Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Episode 20 - X-Men #106-108 - To Space and Back
72 Plays6 days ago
Issues: X-Men #106-108, Marvel Team-Up Annual #1, Marvel Team-Up #53, Iron Fist #15
It's a stunning conclusion to the X-Men's first galactic adventure AND Dave Cockrum's first X-Men run. Matt and Pat also fill you in on some of the other stuff that's been going on with the X-Men in other Marvel books... unfortunately.
Topics Include:
Bill Mantlo. The Letterin' Rosen Boys! "Nobody cramps my style!" Duplicates again... Where have the X-Men never gone? A Barrach'an Shovel Beast. Nude Fang. A call-back to the Z'Nox. THE STARJAMMERS! Peter Corbeau learns his lesson. Everyone evolves into primates. THE KURT REPURT. Why is Shakari Eric the Red!? Starting an intergalactic war on a whim. Spread-eagle, taint-first. R.I.P. Dave Cockrum. JOHN FUCKIN' BYRNE! Jahf Supreme. I AM 1000X STRONGER THAN THE LAST GUY. Kabballah. "Until they fill out the paperwork, they have to kill me." A colorist named 'Hugh.' "My student, Errol Flynn!" Peter Parker disappears on a plane... and where did Spider-Man come from?? Anti-radiation spray. Something that's supposed to be normal is now outer space. Yama Dharma and his 6 friends. "Are you Peter Parker?" A bad issue. "Let him go, Wolver." WOODGOD. If you're in Nevada, you're gonna have to deal with the Hulk. The town's nerve gas tank. Chekhov's Anti-Radiation Spray. NOT-Chekhov's Sonic Scream. A bad case of heartburn. An Iron Fist Slapstick Comedy. A mention of some villain named "Sabretooth"??? NO MORE IMAGE INDUCER! "God of Us All!" Fantastic art in every Iron Fist book.
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Improvement
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with WARC reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey, welcome to Mutant Menace. Wow, shit. How did I... Hey, I'm Pat Reber. And I'm Matt Aukamp. And say it with me, Pete.
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome to Mutant Menace. me menace I feel like we need to take Pete's audio and put a countdown in front of it or something. Yeah, yeah. We hit it, and then we don't know when he's going to start talking.
00:01:03
Speaker
Maybe speed it up a bit too. Okay. We'll speed it up. It's way too slow. I've been meaning to say, i think it's been too slow for a little while since we started trying to coordinate on it. I think we'll put a click track on it and a countdown and we'll speed it up.
00:01:19
Speaker
And, you know, maybe we'll make it a little, Ooh, let's make it a little robotic. Yeah. Welcome to Mutant I don't know how to change the tone in that way, but i can definitely make it sound like it's coming from a computer or a robot.
00:01:38
Speaker
And then Pete, if you're listening, if you could record a little one and a two and a one, two, three. That'd be really helpful for us. If all of our listeners could send us a and one and two and a one, two, three, then we'll just have a chorus.
00:01:54
Speaker
And then we'll all be on the right time. Yeah, yeah. We'll put this together, folks. We've got audio editing equipment.
00:02:03
Speaker
Send us your
Listener Emails and Norway Performance
00:02:04
Speaker
voice. ah MutantMenacePod at gmail.com Speaking of, oh Matt. Just in time. That is right. What a yeah what a strange coincidence.
00:02:17
Speaker
It's almost like it's listening. and We do have a couple of emails for... Pat's email corner today, Matt. The first one comes from Carlos, who has just ignored our formatting rules. Says, hello, how's it going?
00:02:33
Speaker
Hope all is well. I have some cool information that might interest you. Your podcast, Mutant Menace, has good performance in Apple podcast rankings last 30 days. Position 32 in the category Arts, parentheses Norway.
00:02:52
Speaker
whoa all right so we're doing we're doing well in norway right now pretty big deal number 32 in arts podcasts of norway ah ah well if you are listening to us in norway right in but what's carlos gonna do for us then uh i think he's trying to advertise a website this seems like an automated email but Hey, Pat, I'll tell you what. You want to know what gets you on to that that prime 32 spot in the arts category in Norway?
00:03:23
Speaker
Yeah, tell me. A single download. We had one download from Norway. We had one Norway. Tied for 32nd place. and that's That doesn't mean one person listened to our whole show. That means one person downloaded one episode.
00:03:40
Speaker
So maybe this one will be number two and they can tell us all about it when they finally listen. a Second email is from, of course, Email Michael says, Hey, Pat, tell Matt that i too, often have dreams in recurring places, but none in hotels, which are also Pat's office.
00:04:00
Speaker
Email Michael, you should be telling this to Pat. Pat's the one who asked about this. That is, you I guess maybe we should clarify because email Michael follows the rules to a tea Which I'm glad about. And if he stops, then we'll stop reading his emails. But go ahead, Pat.
00:04:17
Speaker
If you're addressing me. It's okay just to say, hey Pat, you don't have to tell me to tell Matt. I'm now i going to share it with Matt. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. Sorry, Matt. What's the rule?
00:04:27
Speaker
He needs to say, hey, Pat, tell Matt intelligent to tell Matt. To tell Pat. Okay. He closes out by saying, i think that was the only question asked. So bye.
00:04:38
Speaker
I'm not going to. That's what I like about email Michael. He is he listens so well. He's such a good listener. And I mean that in both senses. Like, he's he's good at listening, and he's a good listener to this yeah yeah one of the best uh he does and this is maybe what prevents him from being the best sign off with yours and holy hannah what the fuck i know here's what i'm goingnna start doing when people put holy hannah in their emails i'm going to say yeah which many people do now i'm going to say there's a word in this email and i'm not gonna read it because reading it would give it power and then
00:05:18
Speaker
All of the listeners can go ahead and assume that you said something racist, that you said slur. We got through, as i don't want to spoil anything about the episode coming up, but we don't have any mentions of that phrase. That is the end of Pat's email corner. great Sound cue, thank you.
00:05:36
Speaker
Oh, wow. it's It knew that I was transitioning. I don't know if it's because most of this week we're reading a different writer than we have been recently. Yeah, we're a little all over the place.
00:05:47
Speaker
But before we talk about that at all, and't I don't even want to get into it unless I ask you. Such a good transition. Pat, have you been doing anything X-Men related this week?
00:05:59
Speaker
I'll tell you what, Matt. This is go this one's going to sound a little familiar to you. I have done something X-Men related this week.
X-Men Movies Discussion
00:06:05
Speaker
After you talked about the new mutants on the podcast, and then after the recording session, we talked about it for another 20 minutes. Yeah.
00:06:15
Speaker
Instead of going to bed that night, I put it on. It is streaming on, i think, Disney. So, yeah. That's where I watched it. That's where I watched it. course. Yeah, I watched it on Disney. That's how Matt got it. I paid for the account and I watched it.
00:06:30
Speaker
It is. with I'll give this to you, Matt. i haven't I hadn't seen it since my first time watching it. and at the time, I dismissed it because there are some things about it that are just very comic book movie-y.
00:06:43
Speaker
But. Right. Yeah, it's fighting that there's so many forces in that movie fighting each other. Yeah, they clearly ah wrote that movie without the intent of really putting fight scenes in and without the ones that they kind of shoehorn into it.
00:07:01
Speaker
I think it would be very cool. Like, yeah, as a horror movie, there's also you pointed something out to me, which is the lighting and the set design. The set is clearly designed to be seen yeah very low lighting. Yeah, the lights are blasted on it. they They've brightened everything up and it just looks weird. It looks bright and drab at the same time.
00:07:25
Speaker
Right. It's because I think it's because ah like it's the era that comic book movies were hitting. And so everybody felt like they had to hit this exact formula. Yeah. Like, you know, there's a small fight in the middle, the big fight at the end. Right.
00:07:40
Speaker
So that's why they added in those fight scenes that feel so awkward. Yeah. And yeah, and it's like they turned up the lights without, that that's not how they expected that movie to be shown, I don't think.
00:07:51
Speaker
there Again, there's so many forces at work here. There's clearly like a directorial force, the editor, and the marketing department all fighting each other to make different movies.
00:08:03
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And it's really frustrating. You're right that there's a very good story somewhere in there, though, and that the acting is really better than it has any right to be. They understand these, not just like, not just good acting, but good comic book acting, which I think is its own important thing.
00:08:22
Speaker
Right. I think that's true. I think it is hindered by the fact that some there there's some lines of dialogue that you just could not possibly deliver well because there's some bad dialogue in that movie.
00:08:33
Speaker
But it's also hindered by the fact that the very first actor you see, at least with a speaking role, is Danny Moonstar's father. And that actor, I don't... It feels like they yeah feels like they plucked a guy out off the street and were like, you're going to be in this movie. And he was like, yeah I've never... Contest winner.
00:08:52
Speaker
Yeah, it was like he was acting in the movie the way that you would read a report in front of your class in middle school.
00:09:03
Speaker
We're in danger. um You stay here. I'm gonna go. take care of it after that i will tell you matt i went on to i have you do this i do this a lot more frequently than you do i go back and just watch movies that i've seen before that are i know are terrible okay and i did that with x-men apocalypse and dark phoenix and ah OK.
00:09:34
Speaker
Learned a couple of things confirmed. I don't need to talk about him. I'm sure people have seen him. If they haven't, you don't need to. But number one, Nightcrawler, not furry. They made him blue skin.
00:09:46
Speaker
Number two, Warren Angel appears. He's ah they try to give him an edge. He like loves listening to metal music and he's in some sort of underground fighting ring.
00:09:57
Speaker
an underground fighting ring. I don't remember this even a little bit it's against his will. But yes, um Jesus Christ is always shirtless, even after Apocalypse gets hold of him and gives him metal wings.
00:10:12
Speaker
and does some weird things to his face, he's still fully shirtless the entire... That is... you In the movies, his film representation has strictly been long pants and no shirt.
00:10:24
Speaker
This is the same Angel that in what, like, X3 or something was looking for a cure, right? No, no, no. This is so... Different continuity, different guy? No, it's the same continuity. it was Well, it's... Okay.
00:10:37
Speaker
So, what X-Men... X-Men, X2, X3, all one timeline. Yes. Then they go back to X-Men First Class. We go to the past. We go to the 60s. And we see how the X-Men formed.
00:10:53
Speaker
Then we go to the 70s with Days of Future Past where Wolverine ends up fixing the original timeline, the X2, X3 Last Stand timeline.
00:11:07
Speaker
And Gene is still alive. Everybody's fine. okay Then we just move forward from there. So we go into the 80s with Apocalypse. We go into...
00:11:19
Speaker
the eighty s again maybe the 90s with Dark Phoenix there's not really a that one's not as much of a period piece it's hard to tell when New Mutants takes place I think the 90s yeah I think the New Mutants is actually intentionally timeless I thought that was another okay thing about it is like She's at one point are watching Buffy several times in the show and then watching.
00:11:42
Speaker
They are watching Buffy also. with So maybe it's 2000. Anyway, one of them has a smartphone. They do. I think the doctor has a smartphone. It's maybe it's not supposed to be a phone, but it's like her thing to control control security in the building. And she when somebody rips it out of her hand, she says, my phone.
00:12:03
Speaker
Oh, I thought it was just a remote, but I didn't i didn't catch somebody her yelling my phone. um Am i wrong in remembering that the cure that Angel seeks is in one of is in the original trilogy?
00:12:18
Speaker
Correct. X3, Last Stand. He's not seeking it. His father is forcing it upon him. Okay, so he is the same Angel. that was in the X-Men Apocalypse in the Underground Fighting Ring in the 90s. No.
00:12:32
Speaker
This is... Fucking Christ. That is a different angel. They're essentially canceling the angel from the past out of that canon, which they can do because they said, oh, we fixed the whole time.
00:12:44
Speaker
Everything happened now. Okay. So one of the things that Wolverine changed was he made Warren Worthington's parents have sex earlier. so that they'd have the same age back in the mid okay that makes no that makes a lot of sense one more movie i watched matt that is okay tangentially x-men related sinners holy cow very good what way is that tangentially x-men related michael b jordan played
00:13:15
Speaker
johnny storm the human torch in a reboot of a franchise where that role was originally played by chris Evans. And that character appears in Deadpool versus Wolverine, which is officially a canon X-Men movie.
00:13:36
Speaker
Oh, you're right. All right. Fair enough. Also, uh, Haley Steinfeld is in it and she's, Hawkeye.
00:13:46
Speaker
Mm-hmm. Just throw there's a lot of comic book characters in the movie. Well, it's almost like Marvel went and rated all of Hollywood and made every single person a superhero movie actor so that now you can't watch a single movie without it being a veteran, like the actors being veteran Marvel.
00:14:06
Speaker
In some cases, five or six times. How many do you do you know how many comic book movies Chris Evans has been in? It's like over 10. Well, Matt.
00:14:17
Speaker
Yeah. Let me ask. Did you do anything X-Men related this week?
