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41 - Professor Xavier is a Jerk! - Uncanny X-Men #168, X-Men Special Edition #1 (bonus story), New Mutants #4-6
0 Playsin 2 hours
Happy New Year! Kick it off by visiting some iconic and, uh, uniconic moments in mutant history; and rest assured that, through it all, Professor Xavier is a JERK!
Join us as we meet some of the silliest characters we've seen in a long while, and tackle it all with complete grace and professionalism. It's 2026!
Coming clean. Matt Rogers. Professor Xavier is a JERK! Paul Smith’s perfect Wolverine. Stevie Hunter’s full mailing address. Booty calls. Tunnels. A dragon! You’ve gotta stop saying “stank face”. Dani’s frisbee skills. Can’t be hurt while I’m blasting. Mulled cider. Team America! Silver Samurai and Serpent. Running over people with motorcycles. Cerebrating. A very obvious plan. We just don’t care. Can Cannonball see through walls?! 2 shacks 2 explosions. BLIP Magazine.
Issues: Uncanny X-Men #168, X-Men Special Edition #1 (bonus story), New Mutants #4-6
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fPv7hRgTeV
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod (https://www.instagram.com/mutantmenacepod)
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Transcript
Live Report from Westchester
00:00:10
Speaker
I'm Trish Toby with WARC reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
Podcast Introduction
00:00:46
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Allcamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Pete. welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace. I nailed it.
00:00:59
Speaker
You are off. ah You say that every week. I nailed it. You are off. How are you doing, Patrick? I'm doing all right. I had a productive week, I think. How are you doing? Oh, did you? I had a i am kind of a chaotic week, like a sort of a disastrous week.
00:01:17
Speaker
Disastrous? Yeah, work has been rough, and life has been rough, and the weather has been rough, and...
Email Corner: Hero Stats Discussion
00:01:36
Speaker
ah Okay, today on Pat's Email Corner, we have a few emails to share with you. This one comes from Weapon Jason. We've been holding on to this one for a bit.
00:01:48
Speaker
He says, ah hero stats. That is the subject line of the podcast. Email. Jason says, since I still have my copy of the Marvel superheroes advanced set, which is contemporary with the X-Men comics you're reading.
00:02:04
Speaker
Okay. It's from 1986, but close enough. I randomly generated you to your heroes. Okay. So this appears to be like a ah tabletop role-playing game where you can.
00:02:16
Speaker
Yes. Play in the Marvel universe. Do you know about this? I do know about this. Have have you kids have you folks heard of this? Have you guys ah heard of this thing? Have you guys ah seen this thing? What else in the news?
00:02:29
Speaker
Something has gone wrong. Something has gone. Not wrong. Just very weird. If the Marvel tabletop role playing game from the 1980s is suddenly in the news.
00:02:43
Speaker
So Matt Allcamp.
Hero Stats Reveal: Matt and Pat
00:02:46
Speaker
Okay. The character. That's me, a human. I'm a human being, actually. Sorry, know I know you could get confused, but i mean I'm a human being. A real human being with real human like ah hands and balls and stuff.
00:03:00
Speaker
Well, according to Weapon Chasing, you are an altered human. Oh. Yeah, I've altered balls. is Your fighting level is typical. ball the Five, your agility is incredible. Your strength is good.
00:03:14
Speaker
Okay. Your endurance is incredible. Your reason is remarkable. Your intuition is amazing. Your psyche is typical. Whoa! Health 85, Karma 77, Resources remarkable, and Popularity This all sounds 10 out of 10, I'm guessing.
00:03:30
Speaker
Known powers, force blast, Matt Aukamp can fire bolts of pure force from his hands with good rank ability. And defensive shield, at will, Matt can generate a personal force field of typical rank ability to protect himself. That's pretty cool.
00:03:44
Speaker
This sounds right. ah Talents, Matt has training in throne weapons, martial arts C, which is judo, and psychiatry. Hold on! Then how is my fighting typical and my psyche typical?
00:03:58
Speaker
And your contacts are with the English Folk Dance and Song Society. That sounds right. Checks out. Yeah. i You've got pretty rad, like fighting power set here. I sound like I rule, man.
00:04:12
Speaker
Yeah. Pat Reber. Oh. Origin Mutant. I wanted to be a mutant. Fighting typical agility, remarkable strength, good endurance. Amazing reason is excellent.
00:04:26
Speaker
Intuition is typical and psyche is excellent, man. I could kick your ass. Yeah, you are except for endurance and psyche. Otherwise, i i am just better than you in all other stats. the ah Yes.
00:04:43
Speaker
Including, well, we're equal on health, but you have much better karma, much better resources, and my popularity is zero. Well,
00:04:54
Speaker
I have two podcasts. You only have one. Known powers for Pat Reaver, Dark Force Manipulation. Pat Reaver has the mutant ability to manipulate energy from the Dark Force to good rank. He can currently fly at typical speed. Fuck! Using this power, i can fly.
00:05:11
Speaker
oh damn. In Tangling Arrows, Pat can fire a bola arrow using his bow with remarkable strength. He typically carries dozen of these arrows. So I got 12 shots. So you mastered the dark force and you fly around, but you also are like, but I'm going to need this. And you grab a bow and arrow before you leave the house.
00:05:31
Speaker
Yeah, so i've I've learned how to manipulate the dark force, but I've only learned to use that for flying, it seems like. OK, well, they fly good.
00:05:42
Speaker
Well, look, with my um with my remarkable reason and my um um amazing intuition, maybe I can tell you I can teach you how to use the dark force better. OK, yeah, yeah, we can team up. you I guess we are. it's It looks like i'm your sidekick in this. ah Pat is trained with bows and wrestling.
00:06:03
Speaker
He's able to put himself into a trance and has a deep understanding of occult lore. That checks out, actually. Pat, get out of that trance. Pat, we're fighting, guys. all Oh.
00:06:16
Speaker
Pat, we're fighting, guys. Get out of that trance. No. They're coming at us. Get out of the trance. Use your bow. I'll wrap them up. I'll wrap 12 of them up.
00:06:28
Speaker
It's okay. I already got them with my incredible endurance and incredible
Future Content and Listener Engagement
00:06:34
Speaker
agility.
00:06:37
Speaker
ah Okay. Thank you, Weapon Jason. Or Matt thanks you, at least. what are your contact What's your contact? Oh, my contacts are the Sorcerer's Accomertage. Oh. okay Yeah.
00:06:49
Speaker
Okay. I can call them up. I can call up Doctor Strange when I need to. So you guys can play us. In your role-playing games.
00:06:59
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Those are our stats. Go ahead and bust out the old, ah what was it called? Marvel Advanced? Marvel Super Heroes Advanced Set. It was just called the Marvel Super Heroes role-playing game, but like.
00:07:13
Speaker
But this. This is the advanced set. We want to play it with our full set of powers. Right. afraid. ah Okay, thank you to Weapon Jason. Up next we have Pete.
00:07:23
Speaker
I don't think he means any nicknames. It's Pete. It's Pete from the intro. He does the intro with us. He flies from what Australia every single ah week to do the intro with us. Yeah, so Matt, Pat, Pete.
00:07:37
Speaker
i He still has to email us to make requests though. He says, hey Pat, tell Matt to tell Pat to tell Matt that I'd like to make a suggestion. okay Would you guys entertain the idea of revealing what comics you'll be reading the following week? I'd love to get a reading list at the end of each podcast so I can get some homework to read along with you guys. Obviously, it's easy enough when it's just X books, but the overflow into titles is the bit that makes me come unstuck.
00:08:03
Speaker
Maybe a Patreon subscription where you supply a list each week, put a put it behind a paywall, monetize this, and then he says a bad word. Yeah.
00:08:15
Speaker
Pat refuses to say bad words. he he He emailed me earlier this week to let me know. That's right. I'm done. I'm done with bad words.
00:08:26
Speaker
PS Spotify wrapped has been released for 2025 and I'm a little upset. I'm only in the top 3% of listeners. This was a discussion on the discord as well. From what I can tell, it doesn't go above top 3%. I think they, they do that to keep you from embarrassing yourself.
00:08:44
Speaker
yeah Unless, unless the top 1% hiding. Oh yeah. is haydn oh yeah Hiding in the top 1%, let us know. Mutant menace pod at gmail.com.
00:08:58
Speaker
As far as I can tell, you would have had to listen to most of our episodes more than once in order to have that title. Pat, what if it's one of us? I listen to them through Apple podcasts. So I don't listen.
00:09:15
Speaker
You don't listen ever. Only when I, well, when I edit, I listen. when That's when I don't listen. Finally, we got another email from Kaz.
'Would You Rather' Debates and Banter
00:09:30
Speaker
Kaz. Kaz. You gotta to write and let know if it Kaz or Kaz. Please.
00:09:38
Speaker
i He says, hey, Pat. Kaz here again. tell Matt I'm gonna get him. JK. LOL. What?!
00:09:47
Speaker
What? Kaz! Since y'all didn't like my would you rather, unsure if it's the fear of looking like raisin apricot or explosive phallic objects. Remember, it was the aged Wolverine or dildo Gambit.
00:10:01
Speaker
Would you rather? He's got another one for us. He says, would you rather have a story slash one shot continuation of the 90s amalgam character Dark Claw? a combination of batman and wolverine oh or you don't have to tell me who dark claw is have them dive into the new dc marvel combo character logo which is wolverine and lobo together then thanks again until matt i know he'd pick the gambinus power what is with this kaz guy
00:10:35
Speaker
because He knows he's he's ready for us, Matt. He knows that we're just going to make fun of him. So he's coming at us first. Hey, I that look, I respect that. um Who is the.
00:10:50
Speaker
d new DC Marvel combo character logo logo so it's a combination of Lobo and Logan he's making he's making it up is that what we're to understand no he has provided a picture of the comic that presumably he bought uh writer Larry Hama penciler Jim Boland inker Ray McCarthy that's Darkclaw that's Darkclaw I know who Darkclaw is Darkclaw oh There's no logo.
00:11:17
Speaker
Kaz, please also prove that ah logo exists before we weigh in on this. Hold on. I think I just found it.
00:11:28
Speaker
Here, Pat, I'm going to send you a little link. Pat, why does it make you so upset to click a link? Because I hate using the computer.
00:11:40
Speaker
This is just... Logo instantly vaults to the top of both Marvel and DC's most violent lists, and now fans are eager for him to prove why in spectacular fashion.
00:11:51
Speaker
God, both of these suck so bad, um but I think I'd go Dark Claw over a Logo. what do What about you? i Appearance alone, I would go Dark Claw. He looks cool, and Logo looks just kind of like a, um I don't know, a generic henchman.
00:12:08
Speaker
You know...
00:12:11
Speaker
Here's a thing i never really thought. i never thought deeply about Dark Claw, right? Because it just seemed like, oh, it's just the two cool guys. The cool guy from Marvel, the cool guy from DC, and like whatever, right?
00:12:26
Speaker
But the idea of Wolverine and Batman combined is just is really crazy, right?
00:12:37
Speaker
Yeah, I don't... Like, there's not... It doesn't... How would their personalities mesh? I think they would just be too... They're too at odds to... The points where they meet are brutal violence.
00:12:50
Speaker
They're deeply, deeply violent men. And their persistence. Like, their their strength of will. i That, to me, would make a villain.
00:13:01
Speaker
Right. They're... Yes. If you're persistently violent, you're a bad guy. And often driven by ah a sense of vengeance that you struggle to keep in control.
00:13:16
Speaker
Yeah. Well, because of that, I'd say Dark Claw. Yeah, we answered your question. Now release us. Kaz. Kaz also says, P.S. I went back four minutes and still couldn't grasp the format. Just telepathically put it in my head, please. Tell you what, because Kaz, you're not the only one that is missing the format here. Let's in our upcoming The Story So Far episode. The Story So Far episode. We're going to recap our general rules for the podcast.
00:13:47
Speaker
Okay. All right. I... I can get down with that. I mean, I already did get down with that when we did it before. yeah Do you have any more? Do you have any more emails?
00:14:01
Speaker
Do I have any more emails? Why do you ask?
00:14:06
Speaker
Because I was holding this guy back. I was holding this guy back. He was trying to press his button and I was like holding him. i was he was in like... I had him in like a full Nelson and he was fighting me. And i was like, can I please let this guy go?
00:14:21
Speaker
He's so aggressive. I know. I know. I know. He spit on me.
00:14:29
Speaker
Oh, Matt. Yeah. Have you done anything X-Men related this week? Pat, you know, I have. Well, all right. First, I have to ask you a question.
00:14:40
Speaker
What's that? are Here's the thing I'm not sure of. hmm. the X-Men big old freaking liars? Are the X-Men big old freaking liars? Are they just like, are all of them, just categorically, are they just massive, big stinking liars?
00:15:00
Speaker
No, I don't think so. All right, then I gotta be honest about some
Podcast Recording Reflections
00:15:05
Speaker
stuff. yeah. And that's gonna be my X-Men related thing with this week. First, all right, Pat, first.
