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00:00:01
15 - The Dark Era: Secret Empire
62 Plays24 days ago
Issues: Marvel Team-Up #4, Avengers #103-104 & #110-111, Captain America #172-175
The X-Men are STILL CANCELLED so Matt and Pat continue to scrape the bottom of that barrel, looking for X-Men appearances in other Marvel comics. We manage to find some, but with far less X-Men and far more… other guys.
Topics Include:
Matching X-Men and Pokemon. Gerry Conway! Dr. Hans Jrgromsahn. Morbius is NOT A VAMPIRE. What do Spider-Man’s webs smell like? Spider-Man assaults Jean Grey. Angel is feelin’ himself. Hawkeye’s worst costume. Blob erasure. Why is there no MCU Rick Jones? More dinosaur abuse. Big sexy T-Rex legs. Magneto doesn’t wanna carry the X-Men. “Dance sexy, daughter!” Moonstone is a person. “Cheez! Double Cheez!” Captain America’s very good plan. Captain America’s very bad plan. Did Richard Nixon kill himself?
Write in to Pat's Email Corner: mutantmenacepod@gmail.com
Instagram: @mutantmenacepod
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Transcript
Introduction and Listener Feedback
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Trish Tobey with W.A.R.C. reporting to you live from Westchester, New York, where there appears to be some sort of mutant menace on the loose.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hey everybody, I'm Matt Aucamp. And I'm Pat Reber. And say it with us, Pete. welcome Welcome to Mutant Menace.
00:00:46
Speaker
Your video froze up for a second there. I couldn't sync it up. That was so fucking good, Pat. Yeah, that was that was no other than that, that was perfect. Pete, if you if you got it too, then we nailed it.
00:00:58
Speaker
Pete, we promised ourselves that we would just keep saying Pete until we got it right. And I think that time we got it right. um maybe Maybe you were a little slow. We might have to say Pete next time. good su Okay. we We also haven't gotten anybody else's names.
00:01:14
Speaker
that ah Well, nobody else that just emailed us their names. Yeah, yeah. So, like, technically we should be saying all the names of the people from... Hey, wait a second.
00:01:25
Speaker
What's that sound?
00:01:28
Speaker
It's Pat's email corner. it's Pat's email corner. I did not approve this music. hi Welcome, Matt, to Pat's email corner. We got a few today. Number one comes from listener Michael, a regular in our replies these days. But Michael says...
00:01:49
Speaker
Hey, Pat, tell Matt that a hauberk is a chainmail shirt, not the hood slash cowl. That's a coif, but he's probably used to seeing people wearing both hauberk and coif at the same time and didn't know that they were two different things.
00:02:02
Speaker
And that while stamens are part of the center of a flower, he probably meant pistol. Still, I applaud his confidence while saying things he then admits he doesn't really know.
00:02:14
Speaker
Michael, Michael, this, well, I'm glad he applauded me. Because this is podcasts. That's what podcasts is. That's right. You go on a microphone, you say stuff you think you know, and then you say, i might be wrong about this. So no one can get mad at you. And then they pay $1,400.
00:02:35
Speaker
Yeah, we have a responsibility to talk. We have no responsibility to be correct. And we get and we each have fourteen hundred dollars, but we spend it so fast. This is the budget for the show is insane.
00:02:48
Speaker
it's right Michael goes on to say, I'll be impressed if either of you even remember talking about chain cows or the center of flowers in episode 12. By the time you get this, but it's a risk I have to take in this dangerous world.
00:03:00
Speaker
I wish you both the best and hope you take this email in the spirit of camaraderie in which it was intended and not as criticism. Listen, motherfucker. Michael, I assure you that we take all emails as criticism.
00:03:13
Speaker
ah ah Okay. Well, the Hallberg comment was about, I don't even remember the guy's name, but that really insane looking guy from ah the the Savage Land Mutate with the crazy eyes.
00:03:25
Speaker
They've all got crazy eyes, but I you assume that you're right. Michael, let us know if for if Matt's got the right reference here. And if not, pod at gmail dot com if not I get $1,400. So like, it's fine either way.
00:03:40
Speaker
i don't I don't remember why we were talking about pistols and stamens. What's the next email? No, no idea. Next one comes from listener Jason. Jason. Subject line, the Neil Adams of X-Men podcasts, which is a pretty intense compliment.
00:03:54
Speaker
Very happy to see Matt do some references to Brian Adams' summer of 69 there and get zero reactions. Some Canadian content. I'm surprised you're not commenting on the covers. Neil Adams is hitting it out of the park, and I can't imagine how striking these would have been on the comic rack. That is a great point, Jason. Really?
00:04:12
Speaker
The covers were stunning all the way through that run. I also the debut of what I think is the best angel costume to date. And it's designed by Magneto of all people, which given how the mutates are dressed in this arc is pretty amazing.
00:04:26
Speaker
I agree. i absolutely agree. I think it is angels best costume. know And your comparison. He's talking to me now, Pat, and your comparison of Neil Adams to Frank Miller is interesting and not one I'd seen before.
00:04:39
Speaker
That's, uh, that's what I love to hear. I've never heard that. I said the same thing, Jason. i you Yeah, yeah. But he clearly influences a lot of artists as we head into the 70s, including John Byrne, I think, which is a really good point.
00:04:53
Speaker
Yeah, the big sort of dramatic larger-than-life bits of action. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. The sun is, of course, the main source of cosmic radiation, and we know that created the Fantastic Four, so I think Scott's not too far off the mark here, referring to him convincing the Sentinels they should fly off into the sun. i but hold on, I'm still positive that's not why cells mutate.
00:05:17
Speaker
And then he says, so glad y'all are doing this podcast. It brings me so much joy. Thank you so much. Listener, Jason. Jason, thank you so much. Your email brings us joy.
00:05:29
Speaker
um Legitimately. I know we're making fun, but like legitimately. Finally, we have a very interesting email from sign wave Sean of the sign wave podcast. And I hope I'm saying that name right. Cause it's Irish. Uh,
00:05:41
Speaker
Hey, Pat, longtime listener, first time emailer. Shout out to the very worst, a podcast that got me through my last year of college. What an honor. What is that? It is a podcast that I was on about the Pokemon movies.
00:05:56
Speaker
Weird. Me and a a couple of friends. Sounds shitty. No, it was awesome. Given your now encyclopedic knowledge of all the Pokemon, which Pokemon do you think the original five X-Men would train? o He does offer one example here. I think Cyclops and Psyduck would have a lot in common. Both have suffered terrible head trauma.
00:06:19
Speaker
They just have a headache all the time. Oh, man. Okay. Why don't we go one X-Men at a time and go back and forth? So, ah Professor ah Professor X and Mr. Mime.
00:06:32
Speaker
Oh my, Pat, no way! yeah i was literally thinking Professor X and Mr. Mime. It is absolutely who he would pick. He's just that much of a freak. And yeah, 100% Mr. Mime.
00:06:47
Speaker
Okay, perfect. One for one. Hank McCoy. Hank McCoy, I mean, I think... something equally like pretentious, maybe a hoot hoot, the owl that has glasses.
00:06:59
Speaker
I think he'd go for something a little cuter. I think he'd like, like a, like almost like a pet, not a Pikachu though. I think that'd be too mainstream for him. Who's the, cat who's the cool hippie Pokemon?
00:07:11
Speaker
One of the tree, there's the tree one that dances. The tree one that dances. just looks like a piece of bark. Pseudo-Woodo? Pseudo-Woodo, yeah. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. I can see it.
00:07:23
Speaker
His little assistant. All right, I love that. Yeah, Pseudo-Woodo. Okay, Cyclops. Cyclops, Psyduck. I think we do have that covered. That's a perfect match.
00:07:34
Speaker
Well, I think, well, I'd say either that or he'd pick one of the original, the original starters. Like Bulbasaur. Like, I think, because he's just kind of bland. Okay. Yeah, I can see that Sort of a bland choice. And I do love Bulbasaur. I love Scott. I'll put him together.
00:07:49
Speaker
He would, because he'd be like a Gen 1-er. Like, he would only like the first generation of Pokemon, ah and he would pick the starters, just like the first one that popped up. He'd be like, yeah, I'll take that one.
00:08:00
Speaker
ah Right. he's He'll make it work for his situation. Yeah. I think Bobby Squirtle, Warren, Charmander, they're just basic.
00:08:11
Speaker
They would think they yeah look cool and cute and Bobby Squirtle I like. I could also could also see Bobby going with like one of the Pikachu ripoffs. Oh, yeah, yeah. What's the Pichu?
00:08:22
Speaker
well um yeah Yeah. Or um I was thinking more like Morpeko, the hamster guy who can turn evil when he gets hungry. But I'm thinking now of Pachirisu.
00:08:34
Speaker
Looks like a real Iceman Pokemon. It's like ah it's like a squirrel Pikachu. Okay. He's just looking for the... The cutest but still masculine one.
00:08:46
Speaker
Right. But Angel, i this is the first thing I thought of when ah you said this question. Angel is, do you know the Pokemon Sigilyph?
00:08:57
Speaker
I will in a moment. Yeah. Look up Sigilyph. This is the sort of bullshit. Oh, this is the evolution of, no, it just looks like unknown characters.
00:09:09
Speaker
yeah Yeah, yeah, it's just kind of like a shitty unknown. it's ah It's just like this flying weird thing with like floppy, I don't know, feathers off. It looks horrible.
00:09:21
Speaker
It's probably my least favorite Pokemon, and I think that is what Angel would choose. And I think he'd think it looks really cool. And... I bet ah they're expensive.
00:09:32
Speaker
Right. Yeah, this is a ah psychic flying. Here's well, here's the thing that do you think he would be OK with a flying Pokemon? He would have to fly slower than him.
00:09:45
Speaker
Well, I don't know. He never i mean, everybody else flies faster than him and he never seems bothered. He's just like he just notes it. He's like, whoa, that guy's faster than me. Yeah, that's fair. Maybe he wants somebody that can keep up with him just as a... Like, a dog wouldn't fit Warren, right? Because... No.
00:10:02
Speaker
The dog can't keep up with him. But an eagle... Well, now we're veering into exotic pets and out of Pokemon. Last one, Jean Grey. I don't know why.
00:10:13
Speaker
And maybe it's just because it's my one of my favorite Pokemon. But I want to say Sinistee, the floating teacup. yeah What do you think? That's a tough one. I think she would have, like, something that kicks ass. I think she would have...
00:10:29
Speaker
Oh, ok You know what would be cool? I don't know if she would pick it, but now I'm picturing it and I think it would be really rad is like a Machamp. Just a little muscular freak running around with the X-Men.
00:10:40
Speaker
ah Or like she would have a legendary, right? I mean, like she's the Phoenix. yeah, yeah. That's true. So she would have like... um One of those birds. I hate those birds. Yeah. or like one of the later, later gen legendaries that are like, that are like gods, like Veltal or like, like Rayquaza.
00:10:59
Speaker
You're getting out of my ah generational knowledge of Pokemon. I think some of these guys were in the movies we watched, but ah most of them weren't. Okay. Well, Sean does go on to say, if you're still looking for a listener guest, I've been reading X-Men for years now and I'm also have a podcast, Sign Waves, where we are watching all of Jennifer Lawrence's filmography, which has a bunch of X-Men in there.
00:11:22
Speaker
Apocalypse is a masterpiece of cinema, and I won't hear otherwise. You will hear otherwise if you're listening to this podcast. Okay, thank you, Sean. And yeah, I did listen through and episode of the podcast. It's very fun.
00:11:36
Speaker
Sign Waves. Oh, wow. We have some free promotion on here, right? All right. So now we have two people in the run and we're going to pick real soon,
Personal Experiences and Humorous Anecdotes
00:11:43
Speaker
I guess, because we're coming up on it. So. That's right.
00:11:47
Speaker
Right now it's a coin flip. We have two people in the running. Look out. We may literally flip a coin.
00:11:54
Speaker
All right. Well, I guess that's Pat's email corner. The end of
00:12:02
Speaker
Okay. All right. So. Matt, I got to ask. ah yeah Did you do anything X-Men related this week? Okay, actually, Pat, I kind of did. So, um wasn't directly X-Men related, but much like the X-Men, um ah this week, it was, I mean, it was kind of hard for me, actually. I was in a position where I was um hated and feared for the ah way I looked.
00:12:35
Speaker
I had particular outward feature that was unusual and actually had hide that aspect of my appearance so that others wouldn't judge and ah you know um interrogate me about it so it was hard
00:12:58
Speaker
I put a suction cup on my head and it left a big hickey on my forehead yeah
00:13:06
Speaker
Pat, you're being one of the people right now. I hope you realize- What is this, a daredevil podcast? I hope you realize that that you are not coming across great.
00:13:20
Speaker
You laughed. You are like Larry Trask. I wish I could have seen it. It was a big red circle. might why Why did you do that?
00:13:33
Speaker
Pat! Jesus Christ, you ask that!
00:13:39
Speaker
You realize you are being one of those, you are being the you're calling me ah mutant menace right now by your question.
00:13:51
Speaker
Okay, let me ask you one more offensive question about this. Are you lying and did you actually just get a hickey on your forehead? Well, you know every and I've ah obliquely referenced it. I am in a new relationship. It's going very well. She does not suck on my forehead. Is she okay with you revealing that?