Story Narration: Spider-Man and X-Men Adventure
00:14:21
Speaker
Well, apparently just watching movies is X-Men related. that's not I guess I did do something X-Men related because I've been a real movie boy lately.
00:14:31
Speaker
I'm not. a big movie boy i don't i i play a lot of video games i read a lot of books i will listen to a lot of podcasts i don't watch a lot of movies or tv it's not because i have anything against it it's just like a attention span thing or don't you're not smug about it like you could be ah But okay, so every because I don't watch a lot of movies every couple years ago, you know, I didn't watch any movies for the past few years.
00:15:00
Speaker
So I will just I'll just Google what we're like, what were the good movies? okay Okay, 2000 of 2024. What were the good movies of 2023? Right.
00:15:11
Speaker
So there was a movie called The Outfit um from 2022. That's like this, this Chicago crime drama that takes place all in one room. like a tailor shop in Chicago with like, you know, um, a British tailor gets himself caught up in, in the Irish mob. And it's about how he maneuvers and manipulates the situation. It's really, really fucking good. I watched the wild robot, ah which is a dreamworks movie. And it feels very much like a dreamworks movie. It's like,
00:15:48
Speaker
you you're You're watching it and you're like, this is really fucking good. Holy shit. And then because it's DreamWorks, then they try to cram in so much extra story.
00:15:58
Speaker
They're like, okay, I don't even know what the point of this is anymore. Just trying to pluck emotional strings. exactly Exactly. And so you're at halfway through, you're like, I get what this movie is about.
00:16:09
Speaker
I get what the artists who are in charge of it are trying to say. yeah And then by the end, you're like, okay, what? I don't understand. Now I don't understand what any of this story was about, but it was so very cute, very beautiful.
00:16:24
Speaker
um What else did I watch, Pat? You're right, Matt. We should rein in what we consider to be X-Men related. Yeah. I think if we're at the point where we're not recommending or dis-recommending movies, just naming them.
00:16:40
Speaker
We're just talking about our weeks. Well, why don't we just hop on
Bill Mantlo's Writing Style
00:16:46
Speaker
over to the comic bag and rustle around in our comic bag to see what we can pull out. Oh, wait.
00:16:53
Speaker
Hey, it's X-Men number 106. Dark Shroud of the Past. Now... Before we get into this, what I i want to tell people, we are going to be reading a lot of Bill Mantlo books this week.
00:17:07
Speaker
Yes. a He was very new to comics at this time. and i think he had joined Marvel as a colorist in like 1974, 1975.
00:17:19
Speaker
And so he'd only recently started writing books. He made his name, I think, like suggesting that Marvel purchased the Micronauts franchise. which ended up being a real moneymaker for them, weirdly.
00:17:32
Speaker
ah Yeah, you did really well, right? Yes. for For its time. I think, oh, he also suggested they license Rom Space Knight. And he wrote, I think, both of those series.
00:17:44
Speaker
Supposedly, they're pretty good. i haven't read them. And honestly, Pat, literally everything else I've ever read by Bill Mantlo sucked such ass.
00:17:55
Speaker
Like, sucked such bad, horrible ass. It's very pop comics, but, like, I think this the story detail is probably a step above The Avengers, but it's still very formulaic. It relies on a lot of, like, shtick and silly jokes. Yeah.
00:18:17
Speaker
I don't know how much we're going to be talking about Bill Mantlo's writing after this. I think we might be reading a few, just like a very few Cloak and Dagger issues in the future. Okay.
00:18:29
Speaker
So maybe I'll save my discussion, Bill Mantlo's politics until then. But my overall take on Bill Mantlo's politics are are, it's like, he's like, you know, is,
00:18:42
Speaker
is bad. But if you fight crime in a bad way, that's bad. But it sometimes makes sense because sometimes you have to be bad to do good. But sometimes good can also be bad. And he like and then he like looks at you like like you're supposed to really take that in. But like that's his approach to racism. That's his approach to global politics.
00:19:06
Speaker
and That's his approach to... character development um where he doesn't just wants moral ambiguity sort of a quandary right but he also seems to be wanting to make a moral take a moral stance but his moral stance is all of it is right i guess so everything is good or bad exactly so it's really interesting he also one time wrote a punisher story where punisher shot a person who beat their wife and then immediately shot a person who littered and then immediately shot a person who ran a red light and apparently he did it because he just didn't like the punisher oh
00:19:43
Speaker
why Why are you writing The Punisher then? Why are you writing The Punisher? He probably didn't have a choice. but Yeah, maybe maybe that's it. But also, like like again, that's that sort of like kitchen sink politics of his. Like, oh, first I'll have him do something really, really noble, like shooting somebody who's... Abusing. Yeah, abusing their spouse.
00:20:00
Speaker
And then have him... like As if these are on a similar plane. And some other writer had to then retcon like, oh, um Punisher was actually going through a mental breakdown and was insane during that era.
00:20:14
Speaker
Sure. Because it didn't make any. Yeah. So anyway, so that's the sort of thing you get from Bill Mantlo. I also will say i and acknowledge that his story as a human being, he's still alive, but his story has a very tragic ending.
00:20:30
Speaker
And he... he was in, I believe, an accident and suffered severe brain damage and then couldn't work any longer, um like debilitating brain damage.
00:20:42
Speaker
And because he worked for Marvel Comics, he didn't have any retirement fund. He didn't have any health insurance. um He was just on his own. And there there were a lot of charities founded in his name to help him. Isn't that sad and speaks...
00:20:59
Speaker
to how horrible writers were being treated in this era, but it doesn't change the fact that he was a really shitty writer. That being said, X-Men 106 Darkstrad of the Past is written by Bill Mantlo.
00:21:13
Speaker
With an assist by clip Chris Claremont. Drawn by William Robert Brown with a couple panels by Dave Cockrum. Inked by Tom Sutton. Colored by Andy Yankus.
00:21:25
Speaker
Lettered by Joe Rosen. Edited by Archie Goodwin and Marv Wolfman. the What? I know. Also, Joe Rosen? Not Sam Rosen? Our boy?
00:21:37
Speaker
He's the brother of letterer Sam Rosen. Interesting. Okay. The Letter in Rosen, boys. It was released on May 1977. Covered date, August 1977. right. covered date august nineteen seventy seven all right
00:21:51
Speaker
this This is kind of why we've been stalling. This issue sucks so bad. This issue is entirely a fill-in that means absolutely nothing and was written before the series was underway, so the characters are acting all weird and the issue has no consequences whatsoever. It opens with an incredibly flimsy framing device whereupon Charles Xavier, in the exact moment we left him last issue, passes out and begins thinking about a random day from a few weeks ago. On that day, he's waking up and from one of his alien dreams and sleepily apologizes to Moira for hurting her.
00:22:23
Speaker
And she tells him that part of her still loves him. Well, now there's a little lore drop. Yeah, that's not bad. Meanwhile, in the danger room, Wolverine is calling himself Wolvie and dodging lasers when Colossus saves him from an I-beam falling
Wolverine's Early Character Portrayal
00:22:37
Speaker
on his head.
00:22:37
Speaker
This makes Wolverine mad for some reason, so he pops his claws, and Cyclops has to optic blast the wall and yell at him. and then yeah He's ready to kill again in the danger room over practice.
00:22:50
Speaker
I know! Over practice and over somebody saving his life. Like, Colossus didn't hear laugh at him or make a crack or fight him. He's just saved it says nobody cramps my style ah this is before wolverine like because clearly and i know this to be true bill mantlow had written this like months before like maybe a whole year before and they just had it in the drawer for when dave cockram needed a rest which was this issue and we'll find out why dave cockram needed some time and when we get to next issue
00:23:25
Speaker
Right. But this was before Wolverine really had any personality whatsoever. Yeah, he's certainly not an honor bound man here.
00:23:36
Speaker
No, no. Which will come up a couple of times. Like Bill Mantlo still clearly doesn't for the next couple years still doesn't quite get Wolverine. um But this in this time, he has an excuse because even Claremont didn't quite get Wolverine's character yet.
00:23:52
Speaker
So after Cyclops does what does, then everyone starts ganging up on him for ah continually lecturing them about how the original X-Men used to do things.
00:24:02
Speaker
It's like the premise of a Saturday morning cartoon. You can imagine this, though, right? That Scott, with his rigid training, is constantly like, the old X-Men could handle this. So he's doing that when Angel pops up out of nowhere in his original costume.
00:24:21
Speaker
what then the rest of the original x-men show up being really like this disconcertingly rude and they fight the new x-men the old x-men start winning but then cyclops realizes they must be fake because angel wasn't knocked unconscious immediately literally legitimately once again the first sign that something is wrong is that angel wins a fight Professor X then crawls into the room and tells the X-Men that these are manifestations of his brain and he makes them disappear. Then an evil Professor X comes in and makes a hole in the floor that Wolverine almost falls into.
00:24:57
Speaker
Then the original X-Men show up again and pull evil Professor X into the hole. Then everyone disappears. Professor X tells them that this was his evil side that will take over he ever forgets to keep it in check. Like, like he has been recently as he's been breaking down about his weird alien nightmares.
00:25:17
Speaker
Then the flashback ends. That's the end of the issue. That's it. So fucking stupid. Why did they do this again? did they do X-Men versus X-Men again?
00:25:28
Speaker
this was there was like three issues ago that it was. Old X-Men versus new X-Men.
Professor X's Evil Side
00:25:34
Speaker
Why do the duplicates never have an extra Scott?
00:25:41
Speaker
This is worse than the Quasimodo issue. yeah It might be, yeah. Okay. It's not worse than the Blastar issue. you're You're right. That's true. So this is apparently a part of Professor X's mythology now and forever.
00:25:58
Speaker
If Xavier is like, okay, so if x Xavier ever stops focusing on it for a moment, his evil side becomes sentient and conjures beings.
00:26:11
Speaker
And it's just... His evil side is just him in a cape. Yeah. Kind of green. Yeah. He's got a green gel on the light that's shining on him all the time.
00:26:23
Speaker
So if you just have to, if you just like slip x Xavier a drug in his drink or something, evil and Xavier will come out and make a bunch of guys attack you. Is that what you wanted, Bill Mantlo?
00:26:37
Speaker
Bill Mantlo! Was this what you were like, this is what Xavier's mythology needs? He has some weird evil twin. Yeah. That lives in his brain. Wait. probably... wait Oh.
00:26:52
Speaker
right, Bill Mallow, maybe you've got something going. Hmm. Sorry, we're not going to elaborate on this. We're not a spoiler. We're not one of these X-Men podcasts that'll spoil you. and Just don't start, Matt.
00:27:05
Speaker
Evil Professor X is probably a lot of fun at a party. So you imagine... You invite Charles is Xavier over. He has a few drinks. He gets a little loose.
00:27:17
Speaker
He invites his evil twin in.
00:27:22
Speaker
well We'll see Professor X at a party a little later in this ish in this episode. Yeah, but i wonder if he's not cutting loose. I wonder if evil Professor X popped out. Okay, yeah, you think so? Yeah, sorry. Sorry for the spoilers. Because he's trying to impress Dave Cockrum and John Byrne and all the comic book creators that there. Oh, yeah, yeah.
00:27:43
Speaker
That's... All right, we've got one way to it go. All right, Pat, this issue sucked. Can you tell me about a goodish a good issue of the X-Men? I can that it's called X-Men number 107. Yeah, it's called X-Men number 107.
00:28:01
Speaker
Where no X-Men has gone before. that like a lot of places, though. There's only been like 13 X-Men in the history of the world. There's like a lot of places the X-Men haven't gone. Well, this is surely one of them, Matt.
00:28:14
Speaker
yeah Chris Claremont, author, Dave Cockrum, artist, Dan Green, inker, Joe Rosen, letterer, Andy Yankus, colorer.
00:28:24
Speaker
Archie Goodwin, editor, release date July 1977, cover date October 1977. The X-Men are in space and in a dynamic pose as they stare down a giant ruby, Llandra, Eric the Red,
00:28:39
Speaker
the guy that was on Eric the Red's monitor that one time, and 17 brand new characters we counted in superhero outfits. And now I will name them all from memory.
00:28:51
Speaker
All right, let's hear it. Who wrote this? Let's hear it. Let's go.
00:29:00
Speaker
Fang. Okay, one. Gladiator. good. Lalandra. Well, that's not of them. Eric, the red,
00:29:13
Speaker
the emperor.
00:29:18
Speaker
Okay. now but Now that that's done, we're told by the narrator that this is the first time in years beyond number that any living being has been on this planet.
00:29:30
Speaker
But now it's got all these people on it. Cyclops demands the return of Lalandra and Eric the Red, but a guy named Gladiator, who looks like Superman with purple skin and a mohawk, tells them that Lalandra is a traitor and that he and his Imperial Guard will not surrender her.
00:29:47
Speaker
So Cyclops blasts some dude named Mentor and a huge fight breaks out. He wastes no time getting into No, he's just like, let's have a war then. For this woman I don't know.
00:30:00
Speaker
but save still eight of us. Jean is exhausted from powering up the Stargate, so she remains fairly useless as Nightcrawler scares off a shape changer named Hobgoblin with his image inducer. Neat little move.