00:15:12
Speaker
i gotta I gotta admit. Yeah. These new mutants have fucking invigorated me. I am so stoked about the X-Men. Ever since we started covering the new mutants, like, I am stoked. I've been thinking about the X-Men all week, and I've been like, I love talking about the fucking X-Men.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yep, Matt, usually I would say you you know that doesn't count as an X-Men related thing, but I do absolutely love these New Mutants. They are, i i think about them between podcasts.
00:15:44
Speaker
They are. Somebody asked me you who my favorite X-Man is, somebody that doesn't know thing one about the X-Men. and some Some piece of shit. I tried to describe ah Rain and Danny to them, and they were like, ah oh, yeah.
00:16:01
Speaker
ah they They expected you to just say Wolverine. And when you didn't, they were like, I don't want to be in this conversation anymore. yeah I mean, it's like this podcast. Pat, this podcast is getting old.
00:16:14
Speaker
it's 40 it's this is the 41st episode jesus christ we are getting old it's got it's got gray hairs man like everybody everybody look down at your ipods right now there's little gray hairs poking out of the charging holes And so it's nice to have it's nice to have some younger some people from the younger generation, some people that were born in the late Join our podcast.
00:16:45
Speaker
enjoy our podcast
00:16:50
Speaker
all right second i have to have a second clean feels good of a second thing uh what's that all right uh i've got to be i've got to be very honest now and i don't know if you want me to be but we're uh pat i gotta tell everybody we're recording transparent we're recording these out of order what but look i wanted to clear my conscience before we died of too many gray hairs in our charging holes Yeah, we're recording this right like right after the New Mutants episode, which is why I'm still so fucking stoked. So this is before God Loves Man Kills. This is before Wolverine. This is before Story So Far.
00:17:30
Speaker
So, like, we haven't embarrassed ourselves in front of all our guests yet. Yeah. You, as a listener, are in a special position right now. You know a lot of things that we don't.
00:17:45
Speaker
Yes. yeah I don't think that's usually true. This is, to be completely honest, this is our very first time recording out of sequence. And right as Matt noted before the recording, it is killing me.
00:17:56
Speaker
yeah Because you feel, we've talked about on this podcast before about how much it upsets us when we're dishonest. And you are upset that it feels dishonest.
00:18:08
Speaker
to record out of order to be recording this with these and not recording it three days before it's supposed to it's It's legitimately like we just we have guests. So we had to work around their schedules. But we still had we still live in our lives with our schedules. So, yeah, it is a heavy December. We got holidays to to deliver episodes to. Yeah, we've it's a heavy December. We've got holidays to deliver episodes to third. I've got one more thing. I've got to be honest, Pat, about.
00:18:41
Speaker
agree. i gotta be honest i want to know so badly if you've done anything x-men related this week i have matt it's what i it is we're coming up on christmas happy new year by the way to our listeners but i The first issue we're going to read today is a Christmas issue.
Holiday and Personal Anecdotes
00:19:06
Speaker
I don't think it's even mentioned in the recap because it is not in any way consequential, but they do wish each other a Merry Christmas a couple of times. Okay. We decorated for Christmas and Hanukkah around the house this week.
00:19:19
Speaker
Okay. as As well as i went to a Christmas show thrown by Matt Rogers. Matt, do you know who Matt Rogers is? Um, no, no, it's comedian. He's very funny. He puts on a a Christmas musical review that is just spectacular. And you think it's okay to go to a show with a guy who has my name?
00:19:45
Speaker
Yes. it's It's so common, Matt. Did you... Okay, you're right, you're right. i But you may also know Matt Rogers as the longtime collaborator and comedy partner of rumored next Wolverine Bowen Yang.
00:20:07
Speaker
I have heard that. I don't know where I've heard that, but I've heard that, so... I think physically he would make a good Cyclops. Like to me, he looks like Cyclops. You put him in a pair of sunglasses, at red sunglasses, and you can say that's Cyclops. Honestly, you put anybody in a pair of red sunglasses and you say that's Cyclops. That's fair. Personality wise, is I just don't think it matches. He's very fit.
00:20:29
Speaker
He has a good head of hair. Okay. Two important things about Cyclops. So far, you're selling me on this guy being Cyclops. I know, but he's too like he's too joyous, even in his acting. And I'm trying to figure out. No, no, no, That is not Cyclops. He'd be more of like a he'd be a good Bobby Drake, I think.
00:20:51
Speaker
Okay. He, unlike Bowen Yang, is very hairy, so he would probably have to shave a bit, to or we can, ah just like we were with Bowen, we'll fix it in post. We'll ok we'll we'll cut Matt Rogers' pair off his body and put it on Bowen Yang.
00:21:08
Speaker
how was the How was the show, Patrick? It was very good. It was very funny. I get a little overwhelmed with concerts sometimes, just from the... sensory yeah ah perspective. So I had to step away for a minute or two, but it was at a venue that very much gives you the space for that. So, okay.
00:21:28
Speaker
So yeah, I'm glad and I'm glad that happened to you. Yeah.
00:21:34
Speaker
Thank you. Uh, what else are you glad for, Matt? It's, it's, uh, New Year's Day. What else are you, what are you grateful for? What am I thankful for? but what Like we all do, we go around the table on New Year's Day and we tell ah each other what we're thankful for. You know I'm thankful. New Year's Supper.
00:21:52
Speaker
I'm thankful for Professor x Xavier, who I never have said a bad thing about in my whole life. And I don't think anyone else ever has either. why ah Is there a problem? What? What? What? Tell me. I don't know, know Matt. you might use You might need to walk that back with Uncanny X-Men number 168.
00:22:12
Speaker
Professor x Xavier is a jerk. What?
00:22:18
Speaker
Do you want me to read it to you? I do, Matt. It sounds so good. Please read, read, read. All right, all right, right. Chris Claremont was the writer. This was Uncanny X-Men 168. Did you say that? Yes, you did. Chris Claremont is the writer. Paul Smith is the penciler. Bob Wyachek is the inker. Tom Orzakowski is the letterer. Glynis Ween is the colorist. Louise Jones is the editor. and Jack Shithead is the editor-in-chief. Release date, January 11th, 1983. Cover date, April
00:22:51
Speaker
pat Professor Xavier is a jerk!
Iconic Comic Moments and Character Struggles
00:22:55
Speaker
hu Shouts Kitty in an absolutely iconic splash page in Instant Classic. It's so good. Yeah.
00:23:04
Speaker
Pat, describe the panel to me. And then I want to talk about. So good. So it's a full splash page, but it is just her basically hips up so that they can show her butt, of course. yeah She's walking out the front door. There are action lines and her hair is sweeping in a way that shows us that she abruptly turned back to yell at whoever she's walking away from.
00:23:28
Speaker
ah Yes. Like the action is ah just immediately apparent. Again, you you you can see it happening as if it's animated. Her face is... rageful, I would say. Her mouth is wide open. Like a lot of times we get closed mouth characters with balloons, but her mouth is wide open. It looks like she's forming the word jerk. Her eyebrows are super furrowed. but She's also wearing a sick jacket. It is like that eighty s sort of puffy jacket with retro stripes on it they didn't call them retro stripes back then they just called them stripes but just a ah great color combination over a ah a sweater that's over a button-up this is an outfit that i would wear except for the very tight pink ski pants i think you could wear tight s ski pink ski pants i could i wouldn't okay well i think you could uncomfortable well i think you could
00:24:25
Speaker
um So i I honestly wonder, how do you think this came about? Like, do you think do you think this was in the script? Or do you think this was a ah Paul Smith. Paul Smith idea. Yeah.
00:24:40
Speaker
I don't know. It's so the action in the animation is so defined that it makes me feel like it's artist led. But right. And like like this was an this was a restrained Chris Claremont. Right. This could have been nine captions about Kitty being mad at Chris or at Professor x Xavier.
00:25:00
Speaker
Yeah. He loves nine captions. But instead, but he he has the. you know, vision to just, it just says, Professor x Xavier is a jerk.
00:25:14
Speaker
So anyway, we zoom out and see that Kitty is talking to Ileana, complaining about being forced to leave the X-Men. Ileana being a good friend straight up tells Kitty she's being a brat.
00:25:27
Speaker
Ileana fucking it dives in for the kill. Fair or not, Kitty has been complaining about it for days, just moping about something she can't change. She's also not considering the relative size of her trauma with that of Ileana's or many of her other roommates that she's been complaining to. Yeah, this is the worst thing that's ever happened to her.
00:25:47
Speaker
Ileana takes the storm, the Aurora Monroe school of guilt. Remember how, you know, when somebody is like, man, I can't believe how bad this thing is. Aurora is always like, yeah, well, did you see your parents die in front of you? and Ileana is doing the exact same thing where she's like, yeah, yeah, well, you didn't lose your entire childhood to the limbo It's, it is it puts things in perspective for sure. Cause I mean, the truth is Kitty is being a brat. She's yeah it's, I love that it's been days since professor X was like, yeah, Kitty, you're, you're no longer on the X-Men. You're joining the new mutants. And she is still complaining to the most traumatized people on Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
ah about having to having to join another class in the same in the same school yeah yeah yeah all right so meanwhile we zoom out even further as the narrator reveals that the two girls are being watched by alien eyes from somewhere in the mansion i recognize these eyes immediately i will see we won't spoil it here but i saw him i was like i know it Cut to another part of the mansion where Wolverine and Nightcrawler are having another one of their famous buddy chats. Logan is explaining that he needs some time alone to a wistful Kurt who will definitely miss him.
00:27:19
Speaker
They chat about Kitty's fate. They both agree that it's a little unfair to Kitty, but Logan feels she's proven herself enough to overcome Kurt's concerns about her youth. Fucking these conversations are always good. They're so good.
00:27:34
Speaker
Wolverine apparently is also a hard existentialist, which you think would be difficult for somebody who can live through everything. But he's like, we're just we're all going to we're all dying from the moment we're born, except for you, Wolverine, except for you, actually.
00:27:53
Speaker
You're a that's not true for everyone else, just not for himself. So also fucking Paul Smith's Wolverine is perfect. It's just perfect. It's just perfect like, okay, when he draws Wolverine's face, it's a little like scrunched up, like fucking goblin ish, goblin ish. But you pull out a little bit and his figure of Wolverine, the way he captures Wolverine's like posture and his, his, his, um,
00:28:24
Speaker
movements is so perfect yeah this is how a stout muscular man moves who's confident who's confident in who he is all right so we cut to yet another part of the mansion the danger room where lalandra is coaching xavier on his physical therapy Through internal monologue, they both explain that his inability to walk in his newly cloned body is purely psychosomatic, but it's a block that he cannot overcome. The concentration required to use his legs would overtake the concentration required to use his psychic abilities.
00:28:58
Speaker
Then the conversation turns to their relationship. Lalandra has to return to the Empire and take back the throne from her sister Deathbird, while x Xavier feels an obligation to lead and care for the new mutants popping up.
00:29:10
Speaker
Once again, we see a part of this alien creature watching all this from the control room and getting hungry. Uh-oh. x Xavier blames the fact that he went to to space for Gene's death.
00:29:25
Speaker
Yeah. he He kind of mentioned that back, like, during Dark Phoenix, but... Like, i shouldn't have gone to space...
00:29:36
Speaker
I shouldn't have gone to space. I did this. ah we Yeah. Essentially look at the chaos that erupted while I wasn't here. i don't think it's a, it's a sentiment that comes from a good place. I think it's still him placing himself as like this father figure to the adults.
00:29:54
Speaker
Right. Right. Yeah. If I had been here to protect my baby, the fucking dark Phoenix. Maybe he thinks he would have killed her.
00:30:06
Speaker
Maybe he thinks he would have just shut her brain down and made her dead. Yeah. Who knows? That would have been wild.
00:30:16
Speaker
That would have been crazy, dude. Cut to Stevie Hunter's dance studio at 73 Willingdon Road, Salem Center, New York. She's no longer in the city.
00:30:29
Speaker
She changed locations and this is her exact address.
00:30:34
Speaker
If you guys happen to go to 73 Willingdon Road, I'm going to put this into Google right now. Yeah, let's find it. Let's find it. Let's find it. Let's go. Let's do a little podcast field trip.
00:30:46
Speaker
All right. North Salem. Salem. Okay. I'm in Salem Center, New York. Okay. And I'm zooming in. What's the name of the road? Willingdon. Willingdon. Willingdon.
00:31:00
Speaker
Okay, there's no Willingdon Road in Salem Center. Shit. It actually would have been kind of fucked up if this were a real address and he put the entire thing in the comic.
00:31:13
Speaker
um So Stevie's starting to get frustrated with Kitty's lack of focus and short fuse and gives her the same speech Ileana did. She's being a brat and letting it affect her friends and teammates.
00:31:24
Speaker
Stevie, however, is able to convince Kitty to try persuading the professor instead of just complaining all the time. And Kitty smiles for the first time this issue as she starts planning her shot.
00:31:37
Speaker
it's you Honestly, Chris Claremont is putting on a master class ah of how to talk to a teenager when they're being a little shit. Yeah. yeah Early the next morning, just before dawn, we find Storm outside in the snow, climbing the east ridge of the property wearing only a white fur cloak.