00:14:14
Speaker
That she doesn't suck on my forehead? Yeah. Yeah, she's absolutely okay with me telling the world she doesn't suck on the middle of my forehead really hard until it leaves a big circular red.
00:14:25
Speaker
weird that you guys discussed that but but it was it was at her house and she did say i always have to tell my kids not to do that and then
00:14:42
Speaker
and then i was like why it's not like it's gonna leave a mark or anything your hatred here is is palpable um pat did you do anything x-men related this week Matt, I also kind of did.
00:14:58
Speaker
Number one, I have two things here. Number one, I'm about to go on vacation, which if my life is anything like the X-Men means that i disaster is about to strike.
00:15:12
Speaker
That's true. So that's exciting. i The other one is I watched a movie that I really enjoyed. It was it was called The Wedding Banquet, starring Bo and Yang and Kelly Marie Tran.
00:15:26
Speaker
Very yeah cute, funny movie. I'm a big Bo and Yang fan, and with the influence this podcast has now, I think we could get this done. I think he should play Wolverine. Okay.
00:15:37
Speaker
Okay. He's short. He's sassy. I think we need a fresh take after Hugh Jackman played him for 20 years. Right. Okay, he's not very hairy.
00:15:49
Speaker
He's kind of hairy. I mean, I haven't seen him shirtless, but, like, he's got arm hair. Okay. All right. Plus, you can fix that in post. Yeah, you're right.
00:16:00
Speaker
um Okay, Bowen Yang. i'm still I'm having trouble picturing it, but like you said, it might be like a departure. Yeah, I think it's a ah fresh take. I think was I want to... here's what i Here's what I'll invite you to do.
00:16:16
Speaker
As we ah get further into... the catalog of X-Men and as we as time goes on and we get to meet and know Wolverine, and just start reading his lines in that voice.
00:16:33
Speaker
Okay, alright. um I am looking at Bowen Yang nearly nude. He's in a He has posted pictures on his Instagram of himself in ah in like ah ah like a basically a thong.
00:16:46
Speaker
And he is 100% hairless. But... but More muscular than he gives off. he I'm telling you, he has the build of Wolverine.
00:16:59
Speaker
Okay. And he's also got the, like, that kind of grizzly sass that Wolverine has. All right. Bow and Yang for Wolverine. Hashtag Bow and Yang for Wolverine.
00:17:10
Speaker
That's right. ah Those are my two X-Men related things this past week. Okay. You watched
Marvel Team-Up Discussion
00:17:17
Speaker
a Bowen Yang movie and you're going on vacation. And I put such a cup on my head. These are the ways that we are like the X-Men.
00:17:27
Speaker
Hey, Pat. We are in the dark ages. Oh goodness. The dark era. Right? um The X-Men are canceled. So one would think, oh, Matt and Padditch is going to give up the podcast. But nope.
00:17:41
Speaker
We are we digging through fear not the annals of ah Marvel history. What? No, keep going.
00:17:54
Speaker
Okay, we're digging through the annals of Marvel history, and it seems like we have found some comics with the X-Men in them. So, Pat, do you want to tell me about Marvel Team-Up number four?
00:18:07
Speaker
Yeah, I really do, Matt. I am so excited for Marvel team up number four titled as legitimately. I'm not trying to like yeah now i do a gimmick here. I'm I'm giddy.
00:18:21
Speaker
Marvel team up number four titled and then the X-Men. And I'll pause here for a second, because if this is a team up, that means it's Spider-Man and X-Men. Why is this type of story titled and then the X-Men?
00:18:36
Speaker
It sounds like the X-Men are going to be in this one, though, is what I like about this title. Stan Lee presents Jerry Conway, scripter, Gil Kane, penciler, Steve Mitchell, anchor, John Costanza, letterer, and Roy Thomas, editor.
00:18:49
Speaker
Jerry Conway, Matt. You love him. He's your boy. It's your boy. you love him? to take a moment to talk about him for a moment because Jerry Conway's Spider-Man is ah maybe some of my all-time favorite Spider-Man.
00:19:03
Speaker
He took over Amazing Spider-Man at... Issue 111, when he was, we mentioned this last episode, but he was 19 years old. He had his first comic published at 16.
00:19:16
Speaker
By 19, he was writing The Amazing Spider-Man, the best performing comic. So through his Amazing Spider-Man run, he defined Peter Parker more through tragedy and personal growth, him just having to overcome some major events in his lifetime. This included Doc Ock and Aunt May getting married.
00:19:37
Speaker
This included the death of Gwen Stacy. ah This included all of the times you can think of when he was very sick.
00:19:48
Speaker
ah He introduced the original clone saga, um not the crazy complicated one from the 80s and 90s, but the maybe just the 90s.
00:19:58
Speaker
But the original one, which is like a, think, three issue arc where He discovers a clone. He did introduce the Punisher through this amazing Spider-Man run. He really rounded out Mary Jane. He's the reason that we got Mary Jane is like a a sassy model instead of just hidden character in the shadows throughout Spider-Man issues.
00:20:21
Speaker
Also, J. Jonah Jameson, he kind of defined the JJJ that we know today. And Flesh Thompson even gave him a little more substance. And that Flesh Thompson has his own whole arc that he goes on throughout history. He introduced the Spider-Mobile, which was i merchandising tie-in.
00:20:41
Speaker
The company that they gave the Spider-Man toy rights to just made him a car and were like, Please put this in the comics. And Stan Lee made Jerry Conway put it in.
00:20:52
Speaker
i ah he created the Jackal, one of the iconic Spider-Man villains. And then just to put the cherry on top of his long Spider-Man career, he eventually left for DC. He got assigned to the Superman versus Amazing Spider-Man crossover, which is a book that I bought at a yard sale for a dollar when I was a child.
00:21:14
Speaker
Oh, wow. Whoa. Holy cow. You don't still have it. to i don't. And I curse myself every day. i have no idea what happened to it. But a very formative read for me. Anyway. Holy shit.
00:21:26
Speaker
That's Jerry Conway, Spider-Man. Thank you for hearing me out here. Now let's talk about it. Hmm. Release date June 20th, 1972. Cover date September 1972.
00:21:38
Speaker
Peter Parker can't stop having fever-driven night terrors. He's fighting Morbius in his dreams, a vampiric night creature, not a vampire, that he recently fought.
00:21:49
Speaker
It's getting so bad that his roommate and best friend Harry Osborn wants him to seek medical attention. But Peter knows that no ordinary doctor will be able to help him, for he's Spider-Man.
00:21:59
Speaker
And with great power must also come great illness that can only be cured by a scientist. He swings off to his find his old friend, Dr. Hans Jorgensen, who was working with Dr. Michael Morbius, whose blood, of course, was recently used to create a serum to cure Spider-Man of the four extra arms that grew out of his side in the six arms saga.
00:22:17
Speaker
That's my favorite Spider-Man character. Dr. Hans Jorgensen. Dr. Hans Jorgensen. Hans Jorgensen. Yeah.
00:22:28
Speaker
He's my favorite one. Hans Jorgensen. But. Before Spider-Man can arrive at Dr. Jorgensen's lab, Morbius shows up, knocks Jorgensen unconscious, and kidnaps him.
00:22:40
Speaker
Spidey arrives on the scene to see signs of a struggle just as Jorgensen's landlady walks in, screams, and faints. That's the end of her. We don't see her again. She's dead?
00:22:51
Speaker
and Maybe. The next morning, in Westchester, New York, we see Professor x Xavier reading the headline, Spider-Man Kidnaps Noted Scientist. The professor, having worked with Jorgensen in the past and noting that something seems amiss, summons the X-Men to speak with Spider-Man and is seemingly out of character deed. He does contact Hank telepathically, who is still in human form, requests to be left to his own project, but all the others assemble.
00:23:19
Speaker
This would be right around the, I don't know if they timed it exactly right, but right around the time that Amazing Adventures was coming out. So this was actually, this actually was released the same month as The Vampire Machine, which you might remember from Amazing Adventures number 14.
00:23:36
Speaker
It's Vampire Month. Yeah, I guess so. ah Back in New York City, Spidey is swinging around in a panic, feeling sicker and searching frantically for Dr. Jorgensen.
00:23:47
Speaker
Suddenly, his swinging is interrupted by a shirtless angel grabbing his web and trying to carry him somewhere. Spider-Man does not like this, takes out Warren with like no issue at all, but then finds himself under attack by the rest of the X-Men.
00:24:02
Speaker
Why, he thinks. Jean finally uses her telekinesis to just freeze Spider-Man in place so Scott can explain they did all this attacking to try to talk to him. Before they can chat, though, Spider-Man passes out.
00:24:15
Speaker
They rush him immediately back to the mansion where they use telepathy to learn the whole story. One, Spider-Man is innocent. Two, he's got a Morbius blood virus. Three, he's friends with Human Torch.
00:24:26
Speaker
Four, Michael Morbius is the real kidnapper.
00:24:31
Speaker
Back in New York City, Morbius is waiting for Dr. Jorgensen to regain consciousness, but it's been like 36 hours at this point. I think the dude is in a coma. ah He gets impatient and goes outside to consume the blood of two small-time crooks, but he's not a vampire.
00:24:47
Speaker
LAUGHTER
00:24:51
Speaker
The childish screams of these two-bit punks attracts the X-Men who spring into action in a brilliant three-page fight but struggle to defeat Morbius. Finally, in a tense standoff, Cyclops wins a battle of wills and pulls off a rad ricochet shot to knock Morbius out.
00:25:07
Speaker
Okay, yeah, he bounces his optic beams off of a mirror? Yeah, i guess there's a mirror in this alley. and Why does the... This is something that's actually always bothered me about Cyclops.
00:25:20
Speaker
Why does his beams sometimes ricochet and sometimes his beams doesn't ricochet? Yeah, you would think it just shatters a mirror. It would just go through the mirror. Yeah, you'd think. for It's force.
00:25:30
Speaker
It's a force beam. um But who knows? Maybe this was a bulletproof mirror. You know this? Yeah, ah probably it probably was a bulletproof mirror.
00:25:42
Speaker
ah Gene... finds the doctor through her telepathy. They all rush back to the mansion and the doctor is able to recover and then develop a cure for Spider-Man.
00:25:53
Speaker
Spider-Man comes to and is so happy to be cured that he kisses Gene and then jumps out a window. ah Pat, that's known defenestration. hu You're right. Yeah.
00:26:04
Speaker
Pat, who the fuck are these people? ah Spider-Man is a very popular Marvel character. No, no, no, no, no. Who are the people he's teaming up with? ah The X-Men? No, these are not the X-Men.
00:26:15
Speaker
yeah There's no way these are the... I'm looking at them, and they're not... Scott... who Whoever is pretending to be Scott Summers is a young Jack Nicholson. He's got that scrunched up face. He looks so crabby.
00:26:31
Speaker
The person... Whoever is pretending to be Jean Grey... Who is... is that Is that... That's a young Cher, maybe? Yeah. I love when Bobby's in ice form, they give him, they give his face all these unnatural angles. Like it's not human head angles. They're just trying to illustrate with angles that it's made out of ice.
00:26:53
Speaker
And that moment he looks like Jack O. Remember Jack O. Diamonds? Yes. And ah Bobby, when he's out of costume, he's wearing like this weird disco shirt unbuttoned down to his belly button with a gold chain with a medallion on it.
00:27:13
Speaker
And it's like, oh, this is where they knew he was gay. This is the moment. They were like, oh, oh, okay. We now finally understand who this character is.
00:27:24
Speaker
Um, Angel mostly fights out of costume, just shirtless in like ah in like bell bottoms. Yeah, what's the... I mean, through a lot of this, they're all wearing their civilian clothes, but... Which are look nothing like the civilian clothes they normally wear. Yeah, yeah, they are they are jumping a decade ahead in fashion.
00:27:48
Speaker
i But Warren... even when they're all in costume, just shows up shirtless. That's just his thing right now.
00:27:59
Speaker
Yeah, just he's just feeling himself, I guess. Not later. Not a year from now when we see him again.
00:28:08
Speaker
This was a phase. Yeah, he had a moment. Plus, when they're in costumes, they're wearing their old costumes. I just, it's very it's a weird team up.
00:28:20
Speaker
And it's not even exactly their old costumes. It's like weird, weird versions of their old costumes. They have ditched Jean's handmade multicolor costumes.
00:28:31
Speaker
She must be so mad that everyone keeps doing that. I know. Do you think they were all like they begged her to sew them a new version of their old costumes? Yeah. Like they sit her down, Gene, we hate these.
00:28:44
Speaker
And we really want to wear costumes made by our friend. How did you feel about this whole team up? i I absolutely loved it. I love every moment of it ah from okay Spider-Man's emotional nightmares to. i Oh, OK. I'll tell you one part I didn't like.
00:29:05
Speaker
Spider-Man at the end is so happy that he got cured that he lifts up his mask, jumps over to Jean, kisses her on the mouth and then jumps out the window because he knows that he shouldn't do that.
Avengers and Sentinel Storyline
00:29:23
Speaker
As
00:29:26
Speaker
yeah as an apology, he shatters their her window. It's so way that part. I'm pretty sure is just out of embarrassment. I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here. i like to think that he did it. And then he was like, Oh God, I was just acting on impulse. What a terrible idea. How do I apologize for this?