00:30:15
Speaker
Yeah, Hobgoblin turns into a i mean i Barachian shovel beast. Yeah, sort of like a giant warthog with a rat face, right? With a big lower jaw that could scoop up dirt, probably.
00:30:33
Speaker
And ah somehow Nightcrawler's image inducer device can turn into the same thing. guess he programmed that in. Somebody programmed that in.
00:30:44
Speaker
This is why they get rid of the image inducer altogether in like two issues. Chris Claremont takes it back and he says, all right, we're done with this. I should never have had this power. I should never have had the ability to use this thing in my writing.
00:30:57
Speaker
Wolverine tries to kill a lady named Oracle, but her lover Starbolt blasts him with fire. So he seemingly murders a werewolf thing named Fang and takes his clothes.
00:31:08
Speaker
I want to stress here. I, when I, when I wrote this, I was just kind of writing each thing as it happened, but what, what it does feel like, what Dave Cochran makes it feel like is that a massive battle is happening all around. It feels like chaos in every direction.
00:31:24
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. There is, ah there's a lot going on. Wolverine changes costume here and it's a cool costume. It puts them in the earth tones that I know i they'll try a little later in his history, but,
00:31:39
Speaker
yeah weird that he beats up maybe murders a werewolf and is like i should just and should just take his costume and wear that right put and put it on me actually and he wears that costume a couple times which is strange also i had this action figure yeah Wolverine in Fang's outfit. I don't know why they made a whole action figure out of this. That's so true. You bought it.
00:32:10
Speaker
And you would squeeze his legs and his ah arms would shoot outwards. It would, like, spread out. He's doing jumping jacks. Yeah, exactly. yeah Inverted jumping jack.
00:32:21
Speaker
like He's got a new costume And if Fang is still alive, he's nude. Also... The reason he wanted a new costume is because his old clothes got burned off when he was hit with a big fire blast that didn't really seem to hurt him all that much.
00:32:40
Speaker
Yeah. Burned off his costume, he is surprisingly undamaged, and then we just kind of move on from it. He must be a little more powerful than we knew. Yeah, yeah.
00:32:51
Speaker
ah In the midst of the fighting, Eric the Red, who we now know as Shikari, and Lalandra's mad brother, the Emperor Daken, are planning on feeding her to a beast called the Soul Drinker to gain access to the power inside the Big Ruby.
00:33:06
Speaker
This is so much fun. At the last minute, Nightcrawler rescues her and the Soul Drinker accidentally kills some other guy that looks kind of like a robot. This causes them both to disappear.
00:33:17
Speaker
Nightcrawler, having never tried to teleport while carrying another person before, collapses of exhaustion. The fight rages on all around as Lalandra finally tells her story. It is very funny to imagine her telling this whole story. Yeah.
00:33:32
Speaker
As a battle wages on literally around her head. Yeah, just like like a full-on war with like 30 people.
00:33:43
Speaker
Apparently, DeKenn had learned of an ancient force called the Mkran... Mkran... Mkran... Mkran Crystal, which is a gateway to a force that only opens once every million years.
00:33:58
Speaker
He wanted to harness it as a weapon, but when Lalandra opposed him, he had her arrested. The resulting schism split the military in two, causing a civil war. As her side lost, Lelandra escaped, stumbling into some inexplicable psychic link with Charles x Xavier as he linked the world's minds to convince the Xenox to kill themselves back in issue 65. Yeah, that's an interesting little thing. Like, this is this is the one written by Denny O'Neill that had the weird monster with the man face in it that caused Neil Adams to quit. Yes. Like, it seems like...
00:34:32
Speaker
I maybe made an assumption there, but it seemed like it was... Did you get the same as ah idea that it was Professor X's doing of that that caused him to link with Lalandra somehow?
00:34:47
Speaker
No, it seems like she had somehow sensed him before that. This is... had started heading towards him, and this is what signaled the greater empire because of how powerful...
00:35:00
Speaker
that oh positivity was and that's how they knew to chase her back to earth okay so her linking with him was just completely random it seems like it yeah I have no idea but it's it stays relevant through these next couple of issues but why the fuck did Chris Claremont have to bring back the Xenox why did he even have to reference powerful Charles x Xavier moment that you can ah conjure up out of the the full history.
00:35:33
Speaker
ah So Daken, the emperor, sent Shikari, his agent on Earth, to either kill Xavier or stop Lalandra from contacting him, which led to most of the events of the last 10 issues.
00:35:46
Speaker
Gladiator appears to argue with Lalandra about whether they should listen to Daken or not as we check in with the huge battle still in full swing all around them. I do. I want to say this is pretty much what we had pieced together last episode, right?
00:36:00
Speaker
Yes. They've been doing a great job of giving us some context so that when we get this, like it ties it together for us. But yeah, we were we right. We were we did it.
00:36:11
Speaker
The two of us, one of whom has already read through all of it. Back in the battle, a man that looks like Colossus but stars instead of metal punches out Wolverine. Starbolt and an orange haired guy named Tempest blast Colossus, Storm, and Banshee with fire and lightning.
00:36:28
Speaker
A guy with a bubble for a face matches optic blasts with Cyclops, and they're both knocked out. Lalandra, at the mercy of Gladiator, seems about to get through to him when a bolt from nowhere blasts him square in the chest.
00:36:40
Speaker
What? That bolt came from the Starjammers. Whoa! Five more characters appear on this planet where no one ever is. there's ah There's a big green reptilian Hulk guy named Ch'ad, a little white pet that sits on his shoulder. Its name is Karee, but they don't tell us that yet.
00:37:00
Speaker
A human looking pirate with a very handsome head of brown hair named Corsair, a half cyborg, half elf thing named Raza, and a cat lady named Hepzibah.
00:37:12
Speaker
It's actually, that's not her actual name Yeah, but you can't pronounce her actual name, so Hapsa Bosway calls her. With the addition of these new heroes to the side of the X-Men, the Imperial Guard is quickly taken out.
00:37:24
Speaker
As Corsair talks to Cyclops using an American accent and slang like, no sweat, pow, and get down to business. Don't say it like that.
00:37:35
Speaker
Phoenix has a suspicion, so she mind scans him and is immediately shocked by what she finds out. But we don't know what that is. Because at that moment, Daken, who tells us that his people evolved from birds.
00:37:51
Speaker
yeah That's the moment he decides to reveal that little bit here. Points out that the stars have aligned and the Emcron gateway is opening. what's What kind of stars, Matt?
00:38:02
Speaker
and Nine stars and a cross. There's a specific theme for them that was relevant before May of 1977, but now that we're July of 1977. have clue, man.
00:38:14
Speaker
i have no clue man They're Death Stars. Oh my God! ah How mad do you think they were that in April they first used the term Death Stars to start this whole saga?
00:38:29
Speaker
And now we are two months after the premiere of Star Wars Episode IV in New Hope.
Empress Lalandra and Civil War
00:38:36
Speaker
it And they have to remind us that, yes...
00:38:41
Speaker
yeah yeah Yes, these things are called Death Stars. We actually mentioned it like six months ago. So with the McCrayon gateway opening for just one moment, all of existence blinks off.
00:38:56
Speaker
Whoa. Back on Earth, our boy Peter Corbeau notices the blink and calls Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. He tells them that if these blinks continue, the universe will die.
00:39:09
Speaker
To be continued. It's good that he called Reed Richards rather than walking all the way to his house naked. like went Soaking wet. And then climbing over the side of his building.
00:39:27
Speaker
Dude, so much. learned listen So much happened in this issue. and So not only is it clear immediately why Dave Cockrum needed the extra time, right? Yeah. He draws fucking, he invents like 17 new characters.
00:39:43
Speaker
17 new characters and then the Starjammers. And the Starjammers. 22 new characters. and Plus, he has to draw all the X-Men and ah and Eric the Red and Lalandra and Daken.
00:39:57
Speaker
It's wild! It's nuts. He... Let me ask you this, Matt. Are the Star Jammers, who I absolutely love from the very first line, are they just space X-Men?
00:40:11
Speaker
Go on. I mean, they have... Big Strong Man. Big Strong Man, who's funny color. They have a little animal mascot that they can just bring around with them. they have Who's that? Who's that?
00:40:27
Speaker
Yeah, but who who's that in the X-Men? Oh, Wolverine. Now, Nightcrawler. Nightcrawler, okay, good. They have, like, a couple of funny-looking skilled warriors. They have one very handsome human-skilled warrior who clearly has, like, they've all clearly got some sort of next-level powers.
00:40:49
Speaker
I mean, yeah, I mean, I think there was a lot of pressure at this time, too, because this is this is after Star Trek, right? So there's a lot of pressure to make these like space adventurer teams and stuff, right? Like there's like what else was happening? if There was was lost in space at this time and Battlestar Galactica would have been at this time, right?
00:41:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. There just a ton of these. um But this was an idea that Dave Cockrum had had. He'd had these guys in a notebook for a really long time. And Chris Claremont was trying to urge him to, you know, pitch his own series. And he was, and think it wasn't going anywhere.
00:41:27
Speaker
So we just threw them into X-Men.
00:41:31
Speaker
All right. So he just kind gave them to Marvel. Yeah, yeah. The thing that's disappointing about the Star Jammers is that they're really good supporting characters in X-Men comics. But you're not really ever going to see a good Star Jammer series, at least as far as I've read. I've read a couple of the Star Jammer solo series so far.
00:41:51
Speaker
haven't read all of them. And they've been just really, really bad. Yeah, it's so it's the too many Han Solos problem, right? It's um just everybody is the coolest fucking space cowboy you've ever met.
00:42:07
Speaker
There's no why little rules following nerd that's coming into his own. There's no gay robots. You know, there is when there eventually there is a Cyclops.
00:42:23
Speaker
standalone series where I think he's adventuring with the star jammers that happened in like the 2010s. And I've heard that series is good. So maybe there's some good star jammer stuff in that, but hoof dude, there's so much in this issue and yeah not, not just on Dave Cockrum side, right?
00:42:42
Speaker
There's so much background here. That's just like a line of dialogue. Then it's gone mid battle. Yeah. So I made a list of it here. Do you want to just go down through some of them fact like back and forth?
00:42:57
Speaker
yeah Yes. Okay. First, we learned that the aliens that make up this empire are from an avian race that conquered in and enslaved Hepzibah's feline race.
00:43:09
Speaker
It's always funny when a sci-fi author it's like like does this. When they do like, oh, this is a race of people that wasn't descended from primates, but descended from birds or lizards or felines.
00:43:23
Speaker
But they all just happen to be pipedal. Still have, yeah, yeah. And upright and have two forward-facing eyes. and Like just have every trait that a human being, like they just, oh, they just all, they happen to turn into primates.
00:43:38
Speaker
is yeah what if a cat was a primate exactly it's also so we come to know these aliens as the she are right and spoiler no of course we should be saying she are they don't say she are i don't know when they eventually do but they don't in any of these issues but yeah they're yeah they are i had no idea they were in avian race that they were descended from chickens
00:44:06
Speaker
Well, people, it's hard to tell that their hair is supposed to be feathers. Because when people draw... I thought they just had funny hats. When people draw them, it looks like funny hats. or People never draw the detail. Most of the time, and you just see a blob of black.
00:44:26
Speaker
For their hair. yeah And you have no idea that that's feathers. And when sometimes they have like feathers on their arm or something, you assume that's just like a trait or part of their like armor. That's fascinating.
00:44:38
Speaker
Yeah. They're covered in don't like it. But also like this small detail that's just a throwaway line is like, oh, we enslaved your race is like, oh, there is a huge...
00:44:50
Speaker
set of galactic history and politics out there that we don't know even a piece of the imperial guard has ah its own drama to starbolt and oracle are dating we learn that in a single line of dialogue right starbolt called it's like don't touch my woman or something Gladiator once almost loved Lalandra.
00:45:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's strange. I don't even know if that ever comes up again. Lalandra was the grand admiral of the Imperial fleet. Even though Gladiator has a moral compass, he believes himself obligated to be aligned with whomever is on the throne unless their treachery can be proven.
00:45:28
Speaker
And that's a thing that, again, established in like a line of dialogue, and we see that follow Gladiator forever. He will constantly do that when an evil person's on the throne. It's like, I have determined that the thing that is most ethical for me to do is to follow the um empire.
00:45:46
Speaker
And if they have a ruler, I have to assume that ruler has the empire's best interest at heart unless it's proven otherwise. Yeah. Like the, you know, like the general of a military when we elect a new president or something. Yeah, yeah. are you Inverse of Colossus.
00:46:03
Speaker
Right. Nightcrawler is thinking of throwing away his image inducer. Right, because it's getting so fucking ridiculous. This feels like a Claremont line where he was like, all right, fine.
00:46:16
Speaker
Yes, you can make him get, use the image inducer to turn himself into a giant monster. And then he's getting rid of it. But never using it again, but which is and I think that is funny because it's like, well, because he turned himself into the professor. He turned himself into what else did he turn himself into? He turned himself into some other big monster at some point.
