It's i mean yeah it's because she's also like, she she says like, hey, how dare you touch me like that? Yes. I i remember the first time I read this, reading this panel, these this couple panels a few times. Like, that can't be what they're implying here.
01:14:45
Speaker
But not only does she say, how dare you touch me like that, his hand... Instantly goes out of where her breasts. Yeah, yeah. Out the back when she faces. Yeah.
01:14:57
Speaker
Ugh. Sucks. It sucks. Elsewhere in this weird place, Colossus and Storm search for Kitty, but find only a strange silver armband, which Storm clasps to her arm. Oh, I'll just wear this.
01:15:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah Seconds later, she is grasped by dozens of pink tentacles, oozing acid and burning her skin. Colossus disappears into another glowing disc, leaving Storm alone, but weirdly, her body coats itself in organic steel and she grows claws and a tail.
01:15:26
Speaker
She becomes in an amalgam of Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Colossus, and herself and cuts herself free. Though moments later, she wakes up in a comfortable bed and a beautiful glade.
01:15:38
Speaker
She decides to take a quick swim in the nearby pool. Nude again. Nude again. Wondering who could have saved her and why this all looks so familiar. Still wearing that weird armband, she puts on some clothes she finds and an amulet.
01:15:54
Speaker
And yells out to the Glade that she will bring them back as a shadowy figure watches using the familiar phrase, goddess help us. ah It's also, it's just a bikini that she finds. i think there's a cape to it too, but. She looks like Shanna the She-Devil.
01:16:11
Speaker
Also, this, I guess we eventually find out why she becomes this weird, what doesn't happen again? Like, it's just, it's a contained in this one panel or two, three panels, maybe. She becomes this triple X man, frees herself, and then that never again.
01:16:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. No idea why it happened, but but that's okay. It worked. Uh-huh. In Belasco's throne room, Kitty is trapped in a crystal that blocks her powers and watches helplessly as this creepy nightcrawler advances on Ileana.
01:16:47
Speaker
Belasco transports him away, though, and tells Kitty that this truly is Kurt Wagner, transformed and reshaped into a servant. Belasco explains that he's a sorcerer and a disciple of the Dark Ones, some Lovecraftian thing from some Kesar comic that we will not be reading. No, I'm not following Kesar or Lovecraft.
01:17:07
Speaker
His new plan somehow involves Kitty and Ileana. He summons Sim, a big purple brute with a massive tail and a vaguely piggish face and a mohawky bone ridge that crests into a horn on his forehead.
01:17:20
Speaker
Do you know, do you know what's, what do you know about Sim? Absolutely nothing. So this was at the time of Cerebus, Dave Sim's comic Cerebus.
01:17:33
Speaker
Okay. and I actually don't remember this character. I've read Cerebus and I don't fucking remember this character at all. But apparently there was a character that was like sort of making fun of Chris Claremont in the book.
01:17:47
Speaker
Okay. um And I know Cerebus makes fun of Wolverine other you know famous com yeah like comic book things at the time. But so this is supposed to look vaguely kind of like Cerebus. Yeah.
01:18:01
Speaker
And he wears the same like ah like weird vest for no reason, like black vest that's like barely covers anything. Like, why is it yeah there? yeah And he's called it Sim after Dave Sim.
01:18:18
Speaker
OK, this is them firing back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Very cute. Yeah. Sim grabs one claw from a metal skeleton lying on the ground, lamenting that he didn't get to kill Wolverine himself as he picks his teeth with it.
01:18:34
Speaker
In response to Kitty's horror at Wolverine's death, Belasco pulls her skeleton out of her body and laughs. It's Brent Anderson's having a little fun here too. The skeleton is also turned to her and waving at her just like a, like, like a very innocent stance sla is as if it's going, Hey, how would you want your skeleton to react? I would prefer it fall to the ground. I just sit there and, and I'd like it in my body.
01:19:06
Speaker
Well, okay. If that's an option. ah Belasco then gives Ileana the pentagram amulet as a token of his love, telling her that when she's grown, it will fill with five bloodstones and she will attain her true destiny.
01:19:21
Speaker
It'll fill with five bloodstones. It's got none right now. All the while, our buddy, the real Kurt Wagner, watches from a ledge high above and swears revenge.
01:19:33
Speaker
We next see him stalking his monstrous doppelganger and leaping out to attack him. The other Kurt tells him that this is him from the future. He came to rescue Ileana, but saw all his friends die, and Belasco spared and cared for him. Whoa.
01:19:48
Speaker
They both disappear in a double bamf, and soon the monstrous Kurt appears before Belasco, bragging that he killed an X-Man. A double bamf? They said it couldn't be done!
01:20:02
Speaker
Meanwhile, Wolverine is wandering the corridors when he stumbles into the dead body of Colossus stuck to a wall his metal chest caved in. It's fucked up. Wolverine notes that he looks much older than he should when Sim appears and starts beating Wolverine's ass. Immediately tears his shirt off.
01:20:21
Speaker
Wolverine is shirtless for the rest the issue. Slams him into a wall, tears his shirt off. That's step one. He brags that he was the one who killed Colossus and has Wolverine on the ropes when he suddenly disappears. Wolverine does, yeah.
01:20:35
Speaker
Sim explains that the discs can transport people through both space and time and can be unpredictable, but his thoughts are interrupted by Colossus. Fuck yes.
01:20:46
Speaker
Standing tall next to his own corpse, he challenges the demon. Sim's first move is to throw the Wolverine claw from earlier into Colossus' shoulder and then the two grapple. Colossus is so cool.