00:29:46
Speaker
There's no way i would rather just jump out the window. It's, ah well, she looks, okay. Granted, this is ah i just a disgusting moment of sexism on Gil Kane's part, but she looks very pleased with it.
00:30:06
Speaker
Oh, I thought she was disgusted with she She's got a smile on and she's like touching her lips like, Oh, I thought that was... Okay, I read that expression differently. thought she was a little more like... You thought that was... She holding puke.
00:30:20
Speaker
Yeah, I thought she was disgusted. Like... Okay. I mean, she should be. um a strange man dressed in a spider costume just leapt over everyone in the room.
00:30:34
Speaker
And he's webbing people as he's doing it. He webs Cyclops in the face and Angel in the chest... And then kisses Jean Grey.
00:30:45
Speaker
Which is it's so unattractive, right? The webbing thing? Yeah. Right. Extremely cool, but. It's cool for us, but if you were in the room with it and she just he just did it to two of your friends randomly after they saved his life, you'd be like, and also, you don't know if that's coming out of his human body or not.
00:31:07
Speaker
That would gross you out. Yeah, yeah. And it's not, but he doesn't reveal that to you, right? You wouldn't know that. Yeah. you If you, this is something I've never thought of. If you got webbed by Spider-Man, how fucking yucked out would you be?
00:31:23
Speaker
Do you think smells? Oh my, it's got, I bet it has a chemical smell, to be honest. Yeah, it has to, right? Like caulk. Yeah, or like a yeah like an industrial cleaning chemical.
00:31:34
Speaker
Right, right. But you you think this came out of a human body. Like, you think this is digested material turned into either mucus or excrement.
00:31:48
Speaker
And it's sticking to you. You can't get it off. yeah It is like a... it's like a mucus sort of viscosity to it, right? Yeah, most of what comes out of our body is excrement or mucus or blood, right? Like that's pretty much everything that comes out of our body, even if we call it other stuff.
00:32:05
Speaker
It's one of those things. Anyway, absolutely love this issue.
00:32:11
Speaker
I love seeing Spider-Man. i love seeing the X-Men. I love that every time we've seen the both of them together, they don't actually fight any crime.
00:32:22
Speaker
And sweat.
00:32:25
Speaker
That's true. Hey, Pat, do do you want lot of water do you want to hear about ah where the X-Men appear next? No, I want to mention one more really good moment. Even though we're not in an X-Men comic, we do get a great Scott moment where he gets hit square in the head with a metal trash can.
00:32:43
Speaker
Yes! Like an old 60s metal trash can, too. That is some heavy stuff. And he's only stunned. but Well, now I want to tell you about...
00:32:54
Speaker
Two issues in a row, and we're just going to touch on them briefly. and We can break down to some of the weird shit about them, too, but we're going to touch on them briefly. ah The X-Men themselves don't appear in these two issues, but some X-Men-related shit happens.
00:33:10
Speaker
Pat, I'm talking about go Avengers 103, the Sentinels are alive and well, oh and Avengers 104 with a bang and a whimper.
00:33:23
Speaker
ah Both of them are written by Roy Thomas. He's back, baby. yeah ah They're drawn by Rich Buckler. ah One is inked by Joe Sinnott. No, both of them are inked by Joe Sinnott and lettered by one's lettered by Sam Rosen. The next is lettered by John Costanza.
00:33:43
Speaker
103 was released on and was released July nineteen seventy two Nice.
00:33:56
Speaker
Here we go. Iron Man and the other Avengers have learned that the Sentinels are still alive and well. And they appear to have kidnapped the Scarlet Witch. But apparently they did not kidnap Quicksilver, who is out looking for her at Larry Trask's old Sentinel base.
00:34:12
Speaker
ah Finding an empty Quicksilver reminisces about his last moments there after X-Men number whatever, something in the early 60s, I think. Yeah, yeah. Judge Chalmers had just released all the mutants when Blob tries to start a fight with ah Pietro and Wanda, but Toad interferes and pleads for peace.
00:34:33
Speaker
Toad's back. toads Toad's back. Not in an X-Men comic, like I said, in an Avengers comic. Yeah, you're still technically correct. But he's back and he just like has a little speech. He said he'll never be back in an X-Men comic.
00:34:45
Speaker
He's back. And now that he's allowed to speak, he's actually really wise. It's like he was just afraid of Magneto the whole time. Yeah, which is why he spoke like Igor.
00:34:57
Speaker
And then now that Magneto's not around, he's like, friends, brothers, why would we attack each other?
00:35:06
Speaker
ah Well, they listen, actually, um and they all relent and they leave. Back in the present, Pietro ah resolves to look for his sister by finding Larry Trask.
00:35:18
Speaker
He runs off because he's quick sober. He finds Trask at Judge Chalmers' house and kidnaps him. Back at Avengers Mansion, the Avengers are trying to find the Sentinels when Peter Corbeau...
00:35:31
Speaker
of star core calls them telling them that something is wrong with the sun something on australia is shooting beams at it causing solar flares quicksilver interrogates trask and pulls off his anti-mutant powers amulet allowing him to see his future visions again they help him remember a secret sentinel base in australia do you think they're related
00:35:59
Speaker
The Avengers are off to Australia. So they run off. En route, Trask remembers everything, including his future site powers, and sees the Avengers being defeated by Sentinel, number two, and the world being destroyed. He sees the world exploding, and then everything goes black.
00:36:15
Speaker
They enter Australian airspace as the Avengers are already there battling Sentinels to be continued. I'm just going to keep rolling. We start off 104 with a recap of the Sentinels kidnapping Scarlet Witch and fleeing through a space warp.
00:36:31
Speaker
Plus all the stuff that happened in the last issue. The Avengers fight Sentinels. They win and they penetrate the Australian Sentinel base. ah In its depths, Sentinel number two tells Scarlet Witch that she is essential to their plans to destroy Earth and regrow humanity in vats with no mutants.
00:36:52
Speaker
They apparently needed a female mutant and Marvel Girl was too far away. That's what he says.
00:36:58
Speaker
Quicksilver injures himself while fighting a sentinel elsewhere in the base and sends Trask ahead to save the Earth. Meanwhile, the Avengers fight sentinels and Vision frees Wanda and those two join the fight.
00:37:09
Speaker
um Then Trask sneaks into the chamber where everyone is and turns on some machine that makes all mutants glow and Pat, Sentinel number two starts glowing.
00:37:21
Speaker
What? Well, it's a Roy Thomas comic. So the Sentinel is a mutant. It is. And he was the one with the space warp powers. He turned into a mutant. He turned into a human and a mutant when he was circling the sun.
00:37:38
Speaker
Because of Cyclops. Because of all the cosmic power that the sun provides. Whatever, man. The other Sentinels destroy him and then fall over, crushing Larry Trask to death at the end. it
00:37:53
Speaker
There's so much. There's so much here. um Were all Avengers comics this ridiculous? Absolutely. Roy Thomas era Avengers is nutty. He is at his best opening the issue here. The Avengers are just standing around chatting and getting snippy with each other.
00:38:13
Speaker
And then we cut to a bunch of panels of Quicksilver running through the desert. Beautiful landscape with Roy Thomas's... wordy babbling dialogue
00:38:27
Speaker
when the the Avengers are hanging around talking I want to say Hawkeye is there yes that's Hawkeye in his new costume he's not okay It's the worst costume. I don't know if you guys have ever seen the bad Hawkeye costume, and but he's got a skirt on, bare legs.
00:38:50
Speaker
A skirt that has like ah three inch inseam. We are barely below his dick and balls. they They have to have dangled out at some points.
00:39:02
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think he wears underwear. He also, he's got like a sleeveless vest, obviously it's a vest, that comes down all the way to his belly button and then is like stitched together right around the tummy area.
00:39:19
Speaker
isnt And other than that, it's a big open chest. it's Yeah. um Big naked arms. He's got like two bracelets on and he's got a big blonde mullet with a ah purple headband on.
00:39:31
Speaker
It's the 70s baby vest. there's some There's been some bad Hawkeye costumes, right? Like in then in the 90s, he gets like sunglasses and metal.
00:39:42
Speaker
ah Oh, yeah. Metal armor. His original costume is really bad, too. He's had some bad costumes. This is the worst of them. Anyway. Yeah, he's going through a tough time, man. There is yeah there's a distinctively un-Hawkeye moment, ah but a distinctively Roy Thomas moment where he shoots a vibrating arrow at a sentinel and refers to it as a vibroshaft.
00:40:12
Speaker
Oh, man. he's that's i i will put my foot down about this. roy Thomas, I'm sure, knows Hawkeye very well, but He would just vibrating arrow.
00:40:23
Speaker
Right.
00:40:27
Speaker
I mean, we've made assumptions about how Roy Thomas talks about things in real life. Yeah. You know, he caught like his soup lifting device. is Sorry, his soup lifto device. Soup lifto.
00:40:42
Speaker
So I'm sure... There is an item in his house. He's married. He's a married guy. There's probably an item in his house that he calls the vibro shaft. Oh, come on, man.
00:40:54
Speaker
What? I'm saying he knew what he was doing.
00:40:59
Speaker
Can hear something that I'm pretty upset about? i Blob in this flashback is very muscular. He's shirtless. He's large.
Character and Plot Speculations
00:41:12
Speaker
But he's like sculpted. And then there's even a shot where we see him from behind. And like his back is just rippling with tight muscles. Like there's not an ounce of fat on his back.
00:41:24
Speaker
This is not blob. This erasure of just a very charismatic fat character. He doesn't need to exercise. His thing is like he can stand still really effectively.
00:41:41
Speaker
Come on. Come on, man. We also get an appearance from Rick Jones, Matt. Yeah. Rick Jones, the Hulk's best friend and the leader of the teen brigade. He appears and he's like, hey, can I...
00:41:55
Speaker
come with you and they're like no yeah you don't you're not even he's like i defeated all the kree and scroll by myself and they're like so you don't have any powers and he's like well neither does that guy and he points it and he's like and neither does that guy and he points to hawkeye and they're like shut up and they get in the their jet and fly away okay bud we'll see you later they do they literally just fly away it's so it's a little worse than that because hawkeye fires back in insult at rick jones and captain america's like come on man is isn't it bad enough like the pity that he shows isn't it bad enough that he okay you can't come with us yeah
00:42:39
Speaker
it it's It's so disappointing, right, that Rick Jones wasn't in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Because imagine having, like, Ryan Gosling and seeing this scene just over and over. Just not being an Avenger over and over.
00:42:59
Speaker
yeah Exactly. Ryan Gosling walking into the room and being like, hey, guys, I'm ah i'm ready to go i'm ready to come with you. I'm an Avenger, too. And they're just like, dude. You can go like hang out in the living room and watch TV or something.
00:43:13
Speaker
hey you love it here at the mansion, right? good Pat, it does strike me. Why is there no Rick Jones in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
00:43:25
Speaker
There's Hulk movies. There are Hulk movies. So the Hulk movies, i think, only include him as like an Easter egg. There's not a Rick Jones that gets any sort of right character.
00:43:38
Speaker
It's such a bummer. It's such a bummer. It is. So with just a little background here, he is fresh off the Kree-Skrull War where he ended the war when the Supreme Intelligence gave him the Destiny Force. It didn't give him the Destiny Force.
00:43:53
Speaker
He's got the Destiny Force inside of him. I'm sorry. I'm trying to work backwards from... No, please. To figure out why he's not there. So the Kree we already know exists, the scrolls they've introduced through some of the last few phases, they kind of fell off.
00:44:11
Speaker
But it seems like the war already happened. So right that would have been in like the 80s, I guess, because by the 90s, they're refugees.
00:44:24
Speaker
Right. Could have happened in the 70s. Maybe Rick Jones is dead. Maybe Rick Jones died in the 70s.
00:44:33
Speaker
And because everything is is scaled up to like the aughts in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, yeah he died with no purpose. He never impacted the Hulk. He never met the Avengers.
00:44:48
Speaker
He did somehow get to the Kree-Skrull War, though. Okay, so every other character in the Marvel Universe gets moved into a later time period.
00:45:02
Speaker
But you're saying Rick Jones doesn't. And you're saying Rick Jones can't, because if he's going to stop the Kree-Skrull war, it had to happen before the Skrulls are refugees.
00:45:13
Speaker
Right. you're Right, that seems to be the... Or maybe it is pre-war and they just, this is what causes the war. I don't know. Maybe we'll see Rick Jones in a future Marvel movie.
00:45:28
Speaker
Maybe, maybe. So the Fantastic Four is going to take place in the sixties. Okay. Maybe that's where we meet Rick Jones and they send him off on his way to their the, the Kree scroll war.
00:45:43
Speaker
You think in the Fantastic Four movie that's coming out in like the next couple of months, we're going to meet Rick Jones, the character of Rick Jones? Yes.
00:45:54
Speaker
Pat, here's what I want to happen right now. Okay. Okay. I would love you to tell me about Avengers 110. No, no, no. Jesus Christ. I refuse to. the Here is a thing that we haven't discussed that bothers me intensely.
00:46:10
Speaker
Quicksilver kidnaps Trask, right? Not really kid. way I guess kidnaps him, but... He kidnaps him. Unofficial Avengers business. unofficial Avengers business the local police see it happening and put out an APB on him the local police put out an all points bulletin on an Avenger like we'll get him later or is at the start of the next better or not cross state lines At the start of the next issue, it's explained that he walked into JFK Airport, flashed his Avengers ID, and they let him commandeer a jet so that he could get to Australia.