00:46:35
Speaker
And I think it's like too easy. And it's almost like Nightcrawler has this other totally other power. Banshee mentions that he's getting tired, that he doesn't really find the action of the fight as exciting as he used to.
00:46:51
Speaker
Again, interesting. And like the Nightcrawler thing becomes part of his character. Nightcrawler learning to accept who he is. And this, again, throwaway line becomes part of Banshee.
00:47:02
Speaker
He's like, yeah I'm getting too old. I can't continue being an adventurer like this. ah These creatures all speak the same languages. This is mentioned, I think, in two different lines. So everyone speaks the same language, weirdly, except for Kree and that robot thing. those the only ones who seem to speak other languages.
00:47:21
Speaker
Right. Wolverine cannot be stopped by Oracle's psychic powers. Yeah, what the fuck? little preview of his feral mode uh banshee loves moira which we kind of knew but we didn't know it explicitly oh yeah he says it out loud the star jammers are an anti-imperial force right even though they're on lalandra's side at that time they're like but we are not we still hate imperials uh corsair and hepzibah are dating more romance Sort of, right? It seems like they're not calling it dating.
00:47:57
Speaker
but fucking I think that's the end of the list, but there's so much in this that, again, just in a line, Chris Claremont writes what could have been three pages of story.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And each of them become their own story arc. Right. Or at least just a play into their character pretty heavily. Yeah, yeah. A few moments. Do we want to hear the good ones or the bad ones first?
00:48:24
Speaker
Good ones first. Let's end on a bad note so we can pick ourselves up. Perfect. Kurt Wagner just continues to be absolutely incredible.
00:48:34
Speaker
Number one, when that big monster first pops up. The Barachan Shovel Beast. He says, anyone got a shadow I could hide in? It's a very we know from last episode that when he goes into the shadows, he can turn and it literally invisible.
00:48:52
Speaker
It's a good line. And then he gets into the fight and he I forget who he's fighting, but he admires them. And he's like, oh, what a shame. What a fascinating power this guy has.
00:49:03
Speaker
Such a shame that I don't get to talk to him about it because we don't like each other. It's the guy who turns into the Barachan Shovel Beast. it's um oh It's Hobgoblin.
00:49:14
Speaker
You're right. it's It's immediately after. He's just like, he's upset that they won't be friends after all this. I know. Yeah. And then he knocks him out with one punch. Yeah. But yeah. He's not that upset.
00:49:25
Speaker
We should add a new segment to each episode and we should call it the Kurt Rappert.
00:49:32
Speaker
And we just talk about what he did through the course of the episode. Just how sweet he was to everybody. Yeah. Okay. Now the bad things. Lalandra recounts the whole history, ties so many threads together for us about yet the last 10 issues, why we've seen just about everything happen for the last, what, year, two years in the X-Men.
00:49:57
Speaker
What she can't explain is why Shakar chose Eric the fucking red as his costume. This still makes no sense to where did he even get that idea? yeah When we see him, like when we see him in her flashback, he's already Eric. And it's like, yeah, they didn't know about Xavier until the Xenox. So after Cyclops is Eric, the red.
00:50:20
Speaker
It must be so painful for Cyclops to have to go into a room and be like, I'm looking for the villain, Eric the Red. ah Just to be like this motherfucker.
00:50:33
Speaker
This is this was such a good plan I had. Now it's embarrassing. Now I'm embarrassed. when yeah
00:50:41
Speaker
And I looked good in that costume. You could see my nipples. You, this guy covered up his nipples. Here's the other thing that Llandra reveals to us through the course of her story. Okay.
00:50:52
Speaker
First of all, she's soul bonded with Charles Xavier. We're not sure why, but it happened. Right. Second of all, she's not 100% sure that the fate of the universe hangs in the balance. She heard like an old legend or prophecy.
00:51:09
Speaker
Because this only happens once every 1 million years. Okay. Yeah. yeah If somebody actually takes these steps, it will be the end of all that is.
00:51:19
Speaker
Right? And as we go on, it turns out to be the end of all that is. But... Lalandra is very clear here that she has no evidence that this is actually going to happen. She just believes, she fears that this mad emperor's actions are going to end the universe.
00:51:38
Speaker
So Charles x Xavier sends them all into a portal across the world to fight in a galactic war. It's wildly reckless. Yeah, she based on some mythology, she's like, I'm willing to cause a galactic civil war and kill all these people.
00:51:55
Speaker
And he, because he's got a psychic crush on her is willing to send his children in Well, he does this shit all the time. This is nothing new for Charles x Xavier. He does not care about people's lives.
00:52:07
Speaker
He only cares about them in retrospect. And he's like, oh, no, I got somebody killed. And it's like, yeah, you try, like, only after lots of trying and failing to get them killed.
00:52:21
Speaker
He's such a jerk. He sucks. ah Pat, I just want to talk about real quick. I pulled up the wiki, and it's just mind-blowing because I did want to go down just like really quickly list all the Imperial Guard people. But instead of just that, I'm going to list all the people for whom it is their first appearance.
00:52:42
Speaker
This issue is their first appearance. Okay. Yeah, yeah. All right. Ready? mm-hmm hepzibah raza long knife the soul drinker the imperial guard as a whole gladiator astra electron fang hobgoblin impulse magic mentor nightside oracle quasar uh smasher starbolt tempest titan midget and then the the robot and the insect who get killed when the soul drinker explodes
00:53:14
Speaker
I don't know any of those characters. ah but Some of them become a big deal. Like ah Fang is mostly known for his costume. Gladiator becomes a huge deal. Oracle sticks around for a very long time. and Smasher, I think, eventually becomes an Avenger.
00:53:30
Speaker
Some of these, they only recur as background characters in the Imperial Guard, but they stick around for a long time, like Astra and Electron, Quasar and Quasar.
00:53:41
Speaker
mentor impulse i know it's not it's not but it's i don't know like he changes his name to neutron because there's already a marvel character named quasar that's why he's going by quasar right that's why i'm calling him quasar because he's not quasar he's quasar anyway it's it's wild and it only gets wilder in x-men number 108 armageddon now
00:54:10
Speaker
I'm going to get it or not. I'm going get in tired of this frigging space war. Are you? This is great. No, I kind like it. Believe it or not, Matt Armageddon now predates the movie apocalypse now by two years.
00:54:25
Speaker
Everyone was just reading Chris Claremont comics and putting his shit in there. Yeah. yeah um There's also just before we get into it, the cover on this one is a little silly, but we get a very clear shot of Storm's butt and Banshee's crotch. He's coming at us.
00:54:43
Speaker
ah Spread eagle. Taint first.
00:54:47
Speaker
ah um It is also interesting. We didn't mention that last issue was the last Dave Cockrum issue is his biggest issue. It's a crazy issue.
00:54:58
Speaker
It's the final Dave Cockrum issue. He'll be back soon. All right Another. ah He'll be back soon for another short run. But this issue is the beginning of John fucking Byrne. Oh boy. The legendary Byrne Claremont run on the X-Men. We're in for some wild shit.
00:55:18
Speaker
It starts fucking strong. yeah Maybe we'll talk more about John Byrne next issue. Because we've so much to talk about here. Chris Claremont, author, John Byrne, artist, Terry Austin, inker, wool and oars, letterers.
00:55:33
Speaker
A Yankus colorist. Some Yankus. Archie Goodwin, editor. Release date September 20th, 1977. Covered eight December 1977.
00:55:44
Speaker
The X-Men and the Starjammers are standing over the unconscious Imperial Guard looking at the Mkron McRan crystal and the waves of black and white light emanating off of it.
Cosmic Threats and Surreal Climax
00:55:57
Speaker
back on earth peter corbeau is yelling at president jimmy carter he's got a tv screen up and on one screen is the beast the blue furry beast and captain america and on the other screen is jimmy carter's big old smiling face um He's yelling at about how the universe might be ending. And then there's Mr. Fantastic, Black Panther, Beast, Captain America, Wasp, Hank Pym. They all watch with concern as all of them are unable to do anything about it.
00:56:30
Speaker
They also yell at a man named Joel, who I believe is supposed to be the deputy assistant of political affairs to the president, Joel McCleary. Why is he on a conference call about the universe blinking on and off? He's he's trying to explain the optics of it.
00:56:47
Speaker
And that's why everybody gets mad at him. Back at the McRan crystal, a cute little purple alien baby named Joff. Oh.
00:56:57
Speaker
ah Joff is in the winner's league. Joff, yeah, supreme. Joff climbs out of the gateway to talk to the X-Men. Joff tells them all that he's the first guardian of the gateway to eternity, charged with keeping all beings away from the crystal.
00:57:14
Speaker
And then he punches Wolverine into space. it was see Another moment here, he flies by the Starjammers' ship. waldo well Waldo.
00:57:25
Speaker
Waldo is the computer and can charge the ship. Waldo notes that somehow he's still alive. It's almost like Cockrum and Byrne both drew impossible things happening to Wolverine, and Claremont was like, well, i guess he's fucking unkillable. is Yeah, yeah. But it is it's another just, like, little yeah we don't, as a reader, we don't know anything about this.
00:57:51
Speaker
Yeah, we don't know. We've just seen yeah Wolverine survive things that should have killed him in back-to-back issues now. We also hear a lot, ah Chris Claremont has talked a lot about how Nightcrawler was Dave Cockrum's favorite.
00:58:05
Speaker
So we got a lot of Nightcrawler shit in the Dave Cockrum issues. But Wolverine is John Byrne's favorite. So we're about to get a lot more Wolverine. Okay, yeah, yeah. So punches Wolverine into into space. The Starjammers direct their spaceship's computer, Waldo, to go get him while the X-Men all attack Joff.
00:58:22
Speaker
Joff, innocent. Poor Joff. No, no. beating their asses when Phoenix reaches into space with her telekinesis and brings an entire fucking asteroid down on top of him.
00:58:35
Speaker
And he's fine. but It should have been an extinction of it. Yeah, right. But it's just, you know, it's nothing to Joth. He just shakes it off. Banshee begins to believe this little guy is actually a robot.
00:58:49
Speaker
So he flies up and grabs Joff by his little, you know how babies seem like they have these muscular little arms? Yeah, yeah. Because they just have these like tiny, it's just all their muscles are trying to fit inside their skin.
00:59:04
Speaker
That's what Joff looks like. He looks like a little baby with a little baby but biceps. With their actual muscles. Yeah. Right. Banshee begins to believe this little guy's a robot flies up, grabs his little baby arms and gives him a sonic scream. All screams are sonic directly to his face.
00:59:20
Speaker
So hard that Joff disappears and Banshee's throat goes raw.
00:59:28
Speaker
count a frying pan Next up is the second Guardian, a giant um golden robot named Mart. Mart. Mart, who tells the X-Men he is 1000 times stronger than Joff.
00:59:43
Speaker
Imagine him! if you were in a fight like in a bar fight or something and you punched a guy out you're like got him and somebody else walked up and they were like you might have knocked my friend Jeff out but I'm Matt and I am one thousand times stronger than Jeff
01:00:03
Speaker
I mean this guy might not be he's he makes up about a thousand cubic joffs he's huge yeah then he tells them that once they beat him, it'll this pattern will continue. So then it's like Matt, who comes up and is like, a thousand times but stronger than Jeff. It's like, and if you knock me out, my buddy's going to come here and he's a thousand times stronger than me.
01:00:30
Speaker
i would want to see that guy. You'd have to try really hard. I gotta it beat you up because I gotta see him.
01:00:41
Speaker
We're up to one million times.
01:00:47
Speaker
His appearance causes a second blink as communicated by Waldo to Raza. ah So Raza charges Daken and throws him into the center of the McCrayon crystal. And suddenly everyone is transported to a strange silent city made of light.
01:01:09
Speaker
gene surmises they're inside the crystal and okay you're gonna have to stay with us here this all gets kind of surreal yeah buckle in all right pat correct me if i get anything absolutely wrong but i'm just gonna start going so just interrupt me if i'm fucking up She touches a weird glowing ball and it plunges everyone into their own personal hells. Since Jean's already happened, her own death, she's the only one who becomes unaffected by the nightmares.
01:01:40
Speaker
Now conscious, Jean discovers that this was the final guardian meant to incapacitate any who came near it. But mental incapacitation for Cyclops means his beams are constantly firing.
01:01:53
Speaker
They hit the sphere and it starts to crack. Jean uses her Phoenix powers to penetrate the sphere and turn off the nightmares, turning into a glowing bird of flame. As she penetrates further into the sphere, she finds a latticework of energy that contains an entire neutron galaxy.
01:02:13
Speaker
A living latticework. A living latticework made of light. She sees a future where this galaxy breaks free and destroys the universe to birth a new one.
01:02:24
Speaker
Very interesting. The phoenix is witnessing death and rebirth. To stop this, she must rebuild the lattice herself, even as it saps away the energy that makes up the phoenix and is unmaking her physical form. She's like discorporating.