01:20:59
Speaker
He's rad as hell. He's standing next to his own court. He looks and he's like, oh, that's that's me dead. And that's what he's thinking. And what he's saying is ah something something to the effect of if you need somebody to fight villain, fight me. He's just so heroic.
01:21:20
Speaker
I love that guy. Colossus is losing. When Sim screams out in pain, Wolverine is back and stabbed Sim right in his butt. He lashes out skillfully, but his claws do seemingly no damage, though Colossus thinks fast and kicks Sim into another stepping disc. This is one of the best Wolverine little fight sequences we've seen so far.
01:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, this is very cool. It's just Wolverine, you know, taking slashes. It's It's ruined a little bit by Claremont going, and this is only the beginning. making that come out of wolverines mouth But it is like he keeps advancing. And with every advance, he takes advantage of Sim having to back up. Like, it's like shows Wolverine can fucking fight.
01:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. ah Wolverine apparently got back to the fight through the powers of the cloaked figure from earlier. Wolverine recognizes her scent and is about to confront her when she teleports he and Colossus away again and they appear in Belasco's throne room.
01:22:25
Speaker
As Belasco begins to boast, he's suddenly struck in the face by Nightcrawler, the good Nightcrawler. What? Pretending to be the bad Nightcrawler. No! And Storm shows up too. Cool. Belasco, outnumbered, runs away.
01:22:40
Speaker
Just like Dracula. Before Storm can chase him, she's stopped by the cloaked figure. The cloaked figure who turns out to be Old Storm. Old Storm.
01:22:51
Speaker
Apparently, she'd lived through this moment before and chose to chase Belasco and it led to all her friends dying or being corrupted. Thus, all the dead and evil X-Men we saw before.
01:23:02
Speaker
Oh. In Limbo... where they are, the rules of time and space don't apply. Their real concern now is how to, that's the, that is the best explanation we get.
01:23:13
Speaker
Yeah. Well, it's funny also that they name it Limbo because Kurt's like, it's like we're in some kind of Limbo. And from now on in Marvel comics, this is called Limbo. This is just Limbo.
01:23:27
Speaker
ah The real concern now is how to free Kitty when Kitty doesn't even have her skeleton. It's just been standing around and waving at people when when Colossus and Kurt enter turns and starts waving at them.
01:23:45
Speaker
But old Storm has an answer. She's been learning magic all this time, and she puts Kitty's body back together. She also tells Storm that the amulet she's wearing will send them all home as Belasco, M, and some demons show up and start attacking. ah There's a panel where Wolverine's like...
01:24:06
Speaker
a demon's coming. Don't worry, I'll take care of him. And then in the next panel, it's like, and he did. It's not there. We're missing like a few seconds of action we see. it's i see what they're going for where Wolverine pops his claws and is like, I'll take care of him. And then the narrator's like, and he does. And in the next panel, he's retracting his claws with some like blood splashing off of him. But Not the best storytelling on Brent Anderson's part.
01:24:41
Speaker
should Just show him stabbing the guy. Yeah. Old Storm holds them off while Storm uses the amulet to create a stepping disc. But at the last second, Belasco shows up and grabs Ileana's arm.
01:24:53
Speaker
Kitty tries to hold on to the other arm as she's pulled through the spell circle, but loses her. Although seconds later, grasping through the portal, she finds her again. And with the help of the X-Men, yanks her back out. ww Oh, God, I was worried about Ileana for a second.
01:25:09
Speaker
Little Ileana emerges from the portal. But as a 13-year-old girl astonished to see her brother again. What the fuck? In the seconds that Kitty lost her hand, Ileana spent seven full years in limbo. What the fuck?
01:25:26
Speaker
The rules of space and time don't apply there, Matt. She was... but But the emotional weight of that, she was gone in limbo for seven years?
01:25:37
Speaker
Yes. She had a life. all they can think is like... Boy, there was a really good influence down there and a really bad influence down there. Sure hope she got to the good influence.
01:25:50
Speaker
I wonder if we'll ever find that out. Later, back on the island, Peter goes into his sister's room to watch over her and she's startled violently. It appears after spending more than half her life in limbo, she's brought back some trauma with her.
01:26:06
Speaker
He watches over her as she sleeps it and in her hand, a golden amulet pops open, revealing a pentagram with three bloodstones in it. what
Chris Claremont's Writing and Storytelling Techniques
01:26:16
Speaker
The end. What the fuck? what a um What an amazing bit of storytelling to reveal the amulet, first image of the issue and last image of the issue. And the first image of the issue, it's empty. Midway through the issue, he gives it to her and he says, as you grow up and you start you begin to reach your full destiny, which it's Belasco, so you know this destiny's not good, all five bloodstones will be in this amulet.
01:26:46
Speaker
And then you end the issue on three bloodstones being in the amulet? Fucking...
01:26:54
Speaker
i don't know what a bloodstone is, but... It can't be good. We make fun of Chris Claremont. And that's another silly thing. But like we make fun of Chris Claremont all the time. But it just cant we cannot overstate how fucking good of a writer this guy is.
01:27:10
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. This is also what what an insane seed to plant. Like this isn't just oh I've noticed this person is acting off or I tried to use my powers and felt some other presence there. This is.
01:27:27
Speaker
a girl spent seven years in some version of hell and is now back and probably has to deal with it.
01:27:39
Speaker
Right. Like we, we, we absolutely know it. Right. Like you're right. Like it's not like implied, like a, like a slow burn, like, Oh, something seems off about Ileana.
01:27:55
Speaker
We know she was gone for seven years. We know that in between two panels, seven years passed. Yeah. And she comes back with these bloodstones, clearly having served ah the demon that was torturing all of them.
01:28:11
Speaker
Right.