00:46:50
Speaker
And you're telling me the local police have the authority to try to to try to interfere? They didn't know he took a man. They don't need to know. he's If he's taking a man, he's doing it on Avengers business.
00:47:04
Speaker
Okay. Yeah. it is It is. Okay. You're right. It is weird. It is. I agree that it's weird. i really would like to move on to the next. just Now I can talk about adventures one 10 and now Magneto Steve Englehart wrote it. Don Heck drew it. Frank G. Akoia and Mike Esposito inked it in glorious black style.
00:47:27
Speaker
stop S. Lefferman lettered it, G. Ween covered it, and Roy Thomas blue penciled it. that G. Ween from Ween? That's Glynnis Ween. It's Len Ween's wife.
00:47:40
Speaker
Or Len Ween is her husband. Yeah, there you go. Release date January 1973. Cover date april seventy three The Avengers are goofing around in their HQ when Thor bursts in in a panic, demanding they all assemble.
00:47:57
Speaker
But he's panicking for good news. Pietro is alive and is on the comm screen to explain that he was saved by the legendary Inhumans what and will now be marrying one of them, Crystal.
00:48:10
Speaker
What is any of this about? We don't know, Matt. We're not following the Avengers. I don't know. yeah I mean, six issues ago, he was perfectly alive. I don't... Wanda, back at Avengers HQ, tries to return the good news with her announcement that she and Vision are in love, which sets Pietro into a rage.
00:48:30
Speaker
No sister of his will marry something Inhuman... He hangs up the video call. How would you feel if your sister told you... Like, we we we read this and we're like, we know Vision. We love Vision.
00:48:43
Speaker
And fuck, Pietra's being such a bigot here. But would if your sister called you and said, pat have such good news. I'm in love with a robot man.
00:48:56
Speaker
Trying to put myself in these shoes. i being called by my sister... have just decided to marry a literal inhuman.
00:49:09
Speaker
An alien who lives on the moon.
00:49:15
Speaker
All right, good point. I have no right. And neither does he, but he hangs up the video call. Before the Avengers can push through the awkwardness of the situation, though, the comm screen lights back up.
00:49:27
Speaker
Mm-hmm. An unseen cameraman soars towards a sprawling suburban mansion, flying through the open front door to reveal the interior has been torn to shreds. We zoom in on a familiar bald man who's been thrown from his wheelchair and is refusing to beg for his life from this cameraman.
00:49:46
Speaker
After a few panels of trying to remember who this guy is, Thor recalls that this is Professor Charles x Xavier, mentor to the X-Men. They set off to find and help him.
00:49:57
Speaker
Their plan... Yeah, this is perverted. Like what's happening here? The person who's like walking through the camera. Yeah, people that's it's like legitimately reading that was uncomfortable. It felt like little chilling.
00:50:16
Speaker
It felt like pervert stuff. Okay, what was what's their plan? Yeah, how are they going find the mansion? So they don't know exactly where the X-Men's mansion is, so their plan is to fly around in ever-widening circles until they find the mansion.
00:50:30
Speaker
from the Presumably, across... Luckily, it's a few miles away in Westchester, New York, but... But they could be going across the entire Earth. Yeah. Yeah. yeah yeah I cut to San Francisco where Hawkeye is moping about the Scarlet Witch choosing Vision over him.
00:50:49
Speaker
He's come to track down the Black Widow and try to make her choose between him and Daredevil. This will be important later. But we cut back to New York where the Avengers have identified the mansion and found all of the X-Men unconscious inside.
00:51:04
Speaker
But it's a trap. Cerebro seems to spring to life in its coils and wires, lashing out and trying to grab the Avengers. They were able to subdue it long enough to carry the unconscious X-Men out of the mansion, thanks in part to Cap's new super strength.
00:51:19
Speaker
I a have a question. Is this the ah tentacles, the metal tentacles that Xavier implanted throughout his entire mansion?
00:51:29
Speaker
oh that's a great theory. I just kind of assumed it was Cerebro. would Cerebro have tentacles? Why would Cerebro have tentacles?
00:51:39
Speaker
It's had tentacles before. It's been used to tie people up. I think whoever the villain is here discovered the tentacles that are all over the mansion and put them to use.
00:51:50
Speaker
it It's a much better story that way, yes. Yeah. right right Just when they think they're safe, the Avengers and the X-Men that they're carrying are assaulted by boulders from the sky, followed by a pack of dinosaurs appearing.
00:52:04
Speaker
The Avengers dodge the boulders and then kill the dinosaurs in increasingly horrifying ways, only to be defeated by another round of flying boulders. They really do. so but ah Thor climbs in the mouth of the T-Rex and then stretches it apart.
00:52:24
Speaker
Jesus Christ. Iron Man twists the... How do you say this word? Deodynicus? Deodynicus? Deodynicus. Iron Man twists the Deodynicus's neck into a pretzel shape. He makes a joke out of it.
00:52:39
Speaker
Yeah. Vision... This is maybe the most horrifying one. Vision goes intangible. my god, yeah. Warps himself into the middle of the Triceratops and then goes right back to Tangible.
00:52:54
Speaker
Oh my god. And just like squishing its organs. Here's what I don't understand. How would he know it was going to squish the other guy's organs and not his own in inner workings?
00:53:05
Speaker
I think he's done this before, Matt. He's real fucked up. these These are freaks. Cap doesn't do anything inhumane, but he does say, well, it's not exactly legal in baseball, but in the Dinosaur League, anything goes...
00:53:22
Speaker
cap there's not a dinosaur league in baseball you know that also you're justifying some pretty horrific things i here's what i'm i'm glad about though is that we get to see more uh silver age artists drawing dinosaurs because they're all so good they have no fucking clue what they're doing There's Tron T-Rex with big, beefy, arcrumb legs.
00:53:49
Speaker
like late
00:53:52
Speaker
ands yeah And they they're like, oh, Tyrannosaurus Rex, what is it called? Oh, it's got glasses on. It's got, like, yellow circles around its eyes for some reason. And it's bright green.
00:54:05
Speaker
Bright green. ah The Triceratops, Matt, what's the defining feature of a Triceratops to you? Oh, it's got three big horns on its head. Three big horns. The titular horns of a triceratops are not there.
00:54:20
Speaker
Try. Yeah.
00:54:26
Speaker
Yeah. Well, hi as they deal with the dinosaur threat, who should reveal himself but Magneto wearing the avenging angel costume? That fucker. Yeah.
00:54:39
Speaker
He was disguised as Angel, so he would be carried out of the mansion with the rest of the X-Men. And guess didn't want to have to carry all of them himself. That has to be it, right? Like, I was reading this, and i was like, that has to be it. There's no other reason for this plan besides, man, remember the time that carried all the X-Men to that steel gondola?
00:55:04
Speaker
And he complained about it? he was like, huh. finally done carrying all the X-Men and putting them in this steel gun. You're absolutely right. He learned his lesson from that. And this time, like, you know what? I'm just to knock them unconscious. Get the Avengers here. and um basically they fire Let me slip on Angel's costume and they can carry me off too.
00:55:26
Speaker
And if he knocks out all the Avengers, then he's got to send a message to the Fantastic Four and get them to carry the Avengers. Yeah.
00:55:41
Speaker
Okay. my Magneto grabs Scarlet Witch and ends up taking Cap and Iron Man as well when they try to stop him. Iron Man, as it turns out, is fairly vulnerable to Maggie's powers.
00:55:53
Speaker
I'm going start calling him Maggie because lot people calling him this. Everyone else apparently does, yeah. It's great. Off Magneto flies while Thor, Black Panther, and Vision wonder how only three remaining Avengers could possibly overcome the situation.
00:56:06
Speaker
continued. be continued. wow Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow. This is the worst Thor that I've ever read. He's got the worst speech patterns. He keeps saying be where he means is as if that's like Shakespearean.
00:56:23
Speaker
i be going into the other room now. He's using mostly just regular modern English. And then, yeah, once in a while, there's a yay or a B in there somewhere.
00:56:36
Speaker
Sometimes you imagine he's talking like a pirate. Sometimes you imagine he's talking like a Viking. Sometimes you imagine he's talking like a Shakespearean character. But most of the time, he just sounds like it seems like he's talking like a superhero.
00:56:48
Speaker
It seems like a Renaissance fair first time participant.
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah. how do you feel about this epi this How do you feel about this episode, Pat? I'm loving it. I'm having a great time. ah What I meant to say is how do you feel about this issue?
00:57:06
Speaker
ah you enjoyed the beginning of this issue. Number one, the Avengers just dealing with family issues and bickering with each other. i Awkwardly having to watch a brother and sister fight with each other. Yeah.
00:57:22
Speaker
I love the, we mentioned it earlier, but the, just how creepy that communication to the Avengers was from yeah Magneto. i As soon as the mystery breaks, I think is when this really goes downhill. They just kind have Magneto being weird. The Avengers decide to be weird in response and right the X-Men are all just unconscious through it all.
00:57:50
Speaker
That's true. i I really love there's a sequence where after the awkward confrontation, everybody flies off on their own. And like Captain America is talking to Scarlet Witch.
00:58:04
Speaker
Iron Man's flying by himself. Thor's flying by themselves. And they're all thinking about what that confrontation means. Like emotionally interpreting it.
00:58:14
Speaker
Right. Yeah. um Except for Vision. When they show Vision flying by himself, it's just narration. There's no... Yeah. There's no thoughts.
00:58:27
Speaker
Silent. Which it is is really good, really eerie, and immediately followed by a panel where ah do this Hawkeye jumps into a tree butt first.
00:58:39
Speaker
Yeah. it is It's a really good time for Vision because they're still kind of figuring him out. ah He's been around for long enough that they know the basics about him. But some of the... i think some of the gaps from earlier issues with Vision in them become personality traits for him here. So the fact that was...
00:59:06
Speaker
he was weird and robotic in a few years ago means now he's just a cold calculating robot. Like that's how he thinks. That's how he operates. And stuff like that is really what fills out the vision through the 70s and 80s.
00:59:25
Speaker
Well, it seems like were ah Steve Englehart is toying with that here, right? He's trying to get us to think about what is vision thinking? Is he thinking at all? Does he have the feelings that Scarlet Witch and some of his teammates think he does?
00:59:40
Speaker
Or is that an act? Like when he's alone, is he thinking? And I think that's a really interesting idea. Yeah, I really, I read that as like, he's not, he's not reflecting. He has no purpose to reflect. Like he's mission-driven. Until, right, until he needs to react to that situation again.
01:00:03
Speaker
doesn't need to comprehend it. He's going to comprehend it. lightning fast because he's a computer. Yeah, yeah. oh I do just want to talk about how funny that Hawkeye sequence is.
01:00:16
Speaker
He goes to see Black Widow. He goes in the door. ivan Yeah, Ivan's like, oh, she's not home. She's out with Daredevil. And then Hawkeye walks out of the room, closes the door, and then grabs a tree and leaps up into it. Like, it's it's such a weird panic. It literally just does leap butt first.
01:00:36
Speaker
And he's like, oh, she's out with her boyfriend. I'll jump into a tree. It's so weird. And then, you know, we'll find out next issue. He just stays in that tree for days.
01:00:47
Speaker
Yeah. It is, if you follow the Avengers, again, this is a rough time for a Hawkeye. He's just, he's snapping at the Avengers a lot. They're starting to get mad at him. And he goes through through these Avengers issues.
01:01:04
Speaker
He does go through an emotional journey. So this is like, hey we're focusing on the rest of the Avengers. We're taking a little break from Hawkeye's
01:01:14
Speaker
issues but here's a quick peek at what he's up to but for us it's baffling why do we need to know that Hawkeye is through three panels in San Francisco now
01:01:30
Speaker
What else do you have to tell me about this issue before I tell you about Avengers 111? One more thing. Magneto looks pretty good in that Avenging Angel costume. i The man's got a good head of hair. You know, I love that.
01:01:42
Speaker
But also just like he's got that he's got a menacing look. His face is i mean, Don Heck, as much shit as we give him knows how to draw Magneto. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:01:53
Speaker
What I don't like, though, is he gets onto his ship with all the X-Men in tow. Oh my god. Yes. Still in the Avenging Angel costume and puts his Magneto helmet on.
01:02:05
Speaker
And it looks awful. It looks like they pasted a head onto a different body. Yes. It's just, it's so mismatching that it doesn it doesn't look natural.
01:02:17
Speaker
No. Also, he calls his helmet a hood. Yeah, well, is it he's talking about his helmet or is he talking about he's saying that the costume, the angel costume has a hood.
01:02:27
Speaker
And that's not a hood either. i know I can't stop. I can't stop picturing angel wearing like a full on hood as he's flying around.
01:02:38
Speaker
That's all I need to say about this issue, Matt. guess he kind of does. like Well, anyway. All right. Well, let me tell you about Avengers 111 with two beside them. Written by Steve Englehart. Drawn by your boy, Don Heck.
01:02:50
Speaker
Inked by Mike Esposito. Lettered by John Costanza. Colored by David Hunt. And edited by Roy Tommy. ah Released February 1973.