01:02:38
Speaker
So Storm offers herself as an anchor to help Jean to do the work without discorporating knowing that this would mean sacrificing her own aurora's life to help increase their chances gene bullies corsair into helping also by revealing to him and that his last name is summers he is cyclops is supposedly dead dad what the fuck sidebar remember ah remember i kept mentioning his beautiful head of hair Yes.
01:03:09
Speaker
Yeah. he's like it is It's the same head hair. know. was hoping you'd catch it before it happened. but ah Sidebar, um this will be important. Eventually, Corsair's personal nightmare was watching a man that looks like Daken kill his wife, Kate.
01:03:26
Speaker
um Okay. So with these anchors, Storm and Corsair in place, Gene disappears into the sphere and rebuilds the lattice. With the power of... Okay, you're really going to have to help me out here, Pat. Yes. think she does it with the power of friendship.
01:03:41
Speaker
She's thinking about her friends, and the they each create a force by which with which she builds a Kabbalic tree yeah where x Xavier is the top and Colossus is the roots.
01:03:55
Speaker
Right, and they refer to her Tifereth. Tifereth? Tifereth? Which is... the sixth branch of the Kabbalistic tree of life.
01:04:06
Speaker
ah It is supposed to be the center of the tree represents the balance of kindness and strength and how the two have to interact in harmony. And it's usually represented as the sun. It's considered like the, the center of the Kabbalah tree life.
01:04:25
Speaker
And Phoenix is this hot ball of flaming energy at her best. Which this is going to be, this is interesting. This is kicking off what we know as the Dark Phoenix saga.
01:04:38
Speaker
So we know that this balance between kindness and strength isn't always going to be in balance. So that's yeah yeah interesting. She's not actually putting the X-Men in the tree. I want to make that clear. She's like using her perception of their forms to build it.
01:04:54
Speaker
Yes, it's sort of like a... It's a psychic representation of her love for them and their love returned for her and how that allows them to ah be strong.
01:05:07
Speaker
Okay. Yeah, this is all like three panels and two pages ah really... The artwork is really conceptual and it's all told through the narration and the narration is all very poetic.
01:05:20
Speaker
So it's hard to really... It's it's one of those... It's one of those writing techniques, right, where you just start getting more and more theoretical so you don't have to actually explain what's happening.
01:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. It is. yeah I mean, they're pretty deep into the theoretical here. it is yeah I'll go into this more at the end, but it is some hard sci-fi they're digging into.
01:05:43
Speaker
Seconds later, the universe must be saved because the X-Men all pop out of the Stargate again. yeah It's very surprising, right? Like she's doing something. You get this sense that something positive is happening.
01:05:55
Speaker
And then she's then they're just back on Earth. And you're like, oh, I guess the day is saved. The first thing they see is Fire Lord, who says that he has no beef with them anymore.
01:06:06
Speaker
Then Lalandra comes to the gate and it collapses. well Lalandra tells x Xavier that Daken has been driven catatonic by the experience and she will now be empress of her people.
01:06:19
Speaker
Once the bureaucrats iron out the legalities. Until that time, she's exiled to Earth and is his girlfriend now. the end it is we can get into the larger issue in a moment but it is wild that lalandra comes back and says i'm emperor of the people everybody knows that they know i'm not a traitor but until they fill out the paperwork to say i'm not a traitor if i'm there technically they have to kill me but so i have to be i i have to be stuck here and by the way um i'm your girlfriend
01:06:55
Speaker
yeah that's part of her sentence like you have to go be this man's girlfriend now wow so like just to really sum up on a very high level in case somebody's having trouble following these two issues the x-men went to save lalandra de ken was going to use the mcron crystal to open a gateway to this powerful weapon that he thought would help him conquer the universe but was going to destroy it The Imperial Guard was trying to protect him as he did this because that's their legal duty.
01:07:29
Speaker
But the Star Jammers and the X-Men teamed up to stop them. They all got sucked into the McCray and Crystal. Phoenix repaired the gateway and sent them home.
01:07:42
Speaker
And also Fire Lord was there. The Fire Lord thing is still so weird. It literally is as you said it. He just happened to to be passing by.
01:07:53
Speaker
Yeah, and now he's involved. Yeah, it would have made so much more sense for him to have been involved with the fight at the McCrane Crystal. he Yeah, maybe ah he has a galactic reason to be there. Right?
01:08:09
Speaker
Like, this could have been fucking Speedball or some any any Marvel character. I think he doesn't get invented for 20 years, but this could have been anybody. Who's the dumbest Marvel? This could have Wood God. Stiltman.
01:08:23
Speaker
Stilt Man! It could have been anybody! Why was it Fire Lord? It's just Dave Cockrum wanted to draw Lord. I caught you saying Wood God in there. We'll get there.
01:08:35
Speaker
How do you feel? This is this is the first real... oh This is the second space adventure, but this is their first like space opera. Yeah, yeah. And this is like far reaches. Their first space adventure was...
01:08:48
Speaker
Just still within the solar system. yay Yeah. So this is their first time leaving orbit, leaving the solar system, leaving earth Yeah.
01:09:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Which is, I guess, probably the smallest on that scale. I'm to I don't love the... I love the...
01:09:12
Speaker
School drama. I love like the legacy aspects of the X-Men. i love the very character I love the character drama of the X-Men. I love the soap opera stuff. I don't love the space stuff as much.
01:09:24
Speaker
Well, I will say, I am usually, when I read comics, a street-level heroes guy. I love the just... just a guy versus a thousand gangsters, uh, comic books.
01:09:36
Speaker
But if you're going to get into space stuff, please do this shit. Please give me like this huge cosmic war that we've stumbled into that actually revolves around a mystical space object that can teleport you into, uh,
01:09:53
Speaker
A world that actually contains its own galaxy and like the the the sense of size, like not really mattering, like they really dig into the weird sci fi concepts. And that's what I love about this little series so much is In the past, we've talked about it 100 times, the writers would like scratch the surface of a being that exists beyond time, but they couldn't actually figure out how to make that interesting or how to dig into those concepts.
01:10:25
Speaker
And now they're doing it. They are diving headfirst into this really cerebral stuff. Do you think this was a ah pitch for a sci-fi novel that Chris Claremont had in a drawer that everyone kept rejecting? And he's like, fine, I'll just put it in the X-Men.
01:10:42
Speaker
Maybe. i don't know, man. This seems like, it's with with the story you told, it almost seems like Chris Claremont just... paged through Dave Cockrum's journal and was like, I can write this. I can make a story out of this.
01:10:55
Speaker
Yeah, I think um it's also interesting how much the Imperial Guard looks like the Legion of Superheroes, right? And it's interesting, Dave Cockrum had just come from the Legion of Superheroes.
01:11:09
Speaker
yeah yeah i know that's a much less deep observation than the really um comprehensive and good one you just did ah but that's
01:11:21
Speaker
don't know it's still very good matt really great observation they look like other guys from dc actually a little bit don't they there's a big one anyway There's a few really funny things here. Number one, there's this infinite system of guardians for the crayon crystal. But if you just toss somebody into one of them, guardians are no longer a problem.
01:11:49
Speaker
Like they are just meant to keep you from making any sort of physical contact. But if you bring enough people, you can absolutely do that.
01:12:01
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Because all you have to do is touch the crystal. if there was And they don't seem too focused on stopping you from touching the crystal. They seem focused on fighting you. Yeah, they want to smash you.
01:12:13
Speaker
And if you can will pull a quick chook on them you're fine. just touch it Just don't try to fight them. That's all they want. Also a very funny little blurb at the very end. Oh yeah. The final panel.
01:12:27
Speaker
They say yeah this book dedicated with respect and admiration to Dave Cockrum who helped make the dream a reality. Very sweet. He didn't get to draw the final issue, but a lot of this is born from his head. And then immediately below it is I'm not dead.
01:12:42
Speaker
Dave Cockrum.
01:12:46
Speaker
Very good. Very good. And then there's one thing, there's one moment here that I really love that I think we've seen once before, but becomes a pretty regular theme in the X-Men where the universe is about to be destroyed or the whole earth is about to be destroyed, maybe in some future cases.
01:13:03
Speaker
And we see the Avengers talking about how helpless they are. Like we see the heroes of the world, unable to help and leaving it entirely to the X-Men, which is another, just like, it's fun that becomes an X-Men tradition, but it,
01:13:22
Speaker
removes our why didn't the avengers do anything question that we can always ask well yeah i think that's um that's a big thing because the x-men ostensibly aren't entirely like a superhero team they're not supposed to be in right again just in in they are obviously they are but they're supposed to be a a team that is meant to protect the world from the threats of other mutants yeah And they just end up in these world saving scenarios.
01:13:52
Speaker
And so there's so often this time where, yeah, it's like, well, why don't we call the Fantastic Four? They're away. They're off world. Oh, well why don't we, ah you know, why doesn't the, why don't we just wait for the Avengers to handle this? Oh, they're in hell.
01:14:05
Speaker
Whatever. I don't know how much I loved this final, like this is the wrap up. Like it happened really fast and it was very conceptual, very
Marvel Team-Up and Plot Chaos
01:14:15
Speaker
heady.
01:14:15
Speaker
i don't know that loved it. as the end of this grand adventure and again sort of like the wrap-up to the past 12 issues of the series yeah it did seem a little abrupt for being the end of this grand story but we know that bigger things are about to happen so whatever who fucking cares man i don't fucking care you think i care should we get to some smaller things that happen matt yeah let's talk about some bad comics
01:14:49
Speaker
a Yeah, no, I'd rather not. I don't want to do it. Marvel Team Up Annual No. 1, The Lords of Light and Darkness. Okay.
01:15:00
Speaker
From a plot by Bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont, and Bonnie Wilford, Bill Mantlo writer, Sal Buscema and Mike Esposito artists, Jim Novak letterer, Hugh Paley colorist,
01:15:12
Speaker
Archie Goodwin editor. What are chances that your parents name you Hugh and grew up to be a colorist?
01:15:22
Speaker
Bonnie Wilford ah was a colorist at Marvel at this time who also married Chris Claremont for a period of time. Release date October 19th, 1976. Cover date December 1976 in a top secret government facility in Nevada called The Nest.
01:15:43
Speaker
When Stephen Marchese, government guy, comes in to invest. I'm choosing to pronounce it like Parchese. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Comes in to investigate. The scientists are a multicultural group of experts on various different science things, and they all die when the one who is Hindu messes up the handling of a bunch of nuclear materials.
01:16:03
Speaker
Pat, why would you have to mention he's Hindu? I wouldn't typically mention anybody's religion, but it does come up later. Oh, okay. All right. That's fine. That's fine. Does Stephen Marchese come up later?
01:16:14
Speaker
ah No, I don't think so at all, even though he narrates the first three pages of the story. We see his corpse. i think We see his, like, skeleton. Cut to a year later, high up in the sky, Senator Turner and Dr. Mishkin, Russian diplomat...
01:16:30
Speaker
who a Russian diplomat and nuclear scientist are boarding a plane with Sir Lionel and Peter Parker. What? That doesn't one of these things.
01:16:42
Speaker
They're on their way to a nuclear conference and wanted a photojournalist with a background in physics to document and it. But Peter's not the only surprise guest on this plane. Turns out Reed Richards couldn't make it. So he sent Charles x Xavier in his stead and Xavier invited all of the X-Men...
01:17:01
Speaker
It's always funny when Charles x Xavier has to introduce a bunch of like grown adults to people as his students. It's like this guy that's clearly these people that are clearly in their 30s and 40s. And he's like, these are my students.
01:17:19
Speaker
Especially Wolverine. That's right. Yeah, exactly. like Grizzled face and haircut. Yeah. And wait, and is that Errol Flynn behind you?
01:17:33
Speaker
Wolverine wants to murder the senator with his bare hands for insulting Reed Richards. But before he can. why is Wolverine so? what when did Since when does he care about Reed Richards?
01:17:45
Speaker
I think he just hates the government. Okay. He's also he makes it clear that he's Canadian, so he doesn't hold any reverence for U.S. senators. And this is Bill Mantlo again. Right. So it's just like, oh, Wolverine's a guy who wants to murder everyone all the time.
01:18:00
Speaker
Right. But before he can, the inevitable happens. The plane the X-Men are on is struck with disaster. Oh, big surprise! yeah he black cloud forms around the plane.
01:18:12
Speaker
All the controls die, and it enters a nosedive. What's worse, a herd of super-advanced robot mutates are flying right for the crashing plane. Okay. One of them starts shooting holes in the plane, injuring the pilots. Okay.
01:18:27
Speaker
It's time to take action. Scott and Peter run to the cockpit and do their best to steady the plane. Peter Parker rushes to the bathroom to get changed. Scott starts blasting robots out of the sky while Sean and Aurora leap from the plane to get a view of the situation.
01:18:43
Speaker
Logan, Kurt, Gene, and Spider-Man, who shows up, all tangle with the robots for a while. And Spidey eventually makes a big web parachute to help the plane land safely.