01:28:14
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Something's going to happen there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah I think it's really ah fun and interesting lens to look at Storm through, seeing her older version having lost some of the strength of her mutant power, so she yeah instead picked up sorcery, which she calls ah the other part of her heritage or something like that. Yeah. And she she masters it. In the time that she's there, she is a master sorcerer.
01:28:48
Speaker
and And another cool thing about Storm is she's like, Belasco allowed me to learn all this because he was because in his mind, he thought, oh, if she learns dark magic, it'll corrupt her just like it did Nightcrawler. And it did me. Yeah. It did everybody.
01:29:05
Speaker
And it's Storm. So it fucking doesn't. Yeah. So cool. The strongest willpower in the Marvel Universe. She fought off Dracula's influence when she was his thrall.
01:29:20
Speaker
And has beat mind control how many times in this fucking comic book? Right. Yeah, yeah. and and now, like, learned dark magic that corrupts absolutely and wasn't corrupted by it.
01:29:35
Speaker
She's just... but You could, okay. I could see there being a little bit of, like, Mary Sue-ism to Storm.
Marvel Team-Up #100 Analysis
01:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, but it feels so earned because yeah of her background. Like, we've talked before about how she has maybe too many elements to her background, too many backgrounds in general. But it's, ah like...
01:30:00
Speaker
This is not her suddenly being incredibly powerful. it is It has been a slow and steady build to consistency a in terms of her her power, her sort of sense of nobility.
01:30:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
01:30:20
Speaker
Holy shit, man. That was a good comic book. And, you know, my favorite part of it. What's that? Oh, it was when they addressed the cliffhanger from last issue about about Professor Rex's condition worsening.
01:30:37
Speaker
Matt, they do address it. At the end of 159, Moira there's an emergency. Grab Scott, gather Scott, and get to Muir Island as soon as possible. Sure.
01:30:51
Speaker
When we see them here, they've called Scott. He hasn't arrived yet, so they're goofing around. And they go to hell for a little bit. And they go to hell for a little bit.
01:31:04
Speaker
Then you shouldn't have made that the cliffhanger.
01:31:08
Speaker
Like a cliffhanger is meant to bring you back. yeah And if you were coming back for that reason, you'd be like, fucking. Okay. That's not why I'm here. Anyway. All right, pat I want to tell you about Marvel team up number 100. Okay. Marvel team up number 100. We already covered this, didn't we?
01:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, maybe. Yeah, we covered um Marvel Team Up 100, huh? no we only covered the back half of the issue. This is the rest of the issue. All right, this is Marvel Team Up 100 and introducing Karma. She possesses people.
01:31:45
Speaker
That's that's the name of it. It's called An Introducing Karma, She Possesses People. Okay. That's the name of the comic book that we're reading. this I mean, this one makes sense.
01:31:58
Speaker
Chris Claremont. Okay. Well.
01:32:03
Speaker
Chris Claremont, co-creator and writer. Frank Miller. Whoa. Co-creator and artist. Bob Wyacek, embellisher and artist.
01:32:14
Speaker
Dennis O'Neill, editor. Dennis O'Manis. Jump Stupid, editor-in-chief. A. Koweki's the letterer and Carl Gafford is the colorist. that you have it all They have it all wonky here.
01:32:27
Speaker
It's A. Koweki's fault, actually, right? Some Koweki just must have fucked this up. Release date, September 23, 1980, so jumping back a bit. oh Cover date, December 1980.
01:32:42
Speaker
We see Spidey man swinging through so Manhattan on his way home to do some homework when he's suddenly attacked in his mind.
01:32:53
Speaker
He says, he says, my mind. And fucking Chris Claremont says, um, Imagine being dunked in your whole body in a tank of sulfuric acid. That's what it feels like to be Spider-Man. Why would you do that? Why would you say, hey, this thing's hard to imagine. Hey, Pat, have you ever bungee jumped?
01:33:15
Speaker
No. Okay, well, imagine, like, tasting a color you've never seen before. No.
01:33:26
Speaker
Why would you have somebody try to imagine something they don't know imagine something they don't Also, it seems like he just has a bad headache.
01:33:38
Speaker
Why would it be easier to imagine being my whole body being dumped in sulfuric acid than it would be for me to imagine being possessed by LAD? So ridiculous. Fucking Chris Claremont just loves to...
01:33:54
Speaker
He loves to be Chris Claremont, huh? he The other thing he does here, Spider-Man is plummeting down to the ground, bouncing off of buildings, like just plop, plop, like falling down off the skyline as the narrator says, the body responds automatically.
01:34:12
Speaker
Hair trigger reflexes averting disaster by the narrowest of margins. Plop. Yeah.
01:34:21
Speaker
It's wild that people still keep working with Chris Claremont when he does exactly what John Byrne accused him of and just changes what's happening. Sometimes i know I know we're still stuck in the first sentence of this recap, but sometimes I wonder if there's actually like an editorial mandate to make sure it it doesn't look like Spider-Man is being too foolish. Oh my God, like the JMD Matias thing from ah two episodes ago. Yeah, yeah. Like when clearly he gets kicked in the face, but he's saying, oh, thank God I dodged that kick in the face. And that's why I'm posed like this. Yeah.
01:34:57
Speaker
I wonder if that is just editors being like, no, Spider-Man wouldn't take a kick to the face. People will people will riot. but That is a jump shithead thing to do.
01:35:08
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Also, Frank Miller draws some real Spider-Man ass. Yes. Can't draw Spider-Man without an ass. Yeah, just chunky Spider-Man butt.
01:35:19
Speaker
That canonical butt. He starts plummeting, barely able to control himself, while a woman's silhouette watches from the corner of a nearby roof, asking herself why he insists on resisting.