01:03:05
Speaker
We open on a dead-eyed scarlet witch dancing ballet while Magneto lounges on a throne with the faithful Piper by his side. Remember that guy from the Savage Land?
01:03:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Thoroughly enjoying the very sexual dance of Magneto's daughter. Magneto's daughter. oh right. yeah He proclaims that Magneto rules minds as Scott, Gene, Bobby, Xavier, Iron Man, and Captain America watch in a trance from the background as Magneto makes his daughter dance sexy for him.
01:03:41
Speaker
Magneto explains that he realized the blood is chock full of iron to a degree where he can slow down the blood flow to the human brain. He's been using this to make people dumb enough to follow his orders, but not, he clarifies, so stupid that they go into organ failure.
01:03:59
Speaker
Scarlet Witch continues her sexy dance. Meanwhile, the three remaining Avengers are flying out to San Francisco with Daredevil and Black Widow in tow. Daredevil? They had gone to ask Hawkeye to come back and help, but found him mid-fight with Daredevil, hoping that it would help him win back the affections of Black Widow.
01:04:21
Speaker
Hawkeye lost that fight. He's not in a great place right now. No one has a plan until Daredevil does what he does best, research. He discovers that there's an atomic energy conference being held today, and they all gamble that it's involved in the next steps of Magneto's plan.
01:04:41
Speaker
Meanwhile, Black Widow longingly reflects on her relationship with Hawkeye. This, Matt, is the beginning of the end for Black Widow and Daredevil's relationship.
01:04:53
Speaker
And did you know that already from just, like, your love of Daredevil? yes if you didn't know daredevil and black widow fall in love they move to san francisco together where because of family expectations in the 70s they have to live on separate floors yeah and daredevil has to pretend he's gay so that he can be it's a three's company situation exactly um They ah have some really exciting adventures. This is pre Frank Miller Daredevil. So it's ah still a little lighthearted. It's still a little, I think this is Gene Colan era though. So they don't exactly know what they're doing with Daredevil. Yeah. It's got the dark look, but the, they're still trying to make another Spider-Man.
01:05:38
Speaker
Right. ah But it's a fun little spurt in Daredevil's career. Don't say fun little spurt. Fun little spurt. He's my fun little spurt. Keep going. Sorry.
01:05:49
Speaker
Cut to the atomic commissioner's house where he's hosting the entire atomic energy commission. Suddenly their conference table cracks in half and their security agents guns go flying.
01:06:01
Speaker
do they have a metal table? I guess. Yeah. Iron Man blasts a hole through the window and incomes Magneto and is hypnotized. Avengers X-Men team. and Hold on. I have to look this table up.
01:06:14
Speaker
Maybe it's Scarlet Witch that does the table. Oh, that is it. She yeah yeah am adjusts the probability that the table will split in half on its own. Every table has a small percentage chance of bursting in half at any moment.
01:06:30
Speaker
The remaining unhypnotized Avengers show up right in time, though, and Thor loudly leads the charge against Magneto. I have a question. Okay. So, with yeah. So the Avengers are creeping through the woods, sneaking up on Magneto. They find them.
01:06:46
Speaker
Thor runs out hammer first saying something to the effect of we'll stop you Magneto. Black Panther says that's telling him Thunder God. Okay. But If they're sneaking up on him in this moment, is it possible that Black Panther is actually saying, no no, that's telling him, Thunder God. Because Thor just runs out with a battle cry after they spend hours creeping through the forest.
01:07:15
Speaker
ah Magneto releases some octofumes. It's just smoke. And takes off in a rocket. How will they ever catch him now? And...
01:07:27
Speaker
Where has the vision gone? He's missing. Back in some strange underground lair, Magneto explains to the Atomic Energy Commission how he got there. Turns out, the Avenging Angel costume was designed to gradually sap Warren's youthful energy and funnel it to Magneto when it put the costume... Fuck!
01:07:46
Speaker
Pat, you have been talking about this costume for episodes now. Somebody at any point could have said, hey, Warren, you you know Magneto made that costume, right?
01:08:03
Speaker
God, Matt, just to pull back the curtain here a little bit. We were so excited about this that we texted about it before the podcast. It couldn't wait until this moment. Yeah, it's...
01:08:16
Speaker
That is true. That is true. Once Warren was weak enough, Magneto snuck in and chloroformed him. He's so bad at superheroing.
01:08:29
Speaker
Stealing his costume and absorbing his energy, giving him the power he needed to mentally overpower the rest of the X-Men. Back to the surface where Black Panther is the first to remember that they just fought some dinosaurs yesterday. And that's strange because dinosaurs are extinct.
01:08:49
Speaker
There's only one place where they could have come from. The Savage Land. Thanks to this and Daredevil's heightened senses, they're able to find Magneto's lair in the Savage Land and bust in to stop him.
01:09:00
Speaker
ah fight ensues where the hypnotized Avengers and the X-Men are at a disadvantage precisely because Magneto's controlling him. There's this fucking scene where Magneto forgets to control Cyclops.
01:09:17
Speaker
Actually, i think this is earlier in the issue, but it's still like the same problem. And Cyclops just gets punched in the face. And it's just like, you can imagine Cyclops is just standing there inert. And so he rocks him in the face and he just still just stands there like, oh, yeah.
01:09:34
Speaker
He doesn't know that his captives as well as their teammates do, including how they match up with each other. But just when Magneto seems to start to gain the upper hand, his faithful servant, Piper, walks up behind him and chops him in the back of the neck, knocking him unconscious.
01:09:48
Speaker
What? Only Daredevil is able to recognize that this is actually... The vision. So he sure okay he turned in intangible.
01:09:59
Speaker
And then he phased into Piper's body and would just, I guess, walk along with Piper at all moments. Like match Piper's mirroring him. Yeah. But inside his body.
01:10:11
Speaker
And then he adjusted the tangibility of his brain to slightly more concrete than Piper's, which allowed him to control Piper's thoughts without hurting Piper's somehow.
01:10:23
Speaker
And he can do that, Matt? I don't know. We're not following the Avengers. The Avengers offer membership to Widow and Daredevil, and ah only Black Widow accepts, which pisses Daredevil off.
01:10:36
Speaker
It's the kiss death for their relationship. They try to continue it, but it's long distance, New York to San Francisco. The X-Men, on the other hand, have a new pressing question. What has happened to the angel?
01:10:48
Speaker
Honestly, Matt, through this two issue arc, I was asking myself that question. Like, oh, yeah, but he addressed what happened to him after Magneto snuck up behind him, chloroformed him and stole his costume.
01:11:02
Speaker
ah hey what What are your other thoughts on this issue? Well, we have motherfucking daredevil Matt. Yeah, my absolute favorite guy. um i am loving this episode. We've got Spider-Man. We've got Daredevil.
01:11:16
Speaker
We'll probably see Batman later. All my favorite guys are here.
01:11:25
Speaker
Daredevil is great. Matt Murdock is a flawed man. He's not great in relationships. He does a few very insensitive things that cause Black Widow to leave him here. So I love, obviously, that Daredevil's here. Yeah, of course. He and Black Widow are the guest stars here. Black Widow is not an Avenger until the end of this issue. So they get a ton of screen time. They get to kind of show off the creative interpretations of their powers.
01:11:52
Speaker
I also... I know we just gave Don Hex some credit for knowing how to draw Magneto in the last issue. This issue, he makes him real smiley. It's like a weird... It's not like the crazed grin that we've seen him on... Yeah. We've seen on his face in the past. It is...
01:12:10
Speaker
A legitimate smile. He's very happy. He's having a good time. And his eyebrows are just a little bit furrowed to give him an evil look. I hate that we don't know who draws the covers in this era.
01:12:22
Speaker
i yes i It might be Don Heck, but Magneto on the cover is just, he looks like um he looks like a villain in a Nintendo game. yeah He's just got like a ah he's got like a maniacal smiling face with his helmet on popping out of a vehicle.
01:12:40
Speaker
he's just He's looking pretty bad in this Avengers run here. Yeah, yeah. Which, look, the Avengers at this point are about squeezing as many things into a single issue as they possibly can.
01:12:55
Speaker
Is that the Steve Englehart deal or is that just every everybody? Is that like an editorial edict? i So it gets worse as time goes on. I think it's a huge Roy Thomas feature. Like the Lee and Kirby era is, yeah there's a lot that happens, but it all kind of follows that Marvel method narrative style.
01:13:18
Speaker
Once Roy Thomas takes over, it runs amok. They go to 15 locations each issue and try to, they go to Australia in this one. oh Yeah. Yeah. I like the part where Magneto gathers all the nuclear scientists together and yells at them for having jobs.
01:13:36
Speaker
yeah What's wrong with you? He's like, he's like, you have the power to make nuclear stuff. And here you are working for a lab making nuclear stuff.
01:13:47
Speaker
You could be enslaving humanity. You could be making nuclear stuff without getting paid for it. I don't understand you. is His vision's too big.
01:13:58
Speaker
he's He's just so strange in this era. This Magneto just doesn't, like, he doesn't have a cohesive ideology. and know. And he's always fucking with the Avengers. know. And it's like, he doesn't need to. yeah A lot of his plans require the X-Men. And again, he doesn't kill them. He never can kill them.
01:14:16
Speaker
But a lot of his plans require the X-Men. And then he just wants to, like, beat up the Avengers for no reason in the middle of a plan. isn He invites them here.
01:14:27
Speaker
Yeah, right. This is not the first time he's done this. Yeah. he aves This is exactly what he did in the X-Men issues where, you know, the one where Angel was supposed to go get the Avengers to help. And instead he went and hung out with Red Raven. Yes. But it was the same exact thing. Magneto was like, oh, ah my plan is that we let Angel escape so we can go get the Avengers.
01:14:51
Speaker
Right. And why? Why did you do that? This is the second time you do it. this You lost the first time and now the second time... Yeah.
01:15:02
Speaker
Yeah. It seems like he just wants to brag that he beat up the Avengers. any But he can't. He can't do it. He's not good enough to. Also, it's just the way he controls. So much of how he controls all these guys is weird.
01:15:16
Speaker
He, i mean, not only making his daughter dance sexy, but. i think and I think she's dancing ballet. I think it is Don Heck that's making it look sexy. Yeah.
01:15:28
Speaker
just by drawing curves on her but I think the intent is that she's supposed to be and doing ah an elaborate ballet dance huh like to show off that he's so in control that he can have her do this like highly skilled activity Even that, why use your daughter? Okay, at this point, maybe he doesn't know that's his daughter yet.
01:15:51
Speaker
But still, it's gross to use your daughter for that. Yeah, right. We don't. We don't know it. Maybe he doesn't know it. The writers certainly don't.
01:16:02
Speaker
His use of Iceman is fun. There's a lot of cool things about his use of Iceman. He has Iceman form ice hair on the top of his ice body.
01:16:14
Speaker
Like up to this point, it's essentially just an ice skull. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That is Iceman's head. And now he's here. Under Magneto's control, he's got hair. I, Magneto, think you look better this way. um he i mean But he does he does cool stuff with Iceman.
01:16:34
Speaker
And it seems there' like just Steve Englehart has a better handle on the cool things that Iceman can do than most of the other writers of Iceman. or you know, maybe it's John Heck.
01:16:44
Speaker
But he's like, at one point... um Black Panther's fighting Cyclops and Iceman grabs, like extends ice shafts from his hands to grab ah Black Panther by the arm and by the face.
01:16:59
Speaker
And then Black Panther attacks him and he does the same thing, only turns them into two like hammers and fucking slams, bonks them. Yeah, slams Black Panther's head between the two.
01:17:14
Speaker
It's really good Iceman shit. It's very cool. it's if If you remember ah way back when Alex Toth had a really brief run on the X-Men, he did some really creative things with Iceman's powers that just got used for the rest of the X-Men's run.
01:17:33
Speaker
Like the ice slides, right? Like the ice slides, yeah. or the Yeah. yeah
01:17:39
Speaker
So do we have anything else to talk about with this issue? For once, Matt? No. Oh, you know what? I'm wrong. at the very end of the issue, to explain Magneto, to explain the end of Magneto, they just say, we put Magneto in a deep sleep.
01:18:02
Speaker
More Professor X weird. What? What are they? Yeah. And then what do they do with them? They put them in the. world We know that's exactly what he does with them, because that's what he did with Juggernaut.
01:18:14
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And Mastermind when Mastermind was stone. Right. This bad news. It's he's not a good guy. This Professor x Xavier. Yeah.
01:18:26
Speaker
All right. So, well, that's that's their run with the Avengers. 103, 104, 110, 111. That's what happened to Magneto. It's what happened to the Sentinels. It's what happened to the blob and Toad.
01:18:40
Speaker
Angel's costume.
01:18:43
Speaker
Yeah. Where is Angel's costume now?
01:18:47
Speaker
I bet he asked for a back. He was like, that was my favorite. That was my favorite one. Please. Can I have that back? Magneto. Like he's or like in the next in between the next two issues, he's like pulling it off of Magneto.
01:19:01
Speaker
Yeah. He's like stripping Magneto. As he's in a deep sleep.
01:19:09
Speaker
All right, Pat, do you want to tell me about... um so here's where the X-Men ah run... but Pop up next. um During this era, right? during while While they're in this Avengers thing is while Amazing Adventures is happening.