01:18:53
Speaker
Do you think that's awkward for Gene? Yeah. It's like the last time this guy saw me, he physically assaulted me. Oh, my God. Yeah. yeah And he never apologized. like Right. Like he's not there. Like, hey, so i listen, last time and she's just like my the guy who randomly kissed me is here after I saved his life. What the fuck is he doing on this plane? This plane. This is very strange.
01:19:21
Speaker
ah It's also, it's very fun for Peter Parker to do the whole, oh it's time for Peter Parker to make an exit and Spider-Man to swing on in a fucking airplane.
01:19:33
Speaker
You're 50,000 feet above the ground. Yeah, yeah. what what do you What connection do you think people aren't going to make about this? Peter Parker missing. Spider-Man is suddenly on the plane. They're going to be like, hey, what happened to that photojournalist kid?
01:19:49
Speaker
the weird Peter Parker. Nobody asks about him.
01:19:55
Speaker
oh Okay. On the ground, the X-Men and Spider-Man all head for the giant, mysterious hole in the ground that the robots came out of, looking for answers.
01:20:05
Speaker
Makes sense. Sensors indicate that it that it's extremely deathly radioactive. But luckily, Dr. Mishkin brought his anti-radiation spray, which i keep them which can keep them unradiated for up to an hour. i use that in ah when i'm playing when I'm playing Fallout.
01:20:25
Speaker
Right. ah When they arrive, the hole is glowing with rainbow radiation, which Storm and Banshee push through only to be rendered unconscious.
01:20:36
Speaker
The rest of the gang tries to follow them in, but they're immediately bet by a man calling himself Yamadharma, who starts blasting them all with death rays from his hands. He notes that Gene is powerful enough to deflect his rays and must not be harmed.
01:20:52
Speaker
Wolverine notes that the X-Men are in some deep shit when he slices the man open only to see a cosmic night sky under his skin. You can't be real, he shouts. Out comes his companion.
01:21:05
Speaker
He also calls him a freak, right? He's like, get away from me, you freak! it's like what Wolverine? What are you doing? Why are you saying this? You're Wolverine, right?
01:21:16
Speaker
He's freaked out. he So he slices the man open. He's used to that just, you know, bleeding. ah right It is, it's what one of my absolute favorite, very common things in comic books is when something that's supposed to be normal is actually replaced with outer space.
01:21:35
Speaker
So I was really bought in on this. I was like, oh yeah, what a freaky fucking guy. like that visual, but the idea of Wolverine being like, get away from me, you freak!
Character Analysis: Wolverine and Nightcrawler
01:21:50
Speaker
It's just very not Wolverine. There's a moment earlier. Yeah, it is strange. part of our kurt reperk uh there's a moment where nightcrawler says um wolverine finds security in the belittling of others um which oh when he's when wolverine and spider-man are trading barbs it's like nightcrawler you're usually pretty on point with your character
01:22:11
Speaker
your character assessments of people. I don't think that's true of Wolverine. Yeah. I think it's a little deeper than that. Might be true of Bill Mantlo's Wolverine, but it's what Bill Mantlo's Kurt thinks about Bill Mantlo's Wolverine.
01:22:27
Speaker
That's good point.
Mythological Elements in X-Men
01:22:29
Speaker
Anyway, out comes the Yama Dharma's companion, a woman dressed in black and forcing a screech from a focus in her hand that knocks the entire group unconscious.
01:22:39
Speaker
Cut to an underground scientific lair that we know as the nest, Jean Grey kneels unconscious on the floor while two groups of onlookers watch. One group is the X-Men and Spider-Man suspended in some sort of force field.
01:22:52
Speaker
And the other group looks familiar. As Jean comes to and we see through her eyes, we find out this is seven of the original eight scientists from the Nest disaster.
01:23:03
Speaker
They explain that when their Hindu co-worker caused an an atomic explosion, it killed him, but absorbed his thoughts and beliefs and distributed them to his co-workers in the form of godlike powers in the blast.
01:23:17
Speaker
Now, each of them embodies a Hindu god as perceived by their Hindu co-worker that blew up. They need to recruit Phoenix because while they have godlike powers, their molecular bonds are coming apart from all the radiation, and only Gene's power can keep them together.
01:23:33
Speaker
They also reveal that once fully together, they can finally feed off the energy of all life on Earth to keep themselves alive, which would, of course, kill all life on Earth in the process.
01:23:43
Speaker
Why did they turn evil? Why? How do they know about Phoenix? What? How do? What is any of this? Unclear. While they're explaining all this, Gene is able to psychically block their view of the X-Men and Spider-Man escaping the force field.
01:24:00
Speaker
It's battle time. Cool. A kind of boring fight ensues, except that Mara the Dreamer makes everything colors in one very cool panel. ah Everyone is evenly matched until the gods start contorting and phasing. Their molecular bonds are fading.
01:24:17
Speaker
Apparently, Matt, they only had a few minutes left before this issue started. Oh, weird. Why? Okay. For some reason, and everyone is... askinging for some reason, everyone is sympathetic to them and think it would be somehow be a good idea to send them into space in this forum where they could consume all the energy they want and live forever as incarnations of Hindu gods.
01:24:42
Speaker
They're able to do this by, ah God. Yeah. A bill Mantlo, Chris Claremont special, having all the gods join hands in a circle with Spidey and Colossus joined in that circle and Jean and nightcrawler inside the circle.
01:24:58
Speaker
Then having Phoenix touch Brahma to allow his mind force to flow through her, Jean then projects a mental image that Nightcrawler transports into the path of Scott's I-beams, which are shooting at full blast straight up into the sky.
01:25:14
Speaker
Banshee is also carrying mind force somehow and screaming it directly into Scott's beam. Storm is conjuring a cyclone to lower the temperature because this all gets very hot.
01:25:28
Speaker
And then the scientists end up in space. The end. Oh, man. Yeah. Yeah.
01:25:38
Speaker
oh man yeah this yeah that's very yeah If anyone's having trouble following along, it is very reminiscent of the final issue, the issue that got the X-Men canceled, where they use the power of positive thinking to defeat the Xenox gathering everyone's thoughts on Earth and projecting it into Scott, who shoots it as a laser blast straight up into the sky.
01:26:05
Speaker
and it's also similar to what they did to Krakoa, where you know they like they shoot their powers into Lorna Dane, who then interrupts the gravimetric field.
01:26:19
Speaker
It's just this thing that they do in this early these early X-Men issues, where it's like... And they gotta stop doing it. they If they all shoot their powers at each other, they become...
01:26:33
Speaker
superpower super superpower it's stupid it sucks it sucks this issue sucked they hated it and it ends with the spider-man openly talking about mary jane watson full full name first and last name he's like oh how am i gonna explain this to mary jane watson oh yeah and nobody's like what what the fuck are you talking about wait wait a second are you peter parker
01:27:01
Speaker
Also, there was okay. There was this photojournalist on the plane, right? This guy who I think used to date Mary Jane Watson. Anyway, he died or disappeared or something. And then Spider-Man showed up and he was talking about, ah oh, that guy's girlfriend, Mary Jane Watson.
01:27:17
Speaker
He's such a scumbag. going right after that guy's girlfriend. So there is a series of it has to be eight panels where Nightcrawler is able to help Banshee escape the force field. So Banshee is able to help Colossus escape the force field. So Colossus is able to help Storm escape the force field. So Storm's able to help Spidey escape the force field. So Spidey is able to help Wolverine escape the force field.
01:27:45
Speaker
And the green grass grows all around, all around. The green grass grows all around. You don't have to show us every individual person finding the hole in the force field and getting out.
01:27:56
Speaker
And it's just, oh, and then they use their powers. Like, that's the solution to each one. It's not like it's clever or depends on the the the person before or after them. It's just like, and then Storm used her zaps to do it. And then Colossus used his punch to do it.
01:28:15
Speaker
Spider-Man just used his webs. This is a bad force field. They could have all done it. Like, that could have been the thing. Bill Mantlo could have been like... ah They didn't make the force field very well, so everyone breaks out of it immediately. Like, I don't know, that's kind of funny.
01:28:30
Speaker
Like, you could have just left it like that.
Wolverine's Real Name Mystery
01:28:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But no, they point out that everyone's tried their powers and it didn't work. But I guess Spider-Man didn't try his webs. Everyone's tried their powers.
01:28:43
Speaker
He just tried being blue instead. He tried disappearing into into the shadows.
01:28:53
Speaker
Storm tried using her cat eyes and she was like, oh wait, I should use my storms. God. Wolverine's like, I can't heal my way out of this thing. Maybe I'll use my claws.
01:29:08
Speaker
Stupid. It's bad, bad, bad. Do we want to just keep moving on? No, hang on. There's so many things I have to talk about here. Number one, we mentioned Wolverine calling himself Wolvie a couple issues back.
01:29:20
Speaker
Scott calls him wolver like i i think it's that he gets inner I think it's that he interrupts himself. because he does this is i do think you're pointing out something very interesting, but I think it's a little different than you think.
01:29:37
Speaker
He says, let him go, Wolver. Let him go now Oh, okay. I see what you're saying. read it as, let him go, Wolver. Let him go.
01:29:50
Speaker
but it illustrates the fact that why has nobody ever asked Wolverine name? and Nobody cares. Nobody, like they like, but at this point they're like, oh, we can't call him anything when we're in front of other people because we don't know.
01:30:06
Speaker
We can't call him Wolverine. Oh, yeah. Wait, is Wolverine his real name? one has ever asked him his name. They've been hanging out for yeah like a year now.
01:30:18
Speaker
We don't. but I didn't really mention it. But at the end, Professor Xavier, of course, wipes a bunch of people's brains. All of the civilians that were involved will have no memory of the event. Yeah. And then here's what I thought was really interesting. Here's a concept that could be explored. This is essentially like an in humans origin story.
01:30:38
Speaker
Okay, yeah. But without the X-Men's help, they would die, what, within a year of having acquired their powers, whatever incident created their powers.
01:30:50
Speaker
Yeah. How many i mean a universe like this, ah how many times has that happened where essentially we've recreated the Inhumans, but they just they couldn't sustain it for more than a few hours before they just died out?
01:31:04
Speaker
Yeah, in and in a universe where people are just constantly getting superpowers in these accidents, how yeah how many are just melting a so ah couple seconds later?
01:31:16
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. yeah I mean, how many people turn into Spider-Man, but then are overcome by like the toxic shock and pass out and die? Yes, or turn just turn into an actual spider.
01:31:29
Speaker
They're like, yeah they s shrink. And then it's just like, oh, ah boy. Yeah, who knows? I want to talk about a much better.
Hulk, Wood God, and Nerve Gas Incident
01:31:40
Speaker
No, it's another Bill Mann. No, no, no.
01:31:43
Speaker
It's called Marvel Team Up number 53. Nightmare in New Mexico. it is from, wait, it is also from October 19th. ah October 26, 1976. So it's a week later. Okay. That's quite a connection. and this It's the annual followed by the regular monthly. right Yeah.
01:32:02
Speaker
And these are also a year before where we're at in X-Men. I do want to point that out. Right. We're doing it for a reason. But trust us. so The reason is Phoenix is already Phoenix.
01:32:17
Speaker
So it these had to take place. after they get back from space. Yeah, yeah. Written by Bill Mantlo, drawn by John Byrne, inked by Frank Giacoya, edited by Archie Goodwin.
01:32:31
Speaker
Release date October 26, 1976. Cover date January The Hulk is... for some reason, leaping around a ghost town in Nevada. As he goes to investigate the only sign of activity he can see, ah truck turned over on its side, satyr appears, calling itself Wood God and calling Hulk not his father.
01:32:52
Speaker
This upsets Hulk. No, I am your father.
01:32:57
Speaker
Who starts fighting him immediately. Cut to the sky. no idea what's happening why is why is the hulk here yeah and what's a wood god why is he mad at the what is what what the fuck is wood god he's a satyr he's some sort of goat man should say satyr goat man is its own cryptid wood god netflix series when pat its on the cover on the cover of this issue it says as if wood god weren't enough problem here comes the whole well how is he wasn't a problem i didn't even know he existed he's a problem now now he's a problem
01:33:42
Speaker
It's problem for my cognitive functioning. Cut to the sky. The X-Men are giving Spider-Man a ride home to New York from the weird incident that just happened when they see a bunch of hovercraft headed towards them.
01:33:54
Speaker
The aircraft fire missiles at the X-Men announcing they're afraid of anything that's alive in this town of Liberty. Cyclops shoots all but one of the missiles out of the sky, but one is enough to force the X-Men to land and figure out what the hell just happened.
01:34:08
Speaker
They intercept a transmission from the commander of the aircraft they were just attacked by and learn it's a military operation on its way to handle the situation and liberty. The Hulk and Woodgott are fighting. Okay.
01:34:21
Speaker
Do you think all the people, all the the X-Men and the military people were like, what the fuck is Woodgott? Yeah, they're only worried about the Hulk. They're like, he's fighting some sort of Yeah.