01:35:32
Speaker
We see her thoughts echoed in Spider-Man as he falls victim to this possession and quickly learns how to stick himself to walls. exploring his bit it's cool because his his fingers are uh clenched like scraping like you would normally if you were falling down a building that's how you try to stop yourself but then when he relaxes and puts his uh the pads of his fingers forward he stops immediately and fucking we don't know who this is yet but if it were some sort of child that'd be really cool
01:36:06
Speaker
There's like a child playing with Spider-Man's body like, oh, oh, cool. That's how it works. Exploring his abilities, he discovers he also has super strength and mechanical web shooters and is so excited to. Again, if this were a kid that was possessing him, who knows?
01:36:23
Speaker
That would be such a cool moment. It was like a kid just a kid playing with Spider-Man. um That's enough training for now, though, as we see the ah woman and Spidey sharing thoughts. They reflect on Spider-Man's strong will and how she must accomplish her mission before he's able to take control of his body back.
01:36:41
Speaker
Cut to Freedom Tower, home to New York's super rich, where three of the Fantastic Four are attending a swanky party hosted by Nguyễn Ngọc Coy, a former South Vietnamese general and multimillionaire.
01:36:55
Speaker
He introduces Reed and Sue Richard Storm to his nephew Tran and Tran's brother and sister Leong and Nha, who he does not refer to as his niece or nephew for some reason.
01:37:08
Speaker
Across the party, Ben Grimm accompanies the party's honoree, his girlfriend and blind sculptor, Alicia Masters, and notes that most of the party guests appear to be strapped under their tuxedo jackets.
01:37:20
Speaker
Uh-oh. They're packing. um The first comic book, superhero comic book I ever owned was um Spider-Man and the Human Torch at an Alicia Masters...
01:37:34
Speaker
Gallery showing. Nice. She's a pretty successful artist. Upstairs, we see Tron's brother and sister demanding to see their sister while their security tells them to shut up.
01:37:47
Speaker
Spider-Man clings to the wall above them, a identifying the children by name before bouncing down and quickly taking out the security. One of the guards manages to fire a gun into the floor. Everyone's fine, but more security will surely be here soon.
01:38:02
Speaker
Spidey speaks to the children in Vietnamese, but before he can explain, he's plagued by a tingling sensation in his head. As he tries to figure out what it means, a pair of long, stretchy arms wrap around him and start to restrain him. Of course, it was Spidey's sense trying to warn him of Mr. Fantastic's approach.
01:38:23
Speaker
Spidey, Mr. Fantastic, and the thing start fighting, and while the person possessing Spider-Man gets more comfortable in his body, he gets more and more uncomfortable. of an edge on Reed and Ben.
01:38:34
Speaker
There's really... there's no benefit of the doubt given to spider-man here to be like hey what are you doing why did you attack this security they're just like oh i guess spider-man's turned bad despite the dozen times that we fought alongside him and yeah the fact that we owe our child's life to him we've been friends with it was he ever he's been a member of the fantastic four couple times was it did it happen yet that i don't know okay following spider-man yeah The Thing asks Spider-Man if he just got tired of being a good guy, and the person possessing Spider-Man realizes that Spidey is a hero, not a criminal, as they thought. Reed, having fought along Spidey many times, notices that Spider-Man is moving a bit unnaturally, as if someone unfamiliar with his body were trying to control it.
01:39:23
Speaker
Sue shows up, and we get a few more brilliant panels of the super-powered fight. It's it's really fucking good. Frank Miller is he's just doing so good. yeah Yeah. Yeah. There's small panels, but he's including everybody in the fight, mid action, using the full force of their powers and Spider-Man like acrobatting his way in and out of it. It's, and This will continue throughout the issue, but he also uses has people use their powers in like interesting ways. Yeah. yeah Like Sue Storm, instead of just making like big bubbles, should' she did she like ah freezes Spider-Man with a bunch of little bubbles.
01:40:07
Speaker
Yeah. ah Johnny Storm is just playing with his powers, Human Torch, and he's just like juggling little balls of flame in a circle. Like, yeah, yeah. The action poses that he gets Ben Grimm in, just like the big lumbering haymaker or throw in goofball. Like it's really they've all got distinct styles that he's drawing out. It's.
01:40:30
Speaker
It's masterful. You feel the weight of it. Yeah. So in this this continues until Tron, watching from the side, begs his uncle to let him enter the fight. He gets permission and immediately sends a mental bolt at Spider-Man.
01:40:44
Speaker
Oh, no. Spidey collapses to the ground as the woman possessing him loses her grip over him. Ben throws a haymaker at Spidey and he wakes up on the Fantastic Four's couch. Good night.
01:40:56
Speaker
um A couple things here. Number one, that fucking visual shorthand for the that woman and Tron. yeah possessing people is amazing. It's like, it's like a, like a cartoony silhouette of their heads encased for her. It's pink for him. It's blue.
01:41:18
Speaker
Just like this, this light emanating from around it and
Karma's Backstory and Cultural Critique
01:41:21
Speaker
connecting to the, the brain of their trying that they're trying to control it's like chunky squares coming out in a around like around in a circle as if like imagine you you know when ah when a when glass is made in that specific way that when it shatters it doesn't all fall apart like that like so shattered yeah shattered glass but breaking apart in like a radial it's really good and it sticks forever this uh we know it's a person named karma because it's in the fucking name of the uh she possesses people so this is the shorthand for karma forever like they never lose this it's cool i didn't know frank miller invented that that's awesome it's also worth pointing out that uh
01:42:16
Speaker
The Fantastic Four are just sitting around drinking hot chocolate waiting for Spider-Man to wake up. They offer him hot chocolate. This is what the Fantastic Four does? They just sit in their living room and drink hot chocolate?