01:19:24
Speaker
And Beast is turning into Furry Beast. um Let me pull up my... Let me grab my... epic collection and see where like that Polaris Havoc thing was so these two Avengers issues were in 1973 April and May where we saw Havoc and Hulk was in April of 1972 Juggernaut issue um that juggernaut issue was in February of 1974, where we see the X-Men briefly, and we know that they are looking for... Lorna and Alex.
01:20:01
Speaker
Lorna and Alex and Angel. They don't mention that Iceman is missing, but it is just Cyclops, Marvel Girl, and Professor X at the end of that Hulk issue, which is interesting.
01:20:13
Speaker
um well he's here uh fighting magneto oh yes but that was may of 1973 that juggernaut issue is in february of 1974 and then other hulk issue i don't even remember what fucking happened in it dude the uh oh it's the mimic beast one yeah it's not really it's not really that relevant um But that's the last time we saw Beast, I guess I'll say. ah The last time anybody saw the Beast was in March of 1973. So now we are coming into April of 1974.
01:20:54
Speaker
Again, no one's seen Havoc or Polaris. Well, sorry, there's no Polaris. Nobody's seen Havoc or Lorna Dane since April of 1972. Nobody has seen Angel since... Holy shit. Like, back in The Amazing Adventures...
01:21:12
Speaker
November of 1972. Wouldn't it have been Avengers 110 in January of 73? Or April of 73? I guess we did just see a flashback to him.
01:21:26
Speaker
Yeah, we don't see. He's not there. um Nobody has seen Iceman since that what that what we just read, May of 1973. Mm-hmm.
01:21:39
Speaker
And the rest of the X-Men, everybody saw back in February of this year, 1974. But yeah. Okay. So yeah, Matt, we leave the Avengers in May of 1973. We pick up in April of 1974 with Captain America and the Falcon, number 172, titled Believe It or Not, The Banshee.
01:22:03
Speaker
Steve Englehart. I'll choose to believe it. Yeah. Well, I guess we'll find out. Steve Englehart, author, Sal Buscema, artist, Mike Friedrich, amigo. What?
01:22:14
Speaker
Coletta, inks, Cymic lettering brand colorist, R. Thomas, editor.
01:22:21
Speaker
Captain America and Falcon lie unconscious at the foot of Moonstone. That's a person. Only stopped from killing them by his boss, Quint, who doesn't want to turn them into martyrs.
01:22:33
Speaker
That's a Quint is also a person.
Captain America and Falcon Adventures
01:22:35
Speaker
Okay. ah They've recently ruined caps. Good reputation and turn the government against him, but he's still got some believers out there. Frustrated. Moonstone leaves the prisoners with a group of ketchup and mustard colored henchmen in a nearby park and storms off.
01:22:51
Speaker
Cap comes to though, and quickly disposes of the henchmen. Falcon and cap go on the lamb and disguise themselves as a couple of odd hitchhikers. and get a ride to Nashville because it's got a moon rock and country music. Okay, yeah. Which they remember Moonstone mentioning that he liked.
01:23:08
Speaker
This is so weird. Actually, I want to talk about it at the end. Okay, go ahead. As they stroll through the streets of Nashville, Banshee, who also happens to be there, recognizes Cap and assumes he's there. Getting Merle Haggard tickets. Recognizes Cap and assumes because he's a criminal that he's there to persecute him.
01:23:28
Speaker
He catches Cap and Falcon off guard with a few brutal screams, but just as he gets the upper hand, a blast strikes him from behind. It's Cyclops who quickly loses a fight with Banshee, but at least gets him to run away so Gene and Professor X can get Cap and Falcon to safety in a nearby grove.
01:23:46
Speaker
Our remaining X-Men are here, and the Professor reveals open season has been declared on mutants by the same government forces that are pursuing Captain America.
01:23:57
Speaker
To be continued. all right. Have you read this era of Captain America at all? No. Okay. i can confidently say i have not.
01:24:08
Speaker
So this is, okay, I'm wondering, is this supposed to be comedy? Like, is this supposed to be, like, based on the Batman? When did the Batman, the Adam West Batman TV show come out? That was late 60s. I think it was 66 it started. and yeah you're right. I want to say four seasons. Three seasons, yeah. Three seasons, Dan.
01:24:28
Speaker
But 120 episodes, so... Okay. You can't be blamed. Because, okay, so it starts out with, like, Moonstone defeats Captain America and the Falcon, and they're like, we can't kill him, we've gotta call the press!
01:24:42
Speaker
And then, you you noted this too, the henchmen say absurd shit. When they find out they have to guard Captain America and Falcon, they say... yeah Oh, cheese.
01:24:56
Speaker
Double cheese.
01:24:59
Speaker
But yeah, like he beats up the guy and he's like, don't you, that his boss comes in, don't you even think about killing them? And then we got to call the press cheese, double cheese. The guys call themselves by numbers, which also like, he's like, oh, hey, number 20. Yes. Number 16. Like that's goofy. The villain comes back and he's like, boy, oh boy, I can't wait for the press to get here.
01:25:20
Speaker
Like you said, their outfits are ridiculous. And then Captain America and the Falcon, they beat him up. They run away. And ah Moonstone's like, I can't chase him. People will see.
01:25:32
Speaker
Quick, hit me on the back of the head so I can pretend like they knocked me out. And then, yeah, they decide to go to Nashville because they're like, Captain America's like, well, I've heard. I've heard Moonstone talk about country music and then Falcon's like, and he gets his power from a moon rock and then Captain America's like, so where is famous for having a moon rock and country music? And they're both like Nashville. This is but also a batman tea a Batman episode, right? Like this is just absolute, this has got to be meant to be comedy, right?
01:26:06
Speaker
So I'm kind of of two minds about this, Matt. They, ah and i also want to point out, they hitch a ride with a trucker who Finds them odd. Like that's the, disease he's, he's a strange dude. He's just like, he's chill about it But then he's like, hoof, these guys are weird. yeah And then they get out and he's like, a fear ru of him he's like very chill about it, but he is, he's weirded out. who One side of me says, yeah, sure. The Batman TV show was very successful being campy and silly. And this could very much be,
01:26:45
Speaker
trying to cash in off of that the other mind though is the reason the batman tv show was like that is because that's what comic books were doing in those days and somebody wanted to say look at how goofy and campy these comic books are like this is also yeah but this could be yeah intentional or it could be something stan lee wrote 10 years prior you know right but when stan lee was writing stuff it was this bad but it was clearly intent it was clearly unintentional right like it was in like there were these moments where you could tell he was being serious
01:27:21
Speaker
Or if not serious, he was just kind of pissing it out because he's like, ah, fucking yeah these kids will buy whatever. Right. But this seems like you you couldn't write this without knowing that you were writing silly, so silly stuff.
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, and it is it's Steve Englehart, right? So he's he's young and hip. He's not like yeah one of the old company men. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, it's just... a Okay, I do want to drill down, though, on the calling guys numbers, because that would be... so Like, it's hard enough to learn all your co-workers' names.
01:27:57
Speaker
But if you had to call all your coworkers a number, one guy calls the other guy number 20. So they have to learn at least 20 names or 20 numbers. 20.
01:28:07
Speaker
twenty billion Yeah. Anyway. I don't know that they're sequential either, Matt. We'll get there. Okay. um One fun thing ah yeah from this issue, not exactly a Pat Steele and Deal, but sort of a yeah a taste.
01:28:23
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There as an advertisement. Pat Steele and Deal. in the letters page of this issue that coming in February, the new hero, Iron Fist. So this, at this point, this is released.
01:28:36
Speaker
The cover date is April 74, but it's released on January 1st, 1974, which actually, you know, what's significant about that date, Matt? Hmm. What is it? It's New Year's day.
01:28:49
Speaker
They're releasing comics on New Year's day. So, ah man, I kind of thought Iron Fist was later. I kind of thought it was like 77 or something. Okay. Matt, Why don't we move on from this issue? Okay.
01:29:00
Speaker
Well, Captain America and the Falcon, number 173, The Sins of the Secret Empire, Steve Englehart wrote this. Sal Buscema drew it. Vinnie Coletta...
01:29:14
Speaker
Mobster Vinnie Coletta did the inks. Artie Simak was the letterer. G. Russos was the colorist. And Roy Thomas was our editor at this time. It was released in February of 1974. Yes, sir.
01:29:28
Speaker
They did such simple credits here. For once, you would have been served by just reading what they actually wrote on the page. But instead, you made it more complicated for yourself. In the same grove, the last issue ended in and we see that Captain America, the Falcon, Scott Jean, and x Xavier are all being told to put their hands in the air and turn themselves in. It's Nick Fury.
01:29:53
Speaker
And it's Kooky Commandos. They, of course, work for the government, which is against Captain America at the moment. he's Remember, he's a criminal. The X-Men strike, throwing Fury's lines into temporary chaos. They make an escape. The X-Men briefly recap everything that's happened to them since their cancellation, including the bit that Cap was already there for. it is It is cool. They do go through like, oh, and then we um then we sent Lorna Dane off to find Havoc and she never came back. And then we contacted Beast and he told us to fuck off.
01:30:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. We went out and fought Juggernaut. Yeah. Yeah. um So they they're at they add that mutants, including their own, Warren and Bobby, have been suddenly disappearing all around the country. It must be the work of the Pat.
01:30:42
Speaker
We've seen these guys come up in some of these Dark Era episodes, so a Dark Era issues so far. It must be the work of the Secret Empire. we even allowed to say that? cut To Linda Donaldson, thinking of her, thinking to herself about how smart and clever she is, but still can't explain what happened to Hank McCoy or where that strange beast at the lab you worked at came from. And they disappeared at the same time. i'm All one continuous monologue. Oh, Linda, you're so smart. If only you could find Hank.
01:31:15
Speaker
Or... Figure something out about that mysterious beast that popped up when he disappeared.
01:31:24
Speaker
yeah um As she pulls into her apartment, Cyclops pops up behind her and tries to kidnap her. <unk> but Yeah, I know. he just He's turned into a villain. He actually snaps her neck and um and Cyclops is now, joins, he takes over for Magneto.
01:31:42
Speaker
hu No, what's actually happening is part of a brilliant plan. Cap and Falcon are in deep disguise as regular dudes who run to help rescue Linda from a, quote, filthy mutie.
01:31:56
Speaker
They say Cap says they're disguised as bums, but they're dressed in, like, crisp button-down tucked-in shirts with creased pants and shiny belt buckles.
01:32:08
Speaker
Blue collar off-the-clock outfits. Yeah, like and like when blue-collar jobs paid well. Yeah, yeah. They stage a fight in which they rescue Linda after and afterwards casually mention to her, you wrote to it, that they hate mutants and also their job.
01:32:27
Speaker
The plan works to a T. Later that night, Cap and Falcon's alter egos get recruited by number 13. Lucky number 13 to the Secret Empire.
01:32:38
Speaker
All they have to do is prove themselves. All they have to do to prove themselves is steal some scientific doohickey. In full costume, for some reason, it doesn't make any fun. They explain why they're in full costume.
01:32:51
Speaker
And it is the worst. It's like, um well, if we get caught, i who whoever catches us might still remember that Captain America is a good guy and let us go. So they decide to commit a crime.
01:33:07
Speaker
Dressed in their outfit. Also, they're trying to... Pat! Not only... of an undercover operation. ah Yeah! Not only... And they're, like, double undercover, right? So not only are they risking giving themselves up as, like, oh, Captain America and the Falcon are committing a crime, which is only gonna fuck them up.
01:33:28
Speaker
On top of that, if anyone from the secret um Secret Empire finds out Captain America and Falcon are the ones who stole the thing... They're giving themselves up as... yeah every way, this is the worst plan I've ever heard. Not a good plan, Cap. I'm sorry.
01:33:45
Speaker
Cap and Falcon break into the lab and acquire the thingy and escape. In walks the boss, Mr. Black, to chastise security. Captain America and Falcon bring the thingy to number 13.
01:33:58
Speaker
And then they take off um to the desert. And are welcomed into the secret empire secret lair and the X-Men using caps secret tracing signal aren't far behind to be continued.
01:34:19
Speaker
Linda's linda' is there. Linda's back. Yeah. Linda is back. I'm not crazy about her. She's got gray hair now instead of blonde. Cyclops. I'm going to be a real stickler.
01:34:33
Speaker
Yeah, about this. Cyclops creates a diversion so that Cap and Falcon can escape Nick Fury and Shield by shooting his, quote, searing blasts and setting the hill they're positioned on on fire with those blasts.
01:34:53
Speaker
Tell me what's wrong with that. Well, I can't think of anything Cyclops shoots heat beams. He does not. Oh, you're right. They are very specifically and always talked about as not heat beams.
01:35:09
Speaker
There is a whole butt issue that talks about how they are specifically not hot. I know. It's...
01:35:20
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nobody. roy Thomas should know this, by the way. Yes. Editing this fucking issue. Come on, man. your job. Grow up.
01:35:33
Speaker
I don't know if that fits. ah You notice there. Quent's little organization is called the ah Committee to Regain America's Principles, a.k.a. Crap.
01:35:49
Speaker
That's got to be on purpose, right? That hat, that one has to be on purpose. um youve Yeah. but Especially because we hear it from Nick Fury's mouth, who is always naming shit after, after like he comes up with the acronym and then the name.