00:31:58
Speaker
She's been too far from Earth for too long and is grateful to be able but to connect with her native elemental forces again. She disrobes as the sun begins to rise, obviously, and readies herself for communion with the Earth.
00:32:11
Speaker
That's what I call it, too. Getting naked. it It's time for my communion with the Earth. Everybody out! It's time for my communion with the Earth! ah But she's quickly taken by surprise by a squall that she didn't summon, blowing her off the ridge and sending a chill through her body despite her immunity to extreme temperatures. She cries out in anguish as she questions why she's been forsaken.
00:32:38
Speaker
we can't wait to get back to that. To a montage. A very funny, like legitimately funny. Yeah, very cute. Claremont's not always funny, but this was funny. There's a montage of Kitty over the next few days doing everything she can to impress the professor. But logical arguments, impassioned arguments, high performance, and even heavy flattery.
00:32:58
Speaker
She calls him handsome. Don't seem to convince him in the least. At least she doesn't call him sexy. That's true. That would have been... really strange they throw that around a lot in this era of the x-men the word sexy she stresses about her studies maybe the professor is right it's tough to balance her studies with both being an x-man and wanting to be a normal teenager which comes into clear view when she has to turn peter and iliana down for some good old fashioned wood chopping hey kitty you want to come chop some wood with us
00:33:33
Speaker
She offers to make mulled cider for them while they're finished, though, and decides to see who else is around and would like some by using the home scan program. But yeah, what are the home scan program?
00:33:45
Speaker
Oh, do ever do you never run your home scan program? No. Is does this just come default on most computers? Yeah. Any computer that's in a house has a home scan program and it tells you who's in the house at all times.
00:34:00
Speaker
You just have to run it and people always forget to run it. ah Okay. i'll ah I'll do a little command space bar search for it on my Mac. But while scanning every living presence in the mansion, she finds an anomaly in the tunnels that run underneath the entire mansion.
00:34:17
Speaker
Remember that from ah the new mutants? They have tunnels that go under the entire property. Well, so did. ah Well, remember, that's where she fought the Sidrian hunters before. Yeah, but that was a tunnel that got her to the hangar. These are so many secret tunnels that run under the entire mansion. It's like Professor X was like, you know, I really like that tunnel. Let's let's do more.
00:34:44
Speaker
Let's keep doing more. ah Meanwhile, we catch up with a few other X-Men. Scott tries to rekindle the flame between he and Lee Forrester during a brief stop in Florida before he heads off to Alaska to meet his grandparents. Kurt similarly surprises his magical girlfriend Amanda Sefton in her Central Park South apartment with candles and champagne.
00:35:07
Speaker
And I. yeah This was the point at which I was like, oh, we're just doing a catch up issue. We're just figuring out where everybody's at. Yeah. Man, there's a moment when Scott is catching up with Lee where she's like, Scott, you walked into my life and ever since things have been so crazy. Yeah, like when despair, supervillain despair showed up and possessed your dad, made him kill himself and then possessed your dad's corpse and made him die in front of you and man thing came to save you.
00:35:41
Speaker
It's been so fucking crazy. It's just been so weird, you know? It's just been so... It's just been a little nuts over around here.
00:35:53
Speaker
I love... Scott approaches her as she's working on a boat and she's like, oh, let me get changed real quick. And changes into Daisy Dukes and a button-up shirt that she ties on as, like, bra. As a bikini top. Let me just get nude real quick.
00:36:09
Speaker
They're both i just booty calls, right? Yeah. yeah Cyclops flies to Florida. Kurt teleports himself to Manhattan.
00:36:21
Speaker
And he's sitting with a Nightcrawler doll right in front of his own dick. Who made that? It's like it's specifically a Banff doll. The Banffs from Kitty's Fairy Tale. Yeah, I assume Kitty sewed it.
00:36:34
Speaker
She was humiliated by the whole thing. Kitty phases down to the tunnels to find that something here has deliberately bit through a main cable and taken most of the lights down in the
Kitty's Battle and Growth
00:36:46
Speaker
tunnels. She alerts the professor mentally just before she screams, but it's okay.
00:36:51
Speaker
She was just startled by the alien presence that's been watching them. The little dragon that saved them on the brood world What? The little brat dragon. little says, oh, it's my dragon. This was, this was my moment. Okay.
00:37:09
Speaker
No time for that now, though. There's another alien presence here. Baby Sidrian Hunters! Remember them? Remember those guys? They blew up the mansion? As Xavier surmises, they must have left behind a nest of eggs in the tunnels before destroying the mansion.
00:37:26
Speaker
ah Aha! I knew it! Then why didn't you do something about it, you dipshit? You rebuilt this! You rebuilt this! On top nest eggs! And you were like, let's leave it. Let's leave it be.
00:37:39
Speaker
yeah They're in the tunnels. He tells Kitty to get out of there immediately, but she's zapped by the hunter before she can react. Stunned to the point that she can't phase, but not to the point that she can't move, she decides her best option is to fight. Channeling Wolverine's lessons and stank face.
00:37:56
Speaker
Pat. What? yeah mean That's what she does. She puts on Wolverine's stank face. She springs into action, and to her surprise, so does the dragon.
00:38:08
Speaker
Kitty judos them while the dragon blasts them with fire and the two almost take them all out. Almost. The dragon, who Kitty is now calling Lockheed. They're her dragon from Kitty's fairy tale. Exactly. There's a really cute moment when the professor's like, what's happening? And she's like, it's okay. Me and Lockheed are taking care of things. And he goes, who's Lockheed? And she goes, my dragon. And he goes, what? I'm doing it.
00:38:44
Speaker
I think it's significant that she just immediately calls him Lockheed in her brain. Like, I think it's significant. The first first time she calls him Lockheed is psychically because it's almost like she it's the first name that pops into her head.
00:38:58
Speaker
and yeah. Normally, we would go through processes of like ah filtering our thoughts before they come out of our mouth. But a guy's reading her thoughts.
00:39:10
Speaker
Yeah. So she's like, oh, Lockheed. And fuck, fuck. Damn it. I'm so embarrassed. I didn't mean to call him Lockheed. He's Lockheed now. ah So the dragon who Kitty's calling Lockheed disappears around a corner when Kitty gets zapped again. leaving her cornered with her head ringing too heavily to phase or run.
00:39:29
Speaker
She readies herself for the killings app. When Colossus jumps in front of the beam! In my armored form, monster, I am composed of solid organic steel. I am virtually indestructible. Given time, perhaps, you might do me injuring. And right now the Sidrian hunter's like, Jesus Christ, just kill me. Jesus, how much more do you have to slow walking towards him so give it time each out give it time you might do me injury but such time you no longer have and he crushes the last hunter himself oh it's so good he explains that he came running as soon as the professor put out a mind call the two of them decide to find and take out the nest but as it turns out lockheed has already done that oh
00:40:15
Speaker
the remaining Sidrian Hunter's eggs were just the meal he's been looking for. he just It's very cute. He walks out like a puppy licking his chops.
00:40:27
Speaker
um Back in Xavier's ho's office, the professor debriefs Kitty and Peter while noting that the dragon seems highly intelligent, can understand what they're saying, and seems immune to his psychic probes.
00:40:39
Speaker
He's also very impressed with Kitty's performance and maturity while facing a deadly threat. He says he's never seen Kitty in action before. Is that true? When she appeared, he was in space.
00:40:55
Speaker
And she didn't fight the Phoenix with everyone else. But she was there. she She took action.
00:41:06
Speaker
like yeah you might be right, actually, because he he went catatonic um um almost immediately after they were reunited.
00:41:17
Speaker
Right. Didn't he see her fight... Am I wrong in seeing her? saw her fight Magneto, though, right? When Magneto kidnapped everybody?
00:41:31
Speaker
Did he? he have been there? Oh, I guess he would have at least, like, he was on a boat off the coast. Right. He wasn't there when they... But would have known that she was... he wasn't there when she fought Garok, but he knew of it.
00:41:47
Speaker
And then, yes yeah. Same with they a the demon that chased her through the mansion when she was alone. Like, there's plenty that he knows about, but he's never actually watched her or been maybe psychically connected to her during a fight.
00:42:01
Speaker
I guess so. i guess that's I guess that's the case, right? I don't know. That's interesting. ah and Okay. So, he decides that he'll allow Kitty to remain on the X-Men on a probationary status.
00:42:17
Speaker
provided she can keep up with her schoolwork. Kitty, needless to say, is thrilled. Aww.
Surprising Encounters and Character Development
00:42:23
Speaker
On our final page, we see the Summerses. Scott, Alex, and Corsair arrive in Anchorage, but instead of Scott's grandparents picking them up at the airport, it's a young, red-haired lady that gives everyone a pause because she looks exactly like Jean Grey.
00:42:44
Speaker
what And sounds exactly like Jean Grey. But she calls herself Madeline Pryor.
00:42:55
Speaker
The end. o Wow. Madeline Pryor. That strange little girl from the hospital. yeah All grown up. All grown up with new hair.
00:43:10
Speaker
There's a couple of really good moments. i More than once, Kitty refers to the New Mutants team as the X-Babies, which, as you've explained, was Claremont and Louise Jones's term for the New Mutants because they didn't feel like dealing with them.
00:43:28
Speaker
They didn't want to do the New Mutants, and so they were they called them the X-Babies, and so so does Kitty. um Man, when Nightcrawler...
00:43:40
Speaker
is at Amanda Sefton's house for the booty call. He's like, I thought, oh ah you had this doll, but I thought you could use the real thing. And the scene ends with Amanda Sefton saying, yum.
00:43:57
Speaker
Ew. You know what happens after that, man. so oh yo I love your fur. I love the way your fur tastes. ah Here's a legitimate. Here's a real question for you, Matt. Is Stevie Hunter supposed to be British?
00:44:19
Speaker
That's not a real question. It is a real question. I'm asking. No, she's not British. She's from New York. No, she lives in or she yeah lived and worked in New York. She's moved out of New York by now, but that doesn't mean she was born and raised in New york i think she was born and raised in New York.
00:44:36
Speaker
The reason I ask is because she tells Kitty that she's trying too bloody hard.
00:44:43
Speaker
And that is my only lead that we're going on here, but there's nothing to establish that she has an accent one way or the other. It could have been British this entire time. She.
00:44:55
Speaker
Well. Can you prove to me she's not British? um She eventually becomes a congresswoman in Connecticut. Does that prove it?
00:45:06
Speaker
No. If she became president, that would prove that she's an American citizen. Connecticut. she became president of Connecticut. Or that she was born natively and there's in a America. There's a poster on Kitty's Wall that says, The Legion Eats Quiche.
00:45:20
Speaker
And I was like, what the fuck is this? What? Yeah. Yeah. So I looked it up. Apparently... This is a reference to the Legion of Superheroes.
00:45:31
Speaker
Okay. Maybe be like a dig at Dave Cockrum. there was a book that was out in that at the time called Real Men Don't Eat Quiche. Okay.
00:45:43
Speaker
And it was like ah a joke. I think it's like it was like a joke about masculinity. Yeah, yeah. Like it's not it's it's not legitimately saying real men don't eat quiche. It's making fun of the sort of guy who would say that. But a lot of people just took it at face value as a phrase.
00:46:00
Speaker
Exactly. The way that the same thing happened with like ironic homophobic stuff in the 90s. Like not that there's anything wrong with that in Seinfeld. Oh, yeah, yeah. Was supposed to be, like, making fun of their own homophobia.
00:46:15
Speaker
But I heard every middle-aged person that I ever met in the 90s say, not that there's anything wrong with that, to make to either make fun of somebody for acting kind of gay or for making fun of an actual person for being gay.
00:46:34
Speaker
So, I don't know. Yeah, so the Legion each quiche. They're not real men. Probably because half of them are women and they're also all children. But...
00:46:47
Speaker
Could also... Maybe Kitty is just a yeah a hardcore misogynist. Yeah. She's a trad wife. We don't know. I do want to say her being determined to fight the Sidrian hunters is fucking cool. And it's crazy that she's able to take them on. I know they're just babies, but like that's, we can pushing that aside.
00:47:11
Speaker
She really does hearken back to like, uh, okay. I have been trained by the best fighter in the world. Wolverine. And i am going to remember what he taught me here and do my best. And he like she legitimately puts on her best Wolverine face, which is incredible detail by Paul Smith to be able to show Kitty's face trying to emulate Wolverine's face.
00:47:37
Speaker
She stank face. Yeah.
00:47:43
Speaker
You gotta stop saying stank face. She, uh, she, she fist fights indestructible aliens. Yeah. She's tossing them around and then just leaving them vulnerable to Lockheed's, uh, flames.
00:48:00
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Pat. Yes. I remember earlier today. You were telling me you were like, Matt, I read something special today.
00:48:14
Speaker
Do remember? Yeah. i What I said, Matt, was I read X-Men Special Edition number one. Yeah, but that's all. That's just giant size X-Men number one reprinted, though, right?
00:48:28
Speaker
Yes, but. Well, then we don't need to cover. What? Yeah, yeah. Let's keep let's keep moving. Okay. i To the butt of that issue where they added 12 extra pages.