01:42:28
Speaker
Yes. they are They are leave it to beaver, but they deal with cosmic threats. On a hot day, they drink Ovaltine.
01:42:40
Speaker
oh
01:42:43
Speaker
ah So Roy Thomas runs in and writes the next panel as a reading from Reed's encephaloscanner reveals that his memory is completely blank for about an hour as if his brain had just been turned off in that time. And then Roy Thomas runs back out of the room.
01:42:58
Speaker
Unsure of how to interpret this, Reed calls Professor Charles x Xavier, who, yes... Did pick up some strange mutant activity on Cerebro, indicating the presence of two mutants in Manhattan with similar power sets. This power...
01:43:15
Speaker
We don't know. What if what the fuck is Cerebro? This power, he says, is unlike any he's anything he's previously encountered. Why? How? Again.
01:43:28
Speaker
how He can do this. ye Professor Xavier himself can do this exact thing. Jesus.
01:43:39
Speaker
Also, listeners are like, wait, are they reading this whole issue just because the X-Men show up for this one tiny page? Yeah, I guess yes so. guess so. Over on the Lower East Side, Spidey joins the FF in their Fantasticar using Reed's knockoff Cerebro to try and track down whoever was responsible for last night.
01:43:59
Speaker
They track the signal to a church, and despite Johnny Storm's pleas to show some reverence, Spider-Man kicks through a stained glass window and tackles a priest.
01:44:10
Speaker
He tackles a priest. He just he runs right into the building and goes right for the man in the front. He's like, you did this to me. And he's like, what? No, I didn't. This is Father Bowen, Pat.
01:44:23
Speaker
This is the first appearance of Father Michael Bowen. Who is that? It's funny. In like two panels later, he immediately calls himself Michael Brown. yeah And then it goes back to calling himself Michael Bowen. It's very funny. But um Michael Bowen is Tandy Bowen's uncle.
01:44:43
Speaker
And you might know Tandy Bowen better as Dagger. Oh, like Cloak and Dagger. Holy cow. This guy becomes a huge part of the Cloak and Dagger's story. Oh.
01:44:58
Speaker
And I don't know if it's this church, but a church that Father Bowen is associated with, but at the time of Cloak and Dagger doesn't work in.
01:45:12
Speaker
So it might be this church becomes Cloak and Daggers hideout. oh Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Very cool. Is this his first appearance?
01:45:24
Speaker
Yes. Wow.
01:45:28
Speaker
It's just weird that, I mean, when. That well i guess character that Chris Claremont created shows up later in an X-Men title. No, well I don't know that you would call Cloak and Dagger an X-Men title. I. I read all of it as part of my X-Men read through and have concluded it's not really an X-Men title. OK, but it has some ties to the they have some types of the X-Men. i think they join the X-Men very briefly way, way in the future. And.
01:46:04
Speaker
You know, we keep coming across these connections between Bill Mantlo and Chris Claremont. So very, very possible. Yeah. A woman named Shan is standing right next to this priest. And while Spidey shakes shakes the priest down, Father Bowen, she shoots a mental bolt right at Johnny. Suddenly he's under her control. He flames up and starts fighting Spider-Man until Sue contains them both in plastic bubbles.
01:46:31
Speaker
And the priest starts yelling at everyone. Shan falls to her knees and begs forgiveness.
01:46:40
Speaker
We get a yeah fairly racist flashback to Vietnam. Oh, yeah. Where Shan and her family were targets of the Viet Cong.
01:46:53
Speaker
When a soldier is about to kill her brother Tran, she reacts by taking control of the soldier's mind. She only meant to stop him, but Tran quickly realized that he had the same power and used it to force the soldier to kill himself.
01:47:08
Speaker
He laughed as he did it. Years later, as ah their uncle Wyn offers to transport them out of Vietnam, Tran confides in him about their powers and explains that Shan is afraid to use them to their full extent.
01:47:23
Speaker
When South Vietnam fell, somehow, only Tran and his uncle escaped to the U.S., leaving Shan behind. A rough journey ensued for Shan, losing her father and her mother, being kidnapped by pirates, being assaulted, her and her mother.
01:47:42
Speaker
But... She eventually makes it to the U.S. When she reunites with her uncle, he's only interested in using her powers. And she refuses, taking her younger siblings with her as she leaves. The priest had helped her and the children find an apartment, but she came home from work one day to find it ransacked and the children missing. oh man. The phone rang as if fucking enough hadn't happened to this poor girl. The phone rang, and on the other line was her uncle offering to return the children if she would just come work for him.
01:48:14
Speaker
Seeing Spider-Man described as a menace in the Daily Bugle, she decided to take control of him and use a criminal to do her dirty work.
01:48:22
Speaker
So we should at least talk about how super racist their portrait of life in East Asia is here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. i Everyone seems to live in straw huts in the jungle.
01:48:39
Speaker
They are war-torn, and I realize like she's... In a war-torn area, but she, everywhere she goes is war-torn. It's it's ravaged by pirates.
01:48:51
Speaker
Everybody is wearing those fucking straw hats that they, like the Raiden hat that they put on people in racist caricatures. Right, right.
01:49:02
Speaker
The implication is that the Americans and South Vietnamese were right, that like the U.S. was justified for creating the Vietnam War. Right.
01:49:13
Speaker
And on top of everything, every person in this flashback, is which is mostly black and white, is literally colored yellow. yeah just to Yeah. Just to add insult to injury.