01:34:35
Speaker
spider-man looking to save his friend bruce banner from the full force of the military decides he has to stay behind and help peter if you're gonna do this if this is a commitment of yours you're just gonna have to follow the whole the hulk is always being attacked by the military yeah yeah why this one do you care about because he's in the area if you're in nevada in the marvel universe you have to go deal with the hulk it's just like it's rude not to
01:35:04
Speaker
The X-Men feel no such obligation, but Banshee is kind enough to fly Spider-Man over to the town where it's all happening. Wish him luck and head back home. The X-Men are going back to New York.
01:35:15
Speaker
Woo! And Banshee's gone too. like it's I don't know why we're still talking about this issue. But we're staying here in Liberty where the Hulk and Wood God are just trading blows and getting frustrated with each other. Suddenly, though, the Hulk feels weak and dizzy. And after an accidental electric shock, he transforms back to Bruce Banner.
01:35:34
Speaker
Bruce is feeling very sick, though, and collapses. Wood God has no time for that now, though, as the military has shown up in their weird little hovercrafts. Wood God bashes one out of the air with a telephone pole he ripped out from the ground and Spider-Man manages to save the pilot.
01:35:51
Speaker
The pilot clad in a hazmat suit lets Spidey know that this area is filled with nerve gas after a drunk farmer crashed into a tank of the stuff.
01:36:02
Speaker
this Yeah, Pat, it's full of what? This town is filled with nerve gas. Yeah.
01:36:13
Speaker
After a drunk farmer crashed into a tank of the stuff. Yeah. The tank of nerve gas that they were keeping in the town. Yeah, of course. Okay.
01:36:24
Speaker
Every town has a tank of nerve gas in it, and that's why they tell you not to drive drunk. They hit the nerve gas tank!
01:36:33
Speaker
uh thank goodness spider-man was sprayed with that anti-radiation spray and team up annual number one which also makes him immune to nerve gas what spider-man finds wood god finds out he can't be webbed up and then hulk wakes up already mad at spider-man the end Fucking the end. Not to be continued because we are not following this thread. We are never going to follow this thread again. what What God is wandering around talking about? Okay.
01:37:02
Speaker
Issue opens. Hulk finds an empty town. Just assumes it's his. He's like, this is my town. I guess no one's here. So it's my town. I own it. Very funny. Then woodguards walking around talking about how some scream happened.
01:37:17
Speaker
Are you a victim of the scream? Did the scream happen to you? A scream killed my father. Are you? did do Is this the source of the scream? And then they have Banshee.
01:37:28
Speaker
They choose Banshee to be the one to bring Spider-Man. The man who's scream all the time. And Pat, was there any connection between the scream and Banshee showing up?
01:37:42
Speaker
No, no, no. Not even little bit. Wood God never even sees him. I thought like you think for sure. Oh, he's going to think Banshee is the source of scream. and He's going to fight Banshee.
01:37:54
Speaker
Oh, and then you're you're ready to make fun of it for that. Like, oh convenient that Banshee was the one who decided to drop the Spider-Man off when Banshee. Happens to be a person who screams running to a guy who eats screams, but it doesn't even fucking matter.
01:38:06
Speaker
The whole point of the story is just to show that the X-Men are coming home from Nevada. Yeah, that is that is all the X-Men are here for, is to travel for a short while. And do not have Spider-Man with them when they get home. Yeah.
01:38:24
Speaker
woof this one it's like it's like it might have been worse it's like how they tell filmmakers like look you can just show them in the car and then show them in their house you do not need to show them stopping the car getting out of the car locking the car walking up the footpath opening their door like nobody told marvel that they're like well the x-men are in nevada we have to show them getting home and If we show them get it, we have to explain why Spider-Man isn't with them. Otherwise, people are going to get so confused. boost
01:38:56
Speaker
Right? As far as I can tell, Team Up is a Spider-Man title. And it's Spider-Man teams up with, yeah but in this case, the Hulk.
01:39:07
Speaker
And Wood God. teams I guess he doesn't actually team up with either of them. At the end of the issue, he's fighting both. He's getting ready to fight both of them.
01:39:16
Speaker
good Wood God's still around, dude. He only teams up with the X-Men here. Wood God comes back? Yeah, Wood God's still a around. Wood God is ah like ah a Marvel character.
01:39:28
Speaker
Weird. Yeah. you This would be the perfect time for, say, a Weapon Jason to write in and explain to us what's actually happening in the Marvel team-up continuity that would add some context here.
01:39:43
Speaker
I'm saying right now, do not...
01:39:47
Speaker
It would be a good time for it, but please don't. i don't want to know anything further about that. I even think we're going to see, like, I know Wood God only from the cover of certain Marvel Comics Presents issues.
01:40:02
Speaker
Hmm. Where it's like, and also Wood God and stuff. Like it says Wood God. It's a Wood God story somewhere on the cover. But like, i then I just read the Wolverine story inside
Wood God's Obscurity
01:40:12
Speaker
and keep moving.
01:40:12
Speaker
As if, as if Wood God weren't enough problem.
01:40:18
Speaker
And I do think we might, it depends if we're going to talk about Alpha Flight or not. Oh, yes. If we're talking about Alpha Flight, we will have to talk about Wood God again in the very distant future.
01:40:30
Speaker
Good, because if we're going to see Wood God again, it better be among a bunch of other little freaks.
01:40:36
Speaker
What's he want? Who is he? I don't want to know. I don't care. Why invent him? Bill Mantlo...
01:40:46
Speaker
This is where I really joined in your hatred for him. Okay. Number one, he's writing Banshee as Scottish. he's He's writing like the Dinaes and Lads and Lasses. Like he's... Lads and Lasses could be... Yeah, that could be.
01:41:06
Speaker
Also, here's one of Spider-Man's one line. Just to give you a taste of how he's writing Spider-Man in here. Here's one of... uh boy one of his one-liners you're more laughs than a bad case of heartburn
01:41:22
Speaker
what dude what okay number one no one would claim that heartburn gives you laughs or the reverse of that yet no one would claim like oh you know what the antithesis of laughing is it's heartburn nah it's probably i don't know like watching someone die like it's probably like like I don't know, getting stabbed in this in the chest. Like, I don't know. It's not... It's not heartburn.
01:41:47
Speaker
It's not heartburn. This is just a non sequitur. you're merl You're more laughs than three pens on my desk. Yeah, just something neutral, but not great.
01:42:02
Speaker
Yeah. Here's the Let's move on. i I'm going to have to. I have to really upset you here, Pat. No, no. We have decided. We have made a commitment to to each other, to ourselves. And now that I'm saying it out loud to you, dear listener, and in a couple episodes here, we're going to do two a two episodes where we see what Iceman and Angel are up to in the Champions League.
Iron Fist and X-Men Misunderstanding
01:42:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yep. Pat, guess who writes champions eight through 17? No. Are you serious? I didn't know it until we're right now. All right.
01:42:37
Speaker
Let's see. Can we move on? Okay. Yeah. Just. Yeah. What's the next issue? Do Iron Fist number 15 enter series.
01:42:49
Speaker
the x-men Chris Claremont, author, John Byrne artist, Dan Green, inker, Annette K. letterer, B. Patterson colorist, and Archie Goodwin editor.
01:43:00
Speaker
Release date, May 31st, 1977. So truly not far after the release of Star Wars. Cover date, September 1977. The issue opens on some Iron Fist shit. He is fighting a bunch of ninjas. Cut to Logan out of costume and standing outside of Jean Grey's apartment, staring at a photo of her and Scott.
01:43:23
Speaker
He tears the Scott part off of the photo and thinks about how pathetic it is that he's obsessing over a woman when he spots a man sneaking into Jean's apartment. Inside the apartment, we see that that man is Iron Fist, who forgot Misty Knight was away in the Caribbean.
01:43:39
Speaker
Then that's the premise that kicks off this issue is Iron Fist forgot Misty Knight wasn't home. then we get a cut to that.
01:43:50
Speaker
Whatever intrigue is happening with Misty Knight off in the Caribbean. Just general. I think this is how Iron Fist issues go. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's fine. Whatever. It's if you're following Iron Fist, which we're not, we'd describe that scene and it'd be cool.
01:44:04
Speaker
Yeah, probably makes sense. Back to New York. Iron Fist is walking around the empty apartment looking at food that's been left for some kind of party and sticking his fingers in it.
01:44:15
Speaker
Right in the potato salad. when When Wolverine bursts through the window in Fang's costume, he's still wearing it. But saying still wearing it. So this clearly takes place after that. But this also this issue was released before that. Oh, yeah. This is like a month and a half before that comes out.
01:44:36
Speaker
mrship maybe he was he had a very similar outfit something happened to it and while he was across the galaxy he was like that's the fucking jacket that i've been looking for i love this thing um your hands out of the freaking potato salad danny ah Right. Wolverine, sensing that, bursts through the window in Fang's costume. The two fight, and the way Wolverine moves reminds him of a guy he met recently named Sabretooth?
01:45:05
Speaker
What the fuck? Huh. Huh. Man, that probably won't come up again. His trademark iron fist isn't working, but he manages to toss Wolverine out a window anyway, immediately panicking that he killed him. It's a five story drop.
01:45:20
Speaker
Yeah. Though at that moment, Peter Rasputin and Kurt Wagner sounds image inducer are walking down the street and they catch a falling Wolverine. He tells them about the burglar and Colossus fastball specials. And right back in the window while Kurt teleports up into the apartment, they all start fighting cut to storm.
01:45:41
Speaker
Who is happy to be experiencing some calm for once. She lands on Jean's roof and changes into civilian clothes ready for a party and walks in the door only to be splurged in the face by fingered by the fingered potato salad.
01:45:55
Speaker
Just then, Moira and Banshee, walking down the street, see a lightning storm erupting from Gene's apartment. Iron Fist begins to flee through the roof, fearing that these intruders are too strong for him and he may need to get to the Avengers.
01:46:07
Speaker
That's a kind a cool moment. It is kind of cool. He's like, oh, wonder if I should call the Avengers. Yeah. He's a little more panicked than that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But as he does, Banshee grabs him by the arm and flies him into a chimney.
01:46:22
Speaker
Iron Fist manages to flip Banshee over and knock him out when Storm flings him back into the apartment with a gust of wind right into Colossus's arms. Wolverine then pops his claws through the front of Iron Fist's mask. That's super cool.
01:46:36
Speaker
Right on either side of his nose. Yeah. And starts demanding answers. A moment later, though, they're all frozen in place as Phoenix arrives back at her apartment. She explains that Iron Fist is just Misty Knight's best friend and Cyclops lectures everyone for jumping to conclusions.
01:46:52
Speaker
Storm's only defense is that she got hit with potato salad. She said she's literally just like, I'm embarrassed. She was like, it was smelly and eggs. And I'm so embarrassed.
01:47:04
Speaker
A few hours later, They all have a party and Jean's landlord shows up to kick her out until he finds out that one of the party guests is Danny Rand, whose company owns the apartment.
01:47:14
Speaker
Danny promises to take care of Jean's lease and she promises that Wolverine will clean up the mess. The end. Okay, so the premise of this this issue is the X-Men are preparing for a party when Iron Fist stumbles in because he forgets Misty Knight isn't home.
01:47:29
Speaker
Right. but They don't know Iron Fist. Yeah. And he doesn't know them. This party, the guests are the X-Men. Yeah. Billionaire Danny Rand.
01:47:40
Speaker
Yes. An alien lady with feathers for hair. Sure. The landlord who owns the building, who manages the building. Gotta invite him. And then five comic book creators.
01:47:53
Speaker
Yes. There's... Dave Cockrum, Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Bonnie Wilford, who again, married, a colorist and was married to Claremont, and Patty Greer-Klein, who is Dave Cockrum's second wife. I don't know if she actually worked in the comms or not.
01:48:11
Speaker
Why are they not, they're not, they're standing around talking with each other, and they're not like... what Why is there an alien with feathers for hair here? Why is billionaire industrialist Danny Rand here?
01:48:26
Speaker
So what do you do? ah Oh, I'm ah actually a blue demon man who teleports. is No, I thought I meant for work. Oh, I don't work. Oh, all of us? We're all unemployed.
01:48:38
Speaker
Except for me. I'm an empress. Yeah. ah Gene models sometimes. I'm a landlord. i have a job. This was so goofy and fun and stupid. Absolutely silly.
01:48:55
Speaker
There's no villains here. It's just a misunderstanding between several heroes. Yeah. And they just get to do a little show off of their powers. It's very vibrant.
01:49:07
Speaker
I think... Colors are amazing. Yeah, the colors are really amazing. John Burns art is so clean here. i was going to say, it seems like they've been over inking John Burns pencils because you see it with such minimal inking here and it's really, it pops so much more.
01:49:27
Speaker
I don't think I'm good. I would love Claremont's Iron Fist. Like based on the samples, I've read two of Claremont's Iron Fist issues. We'll get to the other one way, way, way, way later.