00:48:40
Speaker
No way. yeah titled a day like any other oh okay chris claremont writer dave cockram and hillary bartha artists tom orzikowski and david cody weiss letterers did they did did they switch teams halfway through i ah oh is it just that dave cockram no i have no idea quit in the move in the middle of it i hate this ah Not Andy Yankus, though. He is consistently the colorist. Louise Jones, editor and dim tutors. Chief. It just says chief here.
00:49:21
Speaker
Release date November 1982. Cover February
00:49:27
Speaker
Kitty pride is home alone and in a bad mood, which means one thing for her. It's time to exercise. what She does either when she's home alone or in a bad mood every single time. It works.
00:49:42
Speaker
ah However, her bad mood causes her to push too hard and slip up falling on her face. Fortunately, it turns out she wasn't home alone as Ileana rushes in to help her up. Kitty takes this as an opportunity to explain literally everything about the X-Men and the mansion to Ileana.
00:50:02
Speaker
Ileana's got to be like, oh, great. Yeah, full tour of the mansion. Thank Thanks. I've had this multiple times now. and They start in the danger room with its training routines and holographic environments, then move through the basement where Kitty tells us there's a bunch of workshops and an entire spa.
00:50:21
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. Next, they take the palm-activated elevators up to the central wing, making sure to clarify that if the power goes out, there's also emergency stairs. i The central wing where Xavier's bedroom and study are, plus the common rooms and Cerebro.
00:50:42
Speaker
In the attic is Aurora's room filled with plants, a skylight and a fireplace. Yay. They stop for a moment to talk about Storm's 2000 mile walking journey from Cairo to the Serengeti when she was younger. where she killed a man and fell in love.
00:50:58
Speaker
Remember that? I do. She fell in love with T'Challa. Prince T'Challa, the Black Panther. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They move on to the West Wing, where Jean Grey's room sits empty next to Scott's room full of sentimental pictures and model aircraft. Yeah, apparently Scott's really into, like... What a dork. Yeah, yeah. There's a model of the Blackbird. There's a model of, like, a like ah space shuttle.
00:51:23
Speaker
Wolverine's room is littered with beer cans and a mix of cowboy stuff and Japanese stuff with framed photos of Mariko Yoshida and Carol Danvers. Kurt's room is piratey and romantic with a jungle gym in the rafters and apparently a baby pterodactyl that I guess Kurt stole from the Savage Land. What the fuck?
00:51:44
Speaker
Keeping in the little canary cage. What the fuck? I don't think you're allowed to do that. think customs would like to have a word. Did he go back to the Savage Land by himself or was that under his costume when they like went to...
00:51:59
Speaker
Where they like went to Japan. like yeah Right. The last time they were in the Savage Land, they did not go immediately home. no they were on a ship to Japan. And then like, and he just had it like what it is. It is jacket.
00:52:17
Speaker
It's his room is so funny because it's like, There's a big jungle gym on top and there's like a bunch of like piratey stuff. But then there's off also like women's boots lying on the floor and two champagne glasses sitting right next to the fireplace. like each Well, ah ah his room is sick, dude. yeah has First of all, it has 25 foot ceilings. It's got a Cesar Kurt Ruppert.
00:52:43
Speaker
It's got a six foot portrait of himself as a pirate on the mantle of his private fireplace. Holding an extra rapier with his tail. yeah i It's got his own private gym and, of course, the tiny pterodactyl. It's also got a single poster on the wall for Captain Blood, which is a 1935 movie starring Errol Flynn as Captain Blood.
00:53:09
Speaker
While ah Wolverine's room has a sleeping bag on the floor. Yeah, and he doesn't have a bed.
00:53:19
Speaker
ah They move on to Peter's room full of sports stuff and art stuff and then stop in their own joint room where Kitty changes into a swimsuit, Ileana's swimsuit, while Ileana grills her about her relationship with Colossus.
00:53:33
Speaker
He's 19 and she's 14, which Ileana points out is older than Juliet when she met Romeo. God damn it. rome Stop it. Romeo was also 14 at the time. fourteen at the time the They were age matched.
00:53:48
Speaker
I know he talks about her feelings a bit, but changes the subject when Ileana says she must be in love as they walk out past the pool to the lake. A bald man watches them on a monitor menacingly talking about how the mansion is theirs. and They have a surprise in store for the children.
00:54:04
Speaker
It's Warhawk again. Yeah. ah ah Here's here's an insane detail about the mansion that ice rink that we've seen them skating on for 20 years now.
00:54:18
Speaker
Apparently, it's just them letting the Olympic swimming pool freeze over. Well, they are. They also have an indoor swimming pool so they can just let it freeze over. That's such bad pool maintenance. Think about. Yeah. Think about how much of like like shock serum or whatever they'll have to pour into it after it freezes.
00:54:41
Speaker
also It's just filled with chlorine.
00:54:47
Speaker
Uh, uh, Kitty worries about her parents' divorce, but dons a scuba tank and pulls Ileana into the lake mid-conversation. In that damn boathouse. There's this, this fucking boathouse all of sudden. Why does it make you so mad that they have a boathouse? Because where did the boathouse come from? If there was a boathouse before, why weren't you hanging out there?
00:55:06
Speaker
Because they're adults, only kids hang out at a boathouse. They swim down into an airlock and find themselves in the Blackbird's hangar where they dry off and get changed and talk about boring aircraft specs. God, for like two pages. Teenage girls talking about ah suck like aeronautics.
00:55:25
Speaker
I like skipped like three panels because was like, this is just this is just fucking aeronautic shit. They look at a holographic map of the mansion and the grounds on Graymulkin Lane surrounded by woods. It's 40 miles from New York City and seven miles outside of Salem Center, where Stevie Hunter lives.
00:55:45
Speaker
Suddenly, the intruder alarm goes off. No, it's Warhawk! They hop in the trams that take them through the underground tunnels from the hangar to the mansion and sneak up to the living room where the intruder is. Warhawk!
00:55:57
Speaker
Ilyana pushes Kitty through the door where the X-Men, the Starjammers, Stevie, Lalandra, and the New Mutants... are all gathered around a cake and a punch and a banner that says, happy birthday, kitty.
00:56:10
Speaker
She kisses Peter and thanks Ileana for a great day. The end.
00:56:21
Speaker
Okay. So Warhawk wasn't there, I guess. No, no, it was actually ah all of the X-Men and the Starjammers and the New Mutants. And Stevie and Ilion and Landra. At this point, I think Stevie Hunter is a member of the New Mutants. She's their proctor.
00:56:41
Speaker
She's somewhere in between a New Mutant and an X-Man. It is. It's a great group shot. It is everybody we've met that is friends with the X-Men in the last few years gathered around.
00:56:55
Speaker
And Ch'ad is just huge. Just towering over everyone else. Speaking over most of the. Yeah. yeah It was really sweet. It was cute. It is. They mentioned specifically that this is it's not another birthday. This is her celebrating the birthday that she missed while she was kidnapped by the brute. Yeah.
00:57:17
Speaker
You tell me. You tell me, Matt. You tell tell me. how about you tell me? Why don't you tell me? Maybe you should tell me, though, because your turn. I know it's my turn, but like also you just did a short one and I wrote this next one.
00:57:31
Speaker
Fine. Fine. Matt, I will tell you. About new mutants number four. OK. Who's scaring Stevie?
00:57:45
Speaker
Chris Claremont, scripter, Sal Buscema, penciler, Bob McLeod, finisher, Glynis Ween, colorist, Tom Orzakowski, letterer, Louise Jones, editor, and Jim Stupor, editor-in-chief.
00:57:57
Speaker
Release date February 22nd, 1983. Cover date June 1983. Stevie Hunter has been getting harassing phone calls, promising to come get something from her.
00:58:08
Speaker
Karma catches the end of the call and tries to persuade Stevie to get help, but Stevie refuses. As Shan walks out, a little redheaded student of Stevie's named Peter Bristow has let himself in and sat down at the piano.
00:58:22
Speaker
peter bristow matt who the fuck is peter bristow yeah it's pretty it's pre you know it's peter bristow some little nerd it's just some little nerd named peter bristow at the mansion the rest of the new mutants play frisbee in the snow using wolfsbane and cannonballs powers until sam guthrie crashes into a tree but you danny throws a sick frisbee She's very good at this. She's like, I'm so good at throwing a Frisbee. You have to turn into a wolf. And Sam has to blast. And this is, by the way, can't be hurt when I'm blasting, Count.
00:59:00
Speaker
Four? I believe it's number five, actually. If we're counting the number of issues he's set it in, so far in four out of four he's set it. think we need to count at how many times he's set yeah. If we're counting individually, this is the fifth time in four New Mutants issues. Oh, okay. Okay, all right. All right. Well, he, you know, he actually doesn't say it. I'm just going to say now, spoiler alert, he doesn't say it for the rest of this episode.
00:59:28
Speaker
Not true. It is true. You missed one. All right. I caught it. Okay. All right. Fine. Well, let's see. We'll see. We'll see. They all get called telepathically to Professor X's study, running into Lalandra on the way. Wait, hold on. I just want to say Cannonball. When Professor X calls them, Cannonball's like, it scared the beans out of me.
00:59:53
Speaker
He's so funny. He's like, ah, he's he's calling us all in to yell at me for breaking that tree.
01:00:02
Speaker
He's like, that must have been his favorite tree. good is also Lalandra offers them mold cider here.
01:00:16
Speaker
Which Kitty made. Is this the mold? suit Because she takes credit for making it. Lalandra does. Is this the mold cider that Kitty was making for everyone? And Lalandra's like, I made you both cider. We know for a fact she ran the home scan app. i Lalandra was present. The new mutants work because they were playing outside frisbee.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fucked up. i The professor, gathering them all together, wants to address the insect larva in the room. When he formed the new mutants, he was possessed by the brood. Very clever, man.
01:00:54
Speaker
What? It gathered the students to be hosts for its offspring, yet Xavier still feels that the reasons he originally gave for reforming the school are sound.
01:01:05
Speaker
When given the choice, the mutants agree to stay together and stay at Xavier's school. This is actually like a good moment, I think. Like the fact that they address it, that it was the brood mother who formed the new mutants, technically. And then ex Xavier being like, look, I think it'd be a good idea for you to stay here.
01:01:25
Speaker
You don't have to. Right. Because the the real Xavier was being like, no, I don't want to form a new team. And Moira made a compelling and realistic case. So it would be reasonable to say the professor did make this decision. But also we're bringing it we're blaming it on the brood here. And is reasoning for continuing it is Moira's reasoning from a few issues back.
01:01:52
Speaker
Right, right, right, right. I liked this speech. Yeah, yeah. Just a nice little extra detail. And then he also mentions he's also like, unlike popular opinion or contradictory to popular opinion. I don't read people's minds without their permission.
01:02:13
Speaker
Let's see how that holds up. Yeah.
Xavier's Teaching Philosophy
01:02:20
Speaker
Jian then brings Stevie's stalker problem to everyone's attention, and they all decide that, despite her protests, they want to help her. Xavier decides not to stop them, but instead asks them to submit a plan and treat this as a learning opportunity.
01:02:35
Speaker
After they leave, Lelandra and Xavier talk about how rebellious Danny Moonstar seems. Because Professor Xavier read her mind. Right, during that meeting where he was saying, I would never. The literal next panel, he reads her mind.
01:02:50
Speaker
Unbelievable. Lalandra feels a kinship with Danny because she too was once defiant in the face of authority out of fear of the future and her responsibilities. Xavier considers that he once would have tried to break Danny as with his other students, but now wishes to earn her respect as a leader.
01:03:08
Speaker
Then they fuck. Lalandra. Lalandra and Xavier. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I knew Charles Xavier is turning over a new leaf.
01:03:19
Speaker
Yes. Now that he just committed that one little indiscretion after. So he probably won't do that again. He probably will won't. He probably won't read anybody's, especially his students, thoughts without their permission ever again. He's brand new Charles x Xavier. He's ready this new generation.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yep, yep, yep, yep. In Salem Center, Bobby DaCosta is installing a phone tracer on Stevie's phone. And after several hours, the stalker calls.
01:03:50
Speaker
So Roberto and x Xavier team up to invent caller ID is what happens here. yeah they They invent color that and the color ID advice device is so big and seems to have like a whirring ah helicopter propeller on top of it.
01:04:09
Speaker
An actual engine that needs to run. Also, Father Bowen mentioned. Yes. She's like, I left. Father Bowen. She ends young siblings. ah They drive to the location of the cholera and find a phone booth.
01:04:26
Speaker
Wolfsbane shifts to wolf form and helps track the scent of the last person to use the phone. Through the psychic rapport they share when Rain is a wolf, she communicates to Danny that they're looking for a young boy and they follow the trail to a high school. Have we met any young boys lately?
01:04:44
Speaker
i don't know. It's it's could be any young boy. There's there's so many young boys in Salem Center, New York. What if it's Sam Guthrie?
01:04:56
Speaker
So they followed the trail to a high school. It's the night of the dance that they were invited to by those kids at the mall. Remember, Matt? Remember them? Wolfsbane discovers that in her wolf form, she can see the patterns of people's body heat, essentially reading their emotions. Like all wolves do.