01:49:26
Speaker
i i think this is another example of Chris Claremont trying to be like, look at the horrors of war and look at the horrors of what was done to the Vietnamese people. But again, just fucking kind of like getting it.
01:49:42
Speaker
Yeah. Just doing it wrong. He also. And same with, and I don't know about Frank Miller because he has some racist tendencies that come out, come in and out of his work over time. Yeah. His politics are wildly confusing and, and take some interesting turns as time, as time goes on.
01:50:02
Speaker
yeah i but the other thing I think we're realizing about Claremont is like, If he's introducing a woman to us, I think maybe with the exception of Kitty Pryde, that woman has gone through every trauma imaginable.
01:50:18
Speaker
Right. Which is a huge problem in comic books in general in this day and for for years and years after. But, like, right these women are just defined by...
01:50:29
Speaker
The terrible things that have happened to them in their lives. Usually there's some sort of sexual aspect to it as well. It's ah like you can just write women without that stuff sometimes.
01:50:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, i mean, and and throughout this episode specifically, and we didn't group these things together on purpose, but it is just crazy. terrible horrible things happening to women over and over and over again it's just sort of hammering home this idea that i think is valid but is also like yeah like you're right like that the world can be dangerous for young girls yeah i think that's true
01:51:11
Speaker
but
01:51:13
Speaker
You know, it can also be joyous for young girls. It can also be kind and fun for young girls. And we get to see the joy of being a young superhero for the original team of X-Men.
01:51:27
Speaker
Yeah. i Except for Jean Grey, who when Claremont gets his hands on her, is immediately heavily traumatized. Yeah, i because what I think this does is is it... it One of the harmful things about it is not just not just like the weird sadism of it, but also this sort of nefarious thing of like, one of the reasons the world is unsafe for young women is something a little subtler.
01:52:00
Speaker
Something a little quieter. That happens in front of all of us that isn't people dying, you know, them being stranded in war tournament, right? Like it's something just like there is a general threat in certain situations that may never turn into anything, but it just makes that makes you feel unsafe or there's certain things that are ostracizing or make you feel weird about yourself at various points when you're just trying to grow up and be a happy kid. Right.
01:52:34
Speaker
Which is doing really well with Kitty. i mean, she's also seeing her share of horrors, but like yeah her emotional reactions and her character tends to be defined by her joy a little more. Whereas. Oh, right. yeah Every other woman he handles is just is defined by their trauma.
01:52:52
Speaker
Right, right. And yes, I think that's true. But then then again, with Kitty, it's also like the sexism that she's facing as she grows up is is like...
01:53:04
Speaker
Not affecting her at all because Claremont doesn't see it. you Yeah, yeah. That's also true. All right. um So, just like we are, Spidey and the FF are incensed by the story and agree to take out General Coy.
01:53:24
Speaker
We find Tran at Pier 32B preparing to ship off... That's very specific. Yeah. We find Tran at Pier 32B preparing to ship off the children for psychic testing to see if they contain the same abilities. This is interrupted by Spider-Man, who is having a great time bopping criminals until Tran takes control of all of the members of the Fantastic Four. oh Shan...
01:53:49
Speaker
passes out for some reason and we get six whole brilliant pages of spider-man facing off against the possessed ff it is really cool he's like dancing around them it's so ah again same same trouble putting it into words that we had the first time that spider-man fought them in this issue it is just it's beautiful it understands everything about the characters There's a scene in Civil War, um the comic book, not the movie. Yeah, yeah.
01:54:21
Speaker
Way later, drawn by Steve McNiven, where Spider-Man is fighting a bunch of superheroes um because he's just turned against Iron Man's side and is he wants to join Cap's side. And a bunch of heroes try to stop him.
01:54:39
Speaker
And he just fights his way through them, barely stopping, like not even stopping, just like leaping from guy to guy, punching them out of his way. Yeah, yeah. and this is a little corny, but it still like works for me is somebody's like amazing and somebody else is like spectacular. Yeah. And it.
01:55:04
Speaker
I use that. That's. Sorry, it's Reed Richards that says spectacular. I use that as a reaction image at work when somebody does something I like. that's Spectacular.
01:55:16
Speaker
It's an amazing sequence because there is this thing where no matter, there's all sorts of incredible heroes in the Marvel Universe, but nobody is like Spider-Man.
01:55:26
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And every now and then they have to remind us of that. It's like, this person might be more powerful, but nobody can do what Spider-Man can do. It's very cool.
01:55:37
Speaker
And it's it's done so well here. Yes, yes. Things go back and forth until the seventh page when Shan has had enough of heroes getting hurt. She focuses her energy and Tran suddenly turns white.
01:55:50
Speaker
like Like fully white. Like pure white. Yeah. And starts begging for his life. He floats in midair, a ghost above Shan before disappearing and leaving only his robes behind.
01:56:05
Speaker
creepy A perfect yin yang appears on the front of her robe as the narrator explains that she ah absorbed him.
01:56:17
Speaker
I guess I you and I asked each other. i think the consensus we came to is that she absorbed him. What the fuck?
01:56:28
Speaker
she can do that i it's like the extension of possessing someone is pulling them inside of you instead suck them in yeah it's fucking weird man yeah uh so i don't know she's got his life essence in him or her or whatever shan is reunited with her younger siblings and expresses gratitude to the ff if they ever need their help in the future they can just ask for karma That's the first time she actually reveals her superhero name.
01:57:00
Speaker
Which ah the beginning. There's something weird about her being named Karma, though. Do you think I get what about her powers is karmic?
01:57:17
Speaker
Right. I guess she's calling herself Karma because of what she did to. Her brother? Her brother. And now... Like, his karma for having done it is
01:57:33
Speaker
being absorbed into her. it might yeah mad It might just be racism and the fact that i think this comes from the same hemisphere of the world as Vietnam.