01:36:05
Speaker
So somebody was like, Hmm, crap. How can we turn this into a government program? i mean I mean, this is, yeah, this is right. When's Reagan? He's not till the 80s. So no, this is ah before everybody's getting mad at the overabundance of government programs.
01:36:28
Speaker
Right, yay yeah, yeah, yeah. So I don't know. I don't know what's going on here. i Watergate? They may mention that Watergate happened.
01:36:39
Speaker
ah live Now, I'm curious, and... I wasn't going to talk about this until next issue, but are they implying
01:36:49
Speaker
that Watergate – that the Secret Empire made Watergate happen? like Like it was part of the Secret Empire's plans?
01:37:02
Speaker
No, I think they're very carefully trying to say, hey the secret empire or any like no supervillain was actually responsible for this. This was Richard Nixon being a piece of shit.
01:37:16
Speaker
But yeah, right. But it was very helpful to the secret empire because it created the distrust in government they needed to start, uh, creating your little sleeper cells in two issues that gets a little more complicated and we'll discuss why um i love that uh when cyclops goes to first i don't know how she knows who he is but when cyclops goes to cap uh kidnap linda oh because they know all the mutants yeah cyclops goes to meter of the x-men kidnap linda donaldson she says cyclumpf
01:37:51
Speaker
because she's getting her mouth covered and she goes cyclump cyclump cyclump very good ah picture a little like a cute little creature wearing cyclops just like a pokemon it says
Comic Crossover Consequences
01:38:08
Speaker
its own name cyclump cyclump the narrator also says this is the first illegal act either sam wilson or steve rogers have ever committed
01:38:23
Speaker
Do you not believe that? They never run a red light. They never smoke a joint. I do not believe that Steve Rogers ever smoked a joint. Steve Rogers has committed assault.
01:38:36
Speaker
He has hit somebody when he shouldn't have. ah You were right. Even though it might have been justified at the time, they were technically illegal acts. Actually, he's a fugitive from the law right now.
01:38:50
Speaker
you're right You're right. So by not going to... that Yeah, that is a fucking good point, Pat. By not reporting to jail, he has been committing an illegal act for days or weeks.
01:39:03
Speaker
Yeah. ah Sam Wilson is aiding and abetting. Yeah, it is illegal to evade the law. All right. That's kind of a catch-22, isn't it?
01:39:14
Speaker
It's illegal... To not and get arrested. What else did you think about this issue? I don't think I have and many more thoughts here, honestly. There's a little... It's... it's This is all just a little bland.
01:39:31
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. The conspiracy that they're unraveling, the idea that the X-Men and Captain America are being hunted by the same forces, very cool.
01:39:42
Speaker
We're reading through four issues when I think it could have been two.
01:39:48
Speaker
ah Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. it's It is such a good idea, the end. It's not a good... yeah i didn't I'll say this. I didn't hate reading these, but I just i also didn't feel much about them at all.
01:40:05
Speaker
Yeah. which we've said we've like we've said in We've said in episodes before, like this isn't the first time this has happened to us, but it's definitely yeah like it's definitely happening here You know what I do really like about them?
01:40:17
Speaker
um They're brief. Yeah, yeah, yeah. they They fly. They do. They really do. um you want to tell us about the next one? what i What number is it even, Pat?
01:40:28
Speaker
Do we're up to Captain America and the Falcon number 174 to think we started at X-Men number one. here i yeah Yeah, I can't believe we are episodes into this podcast.
01:40:43
Speaker
uh this issue is titled you this will catch your interest matt it's always darkest hey wait a second that's the name of the epic collection so shut up steve englehart author sal buscema artist vinnie coletta inker c jetter letterer g russos colorist and roy thomas editor okay Hit the stands March 12th, 1974, cover date June 74.
01:41:10
Speaker
captain Captain America and the Falcon, a.k.a. Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, currently going by their undercover aliases Roger Stevens and Willie Samuels, descend into the secret base of the secret empire.
01:41:27
Speaker
They meet number one, the leader, who rambles about overtaking the government for evil purposes from within. Cap and Falcon are led to a briefing room to get their next mission.
01:41:39
Speaker
But, as it turns out, they hadn't fooled anyone this whole time and are now locked in this room. Sam has a hunch that they need to crawl into the air vents immediately. He's absolutely right, as the room they were locked in soon fills with lasers.
01:41:55
Speaker
Above ground, Professor X reveals that he sent Falcon his hunch to quickly escape the room. Oh, I was just going to ask. But right now, he's struggling to maintain a connection.
01:42:06
Speaker
Meanwhile, in their escape, Cap and Falcon run into a big red robot and they team up to defeat it. And then escape to a hatch where the X-Men are waiting for them. But... Okay. Before they can escape, they must rescue the missing mutants that Xavier can now sense down here.
01:42:22
Speaker
As they discuss a plan, we see that Moonstone is on, i think it's the Dick Cavett show. Being introduced as America's newest idol and bragging about his herodom, Quent watches on excitedly.
01:42:35
Speaker
Back in the lair, Cap, Falcon, and the X-Men discover an absolutely horrific scene. The missing mutants are here, strapped to a hideous machine that x Xavier deems to be siphoning their brain ener energy.
01:42:47
Speaker
And by hideous music machine, you mean like the design of this machine is horrible. Like whoever designed this machine yet wasn't putting much thought into this is... These are the narrator's words.
01:43:01
Speaker
They're hooked up to a hideous machine. It is. It is like legitimately... They are all They are on a big pinwheel strapped by the top of the head.
01:43:15
Speaker
Yeah. your head's Facing the middle of the pinwheel and like splayed out. Like, yeah. All right. Go go ahead. Keep it is telling us about this fucking mean pinwheel. It's horrifying.
01:43:27
Speaker
i what we should say it's it's lorna dane havoc beast angel iceman mesmero mastermind and eunice and then blob for some reasons on a table nearby i guess they needed a backup yeah i think he was weighing down the uh the wheel so then they had to go get one more that's why i got him a specialty yeah uh Cap, after learning that this is siphoning their mutant brain energy, wastes no time in smashing it up, at which point the professor is able to psychically understand how Angel and Beast were captured.
01:44:02
Speaker
Both of them separately just got shot with a laser. Right. ah Are they too late, though? Before any of the rescued mutants can recover, Number One and Linda Donaldson lead in a troop of secret empire baddies.
01:44:15
Speaker
A fight ensues where everyone but the professor chips in until Number One demands his atomic annihilator. He uses this big gun to just shoot the good guys, and they all fall.
01:44:26
Speaker
To be continued.
01:44:30
Speaker
Whew. Man. Cap's like, ah at one point, when he's facing number one, he says, you'll be number one. You'll be number zero or less. it's just Is he going to give him a promotion?
01:44:46
Speaker
Well,
01:44:51
Speaker
Here's my thing, Matt. I don't think these numbers are sequential. I don't think that... okay I mean, number one is clearly the top guy, but I think he picked that. He's like, I'm the top guy. I'm going to be number one. We learned that he actually kills the old number one and just takes his number.
01:45:08
Speaker
i We need a number 13. We know Linda Donaldson is number nine. We need a number 68. I don't think there's 68 secret empire agents That we see through this whole thing.
01:45:22
Speaker
think that they're just like basketball players saying, oh I want... What do you want to be? I want number 24. That's my lucky yeah number. Now i'm Secret Empire Agent 24. Okay, maybe.
01:45:37
Speaker
okay maybe but number one... I think it's significant that number one is the leader. Or do you think it's just random? Like that, oh, we just happened to be number one was the leader.
01:45:49
Speaker
No, i I think much like basketball players, you can change your number when you want to. And I think when he became number one, he was like, oh, I'm going to be number one. Right. When he became the leader.
01:46:00
Speaker
No, I, yeah, I, I get you. So, um they mentioned here the possibility that Falcon might be a mutant because he can communicate with Red Wing, his Falcon.
01:46:15
Speaker
Right. They're just flirting with the idea here. Do you? Okay. Here's a question for you. Pat, is Falcon a mutant?
01:46:26
Speaker
I'm going to say No.
01:46:30
Speaker
I'm to say no. I think that he he has a familiar, much like Kesar,
01:46:38
Speaker
and through some mystical connection, he's able to... it's It's not like they talk to each other in human or bird language, right? They just they have a psychic connection, which is pretty common with familiars.
01:46:54
Speaker
Okay, so um this has been a controversial... Subject. Throughout. Marvel history. um there this conversation There's this conversation.
01:47:07
Speaker
Later Falcon gets captured by a sentinel. And he uses Red Wing to escape.
01:47:14
Speaker
um Much. This was in the 1980s. So for a long time. It was kind of assumed Falcon is a mutant. And just we doesn't know it. In 2001.
01:47:27
Speaker
Kurt Busiek revealed that the Sentinel is malfunctioning but and the Falcon's not immune. I fucking love Busiek because he very clearly and very closely reads every issue of any character that he's writing. Like he is, he is familiar with the entire history of the Marvel universe.
01:47:48
Speaker
yeah um So he's not a mutant. You're right. He's not a mutant, but it has been discussed back and forth for very rarely. But back and forth or are you for 40 years, 50 years, I guess.
01:48:05
Speaker
That's not even hard proof that he's not a mutant, though, right? It's just that the Sentinel that captured him was malfunctioning, meaning he could not have been a mutant. Well, I think the whatever the um it was like somebody was looking at a computer screen that was discussing whether or not Falcon was a mutant.
01:48:25
Speaker
And It's said he's not. and But you're right. Like it could be cloak and dagger have been determined to be mutants and not mutants. Yeah. Several times.
01:48:36
Speaker
And ah sometimes it's like, oh, ah we did a scientific test. You're mutants. And then later it's like, oh, we did a scientific test. You're not mutants. So who knows? But Falcon at at current continuity, not a mutant.
01:48:50
Speaker
Interesting. Wait, did have they ever followed up on all pharaohs?
01:48:58
Speaker
Are all Farisputants. I don't know. i We'll have to wait for a comic book resources article on that. We'll have to wait for Kurt Busiek to tackle it.
01:49:10
Speaker
All right. I don't have much to say about this issue either. Do you want to me to tell you about Captain America and the Falcon number 175? I do. Dot, dot, dot. Before the dawn.
01:49:22
Speaker
Wait. So again, How is it being said so many times in this? Like, how did they just find a bunch of issues where the X-Men appeared where it's always darkest before the dawn?
01:49:33
Speaker
The phrase is being referenced in, in several different forms. Exactly. it's It's so strange. Legitimately weird. Before last episode, I was like, Matt, you're, this seems like a coincidence and you're kind but very weird. Um,
01:49:50
Speaker
but very weird um Especially because we've read all the other issues. Like, we've read so many other comics up to this point and never seen that phrase before.
01:50:02
Speaker
and Until this moment these moments. yeah it's I'm telling you, they knew that the X-Men were going to come back at some point. They're like, and then one day they'll invent this thing called a trade paperback. And when they collect them, people will be like, holy shit.
01:50:16
Speaker
Okay. Captain the Malkin in America. Okay. captain the malcon in america before Captain America and the Falcon, number 75, Before the Dawn. Written by Steve Englehart. Drawn by Sal Buscema.
01:50:31
Speaker
Inked. ah He's been doing the rest. I don't know i said it like that. Inked by Vinnie Coletta, the mobster. Lettered by Artie Simak. Colored by Pete Goldberg. And edited by Roy Thomas. The mysterious number one.
01:50:43
Speaker
Lords over an unconscious cap. This was also released April 1974. of nineteen seventy before The Seer is number one. Lords over an unconscious Cap, Falcon, Scott, Gene, and x Xavier. They're dragged down to a dungeon where Cap comes to see number 68. So close.
01:51:00
Speaker
And another henchman leaning over him. Turns out they're not Secret Empire at all. But actually, S.H.I.E.L.D. agents Gabe Jones and Peggy Carter. What? They're ready to help Cap escape.
01:51:12
Speaker
Cut. Back to the lab but where the mutant brain machine is being put into operation. Turns out it was being used to power the secret empire's flying saucer. Hmm. The whole thing is like, oh, we'll use mutant brains to make our flying saucer fly and also have a force field.
01:51:30
Speaker
Stuff that Iron Man can just like do without using a mutant brain. Yeah. Yeah. lands on the lighthouse lawn moonstone and quent are waiting to meet the president they're just scumbags out walks number one demanding the u.s government's unconditional surrender he's met with gunfire from the army which is deflected by a force field that's also powered by mutant brain energy moonstone shows up to defend but is quickly defeated by the secret empire's champion the man menace it's at least
01:52:04
Speaker
He's only named the man menace on the cover. He's not actually named in the comic itself. This was an editorial decision. Yeah, absolutely. And in the loser league, everybody calls him the man menace. And he's like, that's not my name.
01:52:22
Speaker
ah Okay, so remember, Moonstone's in on this whole thing. It's all a ruse. He exits the ship, letting everyone know that the people in the saucer are too powerful, and there's no point in fighting. This doesn't work, Pat.
01:52:33
Speaker
This won't work. This can't work. We've seen it in the U.S. government very recently. There was this man who was like, oh, I'm a genius, and I am super environmentally friendly, and I can invent cars and rocket ships and stuff, and you know what?
01:52:49
Speaker
Turns out, I think this fascist leader is actually going to be good for us. And nobody was like, oh okay. Yeah.