01:05:15
Speaker
I think there's a legitimate case he made for canines being able to sense Read the body heat of everybody. It's more pheromonal than body heat, but they they can they can sense emotions based off your body's activity. In this comic, because she has to see it through a window, they say that she can see their body heat radiating off of them.
01:05:41
Speaker
So she and Sam stay outside and watch while Stevie, Bobby, Danny, and Jan head into the dance. Immediately, raine sees Peter Bristow's body patterns turn to shock and fear.
01:05:55
Speaker
Who? ah Rain? No. Peter Bristow? Who's that? Oh, that's the little kid that we met earlier. I don't remember.
01:06:07
Speaker
Rain sees Peter Bristow's body patterns turn to shock and fear as he spots Stevie. She communicates this psychically to Danny, who alerts Stevie. Stevie calls out to Peter and he panics.
01:06:20
Speaker
Peter Bristow, who's a little red haired kid with glasses, a real, a real little dork. i don't remember. Attends Stevie's Dance Academy. i don't know. i don't remember.
01:06:32
Speaker
but Anyway, ah she calls out to Peter and he panics, pushing them aside and fleeing very dramatically. The violence causes rain to leap through a window as a wolf, chasing Bristow down while all the students start running around in a panic. Peter Bristow, Matt.
01:06:50
Speaker
I don't. I don't. This is the first I've heard this guy's name. So I. Yeah. Bristow manages to get to his...
01:07:02
Speaker
Manages to get to his car before Wolfsbane catches him, so Cannonball blasts off after him. In his panic, though, Bristow fails to notice a woman and her child crossing the street, so Sam has to change paths, grabbing them out of the way.
01:07:16
Speaker
Despite never making a successful turn while blasting, Sam gives it his all to avoid smashing into a building with the pedestrians and succeeds, whoa firing himself straight up and then slowing his fall by doing short bursts upwards all the way back to the ground.
01:07:32
Speaker
I never think of. Cannonball's powers is flatulence like it never like that. The thought never has occurred to me ever until this scene when it's just these little like. as he follows All the way down. to Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah i I bet it smells different.
01:07:57
Speaker
Different. Oh, he also, while he's rescuing, we're not going to count this one, but while he's rescuing this mother and daughter, he mentions that they are invulnerable while he blasts much like himself.
01:08:12
Speaker
So why didn't he just crash into the wall? Yeah. Why wouldn't everyone was just a vulnerable? Everybody's going to be OK. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some because he's still learning, I think.
01:08:23
Speaker
Mm Which why he farts himself all the way down. Meanwhile, Bristow crashes his car into a shack full of TNT and escapes into an abandoned factory pursued by the mutants. He's just he's a flaming car. He knocks down the wall and he's like, oh, no.
01:08:44
Speaker
yeah It's one of those TNT shacks that I've heard about. You know, they should have set this up earlier in the thing when like they were at the dance. They should have had two kids dancing and going, hey, do you hear about that guy who keeps filling shacks with TNT?
01:09:03
Speaker
Despite his protests, Sunspot is left behind to watch Stevie, whose knee is acting up, and to stop the fire that Bristow's car started when it crashed.
01:09:13
Speaker
He pulls the car aside, but is surprised by an explosion where it just was, and spots the TNT surrounded by fire. Ah! What? Why would this be here?
01:09:26
Speaker
He alerts Professor X, who passes the message onto Karma and Psyche, Psyche. Psyche is Danny Moonstar, remember? Yeah. The worst name. We've got to use it sometimes.
01:09:40
Speaker
We've got to use it sometimes. Passes the message on to Karma and Psyche that the factory may fall apart around them at any moment. They hear a scream and run to find Bristow hitting rain.
01:09:52
Speaker
i The redhead kid. i I don't know you're talking about. Hitting Rain back in girl form with a pipe and yelling about how she was just a dog.
01:10:04
Speaker
I must be going crazy. Whack, whack. He hit her with a pipe. Jesus Christ, kid.
01:10:15
Speaker
ah Karma possesses him instantly just as the TNT goes off and the factory starts to fall. Cannonball punches through, grabbing an unconscious rein out of danger while Karma and Psyche follow behind, toting Bristow in his trance. i've I've got a question that I have to ask. and we We'll wait till the end of this episode, but I have a question I have to ask about Cannonball. So just remember, he's outside and he punches through the wall to pick up Wolfsbane and then...
01:10:47
Speaker
Shoots off. Pull her out of danger. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:10:52
Speaker
Sunspot holds up the hole in the wall that Cannonball made until the three can escape and then leaps out of the way just in time. Back at Stevie's apartment, they confront Peter Bristow. When Stevie suggests he's the redheaded kid from the very beginning of the issue. I don't remember anything about this.
01:11:11
Speaker
When Steve suggests telling his parents, Bristow freaks out. Professor X chimes in that, for some reason, Bristow's mind is too panicky to read, so suggests someone else try their powers.
01:11:25
Speaker
Knowing he means her. Just say it. You should have just said it, Xavier. Can anyone else use their psychic powers that are maybe based around fear and panic? I wonder if any other psychic powers could work here.
01:11:39
Speaker
Danny pulls an image of Bristow's deepest desire out into the air, and it's an image of him kissing Miss Hunter. Ew. She then pulls an image of his deepest fear and sees his father beating him with a belt.
01:11:52
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Bristow tries to attack Psyche, and Cannonball rips his shirt while attempting to hold him back, revealing lashes all over his back. When Bobby asks how his parent could hate him so much, Bristow says that they love him.
01:12:08
Speaker
He's just a bad boy and he deserves the punishment. When he started dancing at Stevie Hunter's studio, he fell in love with her instantly. But when she never punished him, he decided that she didn't love him and he wanted to get even with her because of it.
01:12:23
Speaker
He then collapses into Stevie's arms, crying. I'm reading this with some weight, but fuck you, dude. Yeah, come on. That is not how people internalize. the That is so ridiculous.
01:12:38
Speaker
Despite this, x Xavier erases Peter Bristow's memory of the mutants and they call the cops to have him arrested. So he just finds a random guy and erases that guy's memory? Yes. i mean Yes.
01:12:51
Speaker
Okay. All right. He just like wheels around until he finds some guy named- After saying, you taught him a very valuable lesson today. Thankfully, I think we've stopped the cycle of abuse that that was started here.
01:13:05
Speaker
But I do have to erase his entire memory of this. Send him to prison. You'd think you would have erased the memory of that redheaded kid rather than. so did you say it was? Who'd you say this guy was? As soon i had so with.
01:13:24
Speaker
Page one, Stevie is getting terrifying, harassing calls from some sort of
Unveiling Harassment Source and Backstory
01:13:30
Speaker
pervert. Yeah. Page three, there's a new nerdy teenaged boy introduced to us that shows up to class early all the time and does extra work for Stevie Hunter. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:13:44
Speaker
What is up with x Xavier, man? He's like, I am i am not going to erase. You know, i don't I don't read anyone's minds anymore.
01:13:57
Speaker
And they erases a kid's fucking memory? Yeah, e's at the he's he is turning over a new leaf at the beginning of the issue. he is erasing a child's memory.
01:14:08
Speaker
andbi fucking And he keeps reading everyone's minds the issue where he says he doesn't read kids' minds. And, like, the New Mutants aren't keeping anything a secret. Their faces are part of their costumes.
01:14:25
Speaker
Right. yeah What's he what's he erasing from from Bristow's memory? He's a lesson. He's editing in masks but because he because he can't figure out how to make them look right. So he's just like, you guys don't have to wear masks. I'm going to just change everybody's memories from now on forever.
01:14:47
Speaker
I know we just said it, but this ending is just trying to do way too much. Yeah. This guy is so horned up that he starts making harassing phone calls to the woman he's horned up for. that is not something anyone should do, but it's not unusual, right? It's ah a common experience, I think, for a lot of women. I guess. yeah But actually, he was doing it because he was mad at her because he thought she should be hitting him like her parents do because he was in love with her.
01:15:18
Speaker
Right. And then he's humiliated by ah the discovery, right? Which is absolutely true. If you've ever seen a pervert caught, they ah are humiliated. They panic.
01:15:31
Speaker
They don't try to kill several people and then crash a flaming car into a shack full of TNT. Well, I mean, how many perverts have you caught that had access to a shack full of TNT?
01:15:45
Speaker
That's fair. i I don't know. They don't loot perverts into the local shacks full of TNT.
01:15:53
Speaker
i But it's like the the other thing is Xavier is like, luckily, we stopped him from beating his own children. He he literally says we've stopped the cycle of of abuse. So this guy... would likely have beat his own children, and now he won't. By sending this guy to fucking prison? That's... Well, that. But also, that's not the lesson anybody... is This can just be a little fucking pervert. This can just be a little shit.
01:16:21
Speaker
Men, and especially teenagers, do this shit all the time, and not because they are... damaged it's because they feel their own sex like that's the where they have these ah these emotions that they don't know how to express and socially the best way they can express them is to try to is through sexual conquest like it's I don't mean to get too philosophical about this, but like, he's just a fucking shitty dude that needs to learn a lesson. He doesn't need to also have been abused by his parents and doing this because of some weird psychological chain of trauma. It almost feels like Chris Claremont is just trying to understand a couple different phenomena at once.
01:17:09
Speaker
without any experience or research. And it's just like, why would somebody ah harass a woman on the phone? Also, what would a ah kid who is beaten by his parents, how would they internalize that?
01:17:26
Speaker
See, fucking talk to one Right. He does this all the time, right? Claremont does this all the time. And again, I don't mean to to get up on a soapbox about this, but like Stevie is the victim here, right? She's the one that's being harassed. She's terrified to live at her own home because somebody keeps calling her and saying, i'm going to come get you.
01:17:52
Speaker
ah Presumably worse, if not for the fact that this was a comic for children. But by the end of it, we're supposed to feel sympathy for the for the guy that's right. That's actually victimizing Stevie Hunter. And Stevie's not even in the picture at this point. She's like she's barely involved with the rest of the story.
01:18:13
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's a it's a bad one. I think this is. I don't know. Yeah, this is a really bad issue. And who the fuck is Peter Bristow?
01:18:27
Speaker
It's a good name. It's like it's a good ah random guy comic book name. Well, knowing Chris Claremont, he'll just name another character Peter Bristow later because he likes the name. Yeah, that's like Mr. Sinister's real name.
01:18:42
Speaker
All right. I want to tell you, ah Pat, about a much better comic. No, you don't. You want to tell me about new Mutants number five. Heroes. Chris Claremont wrote this one. Sal Buscema penciled it. Bob McCloud did the inks. Tom Orszakowski did the letters. Glynis Ween was the colorist. Louise Jones is the editor. And some guy, it says Jim Shooter. Have you ever heard of this guy?
01:19:10
Speaker
No. Is he the new editor-in-chief? I guess he's the He says he's the chief. I don't know. Chief shooter. Okay. Anyway. Release date March 1983. Cover date July 1983. Xavier!
01:19:23
Speaker
like xavier
01:19:26
Speaker
cries out in pain as he falls to the floor in his office. Lander rushes to help, and Charles explains that he shouldn't have tried to walk. Oh, man. yeah He also has a framed photo in his office of a woman with red hair, but it's like a side view. Is that Jean Grey?
01:19:46
Speaker
This is the ah rise of mall glamour shot. photos Oh, so this was. think that's what this is, because her hair is like fluffed up, kind of looks like it's in action. She's turned to the side, but like.
01:20:01
Speaker
So this is a glamour shot of Jean Grey. I think so. Yeah, like a a picture they took at the mall. The resulting pain has severed his psychic connection with the new mutants, and he can't reestablish it.
01:20:12
Speaker
Everything should be fine, though, as Lalandra assures him what could possibly go wrong in just a few hours. Right. They're going to be fine. Cut to the carnival where Stevie Hunter is chaperoning the new mutants as they play games, eat carnival food, and ride attractions as a reward for their recent efforts. They ride a fucking biplane.
Nostalgic Fair Experiences
01:20:34
Speaker
Yes, there's just a guy with a plane. He's like, who wants to take a ride? Five dollars. And they they get in it and he does loop-de-loops. Was that a thing that used to happen at the fair? i don't know, Matt, but.
01:20:48
Speaker
I hope so. That sounds so fucking cool. I want to do that.
Team America Reunion and History
01:20:53
Speaker
As they all take a break from the action, they stumble across Team America. Getting their bikes ready for a reunion show they're about to put on at this very festival.
01:21:05
Speaker
Matt, who is team America? Oh, are you ready? Cowboy, el Lobo, Honcho, Wrench, and Georgiana. Georgiana, I mean.
01:21:17
Speaker
Georgiana. Are you ready? Cowboy, El Lobo, Honcho, Wrench, and Georgiana. Are you ready? They're also called the Thunder Riders.
01:21:28
Speaker
All right, Pat. These people. All right. They appeared in Captain America 269 in February 1982. But by thing number 28 in 1985, June 1985, they were fucking gone and never seen again. That was their last appearance. They existed for three years. So in 1977, Evel Knievel's old promoter, what was this guy's name? Shelley Saltman.