01:57:46
Speaker
Yes. and mrcorma Karma is like a well a Buddhist, a Hindu concept. Yin-Yangs are like Taoist.
01:57:57
Speaker
yeah right they're actually They're actually more just like mythological. like They're not actually like They're not like a religious symbol. They've been absorbed into Taoism, but they're more like a, yeah, they're like just like a philosophical thing from China, not from Vietnam. I know, yin-yangs are important in Vietnam, in Vietnamese culture too, but they originate in China.
01:58:21
Speaker
And Buddhism is a big religion in Vietnam. but But, yeah, it's just somebody collecting things they know about Vietnam and throwing them together.
01:58:35
Speaker
Yeah. Yes, it is. Racism aside, i don't ever want to say that, but I'm going to clip that, play it over and over. It's my ringtone.
01:58:52
Speaker
It's like the racism is sort of thematic more than part of the story here. The story itself really,
01:59:04
Speaker
fascinating stuff. I think this was really well done. Yeah, and ah yeah, I like this this introduction of Karma, who we will be seeing a lot more of. Okay.
01:59:20
Speaker
That's why we read that. ah um So this introduction of Karma, I think it's really cool. like like It shows her traumatic backstory, but it also shows her as a kid and a protector of...
01:59:33
Speaker
her two siblings. Like, it shows how much they mean to
Narrative Style and Character Arcs
01:59:38
Speaker
her. It shows how much fun she can have with her powers, even when she's doing something serious. Because, again, cause she's a fucking kid.
01:59:45
Speaker
It's important that kids be kids sometimes. Even in comic books. Anyway, it shows that she is is a hero, right? Yeah, yeah. Like, even when she's doing something wrong, she's like she's doing it heroically. She's meant to be even more heroic when before she knew what Spider-Man was.
02:00:04
Speaker
What did you like about this story? Honestly, I really liked the fights. it was It was very exciting and it felt like they were, these I mean, they were happening for a reason, right? It wasn't just let's mash Spider-Man together with some other hero and have them punch a villain, which is what most of these team ups are. This is deep. it It introduces another ah new character. It you mean Father Bowen? Yeah.
02:00:37
Speaker
It puts Spider-Man in a position to fight the Fantastic Four without feeling like forced or corny or just like it's through mind control. But they've earned that mind control by the time it happens.
02:00:52
Speaker
Right. Because she stumbles and fucks up a little bit. So it's not just another mind control story. It's like a. It's like Spider-Man. Yeah. It's like a person trying struggling to learn their powers on the fly.
02:01:06
Speaker
ah ah Yeah, I've read a lot of Karma. I've never read this issue. I've never read her origin until now. And I'm glad to have read it. I think it was it's good.
02:01:19
Speaker
I liked it. I love when we get to something you haven't read. How how do you feel about just the overall themes here? I mean, I know we talked about it a little bit.
02:01:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's a couple of things there in across all of these issues. There's a really strong focus on confusion and reveals, like just kind of keeping you in the dark about what's happening until you can connect everything at the end of the issue.
02:01:48
Speaker
Right. Love that we're getting a bunch of self-contained stories. I mean, these are, i think half of these are double size issues or giant size or whatever, but they're packed really densely. They contain these long detailed stories, each all within a single issue.
02:02:05
Speaker
And then even, even considering that we just watched a full on space opera with, I don't know, two dozen different species interacting with each other. This seems a lot less grounded than what we're used to. i ah Less, you much less concerned with like, could this happen? Does this make sense? And a little more, ah' it's a rule of cool, right? The, the popular D and D DMing term of just, Hey, if you can,
02:02:43
Speaker
Sort of find a way to make this work. And the end result is very cool. Find a to make it work. i And mostly to their benefit in this run, especially or maybe because of the artists that Claremont's working with here, where they know how to get just as strange and absurd and cool as hell.
02:03:06
Speaker
Yeah, it is cool. The artist, he's working with some interesting artists and artists that he will do amazing things with again the future. His, I don't know why we treat these like spoilers that we don't want to, but yeah, he will work with Bill Sienkiewicz again on something really, really cool. He will work with Frank Miller again on something very, very cool that we'll talk about in December.
02:03:28
Speaker
He will work with Brent Anderson again on something that we will talk about in December. Yeah. So, yeah, we're about, you know, it'll be a little while till we see this in Kevich stuff, but we're about to see some incredible projects that he does with these. Yes.
02:03:43
Speaker
Crazy collaborations. And you're, yeah, you're absolutely right. They they bring this this fucking, this stuff to life in a way that is, that is amazing. And and it takes away a lot of the silliness of it all.
02:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we fought Dracula. We fought a demon of some sort like a lesser demon yeah yeah yeah well i i think um belasco is just like a sorcerer ah but sim is a is a demon yeah it should be corny and yeah like it should feel like we're reading comic books for kids and it it just doesn't And like this, man, I don't know how often the trauma that Storm goes through here is referenced again. I know it is, but I don't know how often. But I mean, this this changes the character of magic. This changes the Marvel. though the that That's that one issue of X-Men where Ileana in again between two panels
02:04:48
Speaker
Spends seven years in Limbo. yeah Changes the Marvel universe forever. Yeah, yeah. This is not the last time we come across Limbo, right?
02:04:58
Speaker
Right, right. Also, a lot of this ah ties into one of my favorite Marvel games, Marvel Midnight Suns. Because Magic is in it. Right. Lilith is in it.