01:53:01
Speaker
That wouldn't, this wouldn't work. Anyway. Yeah. Who are you talking about? I can't remember. ah Little does he know that Cap, Falcon, Scott, Gene, Xavier, Gabe Jones, and Peggy Carter have all stowed away. This is kind of like the, there's a tree in the hole in the hole in the ground. in the They pop out and the X-Men run to deactivate the machine and rescue the captured mutants while Captain America beats the ever-loving shit out of number one in Moonstone. It's no contest. test
01:53:32
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. They don't even a little bit stand a chance. Defeated, Moonstone accidentally reveals to the national news that he and the secret empire have been colluding to ruin Captain America and take over the United States. And then, because he accidentally revealed that, he just goes on to start telling everything. He's like, ah fuck it. He's like, ah shit, I'm on the news.
01:53:53
Speaker
Well, let me say, here's another thing I've been meaning to talk about. and least I don't want to get political. They seem to film him for like 20 minutes straight. ah Cap is cleared and the whole country loves him again. that quick.
01:54:08
Speaker
But Cap's not satisfied because everyone forgot to tie up number one. He runs for the Oval Office. But Cap catches up and unmasks him, revealing him to be...
01:54:22
Speaker
A powerful, some powerful man who wasn't satisfied with his riches and influence. The mysterious man promptly shoots himself in the Oval Office in the White House. The world is happy, but Steve Rogers is sad.
01:54:35
Speaker
The end. yeah Go ahead, Pat. ask your Ask the question that, the the exact question i'm sure everybody had when they finished this issue.
01:54:48
Speaker
was Was that supposed to be the president at the end there? It was 100% Richard Nixon, right? Like this has all been a Richard Nixon. It's actual Richard Nixon. This has all been a Richard Nixon metaphor. That is 100% Richard Nixon. Steve Englehart wrote Richard Nixon in a supervillain costume, hopping out of a flying saucer powered by, what, nine mutants, running into the Oval Office and shooting himself in the head.
01:55:18
Speaker
In front of Captain America. Incredible. And he's not allowed to say the name Richard Nixon. He's not even allowed to say the president, right? Cap unmasks him and he's like, you, you. And then the guy's like, yes, but I wasn't satisfied with all the power that I had.
01:55:34
Speaker
High political office. I guess see that is it should be. Yeah. well But high political office didn't satisfy me. But now you have to go back and say, now it's all the stuff about the ah mutants. Like, Barb, I've got to, we've got to make sure Cyclops is captured.
01:55:57
Speaker
Quick, hook the blob up to my mutant machine. I've got very little time for this, number nine.
01:56:09
Speaker
Oh, man, your Richard Nixon impression is so much better than mine. Thank you. i Yeah, it's Richard Nixon. Yeah. Here's a question, because we get we get a nice, tight... I have to keep going here, because why does the rest of the Marvel Universe not talk about that forever? Remember the time when the president shot himself in the head in front of America? And Captain America was the only one in the office.
01:56:39
Speaker
With him. And we're all pretty sure Captain America was the good guy here. Even though five minutes earlier, he was a criminal. but He was a criminal on the run from the law for weeks. And then he was alone in the office with the president and walked out and said, let me shot himself in the head.
01:57:01
Speaker
Where'd he get his turn again? Why is nobody else talking about this? i probably because it would besmirch the good reputation of Steve Rogers is I legitimately it would be that anybody in a position to worry about it would be like oh but Captain America would not do that he wouldn't shoot the president and you know who would Richard Nixon Nixon yeah
01:57:35
Speaker
It is also wild that Richard Nixon didn't commit suicide in real life. Yeah, he lived for like too long. yeah not to I'm not wishing, you i don't wish death upon people, but that guy, just the way you he looked, you would have assumed i would have died shortly after that.
01:57:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'm not saying that I, you know, he should have. I'm saying it is weird that he didn't.
01:58:04
Speaker
but Can I ask, so we get a nice tight wrap up for Captain America. He is no longer a fugitive. he can go back to his life. He and Sam Wilson.
01:58:17
Speaker
Did the government do anything about the mutant hunt? yeah Sort of a two pronged approach here. The X-Men helped Captain America clear his name.
01:58:30
Speaker
Captain America... Did nothing. Does nothing else. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. yeah I don't know, man. This was a weird.
01:58:43
Speaker
i it was, it's such a good idea.
01:58:48
Speaker
i think we're just going to transition kind of into final thoughts here. Right. Cause this is such a, work this is such a good idea. to have to like okay we have these characters we're doing nothing with them what if we create this ah across multiple writers across multiple titles we create this big overarching story they they just like pop up in the back of other people's books and they are following a story that's such a good idea and at the same time they're sort of doing the first big captain america story like the first real big one right the secret empire saga
01:59:26
Speaker
And to tie them together is such a good idea. And yet the X-Men come out just like completely unaffected. Right? It's just kind of like nothing about their overall continuity is affected by this.
01:59:44
Speaker
Yeah, it it does. i mean, aside from the Beast being a big hairy monster now. Yeah. You're right. I guess that is part of this story, right? Because he is being pursued by Linda Donaldson at the time.
01:59:58
Speaker
That is also really cool that they tied it into Amazing Adventures. Yeah, yeah. Amazing Adventures ties into The Avengers, which also ties into Captain America and the Falcon.
02:00:11
Speaker
And this is this is an era where they were being very intentional about that, where they were saying yeah like, and this will we'll see this go a little nuts in the Claremont era. But this is i Stanley, not Stanley, I guess at this point, Roy Thomas.
02:00:27
Speaker
Roy Thomas. Stan Lee's off in Hollywood trying to get movie deals and family. Right. And Roy Thomas is sitting in the the bullpen, the Marvel bullpen, and just making sure that everybody understands what the other is writing and how it should affect their current story.
02:00:45
Speaker
Right. So i for little while, it really works for the entire Marvel comic universe. It is. Yeah, it's interesting. I just I again, I wish that it was um a little more consequential. Right. Like I wish.
02:01:02
Speaker
I wish we would have seen the X-Men really being the X-Men. We don't. Yeah, yeah. It's a lot of chatting and then one fiery blast out of Scott's eyes.
02:01:13
Speaker
yeah Yeah, and even the chatting is mostly from Professor x Xavier, right? like the ah we yeah Marvel Girl and Cyclops don't have a lot of lines. Iceman, Angel just disappear. Besides the Beast stuff from last episode, like there's just very little.
02:01:28
Speaker
very not Much like Hawkeye, Matt, we're not in a great place right now. We're not in a great place right now. Our energy was a little better this time, Pat. Yeah, I was all...
02:01:40
Speaker
coked up for this one i had a coca-cola right before we recorded oh um i mean i because i feel like the last episode we were sort of just like if we were feeling the cancellation of the x-men right we were kind of yeah yeah man there's this it does not feel like we're following a story it feels like we're bouncing around between weird shit and at one point you said pat this feels fucking rudderless
02:02:10
Speaker
and but Honestly, i don't think it's I don't think that's changed. This still feels like they are thinking of something and we're just not getting to see it.
Mutant Menace Podcast Announcements
02:02:20
Speaker
The writers, the writers are thinking of something and we're just not getting to see it.
02:02:23
Speaker
Which, yeah, it's it's weird for this podcast. I don't I wonder how it felt for X-Men fans at the time, if there were still any, you know. Right.
02:02:34
Speaker
Were people still holding out hope here two years later, four years later? And it was their worst selling title when it got canceled. So maybe there just weren't X-Men fans.
02:02:46
Speaker
I mean, technically, the Rawhide Kid was their worst selling title, but...
02:02:52
Speaker
That is actually still being published at this time in 1974. It's not until the X-Men come back and start dominating the sales charts that they're like, eh, maybe we should cancel the Rawhide Kid. Fine. Maybe we can let go of the Rawhide Kid.
02:03:09
Speaker
yeah um No, i am I am largely with you here, Matt. This feels very... it's They've got a cohesive story here, right? The issues we read last episode were kind of loose aside from the Amazing Adventures piece story. But this yeah very very much feels...
02:03:31
Speaker
Boring. Sleepy. It's sleepy. It's sleep. At least like, I'm sure that it seems like the Captain America team is excited about what they're doing with Captain America, right? They seem pumped. Yes.
02:03:45
Speaker
But as far as the X-Men are concerned,
02:03:50
Speaker
It's just so, it's sleepy. It's lackluster. It's, they even bring all the mutants together. You know what it is? to They can't do anything with them.
02:04:01
Speaker
No one shatters the machine and has like Eunice and the blob and the master and like jumping in to fight the bad guys. Like that doesn't yeah happen. in You have this amazing opportunity here and you just fucking do nothing with it.
02:04:19
Speaker
You know what it is, Matt? is They're not weird. like The Amazing Adventures beast story, that was fucking bizarre. That was so strange and like they were they were kind of pushing boundaries while still staying within them.
02:04:38
Speaker
This is just... I mean, the Avengers, Captain America, these are your pop comic books of the day, right? These are the ones that they know are going to sell and they're just trying to... and it's not that Not to discredit Steve Englehart. He's doing creative stuff here. but i But yeah, it's just not that strange. It's very...
02:05:00
Speaker
very formulaic and maybe that's what was throwing us off about like we had comments about the tone of the avengers uh i went on that thing about is this supposed to be comedy with um right captain america maybe we're just thrown off because we're used to the energy of the x-men and we don't have it and it's fucking up our energy we don't know how to do this podcast without the x-men Sure. Matt, have we mentioned that we actually have to extend the dark era to another episode?
02:05:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's just too much. There was a lot in the dark era. um I think our next. Yeah, I mean, we covered nine comics in this episode. and yeah And it feels like it. No, I hope it.
02:05:46
Speaker
I hope it doesn't. But yeah it's got ah it's a long it's a long episode. Pat, just give me a Steals and Deals. Oh, I can give you a Steals and Deals. And this one's nice and tight, Matt. Very concise.
02:06:00
Speaker
Okay. Another little classified ad that you find on those pages of 30 to 50 ads. This one says, Attract the opposite sex. Send stamped envelope.
02:06:12
Speaker
Box 296, West Covina, California, 91790. hold hold on. Why don't we? All right. why don't we all right You want to Google that address? yeah Why don't you read the read the what's a P.O. o box? so We can't. Why? OK, you didn't read the ad, though. You just read like.
02:06:30
Speaker
OK, OK, let me read you the full contents of the ad here. Thank you. Thank you. OK. Attract the opposite sex. Send stamped envelope. Box 296 West Covina, California. 91790.
02:06:47
Speaker
But what is it selling? What is it doing? it's Send a stamped envelope, Matt. What will it do if I send the stand stamped envelope?
02:07:01
Speaker
You'll attract the opposite sex. so
02:07:05
Speaker
They're going to send you back something
02:07:10
Speaker
that makes you irresistible to the opposite sex. Attract the opposite sex. Send stamped envelopes.
02:07:18
Speaker
All right. Well, that's bad.
02:07:21
Speaker
the is The word count on this is 13. If we include the, the full PO o box address. Oh my God. they When you had to, when you buy classified ad, do they charge you for the words in your address? Yeah.
02:07:37
Speaker
That seems unfair, right? These people are in West Covina. That's a whole extra word just to tell Mr. Ash. Yeah, like, oh, we had we moved to Sacramento so that we could save. We could save on our classified Send stamped envelope.
02:07:57
Speaker
Attract the opposite sex. And why did you why include thee? Attract opposite sex. Send stamped envelope.
02:08:07
Speaker
I love this one. This is a good find. Wow. ah So this is Wes Covina. So I guess this is um this is how Rebecca Bunch found her ex-boyfriend.
02:08:22
Speaker
Who? to
02:08:25
Speaker
Let's go, bub. Yes. Yes. Yes. Did you ever see Crazy Ex-Girlfriend? oh yes. Yes. Yes.
02:08:36
Speaker
Yes. That was, it took place in West Covina. All right. um Thank you guys for listening. Email us for, if you want to email Pat's email corner, write us at ah mutant menace pod at gmail.com.
02:08:52
Speaker
Start your email with, Hey Pat, tell Matt. If you send us just your name, we will still say Pete's name in the beginning. You can also follow us so on Instagram at mutant menace pod.
02:09:05
Speaker
We might, you might get one more episode where you have a chance to enter our, our drawing to end up on the podcast. Yeah. We're extending it.
02:09:17
Speaker
Thanks. Due to popular demand. ah If you, if ah after this episode, right after you listen to this, if you email us, we'll put you in the drawing to co-host our bonus episode,
02:09:32
Speaker
ah to ah What do we fucking call it? Our retrospective. Our retrospective. The story so far. Big thanks to Krils Wilson for the opening theme.
02:09:44
Speaker
Big thanks to Matt Aukamp for Pat's email corner theme. And big thanks to Julia Selle for providing the voice of Trish Dilby. i Actually, i did I'm not playing the piano in that clip. I found it on like ah like a copyright free sounds website.
02:10:01
Speaker
um All right. Well, Pat, that leaves only a one thing, the thing we say at the end of every single episode. As always, pal, I don't care if you're Henry Kissinger in disguise.
02:10:16
Speaker
And now that that's done, I've got to be saying goodbye, because not only am I slightly antisocial, but it's already hours past my bedtime.