01:21:56
Speaker
OK, sure. I promise this ties in ah his old promoter wrote a book about him and made him ah look like this is just from Wikipedia. I don't know where this quote came from, but an alcoholic, a pill addict, an anti-Semite and an immoral person.
01:22:13
Speaker
Yeesh. So Evel Knievel flew to wherever he was recovering from like a crash and with two casts on his arms flew to where Shelly Saltman was and beat him with an aluminum bat.
01:22:30
Speaker
For calling him an immoral person. So because of this, the ideal toy company, which made Evel Knievel dolls.
01:22:42
Speaker
Also, Ideal Toy Company is the originator of the teddy bear. Oh. Anyway. So they made evil Knievel dolls, but they were trying to distance themselves from him because he pleaded guilty to battery. And then i think in like 1981, he lost a civil suit to Shelley Saltman too. so Because he actually was a raging anti-Semite. Right. So it was like, so this was around the time when it's like,
01:23:11
Speaker
Evil Knievel was not somebody you wanted to be associated with. So they used all their molds and costumes and stuff for Evil Knievel. And they made a whole new set of motorcycle riders called Team America.
01:23:26
Speaker
So these are all just the evil Knievel molds and they just give them each different colored hair. Is that the. Yeah. And one guy, different colored skin. But yeah. Okay. And it is, it is like, um, their thing is they have superpowers when they're all together, they can summon a fifth guy So, okay.
01:23:48
Speaker
I think who like, we don't cowboy and Georgiana Georgiana are both not team America. But are you ready? El Lobo, Honcho and Wrench are all Team America. And those four guys, when they're together, they can summon a fifth guy like Captain Planet. But he's just another motorcycle. it Can you stop asking me if I'm right? Like, I'm I'm here. I'm listening. I'm with you.
01:24:15
Speaker
I'm ready. His name is Are You Ready? Yes. No, his name is Are You Ready? Yes. Tell me his name already. His name is Winthrop Rowan Jr., a.k.a. Are You Ready? oh Now I get it. so So, yeah, those four. So, like, it's okay.
01:24:35
Speaker
Me and you were in a sketch troupe once upon a time, right? Yeah, yeah. And there was four of us. Yes. Now um imagine if we every now and then when we thought really hard, we got into a real bad situation.
01:24:52
Speaker
Another comedian would just like appear out of our bodies, just like walk out and be like, hi, I'm another one. and He's way better than us. ah It was. Yeah, that's fucking the Thunder Riders, dude. It is just they can make another guy on a motorcycle.
01:25:10
Speaker
Now, is that established before this issue? Yes. But I think... I don't know. i think what maybe is not established before this issue is that they just, like, take over a random person that's nearby. Okay.
01:25:26
Speaker
But also, I don't know. We're not following Team America. So, Roberto... a big fan of team America goes off to get their autographs and they're all very personable except for El Lobo, the wolf who has no time for that now and tell the kids tells the kids to scram.
01:25:47
Speaker
ah what a jerk. Oh man. I can't believe we have to explain all this stuff. Okay.
01:25:55
Speaker
As cowboy. Sure. Yeah. I mean, they're show
01:26:11
Speaker
what he calls a cycle school sure i mean they're they're qualified cyclists yeah so they do a cycle school the new mutants take their seats and wait for the big show to begin And boy, is that show big. Team America spends 30 minutes jumping motorcycles over increasing numbers of buses and then prepares for their finale. A 50-mile race around the carnival track that must take another 45 minutes.
01:26:37
Speaker
yeah It seems so awful. All right, everybody. Now we're going to do, we jumped over a and seven buses. So now watch us drive around in a circle for an hour.
01:26:54
Speaker
soon as the race starts, an explosion sends all three of them flying across the track immediately.
Stunt Chaos and Villain Confrontations
01:26:59
Speaker
Men in green jumpsuits and visors run in with guns to try and take Team America alive.
01:27:06
Speaker
With no hesitation, Sam Guthrie rockets to help. And with a little hesitation, Roberto, Sean, Rain follow. Stevie also does her best to help.
01:27:18
Speaker
She tries. she She has a little panic moment, but she tries. Yeah. It's also very funny. So we in this team, Jan is the one that says, i don't know if we should do this without our costumes. These costumes don't have masks. You don't have masks? You will look exactly the same.
01:27:39
Speaker
Their effort is enough to knock the armed men off balance, giving Team America time to do what they do best. Run people over with motorcycles. That seems to be their primary fighting tactic.
01:27:53
Speaker
Two silhouettes standing above and observing determine that the new mutants have ruined their plan, but it still may be salvageable since their real target is the Dark Rider, a legendary figure that only appears when Team America are under attack and is able to rescue them every time. This is also... this is like, um... The Green Ranger.
01:28:19
Speaker
The Power Rangers, and then every now and then they summon the Green Ranger. No. Yeah. It's not like that. and I think you fundamentally misremember the story of the Green Ranger. No, they call the Green Ranger. Because this is not your first time getting it wrong. They would call the Green Rangers, the five Power Rangers, and then call the green they'd be like, hey, we need the Green Rangers help.
01:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, but he wasn't summoned. Like, he wasn't an entity that was just summoned by them. They would call for the Green Ranger. No. The Green Ranger would be like, okay, ah I'm on my way. He was a boy named Tommy.
01:28:52
Speaker
yeah That's correct. the ah The silhouetted figures decide to jump into action themselves. The first we see is Silver Samurai!
01:29:04
Speaker
Who finds Karma and Stevie climbing out of some rubble and demands they stay out of the action. Sean tries to possess him, but she's weak from having just possessed a man when he died. ah And Silver Samurai knocks her aside and unconscious.
01:29:20
Speaker
Sam comes rocketing in, but with limited control of his direction, and Samurai knocks him aside too. El Lobo picks up a gun and sees his chance, but, um... Well, he seems confused about how ah guns work.
01:29:34
Speaker
And he almost gets chopped into by a ninja star. Just further evidence that their primary way of fighting is running people over with their motorcycles. So Silver Samurai is a character created by Steve Gerber and Bob Brown. He first appeared in Daredevil, then a bunch of Marvel team-ups, and Spider-Woman before this issue.
01:29:56
Speaker
I think Steve Gerber is the... maybe the man we talk, the writer we talk about most without reading a single thing he's written. Suddenly the dark writer appears charging right at the silver samurai. Silver Sam pulls out his what?
01:30:17
Speaker
Okay, Silver Samurai pulls out his energy sword and slices the front of the bike clean off, but the Dark Rider still lands effortlessly until, that is, the bike is destroyed by two of Silver Samurai's throwing stars.
01:30:31
Speaker
You don't like my abbreviation for Silver Samurai? There's already a character named Sam. Yeah, there's Sam and Silver Sam.
01:30:42
Speaker
ah You know, if you throw two throwing stars at a motorcycle, it's it blows up. It blows up. You know what really pisses me off is throwing stars are exclusively meant to be a distraction. It's a thing that you have to deal with because they're flying at you and they're sharp. They are not meant to actually...
01:31:02
Speaker
Cut things in half. Dark Rider is down. And when their mask is pulled off, it turns out to be a girl.
01:31:13
Speaker
This is like Metroid all over again. And her face, it looks so familiar. Hmm. Seeing Roberto and Rain running in wolf form at him, Silver Samurai grabs the Dark Rider and teleports out of there. Sam, Stevie, Jeanne, Roberto, and Rain regroup, but Where is Danny?
01:31:33
Speaker
Where is Danny? And why was that face so familiar? It was Peter Bristow. No, all right. Elsewhere, Danny wakes up in a sterile metal room with bright lights and a single motorcycle. As she gathers her wits and and realizes she remembers nothing since waiting for the Team America show to start.
01:31:56
Speaker
She turns to see three giant metal wheels covered in spikes rolling over to crush her. Ugh. A voice over the intercom tells her that this is a test. This is also like Metroid, by the way. This is a test, and her only hope is to escape via motorcycle.
01:32:12
Speaker
But she doesn't know how to start the damn bike and watches it get destroyed by one of the spike wheels as she jumps out of the way. But she can't hope to outrun these wheels forever, and when she finally falls, the wheel stops right in front of her.
01:32:25
Speaker
A door opens, and Silver Samurai appears to bring her out to our other so silhouetted figure. The Viper. Ooh. Viper is was created by Stanley and Jim Steranko. She was, what, the the the leader of Hydra for a minute? She was Madame Hydra for a bit. um Yeah, yeah.
01:32:46
Speaker
She first appeared in Captain America, then Spider-Woman, then here. Ooh. So if you notice, Silver Samurai and Viper, both their last appearance before this was Spider-Woman, which we can guess was most likely written by Chris Claremont. Right, of course. Right.
01:33:07
Speaker
So they don't seem to know, Silver Samurai and Viper, who Dani is or anything about her powers, but they're questioning her about being the Dark Rider? Right.
01:33:17
Speaker
What? Danny gets mad pretty quickly and can't stop herself from pulling the Viper's deepest fear out of her head and manifesting it there in the room.
01:33:27
Speaker
Viper doesn't like this and slaps Danny, calling her a witch and promising to kill her eventually.
Strategic Plans and Mutant Powers
01:33:36
Speaker
Meanwhile, back in the mansion, Xavier is trying to piece together the story with Colonel Ross, Michael Rossi, who's now wearing like an all black super spy uniform. Yeah, he's James Bond now.
01:33:50
Speaker
What the fuck? This was just like a guy, just a regular military colonel. And then he died in a helicopter accident, but was secretly not dead and has been hiding all this time so that he could save...
01:34:06
Speaker
What was it? The new mutants. To save. this Yeah. So he could save the new mutants. And now he's just like this weird super spy supporting character. What the fuck?
01:34:18
Speaker
I think he's our new Fred Duncan or Peter Corbeau. Like somebody with high government and or technological connections. Why not use Fred Duncan?
01:34:31
Speaker
Yeah. The fuck is Fred Duncan? Fucking Colonel Rossi was dead. You didn't have to bring him back from the dead. You could have just used Fred a Duncan. Well, Fred Duncan's off in some Caribbean island under his alias Amos.
01:34:48
Speaker
All right. So he's trying to piece together to the story with Colonel Rossi, who provides him with government files on Silver Samurai, Viper, and the Dark Rider. Xavier reveals that, per Roberto, it was in fact Danny in Dark Rider's costume. Everyone's baffled!
01:35:04
Speaker
Xavier turns to Cerebro to see if he can find any clues, and after some celebrating, he's got the solution. Cerebrating.
01:35:16
Speaker
Pat. You said celebrating. Yeah, but because I wouldn't have expected you to have written Sarah brating. It's right there on the page. What is what is fine? What is the verb form of using cerebro?
01:35:30
Speaker
Using cerebro. Yeah, OK.
01:35:36
Speaker
I'm so mad. Can I quit the podcast? No. Read it as written. You know, also, Xavier's like, this is so obvious, I should have thought of it immediately. Really? This is so obvious.
01:35:53
Speaker
The mechanics of Team America are so obvious, you should have thought of it?
01:36:00
Speaker
It's the, is when we get to this idea, it is a whopper. so But first we see Viper and Silver Samurai breaking into the bedroom of one of Team America, who cares which one. Not me.
01:36:13
Speaker
And demanding they break into a fortress in the Sierra Madre Mountains and steal something for them. She's holding the Dark Rider hostage, who appears to be a helpless girl, and they'll kill her if he doesn't comply.
01:36:24
Speaker
He reluctantly accepts. Within the hour, the full Team America is at their HQ discussing this proposition when there's a knock at the door. It's Professor x Xavier.
01:36:36
Speaker
He's here to explain that Team America is actually a collective... meat Pat, it's so obvious... How could he not realize?
01:36:47
Speaker
Of course. They're a collective mutant. They're a collective mutant, a projecting gestalt in moments of extreme danger. Any one of them can summon the and energy of the others to create a dark rider.
01:37:02
Speaker
But that dark rider takes the form of a bystander unless they learn to control it. It's so obvious, Pat. Duh. How could he not have thought of this first?
01:37:17
Speaker
Danny's only hope is for Team America to learn to control their powers and rescue her. After some heated discussion, Team America agrees. El Lobo having been the only holdout because he spent his time fucking fighting with a child.
Risky Confrontations and Mission Challenges
01:37:31
Speaker
He tries to pick a fight with fucking Sunspot. Yeah. Who is...
01:37:38
Speaker
El Lobo is Sunspot's hero. Why get into fight with a child? If a child is making fun of you, you don't you're you't you're not like, i'm got one of these days I'm going to kill you, child. you child i Also, if you're going to pick a fight with a child, don't pick one that can wreck you.
01:38:01
Speaker
Sunspot would crush him. Yeah, yeah. The New Mutants want to join to help, but Xavier says he doesn't have enough time to train Team America and guide the New Mutants on a mission. They'll just have to sit tight.
01:38:13
Speaker
Roberto objects, but Shan calms him down. Out of earshot. Or for Xavier, maybe brain shot. Of Xavier, she explains that the professor is only doing what he thinks is best and thus so must the new mutants. She's ready to lead them to Danny's rescue with or without the professor's permission.