02:05:11
Speaker
They fight Dracula in it, and he's the fucking hardest fight. It's so hard. That fight is so hard. that is a fun game you told me about that game and i started playing it and never told you because i was like you i'm not gonna let him win but i had a lot of fun with it it rolled it's so good i've played it all the way through twice and i don't know why it sucks that it didn't succeed on the like does it didn't succeed like turn-based combat it's yeah and card and collecting a little bit yeah the dice with that
02:05:47
Speaker
And then in between is like... It's like you're making friends and hanging out. at
02:05:57
Speaker
Going on dates with Marvel characters. It rolls, man. I'm going to play it a
Video Games and Podcast Community Engagement
02:06:02
Speaker
fucking game. I'm going download it on Steam right now so I can play it later. I remember them marketing it like it was an open world fighting game too. Like you were walking around as these heroes...
02:06:13
Speaker
fighting bad guys. And so I think that led to a lot of the disappointment in that game when people found out it was actually a turn, like a card game. Yeah.
02:06:24
Speaker
But anyway, still, still very good. Ignore all that and go get it. He's got Nia stuff that could buy up. If you had a time machine that you would like to try out.
02:06:37
Speaker
It can't steal. Steal.
02:06:42
Speaker
Matt, for all the density that we've gone through today, we actually have a very simple Pat Steals and Deals today. Okay, we were talking about something, but all right, whatever.
02:06:54
Speaker
Extraterrestrial birth certificate. Extraterrestrial death certificate. $1.85 each, both for
02:07:06
Speaker
that's it
02:07:09
Speaker
now accounting for inflation uh yeah one of these at a dollar 85 comes out to about six dollars and 59 cents patrick what is this if you want to buy both of them at once
02:07:33
Speaker
Comes to $3.50, which accounting for inflation comes to $12.46.
02:07:41
Speaker
Please tell me you did some research on this and know what this is. I tried. Nothing came up. There are a lot of EFM enterprises. when you start looking up S extraterrestrial birth certificate, they take you to a lot of government websites that think you're trying to, uh, create a birth certificate for an alien, like an immigrant.
02:08:07
Speaker
Oh yeah. Which right now I imagine are being heavily monitored. Yeah. You're on a list. Um, Jesus Christ, man. Yeah, I can't Google it. Given that, I can't Google it because I'm about to leave the country and I need my passport to not get canceled.
02:08:26
Speaker
um What do you think it is? don't know!
02:08:33
Speaker
Extraterrestrial birth certificate, extraterrestrial death certificate. Is it like just a birth certificate? It's got a random name on it and it's like Saturn instead of philadelphia ah so that's possible i think okay that it is like a certificate with the spaces to fill in like a birth certificate has but all the writing is in alien language
02:09:09
Speaker
yeah you' Got an eye out. Something you could buy out. If you had time machine that you'd like to try out. It can feel sealed.
02:09:22
Speaker
Oh, folks. Thank you so much for listening. ah Please listen to our next episode. It'll come out in a week if you're listening to this on release day.
02:09:33
Speaker
Yeah, if you're listening to this on release day, happy Thanksgiving. Oh, is that I didn't even realize. Yeah, it's the day. It's the, you know. ah If you're listening to this release day and you are in the United States, happy Thanksgiving.
02:09:52
Speaker
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody. If you're in Canada, happy belated Thanksgiving. and Also, I should be back from London. So give me a shout. say like well Yeah, but it's too late.
02:10:08
Speaker
So let him back. You can't like wish me good travel like and back. Well, yeah. if you're If you're hearing this episode, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. Tell Matt, welcome back. Because he will have made it back by the time you hear this.
02:10:23
Speaker
Hey, Pat. Tell Matt, welcome back. Yeah. And then whatever else you want to say. Also, comma, At Mutant Menace Pod on Instagram, please follow us. ah Join the Discord. We'll include some links in the show notes here. MutantMenacePod at gmail.com. Please write to us about anything. We want to hear from you. We're also we're taking a long break between this recording and the next one while you're in London. So we'll probably come back to a stack.
02:10:58
Speaker
Yeah, we might have to. So your next couple and the next episode we come back to is going to be a chunky one. Ooh. It is something called Brood Saga. Hmm.
02:11:11
Speaker
know. Maybe they just misspelled blood. Dude. The next like four episodes of this podcast are going to be fucking nuts. Yeah. so heavy December.
02:11:24
Speaker
Yeah. You guys hold on to your. bing bongs whatever those are for you um
02:11:36
Speaker
also uh also um pretty soon we're going to be doing another bonus episode a story so far episode oh and yeah just like last time we will be selecting if you want if anybody wants, we will select a listener at random to come on and recap the, the story thus far with us ah previously on. Yeah. um What we really need is people that i know what's happened between the last, where are we now? And this, where are we now?
02:12:16
Speaker
Yes. If you've, listened to the last if you've listened to all of the last 20 episodes of the podcast we've been going for more than wow we this podcast is going for a while man we're getting so old dude if you've listened to the last 20 episodes of this podcast and you have a uh you feel like you got a little bit of a mic presence you can hang Email Michael, Weapon Jason, you are already on the list because we didn't select you last time.
02:12:51
Speaker
Put story so far in the title of your email or something like that. Yeah. Take the time. ah If you feel so moved to like us on various platforms, rate us. It really helps other people find us, people that would enjoy the show.
02:13:06
Speaker
Share and share and share. Yeah, share. Tell your friends. Thank you to Krils Wilson for the music and Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby. And, i you know, I think we only have one thing left to do, which is to say the outro that we say at the end of every single episode. That's right, Matt.
02:13:30
Speaker
Always remember, I'm surprised your nose isn't the size of a redwood.
02:13:37
Speaker
And until next time, you dare hit my wife?