01:49:39
Speaker
But um I don't think I would love it. But I do kind of want to read it because it looks so good. Yeah. i so I like Iron Fist. I've read...
01:49:49
Speaker
I've read a couple of full runs and then I've read like just some some single issues here and there. It's fun. It's always the it doesn't matter the writer. It's almost always this. It's him like listing the moves he's doing, getting into some sort of incident that is like pretty low stakes because he's a happy go lucky guy.
01:50:09
Speaker
I read the Ed Brubaker and Matt Fraction. Yes, David Aja. David Aja. So good. The writing was probably very good, but it's the art that kept me coming back. Like, apparently, really good artists love to work on Iron Fist.
01:50:25
Speaker
It's a study in human movement, right? He's doing all these crazy things, and he's shouting them out as he
Manhattan Apartment Dynamics
01:50:31
Speaker
does them. That's my favorite thing about Iron Fist, is he's like, triple eagle punch as he does it.
01:50:37
Speaker
Hammer blow, which I think is what, is that what he did? Hammer arm or hammer blow is what he did to Banshee after he flipped him over. It was really brutal. Hammer blow. How do two women, Misty Knight, who works for the police, Jean Grey, who's a model sometimes,
01:50:55
Speaker
They own what appears to be a two to three floor apartment with a street entrance and private roof access. Yeah. In Manhattan.
01:51:06
Speaker
In Greenwich Village. In Greenwich Village with a loft. How do they own this place? It's the 70s. It's Manhattan in the 70s. So it's not quite as expensive as it is today. Okay. is It's not the millionaire haven that it is today.
01:51:25
Speaker
Couple of crazy moments here. number Number one, when Wolverine first enters to attack Iron Fist, he refers to Jean as my woman.
01:51:36
Speaker
Oh, my woman's home. Come on. But don't start that. This is Bobby Drake behavior. You don't want Yeah. And the Iceman of the group. Iron Fist is even like, well, he can't be talking about Misty Knight because she's my woman. And he can't be talking about Jean Grey because she's with Scott Summers.
01:51:57
Speaker
It's so good. He actually his assumption is like, oh, no, me and Misty just broke up. i Oh, I didn't catch that. Has she already moved on to this fucking weirdo? Psycho.
01:52:12
Speaker
Iron Fist has, and this is not a habit that I knew that I've seen in other issues of his, but here he's he's got exclamations that he says, dragon's bones, when he's just surprised by something. Dragon's bones that punch hurt or like gods of Kunlun.
01:52:30
Speaker
yeah i There's one that he says, which is God of us all.
01:52:38
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Christian Danny Rand. Very monotheistic.
01:52:45
Speaker
That was a weird one. And then really interesting thing from the very beginning. The narrator points out that the character that we're seeing watching over this apartment is named Logan.
01:52:56
Speaker
And then goes on to point out that, honestly, nobody actually knows that his name is Logan. We heard one character say it to him last episode, and he was shocked that somebody knew. yeah that's right. gotten another mention since then, right?
01:53:10
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Even, like, as um if you missed that one issue, this is... that's That's a good point, too. Yeah, even a reader. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. At this time, this is like a...
01:53:21
Speaker
This is a nerd secret. This is capital in the comic book shop world. You could be like, well, I know what Wolverine's real name is. Do you? ah yeah yeah. That's a deep trivia.
01:53:33
Speaker
Kurt has a really good moment. Wolverine gets knocked out the window, right? Falls to the ground, lands in Colossus's arms. Colossus is like, what is going on? And Wolverine's like, there's a thief up there. i have to go kill him.
01:53:46
Speaker
So Colossus throws him up and then Kurt is like... okay we're dealing with wolverine here we don't know that this is actually somebody that he should be killing uh he actually says it could just as easily be the mailman that's a direct quote it's extremely so he's like let me teleport up there and make sure he's not killing innocent civilian It's so funny that they're just dealing with a guy like that.
01:54:15
Speaker
They're just like, okay. And there's an affection there too. They're like, okay, let's just make sure he's not killing. yeah. yeah they're They're acting in his best interests as much as whoever's inside the apartment.
01:54:28
Speaker
And Kurt not using his image inducer. Yeah. He's just walking down the street as Nightcrawler. And he's like, we enter mid-conversation in media recess.
Kurt Wagner's Self-Acceptance
01:54:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's what it is. Where Kurt is really just like, and then I said, I'm not going to use the image inducer anymore. I'm done with it. He's just very proud to be blue and furry and out there.
01:54:51
Speaker
I'm happy for him. I think that's, yeah, that's very cool. I do. If I was going to offer one tip to him, he's a sharp dresser. He doesn't need to wear his X-Men costume everywhere.
01:55:01
Speaker
Yeah, you probably should be blue and furry and... Wear a nice suit like his friend Colossus next to him. But then again, Colossus breaks, destroys the suit immediately. he absolutely does. I guess maybe his clothes can't teleport with him.
01:55:16
Speaker
That's not true. Colossus could just take a second to take off his suit. Yeah. Loosen the tie. Yeah. Well, Patrick, we got a little chunk of the X-Men and then like kind of where they're at in the Marvel Universe at this moment, right? How how did yeah how do you feel about this?
01:55:35
Speaker
you know, couple months of X-Men. I'll say it again, I am so excited about the X-Men issues that we read
X-Men's Thematic Depth
01:55:43
Speaker
here. they i think they are so, so good. They're getting into these really deep cerebral science fiction concepts. They're not afraid to touch them.
01:55:52
Speaker
They do fun things with space time. They imagine a living universe being bundled up within a living light mesh to keep it from destroying, i guess, paving over the existing universe to exist on its own.
01:56:06
Speaker
yeah They break down Phoenix's power. They have the Starjammers, a big group of space cowboys. Like they really, this cosmic war, they want to get into this stuff that was, that previous writers have been ah afraid to touch. And then reading through the team-ups in Iron Fist, it reminds you what the rest of comics are like right now. We are very much in like a...
01:56:29
Speaker
psychedelic revolution in comics uh they're still goofy they're still weird and trippy but they're so shallow they're afraid to explore there is a rule around marvel at this time that you need to return everything to the status quo as soon as possible and x-men is just the exception like we said it's not doing it yeah So that like, so it really shows you that this is something special. The X-Men issues that we read, the Claremont Cockrum and Claremont Byrne issues are something really special. And that's even at the time among, among their peers, it really stands out.
01:57:09
Speaker
Yeah, that is a good point. Being able to see the comparison of what's going on in X-Men versus what's going on ah elsewhere. And I mean, even what's going on in Iron Fist, right, is Claremont and Byrne.
01:57:21
Speaker
Yeah, so it really shows you. I wish we'd seen some other writers than Bill Mantlo. see Right? Like, I want to see what, I i don't know. Yeah, if if these this had been three different writers, I feel like we would have gotten a better picture of what's going on elsewhere in Marvel.
01:57:39
Speaker
yeah i i you're right it is interesting so before we get the fuck out of here pat here's what i want to know from you okay is there anything in these issues that we read that's worth uh stealing and dealing oh matt i gotta say this episode there absolutely is oh sweet it's pat steals and deals An angry thunderbolt of terror explodes out of the ocean's depths.
'Orca' Movie Discussion
01:58:10
Speaker
Jaws. Orca, the killer whale, destroys sharks, ships, and men. He rules the ocean. He terrifies the earth. He is without mercy and without equal.
01:58:22
Speaker
Orca, the most powerful, the most fantastic animal in the all the world. Dino De Laurentiis presents Orca, starring Richard Harris and Charlotte Rampling. Opening in July at a theater near you.
01:58:35
Speaker
And then um um help me describe this image. It is. Okay. It is a in a killer whale. Yeah. Smashing through one to two boats.
01:58:48
Speaker
It's hard to tell if that's one. I think it's one boat. That's not getting half. but Yeah, it looks like a an old Spanish galleon. The top half is way far away from the bottom half.
01:59:01
Speaker
But an old Spanish galleon, if it was the size of ah two people, there's one guy in the half in the water. And there's another guy that's like leaping on top of the orca holding a spear like Captain Ahab.
01:59:19
Speaker
Yes, he is falling from the sky, spear in hand, ready to take out this orca. And it gives you a sense of scale. This orca must be 50, 60 feet long.
01:59:32
Speaker
it is like it's yeah blue whale size. Can I say what's maybe my favorite little detail? Oh, and in the background, it's just like a bunch of wreckage that's hard to tell. Is that fire? Is that a city? Is that other boats that he's destroyed? It's just hard to tell.
01:59:47
Speaker
um My favorite little detail is if you look in the the top half of the boat that's been separated from the bottom half, yeah there's clearly either a stepping stool or a folding chair. That is in the boat!
02:00:02
Speaker
was the artist just having a little fun putting a stepladder in there yeah yeah yeah this is so dino de laurentis who the fuck is this guy uh filmmaker he produced here he lived from 1919 to 2010 he produced or co-produced over 500 films jesus christ this guy made a lot of movies and pat I've heard of almost none of them. All right. Do you want to open up his wiki? We'll both open his wiki and we'll say out loud if we see one we recognize.
02:00:34
Speaker
All right. Ready? Let's go. Let's go. right. It started in 1946. I'm up to 1955. Hang on. We're going to get the hunch. Oh, no. It's the Hunchback of Rome.
02:00:49
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. don't know that one. I don't know.
02:00:55
Speaker
The Bible? I've heard of The Bible. I don't think you've heard of that. but Oh, The Shootist. Okay, there's one. one one one Oh, the 1976 King Kong and the John Wayne movie The Shootist.
02:01:06
Speaker
Okay. Okay. That's... oh okay. Then, towards the end of his career. Okay, Evil Dead 2. Ooh. me Flash Gordon.
02:01:17
Speaker
ah it's The 1980 Flash Gordon. I don't... I don't know that. You don't know the 1980 Flash Gordon? No. Hannibal, Red Dragon, and Hannibal Rising.
02:01:28
Speaker
Oh, he got all the is Silence of the Lambs sequels after seeing Silence of the Lambs. It says he's uncredited on Orca, but we just saw him credited.
02:01:42
Speaker
He's, Death Wish. He's uncredited in Death Wish. Yeah, in some of the ones he's uncredited on, like I've heard of them. like ah the I've heard of The Hills Run Red. I've heard of, obviously now I've heard of Orca, Halloween 2, Conan the Barbarian, Amityville 2, Halloween 3, The Dead Zone, Firestarter, Conan the Destroyer, Dune, Manhunter, Blue Velvet, Leviathan, Herbald.
02:02:05
Speaker
But ah those were all his uncredited. in all All the things he has credited on, I've heard of three of those films. Okay, what do you know about Orca? Did you do, like, this is insane. Is it just... No, this looks so stupid. It's okay.
02:02:20
Speaker
it's It's just they're trying to do Jaws again, right? Yeah, so this is 100%. We are less than two years after the release of Jaws. ok This is just trying to capitalize on the massive success that got.
02:02:35
Speaker
But replacing the shark with ah Free Willy. it's got It's got an 8% on Rotten Tomatoes. yeah Great.
02:02:47
Speaker
I love this one review from the Washington Post. It's essentially a rehash of an earlier De Laurentiis hit death wish with the killer whale in the charles charles bronson role who
02:03:05
Speaker
that's so good so that matt for this week is your pat's steal and deal as you could go see orca starring richard harris and charlotte rampling It's opening in July. july yeah That's today. oh i guess by the time of release, that'll be. no July. You just missed it.
02:03:28
Speaker
Everybody. Thank you for listening. Make sure if you make sure you email. Sorry that we talked about so many build man. Low comics.
Conclusion and Acknowledgments
02:03:38
Speaker
Thanks. If you, if you want to look,
02:03:42
Speaker
Listen, if you want to be featured on Pat's email corner, even if you don't, you just want to reach out to us and say, hey, mutantmenacepod at gmail.com. If you want to Email us about anything. Email us about anything. We haven't been doing as many calls to action recently as email Michael pointed out. But like that doesn't mean you can't email in with a question, with an observation or, you know, just spin your wheels a little bit. We do that sometimes and we cut it out of the show, but you can do it. Email it to us.
02:04:12
Speaker
Here's a call to action. Just email us about anything. Who gives a shit? Who gives a fuck? We just want to chat with people. Matt made fun of me the last time I replied to somebody's email. so I can only chat with you through this podcast. But this is how I make friends.
02:04:29
Speaker
You can also follow us on Instagram at mutantmenacepod. Yeah, you can you find us on YouTube. You can find us on any of your podcasting platforms. Leave us reviews and say something nice about us on social media. Huge, huge thank you as always to Krils Wilson for the opening theme. And huge thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Tilby.
02:04:52
Speaker
And Matt, I guess there's nothing else to say. Except for, you know, I'll say, I'll say the catchphrase that we say every single time. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. so Take it away. It's fine. And then, you and then we're done. um So as we say, catchphrase out of every episode, keep pushing big mouth and you're going to find yourself sliced.
02:05:11
Speaker
That's right, Matt. Like we always say, i have seen within your mind, mortal. Your plan is good.