01:38:32
Speaker
to be continued whoa also uh professor xavier eavesdrops on that whole conversation with his psychic powers he fucking can't stop reading people's minds after he specifically told us he doesn't do that yeah they cut back to him after it's for the final panel of the issue they cut back to him going like I heard. Oh, I. Yeah, I've I'm proud of them for being so passionate, but it sounds like they're going off on their own.
01:39:02
Speaker
God damn it. God damn it. God damn it. What i'm more upset about is um Team America. Oh, okay. What's upsetting to you about Team America? Is there anything wrong with Team America?
01:39:18
Speaker
They are incredibly stupid. Just like, what is the point? this is So this is why we yeah have such disdain for Jim Shooter and and try to avoid even saying his name. But like, he just, he's...
01:39:35
Speaker
Mark on Marvel comics is making deals with toy companies yeah and shoehorning them into real comics like this.
01:39:47
Speaker
But these are okay. Pat, you might not have realized these are four guys who ride motorcycles. Yeah. And when they concentrate real hard, they can make another guy who rides a motorcycle but wears black.
01:40:01
Speaker
Where's a black costume? Which is that black costume, by the way, is just the evil Knievel outfit spray painted all black. Yeah. Can you imagine, though, how cool it would be if four guys on a motorcycle could think really hard and make a fifth guy on a motorcycle?
01:40:22
Speaker
Like Captain Planet.
01:40:25
Speaker
But with motorcycles. But with motorcycles. It does sound really cool. Also no superpowers. Just also rides a motorcycle. And is kind of good at it. He's better than you are.
01:40:39
Speaker
Oh my god. all right It's so big. He's doing his best to make them interesting. I think this is a really neat. He tries. And so this is the first I've ever heard of Team America. So this is also the first I ever heard of their power set. And for an action figure that was supposed to be thrown in the trash, complex set of powers that they've developed and the the fact that it's gotten them here, you could argue is interesting.
01:41:09
Speaker
ah but But why would you argue that? Yeah, exactly. um When you Google it, when you search it, it's there's the first thing that comes up is a Reddit thread that's like, new mutants, colon, what the fuck is Team America?
01:41:27
Speaker
ah All right. Well, that's, yeah. All right, Pat. Tell me what the fuck happens to Team America because apparently now they're being trained by Charles x Xavier. We got to read another issue about this.
01:41:41
Speaker
ah Probably not. Why don't you just read the title of the thing? And it's probably about something different. Okay. New Mutants number six, Road Warrior. Fuck! God damn it. Chris Claremont, writer, Sal Buscema, penciler, A. Gill and J. Tartag, finishers, Janice Chiang, letterer.
01:42:00
Speaker
Are you on some sort of like, did you guys make, did you make friends with them? Like these are nicknames you came up with for them? Yeah, yeah, this is my shorthand for John Tartaglione and Albert Gilbert.
01:42:17
Speaker
I think who it is, the famous inker, Albert Gilbert. Janice Chiang letterer, George Russo's colorist, Louise Jones editor, Jim Tudor's editor-in-chief created by Chris Claremont and Bob LaCleod. It is worth noting.
01:42:32
Speaker
Okay. this to Every New Mutants issue we've read so far, this issue has been, or this episode has been Buscema, not Bob McCloud. Not Batman Cloud. But Bob McCloud has been inking up until now. It looks like he's been taking off of inks as well by issue number six. Yeah. Bob McCloud hated the New Mutants.
01:42:53
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Go back and listen to our New Mutants episode for part one of this story. And part two is just me repeating that he hates them. as Yeah. We just do. We should go edit into the other one. Tune into the next episode for part two. Release date April 5th, 1983. You know what's significant about that date, Matt? what What date is it again? It's my dad's birthday. Okay.
01:43:23
Speaker
Cover date August 1983. In a ritzy penthouse apartment in San Francisco, General Nien Nok Koi is chilling with two lady friends of his. Remember him?
01:43:34
Speaker
Yes. When suddenly the new mutants burst in through the door in the ceiling. No! Very X-Men, the way that they are ah destroying the entire room that they're entering by entering it.
01:43:48
Speaker
And Cannonball just knows exactly... where he should burst in so that he doesn't like kill somebody. ah Yeah.
01:43:59
Speaker
ah Recognizing his niece, Jan, he orders his lady friends to shoot and kill all the children. But Jan possesses the women and makes them lie down and go to sleep as Wolfsbane pounces on the crime lord.
01:44:12
Speaker
He just makes them lay down and go to sleep. Yeah, I think that's really interesting the way that like her power is to possess people. is yeah she like possessing them and then having them think like, oh boy, I'm very tired.
01:44:28
Speaker
And them go through the process of getting into REM sleep. I know, like the idea that they could just lay down in the middle of a fight and go, I'm going to go to sleep is so wild.
01:44:40
Speaker
Or off panel, she possessed the two of them. They're already standing next to each other and just have them bonk their two heads together. Well, that's that's what they've done in so many other ah comics.
01:44:55
Speaker
and this is He's going for something different here. Well, Matt, if you have two people you need to knock unconscious, that's how you do it. Yeah, you just knock their little heads together. Knock their little heads together, like the three stooges.
01:45:07
Speaker
The team demands that he tells them all he knows about Viper, but he refuses. What? How would he? How? do Why do they think? OK, go ahead. Because he's I mean, he's a connected crime lord. And i i actually think this is really cool that like this is a decision that an inexperienced crime fighter would make. Right. That the kids are like, let's go. I know. Crime guy.
01:45:35
Speaker
and So let's find some way to get all the way to San Francisco from New York because I know a crime guy who is in San Francisco. Yes. you You and I have done insane things like this because we were just like, well, we know a guy that can do it. Why don't we? let's Yeah, why don't we fly to why don't we fly all the way across the country just on the off chance that – We've gone on multi-hour drives to pick up props before, I'm pretty sure. Okay, well, that's fair.
01:46:07
Speaker
Anyway, i Karma then just takes possession of him. And makes him walk onto the balcony, threatening to force him to jump if he doesn't help them. Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ. She possesses him, makes him, like, step over the railing of the balcony, and then wakes him up, like, take gives him control of his mind back. So he's just standing there, like, ah!
01:46:35
Speaker
ah Pretty intense. Yeah. But... but He calls her bluff, and despite Bobby wanting to push him off, they relent. He still agrees to help them, though, as long as Karma agrees to join his criminal empire and help him for a full year.
01:46:55
Speaker
She won't do it. She does. What? She does. No! it's it again, this is, I think it's really cool the way that, like, they stumble into a situation, again, just as these sort of naive crime fighters, like,
01:47:12
Speaker
And ultimately, because of that, they get what they're looking for, but they pay such a heavy price for it. ay It's a very just I'm a teenager thing to do. I'm going to live forever. There's no.
01:47:27
Speaker
Yeah, there's nothing I can't bounce back from um sort of attitude. And and they learn a lesson. Jesus Christ. OK, yeah. Now we're in New Mexico where Team America are riding around on their little motorbikes.
01:47:43
Speaker
Wolf crashes and Are You Ready showboats at him, which causes Professor Xavier to appear and yell at them for being dumb and annoying when they have a little girl to save.
01:47:53
Speaker
yeah Yeah. I mean, like, literally, he's just like, hey, stop being like fucking. What are you doing? Get your shit together. There is a child's life at stake. Yeah.
01:48:06
Speaker
And they're like, can you stop shouting in my brain? Yeah, yeah. ah Professor is right here, though. What are they doing? They apologize and put Wolf Spike back together and resolve to tighten up.
01:48:20
Speaker
Okay. All right. I don't care. In Colorado now, Professor X and Lalandra sit on the Blackbird. Xavier is tired from reaching his mental projections so far, trying to monitor the new mutants in San Francisco and Team America in New Mexico. Okay.
01:48:36
Speaker
Apparently, the goal is to have Team America complete Vipers' theft mission while the new mutants try to rescue Danny, giving them two opportunities to save her. This is a stupid issue, Pat.
01:48:49
Speaker
In Big Sur, California... Silver Samurai watches Danny via a security camera in her prison cell. He sees her defiance and tells Viper they should just kill her.
01:49:01
Speaker
Viper asks him what's wrong, and he recounts the plot of the Wolverine miniseries at her. Yeah. Remember? Remember that, Pat? Remember when we just we just read that? No, we don't.
01:49:13
Speaker
We and you just read that. And with ah Pushing Up Roses. Oh, right. That already happened. Happy New Year, everyone.
01:49:23
Speaker
Shinjin Yoshida was his dad. And as he recounts that Wolverine and Mariko have usurped his rightful place as Lord of Clan Yoshida, he starts tearing the room apart with his energy. I'm so mad! Viper vows they will take a seat back and kill Mariko and Wolverine.
01:49:42
Speaker
and Okay. Sure. Meanwhile, Team America have arrived at the fortress known as Black Mesa, and they're so sleepy. Xavier finishes them off so he can train them in their sleep.
01:49:56
Speaker
Ew, Matt. That's
Betrayals and Explosive Battles
01:49:59
Speaker
what he says. He says just puts them to sleep. That's what I said. That's what I said. he finishes them off so he can put them to sleep.
01:50:09
Speaker
Or so he tells Cowboy and Georgiana. Wrench and Honcho are off pretending to be AIM agents. They snuck in and knocked out two agents and with x Xavier's help are making their way towards something called Project Matrix. So we don't know what this thing is that they're supposed to steal.
01:50:29
Speaker
Right. What if it was just the original cut of the Matrix? Right. you i like so yeah like it's not ready yet and and viper's like i really want to see this you gotta break in and steal it while wrench tries to i'm i'm baffled by ah what they're trying to do by the way i i get i mean the plan is for my motorcycle guys and when they think real hard they can make a fifth motorcycle guy right but they're not doing that here yeah
01:51:01
Speaker
The one that doesn't ride a motorcycle is trying to open a safe in a military installation and it has one other. I think Wrench does ride a motorcycle.
01:51:13
Speaker
No, he's cowboy doesn't write them ride a motorcycle. Cowboy does ride a motorcycle. Because that'll come into play a little later.
01:51:23
Speaker
While Wrench tries to pick a lock, he sets off an alarm and all the other AIM guys start shooting at them. Wrench manages to pop the lock and... we We should mention this. AIM, Advanced Idea Mechanics, it's like a Marvel like ah terrorist team that's obsessed with... like They do terrorism so that they can create big super weapons so that they can do more terrorism.
01:51:47
Speaker
They are not Nazis. They are Nazis. But they often work with Hydra, who are Nazis. So they're not. They they don't care about Nazis. If you're at a dinner table with a Nazi.
01:51:59
Speaker
Right. I'm getting the saying wrong. But wrench manages to pop the lock and grab some kind of crystal. And the boys take off running. But oh, just then the fortress explodes. I don't care.
01:52:13
Speaker
I don't care. And Professor X and Llandra suffer a psychic attack by some mutant in the fortress. oh that I kind of care about. Back in Big Sur, California. That's the theme I'm noticing here. If it's happening with some sort of mutant, very interesting. If it's happening with Team America.
01:52:32
Speaker
God, I just don't care. I don't care at all. want it to stop. Back in Big Sur, the new mutants are sneaking into the other fortress when Jeanne finds herself suddenly attacked physically by someone saying that they intend to bring about x Xavier's destruction and she shall be their instrument.
01:52:51
Speaker
What the fuck? But that passes really quickly and Jeanne is confused because she just screamed and doesn't know why, but it alerted all of the guards. Pat, what do you think just fucking happened? I have no clue, dude. This was crazy because Xavier gets hit and then Jan just hears this voice. It's just some. Yeah. we're Honestly, very reminiscent of Stevie Hunter getting sick phone calls.
01:53:18
Speaker
Oh, right. Yeah. was It's just very similarly like, hello, is... calling her by name, then saying like something very bad is in store and then hanging up.
01:53:28
Speaker
Oh, so you think this is maybe setting up Peter Bristow as some Bristow. Who's that? yeah
01:53:43
Speaker
Cannonball barrels through a ton of the guards. Sunspot throws a truck at a generator, knocking out the spotlights and karma possesses some guards and makes them shoot each other. Okay. In Danny's cell, like I'm like even annoyed at the new mutants right now because of this. The rest of this issue. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Like, I don't even want to.
01:54:02
Speaker
i don't even want to know about them. i don't even want to know what they're doing. i do want to know about Danny in Danny's cell. The wall collapses and she seizes upon the opportunity to immediately summon the fears of her guards and punch them out.
01:54:17
Speaker
Good job. She runs down the hallway and finds rain unconscious on the floor with a gash in her side. This just happened to her. Like she just keeps running into battle and then getting like knocked out and like no leaning It's a shame. wi with Rain seems like she's got some really ah usable powers, but we just see ah see her getting shot or stabbed or otherwise traumatized.
01:54:48
Speaker
While checking on rain, Danny is taken by surprise as silver samurai stands over her with his energy, energy sword raised until cannonball blasts through the wall and slams into him, knocking him through the far wall and out onto the mountain. All right. Now we have to talk about it.
01:55:06
Speaker
Can fucking cannonball see through walls? Yeah. How did he, how does what the kid he keeps doing this? He keeps doing this. He keeps being outside. This is like the fourth time he's done it in, what, seven issues? He keeps being outside, and then will just suddenly be like, oh, this person needs me in this exact spot.
01:55:27
Speaker
I will be right there. How? and ah Okay, so as Silver Samurai prepares to cut Sam in half, Sunspot shows up and punches the hell out of his ass, but...
01:55:42
Speaker
Thinking of Viper's safety, he teleports away with his little teleport ring before Bobby can punch him again. He's got a little teleport ring. Inside, Karma is trying to possess Viper while Viper tries to shoot Karma and the two are locked in a battle of wills. This was really cool.
01:55:59
Speaker
Yeah. Until Silver Samurai shows up and distracts Viper, giving Jan the upper hand, she takes control of the woman, making her turn her gun on the samurai, but he knocks Viper out immediately and teleports both of them away.
01:56:15
Speaker
In Northern Mexico... Okay. Team America is fine. Wait, what? And rushing to the American border with a crystal. They were just in a fucking fortress as it exploded and they're just fine and nothing happened and nothing's wrong and everything's fine? Well, so one Team American asks another Team American, what happened? I thought you blew up. And the ones that were in the fortress just go, don't know, but we're fine.
01:56:47
Speaker
I hate Team America. It's so bad. ah They're fine. They're rushing to the American border with the crystal when some AIM UFOs start firing lasers at them.
01:57:00
Speaker
o Wolf, still obsessing over Roberto, turns himself into the Black Rider and hops his bike from one hovercraft to another, knocking three out of the sky.
01:57:13
Speaker
Apparently, this ability to turn himself into the Black Rider new. Okay. Yeah, apparently. i Like, no emotional resonance for me whatsoever. Yeah.
01:57:23
Speaker
Don't care. ah he's still He's still seething about something a child said to him, which, listen, I can relate to. At this point, like a week ago. ah Yeah, yeah. this is It's been a little while. And also, you're in the heat of battle.
01:57:41
Speaker
And this child would kill you. I can't stress that enough. This child would punch a hole through you. You don't have actual superpowers. Yeah. They make their way to Colorado and wake up Professor X and Lalandra, but there's no sign of the entity that attacked them.
01:57:57
Speaker
Xavier worries that whatever AIM was working on birthed a powerful new mutant. Also, something happened with Wolf and Are You Ready? i don't fucking know what.
01:58:08
Speaker
I don't know what. He's just like carrying him. Fireman carrying him like, oh, and it's like a silent panel. Like, oh, no. so fuck Matt, and I don't think this is actually are you ready? Because a couple panels earlier we see are you ready on the American side of the border.
01:58:24
Speaker
I'm pretty sure this is Cowboy who was right who was driving the motorcycle that Black Rider Wolf ultimately landed on. Pat, the only reason, the only way you know about, you know the differences between these people is what color their hair is. in And you're telling me you think in this panel they colored his hair wrong. Yes, because there's a bright red haired one already on the American side on the of the border.
01:58:54
Speaker
what yeah What if you could go back in time and make them not do these issues? I would. I absolutely would. I would shoot Sal Beshema, I guess.
01:59:09
Speaker
Not fatally, just so he couldn't draw for a couple of days. Exactly. In Big Sur, the mutants all reunite. Rain is rapidly healing from Silver Samurai's cut, and Danny is angry at Jan for making a deal with her crime uncle.
01:59:26
Speaker
Crime uncle. Crime uncle. Uncle crime. This is my great uncle. This is my step uncle. This my crime uncle. Professor X cuts in with a psychic projection. He begins to yell at Shan for moving ahead with the plan without consulting him, but softens and tells her he supports her decision.
01:59:45
Speaker
Then turning over a new leaf. Suddenly his image gets wobbly. The voice reappears in Karma's head, claiming it will take her over body and soul.
01:59:57
Speaker
She screams, and as the mutants gather around to help her, Harada, in a boat offshore, presses a big button with two fingers, and the entire base explodes. What?
02:00:09
Speaker
To be continued. They, okay, they did the same, they did the exact, okay, Pat, oh my god. Harada's the silver samurai, but. Harada's silver samurai. Pat, they did the same fucking thing.
02:00:21
Speaker
plot twice in the same issue
02:00:28
Speaker
oh these in the bases the base is exploding oh they're in the bases the base is exploding there's two forts there's two forts in this issue both explode with the heroes in them although presumably to you now all the new mutants are dead
02:00:46
Speaker
Yeah, the new mutants are dead. and And so this was the last issue of the new mutants. Oh, I thought maybe we just got a new, yeah a new cohort. Oh, okay. Issue seven of the new mutants is just, and that is what new mutants means. It's just, it's constantly has constantly new mutants.
02:01:03
Speaker
And they just keep dying. And Xavier keeps being like, I'll never do this again. Oh, Matt. would Wow. yeah soon What are your thoughts?
02:01:17
Speaker
you think? how you feeling? You know, i I think... I think... You know, I really loved the X-Men issue.
02:01:27
Speaker
Professor Xavier's a jerk. It's such a fucking good issue. The X-Men are on a new level, right? Like, they are on this next level. They are making... Chris Claremont and Paul Smith are making... don't feel like 1980s comics. They feel like they could have been the or the 2000s. They
02:01:46
Speaker
Not moderns modern. Yeah, but yeah. But like they've they've reached a new era visually, conceptually, thematically, sort of writing wise. Like it feels like we've gotten to a new place. The the New Mutants is good. Like i like learning the character I like learning about these characters. But these aren't the best New Mutants issues at all. and they feel a little, they feel like they're early eighty s i Yeah, I think the New Mutants stuff feels a little outdated in this run.
02:02:24
Speaker
At the same time, it's still like... It's better than most of what you're reading in the 80s. Yeah, that's true. Strictly because of that Chris Claremont ability to build those relationships and and give you those those connections to his characters. You you want to love these guys. so You want to learn more about the characters even if the stories they're in are kind of dumb. Yes, exactly. So I'm i'm still hooked here. These are still... this I'm still invigorated.
02:02:52
Speaker
a but The fucking Team America stuff felt like late 60s comics. It felt like we were reading through not even like Roy Thomas, but like when they were just cycling all of their bullpen in and out of X-Men. Yeah. A few years before cancellation because sales were dwindling.
02:03:17
Speaker
Like it feels desperate and it feels like they didn't really have a plan and It seems like they tried to do what the most interesting thing possible they could, but ultimately they end up.
02:03:32
Speaker
Can we oh here's we maybe we can get some good out of this. I would say a Lobo.
02:03:40
Speaker
Picked a fight with an X-Man. Okay. Lost. Lost. It wasn't a physical fight. It wasn't exactly humiliated, but We could new member to the Loser League and and just try to mine some some i don't value out of this. I don't think so because I think they're other characters. yeah They like have a series. But I feel like these are people that the Loser League, these are the only people the Loser League can win, had beaten a fight.
02:04:13
Speaker
Can we add Peter Bristow to the Loser League? ah Yeah, Peter Bristow's on the Loser League. And again, the Team America is like the only, like when we do the Loser League comic book and movie and TV series, their nemesis is Team America, but they always kick their ass every single time. yeah And like like, not even like, there's there's not even a moment where you're like, oh, is the are the villains going to win? No, they get their asses just totally beat.
02:04:47
Speaker
I've yeah, I am 100% in for that. Like they just outnumber team America because we've got more than a dozen of them. Now they could just surround them and take turns beating them. But I think I like the idea that even there's like issues or episodes or movies where it's just one guy from the loser legal. It's like Peter Bristow alone and he beats up all of team. Oh, you guys just ride bikes.
02:05:15
Speaker
ah I can do that. I can stick a put a stick in your spokes. And I and I hold i have a pipe. I'm armed with a pipe. yeah um You know, I remember this issue that I like before we read this issue. i was thinking like I think at the end of last episode, the last one we recorded, which was the first new mutants episode. I think I even mentioned something to you like, oh, man, you're going to think this is going to be crazy. Wait till you see what's about to happen. I thought Team America was going to be so absurd that it would be fun.
02:05:50
Speaker
ah Yeah, yeah. They're not. They're just boring. Absolutely. Yeah. I had my hopes raised for at least something like goofy and absurd. But this is and this is just somebody playing action figures, but they don't have enough heroes. So they have to pull in the car toys that they have as well. Right.
02:06:09
Speaker
And they're technically. Goofy and absurd. But just not in any way that's funny or interesting.
02:06:21
Speaker
I hate Team America. I don't know if I would put absurd in there. ah the Four motorcycle guys that summon a fifth motorcycle guy isn't absurd to you?
02:06:33
Speaker
You're like, no, that's very grounded. Vanilla.
02:06:40
Speaker
All right. And we're all out of vanilla. Look, this is what I need to say to you. I'm sick of it. I'm done.
Episode Reflections and Personal Insights
02:06:50
Speaker
I'm fucking done with Thumbly.
02:06:57
Speaker
Ooh, Pat Steals and Deals. We got a wild one for you today, Matt. Okay. For you specifically, half price charter subscription offer. Become a charter subscriber to the new video game magazine Blip from Marvel Comics.
02:07:15
Speaker
Matt, have you heard of this Blip? What the fuck? No. So $6 for 12 issues. Not bad. That's 50 cents an issue. Okay. Those are comic book prices. And this is a magazine.
02:07:29
Speaker
so Oh, oh, oh, oh. If you want to buy it off the newsstands, it's a dollar an issue. So you're saving. half price. it's half price You're saving cents.
02:07:40
Speaker
Okay. Now, the unfortunate thing about this is that Blip, the video game magazine from Marvel Comics, only lasted six months. So if you paid for the full subscription, you did not get your money's worth. You were paying essentially a dollar an issue. Do you think they refunded you?
02:08:00
Speaker
Knowing Marvel? No, no, no. Not you would have to. and You would have to write to them and complain, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I did find on retroinjection.com a blog post from 2018 that was just fondly remembering Blip magazine and why it failed so much. It looks like from their account here, the primary reasons are, number one, it It bragged extensively about being a Marvel Comics product and okay put out a magazine ah format. Magazines at the time were printed on lower quality paper. They were or higher quality paper. It wasn't what comic fans were expecting. Okay.
02:08:49
Speaker
Other... I would say bigger issue is that they ah really went ham on the licensed Marvel properties culminating in Matt, a six page Spider-Man and Green Goblin advertisement, uh, for the Atari Spider-Man game.
02:09:11
Speaker
What the fuck? That ad that we saw is extended to a full six page comic. Oh, god Where Spider-Man ends up explaining that even though Green Goblin appears in the game, he doesn't receive any royalties for it. Just to help justify his actions in trying to steal this game.
02:09:35
Speaker
So, what... Okay. There it is. so what... This sounds like Jim Shooter to me. This sounds like entirely a Jim Shooter idea. Oh, 100%. This is yeah cheap licensing.
02:09:50
Speaker
ah going both it goes both ways, right? they They are buying licenses from toy companies for toys that would otherwise have been thrown in the dumpster. And they are giving their licenses to whoever wants to pay enough money for them and just letting the the brand dilute.
02:10:11
Speaker
How much do you think it costs to purchase all seven issues of blip of blip today? hmm. Two hundred dollars. ah A higher higher, buddy. Wow. Really? Who would want to read these? i know. ah Three fifty.
02:10:29
Speaker
Higher. you Ten thousand dollars four just for just four. Oh, man. I was so close. Yeah. ah But blip number one, I think, is the thing bringing it up because blip number one seems like it's like 100 like over 150. Well, you can get blip number three for four bucks. You get blip number seven for 10 bucks. Yeah, these was the a post I read about it actually mentions that the problem started with issue number two.
02:10:57
Speaker
yeah Yeah. Wow. Wild. Steel.
02:11:17
Speaker
Well, everybody, thank you so much for listening to this episode. Thank you for thank you for being here. we ah would like to say check out our Discord. There's a link in the show notes. There's a lot of fun stuff going on there. A lot of the emailers you hear from the show are um hanging out in the Discord.
02:11:35
Speaker
Chillin'. We would also like to say happy new year. Yeah. Happy new year. i If we didn't see you, hope you had a great holiday season.
02:11:46
Speaker
Give us a, you know, I don't know. You know, what if we don't record these next two episodes that end up coming out before this one? What, what if, what if as a new year's present, you guys all go give us a review and a rating on everywhere.
02:12:03
Speaker
Wouldn't that be cool? What if you resolve this year to finally rate, review, comment, subscribe. And share podcast and share and check us out on Instagram. Mutant menace pod. ah Subscribe to our podcast and subscribe to share.
02:12:22
Speaker
We love share that. What we want to promote this year is the music artist share. She's, you know. She just put out a memoir. Did she? Yeah.
02:12:34
Speaker
you It's like her fifth memoir, but yeah. um We want to give a big thanks to Krils Wilson for our theme music. We want to give a thanks to Julia Selle for the voice of Trish Tilby.
02:12:49
Speaker
Fuck, is there anything else, Pat? Just ah what I say at the end of every episode, Matt, as always, you'd sound better if you were bald.
02:13:02
Speaker
And remember, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, kitty!